On this Tuesday afternoon, the Korman kids weren't thinking about monsters of any kind. They were too busy cutting up milk cartons and painting them.
"Hi!" Mrs. Korman greeted Kristy at the front door. "We're in the kitchen making a huge mess. Come on in." "It's not a mess," Bill said as Kristy entered the kitchen. He was kneeling on newspapers that had been spread across the floor. "We're building bird houses. These are very important." "That's right," Melody said as she squeezed a bottle of white glue onto the edge of a milk carton. "We're saving the animals of the planet." "Let me guess," Kristy said, flipping the brim of her baseball cap up as she knelt beside the kids. "This is for Dawn and Stacey's class. Am I right?" "Right!" Bill and Melody said at the same time.
Another voice joined in the chorus, shouting, "Wight!" That was Skylar. She was sitting in her high chair, with a handful of Cheerios on the tray in front of her, eagerly watching her brother and sister.
"This class has been great for the kids," Mrs. Korman said as she gathered her purse and sweater and pulled out her car keys. "Melody and Bill have made a lot of new friends and they're learning some really valuable lessons." Kristy nodded. "Dawn and Stacey's class has changed a lot of people's lives." Mrs. Korman put one hand over her mouth and whispered, "Of course, at times it's been a little awkward. The children watch us like hawks. Last week I threw an aluminum can in the garbage and Bill spent three days lecturing me about it." "I know what you mean," Kristy whispered back with a grin. "Karen and Andrew and David Michael have been acting the same way at our house. They're driving everyone crazy. But I guess it's good for us." "I guess so." Mrs. Korman gave Kristy the number where she could be reached, and left instructions for dinner. "There are applesauce and cottage cheese in the fridge, and you can make the kids - " "Hot dogs." Bill finished her sentence without even looking up.
"Well . . . yes." Mrs. Korman blinked her eyes in surprise. "How did you know?" "We always eat hot dogs when baby-sitters are here," Melody groaned.
"But I thought you liked hot dogs." "We do," Bill said. "But not all the time." Mrs. Korman pursed her lips. "Well, there's a frozen pizza in the refrigerator. Would you rather eat that?" "Yea!" Bill raised his paintbrush and cheered.
Their mother shrugged. "Then pizza it is. I'll see you later." After Mrs. Korman left, Kristy removed the pizza from the freezer, checked the cooking instructions, and set the oven to 350° to preheat it. "It looks like we only have twenty minutes before we'll need to clean up and eat dinner," she warned Bill and Melody.
"That's okay," Melody said, sprinkling glitter on the glue design she'd made on the outside of her bird house. "My bird house should be finished by then." "I want to cut out one more bird house before we stop," Bill said. "Kristy, would you help me?" "Sure." Kristy knelt beside him. "Just tell me what to do." "Okay." Bill handed her a milk carton. "What you see before you looks like an ordinary milk carton, but wait and see what can happen with a pair of scissors, a roll of tape, a piece of wire, and two nails." Kristy turned to Melody. "It sounds like he's rehearsed this speech." "He has," Melody said, rolling her eyes. "Over and over again. He'll be giving it at his booth at the Green Fair." Bill held the carton upside down. "First we make sure the carton is clean - that there's no trace of milk left inside. Then we tear open the top. Then we take the scissors and cut out a hole about the size of a doorknob." He lowered his voice confidentially. "That'll be the birdies' front door." "Tweet! Tweet!" Skylar cried.
"Now we turn the carton around," Bill continued, "punch two holes in the back, and loop this wire through them." Kristy was impressed with how skillful Bill was.
"And then we seal up the carton." "Wait!" Melody cried. "You forgot the most important part - the dried grass." "Yikes!" Bill grabbed a handful of the grass clippings piled on one corner of the newspa- pers and dropped them inside the carton. Then he said, in a much louder voice, "Now we tape the top of the carton closed." "You can decorate the outside any way you want," Melody said, pointing to her own handiwork.
"And then you pound two nails into a tree," Bill added, "and tie the wires around the nails." "Then what?" Kristy asked.
Bill smiled. "Then you sit back and wait for a bird family to move in." "Make sure you hang the carton high enough on the tree that cats can't get at it," Melody warned.
