Hello, Mallory

  My first class of the day was social studies and Jessica wasn’t in it. Second period was English, and as I took my seat in the back of the room, I saw Jessica slip into a seat in the third row. I also saw Benny Ott shoot four rubber bands at the back of her head that period. Jessica made no sign of feeling them. And Mr. Williams, the teacher, pretended he didn’t see, either.

  Third period, gym — no Jessica.

  Fourth period, math — no Jessica.

  Fifth period was lunch. Since the hot lunch costs under a dollar, my parents make me and my brothers and sisters buy it every day (or else make our own). Mom says she has better things to do than pack eight lunches five mornings a week.

  It was spaghetti day. I paid for my meal and carried my tray to a long table where a bunch of girls from my homeroom were sitting. Almost all of them looked up and said, “Hello, Mallory.” That was nice, but what I was longing for was someone who would leap out of her chair squealing, “Oh! Oh, Mal! You’ll never in a million years guess what happened!”

  In other words, a best friend.

  I sat down next to Rachel Robinson. Rachel and three others turned away and put their heads together, whispering. I was curious, but I was also starving. I opened my carton of milk.

  “Mallory,” whispered Rachel.

  “What?” I stuffed half a meatball in my mouth.

  “Can you believe that new girl?” Rachel sounded aghast.

  “Who, Jessica Ramsey?” I replied.

  “What do you mean ‘who’? Of course I mean Jessica Ramsey. Who else?”

  I shrugged. “What about her?”

  “What about her?” cried Sally, this girl I’ve never really liked. “Are you blind? She’s black.”

  I nearly choked. “So?”

  “Well, she doesn’t, you know, belong here.”

  “Where?” I challenged them. “She doesn’t belong where?”

  Sally shrugged uncomfortably. “Oh, I don’t know….”

  “What are you so upset for, anyway?” Rachel asked me.

  I tried to compose myself. I ate some spaghetti. “I am not upset,” I said at last.

  I wanted to change the subject, but before I could, Anita (Rachel’s best friend) said, giggling around a mouthful of bread, “Where do you think Jessica moved from — Africa?”

  For some reason, the other girls thought this was hysterical.

  “I bet her real name is Mobobwee or something,” added Sally.

  I wanted to get up and move, but I didn’t. Anyway, the girls lost interest in Jessica. They started talking about TV shows and rock stars.

  I didn’t listen. I watched Jessica instead. She ate by herself, reading a book at the same time. I wondered what she was reading.

  The day wore on.

  Sixth period, French — no Jessica.

  Seventh period, study hall — no Jessica.

  Eight period, science. Jessica was in the class! There was even more hope for a best friend. But by then I was too excited to think about Jessica. School was nearly over. It was almost time for my first meeting of the Baby-sitters Club!

  Today was our first meeting with Mallory instead of Stacey. It was a little weird. Sorry, Mallory, but it was. Stacey was in the club from the beginning. She was at our first official meeting, and she hardly missed a single meeting after that. She even came to the one we held the day before she moved back to New York City, when she couldn’t take sitting jobs anymore. That’s real dedication.

  Mallory, I’m not sure how to say this, but you don’t have to get dressed up for our meetings, I mean if you don’t want to. The rest of us don’t. We just wear our schools clothes. Sometimes we change out of our school clothes into even more casual things. And, really there’s no reason to be nervous. You know all of us. We’ve baby-sat together before, and Mary Anne’s even gone on vacation with your family. So relax!

  Wow. I didn’t realize Kristy could see how nervous I was. I had no idea I’d be overdressed, either. You should have seen what the other girls had on. I’ll describe the kind of clothes they wear when I introduce them to you. But first I better explain about that diary Kristy was writing in. It’s the Baby-sitters Club notebook, and it’s very important.

  The girls really run the club professionally. When I think of clubs, I think of fooling around in the kitchen making fudge and giggling and gossiping and maybe collecting dues so you have enough money for a slumber party or something. The girls in the Baby-sitters Club do some stuff like that — and more. Baby-sitting is a business for them. The dues they collect are for expenses, such as paying Kristy’s big brother Charlie to drive her to and from meetings, since she moved across town last summer. And they have lots of clients who call on them when they need sitters, and the club members earn pretty much money.

