DISC: I DO NOT own any of the chars from BSC. They belong to Ann M. Martin. I Do however own anyone you don't recognize!
Enjoy!

"Kristy's Big Decision"

CHAPTER 12

The next morning we were woken up by what sounded like a conversation between Goofy, Mickey and Pluto.

Pluto was barking as dogs often did, while Mickey and Goofy held a slightly mish mashed conversation.

Alex came into the room a few minutes later. She headed straight for her mother and crawled onto her stomach.

Anya tried to stay asleep, but she couldn't fool her little girl.

"Mama, come on!" Alex said. "It's time to get ready to go."

Anya giggled.

"Alex, honey, the trip isn't' until tomorrow." She tweaked her nose playfully and started tickling her ribs.

This officially woke me and Mal up, due to the fact that Alex was laughing uncontrollably.

Just then, Karen joined us. She jumped on my bed and climbed on top of me.

"Did Alex show you how to do that? " I asked her.

"NO." She replied. "Kristy?"

"Yes?" I said as I smoothed a strand of her blond hair out of her face.

"I heard a strange noise last night. It sounded like a dog howling. Was Shannon in heat?"

I almost fell out of bed at my sister's words. It was a good thing I hadn't, because I would have fallen on top of Mal.

"Karen! Where did you hear that?" I asked.

"I heard Sam say it when he was talking about his last date with his girlfriend, Christina." She replied.

I groaned inwardly. I made a mental note to talk to Sam about keeping his date talk to a minimum whenever the kids were around.

"Mama, what's in heat mean?" Alex asked.

"Never mind, sweetie." Anya replied. "Come on. Let's go make sure you have everything packed for tomorrow. Okay?"

Alex nodded. She climbed off her mother and took her hand.

Fortunately, Alex's attention was quickly diverted when she was able to help Anya pack her suitcase.

Karen, however, wasn't so easily distracted.

"So?" Karen asked.

"SO what?" I replied.

"Was Shannon in heat last night?"

Rather than answer the question, I asked one of my own.

"Karen Brewer, do you even know what in heat means?"

Karen nodded.

"Yeah." She said. "It's when dogs want to have babies." She replied.

My jaw nearly hit the ground!

"Karen! I don't want to hear another word about this. Do you understand me?"

"Kristy, I'm just curious." She said.

"You know what curiosity did to the cat, don't you?" I asked.

"Did he want to know about being in heat too?" Karen asked.

"Karen Brewer, if you don't' drop the subject right now, you're going on time out."

Karen sighed.

"Fine. I'm sorry."

"It's okay." I said.

Karen left my room shortly afterwards.

When I went to get Emily and Sari up, I found Emily sitting against her big girl bed. She was pointing her finger at someone.

"Don't' move!" She said. "Time out."

I laughed when I saw who was sitting in the corner.

"Emily," I said. "Goofy didn't' mean to scare you."

Emily looked up at me.

"Bad doggie." She said again.

I giggled as I scooped her up and gave her a hug.

"You're something else all right. Do you know that?"

Emily nodded.

I took her downstairs where the rest of my family was eating breakfast, along with my friends and our charges.

Alex was glaring at Karen and sitting as far away from her as possible.

I glanced to Anya for a clue and she shook her head.

"I'll tell you later." She said.

I nodded.

"Karen didn't' play twenty questions with her again, did she?" I asked. I remembered what Karen had done the day we had first met Alexandra.

Aanya nodded.

"Maybe having Alex not talk to her for a while will teach her a lesson."

"Let's just say Alex said something in Russian I had to correct her for."

"Not anything too bad I hope." I said.

"No. She mostly got it from Sara, but thank God she got one of the pronunciations wrong."

"Maybe she didn't know what she was saying." I said in Alex's defense.

"Oh she knew perfectly well what she was saying." Anya said, narrowing her eyes at her daughter. "She's fluent in Russian. She just mixed up a word or two. But believe me, I know where she was going with her train of thought."

I Nodded.

Breakfast went by without a hitch after that.

After it was over, the Pikes went home until the next day, while Anya and Alex stuck around.

Charlotte hung around as well, while Sari went home for the night.

Once the kitchen had been cleaned up, we all retired to the living room to relax for a little while.

We got Emily ready for the day, while the older girls got dressed on their own.

"Emily," I said as we entered her room.

I waited until she was looking at me.

"Goofy looks kind of sad to me. Maybe his time out was long enough. I'm sure he's sorry for what he did."

Emily nodded slowly. She went over to Goofy and took him off the chair he was sitting on.

