Claudia and the Bad Joke

by Ann M. Martin

  This book is in memory of

  Lyman Chamberlain Martin

  — Grandpoppy —

  who always liked a good joke.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Letter from Ann M. Martin

  About the Author

  Scrapbook

  Copyright

  “You know,” said Kristy Thomas, “I have never been hit in the face with a pie.”

  “Imagine that,” I teased her. “Sweet thirteen and never been hit. What a tragedy.”

  My friends and I laughed.

  “Well, personally,” said Jessi Ramsey, “I would not want to be hit in the face with a pie, thank you very much.”

  “I don’t know,” said Jessi’s best friend, Mallory Pike. “It would depend on the kind of pie.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Kristy. “A double chocolate pie wouldn’t be bad at all. Besides, there’s always the attraction of wearing food.”

  Logan Bruno looked at Kristy as if she were crazy. He was the only boy among us. Therefore, he had never been at one of our Baby-sitters Club slumber parties, which explains why he didn’t know about Kristy’s food theory. The thing is, Kristy has always thought it would be kind of cool to wear food. Like, to hang grapes from your earlobes, or make a vest out of teabags.

  Mary Anne Spier began to turn green, which often happens when Kristy starts in on food. Mary Anne has a weak stomach and Kristy has a big mouth.

  “I,” said Dawn Schafer, “would only want to get hit with —”

  “We know, we know,” I jumped in. “An all-natural, sugar-free pie. Well, I wouldn’t mind getting hit with any kind of pie.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Logan told me.

  “SHH! SHH! Quiet down, everybody. Find your seats.”

  It was a rainy Saturday afternoon. My friends and I had been bored out of our minds — until Logan (who happens to be Mary Anne’s boyfriend) called her to say that there was going to be a slapstick film festival at the public library. That in itself was pretty good. Better yet, it was free.

  Mary Anne agreed to go. She didn’t have to think twice (although she did have to check with her father, who’s on the strict side). Then she called Kristy and Dawn, her best friends, to tell them about the film festival; Kristy called me; Dawn called Mallory; Mallory called Jessi; and a few hours later we were sitting in the meeting room at the Stoneybrook Public Library having a conversation about wearing food and throwing pies. It was intermission. We had seen three short, very silly films. Now intermission was over and it was time for two more.

  I looked around the room as the lights dimmed. It seemed that all of Stoneybrook was there. (Well, all of Stoneybrook under sixteen.) I saw a bunch of Mallory’s brothers and sisters, Jessi’s younger sister, Kristy’s little brother, and a lot of the kids my friends and I baby-sit for.

  My friends and I, by the way, are more than just friends. We’re the members of a club that Kristy started — the Baby-sitters Club. There’s Kristy Thomas, Mary Anne Spier, Dawn Schafer, Jessi Ramsey, Mallory Pike, and me, Claudia Kishi. (Logan Bruno is not a true member of the club. He and a friend of Kristy’s, Shannon Kilbourne, are associate members. More about that later.)

  Ka-BOOM!

  Ha, ha, ha. Hee, hee, hee. A new movie was on, and a guy on the screen was having a birthday. Someone had just set a beautiful cake in front of him. Really, it was a work of art. Bunches of candy roses and garlands of frosting flowers decorated it. The guy leaned over to blow out the candles and — POW! The cake exploded! Everyone in the room was laughing hysterically. The poor guy was now wearing the cake.

  I turned to look at Kristy. She was enthralled. I’m sure she was imagining herself with butter-cream eyelashes and hair.

  Kristy and her ideas. Kristy amazes me. Her mind is always working, working. She thinks up lots of great ideas. That’s why she’s the president of the Baby-sitters Club. Kristy used to live across the street from me here in Stoneybrook, Connecticut. And Mary Anne lived in the house next door to her. (Well, she still lives there.) So the three of us pretty much grew up together. Despite that, it’s hard to imagine three more different people. Let me tell you about us.

