Good-bye Stacey, Good-bye (3 page)

Claudia nodded. Then she picked up her phone and handed it to me.

I dialed it with shaking fingers. "Hello, Kristy?" I said. "It's Stacey. Emergency club meeting tomorrow in the cafeteria."

Chapter 4.

I managed not to tell Kristy, Mary Anne, or Dawn the news about my move until we were actually sitting at our usual spot in the cafeteria with our food in front of us. That morning, Mom had taken pity on me and driven me to school (I usually walk with Claudia and Mary Anne), and then somehow I just hadn't seen any of my friends until lunch.

By the time fifth period rolled around, Kristy was so curious about the emergency meeting that she hustled everyone through the lunch lines and didn't even bother to make gross comments about the hot lunch, which she and Mary Anne always buy. Usually she sits at the table for a few minutes saying stuff like, "I've got it! Fungus — that's what this salad smells like!" or "Remember those gym socks I lost last week? I think they're right here in my succotash." She says these things to bug us,

but when she didn't say anything on the day of the emergency meeting, I suddenly realized that I would really miss Kristy and her comments after I left Stoneybrook.

"So," said Kristy briskly the second we were settled, "why did you call this meeting, Stacey?"

"Well, I called it because I have to tell you guys some very important news, and it's going to affect the club."

I looked around at the four faces that were watching me intently: Mary Anne's serious one, framed by her wavy, brown hair; Kristy, just as serious, chewing on the end of a pen; Dawn, her pale blue eyes wide with curiosity; and Claudia, exotic as ever, looking pained because she knew what was coming.

I cleared my throat. "I have to ... You're not going to like this news."

"Are you sick?" asked Mary Anne suddenly. "Do you have to go into the hospital?"

"Oh, no," I replied hastily. "I —"

"Did something happen to one of your parents? Wait! No, don't tell me. They're getting divorced, right?" said Kristy, who knows much too much about such things. Like Dawn, Kristy's parents are divorced, only it wasn't a very nice divorce and Kristy never hears from her real father. But things are getting better

for her. Last summer her mother remarried this rich guy, Watson Brewer. That's why Kristy doesn't live in our neighborhood anymore. She and her older brothers, Charlie and Sam, her little brother, David Michael, and her mom moved into Watson's mansion across town. Kristy is so lucky because in the process she acquired an adorable stepsister and stepbrother, Karen and Andrew, who live there part-time. (The rest of the time they live with their mother.)

"No, it's not a divorce," I told Kristy.

"Are you —" Dawn began.

But Claudia interrupted her. "Just let her talk, okay?" she said crossly.

"Okay, okay," said the others.

"We're moving," I said flatly. "Back to New York. In a month."

When Mom and Dad had told me the news, the kitchen had become silent. My friends' reaction was noisy.

"Moving!" exploded Kristy. "You can't move!"

"Why are you moving?" Dawn demanded to know.

"Aughh!" shrieked Mary Anne in a much louder voice than usual. "You're not! I don't believe it!"

"We are," I said, willing myself not to cry.

"Dad's company is transferring him. And it's definite. My parents like Connecticut, but they like New York, too. They've already put our house up for sale and they're looking for an apartment in the city. Everything's going to happen really fast."

If we hadn't been sitting smack in the center of the Stoneybrook Middle School cafeteria, I'm sure all five of us would have started wailing away. As it was, we were pretty close. Mary Anne (who cries easily) picked up her napkin and kept touching it to the corners of her eyes. Dawn put her fork down and began swallowing hard. Kristy (who rarely cries) bit her lip and stared out the window. I didn't do anything except not look at Claudia, but even so I knew she was not looking at me, too.

After a moment I said, "Your enthusiasm is underwhelming."

That brought a few smiles, at least.

Finally Kristy said, "I just can't believe it. You've only been here for ..."

"A little over a year," I supplied.

Suddenly everyone had questions.

"Where will you go to school?" asked Dawn.

"Are you moving into your old apartment building?" asked Mary Anne.

"Will your parents let you come back here to visit?" asked Kristy.

I answered the questions, plus a few more. Claudia was nearly silent the whole time.

Then Kristy said, "Remember that night you baby-sat for Charlotte and there was a blackout?"

"Oh, yeah!" I replied, almost laughing. "And we heard noises in the basement, only they turned out to be Carrot." (Carrot is Charlotte's dog.)

