I was thirteen years old before I became a sister, and guess what. My new sister was my age, thirteen. Were we long-lost twins, separated at birth and reunited thirteen years later? No. Although that's much more interesting than the truth. The truth is that my sister is actually my stepsister. Earlier this year, my father got married again, and he happened to marry the mother of Dawn Schafer, who was already one of my best friends. So Dawn and I changed from best friends to best friends and sisters. Not many kids are that lucky.

My name is Mary Anne Spier. I'm an eighth-grader atStoneybrookMiddle School (commonly known as SMS) inStoneybrook,Connecticut . I was born here and have lived here all my life. Before Dawn came along, I had a very small family. Two people. My dad and me. Of course, I had a mom in the beginning, but she died when I was really small. I don't

even remember her. After she died, Dad raised me. He did a good job, even if he was strict, but I always wished for a bigger family; at the very least for a baby brother or sister.

When I was twelve and in seventh grade, a new family moved to Stoneybrook — Dawn and Jeff Schafer and their mother. The Schafers had just been divorced, and Mrs. Schafer wanted to raise her kids in the town in which she'd grown up. That town was Stoneybrook. Unfortunately for Dawn and Jeff, they had grown up inCalifornia , so the move to cold, snowyConnecticut was something of a shock to them. Dawn was determined to make the best of things, though, and she adjusted to her new life fairly quickly. For one thing, she made new friends right away. I was her first friend, and I introduced her to my friends in the Baby-sitters Club, which is a business we run. (I'll explain that later.) Right away, Dawn and I started spending a lot of time at one another's houses, and guess what we discovered one day when we were looking through our parents' high school yearbooks. We found out that a long time ago my dad had dated her mom. They'd been sweethearts. But then they graduated from high school, and Dawn's mother went off to college inCalifornia and met Mr. Schafer and married him and eventually had Dawn and Jeff. Meanwhile, my dad