Contents
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Acknowledgment
About the Author
Also Available
Copyright
“Where are they? How can they possibly have disappeared overnight?” I heard Sharon asking herself questions as she rushed from room to room. “Mary Anne,” she called, finally, “have you seen my —”
“Car keys?” I asked, holding them up as she hurried into the kitchen to meet me. “They were in the bread box,” I said, smiling.
Sharon smiled back ruefully as she accepted the keys. “Why didn’t I save myself time and just look there in the first place?” she asked.
“If you had, they wouldn’t have been there,” said my father, from behind the newspaper. “They would have been in the bathroom cabinet or in your underwear drawer.” He gave a little snort and peered over the paper. “The one place we know they’d never be in is on the key rack.” Dad shook his head and grinned. He’d brought home that key rack one evening and hung it on the wall near the back door. Every single day, when he comes home from work, he hangs his keys on the hook marked RICHARD. But the hook marked SHARON is always empty. Which isn’t a surprise to anyone who knows Sharon. And my dad doesn’t really seem to mind. He’s become accustomed to Sharon’s ways, just as she’s become accustomed to his. (Though I’m sure she freaked out the first time she saw him alphabetizing the cans of Campbell’s soup in our cabinet.)
Sharon is my stepmother, and I love her dearly even though she is, to put it politely, organizationally challenged. In case you’re wondering, I take after my dad when it comes to liking things neat and tidy. But I’ve learned to accept and even enjoy Sharon’s less structured approach to life.
My name is Mary Anne Spier, and I’m thirteen years old. I have brown hair and brown eyes, and I’m a little short for my age. I’m in the eighth grade at Stoneybrook Middle School (which is in Stoneybrook, Connecticut), but at the moment I’m enjoying those lazy, crazy days of summer vacation. August is a great month, isn’t it? Everybody’s relaxed and happy. You live in shorts, sandals, and a T-shirt, with occasional changes into a bathing suit. School seems a long way off. Aaaah, August!
Sharon and my dad don’t necessarily share my feelings about August. That’s because they still have to work. My dad is a lawyer, and Sharon is a realtor. I work, too; I do a lot of baby-sitting and even belong to this great club called the BSC, the Baby-sitters Club. (More about that later.) But it’s not as if I work full-time.
That August Thursday, Sharon and Dad had both taken the day off. Why? Because we had a big family event to attend. Sharon’s parents (I call them Granny and Pop-Pop even though they’re my stepgrands) were about to set off on a special anniversary cruise, and we were all headed down to the dock in New York City to see their ship off.
All of us who were in Stoneybrook, that is. I wished Dawn could be with us. That’s Dawn Schafer, Sharon’s daughter and my stepsister. She lives in California.
Confused? I don’t blame you. My family situation is complicated. Let me explain.
First of all, my mom died when I was very, very young. I never even knew her. My dad was devastated at the time and couldn’t deal with raising an infant daughter, so he sent me away — temporarily — to live with my grandparents in Iowa. After awhile, when he’d worked through the worst of his grief, he sent for me, but my grandparents didn’t want to give me up. Finally, after a custody struggle, my dad won me back.
I didn’t know anything about my Iowa grandparents until recently. I was shocked when I found out.
Now I’m in touch with my grandmother in Iowa, and I’ve even visited her there. (My grandfather died before we could be reunited. I don’t remember him at all.)
Anyway, back in Stoneybrook, my dad was trying hard to be both father and mother to me. He took parenting very seriously — too seriously, to tell you the truth. He made a lot of rules about what I could and couldn’t do (for example, he wouldn’t let me decorate my room with posters I chose) and what I could and couldn’t wear (I was still in kiddie jumpers and braids when I was twelve). I’m not the most assertive person, so it took me awhile to realize that I should stand up to my dad. My best friend, Kristy Thomas, who may just be the most assertive person in the universe, helped me figure out how to do it. Eventually, I convinced him to treat me a little more like an adult.
