But just then I heard a low growl. I looked at the doorway to the kitchen. Floating in the air was a glowing monster head. It did not have a body.
“Aughh!” I shrieked.
“Aughh!” shrieked my friends.
The monster turned on a lamp. It was just Sam. He was shining a flashlight behind a scary mask.
“Sam!” I exclaimed.
“What is going on here?” (Uh-oh. That was Daddy.) “Everybody back to bed,” he said. “And I mean it.”
So we went to bed for real this time. We did not get to raid the refrigerator.
The Next Day
The next morning, I woke up slowly at first. And I woke up to funny sounds.
“Psst, psst, psst.” Someone was whispering.
Zzzzip. Someone was playing with the zipper on a sleeping bag.
Creeeak. Someone was tiptoeing across the room.
Who are all these people? I thought. And why are they in my bedroom? Then I remembered the sleepover. The people were my friends, and I was in the playroom in a sleeping bag on the floor. Suddenly I was wide awake.
“Morning!” I said, sitting up.
“Morning,” replied Hannie, cheerfully. “Guess what time it is.”
“Seven-thirty?” I asked.
“Nope. Ten o’clock.”
“Ten o’clock!” I cried. “We’ve wasted half the morning! Everybody get up. It’s breakfast time. It’s almost lunchtime!”
Soon my friends and I were up and dressed. We cleaned the playroom. We rolled up our sleeping bags. Then I had to go get Pamela before we went downstairs.
“Where are your blanky and aminal?” she asked in a baby voice.
“Never mind,” I replied.
My friends and I went into the kitchen. Daddy and Nannie were there.
“Well, here are the sleepyheads,” said Nannie, smiling.
And Daddy said, “How about a picnic breakfast in the backyard?”
I looked outside. I remembered the storm the night before. But now the sun was shining and the sky was blue.
“Okay!” I said. “Thanks, Daddy.”
The ground was still wet from the rain, so we spread out plastic mats. Then we put blankets over them. Nannie made pancakes and bacon, and then Daddy helped us carry our plates outside. We were starving. We ate two helpings of everything — except for Leslie, who does not like pancakes. (She is the only person I know who does not like them.) And except for Nancy. She did not eat any bacon. She never eats pork.
“Why?” asked Jannie.
“Because my family is Jewish,” Nancy replied. “And Mommy and Daddy say, ‘No pork.’ I do not like bacon anyway.”
We were just finishing our breakfast when we heard a car horn. Someone had pulled up in front of the big house.
“Karen!” Elizabeth called. “Jannie’s mother is here.” So Jannie had to leave.
I wished very hard that the next parent who arrived would be one of Pamela’s. My wish came true. Mr. Harding arrived next. Pamela gathered up her things. It took her a long time, even though she did not have a sleeping bag. I was not sorry to see Pamela go. She had been gigundo mean about Moosie, Tickly, and a lot of other things. I decided I did not want to be Pamela’s friend, no matter what.
I wanted to tell her those things.
But I did not do it. Not in front of the other girls.
All I said was, “ ’Bye, Pamela. Thanks for coming. See you in school!”
I heaved a huge sigh of relief.
Then I turned to smile at Hannie and Nancy.
The Three Musketeers
Pretty soon, everyone was gone — everyone except Hannie and Nancy. Hannie lived so close by that she could walk home. We did not know where Nancy’s parents were but we hoped they were at home. We wanted to ask them if Nancy could spend the day at the big house. Hannie already had permission.
Guess what. We called the Dawses and they were still at home. They said it would be okay for Mommy to take her home when she picked up Andrew and me that afternoon.
So the three of us had a whole day to spend together.
“Boy, am I glad you guys aren’t fighting anymore,” said Hannie to Nancy and me.
“I’m glad, too,” said Nancy and I at the same time.
Then Nancy said, “Remember when you and Hannie were mad at each other?”
“Yup,” I replied, and added, “Remember when you and Hannie were mad at each other?”
“Yup,” said Nancy.
“Boy, we should stop fighting,” I said. “We are lucky we are friends. If we were not friends, we might have to be friends with Pamela.”
“Oh, yuck,” said Nancy to Hannie.
“You know what?” I said. “We are like the Three Musketeers.”
“Hey!” cried Nancy. “I’ve got a great idea. We should become blood sisters!”
