"Babysitters Club 03 The Truth About Stacey" - читать интересную книгу автора (Babysitters Club)
"That's how Liz says good-bye."
"So?" I asked.
"She actually found three available sitters," said Kristy. "She gave me a choice. I didn't know any of the names, but two were thirteen years old, and one was fifteen years old. One was even a boy. I chose the fifteen-year-old. People are going to love the agency. I'm not kidding. We don't offer a range of ages like they do. There are no boys in our club. And we can't stay out past ten, even on the weekends."
We looked at each other sadly.
At last Mary Anne stood up. "It's after six. I've got to go home." Mr. Spier likes Mary Anne home on the dot. I was surprised she was letting herself be even a few minutes late. It just showed how upset she was.
"I might as well go, too," I said.
"Yeah," said Kristy.
The three of us said good-bye to Claudia and left. "See you guys!" called Mary Anne, when we reached the Kishis' stoop. She was suddenly in a hurry. Across the street I could see her rather standing at their front door.
"Well," I said to Kristy.
"Well."
"Kristy, we'll make it. We're good babysitters."
"I know," she said. But that was all she said. I kind of expected Kristy to be a little more
positive. I mean, the club was really more hers than anybody else's. I thought she'd do anything for the club. I would.
But maybe that was because the club was more than just a project or a business to me. It was my friends. It was the only good thing that had happened to me in the last horrible year.
I ran home.
Somehow, I managed to eat dinner that night. It wasn't easy. For one thing, ever since I developed the diabetes and I've had to watch what I eat so carefully, food simply isn't much fun anymore. Often, when I'm hungry, I don't care what I eat. I eat just to fill up. And since I was upset about the Baby-sitters Agency that night, I wasn't even hungry. But Mom watches my food intake like a hawk, particularly since I've lost a little weight recently. So I forced down what I thought was a reasonable dinner.
As soon as I could, I escaped to my room. I dosed my door and sat down in my armchair to think. It had been just a year earlier that I had started to show the symptoms of diabetes. At first, we didn't think anything was wrong. I was hungry all the time Ч I mean, really hungry, nothing could fill me up Ч and thirsty, too. "Well, you're a growing girl," Mom had
said. "I expect this is the beginning of a growth spurt. Let's measure you." Sure enough, I'd grown an inch and a half. But then, even though I was eating and eating, I began to lose weight. I didn't feel well, either. I grew tired easily and sometimes I felt weak all over. Twice, I wet my bed. (The second time, I happened to be sharing a double bed with my former best friend, Laine Cummings, at a sleep-over.) When that happened, Mom forgot about my growth spurt and decided I was having a psychological problem. She took me to a fancy New York psychiatrist. During my first session with him, he asked me about the bed-wetting, heard that I was losing weight, and watched me drink three sodas. He was the one who realized what was going on and told Mom to make an appointment with my pediatrician. Mom did. Two weeks later I was learning how to give injections, practicing on poor defenseless oranges, thinking that, very shortly, those oranges were going to be me.
Diabetes is a problem with a gland in your body called the pancreas. The pancreas1 makes insulin, which is a hormone. What insulin does is use the sugar and starch that your body takes in when you eat, to give you heat and energy and to break down other foods. When the pancreas doesn't make enough insulin to
do the job, then glucose from the sugars and starches builds up in your blood and makes you sick. And not just a little sick. If you don't treat diabetes properly, you could die.
Well, I practically died when I first heard that. But then the doctor explained that you can give yourself injections of insulin every day to keep the right amount in your body. When you take insulin and control your diet, you can lead a normal life. That was why I was learning how to give injections Ч so that I could inject myself with insulin every day.
Tell me that's not weird. I used to be one of those kids who cried at the very thought of a flu shot. I never even learned how to sew, for fear of pricking my fingers. And then I discover that not only am I going to need shots every day for the rest of my life, but I'm going to have to give them to myself. It was almost too much to bear. But what could I do? Mom or Dad could give me the shots, but then I'd be dependent on them. And what about sleep-overs or field trips Ч was I supposed to bring one of my parents along? No way. I had to learn to give myself injections. I didn't like it then, and I don't like it now, but it's better than being tied to my parents Ч or dying. The one thing I will never do, though, is let my new friends in Stoneybrook see me give myself
an injection. It's just too gross. And the truth is, every time I give myself one, I feel like a very sick person Ч just for a few moments. And I never want my friends to think the same thing, whether it's the truth or not.
Before I got diabetes, I really had it pretty easy. I'm an only child. For as long as I could remember, I'd lived in a large apartment in a nice, safe building with a doorman on the Upper West Side in New York City. I had my own bedroom with windows that looked out over Central Park. I went to a private school. I didn't have any pets, and, of course, no brothers or sisters, but I wasn't lonely. I had lots of friends at school and in my building, and my parents let me invite them over whenever I wanted. Mom and Dad seemed to be pretty cool parents Ч a little pushy, maybe, and more involved in my life than I liked, but that was it. They let me dress the way I wanted, go out with my friends after school, and play my stereo at top volume as long as the neighbors didn't complain.
diabetes. What if I died? I'd be gone and they wouldn't be able to have another child. Suddenly they were faced with the possibility of no children Ч no children of their own, anyway.
