Stacey And The Cheerleaders (2 page)

After school, as I was taking books out of my locker, I saw RJ at the end of the hall. He didn't see me. I hurried up, hoping to run over to him and say hi.

Before I could close the locker, Jessi Ramsey came up from behind me. "Hey, just in time," she said.

Jessi is one of the BSC's two junior members. She's in sixth grade here at SMS. I'd almost forgotten she was meeting me after school that day. She had a sitting job in my neighborhood, so we'd agreed to walk home together.

"Oh, hi, Jessi," I said.

"Ready to go?"

"Yeah, sure."

I closed my locker. As Jessi and I walked to the door, I waved to RJ. He was with a few other Group members. One of them nudged him, and he waved back.

He was grinning.

Guess what. So was I.

Chapter 2.

"You're what!" Kristy blurted into the phone receiver. "You call that 'having a good time'?"

Jessi was fidgeting excitedly. "Let me talk to Mal," she pleaded.

Mal is Mallory Pike, the BSC's other junior member. She was getting over a case of mono. Before our Wednesday club meeting officially began, Kristy had decided to call her and find out how she was doing.

"Here's Jessi," Kristy said. "Feel better!"

As Jessi took the receiver, Kristy shook her head. "Mal said she's having a fantastic time. She spends all day reading."

"What's wrong with that?" Mary Anne asked.

"If I couldn't get up and run outside, I'd go out of my mind," Kristy said.

Kristy, if you hadn't guessed, is very take-charge. Which is a polite way of saying she's bossy. And loud.

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15

I mean those things in the nicest way. Really. I love Kristy. She is so smart and has the most amazing ideas. Amazing Idea Number One: the Baby-sitters Club. Yes, she invented us. It happened one day in seventh grade when her mom was frantieally trying to line up a sitter for Kristy's little brother. Kristy wanted to help her. She realized the answer to her mom's problem — a group of reliable baby-sitters, like an agency, with one phone number, so parents could reach several sitters at once.

Voila. The Baby-sitters Club was born. It started with four members and grew to seven. (Nine if you include our associate members, Logan Bruno and Shannon Kilbourne, who fill in during emergencies.) At the beginning, we did some heavy advertising, with fliers and posters in public places. Now most of the Sto-neybrook parents know about us and we have lots of regular clients.

We meet on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from five-thirty to six in Claudia Kishi's bedroom. (She's the only one of us who has her own phone line, separate from the rest of her family.) It's fun, because we're close friends, but we also take sitting very seriously. For one thing, we are always busy with jobs. Plus we organize events for our charges, we

pay dues to help cover club expenses, and we each have a title and duties.

Kristy is president. She was born to be a president. Don't be surprised if you see her name in a voting booth someday. She runs our meetings, she solves problems, and she thinks up most of the club events. Honestly, I don't know where she stores all her ideas. When she heard some kids complaining they were too young (or too clumsy) for T-Ball, she organized them into a softball team of her own. When she realized some of our charges had trouble adjusting to new sitters, she invented "Kid-Kits" for us to take on jobs. Kid-Kits are boxes full of our old toys, games, books, and assorted other things we scrounge up. Who would have expected kids to go crazy over them?

Kristy would.

It's easy to recognize Kristy. She's the shortest BSC member, and she's always dressed super casually. Jeans, a T-shirt or turtleneck, and sneakers — "neat and simple" is her motto. The funny thing is, her stepdad's extremely rich so she could buy the most expensive clothes around.

Kristy wasn't always rich. Until she was about seven, she lived across the street from Claudia with her parents and two older broth-

ers (Charlie is now seventeen and Sam — yes, my old boyfriend — is fifteen). But her dad deserted them not long after her younger brother, David Michael, was born. (Kristy hates talking about her real dad.) So Mrs. Thomas raised four kids by herself and held down a full-time job.

Then came Watson. Watson Brewer the millionaire, that is. He fell in love with Kristy's mom and married her. Life suddenly became easier — in a way. On one hand, the Thomases moved into a mansion. On the other hand, Kristy's family doubled in size. Watson already had two kids from a previous marriage (Karen and Andrew), who live with him on alternate weekends. Then Watson and Mrs. Thomas adopted a little Vietnamese girl (Emily Michelle), and Kristy's grandmother moved in to help take care of the house and kids. Add a zoofull of pets, and you have a busy household.

"This meeting will come to order!" Kristy bellowed at the stroke of five-thirty (actually, it's more like the click of five-thirty on Clau-dia's alarm clock).