“Blood sisters?” repeated Hannie.
“Yeah,” said Nancy. “We prick our fingers. Then when the blood comes out, we mix it all up so we each have a little of our friends’ blood.”
“Ew!” cried Hannie. “That sounds gross.”
“We could try it anyway,” I said.
I wasn’t sure that this was a good idea. Even so, I found a needle. I washed it off with alcohol so it would be clean. Then I handed it to Nancy. “You go first,” I told her.
“Prick my own finger? No way!” she exclaimed.
“Well, don’t prick mine,” said Hannie, “I really don’t think we should mix up our blood. Even if it would make us blood sisters.”
“Don’t look at me,” I said to Nancy. “I do not want you to stick me, either. I do not think it is safe.”
“Neither do I,” said Nancy finally.
So in the end we decided to be just the Three Musketeers, not blood sisters.
We wrote up a pact. It looked like this:
School Again
“Look. Look at my new outfit!” said Pamela Harding.
It was Monday. It was the day after Nancy and Hannie and I became the Three Musketeers. We were in school again, and Pamela was prancing around our classroom. She was wearing a bright green dress made of sweat shirt material, black tights, and over the tights, green push-down socks. But best of all, on her feet were high-topped moccasins with fringe.
I bet you could smell her sister’s perfume a mile away. I could smell it in the back of the room, and Pamela was in the front.
“Pamela?” said Jannie. “Maybe you could come over to my house after school some day.”
“I want you to come ice-skating with me,” said Sara.
I looked at the two other Musketeers. “Don’t Jannie and Sara remember how awful Pamela was at the sleepover?” I asked them.
“I guess not,” answered Nancy, “but I do not care. If those girls want to be friends with Pamela, then let them.”
“Yeah,” said Hannie. “We have each other. We are the Three Musketeers now.”
“Oh, Hannie! We have your copy of the pact,” I said.
The night before, Nancy and I had given the pact to Nancy’s daddy. Mr. Dawes had made two copies of it on his copy machine at home. One copy was for Nancy and one was for Hannie. I kept the real pact, the one we had actually signed.
“Thanks,” said Nancy, when I gave her the copy.
Then Nancy pulled her copy out of the pocket of her jeans. I pulled the real pact out of my knapsack.
We read the pact aloud together.
“We are the Three Musketeers. We vow to be friends for life.”
“Maybe,” I said, watching Pamela, “we should add something to our pact. Something like, ‘And we vow never to be friends with Pamela Harding.’”
“I like our pact the way it is,” said Hannie. She was reading hers again.
“Who cares about Pamela, anyway?” asked Nancy.
“They do,” I replied. I pointed to the girls who had surrounded Pamela. Pamela was showing off every inch of her outfit.
I wondered if the girls were more impressed with Pamel
a or her clothes. And then something occurred to me. The girls in the class liked Pamela’s glamor. But they did not know the real Pamela that was underneath. Would they find out? If they did find out and they did not like her, would they care?
Well, I knew one thing. Even if Pamela became Queen of the Classroom, the Three Musketeers would stick together. I said so to Hannie and Nancy.
“Right,” said Hannie.
“Through thick and thin,” said Nancy.
“Forever and ever,” I added.
We invented a secret Three Musketeers handshake. We clapped our hands once, we made a tower out of our fists, then we snapped our fingers twice. It was gigundo cool.
“Hi!” said Natalie Springer just then. She joined my friends and me in the back of the room. She had left the crowd around Pamela. “You know what?” she said to me. “Your sleepover was the best ever. Even though I have never been to one before.”
Ricky came over to us, too. “Hey,” he said. “I heard your sleepover was really fun. Can I come to the next one?”
“Maybe,” I said, smiling.
And when Natalie and Ricky were gone, us Three Musketeers did our secret handshake again.
About the Author
ANN M. MARTIN is the acclaimed and bestselling author of a number of novels and series, including Belle Teal, A Corner of the Universe (a Newbery Honor book), A Dog’s Life, Here Today, P.S. Longer Letter Later (written with Paula Danziger), the Family Tree series, the Doll People series (written with Laura Godwin), the Main Street series, and the generation-defining series The Baby-sitters Club. She lives in New York.
Copyright © 1990 by Ann M. Martin
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
First edition, 1990
e-ISBN 978-1-338-05567-2
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