Baby-sitters Club - Claudia And The Clue In The Photograph Part 1

Claudia and the Clue in the Photograph.

Martin, Ann M.

Chapter 1.

"Claudia, please!" Janine put down her fork. "I would prefer not to be recorded for posterity in the act of chewing a mouthful of Shredded Wheat."

"It's not for posterity," I said, still peering at my older sister through the viewfinder of the camera, "whatever that is. It's for Mr.

Geist's cla.s.s." Janine is always using words I don't know, but I don't let it bother me.

"Claudia, please put that camera down and eat your breakfast," said my mother, pa.s.sing me a plate with two pieces of raisin toast on it.

'But Mom, Mr. Geist says, we have to learn to 'catch the moment.' It's what all the best photographers do." I turned to focus on her through the viewfinder. She looked a little peeved.

"That may be so," said my father. "But the Kis.h.i.+ family at breakfast is one moment you're not going to catch. Besides, you're going to get jelly on my camera if you're not careful." He reached out for the camera. I put the lens cap back on and handed it to him. He turned it over in his hands. "What a great piece of equipment," he said. He squinted through the viewfinder. "This Minolta and I go way, way back."

"I know," I said, "and I really appreciate your lending it to me, I've been super careful with it." I had, too. My dad's old Minolta doesn't have the most up-to-date features, but it is a terrific camera. "Mr. Geist says it's a cla.s.sic," I told my dad.

Mr. Geist was my photography teacher. He was one of the best teachers I'd ever had at SMS. (That's Stoneybrook Middle School, which is in Stoneybrook, Connecticut, the town where I live.) Taking photography with Mr. Geist made going to summer school not just bearable, but totally great. At first, when my parents insisted I take math over again this summer, I was very b.u.mmed out. But then we made a deal. If I had to take math, I would also be allowed to take another course, just for fun. At the time, I didn't know just how much fun photography would be. But the fact is that Mr. Geist had opened up a new world for me, and lately I couldn't think about anything but photography.

You've probably already figured out that my name is Claudia Kis.h.i.+, and that I have an older sister named Janine who is incredibly smart. (She's a genius, in fact.) And you might have guessed that my family is pretty close, because of the way we were all sitting down to breakfast together. And maybe you've also realized that I can become totally wrapped up in things like photography. Well, you're right on all counts, especially the last one.

I've loved art for as long as I can remember. Other kids would do a little crayoning and then move on to playing with dolls or riding bikes. Me? I moved from crayoning to finger-painting to papier-mache and then back to crayoning. For me, there's nothing like the feeling you get from creating something, something that's yours alone. And now, this summer, I had discovered a whole new way to create.

First I'd learned how to use a camera - a real camera, not the automatic kind you take snapshots with. And while I hate math, somehow I had no problem figuring out exposures and shutter speeds. Then I'd learned about the elements of a good picture. Mr. Geist had taught me how to consider composition, textures, forms, and tones so that I could produce not just snapshots, but pieces of art that would really have an effect on the viewer. And finally, I had learned how to make magic.

That's tight, magic.

Have you ever worked in a darkroom? If you have, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, you'll just have to take my word for it. What happens in that lightless place is pure magic. I'll never forget the first time I put a plain white piece of paper into a tray of developer and saw the image form itself in front of my eyes. I felt like a wizard!

My dad, who used to do a lot of photography himself, had noticed how excited I was about my cla.s.s. 'Tell you what," he'd said, one night after supper. "How about if we make you a temporary darkroom in the bathroom between your room and Janine's?" He'd rounded up all the equipment - some borrowed, some rented, some bought - arid helped me set up my very own wizard's den.

I'd been spending every spare minute in there ever since.

Well, maybe not every minute. As always, I'm also spending plenty of time on one of my other loves, baby-sitting. I belong to this cool club called the BSC, or Baby-sitters dub. My best pal Stacey McGill is in it, too, and so are a bunch of my other good friends. We all have different interests, but one thing we have in common is that we adore kids. That's why the dub (it's actually more of a business) works so well. But more about that later.

Back to that Friday morning, when my family kept me from "catching the moment." I'd barely finished my toast when my mother glanced at her watch and gave a little yelp. "It's late!" she said. "I've got to run." She gave us each a quick kiss and/ grabbing an over-stuffed briefcase, headed out to her job as head librarian at the Stoneybrook Public Library. Soon after that my dad took off for his job, which has something to do with stocks and bonds and money. (I've never quite understood what he does, but apparently he's very good at it.) Janine took one last sip of juice and picked up her backpack.

