Jessi's Horrible Prank

  Alas, my heart aches to see my mother in such distress, thought Kristy. Alone with four children, abandoned by a husband (my father), and deserving of a night out. Oh, if only there were a single phone number at which she might reach a group of reliable sitters.

  Kristy stood up, struck by an inspiration. Quickly she called her two best friends, Claudia Kishi and Mary Anne Spier.

  “Hark! Hear my plan,” announced Kristy to each. “Let us meet regularly — Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, between 5:30 and 6:00. Let us elect officers, and have a telephone! Henceforth, at those appointed times, the parents in our fair village may secure the services of whoever shall join me in this historic enterprise.”

  “I shall ask my friend Stacey to join,” said Claudia.

  With exclamations of joy and triumph, the Baby-sitters Club was born. Quickly its fame grew, and the club expanded to nine members. Stoneybrook lived happily ever after, as did Mrs. Thomas, who married a millionaire.

  The End

  Well, something like that.

  In plain English, the BSC meets to take phone calls from parents who need sitters. With so many members, we can cover almost all job requests. Parents are happy because they know they’ll get a good sitter with just one call. We’re happy because we get lots of jobs.

  All from the amazing mind of Kristy.

  And I do mean amazing. You could put her in the desert and she’d figure out how to make it rain. She’s constantly dreaming up ways to solve problems. She didn’t just invent the BSC; she set up all the rules and traditions, including (1) a record book that contains a job calendar, a list of clients (complete with addresses, phone numbers, and rates paid), and a description of our charges’ likes and dislikes; (2) a notebook in which we write about our job experiences; and (3) Kid-Kits, which are small toy- and game-filled boxes we sometimes take with us on sitting jobs.

  What’s Kristy like? Short and loud (well, she is). But also friendly and down-to-earth, even though, as I mentioned, she lives in the ritzy section of Stoneybrook. She has plain brown hair, and she lives in jeans and sweats. She’s also a terrific athlete. And she doesn’t just play sports, she coaches, too — a team called Kristy’s Krushers, which she organized herself. It’s made up of kids too young or too klutzy or too shy for Little League. They play another team, Bart’s Bashers, which is coached by Bart Taylor.

  Bart and Kristy are an item. (I can’t say any more. Kristy would kill me.)

  You would not believe the size of Kristy’s house. It never feels crowded, even though ten people live in it. Yes, ten. Watson Brewer, Kristy’s stepfather, has two kids from a prior marriage (Karen and Andrew), who live there every other month. When Kristy, her mom, and her three brothers (seventeen-year-old Charlie, fifteen-year-old Sam, and seven-year-old David Michael) moved in, that made eight. Then Kristy’s parents adopted a little girl named Emily Michelle (who’s two) and Kristy’s grandmother (Nannie) moved in. (Ten.)

  Click.

  Claudia’s digital clock flipped to 5:30. In the middle of a sentence, Kristy interrupted herself to say, “This meeting will come to order!”

  Did you figure out that Kristy is the BSC president? She is. And she hardly ever misses the click of 5:30. I bet, for the rest of her life, she will say “Order!” at 5:30 on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

  “Any new business?” Kristy asked.

  Claudia, who had been passing around a huge bag of tortilla chips, thrust it toward Kristy. “Try these.”

  Kristy grabbed a fistful of chips and shoved some in her mouth. “Pooey goo,” she mumbled.

  “Say it, don’t spray it,” Stacey McGill said, pretending (I think) to wipe off some damp chip pieces.

  Kristy swallowed. “Pretty good.”

  “They’re baked, not fried,” Claudia remarked. “Which means you can eat, like, three times as many.”

  Grinning, she reached under her bed and pulled out two more bags.

  Claud’s room is the official BSC headquarters (because she has her own phone), but a better name for it might be hide-quarters. You can’t pick up a thing in there without discovering candy, cookies, chips, pretzels, or Nancy Drew books. She hides them because her parents allow only Wholesome Foods and Great Literature in the house. (Silly, huh? As Claudia says, “There’s more to life than Johnny Tremain and brussels sprouts.”)

  Claudia once thought she was adopted (untrue), because she is so different from the rest of her straitlaced family. They’re all smart (her older sister, Janine, is a certified genius), and none of them is interested in art. Claud’s a pretty rotten student but a fabulous artist — in watercolor, sculpture, drawing, everything. (Maybe she gets her artistic inspiration from eating all that junk food.)

