Kristy and the Snobs (8 page)

"Do we have to keep Nicky and Vanessa away from the kids upstairs?" Claudia asked. "I mean, so they don't catch the chicken pox?"

"Oh, no. Don't worry about that," Mrs. Pike replied. "They've been exposed all week. Now, try not to let the sick kids scratch. They're pretty good about it, except for Margo, who scratches every time she thinks we're not looking. Poor thing, she's got a worse case than the others. If any of them complains of a headache, you can give them one children's Tylenol. It's in the medicine cabinet on the very top shelf. Otherwise, just try to keep the kids happy. The portable TV is in the boys' room right now. At seven o'clock, it's the girls' turn to watch it. Mallory can help you with anything else. And the phone numbers are in their usual spot. Okay?"

"Okay," replied Claudia, who was beginning to feel a little apprehensive. Eight Pike kids were one thing; five cases of chicken pox were another.

As soon as Mr. and Mrs. Pike left, Claudia heard a strange little sound, sort of a tinkling noise. "What's that?" she asked Mallory.

She and Mallory were setting up dinner trays for the sick kids.

"What's what?" replied Mallory.

Tinkle-tinkle.

"That," said Claudia.

"Uh-oh! It's the triplets. Mom gave them a bell to ring when they need something. She gave Margo and Claire a triangle."

Ding-ding.

"That wouldn't be the triangle, would it?" asked Claudia.

"Yup," said Mallory, rolling her eyes.

"Well, let's go."

Claudia and Mallory dashed upstairs. Mallory looked in on her brothers while Claudia went to the girls' room. "Hi, you two," she greeted Claire and Margo.

Claire, who is five, put a pitiful expression on her face. "Hi," she said soberly.

"What's the matter?" Claudia asked, concerned.

"We're sick," Claire told her.

"I know. It's too bad."

It really was too bad. Claudia told me that the girls looked pathetic. Their faces and hands - any part of them that wasn't covered by their nightgowns - were a sea of spots. Some of Margo's looked awfully red, and

Claudia suspected that she'd been scratching them.

"We itch," added Margo, who's seven. "Mommy gave us a bath and she put starch in the water to take away the itching, but now it's back again." Her hand drifted toward a spot on her neck, and she touched it so carefully that Claudia couldn't tell whether she was scratching.

"I'm really sorry," said Claudia sympathetically, "but we're going to have fun tonight, and that will take your minds off the itching. In a little while, I'm going to bring your supper upstairs. First I'll eat dinner with you, and then I'll have dessert in the triplets' room - but I'll bring the TV in here. How does that sound?"

"Good," replied Margo and Claire together.

"And now," said Claudia, holding an imaginary microphone to her lips, "for your entertainment pleasure . . . ta-dah! The Kid-Kit!"

Claudia had brought her Kid-Kit to the Pikes' and left it outside the doorway to the girls' room. She carried it in with a flourish and set it on the table between their beds.

"Yea!" cried Claire.

"You guys can play with this stuff until I bring the TV in. Then you can trade, and give the Kid-Kit to the boys, okay?"

"Okay," said Margo, forgetting to scratch as she pawed through the box.

Meanwhile, Mallory had returned to the kitchen and was setting the trays and the table. Further downstairs, in the rec room, eight-year-old Nicky and nine-year-old Vanessa were playing - supposedly. But as Claudia joined Mallory again, she heard Vanessa shriek, "Stop that! You stop that, Nicholas Pike! . . . STOP IT!"

"Whoa," exclaimed Claudia. "I'll go see what that's all about. You finish the trays, okay, Mallory?" She ran downstairs without waiting for a reply. "Hey! What are you two doing?" she cried.

Nicky and Vanessa were sitting on the floor surrounded by Legos. An entire town of Lego buildings had sprung up between them. Claudia couldn't see anything broken or wrong.

"Vanessa?" she asked.

"Nicky gave me the Bizzer Sign!" Vanessa sounded practically hysterical.

"She gave it to me first," grumbled Nicky. "She started it. Honest." He drew a hand wearily across his eyes.

"Did not!" said Vanessa.

"Did, too!"

"Okay, okay," Claudia cut in. Claudia has no patience for the Bizzer sign, which is a hand

signal the Pike kids invented purely to annoy each other. "Look, it's almost time for supper. Come on upstairs. You're going to eat in the kitchen with Mallory. A nice, quiet meal," she added.

