Jessi's Baby-Sitter.

Ann M. Martin.

Chapter 1.

"Plie first pozeetion, plie second pozee-tion - nice and slowly - plie sird pozeetion, plie fourse pozeetion - veeerry slowly - plie fifs pozeetion . . . and . . . stop. . . . Non, non, non!" cried Madame Noelle. "Do not fall to zee floor. Come to a nice, graceful stop like zee lovely ballerinas you are. Now, once again."

We plieed in all the pozeetions again and then came to a nice, graceful stop, even though I - and every other student in my cla.s.s - just wanted to lie down and sleep for a week. We had been working hard.

I am Jessica Ramsey, otherwise known as Jessi. I am eleven years old. I am in sixth grade at Stoneybrook Middle School (SMS). In case you can't tell, I am also a dancer. (Or as Madame Noelle would say, a doncer.) I live in Stoneybrook, Connecticut, but I take ballet lessons at a special school in Stamford, another Connecticut town (actually, a city), which isn't too far from home.

Ballet is a very important part of my life. Maybe I will go to a dance school in New York City. Maybe I will even become a professional dancer.

Cla.s.s ended that day when my friends and I did not keel over after the last round of plies. We changed out of our toe shoes (I am proud to say that I can dance en pointe), and slipped jeans or skirts over our leotards. Then we waited for our parents to pick us up.

Usually my mom comes to get me, but that day I waited and waited. Finally, fifteen minutes after everyone else had left, my dad drove up. He works in Stamford, but my lessons usually end long before he's ready to leave the office.

I ran to his car.

"Daddy!" I cried. "How come you're picking me up? Where's Mama? Did something happen to Becca or Squirt?"

Becca is my younger sister. She's eight. Squirt is my baby brother. His real name is John Philip Ramsey, Jr., but since he was the smallest baby in the hospital when he was born, the nurses started calling him Squirt. And the name stuck, even though now Squirt is the same size as most other toddlers his age.

Daddy smiled at me. "Don't worry," he said, as I slid into the front seat of the car. "Everyone's fine. I decided to leave work early today, so 1 called your mother and told her I'd bring you home. It would be silly for her to make the trip when I'm already here."

"Why'd you leave early?" I wanted to know. And just then a smell (well, not a smell; a wonderful chocolaty aroma) drifted to me. I turned around and saw a white bakery box on the backseat. "Hey, what's that?"

"You're certainly full of questions today," remarked Daddy. "Let's see. I left early because we have something to celebrate tonight, and the box in the backseat is part of the celebration."

"A celebration? Oh, goody!" I cried, reaching for the box.

"No peeking," said Daddy.

"But I want to see what's in there."

"The celebration is a surprise. You'll find out all about it after dinner."

I couldn't help guessing. "You got a promotion!" I exclaimed.

Daddy shook his head.

"You got a raise."

"Nope."

"We're moving back to New Jersey?"

I wasn't quite as excited by that idea. The funny thing is, a few months ago, I would have jumped at the chance to leave Stoney-brook and return to Oakley, New Jersey, the town in which I grew up. My family and I had been happy there. We are black, and our neighborhood, school, and even my ballet school in Oakley were all mixed up - black people and white people, living and working together. Plus, my relatives lived nearby. One of my cousins, Keisha, was my best friend. When Daddy's company offered him a better job in Stamford, he jumped at the chance. But it meant we had to move. I did not want to leave Oakley. But I was not prepared for what would greet us in Stoneybrook - prejudice, that's what. We moved to a town with only a few black residents. I am the only black student in the entire sixth grade. People teased my family. People said nasty things to us. People ignored us.

At first.

Slowly, though, a change came about. I made some friends. They became good friends. Becca and I each made a best friend. Now I can't see going back to Oakley. I'd have to leave too many memories behind - like my baby-sitting adventures. Or the time our whole school went on a trip to a ski lodge in Vermont. Or the time my friends and I went to summer camp.

But luckily Daddy said, "No, we're not moving."

Then it struck me. "You're having a baby, aren't you? You and Mama are having a baby! Oh, 1 hope it's another boy. Then our family would be even. Two girls, two boys."

Dadddy chuckled. "It's not a new baby, either," he said. "And why don't you stop guessing? I'm afraid I'll give it away if you really do guess it."

"Okay," I said, but I continued guessing in my head. We had won the lottery. We were taking a trip to Disney World - or maybe even Texas. I had always wanted to see Texas. Then I got another idea. I bet Mama and Daddy really were having a baby, but Daddy was too smart to let on.

All the way to Stoneybrook, I hugged the secret to myself. As soon as Daddy parked the car in the driveway, I ran inside and straight to Becca's room.

"Guess what! Guess what!" I cried.

Becca looked up from her third-grade homework. "What?"