  Can you picture Claudia? Obese, huh? Nope. She looks like a model, thin and blemish-free. (I don’t know how she does it.) She has the most gorgeous Japanese features, silky black hair, and almond-shaped eyes. Plus she always puts together the coolest outfits, mostly from stuff she finds in flea markets. For example, at that meeting she was wearing ‘50s-style cat’s-eye glasses frames, a plastic barrette in the shape of an alligator, a tie-dyed T-shirt, and bell-bottoms. And it looked fantastic.

  Officially, Claudia is the BSC vice-president, although she could be called Chief Sugar Supplier or something.

  Not for everybody, though. One of our members, Stacey, cannot eat sweets. She’s a diabetic, which means her body is unable to regulate the amount of sugar in her bloodstream. So she has to give herself (warning: if you have a weak stomach, skip to the next paragraph) daily injections of something called insulin.

  Which is why Claudia also stocks up on pretzels, chips, and other sugar-free goodies.

  Stacey is one of the BSC’s three blondes. She’s also our only math whiz, so she gets to be treasurer. Lucky her. She listens to us moan and groan as we give her our dues every Monday (yuck). Then she divides up the money for our expenses — helping Claudia pay her phone bill, restocking our Kid-Kits, and so on.

  Like Claud, Stacey’s a stunning dresser. Unlike Claud, she wouldn’t be caught dead in a flea market. She likes up-to-the-minute fashions. “Urban chic,” she once described her style (sounds snobby, I know — but she’s not). She grew up in New York City, the fashion capital of the world — and the dance capital, if you ask me. And theater, and restaurant, and museum … do I sound jealous? I am. I ♥ the Big Apple!

  How did Stacey end up in Stoneybrook? Well, first her dad’s job brought her family here. Then her dad’s job took them back to NYC. Then her parents divorced, and Stacey moved back here with her mom.

  Confusing? Well, it isn’t ideal, but it has its good points: Stacey gets to live here plus visit her dad in New York. (And sometimes we get to go with her.)

  Mary Anne Spier is our other Big Apple freak. She’s the only non–New Yorker I know who has mastered the subway system.

  That’s not surprising, because Mary Anne is the world’s most organized person. As BSC secretary, she has to be. Her job is to handle the record book. The moment a request comes in, Mary Anne has to know (1) who is available, (2) who has conflicts (doctor appointments, ballet classes, and so on), and (3) how to assign jobs fairly, so everyone gets a roughly equal share. Then she records the job on the official calendar. (And she has never, ever made a mistake.)

  Mary Anne is Kristy’s best friend. They actually look similar — petite, with brown hair and dark eyes — but their personalities couldn’t be more different. Mary Anne is shy and sensitive, and she hates sports. She cries at the slightest thing. She’s read Wuthering Heights three times, and the pages of her book are blistered from teardrops.

  Mary Anne’s life is sort of like a sad novel with a happy ending. Her mom died when she was a baby. Mr. Spier was too devastated to care for Mary Anne, so he sent her away to her grandparents — and then he had to fight to get her back. To prove he could be a good single parent, he raised Mary Anne very strictly. For years she had an early curfew and had to dress in little-girl cloth
ing. But one day, when Mary Anne was in seventh grade, a new girl moved to Stoneybrook and changed Mary Anne’s life. Her name was Dawn Schafer and she came from California. Her parents had just divorced, and her mom had decided to move back to her own hometown, Stoneybrook. Well, Dawn joined the Baby-sitters Club — and she and Mary Anne discovered that Mr. Spier and Mrs. Schafer were high-school sweethearts! And guess who fell in love again?

  Dum-dum-de-dum! (Wedding bells.)

  After the wedding, Mary Anne and her dad moved into the Schafers’ rambling old farmhouse. All of a sudden Mary Anne had a mom, a big new house, a happy and less strict dad, and a stepsister who was in the BSC. What a perfect ending … almost. The only trouble is, Dawn recently got incredibly homesick for California, so now she’s back there for an extended visit.

