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

Letter from Ann M. Martin

Acknowledgment

About the Author

Scrapbook

Also Available

Copyright

“I like the snow,” I said.

Mallory Pike, who was walking beside me, didn’t answer. She rubbed one mittened hand across the front of her glasses.

“I mean, it’s so beautiful. And think of all the great ballets with snow in them.”

“I wish my glasses had little windshield wipers,” answered Mallory. “Then I might agree with you.” She paused. “What ballets?”

“Oh … well, The Nutcracker, for one.” I did a sort of pirouette on the sidewalk — and slipped.

“Hey,” said Mallory, catching my arm. We laughed. Then she added, “It is pretty. I just wish it would stick.”

“I don’t think it’s cold enough,” I said with regret.

“Well, I’m officially complaining here. If it is going to be winter, it should act like winter. It should snow and stick.”

In case you just pirouetted into the middle of all this (if you know what I mean), I should explain.

I’m Jessi. Jessi Ramsey. I’m in sixth grade at Stoneybrook Middle School, also known as SMS, in Stoneybrook, Connecticut. Mallory Pike is my best friend, and also a fellow member of the Baby-sitters Club (also known as the BSC and more about that later). Being in SMS together and being members of the BSC are just two of the things that Mallory and I share. Walking home from school, and horse stories, especially stories by Marguerite Henry, are some of the other things we have in common, which is part of the reason we are best friends.

Liking snow and wishing for a real snowstorm might be counted in the things we have in common, too.

But not dancing. In case you hadn’t guessed, I want to be a ballet dancer someday. I take special lessons and I get up every morning at 5:29 A.M. to practice. My family’s even set up a practice area in the basement for me, and they drive me back and forth to Stamford to study at the Stamford Ballet School.

Mallory, on the other hand, hates anything athletic except maybe archery. She wants to be a children’s book writer and illustrator. Maybe, I tell her, one day she’ll write a book about a ballet dancer and use me as the model for the illustrations. Maybe, she tells me, one day I’ll be so famous that I won’t be the model — maybe the whole book will be about me. And then we’ll both be famous.

That would be cool.

But meanwhile, walking home with Mallory (and finishing another day of school) was pretty excellently cool, too.

“You want to come in?” I asked when we reached my house. “See if we can make some hot chocolate?”

Mallory shook her head and wiped her mitten across her glasses again. “I wish I could, but I have to get home. Mom’s taking Byron, Adam, and Jordan to the dentist this afternoon. I’m going to keep an eye on things while she’s gone.”

Keeping an eye on things was putting it mildly. That’s another way Mallory and I are different: I come from a fairly standard sized family and she comes from a huge one. She has seven brothers and sisters, and three of her brothers — the ones who were going to the dentist — are identical triplets. Having helped Mal baby-sit for all her brothers and sisters, I know what chaos it can be.

I know it gets to Mal, too, sometimes. But it also makes her an incredibly calm babysitter. Among them, her four brothers have thought up just about every way of getting into trouble, intentionally or not, that seems possible. Almost nothing rattles Mallory now, at least in the baby-sitting department.

“I’ll call you later,” added Mallory. She waved good-bye and headed for home.

I hurried up the driveway (but no pirouetting!) and into the kitchen. “I’m hommmme!” I called out.

A massive rattling and clanging met my ears, like a doorbell gone berserk. Or a couple of empty trash cans doing a trash-can dance.

Sure enough, my baby brother Squirt was sitting on the kitchen floor, banging on an assortment of pots and pans with a metal spoon and various lids. He was wearing a saucepan on his head.

I burst out laughing. “Mr. John Philip Ramsey, Junior, you are super cute,” I said.

Squirt didn’t understand all I was saying, but he knew it was good. He smiled a baby-toothed smile at me, which made him look even cuter, and dropped a lid into a frying pan.

“La la la la BANG!” he said.

Aunt Cecelia looked up from the kitchen counter, where she had opened a book.

“What’re you doing?” I asked. “Are you cooking something special? Are you making dinner tonight?”

“I’m thinking,” she said.

“What about?”

Aunt Cecelia made a note on a piece of paper on the counter next to her and said, “You’ll see soon enough. You aren’t tracking snow and mud into the house, are you? Take your shoes off.”

I hid a smile. That was just like Aunt Cecelia. When she’d first moved in with us to help take care of us after my mom went back to work full-time in advertising (my father already had a full-time job outside the house, but Mama had stopped when I was born), I’d had a real problem with her. I thought she was way too strict and old-fashioned. But I’ve gotten used to her ways and she’s gotten used to mine, and mostly we get along pretty well now.

And Squirt loves her.

I took my shoes off and put them by the kitchen door. I hung my coat on the coat rack on the wall above the shoes. Just then, my eight-year-old sister Becca wandered into the kitchen.

“Hi, Jessi,” she said.

Squirt did something really loud and creative with his pots-and-pans drum set and Becca covered her ears. “That’s nice, Squirt!” she practically shouted.

“Enough nice,” said Aunt Cecelia. She bent and scooped Squirt up and pretended to hold him upside down. Squirt shrieked happily.

Becca and I knew what to do. We scooped up Squirt’s pots and pans and put them out of sight. When Aunt Cecelia set him back down, he looked around for a moment, sort of puzzled, then set off at a high-speed crawl across the floor toward the door leading to the hall.

Aunt Cecelia wrote something else down on the piece of paper, folded it up, and put it in her pocket. “I’ve got to go do some errands for a little while, Jessi. So I’m going to leave you in charge, okay?”

“No problem,” I said.

“Gogo,” said Squirt. “Gogo!”

He wanted to be in his wheelie walker. It was a sort of baby-powered baby stroller. When you put Squirt in it, he could zoom around the house on his own without falling. Actually, Squirt (the nurses gave him that nickname when he was born because he was the smallest baby at the hospital, only five pounds, eight ounces) is growing pretty fast now and has learned to walk pretty well. He really doesn’t need his baby walker. But he still loves it. We have to keep a close eye on him when he’s zooming, though. He likes to zoom into things. He likes the noise it makes. No surprise, huh?

A few minutes later, Aunt Cecelia was out the door and Squirt was bumping up and down the hallway (we’d closed all the doors so he couldn’t make any sneak attacks on empty rooms when we weren’t looking).

“I’ve been thinking of adding a couple of new things to my Kid-Kit,” I told Becca. “Got any ideas?” (My sister’s name is Rebecca, by the way. All three of the kids in my family have nicknames: I’m Jessica, obviously, and you know Squirt’s real name, which he’ll grow into, eventually.)

Becca’s eyes lit up. Even though she’s my sister and knows everything that goes into the Kid-Kit (since some of it is her old stuff) she still thinks it’s special. Plus, Becca likes to help people. She’s even a member of an after-school club at Stoneybrook Elementary called the Kids-Can-Do-Anything Club, or the Kids Club for short. As you might have guessed, it’s a club for kids in which they think up ways to help out in the community, such as running toy drives or writing letters to kids in the hospital.

The Kid-Kit is not a community activity, of course. It’s a baby-sitting aid. Our BSC president, Kristy Thomas, thought of it (just one of her many brilliant but typically Kristy ideas, and more about her later, too). Everyone in the BSC has her own Kid-Kit, filled with games and toys and books and puzzles, new things that we buy out of our baby-sitting dues as well as some of our old stuff. We take the kits with us on baby-sitting jobs and the kids love them. They don’t care if some of the books have already been read, or the puzzles have been used. To them, the stuff is new, because they’ve never seen it before. Plus have you ever noticed how kids really like to play with other kids’ toys? Something about the grass being greener on the other side of the fence, maybe.

Anyway, it was time to add some new oomph to the old Kid-Kit. Mine is a little different from the others. It has a sort of “office” theme, which means that in addition to a puzzle and one or two books (right now I have one about animals and animal jobs), the kit is filled with magic markers, pens, erasers, colored pencils, red, white, and blue paper clips, blunt scissors, tape, a memo pad, rubber bands, stickers, animal stamps, writing paper, and envelopes.

“I’ll go get the Kid-Kit. I know where it is,” said Becca and jumped up. She returned with the box and put it on the table. We opened it and looked inside.

“This puzzle has got to go,” I said. It was a puzzle of the United States. “It’s missing two pieces — two whole states.”

Becca giggled. “Which ones?”

“Texas,” I said. “And Kansas.”

“Kansas is an easy one,” said Becca. “That’s too bad. It’s square and it fits right in.”

“I know.”

“I have a puzzle of a butterfly. I’ve done it lots and lots,” Becca said. “Maybe you can put that in the Kid-Kit.”

“That would be great!” I said. “What about a new book?”

“An office book?” asked Becca.

I nodded. “Or something about working.” We both thought hard and then Becca said slowly, “I have a book that I was saving for Squirt, but you could use it now for a little while.”

“What is it?”

“Bea and Mr. Jones,” said Becca. “Amy Schwartz wrote it and drew the pictures.”

“Great idea, Becca.” And it was, too. Bea and Mr. Jones is a picture book about a kindergartner who swaps places with her father. It’s really funny and clever.

Becca went looking for the butterfly puzzle and the book. We were reading the book together (Squirt zoomed in and zoomed out again, intent on banging into as many things as possible) and laughing aloud when the doorbell rang.

I headed for the door, stepping over Squirt, who was still zooming (although a little less energetically). Standing on the stoop were Charlotte Johanssen, Becca’s best friend, and Danielle Roberts, another friend of theirs. Charlotte’s not only Becca’s best friend, but she’s one of the kids the BSC members sit for. Danielle and her family weren’t BSC clients at first, but I had gotten to know her through the Kids Club, when I volunteered to help out once while one of the regular sponsors was away.

Hiding a smile, I said, “Who are you? What do you want?” Charlotte and Danielle giggled.

“Charlotte! Danielle!” Becca cried, coming out into the hall.

“You know these guys?” I asked Becca and they all started to laugh.

I stepped back and motioned them in, reminding them to take off their boots and hang up their coats (Aunt Cecelia would have been proud of me).

“Could we go down into your ballet room?” asked Charlotte before she’d even taken her coat off.

I was surprised. Charlotte is eight-going-on-nine. (If you ask her how old she is, she usually says “almost nine.” Have you ever noticed how kids will do that? Even if they just had a birthday they’ll tell you they’re “almost” the next year older.) She hates sports as much as Mallory does. Not that ballet is a sport, but it does involve physical activity.

“Sure,” I said, surprised.

“Great,” said Danielle, giving me her super-special Danielle smile. She finished taking off her boots.

Danielle took off her wool cap and stuffed it into the pocket of her coat, and Charlotte finished taking off her winter gear and hanging up her coat.

“You, ah, want some company?” I asked.

A furious exchange of eye signals went on among Becca, Char, and Danielle. Then Becca said, “No. I mean, if that’s okay with you. We’ll be very careful.”

“You do that,” I said. “No ripping the barre out of the wall.”

Just then Squirt zoomed past us and through the kitchen door.

“Squirt!” Becca and I said at the same time.

We dashed down the hall and into the kitchen just in time to see Squirt crash his walker into the kitchen cabinet. The cabinet door popped open and the pots and pans fell out.

For a moment, Squirt looked pleased. Then he started to cry.

“You guys go on,” I said. “I think it’s time Squirt had a little nap.”

I lifted Squirt up and rested him on my hip, wiping the tears off his cheeks. “What’s the matter, maestro?” I said. “You’re tired of your pots-and-pans band?”

“No,” said Squirt (his new favorite word for everything). He made a little whimpering sound, but he didn’t really sound committed to it. Bouncing him gently on my hip, I carried him upstairs to his bedroom and put him down for a nap. I found his copy of Goodnight Moon, sat next to him, and began to read.

Squirt sniffled for a little while, but I kept one hand on his foot (except when I turned the pages) and sort of rocked him in time to the words. After awhile, the sniffling stopped. And just as I finished the book for the second time, I heard a tiny little baby snore.

Okay, call me a doting sister. I stood by his crib and admired him for a while.

When I got back downstairs, Aunt Cecelia was coming in the kitchen door.

“Where is everybody?” she asked.

“Hi,” I said. “Squirt’s asleep, Becca is in the basement with Char and Danielle, and I’m about to go do some homework.”

“Good,” said Aunt Cecelia. I grinned and went to my room to work on my math problems.

By the time I’d finished and headed back downstairs to check things out, Mama and Daddy had both gotten home from work. Daddy was chopping carrots in the kitchen while Aunt Cecelia stirred something in a pot on the stove. Mama was sitting at the kitchen table with her feet up on a chair, reading aloud from a gardening catalogue.

“Roses in the middle of winter.” Aunt Cecelia shook her head.

Mama grinned. “You’ve just got to believe, Cecelia. Listen to this one: ‘A lovely old fashioned rose with strong, sweet fragrance, this floribunda …’ Hi, honey, how was school?” Mama reached out and pulled me over to give me a kiss on the cheek.

“Fine,” I said.

“Dinner in half an hour,” said Daddy.

“Can I help?” I asked.

“Time those two downstairs were getting home for their own dinners,” said Aunt Cecelia.

“I’ll go tell them,” I said.

I headed for the basement. At the bottom of the stairs, I stopped.

Becca, Char, and Danielle were sitting in front of the mirror by the barre writing furiously on pieces of paper. As I watched, Becca held up what she had written so it was reflected in the mirror. Char and Danielle leaned forward and squinted. “B … billy,” Char read aloud. “Billy Dobson is … etuc?”

“Etuc? What’s etuc?” asked Danielle.

“Nooo! Cute,” said Becca. The three girls fell backward, shrieking and giggling.

“Now let’s write it in mirror writing,” said Char.

I cleared my throat.

Becca quickly covered up her piece of paper. “Hi, Jessi,” she said.

“Practicing ballet?” I asked.

“Ah, resting,” said Danielle quickly.

“It’s time for you guys to head home. Almost dinner time.”

They jumped up, gathering pieces of paper covered with all kinds of backward writing that was readable when held up to a mirror, and hurried upstairs.

“See you tomorrow,” said Becca, waving good-bye at the door.

“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the cutest boy of all?” I teased Becca gently.

Becca ducked her head and looked at me out of the corner of her eye. Then a dimple appeared in her cheek. “Billy Dobson,” she said and raced back up the hall to the kitchen.

“Don’t run in the house,” I heard Aunt Cecelia say.

Poking her head back out of the kitchen door, Becca said, “He’s etuc!”

“Etuc yourself, Becca Ramsey,” I said, grinning as I went to help my family finish getting ready for dinner. “Very etuc!”

The next day, you couldn’t tell snow had ever fallen from the beautiful blue skies of Stoneybrook. Okay, so it was a little cold. But the sun was shining — and I got every math problem right on my homework, which made it shine even brighter. Naturally, I was in a pretty good mood by the time I showed up for the BSC meeting at Claudia’s house.

I was a little late because I’d just come from my dance class in Stamford. Claudia had left the front door unlocked (as usual) for the club members, and I pushed it open and hurried to her room.

From her throne (really, it’s just a director’s chair) Kristy Thomas, BSC president, idea-master, and strict timekeeper, gave me a Look as I walked into the room.

“Sorry,” I said. “I just got out of ballet class.”

With a welcoming smile, Mallory scooted over and made room for me on the floor in front of Claudia’s bed.

“Have a cookie,” said Claudia, who was sitting on her desk chair. “No, have two cookies. Ballet dancers have to keep their strength up.”

