Stacey's Emergency (2 page)

Talk about self-esteem, Kristy Thomas has it, despite what she's been through in the last

year or so. You think my family is mixed up? Wait until you hear about Kristy's. Kristy, the president of the Baby-sitters Club, used to live across the street from Claud. She lived there with her mother and her three brothers — Charlie and Sam, who are in high school, and David Michael, who is seven. Mr. Thomas had walked out on the family when Kristy was six or seven (I think). He just walked out, leaving Kristy's mom to raise four kids. Which she did. She got herself together and found a good job with a company in Stamford. Then, a few months before Kristy entered seventh grade, her mother began dating this millionaire, Watson Brewer. He was the first guy Mrs. Thomas had been serious about since her husband left. And he was the first guy that Kristy said she didn't like. Watson had been married once before, and he had two children, Andrew and Karen, who are four and seven now. During the summer between seventh and eighth grade, Mrs. Thomas married Watson. (That's how I always think of him, because that's what Kristy calls him.) After the wedding, Watson moved Kristy and her family from their small house into his mansion across town. Naturally, Kristy resented this, even though everyone in the family has a room to himself or herself, including Karen and Andrew, who

live with their father only every other weekend.

Guess what. Not long ago, Watson and Mrs. Thomas adopted a little girl. They named her Emily Michelle. She's two and a half, and she comes from Vietnam. She's adorable. With such a little kid around, though, arrangements had to be made for someone to be at home while the adults were at work and everyone else was at school. So Nannie, Kristy's grandmother, joined the household. What with Kristy, her mom, her brothers, her stepfather, her stepsister and stepbrother, her adopted sister, her grandmother, and the pets (a cat, a dog, and two goldfish), the Brewer/Thomas house is wild, crazy . . . and wonderful! (Even Kristy admits that now.)

Kristy herself is outgoing (she's noted for her big mouth), a tomboy, and just a little immature compared to the rest of us in the BSC. She doesn't care a thing about clothes and almost always wears jeans, a turtleneck shirt, a sweater or sweat shirt, and running shoes. Sometimes she wears her baseball cap with the collie on it. She's pretty, although I don't think she knows it. Best of all, when you dig below the loudmouth exterior, you find a caring, concerned, organized person, full of good ideas and creativity. (Needless to say,

Kristy — like the rest of us — loves kids.)

Kristy's best friend, Mary Anne Spier, actually looks a little like Kristy. They're both short for their age (Kristy is shorter) and have brown hair and brown eyes. Their features are even similar. But beyond looks, they are two extremely different people. While Kristy is outgoing, Mary Anne is shy. She has trouble speaking up for herself or voicing her opinions, although she's better about that than she was when I first met her. She's a romantic and cries easily. (Never see a sad movie with her.) She even had a steady boyfriend for a long time.

Mary Anne grew up next door to Kristy. (She's moved, too, though. I'll explain in a minute.) But her home life was certainly different from Kristy's. It was quiet (no brothers leaping around), just Mary Anne and her dad. Mary Anne's mom died when Mary Anne was quite little. She barely remembers her mother. Mary Anne was raised by Mr. Spier, who was awfully strict with her. Not that he's mean, but he does have this thing about orderliness and neatness and organization. Also, I think he wanted to prove to everyone that he could raise a little girl all by himself just fine. So he invented these rules for Mary Anne and practically took over her life. When I first met Mary Anne she seemed like such a little girl, even

though she's my age. That changed when Mary Anne was able to show her father that she was as mature as the rest of her friends. Then he loosened up on her, and Mary Anne loosened up, too.

Midway through seventh grade, a new girl, Dawn Schafer, moved to Stoneybrook — all the way from California. Dawn, a member of the BSC now, had moved here with her mother and younger brother, Jeff, after her parents had gotten divorced. (Sound familiar?) Her mom had chosen Stoneybrook because she grew up here and Dawn's grandparents still live here. Our California girl has the most amazingly blonde hair I've ever seen. And it's long. Her eyes are a sparkly blue, and, well, she's striking-looking. Dawn hates the cold Connecticut winters, loves the warm summers and health food, and is into exercising. Also, she has always liked ghost stories. This is interesting, considering that Dawn's mother bought an old (colonial) farmhouse, which has a secret passage that just may be haunted. (We're not sure.) Dawn is self-assured and an individualist. She doesn't care much what other people think about her. And she dresses in her own casual-trendy, one-of-a-kind style.

