Kristy and the Snobs (10 page)

"A" in it. "How did Louie fall down the stairs?" she wanted to know.

"He couldn't see them. He just walked right down."

I stood at the edge of the shell and hopped around and around to the center. Amanda handed me the chalk.

"And David Michael banged his eye?" said Max.

"Yup," I replied, choosing another square.

"Did he cry?"

"A little. His eye turned black and blue."

"Priscilla has never been sick," said Amanda. "I think it's because she cost four hundred dollars."

"Well, I doubt that," I told her, "but I'm glad she's so healthy."

"If Priscilla dies," said Max, "let's give her a funeral."

Amanda scrunched up her face in thought. "Okay," she replied. "We could make a cross for her. And we could play music from The Aristocats."

"And I," said Max, "would say, 'Priscilla had a beautiful tail.' "

"And I'd say, 'Priscilla cost four hundred dollars,' " added Amanda.

I rolled my eyes.

Amanda was taking her turn again, when

Shannon Kilbourne rounded a corner of the Delaneys' house and walked over to us. She was cradling something in her arms.

"Hi," I said uncertainly. I didn't dislike Shannon anymore, I just never knew what to expect from her.

"Hi," she replied cheerfully. "This is for you." She held out the thing she'd brought over.

"Oh!" I squealed. I couldn't believe it. The "thing" was a puppy! A very tiny puppy, probably only a few weeks old.

"What do you mean he's for me?" I exclaimed. "Where'd you get him? Where'd he come from?"

"He's a she," replied Shannon, "and she's one of Astrid's."

"One of Astrid's? You mean one of Astrid of Grenville's puppies? But I thought Astrid was a boy."

Shannon grinned. "No!" she cried. "Astrid is a girl's name. It's Scandinavian or something. It means divine strength."

I just couldn't believe it. Why was Shannon giving me a puppy? None of this made sense.

"I don't know why I assumed Astrid was a boy, but I did. How come you never told me she has puppies?" I asked.

"I don't know. You never asked. The subject never came up. Anyway, we - I mean, Tiffany

and Maria and my parents and I - want you to have this puppy. It's purebred. We're selling the others. But we really want your family to have this one. You know . . . because of Louie . . ." Shannon's voice trailed off.

"Thank you," I said softly. I looked down at the fat little puppy that was nestled in my arms. She was a ball of brown and white fluff. When I leaned over to nuzzle her, she licked my nose.

"I'm afraid you can't have her yet," said Shannon. "She's only six weeks old. We want the puppies to stay with Astrid until they're eight weeks. But then she's all yours. If it's okay with Mr. Br - with your parents."

"Well, I'll have to check with them, but I'm sure it'll be all right. They loved having Louie around. The one I'm worried about is David Michael. I don't know what he'll think about getting a 'replacement' for Louie. Or at least, getting a replacement so soon."

"Well, why don't you find out?" asked Shannon. "Is he home? Tell him to come over here and meet the puppy."

"I better phone my mom first," I said.

"Shannie, Shannie!" cried Amanda, jumping up and down. "Can we please play with the puppy?"

"Please, please, puh-lease?" added Max.

It was the first time I'd heard the Snobs say please on their own. I wasn't sure whether they were really being polite, or whether they just wanted to ensure that they'd be allowed to play with the puppy. Either way, it sounded nice.

"You can play with the puppy," Shannon replied, "but we have to take her inside. There are lots of germs outside, and she hasn't had her shots yet."

"Oh," said Amanda. "Well, is she going to wet or anything? We have to be careful. The fountain in the hallway cost two thousand dollars. And the rugs in the living room are genuine Oriental, and they cost -"

"Amanda," I interrupted her, "don't worry about it. We'll keep the puppy in the kitchen, and we'll put newspapers on the floor first.

Shannon, the Snobs, the puppy, and I went into the Delaneys' house through the back door (to avoid the two thousand-dollar fountain). While I sat in a kitchen chair with the puppy in my lap, Shannon and the Snobs covered the floor with newspapers. Then I put the puppy down and let her frisk around. She pretended to act fearless and would stalk enemy chair legs and cupboard doors, but when Priscilla appeared, the puppy jumped a mile. Priscilla, startled, jumped a mile, too. She fled

to the top of the refrigerator while the puppy fled to a corner.

Amanda and Max giggled hysterically.

