“On the way!” said Kristy. “But you work in Stamford.”
“I know. The Newtons’ doctor is with the Stamford hospital, though, so I really was on their way. Jamie worked very hard with me today, didn’t you, Jamie?”
Jamie nodded proudly.
“He made a picture for the baby and read some books and copied things on the Xerox machine.”
“And we had lunch together,” added Jamie.
“That’s right,” said Mrs. Thomas. “We ate in the cafeteria.” She looked at her watch. “And now, girls,” she said. “I’m leaving Jamie in your capable hands and going back to the office for a few hours.”
I got the distinct impression that Mrs. Thomas hadn’t gotten much work done that day.
“But, Mom, wait! What about the baby?” asked Kristy. “Don’t leave us hanging!”
“Yeah!” I exclaimed. “What did Mrs. Newton have?”
“Sorry, no word yet. Mr. Newton promised he’d phone as soon as the baby is born. He knows to call here after three o’clock.”
“Well, how long does it take?” asked Kristy indignantly. “I mean, to have a baby?”
Her mother smiled. “It depends on the baby. You took twenty-four hours.”
“Wow,” I said.
“Twenty-four hours!” cried Kristy. “Oh, no. I cannot wait that long.”
“Well, maybe this baby will come faster. Now listen, Jamie’s going to stay with us until his father comes home from the hospital. Since he may be spending the night, why don’t you get his pajamas and things, but stay around here the rest of the time. It’ll be easier for Jamie than going back and forth. Here’s the key to the Newtons’ house. I’ll pay you for sitting this afternoon, by the way. And I’ll be home by six-thirty.” Mrs. Thomas kissed Kristy good-bye and waved to Jamie and me. Then she was gone.
“Well, this isn’t exactly the way I’d thought things would work out,” said Kristy, “but it is a pretty exciting afternoon.”
“I’ll say! … Hey, where are your brothers?”
“You mean Sam?” teased Kristy.
“We-ell …”
“Let’s see. Today’s Monday so it’s Charlie’s day to watch David Michael. Oh, I bet he met David Michael at school and took him back to Stoneybrook High to watch cheerleading practice. Sam’s probably with them.”
“Cheerleading practice?”
“Yeah. David Michael loves it. He comes home
and shows us the cheers.”
I giggled.
“So, Jamie,” said Kristy. “What do you think? You’re going to be a big brother pretty soon.”
Jamie shrugged and continued coloring.
“What do you want?” I asked him. “A brother or a sister?”
“Brother.”
“Aren’t you excited?”
Jamie shrugged again.
Kristy and I glanced at each other.
“You know,” I said suddenly, not at all sure where the idea came from, “being a big brother is so important that I think you ought to have a Big Brother Party, Jamie.”
Jamie looked at me with wide eyes.
Kristy jumped in immediately, understanding just what I meant. “That’s right,” she said. “We should celebrate this afternoon. We’ll have a special Big Brother Party for our favorite big brother—you.”
“A party for me?” said Jamie, his voice squeaking.
“Yeah, we’ll invite everyone,” I added. “Kristy, do you think your mother will mind?”
“Nah.”
I dashed to the phone and began dialing. In ten minutes, I had spread the news to Claudia, Mary Anne, Charlotte, and the Pike kids. I’d also called a few other baby-sitting charges, but they weren’t home.
“Well,” I said to Kristy and Jamie when I was finished, “Claudia’s on her way over, Mary Anne will come when she finishes the batter for the cranberry bread—she says she can bake it tonight—Charlotte’s coming, and Mallory Pike is going to bring Claire and Margo over.” (There are eight Pike kids. Mallory’s ten, and Claire and Margo are four and six.)
“Terrific!” cried Kristy. She was rummaging around in the kitchen and had pulled out a bag of marshmallows, several apples, a can of juice, and a carrot, which I assumed was for me. “Claudia’s bringing over something from her room,” she added. “Pretzels, I think. Jamie, what would you like to do at your party? Play games?” She began to slice the apples.
Jamie nodded.
“What games?” I asked.
Jamie looked blank.
