Baby-sitters Club - New York, New York! Part 1

New York, New York!

Martin, Ann M.

Claudia.

Chapter 1.

By now some of you might be wondering a few things. You might be wondering what the Baby-sitters Club is. You might be wondering who the rest of my friends are. Oh, and I guess you might be wondering who I am.

Well, I'll start with that last part. I am Claudia Kis.h.i.+. I'm thirteen years old and I'm an eighth-grader at Stoneybrook Middle School. So are my friends Stacey McGill, Mary Anne Spier, Kristy Thomas, and Dawn Schafer. Mallory Pike and Jessi (short for Jessica) Ramsey, 'are sixth-graders at SMS. (They're best friends.) And we are the main members of the BSC. Kristy Thomas founded the club. It was her idea to get together a group of her friends who like to baby-sit, and for us to hold meetings three times a week. While we're meeting (in my room - club headquarters), parents call and line up sitters for their kids. They know they're bound to find a sitter, since when they phone during a meeting they reach all seven of us. Our club has turned into a business, and it's very successful. It's fun, too. My friends and I love children, and we've had some interesting sitting adventures. Plus, we've had lots of good times together as a club. We've had sleepovers and pizza parties, studied together, gone shopping together, and taken trips together.

Now we would soon be off on another trip. To New York City. The home of museums, theaters, the Hard Rock Cafe, Bloomingdale's, the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, Macy's, South Street Seaport, Lord and Taylor, Madison Square Garden, Saks Fifth Avenue, and HIM. McKenzie Clarke.

Even though it was only Wednesday, and the BSC members wouldn't be leaving on their wonderful two-week'trip until Sat.u.r.day, I had started packing. My suitcase was open on my bed. And already it was as cluttered and messy as my room usually is. Except that my room is cluttered with art supplies - paper, paints, pastels, canvases, an easel, and boxes of "stuff."

My mother says I am a pack rat. So what? Pack rats are probably very nice animals. And I bet they're prepared for anything. I know I am.

Anyway, my suitcase was cluttered with about three years' worth of clothing, and a whole pile of things that I couldn't decide whether to pack. Would I need suntan lotion and three bathing suits? Probably not. I took them out and dropped them on the floor. Then I began weeding out articles of clothing, entire outfits. I wondered if my other friends were having as hard a time packing as I was. We had all decided to pack that afternoon. Then we were going to ask Stacey her opinion of the things we were bringing. (Stacey is a New York expert, since she grew up there.) We figured that if Stacey said we'd made any horrible packing boo-boos, we'd have almost three days to straighten them out before we left on our trip.

Stacey, I knew, would be methodically placing just the right things in her suitcase. Since she's a little wild, her clothing would be sophisticated and extremely chilly. (My friends and I now say that something is "chilly" when it's really, really cool.) Stacey would be packing black leggings (some with stirrups on the feet, some without) and baggy black and white and red tops. She would probably pack or wear her black cowboy boots. Stacey and I both look good in black and white. Stace's hair is blonde and curly, usually as the result of a perm (the curliness, I mean; not its color). Her eyes are a deep blue, and she has neat dimples when she smiles. Stacey wears very chilly jewelry, (so do I; we both have pierced ears), and she loves to do things that make herself look a little unusual. She might sprinkle glitter in her hair, or paint her nails silver.

Stacey lived in New York until she was twelve. She lived there with her mom and dad. (She has no sisters or brothers.) Then, just before seventh grade started, the McGills moved here. Mr. McGill's company had transferred him to their offices in Stamford, which is not far from Stoneybrook. The McGills had been in Connecticut for only about a year, when Mr. McGill was transferred back to New York. (I cried a lot when my new best friend moved away.) But once they were in the city again, Mr. and Mrs. McGill began arguing and fighting. They decided to get a divorce. And Stacey's mom decided to move back to Connecticut, while Mr. McGill stayed in New York with his job. Now Stacey lives in Stoneybrook again, but she visits her dad pretty often.

Sound like a tough life? Well, that's not all. Stacey has a disease called diabetes. She happens to have a severe form of it, and she's been pretty sick a few times. (Stacey is well acquainted with hospitals.) She can control her diabetes partly by sticking to a strict, calorie-counting diet, which allows her no candy or desserts. Poor thing. I, personally, am addicted to candy and junk food. Stacey also has to give herself injections (ew!) of something called insulin. I hope she stays healthy. I don't want her to land in the hospital again.