  Anyway, back to the notebook. Kristy says every sitter has to write up each job she goes on. They write about what happened, any problems, and stuff the rest of us might need to know, like if one of the kids has an allergy or is afraid of the dark or spiders or loud noises. Then the notebook — which is very fat — is passed around so the others can read about all the sitting jobs. Sometimes they write about important club meetings, too.

  The girls also keep a record book where they write down information about their clients, keep track of the money they earn, and, of course, schedule their sitting appointments.

  Kristy Thomas is the president of the club, since the club was her idea. She seemed to be the most casually dressed of all the girls at the meeting. She was wearing faded jeans, sneakers, a pale pink turtleneck, and a dark pink sweater. I’ve seen her wear clothes like that an awful lot. Kristy is really nice. Whenever she used to baby-sit for me, I could count on fun. But sometimes she’s a little bossy. Not bossy in a baby way like my sister Margo, but bossy in an adult way. Twice during the meeting she interrupted what was going on so she could straighten problems out. She didn’t listen to what anyone else had to say. She just jumped in — boom — and said, “No more discussion. This is what we’re going to do.” Wow. Just so you know, Kristy has brown hair and brown eyes. And I guess her mother doesn’t let her wear makeup because her face is always plain. Apart from her mom, she has a (rich) stepfather, a younger brother named David Michael, two big brothers, Sam and Charlie, and a little stepsister and stepbrother, Karen and Andrew. Also a dog, Shannon, and a cat, Boo-Boo. They live in her stepfather’s big house, which Kristy says is a mansion.

  The vice president of the club is Claudia Kishi. Claudia is really something. She’s absolutely gorgeous. I’d give anything to be as pretty as she is. Her parents are originally from Japan and she has these black, black eyes, silky black, black hair, and a complexion as perfectly smooth as cream. I guess her parents aren’t as strict as Kristy’s mother and stepfather because Claudia has pierced ears, uses makeup, and wears clothes my mother wouldn’t even let me look at in stores, much less buy. Things like short, tight pants with little ballet slippers, or torn T-shirts decorated with sequins, or overalls and high-topped sneakers. And her jewelry! She has a bracelet that looks like a coiled snake, and earrings that are a dog for one ear and a bone for the other, and I don’t know what else. Claudia is a fun baby-sitter, too, because she loves art. Sometimes when Claudia would come over, she’d help my brothers and sisters and me make murals or holiday decorations or even papier-mâché. I don’t know too much else about Claudia except that she likes to read mysteries, and someone once said she’s not a very good student. Which is unfortunate, since her big sister, Janine, is a genius. Claudia and Janine live with their parents and their grandmother, Mimi. The club meetings are always held in Claudia’s room because she has a private phone and a private phone number. (Lucky duck.) I think that’s also why she’s the vice president.

  Mary Anne Spier is the club secretary. Mary Anne is petite and neat and precise. Her job is to keep the record book in order, and she’s good at it. Mary Anne may not be the most fun of all the baby-sitters, but I think she’s the nicest. She’s sensitive.
(Maybe she’s shy, too. I’m not sure.) And she’s patient. You know you could go to Mary Anne if you had a problem or needed help with your homework. One funny thing is that she’s almost the exact opposite of Kristy — yet they’re best friends. Kristy is loud and sometimes bossy, Mary Anne is quiet and never, ever bossy. Kristy likes to be the center of attention, Mary Anne once ran away from her own surprise birthday party. However, Mary Anne does look a little like Kristy, with her wavy brown hair and brown eyes, but she dresses better. She’s not really trendy, but at least she puts on something besides the same jeans all the time. On the day of my first meeting, she was wearing a baggy yellow sweater with a silver squiggle pin near the collar, a short skirt made out of sweatshirt material, yellow tights, and ballet slippers. Not outrageous, though, and I know exactly why. Mary Anne lives with her dad and her kitten, Tigger. Her mom died a long, long time ago, and I think Mr. Spier is strict with Mary Anne sometimes. He even used to make her wear her hair in braids, but he’s much better about things like that now.

