Kristy's Book by Ann M. Martin

Author:Ann M. Martin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2016-12-14T05:00:00+00:00

Sam’s jobs included walking Louie after school, vacuuming the rooms and upstairs hall on Saturday mornings, and cleaning the kitchen after dinner.

Charlie had the most things to do because he was the oldest. They included cleaning the kitchen after breakfast on weekdays, scrubbing the bathrooms, doing the laundry, putting out the garbage, and giving David Michael his bath every night.

Charlie, Sam, and I clustered around the refrigerator door going over the list. Mom ate her breakfast and fed David Michael.

“Mom, this isn’t fair!” Sam exclaimed.

“Excuse me,” my mother said. “What isn’t fair?”

He pointed to the list. “All this work. We’re just kids.”

“You’ll still have plenty of time to play,” my mother told him. “And as soon as we’re settled into this work schedule I’ll call some of your friends’ parents and arrange play dates for you some days after school. But for the next few weeks I need to see that you kids can take care of yourselves and the house.”

My older brothers and I moped around a lot that weekend. I had wanted to be treated as if I were older. But not that much older. I was also feeling nervous that I wouldn’t be able to do all the things my mother had put on my list.

On Monday we started our new jobs. It didn’t take much time to put out breakfast before school, or fold the laundry and set the table for dinner after school. Charlie and Sam did their jobs without too much trouble, too. We enjoyed the idea of surprising Mom with how well we could do everything.

When she came home that evening she had David Michael in one arm, a bag of groceries in the other, and her briefcase dangling from her hand. I took the briefcase, Sam took the bag of groceries, and Charlie took David Michael.

Mom looked around the kitchen in amazement. “This is great,” she said. “I have a surprise for you, too. I bought a roasted chicken for dinner.”

While Sam unpacked the groceries Mom put a pan of water on to boil for noodles and told Charlie to clean and cut the vegetables she’d bought. Fifteen minutes later we sat down for a real dinner.

I twirled some slippery, delicious noodles on my fork. “This is nice,” I said. “I thought we’d only have pizza and Chinese food.”

“We could have roasted chicken every Monday night, if you like,” she said. “And we could figure out menus for other days of the week, too.”

“I still like pizza,” I said. “But once a week is enough.’

“Chinese food, too,” added Charlie.

We all agreed that Chinese food on one night and pizza on another would be fine.

“And Charlie,” my mother said, “if you could put some potatoes and a meatloaf in the oven one day a week that would take care of another night.”

“I love meatloaf,” I said.

“I could even make the meatloaf, Mom, if you showed me how,” Charlie offered.

I looked around the table. Everyone was happy. Just then David Michael threw his bottle over the side of his high chair.

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