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
Letter from Ann M. Martin
Acknowledgment
About the Author
Scrapbook
Also Available
Copyright
“Sorry, Mary Anne, I can’t hear you!” I shouted into the phone receiver.
Mary Anne Spier cleared her throat and began, “I said, hi, I really missed you, and —”
“EEEEEEEE!” That was my two-year-old sister, Emily Michelle, racing through the kitchen.
Behind her was my youngest brother, David Michael (seven, going on three). He was brandishing an ugly figurine carved from a coconut, which he’d somehow convinced my mom and dad to buy in Hawaii. “Nyyyah-hah-hah, the coco-monster’s going to get you!”
I stepped out of his way. My foot hooked into a backpack that was on the floor, and I fell into a kitchen chair.
“ANYBODY SEEN MY BACKPACK?” called my seventeen-year-old brother, Charlie, from upstairs.
“UNDER MY FEET!” I shouted back.
“WHERE ARE YOUR FEET?”
“IN THE KITCHEN!”
The Thomas/Brewer family was in total, utter chaos.
It was 11:00 A.M. on the Sunday before Labor Day. My family was just waking up, groggy and jetlagged. We’d arrived in the wee hours of the morning from a vacation in sunny, exciting, beach-filled Hawaii. (I had a fantastic time, thanks for asking.) Our flight back had taken almost a whole day. That part wasn’t so great.
You see, we’d left Hawaii on Saturday at eight A.M. We landed in Los Angeles five hours later, but our connecting flight was delayed for four hours. Well, L.A. time is two hours later than Hawaii time, so it was dinner hour when we boarded the next plane for another five-hour flight that actually put us in New York eight hours later, because of the three-hour time change. Then, after waiting forty-five minutes for our luggage, we took an hour-and-a-half limo ride from New York to Stoneybrook, Connecticut.
Got all that? Okay, for the grand prize, what time was it when we walked into our house?
(Don’t expect me to know. I was fast asleep.)
When I’d finally staggered downstairs on Sunday morning, I’d found three messages from Mary Anne on the answering machine. Message one was a cheerful “Call me when you’re home.” Message two sounded a little concerned.
By message three, I could tell she was fighting back tears. Thinking we were kidnapped. Imagining we’d decided to move to Hawaii. (Actually, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea….)
Mary Anne is a real worrywart. Not to mention shynesswart and politenesswart. The teeniest things can make her cry, too — movies, books, you name it. Whisper the words “Old Yeller” to her and watch her eyes well up. Usually I have no patience for people like that. I’m the opposite — tearless and fearless, loud and proud. But I’ve known Mary Anne since we were babies, and she happens to be my best friend in the world.
As you may have guessed, I have a forceful personality. My friends say I’m bossy and stubborn, but don’t listen to them. They’re all members of the Baby-sitters Club (more about that later), and I’m their president, so bossiness is just part of the deal. Period.
Here are the other vital facts about me: I’m thirteen years old and just barely five feet tall. I have brown hair and brown eyes, and I’m very athletic. I wear casual clothes all the time, and I think fashion is boring.
Okay. Enough about me. Back to Mary Anne.
I was dying to talk to her. Half of me wanted to ask how the club had survived. The other half wanted to gab about Hawaii. Mary Anne had been there on a school trip in July, along with almost all of my other BSC (Baby-sitters Club) friends.
“Sorry about the noise, Mary Anne,” I shouted into the phone as Emily Michelle zipped by. “Emily, go to Nannie!”
“I’m glad you’re home,” Mary Anne replied. “I have been soooo lonely, and —”
“I’m starving!” announced my middle brother, Sam, stomping toward the kitchen. “Yo, Blabberlips, when are you going to be off the phone?”
Sam’s fifteen, but sometimes he has the maturity of a toddler. (Why am I the only Thomas kid who acts her age?) Ignoring his obnoxious comment, I pressed the receiver to my ear and tried to listen.
“House of Wiley?” asked Mary Anne. (That’s what it sounded like. It was hard to tell over the noise.)
