"Yes, you do. People always have choices. And you're making this one."

"Okay," agreed Mom. "Maybe you're right. But I think it's the best choice."

"How can it be the best choice when it hurts so much?"

Jeff was looking back and forth from Mom to me as we spoke. He looked like he was watching a game of Ping-Pong.

"Right choices aren't necessarily easy ones," Mom countered.

"They should be," I said crossly.

"I'm sorry, honey."

I paused.

Jeff looked at me. "Your turn," he said. He smiled, but I didn't smile back. Nevertheless, Jeff couldn't contain himself anymore. He leaped off the couch. He kissed my mother. He went jumping around the room. "All right! All right!" he kept shrieking. "Thanks, Mom! Just think - no more Ms. Besser, no more Jerry Haney, no more fights or trouble or homesickness."

"Thanks a lot," I said to him.

"What do you mean?"

"You won't be homesick for us? You mean that when you're in California you won't miss us anymore? That's nice, Jeff. That's real nice. You are so, so thoughtful." I bit my lip to keep from crying.

"Aw, come on, Dawn. Can't you be happy for me?"

"No!"

"Dawn, try to understand - " my mom began, but I cut her off.

"I understand plenty. Jeff can't wait to get out of here. He can't wait to leave us behind -"

"It's not that," Jeff broke in. "That's not true at all. It's just that nothing's working out. I don't belong here."

"You don't belong with your own mother and sister?" I asked incredulously.

"I belong with Dad, too," he replied. Then he grinned. "I gotta call the Pike triplets. They won't believe this. And then, Mom, can I call Jason?" (Jason is one of Jeff s California friends.) "Sure," replied Mom.

I threw myself against the cushions of the couch and sulked. I felt guilty. I felt guilty because there I was, making a fuss over Jeff's leaving, when I wouldn't have minded going right along with him. He wasn't the only one who missed Dad. I did, too. And I missed my friend Sunny, and I missed the kids I used to baby-sit for. Face it. I wanted to go back to California, too. But I wouldn't leave Mom. No way. We were much too close for that. Besides, I liked Stoneybrook, too. Even in the middle of the freezing cold, snowy, icy winter, I liked Stoneybrook. What I wished was that we hadn't moved at all. Then I wouldn't feel so confused.

"Dawn?" said Mom gently.

"Yeah?"

"I know you're upset. This must be tough on you. It's more than just the fact that Jeff's leaving, isn't it?"

I nodded. "I miss California, too - Oh, but I want to stay here," I a.s.sured her. "But I do miss Dad and Sunny and good old Vista. . . .

Mom, don't you feel hurt that Jeff is so excited about leaving us?"

"I don't think he's so much excited about leaving us as he is about getting back to California. He's relieved to be leaving Connecticut behind. That's not quite the same as wanting to leave us."

"I guess not."

Mom sat down next to me and pulled me to her. She stroked my hair. "I've told you this before, sweetie. Jeff will miss us. Once he's back in California he'll miss us. And he'll want to visit us. But I don't think he'll want to live with us. His experience here has not been good. And that wasn't our fault and we can't change what's happened."

"I know," I said finally. "I guess I'm just . . . sad. I wish there were some way to keep him here."

"Oh, we could keep him here, all right," Mom told me, "but it would be like keeping a wild bird in a cage. Unfair. And the bird would be unhappy. Do you understand?"

"Yes," I replied. "I don't like it, but I understand."

Mom kissed me on the forehead. "We're going to be fine, you and I," she said. "You were my first baby, my special girl."

"Sometimes," I said, "I feel more like your sister than your daughter."

"Funny. I feel more like your sister than your mother."

We smiled ruefully at each other.

"I think I'll go to my room," I said.

Mom nodded.

"On second thought, I'll go to your room. If Jeff's off the phone can I call Mary Anne?"

"Of course."

In Mom's room I dialed Mary Anne's number. I hoped she would keep her head when I gave her the awful news. Mary Anne cries so easily that sometimes you wind up comforting her when it should be the other way around.

But Mary Anne was great. She said she knew how awful I must feel. She said the arrangement stank. She said Jeff was being selfish. Her voice only wobbled once.

When I got off the phone I went to my room and closed the door. I flopped on my bed. I began to cry, but before I really let go, I hastily wiped my tears away.

I started to think about Claire and Margo and the pageant instead. I was supposed to work with them the next day. I wondered what they could do. Sing? Claire knew her brother Nicky's silly song about jingle bells and Batman smelling, but I wasn't sure what else. Margo was hopelessly uncoordinated, so dancing and baton-twirling were out of the question. She could stand on her head, but that probably didn't qualify as talent. Maybe I could teach her a song on the piano. (The Pikes have a grand piano.) And maybe Claire knew some other songs. I hoped so. I would find out the very next day.

Chapter 6.

I went over to the Pikes' house right after school. Just to refresh your memory, the eight kids are: Mallory (eleven); Adam, Jordan, and Byron (the ten-year-old triplets); Vanessa (nine); Nicky (eight); Margo (seven); and Claire (five). There are very few rules at the Pikes', but one is that if more than five of the kids are at home when the parents are out, then two sitters must be there. On that day, Mr. Pike was at work (he's a lawyer for some company), and Mrs. Pike was busy with her library project. Since the triplets had stayed at Stoneybrook Elementary for after-school sports, and I was going to be working with Claire and Margo, Mallory was left alone in charge of the remaining two kids - Vanessa and Nicky. She was already on duty by the time I got there, having rushed home from school so that her mother could get going.

