Ann Martin - Baby-Sitters Club 061

For someone with such a big personality, Kristy is very petite. Although she's thirteen (just like all the other members besides Mal and me) she looks younger. She has longish brown hair and brown eyes. Her idea of fashion is jeans, sneakers, and a T-shirt or a sweater. She also wears either her visor or a baseball cap with a collie on it. You could call Kristy a tomboy. She loves sports and even coaches her own softball team for little kids called Kristy's Krushers. Boys aren't high on her list of interests - except she does like Bart Taylor who coaches a rival softball team.

From everything I've told you about Kristy, here's something I bet you'd never guess. Kristy is rich. Her stepfather Watson Brewer is a millionaire! Kristy didn't start off rich. In fact, Mr. Thomas, her father, up and left the family right after her little brother, David Michael, was born. Mrs. Thomas had to raise (and support) Kristy, her two older brothers, and David Michael all on her own. But Mrs. Thomas is like Kristy - a practical person with lots of energy. She got a good job in Stamford (one of those business kinds of jobs I don't always understand). And that's where she met Watson Brewer.

When Kristy was in the seventh grade, Mrs. Thomas married Watson. After that, the Thomases moved into Watson's mansion across town. At first Kristy wasn't thrilled about this - not Watson, not the move, not even the mansion. But now she likes Watson better and she's gotten used to her new home. She's also crazy about her new little stepbrother and stepsister, Andrew (who is four) and Karen (who is seven). They're Watson's kids from his first marriage. Most of the time, they live with their mother, but they spend every other weekend, holidays, and some vacation time with their father.

Kristy's family has just kept growing! Her mom and Watson adopted a little Vietnamese girl they named Emily Michelle. She's two and a half and totally adorable. Then Kristy's grandmother, Nannie, moved in to help take care of Emily Michelle while Watson and Kristy's mom are at work. And if you add in David Michael's puppy, Watson's cat, and the goldfish Karen and Andrew keep at the house, you've got a pretty huge family.

Talking about Kristy leads me right into telling you about Mary Anne Spier. That's because Kristy and Mary Anne have been best friends ever since they were little. They even look sort of alike. Mary Anne is also on the small side with brown hair and brown eyes. And Mary Anne used to have long hair like Kristy's, but she got it cut short recently.

Even though Mary Anne and Kristy are best friends, their personalities are quite different. Mary Anne isn't a big talker, but she's a great listener. She really cares about people and is very sensitive. (Mary Anne cries easily, especially when sad things happen to other people.) Like Kristy, Mary Anne is now part of a blended family. Originally she was an only child. Her mother died when she was a baby and for most of her life her family consisted of her and her father. This wasn't always easy on Mary Anne since her father was pretty strict. But then something happened that changed Mary Anne's life. Dawn Schafer moved to town. She became Mary Anne's other best friend and her stepsister! Here's how that happened. Dawn came to Stoneybrook from California when her parents got divorced. Mrs. Schafer had grown up in Stoneybrook and I guess she wanted to be nearer to her own parents after the divorce.

Dawn and her younger brother, Jeff, didn't like Stoneybrook at first. (I can understand how they felt. Moving isn't easy.) Their father was still in California along with everyone else they knew. And even now Dawn isn't completely comfortable with the cold weather. In fact, Jeff never did adjust to the changes. He returned to California to live with his dad.

Anyway, Mary Anne and Dawn soon became friendly. Mary Anne introduced Dawn to the other members of the club and she joined it, too. Then one day Mary Anne and Dawn were looking through Mrs. Schafer's old high school yearbook and they discovered an amazing fact. Dawn's mother and Mary Anne's father had dated in high school. More · than dated. They'd been in love. It turned out that Mrs. Shafer's parents had sent her to college in California just to get her away from Mr. Spier. They thought he would never amount to anything. (They were sure wrong about that. Mr. Spier is a lawyer now.) Mary Anne and Dawn decided to try to reunite their parents. This took some doing, but their plan worked. After dating for an eternity, the two of them got married. That's how Mary Anne and Dawn became stepsisters.

The Spiers moved into the Shafers' old farmhouse. (It was built in 1795 and has a secret passageway which leads from Dawn's room underground to the barn out back!) At first, Dawn and Mary Anne were thrilled. But then they discovered that blending two families isn't always easy. Dawn's mom didn't particularly like Mary Anne's cat, Tigger. There was also the mealtime issue. Dawn and her mom are health food nuts and only eat stuff like salads, tofu, and veggie burgers. (They think bacon is the grossest thing on earth.) Mary Anne and her dad eat regular food. So, just planning dinner became a big problem for their new family. Now all that is behind them and they're happy. Most of the time both Dawn and Mary Anne seem very pleased to be sisters. (By the way, just so you know - Dawn has long, long, white-blonde hair and a casually trendy way of dressing. She's totally gorgeous but isn't concerned about her looks at all. I like that about her.) The next person I need to tell you about is Claudia Kishi. I find her totally fascinating. She's unlike anyone I've ever met.

First of all, Claud looks very distinctive. She's Japanese-American with beautiful, delicate features and long, silky straight black hair. That alone would be enough to make her striking. But Claudia adds to her natural beauty with her own artistic way of dressing. She puts colors and styles together in a unique way. (I'm not sure many people would look good dressing the way she does. On Claud, though, the look is very cool.) For example, today she was wearing a neon green tank top under a white oversized man's shirt and fuchsia pink stirrup pants. The shirt was rolled at the sleeves and belted with a colorful woven belt.

Claud finished the outfit with dangly ceramic-bead earrings she'd made herself in pottery class. She's super artistic. She paints, sketches, draws, sculpts. You name it! Besides art and cool clothing, Claudia loves junk food. Her parents disapprove of Ho-Ho's and Twinkies and stuff like that, so she hides them all over her room. You never know when you're going to pick up a pillow and find a bag of potato chips or something behind it. The other thing she stashes away are her Nancy Drew books. Her parents don't approve of those, either. They don't think the mysteries are "intellectual" enough.

Claudia couldn't care less if the books are "intellectual." One thing Claud is not interested in is school work. Although she can't spell for anything, she's definitely not dumb. She just doesn't like school. And, unfortunately, her grades show it. She's the complete opposite of her older sister, Janine, who is a genius. Janine has some sort of super I.Q. which is tough on Claudia.

Speaking of cool, Stacey McGill is right up there with Claudia. In some ways, she may be even cooler, since she's originally from New York City. Stacey and Claudia are best friends and they seem more sophisticated than the rest of us. Stacey wears her blonde hair in a perm. She has very trendy clothes, although they're not quite as artistic as Claudia's.

Like my family, Stacey's family came to Stoneybrook because her father's job was transferred to Stamford. She met Claudia and became part of the club. From then on, she started liking Stoneybrook, even though she still missed New York. Just when she really felt as if she belonged, her dad's company transferred him back to New York. So, Stacey said good-bye to everyone and moved back again. (Here's a coincidence - my family moved into her old house then!) In New York, things didn't go too well for the McGills. I'm not sure why, but Stacey's parents decided to divorce. Mrs. McGill came back to Stoneybrook and Stacey came with her. Everyone in the BSC was happy to see her, of course.