Starring the Baby-Sitters Club!

  Mary Anne’s job as club secretary is to keep our notebook and appointments in order, and to schedule the baby-sitting jobs. She’s excellent at this. Also, she has very neat handwriting.

  I might as well tell you about Dawn Schafer next, since you already know something about her. Dawn was born in California, but moved to Stoneybrook with her mother and brother Jeff after her parents got divorced. This was not too long ago, in the middle of seventh grade. Then, as I said, her mom fell in love with Mr. Spier and they were married. And then Jeff moved back to California to live with his father. This was not because of Mary Anne and her dad. Jeff had simply never adjusted to the move to Connecticut, and he wanted to return to the place he thought of as home. Dawn was sad about that, of course, but she has coped. Dawn is a survivor. She’s also very independent. She does what she wants and what she believes in, whether it’s dressing in her own style, or sticking to her healthy diet. No junk food for Dawn. No red meat, either. Dawn just adores things like sprouts and tofu and macrobiotic foods. Yuck. There must be some diet that falls in between Claudia’s and Dawn’s.

  Dawn is the alternate officer of the BSC. Whenever one of us has to miss a meeting, Dawn can take over the duties of that person. She’s like a substitute teacher, I guess.

  Stacey McGill is the club treasurer and Claudia’s best friend. Honestly, those two were made for each other. Stacey (who’s a little boy-crazy, and at the moment is going out with my charming brother Sam) is just as wild a dresser as Claudia. Well, actually, Claud may be a bit flashier than Stacey, but Stacey is a bit more sophisticated, so they even out. Stacey has this wild blonde hair that she keeps getting permed, and she dresses as if she just stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine.

  Stacey’s life is not all lipstick and boys, though. It’s much more complicated (and, frankly, more interesting). Stacey was born and raised in New York City. She moved to Stoneybrook at the beginning of seventh grade, when the company for whom Mr. McGill works transferred him. Not long after that, the McGills decided to divorce, so Stacey wound up in Stoneybrook with her mother, while her father is back in NYC. Like Mary Anne, Stacey is an only child. And she doesn’t even have a pet. Sometimes I think Stacey and her mom are a little lonely, even though they have good friends in Stoneybrook. All in all, Stacey’s life is not easy right now. On top of everything else, she has diabetes, a disease with which she has to cope every day and for the rest of her life. Sometimes she doesn’t feel very well, and every now and then she winds up in the hospital, but mostly you’d never know Stacey is sick. (My mother refers to her as a “trooper.”)

  Remember the treasury I mentioned? Out of which we pay club expenses? I make it sound like such a big deal, but the “treasury” is just a wrinkled old manila envelope. However, the contents are important, and Stacey is in charge of it. She collects our dues once a week, and doles out the money as needed, watching over things to make sure the treasury is never empty. (By the way, Stacey is a math whiz, which helps considerably.)

  Okay. I know Jessi has already introduced herself to you, as well as Mallory Pike. What she didn’t mention is that she and Mal, the two younger members of the BSC, are junior officers of the club. Basically, this means their parents will not yet allow them to sit at night, even on weekends, unless they’re at home watching their own brothers and sisters. However, Mal and Jessi, who are excellent baby-sitters, are extremely important to the BSC since, by always taking on day jobs, the rest of us are freer to handle evening jobs. In fact, the seven of us are an awesome team.

  If you can believe it, there are times when, awesome or not, seven of us are not enough sitters. Every now and then a job’s offered to the BSC that not one of us is free to take. When that happens, we call on our associate club members. Our associate members are Logan Bruno and Shannon Kilbourne. Logan is … ta-dah … Mary Anne’s steady boyfriend. They’ve been going out for months now (after Mr. Spier allowed it), and they’re a perfect couple, I think. Shannon lives across the street from me in my new neighborhood. The associate members do not attend club meetings. But they are responsible sitters we can call on in a pinch.

