Chapter 1.

The Baby-sitters Club. I didn't start it and I don't run it, but I am its newest member. I'm Dawn Schafer, baby-sitter number five. The other girls in the club have titles, like Mary Anne Spier, secretary, or Claudia Kishi, vice-president. But I'm just me.

The club is the most important thing in my life. If it weren't for the club, I wouldn't be riding my bicycle off to another baby-sitting job at this very moment. And if it weren't for all the baby-sitting jobs I've gotten, I wouldn't know so many people here in Stoneybrook.

See, I've only lived inConnecticut a few months. Until this past January, I lived inCalifornia with my parents and my younger brother, Jeff. But last fall Mom and Dad split up, and Mom decided to move back to the place where she grew up. Her parents still live here. So right after Christmas, Jeff and I were uprooted from hot, sunnyCalifornia and trans-

planted to cold, sloppyConnecticut , where (so far) it's never been warm enough for me.

I hate cold weather. On the days when the temperature slips back a few degrees, I yell at the weatherman. On the days when it creeps up, I congratulate him and apologize for yelling. I'm still not sure what the big deal aboutNew England winters is all about. Back inCalifornia , we had one season: summer. I thought it was wonderful. I loved the beach, I loved sunshine, I loved eighty-degree Christ-mases. Why, I wondered, would anyone want to interrupt all that warmth with three other seasons?

The family I was baby-sitting for that afternoon was the Pikes. There are eight Pike children — and three of them are triplets! However, I wasn't going to sit for all of them. The triplets, who are nine-year-old boys, would be at ice hockey practice (my brother Jeff was there, too), and eight-year-old Vanessa would be at her violin lesson. That left Nicky, who's seven; Margo (six); Claire (four); and Mallory, who's ten and usually a big help.