"Wow! That"s exciting!" cried Mary Anne. Actually, she felt even more excited than she sounded, but she knows how sensitive little kids are about new babies. She didn"t want Myriah and Gabbie to think that they weren"t important, too.
Mary Anne wanted to ask a lot more ques- tions, but she didn"t dare. She also wanted to call the rest of us baby-sitters with the exciting news, but she didn"t dare do that, either. She knew she"d have to wait.
"Do you two want to take a walk?" Mary Anne asked Myriah and Gabbie. "It"s so pretty out. And yesterday was such an awful, rainy day. I"d like to go out."
"Okay," agreed the girls.
"Hey," said Mary Anne suddenly. "Do you know any other kids around here yet?"
"We know Kristy Thomas," said Myriah.
"Kristy Thomas," echoed Gabbie.
"Well," said Mary Anne, "I meant kids your age. Have you met Jamie Newton?"
"No," said Myriah.
"Or Nina and Eleanor Marshall?"
"No."
"Well, maybe you"d like to meet them. It would be fun to have friends around here, wouldn"t it?"
"Sure," said Myriah.
"Sure," said Gabbie.
"And guess what - Jamie Newton has a baby, just like you"re going to have. Only she"s not a newborn baby anymore. Her name is Lucy. Do you want to see her?"
"Yup," said Myriah.
"Yup," said Gabble.
So Mary Anne walked the girls around the neighborhood. By the time Mrs. Perkins came home, Myriah and Gabbie had met Nina and Eleanor, Charlotte Johanssen, Mr. and Mrs. Goldman, Claudia"s grandmother Mimi, and Jamie and Lucy Newton.
"Jamie has a new baby, just like we"re going to have!" Myriah told her mother.
Mrs. Perkins glanced at Mary Anne.
"The news sort of slipped out," said Mary Anne. "I hope you don"t mind." She showed Mrs. Perkins Gabbie"s picture.
"I don"t mind at all," said Mrs. Perkins with a smile. "I guess I just hadn"t gotten around to mentioning it. But it"s no secret." She paid Mary Anne and walked her to the front door.
"Are you going to come back again, Mary Anne?" asked Myriah. "I hope so, because I didn"t get to show you all the stuff in my room yet. Or in my goofy sister"s room."
Gabbie smiled charmingly at Mary Anne.
"Of course I"ll come back," replied Mary Anne. "And I"ll show you something special, too. Right now. If you go up* to your bedroom and wait by the side window, you"ll have a surprise in a few minutes."
Mary Anne said good-bye to the Perkinses and raced home. She flew up to her bedroom. Then she stood at her open window. There was Myriah in her window.
"Hi!" called Mary Anne. "We can see each other!"
"Hey!" said Myriah. "We can talk to each other, too!"
"This"ll be our special secret, okay?"
"All right!" cried Myriah.
Mary Anne turned away. Having the Per-kinses next door still wasn"t the same as having Kristy there. But Mary Anne didn"t feel sad about it anymore.
Chapter 5.
"Bye, Jeff! I"m going over to the Pikes"!" I called. "I"ll be back in a couple of hours. Call if you"re going to go anywhere."
"I"m not moving!" he shouted back.
The weather was unbearably hot, even for Californians like us. It was almost a hundred degrees and humid. Our old house isn"t really equipped for air-conditioning, but there is one unit in the den downstairs. Jeff had been closed in with it all morning. I think that if he could have, he would have sat on the air-conditioner.
I"m sort of in charge of Jeff while Mom"s at work, but I can go off and do things. Jeff is almost ten, and he"s fairly responsible. All either of us really has to do is phone so that the other one always knows where he or she is. And Jeff isn"t allowed to have friends over if I"m not at home.
I made my way sluggishly over to the Pikes".
Mallory, the oldest Pike, met me at the front door. "Guess what?" she cried. "All of us kids are here and I"m going to be the second babysitter! It was my idea, and Mom said okay!"
"Hey, Mal, that"s great!"
Mallory is eleven and has always been a big help with her younger brothers and sisters. Until now, though, when all eight kids needed looking after, Mrs. Pike would hire two sitters. Apparently, she"d decided that Mallory was old enough to be one of those sitters. That was fine with me. All of us baby-sitters like Mallory, and we"ve sometimes thought that one day she could join our club. She"s younger than the rest of us, but she"d be really good.
"Hi, Dawn," Mrs. Pike greeted me. "Let"s see. Mallory"s going to sit with you today. I"m sure she"s told you that."
"Yes," I said with a smile. I glanced at Mallory, who looked as if she wanted to dance around with excitement and pride, but was containing herself in the interest of appearing grown-up enough to baby-sit.
"The triplets are in their room, practically draped over the air-conditioner," Mrs. Pike went on.
I laughed. "Jeff"s doing the same thing at home."
