Dawn's Wicked Stepsister by Ann M. Martin

Author:Ann M. Martin [M. Martin, Ann]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2013-07-30T16:00:00+00:00

The most unusual thing about Vanessa’s accident, Stacey pointed out, was that she had one at all. Vanessa is the Pike poet (or maybe I should say poetess). She is not an athletic person. Her favorite activity is sitting somewhere (in private, if possible, which is difficult at her house), and writing her poetry. She’s got volumes of it.

But on the day that Stacey sat for the Pikes, Vanessa decided she needed some exercise.

“I want to keep my strength up,” she told Stacey, “so that I don’t catch the triplets’ pneumonia or Mallory’s chicken pox.”

“I don’t blame you,” replied Stacey.

I might add here that Stacey was wearing a surgeon’s mask that afternoon. It wasn’t her idea (it was Mrs. Pike’s and her mother’s), but Stacey had gone along with it willingly. She didn’t want to catch pneumonia or get the pox back, either, and she’d been assured that she wouldn’t if she wore the mask, at least while she was indoors. Also, the weather was beautiful, and Mrs. Pike had told Stacey that she could watch Vanessa, Margo, and Claire outside for part of the time, as long as she left the back door open so she could hear Mal, the triplets, or Nicky if they needed anything.

Stacey had earmarked this particular job as an easy one, with five of the eight Pikes laid up.

Boy, was she wrong.

Mr. and Mrs. Pike needed a sitter because they had had tickets for ages to some tennis match in Stamford. The tickets were expensive and the Pikes didn’t want to miss the game; otherwise they might have stayed at home with their ailing family. But they are tennis nuts, so off they went.

As soon as they had left, Stacey, her mask in place, stood at the bottom of the steps and yelled upstairs, “Anybody need anything?”

“Ginger ale,” replied Mal.

“Water,” replied Byron.

“A Popsicle,” replied Adam.

“More Kleenex,” replied Jordan.

“My dinosaurs,” replied a fifth voice. That was Nicky on the couch in the living room. He sounded bored to death.

Stacey sighed. Then she got to work. When she had assembled the ginger ale, water, Popsicle, and Kleenex on a tray, she sent the things upstairs with Vanessa, who returned with Nicky’s dinosaurs and handed them to him.

Possibly sensing that she might become an errand girl for the afternoon, it was at this point that Vanessa said something about needing exercise and then added, “I think I’ll go outside and ride my bike, okay, Stacey?”

“Okay,” Stacey answered. “Be careful. And if you’re going to leave the neighborhood, let me know.” (A good baby-sitter keeps careful track of her charges at all times.)

“I will.” Vanessa left quickly.

“Claire? Margo?” Stacey called then, realizing that she hadn’t seen them since she’d arrived about fifteen minutes earlier.

“Down here!” called Margo from the rec room. “We’re playing hospital.”

Again? thought Stacey, as she went downstairs.

“Hi, Stacey-silly-billy-goo-goo!” cried Claire. “You know what? This game isn’t easy with only two people. I have to be the ambulance driver, the doctor, and the X-ray person.”

“And I’m the patient, the nurse, and the worried mother,” added Margo.

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