I grinned and took a chocolate-chip cookie from the bag Claudia was holding out. “I thought we finished these at the last meeting.”

“Two bags,” explained Claudia.

Just then Stacey rushed into the room. I was surprised. I am occasionally late (and used to getting Looks from Kristy) because of dance class, but Stacey is never late.

We all looked at her but she only said, “Sorry.”

Claudia tossed Stacey a box of oatmeal raisin Frookies (cookies made without sugar). Stacey fished one out and started nibbling on it without saying anything else.

Kristy gave Stacey a Look, too. Then she said, “Any new business?” letting us know that we were having a meeting, not a party.

Everyone looked around. Kristy took a bite of the chocolate-chip cookie in her hand and chewed ferociously.

No one said anything.

“Okay, no new business,” said Kristy. We relaxed a little. The phone rang and Kristy answered it. “Baby-sitters Club.”

How did Kristy know it was a client? I guess I’d better explain how the BSC works. But I’d better begin at the beginning, right?

The beginning. When Kristy was in seventh grade, she was sitting at home one night listening to her mother trying to find a baby-sitter for her younger brother David Michael. As Mrs. Thomas made phone call after phone call, Kristy had one of her brilliant ideas. What if a person could make just one phone call and reach several baby-sitters? That way, she’d be sure of getting a baby-sitter right away, without all the hassle.

Before you could say pas de deux (that means dance for two, roughly), Kristy had enlisted her best friend Mary Anne Spier and another good friend, Claudia Kishi. Claudia invited Stacey McGill, a new friend of hers, to join, and the BSC was off and running.

Was it a brilliant idea? Well, it was so brilliant that in no time the four of them had more work than they could handle. That’s when Mary Anne and Dawn became friends and soon after, Dawn became part of the BSC.

Plenty of members, right? Wrong!

Mallory and I were the next to join, as junior officers. (We’re both in sixth grade and everyone else is in eighth grade. Until we are older we can’t baby-sit at night except for our own families, so we take care of a lot of the afternoon and weekend-day business.) And now the BSC has two associate members as well: Shannon Kilbourne and Logan Bruno.

We’re all pretty different from one another. But as we like to point out, it’s our differences that make us such a good club. We have a lot of different talents and skills among us — enough to handle any situation that comes up.

For example, there’s Kristy. Kristy is our president not only because the club was her idea (along with some other great ideas I’ll tell you about in a minute), but also because she is the Queen of the Organized People of Earth. She is president of the BSC, she coaches a kids’ softball team called Kristy’s Krushers, made up of kids of all ages, she does well in school, and she has a (sort-of) boyfriend, Bart, who coaches a rival softball team called Bart’s Bashers.

Maybe being in a large family makes a person more organized (it’s one of the theories I have about large families, but I never can remember to ask Mal if it’s true). Like Mal, Kristy’s from a large family, although hers is a very different mix. She lives in a mansion with two older brothers, Sam and Charlie; her younger brother, David Michael; her mother; her stepfather, Watson Brewer (Kristy’s father left when she was just a kid and now she hardly ever hears from him); two step-siblings, Karen and Andrew, who stay there part of the time; Emily Michelle, who is adopted; Nannie, her maternal grandmother, who helps keep the house organized; one dog; one cat; two goldfish; a part-time hermit crab; a part-time rat; and a ghost.

Okay, maybe there isn’t a ghost living in the mansion on the third floor, but you get the idea.

Kristy grew up with Mary Anne Spier, who is the BSC secretary. Mary Anne and Kristy are both different and alike. They’re both short (Kristy is the shortest person in her class) and have brown hair, were raised for part of their lives by single parents, now have “blended” families, and have always lived in Stoneybrook. In fact, they’ve known each other most of their lives. Kristy used to live next door to Mary Anne until her mom married Watson Brewer and her family moved into his house. Then Mary Anne’s father remarried and she moved to a new house in Stoneybrook, too.

But while Kristy is like a living illustration of “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” (meaning it’s the person who speaks up who gets what she wants), Mary Anne is just the opposite. Not that she’s a wimp. But she is very shy and sensitive, someone who cries easily and has a tender heart. She is also stubborn and very strong. Mary Anne was raised by her father (her mother died when Mary Anne was just a baby) who was very strict. Some kids would have wilted under all that loving strictness (Mr. Spier just wanted to make sure, as a single parent, that he did everything right) but when Mary Anne realized she was out-growing the little kid clothes and the pigtails he made her wear, she stood up for herself. Now she can dress the way she wants (within reason, which means that she just dresses casually, like Kristy, but a little more fashionably) and she can wear a little makeup. And she was even the first of us to have a steady boyfriend, Logan Bruno.

Mary Anne’s life has changed a lot recently, and not just because she and her father have worked out a less strict, less formal relationship. One of the big changes is that her father got remarried — to Dawn Schafer’s mom! They were high school sweethearts right here in Stoneybrook, but after graduation they went their separate ways. When Dawn’s mom returned with her family to Stoneybrook from California after getting divorced, they got back together again, with a little help from Mary Anne and Dawn. Now they all live in an old farmhouse near the edge of town, except for Dawn’s brother Jeff, who decided that he wanted to stay in California with his father. And Dawn and Mary Anne are best friends (yes, Mary Anne has two best friends).

As you might have guessed, Dawn, our alternate officer, (responsible for filling in when one of the other officers isn’t there) is from California. And she misses it. She misses it so much that she just spent a huge chunk of time there with her father and Jeff. But now she’s back, and everyone is very glad.

Dawn looks like an advertisement for the benefits of exercise and healthy eating. It sounds corny, but it’s true. She’s really beautiful, with long, pale blonde hair, blue eyes, and a strong, tall body (she’s got the perfect body to be a ballet dancer!). Dawn never, ever eats red meat and she hardly ever eats sweets. She’s environmentally conscious (she carries a string bag with her wherever she goes so she doesn’t have to use plastic, brings her lunch to school wrapped in wax paper or reusable containers, and rides her bike whenever she can). And Dawn is as stubborn as, well, Kristy and Mary Anne. But she’s also very mellow. Nothing seems to rattle Dawn, and she keeps a level head about almost everything — very important for a baby-sitter!

Another pair of best friends in the BSC is Stacey McGill and Claudia Kishi.

Stacey, who is a math whiz, is the club treasurer. She’s probably the most sophisticated of all of us. That’s partly because Stacey has diabetes. That means her body doesn’t regulate the amount of sugar in her blood, so she has to be really careful about what she eats. She can’t eat sweets and she has to give herself injections of insulin every day. Because of that, Stacey’s parents used to be really overprotective of her (sort of like Mary Anne’s father; Stacey’s also an only child, like Mary Anne) and Stacey had to convince them that she could be responsible about taking care of herself. If she didn’t, she could get really sick and even go into a coma.

Now Stacey has a bi-state family. (We tease Dawn about having a bi-coastal family, a family on each coast.) Stacey’s mother and father got divorced and her father lives in New York, while Stacey lives with her mother in Stoneybrook.

Stacey’s sophistication shows up not only in the super-responsible and mature way in which she usually acts, but also in the way she dresses. We are pretty casually dressed at the BSC meetings, but even if Stacey is just wearing jeans like most of the rest of us, she goes one step further into cool. For instance, today, when we were wearing sweaters and shirts, Stacey had on an oversized black sweater and a metallic gold T-shirt underneath. With her huge blue eyes and naturally dark lashes, and the shoulder length blonde hair that she keeps perfectly cut, she looked just like a model.

Stacey and Claudia are best friends, which is not surprising, since Claudia has a sense of sophistication and style all her own. But Claudia’s sophistication and style are not big city. They’re more artistic. Claudia wants to be an artist and is really talented. She works hard on her art and has even had her own art show.

Claudia’s smart and talented, but she and school do not get along. Somehow, teachers don’t appreciate Claudia’s “creative” approach to things such as spelling. Claudia has to work really hard to be an average student (at least, an average student grade wise) at SMS. The Kishis even have a rule that someone in the family has to help Claud with her homework every night.

That’s tough, especially since Claudia has an older sister, Janine, who is a genuine genius, but Claudia doesn’t let it get to her. She works on her art and keeps her strength up with a truly artistic collection of junk food hidden around her room for BSC meetings and emergencies, such as homework questions. Claudia also really loves Nancy Drew books. Since Claud’s parents sort of equate Nancy Drew and junk food for some reason, Claudia keeps her collection of Nancy Drew books hidden around her room, too. You might reach behind other books on her bookcase and find a Nancy Drew and a candy bar.

Claudia’s style is unique. She doesn’t often wear jeans, but she was wearing them today — only she’d cut patterns in the legs of the jeans (which were major faded) and was wearing leopard tights underneath so that they showed through. She was wearing her black Doc Martens with yellow shoelaces, and she’d used matching shoelaces to pull her hair back into a long, thick braid. Her earrings were a pair she made herself, out of little yellow feathers and black beads. And she was wearing a black and yellow striped flannel shirt buttoned up to her throat, with another pair of shoelaces made into a sort of bow tie.

Nobody but Claudia could wear something like that and look so truly fantastic, not even Stacey. If Stacey looks like a fashion model, Claudia Kishi, with her perfect skin and brown eyes and long hair, sometimes looks like a star. It’s awesome.

Claudia is the BSC vice-president, and her room is where we hold our meetings, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon from five-thirty until six. Claudia is the only one of us with her own phone line, so we can take clients’ phone calls and set up appointments without tying up the phone for the whole family.

You’ve already met Mallory Pike, so you know she wears glasses and comes from a big family. Mallory has red hair and freckles and braces (at least they are the clear plastic kind). The braces come off in two years, and meanwhile, Mallory is working on convincing her parents to let her get contact lenses.

Mallory is a junior officer, like me. Like Kristy, she also has other official duties. Mallory is the secretary of the sixth-grade class at SMS. And like Claudia and me, she has a career planned as a writer and is already working hard toward the goal. Mal even took two weeks off from the BSC to write a story not too long ago, and won the contest for Best Overall Fiction in the Sixth Grade.

Mallory and I are both different and alike: She’s from a big family, I’m from a smaller one. We love to read, especially horse stories. We have English, lunch, gym, and science class together. But unlike Mary Anne and Kristy, who look sort of alike, we don’t look alike at all. Mal is shorter than I am, and not athletic, and she has glasses and red hair and pale skin with freckles, while I am tall and thin (a dancer’s build) and have black hair and brown eyes and brown skin. (But I do have glasses, just for reading).

Mal was one of the first people I met when my family moved to Stoneybrook from Oakley, New Jersey, after my father’s company transferred him to a new job. I thought at first I was going to hate being at SMS, not only because it can be so tough being a new kid in class, but also because I was the only black student in the sixth grade and one of about six black students in all of SMS. Pretty weird. But after I met Mal and joined the BSC, I stopped feeling like the new girl in school and decided I wasn’t going to hate SMS and Stoneybrook after all.

So that’s everybody — except Shannon and Logan, our associate members. Associate members don’t have to come to meetings. But they are on call for jobs we can’t fit into our schedules, and to help out, for instance, when Dawn visited her father and brother in California, or when Mallory was sick with mononucleosis, or when Claudia broke her leg because of a practical joke that one of the kids she was baby-sitting for played, or … well, you get the idea.

Shannon lives across the street from Kristy, but she doesn’t go to SMS, she goes to Stoneybrook Day School. She’s a super-serious student and involved in a lot of after-school activities, such as French club and astronomy club. Shannon and Kristy really disliked each other when they first met. Kristy thought Shannon was a complete snob. But they worked things out and Shannon even gave Kristy and her family a puppy, when her dog Astrid, a Bernese mountain dog, had a litter of puppies. So Shannon and Kristy might even be sort of related — through their dogs!

Logan Bruno is a Southerner, and Mary Anne’s boyfriend. Like Mary Anne, he’s tough-minded and independent (he got some teasing for being a “boy baby-sitter” but he didn’t let it get to him). When he’s not playing baseball and being involved in other sports, he comes to meetings occasionally and he’s a great baby-sitter. And while I don’t think he looks just like the movie star Cam Geary, as Mary Anne does, I do think he’s pretty cute.

Back to the club. We were having a busy day. The phone would start ringing almost the moment we hung it up, and Mary Anne was kept busy scheduling appointments in the club record book. The record book contains clients’ names, addresses, phone numbers, rates paid, special information we might need, and all the schedules of baby-sitting jobs. Mary Anne is in charge of the entire record book except for Stacey’s treasury section. (And she’s never, ever made a mistake in scheduling.)

Meanwhile, the rest of us were passing around the BSC notebook, writing in it, and reading the new entries. The club notebook helps us keep up with our clients (someone’s going through the terrible twos, someone else has developed an allergy) as well as gives us insight into how to handle difficult situations that might come up. We grumble, but we all keep up with reading and writing in the notebook.

I’d just finished reading about Jackie Rodowsky’s latest disaster, involving a rug, a bowl of goldfish, and a boiled egg — Jackie is one of our favorite kids, but trouble follows him wherever he goes — when I heard Kristy say, “That’s great Mrs. Roberts. Yes. Yes, we’ll call you right back.”

“Mrs. Roberts?” I asked as she hung up the phone. “Danielle’s mother?”

Kristy nodded with a big grin on her face. “Yup. She’s wondering if anyone would be interested in sitting with Danielle, and Greg, of course, next Wednesday afternoon. Now who would want that job? Mary Anne, can you check the record book and see who’s free that day?”

“Kristy!” I said indignantly, before I realized she was teasing, and then we all started laughing.

Everyone knew about Danielle, from when I worked at the Kids Club. She’d been a member of the Kids Club, but before I started volunteering, she’d had to go into the hospital for treatment for leukemia. When I finally met her, she’d just gotten out of the hospital. She was a skinny kid with huge brown eyes wearing a scarf on her head that didn’t quite hide the fact that the chemotherapy treatments she’d had in the hospital had made her lose her hair. She was also wearing a T-shirt that said, “Bald is Beautiful.”

See? Who couldn’t find a kid like Danielle truly cool?

I’d even helped make one of Danielle’s two wishes come true. She’d always wanted to visit Disney World, so I put her family in touch with an organization called Your Wish Is My Command, which tries to grant the wishes of kids with serious illnesses.

And Danielle and her mother and father and six-and-a-half-year-old brother Greg all got to go to Disney World for three whole days!

But I couldn’t help Danielle with her other wish: to graduate from elementary school. There was no guarantee that Danielle would ever get cured, or even get better. There was no guarantee what would ever happen. And in fact, when I’d ended my work at the Kids Club, just after Danielle returned from Disney World, Danielle had to go back in the hospital for more tests and treatments.

Danielle spent a lot of time in the hospital. But now she’s in remission. These days, Danielle doesn’t look so skinny and she’s full of energy. Her hair has grown back (in a different color, sort of red) so she looks just like an ordinary kid with a short haircut.

Danielle is nine, a year older than Becca and Char, but she doesn’t say “almost” ten when you ask her how old she is. She says nine and she says it proudly, as if she’s achieved a special goal.

And she has.

You see why Kristy’s teasing made me indignant? Of course I wanted to be the one to sit with Danielle and Greg!

Mary Anne flipped through the pages of the record book. “Hmmm,” she said. “You might be able to work it in, Jessi.”

“I guess you’d better take the job, then,” said Mal, giving me a friendly poke on the shoulder.

I rolled my eyes, but I was grinning, too, as Kristy picked up the phone to call Mrs. Roberts back.

