Dawn and the Impossible Three (the Baby-sitters Club Graphix #5) Read Full Book

  For Aunt Dot

Contents

Encompass

Title Folio

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Affiliate 4

Affiliate Five

Chapter Half-dozen

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Letter from Ann M. Martin

Nigh the Author

Scrapbook

Copyright

The Infant-sitters Club. I didn't start it and I don't run information technology, but I am its newest fellow member. I'm Dawn Schafer, baby-sitter number five. The other girls in the order have titles, like Mary Anne Spier, secretary, or Claudia Kishi, vice president. But I'1000 simply me.

The order is the most important thing in my life. If information technology weren't for the club, I wouldn't exist riding my wheel off to some other infant-sitting job at this very moment. And if information technology weren't for all the babysitting jobs I've gotten, I wouldn't know so many people here in Stoneybrook.

See, I've only lived in Connecticut a few months. Until this past January, I lived in California with my parents and my younger brother, Jeff. But last fall Mom and Dad split up, and Mom decided to movement back to the place where she grew up. Her parents notwithstanding live here. So right later on Christmas, Jeff and I were uprooted from hot, sunny California and transplanted to cold, sloppy Connecticut, where (so far) it's never been warm plenty 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 upwards, I congratulate him and apologize for yelling. I'm yet not sure what the big deal about New England winters is all about. Back in California, nosotros had one flavour: summer. I thought information technology was wonderful. I loved the beach, I loved sunshine, I loved 80-caste Christmases. Why, I wondered, would anyone want to interrupt all that warmth with three other seasons?

The family I was infant-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 down 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 viii-year-one-time Vanessa would be at her violin lesson. That left Nicky, who's seven; Margo (vi); Claire (4); and Mallory, who's ten and usually a big aid.

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

"I'll go it! I'll get it!" cried a vocalisation 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 of a sudden turned shy. She put her finger in her oral cavity and looked at the floor. "Hullo," she replied.

"I'm Dawn. Remember me?"

Claire nodded.

"Can I come in?"

She nodded again.

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

"Fine, thanks," I answered.

I actually like Mrs. Pike. She has lots of energy and she loves kids. (She'd accept to, I guess.) She'southward patient and funny and inappreciably always yells. She and Mr. Pike have been actually nice to our family e'er since nosotros moved here.

"I'g merely 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 y'all need to call me, ask for the Prescott Room and say that I'm in the board meeting, okay?"

"Okay."

(Mrs. Motorway is e'er so organized. She'southward a baby-sitter'due south dream.)

"The emergency numbers are in their usual spot, and the kids tin have a snack — a small one — if they're hungry. I'll exist abode a footling after five. Is that all right?"

"Perfect. We accept a Babe-sitters Society meeting at five-thirty."

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

The vice president is Claudia Kishi, who's really neat and sophisticated. She lives beyond the street from Kristy. We hold our meetings in Claudia'southward room considering she has a phone. Claudia is Japanese and cute. She hates school, but loves art and mystery stories. She's a footling bit difficult to get to know.

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

Then there's Mary Anne Spier. She's the i who introduced me to Kristy, Claudia, and Stacey. She'due south the secretary of the lodge and responsible for the Baby-sitters Club Tape Volume, which is where she records our task appointments, too equally the phone numbers and addresses of our clients and stuff like that. (Also in that book is a record of the money nosotros earn. Stacey'due south in charge of that section.)

Nosotros proceed a Baby-sitters Lodge Notebook, besides, which is similar a diary. Kristy insists that we write upwardly each job we accept and that we all read the book every few days. That'southward so nosotros know what's going on in the families the club sits for.

The nearly important thing about Mary Anne (to me, anyhow) is that she's my new best friend. (My sometime best friend was Sunny Winslow in California.) Mary Anne lives next door to Kristy Thomas, and for the longest fourth dimension Kristy was her merely best friend. Now I'm Mary Anne'southward other best friend.

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

Fifty-fifty more than astonishing is that they've started dating each other again! (Mary Anne's mother died when Mary Anne was really fiddling.) Mary Anne and I tin 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 virtually too Mary Anne, who's his merely child). And my mom has been so distressing since the divorce. She needs some fun, too.

Mrs. Pike was putting on her coat and hat and tossing things in her bag. "Mallory's upstairs doing her homework," she told me, "but she'll exist downwards before long. She wants to see y'all. Margo'south in the rec room, and Nicky's at the Barretts' playing with Buddy. Do y'all know the Barretts?"

I shook my head.

"They live a few doors downwardly — toward your house. Our kids and their kids are back and forth all the fourth dimension. Nicky'll probably bring Buddy over here at some signal today. Y'all won't need to call Mrs. Barrett. She's very relaxed, and she'll probably know he'due south hither anyway."

"Okay," I said.

