Stacey's Big Crush Read online

  Special thanks to Nicholas Lerangis

  for his rendition of

  “The Three Billy Goats Gruff”

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  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

  I love the smell of lilacs.

  “If x = 4 …”

  But there should be a law against growing them too near a school.

  “… and 3x + 9 = y …”

  Especially near a math class with open windows. Like my math class.

  “… then find the value of …”

  I knew Mr. Zizmore was giving an oral problem. Usually I pay very close attention. In fact, I adore math. Really. But with the breeze blowing in, and that incredible smell, I was feeling distracted.

  “Stacey?”

  Oops. Mr. Zizmore was calling on me. I had no idea what he’d just said. I looked down at my notebook, hoping for a clue. I felt like a fool.

  “Um … find the value of what?” I asked.

  “Y.”

  “Y?”

  Irv Hirsch said, “Why not?” in the back of the room, and half the class broke out in giggles.

  Mr. Z. shook his head. “Stacey McGill, when you start drifting away, I know it must be spring.”

  I heard a few more snickers. I was embarrassed. But in a way, Mr. Z. was complimenting me. He knows math is my favorite subject, and he knows only something extreme (like lilacs) would draw my attention away.

  Actually, lilacs are pretty exotic to me. Where I come from, New York City, there aren’t any. Well, there are, but they’re in buckets of water at corner markets, and they’ve been picked already so the aroma is almost gone. I do miss a lot of things about New York, but Stoneybrook definitely smells better at this time of year. How do you know it’s a spring day in New York City?

  1. By touching the radiator to see if the super has turned off the heat.

  2. By listening to the weather report.

  3. By looking out the window to see what people are wearing. (This choice only applies if you have an apartment facing the street.)

  Can you tell I’m a real New Yorker? I am. I was born there. I’m an only child, and my parents took me everywhere — shows, restaurants, museums, concerts, festivals, you name it. So I’m really comfortable in the city, despite the grime and crime and other bad stuff. But around the time I started seventh grade, my dad’s company transferred him to Stoneybrook. So it was Bye-Bye Big Apple.

  To me, Stoneybrook was “the country.” Actually, it’s a small town in Connecticut, but it’s awfully cozy and quiet compared to NYC. It’s also the home of my best friends and the Baby-sitters Club (which I’ll tell you about later).

  Now I’m thirteen and in eighth grade at Stoneybrook Middle School. But I haven’t been in Stoneybrook the whole time. For a while last year we moved to New York again, when Dad’s company transferred him back. By that time I’d adjusted and made my new friends here. Leaving them was sad. But it was fun to see my old neighborhood (in a new apartment) and my old friends.

  Well, the fun didn’t last long. My parents had been getting on each other’s nerves for a while. Soon they were arguing all the time. Then the fights became long shouting matches. Before I knew it, they sprang the bad news on me. They were getting a divorce.

  I was kind of expecting it, but it still shocked me. Here was the worst part: Dad decided to stay in New York, but Mom wanted to go back to Stoneybrook. And they asked me to choose which place I wanted to live in! It was, like, “Do you want to be with me or not?” I was afraid to decide on either place. After a long time (and a lot of crying) we finally made a deal. I would live with my mom in Stoneybrook — but I had to be allowed to make lots of visits to New York! (It’s only a train ride away.)

  So here I am. Mom and I live in a nice, small house. The divorce seems to be working out all right, I guess. (Well, at least they’re not slugging it out.) Dad sends his alimony and child care payments regularly (yay, Dad!) but Mom decided to supplement them by taking a job as a buyer at Bellair’s Department Store (yay, Mom!).

  So I guess that makes me a Divorced Kid and a Latchkey Kid. I don’t mind the Latchkey part. It’s the Divorced part that’s hard. For a long time, I felt as if I had to be Super Daughter. I thought I needed to please both parents all the time. And my parents weren’t making things easy for me, either. Each of them always grilled me about the other, as if they were arguing through me. Finally everything came to a head. It started when my mom got really sick recently. She was laid up in bed on the night I was supposed to go to an important dinner for my dad in New York. I tried to be my mom’s nursemaid and make the trip. Well, everything got botched up. I overscheduled Mom’s caretakers. I cut my NYC trip short, which made Dad angry. I ended up exhausting myself.

