Baby-Sitters Club 060 Read online

  "Hi, guys!" said Stacey McGill, as she raced into the room with Mallory Pike.

  Before anyone could answer, Kristy boomed out, "This meeting will come to order!" Claud's digital clock had just clicked to five-thirty. Stacey and Mal quickly found places to sit, then peeled off their down coats.

  "Any new business?" Kristy asked.

  I told the story about Carolyn's time machine, which made everybody laugh. Stacey talked a little about the January Jamboree, an SMS dance that was coming up.

  Then, when we hit a lull, Claudia got off the bed and reached behind her night table. "Hey, dudes, who wants Duds?" she said, pulling out some boxes of Milk Duds.

  I should explain that Claud is a Junk Food Squirrel,. She's always hiding candy bars, cookies, chips, and pretzels. Sometimes she even forgets where they are. She'll be feeling around in the back of her closet for a paintbrush or a Nancy Drew book, and - crrunch! - there are last April's tortilla chips! Nancy Drews, by the way, are the other things she has to hide. She's addicted to them, but her parents disapprove. They think Claud should only read classics. It's been hard for them to realize Claudia doesn't have an I.Q. of 196 like Janine. But lately they've been coming around. Claudia is an amazing artist. She paints, sculpts, draws, and makes jewelry. And her parents have finally started realizing how special that is.

  Claud is the BSC vice-president. She doesn't have many official duties, but since we use her room and her private phone line, she ends up answering calls from parents who telephone at odd times. She's also very generous with her junk food.

  You know how some people can eat anything and still stay thin? That's Claudia. Her figure is like a model's. She also has silky jet-black hair and perfect skin and dark almond-shaped eyes. (Did I mention she's Japanese-American?) As if that weren't enough, she has a fantastic sense of fashion. She can put together the oddest collection of clothes - a slouch hat, a sequined vest, an oversized button-down shirt, stirrup pants, and lace-up boots - and she looks stunning. If I dressed like that, people would laugh. I want to know how Claudia does it. Is she just beautiful, or can a person learn to look sensational?

  "Let's see, I know there are some oat-bran pretzels around here somewhere ..." Claudia was saying. Half her body was under the bed now. Her magazines were in a stack next to me and the top one was open to a page that said, "Cool and sassy for spring!" I saw pictures of models with short haircuts and gorgeous, loose-fitting clothes. I decided to take a look.

  "Wow," I said, leafing through one of the magazines. Some of the outfits were really cool. One was this long, flowing, pastel paisley print shift with a scoop neck, cinched at the waist. "This is beautiful..." I said with a sigh.

  Around me, jaws were working hard on Milk Duds. "Mmph," was Kristy's reaction.

  "She looks so unhappy," Jessi commented, glancing at one of the models.

  Dawn giggled. "I'd love to see you in that, Mary Anne. Your face would match the color of the dress." "You couldn't wear sneakers with it," Kristy said with a mischievous grin, after swallowing her Milk Duds.

  Oh, well, so much for that idea.

  "Here they are!" Claudia shouted, pulling out two bags of sesame-seed-covered, low-sodium, oat-bran pretzels. "One for Dawn, one for Stacey." Yes, it's true. My stepsister, Dawn Schafer, likes health food. Tofu, alfalfa sprouts, carrot-parsley cocktails, millet croquettes. She actually looks forward to these things. She won't touch red meat and hardly ever eats dessert. It's weird, I know, but I love her anyway.

  What does Dawn look like? Like a "California girl"! Wait, Dawn hates when people say that. I should say she looks like the stereotype of a California girl. She has long blonde hair, blue eyes, clear skin, and a trim figure.

  Dawn is a real individualist. (You'd have to be, to eat teriyaki tofu loaf on a whole-wheat bun while everyone around you was eating cheeseburgers!) She does what she wants to do without worrying what others think.

  Dawn doesn't have many official duties during our meetings. She's our alternate officer, which means she has to take over the job of anybody who's absent. I think she's done each job at least once.

  For a long time, Dawn took over Stacey McGill's job as treasurer. That was when Stacey temporarily moved back to her hometown, New York City. Then Stacey returned to Stoneybrook, and we were all thrilled (especially Dawn, who hated being treasurer). Stacey's a real math whiz. Her job is to collect dues on Mondays, put the money in our treasury, and pay our expenses. That means helping Claudia with her phone bill, paying Kristy's brother Charlie for driving her to meetings (the Brewers live on the other side of town), and buying occasional new supplies for Kid-Kits. We grumble about paying dues. But sometimes there's enough money in the treasury for us to have a pizza party or a sleepover, and then the grumbling stops - for a little while.

