Baby-Sitters Club 090

by Ann M. Martin

  Until that day.

  They were wearing blue denim work shirts, overalls, and black high-top sneakers. Carolyn had tied a red kerchief around her neck. Marilyn was waving hers like a flag.

  "Hi, you two," said Mary Anne. "What's up?" Behind her, Mrs. Arnold laughed. "You'll see! And it's okay for them to use the Polaroid camera." She reviewed the standard "the-numbers-for-emergencies-and-where-to-reach-me-are-on-the-fridge" drill. Then she gave each of the girls a hug and hurried out the door in a jingle of jewelry.

  "So, what is it?" Mary Anne asked. "You look like farmers!" Marilyn looked very surprised. "How did you guess?" Carolyn said, "We're supposed to look like farmers, Marilyn." "You're going to become farmers?" asked Mary Anne, pretending to be very surprised herself.

  "No!" Marilyn and Carolyn answered at the same time and burst into gales of giggles.

  When they'd stopped laughing, Carolyn explained, "It's for our booth at the fair. We thought of it and our parents said it was okay if Mrs. Stone said it was okay, so - " " - can we go and visit Mrs. Stone and Elvira? Please, please, please, you've got to or I'll go out of my mind," Marilyn finished the sentence.

  "Hmmm," said Mary Anne. "Well, I think that can be arranged." "Hooray!" Marilyn cheered.

  "I'll get my notebook," said Carolyn. Carolyn wants to be a scientist and she often takes a notebook with her so she can "make observations." "Will you tie my handkerchief around my neck for me?" asked Marilyn.

  Carolyn returned just as Mary Anne finished tying the kerchief to Marilyn's satisfaction. Carolyn held up a Polaroid camera. "It develops pictures right away!" said Carolyn.

  "I want to carry it," Marilyn demanded.

  "Okay. Then I can make notes in my notebook," said Carolyn.

  The three of them started down Burnt Hill Road. But Carolyn didn't make any notes along the way. Both she and Marilyn were too busy describing their great idea for their booth.

  When Mary Anne heard it, she had to admit that it was Kristy-class. She just wondered if Mrs. Stone would think so, too.

  They reached the Stones' farm, passing a late season vegetable garden complete with a scarecrow dressed in overalls very similar to the twins'. As usual, chickens were pecking around outside the barn. Beyond was a pigpen and a field where cows were grazing.

  Mrs. Stone had on overalls, too. She also wore heavy gloves and was carrying what looked like a big pair of pliers.

  "Hi," called Mary Anne as they walked into the farmyard. "I hope we didn't come at a bad time." "A very good time/' said Mrs. Stone, smiling and pushing back the brim of her cap. "1 just finished fixing the wire on the gate to the pasture. Time to take a break." She looked at the twins and smiled. "1 bet you've come to see Elvira." "How did you know?" asked Marilyn. "Could you tell by the way we're dressed?" "N-noo. But you two and Elvira really hit it off the last time you came to visit." "We don't just want to visit/' said Carolyn. "We have something very, very important to ask you." Mrs. Stone led the way to Elvira's pen. "Go ahead," she said. "What is it?" "We want to borrow Elvira," said Carolyn.

  "It's for a very, very good cause," added Marilyn. "Please?" "You should explain why," suggested Mary Anne.

  "Oh. For the carnival," said Marilyn. "The one to raise money to pay for the Arts Fund so we can have music and art at school." "For all the schools in Stoneybrook," corrected Carolyn.

  "I've heard about the carnival," said Mrs. Stone. "But how can Elvira help?" "We want her for our booth." Marilyn held up the camera. "We want to take people's pictures with her." "And we're going to bake special goat cookies to sell," Carolyn continued. "Goat-shaped cookies. For people. We were going to make cookies out of oats for Elvira, but the veterinarian, Dr. Smith, said that that would be bad for a goat." Marilyn nodded solemnly. "She said that it could make Elvira very, very sick to eat even too much of the food she was used to. It could even kill her!" "That's true," said Mrs. Stone, smiling. "It's why I'm very careful never to let any of Elvira's visitors feed her more than just a small amount of her regular food. And I feed her a little less at her regular feeding times when I do. I don't want a sick goat - or a fat one, either!" The girls nodded solemnly, their eyes fixed on Mrs. Stone.