"And remember when you took Kristy's cousins to the movies and they behaved like monsters?" said Dawn.

"I'll never forget it. What an afternoon."

"And when we were baby-sitting for all the Pike kids at the beach," added Mary Anne, "and we took them to play miniature golf?"

"That was the worst!" I cried. I glanced at Claudia.

"Remember when we met each other?" she managed to say.

"Of course. First day of school last year. I dropped my notebook and you stepped on it."

"By accident," she reminded me. "And then we looked at each other and we were both wearing off-the-shoulder sweat shirts and high-top sneakers."

"I couldn't decide whether to hate you or hope you'd become my best friend," I admitted.

"Same here/' she said.

I looked at my watch. "Uh-oh! I have to go. I have to talk to Mr. Zizmore. He knows I'm moving, and he wants to go over some math with me. I might be able to skip into algebra back at my old school. Well, 'bye!" I jumped up. I just didn't want to face any more comments about leaving the Baby-sitters Club or about what good friends we'd all been. It would be too, too sad. And I couldn't talk to Mr. Zizmore if I was crying.

I didn't find this out until much later when Claudia told me (she tells me everything), but after I left the table, my friends continued to talk about me and the move.

"You know," said Claudia, "we really have to give Stacey a going-away party."

"A spectacular one," added Kristy. "Or at least a special one. Not just the five of us sitting around with soda and potato chips in club headquarters."

"What could we do that would be really special?" mused Mary Anne.

"A surprise party?" suggested Dawn.

"A big party with kids from school?" suggested Kristy, adding tentatively, "Boys . . . ?"

"Maybe," said Claudia, "but I'm not sure how special those ideas are."

"I know/' agreed Kristy. "They're just regular old party ideas."

"We may have a little problem/' Mary Anne spoke up.

"What?" asked Kristy.

"Well, I don't know about you guys, but I'm kind of low on money, and I don't think we should use treasury funds since Stacey contributes to the treasury, and it would be like she was paying for her own party. I've got about five dollars, myself."

"Oh," said Dawn. 'I've got five-fifty."

"I've got six," said Kristy. She looked at Claudia.

"Zero," replied Claud. "I just bought a new pair of sneakers."

"Sixteen-fifty won't go very far if we want to give Stacey a really special party," Dawn pointed out.

"That's not our only problem," said Kristy. "We're forgetting something. What on earth is the club going to do without Stacey? I know it's kind of mean to think about that right now, but it is a problem. A big one."

"Yeah," said Mary Anne slowly.

"I mean, we did all that advertising when school started," Kristy went on. "We got new customers — the Rodowskys, the Papadak-

ises, the Delaneys, and everyone."

"And we depend on Logan and Shannon for help pretty often," added Dawn. "Hey, maybe one of them —"

"No, we've been through that already," Kristy interrupted. "They don't want to be regular members."

My friends grew silent, thinking.

"This is one big problem," said Kristy, heaving a sigh. "Being a member of the club takes up an awful lot of time."

"And we need someone just as responsible as Stacey," said Dawn.

"She is not going to be easy to replace," Kristy remarked. "Not at all. This may be the biggest problem our club has ever faced."

Meanwhile, I was upstairs with Mr. Zizmore. He was patiently explaining a problem to me, and I was patiently not listening. I was thinking of moving, of Claudia, of Laine, of the Jerk Twins, of awful Allison Ritz, of the Baby-sitters Club, of Charlotte Johanssen.

Charlotte. How could I tell her I was leaving? That her favorite person in the world was abandoning her? It wasn't my fault, but she wouldn't care whose fault it was. All she'd care was that I wouldn't be around anymore.

Of course, she had Carrot and all her best

friends, and she liked school. But I couldn't kid myself. She would really miss me. And I would miss her. And telling her I was leaving was going to be very, very hard.

Darn Dad and his stupid old company. They were making life miserable for a whole lot of people.

Chapter 5.

Mary Anne's job sitting for Jeff Schafer started out normally. Mary Anne was prepared for a fairly easy job since Jeff was the only kid to sit for, he's pretty old, and it was a school night, so she figured he'd have homework to keep him busy. She arrived at the Schafers' a little early. The reason Dawn wasn't taking care of her own brother was that she was going out with her mother. The public library was giving a program on old homes and "haunted" houses in Stoneybrok. This sort of thing is fascinating to Dawn. She loves to read ghost stories, and the Schafers' house is really old and even has a true secret passage in it. Of course, Mrs. Schafer and Dawn had asked Jeff to go to the lecture and slide show with them, but he'd refused. So Mary Anne was babysitting.

