Ann Martin - Baby-Sitters Club 030

I was particularly glad I did not have the doorway to a secret passage in my room.

I also began to miss Tigger, my kitten. I always miss him when I'm not with him. I miss him when I'm at school, when I'm babysitting, when - Ring, ring.

"Oh, goody! The phone!" exclaimed Dawn. Dawn just loves getting phone calls. She made a dash for the upstairs extension. I followed her.

"Hello?" she said. Then, "Jeff! Hi! How are you? . . . Yeah! Really? That's great." (Dawn put her hand over the receiver and said to me, "Jeff joined a basketball team. He's practically the star player.") She returned to her conversation. "What? . . . Oh, Mary Anne's here. . . . Yeah, Mom and her dad are out again. . . . What? . . . Oh, to dinner and a play in Stamford. . . . Yeah." Dawn talked for awhile longer, and my mind began to wander. I thought of how my life had changed in the last year. The business of Dad dating Mrs. Schafer was major, of course. Then there was the business of Dad letting up on me and becoming less strict. Finally there was another kind of business - the Baby-sitters Club. Maybe that was the most important business of all.

The club consists of seven members - Dawn, me, Stacey McGill, Claudia Kishi, Mallory Pike, Jessi Ramsey, and Kristy Thomas. Kristy is the president of the club and my other best friend.

And wouldn't you know it - just as Dawn was hanging up with Jeff, and I was thinking of Kristy, the phone rang again. Guess who it was?

Kristy! She was calling to see if Dawn and I were together and what we were up to. She was baby-sitting that night, the kids were already in bed, and she sounded sort of lonely.

I began to think back to when Kristy and I used to be each other's only best friends. . . .

Chapter 2.

Up until last summer, for as long as I could remember, Kristy and I had lived next door to each other on Bradford Court. (Claudia Kishi lives across the street.) Kristy and I were nearly inseparable, even though we are opposites in terms of personality. But we were the best of friends anyway. We still are - except that a few things have changed. One, Dawn moved here and she became my other best friend, especially after our parents began going out. Two, Kristy's mother remarried and the Thomases moved across town.

This is beginning to sound a little complicated, so let me back up and tell you about the members of the Baby-sitters Club. As I said, the president of the BSC is Kristy. Like Dawn and me, she's thirteen and in eighth grade. Unlike Dawn and me, she has a very unusual family. Kristy has three brothers - Sam and Charlie, who are in high school, and David Michael, who's only seven. When David Michael was quite little, Mr. Thomas walked out on the family and never came back. So Mrs. Thomas just took things in hand and raised her four kids alone, getting a really good job at a big company in Stamford, Connecticut. Then, when Kristy was in seventh grade, Mrs. Thomas started going out with this man named Watson Brewer, who is an actual millionaire. They finally got married, even though Kristy didn't want them to. She hated the idea of a new father, especially one who was going bald. But Watson has two adorable children - Karen, who's six, and Andrew, who's four - and slowly she reconciled herself to the idea of the wedding and of moving into Watson's mansion. Now I, personally, would have died to live in a mansion, but believe me, I could also understand about not wanting to leave the house you've grown up in. Anyway, it's a good thing Kristy did move to a mansion because her family is so big now. Living there are her brothers; her stepfather, Watson; her mom; and every other weekend, Andrew and Karen. Plus, her family recently adopted Emily, a little girl from Vietnam, and when that happened, Nannie, her grandmother, moved in to help care for Emily, since both Watson and Kristy's mom work.

Here are the important things to know about Kristy: She's a tomboy and coaches a softball , team, Kristy's Krushers, for little kids. She's the shortest girl in our class, she's got brown hair and brown eyes, and she's on the immature side. She doesn't care much about the way she looks. She always wears the same kind of outfit: blue jeans, a turtleneck shirt, a sweater (well, not in the summer, of course), and running shoes. Sometimes she wears a baseball cap with a picture of a collie on it. That's because her family used to own this wonderful old collie, Louie, but he got sick and had to be put to sleep. Now they have a Bernese mountain dog named Shannon, plus Watson has this old, fat cat named Boo-Boo.

A few others things about Kristy - she has a BIG mouth (she just can't help saying what she's thinking), she gets lots of good ideas (the idea for the Baby-sitters Club was hers), and most important, she's terrific with kids.

Claudia Kishi is the vice-president of the BSC. I always think it's so weird that Claudia, Kristy, and I could have grown up together (right from the time we were born) and have wound up as such different people. Claudia is one of the coolest people .1 know. She has an artistic flair that extends to her clothing and hair and just generally the way she looks. What I mean is that Claud is a terrific artist - she can paint, draw, sculpt, make collages, you name it - and those talents show up in her appearance. She always wears the trendiest outfits. For instance, at our last meeting she was wearing layers - a shocking-pink tunic over a white shirt with pink and yellow umbrellas printed on it. Over the tunic was a wide, low-slung yellow belt with a pink plastic buckle. The shirt, but not the tunic, was tucked into a pair of black knickers, and below the knickers were yellow stockings.

Then there's her hair. Claud's hair is something else. Her family is Japanese-American, and Claud has this shiny, black hair. But her hair isn't just shiny and dark, it's long. And Claud can find a million ways to wear it. At that last meeting, she had divided it into five braids and had woven pink and yellow ribbons into the braids. Claud also has dark, almond-shaped eyes and a super-creamy complexion.

She is so cool.

Claud lives with her parents and her older sister, Janine, who is a true genius. Janine is so smart that even though she's only in high school she takes classes at the local community college. Claudia's grandmother, Mimi, who was a very special person, used to live with her family, but Mimi died not long ago. That was really sad.

Here's what Claud likes: art, junk food, and Nancy Drew mysteries. Her room is a real mess because she's got art supplies scattered everywhere. And since her parents don't approve of either Claud's junk-food habit or Nancy Drew, she has to stash those books and the food where they won't be found. She's got mysteries under her mattress and candy in her desk drawers. Here's what Claud doesn't like: school. She's very smart, but her teachers are always saying that she doesn't apply herself. Mr. and Mrs. Kishi finally had to tell Claud that the only way she could stay in the BSC was if she kept her grades up to at least a C average. So far, she has.

I'm the secretary of the club, and I guess you already know pretty much about me. I'm on the shy side, my dad dates Dawn's mom, I live with my father and Tigger, and Dawn and Kristy are my best friends. I lost my mother when I -was very little, and I've grown up in the house I was born in.

Here are some things you don't know about me yet: I actually look a little like Kristy. I've got brown hair and brown eyes, too, and I used to be on the short side, but now I'm growing. I'm a couple of inches taller than Kristy. Also, until recently I didn't care much about the way I looked. Well, that's not true. The fact of the matter is that Dad used to pick out my clothes for me and I always ended up looking like a baby in these dumb jumpers or plaid kilts. But when he loosened up, he let me pick out my own clothes. I'm nowhere near as cool as Claudia, but I did buy some neat stuff. If Claud's fashion sense could be rated a ten, and Kristy's a two, I guess I must be about a six. Maybe a seven.