Contents
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Letter from Ann M. Martin
Acknowledgment
About the Author
Scrapbook
Also Available
Copyright
“Pandemonium!” I cried as I stepped into our rec room. “Utter pandemonium!”
None of my brothers and sisters even turned around. They were all too busy creating pandemonium.
Pandemonium was a new word in the vocabulary builder section of my English textbook. We’d just learned it in class that afternoon. The minute I saw the word, I knew it was one I’d have many chances to use. (I love it when I find a really great new word.) Pandemonium means: wild uproar and noise.
That’s the Pike house, all right! Uproar and noise. I’m used to that, though. I don’t have much choice since I have seven younger brothers and sisters. In fact, “uproar and noise” is the general state of things on most days.
Today was no different than usual. I was the last one home from school, and the kids were spread all over the rec room. Vanessa was lying on the rug watching a rock video. Claire had strewn pieces of her picture puzzle across the floor. Margo was loudly practicing a cheerleading cheer (even though she is not a cheerleader). The triplets were having a game of monkey-in-the-middle with a small orange Nerf ball. And Nicky was making weird noises with a speaker he’d just bought. (The speaker has three settings: loud, robot voice, and baby voice. When you speak into it, the speaker changes your voice any way you want. It’s actually kind of cool.)
“This place is complete pandemonium!” I repeated, mostly because no one had paid any attention to me the first time.
“A panda?” inquired five-year-old Claire, looking up from her puzzle.
“No, not a panda. Pandemonium,” I told her as I wiggled out of my backpack. “It means —”
“It sounds like a sickness,” eight-year-old Nicky chimed in, putting down his speaker. He clutched his throat and bulged his eyes. “Help! I’ve got pandemonium. Call a doctor!” He spun around the room a few times before flinging himself on the floor.
“Very funny,” I said, smiling despite my efforts to look unamused.
Vanessa, who is nine, glanced away from her video. “I think pandemonium sounds more like something you clean pans with.” She rolled onto her back and held up her hands. “I no longer have rough, dry hands because now I clean my dishes with Pannnnn-demonium!” she said, as if she were an actress on a commercial.
“No, it’s not dishwashing stuff.” I laughed. “Pandemonium means — hey!” The Nerf ball had bounced off my forehead. “Watch it! You’re not supposed to be playing ball inside, anyway.” I picked up the small, spongy ball which had dropped to my feet and squished it into the pocket of my jeans.
“Aw, come on, give it back,” said Adam, annoyed. He’s one of the identical triplets, who are ten.
“It’s just a Nerf ball. It’s not going to hurt anything.” Jordan backed up Adam. (As usual.)
Byron didn’t look like he minded, though. I think he was relieved not to be the monkey-in-the-middle anymore. He’s not as athletic as Adam and Jordan. When he’s the one trying to get the ball away, he can get stuck as the monkey for a long time.
Some people have trouble telling Byron, Adam, and Jordan apart. But to me, they are each so different that I never have a problem. I could pick Byron out just from the way he slouches. Besides, they don’t dress alike. I’m always surprised when people confuse them.
At that moment, my mother came downstairs from the kitchen. “Hey! Hey! What is all this?” she scolded mildly. “Vanessa, turn off that TV. And did I hear something about a ball in the house?” The triplets’ guilty expressions gave them away. “Well, take it ouside. Margo, you can do your cheering outside, too. It’s a gorgeous day.”
“We-must-go-outside. We-must-go-outside,” Nicky chanted with his speaker set to robot-voice as he moved mechanically out of the rec room.
“Claire, pick up those puzzle pieces, please,” Mom requested. Then she looked at me. The moment she did, I knew what was coming. I was tipped off by the way she glanced quickly at Claire before she spoke.
“Mallory,” Mom said, “could you please watch Claire for a little while?” Just as I’d expected.
