Dawn and Too Many Sitters

Through our window, we could see Dad, Carol, and Sunny pressed against the glass of the airport terminal window. We waved until the airplane taxied us out of sight.

  “Welcome aboard Flight Forty-two, ladies and gentlemen,” a voice said as the plane took off. “We’re going cross-country to New York City, where the sky is overcast and the temperature is a balmy sixty-eight degrees …”

  I glanced at Jeff. He tried not to smile at me, but he couldn’t help it. We were both psyched.

  I don’t know exactly when I fell asleep. Possibly somewhere over Colorado. All I remember was that Jeff was deeply into his comic book, and I had just finished the teensy croissant and thimbleful of orange juice that the airline called “Continental Breakfast.”

  I woke up much later in a cold sweat.

  Jeff was snoozing. Everyone else around us seemed to be, too. Even the big patches of farmland below us made the land look as if it were asleep under a quilt.

  But my nerves were zinging. In my dream, the Baby-sitters Club had voted me out. I had shown up at a meeting, and they had told me to go home and never come back. Abby Stevenson, the girl who replaced me in the club, was grinning triumphantly. A big blackboard on the wall read:

  ABBY

  DAWN

  6

  1

  Mary Anne was crying in the corner. “Dawn,” she said. “I tried to talk to them. Really, I did.”

  I don’t know about you, but I take dreams very seriously. I believe they can even predict the future. But Dawn versus Abby? The idea had never crossed my mind before.

  It made sense, though, if you thought about it. I’d met Abby, and she seemed nice, but maybe she resented my return. Maybe she felt I was trying to win my job back. Maybe the club had had a huge fight about it, and Mary Anne had been too timid to tell me.

  I hadn’t wanted to cause so much trouble. Maybe I should have stayed home for the summer. At least California had nice beaches.

  I was in a rotten mood all the way to New York. Our connecting flight was a dinky little propeller plane, sort of like a bus with wings. The short ride to Connecticut was so bumpy I almost lost my lunch.

  When we landed, I was a wreck. As Jeff and I descended the rickety portable stairs to the tarmac, I thought my knees would buckle. My skin felt clammy and my hair was so staticky I’m sure it was standing straight up.

  “They’re here!” Jeff screamed, running into the terminal.

  Through the window, Mary Anne’s smile was like a beacon of light among the crowd of waiting people. Behind her, my mom was waving wildly, tears streaming down her cheeks. Richard, my stepfather, was beaming.

  I sprinted inside. Before I knew it, I was whirling through the terminal, right into my mom’s arms. “Oh, sweetheart, I’m so glad you’re home!” she cried.

  (To Mom, Stoneybrook will always be “home.” I don’t mind that at all.)

  When I hugged Mary Anne, she burst into tears, too. “We’ve all missed you, Dawn.”

  “Yes, indeed,” said Richard. “Welcome.”

  Even stodgy old Richard hugged me. That felt nice.

  “Richard,” Jeff said. “Where does a two-ton hippo live?”

  “Well, in a swamp, I suppose,” Richard replied. “Why do you ask —”

  “Wherever it wants!” Jeff shouted. “Get it? Because it’s so huge?”

  “Ah, that’s a good one,” Richard said. “You know, one of my colleagues at the law firm told me an amusing knock-knock joke the other day …”

  Richard and Jeff, the world’s unlikeliest couple, walked together toward the exit, in their own world. Mary Anne, Mom, and I exchanged a Look. Then we all burst out laughing.

  My weak stomach? My second thoughts about the trip? Out the window.

  We gabbed while waiting for luggage. We gabbed as we waited for Richard to fetch the car. Then we gabbed during the entire ride home. Mary Anne told me all about our friend Claudia Kishi’s new baby cousin. I told everyone the news about Sunny’s mom. It was all stuff we’d discussed over the phone, but it felt wonderful saying it person-to-person.

  As for Jeff, he was busy exchanging bad jokes with Richard. That made me happy, too. I’d never seen them get along so well.

  As we pulled into the driveway of our big, old, comfortable farmhouse, every last fear I had melted away.

  This was going to be a great summer.

  I just knew it.

  “Aren’t you awake yet?”

  I opened my eyes. Jeff was standing in my doorway, tapping his foot impatiently.

  It felt like the middle of the night, but it wasn’t dark. Around me, everything was totally wrong. My bed was facing the wrong direction. The carpet was missing. My surfboard was gone.

