I'm afraid I do not own the Baby-Sitters Club, Ann M. Martin.

I was in one of my art classes at Stoneybrook Community College; I'm in my second year there. It's the same college where my older sister, Janine, attends in her last year. She's studying to be a tutor; you want to know why? She's a genius that's why! She started taking classes there when she was still in high school. That's how smart she is.

I'm Claudia Kishi and I'm twenty years old. I grew up here in Stoneybrook, Connecticut. I'm studying to be an artist. I want to start a business like my own art shop in my home on Bradford Court. I've been taking art classes for as long as I can remember. I still do over the summer. I enjoy making my own jewelry, pottery, etc.

Two of my friends, Mary Anne Spier and her best friend, Kristy Thomas, attends here as well. We grew up together until they both moved to join a stepfamily in a bigger house. But Mary Anne is the only one who rents an apartment with her two other friends since, unfortunately, she doesn't live here anymore. She loves to sew since Mimi taught her to do so when we were thirteen and she decided to study to be a fashion designer here. As for Kristy, who enjoys sports, wants to a be a softball couch like she to form back then. She's been taking a long break since we started college and would like to start up again once finish college. They both turned twenty recently.

Mary Anne moved to Portland, Maine, when we were in high school. We were all heartbroken, especially Kristy. The move was very hard on Mary Anne at first because she's shy around new people. Even though she's twenty now, she still can be very shy. She's also sensitive. She lives in Maine with her dad, her stepmom, stepsister, her grandmother and two adopted siblings. Let me back up on how she ended up moving there.

First of all, she grew up without a mother who died when Mary Anne was much too little to remember. Mr. Spier raised her on his own. Then one day when she was twelve years old, her dad had a surprise visitor. His old girlfriend from high school happened to move back here all the way from California after a rough divorce. Her name was Sharon Schafer. She came here with her two children, Dawn and Jeff. Mary Anne and Dawn were surprised to hear that their parents went to Stoneybrook High School together a very long time ago. They got back together and several months later, they ended up getting married and the two best friends became... stepsisters! Jeff never got used to Stoneybrook and moved back to California to be with his father.

Plus, Mary Anne has two adopted siblings, Meredith Sousa and Carlos Peters. They became orphans at a young age. First, Carlos was only eight years old when he lost his entire family. He and his eleven-year-old brother had a scarlet fever. Carlos had it for a week and got well, but his brother died five days later. Then a few months later, both of his parents died in a car crash and his nine-year-old sister was killed with them.

Meredith, who was from London, England, was nine when her father was killed when a tourbus got blown up. Meredith was thirteen when she became an exchange student and stayed with the Schafer-Spier family. She didn't stay there for long when she had a letter saying both her mother and only sister- who was ten- got killed the same way her father died.

Then when we just started ninth grade, Mr. Spier had big news to give to his family: he was getting promoted and transferred to Portland, Maine in either December and January. They decided to do January after her grandmother, Verna Baker, was invited to come down from Iowa for Christmas. She was Mrs. Spier's mother. Then, Mary Anne was thrilled when Mrs. Baker was moving to Maine with them when her dad told her a few months back when they went there to visit two high school for open houses over Veretan's Day Weekend. They moved to Maine over Martin Luther King Day Weekend. That's how they started a new life in Maine. Unfortunately for Mary Anne, her grandmother died when she was sixteen while she was pregnant with her two-year-old son, Cameron Richard, who will be turning three on December 17th. He's here with her and goes to day care at the college. He's a wonderful kid. Mary Anne just loves her son. Oh, one more thing: she has diabetes, but she was glad Cameron was born healthy even though she was worried about that back then. Mary Anne had just finished a National Tour before moving to Maine to join her family since sixteen was too old for Annie.

Dawn is into health food. Honest! She likes tofu, soy milkshakes, and so on. She attends college in California where her mother attended when she was sent away by her parents who disapproved of Mr. Spier dating Sharon. She's studying to be a waitress and is going to stay there for the rest of her life starting after she finishes college. But she will visit Maine whenever she's on vacation.

Kristy and I were thrilled when we found out Mary Anne decided to be back in Stoneybrook for college & I think she's going to decide to live here right after college. Thank god!

