Post by helsieboo on May 24, 2008 3:04:05 GMT -5
This is an experiment I'm doing - an update of the BSC. This is the first chapter. A lot of the dialogue etc has remained the same, but I will be changing it as I get more confident. It's actually harder than I thought. I'm going to do the whole book, but please bear in mind that I will be amending this chapter.
I have aged the girls slightly. They're starting the eighth grade, not seventh and SMS will go up to ninth grade, with SHS starting at 10th. So I guess SMS is now a Junior High. This means I had to age Sam a year, but everyone else is the same.
CHAPTER 1
The Baby-sitters Club. I’m proud to say it was totally my idea, even though the four of us worked it out together. “Us” is Mary Anne Spier, Claudia Kishi, Stacey McGill, and me – Kristy Thomas.
It was the first Tuesday afternoon of eighth grade when I got the idea. It was hot. Like, really, really hot. Some kids had even pulled out those hand held battery powered fans, not that they did much to help. Mr Redmont turned a blind eye to that. I guess even he was boiling over. He'd loosened his tie and opened his top shirt button.
Anyway, that stifling afternoon dragged on forever, and when the hands of the clock on the front wall of our classroom finally hit 2:42 and the bell rang, I leaped out of my seat and let out a loud "whoop whoop!" I like school ok, I guess, but that afternoon I'd just had enough.
Mr. Redmont looked shocked. Probably because I'm generally a pretty good kid. Not a dweeb, not one of the super cool kids, but generally a pretty good one and I'd normally be one of the last people to let out a whoop. I glanced around the room and noticed Cokie Manson, one of the girls we call 'plastics' covering her mouth and sniggering. I rolled my eyes in her direction. She made a 'L' sign on her forehead. Needless to say, we don't get on too well.
I felt a little bad for what I'd done, as I could see Mr Redmont look disapointed in me. Though, having said that, school was over for the day, could he not just get over it? My mouth gets me in trouble a lot though; sometimes I speak before I think. I'm impulsive. Well, Mom calls it trouble.
And I was in trouble then. I could sense it. I’ve been in enough trouble to know when it’s coming.
Mr. Redmont cleared his throat. I think he was biding for time while the last few stragglers left the classroom. He didn't want to bawl me out in front of the other kids.
“Krisiny,” Mr. Redmont began, and then he changed his mind and started over. “Class,” he said, “you have your homework assignments. You may go. Kristin, I’d like to see you for a minute.”
Oh jeez. Kristen. My full name. No one calls me that, unless I'm in real trouble.
While the rest of the kids gathered up their books and papers and left the room, talking and giggling, I made my way up to Mr. Redmont’s desk. Before he could say a word, I began apologizing to him. Sometimes that helps.
“Mr. Redmont,” I said, “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean anything. I mean, I didn’t mean I was glad school was over. I meant I was glad I could go home. Because my house is air-conditioned. …And, uhh....”
Mr. Redmont nodded. “But do you think, Kristy, that it would be possible, in the future, for you to conduct yourself with a bit more decorum?”
I wasn’t sure of the exact meaning of decorum, but I had a pretty good idea it meant not spoiling Mr. Redmont’s day by jumping up and whooping when the bell rang.
“Yes, sir,” I said. Sometimes being polite also helps. Mr Redmont raised an eyebrow. Oh s**t. He probably thought I was being sarcastic. He decided to let it go though.
“Good,” said Mr. Redmont. “But I want you to remember this incident, and the best way for us to remember things is to write them down. So tonight, I would like you to write a four-hundred-word essay on the importance of decorum in the classroom.”
Darn. I’d have to find out what decorum meant after all.
“Yes, sir,” I said again.
I went back to my desk, gathered up my books very slowly, and then walked very slowly out of the classroom. I hoped Mr. Redmont was noticing the slowness because I was betting it was an important part of decorum.
I found Mary Anne Spier waiting for me outside the door to my classroom. She was leaning against the wall, biting her nails and tugging at a strand of hair.