  “For someone whose name is Dawn,” Jeff remarked, “you sure don’t live up to it.”

  “Huh?”

  Earth to Dawn.

  The fog in my brain was slowly lifting. I was in Stoneybrook. It was Monday morning, my first weekday of the summer vacation!

  “Why do I always have to wake you up for breakfast?” Jeff asked. “Richard won’t serve unless we’re all down there.”

  I sat up. My eyelids felt as if they weighed thirty pounds each. “Okay, give me two minutes.”

  Jeff nodded sternly. “Two. Not twenty-two. I have things to do today.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  As he left, I wobbled out of bed. My trusty desk clock read eight-fifteen A.M., which meant my California-tuned body thought it was five-fifteen.

  I looked into my closet door mirror and almost fainted. My hair was like a mass of tangled wires. My face was so droopy it looked as if someone were standing below me with a flesh magnet.

  What time had Mary Anne and I said good night? I couldn’t remember. But I did recall looking at the clock around midnight or so.

  I slapped my cheeks. (That’s a trick Carol taught me. It puts color back in them.) Then, as I yanked a brush through my hair, images of the previous night flooded into my sleep-deprived brain.

  As soon as we had arrived home from the airport, Richard had ordered from my favorite pizza place. We’d all sat around the table, talking about the summer. Jeff had been so excited, he’d forgotten to tell jokes for a while. He’d asked about all his friends and had even run around in the backyard by himself awhile, just “to get connected.” He was actually cute.

  Now, the morning after, I was feeling a little disconnected myself. I breathed in the familiar musty scent of my old room. Boy, did it feel great to be back. A warm, slightly humid breeze floated through the window, sweet with honeysuckle.

  Mustiness. Humidity. Honeysuckle.

  All of it was so un-California. So East Coast.

  So … fantastic!

  What were our plans for this glorious summer? Oh, a little bit of nothing and a lot of fun. Hanging out, going to the beach, seeing movies, and baby-sitting.

  Yes, I was even looking forward to baby-sitting. I missed all my old Stoneybrook charges. But I also missed the BSC.

  I wasn’t going to have to miss it for very long, though. The next meeting was to begin at 5:30 sharp.

  Which, since I couldn’t shake off that dream on the plane, still gave me approximately nine hours and fifteen minutes to worry.

  “It’s been two minutes!” Jeff called from downstairs.

  Oops. Nine hours and thirteen minutes.

  I threw on some clothes and ran down to the kitchen. The smell was so wonderful I thought I’d die.

  My stepdad was standing over the stove, an apron around his belly and a proud smile on his face. “Richard Spier’s patented egg-white Spanish omelette with California spices and fresh fruit on the side!” he announced.

  Jeff was standing next to him, hands extended, waiting to be served. I’m surprised he wasn’t drooling on the floor.

  Mom, Mary Anne, and I exchanged good mornings and stood in line. (I was given the place of honor at the front.)

  Richard is a good cook. My mom? Well, she makes a great cup of tea. Anything else
, frankly, is eat-or-drink-at-your-own-risk. I love her deeply, she’s full of energy and creativity and fun, but she can be a little flaky. You’re likely to find a lost barrette in the spinach salad or a house key in the Jell-O.

  “Orange juice?” Mom asked as I took my omelette to the table. “Richard squeezed it himself.”

  “California oranges, too,” Richard remarked. “They fell off your plane. I had a heck of a time getting them through customs.”

  Mary Anne says that Richard had no sense of humor before he married my mom. He was an extremely strict father. She says it was his way of trying to be two parents at once. You see, Mary Anne’s mom died when Mary Anne was a baby. In his grief, Richard let Mary Anne’s grandparents raise her for a few months. Afterward they tried to keep her, saying Richard wouldn’t be capable enough on his own. Well, he did take her back, but he went a little overboard to prove his parent-worthiness, I guess.

  For a long time, Mary Anne was allowed to wear only the most conservative dresses and hairstyles. Nowadays she looks like a normal thirteen-year-old, with pierced ears, short brown hair, and a preppyish wardrobe. Remember the Addams Family TV show theme, the part that goes, “Neat, sweet, petite”? Well, those words fit Mary Anne. She’s a little over five feet tall, very organized, and the most caring and sensitive person I’ve ever met.

