“Me, too, missus,” Suzi added.
Marnie just banged on her plastic plate with her fork chanting, “Fries! Fries!”
After dinner was over, we washed the dishes and were just sitting down to watch a Disney singalong video when the front door opened.
Mrs. Barrett, still looking as pretty and perfect as before, stepped into the front hall. Behind her was a very tall man with auburn hair and wire-rimmed glasses. He flashed a warm smile at the children.
“Hi, kids,” he said in a deep friendly voice. “How are you doing?” Then he crossed to me and shook my hand. “You must be Dawn. I’m Franklin DeWitt.”
I shook his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. DeWitt.”
“Natalie said you saved her life not long ago.”
I could feel my cheeks heat up. “I just helped Mrs. Barrett get a little better organized, that’s all.”
Franklin grinned. “Well, I’m glad to meet you.”
Then he turned his attention back to the kids. He pulled a paper bag out of his jacket pocket. “Can anyone guess what I’ve got in this bag? Could it be an elephant?”
“Noooooo!” all three kids shouted.
“A hippopotamus?”
“Nooooooo.”
“How about a kazoo?”
“A kazoo?” Buddy asked. “Is that some kind of animal?”
“No.” Franklin Dewitt chuckled. “It’s a musical instrument. I brought three of them. We’re going to make a band.”
While the kids giggled and tooted on their kazoos, Mrs. Barrett paid me. She hummed while she wrote the check. I was glad to see the Barrett bunch so happy.
In fact, I was so glad that I went straight home and made one of my favorite dishes: pasta with fresh veggies. I remembered that it was also one of Jeff’s favorites. Thinking about my brother suddenly made me want to talk to him. So I picked up the phone and dialed.
Two rings.
“Schafers. This is Jeff.”
Just hearing my brother’s voice, I got a warm feeling inside me, like hot chocolate on a cold night. “Hi, Jeff, it’s me.”
“Dawn!” He sounded happy to hear from me. “I’m doing the countdown. Five days until I get on that Boeing 767. I can’t wait.”
“Do you think you’ll get to watch a movie?” I asked, settling back in my chair with my food.
“I hope so, but it’ll probably be something really dorky like The Care Bears Meet the Smurfs.”
It’s a good thing no one was around because I snorted with laughter and my pasta shot everywhere.
“Dawn, are you still there?” Jeff asked, knocking the receiver against the table.
“I’m here, goofball,” I said. “You just made me toss my dinner.”
“Hey, sounds like you need a barf bag. I’ll pick one up for you on my trip over.”
The last time Jeff flew, he collected every salt and pepper packet and dairy creamer container that he could find on the plane and put them all in an air sickness bag, which he proudly displayed on his dresser.
“Jeff!” a voice called from the background. “Dinner’s ready.”
“Who’s that?” I asked. “Mrs. Bruen?”
“Yeah,” Jeff said. “She made vegetable lasagna for me.” (Mrs. Bruen is Dad’s housekeeper.)
For a moment I had forgotten about the three-hour time difference. It was eight o’clock in Connecticut but five on the West Coast.
“I’ll let you go eat. I just wanted to tell you I plan on having an absolute blast with you.”
“We better!” There was a pause and then Jeff said, softly, “I really miss you, Dawn.”
I felt this lump in my throat and my eyes got all misty. “Me, too. Give Dad a big hug and kiss for me.”
“See you Friday!”
I couldn’t wait.
“Come on, Dawn!” Mary Anne shouted up the stairs. “The BSC meeting starts in ten minutes. We’re going to be late.”
“Not if we run.” I leapt down the stairs and the two of us raced out our front door. We had exactly nine minutes to reach Claudia Kishi’s house or suffer the wrath of Kristy!
Claud’s digital clock was turning from 5:29 to 5:30 when we raced into the room. Mary Anne fell on the bed and I collapsed on the carpet by Claud’s desk as Kristy announced, “This meeting of the Baby-sitters Club has officially started.”
Okay. Now is a good time to tell you about the BSC. It’s really more of a business than a club. We meet three times a week at Claudia Kishi’s house from 5:30 till 6:00. People call during our meetings if they need a sitter. And because so many of us are here they’re practically guaranteed one. Isn’t that a great idea? Call one number and reach seven experienced, responsible baby-sitters.
