Contents
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Letter from Ann M. Martin
Acknowledgment
About the Author
Scrapbook
Also Available
Copyright
“Happy families are all alike.” That’s a quote, sort of, in case you wondered, from a book called Anna Karenina by a Russian writer named Leo Tolstoy. It’s the very first line of the book, which has about a million more lines — it’s a long book.
Have I read it? Don’t worry. I haven’t. At least not yet. But as a member of the Baby-sitters Club (more about that later), I’ve had the chance to meet someone who has. Our Baby-sitters Club vice-president Claudia Kishi’s older sister, Janine, who is a genuine genius, has read the whole book. Once when I was at Claudia’s I told Janine about a homework assignment: to write a memorable, unforgettable opening sentence for a story. That’s when she told me the quote.
I was thinking about that quote on a warm, sunny summer Saturday while I was eating breakfast with my family. My stepsister Dawn Schafer was polishing off a bowl of granola with plain yogurt and fruit. My father was carefully cutting a second bagel in half, and spreading it with precisely one tablespoon of cream cheese. My stepmother Sharon was frowning down at her place as if she had mislaid something (she’s a little, well, disorganized). I was eating a toasted bagel with lots and lots of butter and raspberry jam.
I stopped to look around the table and thought about what Tolstoy had said, and wondered if it were true. I knew we were a happy family, but I was pretty sure we weren’t like any other families I knew.
For example, Dawn was my best friend before she was my stepsister. And I have a stepbrother, Jeff, who is Dawn’s younger brother, but who lives in California with his and Dawn’s father. And Sharon and my father used to date (years and years ago) right here in Stoneybrook where we live. And …
Wait. I better begin at the beginning.
I’m Mary Anne Spier. I’m thirteen years old and I’m in the eighth grade at Stoneybrook Middle School. I’m the secretary of the Baby-sitters Club (my friends and I call it the BSC) and I live in a spooky old farmhouse with my father and my stepmother and Dawn. Dawn is also in the eighth grade at SMS and a member of the BSC.
But it wasn’t always that way. I was an only child. My mother died when I was just a baby, and my father raised me on his own. Meanwhile, Dawn’s parents got divorced and Dawn’s mother decided to move back to Stoneybrook, because it was her hometown. She brought Dawn and Jeff with her.
Dawn and I became friends and she joined the Baby-sitters Club (she’s the alternate officer). And then we discovered that her mother and my father used to know each other when they were in high school and living in Stoneybrook.
How did Dawn and I turn out to be such great detectives? Well, we found my dad’s and Dawn’s mother’s high school yearbooks. Inside were these really sweet love notes they’d written to each other at the end of their senior year. That’s when Dawn and I realized that not only had her mother and my father known each other, they’d been in love!
Pretty romantic. It was more romantic when (with a little help from Dawn and me), Dad and Sharon began to date again. And even though they are very different people, they fell in love and got married. So Dad and I (and my gray kitten Tigger) moved out of our house and into Dawn’s house and now we are one big (well, bigger than just my dad and me) happy family.
But happy families can’t all be alike, I don’t know any family that is just like mine. Not only are we completely different from other families, but the members of my family are pretty different from each other.
For example, my father is a very organized, meticulous person. He always buttons his coats and sweaters and shirts the same way, from bottom to top, because that way he won’t waste any time making a mistake and having the buttons come out uneven so he has to do it all over again. He alphabetizes things, like the stuff in the bathroom cabinet. And he used the same strict, by-the-book method to raise me. Don’t misunderstand me. I love my father very much. He’s a warm and caring person. But since he had to be both my mother and my father, he was very careful. Until not long ago, I used to have to wear my hair in braids and dress in conservative, little girl clothes. And when most of my friends got their ears pierced, I wasn’t allowed to. Gradually I managed to convince him to be a little less strict (to let me wear my hair loose and get some more stylish clothes), but marriage to Sharon was what really loosened him up. (Now I can even wear a little makeup, but still no pierced ears. Yet!)
