"Babysitters Club 032 Kristy And The Secret Of Susan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Babysitters Club)

"I wonder how they got their furniture here from halfway around the world," interrupted Dawn, looking puzzled. "Did they ship it on a boat and then transfer it to the van, or did - "
Now it was my turn to interrupt. I'd been watching the Aussies, too, but my attention had been distracted. Walking down the street in our direction was a tired-looking woman leading a little girl by the hand. The girl looked like she was seven, maybe eight years old.
And when I say the woman was leading the girl, I mean she was leading her. The girl was lagging several paces behind and looked as if she didn't want to be out walking or holding anyone's hand. Plus, she looked sort of ... odd. She moved strangely, holding her head to one side and looking ahead out of the corners of her eyes. And she took quick, short steps in a stiff, uncomfortable way, and flapped her free hand in front of her face.
"Hey," I said to my friends. "Who're they?" I pointed down the street. "Are they new here, too?"
"No," replied Claudia, looking slightly surprised. "Don't you remember the Felders? They live around the corner."
I thought for a minute. I did vaguely remember a Mr. and Mrs. Felder, but no little girl. "Is that their daughter?" I asked.
"Yeah," said Claud. "Susan. She's been living at a special school, but I guess she's home now. That's probably why you don't remember her. Because she's been away. The Felders don't have any other kids."
"Oh," I said, frowning. I watched Susan and her mother turn a corner. Then I went back to watching the Aussies. So did Dawn
and Claud. We watched until the other dub members began to show up. When everyone had arrived, it was time to start another meeting of the BSC. I surveyed the club members. Everyone was ready.
Chapter 2.
I feel very lucky. Not only do I have an interesting family, but I've got the most terrific group of friends you can imagine. There are seven people in the BSC - Mary Anne Spier, Claudia Kishi, Stacey McGill, Dawn Schafer, Jessi Ramsey, Mallory Pike, and me. (Two other people who are sort of club members, but who don't usually come to meetings, are Logan Bruno and Shannon Kilbourne. I'll tell you more about them later.)
My best friend in the club is Mary Anne Spier. For the longest time, Mary Anne and I lived next door to each other and across the street from Claudia. In fact, since we're all thirteen, we were born around the same time and grew up together. Then I moved to a different neighborhood and then Mary Anne moved, but that barely changed our friendship.
Anyway, considering we are best friends, Mary Anne and I sure are different. For one thing, I hate to admit it, but I have sort of a big mouth. My mouth has gotten me into trouble more times than I care to mention. I never mean to be rude or insulting, but things pop into my head and I can't help saying them. That's just the way I am. Also, I'm a tomboy and I love sports, especially softball. I even coach a softball team of little kids here in Stoneybrook. The team is called Kristy's Krushers.
I'm only just beginning to be interested in boys, and I don't care too much about clothes. I dress for comfort, which means that I almost always wear jeans, a turtleneck shirt, and running shoes. If it's cold out, I add a sweater, usually a pullover. If I feel like it, I wear a baseball cap. My favorite one has a collie on it. (Before David Michael got Shannon, we had a collie named Louie, who was the best dog in the world. But Louie got very sick and we had to have him put to sleep.) Well, I'm off the subject. What I'm trying to get at is how different Mary Anne and I are, so let me tell you about Mary Anne.
Mary Anne Spier is as quiet and shy as I am outspoken and outgoing. She's sensitive,
romantic, and a good listener. Often, if one of us has a problem, we take it to Mary Anne. She may not have an answer, but she listens so sympathetically that you feel better just because you've told her about whatever is wrong. Mary Anne is also a big crier. She cries at movies (sad ones and happy ones), when her feelings are hurt, when someone else's feelings are hurt, or when people are angry. We've all gotten used to this.
Despite the fact that she's shy, Mary Anne is the first one of us to have a steady boyfriend. He's Logan Bruno, one of our associate club members! Logan and Mary Anne were made for each other. Logan has a great sense of humor, and he understands Mary Anne and her feelings and moods. He wouldn't mind, for instance, if they went to a school dance and Mary Anne suddenly felt too shy to dance.
Mary Anne's family used to be the exact opposite of mine, but now it's similar. See, Mrs. Spier died years ago, when Mary Anne was really little. So Mary Anne grew up with just a dad - no mom or brothers or sisters. And her dad was very strict with her, I think because he was trying to prove that he could be both mother and father to his daughter. He made up all these rules about how Mary Anne
had to dress and wear her hair, when she could use the phone, where she could go with friends, and how she could spend her money. Then, almost a year ago, Mary Anne began standing up for herself. She showed her father that she wasn't a little girl anymore, but a responsible young adult, so he loosened up. Not long after that, Mary Anne began to dress more stylishly and she started going out with Logan.
