Kid-Kits were one of Kristy’s great ideas. We each got a box and decorated it, then filled it with old toys from our houses, and other things, such as books, stickers, scissors, and glue. The kids love them. I try to vary the things in my kit. You know, one week I’ll bring puppets, another week Play-Doh. And when we run out of crayons or coloring books, Stacey gives us money to restock our Kid-Kits.
After Stacey has doled out the money and if there’s any left over, we sometimes splurge on a pizza party or a trip to the movies.
Another of Kristy’s great ideas was the BSC notebook. It’s kind of like a diary in which each of us writes down our sitting experiences. Writing in it can be a pain, but we agree that the notebook is really useful. It lets us know what’s happening in the lives of the families we take care of — if one of the kids is having trouble adjusting to a new baby, or the parents are going through a divorce. This way we can be prepared.
So that’s our club and how it works. Since today was Monday, I knew we would be busy. I pedaled as fast as I could to Claud’s house, raced through her front door and collapsed on her bed just as the clock turned from 5:29 to 5:30.
Kristy raised an eyebrow at the sight of me gasping for air but since I was on time she really couldn’t say anything. Instead she adjusted her visor and declared, “This meeting of the BSC is officially called to order. As you know, today is Dues Day.”
Jessi joked, “I think we should all chip in to pay for an oxygen tank for Dawn.”
I put one hand over my heart and said dramatically, “If I die now, please tell the world I died happy because I was on time to the Baby-sitter’s Club meeting.”
Everyone cracked up. Kristy swatted at me with her hand but before she could say anything the phone rang. I settled back between Mary Anne and Claud as Claud picked up the phone.
“Hello, Baby-sitter’s Club. Your kids are our business.” (Kristy gave Claudia a look. She likes us all to act very professional.)
“Oh, hello, Mrs. Barrett,” Claudia said as she tried to saw off the top of a huge bag of Gummi bears with a letter opener. She’d stashed the candy in the lower drawer of her desk so her parents wouldn’t see it. “Tomorrow afternoon? Great. I’ll call you right back.” Claud hung up the phone. “She needs a sitter tomorrow,” she announced.
Mary Anne checked the record book. Mal and Jessi already had jobs and Stacey had a doctor’s appointment. “Claud has an art lesson and I promised Logan I’d go the mall with him,” Mary Anne said. “So it’s either Dawn or Kristy.”
“You live much closer to the Barretts,” Kristy said to me. “Why don’t you take it?”
“Sure.” The Barrett kids, who I used to refer to as the Impossible Three, were now some of my favorites. I was glad to take the job.
For the next twenty minutes the phone did not stop ringing. Mal booked a job with the Arnold twins on Wednesday, Claud with the Hobarts Tuesday night, and Jessi with the Johanssens on Wednesday afternoon.
Stacey had just finished collecting everyone’s dues when the meeting was over. I had hoped to discuss my list of ideas for my science project with the club, but realized I’d have to wait till the next day.
That was okay, because the really great idea didn’t come to me until I baby-sat for the Barretts.
Woof! Woof!
Pow, the Barretts’ basset hound, met me on their front porch when I arrived to baby-sit on Tuesday. He was wearing a baby bonnet, and a plastic bottle was tied around his collar. He looked miserable.
“Come here, you bad dog,” five-year-old Suzi Barrett cried as she ran around the side of the house. “You’re supposed to take your nap now.”
“Hi, Suzi,” I said, kneeling down to hug her. “Is Pow giving you trouble?”
Suzi nodded. “I’m playing house and he’s my baby.”
Then the front door flew open and Buddy Barrett, wearing a cowboy hat and chaps, shouted, “Hooray, it’s Dawn!” He flung a loop of clothesline around my shoulders and shouted, “Got you!”
“Oh, no!” I cried, pretending to be scared. “What’s going on?”
“I’m the sheriff,” Buddy declared. “And you’re under arrest.”
“No, she’s not.” Suzi put her hands on her hips and faced her brother. “Dawn is going to play house with me and Pow.”
