Mallory on Strike

by Ann M. Martin

  Claudia Kishi is, as I told you before, the BSC’s vice-president. Claud is artistic, ultra-trendy, and gorgeous. She’s Japanese-American and has these beautiful almond-shaped eyes and shiny black hair that is soooooo long and straight. She wears it a million different ways: a French braid with sparkly ribbons woven into them, or sometimes just pulled up on one side with a wide barrette that she made herself. She makes her own jewelry out of clay or papier-mâché. Sometimes she’ll wear a pink flamingo in one ear with a palm tree in the other, and then put a tiny gold monkey on top of the palm tree. (She has two holes pierced in one ear.) Claudia can wear anything and it looks great. Like she’ll wear polka dot leggings with a short red skirt. Then she’ll wear a long-sleeved T-shirt with a black vest (covered with cool pins that she’s made herself) over that. Sometimes she decides to go fifties and wears penny loafers with white anklets.

  Claudia may be cool, but she’s a pretty lousy student. Her teachers say it’s because she doesn’t try hard enough. It doesn’t help that her sister, Janine, is a certified genius. (I’m not kidding. She has an IQ of 196!) Janine is sixteen years old and already takes classes at Stoneybrook University. While Janine spends most of her time at her computer, Claudia keeps busy working on her art, reading Nancy Drew mysteries (which she hides from her parents because they think she should be reading important books), and eating junk food. She’s crazy about junk food and hides snacks all over her room: Mallomars in her dresser drawers, M&M’s in her jewelry box, pretzels and Tootsie Pops in her shoes. With all of those sweets, she’s never had bad skin in her life. It’s not fair!

  Anyway, Claud lives with her parents and her sister and, until recently, her beloved grandmother Mimi. Mimi died awhile ago, and this was hard on Claud and the rest of us. We adored Mimi and miss her very much.

  Luckily for Claud, her best friend and the BSC’s treasurer, Stacey McGill, is back in Stoneybrook for good. (We hope.) Stacey was one of the original four members of the BSC, and she used to live in the house where Jessi lives. (Now Stacey lives in the house right behind me!) Recently her dad got transferred back to New York City (where Stacey was born and grew up) and then something went wrong between her parents. They wound up getting a divorce, and Stacey and her mom moved back to Stoneybrook. So Stacey spends vacations and certain weekends in New York City with her father. She’s very sophisticated and wears wild clothes and Claudia’s homemade earrings (everyone in the BSC has pierced ears except Kristy and Mary Anne). She has clear blue eyes and her blonde hair is usually permed and always in the absolute trendiest style.

  Stacey has one big problem (besides her parent’s divorce). She has diabetes. That means that her body can’t process sugar, so she has to stay on a very strict diet. She can’t eat sweets, except for controlled amounts of fruits, and she has to give herself (are you ready for this?) injections of insulin. EVERY DAY. I couldn’t do it. No way! I hate shots. But Stacey has to. If she’s not extremely careful she could go into a diabetic coma. (Not long ago, she got really sick when she wasn’t eating right and her blood sugar went crazy. She had to be put in the hospital in New York.) But Stacey is a strong person and manages to cope pretty well.

  Mary Anne Spier is the club’s secretary, and she’s also Kristy’s best friend. They grew up together, and they even look a little bit alike. They’re both short, with brown hair and brown eyes. But they are also very different. Mary Anne is quiet and extremely romantic. She’s a good listener and is very sensitive (actually, she cries a lot). Mary Anne was an only child until her dad recently married Dawn Schafer’s mom (which I’ll tell you about in a minute). Mary Anne’s mom died when Mary Anne was really young, and Mr. Spier had to raise her all by himself. I guess that’s what made him so strict. He barely let her do anything, or go anywhere. He even told her what she could and couldn’t wear.

  For a while, Mary Anne dressed like a first-grader, and it really embarrassed her. But then things changed. Mary Anne finally proved to her father that she had grown up, and he let her choose her own clothes (which are much trendier now). Then she met cute Logan Bruno and they started going out. (Mary Anne is the only member of the BSC to have a steady boyfriend!) She and Logan have had some problems, but they seem to have worked things out, and we’re happy that’s so. Logan, who’s from Kentucky and speaks with this really great drawl, is an associate member of the BSC. That means he doesn’t attend meetings. (That’s okay with me. Even though I like him, it’s nice not having boys at club meetings.) But he can be called on to baby-sit in a pinch. Shannon Kilbourne, a friend of Kristy’s, is also an associate member.

