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
Acknowledgment
About the Author
Also Available
Copyright
“I’m sorry. I really am. It breaks my heart. But we have to face reality. I love you, but I just can’t go out with you,” I said.
I giggled until I began laughing. Then I leaned back against the wall and sighed.
I bet you’re wondering what the guy thought.
Well, there was no guy. The speech I’d made was directed to a pair of skis.
“You’ve really gone around the bend this time, Abigail Stevenson,” I told myself. I shook my head. It’s one thing to talk to yourself, but talking to sporting goods is really pushing it. And the thing was, it hadn’t just been the skis. I’d been standing in front of the hall closet Mom lets me use for all my sports equipment, chatting with my ice skates, my baseball glove, my running shoes, and even my tennis racket.
Maybe I should explain. It’s February. Doesn’t that make everything clear?
Well, for me it does. February is my least favorite month of the year. February is just so — Februaryish. It has absolutely nothing going for it, unless you’re a big fan of Valentine’s Day, or of Washington’s Birthday sales. I couldn’t care less about either. But one thing I do care about is being active. I love to be outside, working up a sweat. I play soccer in the fall, and softball in the summer. I bike, I run, I ski, I play tennis. Sports aren’t my whole life; I have plenty of other interests. But in February, I miss sports most of all. It’s always gloomy and gray in February, and it’s too cold for some things (such as running, or tennis), and often too warm for others (such as skiing).
The only good thing about February, for me, is that there isn’t much pollen floating around in the air. Pollen is The Enemy, as far as my respiratory system is concerned. I am outrageously allergic to the stuff. I have other enemies, too, such as animal hair and dust, but pollen is the worst because it’s everywhere and you can’t avoid it. So, as long as my asthma doesn’t kick in, I usually breathe easily during February. But besides that, the month is basically useless.
So that’s why I told my tennis racket that it would have to wait for me, and my softball glove that I adored it but that it didn’t make sense for us to be together just then. I’d vowed to go out with my skates “someday” (if the pond ever froze over again), and promised my running shoes a date in the near future.
Fortunately nobody observed me playing out these crazy little love scenes. This was one time I was thankful to be home alone. I’m home alone a lot of the time. That’s because my family consists of just me and two other people: my twin sister, Anna, and our mom.
The three of us moved into this house not long ago, after my mom was given a big promotion at work. We used to live in a nice house on Long Island (that’s in New York), but when Mom was promoted she decided we could afford to move to an even nicer, bigger house in Stoneybrook, Connecticut. Mom commutes to work in New York City, which is an hour-long train ride away. I didn’t mind the move much. I think it’s fun to shake things up and bring change into your life.
Good change, that is. Not horrible, sudden, painful change. I know about that kind of change, too. I went through it four years ago when my dad died in a car wreck. That changed our family forever, and —
And I really don’t want to talk about it. It still hurts too much. I’d rather tell you more about my family and me. First of all, Anna and I are identical twins. We’re both thirteen, but Anna is about eight minutes older than me; she was born first. She loves to remind me to respect my “elders.” We have brown eyes (nearsighted ones — we both wear contacts and glasses interchangeably), set into sort of pointy faces. And while we do look a lot alike, nobody has trouble telling us apart. Partly that’s because I wear my dark, curly hair long and Anna wears hers short.
But partly it’s because we’re so different. Anna would never talk to a closetful of athletic equipment. A closetful of musical instruments, maybe. I can’t imagine what you could say to a violin, but Anna would know. Anna is Miss Violin. She knows everything about the instrument, since she’s been playing it practically forever. Music is her life. Most of her friends are from orchestras or other groups she plays in. She takes private lessons and practices for hours every day. She’s really good, I guess. I wouldn’t know for sure, since as far as musical taste goes, I’m more into Motown than Mozart.