“Dawn! Dawn!” another voice shouted from inside the house.
Marnie, the two-year-old, who has curly blonde hair and big blue eyes, raced down the stairs and through the front door and wrapped her arms around my knees.
I bent down and picked her up. “It’s a good thing you showed up, Marnie,” I said. “I think you broke up the argument Sheriff Buddy and Mother Suzi were about to have.”
When I first met the three Barrett kids they were impossible. Their hair was uncombed, their house was a total mess, and they acted pretty wild. But I soon discovered it was only because their parents were going through a rough divorce and Mrs. Barrett was having trouble getting a job and running the house at the same time. Things are much better now. The house isn’t quite so messy, Mrs. Barrett has a part-time job, and the divorce isn’t as awful as it was at first. The Barrett kids can still be rowdy, but they’re a lot of fun.
Mrs. Barrett appeared in the front hallway, looking as if she had just stepped off the cover of some fashion magazine. I’m not kidding, she was absolutely gorgeous.
“Oh, hello, Dawn. I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “The kids have been looking forward to seeing you all day.”
I smiled at her and then ruffled Buddy’s hair. “I’ve been looking forward to seeing them, too.” I held up my Kid-Kit. “I’ve got a surprise I want to show them.”
“Oooh, I want to see!” Suzi shouted, hopping up and down.
“Me, first,” Buddy cried.
“Me, me,” Marnie chimed in.
“Let’s go into the living room and I’ll show all three of you,” I said.
Mrs. Barrett slipped on a light jacket that she’d taken from the hall closet. “I’ll be at the dentist’s office. I’ve written her name and number on the pad by the phone. I’ll be back in about two hours,” she told me. “There are crackers and some cans of juice on the kitchen counter. ’Bye, kids!”
Buddy and Suzi waved good-bye but didn’t look up. They were too preoccupied with what was in my Kid-Kit. I said good-bye to Mrs. Barrett and then carried Marnie into the living room. We sat in a circle around the box.
Buddy pulled out the paper bag holding my surprise and peeked inside. His face fell when he saw what it was. “It’s a book.”
“But not just any book,” I said mysteriously. “Open it up and tell me what you see.”
Suzi pulled back the cover and then squealed with delight. “Stickers! I love stickers.”
Buddy tried to sound out the words written across the top of the big vinyl-coated page. “Mah-reen. Werrrrld.” He looked up at me with a grin and repeated it. “Marine World.”
“That’s right, Buddy,” I said. “Good job.”
The book was actually a fold-out map of Marine World. It showed several ponds, a walkway, waterfalls, and slides. In the middle of the fold-out was a piece of paper covered in stickers.
“What kind of animals do you see there?” I asked them.
Suzi peeled the stickers off the page, calling them by name. “Fish. Whale. Seal. Hippo-lot-a-mess.”
I couldn’t help giggling. “I think you mean, hippo-pot-a-mus.”
Suzi nodded solemnly. “That’s what I said.”
“Dawn.” Buddy held up a sticker. “What kind of fish is this?”
“It’s a dolphin. They’re one of the smartest creatures in the ocean.”
“You mean, they can do tricks?” Suzi asked.
“Yes, but they also communicate with each other and with us. In dolphin language, of course.”
“I want one,” Buddy declared.
“Where would you keep it?” I asked.
“In the bathtub,” Suzi suggested.
“Oh, a do
lphin’s much bigger than that,” I replied. “And it needs lots of room to swim in. Here’s something sad about dolphins. Did you know that a lot of them die just because we like to eat tuna fish?”
Buddy looked at me skeptically. “What’s tuna fish got to do with dolphins?”
“Well, some fishing fleets use nets that accidentally trap millions of dolphins every year. And the sad thing is that the fishermen could catch the tuna without using nets, but they don’t want to.”
“How come?” Buddy demanded.
“They say it’s too expensive that way.”
“That’s not fair,” he protested.
“How do you know all of this?” Suzi asked, cupping the sticker gently in her hand.
