“But I just realized something! We don’t have any change to start off with! What if the very first customer pays for a fifty-cent toy with a five-dollar bill?”
“Relax. I’ll give you ten dollars in change,” my father told me. “You can pay me back when the sale’s over.”
“Oh, thanks!” I cried, and ran down to the basement to look at our junk.
My friends showed up right on time. They were as excited as I was. Mary Anne was wringing her hands. “We only have an hour and a half!” she wailed.
“Cut it out,” said Dawn, who was twisting her hair nervously. “I feel like a wind-up toy that someone wound up too tight.”
“Okay, you guys. Relax, slow down,” I said, echoing my father’s words. “Let’s get to work.”
Everyone drew in deep breaths and let them out slowly.
“All right,” said Kristy. “Where’d you put the folding tables?”
The night before, my friends had brought over a ton of stuff from their own houses: four long folding tables for us to set the sale items on; some folding chairs; a stack of signs that read Jewelry, Toys, Books, Clothes, etc.; several boxes of Claudia’s Heavenly Brownies; several flats of Dawn’s baby spider plants; some of Mary Anne’s handmade goodies (felt eyeglass cases, knitted scarves and belts, and potholders); and lemonade and limeade mix. Then Buddy and Suzi Barrett had brought their toys over. They were going to try to sell them again.
“The folding tables are in the garage,” I replied.
“All right,” said Kristy, “let’s set them up.”
She was taking charge as usual, and I let her because I figured she knew a lot more about yard sales than I did.
My friends and I arranged the four tables, plus two of our own in the garage, spilling out onto the driveway. We set the chairs behind the tables.
“Now for the sale stuff,” said Kristy. “Let’s haul the things out of the basement first, and then worry about the plants and the food.”
Armload by armload we carried my junk out of the basement. We arranged it until the tables looked more like displays in Bellair’s Department Store than just old tables in our dusty garage. When everything was neat and the signs were in place, my dad helped us fold up the Ping-Pong table and carry that out of the basement. We set it on the driveway.
“I guess the other big items should go on the driveway, too,” I said. (The other big items were a vacuum cleaner, a desktop Xerox machine my father had never used, all of our gardening tools, a huge fan, some window boxes, a weeping fig tree in a wooden tub, and a statue my mother had brought for our garden.)
When that was done, I looked at my watch. “Nine-thirty-five!” I screeched. “People will be here in twenty-five minutes! The lemonade’s not mixed. Or the limeade. Claudia, you have to cut the brownies into squares! Where are the napkins? And who’s going to be in charge of selling what?”
With some help from my mother, we got everything mixed, cut up, found, and figured out by 9:50. The Barretts even arrived and set up their table. Not a moment too soon. Mrs. Prezzioso and her bratty daughter Jenny showed up then.
“Hi!” Mrs. P. called gaily. “I hope you don’t mind that we’re early. We always like to get to sales first so we can have the pick of the litter, if you know what I mean.”
I did, sort of.
Kristy, who was manning the table with the toys and books, turned to me excitedly. “I just love selling things,” she exclaimed. “And making money. This is going to be a great day!” (Kristy doesn’t need much money, thanks to wealthy Watson; she simply has a talent for making money, and she likes being a businesswoman. I guess she takes after her mom. Kristy’s mother is really smart.)
Jenny trailed her mother around from table to table and finally paused in front of Kristy’s to look at the toys. Mrs. P. paused in front of the statue. “Lovely,” she murmured. “A real find.”
Next to arrive were the entire Newton family and Mr. Spier, Mary Anne’s father. Before I knew it, Mr. Marshall was walking up our driveway with Nina and Eleanor, followed by the Perkinses. Mrs. Perkins looked so pregnant, I began to wonder what would happen if she started having labor pains right in our garage.
Then the questions began flying.
“How old is the Xerox machine?” Mr. Marshall wanted to know.
(I had to find my father in order to answer him.)
“Is this statue made of marble?” asked Mrs. P.
“No, just fancy cement,” I replied.
“Would you say the Ping-Pong table is in good condition?” asked Mr. Perkins.
