Ann Martin - Little Miss Stoneybrook...and Dawn

Jessi and Mal grinned at each other, but I thought, Induct? Who's Kristy kidding? First she comes up with this fancy word which just means to introduce them into the club officially. Furthermore, she didn't induct me when I joined the club. She just nodded to Mary Anne, and Mary Anne asked me if I wanted to be a member. Later, we did say a toast over pizza, but there was no actual induction. Exactly what did Kristy have in mind? I could guess. A speech and fanfare. Kristy likes to make a big

deal out of things. Why hadn't she made a big deal when I joined the club? Because she was jealous of me, that's why. She was jealous that Mary Anne and I got to be good friends almost as soon as I moved to Stoneybrook. Kristy was used to being Mary Anne's only good friend. Well, she's gotten over that jealousy, I think, but she never bothered to induct me, so I minded (just a little) that she was going all out for our new members today.

Before she could get started, though, the phone rang.

"I'll get it!" Claudia, Kristy, Mary Anne, and I shrieked.

Kristy was closest to the phone, so she reached it first. "Hello, Baby-sitters Club," she said. "Hi, Dr. Johanssen. . . . Yes, she's here. Hold on." Kristy handed the phone to Claudia. "She wants to speak to you," she said.

The rest of us frowned. That's not how our club operates. Whoever answers the phone is supposed to find out the details of the job, hang up, offer the job to all of us, and then call the client back to say which one of us will be sitting. Often, only one of us is free since we're pretty busy, so there isn't any fighting over who gets the jobs.

And our clients know this. So why was Dr. Johanssen asking to speak to Claudia?

We found out soon enough.

When Claudia hung up the phone, she said to Mary Anne, "Put me down for Tuesday, three-thirty until six."

"Why?" Kristy demanded to know. She paused, then said vehemently, "Claudia, you can't do that!"

"How come?" asked Mallory.

"How come? Because the Baby-sitters Club doesn't work that way, that's how come," I exploded.

Mal blushed. She looked at Jessi in embarrassment. "Sorry. I didn't know," she said.

"Oh, Mal, I didn't mean to yell at you," I told her. "It's just that this is practically our most important club rule. And Claudia just broke it." I looked at Claudia. "Why?" I asked.

Claudia sighed. "Dr. Johanssen said Charlotte especially asked for me to be her sitter." (Charlotte is the Johanssens' eight-year-old daughter.) "She said Charlotte really misses Stacey and she knows I'm Stacey's best friend. This isn't my fault. I guess Charlotte just feels connected to me." Claudia shrugged and looked uncomfortable.

This never happened. I wished Charlotte had asked for me. It made me feel like I wasn't a good sitter or something, even though I knew that wasn't really true.

"Well," said Kristy huffily, "if that's what Charlotte wants." Kristy must have felt the way I did.

"I guess she does," agreed Claudia, still looking uncomfortable.

"I mean, it's not as if the rest of us haven't done some pretty great baby-sitting stuff," Kristy went on. "I was the one who thought up the Kid-Kits Charlotte likes so much." (Kid-Kits are boxes that we fill with toys and games, puzzles and books, and sometimes bring with us on sitting jobs.)

"I was the one who got Jenny Prezzioso to the hospital that time she got sick," said Mary Anne.

"I once saved two kids from a fire when I was sitting in California," I pointed out.

"Oh, you're all good sitters," Claudia jumped in. "Really." (Then how come I didn't feel like one?) "Char just misses Stacey, that's all. This is a special job."

Kristy tried to start up her induction ceremony again then, but the phone kept ringing. We lined up three jobs - for me, for Kristy, and for Mal and Jessi together at Mallory's house. (The Pikes always require two sitters

because of all those kids.)

"See that?" said Claudia. "What are you guys worried about? You're great sitters. You're

getting jobs. Forget about Charlotte."

We did. At least long enough for Kristy to cram in her induction ceremony before the meeting ended.

The ceremony went like this:

Kristy slid out of the director's chair. She picked up the club notebook and held it in front of her. Then she asked Mallory to stand on her left and Jessi on her right.

"Now," she said, "face me, and put your right hands on the notebook."

Jessi and Mal did as they were told.

(I looked at Claudia and we rolled our eyes.)

"Repeat after me," Kristy continued. "I promise to be a good, reliable, and safe sitter, and to be true to the Baby-sitters Club forever-more."

Mal and Jessi repeated this oath (which I'm sure Kristy had made up on the spur of the moment).

"I now pronounce you junior officers in the Baby-sitters Club," said Kristy.

Mary Anne burst into tears. "Oh, that is so beautiful!" she said.

Claudia and I rolled our eyes again.

"Well,six o'clock ," announced Kristy. "Time to go home."

The meeting ended.

Later, I wished it never had.

Chapter 2.

I really love our house. It's the one thing aboutConnecticut that's better thanCalifornia , at least in ray mind. Our house inCalifornia was very nice, but there wasn't anything special about it. It was ten years old, built on one level, ranch-style, and looked like every other house on the street. I used to think that if it weren't for our bright yellow front door, I wouldn't have been able to tell it from the other houses. I might easily have walked into the wrong house after school one day and found a family that wasn't mine at all.

But our house inConnecticut is wonderful and special. As I've said, it's over two hundred years old. It's a colonial farmhouse with a secret passage that was probably once part of the Underground Railroad, which helped slaves escape from the South during the Civil War. Because the house is so old, the doorways are

low, the stairs are narrow, the rooms are small and dark. Mom and I love it.

Jeff hated it.

To be fair, I should say that my brother hated most things aboutConnecticut . I'm not thrilled with things myself, but I learned to adjust. Jeff didn't. He tried to at first, I think. But after awhile he stopped trying. And he became impossible to live with. When he wasn't sullen and silent, he was yelling at Mom and me, or being rude. He got into one scrape after another in school, too. His teacher was always calling my poor mom or arranging conferences with her.

In fact, the evening after Kristy's little induction ceremony started out like a lot of other nights - with yet another phone call from Jeff's teacher.

Mom and Jeff and I were just finishing our dinner. We were eating brown rice and a vegetable casserole. I'll never understand how the people on this coast can eat so much red meat and white rice and disgusting stuff. Our family is into health foods.

It was a typical meal. Jeff didn't utter a word, except to point out rudely that my mother had gotten a big ink stain on her blouse. I should mention that our mom is totally absent-minded.

I always have to check her over before she leaves for work. If I don't, she's apt to walk out the door wearing two different shoes, or with only one of her eyes made up. I don't mind this. It's just part of who Mom is, but Jeff had been giving her a hard time about it.

Anyway, I don't know how Mom had gotten the ink stain, but I wasn't surprised that she'd forgotten to try to scrub it off. I was surprised that Jeff was so rude about it. I'd noticed the stain, too, but I was going to mention it later, when we were cleaning up after dinner.

Jeff didn't wait, though.

"Mo-om" he exclaimed as soon as he sat down at the table.

"What?" replied Mom a bit sharply. Jeff was getting on her nerves.