"Yeah. This is the fifth time I've been here. I mean, to see Swan Lake. I'm going broke, but it's worth it."

I took a chance. "Are you a dancer?"

His face reddened. "Um . . ."

"Because I am. I've studied for years. I live in Connecticut, though."

Now he grinned. "My name's Quint."

"I'm Jessi." (Talking to boys is easy, I thought.) "And I love ballet," Quint went on.

"Well, are you a dancer?"

"Yes," Quint replied, looking pained. "I take lessons on Sat.u.r.days. My teacher says I'm good enough to get into Juilliard."

"Wow!" I was impressed. Juilliard is a famous school of the performing arts, and getting into it isn't easy. "That's fantastic. When are you going to audition?"

Quint looked away. "I'm not," he muttered.

"Oh. Really expensive, huh?"

"No, it's not that. You don't understand. You're a girl."

(What did that have to do with anything?) "And you're a boy," I said.

"Exactly. The guys in my neighborhood tease me all the time. When they found out about the dance lessons they began calling me a sissy. Now I have to sneak to lessons. Once a week is hard enough. Can you imagine if I went to Juilliard full-time?"

"Yes," 1 answered firmly. "It would be wonderful. Forget about those guys. If you want to be a dancer, then be a dancer."

Quint smiled. "Thanks," he said, but he was shaking his head. Then he looked at me, frowning. "Well, maybe. Hey, can I have your phone number?"

I blanked out. I couldn't remember Laine's number, but Quint didn't mind. Instead, he wrote down his number and address, and handed the slip of paper to me.

I spent the rest of the afternoon as aware of Quint as I was of the ballet.

Would I find the courage to call him?

I wasn't sure at all.

Mallory.

Chapter 8.

To be perfectly honest, the day was not as good as I made it sound in the notes I wrote for Claudia. But I didn't think I could say what the problem was. That's because the problem was Claudia.

Monday started off okay. When Claud and I had finally found Falny and our cla.s.sroom, we were nervous about school and meeting Mac. But we were excited, too. We kept pointing at things and giggling.

Then Mac began the morning cla.s.s.

We were working on perspective and some other thing. In the middle of the cla.s.sroom was this big jumble of boxes. We were supposed to draw them. It was a tough a.s.signment, and not at all what I'd thought I'd be doing at Falny. I wanted to improve my drawing so that I could ill.u.s.trate my stories better. I needed to learn to draw bunnies and mice and fat mushrooms and cute little bugs. I needed to learn to draw cats wearing clothes. That kind of thing. But if Mac thought drawing boxes would help, then I would do it. The only problem was that it was really hard. I hadn't taken art cla.s.ses the way Claud had. I wasn't used to a.s.signments like this. I was glad the cla.s.s lasted for several hours, because that was how long I needed to sketch those boxes. I worked very slowly. I erased things and started over. I was really embarra.s.sed by how awful my paper looked.

Especially when I glanced over at Claudia's work and noticed two things about it. 1. It was good. 2. She could sketch quickly, like those artists on TV. When I saw Mac heading our way, I wanted to cry. But guess what. Mac did not tell Claud her work was good. He told her to start over again and to slow down. Then he said that my work was good! At first Claud just looked hurt. But when Mac came back to us and said the same things again, Claud looked like she wanted to kill me. Honest.

Well, I could understand. Claud was supposed to be the artist. But Mac never said anything nice to her. And he said plenty of nice things to me.

"Teacher's pet," Claudia would whisper when Mac was out of earshot.

"I can't help it," I'd reply.

I wished Mac would make at least one nice comment to Claud, just to even up things a little.

The afternoon was no better. We had to draw all those darn boxes again. They'd been moved around so that they were in a new arrangement. How boring. The worst part, though, was that Claud couldn't seem to do anything right. By the end of the cla.s.s, she was barely speaking to me.

I tried to be cheerful. "Isn't Falny great?" I said.

"Ha!" was Claud's reply.

We stepped outside to hail a cab to Stacey's apartment. I copied what I thought I had seen Stacey do in this situation. I stood halfway out in the street, waved my arms and yelled, "TAXI!"

Someone grabbed me from behind and pulled me to the sidewalk.

I gasped.

"What's the matter with you, Claud?" I exclaimed. "You scared me to death. I thought you were a mugger."

"You look like a tourist," said Claudia.

"I am a tourist."

"But you don't have to let everyone in New York know that."

Claud hailed a cab for us. We rode to Mr. McGill's in silence.

A couple of hours later, we were ready to leave for Chinatown. Stacey's father, Laine, I, and the other members of the BSC were jammed into Mr. McGill's living room, sipping sodas and planning the evening.

"We can take the subway there," said Mr. McGill. "But we'll take cabs back."

"Separate ones, I hope," muttered Claudia.

I stuck my tongue out at her. (She did not see this because she wouldn't look at me. She was pretending I didn't exist.) "See what I mean?" I whispered to Jessi. "She's been like this ever since the morning. What a jerk."

"Ignore her," said Jessi sympathetically.

"I would, except that she's already ignoring me."

"Okay, let's get a move on," said Mr. McGill.