“Definitely,” I answered. “It’s only six months old and we didn’t use it that much.”
“Mommy, can I have this dolly?” Jenny asked. (At last — a question that wasn’t for me.)
Mrs. Prezzioso glanced up in distaste. “That ratty old thing?” she said, and I bristled. “That ratty old thing” was Amelia Jane and she was ten years old and I used to love her. I considered telling Mrs. P. she wasn’t for sale after all, that she’d gotten in by mistake.
But before I could say a word, a woman I didn’t know waddled over to Dawn and said, “Are the shutters for sale?”
Dawn glanced at me with raised eyebrows. “What shutters?” she asked.
“The ones on the front of the house.”
I choked back a laugh. I wanted to say, “Are you out of your mind?” Instead I just shook my head slightly at Dawn.
Dawn answered the woman in a professional, adult voice. “No, I’m sorry. They’re not.”
“I’ll give you seventy-five dollars for them.”
“Seventy-five dollars!” Dawn couldn’t help exclaiming.
I cleared my throat. “I’ll check with my father,” I said.
“No, they’re not,” Dad spoke up. He was standing in the doorway to the garage and had heard everything.
Dawn and I shrugged. “Sorry,” we told the woman.
She bought a three-dollar sweater for her daughter and left.
I heard screams coming from near Kristy.
“Mommy, I want that dolly!” It was Jenny.
“All right … my little angel.” Mrs P. gave in. “But then we’re going home.”
Good, I thought.
Mrs. P. paid for the statue and Amelia Jane, and led Jenny away.
I looked around. The sale had been on for about a half hour and it was really jumping. People were milling around, looking at the tables and the things in the driveway. Claudia was serving up drinks and brownies. Two spider plants had sold, as well as a couple of Mary Anne’s handicraft projects. Mary Anne was beaming. And the Barretts had sold several of their toys. They looked very excited.
All five of us club members were running back and forth, answering questions and borrowing change from each other’s cash boxes.
Five of the Pikes arrived. The Perkinses left with the Ping-Pong table. “Thank you, Daddy!” Myriah and Gabbie were singing.
Mr. Marshall was looking at the walls of the garage. They were totally bare except for this length of dirty old rope, which was hanging from a peg.
Suddenly, Mr. Marshall grabbed the rope from the wall. “How much is this?” he asked Dawn.
“Well, it isn’t really for s —”
“I’ll give you fifty cents for it.”
The rope was just something we hadn’t bothered to throw out. It was worth exactly zero cents.
“It’s a sale!” I called to Dawn.
The day flew by. Logan Bruno (one of our associate club members) and Trevor Sandbourne (an old boyfriend of Claudia’s) arrived. Then Howie Johnson and Dori Wallingford (the King and Queen Rat) showed up. I refused to look at them. Instead, I looked in our cash boxes. They were stuffed! And our tables were growing empty. The brownies and spider plants were long gone.
Howie wanted to buy a turquoise ring (that used to be mine) to give to Dori. I made him pay Mary Anne.
At 4:00, it occurred to me that Charlotte hadn’t come over. But I got distracted by a man smoking a cig
ar who wanted to know how much we were selling our car for.
“We can’t sell it,” I told him. “We need it.”
He gave me a disgusted look and left.
Some people have absolutely no idea about how yard sales work.
“Stacey?” said a small voice.
I turned around. “Charlotte! I’m glad you came!” I hugged her.
“Stacey,” she said again. “You know I love yard sales.”
I nodded.
“But I just didn’t want to come after all. I didn’t want to see you selling your things. That’s why I’m late. And I don’t want to buy anything. I want to give you this.” Charlotte shoved a package into my hands and ran down the driveway.
Even though a bunch of people were still milling around, I opened the package. It was wrapped in Snoopy paper. Inside was a little book that Charlotte had made herself. The story was called “The Girl Who Moved Away.” And the first page said, “Dedication: This book is for my favorite baby-sitter from her favorite kid. To remember me by.”
I would have started crying right there in the middle of everything if another man hadn’t approached me wanting to know how much the folding tables were.
I told him they were six hundred dollars.
