Claudia and the Bad Joke

by Ann M. Martin

  Then there were the flowers. Everyone sent them. I felt so special. My relatives sent them, our neighbors sent them, and Stacey and her parents sent a bouquet from New York. Plus, Stacey had called every day. (Stacey has diabetes and she’s been in the hospital quite a few times, so we could swap hospital stories.)

  Now it was almost lunchtime on Saturday, and crowded into my half of the room were Kristy, Jamie, my mother (she’d brought Jamie and Kristy with her), Mr. Pike, Mallory, and two of Mallory’s sisters — Vanessa and Claire, who are nine and five.

  I felt kind of bad for my roommate, Cathy, who had no visitors, but I knew why she had no visitors. Cathy was (I’m sorry, but this is the truth) a great big baby. She was fourteen, and she’d broken her elbow and had an operation on it. I guess it was a bad break, but every time a doctor or a nurse wanted to do anything to her, she’d scream and cry as if she were two years old. No one knew what to do about it. Her parents tried to spend time with her, but they couldn’t be at the hospital every second, and no friends came or called or sent flowers. I decided that this was because Cathy didn’t have any friends. I wouldn’t want to be friends with such a baby. Still, I felt bad for Cathy.

  “Mom?” I said as the nurse set the new bouquet of flowers on the windowsill. “Come here for a sec.”

  Mom had been talking to Mr. Pike and Mallory. She left them and came over to my bed. “What is it, sweetie?”

  “Giving some of the flowers to the nursing home is a great idea,” I whispered, “but maybe we should give some to Cathy, too. Do you think she would feel insulted? I mean, it’s kind of like saying, ‘You poor kid, you don’t have any flowers at all. I’m so popular I’ve got more than I can handle. Here, take some of mine.’”

  Mom looked thoughtfully at Cathy’s side of the room. Our beds were separated by a curtain, but there was hardly any privacy. My side was overflowing with flowers and get-well cards and presents and people. Cathy’s side was empty, except for Cathy and her bed.

  “Why don’t you ask her?” said Mom. “She can hardly get mad with all these people around.” Mom grinned slyly.

  Usually, I think my parents are dorks, but every now and then they come through.

  I grinned back. “First, I better see who the flowers are from,” I said. I was keeping a list so I could write thank-you notes. I hate writing letters, but I thought that after I’d been in bed long enough, even writing letters wouldn’t be boring. Besides, I really appreciated what everyone was doing, and I wanted to let them know it.

  I reached for the card that was stuck in the bouquet.

  “‘From Buddy, Suzi, and Marnie,’” I read out loud. “‘Get well soon.’”

  “Is that the Barretts?” asked my mother.

  I nodded. Our club sits for the Barretts a lot.

  “You must be pretty popular with your clients,” commented Mom, shaking her head. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  At the mention of “clients,” I felt a funny, crawling sensation ripple through my body, but I shook it off. “Hey, Cathy!” I called.

  “Yeah?” Cathy drew our curtain back.

  “Would you like these flowers?” I asked her. “I thought they’d look really nice by your bed.”

  “Well … well, sure!” Cathy smiled at me.

  Mom set the flowers on Cathy’s night table. Then she turned to me. “Honey, Mr. Pike and I are going to go get a cup of coffee. We’ll be back in a little while.”

  “Okay,” I replied.

  As soon as the adults were gone, I looked at Kristy and Mallory. “All right!” I said. “On our own!”

  “And just in time for lunch,” added Kristy, as a nurse came in with covered trays for Cathy and me. She set mine on this table that rolls over the bed, right across your lap. Then she raised my bed so I was sitting up higher.

  “Cool!” cried Vanessa, watching with interest, at the same time that Jamie said, “I wanted to make her bed go up!”

  “You can put it down for me after lunch,” I told Jamie. “How’s that?”

  “Okay.” Jamie looked satisfied.

  “Mallory, I’m hungry,” complained Claire. “I want a lunch, too.”

  “We’ll get lunch at home when Daddy comes back,” Mal told her.

  “You might get to eat something before that, though,” I said. I was looking disgustedly at my tray. It held a pale piece of baked chicken, a helping of extremely limp broccoli, something white that I couldn’t even identify, a pudding cup, a roll, and a container of milk. “Here, have my pudding,” I said to Claire, holding out the container along with a plastic spoon.

