Jessi's Secret Language by Ann M. Martin Read Free Book Online Page A

was right. I did sort of start something.)
    Mr. and Mrs. Pike were going to a dinner party that evening, so Mallory and Dawn were incharge of the Pikes from six o’clock until eleven o’clock. They had to give the kids dinner and everything. I know you met some of the Pikes in the last chapter, but just to refresh your memory, I’ll include all their names and ages here:
    Mallory — the oldest, of course. She’s eleven, like me.
    Byron, Adam, and Jordan — ten-year-old triplets.
    Vanessa — nine
    Nicky — eight
    Margo — seven
    Claire — five
    Those kids are a handful, even for two experienced sitters.
    When Dawn arrived, which was just as Mr. and Mrs. Pike were leaving, the kids were hungry and clamoring for dinner. Sometimes Mrs. Pike lets the kids eat up leftovers when baby-sitters are in charge, sometimes it’s up to the sitters to make sandwiches or something. But this time Mrs. Pike had fixed a huge pot of spaghetti (a food that every single Pike will eat), and left the sauce bubbling away on the stove.
    â€œWell, if everyone’s hungry,” said Mallory as her parents’ car backed down the driveway, “then let’s eat.”
    Dawn had sat at the Pikes often enough that she was prepared for what happened next: The kids swarmed through the kitchen and had the big table set and the food served in about thirty seconds. (Well, maybe I’m exaggerating, but it was fast.)
    Then they sat down to their dinner. Since there are so many Pikes, their kitchen table looks like a table in the school cafeteria — very long with a bench on either side and a chair at each end. Four kids sit on one side, four on the other, and Mr. and Mrs. Pike sit in the chairs.
    That night, the boys were lined up on one side, facing Vanessa, Claire, and Margo. Mallory was sitting where her mom usually sits and Dawn had taken Mr. Pike’s chair. Something about boys versus girls seemed a little dangerous to Dawn, but there are almost no rules in the Pike house, so she didn’t ask them to change places. She just hoped for the best.
    That was before the worm song began.
    Things started off innocently. Adam, one of the triplets, formed his spaghetti into a mound and placed a meatball at the very top. Then he began to sing (to the tune of “On Top of Old Smoky”), “On top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese, I lost my poor meatball when somebody sneezed.”
    Adam glanced at Jordan, who faked a very good sneeze.
    â€œEw, ew!” cried Claire. “Cut it out! Germs!”
    The boys ignored her. Adam continued his song. “It rolled off the table and onto the floor, and then my poor meatball rolled out the front door. It rolled down the sidewalk and under a bush, and now my poor meatball is nothing but mush.”
    Adam looked as if he were going to send his meatball down the spaghetti mountain, and maybe, actually, out the front door, so Mallory leaned over and speared it with her fork.
    â€œHey!” exclaimed Adam. “Give it! That’s mine!”
    Meanwhile, Jordan, Byron, and Nicky were hysterical at the thought of a traveling meatball and were experimenting with theirs. They rolled meatballs down spaghetti mountains until Dawn told them that if they couldn’t behave, she and Mallory would have to separate them.
    â€œWe’ll behave,” Adam spoke up from the other end of the table, “if Mallory will give me my meatball back.”
    Mallory returned the stolen meatball.
    For two minutes, Dawn and the Pikes ate peacefully. The mounds of spaghetti and meatballs were disappearing.
    Then, so quietly that Mallory and Dawn weren’t sure at first that they’d heard anything, Nicky began singing the worm song. But he was eating at the same time, and he looked totally innocent.
    â€œNobody likes me,” he sang, “everybody hates me. Guess I’ll go eat worms.” He picked a single strand of spaghetti off his plate and