“Shanny?”

I made a face at my mom’s use of my baby name and continued yanking off my school uniform and getting into decent clothes — jeans, a big cotton sweater, loafers. I’d stayed after school for a meeting of the French club, practicing conversational French and giggling (I hope giggling is a universal language!), and I was going to be late for my BSC meeting if I didn’t majorly step on it.

“Shanny?”

I hopped to the door of my room, pulling on a sock.

“Yo, Mom, I’m late, okay?” I called. “I have a BSC meeting.”

“Yo?” said my mother, sounding disapproving. “Where do you learn this slang?”

“It just means … never mind. Anyway, I’m off to the BSC.”

“Again?” said Mom.

I felt a momentary stab of annoyance. Hadn’t I told Mom that this very morning? And why did she sound so critical, as if my meeting was some weird indulgence of base desires? I mean, it’s a business and I work hard at it, even if I do have a lot of fun.

I also felt a little guilty, which I hated. My mom’s voice sounded almost hurt.

But that wasn’t my fault, was it?

I found my loafers, pulled one on, hopped back to the top of the stairs, and sat down to pull it on. “Again,” I mimicked my mom’s query, trying to keep my voice light (not easy to do when you’re shouting down the stairs).

Mom appeared at the bottom of the stairs.

“Maria’s at swim practice,” she said. (This I knew. Maria is always at swim practice. And besides, she’d already told us she would be there this morning.)

I nodded and pulled on my other shoe. “Tiff’s out in her garden,” I said as neutrally as I could.

My mom smiled a little. “My grandmother used to garden. But I never did like it very much. You have to wait so long for the flowers to come up after you put the seeds in.”

I laughed and shook my head. “You’re into instant gratification? I didn’t know adults were allowed to do that!”

My mom didn’t laugh. In fact, she looked kind of sad. “I don’t know what I’m into,” she said after a moment. Then, quickly, “Listen, Shannon, why don’t you have your meeting over here? I could make some cookies and …”

“We always have it at Claudia’s because Claudia has her own phone. Our clients all call us at that number. They expect us to be there, Mom.” I tried not to sound impatient, but I knew my mom knew this.

“Oh.” A one-two punch. She sounded both disapproving and disappointed.

“Tiffany’s garden looked pretty good from the bedroom window, Mom,” I went on. “You ought to go check it out.” Wow, who did I sound like? In fact, what did this whole conversation remind me of? Well, I didn’t have time to think about it just then. I stood up and bounded down the stairs.

“Gotta go,” I said and shot past Mom and out the door before she could make any more suggestions. Kristy Thomas, the founder and president of the BSC, is a real stickler for punctuality. She lives across the street from me, and her brother Charlie drives her to meetings. Today he was giving me a ride, too.

Kristy must have been hovering by the front door, because it opened before I even dashed up the steps. “We’re ready, Charlie!” she called back into the house without even saying hello.

That was cool. I was used to Kristy’s ways now. When we’d first met, we hadn’t liked each other at all. Kristy was new to the neighborhood and she thought I was an awful snob, and I thought she was a jerk who was stealing all my baby-sitting jobs. But we’d gotten past that and Kristy had even invited me to join the BSC as an associate member, to help out when other members couldn’t take babysitting jobs. Now, with the BSC’s regular member, alternate officer Dawn Schafer, making a long visit to her father and younger brother on the Coast (the West Coast, as in California), I was attending a lot more meetings. And doing a lot more baby-sitting. I didn’t mind, though. Not only were the meetings fun and the work, too (mostly), but I was saving every penny for my trip to Paris.

“Punctuality is the courtesy of kings,” announced Kristy as Charlie slid into the car, where Kristy had already hustled me. She was talking to Charlie but I knew her comment was also aimed at me. I hid a smile. King Kristy? With Kristy, it just might happen.

“Hey, they’re not going to start without the president, are they?” Charlie teased.

Kristy looked stern for a moment longer, then her face relaxed into a grin. “They’ll start on Claudia’s stash of treats without me,” she said.

