"Step, step, step, KICK! Step, step, step, KICK! Step, step..."
I actually had to say this as I did exercise kicks down the Ramsey's driveway so that I would be sure to take exactly three steps between each kick. I was concentrating hard, and Jessi had told me only to kick waist-high until I got the technique down cold. Right now that was fine because I didn't think I could kick much higher as it was.
"Remember to go up on your toes on the first two steps, but then keep your heel planted on the ground as you kick. Try not to hunch over when you kick. Keep your back straight!" Jessi shouted instructions to me while I tried to do everything she said and still keep counting and remember how many times to step. It was definately harder than it looked when Jessi did it. And I hadn't even gotten to doing jump kicks yet!
Becca was sitting in a folding chair, doing her history homework. She looked up at me and decided to cheer me on. "Way to go, Vanessa! You're starting to look like a Brookette!"
I finally finished kicking down the driveway. I bent over to catch my breath, clearly out of shape. It was Monday afternoon and I had come home today with Jessi and Becca. Jessi and I had made plans to work on preparing me for the JV team tryouts. They were still five weeks away, but I hadn't done much stretching or dancing in awhile. And I had never tried doing high kicks. But Jessi assured me it wasn't too difficult to learn. And that my kicks would be wonderful if I was flexible and had good technique. We were going to work on it as often as we could.
"It's true; you're coming along," Jessi said, "Take a break. We've been at it for awhile."
I gratefully obeyed, taking a seat on the pavement at Becca's feet and gulping down the water that I had brought with me. "So, how was your job sitting for the Prezziosos?"
"Well, you know that Jenny, Andrea, and Kaylee do modelling right?" Becca asked. I nodded. "Well, get this. The girls are going to be in this catalogue that sells frilly clothes just like the stuff they all wear?"
I laughed. "Yeah, what about it?"
"Andrea and Kaylee are thrilled about it. But Jenny thinks the clothes are babyish. I mean, she is nine years old. She's going to wear a slightly older version of the dress that Andrea and Kaylee will model; they'll all match. It's weird because normally Jenny would love getting dressed up and modelling in a catalogue. But she said she'd rather be wearing cool clothes, like faded jeans and boots that zip up. The kind of clothes her friends wear."
"Oh," I said. "Did you mention that in the notebook?"
"Yes, Madame President," Becca teased.
"Just making sure." I stretched my legs straight out in front of me and leaned over to grab my feet. Pretty soon Jessi was behind me, gently pressing down on my back. Slowly, I loosened up a little and my stomach touched my legs. I realized I was practically folding myself in half!
"You're already pretty flexible," Jessi told me. "You'll be even more flexible in a few weeks. But I think I'd better warn you that you'll be sore tomorrow from all this."
"So then I'd better lay off working out tomorrow?" I pondered.
"Oh, no!" From the expression on Jessi's face, you would think I had just asked her if I should shave my head. "You have to be sore first and work through the pain in order to become more flexible. You'll just have to push yourself a little more tomorrow because it won't come as easily."
"Oh. Okay," I sighed a little, thinking that it hadn't been easy to begin with. "Well then, same time same place tomorrow?" I was in the process of grabbing my bag full of my school books and school clothes. It was Monday and nearly 5:30. Becca and I were headed off to another meeting of the BSC.
Probably noticing that my face was flushed and I was sweating like a pig, Jessi offered to drive us over to the meeting, even though we could have walked. We gratefully accepted her offer and rode over to Haley's house with the air conditioner cranked up and blowing right in my face.
On the way over, Becca commented, "I just don't get it. Why do they make them try out just to be in the prep class?"
"I see you've been paying attention," Jessi noted sarcastically. "The members of the prep class are also considered the junior varsity drill team. That means that they perform at some of the JV games... not all of them, but a lot of them. And, in addition to that, they perform with the varsity team at Homecoming. Plus, they go to competition to compete on the JV level. AND on top of all that, they do a lot in the spring show."
"Vanessa, you should tryout for captain of the JV team!" Becca said.
"HA! No way!" I retorted.
"She couldn't be considered for it," Jessi informed her, turning onto Haley's street.
"Why not?"
"It has to be a sophomore or a junior."
By this time, Becca looked pretty bewildered and probably had more questions that she wasn't going to ask just then because if she did, Jessi would continue to go on about drill team until she was blue in the face. I pretty much understood the rules by now. I knew that the Varsity Brookettes was composed of the elite sophomore, junior, and senior dancers. And I knew that all a puny little freshman like me could be was a junior varsity line member. But there was no shame in that.
I still looked pretty bad when Jessi dropped Becca and I off at Haley's house. I caught a glimpse of myself in the hallway mirror. My hair was all over the place and I looked especially awful next to Becca who was still wearing her school clothes with her hair fixed in an assortment of neat looking braids.
