Ann Martin - Baby-Sitters Club 032

My friends thought this was a great idea, too, but they also thought three people weren't enough. So we asked Stacey, who was just getting to know Claudia then, if she wanted to join, and she said yes! A few months later, when Dawn moved to Stoneybrook, our club was doing so much business that we asked her to join, too. Then when Stacey had to move back to New York, we couldn't do without her, so both Jessi and Mal joined the club. And then Stacey returned to Stoneybrook. We welcomed her back into the club, of course. As an original member and a good friend, we'd never have turned her away. Plus, we needed her. I think, though, that with seven members plus our two associate members, Logan and Shannon, the BSC is finally big enough.

Here's how our club operates. The seven members meet three afternoons a week - Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from five-thirty until six. Our clients call us at those times to line up baby-sitters. They know they'll get one. Ifs unlikely that every single one of us plus Logan and Shannon would be busy.

How do clients hear about our club and know when and how to reach us? Because we advertise. Before we even started the club, we distributed dozens of fliers in our neighborhood, and we even placed an ad in the Stoneybrook newspaper. Now we send out fliers occasionally, but we don't really need to. News of our club spreads by word of mouth, plus we have as much business as we can handle.

Every member of the club (except for Logan and Shannon) is an officer.

I am the president. This is mostly because I thought up the club in the first place, and also because I'm good at solving problems, running the club, and thinking up new ideas.

For instance, I decided that we should keep a dub notebook. It's sort of like a diary. In it, my friends and I write up every single job we go on. Then, once a week, we read the recent diary entries to see what went on when our friends were baby-sitting. Nobody (except Mallory) really likes to write in the diary, but we all agree that reading it is helpful. We find out what's going on with the kids we take care of, and how our friends solve sitting problems.

Another of my ideas was that we should each make a Kid-Kit. Kid-Kits are boxes that we decorated with paint and felt and sequins and things, and filled with our old games, books, and toys, plus some new items such as sticker books, crayons, and drawing paper. Children just love playing with the stuff in the Kid-Kits. For some reason, other people's toys are always more interesting than theirs. And happy baby-sitting charges mean happy parents who are apt to call the BSC again with more jobs! Claudia is the vice-president of the club. She's the only one of us with a phone in her room and her own phone number. This is an ideal situation. If we had to use some adult's phone, we'd feel that we were tying it up. Plus, nonbaby-sitting calls would come in and interrupt our meetings. We think if s only fair that Claud be the VP, since we invade her room three times a week, use her phone, and eat her junk food.

Mary Anne is the club secretary. She has the biggest, most complicated job of any of us. As secretary, if s up to Mary Anne to keep our club record book (don't confuse that with the notebook) up to date. In the record book is all the important club information - names and addresses of our clients, the money we earn (recording that is really Stacey's job), and most important of all, the appointment pages. On those pages, Mary Anne schedules every single sitting job we go on. In order to do that, she has to know all of our schedules - when Mal has orthodontist appointments or I've got a Krushers game or Jessi has ballet classes. So far, Mary Anne hasn't made a single mistake. She's amazing.

Stacey is our treasurer. Since she loves money and is a math whiz, this is the perfect job for her. Every Monday, Stacey collects our club dues and adds it to the treasury (which is a manila envelope). Then she doles out money whenever it's needed, usually for four things - new items for the Kid-Kits, to help pay for Claud's phone bill, to pay Charlie to drive me to and from meetings, since I live so far from BSC headquarters now, and to buy supplies for occasional club treats such as pizza parties or sleepovers. Stacey loves collecting the money and hates parting with it.

Dawn is our alternate officer. This means that if any club member has to miss a meeting, Dawn can take over her job for her. She's like a substitute teacher: she has to know what everyone does. When Stacey moved back to New York for that short time, Dawn became the treasurer. But she gladly gave up the job when Stacey returned. She's not nearly as good at math as Stacey is.

Jessi and Mal are junior officers. They don't actually have jobs. "Junior officer" means that they're only allowed to baby-sit after school or on weekends. They can't sit at night unless they're sitting for their own families. They are a huge help to us older members, though. Since they take on after-school jobs, they free the rest of us up for evening jobs.

Then there are our associate members, Logan and Shannon. As I mentioned before, they don't come to meetings. They're just reliable sitters we can call on if a job is offered to the BSC that none of the rest of us can take. Believe it or not, this happens from time to time. (In case you're wondering, Shannon Kilbourne is a friend of mine. She lives across the street from me in my new neighborhood. And she's the only one of us club members who doesn't go to Stoneybrook Middle School. Instead, she goes to a private school.) And that's how we operate our club.

"Order! Order, please!" I called.

My friends stopped talking. Claudia turned away from the window, which she'd been about to peer out of again.

Everyone was sitting in her usual place. I was in the director's chair, as I mentioned; Jessi and Mal were sitting on the floor, leaning against Claud's bed; Claud, Dawn, and Mary Anne were sitting in a row on the bed, leaning against the wall; and Stacey was sitting backwards in Claud's desk chair, her arms draped over the top rung. (Sometimes Stacey sits on the bed and Dawn sits in the desk chair.) Since it was Wednesday and not Monday, Stacey didn't have to collect dues. So I asked, "Any club business?" Six heads shook from side to side.

We waited for the phone to ring.

We'd lined up three jobs when, at 5:50, the phone rang for a fourth time. I answered it. "Hello, Baby-sitters Club." "Hello," said an unfamiliar voice. "My name is Mrs. Felder." "Oh, Mrs. Felder," I said. "This is Kristy Thomas. I used to live around the corner from you." (Even though I didn't really remember Mrs. Felder, maybe she remembered me.) "Hi, Kristy," she replied warmly. "I'm calling because I heard how wonderful your babysitting business is. And I've got a daughter, Susan. She's handicapped - autistic actually - and she's been living at a special school, but now she's home for a month, waiting to be transferred to a new school. I don't work, but I'd like a break from Susan three afternoons a week if possible. Just for a couple of hours each time so I can get out and go to the store, that sort of thing. Do you think any of you would be able to take on a job like that?" "I'll have to check," I told Mrs. Felder. "I'll call you right back." I hung up the phone and explained the job to my friends.

"Gosh," said Mary Anne, "that's going to be tough, scheduling-wise." "What did you say is wrong with Susan?" asked Jessi.

"She's autistic. I think that's the word Mrs. Felder used. But I'm not sure what it means." "Retarded?" suggested Claudia.

I shrugged.

"Well, anyway," said Mary Anne, "Kristy, it looks like you're the only one of us who could sit for Susan three times a week for a month. You don't have any lessons or anything, and if you went to the Felders on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, you wouldn't even have to cancel a Krushers practice or the sitting jobs you've already got lined up." "Hmm," I said. "Charlie has to drive me over here for meetings on those days anyway. Maybe he could do it right after school instead of at five-thirty. Then he could pick me up at the regular time. Let me call Charlie." So I did, and he said he could work that into his schedule. Then he added, "For a small additional fee, of course," but it turned out he was only kidding.