Ann Martin: Claudia And The New Girl

Then there was the matter of her last name. Wyeth. I wondered if that was Wyeth as in

Andrew Wyeth, the famous painter. I may not be a wonderful student, but I'm a pretty good artist, and I hoped that maybe I could grow up to be as good an artist as Andrew Wyeth. Even half as good would be okay with me.

On my fourth peek at Ashley, just after I'd spelled out m-e-d-i-c-1-e, I caught her peeking back at me. We both looked quickly at our papers. Then I looked a fifth time. Ashley was looking, too. I smiled at her. But she didn't smile back.

When the spelling check was over, we passed our papers forward and Mrs. Hall collected them in a tidy pile.

"Ashley," she said, after she'd stuck the papers in a folder on her desk, "we're discussing two books right now — The Westing Game and From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Have you read either of them?"

"Yes, I have," replied Ashley.

"Which one, dear?"

"Both of them."

Mrs. Hall raised her eyebrows.

"We studied the Newbery Award-winners in my old school last year," she said seriously.

"Mm-hmm." Mrs. Hall looked slightly disappointed. "And have you read The Yearling? Or A Tree Grows inBrooklyn ?" I could tell she

was thinking of transferring Ashley to one of the other English classes.

Ashley nodded. "I read them over the summer. But I don't mind doing the Newbery books again. I mean, we didn't read all of them. There are too many. Maybe I could do a special project on some of the older ones. The ones from the nineteen-thirties, if that's okay."

Mrs. Hall looked impressed. I was pretty impressed myself. What kind of kid got away with suggesting work to a teacher?

When class was over, Ashley and I looked at each other again. Then Ashley said quietly, "Um, hi. Do you know where room two-sixteen is?" It sounded as if it were killing her to have to talk to me. She certainly wasn't the friendliest person I'd ever met.

"Sure," I answered. "It's on the way to my math class. I'll take you."

"Oh, okay. . . . Thanks."

Ashley and I edged into the crowded hallway and headed for a staircase.

"My name's Claudia," I told her. "Claudia Kishi. Um, I was wondering. I know this sounds funny, but are you related to Andrew Wyeth?"

"No," replied Ashley. She paused, as if

deciding whether to say anything else. Then she added, "I wish I were, though."

So she knew who I meant!

"Boy, so do I," I told her.

"Do you like his work?" asked Ashley. She glanced at me, then quickly looked away.

"Like it? I love it! I take all kinds of art classes. I want to be a painter some day. Or a sculptress. Or maybe a potter."

"You do?" said Ashley. "So do I. I mean, I want to be a sculptress."

She was going to say something more then, but the warning bell rang and we had to duck into our classrooms. Before I did, though, I glanced once more at Ashley's retreating figure. I knew that somebody very . . . different had walked into my life.

I

Chapter 2.

I didn't see Ashley again that day, but no wonder. There were only two periods left, and I had a remedial math class (that's math for kids who have a tough time with it) and a help session in the Resource Room. No way a smart kid like Ashley would have either remedial math or time in the Resource Room.

I was a little disappointed at not seeing Ashley again, but I had a meeting of the Babysitters Club to go to that afternoon, and I always look forward to meetings. Remember I mentioned my friend Dawn? Dawn Schafer is the one whose hair is longer and blonder than Ashley's. Well, she's in the club, too, and so are my other friends, Kristy Thomas, Mary Anne Spier, and Stacey McGill. The club is really fun. We meet tluee times a week, and people here inStoneybrook,Connecticut , call us when they need baby-sitters. We get lots of jobs and I earn lots of money, which is im-

portant, because I need it to buy art supplies and makeup and jewelry and stuff.

As you can probably see, the club is really a little business. It's a year old now, and we run it very professionally. Here's how it works: we meet in my room on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons from five-thirty till six. (We use my room because I have my own private phone and phone number. For that reason, I get to be vice-president of the club.) Our clients know they can call us at our meeting times. Then they tell us when they need sitters and one of us signs up for each job. With five of us here, our clients almost always find a sitter with just one phone call, and they really like that. You're probably wondering what happens if two or three of us are able to take the same job. Who gets it? Well, luckily, we're busy enough so that doesn't happen very often. When it does, we're pretty nice about saying things like, "Well, I've got two other jobs signed up that week. You take it, Stacey," or, "David Michael is your little brother, Kristy. You take the job."

Mary Anne, our club secretary, keeps track of all our jobs in the appointment pages of our club record book. In fact, she's responsible for the whole record book (except for the account of how much money we earn). The record

book is where we note the addresses and phone numbers of our clients, information on the kids, our job appointments, and other commitments, like art classes.

Stacey's our treasurer, so she keeps track of the money we earn, as well as the money in our treasury, which comes from the dues we pay each week. Our dues money goes for club expenses. For instance, we pay Kristy's big brother Charlie to drive her to and from each meeting. This is only fair, since Kristy, our president, started the club but had to move out of our neighborhood over the summer. We also use the treasury money to buy coloring books and stuff for the Kid-Kits. (Kid-Kits are something Kristy thought up. They're cardboard cartons filled with our old books, games, and toys, plus activity books and crayons and other things we buy, which we sometimes take with us when we go on a baby-sitting job. Whenever one of us brings a Kid-Kit, we're a huge hit.)

Here are some other things you should know about the club: Dawn is our alternate officer, which means she's like a substitute teacher. She can take over the job of any other member who has to miss a meeting. We also have two associate members, Logan Bruno and Shannon Kilbourne. They're sitters we can call on in a

pinch if a job conies in that none of us can take. (Luckily, that doesn't happen very often.) Last thing — aside from the club record book, we keep a notebook. Kristy insists on this. In the notebook, we write up every single job we go on, and then we're responsible for reading the other entries about once a week. That way, we know what went on when our friends were sitting, which is often very helpful. (But — do you want my honest opinion? Reading that notebook every week can be a total bore.)

When school was over on the day I met Ashley Wyeth, I ran right home and did what was left of my homework (a lot of it had gotten done in the Resource Room), and then I took a look at Mixed-up Files. It really was time I read it, especially if Mrs. Hall was going to give us "checks" on it every now and then.

I read until5:15 . The story wasn't bad. After all, there was a girl named Claudia in it. Furthermore, this Claudia felt that she was a victim of injustice. When I looked up "injustice" and found out what it meant, I was pretty interested. I often think things in my life are unjust, particularly where school or my genius sister Janine is concerned.

At5:15 ,1 went downstairs to find my grandmother Mimi and wait for the members of the Baby-sitters Club to come over.

Mimi was in the kitchen, starting supper. She had a stroke last summer but is much better now except for two things. She can only use her left hand (she used to be right-handed), and she still has a little trouble with her speech — but not much, considering that Japanese, not English, is her native language. Anyway, she likes to feel useful, so she insists on starting dinner every weekday afternoon while my parents are at work, and doing whatever housework she can manage.