Ann Martin - Dawn And The Impossible Three

Dawn And The Impossible Three

Ann M. Martin

Chapter 1.

The Baby-sitters Club. I didn't start it and I don't run it, but I am its newest member. I'm Dawn Schafer, baby-sitter number five. The other girls in the club have titles, like Mary Anne Spier, secretary, or Claudia Kishi, vice-president. But I'm just me.

The club is the most important thing in my life. If it weren't for the club, I wouldn't be riding my bicycle off to another baby-sitting job at this very moment. And if it weren't for all the baby-sitting jobs I've gotten, I wouldn't know so many people here in Stoneybrook.

See, I've only lived inConnecticut a few months. Until this past January, I lived inCalifornia with my parents and my younger brother, Jeff. But last fall Mom and Dad split up, and Mom decided to move back to the place where she grew up. Her parents still live here. So right after Christmas, Jeff and I were uprooted from hot, sunnyCalifornia and trans-

planted to cold, sloppyConnecticut , where (so far) it's never been warm enough for me.

I hate cold weather. On the days when the temperature slips back a few degrees, I yell at the weatherman. On the days when it creeps up, I congratulate him and apologize for yelling. I'm still not sure what the big deal aboutNew England winters is all about. Back inCalifornia , we had one season: summer. I thought it was wonderful. I loved the beach, I loved sunshine, I loved eighty-degree Christ-mases. Why, I wondered, would anyone want to interrupt all that warmth with three other seasons?

The family I was baby-sitting for that afternoon was the Pikes. There are eight Pike children and three of them are triplets! However, I wasn't going to sit for all of them. The triplets, who are nine-year-old boys, would be at ice hockey practice (my brother Jeff was there, too), and eight-year-old Vanessa would be at her violin lesson. That left Nicky, who's seven; Margo (six); Claire (four); and Mallory, who's ten and usually a big help.

When I reached the Pikes', I parked my bicycle at the side of the driveway and rang the doorbell.

"I'll get it! I'll get it!" cried a voice from inside.

The door was flung open by Claire, the youngest Pike. She loves answering the door and the phone.

"Hi, Claire!" I said brightly.

Claire suddenly turned shy. She put her finger in her mouth and looked at the floor. "Hi," she replied.

"I'm Dawn. Remember me?"

Claire nodded.

"Can I come in?"

She nodded again.

As I was opening the door, Mrs. Pike ran down the stairs. "Oh, it's you, Dawn. Terrific! You're right on time. How are you?"

"Fine, thanks," I answered.

I really like Mrs. Pike. She has lots of energy and she loves kids. (She'd have to, I guess.) She's patient and funny and hardly ever yells. She and Mr. Pike have been really nice to our family ever since we moved here.

"I'm just going to be at a meeting of the trustees of the public library. The library number is on the bulletin board by the phone. If you need to call me, ask for the Prescott Room and say that I'm in the board meeting, okay?"

"Okay."

(Mrs. Pike is always so organized. She's a baby-sitter's dream.)

"The emergency numbers are in their usual

spot, and the kids can have a snack a small one if they're hungry. I'll be home a little after five. Is that all right?"

"Perfect. We have a Baby-sitters Club meeting at five-thirty."

Our club is run very professionally. We meet three times a week to go over club business and take job calls. (We get tons of jobs.) The president is Kristy Thomas. She's the one who had the idea for the club.

The vice-president is Claudia Kishi, who's really neat and sophisticated. She lives across the street from Kristy. We hold our meetings in Claudia's room because she has a phone. Claudia is Japanese and beautiful. She hates school, but loves art and mystery stories. She's a little bit hard to get to know.

The club treasurer is Stacey McGill. Stacey moved to Stoneybrook just a few months before I did, so we have something in common. She came fromNew York City , and I know she had trouble getting adjusted to small-town life. Sometimes we talk about that.

Then there's Mary Anne Spier. She's the one who introduced me to Kristy, Claudia, and Stacey. She's the secretary of the club and responsible for the Baby-sitters Club Record Book, which is where she records our job appointments, as well as the phone numbers

and addresses of our clients and stuff like that. (Also in that book is a record of the money we earn. Stacey's in charge of that section.)

We keep a Baby-sitters Club Notebook, too, which is like a diary. Kristy insists that we write up each job we take and that we all read the book every few days. That's so we know what's going on in the families the club sits for.

The most important thing about Mary Anne (to me, anyway) is that she's my new best friend. (My old best friend was Sunny Winslow inCalifornia .) Mary Anne lives next door to Kristy Thomas, and for the longest time Kristy was her only best friend. Now I'm Mary Anne's other best friend.

The wildest thing happened right after Mary Anne and I got to know each other. It turned out that her father and my mother went to high school together. Not only that, they dated for a long time. They were really serious about each other. Mary Anne and I found all this romantic stuff they'd written to each other in their senior yearbooks.

Even more amazing is that they've started dating each other againl (Mary Anne's mother died when Mary Anne was really little.) Mary Anne and I can hardly believe that our parents are going out. It's so exciting! Mr. Spier is this stern, lonely guy who needs some fun in his

life (and something to think about besides Mary Anne, who's his only kid). And my mom has been so sad since the divorce. She needs some fun, too.

Mrs. Pike was putting on her coat and hat, and tossing things in her purse. "Mallory's upstairs doing her homework," she told me, "but she'll be down soon. She wants to see you. Margo's in the rec room, and Nicky's at the Barretts' playing with Buddy. Do you know the Barretts?"

I shook my head.

"They live a few doors down toward your house. Our kids and their kids are back and forth all the time. Nicky'll probably bring Buddy over here at some point today. You won't need to call Mrs. Barrett. She's very relaxed, and she'll probably know he's here, anyway."

"Okay," I said.

"I guess that's it." Mrs. Pike stooped down to kiss Claire. "See you later, pumpkin," she said. "Wear your jacket if you go outside. It's chilly today." (Was it ever!) Then she called upstairs to Mallory and downstairs to Margo to let them know she was leaving and she was gone.

I looked at Claire. "Let's go see what Margo's doing, okay?"

Claire nodded and I led her down to the rec room.

What Margo was doing was performing. She had put on a big floppy straw hat and a long filmy dress with some beads and scarves, and was dancing around to "Puff, the Magic Dragon," which was playing at full volume on the children's record player. When she knew the words, she mouthed them.

Claire and I plopped ourselves down on the couch and pretended we were the audience. When the song ended, Margo made a sweeping bow and Claire and I clapped loudly.

"Bravo!" I shouted.

"Bravo!" Claire shouted.

Margo took another bow.

I heard a clatter of footsteps in the kitchen and Mallory called down, "Hi, Dawn. What's eight times seven?"

"Hi, Mal," I called back. "You know that one."

"Fifty-six?" she asked.

"Right!" I said.

"Thanks!"

She returned to her homework.

Margo put "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" on the record player and began another performance. Claire joined in on the animal sounds.

They were just finishing when I heard Mallory in the kitchen again.