"Daddy brought a cake home and he says we're celebrating something tonight, but he won't say what. You know what I think, though? I think Mama and Daddy are going to have another baby!"

"You do?" Becca's eyes widened.

"Yup. I really do."

I was wrong. After dinner that evening, Daddy brought out the cake. When he had cut it and served it, he said, "We have something wonderful to celebrate."

I glanced at Becca. She glanced back, trying not to smile.

"Your mother - " Daddy began.

"I knew it! I knew it!"/1 cried.

"You knew that your mother found a job?" Daddy asked me.

"I - I - Mama found a job?" I repeated.

Mama was grinning away at the end of the dining room table. "That's right," she said. "It's time for me to go back to work. I was in advertising before you girls were born, and at last I can go back to that. I'm really looking forward to it. My job starts on Monday. Five days a week. Nine to five, probably longer days every now and then."

Becca and I knew how important this was to Mama, so we cheered, jumped up from our places at the table, and ran to hug her.

Then I said, settling down again, "Boy, I guess you'll really need me to baby-sit now. I'll take care of Becca and Squirt every afternoon that I can. But who will watch Squirt while I'm at school? And who will baby-sit while I'm at my dance lessons? And, hey! Who will drive me to ballet cla.s.s?"

Mama and Daddy exchanged a glance. I didn't like the look of it.

"What?" I asked. "What is it?"

"Well," Daddy began, and cleared his throat, "your mother will need more than just a sitter. She won't have time to shop or cook or car pool or take care of the house. So ... um ... so your Aunt Cecelia is going to move in. In a couple of weeks."

"Aunt Cecelia!" cried Becca and I at the same time. "Nooo!!"

Aunt Cecelia is absolutely awful. I can't tell you how many things are wrong with her. She may be Daddy's older sister, but she smells funny. Bad perfume, probably. And she is bossy and mean and thinks Mama and Daddy don't raise Becca and Squirt and me right. She thinks they let us run wild, which couldn't be farther from the truth. See, what happened was that not long ago, Mama and Daddy went away on a three-day weekend. They left me in charge, since we had a mini-vacation from school. It was the first time I'd been allowed to baby-sit overnight. Unfortunately, Becca had been invited to go sailing on Sat.u.r.day - and the boats got caught in a storm, and Becca and the others were stranded on an island off the coast of Connecticut for two days. No one knew where they were. Aunt Cecelia came to stay until the crisis was over, and she was appalled that Mama and Daddy had left me in charge of Becca and Squirt.

She thought something was seriously wrong with our family.

I think she also wanted a family to live with, since her husband had died recently, and she was all alone in the house she'd moved to in Queenstown, Connecticut, after she found that she couldn't bear to stay in her home in Oakley. The house had too many memories.

This is my Aunt Cecelia: bossy, strict, mean.

Becca and I cannot stand her. And now she would be living with us. She would be caring for Squirt, cooking, and helping with the housework. She would also be ... my babysitter. I am far too old and responsible to need a baby-sitter. After all, I'm a sitter myself.

But Aunt Cecelia does not trust me. She thinks it was my fault that Becca got lost at sea, even though Mama and Daddy gave Becca permission to go on the sailing trip.

When the "celebration" was over, Becca and I huddled in my room.

"Can you believe this?" I asked her. "Aunt Cecelia coming here. Moving in. This is a nightmare."

"A triple nightmare," agreed Becca. "Maybe we could talk Mama and Daddy out of letting her come."

"I don't think so," I said. "But I bet we could fix it so that Aunt Cecelia wouldn't want to stay once she got here. You know, put shaving cream in her slippers, a fake spider on her pillow."

"Honey in her hairbrush!" cried Becca.

"Shh!" I hissed. "That's a great idea, but keep your voice down. We don't want Mama and Daddy to know what we're up to."

Chapter 2.

Becca and I plotted about a dozen ways to get Aunt Cecelia to leave. Most of them were very mean. We wrote them on a list, which I hid way back in my desk drawer.

Then Becca left.

I sat on my bed and felt depressed for awhile. Then I did what I always do in a tough situation.

I called my best friend, Mallory Pike.

Ring, ring went the Pikes' phone.

"h.e.l.lo?" said a voice. It was Nicky, Mal's brother. (Mal has seven younger brothers and sisters.) "Hi, Nicky. It's Jessi. Is Mal home?"

"Yup."

"Well, can I speak to her, please?"

"Maybe."

"Nicky."

"Okay, okay, okay. . . . Oh, wait a second.

1 just remembered. Mal isn't here after all. She went to the store with Mom."

"Could you have her call me back, please?"

1 asked. "I really need to talk to her. This is a matter of life and death . . . sort of."

"Life and death?" repeated Nicky. "Gosh." We got off the phone. I went back to my room. 1 closed the door. Then 1 opened my door again and hung a sign on it that I'd made.

