Ann Martin - Baby-Sitters Club 060

I didn't tell you the reason Stacey finally moved back to Stoneybrook. You see, their return to New York was supposed to be permanent, but Stacey's parents ended up getting a divorce, and they let Stacey decide where she would live - in New York with her father or in Stoneybrook with her mother. And Stacey decided to move back to Stoneybrook. (I'm glad she did, but you know what? I'd have picked New York. I think it's the most exciting place in the world!) Stacey is the BSC's other blonde (but a darker tint). Like Claudia, she's a fashion plate, except her style isn't as ... exuberant. It's more urban and sophisticated. Like Dawn, she doesn't touch junk food. But she has a different reason. Stacey is a diabetic, which means her body can't regulate sugar in her bloodstream. If she has too much sugar (or too little), she could faint or go into a coma. So she has to take it easy with sweets and give herself daily injections of something called insulin. (Just thinking about that makes me shiver. If I ever saw her do it, I'd pass out!) The phone rang, and Claudia grabbed it. "Hello, Baby-sitters Club ... oh, hi, Mrs. Wilder! Uh-huh . . . okay, I'll check and call you right back." She hung up and turned to me. "Rosie Wilder next Tuesday, right after school?" I put down the magazine and opened the record book. "Um . . . Jessi and Kristy are free." "I don't know . . ." Kristy said. (Rosie is sort of a genius, and a little hard to tolerate sometimes.) "I'll take it," Jessi chimed in. "Last time we did barre exercises together. It was fun." Jessica Ramsey is one of our two junior officers, along with Mallory Pike. Why junior? Well, they're both in sixth grade, while the rest of us are in eighth. They do everything we do, except take late sitting jobs (their parents have strict curfews).

Jessi and Mal are best friends, and they have a lot in common. Both of them are the oldest in their families, both like to read, and both are convinced their parents treat them like babies. Oh, and both are great baby-sitters.

Other than that, they're pretty different. Jessi's black, and she has these long, graceful dancer's legs. Her hair is always pulled back from her face. Mal is white, with curly red hair, and she wears glasses (which she hates, but her parents won't let her have contacts) and braces (clear, so you don't notice them much).

Jessi has an eight-year-old sister named Becca and a baby brother named Squirt, while Mal has seven siblings, including triplets! Their interests are different, too. Jessi is a ballerina. She's so natural on stage, and her technique is incredible. She's danced lead roles in some important ballets in Stamford, the nearest big city.

Mal's talent, on the other hand, is thinking up stories. She wants to write and illustrate children's books someday.

Let's see, that brings me to our associate officers - Shannon Kilbourne and . . . saving the best for last. . . Logan Bruno! Usually they take jobs we can't fill, either because we're too booked or someone is sick.

Yes, in addition to all his other qualities, Logan is a fantastic baby-sitter. He's kind and funny and very patient.

Okay, I admit, I'm biased.

But it's true.

I flipped through to the end of Claudia's magazine. I was just about ready to shut it, when this picture caught my eye.

You know how you see models with these gorgeous haircuts, and you know you'd look terrible in them, but then all of a sudden, one just hits you? A cut you'd never have dreamed of getting, but when you see it on the page, you know it's just right for you?

It was in the back of Seventeen. It was pretty short, sort of a bowl cut in front, but really close-cropped at the neck. Very twenties (well, that's what the caption said).

Here's what I thought: All my life, I've had this long, mousy brown hair that just sort of hangs. The idea of feeling air on my neck was really exciting. Here's what else I thought: My New Year's resolution was to be "the best person in all possible ways" - and didn't that mean looking my best? Sure it did.

"I wonder how I'd look with this cut," I said. I was talking to myself, but Claudia was looking over my shoulder.

"Aaaaaugh!" Claudia screamed, putting her hands on her cheeks like that kid in Home Alone. "Not our Mary Anne!" Dawn laughed and shook her head. "Please!" Stacey took a peek, looked at me, and giggled.

"What?" I said. "What's so funny?" "Well, it's . . . it's not you, Mary Anne," Stacey said. I know she didn't mean it, but she sounded as if she were trying to explain something to a child.

Even Jessi and Mal had these impish smiles on their faces.

With a shrug, I closed the magazine. "Well, I guess not ..." Maybe I was even less fashion-conscious than I had thought. But my friends' reactions made me feel strange. I felt as if they were laughing at me. What was wrong with wanting to try something new? Lots of people do it.

I told myself it wasn't a big deal, but for the rest of the meeting I said maybe two words.

Chapter 3.

By the end of dinner that night, I was up to maybe fifty words. Both Dawn and my dad had asked if I was okay. Both times I had said yes. (The other forty-eight words had included, "Please pass the salad," and things like that.) At first I couldn't figure out why I felt so grumpy. I thought maybe it was the cold weather. Then I thought it was something I had eaten. But the real reason didn't come to me until I was in my bedroom later, alone.

As I was brushing Tigger's fur, all I could think about was the BSC meeting. That dumb little incident was still on my mind.

I kept picturing that model with the hairstyle I liked. Stacey had said, "It's not you, Mary Anne." That's all. Not a terrible insult, right? People say that kind of thing all the time.

Still, it was sticking in my mind like a piece of bubble gum under a tabletop. How could Stacey know what was "me"? How could Claudia, or even Dawn?

I picked up a little hand mirror. Looking into it, I tried to see "me." , I saw a decent, neat-looking girl with sort of blah hair and a gloomy face. I forced a smile, but that made "me" look worse.

Okay, so "me" wasn't so hot. No big deal. Not everyone can be a super-model.

Still, I wondered what everyone had found so funny. I reached behind my neck and pulled my hair up. I tried to imagine what that short haircut would look like.

Have you ever taken a really good look at your jaw? I never had, until I was staring at myself with my hair up. My attention went right to it. And you know what? I kind of liked it. It had a strong curve. It wasn't too thin or too broad. I mean, all my life I'd always noticed the normal things in the mirror - my eyes, teeth, hair, lips, skin. They're all okay, but not beautiful. Now I was discovering a new part of me. Mary Anne's Beauty Secret.

The Jaw that Launched a Thousand Ships.

I giggled at that thought. My mirror image giggled back. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

I looked great with short hair! Maybe this really was "me." Maybe all these years I just never allowed the real Mary Anne to come out.

Then it dawned on me. It didn't matter that my friends laughed. I laughed when I saw my hair up. A drastic change is always a little shock, and shocks make you laugh.

I tried to imagine what my friends would do if I came to a meeting with short hair. Sure, they'd probably giggle and make comments at first. But what fun it would be when they realized how nice I looked! The idea gave me a shiver of excitement.

I opened the bottom drawer of my desk, which is my own special hiding place (I got the idea from Claudia). I took out a few fashion magazines I'd stashed there. They were a couple of months old, but I leafed through them anyway.

In the second one, I found the haircut. Well, not the exact one, but close enough. In fact, this model was a little more my type. She had brown hair and a friendly face, and she wasn't bone-thin like the model in Claudia's magazine.