"Hey!" I rushed in the door at 5:35, the last to arrive to the meeting. Mrs. Tiner had been a little later than she'd planned. Of course, the rest of the club members understood that I had a job, and that was a perfectly exceptable reason to be tardy. Any other reason would have been okay, too, though. As long as I had one. I don't think we run our club quite as strictly as Kristy Thomas did. At least, not yet.

"Hi..." "How was your job?..." "Hey, Carolyn..."

"Hey," I replied. "The girls and I had a good time. Here's the notebook. You can read all about it." I passed around the club notebook, which is sort of like a diary. A group diary. We all write about our sitting jobs in it so that we can keep track of what's going on with our clients.

After about five more minutes of chatting, Vanessa started to look confused. "Why isn't the phone ringing? There's usually always someone who calls right at 5:30. Especially on a Friday."

Haley suddenly jumped up and grabbed the phone. It made a buzzing noise when she picked it up and she groaned. Then she slammed the phone back down. "Matt!"

Zach quickly restrained her, grabbing her and making her sit. "Calm down, babe."

"He can't hear you, remember?" Charlotte teased. "Is he online again?"

"I told him he couldn't tie up my phone line right now," she complained. "It's supposed to be a rule that I always get the phone right now for club meetings. Ever since we got AOL, all Matt wants to do is talk to everybody and their dog on Instant Messager."

"Well, go remind him," Vanessa said. "Nicely." She added.

Haley got up to do just that, with fire in her eyes. It had to be done, of course. The Baby-sitters Club cannot function without a free phone line.

What is the Baby-sitters Club? I said I would explain it later. The BSC consists of me and five other terrific people, six counting Marilyn. We began the club about a month ago. Vanessa had an idea for something that we could all do to make it easier for our neighbors to get sitters. The parents simply have to call one phone number to reach all of us at once. We meet on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 5:30 to 6:30 to receive our calls and arrange sitting jobs.

Sounds like a great idea, huh? Well, unfortunately we cannot take credit for it. At all. A girl named Kristy Thomas thought up the idea for the BSC about six years ago. In fact, the original BSC babysat for all but one of the members of the new BSC. We always wanted to be like them, and now we are!

Like the original BSC, we have club officers. The officers are responsible for certain duties at every meeting. Each of us holds a particular position, and I think we are all well-suited for our jobs. I cannot see us ever trading jobs. Kristy Thomas told us that the original BSC tried to switch jobs, only to realize that it was completely unneccessary and absurd. I imagine the same would apply to us.

Vanessa Pike is our club president; I think she truly deserves that title. Vanessa has always had a talent for leadership. She comes from a family of eight kids! So she knows how to deal with people, especially children. Vanessa never seems to have any time to herself. If that were me, I would go crazy. But Vanessa keeps her cool in any situation.

What else about Vanessa? She's one of the most creative people I know. She's got a real talent for writing that even shows up in her perfectly-outlined club notebook entries. But her favorite thing to do is writing poetry. She has several fat notebooks at home full of her poetry. I think she's been published in a magazine before, and she has entered lots of online contests. I think she won $300 once! Vanessa is confident in her ability to write great poems, but she lacks confidence in other areas. She always complains that she's not pretty enough. She hates her complexion. She already hates the braces that she'll be getting soon. But she's trying out for the junior varsity drill team pretty soon, and she's very prepared. We all know she'll make it. I hope that making the drill team will boost her confidence.

Haley Braddock is the club's vice-president. This is because we hold meetings in Haley's room, which she generously allows us to invade three times a week. She always tries to provide something for us to eat. Today, she had actually set out fresh strawberries with this delicious cream cheese/ whip cream dip that she had prepared for us.

Haley and I have gone to some concerts together. Neither of us will go to the really wild ones because of all the bad stuff that goes on. But we've been to some tame ones. We especially like to see the local bands that play at this coffee house called Java Jireh. We have similar tastes in music, but not always in clothes. Haley dresses however she feels, which varies from day to day. She'll go all-out punk with me for a concert, though. She's got natural, blonde shoulder-length hair, wide greenish-blue eyes, and a sprinkle of cute freckles. She and Vanessa are best friends, but I think Vanessa sometimes gets a little jealous of Haley. For several reasons. Not only is Haley gorgeous, but also she's got a boyfriend.

Moving on; next we have Rebecca Ramsey. We call her Becca. We actually invented an office for Becca to hold that the original club hadn't thought of. Becca is our club historian; she's constantly updating our club scrapbook. It looks like it's going to be a true work of art. Becca just added a picture of the entire club, meaning the original and the new club together, to the front cover. The picture was taken at the party that we had two weeks ago. Almost everyone was there. (Stacey McGill, Shannon Kilbourne, and Dawn Schafer were all unable to make it.) Becca says her next project is to take pictures of all the clients that the club sits for and give them their own pages.

What Becca enjoys doing most is acting. Her sister, Jessi, is a fantastic dancer, and her little brother has just started taking voice lessons. She comes from a family of performers, that's for sure. Not that this matters in the least to anyone, but Becca is black. She's got long legs like her older sister, and a really outgoing personality. My favorite thing about Becca is her fun-loving attitude and overactive imagination. These things make her a great baby-sitter and a great friend.

Becca's best friend is Charlotte Johanssen, the club secretary. Charlotte is our secretary because she's responsible, organized, and writes neatly and clearly. She is responsible for keeping track of everything the rest of us have to do. (Luckily, she no longer has to keep track of Marilyn. That was getting to be an impossible job.) She also schedules every job, and keeps all of our clients on file.

