"BSC050 - Dawn's Big Date - Martin, Ann M" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin Ann M)

There's something about Kristy that you would never guess. She's rich! Her stepfather, Watson Brewer, is a real millionaire. Her family lives in an actual mansion. It's unbelievably gorgeous.
Kristy certainly doesn't look like my idea of a rich kid. Jeans, a sweater over a turtleneck, and sneakers Ч that's Kristy's idea of fashion. She gives her long, brown hair a few quick
strokes with a hairbrush and thinks she's gone all out. (Since she's short, she's often mistaken for being younger than she is.)
Kristy doesn't act like a rich kid, either. You couldn't find a more regular, down-to-earth person. She loves sports and even coaches a little kids' softball team called Kristy's Krushers.
I suppose Kristy isn't a typical rich kid because she wasn't always rich. Her mother didn't marry Watson until Kristy had finished seventh grade. Before that, Kristy's family wasn't poor, but they weren't loaded, either. Kristy's father just up and walked out when Kristy was little, leaving her mother to support the whole family. (Kristy hardly ever hears from her father. She says she doesn't care, but it's got to hurt.) Her mom must have had it tough. Kristy has two older brothers and a younger brother. Four kids is a lot for one person to take care of all by herself.
Kristy's mother works hard, though. She has a good job with a company in Stamford. I think that's how she met Watson.
Since Watson came along, Kristy's mom's life is much easier, although she now has even more kids. Watson has two little kids, a boy and a girl from a previous marriage. They stay with the Brewers every other weekend, over some holidays, and for two weeks in the sum-
mer. And (as if the house wasn't full enough) they adopted a little girl from Vietnam. Emily Michelle is two and a half, and is so cute you can hardly stand it. Then Nannie (Kristy's mother's mother) moved in to help out with the kids. With all those people living together, I guess it's a good thing that they do live in a mansion.
The vice-president of our club is Claudia. She gets to be VP mostly because we hold meetings in her room. Claudia has the best room for meetings because she is the only member with her own phone and her own phone number. When I tell you about how the club works, you'll see that having a private phone line is very important. (More about the club later.)
The first thing most people notice about Claudia is her appearance. She's naturally beautiful with long, shiny, straight black hair. (She's Japanese-American, so her hair is really black-black, not just dark brown.) And she has delicate features. But what strikes people about Claudia even more than her stunning looks is her sense of fashion.
Claudia wears super-trendy clothes, and she puts them together in ways that are uniquely Claudia. Today, for example, she was wearing maroon leggings and ballet slippers under an oversized yellow shirt. Around her waist she
wore this great belt that she made herself from three thin strips of leather tied together and decorated with ceramic beads. For the final touch, Claudia had swept her hair over to one side and tied it up with another thin leather strip that had the same kind of beads on it. She looked great Ч and she was just hanging around her own house!
Claudia's fashion sense is an extension of her artistic talent. Claudia loves to do anything artistic: sketch, paint, sculpt, make pottery and jewelry.
When Claudia grows up I'm sure she'll be either an artist or a fashion designer. Which is lucky for her. I don't think she'd do too well at a profession that required a lot of regular school. Claudia is a terrible student. (Straight C's, if she's lucky. And she can't spell for beans.) The odd thing about Claudia being a poor student is 1. she's really smart and 2. her older sister, Janine, is a real-life genius. Claudia's parents used to pressure her constantly to be more like Janine, but Claudia wasn't interested. (Even though they've let up a bit, I still think Claud's parents are too hard on her. She has to hide her Nancy Drew books because her parents think they're "frivolous." I mean, come on. At least she's reading.)
Claudia's best friend, and the treasurer of the BSC, is Stacey. Like Claudia, she's also
fashion conscious. Her clothes are very cool, but she doesn't put them together quite as originally as Claudia does. Still, she always looks great. She's tall and thin with big blue eyes. Her fluffy shoulder-length blonde hair is permed and suits her perfectly. Of all of us, Stacey seems the most grown-up.
Maybe that's because Stacey has had a tough life. She has diabetes, which means her body has trouble controlling the level of sugar in her blood. She has to stay on a very strict diet. Also, she has to give herself injections of insulin every day. (Even thinking about that gives me the shivers!)
Stacey has been bounced around a lot, too. First she moved from New York City to Sto-neybrook (her father was transferred here). Then her father was transferred back to New York. Then her parents decided to get divorced, and Stacey moved back to Stoney-brook with her mother. Whew! That's a lot of moving. But we are thrilled that she's back.
I was especially thrilled. Not only because I missed Stacey when she left, but also because I had taken over her job as treasurer. You see, I'm the alternate officer of the club, which means I can take over for any member whenever I'm needed. That's how I got the treasurer's job, even though I'm not too swift in the math department. Stacey is a whiz at it,
though. I was glad to turn the job back to her.
We also have two junior members. They're called "junior" because they're only eleven. (The rest of us are thirteen.) They can't sit at night unless it's for their own sisters and brothers. But they do baby-sit in the afternoons. That frees the rest of us to sit in the evenings.
Besides age, Mal and Jessi have a lot in common. They're both nuts about horses and books. (As you might figure, they're wild for horse books in particular.) They're both the oldest kids in their families. Oh, and they're best friends.