  Mary Anne’s other best friend (and stepsister) is Dawn Schafer. Dawn is the BSC’s alternate officer, which means if a club member gets sick or is out of town, she can take over that person’s position. It’s a big responsibility, but Dawn can handle it. She has a lot of self-confidence.

  Dawn is absolutely gorgeous. She has this L-O-N-G blonde hair that is almost white from being in the California sun (which is where she’s from — southern California). She has blue eyes and is a very acute dresser. I mean, Dawn wears whatever she wants: three different colored T-shirts at once with lots of necklaces (plus she has two holes pierced in each ear) and a short jean skirt. Her style is trendy but casual.

  Dawn wouldn’t be caught dead with a Twinkie or a hamburger in her hand. She is a real health food nut. You know, rice and beans and sprouts and that kind of stuff.

  Mrs. Schafer moved Dawn and her brother, Jeff, to Connecticut about a year ago, after Dawn’s parents got divorced. (Mrs. Schafer had grown up in Stoneybrook. Soon after they got here, Dawn and Jeff were both homesick for California and really missed their father. Also, Jeff was having a tough time in school, so he moved back with his father, which split the Schafer family in two.)

  Then this really weird (I mean, extremely weird) thing happened. First, Dawn and Mary Anne became best friends. Then they found out that Mary Anne’s dad and Dawn’s mom used to date when they were in high school. So Dawn and Mary Anne arranged for them to re-meet and guess what? They instantly fell in love again. After what seemed like an endless amount of time, they finally got married, and the Spiers and Mary Anne’s kitten, Tigger, moved into the Schafer’s big, old farmhouse. I know that sometimes Dawn really misses her dad and brother and California (let’s face it, she’s been through a lot of changes), but she seems to cope really well. Besides, now that she’s got a stepfather as well as a stepsister who, like I said, just happens to be her best friend, I think she’s much happier.

  My best friend, Jessi, whom I already told you about, and I are the junior officers of the BSC. That’s because we’re the youngest members and can only baby-sit after school and on weekends.

  * * *

  I was so busy thinking about the club and my unfinished homework and Young Authors Day that I didn’t even notice the red-and-white-striped ball that rolled across the street in front of me.

  “Look out!” a small boy in a cowboy shirt and hat shouted. I swerved to miss the ball, and my front tire bumped against the curb directly in front of Claudia’s house. Luckily, I didn’t fall, but I was embarrassed that that little kid had seen me almost crash like that. I steadied myself, then wheeled my bike up the Kishis’ driveway.

  I opened the Kishis’ front door and raced upstairs to Claudia’s room. The rest of the club members were already there, waiting in their usual spots. Kristy was sitting in the director’s chair, wearing her visor and a pencil tucked over one ear. The club notebook was lying open on her lap. Claudia, Mary Anne, and Dawn were lined up on Claud’s bed, their backs leaning against the wall. Stacey was straddling Claud’s desk chair, her arms draped over the top rung of the back. I took my place on the floor next to Jessi just as Claudia’s digital alarm clock changed from 5:29 to 5:30.

  All club meetings start on time and last exactly thirty minutes. We meet three times a week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons. Parents know that and call us during meetings to line up sitters. But I’m
getting ahead of myself. First, let me tell you how this fantastic idea got started.

  It all began when Kristy, Claudia, Stacey, and Mary Anne were in the seventh grade at Stoneybrook Middle School. I was a lowly fifth-grader at Stoneybrook Elementary, and Jessi and Dawn hadn’t even moved here yet.

  Back then, Kristy, Claud, and Mary Anne liked to baby-sit, but they always set up jobs on their own. Then one day Mrs. Thomas needed someone to watch Kristy’s six-year-old brother, David Michael. Kristy and her brothers Sam and Charlie were busy, so Mrs. Thomas spent practically forever on the telephone trying to line up a sitter. It was while Kristy was watching her mother make all those phone calls that the brilliant idea hit her. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, she thought, if parents could make one phone call and reach a lot of sitters?