  So I did some thinking. I realized I’d been trying way too hard. I had a long talk with my mom. She told me I should learn to take care of myself first, which was a good idea. Since then I’ve been trying to follow that advice.

  Funny how divorce complicates everything.

  Okay. I got off track. Where was I? Oh, yes, lilacs and pre-algebra. That fateful May morning in Mr. Zizmore’s class.

  Why do I say fateful? You’ll find out.

  Mr. Z. repeated the problem. I scribbled furiously in my notebook. “Twenty-one!”

  “Good recovery,” Mr. Z. said, smiling.

  I heard a loud yawn behind me. Mr. Z. gave Peter Hayes a withering glance (Don’t you love that expression? I read it in a book once). “Mister Hayes, I’m so sorry these problems are too rudimentary for your keen quantitative capabilities. Here’s one for you to solve …”

  Some people yell when they get fed up. Mr. Z. just uses more syllables. Poor Peter. Mr. Z. gave him the toughest problem he could think of. Peter squirmed and tried not to look humiliated.

  I guess Mr. Z. began feeling sorry for him, because he said, “I guess this is just one of those days, huh? I have to admit, I have trouble concentrating when the temperature gets above sixty-five, myself.”

  You could practically hear the entire class sigh with relief. Mr. Z., when you get right down to it, is pretty cool. He’s patient and friendly — and he makes math come alive, which is not an easy thing to do.

  (Besides, he tells me I’m his star student, which makes me feel great.)

  So you can imagine how I felt when he made the next announcement.

  “Okay, I’m going to knock off a little early,” he said, looking at the clock, “because I have something to tell you. Tomorrow’s going to be the last day I’ll be teaching this class.”

  We looked at him curiously.

  “As part of the master’s program at Stoneybrook Community College,” he went on, “a student teacher will be taking over the class for the last month.”

  Most of the class groaned with disappointment. I could tell Mr. Z. didn’t expect that reaction. He had to force back a smile.

  “I’m going to miss you, too,” he said. “But I’ll be back to administer your final exam. I’ll also drop into class from time to time to supervise —”

  “Us or her?” someone called out.

  Mr. Z. chuckled. “Uh, b
oth, after hearing that comment. And it’s a him, not a her. His name is Mr. Ellenburg, and I expect you not to give him a hard time. These weeks are crucial. Mr. Ellenburg will finish the last unit and prepare you for the final.”

  Mr. Ellenburg? Already I didn’t like him. That name made me think of a nerd with no sense of humor.

  (That was unfair, I know. When I first heard the name Zizmore, I thought of someone with a horrible acne problem. Like Zits more. The thought still embarrasses me.)

  The bell rang. I let out a sigh.

  As I picked up my books and started to walk out, Mr. Z. smiled at me. “Don’t look so blue,” he said. “I’m sure you’ll continue to do just great, Stacey. And besides, Wesley Ellenburg is a very talented teacher. I’ve interviewed him.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Okay. See you tomorrow.”

  “You bet.”

  Mr. Z. was nice to reassure me. But he sort of missed the point. I wasn’t super worried about not doing well. It was just going to be hard to lose my favorite teacher, that’s all.

  Besides, the kids in class have never been kind to substitutes. The last sub was a disaster. One kid, Irv, spent the period speaking with this strange foreign accent. The poor sub would answer him with slow, exaggerated sentences. (She thought the class was laughing at Irv, not her.) And each time she turned her back, Peter Hayes would toss a ballpoint pen up to the ceiling, trying to get it to stick in the acoustical tile. By the end of the period, three pens were hanging like stalactites. When the bell rang, Pete calmly stood on his desk and pulled them out, while Irv walked out with a smile, saying, “Thank you, I thoroughly enjoyed that lesson,” in perfect English.

