Baby-Sitters Club 027

by Ann M. Martin

  When they got to Derek's house, Claudia turned into the front walk.

  "This is where you live?" asked one of the boys. His mouth was hanging open like he'd just seen a blue elephant.

  "Yeah," said Derek.

  "I thought you lived in a Disneyland castle or something," the boy said.

  Claudia had to stop herself from laughing out loud.

  She let the boys inside. They were all eyes. When she described their reaction to me, it sort of reminded me of the first time I went to Derek's house. (I wonder if the boys noticed all the old newspapers and the pile of dirty dishes.) The boys looked around at this regular house in total surprise.

  "Wow!" one said. "A house." Derek invited the kids up to his room to play. Claudia decided it would be best if she stayed out of the way a little while. So she and Todd settled into a chair in the living room with a couple of picture books. That would be good for Todd anyway, she figured. Derek gets so much of the attention so often, Todd could use some cozy one-to-one time.

  As she turned the pages of Todd's books, she could hear laughter drifting down from Derek's room. It wasn't mean laughter, either. She could hear that boy laughing, the one she figured was John, and she could hear Derek joining right in. As she sat there, Claudia congratulated herself. She figured she'd solved the Superbrat problem once and for all.

  After awhile the boys trooped down the stairs.

  "Hey, Derek, that was fun," one said.

  "Yeah, I never played that game before," said another.

  "I got it in California," said Derek.

  "Wow. Cool. See you in school tomorrow, okay?" The boys had obviously had a good time. They waved a quick good-bye to Claudia and ran outside to their bicycles. Derek stood at the doorway, waving, as his new friends coasted down the driveway and skidded out onto the sidewalk. When he closed the door, he was all smiles.

  "Hey," said Claudia, "not bad, huh?" "Yeah," Derek said. He looked truly amazed. "They liked me. We had fun." "So which one was John?" Claudia asked. She could hardly wait to get the information.

  "John?" Derek looked puzzled. "Oh. John. None of them," he said. "John isn't friends with them." Derek wandered back up to his room. He looked a little dazed from the events of the afternoon. Dazed, but happy.

  Well, Claudia thought, she hadn't exactly solved the Superbrat problem, but she had helped some of the boys to be friends with Derek, and that was a good start.

  "See you tomorrow in school," they had said.

  Not bad for one afternoon of baby-sitting.

  Chapter 10.

  The next Saturday was the day of my second audition. I also had another job scheduled at the Masterses'. Mrs. Masters had offered to pick me up after the audition and bring me straight to their house. You can bet my parents went for that idea in a big way. They end up carting me around so much for my classes that I think they sometimes feel like a ballet chauffeur service.

  I told Mrs. Masters where the theater was and what time to come, and sure enough, when I came down from the stage after my audition, I spotted her and Derek standing at the back of the theater. I waved to them and they waved back.

  "Jessica Ramsey." It was the stage manager again, calling my name from the front row of seats. She was sitting next to the choreographer, who was leaning over her, writing something on her pad. For a moment, I felt pretty scared.

  It was time to take myself in hand and give myself another little talk.

  Come on, I said to myself. They're not going to wait all day while you stand here trying to find your legs.

  "Yes?" I asked when I reached them. My voice cracked as the word came out.

  "Miss Ramsey," said the stage manager. "Congratulations. You've survived another round. We'd like to see you again next Saturday for the final audition." "Really?" I squeaked. "I mean, thank you. I mean, I'll see you next week. Thank you very much." I backed away, all smiles. Then I grabbed my bag, slipped my pants on over my tights, and ran to the back of the theater, where Derek and his mother were waiting.

  "You made the cut?" Derek asked. "They asked you back?" I guess he could tell by the big smile that had taken over my face.

  "Yup," I said. "Just one more audition to go." Mrs. Masters gave me a hug of congratulations and Derek slapped me five. As we walked out of the theater to the car, Derek nudged me and pointed to the clique-y group of girls who were again standing at the back of the theater, huddled and whispering.

  "Those girls are cutthroat, huh?" Derek said.

  "We were standing next to them for awhile," Mrs. Masters added. "They didn't have a nice word to say about anyone." I shrugged.

