Dawn and the We Love Kids Club

  Every BSC member has a title and certain duties. The club meets from 5:30 to 6:00 on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Parents know to call only during those times. The club advertises around town and has tons of clients. How do they keep track of all of them? With another Kristy invention: the club record book, which has a client list and a calendar of our appointments. Club members also have to write about each sitting experience in the club notebook. (Yup, Kristy’s idea, too.)

  If the BSC were a car, Kristy would be the starter — but Mary Anne would be the engine. As club secretary, she keeps things running (she’s in charge of the record book). Kristy and Mary Anne are best friends. They even look alike, although Mary Anne’s brown hair is cut really short these days. Personality-wise, they couldn’t be more different. Mary Anne is quiet and super-sensitive. It doesn’t take much to make her cry. Her boyfriend, Logan Bruno (the one who calls me “Runs With Squirrels”) carries a box of tissues when they go to movies together. Needless to say, she is the world’s best, most caring sister. Before our parents married, she never had a sibling or a mother. Her mom died when she was a baby, and Mr. Spier raised her by himself — very strictly, too. (Fortunately, being married to my mom has loosened him up.)

  Claudia Kishi is the club vice-president, mainly because her room is BSC headquarters. She’s Japanese-American and absolutely stunning (thin, too, despite the fact that she’s a junk-food fanatic). Claudia is the most talented person I know — in drawing, painting, sculpting, jewelry-making, even fashion. She can create the coolest outfits out of odd combinations of clothes. Her spelling is creative, too — and her math. In other words, Claud is not a great student. Her parents used to wish she could be more like her older sister, who’s a real genius, but I think they’ve given up comparing.

  The BSC’s other fashion-plate (and treasurer) is Stacey McGill. She’s very sophisticated, but not snobby. She was born and raised in New York City, and her dad still lives there (she’s another “divorced kid”). Her duty is collecting dues on Mondays and paying our expenses — like Claudia’s phone bill. Stacey and I have some important things in common: divorced parents, blonde hair (hers is darker), and healthy eating habits. She has no choice about her diet, though, because she’s diabetic. That means her body can’t control the amount of sugar in her blood. She can’t eat sweets, and she injects herself daily with a substance called insulin. (I know, it’s gross, but she can’t help it.)

  Oh. My BSC title was alternate officer. I could take over anyone else’s job in case of emergency.

  All the BSC members are eighth-graders, except for Jessi Ramsey and Mallory Pike. They’re our junior members, and they’re both in sixth grade. They usually take early sitting jobs, since they have strict curfews. (Hating their curfews is one of the many things they have in common.) Talk about talent — Jessi’s a gifted ballerina, and Mallory writes and illustrates her own stories. Jessi is the club’s only African-American, and she had to deal with a lot of prejudice in Stoneybrook when her family moved in. She’s the oldest of three kids. Mallory is the oldest of eight kids, so she’s kind of a round-the-clock baby-sitter. Lately, Mal’s been recovering from mono, so she hasn’t been active in the club.

  How does the BSC deal with two absent members (Mal and me)? By relying on its two associate members. Normally the associates take occasional jobs and are excused from attending meetings. But nowadays one of them, Shannon Kilbourne, has taken over my job as alternate officer. Shannon’s the only BSC member who goes to a private school (Stoneybrook Day School). She’s involved in all kinds of extracurricular activities there. I don’t know how she finds time for everything.

  The other associate is Logan Bruno. Yes, Mary Anne’s boyfriend. Even though he’s a carnivore and a jock, I like him. He talks in this cute Kentucky accent, and he’s great-looking. He’s been handling some of the sitting overload, too.

  I’ve been in touch with all the BSC members, but mostly with Mary Anne. They’re all, like, flabbergasted that the We ♥ Kids Club has lasted without strict rules.

  It is pretty amazing when you think about it. Parents can call any of our numbers whenever they want. Whoever gets the call takes the job, or lines up someone else. Sunny has a record book at her house but we don’t use it much, since the calls come in at all our houses. Somehow we always seem to work things out.

  Our meetings, as you’ve already seen, are very casual. (Sometimes we even hold them outside.) Officers? No way. Punctuality? It might as well be a foreign word.

