Ann Martin - Baby-Sitters Club 030

Another thing about me: I am very sensitive. This is good and bad. It's good because I think it makes me more understanding of other people. My friends in the BSC often come to me when they have problems because they know I'll listen and be sympathetic and sometimes offer advice, but I try not to judge them - just to understand them. Being sensitive is bad because I cry at the least little thing. I'm incredibly sentimental. Maybe being sentimental is why I'm the only one in the club to have ... a boyfriend! Can you believe it? I barely can. His name is Logan Bruno and he comes from the South - Louisville, Kentucky. He's actually part of our club, but I'll have to explain that later.

Enough about me.

On to Stacey McGill, the treasurer of the club. Stacey is originally from New York City, and is about as cool and sophisticated as Claudia. Maybe that's why Stacey and Claud are best friends. (Guess what Stacey's real name is. Anastasia Elizabeth!) If Claudia's fashion rating is a ten, then Stacey's must be a nine and a half. Her clothes are amazing, too, but she doesn't have that artistic flair that Claud does. (Did I mention that Claudia often makes her own jewelry? She makes ceramic beads or earrings, or beaded bracelets, things like that.) Stacey has no interest in art, but she does have a body wave in her short blonde hair, and pierced ears. (In case you're wondering, Claudia has one hole in one ear and two in the other; Stacey, Mallory, and Jessi have regular pierced ears; Dawn has two holes in each ear, and Kristy and I plan never, ever to let someone punch holes through our earlobes. The very idea makes me shiver.) Anyway, Stacey has had an interesting, but sort of tough life. For starters, she has diabetes, which is. a disease in which her body doesn't make the right amount of insulin to control the level of sugar in her blood. That might not sound serious but it can be very serious. Stacey has to give herself injections of insulin every day and stick to a controlled diet. I mean, she can only eat certain foods (NO sweets) at certain times, and she has to take in a certain number of calories every day no matter what. She also has to go to the doctor pretty often and check her urine every day. That's gross, but it has to be done. If Stacey doesn't do all these things, she could wind up in a coma.

Plus, Stacey was born in New York. She lived there until the beginning of seventh grade. Then the company her father works for transferred him to their Connecticut branch, so the McGills moved to Stoneybrook. That was when we all got to know Stacey. But the McGills had only been here about a year when the company transferred Mr. McGill back to New York. What a drag. We missed Stacey a lot, especially Claudia. However, the McGills had been in the city again for only a little while when Stacey's parents decided to get a divorce. Then the worst possible thing (for Stacey) happened. Her father stayed in New York (because of his job), but her mother bought a house back here in Stoneybrook. So Stacey had to choose where to live. Her parents said the decision was hers. Boy, was that a tough one. Stacey didn't want to hurt either her mother or her father, plus she likes both New York City and Stoneybrook. In the end, she moved back to Connecticut with her mom - but she visits her dad a lot.

Stacey doesn't have any brothers or sisters or pets. She is very close to her mother, however.

Okay, now it's Dawn's turn. She's the alternate officer of our club. (More about that later.) Again, you already know a few things about Dawn. Her parents are divorced, too, her dad and brother live in California, her mother's parents live here in Stoneybrook, Mrs. Schafer (or maybe I should say the scatterbrained Mrs. Schafer) is dating my dad, Dawn is one of my best friends, and she lives in an old farmhouse with a secret passage.

Here's what Dawn looks like: she has the longest, palest hair you can imagine. It's smooth as silk and almost the color of milk. Her eyes are a bright blue, and she's of average height and on the thin side. One thing I like a lot about Dawn is that she's a real individual. She dresses however she/pleases (my friends and I think of her style as California casual), she eats health food and no meat while the rest of us (well, except for Stacey) are cramming ourselves with junk food, and she stands up for what she believes in. She hardly ever lets other people get her down. Dawn visits her dad and Jeff when she can, but I know she misses them. Personally, I think she could do with a pet.

The last two members of the BSC, the junior officers, are Jessica Ramsey (Jessi for short) and Mallory Pike (Mal for short). While Dawn, Kristy, Stacey, Claud, and I are eighth-graders, Mal and Jessi are sixth-graders. They're eleven years old. They're also best friends. And like most best friends, they're alike in many ways, and different in many ways. They're alike in that neither of them has divorced parents and they're both the oldest in their families. It's tough being the oldest, I think, and Mal and Jessi want to grow up a lot faster than their parents want them to - although they were allowed to have their ears pierced recently, so that was a good sign. They both love to read, too, especially horse stories. I think their favorite author is Marguerite Henry, who wrote Misty of Chincoteague and Stormy, Misty's Foal, but they like Barbara Morgenroth (she wrote Impossible Charlie) and another author named Lynn Hall, too.

Each of their families has a pet hamster.

The differences between Mal and Jessi are, first of all, that Mal is white and Jessi is black. Second, Mal had to get braces. Then there are their families. Mallory's is huge. She has seven younger brothers and sisters, including a set of identical triplets - boys. Jessi's family is average sized. She has an eight-year-old sister named Rebecca (Becca for short), and a baby brother with a funny nickname. His real name is John Philip Ramsey, Jr., but when he was born, he was the tiniest baby in the hospital, so the nurses called him Squirt. Even though he's caught up to other babies his age by now (he's sort of walking), the Ramsey s still call him Squirt.

Also, while both Jessi and Mal like to read (and, I might add, make endless gum chains), Jessi wants to be a professional ballet dancer one day, and Mal wants to be a writer and illustrator of children's books. They're both very talented. You should read some of Mal's stories. And you should see Jessi dance. She takes lessons at a special school and has performed on stage in front of hundreds of people.

One final difference between the girls: Mal grew up in Stoneybrook, and Jessi's family moved here from New Jersey not long ago. There are very few blacks in Stoneybrook, which has been hard on Jessi, but she's adjusting. And so are some of the people who originally gave the Ramseys a hard time.

So there you have it. Those are the members of the BSC. Now you know all about Kristy and Dawn and me and the rest of us.

I stopped daydreaming. Dawn handed me the phone and I talked to Kristy for fifteen minutes. By the time we hung up, I could tell she felt better.

Good. I'm one of her best friends, and what are best friends for?

Chapter 3.

"Okay! I'm here! The meeting can start now!" Kristy Thomas never just arrives - she makes an entrance.

It was a Baby-sitters Club meeting day and Kristy was the last to arrive. You'd think she'd always be the first, and I'm sure she'd like to be, but since she moved across town, she depends on Charlie, her oldest brother, to drop her off at our meetings and pick her up later. (We pay him for this service.) Our meetings are held in Claudia's bedroom because she's the only one of us with her own phone and personal phone number. This is important to us, because otherwise, we'd have to rely on some grown-up's phone, and I know we'd always worry about tying it up, or else we'd have to wait while the grown-up was on the phone, and then our clients would call us and get a busy signal.