She put him half hazardly on her bed as though she didn't' care about him.

I made a mental note to give Goofy back to Sari the next day.

After Emily was ready, I took her back downstairs to hang out with everyone else.

The day of the trip came sooner than I expected. Before I knew it, almost every member of the BSC and twelve of our charges, along with Watson, Mom and the Papadakis' were standing in the airport waiting to pre board.

The kids who had ended up coming along were as follows: Alex, Karen, Charlotte, Hannie, Sari, Linny, David Michael, Emily, Margo, Claire, Mariah and Gabbie Perkins.

The Perkins girls were sweet kids and one of our favorite families to sit for. They had also grown fond of Anya after meeting her a few weeks ago.

The Perkins girls had bought thei rown Disney friends to bring along on the trip.

Gabbi had brought her own Princess Jasmine doll, while Mariah had brought a plush Kessie from Winnie-the-Pooh.

Even though the Perkins girls, along with Charlotte and Alex were trying their best to be patient, the others weren't doing so well.

David Michael and Linny kept teasing Emily and Sari, which made them cry every couple of minutes.

David Michael kept taking Pluto from Emily and acting like he was going to throw him over the side of an escalator.

Mom warned him to cut it out, but David Michael wouldn't listen.

Unfortunately, during one of his trick attempts, he let go and Pluto went for a ride on the escalator.

Emily burst into tears and ran to me while Mom gave it to David Michael verbally.

A nice security guard tried her best to get Pluto back, but she couldn't reach him.

I comforted Emily by promising her we'd buy her another one in Walt Disney World.

Emily was inconsolable and cried until we boarded the plane. She just kept saying "Pluto gone." Over and over again.

Karen tried to share Ariel with her, but Emily wouldn't have any of it.

Once we boarded the plane, the kids settled down.

There were a few scattered disagreements as to who was sitting with whom, but they got sorted quickly.

A few minutes after take off, the kids started singing their favorite Disney songs.

Everything was fine until Karen started singing "It's a Small World."

It wouldn't have been so bad if she hadn't gotten the other passengers to sing along with her.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, the song was stopped abruptly by someone shouting that they were going to be sick.

Knowing who it was, Mallory went into action immediately.

Margo was known to get car sick, air sick and sea sick, so we were all accustomed by now. That didn't mean we enjoyed it.

As we leveled out, Sari and Emily both started to cry.

I thought Emily was still upset about losing Pluto. I was about to comfort her, when I saw her hands were over her ears.

I glanced over at Mal and saw Sari had the same problem.

If they had been a little older, I would have given them gum to chew on, but I knew that could be dangerous.

Anya was giving it to a slightly whimpering Alex as Mom handed Karen a piece.

Thinking quickly, I took two soft pretzels out of my bag and broke off a piece for each toddler.

I was about to give one to Gabbers. But when I glanced over at her, I saw she was playing happily with her sister and Charlotte, so I didn't' worry about her.

Once the plane had steadied, the kids were okay.

I heard Mom chewing David Michael out for what he had done to Pluto.

Anya leaned over to me and whispered something in my ear. I nodded.

"Hey!" I said to the kids sitting around us and behind us. "Who wants to play telephone!"

Most of the older kids agreed.

Since Alex was closest to me, I leaned over and whispered something in her ear. She giggled and passed the secret along to Karen, who passed it along to Gabbers, who passed it along to her sister, who passed it along to Margo and so on an so on.

By the time Charlotte said the sentence aloud, we all were cracking up.

"Anastasia wasted fast food rum and cheerios." "No!" Alex said with a giggle. "Mama doesn't drink!"

"It's all in fun." I said. "Go ahead, Alex. Tell them the real sentence."

"Anastasia was the last Romanoff Princess." She said.

"Oh!" Charlotte said with a giggle. "Oops!"

"It's okay, Char." Anya said. "Like Kristy said, it's all in fun. Who wants to go next?"

Karen raised her hand and the game began again.

After two more rounds, we started singing again.

Karen wanted to sing 99 bottles of pop on the wall, but I quickly put a stop to that.

The same went with "How much is that doggie in the window." And the ever popular but very annoying "Lamb Chops" theme song.

"Why can't we sing the dog song?" Karen asked.

"Well, because I don't want Emily to get upset." I said.

"OH yeah." Karen said in realization. "David Michael lost Pluto."

Alex mumbled something that Karen asked her to repeat.

"He lost more than Pluto." She said. "He lost his mind!"

Anya giggled despite herself. Alex was truly cute.