Stacey's Secret Friend

  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

  I stared into a pair of intense green eyes. They stared back at me, their gaze fixed and unwavering — kind of spooky. “Cool,” I said.

  “Definitely cool,” agreed Barbara Hirsch, nodding thoughtfully. “Stacey, the eyes are awesome.”

  We were outside the back door of Stoneybrook Middle School (SMS), putting the finishing touches on a papier-mâché jaguar. We’d received permission to work there during our study hall.

  The September afternoon was a little chilly, as it often is here in Connecticut this time of year, but we didn’t mind. We were hoping the gooey paper strips would dry faster in the light breeze.

  The jaguar is our school mascot. Barbara and I are on the SMS Pep Squad, and we’d built the jaguar in preparation for the school’s first big football game of the season. The Pep Squad members would carry him onto the field during halftime.

  Barbara and I had been working on him every day after school, and he was finally done. Well, almost done. Barbara had just applied the last strip of papier-mâché. Now he needed to dry, and then we could paint him. But painting would be the fun, easy part.

  The hard part had been building the jaguar from pieces of balsa wood and then draping the goo-soaked papier-mâché strips over him. He was big, about the size of a kid. If Claudia hadn’t helped, I don’t think we could have done it.

  Claudia Kishi is my best friend and a super-talented artist. She isn’t on the Pep Squad, but she can’t resist an art project that cries out for her touch. She’d helped us with the construction of the frame, and it had been her idea to stick large green marbles in the head for eyes.

  That’s what I had just finished doing. I’d pushed the marbles into the jaguar’s wet papier-mâché head. As the stuff hardened, it would hold the marbles in place. At least, I hoped it would.

  We heard the last buzzer of the day. “I can’t stay much longer,” I told Barbara. “I have a BSC meeting today.” BSC stands for Baby-sitters Club. It’s one of the most important things in my life, but I’ll tell you more about it later.

  “Okay,” Barbara replied as she smoothed a bump in the jaguar’s long tail. “Let’s just let him dry a few more minutes, then we’ll carry him back to the art room. We’ll have to be careful, though. He’s still so fragile. Maybe we could slide him onto a piece of cardboard. I’ll go see if one of the custodians can help me find a big box.” But Barbara didn’t leave. She stood there admiring our marvelous creation.

  We could hear lockers slamming inside. Buses were pulling into the parking lot. Kids began running out the back door.

  Working with Barbara had been fun. It was the first time I’d seen her show real enthusiasm about anything in awhile. Not long ago, Barbara’s best friend, Amelia Freeman, was killed by a drunk driver. Barbara had been devastated. Lately, though, she seemed to be pulling out of her depression. She’d thrown herself into this fall’s Pep Squad activities, especially into making the jaguar.

  I was smiling to myself, admiring the jaguar and thinking about the change in Barbara. I glanced up just in time to see a girl about to walk right into the jaguar.

  “No!” I yelled.

  “Stop!” Barbara shouted.

  Too late. The girl’s foot smashed into his mushy rib cage.

  “Oh my gosh!” she cried, startled. “Oh, no! Yuck!”

  I cringed as her black boot shot through to the other side.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said as she hopped backward, the jaguar still stuck to her foot. She managed to push it off, but she lost her balance. Barbara grabbed her from behind, to keep her from falling backward. But that sent the girl toppling forward. Her hands shot out to protect herself as she fell — onto the jaguar. By the time she hit the ground, her hand was buried in the jaguar’s back.

  Pulling her hand out, she looked up at Barbara and me, red-faced. “Sorry,” she said in a small, embarrassed voice. “I didn’t see him.”

  I wanted to cry. Our beautiful jaguar was ruined. It was hard to believe that something that had taken days to construct could be wrecked in mere seconds.

  But after all, it had been an accident. I felt sorry for the girl. She obviously felt bad, and she looked funny too, sitting there covered in papier-mâché glop.

