"Babysitters Club 021 Mallory And The Trouble With Twins" - читать интересную книгу автора (Babysitters Club)
"And Claudia," Mrs. Arnold continued, "I must admit that I'm a bit surprised at you. We trusted you to be in charge of our daughters. We understand that it's difficult to tell them apart when their bracelets are off. Still. . . you were supposed to be responsible for them while we were out."
"I know," Claud replied, and she could feel her face burning. (This was so unfair!) "I'm very sorry. I'll understand if you don't want me to sit for you again. Or if you don't want
anyone from our club to sit for you again, either." She hated to add that last part, but felt she had to.
"Oh, no, no," said Mrs. Arnold quickly. "Nothing like that will be necessary."
(Darn.)
Claud wondered if the Arnolds had been having trouble getting sitters lately, but of course she didn't say anything. She just offered not to take the Arnolds' money (they gave it to her anyway) and got out of there as fast as she could.
"Mallory, you can have the twins!" was the last line in Claudia's notebook entry.
Chapter 7.
Well, that was very kind of Claudia, but I didn't want the twines. They were making my life miserable. I dreaded Tuesdays and Thursdays. I dreaded them so much that sometimes I would forget, for a moment or two, about wanting pierced ears and a decent haircut. I even considered asking Kristy if I could quit the job at the Arnolds'. But I knew I couldn't do that. Couldn't ask Kristy, I mean. That would be as good as asking to be kicked out of the club. As far as I knew, no one in the club had ever backed out of a job she was signed up for just because the kids were difficult. And certainly, no one had ever been kicked out of the club.
There was something I could do, though, and that was discuss the problem of the twins with my friends at the next club meeting. I'd been writing about them in the notebook, so everyone was aware of what was going on.
Maybe Kristy or one of the other more experienced sitters would have some suggestions for me. The problem was worth bringing up.
Monday. Five-thirty. The members of the Baby-sitters Club had gathered in Claud's room. It was a typical scene.
Our president, dressed in jeans, a white turtleneck, a pink-and-blue sweater, and new running shoes, was sitting in Claudia's director's chair. Her visor was in place, and a Connecticut Bank and Trust pencil was stuck over her ear. She was looking in the record book and exclaiming over how much money we'd been earning lately.
Claudia was lying on her bed with one leg propped up on a pillow. She'd broken that leg a few months earlier and every now and then, especially if rain was on the way, her leg would give her some trouble. She looked absolutely great, though, pillow or no pillow. Her long hair was fixed in about a million braids which were pulled back and held in place behind her head with a column of puffy pony tail holders. She was wearing a T-shirt she'd painted herself, tight blue pants that ended just past her knees, push-down socks, and no shoes. From her ears dangled small baskets of fruit. She'd made those, I knew. She'd found the baskets
and the fruits at a store that sells miniatures and dollhouse furniture. Claudia amazes me.
Sitting next to Claud on the bed were Mary Anne and Dawn. I might add that they were sitting fairly gingerly, like they thought that if they so much as moved, they would break Claud's leg all over again, which couldn't have been further from the truth. (Claud wasn't in that much pain.) Mary Anne was wearing a short plum-colored skirt over a plum-and-white-striped body suit. The legs of the body suit stopped just above her ankles, and she'd tucked the bottoms into her socks. I don't know where her shoes were. She'd taken them off. The neat thing about her outfit was that she was wearing white suspenders with her skirt. I immediately decided to use some of my hard-earned Arnold money to buy suspenders. And maybe a pair of push-down socks like Claud's. Or, if I became rich, to copy Dawn Schafer's entire outfit.
Dawn was wearing this cool oversized (really oversized) blue shirt. One of the coolest things about it was that it was green inside, so that when she turned the collar down and rolled the sleeves up, you could see these nice touches of green at her neck and wrists. She was wearing a green skirt - and clogs. I'd never seen a person actually wearing clogs, just
photos of people in Sweden. Dawn was the only kid in school who could get away with wearing them. She is so self-possessed.
Then there were Jessi and me. We were sitting on the floor and we truly looked like we were in the sixth grade, as opposed to Claudia, Dawn, and Mary Anne, who might have been able to pass for high school students. Jessi and I looked dull, dull, dull. We were both wearing jeans. Jessi was wearing a T-shirt that said YOU
ARE LOOKING AT PERFECTION. And she Was
wearing running shoes. But no interesting jewelry or anything else. Same with me. I was just wearing jeans, a plain white shirt, and running shoes. Yawn.
