Deer Deary Sunday

Owe mie lurd! i am sooo eksited! i am feynally gong to hi skool! HI SKULL. Miy frendz ar sooo ekcytid! waht well I du. Will, ferst I mest disiyd un in owtfet. Shud I wer mey pink

powlka powka poka pewka doted pehnts ur shood I wer mei beggy mens pents wit oreng stryps on them. dis is a viry beg dellima. enywey I now dat I well bee viry viry kull en hi sckull. so well stacee end de odder mimberz ef de bebysetters klob. Meellery ez bak frum boordeng skull! shee end jesee ar gong too bee en sivint grayd! i well bee en nyns grayd. ee em sooooo ekseetid! Wayt, ded I ryt dat beefur. i du nut kir. dis wuz a viry bed sumor vakayteeon. i wint tooo simer skool agin! bit ee pissed. ee im veery veery veery prowd if meyslef. jenin ez gong too herverd iven tow shee ez ownlee sexten. sheee ez viry smurt. but yoo now what. Sheee kennot draw et al!

luv kolodia.

TRANSLATION:

Dear Diary,

Oh, my lord! I am sooo excited. I am finally going to high school. HIGH SCHOOL. My friends are sooo excited What will I do? Well, first I must decide on an outfit. Should I wear my pink polka-dotted pants or should I wear my baggy man's pants with orange stripes on them? This is a very big dilemma. Anyway, I know that I will be very, very cool in high school. So will Stacey and the other members of the baby-sitters Club. Mallory is back from boarding school! She and Jessi are going to be in seventh grade! I will be in ninth grade. I am soooo excited! Wait, did I write that before? I do not care. This was a very bad summer vacation. I went to summer school again! But I passed. I am very, very, very proud of myself. Janine is going to Harvard even though she is only sixteen. She is very smart. But you know what? She cannot draw at all!

Love, Claudia

Hi! My name is Claudia Kishi. I am thirteen years old and in the eighth grade. Well, at least I was. Now I am finally fourteen and I am about to start ninth grade. In high school! I am very proud of this. Before, I was not a very good student. Once, I even had to repeat seventh grade! But now I am back with my friends in eigth grade. Oops! I mean, we were going to ninth grade. Finally! After all those years of eighth grade!

Anyway, I'm getting totally off the subject. Tomorrow, my friends in the Baby-sitters Club (more on that later) were going to… HIGH SCHOOL! Even I had garduated (oops! I mean graduated) from eighth grade after passing summer school. I go to summer school nearly every year, since I'm not the world's best student, but I always pass it.

My big sister, Janine, is a genius. She was going to Harvard (and on scholarship) even though she's just two years older than me. Janine took college courses last year even though she was still in high school. Janine may be very smart, but I hope I'm never like her. She's always correcting everyone and her best friend is her computer. I, on the other hand, may not do well in school, but at least I'm talented at art. And I'm one of the cool kids in school. I have lots of friends and I dress in a very cool way. Me, and my best friend Stacey were bound to be popular in high school…

Dear Diary, Sunday

Seventh grade! I can't believe I'm finally starting seventh grade TOMORROW! But wait, that's not dibble. Most of my friends in the BSC are going to be freshmen at Stoneybrook High School, while I'm stuck as a seventh-grader. At least Jessi Ramsey, my best friend is going to be in seventh grade too. I'm so glad I'm not deserting her again by going to boarding school…oh my lord! The triplets are going to be in SMS with us! Oh, no. That is so stale. At least they will have to help me baby-sit for all our other siblings.

I wonder what it will be like to have the BSC with most of the members in high school. Well, the Monday meeting is tomorrow, so we'll see what happens!

I, Mallory Pike, yawned as I woke up the next day. Then I quickly sat up in bed.

"Oh my gosh!" I blurted out. "Today's the day!" And in fact, it was. It was the day I was starting… seventh grade! I had been stuck in a time warp in which I kept repeating sixth grade before, and I thought I'd never get out. It was an amazing moment when I finally did.