So Anna’s dedicated to her music, and my mom’s dedicated to her job. (She’s a real workaholic, especially since my dad died.) And me? I’m dedicated to having fun. I like things to happen, and if that means I have to make them happen, well, that’s okay by me. I like to meet people and go places and do things, and I hate — absolutely hate — to be bored.
And that afternoon, I was definitely bored. In fact, I was so bored that I actually (gasp!) decided to head up to my room and start on my math homework. (I usually scramble through my math homework during homeroom. Procrastination is my middle name.) After one last, lingering glance at my skis, I closed the closet door and trudged up the stairs.
I’d barely made it through Problem 4A (out of twenty-five) when I heard the front door open and close. I flew down the stairs. “Anna! You’re home!” I cried, flinging my arms around my sister.
Anna took a surprised step backward and raised her eyebrows at me. We are not normally a demonstrative family. “Hello, Abby,” she said, putting down her violin case as she unbuttoned her coat.
“I am so glad to see you,” I said.
“I noticed,” she replied. “And I wondered why. Do I owe you money or something?”
“No, of course not. It’s just that I’ve been so bored, and now that you’re home we can do something together. Like … like,” I paused to think, and then I snapped my fingers. “Like make a terrific dinner, to surprise Mom. She promised to be home early tonight, but I bet she’s planning on ordering pizza or something.”
I was babbling away so fast that I hardly noticed Anna shaking her head. “I can’t,” she said, when I finally wound down. “I promised Lydia I’d transpose this Telemann concerto so she could play it on her clarinet.” She pulled a piece of music out of a folder and showed it to me.
I barely glanced at it. “Telemann, Schmelemann,” I said. “Please, Anna? Just this once, and I promise I’ll never ask you for anything again. Please? Please?” I got down on my knees and made the silliest, most pleading face I could.
Anna laughed. “You really are desperate, aren’t you?” she said. “Okay. Why don’t you go find a recipe while I change?”
“Yahoo!” I cried. I gave her another big hug. Then I charged into the kitchen and started pulling cookbooks off the shelf.
Twenty minutes later, the kitchen was a total wreck. My mother always says I cook using the “every-pot-in-the-house” method, and she’s pretty much on target. I tell her that I learned it from her, which is also on target. She cooks that way because that’s how professional chefs do it. They never have to clean up after themselves — the lowly under-chefs do that — so they just make all the mess they want.
The reason Mom cooks like a professional chef is that she spent some time studying to be one, at a famous cooking school called the Culinary Institute of America. I remember when she to
ok a pastry class, and brought home the most amazing fruit tarts and puff pastries every week. She was really happy then — and so were we, since we got to eat all her class projects.
That was before Dad was in the accident. After that, Mom never took a cooking class again.
So! Where was I? Right. In the kitchen with Anna, making a big mess. We had a great time. We made an awesome pasta dish, with sun-dried tomatoes and basil. Plus a batch of very garlicky garlic bread and a huge salad. We talked a lot while we cooked. Anna told me how shy she is around this guy she likes (just as a friend) in our school orchestra. I complained to Anna about how the BSC hasn’t had much business lately, because everybody’s staying home. (The BSC — Baby-sitters Club — is a club I was asked to join when I moved here. The name is self-explanatory, but I’ll tell you more about the club some other time.) We talked a little about Mom, and how hard she’s been working lately. And we commiserated about how much study time we have to put in over the next two months learning Hebrew for becoming a Bat Mitzvah. (That’s a big Jewish celebration for girls when they turn thirteen.)
But we also laughed a lot, and tossed vegetables back and forth, and teased each other about the garlic breath we were going to have later that night. And, miracle of miracles, at exactly 6:45 Mom walked in the door, home early, just as she’d promised.
We had a terrific dinner together. And I even had fun cleaning up afterward, with Mom’s help. Not only that, but I finished my math homework that night.