“That’s for sure,” I agreed and we gave each other a knowing look.

Claudia Kishi, artist and maverick student, is a secret reader of Nancy Drew books. Hidden around her room at any given moment you are likely to find at least half a dozen Nancy Drews. (Claudia’s parents just don’t understand why Claudia won’t read more “serious” books, the way her older sister Janine does. Janine’s a high school student who is a genuine genius. She even takes college courses because she’s advanced beyond what the high school can teach her in some subjects.)

Guess what. Claudia is also a world-class junk food addict. A collector’s cache of junk food is part of Claudia’s hidden decor. You think I’m kidding? You haven’t watched Claudia reach down behind an open drawer and produce chocolate-covered coffee beans, or slide her hand between her mattress and box springs and pull out chocolate-covered Oreos and half a box of graham crackers.

We rode the rest of the way to Claudia’s comparing Claudia Kishi junk food notes (Charlie couldn’t believe it!) and we got there with three minutes to spare.

Janine let us in.

“Merci,” I said airily as we charged up the stairs to Claudia’s room.

“Bon après-midi,” replied Janine, wishing us good afternoon in French without missing a beat. A genius, see what I mean?

Claudia was just passing around a package of Mallomars and a package of oatmeal raisin Frookies. Mallomars are a big club favorite and I knew they’d be gone before the meeting was over. The Frookies, which are special healthy cookies made without sugar, would last a little longer.

The Frookies are for Stacey McGill, mainly, and Dawn (when she’s here). You’ll hear more about them and everyone in the BSC later, but first I should tell you how the club works.

The BSC was an inspired idea from the churning, seething brain of our fearless leader, Kristy. It came to her one night when she was at home, listening to her mother call baby-sitter after baby-sitter for her little brother, David Michael. That’s when it hit Kristy: why not call one number and be able to reach several sitters at once?

In what seemed like no time at all, the BSC was set up, meeting Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons at Claudia’s from 5:30 until 6:00. That’s when clients call to set up baby-sitting jobs. The three original members of the BSC, Kristy, Claudia (BSC vice-president who lived across the street from her), and Mary Anne (BSC secretary who lived next door to Kristy and had been Kristy’s best friend forever), weren’t sure three people were enough for a club. So they invited Stacey McGill, who was new in town and becoming friends with Claudia, to join. She became the treasurer. Then Dawn Schafer followed, to become the alternate officer. That means she takes over the duties of anyone who can’t make a meeting. Then came Jessica Ramsey and Mallory Pike as junior officers. Now there is one other associate member, too: Logan Bruno (who is also Mary Anne’s boyfriend). Associate members don’t have to attend meetings, but they can, and they also take any jobs that won’t fit into the BSC schedule.

Kristy not only thought up the BSC, she also added other Kristy touches — like the record book, the notebook, and Kid-Kits.

The record book is where we keep all our appointments. Plus a list of clients and any special information about them, plus a record of our dues and expenses. The record book is the secretary’s responsibility, except for the money part, which is the treasurer’s.

We all use the notebook. We have to write about every job in it and read each other’s entries. It helps us keep up with what’s going on in regular clients’ lives (like who’s teething or who’s developed a new passion for dogs, for example). It also helps us learn how to deal with new problems that come up — we learn from what others write down.

Kid-Kits? They are boxes we’ve all fixed up with puzzles, games, toys, books, colored pencils, stamps, stickers, and all kinds of fun things. Some of it is our old stuff. Some of it we buy out of BSC funds. We take the kits on some jobs and the kids love them. Even though some of the toys and books are old, they’re new to the kids. And, as Kristy noticed, kids always love to play with other kids’ toys!

So. Back to the members of the BSC.

I settled down on the floor with a couple of Mallomars and looked at Stacey as she took a Frookie out of the box, offered them to every-one else, and then put them down on the floor next to her.

