Kristy And The Snobs Part 5

"Honey, what on earth is wrong? Are you and Jeff all right?"

"I am, but Jeff isn't," Dawn replied as her mother stepped into the house.

Dawn told Mrs. Schafer everything that had happened. "He said he wants to go back to California, Mom," she finished up. "And he sounds like he means it."

Mrs. Schafer had turned slightly pale. "Oh, boy," she said. "Maybe that trip to California this summer wasn't a good idea. It must have made him homesick."

"Well, it made me homesick," Dawn admitted, "but I still wanted to come back to Connecticut - and you."

"Thanks, honey," said her mother, giving Dawn a little hug. "I guess you and Jeff are just different. Everybody always says a boy needs his father. I thought that was very old-fas.h.i.+oned, but maybe it's true."

"Mom, you're not going to send Jeff back to Dad, are you?" Dawn was horrified. "We wouldn't be a family then. We'd be split in half."

"Oh, Dawn. We'll always be a family. But don't worry. I couldn't just send Jeff back to your father, even if I wanted to. At least not right away. I have custody of him. Legal custody. But I do think I better talk to your father. And," Mrs. Schafer added, "you better go to bed. It's one-thirty. You'll be a zombie tomorrow Dawn went to bed reluctantly. She noticed that Jeff's light was out and wondered when he'd gone to bed. She hadn't seen him since he'd run upstairs during dinner.

In the next room, Mrs. Schafer phoned Dawn's father. It was only ten-thirty in California.

Not too late. Dawn pressed her ear against the wall and tried to overhear her mother's end of the conversation, but the words were m.u.f.fled. She could tell that her mother was upset, though. Dawn sighed. Her family was just getting used to being divorced. She'd thought the bad times were over. Now, she wasn't so sure.

Chapter 8.

"Come to order," I said listlessly. I said it so listlessly that n.o.body heard me and I had to repeat myself. It was pathetic. I tapped a pencil on the edge of Claudia's desk and wished I had a gavel.

It was a gloomy day, gloomy outside and gloomy inside. n.o.body felt like having a meeting of the Baby-sitters Club. Dawn and I were depressed. Claudia was mad because she'd flunked a spelling test. Mary Anne was upset because her kitten, Tigger, had worms. And Stacey was upset because she had a doctor's appointment coming up and she hates doctor's appointments.

"We're in order," said Mary Anne. "Sort of."

"Any club business?" I asked.

My friends shook their heads.

"Boy, what a lousy, stinky, rotten day," I commented.

"Yeah," agreed the others.

"Have I told you about the Sn.o.b family?" I asked. "Amanda and Max?"

"You mean the Delaneys?" said Mary Anne, frowning down at the client list in our record book.

"I mean the Sn.o.bs," I said pointedly. "You guys, those kids are terrors. They make Jenny Prezzioso look like Little Miss m.u.f.fet."

"You're kidding. What'd they do?" asked Claudia. (Claudia once unexpectedly sat for some terrors herself - Jamie Newton's cousins - and she hasn't gotten over the experience. Stories about other terrors are always of special interest to her.) "They are spoiled rotten," I told her. "They're demanding, they're rude, and they're sn.o.bby. We're watching TV, right? And at the commercial Amanda says to me, 'Get me a c.o.ke.' Just like that. 'Get me a c.o.ke.' No please or anything. And so I say, 'What do you say?' You know, like I always say to David Michael and Karen and Andrew. And she gives me this look and says, 'I say, "Get me a c.o.ke." ' Can you believe her nerve? Then Max says, 'Get me one, too.' So I do, but Amanda says, 'Where's the ice?' and I get ice and then Max doesn't want it. Then later they order me to put the empty gla.s.ses in the dishwasher and to answer the phone. Which I would have done anyway. But you don't expect an eight-year-old and a six-year-old to order you around."

"Why did you let them?" asked Stacey.

"Because ... I don't know. I mean, what would you have done? They're new clients. We have to be nice to them. We don't want Mrs. Sn.o.b coming home and hearing the little Sn.o.bs saying, 'Oh, that Kristy is so mean. She makes us say please and thank you and get our own c.o.kes.' Besides, I can't force them to do anything they don't want to do."

Stacey laughed. "No, but there are ways to get around those kids. Believe me. You don't have to - "

Ring, ring.

Stacey interrupted herself to answer the phone. "h.e.l.lo, Baby-sitters Club. . . . Oh, hi, Mrs. Delaney."

"Mrs. Delaney?" I whispered. I made a gagging sound and pretended to choke. Stacey turned away so she wouldn't have to look at me.

