Abby and the Best Kid Ever

  Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Letter from Ann M. Martin

  Acknowledgment

  About the Author

  Scrapbook

  Also Available

  Copyright

  What is short and full of holidays?

  Summer?

  Wrong.

  The answer is winter. I mean, think about it: Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Valentine’s Day, Presidents’ Day, and I can’t remember what else. Plus, February (the shortest, coldest month of the year) not only has two holidays, but it is Black History Month.

  Holidays are good but why are most of them in the months when it is practically impossible to field a decent soccer team or enjoy a good run? (And where is a day for the women? Why don’t we have Susan B. Anthony Day? Or Sojourner Truth Day? Puh-lease!)

  I was brooding about this on the first Monday afternoon in February, to the mournful sound of violin scales. I was looking out to the gray, ice-encrusted sidewalk when the doorbell rang. I answered it and Kristy Thomas burst into my house like a breath of, well, practically spring air.

  No, make that a hurricane.

  But before I tell you about Kristy, I should tell you a little about myself. I’m Abby. Abigail Stevenson, formerly of Long Island, now of Stoneybrook, Connecticut. My mother, my twin sister, Anna, and I moved here recently when Mom got a big promotion and wanted to make a new start in a safe neighborhood after the death of my father. He died four years ago in a car wreck.

  I didn’t want to move. I felt as if we were leaving my father forever, somehow. But moving brought us closer together as a family and encouraged us to talk a little about what losing Dad meant. So the change of locale turned out to be okay.

  Here, as on Long Island, I’m a soccer star, in pursuit of the Athlete of the Year title. I’m okay in school, have major allergies (cat litter, milk, shellfish — you name it), and have asthma. I’m hoping to outgrow both when I get older (it does happen), but meanwhile I have to be careful about what I eat, watch the pollen count in the spring, and carry a prescription inhaler (a sort of tube of asthma medicine from which you inhale) at all times.

  My eight-minutes-older twin, Anna, is not athletic, asthmatic, or allergic (although she does have scoliosis). She plays the violin in the school orchestra and practices her music a couple of hours each day before dinner. In fact, music is one of the reasons Anna declined to join the Baby-sitters Club (or BSC) when membership was offered to both of us. However, she and Shannon, another BSC member, have become good friends.

  Anna and I look alike, but we have different styles. We both have pointed faces, deep brown eyes, and dark curly hair. Also, we both wear contact lenses or glasses. But Anna’s hair is shorter than mine (which is shoulder length) and she has bangs, while I don’t.

  Kristy is my neighbor, schoolmate, and fellow Baby-sitters Club member. Actually, she’s the president of the BSC (more about that later) and one of the most outspoken, forceful people on the planet. She is also as stubborn as a rock. These are all qualities I usually admire, especially since I have them myself.

  But I don’t always admire them in Kristy. So after she burst in, I braced myself and said, “What is it? And don’t tell me it’s a fire, because it’s too cold. A fire would freeze to death in this weather.”

  Kristy didn’t laugh. Although she shares many of my best qualities, my keen sense of humor is not one of them. She doesn’t always laugh at my jokes.

  “They’re leaving,” Kristy said.

  “Who? The sexists? The racists? The politicians?” I asked.

  “The Addisons!” she exclaimed, giving me a Look.

  “The Addisons?” I repeated stupidly.

  “Sean and Corrie,” she said. “And their parents too, of course.”

  “Whoa. Why?”

  “Mrs. Addison got a major job offer in Seattle.” Kristy paused and added, “Washington.”

  “I know where Seattle is,” I said. “It’s all the way across the country. Wow, this is going to make baby-sitting for them extremely time-consuming. I mean, think about the commute.”

  Kristy gave me another Look and I decided to lay off the jokes. I just said, “I’ll miss them.”