The year before, I had gone to boarding school after Christmas break, but all the dibbly cool girls bullied me and I missed my friends in Stoneybrook Connecticut anyway so I came back.

Today, I brushed my curls and teeth. Then I pulled on a pink ruffly jumper my aunt had given to me. Then I put on a red turtleneck and red tights. I put on my favorite pair of push-down socks with hearts on them and pink Mary-Jane Shoes. I knew I looked so cool!

I headed downstairs, where my father was flipping pancakes. "Mallory!" he exclaimed. "Here you go." He flipped a stack of pancakes onto my plate. I sat down and dug into my plate.

"O, Mallory, o Mallory. Doth thee not know that thou art consuming a calorie? " my sister, Vanessa the Goth stretched in her white, ruffly Victorian dress. Vanessa is ten years old. She shares a bedroom with me and she would be going to fifth grade today. Vanessa is a budding poet. She talks in rhyme for practice all the time (and it gets dibbly annoying). Vanessa spends most of her time writing morbid poetry and crying now. My mom and dad are pretty loose with my siblings, and they let her do whatever she wants. So Vanessa now wears all these tragic-romantic-heroine outfits and rhymes 24/7 and wears twelve earrings. Ha! Mom and Dad didn't even let me get my ears pierced until I was eleven, which was a year ago. I have curly red hair, glasses, braces, freckles and pale skin, none of which I am allowed to do anything about.

"Mallory, Silly-Billy-Goo-Goo!" giggled my little sister, Claire. Of course, she is treated far less severely. She had straight, long, brown hair and no glasses. Claire is only six and she's the baby of the family. She gets whatever she wants. Claire is going through a silly stage in which she calls everyone Silly-Billy-Goo-Goo, and she has all these tantrums, but nobody cares.

Claire shares a room with Margo, who is eight. Margo. Don't even talk about tantrums. Margo is the troubled middle child, who is suffering bulimia. It's very traumatic for all of us and we're trying to help her through this difficult time. Now, she was picking at her plate of pancakes, probably planning her next vomiting session.

"I'm going to fourth grade." My nine-year-old brother, Nicky announced proudly. "Whatever, Nick, Nick, who makes us feel sick!" taunted Adam. Nicky is nine, and, well, smart. The triplets make fun of him a lot. "Yeah, we're going to high school." Byron (who loves food and naked girls) added. The triplets are Adam, Byron and Jordan. They are eleven and they love to tease. They would be in sixth grade, just below me this year. But don't get me wrong! They have very different personalities, especially Byron. "Right, Mom?" Jordan asked. "I don't know, hon." Mom said. "I'd call it junior high school." "Whatever, Mom." groaned Adam. He picked up his bag to leave. "Our little middle-schoolers." Gushed Mom. "Wait, you have to take a picture."

That's a Pike Family Tradition. We always have to take a picture as we're leaving on the first day of school. Whoever's starting Middle School (or high school when we're older) gets special attention. Last year it was me, only Mom and Dad got into a fight that year over whether they should start using condoms or not, and neither of them would come down and us kids had to do everything by ourselves. Just my luck. I'm telling you, there's an oldest-sibling curse going on in the Pike family.

After the pictures were taken and everything, the Pikes headed off to school (and the parents headed off to the local Catholic church).Vanessa began to walk Claire, Margo and Nicky off to school. I was about to go to SMS by myself, but I was stopped by three crabby-faced boys. "Where do you think you're going, bitch?" asked Adam. "We're coming with you." "Oh, right." I remembered. "Hey, I know Stacey is in SHS now, but let's ask her to come with us." "Okay!" the boys were immediately brightened up. They love Stacey.

Stacey McGill is one of my friends in the Baby-sitters Club, who lives in the house behind us. She came out of the house wearing a really dibble outfit. It was a tiny black leather miniskirt, a really low-cut pink top and pink stilettos. Her blond hair was blown super-straight and it framed her pretty blue-eyed face nicely. She looked surprised when she saw us. "Hey, what are you guys doing here?" she asked. "Um, can we walk with you?" I asked. "Oh, sure." She said. "But I want to walk with Claud and all the other members of the Baby-sitters Club, too." I could have sworn that she winked at Adam as we walked down the road.

