Claudia and the Middle School Mystery Read online

  You’d know Dawn for a California girl the minute you saw her. She’s absolutely gorgeous. Blonde? They don’t come any blonder. Her clothes are great — casual, fun, and stylish. She loves health food and the sun, and she’s just basically what I’d have to call “mellow.” She knows her own mind — for example, she doesn’t get tempted by all the great junk food I always have.

  One thing that does tempt Dawn is a mystery. And she also loves ghost stories. Her favorite ghost story, in fact, is the one about her own house! That’s right — her house may be haunted. There’s this secret passage in that old farmhouse, and someday I’m sure Dawn will catch the ghost that she believes lives there.

  I don’t think Stacey believes in the ghost. (That’s Stacey McGill, my best friend.) She’s blonde, and pretty, and very smart. Stacey grew up in New York City! But now she lives in Stoneybrook, with her mom. She and I became friends when she first moved here — probably because we both have sophisticated taste in clothes — but now our friendship is much deeper. I was crushed when she moved back to the city (her dad’s company transferred him) but it wasn’t long before she’d moved back here again. Of course I was thrilled, even if the reason for her move wasn’t the greatest — it was because her parents had gotten divorced.

  Stacey’s handling the divorce well — she visits her dad in the city as often as she can. And she and her mom are close.

  Mr. and Mrs. McGill used to be kind of overprotective of Stacey, because Stacey has diabetes. That means that she has to be very careful about what she eats and when she eats it, or else her blood sugar gets all out of whack and she can get extremely sick. It all has something to do with her pancreas, but the complete scientific story behind it is more than I can remember. (I almost failed biology.)

  Stacey takes good care of herself, checking her own blood sugar and giving herself injections (ew) of insulin. She tries not to let the diabetes cramp her style, but lately I’ve noticed that she seems kind of tired and weak all the time. I hope she’s okay.

  The last but not least of my baby-sitting friends are Mallory Pike and Jessica (everyone calls her Jessi) Ramsey. They’re younger than the rest of us (they’re in sixth grade) but they’re pretty cool. They’re best friends, and like most best friends they’re different in some ways and alike in others.

  This is how they’re alike: They both love to read (especially horse stories), they both wish their parents would stop treating them like babies (eleven is a hard age), and they both come from close families.

  This is how they’re different: Mallory’s family is huge — she has seven younger brothers and sisters. Jessi’s family is smaller — just a little sister, Becca, and a baby brother, nicknamed Squirt — and also, they’re black, while Mal and her family are white. Of course, Jessi’s color makes no difference to any of us, but there were plenty of people in Stoneybrook who felt otherwise, at least at first. Now I’d say that Jessi is pretty happily settled here. Another difference: Mallory loves to write and draw (she hopes to be a children’s book author and illustrator someday) while Jessi’s passion is ballet (she’s a really good dancer and practices all the time).

  So those are my friends. I’m pretty lucky to have every one of them. But I knew that the next day, during math class, it would be just me against good old Gertrude. I would be on my own.

  “Okay, people,” said Mr. Zorzi, trying to be heard over the roar of everyone talking at once. “Let’s get ready for this test.” He stood at the front of the room with a stack of papers in his hands. “Books on the floor beside your desks.”

  Then he walked along the front row of desks, giving each kid a bunch of papers. “Pass them back, please.” He folded his arms and watched as the tests were distributed. “This test will count for a large portion of your grade. But don’t worry — I think all of you know the material. I’m sure you’ll do well.”

  I looked down at the paper that had landed on my desk, and gulped. There were a lot of problems on it. Fractions and decimals were scattered like land mines all over the page.

  I glanced up at Mr. Zorzi. He saw me looking up and gave me a little smile. Then he pointed at the clock. I got the message — time to get started.

  I focused on the first problem. It didn’t seem to make any sense. I blinked and looked again. It still looked like nothing but a jumble of words and numbers. Oh, no! All of a sudden I felt dizzy. What was I going to do? There was no way I was going to make it through this test if I couldn’t even make sense of the first problem.

