Mary Anne smiled.
“This is my room,” said Myriah a few moments later. And Mary Anne found herself looking sadly around Kristy’s old room. In place of her sports posters were animal pictures and a poster of a ballerina. In place of her desk was a dollhouse. It wasn’t the same at all.
“Hey, let’s go downstairs again,” said Mary Anne huskily. “I want to see your playroom.”
Gabbie turned and raced downstairs.
Myriah and Mary Anne followed. When they reached the playroom, Gabbie was already there, rocking an old Cabbage Patch doll in her arms. “This is Cindy Jane, Mary Anne Spier,” she said.
“Her name is really Caroline Eunice,” Myriah whispered. “Oh! There’s R.C.!” she exclaimed suddenly.
A brown tiger cat sauntered into the room.
“R.C. stands for Rat Catcher,” Myriah announced, “but he doesn’t catch anything. He’s too, too lazy. Aren’t you, R.C.?”
“Aren’t you, R.C.?” echoed Gabbie absentmindedly, as R.C. flopped over on his side and fell asleep.
“Now don’t say every thing I say,” Myriah admonished her sister. Once again she whispered to Mary Anne. “The Gabbers is going through a stage.”
“The Gabbers?” said Mary Anne.
“Yeah. That’s what Mom and Dad and I call her.”
Gabbie tossed Cindy Jane/Caroline Eunice to the floor. “Let’s color!” she said.
“Yeah!” agreed Myriah. “Let’s color. You want to color, too, Mary Anne?”
“Color with us, Mary Anne Spier,” said Gabbie.
Myriah and Gabbie settled themselves at a pink and white table with pictures of Barbie dolls all over it.
“We always color at our Barbie table,” said Myriah.
Mary Anne squeezed into a little pink chair. She had to sit sideways at the table, since her knees wouldn’t fit underneath it.
Myriah tore three pieces of paper off a pad of newsprint and passed them out. She set a box of crayons in the middle. “Now color, you guys,” she said.
The three of them (even Mary Anne) got right to work. Both of the little girls sang to themselves as they colored. Myriah sang “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” Gabbie sang “Hush, Little Baby.” Mary Anne raised her eyebrows. How had they memorized all the verses to those songs? Even Mary Anne didn’t know them.
After a few minutes, Gabbie handed her picture to Mary Anne. It was a huge, jumbled scribble. “Look, Mary Anne Spier,” she said.
“That’s lovely!” Mary Anne exclaimed. She was about to ask, “What is it?” when she remembered something we Baby-sitters Club members had thought up. Instead of saying “What is it?” when we can’t tell what a picture or an art project is, we say, “Tell me about it.” That way, the kid doesn’t know we can’t tell, so his feelings aren’t hurt, and he tells us what the picture is so we don’t say anything dumb about it, like “I’ve never seen such a big elephant,” when it turns out to be a picture of the kid’s grandmother or something.
“Tell me about it,” Mary Anne said to Gabbie.
“Okay. This is my mommy,” said Gabbie, pointing, “and this is the baby growing in her tummy.”
Once again, Mary Anne raised her eyebrows. She almost raised them right off her forehead. “The baby in her tummy?” she repeated. She glanced at Myriah.
“Yeah, we’re having a baby,” said Myriah nonchalantly. “Not for a long time, though. I hope I get a brother. We have enough girls around here…. R.C. is a girl,” she added. “The only boys are Daddy and Chewy.”
“Wow! That’s exciting!” cried Mary Anne. Actually, she felt even more excited than she sounded, but she knows how sensitive little kids are about new babies. She didn’t want Myriah and Gabbie to think that they weren’t important, too.
Mary Anne wanted to ask a lot more questions, but she didn’t dare. She also wanted to call the rest of us baby-sitters with the exciting news, but she didn’t dare do that, either. She knew she’d have to wait.
“Do you two want to take a walk?” Mary Anne asked Myriah and Gabbie. “It’s so pretty out. And yesterday was such an awful, rainy day. I’d like to go out.”
“Okay,” agreed the girls.
“Hey,” said Mary Anne suddenly. “Do you know any other kids around here yet?”
“We know Kristy Thomas,” said Myriah.
