Mal's great with kids, which is lucky considering the size of her family. And, like me, she has ambitions. She'd like to be a writer and illustrator of children's books. Since she's talented and determined, her dream will probably come true.

There are two other members of the BSC, CUT associate members. They don't come to meetings, but they're on standby to fill in or help out. One of them is Logan Bruno, Mary Anne's boyfriend. The other is Shannon Kilbourne, a girl from Kristy's new neighborhood.

Whew! Now you know all about the BSC and its members. But what you don't know is how busy that Wednesday's meeting was. We hardly had time to eat the Ruffles Claudia was passing out, much less try out Stacey's new Melon Mist nail polish. Everybody had babysitting news to discuss, and the phone rang every two minutes.

"Mal and I are going to be pretty busy on Saturday while you guys are living it up in

New York," said Mary Anne, looking at Stacey and me. "We're sitting at the Pikes' — for eight kids, since Becca will be there, too."

"And I'm going to be sitting at the Pikes' on Sunday," said Claud. "But not for eight kids, luckily."

"Right," said Mal. "Only four. Mom and Dad are taking us older kids to a concert in Stamford that night. We've had the tickets for over a month. I can't wait! We're going to hear this jazz band, and my dad actually went to college with the drummer, so we'll get to go backstage and everything."

"Cool!" I said, even though it didn't sound nearly as cool as what I would be doing that weekend. "Well, I hope you all have good luck with Becca this weekend," I went on. "She's not doing too well lately." I filled them in on why Becca was upset, but nobody seemed too worried. They were sure she'd get over it, and by the time our meeting ended they had just about convinced me, too. As I headed home after our meeting, my mind was less on Becca and more on my big weekend in New York. I couldn't wait!