"Ready to crunch those numbers?" I asked, grinning. This summer, Janine had signed up for a work-study program that's part of this supersonic academic fast track she's on. She's still in high school, but she takes a lot of college cla.s.ses. For summer school, she was taking what she called a "light" schedule, light for an Einstein like her, maybe.

Janine's work-study program involved helping one of her professors with some research. When I first heard that, I thought she might be doing something halfway interesting, like teaching rats how to go through a maze. But no, all she was doing was sitting in front of a computer for hours at a time, typing in numbers. According to Janine, it was "utterly fascinating." I'd rather watch bread get stale, myself.

"I wish you wouldn't use that vulgar expression," said Janine, sniffing. "I'm not 'crunching' anything. I'm performing quant.i.tative data a.n.a.lysis."

Yikes. "Whatever," I said. "Have a blast." I waved good-bye to her, and then ran upstairs for a final outfit-check.

Most people just wear cut-offs and T-s.h.i.+rts to summer school. Not me. I consider getting dressed to be as much of a creative act as painting on a canvas or sculpting with day. I plan my outfits with care, and I make a point of never wearing exactly the same thing twice. Not that I have closets and closets full of clothes, or anything. It's just that I like to combine what I do have in new and interesting ways.

I stood in front of my full-length mirror and looked. Staring back at me was a medium-height j.a.panese-American girl with almond-shaped eyes and long, black hair held back by a pink, star-shaped barrette. She wore a silky pink tank top with a man's white s.h.i.+rt tied casually over it, white jeans, and flip-flops decorated with more pink stars.

I gave my reflection the thumbs-up sign. "Okay, Kis.h.i.+, I think you're ready," I said to myself. "Except for one thing." I turned and checked beneath the pillow on my bed. "Provisions!" I cried, when I'd found what I was looking for. I stuck the Milky Way bar into my knapsack.

I have something to confess. I'm a junk food fiend.

Yes, It's true. You might not be able to tell by looking at me, but I practically live on foods that contain long lists of ingredients I can't p.r.o.nounce. Tortilla chips, potato chips, corn chips, pretzels. Milky Ways, M & M's, Pay-Days, and Twizzlers. I love them, I love them, I love them. But my parents seem to have this bizarre idea that all that stuff is bad for me and that I should be eating carrots and beets, instead. Right.

To humor my parents, I eat carrots and beets at the family table, but I'll never give up my junk food. It's stashed all over my room. I'm never far from a chocolate bar: that's my motto.

My poor, misguided parents also disapprove of my habit of reading Nancy Drew books - "junk food for the mind," as my mother calls them. I keep telling her that if she ever read one of them, she'd understand why I like them so much, but she just shakes her head, smiles, and hands me a paperback copy of some impossible-to-read "cla.s.sic" like The Scarlet Pimple, or whatever it's called. I always accept the book, stick it on my shelf, and then pull a Nancy Drew mystery from behind my night table and read to my heart's content.

Anyway, that morning I had no time for reading of any kind. I had to scramble if I was going to be in my seat by the time my math teacher, Mr. Davies, handed out that day's quiz.

I won't bore you with the details of my math cla.s.s, except to mention that Mr. Davies was wearing a gorgeous red tie that looked as though it might have been made of tie-dyed silk. I made a few notes reminding myself to experiment with tie-dyeing fine fabrics, raced through the quiz, and then headed downstairs to the photo lab.

, That day's cla.s.s with Mr. Geist was excellent, as always. The lecture part was about making portraits, and Mr. Geist showed us a whole bunch of great slides that ill.u.s.trated the points he was making. Afterward, we had time to do a little work in the darkroom.

The last bell rang just as we were cleaning up. I raced home, my head full of ideas about how to capture people on film. I had yesterday's roll of film to develop first. It included some fas.h.i.+on shots of Stacey acting like a model, and I couldn't wait to see how they'd turned out.

I walked into the kitchen, thinking hard about my portrait a.s.signment, and nearly b.u.mped into Janine. "What are you doing here?" I asked.

"Professor Woodley doesn't need me until two today," she said, "so I came home to have a quick lunch and pick up my notebook."

I made us a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches, and we ate together without talking much. I was still thinking about my new ideas, and Janine was poring over columns of figures in her notebook. She barely lifted her head when I cleared my plate and told her I would be in the darkroom for awhile.

