“It’s good business,” says Kristy.
Claudia is vice-president of the club because she has her own phone, and her own personal private phone number. We hold our meetings in her room. That way, when parents call, they don’t get a busy signal because someone’s brother or sister is hogging the phone. And we don’t have to tie up anyone’s phone for half an hour three times a week. Plus, Claud’s hidden junk food is the source of snacks for meetings. (By the way, we call Claudia’s room BSC headquarters.)
I am the club secretary. I don’t mean to sound conceited, but I have a pretty big job. I have to keep the record book up-to-date and in order…. Oh, I guess I forgot to mention that another of Kristy’s ideas was to keep a record book for the club. This is different from the notebook. The record book is more formal and official. It’s full of information — our clients’ names, addresses, phone numbers, names and ages of their children, the rates they pay, and so forth. And it’s where I schedule every sitting job that’s called in. The appointment pages are probably the most important pages in the book. In order to assign a sitter to a job, I have to know when everyone is busy — who’s already sitting, Jessi’s schedule of dance classes, Mal’s orthodontist appointments, and so forth. I am very organized. And I have neat handwriting. (I think my handwriting is one reason I got the job in the first place.) Besides, no one else wanted the job.
Stacey is the treasurer of the club since she’s so good at math. This is important because she has to keep track of our money — both the money we earn baby-sitting and the money in the treasury. Any money we earn sitting is ours to keep. But once a week (at each Monday meeting) we have to pay dues. Stacey collects the dues, puts it in a manila envelope, and doles it out (grudgingly) when we need it. We use the dues to pay part of Claud’s phone bill; to pay Charlie, Kristy’s oldest brother, to drive her to and from meetings now that she lives clear across town; and to buy new supplies, etc., for the Kid-Kits.
Stacey loves collecting dues, but she hates parting with it. When somebody says, “Hey, Stace, I need five dollars for art supplies,” you should hear her huff and sigh.
Dawn Schafer, my stepsister, is the alternate officer of the club. She has to be familiar with everyone else’s jobs so she can take over any position in case someone has to miss a meeting. For instance, when Stacey returned to New York for that short time, Dawn became treasurer. Boy, was Dawn glad when Stacey and her mom moved back to Stoneybrook. Math is not one of Dawn’s strong points. Besides, she hated the ugly looks she’d get from the other members of the club whenever she had to collect dues.
Jessi Ramsey and Mallory Pike are what we call junior officers. This means that since they’re eleven and their parents won’t allow them to baby-sit at night unless they’re taking care of their own brothers and sisters, they handle a lot of the after-school and weekend jobs. This is helpful to us older club members. It frees us to take on more evening jobs.
So. Those are the seven people who gather in BSC headquarters every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon from five-thirty until six. However, I haven’t yet mentioned that our club has two other members (associate members) who do not come to meetings but who are reliable sitters we can call on just in case a job is offered that none of us is able to take. With our busy schedules, that does happen from time to time. And we don’t like to let our clients down. So if none of us is available to sit then, we phone Kristy’s friend Shannon Kilbourne to see if she’s available, or we phone Logan. That’s right. Our other associate member is none other than Logan Bruno.
Sigh.
* * *
“Excuse me. Pardon me, please. Pardon me.” That was Kristy, trying to get a meeting going. But everyone was talking.
“Hey, Dawn? What’s a henway?” asked Jessi innocently.
“A henway?” Dawn repeated. “Gosh, I don’t know.”
“Oh,” said Jessi, who loves to tell jokes, “about three pounds. Get it? What’s a hen weigh? About three pounds?” She turned to Mallory. “What’s the healthiest thing to feed your brothers?” she asked.
“What?” replied Mal suspiciously.
“Purina Boy Chow!”
Next to me, on Claud’s bed, Stacey was leaning over and peering at Claudia, who was lost in thought—and frowning.
“Claud?” said Stacey. “Are you okay? You look like you’re having a nightmare.”
“At this hour?” replied Claud.
“Oh, okay. A daymare.”
Everyone laughed.