The BSC had a new client — one of the neatest kids I knew.

When I arrived at the Robertses’ house, I heard Danielle shriek, “I’ll get it! It’s Jessi!” A moment later the door opened wide and Danielle stood there, grinning from ear to ear.

“Jessi!” she shouted, as if she hadn’t seen me in ages. Naturally that made me feel good. I didn’t shriek, too, though. I tried to remember that I was a grown-up, responsible baby-sitter. I just grinned as widely as Danielle and said, “How are you?”

“Grrrreat!” replied Danielle loudly. She sounded excited about something, but before I could ask any questions she sang out, “Mommm, it’s Jessi!” and raced halfway down the hall before stopping to slide to the end in her stocking feet. She caught herself on the edge of a doorway, swung around it, and disappeared.

Mrs. Roberts came out of the study and said, (in a calmer tone), “Jessi, it’s good to see you.” She looked down at the pen she was holding, stuck it behind her ear, and reached out to shake hands with me.

“It’s good to see you, too,” I said. I looked at Mrs. Roberts and suddenly realized where Danielle’s new red hair might have come from. Mrs. Roberts’ own hair, which she wore in a short, sleek cap, was the same soft shade of red-brown.

“Danielle’s looking good,” I said as I stepped into the house.

Mrs. Roberts smiled. “She really is, isn’t she? She’s got so much energy, so much spirit. Even more than before she — got sick. She’s doing very, very well.”

“That’s great,” I said. I took that to mean that Danielle truly was feeling better. Maybe this was more than a remission. Maybe …

But I stopped myself. One day at a time. It was enough for today that Danielle felt good.

Mrs. Roberts rooted around in the hall closet and pulled out a puffy parka and a shoulder pack, which she slung over her shoulder. She unhooked car keys from a key rack by the closet and said, “I’ll be gone for about an hour and a half. I have to get the car inspected and since I need new tires, I set that up today, too. The number for the car service center is on the notepad by the telephone. There are also the numbers for Mr. Roberts at his office, the fire department, the police department, and the hospital. And of course, Danielle’s doctor. Not that you’ll be needing any of these.”

“I hope not!” I said.

“You’ve been here before, so you know your way around the house. We’re having an early dinner tonight, so Danielle and Greg can have a snack, but only a small one — a piece of fruit or one or two cookies out of the jar on the kitchen counter, and some juice or milk.”

“Are there any, I mean, is there anything that Danielle can’t do?” I asked. I hoped I didn’t sound dumb. I knew that when Danielle was feeling bad, she had to rest a lot and take naps and she couldn’t race around and tire herself out. But I didn’t quite know how to ask about that.

Mrs. Roberts didn’t seem to think the question was a dumb one. In fact, she understood just what I meant.

“Danielle’s been very active these days, with no ill effects,” she told me. “We’re trying to let her enjoy using her energy as much as possible. So yes, keep an eye on her and if she looks pale or tired, make her sit down and rest. But don’t be too protective. Use your best judgement.” She paused, then added, “The same goes for Greg!”

“Right,” I said.

Mrs. Roberts looked at her watch. “Whoops. I’ll be late if I don’t hurry. See you soon.”

I was pleased that Mrs. Roberts was so thorough. Some clients are not, and that makes it harder to be a good baby-sitter.

After Mrs. Roberts had left, I went down the hall and looked into the room where Danielle had disappeared. She and Greg were lying on their stomachs, watching their kitten, Mr. Toes, chase a catnip mouse. (Mr. Toes is all gray with white feet, which is why Greg named him Mr. Toes.)

“Hey, cat lady,” I said. “Hey, cat gentleman.”

Danielle giggled. “Isn’t Mr. Toes the cutest cat?” she asked.

Mr. Toes picked up the mouse, flipped it in the air, and then ran sideways in a display of extra-cuteness.

“Yup,” I said. “The cutest.” I bent down and flicked the mouse toward him and we all laughed as he pounced and then skittered away.

Greg said, “I have a new book about a cat. Can I read it to you, Jessi?”

“Sure,” I said. “Danielle, what about you? What do you want to do?”

“I don’t want to do my homework, that’s for sure,” said Danielle. “But I guess I should get it over with so I can play.”

“Good idea,” I said, impressed. “Why don’t you work on that for a while, and then we can all do something together?”

“Okay.” Danielle jumped up and went to her room. Greg got his beginning reader and sat down next to me. It was a mystery involving a cat, and the illustrations were funny.

“I’ve never seen this one before,” I told Greg. “It looks good.”

“It is,” he said. “Now, shhh. Listen while I read.”

Hiding a smile, I said, “Okay. Go ahead.”

We read the cat mystery and then I pulled out one of my favorites, a book about a pair of friends called Frog and Toad and we read that one. We were just about to start on a Dr. Seuss book when I heard an enormous crash from the back of the house.

“Good grief!” I said, jumping up so fast I dropped all the books. I raced toward the noise with Greg right behind me.

Danielle was lying sprawled on the floor of the study with a small bookcase tipped over beside her and books all over the floor.

“Danielle!” I cried. “Are you all right?”

Sitting up, Danielle said, “Ooops.”

“Don’t move,” I said, visions of broken bones dancing in my head. “Does it hurt anywhere?”

“No,” said Danielle, giving me a funny look. I suddenly realized that I might be overreacting just a tad.

“Nothing hurts?” I said, just to be sure.

“Nah,” replied Danielle.

I started to help her to her feet — and then I saw the Rollerblades.

“What are you doing wearing Rollerblades in the house?” I asked.

“Those are Mom’s!” exclaimed Greg.

“Yeah. They’re too big for me. I think that’s why I fell,” said Danielle.

The blades were too big — way too big. They looked enormous at the end of Danielle’s long, thin legs.

I took a deep breath. I couldn’t believe that Danielle had been skating in the house. On the other hand, was it really that big a deal? The weather hadn’t been good enough to skate outside, or even to go out to work off all the wild, full-of-life energy Danielle was clearly enjoying these days.

Danielle bent over and began unlacing the blades. “I wish I could get a pair of my own. Mom and Dad both have a pair, but all I have are my old roller skates. They said I have to wait until I’m feeling a little better. But I am feeling better now.”

“You should probably wait till spring, anyway,” I said. “Then you can try them outside.”

“If I ever get any,” said Danielle. She looked up. “I want to learn to skate really fast.”

The idea didn’t appeal to me at all. I’d seen how fast those Rollerblades could go (Kristy’s a pro at it). Even wearing all the protective gear, helmets and kneepads and wrist braces and elbow pads, I could just imagine what one fast fall could do. Like completely wreck a knee or an arm — not something a ballet dancer wants to do!

I didn’t say that, of course. I didn’t even say anything about Danielle sneaking her mother’s skates out and trying to skate in the house. It could have been a disaster, but apart from a few books scattered around, no harm had been done.

I helped Danielle get out of her mom’s Rollerblades and the three of us set the bookshelf upright and put the books back in place. Then we went to the kitchen for a snack. We made crazy fruit salad (bananas, apples, and pears cut into different shapes) and drank milk. We’d just finished when Mrs. Roberts returned.

“How’d it go?” she said cheerfully, coming in the door. “No problems, I hope.”

What could I say? I didn’t think Mrs. Roberts would be upset by the Rollerblade incident and in a way, it was sort of funny. I’d leave it to Danielle to tell her mother.

“Everything went fine,” I said.

“I made banana monster fruit salad,” said Greg. “See?”

Mrs. Roberts laughed. “Good,” she said. “Thanks, Jessi.”

“No problem,” I said. “No problem at all.”

Sun, no snow, and a quick walk home from school helped to keep my muscles stretched. I’d felt a little sluggish that morning when I’d gotten up to practice at the barre, and I didn’t want it to become a habit.

Maybe when I got home I’d do a little work at the barre, just to make sure I’d shaken off the morning dance blahs.

But when I reached my house, I slowed down. A car I didn’t recognize was parked in the driveway. Did we have company? Was it someone I knew? Or a friend of Aunt Cecelia’s I’d have to hang around with and be polite to?

Maybe I wouldn’t get to do any barre work after all.

I went in the house and the first thing I saw was Becca in the hall.

“Becca?” I asked.

She was crouched way over in a funny hunch. When she heard me, she looked over her shoulder and said, very softly, “Shhhhhhh.”

I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Why?”

She pointed at her ear and at the door, then went back to her hunched position. I realized that she had pressed her ear against the closed door of the living room.

Becca was eavesdropping through the keyhole!

I was instantly intrigued. As an older sister who was supposed to set a good example, I guess I should have said something like, “You shouldn’t eavesdrop. It’s wrong.”

But as a person who likes mysteries, I couldn’t help but recognize the mystery potential in the situation. I mean, it wasn’t like Becca to eavesdrop. So she must have had a good reason.

All these thoughts went through my mind in a flash. And while I was thinking them, my body was doing a perfect glissade forward into a position new to the world of ballet: the eavesdroppers’ crouch.

At first I couldn’t hear anything. Then a deep, rumbly voice laughed, followed by a familiar, husky chuckle. The chuckle was Aunt Cecelia. I didn’t recognize the laugh. But it belonged to a man.

“… something new,” said the male voice.

“Something borrowed and something blue,” came Aunt Cecelia’s voice. “I’ll see what …”

Her voice faded out and I frowned with concentration. Where had I heard those words before? And recently?

“A spring theme …” Aunt Cecelia’s voice said again. “… daffodils, lilacs …”

“… catered?” said the man’s voice.

This was frustrating. No wonder people say you aren’t supposed to eavesdrop. It could drive you crazy!

Then Becca reached out, clutched the edge of my sweater, and yanked hard. I almost toppled over. But not just because of the yank that Becca had given me. I’d heard the same words she had heard, loud and clear.

My aunt Cecelia’s voice, saying, “Oh, I can hardly wait. We’re going to have a lovely wedding!”

Of course! “Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.” We were about to have a wedding!

I straightened up and grabbed Becca’s shoulder. She stood up, her eyes lit up with excitement, her hand over her mouth.

I put a finger over my lips. “Shh. Come on!” We beat a hasty retreat to my room. The moment I closed my door, Becca flung herself on my bed and bounced up and down.

“I can’t believe it,” she cried. “A wedding! Aunt Cecelia’s getting married!”

“I can’t believe it, either!” I gasped. “Aunt Cecelia! I didn’t even know she was dating anybody! Did you?”

Becca shook her head. “But she has been awfully busy lately. Maybe that’s what she’s been doing. Seeing this guy, I mean.”

“Did he just propose?” I wondered.

Becca said, “I don’t know. Oooh. Wouldn’t that be exciting? I might have been listening to a proposal.”

“Did you see who it was, Becca? Did you hear anything else?”

Becca shook her head again, regretfully. “No. I got home right before you did. I went in the back door and I didn’t see Aunt Cecelia, so I called out, ‘I’m home!’ And I heard Aunt Cecelia in the hall and she said, ‘That’s Becca. Go on in and make yourself comfortable.’ So I went in the hall and Aunt Cecelia was standing outside the living room door and she said, ‘Becca, this is Mr. Major. And this is my niece Rebecca. Now, Becca, when Jessi gets home there’re oatmeal raisin cookies fresh in the oven and you can each have two. I’m busy right now.’ And she closed the living room door. And right before she closed it I heard this man’s voice say something I didn’t understand.”

“So you wanted to find out what was going on?”

Becca grinned. “Of course! But before I could really hear anything, you got home.”

I thought for a moment, then said, “Too bad. I mean, I don’t think he had time to propose to Aunt Cecelia. So it must have happened before.”

“And now they’re planning their wedding.” Becca hugged herself in excitement. “I love weddings. Do you think we’ll get to be in it?”

I didn’t answer. I sat down at my desk, thinking fast and hard. Finally I said, “You know what this means? Aunt Cecelia won’t be living with us anymore. We’ll have to get someone to take care of Squirt. And … you and I will probably have a lot more responsibility.”

I didn’t say what else I was thinking, which was: more freedom. I liked Aunt Cecelia, but she was still strict and kept a sharp eye on all of us. On the whole that’s a good thing. As a baby-sitter, I could understand that. But as a person who had outgrown baby-sitters, I didn’t feel I needed someone to keep a strict watch over me.

Of course there were other important things to think about. For instance, if we were brides-maids, what would our dresses look like? Would we get to choose the colors? Was Squirt old enough to be in the wedding? (I tried for a moment to imagine Squirt in a little suit, dressed up as a ring bearer. The image of Squirt in a suit was really cute, until I also imagined him putting the ring in his mouth and swallowing it.)

I looked at Becca. “Do you, Jessi?” she repeated. “Do you think we’ll get to be in Aunt Cecelia’s wedding?”

“I don’t know,” I said, “but even if we’re not in it, we’ll have to dress up special for it.”

“When do you think we’ll find out? Should we ask Aunt Cecelia?”

I thought about that for a moment. “Nooo, I don’t think so. I mean, I think it must be a secret or she would have told us. Besides, if we ask her she’ll know …”

“… that I was eavesdropping,” finished Becca. She looked a little worried. The idea of telling our aunt that we’d been eavesdropping wasn’t at all pleasant.

“I was eavesdropping, too,” I said quickly, to reassure Becca that she wasn’t in this alone. “Anyway, I’m sure she’ll tell us soon enough. I mean, how could she keep such awesome news a secret?”

We grinned. Awesome barely described it. The news needed a Karen Brewer word — gigundoly.

So Aunt Cecelia was getting married. When had it all happened? Was that really why she’d been so busy lately?

The members of the BSC have wedding experience from baby-sitter to bridesmaid. But that didn’t matter. I knew that no matter how many weddings I was involved in, I was always going to find them super exciting.

Especially at a time like this, when my own aunt was going to be the bride. Wait until I told everyone in the BSC. Wait until Mama and Daddy found out. Or did they already know?

But I could think about that later. Becca and I had more important things to think about just then.

“When do you think we can go shopping?” I asked Becca. “What are we going to wear?”

When Mary Anne reached the Robertses’ house, she was practically in a state of shock. She hadn’t planned on working that day — at least not baby-sitting.

Had Mary Anne done the unimaginable and made a mistake in the club record book? Had she forgotten to schedule an appointment, or scheduled one at the wrong time?

Nope. But not quite an hour earlier, she’d picked up the phone to hear Stacey’s breathless voice: “Mannecanyouhelpmeou?”

At least, that’s what it sounded like to Mary Anne. “Stacey!” She gasped. “What’s wrong?”

“I — it’s just that I’m supposed to sit for the Robertses in an hour and I can’t.” Stacey ended the sentence on what was, for Stacey, a sort of wail.

Mary Anne did a quick mental flip through her calendar for the afternoon, shifted outlining a social studies paper to later in the evening, and said, “Oh. Is there anything I can do to help?”

So Stacey jumped in and explained what the emergency was, right? Wrong. She said, “I’ll call the Robertses. Thankyouthankyouthankyou.”

And hung up.

Wow, thought Mary Anne, and started getting organized for an afternoon with the Robertses. Naturally, being Mary Anne, that included calling the Robertses first and confirming with them that she was replacing Stacey for the afternoon.

So Mrs. Roberts didn’t look surprised when she opened the door. “Hi, Mary Anne,” she said cheerfully. Her voice was loud. That was because a deafening cacophony was coming from the back of the house.

“Hi, Mrs. Roberts!” answered Mary Anne just as loudly.