The BSC was Kristy Thomas’s great idea. That’s one of the reasons she’s president. Kristy is a real leader type and she’s very organized. Besides heading the BSC, she also coaches a little kids’ softball team called Kristy’s Krushers. Some people would call Kristy a tomboy. She certainly dresses like one: jeans, a sweater over a turtleneck, sneakers, and sometimes a baseball cap. (It’s practically her uniform.) Here’s something you’d never guess about Kristy — she’s rich. Her mom married Watson Brewer, this millionaire, and now they all live in his mansion. It’s huge! I guess that’s good, because on some weekends ten people live there. There’re Watson and his two children Andrew and Karen, Kristy, her mom, and her three brothers, David Michael, Charlie, and Sam. And Emily Michelle, the Vietnamese baby Mr. and Mrs. Brewer adopted (she’s adorable). Plus Nannie, Kristy’s grandmother, who moved in to help take care of all of those kids. That’s a lot of people!
Our club vice-president is Claudia Kishi. We hold the meetings at her house because she has a phone in her room with her very own private number. Isn’t that cool? Claud is about as different from Kristy as you can get. Claudia could care less about sports. What she loves is art. And it shows in everything she does or wears. Today for instance she was dressed in black overalls that she had splattered with pink and green and yellow globs of paint. Her purple high top tennis shoes matched her purple long sleeve T-shirt. Claud has beautiful black shining hair that she’d fixed in a French braid. On top of her head perched a little white painter’s cap that she’d also splattered with paint. She looked awesome. (She always does.) Claud is Japanese-American and has these beautiful almond-shaped eyes and a perfect ivory complexion. I don’t know how she manages it because she is an absolute junk food fiend. I’m not kidding. She hides chips and candy all over her room. One thing about Claud you should know. She’s very smart, but for some reason she does terribly in school. She just can’t spell. And to make things worse, her sister, Janine, is a genius and always gets straight A’s. (Claud struggles along with C’s.) One other thing about Claud — Stacey McGill is her best friend.
Stacey is our club treasurer because she’s a real math whiz. Once a week she collects dues from us which we use to help pay Claudia’s phone bill and to buy supplies for our Kid-Kits (more about those later). Stacey has huge blue eyes with thick dark lashes and fluffy blonde hair that her mother lets her perm. Stacey is a super trendy dresser. She used to live in New York City (her dad still does), which I think helped make her so sophisticated. Stacey’s parents are divorced, like mine, and she lives with her mom in the house just behind Mallory Pike, one of our junior officers. Stacey is really thin, mostly because she has to stay on a strict diet. You see, Stacey is diabetic. Her body can’t process sugar, which means NO SWEETS. She has to give herself these shots (ew, ick!) of insulin every day. If she doesn’t, she could get really sick. The neat thing about Stacey is she doesn’t let her illness get her down. She’s really funny and nice and I like her a lot.
Mary Anne is our club secretary which, in my opinion, is the toughest job. She keeps the record book that contains phone numbers and addresses of our clients, an appointment calendar, and a list of our earnings. Mary Anne has to keep track of all of our schedules so, when a client calls, she can assign the jobs. And here’s t
he truly amazing thing about Mary Anne. She has never made a mistake. I already told you that Mary Anne is sweet and sensitive. She’s also a great listener. Even though she’s shy and kind of quiet, Mary Anne was the first member of the BSC to have a steady boyfriend.
There are two junior officers in the BSC, Mallory Pike and Jessica Ramsey. They’re junior because they’re in the sixth grade (the rest of us are in the eighth grade). Mal and Jessi are best friends, probably because they have a lot in common. They both are the oldest kid in their family, they love to read, and are crazy about anything that has to do with horses. They love horse movies (The Black Stallion, Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken), horse books (especially anything by Marguerite Henry), and even old horse TV shows (Mr. Ed). Mal and Jessi are also very different. For instance, Jessi is black and Mal is white. Mal has seven — seven — younger brothers and sisters (three of them are triplets). Jessi has only two — Becca and her baby brother, Squirt. Jessi plans to be a professional ballerina with a famous dance company like the American Ballet Theatre. I’m sure she’ll do it. She’s already danced the lead in several ballets at her dance school. Mal loves to write and plans to be an author and illustrator of children’s books. Isn’t that cool?