  "They're a certain type you find around ballet," I said. "But most ballerinas aren't like that." When we got tojhe car, Derek pulled a small notepad out of his pocket.

  "I took a few notes on your performance," he said.

  "You did?" I asked, surprised.

  "I hope you don't mind. It really was super. Even I could tell that. But there were a few things that you could just clean up, and since you do have one last audition to go through, I figured I might as well give you some tips." "Sure," I said. "Shoot." Though, to tell the truth, I was wondering what kind of corrections Derek could really give me about ballet. It's a pretty exacting art, and you sort of have to know a lot about it to be able to notice what's right and what's wrong.

  Derek opened his notepad.

  "Well," he said. "To start, during the piqué turns, you weren't attaching your foot to the back of your knee." I stared at Derek dumbfounded. How did he know about piqué turns? How did he know where your foot was supposed to be?

  "And another note," said Derek. "During the tour jetes your spot wandered." Tour jetes? Spot? Where was Derek getting this technical language? These were the kinds of things Mme Noelle was always hounding me about.

  I looked at Derek. He was grinning. I grabbed the notebook out of his hands.

  "Give me that," I said.

  I looked over the page. It was filled with lots more notes that were just as technical. The only thing he had wrong was the spelling of the words. For instance, he had spelled "tour jete" the way it is pronounced - "toor jetay." "All right," I said. "How did you come up with these notes?" "Certain cutthroat types can be very helpful without knowing it." "You mean . . . ?" "We were standing by those girls for an awfully long time," Mrs. Masters explained. "We heard them tearing apart everyone's performance, so Derek got the idea to see what they had to say about yours. They have trained eyes and were very specific in what they saw. Derek just happened to get it all down on paper." I looked over the notes. They were actually very helpful. I recognized a lot of the mistakes they had caught. They were things I often did wrong. Well, now I had the whole week to work on them.

  "Gee, I don't know who I should thank," I said. "You or the cutthroats." "You can thank me," Derek grinned. "I accept all donations of money, all presents, all major credit cards . . ." I cuffed Derek playfully on the head.

  "All bops on the head," he continued, "all punches on the arm ..." "All punches in the nose," I said, laughing.

  "All kicks in the shins." I have to admit, we were getting pretty silly. Suddenly, I remembered that I was supposed to be the baby-sitter. I glanced at Mrs. Masters to see if she seemed bothered. Mrs. Masters smiled.

  "All knocks to the noggin," she joined in.

  Pretty soon we were all laughing. For me it was a way of letting out some of that giddiness that was left over from the audition.

  "You know, those notes are all fine and good," Mrs. Masters said, "but we did catch your performance and I just want to say that it was beautiful." "Really?" I said.

  "Breathtaking," she went on. "There's just something about ballet, isn't there? And you looked like such a natural ballerina up on that stage." "Except for the pique turns and the tour jetes," Derek teased.

  "I think those girls were picking on you because you were so good," said Mrs. Masters.

  Boy, I sure wished I could let myself believe that. I still wasn'
t sure I had the stuff to make it into the production. Now that I had only one more audition to go, I started to get really scared. I was in the big league now. Deep down, I was afraid of blowing it.

  By this time Mrs. Masters was pulling the car into the driveway. When she shut off the ignition, she turned to face Derek.

  "Well," she said, "are you going to tell Jessi your news?" Derek blushed.

  "Shhh," he said.

  "News?" My ears pricked up. "What news?" "I'll tell you later," Derek said.

  The front door of the house banged open. Todd had heard the car and was running out to greet us. He jumped right into my arms.

  "Jessi!" he cried.

  I set him down and followed him into the house. Mr. Masters was putting on his jacket to join his wife, who was waiting for him in the car. A few moments later, I was alone with the kids. My curiosity was getting stronger and stronger.

  "So," I said. "What's this news all about, anyway?" "Nothing." Derek shrugged.

  Todd grabbed my arm and started jumping up and down.

  "We're going back to L. A.! We're going back to L.A.!" he said.

  "What!?" I shrieked.

  Derek stared at the floor. ."Derek, are you really?" I asked.