  This was no joke. Sean Addison is ten and Corrie is nine, and two siblings couldn’t be more different. Corrie is friendly and outgoing and artistically talented. She is an easy baby-sitting charge and a naturally cool kid. Sean is musically talented. (At least I think he is. I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, so I don’t know for sure.) He plays the tuba. He is also moody and intense and takes things very personally. His over-the-top reactions have gotten him into trouble in the past and haven’t made him easy to take care of, especially since he is not particularly fond of baby-sitters.

  “I’ll miss them too,” Kristy agreed. “For a while there, I thought Sean was going to be in contention for the title of Worst Kid Ever, but he looks like he’s starting to deal with his problems.”

  (Do you know what I think? I think Kristy has a soft spot for “bad” kids. She even grew to like Lou McNally, a previous recipient of the Worst Kid Ever title.)

  “Corrie’s nice too,” Kristy added, and I hid a grin.

  “Corrie’s always been a nice kid,” I agreed. “I bet Sean grows up to be a pretty nice person.”

  But we both knew that we probably wouldn’t get to see what kind of person Sean grew up to be. Would he be wild and crazy? A mad scientist? A tuba wonder? A horror novelist?

  We sighed.

  Then Kristy said, to change the subject, “What have you been doing all afternoon?”

  “Waiting for spring,” I answered.

  “Huh?”

  “So I can play soccer. Run. Do something.”

  “How about homework?” Kristy asked slyly.

  We’d reached my room by then. It was clear by the way my books were neatly stacked on my desk that I hadn’t even thought about doing homework yet.

  “Thanks,” I muttered. It was my turn to give Kristy a Look.

  Kristy relented. “I haven’t finished today’s homework either. David Michael and I went to the Stoneybrook Community Center to pick up more material on the Black History Month exhibition. He’s really excited about it and he wanted to take the information to class tomorrow when they talk about project ideas. That’s where I ran into Mrs. Addison and heard the news.”

  “You are a natural news magnet,” I observed. That’s another thing I admire about Kristy. Not much happens without her finding out about it, especially when it has any impact on the BSC, which this news definitely did.

  “Are you going to do a project?” I asked, switching the subject back to the exhibition.

  All of the schools in Stoneybrook submit projects to the exhibition for Black History Month. The elementary-school students participate in class projects. At Stoneybrook Middle School, which I attend, participation is voluntary. If you volunteer, you get extra credit in history.

  “I’m not sure yet,” Kristy replied. “Maybe not. I’ve got a lot going on right now and I’m not sure I can fit the work in. You?”

  “I think I will,” I said. “We didn’t get to do things like this at my old school on Long Island. I think it might be fun.” (Plus, there was the not-so-small matter of e
xtra credit. I needed it, which was something I wasn’t going to tell Kristy, naturally.)

  “What are you going to do?” Kristy asked.

  “I haven’t decided yet,” I said, as if I had a hundred possibilities in mind. (Ha!)

  Kristy looked at her watch. “Omigosh, it’s almost time! Why didn’t you tell me?”

  I didn’t have to ask “Time for what?” I knew. It was almost time for our Monday afternoon meeting of the BSC. We meet every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon at five-thirty sharp at Claudia Kishi’s house, which is across town. And Kristy is never, ever late.

  She grabbed my arm. “Let’s go!”

  “A coat!” I cried. “I need a coat. And gloves and …”

  But Kristy was already bundling me out of the house. I had to snatch a coat off the back door rack and put it on as Kristy dragged me to her house. Her brother Charlie, who gives us a ride to the meetings, was just walking to his car when we reached her house.

  “Hurry,” Kristy cried.

  Charlie knew better than to argue. He hurried. We reached Claudia’s house with three minutes to spare.

  Did I say I couldn’t run in the winter in Stoneybrook? Wrong. Kristy and I ran up the front walk, ran through the front door, and ran up the stairs to Claudia’s room. In one motion, Kristy stripped off her coat and threw herself into the director’s chair, where she always sits.

  “This meeting of the Baby-sitters Club will now come to order,” she announced. “And wait until you hear the news….”

