The Truth About Stacey Read online

  Across the table, Claudia was grinning at me. Suddenly, I knew I wouldn’t mind wearing the sandwich board anymore.

  Kristy was in a great mood at our meeting that afternoon. I couldn’t see why.“Nobody wanted to join the club, ” I told her. I was lounging on Claudia’s bed, my feet propped up on the headboard.“It seems to be too much work.”

  “Yeah, ” said Claudia, who was sitting next to me. She rummaged around in her pillowcase, trying to find some candy she’d hidden there.

  “Yeah, ” agreed Mary Anne from her spot in the director’s chair.

  “But I got two new members, ” Kristy told us proudly.“And they’re both eighth-graders.”

  “You’re kidding!” I exclaimed.“That’s super!”

  “What are their names?” asked Claudia.

  “Janet Gates and Leslie Howard.”

  Claudia frowned.“I thought they were friends of Liz’s, ” she said slowly.

  Kristy looked smug.“Not anymore. They were part of the agency, but they dropped out. They didn’t like it.”

  “Defectors, ” I said.

  “Already?” asked Mary Anne.

  “Yup, ” replied Kristy.

  “Gosh, the agency must be pretty bad if kids are dropping out so soon, ” I said.

  “Leslie said they didn’t like having to give Liz and Michelle part of what they earned. Plus, Liz gave them really horrible kids to sit for. She kept all the nice, well-behaved ones for herself and Michelle.”

  “So they’re coming to the next meeting?” asked Claudia.

  “Yeah.”

  “But … something’s wrong about this, ” said Mary Anne.“Something … I know what it is. Remember when we were first starting the club and we were deciding whether to invite Stacey to join? We didn’t know her, so we asked her all sorts of things about the baby-sitting she did in New York. We wanted a club of good baby-sitters. Dedicated baby-sitters. Do you know anything about Janet and Leslie, Kristy?”

  “Well, no, ” she admitted.

  “And you’ve already told them they can be members?”

  “Yes….”

  “Gosh, I don’t know.”

  “It seems risky, ” I said.

  Kristy looked at us uncomfortably.“Well, it’s too late now. We’ll just have to take our chances.”

  Claudia found several pieces of candy in her pillowcase and handed them to Kristy and Mary Anne. They unwrapped them and began crunching away.

  “Well, there’s one good thing, ” I spoke up.

  “What?” everybody asked eagerly.

  “If the agency is as horrible as Janet and Leslie say, maybe it won’t last long.”

  “Yeah, ” agreed the others.

  We sat quietly, and after a moment I realized that the four of us were staring at the phone.“I wonder if we could make it ring if we all concentrated on it, ” I said. We tried, but nothing happened.

  At six o’clock, when the meeting ended, we hadn’t gotten a single Baby-sitters Club call.

  The next afternoon, since none of us had a babysitting job and we were very bored, we went over to the Thomases’ house. Kristy called Mrs. Newton, who was home from the hospital, and asked if we could visit them and see the new baby. When she said yes, we were really excited.

  “Oh, goody!” exclaimed Kristy after she’d hung up the phone. “I have a present for the baby, and one for Jamie, too.”

  “So do I,” I said.

  “So do I,” said Claudia.

  “So do I,” said Mary Anne.

  “Are they wrapped?” asked Claudia.

  “No,” we answered.

  “Good. Go get your presents and meet me in my room. I’ve got great stuff for gift wrapping.”

  When we were gathered in Claudia’s room, we spread out our presents. We all began to squeal, “Oh, that’s so cute!”

  Kristy had gotten a little toy car for Jamie and a rattle shaped like a duck for Lucy. Claudia had bought Jamie a dinosaur and had painted a picture of kittens for Mrs. Newton to hang in the baby’s room. I had bought two books: a paperback called Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel for Jamie and Pat the Bunny for Lucy.

  Mary Anne’s gifts were the best of all: a red ski hat for Jamie and a little pink hat for the baby.

  “I made them,” she said shyly. “Can you tell?”

  “You’re kidding!” I exclaimed. “You made those?”

  “Then you couldn’t tell?”

  “No way!”

  “Mary Anne, I didn’t know you could knit,” said Kristy.

  Mary Anne glanced at Claudia, who smiled at her.

