Keep Out, Claudia!

by Ann M. Martin

  Jackie played along, humming off-key.

  Archie beat the tambourine in time to the piano.

  “Fantastic!” proclaimed Shea when they had finished. “Okay, everybody. Get ready for ‘Tomorrow.’ Claudia, you sing.”

  “Me? Sing the song?” I asked, my voice squeaking.

  “Yeah. It helps me keep my place. Besides, we’re used to hearing Myriah and Gabbie and everyone sing while we play.”

  “But I can’t sing. I have an awful voice.” (Actually, my voice isn’t all that bad, but I hadn’t memorized the words to the song.)

  “Oh, anyone can sing,” said Shea.

  “Not me.”

  “I’ll sing then,” said Archie.

  Shea looked suspiciously at his youngest brother. “Are you sure you know the words?” he asked.

  “Sure I’m sure. Let’s start.”

  “Ready, guys? I’ll count you off,” I said. “One, two, three, four.”

  Shea’s fingers hit the keys, Jackie blew seriously into his kazoo, and Archie beat the tambourine and sang, “The sun’ll come out tomorrow. Bet your bell bottoms tomorrow there’ll be —”

  Shea stopped playing. “Excuse me?”

  “What?” said Archie.

  Jackie cracked up. “You said ‘Bet your bell bottoms’!”

  “All right, we won’t have a singer,” said Shea, sighing dramatically.

  “Then can I have a tambourine solo?” Archie wanted to know.

  “NO!” cried Shea.

  He was clearly frustrated, but the rehearsal had to stop for awhile anyway when Jackie dropped his kazoo into the piano.

  “You know what?” I said when the kazoo had been recovered. “It’s time to go to Jamie’s. Jackie, Archie, remember your instruments. Shea, remember your music.”

  * * *

  The Rodowsky boys and I set out for the walk to the Newtons’. We could hear our band long before we could see it. From several houses away drifted toots and beeps and jingles and crashes and plinks and shouts and laughs and giggles.

  “Hello, everybody!” called Jackie as we stepped through the gate in the Newtons’ fence. “We have great news!”

  “What is it?” asked Kristy and, one by one, heads turned toward us.

  Jackie stepped forward. “I thought of a name for our band,” he said. “I think we should call ourselves All the Children, because we are sort of like all the children of the world.”

  For just a moment I thought some of the kids, especially the older ones, might give him a hard time. But they just began to smile. I glanced at Kristy and she was smiling, too. So were the other members of the BSC. I put my arm around Jackie.

  “I guess that’s settled,” said Kristy. “Okay. Who are we missing today?” She gazed around the yard.

  We ran our rehearsals loosely. Anyone who was free was expected to show up. Anyone who wasn’t free was simply supposed to try to show up at the next rehearsal. That afternoon, the Lowell kids were missing. So were the Barretts, Linny Papadakis, and David Michael Thomas. Even so, we were left with a fairly impressive band and three of our four singers.

  “Okay, kids,” I said. “Places!”

  In the scramble that followed, Claire Pike fell and bumped her knees, Archie managed to sit on his tambourine (without breaking it), Hannie Papadakis lost her harmonica, and two kids announced that they had shown up for rehearsal without their drums. So Mal soothed her sister, Mary Anne helped Archie and Hannie, and Kristy said, “How could you come to a band rehearsal without your instruments?”

  The kids shrugged.

  “Kristy?” said Jamie. “Mommy put some empty coffee cans in the garage. We could use them for drums today.”

  So we did.

  Then, “Places, everyone!” I called again.

  I turned to Marilyn Arnold and Shea at the keyboard. “One, two —”

  “Hey!” We were interrupted by Karen Brewer, Kristy’s sister, who looked extremely excited. “You know what our band needs now?” she cried. “Since we have a name, we need to paint our name on one of our big drums. All the best bands do that. We would look so awesome. A huge round drum that said ‘ALL THE CHILDREN’.”

  “But we don’t have a huge round drum,” pointed out Myriah. “Our drums are oatmeal cartons and coffee cans.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Karen looked disappointed.

  “I suppose,” I said, “that we could write ‘ALL THE CHILDREN’ on the lids of the oatmeal cartons, but no one would see that.”

  “I have an idea,” spoke up Mary Anne. “How about if we make a banner with our name? We could make a really long one.”

