Kristy

I wasn't surprised when Jessica Wakefield called. The Baby-Sitters Club have solved so many mysteries that it was only a matter of time before other series wanted to get in on it.

I called an emergency meeting of the BSC as soon as I'd hung up the phone. Luckily, Stacey was already over. She's been coming over a lot lately. Sam says they're doing the horizontal mumbo jumbo. I guess that's a dance. I wonder if Stacey can teach it to the kids.

After talking to Stace, I called the rest of the club. Claudia, Mary Anne, Jessi and Mallory agreed to come over straight away but Abby gave me a bit of attitude. Actually, it was her mother who gave me attitude. She was all, "Abby had a severe asthma attack and was sent to hospital." That's no excuse for missing a BSC meeting! So I went down to the hospital and dragged Abby back to my place. I didn't even remove her oxygen mask. That's how important the club is to me.

If only Abby possessed an ounce of my dedication.

"This emergency meeting of the Baby-Sitters Club is now in session!"

I glared at my friends and one by one, they fell silent. Except for Abby who was breathing too loudly. I really should have ditched that oxygen mask. Well, it was too late now. I'd just have to give her my best Kristy Thomas death stares and hope she'd have the manners to ditch it herself.

"So what's the story?" Claudia asked, leaning forward excitedly. She was dressed for the occasion in a tweed overcoat and newsboy cap. Even her shoes, socks and earrings were made of tweed. She looked like Sherlock Holmes… well, a female, teenage, Japanese-American Sherlock Holmes. Claud's Asian but we don't care… no, wait, that's Jessi.

I told the club about the call I had received. I noticed with satisfaction that Mallory was taking notes. She'd hitchhiked all the way from Riverbend to attend the meeting. Now that's dedication.

"Hey, wait a minute!" Mary Anne cried suddenly. We all turned to her expectantly. "If the Wakefield twins have finally turned seventeen… does that mean we're going to turn fourteen?"

I shot her an impatient look. "That's hardly important," I snapped. "Now, Jessica's arriving in Stoneybrook tomorrow afternoon so we have to be ready for her. This could be our most important case. So that means no more asthma attacks," I glared at Abby, "and Stacey? You're going to have to give up dancing," I told her gently. I'd seen how happy she was when she came out of Sam's room and I felt bad about making her give that up, but this was too important.

Stacey looked confused for a second, then she laughed. "Sure Kristy," she said. "I'll give up dancing." She put a strange emphasis on the word 'dancing' but I didn't have time to wonder what that was about.

"Are there any questions?" I asked.

Jessi raised her black arm. "Does Jessica mind that I'm black?" she asked.

I don't know if it's already been mentioned, but Jessi's black. Not that we even notice half the time. I'm sure that a lot of people don't even know that Jessi's black. It's not like we mention it a lot. But she is. She's black.

I shook my head. "She did mention that she had witnessed a few incidences of racism in the past but everything was always resolved positively and everyone learned a valuable lesson," I told her.

"That's good," Jessi sighed with relief.

"Any other questions?" Nobody had any so I called the meeting to a close. We all had a lot to do before Jessica arrived.

Because there always has to be a baby-sitting subplot, I gathered my siblings together later that afternoon to bake cookies for Jessica. We had arranged for her to stay at my place because I live in a huge mansion, on account of my stepfather being a millionaire and all.

I told mom we were taking over the kitchen for a couple of hours. She rushed out of the room, calling out to Watson. It sounded a little like, "Woo hoo, free baby sitting! C'mon, let's get out of here!" but the acoustics in this place can be kind of funny so I'm sure I heard wrong.

Before long, I had an assembly line going in the kitchen – Karen and Andrew measuring out the ingredients and David Michael mixing the batter. I even put Emily Michelle to work. Being an adorable two-year-old adopted Vietnamese girl is no excuse for slacking off!

"C'mon guys!" I barked, clapping my hands together. "Mix! Pour! Mix! Pour! I want to see five dozen chocolate chip cookies on this table by dinnertime! Nobody goes to bed until the quota is met!" Sometimes you have to show kids a little discipline.

I told my siblings about Jessica and Elizabeth as we baked. Karen seemed fascinated. "Can we help!" she cried.

"Of course you can," I told her, my mind already assigning tasks. Karen was a little too young to do late night stakeouts, but I was sure there would be some undercover work for her to do.

"This is going to be great!" she cried. "I'm going to call Hannie and Nancy and… what about Maria and Tiffany?"

"They can all help," I told her. "In fact… you guys can be our junior junior members."

Karen squealed with excitement. I was pretty pleased myself. With us older baby-sitters and the younger charges on the case, we were bound to solve it in no time.