brothers and sisters! She's the oldest, and then there're Adam, Byron, and Jordan (they're triplets), Vanessa, Nicky, Margo, and Claire. What a handful! I think they have been wearing Mal out lately. She's been feeling tired and run-down all the time.

Last but not least, the BSC has two associate members who don't always attend meetings. They help out when we're overbooked and need extra sitters. One of them is Logan Bruno, Mary Anne's boyfriend. He wasn't at our sleepover, of course, but Mary Anne told him about the game, and he said he'd be a hawk, so he could fly. The other is Shannon Kilbourne, who lives in Kristy's neighborhood. Lately Shannon's been coming to meetings more often so we're getting to know her better. She's really nice. I liked her animal choice. She said she would be a cat, so she could lie in front of a roaring fire all day.

So that’s the zoo we call the BSC! Imagine if we'd actually turned into the animals we'd chosen. My room would have sounded like a jungle. But in reality the noises were pretty normal — girls talking and laughing, the phone ringing, and lots of crunching sounds as we passed around the popcorn I'd made for the meeting.

Just before the meeting broke up, Mal said she had some news. She told us that her mom

was going to be very busy for awhile, putting in a lot of overtime with the temporary help agency she works for. She was going to be calling the BSC for plenty of sitters in the next few weeks. "Personally, I think she just wants to escape from the house," she said, laughing. "Claire is driving us all nuts. She saw Annie on TV last week, and now she's decided she wants to be a star. She's been bugging my parents to let her take tap or ballet or theater classes. And she walks around in sunglasses all the time and practices signing her autograph."

We all cracked up, picturing five-year-old Claire as a budding starlet. Then, as the meeting was ending, I brought up Don Newman again, my favorite local celebrity, but before long I noticed everybody seemed to be in a hurry to leave. I guess they just don't appreciate art the way I do.