  "You've done your homework," said Mrs. Stone, both amused and impressed. The four of them had reached Elvira's pen. Elvira, one of the cutest animals on earth, and one who knew it, trotted over immediately to have her head scratched.

  "Well," said Mrs. Stone, "that is some idea!" Marilyn and Carolyn looked at her anxiously.

  Slowly Mrs. Stone smiled. "I don't see why not. As long as it's okay to have a goat at the carnival ..." "Our mother called and asked," said Carolyn triumphantly. "The carnival's going to be at the old fairgrounds at the edge of town. So Elvira will be just fine!" "Well, I think Elvira would love it. I've got a portable pen around here somewhere. I can bring it and Elvira and some hay and so forth to the carnival and then I can stay and help out, too." "That's great!" Marilyn exclaimed.

  "Thank you, thank you, thank you," said Carolyn. She held up the camera. "We brought the camera so we could practice." "Well," said Mrs. Stone, "let's fire away." It didn't take much practice. Elvira was a natural. Mrs. Stone took out her kerchief, which was blue, and tied it around Elvira's neck. Mary Anne took pictures of Marilyn and Carolyn with Elvira, and then of the two of them together, and then of Mrs. Stone and the twins with Elvira.

  Elvira was a pro, chewing, on a wisp of hay through the whole thing.

  The pictures were pretty cute, too. "Excellent advertisements," said Mrs. Stone, holding one of them up. "You can put them on your sign outside the booth." "Our sign!" Marilyn looked stricken. "We haven't even made that yet! And we've got to make cookies, too. We'd better get going." "You still have plenty of time," Mary Anne assured her. "You-don't have to do everything today." But the twins insisted it was time to go. "I'll tell Mrs. Arnold," Mary Anne called as they practically dragged her away. "Thank you!" She and Marilyn and Carolyn made it home in record time. Soon after, they were in the kitchen, going to work on the first batch of Goat Cookies. They twins had a cookie cutter that was in the shape of the head of a dog with pricked-up ears. On each cookie, the twins painstakingly redesigned the ears, dividing them into one round part and one pointed part, to look like goat horns.

  "Beautiful," said Marilyn when the first batch of cookies came out of the oven.

  Mary Anne had to admit that they did sort of look like goats' heads.

  Mary Anne put them aside to cool. "When they're cool, after your mother gets home," she told the twins, "put them in a cookie tin to keep, okay?" The twins agreed. Then they set to work making the sign for the booth. They had just agreed on a slogan for the booth, "$1.00 to have your picture taken with the Cutest Goat On Earth," when Mrs. Arnold returned.

  As Mary Anne left, she heard Marilyn saying, "Would you like a special cookie, Mom? Those are goat cookies." And Carolyn saying, "And they cost thirty-five cents each!" Chapter 9.

  Kristy said, "I am truly awed by the Arnolds' idea." Mary Anne nodded. "So am I. But our idea is a good one, too." It was an unofficial meeting of the BSC. Everyone, including Shannon and Logan, was gathered around the enormous picnic table in the enormous backyard at Kristy's house. We were working on the booth project. Our booth project was derived partially from my idea to make cakes shaped like musical instruments and partially from the Kormans' fortunes in a bottle.

  We were cutting pictures of musical instruments and famous art pieces out of magazines. Claudia had also supplied old art books and I'd talked Anna out of some of her old musical scores and music magazines. We found pictures of famous works of art such as the Mona Lisa and all kinds of musical instruments and drawings of famous artists and sculptors and composers such as Beethoven. We cut out musical notes and bits of scores from the sheet music Anna had given me. We were careful to cut everything into squares. We glued the pictures onto square pieces of cardboard. Then we laminated the cutouts and glued pins from a crafts store onto the cardboard: instant pins.


  We would ask people to donate one dollar each for the pins. To make it more interesting, some of the buyers would also win prizes. We put an "x" on the back of each pin that was worth a prize.

  The prizes? Hours of free baby-sitting, of course.

  It was a great afternoon and we were having fun. Claudia was the pinhead (that's a joke, get it?), the boss of all the pinmakers. Meanwhile, Sam and Charlie were constructing a square booth using scraps of lumber.