I imagined Kristy packing. Even though Kristy lives in a mansion with her mom and her millionaire stepfather, she was probably just tossing jeans and turtleneck s.h.i.+rts or T-s.h.i.+rts into a duffel bag. Kristy has never been one to dress up, and she has not always been rich. Until the summer before eighth grade, Kristy lived right across the street from me in a little house with her mom and her three brothers. (Mr. Thomas walked out on his family when Kristy was about six.) But then Mrs. Thomas married Watson the millionaire. Watson moved the Thomases across town to his mansion. So now Kristy lives in this ritzy house with her new family, which includes (aside from her mother and brothers) her adopted sister, Emily; her grandmother; her stepbrother and stepsister (only sometimes); and a cat, a dog, and some fish.

Kristy's life may have changed, but her taste hasn't. She's still a tomboy who loves sports and animals and who hates to get dressed up. When Stacey inspects Kristy's suitcase, she's going to have to do some fast talking to convince Kristy to add so much as a skirt to her pile of jeans. Oh, well. Kristy may be a little less mature than some of us, but we love her anyway.

Next I imagined Dawn packing. When I thought of her, I could picture Mary Anne packing in the next bedroom. Why are Dawn Schafer and Mary Anne Spier in the same house? Because they're stepsisters, that's why. See, Mary Anne's mom died when Mary Anne was just a baby. So she grew up with her father, who was sort of strict with her. Her life was lonely, I think. Thank goodness she used to live next door to Kristy. Kristy is one of her two best friends. (Her other best friend is Dawn.) Anyway, when Stacey/ Mary Anne, Kristy, and I were about halfway through seventh grade, Dawn, her mom, and her younger brother, Jeff, moved to Stoneybrook from California. Dawn's parents were getting divorced, and her mom had grown up in Stoneybrook. Dawn and Mary Anne became friends pretty quickly. But they never imagined they'd become stepsisters. It all started when they discovered that Mary Anne's father and Dawn's mother had been high-school sweethearts years ago. Boy, were my friends surprised! But they were sneaky, too. They found ways to get their parents together every now and then, and before they knew it, Mr. Spier and Mrs. Schafer were dating (again). Now they're married. Mary Anne, her dad, and her kitten, Tig-ger, moved into the Schafers' farmhouse, where they live happily. Oh, except for the fact that Jeff isn't with them anymore. Jeff never adjusted to life in Connecticut, so he moved back to California and his dad even before Dawn and Mary Anne became stepsisters.

Let me see. Dawn, who's individualistic and pretty self-confident, would be packing her own personal style of clothes, which the rest of us think of as "California casual." (In my opinion, Dawn would look good in anything. She's gorgeous, with long, silky blonde hair, piercing blue eyes, and just enough freckles to be interesting.) Mary Anne, who looks something like Kristy - they're both on the short side, and have brown eyes and brown hair - will be packing her very different wardrobe. Mary Anne used to have to wear clothes her father picked out for her. She looked like a first-grader. Now she wears much chillier clothes.

Hmm. At the Pikes', Mallory was probably tripping over her seven younger brothers and sisters and packing the trendiest stuff she could find. Unfortunately, Mr. and Mrs. Pike don't allow Mal to dress very fas.h.i.+onably. They're not strict parents, but Mal is only eleven. So far, they have allowed her to get her ears pierced. They have not allowed her to switch her gla.s.ses for contacts, to have her braces taken off early, to have her curly red hair straightened, or to wear just about anything that Stacey or I get to wear. She manages not to look like a first-grader, though. She spends most of her baby-sitting money on any clothes or jewelry she thinks she can get away with wearing. (She spends the rest of her money on journals, and on materials for drawing and sketching, and on books. Mallory is a big writer and a big reader. She especially likes horse stories.) Jessi Ramsey likes to read, too, but her true love is ballet. Jessi is a very talented dancer. She takes special cla.s.ses at a school in Stamford, and she has danced onstage before hundreds of people. She would probably pack a leotard and her toe shoes. (She likes to exercise even when she's on vacation.) Otherwise, she would pack stuff pretty similar to Mallory's. Her parents feel the same way about clothes that the Pikes do. This is interesting, since the Pikes and the Ramseys are pretty dissimilar. The Pikes are white, the Ramseys are black. There are eight Pike kids, but just three Ramsey kids. The Pikes have lived in Stoneybrook since before Mal was born. The Ramseys moved here (right into Sta-cey's old house!) at the beginning of the school year. I guess the parents of eleven-year-olds are sort of the same everywhere.