What else about Charlotte? She's very pretty. She's been growing out her long, wavy chesnut colored hair for a long time now, and it is almost down to her waist. I think she's planning to cut it all off eventually and give it to an organization called Locks of Love. That's how kind and giving she is. Also, she's a boy magnet. And all she has to do is bat her big, brown eyes at the boys, and they all come running. She used to date a guy named Jake Kuhn, but he dumped her (rather rudely) last month. I think she's already looking for someone better, and she'll probably find someone. Charlotte may seem a little boy-crazy, but the truth is that the boys are crazy over Char. Charlotte knows how to play hard to get.

Our newest member is very unique and different from all of us. First of all, our new member was has not been a sitting charge of the original club like the rest of us. Secondly, our new member is a boy! As a matter of fact, he's Haley Braddock's new boyfriend!

Zach Yamakawa is the club's alternate officer. That means that if any of us have to miss a meeting, Zach gets to take over that person's job while they are gone. This used to be my sister's job until she became an associate member and stopped attending meetings full-time. So far, noone has missed a meeting. People have been late, though. (Like me.) While Haley went to deal with Matt, Zach informed me that he had to be treasurer for five minutes today, and I thanked him.

Zach is new to Stoneybrook; he comes from Ashfield, New York. He's Japanese-American, and very good-looking, actually. He's got two older brothers. One of his older brothers, Will, is still living in Ashfield during his senior year with a close friend. Will and Claudia have known each other for about five years, and they are still good friends. His oldest brother, James, is living in New Haven, Connecticut and is married to Claudia's older sister, Janine! In fact, they are expecting a baby in about two weeks! Zach's very excited about becoming an uncle.

Well, that's everyone. Oh, everyone but me! Okay, I'm the club treasurer. Basically, I'm in charge of the club money. Every Monday, we all fork over our dues to a manilla envelope so that we can buy things for our Kid-Kits, these awesome toy boxes that we take to our sitting jobs. Or else we put the cash towards a club party, like the one we had for Zach. Unfortunately, that party emptied our treasury.

Back to reality.

"I took care of it," Haley sat down smugly. "He wasn't very happy with me, though. He was in the middle of talking to one of his friends at school that doesn't know how to sign."

"It's too bad that Matt can't use the computer right now," Becca looked sympathetic. "I mean, that's one of the best ways for him to communicate. Especially with people who can't sign."

"It's only an hour," Haley rolled her eyes. "He'll live."

The phone rang, and Vanessa answered it. "Hello, Baby-sitters Club... Suuuure, we take new clients! Name please?"

"It's about time we got a new client!" Charlotte blurted out (a little too loudly.) The rest of us shushed her, and she turned beet-red.

"It's about time we got a new anything," Haley added in a whisper. "I was starting to get bored."

"Hey, I've only been in this club two weeks, and already I'm old news?" Zach exclaimed, looking aghast. Haley shoved him playfully, flirting with him like she always did.

Vanessa hung up the phone just then and said, "That was interesting."

"Who's our new client?" Becca asked.

"The mother's name is Brenda Davis," Vanessa said, as Charlotte started writing down the information in the club record book. "And she's got eight-year old identical twin daughters. Marissa and Carissa Davis. She needs a sitter for them on Saturday from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM. It's sort of last minute, but I told her it would be fine. I think Saturday is a light day, scheduling wise."

"Marissa and Carissa?" Zach wrinkled up his nose. "Those are their names?"

"AHEM!" I cleared my throat just then, and Zach realized what he had said. He turned much redder than Charlotte had earier; the poor boy was practically purple by now, and that got everyone laughing uncontrollably.

When we finally settled down a little, Charlotte spoke up. "Marissa and Carissa. Marilyn and Carolyn. Cute. It almost sounds like you're related to them."

"It's a neat coincidence," I agreed, wishing that Marilyn had been at the meeting today. She would have gotten a kick out of it as well.

"I think Carolyn should take this job if she's free," Vanessa announced. "I bet you could relate pretty well to these twins considering that you are one yourself."

I nodded, thinking that it would be fun to babysit for another pair of twins. Charlotte checked to see if I was free, and it turned out that I was. The job was mine!

"You know, the whole thing with Matt being online just gave me an idea," Vanessa was smiling oddly. "A brilliant one, in fact. I feel just like Kristy Thomas."

"My parents are thinking about getting a separate line just for the computer," Haley put in, defensively. "Since it is Matt's best tool for communication. So Matt tying up the line shouldn't be a problem for the club much longer."

"Ooh, I wasn't worried about that," Vanessa assured her. "But now that you've said that, it makes my idea work even better."

"Well, come on," Zach urged her. "Tell us."

"The BSC," Vanessa began. "Needs to be updated. Plently has changed in five years. We have many more options than the BSC of the past. What do you guys think of occassionaly having online meetings? Not always but sometimes."

"Isn't it lucky that we all have AOL?" Charlotte added. "I think I see where you're going."

"You mean meet in a chatroom instead of Haley's room?" Becca looked inspired.

"Yeah!" Vanessa exclaimed. "I actually didn't even think of a chatroom. That's great! Think about it. Charlotte could have the record book with her at her house, and Haley could answer the phone. Haley tells us when the job is, Char looks to see who's free, and we talk it out and schedule someone. It works as long as the internet is on a different phone line, right Haley?"

"I would have to ask my parents," Haley said. "I'd be taking up two out of the three phone lines at once. I don't know if they'd be happy about that. But if it were for the BSC, they might allow it. We couldn't do it all the time, though."

"We wouldn't want to do it all the time," I put it. "I happen to like our meetings in Haley's room. But I see why this would be good to do every now and then. Who would call an online meeting?"

Vanessa put her hand up. "I'll gladly do that. Haley, how soon are your parents thinking about getting a separate phone line for the computer?"

"Soon," Haley answered. "I'll pitch our idea to them."

"Great idea, Vanessa," Charlotte added.

"Kristy," Vanessa grinned. "Please, call me Kristy."