I looked around my messy room. My room is only messy because I have to keep so many art materials stored in it. I like painting, drawing, pottery, sculpture, crafts, and more. So I've got an easel and paints and charcoals, and boxes and boxes of stuffeverywhere. My current project is a painting. I'm trying something new. I think of it as "stop-action." Imagine that you're watching a movie on a VCR — a movie with a lot of action — and in the middle of a really exciting scene, you press the pause button. That's how I wantedthis picture to look — as if time had halted and people had been stopped with spoons halfway to their mouths, or a dropped object in midair,, or a

bird about to land on a branch, its feet just inches above it, its wings still outstretched.

I paused in my painting and looked out the window and across the street. I could see Mary Anne's house dearly. Mary Anne Spier is one of a group of my friends who have formed a business called the Baby-sitters Club. I'm the vice-president of the club. Mary Anne is the secretary, and our president is Kristy Thomas. Besides us, there are three other members; plus two associate members (I'll explain about them in a minute), and one member in New York City. (I'll explain about her, too.)

Our club meets three afternoons a week, and although our members are very,very different people, we get along well. We're like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Put us all together and we make a great picture.

Let me tell you about my friends, beginning with Kristy, since she's the president.