Baby-Sitters Club 021

by Ann M. Martin

  Baby-Sitters Club 021

  Ann M. Martin

  BSC021 - Mallory and the Trouble With Twins - Martin, Ann M.

  Chapter 1.

  "Kindergarten baby, stick your head in gravy! Wash it off with applesauce and show it to the Navy!" sang Nicky.

  "Mommy, make him stop!" cried Claire.

  "Nicholas Pike," said my mother, "this is supposed to be fun. We are going to Washington Mall, which you have been begging to do for weeks, and where, I might add, each of you kids is going to get a new pair of shoes. You do want new shoes, don't you?" "Yes," said Nicky contritely.

  "Then apologize to your sister. She doesn't like being called a kindergarten baby. You didn't like it either when you were her age." "Sorry, Claire," said Nicky.

  Mom didn't see it, because we were so jam-packed into our car, but Claire's response was to stick her tongue out at Nicky. So he silently mouthed "kindergarten baby" to her and she turned bright red. If I hadn't grabbed her then, who knows what would have happened?

  There are eight kids in my family. Nicky and Claire are just two of them, but they were having a big enough fight for all of us.

  I am Mallory. I'm eleven and the oldest. Claire is five and the youngest. Between Claire and me are Margo, who's seven, Nicky, who's eight, Vanessa, who's nine, and the triplets, who are ten. The triplets are Adam, Byron, and Jordan, and they're identical. You would hardly know this, though, since they always wear different clothes and have such different personalities.

  After I grabbed Claire, she calmed down. It was a good thing I was sitting between her and Nicky. I had put myself there on purpose. When it comes to kids - my brothers and sisters, or any others - I'm pretty smart. For instance, I had figured out the seating arrangement for our outing to the mall. (It takes awhile to drive there.) I had put Margo in the front seat with Mom and Dad, since she gets carsick sometimes and riding in the front is less bumpy. I had put the triplets in the way back, where they could be jerks without bothering anybody, especially Nicky, whom they are apt to tease mercilessly. And in the backseat, I had put Claire, me, Nicky, and Vanessa, in that order. Sitting between Claire and Nicky, I could break up fights. And with Vanessa by the window, she could daydream or make up poems, lost in her own world, which is how she's happiest.

  "There's the mall!" cried Margo, pointing. She had survived the trip without once saying she was going to barf.

  "All right!" cried Nicky. "New shoes. I want sneakers, and they have to be Reeboks. Or Avias. Either one." "Oh, you are so cool, Nick," said Adam sarcastically from the back.

  "Shut up!" "You shut up!" "Mom, Nicky and Adam said 'shut up/ " announced Claire.

  "I heard," said Mom dryly. (Poor Mom. Since Dad was driving, she got stuck handling the squabbling and complaining.) "And all I have to say is this: How badly does any of you want shoes?" Us kids "shut up" right away. We didn't think Mom would really not buy shoes for us . . . but we couldn't be sure. Long car rides with eight children could drive anyone crazy. (I should point out, by the way, that our mother is not an ogre. She's just human. And half an hour of kindergarten baby and tattling was wearing on her nerves.) Dad pulled into the entrance to Washington Mall and found a parking space that was about three miles away from the nearest store. We hiked over to a boutique, walked through it, and were in ... the mall.

  I swear, the mall is another world. You are surrounded by stores and shops, and even better things: food stands, exhibits, a flower mart, and my personal favorite, the ear-piercing boutique. I hardly know where to look.

  As badly as we wanted new shoes, my brothers and sisters and I also wanted to be turned loose to go exploring.

  But, "Shoes first," said Dad.

  So we went to Antoinette's Shoe Tree (what on earth is a shoe tree?) and each got what we needed - not, I might emphasize, what we wanted. For example, what I wanted were these extremely cool pink shoes with green trim. What I got were loafers.

  "They're much more practical," said Mom. "They go with almost everything you own. And they'll last at least a year." When you are a parent of eight children, you have to think of these things. But when you are an eleven-year-old who has to show up in school every day, you just want those cool pink shoes.

  As soon as we'd gotten our shoes, Mom and Dad let us kids split up so we could explore the mall for an hour. We had brought along spending money and were eager to, well, spend it. So the triplets went off by themselves, Nicky went off with Dad, Vanessa went off with Mom, and Claire and Margo begged to come with me.