  This was not the first time Kristy had opened a meeting with a dramatic announcement. You know what? It works every time. The entire group, all six of us, looked at her. Even I looked at her, and I already knew what the news was.

  “The Addisons are moving,” Kristy burst out, and Claudia, who had just stood up to take a book off her bookshelf to search for a missing half-eaten bag of M&M’S, sat down with a shocked look on her face.

  (I remembered then that Claudia is probably the closest of the BSC members to the Addisons, since she and Corrie share an interest in art.)

  The questions flew thick and fast, except from Claudia, who sat there, her head turning back and forth as if she were watching a play. When we quieted down, Stacey McGill, the BSC’s treasurer and Claudia’s best friend, said, “Claudia? Are you okay?”

  Claudia looked at the book she was holding in one hand and the bag of candy in the other. She put the book down and took out a handful of M&M’S. She separated out the green ones and ate them. Then she said, “Well, Seattle has a very good reputation, artistically speaking.”

  We all laughed at that, and Claudia smiled. It was a true Claudia moment. No, it was a true BSC moment.

  So maybe it’s time I filled you in on BSC facts and BSC members.

  We have seven full-time members: Kristy, our president; Claudia, vice-president; Mary Anne Spier, secretary; Stacey, treasurer; me, alternate officer; and Jessica Ramsey and Mallory Pike, junior officers. Jessi and Mal are junior officers because they are in sixth grade (the rest of us are eighth-graders) and can’t accept baby-sitting jobs at night (except for their families). Our two associate members, Shannon Kilbourne and Logan Bruno, fill in as needed and don’t have to attend meetings all the time (meetings are mandatory for full-time members). We also have one honorary member, Dawn Schafer, who used to be the alternate officer before she moved to California.

  We meet at Claudia’s because she has her own phone line, which means we don’t tie up the Kishi family phone while we take job calls.

  Clients know they can call during meeting hours and reach not one but up to nine reliable baby-sitters. We hand over club dues to Stacey every Monday (and always groan about it). The dues help pay Claudia’s phone bills, gas money for Charlie, plus necessary things such as pizza and snacks (Claudia always has a generous supply of snack food hidden around her room) and items for our Kid-Kits.

  Kid-Kits are boxes (each of us has one) that we have decorated, filled with puzzles, games, books, stickers, and art materials. Some of the things in the kits are recycled, such as old toys and puzzles that BSC siblings have outgrown, and others are new. The Kid-Kits are our secret weapon in the BSC war against bored and restless kids. We don’t take them on every job, but we use them strategically — when meeting new clients, when baby-sitting for a child who has been sick in bed, or when confronting a group of stir-crazy charges who’ve been inside too long because of snow or rain.

  We keep three notebooks: the club record book, the club notebook, and the club mystery notebook.

  The club record book, which contains the names, addresses, phone numbers, and other pertinent information about each of our clients, is Mary Anne’s responsibility. She has never, ever made a mistake. The record book also contains each of our individual schedules and the details about any baby-sitting job we accept.

  The club notebook is a diary in which each member writes up every job she goes on, and we are all responsible for keeping up to speed on one another’s entries. That way we stay up to date about what is happening in our clients’ lives (for example, who is teething or learning to ride a bicycle). We can use the experiences from past jobs to deal with similar situations.

  The mystery notebook is our most recent addition, started because we keep getting involved in mysteries. We use it to keep track of lists of clues, suspects, and strange occurrences. Mal is unofficially in charge of it.

  As you can see, we are very organized. That’s because we have some formidably organized people in the BSC, beginning with Madame President, Kristy.

  In fact, the BSC was her idea. It came to her one night as she listened to her mother make one phone call after another in search of a baby-sitter for Kristy’s younger brother, David Michael. Suddenly, Kristy thought that it would be great if a person could make just one phone call and reach several baby-sitters at once.