I went up to our bathroom and began to a.s.semble all the things I would need for developing my roll of film. First, I set up my dock radio, dialing in my favorite station and making sure the dock was turned so I could see it while the film developed. Keeping track of time is an essential part of working in a darkroom. Then I got out all my chemicals and measuring cups and set them up, along with my thermometer (the temperature of the chemicals is important, too), my developing tank, my bottle opener (to pry the top off the film canister), and my scissors (to cut off the end of the film).

r I know it sounds like a complicated process, but really, developing film is incredibly easy. The most important thing is to have total - and I mean total -r darkness while you're loading the film into a developing tank. You can load film in a lighted room, by using a changing bag, which is a rubberized sack with places to put your hands in. But it's not easy to rumble around in there with the reels and the bottle opener and all that. I'd rather load film in a lightproof room, and my dad and I had made sure that the bathroom, which doesn't have any windows, was as lightproof as possible. All I had to do to make it totally dark was shove a towel into the crack at the bottom of the door and turn off the lights.

Which is what I did. Then, in the pitch-dark, I sat on my stool next to the counter, and felt around for the film and all my equipment. Since I had set things up so carefully, it only took me a few minutes to get the film out of the can and loaded onto the reel. I had just dropped the reel into the developing tank, knowing that as soon as I put on the lid, the tank would be lightproof and I could turn on the lights, when I heard a tapping at the door.

"Claud?" asked Janine. I heard the doork.n.o.b turning.

"No!" I yelled. "Don't come in or - "

Janine pulled the door open and poked her head inside. Light from the hallway flooded into the darkroom. "What did you say?"

" - or you'll ruin my film," I finished, slapping the lid onto the tank as quickly as I could.

Janine put her hand over her mouth. "Oh, no!" she said. "I'm so sorry, Claud! I didn't realize - "

"It's okay," I said, even though I was pretty upset. It was easy to see that Janine felt terrible. "I might be able to salvage the negatives."

Janine apologized about three hundred times more and then, .finally, she left. I shut the door behind her, promising myself to make a Darkroom in Use sign for it, and looked at the tank. If I was lucky, there might be a few frames on the roll that hadn't been destroyed. Stacey would be coming over that afternoon for our BSC meeting, and if I hurried, I might be able to show her some negatives from our "fas.h.i.+on shoot." I turned up the radio and settled down to work.

Chapter 2.

By five-twenty that afternoon, I had not only finished developing the film, but I had also done my math homework. (Yea, Claud!) The negatives were pretty much ruined. There was a gray fog covering almost every shot. With careful work, I might be able to print parts of each picture, but the fact was, it would be easier just to shoot the whole roll over again. I knew Stacey wouldn't mind posing for me one more time. She had loved playing model.

I was sitting at my desk, looking over the negatives with a loupe (that's a special kind of magnifying gla.s.s) when I glanced at my dock and realized my friends would start arriving any minute for our BSC meeting. I put the negatives away and picked up my camera. While I was working in the darkroom, I'd been thinking over what Mr. Geist had said about creating portraits, and I'd come up with a great idea. See, Mr. Geist had talked about "capturing the essence" of a person on film. A good picture of somebody shouldn't just show what they look like, he said, it should show what they are like. So my idea was to take a picture of each of my friends as they entered my room, as an exercise in making portraits.

I would use black-and-white film, so I could develop it myself. Black-and-white is best for portraits, anyway. All the best photographers use it. I couldn't wait to see whether my quick shots would capture my friends' personalities.

Just as I was taking the lens cap off my camera, I heard the front door slam. Then I heard footsteps thumping up the stairs, and I knew by their sound that Kristy Thomas was about to arrive. Quickly, I aimed the camera at the door to my room, focused, and set the correct exposure for the amount of light. As I peered through the viewfinder, Kristy appeared, framed by the doorway. "Say cheese!" I called out quickly.

Kristy stopped in her tracks, gave me a huge grin, and shot me the peace sign with both hands. Snap!

Perfect. The picture would show what Kristy looks like: short, with dark hair and eyes - they're brown, really - dressed in running shoes, jeans, and a T-s.h.i.+rt (Kristy's uniform!).

