Hello, Mallory

  “Marnie’s up,” Dawn told Suzi. “I’m going to change her and bring her downstairs. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  Dawn ran up to Marnie’s room. She pushed the door open slowly and said, “Hi, Marnie-o,” in a soft voice. (It’s never a good idea to barge in on a kid who’s just woken up from a nap, especially since the kid might be expecting to see her mommy and not a baby-sitter.) Marnie was in a great mood that day. She wrinkled her nose up into the “ham face” she makes when she’s happy. Then she began to jump up and down in her crib, her blonde curls bouncing. “Hi-ho, hi-ho!” she called.

  “Hi-ho!” Dawn replied. “Boy, are you a happy little girl today.”

  “Hi-ho,” Marnie said again. (Marnie’s not even two years old yet.)

  “Time to change your diaper,” Dawn said, picking Marnie up and carrying her to the changing table. She reached into the box of disposable diapers that was next to the table and pulled out the last one. Uh-oh, she thought, but then she remembered that Mrs. Barrett usually keeps a big supply of diapers in the laundry room.

  “No-no. No didy,” said Marnie.

  “Yes-yes. Sorry, kiddo,” Dawn told her. “You’re soaking wet.”

  Dawn sang “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep” to Marnie as she changed the diaper, and Marnie made the ham face again. Then Dawn snapped her into a pair of clean overalls, picked her up, and carried her downstairs.

  “Suzi?” she called. “Do you want to have some juice with Marnie?”

  No answer.

  Dawn peered into the playroom.

  Suzi wasn’t there.

  “Suzi!” Dawn called more loudly.

  “What?” replied Suzi’s voice.

  “Where are you?”

  “In the dining room.”

  Dawn carried Marnie into the dining room. She didn’t know what she expected to find there — but it certainly wasn’t the sight of Suzi wrapping diapers around the legs of the table and taping them in place with Band-Aids.

  “What are you doing?!” exclaimed Dawn.

  “Fixing my horsie,” Suzi replied. She opened another Band-Aid wrapper, expertly peeled off the paper, and applied the Band-Aid to the edges of a diaper, securing it just under the tabletop.

  “Excuse me?” said Dawn.

  Suzi patted the table. “My horsie broke all his legs,” she said. “And he has a sickness. I have to fix him up.”

  Dawn clapped her hand to her forehead. Then she set Marnie on the ground. “Suzi, your mom needs these diapers for your sister. I’m, um, I’m really glad you made your horse better, but now we have to take the Band-Aids off — carefully. Try to do it without ruining the diapers.”

  It took almost fifteen minutes, but at last the diapers had been unwound from the table, folded neatly, and placed in their box in the laundry room. Dawn might not have been so concerned if she didn’t know how expensive disposable diapers are.

  She decided it was definitely time to get the girls outdoors, so after a quick snack, and after she’d given Suzi her medicine, she put Pow on his leash, walked the girls into the garage, and plopped Marnie in her stroller.

  “Where are we walking to?” asked Suzi as they headed down the driveway. “The school playground?”

  “We-ell, that’s kind of a long walk, but I guess we could try.”

  “Wait! Could we go to the brook?” asked Suzi. “Marnie loves it.”

  “Sure,” replied Dawn. “That’s a great idea. And the brook is much closer.”

  Dawn, Suzi, and Marnie hadn’t walked far when suddenly Dawn saw something that made her stop short. She stopped so quickly that Pow, whose leash was attached to the stroller and who was trotting happily ahead, jerked to a halt, too, and nearly fell over.

  What Dawn had seen was me. Well, not just me, but Jessi and me across the street with all of my brothers and sisters.

  Dawn told me later that her first thought was, why are they baby-sitting? Her second thought was, maybe they’re not sitting, maybe they’re just playing with the kids. Then she noticed that my parents’ cars weren’t in the driveway and knew we were sitting after all.

  “Wow,” said Dawn under her breath. Of course, she was dying of curiosity. If Mrs. Pike needed another sitter, why hadn’t she called the Baby-sitters Club? She always had before. And furthermore, who was the girl who was helping me baby-sit (if that’s what she was doing)?