Then the unexpected happened. Mr. Spier met Dawn Schafer's mother and recently they got married! No kidding. It turned out that he had known Mrs. Schafer in high school (when she was Sharon Porter) and they'd been in love. But Mrs. Schafer had moved to California, married Dawn's father, had Dawn and her brother, Jeff, and then decided to get divorced. After that happened, she moved her kids back here to Stoneybrook, where she'd grown up, and the rest is history. Mary Anne and her father now live in the Schafers' house (it's bigger than theirs was) and Mary Anne has a stepmother, a stepbrother, and a stepsister - Dawn. Mary Anne, by the way, just happens to be Dawn's best friend!
Two things that are the same about Mary Anne and me are that we like animals (Mary
Anne has a kitten named Tigger), and we look sort of alike. We're both short (I'm actually the shortest girl in my whole class), and we both have brown eyes and brown hair. Mary Anne is more apt to do things with her hair, though - to French braid it, or to wear headbands or hair ribbons or bows. I don't think I'm as pretty as Mary Anne is.
Maybe I better tell you about Dawn next, since you've already heard a little about her family. I'll start by saying that Dawn is drop-dead gorgeous - but I don't think she knows it or would care much about it if she did know. Dawn has the longest, palest blonde hair I've ever seen. Ifs the color of corn silk, and if it grows much longer, she'll be able to sit on it. (Well, maybe that's an exaggeration.) She has sparkly blue eyes, is tall and slender, has two holes pierced in each ear, and dresses in a style that my friends and I call California casual.
"Casual" is a pretty good way to describe Dawn herself. She's very laid-back. For the most part, she doesn't care what people think of her and just sort of goes her own way. (I'm hoping a little of that will rub off on Mary Anne.) Dawn does have chinks in her armor, though. Every now and then, something will cut deep enough so that Dawn feels hurt or
anxious. But not often. She's easygoing, a caring stepsister to Mary Anne, and a good friend to the rest of us.
As I mentioned before, Dawn grew up in California. Moving to the East Coast was hard for her. Not only did she leave her father behind, but she misses the warm weather. Dawn is happiest when July and August come to Stoneybrook. Maybe because of California (or maybe not) Dawn is also a health-food nut. So's the rest of her family. They don't eat meat or junk food, and they love vegetables, fruit, and gross stuff like tofu.
Oops, I've gotten off the subject again. Anyway, Dawn, Jeff, and their mom moved to Stoneybrook - but Jeff, who's nine or ten, was never happy here, so he finally moved back to California to live with his father. I know Dawn was terribly hurt then. Her family was split in half and separated by three thousand miles. But she's happier now that she has another family. At first, everyone had some problems getting adjusted, but Mary Anne's organized, finicky father turned out to be a good husband for Dawn's disorganized, scatterbrained mother. And Dawn loves having a sister. She had always wanted one.
Guess what one of Dawn's favorite activities
is - reading ghost stories. And guess where she lives - in a centuries-old farmhouse with an actual secret passage in it. This is the truth, although if s hard to believe. The passage may even be haunted, but we're not sure.
Okay, on to Claudia. Claudia Kishi, the vice-president of the BSC, is as gorgeous as Dawn, even though the two of them don't look a thing alike. Claud is Japanese-American. Both of her parents are Japanese, but Claud was born here in Stoneybrook. She has very long, silky, jet-black hair; dark, almond-shaped eyes; and a creamy complexion. Like Dawn, she's got pierced ears, too, only she has one hole in one ear and two in the other. (By the way, Mary Anne and I do not have pierced ears and intend to keep them like that - intact.) Anyway, aside from being beautiful, Claudia is also an incredibly cool dresser and an incredibly talented artist. You should see her clothes. She's always wearing short flared skirts, or leggings, or ankle socks and flat shoes, whatever is the most cool fashion at the moment. I don't know how she knows what's cool. Maybe she reads magazines or something. Claudia is also especially good at accessorizing. Again, she just knows how to do it. And she spends a lot of her baby-sitting
money on the accessories - belts, jewelry, and tons of stuff for her hair - ribbons, bows, funky dips, beads. She wears her hair a million different ways. I've never seen anyone who can come up with so many styles.
Claudia makes some of her own jewelry - ceramic earrings and pins, papier-mтchщ bracelets, that sort of thing. Claud can draw, paint, sculpt, make pottery, you name it. I'm glad she's good at art because she's terrible in school, although she's smart. For some reason, school is just hard for Claud, and she doesn't like it. She gets only average grades and she's the world's worst speller. Unfortunately, her sister, Janine, is a genius. She's so smart that even though she's a high-school student she gets to take courses at the local community college. For pleasure, Janine reads stuff like Atomic Theory or The History of Law-making in America. Claud reads Nancy Drew books, but her parents don't approve of them, so she has to hide them in her room.
Books aren't the only thing she hides. Claudia is also a junk-food addict, something else her parents disapprove of. So there are bags of chips and candy, and packages of Twinkies and Oreos hidden in her room, too. Opening a drawer in Claud's room, or going after some-
thing that's rolled under her bed, can be a surprising experience.