They're not clones, though. Each girl has a distinct personality. Another difference is that Mal is white and Jessi is black. When the Ram-seys first moved to Stoneybrook, some people gave them a hard time simply because they're black. Thank goodness that died down. Now the Ramseys are settled in and seem happy.
Besides her parents, Jessi lives with her aunt; her sister, Becca (eight); and her baby brother, Squirt. (His real name is John Philip Ramsey, Jr., but he was so small at birth that the nurses -in the hospital nicknamed him Squirt.)
The most amazing thing about Jessi is her dancing ability. She plans to be a ballerina and has already performed in several professional
productions. She's incredibly talented.
Mal is also talented in her own way. Her ambition is to write and illustrate children's books. I know she'll be great at it because she's very creative. And she sure knows what kinds of stories interest kids. She's the oldest of eight! The combination of her creativity and her experience with all those brothers and sisters makes her a terrific baby-sitter.
And, just so you'll know, we also have two associate members: Kristy's friend Shannon Kilbourne and Logan Bruno. (That's right. Mary Anne's boyfriend.) Shannon and Logan don't come to meetings, but we call them as backups if we have too many baby-sitting jobs.
Now that you know who's in the club, let me tell you how it works. As I said, we meet three times a week, for a half hour. Our clients know that we meet at those times. (At first the club advertised by distributing BSC fliers. Now we're so popular we don't need to advertise anymore. Though we do sometimes, anyway. Just to keep new clients coming.)
If a client needs a baby-sitter, he or she calls us during a meeting. (That's why Claudia's private phone is so important.) The great thing about this is that with one call, a client can reach seven experienced sitters. One of us is bound to be free to take the job.
That's where Mary Anne comes in. As club
secretary she keeps track of the record book. In it she records everyone's schedule Ч Jessi's dance lessons, Mal's orthodontist appointments, Claudia's art classes, and anything else that comes up. By checking her record book she can tell right away who is free to accept a baby-sitting job.
That's not all she keeps in the record book. There's also a list of clients' names, addresses, and phone numbers. Plus a record of how much money we make, and each of our weekly sitting schedules. If we need to know anything, we can check with Mary Anne. She's a great secretary and has never, ever (not even once) made a mistake.
What do we do if the phone doesn't ring? Lots! For starters, on Mondays, Stacey collects the dues. That's the least fun part of the club. But it's necessary. We use the money to help pay Claudia's phone bill. And we pay Charlie, one of Kristy's older brothers, to drive her to meetings. (Kristy used to live across the street from Claudia. But Watson's mansion is on the other side of town.) We also buy new supplies for our Kid-Kits.
Kid-Kits were Kristy's idea and they're really helpful. A Kid-Kit is a box full of toys, coloring books, crayons, and other fun stuff. We often bring the Kid-Kits on baby-sitting jobs. The kids love them. There's something exciting
about playing with new" things. Even difficult kids settle down when we open our Kid-Kits.
If there's any money left over after all of that, we splurge on a club pizza party or a sleepover or a trip to the movies. Something fun.
After money business is settled, we sometimes go over our BSC notebook. This isn't the same as the record book. It's more like a diary for the club. We write down our baby-sitting experiences in the notebook. Sometimes it's kind of a pain to do, but it is a helpful resource for all of us.
On that day we had plenty to do. We'd been so busy over the vacation that our Kid-Kits were in desperate need of restocking. Each of us was making suggestions for things to buy. Stacey was writing everything down and trying to figure out what we could afford to buy and what we couldn't.
Mary Anne was the only one not making suggestions. She was busy writing in the BSC notebook. The night before she'd sat for the Kormans. She was glad to report that Bill and Melody were no longer terrified of the toilet monster. (Believe it or not, the kids thought there was a monster in their toilet. Whenever it was flushed, they would race to their beds and hide.) Logan had suggested that Mary Anne make a game of it Ч like timing how
fast Bill and Melody ran away, for example. Mary Anne tried it and it worked. Now the only problem was that the kids wouldn't stop flushing the toilet. They laughed hysterically every time they did. Oh, well.
As we were conducting the meeting, the phone rang. "Hello, Baby-sitters Club," Claii-dia answered. "Yes . . . yes . . . that's us." She took a pad and pencil off her desk and began writing down information. "Can I ask how you heard about us? . . . Oh, wow! Dr. Johanssen is your pediatrician? Yeah, we babysit for her little girl, Charlotte, all the time. I'll find out who's available. . . . Great. I'll call you right back."
"All right! A new client!" Kristy exclaimed after Claudia hung up.
"Yeah," Claudia replied with a smile. "Dr. Johanssen told this guy Mr. Hill that we're really good sitters."
Kristy shot Claudia a worried look. "He didn't ask for anyone in particular, did he?" she wanted to know. We're not supposed to work that way. Whoever's free gets the job.
"No, he didn't," Claudia said pointedly. "He just wants someone to take care of his two kids, a nine-year-old girl and a seven-year-old boy." .
Mary Anne already had the record book open. "When and what time?" she asked.
"Friday at four," Claudia read off her pad. "Mrs. Hill won't be home from work, and Mr. Hill has to go to a meeting. Normally he works at home."
"How about you, Dawn?" Mary Anne asked, looking up from the record book.
"Sure," I said. A nine-year-old and a seven-year-old. Usually those are pretty easy ages to sit for. That's what I thought, anyway, before I met Sarah and Norman Hill.