  I glanced at Barbara for her reaction. She simply looked stunned. Her jaw was open and her eyes were wide, as if she couldn’t believe what had just happened. Then she pulled herself together and extended a hand to the girl to help her up. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Fine, if you don’t count being so embarrassed and sorry I want to disappear off the planet,” the girl replied glumly as she took Barbara’s hand. She had a slightly odd way of speaking. It wasn’t an accent exactly, but she stretched the words out in an unusual singsong.

  I knew she was new in school and new to Stoneybrook, but I didn’t know her name or where she’d come from.

  I plucked a pair of black-rimmed glasses from the grass and handed them to her. “Thanks,” she said, putting them on. “I was cleaning these when I walked into your big cat here. I suppose that’s why I didn’t see it.”

  Barbara and I gazed down at our wrecked creation. I bent to scoop up the two green marbles, which had rolled to my feet.

  “I’m Tess Swinhart,” she said. “Not that it’s a name you’ll necessarily want to remember.”

  That last comment made me laugh a little and I felt my shock fade. Turning to the girl, I took a good look at her.

  She was tall, I’d guess at least five feet nine, and big boned, with broad shoulders. She wasn’t fat, but she was a very large person. Her hair was light blonde. The thick black frames of her glasses might be the first thing — the only thing — you noticed about her face. I’d seen her without them, though, so I had a different impression. She had light blue eyes, a slightly upturned nose, and a wide mouth. An unusual face, but not bad looking.

  She wore a short, pale pink cardigan buttoned up to the top. It covered a white blouse with a lace-trimmed Peter Pan collar, which peeked over the cardigan. Her pants were loose-fitting brown corduroys. And, as I mentioned, she was wearing black boots. (I couldn’t help thinking that she must have been cleaning her glasses when she put that outfit together too. But I quickly pushed that mean thought aside.)

  Barbara and I introduced ourselves as we knelt to pick up the remnants of our jaguar. The head had held together, even though it had come off the body. Three of the legs were still intact too.

  “I suppose we could stick these back together,” Barbara said. “But we’ll have to build the whole body frame again. And that was the toughest part.”

  “I’ll put Claudia back on the job,” I said, cradling a damp jaguar leg in my arms.

  “I’m fairly good at art,” Tess said. “I should help you. It’s the least I could do.”

  “I suppose we could use an extra set of hands,” I agreed. “Sure. Come to the cafeteria tomorrow after school.”

  “All right,” she agreed, seeming to feel better. “Is there anything I can do to help right now?”

  I glanced at my watch. “You could help Barbara
take stuff back to the art room so I can leave,” I suggested. I still had a couple of hours until my BSC meeting, but I needed to get home and have something to eat. It’s important that I eat at very regular intervals, because I’m diabetic. That means my body has trouble regulating the amount of sugar in my blood-stream. If my blood-sugar level gets too high or too low it can be seriously bad news. So I monitor my blood sugar closely, watch what I eat carefully, and give myself injections of insulin every day. I have to be responsible about doing those things, but it’s not a major problem.

  “Sure thing,” Tess said. “You go ahead.”

  Barbara smiled and handed her the tub of leftover papier-mâché goo. “You carry this, and I’ll bring in the parts,” she told Tess. “ ’Bye, Stacey. See you tomorrow.”

  “ ’Bye,” I said as I headed home. I hoped we’d done the smart thing by allowing Tess to help us fix the jaguar. She did seem a little klutzy; then again, anyone could have an accident. A sudden sharp cry made me look back. “Uh-oh,” I murmured.

  Tess had bumped into Alan Gray while holding the tub of papier-mâché. She was now frantically wiping the front of Alan’s papier-mâché–covered jacket while Alan silently fumed. Barbara looked on, stifling her laughter.

  It might not have been funny if Tess had dumped papier-mâché all over someone else, but Alan Gray is one of the most obnoxious boys in our class. He’s not just the class clown; he’s always playing a prank on someone. In other words, his jokes are often at someone else’s expense, and they’re not always funny.