  Then I remembered something Janine had told me. “If you get nervous, Claudia, just take a few deep breaths.” I did that. Now, what else had she said? I thought for a minute. Then I heard Janine’s voice in my mind. “Remember, Claudia — you don’t have to do the test in any special order. If the first question looks too hard, find one that you can do, and then you can always go back.”

  I looked down the page. There! Problem Six! I was sure I knew how to do that one. It only took a couple of minutes, and by the time I finished it, all the stuff I’d studied had come back to me. I went back up to Problem One and worked straight through the rest of the test.

  I didn’t work fast — I took my time and made sure not to make any “foolish mistakes,” as Mr. Zorzi calls them, like doing the whole problem right but then adding two and three and getting six.

  When the bell rang, I nearly jumped out of my seat. I’d been concentrating so hard! I glanced over the problems one more time and then handed in my test. As I walked out of the room, I was grinning. I must have looked like a jerk, but I just felt so good. I had never felt that way after taking a test before. I knew I had done a good job. I was sure I’d get at least a B on the test — maybe even an A!

  The rest of the day dragged a little, probably because I couldn’t wait for it to be over. I was really looking forward to our club meeting that afternoon. I couldn’t wait to tell Stacey and the others about how well I’d done on the test.

  When I got home, I tried to work on my collage, but I felt too excited. By 5:15, it seemed like I’d been waiting forever for the meeting to start. I’d cleaned up my room a little and put out some snacks — M&M’s and Fritos for me, Kristy, Mary Anne, Jessi, and Mallory, and whole-wheat crackers for Dawn and Stacey.

  Finally I heard someone pounding up the stairs. (Nobody knocks on the front door or rings the bell when they come to meetings — they just let themselves in.) It was Kristy. Being president, she feels it’s important to be on time. She’s almost always the first to arrive.

  She sat down in the director’s chair by my desk, put on her visor, and tucked a pencil behind her ear. She was ready for the meeting. “How’s it going, Claud?” she asked.

  I started to tell her about my test, but then I thought maybe I should wait until the others were here so I wouldn’t have to tell everything twice.

  I looked at Kristy in her chair and thought about all the other times I’d seen her sitting there. The Baby-sitters Club had been going strong for a long time, I realized. I thought back to how it had all begun.

  Kristy got the idea for the club back in the beginning of seventh grade. One night her mom was trying to get an after-school sitter for David Michael (Kristy’s little brother, remember?), which wasn’t usually a problem, since most of the time either Kristy or Sam or Charlie would be able to sit for him. But anyway, that time, none of them could. And Mrs. Thomas (she wasn’t married to Watson yet) could not find a sitter, no matter how many phone calls she made. Kristy started thinking. Wouldn’t it be a great service to parents if they could reach a whole bunch of sitters with just one phone call?

  And that’s why we meet in my room every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 5:30 to 6:00. Why my room? Because I’m the only one of us with my own phone. (I think that’s why I got to be vice-president, too!) We couldn’t tie up our parents’ phones for all those times. During that half hour, parents call and arrange for our services. (They get our names from other parents, or from the fliers we send out.) It�
�s as simple as that.

  Well, it’s not quite that simple. It takes a lot of figuring out to know which of us is available for which jobs, and that’s where Mary Anne comes in, as our secretary. She knows all our schedules — my art classes, Jessi’s dance classes, Mallory’s orthodonist appointments — all of that. And she keeps track of it in the club record book. (The record book was Kristy’s idea, too — she’s into “official” stuff — and I must admit that it helps things run smoothly.) I don’t know how Mary Anne does it, to tell you the truth. She’s never made a mistake!

  The record book doesn’t only have appointments in it. It also has all kinds of vital information like our clients’ addresses and phone numbers, plus detailed records on which kids have which allergies and which ones only eat peanut butter and bananas — stuff like that.

  We also keep track of how much money we make, but that’s Stacey’s job. She’s the club treasurer, mainly because she’s such a math whiz. It’s lucky that she’s not as sensitive as Mary Anne, because if she were, she might have a hard time with the worst part of her job: collecting dues. We all hate paying up, and when Monday (dues day) rolls around, we always whine and complain for a few minutes before parting with our money.

