Taffy Sinclair 006 - Taffy Sinclair, Baby Ashley, and Me

by Betsy Haynes

  Taffy flashed another dazzling smile at the camera. "Well, we were walking in the hall toward the office when Jana told me to stop because she heard a KITTEN crying. I stopped and we both looked around. Then I looked out the glass front doors and saw a basket with a baby in it right there on the steps. I ran out and got it and brought it back inside."

  I sat there smoldering. I could hardly wait until my turn to tell everybody how it really happened.

  "Jana," Miss Whitworth said, "suppose you tell us how it felt when you realized that it was actually a baby that you had found."

  I blinked. This was not what I had expected her to ask me. Then I looked down at Ashley. She was waving a little hand toward me. I felt warm all over and forgot about the camera and even about all the people who would watch us on television. I smiled at Ashley and gave her my finger to hold. She squeezed it tightly. Then I turned toward Miss Whitworth and answered.

  "It was the most wonderful moment of my life. Ashley is the most beautiful and most precious baby in the world, and anybody who ever saw her would have to love her. And when Taffy and I first found her all tiny and helpless in her basket, and she smiled at us as if . . ." my voice trailed off. Then I looked at Taffy, and her eyes were shining as if she was remembering too, and she was looking at me as if I were her best friend in the world. "Well," I went on, feeling suddenly embarrassed as if I had told a secret to the world, "it's hard to explain. It was just AWFULLY special."

  Marge Whitworth didn't ask us any more questions. She just thanked us and asked again for anyone with information about Ashley to get in touch with the police. Then she signed off.

  The first thing I saw when the interview was over and the camera turned off was Pink. He was grinning and giving me a thumbs-up victory sign. "You were wonderful," he shouted over all the noisy conversation that had started up again.

  "Thanks," I said as Mom rushed up and gave me a hug.

  I waved to Mrs. Ellison as she left with Ashley a few minutes later and found my coat. The camera crew began taking down the lights and packing things up, and Marge Whitworth was barking orders at them again.

  It was time to leave. Even though Ashley was already gone, I didn't want to go. I couldn't explain why. I just didn't want to, but Mom and Pink were motioning me toward the conference room door.

  Officer Martin was waiting there. "I'm so glad things went so well," she said, clasping my hand warmly. "Maybe we can set up another visit with Ashley for you sometime soon."

  I thanked her and started out the door. Then I stopped. For some reason, I knew I had to look at Taffy Sinclair one more time. I turned around slowly, and she was looking at me, too. She had the same expression—sort of smiling, sort of glowing—that she had gotten on her face during the interview when I had started talking about how it felt when we found Ashley. I could tell that she was just as glad as I was that I hadn't said any more about it on television. It was too private, and it was just between Taffy and me.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Mom let me have a slumber party for my four best friends that night so we could all be together to watch Taffy and me on the eleven o'clock news. I was more nervous than I had been at the police station when we taped the interview.

  We made a ton of popcorn and spread our sleeping bags around the living room floor as we began the long countdown to eleven o'clock.

  "Aren't you just going to DIE when you see yourself on TV?" Beth shrieked. She fell backward across her sleeping bag, closed her eyes, and let her tongue loll out of one side of her mouth to imitate me dying.

  "Probably," I conceded, feeling excitement rising inside me. "If I live THAT long."

  Mom stuck her head in from the kitchen, where she and Pink were playing Hearts at the table. "Don't forget to call us when Marge Whitworth's show comes on."

  "Don't worry, Mom. We won't forget."

  Suddenly Melanie's eyes got wide with concern. "Jana, did you call Randy and remind him to watch tonight?"

  "Are you kidding?" I asked, turning absolutely crimson at the idea. "I'd be too embarrassed. He knows about it. He'll probably see it anyway."

  "Don't be silly," said Christie. "You shouldn't be embarrassed about calling him. Girls call boys all the time. And what about reminding Curtis? He would probably write it up for the Mark Twain Sentinel." Suddenly my friends were making a list of all the kids in our class who would want to see Taffy and me on TV but might forget. Alexis Duvall and Lisa Snow and Scott Daly and Mark Peters and Kim Baxter and Sara Sawyer and even Mona Vaughn.

