Baby-Sitters Club 030

by Ann M. Martin

  No such luck. At least, not at first. Mrs. Arnold told me as she was putting on her coat that Marilyn was in the living room, practicing for a piano recital, and that Carolyn was up in the girls' bedroom. Something in her voice implied . . . trouble.

  After Mrs. Arnold left, I decided not to interrupt Marilyn (who was playing quite loudly and with a lot of force), and to see what Carolyn was up to instead.

  The first thing I saw in the twins' bedroom was that the masking-tape divider was back. I guessed that was why Marilyn was downstairs practicing so loudly. She was angry because she couldn't enter her own room. She'd have had to cross Carolyn's side first.

  "Hi," I said to Carolyn. "Your mom just left." "Okay." Carolyn went back to Baby Island, the book she was reading.

  "I guess you're mad at your sister again, aren't you?" "You mean Jerk-Face?" "No, I mean Marilyn." "Same thing." "Look," I said. "You two cannot go on fighting forever. What's the problem this time?" "I said I was inviting Haley over to play, so then Marilyn said she was inviting Gozzie over to play." "So?" "We wanted to play separately." "Couldn't you and Haley - or Marilyn and Gozzie - have played outdoors while the others played indoors?" "No. We both wanted to play in our room." I sat thoughtfully on Marilyn's bed. "You know what's wrong here?" I said. "You and Marilyn are very different people now. You've gone off in different directions. I think you need your own space. Do you two have to share a room?" "No," Carolyn answered, brightening.

  "Then why doesn't one of you move into the guest room? Or the sewing room? There are plenty of rooms on this floor." "Yeah!" So Carolyn and I ran downstairs and interrupted Marilyn's practicing. We told her our idea.

  "Yeah!" exclaimed Marilyn as happily as Carolyn had.

  From then on, the afternoon was fun. The twins talked and made plans. They giggled. They couldn't wait for their mother to come home. When she did, they greeted her at the back door with cries of "Mommy! Mommy!" "What? What is it?" Mrs. Arnold looked slightly alarmed.

  "Could we have our own rooms?" asked Marilyn.

  "I want the guest room!" said Carolyn.

  "I want the sewing room!" said Marilyn.

  Mrs. Arnold looked questioningly at me. I shrugged. "The girls seem to be having a little trouble sharing their room," I said. "I just mentioned separate rooms, and . . ."I trailed off.

  "Well," said Mrs. Arnold, "I don't see why not. But your room is so cute now," she told the twins.

  "We're not babies anymore," said Carolyn. "And we're not the same person. We're different." "But why do you want the sewing room?" Mrs. Arnold asked Marilyn. "It's so small." "I just do," Marilyn replied. "I like it." "And I like the guest room," said Carolyn. "Our old bedroom could be the guest room." Mrs. Arnold's eyes began to gleam. "It would be fun to redecorate," she said. "New curtains, new rugs, new bedspreads." "But can we choose our own things?" asked Marilyn. "You can decorate the guest room any way you like." "That's a deal," said Mrs. Arnold.

  The twins began jumping up and down. They even hugged each other.

  I went home feeling that I had accomplished something important.

  Chapter 13.

  "Hi, Stacey! Hi, Stacey!" Marilyn and Carolyn greeted Stacey at the door as if they were old friends, which they weren't. True, Stacey does see a little more of them now that she lives in their neighborhood, but she hasn't baby-sat for them very often.

  It turned out that the twins were just eager to show off their new rooms - and Stacey hadn't seen them yet. Mrs. Arnold hadn't even left when the girls began tugging at Stacey's hands, pulling her upstairs.

  "Look at my room first!" cried Marilyn.

  "No, mine!" said Carolyn.

  "Mine's closer," Marilyn pointed out.

  "Oh, all right." At the head of the stairs was the sewing room. It was small, but it was bright and sunny and made a perfectly nice, if cramped, bedroom. All of Marilyn's furniture had been moved into it. "But we had to move some of my toys downstairs," she told Stacey. "I didn't mind. Look. New wallpaper and a new rug and a new bedspread. See how they match? Mommy let me pick out everything." "All yellow," Stacey said. "Very nice." Personally, she thought it was just a little on the dull side, but she would never have said so.

