"Babysitters Club 057 Dawn Saves The Planet" - читать интересную книгу автора (Babysitters Club)

Stacey is absolutely gorgeous, with fluffy blonde hair and these huge blue eyes with dark eyelashes. She's also very thin, which is partly caused by the strict diet she is on. You see, Stacey is diabetic, which means her body can't process sugar. She has to give herself insulin shots (ew) every day! I could never do that in a million years. Besides being a real knock-out, Stacey is very smart and ultra sophisticated. She used to live in New York City, but she and her mom moved to Stoneybrook when her parents got divorced. She still visits the city a lot to see her dad. In fact, sometimes she's on the train so much she says she feels like a commuter daughter.
Of all of us, I'd say Stacey is the coolest dresser. Today she was wearing floral leggings, a pink shirt with big sleeves, and a long vest covered in antique pins. A black fedora with a red doth rose was perched on top of her shoulder length hair.
"Don't worry, Stacey," Claud said. "You'll1
think of something. You're a whiz at math so science should be just as easy."
"Not true," Stacey said, taking a bite of a carrot stick. "They are two totally different subjects."
"Not to me," Claud added. "They both make me crazy. They both involve numbers and words you can't pronounce and things you have to memorize."
"Don't even mention memorizing," Mary Anne complained as she and her boyfriend, Logan, joined us at the table. "I think I just bombed a spelling test in English."
"Bombed," Logan repeated in his soft southern accent. (He's from Kentucky.) "Yeah, right. Mary Anne considers missing one question bombing a test."
Mary Anne poked Logan in the ribs with her elbow and he clutched his side and howled, "Ow! She got me!"
My friends spent the rest of the lunch hour talking about tests and classes, how disgusting the hot lunch was (Claudia called it "The Green Slime"), and what movie everyone wanted to see on the weekend. But I couldn't take my mind off the science project.
I thought about it for the rest of the school day and for my entire walk home. Usually Mary Anne walks with me, but she was scheduled to baby-sit for the Perkins girls.
When I reached my house I headed straight for my room, deciding to make a list of ideas for Mrs. Gonzalez's class. List-making always helps me decide about important issues. I've used it to decide who I'm going to invite to a dance or what outfit I'm going to wear for the first day of school or which homework assignment I'm going to do first.
I got out a pad and grabbed a black magic marker from my desk. Then I wrote in big bold letters this question:
HOW CAN I SAVE THE PLANET?
Chapter 2.
Our kitchen clock read 5:20. I had only ten minutes to get to Claudia Kishi's house. I could just make it if I pedaled my bike really fast.
BSC meetings start promptly at 5:30. Kristy, who's club president, is really strict about that. She hates for anyone to be even one minute late. Kristy is president partly because the club was her idea and partly because she's a natural leader.
Kristy is also great with little kids. That's probably because she's had to be very responsible from an early age. Her dad just walked out one day when she was little and left Mrs. Thomas to raise four kids. Kristy has two older brothers and a younger brother. It was pretty hard on Mrs. Thomas until she met Watson Brewer, who is - are you ready for this? - a millionaire! Kristy's mom married Watson right after Kristy finished seventh grade. Now
they live in this absolutely gorgeous mansion across town.
It's a good thing Kristy likes kids, because Watson has two little ones, a boy and a girl, from a previous marriage (they live with their father every other weekend, on some holidays, and for two weeks in the summer). Then Watson and Kristy's mom decided to adopt a little girl from Vietnam. Emily Michelle is two-and-a-half and a total doll. Luckily, Nannie, Kristy's grandmother, moved in to help with all those kids. On some weekends ten people live at her house. Can you imagine? I guess it's a good thing they live in that mansion.
Claudia Kishi is vice-president of the BSC. We hold our meetings at her house since she has her own phone 'and her own phone number. That's very important because from 5:30 to 6:00 every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday we need to have that line open to take calls from our clients.
I already told you that Claud is a really cool dresser. I'm sure it's because she's such a great artist. Besides being able to draw, she makes her own earrings, tie-dyes her own clothes, and designs these really neat belts and hair ornaments.
Claud is smart, too, but she's a terrible student. And the worst speller on the planet. Which is strange since her sister, Janine, is a
full-fledged genius. Her parents are always pushing Claud to study harder and read good books (Claud has to hide her Nancy Drews along with her junk food) but I think they're proud of her artwork.
Mary Anne is our secretary. She keeps the club record book where we list clients' addresses, their phone numbers, and pertinent facts about their kids (like if one of them is allergic to milk, or has to be taken to piano lessons on Thursdays, or whatever). Mary Anne also uses the record book to assign each of us our jobs. Things can get pretty crazy trying to arrange baby-sitting jobs around our schedules. Jessi has dance lessons, Mal has orthodontist appointments, Kristy has softball practice, and Mary Anne has to remember all that. But she has never made a mistake.