  "What time is it?" Katie demanded.

  I looked at my watch. "Five after ten."

  "Super. We've got just enough time," said Katie. "Okay, Jana, since you're chicken, you get us some sodas, and the rest of us will get on the phone."

  "Yeah!" said Beth. "You're going to be a STAR!"

  I cringed and went slinking off to the kitchen. If they were going to do a thing like that, I was glad I didn't have to listen. I made as much noise as I could rattling ice cubes and popping the tops on soda cans, but I could still hear them in the other room laughing and talking over the phone.

  Suddenly I thought of a call that I really wished I could make. To my father. I hadn't heard a word from him since I sent him the clipping from the Bridgeport Post. That wasn't unusual. He almost never wrote to me, but I couldn't help wishing that Marge Whitworth's show wasn't seen just in the local area, so that he could watch, too.

  Just then Melanie called my name. "Okay, you can come back in now. We're finished. And don't forget to bring the sodas. Talking on the phone makes me thirsty."

  I grabbed the tray of plastic glasses filled with ice and soda and went back into the living room. "Did you talk to Randy?" I asked anxiously.

  "Yep," said Christie. "And all the others, too. The only one who wasn't home was Mark Peters, but we told his older brother to watch."

  I passed out the sodas and sat back down on my sleeping bag. Then I looked at my watch again. It was ten minutes to eleven. Ten minutes to zero hour. I wondered if my life would pass before me like a condemned prisoner about to die when I saw myself on television. Suddenly a chill came over me. I felt cold. My legs felt cold. I glanced down. I had spilled soda and ice cubes all over my lap.

  Finally it was time for the news. I switched on the set and settled back to watch as Marge Whitworth's smiling face appeared on the screen.

  "Oh, Jana," squealed Melanie. "Aren't you excited?"

  I nodded and glued my eyes to the TV set. "Local news making headlines tonight . . ." Miss Whitworth began. Then she went on to talk about a broken water main that flooded an underpass of the Connecticut Turnpike, a house fire where everyone got out safely, and a battle that was shaping up in the city council. Then it was time for national news.

  "Why doesn't she hurry up?" demanded Katie.

  I opened my mouth to explain that our interview wouldn't be part of the regular newscast since it was human interest instead of news, but before I could get anything out, Mom came racing into the room.

  "Jana. Marge Whitworth is on. You forgot to call us." Mom and Pink settled onto the sofa while the sports news came on and the weather. My friends and I were fidgeting around and exchanging impatient looks, but finally, at twenty-five past eleven, Marge Whitworth reappeared and spoke the words we had been waiting to hear.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, tonight it is my privilege to present two sixth-graders from Mark Twain Elementary School here in Bridgeport and baby Ashley, the little girl they found abandoned on the school steps last Tuesday morning."

  My heart jumped into my throat as the camera swung around to Taffy and me and Ashley on the table between us.

  "There you are! There you are!" Beth shouted.

  Little prickles danced up and down my spine as I looked myself over. My hair looked great, and Mom had been right about my pale blue sweater with the lace collar being perfect for TV. Then I checked out Taffy Sinclair. Of course, she looked gorgeous. By now Miss Whitworth was introducing me. My f
ace turned red, but deep down I was terribly proud.

  Nobody said anything else until the interview was over. I held my breath that none of my friends would notice the look that passed between Taffy and me. No one did. They were all too busy telling me how wonderful I was and going on and on about how darling Ashley looked.

  "You know what I wonder?" Katie asked a little while later, after we had turned off the television set and snuggled down into our sleeping bags to go to sleep.

  "What?" I asked. I was feeling drowsy, and I hoped Katie wasn't going to start on some big lecture the way she did sometimes.

  "I wonder if Ashley's mother was watching."

  She said the words quietly, but they echoed in my brain as loud as thunder. I frowned. "So what?" I challenged.

  "I just can't help wondering what she was thinking," said Katie.

  "I'll bet she was glad to see that Ashley is okay," offered Melanie.