Claire and Margo greeted me at the door in great excitement.

"Hi!" cried Claire. "Hi, Dawn-silly-billy-goo-goo!" (Claire can be very silly at times. It's a phase she's going through.) "Are you here to help us?" asked Margo, jumping up and down. "With the pageant, I mean? We can't wait!"

"We love to get dressed up!" added Claire.

"Hey, Claire! Margo!" I could hear Mallory call. "Let Dawn in, for heaven's sake. She can't help you if you leave her standing outside."

"Come in come in come in come in come in!" shrieked Margo.

Oh, brother, I thought. As my dad would have said, the girls were wound up tighter than ticks. (Which, when you think of it, doesn't make much sense. How do you wind up a tick?) I entered the Pikes' hallway. Mallory came out of the kitchen, smiling.

"Hi, Dawn," she said.

"Hi," I replied. "Listen, I really hope you don't mind that I'm, um . . ." (I didn't want to humiliate the girls, but what I meant was that I hoped Mal didn't mind that I was getting her sisters ready to be the embarra.s.sment of her life.) "Well," said Mallory slowly, figuring out what I meant, "you know how I feel about . . . this, but it is your job, and besides, Claire and Margo are so excited."

Were they ever! They were sashaying around the living room with their hands on their hips, looking like . . . I'm not sure what, exactly.

"Why don't you take them up to their room?" Mallory suggested. "You can have some privacy there, and besides, Mom said something about looking through their closet. We haven't gotten the official rules from the judges' panel yet, so we don't know the details about the pageant, but we do know that . . . Let's see. What did Mom say? Oh, yeah. They need a sort of party outfit for this parade in front of the judges and the audience, and another thing to wear in the talent compet.i.tion, and a third, but we don't know what yet."

"Bathing suits!" shouted Margo.

Mallory smiled. "No. This isn't Miss America, Marg. There's no swimsuit compet.i.tion."

"I want to wear my bathing suit!"

Mallory raised her eyebrows as if to say to me, "See what a pain in the neck this pageant's going to be?"

I sighed. "Come on, girls. Let's go upstairs and see what's what."

The girls thundered up the stairs ahead of me.

"Good luck!" Mallory called.

"Thanks," I replied.

Claire and Margo raced into the bedroom they share. Before I could say a word, they opened their closet and began peeling their clothes off. Margo reached for her bathing suit. On the front was a gigantic alligator, its mouth open in a grin full of big triangular felt teeth.

"This is what I'm wearing," she announced.

"For what?" I asked.

"The pageant," Margo replied impatiently.

"But what part of the pageant? You heard Mallory. I really don't think you'll need a bathing suit. Listen, the first thing we'll pick out is a fancy outfit for the parade. Won't it be fun to get all dressed up?"

"Like for church?" asked Claire.

"Well, or for a birthday party," I replied.

"But I don't wear sparkly dresses to birthday parties or church," said Claire. "The ladies on TV wear sparkles. Or fur. I need to do that, too."

"Claire, you don't need to," I said desperately. "You don't need bathing suits, either," I added, glancing at Margo. "Look, let's forget about your clothes for awhile. We can choose those any time. Why don't you get dressed again? Then you better start thinking about the talent show. Because you'll have to rehea.r.s.e whatever you decide to do. Do you guys know what rehea.r.s.e means?"

"Choose?" asked Claire.

"It means practice, dummy," Margo told her.

"Margo," I admonished her.

Claire stuck her tongue out at her sister. "Silly-billy-goo-goo!"

"Okay, that's enough," I said. "Now listen. What do you want to do in the talent show?"

"What are we supposed to do?" Claire asked.

"Whatever you're good at. Most people sing or dance or play an instrument. Or they twirl a baton or do acrobatics. The talent compet.i.tion is like a variety show on TV. What can you do?"

The girls looked thoughtful.

"Do you play the piano?" I asked them.

"I play the kazoo!" exclaimed Claire.

"I can play 'Chopsticks' on the piano," said Margo. "Jordan taught me."

I shook my head. Then, "How about dancing?" I asked, knowing that Margo, at least, was hopeless.

Claire put her arms in the air. She twirled around and around, got dizzy, tripped over a teddy bear, and fell down.

"What about singing?" I asked after I had kissed her b.u.mped knee.

"I can sing," said Margo. (Claire was sniffling and rubbing her knee.) "We sing all the time in music cla.s.s at school. Listen to this. It's the song about the smart reindeer: Rudolph the Red knows rain, dear."

"Margo," I said when she had finished. I paused to think. Margo was giggling away at her reindeer joke, but there was a little problem. She couldn't carry a tune. She might have been singing any song. Any song at all.

"What?" asked Margo.

I tried to be tactful. "I don't think Christmas songs are quite right for the pageant."

"Then I'll sing," Claire declared, jumping to her feet, apparently recovered. "This is my best song, and this is what I'll sing in the pageant: I'm Popeye the sailor man. I live in a garbage can. I eat all the wor-orms and spit out the ger-erms. I'm Popeye the sailor man."

Claire smiled sweetly at me.

I sank onto her bed.

"That's it," said Claire firmly. "That's my talent."

There was no changing her mind. At least, I thought, trying to be optimistic, Claire can carry a tune. And she can't do anything else. "Are you sure you don't want to sing a different song?" I asked her, just to be sure. "Like 'Tomorrow' or 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow'?"

"No, Dawn-silly-billy-goo-goo. That's my best song."

Well, maybe we could dress her in a little sailor suit or something.