  Dawn had a lot of unanswered questions, but she wasn’t going to ask me about them. It was embarrassing enough that we’d seen each other. I hadn’t spoken to any of the girls in the club since I’d marched out of Claudia’s room announcing I was “quitting.”

  Unfortunately, Suzi didn’t know any of this.

  “Dawn?” she said. “Can I go play with Claire?”

  Dawn bit her lip. She hated to say no just because she and I were having problems. Why should Suzi and Claire suffer for that? Finally, she said, “Don’t you want to go to the brook? We can throw stones in the water and float leaves under the bridge. Hey, we can play Poohsticks just like Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends do in The House at Pooh Corner. We might even see some squirrels there. Or a rabbit.” Dawn was pulling out all the stops.

  “Maybe we’ll see a snake!” Suzi cried excitedly. Her decision was made. Dawn felt relieved — especially because Suzi hadn’t yelled across the street to ask Claire to join them.

  So Dawn took the girls to the brook and they did toss stones and float leaves and play Poohsticks. And they saw a squirrel, which Pow chased joyfully. (They did not see any snakes.) When they returned to the Barretts’ house later, Dawn was still wondering about Jessi and me and whether we were baby-sitting. And why. And who Jessi was.

  Her questions were answered not long after when she was getting more juice for Marnie. She opened the refrigerator and for the first time noticed something tacked to the door with a magnet shaped like a frog. It was one of our fliers for Kids Incorporated. It listed Jessi’s name and my name, our ages, phone numbers, and the club meeting times. (Jessi and I had decided to run the club just the way the Baby-sitters Club was run. We’d even bought an appointment book and a notebook.)

  Dawn finished her sitting job in a huff. As soon as she got home, she called Kristy with the news. She figured that, as president, Kristy ought to hear it first.

  “Guess what,” Dawn said flatly.

  “What?” replied Kristy. “Boy, you sound like you’re in a good mood.”

  “I’m in a rotten mood and it’s all because of what I have to tell you. Mallory Pike has started her own baby-sitting club.”

  “What?!” screeched Kristy. “How could she? Who else is in the club?”

  “Some girl named Jessi Ramsey. She’s new here. I think she’s the one whose family moved into Stacey’s house.”

  “Hmphh,” was all Kristy would reply. After a pause she added, “Well, who’ll hire them? They’re too young. They won’t get any jobs…. And Mallory doesn’t know the first thing about tourniquets.”

  “Mrs. Pike already hired them,” Dawn informed her. “They were sitting there this afternoon when I was at the Barretts’ That’s how I know about all this.”

  “The Pikes! They’re practically our best customers,” moaned Kristy. “Mallory can’t do this to us.”

  “Well, she is doing it.”

  “Hmphh,” said Kristy again. “Well, I’ll just get on the phone with Mary Anne and Claudia. This absolutely cannot happen.”

  “How are you going to stop it?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” replied Kristy. “I really don’t know.”

  “The second meeting of Kids Incorporated will now come to order,” I said.

  It was Monday afternoon, five-thirty. Not far away, the girls in the Baby-sitters Club were holding a meeting of their own. I wondered if Claudia’s phone had rung yet. I decided that it might have, since it seemed to ring an awful lot.

  The girls in the Baby-sitters Club held their meetings with the door closed. Jessi and I had to hold ours with the door open so we co
uld hear the phone in the hall. We’d set it on the floor, as close to the doorway as the cord would stretch, but it was not the same as having my own phone. Plus, my brothers and sisters ran upstairs every two seconds.

  I looked at Jessi. “This is not exactly like the Baby-sitters Club,” I told her.

  “No?”

  I explained about the phone and the privacy.

  “And another thing,” I added. “They have club officers. You know, president, vice president, secretary, treasurer. But there are only two of us.”

  “You could be the president,” said Jessi, “since you know how to run a baby-sitting club.”

  “But you thought of the great name for our club,” I pointed out.

  Jessi frowned. “Let’s not have officers,” she said. “Let’s be equal.”

  “Okay,” I agreed. “We can take turns with everything — answering the phone, writing down appointments.”

  “Perfect.”

  We sat and waited for the phone to ring.