  "You do fun things," said Margo.

  That was true. I check out all the stuff I'm not allowed to have yet, like glitter for my hair, makeup, and short skirts.

  "Today," I announced, "we're going to watch people have their ears pierced." "Goody," said Claire, and we set off.

  The mall is huge, but I could find my way to the ear-piercing boutique blindfolded, so we reached it in under two minutes.

  A girl my age was sitting on a stool, about to have a hole made in her right ear. I noticed that she already had one hole in each ear, and I immediately felt envious. I'm not allowed to have any holes in my ears, and this girl got to have three.

  Claudia Kishi wanted three, also, but I didn't feel very sorry for her, since she already had two. Claudia is one of my friends in the Babysitters Club. What's the Baby-sitters Club? It's a business that my friends and I run. We babysit for people in Stoneybrook, Connecticut, where we live.

  There are six of us in the club. The president is Kristy Thomas. She was the one who started the club. She started it last year with a bunch of her friends who are all thirteen now and in eighth grade. My best friend, Jessi Ramsey, and I are the two younger members of the club. (We're both eleven and in sixth grade.) What an interesting group we are. We're very different, but we get along really well.

  Kristy, for instance, is loud and outgoing. And full of ideas. She's quite serious about running the club. She's small for her age and cares zero about her appearance. In fact, she almost always wears jeans, sneakers, a turtle-neck, and a sweater. She comes from a family of brothers, two older ones, and a little one, David Michael. Her mom, who was divorced, recently remarried a millionaire, so now Kristy lives in a mansion across town from her old house (and across town from the rest of us). She has a new little stepsister and stepbrother, Andrew and Karen, whom she loves to pieces. Kristy would not care one bit about having her ears pierced.

  Mary Anne Spier, who is our club secretary and Kristy's best friend, couldn't be more different from Kristy. She's shy and sensitive and cries at just about anything. I think she's sentimental, too, which may explain why she's the first one of us to have a steady boyfriend. His name is Logan Bruno, and he and Mary Anne are perfect for each other. Mary Anne lives in the house next door to Kristy's old one, and across the street from Claudia. She lives with her dad and her kitten, Tigger. Her mom died a long time ago, when Mary Anne was very young. Mr. Spier used to be really strict with his daughter, but he's let up a lot lately. And since that happened, Mary Anne has taken more of an interest in her appearance. She wears clothes that are sort of preppy, but at the same time cool. I bet Mr. Spier would never let Mary Anne get her ears pierced, though.

  Dawn Schafer is another good friend of Mary Anne's. In fact, I think Mary Anne has two best friends - Dawn and Kristy. Dawn is the club treasurer. Boy, is she different from anyone else in the club. She's a real individual. Dawn moved to Connecticut last year with her mom and her younger brother, Jeff. They moved all the way from California after her parents got divorced, and they picked Stoney-brook because Mrs. Schafer grew up here, or something like that. Dawn is so Californian that it's almost sad to see her transplanted to the East Coast. She's laid-back (but very organized an
d responsible), adores sunshine and warm weather, and even looks Californian, with incredibly long, pale blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes. Things haven't been easy for Dawn. There was the divorce, of course, and then, just recently, her brother moved back to California to live with Mr. Schafer because he hated Connecticut so much. But Dawn is not only an individual, she's a survivor. She'll get through this. Pierced ears? I don't know whether Dawn would want them. I'm sure she'd be allowed to have them, but she'd probably only get them if she were sure she wasn't going to look like every other thirteen-year-old around.

  Now, let me get back to Claudia Kishi. She's the one who already has pierced ears, remember? Claud is the vice-president of the Babysitters Club and probably the trendiest, coolest kid in all of Stoneybrook Middle School. She's into art and makes some of her own clothes and jewelry - wild things, like socks on which she paints palm trees and coconuts; or gigantic, bright papier-mâché pins and bracelets. Whether she makes her clothes or buys them, they are totally cool, and you can count on Claudia to add her own personal touches. No matter what she wears, she looks great. That's because she's Japanese-American - beautiful and exotic with dark, almond-shaped eyes; long black hair that she styles in all different ways; and an absolutely clear complexion. It's unfortunate that Claud is a poor student, because her older sister, Janine, is a genius. Claudia's parents give her grief about this, but Mimi, her grandmother, never does. Mimi is just sweet and loving.