"I estimate that's it." Mrs. Pike stooped down to kiss Claire. "See you afterward, pumpkin," she said. "Article of clothing your jacket if you lot get outside. It'southward 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. "Allow'due south go run into 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 chaplet and scarves, and was dancing around to "Puff, the Magic Dragon," which was playing at full volume. When she knew the words, she mouthed them.

>   Claire and I plopped ourselves down on the couch and pretended nosotros were the audience. When the vocal ended, Margo fabricated 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 chosen downward, "Hi, Dawn. What'southward viii times seven?"

"Hello, Mal," I called dorsum. "You know that one."

"Fifty-six?" she asked.

"Right!" I said.

"Cheers!"

She returned to her homework.

Margo put "Sometime MacDonald Had a Farm" on and began another functioning. Claire joined in on the animal sounds. They were just finishing when I heard Mallory in the kitchen again.

"Homework's washed," she announced. "Tin can I take a snack, Dawn?"

"Certain," I replied. "Claire and Margo and I will have one, too."

The 4 of usa sat around the Pikes' kitchen, eating granola bars.

"So, Dawn," said Mallory, "how'southward your new-old firm?"

Claire and Margo giggled. Mallory had christened our house "new-one-time," and the petty girls call up it's funny, but Mallory'southward correct. I do live in a new-erstwhile house. It'due south new to Mom and Jeff and me, merely it was built in 1795. I love it, fifty-fifty though information technology'southward nighttime inside, and the stairway is narrow, and the doorways are low because people were a lot shorter in 1795. I similar to call up that I alive in a business firm that so many other people have lived in — people who saw the War of 1812 and the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation and the first aeroplane and the Low and the first rocket ship. Information technology'southward exciting.

I bet our firm has a surreptitious passageway somewhere. Perhaps it was fifty-fifty part of the Underground Railroad. Mary Anne and I are going to explore it thoroughly one solar day. We'll tap on walls and press the wood paneling, hoping for something to spring out or swing open up. Nosotros plan to explore the attic, too. Maybe nosotros'll find an old diary or something.

I smiled to myself, thinking that Mom would want to exist in on a search of the house. She loves things similar that. She thinks they're romantic, and Mom is a very romantic person. That's i reason Mr. Spier liked her and so much when they were in high schoolhouse. Guess what she did? She saved the rose tied with a white ribbon that he gave her the night of their senior prom. She pressed information technology between the pages of her yearbook. Information technology's still at that place. Mary Anne and I found it.

"The new-former business firm is fine," I replied.

Mallory grinned at me and raised her eyebrows. "And how's your mom?" she asked meaningfully. Mallory knows about my female parent and Mr. Spier, and loves to hear about them. She likes nearly of all to hear about when they were in beloved in loftier school and what had happened to drive them apart. I'd told her as much as I knew, which wasn't much. Several times I had asked Mom why she and Mary Anne'due south father ended their relationship. It had something to do with Mom'southward parents non approval of the Spiers because they didn't have much money (Mom's parents have tons of coin), but I didn't know the whole story.

"Honey," she'd said, "it's non really very interesting."

"I think information technology is. You 2 were in honey, but y'all went off to college and never saw each other again. I think it's romantic … and deplorable."

"Our paths just never crossed. Our vacations usually came at different times. During the summers, I stayed in California and worked. And at Christmastime, Granny and Pop-Pop would accept me to the Commonwealth of the bahamas."

"Didn't you lot think about Mr. Spier, though?"

"Sometimes, yes. But we were young. Nosotros had new lives and new interests. We were both busy with school. And then I met your father, and Mr. Spier met Mary Anne's mother — and you know the residual of the story."

I sure did. The rest of the story is that my mother and begetter got married, got unhappy, and got divorced. They just weren't right for each other. Dad is super-organized. And Mom is a crazy person — not nasty crazy, merely an absentminded-professor type.

Jeff and I are actually used to finding the mixing bowls advisedly put abroad in the linen closet, or finding her mending dress we outgrew ii years earlier. And although we've been living in our new-quondam firm for several months, there is still a gigantic pile of unpacked cartons in the dining room. Every now then I starting time to go through 1, and each time Mom runs in and says, "Dawn, you don't accept to bother with that, honey. Allow me do it." And and then she doesn't practice it.

My mom is really terrific, just her habits are what collection her and Dad autonomously. I'1000 not maxim the divorce was her fault. I'k just saying that she's disorganized and Dad couldn't live with that.

I didn't tell Mallory all that, though. What I said was, "Mom'due south okay. She's notwithstanding going out with Mr. Spier."

"Yay!" cried Mallory.

"And she'south started looking for a job. She's ever off on interviews —"

Nosotros were interrupted past a thump and a wail that seemed to come from the forepart porch. Mallory and I looked at each other. "What was that?" I asked.

We raced to the door. In that location was Nicky State highway with a boy almost his age, and a circular-faced, pig-tailed little girl who was crying.

