"Can you believe this?" I said, gesturing at the mess on my desk and dresser.

"What?" asked Kristy.

"Myroom," I said.

"What about it?" asked Mary Anne. "It looks the same as always."

I had to laugh. "I guess it does. But this is adifferent kind of mess than usual. Someone was in here!"

"You're kidding!" said Kristy. "What did they take?"

"Nothing that I know of," I admitted. "But still — "

"Tell us .about it after the meeting,” interrupted Kristy. The other members of the club had arrived by then, and my digital dock had turned to five-thirty. Kristy is very punctual and always starts our meetings on time. She's also very focused, and never lets anything get in the way of club business.

Even though Kristy can drive me nuts sometimes, I'm glad she's our club president. If she weren't, I don't know if we'd ever get anything done. The rest of us would be happy to discuss school or the latest issue ofPeople magazine for hours at a time, but Kristy keeps us focused on the club.

But that's not the only reason she's president. The main reason is that she thought up the idea for the club. Kristy's always having great ideas, and this was the most awesome. She figured parents would think it was convenient to be able to call one phone number and reach a bunch of good sitters — and she was right. Business has been booming since the day the club started. Here's how it works: we meet every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from five-thirty to six. We advertised those hours at first, with fliers, but we hardly ever have to do that anymore. Parents call to line up sitters, and we divide up the jobs according to who's available when. Simple, right? But it took Kristy Thomas to think of it.

Kristy's a real dynamo. She has brown hair and brown eyes, and she's short for her age. She's kind of a tomboy: Kristy loves sports, especially baseball. And she doesn't care much about clothes and makeup and all that. She wears nearly the same thing every day: jeans, a turtleneck, and running shoes.