"Babysitters Club Special Edition Mary Anne's Book" - читать интересную книгу автора (Babysitters Club)

don't want to be in the recital. I don't like to dance in front of people, even -my friends. It makes me feel too scared."
He looked upset by that idea, too. "I didn't know that."
"But I can do it, Dad," I said. "I'll be in the recital."
"If you don't want to, maybe you shouldn't," my father said. "Why should you put yourself through this?"
"I have to. It's part of ballet class. Kristy and Claudia are doing it."
"That doesn't mean you have to be in the recital."
"You want me to be in it. You said so yourself. It would make you sad if I wasn't in the recital."
"Whoa," my father said. "Hold on, there. How can I be happy about something that makes you unhappy? I'd never want my little
girl to do something that makes her so frightened she becomes sick over it. You don't have to be in the recital, Mary Anne. What do you want for yourself? Right now?"
Tears streamed down my face. I couldn't stop them. "I don't want to be in the recital, Dad," I sobbed. "I just don't."
He put his arms around me and I hugged him. "Then you shouldn't be in it, honey. I'll tell your teacher and we'll go home. Okay?"
I pulled off my tiara and handed it to him. Then I stepped out of the tutu and gave him that. "Give these to the teacher," I said. "I'll wait here for you. And tell Kristy and Claudia that I'm okay."
A few minutes later Dad and I were in the car driving home.
"Mary Anne," my father said, "I want you to make me a promise."
"What?" I asked.
"I want you to promise me that the next time you're unhappy about something you'll tell me about it. Will you promise me that?"
"I promise," I said.
My dad and I exchanged a smile. I felt so lucky to have such a wonderful father.
"Now, how's that stomach of yours doing?" he asked.
I swallowed and realized that my stomach was fine. "I feel okay," I said.
"Good," he said. "I thought maybe we'd go to the mall and buy ourselves a new barbecue grill. And then do a big grocery shopping.
Maybe we could have a barbecue tonight and invite the Thomases and the Kishis. Would you like that?"
"That'd be fun," I said. "But can we go home first so I can put on my regular clothes?"
"Absolutely," he said. "I wouldn't have it any other way."
"And if it's okay, I don't want to take ballet next summer," I said. "Neither does Kristy."
"No more ballet classes," he promised. I suddenly realized that I couldn't wait to see my friends and hear all about the recital. I wondered when they would have the videotape to show me. I'd love to see the tape now that I wasn't in it.
I started humming the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. Dad joined in. We were both happy.
Chapter 6.
"It's the first year we aren't all in the same room," complained Kristy. We were on the way to school for the first day of fourth grade. From the postcards we'd received the week before we knew that Kristy and Claudia were assigned to Class 4A with Mr. Adams and that I would be in Class 4B with Ms. Elison.
"They can't split- us up," Claudia declared. "You have to be in our class, Mary Anne."
"Your dad should go to school and say he wants you in Mr. Adams' class," said Kristy.
"I don't think my dad would do that," I said. Actually, I didn't want to be taken out of Ms. Elison's class. I'd watched her with her classes at school assemblies and in the schoolyard. And once she'd visited our class to tell us about a city-wide poetry contest. To me Ms. Elison was the perfect teacher. She was smart, pretty, self-confident, and cheerful. I wasn't going to give up being in Ms. Elison's class for anything.
"Welcome to fourth grade," Ms. Elison said when I walked into her beautifully decorated classroom on the first day of school. I looked around. One bulletin board told me we'd be studying American history and from another I learned that we'd be studying poetry. I couldn't wait to learn American history and poetry from Ms. Elison.
"Find the desk with your name card on it and take your place, please," Ms. Elison directed.
I found the desk labeled "Mary Anne Spier" and sat down. I checked out my fourth-grade classmates. I counted fifteen kids I'd been in classes with before, including Alan Gray. And I recognized all but one of the other ten kids. The one girl who was totally new to me -and to the school - was sitting at the desk next to mine. I sneaked a look at the name card on her desk and read, "April Livingston." I'd never met a girl named April before. I wondered if I'd ever met anyone named after a month. I reviewed the months of the year in my head. Nope. I hadn't even met a "May" or a "June."
April had curly brown hair pulled back in a loose ponytail with a red ribbon. She wore jeans and red high-top sneakers. Her light blue
sweatshirt announced, "I swam with dolphins." I was already fascinated by April Livingston. -
After the principal welcomed us to a new school year over the public address system, Ms. Elison explained our first activity as a class. She would assign us each a partner. The partners were to interview one another and take notes. We would then have fifteen minutes to organize our notes into a paragraph of
introduction of the person we interviewed. Then the pairs would go to the front of the room and introduce one another to the class.
Ms. Elison called out the names of the pairs.
I hoped with all my heart that Alan Gray
would not be my partner. "Mary Anne Spier
and April Livingston," Ms. Elison announced.
I looked in April's direction. She smiled and
gave me a thumbs-up sign. I smiled back.
Giving a speech in front of the room is not a good way for a shy person like me to start off a new school year. But I tried not to think of the standing-in-front-of-the-room part of the assignment. Instead I concentrated on how
interesting it would be to find out all about
the new girl.
Before we broke up into pairs, the whole class worked on a list of questions we might ask each other. We copied the questions into our notebooks as Ms. Elison wrote them on the board. Finally, April and I pushed our desks together and we were ready to interview one another.
"You ask me questions first," suggested