Ding-dong. Mary Anne could hear the Schafers' bell ringing in the house. It was followed by silence. At the Pikes' it's followed by the sound of a stampede as the eight kids run to the door. At the Perkins' it's followed by the frantic barking of Chewbacca, their dog. But at the Schafers' that night, Mary Anne didn't hear a thing. She was about to ring again when the door was flung open by Dawn.

"Sorry!" she apologized breathlessly. "You're

early! Mom and I were upstairs changing our clothes. Don't ask me why Jeff couldn't come to the door."

"Is he in one of his moods again?" Mary Anne asked warily.

Dawn nodded ruefully. "I guess so." Mary Anne sighed. She knew that Jeff was having problems and had become sort of a handful since school began that fall. See, Dawn's parents got divorced almost a year ago, and Dawn and Jeff and their mom moved to Connecticut last January. (The reason they moved all the way to Stoneybrook from California is that Dawn's mother grew up here.) At first, things seemed to be going pretty smoothly. The Schafers got all the hard stuff out of the way. They found a house they liked, Dawn and Jeff started in their new schools, and finally Mrs. Schafer even got a job. Then, toward the end of the summer, Dawn and Jeff went to California to visit their father for the first time since they'd moved east. Dawn thought the trip went well, but maybe it went too well for Jeff. Not long after they returned to Stoneybrook, Jeff started acting cross and moody. In school he became a troublemaker. And lately he's been talking about moving back to his dad's, if that's possible. Dawn, of course, is

praying it isn't. She doesn't want her family ripped in half.

Mary Anne stepped inside and Dawn closed the door behind her. Mary Anne really likes the Schafers' old house. The rooms are small and dark, the doorways are low, and the stairways are narrow. This may sound spooky and gloomy (and maybe it is), but Mary Anne loves the idea that the house is so old, and that all sorts of history has gone on while it was standing.

"I bet Jeff didn't want me to baby-sit, did he?" Mary Anne whispered to Dawn.

Dawn shook her head. (It's not that Jeff doesn't like Mary Anne. The problem is that he thinks he's old enough to be left alone. His mother agrees that he's old enough to be left alone during the day, but not at night.)

"Oh, well," said Mary Anne. "I'll live. Anyway, I came over early to see if you have any ideas about Stacey's party, or about getting money so we can give the party."

Dawn screwed up her face as she buttoned the last two buttons on her shirt and fastened an earring to one of her ears. "I really don't," she said at last. "How about you?"

"Not one single teeny idea," replied Mary Anne.

"Well, we'll just have to keep thinking," said Dawn philosophically.

"Dawn? Are you ready, honey?"

Mrs. Schafer called this out as she came thumping down the stairs, trying to put on her watch and straighten out her skirt at the same time. Mrs. Schafer is totally scatterbrained and disorganized, but she's really nice.

"I'm ready," Dawn replied.

"But you've only got one earring on," Mary Anne pointed out.

"Oh, I know." Dawn fingered the little pair of sunglasses that was hanging from her right ear. "This is the new style." Dawn is not quite as trendy as Claudia or me, but she's certainly more trendy than Kristy or Mary Anne, so if Dawn said one earring was in, Mary Anne believed her.

Mrs. Schafer and Dawn left for the library in a flurry of excitement. " 'Bye!" they called to Jeff as they dashed out to the car. They couldn't hear it, but Jeff's reply was the slamming of his bedroom door.

Mary Anne went upstairs and knocked on the door. "Jeff?" she called. "It's me, Mary Anne. I'll be here until your mom and Dawn come back."

No answer.

"Let me know if you need help with your homework or anything."

No answer.

"Come down later and I'll fix you a snack."

No answer.

Mary Anne went back down the stairs. She'd finished her homework that afternoon, so there wasn't much for her to do except watch TV. She wandered into the kitchen and looked at the big brick fireplace that had been built in colonial days. She wandered into the dining room and glanced outside through the wobbly panes of glass in the window. Then she wandered into the living room and discovered the mess that she'd written about in the club notebook. A can of creamed spinach was sitting on the couch, and a screwdriver and a doormat had been tossed into a corner. (I told you Mrs. Schafer is scatterbrained.) Plus, the floor was littered with crumpled-up papers.