Kristy and the Snobs (2 page)

The club officers are our vice-president, Claudia; our secretary, Mary Anne; our treasurer, Stacey; and our alternate officer, Dawn. Claudia was chosen as vice-president since she has her own personal telephone and phone

number. Because of that, we decided to hold our meetings in her room. Claudia works hard for the club, since she has to take a lot of job calls that come in while we're not having meetings. Here are the essentials about Claudia: Likes - art, mysteries, baby-sitting, boys. Dislikes - school. Looks - beautiful, Japanese, exotic. Dress - very trendy and cool, often outrageous. Personality - outgoing, sometimes feels inferior to Janine. (Who wouldn't?)

Mary Anne, our secretary, is my best friend. Before I moved to Watson's we lived next door to each other for years and years. We were babies, kids, and almost teenagers together. Right now, Mary Anne is changing. I think she's growing up a little faster than I am. And she has another best friend (Dawn). We're alike in a lot of ways and different in a lot of ways. For instance, my likes - sports, baby-sitting, TV. Mary Anne's likes - baby-sitting, movie stars, animals. My dislikes - you already know them. Mary Anne's dislikes - crowds of people, being the center of attention. Looks - we're both small for our age, and we both have brown eyes and medium-length brown hair. Dress - I couldn't care less. Mary Anne is just beginning to care, but she needs a lot of help from Claudia and Stacey. My personality -

outgoing, big mouth, friendly. Mary Anne's personality - cautious, sensitive, shy. (She has a boyfriend. I don't.) Mary Anne's club job is to keep our record book up to date. The record book is where we write down our clients' names, addresses, and phone numbers, list the money we earn (that's really Stacey's job), and most important, schedule our baby-sitting jobs.

Stacey McGill is sort of a newcomer to Stoneybrook. Until a year ago, she and her parents lived in New York City. They moved here just before we began school last September. Stacey is sophisticated and smart. Sometimes she seems years older than me. She and Claudia are best friends. Stacey's likes - boys, clothes, baby-sitting. Dislikes - doctors. (Stacey has diabetes and has to go to doctors pretty often. She also dislikes the strict diet she has to stay on so as not to allow too much sugar in her body.) Looks - wild blonde hair, thin, pretty, older than her age. Dress - as trendy as Claudia, but a little less outrageous. Personality - outgoing, very grown-up, sensitive to other people. Stacey keeps track of the earnings of us baby-sitters, and is responsible for the dues we put in our club treasury.

Finally, there's Dawn, who's more of a newcomer to Stoneybrook than Stacey is. She moved

here from California last January with her mother and younger brother after her parents got divorced. Dawn's job as alternate officer is to take over the duties of any other officer if someone gets sick or has to miss a meeting. Dawn's likes - health food, sunshine, babysitting, ghost stories. Dislikes - junk food, cold weather. Looks - the longest, palest, shiniest, silkiest blonde hair you can imagine. Dress - whatever she feels like. Dawn is an individual. Personality - confident, doesn't care what other people think of her.

And that's the five of us. Together we make a pretty good team.

I realized that my friends were looking at me, waiting for me to begin the meeting.

"The meeting will now come to order," I said, even though we already were in order. "Stacey, how much money is in the treasury?"

"Give me your weekly dues first," she replied. (Monday is Dues Day.)

Each of us handed Stacey a dollar.

"We've got nine dollars and eighteen cents," she reported.

"That's kind of low, isn't it?" I replied.

"Well, we pay Charlie to drive you to and from the meetings," said Stacey, "and we just bought coloring books and sticker books for the Kid-Kits. We're okay as long as we don't

buy anything for awhile. We'll just let our dues pile up."

(Kid-Kits are boxes filled with games and books - our old ones, mostly - plus new coloring books, crayons, activity books, etc. that we sometimes bring on baby-sitting jobs. The kids love them.)

"Anything else to report?" I asked.

The club members shook their heads.

"Have you been keeping up with the notebook?"

The club members nodded their heads - but Claudia, Dawn, and Mary Anne looked a little guilty. I knew they'd just been reading the notebook before I came into the room. We're responsible for writing up every job we go on. We record the jobs in our club notebook and then we're supposed to read the notebook each week to see what happened when our friends were baby-sitting. It's not always very interesting, but it's usually helpful.