Meanwhile, I had become a member of the BSC. And I had met Dawn, who had just moved to Stoneybrook from Palo City, California. While she had arrived from the West Coast, her roots are actually in Stoneybrook. Her mom, Sharon, grew up here, then moved out to California for college. She got married there, too. The marriage ended in divorce, so Mrs. Schafer brought her kids — Dawn and her younger brother, Jeff — back to Stoneybrook to live. Dawn and I became immediate best friends, and she ended up joining the BSC as well. Then one day we made an awesome discovery. While we were paging through some old Stoneybrook High yearbooks, we found out that our parents had dated, back when they were in high school.
We did some plotting and planning, and before you could say “old flames never die out,” Sharon and my dad were an item again. Isn’t that the most romantic story you ever heard? Sigh.
Anyway, not long after that, they decided to marry, and my dad and I moved into this cool old farmhouse (it even has a secret passage) with Sharon and Dawn. By that time, Jeff had come to realize that he was never going to feel at home on the East Coast, and he’d gone back to California to live with his dad. The rest of us took some time to adjust to one another — for a while it was like a war between the Neatniks and the Slobs — but eventually we learned how to coexist pretty happily. That includes Sharon and my adorable gray tiger-striped kitten, Tigger. Sharon is not exactly a cat person, but she’s learned at least to tolerate him.
We even came to enjoy each other’s taste in food, to an extent. Sharon and Dawn are into health food. They love nothing better than a plate of rice, beans, and veggies. My dad and I, meanwhile, are basically the meat-and-potatoes type. And while it’s true that Sharon isn’t about to dig into any T-bones, and my dad won’t knowingly eat tofu (Sharon sneaks it into the occasional casserole), we have come to understand and even appreciate each other’s preferences.
Once we ironed everything out, we were happy together. Or at least, that’s what I thought. It turned out that Dawn was wrestling with some strong feelings. She missed California — her dad, her friends, and the place itself — all the time, even though she’d been going there regularly for vacations. Eventually, she made a huge decision. She wanted to move back there.
I can’t say I wasn’t hurt. I was. I was devastated, to tell you the truth. But I also tried hard to see things from Dawn’s point of view. My friends say that’s what I’m best at. They can’t believe how sensitive I am, and they’re always telling me I’m a great listener. To me it just comes naturally.
Anyway, I now understand that Dawn made the right decision — the only decision, for her. Still, I miss her very much. It’s hard to lose a best friend and a sister all at once. But I do see her when she comes back for vacations. She was here earlier this summer, and we had a blast. (We had an even bigger blast when the BSC members drove Dawn back home. It was a road trip that will go down in history. But that’s another story.)
So, now you know it all. Or most of it, anyway. I haven’t told you about Logan Bruno, my adorable boyfriend with the sweet Southern accent (he moved here from Louisville, Kentucky), or about the ghost that may haunt the secret passage at my house, or about my friends in the BSC.
Still, you know enough to understand who I am and how my current family came to be. And I want to make it clear how much I love that current family. I may not have known Granny and Pop-Pop for very long, but they treat me like a granddaughter and I think of them as my grandparents. I was so happy for them that day. I knew they’d have a terrific time on their cruise.
Also, I knew something they didn’t know: When they came back, they were going to be surprised with the best anniversary party anyone’s ever had. Sharon had been planning it for months.
You might think Sharon wouldn’t be so great at planning a big party, but you’d be surprised. She may be disorganized on a daily basis, but when it comes to major projects she knows how to pull them together. She keeps files and lists and notebooks full of names and numbers, and somehow she manages to keep track of every detail. When it really matters, Sharon is on the ball.
“Remember, now,” Sharon said to me and my dad as we drove over to Granny and Pop-Pop’s to pick them up for the ride to the ship. “If either of you breathes a word about the party, I’ll cover you with honey and tie you to an ant-hill.”
I cracked up. Sharon is such a warm, gentle person. Threats like that sound absurd coming from her. “You don’t have to worry,” I promised. “My lips are sealed. What about Esther and Hank? Did you warn them, too?” Esther and Hank are Granny and Pop-Pop’s best friends. Granny and Hank grew up in the same neighborhood, so they’ve known each other forever. He has always seemed like a grouch to me, but Esther is very nice.