  It didn’t.

  “I guess it takes a while for things to get started,” said Jessi.

  “I guess.”

  “What do the other girls do when they’re not on the phone?”

  “Gossip,” I replied. “Talk about boys.”

  “Ew,” said Jessi. “Boys.”

  “I know. Ew. We could gossip, though.”

  “About who?”

  “Benny Ott.”

  “He’s a boy!”

  “No, he isn’t. He isn’t even human.”

  Jessi laughed. “Well, I’ve got some news to tell you. I didn’t want to say anything until I knew for sure, but last week I decided that I would take ballet lessons here after all.”

  “That’s great!” I cried.

  “Thanks,” said Jessi, and ducked her head, looking embarrassed. “We called this ballet school in Stamford,” she went on, “and they asked me to come in and audition.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yup.”

  “And what happened? Oh, this is so exciting!”

  “Well …” said Jessi slowly.

  “Don’t keep me in suspense!”

  “I got in! To the advanced class! And everyone was super nice.”

  “Oh, wow! That is wonderful! Really. Boy, just think of it. I know a real live dancer. Is your school going to put on a ballet soon?”

  “Well, The Nutcracker, of course, at Christmas-time, but before that, I think we have some kind of recital. Parts of Swan Lake and other ballets, but not an actual ballet like you’re thinking of.”

  “Can I come see you at Christmas?”

  “Of course, if I’m in the ballet.”

  “You will be. I just know it. I can feel it.”

  Jessi smiled at me. “Thanks, Mal,” she said. “You know, you’re a real friend, a true friend. I didn’t think I’d find another true friend after I moved away from Keisha, but I did. I found you.”

  “This is getting mushy,” I said, but I was smiling, too. Maybe Jessi really was going to become my best friend. My first best friend. It felt awfully nice to be sitting in my room, telling each other important things and making each other smile.

  The moment was ruined, though, by the sound of feet thundering up the stairs. Above the noise of the feet were shouts of, “Give it! That’s mine!”

  “It is not!”

  “Is too!”

  “Is NOT!”

  “YES. IT. IS. Give it!”

  I ran into the hallway and found Nicky and Margo tusseling over a green plastic toy.

  “Break it up, you guys,” I said firmly.

  My brother and sister separated, shooting looks at each other that were as lethal as darts.

  “You know,” I said quietly, taking the toy out of Margo’s hand. “This thing is one of the triplets’ Wandering Frog People. It doesn’t belong to either of you.”

  “But —” began Margo.

  “But —” began Nicky.

  I silenced them by holding up one hand. “I am now going to put this in the triplets’ room. Then I order you to go downstairs and catch a dinosaur.”

  Nicky and Margo looked at each other and began to giggle. Then they clattered down the stairs together.

  Jessi smiled as I came back into the bedroom. “You really handled that well,” she told me.

  “Thanks,” I replied. “I just wish the girls in the Baby-sitters Club could have seen it.”

  “Well, you don’t need them now,” Jessi told me. “We’ve got Kids Incorporated.”

  “Right.”

  And just then the phone rang. A job call! “Aughh! I’ll get it!” I shrieked. I leaped off my bed and ran into the hall. Then I picked up the phone very sedately. “Hello, Kids Incorporated … Oh, okay. Hang on a sec.” I put the phone down. “It’s for Vanessa,” I whispered to Jessi. Then I yelled down the stairs, “VANESSA! PHONE! And don’t stay on too long.”

  I went back to my room. While we waited for Vanessa to get off the phone, Jessi told me two jokes. One went like this:

  Q: What does it mean when you see an elephant walking down the street in a blue shirt?

  A: It means his red one is in the wash.

  (I knew that one already.) The other joke went like this:

  Q: What’s black and white and black and white and black and white and black and white?

  A: A zebra rolling down a hill.

  (I didn’t know that one, and it made me giggle.) “I’ll have to tell it to my brothers and sisters,” I said.

  The phone rang again. “Oh, thank goodness Vanessa’s off,” I cried.

  “Can I get it?” asked Jessi.

  “Of course,” I replied.