Mary Anne is my best friend. We live next door to each other. We even look a little alike. We’re both small for our age and we both have brown hair that falls past our shoulders. But that’s where the similarity ends, because I can’t keep my mouth shut, and Mary Anne is very quiet and very shy. Luckily, that’s only on the outside. The people who know her well, like Claudia and Stacey and me, get to see the inside of her, and the Mary Anne who’s hiding in there is a lot of fun.
“Hey,” I greeted her. I pulled her hand out of her mouth and looked at her nails. “Mary Anne! How do you ever expect to be able to wear nail polish if you keep doing that?”
“Oh, come on,” she said with a sigh. “Nail polish. I’ll be seventy-five before my father lets me wear it.”
Mary Anne’s father is the only family she’s got. Her mother is dead, and she has no brothers or sisters. Unfortunately, her father is pretty strict. My mother says it’s just because Mr. Spier is nervous since Mary Anne is all he’s got. You’d think, though, that he could let her wear her hair down instead of always in braids, or give her permission to ride her bike to the mall with Claudia and me once in a while. But, no. At Mr. Spier’s house it’s rules, rules, rules. It’s a miracle that Mary Anne was even allowed to become a member of the Baby-sitters Club.
We walked out of school, and suddenly I began running. I forgot all about decorum, because I’d just remembered something else. “Oh, my gosh!” I cried.
Mary Anne raced after me. “What is it?” she panted.
“It’s Tuesday,” I called over my shoulder.
“So? Slow down, Kristy. It’s too hot to run.”
“I can’t slow down. Tuesday is my afternoon to watch David Michael. I’m supposed to beat him home. Otherwise he gets home first and has to watch himself.”
David Michael is my six-year-old brother. My big brothers, Charlie and Sam, and I are each responsible for him one afternoon a week until Mom gets home from work. Kathy, this fifteen-year-old girl who lives a few blocks from us, watches him the other two afternoons. Kathy gets paid to watch him. Charlie and Sam and I don’t.
Mary Anne and I ran all the way home. We reached my front yard, sweaty and out of breath. And there was David Michael, sitting forlornly on the front steps, his dark curls falling limply across his forehead.
He burst into tears as soon as he saw us.
“DM! What's up, little bro?” I asked. I sat down beside him and put my arm around his shoulders.
“I’m locked out,” he wailed.
“What happened to your key?”
David Michael shook his head. “I don’t know.” He wiped his eyes, hiccuping.
“Well,” I said, “it’s all right.” I got my own key out of my bag.
David Michael burst into fresh tears. “No, it’s not! It’s not all right. I couldn’t get in and I have to go to the bathroom.”
I unlocked the door. When David Michael gets like this, it’s best just to sort of ignore his tears and pretend everything is fine.
Mary Anne and I held the door open for him and I ushered him into the bathroom. Our collie Louie tore outside as we went in. He was frantic to get outdoors after being locked in the house since breakfast time.
“While you go to the bathroom,” I told David Michael, “I’m going to fix us some lemonade, okay?”
David Michael actually smiled. “Okay!”
I’m good with children. So is Mary Anne. Mom says so. Both of us get lots of afternoon and weekend baby-sitting jobs. In fact, I’d been offered a job for that afternoon, but I had to turn it down because of David Michael.
That reminded me. “Hey,” I said to Mary Anne as I turned on the air conditioning, “Mrs. Newton asked me to baby-sit for Jamie this afternoon. Didn’t she call you after she called me?”
Mary Anne sat down at the kitchen table and watched me put lemonade mix in a big glass pitcher. She shook her head. “No. Maybe she called Claudia.”
Claudia Kishi lives across the street from me. She and Mary Anne and I have lived on Bradford Court since we were born. We’ve grown up together, but somehow Claudia has never spent as much time with us as Mary Anne and I have spent with each other. Claudia is really into art and fashion. She also loves reading trashy mystery novels, which her parents don't approve of. Me and Mary Anne used to play together all the time, but Claudia would always stay in her room and prefer to draw. Now she's into graphic design aswell and it's tough tearing her away from her IMAC sometimes. It's funny, her parents bought her that in the hope she'd use it for schoolwork but Claudia is more interested in using it as an extension of her homework. Claudia also seems a bit "sassy" in her comments sometimes. That doesn't mean we don't like her though, we do.
