Kristy (who was in my social studies class) raced down to the cafeteria with me. We claimed the table we used to sit at last year with Dawn and some of our other friends. (Stacey and Claudia usually sat with their own group of kids.) In a moment Dawn showed up. She settled down and opened her bag lunch while Kristy and I went through the lunch line. Last year we’d brought our lunches, too. This year we’d decided brown bags looked babyish.
When we returned to the table with our trays, we were surprised to find Stacey and Claudia there with their trays. Since when had they decided to eat with us? We were good friends, but last year they always thought they were so much more sophisticated than we were. They liked to talk about boys and movie stars and who was going out with whom…. Had Stacey and Claudia changed, or had Kristy and Dawn and I? I almost said something, but I decided not to. I knew we were all thinking that eating together was different and nice — and also that we weren’t going to mention that it was happening.
I opened my milk carton, put my napkin in my lap, and took a good long look at the Stoneybrook Middle School hot lunch.
“What is this?” I asked the others.
“Noodles,” replied Kristy.
“No, it’s poison,” said Dawn, who, as usual, was eating a health-food lunch — a container of strawberries, a yogurt with granola mixed in, some dried apple slices, and something I couldn’t identify.
“I don’t see any noodles here,” I said. “Only glue.”
“According to the menu, that glue is mushroom and cream sauce,” said Claudia.
“Ew,” I replied.
“So,” said Dawn, “how was everybody’s first morning back at school?”
“Fine, Mommy,” answered Stacey.
Dawn giggled.
“I have third-period gym with Mrs. Rosenauer,” I said. “I hate field hockey, I hate Mrs. Rosenauer, and I hate smelling like gym class for the next five periods…. Do I smell like gym class?” I leaned toward Kristy.
She pulled back. “I’m not going to smell you…. Hey, I just figured something out. You know what the mushroom sauce tastes like? It tastes like a dirty sock that’s been left out in the rain and then hidden in a dark closet for three weeks.”
The rest of us couldn’t decide whether to gag or giggle.
Maybe this was why Claudia and Stacey didn’t sit with us last year. I changed the subject. “I put the poster of Cam Geary up in my locker this morning,” I announced. “I’m going to leave him there all year.”
“I want to find a picture of Max Morrison,” said Claudia. “That’s who I’d like in my locker.”
“The boy from ‘Out of This World’?” asked Stacey.
Claudia nodded.
I absolutely couldn’t eat another bite of the noodles, not after what Kristy had said about the sauce. I gazed around the cafeteria. I saw Trevor Sandbourne, one of Claudia’s old boyfriends from last year. I saw the Shillaber twins, who used to sit with Kristy and Dawn and me. They were sitting with the only set of boy twins in school. (For a moment, I thought I had double vision.) I saw Erica and Shawna from homeroom. And then I saw Cam Geary.
I nearly spit out a mouthful of milk.
“Stacey!” I whispered after I’d managed to swallow. “Cam Geary goes to our school! Look!”
All my friends turned to look. “Where? Where?”
“That boy?” said Stacey, smiling. “That’s not Cam Geary. That’s Logan Bruno. He’s new this year. He’s in my homeroom and my English class. I talked to him during homeroom. He used to live in Louisville, Kentucky. He has a southern accent.”
I didn’t care what he sounded like. He was the cutest boy I’d ever seen. He looked exactly like Cam Geary. I was in love with him. And because Stacey already knew so much about him, I was jealous of her. What a way to start the year.
The next day, Friday, was the second day of school, and the end of the first “week” of school. And that night, the members of the Baby-sitters Club held the first meeting of eighth grade. Every last one of us just barely made the meeting on time. Claudia had been working on an art project at school (she loves art and is terrific at it), Dawn had been baby-sitting for the Pikes, Stacey had been at school at a meeting of the dance committee, of which she’s vice-president, Kristy had had to wait for Charlie to get home from football practice before he could drive her to the meeting, and I’d been trying to get my weekend homework done before the weekend.