  Kristy immediately invited Mary Anne and Claudia to form a baby-sitters club with her. Then the girls decided they needed four members, so Claudia suggested they invite Stacey to join. And that was the start of the BSC.

  Claudia’s room was the logical headquarters for the club, mainly because she has her own private telephone line. (I told you she was cool.) And the girls figured that, since they would be spending a lot of time in Claud’s room, she should be made vice-president. So she was.

  Then the club members advertised their business by placing an announcement in the Stoneybrook News and passing out fliers, and they got calls at their very first meeting. (One person needed a dog-sitter, but that’s another story.) Anyway, soon business was booming. So when Dawn Schafer moved to town and became friends with Mary Anne, the girls asked her to join the club, and she became the alternate officer. Then Stacey moved back to New York City, and the club members asked Jessi and me to join as junior officers. Of course, when Stacey returned to Stoneybrook, we let her right back in the club. And since she really likes numbers, and Dawn isn’t that crazy about them, Stacey became the official treasurer once again. (Dawn had taken over for her while she was gone.)

  There are now seven members of the club. I have to tell you that during BSC meetings, Claud’s bedroom feels pretty crowded. And when we’re all talking or giggling (which we do quite a bit of), it sounds like a major party is going on.

  Of course, Kristy tries to keep things from getting too out of hand. In fact, she is very businesslike at our meetings. She makes sure they start promptly at 5:30, and she’s not very happy about anyone being late. Kristy also makes sure we keep the club notebook up-to-date.

  What’s the club notebook? It’s like a diary. We’re supposed to write up every job in the notebook. That way the other members can find out if one kid is afraid of the dark and needs a nightlight left on, or if another kid is having trouble with school and needs help. It can be really useful in solving problems. It also helps us know which kids are going to be pains. (Like the Arnold twins, who actually turned out to be nice. The notebook sure helped me with them.) I don’t mind writing in the notebook, and neither does Kristy, but no one else is too keen on it, especially Claudia (maybe because she’s such a poor speller). Also, we’re supposed to read the notebook once a week, to keep up with things.

  The Kid-Kits were another great Kristy idea. She suggested that we each get a cardboard carton, decorate it, then fill it with toys and fun things for kids to play with. Mine is packed with books (of course), games and other old toys of mine, crayons, coloring books, stickers, scissors, and glue. I often take my Kid-Kit with me when I baby-sit. Children love it. Kid-Kits are also good for business, because when kids are happy, their parents are happy, and then they call the BSC and give us more jobs!

  Mary Anne has the hardest job. As the BSC secretary, she’s in charge of the club record book (another one of Kristy’s great ideas). She writes down the addresses of all our clients, their phone numbers, and the rates they pay. More importantly, Mary Anne assigns every single job. That means she has to know all of our schedules. Like, when Jessi takes her ballet lessons, or Stacey has a doctor’s appointment, or when I have to go to the (Ew!) orthodontist, or when Kristy’s Krushers have a practice. Even so, I don’t think Mary Anne has ever made a mistake.

  As club treasurer, Stacey collects dues from us every Monday. We grumble about paying them, but that’s just because it’s hard to part with money. Stacey keeps a record of the money in the treasury, then doles it out to pay for Claudia’s phone bill and Kristy’s ride to the meetings (we pay her brother Charlie to drive her across town in his car). Our dues also go for replacing items (like crayons and coloring books) in our Kid-Kits, and planning and buying snacks for fun BSC activities like pizza parties or slumber parties. Stacey sure loves collecting our money, too. She gets this wicked gleam in her eye whenever she pats the manila envelope holding our dues.

  So that’s how the club works. Three times a week we gather at Claudia’s and wait for the phone to ring. Which today it did immediately. Stacey, who was closest, called out, “I’ll get it!” She reached for the phone. “Hello, Baby-sitters Club,” she said. “Oh, hi, Mrs. Prezzioso.”

  The Prezziosos live on Burnt Hill Road and are friends of my family. They’re a little prim and proper but nice. They have two daughters — Jenny, who’s four, and a baby, Andrea. The Prezziosos needed a sitter for the following Saturday afternoon, so Mary Anne, who likes Jenny a lot, volunteered. As soon as Stacey hung up, the phone rang again. And then it rang again. And again.