“I’ve been studying our planet and the animals that live on it in school.” I pointed to the Marine World sticker book. “That’s why I bought this book. Half of the money I spent on it will go to the Save the Dolphins fund.”
Buddy leapt to his feet. “I want to save the dolphins.”
“So do I,” Suzi said, joining him.
“Me, too!” Marine sprang to her feet and grabbed Suzi’s hand. The three kids hopped up and down chanting, “Save the dolphins.” (It sounded a lot like, “Save the doll’s fins.”)
“You can save them,” I said, excitedly.
They quieted down and Suzi asked, “We can? How?”
“Well, first of all, we can write the tuna companies and tell them we won’t buy their tuna if they keep hurting the dolphins,” I explained. “Look, I’ll write the letters and you guys can sign them.”
“Yay!” Suzi squealed so loudly that Pow started barking. The baby bonnet had fallen over his eyes and, as he barked, he struggled to knock it off his nose with one of his big paws.
I pulled the bonnet off Pow’s face and held up my hands to quiet Suzi. “There are a lot of other things we can do, too — things that will help all of the animals in the sea.”
“Like what?” Buddy asked.
I’d checked out several books from the library about ecology and our planet and had looked through them during lunch, so the ideas were still fresh in my mind. “Well, we can start by making sure the garbage we dump in the ocean doesn’t hurt the fish and animals.”
“I never throw my garbage in the ocean,” Suzi said, putting her fists on her hips and looking indignant. “That’s littering.”
I couldn’t resist giving her a hug. “I know you don’t, but some big companies do. Come on.” I took her hand. “Let’s go in the kitchen and I’ll show you what gets thrown in the water.”
Buddy, Marnie, and Suzi trotted obediently after me. Our first stop was the kitchen counter. A six-pack of soda sat by the telephone. I pointed to the plastic rings holding the cans together. “These are really dangerous to fish and sea animals. When they float in the water, they look like food. Then sea turtles swallow them, which is harmful to their insides. Seals and birds, like pelicans and seagulls, get them caught around their necks. Even fish can get tangled in them.”
“But what can we do about it?” Buddy asked earnestly.
I opened the top drawer by the sink and pulled out a pair of scissors. “Clip the rings so there are no circles for animals to get caught on.”
“I want to do it!” Suzi cried, reaching for the scissors.
“No, I do,” Buddy said stubbornly.
I realized I had to think fast and find Suzi another chore. I looked around the room for an idea and spied the garbage can.
“Suzi, why don’t you look in the garbage and pull out every can you find?” I unfolded a paper bag that had been tucked between the refrigerator and the wall. “Put them in here and we’ll recycle the aluminum.”
“We’re going to take it for a tricycle ride?” Suzi asked, squinting one eye shut.
I couldn’t help laughing. “No. Recycle means to use things over and over again.” I pulled an empty can of juice out of the trash. “If we don’t throw this away, it can go back to the factory and be used again and again. But if we toss it out, then it floats around our oceans, hurting all those innocent sea creatures.”
Suzi dove for the trash basket. “I’m going to make sure every single can is re-tricycled.”
“Good for you!” I couldn’t believe how much fun it was to teach the Barretts about ecology. We spent the remainder of the afternoon talking about ways we could save our planet, and the animals on it.
“Turn off dripping faucets,” I said, pointing to the leaky kitchen faucet. “That will save water.”
Mrs. Barrett had made some cream cheese-and-nut sandwiches and put them in plastic bags.
“Don’t throw away these bags,” I said. “Recycle them. We’ll wash them out and let them dry. Then your mom can use them again.”
Buddy and Suzi and even Marnie were such eager students that suddenly I got this idea. If the Barrett kids were this anxious to learn about ecology, maybe other kids in the neighborhood would be, too. What if I taught an after-school ecology class to the kids I baby-sat for? It would be the perfect project for Mrs. Gonzalez’s class and, best of all, it would be fun!
After I left the Barretts that afternoon, I couldn’t stop thinking about my project. I knew that getting all the kids to one location and teaching the class would be a lot of work. I also realized I would need help. After dinner that night, I dialed Stacey and told her about my great idea.