“Put some music on the stereo in the rec room and spread a bath mat on the floor,” Kristy instructed me. “We can play musical rug. It’s easier than musical chairs. I’ll explain later.”
“All right,” I replied. “And we can have egg races—you know, with spoons. And the kids can make paper masks. We’ll have a contest for the funniest one.”
“Good idea. Then when it’s time to calm everyone down, we’ll see if we can get Mary Anne to read The Little Engine That Could. She makes it really funny, using all these different voices.”
“Oh, boy!” exclaimed Jamie. “Oh, boy!”
At that moment, Claudia arrived. Charlotte was right behind her. I gave her a hug. The Pikes showed up next, and just after Mary Anne arrived, Charlie walked in with David Michael. I was so excited about the Big Brother Party that I was only a little disappointed that Sam wasn’t there.
The little kids—Jamie, David Michael, Claire, and Margo—gathered excitedly in the rec room, which I had decorated hastily with a roll of green crepe paper. The members of the Baby-sitters Club looked on proudly. Mallory wandered between the two groups. But Charlotte hung back.
“Everything okay?” I asked her. She nodded shyly. “Why don’t you come over here with me?” I led her to the group of kids. “This is Jamie. You know Jamie Newton, right?” Charlotte nodded again. “He’s our guest of honor. He’s going to become a big brother.”
Jamie beamed.
“Make way for the food!” called Kristy, carrying a tray of food in from the kitchen. Charlie followed her, bringing napkins, plates, and paper cups. Then he left. I don’t think Big Brother Parties held any interest for him.
“Eat now, games later!” Kristy announced. She turned to Mary Anne and Claudia and me. “Take the food away in twenty minutes, no matter what,” she whispered. “Otherwise, they’re going to spoil their appetites for dinner.”
Everybody helped themselves to the food. Claudia gave Jamie a paper crown to wear while he ate. When twenty minutes was up, we returned the food to the kitchen. Then the games began. Charlotte wouldn’t join in musical rug or the egg races, but she did enter the mask contest. Claudia had just finished awarding prizes for the masks (we had decided that each of the kids should win a prize) when the phone rang.
“Kristy!” Charlie called from the kitchen. “Phone! It’s Mr. Newton!”
“Aughh!” shrieked Kristy.
“Jamie, it’s Daddy!” I cried. “Come on!”
The entire party ran into the kitchen. Charlie made a fast getaway.
Kristy grabbed up the phone. “Hello? Mr. Newton? … She did? … She did? Oh, that’s great! It’s super! … How much? … Wow…. Yeah, sure. Here he is.” Kristy handed the phone to Jamie. “Your daddy wants to talk to you.”
Jamie took the receiver and held it to his ear.
“Say hello,” prompted Kristy.
“Hello. Daddy? … Fine. We’re having a party…. Okay…. Okay…. Okay…. Bye.”
Kristy took the phone back. “When do you think you’ll be home?” she asked Mr. Newton. “Oh, okay. Well, we’ll give Jamie dinner. You can pick him up anytime…. You’re welcome. And congratulations! Bye.”
Kristy hung up the phone and faced us.
“What is it? What is it? What is it?” I cried.
“It’s a—”
“Girl,” supplied Jamie quietly.
We all began shrieking.
“She weighs nine pounds,” added Kristy, “and her name
is Lucy Jane.”
More shrieking.
In the midst of the noise and excitement, I realized that Jamie was gone. I dashed out of the kitchen and checked the bathroom. No Jamie. Frantically, I ran through the first floor of the Thomases’ house. I found him in the laundry room sitting next to Louie, crying.
I stepped in and sat beside him on the floor. “What’s wrong, Big Brother?” I asked.
“The baby’s here.”
“And you wanted a boy instead of a girl, right?”
Jamie shrugged.
“Don’t you like her name? I think Lucy is a pretty name.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s a big change, huh?”
Jamie nodded.
“Your family will be different.”
“Yup,” said Jamie. “And that’s not all.”
“What do you mean?”
“Something else will be different. There will be lots of changes.”
“What else will be different?” I asked.
“Kristy can’t baby-sit me anymore.”
