“Travis must have been furious,” Stacey chimed in. “I wish I could have been there.”
“I’m just happy you’re rid of him,” Mary Anne said. “You finally caught on.”
“It took a little help from my friends,” I added. “For a while, I thought there was something wrong with me.”
“Ha! That’s probably what he wanted you to think,” Kristy said. She tilted her visor back. “I had no idea Travis was such a jerk. He hangs around with my brothers all the time.”
Mary Anne looked up from the notebook. “Well, he’s probably okay when he’s with guys because he’s not trying to make them over.”
Kristy nodded. “I guess you’re right. The main thing is that he’s out of Dawn’s life for good —” I started to giggle, and Kristy stopped in mid-sentence. “What’s so funny?”
“I just thought of something I should have said. I should have told Travis to have his hair trimmed and to get rid of those stone-washed jeans. He could use a few fashion tips himself!”
“You would have been wasting your breath,” Stacey said, examining her nail polish. “He’s so conceited, he probably thinks he’s perfect.”
* * *
I was struggling with a math problem later that night when Mary Anne came into my room. She looked a little embarrassed, and I wondered why.
“How’s it going?” She glanced at my math book, but I knew she had something else on her mind.
“Okay.” I closed the book and spun around in my seat. “I can take a break if you want to talk.”
“Well … sure,” Mary Anne said, settling herself on the bed. I waited while she fumbled in her pocket for a white envelope. “I … just wanted to tell you again that I’m really proud of the way you handled Travis.”
I smiled at her. “I’m glad. But I bet that isn’t why you came in here.”
Mary Anne flushed. “Well, I — Okay, I’ll be honest with you. I’ve got something for you.” She glanced at the envelope but drew back when I reached for it. “No, wait! Before you read it, I want to explain something.”
From the look on Mary Anne’s face, I knew it must be something important. And I knew there was no way I could rush Mary Anne. She would tell me in her own good time.
“Do you remember when I told you about Lewis?”
“Lewis?” I drew a blank, and then it hit me. “Oh, yeah. Logan’s cousin. What about him?”
“Well, guess what? His visit to Stoneybrook is all planned!”
“Really?” I know Mary Anne expected me to look thrilled, but I just couldn’t. My hand edged back to the math book. I had about a million problems to work on, and Mary Anne was all set for a long conversation about some guy I didn’t even know!
“Don’t you get it?” she said finally. “Lewis wants to meet you.”
“That’s crazy,” I said, sharpening a new pencil. “He doesn’t even know me.”
Mary Anne cleared her throat. “That’s not exactly true. He, um, knows a little bit about you.”
“How could he?” I was flipping through the book, trying to find my place when I paused and said, “Mary Anne, what have you done?”
She was blushing all the way up to her hair roots. “Now don’t get mad, Dawn, but Logan and I told Lewis a few things about you. And I sent him your picture.”
“What?!”
“Please don’t get upset. If you just think about it, you’ll realize it was a great idea. Logan says Lewis is a really neat guy, and I think he’s just what you need now.” She was still clutching the white envelope and she handed it to me.
“It’s a letter addressed to me,” I said, turning it over. “Mary Anne, what’s going on?”
“It’s from Lewis. Isn’t that great? He must have liked your picture and the things Logan and I told him, so he decided to write to you. I said he was a great guy.”
“Terrific,” I muttered, tearing open the envelope. I scanned the first few lines and relaxed a little. Lewis said he had heard a lot about me, and he wanted to meet me. He also said I was very pretty and that we had a lot in common. He didn’t sound so bad, but I just wasn’t interested in meeting another boy at the moment. Why couldn’t Mary Anne figure that out?
“Well?” Mary Anne said. She stood next to me, trying to read over my shoulder. “What do you think?”
I shrugged. “He seems like a pretty nice guy.” A picture of a boy with dark brown hair and a great smile fell out of the envelope. “And he’s even good-looking.”
“Definitely. And he’s a lot of fun, too. That’s why Logan and I want this to work out.” She looked at me very seriously. “You’ll see him when he visits, won’t you? Please, Dawn.”
I looked at the picture again. I didn’t feel any sparks the way I had with Travis, but Lewis did seem nice. Still, the timing was wrong, all wrong.
“Well?” Mary Anne said impatiently. “Will you see him or won’t you?”
I sighed. “I don’t know.”
“Dawn, puh-leeze!”
“Okay, okay. If Lewis wants to take me out when he comes to Stoneybrook, I’ll go. I guess.”
“Good!” said Mary Anne. “That’s all I wanted to hear.”
Later, when I was alone in my room, I read Lewis’s letter again. (Okay, I’ll tell you the truth. I read it three more times.) I’m not sure exactly what I was looking for, but I wondered if Lewis was too good to be true. He seemed funny, smart, not at all stuck-up, and nice. I’ll show you what I mean. He started out by describing himself. (We had to do this once in English class, and it was the toughest assignment I’ve ever had.)
Did I write him back? Yes. But I took my time, and I decided to be very casual.
I read my letter to Lewis twice before sealing the envelope. I wondered if I could have made it more interesting, decided that I couldn’t, and finally dropped it in the mailbox. Imagine how surprised I was when I got a letter back four days later! Lewis must have written the minute he received my letter.
It sounded like Lewis was planning to spend a lot of time with me when he visited Logan. Would it be just the two of us, or would we be doing things with Logan and Mary Anne? I decided I didn’t really want to see him alone. That would be too much like a “date.” But if he wanted to be friends, that would be okay.
In return, Lewis sent me a postcard of Louisville, Kentucky. The picture was of a beautiful boat called The Belle of Louisville, and this was the message:
He was looking forward to coming to Stoneybrook. He was looking forward to seeing me. I read the postcard at least half a dozen times and put it in my notebook.
Mary Anne teased me just a little that night when I tucked the postcard into the mirror over my dresser.
“So you’re changing your mind a little about Lewis?”
“He sounds … interesting,” I said with a smile.
“Just interesting?”
“Okay, he sounds pretty terrific.” I paused. “But I don’t want to get my hopes up too much. Remember how crazy I was over Travis?”
“Lewis is different,” Mary Anne said firmly. “Can’t you tell from his letters?”
I shrugged. “He seems different. He seems nice. And I don’t think he wants to change me. We’ll probably like each other. Just as friends,” I added quickly.
“That’s what I’m hoping for.” Mary Anne sighed happily and flopped onto my bed. “I want you and Lewis to be great friends. Or maybe even something more,” she said with a twinkle in her eye.
“Just friends will be fine.”
Mary Anne giggled. “Only time will tell.”
* * *
Dear Reader,
Dawn is noted for being an individual. But in Dawn and the Older Boy, she does everything Travis tells her to do because she wants him to like her. I’ve received lots of letters from kids who are confused about friendships or relationships. They feel they have to do things they don’t want to do, or that don’t appeal to them, in order to impress another person. This is no way to start a relationship! If someone i
s interested in you, then he or she is interested in you — not in somebody you’re pretending to be. Remember, if you pretend to be somebody you’re not, you’ll be unhappy, and the other person won’t know who you are. The best kind of relationship is one that’s honest, in which the people involved are open with each other and truly know each other.
Happy reading,
* * *
The author gratefully acknowledges
Mary Lou Kennedy
for her help in
preparing this manuscript.
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, May 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 978-0-545-63329-1
Dawn and the Older Boy Page 8