The Truth About Stacey by Ann M. Martin Read Free Book Online Page A

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.
    â€œThis”—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.
    â€œLook at this,” said Mary Anne. She read aloud from the flyer. “‘Want to earn fast money the easy way?’”
    â€œFast money!” cried Kristy indignantly. “The
easy
way! Liz must be crazy. Really. That girl isn’t playing with a full deck.”
    â€œWait, 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.
    â€œâ€˜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.
    â€œBoy,” 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.”
    â€œYeah,” said Claudia