  “Out of felt,” I added. “We could cut out the letters and glue them onto a piece of background material.”

  “Pink and white!” cried Karen.

  “Those are girl colors,” said Nicky Pike. “How about blue and white?”

  “Boy colors!” countered Karen.

  “You guys, we need to rehearse,” Kristy broke in.

  “And then, when we have our banner, we should give a show,” said Jackie. “For our families and friends.”

  “We really need —” began Kristy.

  “A musical program!” said Becca Ramsey.

  “With lots of songs,” added Charlotte Johanssen.

  “We haven’t even learned one song,” muttered Kristy.

  “We could play all the songs from Annie!” exclaimed Myriah.

  “Yeah. We know the words,” said Gabbie.

  “There’s ‘Maybe’ and ‘The Hard-Knock Life’ and ‘You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile’ and ‘Little Girls,’ ” said Myriah.

  “I am not going to play a song called ‘Little Girls,’ ” said Nicky.

  “How about playing ‘Tomorrow’?” asked Kristy loudly. “Right now.”

  The kids stopped and stared at her.

  “Oh, yeah. Our rehearsal,” said Jackie.

  “Shea? Marilyn?” I said. “One, two, three, four.”

  “The sun’ll come out tomorrow!”

  When I first read Kristy’s notebook entry I got all huffy. Okay. So Mary Anne had had no trouble with the Lowell kids, and Kristy had had no trouble with them, but I could barely handle them. What did that say about me? That I was all washed up as a baby-sitter? That I was as talentless on the job as I was in school?

  That’s what I thought at first. Then I calmed down and read on.

  Kristy was not even supposed to baby-sit for the Lowells’. Mary Anne was scheduled for the Thursday afternoon job. But Kristy’s curiosity about Mrs. Lowell finally got the better of her. She decided she had to know why Mrs. Lowell was so short with me, and why she turned Jessi away. So she asked Mary Anne if she’d mind giving up her job. She even offered Mary Anne the money she would earn.

  “Oh, you don’t have to do that, Kristy,” said Mary Anne. “Go ahead and see if Mrs. Lowell minds if you and I switch. I want to know what’s going on, too. Anyway, maybe I’ll get another job for Thursday. We’ve been so busy lately.”

  So Kristy phoned Mrs. Lowell. “Hello,” she said. “This is Kristy Thomas. I’m the president of the Baby-sitters Club. We’ve talked on the phone before. Um, Mrs. Lowell, Mary Anne won’t be able to baby-sit for you on Thursday. Something came up.” (This was not, technically, a lie. Something had come up. Kristy wanted to meet Mrs. Lowell, that was what.) “But if it’s all right with you, I can take her place. I’m thirteen, like Mary Anne, and I’m a very responsible sitter. Everyone says so.”

  “We-ell,” said Mrs. Lowell, “all right. I’ll be in a bind if I don’t have a sitter on Thursday, so I guess it will be okay.”

  A brief silence followed, and Kristy sensed that Mrs. Lowell wanted to say something more. When she didn’t, Kristy said, “So … good-bye, Mrs. Lowell. See you on Thursday.”

  “Good-bye.”

  * * *

  Ding-dong.

  Thursday had arrived and Kristy was at the Lowells’ front door. Her heart pounded as she waited for Mrs. Lowell to open it.
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  Kristy wasn’t taking any chances. Like Jessi, she arrived exactly five minutes early; no more, no less. And she was wearing a skirt. For Kristy, this was a supreme sacrifice. Ordinarily, she wears dresses or skirts only for special occasions, or if her mother makes her. But to go to the Lowells’, Kristy put on a Mary Anne type of outfit — skirt, blouse, knee socks, loafers, even a ribbon in her hair.

  Sure enough, when Mrs. Lowell answered the door, she did just what she’d done to Mary Anne and Jessi and me. She eyed Kristy — just for a moment. Then she smiled and invited her inside.

  Kristy got the nice treatment, the Mary Anne treatment. This was good because after Mrs. Lowell had shown Kristy the emergency numbers and given her special instructions, Kristy felt comfortable enough to say, “Mrs. Lowell, since you’re a new client of the Baby-sitters Club, may I ask you a very important question? About the quality of our service?”

  “Certainly.” Mrs. Lowell smiled.

  “Are you satisfied with us so far? Are we doing a good job?”

