Baby-Sitters on Board!

by Ann M. Martin

  Everyone said hi and I tried to explain to the girls how I knew Marc, and to Marc why I was with the Pikes.

  Claire showed Marc her new pencil.

  “Awesome!” said Marc.

  Claire grinned. “How old are you?”

  “Seven,” Marc replied.

  “My age!” exclaimed Margo. “You’re seven?”

  “I’m a little small.”

  “Not smaller than me,” said Claire defensively. “I’m five,” she added.

  “Do you like video games?” Margo asked Marc, and I knew she wanted to get going.

  “Yes, I do,” he answered, giving his father that look again.

  Mr. Kubacki shrugged. “That video arcade is so noisy,” he said to me. “I’d do almost anything for Marc, but ten minutes in one of those places drives me crazy.”

  “Want to come with us, Marc?” asked Claire.

  I glanced at Mr. Kubacki, remembering how protective he was of his son.

  “I don’t know….” said Marc’s father.

  At least he hadn’t said no. Marc began to look hopeful. “Could I?” he asked, looking from his father to me.

  “It’s fine with me,” I told Mr. Kubacki. “We’d be glad to have Marc along.”

  “That way you could go take your swim,” Marc said to his father.

  “Well,” replied Mr. Kubacki, “all right. I’m sure you’re responsible.” He was probably thinking about my diabetes, and my diet, and my insulin shots, which we had talked about the night I met the Kubackis.

  “Yea!” cried Marc. “Thanks, Dad.”

  We made arrangements for where and when to meet, and Mr. Kubacki gave me a few quick instructions. Then we separated. The girls pushed Marc’s wheelchair toward the arcade and I walked behind them. A few seconds later, I glanced back. Mr. Kubacki was watching us worriedly. I waved to let him know that everything would be all right. He smiled and set off for the Sun Deck.

  “So how come you have to ride in this wheelchair, anyway?” asked Margo.

  I cringed. But Marc replied cheerfully, “I’ve got a bad heart.”

  “Can you walk?” asked Claire.

  “Of course,” said Marc, sounding insulted. “But I’m not supposed to. It makes my heart muscles work too hard. I can’t do anything that’s like exercise.”

  “But you can play video games, right?” said Margo.

  “Sure — if I can sit up high enough.”

  Oops. That hadn’t occurred to me. How was Marc going to reach the game controls from his sitting position? But we solved that problem as soon as we reached the arcade and got our quarters. One of the ship’s stewards was nice enough to give Marc two big cushions to sit on. Then he even gave Marc, Claire, and Margo each a free game.

  The kids’ friendship was cemented.

  They were so awed by the free games that all they could do was exclaim over their good luck. Then they started talking about Disney World and the rides.

  “I can’t wait to see the castle!” cried Margo.

  “Oh, Margo-silly-billy-goo-goo —” Claire began, and Marc burst out laughing.

  “Silly-billy-goo-goo!” he repeated.

  Claire and Margo got the giggles.

  When they calmed down, the three of them finally played some games. But in between, their conversation continued. I was just thinking that the girls seemed to have forgotten that Marc was wheelchair-bound, when Claire finished a game of Donkey Kong and ran to Marc urgently.

  “How are you going to go on Space Mountain in your wheelchair?” she wanted to know. (Space Mountain is supposed to be the wildest ride at Disney World. It’s a high-speed roller coaster through dark tunnels that look like outer space.)

  “Oh, I can’t go on Space Mountain,” said Marc soberly. “I can get out of my wheelchair to go on quiet rides, but not on a roller coaster.”

  The three kids grew silent. It was as if the girls hadn’t realized how sick Marc was until he said he couldn’t go on Space Mountain.

  They were about out of quarters then and we weren’t going to meet Marc’s father for another half an hour, so I made a suggestion. I hoped it would perk them up. “How about getting a treat at the ice-cream parlor?” I asked.

  This was met with cheers, so with the girls pushing Marc, we made our way to the Scooper-Duper Ice-Cream Parlor. It looked like an old-fashioned soda shop with little round tables and wire chairs with curlicues all over them. The waiters and waitresses were wearing red-and-white striped jackets.

