BSC030 - Mary Anne and the Great Romance - Martin, Ann M.

Chapter 1.

"Honestly, sometimes living with my mother is like living with a very tall child," said Dawn, and I giggled.

Dawn Schafer is one of my two best friends, and we were spending the evening together because our parents had gone out. What Dawn meant about her mother was that Mrs. Schafer is absentminded and scatterbrained. It's okay for me to say that because Dawn says it all the time.

She said it again now. "Mom is so scatterbrained!" (Dawn had just found a high heel in the vegetable drawer of the refrigerator.) She removed it, set it gently on the floor, and said to the shoe, "I hope you thaw out okay." Then she turned to me. "Well? What do you want for dinner? I mean, besides shoes. Mom left a tofu casserole in the fridge - I'm surprised she didn't leave it in her closet - but I have a feeling you won't want that." "Do you have any peanut butter?" I asked hopefully.

"Yes, but it's all natural, with no sugar or salt." "I'll take it." That was better than tofu.

I made myself a peanut butter-and-honey sandwich while Dawn made herself a salad.

We were getting used to these evenings. Our parents weren't just out. They were out together, on a date. That had been happening more and more lately.

I guess I should stop and explain who Dawn and I are before I tell you any more about our evening. Okay. Besides being best friends, we live in Stoneybrook, Connecticut, and we're both thirteen years old and in eighth grade. My name is Mary Anne Spier. I've lived in Stoneybrook all my life, in the same house, but Dawn moved here in the middle of seventh grade. She moved because her parents got divorced - and she moved all the way from California! She came with her mom and her younger brother, Jeff. The reason they chose to live in Stoneybrook was that Mrs. Schafer grew up here.

One really sad thing (I mean, apart from the divorce and the move), was that Jeff was never happy here. He couldn't adjust to Connecticut, and he missed California and his dad too much. So after awhile, he moved back there to live with Mr. Schafer. Dawn misses the California half of her family a lot, but she talks to them on the phone pretty often and seems happy in Connecticut now.