"BSC038 - Kristy's Mystery Admirer - Martin, Ann M" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin Ann M)

Here's how we run the club and what our responsibilities are:
I am the president, as you know. It's my job to keep the BSC in good shape and fresh by coming up with new ideas. (Besides, I thought up the club in the first place.) Some of my
ideas are Kid-Kits, the club notebook, and the club record book. Kid-Kits are cartons (we each have one) that we decorated with Claudia's art materials and filled with our old toys, games, and books, as well as some new things, such as coloring books, sticker books, Magic Markers, etc. We sometimes take the kits on jobs with us, and our charges love them. This is good business, because when our charges are happy, then their parents are happy, and when parents are happy, they call the Babysitters Club with more jobs for us!
The record book is Mary Anne's and Sta-cey's department, so I'll describe that later, but let me explain about the notebook. The notebook is more like a diary. In it, each of us is responsible for writing up every single job we go on. This is a chore, but it's helpful because we also have to read the diary once a week to see what went on during our friends' recent jobs. We learn about problems our charges are having, how to solve tough sitting situations, and that sort of thing.
Now let's see. Claudia is our vice-president. This is because she has her own phone and her own personal phone number, so her room is an ideal place to hold meetings. Thanks to our advertising, our clients know when the BSC gets together so they call us during meet-
ings. We spend a lot of time on the phone and don't have to worry about tying up our parents' lines. Thank goodness for Claud and her phone.
Mary Anne is our secretary and she has a pretty big job. Remember the record book I mentioned? Well, Mary Anne is in charge of it (except for the numbers section, which is Stacey's domain). In the record book, Mary Anne has noted all of our clients, their phone numbers, addresses, the rates they pay, the number of children they have, etc. More important are the appointment pages. There, Mary Anne writes down all the jobs we have lined up and who's got the jobs. She's great at this. I don't know how she does it, because she has to keep track of so many schedules — Jessi's ballet classes, Claud's art lessons, plus eye doctor and dentist appointments, and more. But she's great at it. She's never made a mistake. (Also, she has the neatest handwriting of any club member.)
As treasurer, Stacey collects our weekly dues on Mondays. She's a whiz at math. (I hate to admit it, but where math is concerned, she's almost as smart as Janine, Claud's sister.) Anyway, Stacey collects the dues, puts it in the treasury (a manila envelope), makes sure
the treasury doesn't get too low, and doles out the money when it's needed. (Stacey loves collecting and having money, even when it isn't, technically speaking, her own — and hates parting with it.) The dues money goes to Charlie to drive me to and from meetings, helps Claud pay her monthly phone bill, buys things for our Kid-Kits when we run out of them, and every now and then covers the cost of a club pizza party or overnight. Stacey also keeps track of how much money we earn. She does this in the record book. It's just for our own information, since we each keep whatever we earn on a job. We don't pool the money or anything.
Dawn is our alternate officer, which means that she's a sort of substitute teacher. She takes on the job of anyone who has to miss a meeting. We don't miss meetings often, but Dawn's job can be hard since she has to know everyone's duties. However, she doesn't have much to do at most meetings so we let her answer the phone a lot.
Jessi and Mal are junior officers. That means that they can only baby-sit after school or on weekend days. They aren't allowed to sit at night yet unless they're sitting for their own brothers and sisters. They're a huge help to
us, though. Not only are they good, responsible, reliable sitters, but they free up us older club members for evening jobs.
Last of all are two associate members who don't attend meetings. They are my friend Shannon Kilbourne and Mary Anne's boyfriend, Logan. Shannon and Logan are our backups. They are good baby-sitters who can pinch-hit in case a job is offered for a time when all seven of us regular sitters are busy. I know that sounds unlikely, but it does happen. The associate members don't attend meetings, Shannon because she's too busy with other activities, and Logan because he's embarrassed to sit around in a girl's room for half an hour three times a week. It's one thing for him to join us at our lunch table in the cafeteria. There, he can escape if he wants to. But when he's in Claud's room, he feels stuck.