  There are just two other members of the Baby-sitters Club: Jessi and me. Since we're young, we're called junior officers. Of all the kids in the club, I guess Jessi and I are most alike, except for some obvious differences that don't matter at all. For instance, I'm white and Jessi is black. And I have seven brothers and sisters, while Jessi has just one younger sister (Becca) and a baby brother (John Philip Ramsey, Jr., nicknamed Squirt). Beyond that, well, we're both the oldest in our families but think our parents treat us like babies. We both want pierced ears desperately but will probably get braces on our teeth instead, and we both wish we could wear trendier clothes and get decent haircuts. We love to read, too, especially horse stories - although I want to be a writer one day, while Jessi dreams of maybe being a ballet dancer. (She takes lessons and is very talented.) Most important, not long ago, we were both in need of a best friend, so we were very happy to find each other after the Ramseys moved to Stoneybrook.

  Claire, Margo, and I stood watching the ear-piercing. I imagined Jessi and me sitting on the stools one day. (When, though? When we were seventy-two?) A woman with one of those ear-piercing guns approached the girl on the stool. "One more in the right lobe, is that it?" she asked.

  "Yes," said the girl.

  Punch went the gun.

  "Aughhh!" shrieked Claire.

  The woman with the gun jumped a mile. The girl on the stool looked scared to death. And Margo said weakly, "I think I'm going to barf. She just got a hole punched in her ear." "You are not going to barf. You are not!" I said firmly.

  I grabbed my sisters by their hands, turned them around, and ran off, calling "Sorry!" over my shoulder to the woman and the girl.

  I was so embarrassed. Little sisters. What pains they can be.

  I'll be surprised if I live to see twelve.

  Chapter 2.

  "Mallory! Hey, Mal!" Jessi Ramsey was running up the sidewalk to Claudia Kishi's house.

  I'd been about to go inside for our meeting of the Baby-sitters Club, but now I stopped and waited for Jessi.

  "Hi," I greeted her. I could tell she'd come straight from a ballet lesson. She was still wearing her leotard - she'd just thrown a shirt and jeans over it - and her hair was pulled back from her face the way it has to be during a dance class.

  "Hi," Jessi replied breathlessly.

  I opened the door to Claud's house and we went inside. Us club members spend an awful lot of time at the Kishis', since club meetings are held every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon from five-thirty until six, so we hardly ever bother to ring the doorbell.

  "Hello, girls," said a soft voice.

  Mimi, Claudia's grandmother, had entered the front hallway.

  "Are we the last to arrive?" Jessi asked anxiously. Jessi has such a busy schedule (between ballet lessons and a regular, twice-weekly sitting job) that she's almost always the last to show up at the meetings. This makes her a little nervous, and I understand why. She and I are not only the youngest club members, but the newest, so we feel we have to be on our toes at all times.

  "Yes, you are last ones," Mimi told us, "but not late. Not five-thirty yet." (Mimi had a stroke last summer, and it has affected her speech.) "Thanks, Mimi!" I said.

  Jessi and 1 raced upstairs, with Mimi calling after us, "You will find surprise in Claudia room." Surprise? I hoped it wasn't Janine, Claudia's sister. She makes me crazy.

  Jessi and I ran into Claud's bedroom and stopped short. We saw the surprise right away. It was Logan Bruno, Mary Anne's boyfriend. I don't think I mentioned earlier that Logan is a member of the Baby-sitters Club. He doesn't usually come to meetings, though, since he's just an associate member, someone our club can call on to take a sitting job if none of the rest of us is free to take it.

  I guess now would be a good time to stop and tell you how our club works, and I better go all the way back to the very beginning, when Kristy first got the idea for the club. That was over a year ago, before Kristy's mom was even thinking about marrying Watson Brewer, the millionaire.