"Vanessa, Margo, and Claire are out in the backyard, playing in the sprinkler. And Nicky is ... well, I"m afraid he"s not in a very good mood today. He"s in the rec room, sulking."
"Uh-oh," I said. "That"s too bad." I thought about what Stacey and Mary Anne had told us at the meeting the other day - that Nicky wants to play with the triplets, but they won"t let him.
"He"s having a tough time," said Mrs. Pike, lowering her voice, "but he has to learn to deal with this."
"Tell Dawn about the two-block rule," Mal-lory spoke up.
"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Pike. "You know how we feel about rules around here, except where safety is concerned." (There are almost no rules at the Pikes".) "Well, Nicky"s been complaining that we treat him like a baby, so we told him that he"s allowed to go off on his own during the day, as long as he stays within two blocks of the house. Two blocks is a rule for him."
"Okay," I said.
"So if he disappears, don"t panic."
I knew Mrs. Pike was thinking of the time I"d been baby-sitting at the Barretts" and Buddy Barrett really had disappeared. We"d had to call the police and everything. So I was kind of touchy about little kids going off on their own. I appreciated Mrs. Pike"s understanding that.
Mrs. Pike left a few minutes later.
Mallory looked at me expectantly. "Well?" she said. "What do we do first?"
"At your house," I replied, "I usually check on everybody, just to make sure they"re all accounted for. So why don"t you go keep an eye on the girls, and I"ll look in on the boys. Then I"ll come outside with you. Maybe I can talk Nicky into playing in the sprinkler."
"Don"t count on it," said Mallory darkly.
"Well, we"ll see."
I went to the triplets" room first. Their door was closed to keep the cold air in. I knocked on it.
"Yeah?" called one of the boys. I wasn"t sure which one.
"It"s Dawn. Can I come in?"
"Okay."
I opened the door. The shades were drawn and the room was as dark as a room could be at two o"clock in the afternoon. The air-conditioner was going full-blast.
"What are you guys doing in the dark?" I asked.
"Playing with our glow-in-the-dark s.p.a.ce creatures," whispered Byron.
"They"re about to be attacked by the Wandering Frog People/" added Jordan.
"Oh," I said. "Well, I just wanted you to know I"m - "
"Shaof-shoof-shoof-shoof-BLAM!" Adam shouted suddenly. He thumped a Frog Person down on one of the s.p.a.ce creatures.
" - here," I finished. I closed the door and left. The boys barely noticed.
Time to check on Nicky. I ran downstairs to the rec room. There he was, sitting in a ratty old armchair. A book was in his hands, but he wasn"t reading it.
"Hi, Nick-O," I said.
"Hi "
"What are you reading?"
"Nothing."
"You want me to read to you?"
"Nah."
"Why don"t you go out in the backyard? The sprinkler"s on. You"ll be much cooler there than you are inside. It"s stuffy in here."
"Are the girls still out there?"
"Yes."
"I"m not playing with the girls. I"m a boy. I"m supposed to play with the boys."
"Not necessarily," I told him.
"I want to play with the triplets!"
"Well, then, come on. Let"s go ask them."
Nicky looked at me with a hesitant smile. "Really?"
"Sure."
We were about halfway up the stairs when the triplets came stampeding out of their room. They were each wearing bathing trunks and carrying a towel.
"Dawn! Dawn!" cried Adam. "We"re going swimming over at Joey"s! We just called him. His mom said it was okay."
"She said we could bring a friend, too," Byron added.
"She did?" Nicky marveled. "Oh, boy! Thanks! I"ll - "
But before he could finish, Jordan said, "We called your brother, Dawn. It"s all right if Jeff comes, isn"t it? We said we"d tell you where he"s going to be."
"Yes," I said with a sigh. "It"s okay. Thanks for asking him."
Nicky watched the triplets run out the front door. He looked absolutely crushed. A few tears leaked out, which he tried to hide. After a few moments he said gruffly, "I"m going outside to play. By-my-self." He yanked the front door open.
"Two-block rule," I called after him.
"I know, I know, I know."
Nicky had been gone for about five minutes when I began to feel really bad for him. I decided I should find him and talk to him. I went outside and shouted his name over and over, but he didn"t (or wouldn"t) answer.
At last, I called Mary Anne on the phone and explained the situation. "Could you come help Mallory so I can look for Nicky?" I asked her. "I"d really appreciate it. It would be a big favor."
Mary Anne arrived in a flash. I left her and Mallory playing barefoot in the wet backyard with the little Pike girls. Then I started my search for Nicky. A two-block limit, which works out to a four-block area, is bigger than you"d think. I walked all around, through the Prezziosos" backyard, around the Barretts" property, even around my own house, calling for Nicky, looking for possible hiding places - in bushes, up trees.
Nothing.