Anyway, shortly after Dawn moved here, she and Mary Anne became friends. Now they're stepsisters. How did that happen?

Well, Dawn and Mary Anne are partially responsible. They were looking through some old Stoneybrook High yearbooks and discovered that Mary Anne's father and Dawn's mother had been high-school sweethearts. But after graduation, they went in different directions. So Dawn and Mary Anne found a way for their parents to meet again, Mrs. Schafer and Mr. Spier began dating, and after what seemed like forever, they got married! Then Mary Anne, her father, and her kitten, Tigger, moved into Dawn's house. (Jeff wasn't there, though. He had never adjusted to his new life and had returned to California to live with his dad.) Now Dawn and Mary Anne are living under the same roof, which has been difficult sometimes, but mostly just fine.

While Claudia, Kristy, Mary Anne, Dawn, and I are all thirteen and in seventh grade, the two other BSC members are eleven and in sixth grade. Their names are Jessi (short for Jessica) Ramsey and Mallory (usually known as Mal) Pike. And they are best friends, too. (I think it's interesting that there are so many pairs of best friends in the BSC, yet we get along well as a group.) Anyway, Jessi and Mal are both the oldest kids in their families, they love to read (especially horse stories, and especially the ones by Marguerite Henry), they also like to write (Mallory more so than Jessi),

and they both feel that their parents treat them like infants, even though they are old enough to baby-sit, and old enough for plenty of other things. I remember beirtg eleven. It wasn't a

Jessi comes from a pretty average family. She lives with her parents, her Aunt Cecelia, h» eight-year-old sister, Becca (Charlotte Jo-h&nssen's best friend), and her baby brother, Squirt. Guess where her family lives. In my 0kt house! The one I lived in before we went back to New York and my parents got divorced. (Jessi's family moved here from New Jersey.) Jessi is a really talented ballet dancer. I've seen her perform. She's used to dancing onstage in front of big audiences, and she takes lessons at a school in Stamford that she had to audition for just to be allowed to enroll. Jessi has long dark eyelashes, big brown eyes, tegs that go on forever, and chocolatey brown skin.

Mal, on the other hand, comes from a huge family. She has seven younger brothers and sisters, three of whom are identical triplets (boys). Mal's passion is writing. Also drawing. She'd like to write and illustrate children's books one day. Mal is not feeling too pretty at the moment. She's got wavy red hair (her hair and face are pretty), but she's also got glasses and braces. Her braces, at least, are

the clear plastic kind, so they don't show up too much. Mal's parents will not let her wear contacts instead of glasses. They did, however, finally let her get her ears pierced (the Ramseys let Jessi do the same), so there's hope. Besides, the braces will come off eventually.

So there you are. Those are my friends: Kristy, Dawn, Mallory, Jessi, Mary Anne, and Claudia, my best friend, with whom I needed to talk pretty deperately. She lives not far from Charlotte, and I was hoping she'd be at home.

Chapter 3.

Claudia was at home and we had a nice talk. There's something comforting about Claud's room, as well as about Claudia herself. Maybe that's one reason the Baby-sitters Club meets there.

I guess now I ought to tell you just what the BSC is, since I've mentioned it several times. The club was Kristy's idea. She got it back at the beginning of seventh grade, when her mom was first dating Watson, and just after I'd moved to Stoneybrook (for the first time). In those days (they seem so long ago, but they really weren't), Kristy and Mary Anne still lived next door to each other and across the street from Claud. And Kristy and her older brothers were responsible for taking turns watching David Michael after school. That was a good arrangement — as long as one of them was free each afternoon. Of course, they weren't always free. And one

evening, when Kristy, Sam, and Charlie had realized that they were all busy the next day, Kristy sat eating pizza and watching her mom make one phone call after another, trying to line up a baby-sitter for David Michael. Unfortunately, David Michael was watching, too, and Kristy felt sorry for him. (David Michael knew he was the source of some sort of trouble.) Too bad, thought Kristy, that her mom couldn't make just one phone call and reach a whole lot of sitters at once. And that was when she got one of the great ideas she's famous for. She and her friends could start a baby-sitting business! If they met somewhere a few times a week, parents could call them and, just as Kristy had imagined, reach several sitters at the same time. Somebody was bound to be free (and get a job), and the parent would be satisfied. So Kristy called Claud and Mary Anne, and they decided to start the Babysitters Club.

