"Babysitters Club 091 Claudia And The First Thanksgiving" - читать интересную книгу автора (Babysitters Club)

Mal and Jessi are eleven. They're in the sixth grade at SMS, and they are best friends.
Mal is medium height and sturdy and has shoulder length, reddish brown hair and a faint dusting of freckles on very pale skin. She's a jeans and sweatshirt person, which is what she was wearing today over a red checked flannel shirt. She looked as if she
were ready to go horseback riding. Since Mal loves horses, it was a good look for her.
Jessi is taller and thinner, and has smooth brown skin. She loves horses, too, but she dresses more like a ballerina, which is what she wants to be someday. She often wears her dark hair pulled back into a ballerina's bun, as it was that morning. She had on a purple leotard with her jeans, and a big fuzzy lavender cardigan sweater. Not autumn colors, but definitely sensational looking.
We'd reached the hallowed halls of SMS. The usual swarm of students was hanging around outside, waiting until the last possible minute before the bell rang to go in. Even though I don't like school, I admit that I like the way SMS looks, with its weathered red brick walls and worn granite front steps. It was built before air-conditioning, which means that the windows are big, to help keep the school cool on hot days. On cold days the seats by the windows are the coldest in the classroom, but I still like to sit near them and look out, naturally.
Come to think of it, there are some other things I like about school. I don't really mind gym. Some of the other classes are okay sometimes, such as the one in which we were assigned to write our life stories. And I really like our Short Takes classes.
Short Takes is this SMS program in which all the students in all three grades take the same special class. You have the chance for six weeks at a time to study things you wouldn't ordinarily learn in school, with a different teacher in charge of each class. One of Stacey's favorite classes was called Math for Real Life. (I would call a course like that Learning to Hire an Accountant, but who asked me?) And not too long ago we had a class called Project Work, in which everyone worked three afternoons a week at a real job. Everybody in the BSC signed up for jobs at the mall, and we ended up solving a mystery there.
Today was the last day of a Short Takes unit called Learning to Read. It wasn't a class for slow readers; it was a class in how to interpret the news. Our teacher, Ms. Boy den, told us to look at stories on the same subject in different newspapers and news magazines, to see how each one of them told the story. That meant paying attention to where in the newspaper or magazine the article was placed, and even what the headlines said. (Some of the New York newspapers have really wild headlines.) We read different editorials on the same topics in different newspapers. We even looked at the advertisements, and tried to figure out who they were aimed at. That gave
us clues about who the readers were, and why a newspaper or a magazine would tell a certain news story a certain way.
It was pretty amazing. For example, there was this big political march in Washington. The newspapers that supported the marchers said there were thousands and thousands of marchers. Some of the newspapers that didn't support the political cause said there were about half as many. And some of the newspapers just put a little bitty story on the back page as if there hadn't been a march at all!
"Remember that much of recent history comes from what is written in newspapers," Ms. Boy den told us. "And even history books aren't necessarily telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."
Pretty intense. Pretty interesting, too.
After we'd finished our last discussion in Learning to Read, a summing up of what we'd learned, Ms, Boyden grinned and held up her hands. "I've enjoyed this," she said. "Now, for your next class, you'll be doing something else that involves a different way of looking at things. A more dramatic way."
She paused. "It'll be a drama unit, and classes will be small. I'm going to read your names and the classrooms to which you are to report on Monday. Please listen carefully."
I listened very carefully. So far, I'd liked al-
most all of my Short Takes classes and this one sounded pretty promising.
"Claudia Kishi, Room two-two-six."
"Two-two-six?" I repeated.
Ms. Boy den nodded and smiled at me. I flipped open my notebook. With my purple pen, I wrote Room 226 in big letters on my calendar for Monday.
Then I looked at the clock with a sense of deep satisfaction. It was Friday, and school was almost over for the day, and for the week. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Friday is the best day of the whole week, starting when the last bell after the last class begins to ring!
Chapter 2.
Have you ever noticed how all the holidays come at once?" I complained. "And that they really stack up when the weather starts turning bad? I think the holidays should be changed to spring."
"Not a bad idea," agreed Logan. "Then I could devote more time to spring training."
I backed out from under my bed and ripped open the bag of potato chips I'd stashed there. They were more like potato chiplets, since the hiding place had been a little cramped, but they still tasted fine. I stared down into the bag. I was wondering if I could make a mosaic out of potato chips.
"Pass the chips," demanded Mallory, putting an end to my artistic trance. I handed her the bag.
The phone rang, and Logan picked it up. "Baby-sitters Club," he said. He listened for a moment, then laughed. "No, it's not a joke.
I am a baby-sitter. This is Logan. Yes. Yes. Okay. We'll call you right back."
He hung up the phone. "Betsy Sobak," he told us. "She thought it was some kind of a practical joke when she heard my voice. Her mother let her call to set up the appointment."
Betsy Sobak is an eight-year-old charge of the BSC who is infamous for her practical jokes. (After one of her practical jokes I wound up with a broken leg!) She used to spend most of her allowance on jokes from McBuzz's Mail Order, until her parents made her quit. A baby-sitting session with Kristy Thomas, in which Kristy out-joked Betsy and totally embarrassed her, cured Betsy of the worst of her practical joke habit.
I remembered my breakfast table joke that morning and wondered if Betsy would like puns.
"Haven't you ever baby-sat for Betsy?" asked Mary Anne in surprise, reaching for the appointment book.
