Quotes from Ann M. Martin

My backside is my best side

Just like Lewis.

A new voice spoke up. "I can tell you how to get rid of the Pageant Jitters forever," it said, sounding as if it were reciting something from a TV commercial. The voice belonged to the girl with the makeup. "You can?" said Claire, Margo, and Charlotte in unison. "Certainly. It would be my pleasure." I glanced at Claudia. Who was this kid? She was about Margo's age, but she looked and acted 25.

I was feeling fine without it.

Sabrina looked as if she might have been born on a stage. She smiled glamorously at the audience and the judges, curtsied prettily, and shook Mrs. Peabody's hand smoothly. Okay, I thought, after all the little girls had been introduced. So Sabrina was gracious and sophisticated. So what? She might not have any talent at all. Or maybe she'd be really, really stupid and not able to answer her question.

At four, Claire was the youngest Pike. Then there was Margo, who was six; Nicky, who was seven; Vanessa, who was eight; the identical triplets — Byron, Adam, and Jordan — who were nine, and Mallory, who was ten. Suddenly, they looked more like a mob than an innocent bunch of kids.

Mm-hm," Dawn said. "Um, I'm sorry." "Yeah. Right." I'm sorry, too, Mary Anne was what I was sort of hoping to hear.

Becca and Danielle looked at each other joyously. What a pair they made: Becca, dark-skinned, shorter and chunkier than Danielle, wearing a flashy pair of jams, her thick hair arranged in ponytails; and Danielle, still pale, with the shape of a bean pole, wearing droopy jeans and her even droopier BALD IS BEAUTIFUL T-shirt, a blue-and-green scarf not really hiding her almost bald head.

Something occurred to me then. It was all about the unfairness of the pageant. Mary Anne was absolutely right. Myriah really should have won, if this pageant was honestly based on people's talents and character, but it wasn't. I was glad that because Myriah had been given such a terrific prize, she wasn't disappointed about not winning the grand prize. But I was sorry that she had to settle (even happily) for second best.

We walked the rest of the way home without saying another word.

didn't like Mr. Nicholls, it wasn't as if he were doing anything illegal. And when I told them that I wouldn't want Joey and Nate to feel as if I'd abandoned them, we agreed that I should continue sitting for them as long as I didn't feel too uncomfortable around Mr. Nicholls.

with them. Which is more than I can say about

There's going to be another wedding in the family!

When Mary Anne first started knitting, the sound reminded me of soft rain on a cozy night. After awhile, it was like mice skittering on a tile floor. Now I was thinking about skeleton bones rattling in a grave.

Still, your food just gets all mixed together in your stomach anyway.

But when Danielle thinks of the future, she thinks of fifth grade, maybe sixth grade. She wishes to be able to graduate from Stoneybrook Elementary. When Kendra thinks of the future, she thinks of college, of being an adult, of becoming a writer. Kendra has a future. Danielle has a future, too, of course, but hers is much more uncertain.

Ashley gave me a tiny smile. I began to feel bad. Maybe I was really important to her. I wasn't sure. I was pretty sure I was her only friend, though. I had four good friends, but so far, Ashley only had me. Besides, this was art. What Ashley and I were doing was important and it was something I do only with Ashley, not with any of my other friends.

Dawn returned to the bathroom. You guys, she said. I'm really sorry, but we have to close up your beauty parlor for awhile. We've got to go over to your school, Myriah. We do? Myriah looked awed. At her age, going to school after hours is kind of like sneaking into an amusement park when it's been closed for the night.

Life is not fair, I had reminded myself. Everybody gets a bad break from time to time. The important thing is not what those breaks are, but how you deal with them. If I ever got as sick as Danielle, I hoped I could also be as cheerful and funny and realistic as she was.

Seated on the (closed) toilet, she saw Gabbie, who's almost three, holding a mirror and carefully applying a streak of green eye shadow in a long line from one eye, across her nose, to her other eye. She looked like a cavewoman.

All this BSC pressure was getting to me. I was forgetting how to be a good sitter. Or maybe I had never been one to begin with. Maybe that's why the club was falling apart. Maybe I needed to back off baby-sitting for a while. As I walked home, I felt about two inches tall.

And believe it or not, you look very much the way Mimi did when she was young." "I do?" I almost began to cry again.

Kristy Thomas is the president of the BSC. She's something else. When I first met Kristy, I was a little intimidated — she's very straightforward (sometimes she's even got a big mouth) and energetic. But now I like her, and admire her, a lot. She's always having these great ideas — and she acts on them, too. She's not just a dreamer.

We both jumped for it.