In the Wednesday after Mary Anne babysat for Watson's kids, Claudia, Mary Anne, Stacey, and I were holding a regular meeting of the Baby-sitters Club in Claudia's room. It was 5:45 and the phone had rung twice. The first call had been Mrs. McKeever who was back in Stoneybrook. I'd said that, although Pinky and Buffy were very nice, we were not pet-sitters. The second call had been a new customer. Stacey had answered the phone. "h.e.l.lo. Baby-sitters Club."

"h.e.l.lo, my name is Mrs. Marshall," said the voice on the other end. "I live over on Rosedale. I got your flier, and I need a baby-sitter for Friday night. I'm sorry it's such short notice, but we had a baby-sitter lined up, and he had to cancel."

"Oh, that's okay," said Stacey. "Maybe I should tell you some things about the club, though, first. There are four of us and we're all twelve years old. On Friday nights, we can sit until ten. Well, one of us can."

"Oh, that's fine," replied Mrs. Marshall. "My husband and I are just going out for dinner. We should be home around nine-thirty."

"Okay," said Stacey. "And how many children do you have?"

"Two."

"And how old are they?"

"Nina is three and Eleanor is one."

"Do you have any pets?"

(Some people seem a little surprised when we ask this question, but Mrs. Marshall was okay about it.) "We have a cat. He's no trouble at all."

"And is there anything special the babysitter should know, or that she'd have to do?"

Mrs. Marshall paused. (Aha! There's always a catch.) "Well, you'll have to give Eleanor her eardrops. She's getting over an ear infection. She always cries and puts up a fuss, but in the end, she holds still and lets us put the drops in."

That didn't sound too bad. "Okay," said Stacey. "Let me find out who's available and I'll call you right back."

As you can see, we'd learned a lot over the last couple of weeks.

Claudia took the job, since Stacey was mysteriously busy that night (she wouldn't tell us exactly what she was doing), and Mary Anne's father and my mother get hysterical if we're not home by 9:30 on the dot. If Claudia was a little late, the Kishis wouldn't mind (much).

After we called Mrs. Marshall back, I said, "Hey, why don't we figure out how much money we've earned on our Baby-sitters Club jobs?"

"Okay!" said Stacey. She loved anything to do with money. Claudia handed her a piece of paper and a pencil. Then I opened our record book and read out the amount of money we'd been paid for each job. The total came to $26.75.

"Hey, that's not bad!" I exclaimed. "You know what we should do? We should each donate about three dollars and we could have a pizza party on Sat.u.r.day afternoon."

"Yeah, a celebration of our club," said Claudia excitedly, "because it's a success!"

"We'll get c.o.ke and M&Ms," I said.

"All the junk food we can eat," added Mary Anne happily.

Stacey remained silent.

"Oh, Stace," I said suddenly. "I'm sorry.

We forgot about your diet. Maybe - "

"Oh, never mind." Stacey cut me off. "I may not be able to go anyway. We're, um, going to - to New York on Friday and we might not be back in time for the party."

"Didn't you just go to New York?" asked Claudia.

"Well, yes, but there are a lot of things to finish up. The move and all."

Claudia frowned. "I thought you said you finally got everything straightened out."

"Oh. We - we have to see some friends, too. Oh, wow, it's six. I better go. Bye, you guys!"

Stacey tore out of Claudia's house.

Claudia and Mary Anne and I just looked at one another.

When I got home that evening, I found Watson parked on our living room couch reading the paper like he lived at our house or something. I couldn't help making a face. Luckily, Watson didn't see it. In fact, he didn't look up from the paper until I was tiptoeing past the living room, trying to sneak into the kitchen without having to speak to him.

"Well, hi there, Kristy," he said cheerfully.

"Hi," I replied. I paused for a second, trying to decide whether I should say anything else, then gave up, and went on into the kitchen.

Mom must have just gotten home. She was reaching into the refrigerator, pulling out vegetables and leftovers for dinner. "Hi, sweetheart," she said. "How was school?"

"It was fine. Um, Mom, Watson's in our living room."

Mom smiled at me. "I know, silly. He came home with me. I picked him up after work."

"Is he staying for dinner?"

Mom began slicing a tomato. "Yes, he is."

"Do you know this is the third time he's been over for dinner in the last week?"

"Kristy. . . ."

"What did he bring us this time? Greek food? Italian?"

"Nothing," replied Mom smoothly. "He's here for leftovers."