“Kids, of all people, should know how to save the planet,” I said to Stacey on the phone. “After all, it’s going to be theirs the longest.”
“Dawn, it’s a terrific idea,” Stacey agreed. “And I found the perfect book that will be just right for this class. It’s called 50 Simple Things Kids Can Do to Save the Earth.”
“I think I’ve seen that at the library,” I said, making a note of the title on the pad of paper by the phone. “Great! So we have our textbook and our project, and it’s only Tuesday. We’re way ahead of the rest of the class.”
“There’s only one problem,” Stacey said. “Do you think Mrs. Gonzalez will let us work on the project together? I mean, we’re not even in the same class.”
That thought had occurred to me but I figured, since it was such a great idea, Mrs. Gonzalez would go for it. She’d just have to.
“I’ll talk to her first thing tomorrow morning,” I said, trying to sound confident. “Just bring the book and start thinking of how we’re going to put this project together.”
“She said yes!”
My voice echoed down the hallway at Stoneybrook Middle School as I shouted to Stacey across the crowd of students milling around their lockers. Several of them turned to stare at me. Normally I might have been embarrassed but not today. Today I didn’t care.
Mrs. Gonzalez had taken the afternoon to think about the project. After school she had called me into her classroom for a talk. “I think it’s a wonderful idea,” she’d said. “You and Stacey just need to keep clear records of who contributes what to the project.”
Stacey, who had been more worried than me, let out a squeal of delight at my news. “All right!” Then she gave me a big hug.
I caught Brent Jensen nudging his friend Todd Long and pointing at us, a smirk on his face. Stacey stuck her tongue out at him and I said, “Take a picture, it’ll last longer.”
Then we raced out of the big glass doors of SMS into the open air.
“We have to get started right away,” I said as we hurried down the sidewalk. “We have to make lists, and decide on what day of the week we should hold our classes.”
Stacey nodded. “That means a ton of phone calls. Why don’t you come to my house? We can use the phone in my room.”
Stacey isn’t like Claud, who actually has her own telephone number, but she does have her own extension, which I think is very cool.
We hurried to Stacey’s house, which is this hundred-year-old house directly behind Mallory’s house. We tossed our school books onto the living room couch and then I followed Stacey into the kitchen.
“As I see it,” Stacey said as she made us a healthy after-school snack of celery and carrot sticks, “we should schedule six weeks worth of lessons.”
I took a loud crunchy bite of celery. “Each week we could deal with one or two different ways of saving the planet. Week one could focus on recycling.”
Stacey nodded. “Week two — conserving water. Then maybe ways to save energy.”
“Right.”
She poured us each a tall glass of juice and we carried our snacks to her room. I sat cross-legged on her bed, cradling the plate of celery and carrot sticks on my lap.
“We could follow the rest of the headings from Mrs. Gonzalez’s class.” I ticked them off on my fingers. “Acid Rain, Air Pollution, Vanishing Animal Life, Too Much Garbage, and Water Pollution. And then the last week we could concentrate on getting the word out to others.”
“You mean, like having the kids call people up?” Stacey asked.
“They could do that or …” I squinted one eye shut to think. “How about if we do something like invite people to come to a fair? With exhibits and posters —”
“That the kids made themselves,” Stacey chimed in.
I snapped my fingers. “We could call it a Green Fair.”
“Dawn, that’s a fabulous idea!” Stacey said excitedly.
“I think we’re definitely on the right track,” I declared.
“This project will be the best one in the whole school,” Stacey agreed.
“It will be,” I said slowly, “if we can get some kids to attend our classes.”
“There’s no time to waste,” Stacey said, picking up the phone. “Let’s start calling people.”
“Wait!” I pulled my yellow notepad out of my bookbag. “Let’s make a list of people to call, and what we want to tell them. Then we should include that list in our report.”
“That’s good.” Stacey searched for a pen in the top drawer of her desk. “That way Mrs. Gonzalez can see all the work we’ve put into the project.”