And what was left in my suitcase after I'd removed that three years' worth of clothing? Outfits like Stacey's, only wilder, if you can believe it. I would say that, like Stacey, I'm pretty sophisticated, but I may be the chilliest dresser in the BSC. That's because I like to look different from other people. I make a lot of my own jewelry - big, dangly earrings, papier-mache bracelets and pins - and I'm always trying new ways to wear belts, layer my clothes, fix my hair. . . . I'm j.a.panese-American, and my hair is long and straight and black. It looks good when I pull it back with bright ribbons or combs or barrettes. And my eyes are dark and almond-shaped. I think I look exotic, especially with the right kind of makeup.

I stepped back and checked my suitcase. The floor around the bed was littered with discarded outfits, I still wasn't going to be able to close the suitcase, and I hadn't even packed my art materials yet. I had to bring them along if I was going to study with HIM.

Oh, well. I'd just borrow another suitcase from my sister.

Kristy.

Chapter 2.

It was time to say good-bye. I have never liked that very much. Not because it's sad or because maybe I'll never again see the people I'm saying good-bye to. (Mary Anne is always sure of that; she thinks some disaster will strike.) It's just that people get so mushy when they're saying good-bye. Also, my family is pretty big, so we make a spectacle of ourselves at train stations or airports.

These are the people who came to the train station to see me off on the day we left for New York: Mom, my stepfather, my grandmother Nannie, Charlie and Sam (my big brothers), David Michael (my little brother), Karen and Andrew (my stepsister and stepbrother), Emily Mich.e.l.le (my adopted sister), and our dog, Shannon. I'm surprised the cat and the goldfish didn't come, too.

At least this time I didn't feel as conspicuous as usual. That's because eventually all the members of each of my friends' families showed up. You can imagine what the Pike crowd looked like. Before they arrived, though, I had to deal with my family myself. Mom had insisted that we leave for the station a half an hour before the train to New York was due in. The station is exactly four minutes from our house. That left us with twenty-six minutes to kill - and an audience of about fifteen people to watch us kill the time.

I hope they were entertained. We did our best to put on a show for them.

Emily, who is two and a half, used my suitcase and backpack as her own personal jungle gym. She kept trying to stand on top of the suitcase (when it was standing up). And Mom kept saying, "Be careful, Emily. Emily, be careful."

Then there was Karen, who's seven, jumping all around, singing, "New York, New York! A wonderful town. The Bronx is up and the Battery's down!" Mary Anne had baby-sat for her and Andrew two days before.

Meanwhile, Andrew (who's almost five) and David Michael (who's going on eight) found one of the rattly baggage carts.

"Cool!" exclaimed David Michael.

"Give me a ride!" said Andrew, scrambling on.

Nannie saw them. "David Michael! Andrew! That isn't a toy!" she called. (Pause.) "David Michael, come back here! Andrew, please get off."

I had the feeling that the people around us were quickly learning our names.

"Kristy, will you buy me something in New York?" asked Karen loudly.

"Me, too?" cried Andrew and David Michael, abandoning the baggage cart.

"Potty!" exclaimed Emily Mich.e.l.le.

"I'll take her/' said Mom.

Luckily, Mallory and her family arrived then, and the people at the station found them more interesting than my family. (Anyway, there were fewer of us at that point. David Michael, Andrew, and Karen had all followed Mom to the bathrooms, and Charlie had taken Shannon for a quick walk in the parking lot.) Here's the thing about the Pikes: Three of the boys are ten-year-old identical triplets. They don't dress in matching outfits, but their faces are exactly the same. There's no mistaking that they're triplets.

"Hi, Mal!" I called.

"Hi!" she replied. "Guess what. I had to pay Jordan to carry my suitcase." Mallory pointed to one of the triplets.

"Well, you offered," said Jordan.

"I did not. You said, 'Want me to carry your suitcase?' and I said, 'Sure,' and you said, 'Okay, that'll be fifty cents.' "

I giggled. "Hey, here come Mary Anne and Dawn."

Mallory clapped her hand over her mouth. "I don't believe it. Mary Anne brought Tigger with her!" Tigger was mewing pitifully inside his carrier.

"Well, now I don't feel so bad/' I said. "Everyone's looking at Tigger."

Ten minutes later, the rest of the BSC had reached the train station. There were Jessi, her parents, her Aunt Cecelia, and her younger sister and baby brother. There were Claudia, her sister, and her mom and dad. And there were Stacey and her mom.

My friends and I huddled together, away from our families.

"Do you think anyone knows we belong with them?" asked Claudia, indicating the knot of anxious parents, and the kids who were running around.

"I'm afraid so," I replied. "They even know the names of my brothers and sisters. We're hard to miss."

Claud sighed.

Then Dawn spoke up. "This morning my mom asked Mary Anne and me if we really wanted to go to New York for two weeks. She said if we stayed here she'd take us on a shopping spree. I told her that New York was going to be one big spree all by itself, didn't I, Mary Anne? . . . Mary Anne?"