"Tat!" Skylar squawked. "No tats. No tats." Kristy remembered then that Skylar is afraid of cats. Just hearing one mentioned could set her off for fifteen minutes. Kristy hurried to the high chair and smoothed Skylar's hair. "Don't worry. There aren't any cats here." "No tats!" Skylar whimpered.
"Right," Kristy said. "And just to be on the safe side ..." Kristy crossed to the Kormans' back door, opened it, and yelled, "Go away, cats. We don't want you here." Skylar stared wide-eyed at Kristy, who explained, "I've just told all the cats to leave. No cats will come here again." As she spoke, Kristy crossed her fingers be- hind her back, silently hoping that Boo-Boo, Watson's seventeen-pound tomcat, would never make his way into the Kormans' yard.
"My bird house is finished," Bill announced, holding the carton in the air. He'd drawn blue stars all over it with a colored marker. "That makes six." "Great!" said Kristy. "Now I'll put the pizza in the oven while you kids clean up." "We can't clean everything up," Melody said. "Because we have to make the tree feeders for my booth - the plant sale booth." "Tree feeders?" Kristy repeated. "Are they made out of milk cartons?" "No!" Melody laughed. "They're made out of trees and food." "Twees and foo!" Skylar repeated.
This time it was Melody's turn to demonstrate. "You see, during the winter, the birds get really hungry. And they don't have any bird grocery stores that they can go to for food. So by using our garbage we can feed them." "Garbage? You mean, like tin cans and stuff?" "No." Melody shook her head. "Garbage you can eat. Like orange peels - birds love that. And bread crusts." "You can also make bird snacks by filling a pinecone with peanut butter," Bill pointed out.
"Pealut butter!" Skylar yelled.
"Skylar loves peanut butter," Melody whispered. "Now that we mentioned it, I think you'll have to give her some. Mom puts it on a graham cracker." While Kristy went to the cupboard, Melody continued to explain her tree feeder. "You can tie strings around the pinecones, or bread crusts, or orange peels, and hang them from a tree." "Outside your window is a good place," Bill said, pointing to an evergreen that was framed by their big kitchen window. "That way you can watch the birds eat. You can also tie strings around peanuts." "Sounds like decorating a Christmas tree," Kristy observed.
"Only this tree is alive," Bill said. "We're saving the birds and the trees at the same time." "Did you learn this in Dawn and Stacey's class?" Kristy asked.
The kids nodded.
"We've been learning how to protect the animals," Melody added. "Even the yuckiest worm or spider." "How can you protect the spiders?" Kristy asked as the timer went off on the kitchen stove.
"Well, the next time you see a spider crawling up the wall or across your kitchen counter, don't squish it," Bill said. "You're supposed to take them outside and let them go." "Really?" Kristy said.
"Spiders are great," Melody added. "Without them we'd be overrun with bugs." "Did you know that the bugs spiders eat in one year weigh as much as all of the people on the earth?" Bill said.
Kristy wrinkled her nose in disgust. "That's a lot of bugs." Kristy opened the oven and inspected the pizza. After the talk about bugs taking over the planet and squishing spiders, she had lost her appetite. But she didn't want the kids to know that. Instead she said, "This looks delicious. Okay. Sit down at the table. I'll serve the pizza., and you can tell me more about saving the earth's birds." She put heavy emphasis on the word bird, hoping to steer the kids away from the subject of squashing bugs and spiders. It worked. Kristy was finally able to choke down a piece of pizza (even though the black olives on the pizza looked a whole lot like little beetles).
After dinner Kristy moved Skylar to her playpen and the kids spent another two hours making bird houses. Kristy had brought her
Kid-Kit with her and it contained a set of water colors and a box of crayons. Bill built the bird houses and she and Melody decorated them. By the time Mrs. Korman came home, they had completed fifteen.
"Mom! Look what we did!" Bill shouted. "My booth is going to be the best one at the fair." Melody hopped in a circle around her mother shouting, "Can Kristy come back tomorrow? I'm making some more signs for my booth. And I'm going to finish making the evergreen trees into tree feeders. Can Kristy come back and help? Can she?" Mrs. Korman gave Melody a hug. "Of course she can, but I'll bet Kristy is pretty busy." Kristy had enjoyed working on the bird houses. Since she had the next afternoon free, she said, "I'd love to help you, Melody. But I'll do it on one condition." "What's that?" Melody asked.
