I came home from the meeting in a very good mood. Especially good considering I usually hate the first day of school, and consequently end up in a bad mood for the rest of the day. But even school had been great, what with freshman initiation and looking forward to the first Baby-sitters Club meeting. And then, to top it all off, the meeting had been a success. I know we only got one call, but I saw it as a victory. Especially since it was from a new client, who would help spread the word. The rest of the old BSC clients would be calling us, too. I was sure of it.
When I came in my house, Mom was in the kitchen preparing baked chicken, rice, and a green salad for dinner. Dad was helping her. Margo and Claire were pouring glasses of tea and setting the table, which meant that we would be eating soon. Adam, Jordan, Byron, and Nicky were in the backyard tossing around a football. I knew Dad probably has to force the triplets to include Nicky. First of all, they rarely include him unless they think it will be to their benefit. If Nicky has something they want, then suddenly they're his best friends. Secondly, ever since the three of them got chosen for the varsity football team, they've been acting like total hotshots and making the rest of us in the Pike family want to puke.
I went upstairs to the room that Mallory and I share. She was in there, lying on her bed and reading "Jane Eyre." That was one of the books she had read for her summer reading list. Now she was re-reading it, even though she didn't have to. She looked like she was enjoying it; she didn't even notice me come in. Mal and I are alike in that aspect-- we both love reading.
We love writing, too. But she would prefer to write children's fiction, while I would write a bazillion poems instead. In fact, I think that's a fair estimate of how many poems I have written in my lifetime. I have several fat notebooks stacked in boxes in my closet, all full of poetry. I've been writing it ever since I was eight years old.
I even have one notebook full of poems that I've written while vacationing at the house we rent ever year during our summer vacation to Sea City. Something about sitting in a window seat on the third story of the house during a thunderstorm inspires me. The first poem in my Sea City collection goes like this: "We're back, we're here, we've come once more, to our gingerbread house by the white seashore!" And then a whole lot of other rambling after that. The first line is a classic, according to Byron.
I sat down at my desk and opened up my brand new poetry notebook. I hadn't written a single poem in it yet. After a couple of moments of staring at a blank page in thought, I had dreamed up an idea for a new poem. I was just about to start writing it when the phone interrupted me...
"Hello?"
"Hey, Nessa, its Becca."
"Couldn't stand to go without hearing my voice one more time today?" I teased.
"Hardy-har-har," Becca replied, practically shouting over the loud, upbeat song in the background. "Jessi, TURN THAT DOWN! I'm on the phone... (Jessi said something indistinctly.)... I don't care if you have to practice high-kicking for drill team. You should stop before you kick yourself in the face and break your own nose!"
I cracked up at that one.
"Sorry, " Becca said to me."Jessi thinks she has to dance and stretch 24/7 now that she's a junior lieutenant on the Brookettes. Personally, I wish she'd just focus on ballet."
"Drill team looks kind of fun. I'm thinking of dropping P.E. to take the prep-class that they offer to freshmen. Besides, I hate P.E. Sounds like a nice alternative."
"Are you kidding?" Becca interjected. "Do you have any idea how hard they work those girls? Give me laps and kick-boxing any day."
"Well, we disagree," I said, knowing that we usually dropped it when one of us said that. It was a nice arrangement. "Anyway, what were you calling about?"
"The scrapbook. I think we'll need to take a picture of the original club members for the cover. And maybe we could have a picture of us with the old Baby-sitters Club, too. I was thinking I should buy it soon. Only, then I remembered, we haven't collected any dues so--"
"Dues!" I suddenly remembered that one very important aspect of the club and smacked my forehead with the heel of my hand. "Well... we'll have to tell everyone to bring their dollar to Wednesday's meeting. Then we can give it all to you to spend on the scrapbook."
