Summary: Mallory Pike has spent her life dreaming of thirteen. She knows it will bring her beauty, sophistication, and grace. Finally, she will grow up. Thirteen arrives and brings nothing, except disappointment and desperation.
Mallory and Stacey are the only BSC members in this story.
Rating: strong PG-13 for sexual situations.
Disclaimer: I called Ann M. She gave me the greenlight.
Author's Notes: This story didn't turn out as I had planned. I honestly don't know what I think of it. I'm going back to humor after this.
CHAPTER ONE: DISAPPOINTMENT
Mallory Pike is finally thirteen.
She doesn't know why she expected so much out of a number.
A number can't make you beautiful. Or charming. Or graceful.
But, that's what Mallory expected from thirteen. It would make her beautiful and charming and graceful. Plus, a million other wonderful things. Thirteen would change her life, make it rounded and complete. She knew - she'd always known - that the number thirteen would be her answer, all she needed - needed to grow up, needed to change, needed to start her life.
Mallory is disappointed.
Mallory went to bed on May first feeling awkward and ugly and hopeless. Red hair, glasses, braces. An awful combination. As her eyes closed and mind drifted, Mallory remembered a glimmer in the darkness - in the morning, thirteen would come. Practical Mallory Pike recognized the silliness in believing that a simple change of time - just a 59 falling to a 00 - could alter who she is. And, still, Mallory Pike fell into a shallow sleep, clinging to the possibility that she would wake as someone new.
The morning brought thirteen. That is all it brought. Mallory woke with the same red hair, the same clear braces on her teeth, the same plastic-framed glasses waiting on the bedside table. And thick disappointment swelling in her stomach.
On the way to breakfast, the other girls called out their wishes for Mallory's birthday. No one commented on a change in appearance or demeanor. In the lobby, she tripped and stepped on a sixth grader's foot. At the breakfast table, she knocked over Jen's milk, drenching Sarah's skirt. Clearly, thirteen had not honored its promise.
Five weeks later, Mallory's still waiting. Sooner or later, she knows, something about her will change.
Mallory has a lot of time for waiting. There's not much for her in Stoneybrook anymore. She discovered the summer before that life went on without her and no one much cared to make room again. After all, she'd only be leaving at the end of the summer, right?
The Baby-Sitters Club has disbanded. The former focus of her life, the great thing her world revolved around is now just a passing thought in the minds of those who once called and begged and adored them for their service. The other girls - Kristy, Claudia, Mary Anne, Stacey - made the decision. No more meetings, no more sitting, no more friends forever.
No one consulted Mallory. She didn't have a voice. But then, she was far away, living a separate life, and her vote didn't count. Mallory heard the news second hand from someone she can't remember. Mallory mourns the BSC on the sticky summer days when she's so bored that even an afternoon spent baby-sitting horrid Jenny Prezzioso would be a treat compared to the monotony of walking Pow twenty times around the block in hope of finding a familiar face.
The other girls barely notice. Kristy will spend the summer away from Stoneybrook. First, at softball camp, then the last month at Shadow Lake. Claudia has summer school, for once not repeating a class, but taking World History a year early. Mary Anne's devoted to her boyfriend, a senior named Evan. She bakes him cookies, runs his errands, watches him lift weights in the garage. There's no space or time for anyone else.
Even Jessi has moved on. Mallory doesn't understand it. She never saw it coming. Jessi has replaced her with a girl from down the street. Marcy Enbath goes to Stoneybrook Academy, plays the french horn in the marching band, and somehow stole Jessi and twisted her into someone unrecognizable. Jessi doesn't care about horses or ballet anymore. Instead, she takes trombone lessons and will transfer to Stoneybrook Academy in the fall.
No one returns Mallory's calls.
Except Stacey McGill.
Mallory and Stacey are "home friends". They don't go to Pizza Express or the sale at Bellair's or anywhere further than the Pike's driveway. At fifteen, Stacey is far more sophisticated than Mallory ever hopes to be. Stacey dates a twenty-one year old frat boy from Stoneybrook U., reads European fashion magazines, and swears her lace thongs are imported from France.
Stacey McGill is all Mallory has ever wished to be. Stacey knows this. It feeds her inflating ego like the adoration of a boy never has. To be admired by a younger girl, to be held in the highest regard as the pinnacle of beauty and sophistication. It's a pedestal Stacey has gladly stepped onto, standing straight and tall, gleaming with the glitter of newly polished gold. Stacey shines in Mallory's eyes. And in her own.
All her life, Mallory has dreamed of thirteen. That magical age when all about her would alter to a state of glowing perfection. Back in the BSC, the older girls had reached that age and that perfection - Claudia with her flawless creamy complexion, Dawn with her cornsilk hair, and Stacey the sophisticated New Yorker with an endless string of boyfriends. Everything Mallory wants and knows thirteen will bring.
It escaped her notice - or, perhaps, she ignored it - that when thirteen finally came, the older girls would also have gained two years. They would have gravity-defying breasts, driver's permits, and date boys from the varsity basketball team, who drive fully-loaded trucks on dates to Miller's Pond and never hear the word "no". Mallory is so far removed from this world. Mallory can't imagine what Claudia and Dawn and Stacey had at thirteen that she does not.
Mallory will waste her life playing catch up, chasing something intangible and indefinable, something not meant for her, and forever falling further behind.