Hello, Mallory Read online

  We had made it.

  * * *

  Dear Reader,

  In Hello, Mallory, Mallory Pike, formerly a sitting charge of the Baby-sitters Club, finally becomes a full-fledged member herself. In earlier books, Mallory had expressed frustration at having a baby-sitter when she felt she was a perfectly capable baby-sitter herself. Also, I had received a number of letters from readers asking for a younger member of the BSC, since many readers were Mallory’s age or younger. Then I decided that Mallory needed a best friend, so I created one for her — Jessi Ramsey.

  Although I usually compare myself to Mary Anne, I am like Mallory Pike in several ways. I am the oldest in my family (even though I have only one younger sister and no brothers). I was just as horse-crazy as Mallory is. And I enjoyed writing and illustrating stories. Like Mallory, I also had a mouthful of braces, which I hated!

  Happy reading,

  Ann M. Martin

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ANN MATTHEWS MARTIN was born on August 12, 1955. She grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, with her parents and her younger sister, Jane.

  There are currently over 176 million copies of The Baby-sitters Club in print. (If you stacked all of these books up, the pile would be 21,245 miles high.) In addition to The Baby-sitters Club, Ann is the author of two other series, Main Street and Family Tree. Her novels include Belle Teal, A Corner of the Universe (a Newbery Honor book), Here Today, A Dog’s Life, On Christmas Eve, Everything for a Dog, Ten Rules for Living with My Sister, and Ten Good and Bad Things About My Life (So Far). She is also the coauthor, with Laura Godwin, of the Doll People series.

  Ann lives in upstate New York with her dog and her cats.

  Copyright © 1988 by Ann M. Martin.

  Cover art by Hodges Soileau

  All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC, THE BABY-SITTERS CLUB, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  First edition, 1996

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.

  e-ISBN 978-0-545-53389-8