Ann Martin - Baby-Sitters Club 021

BSC021 - Mallory and the Trouble With Twins - Martin, Ann M.

Chapter 1.

"Kindergarten baby, stick your head in gravy! Wash it off with applesauce and show it to the Navy!" sang Nicky.

"Mommy, make him stop!" cried Claire.

"Nicholas Pike," said my mother, "this is supposed to be fun. We are going to Washington Mall, which you have been begging to do for weeks, and where, I might add, each of you kids is going to get a new pair of shoes. You do want new shoes, don't you?" "Yes," said Nicky contritely.

"Then apologize to your sister. She doesn't like being called a kindergarten baby. You didn't like it either when you were her age." "Sorry, Claire," said Nicky.

Mom didn't see it, because we were so jam-packed into our car, but Claire's response was to stick her tongue out at Nicky. So he silently mouthed "kindergarten baby" to her and she turned bright red. If I hadn't grabbed her then, who knows what would have happened?

There are eight kids in my family. Nicky and Claire are just two of them, but they were having a big enough fight for all of us.

I am Mallory. I'm eleven and the oldest. Claire is five and the youngest. Between Claire and me are Margo, who's seven, Nicky, who's eight, Vanessa, who's nine, and the triplets, who are ten. The triplets are Adam, Byron, and Jordan, and they're identical. You would hardly know this, though, since they always wear different clothes and have such different personalities.

After I grabbed Claire, she calmed down. It was a good thing I was sitting between her and Nicky. I had put myself there on purpose. When it comes to kids - my brothers and sisters, or any others - I'm pretty smart. For instance, I had figured out the seating arrangement for our outing to the mall. (It takes awhile to drive there.) I had put Margo in the front seat with Mom and Dad, since she gets carsick sometimes and riding in the front is less bumpy. I had put the triplets in the way back, where they could be jerks without bothering anybody, especially Nicky, whom they are apt to tease mercilessly. And in the backseat, I had put Claire, me, Nicky, and Vanessa, in that order. Sitting between Claire and Nicky, I could break up fights. And with Vanessa by the window, she could daydream or make up poems, lost in her own world, which is how she's happiest.

"There's the mall!" cried Margo, pointing. She had survived the trip without once saying she was going to barf.

"All right!" cried Nicky. "New shoes. I want sneakers, and they have to be Reeboks. Or Avias. Either one." "Oh, you are so cool, Nick," said Adam sarcastically from the back.

"Shut up!" "You shut up!" "Mom, Nicky and Adam said 'shut up/ " announced Claire.

"I heard," said Mom dryly. (Poor Mom. Since Dad was driving, she got stuck handling the squabbling and complaining.) "And all I have to say is this: How badly does any of you want shoes?" Us kids "shut up" right away. We didn't think Mom would really not buy shoes for us . . . but we couldn't be sure. Long car rides with eight children could drive anyone crazy. (I should point out, by the way, that our mother is not an ogre. She's just human. And half an hour of kindergarten baby and tattling was wearing on her nerves.) Dad pulled into the entrance to Washington Mall and found a parking space that was about three miles away from the nearest store. We hiked over to a boutique, walked through it, and were in ... the mall.

I swear, the mall is another world. You are surrounded by stores and shops, and even better things: food stands, exhibits, a flower mart, and my personal favorite, the ear-piercing boutique. I hardly know where to look.

As badly as we wanted new shoes, my brothers and sisters and I also wanted to be turned loose to go exploring.

But, "Shoes first," said Dad.

So we went to Antoinette's Shoe Tree (what on earth is a shoe tree?) and each got what we needed - not, I might emphasize, what we wanted. For example, what I wanted were these extremely cool pink shoes with green trim. What I got were loafers.

"They're much more practical," said Mom. "They go with almost everything you own. And they'll last at least a year." When you are a parent of eight children, you have to think of these things. But when you are an eleven-year-old who has to show up in school every day, you just want those cool pink shoes.

As soon as we'd gotten our shoes, Mom and Dad let us kids split up so we could explore the mall for an hour. We had brought along spending money and were eager to, well, spend it. So the triplets went off by themselves, Nicky went off with Dad, Vanessa went off with Mom, and Claire and Margo begged to come with me.

"You do fun things," said Margo.

That was true. I check out all the stuff I'm not allowed to have yet, like glitter for my hair, makeup, and short skirts.

"Today," I announced, "we're going to watch people have their ears pierced." "Goody," said Claire, and we set off.

The mall is huge, but I could find my way to the ear-piercing boutique blindfolded, so we reached it in under two minutes.

A girl my age was sitting on a stool, about to have a hole made in her right ear. I noticed that she already had one hole in each ear, and I immediately felt envious. I'm not allowed to have any holes in my ears, and this girl got to have three.

Claudia Kishi wanted three, also, but I didn't feel very sorry for her, since she already had two. Claudia is one of my friends in the Babysitters Club. What's the Baby-sitters Club? It's a business that my friends and I run. We babysit for people in Stoneybrook, Connecticut, where we live.

There are six of us in the club. The president is Kristy Thomas. She was the one who started the club. She started it last year with a bunch of her friends who are all thirteen now and in eighth grade. My best friend, Jessi Ramsey, and I are the two younger members of the club. (We're both eleven and in sixth grade.) What an interesting group we are. We're very different, but we get along really well.

Kristy, for instance, is loud and outgoing. And full of ideas. She's quite serious about running the club. She's small for her age and cares zero about her appearance. In fact, she almost always wears jeans, sneakers, a turtle-neck, and a sweater. She comes from a family of brothers, two older ones, and a little one, David Michael. Her mom, who was divorced, recently remarried a millionaire, so now Kristy lives in a mansion across town from her old house (and across town from the rest of us). She has a new little stepsister and stepbrother, Andrew and Karen, whom she loves to pieces. Kristy would not care one bit about having her ears pierced.

Mary Anne Spier, who is our club secretary and Kristy's best friend, couldn't be more different from Kristy. She's shy and sensitive and cries at just about anything. I think she's sentimental, too, which may explain why she's the first one of us to have a steady boyfriend. His name is Logan Bruno, and he and Mary Anne are perfect for each other. Mary Anne lives in the house next door to Kristy's old one, and across the street from Claudia. She lives with her dad and her kitten, Tigger. Her mom died a long time ago, when Mary Anne was very young. Mr. Spier used to be really strict with his daughter, but he's let up a lot lately. And since that happened, Mary Anne has taken more of an interest in her appearance. She wears clothes that are sort of preppy, but at the same time cool. I bet Mr. Spier would never let Mary Anne get her ears pierced, though.

Dawn Schafer is another good friend of Mary Anne's. In fact, I think Mary Anne has two best friends - Dawn and Kristy. Dawn is the club treasurer. Boy, is she different from anyone else in the club. She's a real individual. Dawn moved to Connecticut last year with her mom and her younger brother, Jeff. They moved all the way from California after her parents got divorced, and they picked Stoney-brook because Mrs. Schafer grew up here, or something like that. Dawn is so Californian that it's almost sad to see her transplanted to the East Coast. She's laid-back (but very organized and responsible), adores sunshine and warm weather, and even looks Californian, with incredibly long, pale blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes. Things haven't been easy for Dawn. There was the divorce, of course, and then, just recently, her brother moved back to California to live with Mr. Schafer because he hated Connecticut so much. But Dawn is not only an individual, she's a survivor. She'll get through this. Pierced ears? I don't know whether Dawn would want them. I'm sure she'd be allowed to have them, but she'd probably only get them if she were sure she wasn't going to look like every other thirteen-year-old around.