BSC08 Boy-Crazy Stacey (3 page)

"I get it."

"Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an

egg- - - •"

"Nicky, I really hate that song," said Mallory.

"Okay. Jingle bells, Santa smells, Rudolph broke his — Hey! Here we go!"

The traffic was very heavy. The cars in Mrs. Pike's lane were edging along, but the ones in our lane were suddenly moving a bit faster. As we passed the other Pike car, three things happened at once. Nicky triumphantly held up his sign and was rewarded with dirty looks

from the triplets. Claire called, "Hi, Moozie-silly-billy-goo-goo!" to her mother. And Margo grabbed for the Barf Bucket and whimpered, "I don't feel too good."

"Uh-oh," I said.

"Darn," said Nicky. "She didn't have any grape soda yet."

Poor Margo looked so miserable, I couldn't turn away from her, even though if I saw her throw up, I'd probably have to use the bucket myself. She turned a wicked shade of green, but nothing happened.

"She might feel better if she sat up front," suggested Mallory.

"If you're going to trade places, do it carefully," said Mr. Pike grimly.

"Oh, boy!" squealed Nicky. "The last time this happened, Margo puked while she was climbing over the seats."

"Swell," I muttered.

The girls managed to switch places. Mallory accidentally kicked Mr. Pike in the shoulder, but Margo's breakfast stayed down.

"Jingle bells, Santa sm — " began Nicky.

"Nicholas, if we hear that song one more time ..." threatened Mr. Pike. He was trying to pass a Mack truck.

"Okay," said Nicky. "Jingle barf — "

"Nicholas!"

"It's not that song!" Nicky exclaimed. "It's a different one." But he kept quiet after that.

"How many more minutes?" asked Claire.

"About fifteen and we'll stop for ice cream," said her father.

What a relief! The ice-cream break was just what we needed. Mary Anne and the Pike kids (including Margo, who claimed to be starving) slurped up big Howard Johnson's ice-cream cones. Mr. and Mrs. Pike had coffee. And I managed to find a Popsicle that was made with fruit only — no sugar. It was great. It's nice not to be left out of every food treat.

We climbed back into the cars and began the rest of the trip to Sea City. After a while, the ground began to look sandier. The trees became scrubbier and shorter. And finally Mallory spotted a sign that said SEA cnx EXIT 10 MILES.

"Oh, boy!" she whooped.

The rest of us cheered.

Soon we were driving off the exit ramp, Mrs. Pike behind us, and turning onto a causeway that crossed some marshy land. The air smelled of salt.

"Hey, there's the cow sign!" cried Nicky pointing.

I looked to the right and saw a billboard with a three-dimensional purple cow. It was an advertisement for cream.

"There's Crabs for Grabs!" said Mallory as we passed a restaurant.

"There's the suntan.girl!" Margo dissolved into giggles as we passed another billboard, this one showing a puppy pulling at the bottom of a little girl's bathing suit, showing off her splendid tan line.

"Why did Mr. Stupid tiptoe past the medicine chest?" shrieked Claire. "Because he didn't want to wake up the sleeping pills!" she answered herself.

"Okay, settle down," I told her.

The Pikes fell into silence as we entered Sea City. They looked awed, and I could see why. Their senses were suddenly overloaded with great kid stuff: the smell of hotdogs and fried food and the sea air, the sounds of the waves and of kids shouting and laughing and calling to each other, but mostly the sights. We passed Trampoline Land and miniature golf and souvenir stands. We passed stores and restaurants and ice-cream parlors. And in the distance was a boardwalk with arcades and a Ferris wheel and a roller coaster and probably plenty of head-spinning rides. And beyond all that gleamed the ocean.

Chapter 4.

Mr. Pike cruised down a wide street in Sea City. (He called it the main drag.) There were palm trees in front of a lot of the stores, but they were all plastic! I guess Sea City wasn't really palm tree country. Anyway, after a while he turned down a side street and stopped in front of a little pink house surrounded by white gravel. A sign in the yard read ELLEN COOKE, REALTOR. Mr. Pike went inside. He returned a few minutes later with a ring of keys and a folder full of fliers and ads and even an un-inflated souvenir beach ball. We drove off again.

"I claim the ball!" cried Nicky.

"No, me!" yelled Margo.

"No, me!" yelled Claire.

I grabbed the beach ball and sat on it. "Guess what," I said. "The beach ball is either everybody's or nobody's."