I guess, by now, I should tell you about the Baby-sitters Club, because it's an important part of my life. All my friends are in it. It's a baby-sitting business full of baby-sitters that happen to be very close friends. All the other members of the BSC, apart from Jessi and me are fourteen and about to start ninth grade. Kristy Thomas is the president. She's outgoing, kind of bossy and very, very opinionated. She is a real character. The club was her idea, so I guess that's why she's the president. She's a great president, because she's bossy and organized. She is the most organized person I know. She has loads of Great Ideas. My friends and I call her the idea machine. Kristy doesn't care much about clothes or boys. She wears her long brown hair simply. To her 'dressing-up' means wearing anything more fancy then her standard 'uniform' of a turtleneck, jeans and sneakers. She plays softball, and she loves it so much that she has her own softball team called Kristy's Krushers. Kristy is rich, although you'd never guess it from the way she dresses. Her stepfather, Watson Brewer is a real live millionaire! Yes, really. Kristy's dad walked out on her family when she was six (what a creep!) shortly after her little brother, David Michael, was born. Then, Mrs. Thomas met Watson and they fell in love and married. Watson moved Kristy, David Michael, their now late collie Louie and her older brothers Sam and Charlie (who are now sixteen and eighteen) into his mansion with his children Karen and Andrew, who are eight and five. What a big family! And as if that weren't enough, the Brewers adopted a then two-year-old Vietnamese orphan called Emily Michelle into their house and then they got a dog called Shannon, and a rat called Emily, and lots of other animals. Kristy's active grandmother, Nannie moved in with them, too. She wouldn't be walking with us, though, because she lives in the ritzy part of town and she has to go on the bus. Abby Stevenson, a fellow BSCer also lives there. Abby loves sports and has lots of long, thick dark curls. She has a twin sister called Anna, who is quiet and plays violin. Abby is outgoing and boisterous, just like Kristy, only she's more easygoing and she loves to make jokes. Although there is sadness in her eyes from when her father died in a car accident when she was nine. Abby and Kristy clash a lot because they both have such big personalities, but underneath that they get along well and they do have a special relationship.

Abby is close with Kristy, but not her best friend. Kristy's best friend, Mary Anne Spier is her opposite. Well, they look alike, with brown hair (although Mary Anne's hair is cut really short these days) and brown eyes and they're both short, though Mary Anne has grown a little, unlike her hair. But that's where the similarities end. Mary Anne is shy, sensitive, kind, sweet and romantic- Kristy's opposite. Plus, she has a boyfriend! His name is Logan Bruno, and he's very cute and he has the freshest Southern accent. Isn't that just so dibble? Kristy doesn't like boys, so she would never have a boyfriend. I guess you could call her a tomboy. Anyway, Mary Anne is the BSC secretary, because she has really neat handwriting. She writes up every single baby-sitting job, and you know what? She's never made a mistake! Mary Anne's mom died a long time ago, so her dad became really strict with her. He made her wear little-girl clothes and her. But love blossomed in the air after he remet Sharon Schafer, his high school sweetheart who had just moved back from California after a divorce. Wedding Bells rang and they were married. Now Mary Anne lives in Sharon's three-hundred-year-old farmhouse, which just might be haunted. Mr. Spier has really loosened up now. And he's even let her wear more casual-preppy clothes and get a kitten.

Guess what? Sharon Schafer had two kids. And one of them, Dawn Schafer happens to be Mary Anne's best friend! Dawn is so fresh (that's a word me and my friends made up. Fresh, dibble, chilly and distant all mean cool. Dibble is also short for 'incredible'. Stale is the opposite!). She lived in California for most of her life, and boy is she a California Girl! She's gorgeous with L-O-N-G blond hair, which is so blond it's almost white. Her eyes are sparkly and pale blue. She loves to surf and read ghost stories. She eats health food, like tofu and granola and never eats red meat, so she has a very trim figure. She is very, very passionate about animal rights and the environment. Dawn is easygoing, independent and a real individual. She dresses in a very distant, individualistic style that we call 'California Casual'. Sadly, she and her eleven-year-old brother Jeff recently moved back to California. Mary Anne was depresses- but now, the two of them had moved back over the summer.

