On the day I went toy-shopping for Tigger, Kristy had just barely called the meeting to order when the phone rang.

We looked at each other and smiled. A job call so early in a meeting must be a good sign.

Claudia reached for the phone, a plastic charm bracelet dangling from her wrist. "Hello, Baby-sitters Club," she said. There was a pause. Then she put her hand over the receiver. "Oh, Mary A-anne," she called to me in a singsong voice, "it's for you-ou." I took the phone, glancing at Kristy. She doesn't like us to get personal calls during meetings.

"Hello?" I said.

"Hi!" replied a cheerful voice.

Logan! I was really happy to hear from him. I just hoped he was calling about business.

"What's up?" I asked him.

"I need a sitter." Actually, he said, "Ah need a sittuh." (Logan's family moved here from Louisville, Kentucky, not long ago.) "For Kerry and Hunter?" I asked. Kerry is Logan's nine-year-old sister and Hunter is his five-year-old brother. None of us has baby-sat for them before, because Logan always does it.

"Yeah. It's for this Saturday afternoon. Mom and Dad have some tennis thing lined up with friends of theirs, and I'm going to baseball practice at school. I was supposed to sit, but then practice came up. Can one of you do it?" I was dying to do it, of course, but I had to treat this job like any other. "I'll check our schedules and call you back in just a few minutes, okay?" "Okay." This is how we handle club jobs. The person who gets the phone call or who answers the phone never just takes a job. It's open for everyone.

I told the others about the job as I looked at the appointment pages in the record book. "Well," I said, "Kristy, you and Mallory and I are free." My friends were very generous and let me take the job. I called Logan back. "What's all that sneezing I hear?" I asked, after I'd told him that I would be the sitter.