  What happened was this. Mrs. Thomas needed a sitter for David Michael, who was six at the time, but Kristy and her older brothers. Sam and Charlie, were all busy. So Mrs. Thomas got on the phone. Kristy watched her make call after call in search of a sitter, and while she watched, she thought what a waste of time this was for her mother. If only her mom could make one call and reach a bunch of sitters at once, she would find one much more quickly. That was when Kristy got the idea for the Baby-sitters Club. She and a few of her friends, she thought, could meet several times a week, and people could call them during the meetings and practically be guaranteed a sitter. One of the girls was bound to be free.

  So Kristy got together with Mary Anne and Claudia and a new friend of Claudia's, Stacey McGill. (I'll get back to Stacey later.) They made up fliers and began advertising their club, letting people know their meeting times and how to get in touch with them. They were in business! The girls voted Kristy president of the Babysitters Club since it had been her idea, and since she's good at running things.

  They made Claudia the vice-president. This is because Claudia has her own phone and personal, private phone number, so the meetings would always be held in her room. And she would probably get calls at nonmeeting times that she'd have to handle on her own.

  Mary Anne was named the secretary, and she has a big job. She's neat and organized (and has nice handwriting), so the girls thought she would be good at keeping the club record book in order. The record book is where we write down our clients' phone numbers and addresses, keep track of the money we've earned (actually, that's the job of the treasurer), and most important, schedule our sitting jobs. Mary Anne has never once made a scheduling mistake.

  Stacey McGill was the club's first treasurer. She kept track of the money earned and was also in charge of the club treasury. Each week, we pay dues into the treasury, and we use the money for two things: an occasional club party or sleepover, and supplies. The supplies are usually items for our Kid-Kits. Kid-Kits are another of Kristy's great ideas. Each of us has one. They're boxes we decorated and keep filled with our old games, toys, and books, as well as new things such as crayons or activity books or coloring books. Sometimes we bring them with us when we baby-sit. Kids really love them. And when the kids are happy, their parents are happy . . . and when parents are happy, they call us with more baby-sitting jobs! Anyway, back to Stacey, the treasurer. Not long ago, Stacey had to move to New York City. Meanwhile, Dawn Schafer had arrived in Stoneybrook and joined the club. She'd been made an alternate officer
, meaning she could take over the duties of anyone who might have to miss a meeting. When Stacey left, though, Dawn became the new treasurer. And then, because the club was so busy, the girls asked Jessi and me to join. They really needed help. We were named junior officers since we're only allowed to sit after school or on weekends (unless we're sitting at our own houses).

  So who is Logan Bruno? Well, he and a friend of Kristy's, Shannon Kilbourne, are associate club members. As I said before, they don't come to meetings (usually). They're people we can call on in a real pinch - when none of the rest of us is free to take a job. Surprisingly, that does happen from time to time, and we hate to tell a parent that no one's available. So our associate members are very important.

  And that's about it. The club is successful and fun, and Jessi and I are really glad we became members.

  "Hi, you guys!" Mary Anne greeted us as we ran into Claud's bedroom. "Look who came to the meeting!" Logan Bruno grinned at Jessi and me from his spot on the floor. I'm not very interested in boys yet, but I must admit that as they go, Logan is pretty cute. And he has this interesting southern accent. (He's from Louisville, Kentucky.) "Hi," Jessi and I said shyly. We hadn't expected to see a boy. I was glad we looked halfway decent - and that we hadn't been running down the hall talking about underwear or deodorant or something.

  "Okay, order! Order!" called Kristy. Kristy conducts our club meetings in a businesslike way. She sits in Claud's director's chair wearing a visor, with a pencil stuck over her ear. "Any club business?" she asked as Jessi and I sat down on the floor - but not too near Logan.

  "I have to collect dues," Dawn announced. She was sprawled on Claud's bed between Mary Anne and Claudia.

  Us club members groaned but began searching our pockets or purses for money. (Logan didn't have to pay.) When Dawn had collected everything and stashed it safely in the treasury envelope, Kristy said, "Have you been keeping up with the club notebook?" Uh-oh. I guess I forgot to tell about the notebook. It was another of Kristy's ideas, not to be confused with the record book. In the notebook, each of us club members is responsible for writing up every single job we go on. Then we're supposed to read the notebook once a week or so, just to keep track of what's going on with the families we sit for. It's pretty helpful - we write about sitting problems and how we solve them. That kind of thing. I like writing in the notebook, but most of the girls think it's a boring chore.