  * * *

  Jessi showed up in Claudia’s room that Monday afternoon not too much later than the rest of us. She’d only needed to talk to Emily for a few minutes, she said. And she told us that Emily had liked her idea for the article about Peter Pan. And then she asked us to keep notes in order to give her lots of material for the article. None of us minded doing that. Not really.

  “So what are you guys talking about?” Jessi wanted to know, as she settled herself into her usual spot on the floor next to Mal.

  “What else? The play,” Stacey answered. “The more I think about it, the more excited I get. I’ve never been in a musical extravaganza. I don’t want to be a great actress one day or anything. I just think being in this play would be really fun.”

  “Ditto,” I agreed.

  “Ditto,” said Dawn.

  “Not,” said Mary Anne. “You will not catch me anywhere near the stage, the auditorium —”

  “What a surprise,” I said, and Mary Anne giggled.

  “You know what? I bet some of my brothers and sisters will try out for the play,” spoke up Mal.

  “Hey, mine too,” I said.

  “Definitely Karen,” added Jessi.

  “And probably some of the kids we sit for,” said Claud.

  “I wonder which parts will go to the high school kids,” said Mary Anne.

  “I wonder which high school kids will try out,” said Stacey.

  Claud arched an eyebrow. “Maybe Sam will,” she said pointedly.

  Stacey threw a pillow at Claud, and Claud threw it back at her.

  Soon an all-out pillow fight was underway. However, several minutes later I had to announce, “It’s five-thirty. Please come to order.”

  “What is this goo?” asked Kristy. She was holding up something from her lunch tray. It was gray and stringy. “It looks like what Watson’s cat might bring in —”

  Kristy was stopped by a shriek. “Don’t!” cried Mary Anne. “Do not start, Kristy. Please. You are going to make me sick.”

  “I’m already sick,” said Kristy. She was still holding up the stringy thing. “I can’t believe this was actually in my lunch.”

  “Put it down, okay?” said Mary Anne weakly.

  Kristy obeyed. Then, surprisingly, she continued eating her lunch.

  I returned to mine, too. However, mine was not a school lunch. I had brought it from home. I always do. And I had packed it myself. Fruit salad, bean salad, a packet of raisins and raw cashews, and a box of sugar-free juice. Sometimes kids make fun of me for carrying a lunch to school. However, I never have to worry about stringy things that look like the cat brought them in.

  It was Tuesday, the day after my friends and I had heard about the musical extravaganza, and Kristy, Mary Anne, Stacey, Claud, and I were sitting at our usual table in the cafeteria. Jessi and Mal don’t eat with us, since the sixth-graders have lunch during a different period. However, Logan had joined us. He joins us about half the time. The rest of the time he eats with his guy friends.

  Once we had settled down (and once Kristy had hidden the stringy thing in a napkin), we began talking about Peter Pan.

  “Guess what,” said Claud. “I decided what I want to do in the play.”

  “You want to be in it?” asked Stacey. “I didn’t know you wanted to be in it.”

  “Well, not in it, exactly. I want to work on the scenery. Wouldn’t that be fun? Think of the sets for Peter Pan. The nursery, Neverland, the pirate ship. Painting the scenery would be totally cool.”

  “Oh, you’ll be great at that, Claud,” I said. “I’m sure whoever is in charge of the scenery would die to have you work on it.”

  Kristy looked up from her lunch. “I’m going to try out for the part of Nana,” she announced.

  “Nana?” repeated Logan. “That big dog?”

  “Nana isn’t just any dog,” K
risty replied. “She watches over Wendy, Michael, and John like a regular nanny.”

  “But she’s still a dog. You’d have to wear a sheepdog costume.”

  Kristy grinned. “I know.”

  “Hey!” exclaimed Mary Anne. “Last night Dawn and I were looking through the program for Peter Pan — we saw the show in Stamford, remember? — and we noticed that the person who played Nana also played the crocodile.”

  “The crocodile that bit off Captain Hook’s hand?” asked Claudia.

  “Yup,” I said.