"Here," said Shannon. "Throw the rubber steak to her, Max."

Shannon had produced a chewed-up rubber toy, and Max tossed it across the room. The puppy ran after it on fat legs, skidding on the paper.

"Well, what do you think of her?" Shannon asked me.

"I think she's adorable," I replied, "but I better get on the phone."

I dialed my mother at her office. "Mom!" I exclaimed. "You'll never guess what! Shannon Kilbourne - you know, from across the street? Well, her dog had puppies, little baby Bernese mountain dogs, and she brought one over to the Delaneys', thaf s where I'm baby-sitting, and said we can have her - it's a she - because of Louie. But we can't have her for two weeks." I hadn't given my mom a chance to say a word, because I'd suddenly realized how much I didn't want her to say "no." I'd realized what a thoroughly nice thing Shannon was doing, and that it could only mean she wanted to be friends. "Could we please have the puppy, Mom?" I asked, slowing down and trying to sound more grown up. "I think it

would be good for David Michael. And if he doesn't like theidea, we'll still have two weeks to convince him. In two -"

"Kristy," my mother finally interrupted me, "we can have the dog."

"We can?" I squeaked.

"Yes. Watson and I had already decided to get another dog as soon as we thought David Michael was ready. We were even thinking about buying one of the Kilbournes' puppies, so I know this will be okay with Watson. I'll call the Kilbournes tonight to thank them."

"You knew Astrid was a girl, too?" was all I could exclaim. "You knew about the puppies?"

Of course, Mom had no idea why I said that, and she was in a rush to get back to work, so we ended the conversation. Boy, I thought when I'd hung up the phone, I must really be out of it. I decided this was my punishment for thinking that all my neighbors were snobs, and not bothering to get to know them.

"Mom said yes!" I announced to Shannon.

"Great," she replied. "Now call your brother."

I did, but I didn't tell him why I was calling. I just asked him to come over to the Delaneys'.

While we waited for David Michael, Amanda and Max played with the puppy. "You know,"

I said to Shannon as we watched the kids, "I'm really sorry about taking your baby-sitting jobs away from you. I baby-sat so much in my old neighborhood that it didn't occur to me not to sit when I moved here. It's just part of my life. I didn't think about the people here who might already be sitters."

"Oh, that's okay," replied Shannon. "There are more than enough jobs to go around. Tiffany and I are the only ones of our friends who really like to baby-sit, and we can't possibly do it all ourselves. I don't think I was mad at you as much as I was ..." (Shannon blushed) ". . . jealous."

"Jealous of me?"

"Yeah. Because your club is such a good idea."

"But you and Tiffany kind of implied that our club is babyish."

"Yeah, we did. But we didn't mean it."

The doorbell rang then and I let David Michael in. When he saw the puppy on the kitchen floor a whole range of expressions crossed his face. First he looked surprised, then pleased, then sad (thinking of Louie, I guess), and then wary.

"Whose is that?" he asked. He looked from Shannon to the Snobs.

"Actually, she's ours," I answered. "If you

want her." I told him about the Kilbournes' offer.

"I don't want her," David Michael said rudely, and I felt like shaking him. "She isn't Louie." But before I could do anything, David Michael knelt down on the floor, in spite of himself.

The puppy pranced over to him and stood with her front feet on my brother's knees. David Michael smiled.

Shannon and I looked at each other and smiled, too.

The puppy stretched up, David Michael leaned over, and they touched noses.

"Ooh," said David Michael, "she has a soft nozzle."

"Muzzle," I corrected him.

"If we keep her," said my brother, "she won't be Louie. Louie was special."

"No," I agreed. "Louie was one-of-a-kind. This puppy is a girl, and she'll look different and act different. She's not a new Louie."

"Good," said David Michael.

"So do you want her?" asked Shannon.

"Yes," replied my brother.

"And what do you say?" I prompted him.

"I say, 'Let's name her Shannon.' "

So we did.

Chapter 15.

"Help! Kristy! Save me! The ghost of Ben Brewer is after me!"

Karen ran shrieking through the second-floor hallway and burst into my room in a panic. "Kristy! Kristy!"

"Ahem, Karen," I replied.

Karen was only fooling around. She knew as well as I did that there probably wasn't any ghost in our attic. And if there was (because we just weren't sure) he certainly wasn't going to chase little girls around in broad daylight.