  We all miss her. Dawn is wonderful. She’s really committed to some serious causes — the environment, health, and fighting sexism. She eats only health foods: organic veggies and fruits, no red meats, no sweets. I admire her, even though I’ll take a nice juicy hamburger over tofu anytime.

  Dawn (when she’s here) is the BSC’s alternate officer, which means she takes over when anyone’s absent. She’s blonde, but her hair is much lighter than Stacey’s. Out in California, she belongs to a baby-sitting organization called the We ♥ Kids Club. (All the members are health-food eaters. They would have heart attacks if Claudia moved to California.)

  All the BSCers I just mentioned are eighth-graders, two years older than Mallory and me. We young uns are called junior members. We don’t have official responsibilities, and because both our sets of parents think we’re babies, we can’t take late sitting jobs. (Grrrr.) Actually, it’s not too awful. The club gets plenty of requests for afternoon and weekend jobs.

  Lots of those jobs are at Mal’s house. Did I tell you Mal has seven younger siblings, including a set of triplets? It’s true. Baby-sitting at her house is like going to a circus.

  Okay. Now you know that (a) the BSC is very busy, and (b) we’ve lost one member to California. You may be wondering how we cope with this problem. Leave it to Kristy. Soon after the club started, she decided we should have associate members. They fill in during emergencies but don’t have to attend meetings or pay dues.

  One of our associates, Shannon Kilbourne, has become Dawn’s “pinch-hitter” (in the words of Coach Kristy). Shannon, who lives across the street from Kristy, goes to a private school called Stoneybrook Day School. She’s involved in lots of extracurricular activities there, but somehow she manages to take plenty of sitting jobs, too. Shannon has really thick, curly, dark blonde hair and blue eyes.

  Our other associate member is a guy. Well, not just any guy. He’s Mary Anne’s boyfriend, Logan Bruno. I guess he’s cute. Everybody says he is. He is a terrific sitter, but he tries to keep a low profile because his friends make fun of him. I hope they’ll grow out of it someday, but you know boys.

  Anyway, back to our meeting.

  Rrriing!

  “Hello, Baby-sitters Club!” Claudia said, picking up the receiver. “Hi, Dr. Johanssen. … Sure. I’ll call you right back.”

  She hung up and turned to Mary Anne. “Three weeks from Wednesday for Charlotte Johanssen?”

  “Three weeks?” Shannon exclaimed.

  “You know Char’s mom — turbo-organized,” Stacey replied.

  Mary Anne looked up from the record book. “Everyone’s free. Want to do it, Stace?” (Stacey and Charlotte are very close.)

  “Shhhhtashhhhey?” Kristy said, trying to whistle her S’s.

  “Okay, Mr. Steinmetz,” Stacey said, cracking up.

  Claudia shook her head. “All those in favor of getting Alan Gray in here to give Kristy some lessons, say aye.”

  “Aye!” Mallory, Stacey, Mary Anne, Shannon, and I yelled.

  “Aaughh!” Kristy screamed. “I’ll never do it again! I promise!”

  And she didn’t.

  But her imitation got me thinking again. Of the Follies.

  Or I should say, The SMS Annual Sixth-Grade Follies, Starring Jessica Ramsey!

  Well, I could dream, couldn’t I?

  Oh, groan.

  I stared at the note Janet O’Neal had passed me. This was stupid. The oldest trick in the book.

  Every day the pranks in my Short Takes class were getting worse. The day before, Wednesday, half the class had turned its back on Mr. Trout at John Rosen’s signal. Thursday was Mr. Trout’s ninth day as our teacher. At this rate they’d be tarring and feathering him by next week.

  The worst part was watching Mr. Trout react. Sometimes he’d give a small, phony laugh. Other times he’d sigh and look slightly annoyed. But most of the time he did absolutely nothing.

  That just made everybody braver. Even Justine Moss, the shyest girl in the class, had joined in the back-turning prank.

  It was awful. Dweeb or no dweeb, Mr. Trout was a human. He had to have feelings, even though he didn’t show them. He was bound to break sooner or later. Part of me hoped he would get angry and keep the whole class for detention. That would stop the fooling around.

  Mr. Trout turned to the class, pointing to a short program he’d written. “Who wants to tell me how to debug this?”

  “With de fly swatter?” Mark O’Connell called out.

  Giggles all around.

  “Come on, guys!” protested Renee Johnson.