Still, Claudia has never been a close friend, and this year, the gap between us seems to have widened just since school started. Even though we’re all eight-graders, Claudia suddenly seemed … older. Sure, we all like to talk about boys, but she seems more interested in them than the rest of us. She's always reading through the latest fashion magazines and adding to her wardrobe. She just seems so different now.
David Michael came into the kitchen looking much cheerier.
“Here you go,” I said. I handed him a glass of lemonade as he sat next to Mary Anne.
Charlie came in then, tossing a football around. Sam got home a few minutes later, with our collie Louie skidding along behind him. Charlie is sixteen and Sam is fifteen. They both go to Stoneybrook High. Sam’s a freshman this year, and Charlie’s a junior.
“Hi, everybody. Hi, squirt,” Charlie said to David Michael.
“I am not a squirt,” replied David Michael.
Charlie thought he was so great because he’d just made the varsity team. You’d think he was the first person ever to play football for Stoneybrook High.
“We’re going to play ball in the Hansons’ backyard,” Sam announced. “Want to play, Kristy?”
I did, but David Michael wouldn’t want to. He was too little. “I don’t know. I thought Mary Anne and I would take David Michael to the brook. You want to go wading, David Michael?” I asked.
He nodded happily.
“See you guys later,” I called as Sam and Charlie left the house, slamming the front door behind them.
Mary Anne and I took David Michael and Louie to the brook. We watched David Michael wade and make sailboats and try to catch minnows. Louie ran around, looking for squirrels.
“I’d better go,” Mary Anne said after an hour or so. “Dad will be home soon.”
“Yeah. Mom will be home soon, too. David Michael,” I called, “time to leave.”
He stood up reluctantly and the three of us and Louie walked home together.
When we reached our driveway, David Michael ran across the lawn, and Mary Anne whispered to me, “Nine o’clock, okay?”
I grinned. “Okay.” Mary Anne and I have a secret code. Mary Anne made it up. We can signal each other with flashlights. If I look out my bedroom window I can see right into hers. Lots of nights we talk to each other with the flashlights, since Mary Anne isn’t allowed on the phone after dinner except for things like baby-sitting jobs or getting homework assignments. I can't even text her as she isn't allowed a cell phone and she's not even allowed to use her computer at night.
When Mom came home a little while later, she had a pizza with her. My brothers and I stood around the kitchen breathing in the smell of cheese and pepperoni.
But Sam and Charlie looked skeptical. “I wonder what she wants,” murmured Sam.
“Yeah,” said Charlie.
Mom only gets pizza when she has to ask us a favor.
I decided not to beat around the bush. “How come you bought a pizza, Mom?” I asked.
Charlie kicked my ankle, but I ignored him. “Come on. What do you have to ask us?”
Mom grinned. She knew exactly what she was doing. And she knew that we knew it. “Oh, all right,” she said. “Kathy called me at work to say she won’t be able to watch David Michael tomorrow. I was wondering what you guys are – ”
“Football practice,” said Charlie promptly.
“Wrestling try outs,” said Sam.
“Sitting at the Newtons’,” I said.
“Drat,” said Mom.
“But we are sorry,” added Sam.
“I know you are.”
Then we dug into the pizza while Mom started making phone calls.
She called Mary Anne. Mary Anne was sitting for the Pikes.
She called Claudia. Claudia had an art class.
She called two high school girls. They had cheerleading practice.
David Michael looked like he might cry.
Finally Mom called Mrs. Newton and asked if she would mind if I brought David Michael with me when I sat for Jamie. Luckily, Mrs. Newton didn’t mind.
I chewed away at a gloppy mouthful of cheese and pepperoni and thought it was too bad that Mom’s pizza had to get cold while she made all those phone calls. I thought it was too bad that David Michael had to sit there and feel like he was causing a lot of trouble just because he was only six years old and couldn’t take care of himself yet.