“Whaaat?” I asked.
Sam rolled his eyes. “I said, when are you going to be off the phone?”
“How … was … Hawaii?” Mary Anne said loudly.
Before I could answer either of them, Sam pulled open the fridge, releasing a blast of putrid air. I nearly gagged.
“Yeccch, it stinks!” I blurted out.
“Really?” Mary Anne said. “I think it’s magical.”
“No, not Hawaii! Our fridge!”
Sam slammed the door shut. “What died in there?”
“Someone died?” Mary Anne asked.
I held my nose. “Doe! Just sub boldy food.”
(Take some advice from me, Kristy Thomas. If you’re going on vacation, don’t ever leave an open bowl of tuna salad in your fridge.)
Charlie clomped into the kitchen and glared at me. “Talk fast. I want to call Sarah.” (That’s his girlfriend.)
“Hey, me first!” Sam insisted.
“Who are you calling?” Charlie demanded.
“None of your business!” Sam snapped.
“Uh, Kristy,” Mary Anne asked patiently, “is this a bad time to talk?”
“Nope.” I walked toward the kitchen archway, away from the stench and the argument. “Mary Anne, I actually tried to surf. You should have seen me. You will die when I show you the pictures.”
Charlie and Sam were arguing at the top of their lungs. Nannie was chasing after Emily Michelle with a change of clothes. David Michael came in and pretended to faint from the smell. Mom bustled in and yelled at Charlie and Sam for not cleaning the fridge.
“Guys, will you please be quiet?” I yelled.
Honestly, you’d think it would be easy to find peace and quiet in a mansion. But nooooo. Everyone just had to be in the same room as Kristy.
Yes, you heard right. Mansion. With fancy wallpaper, high ceilings, lots of wood trim everywhere, and a big yard. Cool, huh?
Don’t think I’m a rich snob or anything. I’m casual, down-to-earth, and friendly as can be. (Modest, too. Heh heh.) Actually, I was not born into wealth. I grew up in a small house across town, next door to Mary Anne. My mom raised Charlie, Sam, David Michael, and me while holding a full-time job (my dad ran off soon after David Michael was born).
Things became easier after Mom married Watson. For one thing, he’s a nice guy who doesn’t abandon his loved ones (ahem). For another, we live in this house that looks like something out of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
Well, maybe Lifestyles of the Crowded and Noisy. And only part of our family was in the house that Sunday. Our family, as you can see, has expanded since Mom’s remarriage. Emily Michelle is the youngest member. She was born in Vietnam and adopted by Watson and Mom, which I guess makes her the only full-fledged Brewer/Thomas. Nannie is our oldest member. She’s my grandmother, and she moved in to help take care of Emily Michelle. Watson has two children from his first marriage, Karen (who’s seven) and Andrew (four), who live w
ith us during alternate months.
(Remind me to tell you about our hermit crab, cat, goldfish, rat, and puppy. They’re part of the family, too.)
Pulling the phone cord as far as it could go, I stood just outside the kitchen.
Watson was walking toward the kitchen now, his face slowly turning green. “Uh, Elizabeth?” he said to Mom. “I’ll be happy to go and buy some breakfast food if you clean that thing out.”
“I’ll go with you!” Charlie and Sam shouted at the same time.
“One of you stays with me!” Mom said, pulling Sam back by the shirttail.
“Mo-ommmm,” Sam groaned (served him right).
I covered up the receiver and called after Charlie, “Pick up Sarah on your way to the store. You can wheel the cart down the aisle together like lovebirds.”
Charlie yanked open the fridge and ran out the front door, laughing.
I wanted to kill him.
“EWWWW!” I shouted.
“EWWWW!” shrieked Emily Michelle, running through the kitchen again.
“EWWWW!” echoed David Michael.
Mom put on her yellow latex gloves, ready to do Odor Battle.
“I’ll go pick up another extension,” I whispered to Mary Anne.