Stacey, who as you now know is the BSC treasurer, is a math whiz. She is also diabetic. That means that she has to watch what she eats very carefully (no sugar! yuck) and even give herself shots or else she could get very, very sick. But Stacey is cool about it. In fact, she may be one of the coolest people I know, generally. For one thing, she is from New York City, which makes her just a little more sophisticated than most the kids her age around Stoneybrook. She is tall and thin and has long blonde hair and is a way cool — no, make that très cool — dresser. (When you have to wear a uniform to school every day you particularly notice these things.)

Stacey lives with her mother. She came to Stoneybrook with her mother and her father, but then they got divorced after her family moved back to New York City. So Stacey returned to Stoneybrook with her mother (and are we ever glad she did.) Now Stacey visits her father in New York, which makes her bicity (we tease Dawn about being bi-coastal because she has a family on both coasts) and keeps us posted on all the important cool things she thinks we need to know.

Given Stacey’s style, it’s not surprising that Claudia is her best friend. As I said earlier, Claud is an artist, with her own unique vision of the world (a vision that does not include liking school or being an honor role student!) and of the clothes she wears. For example, today Stacey looked ultra-city in black: black leggings, a black Doc Martens, and her hair pulled back with a black and gold scarf that picked up the gold of the gold chain earrings she was wearing.

Claudia was beyond the city, maybe into outer space and looking outrageous, artistically terrific: an enormous pair of pants held up with a man’s belt and a pair of neon purple suspenders, an enormous purple T-shirt over a tie-dyed long-underwear top, her long black hair pulled back into a braid clipped at intervals with little-kid barrettes, and these dangly peace-sign earrings.

Claudia always looks incredibly beautiful in anything she wears. In fact, she’s probably the only person I know who could wear some of the clothes she wears!

Mary Anne is the opposite of Claudia and Stacey, style-wise and sophistication-wise. Until recently, Mary Anne was an only child, raised by her very caring but very strict father. It’s not that Mr. Spier was an ogre, it’s just that, as a single parent (Mary Anne’s mother died when Mary Anne was just a baby) he didn’t want to make any mistakes. Mary Anne had to work pretty hard to convince him she was growing up and could choose her own clothes and not wear her hair in little-kid pigtails. But although Mary Anne is one of the shyest and most sensitive, tender-hearted people in the known universe, she is also one of the strongest underneath. She toughed it out, and not only changed her wardrobe to something a little more typical Stoneybrook Middle School, she acquired a kitten, Tigger, and a boyfriend, Logan Bruno.

And then she acquired a whole new family, with the help of Dawn Schafer.

This is how it happened:

Dawn’s mother grew up in Stoneybrook, moved away, and eventually got married. When she and Dawn’s father got divorced, Mrs. Schafer moved back to Stoneybrook with Dawn and her younger brother Jeff. When Dawn and Mary Anne discovered that Mr.Spier and Mrs. Schafer were high school sweethearts, they did some matchmaking, and now Dawn and Mary Anne are sisters as well as friends. The new combined Schafer-Spier family lives in an old farmhouse (that might even be haunted), although Jeff eventually decided to move back to California and stay with his dad. Now Dawn is out in California visiting them for awhile.

Dawn is the third blonde in the BSC, except she has pale, pale long blonde hair. She’s a casual dresser, and wears two earrings in each ear. She’s very much into ecology and saving the earth, and she eats no red meat and hardly any sugar or junk food. That’s why, if Dawn had been at the meeting, she’d be sharing the Frookies with Stacey. Like Mary Anne, Dawn has deep-rooted, strong, and sometimes stubborn feelings (about things such as the environment). But unlike Mary Anne, Dawn is quick to say what’s on her mind, although not in a negative way. Overall, she’s pretty easy-going, which makes her a good baby-sitter — and a good alternate officer.

Jessica Ramsey and Mallory Pike are eleven and in sixth grade and are younger than the rest of us (we’re all thirteen and in eighth grade). As junior officers, they can’t baby-sit at night (unless it’s for their own families), just afternoons and weekend days.

