Chapter 1

When the Baby-sitters Club began to fall apart, I couldn't exactly say I was surprised. As the vice-president and one of the first members—and one of the last—I'd slowly seen it coming.

When Kristy Thomas, the founder and president, began to lose interest, it was a pretty big shock. The short, plain girl with a big mouth and bigger ideas had been so interested in the club since she started it at the age of twelve that she often had us doing things with the kids we baby-sat for, like washing cars or holding summer camps, sometimes to raise money for a good cause and sometimes just for fun. I think the divorce between her mother and stepfather was the reason Kristy lost her interest, but it was still a surprise.

Mary Anne, one of the most timid members, was next. She and her father and their new family members (Mary Anne's best friend Dawn, also part of the club) and Dawn's mother, Mary Anne's father's second wife moved away.

Stacey was hit by a car and was killed in the month before her fourteenth birthday. Jessi began taking extra ballet classes when Mallory Pike, her best friend and another BSC member, left for boarding school to escape a disastrous time in school.

That left me, Claudia Kishi, with our associates, Logan and Shannon, who are usually really busy and only called on when necessary. The club disintegrated within three weeks.

Now, though, I've almost gotten used to being able to spend my time as I want. I still get a lot of baby-sitting jobs, but because clients never stopped calling, I raised my hourly rate to five dollars. And it didn't matter that I did, since I was one of the only well-known sitters around that people knew to call. I'd raised my grades and taken on an advanced art class, too, and I still found time for baby-sitting.

It was a good thing, too, because I had a job at six-fifteen with new clients, the wealthy Battista family. The job was for three-year-old Kerry, who I'd heard from a classmate, was very sweet.

I rushed out the door and caught the bus. It was better than walking. Three inches of snow had fallen in the last hour, and it was nearing fifteen degrees below zero.

When I finally found the Battista house, I was almost five minutes late. I kept my fingers crossed as I hurried up the shoveled walkway leading up to a huge house, decorated with flashy lights. I could see a big, fluffy pine tree glittering with golden lights and sparkly garlands and tinsel. I could see piles of presents stacked beneath.

Please don't be mad, please don't be mad, I practically prayed, ringing the doorbell.

It was opened only seconds after I rang the bell, and I couldn't help but stare at the sight that greeted me.

"Hi. You must be Claudia. I'm Bobbi, Kerry's sister. Please, come in." The girl stepped aside with a brilliant smile.

She was obviously older than me, but I couldn't tell by how much. She had long, golden-blonde hair and bright, blue-green eyes, and flawless, peachy skin with pale, rosy cheeks. She was tall and muscular, and had a perfect figure that was flaunted by the tight purple and black leotard she was wearing. She was also wearing makeup and two silver rings pierced into each of her ears.

Beside her, smiling shyly up at me, was an adorable little girl with pale blue eyes and a pale little face framed by pale blonde tendrils that had fallen free from her pigtails. She was dressed in dark blue jeans, a pink mohair sweater, and pink and white sneakers. Her pigtails were held in place with silky white ribbons.

"This is Kerry. She'll be four in the spring. She's already had dinner and a bath, but she can have four Oreo cookies if she brushes her teeth, and she likes to be read silly stories before bedtime, which is usually eight-thirty. Emergency phone numbers are on the fridge, and I should be home by nine. My cell number is on the fridge, too."

"Didn't you say you were Kerry's older sister?"

Bobbi looked a little confused. "Yes."

"Oh. Okay," I said. But inwardly, I was thinking about why Bobbi, who couldn't have been more than eighteen, was acting as the parent to such a young girl.

Seeming to know my thoughts, Bobbi closed the door.

"Our mother is a widow and a lawyer," she explained, shrugging into a long black coat and picking up a purple book bag with a pink flower on the front. "She works a lot and doesn't have much time for Kerry. Since I'm about to graduate, I took on our mother's role for Kerry's sake. It isn't easy, but I've got my final tests coming up next week, and I have to study." She made her escape.

"Are you really fourteen years old?" Kerry asked, speaking perfectly and without the childish whine and confused words and the other 'learning to speak' issues most little kids have.

"Um…yes," I replied, surprised.