Jessi had already hung up the phone. She took her usual position on the floor. Shannon Kilbourne sat next to her. I was cross-legged on the bed, between Claudia and Mary Anne. Kristy sat forward in her director's chair. "All

present and accounted for?" she asked.

"Puh-Zeeze," Claudia said with a giggle. "This isn't the army."

Kristy shrugged. "I just like the way that sounds. Any new business?"

The room fell silent for a moment. Jessi stretched out her long legs on the carpet. (She's a fabulous ballerina, so she's always stretching.) Her right foot disappeared under the bed, and . . . crnunch!

"Oops," she said.

"The blue corn chips!" Claudia cried out. "I almost forgot about them."

Jessi pulled back her leg, and Claudia leaned down to pull a huge bag from under the bed.

"Blue chips?" Kristy did not look impressed. "Are they moldy?"

"No, they're made from blue corn," Claudia answered, ripping open the bag. "Try some." She gave a chip to Kristy, who held it as if it were a dead mouse.

Mary Anne reached in for some. "Dawn loved blue chips," she said with a sigh.

Dawn, by the way, is Dawn Schafer, one of our regular members. Right now she's in California, staying with her dad. She's originally from California, but when her parents divorced, Mrs. Schafer moved to Connecticut with Dawn and Dawn's brother, Jeff. Jeff never adjusted to the change and ended up moving

back with his dad. Dawn stayed in Stoney-brook, but she grew incredibly homesick for "her California family," so she moved back to be with her dad and Jeff for awhile.

Dawn is also Mary Anne's stepsister and best friend. Mary Anne's been feeling pretty down since she left. (So have I. Dawn is fun to be with — plus she's the only other BSCer who doesn't eat sweets. She's a health-food freak.)

"Have you talked to her lately?" Jessi asked.

Mary Anne shook her head sadly. "Not since two nights ago."

"We could call her now if you want," Clau-dia offered.

Kristy looked at the clock. "Nope. It's two-thirty-four in California. She's not back from school yet." She took a fistful of chips out of the bag. "These aren't bad."

"Kristy, don't hog them," I said.

"Don't worry," Claudia assured me. "There's another bag behind my hats."

Translation: It was on the top shelf of her closet, where she keeps her huge hat collection. (Probably next to a few Milky Ways and a box of Oreos.)

Claudia is the BSC vice-president. She also happens to be my best friend in the world. I love her so much. We have a lot in common, but I will never understand her eating habits.

She loves candy, pretzels, and ice cream. Sometimes I think she's the opposite of a diabetic — her body must need sugar and junk. Her parents don't permit much junk food in the house, so Claudia hides candy, cookies, and chips all over her room. (Mr. and Mrs. Kishi also permit only Great Literature, so Claudia has to hide her Nancy Drew mysteries.) And here's the weirdest thing. Despite her eating habits, Claudia looks like a model and has perfect skin. She has long, jet-black hair and dark almond-shaped eyes (she's Japanese-American).

It's easy for Claud to hide stuff, because her room is a mess. Not that she's a slob. It's just that every corner is taken up by art supplies. You see, Claudia is an artist. Talk about talent. There's nothing she can't do well — drawing, sculpture, painting, jewelry-making. Unfortunately, art has never been very important to the Kishi family. Grades and schoolwork are, and Claudia's not a good student. For most of her life she felt inferior to her sister, Janine the Genius, who has enough IQ points for two people. But now even the Kishis realize Claudia's got talent.

One thing Claud and I do have in common is a passion for fashion. But our styles are different. I like sophisticated, chic clothes, and I'm great at spotting the perfect outfit in a

catalog or shop window. Claudia's more artistic. She dresses hip and funky (hiply and funkily?), and she puts together her own outfits. For instance, at the BSC meeting she was wearing baggy wool men's pants, gathered at the waist by a black leather band; a white tuxedo shirt with rolled-up sleeves; Capezio-type flats with mismatched white and black socks; and a glittery bow-tie barrette in her hair. On someone else, the Look might be too formal, or just plain weird. On Claudia, it was fabulous.

As we sat there, passing around the second bag of chips, Shannon blurted out, "Oh! Guess what. My parents need a sitter for Tiffany and Maria on Tuesday afternoon. I have to go to this honor society meeting."

