Karen's Kittycat Club

by Ann M. Martin

  “Now,” I said, “we are going to make two invitations. One for Hannie, one for Amanda. We’re going to invite them to join the Kittycat Club. Kristy didn’t say anything about invitations, but I’m going to make them anyway. I think invitations would be nice. Don’t you, Moosie?”

  I pretended that Moosie said yes.

  “Okay. Let me think.”

  I thought. Then I chose a green crayon. I wrote:

  I read it over. It did not sound quite right. Also, I think I had spelled a word wrong. But I wasn’t sure.

  “Look at this, Moosie,” I said. I held the paper in front of his face. “What did I do wrong?”

  Moosie just sat there.

  “Maybe I spelled ‘your’ wrong,” I suggested. “Maybe it needs one of those high-up commas.”

  I changed “your” to “you’re.” Now the invitation read:

  “I don’t know, Moosie. This still isn’t right. It isn’t like the birthday party invitations that come in the mail. They always start off with ‘Join the fun!’ Then they say ‘Come to a birthday party,’ and they say where the party will be, and when.”

  I thought for awhile. I chose a yellow crayon and a new piece of paper. I wrote:

  I had just finished writing CLUB when I realized something. I could not read what I had written. Yellow hardly shows up on white at all.

  I started over with red.

  Then I wrote:

  “Hmm. Do you think Hannie and Amanda will know that ‘my house’ means ’Karen Brewer’s house,’ Moosie?” I stared at what I had written. ”And that time looks funny. How do you write ‘three o’clock’?”

  I did not want to do it, but I had to ask a grown-up for help. I asked Daddy. He showed me how to fix my mistakes. Then I started over again. When I finished Hannie’s invitation, it looked like this:

  “Who would have thought you spell ‘join’ with an ‘i’?” I asked Moosie. “You spell ‘joy’ with a ‘y,’ and ‘join’ sounds like ‘joy’ with an ‘n.’ Oh, well.”

  I had written Hannie’s invitation with the red crayon. I wrote Amanda’s with a purple crayon.

  “There. All done,” I said.

  Very carefully, I folded each invitation in half, and then in half again. I put them in envelopes. I wrote Hannie’s name on one, and Amanda’s name on the other. Then I dashed across the street to Hannie’s house. I left her envelope on her front porch. I rang the bell and ran away. I did the same thing with Amanda’s envelope at the Delaneys’.

  My invitations had been delivered.

  Cats, Cats, Cats

  At fifteen minutes to three that afternoon, I went looking for Boo-Boo. He had to come to the first meeting of the kittycat Club. (He would have to come to all of the meetings.)

  I wished I had a nice cat like Pat. Or a beautiful cat like Priscilla. But I didn’t. I had Boo-Boo. I had scratchy, old, fat Boo-Boo. The good thing about Boo-Boo was that he is a cat. Without him, I could not be in my own Kittycat Club.

  “Boo-Boo! Boo-Boo!” I called. Where was he?

  I looked in the living room. Sometimes he and Shannon curl up together on one of the couches. But the couches were empty.

  I looked in the backyard. The backyard was empty.

  I looked on the kitchen counter, by Boo-Boo’s food dish. The counter was empty.

  At last I found Boo-Boo asleep in the laundry basket.

  “Come on, you old fat thing,” I said.

  “HSSS,” went Boo-Boo. But I lugged him upstairs anyway.

  Boo-Boo did not want to stay in my room, so I had to close the door.

  Soon I heard knock, knock, knock.

  “Who is it?” I called.

  “It’s Hannie and Pat!”

  “Come on in to the Kittycat Club!” I replied.

  Hannie opened the door. She put Pat on the floor. Next to Boo-Boo, Pat looked like a flea and Boo-Boo looked like an elephant.

  Even so, Pat walked right up to Boo-Boo. She swiped at his paw.

  “HSSS,” went Boo-Boo again. And he swiped at Pat.

  “Poor Pat!” cried Hannie. She scooped her kitten up.

  Suddenly I could hear someone saying, “Nice Priscilla, nice Priscilla.”

  “Amanda’s here,” I announced.

  “Hooray,” said Hannie. (She did not mean it.)

