Ann Martin - Stacey's Emergency

Right away, the girls realized that a fourth member would be a good idea. Claud suggested me, since she and I were already getting to know each other and I'd done a lot of sitting in New York. And so the BSC was ready and running. Well, almost. We had to do a lot of work in the beginning. First, we planned to meet three afternoons each week in Claud's room (she has her own phone); on

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, from five-thirty until six. Parents could call us on Claud's line during those times and reach four experienced baby-sitters. But how would they know about our meetings?

"We'll advertise," said Kristy.

So we advertised. We told practically everyone about the BSC. We sent out fliers. We even placed an ad in the Stoneybrook News. And when we held our first official meeting, we actually got job calls. After that, the calls kept coming, and they haven't stopped. In fact, we started getting so many that the club had to expand. Dawn joined us after she moved to Connecticut. Then, when I had to go back to New York, Kristy asked both Jessi and Mal to join. And then I returned. I was allowed back into the club. I became the seventh member, and I think I'll be the last. (Unless someone else has to leave.) Claudia's bedroom can't hold more than seven people. Well, comfortably. We'd have to figure out how to drape new people around the ceiling.

The BSC is run very efficiently. Kristy makes sure of that. She's our president. The rest of us are officers, too, and we each have our own job or function. Kristy is president because the club was her idea. That makes sense. Also, Kristy is the kind of person who's good at running things. And with the great ideas she's

always getting, she keeps coming up with new ways to promote the club, to attract more clients, or to run the club even more efficiently. (Sometimes she goes overboard, but the rest of us let her know right away.)

Claudia is the vice-president. She should be, since the members of the club swarm into her bedroom three times a week, eat her junk food, and tie up her phone. Also, parents sometimes call Claud's line during nonmeet-ing times, and Claudia has to deal with those job appointments on her own.

The secretary of the club is Mary Anne. She's neat and organized — thank goodness. Sometimes I think she works harder than anyone else at a meeting. Her job is to keep the record book up-to-date and in order. The record book was one of Kristy's ideas. In it, Mary Anne keeps track of our clients — their names, addresses, phone numbers, rates paid, and special information about their children. More important, she schedules every babysitting job that comes in. That means that she has to know all of our schedules — when Jessi has ballet lessons or Claud has an art class or Mal has an orthodontist appointment. I don't think Mary Anne has ever made a scheduling boo-boo.

I am the club treasurer. Not to brag, but I happen to be very good at math. It just comes

easily to me. I can add up numbers in a flash — in my head. My job is to collect the club dues from every member each Monday, to put the money in our treasury (a manila envelope), and then to dole out the money as it's needed. What do we use the money for? Lots of things. To help Claud pay her monthly phone bill, to pay Charlie Thomas to drive Kristy back and forth to meetings now that she lives too far away to get to Claud's on her own, to fund an occasional club party, and to restock the Kid-Kits when we run out of things such as crayons or stickers. Remember my Kid-Kit? Well, we each have one. They're great baby-sitting tools. We don't bring them along every time we sit, but pretty often. The kids love them, so their parents see happy faces when they come home — and then they're more apt to turn to the BSC the next time they need a sitter.

Dawn's position is alternate officer of the BSC. That means that she can take over the job of anyone who misses a meeting. And that means that Dawn has to be familiar with the duties of each officer. I know that sounds difficult, but it isn't really that bad. Anyway, the BSC members don't miss meetings very often. So Dawn answers the telephone a lot.

Jessi and Mallory are junior officers. This is because they are eleven and not allowed to sit

at night unless they're taking care of their own brothers and sisters. They are a huge help, though. By taking over a lot of the afternoon jobs, they free up us older members for the nighttime jobs.

Hmm. Let me see. A couple of other things about the workings of the BSC . . .

Just in case a call should come in that none of us can take (and that does happen every now and then), Kristy signed on two associate members of the club. These are reliable sitters who don't go to meetings, but whom we can call on in a pinch so that we won't have to disappoint our clients. Our associate members are Shannon Kilbourne, a friend of Kristy's in her new neighborhood, and Logan Bruno. He's the guy Mary Anne used to go steady with!

Finally, another of Kristy's ideas was to keep a club notebook. The notebook is more like a diary. In it, each member is responsible for writing up every job she goes on. Then we're supposed to read the notebook once a week to catch up on what's happening with our clients, and also to see how our friends have handled sticky sitting situations. No one likes writing in the notebook much (except Mal-lory), but we have to agree that it's pretty helpful.

"Ahem!"

It was later in the afternoon. Claud and I had finished our talk, and now all of my friends and I had gathered together. Kristy was sitting straight and tall (well, as tall as she could make herself) in Claudia's director's chair. She was wearing her presidential visor and, as usual, a pencil was stuck over one ear.

"Ahem!" Kristy cleared her throat again loudly. She did not have a cold. She was signaling to the rest of us that it was 5:31 according to Claud's digital alarm clock, the official BSC timepiece, and reminding us that she'd called the day's meeting to order a full minute earlier.

What were the rest of us doing? Jessi and Mal were sitting on the floor, leaning against the bed and playing with these paper fortune-telling things they'd made (that, for some reason, they called Cootie Catchers). They kept opening and closing them and reciting, "Ee-nie, meenie, minie, moe. Catch a tiger by the toe. If he roars then let him go. Eenie, meenie, minie, moe. My mother said to pick just one, and this ... is ... it!" Then they'd read a fortune written under a flap of paper. (Cootie Catchers are hard to explain.) Claudia, Mary Anne, and I were lined up on Claud's bed, leaning against the wall. And Dawn was straddling Claud's desk chair, sitting in it back-

ward, her chin resting on the top rung.

Claud had unearthed some packages of Ring-Dings and was passing them around. The smell of chocolate was driving me crazy. At least I wasn't the only one not eating them, though. Dawn wouldn't touch them. She nibbled at some crackers instead. I did, too, but the crackers didn't begin to quiet the rumbling in my very hungry stomach — too hungry for that time of day. A Ring-Ding or two might have taken care of things.

Anyway when Kristy began her throat-clearing, we sat at attention. And just in time. The phone rang. Dawn answered it.

"Hello, Baby-sitters Club ... Hi, Dr. Jo-hanssen . . . Next Tuesday? I'll have Mary Anne check. I'll get right back to you. . . . Okay. 'Bye." Dawn hung up and faced the rest of us. "Sitter for Charlotte next Tuesday night from seven till ten."

While Mary Anne looked at the appointment pages in the record book, Jessi and Mal let out groans. A nighttime sitting job. Neither of them could take it. They were disappointed.

"Okay," said Mary Anne, glancing up. "Sta-cey, Kristy, and Dawn are free."

"I've got a history test the next day," said Dawn. "I better stay at home where I can really concentrate while I'm studying."