We met at the monkey bars after lunch. This is a good meeting place for everyone except Addie Sidney. Addie uses a wheelchair. She needs some help getting from the cafeteria to the monkey bars across the playground. But once she’s there, she is fine. And the rest of us can sit on the grass or climb around on the bars.
“Okay, everybody,” I said when my class was ready for the meeting. “Natalie and Nancy and Hannie and I went shopping on Saturday.”
“Shopping for the wedding present,” added Natalie.
“Did you buy anything?” asked Pamela.
“Not yet,” I replied.
“But we found the perfect gift,” said Hannie.
“And it is fancy,” said Natalie.
“Is it gold or silver?” asked Leslie.
“Silver,” Natalie answered proudly. “A silver cup.”
“A cup?” repeated Leslie. “Is that all?”
“Well …” said Natalie. Her chin began to quiver.
“We looked at a bowl,” I told Leslie. “It cost two thousand dollars.”
“Oh,” said Leslie.
“The cup is perfect,” spoke up Nancy. “Ms. Colman can keep it on her desk and put her pencils in it. Plus, we can have the cup engraved.”
“Is it very expensive?” asked Addie.
“We will have to earn about forty more dollars,” I told her.
“I guess we can do that,” she said.
“Let’s vote on the cup,” said Hannie. “Who here thinks we should buy the silver cup for Ms. Colman’s wedding present?”
Guess what. Every single kid in our class raised his or her hand.
Natalie grinned. “I guess the cup was a good idea after all,” she said.
“Right,” I agreed. “Now all we have to do is earn forty dollars.”
“Forty dollars,” repeated Hank with a sigh.
“Well, that is not really so much,” said Hannie. “If each of us earns two or three dollars, we will have enough.”
“When we add it to the money we already have,” I said. “Do not forget that. We have to be sure not to spend our money.”
“How will we earn more money?” asked Tammy.
“Have a bake sale!” cried Pamela. “We could hold it downtown.”
“No!” I shrieked. “We cannot do that. Ms. Colman might find out about it. Then the surprise would be ruined. We have to do littler things.”
“Odd jobs?” suggested Bobby.
“Perfect,” I replied. I glanced at Hannie and Nancy. We smiled at each other. I knew we were thinking the same thing. Once, we wanted to earn money to buy three special dolls we call the Doll Sisters. So we started an odd-job service. Now we could run our service again. We could walk dogs and weed gardens and clean stuff.
We were going to be very busy.
The Perfect Dress
On Tuesday, I got to see Ms. Colman after school again. It was time to go shopping for my flower girl dress.
“Where are we going shopping?” I asked. “In the department store?”
“No,” said Mommy. “I thought we would go to Washington Mall. We will be able to look in lots of stores there.”
“Oh, boy,” groaned Andrew. “This is going to be really boring. I can tell.”
Andrew just hates shopping for clothes. He would rather wear raggedy, holey old things forever than buy one new pair of jeans.
“Sorry,” Mommy said to my brother. “We are going anyway. It will just take a couple of hours. Bring a book with you.”
We piled into the car and drove to the mall. We picked up Ms. Colman on the way.
As soon as we walked inside the mall, Andrew said, “May I have some chocolate chip cookies, please?”
And I said, “May I have an Orange Julius?”
“One treat for each of you,” Mommy answered. “That is all.”
When we had finished our treats we went into Karen’s Boutique.
“I am sure we will find something here,” I said. “The store is named after me.”
But we did not see anything that was just right.
“Let’s look in the Finery Shoppe,” said Ms. Colman.
I tried on a blue flowered dress. It was too tight.
I tried on a dress with a long sash and a wide white collar.
“Beautiful,” Ms. Colman said.
“It itches,” I said.
“I’m bored,” Andrew said.
“I’m sorry,” Mommy said.
We went to Tiger Lily’s. I found a gorgeous purple and orange dress with layers of lace and ruffles. “Please may I try it on?” I begged.