  Amanda came into my room. She was holding Priscilla in her arms. Priscilla is a beautiful cat. She’s a Persian. Her fur is very long. And it’s snowy white. Amanda is nice, but sometimes she talks about Priscilla too much. She’s forever saying that Priscilla cost four hundred dollars. That’s one reason Hannie doesn’t like her.

  “Hi,” said Amanda. She and Priscilla were standing in the doorway. “I guess this is the Kittycat Club.”

  “That’s right,” I said. I made a dive for Boo-Boo. Hannie had put Pat on the bed. Boo-Boo was after the kitten.

  “Come on in,” I told Amanda.

  Amanda stepped inside. Pat leaped off the bed. Boo-Boo tore after her.

  “Amanda! Amanda! Close the door!” I cried. “They’re going to escape!”

  Amanda closed it. Just in time.

  “Sit down,” I said to my friends. They sat on the floor. “Now this is my idea. The Kittycat Club will be a cat-sitting service, just like Kristy’s baby-sitting — ”

  “Hey!” shrieked Amanda. “Hannie Papadakis! Make your kitten stop that! She’s going to bother Priscilla.”

  Too late. Pat pounced on Priscilla’s tail. Priscilla jumped a mile. She jumped right over Boo-Boo. Then she turned around and gave Boo-Boo a swat in the face.

  Hannie grabbed Pat and hugged her. “Naughty Priscilla,” she said.

  Amanda grabbed Priscilla and hugged her. “Naughty Pat,” she said.

  I let Boo-Boo run under the bed.

  “Okay, you guys,” I said.

  But Hannie and Amanda were walking toward the door. Their cats were in their arms.

  “Good-bye!” shouted Amanda.

  “Wait!” I cried. “Don’t you want to make a lot of money?”

  Karen’s Cat-sitting Service

  “Make a lot of money?” repeated Amanda.

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “If you earned enough, Amanda, you could buy another four-hundred-dollar cat,” said Hannie.

  Amanda stuck her tongue out at Hannie. Hannie stuck hers out at Amanda. They glared at each other.

  “Come on, you guys,” I said. “The Kittycat Club is supposed to be fun. Why don’t you put the cats down. Then I’ll tell you my idea.”

  “Well … all right,” agreed Hannie.

  Boo-Boo was still under the bed, so Hannie put Pat on top of the bed. Amanda sat down and put Priscilla in her lap.

  The cats were quiet.

  “Okay,” I said. “See, Kristy has a baby-sitting service.” I told my friends about the Baby-sitters Club and how it works.

  “But what about the Kittycat Club?” asked Amanda.

  “Well, I thought we could do the same thing, except with cats,” I replied. “When someone goes away for a few days, we’ll take care of their cat. We will stop in at their house to feed the cat and change the litter box. We all have cats so we know how to take care of them.”

  “Oh!” said Hannie. “Good idea! This sounds like fun. What do we do at our club meetings?”

  “We wait for people to call and say that they need us,” I answered.

  “How do they know we’re here?” Amanda wondered. “And how will they know when we’re here?”

  “Good questions,” I said. “We advertise. It’s the only thing to do.”

  “Advertise? Like on TV?” asked Hannie. “Commercials?”

  “Oh, no,” I said. “We just make fliers. Then we put them in people’s mailboxes. The fliers will say what we can do, how old we are, and when our meetings are. I’m sure people will start calling us right away. They must need cat-sitters all the time.”

  “So we just have to make some fliers,” said Amanda.

  “And we will be ri
ch!” I exclaimed.

  “Yeah …” said Hannie and Amanda. I could tell they were excited.

  But Amanda began to look confused. “How come,” she said slowly, “we have to bring our cats to the meetings?”

  How come? Hmm. I wasn’t sure. It just seemed like the thing to do if you belonged to the Kittycat Club.

  “Because … because this is the Kittycat Club, that’s why,” I replied. I felt a little embarrassed. ”Listen. Before the cats start fighting again, why don’t you take Pat and Priscilla home. Come back tomorrow for our second meeting. We will make the fliers then. Okay?”

  “Okay,” agreed my friends.

  “This meeting,” I said, “is over.” (I said that to make the meeting official.)

  * * *

  “How is the Kittycat Club?” Kristy asked me that evening.

  It was bedtime. She had already read me a story and tucked me in.