  I didn't tell you the reason Stacey finally moved back to Stoneybrook. You see, their return to New York was supposed to be permanent, but Stacey's parents ended up getting a divorce, and they let Stacey decide where she would live - in New York with her father or in Stoneybrook with her mother. And Stacey decided to move back to Stoneybrook. (I'm glad she did, but you know what? I'd have picked New York. I think it's the most exciting place in the world!) Stacey is the BSC's other blonde (but a darker tint). Like Claudia, she's a fashion plate, except her style isn't as ... exuberant. It's more urban and sophisticated. Like Dawn, she doesn't touch junk food. But she has a different reason. Stacey is a diabetic, which means her body can't regulate sugar in her bloodstream. If she has too much sugar (or too little), she could faint or go into a coma. So she has to take it easy with sweets and give herself daily injections of something called insulin. (Just thinking about that makes me shiver. If I ever saw her do it, I'd pass out!) The phone rang, and Claudia grabbed it. "Hello, Baby-sitters Club ... oh, hi, Mrs. Wilder! Uh-huh . . . okay, I'll check and call you right back." She hung up and turned to me. "Rosie Wilder next Tuesday, right after school?" I put down the magazine and opened the record book. "Um . . . Jessi and Kristy are free." "I don't know . . ." Kristy said. (Rosie is sort of a genius, and a little hard to tolerate sometimes.) "I'll take it," Jessi chimed in. "Last time we did barre exercises together. It was fun." Jessica Ramsey is one of our two junior officers, along with Mallory Pike. Why junior? Well, they're both in sixth grade, while the rest of us are in eighth. They do everything we do, except take late sitting jobs (their parents have strict curfews).

  Jessi and Mal are best friends, and they have a lot in common. Both of them are the oldest in their families, both like to read, and both are convinced their parents treat them like babies. Oh, and both are great baby-sitters.

  Other than that, they're pretty different. Jessi's black, and she has these long, graceful dancer's legs. Her hair is always pulled back from her face. Mal is white, with curly red hair, and she wears glasses (which she hates, but her parents won't let her have contacts) and braces (clear, so you don't notice them much).

  Jessi has an eight-year-old sister named Becca and a baby brother named Squirt, while Mal has seven siblings, including triplets! Their interests are different, too. Jessi is a ballerina. She's so natural on stage, and her technique is incredible. She's danced lead roles in some important ballets in Stamford, the nearest big city.

  Mal's talent, on the other hand, is thinking up stories. She wants to write and illustrate children's books someday.

  Let's see, that brings me to our associate officers - Shannon Kilbourne and . . . saving the best for last. . . Logan Bruno! Usually they take jobs we can't fill, either because we're too booked or someone is sick.

  Yes, in addition to all his other qualities, Logan is a fantastic baby-sitter. He's kind and funny and very patient.

  Okay, I admit, I'm biased.

  But it's true.

  I flipped through to the end of Claudia's magazine. I was just about ready to shut it, when this picture caught my eye.

  You know how you see models with these gorgeous haircuts, and you know you'd look terrible in them, bu
t then all of a sudden, one just hits you? A cut you'd never have dreamed of getting, but when you see it on the page, you know it's just right for you?

  It was in the back of Seventeen. It was pretty short, sort of a bowl cut in front, but really close-cropped at the neck. Very twenties (well, that's what the caption said).

  Here's what I thought: All my life, I've had this long, mousy brown hair that just sort of hangs. The idea of feeling air on my neck was really exciting. Here's what else I thought: My New Year's resolution was to be "the best person in all possible ways" - and didn't that mean looking my best? Sure it did.

  "I wonder how I'd look with this cut," I said. I was talking to myself, but Claudia was looking over my shoulder.

  "Aaaaaugh!" Claudia screamed, putting her hands on her cheeks like that kid in Home Alone. "Not our Mary Anne!" Dawn laughed and shook her head. "Please!" Stacey took a peek, looked at me, and giggled.

  "What?" I said. "What's so funny?" "Well, it's . . . it's not you, Mary Anne," Stacey said. I know she didn't mean it, but she sounded as if she were trying to explain something to a child.

