The Truth About Stacey (5 page)

I pulled Jamie into my lap and sat with him for a while. Louie leaned against me and looked at us with mournful eyes.

I tried to be calm and rational. Jamie was just three years old. He had only overheard one end of a phone conversation. He wasn't even sure that Liz Lewis was the name he had overheard. Furthermore, just because Mrs. Newton had talked to someone about finding older sitters
didn't mean she wasn't going to use the Babysitters Club anymore.

So why did I feel as if an ice chest were sitting in my stomach?

I knew why. It was because it made sense that Mrs. Newton would want someone older to take care of a newborn baby. And Liz Lewis and Michelle Patterson could provide that for her.

The Baby-sitters Club couldn't.

Still, I felt that Mrs. Newton was being a traitor. After all, Kristy was Jamie's favorite baby-sitter, and the rest of the members of our club were the Newtons' other regular sitters. We could handle caring for an infant. We were very responsible. And I was willing to bet that Liz and Michelle's sitters, even if they were in high school, weren't responsible at all. The more I thought about the Baby-sitters Agency, the angrier I felt.

Later, when the Big Brother Party was breaking up, I told Kristy what Jamie had overheard. She looked aghast. “And you know what?” I said suddenly, the anger building up inside me again.

Kristy shook her head.

“This”—I narrowed my eyes and set my jaw—”means war.”

I was all set to launch a war against the Babysitters Agency. So was Kristy. We were ready to let loose with every single plan or idea she had come up with. But Claudia put her foot down (so did Mary Anne), and while we were wasting time trying to decide what to do, the Baby-sitters Agency got one more step ahead of us.

The club hadn't even had a chance for a proper meeting to discuss Jamie's bad news, since Monday's meeting had been held hastily after the Big Brother Party, and Kristy and Mary Anne weren't present because they were at the Thomases', watching Jamie and cleaning up. Then on Tuesday, the very next day, the Baby-sitters Agency carried out another step in their scheme to take away our club's business. (I don't know if that's how
they
thought of what they were doing,
but it's how
I
thought of it. At any rate, they were big copycats in the first place, for starting a club so much like ours and giving it a name so close to ours.)

But I'm getting off the track. On Tuesday morning, the Baby-sitters Club walked to school as a group, which was nice, because in the beginning, the club kept separating into two and two—Kristy and Mary Anne, Claudia and me. But that started to change when Kristy became a
little
interested in boys, and I wanted to have more than one close friend. Anyway, we arrived at school and guess who was there to meet us. The Baby-sitters Agency. Everywhere. Michelle and Liz were trying to recruit more sitters to call on when job requests came in.

Liz was standing on the front steps of the school, handing out her agency balloons along with flyers. Mary Anne managed to get a flyer—not from Liz but from a boy who was about to toss his in a garbage can. It was a different flyer from the one Claudia's sister had brought to us.

“Look at this,” said Mary Anne. She read aloud from the flyer. “‘Want to earn fast money the easy way?'”

“Fast money!” cried Kristy indignantly. “The
easy
way! Liz must be crazy. Really. That girl isn't playing with a full deck.”

“Wait, wait. Let's hear this,” I said. “Go on, Mary Anne.”

We were standing in a tense bunch, huddled together a few yards away from Liz. I could feel Liz's triumphant eyes on us, but I didn't give her the satisfaction of turning around.

“‘Join the Baby-sitters Agency,'” Mary Anne continued. “‘You do the work, but we do the hardest part of the job. Let the agency find jobs
for
you!'”

The flyer went on to explain how the agency worked, which was just about the way Kristy had guessed when she'd made her fake phone call, looking for a sitter for “Harry Kane.” We had to admit that the flyers made the agency look pretty tempting. All you had to do was join—then sit back and wait for Liz or Michelle to hand you a job. Of course, you didn't get to keep all the money you earned. You had to turn some of it over to the agency (that was how Liz and Michelle made money when
they
weren't sitting), but we thought that a lot of kids would find that a small price to pay for the extra jobs they'd get through the agency.

“Boy,” said Mary Anne. She scrunched up the flyer and threw it in the trash can. “The agency is probably going to have a million eighth-graders working for it.”

“Yeah,” said Claudia glumly, kicking a pebble with the toe of her sneaker. “For all we know, Liz and Michelle have someone recruiting sitters over at the high school, too. They could be getting twelfth-graders. I bet a senior in high school could stay out until two in the morning—or even spend the night.”