Sharon’s personality couldn’t be more different than my father’s. She might not notice if her sweater or coat were buttoned up the wrong way — or maybe even if it were inside out or backwards. If she were going to organize the bathroom cabinet, she’d probably arrange things according to color, or shape. And it’s a definite possibility that sooner or later you’d look in the cabinet and find something that didn’t belong at all, like a letter stamped and ready to be mailed. Sharon is absentminded that way. But she’s a wonderful person, and she and my father are really happy together.
Dawn and I are pretty opposite, too. For instance, our looks. I’m monochromatic, with brown hair and brown eyes. Dawn has incredible long, pale, pale blonde hair and blue eyes. Also, she will eat only healthy food: tofu, granola, yogurt, sprouts, hardly any sweets, and no red meat. She loves to read ghost stories. And she’s a real individualist: she has two holes pierced in each ear. She dresses in whatever way she feels like dressing, and doesn’t worry about wearing what everybody else is wearing. And although Dawn is very perceptive and kindhearted and even-tempered, she’s not afraid to take a stand on what she believes in, like protecting the environment.
That’s one of the things I admire most about Dawn, and one of the ways in which we are really different. I’m very shy and I hate confrontations. I guess that’s because I’m sensitive. I cry easily over stuff that sometimes takes even me by surprise — not just the sad things, but things such as movies that have happy endings.
And I still dress sort of conservatively (although not like a little kid anymore). I don’t mind the winters here, either, although Dawn does. She even thinks our summers don’t quite measure up to California weather standards.
Dawn misses California and her father and Jeff sometimes. (Back before my dad and Sharon even planned to get married, Jeff decided he would be happier living in California with his dad.) It was really hard for Dawn to decide where to live when her little brother wanted to go back. But at last Dawn stayed here in Stoneybrook.
I’m super glad she did.
Because as different as we all are (and as different as we are from other families) I love being a part of our family. It’s corny, maybe, but it’s true.
So that’s what I was thinking, looking dreamily around the kitchen. What a nice, happy, unlike-other-families family.
Then I saw the kitchen clock.
I blinked. I couldn’t believe how late it was. I jumped up and grabbed my plate.
“Mary Anne?” said my father, looking startled.
“I’m sitting for the Arnold twins this morning. I better get ready,” I explained.
“If you’ll put your plate in the sink, I’ll wash it,” said Dawn.
I threw her a grateful smile. “Thanks.”
As I left t
he table, Sharon looked up and the worried frown left her face. “Plate! Now I remember!” she cried. “The laundry soap! I put it in the kitchen cabinet with the dishes!”
I heard Sharon and my father and Dawn start to laugh as I hurried to my room to get ready for my baby-sitting job.
It was nice of Dawn to volunteer to take my dishwashing chores for that morning, I thought, as I hustled around getting ready. It wasn’t a big deal, but it was thoughtful.
Would I have thought to do that?
Of course I would, I told myself, but I wasn’t so sure. I’d been feeling just the opposite of thoughtful and considerate lately. Sort of, well, too self-involved. Maybe even self-centered. Hateful words to think about anybody, but especially about myself.
It had started just before school ended on Friday with something Dawn had said. I’d been worrying and worrying about a speech I had to give for English and when I asked Dawn, for about the thousandth time, what she thought people would think, she’d said, trying to be helpful, “Hey, Mary Anne, don’t worry. They’re not thinking only of you. Everyone’s got all kinds of things going on in their lives. If you think of something besides yourself, it’ll make it a lot easier.”
Was I too self-centered? Too self-involved?
I had decided that I wasn’t going to let that happen. From now on, I was going to try to put others first, and me and my needs (and selfish worries) second.
In spite of all this thinking I was doing, I got ready in record time. In fact, Dawn and my father were still sitting at the table when I hurried back downstairs. Sharon was just pushing one of the kitchen windows open.
“It’s a beautiful day,” she said. “Plenty of sun!”