"I'm not hungry," Vanessa whined.

"Me, neither," said Nicky.

"Not even for cream cheese and jelly sandwiches?"

"Well, maybe ..." Vanessa conceded.

Mallory, Nicky, and Vanessa did eat a quiet, almost somber, meal in the kitchen. Upstairs, Claudia tried to eat with the chicken pox crew, but she hardly had time. No sooner had she settled onto the end of Claire's bed with her tray than she heard tinkle-tinkle.

"Coming!" she called, and ran into the triplets' room. "What is it?" she asked the three spotty faces.

"Could we have soda instead of milk?" asked Adam. "Please? It feels so nice and cold."

"Sure," Claudia replied, feeling unduly sorry for them.

She was racing back upstairs with the soda when ding-ding sounded from the girls' room. "Coming!" she called. She handed out the sodas rather hastily and dashed back to Claire and Margo.

"Claudia,
  
there's
 
a
  
speck
 
in
 
my
 
cream

cheese," said Margo. "I think it's a bug. If I eat it, I'll throw up."

Claudia examined the speck. "Just a crumb," she pronounced, but to be on the safe side, she picked it out of the cream cheese.

"Could I have some more milk, please?" Claire asked then.

Tinkle-tinkle. The boys were ready for second helpings of fruit salad, and Byron, who loves to eat, wanted dessert, too.

Claudia brought all the food upstairs, then realized it was seven o'clock and time to switch the TV for the Kid-Kit. She did so, wolfed down part of her sandwich, then began carrying the trays to the kitchen so she could help Mallory clean up.

The bell and the triangle were quiet for a full five minutes before Jordan asked for an aspirin for his headache. It was during the next lull that Claudia peered down into the rec room to see what Vanessa and Nicky were up to. She saw them both sitting in front of the TV, their shirts pulled up, examining their tummies and chests. "What are you doing?" she called.

"Counting," Nicky called back.

"Counting what?"

"Our spots."

"Uh-oh,"
 
said Claudia,
 
and she dashed

downstairs to find that, just as she'd feared, poor Mr. and Mrs. Pike had two new chicken pox patients.

"Bedtime, you guys," she announced, and neither one objected.

Chapter 12.

Louie was in bad shape. Everyone could see it. Even David Michael. He didn't understand it, but he could see it.

"He's falling apart," Mom said one Saturday as she and Louie returned home from a trip to the vet. "He's simply old. Nothing is working very well anymore."

It was true. Louie had lots of accidents now, so we had to keep him in the kitchen and the family room, where there were no Oriental rugs. His arthritis was worse, and we could tell he was in a lot of pain. He didn't move unless he had to, and when he did, it was a big effort. Now, instead of calling Louie for dinner, David Michael brought dinner to him.

"After all," said my brother, "when I'm sick, Mom brings me my meals on a tray, so I'm kind of doing the same thing for Louie."

Even though he didn't feel well, Louie tried to be the same good old collie as always. For

instance, he usually tried to get to his feet and over to the back door so somebody could let him out before he had an accident. It's just that often he didn't make it. He was too slow. One day, the day before Mom took him back to Dr. Smith, he staggered to his feet as David Michael was approaching him with his dinner.

"You need to go out, Louie?" my brother asked. "Okay, hold on a sec." David Michael set the bowl down. He went off in search of his slicker since it had begun to rain, and returned to the kitchen in time to see Louie's hindquarters disappear through the open basement doorway.

"Louie!" David Michael cried. "No! Wait!"

Ever since Dr. Smith had told us about Louie's eyesight, we'd tried to keep the door to the basement closed, but now and then one of us would forget. It just hadn't become a habit yet. Which was too bad, because a steep flight of fourteen stone steps led from that doorway into the dark cellar below.

David Michael grabbed for the banister with one hand and Louie's collar with the other, even though Louie had already stumbled down the first couple of steps. Thank goodness Louie moves slowly, otherwise he probably would have fallen headlong to the bottom of the stairs. As it was, he and David Michael fell several

more steps together and David Michael banged his face on the banister and wound up with a black eye.

It was that accident that prompted Mom to take Louie to Dr. Smith the next day. And it was at that visit that Dr. Smith said Louie was deteriorating rapidly (translated into regular speech, that meant "getting worse fast"), and suggested injections. I hadn't gone with Mom to the vet and didn't ask what the injections were for. I didn't really want to understand. All I did know was that Dr. Smith said she could try a last resort with Louie - she would give him special injections two times every day.