I’m the alternate officer which means that I fill in for anyone who’s sick or on vacation. Let’s see. I think I’ve covered everyone in the BSC except our associate members, Logan Bruno (Mary Anne’s boyfriend) and Shannon Kilbourne. Shannon is a friend of Kristy’s and has been coming to a lot of our meetings lately. Who knows? Maybe someday she’ll become a permanent member.
Back to the meeting. While we waited at Claud’s for the phone to ring, Stacey made an announcement. “Okay, everybody guess what day this is. Dues day.”
She was answered by loud groans from us.
“I know it hurts to part with your money, but fork it over. We need to buy some new Crayola packs and coloring books for the Kid-Kits. Everyone is running low.”
What are Kid-Kits? They’re another one of Kristy’s great ideas (of course!). We each painted a cardboard carton and decorated it with glitter and sequins and beads and anything else Claudia could find. Then we filled it with old toys, puzzles, and crayons. We usually take them with us when we go on jobs and the kids love them. (It’s much more fun to play with someone else’s toys than their own.)
“Ahem.” Kristy folded her arms across her chest and gave us each her stern look. “I would just like to say that the club notebook hasn’t been touched in over a week. You guys better start writing or you’ll never catch up.”
The club notebook is really more like a diary in which we’re each supposed to write up every job we go on. Then we pass the notebook around so we can find out what’s happening with our clients. Mal and Kristy really like writing in the notebook. But the rest of us think it’s kind of a pain. Not all of the jobs are that interesting. Of course, it can be very helpful. We discover things like the fact that Marnie Barrett is allergic to chocolate or that the Arnold twins hate dressing alike and being called cute.
Brrrring!
Stacey was closest to the phone so she answered.
“Baby-sitters Club. What can we do for you? Oh, hi, Mrs. Barrett.”
Stacey listened for a few minutes nodding and saying “Mm hmm.” Finally she said, “We’ll check the appointment book and call you right back.”
Stacey hung up the phone and frowned. “That’s strange.”
“Ooh, what?” I love a mystery.
“Well, that was Mrs. Barrett on the phone but she didn’t sound like herself. She sounded sort of giggly and shy.”
“What does she need?” Mary Anne asked, flipping open the notebook.
“A sitter for Saturday because she and someone named Franklin will be going on a family picnic together.”
“Franklin is her new boyfriend,” I explained to my friends. “I met him on Saturday and he’s really nice and a lot of fun.”
“He also has four kids,” Stacey said.
“Four kids!” I practically shouted. “I didn’t know that.”
“About the age of the Barrett kids. Mrs. Barrett said she and Franklin want their children to meet each other.”
“Wait a minute.” Kristy ticked off the numbers on her fingers. “That’s nine people.”
“Right.” Stacey nodded. “That’s why Mrs. Barrett needs a sitter.”
Mary Anne, who had been checking the notebook, said, “Claud has an art class, Jessi has a ballet lesson, Stacey is sitting for the Perkinses, and Dawn and I can’t do it because Jeff’s coming to visit.” She raised her head. “That leaves Kristy and Mallory.”
Kristy straightened her visor. “Sorry. Bart and I planned to go over some new techniques for teaching kids how to bat.”
Mallory grinned. “Looks like it’s me. That would be fine. I’m used to big groups of kids.”
Claudia, who was busy tearing open a package of Ring-Dings that she’d found in the bottom drawer of her dresser, suddenly gasped. “I wonder if there’s a special reason for this get-together.”
Mary Anne (who I told you is a mushy person) clasped her hands together and sighed. “Maybe they’re going to get married. Wouldn’t that be romantic?” she said.
“Boy, if they did that,” Stacey said, “it’d be like that old show The Brady Bunch.”
“It would be like having an instant baseball team,” Kristy added. (Leave it to her to think of sports.)
“It would be crazy,” Claudia said, shaking her head. “Just think about it. All of those kids trying to get into the bathroom, fighting over which TV show to watch, and drinking gallons of milk and soda.”