“What do you mean?” That cold feeling crept into my stomach again.
“Mommy called a girl and said, ‘We need an older sitter for the new baby.’”
“Was the girl named Liz Lewis?” I whispered.
“I think so. But … but …” Jamie’s tears started to fall again. “I want Kristy!”
I pulled Jamie into my lap and sat with him for a while. Louie leaned against me and looked at us with mournful eyes.
I tried to be calm and rational. Jamie was just three years old. He had only overheard one end of a phone conversation. He wasn’t even sure that Liz Lewis was the name he had overheard. Furthermore, just because Mrs. Newton had talked to someone about finding older sitters didn’t mean she wasn’t going to use the Babysitters Club anymore.
So why did I feel as if an ice chest were sitting in my stomach?
I knew why. It was because it made sense that Mrs. Newton would want someone older to take care of a newborn baby. And Liz Lewis and Michelle Patterson could provide that for her.
The Baby-sitters Club couldn’t.
Still, I felt that Mrs. Newton was being a traitor. After all, Kristy was Jamie’s favorite baby-sitter, and the rest of the members of our club were the Newtons’ other regular sitters. We could handle caring for an infant. We were very responsible. And I was willing to bet that Liz and Michelle’s sitters, even if they were in high school, weren’t responsible at all. The more I thought about the Baby-sitters Agency, the angrier I felt.
Later, when the Big Brother Party was breaking up, I told Kristy what Jamie had overheard. She looked aghast. “And you know what?” I said suddenly, the anger building up inside me again.
Kristy shook her head.
“This”—I narrowed my eyes and set my jaw—”means war.”
I was all set to launch a war against the Babysitters Agency. So was Kristy. We were ready to let loose with every single plan or idea she had come up with. But Claudia put her foot down (so did Mary Anne), and while we were wasting time trying to decide what to do, the Baby-sitters Agency got one more step ahead of us.
The club hadn’t even had a chance for a proper meeting to discuss Jamie’s bad news, since Monday’s meeting had been held hastily after the Big Brother Party, and Kristy and Mary Anne weren’t present because they were at the Thomases’, watching Jamie and cleaning up. Then on Tuesday, the very next day, the Baby-sitters Agency carried out another step in their scheme to take away our club’s business. (I don’t know if that’s how they thought of what they were doing, but it’s how I thought of it. At any rate, they were big copycats in the first place, for starting a club so much like ours and giving it a name so close to ours.)
But I’m getting off the track. On Tuesday morning, the Baby-sitters Club walked to school as a group, which was nice, because in the beginning, the club kept separating into two and two—Kristy and Mary Anne, Claudia and me. But that started to change when Kristy became a little interested in boys, and I wanted to have more than one close friend. Anyway, we arrived at school and guess who was there to meet us. The Baby-sitters Agency. Everywhere. Michelle and Liz were trying to recruit more sitters to call on when job requests came in.
Liz was standing on the front steps of the school, handing out her agency balloons along with flyers. Mary Anne managed to get a flyer—not from Liz but from a boy who was about to toss his in a garbage can. It was a different flyer from the one Claudia’s sister had brought to us.
“Look at this,” said Mary Anne. She read aloud from the flyer. “‘Want to earn fast money the easy way?’”
“Fast money!” cried Kristy indignantly. “The easy way! Liz must be crazy. Really. That girl isn’t playing with a full deck.”
“Wait, wait. Let’s hear this,” I said. “Go on, Mary Anne.”
We were standing in a tense bunch, huddled together a few yards away from Liz. I could feel Liz’s triumphant eyes on us, but I didn’t give her the satisfaction of turning around.
“‘Join the Baby-sitters Agency,’” Mary Anne continued. “‘You do the work, but we do the hardest part of the job. Let the agency find jobs for you!’”
The flyer went on to explain how the agency worked, which was just about the way Kristy had guessed when she’d made her fake phone call, looking for a sitter for “Harry Kane.” We had to admit that the flyers made the agency look pretty tempting. All you had to do was join—then sit back and wait for Liz or Michelle to hand you a job. Of course, you didn’t get to keep all the money you earned. You had to turn some of it over to the agency (that was how Liz and Michelle made money when they weren’t sitting), but we thought that a lot of kids would find that a small price to pay for the extra jobs they’d get through the agency.