  “That’s four sitters for Saturday,” Mary Anne commented as she assigned the Papadakises to Kristy and the Arnold twins to Jessi.

  Dawn, who’d just agreed to sit for Jamie and Lucy Newton, nodded. “Something really big must be happening.”

  Claudia was busy searching through her desk drawers for a bag of pretzels she had hidden the night before. “Didn’t you know?” she said. “Chez Maurice is serving a special luncheon. They’re going to donate half the money they make to the Stoneybrook Public Library.” She found the pretzels in a pile of dirty clothes, tore open the bag, and took a loud, crunchy bite of a pretzel. “Chez Maurice has the most dibble food.” (Dibble is a word we made up that means incredible.) “It’s my parents’ favorite restaurant.”

  Claud passed the pretzels around the room and even Dawn, who as I told you is a major health food nut, took a handful. I guess listening to Claudia describe all the delicious French dishes at Chez Maurice made everyone hungry. Everyone except me.

  Too many thoughts were churning in my head to pay much attention. Young Authors Day was only four weeks away. A month isn’t much time when you are trying to write an award-winning story. I mean, I’ve sometimes spent as long as two months working on a short poem. I wanted to give this story one hundred percent of my effort for two reasons: 1) I wanted to win the award for Best Overall Fiction for the Sixth Grade (that would mean that I do have talent, and might really become a famous author someday), and 2) I wanted to make my wonderful teacher, Mr. Dougherty, proud of me.

  “Then there’s this delicious dish called anguilles roti,” Claudia said, as she shoved another handful of pretzels into her mouth and flopped back on her bed. “It tastes all buttery and garlicky” is what she said, but what everyone heard was, “Uf tasel buddery an gawikee.”

  Jessi, who is very good with languages and is studying French (mainly because that’s the language of ballet), shot Claudia a funny look. “Did you say anguilles?” (Jessi pronounced it “On-guiy.”)

  Claudia nodded.

  Jessi wrinkled her nose. “That’s French for eels!”

  “Eels!” Claud nearly spit her pretzels out onto her tie-dyed T-shirt. “Oh, gross!” She leaped off the bed and hopped in a circle, saying, “Ew! Ew! Ew!”

  The rest of us howled with laughter as we watched her dance around in disgust. I was still worrying about my homework, and my story, and when I was ever going to get a chance to work on them. Jessi must have noticed I stopped laughing before anyone else because she tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Can you believe it? Claud ate eels and didn’t even know it.”

  Before I cou
ld respond, the phone rang again. Kristy, who was laughing just as loudly as the others, waved her arm for everyone to quiet down. Then she put on a very serious face and picked up the phone.

  “Baby-sitters Club,” she said. “No job is too small. We’ll give it our all!”

  That made everyone burst out laughing again. But Mary Anne gestured for us to keep silent while Kristy listened intently, then nodded her head several times.

  “I’ll call you right back, okay?” Kristy hung up the phone and said, “That was Mrs. Hobart. She needs a sitter for James, Mathew, and Johnny. Naturally, it’s for Saturday. But Mrs. Hobart isn’t going to Chez Maurice.”

  “To eat eels,” Stacey whispered, giving Claudia a nudge. Claud aimed her finger down her throat, and that set Dawn to giggling.

  Kristy adjusted her visor and tried to look like a stern president. “Mrs. Hobart is taking a class and needs someone to sit with the boys for four Saturdays, starting tomorrow. She’s willing to pay extra if the sitter will help them with their homework.” By the way, there are four Hobart boys. The oldest is Ben. He’s my age, and sometimes we go to dances and stuff together. I guessed Ben had said he would watch his brothers but had had to back out at the last minute.

  Mary Anne checked the club notebook and shook her head. “Boy, we’re really filled up on Saturday. We just booked four of us today, and Claudia and Stacey already have jobs. It looks like Mallory’s the only one who can do it.”

  Kristy turned and smiled at me. “Lucky you. You’ll be able to earn a lot of money on this one.”

  I thought it over quickly. If I sat for the Hobarts on Saturdays, that would leave me only one day each weekend to work on my story, finish my homework, and do my chores. That just wasn’t enough time. It was a tough decision, but I had to make it.