Mary Anne had opened a booklet about New York and was gazing at it intently. "You know," she began, "if all the coffee shops in New York City were placed side by side, I bet they would - "'

Dawn groaned, and Mary Anne stopped talking. She went right back to the book, though, and immediately became lost in it again.

"Uh-oh," I whispered.

"What?" asked Jessi.

"Look." I pointed to our parents. They had gathered in a pack under the sign that read: NEW YORK-BOUND TRAINS.I.

"Ooh," breathed Jessi. "That doesn't look good. You don't think they'll suddenly decide not to let us go, do you?"

"They might," Mal replied darkly.

"I'll take care of them," announced Stacey. She marched over to the parents. The rest of us followed her uncertainly.

When the grown-ups saw us coming, they stopped talking - which only proved that they had been talking about us.

"So," said Stacey, "my dad's apartment is ready for us. Well, for some of us." (Mr. McGill's apartment isn't big enough to be overtaken by seven extra people for two weeks, so only Stacey and two others were going to stay with him. The rest of us would stay on the other side of town with Laine c.u.mmings and her family. Laine is an old friend of Stacey's, and she and her parents live in a huge apartment.) "Dad even had the apartment professionally cleaned," Stacey went on. "Exterminated, too."

"Exterminated?" repeated Mrs. Ramsey. "You mean it has roaches?" She looked as if she were about to cry.

"No, giant sewer rats," I whispered, but Dawn poked me in the ribs.

"Well, yes," Stacey said to Mrs. Ramsey. "But, see, the important thing is that now they're gone."

"Besides," spoke up Mrs. McGill, who was the only sane-looking adult on the platform, "almost every apartment in New York has roaches. They're like flies or ants in most - "

"They carry disease," murmured Nannie, shuddering.

Stacey and her mom exchanged a Look.

The loudspeaker was turned on then, and a tinny voice announced, "The train bound for New York is approaching the station. Two minutes to boarding time."

My mother burst into tears.

Dawn's mother said, "I hope all the dishes and pots and pans were washed after those exterminators sprayed their poison around."

Mrs. Ramsey hugged Jessi protectively.

Emily fell off my suitcase and skinned her knee.

In the midst of her tears, I spied the headlight on our train, and soon the engine was roaring into the station. "Here we go!" I cried, but I was caught first in an embrace by Nannie, then by Mom, and then by Watson. All around me, the other parents were hugging their kids. Half of the parents were crying. (None of my friends was. Although Mary Anne was poking her fingers into the cat carrier, and saying, " 'Bye, Tiggy-Tiggy-Tiggy.") "Okay, Watson, I gotta go," I said, pulling away. I stepped onto the train, followed by Claudia, Jessi, Mary Anne, Mallory, and Dawn. We struggled with our luggage until I noticed that Stacey hadn't boarded the train yet. She was still outside, saying things like, "I promise 1 won't let them ride the subway alone," and, "I don't think anyone would want to buy a hot dog from a street vendor."

"I would," said Claudia, but luckily her parents didn't hear her.

"Come on, Stacey!" I cried. "The train's going to leave without you." I made a grab for her just as the doors started to close.

When Stacey was safely on board, the seven of us waved and called, "Good-bye! Goodbye!" Then we found an almost empty car. This was a good thing, since we and our luggage took up fifteen seats.

"We made it!" I said, as if we'd just escaped from prison.

"Okay, lunchtime," was Claudia's reply.

"Lunchtime? It's only ten o'clock," Mary Anne informed her.

"Well, I'm hungry."

The rest of us decided we were, top, so we ate the snacks we'd brought along. Then Mary Anne returned to the stack of maps and guidebooks she brings along on every trip we take.

"Does anyone else have a sense of deja vul" I asked, glancing at Mary Anne.

"Me!" cried Claudia and Dawn, who'd been with Mary Anne and me when we'd visited Stacey for a weekend during the time she was back in New York.

"What could she possibly not know about New York by now?" I wondered aloud.

"That there's a Hall of Chinese History at some place called the Bowery/' Mary Anne replied.

I shook my head. Then I gazed out the window.

An hour or so later, a deep voice was saying, "All out for New York. This is Grand Central Station. Last stop!"

The train jerked to a halt.

"Ooh, we're here," whispered Mary Anne.

Somehow we managed to get all of our stuff - suitcases, backpacks, duffel bags, tote bags, pocketbooks, and cameras - off of the train. Then we followed Stacey through thick, stuffy air and into the crowded station.

"Dad!" Stacey shouted, waving her hand.

I looked up and saw Mr. McGill running toward us.

Mary Anne.