Ann Martin: Claudia And The Phantom Phone Calls

in the middle of a burglary? Now think about this," she went on. "We don't know what kind of jewelry the people we baby-sit for have."

"Oh," said Stacey, "no one around here is as rich as those Granvilles sound."

"But maybe it doesn't matter," said Kristy. "And what if the Phantom Caller were watching the house or something and saw the parents go out. He might go ahead and rob it if he thought just a baby-sitter and a couple of little kids were there."

"I still don't know," said Stacey. "I think you guys are worrying about nothing."

Suddenly I clapped my hand to my mouth. "Oh, my gosh!" I cried.

"What?" the others shouted.

"When I baby-sat for the Marshalls on Wednesday, the phone rang twice and each time I answered it, the caller hung up without saying a word!"

"Oh, no!"

"You're kidding!"

"I think," said Kristy seriously, "that we should hold an emergency meeting of the Babysitters Club — right now."

Chapter 3.

The members of the Baby-sitters Club gathered numbly in my bedroom.

"This is terrible," moaned Kristy. "How can we baby-sit under these conditions?"

Nobody said a word. To ease the tension, I took a gigantic chocolate bar out of my notebook, carefully peeled back the wrapper, and offered pieces to Kristy and Mary Anne. I didn't even bother to feel bad that Stacey couldn't eat any. The three of us chewed in silence.

"Look," said Stacey after a while, "I think we're worrying about nothing. The Phantom Caller hasn't even robbed anybody in Stoney-brook, so he's still at least twenty miles away." She turned to Mary Anne. "What makes you so sure he'll come here next? Maybe he'll decide that with the police on his tail he should just clear out and go rob people in Oklahoma."

"That's true," said Mary Anne slowly.

"And in the second place, if anyone we sit for does have some fantastic piece of jewelry and the Phantom Caller has heard about it, don't you think we'd have heard about it, too? I mean, it wouldn't be any secret then."

"That's true, too," I said, "but . . . well, what if we just happened to be baby-sitting somewhere and a burglar just happened to try to break in? Not the Phantom Caller necessarily, but any burglar? It could happen, you know, and we should be prepared."

"You're right," said Kristy. "Good babysitters should be prepared for anything."

"Maybe," said Stacey, "we should arrange a code we could give each other over the phone that would be a signal for the other person to call the police. Let's say I'm baby-sitting for Jamie Newton, and I hear a burglar. Okay. I want to call the police, but I don't want the burglar to hear me calling the police, right?"

"Right," said the rest of us.

"So what I do is call Claudia, for example, and I say, 'Hi, it's Stacey. Have you found my red ribbon?' and that's a signal that I'm in trouble and need Claudia to call the police."

"Hey, that's a neat idea!" said Kristy.

"Yeah!" agreed Mary Anne. "But how would Claudia know where you are? How would she know where to send the police?"

"That's right. That's a good question, Stace," I said/ "because what if the burglar were listening in on an extension? I couldn't just say, 'Okay, I'll call the police. Where are you?' That wouldn't do you any good at all."

"Aughh! Listening in on an extension! That is so creepy!" screamed Kristy.

"But it could happen," I said. "It happened in that thriller, The Night of the Weird. You know, the one where they find the babysitter — "

"Stop! Stop! Stop! Don't say any more. I don't want to know!" cried Kristy.

"All right, but the point is," I said, "that we should all know where each one of us is sitting and when."

"Well," said Mary Anne, "there's the record book."

The record book is where we keep track of our baby-sitting appointments as well as all other important club information. Kristy makes us keep a club notebook, too. Each time we complete a job, we're supposed to write up what happened. Then the other club members will know about any problems with kids or their families or homes, and know what to expect the next time they sit for the client.

I should mention here that each of us holds an office in the Baby-sitters Club. Mary Anne

is secretary, which is why she was thinking of the record book. Kristy is president, since the club was her idea. I'm vice-president, since the headquarters is my bedroom and I have a private phone. And Stacey is treasurer, since she likes numbers.

"What about the record book?" asked Stacey.

"It's got all the information in it — our appointments, the money we've earned, everything. I could bring it to school every day so we could check the calendar. And during our regular Friday afternoon meetings we could check it for the weekend. That way each of us would be sure to know what the others are doing — where they're going to be baby-sitting."

"That's a good suggestion," said Kristy, "except that, as president, I'll take responsibility for the book during school. If anything happens to it, it'll be my fault."

"You don't have to do that," I said. "We could take turns."

"No, it's easier if the same person always has it. I don't mind. So I move that I should bring it to school everyday."

"I second the motion," said Mary Anne, looking relieved.

"Good," said Kristy. "Now what about burglar alarms?"

"What about them?" I countered.

"I think that if we're baby-sitting and anything strange happens — a silent phone call, a funny noise outside, anything — we should rig up some kind of burglar alarm so that at least we'd know if someone tried to break into the house."

For a moment nobody spoke. At last Mary Anne said, "You mean like stacking tin cans in front of a door so that if the door opened, the cans would crash down and alert you?"

"Exactly!" cried Kristy. "That's a good idea." She tore a piece of paper out of my social studies notebook and wrote:

1. Stack cans in front of door or window (inside).

"But," she added, "make sure you don't put the stuff where the kids you're sitting for could fall over it. And make sure you put it away before the parents come home."

"Right," we agreed.

"Okay. Other ideas? Claudia?" asked Kristy. She was beginning to sound like some of my teachers.

"No," I said crossly, feeling embarrassed. Then I added, "Do you have any?" realizing that Kristy had been doing a lot of talking and

writing and not much thinking.

There was an awkward silence. Then, "How about a Smell Alert?" said Kristy with a giggle.

Mary Anne and Stacey laughed, but I thought Kristy was sounding pretty childish again.

"What," I demanded, "is a Smell Alert, if I may ask?"

Kristy couldn't stop giggling. "You put something really gross, like garbage, outside the house, where the burglar is bound to step in it. Then when he breaks in, you smell him before you even hear him. A Smell Alert!"

I had no intention of laughing. All I said was, "You know, a burglar could be a woman. It doesn't have to be a man."

"Aw, Claud, it was a joke," said Kristy. "Come on."

"Well, I don't have any ideas."

"Okay, okay, we'll keep thinking. Now I'm going to write out our code words. You guys have to keep these a secret. Keep the whole page a secret. Nobody should know our code. ... I'm serious now."

"Okay," we agreed.

"Should we stick with what Stacey said?" asked Kristy.

"What did she say? I forget," said Mary Anne.

"She said, 'Have you found my red ribbon?' " I replied quickly, glad to be able to answer something.

"Right," said Kristy. "And that means that there's some kind of trouble and the babysitter needs the police."

"I think," I said slowly, "that we should stick with what Stacey said, but that we should have a few more code words so we can give more information."