"Good-night, Dad."

He closed my door. I could hear his footsteps as he went back downstairs.

I know my dad loves me, and I know the reason he's strict is that he wants to show everybody I can be a well-brought-up young lady even without a mother, but sometimes I just wish things were different.

I took my flashlight out of my desk drawer,

turned off my light, and tiptoed to my window, waiting for Kristy to do the same. I planned to signal I'M SORRY to her.

I stood at my window for fifteen minutes, but her shade remained drawn.

I knew then that she was very angry.

Chapter 3.

The next morning I woke up feeling sad. Kristy had never stayed mad at me for so long. Then again, I had never called her the biggest, bossiest know-it-all in the world. As I got dressed for school, though, I tried to convince myself that the members of the Baby-sitters Club couldn't stay mad for long. After all, we had a business to run. Surely things would get straightened out in time for our meeting the next day.

When breakfast was over, I kissed my father good-bye and headed out the front door. I hoped he wouldn't see that I was walking to school alone. If he did, he would know that something was wrong.

I had walked to school alone only six times since kindergarten. Four of those times were days Kristy was home sick; once was when

she and her family left for Florida the day before spring vacation started; and once was the day after the Thomases announced that they were getting divorced, and Kristy had been too upset to go to school.

Sometimes Claudia walked with us, sometimes she didn't. However, since just after we started the Baby-sitters Club, Kristy, Claudia, Stacey, and I had been walking to and from school together almost every day.

I reached the sidewalk and paused in front of Kristy's house, trying to decide whether to ring her bell and ask to talk to her. In the end, I just kept on walking. Basically, I'm a coward. I didn't want to have a scene with her in front of her family.