"Martin, Ann M - Baby-sitters Club Mystery 005 - Mary Anne and the Secret in the Attic" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin Ann M)

At five o'clock I heard a knock on my door. "Mary Anne," said Dawn. "It's almost time for our meeting. Want to walk over to Claud's with me?"
Oh, no. Of course, it was Wednesday. I'd forgotten that we had a BSC meeting. Now I was going to have to sit in Claud's room and pretend everything was normal. I knew there was no way I could get out of going; I'd been at school that day, so I couldn't pretend to be sick. But I did not want to walk to BSC headquarters with Dawn and have her question me about my weird behavior.
"No, I'm finishing up my book report," I lied. "I'll ride my bike over as soon as I'm done."
"Okay, see you there," she said. I heard her run down the stairs. I almost called after her, to ask her to wait for me. I had a sudden impulse to tell her everything. Maybe I would be relieved to talk about it. But then I heard the front door slam, and the impulse passed. Better to keep it to myself for now, I figured. I didn't want to deal with other people feeling sorry for me Ч I was having enough trouble dealing with my own feelings.
I lay staring into space for another fifteen minutes, and then realized I'd better get going if I didn't want Kristy to be mad at me. She hates when any of us members is late for a BSC meeting. I hopped onto my bike and pedaled over to Claud's, headed inside (none of us have to knock, we're expected), and sprinted up the stairs. I arrived in Claud's room a little out of breath, but just in time to hear Kristy say, "Order!"
Kristy was sitting in the director's chair, as she always does. She nodded at me as I took my regular seat on Claud's bed, between Dawn (who was wearing her new turquoise jumpsuit) and Claudia. Stacey (wearing the pink twin to Dawn's jumpsuit) was sitting in Claud's desk chair, drawing on her sneaker with a fancy felt-tip pen. Jessi and Mal sat near her. Jessi was putting tiny braids into Mal's hair. "This'll look incredibly cool after you
sleep with them in," she said. 'Trust me."
"I trust you," said Mal. "I just don't trust my hair. I never know what if 11 do."
"Ahem," said Kristy. I could tell she was about to make some official-sounding statement about the meeting having begun, but just then the phone rang. Kristy, Stacey, and Claud all dove for it. I just sat there.
"Hello?" said Stacey. She'd grabbed the phone first. "Baby-sitters Club." She listened for a moment. "Sure, Mrs. Rodowsky. We'll call you right back." She hung up. "Mrs. Rodowsky needs a sitter for Friday afternoon and evening."
There was a silence. I realized everyone was looking at me, as though they expected something of me. I blanked out for a second.
"Mary Anne," said Kristy. "We're waiting."
Waiting? For what? I looked down at my hands, trying to gather my thoughts. Then I saw the record book, which was sitting on my lap. I felt like a total jerk. "Uh, just a second," I said, flipping it open. "That's Thursday the twelfth, right?"
"Not Thursday," said Kristy. "Friday. Mary Anne, what's the matter? Are you okay?" She looked at me closely.
"I'm fine," I said. "Just fine. Now, let's see. It looks like Jessi and Dawn are the only ones available."
"But I can't do it," said Jessi. "It's not just for the afternoon, and I'm not allowed to sit at night."
"Oh, right," I said. "Okay, then, so Dawn has the job." I marked her name into the calendar, and Stacey called Mrs. Rodowsky back.
I looked up and saw that Kristy was still looking at me. She seemed puzzled. "Mary Anne, you're off in outer space," she said. "What's up?"
It figures that the one time Kristy would decide to be extra-sensitive would be the one time I didn't wish to talk about my problems. "I'm really fine," I insisted. I gave her my best "corners-up" smile.
"I thought she'd had a fight with Logan," said Dawn. "She's been like this since last night. But I talked to him today, and he said they were getting along just fine." She shook her head.
"Maybe she's upset about something that happened at school," suggested Jessi.
"No, she'd have told me," said Dawn.
I listened to them talk about me as if I weren't there. And you know what? It didn't really even bother me, because I felt like I wasn't there. Pretty soon the phone rang, and they dropped the issue.