Mrs. Roberts pulled on her jacket and made a face. “Cabin fever,” she explained. “Even though Danielle is feeling so much better, I don’t want her to go out and play in this weather. She was really wild to try some sledding, even though there’s not enough snow on the ground to do much of that. Anyway, we’re trying to give her and Greg plenty of leeway to work off their high spirits indoors. Right now they’re playing doctor.”

“Excuse me?” said Mary Anne, startled.

“Danielle is Dr. Frankenstein, the evil scientist doctor, and Greg is her assistant, Nurse Igor.”

“Right,” said Mary Anne, swallowing hard and forcing herself to listen as Mrs. Roberts went over the phone numbers and instructions for the afternoon.

“I’ll be back in about an hour and a half, but Mr. Roberts may beat me home,” Mrs. Roberts concluded.

“Right,” said Mary Anne again. She could hear the wild cries of “Dr. Frankenstein.”

Good grief, she thought. She knew Danielle had spent a lot of time in hospitals, but she hadn’t expected this!

She walked cautiously toward the den. “Dr. Frankenstein” came tearing out wearing a white baseball hat and an oversized white bathrobe that flapped around her ankles, and carrying a big jar.

“Eeeek!” said Mary Anne. “What’s in the jar?”

“It’s my specimen jar,” said Danielle, grinning ghoulishly.

“Yeah,” said Greg (who for some reason was wearing a cowboy hat).

Mary Anne felt herself turning green. The jar was filled with something evil-colored and icky-looking. She was afraid to ask.

“Uh, Danielle,” she began.

Greg begin to laugh. “She believed you, she believed you, Dr. Frank!”

Mary Anne’s face turned from green to red. She almost had believed Danielle.

Danielle started laughing and turned from the fiendish Dr. Frankenstein back into herself. “It’s leftover pea soup with ketchup and a chopped-up hot dog,” she explained.

“Right,” said Mary Anne. That was still pretty gross, but in spite of her red face, she began to grin, too. “So, ah, do you want to keep playing doctor? Maybe we could do something else.”

“Sure,” said Danielle.

“Sure,” echoed Greg happily. “What?”

“Can I call Charlotte and Haley and see if they can come over to play?” asked Danielle.

“I don’t see why not,” said Mary Anne. Mrs. Roberts hadn’t said Danielle had homework to finish. And it was great to see her with so much energy.

“Cool,” said Danielle and exited at hyperspeed to use the phone, her white coat flapping behind her, her “specimen jar” under her arm.

Greg said, “Is that your Kid-Kit?”

Mary Anne looked down at the box under her arm. “Yes,” she said. “How did you know?”

Greg shrugged. “I heard,” he said.

“You want to see what’s in it?”

Greg nodded.

Danielle, Greg, and Mary Anne went through the contents of the Kid-Kit until Charlotte and Haley arrived. Then Mary Anne and Greg settled down with a book that instantly caught Greg’s attention, Freckle Juice, while Charlotte, Haley, and Danielle disappeared into Danielle’s room.

It was quiet for a while. In spite of the short notice and the rush to get to the Robertses’, Mary Anne began to feel mellow.

Until it happened.

Not a disaster on the Jackie Rodowsky scale, exactly. Not an accident, either. It was actually a pretty interesting idea — if you weren’t the baby-sitter.

It started with an odd whump-thumping. At first Mary Anne thought it was the pipes or just the random winter sounds a house makes. It wasn’t enough to make her instincts go on alert.

When she heard it again, she wondered if a storm door was banging or a shutter was loose on the house. She decided to check it out.

“Excuse me for just a minute,” she said to Greg.

The thumping was louder in the hall. And it was accompanied by muffled voices.

Mary Anne followed the sounds to the basement door. She heard a shriek, a giggle, and more thumping. She pulled the door open and found herself in —

Aspen, Colorado.

Not really. But Danielle, Charlotte, and Haley had brought a little of the great outdoors inside.

They were sledding down the basement stairs. Using what looked like the mattress from a crib.

As Mary Anne opened the door, Charlotte took off thumping and bumping down the stairs. She landed at the bottom with a muffled shriek and Danielle’s voice said, “Awesome, Char. You went almost all the way to the furnace.”

“My turn,” Haley’s voice said. “Help me carry the sled back up the sta …” Her voice trailed off. She had spotted Mary Anne.

“Ahem,” said Mary Anne.

The three girls came sheepishly to the bottom of the stairs.

“That’s my mattress!” said Greg, who of course had followed Mary Anne.

“It’s your old mattress, Greg. From when you were a baby. You don’t use it anymore,” said Danielle.

The three girls looked guilty, but pleased with themselves.

They also looked completely filthy. They were covered with soot from the basement furnace, and dust and dirt and cobwebs.

The stairs were steep and the basement floor was hard and uneven. From where she was standing, Mary Anne could see rakes and hoes and even an old-fashioned lawn mower with rotary blades. What if the mattress had crashed into that? What if one of them had fallen on the blades? Or what if the mattress had turned over halfway down the stairs?

Mary Anne closed her eyes. She took a deep breath. None of that happened, she reminded herself.

“Leave the mattress,” she said. “And come up here and let’s see about getting you guys cleaned up.”

“We’ll put it back where we found it,” said Haley helpfully and she and Char wrestled the mattress into a sort of standing position against a basement wall.

“Fine,” said Mary Anne. “Come on.”

The girls emerged from the basement looking as if they’d been spelunking in caves.

Mary Anne reached out and touched Danielle’s arm. The soot was oily and sticky. It was going to take forever to get it off.

“Our furnace broke this winter and it made soot go all over the basement before they got it fixed,” said Danielle happily.

Mary Anne found towels (dark ones) and sent Danielle, Haley, and Charlotte to the bathroom to clean up. She’d just gotten them passable (and the bathroom cleaned up) when she heard the front door open.

“Mom!” shouted Danielle. She didn’t seem particularly worried or upset about the sledding incident, and Mary Anne had a feeling that Mrs. Roberts would just laugh it off. She decided to let Danielle or Greg be the one to do the talking.

After all, it hadn’t been so terrible. And nothing bad had happened. Okay, so maybe Danielle was pushing the limits a little. She had to have known that what she was doing wasn’t on the parent-and-baby-sitter-approved list.

But you couldn’t blame her for trying it out. And for wanting to pack every activity that she had missed while she was in the hospital, into these newfound days of feeling good.

What would Stacey have done? wondered Mary Anne as she headed home. And what was going on with Stacey?

Oh, well. She’d find out soon enough.

She passed some kids on pieces of cardboard, trying to sled down a muddy, gullied section of hill in their front yard.

She watched them for a minute, then shook her head, smiling ruefully, and headed for home.

I made a grand jeté through the door of Claudia’s room, but it was no use. I was late. All thanks to traffic and my father’s driving. (He always stops for yellow lights. That’s a good thing, don’t get me wrong. But not when I’m on my way from dance class at Mme Noelle’s to the BSC meeting at Claudia’s.)

Kristy made a point of checking the time on her watch. I knew what it said: 5:32.

She gave me her Look.

“Sorry,” I said, and slid into a seat on the floor next to Mallory.

Mallory gave me a sympathetic grin and the bag of Mallomars she’d been holding.

The phone rang and Claudia picked it up. “Baby-sitters Club,” she said.

I looked around the room — and was suddenly indignant. I didn’t deserve the Look. I wasn’t the only one who was late. Stacey was late, too. Later than me. She hadn’t even arrived yet.

“Mrs. Rodowsky needs a sitter for Jackie for next Friday night,” said Claudia.

Mary Anne flipped open the record book.

And I said to Mallory, “Where’s Stacey?”

Mallory shrugged.

Claudia frowned down at the bag of pretzels lying unopened on her desk. They were unopened because 1) as junk food, pretzels do not rate with Claudia. 2) junk food without sugar is the only kind of junk food Stacey can eat — and the only kind Dawn will eat since she doesn’t believe in eating junk food. 3) Dawn had brought a low-fat trail mix that she made herself. It was actually pretty good.

So the pretzels weren’t open. And by the time Dawn had been assigned the Rodowsky job, and by the time Kristy had called Mrs. Rodowsky back with the information, they were still unopened. This was because Stacey still hadn’t arrived.

Claudia said, “She hasn’t even called. Stacey, I mean. I hope nothing’s wrong.”

She was beginning to look worried, and I wasn’t surprised. If I got to a BSC meeting and Mallory weren’t there, and I hadn’t heard from her, I’d be worried, too. I’d think, why didn’t she tell me she wasn’t coming? Why hasn’t she called? That’s not like Mallory. Oh, my lord, what if something happened to her? What if she’s hurt and can’t call? What if no one knows where she is? What if….

Maybe I’m more like Aunt Cecelia than I thought. After all, when my aunt first started living with us, she wanted me to call home if I were going to be even just a few minutes late.

But Mallory’s my best friend, so it would be only natural that I would worry, right? And only natural that Claudia would worry, too, since Stacey is her best friend.

Kristy didn’t look worried. Our fearless leader kept checking her watch and frowning. Every once in awhile she’d give a little snort. It sounded kind of ominous. I was glad I wasn’t Stacey. Getting a Look from Kristy was one thing. But I had a feeling Kristy was really going to let Stacey have it.

The phone rang again and I snagged the notebook and glanced through the pages. I had just gotten to Mary Anne’s entry when Kristy said (with a little snort), “Well, what happened, Mary Anne? How did it go with Danielle?”

I put my finger in the book to mark my place and looked up. Mary Anne said, “Wellll, Danielle does seem to be feeling better these days. A lot better.”

“Doesn’t she?” I said eagerly. “She’s got so much energy! And she looks great.”

Everyone smiled at that. It was good news. But Mary Anne’s next words made us a little more thoughtful.

“She does look great,” agreed Mary Anne. “But — well, let me tell you what she did when I was sitting with her on Tuesday.”

Some of us had already read what Mary Anne had written in the notebook, of course. But I hadn’t, and besides, the notebook didn’t go into all the details that Mary Anne did.

“Whoa,” said Kristy, when Mary Anne had finished. The rest of us were dumbfounded, too.

“It’s not that Danielle did a terrible thing,” said Mary Anne. “I mean, it’s kind of logical in a way.”

Claudia nodded thoughtfully. “True. And it’s not like she’s trying to be the worst kid ever, or anything.”

“Yeah,” said Kristy, who had an experience with a kid we had actually called “the worst kid ever.”

Mallory said, “I know it’s not the same thing, but when I was getting over mono, the first day I felt really good, I wanted to go crazy. I mean, it was wonderful. I felt like I was going to burst. I bet Danielle, after all she’s been through, feels that way about a million times more.”

I looked at Mallory gratefully. She understood. And she’d put into words exactly what I’d been feeling. But …

I sighed. “She was kind of out of control when I sat with her, too,” I confessed. “She got hold of her mom’s Rollerblades —”

“Her mom has Rollerblades?” asked Claudia. “Coool.”

“Didn’t you read about it in the notebook?” Kristy asked Claudia sternly. (I think Kristy was a little touchy because Stacey still hadn’t shown up — or called.)

Claudia was unabashed. “I might have missed a few words,” she said cheerfully. “So go on about the Rollerblades.”

I told my friends about the skating incident. “It wasn’t a major disaster or anything,” I concluded, “so I just let it go.”

“Me, too.” Mary Anne nodded. “I mean, Mrs. Roberts was so glad that Danielle was feeling well. And she told me before I left that she was in high spirits. I got the feeling that she’d just consider this her high spirits.”

“Maybe we should forget about it,” I said. “I mean, Danielle has worked so hard. She’s been in the hospital more than she’s been out of it lately. She must feel like she’s making up for lost time and lost life.”

We were silent for a moment. Then Dawn nodded slowly. “You’re right. Besides, if her parents aren’t concerned, I don’t think we should be.”

“Right,” said Kristy, looking relieved. Her brisk tone dispelled the choked-up feeling that I could sense was coming over my friends (especially Mary Anne, who was looking a little teary-eyed).

“So,” I said quickly. “Listen to this, guys. There’s going to be another wedding!”

Everyone shrieked at once, and I told them how Becca and I had accidentally-on-purpose overheard Aunt Cecelia planning a wedding with Mr. Major.

“Are you going to be in the wedding?” asked Mary Anne, her romantic instincts taking over.

“What are you going to wear?” asked Claudia.

“Are you going to have to wear a dress?” added Kristy, looking alarmed and disgusted at the same time.

“I’ll be glad to help figure out healthy, yummy food for the wedding,” said Dawn.

Mal grinned a big, huge Mallory grin. “Aunt Cecelia, huh? That’s going to be some wedding!”

We burst out laughing and then plunged headlong into wedding plans and speculation, hardly even pausing when the phone rang and we set up baby-sitting appointments.

Except for when the phone rang at three minutes till six and Kristy answered it.

“Stacey!” she cried. “Where are you? What’s wrong?”

Everyone fell instantly silent.

“I know you can’t make the meeting,” said Kristy. “Duh, Stacey. It’s almost six o’clock now.”

She was frowning, and she frowned even harder as she listened.

“No,” she said. “But Stacey? Well, good-bye to you, too.”

Kristy hung up the phone. “That was Stacey,” she said. Her frown looked as if it were about to become permanent.

“What’s wrong?” asked Claudia.

Kristy shook her head. Her lips were thin. Our fearless leader looked pretty fearsome. And pretty annoyed.

“She didn’t say. She just said she was sorry, that she couldn’t make the meeting. And that she had to go.”

Wow. No one in the history of the BSC (okay, maybe I’m exaggerating, but you get the idea) had ever just blown a meeting off like that. Especially not to Kristy.

We all kept quiet.

Then Kristy looked at her watch. “Meeting adjourned,” she barked. And after getting up, she stomped out the door.

“Shop until you drop,” I whispered, pushing open the front door of the mall.

“Here comes the briiide,” Becca sang, under her breath and way off-key.

We giggled.

It was Saturday afternoon, gray and windy and perfect for not doing anything out-of-doors. So Becca and I had decided it was time to shop for dresses for Aunt Cecelia’s wedding, plus maybe something special for Squirt. Aunt Cecelia had made it extra easy for us, because she’d decided she was going to Washington Mall “to do a little browsing.”

I’d been sitting next to Becca at breakfast when Aunt Cecelia had made that announcement and I’d elbowed Becca so hard she’d almost fallen off the chair.

“Could we come, too?” I said aloud. “Unless, of course, there’s something special that you need to shop for that’s a secret.”

Now was Aunt Cecelia’s big chance to tell us All. But she didn’t. She said, “I like to shop at my own pace. But you can come with me. You can shop together and then we’ll make arrangements to meet afterwards.”

“Sounds like fun,” Mama had said, smiling at both of us.

Becca nudged me back and said, “It sure does.”

Washington Mall was the biggest mall around, five whole levels to shop half an hour from Stoneybrook.

Aunt Cecelia gave us a list of dos and don’ts and rules and regulations that was about a mile long. Since she’d been going over the same list in the car, we knew it pretty well. Besides, it was basic safety and manners stuff. “Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t get separated. Be polite. Always say please and thank you.”

But we nodded and said, ‘Yes, Aunt Cecelia,” politely. We didn’t want to blow our chance to do some wedding shopping (just like Aunt Cecelia was doing, we knew).

We will meet back right here in one hour and a half,” Aunt Cecelia said. “Coordinate watches.”

We coordinated watches. “Behave,” said Aunt Cecelia, and strode away into the crowd.