Don’t get me wrong. I love to baby-sit. I love it so much that I’m even a member of a club called the Baby-sitters Club (which I’ll tell you about later). But one thing I don’t like about being the oldest of eight kids is that I’m always being asked to take care of one or more of them. (The other thing I don’t like is the privacy problem. There’s practically no privacy in my house.)
Sometimes Mom and Dad ask me to baby-sit when it’s not convenient; like when I want to read, or write in my journal, or just be alone. When I go on a baby-sitting job for the BSC (Baby-sitters Club) I know exactly when and where I’ll be sitting. (The club is super organized.) But at home, baby-sitting assignments can pop up unexpectedly.
Most of the time I just sigh and say okay. (Or smile and say okay, depending on my mood.) But today I really couldn’t do it.
“I would, Mom, but Ben is coming over,” I told her. “We’re going to do our homework together.”
Mom opened her mouth as if she were about to argue with me, but then she seemed to change her mind. “Okay,” she said, kneeling and tossing the last of the puzzle pieces in the box. “I just wanted to make some phone calls. I can make them after supper.”
“I’ll watch Claire after supper,” I offered.
Mom smiled. “It’s a deal.”
When Mom and Claire went outside, I was alone in the rec room. The clock on the wall said 3:15. “Oh, no!” I cried. Ben was coming over at 3:30. That left only fifteen minutes for me to get ready.
I raced up the stairs and into the room I share with Vanessa. “I have to get ready,” I panted. Only I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. I mean, it wasn’t like I could take off my braces and my glasses. The braces are on for at least another year. (Thankfully, they’re the clear plastic kind. I still hate them, though.) And I can’t see without my glasses. I have begged — begged — my parents for contacts, but they say I’m too young. That makes no sense to me. An eleven-year-old is plenty old enough to take care of a pair of contact lenses. At least this eleven-year-old is.
It wasn’t as if I could do anything with my hair, either. My longish red hair is curly and does whatever it wants — not what I tell it to.
And then there’s my nose. All my relatives say I got it from my grandfather. Well, if it were up to me, he could have it back!
Just about the only thing I could change was my shirt. So I did. And my jeans, too, for the heck of it.
I looked at myself in the mirror and sighed hopelessly. I don’t consider myself very pretty. But it never used to matter to me. Then I met Ben Hobart.
All of a sudden, for the first time in my life, I wished I were gorgeous. But to my surprise, Ben seems to like me just the way I am. (Talk about a lucky break! Then again, Ben isn’t shallow, like some boys who only care about looks.)
Liking a guy is so weird. There’s just no way to explain why suddenly you’re so crazy about someone. By movie-star standards, Ben isn’t a hunk or anything. (Even though I think he’s totally adorable.) He has reddish-blond hai
r, sort of a round face, and freckles. He’s tall. And he wears glasses. (Which makes me feel less self-conscious about my glasses.) Oh, and there’s one thing that’s very cool about Ben. His accent. His family is from Australia. When the Hobarts first moved to Stoneybrook, Connecticut (that’s my town), some of the kids in school made fun of Ben’s accent. I’m sure they were just jealous. Now everyone is used to it and no one teases him anymore. Personally, I would love to have an Australian accent. (I used to long for a French accent, but, since meeting Ben, I’ve switched to longing for an Australian accent.)
In a few minutes the bell rang. I bounded down the stairs and pulled open the front door. “Hi,” I greeted Ben. “Come on in.”
Ben stepped into the living room and looked around. “Kind of quiet in here, isn’t it?” he observed.
“Mom kicked everyone outside for a while,” I explained.
“Oh,” said Ben. “The house is a little spooky when it’s so quiet.”
“Don’t worry,” I said, leading him into the dining room. “It won’t last too long. But hopefully it will last long enough for us to get some work done.”
That sure turned out to be wishful thinking!
No sooner had we opened our math books on the dining room table than I heard the back door slam. “Let’s each do this first problem and see if we come up with the same answer,” I suggested to Ben, pointing to a problem in the book.
We were working on the problem when suddenly I jumped up from the table and screamed. Something warm and furry had run across my foot.