Then I had an idea. What if Mom only needed to dial one number to be almost guaranteed a sitter?
I could barely wait until nine o’clock so I could signal the awesome idea to Mary Anne.
I have aged the girls slightly. They're starting the eighth grade, not seventh and SMS will go up to ninth grade, with SHS starting at 10th. So I guess SMS is now a Junior High. This means I had to age Sam a year, but everyone else is the same.
CHAPTER 1
The Baby-sitters Club. I’m proud to say it was totally my idea, even though the four of us worked it out together. “Us” is Mary Anne Spier, Claudia Kishi, Stacey McGill, and me – Kristy Thomas.
It was the first Tuesday afternoon of eighth grade when I got the idea. It was hot. Like, really, really hot. Some kids had even pulled out those hand held battery powered fans, not that they did much to help. Mr Redmont turned a blind eye to that. I guess even he was boiling over. He'd loosened his tie and opened his top shirt button.
Anyway, that stifling afternoon dragged on forever, and when the hands of the clock on the front wall of our classroom finally hit 2:42 and the bell rang, I leaped out of my seat and let out a loud "whoop whoop!" I like school ok, I guess, but that afternoon I'd just had enough.
Mr. Redmont looked shocked. Probably because I'm generally a pretty good kid. Not a dweeb, not one of the super cool kids, but generally a pretty good one and I'd normally be one of the last people to let out a whoop. I glanced around the room and noticed Cokie Manson, one of the girls we call 'plastics' covering her mouth and sniggering. I rolled my eyes in her direction. She made a 'L' sign on her forehead. Needless to say, we don't get on too well.
I felt a little bad for what I'd done, as I could see Mr Redmont look disapointed in me. Though, having said that, school was over for the day, could he not just get over it? My mouth gets me in trouble a lot though; sometimes I speak before I think. I'm impulsive. Well, Mom calls it trouble.
And I was in trouble then. I could sense it. I’ve been in enough trouble to know when it’s coming.
Mr. Redmont cleared his throat. I think he was biding for time while the last few stragglers left the classroom. He didn't want to bawl me out in front of the other kids.
“Krisiny,” Mr. Redmont began, and then he changed his mind and started over. “Class,” he said, “you have your homework assignments. You may go. Kristin, I’d like to see you for a minute.”
Oh jeez. Kristen. My full name. No one calls me that, unless I'm in real trouble.
While the rest of the kids gathered up their books and papers and left the room, talking and giggling, I made my way up to Mr. Redmont’s desk. Before he could say a word, I began apologizing to him. Sometimes that helps.
“Mr. Redmont,” I said, “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean anything. I mean, I didn’t mean I was glad school was over. I meant I was glad I could go home. Because my house is air-conditioned. …And, uhh....”
Mr. Redmont nodded. “But do you think, Kristy, that it would be possible, in the future, for you to conduct yourself with a bit more decorum?”
I wasn’t sure of the exact meaning of decorum, but I had a pretty good idea it meant not spoiling Mr. Redmont’s day by jumping up and whooping when the bell rang.
“Yes, sir,” I said. Sometimes being polite also helps. Mr Redmont raised an eyebrow. Oh s**t. He probably thought I was being sarcastic. He decided to let it go though.
“Good,” said Mr. Redmont. “But I want you to remember this incident, and the best way for us to remember things is to write them down. So tonight, I would like you to write a four-hundred-word essay on the importance of decorum in the classroom.”
Darn. I’d have to find out what decorum meant after all.
“Yes, sir,” I said again.
I went back to my desk, gathered up my books very slowly, and then walked very slowly out of the classroom. I hoped Mr. Redmont was noticing the slowness because I was betting it was an important part of decorum.
I found Mary Anne Spier waiting for me outside the door to my classroom. She was leaning against the wall, biting her nails and tugging at a strand of hair.
Mary Anne is my best friend. We live next door to each other. We even look a little alike. We’re both small for our age and we both have brown hair that falls past our shoulders. But that’s where the similarity ends, because I can’t keep my mouth shut, and Mary Anne is very quiet and very shy. Luckily, that’s only on the outside. The people who know her well, like Claudia and Stacey and me, get to see the inside of her, and the Mary Anne who’s hiding in there is a lot of fun.
