Ann Martin - Jessi's Babysitter

She thought something was seriously wrong with our family.

I think she also wanted a family to live with, since her husband had died recently, and she was all alone in the house she'd moved to inQueenstown,Connecticut , after she found that she couldn't bear to stay in her home in Oakley. The house had too many memories.

This is my Aunt Cecelia: bossy, strict, mean.

Becca and I cannot stand her. And now she would be living with us. She would be caring for Squirt, cooking, and helping with the housework. She would also be ... my babysitter. I am far too old and responsible to need a baby-sitter. After all, I'm a sitter myself.

But Aunt Cecelia does not trust me. She thinks it was my fault that Becca got lost at sea, even though Mama and Daddy gave Becca permission to go on the sailing trip.

When the "celebration" was over, Becca and I huddled in my room.

"Can you believe this?" I asked her. "Aunt Cecelia coming here. Moving in. This is a nightmare."

"A triple nightmare," agreed Becca. "Maybe we could talk Mama and Daddy out of letting her come."

"I don't think so," I said. "But I bet we could fix it so that Aunt Cecelia wouldn't want to stay once she got here. You know, put shaving cream in her slippers, a fake spider on her pillow."

"Honey in her hairbrush!" cried Becca.

"Shh!" I hissed. "That's a great idea, but keep your voice down. We don't want Mama and Daddy to know what we're up to."

Chapter 2.

Becca and I plotted about a dozen ways to get Aunt Cecelia to leave. Most of them were very mean. We wrote them on a list, which I hid way back in my desk drawer.

Then Becca left.

I sat on my bed and felt depressed for awhile. Then I did what I always do in a tough situation.

I called my best friend, Mallory Pike.

Ring, ring went the Pikes' phone.

"Hello?" said a voice. It was Nicky, Mal's brother. (Mal has seven younger brothers and sisters.)

"Hi, Nicky. It's Jessi. Is Mal home?"

"Yup."

"Well, can I speak to her, please?"

"Maybe."

"Nicky."

"Okay, okay, okay. . . . Oh, wait a second.

1 just remembered. Mal isn't here after all. She

went to the store with Mom."

"Could you have her call me back, please?"

1 asked. "I really need to talk to her. This is a

matter of life and death . . . sort of."

"Life and death?" repeated Nicky. "Gosh." We got off the phone. I went back to my

room. 1 closed the door. Then 1 opened my

door again and hung a sign on it that I'd made.

The sign read (in big bold letters):

77//J

Mallory thinks the sign is dumb. She says that if you want people to stay out of your room, you should put up a sign that just says: STAY OUT OR ELSE.

I think one reason Mal is my best friend is because I like her family. The Pikes are very open and loose. There are not too many rules in the Pike house, even though there are a lot of kids. Here's who's in Mal's family, besides Mal and her parents: Byron, Adam, and Jordan, who are identical triplets (they're ten years

old); Vanessa, who's nine, very dreamy, and wants to be a poet; Nicky, who's eight, and gets pushed around by -his big brothers; Margo, who's seven, and likes to tease; and Claire, who's five, the baby of the family, and seems to be stuck in a silly stage. She calls everybody "silly-billy-goo-goo."

At the Pikes', something is always going on. With eight kids, I guess that's not surprising. Anyway, Mal's household sure is different from mine. Even so, Mallory and I are alike in many ways. We're both the oldest in our families, but we feel that our parents won't let us grow up fast enough. We practically had to kick and scream in order to be allowed to get our ears pierced. Then Mal, who wears glasses, asked if she could have contacts, but her parents said no. They think she's too young. (Furthermore, Mal now has braces, so she isn't feeling particularly pretty these days, despite her pierced ears.) As for me, well, talk about being treated like a baby. Now Aunt Cecelia was going to move in. I would have a baby-sitter — and I'm a sitter myself!

Mal and I also have some fun things in common. We both love to read. Our favorite books are horse stories, especially the ones by Marguerite Henry, such as Misty of Chincoteague and Stormy, Misty's Foal. Mal likes to write,

too. She's kept journals for years and recently talked me into keeping one as well.

However, we do have our differences. As you know, I want to be a ballerina one day (I think), but Mal wants to be an author and illustrator of children's books. The other difference is pretty obvious, 1 guess — our looks. Mal is white, with red hair and freckles, and she's about average height. I'm black, with long eyelashes (Mama is jealous of them) and long, long legs. I'm lucky to have those legs for dancing.

I'm also lucky to have found a best friend in Stoneybrook, especially after leaving Keisha behind in Oakley, but I feel even luckier to have made other friends as well. It's always nice to have a group of friends, I thought, as I settled down for a good daydream. And my group of friends are the members of the Babysitters Club.

I guess I haven't mentioned the BSC yet, have I? Well, the BSC consists of seven girls who have a business to do baby-sitting in our neighborhoods. We meet three times a week and get lots of sitting jobs. Mal and I are both members — junior officers. We feel honored to be part of the club, because the other members are all thirteen-year-old eighth-graders.

Kristy Thomas is the club president. Her

family is as big as the Pikes', but it is much more mixed up. Let's see. How do I even begin to tell you about her family? I guess I should start a year or so ago when Kristy was living on Bradford Court in the house she'd grown up in. She lived with her mom; her older brothers, Sam and Charlie; and her little brother, David Michael. Her father had walked out on her family not long after David Michael was born. Kristy rarely heard from him. (She still doesn't.) Anyway, the summer after seventh grade, Kristy's mom married this guy she'd been dating. His name is Watson Brewer and he's a millionaire. Honest. Watson moved Kristy's family into his mansion across town. That was when things began getting confusing. Watson has two children (Karen, who just turned seven, and Andrew, who's four) from his first marriage. Karen and Andrew live with their father every other weekend. Then, not long ago, the Brewers adopted Emily Michelle, a two-year-old Vietnamese girl. And then, Nannie, Kristy's grandmother, moved in to help take care of Emily Michelle. (Nannie is not a thing like Aunt Cecelia. She's nice.) The Brewers also have a dog and a cat.

Kristy is nice but bossy. She's a tomboy, and she coaches a team of little kids who like to play softball. She is full of ideas. (She started

the Baby-sitters Club.) Kristy is also just a little immature compared to her friends. She's not too interested in clothes yet, she never wears makeup, and she doesn't date. But she does like a boy in her neighborhood! His name is Bart and he's very nice.

Kristy's best friend is Mary Anne Spier, the secretary of the club. Kristy and Mary Anne are similar to Mal and me in that they're very alike in some ways and very different in others. For one thing, they look a little alike. They both have brown eyes and brown hair and are short. (Kristy is shorter.) And Mary Anne used to dress in a babyish way, but now she cares much more about clothes than she used to. I think the similarities end there. Mary Anne is quiet and shy — although she's the only one of us to have a steady boyfriend. Her boyfriend is Logan Bruno, and he's actually part of the BSC, but I'll explain how later. Mary Anne's family used to be as different from Kristy's as you could imagine, but now it has changed. See, Mary Anne's mom died when Mary Anne was really little, so Mary Anne grew up an only child living with her dad, who was quite strict. Then Mr. Spier met an old high-school girlfriend of his (who was divorced by then), and after a pretty long time, they finally got married. Guess who the girl-