"Next Tuesday?" she was saying. "Both kids. Okay. . . . Okay. . . . I'll call you right back." She hung up the phone and turned around. "Kristy, don't do that!" she exclaimed, giggling. "You almost made me laugh. And I almost called Mrs. Delaney 'Mrs. Sn.o.b'!"

We all laughed then and felt a little better. Claudia, the junk-food addict, found a bag of Gummi Bears stashed inside her pillow case and pa.s.sed them around to those of us who'll eat candy (herself, Mary Anne, and me). Then she found some M&M's and pa.s.sed those around, too.

Mary Anne was looking at our appointment calendar. "Three of us are free on Tuesday," she reported.

I wrinkled up my nose. I certainly didn't want to sit for the Delaneys again.

"It's you, Stacey, and Dawn," Mary Anne went on.

I noticed that Dawn looked as unenthusiastic as I felt.

"Can I go?" asked Stacey.

"Can you?!" I replied. "Be my guest. You can be the Delaneys' permanent baby-sitter, for all I care."

"Great," replied Stacey. "Because I know just how to handle the Sn.o.bs."

Once again she was interrupted by the ringing phone. We took a couple of jobs then and called Mrs. Delaney back, and when we were done, we'd forgotten all about Stacey's plans, whatever they were.

"You know," I said, leaning back in the di- rector's chair and yawning, "there might be another sn.o.b-related problem. Not with the Sn.o.bs, but with the sn.o.bby girls I told you about. Shannon and Tiffany and their friends."

"Is Shannon the one who was mean to Louie?" asked Mary Anne, who has a soft spot in her heart for animals.

"Yes," I replied. "And the thing is, I didn't know it at first, but I guess she baby-sits in the neighborhood, too. I know she sits for the Papadakises anyway. And the other day she accused me of pus.h.i.+ng her out of her sitting jobs."

"Oops," said Claudia.

"Right," I replied.

"Well, she can't be the only baby-sitter in the neighborhood," Dawn countered. "I mean, look at us. You started this club so there would be enough sitters to go around."

"That's true," I said slowly.

We were sitting silently, the five of us mulling this problem over, when all of a sudden Dawn began to cry. The rest of us looked at each other with our eyebrows raised. Not only is Dawn not a crier, but, well, what was she crying about?

"Dawn?" Mary Anne ventured. She and Dawn were sitting on Claudia's bed, and Mary Anne scrunched over until she was right next to her. "Dawn, what's the matter?" she asked worriedly.

At first Dawn just shook her head. She couldn't talk. Then she opened the club notebook and pointed to the account she'd written of sitting for her brother.

"Oh, you're upset about Jeff?" asked Mary Anne.

Dawn nodded, sniffling.

Mary Anne and I filled Claudia and Stacey in on the news, in case they hadn't gotten around to reading the notebook. Then, when Dawn had control of her voice, she added that her mother had had a long talk with her father, and that her father, for some reason, hadn't seemed crazy about the possibility of Jeff's living with him.

"I don't know," Dawn said, (only, with her stuffed nose, it sounded like "I dote dough"). "I don't know which is worse, the thought that Jeff hates living with Mom and me and wants to leave us, or the thought that maybe Dad doesn't want him. And," she went on, "if Dad doesn't want him, I a.s.sume he wouldn't want me, either. Not that I'd like to move back to California. It's just that it's awful to think your father doesn't want you."

"Tell me about it," I said bitterly. My parents'

divorce hadn't exactly been friendly, and my dad never writes or calls my brothers and me. I don't think he cares about us at all. "But Dawn, are you sure he doesn't want you and Jeff?" I asked. "Maybe he's just enjoying being a bachelor again. I mean, first he was a family man, then he probably got used to living with-out you and Jeff and your mom, and now he's just, I don't know, unsettled by the thought of another change."

"You know," said Dawn, brightening, "maybe you're right. I mean, he didn't say, 'I don't want Jeff.' He said something about having to change his work hours, and needing to get a housekeeper. Stuff like that."

We all agreed that Mr. Schafer was probably an okay dad who'd just been taken by surprise by the ten-thirty phone call. The meeting ended then, and I went home feeling subdued. I had problems, we all had problems. At the moment, Dawn's were the biggest. (They were certainly bigger than Tigger's worms.) Although I knew our problems would work out eventually, I realized that, as a group, we were kind of under the weather.

Charlie parked the car in the garage and we went inside. We found Watson home early, starting dinner. In the living room, Sam was helping David Michael with a tricky subtraction problem. Boo-Boo watched them from an armchair. Maybe because he's a cat, or maybe just because he's Boo-Boo, he always seems to watch people suspiciously, as if, right now, my brothers weren't doing math, they were plotting ways to torture Boo-Boo.

