It was later that same day, and I'd been thinking about my dream pretty much non-

stop since I had woken up that morning. All through school I'd thought about it, and all afternoon. By five-thirty, which was when our meeting started, you'd think I'd have been tired of thinking about it. But somehow it still had a grip on me.

I figured that maybe I could forget about my dream if I focused on something else, so I started to think about the BSC. What’s the BSC? It’s the Baby-sitters Club, of course. We call it a club, but it’s really more like a business. Kristy thought it up. She's great at coming up with wonderful ideas. The idea for the BSC was the best one of all, and it’s really one of the simplest. It works like this: Kristy and I and five other baby-sitters meet every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon from five-thirty until six. Parents call us during those hours if they need to arrange for a sitter, and we figure out which of us should take which jobs. We get plenty of work, the parents get reliable baby-sitting service, and the kids get sitters who really love what they do. Everybody's happy.

The club has worked well from the beginning. We used to advertise with flyers and posters and things — and we still do, sometimes — but generally we have as much business as we want. The BSC has a great reputation in Stoneybrook.

Kristy's had some other great ideas for the club. For example, there's the club notebook. That's like a diary that we each write in after every job we go on. Reading the notebook really keeps us up to date on what's happening with our clients. Another of her ideas was the Kid-Kits. We each have one: a decorated box, filled with coloring books and toys and stickers and all kinds of things that're irresistible to kids. It's not all new stuff. In fact, mine has my first Barbie ever, plus a battered game of Candy Land that I must have played three thousand times when I was little. But Kristy knew that even an old toy can look new and exciting to a kid. My Kid-Kit has been a real lifesaver more than once. It's just the thing for a rainy, dismal day.