"Bobbi is only three years older," Kerry informed me, her big blue eyes, framed by long, thick eyelashes, blinking up at me.

I didn't know what to say. Luckily, Kerry didn't seem to care. She took my hand gingerly and led me to the kitchen. The whole house was beautiful, in blue and white. Kitchen appliances in stainless steel gleamed, and Kerry seated herself at the kitchen table. To ease some tension, I pulled the package of Oreos from the cupboard and poured two glasses half-full of milk. Kerry ate in silence.

After the snack, which I cleaned up while Kerry chose a board game from the stack on the den shelves, we played until eight, when Kerry brushed her teeth and I helped her put on her warm snowflake pajamas, which had been laid out on her bed. She fell asleep before her bedtime, and I spent the next forty minutes making sure no trace of our evening of games and Oreos was evident in the immaculacy of the house, thinking about how odd it was for someone only three years older than I was to raise a little child, full-time, without pay.

When Bobbi returned, she didn't seem to remember that she'd told me a lot about her situation. She paid me and I left.

"No, no, Kerry's really sweet," I told Emily Bernstein over the phone later that night. "She's only three, but she talks like she's much older. And she didn't complain or throw a fit about anything. Not brushing her teeth, or putting away the games, or going to bed."

"Yeah. That's what I've heard. Listen, what did you think of Kerry's big sister?"

"Bobbi?" I asked. "Well, she was—pretty mature, I think. Taking care of Kerry almost entirely by herself?"

"It's not like she has a lot of trouble with that. But that's exactly why we think she's so weird. How can a busy seventeen-year-old about to graduate from high school be the perfect mother to a three-year-old? It's not like her mother is there to help."

"She might be, some of the time. But what does that have to do with anything?"

"Think about it this way, Claudia. How much homework do you have? How much time a day do you think your mother has to do something around the house? Dishes, laundry, whatever. Bobbi must have some way to keep her little sister perfect, the house perfect, and make such perfect grades."

"What, you think…you think she hurts her little sister?"

"Well, how else can she keep making straight A's and keep the house perfect? It's not like the Battista family would hire maids. Apparently the Battista family is composed of wealthy lawyers who have lots of enemies because of how many people they've helped prosecute. They almost never let outsiders into their house. And if Bobbi's hurting that kid, it makes sense why."

"I guess, but Bobbi didn't seem the type. When I was sitting for the Nicholls family, I knew one the first day that something wasn't right." (I'd told Emily* all about that situation, in which I'd once taken a job for some new clients that ended up being a much bigger situation than I'd imagined.) "And Bobbi really seems to care for Kerry, and Kerry really seems to look up to her."

"Yes, but if you'll be going back, be sure to keep an eye open for anything unusual," Emily finally said. "Just to be safe."

As it turned out, it was a good thing I was cautious. Bobbi called when Emily and I hung up and asked me to watch Kerry the next afternoon, and I agreed. Bobbi said something about needing to help a friend, and she sounded like she was telling the truth.

"If you can be here by about two, it would be perfect," Bobbi said. "Kerry will have had lunch and just woken up, so she can have a snack if she's hungry and will probably want to play. I shouldn't be more than an hour or two."

"Okay, sure," I agreed, and when Bobbi and I hung up, I called Emily back. "What kinds of things should I look out for?"

"Well, when you go there tomorrow, walk up the driveway slowly and see if anything looks out of the ordinary. Maybe see if you can hear Kerry crying, and when you see her, look for signs of bruising or marks that would tell you if she was hit. If she seems to be moving oddly, like she's in pain, keep it in mind. It may be more than that she slept wrong. And if you have a chance, maybe look around the house a little. You might find something incriminating."

"Like what? A bloody tissue?"

"I guess it's possible. Anyway, I have to go. I have to finish an essay for English class."

"Yeah, I guess I've got some homework, too. See you tomorrow."

We hung up and I lay back in bed. Having read many mysteries, I knew quite a bit about detective work. I knew what kinds of things would indicate that someone had been hurt. Then again, I couldn't exactly go crawling around in the Battista house in broad daylight; Kerry would probably tell her sister, and any 'detective game' I could make up would have to be explained carefully, either to Kerry or Bobbi, both of whom wouldn't see my side of things.

