Ann Martin - Baby-Sitters Club 027

"The kids in my class only like the show because of Waldo," Becca went on. "But not me," she said, pouting. "I wish Lamont was the one who'd gone to Stoneybrook Elementary." I was curious to find out more about this Waldo business, but it was too late to ask Becca any more questions. The commercials had finished up and the show had come back on. Lament was back on screen, cornering the kid who had swiped his homework.

"Quiet!" Becca said.

Squirt toddled over and crawled onto my stomach. I picked him up, sat up, and plunked my little brother onto my lap. I stared at the screen and waited for Waldo to come back on. This new information made the show a lot more interesting. I tried to picture Waldo playing baseball with the kids in the schoolyard here. Or shopping for school clothes at Washington Mall. Maybe he got those weird glasses of his at the same place Mallory got her glasses.

When the show was over I ran to the telephone to call Mallory. I figured if there was any family that would know about this Waldo business, it would have to be the Pikes. I mean, out of eight kids, somebody's got to know something. That's one advantage to having a best friend from such a large family. It's like calling Information Central.

When Mallory came to the phone, she confirmed everything Becca had said.

Yes, it was true. Waldo and his family did live in Stoneybrook, only not full-time anymore. She said that Waldo's real name is Derek Masters, and she told me that now that he had to be out in California for a chunk of the year, his family had moved with him to L.A. They would be back when he had finished taping P.S. 162.

"How do you know all this?" I asked.

"A star from Stoneybrook! Are you kidding? It's big news. Everybody knows it," said Mallory. "Anyway, Derek used to be in Nicky's class." Nicky is one of Mallory's younger brothers. He's eight years old and in the third grade.

"In Nicky's class!?" I practically shrieked. Uh-oh. I was getting star struck, and by the time this whole mess was over, I was not going to be the only one. "Put Nicky on the phone, will you?" I asked.

When Nicky got on, he told me all about Derek. He told me that Derek had been a local child model, that he'd been in a lot of magazine ads and even on one TV commercial here. Somehow, that had all led to the job on P.S. 162.

"Wow!" I said. I couldn't believe that no one had told me any of this before. This was hot news, and I wanted a chance to talk about it with my friends. I couldn't wait for the next meeting of the Baby-sitters Club.

Chapter 2.

By the time I skidded into the meeting on Monday, everybody else was already there. Kristy Thomas (remember, I told you she's the one who started the club) was sitting in her director's chair, wearing her visor, as usual. As I walked in that day, she was chewing on the tip of a pencil, waiting for Claudia's digital clock to turn to 5:30 so she could start the meeting. When I caught sight of her, I almost giggled. To me, it kind of looked like she was gnawing on a cigar. The way Kristy sits in that room and takes over, you'd think it was her house, her bedroom and her director's chair. That's because she's the club president, but actually we hold the meetings in Claudia Kishi's house. Claudia is our vice-president. She has her own bedroom with her own phone and private phone number, and she's nice enough to let us use them for the club. I should probably tell you a little bit about the club members so you know who we are. There're six of us all together. I'll start right at the top.

Kristy? Well, she's . . . Kristy. Sometimes people think she's a little bossy, but she certainly does know how to take charge of the club, and I really admire her for that. Kristy's a tomboy type. She's short for her age and she's got brown hair and brown eyes. She always wears jeans, a turtleneck, a sweater, and sneakers. I think I'd faint if I ever saw her in a dress.

Kristy lives with her mom and Nannie (her grandmother), her three brothers, her stepfather (Watson) and her newly adopted little sister, Emily Michelle. Watson has two other kids from when he was married before, and sometimes they come to stay at the house, too. I call it a house, but I'll tell you what it really is - a mansion. No kidding. See, Watson is a millionaire. And when Kristy's mom married him last year, Kristy and her brothers moved over to the ritzy side of town. Kristy still goes to our school, but she does live a little far away from the rest of us. So we pay her brother Charlie to give her a ride to Claudia's house every time we have a meeting.

Claudia is about as different from Kristy as you can get. I'm talking sun and moon. Claudia is Japanese-American and she's got long, sleek, black hair that she has fixed a different way every time I see her. You wouldn't think there could be so many ways to fix hair. That Monday, for instance, she had two French braids pulled back and wound into one. She's also a wild dresser. At that meeting she was wearing a bright pink T-shirt, a short red flouncy skirt, and underneath the skirt she had on black footless tights that she had rolled up to mid-calf.

Claudia has a little bit of trouble in school, but what she's really good at is art. That's probably why she gets such interesting ideas for putting wild and colorful clothes together. She loves to paint and sculpt and make collages, and her room is cluttered with the boxes she keeps all her materials in. She's got boxes of paints, boxes of brushes, and boxes of fabric scraps, interesting bits of paper, ribbon, wood pieces, everything. You name it, Claudia can turn it into art.

The only boxes in her room that aren't filled with art supplies are the ones stuffed with junk food. You might not think someone so into art would be into Cheez Doodles and Tastee Cakes, but Claudia is. She keeps a stash in her room and passes it around at all our meetings.

The secretary of our club is Mary Anne Spier. Mary Anne is short, like Kristy, and also has brown hair and brown eyes. Sometimes Mary Anne can be on the quiet side, and she's very sensitive (also romantic), but she's extremely organized, and that's exactly what makes her perfect to be club secretary. Mary Anne's job is to schedule all the baby-sitting appointments as they come in. She has to keep track of everyone's schedule, so she always knows who's free when, and believe me, that's a lot to juggle. Take me, for instance. I probably have the busiest schedule of anyone in the club, what with my ballet classes and a semiregular sitting job. Keeping track of me alone is practically a full-time job.

Mary Anne's mother died when she was a baby, so she lives alone with her father. Mr. Spier can be kind of strict, but in the past year he's loosened up a lot. Now Mary Anne even has a boyfriend! His name is Logan Bruno and he's very nice. Can you believe it? The shyest girl is the one who gets the steady boyfriend? And to top it off, she's the only club member who has one! The last important officer is our treasurer, and that's Dawn Schafer. Dawn has long, white-blonde hair and she's a real California girl. Her whole family used to live in southern California, but then her parents got divorced. Now her father lives there with her brother, and Dawn lives here with her mother in an old, restored farmhouse.

Dawn's an independent type. She has her own opinions and she does what she likes. For instance, she won't have anything to do with Claudia's junk food. Dawn's strictly a natural-foods girl. Her idea of a good sandwich is tofu, sprouts, and tahini on whole wheat pita bread. Try offering that to Claudia.

Those four are the eighth-grade members of the club. Then there's Mallory and me, the lowly sixth-graders. We are the junior officers. We came into the club when one of the other girls, Stacey McGill, moved back to New York City. (My family moved right into her old house!) Since we're younger, we mostly take jobs in the afternoons or weekends. The only night jobs we're allowed to take are with our own families.