  “Well, that would be okay,” said Kristy. “Another cool costume. In Nana’s costume I could galumph across the stage. In the crocodile costume I could slither across the stage.”

  I giggled. This was so Kristy. Leave it to her to want the animal roles.

  “I still don’t know what part to try out for,” said Stacey, looking worried. “I really don’t. I just want some small role. Can I go to the auditions and say that? Or will that sound too, you know, uncommitted? I mean, I really don’t care what part I get as long as I can be in the play. I don’t even have to have a speaking role.”

  “I think that’s okay, Stace,” I said. “Just tell them what you said right now. You want to be in the play no matter what role you get. Maybe you’ll really impress everyone. Maybe you’ll wind up as Peter Pan.”

  “Nope,” said Claud. “That’s Jessi’s part.”

  Mary Anne smiled. “Where did Jessi get that idea? She does know she has to audition on Saturday, doesn’t she? She doesn’t really think the role is already hers.”

  “Oh, she knows she has to audition,” Stacey replied. “But I have this horrible feeling she thinks it’s just a formality, that the director is ready to give her the part no matter who tries out for it.”

  “Maybe she’s right,” said Logan.

  “Maybe,” I agreed. “She certainly does have stage presence. And experience. And she certainly can dance. We’ve all seen her.”

  “Can she sing?” asked Mary Anne.

  “As well as the rest of us, I guess,” said Stacey.

  We paused, each thinking about Jessi. After a few moments Mary Anne said, “Tell them what you decided, Dawn.”

  I blushed. “We-ell …”

  “Come on, tell us,” Kristy urged me.

  “I decided to audition for the part of Tiger Lily.”

  “That’s a pretty big part,” said Stacey.

  “I know. That’s the problem. I don’t really think I’ll get it. But it would be a lot of fun.”

  In Peter Pan, Tiger Lily is the Indian Princess in Neverland who is also Peter’s friend. She gets to sing a couple of great numbers, including the “Ugg-a-Wugg” song with Peter and the Indians. And of course she gets to wear a pretty exotic costume.

  “Hey, Logan,” said Kristy. “Do you want to be in the play?”

  Logan nodded, and swallowed a mouthful of mashed potatoes. “Yup, but I’m like Stacey. I don’t know what part I want. I don’t even really care. Maybe one of the pirates or something.”

  “You know what Mal told us on the way to school this morning?” I said. “She wants to work on costumes. I think she’d be good at that. I mean, she’s always —”

  “Shh!” Kristy interrupted me. She elbowed my side.

  “Kristy!” I yelped.

  “Shh,” she said again, but more quietly. She cocked her head toward the table next to ours, and I peered around her to see who was sitting there. “Don’t be so obvious!” she cried, but then noticed that the rest of our friends were now looking at the other table. And everyone at the other table was now looking back at us. Kristy buried her head in her hands. “You guys could never be spies,” she said.

  Here’s who was sitting at that other table. Cokie Mason, Grace Blume, and their friends. They are mortal enemies of the BSC. We are always getting involved in arguments or playing tricks on each other. They don’t like us and we don’t like them. You know what? I can’t even remember why. But our feud continues.

  “What’s going on?” Logan whispered to Kristy.

  “Guess who’s trying out for Tiger Lily,” she replied.

  “Dawn is,” said Mary Anne.

  “No. Guess who else is trying out. Cokie.”

  “Oh,” I groaned. “You’re kidding. I don’t want to compete with Cokie.”

  “It figures she’d want the part of an Indian princess,” said Claudia. “She already is a princess.”

  “Dawn, you’re still going to try out for Tiger Lily, aren’t you?” asked Mary Anne. “Don’t let Cokie stop you.”

  I made a face. “I don’t know. Being involved with Cokie — in any way — is so unpleasant. Plus, I don’t want to beat her and I don’t want her to beat me. If I beat her, she’ll make my life miserable. If she beats me, I’ll never hear the end of it. So either way, I lose.”