“Do you think they have one of those cute little baby tuxes?” said Becca as we plunged into our shopping expedition.

“I hope so,” I said. “We can’t forget a wedding present for Aunt Cecelia and Mr. Major, either.”

“But let’s go to the baby store first.”

“Okay. We’ll look there first.”

Unfortunately, Baby Look At You Now! (the Washington Mall baby store) didn’t have any little tuxes for Squirt, but when we told the clerk our brother was going to be a member of a wedding — a very important wedding — she came up with all kinds of cute outfits, including a baby suit jacket and a shirt with a soft little red bow tie attached to it.

“This is soo cute,” said Becca.

“You could take it home and try it out on him,” suggested the clerk, “and return it in exchange for something else if it doesn’t fit. Or a different size.”

“Ooooh,” said Becca.

But I remembered just how much money we had for our shopping trip and pulled Becca away in time. “We’ll bring Squirt with us the next time,” I promised over my shoulder as we left the store.

“Don’t forget how much money we don’t have to spend right now,” I warned Becca as we strolled back out into the mall.

“I know, I know. You said this is the preliminary shopping expedition,” she replied.

“Right. We look, we compare, we narrow our choices. We focus.” (I could almost hear Mme Noelle saying that to me in dance class: “You must focus. It is ze important thing.”)

“Right,” Becca said back to me, nodding solemnly. Then she giggled. “Can we look in Steven E’s?”

“Of course,” I said, grinning. Steven E’s was the most expensive store in Washington Mall. “We’ll go to Laura Ashley’s, too. But we’d better check out Penney’s and Macy’s, too. It’s important that we consider a wide range of possibilities. Let’s start at a department store first. We can scope out wedding gifts there, too.”

So we did. We tried on dresses at Penney’s (and checked out their bridal department). We wandered through the home furnishings department. (Becca fell in love with this lamp. I can’t exactly describe it except to say that I didn’t think it was quite right for a wedding present. Although, of course, Aunt Cecelia might need some new home furnishings when she and Mr. Major moved into their own house.)

“But they might move into Mr. Major’s house,” I pointed out, practically dragging Becca away from The Lamp. “And you don’t know how it’s decorated. This might not go with his stuff at all.”

“Oh,” said Becca. She sounded disappointed.

“And she’s got lots of stuff in storage from when she moved in with us, remember?”

“Oh, right. I guess we’ll have to find something else.”

“We will,” I promised.

Next we tried on perfume (it doesn’t hurt to smell good for a wedding, too) and discussed which would be better from which season and time of day.

“Like if it’s a night wedding,” I said, “we’ll want something more glamorous.”

“Or if it’s a formal wedding,” agreed Becca.

“But if it’s in June and it’s hot outside, nothing too heavy.”

“Like this!” shrieked Becca, spraying something really strong on my wrist.

“Euwww.” I gasped. I looked up and noticed the clerk giving us the eye and said, “Thank you for the sample, Becca. But I don’t think this is what we’re looking for.” I took Becca’s arm and we walked away in a very dignified, adult manner. But when we were out of sight of the perfume counter, we collapsed, giggling.

“Peee-youuuuu, you stink.” Becca held her nose.

“So do you,” I said, holding my own nose.

Next we found a couple of good possibilities for Becca but nothing for me. At least, nothing I could afford. I found one terrific pale pink dress that had “wedding” written all over it. But the price had “no way” written on it, too.

“It looks super, Jessi,” said Becca, who’d been twirling in front of the mirror in a satiny yellow dress.

“Yeah. And it would be perfect with a hat.”

“Maybe it’ll get marked down by the time the wedding comes,” said Becca. “After all, we don’t know when it’s going to be yet.”

“True. And that would give me time to save up for it.” I felt better. I took the dress off (reluctantly) and then hung it at the end of the rack where people would be less likely to find it.

“I’m hungry,” said Becca.

“Let’s go to Casa Grande,” I said. “Mal and I love the Super Burrito.”

“I’m not sure I’m that hungry,” said Becca.

“We can split one,” I said. “And we’ll hit Donut Delite for dessert.”

“Cool,” said Becca.

It felt good to sit down at Casa Grande. We’d been shopping for a long time. It was almost time to meet Aunt Cecelia.

And I was so tired, I was actually looking forward to it. I was ready to lean back in the car and rest my feet.

“You know what?” said Becca thoughtfully. “Maybe we don’t have to get them stuff for a wedding gift. Maybe we could get them something like tickets to a play or passes to the movie for when they get back.”

“Hey, that’s a great idea!” I said. We talked about the wedding for a while, and ways we could get information about it without giving away that we knew what was going on. It was sort of strange that Aunt Cecelia hadn’t said anything to us at all, but maybe she had told Mama and Daddy, and was just waiting for the right time to let Becca and me in on it. We wondered if parents could be in weddings. Could our parents be the best man and the bridesmaid (or bridesmatron?). We knew, since Aunt Cecelia had been married before, that she probably wouldn’t do the long white dress thing. But what would she wear?

“We could ask at Rita’s Bridal Shoppe,” suggested Becca.

“Another great idea!” I exclaimed.

Becca grinned and slurped her Coke noisily. “Not as good as some of Danielle’s! She thinks up the best things, Jessi. You wouldn’t believe them.”

Yes, I would, I thought, remembering the Rollerblades in the house and turning the basement stairs into a giant sled course scheme. But I didn’t say anything aloud.

“Really,” Becca went on. “She’s very, well, you know, creative. And her parents just laugh, instead of like, getting angry when one of her great ideas doesn’t quite work out.”

Translation: Danielle was getting away with a lot.

“You have great ideas of your own,” I said. “And I expect, even if Mama and Daddy didn’t squash your creativity, Aunt Cecelia would have plenty to say about any ideas that were too wild.”

“Yeah.” Becca sighed. After a moment, her face brightened. “But then, Aunt Cecelia’s getting married.”

“And it’s time to meet Aunt Cecelia,” I said.

We did. We got there early. Of course, Aunt Cecelia was there early, too. She was holding a shopping bag, but I couldn’t tell what was in it.

“I need a little more time.” Aunt Cecelia eyed us. “You can come with me if you’d like or …”

“Let’s just meet back here in another hour,” I suggested quickly.

Did Aunt Cecelia look relieved? Did she have more wedding shopping to do? We sure did!

“Very well,” she said.

We coordinated watches again, and set off. Becca and I almost shopped until we dropped. We hit Steven E’s, we hit Laura Ashley, we went to stores on all five levels of Washington Mall, including Rita’s Bridal Shoppe (silk suits in pastel colors are very popular for second or “post-first marriage” ceremonies, in case you wanted to know).

Even with a stop at Donut Delite for some sugar reinforcements, I was more than ready to go meet Aunt Cecelia.

“Whew!” I gasped, falling into the front seat of the car.

“Tired?” asked Aunt Cecelia.

“Hmm,” I said.

Becca flopped down in the backseat. She was too tired to even make a sound. I closed my eyes for just a minute and the next thing I knew, Aunt Cecelia was going, “Girls, we’re home.”

Wow. I’d fallen asleep!

Becca and I got sleepily out of the car and offered to help Aunt Cecelia with her bags.

“I’ve got them,” she said. Which of couse meant we couldn’t find out what was in them.

“Did you find everything you were shopping for?” I asked, waking up a little.

“Go on into the house. It’s too cold to be standing around gabbing.”

Aunt Cecelia gave me a little push and Becca and I turned and went obediently into the house. I turned to close the front door and stopped and grabbed Becca’s arm dramatically. “Look! It’s his car!”

Without even thinking about it I closed the door and dragged Becca over to the front window.

“Cece, I was just driving by. Let me help you with those,” Mr. Major said, getting out of his car.

“I suppose you could,” said Cece. She smiled at Mr. Major and for some reason they both laughed. Then Aunt Cecelia said, “But you can’t stay. I’ve got work to do.”

“Well, Cece, that’s fine,” said Mr. Major.

I wrinkled my nose at Becca. That wasn’t very romantic of Aunt Cecelia. And besides, what about having love to keep her warm, the way the songs all said.

“Don’t forget, four o’clock,” said Aunt Cecelia.

Mr. Major reached into his pocket and pulled out his date book. He flipped it open and read out a time and date. “Written in ink,” he assured Aunt Cecelia. “I’ll be there. Will you?”

A little more romantic. I guess.

“You know I will,” said Aunt Cecelia. “Now go before you freeze to death.” She went inside and shut the door.

Mr. Major was shaking his head and laughing as he walked back to the car. We listened as Aunt Cecelia carried her shopping bags to her room.

Becca looked at me, her eyes shining. “That’s it,” she said. “That’s when Aunt Cecelia’s wedding is!”

We high fived and then ran into the kitchen.

Weddings seemed to be a theme these days. When Kristy arrived at the Robertses’ on Saturday afternoon, they were all dressed up to go to the wedding of a friend of Mr. Roberts.

Mrs. Roberts was just pulling on her coat while Mr. Roberts was warming up the car.

“The wedding present … ah, here it is. Good. You’re right on time, Kristy. That’s great. We’ll be back about five-thirty, I think. We’ll just drop by the reception, but we’re not going to stay long. Phone numbers where we can be reached are by the phone in the kitchen. Also, doctors’ numbers and any other numbers you might need.”

“Great,” Kristy said approvingly.

“The bad news is that Greg has a cold. He’s in his room and I want him to stay in bed. He needs to be kept quiet, but he doesn’t necessarily have to sleep. I just don’t want his cold to turn into anything worse in this weather. And I’d like to avoid Danielle’s getting it.” Mrs. Roberts paused and smiled a little. “Although I don’t think a cold would slow Danielle down a bit. She’s doing so well, Kristy.”

Kristy nodded.

Mrs. Roberts became brisk and practical again. “Danielle asked if she could invite some friends over and I said okay. I imagine that’s where she is right now, on the phone. That’s a lot of kids for you to watch so our neighbors, the Issacs, are on call if you need help. Greg doesn’t need any medicine; I just gave him some. But all the juice and liquid he wants. And snacks for Danielle and her friends are fine later on, too. There’s even some frozen cookie dough in the freezer if you want to make cookies.”

“Got it,” Kristy said. “Have a good time at the wedding.”

“Thanks,” said Mrs. Roberts, and then she was gone.

Sure enough, Danielle was on the phone when Kristy stuck her head in the den. Danielle waved at her and made elaborate hand motions which Kristy took to mean that she was on the phone and would be getting off in just a minute. Kristy pointed down the hall and made a sneezing motion and Danielle grinned widely.

What everyone had been saying was true. Danielle did look great. A little thin, but full of life and energy.

Greg didn’t look so great. In fact, he looked cranky and miserable.

“Hi, Greg,” Kristy said. “I’m Kristy.”

“I doe,” he said through his stuffed nose. He frowned. “Cad I have a Coke?”

“You can have some juice.”

He frowned again.

“I’ll get you some and be right back,” Kristy said, taking this as not exactly a no, and she snared his glass from the table by the bed and went back to the kitchen. She filled the glass about two-thirds full with orange juice, then added some seltzer. It was healthier than a Coke (she could almost hear Dawn giving it the Dawn seal of approval), but it had some fizz like a soda.

On the way back to Greg’s room, she ran into Danielle, who’d just come bouncing out in the hall.

“Hi, Kristy!”

“Hi, yourself. You’ve got company coming?”

Danielle grinned her great grin. “Becca, Charlotte, and Vanessa!”

“That’s not just friends, that’s a party!”

“Yeah. I better go clean up my room a little before they get here.”

Kristy took that as a good sign. “Go for it,” she said. “I’m in with Greg right now. I’ll check back with you in a little while.”

“Check!” said Danielle, giggling, and she bounced away.

Kristy took the juice into Greg. “Kristy’s special orange soda,” she said.

Greg looked a little less cranky at this. He sat up and took a small, suspicious sip of the juice. He wrinkled his nose. “It’s not real orange soda.”

“It is,” said Kristy. “The real-est. Made from real orange juice.”

Greg took another sip. Then he took several noisy gulps. “It’s pretty good,” he said, setting the glass to one side.

“I hear you already had your medicine,” said Kristy.

With an awful face, Greg said, “It’s disgusting.”

“Yes,” said Kristy sympathetically. “But at least you don’t have to have any more for a while. Maybe we could do something fun for a little while. Like read or —”

“Play cards!” said Greg.

That caught Kristy by surprise. But it was a quiet activity (as long as they didn’t play slap jack or fifty-two pick up), so she settled in for some marathon card playing.

The “party” arrived not too long after that, Becca and Charlotte first, then Haley Braddock, then Vanessa Pike, one of Mallory’s younger sisters.

“It’s snowing, I’m glowing,” said Vanessa, coming in the door. Kristy peered out past her and saw a few flakes. Enough, anyway, for Vanessa-the-poet to make a rhyme.

“We have some dough for making cookies a little later,” she said to the girls who were now gathered in the hall while Vanessa took off her coat. “Maybe we can make some hot chocolate then, too.”

“I like hot chocolate,” said Becca.

“Or hot Jell-O,” said Haley.

“Hot Jell-O?” asked Kristy.

“You know,” Haley said. “You make Jell-O but instead of putting it into the refrigerator, you drink it.”

The thought of all that sugar made Kristy’s teeth ache. It was junk food worthy of Claudia. But she just nodded and said, “We’ll see.”

“Come on, guys,” said Danielle.

“Don’t forget Greg’s not feeling well,” Kristy reminded them. “So keep it sort of quiet, okay?”

”Don’t worry,” said Danielle. “I know how that feels!”

True, thought Kristy, a tad relieved as she headed back to Greg’s room. Maybe Danielle was getting over her “high spirits.”

When she went back into Greg’s room, he was turning restlessly. Some of the cards had fallen off the bed. “My head hurts,” he complained.

Gathering up the cards, Kristy said, “Why don’t I just read to you for a little while? Would you like that?”

“I guess,” said Greg.

She felt his forehead, but it didn’t seem warm. But maybe playing cards while he had a cold had made his head hurt. His eyes looked a little heavy, too. Maybe reading to him would settle him down and he could nap until his headache went away.

“Any book you want,” she said. “You name it.”

As it turned out, he couldn’t make up his mind, and she spent the next half hour or so book surfing: reading a few lines or paragraphs from one book, only to have Greg say fretfully, “Not that one.”

Meanwhile, Danielle and her friends had come up with a fairly spectacular way to entertain themselves.

They’d decided to build a swimming pool — in the Robertses’ bathroom.

It was a quiet activity. But Danielle must have known it wasn’t on the list of things a baby-sitter could allow. Or parents either.

It started with the sound of the water running. Kristy wouldn’t have even noticed it, except that the water kept running. And running. She thought maybe someone had forgotten to turn off a faucet.

She looked at Greg. His eyes were drooping. She shut the book and waited a moment and when he didn’t wake up she slipped out of the room to check on things.

No water running in the kitchen. She went down the hall to the bathroom. No water there.

Kristy frowned.

Then she thought, maybe there’s another bathroom. She walked down the hall, past Danielle’s room and stopped outside a door at the end of the hall.

The door was closed. Kristy pushed it open. In the Robertses’ bedroom, everything looked normal. But she could hear the sound of running water much more clearly now. A shower of water.

The sound was coming from behind the closed door across the room. Still calm (like a good baby-sitter should be), she walked quickly across the room and opened the door.

Five startled faces turned toward her.