  I’ll start with Kristy, since you already know about her big ideas. Kristy is thirteen, just like Mary Anne, Dawn, Logan, and me. (Mal and Jessi are eleven.) But sometimes she seems younger than the rest of us eighth-graders. A little less mature, I guess. She’s the shortest kid in our grade (which is not her fault), she’s a tomboy, and she doesn’t care much about clothes. Or boys. She always wears the same kind of outfit — blue jeans, running shoes, a turtleneck, and a sweater. There’s nothing wrong with that, but there are other things to wear. I mean, she could try a floppy bow in her hair or some interesting ponytail holders, or some big earrings. That’s what I would do. But then, I’m not Kristy.

  Kristy has an interesting family. And the last year in her life, in terms of family, hasn’t been easy. When Kristy lived across the street from me, she lived with her mom, her older brothers Charlie (he’s seventeen) and Sam (fifteen), and her little brother, David Michael, who’s seven. Kristy’s dad left the Thomases a long time ago and they pretty much never hear from him. Sometimes Kristy gets mad about that. I mean, would it kill her father to remember her birthday by sending a card? Anyway, Kristy’s mother met this millionaire, Watson Brewer, and fell in love with him. They got married last summer, and Watson moved Kristy and her family across town to his mansion. So Kristy moved, got a stepfather, and also got a stepbrother and stepsister all in a short period of time. Andrew and Karen are her steps. They’re four and six, and Kristy loves them to bits, even though she only sees them every other weekend. (Mostly, they live with their mother, Watson’s first wife.) Also, somewhere in all of this, the Thomases’ wonderful old collie, Louie, had to be put to sleep. Kristy seems to have survived everything, though.

  I’m not sure Mary Anne could have. As I mentioned before, Kristy and Mary Anne are best friends. They have been practically since they were born. And they’re a pretty good example of the saying that opposites attract. Kristy is tough and has a big mouth. Mary Anne is sensitive, shy, and quiet (although I think she’s coming out of her shell). Mary Anne is also a good listener, a fair person, and a romantic who will cry at anything. She used to be like Kristy in that she was very short and didn’t care about clothes, but lately she’s grown a few inches and has taken much more interest in her wardrobe. She’s definitely getting trendier.

  Mary Anne lives with her dad and her kitten, Tigger. Her mom died when Mary Anne was just a little kid. Since Mr. Spier had to raise her by himself, he was much too strict with her for the longest time. Now he’s getting better. (Luckily, he likes Logan.)

  Then there’s me. I am soooo different from Mary Anne and Kristy. For starters, I’m Japanese-American. Also, I love to mess around with clothes and jewelry. I might as well just come out and say it — I’m one of the coolest-looking kids in Stoneybrook Middle School. I know that sounds conceited, but everyone agrees it’s true. I wear wild clothes, such as baggy pants and sweaters, high-top sneakers, and jewelry I make myself. For instance, at the film festival, I was wearing earrings made of wooden beads that I’d painted. My hair is long and jet-black, and I’m always experimenting with d
ifferent ways to fix it or decorate it.

  Kristy’s hobby is sports, Mary Anne’s is needlework, mine is art. I just love art — painting, drawing, sketching, collage-making — and crafts, too. I’m addicted to junk food, and I love to read Nancy Drew mysteries, but I’m a terrible student. This is too bad, since my older sister, Janine, is a genius. She’s a high-school student who takes college courses. Janine and I live with our parents and Mimi, the most wonderful grandmother in the world.

  What about Dawn, Jessi, and Mal? Well, I won’t forget to tell you what they’re like. I’ll start with Dawn. She’s Mary Anne’s other best friend. Dawn moved here less than a year ago and she and Mary Anne became friends right away, which was a little hard on Kristy. Dawn moved all the way across the United States from California with her mother and her younger brother, Jeff. They moved because her parents had just gotten divorced, and Mrs. Schafer wanted to come back to Stoneybrook, which was where she’d grown up. The divorce and the move were quite a change for all the Schafers, especially Jeff, who finally decided he couldn’t take the East Coast. So not long ago, he moved back to his dad. Dawn won’t do that, though. She’s a California girl, all right (she hates junk food, red meat, and cold weather), but she’s extremely close to her mother. So she’s staying.