Kristy called the meeting to order. After we'd sworn that we'd been reading the notebook regularly, and after Dawn had collected the weekly dues, Kristy said, "Any problems? Anything to discuss?"
My hand shot up, and I didn't even wait for Kristy to nod to me. I just blurted out, "The Arnold twins are a major problem."
"I'll say," agreed Claud. She sat up and stuck some pillows behind her so she wouldn't have to be flat on her back while she tried to make her point. "That job Saturday was the pits." (Since we'd been keeping up with the notebook, we all knew what she was talking
"Me neither," I spoke up.
"No offense, Mal," added Claud, "and I really mean no offense, but I have to admit that I went to that job on Saturday thinking that maybe, just maybe, there was some sort of problem with you and the Arnolds. You know, that they were okay kids, but somehow the three of you just weren't hitting it off. In other words, that - that, um, you were the problem." Claud blushed.
"Don't worry about it," I said, even though I was a little hurt. "I was wondering the same thing myself. But after what happened to you on Saturday, I realized that wasn't true. The thing is," I went on, looking around at the rest of the club members, "we have problem clients. And, to quote Mom, I'm at my wit's end. I just don't know what to do about the twins."
The phone rang then, and a couple more times, too, so for awhile we were busy scheduling jobs. When we were done, Kristy said, "Mal, we've read your notebook entries, so we have a pretty good idea what's going on,
but tell us again anyway. Maybe you'll think of things you didn't mention in the notebook."
"Okay," I said, and drew in a deep breath. 1 looked around and realized I had the complete attention of everyone in the room, which made me slightly nervous. I wanted to sound articulate. And 1 did not want to sound like a big baby, like someone who'd just run up against an annoying problem she didn't feel like handling.
"The twins," I began slowly, "seem like nice girls. They're always beautifully dressed, well, sometimes sort of over-dressed, but then their mother is, too. I think they're smart. Marilyn is an excellent piano player. She's been taking lessons since she was four. And Carolyn loves science. They both like to read, and I bet they do pretty well in school. Anyway, they must be smart to have invented their twin talk."
"Twin talk?" Dawn repeated.
"Yeah. You know, their private language," I explained, and Dawn nodded. "They can just babble away in it. Think how hard it is to learn a different language, like French or Spanish."
"Tell me about it," said Claud, rolling her eyes. She absolutely hates foreign languages, even Japanese, which Mimi sometimes tries to teach her.
"Well, if that's hard," I went on, "think how
difficult it must be to invent a language,"
"But you know something?" said Claud, "I'm not sure the twin talk is a real language. I mean, I think Marilyn and Carolyn have made up a few secret words, but when they sit around going, 'Moobay donner slats im-partu frund?' or something, I'm positive they just want us to think they have this secret twin talk. They don't understand each other any more than we understand them."
"But why?" I asked. "Why do they do that? And why do they take off their bracelets and confuse me when they're playing hide-and-seek, and try to get extra snacks and stuff? I don't get it. They're mean, and I was never mean to them."
"Maybe those are just things identical twins do," said Mary Anne doubtfully.
"I don't know," I replied. "The triplets are identical and they don't do stuff like that. Not even to people who can't tell them apart. And there are three of them. I mean, sure, they've played a few tricks, like switching places in school when there's a substitute teacher, but all kids try to trick substitutes. It's, like, a law."
Everyone laughed. And then the phone rang twice. Mary Anne scheduled a job for herself, and one for Kristy.
When things calmed down, Kristy said, "I
don't know that there's much you can do about the twins, Mal. It sounds like you're being the best sitter you can be, and they're just brats. You'll have to finish up your job with them, but after that, I won't expect anyone" (Kristy looked around the room at all us club members) "to feel she has to take a job at the Arnolds'. If Mrs. Arnold calls again, we'll just tell her we're busy. I don't like doing that, but I think we'll have to. Or we'll ask Logan or Shannon if one of them wants to brave twin trouble."
I nodded. "Okay. I guess you're right. But if anybody gets an idea about how to handle Marilyn and Carolyn, please tell it to me. . . . Boy, it's too bad they're so rotten. They're really cute little kids. Even their identical clothes are cute. There's just something . . . sweet. . . about seeing those lookalikes. I bet people stop them on the street to tell them how adorable they are."
"Nobody would ever stop me on the street to tell me I'm adorable," said Kristy.
"Me neither," added Jessi.
"Maybe they would stop me," I said, "if I didn't look like such a nerd."
"You don't look like a nerd," said Claud quickly.
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