Mary Anne Saves the Day by Ann M. Martin Page B

S.A.B.” Under a girl’s was written: “White Phantom Chevy … ‘Broc’ junior homeroom … ‘Rebel Rousers’ & George.” And one boy had written something that Dawn and I decided must be a code: E.S.R., A.T., DUDE, FIBES, G.F.R…. ALRIGHT.
    â€œHe spelled ‘all right’ all wrong,” Dawn remarked.
    Then we started laughing. “Look at that girl’s hair!” I shrieked. “It looks like she blew it up with a bicycle pump!”
    Dawn rolled over on the floor, giggling. “Now let’s find your dad,” she said. The seniors were in alphabetical order. We flipped through until we reached the
S
’s.
    â€œThere he is!” I cried, jabbing at the picture in the upper left-hand corner of a page. “There he is! Oh, wow, I forgot how weird he looks! He doesn’t look like my father at all. He looks … like an alien!”
    â€œHe was only seventeen, I guess, but somehow he looks a lot older,” Dawn pointed out.
    â€œHe had a crew cut! Let’s see what’s under his picture…. This is weird. It says: “To S.E.P.: Don’t walk in front of me — I may not follow. Don’t walk behind me — I may not lead. Walk beside me — and just be my friend. — Camus.’ Who’s Camus?” I asked.
    â€œBeats me,” Dawn replied, “but S.E.P. — those were my mother’s initials before she got married.”
    Dawn and I looked at each other with wide eyes.
    â€œQuick!” exclaimed Dawn. “Turn to the
P
’s! We’re looking for Sharon Porter.”
    Frantically, we flipped the pages back.
    â€œStop! We’re in the
M
’s! ”
    We went forward a few pages.
    â€œThere she is!” shouted Dawn. “Sharon Emerson Porter. That’s all it says under her picture. Just her name. No quotes or silly stuff.”
    â€œBut she signed Dad’s yearbook,” I said, looking at the scrawly message in blue ink that covered Sharon Porter’s face.
    We leaned over.
    â€œ ‘Dearest Richie,’ ” Dawn read.
    â€œRichie!” I cried. “No one calls him
Richie
.”
    Mystified, Dawn read on. “ ‘Four years weren’t enough. Let’s start over. How can we part? We have one more summer. Hold on to it, Richie. (Love is blind.) Always and forever, Sharon.’ ”
    â€œI guess they did know each other,” said Dawn at last.
    â€œI’ll say,” I said. “I’ll say.”

Dawn and I practically suffered dual heart attacks after reading what was written in my dad’s yearbook. We agreed not to mention our discovery to our parents, although we weren’t sure why we wanted to keep the secret.
    We spent the rest of the day hashing it over. Then on Sunday we went through Dawn’s mother’s yearbook. The book was hard to find, since it was still packed away. We finally located it at the bottom of a carton labeled KITCHEN .
    â€œKitchen?” I said to Dawn.
    She shrugged. “Don’t ask.”
    We opened the book, knowing exactly where to look. Written across my father’s picture in round, familiar handwriting was, “For Sharon, who knows what this means.” (An arrow pointed to the quote from the person named Camus.) “Remember — the summer can be forever. Love always, Richie.”
    â€œPeople sure get poetic in high school,” Dawn remarked. “What does ‘the summer can be forever’ mean?”
    I didn’t know. But far more interesting than what Dad had written was what was pressed between the “
S
” pages of Dawn’s mother’s book. It was a rose, brown and dried, with a stained, yellowing ribbon tied to the stem.
    Although I had vowed to find a way to get the Baby-sitters Club back together, things kept coming up to take my mind off of it. First, of course, was the discovery about Dawn’s mother and my father. Dawn and I talked