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  Dawn had been our alternate officer, the person who takes over the job of any officer who’s absent. When she moved, we tried to manage without taking in a new member. Fat chance. We were totally swamped. I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Then — ta-da! — Abby Stevenson moved into town from Long Island. We quickly invited her to join the club, and she accepted.

  Now I’m having that nervous breakdown.

  Just kidding. Abby’s great. She’s the most gung-ho athlete in the BSC besides me, despite the fact it takes her an hour to arm-wrestle her thick, curly hair into a ponytail whenever she plays sports. Really, you have to see her do that. She turns it into a comedy act. In fact, she turns a lot of things into a comedy act (including the BSC presidency, I guess). If you ever meet her, don’t be surprised if she sounds as if she has a cold. She’s allergic to a thousand different things. On top of that, she’s an asthmatic and always carries inhalers with her. Her attacks are scary but controllable. She likes to remind everyone that Teddy Roosevelt had asthma. (He, however, was a much better president.)

  Abby and her twin sister, Anna, live two houses away from mine. Their mom is a book editor and commutes to a New York City publishing company every day. (Mr. Stevenson died when the girls were nine or so, but they don’t talk about him often, so I don’t know much about him.)

  Anna and Abby are sort of like Mary Anne and me — total opposites. Anna’s sweet, kind, thoughtful, and not interested in sports. Her great passion is the violin, which she practices constantly. (Ask me to hum the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto. In fact, ask the whole neighborhood. We heard it about three million times during July, when Anna was learning parts of it for a recital.) To be honest, I was hoping Anna would join the BSC, too, but she declined the offer.

  The Stevensons are Jewish, and recently the twins became Bat Mitzvahs. All of us BSC members went to the ceremony, which is kind of a religious growing-up ritual for thirteen-year-old girls. It’s a great idea, if you ask me, even though you have to recite a lot of stuff in Hebrew.

  Between Abby and Claudia, our BSC meetings sometimes become half-hour-long laff riots. Their senses of humor are different, though. Claudia’s not really a comedian, like Abby. She just has the world’s oddest way of looking at life. To her, the most ordinary thing is an object of art. For instance, at that Labor Day meeting she was wearing a bracelet of dyed, braided shoelaces, along with a blousy ruffled shirt that looked as if it once belonged to Captain Hook; mismatched high-top Converse sneakers; and baggy, pinstriped men’s suit pants, gathered at the waist with a bungee cord. On me, something like that would look like a Halloween costume. On Claudia it looked way cool.

  Everything she touches — not just her outfits — turns into a work of art. She’s a fantastic sculptor, painter, sketcher, and jewelry maker. I have no idea who she gets that talent from. The others in her family are brainy types. Especially Janine, whose IQ looks like a world-record bowling score. Mr. and Mrs. Kishi appreciate Claudia’s artistic talent, but you can tell they also wish she were a better student.

  The Kishis, in my opinion, need to loosen up. They forbid junk food, insist on rigid homework hours, and won’t even allow Claudia to read Nancy Drew books because they’re too “commercial.” (Claudia’s addicted to them, so she has to hide the ones she buys.)

  Claudia’s also addicted to junk food, which she hides right alongside her books. Honestly, Claudia sucks down chocolate and yet she is totally zitless and slim. She’s gorgeous, too, with silky black hair and a smooth, creamy complexion (she’s Japanese-American).

  By the way, Claudia is our vice-president. Her main functions are official host, junk-food caterer, and answerer of the phone during off-hours.

  She passed around a bag of caramel corn while Stacey counted out our dues money.

  “Heyyy, good news,” Stacey announced. “After we pay Claudia’s phone bill for the month, we’ll have … uh, a positive amount in the treasury.”

  “How positive?” I asked.

  “Three dollars and seventeen cents,” Stacey replied with a sheepish smile.

  That wasn’t what I’d expected to hear. “Three dollars —” I blurted out.

  “Let’s celebrate!” Claudia exclaimed, jumping off her bed. She disappeared into the closet and returned with a tiny gumball machine in the shape of a dolphin. “Is this cute or what?”

  “Wait a minute,” I began. “We should have much more than —”

  “Unforeseen expenses,” Abby quickly piped up.

  Claudia started tossing gumballs around the room. “You drop it, you lose it.”