That was definitely not a good sign. It meant Watson was through trying to impress us, and that Mom didn't feel she had to impress Watson anymore, either. It meant they were getting more comfortable with each other. And it meant that Watson probably felt pretty comfortable with my brothers and me. Not a good sign at all.

Mom eyed me.

"What?" I said.

"Honey, would you please run upstairs and put on a dress?"

"A dress! Why?" I thought I looked all right in my school clothes. Besides, I never wear dresses if I can help it.

"Because I'm the mommy, that's why."

I giggled. Mom has a red T-shirt with that slogan across the front.

"Put on the blue and white one we just bought, okay?"

I sighed. "Okay."

When I got upstairs, all my brothers were there brushing their hair. They had changed into decent shirts and pants. "What's going on?" I asked Sam.

He shrugged. "Something to do with Watson. Mom told us to dress up."

I made another face. I'm pretty good at faces. One thing I can do that no one else in our entire grade can do - not even the boys - is turn my eyelids inside out. I did that then.

"Kristy, grow up," said Charlie. "That is really gross."

"It's scary," added David Michael.

"Sorry," I said. I helped him b.u.t.ton his shirt.

Then I changed into my blue and white dress, purposely didn't brush my hair, and went downstairs. My brothers were helping Mom and Watson set the table in the dining room. Mom was lighting candles.

"Mom," I said, "will you please tell me what's happening? Why is everything so fancy?"

"Because we're celebrating."

"We're celebrating with leftover Spaghetti-O's?"

"It doesn't matter what we eat. I just want us feeling festive."

"Why? What are we getting festive about?"

Mom and Watson glanced at each other. Watson winked. "You'll see," said Mom.

"Mom, I don't feel too well," I said suddenly.

My mother sized me up in one half of a second. "Save it, Kristy," she said.

"Okay, okay, okay."

A few minutes later, we were sitting around the dining room table, which looked almost as fancy as it does at Thanksgiving. Mom had spread out a green tablecloth and put a white runner over it. We were eating off of our good china, and everyone had a wine goblet. Mom and Watson were the only ones with wine in their wine goblets, though. David Michael's and mine were filled with milk. Sam and Charlie had put Gatorade in theirs.

Spaghetti-O's and Gatorade. Some dinner.

We began pa.s.sing around the leftovers. Mom and Watson didn't pay a bit of attention to what we kids chose for dinner. When everyone was served, Mom stood up at the head of the table and raised her gla.s.s. "Something very special happened today," she said.

I drew in my breath.

"Watson asked me if I would consider getting engaged to him."

I let the breath out.

"That's great, Mom," said Sam.

"Congratulations," said Charlie.

"Yea!" cried David Michael, getting into the spirit of things.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"It means your mother won't even let me give her an engagement ring yet," said Watson, smiling.

Smart move, Mom, I thought.

"But that I'm thinking about it," added Mom.

"Well," said Sam, "if engagement is one step away from marriage, does this mean you're two steps away?"

Mom and Watson laughed. "I guess so," said Mom.

Good. Keep it that way.

"If you got married," I asked, "where would we live?"

"I don't know, honey," replied Mom. "We haven't thought that far ahead."

"Would we have to change schools?"

"I don't - "

"Would Karen and Andrew live with us, too? Would you keep on working? Would Dad still give you child-support money?"

"Kristy, I don't know. Now, enough questions. This is a celebration. We'll worry about those things later. Eat your - what is that you're eating?"

"Twinkles," I replied. "Twinkies and fried chicken."

"Eat your Twinkies and fried chicken."

At that, everybody laughed.

I managed a tiny, forced smile. Very forced. I couldn't believe Mom's news. Why would she want to risk getting married again? My only hope was that she'd see the light before it was too late, and let our family return to normal.

The Baby-sitters Club planned its pizza party for Sat.u.r.day afternoon. On Friday, during a regular meeting of the club, we pooled our money, except we only had nine dollars instead of twelve. That was because Stacey wasn't at the meeting. She and her parents had pulled out of their driveway right after Stacey and I came home from school. Stacey waved to Claudia and me from the car window as they drove by us.

"They're on their way to New York," Claudia said. "Stacey told me at lunch today that they might be back tomorrow morning, or they might not be back until the evening."

"I wonder what we should do about the party."

"I don't know," replied Claudia slowly.

"Let's talk about it at the meeting."

So we did.