Kristy for President

by Ann M. Martin

  “Her daughter could always use some leash practice.”

  “Okay. See you tomorrow maybe. Come on, Astrid.” She pulled gently on Astrid’s leash, and Astrid went along easily.

  “See that?” I asked Shannon the puppy.

  By the time the morning was over, we had collected a pile of yellow leaves, a pile of red leaves, a pile of red-and-yellow leaves, a pile of orange leaves, and a pile of brown ones. And I had helped Emily Michelle spell out her name in leaves.

  “Now,” said Karen. “We will do the leaf dance.” She raised her hands and began skipping in and out among the piles. David Michael started doing a sort of bunny hop of his own after her.

  “Leaf!” he shrieked.

  “Chief,” sang Karen.

  “Beef,” sang David Michael.

  Then Shannon got in on the act. Woofing happily, she plunged after them. Only she didn’t dance in and out among the piles of leaves. She jumped into the piles. The leaves went flying every which way.

  “Oh, no!” cried David Michael.

  “Good grief,” I muttered. Karen put her hands on her hips and frowned at Shannon. Shannon jumped up, trying to catch a leaf.

  Then David Michael said, “It’s a real leaf dance.”

  The frown left Karen’s face. “It is. It is!”

  She and David Michael followed Shannon, throwing leaves everywhere.

  It really was a leaf dance, and fun to watch. David Michael and Karen and Andrew and Shannon were jumping and weaving around in all the colors.

  “Come on,” I said to Emily Michelle. “We have time for just one dance before lunch.”

  “Yes,” replied Emily. She reached down and picked up her leaves in her fist. Then she and I walked over to the leaf dance.

  David Michael was spinning in circles now, making himself dizzy. Karen joined in. Emily studied them for a moment, then smiled. She drew back her arm and threw her fist of leaves into the middle of the dance.

  “Oh-oh,” she said.

  “Yes-yes,” I said. “Let’s dance.” I danced Emily around in the leaves until she started to laugh. Then I felt someone watching. I looked up. It was Bart Taylor, sitting on his bike.

  “Come on,” I called to him.

  Bart parked his bike and stepped to the edge of the leaf dance.

  “Hi,” I said. I indicated swirls of leaves and the children. “Leaf dance,” I explained.

  “Looks like fun,” he said, and I knew he meant it. He didn’t act like it was childish or weird to find me covered with leaves. It’s one of the things I like about Bart — in addition to his deep, deep brown eyes and nice smile and … anyway.

  “It is fun,” I said. “Want to join us?”

  “I just stopped by to say hello,” he said. “I’m on my way to a Bashers practice in a little while.”

  “How’re they doing?” I asked.

  He raised his eyebrows at me. “Want to come scout?” he asked.

  “Maybe later,” I said. “I’ve got another job this afternoon.”

  “Okay,” he answered. We watched the leaf dance for a little while longer; then Bart had to go. “Come by if you can,” he said. I waved as he rode his bike away. I knew I probably wouldn’t be able to make it. I had homework, for one thing — especially some serious science studying to do.

  Mom and Watson came home not too much later, and we ate lunch. Karen kept her chief’s leaf on, and at lunch Emily Michelle looked up, then said, distinctly, “Leaf.”

  “Good for you,” said Watson.

  “Next time,” said Karen, “you can be leaf chief, Emily. I will be …”

  But I didn’t get to hear what she’d be. “Oh, my lord,” I exclaimed. “I’ve got to get over to the Newtons’. See you later.”

  I got to the Newtons’ just in time. Jamie, who is four going on five, answered the door with his mother.

  “Hi, Jamie. Hi, Mrs. Newton.”

  “Kristy, come on in.” Baby-sitting for the Newtons is one of my favorite jobs, not just because Jamie is fun and funny, or because his baby sister, Lucy, is adorable. Mrs. Newton is also very well organized. She had written down where she could be for the next couple of hours, and had left snacks for Jamie in the refrigerator.

  “You know where everything is,” she said as she was going out. “Lucy should sleep. I’ll be back by five.”

  Jamie and I waved to her, and then Jamie led me into the living room. He stopped by the window and stood staring out.

  “Jamie?” I said. It wasn’t like him to act upset when his mother left. He usually liked having me baby-sit for him.

