Ann Martin - Logan Likes Mary Anne !

"Terrific idea," said Kristy, who usually isn't too generous with her praise.

Dawn beamed.

"There's something else," Kristy went on after we'd lined up jobs with the Marshalls and the Perkinses. "When we started this club, it was so that we could baby-sit in our neigh-

borhood, and the four of us — " (Kristy pointed to herself, Claudia, Stacey, and me) " — all lived in the same neighborhood. Then Dawn joined the dub, and we found some new clients in her neighborhood. Now I've moved, but I, um, I — I haven't, um ..."

It was no secret that Kristy had resented moving out of the Thomases' comfortable old split-level and across town to Watson's mansion in his wealthy neighborhood. Of course she liked having a big room with a queen-sized bed and getting treats and being able to have lots of new clothes and stuff. But she'd been living over there for about two months and hadn't made any effort to get to know the people in her new neighborhood. Her brothers had made an effort, and so had her mother, but Kristy claimed that the kids her age were snobs. She and the Thomases' old collie, Louie, kept pretty much to themselves.

I tried to help her through her embarrassment. "It would be good business sense," I pointed out, "to advertise where you live. We should be leaving fliers in the mailboxes over on Edgerstoune Drive and Green House Drive and Bissell Lane."

"And Haslet Avenue and Ober Road, too," said Claudia.

"Right," said Kristy, looking relieved. "After

all, I know Linny and Hannie Papadakis — they're friends of David Michael and Karen. They must need a sitter every now and then. And there are probably plenty of other little kids, too."

"And," said Stacey, adding the one thing the rest of us didn't have the nerve to say, "it might be a good way for you to meet people over there."

Kristy scowled. "Oh, right. All those snobs."

"Kristy, they can't all be snobs," said Dawn.

"The ones I met were snobs," Kristy said defiantly. "But what does it matter? We might get some new business."

"Well," I said, "can your mom do some more Xeroxing for us?"

10181/8 mother (who used to be Mrs. Thomas and is now Mrs. Brewer) usually takes one of our fliers to her office and Xeroxes it on the machine there when we need more copies. The machine is so fancy, the fliers almost look as if they'd been printed.

"Sure," replied Kristy, "only this time we'll have to give her some money for the Xerox paper. We've used an awful lot of it. What's in the treasury, Stacey?"

Stacey dumped out the contents of a manila envelope. The money in it is our club dues. We each get to keep anything we earn baby-

sitting (we don't try to divide it), but we contribute weekly dues of a dollar apiece to the dub. The money pays Charlie for driving Kristy to club meetings and buys any supplies we might need.

"We've got a little over fifteen dollars," said our treasurer.

"Well, I don't know how much Xerox paper costs," said Kristy, "but it's only paper. How many pieces do you think we'll need?"

"A hundred?" I guessed. "A hundred and fifty?"

Kristy took eight dollars out of the treasury. "I'll bring back the change," she said. She looked at her watch. "Boy, only ten more minutes left. This meeting sure went fast."

"We couldn't come early and we can't leave late," said Dawn. "Summer's over."

There was a moment of silence. Even the phone didn't ring.

"I found a picture of Max Morrison," Clau-dia said finally. "It was in People magazine. I'm going to bring it to school on Monday."

"Where is it now?" asked Stacey.

"Here." Claudia took it out of her desk drawer and handed it to Stacey.

"Look at his eyes," said Stacey with a sigh.

"No one's eyes are more amazing than Cam's," I said. "Except maybe Logan Bru-

no's." I'd seen Logan several more times since lunch the day before. Each time I'd thought he was Cam Geary at first. I wished I'd had an excuse to talk to him, but there was none. We didn't have any classes together, so of course he didn't know who I was.

"Logan Bruno?" Claudia repeated sharply. "Hey, you don't . . . you do! I think you like him, Mary Anne!"

Luckily, I was saved by the ringing of the telephone. I took the call myself, and Stacey ended up with a job at the Newtons'.

By the time I had called Mrs. Newton back and noted the job in our appointment book, my friends were on to another subject.

"Kara Mauritio got a bra yesterday," said Dawn.

I could feel myself blushing. I cleared my throat. "I, um, I, um, I, um — "

"Spit it out, Mary Anne," said Kristy.

"I, um, got a bra yesterday."

"You did?" Kristy squeaked.

I nodded. "Dad came home early. He took me to the department store and a saleswoman helped me."

"Was it awfully embarrassing?" asked Dawn. "At least my mother helped me get my first one. She kept the saleswomen away."

Kristy was gaping at me. We've both always

been as flat as pancakes, but I'd begun to grow a little over the summer. Kristy must have felt left out. She was the only one of us who didn't wear a bra now.

But suddenly she was all business again. She doesn't like us to get off the subject of the club for too long during meetings. "Let's try to get these fliers out next week. Business will really be booming. Who can help me distribute them?"

We looked at our schedules. A few minutes later, the meeting was over. Little did we know what we were getting ourselves into.

Chapter 4.

"Emergency club meeting at lunch! Tell Kristy!" Claudia flew by me in the hall, her black hair flowing behind her. I caught a whiff of some kind of perfume.

"Wait! What — ?" I started to ask, but Claudia had already been swallowed up by the crowd.

I thought over what she had just said. Emergency meeting . . . tell Kristy. That meant Kristy didn't know. But our president was usually the one to call emergency meetings. So who had called it? And what was going on? It was only the beginning of third period. I'd have to wait more than an hour and a half to find out.

I snagged Kristy at the beginning of social studies class. "Emergency meeting at lunch today," I said urgently, leaning across the aisle to her desk.

"Who called it?" Kristy asked immediately,

but before I could tell her that I didn't know, our teacher walked in the room.

I snapped back to my desk like a rubber band.

When the class was over, Kristy and I shot out of the room and ran to the cafeteria. We dumped our stuff on our usual table, staking out five chairs at one end. Then we joined the hot-lunch line.

"I wonder what it is today," I said, breathing deeply.

"Smells like steamed rubber in Turtle Wax."

"Kristy, that is so disgusting. What is it really?"

Kristy stood on tiptoe, trying to see over the tops of kids' heads. She jumped up and down a few times. "I don't know," she said finally. "Maybe macaroni and cheese. I can't really see."

She was right. It was macaroni and cheese. Plus limp broccoli, a cup of canned fruit salad, and milk. Kristy and I each bought a chocolate eclair Popsicle, since we don't like macaroni or canned fruit salad. Kristy even considered buying two Popsicles since she doesn't like broccoli, either, but I stopped her. As it was, Dawn was going to die when she saw our lunches.

But when we got to our table we didn't have much time to talk about food. Stacey and Claudia had been not far behind us on the line, and Dawn was already there. So as soon as we had settled down, Kristy said abruptly, "Who called this meeting?"

"I did," said Claudia. "I'm going crazy. I can't handle everything. I've been getting nonstop phone calls ever since that FT A meeting, and since we advertised in your neighborhood, Kristy. I don't mind if people call during our meetings, of course, or once or twice in the evenings, but they're calling all the time. Look at this." She pulled a list out of her notebook. "These calls came last night. And this one came at seven-thirty this morning."