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

"Oh, boy, dancing and pink tutus!" Claudia shouted happily. "Come on." She grabbed Kristy's hand. "Let's ask Mimi if I can take ballet, too."
Kristy cheered up a little. But I was feeling down. If Kristy and Claudia went to the Y every day, who would I play with?
Kristy seemed to read my mind. "Mary Anne, you can take ballet, too," she said. "If the three of us do it, maybe we'll have fun."
I tried to imagine myself doing ballet all morning, every day. I wasn't like Claudia, who loved to dance around and look in the mirror. Or like Kristy, who was athletic and enjoyed exercising. I liked to watch other people dance and do sports, but I didn't enjoy doing them myself. I wished again that school wouldn't end.
We found Mimi in the kitchen. Kristy and Claudia told her all about the ballet class. "I believe ballet class would be a good thing for you, my Claudia," Mimi said. "We'll talk about it with your parents when they come home." She smiled at me. "Are you going to ballet class, Mary Anne?"
"I don't know," I replied.
Mimi gave us each a glass of apple juice and two chocolate chip cookies. She told me," Mary Anne, your sitter called. As soon as you finish your snack you should go home. All right?"
"Okay," I said.
We took our snacks out to the backyard and sat around the picnic table. I was feeling glum.
"Ask your dad if you can take ballet, - too," Claudia urged me.
"I don't like to dance," I explained.
"If you don't do it with us you'll be alone with one of your awful baby-sitters," warned Claudia.
Kristy looked thoughtful. "Someday we can be baby-sitters," she said.
"And we'll be good baby-sitters," added Claudia.
"The best," agreed Kristy.
I did have a pretty pathetic series of sitters that year. Some of my sitters were so bad that my dad had to fire them. And every one of them was boring, boring, boring. For example,
Mrs. Manson talked about her grandchildren all the time. They sounded as boring as she was. She also drank a lot of beer on the job. That's why my dad fired her.
Mrs. Manson was replaced by my current sitter, Mrs. Cuddy. Mrs. "Cruddy," as Kristy called her, watched TV game shows and soap operas all the time. And she was always asking me to do things for her, such as make a snack or answer the phone - which mostly rang
for her. When I'd ask Mrs. Cuddy if I could play at Kristy's, she'd say, "But who will keep me company?" as if I were taking care of her.
But even the prospect of being with Mrs. Cuddy all day was better than going to ballet class. -
I decided not to mention the ballet class at the Y to my dad. And I didn't.
But that evening, soon after my dad came home, Kristy's mother phOned him. She must have asked him what he was doing for sitters during the summer, because he said, "Mrs. Cuddy may be able to extend her hours. Otherwise I'll have to find someone else for the mornings." Then I heard my dad say, "Ballet? If you're sure that you and Mimi don't mind doing the carpooling back and forth, I don't see why Mary Anne couldn't do it. I would love for her to take ballet." After he hung up the phone he told me, "I'm going to sign you up for the ballet class that Kristy and Claudia are taking at the Y."
"But, Dad," I protested. "I don't know how to do ballet."
"That's the whole point of the class," he said. "To learn ballet. It's a beginners' class, so none of the kids will know ballet. I thought you'd be happy. Kristy and Claudia are going."
"I know," I said. "But I don't like to dance."
"That's why it'll be good for you," he said. That night, when my dad kissed me good
night, he said, "I think ballet class will help you overcome some of yOur shyness, Mary Anne. I bet you'll love it."
I thought, if ballet can help me over my shyness, I should do it. And I did like the idea of wearing one of those pink tutus. I closed my eyes and imagined a little girl in a tutu gracefully leaping and turning across a stage. But I couldn't believe that little girl could be me. -
On the last day of school Mimi picked us up. She was bringing the three of us to a special store at the mall to buy the outfits we needed -for our ballet class. Claudia was still enthusiastic about dancing. And Kristy had decided that ballet class wouldn't be so bad after all. "A lot of great athletes take ballet classes," she told me. "Ballet helps athletes develop their balance and precision."
We walked across the mall to a store called Dancer's World. Kristy surveyed the window with its ballet slippers, tap shoes, and sequined leotards. "I just wish we could wear our own clothes," she said. "I play ball in jeans and a T-shirt. Why can't I dance in them?"
The only thing I liked about taking ballet was wearing a tutu. And there in the window, lying in a cloud of pink puff, was a tutu that looked just my size.
Claudia noticed it, too. "Wow," she breathed. "It's really pretty." -
We followed Mimi into the -store and were met by a young woman who asked, "May I help you?"
"We would like three tutus," Claudia piped up. "Like the one in the window."
The young woman looked at Mimi to see if
our order was correct.
Instead- of saying, "Yes, three tutus, please," Mimi said, "The girls are attending
the beginners' ballet class at the YMCA. We were told that the staff at Dancer's World knows the regulation dance outfit. That we'd find everything we need here."
The clerk smiled at us. "You'll be in Madame Minoff's beginners' class," she said. "So you need black, cap-sleeved leotards, pink tights, and pink ballet slippers." She indicated a row of white chairs. "Sit here, girls, and I'll measure your feet."
"Don't we need tutus?" asked Claudia.
"Madame Minoff is very strict about class dress," explained the clerk. "If you wore a
tutu, you'd be starting her class on the wrong
foot and you'd certainly have to take the tutu off. And be sure to pull your hair back off your
face for class."
Claudia was disappointed about not wearing, a tutu. But she thought the pink ballet
slippers were the best, and she was still excited about learning how to dance. And Kristy, who was relieved that we wouldn't be wearing tutus, was still happy that taking ballet would help her in sports~ Especially when the clerk said she personally knew two football players and one tennis player who studied ballet.
But for me, no tutu meant that I had no reason to look forward to ballet class. All I had to look forward to was being embarrassed in front of a lot of kids, and a strict teacher named Madame Minoff.
When I entered the kitchen Monday morning I found my father humming a cheerful, fast-paced melody. He was scrambling eggs to the tempo. "Do you know what I was humming?" he asked as he poured the eggs into the frying pan-.
"No," I replied.
"It's the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy from the famous ballet The Nutcracker," he explained.