Except Kristy.
“Can we please come to order?” she asked sternly. She was sitting stiffly in Claud’s director’s chair, wearing her presidential visor, a pencil stuck over one ear. She pointed to the digital clock, the official club timepiece. “It is five thirty-two,” she said, as if the rest of us had committed a crime.
We quieted down, and the phone began ringing. For the next fifteen minutes, we answered the phone and lined up job calls. When there was a lull, I told my friends about the Korman kids.
“They have an awful lot of fears,” I said. “I think it’s the move. You know, a new school and a new, BIG house.”
“Are you sure they’re not kidding about the monsters?” asked Stacey.
“Sometimes they are kidding,” I said. “But sometimes they’re not. Or sometimes they just take a joke a little too far.”
Ring, ring.
Jessi answered the phone. “Hello, Baby-sitters Club.”
The caller was Mrs. Korman. She needed a sitter one evening the following week. I scheduled the job for Dawn.
“Well,” said Dawn as I penciled her onto one of the appointment pages, “I guess I’ll get to see the Kormans and their monsters for myself.”
I would like to know just who invented school. And who made up the rule that every kid has to go? Didn’t it occur to that person that some people might not like school? Actually, I’ll admit that I do like school. A lot. (Most of the time.) But there are days I wish it didn’t exist. Like the day we were going to find out the groupings for the English project.
I was a nervous wreck.
Please, please, please, I thought. Let me be working with Dawn, Claudia, Stacey, and Kristy. Our teacher had said there would be a few five-person groups. But I knew I had about as much chance of being teamed up with my friends as I did of winning the lottery.
Wait a sec! My friends and I did win the lottery once. We won enough money to pay for a trip to California to visit Dawn’s dad and brother!
I grew very excited. But then I chilled out. What are the chances of two incredibly lucky things happening to the same person? Almost none. (I think that is sort of the opposite of what’s meant by “lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place.”)
It was early in the morning. Dawn and I had already arrived at school. I was standing in front of my locker, twisting the dial and worrying.
“What if I end up in a group with Cokie, the meanest person in the world; Alan Gray, dork of the universe —”
“You’re torturing yourself, you know,” said Dawn. “They aren’t going to post the groups until this afternoon. Why worry now?”
“You’re too practical,” I said.
“But what’s the point of worrying? It’s not going to change anything. The teachers assign the groups. We have no control over that.”
“You’re much, much too practical.”
Dawn smiled. “Maybe the project will be a good experience for you.”
“Yes, Mother,” I said.
* * *
At lunchtime, Dawn, Kristy, Stacey, Claud, and I claimed our usual table. (We don’t eat lunch with Mal and Jessi since the sixth-graders have a different lunch period than the eighth-graders do.) We spread our lunches on the table. Some of us bring lunches, some of us buy the school lunch. Kristy always brings her own lunch — and then makes disgusting remarks about the hot meal.
“Look. Lookit that brown thing,” she said, pointing to a blob on Claud’s plate. “You know what that could be?
It could be something that just, like, fell into the pot while the cooks were stirring … what is that stuff?”
“It’s beef bur-gig-non,” replied Claud.
“Bur-gig-non?!” exclaimed Dawn, laughing. “That’s bourguignon. You pronounce it the French way.”
“How would you know?” said Claud. “You don’t eat meat.”
“That brown thing,” Kristy interrupted, “could be —”
But I interrupted her. “Sonya Hardy,” I said.
“Huh?” said Kristy.
“Sonya Hardy,” I repeated.
Dawn looked mildly disgusted. “Mary Anne is still thinking of all the kids she could get teamed up with for the English project.”
“Like Alan Gray. Gag, gag,” said Kristy, pointing down her throat.
“She already thought of him,” Dawn told her.
“You know what I’ve been wondering?” Stacey spoke up. “I’ve been wondering who I’ll get to study. Wouldn’t it be great to be assigned Lois Lowry or Madeleine L’Engle or Paul Zindel?”