  Talk about survivors, Dawn is a champion one. She’s an individual too. She stands up for what she believes in, even when no one else believes in it, and she dresses the way she pleases, and does things her own way. She’s not stuck-up, though, and she doesn’t step all over people, trying to get her own way. In fact, she’s one of the nicest people I know. Dawn is a good student, she’s addicted to ghost stories the way I’m addicted to junk food and Nancy Drew books — and she lives in a house with a real secret passage in it.

  Now on to our younger club members, Mal and Jessi. Mal used to be someone our club sat for. She’s the oldest of the eight Pike kids. But as last year went on, we noticed that whenever we sat for the Pikes, Mal was much more of a sitter than a sittee. So when one of our members had to drop out of the club (more about that later), we asked Mal, and later Jessi, too, to fill her spot. I think the thing I like most about Mallory is that she’s so practical and levelheaded. You could say to her, “Mal, there’s a lion loose in the basement,” and she’d say, perfectly calmly, “Okay, close the basement door, call nine-one-one, and evacuate the children. And don’t anybody take any meat out of the refrigerator.”

  Mallory wants desperately to grow up and to look older. I think it’s her mission in life. She wants her parents to say she can get pierced ears instead of braces. She wants her freckles to go away and her curly hair to straighten out. And she wants contact lenses instead of glasses. Mallory loves reading and writing and might become an author one day. She’s not sure yet. Right now, she’d settle for getting a miniskirt and a glittery sweatshirt (just two of the things her parents say she’s not old enough for).

  Jessi (short for Jessica) Ramsey is Mallory’s best friend, even though the Ramseys have lived in Stoneybrook for a very short time. She and Mal found each other when they needed best friends. Also, they have lots in common, so they just hit it off. Like Mal, Jessi loves to read, and they both especially love horse stories. Plus, Jessi is a terrific dancer — a ballerina. Although she doesn’t plan to become a dancer professionally, she goes to the best ballet school in the area (in Stamford, the nearest city). Also like Mal, Jessi thinks her parents treat her like a little kid, and she’s getting braces, not pierced ears, and has to wear glasses (just for reading, though). Jessi told me that if once, just once, she could wear clothes like mine to school, she could die happy.

  Jessi lives with her mom, her dad, her eight-year-old sister, Becca (short for Rebecca), and her baby brother, Squirt. Squirt’s real name is John Philip Ramsey, Jr., and he’s adorable.

  Oh, one other thing about the Ramseys that I guess I should mention. They’re black, one of the few black families in town. And the people of Stoneybrook (well, some of the people of Stoneybrook) sure didn’t make them feel welcome at first. But Jessi says things are getting better now. Thank goodness. As my dad would say, though, we all have our crosses to bear. That means, we all have problems.

  And as I looked around at the members of the club, I thought how true that was. Each of us did have our own problems. But at that moment, no one was thinking about them. We were giggling and laughing instead.

  On the movie screen, a man dressed in a tux was holding out a corsage to a woman in an evening gown. The woman leaned over to smell the flowers and SPLAT! A stream of water got her right in the eye.

  But just then, the man got hit in the face with a coconut cream pie.

  “Awesome!” whispered Kristy. “That’s my dream!”

  The movie ended, the lights were turned on, and we stood up. The film fest was over. What none of us knew then was that a practical joke fest was about to begin.

  I was under my bed. My head was, anyway. I was looking for a bag of Doritos that I knew I had hidden there. Remember when I said I love junk food? What I didn’t mention was that my parents don’t approve of eating a lot of the stuff, so I have to hide it in my room. It’s everywhere — but you’d never know it. The naked eye cannot see it. Well, the naked eye cannot see it unless it knows where to look. There was a Butterfinger bar in the drawer of my jewelry box, a package of Double-Stuff Oreos in a shoebox labeled PANT BRUSHES (so I’m not a great speller, okay?), and I knew — I just knew — there was a bag of Doritos somewhere under the bed. Only I couldn’t find it.

