Kristy and the Mother's Day Surprise (10 page)

     
Up and down my table and even at the other tables, I could hear various comments and see various kinds of eating going on. For example:

     
Jenny Prezzioso is a slow, picky eater. She ate almost everything that was in her bag, but she did it in her own way. First she nibbled the crusts off of her sandwiches. “Okay. All tidy,” she said to herself. Then she ate the insides of the sandwiches in rows. When she had two strips left, one from each sandwich half, she began playing with them. (I think she was getting full.) She played with them until they were dirty and had to be thrown out.

     
Jackie Rodowsky, our lovable walking disaster, dropped everything at least once. He was like a cartoon character. Accidentally (it’s always an accident with Jackie), he flipped his fork to the ground. As he picked it up, he knocked his orange off the paper plate it was resting on. He returned the orange, knocked the fork off again, picked it up, spilled his Coke, and while trying to mop up the Coke in

his lap, knocked his fork to the ground again. Mary Anne, sitting across the table from

him, nearly turned purple trying not to laugh. Another kid I liked to watch was Buddy

Barrett. He was the last person on earth I would have expected to be picky — but he was picky. He examined nearly every bite before putting it in his mouth.

     
“This has,” he said, frowning, “a black speck. Look, right there.” He leaned across the table to show it to Nicky Pike.

     
“So pick it off,” said Nicky, who would probably eat something that had been rolling around in a mud puddle.

     
Buddy picked it off and gingerly ate the rest of the bite of sandwich.

     
Then there were Mynah and Gabbie, who were nibbling their sandwiches into shapes — a bunny, a cat face, a snowman, and a dinosaur.

     
Shea ate everything practically without chewing it. He just wolfed things down — an apple, a sandwich, a bag of Fritos. He finished his entire lunch before Margo Pike ate a quarter of her sandwich.

     
“Mango?” asked Mallory. “Are you feeling okay?”

     
Margo nodded. “I’m just eating slowly. Kristy said to.”

     
I glanced at Mallory and shrugged. I hadn’t

meant for Margo to eat like a snail, but I guessed it couldn’t hurt an upset stomach.

     
Fwwwt. Nicky Pike blew a straw paper at Matt Braddock. Matt grinned, grabbed a straw from his sister, blew the paper at Nicky, then returned the opened straw to Haley.

     
Haley signed, “Very funny,” to Matt.

     
Matt signed back, “I know.”

     
Suddenly from the end of one table, I heard the beginnings of a song that I knew could lead to trouble — the hysterical kind of trouble in which a kid may laugh so hard he won’t be able to finish his lunch. Or worse, he’ll lose his lunch.

     
David Michael, my own brother, was singing. (I should have known.)

     
“The Addams Family started,” he began.

     
Andrew giggled, knowing what was coming.

     
“When Uncle Fester farted.”

     
Shea Rodowsky choked on his Twinkie, then laughed. And Haley Braddock laughed so hard she sprayed apple juice out of her nose.

     
“Oh, lord,” said Claudia, looking at Haley. “What a mess.”

     
We cleaned up Haley and her apple juice. Then we cleaned up straw papers and napkins and plastic forks.

     
“If you guys are done,” I announced to the kids, “please put your thermoses and things

back in your bags or lunch boxes. Anyone who’s finished can go play. Quietly, since you just ate.”

     
A sea of kids rose from the picnic tables. The only one left was Margo Pike. She was now eating the second quarter of her sandwich.

     
Stacey looked at her oddly. But before she could say a word, Mango said, “I’m eating slowly, okay?” She acted as if she’d been asked that question seventy-five times.

     
So while Margo ate, the rest of the kids explored the playground.

     
“Look! Horsies!” Nina Marshall called to Gabbie Perkins and Jamie Newton. She had found three of those horses on springs. They were painted like the horses we’d seen on the merry-go-round at the carnival.

     
“Go easy!” Claudia called to them.

     
The older boys found a much better activity. Shea started it. Our groups were completely mixed up again (which was okay, since everyone seemed to be getting along) and Shea, Jackie, David Michael, Buddy, Nicky, and Matt were gathered around two water fountains that were facing each other.

     
“Hey!” said Shea. “Look!” He turned the water on, then held his thumb over the stream of water, which sent it in an arc to the other fountain.

     
“Cool!” cried Nicky. He tried the trick with the second fountain and sent the water to the first one.

     
“Oh, I am so thirsty,” signed Buddy to Matt. He stood by one fountain, opened his mouth, and Matt, catching on, sent a stream of water from the other fountain right into Buddy’s mouth.

     
“Whoa, do I ever have an idea,” said Nicky. “But I have to go get Claire. I’ll be right back.” Nicky went in search of his littlest sister.

     
He found Margo at the picnic table. “What are you doing?” he asked her.

     
“Still eating,” she replied with clenched teeth. She took a teensy bite out of a plum.

     
“Well, where’s Claire?”

     
Mango pointed to the slide, where Claire was whooshing down headfirst on her tummy. She stopped at the end and leapt to her feet like a gymnast.

     
“Hey, Claire! Come here!” called Nicky.

     
“Why?” asked Claire warily.

     
“Just come.”

     
Claire followed him reluctantly to the water fountains.

     
“Stand here,” Nicky directed her.

     
Claire stood between the fountains.

     
Nicky poised himself at one fountain. Buddy was at the other.

     
“Now!” cried Nicky.

     
Claire was hit by streams of cold water on both sides of her face.

     
Jessi went running to the water fountains. “Nicky! Buddy!” she began.

     
But before she could get any further, Claire burst out laughing. Water soaked her hair and dripped down her face, but she giggled and exclaimed, “Do it again!”

     
The boys, sure they were in trouble, looked at Jessi.