  We always do pay up, though, because the dues are important. What do we use the money for? Well, club stuff. Like paying Kristy’s brother Charlie to drive Kristy back and forth to BSC meetings — she lives too far away to walk or ride her bike like the rest of us. And for fun things, like pizza parties or food for club sleepovers.

  We also use some of the money for our Kid-Kits, which are really just boxes that we’ve decorated so that they look pretty cool, then filled with all kinds of goodies for kids to play with. Books, toys, stickers, crayons — nothing fancy, but fun things that help to distract kids on a rainy day. Guess who had the idea for Kid-Kits. Kristy, of course.

  Anyway, Stacey does a great job of keeping track of our treasury. She also records how much we’ve earned on our jobs, though that money is ours to keep. It’s just interesting to know how much we make overall.

  You might be wondering what Dawn’s job is in the club. Well, she’s the alternate officer. That means if anyone else is sick or can’t make it to a meeting, she fills in. She was treasurer for awhile when Stacey had moved back to New York. And I think she’s done everybody else’s job at least once.

  Mallory and Jessi don’t really have jobs, since they are junior officers. “Junior officer” means that they are not allowed to sit at night (except for their own brothers and sisters). But they get plenty of work in the afternoons, and that helps free the rest of us up for nighttime sitting jobs.

  I’ve already told you a little about one of our associate members, Logan. We have another, Shannon Kilbourne, who lives in Kristy’s neighborhood. The associate members don’t come to regular meetings or sit on a regular basis, but they’ve bailed us out of a tough spot more than once. It’s rare that none of us can make time for a sitting job, but it does happen, and when it does, we’re happy to have Shannon and Logan to call on.

  There’s one last thing I haven’t told you about yet — maybe because it’s my least favorite thing about the BSC. That’s the club notebook. (Not the record book — this is different.) The club notebook is where we each have to write up every job that we’ve had — who we sat for, what happened, etc. Not only do we have to write in it, but we also have to read it every week, so we know what went on when our friends were baby-sitting.

  I won’t even tell you whose idea the notebook was — I’m sure you’ve guessed. I don’t mean to complain about it — it’s actually a really good idea and it does help keep us informed about things. But it seems like a lot of work. And sometimes, I admit it, I’m a little embarrassed by how bad my spelling is. My friends never laugh at me, but I can guess what they must be thinking.

  It’s kind of incredible to think back to the beginnings of the club and then look at it now. It’s really a successful business! We’re all such different people, yet somehow all of us have pooled our talents and the club is the result.

  Anyway, back to the meeting. Kristy cleared her throat loudly. I looked up and saw that, while I’d been lost in my thoughts, everyone else had drifted in. The meeting was about to start.

  I met Stacey’s eyes as Kristy called the meeting to order. I smiled and gave her the thumbs-up sign. She raised her eyebrows and then tilted her head and smiled, as if to say, “See? I told you you’d do fine.” Stacey and I have been close for so long now that we don’t always need words to talk.

  No sooner had Kristy started the meeting than the phone began to ring. Calls were coming in a mile a minute — everybody in Stoneybrook seemed to need a sitter that week. I was dying to tell my friends about the test, but it had to wait.

  Finally, the calls slowed down. The meeting was almost over. The snacks I’d put out were all gone, so I rustled around in my favorite hiding places (like my hollowed-out book) and turned up some Oreos.

  “Time to celebrate!” I said. I told them about the test, and how I’d gotten so nervous at first. Then I told them how I ended up breezing through all the problems.

  “Congratulations, Claud!” said Kristy. Stacey just looked at me with a big smile. Mary Anne was more cautious.

  “Don’t you think you should wait to celebrate until you get your test back?” she asked.

  She was right, I knew it. But I’d know my grade the next day. And the exact grade I got didn’t really matter, anyway. I just knew I’d done well. And it felt terrific.