"If you promise that we don't talk about squashing bugs while we're working." Melody solemnly put one hand over her heart. "I promise. Mo bugs." "And no tats," Skylar called from her playpen.
Kristy picked her up and gave her a squeeze. "Then it's a deal. I'll see you all tomorrow." Chapter 13.
Wednesday. Three days before the Green Fair. It seemed as though we still had a million things to do before Saturday. I rode to the BSC meeting with posters and fliers and name tags filling the basket on my bicycle. Mary Anne had baby-sat for the Marshalls that afternoon and she met me on Claud's front porch.
"Need some help?" she asked.
"Yes!" I exclaimed. "The editor at the newspaper needs to be called, the booths still aren't ready, I'm not sure if all the kids have finished their projects, and I'm going to need someone to videotape the event." Mary Anne's mouth fell open. "I meant, do you need help carrying those posters upstairs?" "Oh. Sure." I would have been embarrassed if it had been anybody but Mary Anne. Instead I chuckled. "I thought you were talking about the Green Fair." Mary Anne helped me carry my posters and fliers up to Claud's room and then I passed them out as quickly as I could.
"Nice artwork!" Kristy said as she read the poster I handed her.
I gestured grandly to Claudia. "We can thank Ms. Kishi for that." Just then the digital clack changed from 5:29 to 5:30. Kristy leaned back in the director's chair and announced, "All right. The BSC is officially called to order. Is there any club business we need to discuss?" "Yes," I said. "I've just given you each five posters, twenty fliers, and a name tag." Jessi held up her poster. "What are we supposed to do with these?" "I want you to put them up around town. There are seven of us, so we can put up thirty-five posters. And Mary Anne, if Logan can take five, that'll be forty." "You want us to put them in grocery store windows, and places like that?" Claud asked.
"Right. Now I've made a list of places for each of you to take the posters. You have to have them up by tomorrow afternoon or - " "Hold it!" Kristy interrupted. "I can't. I'm busy tomorrow." "What?" I dropped my arms to my sides. "Kristy, I was counting on you. You've got to put your posters in the library and the art museum." "How could you count on me when you never talked to me about this before?" Kristy protested.
"Oh, never mind. I'll just do yours myself." I took back her posters and tossed them on the bed.
Kristy shrugged apologetically. "Sorry. But I didn't know anything about it." Stacey leaned forward from her seat on the bed. "Don't worry, Kristy," she began. "We'll - " "Talk about it later?" I finished in an irritated voice. "We don't have much time. A client could call at any moment." "Sorry." Stacey pressed her lips together and leaned back against the wall.
"Now I want you all to be sure to wear these name tags on Saturday," I said, pointing to the labels I'd carefully lettered in colored markers.
"Why do we need to wear name tags?" Mal asked.
I sighed. "Because," I said, overemphasizing each word, "you're all going to be helping at the fair, aren't you?" Mal and Jessi looked at each other with raised eyebrows. Then Jessi said, "Nobody told me about it." "What?" This time I turned to Stacey and practically shouted, "I thought you were going to give them their assignments." "Correction," Stacey said through clenched teeth. "I was going to ask them if they would like to help us on Saturday." I folded my arms across my chest. "Well, of course they want to help us. They're our friends, aren't they?" "Yes, and friends ask friends first," Stacey shot back. "They don't order them around." I turned to the rest of the club members. "I'm not ordering you around, am I?" For a few moments everyone was silent. No one looked me in the eye. Finally Kristy said, "Yes. You've been firing orders at us since the meeting started." "That's not true," I huffed.
"Oh, yes it is," Stacey declared, raising up on her knees. "And furthermore, you've been barking orders at me ever since we started this whole stupid ecology project." "Oh, I get it," I said sarcastically. "You think ecology is stupid? Well, no wonder you haven't been doing your share of the work." "How could I?" Stacey retorted. "You've been doing it for me. You think you're the only one who knows anything about pollution." "Well, I have done a lot of research." "So have I," Stacey pointed out. "We take the same science class, remember? We've read the same books. Who suggested we use the book 50 Simple Things Kids Can Do to Save the Earth? Me. I read it first." "Yes, but - " "To hear you talk, you'd think I wasn't even involved in this project. Or worse, that I was just one of the kids in our class. You've been bossing me around from the beginning and I'm tired of it." Stacey folded her arms firmly across her chest. "And I'm not going to let you boss our friends around." "I don't boss people around," I protested.