The steps down to the subway entrance were dirty. They smelled.

"Fee-yew!" I exclaimed.

"Oh, grow up," said Claudia.

"Is this the only way to the subway?" asked Dawn, who was standing by herself at the top of the stairs.

"No," replied Stacey, "there are lots of other entrances. But they all look like this. Come on, Dawn."

"I think I'll make out a will tonight," Dawn whispered as she rushed by me. "If I live that long."

We managed to reach the token booth, to buy tokens, and to find our platform safely. I felt like a mouse in an underground maze.

"I feel like an ant in an ant farm," said Jessi just then. (Best friends often think alike. At least, Jessi and I do.) A subway train roared into the station. It stopped, the doors opened, and people poured out. Then my friends (well, my six friends and my one ex-friend) boarded the train and found seats. Dawn positioned herself between Mr. McGill and Kristy (who may be short, but she's fearless). Dawn looked amazed when Stacey's father finally called out, "Okay, girls. The next stop is ours. Get ready for Chinatown!"

"I'm still alive," said Dawn in awe.

We climbed another flight of dirty, smelly stairs and found ourselves in a different world.

"Whoa. Are you sure we're still in New York?" I murmured, "Dweeb," Claud murmured back.

"It does seem like a different world," agreed Mr. McGill.

We really could have been in China. Or I guess we could have, since I haven't been to China. Anyway, this is how I thought it might look.

Around us were low buildings. The signs on some of them were in both English letters and Chinese characters. Others were only in Chinese.

"Hey, look at that phone booth!" cried Jessi.

We all turned to look. It was painted red and shaped like a paG.o.da.

Mr. McGill led us around a corner, and we found ourselves on a narrow street with narrow sidewalks.

"Cool!" exclaimed Claudia. (She actually sounded excited. She must have forgotten about McKenzie Clarke and the boxes.) "I bet there's good shopping here."

We were standing by a tiny store. Crowded into the window were all sorts of treasures - fans, chopsticks, embroidered shoes, small toys. Nearby stood several racks of T-shirts as well as two racks of postcards.

"Oh, we have to go in!" said Mary Anne.

So we did. We bought tons of souvenirs. (I bought a fan for myself and a toy for each of my brothers and sisters.) When we left the store we walked through the tangle of streets. We pa.s.sed markets and restaurants, the windows of which were actually aquariums with huge (weird) fish swimming through murky water. We pa.s.sed people selling fireworks. We pa.s.sed more of the shops like the one we'd bought souvenirs in. We began to yawn.

"Dinnertime," announced Stacey's father, and he led us into a tiny restaurant with linoleum floors, hard plastic chairs, and tables with no cloths covering them. Almost no one was eating there.

"I don't think these empty tables are a very good sign, do you?" I whispered to Jessi. "Why isn't anyone eating here?"

"Because it's a dive?" she suggested, making a face.

But it wasn't a dive. The food was fantastic and the people who waited on us were really nice. They didn't speak much English and we didn't speak any Chinese, but it turned out that the restaurant was run by two sisters and their husbands. Stacey tried to explain to them about the BSC. We ended up laughing, and our waiter gave us extra fortune cookies. My fortunes weren't exactly fortunes. They were advice -*- on how to get ahead in the world and how to get along with people. (I slipped that second fortune onto Claudia's plate.

When she noticed it, she read it, glanced at me, and simply muttered, "Teacher's pet.") We had to hail three cabs in order to get everyone back to Laine's and Stacey's. I was extra glad that Claudia and I were staying at different apartments. However, I would have to face her the next morning.

Kristy.

Chapter 9.

Tuesday morning, Stacey and Mary Anne headed for the Harringtons' again, Claud and Mal went to art school, Laine went shopping with her mother, and Dawn barricaded herself in Mr. McGill's apartment (for the third day in a row).

"Are you going to stay with Dawn again?" Jessi asked me after breakfast.

I shook my head. "I feel guilty, but I just can't. I've spent two days with her. You know what she does over there now?"

"What?"

"She cleans the apartment while Mr. McGill is at his office. Did you notice how neat it was last night?"

"Neater than it was on Sat.u.r.day," said Jessi.

"Yeah. Mr. McGill had a nice, half-sloppy bachelor pad. Now Dawn is playing housekeeper. I bet Stacey's father can't even find most of his stuff. Dawn keeps organizing things."

"Poor Dawn."

"Poor Mr. McGill!"

"So what are you going to do today?" Jessi wanted to know.

"I'm not sure. How about you?"

Jessi shrugged. "I kind of want to go to Central Park, but - "

"Let's go, then!" I exclaimed. "The weather's beautiful."

So we left for the park. The last time I'd been there I was with Stacey, Mary Anne, Dawn, Claud - and a pack of children we were taking care of. Now I could wander through the park like a regular person. No stopping every five minutes to buy a soda, tie a shoe, or look for a bathroom.

"Ooh," said Jessi as we entered the park. "This is just like last night in China to wn: I feel as if we've walked into another world."

"I know what you mean. A forest right in the middle of the city."

"It smells so good. What happened to the car exhaust?"