  "Now come see my room," cried Carolyn. So she and her sister and Stacey passed the girls' old room, turned a corner, and entered Carolyn's new room. Boy, was it different from Marilyn's. The rug was shaggy and blue. The bedspread was printed with cats, and two pillows in the shape of cats sat at the head of the bed. The wallpaper was blue-and-white striped, and the curtains and wastebasket matched the bedspread. The wastebasket came complete with pointy cat ears and a furry cat tail.

  "Neat," said Stacey. "I didn't know you like cats." "I didn't, either," replied Carolyn, "but I saw all this stuff and I knew it was what I wanted. Mommy wanted me to get pink-flowered even/thing - " "And she wanted me to get blue-flowered everything - " added Marilyn.

  " - but then she remembered that she'd told us we could choose whatever we wanted. Within reason," finished up Carolyn.

  "I think you each did a very nice job," said Stacey. "A room should reflect your personality. I'm glad your mom let you make your own decisions." "So are we," said the twins at the same time.

  Stacey waited a moment. Then she said, "Well? Aren't you going to hook pinkies? You just said the same thing at the same time." The girls laughed. "If we hooked pinkies every time we did that," Carolyn began, "we might as well just have our pinkies joined." "Yeah. We're always saying the same things at the same time. That's because we're twins." "Identical, but different," added Marilyn.

  Funny, thought Stacey. The twins had changed so much. They'd been allowed to go their separate ways and now they had their own rooms and their own friends. Yet they seemed closer than ever. Was that what moving apart could do? Make you grow closer?

  It was something to think about.

  "So what do you want to do today?" asked Stacey.

  "You brought your Kid-Kit, didn't you?" Carolyn asked.

  "Yup." "Oh, goody! Is there anything new in it?" "Come on down and see." The girls raced ahead of Stacey to the living room, and Stacey placed the Kid-Kit on the floor. Marilyn and Carolyn watched eagerly as she opened it.

  "Okay," said Stacey, "in place of the Doctor Doolittle books we have the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books. And we have a new pad of paper and three sheets of new stickers. Plus pastels instead of crayons. Have you ever made a picture with pastels? They're neat. You can blend the colors with your fingers." "Like chalk?" asked Marilyn.

  "Sort of." Stacey opened the new box of pastels and let the girls peer inside.

  "Ooh," said the twins as they gazed at the tidy row of colors.

  "Try experimenting," suggested Stacey. "We can sit at the kitchen table." So they did.

  Halfway into her picture of a boat on the ocean, Marilyn said, "This is going to be for Daddy. No, for Mommy. I haven't given her a picture in awhile. No, wait. It'll be for both of them." "Mine will be for both of them, too," said Carolyn, looking at her close-up picture of a butterfly and a ladybug.

  Interesting, thought Stacey. No more, "Mommy will like mine better ..." or, "Daddy always likes my . . ." That was a nice change.

  "Hey," she said, "why don't you make frames for your pictures? They're so pretty I think they ought to be framed." "How do you make frames?" asked Carolyn.

  "Like this." Stacey showed the twins how to cut out frames from construction paper and glue them onto the pictures.

  "Cool!" exclaimed Carolyn. Then she turned her picture over and wrote To Mommy and Daddy - Love, Carolyn. So Marilyn turned hers over and wrote, To Mommy and Daddy - Love Marilyn.

  Stacey expected sparks to fly since Marilyn had copied Carolyn, but nothing happened. Each twin made and framed another picture. When they were done, Carolyn said, "I think I'll call Haley." Marilyn watched wistfully as her sister made the phone call.

  "Come over?" Carolyn repeated into the receiver. "Sure. Let me ask Stacey first." Carolyn put her hand over t
he receiver and said, "Haley invited me over. Can I go? Claudia is baby-sitting there." "Sure," said Stacey.

  Then, to everyone's surprise, Carolyn said, "Marilyn, do you want to come, too?" Marilyn's eyes widened. "Yeah!" "Okay," said Carolyn.

  "Wait a sec," Stacey broke in. "I better talk to Claud." So Stacey and Claud had a conversation, and Claud said she didn't mind a bit if Stacey brought the twins over, "As long as they're not fighting," she added.

  "No, no. Everything's fine," Stacey assured her. She put the Kid-Kit away, left a note for Mrs. Arnold, and she and the girls walked over to the Braddocks' house. It was a beautiful day and when they arrived, Stacey and Claud sat on the back deck and listened to the girls below them. Aside from the twins and Haley were Vanessa Pike and Charlotte Johanssen. Matt was playing at the Pikes'.

  "You know," Stacey heard Haley say, "we should start our club. Right now. There are five of us. That's enough for a club." "You want me in your club?" squeaked Marilyn.

