Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Baby-Sitter's Club characters.
Author's note: Some of this story is based on my experiences in college, but is not entirely based on the college I attended. There will be more interaction with other BSC members, as well as some original characters, when the story progresses to Claudia's time in college. The first several chapters will focus on her applying to college before the actual main story begins. For now, I will rate this story as T for language, some future sexual content (including slash between secondary characters), future drug and alcohol use, etc.
CHAPTER ONE
I guess I should start with the basics. My name is Claudia Kishi. I'm eighteen and, believe it or not, I'm actually a college student. I say 'believe it or not' because if you know me you know that I'm the least likely person to attend college. Before I tell you about my life in college, let me talk about my journey there:
School was never my—what's the word I'm thinking of? oh yeah!—niche. I barely passed middle school. In fact, this is something that I never talk about now, but I was held back for some time in the seventh grade. Fortunately, I was allowed back into the eighth grade with the rest of my friends, but it was still embarrassing nonetheless. High school was different though. For one thing, I realized that all the mistakes I had made in middle school didn't matter. I could turn over a new page—or is it leaf?— in high school. Stoneybrook High School was more lenient with our class options. Art has always been my passion, and I was actually able to take two art classes if I wanted. Of course, that would have been a dumb decision because I would have run out of classes to take by tenth grade. I only had to take three years of science and history, thank God, and even though I only had to take two years of a foreign language, I actually took Spanish for four years. I even took some honors classes, if you can believe it, and three AP classes: Art History, Studio Art, and Spanish. ¡Qué sorpresa!
It wasn't like I was a nerd or anything though. In fact, I didn't even plan to go away to college. I knew my parents would never agree to pay for me to go to art school, so I figured I would just take classes at Stoneybrook Community College until I figured out what to do with my life. While all of my friends and classmates were stressing out over college applications our senior year, I was as cool as a cucumber. That Wednesday before Thanksgiving vacation, when everyone was complaining about taking the SATs, I was more concerned about something more important: what dessert would my parents be serving the next day.
We only had a half-day of school, so when I got home at noontime, the mailman was right outside my house. I picked up the mail and browsed through it. Usually the only mail we receive are bills, and those are definitely for my parents, but that day I saw something with my name on it. It was a brochure with an invitation to an 'open house' at this school I knew about called Adams College.
Adams College is located in Western Massachusetts and is two hours from Stoneybrook. I remembered seeing the signs for it when my family used to travel to Vermont for our annual ski trip. I never thought anything about it until that day. To be honest, I wasn't very interested in even visiting Adams because I knew it was an all-girls school—I mean, an all-female college, since that's the more politically correct term. First off, what was I going to do with just girls? Maybe I did change in high school, but I still wanted to have fun. I wanted to go to keg parties and play beer pong with a bunch of hot guys, not sit around in a knitting circle drinking tea with other girls on a Friday night. Plus, I had heard a rumor that it was actually a lesbian school. It had something to do with the lacrosse team... or maybe it was the crew team? ... or maybe the rugby team? I mean, I have no problem with people being gay, but I definitely like guys.
I guess I should thank my sister Janine for sparking my interest in Adams. If any of you know my family, you know that my sister and I are complete opposites. Unlike me, my sister has always been good at school—too good if you ask me. She's actually a certified genius, with an IQ of 196. How could I possibly compete with that? Even though we're only three years apart, Janine had already graduated from college—Harvard, mind you. I know she majored in Physics at Harvard because that was what it said on the program we received at her graduation. You could have fooled me. The way she'd be carrying on about electrons, I thought she was studying to become President. When I told her that, she just laughed at me and said, "Claudia, did you honestly think I would major in political science?" What did I know? I didn't even know that politics was a science. I wonder what kind of labs you have to take for it. Well, if Janine says it was a science, then it must be.
At that time she was working on her doctorate at MIT. Trust me, I was just as surprised as the rest of you probably are to learn that you can be a doctor and not work in a hospital. Don't even ask me what Janine's research is on. I asked her once. She started rambling on about plasma physics and electromagnetic fields. When I replied "Oh cool, so can you make me my own TV?", she gave me the nastiest look imaginable. It's like I had asked for a cable box as well or something.
The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Janine had returned home from Cambridge. We were sitting in the living room, and I was trying to pay attention to the TV. I was watching Wheel of Fortune, and the category was 'Phrase' and it was LE-'S EA-!. I was trying to solve the puzzle, but Janine was pestering me. Do you think I could get away with that when her beloved Jeopardy! started a half-hour later? She wanted to talk to me about—what else?—school.
"Tell me Claudia, have you already finished your college applications?"
"Well, here's the thing: I'm not applying to college."
Her face suddenly turned to a state of utter shock. It was like I had said that the Earth revolved around Mars. It doesn't, right?
"What do you mean you're not going to college?" she exasperated. "Do you know that you are putting your future into serious peril?"
"Well, I wouldn't be that dramatic about-" I started, but she kept rolling on about working at the mall for the rest of my life and something about not realizing my potential.
I was starting to get annoyed. I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was only seven-eighteen. 'Damn!' I thought to myself. 'There's still twelve more minutes until Jeopardy!, and there's no way she's going to shut up until then.'
"Actually," I said loudly, interrupting Janine, "I lied. I didn't want to tell anyone, but I'm thinking about applying to Adams. Did you know that they sent me an invitation to me, requesting that I attend their open house on campus?"
"Adams?" she scoffed. "You mean, Adams College? Adams College is interested in you?"
I tried not to get upset, but I couldn't help myself. "What? You think I can't get in? Why else would they send me the invitation? They obviously think I'm a qualified applicant."
"Have you even started your application?" she asked me. "You know it's due by January 1st."
How did she know the due date?
"So?" I replied, shrugging my shoulders. "I've got a month. That's plenty of time. Don't you know I'm the master at procrastination?"
Janine just rolled her eyes at me. I heard the Jeopardy! theme song blasting from the TV, so I knew she would finally shut up about this college business. We actually watched the show together in peace until Janine pointed out during one of the commercials that I had answered only two responses correctly to her twenty-three. The final jeopardy category was U.S. History. "Great!" I muttered sarcastically.
The answer was: This candy bar claims to be named after one of U.S. President Grover Cleveland's children.
"BABY RUTH!" I shouted ecstatically.
Wait wait wait wait, I thought to myself.
"WHAT IS BABY RUTH?" I shouted even louder.
Imagine me, Junk Food Queen Claudia Kishi beating my own sister, Miss Janine Einstein, at her precious little Jeopardy!
"Ha ha ha ha ha!" I said to Janine before sticking my tongue out for good measure.
I didn't have the energy to gloat any more though. I had my mind set on only one thing: now I had no other choice but to apply to Adams.
And if I didn't get accepted? Well, I was confident that Janine would have plenty of energy then.