"Babysitters Club 021 Mallory And The Trouble With Twins" - читать интересную книгу автора (Babysitters Club)

"Yes," said the girl.
Punch went the gun.
"Aughhh!" shrieked Claire.
The woman with the gun jumped a mile. The girl on the stool looked scared to death. And Margo said weakly, "I think I'm going to barf. She just got a hole punched in her ear."
"You are not going to barf. You are not!" I said firmly.
I grabbed my sisters by their hands, turned them around, and ran off, calling "Sorry!" over my shoulder to the woman and the girl.
I was so embarrassed. Little sisters. What pains they can be.
I'll be surprised if I live to see twelve.
Chapter 2.
"Mallory! Hey, Mal!" Jessi Ramsey was running up the sidewalk to Claudia Kishi's house.
I'd been about to go inside for our meeting of the Baby-sitters Club, but now I stopped and waited for Jessi.
"Hi," I greeted her. I could tell she'd come straight from a ballet lesson. She was still wearing her leotard - she'd just thrown a shirt and jeans over it - and her hair was pulled back from her face the way it has to be during a dance class.
"Hi," Jessi replied breathlessly.
I opened the door to Claud's house and we went inside. Us club members spend an awful lot of time at the Kishis', since club meetings are held every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon from five-thirty until six, so we hardly ever bother to ring the doorbell.
"Hello, girls," said a soft voice.
Mimi, Claudia's grandmother, had entered the front hallway.
"Are we the last to arrive?" Jessi asked anxiously. Jessi has such a busy schedule (between ballet lessons and a regular, twice-weekly sitting job) that she's almost always the last to show up at the meetings. This makes her a little nervous, and I understand why. She and I are not only the youngest club members, but the newest, so we feel we have to be on our toes at all times.
"Yes, you are last ones," Mimi told us, "but not late. Not five-thirty yet." (Mimi had a stroke last summer, and it has affected her speech.)
"Thanks, Mimi!" I said.
Jessi and 1 raced upstairs, with Mimi calling after us, "You will find surprise in Claudia
room."
Surprise? I hoped it wasn't Janine, Claudia's sister. She makes me crazy.
Jessi and I ran into Claud's bedroom and stopped short. We saw the surprise right away. It was Logan Bruno, Mary Anne's boyfriend. I don't think I mentioned earlier that Logan is a member of the Baby-sitters Club. He doesn't usually come to meetings, though, since he's
just an associate member, someone our club can call on to take a sitting job if none of the rest of us is free to take it.
I guess now would be a good time to stop and tell you how our club works, and I better go all the way back to the very beginning, when Kristy first got the idea for the club. That was over a year ago, before Kristy's mom was even thinking about marrying Watson Brewer, the millionaire.
What happened was this. Mrs. Thomas needed a sitter for David Michael, who was six at the time, but Kristy and her older brothers. Sam and Charlie, were all busy. So Mrs. Thomas got on the phone. Kristy watched her make call after call in search of a sitter, and while she watched, she thought what a waste of time this was for her mother. If only her mom could make one call and reach a bunch of sitters at once, she would find one much more quickly. That was when Kristy got the idea for the Baby-sitters Club. She and a few of her friends, she thought, could meet several times a week, and people could call them during the meetings and practically be guaranteed a sitter. One of the girls was bound to be free.
So Kristy got together with Mary Anne and
Claudia and a new friend of Claudia's, Stacey McGill. (I'll get back to Stacey later.) They made up fliers and began advertising their club, letting people know their meeting times and how to get in touch with them. They were in business!
The girls voted Kristy president of the Babysitters Club since it had been her idea, and since she's good at running things.
They made Claudia the vice-president. This is because Claudia has her own phone and personal, private phone number, so the meetings would always be held in her room. And she would probably get calls at nonmeeting times that she'd have to handle on her own.
Mary Anne was named the secretary, and she has a big job. She's neat and organized (and has nice handwriting), so the girls thought she would be good at keeping the club record book in order. The record book is where we write down our clients' phone numbers and addresses, keep track of the money we've earned (actually, that's the job of the treasurer), and most important, schedule our sitting jobs. Mary Anne has never once made a scheduling mistake.
