"You know what I'm going to start doing?" Mary Anne asked me with a giant grin.

"What?"

"Redecorating my room."

"No! Really?"

"Really. I used to think that the only way I'd be able to redecorate was if my father lost his mind. I guess he did lose it — over your mother."

"Thanks a lot!" I said.

"Oh, you know what I mean. I think it's great."

"Great that he and Mom are going out, or great that he's lost his mind?"

Mary Anne giggled. "Both," she said.

"What are you going to do to your room?"

"I'm going to take all the babyish stuff off my walls and put up posters and photographs. That's all I can afford to do. Then I'll have to work on my dad a little. I have to see if he'll help me do anything expensive. I want a new bedspread and a new rug and new curtains and new wallpaper. Everything in my room is pink, and I can't stand pink!"

We reached the Kishis' front stoop. I rang the bell.

Claudia's sister Janine answered the door.

Mary Anne and I glanced at each other. Janine is fifteen years old. She's a genius. Mary Anne and Kristy don't like her because she's so smart, and she's always correcting whatever

they say. But I don't mind Janine. I think she's all right. You just have to know how to handle her.

"Hi, Janine!" I said.

Mary Anne hung back. She's shy around some people.

"Hi," Janine answered. "I suppose you're here for a meeting of your club."

"Yup," I said.

"You know," Janine began, "the expression

"Janine," I interrupted her, "did you notice Mary Anne's clothes? She has new jeans and a new sweat shirt. She bought them with her own money — money she earned baby-sit-ting."