I opened it. Inside was half of a locket on a gold chain, and a note that said, “Dear Stace, I’ve got the other half. I’m wearing it now. Love, Laine.” She must have been wearing it under her shirt, because I hadn’t noticed it that morning. I put mine on under my shirt.
“I’ll wear this every day,” I told my mother.
Mom smiled. Then she said thoughtfully, “Hmm. Today is Saturday. Just two days until your first meeting with the Baby-sitters Club.”
“Yeah.”
“And soon you’ll get to visit Kristy’s new sister again. You haven’t seen Emily since the day they brought her home. I bet she’s changed a lot.”
“Yeah!” I said, remembering Kristy’s photos.
“And your dad and I agreed that you can decorate your new room any way you want. Wallpaper, new bedspread, the works.”
“Really? Thanks!”
By the time we reached Stoneybrook, I was so excited that I had butterflies in my stomach. I couldn’t wait to get to our house, even though it wouldn’t be our old house. Well, it would be an old house, but not our old house. I mean, not our former house. It would be our new old house.
What I was expecting to see when we pulled into the driveway were the moving vans, the big trees, the lawn, and the creaky old porch. What I wasn’t expecting were all my friends and about half the kids in Stoneybrook. But there they were.
Claud, Mary Anne, Dawn, Jessi, Kristy, Mal, and Logan Bruno were standing in a bunch by the porch steps. Off to one side were Charlotte, all seven of Mallory’s brothers and sisters, Kristy’s brother David Michael, her stepbrother and stepsister (not little Emily, though), Jessi’s sister, the Rodowsky boys, Gabbie and Myriah Perkins, Jamie Newton, the Arnold twins, Matt and Haley Braddock, and oh, I don’t know who else. I was trying to look at everyone and scramble out of the car at the same time.
The little kids were holding a huge banner that read, WE KNEW YOU’D BE BACK, STACEY! And my friends were screaming, “Welcome back! Welcome home!”
I ran toward the members of the BSC with open arms. They ran toward me with open arms. We crashed into each other, laughing.
“Group hug!” cried Claudia.
And then the kids dropped their banner and ran to us baby-sitters. If you think there was hugging when I left New York, you should have seen what went on in the front yard of our new old house — although I have to admit that some of the boys, David Michael Thomas and Jackie Rodowsky in particular, said loudly that hugging was gross.
Then we were all distracted when Jackie, our walking disaster, fell over a packing carton and cut his lip. Mal took him through the backyards to her house to fix him up, and soon the kids began to drift home. At last, just Claudia, Kristy, Mary Anne, and Dawn remained. They watched the movers lug furniture and boxes into our house. After awhile, Mom took us all out for lunch. It was such a late lunch it was almost dinner. Then she dropped Kristy, Mary Anne, and Dawn off at their houses, but Claudia came home with me.
Same old Claud, I thought as we trudged up our front steps. Her hair was flowing down her back, pulled away from her face by a headband with a huge pink rose attached to it. She was wearing a long, oversized black-and-white sweater, skin-tight black leggings, pink-and-black socks, and black ballet slippers. Her jewelry was new, and I could tell she’d made it herself. You know those things about a best friend. Her necklace was a string of glazed beads that she’d probably made in her pottery class. And from her ears dangled an alarming number of plastic charms attached to gold hoops.
“Where’s your room?” Claudia asked.
“First one on the left, upstairs,” I told her. “Let’s see if the movers got all my stuff into it.”
They hadn’t.
“Mo-om!” I yelled downstairs. “The movers put my bed in your room and your bed in my room.”
“You’re kidding!” replied Mom. She ran upstairs to take a look. “Yup, you’re right,” she said.
“Now what?” I asked. If this had happened in New York, Dad and the super would have grunted and huffed, taken the beds apart, and switched them around. Instead, Mom and Claud and I grunted and huffed, took the beds apart, and switched them around. It wasn’t easy, but we did it.
“Women can do anything,” Mom remarked proudly.
“Except be fathers,” I pointed out.
No one knew whether to cry or laugh. Finally we laughed. I hadn’t meant to be mean.