  "Why would she be?" I grumbled. "She's the one who abandoned her. That's just the same as throwing her away."

  "No, it isn't," argued Christie. "My mother and I were talking about it last night. There are a lot worse things she could have done instead of leaving her on the school steps."

  "And she was bundled up all warm in her basket," added Beth. "And her mother had left a bottle in there in case she got hungry."

  "Don't forget the note," said Melanie. "It was a nice note. It told her name and said 'Please take good care of me.' I don't think a mean mother would have left a note like that."

  I wanted to say that I did, but I kept my mouth shut. How could they have sympathy for anyone who would leave such a precious baby as Ashley alone out in the cold? They didn't understand how it had felt to find her. Only Taffy Sinclair and I understood that.

  Still, as I lay there in the dark, I couldn't help wondering about Ashley's mother, too. What was she like? Was she young or old, and what did she look like? I closed my eyes and tried to picture her, but I couldn't. A million other questions jumbled around in my mind, also. Did she know that the police were looking for her? Did she feel like a criminal? Was she scared? Was she sorry now that she had abandoned her baby?

  But the biggest question of all was, how could a person abandon someone they loved? I thought about my father and how I had seen some similarities in Ashley's situation and mine. I had thought that, in a way, my father had abandoned me, too. So did my father really love me? And did Ashley's mother love her?

  My friends had all drifted off to sleep, and Beth was even snoring a funny little ka-poof, ka-poof sound. I wanted to go to sleep, too, but I couldn't. I wasn't the least bit sleepy anymore. Ashley's mother was on my mind. Maybe if I could figure out how she felt about Ashley, I could understand how my father felt about me.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The next morning my friends and I had a big pancake breakfast, which we made ourselves after we promised Mom we would clean everything up. It was great, and I was stuffed. At breakfast nobody mentioned Ashley's mother again. Mostly they talked about how great I looked on TV and about how Taffy Sinclair bragged about being in a soap opera. And of course they talked about Ashley.

  "When are you going to see her again?" asked Melanie.

  "I don't know. Maybe next Saturday. Mom has to call the police station and see if it's okay."

  Melanie bit her lower lip as if she was trying to get up her nerve to say something else. "Do you think we could go with you if you asked the police really nice?"

  "Oh, yes!" shouted Beth. "Do it, Jana. Ask if we can see Ashley, too. PLEASE."

  I looked around the table at my friends. I was dying to show her off to them. "Sure. I can even show you how to hold her and things like that."

  After they left I went in to talk to Mom about it. She was sitting on the sofa reading the Sunday paper. "Mom. I have a favor to ask."

  "Sure, honey. What is it?"

  The paper was spread all over the sofa, and as I brushed part of it aside to sit down beside her, I noticed a picture on one page that made me catch my breath. It was Ashley. I grabbed it and held it up. "Look, Mom. Here's something more about our baby."

  Mom and I leaned together to look at the article, and then I began reading it out loud.

  "Hundreds of offers have poured in from all over the country from families wanting to adopt the baby known only as Ashley who was abandoned on the front steps of Mark Twain Elementary School last Tuesday."

  I stopped reading for a second as the idea sunk in. "Adopt Ashley?" I said just above a whisper. "I never thought about anything like that."

  "Go on, Jana." Mom urged. "Read the rest of it."

  I nodded.

  "One of the most touching offers came from right here in Bridgeport when Mr. and Mrs. Walter Sinclair, parents of one of the sixth-grade girls who found the baby . . ."

  "MOM!" I shrieked, dropping the paper as if it were a red-hot poker. "Not Taffy Sinclair! Not Taffy's parents adopting Ashley!"

  "Calm down, sweetheart." Then Mom reached out and put her arm around me, pulling my head onto her shoulder. "Nobody has said that Ashley will be adopted. That will only happen if they can't find her mother or if they do find her and she is declared unfit by the court to keep her child. It's too early to know what will happen, and in the meantime, Ashley is staying with Mrs. Ellison in her foster home."

  I heard all that Mom was saying, but it didn't help. Tears had started streaming down my face.

