Ann Martin - Baby-Sitters Club 030

Confused? I guess I better explain how our club works. See, three afternoons a week (Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays) we meet from five-thirty until six o'clock. Our clients know we meet then, and they call us when they need a baby-sitter. Then I check our record book to see which one of us is free, and we call the client back to tell her (or him) who the sitter will be. That's the beauty of the club. With seven possible sitters, someone is bound to be available, so our clients are never disappointed.

How do our clients know when we meet? Because we advertise, that's how. We send out fliers. When we first started the club, we even placed an ad in the local paper. By now, we've got a reputation as responsible, reliable, fun baby-sitters, so news of our club also spreads by word of mouth.

As you know by reading this far, each of us has a special job in the club. Kristy is our president because she's the one who came up with the idea for the club in the first place. Back at the beginning of seventh grade, she and her older brothers were responsible for taking care of David Michael after school or any evening when their mother was busy. But there came a time when Kristy's mom (I never know whether to call her Mrs. Thomas or Mrs. Brewer now) needed a sitter and neither Kristy nor her brothers were free. So Mrs. Thomas (that was her name then) got on the phone to try to find a baby-sitter. Kristy watched her make call after call without any luck - and that was when her great idea was born. Wouldn't it be terrific, she thought, if her mom could dial one number and reach a whole bunch of eager sitters? So she got together with Claudia, Stacey, and me and we started the Baby-sitters Club. It caught on quickly, and when Dawn moved here, we asked her to join, because we had so many clients. Then the club grew even more, and Stacey moved away, so we replaced her with both Jessi and Mal. But, of course, when Stacey returned, we let her right back in the club.

Anyway, Kristy's main responsibilities are to run the meetings and to keep thinking up good ideas - like Kid-Kits. Kid-Kits are boxes (we each made one) that we decorated and then filled with a few of our old games, toys, and books, and new items like coloring books or stickers or crayons. Then we sometimes take the Kid-Kits with us on a sitting job. Our charges love them. There's just something intriguing (to a little kid) about toys that aren't your own. And Kristy seemed to know that. That's one reason she's such a good club president - even if she can be too bossy. She also makes us keep a club notebook in which we have to write up every job we go on. Most of us don't like doing this, but we have to admit that it's helpful to see how our friends handle baby-sitting problems, and to know what's going on at the homes of the people we sit for.

Claudia is our vice-president, mostly because we use her room as our club headquarters and tie up her phone three times a week.

As secretary, my job is to keep the record book (not to be confused with the notebook) in order and up-to-date. The record book is where we record all important club information, such as our clients' names, addresses and phone numbers, and information about the children. Probably the most important pages in the book are the appointment pages. That's where I keep track of everyone's schedules - Jessi's dance classes, Mal's orthodontist appointments, Claud's art lessons, etc. - as well as our baby-sitting jobs. When a call comes in, it's up to me to check the schedule, see who's free for the job, and help decide who should take it if more than one person is available. It is a very important job and I am proud that 1 have never once made a scheduling mistake.

Stacey, the treasurer, has the job of collecting our club dues each week. No one likes to part with her money, even though it goes toward good things - new items for the Kid-Kits, Claud's monthly phone bills, Charlie's fee to drive Kristy to the meetings, and fun things such as club slumber parties. Stacey also records the money we earn on jobs (she does this in the record book), but this is just for our own information. We don't divide up the money. Each of us gets to keep whatever we make.

Stacey is practically a genius at math.

As I said, Dawn is the club's alternate officer. That means that she gets to take on the job of any officer who can't make a meeting for some reason. (She's dying to be the president one day, but Kristy has never missed a meeting.) When Stacey went back to New York for that year, Dawn became the treasurer, but she happily took over her old job when Stacey returned. Dawn doesn't care much about math and numbers, even if the numbers represent money. She's a very good alternate officer and, like the rest of us, she's a good baby-sitter, too.

Jessi and Mal, our junior officers, don't have actual jobs. Junior officer means that they're not allowed to baby-sit at night yet, unless they're taking care of their own brothers and sisters. But they're a great help to us because they can handle lots of the afternoon and weekend jobs, which frees us older sitters up for evening jobs.

Even so, there are times when calls come in for jobs that, for one reason or another, none of us can handle. When that happens, we call on our associate members. There are two of them. They don't come to meetings, but they're responsible baby-sitters who can back us up so that we don't have to disappoint any of our clients by telling them that we can't provide them with a sitter. One of the associate members is a friend of Kristy's in her new neighborhood, Shannon Kilbourne. Guess who the other associate member is - Logan Bruno! I guess that's really all you need to know about our club. As you can see, Kristy has planned it well and keeps it running smoothly.

As soon as Kristy had dashed into club headquarters, she plopped down in Claud's director's chair (that's where she always sits), exchanged her collie cap for her president's visor, and stuck a pencil over her ear.

"Are we all here?" she asked. "Oh, no. We're not. Dawn's missing." It was only 5:25. Kristy is a stickler for starting meetings on time. That's both good and bad. It's good because it's responsible and because you always know you have exactly until 5:30 to get to Claudia's room. Kristy won't start a meeting early. On the other hand, she won't start a meeting a second late, which is the bad part. As soon as Claudia's digital clock, our official timepiece, turns to five-thirty - boom, the meeting starts, whether you're there or not. And if you come in late, Kristy usually isn't happy, although she won't be mean to you or anything, unless it's, like, the fifth time in a row that you've been late.

We waited for Dawn. Kristy sat in her chair, reading through the club notebook.

Stacey was perched backward in Claud's desk chair, facing into the room, her arms resting on the top rung. She was examining her nail polish, which was pale pink with iridescent sparkles in it.

"I'll have to redo my nails," she was saying. "Three of them are chipped." "I don't know why you bother with polish," I said. "It's such a pain. You have to worry about it all the time." "I know," replied Stace, "but it makes my hands look great!" Claudia and I were sitting on her bed, leaning against her wall. (When Dawn arrived, we'd move over to make room for her.) Claud's leg was propped up on a pillow. She broke it awhile back and in certain weather, usually before it rains, her leg hurts her a lot. The doctor said it might always do that.

Claudia has a good attitude about it. "I'm probably more accurate than that weather forecaster on Channel Four," she's always saying.

Claud shifted uncomfortably on the bed. "Anyone hungry?" she asked.

Since it was nearly dinnertime, we all were.

"There are some M and Ms in a box under my bed, and a package of crackers under the desk," she told us.