The five of us turned up at five-thirty on the nose, and the phone was ringing as we reached Claudia’s room. Dawn grabbed for it, while I tried to find the club record book. Everything was in chaos.
“I love it!” said Kristy when we had settled down.
“You love what?” asked Claudia.
“The excitement, the fast pace.”
“You should move to New York,” said Stacey.
“No, I’m serious. When things get hectic like this, I get all sorts of great ideas. Summertime is too slow.”
“What kinds of great ideas do you get?” asked Dawn, who doesn’t know Kristy quite the way the rest of us do. I was pretty sure that Kristy’s ideas were going to lead to extra work for the club.
I was right.
“Did you notice the sign in school today?” asked Kristy.
“Kristy, there must have been three thousand signs,” replied Claudia. “I saw one for the Remember September Dance, one for the Chess Club, one for cheerleader tryouts, one for class elections —”
“This sign,” Kristy interrupted, “was for the PTA. There’s going to be a PTA meeting at Stoneybrook Middle School in a few days.”
“So?” said Stacey. “PTA stands for Parent Teacher Association. We’re kids. It doesn’t concern us.”
“Oh, yes it does,” replied Kristy, “because where there are parents there are children, and where there are children, there are parents needing baby-sitters — us. That’s where we come in.”
“Oh,” I said knowingly. Kristy is so smart. She’s such a good businesswoman. That’s why she’s the president of our club. “More advertising?” I asked.
“Right,” replied Kristy.
The phone rang again then, and we stopped to take another job. When we were finished, Kristy continued. “We’ve got to advertise in school. We’ll put up posters where the parents will see them when they come for the meeting.”
“Maybe,” added Dawn, “we could make up some more fliers and figure out some way for the parents to get them at the meeting. I think it’s always better if people have something they can take with them. You know, something to put up on their refrigerator or by their phone.”
“Terrific idea,” said Kristy, who usually isn’t too generous with her praise.
Dawn beamed.
“There’s something else,” Kristy went on after we’d lined up jobs with the Marshalls and the Perkinses. “When we started this club, it was so that we could baby-sit in our neighborhood, and the four of us —” (Kristy pointed to herself, Claudia, Stacey, and me) “— all lived in the same neighborhood. Then Dawn joined the club, and we found some new clients in her neighborhood. Now I’ve moved, but I, um, I — I haven’t, um …”
It was no secret that Kristy had resented moving out of the Thomases’ comfortable old split-level and across town to Watson’s mansion in his wealthy neighborhood. Of course she liked having a big room with a queen-sized bed and getting treats and being able to have lots of new clothes and stuff. But she’d been living over there for about two months and hadn’t made any effort to get to know the people in her new neighborhood. Her brothers had made an effort, and so had her mother, but Kristy claimed that the kids her age were snobs. She and the Thomases’ old collie, Louie, kept pretty much to themselves.
I tried to help her through her embarrassment. “It would be good business sense,” I pointed out, “to advertise where you live. We should be leaving fliers in the mailboxes over on Edgerstoune Drive and Green House Drive and Bissell Lane.”
“And Haslet Avenue and Ober Road, t
oo,” said Claudia.
“Right,” said Kristy, looking relieved. “After all, I know Linny and Hannie Papadakis — they’re friends of David Michael and Karen. They must need a sitter every now and then. And there are probably plenty of other little kids, too.”
“And,” said Stacey, adding the one thing the rest of us didn’t have the nerve to say, “it might be a good way for you to meet people over there.”
Kristy scowled. “Oh, right. All those snobs.”
“Kristy, they can’t all be snobs,” said Dawn.
“The ones I met were snobs,” Kristy said defiantly. “But what does it matter? We might get some new business.”
“Well,” I said, “can your mom do some more Xeroxing for us?”
Kristy’s mother (who used to be Mrs. Thomas and is now Mrs. Brewer) usually takes one of our fliers to her office and Xeroxes it on the machine there when we need more copies. The machine is so fancy, the fliers almost look as if they’d been printed.
“Sure,” replied Kristy, “only this time we’ll have to give her some money for the Xerox paper. We’ve used an awful lot of it. What’s in the treasury, Stacey?”