  "But, Mom," I protested. "I love Ashley. I love her more than anybody does. More than Taffy Sinclair or ANYBODY, and she loves me too. I can tell."

  "Of course she loves you, honey. And nobody could deny that you love her, but just because Taffy's parents have offered to adopt her doesn't mean that they're the ones who will get her. Here, sweetheart. Blow your nose."

  I took the tissue she held out and blew loudly. How could she say that? I thought angrily. She knows that Taffy Sinclair is my worst enemy in the world. I would absolutely die if she got Ashley. Taffy would never let me forget it, even for a minute. And she would brag all the time and show pictures, and she would probably tell everybody that she loved Ashley more than I did.

  I closed my eyes and thought about Ashley some more. She was so sweet and precious. I wanted her for my little sister. I could see myself taking care of her. Feeding her. Giving her a bath. Even changing her. I wouldn't mind doing that. Not for Ashley. We would have so much fun together, and I would always protect her. As she got older, I wouldn't let anyone say anything mean to her, and I would always hold her hand when we crossed the street. Ashley and I would be sisters. It would be perfect.

  Then suddenly I got this great idea. "Mom," I begged, falling down on my knees and pleading with my eyes. "Say yes. Oh, please, PLEASE say yes."

  Mom got a puzzled look on her face. "Say yes about what?"

  "About adopting Ashley. Call the police station. Tell them we want to adopt Ashley. Tell them we love her more than anyone and that we'll take good care of her. And, Mom," I added hastily, before she had time to say anything. "She won't be any trouble because I'll do everything for her. And she won't cost much. She's so little. She eats hardly anything. And I'll get a job to help. I'll baby-sit or something if we need extra money. Please, Mom. Oh, PLEASE!"

  Mom sighed deeply and closed her eyes, leaning her head against the back of the sofa. I knew that sigh. It usually meant bad news. Mom couldn't say no. I couldn't stand it if she said no. If she said no, then Taffy Sinclair's parents might get to adopt Ashley.

  I had to stall for time. "Mom, I've got an idea." I was trying to sound calm, but my insides were shaking like crazy. She opened her eyes and looked at me. "Think about it. Don't say no until you've had plenty of time to think it over. Take an hour." I looked quickly at my watch. "It's ten after eleven. Take until ten after twelve. Take until twelve-thirty! Then we'll talk about it again. Okay?"

  She nodded. "Okay, Jana. I'll think about it until twelve-thirty."

  I was nodding, too. "Okay. Great. Then we'll talk a
bout it again. Promise?"

  "Promise."

  I hurried to my room so that she could think in peace. I started to take the comics along with me so that I could read my favorite strips, then changed my mind. Mom might want to read the comics herself before twelve-thirty. I didn't want her to be upset because she couldn't find them. I wanted everything to be absolutely perfect while she was thinking over adopting Ashley. I also wanted time to make a list of all the reasons why we should adopt her, just in case Mom didn't think of all of them.

  I ripped a sheet of paper out of my spiral notebook and began to list reasons:

  1. Because I love her.

  2. Because she loves me.

  3. Because she needs us.

  After I wrote those three, I sat there for a long time looking at them. They were the only ones I could think of, but still, they were the most important reasons of all.

  I thought twelve-thirty would never come. When it finally did, I folded the list and stuffed it into my jeans pocket. Then I opened my bedroom door a crack and peered out into the living room. Mom was still sitting on the sofa, so I tiptoed out so that I wouldn't disturb her if she was still thinking.

  She looked up at me and smiled. "You're right on time." Then she patted a spot on the sofa and said, "Sit down so that we can talk."

  "Did you think?" I hadn't really wanted to start our conversation that way, but the words just came bursting out before I could stop them.

  "Yes, I did," said Mom. "Did you?"

  "Sure. I even made a list of all the reasons we should adopt her."

  "Great. That sounds like a good place to start our discussion. May I see it?"

  I pulled the list out of my pocket and handed it to her. Mom smiled softly as she read them.

  "These are wonderful reasons," she said. "If Ashley is put up for adoption, she certainly will need someone. Someone who will love her as much as you do. She'll need a lot of other things, too, like a good home."