Right away, the girls realized that a fourth member would be a good idea. Claud suggested me, since she and I were already getting to know each other and I'd done a lot of sitting in New York. And so the BSC was ready and running. Well, almost. We had to do a lot of work in the beginning. First, we planned to meet three afternoons each week in Claud's room (she has her own phone); on

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, from five-thirty until six. Parents could call us on Claud's line during those times and reach four experienced baby-sitters. But how would they know about our meetings?

"We'll advertise," said Kristy.

So we advertised. We told practically everyone about the BSC. We sent out fliers. We even placed an ad in the Stoneybrook News. And when we held our first official meeting, we actually got job calls. After that, the calls kept coming, and they haven't stopped. In fact, we started getting so many that the club had to expand. Dawn joined us after she moved to Connecticut. Then, when I had to go back to New York, Kristy asked both Jessi and Mal to join. And then I returned. I was allowed back into the club. I became the seventh member, and I think I'll be the last. (Unless someone else has to leave.) Claudia's bedroom can't hold more than seven people. Well, comfortably. We'd have to figure out how to drape new people around the ceiling.

The BSC is run very efficiently. Kristy makes sure of that. She's our president. The rest of us are officers, too, and we each have our own job or function. Kristy is president because the club was her idea. That makes sense. Also, Kristy is the kind of person who's good at running things. And with the great ideas she's

always getting, she keeps coming up with new ways to promote the club, to attract more clients, or to run the club even more efficiently. (Sometimes she goes overboard, but the rest of us let her know right away.)

Claudia is the vice-president. She should be, since the members of the club swarm into her bedroom three times a week, eat her junk food, and tie up her phone. Also, parents sometimes call Claud's line during nonmeet-ing times, and Claudia has to deal with those job appointments on her own.

The secretary of the club is Mary Anne. She's neat and organized — thank goodness. Sometimes I think she works harder than anyone else at a meeting. Her job is to keep the record book up-to-date and in order. The record book was one of Kristy's ideas. In it, Mary Anne keeps track of our clients — their names, addresses, phone numbers, rates paid, and special information about their children. More important, she schedules every babysitting job that comes in. That means that she has to know all of our schedules — when Jessi has ballet lessons or Claud has an art class or Mal has an orthodontist appointment. I don't think Mary Anne has ever made a scheduling boo-boo.

I am the club treasurer. Not to brag, but I happen to be very good at math. It just comes

easily to me. I can add up numbers in a flash — in my head. My job is to collect the club dues from every member each Monday, to put the money in our treasury (a manila envelope), and then to dole out the money as it's needed. What do we use the money for? Lots of things. To help Claud pay her monthly phone bill, to pay Charlie Thomas to drive Kristy back and forth to meetings now that she lives too far away to get to Claud's on her own, to fund an occasional club party, and to restock the Kid-Kits when we run out of things such as crayons or stickers. Remember my Kid-Kit? Well, we each have one. They're great baby-sitting tools. We don't bring them along every time we sit, but pretty often. The kids love them, so their parents see happy faces when they come home — and then they're more apt to turn to the BSC the next time they need a sitter.

Dawn's position is alternate officer of the BSC. That means that she can take over the job of anyone who misses a meeting. And that means that Dawn has to be familiar with the duties of each officer. I know that sounds difficult, but it isn't really that bad. Anyway, the BSC members don't miss meetings very often. So Dawn answers the telephone a lot.

Jessi and Mallory are junior officers. This is because they are eleven and not allowed to sit

at night unless they're taking care of their own brothers and sisters. They are a huge help, though. By taking over a lot of the afternoon jobs, they free up us older members for the nighttime jobs.

Hmm. Let me see. A couple of other things about the workings of the BSC . . .