Ann Martin - Baby-Sitters Club 041

Now, just like it was hard to tell you about Kristy without telling you about me, it's hard to tell you about me without telling you about Dawn, since she's my stepsister. For starters, Dawn is gorgeous. She has long, pale blonde hair and sparkly blue eyes. Dawn is our California girl. She grew up outside of L.A., and lived there until her parents got divorced. After the divorce, Mrs. Schafer (Dawn's mother) moved Dawn and Dawn's younger brother, Jeff, all the way to Stoneybrook. That's because Mrs. Schafer grew up here and her parents still live here. Of course, the move was difficult for Dawn and Jeff. They switched from a warm climate to a cold one (cold in the winter, anyway), and they had to leave all their friends behind. Dawn adjusted to this pretty well, but Jeff never did, and after awhile, he moved back to California to live with Mr. Schafer. This is not an ideal situation, but it's the way things are. Dawn and Jeff frequently fly across country to visit the other half of their family.

I think one of the reasons Dawn adjusted to the move so well is because she's an individualist. She's independent and usually doesn't care what people think about her. She eats what she wants (health food) and dresses the way she likes. (My friends and I think of Dawn's style as California casual.) Dawn loves mysteries and reading ghost stories, so you can imagine that she was delighted to find that the old farmhouse her mother bought came complete with a secret passage. The passage leads from Dawn's bedroom (the entrance is concealed in the paneling) to the barn on our property, and it was part of the Underground Railroad long, long ago. Guess what. The passage may even be haunted! Here's how Dawn and I got to be stepsisters. First we became friends (right after Dawn moved to Connecticut), then we realized that my father and Dawn's mother had gone to Stoneybrook High together, and then, by looking through their old yearbooks, we discovered that they had been in love. We found out that they wanted to get married, but Dawn's grandparents didn't think my dad was good enough for their daughter, so they sent Sharon off to college in California. That's where Sharon met Mr. Schafer, and where they married and had Dawn and Jeff. Anyway, when Dawn and I realized that our parents had been in love, we were quick to get them back together. They had an on-again, off-again romance for awhile, but finally they got married. The rest is Schafer/Spier history.

Claudia Kishi, another BSC member, is the one I spoke to on the phone when I felt as if I was wimping out with Logan. Although Claudia grew up with Kristy and me, she's always been more mature than we have. She wears the trendiest clothes you can imagine, and she is so cool. A typical Claudia outfit might be black leggings, a baggy black-and-white shirtdress, low black shoes, and big wild earrings for her pierced ears. This outfit would be particularly striking on Claud because of her looks. She's as gorgeous as Dawn, but in a different way. Claudia is Japanese-American. She's got silky, jet-black hair; dark, dark, almond-shaped eyes; and this creamy complexion. The fact that her complexion is flawless comes as a great surprise to everyone, since Claud is the biggest junk-food nut we've ever known. If it tastes good and is bad for you, Claud likes it. Of course, her parents don't approve of the habit, so Claudia has to hide her junk food. She's got it stashed all over her bedroom - in drawers, under pillows, behind books on her shelves. It's amazing.

Poor Claud. She has another habit her parents don't approve of - she reads Nancy Drew books. So she has to hide her books, too. The reason her parents don't approve of Nancy Drew is that they feel Claud should be reading something more challenging. I think she should be allowed to read what she wants to read. If she didn't read her mysteries, she wouldn't read anything at all. Claud is not a great student. She's smart, but she does poorly in school, especially in math, reading, and spelling. Her teachers say she doesn't apply herself, but if I were Claud, I'd be just plain nervous about school. That's because Claud has to follow in the footsteps of her older sister, Janine, who is a true genius. Janine is in high school, but she takes courses at the local community college. Plus, she is always winning awards for her schoolwork. Luckily, Claudia has one true talent. She is an artist. She can do just about anything - paint, sketch, sculpt, even make jewelry. She makes a lot of her own jewelry, and sometimes makes jewelry for other people.

Claudia's best friend is Stacey McGill. Like Dawn, Stacey is a newcomer to Stoneybrook. She and her parents moved here from New York City just before Stacey was to begin seventh grade. Stacey had grown up in New York (she is so lucky) and she's as sophisticated as Claudia, which may be why they get along so well. Stacey also wears super-trendy clothes - layers on layers, hats, pins, cowboy boots, that sort of thing. Plus she's allowed to have her blonde hair permed and she likes to wear nail polish, usually with sparkles in it.

Stacey may seem glamorous, but her life has definitely not been that way. Stacey's had a tough time, with both her family and her health. See, Stacey had moved to Stoneybrook because the company her father works for had transferred his job to Stamford, which is a city not far away. The McGills had been here for less than a year when the company transferred Mr. McGill back to New York. We were all sad to see Stacey leave (Claudia was especially sad), but then something traumatic happened. Stacey's parents decided to get a divorce. Even worse, Mr. McGill wanted to stay in New York with his job, while Mrs. McGill wanted to return to Stoneybrook. So Stacey had to decide whether to live in the city in which she'd grown up or to move back to Stoneybrook with her mom. Luckily for Claud and all us BSC members, Stacey chose Connecticut, but she still visits her father pretty frequently. Going back and forth between Connecticut and New York is not always easy, though.

As for Stacey's health, she has a disease called diabetes, and she has a severe form of it. (She said something recently about being a "brittle" diabetic, but I don't know what that is.) Anyway, when someone has diabetes, it means that a gland in the body, the pancreas, stops making something called insulin. Insulin breaks down sugar in the blood. Without insulin, a person's blood sugar level gets all out of whack and he (or she) could even go into a diabetic coma, which is very dangerous. So poor Stacey has to inject herself with insulin (ew, ew, EW!) every day, and stay on a strict diet. On her diet she can eat practically no sweets, and she has to count calories to make sure she consumes the proper number - without fail. Stacey has been looking thin lately and feeling tired. Sometimes we worry about her.

The last two members of the BSC are younger than Dawn, Kristy, Stacey, Claudia, and I. Their names are Mallory Pike and Jessi Ramsey, and they're both eleven and in sixth grade. They are also best friends, and like most best friends they have some things in common, yet are very different in many ways. Here are the ways in which they're different: Mallory comes from a huge family. She has seven brothers and sisters! And three of them are identical triplets (boys). Jessi comes from a more regular-sized family. She has a younger sister and a baby brother. (Mal and Jessi each live with both of their parents, plus Jessi's Aunt Cecelia lives at the Ramseys' house.) Jessi is thinking of becoming a professional ballet dancer one day, while Mal is pretty sure she's going to write and illustrate children's books after she goes to college. Boy, you should see Jessi dance. She is really talented. She dances en pointe (that means on toe), she takes lessons at a special ballet school in Stamford, and she has danced lead parts in lots of productions before big audiences. Mallory is talented, too, but she's more private about her stories and drawings. We don't get to see many of them, but when we do, we're impressed.