  “Hey, there’s Claudia!” exclaimed Margo as we were looking for a table.

  Claudia was sitting by herself, nursing a butterscotch sundae. She’s a junk-food addict and looked as if she were in seventh heaven.

  “Hi, you guys,” she said.

  “Hi,” Claire and Margo and I replied.

  Then I introduced Marc to Claudia.

  “What are you eating?” Claire asked Claudia.

  “A butterscotch sundae,” she replied.

  Claire made a face. “I want a chocolate soda,” she told me.

  “Me too,” said Margo and Marc.

  We sat at Claudia’s table and ordered chocolate sodas. (I had to get a Diet Coke, which is one of the worst things about having diabetes — missing out on treats.)

  When it was almost time to meet Mr. Kubacki, I took our bill up to the line at the cash register. I began to daydream but woke up when I heard the boy in front of me say to the cashier in a whisper, “And I’ll pay for her sundae, too.” The boy pointed across the room.

  Why was he whispering? And who was he pointing to? I turned to look. He was pointing at Claudia! Or at least I thought he was. An older woman was at a table in front of ours, and a girl my age was at a table in back of ours. But neither of them looked like she deserved a Secret Admirer. He must mean Claudia. This boy must be her Secret Admirer!

  I waved frantically to Claudia, but she was helping Marc with something. “Claud!” I called.

  “AHEM! Miss?”

  I turned back to the cashier, who looked very impatient.

  And I realized that the boy was gone.

  Darn! I hadn’t even gotten a good look at him. But there was nothing I could do now. The cashier and everyone on line were waiting for me to pay.

  I paid.

  Then I flew back to our table.

  “Claudia! Claudia!” I cried. “I think I just saw your Secret Admirer!” I told her what had happened and tried to remember what he had looked like, but I really hadn’t noticed. “I guess you missed him again,” I said sadly.

  “Not necessarily!” exclaimed Claudia. “See you guys later.”

  It was her turn to fly.

  “Boy,” said Marc, “this is the most fun I’ve had on the whole trip. You guys sure do exciting things.”

  He and the Pike girls smiled chocolate-soda smiles at one another. There’s nothing like new friends.

  I only wished that Claudia could find her new friend — whoever he was. But I wasn’t holding out much hope. He was always around, yet he always kept himself hidden. However, Marc was right. It had been an exciting morning. I couldn’t wait to talk to Claudia later.

  I simply couldn’t believe what Stacey had just said. Not the part about my Secret Admirer. I already knew I had one. What I couldn’t believe was that Stacey had been standing right next to him, and all she could say about his looks was that she thought he had brown hair.

  There was nothing to do but leave the Scooper-Duper right then and hope to see a brown-haired boy nearby. For a moment, I looked longingly at the five mouthfuls of melted ice cream that were still left in my dish. Then I jumped up and ran into the hallway. At least I didn’t have to waste time paying my bill. My Secret Admirer had taken care of that for me.

  I felt like someone in a spy novel. I burst through the doorway of the ice-cream parlor, skidded to a stop in the hallway, and looked left and right. To the left was a dead end. I took off in the other direction — and almost smacked into a boy who stepped out from behind a p
illar.

  He had blond hair.

  “Whoa!” he said, and I tried to catch my breath. “What’s going on?”

  “Did you see a brown-haired boy come out of here a couple of minutes ago?” I gasped.

  “Was he running like you?”

  “I don’t know. He might have been. Did someone run by?”

  “Yeah, at full speed. He came out of the ice-cream parlor.”

  “Oh, please. What did he look like?” I asked.

  “Hmm. Red hair, I think. Great sneakers. I really wasn’t paying attention.”

  Great sneakers? What was wrong with everybody? Why couldn’t they be a little more observant? I didn’t have a thing to go by. Not even hair color. All I knew about my Secret Admirer was that he had nice shoes and either brown or red hair. Some clues.

  There was no point in looking any further.

  “What’s going on?” asked the boy.

  “Huh? Oh…. Well, see, this guy has been sending me notes signed ‘Your Secret Admirer.’ And he’s bought me presents and stuff, but I don’t even know who he is.”