Ben jumped up, too. “Mal! What’s wrong?”
Then I saw Frodo, our pet hamster, scurrying along the floor by the wall. The sound of laughter came from just outside the dining room.
I stormed to the doorway. There were Adam, Jordan, Byron, and Nicky, red-faced from giggling. “Ha! Ha! Ha!” I said angrily. “You guys are a riot. Someone come get Frodo.”
“We haven’t seen Frodo,” replied Jordan.
Glaring at my brothers, I went back into the room and tried to grab Frodo. Boy, is he fast! It took almost five minutes for Ben and me to catch him.
Once I’d put Frodo in his cage, I returned to the dining room. “Sorry about that,” I apologized to Ben.
“It’s okay. I finished the first problem while you were gone. I’ll just wait for you to do it.”
At that moment, Margo appeared in the doorway. “Excuse me,” she said. “Mom wants to know if you and Ben would like some lemonade.”
“Sure,” I told her. “Thanks.”
In minutes Margo came back with the drinks. With her was Claire who carried a tray of still-warm butter cookies Mom had made. “Thanks a lot,” said Ben, taking a cookie.
“You’re welcome,” Claire replied. My sisters can be so sweet sometimes.
“See?” I said to him. “Not all members of my family are geeks.”
But the geek patrol was soon back.
The next thing that happened may possibly be the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me.
I was working on the first problem when I began to notice this strange sound coming from outside the dining room. It was a slurpy, squeaky sound. It was a kissing sound! And it was loud, amplified. I put down my pen and felt a hot blush burn across my cheeks. (Which only made matters worse.)
“I love you so much,” came a silly, deep voice.
“No, I love you more!” This was a high-pitched voice.
“I love you more, my darling Mallory!” The deep voice.
“I love you more-est, Benjamin my sweet!” the high squeaky voice squealed. Then there were more loud, wet kissing noises.
I wanted to die! To disappear then and there!
Ben looked like he felt the same way. He was smiling, but he was also blushing.
“Excuse me a minute,” I said, pushing back my chair.
When I reached the doorway, I found my darling brothers crowded around Nicky’s new speaker phone, busily kissing the backs of their own hands. They looked at me with guilty, but laughing eyes. “I’m going to brain you idiots!” I shouted.
Nicky switched the speaker to baby-talk. “Time to go bye-bye,” he said. As he spoke, he raced away behind the triplets, disappearing into the kitchen.
“We’re not going to get anything done with them hanging around,” I said apologetically, turning back to Ben.
“Want to work at my house?” Ben suggested.
“Good idea,” I said as I closed my math notebook. Ben is so nice. Another boy probably would have run out of the house. Why couldn’t my brothers be more like him?
I had to let my mother know I was leaving, so I stuck my head into the kitchen. Only Vanessa was there, thumbing through a mail-order toy catalog. “Where’s Mom?” I asked.
“In the yard with Claire.”
“Tell her I’m going over to Ben’s to work,” I said. “I have to get away from the Pike punks before I kill them.”
“I heard what they were doing,” she said sympathetically. “I don’t blame you for wanting to murder them.”
“Tell me about it,” I said, leaving the kitchen.
It didn’t take long to walk to Ben’s house. The Hobarts moved into Mary Anne’s old house across from Claudia’s. (Mary Anne Spier and Claudia Kishi are both BSC members and my friends. More about them later.) And, anyway, it was better to work at Ben’s house than at mine since I had a BSC meeting that day at five-thirty. The BSC meetings are held at Claudia’s so all I would have to do is run across the street.
At Ben’s house we were able to sit at the kitchen table and work without being disturbed. His three brothers — James (eight), Mathew (six), and Johnny (four) — are nothing like my brothers. They’re actually sweet and well-behaved. They were playing video games in the family den. They didn’t bother us even once the entire time.
At about 5:15, I shut my history book. (We finished the math pretty quickly once we escaped from my brothers.) “Gee, it’s so peaceful here,” I said with a sigh.
