Abby the Bad Sport Read online

  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

  Was I late?

  Not by my watch.

  Was I on time? Well, that was another story — and why I was running at full speed toward Claudia Kishi’s house at 58 Bradford Court in Stoneybrook, Connecticut, at approximately 5:29 P.M. Give or take a minute.

  Except that Kristy Thomas, our fearless leader and president of the Baby-sitters Club (or BSC), does not give minutes away. When she convenes a meeting of the BSC, she calls it to order ON TIME. And she expects everybody to be there.

  Everybody including me, even though I would have had a perfectly good excuse to be late and even though I had a million things to do and to catch up on before I …

  But wait. I guess I’m running ahead of myself. (That’s a joke, in case you didn’t notice.)

  I’m Abby. Abigail Stevenson, to be exact. I am thirteen years old and in eighth grade at Stoneybrook Middle School in Stoneybrook, Connecticut, where I am an okay student and an excellent varsity soccer player. I’m not bragging. I just don’t believe in pretending not to be good at something when you are. It’s just as dumb as pretending to know how to do something when you don’t.

  I’m medium-sized (the best size for a soccer player, in my opinion) with dark brown curly hair and brown eyes. I have a soccer tan almost year-round. I am nearsighted and wear glasses (regular and sports glasses) or contacts, depending on my mood. I’m also in top physical shape, except for one little problem.

  Life makes me sneeze. Translation: I am ALLERGIC. To everything. Well, maybe not to everything, because I haven’t come in contact with everything in the world yet. But I am allergic to dogs, dust, kitty litter (but, amazingly, not cats!), tomatoes, shellfish, cheese, milk, and pollen, big-time. Just to name a few items.

  I also have asthma and have to carry an inhaler at all times in case I have an asthma attack. In fact, I have two inhalers, a regular over-the-counter one for when I get a little short of breath and a prescription one for when I have a really bad asthma attack, the kind with big emergency-room-visit potential. (Hospital-level attacks have only happened to me a few times, luckily.)

  But enough about asthma and allergies. We — my mother; my twin sister, Anna; and I — moved here recently from Long Island to a bigger house in a kid-friendly neighborhood when my mother got a new publishing job in New York City. Life was supposed to get easier.

  Easier was not the word that came to mind when I contemplated moving from the house where we had lived for as long as I could remember. For one thing, I was the star forward, co-captain, and leading scorer on my school’s soccer team. I had friends. Some of our relatives lived nearby. And, well, the truth is that the worst part was leaving the house we’d been living in when my dad was killed in an automobile accident four years ago. A truck crashed into my father’s car. The driver of the truck was barely even hurt.

  Somehow, I thought leaving the house meant we were leaving the memory of my father behind.

  But it wasn’t true. In fact, it turned out to be just the opposite, because during the move, Anna and I found a box of our father’s things that our mother had packed away right after he died. We hardly ever talk about what happened, but when we showed Mom the box, well — we talked.

  After that, things between Mom and me and Anna were better.

  Anyway, now we live here and I’ve made new friends, secured my rightful place on the soccer team, become the co-coach of a kids’ softball team, and become a successful businesswoman. That last part is where the BSC comes in.

  What is the BSC? You mean you haven’t heard of us? We’re famous all over Stoneybrook!

  Actually, kidding aside, we are pretty well-known. But more about that later.

  The only thing you need to know about the BSC right now is that it meets Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at Claudia Kishi’s (Claudia is the vice-president) at five-thirty P.M. sharp.

  Which is a mild word for the look Madame President Kristy would give me if I were late.

  I flew past Claudia’s sister, Janine, with a breathless “Hi — late” when I entered the house. I took the stairs two at a time. I flung open the door of Claudia’s room with such force it banged against the wall.

  Kristy looked up from the director’s chair she commandeers at every meeting. She raised the visor that is her BSC crown, glanced over at the clock as it changed to 5:30, and said, “This meeting of the BSC will come to order.”