I should have felt satisfied and happy as I lay in bed later, waiting for sleep to come. But guess what? I didn’t. Instead, I found myself dreading the rest of February. It may be the shortest month, but it feels like the longest to me. I needed something to do, something to focus on, something to make the rest of those twenty-eight days fly by.
That’s why I perked up the next morning during homeroom, when an announcement came over the PA. The announcement was about the new SMS (Stoneybrook Middle School) job board. Hmm. An interesting part-time job might be exactly what I was looking for.
I headed for the board as soon as homeroom ended. Quickly, I ran my eyes over the listings, ignoring the ads for baby-sitters, dog-walkers, and newspaper-deliverers — all the usual part-time jobs. “Boring, boring, boring,” I muttered. Then I spotted it. “Yess!” I said softly to myself, pumping my fist. “This is it.” I read through the ad carefully. The Greenbrook Club, which sounded like your basic country club, with golf and tennis and a pool, was looking for students to help with preseason painting, cleanup, decoration, and even child care (for the children of the other workers, I assumed). The pay was excellent.
Suddenly, I felt a lot more hopeful about the rest of February. I couldn’t wait to tell my BSC friends about Greenbrook’s ad. I had a feeling I wasn’t the only one with the late-winter blahs.
They say first impressions are lasting.
They also say that you can’t judge a book by its cover.
Who are They, anyway? And why don’t They pull their act together and stop contradicting Themselves?
Actually, They are right on both counts. First impressions do tell a lot about a person. On the other hand, there are some things you can’t know about someone until you’ve spent a little more time with him.
I was thinking about all of this as I sat in Claudia’s room that Wednesday afternoon, waiting for our BSC meeting to start. The other club members were already there, but Kristy hadn’t called the meeting to order yet, so I had a chance to look around the room at my new friends. It wasn’t hard to remember my first impression of each of them. And I had to admit that, in every case, my first impression did not tell the whole story.
Take Kristy Thomas, for example. She’s the president of the BSC, and the first member I met, because she and I live in the same neighborhood. First impression? Bossy. She definitely likes to be in charge. (I have to admit that we rubbed each other the wrong way at first, because I also like to run things.)
Now that I know Kristy a little better, I’ve come to realize that being bossy is one thing, but being a good leader is another. Kristy is definitely a good leader. She has excellent ideas, and she knows how to mobilize people to bring those ideas to life. Case in point: the BSC itself. Kristy and her friends had always done a lot of baby-sitting, but one day Kristy figured out that parents would probably love to have just one number they could call to reach a whole group of reliable sitters, and she came up with the idea for the club.
The BSC worked wonderfully, right from the beginning. The club meets Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from five-thirty until six. During those times, parents can — and do! — call to request sitters. We (the members of the club) split up the jobs as evenly as we can, and we each keep the money we make, except for a small amount we pay in dues each week. (That money covers what Kristy calls “administrative expenses,” such as our phone bill, transportation costs, and the occasional pizza.)
The club is very well organized, thanks to Kristy. She came up with the idea for the record book, in which the club secretary keeps track of client information and our schedules, and the club notebook, where we make notes about each job we take. These two tools make it easy for us to stay up-to-date with what’s going on with the BSC’s clients, and that makes our clients happy.
But the BSC isn’t only about business. It’s also about fun. That’s where Kid-Kits come in. Kid-Kits (another of Kristy’s brilliant ideas) are decorated boxes full of hand-me-down toys and games, as well as some new goodies. We each have one, and when we bring them to sitting jobs the kids go wild. All the BSC members love kids and enjoy their company, and vice versa.
Kristy is no exception to that rule. She adores kids, and it’s a good thing, too, because there are a lot of them in her life. She coaches a kids’ softball team, for one thing. Plus, her family is huge. She has a younger brother, David Michael, plus two stepsiblings (Karen and Andrew), whom she acquired when her mother married Watson Brewer, who is a millionaire and also a really nice guy. (Kristy’s dad is, as far as I can tell, totally out of the picture. He left the family back when David Michael was just a baby.) Then there’s Emily Michelle, the cutest toddler in the universe. She’s Vietnamese, and Kristy’s mom and Watson adopted her soon after they married.