  “Mimi’s teaching her,” said Claudia. “She’s been dying to teach someone, but Janine and I aren’t interested.”

  “She remembers my mother,” added Mary Anne. “She tells me about her while I work.”

  “That’s—that’s great,” I said. (Was that what I was supposed to say?)

  Mary Anne brightened. “She’s going to help me make a scarf for my father.”

  “Wow!” We were all impressed.

  Claudia hauled a big square carton out of her closet. “Okay, go to town,” she said.

  We looked in the box. It was jammed with stuff Claudia had collected over the years: plastic flowers, papers hearts, beads, bows, ribbons, felt animals. “Those are package decorations,” she told us. “We can make our own wrapping paper with these.” She opened a shoe box that was full of rubber stamps. “See? I’ve got four ink pads in different colors. You can stamp this white paper to make any design you want. Then we’ll decorate the packages with the other stuff.”

  We got right to work. I printed red hearts and blue flowers on Lucy’s paper, and big green frogs saying “Ribbit!” on Jamie’s paper. When we were finished, we admired our packages briefly, and then ran to the Newtons’ house.

  Jamie answered the door. “Hi-hi,” he greeted us.

  Mrs. Newton appeared behind him. “Hello, there! Oh, I’m so glad to see you! Jamie has missed you, and I’m dying for you to meet Lucy. Come on inside.”

  We stepped through the door. I was surprised to see that Mrs. Newton still looked, well, fat. Not pregnant exactly, but not the way I’d thought she would look after the baby was born.

  “Oh, you girls are so sweet. You’ve brought gifts. You didn’t have to do that.”

  “We know,” said Kristy, grinning.

  “We just wanted to,” I added.

  “Yeah,” said Mary Anne. “Babies are special.”

  Jamie eyed the presents, then glanced at his mother. “Are any of those for me?”

  “Jamie! It’s not polite to ask!” Mrs. Newton turned to us. “I’m sorry. The last week has been difficult. Jamie is a bit J-E-A-L-O-U-S,” she spelled. “L-U-C-Y has been given a lot of P-R-E-S-E-N-T-S.”

  “Well, you’re in luck, Jamie,” said Claudia. “Four of these are for you.”

  “Four!” cried Jamie.

  We didn’t make him wait. We handed him his presents and he tore into them. “What do you say?” prompted Mrs. Newton.

  “Thank you,” replied Jamie automatically. He was wearing the hat and trying to read the book and play with the toys at the same time.

  Then we gave Mrs. Newton Lucy’s gifts.

  “Let’s go peek at the baby before I open them,” she said. “I wish Lucy was awake so you could hold her, but she’s still napping.”

  She led us upstairs and into the little room that had been fixed up for Lucy. A big white crib stood in one corner, but Lucy was asleep in a blue bassinet near the door. “She’s too little for the crib,” Mrs. Newton whispered. “Infants feel more secure in a small bed.”

  The members of the Baby-sitters Club silently surrounded the bassinet and peered inside.

  “Ohhh,” I breathed.

  “She’s so little,” whispered Mary Anne.

  She certainly was. I guess I hadn’t realized just how little a newborn baby really is.

  “Can I touch her?” I asked Mrs. Newton softly.

 
; She nodded.

  I leaned over and ran my finger along one of Lucy’s tiny hands. It was soft as silk, and perfect: four little fingers and a thumb, each ending in a fingernail no bigger than a speck. I breathed in. Lucy smelled sweet, like baby powder and milk. I ran my hand lightly over the fine dark hair on her head. She stirred then and opened her eyes just long enough for me to see that they were a deep blue. Then she closed them again.

  I glanced up. Claudia, Kristy, and Mary Anne looked enchanted.

  A few moments later, we were back downstairs, sitting in the living room, while Mrs. Newton opened the baby presents. She exclaimed over each one and commented on the original wrapping.

  “Do you think the hat will fit?” Mary Anne asked anxiously.

  “In a few weeks it should be just right.”

  Mary Anne let out a sigh of relief.

  “Mrs. Newton?” Kristy said. “Could I ask you something?”

  “Of course.”