Like Kristy and Mary Anne (and Mary Anne and Dawn), and Stacey and Claudia, they are best friends. Mallory comes from a huge family. She has four brothers (three of them are triplets) and three sisters. Needless to say, the Pike family calls on the BSC quite a bit. In fact, that’s how the BSC members first met Mallory, who was one of the baby-sittees. But when the club needed more members, it seemed natural to turn to Mallory.

Mallory has red hair, and wears braces and glasses (although she is campaigning hard for contact lenses). She loves to read, especially horse stories, and she wants to be a children’s book writer and illustrator when she grows up.

Jessica Ramsey, on the other hand, is planning on being a prima ballerina. She’s already danced (even starred) in some productions and she takes special dancing lessons. Jessi comes from a much smaller family than Mallory, and has only two siblings — an eight-year-old sister and a baby brother. She shares Mallory’s love of reading and of horses, especially any horse story by Marguerite Henry.

Like Dawn and Stacey, Jessi and her family recently moved to Stoneybrook. Jessi had some of the same moving-to-a-new-town problems that Dawn and Stacey did, plus one. Because Jessi is black, she came up against some ignorance — in the form of prejudice. It took awhile for people to settle down and learn just how stupid their prejudices were, but they finally did.

Our other associate member is Logan Bruno (who usually doesn’t come to meetings). As a guy, Logan can bring some special skills to his BSC jobs, and has. And as Mary Anne’s boyfriend as well as a BSC member, he can always be counted on to help out. He moved to Stoneybrook from Kentucky and has a soft Southern drawl and easygoing ways. Mary Anne thinks he looks just like her favorite star, Cam Geary. I have to admit, Logan is major cute.

And that’s the BSC, except for one other VIM (Very Important Member), President Kristy Thomas. Kristy is the shortest member of the BSC, as well as one of the shortest people in her whole class at school. She’s a way casual dresser (new jeans and recently washed sneakers are her idea of dressing up), and she’s one of the few people I know who’s busier than I am. She even coaches a softball team made up of little kids, called Kristy’s Krushers.

Kristy is also the other BSC member with a large family. She has three brothers — her younger brother David Michael, and her older brothers Charile and Sam. She’s also got a stepfather, Watson Brewer, who is a real, live millionaire and a fanatic gardener. Watson met Kristy’s mother awhile ago and they fell in love (Kristy’s father left when David Michael was just a baby and they hardly ever hear from him). Not much later, Mr. Brewer and Mrs. Thomas got married. So Kristy and her family moved from the house next to Mary Anne (where they’d been bursting at the seams) to Watson’s mansion, which is across the street from our house. That’s how Kristy and I met.

Anyway, now Kristy also has a younger stepsister and stepbrother, Karen and Andrew Brewer, who spend every other month with them, plus a little adopted sister, Emily Michelle, who is Vietnamese. And when Emily came, so did Kristy’s grandmother, Nannie, to help take care of Emily and all the other things that were happening around the Thomas-Brewer mansion. And I shouldn’t forget my god-dog, Shannon. She’s named after me because I gave Kristy one of Astrid’s puppies after their wonderful collie Louie died (in fact that’s how Kristy and I really started becoming friends). There is also a fat, cranky cat named Boo-Boo, two goldfish, Karen’s rat, Andrew’s hermit crab, and an alleged ghost in the attic.

With all that going on, you can see why Kristy has to be super-organized and super-efficient!

Which is what she was being right now. She finished off her Mallomar in three quick (but efficiently chewed) bites, cleared her throat, and said, “Any new business?”

Everyone slowly shook their heads and we kept on with the business at hand — munching on the junk food.

“Well,” said Kristy briskly, “has anybody happened to notice that Mother’s Day is coming up?”

“Whoa, that’s right!” Claudia slapped her palm to her forehead. “It’s a good thing you reminded us, Kristy. I was about to use my last dollar on art supplies, and then I wouldn’t have been able to get my mom anything decent for Mother’s Day.”