“Anyway,” said Claudia, “I think mothers can be fathers and fathers can be mothers — sort of. Look at Mr. Spier. He’s Mary Anne’s father and mother. Mary Anne has always said so, and I think she’s right.”
Mom kissed the top of Claud’s head. “Thank you. I’m glad to see that Stacey has such a sensible friend,” she said. “Now I’m going to leave you to your unpacking. I’ll see you later.” Mom left the room.
“Wow,” exclaimed Claud. “No one has ever described me as sensible.”
“You have to be sensible to be a good baby-sitter,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, but my parents and teachers mostly describe me as outlandish or wild.”
“Doesn’t apply herself,” I added, mimicking this math teacher Claud had in seventh grade.
“Doesn’t concentrate,” said Claudia.
But then I said, “Artistic, kind, understanding, funny, good with children, and smarter than most people think she is.”
Claud looked at me gratefully. Then the two of us surveyed my room. It was a mess. The movers had put the furniture where they’d thought I’d want it, but they’d thought wrong. And against one wall was a huge stack of boxes.
“Where do we begin?” asked Claudia, who has never moved in her life.
“With my clothes,” I replied, giggling.
Claud laughed, too. “Boy, is it good to have you back.” She paused. Then she said slowly, “You know, when Mimi died, I thought my life was over, too. I really did. I missed you more then than at any other time. You couldn’t have filled the empty spot Mimi left in my soul, but you would have made me feel better.”
“Did it help that I came for the funeral?” I asked. Claud and I were opening my suitcases. I tried to remember where I’d packed the coat hangers.
“Oh, yes!” cried Claud. “Are you kidding? Even though we couldn’t be together during the funeral, I was aware that you were there. The whole time. I really was. You kept me from going crazy.”
Claudia and I both stopped working for a moment and I knew we were remembering that sunny day when we’d buried Mimi, watching whatever was left of her as she was lowered into a cold hole in the ground. Claudia had tossed a flower onto her casket.
Claud sighed.
I sighed. No matter how glad Claudia was that I’d returned, no matter how good the timing was, Mimi-wise, I still wasn’t one hundred percent happy about being back in Stoneybrook. So I said to Claud what I’d said to Laine that morning: “I’m not sure I made the right decision.”
“About what?” Claudia looked up from an open suitcase. I’d found the hangers and was carefully arranging my clothes in the closet as Claud unpacked them and handed them to me.
“About — about —” I floundered. I didn’t want Claud to think I wasn’t glad to be with her again, but … but I wasn’t. Not entirely. “About which of my parents to live with,” I said finally.
“You had to choose one of them,” said Claud matter-of-factly.
“I know, but then the other one was hurt and it’s my fault.”
“No, it isn’t. You didn’t ask for this divorce. They wanted it. Parents can do things their kids don’t have any control over at all.”
“Yeah,” I replied thoughtfully. “Sometimes I understand it because, after all, they are the adults. Other times it doesn’t seem fair. But then I think, They’re feeding us, they’re taking care of us. You know.”
“I’m not sure that gives them the right to do whatever they want to us, though,” said Claud. “Look how unhappy they’ve made you.”
“Do I actual
ly look unhappy?” I asked.
“Not as unhappy as I’d expected. I thought you’d be crying your eyes out.”
“Oh, believe me. I already have. There aren’t any tears left.”
“Well, I just want you to know,” said Claud, handing me a shirt, “that I understand if you aren’t completely happy to be back.”
“You do?”
“Sure. I love Stoneybrook, but I grew up here. You grew up in great big, glamorous New York City. And you had to leave your dad behind.”
I didn’t know what to say. I guess I should have given Claudia more credit — I mean, for understanding. That’s what best friends are for. And Claud is my Connecticut best friend.
Finally I just said, “Thank you,” which didn’t quite follow Claud’s statement, but I knew she knew what I meant.
Then I changed the subject. “Mom said I could decorate my room any way I want. You know, new rug, curtains, wallpaper, whatever.”
“Wow! Can I help?”
This project was right up Claudia’s alley.
“You better,” I told her. “I’ll need your opinions.”