"Thank you, Stacey," said Mr. Pike.

"But it can't be everybody's," said Nicky.

"Then I guess it's nobody's," I replied.

"If it's nobody's, then I claim it!" Nicky retorted gleefully.

Luckily, just then we turned into a driveway.

"Here we are!" announced Mr. Pike. "End of the line! Everybody out."

"Yea! Hurray!" We tumbled out of the car. Mrs. Pike parked next to us, and the triplets and Vanessa tumbled out of her car. The Pike kids were all jumping around and yelling. No wonder. The air smelled wonderful. It wasn't just the salt. It was something else that I couldn't describe, a freshness that was different from country air.

"We're back, we're here, we've come once more, to our gingerbread house by the white seashore!" sang Vanessa.

"Hey, that was a good one," said Byron appreciatively.

I took a look at the Pikes' rented house. We were facing the back, but even from there I could see that it was sort of gingerbready — with carved railings and posts and eaves and edges. Very old-fashioned. It was large and rambling, painted yellow with white trim. I glanced at Mary Anne and could tell that she had already fallen in love with it. I knew she was mentally writing a postcard to Dawn, describing the house and its view of the ocean.

"Do you rent the same house every year?" I asked Mallory as we unloaded cartons from the car.

"Yup," she said. "And we're so lucky. I mean, right on the beach and everything. In

the evening we sometimes sit on the front porch and just stare out at the ocean. And when it rains. ..."

"Yeah?"

"I go up to this room on the third floor and sit on this window seat and watch the lightning and the waves crashing and everything."

I shivered. It sounded very romantic.

"Plus/7 added Mallory, "the lifeguard stand is right in front of our house. We can walk out the front door and straight into the ocean for

a swim."

The driveway was behind the house, and we were carrying things in through the back door. Inside, Mrs. Pike was directing traffic.

"Why don't you take the same rooms you had last year?" she suggested. "Boys in the big bedroom at the end of the hall. Claire and Margo, in the room next to Daddy and me. Vanessa and Mallory, the pink bedroom. Oh, and Mal, show Mary Anne and Stacey the yellow bedroom, okay?"

Mary Anne was looking around the house, wide-eyed. The rooms on the first floor were big and bright and airy. I saw a living room, a sunporch, and a kitchen before Mallory whisked us up the wide staircase to the second floor.

The second floor consisted of a hallway,

bedrooms, and bathrooms. It reminded me a little of Watson's house, only it wasn't nearly as big. Mallory opened a door toward the end of the hall.

"This is the yellow bedroom," she said. "If you don't like it, there are a couple of rooms on the third floor, or you could trade with somebody."

"Oh, no, it's perfect!" Mary Anne breathed. "Just perfect."

It was a pretty room, I suppose, although not really to my taste. It was old-fashioned, with two high, dark wood beds, a bare wood floor, and yellow flowered wallpaper. It did, however, have a view of the beach. Out our window was sand and sun and the lifeguard stand.

"This is great!" I said to Mary Anne as soon as Mallory had left. "What a view. Come on, lef s unpack. Then we can help the kids unpack, and after lunch, we can go out and do something."

We did just that. We emptied our suitcases, putting things in the tall bureau between our beds, or hanging them in the closet. Then we gave the Pike kids a hand. While Mr. and Mrs. Pike were still unpacking boxes and opening windows and making grocery lists, Mary Anne

and I made sandwiches and served them up at the table in the kitchen.

As we were finishing lunch, I made the mistake of asking, "So what do you guys want to do this afternoon?" "Go to the beach," said Mallory. "Go to the arcade," said Jordan. 'Go swimming," said Adam.

to Trampoline Land," said Nicky. ke sandcastles," said Claire.

M G G loves

"

//

Lcok for shells, look for shells, washed to

shore

obviously.)

Ma Mary saids sort o "He "Ye "W "Stao don't every go on see th The

on the Ferris wheel," said Margo.

to Ice-Cream Palace," said Byron, who

o eat.

y the ocean swells," (That was Vanessa,

y Anne and I glanced at each other. Anne raised her eyebrows. "Well," she

owly, "maybe we can do everything. . . a

w?" asked the kids, h, how?" I asked.

'11 go exploring," replied Mary Anne. y and I haven't been here before. Why ou take us on a tour? You can show us ling. We probably' won't have time to rides or play games, but at least we can ? town." triplets were the first to okay the idea,

and the others quickly followed. Fifteen minutes later, Mary Anne and I were herding the Pike kids out the back door and down the street.