Mom gave me her don’t-think-you-can-get-out-of-this-one look. “Kristyyyy …”
Too late. I absolutely shattered the record for the cross-house dash and dove for the phone in the family room. “I’m here,” I said, picking up the receiver. “Tell me how much everyone in the BSC missed me, in fifty words or less.”
Mary Anne laughed. “A lot, Kristy. But we survived. Abby really improved as president.”
I should have been happy to hear that. Thrilled. I mean, I care about the Baby-sitters Club more than anything else. But somehow that statement made me feel as if I’d swallowed a rotting turnip. Don’t get me wrong. I like Abby Stevenson, but she’d been really snide to me during a meeting I’d let her run in August.
“Great,” I said.
“She finally realized that cutting the dues was a bad idea —”
“I hate to tell you I told her that,” I said. “But I told her that.”
“Well, see, we needed money for the Mexican festival.” (That was this big fair she organized to raise money for a Mexican orphanage.)
“The festival turned out to be really fun,” Mary Anne added.
“Uh-huh,” I replied. “Fantastic.”
I was stoic. Upbeat. Positive. But inside, the turnip was putrefying.
“Is everything okay, Kristy?” (Leave it to Mary Anne. She absolutely reads my mind.)
“Fine, fine.”
“RRRAAAAAGH!” David Michael sprang up from the side of the sofa with his toy monster, nearly scaring me to death.
“Can’t you see I’m on the phone?” I blurted out.
“Hey, why is she allowed to loaf around?” Sam complained from the kitchen.
“Listen, Mary Anne,” I said, “it’s just crazy around here. Maybe I can bike over later —”
“Don’t make plans, Kristy!” Mom called out. “We have a full two days ahead — picking up Shannon from the kennel, school shopping, unpacking, putting the house back together …”
“Mom’s on the warpath,” I whispered into the phone. “We’ll talk at the meeting tomorrow, okay?”
“Meeting?” Mary Anne said.
“Tomorrow’s Monday, right?”
“Well, yeah. But it’s Labor Day.”
“So? The BSC’s not labor,” I pointed out.
“I know, but it is a holiday, and I don’t think any clients will be calling, and besides —”
“Even better. We’ll need a quiet meeting before the school year starts. We can update our records, talk about the summer, make plans for the year. Anyway, we have to meet because I brought you all presents!”
“Well … okay,” Mary Anne said softly. “But I know Jessi’s family is having a big barbecue, and I think Claudia was supposed to go to her aunt’s house —”
“Don’t worry, I’ll call them,” I said. “Got to go. Can’t wait to see you!”
I hung up and raced into the battle zone.
Despite the smells and noise, I was suddenly feeling great.
Okay, I wasn’t in Waikiki. I wasn’t watching the sun rise over the rim of an ancient volcano.
But I was home. And in a day, I’d be running a Baby-sitters Club meeting.
As far as I was concerned, life couldn’t be much better than that.
Claudia Kishi gasped as she opened the present I’d bought her. “Kristy, I don’t know what to say.”
For all to see, she held up a huge pineapple-shaped clock, whose two hands were a surfer and a surfboard.
“How about, ‘That’s the ugliest thing I have ever seen’?” Abby suggested.
Claudia, Abby, Stacey McGill, and Mallory Pike all howled with laughter. (Mary Anne chuckled politely.)
Abby was wearing her hula-grass hat. Stacey was strumming her toy ukelele. Mary Anne’s mirrored sunglasses were reflecting the light in Claudia’s bedroom. Mallory was trying on her pink-and-blue lei-shaped clip-on earrings.
Claudia’s clock clicked to 5:30. I cleared my throat and announced, “I hereby call to order the first Baby-sitters Club Luau!”
Splink.
That was Stacey, trying to play a tune on her ukelele.
“Anyone know where Jessi is?” I asked.
“Her parents wouldn’t let her leave the barbecue,” Mallory piped up.
“Smart people,” mumbled a voice in the hallway.
Claudia spun around. “Who asked you?”
Claudia’s older sister, Janine, poked her head in the door. “Well, they are. The last time I looked, this day was a federal holiday.”