  “If you did, he wouldn’t be a Secret Admirer,” the boy pointed out. “He’d just be an admirer.”

  I smiled. “That’s true.”

  “So who did you think you were chasing just now? I mean, what made you think that guy was your Secret Admirer?”

  The boy and I were walking slowly through the hallway, heading for one of the open decks. I explained to him what had happened in the ice-cream parlor.

  “You look pretty disappointed,” said the boy.

  I had just realized something else — my admirer was not Spider. If he was, Stacey would have recognized him for sure. She wouldn’t have missed something like that. Darn. My admirer had vanished again and he wasn’t Spider. A double blow. No wonder I looked disappointed.

  But all I said to the boy was, “I just wanted to see him. That’s all.”

  “Your admirer?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Isn’t it more fun if you don’t know who he is?”

  “Maybe. But in a few days this trip will be over and we’ll be going home. I might not ever get to know him.”

  We’d reached the deck and were standing at the railing, looking out to sea. That day was the first one we’d had since the storm that wasn’t perfectly clear. It wasn’t overcast, but big, puffy clouds were looming on the horizon.

  “Maybe he’s shy.”

  “What?” My thoughts were drifting around like seaweed.

  “Maybe your Secret Admirer is shy,” said the boy. “Maybe he’s afraid you won’t like him, so he’s being really nice to you before he introduces himself.”

  I brightened. “You know, I’ll bet you’re right! How come I didn’t think of that? You’re a complete stranger, and you have it all figured out.”

  “I’m a boy,” said the boy.

  I nodded. That made sense. “My name is Claudia,” I told him.

  “I’m Timothy.”

  We paused.

  “So …” I said.

  Why were we suddenly having trouble making conversation? It had seemed easier when we didn’t know each other’s names.

  “So …” said Timothy.

  I cleared my throat. “Where are you from?” Maybe he would be from someplace exotic like Tahiti or Los Angeles. At least that would give us something to talk about.

  “I’m from Connecticut,” he replied. “How about you?”

  “Hey, I’m from Connecticut, too! From Stoneybrook.”

  “No kidding. I’m from Darien. That’s not too far from Stoneybrook.”

  My geography is terrible, so I wasn’t sure, but I figured Timothy knew what he was talking about.

  “Are you on this trip with your family?” I asked.

  “Yup.” Timothy nodded.

  “Oh. I came with friends.” I tried to explain about Kristy and her mom and Watson and the girls in the Baby-sitters Club, but I think I only confused him.

  “Hey, I just thought of something,” said Timothy. “When we’re in high school, our football teams will play against each other. It’s like we’re destined to meet again.”

  Destined to meet again, I repeated to myself. What beautiful words. “Are you by any chance a, um, I mean, do you write poetry or something?” I had to ask the question, even if it was weird. See, the first guy I ever liked was named Trevor Sandbourne, and he was a poet. It seemed that I was always falling for poets.

  “Write poetry?” repeated Timothy.

  “Yeah. I was just wondering. Because what you said — ‘destined to meet again’ — that was beautiful.”

  “Oh, thanks! Well, I like to write, but I’m no poet.”

  I nodded. I found myself studying Timothy’s face. It was framed by curly hair. His eyes were dark, wide-set, and fringed with long lashes that I would have given my eye-teeth for. And he was the perfect height for me…. Wait a minute! What was I doing? I had a Secret Admirer. I didn’t need Timothy, too. On the other hand, the admirer wasn’t showing his face. And Timothy was awfully nice. Plus he wasn’t in hiding.

  “You know,” I said, “I’m really glad I ran into you. I was looking for my Secret Admirer, and I found you instead. Maybe this was meant to happen.”

  “Kismet,” agreed Timothy. I must have looked pretty blank because he added, “Fate.”

  “Destiny?”

  “I guess.”

  I looked out over the ocean again. And this time I saw something I hadn’t seen in several days. Land. Not just an island, but actual, honest-to-goodness land. Florida.