  Suddenly, my stomach lurched. I had this horrible feeling I knew what Kristy was going to ask. I looked over at Claudia and found that she was already looking at me. Oh, no, her eyes seemed to be saying, I can’t believe she’s going to bring this up now.

  But she did.

  “I’m not sure how to say this,” Kristy began, “but when Jamie was at our house last week, he said we wouldn’t be baby-sitting for him anymore. I mean, no—He said he heard you on the phone with Liz Lewis from the Baby-sitters Agency. Is—? Can we still—?” Kristy didn’t know how to finish what she had started.

  Mrs. Newton’s face was flushed with embarrassment. I was pretty sure mine was, too. It felt very hot.

  “I guess I should have told you,” said Mrs. Newton. “I knew how excited you were about the new baby. And of course you’ll always be our favorite sitters. It’s just that an infant is so delicate and fragile, and needs extra-special care—”

  “But we’re responsible,” protested Kristy.

  “I’ve taken care of babies before,” I added.

  “Newborns?” asked Mrs. Newton.

  “Well, one was ten months and the other was eight months.”

  “That makes a big difference,” she said. “There’s even a big difference between a three-month-old baby and a newborn. Anyway, what I was going to say is that for the next few months, I’ll simply feel more comfortable leaving Lucy with an older sitter. The times when I take Lucy with me and there’s just Jamie to sit for, I’ll be glad to use the Baby-sitters Club.”

  “I can understand that,” Claudia said slowly.

  “I’m glad you still want us to sit for Jamie,” said Kristy.

  “And when Lucy is older, I hope you’ll be my regular sitters again,” added Mrs. Newton.

  “Oh, definitely!” I said, but I didn’t feel nearly as cheerful as I sounded. Nothing seemed to be going our way anymore.

  After school the next day, I met Janet and Leslie for the first time. They arrived promptly at five-thirty for our Wednesday meeting of the Baby-sitters Club.

  I studied them critically. Of course, they were already members of the club, but I couldn’t resist asking them a few questions.

  “Have you done a lot of baby-sitting?” I asked Janet.

  “Oh, tons,” she replied. She was chewing a wad of gum and she cracked it loudly.

  “You, too?” I asked Leslie.

  Leslie looked bored. She brushed her shaggy hair out of her face. I noticed that she was wearing makeup. A lot of it.

  “Sure,” she replied. She glanced at Janet, and they exchanged tiny smiles.

  “Where?” asked Mary Anne. I was surprised to see her jumping in, but I knew she was concerned about our reputation.

  “Over on the other side of town,” replied Janet. (Crack, crack. Snap.) “You probably wouldn’t know any of the people.”

  “How old’s the youngest kid you ever sat for?” asked Claudia.

  “About nine months,” said Leslie.

  “Same (crack) here,” said Janet.

  Kristy was watching us nervously, her eyes traveling back and forth between the new members of the club and the old members.

  “How many kids can you sit for at one time?” I wanted to know.

  “Oh, three or four, I guess,” answered Leslie.

  “Yeah,” said Janet. (Crack, snap.)

  Kristy must have decided it was time to impress us. “How late can you stay out?” she asked.

  “Eleven o’clock on weekdays,” they replied at the same time.

  “On Friday and Saturday nights (crack) I can stay out until midnight (snap),” added Janet.

  “I can stay out until any hour on the weekend as long as I tell my mom first,” said Leslie.

  My jaw dropped open. “How old are you?”

  “Fourteen,” she replied.

  “I’m thirteen,” said Janet.

  I began to feel the tiniest bit impressed.

  Kristy looked around triumphantly. “I think what we ought to do now is let our clients know about our new members.” She pulled a copy of our old Baby-sitters Club flyer out of a folder she was carrying. “We’ll add Janet’s and Leslie’s names and ages to this, and the times when we can sit. Then we’ll print out the new version of the flyer and distribute the copies as soon as possible. Who can help me tomorrow after school?”

  “I can,” said Claudia, Mary Anne, and I.

  We looked at Janet and Leslie. They were looking at each other.

  “Well,” said Janet (crackle, crackle), “we’d like to help you, but we have baby-sitting jobs tomorrow (crack). You know, previous commitments.”

  Kristy glanced at me as if to say, See how responsible they are?