“It is the wrong color,” said Ms. Colman.
“Luckily,” whispered Mommy.
We went to the Nutcracker. I was the one who spotted a blue dress that was not too plain and not too fancy. It was just my size, too. I tried it on. I twirled around in it.
“Lovely,” said Mommy.
“Perfect,” said Ms. Colman.
“I’m boreder than before,” said Andrew.
We bought the dress and a straw hat and a pair of white gloves. I was ready to be a flower girl.
The Long Saturday
It was Saturday morning. And it was a big-house weekend. Andrew and I were at Daddy’s. Guess what I was doing that Saturday. I was working. My classmates and I had decided to spend the day earning money for Ms. Colman’s wedding present. Hannie and Nancy and I had been telling people about our odd-job service.
Daddy was the first person to hire me. “I need someone to cut the dead flowers off the rosebushes. Can you do the job?”
I nodded my head. “Yes,” I told him firmly. “I have done that before. I know exactly how to do the job.”
Snip, snip, snippety-snip. I wore a pair of gloves. I used the gardening shears. I was very careful. Daddy paid me fifty cents.
The next person who hired me was Elizabeth. “Can you please watch Emily for half an hour? She wants to play in the yard, but I will be busy indoors. I will pay you fifty cents.”
“Sure,” I said.
I played horsie with Emily in the front yard. I kept her away from the road. Across the street I could see Hannie. She was giving Noodle the poodle a bath.
“This is my first job!” Hannie called to me. “When Noodle is clean, I am going to wash the windows on our porch!”
“I am working, too!” I shouted back. “I have earned fifty cents!”
Emily and I played in the yard for half an hour. I collected my money. I had earned one whole dollar for Ms. Colman’s present.
At lunchtime the phone rang. “Hi, Karen. It’s me,” said Nancy. Nancy was calling to tell me she had earned seventy-five cents. “And Natalie called me,” she added. “She and the twins are running a lemonade stand on their street. They have earned a dollar and a quarter.”
All afternoon, my friends and I called each other. We were working hard. It was a long Saturday.
Bobby Gianelli watched his sister Alicia.
Pamela Harding cleaned out her room and sold all her junk to her neighbors. (I could not imagine wanting to buy Pamela’s junk.)
Addie Sidney read stories to her neighbor, who was not feeling well.
Hank Reubens walked up and down his street and picked up bottles and cans. Then he returned them to the grocery store for a deposit. (He earned thirty-five cents.)
At five o’clock on Saturday afternoon, Ricky telephoned me. “I feel like I have been working forever,” he said. “And I have only earned a dollar and a quarter. That is not very much.”
“Hank only earned thirty-five cents,” I told him.
“What are we going to do? We are not earning enough money.”
“Well,” I said slowly, “we still have a few more weeks.”
“We could earn the money faster if we could do one big project,” said Ricky. “All of us together. I think we should do that.”
“But what if Ms. Colman finds out?”
“I don’t know. I guess we do not have to tell her what the money is for.”
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So Ricky and I thought and thought. We talked to Natalie. We talked to Hank and Nancy and Hannie. Finally we decided to hold a car wash. We would have it at Hank’s house. He lives downtown, so lots of cars drive up and down his street. His parents said we could run the car wash the very next day. And Sam and Charlie and Kristy said they would help us. So did our classmates.
“We just have to hope Ms. Colman will not be in Stoneybrook tomorrow,” I said to Ricky. “We have to hope she will not see us.”
Hank’s Car Wash
This is what you need for a car wash: hoses and buckets and sponges and soap and water and rags and maybe some wax and a car vacuum.
“I know something else you need,” said Ricky. “Cars.”
It was Sunday morning. Charlie had driven me to Hank’s house. Sam and Kristy had come along. At Hank’s, we had met Ricky and Natalie. My friends and I had made a big sign. It said:
GET YOUR CAR WASHED HERE!