Anyway, that's the BSC.
I had been keeping my eye on Claud's clock, and when the numbers turned to 5:30, I cleared my throat. Everyone had arrived and it was time to start the meeting.
"Treasurer," I said, "please collect the dues."
With a look of glee, Stacey handed around the manila envelope, and each of us dropped
a one-dollar bill in it. Most of us groaned as we did so. Even me.
Then Stacey dumped the contents of the envelope onto Claud's desk, counted it up, and announced that the treasury contained more than twenty dollars.
"Well, fork over," I said. "I've got to pay Charlie today."
Stacey looked pained but gave me the money.
"And I need some stuff for my Kid-Kit," said Dawn. "The Magic Markers have dried up, and someone — I'm not sure who, but I'm betting on Jenny Prezzioso — scribbled on every page of a new coloring book."
"Barbie's head fell off," reported Jessi. "I need a new Barbie doll."
Everyone laughed. We knew she was just kidding.
The first phone call of the day came in then, and Dawn took it.
"Hello, Baby-sitters Club," she said. "Oh, hi, Mrs. Kuhn."
The Kuhns are not regular clients of the BSC, but the Kuhn kids are on my Krushers team, so Mrs. Kuhn does call for a sitter every now and then. Mary Anne arranged for Mal to take an afternoon job with them.
As soon as Dawn had called Mrs. Kuhn back to tell her who would be baby-sitting, the phone rang again. And again and again and again. It was one of our busiest meetings ever.
Mmm. I just love busy meetings.
One of the last calls was from Mrs. Pike, Mal's mother, needing two sitters (she always insists on two sitters, since there are so many Pike kids) for a Saturday afternoon. Mary Anne arranged the job for Mal and Jessi. We usually let each other sit for our own brothers and sisters, if possible. We're pretty nice about doling out the jobs. Not much fighting goes on.
At six o'clock, we took what Claudia hoped was the last call of the meeting. (If a client calls after six, poor Claudia has to deal with things on her own. That's one of the problems that comes with having your own phone number. On the other hand, Claud can talk up a storm in private, while the rest of us have to hide out in closets during personal calls, hoping nobody is listening in on an extension.)
As soon as Dawn hung up the phone, my friends and I said good-bye to Claud and left. Charlie was waiting for me. He demanded his money before he would drive me home.
Chapter 4.
When Charlie and I walked in the front door of our house, I was greeted by David Michael, who said, "Shannon called four times while you were gone! She said to phone her as soon as you get home. She says it's really, really, really important."
"What's important?" I asked my brother.
"She wouldn't tell me. She just said for you to call her."
So I did. Immediately. In case it was private, I took our cordless phone into a closet we hardly ever use and called Shannon from there. The connection wasn't so hot, even with the phone antenna stretched as far as it would go, but at least we could hear each other.
"Shannon?" I said when she got on the phone.
"Kristy? Is that you?"
Crackle, crackle. (Static.) "Yeah. What's going on?"
"You sound like you're calling from a tunnel."
"I'm on the cordless phone in a closet. David Michael made your phone message sound so mysterious I thought I better hide, just in case."
"Oh. Well, listen. You won't believe this. I forgot to get our mail until really late this afternoon." (Shannon's parents both work, so it's up to Shannon ,and her sisters, Tiffany and Maria, to get the mail after school. Sometimes nobody remembers until after dinner.) "Anyway, it was a lucky thing 7 got the mail, because there was an envelope in it for you."
"So?" I said, puzzled. "The mailman stuck it in the wrong box."
"The mailman didn't deliver it," said Shannon, with some satisfaction. "There's no stamp or postmark on it. There's not even an address. It just says 'Kristy,' and there are heart stickers and flower stickers all over it."
Crackle, crackle. "You're kidding," I said in a hushed voice.
"It looks like a love letter," Shannon added tantalizingly.
"A" (crackle) "me? No way. No one has" (crackle) "love" (crackle).
"Kristy, would you get out of that closet or
off that phone? I can't understand a word you're saying."