  He didn’t answer. “Jamie, she’ll be back at five o’clock. Now, let’s see what we —”

  “Look,” breathed Jamie.

  I looked. A group of boys Jamie’s age and a little older were pedaling their bicycles frantically down the sidewalk. “You want to go out and ride your trike with them?”

  But Jamie shook his head vigorously. Then he looked at me, his eyes shining. “Not yet, Kristy,” he said.

  He waited, so I asked him, “When, then?”

  “When I get my bike.” He started hopping in place, he was so excited. “Guess what, guess what, guess what,” he sang.

  It looked like it was my day for singing baby-sitting charges.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I’m getting a real bicycle.”

  “Wow … a real bicycle.”

  “NOT a tricycle. A bicycle.”

  “That’s great, Jamie.”

  “And I’ll be able to go fast and faster and faster!”

  I put my hand on his shoulder and spoke slowly before he went any faster. “That really is good news, Jamie. I remember when I got my first bicycle.”

  “You do? Was learning to ride hard?”

  I thought about it. I didn’t remember it being hard, but I didn’t want to tell Jamie it was too easy, in case he didn’t pick it up right away.

  “Not hard, exactly,” I said. “Besides, it’s just like playing softball for the Krushers. With practice, you can do it.”

  “I’m going to practice and practice and practice.”

  “How about if we do something else right now.”

  “Can we read a book?”

  “You pick one out and we will. First let me go and check on Lucy.” Jamie headed for his room, and I went to Lucy’s.

  She was sleeping like a baby. I wanted to pick her up, she’s so soft and sweet smelling (most of the time, anyway) and fun to hold. But I knew if I woke her up and she didn’t go back to sleep it would mean she might be cranky later on. And I didn’t think Mrs. Newton would be happy with a sitter who left cranky babies in her wake.

  “Kristy!” called Jamie.

  I went to his room and settled down on the bed next to him. “Okay, what book did you pick out?”

  “It’s a new one,” he said. He held it up and I read the title: The Bicycle Rider.

  * * *

  Those bicycle wheels must have still been spinning in my head when Stacey called that night after I finally settled in to do some homework.

  “Listen, Kristy, I’ve been thinking,” she said.

  “And I’ve been trying to,” I said. “But vertebrates are not something my brain likes to dwell on.”

  “Well, what about this, then? Have you made up your mind about running for class president?”

  “You think it’s a good idea?” I asked. This was much more interesting than science homework.

  “Who’s more organized than you are?” asked Stacey. “And you’re the president of the Baby-sitters Club, so you have experience. Somebody needs to do something about the school, and not just the lunches.”

  “We-e-ll,” I said. “Let me think about it a little more.”

  “You might think about this, too,” said Stacey. “I heard Grace Blume is running.” (She’s one of Cokie’s cronies.)

  “I’ll let you know Monday.”

  “Good,” replied Stacey.

  And that’s what I thought a
bout for the rest of the weekend — when I had the time.

  The first thing Claudia said when I reached her house for the meeting Monday afternoon was, “Have you made up your mind yet?” So I knew she and Stacey had been talking it over. I’d been talking it over too, sort of — with myself. But I still wanted to talk about it a little more with the others.

  I shook my head and settled into the director’s chair, pulling the visor I usually wear down low. “Okay,” said Claudia cheerfully. She began rummaging behind her dresser, and I knew she was looking for something to eat.

  Claudia is a junk-food fanatic, and she keeps goodies stashed all over her room in places she doesn’t even remember, sometimes. Her room is sort of a secret junk-food collage, if you think about it. She’s very creative about collecting junk food, hiding it, and finding it.

  Her ambition is to be an artist, and she is really good. She once got an honorable mention in a show at a local art gallery for a work in progress (she would have gotten first place if the piece had been finished). But she doesn’t like school very much. She’s a terrible speller, for example.

  Maybe part of it is that her sister, Janine, is a real genius. She’s still in high school, but she’s already taking college courses, and when she talks, she’s very formal. She’s a conservative dresser, too. Not at all like Claudia.

