Claudia and the Bad Joke (8 page)

     
“Sure. I’ve always told you: If you want to be a serious, professional artist, you have to devote more time to your art. You can’t be baby-sitting every day. Think of the extra classes you could take if you weren’t sitting.”

     
I thought about them. I could take watercolors or portrait-painting or still life. But for some reason, that didn’t cheer me up. And that should have told me something. It didn’t, though. Not then. So I let it go by.

     
At the club meeting, I had bought time. Kristy had pointed out that I couldn’t sit for awhile anyway. How would I feel without kids around me? Without jobs? Without a way to earn money? Would I miss Jamie and the Perkins girls and the Pike kids? It would be an interesting test.

     
Even more interesting, however, would be watching to see who won the practical-joke war.

Chapter 11.

The joke war was on, even though us sitters were the only ones who knew it. We had declared it at the last meeting, and we weren’t going to stop fighting until we had won it. We’d never had a problem we couldn’t handle, and we weren’t going to let Betsy get the best of us.

     
This was the main idea of a speech Kristy gave at the end of the meeting during which we had declared war. Mallory found Kristy’s words running through her head as she rode her bike over to Betsy’s on Thursday afternoon. She told me later that as she pedaled along, she tried to psych herself up, the way boxers do before important fights. She talked to herself, encouraged herself, reminded herself of the jokes she had rented and that she knew what jokes Betsy kept in her room. By the time she reached the Sobaks’, she felt prepared — on guard and ready.

     
Before Mrs. Sobak left, she told Mallory that Betsy would want a snack first thing, so as soon as Mal and Betsy were on their own, Ma! said, “What would you like for a snack, Bets?”

     
“Cookies,” Betsy replied immediately. “Cookies and milk.”

     
“Okay,” said Ma!. “I’ll fix the snack.” She wasn’t taking any chances. “Furthermore,”

Mal added, “you sit right here at the kitchen table while I fix it.” Ma! was trying to keep Betsy away from her stock of jokes.

     
“Okay,” said Betsy obediently.

     
Mal stood at the counter, taking cookies from the jar and pouring glasses of milk. Every so often, she looked over her shoulder at Betsy.

     
Betsy was just sitting in her chair. She was barely moving.

     
Mallory never let her guard down, though. She carried everything to the table at once, so Betsy couldn’t switch anything around or add anything weird to the food like plastic ants or ice cubes with flies in them.

     
But Betsy was an absolute angel during the snack.

     
Maybe she’s learned her lesson, thought Mallory.

     
Betsy bit into a cookie. She chewed it thoughtfully. “How’s Claudia?” she asked.

     
“Not bad, considering,” Mallory replied. “She’s home from the hospital, which means her leg isn’t in traction anymore. But she can’t go back to school yet. She might get a walking cast later, but she’s not sure.”

     
“What’s a walking cast?” Betsy asked poiitely. (She had a milk mustache.)

     
“It’s a shorter cast and it has this piece on the bottom; sort of like the heel of a shoe, only

sturdier, so you can walk around as if you had two regular legs.”

     
“Oh.” Betsy nodded solemnly. Then she noticed that Mallory had finished her cookies and milk. “Want some more?” she asked.

     
“Yes, thanks. Oh, but I’ll get it,” Mal answered quickly.

     
She opened the refrigerator and stood in front of it, pouring milk into her glass. She’d been planning on having another cookie, too, but realized that she hadn’t been able to keep her eyes on them while she’d had her back turned, so she decided she better not take one after all. They’d probably been coated with itching powder or something by then. Even seeing Betsy take another cookie didn’t con— vince Mal that the rest were safe.

     
“How was school today?” Ma! asked Betsy. (What a dumb question, she thought, but she didn’t know Betsy very well. Besides, it might be a dumb question, but it also seemed safe.)

     
“It was fine. Our class is going to be in a school program. We’re going to recite Wynken, Blynken, and Nod. We’re doing choral speaking. Do you know that poem?”

     
“Parts of it,” said Mal.

     
“It goes like this: Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night sailed off in a wooden shoe — sailed on a river of crystal light —“

     
“Into a sea of dew,” Mal chimed in.