"Let's see . . ." Mary Anne looked in the club record book. "I'm at the Prezziosos', Kris-ty's sitting for the Hobart kids, Stacey's with Charlotte, Jessi has the Newton kids, Claudia has a dentist appointment . . . uh-oh."

Kristy shook her head. "I knew this would happen with two members missing."

"Logan adores the Hobart kids," Mary Anne said. "If he doesn't have track practice he might take your place, Kristy."

She picked up the phone and tapped out his number. After a short conversation, she hung up and said, "We're in luck!"

"Good," Kristy replied. "I'll sit for the Kil-bournes."

"Bring a suit of armor," Shannon remarked. "You would not believe Tiffany. She has become such a brat."

"Really?" I said. "She used to be so quiet."

Shannon nodded. "She missed the Terrible Twos. Instead she's having the Terrible Tens. Even her teachers are complaining."

Shannon and Logan, as I mentioned before, are our two associate members, and they're not required to come to meetings. Shannon has hair to die for — blonde and curly and incredibly thick. She goes to a private school called Stoneybrook Day School, and she's involved in a lot of extracurricular activities. Lately, though, she's been picking up some of the slack for Dawn and Mallory. Logan (who is cute with a capital Q) is Mary Anne Spier's boyfriend. He's on the football and track teams, and he works part-time as a busboy, so he's often unavailable to sit.

Doesn't it figure that the quietest, shyest BSC member would be the only one with a steady boyfriend? Well, I must admit Logan has good taste. Mary Anne is also about the nicest, most sensitive and caring person I've ever met. She cries at sad movies. She cries at happy movies. Logan says she cries at store openings.

She does not cry over the BSC record book, which is a good thing, because the book is filled to the brim with her neat, tiny handwriting. As BSC secretary, Mary Anne keeps track of our sitting jobs in that book. She writes down all our conflicts in advance — Jessi's ballet classes, Mallory's orthodontist appointments, and whatever else comes along for the rest of us. She also keeps an updated client list, including the rates they pay and the special likes and dislikes of our charges. And she never, ever makes a mistake.

I told you how sweet-toothed Claudia and diabetic me are best friends. Well, shy Mary Anne and loudmouth Kristy are best friends, too. They are very different. But I can think of two things they have in common. The first is looks. Mary Anne is pretty short too, and both girls have brown hair and brown eyes.

The second thing Mary Anne has in common with Kristy is an unusual family history. Mary Anne's mom died when Mary Anne was a baby. Her dad was so overwhelmed by this that he had to send Mary Anne away to her grandparents while he recovered. When he took her back, he tried hard to be a good father and mother. His rules were very strict. Mary Anne had to go to bed early every night. She had to wear old-fashioned little-girl clothes and keep her hair in pigtails.

Mr. Spier changed radically, though, when he met his high-school sweetheart, who just happened to have moved back to Stoneybrook after living for years in California. (Can you guess who she is? I gave you a hint earlier.)

Yup. Mrs. Schafer, Dawn's mom. She is the opposite of Mary Anne's dad. In other words, she's wild, funny, and absentminded. Mary Anne and her dad now live in what was the Schafers' house. (It's a two-hundred-year-old farmhouse with a barn and a secret passageway to Dawn's bedroom!)

Nowadays Mary Anne looks exactly her age. She's allowed to wear the clothes of her choice and experiment with her hair and makeup.

Okay, I've told you about everyone except our junior members. Mallory Pike and Jessi are both eleven years old and in sixth grade. (The rest of us are thirteen and in eighth grade.) They have weeknight curfews, so they take mainly afternoon jobs. Since Mal came down with mono, Jessi has really missed her in meetings. They're absolutely best friends. Both of them love to read, especially horse books. Both are the oldest among their siblings, and both are convinced their parents treat them like babies.

Those are the similarities. The girls are also quite different. For one thing, Mal is Caucasian and Jessi's African-American. For another,

Jessi has two younger siblings and Mallory has seven (yes, seven). Mal's not a ballerina, like Jessi. She loves to write and illustrate, and she wants to be a children's book author someday.

Oh. I forgot one important thing. I'm the BSC treasurer, which means I have to collect dues every Monday. It's the least popular job, and I got it because I'm good in math. (By now I'm used to the groaning and complaints on dues day.) I figure out what part of Claud's phone bill should be paid by the club, how much money to pay Charlie Thomas (he drives Kristy to and from meetings), and whether or not we have enough leftover money for special treats, like a pizza party. I also try to keep a reserve in case we need to buy things for Kid-Kits.