Free Kristy and the Snobs by Ann M. Martin

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