Although Claudia is an eighth-grader like most of us BSC members, she recently spent some time back in seventh grade. But she caught up on the work and pulled up her grades, so she’s been readmitted to eighth, which makes us happy. Claud isn’t dumb or anything. She loves art, and it has always taken up a lot of her time and energy. If she’d concentrate on her other subjects the way she does on drawing and sculpting, she’d be near the top of our class. She loves anything to do with color, design, pictures, photography, paint, clay — you name it. One look at her and it’s easy to see that she’s talented. Claudia dresses like an artist (at least, the way I think an artist should dress), putting unique outfits together every day. She almost never wears the same thing twice. Today she had on a pair of jeans, but they weren’t like anyone else’s jeans. She’d painted raindrops down each leg. Over the jeans she wore a long white shirt and a gray vest. The vest had little umbrellas painted all over it. For earrings she was wearing paper parasols attached to gold chains.
People would look at Claudia even if she didn’t dress the way she does. She’s beautiful. Claudia is Japanese-American and has perfect skin, plus long, dark, shiny hair that she wears in tons of different styles. She lives with her mom, who is the head librarian at the Stoneybrook Public Library; her dad, who works for an investment firm in Stamford; and her older sister, Janine. Janine is so-o-o smart. She’s a junior at Stoneybrook High School, but she also takes classes at Stoneybrook University — for fun. Claudia’s grandmother Mimi lived with them until she died not long ago. Claudia misses her a lot, which I completely understand. Mimi was very special to me too.
“Maybe we could practice in the gym some afternoon,” Abby said to Kristy. “We’re starting the softball season late this year.”
“The only good thing is that none of the other teams can practice either,” Kristy reminded her.
“Aren’t you anxious to begin?” asked Abby.
“Of course, but I can’t stop the rain,” said Kristy.
Abby Stevenson is the newest member of the BSC and our alternate officer. That means she fills in for any officer who’s absent. She recently moved to Stoneybrook from Long Island, with her mother and her sister, Anna — her identical twin. We asked both Anna and Abby to join the BSC, but Anna decided she was too busy with her music. She’s a talented violinist and wants to be a professional musician. She practices a lot.
Abby, on the other hand, is an athlete. When she isn’t practicing for some team sport, she often runs from her house to Claudia’s for our meetings. (Abby lives a couple of houses down from Kristy, so it’s a good, long run.) Even now she was moving from one place in Claudia’s room to another, not sitting still for more than a minute at a time. She’s an assistant coach for Kristy’s Krushers, and she also plays on a soccer team.
Abby’s dad died in a car accident when she was nine years old, and although she seldom talks about it, I don’t think she’s quite over it yet. Her mom works as an executive editor for a publishing company in New York City. Abby and Anna recently celebrated their Bat Mitzvah, a ceremony for Jewish girls turning thirteen.
One thing that always surprises me about Abby is that although she’s allergic to tons of things, she doesn’t let that stop her from doing whatever she wants to do. She has asthma too, and sometimes has to use an inhaler to help her breathe. She also has a terrific sense of humor about her allergies and everything else.
“Has anybody else thought that it’s almost time to start building an ark?” Abby asked, making us all laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Stacey McGill asked as she took off her rain hat — not one of those dorky clear plastic ones, but a wide-brimmed navy hat that looked great on her — and shook out her blonde hair.
Stacey would wear a long navy coat while the rest of us wear slickers or ponchos or, like Kristy, nothing to keep the rain off. Stacey moved to Stoneybrook from New York City the summer before seventh grade, when her dad was transferred here. Mr. McGill was later transferred back to New York City, and the family moved with him again. We missed Stacey a lot. We were glad when she moved back not long afterward, although the circumstances weren’t the happiest — her mom and dad were divorcing. Stacey and Mrs. McGill returned to Stoneybrook, but her dad stayed in an apartment in the city. Stacey visits him when she can. She’s a bit more sophisticated than the rest of us, probably because of all the time she’s spent in New York City, and it especially shows in the way she dresses. Her clothes are extremely trendy and she spends as much time putting together outfits as Claudia does, although their styles are different. Today she’d painted her nails navy blue to match her outfit. She wore a navy blue miniskirt and a white ribbed turtleneck with matching white ribbed stockings. Although it sounds plain, nothing looks plain on Stacey. Around her neck she wore a thick gold chain that hung about halfway down her sweater.