Claudia Kishi would never eat health food. She loves Mars Bars, Kit-Kats, you name it. We have meetings in her room since she has her own phone line (isn't that so dibbly fresh?) and she hides lots of junk food in her room because her parents don't approve of it, or her Nancy Drew Books… wait! I bet you're imagining Claudia all fat and pimply, right? Wrong! Claudia is beautiful with long, shiny black hair, almond-shaped eyes (she's Japanese-American), a creamy complexion and a figure like a model. I guess I should also mention that Claud is not the world's best speller. She's a terrible student, which is unfortunate because her sister, Janine is a certified genius who is going to Harvard this year, although she's only sixteen. Mr. and Mrs. Kishi are only starting to accept that Claudia is a genius in her own way- an artistic genius! Yep, painting, sculpting, drawing, paper-mache, you name it! Claud is dibbly talented at art, and boy does it show in the way she dresses! She dresses in the most amazing, funky, artistic, creative outfits that other people could never pull off like she does. Today Claudia was wearing pink, over-sized pants with red polka dots on them. They were held up at her chest with black suspenders. Underneath, Claudia wore a white button-up mans shirt and a pink bow tie with pineapples printed on it. One of her earrings was a life-size bat. She had to cock her head to one side, or else her ears would hurt. The other was a big pineapple painted purple and pink, and since Claud has three holes in her ears, which is really chilly, the other earring was a gigantic orange hoop. On her head she wore one of those hats that little kids usually wear. You know, those little baseball caps with the spinning thing on top. Wow. "Claudia, that's so chilly!" I told her. Immediately, the triplets cracked up. Claudia frowned. Stacey bit her lip. I frowned, myself. This was not the reaction I was expecting. "It's actually pretty warm, Mal." Claudia said patiently. "No, chilly." I explained. "As in, really, really, cool?" "Oh, yeah. That." said Stacey. "Seriously, Mal. That little word we made up is so over."

Stacey McGill is dibbly sophisticated. I think that's because she used to live in New York City- yes, New York! Home of Bloomingdales, Macy's, The Statue of Liberty, The Hard Rock Café and so many other things! Stacey goes there all the time to shop. She is very, very into fashion. She loves shopping and dresses just like a model- and looks like one too. I wish I was as sophisticated as Stacey. She and Claud are best friends, which makes since because they are the too most grown-up members of the BSC. Unlike Claudia, though, Stacey loves math. She is so good at it that she is our treasurer. Both of them are really boy-crazy. But Stacey's life isn't perfect. Her parents are divorced, for example. And, she's got a life-threatening disease called diabetes. And she has to give herself (EW, EW, EW!) insulin shots. But Stacey deals well with it all, and she always looks great. Gosh. If only I was like her.

Next, we stopped off at Mary Anne and Dawn's house. Mary Anne was wearing a neat little plaid kilt and a white button-up shirt. She wore white tights and black Mary Jane shoes- kind of like mine! Dawn sported a really neat baggy t-shirt with the words 'California' written on it. She had on baggy jeans- and a straw hat! How fresh. Jeff, Dawn's little brother came too, because he was now going to be in sixth grade, like the triplets. Jeff Schafer is so cute. He has blond hair and an amazing California tan, just like his sister. And a great body, I might add, because of all that surfing he does and his health-food diet. Luckily, the triplets are friends with him, so he comes over to our house all the time. Meanwhile, Dawn lectured Stacey about her skirt.

"Stacey," she said. "Did you know that your skirt was once a cow? So you are wearing a dead animal. A slaughtered cow carcass." Stacey rolled her eyes. "I know." "You know? So then why are you wearing it, Stacey?" "Because it looks hot. You wouldn't know that, Miss California Casual." Jeff and the triplets burst out laughing. Dawn was thoroughly annoyed and didn't speak for the rest of the trip.