But it also definitely captured Kristy's essence. Confident, outgoing, and full of energy; that's Kristy. She's president of the BSC, and with good reason. For one thing, she came up with the idea for the dub. And for another, she keeps adding plenty of other great ideas to make the BSC even better. The BSC started taking shape one day when mom was trying to find a sitter for younger brother, David Michael. (Kristy also has two older brothers, Charlie and Sam.) At the time, Mrs. Thomas was going it alone as a single mom, since Kristy's dad had walked out on the family years earlier. Anyway, Kristy watched her mom make call after call without success, and that's when she came up with the idea for the BSC. She figured parents would love it if they could make one phone call and be guaranteed a responsible sitter. And she was right. Boy, was she right. Our dub now meets three times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, from five-thirty until six. During those times, parents can call to set up sitting jobs. Using our dub record book, we can figure out who's free and schedule the jobs. It's as simple as that. The club's been a success right from the start, but Kristy couldn't leave well enough alone. She had to add more ideas, like the dub notebook, in which we each write up every job we go on. This is my favorite thing about the BSC - not! Actually, it drives me crazy, because I'm not the world's best speller, and I'm sometimes embarra.s.sed by my entries. Still, I have to admit that knowing the details of what's going on in our clients' lives makes us all better sitters.

Another patented Kristy Thomas idea? Kid-Kits. Those are boxes full of toys, stickers, and games we bring along on jobs. I just redecorated mine to look like a pirate s.h.i.+p. Kids love Kid-Kits.

Kristy knows what kids love, since kids are a big part of her life. Her mom remarried not that long ago, and when she did, Kristy's family doubled in size. Her stepfather, Watson Brewer, happens to be a millionaire - really! And Kristy moved across town to live in his mansion. He has two kids, Karen and Andrew, from his first marriage. They live at Kristy's house every other month. Also, Kristy has a new adopted sister, Emily Mich.e.l.le, who's Vietnamese. So that mansion is pretty full, especially when you add in Kristy's grandmother Nannie, who came to live mere and help out after Emily Mich.e.l.le arrived, and all the pets (a puppy, a cat, two goldfish, and two part-time pets, a rat and a hermit crab).

"How's Ms. Vice-President today?" asked Kristy, after she'd taken her usual seat in the director's chair near my desk.

I'm vice-president of the BSC. I was unanimously elected to that position because of one important thing: I'm the only member who has her own phone, with a private line. Besides answering the phone and arranging jobs during non-meeting times, my only other duty seems to be providing snacks for meetings. (That day I had dug out a box of jawbreakers, a package of Fig Newtons, and some pretzels.) "I'm fine," I said, answering Kristy's question. Then I held up a finger. "The door just slammed again. I bet that's Stacey. I hear her clogs." Stacey just got this really cool pair of blue suede dogs. We had featured them in the fas.h.i.+on shoot. I raised the camera to my eye and waited.

Sure enough, Stacey walked in a minute .later. "Do the Vogue'!" I cried. Without hesitating, Stacey struck a pose, tilting her face to the camera and letting her blonde, curly hair tumble down her back. Snap!

Right away, I was sure that anybody looking at the picture I'd just taken would know Stacey McGill. There she was, looking gorgeous and sophisticated, dressed in a totally up-to-the-minute outfit. That's Stacey. She grew up in Manhattan, and she still has that urban chic.

She buys a lot of her clothes in the city, while she's visiting her dad. (Her parents are divorced. Stacey chose to live with her mom in Stoneybrook, but she sees her dad pretty regularly.) Stacey is the BSCs treasurer, and she's the perfect person for the job. Get this - she actually likes math cla.s.s! She has a ball collecting our dues, adding up all the bucks, and then portioning them out for things like my phone bill and transportation costs (her brother Charlie drives her to meetings). I wouldn't take that job if you paid me a million dollars, but Stacey does it just for the fun of it. I guess it takes all kinds.

If you looked very carefully at the picture of Stacey, you might be able to see a certain glow. That's because she has a boyfriend these days, named Robert. I'm happy for her, I really am. But I have to admit I'm also a little bit jealous. First, because I'd like a boyfriend, too. I've even gone so far as to advertise for one, in this personals column I run for our school paper! But also because Stacey has been spending a lot of time with Robert. We had a big fight about that recently, but of course we made up. We always do. That's how best friends operate.

One thing you "wouldn't be able to tell about Stacey, just by looking at the picture, is that she has diabetes. Diabetes is a lifetime thing, but it doesn't show. I would never have known if Stacey hadn't told us all. Diabetes is a complicated disease to explain, and since I'm not exactly Doctor Science, I'll just say that Stacey's body doesn't handle sugar well, so she has to be very careful about what she eats. Plus, she has to give herself shots (ouch!) of this stuff called insulin, just to keep things working right. Diabetes is a very serious disease, but Stacey handles it well.