“Or Megan Rinehart or Paula Danziger?” I said, feeling excited despite myself. “If I got to study Paula Danziger I would just die. Of happiness, I mean. Or Judy Blume or — or Robert Cormier!”
“How about Danielle Steel or Stephen King?” suggested Claud.
“I don’t think we get to study adult authors,” I told her. “I think we’re studying people who write young adult books.”
Kristy suddenly began laughing. She laughed so hard her face turned red, she began to cough, and her eyes watered. I wondered if she was choking.
“Who knows the Heimlich maneuver?” I cried.
But Kristy, still laughing and coughing, waved her hands at me. Finally she managed to croak, “I’m okay. I just thought of something.”
“For heavens sake, what?” demanded Dawn.
“Alan Gray —” Kristy began.
“Kristy,” said Stacey, all exasperated, “we’ve already thought of Alan. You thought of him. Remember? Gag, gag?”
“I know, I know,” replied Kristy. “Just listen. I was thinking of Alan Gray studying Judy Blume. Can you imagine him reading Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, especially with a girl in his group? I mean, there’s bra stuff in that book.”
(I should point out here that Kristy does not yet wear a bra.)
We began to giggle.
“How about Alan studying Megan Rinehart?” I said. (More giggling.)
“Or that person who wrote Little Women?” suggested Claudia.
“Louisa May Alcott?” said Dawn. “But she’s been dead for decades. We’re going to be studying live authors.”
“Oh,” said Claud, her face turning red.
“Never mind,” said Stacey. “Anyway, this could be fun, you guys.” Stacey looked right at me. “Stop thinking about who you might have to work with, and think about who you might get to study.”
* * *
I did. I spent the afternoon dreaming of all the great authors I’d like to know more about. I’m a big reader. There was a good chance that I’d be assigned to an author whose books I’d already read. By the last period of the day, I was terribly excited. In just a few moments, our big project would be underway.
As if someone were reading my mind, an announcement came over the speaker system just then. “Attention, all eighth-graders. Attention, all eighth-graders. Your author-study project begins today. The lists of groups, and the authors to be studied, have been posted outside the office on the first floor. Please check the lists on your way home today. Thank you.”
My heart was pounding. Now I was just waiting for —
BR-R-R-RING!
The final bell.
In a flurry of activity, my classmates and I gathered up our books and flew out of the room. Most kids were heading for their lockers. But I ran straight downstairs to the office. A few other kids had done the same thing. I was glad I’d arrived early. Already, it was difficult to see the wall.
It took me a minute or two to figure out how to find my group. The number 42 was printed next to my name on the eighth-grade class list.
“Forty-two,” I murmured.
I stepped over to another list and peered at it until I found 42.
There it is, I thought. The people in group 42 study … Megan Rinehart!
I was ecstatic. This must be a sign of good luck. I adore Megan Rinehart’s books. Imagine being assigned to study them. And her. It would be more like fun than work.
I glanced under Megan Rinehart’s name to find out who was in my group.
And my stomach flip-flopped. I absolutely could not believe what I saw.
I would be studying Megan Rinehart with Miranda Shillaber, Pete Black (they were okay) … and Logan.
Logan Bruno.
In all of my fantasies, Logan had not occurred to me. How could we possibly work together? We weren’t even speaking. Being in the same school with him was uncomfortable. How could we work together in a teeny, tiny group? There must be some way out of this, I thought, as I walked slowly to my locker. I just wasn’t sure what it was. I knew I had to do the project. And I knew we students weren’t supposed to switch out of our groups. So … ?
By the time I had reached my locker, my eyes were brimming with tears.
By the time Dawn met me there, I was crying. Actually crying, right there in school. (Well, I do cry pretty easily.)
“Mary Anne!” Dawn exclaimed. “What’s the matter? What happened?”
I slammed my locker shut. “I’ve already been downstairs,” I said, hiccuping. “I looked at the lists outside the office.”
“Oh,” said Dawn sympathetically. “Who do you have to study?”
“Megan Rinehart,” I whispered.
“But she’s one of your favorites!”