  She’s also painfully shy if you don’t know her. And she can break into tears at the slightest thing, happy or sad. (Her boyfriend, Logan Bruno, sometimes calls her “the Town Crier.”)

  Jeff finished breakfast in about two seconds. “Can I go to JAB’s now?”

  “Who’s JAB?” Mom asked.

  “Jordan, Adam, and Byron. Get it? J, A, B?”

  “Goodness, you’ve been here less than twelve hours and already you’re bored with us?” Mom teased.

  “Mo-om, I haven’t seen them in a long time. I just want to play.”

  Mom smiled. “Go ahead. Invite them back for lunch.”

  “Ya-hoooo! Thanks!” Jeff barrelled out of the house.

  Jordan, Adam, and Byron Pike are ten-year-old triplets. Their older sister, Mallory, is my friend and a BSC member.

  “Well,” Mom said with a sigh. “At least he seems happy here.”

  “He should, with a mom like you,” Richard replied.

  “My Romeo.” Mom threw her arms around Richard and gave him a big smooch.

  Richard turned beet red. Mary Anne and I concentrated on our breakfasts, trying not to giggle.

  Soon Richard was bustling off to work and Mom was on the phone. As my sister and I lingered over herbal tea, I decided to bring up my bad dream. I told Mary Anne all the gory details and asked if it was true, if the BSC really did want to kick me out.

  “Kick you out?” she said with a smile. “Everyone wants to force you to stay! Kristy thinks we should make an official declaration of kidnapping to your dad.”

  I burst out laughing. Out of relief, mostly, but also because I could picture Kristy Thomas doing that.

  If you think I’m opinionated, you’ve never met Kristy. She is the BSC’s Big Kahuna. Officially she’s the club’s president and founder. Unofficially, she’s director of advertising, creator of special events, and club spokesperson.

  Of all the BSC members, Kristy is the shortest and loudest — I mean, the most outgoing. She overflows with ideas, some good, some ridiculous, but all interesting. She’s also Mary Anne’s best friend. They look somewhat alike, but Kristy dresses casually all the time and usually pulls her hair back in a ponytail. They grew up across the street from each other, not too far from the farmhouse. Like Mary Anne, Kristy was raised by a single parent. Mr. Thomas abandoned the family when she was little, leaving Mrs. Thomas to raise four kids (Kristy has three brothers).

  If Kristy hadn’t grown up under those conditions, the Baby-sitters Club might not exist. She thought of the idea for the club one evening when her mom was having trouble finding a sitter for Kristy’s younger brother.

  Because of Kristy’s brainstorm, no Stoneybrook parent has to face that problem. Like the We ♥ Kids Club, the BSC is an organized group of sitters. It meets every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, between five-thirty and six o’clock. Parents call during those times to book sitters, and the club has plenty of members to fill all requests. (Ten, to be exact, including me and two associates, who fill in during extra-busy times.) After each job, we write about our experience in the BSC notebook, to keep ourselves up-to-date on all clients.

  Our meetings are held in the bedroom of Claudia Kishi, who lives across the street from where Mary Anne and Kristy used to live before their respective parents remarried and moved them to other neighborhoods. (Mary Anne says that when Kristy moved away, the neighborhood kids ran out of things to do, because they’d been so used to her organizing activities for them.)

  Kristy can figure out activities for anyone, anywhere, anytime. For example, one of her brainstorms resulted in a softball team for little kids. It’s called Kristy’s Krushers.

  Nowadays, Kristy lives in the wealthy section of Stoneybrook. Her mom married a millionaire named Watson Brewer, and the Thomases moved into his mansion. Their combined family is pretty humongous: Kristy; her brothers (seventeen-year-old Charlie, fifteen-year-old Sam, and seven-year-old David Michael); Watson’s son and daughter from a previous marriage, who live there during alternate months (Karen is seven and Andrew’s four); an adopted two-year-old girl named Emily Michelle; Kristy’s grandmother, Nannie; plus too many pets to name.

  Abby Stevenson, my replacement, lives two houses away from Kristy. She hasn’t lived there long. When I moved to California, Abby, her twin sister, Anna, and Mrs. Stevenson were living on Long Island (Mr. Stevenson died a few years ago in a car accident). They moved to Stoneybrook just in time. The BSC was going crazy without me there (ahem), and they desperately needed another member.

