Ann Martin - Baby-Sitters Club 040

The only thing I hadn't figured out was the shoes - should I go with my old ballet flats, or the black leather high-tops I'd just gotten? I was having a hard time deciding.

But I wasn't about to ask Janine for her advice. If she had any idea of what I'd been thinking about - oh, my lord, I don't even want to imagine what she might say.

So I distracted her by showing off my mathematical brilliance. "Check out Problem Five, Janine," I said again. It was a word problem, about Jack and Jill renting a rowboat and how much it would cost them if they rowed for two and a half hours. (Why I should care, I don't know - you wouldn't catch me out in some leaky old rowboat for even five minutes.) I did some quick calculations and a bit of plain old guessing. "The answer would be ... let's see . . . four dollars and twenty-five cents, right?" Janine looked at the problem for about two seconds, then beamed at me. "You really do understand, don't you, Claudia? I can see that you're not going to have any problems with this test." "Right," I said. "No problems at all." I only wish I could have been as sure about it as she was.

Chapter 2.

When we'd finished going over all the problems, Janine gave me a few quick tips on test-taking in general. I have to admit that by then I was getting kind of tired of all this. But I nodded in all the right places, and soon Janine finished her little speech, wished me good luck on the test, and left my room.

"Thanks a lot, Janine!" I yelled after her. As soon as she was gone I turned on my radio. I hate studying when it's totally quiet, but Janine won't tolerate the radio when she's helping me. Then I turned my attention back to my desk. Time to straighten it up and then finish off the rest of my homework. I gave my math book one more quick glance and then stuck it into my backpack, along with my notebook.

The rest of my homework was a breeze, compared to studying for that test. I raced through it. Then I put down my pencil, got up and stretched, and threw myself onto my bed. "Aaaahh!" I sighed. "All done." I rolled over and reached for the phone.

"Hi, Stace - it's Claud," I said, when my best friend, Stacey McGill, answered the phone at her house. I told Stacey all about my big math test, and about how incredibly nervous I was about it. She tried to calm me down. (She's great in math, just like Janine. She never gets nervous about tests.) "C'mon, Claud," she said. "What about all that time we've spent going over that stuff?" It was true. Stacey had been helping me with my math all year, during study halls and sometimes even - when I was especially confused - during lunch.

"I know, Stace, but - " "But nothing," she interrupted. "You know that material backwards and forwards. You're going to do a great job on that test. I guarantee it!" This made me feel better, but I still wasn't convinced. I dropped the subject, and we talked for awhile longer, about clothes, about a movie we'd seen, and about our club - the Baby-sitters Club.

"Just think, Claud," she said. "By the time we have our next meeting you'll have taken the test. It will all be over with." She was right. We had a club meeting the next day after school. When we'd said goodbye and hung up, I thought about how lucky I was to have such a good friend. And even though Stacey's my best friend, I'm especially lucky because I've got a whole gang of other friends, too - the other members of our club.

Maybe I should tell you about them.

First off, there's Kristy Thomas. She's the president - and the founder - of the Babysitters Club. Kristy used to live on my street, and I've known her since I was about six months old, probably. Now she lives way across town with her "new" family.

Kristy's original family was pretty average - a mom, a dad, two big brothers (Sam and Charlie) and one little one (David Michael). But when David Michael was a baby (he's seven now), Kristy's dad just up and left. I'm not even sure where he lives now - California, maybe? - but Kristy has almost nothing to do with him.

Kristy's mom is a pretty strong woman - I think Kristy takes after her in that way - and she held her family together for years. But then she was lucky enough to fall in love and get married again. And she didn't marry just any old guy. She married Watson Brewer, one of Stoneybrook's millionaires. After that, Kristy and her family moved across town into Watson's mansion (yes, it really is a mansion), but of course Kristy remained president of our club.

So these days Kristy's family is anything but average. Besides being a millionaire, Watson is the father of two children from his first marriage - Karen, who's seven, and Andrew, who's four. They're at Watson's every other weekend. But even when they're not there, the house is pretty full.

Who else lives there? Well, there's Emily Michelle, the most adorable baby in the world. She's a two-year-old Vietnamese girl whom Kristy's mom and Watson adopted not long ago. Soon after Emily Michelle came, Nannie moved in, too. Nannie is Kristy's mother's mother, and she watches Emily when nobody else is home.

And as if that weren't enough, there's Boo-Boo and Shannon, too. No, they're not kids - they're pets. Boo-Boo is a mean, fat, old cat. (Watson would probably be mad if he heard me say that, but it's true!) And Shannon is a puppy who's going to turn into a gigantic dog some day - a Bernese Mountain dog, to be exact.

So Kristy's got a busy life at home. But I think she likes it that way. She's always doing two or three things at once and planning a fourth at the same time. She's a whirlwind with great ideas {like the one about starting our club). She's so busy that she doesn't care much about her looks - which, in fact, there's nothing wrong with. Kristy has brown hair and eyes, and a really friendly, open face. She's pretty, but she doesn't seem to want to bother with clothes, or makeup, or hairdos, or any of that. She wears the same thing every day - running shoes, jeans, a turtleneck, and maybe a sweater, if it's cold. I guess you'd have to call her a tomboy.

Kristy's only fault may be that she kind of has a big mouth. At times things just slip out of her mouth - but usually it's not a problem with the rest of us. We're used to it.

Even Mary Anne Spier isn't bothered by the blunt way Kristy can talk. And that's saying something, because Mary Anne is the most sensitive soul in the universe. Who's Mary Anne? She's the secretary of our club, and Kristy's best friend, which is kind of funny if you think about it - they're so different. Mary Anne is as quiet as Kristy is loud, and as shy as Kristy is outgoing.

They do look alike, though. Mary Anne's a little taller than Kristy (Kristy's the shortest person in our class), but her hair and eyes are the same shade of brown as Kristy's.

However, Mary Anne's clothes are trendier than Kristy's, she's less of a talker (she's a great listener, in fact), and she's more of a romantic. Maybe that's why she's the only one in our club who has a steady boyfriend. His name is Logan Bruno, he's incredibly cute, and he's in our club, believe it or not. (He's just an associate member, but I'll explain all about that later.) Sometimes it still amazes me that Mary Anne is allowed to have a boyfriend. I still think of her father as strict, even though he's actually eased up a lot recently. See, Mary Anne's father raised her on his own - her mother died when Mary Anne was just a tiny baby - and I guess he thought that being very strict was best. But he got married again not too long ago, and that seems to have softened him up a bit. Actually, he was beginning to be less strict even before that - back when he was just dating his future wife.

And who is that wife? I thought you'd never ask. Mr. Spier just happens to be married to the mother of another member of our club, Dawn Schafer. How did they meet? It's a crazy story. Mrs. Schafer and Mr. Spier were high-school sweethearts, right here in Stoneybrook. But Mrs. Schafer left town for California, and that's where she met and married Dawn's father. They had Dawn and her younger brother, Jeff, but later they got divorced. Then Mrs. Schafer and Dawn and Jeff moved back to Stoneybrook, and it wasn't long before the high-school romance bloomed all over again! Isn't that great?