It was time to close up shop.
By dinnertime, our garage looked like a garage again. Everything was put away. The stuff we hadn’t sold was in a carton for Goodwill. (There wasn’t much in the carton.) The Barretts had left, happy with the money they had earned. Now my friends and I were doing the fun part. We were totaling up the money in the cash boxes. When I announced the final figure, Kristy pretended to faint.
“We’re practically millionaires!” she cried as she crashed to the ground.
I had to agree. Even split up, and even after we’d paid my father back the ten dollars he’d lent us, each share was a lot more money than I’d seen in a long time.
My friends looked like they had dollar signs for pupils. They were unusually excited. I mean, this was a lot of money, but what was going on? Of course, I didn’t know it then, but what they were thinking was that my party was definitely going to be one MAJOR celebration.
I just love parties. So when I got an invitation to one a couple of days after the yard sale, I was thrilled. It was from the other members of the club, and it instructed me to come to a farewell party in my honor at Kristy’s house at two o’clock the following Saturday.
Although I was excited (and touched), I thought that a number of things about the invitation were strange. For starters, my friends and I almost never send written invitations to parties anymore. We just pick up the phone and say, “Come to a party.” Sometimes we don’t even do that. We go around school inviting anyone we see. For another thing, two o’clock in the afternoon was a funny time for a party. Most of our parties are held on Friday or Saturday evening. A third thing — the invitation said: Important! Wear old clothes! What were we going to do? Paint Kristy’s room?
When I called Kristy to tell her that of course I’d be at my party, I asked her about the old clothes and stuff, but she wouldn’t say a word. Something was up. I just knew it.
On Saturday, I pulled on a pair of blue stretch pants and a white sweatshirt decorated with stars and sequins.
Kristy called me at one o’clock. “What are you wearing?” she asked.
I told her.
“Much too nice,” she replied. “Put on jeans and your gray sweatshirt — if they’re not packed.”
“Those rags?”
“Are they packed yet?”
“No.”
“Then trust me. Put them on.”
When Dad dropped me off at Kristy’s an hour later, I was wearing the jeans and the sweatshirt. I looked like I was ready to do yard work. Or paint a room.
I rang the bell next to the massive front door of Watson Brewer’s mansion. When Kristy answered, I waved to my father and he drove off. Kristy was wearing jeans and a blue sweatshirt.
“At least I’m not underdressed,” I kidded her.
She smiled and led me through the house and to the back door. “Now close your eyes,” she said as she turned the knob.
I wondered why I needed to do that since I knew who was going to be in the yard — Claudia, Mary Anne, Dawn, Logan Bruno and Shannon Kilbourne (associate club members), Pete Black, Rick Chow, maybe Trevor Sandbourne, and Emily Bernstein. I hoped Howie Johnson and Dori Wallingford hadn’t been invited, but I figured Claudia would know better.
Kristy flung the door open.
“SURPRISE!” shouted a loud chorus of voices.
My jaw dropped practically to my knees.
The guests were not who I had expected at all. Claudia, Mary Anne, Dawn, Logan, and Shannon were there, but the other guests were children … all the kids (except for babies) that our club sits for. As I looked slowly around at the grinning faces, I saw the eight Pikes — Mallory, Byron, Jordan, Adam, Vanessa, Nicky, Margo, and Claire; Jamie Newton; Myriah and Gabbie Perkins; Charlotte Johanssen; Buddy and Suzi Barrett; Dawn’s brother, Jeff; Kristy’s brother, David Michael; Karen and Andrew; Nina and Eleanor Marshall; Jackie, Shea, and Archie Rodowsky; Hannie and Linny Papadakis; Amanda and Max Delaney; and even Jenny Prezzioso. (I guess they really couldn’t leave her out.) The yard was twinkling with tiny golden lights, and lanterns and bunches of balloons were strung up everywhere.
“Oh, wow!” I said softly.
“Did we surprise you? Did we surprise you?” cried Karen, jumping up and down.
“You sure did.”
Charlotte stepped forward and handed me a little corsage made of chrysanthemums. Kristy helped her pin it to my sweatshirt.
