My laugh stopped him. “I’m done, Dad. Really.”
He gazed at me, seeming to want more explanation. Should I tell him the truth? What if he wouldn’t let me work at the mall? Dad’s always been pretty strict. He’s loosened up a lot since marrying Sharon, but that side of him is still there.
Something told me he might not approve of my working at the mall. However, I knew he was serious about paying off the interest. He would consider it irresponsible parenting to let me off the hook. Plus, he’s a lawyer. He’s big on people fulfilling their agreements to the letter of the law.
The job would only be for a few weeks. It wasn’t as if I wanted to commit a crime or skip school or do anything wrong. I only wanted to work. Where was the harm in that?
“I’m just meeting some of my friends there,” I answered him, buttering my waffle as if it were the most fascinating thing I’d ever done.
“Are you sure you’re not going to buy more gifts?”
“Dad, you have the credit card,” I reminded him. “I gave it back to you.”
“Yes, but I don’t want you spending the money you’ve earmarked for paying off what you charged,” he said. “That’s how people get in trouble with credit cards all the time. They can’t pay and then the interest mounts.”
Interest again! If I heard the word one more time I’d scream.
“No, I’m just going along as company this time,” I assured him.
Sharon stuck her head in the kitchen doorway. “I’m off to the Nutrition Center,” she reported brightly. “I want to make sure I have all the things Dawn and Jeff like. Do either of you want me to pick up anything?”
Dad and I shot each other a laughing glance, like there was even a chance. “No, dear,” Dad said, suppressing a smile. “I don’t think there’s anything Mary Anne and I required from the Nutrition Center today.”
Sharon knew he was teasing her and she smiled at him.
“I’d like a ride,” I said. “The mall isn’t too far from the center.”
“Sure, come on,” Sharon said.
It was nice having Sharon to myself during the ride. In a few days, Dawn and Jeff would occupy her entire universe. She missed them so much. It had taken awhile to think of Sharon as my mom, but it was starting to happen. My own mother died when I was very little. I barely remember her. It feels good having a mother, and Sharon is a great stepmom.
She dropped me off at the front of the mall and then went on to do her shopping. I hurried directly to the sign by the Christmas tree. It said to apply at the special-events office, but I didn’t know where that was.
The platform by the tree was nearly completed. A man was painting gold trim on a railing that led to Santa’s throne. I asked him where the office was and he directed me to a doorway behind the food court.
Once I arrived at the food court, it was easy to find the office. Lots of people were going in and out. I followed their trail to a small office. The woman at the desk handed me an application. “Return it and then stick around for an interview,” she instructed me, without even looking up from her desk.
I smiled at her, but she didn’t notice. So I sat on a brown couch by a door to fill out the application. I’d written down my name, address, social security number, and age when a girl sat down beside me, an application in her hand.
“Man, what a crab,” she said, nodding toward the woman at the desk.
I looked up at her. She was petite, about sixteen, with short, frizzy red hair framing her face like a kind of halo. Her flawless skin and fine features were so delicate she would have reminded me of an angel, except that her bright green eyes were heavily rimmed with smudgy eye makeup.
“She’s busy, I guess,” I commented.
“Too busy to even look at you?”
I shrugged. Some people are like that. I figured there wasn’t much sense being bothered by it. I went back to my application, but in seconds the girl rapped on my paper with a long blue-polished fingernail. “Hey, just so you know — you can’t do that.”
“Do what?” I asked, puzzled.
“I was looking at your application,” she explained. Glancing at the woman behind the desk, she moved closer to me and whispered, “You can’t tell them you’re thirteen.”
“I can’t?”
She shook her head.
“Why not?”
“They’ll never hire you.” She took the pen from my hand and expertly turned the three into a six so my application said I was sixteen.
“Wow,” I said, impressed by her handiwork. “You did that well.”
“I’ve been doing it since I was thirteen. Now that I’m seventeen, I’m working on turning sevens into eights. I’m pretty good at that too.” She put out her hand and I shook it. “Hi, I’m Angela.”