"Actually, I don't have anything to do, so I was going to get Jessi to take me to Hobby Lobby to buy the stuff right now," Becca interjected. "I'll just use some of my birthday money , and I'll bring the receipt to the meeting. You guys can pay me back little by little. Because there are still other things to buy, you know. I'll get Charlotte to come with me so she can buy us a really good record book with dividers to schedule jobs and keep track of information about each client. And then we'll need to buy a club notebook."
"Wait, I have a new poetry notebook that I haven't written in. I'll just give that over to the club and buy myself a new one. The notebook is my donation to the club." I sighed, realizing I had already completely lost the inspiration for the poem I was about to write. Oh, well.
"Great, one less thing to buy. I'll call Charlotte and--"
"Mallory, Vanessa... dinner's ready!" That was Claire calling from downstairs.
"Hey, I gotta go eat dinner, Becca."
"Okay, talk to you later!"
"See ya."
Mal sat up and put down her book. Like obedient children, we both marched downstairs for another Pike family dinner. Of course, Mallory had to venture a question about my phone conversation. "YOU want to join the drill team prep class? My sister?"
I sighed. One of these days Mal is going to have to realize that I am not her. I'm interested in things she would never dream of doing. Dancing is one of them.
"It sounds like fun." I answered vaguely. Then I sat down at my usual place at the dinner table. Our family bowed our heads while Jordan said the blessing. Then we all dug in.
With ten people in our family, we don't have quiet dinners. Nicky is your typical thirteen-year-old boy, constantly talking with his mouth full. I remember one time when Margo was sitting across from him, she got so disgusted at the site of his half-chewed food that she puked. (Margo has a very weak stomach.)
Anyway, the topic of the night turned out to be Adam. To tell you the truth, I was sort of hoping to be the center of attention so that I could go on and on about the Baby-sitters Club, but Adam was having "a crisis", as he put it. He picked today to dump Shelly, his girlfriend of three weeks. Now she was mad at him, and reacting badly to the whole situation.
"Seriously, mom, she whined to practically every girl in the school..."
I stuck a forkful of salad in my mouth, and tried my best to stay out of the conversation. I knew if I opened my mouth to speak, I would end up saying something to make Adam mad. The truth is, I didn't blame Shelly. I thought it was rotten of him to dump her on the first day of school.
Poor, misguided Adam just does not know how to treat a girl. His idea of romance is taking the girl to watch his football practice. That's probably why his relationships end almost as soon as they begin. And Jordan's not much better, although somehow he manages to hang on to a girlfriend a little longer than Adam. Byron, on the other hand, is the only one with real potential. He's much more sensitive and gentle than the other two. Oddly enough, he's never had a girlfriend. I think it's just because he's shy.
And if I'm going to call Byron shy, I guess I'll have to say the same for myself. I've never had a boyfriend, but I do crush a lot. Then I just pour all of my feelings into my poetry. This is going to sound pathetic, but usually by the time I have all my emotions on paper, that's enough for me.
"Guess what Friday is," said my dad, with the goofiest grin ever plastered across his face.
Claire giggled with delight. And with that, the focus was off of Adam and now on Claire and her big tenth birthday party. Luckily, I'd gone shopping early this year. Claire's birthday always falls at a hectic time of the year since school has just begun. So this year, while shopping for my own school clothes, I also picked out a beautiful silver turtleneck for her that almost sparkled in the right light. It would look great with the black fuzzy purse and matching hat that Mallory and Margo picked out for her together. Claire was at the age where she wanted desperately to look grown-up. Being the baby of the family was a tough job.
After dinner, it was mine and Nicky's turn to do the dishes. Our dishwasher was broken, so we had to wash everything by hand, which was a pain. Just as I was wiping the last fork clean, the doorbell rang. Margo answered it, and called out, "It's Haley and Matt!"
Haley and Matt walked into the kitchen to greet us. Haley hardly ever bothers to call me on the phone. We live close enough for her to just come over, and usually she would rather talk to me in person. It's a best friend thing between us. So I wasn't surprised to see her.
