By Ann M. Martin. Published June 1989.
Mary Anne and Logan are sitting outside with Tigger. Richard
has the rule that Logan is not allowed in the house if he’s not there. I think
that’s a good rule, and a better one than Stacey’s mom has later on that Stacey
and her boyfriend are only allowed in the kitchen. Because there can be no
funny business going on in the kitchen. *eye
roll
Anyway, they’re
watching Tigger play, and then watch as various neighborhood kids come over to
play with him. Four-year-old Jamie is just wandering around by himself again.
This is becoming a pattern. Get it together, Mrs. Newton.
Logan is kind of in
and out of their conversation, and at times he gets a bit snippy with Mary
Anne. She decides to just brush it off, though.
Logan leaves, and
Mary Anne gets ready to go over to Claudia’s for the meeting. She tries to take
Tigger inside, but he obviously has other ideas. She decides to leave him out.
She’s done it a couple of times before, and he’s been fine. Besides, he has a
cat door.
But when Mary Anne
gets home later, he’s nowhere to be found, inside or out. Her dad helps her
look, but they don’t have any luck. Richard says he’s probably just off
sleeping somewhere.
He still doesn’t
show up before Mary Anne’s sitting job the next afternoon. She’s sitting for
Logan’s brother and sister, Kerry and Hunter. He normally sits for them, but he
has baseball practice. Hunter has severe allergies, and his allergy-speak is
written out phonetically. It’s pretty annoying. And he’s currently going
through a pretty bad spell. Kerry is a very helpful kid, aside from going to
her room quite often.
When Mary Anne gets
home from her job, Tigger still hasn’t returned. So she calls Kristy to tell
her about it, and Kristy calls for an emergency meeting. She says even though
it’s not a sitting problem, it still affects one of the club’s members. The
girls all rally behind Mary Anne, and come up with a flyer to put around the
neighborhood. Kristy says her mom will go into work to make copies. This is
really nice of her, driving all that way on a Saturday night. Also, the girls
all pitch together money, their own and a little out of the treasury, to come
up with a thirty dollar reward.
The next day, the
girls and Logan meet up to put the fliers on poles and in mailboxes. Mary Anne
runs across a kid, not a sitting charge, who reads the flier, then straight-up
lies about having seen Tigger. He mainly seems interested in the money. Mary
Anne doesn’t fall for it, though.
Mary Anne sits for
the Newtons, and they meet up with the Perkins girls to look for Tigger some
more in Mary Anne’s backyard. Mary Anne gets frustrated, and decides to check
the mail. There is a letter for her, and it’s a very childish ransom note,
telling her if she wants to see her cat alive again, to leave $100 in an
envelope at a big rock at a field the next afternoon.
She calls Logan, who
doesn’t sound as shocked as she would like. But he agrees to come to the
meeting that afternoon. Then she calls Kristy, who does give the reaction she
was looking for.
Kristy calls the
meeting a combination regular/emergency meeting. Girl does love her
emergencies. Everyone examines the note and the envelope, then begin plotting.
Logan comes up with a plan, but one that does not include adults, because
they’ll just “get in the way”. And he’s still a bit moody with Mary Anne.
Well, the adults may
not know about the note, but somehow every kid in the neighborhood does. Dawn
sit for the Barretts that night, and Buddy has set up protection around Pow,
their dog, in case this is the start of a rash of pet-nappings. Dawn thinks
this is ridiculous, but isn’t that the plot of one of her mysteries?
The next afternoon,
everyone but Mary Anne gets in hiding spots around the field. Mary Anne takes
an envelope filled with Monopoly money, and places it on the rock. She walks
back to her house, and then takes a back way to the field, and hides with
Kristy. Nothing happens for a long time, then they see a kid approaching the
rock. It’s that same kid who lied about seeing Tigger when Mary Anne was
putting up the posters. They all jump out and surround him. They interrogate
the kid, and he admits he never had Tigger, he just wanted some money. Logan
tells him what he did was a felony, and he could get twenty-five to fifty
years. What a liar. They finally let him go.
Mary Anne is back at
the Bruno’s, this time sitting just for Hunter, while Logan and Kerry go to the
dentist. Hunter’s allergies are as bad as ever, if not worse, and Mary Anne drives
herself crazy, thinking it has something do with her, so she washes off perfume
and throws her sweatshirt out of the room. When she says they may have to put
away his toys, he says he knows what’s making him sneeze more, and leads Mary
Anne to Kerry’s closet. Sitting there in a big box is Tigger.
Mary Anne is
overjoyed to see him, but realizes he’ll have to stay in the box, or Hunter
will be really bad off. Mary Anne talks with him, and he had only known about
it since that morning, and doesn’t know any of the other details. She tells him
they’ll have to tell his mother, even though Kerry will get in trouble. Mary
Anne wonders if Logan knew.
When the rest of the
family gets home, Mary Anne tells Mrs. Bruno there’s a kitten in Kerry’s
closet, and it’s hers. Mrs. Bruno and Logan are shocked. Kerry’s story comes
out. She was on her way home that day, and found Tigger. She didn’t know he was
Mary Anne’s, but thought he wasn’t being very well cared for, being allowed to
wander like that. She wanted to prove that she was responsible enough to take
care of an animal, and also that if she kept it in her room, it wouldn’t bother
Hunter’s allergies. Obviously, that bit didn’t work out very well.
Now for some reason,
Mary Anne has it in her head that Logan knew, and storms out, after accusing
him of knowing all along. It’s a little crazy. They don’t talk the next day
during school, but then Mary Anne wants to. He says he’ll come by after
practice.
So, while sitting
outside, of course, Mary Anne asked him if he knew, and he denies it, and wants
to know why she would even think that. She says it’s because he was
unsympathetic during the whole thing. He says he would never hurt her on
purpose. He tells her he’s been having problems lately that he’s about to be
kicked off the baseball team, because he keeps messing up. But he says it
wasn’t fair to take out his problems on Mary Anne. They promise to be more
honest with each other,
During the next club
meeting, Logan, for some reason, calls to give them an update on Kerry. Their
parents weren’t happy, but they understood why she did it, so they’re punishing
her lightly. And they’re going to get her a pet that doesn’t have fur. And
she’s going to get human friend in Charlotte Johansson.
o
Mary Anne says her dad, for his dates, puts on aftershave for that
smells like the dentist’s office. Er, what? Maybe that’s why Sharon is still
also dating the Trip-Man.
o
Again, Mary Anne tells us getting the mail is
her “absolute favorite thing to do”. Better keep that under wraps, Mary Anne.
If Kristy finds out it’s not baby-sitting, she’ll have your head.
o
Mary Anne says this is the worst thing that’s
ever happened to her. Really, Mary Anne? It’s worse than your mom dying? At least Logan tells her
she’s being overdramatic. Moody Logan is good for some things.
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