  I wanted to find it in the next ten minutes. It was 5:20. At five-thirty a meeting of the Baby-sitters Club was going to start, and I like to be prepared with a little food, because we’re all usually starving by this time of day.

  It was a shame my room was such a mess. I mean, I’d like it to be a little neater since my friends spend so much time in it. But I can’t help being messy. I need to save things that I can use in my art projects, plus I store canvasses and brushes and charcoals and pastels all over the place. The good thing about a mess, though, is that it helps you hide stuff, like junk food. Also, like Nancy Drew mysteries. I have to hide those because my parents think I should be reading more worthwhile books. I can’t think what they would be.

  “Ah-ha! There you are!” I exclaimed. I saw my Doritos behind a pillow and some other things that had somehow wound up under the bed.

  “Hi, Claud!”

  “Ow!” I replied as I banged my head on the bed, trying to scramble out.

  Dawn had arrived. Mimi must have let her in. Mimi knows my friends, and they love her as much as I do. She loves them right back. That’s just the kind of person Mimi is.

  “Sorry,” said Dawn. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m a little early.”

  “That’s okay,” I answered. I sat up and rubbed my head. Then I held out the Doritos. “I knew these were under there somewhere.”

  Dawn wrinkled her nose, plainly meaning, “Junk food. Ew.”

  Kristy showed up then. Since her move across town, she depends on her brother Charlie to drive her to and from meetings. (The club pays him for this, in order to be sure that he’ll do it regularly.) Kristy headed straight for my director’s chair — she conducts our meetings from it — put her visor on, stuck a pencil over one ear, and reached for the club notebook.

  She was ready.

  The time was 5:25. Within the next five minutes, Mary Anne, Jessi, and Mal showed up. The club members are prompt. Kristy wouldn’t have it any other way.

  Maybe I should explain to you how our club works. I better start by telling you how Kristy got the idea for it. One evening her mother said that she was going to need a sitter for David Michael. It turned out that she needed one at a time when none of the older Thomas kids — not Charlie, not Sam, not Kristy — was available. So Mrs. Thomas got on the phone and started making calls. It took forever to find a sitter.

  While that was going on, Kristy was thinking how terrific it would be if her mother co
uld make just one call and get in touch with a whole lot of sitters at once. And that was the beginning of the Baby-sitters Club. Kristy got together with Mary Anne, me, and another girl, Stacey McGill. (Stacey’s the one who had to move away, the one Jessi and Mallory replaced.) The four of us decided to meet on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons from five-thirty until six. We did plenty of advertising so people would know when we were meeting and could call us at those times.

  Kristy’s idea was terrific. People did call us. They always reached four sitters, and at least one of us was usually available to take their jobs. Our clients loved finding sitters so fast, and we loved our baby-sitting jobs and earning money.

  Since then, the club and the way it’s run haven’t changed much, but the members have. First, Dawn moved here and joined us, becoming the fifth member. Then Stacey had to move away. That was really sad (for me) since Stacey and I had gotten to be friends. In fact, she was my first and only best friend. She’s been gone for awhile now, and I miss her a lot. But she’s not too far away — just in New York City — so we talk on the phone a lot, and recently Mary Anne, Dawn, Kristy, and I visited her there and stayed for the weekend!

  Anyway, by the time Stacey left, our club was doing so much business that we knew we’d have to replace her. First we found Mal, which was good but not good enough, because Mal is too young to sit in the evening, unless she’s helping take care of her own brothers and sisters. So we asked Jessi to join, too. She’s not allowed to sit in the evening, either, but we figured two afternoon-only sitters would free up the rest of us enough to handle the evening jobs. So far, we seem to be right. Plus, we have Logan and Shannon as backups. We call one of them when the club is offered a job that none of us can take.