  (Honestly, they walk all over me sometimes.)

  As Abby waited her turn, she clapped her hands and barked like a seal. The gumball smacked against one of her front teeth, and her seal imitation suddenly sounded like a wounded pup.

  Stacey waved Claudia off. “No, thanks.”

  “Don’t worry, they’re sugarless,” Claudia said.

  No, Stacey is not a weight-watcher. She’s diabetic. Her body doesn’t make this hormone called insulin (which is sort of a valet parking service for sugar molecules: it stores them for a while, then lets them out over time into the bloodstream). Too much sugar, and Stacey could become seriously ill, and lose consciousness. But she’s able to lead a normal life with a strict, regular diet, and daily injections of insulin. (I’ve seen her do it, and it’s not as gross as it sounds.)

  What does a diabetic look like? Well, if she’s anything like Stacey McGill, stunning. You could easily mistake her for sixteen. She has long, golden-blonde hair, and she dresses like a model. She says she picked up her fashion sense just by observing people in New York City, where she grew up. (I don’t know who she observed, because whenever I go there I see a lot of people in jeans and T-shirts.) Stacey still visits the Big Apple a lot. Her parents are divorced, and her dad lives in an apartment there.

  Stacey is our treasurer, mainly because she’s the only BSC member who actually likes math. She collects dues every Monday. Here’s what we do with the money, besides contributing to Claudia’s phone bill: We reimburse my brother Charlie for his gas expenses when he drives me and Abby to meetings. We buy supplies for Kid-Kits, which are boxes of toys and games we sometimes take to our jobs. We organize fund-raisers for our school and for charities. We put together field days and parties for our charges. And once in awhile we treat ourselves to a pizza party. As you can see, running a good club is not cheap.

  Which is why Stacey should never, never have let Abby mess around with the dues.

  Ahem.

  Okay, okay. Enough on that topic. It’s the last time I’ll bring it up. Promise.

  Back to the BSC. Our other regular members are Jessica Ramsey and Mallory Pike. We call them our junior officers because they’re eleven years old and in sixth grade. (The rest of us are thirteen and in eighth.) Their parents don’t allow them to take nighttime sitting jobs unless they’re taking care of their own siblings, but they take plenty of jobs in the afternoon.

  Jessi and Mal are absolute best friends. They’re both the oldest kid in their families, and they love to complain that their parents treat them like babies. They’re also major horse fanatics. Show them any Black Beauty or Saddle Club book ever written, and they’ll tell you the plot in more detail than you’ll want to know.

  They’re not total clones, though. Jessi’s African American and Mallory’s Caucasian. Jessi’s a phenomenal ballet dancer, and Mal likes to write and illustrate her own stories. Jessi has two younger siblings and Mal has seven, including ten-year-old triplet brothers (if you can imagine such a horror).

  Our two associate members help us out when we’re super busy, but they aren’t required to attend meetings or pay dues. One of them is Mary Anne’s steady boyfriend, Logan Bruno. He’s kind of cute, if you like the dimply, dirty-blond, athletic type, and he speaks with a slight Kentucky accent. Our other associate is Shannon Kilbourne, who lives in my neighborhood and goes to a private school called Stoneybrook Day School. Shann
on has curly blonde hair and a bubbly personality, and she’s a real joiner — honor society, drama club, chorus, Spanish club, you name it.

  Dawn Schafer is our honorary member. Now that she lives in California, though, she belongs to a different baby-sitting group called the We Kids Club (a kind of sloppy, unprofessional imitation of the BSC — but they’re nice girls).

  “Any other business?” I called out.

  Stacey nodded. “My father bought me a ticket to a Broadway show for Friday night and he wants to have dinner beforehand.”

  Abby put her hands to her cheeks, like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone. “Doesn’t he know it’s the night of a BSC meeting?”

  “Can he exchange it?” I asked.

  “I was joking, Kristy,” Abby said.

  Stacey gave me a Look. “You can’t exchange Broadway tickets. I just wanted to let you know I won’t be here.”

  Mallory’s hand shot up. “As long as we’re talking about Friday, Jessi told me to tell you that her new ballet class meets Fridays at five-fifteen.”

  “Every Friday?” I asked. “Is that the only class she can take?”

