"Babysitters Club 028 Welcome Back, Stacey!" - читать интересную книгу автора (Babysitters Club)

"Well, don't let her," said Mom with a smile. "And remind her that we're not sure we'll be moving here. We're just checking out
the real estate. I've heard it's a buyer's market, but I want to see for myself."
I didn't know what a buyer's market was and 1 didn't care. I was too busy imagining pulling into the Kishis' driveway, running up their front walk, ringing the bell, and giving Claudia a heart attack when she answered it. It never occurred to me that the Kishis might not be at home, or that Janine or Mr. or Mrs. Kishi might answer the door.
And it didn't matter, because things went just as I'd imagined. We arrived in Stoneybrook, Mom stopped to buy a paper and to call a real estate agent, agreed on a place to meet the agent, and then we pulled into the Kishis' driveway. I ran up their walk, rang the bell, Claud answered the door, and for a second, I thought she really was going to have a heart attack.
At last she managed to gasp out, "Stacey?"
I giggled. "Yup. It's me."
Claud threw the storm door open and we hugged and hugged.
"What are you doing here? How come you didn't call first?" asked Claud.
"It was spur of the moment," I replied. "Mom didn't give me a chance. She was in such a hurry to get here and start house-
hunting. We're supposed to meet an agent in fifteen minutes. Want to come look at houses with us?"
"Are you kidding? Of course I do!"
Claud had to find her father, though, explain what was going on, and show him that my mom really was parked in the driveway. Then she jumped into the backseat with me.
"So you're actually moving back to Stoneybrook?" she cried. "This is awesome. Totally awesome!"
Mom smiled. "It isn't definite yet, Claudia." She pulled into the street and turned right. "But it's certainly my first choice for a place to live."
Claud looked at me with raised eyebrows, meaning, "And you? This is your first choice, too, isn't it?"
But I just shook my head at her. We could discuss that some other time - when Mom wasn't in earshot.
"Okay," said my mother, "we're supposed to meet this agent - her name is Ms. Keller - at Forty-two twenty-one Rosedale."
"Oh, I know where Rosedale is, Mrs. McGill," said Claudia, and she directed us there.
We found the address without any trouble,
and also found Ms. Keller waiting in the driveway.
Mom and Ms. Keller shook hands, and Mom began explaining why we were moving and what she was looking for in a house, while Claud and I gazed suspiciously at 4221 Rose-dale. It was not my olive-green nightmare house, but it wasn't any dream house, either.
"It's kind of small," said Claudia tactfully. (The place was the size of a bird feeder.)
"There aren't any trees in the yard, either," I pointed out. There was grass, though, so it wasn't a total loss.
Just then we heard Ms. Keller say brightly to Mom, "Well, let's take a look inside, shall we?"
The four of us picked our way up the crumbling walk to the front door. I pulled Mom aside and whispered, "Can't we afford something nicer?"
Mom's cryptic answer was, "We're on a tight budget."
Tight budget or not, nobody liked the inside of 4221 Rosedale any better than the outside. Even Ms. Keller. I could tell. Faucets dripped, the kitchen looked like it would have to be sandblasted before it could even be cleaned,
and three of the rooms were painted purple, ceilings and all.
Mom gave Ms. Keller a tiny smile. "What else do you have in our price range?" she asked.
"A little house on Burnt Hill Road," Ms. Keller replied.
"Burnt Hill Road. That's where Dawn lives!" Claudia cried.
We got back in our car and followed Ms. Keller to the second house. It wasn't near Dawn's, and it wasn't as nice, either. The front porch was going to need replacing, the roof needed reshingling, and the house was pink. We'd have to repaint it.
"I wish we could move back to our old house," I said wistfully, "but Jessi's in it."
"Anyway, it's out of our price range," whispered Mom.
The next house Ms. Keller showed us wasn't bad at all - but it was next door to an olive-green, grassless nightmare house. Littering the bare yard were two broken-down cars, a refrigerator with no door, three rusty bicycles, and a lot of tools I couldn't identify.
Claudia pulled me aside. "That place gets worse at Christmastime," she told me con-
spiratorially. "The owners outline the entire house - windows, doors, everything - with colored lights. They put a mechanical Santa on the chimney, and all day and all night he waves one arm back and forth and goes, 'Ho-ho-ho. Ho-ho-ho.' They set wooden carolers in the yard and elves on the front steps, and they shine a spotlight onto the roof where they put a Rudolph with a blinking red nose."
"Mom," I said, "I could not live next door to reindeer and a refrigerator."
"I agree," Mom replied. "Anything else, Ms. Keller?"
The real estate agent consulted a book. "We-ell," she said after a few moments, "there is something bigger in your price range and in a nicer neighborhood, but - "
"Let's see it," interrupted Mom.
So we drove to a house not far from the one we'd just seen. And as soon as we'd gotten out of the car, Claudia cried, "I know this house! It's right behind Mallory's! Look through the backyard, Stacey. See? There's the back of the Pikes' house."
I looked. I could even see the triplets fooling around with a bat and ball.
"I thought someone lived here," Claud said
to Ms. Keller. Then she whispered to me, "The people were really weird and the Pike kids used to spy on them."
"That couple moved out awhile ago," Ms. Keller told us.
"Gosh, they didn't stay very long," mused Claudia.
From the outside, the house didn't look bad. A little weird, maybe, but in pretty good shape except for a few small problems like a loose brick in the front steps and a crooked shutter.
"How old is the house?" Mom asked, as Ms. Keller unlocked the front door.
"Turn of the century. Actually, probably a little older. Eighteen-eighties."