"Meeting time!" I yelled as I hurried down the stairs to greet whoever was at the door first. I was so, so glad that it was Monday, and club meeting time too. Thank goodness. Margo was sitting on the couch in the livingroom watching LRL.

"Could you keep it down?" she spat at me when I reached the bottom of the landing. "Yes sir." I replied smiling. I was too happy. We'd only had three meeting so far, and they were always fun and surprising. No two Baby-Sitters Club meetings were alike. Nina and Myriah were first to arrive. Mrs. Marshall had dropped both of them off.

"Go on up." I told them. Next to arrive was Suzi and then Karen. It was exactly five so I decided not to wait around for Jenny, so I told Margo to tell her to go to my room when she arrived.

Once in my room, we all rushed to find spots. I sat on my bed, Myriah and Nina sat on Margo's, Suzi sat in my fluffy purple butterfly chair, and Karen perched herself in the director's style chair at me and Margo's vanity. I laughed. Mallory told me that Kristy always sat in Claudia Kishi's director chair when she conducted a club meeting. (Claudia was the old vice president. Back in the day, the meetings were held in her room all the time because she had her own phone and personal phone number.) Karen grabbed me and Margo's cord less phone and set it on the vanity top after clearing a space.

"Okay, let's get this meeting on the rode." Karen started, loudly I might add.

"Hey, where's Jenny?" wondered Nina.

"She's late I guess. We can't have a late club member." Karen said.

"She's only our associate member, she doesn't really have to come to every meeting, does she?" asked Suzi.

"Yes, she has to. Jenny must show dedication if she wants to be my club." Karen answered. Okay, I didn't know what to say about that. This club wasn't just Karen's club, it was all of ours. No one said anything for a few minutes.

"Hmmm. If Jenny isn't going to show for this meeting then why hasn't she called?" wondered Myriah. I had been wondering the same thing. Karen rolled her eyes.

"Now, down to business. Um, Nina, why don't you do your job? We can wonder about Jenny later." Karen snapped. Nina blushed and then found our club dues can from inside a fake jeweled treasure box from under my bed. That's where I keep all our club stuff. Nina also took out the record book and our notebook. Nina shook the jar.

"Dues anyone?" she asked sweetly.

I bet you're wondering what the dues are for. Really, we each only pay a dollar a week. So that's six dollars a week in total. We use the money for throwing parties for the club and for the Kid-Kits.

Kid-Kits are decorated cartons of toys, games, books, and puzzles that we bring along on sitting jobs some times. The original Baby-Sitters Club had them too and we all admit we loved them as kids, and we decided to continue that tradition. Guess who thought of the Kid-Kits in the first place? Kirsty. To tell you the truth, we hadn't really made our Kid-Kits yet. We had to save money first.

So Nina collected our dues and Karen noticed we were exactly one dollar short. "Myriah, make note of that in the record book so Nina doesn't forget to mention that to Jenny." Karen commanded. Myriah wrote it down in the treasury part of the notebook. After that we got a job call! Karen answered the phone first since it was laying right next to her. Gosh, I wanted to answer the phone too, I'm the vice-president!

"Yes, this is the Baby-Sitters Club. President Karen Brewer speaking...yes, uh huh...right...okay. What time? From...okay, yep. Thank you for your business. We'll get right back to you with a sitter. Good bye." Karen hung up. Myriah was ready with the notebook.

"Well? Who was it?" asked Suzi eagerly.

"It was Mrs. Newton. She needs a sitter from one to five to six thirty next Friday for just Lucy. Myriah are you writing all this down?" Karen asked. Myriah was writing as fast as she could.

"Yes, I did Miss President." Myriah answered.

"Well, who's available?" I asked.

"We all are actually...but that time will interfere with our meeting time, remember? So, who's it gonna be?" Myriah told us. Karen spoke up first.

"I can't take it. I'm the president and therefor I should never ever miss a meeting."

"We can't give it to Jenny, she's not even here." I pointed out.

"Right, you don't show, you don't get jobs." said Karen. We all agreed with that. In the end, I got the job and Suzi was going to show up as the vice-president while I was gone for that meeting. Too bad, I was going to be missing the last meeting before we left for Sea City. That's when I remembered, mom said I could bring a friend with me. I wondered who to invite as the phone kept ringing and Karen kept answering it. After our fifth job call, which was Mrs. Loudane needing a sitter for her eight year old daughter

Elly, (Nina got the job) I decided to go get us snack. Suzi helped me and we brought up a bowl of popcorn and a can of Mountain Dew for each of us.

For a little while we had no calls so I told everyone that I was going to Sea City on Saturday. I didn't tell my friends that I could invite a friend. I didn't want to get anyone's hopes up.

By six, everyone was pretty tired out. Karen had worked us hard that night and Jenny never called or showed up.