  Kristy was staring at my tray, bug-eyed. “Well, it’s finally happened,” she said. “We’ve found something worse than cafeteria food and airplane food put together.”

  “I know,” I moaned. “What I wouldn’t give for a Ring Ding or a big bag of Fritos right now.” I thought longingly of the junk-food stash in my room. Since I knew the Baby-sitters Club meetings were being held in my room without me (they had to be, because people call my phone number), I said, “Puh-lease sneak some decent food in here next time one of you visits, okay? Look in my desk drawer or under my bed or in almost any shoebox.”

  Kristy and Mallory agreed, and I tried to eat my lunch.

  “Hi, Claud!” someone called from the doorway.

  I looked up. There was Mary Anne. She was holding a cardboard carton and looking sort of, oh, furtive. (That’s a word Janine uses. It means secretive.) She tiptoed into the room, not saying a word to anyone. Then she smiled at Cathy, said, “Excuse me,” pulled the curtain between my bed and Cathy’s, and opened the box.

  Inside was her kitten, Tigger. “Mew,” he said in his tiny voice.

  Now, the hospital may not have many rules, but I know animals are not allowed.

  “I know it, too,” Mary Anne said when I mentioned that to her. “But I thought you could use a cuddly visitor.”

  Everyone crowded around my bed. I pushed my lunch table away and we began cooing over Tigger. I hoped Cathy wouldn’t blab, and decided she wouldn’t, since I’d just given her flowers.

  After a few minutes, Mallory said, “Hey, where’s Jamie?”

  He was gone.

  That caused some panic, as you can imagine.

  My friends went to look for him, leaving me with Tigger. Thanks a lot. What if a nurse came in? But Jamie was found pretty quickly. He was down the hall, in a room where a little boy was recovering from having his appendix removed.

  “What were you doing there?” I asked Jamie.

  “Visiting,” he answered. “I’m a visitor, right?”

  I smiled at him. “Right.”

  My mom and Mr. Pike returned then, and Mary Anne quickly put Tigger in his box and shoved the box under the bed. Since it was lunchtime, everyone left, except for Mary Anne and Tigger.

  The afternoon passed quickly. Dawn arrived, then left later with Mary Anne. (I have to admit, I breathed a sigh of relief to see Tigger go, cute as he was.) Jessi and her sister arrived. They brought me a sock to put over the foot of my cast. The sock looked like a moose head. Once it was on, Becca started laughing and couldn’t stop. Cathy laughed, too.

  Jessi and Becca left. Ashley arrived. Ashley left.

  Then the room was silent. It would be a good time to —

  Ring, ring.

  I reached for the phone. Since I’d been in the hospital, every single call had been for me. Not one for Cathy.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “Hi, Claud! It’s me!”

  “Stacey! Hello!”

  “How are you doing?”

  I paused.

  Stacey could tell immediately that something was wrong. “How are you really doing?” she corrected herself.

  “I’m — My leg is okay. It hurts, of course, and being in traction is uncomfortable. And I’d give anything for a Ring Ding, but …”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” I told her. “I keep comin
g back to this one thing. What if I’d ruined my hands or arms when I fell? Babysitting can be dangerous, Stace. And there’s a good chance that when I grow up I’ll be an artist, not a sitter. I don’t want to lose that chance. So I’m thinking of dropping out of the Baby-sitters Club. Just to be on the safe side.”

  Sunday

  Mary Anne, didn’t you think the comedy film festival was fun at the time?

  “At the time” are the key words, Jessi. Then I did. Now I don’t.

  I guess it did cause a little trouble.

  A little trouble! It landed Claudia in the hospital. And it gave the Pike kids too many ideas.

  I’ll say. No offense, Mal, but I wish you hadn’t had that other sitting job today. Then you would have been helping to sit for your brothers and sisters.

  Yeah. Wait’ll you hear what they did - one joke after another.

  The triplets don’t get McBuzz’s Mail Order, do they?

  I was lying in bed, laughing. Kristy had brought the club notebook by for me to read. I had never had so much fun with it as when I read Jessi and Mary Anne’s entry. I’m sure not everything that had happened that afternoon seemed funny then, but it seemed pretty funny later.