ONLY $2.00!
FAST SERVICE — EXPERT WORK!
(Kristy had helped us figure out what to put on the sign.)
Then we had found the hoses and buckets and sponges and things. We had connected the hoses. We had made sure the sprayer worked. We were ready to go. But we did not have any customers. Not one.
Sam looked at his watch. “Well, it is still early,” he said.
“I know how to get customers,” I announced. I ran to the sidewalk. I shrieked, “Come get your car wa — ”
Kristy clapped her hand over my mouth. “Shh, Karen!” she said. “You could wake up the dead.”
“But we need customers.”
“Here comes a car!” called Hank.
A station wagon was driving down the street. It stopped by our sign. The door opened and Pamela climbed out.
“Oh, it is only Pamela,” I said.
But Pamela’s father wanted to have his car washed. He was our very first customer. My friends and I set to work. We soaped and rinsed and polished. When we had finished, the car gleamed.
“Beautiful,” said Mr. Harding. And he paid us three dollars.
As soon as Mr. Harding had left, another car pulled up by the sign. A woman climbed out. “Boy, am I glad to find you,” she said. “My car is filthy. It needs a bath badly.”
Hank adjusted his baseball cap. “Glad to be of service,” he said.
We washed the car and earned two more dollars.
When the woman had left, Terri and Tammy came by to help. Ricky said he had to leave. All day long, our friends came and went. Some were more help than others.
Pamela would not use the hose because she did not want to get sprayed. She would not use the wax because she did not want to get it on her clothes.
“What will you do?” I asked her.
“Count the money,” she said. “I will make change for the customers.”
So that was Pamela’s job.
In the afternoon we had pretty many customers. Once, three cars were lined up waiting, while we washed a fourth car.
“Isn’t it a good thing cars get so dirty?” I said to Nancy.
“I’ll say,” she agreed.
By four o’clock my friends and I were very tired.
“Why don’t you close the car wash?” Kristy suggested.
So we did. We closed it even before we knew how much money we had earned. Natalie and Addie counted it while the rest of us cleaned up.
“How much?” I asked Natalie when they were finished.
“Twenty-nine dollars,” she replied.
“Twenty-nine. Is that enough?”
“It depends on how much everyone earned yesterday,” said Addie.
We would have to wait and see. One good thing: Ms. Colman had not driven by the car wash.
Natalie’s Job
“Do I really have to go to school?” I asked Mommy. I yawned and rolled over. I did not want to get out of bed.
“You certainly do.”
“Yuck.” I was tired. I had worked hard all weekend. I pulled the pillow over my head. Then I heard another voice. It was Andrew’s.
“Don’t you want to find out how much money you earned?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah!” Suddenly I was wide awake. Today was the day we would add up our money. We would find out if we had enough to buy Ms. Colman’s present.
After lunch we held a secret meeting on the playground. I took charge.
“Did everybody bring their money?” I asked.
“Yes!”
“The money you earned plus the money you already had?”
“Yes!”
“Natalie, did you bring the money from the car wash, too?”
“Yup,” replied Natalie. She was holding a paper bag. She waved it over her head.
“Okay, everybody. Dump out your money,” I ordered.
“On the ground?” said Pamela. “It will get dirty.”
“Dump it on my tray then,” offered Addie. “We can count it there.”
One by one, my friends and I stepped up to Addie. We put our money on the tray of her wheelchair. (Addie uses that tray for lots of things. She eats on it in the cafeteria. She writes on it in our classroom.)
Addie put in her money last of all. Then my classmates and I stared at the pile of bills and coins. We had never seen so much money.
We must have enough for six presents,” whispered Terri.
“I don’t know. What if it looks like more than it really is?” I said. “What if it is not enough?” I bit my lip.
“For heaven’s sake. Somebody count it,” said Pamela.
“I will do it,” said Natalie grandly.