  The other girls looked at each other. Finally Carolyn said, "Only if you won't be too bossy. We'll try you for three meetings. If you're too bossy, you're out. Okay?" "I guess." Poor Marilyn, thought Stacey. She -was on probation, but at least she'd been asked to join the club.

  "What about your friend Gazelle?" asked Vanessa. "Do you think she'd want to join?" "You mean Gozzie?" replied Marilyn. "Oh . . . oh, I don't know. I mean, I don't think so. She, urn, she doesn't like clubs." "Okay," said Vanessa, shrugging.

  Stacey looked at Claudia. "You know what?" she said quietly. "I bet Gozzie Kunka is an imaginary friend of Marilyn's. I think Marilyn made her up because she didn't have any friends." "Oh! I bet you're right!" exclaimed Claud. "I wonder if Gozzie will disappear now." "I doubt it," replied Stacey. "At least not until Marilyn's club probation is over and she can be sure she'll have real friends." Stacey and Claudia smiled at each other. And that night, Stacey called to tell me the news.

  "You mean Gozzie Kunka is imaginary?" I cried. "I should have known. I just should have known. A foreign dignitary's daughter named Gozzie Kunka living in Stoneybrook. How could I have been so naive?" I couldn't help laughing. It was pretty funny.

  Chapter 14.

  Less than one week left until the wedding! I couldn't believe it. We'd made most of our plans, but there were still plenty of things to do.

  "Imagine if we'd had the huge wedding we wanted," I said to Dawn in school on Monday. Since I'd had time to calm down about moving into her house, we were friends again. For one thing, Dad and Mrs. Schafer had both said that they would get rid of some of their furniture and combine the rest of it in Dawn's house.

  "What will we do with the leftover stuff?" I'd asked.

  "Store some of it in the barn," Dad had answered, "and probably give some to the Salvation Army." For another thing, I had actually seen Mrs. Schafer pat Tigger. So I felt a lot better about the cat business.

  For a third thing, I'd decided that I did want to redecorate my room at Dawn's (but keep most of my old furniture), and Claudia had said she would help me. She had helped Stacey redecorate when Stacey moved back to Stoneybrook. She's good at that sort of thing.

  Anyway, to get back to that Monday in school, Dawn replied, "I know. If we'd really wanted to do all those things, it would have taken about a year to plan for the wedding." "Yeah. Caterers, flower arrangers ..." "And dressmakers, tux rentals ..." We were becoming wedding experts.

  "At least we're going to get new dresses after all," I said. The two of us had just joined the other BSC members at our usual table in the cafeteria. "You almost ruined that by taking back everything we'd said we wanted." Dawn giggled. She opened her lunch bag and pulled out a package of carrot sticks and a container of salad that definitely had tofu in it.

  "Ew, ew. Gross! Health food!" cried Kristy, holding her nose.

  Dawn looked over at the school lunch Kristy had bought. "I will never," she said, pointing to Kristy's Jell-O, "understand how people can eat something that jiggles." "Tofu jiggles," said Kristy.

  "It does not. It's solid." To prove her point, Dawn poked her salad container. Nothing happened. Then she poked Kristy's plate. The Jell-O was practically dancing. And the six of us (Kristy, Dawn, Stacey, Claudia, Logan, and I) were hysterical.

  "So what about your dresses?" Claudia said to Dawn and me. (Leave it to Claud to turn the discussion back to fashion.) "We're each getting a new one," I replied.

  "But not matching ones," added Dawn, "since we aren't going to be bridesmaids. We'll just be sitting in the chapel with you guys." "And," said Dawn, "Mom picked out a beautiful pale pink dress with this beaded design all over it. It has a drop waist. It looks sort of old-fashioned - like something from the nineteen-twenties." "Neat," said Claud.

  "And if you can believe it," I spoke up, "Dawn's mom talked my dad into buying a new suit and new shoes. Dressy ones, I mean. I don't remember the last time he bought a new suit or new shoes." There was a pause. Kristy poked at her Jell-O. "Well, now I can't eat this!" she cried.

  "Why'd you have to say it jiggles?" she asked Dawn.

  Dawn gave her a wry smile.

  "So when's the big move?" Logan asked carefully.

  Dawn and I glanced at each other. We both knew the subject was still touchy. I was reconciled to the move, but I hadn't forgiven Dad for not telling me about it earlier, or Dawn for just assuming I'd be delighted to move into her old house.