Stacey is tall and thin. She has big blue eyes with dark lashes that make them look even bluer. She’s done some modeling from time to time.
Because she’s so good at math, Stacey is the treasurer of the BSC. Every week she collects dues from each of us. Then it’s her job to keep track of how much money we spend and for what. We use the money to help pay Claudia’s phone bill, to pay Charlie for driving Kristy and Abby to our meetings, and to pay for materials to replenish the Kid-Kits. If anything is left over, it goes for pizza or some other treat.
Stacey plopped down on the bed between me and Claudia. Claudia opened a drawer in her desk and pulled out some popcorn. “I hope it’s not stale,” she said.
There’s another reason Stacey seems more mature than the rest of us. She has diabetes. That means her body has trouble processing sugar. She’s very careful about what she eats (no sweets, for example), and she has to give herself insulin injections every day. Stacey will always have diabetes, but as long as she pays attention to her diet, monitors her blood sugar, and takes her insulin, she should be okay. Claudia keeps a stash of healthy snacks for Stacey in addition to the junk food she serves the rest of us.
Mallory Pike and Jessica Ramsey were the last to arrive. I noticed that Kristy looked at the clock as they came into the room. Kristy is very strict about starting meetings on time, and it was almost five-thirty.
Jessi and Mal are our junior officers. They’re in sixth grade at SMS. As junior officers, they only baby-sit in the afternoons unless it’s for their own families.
Jessi loves ballet. She often wears her dark hair in a bun, which shows off her big dark eyes and smooth, cocoa-colored skin. She’s very slender, and she moves so gracefully. In addition to dancing, Jessi loves books, horses, and of course, baby-sitting. She has a younger sister, Becca, and a baby brother, Squirt (officially John Philip, Jr.). Since Jessi’s parents work, her aunt Cecelia lives with the family and helps take care of the kids.
Jessi and Mal met almost as soon as Jessi moved to Stoneybrook from New Jersey. They were in the same homeroom, and they quickly became best friends.
Mal also loves books and horses. As you might imagine, she and Jessi like books about horses best of all. Someday, Mal would like to write and illustrate children’s books. She should have plenty of stories to tell, since she has seven younger brothers and sisters. After Mal came the triplets, Adam, Byron, and Jordan; then Vanessa; Nicky; Margo; and Claire. The BSC gets plenty of business just sitting for the Pike family. Mal has curly reddish-brown hair and blue eyes. She wears braces and glasses, and she thinks this moves her out of the “cute” category, but she’s very wrong.
The phone started ringing almost as soon as Kristy called the meeting to order, on the dot of five-thirty, so I had to open the record book right away. One of my jobs as club secretary is to keep up the club record book. I’m very proud of the fact that I’ve never made a mistake in it. We keep the names, addresses, phone numbers, pay rate, and any special information about the children we sit for, as well as our schedules, in the record book.
The way the club works is that whoever is closest to the phone answ
ers it, takes the information about the job (who, when, where, how many children), then tells the caller that we’ll phone back as soon as a sitter is assigned. I check the schedule to see who is available, then we let the client know who will be sitting.
The calls kept coming. I was starting to think that a lot of parents were as tired of staying out of the rain as we — and the kids — were.
Another of Kristy’s great ideas is our club notebook. We write up each of our jobs in the notebook, and then everybody reads the entries once a week. It’s a good way to keep track of what’s going on with our sitting charges. Some of us like to write in the notebook more than others. Mallory and Kristy love it; Claudia hates it. It’s definitely a lot more fun to read what everybody else has written than it is to write in it.
Today no one had time to read or write. We were too busy scheduling sitting jobs.
“There’s nobody who can take the job on Sunday afternoon,” I said after checking and rechecking the schedules. “We’re going to have to call Logan or Shannon.”