“Mary Anne.”
“Well, Mary Anne, I hope we both get a job.”
“Thanks,” I said.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about what I was doing. It’s not like me to be dishonest. And today I’d already lied to Dad. Now I was lying on an application. It didn’t feel right to me. It wasn’t right. But who was I hurting? No one. Surely I could perform any job as well as a sixteen-year-old.
Still, I wasn’t sure I wanted to hand in the application. It felt too dishonest. I put the paper down on the table by the couch and stood up. “ ’Bye,” I murmured to Angela, who was working intently on her application.
I was at the door when Angela called to me. “Hey, Mary Anne!” Turning, I saw her by the reception desk. “You forgot to hand in your application. I handed it in for you.”
“You did?”
“Sure. You can’t expect them to come out and look for it.”
“Thanks,” I said, feeling foolish.
The receptionist looked over at me for the first time. “Ms. Spier, you can see Ms. Cerasi now.”
I stood, frozen. What should I do?
“Go!” Angela urged. “Go on.”
I saw a door by the couch with the name DAWN CERASI printed on it. “There?” I asked the receptionist.
“Go right in,” she said, handing my application back to me.
The door was ajar. I pushed it open and stepped in. A very professional-looking woman with short, highlighted hair and a blue business suit sat behind a desk. She shot me a quick, polite smile. “Hi,” I said. “I’m Mary Anne Spier. I have a sister named Dawn, a stepsister, actually, but we’re very close.”
“Have you got your application?” she asked.
I blushed. She couldn’t have cared less that I have a sister named Dawn. Forget passing for sixteen. She probably thought I was ten.
I handed the application to her and she told me to sit. With darting eyes, she scanned the form. “When are you available?” she asked.
“Uh, weekends and after school, but not Mondays, Wednesdays, or Fridays.”
She gave me a hard look.
“I have another job,” I explained quickly, which was actually true. “By the way, what job am I applying for?”
“Didn’t you know? We need helpers at Winter World.”
That sounded great. “I have a lot of experience with kids,” I volunteered. “I love them and I baby-sit all the time.” Uh-oh, did that make me sound young again? I decided it might be best just to keep my mouth shut and answer her questions.
“That will certainly help,” she said, seeming to note it on my form. “Allergies?”
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“Are you allergic to anything?”
“Uh … no. I don’t think so. I mean, not that I know of.” Why didn’t I just say no? I was so nervous, that’s why. I’d never met anyone so businesslike.
She asked me several more questions, then asked me to stand up and turn around. I thought this was sort of odd, but I did it. “Can you start tomorrow at ten?” she asked.
“Yes!” I cried. Despite my efforts to seem grown-up, I smiled eagerly. “You mean I’ve got the job?”
“Congratulations. You can pick your costume up tomorrow at
Winter World.”
Costume?
That Saturday morning, while I was at the mall, Stacey received a phone call from a very excited Kristy. “I’ve got it!” she told Stacey. “I know how we can help the Toys for Kids program. I want you to tell Dr. Johanssen as soon as you get to her house to baby-sit.”
“Tell her what?” Stacey asked.
“How we’re going to save the program!”
Stacey smiled. Kristy could never be happy merely assisting or lending a hand. No. She had to go full out and save the program! Well, that was Kristy, and she was never going to change.
Kristy then laid out her plan. The BSC would hold a fair as a holiday fund-raiser. “We’ll call it Santa-Hanukkah-Kwanzaa Town,” she explained.
“We don’t have a fortune in the treasury,” Stacey pointed out.
“I thought of that,” Kristy replied. There were two parts to her plan. First, we would collect donations of canned food and secondhand toys for the fair. “We can use the old toys for prizes and use the food donations to make refreshments,” she explained. Then, after the fair, we’d use the money we earned to buy new toys for the kids.
“Dr. Johanssen can arrive at her meeting today knowing that we’re going to be doing this,” Kristy went on. “Then she’ll know what else, if anything, she needs to do.”