We stopped at one more house. It was the house of Jessica Ramsey, my best friend. Jessi (which is what we always call her) pirouetted out of the house in a pink tutu and jeans. Yep, that's Jessi. She loves dancing, and she's dibbly talented at it. She takes ballet lessons in Stamford. She even carries herself like a dancer and pulls her hair back the way dancers do. Jessi and I have a lot in common. We both like horse books (especially be Margurite Henry!), we're both the oldest kids in our families, we both think our parents treat us like babies and of course, we both love to baby-sit! But we do have differences. While Jessi's love is dancing, mine is reading and writing. She wants to be a ballerina, while I want to be a children's book writer. She doesn't have glasses or braces, and she has a much smaller family than mine. And she's Protestant. The biggest difference between me and her is that, well… I'm white and Jessi's, well… black. But of course, that doesn't matter to me or anyone else in the BSC! Some people in Stoneybrook were awful to Jessi and her family when they first moved here from New Jersey last year, because of that. Well, as far as me and the BSC are concerned, racism is totally and completely stupid, not to mention dibbly stale.

After about fifteen minutes, we split up. "'Bye guys! Good luck in high school!" I told them. "Uh-uh. See ya." said Stacey. She walked away with Mary Anne, Dawn and Claudia, wiggling her booty.

"Gosh." I said to Jessi. "Stacey sure is sophisticated." "Yeah." She replied "But surely not as sophisticated as me." Jessi went on a dance tour this year over the summer and she visited eight countries. One of those countries included Kenya, her native land and I guess it must have rubbed off on her. "Ha-ha. Not you, blackie." Adam teased. "Stacey is-" Byron, Jeff and Jordan snickered and Adam blushed. "Nice." He concluded.

We neared SMS, and went in. Jessi and I lead Jeff and the triplets into the cafeteria, where a pinch-faced woman was handing out these schedules. "Mallory Pike. That's my name!" I told her perkily. The woman remained stone-faced as she handed me my schedule. I read it, then looked over Jessi's.

"Oh my lord!" I exclaimed. "That is so stale!" Jessi looked at me. "What is it, Mal?" "We don't have any classes together." Jessi gasped. "That is so not dibbly fresh!" "Wait." I pointed out. "We do have the same gym class- but that's all." "Now everyone's going to make fun of my skin color!" Jessi looked close to tears. "It'll be all right." We hugged a long, long hug. After that we parted tearfully. I walked to my homeroom looking down.

Oh my lord!

Justin Price was in my class! Justin is just about the cutest boy in seventh grade- if not SMS. But then, I noticed, Sandra Hart was there. And she was wearing this little halter top and a miniskirt. Sandra is the most gorgeous girl in the entire school, especially now that Stacey and Claudia are gone. Sandra also happens to be the snob of the century. The one boy she could never get is Ben Hobart, who is my sort-of-boyfriend. Right now Ben was wearing an Indiana Jones-type outfit, and telling everyone something about how he knocked up some blond bonzer Sheila in the loo at a football game over the summer in Australia. I used to be the only bonzer Sheila he knew.

A bunch of eighth-graders were jumping up and down in the hallways, screaming; "We rule the school!"

Suddenly, seventh grade didn't seem so exciting anymore.

Dear Dad,

Stoneybrook High School is so great. It has the coolest teachers, the nicest kids and the cutest boys. (Ha-ha). Of course, the kids in New York are so much cooler, but what do you expect of a school in a tiny town like this? Anyway, I have to say I think this will be the best school year ever! I already have tons of new friends, and I am so trying out for the cheerleading squad! Wish me luck!

Love Stacey

High school was totally looking up.

As I walked into SHS with the girls,I was pretty sure I could see a few people giving Claudia strange looks (Who wouldn't?).

The day I found out what classes I was in, I went out and bought a BIG pack of condoms.

