(Author's Note)
1. I do not own any of the BSC books all the characters, except for the ones I made up, belong to Ann M. Martin.
2. I have not read a lot of the later BSC books so I'm sorry if I'm off on some things.
3. PLEASE COMMENT!!! And I can take criticism so don't hesitate to give it when necessary.
4. ENJOY!!
Chapter 1
"Smell that, Char," I said to my six year old ?" daughter, Charlotte, as I pulled out a chocolate cake from the oven. "Won't Tomas be surprised!"
Charlotte nodded her head. "How many friends do I get to invite on Saturday?" she asked.
"Well, sweety this is Tommy's party. I think he's got the invitations down already." Charlotte gave a pitiful look. "But," I continued, "maybe he'll let you help him. After all, he's only turning eight. I'm sure he still needs his little sisters help sometimes."
With that Charlotte gave out a squeal of delight as she rushed out of the kitchen nearly knocking down her four year old sister Cassidy and her two year old sister Michelle. I rolled my eyes.
"Hi sweety," my husband, Mark, said coming into the room. He had on his blue suit since he had just gotten home from the office. I fortunately had the day off. "How's my beautiful chef?" he said giving me a kiss on the cheek.
"I'm good," I said returning this smooch, this time on the lips. "How was work dear?"
"Fine. I got a letter this morning about a high school reunion," he said sounding amused.
"Wow, you mean old Stoneybrook High?" I said returning to the cake and plopping a mound of chocolate icing on top.
"Yeah, it's been 10 years, can you believe it?"
"No, it seems like just yesterday we had Tommy and then we adopted Char, Cassie, and Shelly from the Ukraine. I miss the girls who used to be in the BSC, especially Claudia. I can't believe we lost touch after all these years."
Right now you are probably saying to yourself, "Who are you, who are the BSC, and who's Claudia!" Well, I'm Anastasia Elizabeth McGill-Petes, also known as Stacey. There are a few things you should know about me. First I am a diabetic. I was diagnosed when I was young. At first my parents, and friends, thought I had some kind of disease. My mom took me from doctor to doctor trying to find a "cure." Well, there isn't a cure for diabetes, but I'm not going to die as long as I keep it under control, which I do by giving myself shots daily and keeping to a special diet. Because of my diabetes I can't eat a lot of sweets. So you are probably wondering why I was making a cake. Well, it was going to be my son's birthday and he wanted me to make him a cake, so I did.
Back on track. The BSC stands for The Babysitters Club. It was a little club I used to be apart of when I was in middle school. It was run by Kristy Thomas, Claudia Kishi, Mary-Ann Spier, Dawn Shafer, Abby Stevenson, Mallory Pike, Jessica Ramsey, and I. Mallory and Jessi were junior members because they were two years younger than us. We were always in separate grades until our junior, their freshman, year when Mal and Jessi skipped ahead two grades. It was mostly because they started taking more Advanced Placement Courses. We were happy though to be together. We had two other associate members too, Shannon Kilborne and Logan Bruno. The club was exactly how it sounds, a babysitting club. I was the treasurer, probably because I'm good with money. That is why I am an accountant today. We would meet on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for a half an hour and parents would call us and we would line up babysitting jobs. It was really fun, and we got paid too!
The sad part is that I hadn't seen anyone, even Claudia, who was my best friend, in almost 8 years! The last time we got together was two years after we graduated from highschool. That was not a very happy reunion. The reason they all got together was because Abby, one of the former members of the BSC, was walking home from school one day when she was struck by a drunk driver and was instantly killed. Everyone came back for her funeral. It was around the same time, too, that Mary-Ann and Logan, highschool sweethearts, got married. She wanted me to be one of her bridesmaids.
We didn't mean to loose touch, but we all kind of went our separate ways. Mark and I moved here to South Dakota to be near his parents. Mallory went to New York to write. Jessi married Quint Walter, a dancer, and they moved to New York too. Kristy moved to Iowa with her husband. Dawn married Kristy's older brother and they moved to California to be with her parents. Claudia moved to Paris to paint. I think Shannon moved to London or something. The only ones who stayed in Stoneybrook were Mary-Ann and Logan.
Mark and I were highschool sweethearts too and had gotten married a year after highschool. I was pregnant with Tommy at the time of Mary-Ann's wedding. It was hard at first to have kids, then after Tommy the doctors said it was unlikely that I could get pregnant again, because of my diabetes. That was when we decided to adopt.
"I wonder how the rest of our friends doing," I continued. "You know I haven't seen them in 8 years!"
"Wow! Maybe we should go to the reunion. It would be good to see everyone, and for the kids to meet all their Aunts," he said. "But will your accounting job let you off?"
"Well, Mr. Plum did say that I had some vacation days coming up..." I started to say.
"Daddy!" The girls screamed coming in with sheets of paper. "We drew you a picture!"
"Let's see," he said taking the pictures and scooping up little Michelle. "This is truly a work of art!"
"You know," I said kneeling down to tie Cassidy's shoe. "Your Aunt Claudia used to be quite the artist."
"She was?" Charlotte asked, amazed.
"Yup," I said. "Your Daddy and I have actually been thinking of going to Stoneybrook this summer to visit them. Would you like that girls?"
The girls gave a squeal and started jumping up and down. "Yeah!" they cheered.
Just then eight year old Tomas walked in. "No," he said, "not more girls!"
With that Mark and I had to give out a laugh. I still wondered the rest of the day though, about my friends and what they were doing these days.