  Yippee. I wasn’t late.

  I slid down the side of Claudia’s bed and gasped, “Water. Give me water.”

  “How about orange juice mixed with seltzer?” asked Stacey McGill, who is our treasurer. “I have to mix them because the orange juice would be too much sugar for me otherwise.”

  “Done,” I said gratefully.

  After I had slaked my thirst and Kristy had fielded a couple of phone calls for baby-sitting jobs, she looked at me and said, “Well, Abby, we’re glad you could make it.”

  “Me, too,” I said. I meant it. I like the meetings. My closest friends in Stoneybrook are my fellow BSC members.

  “How did the training go?” asked Mary Anne, looking up from the record book she keeps as secretary of the BSC. “Is it really only for one day?”

  I nodded and Mary Anne made a note in the book.

  “Are you free to take on more baby-sitting jobs, then? You know August is a busy month for us,” she said. “How many days will practice and games take up?”

  “I don’t know exactly, but of course I’m free to take jobs. On a case-by-case basis,” I said loftily.

  Kristy snorted and Mary Anne looked at me quizzically. Mallory Pike said to Jessi Ramsey in a loud whisper that was meant to be heard, “Wow, Abby must be way important now to be so busy.”

  I grinned. “Okay, okay,” I said. “This is the deal. Remember when my soccer coach recommended me for the Special Olympics Unified Team program after I said I wanted to get more soccer practice?”

  “Yeah, that’s what the girl needs,” said Claudia to no one in particular. “More soccer.”

  I ignored her. “Well, lots of kids from several schools have been recommended, both as partners and as athletes.”

  “Partners and athletes?” asked Mallory, who is one of our junior officers.

  “The Unified Teams are made of players who have intellectual disabilities and players who don’t,” I said. “The players who have intellectual disabilities are referred to as athletes and the players who don’t are referred to as partners. Only Coach Wu said —”

  “Coach Wu,” Kristy interjected. “She’s your coach? Wow, are you in for a tough ride. She’s good, but she is …” Kristy let out a whistle. Kristy had played for Coach Wu on the varsity softball team.

  “I like her,” I said. “I don’t think she can toss out anything I can’t handle. Anyway, she said that we are all athletes and she’s going to expect us to behave accordingly.”

  I went on to explain that the Special Olympics Unified Teams combine athletes and partners of similar age and athletic skill for training and competition. I also explained that the training was really more of an orientation, so we c
ould ask questions and check things out. “Not everybody on the team will learn or think in the same way or at the same speed,” I concluded. “But Stoneybrook United has been set up so that no single player is a superstar, or anything.”

  I didn’t mention that I didn’t quite believe this. I’d never played on a team where I wasn’t one of the star players. But I had also been very good at helping players who weren’t up to my game. Secretly, I kind of thought that was what I would be doing, operating as sort of an assistant coach.

  Mallory pushed her glasses into place on the bridge of her nose and said, “Stoneybrook United?”

  “Well, there’s a great British men’s team, Manchester United. And here in the United States the Washington, DC, men’s pro team is called DC United. So it seemed only natural, especially since we have players from other schools.”

  Claudia said cautiously, “It’s a good name. But soccer …” She let her voice trail off.

  I had to laugh. “Think of soccer as a moving art form, Claud. Then you’ll like it better. In fact, the really good teams are always moving, making new patterns on the field.”

  “Geometry,” commented Stacey.

  “Ick,” said Claudia. Then she grinned. “But I like the idea of soccer as a moving art form. Maybe I can come up with some new ideas for a collage I’ve been thinking about.”

  “Come to our games,” I suggested. “We’ll be glad to pose for you.”

  “I’m going to tell Dawn about it next time I talk to her,” said Mary Anne. “I wonder if the Special Olympics has a Unified surfing team?” (Dawn is Mary Anne’s stepsister, who lives in California.)