  “Come on, guys,” Craig Avazian imitated, in a high-pitched voice.

  “Mr. Trout, he’s making fun of me!” Renee said.

  “Mr. Trout, he’s making fun of me!” Craig repeated.

  Ugh.

  This went on for a while, until Renee just stopped talking. By the time Mr. Trout tried to draw our attention back to the blackboard, I’d forgotten what the program was about.

  “Pass it on, Jessi!” hissed Janet behind me.

  Oops. I still had the note. I tapped the guy in front of me, Jimmy Bouloukos, on the shoulder and gave it to him. He laughed and immediately slipped it to the next person.

  For the rest of the class, I could not concentrate. The examples on the board looked like hieroglyphics. All around me, kids were staring at the clock. Mr. Trout gave up calling on volunteers and just lectured the whole time. My mind kept wandering to the Sixth-Grade Follies meeting, which was going to be held after school.

  At fourteen minutes before the end of class, Mr. Trout was droning on about things called hexadecimals.

  At thirteen minutes, he started writing on the blackboard.

  At twelve, he was still writing. Kids were quietly piling up their books. Renee looked absolutely disgusted.

  At eleven, even Renee was gathering her books.

  That day, Sanjita was sitting right behind me. I could feel her staring at me quizzically. She tapped me on my back, as if to say, “Don’t forget.”

  I was now the only person not getting ready. Twenty other kids surrounded me, fingers wrapped around neat piles of books. The clock’s second hand was sweeping around, approaching the final time.

  Imagine how I felt.

  Not doing anything would be like betraying my classmates. If they were kept for detention, and I went free, I’d never hear the end of it.

  But that was a big if. Chances were Mr. Trout wouldn’t do anything. Then I’d have to explain why I was too chicken to go along.

  Ease up, Jessi, I told myself. It’s just a joke.

  The second hand was passing 9 on the clock. Fifteen seconds to go.

  With a sigh, I quickly shuffled all my stuff together.

  Five … four … three … two … one …

  WHAAAAAAMMM!

  The books hit the floor like a bomb.

  Mr. Trout squealed. That is the only way to describe the sound he made. He leaped off the ground, too, and his chalk flew out of his hand.

  Then … he screamed at the top of his lungs, made us pick up each book with our teeth, and took us all to the principal’s office.

  Wrong.

  This is what he really did:
First he adjusted his glasses. Then he cleared his throat. Finally he picked up the shattered pieces of chalk from the floor, took the largest chunk, and went right back to the program on the board.

  No scolding, no detention, no nothing.

  Maria started snickering, then Craig and John. Before long Renee was laughing, too.

  And so was I. I couldn’t help it.

  Not because it was so funny. It wasn’t, really. It was kind of sad. I guess I was laughing out of relief that Mr. Trout hadn’t blown up.

  At the end of class, Mr. Trout didn’t even look up from his desk as we filed out.

  A few kids gathered in the hallway to gloat about the prank. Not me. I wanted to get away from there as fast as possible.

  The rest of the day flew by. At the sound of the end-of-school bell, I ran to the auditorium.

  The two Dollies were busily setting up a VCR and a TV on a portable cart.

  I was the first student there.

  “Jessi, hi!” Ms. Bernhardt (Dolly One) greeted me. “Do you know anything about plugging in VCRs?”

  “I think I figured it out,” Ms. Vandela (Dolly Two) announced.

  I joined them behind the cart. Ms. Vandela was muttering, “Now, VCR In goes to TV Out, right?”

  “Right!” Ms. Bernhardt and I chimed in.

  Ms. Vandela held out a red wire. “So where does this go?”

  Ms. Bernhardt shrugged. “Just hold on to it, Dolly Sister. When we turn it on, see what happens to your perm.”

  The two of them cracked up.

  I knew I was going to enjoy this. The Dollies were fun.

  More students filled into the auditorium, and a couple of kids who were real techies came to help us out. Then, when it was all set up, Ms. Bernhardt quieted the group down and gave a little speech.

  About twenty of us had gathered. We were all bunched together in seats near the TV.

  “Welcome, everybody!” Ms. Bernhardt said. “Now, Ms. Vandela and I are new to the Follies this year, but we both have a little experience in theater — and we’re determined to make this year’s show the best in history!”