"How could I forget?" Josh called after me.

    Something in the way he said it made me think he wasn't excited. But maybe that was my imagination.

    Chapter 2.

    The front door was unlocked. We always leave it that way on days the BSC meets. I threw it open and ran up the steps.

    Kristy Thomas looked up from the clipboard she was holding. "Hi. Where've you been?" she asked. She was sitting in the same place she always sits during our meetings - in my director's chair - and she had stuck a pencil behind her ear. Mary Anne Spier was already there too, sitting on my bed.

    "Shopping," I replied breathlessly. I dropped my backpack in the middle of the floor, feeling as if I might never move my shoulders again. After throwing the other two books on my bed, I stretched my arms toward the ceiling and rolled my shoulders.

    "Buy a lot?" Kristy asked, staring at the backpack.

    "Nope. Books," I replied, making a face.

    Kristy nodded. Luckily, my BSC friends understood my situation. I'd worried that when I moved to seventh grade, things might change. Staying close to somebody who's in a different grade, or goes to a different school, can be difficult. But they stuck by me all the way. I guess that's one good test of friendship.

    So what's the BSC all about? I'll start at the beginning. Kristy, of the director's chair and pencil, is the founder and president. One afternoon, back in seventh grade, she watched her mother trying to find a baby-sitter for her little brother, David Michael - calling one sitter, being turned down, hanging up, and calling the next sitter on her list. Like a lightning bolt, it hit Kristy. Wouldn't it be easier to find a sitter if there was one number you could call to reach several people at once? That's the idea behind the BSC.

    As I mentioned earlier we meet every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon from five-thirty (on the dot) until six, in my room. (I'm the only one in the club with a private phone on a separate line. That's what landed me the job of vice-president.) Parents call and request a sitter. The person who answers the phone takes down the information about the job - what time, how many kids, and so on. Then we figure out which of us can take it and call the client back to tell him or her who will be coming.