  Bleeeep! The phone chirped as Sunny was explaining to Jill about waxing surfboards.

  Sunny grabbed the receiver from her night table. “We Love Kids Club,” she said. “Hi, Mr. Robertson…. Yes, we’re all here…. A week from Saturday? Hang on.”

  (At this point in a BSC meeting, Claudia would tell the parent she’d call right back. Then she’d hang up while Mary Anne was carefully looking through the record book, checking every possible scheduling conflict and trying to make sure each member was getting a roughly equal amount of work.)

  Not the We ♥ Kids Club. “Dawn, are you busy that day?” Sunny asked with her hand over the mouthpiece.

  “I don’t think so,” I replied.

  “Okay, Mr. Robertson, Dawn’ll be there,” Sunny said into the phone. “ ’Bye.”

  End of conversation. No muss, no fuss.

  Eventually Sunny put her board away and we turned to our other favorite topic — food. The W♥KC has a health-food cookbook, and each of us keeps a file of personal recipes that we update all the time.

  Maggie was in the middle of describing a scrumptious soba noodle dish, with sesame paste and watercress, when the phone rang again.

  “We Love Kids Club!” Sunny announced into the phone. “What? Who is this? Get out of here, is this Ellen?”

  I smiled. Ellen Bliemer is a friend who loves practical jokes. One time she called as a radio DJ and convinced Sunny she’d win a thousand dollars if she named some obscure rock tune.

  Sunny’s brow became more and more wrinkled. “Uh-huh … okay … I guess … um, can I call you right back?” She rummaged in her night table drawer, took out a pencil and a piece of paper, and scribbled a number. “Got it. ’Bye.”

  We were staring at her as she hung up. “What was that about?” I asked.

  Sunny looked dumbfounded. “She says she’s a feature-story writer from the Palo City Post — Ms. Lieb.”

  “Rhonda Lieb?” Maggie said. “She wrote about my dad once.”

  “Oh my lord.” Sunny’s face was turning red. “Maybe it wasn’t Ellen.”

  “What did she want?” Jill asked.

  “She said she’s writing a series of articles about kids who runs businesses. She heard about the We Love Kids Club and wants to make an appointment to interview us.”

  “Whaaaat?” I squeaked.

  “Whoa, let’s do it!” Jill said.

  “When?” Sunny asked.

  “How about tomorrow?” I suggested.

  Maggie nodded. “Okay with me.”

  “Me too,” Jill added.

  “Try the number she left,” I said. “If the newspaper answers, you know she’s for real.”

  Sunny smiled weakly. “You do it. I feel like a total dork for asking if she was Ellen.”

  Me? Call the biggest local newspaper to arrange an article about the W♥KC? Twist my arm.

  Looking at Sunny’s scribble, I tapped out the number.

  A voice barked, “Positydeskenfeet, murbletch!” (Well, that was what it sounded like.)

  “Uh, hello? Is this, uh, Ms. Lieb?”

  “Rhonda! Line t —”

  Silence. I was on hold.

  A moment later a much nicer voice said, “Hello, Rhonda Lieb speaking.”

  “Hi, my name is Dawn Schafer, calling about the We Love Kids Club —”

  “Oh, yes, thank you for getting back to me so soon. You … sound different.”

  “Well, the girl you talked to is … indisposed right now.” (I’d
heard that word on TV. I hoped I’d used it right.) “But our club has decided that tomorrow would be all right for the interview.”

  “Great! About this time? Say, four-thirty?”

  “Four-thirty?” I echoed.

  Sunny, Maggie, and Jill nodded so fast I felt a draft.

  “Okay,” I said. Then I gave her Sunny’s address.

  “Terrific. See you then.”

  “ ’Bye.”

  The moment I hung up, the room practically exploded.

  “We’re going to be famous!” Sunny shrieked.

  “Where did she hear about us?” Jill asked.

  “Is she bringing a photographer?” Maggie wanted to know.

  We were higher than three kites. If the phone had rung for a sitting job, I’m sure we wouldn’t have heard it. Mrs. Winslow knocked on our door to make sure a bat hadn’t flown into the room or something.

  The We ♥ Kids Club in the Palo City Post? Now that was cool.

