After that evening, things got better quickly. We really did make up a list of chores (and we stuck to it), and we really did start being more honest with each other.
“Dawn? Dawn?”
I shook myself. I’d been daydreaming — not a great thing to do during a club meeting. Kristy expects us to pay attention.
“Yes?” I said, frantically trying to figure out what had been going on.
“I said,” said Mary Anne, “that Dad sold our old house, right?”
“Yup,” I replied. “Well, almost. He signs the papers next week.”
“Who’s going to move in?” asked Kristy excitedly. “Future baby-sitting clients? That would be great.”
“I think so,” replied Mary Anne. “Dad said a family, didn’t he, Dawn?”
I nodded.
“But he wasn’t sure of the ages of the kids. He did say, though, that they’re foreign.”
“Foreign!” cried Stacey. “Oh, cool! Where are they from?”
Mary Anne and I glanced at each other.
“Austria?” I said. “The real estate agent was fuzzy on the details.”
“Oh. Well, anyway, this is really exciting!” exclaimed Claudia.
“Yeah,” agreed the rest of us.
“It would be fun to teach the kids English,” added Jessi.
The phone rang then. It was Mrs. Pike needing two sitters for the following Saturday. After we’d lined up Mal and Stacey, I said, “So the Pike Plague is really over, Mal?”
“Yes,” said Mallory with a sigh of relief. “Really and truly. All us kids are back in school, Mom’s on her feet, and Dad can use his hand again. He’s going to have a scar, though.”
“Boy, you were lucky not to be left with any chicken pox scars,” Kristy said to Mal. Then she added, “You are unscarred, aren’t you?”
“For the most part,” mumbled Mal, glancing at Jessi.
Jessi started to laugh.
“Okay,” said Kristy. “Out with it. Where are your scars?”
“In unmentionable places,” was all Mal would reply.
* * *
Not long after that, the meeting broke up. Mary Anne and I rode our bikes home. Mary Anne was all excited because, just as the meeting had ended, Claud had said, “Mary Anne, we’ve got to start thinking about redoing your room. We’ve got to give it a little character. We’ve got to make your room say, ‘Mary Anne Spier lives here.’ ”
“ ‘Mary Anne Spier lives here,’ ” Mary Anne repeated to me. “What would make the room say that?”
We talked about wallpaper and posters and throw rugs and things until we reached our house. Then we parked our bikes and headed inside.
“I wonder what Mom’s doing home at this hour,” I said as we passed her car in the driveway. “I hope nothing’s wrong.”
Nothing was. Mom had just finished up early at the office. But what a surprise Mary Anne and I had when we walked into the den after we’d called hi to her. We found Tigger curled up in her lap. He was purring loudly, his eyes half closed.
My mom was reading a book and looking a little sheepish.
“I don’t believe it!” Mary Anne couldn’t help saying.
I couldn’t believe it, either.
“He just jumped up,” Mom explained, “and he wouldn’t go away. Before I knew it, he was asleep.” She cleared her throat, then added, “I kind of like having him here.”
And I, I thought, like having my new family here.
* * *
Dear Reader,
In Dawn’s Wicked Stepsister, Dawn acquires a sister when she’s thirteen years old. My sister, Jane, came along when I was two, so we grew up together. While we never shared a room like Dawn and Mary Anne tried to do, we had plenty of fights. For instance, long car trips frequently ended up with the backseat divided into two, and shrieks of “She crossed over the line!” or “She’s bothering me!” or “She touched my stuff!” When we were very young, I thought Jane was a big pest. I was always concerned that she would snoop around my room, which led me to booby-trap my bookshelves. Of course, she never set off the trap. I guess all sisters have fights sometimes, but like Dawn and Mary Anne, Jane and I eventually wound up as best friends.
Happy reading,
* * *
About the Author
ANN MATTHEWS MARTIN was born on August 12, 1955. She grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, with her parents and her younger sister, Jane.
There are currently over 176 million copies of The Baby-sitters Club in print. (If you stacked all of these books up, the pile would be 21,245 miles high.) In addition to The Baby-sitters Club, Ann is the author of two other series, Main Street and Family Tree. Her novels include Belle Teal, A Corner of the Universe (a Newbery Honor book), Here Today, A Dog’s Life, On Christmas Eve, Everything for a Dog, Ten Rules for Living with My Sister, and Ten Good and Bad Things About My Life (So Far). She is also the coauthor, with Laura Godwin, of the Doll People series.
Ann lives in upstate New York with her dog and her cats.
Copyright © 1990 by Ann M. Martin.
Cover art by Hodges Soileau
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC, THE BABY-SITTERS CLUB, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
First edition, November 1997
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
e-ISBN 978-0-545-63260-7
Dawn's Wicked Stepsister Page 9