Claudia, Queen of the Seventh Grade 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

  “Wait, Claudia,” said Shira Epstein. “Wait. You mean you can’t have a cross between a monkey and a horse because they’re not in the same family?”

  “I hope not,” replied Josh Rocker.

  Joanna Fried looked up. She was lying across her bed, leaning over the edge to read a homework assignment she’d put on the floor. “Imagine what their kids would look like,” she murmured.

  “My brother’s a pig and I’m a human,” Jeannie Kim remarked, braiding her hair. “And we’re in the same family.”

  “Species,” I corrected Shira. “Animals have to be in the same species to mate, not the same family.”

  “I thought they were the same thing,” said Shira.

  I shook my head. “No way. Species is a much more specific grouping. It goes like this: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species.”

  (Pretty smart, huh? Ahem. Thank you, thank you.)

  “The further you go down the line,” I continued, “the more things you have in common. Take us. We belong to the animal kingdom, but the class of mammals. We’re in the same family as apes, I think. But species? Just us humans.”

  “Wait,” Shira said, scribbling furiously, “what comes after phylum?”

  As I recited the list again, Joanna, Josh, and Jeannie were giving me these wide-eyed, admiring looks.

  “How do you know all this stuff?” asked Josh.

  I shrugged modestly. “I just do.”

  The truth? I memorized the first letters of all those classifications — K, P, C, O, F, G, S — because they also stand for Kindly Pass Claudia Oreos, For Goodness Sake.

  Pretty cool system, huh? Take something hard and make it simple, that’s my motto. Relate your schoolwork to the things you really love. I, Claudia Kishi, happen to love Oreos. (I also happen to love every other kind of junk food known to our species, but Twinkies didn’t fit in this memory trick.)

  The only problem with the Kishi Learning System is that it makes me hungry. Luckily, junk food is not the only thing I love. In fact, it ranks second to art. Painting, sculpting, drawing, jewelry-making — I adore them all. In fact, I had tried to use artists’ names to remember that long list — Kahlo, Picasso, Cézanne, O’Keeffe, Frankenthaler, Gauguin, and Seurat — but that was much harder.

  Still, art helps me with all my other subjects. Social studies? I get to know historical characters by drawing them. Math? Well, I’m still working that out. Attractive borders around my homework sometimes keep me from falling asleep. (It’s a start.)

  As you can see, because of my superior learning system and high grades, I am invited to the houses of my fellow students to help them with homework.

  (Yes, you may call with any questions related to the seventh-grade curriculum. I have my own private phone, listed in the Stoneybrook, Connecticut, phone book.)

  Oh. One other small thing. I’m taking all my courses for the second time.

  Why? Well, you see, I was born in the wrong year. I’m like my uncle Russ, who says he was meant to live a hundred years ago, because in his soul, he’s a pioneer in the Wild West.

  Me? I have the soul of a seventh-grader in the body of an eighth-grader.

  Okay, okay, I was sent back a grade. There. Now you know.

  I am thirteen years old. I started off in eighth grade, but I just couldn’t hack it.

  To be honest, hacking it has never been easy for me. It doesn’t help that (a) my older sister, Janine, is a real genius, and (b) my parents have always expected me to be like her. It’s not that I’m stupid, it’s just that I see the world as an artist sees it, not as a scholar does. Geometry may not come easily to me, but I can make a beautiful cubist painting.

  I felt devastated when I was told I had to repeat a grade. Destroyed. Humiliated. I wanted to curl up and die.

  But so far, things seem to be turning out okay. My eighth-grade friends have not abandoned me, and now I have a whole batch of great new friends in the seventh grade. Shira, Joanna, Josh, and Jeannie. Plus, for the first time in my life, I feel caught up in my studies.

  Not to mention the fact that my classmates actually think I’m smart.

  “Okay, enough science.” Shira slammed her notebook shut. Suddenly her jaw dropped. “Ahhh! Ahhh!”

  “Shira, what’s wrong?” Joanna asked.