  I grinned. “It’s great! Amanda and Hannie came over this afternoon. They brought their cats. The Kittycat Club is going to cat-sit. Just like your club baby-sits. Tomorrow we’ll have another meeting. We’ll make fliers.”

  “Like the fliers I told you about?”

  “Just like them.”

  “Karen,” Kristy began, “not every club works. Not every business is a success.”

  “But the Kittycat Club will be,” I told her. “I just know it … Moosie knows it, too. Here, Moosie. Kiss Kristy good night.”

  I made Moosie kiss my big sister. Then Kristy kissed Moosie and me. “Good night,” she said. “And good luck with the Kittycat Club.”

  We Are Cat-Sitters!

  “Excuse me! Excuse me!” I called.

  It was the second meeting of the Kittycat Club. No one was paying any attention to me. Pat and Priscilla and Boo-Boo were chasing each other. Hannie and Amanda were arguing. I tried to think what my teacher would do if no one in our class was paying attention. Then I remembered.

  I clapped my hands loudly.

  The cats jumped.

  Amanda and Hannie glared at me.

  “We are trying to have a meeting,” I said. “Now the first thing we have to do is make the fliers.”

  “What goes on a flier?” asked Amanda.

  “Our names and ages,” said Hannie.

  “How much we charge,” I added.

  “How much is that?” Amanda wanted to know.

  My friends and I looked at each other.

  “A dollar a day?” suggested Hannie.

  “That doesn’t sound like much money,” replied Amanda.

  “How about three dollars a day? Then we can divide it up between us,” I said. “We’d each get a whole dollar.”

  “Okay,” said Hannie.

  “We have to put our meeting times on the fliers,” Amanda reminded us. “When will we meet?”

  “I guess on the weekends when I’m here visiting Daddy,” I replied. “Hannie, I see you in school, but not you, Amanda.” (Hannie and I go to one school, Amanda goes to a different school.) “So our meetings will be every other Saturday. How about from two o’clock until three o’clock?”

  “Okay,” said Amanda and Hannie.

  “What if someone needs to call for a cat-sitter, but not on one of those Saturdays?” asked Hannie.

  “Hmm,” I said slowly. “I guess we ought to say to call one of us at home.”

  “Which one of us?” said Amanda right away.

  Hannie looked thoughtful. “Maybe me. Most of the jobs are going to be around here. Right in this neighborhood. Well, Karen wouldn’t be here, and Amanda isn’t at home as much as I am.”

  This sounded good. We wrote down all the information on a piece of paper. The paper looked very full. It also looked nice. The first line said:

  Hannie and Amanda and I spent a long time making fliers. We made one after another. When we thought we had made a million of them, we counted. We had made twelve. So we made some more.

  Finally, the fliers were finished. Priscilla and Boo-Boo were hissing at each other. Pat was batting Boo-Boo’s tail around.

  “I think we should go home,” said Hannie.

  “You can’t!” I cried. “We have to choose a president and a vice-president and a secretary. It’s too bad we don’t have one more person in the Kittycat Club. Then we could choose a treasurer, too.”

  “Oh, well,” said Amanda.

  “How do we choose the president?” asked Hannie.

  “Easy,” I said. “I think I should be the president. The Kittycat Club was my idea. But we could vote, if you want.”

  “Vote!” cried Hannie and Amanda.

  So we voted. Amanda voted for herself, Hannie voted for herself, and I voted for myself.

  The same thing happened when we voted for the vice-president and the secretary.

  “Now what?” asked Hannie.

  “How about drawing our names out of a …” (Amanda looked around my room.) “… a box. See that shoe box? We’ll use that. We’ll take three pieces of paper. We’ll each write our name on one piece. Then we’ll fold the papers and put them in the box. The first paper we pull out will be the name of our president. The second one will be our vice-president. The one that’s left will be our secretary. Okay?”

  “Okay!” said Hannie, grinning.

  But I was not so happy. I deserved to be the president of the Kittycat Club. No one else should have a chance. But no one else agreed with me.

  So we put our names in the shoe box. My friends let me choose the first piece of paper. I opened it up. The name on it was Amanda. Amanda smiled.

  Hannie drew next, and she drew my name for the vice-president.

  “I guess that means I’m the secretary,” said Hannie.

