The vice-president of our club is Claudia. She gets to be VP mostly because we hold meetings in her room. Claudia has the best room for meetings because she is the only member with her own phone and her own phone number. When I tell you about how the club works, you'll see that having a private phone line is very important. (More about the club later.)

The first thing most people notice about Claudia is her appearance. She's naturally beautiful with long, shiny, straight black hair. (She's Japanese-American, so her hair is really black-black, not just dark brown.) And she has delicate features. But what strikes people about Claudia even more than her stunning looks is her sense of fashion.

Claudia wears super-trendy clothes, and she puts them together in ways that are uniquely Claudia. Today, for example, she was wearing maroon leggings and ballet slippers under an oversized yellow shirt. Around her waist she

wore this great belt that she made herself from three thin strips of leather tied together and decorated with ceramic beads. For the final touch, Claudia had swept her hair over to one side and tied it up with another thin leather strip that had the same kind of beads on it. She looked great — and she was just hanging around her own house!

Claudia's fashion sense is an extension of her artistic talent. Claudia loves to do anything artistic: sketch, paint, sculpt, make pottery and jewelry.

When Claudia grows up I'm sure she'll be either an artist or a fashion designer. Which is lucky for her. I don't think she'd do too well at a profession that required a lot of regular school. Claudia is a terrible student. (Straight C's, if she's lucky. And she can't spell for beans.) The odd thing about Claudia being a poor student is 1. she's really smart and 2. her older sister, Janine, is a real-life genius. Claudia's parents used to pressure her constantly to be more like Janine, but Claudia wasn't interested. (Even though they've let up a bit, I still think Claud's parents are too hard on her. She has to hide her Nancy Drew books because her parents think they're "frivolous." I mean, come on. At least she's reading.)