The sign read (in big bold letters): 77//J.

Mallory thinks the sign is dumb. She says that if you want people to stay out of your room, you should put up a sign that just says: STAY OUT OR ELSE.

I think one reason Mal is my best friend is because I like her family. The Pikes are very open and loose. There are not too many rules in the Pike house, even though there are a lot of kids. Here's who's in Mal's family, besides Mal and her parents: Byron, Adam, and Jordan, who are identical triplets (they're ten years old); Vanessa, who's nine, very dreamy, and wants to be a poet; Nicky, who's eight, and gets pushed around by -his big brothers; Margo, who's seven, and likes to tease; and Claire, who's five, the baby of the family, and seems to be stuck in a silly stage. She calls everybody "silly-billy-goo-goo."

At the Pikes', something is always going on. With eight kids, I guess that's not surprising. Anyway, Mal's household sure is different from mine. Even so, Mallory and I are alike in many ways. We're both the oldest in our families, but we feel that our parents won't let us grow up fast enough. We practically had to kick and scream in order to be allowed to get our ears pierced. Then Mal, who wears gla.s.ses, asked if she could have contacts, but her parents said no. They think she's too young. (Furthermore, Mal now has braces, so she isn't feeling particularly pretty these days, despite her pierced ears.) As for me, well, talk about being treated like a baby. Now Aunt Cecelia was going to move in. I would have a baby-sitter - and I'm a sitter myself!

Mal and I also have some fun things in common. We both love to read. Our favorite books are horse stories, especially the ones by Marguerite Henry, such as Misty of Chincoteague and Stormy, Misty's Foal. Mal likes to write, too. She's kept journals for years and recently talked me into keeping one as well.

However, we do have our differences. As you know, I want to be a ballerina one day (I think), but Mal wants to be an author and ill.u.s.trator of children's books. The other difference is pretty obvious, 1 guess - our looks. Mal is white, with red hair and freckles, and she's about average height. I'm black, with long eyelashes (Mama is jealous of them) and long, long legs. I'm lucky to have those legs for dancing.

I'm also lucky to have found a best friend in Stoneybrook, especially after leaving Keisha behind in Oakley, but I feel even luckier to have made other friends as well. It's always nice to have a group of friends, I thought, as I settled down for a good daydream. And my group of friends are the members of the Babysitters Club.

I guess I haven't mentioned the BSC yet, have I? Well, the BSC consists of seven girls who have a business to do baby-sitting in our neighborhoods. We meet three times a week and get lots of sitting jobs. Mal and I are both members - junior officers. We feel honored to be part of the club, because the other members are all thirteen-year-old eighth-graders.

Kristy Thomas is the club president. Her family is as big as the Pikes', but it is much more mixed up. Let's see. How do I even begin to tell you about her family? I guess I should start a year or so ago when Kristy was living on Bradford Court in the house she'd grown up in. She lived with her mom; her older brothers, Sam and Charlie; and her little brother, David Michael. Her father had walked out on her family not long after David Michael was born. Kristy rarely heard from him. (She still doesn't.) Anyway, the summer after seventh grade, Kristy's mom married this guy she'd been dating. His name is Watson Brewer and he's a millionaire. Honest. Watson moved Kristy's family into his mansion across town. That was when things began getting confusing. Watson has two children (Karen, who just turned seven, and Andrew, who's four) from his first marriage. Karen and Andrew live with their father every other weekend. Then, not long ago, the Brewers adopted Emily Mich.e.l.le, a two-year-old Vietnamese girl. And then, Nannie, Kristy's grandmother, moved in to help take care of Emily Mich.e.l.le. (Nannie is not a thing like Aunt Cecelia. She's nice.) The Brewers also have a dog and a cat.

Kristy is nice but bossy. She's a tomboy, and she coaches a team of little kids who like to play softball. She is full of ideas. (She started the Baby-sitters Club.) Kristy is also just a little immature compared to her friends. She's not too interested in clothes yet, she never wears makeup, and she doesn't date. But she does like a boy in her neighborhood! His name is Bart and he's very nice.

