Prologue the
babysitting job of a lifetime
Stacey’s point of
view
I was in my room
writing letters to my best friends back in Stoneybrook CT when there was a tap
on my door.
“Stace?”
“Yeah mom?”
“I brought you a
snack”
“thanks mom”
“Remember to check
your blood sugar after you eat honey”
“I will mom”
My mother put the
small plate of apple carrot salad on my desk and handed me a spoon.
You are probably
wondering by now who I am, why I need to check my blood sugar, why I was
writing to my friends instead of visiting with them, and what apple carrot
salad is.
My name is
Anastasia Elizabeth McGill I am 13 years old, a native New Yorker. I have long
permed blond hair and blue eyes. I also have diabetes, a very serious
lifelong condition which means I need to (gross out warning) give myself
injections of a hormone that my body no longer produces called Insulin and
check my blood sugar four times a day. Having diabetes means that my
pancreas does not work properly and that my blood sugar can go haywire if I am
not careful. I have to eat a certain number of calories per day, eat
exactly what the doctor says and avoid sweets and sugar. Last year I
started experiencing weird symptoms, like growing and losing weight, being
hungry and thirsty all the time and urinating more often. After an
embarrassing episode of bedwetting at my New York, best friend, Laine
Cummings's house. (I will explain that in a minute) my mother took me to
a psychiatrist who suggested I see a specialist.
I was writing to my
friends because they live in a place called Stoneybrook Connecticut, a two-hour
train ride from New York City. My parents and I recently moved back to
the city. My father’s company transferred him to Stamford CT last year
and so we moved to Stoneybrook, I started school there; I joined a group called
The Babysitters Club. (I will explain that later) and then about two
weeks ago dad announced that we were moving back to New York City. We
arrived in New York on Friday; I have unpacked my room and helped my mother
around the house. I am dreading going to school on Monday. I have
hardly spoken to Laine since the bedwetting incident. Our mothers are
friends but we are not really. Laine can be obnoxious and she is spoilt.
She lives with her parents in the Dakota... an exclusive upper west side
apartment building and they even have a housekeeper! Laine is a little smaller
than I am; she has dark brown hair and brown eyes. I used to consider her
one of my favourite people but the last time I visited New York City she was anything
other than nice to me. I think our friendship is over.
My friends in
Stoneybrook are more laid back than my New York friends. My so-called
friends in New York City are always competing with each other and in fact, they
can be ruthless. Laine was the leader of our little group when I lived
here before my father got transferred. I am on the outskirts of the group
now though.
Apple carrot salad
is shredded carrot, sliced apples, raisins, sweetcorn and low fat coleslaw.
It is almost as tasty as bugs on a log (celery sticks cut long ways with
raisins stuck on with a little bit of low fat peanut butter or low fat cottage
cheese.) My other favourite healthy snack
I finished my salad
and took my blood sugar. It was normal so I did not need to inject myself
yet.
As I was taking my
plate to the kitchen to wash, the phone rang.
“Hello?” I said
“Hi, is this the
number for the New York City branch of the Babysitters Club?” asked a voice
“Yes ma’am”
“I need a
babysitter for my two sons, but the job is complicated. Would it be
possible for someone to come and meet with me to discuss it?”
“Yes ma’am”
“Shall we say,
tomorrow afternoon at one?”
“Yes ma’am, what’s
your address?”
“91 c Central Park
West”
“I will be there.
My name is Stacey”
“ok Stacey, my name
is Natasha... how old are you?”
“I’m thirteen.”
“Could you bring a
parent or guardian with you?”
“Of course”
“That’s great I
will see you tomorrow afternoon.”
We hung up and I
took my dishes to the kitchen and washed them
“Mom?”
“Yes honey?”
“I have an
interview for a babysitting job tomorrow afternoon, would you go with me?”
“Of course honey,
did you check your blood sugar?”
“Yes I did, it’s
normal”
“good girl. I
see you cleaned your plate as well”
“I did... I must
have been hungrier than I realised. Sometimes I don’t realise that I am
hungry straight away”
“I figured you
would be.”
“Thanks mom”
“you’re welcome
honey. Come and talk to me about this babysitting job”
“The lady I spoke
to on the phone was British, they live at 91 c Central Park West”
“oh... they’re
probably well known then”
“I think I
recognised her voice... she seemed really nice.”
“are you looking
forward to school on Monday?”
the room started to
spin, I became very short of breath and I could not speak suddenly
“Stace? Are you
ok?”