  Even Jessi and Mal had these impish smiles on their faces.

  With a shrug, I closed the magazine. "Well, I guess not ..." Maybe I was even less fashion-conscious than I had thought. But my friends' reactions made me feel strange. I felt as if they were laughing at me. What was wrong with wanting to try something new? Lots of people do it.

  I told myself it wasn't a big deal, but for the rest of the meeting I said maybe two words.

  Chapter 3.

  By the end of dinner that night, I was up to maybe fifty words. Both Dawn and my dad had asked if I was okay. Both times I had said yes. (The other forty-eight words had included, "Please pass the salad," and things like that.) At first I couldn't figure out why I felt so grumpy. I thought maybe it was the cold weather. Then I thought it was something I had eaten. But the real reason didn't come to me until I was in my bedroom later, alone.

  As I was brushing Tigger's fur, all I could think about was the BSC meeting. That dumb little incident was still on my mind.

  I kept picturing that model with the hairstyle I liked. Stacey had said, "It's not you, Mary Anne." That's all. Not a terrible insult, right? People say that kind of thing all the time.

  Still, it was sticking in my mind like a piece of bubble gum under a tabletop. How could Stacey know what was "me"? How could Claudia, or even Dawn?

  I picked up a little hand mirror. Looking into it, I tried to see "me." , I saw a decent, neat-looking girl with sort of blah hair and a gloomy face. I forced a smile, but that made "me" look worse.

  Okay, so "me" wasn't so hot. No big deal. Not everyone can be a super-model.

  Still, I wondered what everyone had found so funny. I reached behind my neck and pulled my hair up. I tried to imagine what that short haircut would look like.

  Have you ever taken a really good look at your jaw? I never had, until I was staring at myself with my hair up. My attention went right to it. And you know what? I kind of liked it. It had a strong curve. It wasn't too thin or too broad. I mean, all my life I'd always noticed the normal things in the mirror - my eyes, teeth, hair, lips, skin. They're all okay, but not beautiful. Now I was discovering a new part of me. Mary Anne's Beauty Secret.

  The Jaw that Launched a Thousand Ships.

  I giggled at that thought. My mirror image giggled back. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

  I looked great with short hair! Maybe this really was "me." Maybe all these years I just never allowed the real Mary Anne to come out.

  Then it dawned on me. It didn't matter that my friends laughed. I laughed when I saw my hair up. A drastic change is always a little shock, and shocks make you laugh.

  I tried to imagine what my friends would do if I came to a meeting with short hair. Sure, they'd probably giggle and make comments at first. But what fun it would be when they realized how nice I looked! The idea gave me a shiver of excitement.

  I opened the bottom drawer of my desk, which is my own special hiding place (I got the idea from Claudia). I took out a few fashion magazines I'd stashed there. They were a couple of months old, but I leafed through them anyway.

  In the second one, I found the haircut. Well, not the exact one, but close enough. In fact, this model was a little more my type. She had brown hair and a friendly face, and she wasn't bone-thin like the model in Claudia's magazine.

  That was when I made my decision. I was going to get my hair cut. I owed it to myself. I owed it to my New Year's resolution. I would find a good hair salon, show them the picture, and go through with it.

  But there was one big "if." If I could convince my dad.

  My stomach sank. Convincing him to let me take my hair out of pigtails had been almost impossible. Sure, he wasn't as strict now as he used to be, but still . . .

  I carefully ripped the page out of the magazine. Maybe if I showed him exactly what I wanted to do, he'd be more likely to give me permission.

  But before I went downstairs, I'd have to do some homework. I didn't want him to say, "Now, young lady, you shouldn't be looking at magazines during your work time." At precisely nine o'clock, after some social studies and math, I shut my notebook, grabbed the magazine photo, and ran downstairs.

  Dad was alone in the living room, reading the newspaper. I could hear Sharon on the phone in the kitchen.

  "Hi," I said nonchalantly.

  Dad looked up and smiled. "Hi! You look happier than before." "Oh! Yeah, I think the weather was getting me down," I said. Then I took the plunge. "Um, Dad . . . can I show you something?" "Sure." I held out the picture. "What do you think of this haircut?" Dad looked at it, scratching his chin. "Urn . . . very spiffy." (He's always using words like that.) "Why?" "Well, I was thinking ... it looks kind of pretty . . . and I need a trim anyway ..." "You mean, you want to get a cut like this for yourself?" Dad said, taking the magazine to look closer.