"Hi," I said to her and waved for Matt. He waved back and then immediately began signing something to Nicky. Nicky signed back, and both boys laughed as they headed upstairs together.
"So," she said. "I can't stop thinking about it."
"What?" I asked, knowing what she would say.
"The Baby-sitters Club," she replied just as I had suspected.
I smiled. "I know. Isn't it exciting?"
She took a seat at the bar. "I can't believe I've got the first job. And for people we don't even know. Guess that ad in the paper really was a great idea."
"Thank you," I beamed. "We can't stop there, though. We ought to pass out fliers all over the neighborhood and--"
"Oh, that reminds me," she interjected. "Claudia hung around after the meeting, and asked me if we needed a logo. I said that we did, and she told me she had it all figured out. So I asked her what she had in mind, and she drew this for me."
Haley carefully slid a piece of paper out of the folder she had brought with her and placed it on the kitchen counter. Claud had carefully drawn the original Baby-sitters Club logo, but with one alteration. Next to the block letters that spelled out "THE" were a cluster of three balloons. Each balloon had a letter on it, that spelled out the work "NEW."
"This is perfect!" I gushed. I swear I almost wanted to cry. There is nothing like seeing your own idea bloom right before your eyes into something bigger and better than you could ever imagine.
"I know!" Haley's eyes lit up with delight.
"Wow," I added. For a moment, both of us were speechless.
"Tell you what," Haley finally said. "I can scan this on my computer, and get my mom to make copies on colored paper when she goes to work. We can tape them on doors. What do you think we need... about 50 copies?"
"At least," I said. "Tell your mom we'll pay her back when we collect enough in our dues."
"Sure," Haley nodded. "Sounds fine."
"Gosh, its a lot to think about," I commented. "I am so glad you guys have so many good ideas. Becca is out looking for scrapbook stuff already. Which reminds me, we'll have to pay her back whenever we get enough dues piled up."
"Dues!" Haley exclaimed. She'd just remembered them, too.
"It's okay," I assured her. "Since we forgot about them today, we'll pay them Wednesday this time. Then I guess we'll divide it up between you and Becca."
"Pay Becca back first," Haley said good-naturedly.
"Okay... Oh, you know what else? Kid-Kits! We need Kid-Kits!" I cried.
"Augh!" Haley added. "I need one by Friday. I need to bring it to Sadie and Sealie since I am a brand-new sitter for them."
"Okay, here's what we do," I said calmly."Decorate a large box. Then get your favorite old puzzles and books and dress-up clothes and put those in."
Haley laughed a little. "I bet Marilyn and Carolyn will make identical Kid-Kits. They don't have much of a choice, considering they used to get duplicate copies of all their toys." We both laughed at that.
After our giggles subsided, Haley ventured a question. "What about buying toys for them?"
"Well," I began, "If we want to buy anything, like markers and coloring books... I say, at least right now, we should buy those things independently. Later on, if we become rich, we can spend the dues on them. Right now we absolutely cannot."
"Right," Haley nodded. "Gosh, Vanessa... you're good!"
"Huh?"
"You're good! I mean, you're a great president. Don't take this the wrong way, but until now, I've never seen you be so assertive. I always knew you had great ideas, but I never saw you carry them out quite like this before. I'm so impressed by you." Haley smiled at me.
I smiled back, very flattered and probably blushing slightly.
For the remainder of Haley's visit, we put together my Kid-Kit. Between the eight Pike kids, there were oodles of toys and books and a great collection of dress-up clothes. I discovered several unused, forgotten coloring books, which I offered to share with Haley. Mallory even gave me her old Kid-Kit box, with a hint of sadness in her eyes.
After a couple of hours had passed, Haley realized that she and Matt needed to be getting home considering it was a school-night. So they left, and soon afterwards, I got ready to retire to my bedroom early that night.
But later on, as I lay snug in my bed , all I could think about was what Haley had said.
I was a great president.