  “Hello, Kids Incorporated. May I help you?” Jessi said professionally when she’d picked up the phone. “Oh, hi, Mama.” Jessi made a face at me as if to say, “It’s only my mother,” but then she went on, “Oh, really? Sure…. Okay. Thanks, Mama. Bye.” She hung up. “Guess what!” she exclaimed as she bounced back into the room. “Mama just hired us! She needs us to watch Becca and Squirt next Wednesday afternoon while she has her hair done.”

  “Fantastic!” I cried, and wrote the job in our appointment book.

  No sooner had I done that than the phone rang again. “I’ll get this one,” I said to Jessi. “Wow, busy day.”

  I sat on the floor in the hall and picked up the phone. “Hello, Kids Incorporated. May I help you?”

  There was silence on the other end of the phone. Then I heard light breathing. I put my hand over the receiver and whispered to Jessi, “I think it’s a goof call.”

  “Say hello again,” Jessi suggested.

  “Hello? Hello?”

  “Is this Mallory?” asked a familiar-sounding voice.

  “Yes, it is. Who’s this?”

  “It’s Kristy Thomas.”

  My heart practically stopped beating. “It’s Kristy Thomas,” I told Jessi. “You know, the president of the Baby-sitters Club.” And then — I have no idea where these words came from, but I found myself speaking them — I said to Kristy, “Need a baby-sitter?”

  Jessi giggled.

  “No, I do not need a baby-sitter,” Kristy replied hotly.

  “Well, then. How may I help you?”

  “You may tell me if you’re holding a meeting of something called Kids Incorporated right now,” said Kristy.

  “Yes, we are.”

  “And you hold your meetings every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon from five-thirty until six?”

  “We plan to.”

  “Copycats.”

  That made me pause. Jessi and I were being copy-cats. But then I remembered the awful meetings of the Baby-sitters Club that I’d attended.

  “Well, you guys wouldn’t let me join your club,” I pointed out.

  “We tried to let you,” said Kristy. “But we have to be very careful about who joins. We need experienced, reliable sitters. You can’t take chances where little kids are concerned.”

  “But I am e
xperienced and reliable,” I said.

  “You didn’t pass the test.”

  “That test was unfair. Even a doctor couldn’t have passed it.”

  I heard Kristy sigh. Then she said, “I don’t think your club is going to work. There aren’t enough of you. You don’t have any experience. You’ll never get jobs.”

  “For your information, we’ve already gotten two,” I told her.

  “You have?”

  “Yes. Now, if you don’t have anything else to say, I’m going to get off the phone so some more calls can come in.”

  “Fine,” said Kristy. “Good-bye.”

  “Good-bye.” I nearly slammed the receiver down, but I stopped myself in time. That would have been too rude. Even for Kristy Thomas.

  “What was that all about?” Jessi wanted to know.

  I told her.

  “You know something?” said Jessi. “I have a funny feeling we haven’t heard the last of the Baby-sitters Club.”

  “Hey, Squirt! Hey, Squirt! Over here! Oh, what a good boy!”

  Squirt Ramsey had just taken his first tentative steps all by himself, and Jessi and Becca and I were there to see him. Our sitting job at the Ramseys’ was on a sunny Wednesday afternoon, and the four of us were out in the front yard. Squirt was the center of attention and loving it. He grinned, then blew a raspberry at Becca.

  “Okay, Squirt. Stand up. Try again!” said Becca encouragingly. She pulled Squirt to his feet, waited until he was standing steadily, then let go of him.

  “Come here! You can do it!” Jessi called, her arms outstretched.

  “Walk to Jessi, Squirt,” Becca added.

  Step, step, step, step, step, step. Squirt’s baby shoes plodded through the grass until — thump — he landed on his bottom.

  “Six steps! Six steps, Jessi!” cried Becca. “That’s Squirt’s new record!”

  This time I pulled Squirt to his feet. “Okay, let ’er rip,” I said, and Squirt headed for Becca. But he only took four steps before he fell. He went down on his hands and knees. We all expected him to cry, but he came up laughing.

  Becca began to giggle. “You are so goofy, Squirt,” she said.

  “Becca, maybe Squirt’s getting tired of walking,” Jessi suggested.