  Ding-dong!

  It was 4:47 on Wednesday. My friends and I had gathered at Sunny’s house. I guess Ms. Lieb was as casual about time as the W♥KC is. She was seventeen minutes late. We had been sitting on the living room sofa for at least half an hour, waiting.

  You know how it is when you’re on pins and needles for a long time. You get a little punchy.

  “She’s here!” Sunny screamed.

  We all sprang up at once. Maggie’s green hair-tail whipped me across the face. Jill, who was eating a whole wheat cracker with cashew butter, chewed furiously and wiped her hands on her white pants.

  Sunny reached the door first. She pulled it open and Ms. Lieb breezed in. “Hi! Rhonda Lieb,” she said, shaking Sunny’s hand. “Sorry for the delay. You must be Sunny.”

  Ms. Lieb was much younger than I expected. She had short brown hair, a friendly smile, and was wearing a beautiful cotton cardigan over a white T-shirt and gray stirrup slacks. She could have been a college student.

  We introduced ourselves nervously. (Well, Maggie wasn’t nervous. She’s had dinner with Keanu Reeves.)

  Mrs. Winslow must have heard the commotion, because she came into the room and offered Ms. Lieb some coffee.

  In seconds we were sitting around the living room. Ms. Lieb opened her shoulder bag and pulled out a cassette recorder. “Does anyone mind if I tape you?” she asked.

  “No,” we said.

  “Fabulous. Let’s get started. The purpose of this series of articles is to spotlight the youthful spirit of enterprise in this area — show the community the good things that are happening with our kids. I’m talking to a youth-run car wash, a kids’ video company, and a tutoring cooperative. I heard about your group through the principal at the Vista School.” She looked at us for a response.

  We all kind of grunted positively. Sunny was sitting at the edge of the sofa, looking as if she would fall forward. Jill’s legs were crossed tightly to hide the cashew butter stain. Maggie was fiddling with a pencil.

  Mrs. Winslow laughed as she entered the room with a cup of coffee. “Whoa, what happened? Is she giving you a math quiz?”

  That did it. We giggled, and the tension began to lift.

  “You know, I used to baby-sit, right up through college,” Ms. Lieb said with a smile. “I was studying to be an actress, and one day I took an eight-year-old charge, Rena, to an ice cream shop. In walks this famous director who starts talking to me.”

  “Wow,” I said. “Did he give you a part in a movie?”

  “No, but he gave Rena one. That was when I decided to become a journalist.”

  We groaned in sympathy. I liked Ms. Lieb already. She seemed like one of us, only grown-up. Soon she began asking us questions. She especially wanted to know about my bicoastalism, Maggie’s Hollywood lifestyle, and our interest in health foods.

  We explained how the group was organized (which didn’t take long). Then we talked about our experiences. Sunny told her about a charge who insisted on taking a carrot to bed every night. Maggie mentioned a girl who poured bubble bath in the dishwasher. Jill described a baking experience with twins, which ended up as a dough-flinging contest. I gave her a cooking story too, about a neighbor I’d sat for who liked to mix toothpaste with milk and cereal for his dinner.

  By the time I’d finished that last story, we were roaring with laughter. Even Ms. Lieb was practically falling off the couch.

  At about five-thirty a photographer arrived. He introduced himself as Lance and he was, well, a hunk. He was in his twenties, dressed in black, with dark brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, and the deepest, most luscious eyes I’d ever seen.

  “I’d like to catch you all in a variety of shots,” he said. “Some candid, some posed.”

  “Okay!” we cried. I think Lance could have asked us to weed the lawn and we’d have agreed.

  We went outside. Clover and Daffodil, the two little girls who live in the neighborhood, were playing with their friends Sara and Ruby. Ms. Lieb easily managed to convince them to pretend they were charges (actually, they all are, every now and then). We posed individually and as a group. We went to Sunny’s room and pretended to have a meeting. All the while, Lance kept snapping away. He must have used five rolls of film.

  When we finally emerged from the house, a crowd had formed in front. (I guess Clover and Daffodil had spread the word around.)

  The crowd parted to let Ms. Lieb and Lance return to their cars. It was like the Oscars. One kid even held out an autograph book to them, although I’m sure he had no idea who they were.