     
“Once,” said Jessi. “You may do it once more. Then leave the water fountains alone.”

     
The boys sprayed Claire, and she practically fainted from laughter. Jessi smiled but ushered everyone away.

     
Margo sat at the table, putting crumb-sized bites of graham cracker in hen mouth.

Nina, Gabbie, and Jamie rocked on the horses. By the swings, a small group of kids was

gathering. Karen was at the center of them. They were very quiet — except for Karen. I glanced at Dawn. “I better see what Karen’s up to,” I said.

     
I crept toward the group until I could hear Karen say, “And they use masks to make the awful —“

     
Karen looked up and saw me. I raised my eyebrows at her.

     
“To — to, um, make the . . . Oh, it isn’t impor — My gosh, look at that!” she exclaimed.

     
Eight faces turned to see a robin sitting in an ash tree.

     
“Big deal,” said David Michael. “I’ve seen a thousand robins,” added Haley Braddock.

     
“Yeah!” called Margo, still at the picnic table. She took a tiny bite out of her plum, most of which was still uneaten.

     
“Boy, are you a slowpoke,” said Jenny, running to Margo.

     
“She is not!” cried Claire, rushing to defend her sister. “She was sick.”

     
“She’s still slow.”

     
“Is not!”

     
“Is too!”

     
Claire rushed at Jenny, but Mary Anne ran between them, just in time to ward off a fight.

     
At that moment, Andrew tripped, fell, and skinned both knees. He burst into tears.

     
“You guys!” I said to the other sitters. “I think it’s time to go to Claudia’s. We all need a rest.”

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T~’hat’s true. Mallory’s group was in fine shape, while a few others weren’t, but it wasn’t any big deal. Everything was under control.

     
Us baby-sitters helped the kids collect their things — lunch boxes and thermoses, plus souvenirs from the carnival. Jamie tucked his squirt gun into his lunch box. Suzi was wearing a hat that made her look like the Statue of Liberty. Mynah was wearing a plastic necklace, and Gabbie was wearing a red bracelet that said Sudsy’s on it.

     
“WAHHH!” cried Andrew as we walked away from the playgound. We’d washed his knees at the water fountain, using clean napkins, but they did look a little painful.

     
“We can get some Band-Aids at Claudia’s,” Mallory said to me.

     
Andrew wasn’t the only one crying.

     
“WAHHH!” wailed Jenny and Claire.

     
“Keep them apart,” Mallory whispered to Mary Anne. “I’m not kidding. They get along okay most of the time, but when they’re mad, well, . .

     
I almost expected Mal to say, “It’s not a pretty sight.”

     
Anyway, poor Mary Anne had her hands full between trying to separate Claire and Jenny, and keeping her eye on Margo and her touchy stomach.

     
Mallory saved the day, though. We’d just reached the edge of the playground and our criers were still crying. Jamie was starting to get mad about not having won a teddy bear for Lucy (even though he had a balloon for her), and Nicky and Buddy were walking behind Vanessa, trying to see if they could touch her hair without her noticing.

     
Trouble was brewing.

     
So suddenly Mallory let loose with, “The ants go marching one by one —“

     
“Hurrah! Hurrah!” chimed in Nicky and Mal’s sisters.

     
“The ants go marching one by one —“

     
“Hurrah! Hurrah!”

     
“The ants go marching one by one,” sang Mal, “the little one stops to suck his thumb, and they all go marching down . . . beneath . . . the earth.”

     
Most of the kids were looking at the Pikes with interest. The criers had stopped crying. The complainers had stopped complaining. The teasers had stopped teasing.

     
So the song continued. The kids didn’t know it, but they chimed in when they could. They always had to stop singing to find out what the little one did, though. (Two by two, he has to stop to tie his shoe. Three by three, he falls and skins his knee.) The song occupied the kids all the way to Claudia’s house, by which time we were pretty glad to hear it end. Mallory knew only twelve verses, and we heard each of them a number of times.

     
“Just be glad it wasn’t ‘Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall,’” said Stacey, looking pale.

     
“Shh!” I hissed. “One of the kids might hear you.”

     
At Claudia’s, us sitters went into action.

     
I took Andrew into the Kishis’ bathroom, washed his knees again, put some first aid cream on them, and then applied a fat BandAid to each one. Andrew liked the Band-Aids a lot.

     
“I feel better already!” he announced.

     
By the time we were outside again, things were going so smoothly I was amazed. The

kids — all of them — were gathered under a tree with Mallory, Stacey, and Jessi, who were singing with them while the rest of us sitters got organized.

     
I kept hearing snatches of song, most of them sung by Mallory.

     
I heard: “I’ve got sixpence, jolly, jolly sixpence. I’ve got six pence to last me all my life . .

     
Then I heard: “Oh, we ain’t got a barrel of money. Maybe we’re ragged and funny. .

     
And then: “Won’t you come home, Bill Bailey? Won’t you come home?”

     
(Where does Mal learn all this stuff?)

     
Finally I heard Jessi and Stacey teach the kids a round: “Heigh-ho, nobody at home. Meat nor drink nor money have I none. Yet will I be mee-e-e-erry. Heigh-ho, nobody at home.”

     
The round sort of got lost because the kids were saying things like, “Heigh-ho, no one’s at my house.” But you could get the gist of it.

     
Anyway, while the kids were singing, Dawn, the world’s most organized person, took their bags, thermoses, lunch boxes, prizes, and extra sweaters, and organized them under a tree. When the fathers arrived to pick up their kids, nothing would be missing or hard to locate. Meanwhile, Claudia had found her art materials and was setting them out on the Kishis’

picnic tables. And Mary Anne had found the stack of books we’d borrowed from the library.