The telephone rang then with what was probably going to be the first job of the meeting.

Dawn answered it. "Hello, Baby-sitters Club."

(See how professional we sound?)

"Okay, Mrs. Rodowsky. I'll call you right back." Dawn hung up the phone and turned

to us. "Mrs. Rodowsky needs a sitter for Jackie and his brothers next Tuesday afternoon from three-thirty till six."

"Let's see/' said Mary Anne, who had already turned to the appointment pages of our record book. "Claudia, you're the only one free."

"Okay," said Claudia. "I guess I can handle Jackie." (Jackie's a nice little kid, but he's accident-prone and always in trouble.)

Dawn called Mrs. Rodowsky back to tell her that Claudia would be her sitter on Tuesday.

A bunch of other calls came in then, but the most interesting one - just before the meeting came to an end - was from Mr. Papa-dakis. The Papadakises live not far from me in the new neighborhood. They have three kids - Linny, who's eight and a friend of David Michael; Hannie, who's six and a friend of Karen; and Sari, who's just two. I knew the Papadakises a little through David Michael and Karen, but I'd never sat for them. Now Mr. Papadakis was calling with a job.

"We saved your flier," he told me. "We need a sitter on Thursday afternoon and we know Linny and Hannie like you."

"You take the job! You take the job!" Mary Anne said excitedly to me after I'd told Mr. Papadakis I'd call him back. "You're free and

it's good for you to sit in your new neighborhood."

"Well . . . okay!" I said.

At that time, I had no idea what a sitting job in my new neighborhood would really mean, and so - I was foolish enough to look forward to it.

Chapter 3.

Charlie picked me up promptly at six o'clock and we headed back to our house. (It had been a long time before I could think of Watson's house as ours.)

"I can't wait to see how Louie's doing," I said as Charlie pulled up to a stop sign.

"Didn't you see him this afternoon?" he asked.

"I didn't have time. I stayed at school to watch a field hockey game. The late bus dropped me off just in time for you to pick me up and take me to Claudia's."

"Oh," said Charlie. "Well, I'm sure he's fine."

"I hope so," I replied.

But when we got home, Louie wasn't fine. He was resting in the living room on his orange blanket, and he didn't get up when he saw us. Usually, he's on his feet in a flash, wanting to play or to be let out.

"Hi, Louie!" I said. "Come here, boy."

Louie lifted his head off his paws, but didn't get up. I had to call him two more times before he stood up. He began to walk toward me. It was still hard to tell whether he was limping, but what nobody missed was when he walked smack into a table leg instead of my outstretched arms. David Michael and Mom had just entered the room, so they saw the whole thing, along with Charlie and me.

"Oh, Louie," murmured Mom, leaning over to pat his head. "What's wrong, boy?"

"He's not too sick," announced David Michael. "I just gave him his supper and he ate it in one gulp."

"Well," said Mom, "maybe he ought to have a check-up with Dr. Smith tomorrow. I'll call her answering service tonight and try to make an appointment. Charlie, could you take him after school?"

"Sure," replied Charlie.

"I'll go with you," I said.

"Me, too," added David Michael.

So it was arranged. The next afternoon, Charlie drove David Michael and Louie and me to Dr. Smith's office.

Louie does not like the vet. He never has. And he's pretty noisy about it. Somehow, he figures out where we're going when we're only

halfway there. Then the whining starts. He can be really pathetic. David Michael is always prepared, though. He fishes doggie treats out of his pocket and feeds them to Louie one at a time.

In between bites, though, Louie whines. Charlie says it drives him crazy, but we made it to the vet without incident.

Dr. Smith's waiting room wasn't very crowded, thank goodness. There were only two patients ahead of us - a dachshund with his front paw in a cast, and a cat in a carrying case who kept yowling unhappily. Louie was well-behaved. He lay on the floor with his head resting pitifully on Charlie's shoe and whined so softly you could hardly hear him.

When Dr. Smith's assistant called for Louie Thomas, Charlie, David Michael, and I rose as one. With a lot of prodding, Louie came, too. Charlie and I hoisted him onto the metal table in the examining room.

"Hello, Thomases," Dr. Smith greeted us as she entered the room.

"Hi," we replied.