Stacey dumped out the contents of a manila envelope. The money in it is our club dues. We each get to keep anything we earn baby-sitting (we don’t try to divide it), but we contribute weekly dues of a dollar apiece to the club. The money pays Charlie for driving Kristy to club meetings and buys any supplies we might need.
“We’ve got a little over fifteen dollars,” said our treasurer.
“Well, I don’t know how much Xerox paper costs,” said Kristy, “but it’s only paper. How many pieces do you think we’ll need?”
“A hundred?” I guessed. “A hundred and fifty?”
Kristy took eight dollars out of the treasury. “I’ll bring back the change,” she said. She looked at her watch. “Boy, only ten more minutes left. This meeting sure went fast.”
“We couldn’t come early and we can’t leave late,” said Dawn. “Summer’s over.”
There was a moment of silence. Even the phone didn’t ring.
“I found a picture of Max Morrison,” Claudia said finally. “It was in People magazine. I’m going to bring it to school on Monday.”
“Where is it now?” asked Stacey.
“Here.” Claudia took it out of her desk drawer and handed it to Stacey.
“Look at his eyes,” said Stacey with a sigh.
“No one’s eyes are more amazing than Cam’s,” I said. “Except maybe Logan Bruno’s.” I’d seen Logan several more times since lunch the day before. Each time I’d thought he was Cam Geary at first. I wished I’d had an excuse to talk to him, but there was none. We didn’t have any classes together, so of course he didn’t know who I was.
“Logan Bruno?” Claudia repeated sharply. “Hey, you don’t … you do! I think you like him, Mary Anne!”
Luckily, I was saved by the ringing of the telephone. I took the call myself, and Stacey ended up with a job at the Newtons’.
By the time I had called Mrs. Newton back and noted the job in our appointment book, my friends were on to another subject.
“Kara Mauricio got a bra yesterday,” said Dawn.
I could feel myself blushing. I cleared my throat. “1, um, I, um, I, um —”
“Spit it out, Mary Anne,” said Kristy.
“I, um, got a bra yesterday.”
“You did?” Kristy squeaked.
I nodded. “Dad came home early. He took me to the department store and a saleswoman helped me.”
“Was it awfully embarrassing?” asked Dawn. “At least my mother helped me get my first one. She kept the saleswomen away.”
Kristy was gaping at me. We’ve both always been as flat as pancakes, but I’d begun to grow a little over the summer. Kristy must have felt left out. She was the only one of us who didn’t wear a bra now.
But suddenly she was all business again. She doesn’t like us to get off the subject of the club for too long during meetings. “Let’s try to get these fliers out next week. Business will really be booming. Who can help me distribute them?”
We looked at our schedules. A few minutes later, the meeting was over. Little did we know what we were getting ourselves into.
“Emergency club meeting at lunch! Tell Kristy!” Claudia flew by me in the hall, her black hair flowing behind her. I caught a whiff of some kind of perfume.
“Wait! What —?” I started to ask, but Claudia had already been swallowed up by the crowd.
I thought over what she had just said. Emergency meeting … tell Kristy. That meant Kristy didn’t know. But our president was usually the one to call emergency meetings. So who had called it? And what was going on? It was only the beginning of third period. I’d have to wait more than an hour and a half to find out.
I snagged Kristy at the beginning of social studies class. “Emergency meeting at lunch today,” I said urgently, leaning across the aisle to her desk.
“Who called it?” Kristy asked immediately, but before I could tell her that I didn’t know, our teacher walked in the room.
I snapped back to my desk like a rubber band.
When the class was over, Kristy and I shot out of the room and ran to the cafeteria. We dumped our stuff on our usual table, staking out five chairs at one end. Then we joined the hot-lunch line.
“I wonder what it is today,” I said, breathing deeply.
“Smells like steamed rubber in Turtle Wax.”
“Kristy, that is so disgusting. What is it really?”