I shook my head...
“honeys you’re
panicked about school aren’t you?”
I nodded...
“I’ll call the
school on Monday and tell them not to expect you... how would you like to be
homeschooled?”
the panicky feeling
went away
“I’d love that”
“we can discuss it
with dad when he comes home”
“where is he?”
“he’s out for lunch
with his boss”
“ok”
I went back to my
room and finished my letters.
When I had written
them... I looked at the photograph on my bedside table... it was me with the
girls in the club.
The phone rang,
startling me out of my reverie.
“Hello?”
“Stace?”
“Claud!”
“how are you? How’s
New York?”
“New York is great.
I have an interview for a babysitting job tomorrow”
“that’s awesome
Stace. I miss you”
“I miss you too
Claud. What has been going on since I left?”
“we are holding an
emergency meeting of the Babysitters Club to figure out how to replace you.
Kristy interviewed two eleven year olds last night and she thinks they
are suitable... one is Mallory Pike, the other is a girl I’ve never met before,
Jessica Ramsey, her family moved into your old house.”
“oh, that is great.
Mom said I might be able to home school this year because of what
happened before I left and before I was on the insulin. I got sick in the
cafeteria a couple of times and people started saying I was either exaggerating
or contagious”
“that’s horrible,
kids can be so cruel sometimes”
“I know”
The meeting began;
Kristy and the others (except Jessi) got onto the phone and spoke to me.
I wished Mallory luck with joining the club, she put me back on to
Claudia, and we promised we would arrange a visit soon and we hung up.
That night when my
father got home, we discussed the idea of homeschooling.
“I think it’s a
great idea Boontsie, it will give you and your mom time to spend together and I
think you will probably learn more as well”
“Anything is better
than going back to a school where I would be ridiculed for being diabetic!”
“exactly”
The next morning I
showered, washed my hair and got dressed. I am into fashion and clothing,
like my friend Claudia back in Stoneybrook. Unlike Claudia however I am
not an artist. I decided to dress conservatively. I chose a long
blue denim dress over a white shirt with a frilled collar and knee socks with
penny loafers. I pulled my hair into a low ponytail and tied a blue
bandana in it
When I went to the
living room
“what do you think
mom?”
“very nice darling,
you look very mature and sensible. I like your other clothes but since
you’re going to an interview a conservative outfit is a good choice.”
We left at 12pm,
and walked down to Central Park West.
When I pressed the
buzzer, the woman answered
“just a moment, the
door sticks sometimes. I’ll come down”
She came downstairs
and opened the front door, she was tall and beautiful, she had long golden
blond curly hair and huge brown eyes. She was wearing black velvet
trousers, an apron and a white blouse with a collar similar to mine.
“you must be
Stacey”
“yes ma’am, and
this is my mother, Maureen McGill”
“a pleasure.
Come on, we’ll take the lift up. I’m Natasha, we spoke on the
phone”
We got off the lift
on the fourth floor and walked down a corridor and up a spiral staircase
“the lift doesn’t
come up here.” Natasha wheezed
As we climbed the
stairs to the penthouse, I heard frenzied barking and then a voice said
“ENOUGH! she’ll be back in a minute...”
Natasha opened the
door and a cute little poodle came bounding up to her. She bent down to
pick the dog up
“this is Missy” she
said
“hello Missy” I
said reaching out to pet her ears... she stretched over and licked my nose
“she likes you”
“she’s cute”
“yes she...”
Natasha began but
There was a sudden,
very loud very deep bark and jumped
“oh Snitch don’t do
that!” she exclaimed “this is our Labrador, Snitch, he gets jealous if we only
pay attention to Missy.”
I reached down and
petted Snitch’s ears. He sat obediently without being told and raised a
paw, which I shook.
“I got Missy for my
birthday last year. She’s still just a puppy.” She explained
“would you like
tea?”
“yes please” mum
and I said at the same time
“how do you take
it”
“just milk please”
I said
“milk and 1 sugar
please”
Natasha went and
made the tea and Missy followed her
“Missy, go and lie
down!” she said sharply
She carried the tea
tray from the kitchen to the living room and put it on the coffee table in the
middle of the room.