  This time, though, the laugh — and the papier-mâché — was on him. All over him, in fact. “Way to go, Tess.” I giggled. Unintentionally, she’d done something a lot of us have been wanting to do for ages.

  I watched as Alan stormed away. He has no sense of humor when it comes to himself. I walked through the gate, feeling worried.

  I hoped this accident wasn’t going to come back to haunt Tess. Alan Gray on a revenge kick could be pretty unpleasant. He was probably already thinking of pranks to get her back.

  I walked into Claudia’s bedroom at five-fifteen, in plenty of time for our five-thirty BSC meeting. Claudia was already there, of course. Our BSC president, Kristy Thomas, was there too. I greeted them, then plunked myself down on Claudia’s bed, my usual spot. “Bad news,” I said to Claudia, then went on to explain about the smashed jaguar.

  “What dweeb did that?” Claudia asked.

  “That new girl, Tess … something,” I said, unable to recall her last name.

  “Swinhart,” Abby Stevenson supplied as she bounded into Claudia’s room. “She’s in my homeroom. She’s so odd.”

  “Where does she come from?” I asked. “She has kind of a strange way of speaking.”

  Abby snorted. “Stranger than my Long Island accent?”

  “Yes, even stranger than that,” I replied with a laugh.

  “I know what you mean,” Abby said. “I don’t know where she’s from, though. Maybe she made up that weird way of talking to go with the rest of her weird self.”

  “Don’t you like her?” I asked.

  “She’s okay, I guess,” Abby said, stretching out on the rug. “I don’t really know her. No one does.”

  “She smashed Stacey’s jaguar,” Claudia told Abby.

  “Oh, bummer.”

  “What’s a bummer?” asked Jessi Ramsey as she hurried in and took her regular spot on the carpet. Her best friend, Mallory Pike, came in behind her and sat down next to Jessi.

  Before I go any further, I should probably tell you about the BSC and all its members. I’ll begin with the club itself.

  We call it a club because we’re all friends and we love getting together, but the BSC is really more a business than a club. A baby-sitting business, to be exact. A super successful baby-sitting business.

  Kristy had the idea for the club one afternoon, back in seventh grade, when her mother couldn’t find anyone to sit for Kristy’s little brother. Mrs. Thomas was going crazy making a zillion phone calls. It occurred to Kristy that it would be a lot simpler if her mother could call one number and reach several qualified baby-sitters at once.

  So, she rounded up her best friend, Mary Anne Spier, plus Claudia, who rounded up me (I had just moved to Stoneybrook). She said she wanted to start a baby-sitting business with a group of sitters who would all be available at one number at certain times. And that’s exactly what we did. We are the original Baby-sitters Club members.

  We spread the word — and Claudia’s private phone number — around town, and the calls came pouring in. Over time, we’ve expanded. We now have seven regular, full-time members and two associate members. Plus one honorary member — Dawn Schafer, a former member, who moved to California.

  We meet here in Claudia’s bedroom every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from five-thirty until six. During that time clients call to set up sitting appointments. Whoever is closest to the phone takes the information about the job. Then, we decide who should accept the job, and we call back the client to confirm.

  Now I’ll tell you who we are. I’ll start with me, Stacey McGill. I’m thirteen and in eighth grade (so are most of my BSC friends), and I was born in New York City. I still live in the city — part-time, anyway. My parents are divorced, and I spend some weekends with my father, who stayed there after the divorce. What else can I tell you about myself? I’ve already mentioned my diabetes. I have blue eyes and shoulder-length blonde hair. I like clothing and fashion and math.

  Since I like math, and I’m good at it, I’m the club treasurer. Each week I collect the dues. (Everyone grumbles about paying.) We use the money to replace our supplies, to help pay Claudia’s phone bill, and for other expenses. If we find ourselves with surplus funds, we plan a pizza party or something else fun.