“Or sit for a whole darned weekend,” I said.

“But how does the agency know what kind of sitter they're giving their clients?” asked Mary Anne. “They could give someone a really irresponsible kid who just wants to make a few bucks.”

“Right,” said Kristy, “but why should Liz and Michelle care, as long as they get their cut of the money earned?”

We walked dejectedly into the building, carefully not looking at Liz as we went by her. I remembered something my father had said to me the year before. He'd said it when I was in the hospital after one of the times I'd gone into insulin shock in school—in the cafeteria, where absolutely
every
one had seen me fall forward into a bowl of tomato soup—and had been taken
away in an ambulance. “Stacey, look at it this way, honey. The worst has happened,” he'd told me. “Now things can only get better.” It was a good philosophy, and I'd repeated it to myself many times since then.

“Well, you guys,” I said to the members of the Baby-sitters Club as we entered the school building, “look at it this way. The worst has happened. Now things can only get better.”

“Wrong,” said Kristy flatly.

“What?”

“She said ‘wrong,'” Claudia repeated. “Look.”

We were rounding a corner. I glanced up. In the main intersection of Stoneybrook Middle School a counter had been set up. A large sign on the wall behind it screamed: THE BABYSITTERS AGENCY, and in smaller letters:
SIGN UP HERE
.

Michelle Patterson and two eighth-grade girls were sitting behind the counter. Each was holding a clipboard and looked very official. A large group of girls from every grade, as well as three boys, was standing around the counter, asking questions and talking to Michelle and her helpers. I couldn't tell how many of them were signing up, but it didn't matter.

“I wonder who gave them permission to do
that,”
I said.

Claudia shrugged.

“Bathroom,” said Kristy urgently. We left the hall and piled into the nearest girls' room, checking to make sure the stalls were empty. Then Kristy, glaring furiously at Claudia and Mary Anne, opened her mouth to speak.

Claudia beat her to it. “Don't say it. I know what you're going to say. Okay. So we were wrong and you were right. What do you want to do about the agency? We'll do anything.”

“Anything?” asked Kristy. She looked at each of us in turn.

“Anything,” said Claudia.

“Ditto,” said Mary Anne.

“Double ditto,” I said.

“Great,” said Kristy, “because I have another idea. A new one.”

“Y-you do?” asked Claudia.

Kristy nodded grimly.

Claudia glanced sideways at Mary Anne.

She poked at a drop of water on a faucet. “What? I'm afraid to ask.”

At that moment, the bell rang.

Kristy rolled her eyes. “No time now. I don't
care what
any
of you is doing after school. I'm calling a triple-emergency club meeting.”

“Why not at recess today?” asked Mary Anne.

“Too risky,” replied Kristy. “No more club business at school. For all we know, the agency has spies watching us. Anyone sitting this afternoon?”

We shook our heads. “I haven't even spoken to Dr. or Mr. Johanssen in a week,” I murmured.

“I thought as much,” said Kristy. “Well, today's my regular afternoon with David Michael, so we'll have to hold the meeting at my house, okay?”

“Okay,” we agreed.

The meeting that afternoon was the picture of depression. The Baby-sitters Club sat around Kristy's dining room table while David Michael built a house out of wooden blocks for Louie. Kristy had served herself and Claudia and Mary Anne a snack and had poured each of us a diet soda, but the food remained untouched. We stared at our hands. Claudia shredded a paper napkin and arranged the strips in a tidy pile. Nobody spoke except Kristy.

“We can talk about my other ideas later,” she said, “but the new one is to recruit more members—eighth-graders—for our club. That way
we'll have some older sitters, but we won't have to copy the agency by working the way they do.” She looked around the table. “Agreed?”

Claudia, Mary Anne, and I nodded silently.

The Baby-sitters Club was going to increase its numbers.

Thanksgiving vacation was not a lot of fun that year. It came just two days after the Baby-sitters Club decided to take on new members. I didn't really mind asking other people to join our club—I figured it would be a chance to make more friends—but I didn't like the
reason
we were adding members. I was hopping mad at Liz and Michelle for hurting our club.

That was pretty much all I could think about on Thursday and Friday of Thanksgiving vacation. We had a four-day weekend, and I spent the first half of it mad at the Baby-sitters Agency.