  “The Special Olympics Committee sponsors a lot of sports, but I don’t think surfing is one of them. Surfing is kind of limited to places with beaches. Soccer, on the other hand, is a game you can play anywhere. It’s the universal game, the —”

  “Abby,” said Jessi. “We know.”

  I stopped and smiled ruefully. I do get a little carried away about soccer sometimes.

  Then I sighed.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Mary Anne. Mary Anne is very sensitive and I could see what she was thinking — she was worried that my feelings might have been hurt by what Jessi had said.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “It’s nothing. I just remembered that we are sponsor-free at the moment. The restaurant that was going to sponsor us can’t, and we’re looking for a new business to back us. But until we find one, or one of us inherits a fortune or finds buried treasure or something, we won’t be able to buy team jerseys or new equipment.”

  Kristy went into her organizational mode. “No jerseys? What about T-shirts? If everybody has a T-shirt that’s the same color, you can put numbers on the shirts with tape.”

  “I know. It’s what we’re going to do. And it’s no big deal.” But I couldn’t help sighing again. Soccer doesn’t require lots of expensive, weird equipment like, say, American football. We could wear homemade shirts and mismatched socks and play just as well as a team in all new duds and with brand-new equipment.

  On the other hand, it helps team spirit to look sharp and have decent gear.

  Shake it off, I told myself. The important thing is the game, not how you look playing it. “Well, anyway,” I said aloud, “Connecticut just happens to have one of the best Unified Sports programs around. And Coach Wu is very cool. Did you know she was varsity at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill? And lots of the players on the first U.S. women’s Olympic soccer team were from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You know who Mia Hamm is, right? The best player on the 1996 women’s soccer team, at least in my opinion. And since the women’s team won, that would make her the best player in the world, at least in my opinion. In fact …”

  “Abby …” Mallory said.

  I stopped and looked around the room. Mal, Jessi, Mary Anne, Kristy, Stacey, and Claudia were all grinning. Then they said at once, “We know!”

  Not many people could tease me about soccer and live.

  Okay, I’m kidding. A little. But my fellow members in the BSC really are among the few people who can tease me about something so important and make me laugh about it.

  So I guess I’d better fill you in on the Baby-sitters Club.

  We’re headed by that Master of Organization, Kristy. She thought up the BSC one night while listening to her mother make phone call after phone call trying to find a sitter for Kristy’s younger brother, David Michael. Kristy thought, What if a person could call one number and reach several baby-sitters at once?

  For Kristy, thinking of an idea is almost synonymous with acting on it, so in no time at all the Baby-sitters Club was off and running (or sitting). Kristy, Mary Anne, Claudia, and Stacey were the founding members, but soon the club had more than doubled in size. Now we have seven full-time members, two associate members to handle overflow business, and one long-distance honorary member in California. We don’t even have to hand out flyers or put up signs around town anymore, since we have more than enough business from satisfied clients and from people to whom we’ve been recommended.

  As you know, we meet three times a week, in Claudia’s room. That’s because Claudia is the only member who has her own phone line. Our phone calls during business hours are short and to the point.

  We pay dues every Monday. The money is for club expenses, which include the occasional celebratory pizza, gas money for Kristy’s brother Charlie, who drives Kristy and me to meetings, and items for the Kid-Kits.

  The Kid-Kits are not kits from which we assemble children. (Ha-ha.) They are another Kristy brainstorm. We each have a box that we have decorated and filled with kid-friendly things, such as old toys, stickers, crayons and coloring books, games, and puzzles. We don’t take the Kid-Kits to every job, but they are a great icebreaker when we baby-sit for new clients, or when we sit for kids who are stuck inside because they are sick or because the weather is bad.