Kristy's best friend is Mary Anne Spier, the secretary of the club. Kristy and Mary Anne are similar to Mal and me in that they're very alike in some ways and very different in others. For one thing, they look a little alike. They both have brown eyes and brown hair and are short. (Kristy is shorter.) And Mary Anne used to dress in a babyish way, but now she cares much more about clothes than she used to. I think the similarities end there. Mary Anne is quiet and shy - although she's the only one of us to have a steady boyfriend. Her boyfriend is Logan Bruno, and he's actually part of the BSC, but I'll explain how later. Mary Anne's family used to be as different from Kristy's as you could imagine, but now it has changed. See, Mary Anne's mom died when Mary Anne was really little, so Mary Anne grew up an only child living with her dad, who was quite strict. Then Mr. Spier met an old high-school girlfriend of his (who was divorced by then), and after a pretty long time, they finally got married. Guess who the girl- friend was - the mother of Dawn Schafer, another club member, and Mary Anne's other best friend. Dawn, her brother, and her mom had moved back to Stoneybrook (they'd been living in California) after the Schafers' divorce. Dawn and Mary Anne got to be friends, then their parents began dating, and now the best friends are stepsisters, too. They all live in Dawn's house, which is a colonial farmhouse. Dawn is so cool. (Or, as Claudia Kishi, another BSC member, would say, she's fresh.) Dawn has long pale blonde hair that reaches halfway down her back. Her eyes are sparkling blue. She dresses in a casual style all her own. And, although she likes Stoneybrook and her new family, she longs for California - for a couple of reasons. In the first place, she was raised there. She misses the house she grew up in, the warmer climate, and of course, her father. She also misses her brother. That's right. Jeff is back in California, living with Mr. Schafer. He just never adjusted to Connecticut the way Dawn did. He had trouble in school and he wasn't happy. So he returned to California. At first Dawn felt terrible. She felt as if her family had been ripped in two. Now that she's got a stepfather and a stepsister (not to mention a kitten - Mary Anne's), she feels more complete. But she still visits her father and Jeff whenever she can.

Things at the Schafer/Spier home got off to a troubled start after the wedding. Dawn and Mary Anne were friends, but they weren't prepared to be stepsisters. And Dawn and her mom are as different from Mary Anne and her dad as night and day. They have varying ideas on everything from meals to housecleaning. But they're overcoming things. I think that deep down, Dawn and Mary Anne are happy to be stepsisters.

Let's see. The two remaining BSC members are Claudia Kishi, club vice-president, and Sta-eey McGill, club treasurer. Claudia and Stacey are best friends and also have their similarities and differences. (I guess all best friends do.) Both Claudia and Stacey are pretty fresh themselves. They are the most sophisticated of all us members. None of us usually comes right out and says that, but we all know it's true.

Claudia comes from a regular family. It's like mine, I guess. She lives with her parents and her older sister, Janine. Janine, however, is a genius in the true sense of the word (she has this amazingly high I.Q.), while Claudia, who's smart, is a terrible student. She simply doesn't like school. (Oh, and she's an awful speller.) What she does like is art, and is she ever talented. Claud can sculpt, paint, draw, you name it. She even makes wild jewelry to go with her wild clothes. Claud wears things my mother won't even let me look at in stores - short, short skirts and tight black pants and off-the-shoulder sweat shirts. Also, she can think of a thousand ways to wear her hair, which is long, silky, and jet-black. Claud is j.a.panese-American and very exotic-looking. She's also fun. She loves to read Nancy Drew mysteries and eat junk food, but her parents don't approve of either habit. Does that deter Claudia? No. She just hides the books and food all around her room. Once, I dropped a pencil on her floor and it rolled under an armchair. I reached down to pick it up, and my hand closed over a Planters Peanut Bar! Claud likes boys and goes out on dates and to school dances, but she doesn't have one special boyfriend yet. Here's one sad thing about Claudia. Her grandmother Mimi used to live with her family. I think Claudia was closer to Mimi than to anyone else in the world. Then Mimi got sick and died. That was a hard time for all of us, but especially for Claud.

And now we come to Stacey. Stacey shares Claudia's sense of fashion and, if this is possible, she's even more sophisticated than Claud. Her mother lets her perm her hair, she has pierced ears (well, so do all of us, except for Kristy and Mary Anne), and her clothes are even more cool than Claudia's. I think. Actually, maybe they're about even on the coolness scale.

But there's one thing about Stacey that none of us can top: she grew up in New York City. Big, thrilling, exciting New York City, the shopping capital of the world. How did Stacey wind up in Stoneybrook? Well, the company Mr. McGill works for transferred his job to Stamford, so Stacey and her parents settled in Stoneybrook. (Stacey is an only child.) Then, after they'd been here about a year, Mr. McGill was transferred back to New York. (When they left, they sold their house - to my family!) Anyway, that was when the trouble started. Mr and Mrs. McGill began having problems. Finally, they separated. Mrs. McGill wanted to move back here, while Mr. McGill stayed in the city. It was a tough decision, but Stacey finally chose to live with her mom in Stoneybrook. (Boy, were we glad to have her back.) So Stacey's life might seem glamorous, but it hasn't been easy. Especially when you consider that on top of everything else, Stacey has a disease called diabetes. She has to stay on a strict no-sweets diet and give herself (oh, ew) daily injections of something called insulin. All in all, though, Stacey copes pretty well, even when she isn't feeling too great. And she's a very good friend to all of us.