"Martin, Ann M - Baby-sitters Club Mystery 016 - Claudia and the Clue in the Photograph" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin Ann M)

As soon as Jessi and Mal arrived that day, Kristy called the meeting to order. And as soon as Kristy called the meeting to order, the phone began to ring. And ring. And ring. Since itТs summer and all the kids are out of school, parents need us more than ever.
As each call came in, Mary Anne checked the record book to see who was free. Finally, at five minutes to six, the phone stopped ringing, and she gave a huge sigh. "Phew!" she said, looking over the schedule. "We are booked!"
Kristy nodded, smiling. "Cool," she said.
"Except for one thing," said Mary Anne. "I hope we can make some time for a special project. I sat for the Barrett kids yesterday, and they were talking about that video we made for Dawn. Remember? Anyway, you know how crazy they are about her. They really miss her, and they want to make something else for her. Something that will make her homesick for Stoneybrook, so she'll come back sooner. Buddy is dying to have her back here."
I raised my camera and took another picture of Mary Anne right then, knowing that it would show that Buddy wasn't the only one who wanted Dawn back in Connecticut. Mary Anne had an "I miss Dawn" look all over her.
We tossed around some ideas for a project, but didn't come up with anything that seemed right. We agreed to give it some thought and talk about it again at our next meeting.
"I hope you'll have those pictures you took today to show us then, too," Kristy said to me.
"Absolutely," I said. I couldn't wait to get back into the darkroom and develop the roll I'd just shot. If I could manage it, I'd print up a whole series of pictures and have them displayed by the time everybody came over again. All I had to do was take one last picture,
and I did that as soon as everybody had left. I faced the mirror, held the camera out to one side, and squeezed the shutter. Now I had a complete set (except for Dawn and Logan, of course). A Portrait of the BSC, I'd call it. And the subtitle would be, My Best Friends.
Chapter 3.
Mary Anne's entry in the club notebook goes on and on, but I'll spare you the rest of her gushing. Actually, I was as excited as she was about the idea we hatched that Saturday afternoon. In fact, I was one of the three sitters who were in on thinking it up Ч but maybe I should start at the beginning.
Mary Anne had a sitting job with Buddy, Suzi, and Marnie Barrett that day. (Buddy's eight, Suzi's five, and Marnie's two, and together they can be quite a handful. They used to be known as the Impossible Three.) Like a good BSC member, Mary Anne always arrives at her jobs a little early, so she turned up at the Barretts' house at the same time as Franklin DeWitt. Who's Franklin DeWitt? He's not one of the Founding Fathers, although to me his name always sounds like one I should have remembered for a history test. He is a father, though. A father who has custody of his four kids. And he was going to the Barretts' because he's Mrs. Barrett's boyfriend, and he was picking her up for a date. Mrs. Barrett is a single (divorced) mom.
Mr. DeWitt and Mrs. Barrett seem to be pretty serious about each other these days. Sometimes my friends and I speculate about what it would be like if they got married. The
Brady Bunch would have nothing on the Barrett-DeWitt bunch!
Buddy answered the door when Mr. DeWitt knocked, but instead of saying hello to his mom's boyfriend, Buddy ignored him completely. He ran right past Franklin to Mary Anne. "Mary Anne!" he said. "Did you come up with an idea yet? It has to be a really, really good one!"
Mary Anne, shocked at Buddy's bad manners, was just about to tell Buddy to say hello to Mr. DeWitt, but then Mrs. Barrett did it for her. "Buddy Barrett,'" she began, standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips. Mary Anne told me later that Mrs. Barrett looked gorgeous, as always, this time in a simple white dress with her beautiful chestnut hair flowing loose.
Mrs. Barrett could be a model, honest.
However, as she stood there glaring at Buddy, she looked more mad than anything else. "Can't you say hello to Franklin?" she said. "Where are your manners, young man?"
Buddy hung his head. "Hi, Mr. DeWitt," he said, not meeting Franklin's eyes. "Sorry. ItТs just that I had something really important to ask Mary Anne about, and Ч "
"ThatТs okay, Buddy," said Mr. DeWitt, smiling. Then he turned to Mrs. Barrett.
"We'd better head out if we want to find good seats."
"We're going to an outdoor concert in Stamford," Mrs. Barrett told Mary Anne, "so you won't be able to reach us. But I left an emergency number on the kitchen table."
"Thanks," said Mary Anne. We always appreciate it when Mrs. Barrett remembers to do things like that. She used to be pretty scatterbrained, but lately she's been trying harder. Maybe it's partly Mr. DeWitt's influence.
Suzy and Marnie came out onto the porch to say good-bye to the grownups, and they and their brother waved as Franklin's car pulled out of the driveway. Mary Anne confessed to me later that Mrs. BarrettТs white dress made her think of weddings, and she actually had a tear in her eye as she watched the two of them drive off.
Mary Anne never misses an opportunity to get sentimental.
"So, how are the DeWitt kids?" she asked Buddy, as soon as she'd composed herself.
"Fine, I guess," said Buddy. "Now what about that idea? You know, for Dawn?"
Mary Anne smiled. Obviously, Buddy only had one thing on his mind. "Well, I told everybody in the BSC about how you wanted to do something, and they agreed that we should come up with a project."
"So whatТs it going to be?" asked Buddy.
"Yeah, what should we do?" said Suzi.
"Do!" echoed Marnie.
"ThatТs the only problem," Mary Anne admitted. "We didn't think of anything yet."
Buddy's face fell. "Oh," he said.
"But I'll tell you what," said Mary Anne. "Claudia's over at the Pikes', helping Mal sit for her brothers and sisters. Why don't we go over there? I bet if all of us think hard, we can come up with a terrific idea."
"Yea!" said Buddy. "LetТs go right now!"
"Mom said you have to feed all the pets before you go anywhere," Suzi reminded him.
"Merturple!" said Marnie.
"Mer Ч what?" asked Mary Anne.
"She means Mr. Turtle," explained Buddy. "He's her favorite. I like Frisky best, though."
"Frisky's the gerbil," Suzi said. "But he's not really very frisky. Mostly he sleeps."
Mary Anne followed the kids to their playroom, where all the animals are kept. Buddy and Suzi fed them, introducing the new ones to Mary Anne. The Barretts used to have a dog, a funny-looking basset hound named Pow. But then Marnie became allergic to dogs, and they had to give Pow away. (Happily, he didn't go far. In fact, the Barretts would be seeing their beloved mutt that day, since it was the Pikes who took him.) Anyway, now
the kids have an ever-expanding menagerie of nonallergenic pets, and that day Mary Anne met them all, including the fifteen guppies named after famous baseball players.
Finally all the pets were fed. Mary Anne left a note for Mrs. Barrett, and then she and the kids headed for the Pikes' house, which is right down the block from the Barretts'. At the time they arrived, Mal and I were sitting on the front porch, watching the Pike kids do their thing.
"Doing their thing" means something different for each of the Pike kids. Here's how the scene looked that afternoon: For starters, Jordan and Adam, two of the ten-year-old identical triplets, were teasing Nicky, who's eight, about his new haircut.
"You look like one of those cactuses out West," said Adam.
"Do not!" said Nick.
"Cactushead," said Jordan.
Nicky stuck out his tongue. "I know I am, but what are you?" he sang.
Jordan and Adam shouted with laughter. "That's backward, cactushead," said Adam. "You're supposed to say 'I know you are but what am I?' "
"I know that," said Nicky, with dignity. He walked away from them Ч they were still laughing Ч and joined his younger sisters,