  Karen, Andrew, David Michael, and Emily Michelle were helping, too. Karen and David Michael took a keen interest in the building process. Karen felt that she was something of an expert, since she and her two best friends had "built" the castle (also known as a playhouse) out of old wooden crates and flowerpots and leftover wallpaper that now stood by the gardening shed at the edge of the yard.

  "What color are you going to paint it?" Karen asked. "There are buckets of paint in the gardening shed. You should paint it a beautiful color." "Karen's right," Shannon said solemnly. "Color is a very important sales tool." "As well as an artistic statement," agreed Claudia.

  The rest of us looked startled. Except of course for Karen.

  "I will review the colors in the shed and let you know what your selection is," she said.

  Although Karen is only seven, she has, I have already discovered, a way with words and a big, colorful imagination. For instance, the ditch around the castle is not a ditch, it is a moat. What castle would be complete without a moat?

  Halfway across the yard to the gardening shed, Karen stopped. Then she said to David Michael, "Could you bring some crayons and paper? We will take them to the paint showroom. Then we can make color samples so people can choose." A few minutes later, David Michael and Karen, designers and interior decorators, had disappeared into the gardening shed/paint showroom. Meanwhile, Emily, who had been given a magazine of her very own, was systematically demolishing it. She was helped in this by Shannon the puppy. Emily Michelle would color on a page for awhile, grow tired of that, rip out a page, and hold it up. She'd let it go and the wind would swirl it away.

  That was the cue for Shannon (the puppy) to chase it down, barking. When she caught the paper, she pounced on it. Then she brought it back to Emily Michelle. Sometimes Emily would take the paper and let it go again. Sometimes one of us, since Emily was sitting on the ground on a blanket next to ^the table, would reach down and snag the paper and put it in the bag we were using to collect litter.

  I found a photograph of an accordion. Logan cut out a photograph of a rock star in the middle of a baseball stadium, singing the national anthem before a game. Then Mary Anne found a picture of a woman with long braids wearing horns, singing on a stage. Then I discovered a photograph of Jessye Norman, a famous opera singer. She was with James Galway, who was holding his flute.

  Shannon (the person) cut out photographs of murals from the walls of buildings in New York City. Stacey even recognized one of the murals, from the side of a restaurant in the East Village. There were photographs of sidewalk art shows in San Francisco and authors at book signings and a woman with a blowtorch making a sculpture in a park in Seattle and dancers performing on the streets of At- lanta. We found pictures of musicians playing in a funeral procession of a fellow musician in New Orleans.

  "It's amazing," said Kristy. "I mean, art is everywhere." "And at least as important as things like math and science and social studies," said Claudia, making a face as she named just a few of the many subjects she does not like in school.

  We laughed, but it was true.

  "Aha!" Jessi exclaimed. She held up the word "article" that she had just cut out of a magazine. Neatly, she snipped the piece of paper in half between the "t" and the "i." She threw away the end of the word.

  "A button that says 'Art'!" said Mal. "Excellent." "I know," said Jessi with a grin.

  Just then the two designer/interior decorators returned from the paint showroom. "The news is not good, I'm afraid," said Karen, coming to a stop before us.

  David Michael shook his head. He held up a handful of colored paper scraps.

  "Not good," he echoed.

  "We have many colors for you to choose from," Karen went on. "But alas, supplies are very limited." "Like we might paint ourselves into a corner?" I couldn't help asking.

  Karen frowned, but she didn't answer me. She turned to David Michael. "My famous partner, David Michelangelo, will explain it all for you." David Michael bowed. Then he said. "These are the colors: light blue, very,, very green, pink, lavender, and yellow." Even I could tell that those colors didn't sound good together. But Claudia was undaunted. "May I examine the color samples?" she asked formally.

  "Of course," said Karen, waving her hand. "Be our guest." With due seriousness, Claudia took the crayon-colored samples of paper and examined them one by one. Then she looked up at Karen and David Michelangelo and smiled. "We'll have a rainbow booth," she announced. "We'll make a sign that says The Arts at the End of the Rainbow' and we'll paint rainbows all over the booth." Everyone loved that idea. Presented as a rainbow, the colors didn't sound so bad together.

  "Claud, you are a genius," said Stacey.

  "No, no," said Claudia, a pleased grin on her face, "I am an artist. And of course, I couldn't have done it without my consultants here." David Michael and Karen gave little bows.