  Today, for instance, Claudia was wearing lime green bicycle pants, a long, long bright pink shirt, and a cropped lime green striped shirt over that. She was also wearing black hightop leather sneakers with pink butterfly barrettes clipped to the laces. She had two feather earrings in one ear (lime green, of course), and a tiny pink heart in the other. Claudia’s gorgeous — she has perfect skin and she’s Japanese-American, with dark eyes and shining black hair (today it was pulled up on top of her head and fell down to one side). But even so, not many gorgeous people could get away with some of the outfits Claudia pulls together. But that’s how she always looks. Pulled together and gorgeous.

  Claudia is the vice-president of the Baby-sitters Club because we meet in her room three times a week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, from 5:30 until 6:00. Claudia has her own private phone line, the only one of us who does. This is good because when we use the phone, we don’t tie it up for the other people in her family.

  I’m the president since I thought of the idea for the BSC. I got it one night while I was listening to my mother call around, trying to find a baby-sitter for David Michael. Suddenly, it came to me. What if Mom could make one phone call and reach several different baby-sitters at once? Actually, I thought, reach three baby-sitters at once, since Mary Anne and Claudia and I were already doing a lot of baby-sitting. But we agreed that three might not be enough, so Claudia suggested that Stacey join us. Stacey had just moved to Stoneybrook and was starting to be friends with Claudia.

  She said yes. So with Mary Anne as secretary and Stacey as treasurer, we were all set. We advertised and worked hard, and we got good recommendations. Soon we had all the baby-sitting jobs we could handle.

  That’s when Mary Anne suggested we ask Dawn, who’d just moved to Stoneybrook from California, if she’d like to be a member of the club, too. Dawn agreed, and she became our alternate officer. Then Stacey had to move back to New York (it turned out to be temporary), and we still had as much business as before, if not more, so Jessi Ramsey and Mallory Pike joined us as junior officers. In fact, everybody in the club is an officer except Logan and Shannon, who are associate members. They help us out when we need extra baby-sitters.

  Mary Anne, who is my best friend, and Dawn, who is Mary Anne’s other best friend, arrived at the meeting next. They came in the door, just as Claudia shrieked, “Aha!”

  Mary Anne stopped, looking a little flustered. Then she saw the sweet ’n’ sour gummy bears Claudia was holding up and smiled.

  “Catch,” Claudia said, and tossed the bag to Mary Anne. Then she got down on her knees and started running her hand between the mattress and the boxsprings of her bed.

  “Thank you,” said Mary Anne. She sat cross-legged on the bed, opened the club notebook, and put the gummy bears beside her. Dawn sat down opposite her in Claud’s desk chair.

  I guess the fact that Mary Anne and I are best friends proves that opposites attract. We do look sort of alike. We both have brown hair and brown eyes and are short. Actually, I’m the shortest person in our class. But where I have a big mouth and sometimes say things without thinking, Mary Anne is quiet and shy. She even dressed like a shy kid, until she convinced her father to let her grow up a little.

  Her father couldn’t help being strict. Mary Anne’s mother had died when Mary Anne was very young, and Mr. Spier wanted to make sure he raised Mary Anne right. But he was very hard on her. Now she pays more attention to clothes, although her style is very different from Claudia’s or Stacey’s, and she wears her hair in distinctive styles. That’s another way in which Mary Anne and I are different. I’m happy just wearing jeans and a T-shirt or a turtleneck, and running shoes. In cold weather, I just add a sweater and sometimes a baseball cap. My best baseball cap has a collie on it. That’s in memory of Louie. He got very sick and we had to have him put to sleep. (It was Louie, in a way, who helped Shannon and me to become friends.) I like my hair to look casual, too.

  Mary Anne is also very sensitive and romantic. Maybe because of that, she’s the first one of us to have a real boyfriend. That’s Logan Bruno. He’s a Southerner, and Mary Anne thinks he looks just like Cam Geary, her favorite star. And even though I’m not interested in boys much (except for Bart Taylor), Logan is cute.