“What colors are you thinking of?”
“Blue and white,” I replied immediately.
“Your stuff’s already blue and white.”
“Well, I want different blue and white stuff.”
Claudia laughed. “I am so glad you’re back!” she cried. She held her arms out and we hugged.
But I could not say, “I’m glad to be back.”
Not then, anyway.
Mom and I didn’t finish unpacking until almost a week later. When we did finish, the house still looked awfully bare.
“Well, we did move just half an apartment full of stuff into a whole huge house,” said Mom.
I burst out laughing.
“What?” asked my mother.
“The yard sale!” I hooted. “Don’t you remember the yard sale?”
When we were moving away from Stoneybrook at the beginning of the school year, we had decided that we could never fit all the stuff we’d bought to fill up our house into our new apartment in the city. So we’d held a yard sale and gotten rid of some of it.
“Maybe we could buy it back,” said Mom, with a grin.
“Yeah! For the same price we sold it — twenty-dollar couches, that sort of thing.”
“Actually,” said Mom, “you’ve got a point. We could buy things at other people’s yard sales. We’ll never have enough money for all new furniture.”
“Are you sure we can afford to decorate my room?”
“I’m positive. That’s special. Your dad and I talked it over and set aside money for it. You can fix up your room in New York, too.”
This all sounded kind of like a pay-off — for letting my parents get a divorce. But of course I couldn’t say that.
“So how’s school?” asked Mom. It was Friday afternoon. I had been back at Stoneybrook Middle School for five days. I had to admit that I felt as if I’d never been away. I hadn’t been lying when I’d written on my list of New York versus Stoneybrook that I liked SMS better than my private school in New York. The kids in Stoneybrook are just as cliquey as the ones in the city, but they aren’t nearly as snobby. I’m not saying that all kids who go to private schools are snobs (because then I’d be calling myself a snob!), but that an awful lot of the ones at my old school were snobs.
“School’s great,” I admitted to Mom.
“And math?”
I’m an excellent math student, and when I’d returned to SMS, the teachers had put me into the high-school level algebra class. It was hard — but fun.
“Math is fine. It’s — it’s no problem. Get it?” I said. “No problem?”
Mom just shook her head.
“Well, I better go,” I said. “I’m sitting for Charlotte this afternoon, and then I have a meeting of the Baby-sitters Club. I’ll be home a little after six, okay?”
“Okay.”
I put on my jacket and headed for the door.
I opened the door.
I waited.
“ ’Bye!” I called.
“ ’Bye!” said Mom.
I waited again.
Nothing.
Mom had not said, “Have fun and be careful,” once since we’d re-arrived in Stoneybrook. I kind of missed it.
I climbed onto my ten-speed and headed for Charlotte’s. When I reached her house, I chained my bike to the Johanssens’ lamppost (I probably didn’t need to, but New York habits die hard), and ran to their front door. Charlotte opened it before I rang the bell.
“Stacey! Stacey! Stacey!” she cried.
It was my first official sitting job for Charlotte since my return, and we were both pretty excited.
“Hi, Dr. Johanssen,” I greeted Charlotte’s mother.
“Oh, Stacey, is it ever good to have you back,” she replied.
Dr. Johanssen and I like each other a lot. She helped me through a bad time with my diabetes right after our first move to Stoneybrook.
“Stacey, I have to show you something!” Charlotte cried, and flew up to her room to get whatever it was.
“I think you’re going to find a new Charlotte,” said Dr. Johanssen in a low tone, as she put on her coat. She smiled at me. “She’s more outgoing, she’s happier, and she even has a few friends now — but she still needs you.” Dr. Johanssen paused at the bottom of the stairs. “I’m leaving now, Charlotte,” she called. “I’ll be at the hospital. Daddy will be home by five-fifteen. You and Stacey know where the emergency numbers are.”
“Okay, Mom!” replied Charlotte. She didn’t even come out of her room.
Dr. Johanssen raised her eyebrows as if to say, “You see how she’s changed?” The old Charlotte would have run downstairs to give her mother a desperate good-bye kiss.