  "It's sort of ongoing," I replied. "No 'big move/ Dad has already put some of our stuff in Dawn's barn." "Mom's put some things in there, too," said Dawn, "and had the Salvation Army pick up some other things." "And we'll move the rest of our furniture and cartons over on the day after the wedding, when our parents get back from the Strathmoore Inn," I added. "What a day that will be. My father will want everything put away and organized immediately, and Dawn's mom - " " - could let the stuff sit there for months," Dawn finished.

  Logan squeezed my hand. "If I can help with the move, just let me know," he said softly.

  Dawn and I walked partway home from school together that day.

  "You know what we've never talked about?" she said. "I mean, what you and I and our parents have never talked about?" "What?" I asked.

  "What we'll call our stepparents. I still call your father Mr. Spier and you still call my mother Mrs. Schafer." "I guess we could call them by their first names," I said, "but I'd feel really funny calling your mom Sharon." "And I'd feel funny calling your dad Richard." "We could call them Mommy and Daddy," I suggested, giggling.

  "No, Stepmother and Stepfather!" said Dawn. "That would make everyone feel really comfortable." "How about Gertrude and Horace?" I said.

  Dawn laughed so hard she started to cry. "Mary Anne," she said, "when we're not fighting, we have so much fun together. Don't you think we should share my room after all?

  We could stay up late at night and talk with the lights out. We could share secrets. We could do our homework together. Isn't that what sisters do? I've always wanted a sister." "Me, too," I confessed.

  "So why don't we share my room? The guest room can stay the guest room and you can put your bed and desk in my room. It'll be a little crowded, but not too bad." I was beginning to feel excited. "Would you mind having Tigger in the room at night? He always sleeps with me." "No, I'd love it! Do you think he'd sleep with me sometimes?" "Maybe. He's a sucker for a warm body. He'll wrap himself around your head and purr in your ear." "Hey! We can share clothes!" exclaimed Dawn enthusiastically. "We're almost the same size. I'm just taller than you. Our wardrobe will double." "Oh, speaking of wardrobes, I've been thinking," I said. "Our parents may not be having a big traditional wedding, but I do think that your mom at least ought to wear something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue on the wedding day. Like in that old saying. Don't you?" Dawn nodded. "Definitely. Well, let's see. Her brooch is old - it's an antique - she's borrowing a necklace from her mother, I think her earrings are sapphires, but. . . something new, hmm. I wonder if her dress counts. Most
brides have new dresses. I'll talk to her, okay?" "Okay." The next afternoon, Mrs. Schafer (oh, excuse me, Sharon) took Dawn and me shopping for our new dresses. We went to Bellair's Department Store first, where I found a pink dress that I only halfway liked, and Dawn didn't find anything. So we left and went to Talbots, but we didn't find anything there, either.

  "How about Zingy's, that new store?" suggested Dawn.

  Sharon took one step inside Zingy's and backed out, pulling us with her. "No way, young lady," she said to Dawn. "This place is pure punk." Finally we went to the mall and tried the Laura Ashley store. There Dawn found a sort of hip sailor dress. "I can wear my ankle boots with this," she said.

  So Dawn was set. I looked at the more feminine clothes, but couldn't find a thing. Then it occurred to me - what I really wanted to wear was Dawn's other Laura Ashley dress, the one she'd worn to her mother's surprise supper.

  "Hey, roomie," I said, "can I wear the flowered dress you got here for your mom's party?" "Sure, roomie!" she replied. And then she added, "See how much fun we're going to have when you move in?" I grinned. I did see. I really did.

  On Thursday night, Jeff came in from California. Dad, Dawn, her mother, the Pike triplets - Byron, Jordan, and Adam - and I met him at the airport. The triplets were going to be Jeff's guests at the wedding. He had phoned them from California to invite them. (I might add here that all the inviting had been done over the phone, which I thought was just awful. It seemed to me that the least Dad and Mrs. Sch - I mean, Sharon, could have done was mail out invitations. They didn't have to be engraved or anything.) The seven of us met Jeff at the airport at eight-thirty. We were carrying a sign that said WELCOME HOME, JEFF. I would have died if anyone had met me with a big, personal sign at an airport, but everyone said Jeff would love it, and they were right. For one thing, he spotted us right away and didn't have to worry that he wouldn't find us. For another thing, he loved the attention.

  "Hi! Hi, everybody!" he called.