"Yes, you do," Claud said from across the room. "Ever since you started this ecology project you've been telling me what to eat." "And telling me what kind of paper to buy, and how much to use," Mary Anne added.
Kristy nodded. "And you acted as if I committed murder when I accidentally threw away a soda can." "But that's only because it's so important to recycle if we want the planet to survive." I looked from Kristy to Claudia to Mary Anne.
"Someone has to tell people what they're doing wrong." "We know that," Claudia said. "But you've gone from being a teacher to being a policewoman. You expect everybody to be perfect, and you make us feel like criminals." "And it's really not very pleasant," Mary Anne added.
"In fact," Kristy said, "it's obnoxious." There was that word again. The same one I had heard Cokie Mason use the day of the elections. I couldn't believe my ears. My very own friends were turning against me.
A lump began to form in the back of my throat but I was determined not to cry. Luckily, the phone rang and I didn't have to say anything right away.
Mal answered it. Mrs. Newton needed a sitter for Jamie and Lucy on Saturday morning. Mary Anne checked the record book. "Stacey and Dawn are busy with the Green Fair," she said, "and Mal and Jessi are sitting for the Pikes, so that leaves Kristy, Claud, or me." "I'll take it," Claud volunteered. With a sideways glance at me she added, "But don't worry, Dawn. I'll be sure and bring the kids ,to the Green Fair." I tried to smile but I was still reeling from what everyone had said to me. I knew I had been pretty insistent about recycling but I never dreamed anyone would think I was bossy and obnoxious. If my best friends felt that way about me, no wonder the kids at school had voted for Mrs. Gonzalez.
After Mal called Mrs. Newton back to tell her that Claud would be sitting for her, the room was silent once more. I knew everyone was waiting to hear my response to what they had said.
I couldn't look at anybody. I just stared down at my hands and murmured, "I had no idea you guys were so upset with me." Mary Anne touched my arm gently. "Look, Dawn, we know you meant well but you can't force people to think like you do." "Mary Anne's right," Claudia added. "Nobody likes being told what to do." I thought about the things I'd said to people, at home, at school, and at the BSC meetings, over the past few weeks. I realized I had been awfully pushy.
"I - I'm sorry, you guys," I stammered. "I never - " "Wait a minute, Dawn," Mary Anne interrupted. "We're not finished." I bit my lip and waited for her to tell me what else I'd been doing wrong." "We want you to know," Mary Anne continued, "that even though Mrs. Gonzalez has done a great job of pulling together the recycl
ing project, we think you should be in charge." "But only if you change your attitude," Kristy added. "You know, approach it like a sane person." "Yeah, not like the eco-maniac you've been," Claud joked.
Everyone giggled at Claud's words. Even me. "I guess I have been a little overbearing." "A little!" Stacey repeated. "You've been like a bulldozer, mowing down everyone who's ever used a plastic bag or had a drink from a Styrofoam cup. Which, I might add, is practically everybody." I had to admit it, Stacey was right. I had spent the last few weeks feeling angry with everyone because they wouldn't shape up immediately. And I had been unfair to Stacey, taking over our classes as if she weren't even involved, and then ordering her around.
"Stacey, I'm really sorry I've been so awful to you." "That's all right," Stacey said. "I should have told you how I was feeling a long time ago." "Look," I said, "I know there are only three days left before the Green Fair, but I promise to make those three days fun and not be a bossy jerk. Okay?" Stacey grinned. "Sounds good to me." "Then are we still friends?" I stuck out my hand and Stacey shook it.
"We're still friends." "Great." I flopped on the bed next to her. "Then we should start work on our report for Mrs. Gonzalez's class. I've made an outline - " "Dawn!" everyone shouted.
I nearly fell off the bed. "What?" I asked.
"You're doing it again!" Claudia said.
"Oops." I covered my mouth with my hand. "I guess I should have said, when would you like to start work on our report?" Stacey grinned at me. "As soon as we can. I've written an outline, too. Let's put them together and see what we come up with." "Perfect!" I declared. I threw my arms around Stacey. Behind me I could hear Jessi whisper to Mal, "Don't you just love happy endings?" Chapter 14.
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