“It sure is,” I said. “Can I do anything while I’m out? Any errands?”
Looking faintly mystified, Sharon and my father shook their heads.
“Dawn?” I asked.
“No, thanks, Mary Anne,” Dawn turned her face to the window. “The sun feels good. It makes me miss Jeff and California and …” her voice trailed off.
“Well,” I said cheerfully, “I just hope I can persuade the Arnolds to do something outdoors. It’s way too nice to stay inside. ’Bye!”
I waved to everybody and hustled out the door. I was just going to make it on time.
Mrs. Arnold met me at the door and left her house almost as quickly as I’d left mine, waving good-bye to Marilyn and Carolyn in a jingle of bracelets and necklaces, promising she’d be back from her meeting by two o’clock.
I left the door open after Mrs. Arnold had driven away and motioned to the world outside. “Why don’t we go exploring?” I asked the twins.
The idea appealed to Carolyn instantly. She wants to be a scientist and once even “invented” a very real-looking time machine in her basement. Although she and Marilyn are twins, and look exactly alike (except that Carolyn has shorter hair and a tiny mole under her left eye, and Marilyn has a tiny mole under her right eye, like mirror images), they’re as different as Dawn and I, in a way. Marilyn is not at all scientific. She’s interested in music — in fact, she’s taken piano lessons since she was four — and she’s very strict about practicing the piano at least half an hour every day. Meanwhile, Carolyn is tone-deaf.
“I’ll get my notebook,” Carolyn went on. “I can make observations about the trip.”
“Good idea.” As Carolyn hurried away I looked at Marilyn. “What about you, Marilyn? You want to go exploring?”
“I think so,” answered Marilyn. “We’re not going to get lost, though, are we?”
“No, we won’t get lost,” I promised, hiding a smile.
“Okay.” She nodded. “Columbus got lost,” she explained. “He thought he was on his way to India, but he was wrong.”
“Nobody’s perfect,” I said. “But we’re not going all the way to India. We’re just going to walk along Burnt Hill Road. Maybe we can visit the Stones’ farm. It’s a little past my house.”
“A farm!” said Carolyn, who had returned clutching an official-looking notebook and a pen. “Great!”
“Come on, then,” I said, taking Marilyn and Carolyn each by the hand. “Maybe there’ll even be a surprise when we get there.”
I was thinking about Elvira Stone. She’s not a member of the Stone family, exactly. What she is, is a goat. A very, very cute baby goat that Dawn and I goat-sat for this past spring.
While Carolyn and Marilyn tried to guess what the surprise might be, and I gave them mysterious hints, we walked slowly down Burnt Hill Road. In addition to asking me questions about the surprise, Carolyn had to stop every few minutes to flip her notebook open and write “observations” in it. But it was Marilyn who startled me when she tilted her head and said, “Listen.”
We stopped and listened. I heard the sound of a lawn mower, the faint mooing of a cow, the wind in the trees, and the usual bird song noises.
“What is it?” I asked Marilyn.
“It’s a cardinal,” she said.
I listened. The usual bird song noises. All different kinds.
Then Marilyn said, “That …” and I heard (I think) the cardinal’s song. I wouldn’t have known it, or picked it out from the other bird sounds.
I was impressed.
“That’s great, Marilyn,” I told her.
Carolyn looked puzzled. “How can you tell which one it is?”
“It sounds different,” explained Marilyn.
“It does? Hmmm.” Carolyn listened for a moment, then flipped open her book and wrote something down.
We passed my house and soon came to the Stones’ farm. As we were crossing the road, a quail burst out from the tall grass at the side of the road and raced across.
“A quail,” said Carolyn, writing in her book. “Also known as the bobwhite for its song.”
As if to help Carolyn out, we heard “bobwhite, bobwhite, bobwhite”! We looked at each other. “Bobwhite!” cried Carolyn happily, and Marilyn nodded.
We passed the Stones’ truly awesome vegetable garden, complete with a scarecrow.
