Little Miss Stoneybrook...and Dawn Read Online Free PDF Page A

pirates?”
    â€œYeah, pirates!” Andrew answered excitedly. “Say, you want to come back to my ship with me?”
    â€œSure!”
    â€œHey!” cried Karen. That wasn’t the way the game was supposed to go.
    But it was too late.
    â€œWe’ll be pirates ourselves!” David Michael went on.
    â€œWait! You’re the bell captain,” Karen said desperately.
    â€œNo, I’m not. I’m Old Bad John. And this is my co-pirate, Andrew the Awful. Come on, Andrew.”
    The boys ran out of the living room, Andrew shedding parts of his sailor costume on the way.
    Karen looked at Kristy with tears in her eyes, which was unusual. Karen is tough, not a crier.
    â€œOh, Karen,” said Kristy. She opened her arms for a hug, and Karen ran to her. “It’s okay,” Kristy murmured.
    â€œNo, it’s not,” Karen sobbed, her voice muffled against Kristy’s shoulder.
    Kristy patted her back.
    â€œThere are too many boys around here,” said Karen, obviously thinking of Kristy’s big brothers, as well as Andrew and David Michael. And probably mad that Andrew had chosen to play with someone other than Karen herself.
    â€œWell, us girls will just have to stick together, that’s all,” replied Kristy. And that was what made her think of the Little Miss Stoneybrook pageant.
    â€œHey,” Kristy went on. “Do you know what a pageant is?”
    Karen pulled back and looked at Kristy. She gulped. She sniffed. She wiped her eyes. “Like Miss America?” she replied.
    â€œExactly.”
    â€œWhere the beautiful, beautiful ladies dress up in sparkles and sit on pianos and sing songs?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI saw the Miss America pageant on TV.”
    â€œWell, guess what. There’s going to be a Little Miss Stoneybrook pageant right here in town. You can be in it if you’re a girl and you’re five to eight years old.”
    Karen’s eyes grew huge. Her tears stopped. She began wiggling all over like a puppy. “Me! That’s me! I’m five to eight! I mean, I’m six. Could I be in the pageant? Could I wear sparkles and stuff?”
    â€œYou’d want to be in the pageant?” Kristy asked her, just to make sure.
    â€œYes, yes, yes! What would I have to do?”
    â€œWell, for one thing, you’d need some sort of talent. A talent show is part of the contest.”
    â€œI could sit on a piano and sing! Or I could tap dance, or — or twirl a baton, or make a doll talk.”
    â€œBut Karen,” Kristy said, “you don’t know how to do those things. You’ve never taken lessons.”
    â€œI can sing!” Karen exclaimed. “Anyone can do that. Listen to this. The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round. The wheels on the bus go round and round. Oh, you know the rest, Kristy. A million verses. The driver on the bus says, ‘Move on back, move on back.’ I could make up more verses. And what do you mean, I can’t tap dance?”
    Karen found her black patent leather party shoes and stomped across the wooden floor of the hallway. “See?” she said. “I can too tap dance.”
    Kristy told Karen about the beauty and poiseparts of the pageant and meeting the judges and everything.
    Karen grew more and more excited. “If I win I get a crown, right? And maybe a big bunch of roses?”
    â€œWell, don’t count on winning,” replied Kristy. “I mean, you just never know.” But then she went on, “If you did win, you’d get to be in another pageant, the county pageant.”
    â€œOh, I just have to be Little Miss Stoneybrook!” cried Karen. “I have to!”
    I suppose that at that moment, Kristy felt like I did when Mrs. Pike offered me the special job with Claire and Margo. Here was her chance to prove how great she was with kids.
    So when her mother and Watson came home later with