“These flowers are for you,” Charlotte said, obviously reciting something she’d memorized. “Today is your special day. We are all here to honor you, to say good-bye, and to …” (She turned to the other children.)
“HAVE FUN!” they shouted.
I wondered if I was supposed to say something, but Kristy spoke up then. “This is a party not just for Stacey, but for everybody here,” she said. “And everyone is going to have a good time. I guarantee it. So … let the fun begin!”
“What are we going to do first?” asked Karen.
“We’re going to have an egg relay race,” Kristy replied.
I couldn’t imagine how my friends were going to organize twenty-eight children into a relay race, but they did — and fast, too. They were all prepared. They’d carefully figured out five teams (uneven in numbers, but even in ability), and they handed out eggs and spoons in the wink of an eye.
Soon, little kids were charging back and forth across the yard with fragile eggs balanced on spoons. Jenny tripped and her egg splattered to the ground. Her teammates moaned. They were out of the race.
Then Buddy Barrett and David Michael crashed into each other and squashed their eggs on their fronts.
“I see why we were supposed to wear old clothes,” I whispered to Mary Anne, and she grinned.
Only two teams were left, and it looked as if the race might end in a tie. Myriah Perkins and Jamie Newton were both heading for the finish at the same pace. But just a few steps from the end, Jamie’s egg seemed to fly off the spoon all by itself. Squish.
“I won! I won!” Myriah shouted as she and her egg made it safely back home.
“You mean, we all won,” said Karen, who was her teammate.
“Congratulations,” said Claudia. “Prizes for everyone on Myriah’s team.” And she handed each child a Silly Putty egg. The prizes came from a big box. I peeked inside. It was chock full of toys!
“Where’d you get the money for all this?” I asked incredulously. “I don’t mean to be rude, but …”
“Where do you think?” answered Dawn with a smile. “From the yard sale. Thanks to your junk, we are going to have one hot party!”
“Oh, no!” I cried, giggling. “I don’t believe it. You guys spent that money on this party?”
“Every last cent.”
“You’re too much,” I said tearfully.
I was about to turn on the waterworks, but luckily Kristy announced that it was time for some more fun. And she wasn’t kidding. During the next hour or so, us baby-sitters held our own egg race, the kids played Musical Rug (easier than Musical Chairs when a lot of children are involved) and Pin-the-Baby-on-the-Sitter (for that game, Claudia had drawn a picture of me holding out my arms, and made twenty-eight crying babies that were supposed to go in my arms). The children hunted for peanuts and ran races, and we all played Simon Says. The winner, or winners, of each game received a pretty nice prize — a Transformer, a sticker book, a Slinky, a bag of Gummi Bears.
By the time Simon Says was over and Jordan Pike had been given a Transformer, half the kids were getting tired, and the other half were hysterical with excitement.
“Time to quiet down,” Kristy whispered to the rest of us club members. “Mary Anne, can you help me? And Dawn and Stacey, can you get all the kids to the front of the house? Keep them right by the driveway.”
We followed Kristy’s instructions. I was beginning to feel like a teacher. I decided it was a nice feeling.
When the kids were standing quietly along the drive, Kristy and Mary Anne unrolled a long sheet of brown paper and handed out crayons.
“What’s this for?” asked Gabbie Perkins, looking uncertainly at the paper.
“Well,” Claudia replied, “Stacey’s moving to New York, but we don’t want her to forget Stoneybrook, do we?”
“No!” cried the kids.
“So we’re going to draw her a big picture of our town. You can put in your streets and your houses and yourselves. Then Stacey will always remember us.”
The kids set to work right away. The next fifteen minutes were filled with giggles and shouts and calls of “I don’t have green hair!” and “Hey, your house goes here, not there” and “What did you draw a pond for? There’s no pond in our yard!”
I have to admit that when the kids got tired of drawing, the mural looked nothing like Stoneybrook, but it didn’t matter. It was a great picture. Kristy made a big deal out of rolling it up, tying it with a red ribbon, and having Hannie Papadakis present it to me. I knew I would keep it forever.