“Not always,” Ben replied. “Besides, I think your house is fun.”
“Try living there,” I groaned as I stuffed my books into my pack.
Ben stood up and opened the refrigerator. “Hey, it’s a miracle! There’s chocolate cake left from last night. Want some?”
I glanced at the kitchen clock. 5:17. “Okay. But I have to eat and run. Kristy starts meetings at five-thirty sharp.” Kristy Thomas is the president of the BSC. Punctuality is very important to her.
Ben cut me a slice of cake. “That’s okay,” he said with a smile. “We have to eat fast, anyway, before my Mom comes in and tells me no cake before supper.”
Mrs. Hobart makes a super delicious chocolate cake. She makes it from scratch, too. Until I met Ben, I thought making a cake from scratch meant you started by opening a box of cake mix!
As I sat eating the cake, I thought how great it must be to live at Ben’s house. Homemade cake. Quiet, unobnoxious brothers. Heaven!
Although I was only across the street, I was almost late for the BSC meeting. (I was having such a nice time with Ben that I stayed until the absolute last second.) I flew into Claudia’s bedroom just as her digital clock turned to 5:30.
Still breathless, I sat down quickly on the floor next to my best friend Jessi Ramsey. “Where were you?” Jessi whispered.
“At Ben’s,” I whispered back.
Dawn Schafer, who was sitting on the bed behind me, heard what I said. “Ben’s!” she teased in a singsong voice.
I could feel myself turn red. “We were doing homework!”
“Ooooohh! At Ben’s!” the other club members sang out, laughing. All except Mary Anne. She was there with her boyfriend, Logan Bruno. (He’s also a member of the club. I’ll tell you how he fits in after I tell you about the club.) It was unusual for Logan to come to meetings. I guess he was at the meeting that day because he had been hanging out with Mary Anne.
“What’s wrong with doing homework together?” Mary Anne asked, taking
Logan’s hand. “Logan and I just came from studying in the library.”
“Oooooooooooohhhh!” the club members teased.
Now it was Logan’s turn to blush.
“Cut it out, you guys,” said Mary Anne.
“Oh, we’re just teasing,” laughed Stacey McGill, perched cross-legged on Claudia’s bed.
“Okay, enough,” Kristy said, speaking over the giggles. She looked very stern as she sat forward in Claudia’s director’s chair with one leg crossed high over the other knee, her pencil stuck over one ear and the club notebook on her lap. “This meeting of the Baby-sitters Club is about to begin!”
Before I go any further, I suppose I should tell you about the club and its members. I’ll start with the members and then I’ll explain how the club works.
First I’ll tell you about Jessi, since she’s my best friend. Like me, she’s eleven. We’re both in the sixth grade at Stoneybrook Middle School. Jessi is tall and beautiful. And African-American. This was a problem for some people when the Ramseys first came to Stoneybrook. But the Ramsey family stuck it out, and now nobody bothers them about the color of their skin anymore.
Jessi is a ballet dancer. She’s already en pointe, which means she dances in toe shoes. This proves how gifted she is. She’s already danced in several professional productions and has been accepted to this great (and really demanding) ballet school in Stamford (which is about a half hour from Stoneybrook).
Jessi isn’t stuck-up about her dancing. Not at all. Everything about her is very normal. She has a normal-sized family: a father, a mother, a sister (Becca, who is eight), and a baby brother named John Philip Jr., also known as Squirt. Her Aunt Cecelia lives with them. She stays home and takes care of things while Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey work.
Despite our differences (one of them being that I can’t dance to save my life!), Jessi and I have tons in common. We love to read, especially about horses. Marguerite Henry’s horse stories are our favorites. We love to baby-sit. And we are soooooo glad to be junior officers in the BSC.
As I’ve mentioned, the president of the BSC is Kristy Thomas. She has brown hair, brown eyes, and is very short. In fact, I think she’s the shortest girl in the eighth grade. When you’re around Kristy, though, you don’t think of her as a small person. That’s because she has such a big personality.