I spent the second half of it mad at my parents.

For starters, they had said way back over the summer that we could go to New York for Thanksgiving, but the weekend before Thanksgiving they had suddenly changed their minds.

“We thought it would be nice to make our first Thanksgiving in Connecticut a true old-fashioned,
New England holiday,” Mom said. “I'll cook a meal that you can eat”—I scowled—”and we'll spend the day by ourselves. Dad will build a fire in the fireplace. We'll just enjoy being cozy and together in our new home.”

That didn't sound so bad. In fact, I managed to enjoy our day. It even snowed a little. It was late the next day, when Mom and Dad told me the real reason for not going to New York, that I got angry at them.

They had taken me to Washington Mall, which is about half an hour away from Stoneybrook. For some reason, the day after Thanksgiving is the biggest Christmas shopping day of the season. I don't know why. But I love to shop, so I thought the excursion would be fun and would help take my mind off the Baby-sitters Agency. Kristy had told me all about Washington Mall. It's the biggest one around, with five levels of stores, a zillion restaurants and food stands, four movie theaters, a videogame arcade, a petting zoo, and an exhibits area.

I had taken some of the money I'd earned babysitting out of my savings account, and I left Mom and Dad to explore the mall on my own. I bought two Christmas presents—a pair of striped leg warmers for Claudia and a book about New York
for Mary Anne—and a dinosaur pin for me. I planned to attach it to my beret.

At one o'clock, I met Mom and Dad and we ate lunch in a sandwich shop. After lunch, we went to a movie. Two hours later, as we filed back into the mall, Dad said brightly, “Well, how about one more treat before we head home? We could go to that little French café on the top level.”

“Ooh, goody,” I said.

When we were settled, Dad with a cup of coffee, Mom with a glass of wine, and I with diet ginger ale, Dad glanced at Mom and said, “Now, honey?”

“What?” I asked, immediately suspicious.

“We have some news for you.”

“What is it?”

Mom and Dad kept looking at each other as if they couldn't decide who should tell me the news. I knew it must be pretty important. Furthermore, I had a feeling that whatever it was, I wasn't going to like it one bit.

“We aren't moving again, are we?” I asked.

“Heavens, no,” said Mom. “It's not bad news … exactly.”

“You're pregnant!” I cried. “You found out you can have a baby after all!”

“Shhh!” said Dad. “People are turning around.”

“Well,
what?”

Mom cleared her throat. “It's just that we've scheduled the tests with the new doctor I mentioned to you a couple of weeks ago, remember?”

“How could I forget?”

“Stacey,” said Dad warningly, his voice rising on the last syllable.

“Sorry.”

“They're going to be a little later in the month than we had thought.”

“Near
Christ
mas?” I asked, dismayed.

“We'll leave on Friday, the twelfth, and probably return on Wednesday, the seventeenth.”

“But—but that's five days!” I sputtered. “You said it would only be three days.”

“Well, you'll still miss just three days of school,” said my father. “When we found out the tests would take longer than we realized, we scheduled them over a weekend. That's why we didn't go to New York for Thanksgiving. Two long weekends there so close together are too many.”

“Am I going to be in the
hospital
for five days?” Being in the hospital when you feel fine has to be the most boring thing in the world.

“You'll spend a lot of time at this doctor's clinic,” replied Mom, “but you'll be an outpatient…. Look, in the evenings we can have
fun. And we'll have Sunday free. We can visit your cousins and go Christmas shopping—”

“And,” said Dad, grinning, “I got tickets to the Sunday performance of
Paris Magic.”

“Paris Magic
!” I cried, momentarily forgetting doctors and clinics. “You're kidding! I can't believe it! Oh, thank you!”
Paris Magic
was a musical I'd been dying to see.

“And we'll go to Rockefeller Center and look at the Christmas tree,” Mom went on. “Think of it, Stacey. Christmas in New York. You always liked the city best at that season.”

“I guess,” I replied, returning to earth. Tickets to
Paris Magic
didn't make up for what Mom and Dad were doing to me. “So what does Dr. Werner think of … what's the name of the new doctor?”

“Dr. Barnes,” said Dad.

“What does Dr. Werner think of Dr. Barnes?”

“She doesn't know about Dr. Barnes yet,” replied my mother.

“Mo-om, I'd like to check with Dr. Werner first.”