  But I didn’t tell Mr. Z. any of that. I figured I’d just be brave and face the next few weeks with Mr. Ellenburg.

  Mr. Wesley Ellenburg.

  I was already feeling sorry for the guy.

  And for myself.

  Math is my last class of the day, so I went straight to my locker. I pulled out the books I’d need for homework, slammed the door shut, and walked to the school entrance.

  Claudia Kishi was waiting there. She’s my best friend. (I used to have another best friend, Laine Cummings, who lives in New York. But we had a huge fight because she was so mean to my Stoneybrook friends — so Claud is now my one-and-only-best.)

  “Hi, Stacey,” Claudia said.

  “Hi.”

  Claudia immediately looked concerned. “Is something wrong?”

  I explained what had happened in math class. Claudia nodded and listened, but I could tell my problem sounded a little strange to her. “Either way,” she said with a shrug, “you still end up having to learn math.”

  To Claudia, taking math is like taking medicine. You do it only as long as you have to, and how you do it doesn’t matter much.

  The door opened and Dawn Schafer walked out with Mary Anne Spier. “Stacey’s totally bummed,” Claudia said with a grim look. “Her math teacher’s leaving.”

  “Oh,” Dawn said blankly.

  “Too bad,” Mary Anne added.

  “The new one’s named Wesley Baconburger,” Claudia went on.

  “Clau-aud.” I couldn’t help giggling. I could tell I was going to get no sympathy. “It’s Ellenburg.”

  “Who’s Ellen Burg?”

  That was Kristy Thomas’s voice. She’d just come through the door, followed by Jessi Ramsey and Mallory Pike.

  “Stacey’s new math teacher,” Claudia replied.

  “Do you like her?” Mallory asked.

  “No — it’s a he,” I protested.

  “A guy named Ellen?” Jessi said.

  “I don’t believe this!” I threw up my hands. “Claudia, this is your fault.”

  Claudia laughed. The others looked at us as if we’d lost our minds. (“The others,” by the way, are the other regular members of the Baby-sitters Club, or BSC. The seven of us often meet after school, even though we sometimes have an official meeting later on.) Claud repeated what I’d told her about math class, only this time she got the details right.

  Fortunately we didn’t have to dwell on the subject. We were saved by the bus — Kristy’s bus, that is. Kristy’s the only one of us who lives too far from school to walk home.

  “You’ll survive, Stace,” Kristy called over her shoulder as she ran to the bus. “See you at five-thirty! ’Bye!”

  “ ’Bye!” we called back.

  (Five-thirty, in case you’re wondering, is the meeting time for the BSC.)

  The rest of us stayed and gabbed for a while about the Spring Dance that was coming up at the end of the month. Soon Jessi had to leave for a sitting job, and Mallory had to go to an orthodontist appointment.

  Mary Anne, Dawn, Claudia, and I walked home together. We passed many lilac bushes. At each one we took deep breaths and smiled.

  By the time I got home, the lilacs had taken effect. Not to mention the warm sunshine and the clear, cool breeze. I felt so romantic. Mary Anne had gone to her boyfriend’s house, and I found myself wishing I were in her shoes. Not that I had her boyfriend. Just a boyfriend. (What is it about the spring?)

  Don’t get the wrong impression. It isn’t that I’ve never gone out with guys. I have. And technically, Sam Thomas (Kristy’s older brother) and I are going out. Well, sort of. I mean, he isn’t my boyfriend but he isn’t exactly not my boyfriend. We like each other a lot, but it isn’t LOVE or anything. Besides, we’d kind of drifted apart in recent weeks. Sigh.

  I used my key to open the front door. It still felt a little funny walking into an empty house. I went straight to the phone. I thought about calling Sam, but instead I called my mom.

  “Bellair’s,” her voice said.

  “Hi, it’s me,” I replied.

  “Hi, honey! How are you?”

  “Okay. How’s work?”

  “Busy. All kinds of reorders on swimwear already. Listen, sweetheart, I have a client on the other line. Can I call you back?”

  “Sure,” I said. “ ’Bye.”

  “ ’Bye.”