Oh, well. No one cared how I looked. I was just going upstairs to be with the other members of the BSC for an hour, and then I could go home and take a long shower.
Or... so I thought.
When Becca and I went upstairs, the other members of the BSC had already beaten us there. Marilyn and Carolyn were sitting on Haley's bed, and Carolyn was helping her twin with her science homework. Charlotte was filing her nails and sitting on the floor. Haley was there, too, sitting on the futon next to Zach Yama-
Zach Yamakawa?!
My stomach nearly dropped to my knees upon seeing him there, and I'm sure it didn't look very attractive when my mouth did the same thing. Not to mention, I didn't look very attractive to begin with. What on earth was Zach doing at our meeting? And why, oh why didn't anyone warn me?
Luckily, Becca spoke up because I certainly couldn't, even though Zach's eyes went straight to me when we walked in. I thought surely I had forgotten how to talk, and I know that I probably looked like I had forgotten how to brush my hair, too.
"Hi," she said slowly. "I don't think I know you. I'm Becca Ramsey and this is Vanessa Pike." From the look on her face, I knew that if she had wanted to forget about being tactful, she would have added, And why are you at our meeting?
"I know Vanessa," he grinned at me and I managed to smile weakly, while quickly re-doing my ponytail into something a little less horrible-looking. "My name is Zach. Zach Yamakawa. I don't know if Vanessa told you all, but I babysat with her this weekend."
"Oh, you're Zach!" Becca gushed. "Yes, Vanessa wrote all about you in the--" She stopped herself, but it was a little late for that. "I mean, she mentioned you in the club notebook."
Oh wonderful, Becca, I thought. Go on and nearly tell the guy that I went on and on about how cute he was in the club notebook. Just go right ahead and embarrass me to death.
The other club members looked ready to laugh. At least I knew now that they really had been reading the club notebook, if that was any consolation. Zach seemed oblivious to all of this; he just nodded his head and then looked completely dumb-founded when Carolyn couldn't hold in her laughter and longer and let loose. Beside her, Marilyn stuck an elbow in her sister's side to shush her.
"What brings you here?" Becca finally asked.
"Well, Saturday Vanessa told me she had just started this baby-sitting club," Zach began. " I've done a lot of baby-sitting. In Ashfield, I've had plenty of experience."
"Really?"asked Charlotte, as if it were the most interesting thing anyone in the history of the world had ever said. I looked at the rest of the club and they all looked equally impressed.
And I thought the idea of a club sounded neat," Zach went on. "So today at school, I found out that Haley is a member and I asked her about it..."
All eyes turned to Haley, who then explained. "Zach and I are in the same art class at school. I told him how the club worked at that we were looking for new members and invited him to come to the meeting."
She said it as if it were no big deal. I, on the other hand, was about to go through the roof. I had been thinking about looking for new members, but I had not mentioned my idea to anybody! Why did Haley suddenly decide we were looking for new members without asking us? Furthermore, why did she invite him to the meeting? I know its her house, but its not just her club.
Not that I had anything against Zach (although I was still in shock over seeing him.) I had been coming up with an elaborate plan of how to go about finding just the right person (or people) to join the club. I decided that we could hold interviews on a non-meeting day, and then allow a prospective new member to go on a few trial jobs. Then the rest of the club would vote on it and we'd either let the person in or we wouldn't.
"I know you guys probably want to make sure I'm really a good sitter before you let me in the club," Zach went on, letting me and everyone else know that Haley hadn't already made him a member of the BSC. "Just tell me what I need to do and I'll do it."
All eyes turned to me. Why? Oh yeah, because I was the president. Well, I didn't really know what to tell him. I guess I could just tell him the truth.
"Well, to be honest," I began slowly, trying to choose my words carefully, "Since we didn't know you were coming today, I don't know what we should do. You seem like a good sitter; you were great with Claudia's cousins the other day. I guess... you could come to a few more meetings and see how we do things. And we could set you up to go on a trial job. Another club member could go along with you to see how you handle things. Does that sound okay?"
Everyone nodded. "That sounds fine to me," Zach said. "Um... I feel like I've caught you all off- guard by coming here. I'm sorry about that. Only two of you know me. But I've seen a lot of you around school. (He glanced at Marilyn.) Aren't you in the band?"
She answered that she was and then the introductions began. I grew quiet again. When I had a moment, I glanced over at Haley. She was looking at me warily, probably aware that I wasn't too happy with her. I decided to hang around and talk to her about this little surprise after the meeting.
Eventually the phone rang. Becca reached for the phone saying, "Now you can see how we operate, Zach." She picked it up. "Hello, Baby-sitters Club... Mrs. Tiner! Hello!"
