Dawn  answered  it.  "Hello,  Baby-sitters

Club," she said. "Oh, hi! ... When? . . . Okay. . . . Okay. I'll call you right back. . . . 'Bye."

Dawn hung up the phone. I was already holding the record book in my lap, opened to the appointment calendar.

"Mrs. Prezzioso needs someone for Jenny on Saturday afternoon, from four until about six-thirty," said Dawn.

This was met by groans. "I'll just check my own schedule," I replied. I'm the only one who likes Jenny at all. The others think she's bratty. Ifs a club rule that a job has to be offered to all the club members (not snapped up by the person who takes the call or something), but I didn't even bother to see if Kristy or Stacey or Claudia or Dawn was free. They wouldn't want the job. "Tell Mrs. Prezzioso I can sit," I said to Dawn as I noted my job in the appointment book.

Dawn called Mrs. Prezzioso back. When she got off the phone, Kristy's mother called needing a sitter for David Michael one afternoon when Kristy had a dentist's appointment. Then Dr. Johanssen called needing a sitter for Charlotte, and Mrs. Barrett called needing a sitter for Buddy, Suzi, and Marnie. It was a busy meeting. With school starting again, business was probably going to pick up a little. Every-

one's  schedules  seemed to become more crowded.

The meeting was supposed to be over at six, but we all kind of hung around. No one wanted to end our last summer meeting. Finally I had to leave, though. So did Kristy. "See you in ..." (gulp) "... school tomorrow!" she called, and I wanted to cry. Summer was really and truly over.

Chapter 2.

Claudia and Stacey and I walked to school together the next morning, since the three of us live in the same neighborhood. It was the first time ever that Kristy and I hadn't walked off together on day number one of a school year. But Kristy had to take the bus from her new home. (Dawn, who lived not too far away, often took a different route to school, and sometimes her mother drove her there on her way to work.)