  “Oh, I’m quite pleased.”

  “Pleased with Mary Anne Spier?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Pleased with Claudia Kishi?”

  “She did a perfectly adequate job.”

  “But you don’t want her to sit for you again?”

  Mrs. Lowell’s voice came out in a croak: “It’s just that the children simply adore Mary Anne.”

  “And Jessi —”

  “Mackie!” Mrs. Lowell called suddenly. “Caitlin! Is that you?”

  “Yup, it’s me. Hi, Mommy!”

  “Hi, Mom!” added Caitlin.

  The kids ran into the kitchen and Mrs. Lowell focused her attention on them. Kristy didn’t have another chance to ask her about Jessi. But that didn’t stop her from asking the kids questions.

  Later, when Celeste had awakened from her nap, and she and Caitlin and Mackie were eating a snack with their new baby-sitter, Kristy said, “Do you guys like being in the band?”

  “Yup,” said Caitlin and Mackie.

  “I like playing my sticks,” added Celeste. “I am good at that.”

  “Did you know the band has a name now?” asked Kristy.

  “It does?” replied Mackie. “What?”

  “All the Children.”

  Caitlin nodded. “Very nice.”

  “I wish you guys could come more often,” said Kristy. (The Lowell kids missed more rehearsals than they attended.)

  “Mommy says she wants to see what we do there,” Caitlin informed Kristy. “She hasn’t met the kids yet.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know. She likes to know who we’re playing with.”

  “Oh.” Kristy nodded. That made sense. Her mom and Watson liked to get to know the friends of her younger brothers and sisters.

  “You’re a nice baby-sitter,” Mackie said a moment later.

  “Thanks,” replied Kristy. “I’m glad your mom calls our club. What do you think of your other sitters?”

  “Mary Anne is fun!” said Caitlin. “She played games with us.”

  “I bet you liked Claudia, too. She’s the one who helped you join the band. Remember? She took you to the Hobarts’.”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Caitlin, and giggled. “She’s the funny-looking one.”

  (Well, thanks a lot.)

  For a moment, Kristy was confused. If I do say so myself, I am one of the more sophisticated kids at SMS. Everyone agrees. And one boy at school, Pete Black, has even said I’m awesome-looking. They say that about Stacey, too. It’s pretty much accepted that both of us are way cool.

  Which was why Kristy paused at the “funny-looking” comment. Then she thought about my clothes — and remembered why she herself was wearing a skirt that afternoon. That must be what Caitlin meant. My clothes and jewelry were too wild for the Lowells’ taste.

  “You know something weird?” Kristy went on. “Your mom hired another baby-sitter that I don’t think you guys even saw.”

  “Did she come really, really late at night?” Mackie wondered.

  “Nope. She came in the afternoon.”

  “What does she look like?” asked Caitlin. “Maybe we did see her.”

  “Well, she’s a dancer. She wears her hair pulled back. Her legs are really long. Um, she’s African-American —”

  Caitlin and Mackie were both drinking juice at that moment, and they nearly choked. “Well,” said Caitlin scornfully, coughing, “I guess Mommy didn’t like her.” At least, that’s what Kristy thought she said. But Caitlin was coughing so hard she might have said, “I guess that’s why Mommy didn’t like her.”

  * * *

  Kristy couldn’t stop thinking about the Lowells. She thought about them while her brother Charlie drove her home late that afternoon. And she thought about them during dinner.

  “Kristy?” said her mother as they were clearing the table. “Are you all right? You’re awfully quiet.”

  “Quiet for Kristy, or quiet for a normal person?” asked Sam.

  Mrs. Brewer gave her son a Look.

  Kristy barely heard him. “Mom, can we talk? Tonight?”

  “Of course, honey. Girl talk?”

  “No. Just serious talk. Can Nannie and Watson talk with us?”

  “Whoa!” exclaimed Sam, and he whistled softly. “This must be major. What did you do?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I’ll find Nannie and Watson,” said Kristy’s mother.

  “Are you flunking something?” asked Sam.

  “Let’s go in the living room, honey.”

  “Did you break something?” persisted Sam. “Steal something? Tell a lie?”

  Kristy followed her mother into the living room. When Watson and her grandmother had joined them, she said, “What I’m going to say sounds awful, and I don’t have any proof, but I have to talk to an adult. It’s about the Lowells.”