“Kristy Thomas,” echoed Gabbie.
“Well,” said Mary Anne, “I meant kids your age. Have you met Jamie Newton?”
“No,” said Myriah.
“Or Nina and Eleanor Marshall?”
“No.”
“Well, maybe you’d like to meet them. It would be fun to have friends around here, wouldn’t it?”
“Sure,” said Myriah.
“Sure,” said Gabbie.
“And guess what — Jamie Newton has a baby, just like you’re going to have. Only she’s not a newborn baby anymore. Her name is Lucy. Do you want to see her?”
“Yup,” said Myriah.
“Yup,” said Gabbie.
So Mary Anne walked the girls around the neighborhood. By the time Mrs. Perkins came home, Myriah and Gabbie had met Nina and Eleanor, Charlotte Johanssen, Mr. and Mrs. Goldman, Claudia’s grandmother Mimi, and Jamie and Lucy Newton.
“Jamie has a new baby, just like we’re going to have!” Myriah told her mother.
Mrs. Perkins glanced at Mary Anne.
“The news sort of slipped out,” said Mary Anne. “I hope you don’t mind.” She showed Mrs. Perkins Gabbie’s picture.
“I don’t mind at all,” said Mrs. Perkins with a smile. “I guess I just hadn’t gotten around to mentioning it. But it’s no secret.” She paid Mary Anne and walked her to the front door.
“Are you going to come back again, Mary Anne?” asked Myriah. “I hope so, because I didn’t get to show you all the stuff in my room yet. Or in my goofy sister’s room.”
Gabbie smiled charmingly at Mary Anne.
“Of course I’ll come back,” replied Mary Anne. “And I’ll show you something special, too. Right now. If you go up to your bedroom and wait by the side window, you’ll have a surprise in a few minutes.”
Mary Anne said good-bye to the Perkinses and raced home. She flew up to her bedroom. Then she stood at her open window. There was Myriah in her window.
“Hi!” called Mary Anne. “We can see each other!”
“Hey!” said Myriah. “We can talk to each other, too!”
“This’ll be our special secret, okay?”
“All right!” cried Myriah.
Mary Anne turned away. Having the Perkinses next door still wasn’t the same as having Kristy there. But Mary Anne didn’t feel sad about it anymore.
“Bye, Jeff! I’m going over to the Pikes’!” I called. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Call if you’re going to go anywhere.”
“I’m not moving!” he shouted back.
The weather was unbearably hot, even for Californians like us. It was almost a hundred degrees and humid. Our old house isn’t really equipped for air-conditioning, but there is one unit in the den downstairs. Jeff had been closed in with it all morning. I think that if he could have, he would have sat on the air conditioner.
I’m sort of in charge of Jeff while Mom’s at work, but I can go off and do things. Jeff is almost ten, and he’s fairly responsible. All either of us really has to do is phone so that the other one always knows where he or she is. And Jeff isn’t allowed to have friends over if I’m not at home.
I made my way sluggishly over to the Pikes’.
Mallory, the oldest Pike, met me at the front door. “Guess what?” she cried. “All of us kids are here and I’m going to be the second baby-sitter! It was my idea, and Mom said okay!”
“Hey, Mal, that’s great!”
Mallory is eleven and has always been a big help with her younger brothers and sisters. Until now, though, when all eight kids needed looking after, Mrs. Pike would hire two sitters. Apparently, she’d decided that Mallory was old enough to be on
e of those sitters. That was fine with me. All of us baby-sitters like Mallory, and we’ve sometimes thought that one day she could join our club. She’s younger than the rest of us, but she’d be really good.
“Hi, Dawn,” Mrs. Pike greeted me. “Let’s see. Mallory’s going to sit with you today. I’m sure she’s told you that.”
“Yes,” I said with a smile. I glanced at Mallory, who looked as if she wanted to dance around with excitement and pride, but was containing herself in the interest of appearing grown-up enough to baby-sit.
“The triplets are in their room, practically draped over the air conditioner,” Mrs. Pike went on.
I laughed. “Jeff’s doing the same thing at home.”