“Stacey,” said Dad. “You are not in charge here. Your mother and I make the decisions.”

“Decisions about
me, my
body.”

“That's what parents are for,” he said wryly.

“So what's so special about Dr. Barnes?” I asked. “Why do we have to see him … or her?”

“Him,” said Mom. “He's a holistic doctor.”

Holistic … holy? “A
faith
healer?” I squeaked. “You're taking me to a religious person for a miracle?” Mom and Dad had considered some pretty desperate things over the months, but nothing like faith healing.

“Stacey, for pity's sake. No,” said Dad. “Calm down. Holistic medicine deals with the whole body, with a person as a whole, made up not just of physical parts, but of mental, emotional, environmental, nutritional—”

“I get it, I get it,” I muttered, embarrassed.

Dad drained his coffee, Mom sipped her wine, and I stirred my soda with the straw.

“Well,” said Dad at last, “we just wanted you to know what to expect. And to keep those days open for our trip.”

“What about my schoolwork?” I asked.

“We'll talk to your teachers before we leave. Maybe you can bring some of your homework with you and do it at the clinic,” said Mom. “Then you won't be too far behind when we return.”

I nodded. “I think this is very unfair,” I said softly.

My parents sighed in unison. “Well, we're sorry, honey,” replied Mom. “But this is the way things are.”

On Saturday afternoon, I baby-sat for Charlotte Johanssen. It was my first job in over a week. I knew that her parents were using the agency in the evenings because then they didn't have to worry about being home early. I hadn't seen Charlotte since the Big Brother Party. I brought the Kid-Kit with me as I had promised, and we began reading
The Cricket in Times Square.

When the Johanssens came home, I waited until Dr. Johanssen had paid me before I finally asked, “Could I talk to you? Please?”

“Of course, Stacey,” Charlotte's mother replied. “Let's go in the den.”

We walked across the hall and Dr. Johanssen closed the door behind us. “What's up? Are you feeling all right?” she asked.

“That's just the trouble. I'm fine. But Mom and Dad want me to see another new doctor in New York. He's going to do all these tests at his clinic. We have to go away for
five days.”

Dr. Johanssen shook her head in sympathy.

“He's a holistic doctor. Dad explained what that means.” I giggled. “I thought it meant he was holy—a faith healer.”

Charlotte's mother didn't smile, though. She
looked at me sharply. “Holistic. A clinic? Do you know the doctor's name?”

“Dr. Barnes.”

Dr. Johanssen groaned. “You weren't too far wrong, Stacey. Dr. Barnes
calls
himself a holistic doctor but he practically
is
a faith healer. At any rate, I don't think he's much more than a quack. He just happens to be getting a lot of publicity now. He's a fad doctor. And he's giving good holistic doctors a bad reputation. I don't know him personally,” she added, “I've just heard about him.”

“I knew it, I knew it,” I moaned.

“Now, don't worry. Dr. Barnes isn't going to harm you, from what I've heard. He won't touch your insulin, and if he changes your diet, it will be only slightly. What he is going to do—I can practically guarantee this—is recommend all sorts of expensive programs and therapies designed to make your life as positive and fulfilling and healthy as possible. He'll tell your parents that this will enable you to rid your body of the disease.”

“What kinds of therapies?” I asked.

“Oh, everything. He'll tell your parents to send you to a psychologist or psychiatrist. He'll give you an exercise program, start you on recreational therapy. He may even recommend that
you change schools so you can get individualized instruction.”

“No!” I cried.

“There's nothing really wrong with any of those things. It's just that—well, it's my belief that no special program is going to rid your body of diabetes.”

I stood up. “Of course not! Are they crazy? How is a psychiatrist going to change my blood sugar? Dr. Johanssen, you have to help me. Help me get out of this.”

“Stacey, I'd like to, but I don't feel I can step in here. I barely know your parents.”

“But you know me, and you're a doctor.”

“Yes, but I'm not
your
doctor.”

“Please?”

Dr. Johanssen rose, too. She put her arm around me. “Let me think, hon. I can't intervene directly, but before you leave for New York I'll—” She paused. “I promise I won't let you go to New York without doing
some
thing. I just need to think. Fair enough?”

I nodded. “Thanks.”

On my way home that afternoon, I vowed that I would not let Dr. Barnes put me on any of his programs. But I had only two weeks to figure out how to stop him.