How did I even get dragged into this?

"See you in an hour or two!" Bobbi called, hurrying out.

Kerry stood in the hallway, watching me. This time, instead of wearing a pink sweater, she was wearing a cute, navy-blue denim skirt with a bright yellow tank top and dark blue stockings.

"I didn't know you were coming," Kerry informed me. "Bobbi was just about to play Sorry! with me. Do you want to play?"

I hadn't thought it was a good idea, but it turned out that it was. We played seven games in a row before tiring of it and taking the Checkers game from the shelf. And Kerry was good; she could count and played Sorry! better than I'd expected she would. The other games we played were no different; Kerry could count and spell and even play strategic games I hadn't learned until I was ten.

"Are you sure you're three?" I teased, when I was putting game pieces back into the box and Kerry was drinking a glass of juice.

Kerry regarded me with solemn eyes, but didn't speak. I found myself feeling mesmerized by those eyes; like the eyes of most children, they reflected purity and innocence and trust, and yet, I sensed something darker, something hidden, in those icy, crystal-blue eyes. When Bobbi returned, I realized I hadn't had a chance to look around. Kerry had kept me perfectly busy the whole time.

* * *

"It was like she knew I was going to be looking around and kept me busy the whole time. It wasn't like she misbehaved at all, but she just managed to hold my attention. And she never answered my question."

"Well, she is a child," Emily replied. "Even if she's strange, we know for sure she isn't more than four years old. And I don't think Kerry or Bobbi would lie about her age."

"Bobbi might, but children typically don't lie," I pointed out. Something I'd always loved about little kids was that they, without holding back, told the truth. If an adult asked if they were ugly or asked a question that could be answered to offend a person, a kid typically gave the answer that was true and wondered later why the adults were shocked. That happened to me; I'd tell someone if they were ugly if they asked, and it never occurred to me that people would lie about those things. Kids fascinate me.

"I know. Do you think it's weird that Bobbi keeps calling you? Doesn't her situation call for criminal history checks and having multiple sitters so nobody gets too close with the family?"

"Maybe she wants one person to trust," I said, after some thinking, "or maybe she wants Kerry to have a familiar face around."

"Or maybe she has some other reason. In any case, if she calls again, make sure you get the chance to look around."

"Emily? Can you remind me why we're so suspicious? They seem perfectly nice."

"A busy teenager with perfect grades is raising a child alone, in a situation where their parents are either dead or away at work a lot and they may have criminals out for revenge as enemies. Not just that, but Kerry is perfectly sweet and polite and innocent, totally unscarred by the death and practically abandonment by her parents. Doesn't any of that just seem a little weird to you?"

"Yes," I admitted, thinking it over. "But I've never heard Kerry mention anything being wrong, and I've never seen her with a bruise or cut or even a red mark," I added, remembering the Nicholls boys and the slapping sound I'd once heard when getting my jacket to leave after a job there. I'd seen one of the boys with a red cheek as I left, and been unsure. Since then, I'd figured out that there was a case of child abuse happening, and we'd helped the kids and their mother into safety. Emily* had been a part of the rescue.

"Kerry may not have said anything because she's been told not to. Or threatened," Emily replied. "It wouldn't be the first case of child abuse in which a child is threatened not to say anything."

"But this isn't really a case of child abuse," I said. "We have no proof. And Kerry doesn't seem to have been threatened."

At that exact moment, my older sister peered into my room, eyes wide. I could tell she'd heard everything I'd just said.

"I have to go, Emily. I'll talk to you in a few minutes." Janine, my sister, stepped in and closed the door behind her. She seated herself on my bed and waited as I hung up and swiveled in my chair to face her. She pushed her glasses into place on her face.

But she didn't speak. She just sat there, in her plain, nerdy clothes, and waited for me to explain. She can be pretty annoying.

"You know how I told you the BSC fell apart?" I asked, even though I knew perfectly well she did. She'd spent a month being really nice and trying to make me feel better, even taking over my chores sometimes. "Well, I'm one of the only baby-sitters around now, so a new family in town, the wealthiest clients I've ever had, called me to look after a little girl. It turns out that she's being raised almost entirely by her teenage sister." I explained the rest to her, even adding that I'd been there only twice and that Bobbi and Kerry were both pretty sweet. I described both girls as best I could.