“Hey,” I greeted her. I pulled her hand out of her mouth and looked at her nails. “Mary Anne! How do you ever expect to be able to wear nail polish if you keep doing that?”
“Oh, come on,” she said with a sigh. “Nail polish. I’ll be seventy-five before my father lets me wear it.”
Mary Anne’s father is the only family she’s got. Her mother is dead, and she has no brothers or sisters. Unfortunately, her father is pretty strict. My mother says it’s just because Mr. Spier is nervous since Mary Anne is all he’s got. You’d think, though, that he could let her wear her hair down instead of always in braids, or give her permission to ride her bike to the mall with Claudia and me once in a while. But, no. At Mr. Spier’s house it’s rules, rules, rules. It’s a miracle that Mary Anne was even allowed to become a member of the Baby-sitters Club.
We walked out of school, and suddenly I began running. I forgot all about decorum, because I’d just remembered something else. “Oh, my gosh!” I cried.
Mary Anne raced after me. “What is it?” she panted.
“It’s Tuesday,” I called over my shoulder.
“So? Slow down, Kristy. It’s too hot to run.”
“I can’t slow down. Tuesday is my afternoon to watch David Michael. I’m supposed to beat him home. Otherwise he gets home first and has to watch himself.”
David Michael is my six-year-old brother. My big brothers, Charlie and Sam, and I are each responsible for him one afternoon a week until Mom gets home from work. Kathy, this fifteen-year-old girl who lives a few blocks from us, watches him the other two afternoons. Kathy gets paid to watch him. Charlie and Sam and I don’t.
Mary Anne and I ran all the way home. We reached my front yard, sweaty and out of breath. And there was David Michael, sitting forlornly on the front steps, his dark curls falling limply across his forehead.
He burst into tears as soon as he saw us.
“DM! What's up, little bro?” I asked. I sat down beside him and put my arm around his shoulders.
“I’m locked out,” he wailed.
“What happened to your key?”
David Michael shook his head. “I don’t know.” He wiped his eyes, hiccuping.
“Well,” I said, “it’s all right.” I got my own key out of my bag.
David Michael burst into fresh tears. “No, it’s not! It’s not all right. I couldn’t get in and I have to go to the bathroom.”
I unlocked the door. When David Michael gets like this, it’s best just to sort of ignore his tears and pretend everything is fine.
Mary Anne and I held the door open for him and I ushered him into the bathroom. Our collie Louie tore outside as we went in. He was frantic to get outdoors after being locked in the house since breakfast time.
“While you go to the bathroom,” I told David Michael, “I’m going to fix us some lemonade, okay?”
David Michael actually smiled. “Okay!”
I’m good with children. So is Mary Anne. Mom says so. Both of us get lots of afternoon and weekend baby-sitting jobs. In fact, I’d been offered a job for that afternoon, but I had to turn it down because of David Michael.
That reminded me. “Hey,” I said to Mary Anne as I turned on the air conditioning, “Mrs. Newton asked me to baby-sit for Jamie this afternoon. Didn’t she call you after she called me?”
Mary Anne sat down at the kitchen table and watched me put lemonade mix in a big glass pitcher. She shook her head. “No. Maybe she called Claudia.”
Claudia Kishi lives across the street from me. She and Mary Anne and I have lived on Bradford Court since we were born. We’ve grown up together, but somehow Claudia has never spent as much time with us as Mary Anne and I have spent with each other. Claudia is really into art and fashion. She also loves reading trashy mystery novels, which her parents don't approve of. Me and Mary Anne used to play together all the time, but Claudia would always stay in her room and prefer to draw. Now she's into graphic design aswell and it's tough tearing her away from her IMAC sometimes. It's funny, her parents bought her that in the hope she'd use it for schoolwork but Claudia is more interested in using it as an extension of her homework. Claudia also seems a bit "sassy" in her comments sometimes. That doesn't mean we don't like her though, we do.