Dr. J. was right. Charlotte and I had fun that afternoon, and Charlotte was still sweet and thoughtful and more interested in reading books than in doing anything else. But she was no longer clingy and frightened. And she got three phone calls from friends, and chatted away with them.
Charlotte was growing up.
Mr. J. came home promptly at five-fifteen, and I jumped on my bike and headed over to Claudia’s for the BSC meeting. It was my third since I’d returned to Stoneybrook, and I have to say that I relished every minute of each one.
I was the first to arrive at the Kishis’, so I settled myself in my usual spot on Claudia’s bed and watched her conduct a search for junk food. She was a little low that day and found only a roll of Lifesavers, a pack of those Twinkies with that disgusting fruit-and-creme mixture inside of them, and a bag of taco chips.
Then I got to watch the other members arrive. Kristy thundered up the stairs in her jeans, sneakers, a sweater, and a turtleneck. Mary Anne entered Claud’s room quietly, wearing a new flared green dress. Dawn bounced into the room in a pair of jeans with zippers up the legs, her long hair flowing down her back like a blonde waterfall. Jessi ran in breathlessly, straight from a dance class, her leotard still on under her clothes. And Mal arrived last, wearing a totally new outfit — a sequined sweat shirt, a short skirt, and pink leggings. None of us had seen her dressed like that before. Apparently, her mother and father hadn’t, either.
“Can you believe it?” exclaimed Mal, without even saying hi to us. “My parents practically had nervous breakdowns over these clothes. I bought them with my own money, which I’m allowed to do, but they say this outfit’s too grown up. I’m eleven, for heaven’s sake.”
This is an old Mallory problem. We’ve heard the story before, but it doesn’t mean we don’t sympathize with Mal, so we listened patiently while she went on. (Luckily for Mal, it was only 5:25, so she had five minutes to talk before Kristy would get antsy.)
“What do they want?” wailed Mal. “I’ve stopped asking to get contact lenses. And I got the stupid braces they’re making me wear for two years. Sheesh.”
“Mal,” I began, but she didn’t hear me.
; “I wish,” she said at last, “that I could do something really great to prove to Mom and Dad that I’m not just a kid anymore.”
Kristy, Dawn, Mary Anne, Claudia, and I looked at each other. Sometimes Mal seems so young. But we made a few suggestions to her, and then Kristy began itching to bring the meeting to order. So she did.
“Any club business?” she asked.
The rest of us shook our heads. I was glad it was a Friday. If it had been a Monday, I would have had to collect our club dues, and nobody likes to part with her money.
Yes, that’s right. Dawn had gratefully given me my old job of treasurer back. She’s not as good at math as I am, and she’d liked being an alternate officer.
“More variety,” she’d said. “I get to try all the offices. I just wish you guys would be absent more often so I could fill in for you. Kristy, I don’t think you’ve ever missed a meeting. I’m dying to be president for a day.”
“Not a chance,” said Kristy, grinning.
The phone rang then. Kristy and Dawn dove for it, but Dawn reached it first. “Hello, Baby-sitters Club,” she said. “Oh, hi, Mrs. Perkins…. Tuesday afternoon? We’ll check and get right back to you.” Dawn hung up and announced that Mrs. Perkins needed a sitter for Myriah, Gabbie, and Laura on the following Tuesday. Kristy got the job, and Dawn called Mrs. Perkins to tell her so.
By six o’clock, the meeting ended, we’d lined up five jobs and eaten the whole bag of taco chips.
Mal and I rode our bikes home together.
“Are you glad you’re back?” Mal asked as we approached my turn-off.
“Yes,” I told her. But deep down I knew that I would never — ever — stop missing Dad or wishing that my parents were still together. But those were my private thoughts and I knew I was lucky. Lucky that my parents would let me go back and forth between them as long as it didn’t affect my schoolwork, lucky that I didn’t have to listen to fights anymore, lucky that since my mom insisted on moving she’d at least decided to return to Stoneybrook, where I could be with my old BSC friends.
“Yes,” I said again to Mallory. “I’m glad I’m back.”
Mal smiled. “I’ll call you tomorrow. Maybe I could come over now that we’re neighbors.”