Chapter 3.

Mary Anne's entry in the club notebook goes on and on, but I'll spare you the rest of her gushing. Actually, I was as excited as she was about the idea we hatched that Saturday 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.

Mr. DeWitt and Mrs. Barrett seem to be pretty serious about each other these days. Sometimes my friends and I speculate about what it would be like if they got married. The

Brady Bunch would have nothing on the Barrett-DeWitt bunch!

Buddy answered the door when Mr. DeWitt knocked, but instead of saying hello to his mom's boyfriend, Buddy ignored him completely. He ran right past Franklin to Mary Anne. "Mary Anne!" he said. "Did you come up with an idea yet? It has to be a really, really good one!"

Mary Anne, shocked at Buddy's bad manners, was just about to tell Buddy to say hello to Mr. DeWitt, but then Mrs. Barrett did it for her. "Buddy Barrett,'" she began, standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips. Mary Anne told me later that Mrs. Barrett looked gorgeous, as always, this time in a simple white dress with her beautiful chestnut hair flowing loose.