“It’s not so bad if you’re organized,” Mal said. “Dinners can be a lot of fun — almost like a party. And with so many people around, you never feel lonely.”
“Mrs. Barrett really seems happy,” I told my friends. “And the kids really like Franklin.”
All of this was interesting. Very interesting indeed.
Have you ever noticed that when you want time to go fast, it suddenly slows down? That’s what was happening during the BSC meeting on Friday afternoon. It seemed like every parent in Stoneybrook called. Stacey made an announcement about the supplies for the Kid-Kits. Jessi told us about the open house her ballet school was having. And still the meeting didn’t end.
“Mary Anne,” I whispered. “What time is it?”
“One minute later than the last time you asked me,” Mary Anne whispered back. “It’s ten minutes to six.”
Kristy, who was trying to discuss new methods of advertising, shot us one of her “quiet down” looks.
I was too excited to be quiet. I could barely sit still. It was Friday. Jeff’s arrival day. The plan was for Mary Anne and me to rush home after the BSC meeting, eat dinner, and then drive to the airport with our parents.
“So what do you think, Dawn?” Kristy asked me. I realized she’d gone around the room asking for everyone’s opinion of her advertising plan. Now she’d reached me and I hadn’t been paying attention.
I cleared my throat and tried to pretend I’d heard her plan. “I think it’s an excellent idea. Of course you always have great ideas, Kristy.”
Claudia, Stacey, Mal, and Jessi started giggling. Kristy just looked confused.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“Kristy wanted to know if the new BSC fliers should be pink or green,” Claud answered. “And you said that’s an excellent idea.”
“I’m sorry, everybody,” I said. “But my brother is coming today. I’m having a little trouble concentrating.”
“Obviously,” Kristy replied sternly. Then her expression softened. “I bet you’re really excited.”
“Definitely.”
“What are you planning to do while he’s here?” Jessi asked.
“We’ll go out to dinner, play video games, watch some scary movies, and talk,” I said, feeling little bubbles of happiness fizz inside of me.
“At the end of the week, we’re all
going on a four-day vacation. Either to Washington D.C. or Boston,” Mary Anne added.
Brrring!
“Baby-sitters Club,” Stacey said, picking up the phone. “Oh, hi, Mrs. Spier.”
It was my mom. I shot Mary Anne a worried look. Maybe something had gone wrong. Maybe Jeff couldn’t come.
“No, they’re still here,” Stacey said, smiling at us. “All right. I’ll tell them. ‘Bye.”
Stacey hung up the phone and grinned. “Your mom’s really excited. She wanted me to tell you to be sure and come straight home and remind you that Jeff’s plane will arrive in less than two hours.”
Mary Anne shook her head. “She already told us that last night at dinner and before we left for school this morning. Jeff had better get here before Dawn and her mom turn into complete Looney Toons.”
I was about to protest when I caught sight of Claud’s digital clock. It said 6:01. The meeting should have been over a whole minute ago. “Oh, no! We’re late,” I cried, springing to my feet. “Come on, Mary Anne. We have to get home.”
I dragged Mary Anne to the door. As we were leaving she called over her shoulder to the rest of the BSC, “See, what did I tell you guys? Dawn has completely lost her mind.”
Mom had avocado and cheese melts waiting for us when we got home. I don’t even remember eating mine. Mary Anne and I quickly cleared the table and before we knew it, my family was all in the car heading for the airport.
On the way, Mom and I amused ourselves by wondering what Jeff would look like and what he’d be wearing.
“I say he’ll have sun-bleached hair that’ll look sort of spiky. And he’ll be wearing his favorite green-and-white striped T-shirt and jeans.”
Mom shook her head. “I’m sure he’s outgrown that shirt. Remember, Dawn, it’s been a few months since we’ve seen him. Boys Jeff’s age sprout overnight.”
We were silent for a little bit, thinking about how sad it was that Jeff was growing up and we weren’t out us there to watch him.
Richard cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses as he drove. “I’ve been trying to plan activities for Jeff while you girls are in school, but I’m having a little difficulty. Maybe you can think of something.”