  Mallory nodded. “It’s level three, only one class per week. Jessi begged Mme Noelle to change the time. A few other kids didn’t like it, either.”

  “We could have our meetings at the dance studio,” Abby suggested.

  “And feed the ballerinas junk food,” Claudia added.

  “Welcome to Swine Lake,” Abby said in an announcer’s voice.

  “Whoa, guys, this is serious,” I said. “The year hasn’t even started and everyone’s ducking out.”

  “Well, Jessi suggested we change the Friday meetings to Thursdays,” Mallory went on. “You know, permanently.”

  “No way!” I blurted out. “Our meeting days are, like, stamped in our clients’ brains.”

  Abby rolled her eyes. “Oh, Kristy, come on. They can take it. They’re parents. They’re used to changing schedules.”

  “Out of the question,” I insisted.

  “Why?” asked Stacey.

  I shook my head. “I don’t believe we’re even talking about this. First of all, think of Claudia. She’ll be answering the phone a million times on Friday for the parents who forget.”

  “No big deal,” Claudia said with a shrug. “I can always turn on the answering machine if I’m in the middle of a super-interesting spelling assignment.”

  Everyone started laughing, but I barged right on. “That’s another thing. Why are Friday meetings such fun? Because it’s not a homework night. Thursday is.”

  “Yeah, but parents go out Friday nights,” Stacey pointed out. “They’d probably prefer us to meet on Thursdays.”

  “We could survey them,” Mallory suggested.

  “It won’t work,” I said. “Trust me. Besides, we’ve always scheduled personal stuff around Fridays. I’ll bet our Thursdays are full of conflicts already.”

  Mary Anne, who had been silent, was leafing through the record book. “Actually, they’re pretty clear.”

  “Well, they won’t be for long,” I replied.

  “So Jessi has to quit ballet?” Mallory asked.

  I shrugged. “Or the BSC.”

  “Oh, come on, that’s unfair,” Abby protested.

  “We could just try Thursday meetings for a while, Kristy,” Mary Anne said. “Or excuse Jessi from Fridays.”

  “Let’s vote,” Abby announced. “All in favor of Thursdays say, ‘Cheese.’ ”

  “Cheeeeeese!” cried everyone but me and Mary Anne.

  “All opposed say, ‘Crackers,’ ” Abby went on.

  “Uh, excuse me,” I said. “Did I miss something? I thought I was the president, and you were my temporary replacement.”

  Abby bowed her head low. “Sorry, my liege.”

  They were all giggling like monkeys.

  “Very funny,” I snapped. “Did you all stop taking this club seriously while I was gone, or just Abby?”

  “Kristy, all she did was ask for a vote,” Claudia said.

  “We were serious this summer,” Abby added. “The Mexican festival wasn’t exactly a day at the beach.”

  “We raised a lot of money,” Stacey added.

  “You would have been proud,” Mal spoke up.

  Proud of Abby’s idea? Right. Look what it had done. The whole club had been Abbified. Everyone had grown lazy while I was gone.

  Or maybe they weren’t lazy. Maybe I was being too stubborn. (Hard to imagine, I know.) Sometimes you have to give a little to keep people happy.

  I realized it was time to snap back. Win everyone back to my side. I had to come up with an idea of my own. A fantastic project to kick off the new school year.

  “Okay, Thursday meetings,” I relented. “Now let’s move on to something new. The Fall Into Fall Festival Block Party.”

  “The who?” Claudia asked.

  Good question. I wasn’t sure myself yet. The words had just flown out of my mouth. I barreled on anyway. “Look, the summer’s over. Families are returning to Stoneybrook. Some of the parents haven’t seen us since the spring. What’s on their minds? School supplies, classroom numbers, clothing, groceries. Well, we have to add one more ingredient to that list — and you know what it is, guys.”

  Claudia nodded sagely. “Ring-Dings. They go great in lunch boxes.”

  “No!” I snapped. “The Baby-sitters Club. That’s where the Fall Into Fall Festival Block Party comes in. We’ll close off McLelland Road on a Saturday. Advertise all over town. Have the best fall activities. Apple picking, cider making, maple sugaring —”

  “Maple sugaring?” Abby asked.

  “Apple picking?” Stacey piped up. “Who has an apple tree?”

  “It’s simple —” I began.

  Rrrrring!