Mother’s Day, I thought. Hmmm.

“Great, Claud, but I also brought it up for another reason. I think we should plan something special like we did before.”

“Another Mother’s Day surprise,” said Mary Anne, clasping her hands.

As if on cue, the phone rang. Kristy picked it up. “Baby-sitters Club. How may I help you?”

She took down the information (one of our regular clients was calling, Mrs. Papadakis, who lives across the street from Kristy and next door to me) and told her she’d call right back. Then Mary Anne looked up our schedules in the BSC record book (in which she has never, ever made a mistake).

“Everyone is free except me,” she reported. “But it’s a Friday night baby-sitting job, so that lets you and Mal out, Jessi.”

“Someday,” said Jessi.

Mal made a face.

We all looked at each other. Then Stacey said, “Why don’t you take it, Shannon? It’s in your neighborhood.”

“True,” said Kristy. “And I’ve got Krushers practice the next morning. I wouldn’t mind having Friday night free.”

“Go for it,” said Claudia. “You need the money for Paris, oui?”

I looked at Claudia in surprise. “You take French?” I asked.

“Hai,” answered Claudia. “That’s Japanese for yes. I also know the Spanish for yes. Sí.” She shrugged. “Call me multilingual.”

“Wow, three languages,” teased Stacey. “Say something else.”

Claudia rolled her eyes and grinned. “I can understand some Japanese because my grandmother Mimi often spoke it. But I can’t really speak it. When it comes to Spanish and French, sí and oui about does it.”

“No, it doesn’t, Claud. Think of all the great food words in French,” I said.

Claud looked puzzled, then said, “French fries?”

We started laughing, and Mary Anne wrote my name into the schedule for the Papadakises and called Mrs. Papadakis back to tell her.

“Pommes frites,” I said to Claudia as Kristy was hanging up. “That’s French fries. At least, I think it is.”

“You better make sure before you get to Paris,” Claudia warned me solemnly.

“About Mother’s Day,” Kristy said loudly.

Quickly, we turned our attention back to our fearless leader. “So, here’s the deal. We once gave the parents of the kids we sit for a special free day off on Mother’s Day. Let’s do something like that.”

“Like that, but different,” suggested Mary Anne. She’d had kind of a tough time last Mother’s Day, but had finally solved her dilemma by getting her father a Mother’s Day gift. That was before he and Mrs. Schafer got married. I wondered what she was going to do now.

“I’ll have to get two Mother’s Day presents,” said Mary Anne.

That answered that question. But it didn’t answer another question. What was I going to do about Mother’s Day?

Kristy was going on, “So let’s start thinking of ideas. We can discuss it at the next meeting, and then implement whatever plan we decide on.”

I hid a grin at Kristy’s official-sounding language. Besides, however Kristy said it, I knew that, as with all of Kristy’s ideas, we’d be going full steam ahead in no time.

The phone rang again and we were kept pretty busy for the last few minutes of the meeting. In fact, we ended up staying a few minutes late and Kristy hustled me out the door after she’d adjourned the BSC meeting. We’d talked a little more about the Mother’s Day surprise, but nothing concrete had come of it.

I had figured out one thing though. The funny feeling I’d had as I was leaving my house, when I’d teased Mom about instant gratification and tried to find her something to do, such as gardening with Tiffany, had reminded me of just what I did when I was baby-sitting: keeping the kids busy and happy.

Being around my mom these days made me feel as if I were the adult and she was the kid. And the unhappy kid, at that.

Things hadn’t been great around our house, true. The last few holidays had been tense and pretty perfunctory. We’d have cake on birthdays, blow out the candles, and then all disappear, for example. And sometimes, my father would arrive so late that he might as well not have shown up at all.

None of us were happy with the way things were, I guess. But how had I ended up feeling responsible for my mom?

I didn’t know, but I didn’t like it.

And that was why I wasn’t excited to be thinking about Mother’s Day surprises or Mother’s Day gifts or Mother’s Day anything at all.