"Louie!" I called. "Louie! Where are you, boy?"

"Woof!"

Louie's woof came from Watson's library. I wandered in that direction and found him curled up on an Oriental rug.

"Hey, David Michael!" I yelled. "Did you feed Louie?"

"I put his food out and called him to dinner but he wouldn't come," he replied.

"Okay!" I knelt next to Louie. "Don't you want supper?" I asked him.

Louie's head was resting on one of his front paws. In order to look at me, he raised his eyes, but he didn't move his head.

"Come on, it's supper time," I told him, trying to sound excited about it. "Time for doggie treats. Maybe David Michael will let you have a people cracker later. Remember how much you liked the one in the shape of the vet?"

"Mmm-mm," whimpered Louie.

"Come on, I know you're hungry. All you have to do is stand up and walk into the kitchen. . . . Come on."

I stood up, urging Louie to get up, too. He staggered to his feet - and I mean staggered. He got his front legs up first and tried to raise his hindquarters, but his left front paw collapsed and he fell stiffly. Finally I picked him up around his middle and held him in place until all four legs were steady. Louie and I started toward the kitchen. But we hadn't even left the library when Louie jerked to a stop, squatted, and had an accident on one of Watson's Oriental carpets.

"Louie!" I scolded. "Mo-om! . . . Watson, is Mom home yet?"

"Kristy, what's wrong?" called Sam. He and David Michael came running.

"Whaf s wrong? That is whaf s wrong." Louie was getting painfully to his feet, and I pointed to the mess on the carpet.

"Louie!" David Michael cried. "How could you do that? He's never done that," he said to Sam and me. "Never."

"Oh, he did it all the time when he was a puppy," replied Sam mildly. "I'll go get some paper towels."

Louie knew he'd done something wrong and he slunk out of the library with his tail between his legs.

"Bad, bad dog!" exclaimed David Michael, shaking his finger at Louie. "You're not a puppy now." But then he bent down to hug him. "Louie, I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean that. I don't think you could help yourself. Could he, Kristy?"

I shook my head. "No, he couldn't."

David Michael looked at me from around Louie's furry neck. "He's really sick, isn't he?" he asked.

I nodded. Then I turned away before my brother could see me cry.

Chapter 9.

Well, we were all pretty impressed with Stacey and her psychology. Especially since her job at the Sn.o.bs' started out as badly as mine had, maybe even worse. This time, when Mrs. McGill had dropped Stacey off at the Delaneys', Mrs. Delaney took Stacey upstairs to the little Sn.o.bs' playroom. Amanda and Max, looking gorgeous and immaculate, of course, were standing in the middle of the messiest room Stacey had ever seen. It was even messier than the way the Barretts' house used to look when Dawn first began baby-sitting for the impossible three. There were toys everywhere, and not just big toys, but Tinker Toys, Matchbox cars, and Legos, all mixed in with stuffed animals, board games, dolls, dress-up clothes, you name it. It was toy soup. And Mrs. Delaney asked Stacey, Amanda, and Max to clean it up before they did anything else.

"Well," said Stacey when Mrs. Delaney had left, "let's get this room in shape. Then we can go outside."

"If you want to go outside, then clean it yourself," said Amanda. "We like it messy." She stood back, folded her arms, and glared at Stacey. Max imitated her.

Stacey was prepared for something like this. She pretended to gaze around the room. Then she said seriously, "You know, you're right. I like a really messy room. In fact, I don't think this room is messy enough. Look at this. A whole set of Lincoln Logs. They're not even on the floor." Stacey poured the Lincoln Logs into the toy soup.

"Hey!" cried Amanda. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Yeah! What are you doing?" added Max.

"You said you like a messy room," Stacey replied. "Well, I do, too." She picked up a stack of construction paper and let it start floating to the floor, piece by piece.

"Quit messing up our room!" shouted Amanda. She held her arms stiffly at her sides and stamped her foot.

"Why?" demanded Stacey, pausing long enough to let the remainder of the paper settle into the toy soup. Then she began scattering puzzle pieces.

"Because," said Max. "That's why."

"I thought you liked a good mess," Stacey went on.

"We do," Amanda began, then hesitated. "But not. . . not this good a mess. Cut it out!"

"I'm just trying to help you guys out," Stacey told her.

"No! I mean . . . we want it clean." Amanda scrambled around, picking up the paper.

"Whoops! You forgot these doll clothes," said Stacey. She dumped out a box of Barbie dresses. Max grabbed them up and shoved them back in the box. "CUT IT OUT!" he screeched.