  He glanced up quickly, then nodded his head.

  "Why?" I asked. "You just got here." "Derek's gonna be on TV again," Todd said. "He's gonna be on another show." "A TV movie," Derek explained. "They start shooting real soon, so we have to leave in a couple of weeks." "A couple of weeks?" I said. I couldn't believe it. This had all happened so fast.

  "I'm gonna go back to my old school," said Todd. He was still hanging on my arm and tugging hard.

  "Just when I started to make friends," said Derek. "I'll miss my new friends and I'll miss you. . . . Oh, no, Jessi," he cried. "I just realized. I won't get to see you in Swan Lake." Derek's eyes started to glaze over. You could tell his mind was wandering off somewhere. "Hey," he said suddenly. "Jessi, why don't you come out to L.A., too? There're lots of dancers out there. You could pick up some modeling work. I'm sure you could get some commercials." "I can't go out to L.A.," I protested.

  "Why not?" said Derek. "I did." "Anyway, I couldn't get work on commercials." "Sure you could." Derek grabbed my free hand and started tugging at me, too.

  "Come to L.A.," he started chanting. "Come to L.A." Todd joined in.

  With Derek tugging on one hand and Todd tugging on the other, I felt a little bit like a giant piece of taffy. Just then, the doorbell rang.

  "Saved by the bell!" I said with a laugh.

  Todd ran to the window to see who was there.

  "It's your friends," he called to Derek.

  Derek looked at me quickly.

  "Don't say anything about L.A.," he said. "I'll tell them. Soon, but not yet." He ran to the door. Four boys trooped in, I guess they were the same boys Claudia had invited over. Derek introduced me to them, but none of them was named John.

  Oh, well. I sighed to myself. Derek had been in Stoneybrook such a short time. It had been long enough for him to make a few friends, but not long enough to win over the Super-brat. I took Todd's hand and brought him out to play in the backyard. There sure were big changes here. And something Derek had said was echoing in my brain. That I could get modeling jobs and work on commercials.

  "Come on, Todd," I said.

  Modeling. Commercials. That might be a relief after all this ballet anxiety. I had a lot to think about.

  Chapter 11.

  When Monday rolled around, I almost missed the meeting of the Baby-sitters Club. I had two projects in mind, and both of them had something to do with Derek. At 5:10, I was still sitting in my room, working on Project #1. I had the Stamford phone book in my lap. I opened it to the yellow pages and was copying down names and phone numbers of certain kinds of businesses. I had closed the door because I didn't want anyone to know what I was doing ... at least not yet. It was my secret. I bet I have you curious about what I was up to. Well, I'll give you this hint: the project had something to do with Derek's idea about me going into acting and modeling. I hadn't been able to stop thinking about the possibility, ever since Derek had brought it up. I glanced at the clock. Uh-oh! Only a few minutes to meeting time. Time to put aside Project #1 and get started on Project #2.

  (You'll see what that one was in a minute.) I hid the list of phone numbers under my pillow and took off for Claudia's.

  No one was surprised, of course, when I slid into the meeting at the very last minute. I guess at this point, they almost expect that. Kristy was already rapping on the arm of her director's chair to call the club members to attention.

  "The Baby-sitters Club will now come to order," she said.

  I sat up as tall as I could. I don't usually talk a lot at the meetings, being a junior officer and all, but like I said, I had to start organizing this second project I had in mind. And that would mean getting all the club members involved.

  "Anybody have any club business?" Kristy asked.

  I shot up my hand even though Kristy had said at my first club meeting that I didn't have to do that.

  Kristy looked a little surprised and so did everyone else. I hadn't even told Mallory my idea yet.

  "Jessi," Kristy called on me.

  "Yes. Well," I began. "Well, all of you know by now that Derek and his family are moving back to L.A. in a couple of weeks. So my idea is ... My idea is ..." I swallowed hard. "My idea is that we give him a surprise good-bye party before he leaves. We could invite all the new friends he's made. That way everybody will get a chance to say good-bye." For a moment nobody said anything. Then Kristy's face broke into a big smile.

  "Great idea!" she said.

