Ann Martin - Baby-Sitters Club 040

BSC040 - Claudia and the Middle School Mystery - Martin, Ann M.

Chapter 1.

"So, if Gertrude used two thirds of a cup of chocolate to make eight cookies, how much chocolate would be in each cookie?" Janine asked.

I frowned. I bit my lip. I tapped my pencil against my front teeth. "Each cookie would have ..." Right then I hated Gertrude, whoever she was. Why did she have to make cookies, anyway? And why did she have to measure out the chocolate? I'd just dump in as much as I had. I love chocolate. And I hate the name Gertrude.

Janine nodded at me encouragingly, smiling as if I'd already come up with the right answer.

I looked up at the picture hanging over my desk. Mimi, as a twelve-year-old, gave me her gentle smile. I looked down at the problem one more time. "It's got to be one twelfth." I said. "One twelfth of a cup in each?" Janine was grinning at me.

"You've got it, Claud!" she said. "I really think you understand it this time." She smiled some more. "Excellent!" So now you know how much chocolate Gertrude put in each cookie, and so do I, I guess - at least this time. But you don't know who I am, or who Janine might be, or even who Mimi in the picture is.

I'm Claudia Kishi. I'm thirteen and I'm in eighth grade at Stoneybrook Middle School. I have long black hair and almond-shaped eyes (I'm Japanese-American) and in case you haven't already figured it out, I'm not what you would call a scholar. In fact, the test I was studying for was in remedial math. That's right. I can't seem to keep up with the rest of my class, at least in certain subjects. I try hard, but maybe not hard enough. The fact is, I'm just not too crazy about things like math and science.

What am I crazy about? I'll tell you. First on my list is art. I love drawing, painting, sculpting, making things out of papier-mâché, making collages, making jewelry . . . well, you get the picture.

Next, I love my family. We're pretty close.

There's just Mom and Dad and Janine and me. My dad's an investment banker, my mom's a librarian, and my sister, Janine, is a genius. I mean it! She's a junior at Stoneybrook High, but she's taking college courses already. It's, well, it's interesting to have a genius in the family. More about Janine later.

Mimi, the one in the picture, was my grandmother. (Of course she wasn't my grandmother yet when that picture was taken.) She died not long ago, but I love that photo of her as a young girl. She looked a lot like me way back then.

I miss Mimi all the time. How can I explain how wonderful she was? Always calm, always gentle - that was Mimi. She understood me better than anyone else ever has. Sometimes I just can't believe that I'll really never see her again. But she'll always be in my heart, and just thinking of her and looking at her picture can make me feel close to her.

Now, where was I? Oh, right. Things that I'm crazy about. Well, I love to baby-sit - so much so that I belong to a club called the Babysitters Club - but more about that later, too. I also love to read Nancy Drew mysteries, and I adore junk food. Doritos, M&M's, Twinkies - I never say no to any of it.

My parents, however, don't like me to read Nancy Drew books (they would prefer that I read "classics") and they really don't like me to eat junk food. "Proper nutrition is important . . ." You know the line.) So I've learned to hide my secret vices. The Nancy Drew books get stuck under my mattress, or on the top shelf of my closet, or underneath a pile of dirty clothes. The junk food gets stashed anywhere and everywhere - it's always turning up where I least expect it. Last night, for example, when I was looking for my favorite watercolor set, I found a box of Milk Duds that I had hidden about three months ago. (They were still good.) On this night, though, I wasn't eating any junk food or reading any Nancy Drew books. I was studying for a big test, a huge test, a killer test. This math test was going to count for a big part of my final grade. I just had to do well on it.

Janine was helping me study. It's kind of a rule in my family (my parents' idea) that somebody has to help me with my homework every night. Mimi used to be my favorite helper of all. She never got impatient with me, she never made me feel dumb, and even though she didn't often tell me so, I always knew that she was very, very proud of whatever I did.

Janine is a different story.

It's not that she's mean or anything - but I just don't think she has any idea of what school is like for me. See, she loves school. She'd go to school eight days a week if she could. I don't think she's ever gotten any grade lower than an A-. And you should see the classes she takes! I don't even understand the names of, most of them - especially the computer ones.

And here she is, helping me try to understand how Gertrude measures chocolate - and why. She must think I'm so dumb. I know it's really nice of her to help me, but I sure wish I didn't need her - or anyone's - help.

I looked back at my math book. All those fractions were kind of making me dizzy. Janine was being unusually patient. She knew this test was important to me.

"So how do you like Mr. Zorzi, Claudia?" she asked. Mr. Zorzi is my math teacher - at least he is for now. See, my regular teacher is out for a few weeks, recovering from an operation, so we have Mr. Zorzi as a long-term substitute.

"He's okay, I guess. I've had him before. He knows it takes me awhile to catch on to some of this stuff," I said, nodding toward my messy notebook.

Frankly, I never think too much about my teachers and whether I like them or not. I just do my best to get through most of my classes without making a total fool of myself. Janine, however, just loves some of her teachers - and all of them think that she's the greatest.

Sometimes I get so tired of teachers asking me, "Claudia Kishi? Are you Janine's sister? Well, I know I can expect some wonderful work from you, if you're anything like Janine." Of course, they're always disappointed. Except my art teachers. Art is the one thing that I can do well, and Janine has no interest in.

"Okay, Claud. Let's try another one," Janine said. I tried to focus on the numbers in my math book. I was getting tired. "Now, look," she said. "This is an improper fraction. But all we need to do is simplify, then multiply by the reciprocal ..." I blanked out for a minute. When Janine got that schoolteacher-ish tone in her voice, she could be hard to listen to. Besides, most of what she was saying sounded like gibberish to me. I know it wasn't right, when she was being nice enough to take the time to help me study - but I just drifted off. I was thinking about this collage I'm working on, and wondering if there would be any good pictures in the new gardening magazine that my mom had brought home that day.

"... and, by using cross-simplification we find that the train was actually traveling at forty-eight miles per hour, which is ... Hey Claudia!" Janine snapped her fingers in front of my face. "Earth to Claudia, Earth to Claudia," she said. "Can you read me?" "Oh, sorry, Janine," I said. "I was just - " "You were daydreaming again," she said. "I know that look on your face." She frowned and pushed her glasses up - they'd slid down her nose while she was lecturing. "What were you thinking about?" "Oh, nothing, really," I said. "Let's keep going. What about Problem Five?" There was no way I was going to tell Janine what I'd been thinking about. I had finished planning my collage, and I'd started to ponder the very deep and important issue of ... what I was going to wear to school the next day! If Janine only knew.

Janine cares nothing about clothes - and that's just one more thing that makes us very different. Janine would be happy wearing the same white blouse, plaid skirt, red cardigan, and flat shoes every day.

On the other hand, I am of the belief that "you are what you wear." (I'd rather think that than "you are what you eat." If that were true I'd be a Snickers bar or something.) Anyway, I love to dress in a way that some people here in Stoneybrook might call outrageous. For example, here's what I was thinking of wearing the next day: Since I had the big test, I thought I'd start with my lucky earrings - the ones that look like Princess Di's. They're huge (pretend) emeralds, surrounded by thousands of tiny (phony) diamonds. Then I thought I'd work downward from there, wearing my new green-and-blue-tie-dyed T-shirt dress (the casualness of the dress would be an interesting contrast to those fancy earrings) over green leggings.