  “All right,” said Kristy. “Here’s the plan of action. Tomorrow, we distribute flyers. We’ll also call our best customers personally to tell them the news. Friday, we meet again.”

  We followed Kristy’s plan. And at the Friday meeting, we got four baby-sitting jobs. Two were last-minute late-night ones for Janet and Leslie over the weekend. We couldn’t wait for our Monday meeting to see how things had gone.

  The Baby-sitters Club seemed to be back on its feet.

  Monday, December 8

  Today Kristy, Stacey & Mary Anne all arrived early for our Baby-Sitters Club meeting. We were all realy excited to find out how Janet and Leslie’s siting jobs had gone on Saturday. When it was 5:30 we kept expecting the doorbell to ring any second. But it didn’t. Soon it was 5:50. Where were they. Kristy was getting worried. Write this down in our notebook, somebody, she said. Something’s wrong. Unfortunately, Kristy was right.

  It turned out that something was very very wrong. And it was part of the awful thing with the Baby-sitters Agency.

  Wow. What happened on Monday was one of the worst events in the war between the Baby-sitters Club and the Baby-sitters Agency. As Claudia mentioned, the four original club members gathered early for our Monday meeting. We couldn’t wait to talk to Janet and Leslie.

  Despite the fact that Claudia’s digital clock flipped to 5:35 and the new members hadn’t shown up yet, the meeting got off to a good start. First, Mrs. Marshall called, needing a sitter for Wednesday afternoon. Mary Anne took the job. Then Watson, Kristy’s future stepfather, needed a sitter for an early evening job on Wednesday. Kristy took that one, of course. Then Mrs. Newton called! She wanted someone to watch Jamie on Wednesday afternoon while she took Lucy to the pediatrician for a checkup. I took that job, since Claudia has art lessons on Wednesdays. We were so busy taking calls that it was 5:50 before we looked at the clock again and realized Janet and Leslie were late.

  “They could have at least called to say they weren’t going to make the meeting this afternoon,” I pointed out.

  Even Kristy looked miffed. “I saw Janet in school today, and she didn’t say anything about not coming.”

  “I think it’s weird that neither of them showed up,” said Mary Anne. “What could have happened to make them both late?”

  Kristy shrugged. “Maybe they jus
t forgot.”

  “We’ve told them about meetings a million times,” said Claudia. “If they forgot, then they’re pretty irresponsible.”

  “Well, I’ll call them,” said Kristy. She knew something was wrong then, because that was when she told Claudia to write about the incident in our notebook.

  “No, I’ll call them,” I said. “I want to know who they think they are!”

  “Don’t get mad,” said Kristy. “It won’t help. I’ll call. I’m the president.”

  “No, I want to c—”

  The phone rang then. Kristy and I both lunged for it, but Mary Anne was sitting practically on top of it. She beat us to it.

  “Hello, the Baby-sitters Club,” she said. “… No, this is Mary Anne Spier. Can I help you? … Oh, hi, Mr. Kelly…. She didn’t?”

  Kristy and Claudia and I jerked to attention. The Kellys were the new family Leslie had arranged to sit for on Saturday night. They had contacted the club after we’d sent around our updated flyers.

  “Mr. Kelly,” Mary Anne was saying, “I’m terribly sorry. I don’t know what happened…. Well,I’d like to, but she’s not here right now. I guess you could call her at home…. Oh, I see. Well, would you like to speak to our president? … Okay…. Sure. And I—I’m really sorry.”

  Mary Anne’s face was flaming. She cupped her hand over the mouthpiece, and as she passed the receiver to Kristy, she whispered, “Leslie never showed up on Saturday. She didn’t even bother to call the Kellys.”

  Kristy took the phone, her eyes closed, steeling herself for the conversation with Mr. Kelly. “Kristy Thomas here,” she said after a moment, “club president…. Yes, Mary Anne just mentioned that. I feel terrible. Leslie never told me she wasn’t going to be able to keep her appointment with you. If she had, I would have sent over one of our other fine sitters…. I hope you can accept our apologies…. Sure…. Sure. Okay, goodbye.”

  Kristy hung up the phone. I couldn’t tell whether she was angry or scared or embarrassed. Maybe she was all three. She kept still for so long that at last I said, “He was really mad, right?”