“You be her helper, Addie,” I said.
Natalie and Addie began to count the money. I held my breath. I tried to hold it the entire time they were counting, but I could not hold it that long. That is how much money there was.
Natalie and Addie counted and counted. When they finished, they started over. They wanted to be sure they had counted right.
After the second time, Natalie and Addie looked up. They smiled.
“How much?” I asked.
“Sixty-six dollars and seventeen cents,” said Addie.
“Yes!” I cried. “Yes, yes, yes!”
And Ricky shouted, “We did it!”
“I think that is enough for the cup and the engraving and the sales tax,” said Natalie. “And maybe even for some wrapping paper.”
“Now all we have to do is go back to Bellair’s and buy the cup,” I said.
“I will take care of that,” said Natalie. “This was my idea.”
“Well …” I said.
“It is my job,” said Natalie firmly. “I will do it today, if Mommy can take me.” She scooped the money into the paper bag. “What should we have engraved on the cup?” she asked.
My friends and I thought and thought. Finally we decided on something simple. To our best teacher: Ms. Colman.
The bell rang. Recess was over.
“Be careful with the money,” Pamela said to Natalie.
“Do not let the bag break,” added Bobby.
“Do not lose the bag,” I said.
“Oh, do not worry,” said Natalie. “Everything will be fine.”
The Big Surprise
I just adore parties. Even if the guests are grown-ups. I like meeting people. I like talking to people. I like eating. I like dancing. That was why I was excited on Friday afternoon. That night Mommy and Seth were giving the party for Ms. Colman and Mr. Simmons. The special party that was also a wedding present. Soon lots of people would be coming to my house.
I had not met many of the people before. Mostly, they were friends of the bride and groom. So I was looking forward to talking to them. I would tell them I was in Ms. Colman’s class. I would tell them I was going to be the flower girl. I would tell them about my new dress.
All afternoon Mommy and Andrew and I were very busy. I dusted tables. Andrew emptied wastebaskets. Mommy vacuumed. Andrew and I cleaned up our playroom. Mommy polished s
ilver.
Seth came home early. Then we worked some more. Seth carried platters of food upstairs from the refrigerator in the basement. Mommy set out plates and glasses and knives and spoons and forks and napkins. Andrew and I dumped ice cubes into the ice bucket.
At quarter to five the telephone rang.
“I will get it!” I shouted. I ran for the kitchen.
“Indoor voice, Karen,” Mommy said.
“Sorry,” I whispered. I picked up the phone. “Hello?” I said.
“Hi, Karen. This is Ms. Colman. May I talk to your mother, please?” Ms. Colman sounded excited. I wondered what was happening.
“Sure,” I replied. I handed the phone to Mommy. Then I listened to her end of the conversation. (I thought about picking up the phone in the bedroom and listening to the whole conversation, but I have gotten in trouble with that before. I knew better.)
“Well, that is wonderful!” I heard Mommy say. And then, “How exciting!” (I told you Ms. Colman sounded excited.) And then, “Of course … of course…. Yes, certainly bring them along. We will just put out a few extra plates. I can’t wait to meet them.”
When Mommy finally hung up the phone, I pounced on her. “What?” I cried. “What is it? What happened? Who is coming to the party?”
Mommy smiled. “Ms. Colman just got a wonderful surprise,” she said. “Guess who rang her doorbell this afternoon.”
“Who? Who?” I asked.
“Her sister. Ms. Colman opened her front door and there were her sister and her sister’s husband and Caroline.”
“Caroline, her niece?” I squeaked.
“Yes,” said Mommy. “They decided to come to the wedding after all. They decided they could not miss it. And they decided they might as well surprise Ms. Colman while they were at it. They are going to stay with her all week, and go home after the wedding. Your teacher is just thrilled, Karen. She is so happy to have her family at the wedding.”
A little knot had formed in my stomach. A hard little knot.