"Nothing sounds strange about that situation to me," Janine replied, keeping her meticulously precise word choice perfect. (She talks like a dictionary. Oh, excuse me. She speaks like a dictionary.) "It sounds like Bobbi is doing a wonderfully adequate job."

"I think so, too." I hurriedly explained what Emily thought, and why. "And it does seem a little weird, considering everything."

"The next time you go watch Kerry, see that she is involved in an activity before you do any investigating. The only way to proceed wisely is to know exactly what's going on."

When Janine left, I called Emily back and told her everything about my conversation with Janine. When we hung up, I lay back on my bed and sighed.

And found myself crossing my fingers and hoping I'd get another call from Bobbi Battista.

The next morning, after a long, hot shower, I relaxed as I ate a bowl of cereal and worked on the only homework we'd been assigned before Spring Break, which had started after school the day before the previous day. I was halfway through the assignment (homework had become easier) already when Bobbi called.

"I'm sorry to be calling so early, but something has come up. If you can come over to watch Kerry for a few hours, I'll pay you triple."

(I wasn't about to say I'd been hoping she'd call, but I wasn't going to tell her I didn't have plans anyway. I agreed.)

"No problem, when should I be there?"

Only half an hour later, with my books under my arm, I found myself ringing the Battista doorbell.

It was opened seconds later. Bobbi, wearing tight camouflage cotton pants and a tight white tank top and white sneakers, hurried past me. "Numbers are on the fridge!"

Behind her, just like the last two times, Kerry waited patiently for me to come inside. She watched me seriously, with a small smile. Almost a knowing smile, like she knew something I didn't.

We spent three hours playing before Kerry fell asleep, and I took the opportunity, when she was sleeping soundly on the couch, to look around. Being as quiet as I could, I walked slowly through each room in the house and peered into closets. I saw nothing strange, and looking again and this time crawling around and standing on my toes for a new view didn't help. The only thing I noticed was that the house was incredibly clean. Even when my mother spent hours cleaning, our house was never as clean as the Battista house always seemed to be. That was a little suspicious, but not enough to convict someone of child abuse. Maybe the cleanliness wasn't to hide evidence. Maybe Kerry or Bobbi or their mother had allergies.

Kerry woke up about an hour after I began my search, about fifteen minutes after I'd given up and settled myself in on a reclining armchair and flipped through the stack of magazines (each the latest edition and organized alphabetically) on the table beside me.

That was how Bobbi found us when she came home; me tidying the stack of magazines and Kerry just sitting up and stretching sleepily.

And Bobbi, who had promised to pay me triple, shelled out a one-hundred dollar bill and handed it to me.

"I know it's forty dollars more than I said it would be, but I can't thank you enough for coming," Bobbi replied, answering my unasked questions. My expression must have given me away. "My friend—the one I went to help the other day—is in crisis. Her parents are divorcing, and she's really upset. She tried to kill herself." As if she'd suddenly come back to reality, Bobbi looked shocked that she'd said so much, and shook her head as if to disperse the truth from the air. "Anyway, I'd like to make you an offer. If you can manage it, I think it would be wonderful for Kerry if you were a more routine sitter. Kind of like being on-call, at least until the winter break is over. And hopefully my friend will be out of crisis then. I can pay ten dollars an hour, and it could be erratic hours."

"Erratic?" I repeated.

Bobbi sat back, quickly peering over her shoulder to make sure Kerry, slowly eating a honey graham cracker at the table, was oblivious to us.

"My friend isn't the most stable, and wasn't even before her parents announced the divorce. The hours that someone needs to be here to watch Kerry could be as many as five a day, and could be overnight or early in the morning."

I nodded. "I'd like to…but, is it okay if I ask questions?"

"Of course," Bobbi replied, with a quick nod.

"Well…I don't mean to pry, but isn't your mother home at night?"

