"Babysitters Club 015 Little Miss Stoneybrook...And Dawn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Babysitters Club)

"Now," she said, "face me, and put your right hands on the notebook."
Jessi and Mal did as they were told.
(I looked at Claudia and we rolled our eyes.)
"Repeat after me," Kristy continued. "I promise to be a good, reliable, and safe sitter, and to be true to the Baby-sitters Club forever-more."
Mal and Jessi repeated this oath (which I'm sure Kristy had made up on the spur of the moment).
"I now pronounce you junior officers in the Baby-sitters Club," said Kristy.
Mary Anne burst into tears. "Oh, that is so beautiful!" she said.
Claudia and I rolled our eyes again.
"Well, six o'clock," announced Kristy. "Time to go home."
The meeting ended.
Later, I wished it never had.
Chapter 2.
I really love our house. It's the one thing about Connecticut that's better than California, at least in ray mind. Our house in California was very nice, but there wasn't anything special about it. It was ten years old, built on one level, ranch-style, and looked like every other house on the street. I used to think that if it weren't for our bright yellow front door, I wouldn't have been able to tell it from the other houses. I might easily have walked into the wrong house after school one day and found a family that wasn't mine at all.
But our house in Connecticut is wonderful and special. As I've said, it's over two hundred years old. It's a colonial farmhouse with a secret passage that was probably once part of the Underground Railroad, which helped slaves escape from the South during the Civil War. Because the house is so old, the doorways are
low, the stairs are narrow, the rooms are small and dark. Mom and I love it.
Jeff hated it.
To be fair, I should say that my brother hated most things about Connecticut. I'm not thrilled with things myself, but I learned to adjust. Jeff didn't. He tried to at first, I think. But after awhile he stopped trying. And he became impossible to live with. When he wasn't sullen and silent, he was yelling at Mom and me, or being rude. He got into one scrape after another in school, too. His teacher was always calling my poor mom or arranging conferences with her.
In fact, the evening after Kristy's little induction ceremony started out like a lot of other nights - with yet another phone call from Jeff's teacher.
Mom and Jeff and I were just finishing our dinner. We were eating brown rice and a vegetable casserole. I'll never understand how the people on this coast can eat so much red meat and white rice and disgusting stuff. Our family is into health foods.
It was a typical meal. Jeff didn't utter a word, except to point out rudely that my mother had gotten a big ink stain on her blouse. I should mention that our mom is totally absent-minded.
I always have to check her over before she leaves for work. If I don't, she's apt to walk out the door wearing two different shoes, or with only one of her eyes made up. I don't mind this. It's just part of who Mom is, but Jeff had been giving her a hard time about it.
Anyway, I don't know how Mom had gotten the ink stain, but I wasn't surprised that she'd forgotten to try to scrub it off. I was surprised that Jeff was so rude about it. I'd noticed the stain, too, but I was going to mention it later, when we were cleaning up after dinner.
Jeff didn't wait, though.
"Mo-om" he exclaimed as soon as he sat down at the table.
"What?" replied Mom a bit sharply. Jeff was getting on her nerves.
"Look at your blouse. That is so gross."
I kicked Jeff under the table.
He kicked me back.
Mom looked at her blouse. "Oh, no!" she cried. "Darn, when did that happen?"
"Everyone at the office was probably laughing at you," Jeff muttered.
"Jeff, that was uncalled for," said Mom.
"Sorry," Jeff replied, not sounding the least bit sorry.
We ate a pretty silent dinner.
Just as we were starting to clear the table, the phone rang.
Mom answered it. "Oh, hello, Ms. Besser," she said, after a pause.
Jeff groaned. Ms. Besser was his teacher. Her call could only mean he was in trouble again.
"What'd you do this time?" I asked him as he and I continued to clear the table.
"Fight," he replied. "I got into a fight."
"And?" I prompted him.
"Well, it was Jerry Haney's fault. He started it."
"But what'd you do to him?"
"Gave him a black eye."
"Oh, good going, Jeff," I said. "You'll be lucky if you aren't expelled. I'm surprised Jerry isn't blind yet." (That wasn't the first black eye my brother had given Jerry Haney.)
When Mom got off the phone, she looked sternly at my brother. Then she pointed to one of the kitchen chairs. "Sit," she ordered.
Jeff sat.
I kept on cleaning up, hoping that if I did I wouldn't be asked to leave the room. I wanted to stick around for the fireworks.
My plan worked.
But there were no fireworks. To my surprise,
Jeff began talking before my mother did. And he sounded calm and rational for once. He took a deep breath. Then he bit his lip.
"Mom," he finally began, "I'm sorry about what happened at school today. Really I am. I couldn't help it. It's like, all I can think about is California and Dad. And I get really mad that I'm not there with him. There's this sort of anger bubbling up inside me all the time. And then when something happens, like Jerry making his stupid-jerk comment today, all that anger boils over. Do you know what I mean?"