"Thanks a lot, Janine!" I yelled after her. As soon as she was gone I turned on my radio. I hate studying when it's totally quiet, but Janine won't tolerate the radio when she's helping me. Then I turned my attention back to my desk. Time to straighten it up and then finish off the rest of my homework. I gave my math book one more quick glance and then stuck it into my backpack, along with my notebook.

The rest of my homework was a breeze, compared to studying for that test. I raced through it. Then I put down my pencil, got up and stretched, and threw myself onto my bed. "Aaaahh!" I sighed. "All done." I rolled over and reached for the phone.

"Hi, Stace - it's Claud," I said, when my best friend, Stacey McGill, answered the phone at her house. I told Stacey all about my big math test, and about how incredibly nervous I was about it. She tried to calm me down. (She's great in math, just like Janine. She never gets nervous about tests.) "C'mon, Claud," she said. "What about all that time we've spent going over that stuff?" It was true. Stacey had been helping me with my math all year, during study halls and sometimes even - when I was especially confused - during lunch.

"I know, Stace, but - " "But nothing," she interrupted. "You know that material backwards and forwards. You're going to do a great job on that test. I guarantee it!" This made me feel better, but I still wasn't convinced. I dropped the subject, and we talked for awhile longer, about clothes, about a movie we'd seen, and about our club - the Baby-sitters Club.

"Just think, Claud," she said. "By the time we have our next meeting you'll have taken the test. It will all be over with." She was right. We had a club meeting the next day after school. When we'd said goodbye and hung up, I thought about how lucky I was to have such a good friend. And even though Stacey's my best friend, I'm especially lucky because I've got a whole gang of other friends, too - the other members of our club.