“It sounds good,” Stacey said. “I bet she’ll be happy to hear the news.”
The moment Stacey arrived at Charlotte’s she told Dr. Johanssen the news. Dr. Johanssen was more than happy. She was thrilled!
“Leave it to you girls!” she said warmly. “No one gets things done like the BSC members do.”
“It’s not done yet,” Stacey said with a slightly nervous smile. It would be a big job, and everyone was already busy with holiday activities. But she also knew that once Kristy set her mind to something, it usually happened.
“Stacey!” Charlotte cried, bouncing down the stairs. She’s eight and adores Stacey. The two of them have become very close. “I got a fashion-maker program for my computer,” she told Stacey. “You can make real fashions and then print out the pattern on actual cloth with color and everything.”
“Awesome,” Stacey said. “You have to show me.”
“Before I leave, tell me Kristy’s plan,” Dr. Johanssen said as she took her coat from the front closet. Charlotte listened with increasing interest as Stacey told her what she knew.
“This sounds fun!” Charlotte cried. “Maybe we can have a fashion booth.”
“Good idea,” Stacey agreed.
“Charlotte, I’m sure you can gather some old toys to donate,” said her mother. Stacey knew that was true. Charlotte is an only child and she has a mountain of toys. Charlotte wasn’t as convinced, though.
She squinted thoughtfully, as if envisioning her toy collection. “I’ll look,” she said, diplomatically evading the issue.
“Excellent,” said Dr. Johanssen as she wrote down the phone number for the hospital conference room where she was holding the meeting of volunteers. Stacey already knew the number of her cellular phone. “This will give us entirely new information to work with,” she added. “You’re definitely going to do this, aren’t you?”
“Definitely,” Stacey assured her with a smile.
“Mom, can I pick out some food for us to donate?” Charlotte asked as Dr. Johanssen opened the door.
“Of course,” her mother replied. “We have to do our part too.”
As soon as she left, Charlotte grabbed Stacey’s wrist and pulled her toward the kitchen. “We have a ton of food for you,” she said.
“Don’t you want to show me your fashion program first?” Stacey asked.
“No,” Charlotte replied firmly. “This is more important. We can do that later.”
She found a box by the cellar stairs and pulled open a nearby cabinet. “Olives, definitely,” she said, placing the can of olives in the carton. Next she found two tins of anchovies. “Yechh!” she said, putting them in the box. “Let’s get these out of the house for sure.”
“You don’t like anchovies?” Stacey asked, fighting back a smile.
Charlotte twisted her face into such a look of revulsion that Stacey burst into laughter. “I guess not,” she said with a chuckle.
Charlotte pulled can after can from the various shelves. “Beets have to go for sure. Ew, we even have pickled beets. You can have those, too. Corn relish — disgusting. You can have that. And this tin of paté stuff will kill you. That’s yours.”
In no time, Charlotte had loaded the box with all the food products she loathed. The list included: canned white asparagus, a jar of oyster sauce, cardboard drums of wheat germ, oatmeal, and puffed rice.
“Can you take frozen stuff?” she asked, pulling open the freezer. “We have loads of spinach and brussels sprouts.” She took a box of brussels sprouts from the freezer. “Have you ever tasted these?” she asked.
Stacey nodded. “Yes.”
Charlotte winced and made the revolted face again. “Oh, man,” she moaned. “Eating brussels sprouts is like eating dirt.”
“I kind of like them,” Stacey said, laughing.
“You do not!” Charlotte refused to believe such a thing could be possible.
“Your parents like them,” Stacey pointed out.
“They’re grown-ups!” Charlotte gestured toward her box of hated foods. “They like all this stuff. They’re crazy.”
Stacey stooped down to the box, sorting through it. She smiled and had to admit that she didn’t like most of the things in there either. “Charlotte, Kristy and I didn’t discuss it, but I don’t think this is the sort of stuff she’s looking for.”
Charlotte’s face fell in disappointment. “It was too good to be true,” she said glumly. “What does she want?”
