Ann Martin - Jessi's Wish

Claud was born and raised in Stoneybrook, and she and Janine live with their parents (no pets). You can see that while Claud and Stacey

are wild (even daring) and outgoing, their families and backgrounds are quite different, which only goes to back up my half-formed theory about best friends.

I realized that I'd been staring at the kitchen phone for about five minutes, while my mind wandered. I shook my head. Then I reached for the receiver. I was just about to call Mallory when . . .

"Who!" cried Squirt, and I looked at his feet and saw that one shoe was missing.

I had to go on a sneaker hunt before I could phone Mal.

Chapter 3.

I didn't reach Mal until that evening. But I was glad I finally did. Mal is so practical. She said, "Why don't you talk about the Kids Club at the next BSC meeting?"

What a simple, wonderful suggestion. Of course I should mention the Kids Club to my friends. They always have good ideas. Especially Kristy. She is the Queen of Good Ideas.

In fact, without Kristy, there wouldn't be a Baby-sitters Club at all. . . . What is the Babysitters Club? Well, for those of you who don't know, the BSC is a very successful sitting business that my friends and I run here in Stoneybrook. One reason the business is so successful is the official way in which we conduct ourselves. The BSC meets regularly, and each member has a special job or role.

The club began awhile ago — before Dawn and I even lived in Stoneybrook. And when Mal was young enough so she was still a baby-

sittee, not yet a baby-sitter. Everything started with Kristy. Back when she, Claudia, Stacey, and Mary Anne were just beginning seventh grade (and when Stacey had just moved to Connecticut for the first time), Kristy, her mom, and her brothers were living in their old house across the street from Claudia and next door to Mary Anne. Mrs. Thomas had only been seeing Watson Brewer for a short time. And David Michael was just six years old. Charlie, Sam, and Kristy were supposed to take turns watching him after school (until Mrs. Thomas came home from her office), but they lead busy lives, so every now and then a day would come along when none of them was free to take care of their little brother. Then Mrs. Thomas would have to rush to line up a baby-sitter. One evening, Kristy was watching her mom make one call after another, trying to find an available sitter, when she got her best idea ever. Her mother would save a lot of time if she could make just one phone call — and reach a whole bunch of sitters.

And that was the beginning of the Babysitters Club. As soon as she could, Kristy told Mary Anne and Claudia about her idea, and they decided to meet several times a week. If people who needed baby-sitters called them during meetings, they'd reach three capable

sitters. Mary Anne and Claudia loved the idea but thought they needed a fourth member. Claud suggested Stacey, with whom she was just becoming friends. So Stacey met Kristy and Mary Anne and was made the fourth member of the BSC.

The club was a success from the beginning. I think this was for two reasons. One, Kristy knows how to advertise. Two, Kristy is the perfect club president, since she also knows how to run things. Why was advertising so important in the beginning? Because that's how people learned about the BSC. The club members had decided to meet Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons from five-thirty until six. But how would anyone else know that? They made up fliers and distributed them in the neighborhood. They placed an ad in the local paper. And they told everyone they could think of about their new business.

What a success! By the middle of that school year, when Dawn moved to town, the girls were doing so much business that they needed a fifth club member. And later, when Stacey had moved back to New York, she was replaced by both Mal (who was finally old enough to sit) and me. Of course, after her parents' divorce, when Stacey returned to Sto-neybrook, she rejoined the club immediately. We have seven members now (plus two as-

sociate members whom I'll describe later) and I think that's enough!

Remember when I said that Kristy is the perfect president? This is why: Besides deciding that the club should meet three times a week and that we should advertise our services, she decided that everyone should have certain responsibilities, or hold a certain position in the club. So Kristy became the president. (After all, the BSC was her idea.) As president, she's responsible for running things smoothly, and for continuing to come up with great ideas. Here are some of her ideas:

— To keep a club notebook. The notebook is more of a diary. Kristy insists that each of us write up every single job we go on, and that we read everyone's entries once a week. I'll tell you something. Most of us do not like writing in that diary. It's boring. But — we all like reading the notebook. Now that's interesting. We find out what happened when our friends were sitting, how they solved sticky sitting situations, and what's going on with the families we sit for regularly. (It's always helpful to know if a child has developed a new fear, has been sick, is having trouble in school, or if a child has a new interest, has done well at something, has a new friend, etc.)

— To keep a club record book containing information about the clients of the BSC. For

instance, their names, addresses, and phone numbers, the ages of their kids, and the rates they pay. Also included in the record book are the appointment pages, where Mary Anne (the club secretary) schedules all of our jobs; and a section where Stacey (the club treasurer) records how much money we earn while sitting.

— To create Kid-Kits. Here is Kristy at her brilliant best! Kristy took a simple idea (that, for whatever reason, kids like playing with other people's toys better than their own), and turned it into, well, another great idea. A Kid-Kit is a box (we each have one) that we fill with our own (old) games, books, and toys, as well as some new things that have to be replaced from time to time, such as crayons and other art materials, coloring books, sticker books, etc. We sometimes take the kits with us when we baby-sit. They're great for rainy days, for entertaining new sitting charges, and sometimes for absolutely no special reason! The kids love Kid-Kits, so when their parents come home, they find happy faces, which makes them more likely to call the BSC the next time they need a sitter.

Whew! Sometimes Kristy's brain is hard to keep up with.

Okay. On to the vice-president of the BSC. That's Claudia. She gets to be vice-president

because we hold our meetings in her bedroom. Her room was chosen because Claud has her own telephone and her own phone number. This is important (and lucky). During our meetings we spend a lot of time on the phone. It's nice to know that when we use Claud's phone, we aren't tying up some adult's line for a half an hour three times a week. Claud is very generous — with her room, her phone, and her junk food (club snacks). She deserves to be vice-president.

As I mentioned before, Mary Anne is our secretary. This is a fairly complicated task. In order to schedule sitting jobs, Mary Anne has to keep track of my ballet lessons, Claud's art classes, Mal's orthodontist appointments, Sta-cey's weekends with her father, etc. Then she records our, jobs on the appointment pages. That's not easy. Plus, she's in charge of keeping the information in the record book up-to-date.

In fact, Mary Anne is in charge of the entire record book — except for one section. That section is Stacey's, where, as our treasurer, she makes a list of the money we earn. This is just for our information. Each of us gets to keep all the money from every job we take. (We don't try to divide up the money or anything.) We do, however, have to contribute club dues at the Monday meetings. We all hate