  Just then the gate opened and closed. I looked up to see my sister walking across Kris-ty's backyard.

  "Hey, you're early," I said.

  "Our section of the band got to leave first today," said Anna. A satisfied smile turned up her lips. "We got everything exactly right." "Congratulations," I said. I motioned toward the group. "You know everybody here?" "Come make some buttons," said Mary Anne.

  "There's room at my end of the table," added Shannon.

  Anna said, "Thanks," and slid into the place next to Shannon.

  "I usually stay after school, too," said Shannon. "For French club and a bunch of other things like that." Shannon showed Anna what we had been doing. Anna laughed when Shannon held up a piece of sheet music she'd been cutting into buttons. "I'd like to try playing this on my violin," she said. "It'd be like reading aloud with every other word missing." "Sort of the way we talk French in French club." Shannon laughed, too.

  I looked down the table at my normally quiet sister. Suddenly she seemed to have plenty to say. Shannon, I remembered, hadn't talked all that much when she'd been at the BSC meetings. Not that Shannon was shy. At least I didn't think so. She was just more like Anna, not using up all her words at once.

  I finished cutting out a dog howling and a little girl singing in front of a piano. Maybe, I thought, I'd buy that button myself.

  I heard Shannon say, "That's a musical instrument." I heard my sister laugh again.

  Cool, I thought. Maybe it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship for my sister.

  Chapter 10.

  Claudia and Mal were sitting for Mal's family after school. Since it was almost time for the arts carnival, Claudia wouldn't have been surprised to find that she was going to be part of the finishing crew, helping with last minute details.

  But it turned out that she and Mal were more like the starting crew. When Claud rang the Pikes' bell, the door was answered by Margo, who cried, "Mal-lor-eeee!" and charged away.

  "Hello to you, too!" said Claudia, stepping in the door.

  "If it's more crafts, Margo, you know to bring them to the dining room!" Mal's voice called from the back of the house.

  "It's me, Mal!" Claudia announced, following the sound. She looked around for Mrs. Pike. "I'm not late, am I?" "No. Mom left just this second," said Mal. She pushed a strand of reddish brown hair off her forehead. "Whew." "Bad day, huh," said Claudia.

  "Umm. School wasn't bad, but this . . ." Mal waved her hand. "This" was the Pike dining room, a large room with carefully chosen "kid-friendly" furniture. Now, however, the furniture was barely visible under heaps of crafts: decorated boxes and knitted tea coz- ies and beaded bookma
rks and lampshades and patchwork blankets for babies and dolls and so much more that Claudia's head spun just looking at it.

  "Wooooww . . . you must have a million things here, Mal!" Vanessa, who is nine, had entered the dining room to stand next to her older sister. She said, "The whole neighborhood has been really good." When Claudia looked slightly puzzled, Vanessa (who wants to be a poet and tends to speak in rhyme) explained in plain English, "We got everybody in the neighborhood to donate things. It's been awesome." "You could fill up two booths with everything they've donated," Claudia said.

  "I know," said Mal. "But we only get one booth. Did you know that every single bit of space has been given out for booths? Anyway, we've been assigned our booth space and told how big our booth can be. We've built the booth, too, but we still have to decorate it and figure out how to fit everything in. And how much everything should cost." "What?" In spite of herself, Claudia heard her voice rise into the panic range. "You haven't decorated your booth? Or priced anything? But the carnival is in three days." "I know. We're going to work on it today.

  I figured we could divide into two groups. You could be in charge of decorating the booth and I could be in charge of pricing everything." "A horse-go-round!" That was five-year-old Claire Pike, who had just entered the room with her eight-year-old brother Nicky. Nicky nodded.

  "Yes," he said. "That's what we want. A merry-go-round.'' "A carousel?" said Claudia weakly.

  "We'll help you do it, there's nothing to it," Vanessa chanted, sounding more like she was leading cheers for Kristy's Krushers than creating poetry.

  Claudia did not cheer up, not even when Claire and Nicky said, "We want to help decorate the booth, too!" "Fine," said Mal. "Then Margo can help you and I'll ask the triplets to help me price things, since they're older and more advanced in math." Claudia admired how tactfully Mal had arranged the tasks for her siblings.