  I don’t know Abby well, but I can tell she’s outgoing and athletic and hilariously funny. She’s also asthmatic, and allergic to just about anything you can think of. I adore her hair. It’s a luscious, dark brown, so thick and curly that it hangs in natural ringlets.

  Anna wears her hair much shorter than Abby does. She’s quiet, unathletic, nonasthmatic, not allergic, and incredibly talented in music. The club asked her to join, too, but she said no. She practices violin several hours a day and wants to be a professional musician.

  Recently, Abby and Anna both turned thirteen and became Bat Mitzvahs. I wish I could have gone to the service. Mary Anne said it was moving and beautiful, even though she didn’t understand the Hebrew.

  Abby’s job, the one I used to have, is alternate officer. That means she fills in whenever another officer is absent.

  Who are the other officers? Well, Mary Anne has the most important job: secretary. She’s in charge of the BSC record book. In it, she keeps an updated list of clients’ names, addresses, the rates they pay, and any important information about their kids (bedtimes, allergies, likes and dislikes). Whenever a call comes in, Mary Anne checks the master calendar, on which she keeps track of all sitting jobs. To avoid mixups, she carefully records each member’s scheduling conflicts: doctor appointments, lessons, family trips, and so on. Then she assigns the job, trying to make sure everyone has an equal amount of sitting time.

  No, the job has not caused Mary Anne to have a nervous breakdown. She enjoys being secretary, and she’s excellent at it.

  Our vice-president is Claudia Kishi. Her main job is to host the meetings in her room and answer any calls that come in after hours.

  Do Claudia’s parents mind that their house is overrun by girls three times a week? Not at all. They’re pretty easygoing about it. They are not easygoing about other things, though, such as education and proper eating. This drives Claudia crazy, because she’s a terrible student and she loves sweets. Her room is a minefield of junk food — candy bars under the covers, marshmallows behind the mattresses, chips in the chest of drawers. She’s also addicted to Nancy Drew books, which her paren
ts consider the junk food of literature. (Claudia hides them, too.)

  Claudia does not hide her art supplies, however. They’re all over her room in plain sight (which is fine, unless you happen to sit on a wad of wet papier-mâché). She can sculpt, paint, draw, and make jewelry. She can also create the coolest outfits out of secondhand stuff she finds in thrift shops.

  Mr. and Mrs. Kishi appreciate Claudia’s talents, but Claud’s convinced they really favor her older sister, Janine, who is off-the-charts brilliant. (Janine’s in high school, but she takes college courses.) Claudia’s real soulmate in the family was Mimi, her grandmother. Even though Mimi’s English wasn’t perfect (she was a Japanese immigrant), she understood Claudia deeply. When she died, Claud was heartbroken. Now Claudia keeps a big picture of Mimi on her wall, surrounded by beautiful art.

  Stacey McGill is the club’s treasurer. She collects dues every Monday in a manila envelope. Then, at the end of the month, she pays Claudia for her phone bill and gives Charlie Thomas gas money for driving Kristy and Abby to meetings. She also buys supplies for Kid-Kits, boxes of toys and games we take to jobs (just in case our sparkling personalities aren’t quite enough). Any surplus in our treasury goes straight to pizza parties or sleepovers.

  Stacey has long golden hair, and she wears really cool clothes. Her fashion sense is very New York — classy, sleek, urban, lots of black. She grew up in the Big Apple, until her dad’s company relocated the family to Connecticut. No sooner had she settled in and joined the BSC than whoosh, the company made him move back to NYC and we all had a tearful farewell. She wasn’t gone for long. Her parents, who hadn’t been getting along too well, divorced. Stacey had to choose which parent to live with, and she decided to move back to Stoneybrook with her mom.

  I love Stacey. She and I were always able to talk about the ups and downs of being a Divorced Kid, all the back-and-forthing and split loyalties and tender feelings. (Sometimes, though, I wish my dad lived in NYC. It’s only a short train ride away.)

  The other thing Stacey and I have in common: We’re the only BSC members who don’t eat Claudia’s sweets. Unlike me, though, Stacey has no choice. She has diabetes. Any refined sugar she eats will zip right into her bloodstream, which can throw her into a coma. (You see, diabetics cannot produce a hormone called insulin, which parcels out the sugar a little at a time.) But don’t worry. Stacey can lead a perfectly normal life. She just has to eat very regular meals and inject herself with artificial insulin every day (I know, the thought makes me queasy, too, but Stacey insists it’s not at all gross).