a/n: this story has nothing to do with my silly little "before we grow up" universe. this is different.
and no, i'm not abandoning the other stories. :)
Sometimes, I wish the Baby-Sitters Club was my idea.
It seems like Kristy got a lot of attention for the fact that this club, this business, was her great idea. We called her the Idea Machine, but really, most of her ideas fell through or just plain sucked. The BSC? That was her baby. That was her crowning achievement. She loved the club so much. Almost obsessively. Competition would be knocked out in days. Baby-sitting jobs all over Stoneybrook were monopolized. Nobody went to anyone else. Need a baby-sitter? You only have one choice! We're in your community, doing good deeds and solving crimes, marching in parades and running carnival booths. You can'tnot know us. We get on TV, in the newspaper, on the radio. Fliers are plastered on every bulletin board. We meet famous people, we sit for famous kids, we get into movies, we get modeling jobs, we dance in the ballet. What's that new show at the gallery? Oh, it's just the Claudia Kishi collection. A genius artist, but always a baby-sitter first. We are everywhere. On the sports teams. On the school council. We're in your house, watching your kids. Watching out for your kids. Protecting them. Teaching them life lessons. Saving their lives.
The BSC was a big deal. And so simple. What the BSC became, however . . .
Well. You get it. At first it was fun. Then it became a job. Later still, a burden. Then you got to downright resent it. Resent the fact that Kristy Thomas, the Idea Machine, got all the glory. It wasn't her room the club used. It wasn't her phone the parents called us on. She didn't design the logo. She simply thought "It would be so much easier if Mom could call one number and reach several baby-sitters."
Like that hadn't been thought of before. Ever heard of a nanny agency, Kristy? Only, a nanny agency checks out the people who work for them. They make sure their employees are safe. Kristy Thomas simply relied on her gut instinct, which she believed was always right.
She misjudged me. Maybe back then I was okay, but these days, I wonder about myself. I wonder if I'm crazy. Because every time I see her walking down the hall, I feel like beating her face in. Kristy Thomas, Idea Machine, has no idea how many people hate her.
Maybe because so many love her.
Kristy is popular. She's a jock, she's a brain, she's cute, she's funny, she's kind. Kristy is everything every girl wants to be.
The exception, of course, being a few of her former friends.
Jokingly, privately, we call ourselves the Anti-Krist's. Catchy, huh? I thought of that one. See, I'm not so dumb. Mary Anne isn't so sensitive. Cokie Mason isn't such a bitch.
Well, not always such a bitch.
Not that I don't like Cokie. I consider her one of my closest friends. Not my best, no. I swore off the "best friend" label after Stacey went to the Dark Side. We spent so much time making fun of Kristy, Miss Popular, that none of us saw it coming. Stacey, though . . . she always had to be cool. Hip. Sophisticated. I guess one day she looked at Cokie, Mary Anne, and me and realized we were no longer It.
Stacey always was a follower. With Laine, with me, with the club, with the supposed "bad girls" she hung out with in eighth grade. Stacey follows the Cool, and it always accepts her. It happened overnight. One day she was sitting at our lunch table in the corner, the next day she was loyally following Kristy, her blonde curls bouncing as she stayed ever-so-slightly behind her leader. There was no fight, no big confrontation, no drama. It just . . . was.
So what do the Anti-Krist's do? Generally, we ignore her. At lunchtime, though, Kristy and her crew sit a mere two tables away from us. We discussed moving once, but decided that Kristy might like that. So at lunchtime, when Kristy overpowers the room with her charm, we sit two tables away and plot her demise.
Not that we ever act on it - though I believe Cokie started the rumor about Kristy having an affair with her female gym teacher. Cokie denies it to the fullest, but I catch something of a sparkle in her eye when she does.
"The Baby Club break up?" Cokie had asked casually one day early Sophomore year, setting her tray on the table occupied by myself, Stacey, and a few random friends. I had nearly choked on my Ho-Ho.
Stacey looked at Cokie disgustedly. "What do you want?"
Cokie shrugged. "Company? Grace moved to Stamford over the summer. I'm lonely."
Stacey and I glanced at each other, conversing with our eyes. Is it a trick? Has she lost her mind? Cokie hates us. We hate her. It's always been this way. "Uh." Was all I could squeeze out.
"So what's with that?" Cokie asked, leaning closer as she gestured to a table to the right, crowded with students. Among them were Kristy, Abby, and Mary Anne.
I shrugged. "We don't all have to sit together every day, you know."
"Yes you do. You always do. Why aren't you now?"
"Cokie, mind your own business!" Stacey snapped, pushing her lunch away. That disgusted by her. She couldn't even eat.
Cokie first rolled her eyes, then locked them with mine. "What happened?" She asked casually.
"We're still friends. They just sit at a different table." I protested. That was the truth. Kristy and Abby had started sitting with their soccer friends, and Mary Anne was Kristy's best friend. Simple as that. There were no hard feelings. Kristy and I still sat together in English. We still talked. We were still friends.
"Mmm." Cokie said, digging into her salad. I couldn't tell if it was a reaction to me or her food. Frankly, I was surprised I cared.
And so it went. The next day, Cokie sat with us again. And the next day. Gradually, we began to talk more. Stacey would stay quiet, aside from the occasional snide remark in Cokie's direction. Crazily enough, I started to like her.
Cokie was the original Anti-Krist. I overlooked all that and remained Kristy's friend. That is, until the day I realized Kristy Thomas used her friends for nothing other than making herself look better.