Logan shook his head. "I guess that's why she was surprised to hear a guy's voice on the phone," he answered.
Mary Anne set Jessi up for the job. Logan called Betsy (and Mrs. Sobak) back to confirm.
Another meeting of the BSC was in progress.
The BSC meets every Monday, Wednesday,
and Friday, from five-thirty until six, in my room. Clients know they can call us then to set up appointments. We meet in my room because I am the only member of the BSC who has her own phone line, so when people call us for baby-sitters, we don't tie up anybody's family telephone with club business. We have seven full members and two associate members - and lots of work. Early on, we advertised our club, with signs in the supermarket and fliers, but we hardly ever have to do that anymore.
Like all businesses (according to Stacey, who lists running a small company as one of her ambitions for the future), we started small. One day Kristy, who is the president and founder of the BSC, was listening as her mom called one baby-sitter after another, trying to find a sitter for Kristy's little brother. That's when Kristy had her Great Idea. What if parents could call one number and reach several baby-sitters at once?
Kristy leaped into action, and the Babysitters Club was off and running (or sitting).
We have tons of regular clients, because we run the business well, and we are very good baby-sitters. For example, we schedule all our appointments in one central place, the record book. Mary Anne, who is the club secretary, is in charge of that. She has never, ever made
a mistake. We also keep a club notebook (another Kristy idea), in which we write up every single baby-sitting job we go on. We read the notebook to keep up with the kids we sit for: who's developed allergies, who's having problems with a new sibling, who's become obsessed with dogs. It's a big help.
We also carry Kid-Kits to some of our jobs, particularly on rainy days, or when kids are sick and have to stay inside. Kid-Kits are boxes we have filled with old toys and games and books, plus stickers and markers and whatever else we think kids might like. Although most of the things are hand-me-downs, they are brand-new to the kids we sit for. Needless to say, when we show up with Kid-Kits, we are very welcome.
Kristy, who thought up the Kid-Kits, hurtles through life at top speed, running the BSC, coaching a softball team for little kids called Kristy's Krushers, doing her homework, and coming up with great ideas, many of them for the BSC. She is major energy in a small, plain package. Not that Kristy is plain - she isn't. She's short (the shortest person in the eighth grade) and cute, with brown hair and brown eyes. But her style is basic and no-nonsense: turtleneck, jeans, running shoes, and sometimes a baseball cap with a picture of a collie
on it in memory of Louie, her old collie who died not so long ago.
Another Kristy fact: She is not shy about saying what she thinks, loudly and often. I think that's because she grew up with two older brothers, Charlie and Sam, and a younger brother, David Michael. Kristy's big brothers acted like, well, big brothers, usually teasing Kristy, sometimes letting her tag along. Kristy learned early to speak up and to stand up for herself.
When David Michael was a baby (he's seven now), Kristy's father just left one day and didn't come back. Things were tough for the Thomases for a long time after that. Then Mrs. Thomas met Watson Brewer, and they fell in love and got married. And Kristy, who'd lived all her life next door to Mary Anne and across the street from me on Bradford Court, moved with her family into Watson's house across town.
It's no ordinary house, either. Watson Brewer is a real, live millionaire, and he lives in a mansion. Now all the Thomas kids not only have rooms of their own, but they also have an even bigger family, including Watson's two kids from his first marriage, Andrew and Karen, who live with Watson every other month. Watson and Kristy's mother also recently adopted Emily Michelle, who is Vietnamese. After that, Kristy's grandmother Nannie moved in, to help take care of Emily Michelle (and everyone else). Kristy's new, bigger family also includes a Bernese mountain dog puppy named Shannon, Boo-Boo the cranky cat, a couple of goldfish, other assorted, er, wildlife, and maybe, just maybe, the ghost of Ben Brewer, one of Watson's ancestors.
You've already met Mary Anne. She's one of the founding members of the BSC, too, and she is also Kristy's best friend. If you think that shy, sensitive Mary Anne and high-energy, high-impact Kristy are very different, you are right. But maybe that's what makes them such good friends. They've known each other since they were babies. As I mentioned, they used to live next door to each other, until Kristy moved to the mansion - and Mary Anne and her dad moved into a haunted farmhouse. (Two new families, two haunted houses. See? Mary Anne and Kristy do have a lot in common.)
Before the move, Mary Anne was an only child. Her mother died when Mary Anne was just a baby, and Mr. Spier raised Mary Anne very strictly, even choosing the clothes she wore (little kid clothes, long after she wasn't a little kid anymore). As a single parent, he
wanted to make sure he did everything right. I think it worked. Mary Anne is a terrific person. And when she finally convinced her father that she was growing up, and was responsible enough to choose her own clothes and have a little more freedom, her father loosened up a bit.
Right about then he started spending time with his old high school sweetheart, Sharon Schafer, who'd just moved back to Stoneybrook (from California) after getting divorced. She brought her two kids, Dawn and Jeff, with her. Dawn, who is tall, blonde, and easygoing, and Mary Anne soon became best friends, which led naturally to Dawn's joining the BSC. And when Dawn and Mary Anne discovered that Mr. Spier and Mrs. Schafer had once dated, they lost no time in seeing to it that their parents became reacquainted. The rest is history: Mr. Spier and Mrs. Schafer got married, and Mary Anne's best friend became her stepsister. They all lived in the Schafers' farmhouse.