“You bet,” she said. “I told them I’d boil them in oil if they spilled the secret.” She smiled sweetly.
“Boiling in oil just might improve Hank’s disposition,” muttered my dad. I’m not the only one who thinks Hank is grouchy.
Okay, fast forward to a huge dock in Manhattan. (Well, actually, the dock is in the Hudson River. But you know what I mean.) Now picture the biggest boat you’ve ever seen. And multiply that by a hundred. That’s the ship Granny and Pop-Pop had booked their trip on. We’d had the grand tour of the many decks and pools, the elegant rooms, the movie theater, the library, and the health club. And we’d seen the tiny but charming stateroom, complete with porthole, that Granny and Pop-Pop would be living in for the next two weeks. All through the tour, Hank had been grumbling. “Too fancy for my blood,” he commented, looking at a sample menu. “All right if you like that kind of thing,” he’d said about the gym. And, finally, about the porthole, he’d remarked that “a window that size doesn’t give you much of a view, does it, now?” Esther had shushed him, but Granny and Pop-Pop just laughed. They’re used to Hank.
Finally, after a round of hugs, we left the ship and stood on the dock to watch as the crew made ready to sail. Granny and Pop-Pop leaned over the railing, throwing confetti and waving, along with all the other happy passengers. We waved back and kept on waving until the huge ship finally pulled away and we could hardly see Granny and Pop-Pop anymore.
“They’re going to have a wonderful time,” said Sharon, wiping a tear from her eye. I was feeling a little emotional, too. Seeing people off can do that to me. I don’t know why.
“No question about it,” said my dad. “They’ll be happy as clams.”
“As long as they don’t run into any hurricanes,” Hank said gloomily.
The rest of us just laughed. Hank was such a pessimist. What could possibly happen to ruin Granny and Pop-Pop’s anniversary cruise?
By the time our BSC meeting rolled around the next day, I was still thinking about that huge cruise ship. My friends and I once spent some time on a ship, but it wasn’t nearly as big as the one Granny and Pop-Pop were on. I wondered how it would feel to be a passenger on a ship like that, and before I knew it I’d begun to fantasize about what it would be like to work on a cruise ship. Wouldn’t that be awesome? Just think of it. What a way to earn a living! Sun and fun every day. Great meals. Exotic ports to visit. I could just picture the BSC members ten years from now, working our way around the world on an enormous ocean liner.
Before I become too carried away, I guess I should explain a little more about the BSC. Basically, we’re a group of responsible, experienced baby-sitters who meet three times a week: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons, from five-thirty until six. During those times, parents can call to set up sitting jobs. When they use the BSC, parents know they’re hiring sitters they can count on, sitters who love kids. We have a great time with our charges, whether we’re doing an organized activity or just hanging out. Sometimes, especially on rainy days, we bring along our Kid-Kits: boxes we’ve filled with stickers, markers, and hand-me-down toys, books, and games.
We keep a club notebook in which each of us records every job we go on (parents love the fact that we’re always up-to-date on what’s happening with their kids) and a club record book, in which we keep track of our clients’ names and addresses and other info, as well as our own schedules.
Sounds simple, doesn’t it? It is. That’s the beauty of it. And the amazing thing is that Kristy (the assertive friend I mentioned earlier) dreamed the whole thing up: meetings, Kid-Kits, notebook, and all. That’s why she’s president.
If we worked on a cruise ship, Kristy would have to be the cruise director. She’s great at seeing the big picture and terrific at organizing people to carry out her ideas. Kristy’s a born leader, and she’s been that way all her life. I know, because we’ve been friends since we were in diapers. Which is surprising, in a way, because our personalities are so different. I’m as shy as she is bold, as quiet as she is rowdy. Maybe it’s just a case of opposites attracting. We do look alike, at least. Kristy is also on the short side, with brown hair and brown eyes. She cares less about clothes than I do — less than anyone I know, actually. You rarely see her wearing anything but a T-shirt and shorts in the summer, a turtleneck and jeans in the winter.