  The last club member is Dawn Schafer. She’s also the newest. She and her mom and her younger brother Jeff moved to Connecticut less than a year ago. They moved because Dawn’s parents got divorced. And they moved all the way from California! Poor Dawn. I’d hate it if I had to move to California, but Dawn seems pretty happy here. Her brother Jeff is a different story. I know because he’s a friend of the triplets. They say he’s been in lots of trouble in school lately, and that all he wants is to move back to his dad. That must be hard on Dawn — to think that her brother would rather live with her father than with her and Mrs. Schafer. Anyway, Dawn is the treasurer of the club. Stacey used to be treasurer, but when she moved away, Dawn took over for her. (I’m not sure what Dawn’s job used to be. Nothing too important, I guess. Maybe she was just another sitter.) Dawn has long, pale, pale, pale blonde hair. I’ve never seen such long hair. It goes way down her back. She wears kind of casual clothes, like baggy jeans with the cuffs rolled up, shirts with the tails out, and big belts. And get this — she lives in a house that might be haunted and has a secret passage!

  That’s everybody in the club. Four thirteen-year-old, eighth-grade girls. They were sprawled around Claudia’s room by the time I — the lowly eleven-year-old, sixth-grade girl — arrived.

  “Hi,” I said nervously, giving a little wave.

  “Hi, Mallory,” Dawn replied warmly. (I know Dawn pretty well since she lives right near me.).

  “Hi,” said Kristy, Claudia, and Mary Anne.

  They sounded friendly. Even so, I felt completely out of place.

  “Have a seat,” said Kristy.

  I looked around to see where the other girls were sitting. Kristy, who was wearing this visor and had stuck a pencil over one ear, was perched on a director’s chair. Dawn and Mary Anne were lounging on Claudia’s bed, and Claudia was kneeling on the floor, frowning, pawing through a pillowcase. Suddenly, her frown turned to a smile and she yanked a handful of Tootsie Pops out of the pillowcase, then shoved it under her bed.

  “Here they are!” she exclaimed.

  She handed one to me as I sat gingerly on the floor. It was hard to find a comfortable position in my short jumper.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Claudia passed around the candy. Everyone took a lollipop except for Dawn, who tries to stick to health food.

  “This is the first thing you should know about the club,” Kristy said to me with a grin. “Our vice president is a junk-food addict. She has stuff hidden all over her room. Lucky for us, she never minds sharing.”

  All I could do was smile. I couldn’t think of a thing to say.

  Kristy’s grin faded. She rubbed her hands together in a businesslike way. “Well,” she said, and I noticed that the others sat up a little straighter and paid attention. “We wanted you to come to the meeting today, Mallory, for two reasons. First, so you can see what our club is like and how it runs, and second, so we can decide, if, um, if …”

  I knew she meant if I was good enough to be a part of the club, but I couldn’t say so, and I guess she couldn’t, either. Not tactfully, anyway.

  “What she means,” Dawn spoke up, “is so we can get an idea of how much, um, how much …”

  “How much experience you’ve had,” Mary Anne finally filled in. She looked pleased with herself.

  “Right,” agreed Kristy, brightening. “And to find out how you handle certain situations. That kind of thing.”

  I nodded. “Well, I’ve been taking care of my brothers and sisters for years. I know how to change diapers and I know how to fix formulas. I’ve always —”

  Ring, ring.

  “I’ll get it!” cried Kristy, Dawn, Mary Anne, and Claudia, all lunging for the phone.

  Claudia reached it first.

  I watched with interest. This was probably what a club meeting was really about.

  “Good afternoon. Baby-sitters Club,” said Claudia, sounding quite grown-up. “Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm … Tuesday? I’ll get right back to you…. Okay. Bye.” Claudia hung up and turned to the rest of us. “Mrs. Perkins needs a sitter for Myriah and Gabbie next Tuesday from three-thirty to five-thirty.”

  Mary Anne was thumbing through the record book. She opened to the appointment calendar. “Claudia, you’re the only one free. Want the job?”

  “Sure!” she said.

  “Oh,” Kristy broke in. “Mallory, why don’t you go with her? It can be a trial job for you, so one of us can see how you do.”

  “Okay!” I replied happily.

  Claudia called Mrs. Perkins back to tell her who’d be sitting.