  “And I’m the president!” cried Amanda. “All right!” She was grinning so wide, her mouth looked like it might slide off her face.

  “But I,” I said crossly, “am only the vice-president.”

  “That’s better than being the secretary,” Hannie pointed out.

  “I should be the president,” I said. “The Kittycat Club was my idea.”

  “But we didn’t vote for you for president,” said Amanda.

  “Yeah, you voted for yourselves.”

  Amanda shrugged. “I’ll only be in the Kittycat Club if you let me be the president,” she said.

  At first I didn’t know what to do. Then I said, “Okay. You can be the president, Amanda. But I will run the meetings.”

  Amanda thought for a long time. “All right,” she said at last.

  I nodded. “Good. Now we have a job to do. We have to deliver the fliers.”

  Two Best Friends

  Hannie and Amanda and I worked hard. We put all the Kittycat Club fliers into mailboxes. We walked up and down our street. It took a long, long time.

  “I’m sure we’ll be cat-sitters very soon,” I said.

  * * *

  Late that afternoon, Mommy and Seth came to pick up Andrew and me. It was time to go back to the little house.

  “Good-bye! Good-bye!” Andrew and I called.

  “Good-bye!” called Daddy and Elizabeth and Charlie and Sam and David Michael and Kristy.

  I told Mommy and Seth about the Kittycat Club while we were eating dinner that night.

  “I bet we’ll get lots of jobs,” I said. “I know all about running a business. Kristy told me about the Baby-sitters Club.”

  Mommy and Seth looked at each other. Seth raised his eyebrows. Mommy said, “Don’t get your hopes up.”

  But I wasn’t listening. I was daydreaming. In my daydream, everyone on Daddy’s street was on vacation. And they all needed cat-sitters. The girls in the Kittycat Club were very, very busy — and very, very rich.

  * * *

  “Hannie! Hannie!” I called.

  It was Monday. Back to school. I could see Hannie stepping into our classroom. Hannie and I are in second grade in Stoneybrook Academy. Our teacher is Ms. Colman. She’s a very nice teacher.

  Another person in our class is N
ancy Dawes, my little-house best friend. Sometimes this is confusing because of Hannie. Hannie is my big-house best friend. And both of my best friends are in my class.

  Karen Two-Two.

  Hannie turned around when she heard me calling.

  “Wait up!” I shouted.

  Hannie waited. We walked into our room together. “Did we get any phone calls?” I asked. “Does anyone need a cat-sitter?”

  “You could say ‘hello’ first,” Hannie pointed out.

  “Hello,” I said. “Does anyone need a cat-sitter?”

  Hannie shook her head. “Nope,” she replied. “Sorry.”

  “Were there any calls at all?”

  “Nope.”

  * * *

  The next day, I pounced on Hannie again. “Does anyone need a cat-sitter?”

  “Nope.”

  “Darn. The Kittycat Club is not working — yet. But it will work,” I added.

  “What’s the Kittycat Club?” someone asked.

  I turned around. Nancy Dawes was standing behind me. I guess she’d been listening to Hannie and me.

  “The Kittycat Club,” I began, “is our cat-sitting business.”

  “Who’s in the club?” asked Nancy.

  “Hannie and me and Amanda Delaney.”

  Nancy looked hurt. “How could you start a club without me?”

  “I’m sorry,” I told her. “But you can’t be in this club.”

  “Why not?” she cried.

  “Because you don’t have a cat. You have to have a cat to be in the Kittycat Club. That’s the rule.”

  “Well, I think that is very unfair. You can’t have a club without your best friend.”

  Nancy walked away. She sat down at her desk. She put her head on her arms.

  I felt awful. Two days had gone by and we had not gotten a cat-sitting call. Worse, Nancy was mad at me. I had hurt her feelings.

  Boo, boo, boo.

  No Jobs Yet

  On Wednesday I said to Hannie, “Does anyone need a cat-sitter?”

  Hannie sat down at her desk. She shook her head. “No. We haven’t gotten a single call.”

  “Darn, darn, darn. Boo, boo, boo,” I said. “I am so mad … I mean, I mean — Oh, well. We don’t have any jobs yet. But we will soon!” Nancy Dawes had just come into our classroom. I didn’t want her to think I was upset. Or that anything was wrong with the Kittycat Club.