Ann Martin: Baby-Sitters Club 059

Jessi is a ballet dancer. She's already en pointe, which means she dances in toe shoes. This proves how gifted she is. She's already danced in several professional productions and has been accepted to this great (and really demanding) ballet school in Stamford (which is about a half hour from Stoneybrook).

Jessi isn't stuck-up about her dancing. Not at all. Everything about her is very normal. She has a normal-sized family: a father, a mother, a sister (Becca, who is eight), and a baby brother named John Philip Jr., also known as Squirt. Her Aunt Cecelia lives with them. She stays home and takes care of things while Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey work.

Despite our differences (one of them being that 1 can't dance to save my life!), Jessi and 1 have tons in common. We love to read, especially about horses. Marguerite Henry's horse stories are our favorites. We love to baby-sit. And we are soooooo glad to be junior officers in the BSC.

As I've mentioned, the president of the BSC is Kristy Thomas. She has brown hair, brown eyes, and is very short. In fact, 1 think she's the shortest girl in the eighth grade. When you're around Kristy, though, you don't think of her as a small person. Thaf s because she has such a big personality.

Kristy is loaded with energy. I guess you could call her a tomboy. She almost always wears jeans, a turtleneck shirt, a sweater, and running shoes. She coaches a softball team for little kids called Kristy's Krushers, and she's good at lots of sports.

To be honest, you could say that Kristy has kind of a big mouth and is on the bossy side, but that doesn't bother me. One reason the BSC works so well is that Kristy isn't afraid to take charge.

Besides, I understand how it feels to be part of a big family. (Kristy's family is now as large as mine.) In a big family you have to speak up if you want to be heard. And when you have younger brothers and sisters, you get used to being in charge. Giving orders starts to come naturally.

So, I can appreciate these things about Kristy, even though size is the only thing our families have in common. Unlike my plain old family, Kristy's is a modern blended kind of family. And the story of her family is pretty interesting.

The Thomases started out with two parents and four kids - Kristy, plus two older broth- ers, Sam and Charlie, and one younger brother, David Michael. When David Michael was still a baby, Mr. Thomas walked out on the family, leaving Mrs. Thomas to raise four kids. (Can you imagine?) For a long time she struggled, but - like Kristy - she's a real dynamo, and she did very well.

After several years, Mrs. Thomas met and fell in love with Watson Brewer, who is (are you ready?) a millionare! He even lives in a mansion.

They got married, and Kristy and her brothers moved into his house. (Believe it or not, Kristy wasn't thrilled about this because she didn't want to move and she didn't like Watson. But now she's used to her new neighborhood and she's changed her mind about her stepfather.) When her mother got married, Kristy's family grew right away. Watson has two kids from his first marriage, Karen and Andrew, who are seven and four. Even though they only stay at Kristy's every other weekend, Kristy has grown close to them. Then, Watson and Kristy's mother adopted Emily Michelle, a little girl from Vietnam, who is two and a half. Finally, Nannie, Kristy's grandmother, moved in to help out with Emily Michelle. That means when Karen and Andrew are over, ten people live in Kristy's house, just like in mine - only I'm sure being spread out in a mansion cuts down on the "pandemonium" quite a bit.

Do I sound jealous? Maybe I am, just a little. But it's nothing against Kristy. She's not snooty. In fact, she's a regular person, and a lot of fun.

Claudia Kishi is the vice-president of the BSC. She has that title mostly because we use her room and her telephone. Like Kristy, Claudia's a lot of fun, but I don't know if you'd call her a "regular person." For starters, Claudia is so beautiful it's almost unbelievable. She's Japanese-American and has this long, silky black hair, and dark, almond-shaped eyes.

But that isn't what makes her different. It's Claudia, herself, who's unique. (Okay, we're all unique.) Everything about Claudia is artistic. She paints, draws, makes pottery. Claudia looks artistic, too. She makes her own jewelry, and she wears her hair and clothing in really trendy, unusual ways.

Today was a good example. Claudia was wearing a pair of soft, balloony, purple pants; a neon green long-sleeve leotard top; a wide, red braided belt; and a pair of soft, red ballet shoes. Her hair was swept into a French braid with wispy tendrils hanging loose. From one ear dangled a long earring made up of small papier-mache tropical fruit. In the other ear, where she had two holes, Claudia wore two small papier-mache hoops. (This earring set is her own creation.) If 1 wore an outfit like that, I'd look like a lunatic. But not Claudia. She looked like a fashion model.

Claudia adores junk food and Nancy Drew books (which she hides around her room because her parents don't approve of either). Here's what she hates: school. She is the worst student. I can't believe the words she spells wrong! Honestly, half the time I think she must be kidding. But she swears she's not. Claudia's teachers say Claudia just doesn't try hard enough. That might be because she doesn't want to be compared to her sixteen-year-old sister, }anine, who is an actual genius. But, anyway, I've never met anyone like Claudia, and I don't think I ever will.

Mary Anne Spier is our club secretary. She looks a bit like Kristy (who is one of her two best friends). They're both short with brown hair and eyes. But Mary Anne is very different from Kristy. She's quiet and sensitive. She cries easily. And while Kristy is a talker, Mary Anne is a listener. She's a very sweet person.

Mary Anne's mother died when she was small. For a long time, the Spier family was just Mary Anne and her father. Mr. Spier was very over-protective. Even in the seventh grade, Mary Anne still wore braids and these dumpy little-kid jumpers. But now she looks much more fashionable. That's because Mr. Spier has loosened up a lot.

At this point, I have to stop and tell you about Dawn. Dawn is not only Mary Anne's other best friend, she's her stepsister! Dawn is our alternate officer. That means she has to be ready to fill in for any other member who can't come to a BSC meeting for some reason. Dawn has long, long, long white-blonde hair and a casual-but-trendy way of dressing. (For example, today she was wearing black stirrup pants, a long, fleecy red-and-pink rose-print top and black high-top sneakers. She has two holes pierced in each ear. In those she wore four matching sparkly rose earrings.) Dawn is very pretty, but doesn't seem aware of it. I like that about her.

Another interesting thing about Dawn is that she only eats healthy food. No junk food at all, and she doesn't eat red meat. (I admire that, but I don't think I could do it.) Dawn also likes ghost stories and thinks her house might be haunted. There is even a real secret passageway leading from her bedroom to the old barn behind her house, which is now also Mary Anne's house.

Here's how that happened.

When Dawn first moved to Stoneybrook with her mother and younger brother, Jeff, she didn't know anyone. Her mother was originally from Stoneybrook and had moved back here from California after she and Mr. Schafer got divorced. I think she wanted to be close to her parents (Dawn's grandparents), who still live in Stoneybrook.

The first person to befriend Dawn was Mary Anne. Then an amazing thing happened. While looking through Mrs. Schafer's old high school yearbook one day, Dawn and Mary Anne discovered that long ago their parents had dated in high school. They arranged for their parents to meet again and . . . Mr. Spier and Mrs. Schafer fell in love again. They dated for what seemed like an eternity, but finally they got married. Now they all live together in the Schafers' big farmhouse. (Except for Jeff, who went back to California to live with his dad.) Of course, everyone didn't adjust to this new situation overnight. But now they all seem pretty happy to me.