Ann Martin - Shannon's Story

Stoneybrook. She is tall and thin and has long blonde hair and is a way cool — no, make that tr£s cool — dresser. (When you have to wear a uniform to school every day you particularly notice these things.)

Stacey lives with her mother. She came to Stoneybrook with her mother and her father, but then they got divorced after her family moved back to New York City. So Stacey returned to Stoneybrook with her mother (and are we ever glad she did.) Now Stacey visits her father in New York, which makes her bi-city (we tease Dawn about being bi-coastal because she has a family on both coasts) and keeps us posted on all the important cool things she thinks we need to know.

Given Stacey's style, it's not surprising that Claudia is her best friend. As I said earlier, Claud is an artist, with her own unique vision of the world (a vision that does not include liking school or being an honor role student!) and of the clothes she wears. For example, today Stacey looked ultra-city in black: black leggings, a black sweater, a big black belt with an oversized buckle, black Doc Martens, and her hair pulled back with a black and gold scarf that picked up the gold of the gold chain earrings she was wearing.

Claudia was beyond the city, maybe into outer space and looking outrageous, artisti-

cally terrific: an enormous pair of pants held up with a man's belt and a pair of neon purple suspenders, an enormous purple T-shirt over a tie-dyed long-underwear top, her long black hair pulled back into a braid clipped at intervals with little-kid barrettes, and these dangly peace-sign earrings.

Claudia always looks incredibly beautiful in anything she wears. In fact, she's probably the only person I know who could wear some of the clothes she wears!

Mary Anne is the opposite of Claudia and Stacey, style-wise and sophistication-wise. Until recently, Mary Anne was an only child, raised by her very caring but very strict father. It's not that Mr. Spier was an ogre, it's just that, as a single parent (Mary Anne's mother died when Mary Anne was just a baby) he didn't want to make any mistakes. Mary Anne had to work pretty hard to convince him she was growing up and could choose her own clothes and not wear her hair in little-kid pigtails. But although Mary Anne is one of the shyest and most sensitive, tender-hearted people in the known universe, she is also one of the strongest underneath. She toughed it out, and not only changed her wardrobe to something a little more typical Stoneybrook Middle School, she acquired a kitten, Tigger, and a boyfriend, Logan Bruno.

And then she acquired a whole new family, with the help of Dawn Schafer.

This is how it happened:

Dawn's mother grew up in Stoneybrook, moved away, and eventually got married. When she and Dawn's father got divorced, Mrs. Schafer moved back to Stoneybrook with Dawn and her younger brother Jeff. When Dawn and Mary Anne discovered that Mr. Spier and Mrs. Schafer were high school sweethearts, they did some matchmaking, and now Dawn and Mary Anne are sisters as well as friends. The new combined Schafer-Spier family lives in an old farmhouse (that might even be haunted), although Jeff eventually decided to move back to California and stay with his dad. Now Dawn is out in California visiting them for awhile.

Dawn is the third blonde in the BSC, except she has pale,, pale long blonde hair. She's a casual dresser, and wears two earrings in each ear. She's very much into ecology and saving the earth, and she eats no red meat and hardly any sugar or junk food. That's why, if Dawn had been at the meeting, she'd be sharing the Frookies with Stacey. Like Mary Anne, Dawn has deep-rooted, strong, and sometimes stubborn feelings (about things such as the environment). But unlike Mary Anne, Dawn is quick to say what's on her mind, although not

in a negative way. Overall, she's pretty easygoing, which makes her a good baby-sitter — and a good alternate officer.

Jessica Ramsey and Mallory Pike are eleven and in sixth grade and are younger than the rest of us (we're all thirteen and in eighth grade). As junior officers, they can't baby-sit at night (unless it's for their own families), just afternoons and weekend days.

Like Kristy and Mary Anne (and Mary Anne and Dawn), and Stacey and Claudia, they are best friends. Mallory comes from a huge family. She has four brothers (three of them are triplets) and three sisters. Needless to say, the Pike family calls on the BSC quite a bit. In fact, that's how the BSC members first met Mallory, who was one of the baby-sittees. But when the club needed more members, it seemed natural to turn to Mallory.

Mallory has red hair, and wears braces and glasses (although she is campaigning hard for contact lenses). She loves to read, especially horse stories, and she wants to be a children's book writer and illustrator when she grows up.

Jessica Ramsey, on the other hand, is planning on being a prima ballerina. She's already danced (even starred) in some productions and she takes special dancing lessons. Jessi comes from a much smaller family than Mal-

lory, and has only two siblings — an eight-year-old sister and a baby brother. She shares Mallory's love of reading and of horses, especially any horse story by Marguerite Henry.

Like Dawn and Stacey, Jessi and her family recently moved to Stoneybrook. Jessi had some of the same moving-to-a-new-town problems that Dawn and Stacey did, plus one. Because Jessi is black, she came up against some ignorance — in the form of prejudice. It took awhile for people to settle down and learn just how stupid their prejudices were, but they finally did.

Our other associate member is Logan Bruno (who usually doesn't come to meetings). As a guy, Logan can bring some special skills to his BSC jobs, and has. And as Mary Anne's boyfriend as well as a BSC member, he can always be counted on to help out. He moved to Stoneybrook from Kentucky and has a soft Southern drawl and easygoing ways. Mary Anne thinks he looks just like her favorite star, Cam Geary. I have to admit, Logan is major cute.

And that's the BSC, except for one other VIM (Very Important Member), President Kristy Thomas. Kristy is the shortest member of the BSC, as well as one of the shortest people in her whole class at school. She's a way casual dresser (new jeans and recently washed sneakers are her idea of dressing up), and

she's one of the few people I know who's busier than I am. She even coaches a softball team made up of little kids, called Kristy's Krushers.

Kristy is also the other BSC member with a large family. She has three brothers — her younger brother David Michael, and her older brothers Charlie and Sam. She's also got a stepfather, Watson Brewer, who is a real, live millionaire and a fanatic gardener. Watson met Kristy's mother awhile ago and they fell in love (Kristy's father left when David Michael was just a baby and they hardly ever hear from him). Not much later, Mr. Brewer and Mrs. Thomas got married. So Kristy and her family moved from the house next to Mary Anne (where they'd been bursting at the seams) to Watson's mansion, which is across the street from our house. That's how Kristy and I met.

Anyway, now Kristy also has a younger stepsister and stepbrother, Karen and Andrew Brewer, who spend every other month with them, plus a little adopted sister, Emily Mi-chelle, who is Vietnamese. And when Emily came, so did Kristy's grandmother, Nannie, to help take care of Emily and all the other things that were happening around the Thomas-Brewer mansion. And I shouldn't forget my god-dog, Shannon. She's named after me because I gave Kristy one of Astrid's pup-

pies after their wonderful collie Louie died (in fact that's how Kristy and I really started becoming friends). There is also a fat, cranky cat named Boo-Boo, two goldfish, Karen's rat, Andrew's hermit crab, and an alleged ghost in the attic.