For example, that afternoon, after she had stopped posing and flopped down on my bed, Stacey helped herself to a pretzel, ignoring the Jawbreakers and Fig Newtons. Then she smiled up at me. "Better focus on the door again," she said. "Somebody else is coming."

Sure enough, I heard footsteps on the stairs. Kristy, Stacey, and I listened for a second. The footsteps weren't as "thumpy" as Kristy's had been. In fact, they sounded a bit tentative.

"Mary Anne!" we all said at the same time. I picked up the camera again and focused. When Mary Anne walked in and saw me looking at her through the camera, she immediately threw her hands over her face. Snap!

Another perfect shot. The picture would show Mary Anne's short dark hair (she and Kristy, her best friend, have similar coloring, but Mary Anne has a much cooler haircut) and her carefully chosen outfit (not too trendy, but much more thought-out than Kristy's ). But it would also show something about Mary Anne's personality. If I had to choose one word to describe Mary Anne Spier, it would be this: shy. If I could pick a few more words, I'd add: sensitive, good listener, romantic, and totally sweet.

She's also an excellent dub secretary. Mary Anne is in charge of the BSC record book, and she does a great job, keeping track of all our schedules and jobs.

Mary Anne grew up as the only child of a widower. Her mother died when Mary Anne was very young, and Mr. Spier brought her up all by himself. Now", I've known Mary Anne (and Kristy, too, for that matter) all my life, and I have to say I've seen her go through some big changes. For one thing, her dad was very overprotective for a long time. He treated her like a little girl until she was at least twelve. But Mary Anne isn't a little girl anymore, and I think her dad knows that now. She has a steady boyfriend (a total sweetheart named Logan Bruno), and a mind of her own. Plus, like Kristy, Mary Anne also has a new family. Her dad remarried, and his wife - and Mary Anne's stepmother - happens to be the mother of another BSC member, Dawn Schafer, who is Mary Anne's other best friend. If I could snap a picture of Dawn, it would show a pretty, self-a.s.sured girl with long, long blonde hair and a sunny smile. She'd probably be wearing something casual but cool.

How Dawn became Mary Anne's stepsister - and why I can't snap a picture of her - is kind of a complicated story, so stay with me, okay? Here goes. Dawn's mom grew up in Stoneybrook, and dated Mr. Spier when they were both in high school. Then, she moved out to California, got married, and had two kids (Dawn and her younger brother Jeff). Unfortunately, the marriage didn't last, and after the divorce Dawn's mom moved back to Stoneybrook, with Jeff and Dawn in tow.

Dawn and Mary Anne became instant friends, discovered that their parents used to date, and brought them back together. Eventually, Richard (Mary Anne's dad) and Sharon (Dawn's mom) got married, and the two families settled into the old farmhouse where Dawn and her mom had been living. Sounds like a case of happily ever after, right?

Well, not exactly. I mean, they are happy, but there's more to the story. First, even before the wedding, Dawn's brother decided that he'd never adjust to living in Stoneybrook. He ended up going back to California to live with his dad. Then, not too long ago, Dawn realized that she was really, really missing Jeff and her dad, so she headed out there, too. Not forever, though. Just for a long visit. We all miss her, but I know Mary Anne misses her most of all.

When Dawn is in Stoneybrook, her BSC job is alternate officer. That means she can cover for any other officer who can't make it to a meeting. While Dawn's away, her position has been temporarily taken by Shannon Kilbourne, who is ordinarily one of our a.s.sociate members. The other is Logan Bruno, Mary Anne's heartthrob. A photo of him would show a curly-haired, long-legged, very cute guy. It wouldn't show his adorable Kentucky accent, though. a.s.sociate members, by the way, don't always come to meetings. That's why I couldn't take a picture of Logan that day. He usually just helps out when we have too many jobs to handle.

Anyway, Shannon walked in right behind Mary Anne that afternoon, and I barely had time to raise my camera again. But fortunately, she stopped in the doorway for a second and glanced around the room. Snap!

I had her. Shannon has Monde hair, a ski-jump nose, and a mischievous twinkle in her eye. But she also has a serious side - she's one of the best students at her private school - and it would show in that snapshot. None of us knew Shannon too well until she started to come to meetings more regularly. She lives in Kristy's new neighborhood and, as I mentioned, she doesn't go to SMS. But now that we know her, we all like her a lot. Plus, she has two little sisters, so she's great with kids, an important requirement for a BSC member.

