Free Little Miss Stoneybrook...and Dawn by Ann M. Martin Page A

even told Claire and Margo about the questions they’d be asked. I’d mentally picked out their outfits for that part of the pageant, but thatwas all. Now I realized they’d have to “rehearse” answering questions.
    The meeting was interrupted then when my mom called with a non-job question. She’d been doing that a lot lately.
    â€œWhat’s up?” asked Mary Anne as soon as I’d gotten off the phone. She was the only one of my friends who knew what was going on in my family, and she looked worried.
    â€œMom is, um … I don’t know. Her question was really unimportant. It could’ve waited until I got home. I think she just wanted to hear my voice.”
    â€œWhy?” asked Kristy.
    I glanced at Mary Anne. Then I looked around at my friends. “I might as well tell you,” I began, and my voice must have indicated that it was something serious. Everyone grew quiet. Jessi and Mal put their gum chains down.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?” asked Claudia in a hushed voice.
    â€œJeff’s going back to California. Not just for a visit. For real.”
    â€œForever,” said Mal, nodding her head, and I realized then that she probably did know the news. Jeff had told the triplets.
    â€œWell, he’s going back for six months. It’ssupposed to be a trial, but I have a feeling it’ll turn into forever.”
    â€œWhy?” asked Jessi, who didn’t know too much about my family yet. “Who’s he going to stay with?” She looked frightened, like she thought we were giving Jeff away or something.
    â€œOh, my father,” I assured her. “And this is his choice. He’s the one who wants to go. But, well, I just don’t think we’ll feel much like a family anymore.”
    Jessi nodded sympathetically.
    â€œHow did your dad get custody?” Kristy wanted to know.
    I told them the whole story, from Ms. Besser’s fateful phone call until right now. “Now” was Jeff’s stuff slowly being packed away into trunks. It was my mom crying in her room at night. It was me crying in my room at night. It was all of us, even Jeff, feeling like we were going through the divorce again. And because of that, it was Mom clinging to me, as if to say, Don’t you go away, too.
    Well, I wouldn’t. That was the one thing she’d never have to worry about.
    The meeting ended and we went home.

It was Friday, my last chance to work with the Pike girls. The next day was Saturday — the pageant! But before that, that very night, Mom and I would put Jeff on a plane back to California. We weren’t certain when we’d see him again.
    I tried not to think about that. I threw myself into the last-minute preparations for the pageant instead.
    â€œNow today,” I told Claire and Margo just after I’d arrived, “we’re going to have a dress rehearsal. Do you know what that is?”
    The girls shook their heads.
    â€œOkay. It’s when we pretend you’re actually in the pageant. We’ll go through the whole thing. You’ll pretend to meet the judges, be in the beauty parade and the talent show and everything, and you’ll even change your clothes so you’ll be wearing the right outfits at the right times. That’s why it’s called a dress rehearsal. Get it?”
    â€œGot it.”
    â€œGreat. Now the very first event,” I said, referring to the information the pageant people had sent, “is the walk across the stage when you meet the judges. It’s the first time the audience will see all you contestants. Now Claire, you’ll be wearing your blue dress for that, and Margo, you’ll be wearing your daisy dress.”
    â€œPlease can I wear my bathing suit?” begged Margo.
    â€œAbsolutely not.”
    â€œHow come?”
    â€œBecause no one else will be wearing a bathing suit. The judges want you guys all dressed up.”
    â€œOkay,