  "Yeah!" Mallory echoed.

  "I could make invitations," said Claudia.

  Everybody started talking at once.

  "We could invite some of the kids we babysit for." "And all the kids in Derek's class." "All the kids?" I asked. That sounded like a big crowd. "I was thinking of having the party at my house. I don't know if everyone would fit." "Well, we could have it at my house," Kristy offered. Kristy's house, remember, is a mansion.

  "Really?" I said. "You wouldn't mind?" "It would sure make Karen happy," Kristy said, laughing. "She still hasn't given up the idea of meeting Derek and asking him to make her a star." A phone call came in and then another one, so we did have to do some of our usual meeting stuff, but we spent most of the time planning the party. Kristy, who loves to be in charge, had quickly taken over.

  The first problem we ran into was the question of when to hold the party. There wasn't much time left before Derek would be moving again and we were all pretty tightly scheduled with jobs and all. Mary Anne paged through the appointment pages of the record book.

  "Hmm," she said. "Looks like the only time might be Saturday afternoon." "No, we can't do it then," said Dawn. "Remember, I just took that job at the Newtons'." That was the last call that had come in. In all the excitement, Mary Anne had forgotten to write it down.

  "Anyway, Saturday afternoon's no good because that's when Jessi has her final Swan Lake audition," Mallory piped up.

  Oh, no. I shot Mallory a withering glance. Why did she have to tell the whole club about that?

  "You do?" Mary Anne asked, all excited. "You mean you got through the other auditions? Why didn't you tell us?" Suddenly, everyone surrounded me, giving me their congratulations and asking me questions. I didn't know why, but I felt very uncomfortable. This was a new feeling that had taken over. After Saturday and the initial rush of making the cut, I didn't want to talk about Swan Lake. I didn't even want to think about it. All I wanted was to get the last audition over with.

  Lucky thing the phone rang then. Another job call came in. Everyone settled back into their places and left me alone.

  Mallory was watching me. She could see I looked kind of squirmy.

  "Why didn't you want everyone to know?" she whispered.

  "I don't know." I shrugged.

  After the ph
one call, Kristy rapped again on the arm of her chair.

  "So when are we going to have this party?" she said. "It looks like the only time available would be some night at midnight." Mary Anne looked over the pages of the appointment book.

  "That's not the only time," she said thoughtfully. "If we can't have it Saturday afternoon, how about Saturday morning? Hey, I have an idea! It could be a breakfast party. We could have it from nine until twelve." "Great idea," cried Kristy. "We could have a table with a whole assortment of cereals." "And juices," said Dawn.

  "A breakfast party?" said Claudia. She didn't sound at all sure about the idea.

  "Yeah," said Mallory. "A breakfast party. "It's so unusual. It's a great idea." "But if it's breakfast, we can't serve cake," said Claudia. "Or ice cream. Or cookies. Well," she said with a sigh. You could see the wheels turning in her head. "I guess we could have doughnuts." All the rest of us laughed.

  "Doughnuts, cereal, and juice." Mary Anne wrote all the suggestions down.

  "And fruit slices," Dawn added.

  Claudia crinkled her nose.

  We decided that we would each be responsible for bringing two boxes of cereal, and we divided up the rest of the food equally. (Guess who got doughnuts.) Kristy put Mallory in charge of getting the names of all of Derek's classmates, since her brother Nicky was in the same class. That brought up one last issue for discussion.

  "Are you going to invite John?" Mallory asked.

  "John?" Kristy looked puzzled.

  "The Superbrat," Claudia explained.

  Everyone looked to me for the answer.

  "I think we should invite him," I said. "If we're inviting the whole class, we have to. Anyway, this may be Derek's last chance to win the kid over." "And I want to meet John finally," said Claudia. "I'm dying to know who the Superbrat is." That settled that.

  When the meeting broke up, I headed home for dinner. Becca was already setting the table, but I slipped upstairs to my room and fished out the phone list from under my pillow. Time to get back to Project #1. I went back down to the kitchen, helped Mama put the food onto plates, and waited until everyone was seated and Daddy was helping himself to butter for his mashed potatoes.