Logan Bruno, who, as I’ve already mentioned, is my boyfriend, is also an associate member of the BSC. We call on our associates when we have jobs the regular members can’t fill. Logan moved to Stoneybrook from Louisville, Kentucky, where he had done some baby-sitting. I noticed him the very first day he showed up at our school. At first I thought he was Cam Geary, my favorite TV star. Believe me, Logan is as cute as Cam. He has great blue eyes and blondish-brown hair that curls (although I think he wishes it wouldn’t). He’s as good a baby-sitter as any of the regular members of the club, but he tried coming to our meetings and didn’t feel very comfortable.
Shannon Kilbourne is our other associate member. She’s the only one of us who doesn’t go to SMS. She goes to Stoneybrook Day School, a private school. Shannon is in the eighth grade and lives on Kristy and Abby’s street. At first, Kristy thought Shannon was stuck-up, but as we got to know her better, we found out she’s a lot of fun. She has two younger sisters and a dog, Astrid of Grenville, who is the mother of Kristy’s puppy, Shannon. Shannon is involved in lots of activities at Stoneybrook Day — plays, Honor Society, tutoring, Astronomy Club, debate, and a few other things. Part of the reason she’s an associate BSC member is she doesn’t have time to do everything!
That leaves only one other member of the BSC, my stepsister, Dawn Schafer. Before she moved back to California, Dawn was our alternate officer. Now she’s an honorary BSC member and takes part in our activities when she’s here.
I called Logan, and he agreed to take the Sunday job. As soon as I hung up the telephone, it rang again. Since I was closest, I answered. I heard a man on the other end of the phone clear his throat. I waited for him to speak.
“My name is Mr. Cates, and one of the men who’s been working for me gave me your number,” he said. “We’ve moved into town recently and I have two children, a boy and a girl, and I could use some assistance.”
“You mean, you need a baby-sitter?” I asked.
“Yes, that’s right. See, I’m opening a bookstore….” (My heart did a little flip-flop. As I mentioned, I love bookstores.) “It’s a mystery bookstore, called Poe and Co.”
The flip-flop turned into a drumming that reminded me of “The Tell-Tale Heart” again. Was this another stroke of fate? I hoped he needed a sitter at a time I was available, although I knew I had to offer the job to everyone.
“The store will be in the Benson Dalton Gable house. We have an apartment upstairs. Is there anybody located out this way who could sit for the kids?” Mr. Cates finished.
“When do you need a sitter?” I asked as coolly as I could. I wondered if he heard my tell-tale heart.
“Thursday, tomorrow. Tomorrow afternoon would be great, around four. I’m trying to prepare the store to open as soon as possible. Tom and Gillian, the kids, are tired of the rain, tired of unpacking books, tired of living in a half-finished house … tired of me, to be quite honest. I thought if we could give them a change of pace it would help.”
Tomorrow. I was available tomorrow. “May I have your telephone number, please? We’ll check our schedules and call you right back to tell you who will be your sitter,” I said. I wrote his number on a scrap of paper. “And,” I added, “how old are,” I looked at the names I’d scribbled down, “Tom and Gillian?”
“They’re, let’s see, Tom is ten and Gillian is seven.”
“Thanks. We’ll call you right back.”
“That’s a new client,” I announced as I hung up the phone. “His name is Mr. Cates and he’s opening a bookstore here.”
Mal sat up a little straighter. “A bookstore?”
I nodded. “A mystery bookstore named Poe and Co.”
“I think my mom mentioned that,” said Mal.
“He needs a sitter tomorrow afternoon.” I pretended to study the schedule. “Kristy, you and I are both free.”
“A bookstore. That sounds pretty exciting,” said Kristy.
I looked up at her. A sporting goods store was more to her liking. She was grinning at me.
“I’ve had a lot of jobs this week. Go ahead if you want it,” Kristy said.
I grabbed the phone and punched in the number, quickly, as if Kristy might change her mind. “Mr. Cates?” I said when he answered. “It’s me, Mary Anne Spier from the Baby-sitters Club. I’d be glad to sit for your children tomorrow afternoon.” I listened to him for a minute.