  “Look!” I cried. “Port Canaveral. I feel like I’m home again, even though I’ve only been here once before and I’ll probably never be back.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Timothy.

  “Tomorrow we’ll be at Disney World,” I went on, growing excited. “The beginning of three whole days of rides and junk food.”

  “Do you think, um, that maybe we could — we could spend some time together there?” asked Timothy, sounding awfully unsure of himself.

  “Definitely,” I answered. “That would be fun. Hey, listen, I better go. I don’t know about you, but I’m not even packed. There’s stuff all over our cabin. I’ve got to get ready to leave.”

  “I better go, too,” said Timothy. He looked as if it were the last thing in the world he wanted to do.

  “Walk me to my cabin, okay? Is it on your way? We’re staying on the Dolphin Deck.”

  “It’s not on my way, but I’ll walk you anyway,” said Timothy.

  So he did. He left me at the door to my cabin, and I entered it to find the usual mess, only this time, the mess was all mine. Both Kristy and Dawn were already packed. They were lying on their bunks, each reading a book. The silence in the cabin was stony.

  “I have just one thing to say,” I said menacingly to my friends.

  They looked up in surprise.

  “What I have to say is that this is our last hour in this tiny cabin. When we get to our hotel, our room will be much bigger. There will be plenty of space for all of our stuff. So I expect the two of you to quit arguing and get along. Understand?”

  The girls nodded, bewildered. I couldn’t blame them. I didn’t sound like myself at all. But I’d had just about as much of them as I could take.

  Well, Claudia was right. Our hotel room sure was bigger than our cabin on the ship. It seemed like a palace in comparison. There were two closets, two giant dressers, and storage space under both sinks.

  Both sinks. That was another thing. There were two bathrooms. Sort of. There was an actual bathroom with a shower and a toilet and a sink and everything, and then, just outside of it, there was a dressing room with another sink and a mirror and a cabinet. Very swank.

  However, there was one problem — three of us, two beds. I took one look and said, “Who gets the bed to herself?” The beds were enormous. King-size, I guess.

  At that point, Claudia put her foot down for the second time that day. “We
are going to be here three nights,” she said firmly. “So we’ll switch off. Each of us will have a bed to herself one night. And I don’t want any more contamination wars or clothes battles. There are plenty of drawers and coat hangers. We have enough space to put all of our stuff away, even mine. So let’s do it. And then you two,” she went on, glaring at Dawn and me, “are going to call a truce.”

  Dawn and I didn’t dare to argue with Claudia. We started to unpack our things. Since we weren’t talking, I switched on the TV. “Hey!” I said immediately. “We get cable here!”

  “Really?” exclaimed Dawn, who doesn’t have cable TV at her house in Connecticut. “Hey, maybe we’ll get, you know, some movies we’re not allowed to watch.”

  “R-rated?” I suggested, my eyes growing wide. “Yeah! Maybe.” (We do have cable at home, but Watson won’t let us get any of the movie channels. It’s one of the few things he’s strict about.) I started flipping channels, while Dawn opened a program guide she found on top of the TV.

  “Darn,” she said after a minute of flipping through it. “Nothing R-rated. Nothing worse than an old murder mystery. That’s on Channel Eight, if you want to watch it.”

  I flipped to eight and we went back to our unpacking. When we were finished, we realized that Claudia was right again. There was plenty of room for all our stuff. Of course, Claudia had used up more drawers and hangers than Dawn and I together, but what did we care?

  The room was as neat as a pin.

  I couldn’t resist. I opened a bag of Fritos that was in my knapsack, dumped them out on one of the bedside tables, and dropped the empty package on the floor.

  Dawn made a face at me, then snatched up the bag and flung it in a wastebasket.

  A hand closed over my Fritos. I looked up. Claudia was now making a face at me. “Kristin Amanda,” she said. “You are … you are … What’s the word? Goating her?”

  “Goading her,” I said sullenly.

  “Right. You’re goading Dawn and there’s no reason for it. Come on. We’ve got this nice, tidy, big room. And we’ve got three days at Disney World ahead of us. It would be helpful if the two of you could get along. You’d have a much better time. So would you call a truce. Please?”