Stacey McGill was the club's first treasurer. She kept track of the money earned and was
also in charge of the club treasury. Each week, we pay dues into the treasury, and we use the money for two things: an occasional club party or sleepover, and supplies. The supplies are usually items for our Kid-Kits. Kid-Kits are another of Kristy's great ideas. Each of us has one. They're boxes we decorated and keep filled with our old games, toys, and books, as well as new things such as crayons or activity books or coloring books. Sometimes we bring them with us when we baby-sit. Kids really love them. And when the kids are happy, their parents are happy . . . and when parents are happy, they call us with more baby-sitting jobs!
Anyway, back to Stacey, the treasurer. Not long ago, Stacey had to move to New York City. Meanwhile, Dawn Schafer had arrived in Stoneybrook and joined the club. She'd been made an alternate officer, meaning she could take over the duties of anyone who might have to miss a meeting. When Stacey left, though, Dawn became the new treasurer. And then, because the club was so busy, the girls asked Jessi and me to join. They really needed help. We were named junior officers since we're only allowed to sit after school or on weekends (unless we're sitting at our own houses).
So who is Logan Bruno? Well, he and a friend of Kristy's, Shannon Kilbourne, are associate club members. As I said before, they don't come to meetings (usually). They're people we can call on in a real pinch - when none of the rest of us is free to take a job. Surprisingly, that does happen from time to time, and we hate to tell a parent that no one's available. So our associate members are very important.
And that's about it. The club is successful and fun, and Jessi and I are really glad we became members.
"Hi, you guys!" Mary Anne greeted us as we ran into Claud's bedroom. "Look who came to the meeting!"
Logan Bruno grinned at Jessi and me from his spot on the floor. I'm not very interested in boys yet, but I must admit that as they go, Logan is pretty cute. And he has this interesting southern accent. (He's from Louisville, Kentucky.)
"Hi," Jessi and I said shyly. We hadn't expected to see a boy. I was glad we looked halfway decent - and that we hadn't been running down the hall talking about underwear or deodorant or something.
"Okay, order! Order!" called Kristy. Kristy
conducts our club meetings in a businesslike way. She sits in Claud's director's chair wearing a visor, with a pencil stuck over her ear. "Any club business?" she asked as Jessi and I sat down on the floor - but not too near Logan.
"I have to collect dues," Dawn announced. She was sprawled on Claud's bed between Mary Anne and Claudia.
Us club members groaned but began searching our pockets or purses for money. (Logan didn't have to pay.) When Dawn had collected everything and stashed it safely in the treasury envelope, Kristy said, "Have you been keeping up with the club notebook?"
Uh-oh. I guess I forgot to tell about the notebook. It was another of Kristy's ideas, not to be confused with the record book. In the notebook, each of us club members is responsible for writing up every single job we go on. Then we're supposed to read the notebook once a week or so, just to keep track of what's going on with the families we sit for. It's pretty helpful - we write about sitting problems and how we solve them. That kind of thing. I like writing in the notebook, but most of the girls think it's a boring chore.
In answer to Kristy's question, the rest of us (except Logan) chorused, "Yes." She asks us
about the notebook every Monday, and every Monday we tell her we've been reading it.
Club business was out of the way and we waited for the phone to ring. Sometimes we start gossiping about friends and school stuff while we wait, but with Logan there, I could tell that all of us, even Mary Anne and Logan, were a little uncomfortable.
Claudia took care of that by searching her desk drawers for a bag of pretzels she knew she'd hidden there. Claud is addicted to junk food and hides it all over her room. She has to hide it, since her parents don't approve of her bad habit. The rest of us like Claud's bad habit, though (well, Dawn refuses to eat things with sugar in them), and we eagerly dove into the bag. Wouldn't you know, as soon as our mouths were full - the phone rang.
We looked at each other in horror.
Logan, being a boy, swallowed his mouthful pretty quickly, and said, "I'll get it!"