“I’ll walk over,” I continued. “I’m looking forward to meeting Tom and Gillian.” The job seemed meant for me. I was working on a mystery project and Edgar Allan Poe was my subject. Poe and Co. was the name of the bookstore and it specialized in mysteries. Maybe spending time at a place named after my subject would spark a unique idea for my project. I couldn’t wait.
I turned back to the conversation the rest of the club was having.
“Nobody has even one idea about what we could do to keep the kids entertained in spite of the rain?” Kristy asked.
“If I had one, I’d throw it out to see if it would float,” Jessi assured Kristy.
Everybody groaned. Jokes about the rain were old, old, old.
It was still raining when I walked to Poe and Co. on Thursday afternoon. I slowed as I approached the place. The Benson Dalton Gable house had been empty for almost as long as I could remember. Each year it looked a little shabbier and seemed to sink a little lower, but Mr. Cates had been very busy and the house was looking quite prim now. It was two stories high, and quite wide. The roof sat on top like a little flat hat with lots of scalloped shingles. The windows were high and narrow, with no curtains. They reminded me of something I’d read in another Edgar Allan Poe story, “The Fall of the House of Usher.” They were “vacant eye-like windows” like the windows in the story. As the narrator approaches the house, it is a stormy day, with clouds swirling in the sky. I remembered that the man had said something about being caught up in the owner’s wild superstitions. I swallowed hard. I wouldn’t let that happen to me. After all, it was a house — a kind of scary-looking house, but just a house. I would be able to handle this.
Before I knocked on the door, it flew open and a man started backing toward me, carrying some long boards. I quickly moved out of the way, but the front porch was small and I had to press against the porch railings.
“Sorry,” the man said gruffly. “Didn’t know anybody was out here. Place isn’t open yet.”
“I’m the baby-sitter,” I said.
“Good luck,” the man said. “Cates is inside.” He turned and walked toward a pickup truck parked in the mud nearby.
I stepped inside and looked around. I could hear hammers pounding steadily. Bookshelves were standing all over the room in no apparent order, and boxes were stacked everywhere. Facing the door was a high black counter. A blonde head popped up from behind the counter, and a woman smiled at me, flashing a set of dimples.
“Hi, I’m Mary Anne Spier. I’m here to baby-sit for Tom and Gillian,” I said.
??
?Larry! The baby-sitter is here,” the woman called toward the back of the house.
She turned back to me. “I’m Cillia Spark. I’m helping Larry set up the bookstore. And it will be a bookstore very soon.”
A tall man, with dark hair long enough to hang over his collar in the back, joined us. “Tom! Gillian!” he called. “Hi, baby-sitter. We’re glad to see you. I’m Larry Cates and this is —”
“I’ve already introduced myself,” said Ms. Spark, showing her dimples again.
“The house, I mean the store, looks really good from the outside,” I said.
“We’ve fixed it up a little,” said Mr. Cates. “We still have plenty to do, as you can see.” He pointed at the shelves and boxes surrounding us.
“Here, let me take your coat. I better hang it in the closet or it’ll be covered with dust before you leave,” said Ms. Spark. “Larry, have you seen my sketches for the shelf placement in here? I thought I left them on the counter, but I can’t find them now. The guys are ready to start lining up the shelves.”
“I haven’t seen them,” said Mr. Cates with a shrug. “We can ask the kids.”
Two children appeared in the doorway to the hall. I could see steps rising behind them leading up to the second floor. The boy was tall and thin with dark wavy hair like his dad’s. He had dark eyes surrounded by dark lashes. The girl was short and also thin. She had the same dark eyes as her brother, but her hair was lighter brown, very long and very straight, with bangs. It needed a good brushing. I could see tangles from where I stood.
“Tom, Gillian, this is Mary Anne. She’s in a club that sends out baby-sitters to all the kids in Stoneybrook,” said Mr. Cates.
I started to correct him and say not to all the kids, but I decided I better concentrate on these two kids. “Hi, Tom, hi, Gillian. It’s nice to meet you. Have you started school yet?”
They didn’t answer.
“They’re going to Stoneybrook Elementary,” said Mr. Cates.