  “Ohhhhhh!” Shira moaned, slapping her forehead.

  “Hunger pains,” Josh guessed.

  Jeannie, who had just opened a bottle of nail polish, quickly closed it. “Does this smell too much?”

  “No!” Shira replied. “I just remembered. We’re having a quiz on Stoneybrook government in social studies tomorrow.”

  Joanna rolled her eyes. “Shira, you know, you’re like the boy who cried wolf.”

  “I’m not a boy!” Shira snapped.

  “She means you should chill,” Josh translated.

  “Josh,” Shira said with a deep sigh, “no one says ‘chill’ anymore.”

  “They should,” Josh remarked. “To you.”

  Shira stuck her tongue out at him. “Joanna, you told me you don’t allow boys in your room.”

  “Josh doesn’t count,” Joanna said.

  “Thanks a lot!” Josh cried out.

  Crazy. That’s what I like about my new friends. I’ve only met them this year, but I feel as if I’ve known them my whole life. Shira is the number-one stress case of Stoneybrook Middle School. She can work herself up to a frenzy about the slightest thing. Luckily, she doesn’t take herself too seriously. Look at her cross-eyed and she giggles. She’s tall and skinny, with coppery red hair and blue eyes.

  Joanna is the seventh-grade president. She’s a real presidential type, too — very smart and take-charge, focused but easygoing. She has long brown hair, dark eyes, and an open, friendly face.

  Josh is … well, Josh. Just mention his name, and people roll their eyes or groan. That’s mainly because he’s always trying to be funny. (Actually, he is. Cool, maybe not. But funny, definitely.) Anyway, he’s short and kind of cute, with wavy black hair and a goony smile.

  Jeannie is a very special friend. We have a lot in common. Like me, she’s Asian-American, although her family is Korean and mine is Japanese. Like me, she does well in school (well, a lot better than me, actually, and it’s her first time through seventh grade). Like me, she is crazy about clothes, but in a different way. She tends to follow the styles in YM and other magazines. I believe in Found Fashion.

  What’s Found Fashion? I find funky-looking castaway things in thrift stores, and I fashion them into cool outfits.

  That day, for instance, I was wearing an old leopard-pattern blouse, sixties-style hip-huggers, a wide headband, and plain black flats with white ankle socks. It was a lot like an outfit I had seen in the mall for a zillion dollars, but I put it together for practically nothing.

  I was pulling up my ankle socks, listening to Josh and Shira argue, when I caught a glimpse of Joanna’s clock: 5:08.

  I had twenty-two minutes. Five-thirty was starting time for my Monday Baby-
sitters Club meeting. (What’s the Baby-sitters Club? I’ll tell you about it later.) Joanna’s house is a ten-minute walk from club headquarters (my bedroom), so I had only twelve minutes left — five, if I expected to do a little cleanup beforehand.

  I told you my math was improving.

  “Well, guys,” I said, closing my science book, “I am out of here.”

  “So soon?” Shira groaned.

  Josh was whispering something in Joanna’s ear.

  “We said we wouldn’t tell her now,” Joanna whispered back.

  “Why does it have to be a secret?” Josh asked.

  Huh?

  “Tell me what?” I asked.

  “Have a wonderful meeting,” Josh said solemnly.

  I put my hands on my hips. “That’s not fair! I caught you, now you have to tell me.”

  Joanna and Josh exchanged a glance. “But you might be disappointed if it doesn’t happen,” Joanna said.

  “If what doesn’t happen?” I asked.

  “If you don’t win,” Josh answered.

  This was making me nervous. Had they entered me in a contest? Signed me up for a quiz show?

  I looked at my watch. “I have three minutes. Explain, please.”

  “Josh and I have nominated you for Queen of the Seventh Grade,” Joanna explained.

  “Yyyyess!” Shira shouted. “Great choice!”

  “If I-I-I-I were Queeeeeen of the Seventh Graaaaaaade!” sang Josh, in his best Cowardly Lion imitation.