“Vanessa, Margo, and Claire are out in the backyard, playing in the sprinkler. And Nicky is … well, I’m afraid he’s not in a very good mood today. He’s in the rec room, sulking.”
“Uh-oh,” I said. “That’s too bad.” I thought about what Stacey and Mary Anne had told us at the meeting the other day — that Nicky wants to play with the triplets, but they won’t let him.
“He’s having a tough time,” said Mrs. Pike, lowering her voice, “but he has to learn to deal with this.”
“Tell Dawn about the two-block rule,” Mallory spoke up.
“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Pike. “You know how we feel about rules around here, except where safety is concerned.” (There are almost no rules at the Pikes’.) “Well, Nicky’s been complaining that we treat him like a baby, so we told him that he’s allowed to go off on his own during the day, as long as he stays within two blocks of the house. Two blocks is a rule for him.”
“Okay,” I said.
“So if he disappears, don’t panic.”
I knew Mrs. Pike was thinking of the time I’d been baby-sitting at the Barretts’ and Buddy Barrett really had disappeared. We’d had to call the police and every thing. So I was kind of touchy about little kids going off on their own. I appreciated Mrs. Pike’s understanding that.
Mrs. Pike left a few minutes later.
Mallory looked at me expectantly. “Well?” she said. “What do we do first?”
“At your house,” I replied, “I usually check on everybody, just to make sure they’re all accounted for. So why don’t you go keep an eye on the girls, and I’ll look in on the boys. Then I’ll come outside with you. Maybe I can talk Nicky into playing in the sprinkler.”
“Don’t count on it,” said Mallory darkly.
“Well, we’ll see.”
I went to the triplets’ room first. Their door was closed to keep the cold air in. I knocked on it.
“Yeah?” called one of the boys. I wasn’t sure which one.
“It’s Dawn. Can I come in?”
“Okay.”
I opened the door. The shades were drawn and the room was as dark as a room could be at two o’clock in the afternoon. The air conditioner was going full-blast.
“What are you guys doing in the dark?” I asked.
“Playing with our glow-in-the-dark space creatures,” whispered Byron.
“They’re about to be attacked by the Wandering Frog People,” added Jordan.
“Oh,” I said. “Well, I just wanted you to know I’m —”
“Shoof-shoof-shoof-shoof-BLAM!” Adam shouted suddenly. He thumped a Frog Person down on one of the space creatures.
“— here,” I finished. I closed the door and left. The boys barely noticed.
Time to check on Nicky. I ran downstairs to the rec room. There he was, sitting in a ratty old armchair. A book was in his hands, but he wasn’t reading it.
“Hi, Nick-O,” I said.
“Hi.”
“What are you reading?”
“Nothing.”
“You want me to read to you?”
“Nah.”
“Why don’t you go out in the backyard? The sprinkler’s on. You’ll be much cooler there than you are inside. It’s stuffy in here.”
“Are the girls still out there?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not playing with the girls. I’m a boy. I’m supposed to play with the boys.”
“Not necessarily,” I told him.
“I want to play with the triplets!”
“Well, then, come on. Let’s go ask them.”
Nicky looked at me with a hesitant smile.
“Really?”
“Sure.”
We were about halfway up the stairs when the triplets came stampeding out of their room. They were each wearing bathing trunks and carrying a towel.
“Dawn! Dawn!” cried Adam. “We’re going swimming over at Joey’s! We just called him. His mom said it was okay.”
“She said we could bring a friend, too,” Byron added.
“She did?” Nicky marveled. “Oh, boy! Thanks! I’ll —”
But before he could finish, Jordan said, “We called your brother, Dawn. It’s all right if Jeff comes, isn’t it? We said we’d tell you where he’s going to be.”
“Yes,” I said with a sigh. “It’s okay. Thanks for asking him.”
Nicky watched the triplets run out the front door. He looked absolutely crushed. A few tears leaked out, which he tried to hide. After a few moments he said gruffly, “I’m going outside to play. By-my-self.” He yanked the front door open.
“Two-block rule,” I called after him.
“I know, I know, I know.”
Nicky had been gone for about five minutes when I began to feel really bad for him. I decided I should find him and talk to him. I went outside and shouted his name over and over, but he didn’t (or wouldn’t) answer.
