Keep Out, Claudia! (9780545690508) by Martin Ann M

Author:Martin, Ann M.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic
Published: 2014-06-10T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

The Rodowsky boys and I set out for the walk to the Newtons’. We could hear our band long before we could see it. From several houses away drifted toots and beeps and jingles and crashes and plinks and shouts and laughs and giggles.

“Hello, everybody!” called Jackie as we stepped through the gate in the Newtons’ fence. “We have great news!”

“What is it?” asked Kristy and, one by one, heads turned toward us.

Jackie stepped forward. “I thought of a name for our band,” he said. “I think we should call ourselves All the Children, because we are sort of like all the children of the world.”

For just a moment I thought some of the kids, especially the older ones, might give him a hard time. But they just began to smile. I glanced at Kristy and she was smiling, too. So were the other members of the BSC. I put my arm around Jackie.

“I guess that’s settled,” said Kristy. “Okay. Who are we missing today?” She gazed around the yard.

We ran our rehearsals loosely. Anyone who was free was expected to show up. Anyone who wasn’t free was simply supposed to try to show up at the next rehearsal. That afternoon, the Lowell kids were missing. So were the Barretts, Linny Papadakis, and David Michael Thomas. Even so, we were left with a fairly impressive band and three of our four singers.

“Okay, kids,” I said. “Places!”

In the scramble that followed, Claire Pike fell and bumped her knees, Archie managed to sit on his tambourine (without breaking it), Hannie Papadakis lost her harmonica, and two kids announced that they had shown up for rehearsal without their drums. So Mal soothed her sister, Mary Anne helped Archie and Hannie, and Kristy said, “How could you come to a band rehearsal without your instruments?”

The kids shrugged.

“Kristy?” said Jamie. “Mommy put some empty coffee cans in the garage. We could use them for drums today.”

So we did.

Then, “Places, everyone!” I called again.

I turned to Marilyn Arnold and Shea at the keyboard. “One, two —”

“Hey!” We were interrupted by Karen Brewer, Kristy’s sister, who looked extremely excited. “You know what our band needs now?” she cried. “Since we have a name, we need to paint our name on one of our big drums. All the best bands do that. We would look so awesome. A huge round drum that said ‘ALL THE CHILDREN’.”

“But we don’t have a huge round drum,” pointed out Myriah. “Our drums are oatmeal cartons and coffee cans.”

“Oh, yeah.” Karen looked disappointed.

“I suppose,” I said, “that we could write ‘ALL THE CHILDREN’ on the lids of the oatmeal cartons, but no one would see that.”

“I have an idea,” spoke up Mary Anne. “How about if we make a banner with our name? We could make a really long one.”

“Out of felt,” I added. “We could cut out the letters and glue them onto a piece of background material.”

“Pink and white!” cried Karen.

“Those are girl colors,” said Nicky Pike. “How about blue and white?”

“Boy colors!” countered Karen.

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