“Uh-oh,” said Charlotte. She made a grab for the shower door, the sliding glass kind that sits on the top edge of the bathtub. It was closed. When Charlotte grabbed it, it came open.

A flood of incredible-colored water poured out across the bathroom floor — and Kristy’s feet.

“Kristy!” gasped Haley.

Danielle didn’t say anything. She made a leap for the shower door and closed it. But it was too late.

The girls and Kristy were standing in the middle of a blue-green-yellow-red-orange lake.

“What is going on?” cried Kristy. She realized that the sea of water was spreading into the bedroom and made a dive for the door connecting the bathroom to the bedroom. She closed it. But it was too late. The water had already spilled out into the bedroom.

“We wanted to see if we could fill the shower up all the way to the top,” said Danielle, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“We used Easter egg dye to make it pretty colors,” added Haley.

“Only we didn’t have enough dye,” said Becca.

Sure enough, the girls had closed the drain in the bathtub, turned on the shower, and taped all the places where water might have leaked out around the shower door. And the shower was still running.

“How were you going to get the door open and turn the water off once the shower was full?” asked Kristy in exasperation. “Climb over the top and dive?”

No one answered. Kristy realized that she had just guessed part two of the plan to build an indoor swimming pool in the bathroom. “Good grief,” she said. “You can’t …” Her voice trailed off. She remembered the discussion that we’d had at the BSC meeting about Danielle, and decided not to talk to her about this “overabundance” of high spirits. She just couldn’t do it.

Besides, maybe it would be better to talk to the Robertses when they got home.

“Are you going to tell?” asked Danielle.

“Well,” said Kristy slowly. “Maybe, maybe not.” she said again. “But don’t do that again, okay?”

”Okay,” said Danielle. If Kristy had been watching closely, she might have seen the mischief in Danielle’s eyes. But it had been a long afternoon. She also didn’t quite catch the significance when Danielle exchanged a look with Charlotte, Vanessa, Becca, and Haley and said, solemnly, “I promise. I’ll never do that again.”

Kristy took a deep breath. Then she said, “Never mind. We need to get this mess cleaned up. Now.”

She opened the shower door (fortunately, the shower hadn’t had a chance to fill up much), turned the water off and opened the bathtub drain.

“Haley, you and Char peel this tape off and get the sticky stuff off, too, and throw it all away. Danielle, go get a mop and a bucket and some paper towels. All of you, take off your shoes and socks and pants. Vanessa, you’re in charge of washing and drying all the clothes.”

It was a mess. A huge mess. Everything in the bathroom was completely soaked, and dyed — including the towels hanging on the wall and the toilet paper.

But with Kristy in charge, the bathroom was soon dry, the toilet paper changed, the towels in the laundry and fresh towels put out, and five girls restored to more or less their normal appearance. The carpet in the bedroom around the bathroom door (which fortunately was dark blue so it didn’t show the effects of the Easter egg dye) was still a little damp to the touch, but Kristy figured that it would dry out pretty quickly.

She took a quick peek in at Greg, who was asleep on his back with his mouth open, and herded the gang of five into the kitchen for hot chocolate. Which is where they were all sitting when the Robertses returned. It was a heartwarming scene that met Mrs. Roberts’ eyes when she came into the kitchen, and she didn’t notice Vanessa’s rainbow socks, or the funny high-tide mark around the calves of Becca’s jeans.

“Mom!” Danielle jumped up and gave her mother an exuberant hug. “How was the wedding?”

“Beautiful, just the way weddings are supposed to be,” answered Mrs. Roberts with a smile.

She went into the hall to hang up her coat and Kristy followed her, wondering if she should tell her what had happened after all. But Mrs. Roberts cut her off. “Thanks for taking such good care of things, Kristy.”

“No problem. But I —”

“You know, seeing Danielle like this, I can’t even let myself worry that her next doctor’s appointment is coming up.”

“Doctor’s appointment?” Kristy heard her own voice go up with worry.

Mrs. Roberts heard it, too. She made a little face and patted Kristy on the shoulder. “Just routine. All the signs are that Danielle’s health is stable, if not improving. That she’s still in remission. Don’t worry.”

How could Kristy tell Mrs. Roberts about the great bathroom swimming pool flood? She couldn’t. Not with another doctor’s appointment staring Danielle — and the Robertses — in the face.

So she left without saying anything at all.

That night, Kristy called Mary Anne and me about what had happened, since we’d been there for the other “high-spirited” incidents.

“I don’t know,” Kristy said to me. “I just don’t know. I mean, Mary Anne thinks it’s time one of us had a talk with Mrs. Roberts. What do you think?”

“You’re asking me?” I said. I’m not used to even a speck of indecision in Kristy. But then, this was a special case.

I thought hard. Finally I said slowly, “I agree with Mary Anne. Danielle has got too — creative — an imagination for us to let this go on. You know, she’s acting kind of, well, spoiled. Not in a nasty way, but in a way that says she knows she can get away with stuff.”

I wasn’t sure I had made myself clear, but Kristy seemed to understand. “You’re right,” she said. “One of us needs to talk to Mrs. Roberts. Let me think about this and we’ll talk it over on Monday at our meeting.”

“Good,” I said. And I meant it.

“This meeting of the Baby-sitters Club will —” Kristy stopped.

Stacey walked in the door.

Kristy looked at her watch.

Stacey sat down, reached in her backpack, and pulled out a bag of pretzels. She opened it and offered it to Dawn.

Kristy cleared her throat. “Thanks for coming to the meeting, Stacey.”

Looking up, Stacey said, “Oh. Am I late? Gosh, I am sorry!” She began to munch on a pretzel. And she didn’t sound terribly sorry. At least not sorry enough for Kristy. Kristy gave her a Look, cleared her throat again, and said, “This meeting of the BSC will now come to order. Feel free to collect dues whenever you like, Stacey.” (Monday is dues day.)

“Oh, right,” said Stacey. Mary Anne handed her the record book and we began to fork our dues over to her.

“So what about Danielle?” I asked quickly.

“Right. Danielle,” said Kristy. She paused. “I haven’t quite decided what to do.” She filled the rest of us in on what had happened.

“Awesome,” said Dawn. “Danielle’s an amazing kid.”

“Yup,” said Kristy. “Maybe too amazing for her own good. Who knows what she’ll think of next?”

“She keeps pushing the boundaries,” said Mary Anne. “Seeing what she can get away with. You can’t blame her. I mean, it’s probably a long time since she felt like a kid.”

“Yes, but she’s going to go too far. And then what’s going to happen?” argued Dawn.

I said, “Kristy, why don’t you call Mrs. Roberts now? With all of us here. You can tell her what happened. And I can talk to her as well, if you need it.”

“Me, too,” said Mary Anne. “It might carry more weight coming from all of us.”

“And there’s nothing wrong with a little support when you’re telling a parent that her child might be just a tiny bit out of control,” said Kristy with a wry grin. “Okay.”

Mary Anne gave Kristy the number from the client list and Kristy called the Robertses.

“Mrs. Roberts? Hi. It’s Kristy Thomas, from the Baby-sitters Club…. Yes. Fine, thank you. How are you? … Good. And Danielle? … I’m glad. Actually, it’s about Danielle I’m calling…. No, no, nothing major. Not exactly. Well, it’s about this past Saturday afternoon.”

Trying to sound very adult and neutral, Kristy told Mrs. Roberts about the bathtub-swimming pool idea.

She listened for a moment when she finished, frowned, and said, “But that’s not all. Both Mary Anne Spier and Jessi had some problems, too.”

Kristy told Mrs. Roberts about the Roller-blading incident and the mattress-sled run in the basement.

A look of surprise came over her face. “Really?” she said. “Are you sure? No! No, of course not. It’s just that … I see. Well, of course. We’re all glad she feels so much better. We just felt that we had to let you know. Right. You’re welcome.”

Slowly hanging up the phone, Kristy said, “She didn’t think it was a big deal. Any of it. She said it’s just high spirits and Danielle will work them off and settle down to ‘medium speed.’ That’s it.”

“It’s more than that!” I couldn’t help exclaiming. “Do you want me to call her back?”

Kristy shook her head. “No. I mean, she is Danielle’s mother. She knows Danielle better than we do. She’s the best judge of how to handle this. And maybe she is right.”

No one said anything to that. Then Mary Anne said, “Well, you’ve done all you can do.”

“True,” said Kristy. But she didn’t look happy. And I admit, I wasn’t too happy about it, either.

The phone started ringing and we set up a couple of baby-sitting jobs, and by then, I had remembered something that did make me happy.

Aunt Cecelia’s wedding.

It was still a secret in our family. A big secret. I figured that it was just like Aunt Cecelia not to want a fuss over it all. She’d probably have a tiny wedding, just family. But I also knew how important it was for us to look just right for Aunt Cecelia’s wedding, and Becca and I had Made Plans.

After all, we knew the date — this coming Saturday. And we were prepared.

We hadn’t been able to come up with the money for new clothes and a fancy wedding gift. So we’d settled on a small gift (a book of passes to the Stoneybrook Cinema).

Everyone approved of that idea, even Kristy-the-great-idea-person. “I bet that’s something neither your aunt or her new husband has!” she said.

“So, are we invited, or what?” asked Claudia. “I’ve got a cool idea for my dress.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I wish you could be there. But I’m sure this is going to be a super small wedding. I mean, it’s so super secret already.”

“A secret wedding,” said Mary Anne, her eyes misting over. “That’s so romantic.”

Romantic is not a word I’d use in association with my aunt Cecelia. I had a feeling the small, secret nature of the wedding had more to do with practicality than romance. But I didn’t say anything to spoil it for Mary Anne. Besides, any wedding, even Aunt Cecelia’s, has romance built into it, right?

We talked about weddings — Aunt Cecelia’s, Dawn’s father’s, Dawn’s mother’s and Mary Anne’s father’s, Kristy’s mom’s — and even the wedding that the Robertses had gone to on Saturday until the meeting was over. Stacey reminded us that in New York, some brides even wore black, but I was sure Aunt Cecelia would be going for a silk suit or some tailored dress.

“Do you think she’ll promise to obey?” asked Mal, giggling.

“Not Aunt Cecelia!” I shot back.

Kristy looked at her watch. “Okay, you wedding fiends, listen up. This meeting of the BSC is officially adjourned.”

“Here comes the briide,” sang Claudia, way, way off-key.

I shook my head and jumped up. We headed downstairs, and as Mal and I went out the door, I heard Claudia shout, “Take lots of pictures.”

“Maybe the BSC could buy a present, too,” I heard Kristy add. “You know, from one group of baby-sitters to another baby-sitter.”

Mal and I exchanged glances, remembering when Aunt Cecelia had tried to be my baby-sitter. Good thing we’d worked that out.

Laughing, we headed for home — and the wedding week countdown.

“Here comes the bride,” I hummed. Softly. It was early Saturday morning. The big day.

I looked under my eyelashes at my mom, who had propped her chin in her hand, and was reading the newspaper and drinking hot tea. She didn’t even look awake.

My parents were keeping the wedding a secret right up until the end. And they were doing a very good job of not even letting on that they knew.

But then so were Becca and I. My parents and Aunt Cecelia thought they were going to give us a big surprise. But Becca and I (and Squirt) were going to give them a big surprise, too.

My father came down for breakfast just as I finished up. I hummed a few more bars of “The Wedding March,” but he didn’t react, either. He just started making toast.

“Aunt Cecelia’s not up yet, is she?” I asked casually.

My father looked up. “Not yet, I guess,” he answered, just as casually.

“Well, see you guys later,” I said.

“Mmm,” said my mom, turning a page of the newspaper.

“Mmmm,” said my father, buttering the toast.

Becca was sitting on the floor of her room with the wrapping paper, tape, and scissors by her. The Stoneybrook Cinema coupon book was in her lap.

“It’s so little,” she said, looking up when I came in. “It’s kind of hard to wrap.”

She was right — it was hard. When we were finished, it looked, well, wrapped. Not exactly a professional wrapping job. “It’s the thought that counts,” I announced. “And big things come in small packages. Besides, we’re going to have to hurry to get ready. Don’t forget, the wedding is at eleven. We need to get downstairs early so they don’t head off and get married without us!”

Becca made a mad dash for the shower while I scooped Squirt up and put him in his best winter outfit: a white turtleneck shirt and a little navy jacket that buttoned up the front, with a pair of matching navy elastic-waist baby pants.

Then I made a dash for the shower while Becca kept an eye on Squirt to make sure he didn’t mess up his super-cool baby look.

We hadn’t been able to buy new dresses, but we’d gotten new tights to go with our old dresses, and we’d bought matching ribbons, too, to braid into our hair. We took turns braiding each other’s hair (with Squirt taking an extreme interest in the ribbons).

At last we were ready. I picked up Squirt, and Becca picked up the present, and we checked ourselves out in the mirror. We looked great. We’d do Aunt Cecelia — or anybody, for that matter — proud.

It was ten-thirty sharp.

“I hear a car pulling into the driveway,” Becca said with a gasp.

We hurried out of the room and down the stairs as the doorbell rang. We reached the living room just as Aunt Cecelia ushered Mr. Major in.

“Da, da, da, da!” I sang as we walked in.

“Jessica? Rebecca? John Philip?” said Aunt Cecelia in complete surprise.

“Surprise!” Becca and I answered together.

“AAAhee,” chimed in Squirt, waving his arms happily.

“What’s going on?” asked Mama, coming into the room with the newspaper in her hand. She was wearing stirrup pants and a big old sweater. Daddy followed her, holding a cup of coffee. He had on a pair of old jeans and his college sweatshirt.

“But — you’re not even dressed yet!” I cried in horror.

“Dressed for what?” asked Daddy.

I looked at Mama and Daddy. I looked at Aunt Cecelia and Mr. Major. Mr. Major was wearing a suit. A nice suit. But it didn’t say wedding. And Aunt Cecelia was wearing a nice suit, too. One she called “Old Reliable” because she could wear it almost anywhere and it looked right.

I looked down at me, dressed to the nines. I looked at Squirt. My eyes met Becca’s.

“The — the wedding?” I asked.

“What wedding?” said Mama. “Not the one Cecelia and Martin are going to be in?”

“Be in? Be in how?” I was getting a bad feeling about this. A really bad feeling.

“Well, Mr. Major is an usher,” said Aunt Cecelia. “And I’m in charge of the guest book.”

“That’s it? You’re going to someone else’s wedding?” asked Becca. “But we thought — aren’t you and Mr. Major getting married?”

“Married!”

Aunt Cecelia and Mr. Major exchanged glances and they both burst out laughing.

“You’re not getting married?” I asked, just to make sure.

“No,” said Aunt Cecelia, still laughing.

Mr. Major shook his head.

“Where on earth did you get an idea like that?” asked Mama.

“Uh, well … I guess we saw you together and sort of jumped to conclusions,” I said.

“And heard me and Mr. Major talking about this wedding at some point,” Aunt Cecelia guessed shrewdly.

I nodded. I was mortified.

“Sorry to disappoint you girls,” said Mr. Major. His face was amused, but his smile was a kind one. “I wish we could take you to the wedding. You look very nice.”

“Thanks,” said Becca. “Uh, have a good time.”

“We will,” said Aunt Cecelia. She shook her head, and she and Mr. Major left.

“I guess we’d better get out of our good clothes,” I said quickly, before Mama or Daddy could say anything else. We beat a hasty retreat up the stairs. We heard them laughing as we reached the top.

“I don’t believe it,” said Becca. “I just don’t believe it!”