  Who should come next? My best friend, Claudia. I’ve already mentioned that she’s an artistic genius. She’s great at any kind of art. She even brings her artistry to her unique outfits. Jewelry-making, beadwork, tie-dyeing, weaving — all those things go into making Claudia a one-of-a-kind dresser. She looks fantastic in the outfits she creates. That’s partly because she’s good at putting them together and partly because she’s gorgeous. She’s Japanese-American and has beautiful, straight black hair, almond-shaped eyes, and perfect skin.

  It’s amazing that Claudia has perfect skin, since she’s a junk food fanatic. Her parents don’t approve of junk food, so she stashes the stuff all over her room. Any visitor to Claudia’s room is in constant danger of sitting on a concealed bag of potato chips or stepping on a stowed-away Ring-Ding.

  The other things Claud hides are her Nancy Drew mysteries. Claudia is a big Nancy Drew fan, but her parents don’t think the books are “intellectual” enough. I suppose they’re used to the tastes of Claudia’s very intellectual sixteen-year-old sister, Janine. She’s an actual genius and very studious.

  Claudia is not studious. School bores her and it shows. Even though she’s thirteen, she’s repeating the seventh grade because her grades were very poor. (Her spelling is beyond belief.)

  Since we use her room and her phone, Claudia is our vice-president. She’s also in charge of hospitality. With her love of snacks, she’s a natural for the job.

  Kristy Thomas is our president. Talk about a natural for a job! She’s super organized and energetic — a born leader. She’s also down-to-earth, talkative, blunt (sometimes too blunt), and athletic.

  Kristy doesn’t look especially presidential. At five feet nothing, she’s the shortest girl in the eighth grade. And she’s not fashion conscious at all. Her long brown hair is unstyled, and she almost always wears jeans and a sweatshirt, turtleneck, or T-shirt. But Kristy really knows how to get things done. She’s always coming up with great ideas. We call her the Idea Machine.

  One of her great ideas was Kid-Kits. These are boxes — each member has her (or his) own — stocked with fun stuff to bring on baby-sitting jobs: craft materials, markers, joke books, hand-me-down toys. We don’
t take them on every job. But if we think the kids will be shy, or if they’re sick or upset about something, we take them along as an extra cheerer-upper.

  Another of Kristy’s ideas was the club notebook. In it, we record what’s happened on each of our sitting jobs. It’s a very handy reference, especially if you’re going to sit for a family for the first time, or you haven’t seen them for a while. You can look in the notebook and learn about them from club members who’ve recently sat at that household.

  Kristy’s dad ran out on their family back when Kristy’s younger brother was a baby. Things were tough for the Thomases, but the Thomases were tougher. Mrs. Thomas remarried. Her new husband is a millionaire named Watson Brewer. When that happened, Kristy and her three brothers (two older, one younger) moved across town to Watson’s mansion. Watson’s kids from his first marriage, Karen (who’s seven) and Andrew (four), live with them part-time. Kristy’s grandmother Nannie lives with them too. She helps take care of two-and-a-half-year-old Emily Michelle, born in Vietnam, whom Watson and Kristy’s mother adopted.

  Down the street from Kristy lives Abby Stevenson. She’s our newest member. She moved here from Long Island, which is just outside New York City.

  At first, I wasn’t sure how well Abby would fit in as a BSC member. I was worried because she’s as forceful as Kristy — just as outspoken, and just as firm in her opinions. In the beginning, the two of them did clash. But I think they’ve grown to appreciate each other. And Abby has a great, wacky sense of humor that goes a long way toward easing tension. She keeps us laughing.

  Abby has a twin sister, Anna. For identical twins, they look pretty different. Both have deep brown eyes and curly, dark brown hair. But Abby wears her hair in a wild mane, while Anna keeps hers short. Both girls have glasses and contact lenses, and they both wear whichever they feel like. On any given day, chances are that one is wearing her contacts, while the other has on glasses.

  Their personalities are pretty different too. Abby is outgoing and athletic, while Anna is quiet and musical.

  The only other member of Abby’s immediate family is her mother, who is an executive editor for a publishing company in New York City. Mr. Stevenson died in a car accident when Abby was only nine.