When I reached my house I headed straight for my room, deciding to make a list of ideas for Mrs. Gonzalez's class. List-making always helps me decide about important issues. I've used it to decide who I'm going to invite to a dance or what outfit I'm going to wear for the first day of school or which homework assignment I'm going to do first.

    I got out a pad and grabbed a black magic marker from my desk. Then I wrote in big bold letters this question: HOW CAN I SAVE THE PLANET?

    Chapter 2.

    Our kitchen clock read 5:20. I had only ten minutes to get to Claudia Kishi's house. I could just make it if I pedaled my bike really fast.

    BSC meetings start promptly at 5:30. Kristy, who's club president, is really strict about that. She hates for anyone to be even one minute late. Kristy is president partly because the club was her idea and partly because she's a natural leader.

    Kristy is also great with little kids. That's probably because she's had to be very responsible from an early age. Her dad just walked out one day when she was little and left Mrs. Thomas to raise four kids. Kristy has two older brothers and a younger brother. It was pretty hard on Mrs. Thomas until she met Watson Brewer, who is - are you ready for this? - a millionaire! Kristy's mom married Watson right after Kristy finished seventh grade. Now they live in this absolutely gorgeous mansion across town.

    It's a good thing Kristy likes kids, because Watson has two little ones, a boy and a girl, from a previous marriage (they live with their father every other weekend, on some holidays, and for two weeks in the summer). Then Watson and Kristy's mom decided to adopt a little girl from Vietnam. Emily Michelle is two-and-a-half and a total doll. Luckily, Nannie, Kristy's grandmother, moved in to help with all those kids. On some weekends ten people live at her house. Can you imagine? I guess it's a good thing they live in that mansion.