  I nodded meekly. "Yeah. Don't you think it'd be a nice change?" Dad drummed his fingers against his chin. I had an awful feeling. A scary image popped into my head. He'd get so angry, he'd never let me cut my hair again. I'd be like Rapunzel. I pictured my hair growing down to my feet, with split ends that started at my waist.

  But Dad exhaled and nodded. "I think you would look lovely." Huh?

  I didn't think I was hearing right. My dad does have a kind of strange, quiet sense of humor. Sometimes I can't tell if he's joking. "You . . . you mean it?" Dad chuckled. "Yes, I mean it. I always thought short hair would suit you. I was under the impression you didn't like it." "Oh, Dad!" I cried, throwing my arms around him.

  "Now, if you want it really short," he said with a sly smile, "there's a fellow at Frank's Barber Shop . . ." "Daaad," I replied. "I was thinking of that salon at Washington Mall, where Stacey got her perm." "Isn't that kind of far? What about the place in town?" "No!" I said. "They destroyed poor Karen Brewer's hair." (It's true, too. The place is called Gloriana's House of Hair, but it might as well be called Gloriana's House of Horror.) "Well, we wouldn't want that," Dad said. "What are you doing Saturday?" "Um . . . you know, nothing special." "How about a father-daughter day? We haven't done that in a long time. I'll take you to the salon, then we can browse around the mall, have some lunch, just . . . hang out." I can't help laughing when my dad uses expressions like hang out. He kind of wiggles his head awkwardly, like he's trying to be hip. But no matter. I was thrilled. "That would be so much fun!" "Let me just make sure Sharon doesn't need me to - " .

  "Oh, Dad? One other thing. I want to keep the haircut a secret. Even from Dawn and Sharon." "Why?" "To surprise them. I can't wait to see the expressions on their faces!" Dad gave me a wink. "All right, my lips are sealed." "Thanks," I said, giving him a kiss on the cheek.

  I ran upstairs. Suddenly I felt great. I finished my homework in no time. I talked to Dawn a little about Carolyn's time machine, I talked to Logan on the phone about going to the January Jamboree together. And I never once mentioned
my haircut.

  The Official Countdown had begun. It was T minus three days until the New Mary Anne! Chapter 4.

  Jessi was the perfect person to sit for the twins. Because of her ballet, she knows some classical music, which helps Marilyn. And Jessi's also read a lot of science fiction, so she could talk about time travel with Carolyn.

  They were in the kitchen, having lunch, when Jessi mentioned Back to the Future. Well, forget it. Carolyn was off and running.

  "Did you like the part where his mom calls him Calvin Klein, 'cause she sees that name on his underwear?" Carolyn said, laughing so hard a piece of lettuce shot out of her mouth.

  "Say it, don't spray it," Marilyn mumbled.

  "That was pretty funny," Jessi said, answering Carolyn. "How about the part where Dr. Brown laughs hysterically when Marty tells him Ronald Reagan will be President one day." "It's my favy-avy-avorite movie of all time!" Carolyn said.

  Marilyn yawned. "We know that." "Well, you said you liked it, too," Carolyn insisted. Then she barged ahead, turning to Jessi. "I know a lot about time travel. You know what I started to read? The Time Machine." "Dad has to read most of it to her," Marilyn cut in.

  "It's soooo exciting," Carolyn said.

  "I read that," Jessi said. "It's by H. G. Wells." "Yeah, that's him!" "I've been reading this great book called Time and Again, by a guy named Jack Finney," Jessi said. "It's about a secret government project, where people go back in time to change history." Carolyn's eyes widened. "Wow! Is there really such a thing?" Jessi laughed. "I don't think so . . ." "There could be!" Carolyn insisted. "I saw a TV show that said there are, um, like warps in space that have these wormholes - " Marilyn squealed with laughter. "Worm-holes?" "Yeah!" Carolyn said with a pout.

  "So that means worms can travel in space?" "Not in space. In time, dodo brain!" "You can't call me that!" "And not just worms - anything tan! Except maybe you, 'cause you're too - " Jessi the Peacemaker took over. "If you really could go back in time, what time would you go to?" The girls fell silent for a moment. "Back to when my mom and dad were kids," Carolyn said. "I could baby-sit for them." "And make them eat broccoli!" Marilyn added.