"Where do we start?" I asked.

"The main drag," replied Adam promptly.

"Yeah, that's good," said Mallory. "We'll walk right through town, and then go over to the boardwalk and come back home that way."

Walking "right through town" took just under two hours. At least one Pike wanted to stop at nearly every place we passed. Nicky wanted to see how much it cost to jump on the trampolines this summer. Byron wanted to see if the price of ice-cream cones was the same, and whether Ice-Cream Palace still had bing cherry vanilla. Mallory and Vanessa ducked into every souvenir shop along the way. They exclaimed over the little animals made of shells (which were pretty cute) and Sea City hats, towels, mugs, T-shirts, shorts, and postcards.

We almost had tears when we passed a penny candy store called Candy Heaven and Byron discovered two quarters in his pocket and started buying up — but only for himself. The others wanted candy, too. Luckily, Mary Anne and I had just enough change to buy each of them a jawbreaker. And Mary Anne bought a tiny chocolate teddy for herself, but

I had to go without, of course. When we left Candy Heaven, all you could hear was slurp, slurp, slurp, and exclamations of, "Mine's turning blue now!" or, "Hey, look! Mine's yellow!" or, "When mine gets smaller, I'm going to bite it in half and look at all the layers."

We proceeded along the main drag.

"There's Burger Garden!" said Byron, as we passed a tacky-looking restaurant. It was surrounded by a "garden" of plastic flowers. The eat-out tables were in the shape of mushrooms, and the waiters and waitresses were dressed like animals.

"Ask Claire what this place is called," whispered Jordan.

"What's this place called?" I asked her.

"Gurber Garden."

Jordan hooted. "She never says it right!"

We continued on our way. "There's Candy Kitchen," said Margo. "That's where we get fudge. It's yummy-yummy!"

"And there's miniature golf," pointed out Jordan.

"That looks like fun," I said. "They didn't have miniature golf in New York City. Have you ever played, Mary Anne?"

"A couple of times. There's a miniature golf course near Shelbyville in Connecticut."

I kept looking, I looked so long that Adam said hopefully, "Maybe we could play now."

"Sorry, kiddo," I told him. "I wish we could, too, but we don't'have any money. I'm sure we'll come back, though. It would be fun to play sometime."

We stood around and watched a while longer. Then we continued with our exploring. It took us another hour to walk along the boardwalk, and finally we ended up on the beach in front of the Pikes' house.

"Can we go in the water?" asked Nicky.

I looked at my watch. "Nope. Sorry," I said. "It's five o'clock. The lifeguards are getting ready to leave. Besides, you guys aren't wearing your bathing suits."

"Can't we even go wading?" Nicky pressed.

"Please, please, please? Just to our knees?" added Vanessa.

"No," I told them. "You know the rules."

"You could make a sandcastle or look for shells," suggested Mary Anne.

Nicky pouted. "That's girl stuff," he announced. "I know. We'll play paddle ball." He ran into the house to get rackets and balls.

Mary Anne and I settled ourselves in the sand. We watched the rest of the Pike kids run around, laughing, glad to be at the seashore

finally. I looked at the other people on the beach. They were mostly families. Then I watched the lifeguards. They had jumped off of their wooden stand and were pulling on blue windbreakers that said SEA CITY COMMUNITY BEACHES. One had dark, curly hair; the other wavy, blonde hair. They looked about seventeen years old.

As the blonde one leaned over to fold his towel, the sun caught his hair, making it gleam. And at that moment, he glanced up. He.saw me looking at him, and gave me a smile and a little wink.

He was gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous.

He turned back to his towel and I let out my breath in a shaky gasp.

"Oh, wow," I whispered to Mary Anne. "I'm in love."

"Huh?" she said, frowning.

"I'm in love," I repeated, "with that gorgeous lifeguard."

Mary Anne just shook her head. I knew she thought I was crazy.

Chapter 5.

"Stacey?" whispered a small voice.

I pulled the covers over my head, hoping the small voice was part of a dream. It was Sunday morning. Very early Sunday morning. Something had awoken me from a sound sleep.

"Stacey?" whispered the voice again, more urgently.

"Mmphh."

"STACEY-SILLY-BILLY-GOO-GOO?"

"WHAT?" I sat up in bed like I'd been shot out of a cannon. "What is it?"