Kristy stood on tiptoe, trying to see over the tops of kids’ heads. She jumped up and down a few times. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “Maybe macaroni and cheese. I can’t really see.”
She was right. It was macaroni and cheese. Plus limp broccoli, a cup of canned fruit salad, and milk. Kristy and I each bought a chocolate eclair Popsicle, since we don’t like macaroni or canned fruit salad. Kristy even considered buying two Popsicles since she doesn’t like broccoli, either, but I stopped her. As it was, Dawn was going to die when she saw our lunches.
But when we got to our table we didn’t have much time to talk about food. Stacey and Claudia had been not far behind us on the line, and Dawn was already there. So as soon as we had settled down, Kristy said abruptly, “Who called this meeting?”
“I did,” said Claudia. “I’m going crazy. I can’t handle everything. I’ve been getting non-stop phone calls ever since that PTA meeting, and since we advertised in your neighborhood, Kristy. I don’t mind if people call during our meetings, of course, or once or twice in the evenings, but they’re calling all the time. Look at this.” She pulled a list out of her notebook. “These calls came last night. And this one came at seven-thirty this morning.”
We leaned forward to look at the paper. It was a list of seven names with phone numbers, and notes that said things like “3 kids, 2b, 1g” or “allergic to pets” or “6 yrs, 4 yrs, 3 yrs.” None of the names was familiar.
“I would have phoned you guys last night to offer the jobs around as they came in, but that would have meant more than twenty calls. Mom and Dad would have killed me. I’m already behind in my math and English homework.” (Claudia is a fabulous artist, but she’s not a very good student. In fact, she’s only allowed to be in the Baby-sitters Club if she keeps her grades up, which for her means Cs.)
“Anyway,” Claudia continued, “my social studies teacher assigned a big project this morning, and I guess I just panicked. That was when I called the meeting. I really don’t see how I can take art classes, go to school, baby-sit, and be vice president of the club, too.”
Claudia looked near tears, which was unusual for her.
Stacey must have noticed, because she put her hand on Claudia’s arm and said, “Hey, Claud, it’s okay. Really. We’ll work everything out.”
“Sure we will,” said Dawn.
“We’ll take it step by step,” added Kristy. She forced down a mouthful of macaroni and cheese. “Fi
rst things first. What did you tell these people when they called?”
(Kristy really was feeling sorry for Claudia, but you could tell that, underneath, she was thrilled with all the new business we were getting.)
“I told them they would definitely have a sitter, but that I’d have to call them back to say who’d be taking the job.”
“Perfect,” said Kristy. “That was a good idea.”
“Excuse me,” I interrupted, “but we can save Claudia a little time if the sitter calls back. Claudia shouldn’t have to do that.”
“Right,” said Kristy. “Now let’s just hope we can schedule all those jobs.”
“I brought the record book with me,” said Claudia. She pulled it out from between her math book and a reading book. “I know we’re not supposed to bring it to school, but I wanted to get this straightened out today, even if we didn’t have an actual meeting.” (Once, months and months ago, we’d been bringing the record book to school, and Alan Gray, this big pest, had stolen information out of it and used the information to torment Kristy and Claudia.)
“That’s all right,” said Kristy. “Just be careful with it. Now let’s see.” She peered at Claudia’s list, trying to read her sloppy handwriting. “The first job is on Friday, from six until eight, right?”
Claudia nodded. “A cocktail party.”
We turned to the appointment calendar and began assigning jobs. It took some doing but we were able to take care of all of them. Stacey only had to miss one meeting of the dance committee, and Claudia only had to switch around a pottery class.
“Whew,” I said, when we were finished.
“You know, that wasn’t easy. I’m beginning to wonder if …” I paused and unwrapped my Popsicle thoughtfully.
“If what?” asked Dawn.
“If we’re in over our heads. Maybe we have too much business. What happens if we start getting a lot of jobs we can’t handle? What do we tell our clients?”
“Tell them we’re busy,” suggested Claudia.
“Once or twice, yes. But what if it happens a lot? We shouldn’t advertise that we can baby-sit — and then not be able to do it,” I pointed out.