Shannon had barely reached her seat on the floor near the foot of my bed, when I heard more footsteps, plus a gale of giggles, coming from the stairway. I aimed the camera quickly, and shot our junior officers Jessi Ramsey and Mallory Pike as, still giggling, they squeezed through the door together. Snap! Snap!

Those two pictures would tell a lot. For one thing, both girls were in both pictures, and that's typical. Jessi and Mal stick together like glue, since they're best friends. Here's what else the photos would tell: that they're a little younger than the rest of the BSC members (we're thirteen, they're^ eleven), that Mal has curly hair and gla.s.ses (you wouldn't see her braces in the picture, since they're the clear kind, and you'd miss the fact that her hair is reddish-brown) and that Jessi is African-American, with the prettiest coal-dark eyes. You'd see the pile of books Mal was carrying and guess that she loves to read. (So does Jessi. Horse stories are their favorites.) The sketch pad on top of the pile might give you a due that Mal is a talented artist. And you'd know that Jessi has studied ballet for years, by the way she performed a quick but very graceful plie (that's French for, um, bend-the-knee) for the camera.

So, once again, I think I did pretty well at capturing those two. Here are some other things that wouldn't show up in the pictures: Jessi has a sweet younger sister named Becca and an adorable baby brother called Squirt (his real name is John Philip Ramsey, Jr.). She also has an Aunt Cecelia, who lives with the family. Mal has seven siblings: Adam, Jordan, Byron, Vanessa, Nicky, Margo, and Claire. Whew! Just saying their names makes me tired.

As soon as Jessi and Mal arrived that day, Kristy called the meeting to order. And as soon as Kristy called the meeting to order, the phone began to ring. And ring. And ring. Since it's summer and all the kids are out of school, parents need us more than ever.

As each call came in, Mary Anne checked the record book to see who was free. Finally, at five minutes to six, the phone stopped ringing, and she gave a huge sigh. "Phew!" she said, looking over the schedule. "We are booked!"

Kristy nodded, smiling. "Cool," she said.

"Except for one thing," said Mary Anne. "I hope we can make some time for a special project. I sat for the Barrett kids yesterday, and they were talking about that video we made for Dawn. Remember? Anyway, you know how crazy they are about her. They really miss her, and they want to make something else for her. Something that will make her homesick for Stoneybrook, so she'll come back sooner. Buddy is dying to have her back here."

I raised my camera and took another picture of Mary Anne right then, knowing that it would show that Buddy wasn't the only one who wanted Dawn back in Connecticut. Mary Anne had an "I miss Dawn" look all over her.

We tossed around some ideas for a project, but didn't come up with anything that seemed right. We agreed to give it some thought and talk about it again at our next meeting.

"I hope you'll have those pictures you took today to show us then, too," Kristy said to me.

"Absolutely," I said. I couldn't wait to get back into the darkroom and develop the roll I'd just shot. If I could manage it, I'd print up a whole series of pictures and have them displayed by the time everybody came over again. All I had to do was take one last picture, and I did that as soon as everybody had left. I faced the mirror, held the camera out to one side, and squeezed the shutter. Now I had a complete set (except for Dawn and Logan, of course). A Portrait of the BSC, I'd call it. And the subt.i.tle would be, My Best Friends.

Chapter 3.

Mary Anne's entry in the club notebook goes on and on, but I'll spare you the rest of her gus.h.i.+ng. Actually, I was as excited as she was about the idea we hatched that Sat.u.r.day afternoon. In fact, I was one of the three sitters who were in on thinking it up - but maybe I should start at the beginning.

Mary Anne had a sitting job with Buddy, Suzi, and Marnie Barrett that day. (Buddy's eight, Suzi's five, and Marnie's two, and together they can be quite a handful. They used to be known as the Impossible Three.) Like a good BSC member, Mary Anne always arrives at her jobs a little early, so she turned up at the Barretts' house at the same time as Franklin DeWitt. Who's Franklin DeWitt? He's not one of the Founding Fathers, although to me his name always sounds like one I should have remembered for a history test. He is a father, though. A father who has custody of his four kids. And he was going to the Barretts' because he's Mrs. Barrett's boyfriend, and he was picking her up for a date. Mrs. Barrett is a single (divorced) mom.