  “Dawn, don’t you dare not try out just because of Cokie,” said Kristy. “You are not a quitter. And since when do you care what other people think of you?”

  “It’s not so much what she thinks,” I answered. “It’s what she’ll do. You guys know very well what she’s done in the past.” Everything from scaring us to death to trying to steal our boyfriends.

  My friends and I returned to our lunches, even though I was pretty sure Cokie and Grace were now whispering about us. Probably they were plotting horrible, terrifying deeds. However, I tried to concentrate on our own conversation, and I turned toward my sister.

  “A bunch of the Pike kids are definitely going to try out,” Mary Anne was saying. “Mal told us this morning.”

  “Charlotte refuses,” spoke up Stacey. “I knew she would.” Stacey often sits for Charlotte Johanssen, who is a wonderful kid, but very shy.

  “I’m with Charlotte,” said Mary Anne. “I bet Becca Ramsey won’t try out, either.” Jessi’s little sister is as shy as Charlotte, which may be why they’re best friends.

  “I talked to Karen last night,” said Kristy. “She has her heart set on Tinker Bell. I hope she won’t be disappointed. I tried to tell her that Tinker Bell isn’t an actual person. She’s not really a character in the play. But …”

  I couldn’t help it. My mind drifted from our conversation back to the one at Cokie’s table. Maybe I wouldn’t try out for the play after all.

  On Saturday morning, Mom drove me to SMS. Going to school on a Saturday morning seemed pretty strange. But I was too keyed up to think about that.

  I hesitated before opening the car door and climbing out.

  Mom turned off the engine. “Do you want me to come in with you?” she asked. “just for moral support? I’ll stay entirely in the background. No one will know your mother is there.”

  I smiled. “Thanks,” I said. “Actually, I would sort of like you to come in. I wouldn’t even care if the kids knew. But I feel I should do this on my own. I should be a grown-up.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “You’re already more grown-up than most thirteen-year-olds,” said Mom. “You don’t have to prove anything.”

  “I know. But … well, anyway, my friends will be there. We’ll all give each other moral support. I think I can do this, Mom.”

  “Okay, honey.” Mom started the engine. “Break a leg!” she called as I opened the door.

  I waved to her and ran inside.

  The auditorium was a madhouse. Kids everywhere. High school kids, middle school kids, elementary school kids, and some kids so young they must have come to the auditions because their older brothers or sisters were going to try out. I saw a bunch of parents, too, and grouped at one end of the stage, a handful of teachers.

  For a moment I just stared at everyone. Then slowly I took off my coat and gloves, and unwrapped the scarf from around my neck. I left my things on a seat in the back row and approached the chaos near the stage. I knew Mallory must have arrived already because I saw Nicky, Margo, Claire, and the triplets — all of her brothers and sisters except Vanessa, who probably wa
s not interested in auditioning. I also saw Karen Brewer, David Michael Thomas, a bunch of kids I’ve baby-sat for, Cokie, Grace … and Sam Thomas.

  “Sam!” I called, and ran to him.

  “Hi, Stacey!” he replied. Sam held out his arms, but the second we reached each other, he pulled them back. And I drew away from him. I knew we were thinking the same thing. How were we supposed to greet each other in public? We hadn’t been going out seriously for too long, and only a few people (namely, the other members of the BSC) had seen us together. I wasn’t sure Sam’s friends even knew about me. High school guys did not often date middle school girls.

  “Um,” I said, “um, I didn’t know you were going to be here.”

  “I didn’t decide to come until this morning. It’s a zoo at our house this weekend — Karen and Andrew are with us — and at breakfast nobody could talk about anything except the play. By the way, Kristy, Karen, and David Michael are here somewhere. Anyway, during breakfast Brian called. You know, my friend Brian?” (I didn’t know, but I nodded my head, and Sam continued.) “He said he’s going to try out for the part of Captain Hook, and some of our other friends are going to audition, so I decided to come along.” He paused to catch his breath. “Why are you here? I mean, what are you auditioning for?”