"Mrs. Perkins!" said Claud, who had answered the phone. "How are the girls? I
haven't seen them in a long time." She listened for a minute. "Myriah has a loose tooth," she told the rest of us, relaying the information, "and Gabbie and Laura just got over the chicken pox." She listened again. "Sure," she said. "I'll get back to you in a minute." She turned to me. "Mary Anne," she said, "Mrs. Perkins is looking for somebody for Saturday Ч not Friday, but Saturday Ч afternoon." Her eyes twinkled- She was making fun of me, in a friendly sort of a way.
I checked the schedule, told her who was available, and penciled in Mal's name once we'd decided that she should have the job. I was beginning to function a little better.
"I hear Myriah's class is doing a great project for Heritage Day," said Stacey. "They're going to make a mural about Old Stoneybrook, and it's going to be on display at the fair. Some of the fifth-graders are helping them."
"You know," said Kristy, "I've been thinking about Heritage Day. The reason for having it is to raise money for the Historical Society, right?"
"ThatТs true," said Claud. "I'd kind of forgotten about that. Everybody's so caught up in their projects that the fund-raising has almost been forgotten. But my mom says the Historical Society really needs money for renovating that old sawmill."
"Well," said Kristy. "I think the BSC should contribute somehow. Like have some kind of a booth."
"Great idea!" said Claud. "How about a face-painting booth? I love painting little kids' faces, and they look so neat walking around afterward."
"Face-painting is fun," agreed Dawn. "But it doesn't have much to do with the history of Stoneybrook. We should do something historical."
"Like what?" said Mal. "I was thinking of a bake sale. I suppose we could bake stuff from colonial recipes Ч "
"Too much research," said Jessi. "Let's keep it a little simpler."
"I know," said Stacey. "Last time I was in New York, I saw these people with big cardboard cut-out figures of people like the President and Bart Simpson. They'd take your picture with the figure, and it would come out looking like you had posed with the real person. It was cool!"
"I love it!" said Claud. "I'm sure we could make our own cut-outs."
"It sounds like fun," said Kristy. "But Bart Simpson and the President don't have much to do with Stoneybrook. Who else could we make?"
"How about figures from the history of
Stoneybrook?" said Mal. I nodded. That sounded like a great idea. Even I couldn't help feeling a little excited about a new BSC project. I wasn't ready to participate exactly, but at least I was paying attention.
"Like maybe Old Hickory?" said Jessi.
"Yeah!" said Kristy. "And maybe Sophie. Remember? The girl in that old painting we found in Stacey's attic?"
"How about George Washington?" said Claud. "And Martha, too. I don't know if he was ever in Stoneybrook, but there's a big sign in Greenvale saying 'George Washington slept here' Ч and Greenvale's only thirty miles away. That's close enough, isn't it?"
Stacey looked excited, but just as she was about to get into the discussion, the phone rang and she grabbed it. She talked for a minute before hanging up, while everybody else kept offering suggestions for our cut-outs. "That was Dr. Johanssen," she said. "She feels awful, but something came up and she can't take Charlotte to the parent-child picnic. Mr. Johanssen can't go either. Charlotte was kind of hoping I could take her, but I can't. I already have a job that day. Who else is available?"
I checked the book, without having to be reminded this time. "I guess I'm the only one," I said.
"You don't sound very enthusiastic," said
Stacey. "Are you sure you're okay, Mary Anne? You've barely said a whole word the whole meeting."
"I'm fine," I replied, for what felt like the thousandth time. "And I'll be glad to take Charlotte to the picnic." I was even gladder that it was six o'clock by then. Our meeting was over, and I could go back to my room and stop having to pretend to be fine.
Chapter 9.
As I rode my bike home from the meeting, I thought how strange it had been to be with my Mends Ч and yet not to be with them. It was as if I'd been observing my friends; as if I were some kind of anthropologist. Do you know what that is? We learned about anthropologists in my social studies class. They are scientists who study people's behavior. Some of them visit tribes who live deep in the jungle, and observe the way they live their lives. The anthropologists document the way the tribes-people bring up their children, how they behave when they're in love or at war Ч that kind of stuff. Anyway, at the BSC meeting I'd felt like an anthropologist observing the ways of the typical American teenage baby-sitter.
You probably think I am pretty strange.