We really like Dr. Smith. She's an older woman with graying hair and bifocals who's wonderful with animals. She talks to them in a soft, soothing voice. I've never heard her raise it, not even the time Louie panicked and

knocked over a box of sterile bandages.

"Well, what's wrong with Louie today?" asked the doctor.

David Michael spoke up. "We're not sure. Yesterday I thought he was limping, but it's hard to tell."

"He just lies around," I added. "And last night he walked right into a table when he was aiming for me."

"But his appetite is fine," said Charlie. "He always eats his meals."

"Well, let's have a look." Dr. Smith examined Louie carefully. She poked him and stroked him, listened to his heart, looked in his eyes and ears, and watched him try to walk. She frowned as Louie lumbered stiffly into the door jamb. Then she examined his eyes again and sort of massaged his legs.

When she was finished, she looked at us gravely.

"What is it?" I asked, suddenly feeling afraid. Awful thoughts began to run through my mind. The worst was, Louie has cancer.

But what Dr. Smith said was, "Louie is getting old."

My brothers and I nodded.

"And just like some old people, his body is beginning to slow down. He's developing arthritis and his eyesight is poor."

Is that all? I thought. Arthritis and poor eyesight? It didn't sound too bad.

"Can dogs get contact lenses?" asked David Michael seriously.

Dr. Smith smiled. "I'm afraid not, honey."

I wondered why she still looked so solemn.

"What can we do for him?" asked Charlie.

"Well, he's probably in a fair amount of pain. I can give you some pills to ease it, but they won't cure the arthritis, and the arthritis is probably going to get worse. His eyes may, too."

Now I understood. Louie was in pain. There wasn't much we could do for him and he wasn't going to get better. It wasn't as if he had a cold or an injury. I looked down at him. He had settled onto the floor of the examining room. It must be scary, I thought, not to see well and to know that you're in a strange place. No wonder Louie had walked into the side of the door.

I realized that Dr. Smith was talking again. "Please tell your mother to call me anytime if she has questions. We can strengthen the dosage of the pills if Louie seems to be worse, but I don't want to do that yet. I have a feeling Louie's got a tough road ahead of him."

David Michael was sitting on the floor, talking to Louie. I was glad he wasn't paying at-

tention. I couldn't speak to the doctor because a lump had formed in my throat. But Charlie took over.

"We'll tell Mom/' he said. "Is there anything else we can do for Louie?"

"Stairs will be difficult/' replied Dr. Smith, "so keep his food and water on the level of the house where he spends the most time. Carry him up and down stairs if you can. But he will need a little exercise. Short, slow walks. Let him go at his own pace."

Charlie and I nodded.

"Can we leave now?" asked David Michael impatiently, and Dr. Smith laughed.

"Had enough of the doctor's office?" she asked.

"Louie has."

Dr. Smith handed a packet of pills to Charlie and explained when to give them to Louie. Then we left. Charlie and I looked as if we were on our way to a funeral. But David Michael walked Louie jauntily to the car, singing a song that he made up as he went along.

"Oh, you're going home, Louie, and you're fi-i-i-ine," he said. "No shots, no stitches, no treatment. You don't even have to spend the ni-i-i-ight."

Charlie and I glanced at each other. Obviously David Michael didn't understand that

Louie was in bad shape. All he knew was that the doctor had sent him home with some pills. How sick could he be? Pills always made David Michael better.

I felt awful by the time we reached our house. "I think I'll take Louie for a walk," I told my brothers. "A slow one, like Dr. Smith suggested." I was hoping it would calm me down.

Charlie must have guessed how I was feeling because when David Michael said, "I'll come with you!" Charlie said, "Why don't you come with me instead, kiddo? We can give your new football a workout."

I flashed Charlie a grateful smile, and Louie and I started slowly down the drive to the shady street. I remembered the day us Thomases moved into Watson's house. The morning before, we had really spruced Louie up because we'd wanted him to look his best when he came to this neighborhood, where (I was sure) all the dogs were purebred, pedigreed, and groomed at doggie parlors.

Well, that was several months ago. Since I hadn't met many of the people around here, I hadn't met many of their dogs, either. I had no idea what they were like. No question about it, though, Louie was not at his best as we plodded down the street. His head was hanging (Was he trying to see the ground better?),