Ann Martin - Kristy And The Snobs

outgoing, big mouth, friendly. Mary Anne's personality - cautious, sensitive, shy. (She has a boyfriend. I don't.) Mary Anne's club job is to keep our record book up to date. The record book is where we write down our clients' names, addresses, and phone numbers, list the money we earn (that's really Stacey's job), and most important, schedule our baby-sitting jobs.

Stacey McGill is sort of a newcomer to Stoneybrook. Until a year ago, she and her parents lived inNew York City . They moved here just before we began school last September. Stacey is sophisticated and smart. Sometimes she seems years older than me. She and Claudia are best friends. Stacey's likes - boys, clothes, baby-sitting. Dislikes - doctors. (Stacey has diabetes and has to go to doctors pretty often. She also dislikes the strict diet she has to stay on so as not to allow too much sugar in her body.) Looks - wild blonde hair, thin, pretty, older than her age. Dress - as trendy as Claudia, but a little less outrageous. Personality - outgoing, very grown-up, sensitive to other people. Stacey keeps track of the earnings of us baby-sitters, and is responsible for the dues we put in our club treasury.

Finally, there's Dawn, who's more of a newcomer to Stoneybrook than Stacey is. She moved

here fromCalifornia last January with her mother and younger brother after her parents got divorced. Dawn's job as alternate officer is to take over the duties of any other officer if someone gets sick or has to miss a meeting. Dawn's likes - health food, sunshine, babysitting, ghost stories. Dislikes - junk food, cold weather. Looks - the longest, palest, shiniest, silkiest blonde hair you can imagine. Dress - whatever she feels like. Dawn is an individual. Personality - confident, doesn't care what other people think of her.

And that's the five of us. Together we make a pretty good team.

I realized that my friends were looking at me, waiting for me to begin the meeting.

"The meeting will now come to order," I said, even though we already were in order. "Stacey, how much money is in the treasury?"

"Give me your weekly dues first," she replied. (Monday is Dues Day.)

Each of us handed Stacey a dollar.

"We've got nine dollars and eighteen cents," she reported.

"That's kind of low, isn't it?" I replied.

"Well, we pay Charlie to drive you to and from the meetings," said Stacey, "and we just bought coloring books and sticker books for the Kid-Kits. We're okay as long as we don't

buy anything for awhile. We'll just let our dues pile up."

(Kid-Kits are boxes filled with games and books - our old ones, mostly - plus new coloring books, crayons, activity books, etc. that we sometimes bring on baby-sitting jobs. The kids love them.)

"Anything else to report?" I asked.

The club members shook their heads.

"Have you been keeping up with the notebook?"

The club members nodded their heads - but Claudia, Dawn, and Mary Anne looked a little guilty. I knew they'd just been reading the notebook before I came into the room. We're responsible for writing up every job we go on. We record the jobs in our club notebook and then we're supposed to read the notebook each week to see what happened when our friends were baby-sitting. It's not always very interesting, but it's usually helpful.

The telephone rang then with what was probably going to be the first job of the meeting.

Dawn answered it. "Hello, Baby-sitters Club."

(See how professional we sound?)

"Okay, Mrs. Rodowsky. I'll call you right back." Dawn hung up the phone and turned

to us. "Mrs. Rodowsky needs a sitter for Jackie and his brothers next Tuesday afternoon from three-thirty till six."

"Let's see/' said Mary Anne, who had already turned to the appointment pages of our record book. "Claudia, you're the only one free."

"Okay," said Claudia. "I guess I can handle Jackie." (Jackie's a nice little kid, but he's accident-prone and always in trouble.)

Dawn called Mrs. Rodowsky back to tell her that Claudia would be her sitter on Tuesday.

A bunch of other calls came in then, but the most interesting one - just before the meeting came to an end - was from Mr. Papa-dakis. The Papadakises live not far from me in the new neighborhood. They have three kids - Linny, who's eight and a friend of David Michael; Hannie, who's six and a friend of Karen; and Sari, who's just two. I knew the Papadakises a little through David Michael and Karen, but I'd never sat for them. Now Mr. Papadakis was calling with a job.

"We saved your flier," he told me. "We need a sitter on Thursday afternoon and we know Linny and Hannie like you."

"You take the job! You take the job!" Mary Anne said excitedly to me after I'd told Mr. Papadakis I'd call him back. "You're free and

it's good for you to sit in your new neighborhood."

"Well . . . okay!" I said.

At that time, I had no idea what a sitting job in my new neighborhood would really mean, and so - I was foolish enough to look forward to it.

Chapter 3.

Charlie picked me up promptly at six o'clock and we headed back to our house. (It had been a long time before I could think of Watson's house as ours.)

"I can't wait to see how Louie's doing," I said as Charlie pulled up to a stop sign.

"Didn't you see him this afternoon?" he asked.

"I didn't have time. I stayed at school to watch a field hockey game. The late bus dropped me off just in time for you to pick me up and take me to Claudia's."

"Oh," said Charlie. "Well, I'm sure he's fine."

"I hope so," I replied.

But when we got home, Louie wasn't fine. He was resting in the living room on his orange blanket, and he didn't get up when he saw us. Usually, he's on his feet in a flash, wanting to play or to be let out.

"Hi, Louie!" I said. "Come here, boy."

Louie lifted his head off his paws, but didn't get up. I had to call him two more times before he stood up. He began to walk toward me. It was still hard to tell whether he was limping, but what nobody missed was when he walked smack into a table leg instead of my outstretched arms. David Michael and Mom had just entered the room, so they saw the whole thing, along with Charlie and me.

"Oh, Louie," murmured Mom, leaning over to pat his head. "What's wrong, boy?"

"He's not too sick," announced David Michael. "I just gave him his supper and he ate it in one gulp."

"Well," said Mom, "maybe he ought to have a check-up with Dr. Smith tomorrow. I'll call her answering service tonight and try to make an appointment. Charlie, could you take him after school?"

"Sure," replied Charlie.

"I'll go with you," I said.

"Me, too," added David Michael.

So it was arranged. The next afternoon, Charlie drove David Michael and Louie and me to Dr. Smith's office.

Louie does not like the vet. He never has. And he's pretty noisy about it. Somehow, he figures out where we're going when we're only

halfway there. Then the whining starts. He can be really pathetic. David Michael is always prepared, though. He fishes doggie treats out of his pocket and feeds them to Louie one at a time.

In between bites, though, Louie whines. Charlie says it drives him crazy, but we made it to the vet without incident.

Dr. Smith's waiting room wasn't very crowded, thank goodness. There were only two patients ahead of us - a dachshund with his front paw in a cast, and a cat in a carrying case who kept yowling unhappily. Louie was well-behaved. He lay on the floor with his head resting pitifully on Charlie's shoe and whined so softly you could hardly hear him.

When Dr. Smith's assistant called for Louie Thomas, Charlie, David Michael, and I rose as one. With a lot of prodding, Louie came, too. Charlie and I hoisted him onto the metal table in the examining room.

"Hello, Thomases," Dr. Smith greeted us as she entered the room.