“I know. Guess who’s in my group?”
Dawn paused. She looked as if she were trying not to laugh. “Alan?” she said. And then she couldn’t hide a small giggle.
I shook my head. “Logan.”
Dawn’s smile faded. “Oh, Mary Anne.”
(Of course I began to cry again.) “I don’t know what to do,” I said, sobbing.
Dawn put her arm across my shoulders. “You’ll manage,” she said.
Wrong, I thought.
“ ’Bye, Mom! ’Bye, Dad!”
“Good-bye, Mommy! Good-bye, Daddy!”
“Wahhh!”
Mr. and Mrs. Korman were leaving their house. Dawn was in charge of Bill, Melody, and Skylar. (The crier was Skylar. “Don’t worry,” Mr. Korman had said. “She never cries long.”)
Dawn hoped that was true. Just then, Skylar looked pretty miserable. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she stretched both arms toward the front door, which was now closed. She leaned over so far that she lost her balance and Dawn had to act quickly to keep her from falling.
It was a little after seven o’clock on Tuesday evening. Dawn was taking care of the Korman kids until about ten, while their parents went to a meeting at Bill and Melody’s new school.
Melody gazed at Skylar. “I know how to make her stop crying,” she said to Dawn. “Watch this.” Melody held up her hands like claws. “Skylar,” she whispered. “Here comes the Tickle Monster!” Melody began to tickle her little sister.
Since Skylar’s cries turned to laughter, Dawn didn’t give a second thought to the monster reference. A few moments later, she was upstairs with the children, getting Skylar ready for bed.
“Do you guys have any homework?” Dawn asked Bill and Melody. They were hanging around the nursery, using Skylar’s diapers as headdresses.
“No!” sang Melody.
“Did mine!” sang Bill.
“Okay. Why don’t you find a book or a game, and I’ll come play with you as soon as Skylar’s asleep,” said Dawn.
Bill and Melody left the nursery. They were both wearing diaper hats.
Dawn dressed Skylar in a pair of pink pajamas with feet.
“You look like an elf,” said Daw
n, eyeing Skylar’s round tummy and bulging diaper. “Ready for bed? Come on, kitten.”
“No tat!” shrieked Skylar. But at least she didn’t cry.
Dawn settled her in her crib, wound up her musical cow, patted her back, turned off the light, and tiptoed out of the room, leaving the door open a crack. She nearly ran into Bill and Melody, who were flying down the hall, diaper hats flapping.
“Monster alert!” shouted Bill.
“Shh,” replied Dawn. “Skylar’s almost asleep. I thought you guys were going to find something for us to do.”
“We were,” said Melody, her eyes wide. “But we almost got attacked by the Closet Monster. I was trying to get Parcheesi off the shelf, and the Closet Monster pulled it away from me.”
“Melody.” Dawn steered the children away from the nursery.
“Well, he did!” exclaimed Melody.
Dawn glanced at Bill. “I didn’t see anything,” he admitted, “but I heard monster sounds. Could you please check the closet?”
“Okay,” agreed Dawn. “Which closet is it?” This would be easy, she was thinking. All she had to do was show the kids a monster-free closet.
“This one.” Bill led Dawn to the playroom. He pointed to a door. “That’s the game closet,” he said.
“Maybe the monster isn’t a Closet Monster. Maybe it’s a Game Monster,” suggested Dawn. But neither of the kids laughed.
Dawn sighed. She opened the closet door.
CRASH!
The Parcheesi game fell to the floor, spilling its contents.
“Aughhh!” cried Bill. “The Closet Monster lives!”
Dawn disengaged Melody, who had wrapped herself around her leg. “A monster didn’t do that,” she said. “I think it was off-balance from when Melody tried to pull it off the shelf. Look. Do you see any monsters in here?”
Bill and Melody peered timidly into the closet as Dawn turned on the light.
“No,” they said after a moment.
Bill looked thoughtful. “Dawn, I think we better go on a monster hunt before bedtime,” he said seriously.
Mary Anne Misses Logan Page 3