CHAPTER 3: November—Kristy

It was the day before Thanksgiving. Karen and Andrew would be coming that afternoon and spending the weekend with us, then returning to their mom's for the rest of the month before returning for their month-long stay. They would spend Christmas Day with their mom, and we'd have them on Christmas Eve. This was so they wouldn't have two celebrations in one day, like last year. We'd had them for the noon meal, then they'd spent that weekend with their mom. This time, they'd be spending Thanksgiving with us, but they'd had their dinner with their mom the day before.

It reminded me a little of the time we'd gone to Australia after Charlie's and my respective graduations (him from SHS, and me from SMS). You see, Unity Insurance, the company that Watson works for, had sent him to Sydney to open a branch of their office. The BSC had been invited to go, and we got to meet our Australian counterpart, a baby-sitting club called Baby-sitters, Inc. Their president happens to be the Hobarts' cousin, and they operate pretty much the same way as the BSC. There are some differences, though: they meet in a shed, and we meet in Claudia's room; they have a clock on the wall as their timepiece, and we have Claudia's digital clock; and use a dry-erase board to record their baby-sitting jobs, whereas we have the calendar pages in the record book. Normally, I feel jealous and threatened by another baby-sitting club, but this one really impressed me.

Anyway, I'm told that it was started soon after the Hobarts moved to Stoneybrook, and Mal had told Ben about how the BSC operates. So he told his cousin, and she started their club. One of the members and her sister had been living in an orphanage at the time, and they got adopted shortly before we'd left.

And I'll never forget the time that Karen and Andrew had two dinners in one day. It made Andrew sleepy, and it gave Karen a stomachache. Watson and his ex-wife promised them that they'd never have to go through that again.

Okay, back to reality. The front door flew open around dinner time. "We're here!" Karen's voice shouted.

We went into the front hall. "Hi, you guys," I said.

"Hi," Andrew said.

"Ready for tomorrow?" I asked.

"Yup," he answered.

Karen and Andrew put their knapsacks in their rooms, then joined us for dinner.

I knew this was going to be a wonderful Thanksgiving.

The next morning, Charlie arrived from NYU. "Hi," I said as soon as I'd answered the door. He hadn't changed much since last summer, but was starting to get some stubble on his chin, so I assumed that he was trying to grow a beard.

"Hi, Sis," he said. We walked into the living room, where Mom was rearranging the magazines on the coffee table.

"Hi, Mom," Charlie said. Upon hearing his voice, Mom immediately stopped what she was doing, and looked up.

"Charlie darling!" Mom exclaimed happily, covering him with kisses, as if she hadn't seen him in twenty years. "How are you?"

"I've been doing all right," he said. "Hey, guess what? I made the dean's list!"

"Really? That's wonderful! I guess all those years of making sure you did your homework finally paid off, huh?"

Charlie nodded in agreement. "And you've still got quite a while to go in that department," he said. He was, of course, referring to the rest of us who were still living at home. I still got a good laugh, though.

"Is dinner ready?" I asked Mom.

"Almost," she answered as she hurried to the kitchen, scraped the dressing into a bowl, and stuck a spoon in it. "Would you like to put the dressing on the table for me?"

"Sure," I answered. I carried the bowl of dressing into the dining room as Mom followed close behind with the turkey.

"Kids, dinner's ready!" Nannie called as Charlie came back downstairs after putting his stuff in his room.

The rest of the family came to the table. Mom and Watson sat on the ends. Nannie, Emily, Sam, and Charlie sat on one side, and Karen, Andrew, David Michael, and I sat on the other.

After we said the prayer, Charlie carved the turkey. Thankfully, it wasn't frozen solid, so we didn't have to worry about putting it back in the oven and burning it to a crisp by turning it up full blast. And best of all, Charlie was careful, so he didn't become a blood donor in the process.

As we started passing the serving dishes around, I felt completely happy about the events of the day, namely my own oldest brother making the dean's list. I felt that this had been one hell of a great Thanksgiving.