  In order to keep things organized, we have a record book, in which Mary Anne enters our schedules and all our jobs (she has never, ever made a mistake). We also have a BSC notebook in which we write about every single job we go on. The BSC notebook is a big pain sometimes, because it’s a little like homework, but it comes in handy, I’ll admit. It helps keep us up-to-date on what’s happening with our baby-sitting charges — who’s developed a weird dislike of peanut butter, for example, or who’s struggling to learn how to ride a bicycle. We can also use it for help in solving baby-sitting problems. Chances are, whatever the situation, one of us has encountered it before and written about it in the notebook.

  The BSC is a success because we are organized, reliable, and have good ideas (like the Kid-Kits), and because we are all so very different from one another, in spite of the fact that there are three sets of best friends, plus one couple, in our club.

  Take Kristy. Please. (That’s a joke. Kristy and I get along fine, but she is so stubborn. I mean, she actually argues with me!)

  You already know that Kristy is our president, the idea queen of the world. In addition to running the BSC, she also coaches Kristy’s Krushers, a softball team for kids who are too young or otherwise not ready for Little League (average age of a team member: approximately 5.8 years old). She is also best friends with Mary Anne, even though they couldn’t be more different. They are both short, true. Kristy is the shortest person in our class and Mary Anne isn’t much taller. They both have brown hair and are members of blended families. They both dress casually, although Mary Anne’s style is a little more fashionably preppy.

  Kristy is outspoken, opinionated, and, according to some people, pushy. (Isn’t it interesting that people call someone who can’t be bullied or pushed around pushy?) These are excellent qualities for organizing and running the BSC (and probably the world, someday). They also come in very handy in a large, noisy family. Kristy lives with two older brothers, one younger brother, and, part-time, when they are not living with their mother, one younger stepsister and one younger stepbrothe
r. She also lives with one very young adopted sister, one mother, one stepfather, one grandmother, one dog, one cranky cat, assorted other pets, and, according to a few members of her family, particularly her very imaginative stepsister, Karen, one resident ghost.

  Fortunately, Kristy’s stepfather, Watson Brewer, is a real, live millionaire (as well as a nice guy, a good cook, and an avid gardener), which is quite a switch from the old days when Kristy and her mother and brothers had to struggle to make ends meet. When Watson and Kristy’s mother got married, the family moved into a real, live mansion. That means plenty of room for everybody, including the ghost.

  Mary Anne Spier also comes from a blended family. It is much smaller, however. Mary Anne’s mother died when Mary Anne was just a baby. That left Mary Anne’s father in charge of her upbringing. He, in turn, was very strict and protective of Mary Anne. That’s cool, except that it was hard for Mr. Spier to realize that Mary Anne was growing up. Until recently he made her wear pigtails and even picked out the (little-girl) clothes she wore.

  Unlike Kristy, Mary Anne is very quiet and very shy and sensitive (she even cries at sentimental commercials). But she is as stubborn in her own way as Kristy is. She finally convinced her father that she was old enough to do some things on her own, such as choose her own clothes. When Mr. Spier saw that Mary Anne could handle more responsibility, he relaxed and gave her a little more freedom. She got a kitten, which she named Tigger, and a boyfriend. (You’ll hear about him later, since he is an associate member of the BSC.)

  Mary Anne also got a whole new stepfamily when her father married his former high school sweetheart — thanks in part to Mary Anne and her stepsister-to-be, Dawn Schafer. Mary Anne and Dawn had become best friends (yes, Mary Anne has two best friends) shortly after Dawn moved to Stoneybrook from California with her mother and brother after her parents got divorced. Dawn’s mother had grown up in Stoneybrook, and when Dawn and Mary Anne discovered the high school sweetheart connection between Mr. Spier and Mrs. Schafer, it seemed only natural to encourage them to get together again.

  It worked, wedding bells rang, and Mary Anne and her father (and Tigger) moved in to a cool old farmhouse near the edge of town with Dawn, her mother, and Dawn’s younger brother, Jeff. But Jeff decided he missed his father and California too much and went back. Gradually, Dawn also found herself missing her California family. Although it was a very difficult decision, she returned to California, too.