"BSC050 - Dawn's Big Date - Martin, Ann M" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin Ann M)

It was just that no boy had ever liked me. Not the way Logan liked Mary Anne. (This one time, I thought a guy named Travis was interested in me. But he wasn't. He was just leading me on, probably because he could tell I had a major crush on him.)
Other girls are always saying I should be a model or an actress. They say, "Oh, I wish I had your silky hair." Or, "I'd die to have your skin." (They might have good hair and skin if they didn't eat so much junk food.) Enough people have told me I'm pretty, so I should
believe it. Personally, though, I can't see it. To me, I just look like me. Not pretty, not ugly Ч just me.
Obviously, boys couldn't see it, either. They liked me well enough to borrow my notebook or to goof around with. But when it came to really liking me, forget it.
"Dawn! You're not writing!" said Mary Anne, interrupting my thoughts. "You weren't listening to me, either. What are you thinking about?"
"Lewis," I admitted. "Mary Anne, what if he hates me?"
"Hates you!" gasped Mary Anne. "That's crazy. I don't know anybody who hates you."
"You know what I mean, though. What if he's really disappointed when he meets me? He seems so nice. I want him to think I'm, you know, attractive."
"Don't worry," Mary Anne said, putting her hand on my arm. "He's already seen your picture."
"I suppose," I admitted.
"Look, you guys must have exchanged at least a zillion letters so far," continued Mary Anne. "He knows plenty about you. It hasn't stopped him from writing."
Mary Anne is great to talk to, as I said before. For the moment, I felt less worried. "I'm
going to go upstairs and make it a zillion and one letters," I said.
"What about your list?" asked Mary Anne.
"I know what I need," I assured her.
"I do, too," Mary Anne said, wrinkling her nose. "Honey, nuts, soybeans, and two tons of tofu."
"Three tons," I teased, as I headed out of the kitchen.
Upstairs I opened a new box of writing paper. Each sheet had a tiny silver unicorn in the righthand corner. Jeff had bought it for me in California. Here's what I wrote:
eJt/si-
you'// te fere, fn Janu nghi-! &ei- rgan a
ne wanfs us ID See.
I stopped writing because I'd heard the front door open and close. In a moment my mother called up the stairs. "Dawn, come on!"
"Okay, be right there," I called back.
I started writing very fast.
Oof- 1o run. Mom's calling. /?/?/)г and I have -fa go shopping for our A/ew years EV& steep wer party. All -me, members of the, &$C are. coming. My brother Jeff has invited -the P/kc in'ple.-fe. 33-shou/d be zooey bu+ -fun. г ty%> you haya Q very happy A/ew year X can'-f- wait- 1u see you.
' -fbr noi4J>
I stuck the letter in an envelope and ran down the stairs. Mom, Mary Anne, and Jeff were in the kitchen. It was weird to see Jeff with his sun-bleached hair and light tan, all bundled up in a jacket. He was putting a cup of soup into the microwave.
Mom was rummaging through the junk drawer. "The supermarket is having a sale on sparkling cider," she said. "I cut the coupons. I know they're in here somewhere."
I went to the hall closet and got my down jacket.
"Are these the ones you mean?" I heard Jeff ask, as I returned to the kitchen. He had found a plate in the microwave. The coupons were stuck to the bottom of the plate.
"Oh. Yes, they are," said my mother sheepishly. She looked at the three of us. Our expressions were somewhere between total exasperation and laughter. My mother is such a scatterbrain.
"Okay, okay," she said, even though no one had said anything. She took the coupons from Jeff. "If it makes you all feel any better, my New Year's resolution is to become more organized."
"A resolution?" asked Jeff.
"Yeah. You know Ч when you decide to do something differently from the way you used to do it," Mary Anne explained. "People make resolutions on New Year's Eve because it's the beginning of a new year. It's like a new beginning."
A New Year's resolution. That made me think. What kind of resolution did 7 need to make?
Chapter 2.
Kristy Thomas checked the time as Mary Anne and I scooted into Claudia Kishi's bedroom. "You're late," Kristy commented, pointing to Claudia's digital clock. The clock read 5:31. Kristy is a stickler for punctuality. She hates for anyone to be even one minute late for a Baby-sitters Club meeting.
"Sorry, we were shopping for the sleepover tomorrow," explained Mary Anne, who was now perched on the end of Claudia's bed.
"The checkout lines at the grocery store were humongous," I added, as I settled down, cross-legged on the floor.
There was this little bubble of tension in the room. I could tell from Kristy's expression that she was still annoyed. (I knew our being late wasn't the only thing that was bothering Kristy. She gets a little jealous of me sometimes. Before I came along, Kristy had been Mary Anne's only best friend.)
Luckily, Claudia broke the tension. "Now that we're all here I think we should have a pre-New Year's Eve celebration/' she said, sliding gracefully off her bed.
She rolled a tin can the size of a small waste-basket out from under the bed. "Aunt Peaches ordered this for me. It came in the mail yesterday," she said, popping open the lid. Inside were three different kinds of popcorn: regular, cheese, and caramel-coated, divided into compartments. Naturally, Claudia went right for the caramel-coated. She is a total junk food fanatic.
"Wow! Cool! Popcorn!" cried Mal (Mallory) Pike, one of the two junior members of the BSC. Eagerly, she leaned forward from her spot on the floor and dug out a handful of cheese popcorn.
Our other junior member, Jessi (Jessica) Ramsey was sitting beside Mal. She practically dove into the caramel-coated popcorn. "This is a great gift," said Jessi. "Your aunt really knows what you like."
Claudia nodded, her mouth full. "It was lucky I was home to receive it," she said, clearing her throat. "I took it right upstairs before my parents saw the caramel-coated and cheese popcorn. I just barely talked them into letting me have regular popcorn. Flavored popcorn would definitely be out." (Claudia always
stashes her junk food because her parents don't approve of it.)
"Hey, if you guys could stop stuffing your faces for a minute, we have some business to go over," Kristy reminded us sternly.
"We can eat and do business at the same time," said Stacey McGill, stretching from her spot on the bed to scoop up a small amount of plain popcorn. She ate it slowly, one piece at a time.
Maybe this would be a good place to tell you something about each member of the club.
You already know about Mary Anne, so I'll start with Kristy. She's the president because the club was her idea. Also because she's a natural president-type. (To say it more plainly Ч she's very bossy.) Even though Kristy comes on too strong sometimes, deep down she's sensitive and nice. Plus, she's pretty levelheaded and knows how to get things done. Kristy is also great with little kids.