“Me, either,” I said dejectedly. “We’ll probably never hear the end of this. You know how adults get sometimes.”

“At least we can use these movie passes ourselves,” she said.

The thought didn’t cheer me up very much. And I felt even less cheerful when I realized something else.

All my friends, everyone in the BSC, thought Aunt Cecelia was getting married. They thought I was spending Saturday at a wedding. They were expecting pictures, stories, photographs. They were even talking about buying them a present.

Total mortification. I could imagine Kristy’s reaction. And Claudia’s. And everybody’s. Not that they’d be nasty or anything. But they’d laugh in spite of themselves. At the very least.

What was I going to tell them? What was I going to do now?

I had just gotten out of my wedding dress (and deeper into the wedding bell blues) when the phone rang.

It was Stacey.

“Oh, Jessi, I’m glad you’re home,” she said breathlessly. (Normally I would have been annoyed that she’d already forgotten I was supposed to spend Saturday at a wedding. But now I was glad. I certainly wasn’t going to bring it up.)

“Hi,” I said noncommittally. If she’d forgotten about the wedding, I didn’t want to remind her.

She really had forgotten. “Listen, I’m supposed to sit for Danielle and Greg Roberts in half an hour. But I can’t. Something’s come up. So could you do it for me?”

“Half an hour?” I checked my watch. It was eleven-thirty.

“I know it’s short notice. I’m really sorry.”

It was short notice. And that was a little annoying. But the job would get me out of the house and away from my folks (and Aunt Cecelia and Mr. Major when they returned). And it would take my mind off my wedding bell blues.

“I can do it,” I said.

“You’re the best,” said Stacey. “I’ll call Mrs. Roberts and let her know you’re on the way.” And she hung up.

When I told Becca where I was going, I could tell she felt the same way: a chance to get out of the house before we could hear any wedding humor at our expense. “Can I call Danielle and ask if I can come, too?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said. “If it’s okay with Mama.”

It was, of course, and a few minutes later Becca and I were headed for the Robertses’. “Danielle called Char and Vanessa and Haley, too,” she said.

“Great,” I replied. At least Becca didn’t seem too embarrassed about what had happened. Or she was recovering faster than I was.

When we reached the Robertses’, Mrs. Roberts answered the door, laughing and shaking her head. “Hi, Becca. The others beat you here. They’re in the den.”

“Hi, Mrs. Roberts.” Becca shot down the hall, struggling out of her coat as she ran.

“It’s a zoo here today, Jessi. I hope you have nerves of steel!” Mrs. Roberts said.

I can’t say I really liked the sound of that. But I was still thinking about the wedding that wasn’t. I nodded and focused on what Mrs. Roberts was saying about when she’d be back, and what was happening, and that I could call Mrs. Issacs over if I needed a hand with the kids.

“Greg’s gotten over his cold,” Mrs. Roberts concluded. “But he’s still a little under the weather. If Mr. Roberts calls, please tell him not to worry. I haven’t forgotten that he doesn’t have his car and I will pick him up.”

I nodded and waved good-bye to Mrs. Roberts as she left. She wouldn’t be back until late in the afternoon, so I had a long job ahead of me. I was glad of that.

I found the fearsome fivesome engaged in some complicated game of Pictionary in the den. That was a relief. I knew that would keep them busy a long time. Greg and I settled in for some killer checkers in his room. (I confess, I love checkers. I always have.)

“We’ve finished playing Pictionary,” a voice announced from the door. I looked up to see the five girls standing in the doorway. Danielle went on, “We’re gonna play ‘Let’s Go on a Car Trip’ now.”

“How do you play that?” I asked, pleased that Danielle was keeping me posted on her activities. Maybe the swimming pool/shower disaster had taught her a lesson after all.

“You pack a suitcase and plan a trip. And you make a picnic lunch. Can we make our lunches and pretend they’re picnic lunches?”

I had to grin at that. Trust an optimist like Danielle to come up with a new way to have a picnic lunch in the middle of winter.

“Sure,” I said. “Just leave some for Greg and me when we get ready for lunch.”

Greg and I played checkers and the five girls played “Going on a Trip” and peace reigned. When Greg and I went downstairs to make lunch, the kitchen was spotless. We took our lunches back to Greg’s room for a picnic of our own and began a checkers world record marathon.

Not too long after that, I heard Danielle say from the hallway, “Let’s go out to the garage now.”

I smiled to myself, glad it wasn’t too cold for them to keep playing their game. Then I triple-jumped Greg.

Twenty minutes later, I decided to check on Danielle and her trip-mates.

I opened the kitchen door. They weren’t in the garage.

Neither was the car.

Trying not to believe the worst, I walked quickly to the open garage door. The car wasn’t in the driveway. It wasn’t parked out front, either.

Then I saw it. It was coming at a snail’s pace down the road from the cul-de-sac at the end of the street. As it turned erratically into the driveway, I could just see Danielle’s triumphant face half hidden behind the wheel.

My mouth dropped open. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

Neither could Danielle. Her eyes widened in panic. The car lurched forward toward me. I jumped sideways and stumbled.

The car stopped.

Relief washed over me. But it was too soon. As I got up, my hands shaking, the car began to roll backward down the driveway.

“Nooooo!” I screamed. “The brakes. The brakes, Danielle, the brakes. Put on the braaaaakes!”

But it was no use. I was screaming and running in slow motion. I’d never reach the car in time.

The car rolled back out of the driveway and into the street. It smashed into another car parked across the street.

For one awful moment I froze. Then I ran forward again toward the wreck.

I don’t remember running down the driveway. The next thing I knew, I was wrenching open the door of the car.

Charlotte and Haley were screaming. Becca had started to cry. Vanessa, who’d been sitting by Danielle, was holding her hand up to her forehead, her expression dazed.

Danielle was perfectly white, her eyes huge in her thin face.

“Are you all right?”

Danielle nodded slightly. I turned toward Charlotte and Haley and said, “Don’t scream. Stop it. Now!”

They stopped. “Becca, it’s okay. Charlotte, Haley, Becca, Danielle, out of the car,” I ordered.

Some other part of me had taken over. I was responsible. I had to act responsible. I could have the hysterics I felt threatening to overwhelm me later.

Vanessa sat without moving, her hand against her head. Fighting down the fear I felt, I helped the others out of the car. “Stay right there,” I ordered, pointing to the sidewalk. “Don’t move!”

A man’s voice beside me said, “I was doing the dishes and saw the whole thing from my kitchen window. I’ve called the police.”

“I think Vanessa’s hurt,” I said. “Vanessa, can you hear me? It’s Jessi.”

She looked at me. At last she said, “Jessi, my head hurts.”

“I’ll call the ambulance,” the man said and was gone. As he left, I heard him say to the crowd that had begun to form, “There’s been a slight accident. The police are on their way. Please stand back.”

Then I heard Danielle say, “I’m sorry about your car, Mrs. Issacs.”

“Cars can be fixed,” said a woman’s voice. “Why don’t you children come inside with me?”

“Jessi said we had to stay right here.” My little sister’s voice.

“Don’t move,” I told Vanessa. I could see blood coming from between her fingers. Had her head hit the windshield? How hard?

Sirens wailed.

Mrs. Issacs swam into view. I was relieved to see she looked calm, not angry. “Jessi? I’m Mrs. Issacs. I’m going to go call the Robertses now, and then take the girls and Greg into my house. Mr. Issacs will be out to help you with the police.”

“Thank you,” I said gratefully.

The police and the ambulance arrived at the same time. I don’t remember much of what happened next, just that I kept saying, “Vanessa can’t go to the hospital by herself. I’m responsible.”

I couldn’t ride in the ambulance, so the police took me in the patrol car, their sirens wailing. I did remember to give Mr. Issacs the phone numbers for my parents and Charlotte’s and Haley’s and Vanessa’s. I got Mr. Issacs’ phone number, too.

Then I was in the emergency waiting room at the hospital, holding Vanessa’s hand for a moment as she lay on a stretcher. A few minutes later Mrs. Pike arrived.

I’ve never been so glad to see somebody in my life.

Another long blank period of time passed and then my father was bending over me saying, “Jessi. It’s me. Daddy.”

And I threw myself in my father’s arms and began to cry.

When I got home, Aunt Cecelia put me straight to bed (Mama was on her way home from the store). Normally, I would have resented Aunt Cecelia’s bossiness. But this time I was grateful for it, grateful not to be the one responsible. Grateful not to be the one in charge.

And I was suddenly sooo tired. “I’ve got to call the Robertses,” I protested weakly.

“I’ve already talked to them. And the Pikes. And Johanssens. And the Braddocks,” Aunt Cecelia told me. “You can talk to them later. I’ve already put Becca to bed. Now mind me.”

I was too wiped out to argue. I opened my mouth to say something. And I fell asleep.

When I woke up it wasn’t much later, but I felt as if I’d been asleep for hours. I got up. I ached, too, as if I’d been the one in the car wreck.

I went slowly downstairs. Mama and Daddy and Aunt Cecelia were sitting at the kitchen table.

“Hi,” I said.

Mama jumped up and put her hand on my forehead like I was a little kid.

“I’m okay,” I told her.

“I hear you were more than okay,” said Mama. She smoothed my hair back. “I hear you were very responsible today.”

“She was,” said my aunt.

I smiled a little at that. I must have done all right if strict Aunt Cecelia said so. It made me feel a little better.

Daddy said, “Your friends have all been calling. You might want to call them back.”

“The Robertses first,” I said. Then I gasped, “Mal! Vanessa! Is Vanessa — ?”

“Mal called to tell you not to worry. It was a small cut. They put a stitch in it at the emergency room. She must have bumped her head against the front window somehow. But she doesn’t have a concussion.”

It was too scary to think about. I pushed away the image of Vanessa sitting there in shock, her hand against her head.

“Will you excuse me?” I said. “I’ve got to make a phone call.”

Mrs. Roberts answered on the first ring. “Jessi,” she said. “I’m so sorry all this happened! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “A little shaken up, but otherwise just fine. How’s Danielle?”

“She’s fine, too,” said Mrs. Roberts. “Could you hold on a minute?” I heard her calling Mr. Roberts and a few minutes later he got on the extension.

“We both want to apologize,” said Mr. Roberts. “We’ve been a little too indulgent — no, much too indulgent — of Danielle lately. We just refused to see that we were spoiling her, letting her get away with things we wouldn’t have otherwise allowed if she hadn’t been sick.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Roberts. “She’s been so sick … but it wasn’t fair to her or to Greg or to you or to any of us to let her keep testing our limits like that. We should have called a stop to it at the beginning. You and your friends tried to warn us and we just wouldn’t listen.”

Relief washed over me. “Thank you,” I said. “I mean, I’m glad …”

“Don’t thank us,” said Mr. Roberts. “Things will be a little different from now on. Danielle will be free to enjoy high spirits just like any other kid. But she won’t be allowed to abuse that privilege.”

I hung up feeling much, much better.

Then I called Mal. Vanessa was doing fine, Mal told me, and rather proud of her stitch. It was her first.

We both laughed at that. Then I told her about the conversation with the Robertses.

“I’m so glad,” said Mal. “I know everybody else will be, too.”

“Yeah,” I said. I yawned hugely. Maybe I’d go to bed early.

But I didn’t go to bed right away. I made about a million more phone calls — to the Braddocks and the Johanssens (both of whom assured me that Haley and Charlotte, respectively, were just fine and in a lot of trouble) and to the other members of the BSC.

Everyone I talked to agreed with the Robertses — that what had happened wasn’t my fault. And every member of the BSC was also in agreement. We had been treating Danielle differently because she’d been sick. And that really wasn’t fair to anyone, including Danielle.

A whole week and two days had passed since Danielle’s trip game turned out so badly. She’d been the topic of much conversation at the BSC meetings. In fact, she and her exploits had been just about the only topic of conversation. I’d talked to the Robertses once since the accident, just to make sure Danielle was doing all right (she was, and, in addition, had been to the doctor’s, who’d said she was still in remission and still thriving).

We were all cheered by that good news. But Stacey still didn’t know what to expect when she arrived for her baby-sitting job nine days later.

Whatever she expected, it wasn’t what she found.

Greg was involved in writing a report for school the next day. His topic was fire trucks and since he was only in first grade, it involved a lot of illustration. Stacey left him at his desk amid a pile of red crayons and pencils, promising she’d be back to check on him from time to time — and to call him for a snack a little later on.

She went to find Danielle. She didn’t have far to go. Danielle was dialing the telephone in the den. As she spoke into the receiver, Stacey stopped in the doorway.

“Hello, Vanessa? How are — ? Vanessa? Vanessa? Awwww …”

She hung up the phone hard, and dialed it again almost immediately. “Hello, this is Danielle. Is Haley there? She is? At Vanessa’s? Thank you. No. ’Bye.”

She hung up the phone again and her thin shoulders slumped.

Stacey cleared her throat. “Hi, Danielle. It’s me. Stacey.”

“Hi, Stacey,” said Danielle listlessly. She turned and stared at Stacey. Well, not exactly at Stacey. She couldn’t quite meet her eye. She stared at Stacey’s left ear. “You heard what I did?”

Best to meet this head on, thought Stacey. “Yup,” she said.

Danielle frowned. She turned and picked up the phone again. This time, while Stacey listened, Danielle called Becca.

“Becca? I just wanted to — Charlotte’s there, too? Well, could I — ? Becca? Becca?”

My little sister had hung up on Danielle, too. But not before making it clear that Charlotte was also there, and they were both hanging up on Danielle.

Danielle hung up the phone.

“I guess your friends are pretty angry with you,” said Stacey.

Danielle nodded. Tears welled in her eyes. She blinked rapidly to keep them back.

That was unexpected, too. Stacey knew how tough and upbeat Danielle was. She didn’t think anybody had ever seen Danielle cry.

Or even almost cry.

Danielle turned back to the phone and punched in another number. She said, “Hello. Listen, Vanessa …” She stopped. She hung up.

Turning her back to the telephone, Danielle slid down until she was sitting upright on the floor against the wall in the corner next to the phone, her knees drawn up, her arms wrapped tightly around her legs. “I know what I did was wrong,” she said. “I know it was really dangerous. And dumb. I know I should have thought about what I was doing. I’m sorry. I told them I was sorry. I even wrote them notes. But none of them will speak to me!”

The last words ended in a kind of wail.

Stacey sat down cross-legged, facing Danielle. “Sometimes it takes time for people to get over being angry or upset,” said Stacey. “Maybe you should give your friends more time.”

She looked at Danielle’s pinched face. She heard the word “time.” Who was she to talk to a kid like Danielle about time? Okay, so we’d all decided not to indulge her just because she was sick. But Stacey couldn’t take this.

“Excuse me,” said Stacey. She leaned across Danielle and grabbed the phone. She dialed two familiar numbers: mine and Mal’s.

“What are you doing?” asked Danielle, who’d been listening to Stacey’s requests to Mal and me wide-eyed.

“Trust me. This is a job for the BSC,” Stacey said, trying to keep her tone light.

“Can Mal and Jessi really do that? What you asked them to?”

“Yup. And they will, too.” Stacey looked at her watch. “I’d give them about twenty minutes, okay?”

Twenty minutes later, almost exactly, the doorbell rang.