"Our class is welcome to sign up for an art show that is going to be in four weeks and there will be a special surprise for a grand prize winner. Just come see me after class and you'll have a week to create anything you want to enter when you fill an application with the creation & I can only chose ten to twelve students," announced my professor, Mrs. Karen Lee. "I'll tell you more about it tomorrow."

I was thrilled when I heard there was going to be an art show and a lot of people say I'm very creative. I already know what to draw to enter it and for the art show.

"You may do it now in class and if you're done early, you're allowed to turn it in to me while I give you the application," said Karen.

Most of your college teachers let you call them by their first, which was an optional. Karen reminds me of Kristy's younger stepsister. I got out a blank white paper.

"You can use the crayons, markers, paint, strings, etc," continued Karen.

I started to draw a mansion that Kristy's stepfather owns for a long time. The mansion was brown with bricks.

"Are we allowed to use a picture with anything if we decided to do protaits?" asked a student.

"Yes. That's an exceptional," replied Karen.

I didn't need a picture of a mansion since I can do any buildings without pictures. After I drew the mansion with a black crayon, I used a blue crayon to draw some windows in the front and included red shutters as I colored them in. The mansion has a red door and drew & colored that as well. After I did that, I got out a brown crayon as I made bricks and colored them lightly. I was done in ten minutes. I decided to draw grass both sides and included a tree on one of them & added flowers on the other side. I was done after I added a chemny of course. Most chemnys are red, but Watson's was brown and I colored that. I used black crayon for smoke.

I put my name in the back of the drawing and went up to hand it to the teacher.

"Very impressive work," said Karen.

"Thanks. One of my friends' stepfather owns a mansion. He's a millionaire," I told her.

"Very nice," said Karen as she got the application out and hand it to me. "Here's the application and look it over tonight & you can return it to me tomorrow."

"Okay, sounds good," I smiled as she gave it to me. "Thank you."

"You can leave the class since it's almost over in a few minutes," said Karen.

I got my stuff and left there to my next class, which is in business, so I'll know what to do to own a business. That can cost a lot of money, but I bet if I win the grand prize, it'll be no cost to own one. Most businesses include employees, but I'll let Janine help me out if she's not too busy with tutoring. Mom works at Stoneybrook Library until six at night except on Wednesdays and Saturdays, which she works until five. I'm not sure if she would like to help out, too. Dad is a firm lawyer and works until six every night especially on weekends, so he won't be free to help as well. Janine would be the only one since she only tutors with any troubled students at their homes when she's needed.

"If someone gives you their credit card or a check, what should you do in case if it's stolen?" asked my teacher, Mr. Patrick Mills as I raised my hand. "Yes, Claudia."

"You should always ask them to show you their valid ID at all times. Most places do that and some don't, but they still should do it," I replied.

"Very good, I agree the ones who don't still should do so," said Patrick.

"The ones who don't could be fine if that person might have someone's card and not knowing it," said a student.

"Yeah and could put at risk of losing their businesses," added another student.

"I agree with you as well," agreed Patrick. "Say if you didn't check their IDs, what would you do?"

"Just tell they need to show you their IDs or they can not swipe their credit cards," said the third student.

"I disagree, they should try to do next time before they'd get fined," I said.

"You're right, Claudia," said Patrick.

After my last class, I waited for Janine. Sometimes, we give each other rides every now and then since we're at the same college until next year when Janine's all done with college. At home, I was filling my application out. Since I'm not a minor, my parents don't need to sign it. It didn't take me long to do so. I can start it if Karen gives the date for the art show a week ahead to give me time to do my next idea for a picture.

That night, at dinner, I told my parents what was happening next month.

"I already filled the application," I said.

"Don't we need to sign it?" asked Mom.

"No, I'm not a minor anymore. If I was under eighteen, that's different," I said.

"She's right, Mom," said Janine. "Minors are always under eighteen."

The next day, I passed in the application and Karen thanked me. Once everyone arrived, she told us more about the art show.

"The date of the art show will be October 20th from seven to nine at night and it'll take place here at Stoneybrook Community College in the main lobby near the lunch area. You have loads of time to the project for the art show. It's due no later than October 18th," announced Karen.