Needless to say, this was not easy to fit into our schedule, although of course we agreed that it must be done, since no schedule was more important than Louie. We finally worked out a plan where Mom left the house early and drove Louie to Dr. Smith's for his first injection of the day, while Watson took care of breakfast and seeing us Thomas kids off to school. Then Mom dropped Louie back at the house and arrived at her office fifteen minutes later than usual. On Monday and Wednesday afternoons, Charlie sped home from school, picked Louie up, drove him to Dr. Smith's for his second injection, sped home, dropped Louie

off, picked me up, and drove me to my Babysitters Club meeting. On Tuesday and Thursday, when Charlie was busy, Watson skipped lunch, and used his "lunch hour" in the middle of the afternoon to take Louie to Dr. Smith. The new schedule was hectic, Mom and Watson and Charlie were harried by it, and worst of all, by Friday, after almost a week of injections, Dr. Smith admitted to Charlie that they weren't helping Louie much - and that the two car trips every day were too much for him.

Charlie was upset by the news, and so was I, when he told me about it as we settled Louie into the kitchen. In fact, I was so worried that I actually called Claudia to tell her I wouldn't be able to make our Friday club meeting. Dawn, as our alternate officer, would have to take over my duties as president.

It was a good thing I didn't go. If I had, I wouldn't have been around for all the commotion that was about to happen. Even though in a big family, especially a stepfamily, you learn to expect commotion, I wasn't prepared for what was to follow. Things started when Watson and his ex-wife somehow got their signals crossed and the first Mrs. Brewer dropped Karen and Andrew off earlier than usual for their weekend with us, thinking that Watson was home. He wasn't, but it was okay

since Charlie and David Michael and I were.

Karen ran inside, full of energy, with Andrew at her heels. "Hi, everybody!" she called. "Here we are!" She dropped her knapsack and a tote bag in the front hall by the staircase. Andrew dropped his things on Karen's.

"What's for dinner?" asked Karen. "Where's Boo-Boo? Have you seen Morbidda Destiny? How's Louie?"

Karen usually leaves the rest of us in shock with her talk and excitement and enthusiasm. For the next half hour we were one step behind her as she and Andrew settled into the routine at their dad's house. First Karen ran to one of the windows that faces Mrs. Porter's house next door.

"Eeee!" she screeched. "I can see her! I can see her in her kitchen. She's mixing something in a pot. You know what I think?"

(By this time the rest of us, including quiet Andrew, had gathered behind Karen and were peering at Mrs. Porter.)

"I think she's mixing a wicked witch's brew! She's stirring up a brew that's going to grow fur all over Andrew or - "

"Dope," said Charlie fondly, clapping a hand over Karen's mouth. He smiled at her and shook his head. "You know she can't do stuff like that. She's probably making soup."

"Kristy?" asked Andrew, turning a worried face to me.

"Oh, Andrew," I said, kneeling down, "you're not going to grow fur. Don't give it a second thought."

By this time, Karen was already gone. She'd run into Watson's den and found Boo-Boo asleep in a leather armchair. (I swear, that cat always picks the most uncomfortable spots for his naps.) And she summoned us from the window with another shriek.

"He's growing fangs! Boo-Boo is growing fangs!" Karen was crying as we caught up with her. "It's Morbidda Destiny again."

I was positive, no matter what Karen said, and no matter what doubts I have about our next-door neighbor, that Boo-Boo was not growing fangs. I tiptoed to the leather chair while everyone else looked on in silence. Despite Karen's shrieking a moment earlier, Boo-Boo was still sound asleep. He was sprawled on his back, and was, in fact, so sound asleep, that his mouth was slightly open. I saw why Karen thought he had fangs.

Smiling, I tiptoed back to her. "Those aren't fangs," I said, with a laugh. "They're just his regular old teeth. They're called incisors or something. I guess you never noticed them before. Look, even humans have them." I

opened my mouth and showed her my four pointy teeth.

"Whew," breathed Karen. "I was worried ... I wonder if Louie has those teeth, too." And she was off again. Her third screech came from the kitchen. "What now?" asked Charlie wearily. We were getting tired of Karen's games. But her third screech was followed by a fourth, and both sounded truly terrified.