  “And that’s pretty much what we do at the meetings,” Kristy said to me. “Just take job calls like that one and assign sitters. Oh, and collect dues and discuss problems.”

  I nodded again. Suddenly, I remembered something. “Oh! I almost forgot to tell you,” I said, feeling proud. “On Saturday, I baby-sat for six of my brothers and sisters by myself.”

  “You did?” said Dawn, looking impressed.

  “How come?” asked Kristy.

  I explained about Nicky’s accident.

  Kristy’s eyes narrowed. So did her lips as she set them in a straight line. “Mallory,” she said coolly. “That accident shouldn’t have happened. You were in charge of Nicky. You should have been watching him.”

  “But I —”

  “We can’t have accidents happening when we’re on the job,” Kristy went on. She looked at the other girls and they nodded in agreement.

  “Mallory,” Dawn said gently, “we have to be really careful about who we accept in the club. We’ve had some trouble in the past — with sitters who weren’t too reliable.”

  “But I am reliable,” I said. “And I was watching Nicky. And I know everything about taking care of kids.” I probably shouldn’t have said that last sentence, but I was desperate. There was this sinking feeling in my stomach.

  “Well, there’s one way to find out about that,” said Kristy, frowning thoughtfully. “We’ll give you a test. Can you come back tomorrow to take it?”

  “S-sure,” I stammered. A test? I had to take a test? “What kind of test?” I asked.

  “It’ll be a … surprise,” said Kristy, and I knew she didn’t have any baby-sitting test ready. She was going to have to make one up.

  I must have looked awful, because Mary Anne changed the subject then. “Guess what,” she said brightly. “A family moved into Stacey’s old house.”

  “Really?” asked Claudia with interest.

  Mary Anne nodded. “I passed by when the moving van was unloading.”

  “I can’t imagine anybody but Stacey living in that house,” said Claudia.

  “I can’t, either,” said Mary Anne. “I didn’t see them, only the moving men, but my dad told me it’s a black family.”

  A black family! Maybe it was Jessica Ramsey’s. That would be interesting. But I was too nervous to feel excited about it. All I could think of was the test. A baby-sitting test. Would
I pass it? Or would I blow my chances with the club forever?

  The only good thing about taking the Baby-sitters Club test the next afternoon was that I didn’t have to worry about what to wear to it. I threw on a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt that said I’D RATHER BE WRITING MY NOVEL, and a pair of sneakers. I figured I wouldn’t look any better or worse than Kristy, and she was the president.

  All day I was nervous, nervous, nervous. What kind of test would they give me? A real-life test like when you have to jump into a swimming pool and pull someone to the side? A written test? Or would they just sit there and ask me questions? I might do well on a written test, but I wasn’t sure about the other kinds. I thought I’d be awfully scared. And who was going to give me the test? Kristy had said to go to club headquarters, which was Claudia’s room. Would just Kristy and Claudia be there? Would everybody be there? Ooh, I am such a worrywart.

  I felt like a baby.

  I was so keyed up that I left my house forty-five minutes before test-time, and it only takes ten minutes to walk to the Kishis’. Halfway there, I realized what I could do with the extra thirty-five minutes. I could walk by Stacey McGill’s old house and look for the new family.

  So I did.

  And guess what. Sitting right on Stacey’s front stoop was Jessica Ramsey with a younger girl and a baby boy!

  Jessica saw me at the same time I saw her. We smiled. Then we waved. I hesitated. At last I walked across the lawn to the stoop.

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m Mallory Pike…. You probably know that. I mean, but I wasn’t sure. You must have met an awful lot of kids yesterday and today.”

  “I have. But I remember your name.”

  “I remember yours, too. Jessica. Jessica Ramsey.”

  “Right.” Jessica grinned. “Call me Jessi, though.”

  “Okay. Hi, Jessi.”

  We laughed.

  “I’m Becca,” spoke up the other girl. Becca looked like she was eight or nine years old. She was a younger version of Jessi, with those long legs and long eyelashes. “My real name is Rebecca, though,” she told me. “See? Mama took the ‘ca’ off the end of Jessica’s name and the ‘Re’ off the beginning of my name, and that’s where our nicknames came from.”