“Wow,” breathed Marilyn. “Is that the surprise. A real scarecrow?”
“No,” I said.
We skirted a rusty tractor and were just walking toward the house when Mrs. Stone came out of the barn. Chickens scattered in front of her as she walked briskly forward.
I raised my hand and waved.
“Mary Anne!” she said.
“Hi, Mrs. Stone,” I answered. “I’ve brought Marilyn and Carolyn Arnold to visit your farm — and to see Elvira.”
“Welcome, Marilyn and Carolyn,” Mrs. Stone said.
“Hello, Mrs. Stone,” said Marilyn and Carolyn, at exactly the same time and in the same tone of voice. They didn’t even seem to notice.
“Who’s Elvira?” asked Marilyn.
“Is that the surprise?” asked Carolyn.
“You’ll see,” I told them.
Mrs. Stone dipped her hand in the bucket, scattering corn around her feet. There was a flurry of chickens, scratching and squawking. Carolyn began making notes as fast as she could.
“Here,” said Mrs. Stone. “Why don’t you feed them some corn, too?”
So Marilyn and Carolyn each reached in the bucket and scattered handfuls of corn for the chickens. Mrs. Stone stepped to one side and we watched.
“They’re so funny,” said Carolyn, as she emptied the last of the corn out.
“Was that the surprise?” asked Marilyn.
“No,” I said.
“Elvira?” said Mrs. Stone softly to me.
I nodded.
“Okay,” said Mrs. Stone. “One surprise, coming up.”
Well, Elvira, the cutest baby goat in the world, was of course a big hit. She bounded across the pen when she saw us and butted her head between the fence rails. “Beaaaah,” she said.
The twins began to coo and pet her.
But I was almost as surprised as they were.
“Wow, she’s really grown,” I said to Mrs. Stone.
r /> “Yes. But she’s still a baby at heart,” she replied fondly.
When we finally persuaded the twins to say good-bye to Elvira, Mrs. Stone gave us a tour of the rest of the farm. Carolyn’s pen flew as she took notes. Marilyn even helped Carolyn, pointing out things that Carolyn might have missed, such as “That pig has nine babies, Carolyn. Did you write that down?”
Mrs. Stone smiled and turned to me. “It’s true, isn’t it, Mary Anne, that you like sewing and needlework?”
“Yes, it is,” I said. “I’m just learning, though.”
“Have you ever met Mrs. Towne? She lives just down the road.” She waved in the direction in which we’d come. “She’s quite a seamstress — and a gardener. You might have noticed her garden before.”
I thought I had. Not many houses are on our road.
“Mrs. Towne is an expert at smocking and quilting and French hand sewing. You should meet her, and see her work. She’s won quite a few prizes for it. It’s really wonderful.”
“I’d like that,” I told Mrs. Stone. “A lot!” (Even though I was a disaster in home ec, I still love sewing.)
Just then a goose came marching up to us, stretching its neck and honking.
“Uh-oh!” said Marilyn.
“Oh no!” said Carolyn.
“Don’t worry,” said Mrs. Stone. “That’s Screaming Yellow Honker. He’s our watch goose.”
I was as fascinated as Marilyn and Carolyn by the idea of a watch goose, and I listened intently as she told us about Honker. But I didn’t forget about Mrs. Towne, and as we were walking home a little later, I made a point of looking for her house. Sure enough, there it was, halfway between the Stones’ farm and our house, sitting back on about an acre of cleared land set in the woods by the road. Stone fences marked the edges of it, and lined the driveway. It was a tidy old white farmhouse, with all kinds of flowers and trees around it: azaleas, which were just finishing blooming, late daffodils, sweet alyssum with its honey smell, zinnias. I recognized beds of vegetables, too, tomatoes and foot-high stalks of sweet corn. If Mrs. Towne was as good at sewing as she was at gardening, I could learn plenty from her.
But how would I meet her? I couldn’t just walk up to her door and knock. I wondered if she had any children, and might need a baby-sitter. That would be one way to meet her.