It was a Saturday afternoon, two weeks to the day since Louie's funeral. Karen and Andrew were spending another weekend with us, and Shannon the puppy was almost ours. The members of the Baby-sitters Club were gathered in my room. We'd just had a meeting the day before, of course, but every now and then we like to get together and not conduct

business. Besides, my friends enjoy visiting the mansion.

Karen plopped down on the floor between Mary Anne and Dawn. "You know who old Ben Brewer is, don't you?" she asked them.

"Your great-grandfather?" Mary Anne ventured. (Ghost stories make her nervous.)

"Right. Before he became a ghost, anyway. He was a - what's the word, Kristy?"

"Herpitologist?" I suggested.

"No!" cried Karen, laughing. "The word that means he stayed in the house all alone for years. He never went out and no one ever went in."

"He was a recluse," I said, "according to Brewer family history."

"And he ate fried dandelions," Karen added.

Stacey snorted.

"Well, he did," Karen insisted, turning to Stacey indignantly. "Anyway, he's a ghost now and he haunts our attic."

"Only the attic?" asked Claudia.

"Yes, thank goodness," I replied.

"But every now and then he leaves it," said Karen. "Just for a few minutes. He likes to chase me through the halls. He says otherwise he never gets any exercise."

"You mean any e-x-o-r-c-i-s-e?" spelled Mary Anne, but Karen wasn't old enough to get the

joke. The rest of us laughed, though.

"You do know that's not true, don't you, Karen?" I asked.

"Yes," she admitted. "But it's fun to pretend. Sometimes I'm sure he's behind me." (I shivered.) "But it's not pretend about the attic. He really haunts it."

"We have an honest-to-goodness secret passage in our house," spoke up Dawn.

"You do?" Karen's eyes widened.

"I've been in it," I announced.

"You have?" Karen's eyes became the size of soup tureens.

Crash, bang, THUMP.

"What was that?" exclaimed Stacey.

"My brothers," I replied. "I think."

"Yup, that's right," said Karen. "They're playing football."

"In the house?" I asked.

"Yes. Andrew is the football."

I rolled my eyes. Mom and Watson were out for the afternoon. I wasn't baby-sitting, since Sam and Charlie were home, but I felt I should be on top of things. There were ten kids in the house, plus Boo-Boo.

"This house," I informed my friends, "is actually a madhouse. Can you imagine what it'll be like when Shannon arrives?"

At that moment, Charlie charged into my

room with Andrew in his arms and threw him on the bed. "Touchdown!" he shouted.

Andrew squealed and giggled. He sounded a little too wild, which was unlike him. "Do a cannonball!" he shrieked. He tucked himself into a ball and Charlie picked him up again and ran him down the hall chanting, "Ba-boom-ba-boom-ba-boom-ba-boom." We heard a soft thud as my brother tossed him onto another bed.

"Hey, you guys! Perk up!" I shouted to them.

My friends laughed.

Karen ran after Charlie shouting, "My turn! My turn!"

"When do you get Shannon?" Mary Anne wanted to know.

"In two or three days," I replied.

"You know, Kristy," Claudia began, "I hate to say this, but - "

"Then don't," I interrupted.

"Don't what?"

"Say it."

Claudia made a face at me. "But," she continued, "you complained an awful lot about Shannon Kilbourne and the other snobby girls around here, and now Shannon's giving you a puppy. That's a pretty nice thing to do."

"I know," I said in a small voice as I traced the pattern of the bedspread with my finger:

"She's not as bad as I thought she was. In fact, she's sort of all right."

"Well, what happened?" asked Dawn.

I shook my head. "I'm not sure. But we did have a talk the day Shannon brought Shannon to meet me."

"What kind of talk?" asked Claudia. She was lying on her back on the floor and began blowing a gigantic pink bubble with a wad of Bazooka.

"You know, if that pops, it's going to cover your face and goo up your hair," Stacey pointed out after a few seconds.

Claudia ignored her and kept on blowing.

"We had a very pleasant talk," I replied. "We talked about baby-sitting. I said I hadn't realized that I might be stepping on someone else's territory when I started sitting around here. It was just natural for me to sit."

"What did Shannon say?" asked Mary Anne. "Did she understand?"

"Oh, yes. Believe it or not, she said she was jealous."

"You're kidding," said Dawn and Stacey at the same time.