Just to round out the picture of Kristy’s full house, I’ll tell you that Kristy’s grandmother lives with the family, and that there are also two older Thomas boys, Charlie and Sam. They’re in high school. Charlie owns a car, the appropriately named Junk Bucket, and he’s the one who pockets those transportation costs we pay out of BSC dues. (He drives Kristy and me to our meetings.) The Thomas-Brewer clan also has a full menagerie of pets. I start wheezing and sneezing just thinking about them.
On to my next first impression: Kristy’s best friend Mary Anne Spier, who is the BSC’s secretary, which means she’s in charge of the record book. When I first met her, she just seemed incredibly quiet and shy.
I think it’s amazing that she and Kristy are best friends. They’ve known each other since babyhood, but they don’t seem to have much in common besides looks. Both of them are on the short side, with brown hair and brown eyes. Mary Anne cares a little more about how she dresses (Kristy doesn’t care at all!), and has a trendier haircut. The cool clothes and hairstyle are apparently a fairly recent thing. For a long time Mary Anne’s father (who raised her alone; her mom died when Mary Anne was just a baby) was very strict about how she dressed and behaved. He’s remarried now, though, and it sounds as if Mary Anne’s stepmother, Sharon, has been a good influence on him. Sharon has two children of her own from her first marriage: Jeff and Dawn. Both of them live in California with their father, although Dawn, who is thirteen, used to be in the BSC, and lived in Stoneybrook until recently. Besides being her stepsister, Dawn is Mary Anne’s other best friend, and I think Mary Anne misses her ferociously.
Here’s my deeper impression of Mary Anne: you couldn’t have a better, more loyal, more sensitive friend. Kristy and Dawn are very lu
cky. So are Tigger and Logan, who are Mary Anne’s gray kitten and her boyfriend. (I’m sure you can figure out which is which.)
The BSC’s vice-president is Claudia Kishi, who is Japanese-American and truly beautiful, with long, black hair and dark, almond-shaped eyes. She was elected unanimously to her position based on one thing: she has a phone in her room, with her own private line. That’s why her room is BSC headquarters. We can make and take all the calls we like, without worrying about tying up anybody’s family line.
I almost hate to tell you my first impression of Claudia, because I’m a little embarrassed by it now. The first time I met Claudia she was wearing the most outrageous outfit — some mixture of tie-dyed items, thrift shop finds, and homemade jewelry. I don’t remember the specifics. What I do remember is that she looked terrific … but a little wacky. And I remember that she had just flunked a simple little math quiz. The fact is, I thought she was, well, a flake. But now that I know her better, I’ve discovered that she really isn’t a flake at all. She’s a creative, unique individual.
She’s one of the most talented artists I’ve ever met, and everything she does, including the way she dresses, has a certain creative flair. That goes for math quizzes, too, I guess. And spelling. Claud is definitely a creative speller. Claudia’s older sister Janine, who is an actual genius, is probably horrified by Claud’s spelling. I kind of like it, myself. It certainly makes reading the club notebook more interesting.
Claudia is also creative about hiding her two addictions — junk food and Nancy Drew books — from her parents, who disapprove of both. At first glance, Claudia’s room seems like a Junk Food– and Mystery Novel–Free Zone. But if you were to open any closet or drawer and rummage around for a while, you’d probably find a bag of Doritos or a copy of The Case of the Disappearing Diamonds.
Claudia’s best friend is Stacey McGill, who wears her blonde hair in a curly perm. She’s the treasurer of the club, mostly because she’s terrific at math. Stacey grew up in New York City, so we have something in common, since Long Island is almost like an extension of the city. Her parents are divorced, and while Stacey chose to live with her mom in Stoneybrook, she visits her dad in Manhattan as often as she can.