  Kristy came up with the idea on a Tuesday afternoon. Practically the next day, she had put her idea into action, recruiting her best friend, Mary Anne (who lived next door), Claudia (who lived across the street), and Claudia’s friend Stacey. Soon Dawn, who had recently arrived in town, followed, then Logan and Shannon. Mal and Jessi joined soon after. Then when Dawn moved to California and it became clear that more baby-sitters were needed to handle all the work, I was recruited.

  Kristy is possibly the world’s most organized human being. Not only is she president of the BSC but she also coaches the Krushers (a little-kids’ softball team), does well in school, and has played on the SMS softball team. According to Mary Anne, who’s know Kristy since they were babies, Kristy has been like this all her life.

  This might be because Kristy is from a big family and took on a lot of responsibility early in her life. You see, her father left the family when Kristy was pretty young, leaving Mrs. Thomas (who had a job in Stamford) with David Michael, Kristy, and her two older brothers, Charlie and Sam.

  Then one day Kristy’s mother met Watson Brewer, the CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of Unity Insurance, and they fell in love and got married. Kristy and her family moved across town from an ordinary (and sort of crowded) house on Bradford Court to a mansion with three floors and nine bedrooms. Her family also got much bigger and now includes Watson; Karen and Andrew, his two children from his first marriage; Emily Michelle, a new younger sister from Vietnam who was adopted by Kristy’s mom and Watson; Kristy’s grandmother, Nannie, who moved in to help out with Emily; plus a cranky cat, a large puppy, assorted goldfish, and possibly a ghost (at least, that’s what Karen Brewer, who is seven, believes).

  Kristy is the shortest person in our entire class. This means she naturally speaks up extra loudly to make sure she is heard. Some people call her bossy, as if that were a bad thing, but it isn’t, except when she tries to boss me.

  Kristy shares my love of sports, although she’s not the full-time jock I am. She’s also a dog person (in fact, she wears a cap with a collie on it, in memory of her collie, Louie, who died). And if that cap isn’t
a tip-off, I should add that Kristy is not terribly concerned with fashion. She has brown eyes and long brown hair, never uses makeup, and wears a variation of the same outfit almost every day: jeans, sweater or sweatshirt, and sneakers. We call this her uniform.

  Mary Anne is not a sports fan, does not come from a large family, and is shy and caring. Even though she is also short and can be as stubborn as Kristy, I do not always understand how they can be best friends. But they are.

  Mary Anne was raised as an only child. Her mother died when Mary Anne was just a baby and her father raised her by himself. He was loving but very strict and protective. Mary Anne has had to work hard to convince him that she’s grown-up enough to take some responsibility herself — that she can choose her own clothes (she switched from little-kid outfits to a sort of casual preppy style) and not wear her brown hair in the two pigtails she’d had since she was small.

  Mary Anne is very sensitive (even sad commercials can make her cry). She is also a good listener and was the first of the BSC members to have a steady boyfriend (fellow BSC member Logan, about whom you will hear more later). She also has a kitten named Tigger.

  If you wonder how Mary Anne could persuade her father that she was grown-up enough to have a kitten — and a boyfriend — you should know that Mr. Spier has loosened up since he got married to his former high school sweetheart, who also happens to be Dawn Schafer’s mother.

  Mrs. Schafer, Dawn, and Dawn’s younger brother, Jeff, moved back to Stoneybrook from California after the Schafers’ divorce, and Dawn and Mary Anne became best friends and fellow BSC members. Then they discovered that Mrs. Schafer and Mr. Spier had had a high school romance and they went to work to help rekindle it. Before you could say “I do,” Dawn’s mom and Mary Anne’s dad were married, and Dawn and Mary Anne became sisters. But Dawn got homesick for California and made the difficult decision to move back to live with her father and her brother (who had decided to move back earlier). We all stay in touch with her.

  Dawn is pretty cool. She’s an environmentalist, doesn’t eat red meat, and is into the one sport I haven’t tried yet — surfing. She is tall and thin, with long, ice-blonde hair and pale blue eyes. She tans easily but gets freckles too.