With that, she disappeared down the hall and into her bedroom.
“She’s sour because we had to come home early from Peaches’ and Russ’s party,” Claudia said with a shrug. “Russ had just put the duck on the grill.”
“Duck?” Stacey said.
Abby nodded solemnly. “I’ve had that. We call it barbequack.”
“Uh, Kristy?” Mallory began. “My mom wanted to know if we could end a little early today. My uncle Joe is visiting from the nursing home, and he never likes to stay too long.”
Claudia’s eyes lit up. “Oooh, great idea. Maybe we can all go back to the barbequack.”
“Whoa, first things first,” I reminded everyone. “Any new business?”
“Dues day!” Stacey reached under Claudia’s bed and pulled out a manila envelope.
The air filled with groans.
“On a holiday?” Abby asked.
I raised an eyebrow. “After what happened this summer, I don’t think we can afford to skip any dues.”
“Well, excuuuuse me!” Abby murmured.
I know, I know, I was being a little harsh. But hey, someone has to lay down the law. The Baby-sitters Club is all about balance — keeping fun and business in the right proportions.
I should know. I invented the BSC. Well, that’s not totally true. Kristy’s Law, Part One: Great ideas invent themselves. You see, back in the days before Watson, I watched Mom spend one entire afternoon trying to line up a baby-sitter for David Michael. She must have made a hundred phone calls. What she needed was obvious: a group of sitters, available at one central number.
All I did was provide it.
First I recruited Claudia, Mary Anne, and Stacey. Since Claud has her own private phone line, we decided to use her room as a meeting place. We established regular hours (Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from five-thirty to six) and advertised all over town.
Parents could now call one number and reach four available sitters. (I mean, duh, right? I couldn’t believe no one had thought of it before.)
Kristy’s Law, Part Two: Great ideas grow like wildfire. It sure happened to us. Now we have seven regular members, two associates, and one honorary member. We have a ton of regular clients, and we’re always busy
. Often we organize special events for our charges. How do we do it all? Smoothly. You see, I made sure we had a tight structure: officers with specific duties, a treasury, a record book containing a job calendar and client list, and a notebook with personal remarks about each baby-sitting experience.
I’m president. I call the meetings to order and make sure we take care of business.
As secretary, Mary Anne has the hardest job. She’s in charge of the record book. She lists all of our jobs on the calendar, along with our conflicts — lessons, family trips, doctor appointments. When a parent calls, Mary Anne can see exactly who’s available, and she tries to distribute jobs evenly among us. On top of that, she’s constantly updating the client list, which contains rates, addresses, phone numbers, emergency contacts, birthdays, and special information about our charges.
I may think of the big ideas, but Mary Anne puts them into action (maybe that’s why we’re such good friends). She could organize the hay in a haystack into size groupings. That part of her personality comes from her dad, Richard. (Maybe the sweetness and shyness came from her mom, but we’ll never know. Mrs. Spier died when Mary Anne was a baby.) Richard raised Mary Anne strictly. Right through seventh grade, Mary Anne had to wear her hair in pigtails, go to bed super early, and wear little-girl clothes.
Don’t worry. Richard reformed before things became too embarrassing. Mary Anne’s life has changed a lot. Nowadays she wears normal clothes and a cool, short hairstyle. She also has a steady boyfriend named Logan Bruno, who’s an associate BSC member. Not only that, but the Spier family has grown from two to five. That’s because Richard met his high school sweetheart again after a gazillion years, and they fell head over heels in love and married.
That sweetheart just happened to be the divorced mom of another BSC member, Dawn Schafer. Where had the love of Richard’s life been all these years? In California, raising Dawn and her brother, Jeff. After her divorce, she moved with Dawn and Jeff into this funky two-hundred-year-old Stoneybrook farmhouse. When Dawn moved to Stoneybrook, she and Mary Anne discovered the love secret and reintroduced their parents. Soon they went from being good friends to being stepsisters! (Dawn and Jeff both came down with severe California-homesickness, though. In time, each of them moved back to live with their dad.)