Ann Martin - Mary Anne And Camp

BSC086 - Mary Anne and Camp BSC - Martin, Ann M.

Chapter 1.

Pike's Peak.

The two words just jumped into my head as I watched Mallory Pike's seven younger siblings and Pow Barrett Pike, the Pikes' basset hound, playing a game of freeze tag.

Pike's Peak is this famous mountain out west that was a sort of landmark for the European settlers who were headed for the coast.

But the Pike's Peak I was thinking about is written this way: Pikes' Peak.

Because the Pikes were at the peak of their energy and activity. Okay, it's a pretty dumb pun, but peak is an almost quiet way of describing what I was watching. Adam, Byron, and Jordan, who are ten and are identical triplets (although they weren't dressed alike — they'd die these days before they'd dress alike, except maybe for a practical joke), were charging around making wild grabs at everybody. Vanessa, who is a budding poet, was dodging

madly and shrieking, "Freeze, freeze, if you please!" Nicky, who is eight, and Margo, who is seven, had hunched themselves into horrible, contorted, frozen shapes. Claire, who is five, was laughing and jumping out of the way as everyone pretended they were about to grab her and then "missed." And Pow was racing in and out among them all howling "Hoo, hoo, hoo!," his big, long ears flapping as he ran.

Mallory, who is eleven and a junior member of the Baby-sitters Club (of which I am the secretary, but more about that later) as well as the senior sibling of the Pike family, nudged me with her shoulder. "You're it," she said with a grin.

I grinned back. We were sitting on the back steps of their house. What were we doing? You guessed it. Baby-sitting. Pike-sitting. The Pikes always ask for two sitters when they call the Baby-sitters Club. Not that the Pikes are .bad kids or hard to handle or anything like that. But there are a lot of them and they have tons of energy (see above).

Claire made a grab at Jordan, who toppled over. "I'm frozen, I'm frozen," he wailed and writhed on the ground before "freezing" into a pretzel shape.

"You iced Jordan, Claire," said Adam. "But you won't ice me!"

"Baroo! BarooOOOO!" howled Pow ecstatically.

Mal rolled her eyes. "I think all this spring and school-about-to-be-out stuff has gone to the triplets' heads."

"I know," I said. "It's just too bad we can't channel some of that energy and use it for, I don't know, electricity or something."

"Yeah. Dawn would approve of that. It would be very environmentally correct." Mal was talking about Dawn Schafer, who is my stepsister, one of my two best friends, and a fellow member of the BSC. She is also, in case you hadn't guessed, very environmentally conscious. But more about that later.

I laughed. "I wonder how you'd do it?"

"Beats me," Mal said. We sat in comfortable silence for awhile and watched the frozen victims all come back to life and start over again. Then Mal said, "I can't believe school will be over in just three weeks!"

"Me either. And I can't wait. I feel like all I've been doing lately is studying for tests and doing homework and baby-sitting. I haven't even had time to clean up my room lately."

"Don't worry. Your room will still be there."

"I know. But it bugs me. I like to have things neat."

Mal grinned. "In my family, I just like

knowing where things are. With eight kids and two adults picking things up and putting them away, watch out!"

"Hey, when you've got a stepmother like Sharon putting things away, watch out!"

We laughed. Sharon Schafer Spier, who is my stepmother and Dawn's mother, is, well, an imaginative housekeeper. I've found cans of beans on bookshelves and books in the linen closet. Sharon is absentminded that way, just the opposite of my father, the king of neat. But opposites attract, they say. And my father and Sharon are crazy about each other. I'm pretty crazy about Sharon, too. It's nice having her for a stepmother, and extra nice having Dawn as one of my two best friends and my sister ...

Wait a minute. I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm Mary Anne Spier. I'm thirteen years old. I'm kind of short, and I have brown hair and brown eyes. People say I'm sensitive and that's probably true. Sometimes it's a pain, because the littlest, dumbest things can make me cry (even some commercials on television). And I'm shy, too. On the other hand, I think being sensitive and shy helps me listen to people and be more understanding.

I live in Stoneybrook, Connecticut, where I'm in eighth grade at Stoneybrook Middle School. I've lived here all my life, most of the

time as an only child and a half orphan. . Half-orphan sounds sad, I guess. But my mother died when I was just a baby, so I can't really remember her. My father raised me by himself.

My father was strict, but loving. He was, as I got older, a little overprotective. He was so worried about being a single parent that I guess he was overcompensating. Anyway, for a long time, he made me wear my hair in braids and chose all these really little kid clothes for me. But with the help of my friends, I was finally able to bring him around. I can buy any kind of clothes I want now (within reason) and I even got a new haircut not too long ago. I also got a kitten named Tigger.

There's Logan, too. Logan is the cutest boy in all of SMS and possibly Stoneybrook. He looks just like Cam Geary, the star (okay, so I'm not that objective, but still, it's true). He's from Kentucky originally and has this cool southern accent.

And he's my boyfriend. See how much my father's changed?

But that's not the biggest change in my father's life — or mine, for that matter. The biggest change is Sharon.

That's right. Dawn's mom.

You see, Sharon grew up in Stoneybrook.

In fact, years ago she used to date my father. But they lost touch after high school and Sharon ended up in California. Then when Dawn's mom and dad got divorced, Sharon moved back to her hometown with her two children, Dawn, and Dawn's younger brother, Jeff.

That's where we come in. Dawn and I had already become best friends (in fact, I'm the one who suggested that Dawn join the BSC, which is what we call the Baby-sitters Club). Then we discovered the ancient romance between my dad and her mom. So, with a little help from us, the two of them started dating. And fell in love all over again.

And got married.

Which proves that opposites do attract, as I said before. My dad, Mr. Neat and Organized, is a lawyer. He alphabetizes the books on his bookshelves. He arranges his socks by colors in the drawer. He's never, ever late for anything. His car looks as if he just bought it.

You get the picture.

And Sharon? Well, I've found a letter that she meant to mail stuck in the bathroom cabinet, and dishwashing soap in the laundry room. Plus Sharon, like Dawn and Jeff, is pretty health-food conscious. Sharon and Dawn never, ever eat red meat (Jeff does sometimes, I think) and they avoid sugar as if it

were poison. My dad is a mashed potatoes and meat loaf kind of guy.

But all of that didn't matter and still doesn't, I guess, because they love each other. So now we're a blended, bicoastal family. We're blended because we're two smaller families that have become one big family. And we're bicoastal because Jeff eventually decided to move back to California with his dad (and Dawn just recently spent much too long a time out there on a visit).

We live in this neat house out on Burnt Hill Road. It's an old farmhouse built back in the seventeen hundreds and it even has a secret passage that might be haunted.