“Boy,” said Mary Anne. She scrunched up the flyer and threw it in the trash can. “The agency is probably going to have a million eighth-graders working for it.”
“Yeah,” said Claudia glumly, kicking a pebble with the toe of her sneaker. “For all we know, Liz and Michelle have someone recruiting sitters over at the high school, too. They could be getting twelfth-graders. I bet a senior in high school could stay out until two in the morning—or even spend the night.”
“Or sit for a whole darned weekend,” I said.
“But how does the agency know what kind of sitter they’re giving their clients?” asked Mary Anne. “They could give someone a really irresponsible kid who just wants to make a few bucks.”
“Right,” said Kristy, “but why should Liz and Michelle care, as long as they get their cut of the money earned?”
We walked dejectedly into the building, carefully not looking at Liz as we went by her. I remembered something my father had said to me the year before. He’d said it when I was in the hospital after one of the times I’d gone into insulin shock in school—in the cafeteria, where absolutely everyone had seen me fall forward into a bowl of tomato soup—and had been taken away in an ambulance. “Stacey, look at it this way, honey. The worst has happened,” he’d told me. “Now things can only get better.” It was a good philosophy, and I’d repeated it to myself many times since then.
“Well, you guys,” I said to the members of the Baby-sitters Club as we entered the school building, “look at it this way. The worst has happened. Now things can only get better.”
“Wrong,” said Kristy flatly.
“What?”
“She said ‘wrong,’” Claudia repeated. “Look.”
We were rounding a corner. I glanced up. In the main intersection of Stoneybrook Middle School a counter had been set up. A large sign on the wall behind it screamed: THE BABYSITTERS AGENCY, and in smaller letters: SIGN UP HERE.
Michelle Patterson and two eighth-grade girls were sitting behind the counter. Each was holding a clipboard and looked very official. A large group of girls from every grade, as well as three boys, was standing around the counter, asking questions and talking to Michelle and her helpers.
I couldn’t tell how many of them were signing up, but it didn’t matter.
“I wonder who gave them permission to do that,” I said.
Claudia shrugged.
“Bathroom,” said Kristy urgently. We left the hall and piled into the nearest girls’ room, checking to make sure the stalls were empty. Then Kristy, glaring furiously at Claudia and Mary Anne, opened her mouth to speak.
Claudia beat her to it. “Don’t say it. I know what you’re going to say. Okay. So we were wrong and you were right. What do you want to do about the agency? We’ll do anything.”
“Anything?” asked Kristy. She looked at each of us in turn.
“Anything,” said Claudia.
“Ditto,” said Mary Anne.
“Double ditto,” I said.
“Great,” said Kristy, “because I have another idea. A new one.”
“Y-you do?” asked Claudia.
Kristy nodded grimly.
Claudia glanced sideways at Mary Anne.
She poked at a drop of water on a faucet. “What? I’m afraid to ask.”
At that moment, the bell rang.
Kristy rolled her eyes. “No time now. I don’t care what any of you is doing after school. I’m calling a triple-emergency club meeting.”
“Why not at recess today?” asked Mary Anne.
“Too risky,” replied Kristy. “No more club business at school. For all we know, the agency has spies watching us. Anyone sitting this afternoon?”
We shook our heads. “I haven’t even spoken to Dr. or Mr. Johanssen in a week,” I murmured.
“I thought as much,” said Kristy. “Well, today’s my regular afternoon with David Michael, so we’ll have to hold the meeting at my house, okay?”
“Okay,” we agreed.
The meeting that afternoon was the picture of depression. The Baby-sitters Club sat around Kristy’s dining room table while David Michael built a house out of wooden blocks for Louie. Kristy had served herself and Claudia and Mary Anne a snack and had poured each of us a diet soda, but the food remained untouched. We stared at our hands. Claudia shredded a paper napkin and arranged the strips in a tidy pile. Nobody spoke except Kristy.