  The afternoon began when Jessi and Mary Anne arrived at the Pikes’, rang their bell, and were frightened out of their wits by seven-year-old Margo, who sprang from behind some bushes, shouting, “BOO!”

  “Aughh!” screeched Jessi and Mary Anne.

  “Scared you! Scared you!” Margo cried delightedly.

  She let her sitters inside the house.

  “Hi!” cried Nicky. (Nicky is eight.) “Hi, you guys! Boy, am I glad you’re here!”

  He stuck out his hand and Mary Anne reached for it. She was thinking, Nicky isn’t usually this enthusiastic or this polite, but what the heck.

  She shook Nicky’s hand.

  BZZZZZZ!

  “Aughh!” Mary Anne screamed again.

  “What is going on out there?” called Mallory.

  She rushed into the hallway, followed by her parents.

  Nicky was laughing and jumping up and down. “I got Mary Anne with the joy buzzer!” he exclaimed.

  “And I scared Mary Anne and Jessi!” cried Margo.

  Mr. and Mrs. Pike shook their heads.

  “Please don’t give your sitters a hard time,” said Mr. Pike.

  “Who, us?” asked Nicky innocently.

  “Any of you,” their father replied sternly.

  Mrs. Pike gave Jessi and Mary Anne some instructions about the afternoon.

  “The triplets are out in back,” she began. (The triplets are Byron, Adam, and Jordan, and they’re ten.) “Vanessa is over at the Braddocks’ playing with Haley. And, let’s see. Who are we missing? Oh, yes. Claire. She’s up in her room, I think.

  “All the kids have had lunch,” Mrs. Pike went on, “and we’ll be back around five-thirty, so you don’t have to worry about dinner. Mr. Pike and I will be visiting friends in Haddonfield. Their number is by the phone in the kitchen. I guess that’s it. You girls know everything else.”

  “And I’ll be sitting for Jamie Newton, if you need me,” added Mal. She checked her watch. “Wow, I better go. See you later. Bye, Mom! Bye, Dad! Bye, you guys!”

  Mallory took off on her bike. Her parents took off in their car.

  “I think I’ll go upstairs and see what Claire is up to,” said Jessi.

  But before she had moved an inch, the phone rang.

  “I’ll get it!” said Mary Anne. She answered it in the kitchen. “Hello, Pike residence.”

  “Hello,” said a familiar voice, “is your refrigerator running?”

  “Yes,” said Mary Anne impatiently. That was the oldest goof call in history. She waited for the caller to say, “Then you better go catch it.”

  “Just checking!” said the voice. The caller hung up.

  So did Mary Anne. “Goof call,” she said disgustedly to Jessi.

  Jessi smiled.

  The phone rang again.

  “I’ll get it this time,” said Jessi. “Hello?”

  “Hello, is Rita Book there?” The caller dissolved into giggles and had to hang up the phone.

  Mary Anne and Jessi waited for the phone to ring a third time. When it didn’t, Jessi finally headed upstairs, while Mary Anne took Nicky and Margo outside. Jessi found the door to Claire and Margo’s room closed.

  She knocked on it.

  “Come in!” called Claire.

  Jessi opened the door — and was hit in the face with a stream of water from Claire’s squirt gun.

  “Hee, hee, hee!” giggled Claire.

  “Boy, you and your brothers and sisters sure are full of tricks,” said Jessi, wiping the water out of her eyes.

  “We’ve got some great ones, all right,” agreed Claire. “My brothers even have a rubber spider. It’s big and yucky and ooky.”

  Jessi didn’t answer her at first. Her eyes had seen something lurking in a corner of the room. She swallowed. “Your brothers?” she repeated. “Are you sure they have the only one?”

  “Sure, I’m sure,” replied Claire. “And they won’t let us girls borrow it.”

  “Well,” said Jessi, backing toward the doorway, “then what is that?” She pointed to the corner of the room.

  “What?” asked Claire. Then she saw it. “Aughh!” she cried.

  Jessi panicked and ran into the hallway. She pulled Claire after her, slamming the door shut. “Oh. Oh, my gosh,” she said, panting. “That is the biggest spider I have ever seen. It’s as big as a dog! I better get Mary Anne.”

  Claire began to giggle again. “As big as a dog!” She laughed and laughed.