Because I am in a class with Sam Thomas. This is all my doing. See, my dad knows Watson ve-ry well. And Watson knows people at SHS. So Watson arranged things for me to be in the junior class for PE and math! I know it's going to be a challenge, but I'm sure I can handle it. It also helped that my math grade was really high (thank you, thank you, don't applaud, just send roses). I do have English with the freshmen, though.

But I'm nervous that I'll get kicked out. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that I'm not a junior. Even though I am tall, leggy, gorgeous and blond. I am also super-skinny because of my diabetes, which have done little other than define my maturity and sophistication. (I'm not bragging, people do say I'm sophisticated and pretty). But that didn't mean I had no chance of getting found out. I mean, these things do happen.

Anyway, my friends and I picked up our schedules then and compared them. We had met up with Kristy and Abby by now.

"Oh, my lord. Oh, my LORD! Stace, we only have a few classes together. English. And art, but that's it." said Claudia.

"Oh." I'm sorry about this, but Claudia is not exactly brainy. And I am. Brainy and blond. You can't get much better than that, you know.

"Stacey, Claudia Dawn and I are in the same homeroom." Mary Anne observed. "And Kristy and Abby are together."

"That is so chilly." Abby said happily.

I saw Claudia roll her eyes. Abby and Kristy are not exactly as sophisticated as me, and I'm her best friend.

"But we all have the same English class." Kristy said.

Oh, no. I was not looking forward to correcting Claudia's spelling tests. But I quickly pushed that mean little thought away.

I went to homeroom with Dawn, Claud and Mary Anne. I couldn't help letting out a little groan when we were in the classroom.

"What's wrong, Stacey?" Mary Anne asked, looking concerned.

"Look. Alan Gray is in our homeroom."

Alan Gray is who some kids call the class clown. He is the most immature, obnoxious boy in our grade. I call him the Dork King of the Ninth Grade.

"Marrrrry Anne! What happened to YOU?!"

Mary Anne ran burst into tears. Maybe Alan had meant her haircut, which he hasn't stopped talking about for months after she got it. Well, I don't think it's that's bad, it looks really, really cute. Or maybe Alan was dissing her outfit, which was pretty dorky. I'm sorry, but Mary Anne just isn't as sophisticated as me. And probably, she never will be.

"Alan, you jerk!" Dawn shouted.

"You are so immature." Claudia said.

"Oh, Claud, nice outfit!" he said sarcastically.

"Really?" Claudia beamed.

Cary Retlin, Kristy's archrival raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, no." said Dawn. "You're in our homeroom?"

Cary raised another eyebrow. "No."

"You're a jerk too!" shouted Dawn.

I cringed. Dawn may be easygoing, but she can also be so opinionated. She had seated herself beside Mary Anne and Claudia, but they were kind of embarrassing me, so I decided to sit somewhere else. Unfortunately, the only spare seats left were the chairs between Cokie Mason, another BSC archenemy and Alan Gray, and the chair between Claudia and this dorky girl from SMS called Emily Bernstein. I didn't want to be a dork myself, so I sat between Cokie and Alan. Claud's face fell. I could tell she had been saving this seat for me.

Cokie, who is pretty elegant for a native Stoneybrook-ite, raised her eyebrow. Cokie was pretty popular in her old school and I guess she wanted to reprise that role, as she was wearing a pretty grown-up outfit that day- a black sweater, a pink flared mini and those little sneakers with the heels.

"Sick of your baby-sitting friends, Stacey?" she asked, a hint of sarcasm in her voice. Well, Dawn and Mary Anne were right there, looking at us. I didn't want to hurt their feelings, but I didn't want to damage my rep either, so I just laughed and flipped by back my hair.

"Right." said Cokie. "You don't know how much I get irritated by them. I mean, can you say, dorky?"

Alan, who is pretty popular although he wasn't exactly on good terms with Cokie last year, began singing in a high-pitched voice, "Say hello to your friends…"

"Hey! You want to make something of it?" Dawn jumped out of her seat, fists clenched.

Well, there would have been a fight, only that was when the teacher walked in. He gave Dawn a Look that made her sit down, then turned towards the rest of the class.

"Hello, class. I am Mr. Belcher."

He was sexy!