Kristy’s family life may be even more complicated than mine. She has two older brothers, Charlie and Sam, plus a younger one named David Michael. Back when David Michael was a baby, Kristy’s dad walked out on the family. So Mrs. Thomas raised the kids on her own. (You can see where Kristy’s grit and determination come from.) Then, after years of struggling along, Mrs. Thomas met and married a really nice guy, Watson Brewer, who happens to be a millionaire. So now the Thomas-Brewer clan lives in Watson’s mansion, which is across town from where Kristy and I grew up. They share the mansion with Nannie, Kristy’s grandmother, who moved in shortly after Kristy’s mom and Watson adopted Emily Michelle, the world’s cutest toddler (she was born in Vietnam). Nannie helps take care of Emily while everybody else is at work or school. Watson also has two kids from his first marriage, Karen and Andrew, who live there every other month. They bring their pets along, adding them to the regular menagerie, which includes a grouchy, geriatric cat and a big, bouncy puppy.
Basically, it’s a mob scene. And Kristy thrives on the chaos. (I’d probably spend a lot of time hiding in my room, hoping for peace and quiet.) She even looks for more stuff to keep her busy, such as special BSC projects, or the Krushers, which is a little kids’ softball team she coaches.
Who would Kristy the Cruise Director pick for her assistant? Me, probably. Partly because we’re best friends, and partly because I’m very good at keeping track of details. I’m the BSC’s secretary, and I pride myself on keeping the record book one hundred percent up-to-date at all times. I know every member’s schedule. I know every client’s address, or at least I know where to look it up. And I have a handle on every one of our charges’ allergies, food preferences, and favorite games. I’d have no trouble keeping tabs on a shipful of people.
The creative director for our cruise ship would have to be Claudia Kishi, the club’s vice-presiden
t. Suppose some passengers wanted to put on a play. Claudia could paint the sets, make the costumes, and design a program in no time flat. As vice-president of the BSC, Claudia’s creative urges are mostly funneled into supplying the best, most varied menu of munchies any club has ever seen. We meet in Claudia’s room, since she has her own phone with a private line, and she always has plenty of junk food on hand. That is, if she can find it. Since her parents aren’t crazy about her eating habits, the stuff is usually hidden away, along with the Nancy Drew mysteries of which her parents also disapprove.
Claudia is Japanese-American, with beautiful, long black hair and almond-shaped, dark eyes. And while she does happen to be a creative genius, she’s far from an academic genius like her older sister, Janine. In fact, Claudia’s had so much trouble in school that she has to repeat seventh grade. She’s not dumb; it’s just that she doesn’t care much about things like science or algebra.
Her best friend, Stacey McGill, on the other hand, is a math whiz, which is why she’s the club’s treasurer. (She’d make a great purser for our ship.) Keeping track of our funds and collecting dues each week is a breeze for her. (We use the dues to pay for such things as Claudia’s phone bill.) Stacey has blonde, curly hair, blue eyes, and an incredible sense of style.
Stacey grew up in Manhattan, which is Fashion City. Her parents are divorced, and Stacey (an only child) lives here with her mom, though she visits her dad often. He still lives in the city, so her visits give her the chance to drop into Bloomingdale’s on a regular basis. Her wardrobe reflects the fact that she’s practically a professional shopper. Stacey is the trendiest, most sophisticated dresser in our school.
Stacey’s not shallow, though. There’s more to her than meets the eye. She has an inner strength I really admire. See, Stacey has diabetes, which is a lifelong disease. Her body doesn’t process sugars correctly, which means not only that Stacey has to be very careful about what she eats and when she eats it, but that she has to give herself injections of insulin every day. If she doesn’t take good care of herself, she can become very sick very quickly. But Stacey handles her diabetes with maturity. The rest of us in the BSC try to support her — for example, Claudia always has sugarless snacks on hand for her — but in the end only Stacey can take care of herself. And she does a great job of it.