Ann Martin - Baby-Sitters Club 042

Squirt, who was now looking at me and saying, "Buh!" with a big smile on his face, is just a toddler. Squirt's not his real name, of course. His real name is John Philip Ramsey, Jr. - but Squirt suits him much better. He was named that by the nurses at the hospital where he was born, because he was the smallest baby there. He only weighed five pounds, eight ounces back then! Now he's a big lug - a big, squirmy lug, who was doing his best to get out of Mama's arms.

"I'll take him," I said. "C'mere, Squirt-man." I took him from Mama and balanced him on my hip. I smiled at him. "How does it feel to be carried by a princess?" I asked.

Mama gasped. "You got the role?" she asked.

"Yup," I answered. "Princess Aurora, at your service." Becca was all over me, shrieking and smacking my arm.

"Okay, Becca," said Aunt Cecelia. "Let's let the princess come in and have her dinner." Aunt Cecelia likes to try to keep things calm. She's Daddy's older sister, and she came to live with us not long ago, when Mama decided to go back to work and realized she'd need help with Squirt in order to do that.

At first, having Aunt Cecelia live with us seemed like a big mistake. Becca and I thought she was too strict and too mean. She treated us like babies. But she learned to give us some credit for being able to take care of ourselves - and we learned to like her better. Now we're glad she's here.

At dinner, I filled my family in on the details of the audition. And over ice cream (I had a tiny bit, even though I really have to watch what I eat, especially when we're preparing a performance) I told them all about The Sleeping Beauty.

"You all know the story," I said. "It's just like the fairy tale. It starts with the christening of the baby Princess Aurora. All the fairies do beautiful dances as they present their gifts." "Then the bad fairy comes, right?" asked Becca.

"That's right. The funny thing is that the bad fairy is usually played by a man in a wig," I said. "Anyway, the bad fairy puts a curse on the baby, telling her that she will prick her finger and die on her sixteenth birthday. A good fairy, called the Lilac Fairy, can't get rid of the curse. But she at least makes it so that Aurora will sleep for a hundred years instead of die." "Then what happens?" asked Daddy. I guess he doesn't remember fairy tales as well as the rest of us.

"Well, I come on stage in the next act, which is my sixteenth birthday party. Four princes present me with roses, and I do this gorgeous slow dance called the 'Rose Adagio.' It's really hard. Then the bad witch, in disguise, sneaks into the party and hands me a spindle for making yarn and I prick my finger on it and fall into a deep sleep.

"A hundred years later," I went on, "this prince is looking for me. He sees a vision of me - which is really me, of course - and we dance together. Then the prince tries to find me, and when he finally does, he kisses me - " "Ew!" interrupted Becca. "Do you really have to kiss a boy? I'd rather kiss Misty any day!" Misty is our pet hamster.

I ignored her. " - and I wake up, and then there's the wedding, where I dance with all these different fairy-tale characters, like the Bluebird of Happiness. I don't really know what that has to do with the plot, but it's a great dance. And then I dance with the prince again at the very end." I was exhausted just thinking about it.

"It sounds like a beautiful ballet," said Mama.

"It is," I said. "And you should hear the music. It's by Tchaikovsky, the same composer who wrote the music for Swan Lake." After dinner, I headed upstairs (Mama said I could be excused from table clearing and dish washing, since it was a special night) to call Mallory. I couldn't wait to tell her my news, and I knew she'd spread it around to our friends.

Who is Mallory? Maybe I should tell you about her - and about my other friends, too.

Mallory Pike is my best friend, and the first friend I made when my family moved to Stoneybrook. She's terrific. She's smart and funny, and we have great times together. We both love to read - especially horse stories, like Misty of Chincoteague - but Mal also likes to write. Someday she hopes to be a writer and illustrator of children's books, which I think is a neat idea.

Part of what makes Mallory fun is that she's easygoing and doesn't get fazed by much. I think that's because she comes from a huge - and I mean huge - family. Mallory is eleven like me, and she has seven little brothers and sisters! Three of them are triplets, believe it or not. Their names are Adam, Jordan, and Byron, and they're ten. Then comes Vanessa - she's nine - and Nicky, who's eight, followed by Margo, who's seven. The baby of the family is Claire. She's five. The Pike household is never boring. Actually, I think that Mal sometimes envies my (relatively) quiet family. She doesn't get much private time.

Even though she's the oldest, Mallory feels that her parents still treat her like a kid. (I can relate to that!) She had to work really hard on her parents - just like I did - to convince them to let her get her ears pierced. Her next project is to get contacts, but I think that's a long way off. With her red hair and freckles, and her glasses and her braces, Mal has a hard time feeling glamorous - even with pierced ears. But you know what? I bet she's going to be a real knockout someday. She just has to be patient. (I should talk. I'm as impatient as she is.) When I first moved to Stoneybrook, I felt so lonely. I'd just left my best friend, Keisha (who also happens to be my cousin), and I wondered if I'd ever find another best friend. But as it turned out, I not only found Mallory, which was great, but a whole bunch of other friends. These friends are all very different from each other, but they have one thing in common. They love baby-sitting, just like I do. And that's why they formed the Baby-sitters Club. I'm lucky to be a member and to have them all as friends. Mallory and I are the youngest in the club, by the way. Everyone else is thirteen.

Kristy Thomas is the president of the BSC. She's something else. When I first met Kristy, I was a little intimidated - she's very straightforward (sometimes she's even got a big mouth) and energetic. But now I like her, and admire her, a lot. She's always having these great ideas - and she acts on them, too. She's not just a dreamer.

Kristy's family is pretty complicated to describe, but here goes. First of all, her parents got divorced years ago after her dad walked out, leaving Kristy's mom to take care of Kristy and her brothers. (She's got two older brothers, Charlie and Sam, and: a younger one named David Michael.) Mrs. Thomas did a good job of being a single parent. But then she met Watson Brewer, who is a real, true millionaire. They fell in love and got married, and Kristy and her family moved across town to live in Watson's mansion.

But it's not just the six of them in that gigantic house. Watson had also been married before, and he has two kids - Karen (she's seven) and Andrew (he's four). They stay with the Brewers and Thomases every other weekend and for two weeks in the summer. Karen and Andrew love Kristy, and she loves them, too. No wicked stepfamilies here! You'd think that a family that size would be enough. But you'd be wrong. Kristy's mom and Watson recently decided to adopt Emily Michelle, this two-and-a-half-year-old Vietnamese girl. (She's an absolute doll!) And then Nannie, Kristy's grandmother, moved in to help take care of Emily. Wow. Now that's a big family. And I haven't even told you about Shannon and Boo-Boo. (Don't worry, they're not more kids. Shannon's a dog and Boo-Boo's a cat.) Plus, there are some goldfish.

So that's Kristy. Oh! I forgot to tell you what she looks like. Kristy is on the short side, and she's got brown hair and brown eyes. And she's kind of a tomboy - that is, she doesn't care much about clothes or makeup, she likes to play baseball, and she's not all that interested in boys.