  I burst out laughing. What a ridiculous idea.

  Josh beamed. He thought I was laughing at his joke.

  I should explain. Stoneybrook Middle School has this incredibly old-fashioned custom. I think it dates back to World War I, possibly the Middle Ages. Whatever. Anyway, each grade — sixth, seventh, and eighth — elects a King and Queen. Basically it’s a popularity contest. The winners go onstage and look embarrassed during a “coronation” assembly. Then they have to select “attendants” (usually their best friends). They’re all supposed to help plan the prom together. (We call it a prom because it’s one of the biggest dances of the year. But it’s not as big a deal as a high school prom.)

  On prom night, the King and Queen march in to a rock tune, wearing these dumb robes and crowns. They have to dance to the “class song,” while everyone screams, “Kiss! Kiss!” It sounds kind of dorky, I know. At my last seventh-grade prom, the King tried to kiss the Queen, but she ran off, calling for cootie protection.

  Real mature, huh?

  “You have got to be kidding,” I said.

  “No way,” Joanna replied. “You’re perfect, Claudia.”

  “Perfect?” It was now 5:12. “First of all, I hardly know anybody in seventh grade —”

  “We’ll fix that,” Josh said. “Tomorrow we start a major ad campaign for you. All the media will be at school. We’ve got People at 8:00, MTV at 8:15, CNN —”

  “Second of all,” I barged on, “you three would be much better candidates than me.”

  “Too much work,” said Shira.

  “Too much attention,” said Jeannie.

  “The class president is disqualified,” said Joanna.

  “Wrong gender,” said Josh.

  “Anyway, Claudia,” Joanna went on, “we already nominated you. You don’t hate us, do you?”

  Hate was too strong a word. I guess I should have been annoyed. I mean, it would have been nice if they’d consulted me, even though I probably would have declined.

  But you know what? I was kind of tickled. Not about the Queenship, or whatever you call it. About being nominated. About the fact that my friends cared enough to enter my name.

  Right after I returned to seventh grade, I started feeling a little lonely. It’s hard to meet kids when you’re sent back. The seventh-graders were either a little afraid of me, or they thought I must be stupid. (Well, not all of them, but I thought they did.) Who knew? As Queen nominee, I would probably meet a lot more seventh-graders. And I sure didn’t stand a chance of winning, so I didn’t have to worry about the corny ceremonies and stuff.

  The way I figured it, I had nothing to lose.

  “I don’t hate you,” I said with a smile. “I’m kind of glad you did it. Thanks.”

  “Yaaaay, Queenie!” Shira said.

  “Not so fast,” Josh piped up. “Your one requirement is you have to insist on me as King!”

  “Can it, Rocker,” Jeannie said.

  “If I make it, Josh,” I said, stuffing my homework into my backpack, “which I won’t, then you can have the first dance. Whether you’re King or not.”

  “If I-I-I-I were Kiiiing —”

  As I slipped out of the room, the girls were pelting Josh with pillows.

  I couldn’t help smiling. Seventh grade was turning out to be fun. I was doing pretty well with my schoolwork, I had good buddies, I was even running for Queen.

  And now I was on my way to see my absolute best friends in the world.

  Not a bad life, huh?

  Click.

  As I entered my room, Kristy Thomas was hanging up my phone. “You’re alive,” she said.

  “I think so,” I replied.

  “I just called nine-one-one,” Kristy explained. “I was worried.”

  I dropped my pack on my bed. “Kristy, what is wrong with you? I’m not even late! I don’t want cops and medics and people running all over the house —”

  Kristy burst out laughing. “Joke! That was a baby-sitting call.”

  I yanked open my dresser drawer. I pulled a bag of marshmallows from behind a pile of underwear and threw it at Kristy.

  “Hooooo-ha-ha-ha!” Kristy blocked her face with her arms. The bag bounced off and fell, spilling marshmallows onto the floor.

  Abby Stevenson rushed in from the direction of the bathroom. “Did I miss a fight? If I did, you have to start again.”