Bobbi looked serious. "Not always. She's usually home by ten, but she isn't always. And she leaves early in the morning. She hasn't been the best with schedules and parenting since my father's death, and I didn't want to see Kerry off to some kind of foster home. I don't usually reveal personal details, but if you accept the job with us, I feel it's only fair to let you in further than just as someone who comes often to watch Kerry. It's hardly fair for you to take on caring for a child when you don't know the basics of the family."

I nodded. So far, everything was understandable. Despite some 'bumps in the road,' as my mother would say, the eldest daughter of the Battista family seemed to have everything under control.

"I hope my friend won't need me much," Bobbi added. "I've told her father everything I know, and he seemed concerned enough to want to get some help for her. But until then…"

"Until then, I'd be happy to be Kerry's baby-sitter until I'm not needed," I said, to which Bobbi smiled.

My mother was both confused and pleased by my new job. But she didn't forbid it, despite the possible odd hours, since I didn't tell her everything. I noticed Janine watching me across the breakfast table the next day.

"You did not tell the whole truth," she observed aloud, when my mother had left the house for her shift at the library.

"I know. And it won't matter. Didn't you say nothing seemed weird about the family?"

"Yes, I did. But it does not matter. You should tell Mom the truth if there is nothing to hide."

I kept from rolling my eyes until Janine had left the room.

In the past, all of this would have been the kind of thing I could have called Stacey or Kristy or Mary Anne about. But Stacey was dead, and things had changed. Mary Anne's house had burned down, and she and her family eventually moved away for a fresh start. Kristy probably wouldn't care if I told her what was happening. The fire had left Kristy, and she now spent most of her time lounging around in front of the TV and insulting people with sarcastic remarks. We'd lost touch with Mallory about six months after she'd gone to boarding school, and Jessi and her family had moved to a city just past Stamford when Aunt Cecelia died. (Jessi was taking her ballet lessons at an advanced school of dance and 'performing arts'.) Abby had gotten so involved with sports (and Logan had, too) that she was constantly out of the house when I called, and never responded to messages I left for her. Logan was busy with sports and his new girlfriend, a friend of Stacey's old boyfriend Robert; someone named Andi Gentile or something. Shannon, forever the academic star student and role model for fifty years into the future, was also busy and had made it clear she could 'no longer be bothered with petty little children and frivolous, superficial problems.'

Emily Bernstein was pretty much all I had left.

I updated her on the new situation and she went on for a while about how many new opportunities this created.

Emily was pretty sure Bobbi was abusing Kerry, but I wasn't. It was obvious to me that Emily was very into this 'case,' but as much as I missed solving mysteries with the BSC (which was a Mary Sue of a club if I'd ever seen one) I wasn't ready to accuse Bobbi of hurting a little girl when there wasn't any evidence and both of them seemed perfectly nice and perfectly honest.

I decided to wait and see. Bobbi was bound to call again, and I intended to take advantage of the 'erratic hours' to do some investigating, whether I was certain there was something to investigate or not.

- Author's Note: Okay, to anyone who was reading my other Baby-Sitters Club fan-fic, Boundaries, I should explain: I lost interest in it but still have a copy, so anyone interested can finish the story if they want, as long as they credit me for the four short chapters I wrote. Yes, I am a terrible author. I have excuses, though.

Anyway, one of my favorite (and there weren't many) BSC books was Claudia And The Terrible Truth. (The Nicholls family mentioned in this story is copyright to Ann Martin and Scholastic.) Bobbi Battista and Kerry, as well as this plot, are MINE. The asterisk by Emily Bernstein's name in this chapter represent that I think, but am not sure, that Emily was the girl in Claudia/Terrible Truth that baby-sat the Nicholls boys and helped Claudia rescue them from their abusive father. Please correct me if I'm wrong! And to explain, I used Emily because, for some reason, even as a minor character in the BSC series she seemed nice and like a character with a lot of potential, though I don't think she ever amounted to anything more than a supporting character. She might end up reprising her role here.

I do think this chapter, although one of my longest ever, is a bit boring and probably repetitive, but for those with hope for the more hopeless of fan-fiction authors, I think it will get better. In any case, I'm hoping I won't lose interest in this story! It's got a much better plotline and much more motivation than Boundaries did! If you enjoyed or have criticism for me, please review! -