I look around, the
apartment is beautiful, the ceilings are high, there’s a big spiral staircase
to the right, the kitchen is in back of mom and I. Across from the living
room there are three doors. One is the front door, the next is the
balcony door and the last is... closed over. Just beyond the staircase is
another door. Natasha checks her watch and goes to the staircase
“Liam” she yells
“boys”
“I’ll be down in a
few sweetie, we’re just finishing a game of Mario Kart”
“all right” she
comes back to sit on the couch
“sorry about that”
“it’s ok”
A tall man comes
downstairs, he is handsome, and he has short brown hair and blue eyes, his nose
looks like it has been broken at least twice. This was who I heard
telling Missy off for barking. Behind him, two boys come scurrying
downstairs. One is tall and skinny the other is shorter and slightly bulkier.
The man comes to
the living room and sits on the couch, pulling Natasha onto his lap. The
boys come shyly to the living room and sit obediently on either side of their
parents.
“boys, this is
Stacey, she’s going to be your babysitter” said Natasha
“Stacey, this is
Michéal and this is Daniel”
“hi”
The man clears his
throat loudly
“oh yes, and this
is Liam... the only male in this house who does not officially need a
babysitter but who sometimes acts like he does”
“how long have you
been babysitting?”
“for almost three
years, I’ll be fourteen in April”
“do you enjoy
babysitting?”
“yes I do, I like
to look after kids and help them learn new things and if they have problems I
like to try to encourage them to share their problems and if they decide they
want to I offer to help them discuss the problem with their parents.”
“you sound like
you’re a very mature young lady”
“thank you, I am
very mature, I have to be, because I am an insulin dependent diabetic and I
have to take very good care of myself.”
“I see”
We talked some more
and Natasha took mom and I on a tour of the house and then we went home.
Chapter 1 my life changed forever
Stacey’s point
of view
My time in the
Babysitters Club was unforgettable; I made some very good and true friends.
I will explain
how the Babysitters Club works later, but first more about my friends.
We will start
with my Stoneybrook best friend, Claudia Kishi. Like me, Claud is 13,
unlike me however, she can (and does) eat sweets. Claudia is beautiful;
she is Japanese-American. She has big brown almond shaped eyes and a creamy
complexion, which has no blemishes whatsoever. She has shiny black hair,
which she puts into all sorts of wild styles. She is an artist, she
sculpts, draws, paints, makes her own jewellery, and she does screen-printing.
She is very talented at art but she is not a good student. She is
intelligent but she does not apply herself. Her mother is a librarian and
loves to read, her father is an investment banker in Stamford, and loves math,
her sister Janine is 16 years old and in high school but get this, Janine is a
real life genius! She has won a bunch of awards for her studies and although
she is in high school, she takes college courses. Her grandmother Mimi also
lives with the family. She had a stroke not long ago, but she is
recovering from it nicely. Claudia feels like she is the only
person in her family who is not ‘worth something’ academically because she
really struggles in school. She has an agreement with her parents that
she has to keep her grades at a C average or she cannot continue to be the
Babysitters Club vice-president. Her parents, sister and grandmother take turns
to help her with her homework to make sure she is on track with her studies.
She loves when Mimi helps her with her homework because she is patient
and sweet and hates when Janine helps her because she is so impatient.
Claudia resents her sister a lot. She is a good babysitter.
She loves helping her charges make art projects. Kristy Thomas is
the Babysitters Club President. She is 13 like Claud and I, she is short
and full of fun she has long brown hair and brown eyes. She can be a bit
of a loudmouth and a bossy boots sometimes but she is great with kids and she
coaches a softball team for children who are too little or not ready for little
league, t-ball or other formal baseball/softball teams yet. The team she
coaches are called Kristy’s Krushers. They practise regularly and they even
have a rival team called Bart’s Bashers. Bart Taylor coaches them.
Kristy grew up in a normal family with two older brothers. Not long
after her younger brother David-Michael was born though, Kristy’s father,
Patrick left the family leaving Kristy’s mother, Elizabeth to raise 4 children
by herself. Mrs Thomas has done an admirable job holding down a job and
looking after 4 children by herself but she’s not a lone parent any more, she
has remarried. She met a millionaire by the name of Watson Brewer and
they got married about 3 years ago. Kristy and her three brothers, Sam, Charlie
and David-Michael moved with their mother to Watson’s mansion (yes, mansion) on
the other side of Stoneybrook. Watson has two small children from his
previous marriage who live at the mansion every other month. Karen is
eight like David-Michael and Andrew is five. Mr. And Mrs Brewer decided
to adopt a little girl from Vietnam, her name is Emily-Michelle Thomas-Brewer
and she is three and a half. She is adorable. Kristy did not like
Watson at first but now she does. Kristy’s maternal grandmother, Nannie
lives with the family and takes care of Emily-Michelle most of the time.