I stood there, with Becca and Charlotte in tow. Neither of them was happy about it. Neither, from the looks of things, were Vanessa and Haley. Vanessa looked as if she were recovering nicely, I noted. The only indication that she’d hit her head was a small Band-Aid over a yellow-blue fading bruised spot on her forehead near the hairline. I caught Mal’s eye and winked slightly. Then we stepped inside.

“Hi, guys,” said Danielle. Mal and I said hello, but Becca, Charlotte, Vanessa, and Haley pointedly refused even to look in Danielle’s direction.

“This way, please,” said Stacey, leading the way to the den. She sat down in an armchair and Danielle sat on a hassock in front of it. Mal and Jessi sat on the sofa. The other four conspicuously sat as far away from Danielle as possible. It would have been funny if Danielle’s face hadn’t been so woebegone.

“Now,” said Stacey, “we’re going to talk.”

Vanessa said, “I have nothing to say.”

Mal gave her sister a poke. “What, did the accident do something to your tongue?”

Vanessa turned and stuck her tongue out at her sister and I hid a grin. Mal rolled her eyes.

“Okay, let me ask you guys this,” began Stacey. “Suppose someone said, ‘Get on this subway car. I’m gonna drive it off the Brooklyn Bridge.’ Would you do it?”

The four girls exchanged glances. Then Becca said, “Of course not. That would be stupid!”

“So you’d think for yourself and say no,” said Stacey.

Becca frowned. “Yes.”

“You’d be able to figure that out?” Stacey continued. “So if someone told you that you had to get on that train, what would you do?”

“I wouldn’t get on,” said Vanessa grudgingly. She could see where Stacey was leading.

“So if you were able to figure out that getting on that train wasn’t such a great idea, and then you did it anyway, wouldn’t you be at least partially responsible?”

“She said she knew how to drive the car!” Haley burst out. “And I got in trouble!”

“But I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for the car to crash! I didn’t mean for you to get hurt, Vanessa. I wouldn’t hurt you guys for anything!” Danielle cried.

“You could have killed us!” Vanessa bounced to her feet and pointed dramatically at the little Band-Aid on her forehead. “And you got us all in big trouble! Huge. Enormous! Elephantic!”

“Elephantic?” Mal couldn’t help but ask. Vanessa wants to be a poet and she often comes up with words that, well, might not exactly be real words.

“Big,” said Vanessa impatiently. “Like an elephant.”

I put my hand up quickly to cover the smile I couldn’t stop. I felt terrible for Danielle. But Vanessa’s dramatics were funny.

Mal caught my eye, then looked quickly down at the toes of her snowboots.

Stacey said, “Okay. So you are right. You all got in trouble. And it’s Danielle’s fault. You win. She’s wrong, you’re right. What do you gain by never speaking to her again?”

A small silence fell over the room. Then Becca said, in a soft voice, “I’m not. I mean, I’m not not ever going to speak to Danielle again.”

“Don’t tell me about it,” said Stacey folding her arms. “I know how important my friends are. And how I count on them. And how I need them. I also know that part of friendship is forgiving people — and accepting things about them that you can’t change.”

I was impressed. The atmosphere in the room had been outright hostile when we’d started talking. But Stacey had given the girls something to talk about. And I could see that they were starting to make eye contact again.

Haley smiled. “You’re my buddy, Danielle,” she said. “Even if you are a kangaroo!”

“A kangaroo!” said Danielle.

“Ideas just hop out of your head.” Haley shrugged. “I guess it’s hard not to just hop along with them.”

Smiles began to show on the girls’ faces. Then Danielle said quietly, “I am sorry. I’m truly sorry. I’ll never, ever do something like that again.”

“Never is a long time,” said Stacey. “How about if you just try to think through what you’re doing?”

“Yeah,” said Haley. “Look before you leap.”

“Like a kangaroo, that’s what you do,” said Vanessa. She was speaking in rhyme, which she does when she’s feeling good. Things were going to be all right.

“Hey, what about my snack?” Greg was standing in the door.

“I could use some hot chocolate,” said Mal. “What about you guys?”

“Cool,” said Becca.

“No, silly, hot!” said Vanessa. Everyone burst into giggles and we all went into the kitchen.

The fight was over.

I looked at Mal and raised my own cup of hot chocolate. I knew we were thinking the same thing.

Not only was the fight over, but in my eyes, Stacey was back. Her recent flaky behavior had been annoying. But like Stacey said, friends have to forgive — and accept — if they want to stay friends.

“Hey, Stace,” I said.

Stacey looked at Mal and me.

“Good work,” I said softly.

So the fight was over.

Which left me with just one little problem.

The wedding that wasn’t. I just hadn’t been able to admit that Aunt Cecelia hadn’t gotten married. Danielle’s short driving career had kept everyone’s attention for a while, but now I had to duck all kinds of questions.

Sooner or later I was going to have to admit that I’d made a big mistake. A major goof. And I was going to feel like a world-class dope when I did.

No way out of it. Unless …

The idea came to me at precisely 5:42 A.M. while I was practicing at the barre in our basement. I stopped in mid-plié and stared at my reflection in the mirror, my mouth open.

Unless there was a wedding. If Becca and I could convince Aunt Cecelia and Mr. Major to fall in love and get married after all, I might not ever have to confess my foolish mistake.

And what could be easier? I mean, Mr. Major was super-nice. (I’d seen him one time since the wedding and he hadn’t even mentioned Becca’s and my monumental goof. Instead, he’d congratulated me on “keeping a cool head in an emergency.”) And he was handsome. And Aunt Cecelia already liked him or she wouldn’t be spending time with him. So why not just give their romance (by then I’d convinced myself that a romance was already in the works) a little push in the right direction?

I could hardly wait to put my plan into action.

“You think so?” asked Becca, when I told her. “You think they might really be in love and not know it?”

“That’s it.” I nodded. “They just need our help. You know, the way Dawn’s mom and Mary Anne’s dad needed a little help in getting together.”

“Wow,” said Becca. “What should we do?”

“A romantic dinner, just for two,” I said. “Candlelight, flowers, soft music, you know. Like at a fancy restaurant, like Chez Maurice.”

Becca looked unhappy. “But Jessi, we can’t afford to pay for dinner for Aunt Cecelia and Mr. Major at Chez Maurice. Can we?”

“No, of course not. But we can plan a special dinner for them right here. One that is just as good. And just as romantic.”

“Will Mama and Daddy let us do that?” asked Becca.

“We’ll do it when they’re going to be out for the evening. You know Aunt Cecelia usually stays around when they go out, even though I’m old enough to be left alone with you and Squirt.”

So we put plan Get Aunt Cecelia Married into action. I called Mr. Major up and invited him over for the very next evening that Mama and Daddy were going out. “We were wondering if you could come by,” I said.

“Is there a problem?” asked Mr. Major. He sounded puzzled.

“Uh, it’s no big deal. I mean, I can explain it better when you get here,” I hurried on.

“Well, okay, sure,” he said.

“Great! We’ll look forward to seeing you. Aunt Cecelia, too,” I added.

I heard Mr. Major laughing as I hung up the phone. What had I said that was so funny? I wondered. But I didn’t have much time to think about it. We had a romantic evening to plan.

Over the next couple of days, Becca and I got candles, and the ingredients for a romantic dinner. Well, anyway, for spaghetti. Becca thought it was romantic because it was the same meal that the two dogs shared in Lady and the Tramp. I wasn’t sure garlic was the most romantic ingredient in a meal, but if they both ate some then it wouldn’t be a problem, right?

The night Mr. Major was supposed to come, I was terrified that Mama or Daddy (or both of them) would come home from work instead of going straight out for an early dinner before the performance of the Stoneybrook Chamber Music Ensemble. But they didn’t.

Becca and I had planned everything very carefully. And we’d coordinated our watches. Exactly fifty minutes before Mr. Major was scheduled to arrive, Becca got things started.

“Aunt Cecelia! Aunt Cecelia!” she called from her room.

“What is it, Becca?”

“Could you come here and help me with my math? I’ve got a test tomorrow. It’s really important.”

“Certainly.”

“Go ahead,” I said to my aunt. “I’ll start dinner and put Squirt to bed.”

“Well … what about your homework?”

“All done. Go ahead.”

“Okay.” Aunt Cecelia untied her apron and left the kitchen.

Quickly I set aside the leftover meatloaf she’d just taken out to reheat and started the spaghetti. Then I set the dining room table and put the flowers Becca and I had bought that afternoon in the center of the table in our best vase. Last of all, I turned the overhead light down low and lit the candles.

The doorbell rang. I surveyed the dining room. Perfect. It couldn’t be more romantic, not even at Chez Maurice.

Aunt Cecelia and Mr. Major just had to fall in love.

“I’ll get it,” I called.

A moment later I ushered Mr. Major into the dining room — just as Becca led Aunt Cecelia in.

The two of them stopped. Becca and I watched them closely. Were they exchanging a meaningful glance? Realizing that it was always meant to be? Casting caution and reserve to the winds?

No, they were not.

They were smiling. And then they were laughing.

Becca put her hands on her hips. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing. I mean, well, it’s a lovely dinner, girls,” said Aunt Cecelia. “But I’m afraid that Mr. Major and I have something to tell you. We really don’t want to get married. We’re friends. Good friends.”

“Have been for a long time,” said Mr. Major. “We met on a blind date, as a matter of fact. Remember that, Cece?”

Aunt Cecelia laughed. “Do I ever. The worst blind date I was ever on!”

“Me, too,” said Mr. Major. “But I made one of the best friends I’ve had.”

“Are you sure?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“Positive,” said Aunt Cecelia. “But thanks for all your work.”

“And now I’d like to invite you to join us at this lovely dinner,” said Mr. Major.

Becca and I looked at each other. What could we do? A wedding between Aunt Cecelia and Mr. Major just wasn’t going to happen.

I sighed. Then Becca and I got extra plates and silverware.

And you know what? It was pretty good spaghetti in spite of everything.

The meeting of the Baby-sitters Club had just come to order. We were all there, including Logan, and we were all on time.

And we were all laughing.

“So you ate a romantic spaghetti dinner — just the four of you! I can’t believe it!” cried Claudia.

“What’s wrong with spaghetti?” asked Logan.

“It’s great,” said Stacey. “It’s just sort of messy for a romantic dinner.”

“I think it was a great idea,” said Mary Anne. “It could have worked.”

You guessed it. I had just told them about the wedding that wasn’t. “I hope you guys didn’t buy a present yet,” I said.

Stacey said, “Well, we’d budgeted for one. I guess we’d better spend it on something important. Like a pizza party.”

“Good idea,” said Kristy. “In fact, that’s an excellent idea.”

“And don’t think we’re going to let you live this down,” said Mallory. “You haven’t heard the last of it, Jessi Ramsey!”

“I can take it,” I said. “Just wait. Your turn will come.”

Mary Anne said, “Well, I think Aunt Cecelia’s getting married would be terrific. And it might happen. Never say never.”

“Never will,” I agreed. I shot a sly look at Stacey. “Just like Stacey taught Vanessa and Charlotte and Haley and Becca.”

“Here’s to Stacey!” said Claudia, raising a coconut cream puff in salute.

Stacey looked pleased. “I’m glad I could help,” she said. “It would have been terrible for those kids to stop being friends over one of Danielle’s crazy ideas.”

“And like you said, they went along with it, even though they knew that something like driving a car was a big-time bad idea,” I reminded her.

“Not to mention sledding in the basement,” said Dawn.

“And making the bathroom into a swimming pool,” said Kristy. She snorted. “But you know, it wasn’t such a bad idea, in and of itself. I mean, it kind of made sense, if you thought about it….”

We all started laughing at that.

“Maybe Danielle will grow up to be like you, Kristy,” Mary Anne teased gently. “An idea person.”

“And president of a fine organization like the BSC,” said Logan.

It was good to be there with my friends. I hoped Danielle and her friends truly were all friends again.

The sound of the doorbell interrupted our thoughts.

“Hey, did we order pizza already?” asked Claudia in mock surprise.

“Not yet, Claud. But soon,” promised Stacey.

Claudia jumped up and ran to answer the door.

A few moments later we heard her call, “Hey, you guys, come here!”

“In the middle of a meeting?” Kristy called back.

“Yes!”

“Is it an emergency?”

“Kristy!” shrieked Claudia.

“Okay, okay. This meeting of the BSC is adjourned four minutes early today,” said Kristy. “And this better be good.”

We trooped to the front door. Claudia stepped back and flung it wide open.

Five very strangely costumed creatures stood there: someone in a long doctor’s coat with a stethoscope and big weird glasses. Someone in a witch’s hat and costume. A police officer. A cat. And a ghost.

“Trick or treat!” five voices shouted.

“Trick or treat!” said Kristy. “What?”

“We’re playing Halloween,” explained the doctor. It was, of course, Danielle.

“It was Danielle’s idea,” said Becca. “Isn’t it a great one?”

“It is,” said Claudia.

“Truly,” Stacey said.

“I wish I’d thought of it,” said Kristy.

“So trick or treat,” said Danielle, holding out a paper bag.

“Whoa. Wait here,” said Claudia. She ran upstairs, followed by Stacey.

I looked at the grinning assortment of creatures on the steps and knew that Danielle and her friends were truly over their fight. And that whatever had happened hadn’t daunted Danielle’s imagination.

Who knew what she was capable of? I looked forward to her future. And I knew I was lucky to be a part of her present.

Then Claudia reappeared with Stacey. Their arms were heaped with junk food.

“Treat!” said Claudia. “Here, everybody, help us out.”

So the members of the BSC helped out. We took boxes of Oreos and packages of Gummi Worms and Hershey Hugs and Hersheys Kisses and all kinds of candy and junk food that Claudia had stashed around her room, and we gave them to the trick-or-treaters.

“Happy Un-Halloween!” we called as they turned to go.

“And many more,” I said softly, watching Danielle lead the way.

Dear Reader,

Lots of stories in the Baby-sitters Club series have come about because readers have asked for them. That’s how Mary Anne and the Memory Garden; Stacey McGill, Super Sitter; and many others came about. But my editor and I got the most letters asking for another story about Danielle Roberts, the character who was introduced in Jessi’s Wish, #48. Many of the kids who wrote those letters wanted to know how Danielle was doing. So I decided to write a story about Danielle in remission. I had a lot of fun thinking up the mischief that Danielle and her friends get into. But the idea for Danielle taking the car came from something I had seen on the news about a little boy who tried to drive his family’s car across town. Danielle is a great character and I enjoy writing about her. Perhaps we will revisit Danielle in yet another book some day.

Happy reading,

The author gratefully acknowledges

Nola Thacker

for her help in

preparing this manuscript.

About the Author

ANN MATTHEWS MARTIN was born on August 12, 1955. She grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, with her parents and her younger sister, Jane.

There are currently over 176 million copies of The Baby-sitters Club in print. (If you stacked all of these books up, the pile would be 21,245 miles high.) In addition to The Baby-sitters Club, Ann is the author of two other series, Main Street and Family Tree. Her novels include Belle Teal, A Corner of the Universe (a Newbery Honor book), Here Today, A Dog’s Life, On Christmas Eve, Everything for a Dog, Ten Rules for Living with My Sister, and Ten Good and Bad Things About My Life (So Far). She is also the coauthor, with Laura Godwin, of the Doll People series.

Ann lives in upstate New York with her dog and her cats.

Copyright © 1995 by Ann M. Martin

Cover art by Hodges Soileau

All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC, THE BABY-SITTERS CLUB, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

First edition, February 1995

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.

e-ISBN 978-0-545-76861-0