"Suzi!" Mallory exclaimed. "Information technology's Suzi Barrett," she informed me. "And this is Buddy, her brother."

"She fell coming up the steps," Buddy said. "I call up she skinned her human knee."

I braved the common cold weather to dart outside and roll up Suzi'south pants legs. Sure enough, ane knee was bleeding, but it didn't look bad. "I'm Dawn, Suzi," I told her. "Why don't you come in and I'll wash your cut and detect you a Rough-and-tumble."

"Thanks," said Suzi tearfully.

"We accept Band-Aids with dinosaurs on them," Nicky said helpfully.

We found 1 and I put it carefully over Suzi'south scrape. She liked it then much that she rolled up the leg of her pants and left it that mode so everyone could come across the Band-Aid.

Suzi and Buddy stayed at the Pikes' the residuum of the afternoon. Suzi watched Sesame Street with Claire and Margo, and Mallory helped Nicky and Buddy make a dinosaur hamlet. (I never did figure out what that was.)

When Mrs. Pike got dwelling house, information technology was 5:fifteen and fourth dimension to brand tracks to the Babe-sitters Club coming together. I said good-adieu to the children, got on my wheel, and rode off in a hurry, deciding to go to Mary Anne's firm and selection her upwards beforehand.

When I reached the Spiers', I guided my bicycle into the driveway and pulled to a stop. While I was lilliputian with the kickstand, Mary Anne burst through her front end door and dashed beyond the backyard.

"Hey, guess what!" she cried. "Great news!"

Mary Anne's chocolate-brown hair flew behind her as she ran to me.

"What? What is it?" I asked excitedly.

"Dad just called. He said not to expect him for dinner tonight."

"And then?" I prompted.

"He said not to wait him because he's taking your mom out!"

"Some other date!" I squealed. "Fantastic! This is actually exciting."

Mary Anne closed her eyes and sighed. "Yep. The date was spur-of-the-moment, too, which is a good sign. Dad never used to only booty off and do things. He'd plan them for weeks. Just he said he got the idea about 5 minutes ago, chosen your female parent, asked her to join him for a quick dinner, and so called me. I tin can't believe information technology."

I checked my watch. "Information technology's almost five-thirty," I said. "We'd better get to Claudia'due south."

Mary Anne started beyond the street with me, but she didn't say anything, just sighed again. It was a sigh of pleasance.

I knew one reason Mary Anne was so happy nearly her father and my mother. Information technology was because my mother took Mr. Spier's mind off Mary Anne. Mr. Spier used to make all these rules for Mary Anne: She had to fix her hair in braids and clothing the clothes he bought for her; she couldn't talk on the phone after dinner; she had to exist in by 9; she had to put half of her baby-sitting money in the bank; etc. etc. Information technology was awful.

He was already beginning to change when he "

re-met" Mom, just now he's a completely different father. He permit Mary Anne become contact lenses to supplant her reading glasses. He allows her to spend her babe-sitting money if she saves her allowance, and since he no longer buys her dress, you should see what Mary Anne gets with her coin. She doesn't expect like Claudia or Stacey, who clothing these really wild outfits such every bit tight black pants and Day-Glo shirts, simply, well, for example, at that very moment as nosotros walked across the Kishis' backyard, Mary Anne had on her first sweatshirt and her first pair of jeans ever. She looked terrific!

"Yous know what I'one thousand going to beginning doing?" Mary Anne asked me with a giant smile.

"What?"

"Redecorating my room."

"No! Really?"

"Really. I used to think that the only fashion I'd be able to redecorate was if my begetter lost his listen. I guess he did lose it — over your mother."

"Thanks a lot!" I said.

"Oh, you know what I hateful. I recollect it'southward great."

"Great that he and Mom are going out, or great that he's lost his listen?"

Mary Anne giggled. "Both," she said.

"What are you going to do to your room?"

"I'm going to take all the babyish stuff off my walls and put upwardly posters and photographs. That's all I tin afford to practise. Then I'll have to piece of work on my dad a little. I have to run across if he'll help me do annihilation expensive. I want a new bedspread and a new rug and new defunction and new wallpaper. Everything in my room is pink, and I can't stand up pink!"

We reached the Kishis' forepart stoop. I rang the bell.

Claudia's sister Janine answered the door.

Mary Anne and I glanced at each other. Janine is fifteen years old. She's a genius. Mary Anne and Kristy don't similar her considering she's so smart, and she'south ever correcting whatever they say. Just I don't mind Janine. I think she's all correct. You just accept to know how to handle her.

"Hi, Janine!" I said.

Mary Anne hung back. She's shy around some people.

"Hi," Janine answered. "I suppose you're here for a coming together of your lodge."

"Yup," I said.

"You know," Janine began, "the expression 'yup' —"

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