Emily-Michelle had a little trouble starting pre-school so Mrs
Brewer signed her up for extra learning... who was her teacher? Claudia! Emily
learned to count, recognise colours and shapes and write the first letter of
her name with Claudia’s help. After six months of hard work which
included potty training and sleeping through the night as well as speech
therapy, Emily-Michelle was finally ready for pre-school.
Kristy’s best
friend is Mary-Anne Spier, the kindest, sweetest, shyest kid in our year.
Mary-Anne is a little shorter than Kristy, she too has brown hair and
brown eyes but her hair is shorter than Kristy’s. Mary-Anne was an only
child for most of her life. Her mother died when she was a baby and for
the first eighteen months of her life, she lived with her grandparents in Iowa
while her father learned to cope with his grief and a small child. When
she came back to Stoneybrook, her father, Richard brought her up very strictly,
she had rules about everything, how she was to fix her hair, what dress was
appropriate, how her room should look. When she turned 13 she finally
stood up to her father. Shortly after her 13th birthday Richard met or rather,
re-met Sharon Schafer. As it transpired, Richard and Sharon (nee Porter)
had both grown up in Stoneybrook they were an item for a while when they were
in high school but Sharon’s parents did not approve of the match and sent her
off to university in California where she met and married Jack Schafer and had
two children Dawn Read and Jeffrey Andrew. When Dawn was twelve and Jeff
was nine, Sharon and Jack divorced and Sharon moved with the kids across the
country to Stoneybrook CT. Jeff decided he wanted to move back to
California and after a series of very serious incidents, which almost got him
expelled from school, Sharon and Jack allowed it. Dawn recently decided
that she wanted to move back permanently as well. Dawn is an individual,
she is tall and thin and pretty. She has waist length white-blonde hair
and bright blue eyes. She does not eat refined sugar but not because she
has diabetes, she chooses to avoid sugar and she actually doesn’t like
chocolate! She is a staunch vegetarian and environmentalist. Abby
Stevenson and her twin sister Anna are from Long Island New York, they live in
the same part of town as Kristy. The girls are twins who tragically lost
their father when they were 9 years old. Abby has asthma and allergies.
Both Abby and Anna have scoliosis, Anna wears a back brace, Abby does not.
Anna is a talented violinist, and Abby is a gifted athlete. The
girls are Jewish and recently made their bat mitzvah, a celebration of the rite
of passage of a young woman in the Jewish faith (for a boy it is called a Bar
Mitzvah). Abby and Anna decided to join the Babysitters Club at the same
time after Kristy invited them to join when Dawn decided to go back to
California permanently. Shannon Kilbourne lives diagonally opposite Kristy in
her new neighbourhood, she goes to a private school and has to wear a uniform,
Shannon has a lot of extra-curricular activities so she only babysits
when she can. She is an associate member of the Babysitters Club meaning
that she only comes to meetings when Kristy insists on it. The other
associate member of the Babysitters Club is Logan Bruno, Mary-Anne’s steady
boyfriend. I still need to introduce two more BSC members, Mallory Pike
and Jessica Ramsey. Jessi is the newest member of the Babysitters Club,
she and Mallory are twelve years old, best friends and in the 6th grade. They are junior
members of the club meaning that they can’t sit at night unless they are
sitting for their own families. Jessi is African-American she has dark
skin and big brown eyes and dark hair, when the Ramsey family moved into my old
house in Stoneybrook CT she is originally from Oakley New Jersey. She
studies ballet and is very talented, she dances in pointe shoes – that means
she can dance on the very tips of her toes. She has danced in many of her dance
school’s productions including, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Coppelia, Giselle
and The Nutcracker. Jessi has been dancing since she was 4 years old.
She and a group of the older kids from her dance school taught ballet to
under privileged children just last year. Jessi has a younger brother
called John Phillip Ramsey Junior, he is now three years old who was the
smallest baby in the nursery when he was born so the nurses nicknamed him
Squirt. Jessi also has a sister called Rebecca who is 10. Rebecca
is very shy and quiet, she had four best friends her own age (I will explain
later). She is a cheerleader on the Krushers team along with two of her
three best friends.