That was sad, but the upshot of it was that, practically overnight, Mom and Dad became the world's two most overprotective parents Ч and not just where food and insulin were concerned. Suddenly, they began to worry about me when I wasn't home. Mom would call me at my friends' apartments after school to make sure I was all right. She even called me at school every noon until the headmistress suggested that it wasn't very healthy for me, and reminded Mom about the nice, qualified school nurse.
Then began the business with the doctors. My parents became convinced that they could find either a miracle cure or a better treatment for me. They never doubted that I had diabetes; they just couldn't leave it alone. They made Helping Stacey their new goal in life.
Unfortunately, they weren't helping me at all. I was losing friends fast, and being yanked out of school to see some new doctor every time I turned around didn't make things any better. Laine Cummings began to hate me the night I wet the bed we were sharing. I didn't
blame her for being mad, but why did she have to be mad for so long? We'd been best friends since we were five. Laine said that the real reason she was mad was that I had spent a lot of time at the slumber party that night talking to Allison Ritz, a new girl. But I don't know. Laine acted strange after I wet the bed, stranger still the first time I had to stay in the hospital, and even stranger after I started going to all those doctors. Maybe I should have told her about the diabetes, but for some reason, my parents kept the truth a secret from their friends, so I did the same. In fact, I didn't tell anyone the truth until we left New York and started over again in Connecticut. I finally told Claudia, Kristy, and Mary Anne my secret. But Laine still doesn't know, and even though her parents are my parents' best friends, they don't know, either. I don't see what the big deal is, but I guess it doesn't matter now.
At the beginning of my illness hospital visits couldn't be avoided. I needed tests, I had to have my diet and insulin regulated, and once I fainted at school and went into insulin shock and the ambulance came and took me to St. Luke's. If one of my friends got that sick, I would have called her in the hospital and sent her cards and visited her when she went home. But not Laine. She seemed almost afraid of me
(although she tried to cover up by acting cool and snooty). And my other friends did what Laine did, because she was the leader. Their leader. My leader. And we were her followers.
The school year grew worse and worse. I fainted twice more at school, each time causing a big scene and getting lots of attention, and every week, it seemed, I missed at least one morning while Mom and Dad took me to some doctor or clinic or other. Laine called me a baby, a liar, a hypochondriac, and a bunch of other things that indicated she thought my parents and I were making a big deal over nothing.
But if she really thought it was nothing, why wouldn't she come over to my apartment anymore? Why wouldn't she share sandwiches or go to the movies with me? And why did she move her desk away from mine in school? I was confused and unhappy and sick, and I didn't have any friends left, thanks to Laine.
I hated Laine.
In June, Mom and Dad announced that we were moving to Connecticut. I didn't have any friends there, but I didn't have any left in New York, either, so what did it matter? They said they were moving because Dad wanted to transfer to a different branch of the company he worked for, but somehow I knew they were
moving partly because of me Ч to get me out of the city, away from the sooty air and the dirt and the noise, away from all the bad times and bad memories. They were overreacting and I knew it. But I didn't care.
Chapter 3.
I might have continued to moon away all evening, except that my thoughts (all by themselves) suddenly turned to something much more interesting: boys. All boys are pretty interesting, but I like two in particular. One is Kristy's brother, Sam. He's the one who's fourteen, a freshman at Stoneybrook High. I know he liked me the first time we met. I was baby-sitting for Kristy's little brother, and Sam came home, and his jaw nearly fell off his face when he saw me in the kitchen. I thought he was cute, too, and my own jaw nearly fell off. We had fun together that day, but not much has happened since. I don't know why. I look exactly the same, I haven't done anything to offend him, and although I go over to Kristy's sometimes, hoping to see Sam, I never bug him. Maybe I'm just too young for him.
I don't worry about him much, though. I have a sort of boyfriend in my own grade now. His name is Pete Black. He and I had been sitting at the same lunch table with Claudia, and the other kids in the group she introduced me to Ч Dori, Emily, Rick, and Howie Ч since almost the beginning of school, but nothing special had happened with Pete until a couple of weeks ago when he asked me to go to the Hallo ween Hop with him. Of course I said yes, and we went and had a wonderful time. Now we always sit next to each other in the cafeteria, and some evenings, Pete phones me just to talk.
"Knock, knock," called a voice from the other side of my bedroom door.
Mom.
I didn't really feel like talking to her.
"Can I come in?" she asked.
"Okay."
"Honey, are you feeling all right?" She asked the question even before she sat down on my bed.
"Yes. Fine." I hear that question about ten times a day.
"You didn't eat much dinner tonight."
"I wasn't hungry."
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