  “As I promised, I have your tests graded and ready to return to you,” said Mr. Zorzi at the beginning of math class the next day. “But I’m going to pass them out a little later in the period. We’re starting on Chapter Twelve today, and we’ll need to concentrate on the material.”

  Oh, no! I couldn’t believe I was going to have to make it through half the period without knowing my grade. How nerve-racking. I felt like I was going to explode if I didn’t know soon. I was still sure I’d done well, but Mary Anne’s comment had echoed in my mind all night. I knew she hadn’t meant to upset me — and what she’d said was only common sense — but I just wouldn’t feel at ease until I’d seen my grade.

  Mr. Zorzi had held back on returning our tests so that we would pay attention to the new material, but his plan sure did backfire when it came to me. I don’t have a clue about what he taught us for the rest of the class.

  Finally (it seemed like hours later), Mr. Zorzi finished telling us about ratios and proportions. My nails were bitten down as far as they could go. Mr. Zorzi strolled to his desk (In my mind I was saying, “Come on, come on!”), picked up the pile of papers, and smiled at the class.

  “With a few exceptions, I’m very proud of your performance on this test,” he said. Then he passed out our tests.

  “Put mine upside down, Mr. Zorzi,” called the kid next to me. “I don’t want anybody to see my grade.” About three other boys said the same thing. But I knew they weren’t really as worried as they sounded. And of course, as soon as they got their papers back, they held them up and showed them to everybody.

  The paper landed on my desk upside down. Closing my eyes and taking a deep breath, I turned it over. I opened my eyes. There was my grade, written in red ink at the top of the sheet. Ninety-four percent. An A–! I almost shouted out loud. I was so happy and so relieved. It hadn’t all been in my mind — I really had done well.

  “Let’s go over the test quickly,” said Mr. Zorzi. “I want you all to look at Problem Three. Who got that right?”

  Almost everybody raised their hands. “How did you figure that out, Heather?” asked Mr. Zorzi. She answered, but I wasn’t really listening. I just kept looking at that beautiful A– for the rest of the period.

  Mr. Zorzi worked quickly through the whole test. Finally, the bell rang, and everyone got up to leave. As I was gathering my books together, I heard Mr. Zorzi speaking loudly over the noise we were all making. “Shawna Riverson and Cl
audia Kishi,” he said, “please stop at my desk on your way out.”

  I figured that he must want to congratulate me on my especially high grade, and to tell me how proud he was that I studied so hard for the test. I couldn’t really guess why he wanted to talk to Shawna. After all, she almost always gets good grades. She’s one of the best students in the class.

  I walked up to Mr. Zorzi’s desk with a big smile on my face. Shawna was right beside me, looking bewildered. Mr. Zorzi didn’t return my smile. I stood there next to Shawna, waiting for Mr. Zorzi to speak. He looked very stern.

  “I’d like both of you to take out your test papers,” he said. I didn’t have to look far — I hadn’t even put mine away. I had been planning to show it off to Stacey and the others. Shawna pulled hers out of a notebook.

  “Put them side by side,” said Mr. Zorzi, “and tell me if you notice something.” I saw it right away. We’d both gotten the exact same grade — ninety-four percent. I said so to Mr. Zorzi.

  “That’s right, Claudia,” he said, still sounding pretty grim. “But there’s something else.” He pointed at my paper. “See Problem Five?” I looked where he was pointing. I’d gotten that one wrong.

  “I think I understand what I did there, Mr. Zorzi,” I said. “I should have multiplied by the reciprocal instead of dividing, right?” Beside me, Shawna nodded as if she agreed.

  “That’s not the point, Claudia,” he said. “Look at Shawna’s paper.” I did. And I realized something. She’d gotten the same question wrong — in the exact same way.

  Mr. Zorzi went over our tests with us. We’d each only gotten three problems wrong, but we’d each done them wrong in the same way. I still didn’t understand what Mr. Zorzi was getting at, though. Maybe he thought we should be tutored together or something.

  “Girls,” he said, “the probability of this happening is almost zero.” He looked at each of us in turn. “Do you realize what this suggests to me?”