     
Then she and Betsy said together, “‘Where are you going and what do you wish?’ the old moon asked the three. ‘We have come to fish for the herring fish that live in this beautiful sea; nets of silver and gold have we!’ Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.”

     
“Hey, you’re good!” Betsy said approvingly to Mal. “Did you do choral speaking in third grade, too?”

     
Ma! shook her head. “Nope. I just like poetry. My two other favorite poems are The Owl and the Pussycat and Jabberwocky.”

     
Betsy and Mal had finished eating by then.

     
“You like those, too?” asked Betsy. “I read The Owl and the Pussycat to myself. Our teacher read Jabberwocky to us. Hey, I’ve got The Owl and the Pussycat in the den. Want me to get it?”

     
“Sure!” said Mallory. She couldn’t believe how well things were going. Not only was Betsy on her best behavior, but she shared an interest of Mallory’s. Maybe my accident had taught Betsy a lesson, and she’d sworn off practical jokes.

     
"I’ll clean up our snack while you get the book,” Mal added.

     
Betsy ran off. A few seconds later, Mallory heard the doorbell ring.

“I’ll get it!” called Betsy.

     
“Okay,” Mal replied. She heard feet running through the hallway, followed by the sound of the front door opening. Then she heard Betsy talking to someone. And then she heard the door close. . . Silence.

     
“Betsy!” Mal called.

     
No answer.

     
“BETSY!”

     
No answer.

     
Now, if Mal were a panicky person, she might have thought Betsy had gone out to play with someone without her permission. But Mallory is sensible. She looked out the window and didn’t see Betsy or any other kids. And she hadn’t heard a car pull away, so she knew Betsy hadn’t gone off with anyone. Betsy must be inside, and she was probably playing another joke.

     
Mallory threw down the sponge she’d been wiping the table with, and cried, “Betsy Sobak, I know you’re hiding! You come out this instant!”

     
Boy, is Betsy sly. She had lulled Mallory into thinking she was a normal kid, then WHAM! She pulled a stunt when Mallory wasn’t prepared.

     
“Betsy, you’re asking for it!” Mallory shouted.

     
She searched the house from top to bottom.

She looked under tables, behind couches, under beds. Then she looked outdoors.

     
No Betsy.

     
Finally, Mallory really did start to worry. She went back in the house and was passing by a closet, when the door burst open and Betsy jumped out, shouting, “BOO!”

     
“Betsy!” Mal admonished her.

     
Betsy burst into giggles. “Gotcha!”

     
“I checked that closet twice! Were you in there all the time?”

     
Betsy nodded. “Well, almost all the time. First I rang the bell, then I tiptoed back to the living room and pretended to answer the door. Then I hid. I’ll show you how I hid.” She ducked into the closet, stepped into a pair of her father’s galoshes, then wrapped an overcoat around her. The coat was still on its hanger. Betsy was disguised as raingear. She was nearly invisible.

     
Mallory had to admit that the prank was original, but she was mad at Betsy for making her worry. However, she didn’t want to give Betsy the satisfaction of seeing that she was mad. Instead, she said, “Okay. Very funny. Come on out now. Oh, and if you do, I’ll show you this new powder I got yesterday.”

     
That brought Betsy out in a hurry. Mal knows

that most girls Betsy’s age like powder and perfume and makeup. Her sister Vanessa does.

Mal opened her purse. She took out the sneezing powder. It was in a fancy little jar. “Here,” she said, and poured a small amount into Betsy’s hands..

     
Betsy rubbed her hands together, then sniffed them, and. . “ACHOO!”

     
“Bless you,” said Mallory politely.

     
“Ah-ah-CHOO! ACHOO!. . . ACHOO!”

     
Betsy began sneezing and laughing at the same time. “Is this sneezing — ACHOO! — powder?” she managed to ask.

     
“Yup!” (Ma! was quite proud of herself.) “Oh, great joke. I knew that powder was going to be fake. I better — ACHOO! — get a Kleenex.”