Still, Claudia has never been a close friend, and this year, the gap between us seems to have widened just since school started. Even though we’re all eight-graders, Claudia suddenly seemed … older. Sure, we all like to talk about boys, but she seems more interested in them than the rest of us. She's always reading through the latest fashion magazines and adding to her wardrobe. She just seems so different now.
David Michael came into the kitchen looking much cheerier.
“Here you go,” I said. I handed him a glass of lemonade as he sat next to Mary Anne.
Charlie came in then, tossing a football around. Sam got home a few minutes later, with our collie Louie skidding along behind him. Charlie is sixteen and Sam is fifteen. They both go to Stoneybrook High. Sam’s a freshman this year, and Charlie’s a junior.
“Hi, everybody. Hi, squirt,” Charlie said to David Michael.
“I am not a squirt,” replied David Michael.
Charlie thought he was so great because he’d just made the varsity team. You’d think he was the first person ever to play football for Stoneybrook High.
“We’re going to play ball in the Hansons’ backyard,” Sam announced. “Want to play, Kristy?”
I did, but David Michael wouldn’t want to. He was too little. “I don’t know. I thought Mary Anne and I would take David Michael to the brook. You want to go wading, David Michael?” I asked.
He nodded happily.
“See you guys later,” I called as Sam and Charlie left the house, slamming the front door behind them.
Mary Anne and I took David Michael and Louie to the brook. We watched David Michael wade and make sailboats and try to catch minnows. Louie ran around, looking for squirrels.
“I’d better go,” Mary Anne said after an hour or so. “Dad will be home soon.”
“Yeah. Mom will be home soon, too. David Michael,” I called, “time to leave.”
He stood up reluctantly and the three of us and Louie walked home together.
When we reached our driveway, David Michael ran across the lawn, and Mary Anne whispered to me, “Nine o’clock, okay?”
I grinned. “Okay.” Mary Anne and I have a secret code. Mary Anne made it up. We can signal each other with flashlights. If I look out my bedroom window I can see right into hers. Lots of nights we talk to each other with the flashlights, since Mary Anne isn’t allowed on the phone after dinner except for things like baby-sitting jobs or getting homework assignments. I can't even text her as she isn't allowed a cell phone and she's not even allowed to use her computer at night.
When Mom came home a little while later, she had a pizza with her. My brothers and I stood around the kitchen breathing in the smell of cheese and pepperoni.
But Sam and Charlie looked skeptical. “I wonder what she wants,” murmured Sam.
“Yeah,” said Charlie.
Mom only gets pizza when she has to ask us a favor.
I decided not to beat around the bush. “How come you bought a pizza, Mom?” I asked.
Charlie kicked my ankle, but I ignored him. “Come on. What do you have to ask us?”
Mom grinned. She knew exactly what she was doing. And she knew that we knew it. “Oh, all right,” she said. “Kathy called me at work to say she won’t be able to watch David Michael tomorrow. I was wondering what you guys are – ”
“Football practice,” said Charlie promptly.
“Wrestling try outs,” said Sam.
“Sitting at the Newtons’,” I said.
“Drat,” said Mom.
“But we are sorry,” added Sam.
“I know you are.”
Then we dug into the pizza while Mom started making phone calls.
She called Mary Anne. Mary Anne was sitting for the Pikes.
She called Claudia. Claudia had an art class.
She called two high school girls. They had cheerleading practice.
David Michael looked like he might cry.
Finally Mom called Mrs. Newton and asked if she would mind if I brought David Michael with me when I sat for Jamie. Luckily, Mrs. Newton didn’t mind.
I chewed away at a gloppy mouthful of cheese and pepperoni and thought it was too bad that Mom’s pizza had to get cold while she made all those phone calls. I thought it was too bad that David Michael had to sit there and feel like he was causing a lot of trouble just because he was only six years old and couldn’t take care of himself yet.
Then I had an idea. What if Mom only needed to dial one number to be almost guaranteed a sitter?
I could barely wait until nine o’clock so I could signal the awesome idea to Mary Anne.