  “It wasn’t that funny,” exclaimed Jessi.

  “Yes, it was!” Gasping and giggling, Claire opened the door to the bedroom. She ran to the corner and picked up the spider. “This is the rubber one!” she cried. “Fooled you! Fooled you!”

  Meanwhile, Mary Anne was outside with the other kids. The triplets were practicing soccer moves, and Nicky and Margo were playing volleyball. All the kids were hot and sweaty, so when Byron asked, “Mary Anne, can we have some ice cream?” Mary Anne said yes.

  She brought the kids inside and called Claire and Jessi downstairs.

  “Let’s make chocolate sundaes,” said Byron. “Adam and Jordan and I will make them for everyone, even you and Jessi,” he told Mary Anne. “Now you guys just sit down and relax.”

  Jessi sat down, but Mary Anne said, “Be back in a minute.” She headed for the bathroom.

  She hadn’t been gone long when Jessi heard a cry of, “Oh, disgusting!”

  Nicky tried hard not to laugh.

  Jessi glanced at him suspiciously, then dashed for the bathroom. “What is it?” she called.

  “That,” Mary Anne replied, pointing to the floor. “It took me a minute before I realized it’s fake barf.”

  Jessi looked at the realistic puddle on the floor. “Ew,” she said. “Boy, you know what? So far, Margo has scared us, Nicky has joy-buzzed you and left this barf here, Claire has gotten me with a squirt gun and frightened me with a fake spider —”

  “And Vanessa goof-called us twice. I’m sure it was Vanessa,” Mary Anne finished up. “Listen, we’ve got to put an end to this, and I think I know how to do it. While we’re eating our ice cream,” she said, lowering her voice, “I’m going to tell the kids the circus is coming. Just go along with anything I say, okay?”

  “Okay,” agreed Jessi, mystified.

  Mary Anne explained the rest of her idea. Then she picked up the plastic barf and brought it into the kitchen. “Very funny,” she said, handing it to Nicky.

  Nicky smirked.

  “Ice cream’s ready!” announced Byron.

  Mary Anne, Jessi, Nicky, Margo, and Claire sat down at the Pikes’ kitchen table. The triplets served each of them a dish of vanilla ice cream covered with chocolate sauce. Then they carried their own ice cream to the table.

  “Oh, boy!” exclaimed Nicky. He du
g his spoon into his dish — and the scoop of ice cream slurped out and bounced across the table.

  The triplets laughed until they were almost crying.

  “It’s a chocolate-covered tennis ball!” Jordan managed to gasp out.

  Nicky pouted, but there wasn’t much he could say after the joy buzzer and the plastic barf. He just made himself a real sundae.

  “So,” said Mary Anne, “did you guys hear about the circus? It’s coming to town tomorrow. Well, actually, it’s coming today, but the first show will be tomorrow. Clive Baity’s Traveling Circus, it’s called.”

  The Pikes were intrigued. They wanted to know all about the circus. Mary Anne answered their questions. Practical jokes seemed to have been forgotten. But not for long. When Jessi stood up for a moment to grab a dish towel from the counter, Nicky pulled her chair out from under her, which made her sit down on the floor.

  “That does it,” Mary Anne whispered to Jessi as she helped her to her feet. “Come in the living room with me. It’s time to put our plan into action.”

  Jessi and Mary Anne sauntered casually into the Pikes’ living room. They left the kids in the kitchen, cleaning up the ice cream dishes.

  “Oh, my lord!” Mary Anne suddenly screeched. “Jessi, I don’t believe it! There is an elephant in the front yard!”

  “An elephant?” cried Claire from the kitchen.

  “Don’t listen to her,” Adam said. “It’s a joke.”

  Jessi and Mary Anne pretended not to have heard him.

  “What’s that thing on the elephant’s back?” asked Jessi.

  “It’s — it’s a blanket. Why, it says Clive Baity on it.”

  “Oh, no! The elephant must have escaped from the circus! Honest, Mary Anne, I have never, and I mean, never seen anything like this in my whole life!”

  That was enough for the Pikes. Both Jessi and Mary Anne sounded truly stunned. And their story was believable … sort of. Besides, baby-sitters don’t play tricks, do they?

  The Pike kids rushed to the living-room window.