Our treasurer is Stacey because she's an absolute math whiz. For awhile, when Stacey was gone, I handled the job. You see, I'm the alternate officer in the club. That means if anyone gets sick or moves, I take over her job. Boy, was I glad to see Stacey return to Stoneybrook because, let's face it, math is not one of my strengths.
The BSC also has two junior members. We call them "junior" because Mallory Pike and Jessica Ramsey are eleven (the rest of us are thirteen). They're not allowed to baby-sit at
night, unless it's for their own families, so they take a lot of the afternoon and weekend jobs.
Mal and Jessi are best friends and alike in many ways. First of all, they are complete nuts when it comes to horses. Also, they both love to read and are the oldest kids in their families.
But they are also very different. Mal has seven brothers and sisters. When Mr. and Mrs. Pike go out, they hire two sitters.
Jessi, on the other hand, only has one sister, Becca and one brother, Squirt. (His real name is John Philip Ramsey, Jr., but that's a big name for such a little guy so the nurses at the hospital where he was born nicknamed him Squirt.)
Mal wants to be a writer and illustrator of children's books when she grows up. Jessi would like to be a ballerina. She's a wonderful dancer and has already performed in several professional productions. And Jessi is black and Mal is white, but that doesn't matter to them or anyone in the BSC.
Besides the five officers and two junior members, the BSC also has two associate members: Shannon Kilbourne and Mary Anne's boyfriend, Logan Bruno. They don't come to meetings but we call them if we have too many baby-sitting jobs and need a backup.
So that's our club. Now I'll tell you how it
works. We meet, as I said, three days a week at Claud's house. If a client needs a sitter, he (or she) knows to call us during our meetings. This is great because all he has to do is dial one number to reach seven experienced sitters. Usually, one of us is available, and if not, we contact our associates.
While we wait for the phone to ring (and on some days it never stops!) we hold our club meeting.
Our president Kristy always sits in Claud's director's chair with a visor on her head and a pencil tucked behind one ear. She waits until the digital clock on Claudia's desk turns from 5:29 to 5:30, and then she calls the meeting to order.
Mondays are Dues Days and that's when Stacey collects our money. The dues pay for Claudia's phone bill and for Kristy's older brother, Charlie, to chauffeur her across town. (She used to live right across the street but Watson's mansion is on the other side of Stoneybrook.) We also use the money to buy supplies for our Kid-Kits.
Kid-Kits were one of Kristy's great ideas. We each got a box and decorated it, then filled it with old toys from our houses, and other things, such as books, stickers, scissors, and glue. The kids love them. I try to vary the things in my kit. You know, one week I'll bring
puppets, another week Play-Doh. And when we run out of crayons or coloring books, Stacey gives us money to restock our Kid-Kits.
After Stacey has doled out the money and if there's any left over, we sometimes splurge on a pizza party or a trip to the movies.
Another of Kristy's great ideas was the BSC notebook. It's kind of like a diary in which each of us writes down our sitting experiences. Writing in it can be a pain, but we agree that the notebook is really useful. It lets us know what's happening in the lives of the families we take care of - if one of the kids is having trouble adjusting to a new baby, or the parents are going through a divorce. This way we can be prepared.
So that's our club and how it works. Since today was Monday, I knew we would be busy. I pedaled as fast as I could to Claud's house, raced through her front door and collapsed on her bed just as the clock turned from 5:29 to 5:30.
Kristy raised an eyebrow at the sight of me gasping for air but since I was on time she really couldn't say anything. Instead she adjusted her visor and declared, "This meeting of the BSC is officially called to order. As you know, today is Dues Day."
Jessi joked, "I think we should all chip in to pay for an oxygen tank for Dawn."
I put one hand over my heart and said dramatically, "If I die now, please tell the world I died happy because I was on time to the Baby-sitter's Club meeting."
Everyone cracked up. Kristy swatted at me with her hand but before she could say anything the phone rang. I settled back between Mary Anne and Claud as Claud picked up the phone.
"Hello, Baby-sitter's Club. Your kids are our business." (Kristy gave Claudia a look. She likes us all to act very professional.)
"Oh, hello, Mrs. Barrett," Claudia said as she tried to saw off the top of a huge bag of Gummi bears -with a letter opener. She'd stashed the candy in the lower drawer of her desk so her parents wouldn't see it. "Tomorrow afternoon? Great. I'll call you right back." Claud hung up the phone. "She needs a sitter tomorrow," she announced.
Mary Anne checked the record book. Mal and Jessi already had jobs and Stacey had a doctor's appointment. "Claud has an art lesson and I promised Logan I'd go the mall with him," Mary Anne said. "So it's either Dawn or Kristy."