  Claudia snatched up the phone. “Hello, Baby-sitters Club! Oh, hi, Mrs. DeWitt. Thursday after school? Well, we’re pretty free at this point. But let me call you back.”

  Mary Anne was running her finger down the September calendar. Claudia, Abby, and Stacey were looking at me as if I had gone off my rocker. Mallory was waiting to hear the rest of my plan.

  It was taking shape right in my little brain. Growing. Turning into a real Kristy Thomas winner.

  Forget about the Mexican festival. This was going to be the event of the century.

  No, Mary Anne and Claudia were not studying shorthand. They were in bad moods.

  At first I hadn’t really noticed. I mean, the whole room felt kind of toxic during our Wednesday meeting.

  Abby was still sore at me for what I’d said on Monday. Stacey was worrying about some social studies research project. Jessi apologized every other minute for her ballet conflict. Mary Anne spent practically the whole meeting hunched over the record book, with her hair in front of her face. Mallory was busy comforting Jessi. And Claudia was staring out her window, munching on Doritos.

  Me? I was no bag of chuckles myself.

  Things did not improve on Thursday. If anything, they became worse. Boy, was it strange meeting on two consecutive days. I kept thinking it was Friday and I wouldn’t have school the next day. But noooo. What was worse, we received zero calls.

  Why? Beats me. Our clients must have known about our schedule change. We’d spent most of the week calling everyone we could. We’d also put up fliers around town that looked like this:

  Maybe no one had gone into town during the week.

  Oh, well. We all sort of moped through the meeting and went home.

  That evening I called Mary Anne. I figured talking to her would cheer me up.

  I had no idea what she’d been through on Wednesday at the Barrett/DeWitts. She filled me in on every gory detail.

  The job had started out okay. She and Claudia had walked to their job from school, complaining about schoolwork and the normal beginning-of-the-year stuff.

  Mrs. DeWitt met them at the door. She was smiling, but her eyes had that get-me-out-of-here look. “So glad you could come,” she said. �
��Buddy’s having a time-out in the basement, Lindsey’s having a time-out upstairs in her bedroom, Taylor and Suzi are not allowed to watch any TV, and all of them have lost their cookie privileges until tomorrow. Ryan’s eating a snack in the high chair. Marnie and Madeleine are probably hungry, too. The time-out buzzer will go off any minute. I should be back around five-fifteen. ’Bye.”

  Zoom. She was out of the house.

  Claud and Mary Anne just stood there, nodding.

  On a normal day, the Barrett/DeWitts are a pretty wild bunch — seven kids from two different marriages. When Mrs. DeWitt is in a mood like that, you wish you’d brought along protective armor.

  As the front door closed, Mary Anne heard Buddy’s voice scream out, “MO-O-O-OM! CAN I COME UP NOW?”

  “Dess-ee! Dess-ee!” cried two-year-old Marnie as she charged into the front room. When she saw Mary Anne and Claudia, her face fell. “No Dess-ee?”

  (Translation: Jessi. Marnie has a huge crush on her these days.)

  Four-year-old Madeleine DeWitt stomped in, all pouty-looking. “That’s not Jessi, you silly face!”

  “Where Dess-ee?” Marnie asked.

  Madeleine glared at her. “Jessi’s dead!”

  “Madeleine!” Mary Anne blurted out.

  “Jessi’s dead, Miss Raymond’s dead, my whole school is dead, I’m dead!” Madeleine shouted, stalking away.

  Marnie’s lips were quivering. Her face was turning bright red. She let out a high-pitched wail.

  Mary Anne scooped her up. “Shhh, Madeleine doesn’t mean that.”

  “Lindsey hit me!” Suzi Barrett cried, running into the room. “And she left her bedroom, even though she’s having a time-out.” (Suzi, by the way, is five. Lindsey DeWitt and Buddy Barrett are both eight.)

  “You made me!” yelled Lindsey from upstairs. “You were teasing me from the hallway!”

  “MO-O-O-OM! IS MY TIME-OUT OVER?” Buddy’s voice boomed.

  DZZZZZZZZZZ! erupted the kitchen stove buzzer.

  Thump-thump-thump-thump went two sets of stairs as Buddy rushed up and Lindsey rushed down.

  “Waaaah!” cried Marnie, still upset over Jessi’s untimely demise.