  I squatted on the floor, scooping up marshmallows.

  “You know, this is a waste of perfectly good sugar.”

  “You threw them,” Kristy reminded me.

  “She has another bag behind the shoe boxes,” Abby said.

  “How did you know?” I asked.

  Abby shrugged. “A good guess.”

  Honestly, you’d think they would show some respect to the official permanent host of the Baby-sitters Club.

  All right, I promised I would tell you about the club, so here goes.

  First of all, Kristy doesn’t always pull dumb pranks. She just likes to make me feel guilty for being late, even for almost being late. As president and founder of the Baby-sitters Club, she calls the meetings to order, and she hates lateness.

  We meet three times a week, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, from five-thirty until six. During that half hour, our phone rings off the hook. (Isn’t that a weird expression? I mean, if the phone is off the hook, it can’t ring.) Our clients are Stoneybrook parents who want the highest-quality, most reliable baby-sitting around (well, it’s true). How do they know about us? Sometimes we advertise. And, of course, happy parents tend to spread the word to other parents.

  Our clients love the convenience we offer. At first, though, some of them aren’t sure how their kids will adjust to having several different sitters, as opposed to one or two regular ones. But we handle that easily. Kristy makes us write about each job experience in our official BSC notebook. That way we keep each other up-to-date about all our charges (the kids we baby-sit for). So far, it’s worked great. Parents don’t complain about multiple sitters.

  Kristy invented the Baby-sitters Club one afternoon when neither she nor her two big brothers, Charlie and Sam, were available to baby-sit for their little brother, David Michael. Kristy’s mom called all over town for a sitter, with no luck.

  Big Problem, thought Kristy. It needed a Big Solution. And she came up with one: a central agency with one phone number for a group of sitters.

  Guess which friend of Kristy’s had a private phone available? Moi. At first, the club was just Kristy,
me, and two other members: Stacey McGill and Mary Anne Spier. But, like most of Kristy’s Big Solutions, it grew Bigger and Bigger. We became a huge success. Now we have ten members — seven regular, two associate, and one honorary.

  I am the vice-president of the club. My duties include (1) taking the baby-sitting calls that come in during off-hours (grrr), (2) being a charming host, and (3) providing lots of junk food.

  I take (3) extra seriously. My room is a hiding place for the worst foods known to humankind — cookies, chips, pretzels, and chocolates galore. (I have to keep it all hidden. My parents would go ballistic if they actually saw the stuff.)

  Kristy, as president, is the real brains of the group. Her motto is simple: “Find the clients, keep them happy.” She dreams up great publicity schemes. If there’s a festival or fair in Stoneybrook, Kristy organizes a BSC booth, complete with free baby-sitting advice and BSC fliers. Plus, she never stops thinking of ways to keep kids happy. If the BSC treasury has a little extra money at the end of the month, she puts together events for our charges (especially around holidays). She even formed a team called Kristy’s Krushers for little kids who loved baseball but weren’t part of Little League.

  Kristy is a huge sports fan. She follows all the teams. She once told me she could spend an entire day shagging fly balls and not tire out. I had no idea what shagging meant. I pictured her ripping the stuffing out of the ball and combing it into a seventies hairstyle.

  What’s Kristy like? Short, loud, and bossy. Also reliable, strong, and consistent. Casual, too. She wears sweats, T-shirts, and sneaks all the time. Fashion, for Kristy, is … well, not a high priority.

  I’ve tried suggesting that Kristy put a little variety into her wardrobe. It’s like asking a tree to grow hair. I guess I can understand why she likes the predictability. Her life has been a roller coaster. Years ago, when Kristy lived across the street from me, her dad up and left the family. Kristy didn’t show much emotion (except anger), but I know she was deeply hurt. Life became pretty rough, and Kristy worked hard to help her mom. Recently, Mrs. Thomas met and married a really nice guy named Watson Brewer, who happens to be a millionaire. For Kristy, it was like winning the lottery. Zoom, she and her family moved to Watson’s mansion across town.