“I guess we’ll want things like tomato sauce for making chili, or ingredients for cakes and cookies, snacks, sodas — stuff like that.”
“Foods people will actually want to eat, you mean?” Charlotte said, nodding. “I understand.”
With a deep sigh of resignation, Charlotte returned the cans to their shelves.
When the box was empty, Charlotte sat cross-legged on the kitchen floor, opened a cabinet, and stared into it wistfully. “I suppose you’d like this brownie mix,” she said after a moment, pulling the box from a bottom shelf.
“That would be good,” Stacey agreed, kneeling beside Charlotte.
“Might as well take this icing,” Charlotte said reluctantly. “This bag of potato chips will probably help too,” she added, sighing again as she plunked it into the carton. “Here’s a box of Yodels. I suppose someone will love them as much as I do.”
Stacey rubbed Charlotte’s arm comfortingly. “You know, Char,” she said, “what you’re doing now is in the real spirit of holiday giving. You’re thinking about what would really be helpful instead of only giving away things you don’t want.”
Charlotte’s eyes brightened at Stacey’s words. “Mom and Dad would just buy more anchovies and pickled beets anyway,” she said philosophically.
“They’ll buy more brownie mix, too,” Stacey said.
“You’re right,” said Charlotte brightly. “So it really doesn’t matter what we give. We’ll just get more! Take everything!”
“I don’t need everything,” Stacey told her with a smile. “If everyone donates a little, then we’ll have plenty.”
Once again, Charlotte was filled with enthusiasm. “You’re right. Let’s go all around the neighborhood and ask everyone to give us something. We’ll have a ton of stuff in no time.”
“Good idea,” Stacey said, getting up too. “Do you think a lot of people are home now?”
“Wait! Wait! I have a better idea!” Charlotte cried. “We’ll write something on my computer to let people know what we’re doing. We’ll tell them to bring their food and toys here.”
“Great idea! We can print up flyers and leave them for people who aren’t home.”
Charlotte cal
led Dr. Johanssen and received permission to use the house as a drop-off point for donations. Stacey told me later that she felt very proud of Charlotte and herself. She felt as though they were thinking like Kristy, coming up with brilliant ideas on their own.
She and Charlotte bundled up and got Charlotte’s wagon from the garage. They headed out to ask for donations. At almost every house, they were warmly met and loaded with both food and toys. They left their flyers at homes where no one answered the door. Several times, they had to return to the Johanssens’ to unload before starting out again. “What a great beginning,” Stacey said to Charlotte. “Our fund-raiser is off to a fabulous start!”
Getting to the mall Sunday morning to report for my first day of work was a challenge. Dad and Sharon were full of questions and concerns.
“Mary Anne, you know how I feel about those kids who spend all their free time at the mall,” Dad said to me at breakfast. He sat up straight, frowned, and looked as authoritative as possible. “What do they call them? Mall cats?”
“Mall rats,” Sharon corrected him.
I stifled a smile.
“Whatever,” Dad went on sternly. “You are not to be hanging out at the mall.”
“I’m not,” I said as I tucked my white blouse into my newest jeans for the zillionth time. I kept tucking it in and taking it out, unable to decide which looked better. I wanted to look just right on my first day of work.
“I hope you’re not buying more gifts,” Sharon put in more mildly.
“I’m not spending more money and I’m not hanging out,” I assured them.
“Then, exactly what are you doing?” Dad asked.
The moment I’d been dreading had come. “Um … my friends and I are helping Dr. Johanssen with the Toys for Kids program. We’re getting donations.”
It consoled me a little that this was at least a small bit true. The lie was that I let Dad and Sharon assume this was taking place at the mall, which, of course, it wasn’t.
Dad relaxed. “How wonderful,” Sharon said. “I’ll drive you there.”
“It’s all right. I’ll take the bus.” Taking a ride from Sharon would have made me feel terrible. Besides, she might have decided to come into the mall with me and that would have been a disaster.