  Anyway, Mary Anne’s father not only started letting Mary Anne make some changes, he did some major changing himself. He got married. He married Dawn’s mother, Mrs. Schafer! Only she’s Mrs. Spier, now. They’d known each other in high school here in Stoneybrook, when Dawn’s mom was Sharon Porter. But things hadn’t worked out and Dawn’s mother moved to California and married Dawn’s dad. The Schafers had Dawn and Dawn’s brother, Jeff, but then they got divorced. And Mrs. Schafer ended up back in Stoneybrook. That’s how Mary Anne went from being an only child, except for her kitten, Tigger, to having a good-sized family. The Schafers and Spiers live in Dawn’s house, now, since it’s bigger. And Dawn is now not only Mary Anne’s other best friend, but her sister, too.

  Once you see Dawn, you never forget her. She is striking looking. She has long, long, pale, pale blonde hair, blue eyes, and is tall and slender. And she definitely has her own personal style — like the two holes pierced in each earlobe. Plus, she will not eat junk food. Or red meat. But she will eat tofu. And real, live fruit. I mean an apple is okay, but it’s not my first choice.

  Other than that Dawn is very easygoing. She does her own thing, and lets people do theirs. It’s hard to shake Dawn up, although she does get hurt. She’s been through some tough times, too. Not only did her parents get divorced and her mother move back to Stoneybrook (and away from the warm California sun), but in the end, Dawn’s little brother, Jeff, decided to move back to California to live with his father. Dawn had thought about living in California, too, once, but fortunately for us she decided to stay. And now, after adjusting to her new life with Richard (Mr. Spier) and Mary Anne, I think Dawn’s perfectly happy in Stoneybrook.

  Oh, yes. Dawn loves ghost stories. And the old farmhouse she lives in might be haunted. We’ve never been able to prove it is. But we’ve never been able to prove it isn’t, either. At least there’s a secret passage in it that might be haunted.

  “Aha!” said Claudia again. She tossed a bag of pretzels to Dawn, and propped herself against the headboard of the bed, holding a bag of double-dipped chocolate Oreos.

  Stacey, Jessi, and Mal were the last to arrive at the meeting.

  You already know a little about Stacey. What you don’t know is that in addition to being New York sharp (and cool), Stacey is also a diabetic. That’s a disease in which your pancreas doesn’t make enough insulin, which means your blood sugar level can get out of c
ontrol. When that happens you could faint, or even get really sick. So Stacey has to give herself injections of insulin every day and watch what she eats very strictly. Absolutely no sugar. In a way, she has the same problem with her parents that Mary Anne had with her father. Stacey’s an only child, too, and when her parents found out she was diabetic, they started being super, super cautious and careful with her. They also started taking her to all different kinds of doctors, even when Stacey finally felt that she was handling things and had a doctor she liked and knew was doing a good job. Stacey had to talk pretty firmly to her parents, too, but at last they understood.

  Anyway, Anastasia Elizabeth McGill (that’s Stacey’s real name, but don’t call her that!) moved to Stoneybrook in seventh grade when her father’s company transferred him to Stamford. Then, just a year later, they transferred him back to New York. So Stacey returned to the town she was born and raised in — but not for long. Stacey’s parents got divorced, and her mother moved back to Stoneybrook. And Stacey chose to come back to Connecticut, too.

  Stacey is boy-crazy (just like Claudia). She is also a way cool dresser. Like that Monday, she was wearing a black skirt and tights that were two colors: one leg was red and the other was black. And her shoes were shiny black and laced up to the ankles. She was also wearing this enormous black turtleneck sweater with red flecks in it, and one round red earring and one square black one. Her hair, which was in a mid-perm stage around her face, was pulled back with this silver lamé band.

  She looked smashing.

  Jessi Ramsey and Mallory Pike are both eleven years old, in sixth grade, and best friends. Mal used to be one of our baby-sitting charges. She’s from a family of eight kids (she has four brothers, three of them identical triplets, and three sisters), so she’s had a lot of experience with children. It was only natural that she “graduate” to being a member of the BSC herself. And Jessi is sort of connected to Stacey. When Stacey moved back to New York, Jessi’s family moved into Stacey’s old house.

  Jessi and Mallory are two very different best friends (like me and Mary Anne) who also have a lot in common. They’re both the oldest in their families, and their families still treat them like babies (at least, that’s the way Mal and Jessi feel). But they did manage to get pierced ears. And they both love horse stories, particularly Marguerite Henry’s stories. Oh, yes — they both have pet hamsters.