Jessi's Secret Language by Ann M. Martin Page B

from the bathroom.
    â€œI don’t know …”
    â€œOh, come on. It’s fun. Look — this is the sign for dance .” I demonstrated.
    â€œHey, cool!” exclaimed Katie Beth.
    Adele was watching us. She smiled. Then she used her hands to ask me if I was a dancer like her sister.
    I nodded. Then I asked her how old she was.
    Adele held up one hand and formed her index finger and thumb into a circle, her other fingers pointing upward.
    Nine. (There are signs for numbers, just like there are for letters.)
    So she was Haley’s age.
    â€œDo you dance?” I signed to Adele.
    She shrugged. Then she signed back that she couldn’t hear the music, and she didn’t know ballet, but she liked to dance in her own way.
    During our signed conversation, Katie Beth had been watching us curiously. I knew she didn’t know what Adele and I were saying to each other, and I wondered how she felt being left out of a conversation. At the Parsonses’ house, Adele must always be left out.
    â€œWhat are you saying?” Katie Beth couldn’t resist asking.
    I told her. Then I showed her the signs for a few more words. Adele was grinning away.
    By the time Adele and Katie Beth’s mother showed up, it was almost 4:30. I walked outside with the Parsonses to watch for Daddy’s car.
    â€œGood-bye!” called Katie Beth as they drove off. “And thanks! See you on Monday!”
    â€œBye!” I called back. Adele and I waved to each other.
    I felt that something important had happened between Katie Beth and me. We were linked. She would never call me a teacher’s pet again. But we probably also would not wind up as best friends. My only best friends were Keisha and Mallory. I was linked to them, too, but those links were much, much stronger.

Saturday
    Jessie youre secrit langage is a hit. Its catching on everywhere and its the best babysiting game ever invinted. I used it to in entr entirtane Karen Andrew and David Micheal.
    See I sat at Kristys house last night. Kristy was at a baketball game with her big borthers Sam and Charlie. I love siting but the house scars me. And Karen doesn’t help with her gost stories and which stories. So last night when Karen started with the ghost stuff I dicided to show the kids a litle of the secrit langage. They love it!
    The secret language sure was catching on, and I couldn’t have been happier. The more kids who learned it, even just a few words of it, the more kids Matt could “talk” to. I was really happy about Claudia’s notebook entry. Of course, I knew before I read the entry that Claudia was teaching the secret language to Kristy’s little brother, stepbrother, and stepsister. That was because Claudia and Karen kept calling me and asking me to lookup things in the sign language dictionary. But, as usual, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me start back at the beginning of the evening when Claudia arrived at Kristy’s house.
    Claudia’s mother dropped her off at the Brewer mansion at seven o’clock. Claudia rang the bell, and it was answered by Karen Brewer, Kristy’s stepsister. Kristy loves her stepbrother and stepsister just as much as if they were her real brother and sister. She wishes she could see them more often. But Karen and Andrew mostly live with their mother and stepfather. They only stay at their father’s house every other weekend, every other holiday, and for two weeks during the summer.
    Karen is this bouncy, bold little girl who loves to scare people (including herself) with stories about witches and ghosts. She’s even convinced that her father’s next-door neighbor, Mrs. Porter, is actually a witch named Morbidda Destiny. And she’s sure that a ghost named Ben Brewer (some old ancestor of hers, I guess) haunts the third floor of her father’s house.
    Andrew, on the other hand, is shy and quiet. Karen often scares him, although she doesn’t mean to.