  As for us, well, I noticed most of the goodbyes were being directed at Lance.

  * * *

  The article didn’t appear for five days. Five long, agonizing days.

  Each morning the newspaper arrived with a plop on the front doormat. Each morning I carefully checked the features section. I looked at every headline, every little blurb. I even checked the other sections, in case the article had been misplaced.

  But there was no mistaking it that Monday. The headline on top of the features page looked like this:

  Palo City ♥’s the We ♥ Kids Club:

  The Story of a Baby-Sitting Business

  by Rhonda Lieb

  Under the headline was a photo of the four of us. Sunny had just hit a beach ball in the air, and was laughing. Maggie and Jill were running after the ball with one of the neighborhood kids. And I was watching nearby.

  Near the end of the piece, we appeared again, smiling in a posed group close-up that was labeled with each of our names.

  Have you ever seen your name and photo in print, knowing they’re going to be seen by thousands of people? It’s breathtaking. I actually shivered.

  I was never a speed reader, but I must have zipped through the article in about three seconds. Here’s how it began:

  Who says you can’t have fun while you’re working hard? Must have been someone who never met the We ♥ Kids Club.

  That’s right. We ♥ Kids. The name says it all. It was a love for children that brought Sunny Winslow, Maggie Blume, Jill Henderson, and Dawn Schafer together. And they’ve become the hottest baby-sitting foursome around. (Come to think of it, what parent could resist hiring caregivers with a group name like theirs?)

  The article continued from there, describing us and the club. I was “a silken-haired beauty with a laugh like pealing bells” (hey, she wrote it, not me). Sunny was “an aptly named fireball of boundless enthusiasm.” Maggie was “savvy, hip, and just this side of au courant” (whatever that means), and Jill was “warm and nurturing, the calming force of the group.”

  I could not believe she was talking about us!

  I ran into the kitchen to show Dad and Jeff. Dad’s face lit up when he saw the article. “Heyyy! My daughter the celebrity!”

  “Looks like there’s a goober on your face in the bottom picture,” was Jeff’s comment.

  “Ha, ha,” I replied. The insult did not bother me one bit. “Be right back!” I flew through the house and out the front door. r />
  A few blocks from our house is a newsstand. I biked to it and bought ten copies of the newspaper. Of course I had to show the article to Mr. Klein, the storekeeper — and he cut out a copy of it to put in his window.

  Then I raced home and began writing a letter to the BSC. (I would have called Mary Anne, but it was 10:30 A.M. in Connecticut and she’d already be in school.) I was halfway through the letter when the phone rang.

  I knew it would be one of the W♥KC members. “I’ll get it!” I shouted, running into the kitchen.

  Sure enough, it was Sunny. I could tell by her scream. “Aaauuugghhh! I can’t believe it!”

  “I know! It’s great!” I said. “You … you ‘aptly named fireball’!”

  “Huh?”

  I laughed. “That’s what the article called you! Didn’t you read it?”

  “Oh! I wasn’t talking about that. Dawn, we’re going to be TV stars!”

  Now it was my turn to say “huh?”

  “You know Chuck Raymond, the reporter on the local news? He just called me!”

  “Get out of here!”

  “I mean it! I’m sitting here eating breakfast, the phone rings, and I answer it with my mouth full of Shredded Wheat. I’m, like, ‘Huwwo?’ and this voice at the other end says, ‘This is Chuck Raymond from WPCN, is Sunny Winslow there?’ Well, I nearly choked. I coughed and got this wheat shred stuck up my nose. It was horrible!”

  “Oh, my lord, what did he want?”

  “He goes, ‘Our producer saw the article in the paper this morning and he thinks it would be a good human-interest angle for the nightly news. I wondered if we could bring a crew to your house, say, on Wednesday?’ Something like that.”

  I screamed. I couldn’t help it. Dad, who’d been shaving in the bathroom, came running into the kitchen to see if I’d just had an accident. He stared at me, stupefied.

  “Did you say yes?” I managed to ask.

  “Yes! But I forgot to ask you guys!”

  “That’s okay! Oh, Sunny, this is sooooo exciting!”