  “Go ahead,” said Mrs. Brewer.

  “I think they’re, um, racists.”

  “That’s a pretty strong word,” said Watson.

  Kristy nodded. “I know. But Mrs. Lowell wouldn’t let Jessi in their house, and the kids call Claudia ‘the funny-looking one.’ At first I thought they meant her clothes, but I have this horrible feeling they meant her — her face. Her eyes. They mean she’s Asian.” Kristy explained about our jobs with the Lowells.

  When she finished speaking, she saw her mother and stepfather and grandmother looking worriedly at one another. Finally Nannie sighed and said, “With each generation I think it’s going to be over. But it isn’t even getting better. Maybe I’m just an old fool.”

  “The Lowells are the foolish ones, Nannie,” said Kristy.

  “Those poor children,” murmured Mrs. Brewer. “They aren’t even given the chance to make up their minds for themselves.”

  Watson nodded. “The sins of the fathers, et cetera.”

  “You know what?” said Kristy, her lower lip trembling. “I was hoping I was wrong. I was hoping you guys would tell me I was imagining things. Or being too dramatic or something.”

  “Oh, honey,” said Mrs. Brewer. “I’d like to do that. Parents want to protect their children from everything that’s bad. But they can’t.”

  Kristy rested her head on her mother’s shoulder. “Maybe I am wrong, though.”

  “I guess,” began Kristy, “that you guys are wondering what’s going on.”

  I nodded.

  “Yes,” replied Jessi and Mal and Dawn.

  “We need to talk about Mrs. Lowell,” said Kristy.

  I felt as if a block of ice had been dropped in my stomach. Something was very wrong. Kristy had been quiet at school that day, even during lunch. Now she was sitting in my director’s chair, conducting a club meeting, but she’d forgotten to put on her presidential visor. And instead of sticking her pencil over her ear, she was toying nervously with it in her lap, twisting it in and out of her fingers.

  Mrs. Lowell. Kristy had taken Mary Anne’s sitting job at the
Lowells’ the day before. What had happened. What had Mrs. Lowell said? I was convinced I was in trouble.

  Kristy bit her lip.

  “What is it, Kristy?” asked Stacey. “What’s wrong?”

  Kristy looked so uncomfortable that I decided to save her from further torture. “I guess it’s my fault. I blew my job at the Lowells and they’ve decided not to use the club anymore, right?” I said. “It’s okay, Kristy. Just come out and say it.”

  Kristy couldn’t look up. “That isn’t exactly what’s going on. But I guess I am trying to spare your feelings, Claud. Look, you guys. I think I made a horrible discovery. I talked about it with Mom and Watson and Nannie last night, and they think I might be right. The worst thing is, if I am right, we can’t do anything.”

  “Kristy, please just tell me what —” Dawn began.

  “The Lowells are prejudiced,” said Kristy in a rush. “Claud, they didn’t like you because you’re Japanese. Jessi, Mrs. Lowell wouldn’t even let you in her house because you’re African-American.”

  My mouth dropped open. “But I’m a good baby-sitter!” I protested. I could feel my hands trembling and my cheeks burning. “That’s — that’s not fair! It really isn’t fair.” I looked at Jessi who was sitting cross-legged on the floor with Mallory. She wasn’t saying anything. “Jessi, aren’t you mad?” I demanded. “At least Mrs. Lowell let me in the house. She closed her door to you.”

  “It’s happened before,” said Jessi quietly.

  “Well, not to me!” I cried. For some reason I felt ashamed and I had the uncomfortable feeling that Kristy, Mary Anne, Mallory, Stacey, and Dawn felt ashamed for Jessi and me. “So — so what does being Asian have to do with being a good sitter?” I sputtered.

  “Nothing,” replied Jessi. “Prejudice doesn’t make sense.”

  “It isn’t rational or logical,” added Mary Anne.

  I was growing angry. The ice in my stomach had turned into a flame and now it was rising up, filling me, surrounding me. The problem was that I didn’t know who to be angry at, since Mrs. Lowell wasn’t in the room. Finally I got angry at my friends. “Will you guys at least look at me?” I shouted. “I am not dirt, you know. Nothing is wrong with me.”

  “Mrs. Lowell thinks we’ll contaminate her children — and her house,” said Jessi bitterly.