At last, I called Mary Anne on the phone and explained the situation. “Could you come help Mallory so I can look for Nicky?” I asked her. “I’d really appreciate it. It would be a big favor.”
Mary Anne arrived in a flash. I left her and Mallory playing barefoot in the wet backyard with the little Pike girls. Then I started my search for Nicky. A two-block limit, which works out to a four-block area, is bigger than you’d think. I walked all around, through the Prezziosos’ backyard, around the Barretts’ property, even around my own house, calling for Nicky, looking for possible hiding places — in bushes, up trees.
Nothing.
I kept telling myself there were an awful lot of places a boy could hide. And I remembered what Mrs. Pike had said — not to panic. But I couldn’t help feeling just a little panicky. Why couldn’t I find him? Maybe he wasn’t within two blocks after all. If he was, surely he’d hear me calling.
“Nicky! NICK-EEE!” I shouted.
“Yeah?”
He’d appeared out of nowhere, looking dirty and sweaty.
I jumped a mile. “Nicky!” I exclaimed, half angry, half relieved. “Where were you?”
“Somewhere cool,” he replied smugly. “The triplets didn’t want me to come swimming with them, but I cooled off anyway. I showed them and I followed the rule.”
I shook my head. “Come on. Let’s go back to your house. You can shower off under the sprinkler…. And don’t scare me like that again!”
“Sorry,” said Nicky. He smiled at me. I smiled back, glad the crisis was over, but thoroughly mystified.
When I got home that afternoon, Jeff was still off swimming. I didn’t like to admit it, but I was nervous about Nicky’s disappearance. Things like that scare me to death. I’d never gotten over the time I couldn’t find Buddy Barrett. Children do get kidnapped. And I’m afraid it’s going to happen sometime while I’m baby-sitting. It’s not impossible. In fact, it happens every day. You read about it in the papers or see it on the news. I heard that there are thousands and thousands of missing kids.
So could I help it if I panicked a little when I couldn’t find Nicky?
I needed to relax. I took my library book out to the barn. Now, the barn is not the coolest place I can think of on a hot summer day — but it is the most relaxing. It’s almost silent. There’s not much in the barn that can make a sound, and the sounds outside a
re muffled.
Usually I climb up to the hayloft to find a comfortable spot to read, but heat rises, so there was no way I was going to be anywhere above ground on that day. I looked around for a place with enough light to read by. But instead I settled for a spot with a little dry hay scattered around that actually seemed cool.
I sat down, all prepared to open to “The Haunting of Weatherstaff Moor,” but I had no sooner gotten into a comfortable position than I heard a crash.
The crash was me! I was falling.
I dropped down, down, like Alice through the rabbit hole.
“Help!” I cried.
Thump. I landed hard.
“Ow!”
I looked up. Although I’d only fallen about five feet, it felt like five thousand. I was in darkness, but above me I could see a square of light, and beyond that, the beams in the roof of the barn.
I stood up shakily.
I was in some kind of basement or tunnel. No wonder that spot I’d been sitting on had seemed cool. All that basement air was circulating underneath.
Wait a second. Barns don’t have basements. Do they?
Maybe I was in — Nah. Impossible. Besides, what was I? Crazy? I was standing in a pitch-black hole. I had to get out.
I felt around gingerly. I was positive my fingers were going to touch spiders — fat, hairy spiders (possibly fat, hairy, biting spiders) — or slimy things.
But they didn’t. Instead they touched a narrow wooden beam, and above that another, and another, and another. It was a ladder!
I climbed back into the barn and examined the top of the hole. I’d fallen through a trapdoor. It must not have been latched properly.
Okay, so in our barn was a trapdoor with a ladder leading down into …
I shrieked. I had found a secret passage! I really had! What else could it be?
I flew into our house, grabbed a flashlight out of a drawer in the kitchen, and flew back to the barn. I was feeling pretty brave, especially considering what a chicken I’d been about exploring the attic the other day. But that day had been dark and gloomy. It was hard to feel frightened with the sun shining so brightly. Besides, I’d found what I’d been searching for so desperately. How could I not explore my own personal secret passage?