     
Betsy ran off and returned with a tissue. “Ah-ah-ACHOO-OO! . . Oh, no!” Betsy cried. She was holding something in her hand. “I sneezed my tooth out!” she exclaimed.

     
Mallory was worried, until she realized it was the fake bloody tooth she had seen in Betsy’s room. She narrowed her eyes. Time to get even . . . again.

     
During the rest of the afternoon, Mal scared Betsy with the slug, Betsy scared Ma! with a rubber snake. Mal scared Betsy with the rat,

Betsy scared Mal with her cockroach. Just as Mal ran out of jokes, she heard Mrs. Sobak’s car pull into the garage.

     
Betsy and Mal looked at each other. They smiled. Mallory was almost embarrassed to admit it, even to herself, but she and Betsy had actually had fun that afternoon. Well, not when Betsy had hidden from Mal. That wasn’t fun. But the other jokes, the harmless ones, were cause for an awful lot of giggling.

     
And Ma! knew something just from looking at Betsy then. She knew that neither of them would mention the jokes to Betsy’s mother. As a baby-sitter, Mal shouldn’t have been playing them on one of her charges. But Betsy shouldn’t have been playing jokes after what had happened to me.

     
A battle of the joke war had been fought, but nobody had won and nobody had lost.

Chapter 12.

Dawn left for Betsy’s house feeling less confident than Mallory had. She was prepared with some tricks, but by then she knew that Betsy hadn’t given up her practical joking, no matter what Mrs. Sobak said or thought.

     
Dawn was carrying a rubber spider with her. It wasn’t the triplets’, since she didn’t want to have to rent anything. She knew it was probably too tame a trick for Betsy. (After all, Betsy had all sorts of rubber things of her own.) But Dawn thought the spider was worth a try. Under the right circumstances, anything could be scary. Dawn had borrowed the spider from Buddy Barrett.

     
Also, she had polished up her acting skills. (Did she even have any acting skills to polish up? she wondered.) She was prepared to scream and jump up and down as if she had seen a mouse, she was prepared to pretend to faint, and she was prepared to be very dramatic about both things.

     
Last but not least, Dawn had brought her Kid-Kit with her. She was hoping that maybe a good distraction was all Betsy needed.

     
Dawn was sitting for Betsy on a Saturday, from ten o’clock until three o’clock, while her parents went to a golf tournament. She was

relieved that she didn’t have to feed Betsy first thing. I had had to, and Mallory had had to, and each time the snack had somehow led to

a major joke. But by the time Dawn arrived, Betsy had already eaten breakfast and Mrs. Sobak said Dawn didn’t have to make lunch until about twelve-thirty.

     
As soon as the Sobaks had left, Dawn said to Betsy, “Want to see the Kid-Kit I brought with me?”

     
“What’s a Kid-Kit?” asked Betsy suspiciously.

     
Ah-ha! thought Dawn. Betsy is suspicious. That must mean that she’s worried about having jokes played on her. Well, she had every reason to be suspicious.

     
“A Kid-Kit,” said Dawn, “is just a box full of fun. Toys and games and stuff. I left it in the living room. Come on and take a look at it.”

     
Dawn led Betsy into the living room. They sat on the floor with the Kid-Kit between them.

     
“I brought Old Maid,” Dawn began as she opened the box, “and Mad Libs and a really great book called Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and some other stuff.”

     
Dawn was looking at Betsy as she spoke, but fishing around in the Kid-Kit with one

hand. She felt the deck of cards, she felt some books, she felt a pad of paper and a box of crayons, she felt slime.

     
“Aughh! Oh, no! Ew!” Dawn jerked her hand out of the Kid-Kit. “Oh, there’s something slimy in there!” She looked at her hand. “And it’s green. . and it’s on me! Ew! GROSS!”

     
Dawn was just working up the nerve to look inside the Kid-Kit when she realized that Betsy’s face was turning red.

     
“Betsy,” said Dawn warningly.

     
Betsy burst out laughing. “Gotcha! I slimed you!” she cried. “I slimed you! I saw the KidKit as soon as you came in. While you were talking to Mom and Daddy, I dumped the slime in the box. And you put your hand right in it!”