I forgot about Zach being there for a moment, realizing that Sadie and Sealie's mother had called us back! That meant that we had found ourselves a regular client. I wondered if this could be Zach's trial job, but then an awful thought hit me. What would Mrs. Tiner think of one of us bringing a boy along on our sitting job? She didn't know us too well yet; she might not approve of that very much.
Becca hung up, relayed the information to Charlotte, and Charlotte checked the record book. All the while, Zach was watching with growing interest. "Looks like it'll be me sitting on Tuesday afternoon. I'm the only one free. Are you guys really that busy?"
We all nodded and then Carolyn said," Should Zach go with Charlotte? This could be his trial job." Again, she was looking at me to answer this question, and I had no idea.
"I can't," Zach butted in, before I could answer. "I have football practice. I'm on the JV team."
"Well, maybe you'll be free for another job," Charlotte said, reaching for the phone to call Mrs. Tiner back. "We get lots of calls during the meeting."
She was right. We did get several calls that meeting, and we managed to line up sitters for all of them. But just barely. Several times there would only be one or two of us free to take the job. We even managed to line up a trial job for Zach. We scheduled him to sit for Jamie and Lucy Newton on Tuesday evening, along with Haley. I knew Mrs. Newton wouldn't mind Zach coming along on a trial basis, and she wouldn't even care that he was a boy. She was used to having Logan Bruno sit for her kids when the old club was in business.
"These are great kids," Haley told him. "It'll be a piece of cake sitting for them."
"Great," Zach smiled, looking Haley straight in the eye. She obviously blushed just a little. I could tell because I know that her ears turn pink when she blushes, but her cheeks don't give her away. I didn't miss the fact that she un-tucked her hair from behind her ears and covered them up.
Watching them, I wondered if Zach had a crush on Haley, and I wondered if she liked him, too.
"I think you guys run your club very smoothly and professionally," Zach announced to all of us.
"Well, we learned it all after our own babysitters," Marilyn told him. "They taught us how to operate. Kristy Thomas, the former president, had all these great ideas for us to use. Kid-kits, club officers, the club notebook..."
"What exactly is the club notebook?" Zach asked.
"It's like a group diary of our babysitting experiences," Carolyn told him. "We use it to record important information about our clients and our jobs. Its right here."
And then she handed it to him, and that's when I remembered what I had written. Thinking fast, I glanced at the clock. "Would you look at that? 6:30 already. Meeting's over. Zach, I think we should wait until you're an official member until we let you read that." With that, I snatched the notebook back and set it aside. Looking bewildered, Zach nodded and stood up. The rest of the club members quickly got up and started to leave, knowing full well that I was ready for that meeting to end-- fast!
I waited for everyone else to leave, in order to speak with Haley alone. When the last club member last the room, I opened my mouth to speak. But Haley beat me to it.
"What was that all about?" She exclaimed.
"I should be asking you the same question. Why would you bring him to the meeting without telling any of us? You practically made him a member behind all of our backs!"
"I didn't think you'd mind," Haley said hotly. "You seemed pretty smitten with him in the club notebook."
I lunged after the notebook. "That's another thing! If he's going to see that, I'm ripping out my entry!" She quickly blocked me, grabbing the notebook herself.
"Oh, no you don't! This is the club's notebook, not just yours!"
"But what I wrote was private!"
"Well, maybe you should have written more about babysitting and less about your crush."
I turned abruptly to leave and that's what I saw Matt standing in the doorway, looking puzzled. Had he heard us? Oh, no, of course not. I quickly remembered that he was deaf. But he had stopped by Haley's room, and realized by our body language that we were fighting.
Haley quickly signed something to Matt. I didn't know what she was telling him because she didn't bother to speak while she signed. But he nodded, signed something back, and left.
Seeing Matt had calmed us both down. But just a little bit. After he left, she and I both looked at each other, neither of us knowing what to say. Finally I spoke up.
"I just wished you would have asked the rest of us before you invited him over."
"I assumed that we needed a new member since we've been close to not having a sitter for our client several times," Haley said. "I didn't think anyone would mind."
I paused and looked at my feet. "I guess we should have talked about that. Sorry."
"Me too," Haley said. We hugged each other awkwardly, and then I left.
But we both knew that the issue had not completely been resolved. And I had a horrible feeling in
the pit of my stomach that we would soon be fighting over the same guy.
*Author's Note*: This has been the longest chapter yet! I hope you all liked it; please let me know what you thought by giving me a review! Also, who would be interested in a second story from another babysitters' point of view when this story is done? Would you like if I wrote a story about Haley? Or would you rather read a story from another girl's perspective? Let me know!
