"Martin, Ann M - BSC070 - Stacey And The Cheerleaders" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin Ann M)

You could practically hear their jaws clanking to the ground.
"He asked you out!" Kristy Thomas asked the question around a mouthful of Swedish meatball.
"Say it a little louder, Kristy, so everyone in the cafeteria can hear," Claudia said.
"Is it so unbelievable?" I asked.
Kristy laughed. "No, I didn't mean it that way. It's just that, you know, the boys in The Group always seem to date the girls in The Group." (Kristy pronounced "the group" as if it were the title of a movie.)
"Maybe RJ's dated them all already/' Claudia remarked.
"You guysl" I complained.
"Just kidding!" Claudia shot back.
"I think it's great, Stace," Mary Anne Spier said.
"I admit, he is cute," Kristy conceded.
"Hey, Stacey!" Sheila's voice called out. I looked up and saw her waving to me as she walked into the cafeteria.
"Hi!" I called back.
For a moment I thought she would sit with us. But instead she walked to a table in the back, where The Group was sitting.
I know it sounds weird, but I had an urge to go sit with Sheila. The Group seemed to be having such a great time at their table. Besides, boys were there, including RJ.
But the urge went away. Claudia was telling us about a baby-sitting charge who insisted on using a wicker trash basket as a helmet. Soon we were all laughing hysterically, and I forgot about The Group.
You know what? Sheila was not the only cheerleader who was friendly to me that day. Margie Greene, who had never even looked my way, asked me about my outfit in English class. Penny Weller and I had a conversation about makeup in Social Studies.
After school, as I was taking books out of my locker, I saw RJ at the end of the hall. He didn't see me. I hurried up, hoping to run over to him and say hi.
Before I could close the locker, Jessi Ramsey came up from behind me. "Hey, just in time," she said.
Jessi is one of the BSC's two junior members. She's in sixth grade here at SMS. I'd almost forgotten she was meeting me after school that day. She had a sitting job in my neighborhood, so we'd agreed to walk home together.
"Oh, hi, Jessi," I said.
"Ready to go?"
"Yeah, sure."
I closed my locker. As Jessi and I walked to the door, I waved to RJ. He was with a few other Group members. One of them nudged him, and he waved back.
He was grinning.
Guess what. So was I.
Chapter 2.
"You're what!" Kristy blurted into the phone receiver. "You call that 'having a good time'?"
Jessi was fidgeting excitedly. "Let me talk to Mal," she pleaded.
Mal is Mallory Pike, the BSC's other junior member. She was getting over a case of mono. Before our Wednesday club meeting officially began, Kristy had decided to call her and find out how she was doing.
"Here's Jessi," Kristy said. "Feel better!"
As Jessi took the receiver, Kristy shook her head. "Mal said she's having a fantastic time. She spends all day reading."
"What's wrong with that?" Mary Anne asked.
"If I couldn't get up and run outside, I'd go out of my mind," Kristy said.
Kristy, if you hadn't guessed, is very take-charge. Which is a polite way of saying she's bossy. And loud.
Х 15
I mean those things in the nicest way. Really. I love Kristy. She is so smart and has the most amazing ideas. Amazing Idea Number One: the Baby-sitters Club. Yes, she invented us. It happened one day in seventh grade when her mom was frantieally trying to line up a sitter for Kristy's little brother. Kristy wanted to help her. She realized the answer to her mom's problem Ч a group of reliable baby-sitters, like an agency, with one phone number, so parents could reach several sitters at once.
Voila. The Baby-sitters Club was born. It started with four members and grew to seven. (Nine if you include our associate members, Logan Bruno and Shannon Kilbourne, who fill in during emergencies.) At the beginning, we did some heavy advertising, with fliers and posters in public places. Now most of the Sto-neybrook parents know about us and we have lots of regular clients.
We meet on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from five-thirty to six in Claudia Kishi's bedroom. (She's the only one of us who has her own phone line, separate from the rest of her family.) It's fun, because we're close friends, but we also take sitting very seriously. For one thing, we are always busy with jobs. Plus we organize events for our charges, we
pay dues to help cover club expenses, and we each have a title and duties.
Kristy is president. She was born to be a president. Don't be surprised if you see her name in a voting booth someday. She runs our meetings, she solves problems, and she thinks up most of the club events. Honestly, I don't know where she stores all her ideas. When she heard some kids complaining they were too young (or too clumsy) for T-Ball, she organized them into a softball team of her own. When she realized some of our charges had trouble adjusting to new sitters, she invented "Kid-Kits" for us to take on jobs. Kid-Kits are boxes full of our old toys, games, books, and assorted other things we scrounge up. Who would have expected kids to go crazy over them?
Kristy would.
It's easy to recognize Kristy. She's the shortest BSC member, and she's always dressed super casually. Jeans, a T-shirt or turtleneck, and sneakers Ч "neat and simple" is her motto. The funny thing is, her stepdad's extremely rich so she could buy the most expensive clothes around.
Kristy wasn't always rich. Until she was about seven, she lived across the street from Claudia with her parents and two older broth-
ers (Charlie is now seventeen and Sam Ч yes, my old boyfriend Ч is fifteen). But her dad deserted them not long after her younger brother, David Michael, was born. (Kristy hates talking about her real dad.) So Mrs. Thomas raised four kids by herself and held down a full-time job.
Then came Watson. Watson Brewer the millionaire, that is. He fell in love with Kristy's mom and married her. Life suddenly became easier Ч in a way. On one hand, the Thomases moved into a mansion. On the other hand, Kristy's family doubled in size. Watson already had two kids from a previous marriage (Karen and Andrew), who live with him on alternate weekends. Then Watson and Mrs. Thomas adopted a little Vietnamese girl (Emily Michelle), and Kristy's grandmother moved in to help take care of the house and kids. Add a zoofull of pets, and you have a busy household.
"This meeting will come to order!" Kristy bellowed at the stroke of five-thirty (actually, it's more like the click of five-thirty on Clau-dia's alarm clock).
Jessi had already hung up the phone. She took her usual position on the floor. Shannon Kilbourne sat next to her. I was cross-legged on the bed, between Claudia and Mary Anne. Kristy sat forward in her director's chair. "All
present and accounted for?" she asked.
"Puh-Zeeze," Claudia said with a giggle. "This isn't the army."
Kristy shrugged. "I just like the way that sounds. Any new business?"