  I walked to the fridge, feeling kind of glum and lonely. I pulled out some cottage cheese and a peach. Secretly I wished I could pig out on some chocolate. But only for a moment. For me, chocolate is out of the question. No, I’m not on a diet. Well, I am, but I’m on it for life. See, I have diabetes, which means my body can’t properly regulate the sugar in my blood. I have to inject myself every day with insulin. (It sounds gross, I know, but I have no choice.) The insulin helps break down the sugar into stuff your body needs, like protein, energy, and fat. In nondiabetics, the pancreas makes insulin naturally — and in the right amounts. We diabetics have to constantly test our blood for insulin levels. Too much insulin is almost as bad as too little. You can go into something called insulin shock. When I feel that happening, I have to gobble a candy bar or a spoonful of honey right away.

  I ate my snack. Then I trudged off to my room to do homework. Ah, poor me. Boyfriendless and momless, on a beautiful afternoon. But I knew my lonely feeling wouldn’t last long. In an hour and a half, I’d be at Claudia’s house for a Monday meeting of the Baby-sitters Club.

  Crunch. Claudia pulled a plastic bag from behind her pillow. “These were on sale at the health food store.”

  She held the bag out to me.

  “All-natural Crispy Rancho-style Veggie-Rice Nuggets with Nacho Substitute Cheese-food Flavor?” I said, reading the label.

  “That’s a mouthful,” Mallory remarked, biting into a Kit Kat.

  Kristy made a face. “They look like moldy Cheez Doodles. No wonder they were on sale.”

  I opened the bag and ate a nugget. “Well, they taste great.”

  Dawn reached over and took one, too. “Yum. You ought to try one, Kristy.”

  “No, thanks, it has substitute cheese,” Kristy said with a sneer. “I prefer something pure.”

  “Have a Mallomar,” Claudia offered, holding out an open box.

  “Sure!” Kristy grabbed two.

  Dawn groaned.
“That’s pure?”

  “Yes, these are made with organic … marshmallow,” Claudia said with a straight face.

  Dawn laughed so hard she almost sprayed her nuggets across the room. (Dawn is a real health food nut.)

  “Hi!” Jessi called out as she walked into Claudia’s bedroom. “Did I miss something funny?”

  “Today we’re only having health food snacks,” Claudia said.

  “Yeah, Organic Mallomars or Mildew Munchies,” Kristy mumbled between bites.

  This time we all started giggling.

  Jessi smiled. “Spring fever hits the Baby-sitters Club!” she said, sitting on the floor.

  Jessi was right. We were feeling a little silly. Which was fine. One of the things I like best about the BSC is that we can just relax and be ourselves.

  Okay, I promised I’d tell about the Baby-sitters Club, so here goes. You already know we’re best friends, but our main purpose is to get baby-sitting jobs. (Surprised?) We meet at Claud’s house from 5:30 to 6:00 on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. We chose Claud’s because she’s the only one of us who has a private phone. For the BSC, a phone is an absolute necessity. Neighborhood parents call during meeting times to line up sitters. Since there are seven of us (nine, if you count our associate members, Shannon Kilbourne and Logan Bruno), we manage to fill almost every request.

  How do parents know about us? We advertise. We hand out fliers and we put up signs on supermarket bulletin boards. But our best advertisements are happy clients. They become regulars, and they spread the word about us.

  It’s a great idea — for us and for parents. We get to have fun, make some money, and spend time with kids. And they can line up an experienced, reliable sitter with just one call.

  We started the club in seventh grade, when Kristy Thomas had a brainstorm. Way back then, in the year 1 BBSC (Before Baby-sitters Club), Mrs. Thomas was frantically trying to line up a sitter for Kristy’s younger brother, David Michael. She made a zillion calls before she got someone. Kristy put her brain to work — and voilà! She had a revolutionary idea. Why not have one central number for sitters, like a service?

  Kristy, Claudia Kishi, Mary Anne Spier, and I were the charter members, but we quickly grew. Now we’ve become a successful business. Yes, business. We have officers, rules, record-keeping, and dues.