Claudia's best friend is Stacey McGill, and the two of them are alike in a lot of ways. Stacey is also very sophisticated, quite pretty, and extremely cool. She's as funky a dresser as Claud - short, tight pants, push-down socks, the whole bit. Every now and then she gets her hair permed, and, of course, she's got pierced ears.
Claudia and Stacey are boy-crazy.
However, Stacey's home life is different from Claud's. And if you think my family, or Mary Anne and Dawn's family, is interesting, you should hear about Stacey's. Stacey, whose full name is Anastasia Elizabeth McGill, was born and raised in New York City. No wonder she's so sophisticated. Then, just before she began seventh grade, the company her father works for transferred him to their office in Stamford, Connecticut, so the McGill's found a house in Stoneybrook and moved here. They'd only been here a year when the company moved Mr. McGill back to New York. None of us could believe it, but the McGills had to go. Then, they'd been in NYC again for less than a year when Stacey's parents got separated and then divorced. Mr. McGill stayed
in NYC with his job, but Mrs. McGill wanted to come back to Connecticut. Poor Stacey had to choose where to live. She decided on Stoneybrook and us and the BSC, thank goodness, but she visits her dad in New York a lot.
Another thing about Stacey is that she has diabetes. That's a disease in which her pancreas doesn't make enough of something called insulin, so her blood sugar level gets out of control. Stacey has to give herself injections (ew, ew, ew) of insulin every day, and also stay on a strict no-sugar diet. Otherwise, she could get really sick. She could even go into a coma. It must be hard for her to have to turn down Claud's junk food all the time.
Guess what. When Stacey and her mom moved back to Connecticut, they couldn't move into their old house. That was because Jessi had moved into it! Jessi Ramsey and Mallory Pike are the two younger members of the BSC. They're best friends, eleven years old, and in sixth grade at Stoneybrook Middle School. The rest of us are in eighth grade.
Like Stacey and Claudia, Jessi and Mal are alike in many ways and different in many ways. They're each the oldest kid in their families, and they think their parents treat them like babies. I guess it is hard being eleven. I
remember wanting so badly to be more grown-up when I was their age, but Mom didn't start really letting me grow up until I was twelve. Anyway, Jessi and Mal have campaigned hard to be allowed to do more things, and their parents did let them get their ears pierced (just one hole in each ear). However, Mal then had to have braces put on her teeth, and she wears glasses and isn't allowed to get contacts, so she's not feeling particularly pretty these days, even with her pierced ears.
Jessi and Mal both love to read, especially horse stories by Marguerite Henry. Beyond that, they're quite different. Jessi's passion is ballet, and boy, is she good. She takes special classes at a dance school in Stamford, where she had to audition just to get in, and she has danced lead roles in productions before hundreds of people. Mal's passions are writing and drawing, and she thinks she'd like to be an author and illustrator of children's books when she grows up. Jessi comes from an average-sized family - her parents, an eight-year-old sister named Becca, and a baby brother nicknamed Squirt - while Mal comes from a huge family. Her parents have eight children! Mal has four brothers (three of them are identical triplets) and three sisters. An-
other difference is that Jessi is black and Mal is white. This doesn't matter to them, or to any of us in the BSC, but Jessi's skin color bothered a lot of people in Stoneybrook, I'm ashamed to say. The Ramseys' neighbors gave them a really hard time at first, although they've calmed down now. They've found that there's not a thing to dislike about the Ramseys.
Oh, I forgot one other similarity between Jessi and Mal. Each of their families has a pet hamster!
Okay. So now you know the members of the Baby-sitters Club. A meeting was about to begin. I put on my visor, sat down in Claud's director's chair, stuck a pencil over my ear, and called the meeting to order.
Chapter 3.
As president of the BSC, I feel it is my duty to run our meetings professionally and in a businesslike manner. We have done that since the club first started. How did the BSC begin? Well, it began because of David Michael, really. See, back at the start of seventh grade, when Mom and Watson weren't even talking about getting married, my mother and brothers and I still lived on Bradford Court, next door to Mary Anne and across from Claudia. In those days, Sam and Charlie and I were responsible for taking care of David Michael after school until Mom came home from work. We took turns. But, of course, an evening came when we realized that none of us was free to baby-sit for him the next day, so Mom had to find another sitter on short notice. It wasn't easy. I remember we were eating pizza for dinner that night, and I sat there with my
slice, watching Mom make call after call. Nobody was available - and Mom was wasting a lot of time on the phone.
That was when I got my greatest idea ever. Wouldn't it be neat if Mom could make just one call and reach a whole lot of sitters at once? As soon as I could, I told Mary Anne and Claudia that I'd thought of a business we could start. We could form a baby-sitting club and meet several times a week. Then people could call us during those times and reach three responsible, reliable sitters. (We were already baby-sitting a lot in our neighborhood.) With several people at the other end of the phone, the caller was bound to find an available sitter.