"Babysitters Club 032 Kristy And The Secret Of Susan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Babysitters Club)

Jessi and the younger Pike kids went home that afternoon feeling both triumphant and embarrassed.
But Mal barely felt a thing. Her mind was in outer space.
Chapter 6.
"Hello, Baby-sitters Club. How may we help you?"
I was at another BSC meeting. It had just begun and I had just taken the first call of the day.
"Oh, hi, Mrs. Prezzioso," I said. I rolled my eyes at my fellow dub members. Jenny, the Prezziosos' only child, is not exactly our favorite kid to sit for. We like almost all of our sitting charges - a lot - but when Mrs. P. calls, most of us moan and groan. That's because Jenny is a spoiled brat. "Saturday?" I repeated. "From ten until three? Okay, I'll check it out and get back to you. 'Bye." I hung up.
"Mrs. P. needs a sitter on Saturday," I told my friends.
"I hope I'm busy," said Stacey, who was
sitting on the bed this time, while Dawn sat in the desk chair.
We laughed. Then Mary Anne checked the appointment pages in the record book. "You are," she told Stacey. "So are Jessi, Claud, and Kristy."
Stacey, Jessi, Claudia, and I breathed sighs of relief.
Mal, Dawn, and Mary Anne looked pained.
Then they all started saying things like, "You take the job, Mal. You're saving up for that set of books." Or, "You take it, Dawn. Babysitting for Jenny will be ... character-building."
"Thank you," said Dawn, "but I have enough character already."
Finally Mary Anne said, "Oh, I'll sit for Jenny. I usually end up with the Jenny-jobs. I can handle her."
So I called Mrs. P. back to tell her Mary Anne would be sitting. Then the seven of us waited for the phone to ring again. It didn't, and finally Claud said, "Tell us more about Susan, Kristy."
I had sat for Susan twice since I'd first met her on Friday, so there was a fair amount to tell my friends.
"Autism," I began, "is so strange. It's like
Susan is keeping a secret from the world. Mrs. Felder describes Susan as retarded but says she isn't retarded, strictly speaking. I mean, she doesn't have Down's syndrome or anything. Her IQ is very low, but that's because her teachers can't test her. She won't talk. Why? She looks right through people as if they're not in front of her. She acts blind and deaf, even though she can see and hear. Why? And how can you test a person who doesn't talk and is so dosed off? You can't. That's why Mrs. Felder says Susan is retarded - because she's eight, yet she acts like a two-year-old - a slow two-year-old. But if her teachers or doctors could reach her, who knows what she could learn."
"Anyway, what about the piano-playing and the calendar stuff?" said Jessi.
"Well, that's another thing that's so strange," I said. "Most of the time Susan acts like she's two - she doesn't dress herself very well or talk or anything - but how many two-year-olds do you know who can play classical piano?"
"None," said Mal.
"And this business with the calendar," I went on. "Today I told Susan my mom's birthday and Susan immediately said 'Sunday* and
she was right! Mom was born on a Sunday. How does she do that? I mean, you can just stand there and say any date, like July thirteenth, nineteen-thirty-one, and she'll say, 'Monday' or whatever, without missing a beat. Oh, also, today I tried to trick her. I said 'February twenty-ninth, nineteen eighty-five/ and Susan said very clearly, 'March first, Friday.' You know why? Because there are twenty-nine days in February only if it's a leap year, and nineteen eighty-five wasn't a leap year. Susan knew it immediately. But she still gave me the day that fell after February twenty-eighth."
"Amazing," said Claudia, shaking her head.
"You know what's the worst?" I asked.
"What?" said Dawn.
"That Susan is so isolated. She's practically an outcast. Her parents send her away to school, and she doesn't have any friends, of course. I bet if her parents kept her here and put her on the school bus everyday to go to the special class at Stoneybrook Elementary, she'd fit in. She'd get to know kids in the neighborhood, maybe she'd learn how to play with them - "
I was interrupted by the phone. Several calls came in, and we lined up three jobs. The last
of them was for the younger Hobart boys across the street.
Mal's face turned pink. "Oh, please?" she said. "Please could I have that job? I know we're not supposed to ask, but . . . please? Just this once?"
"Relax, Mal," said Mary Anne. "You can take it if it's okay with Stacey. You two are the only ones free that day."
Stacey grinned. "Mal can have the job."
"Oh, thank you," said Mallory rapturously.
After a few moments of silence (no ringing phones), Jessi said, "I was thinking, Kristy. You described Susan as an outcast. You know what? The Hobarts are sort of outcasts, too. Just because they have accents and say things like 'brecky' for 'breakfast' or 'jumpers' for 'sweaters,' or use slang words that we don't understand like 'rev heads,' the kids here are so mean to them. They torment them. It's as if they're prejudiced against them."
"Yesterday," spoke up Mal, "Jessi and I took my sisters and brothers over to play, though, and the kids had a fine time together."
"Mal and Ben had an especially fine time," added Jessi mischievously.
Mal turned the color of a tomato.
Stacey started to say something, but I interrupted her. I couldn't help it. I'd just had one of my great ideas.
"You know what?" I said slowly. "On Friday, when I baby-sit for Susan again, I'm going to take her over to the Hobarts'! Won't that be perfect? Susan needs friends, the Hobarts need friends. Susan won't tease the Hobarts, and I bet they won't tease her. Not after the teasing they've been through. So I'll introduce them. Maybe if Susan makes friends by the time this month is up, her parents won't send her away. Maybe they'll let her go to school here."
"And," added Mal excitedly, "I could bring Claire and Margo to the Hobarts' on Friday. They got along really well with the two youngest boys. Then James could play with Susan - they're the same age - and I - I - "
"You could what?" teased Stacey.
I liked Mallory's offer a lot. I really did. But I was beginning to be suspicious of it. Did she have some other reason for wanting to bring her sisters to the Hobarts' on Friday?
"Does Ben get teased as much as his younger brothers?" asked Claud thoughtfully. (Now that we knew Ben went to our school,
we kept our eyes out for him, but the eighth-graders don't have much to do with the sixth-graders.)
"I don't think so," replied Jessi. "Do you, Mal?"
Mallory, her face still fiery, just shook her head.
Jessi hid a smile. "What Mal is trying to say," she translated for the rest of us, "is that Ben is tall for his age, so he looks sort of . . ."
"Menacing?" supplied Dawn.
"No! Just like someone you don't want to mess with. Plus, at Stoneybrook Middle School we're so busy changing classes and stuff that most kids just haven't bothered Ben. But at home it's different. When the kids are out in their yard, they're easy targets. And James and Mathew and especially Johnny aren't very good at defending themselves."