Ann Martin - Baby-Sitters Club 042

I tried to concentrate on learning my steps. I was doing the best I could to forget about the whole miserable scene before rehearsal. But I couldn't get it out of my head.

..Mme Noelle couldn't either - that was obvious. She was very impatient with me, and since I was feeling distracted, she kept having to repeat directions. That didn't help.

"Long neck, Mademoiselle Romsey!" she said. "You are not doncing zee part of a hunchback. You are a princess - please act like one." I stretched my neck and proceeded to stumble in the middle of my glissade. I heard somebody giggle behind me. Wonderful! I just knew that everybody in the class was now convinced that I was a complete airhead. Once again I tried to concentrate.

"STEP!" said Mme Noelle suddenly, clapping her hands. I had gotten off the beat. This was just not my day. She went to the record player and started the music from the beginning. "And . . . again," she said, nodding at me. "I want nossing but grace from all of you," she said. "1 want absolutely magnificent, glorious grace." Right.

I worked harder and harder, forgetting the time, forgetting my lost shoes, forgetting everything except the music and how I was moving to it. Before I knew it, Mme Noelle was clapping her hands. "Okay, mademoiselles," she said. "Next time we will do better, am I right?" I met her eyes and nodded. She gave me a tight smile - I guess she was going to forgive me.

I walked to the dressing room, relieved that rehearsal was finally over. I changed back into my school clothes and reached into my dance bag for my high-tops. I was thinking that the next rehearsal would just have to go better than this one - it certainly couldn't go any worse. Then I pulled my left sneaker out of the bag and saw something stuck between the laces.

It was a note. And this is what it said: BEWARE. Nothing more, nothing less. Just . . . BEWARE.

I couldn't figure out what it was supposed to mean. Beware of what? Beware of whom? I thought it was pretty strange. But I was too tired from rehearsal to wonder about it for long. I shoved it into my bag and headed out the door.

Chapter 4.

I was still feeling a little shaky by the time I got to Claudia's for that day's Baby-sitters Club meeting, but I tried not to let it show as I slipped into my regular spot next to Mallory on the floor. As usual, I had arrived about two and a half seconds before Kristy called the meeting to order. (I nearly always get there just under the wire because of dance class, but nobody gives me a hard time about it, which I'm thankful for.) I guess I forgot to mention that our club always meets at Claudia's house, in her room. This is why: Claudia, the vice-president of the club, has her own phone and her own personal phone number. That means that we're not tying up any adult's phone while we take calls during meetings.

Let me go back and explain a little bit about how the club began and how it works. The whole thing was Kristy's idea originally. Re-38 member how I told you that she's always having good ideas? Well, this was the ultimate good idea, and here's how it happened: One afternoon, way back before Kristy's mom married Watson Brewer, David Michael needed a baby-sitter. Usually Kristy or her brothers would have watched him, but this time none of them could. Mrs. Thomas made about three zillion phone calls looking for a sitter, but she wasn't having any luck.

That's when Kristy had her brainstorm. What if parents could reach a whole crew of sitters, just by making one phone call? It seemed like a great idea. Kristy talked to her two friends Mary Anne and Claudia (who were interested) and they started a club - The Baby-sitters Club (or the BSC). Three people didn't seem like enough for a club, though, so Claudia asked Stacey, whom she was becoming friends with to join. It was just the four of them until Dawn moved to town and became friends with Mary Anne. Dawn had done some baby-sitting out in California, so they asked her to be a member, too.

Mallory and I joined the BSC during the time that Stacey was back in New York, before her parents got divorced. The rest of the club members were feeling kind of overwhelmed with jobs, and we were available, so it worked out for everyone. Even though (we think) we're lowly sixth-graders and can only sit during the day (except for our own families), I think we fit in pretty well.

So, all together there are seven of us now, and it seems like the club is just the right size. In fact, I don't think Claudia's room could hold too many more people without bursting at the seams.

The way the club works is pretty simple. We meet on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 5:30 to 6:00. Parents can call during those times to arrange for a sitter. (Most of the parents have been using us forever; new clients find out about us through the fliers we distribute from time to time, or by word of mouth.) Kristy is the club president, and she takes her job pretty seriously: She's all business at meetings. She always sits in Claudia's director's chair, with a visor on her head and a pencil over her ear. She calls each meeting to order just as the digital clock flips to 5:30. Sometimes she asks us if we've read the club notebook. (We always say yes, because we always have.) The club notebook, in case you're wondering, is the place where we record every job we go on. We write down what happened, who it happened to, why it happened, and anything else we can think of. Seriously, it's a good thing that we have it. Reading it keeps us up to date on our clients and what's going on with them. The only thing is, it's kind of time consuming to write all that stuff down - and then to read what everybody else wrote. But it's worth it. By the way, the notebook was Kristy's idea (of course).

Anyway, let's get back to answering the phone. When a call comes in, someone takes it (we all dive for it) and finds out when and where the job will be. Then we tell the parent that we'll call right back. Next, Mary Anne, the club secretary, checks the record book. (It's different from the notebook.) The record book is kind of an amazing thing. In it, Mary Anne keeps track of all our schedules: Claudia's art classes, my dance classes and rehearsals, Mal's orthodontist appointments . . . you get the idea. Then, when a call comes in, she only needs to take a quick peek to see which of us is free. In the record book is a lot of other stuff besides our schedules. It has records about all our clients: names, addresses, phone numbers - and also stuff about the kids we sit for, like who's allergic to what.

Anyway, once Mary Anne finds out who's free, it's usually a simple matter to decide which of those sitters gets the job. We rarely squabble over jobs, since there's always enough work to go around. Then we call back the parent and confirm the job. And that's it! Well, not quite. I forgot to tell you about the treasury. Stacey, the math genius, is in charge of that. As treasurer, she can tell you in about three seconds exactly how much money we have available.

Where does the money come from? Well, it's like this. We keep all the money we earn on jobs - that's ours. But every Monday, we pay club dues. (Not without a lot of complaining, I might add - we hate to part with our hard-earned money.) The dues are used for club stuff, like paying Kristy's brother Charlie to drive her back and forth to meetings since she lives too far away to walk now.

We also use the money for the occasional pizza bash or for sleepover munchies. (We're not all business, all the time!) And we use some of it for supplies for our Kid-Kits. Kid-Kits are yet another of Kristy's great ideas. They're really just cardboard boxes, but we've each decorated our own with all kinds of stickers and sequins and stuff. The boxes are stocked with things that kids love - crayons and books and puzzles and paper dolls . . . stuff like that. We bring them on any job where they might come in handy.