Charlotte
Johanssen, Corrie Addison, Vanessa Pike and Danielle Roberts... Becca’s best
friends... Sadly though, Danielle had been battling leukaemia for a couple of
years and though she seemed to be over the worst of it, it came back and,
though she fought very hard, she lost her battle with the illness on
Independence Day two years ago. We were all so devastated by Danielle’s
tragic death that we wanted to do something about it and Kristy being the ideas
machine that she is, came up with the Annual Danielle Roberts Memorial Softball
game, which we play on the fourth of July every year as it was Danielle’s
favourite holiday of the whole year. She once told me it was her
favourite holiday because she spent the time with her whole family, her
grandparents live in Colorado her mother has a sister who lives in New York and
her father’s brother lives in Canada. All the money raised from the
concession stands at the games goes to Leukaemia Research and Your Wish Is My
Command, which is a charity, which grants the wishes of terminally ill and
disabled children. Danielle had her wish granted, she got to go to Disney
World with her mother, father and little brother Greg. Actually, she had
two wishes. One was to go to Walt Disney World and the other was to
graduate from Stoneybrook Elementary school, which she did a few short weeks
before she died.
Mallory Pike is
the oldest child of 8 children. Immediately after Mal are the triplets
Adam, Byron and Jordan who recently turned eleven, next is ten year old
Vanessa, nine year old Nicholas (Nicky), eight year old Margo and six year old
Claire who is the youngest. The Pikes have a Basset Hound by the name of Pow
who used to belong to the Barrett-DeWitt family, a client of the Babysitters
Club.
Chapter 2 club
history and operations
Kristy’s point of
view
Since I was the one
who had the idea for the Babysitters Club Stacey asked me if I would write up
how the club works and a bit of our history.
I founded the
Babysitters Club at the end of 7th grade; originally, we only had four members
Stacey, Mary-Anne, Claudia and I. Claudia was the one who suggested
adding Stacey to the club because they literally fell over each other in the
corridor in school and after sizing each other up decided they liked each other
and wanted to be friends – they ended up becoming best friends. Stacey is
wonderful at math so she became treasurer. Claudia has her own phone line
so she is vice president. Mary-Anne has beautiful handwriting so she is
the club secretary and I am president because the other club members voted me
into the job. Dawn came along a little while later and though there was a
little surface tension over her becoming Mary-Anne’s other best friend, I
decided she could join the club and become the alternate officer.
Sometime later, Logan moved to Stoneybrook from Louisville KY and he
started going out with Mary-Anne. We decided to make him an associate
member so that he did not have to attend Babysitters Club meetings with a bunch
of teenage girls. We sometimes talk about girl things and that gets a little
embarrassing. When I moved and became friends with Shannon after feuding
with her for a while, I invited her to join the club too but she has too many
extra-curricular activities to have time to devote to being a full time member
so she became an associate along with Logan, we can call on them when we are in
a pinch. Shannon’s parents like mine are divorced. Her father lives
in Chicago and she sees him three times a year. She has two younger
sisters Maria who is 11 and Tiffany who is 9. Tiffany moved to Chicago
with her father.
I promised a
breakdown of how the club works, didn’t I?
Well here goes.
We meet three days a week, Monday Wednesday and Friday from 5pm-6pm, the
meetings used to only last half an hour but we decided to expand out times so
that our clients wouldn’t call Claudia as often when we are not meeting.
One of Claudia’s responsibilities as club Vice President is to answer the
calls that come in from clients who either cannot or do not choose to call
during the meetings.
My responsibilities
as club president are to come up with new ideas for the club (although we all
do that.), run the meetings efficiently and discuss how to deal with issues.
Stacey’s responsibilities are to collect dues on a Monday and keep a
record of how much we earn though we don’t split up our earnings or anything we
just pay $2.00 in dues. The money raised from dues goes to help Claudia
pay her phone bill, buy items for kid-kits – kid-kits are something I thought
of, they are essentially a cardboard box filled with our old toys, books and
board games and stationery items, – our charges love them! Mary-Anne has one of
the two most complicated jobs of the whole lot of us; she is the club
secretary, which means she has to keep the record book. In the club
record book, we keep the names and addresses of our clients and information
about the children we sit for. Mary-Anne schedules our jobs in the record
books and she keeps track of our appointments, extracurricular activities and
vacations. Mary-Anne is such a good secretary that she has never made
even one scheduling error!
As alternate officer,
Dawn (or Abby) should be able to fill in for any one of us who are missing
except for Mallory and Jessi who as junior officers do not have any
responsibilities. Junior officers simply means that they cannot sit at
night unless they are sitting for their own or each other’s siblings.
