Stacey And The Cheerleaders Read Free Page B

conversation, she hung up and said, "We're in luck!"
    "Good," Kristy replied. "I'll sit for the Kil-bournes."
    "Bring a suit of armor," Shannon remarked. "You would not believe Tiffany. She has become such a brat."
    "Really?" I said. "She used to be so quiet."
    Shannon nodded. "She missed the Terrible Twos. Instead she's having the Terrible Tens. Even her teachers are complaining."
    Shannon and Logan, as I mentioned before, are our two associate members, and they're not required to come to meetings. Shannon has hair to die for — blonde and curly and incredibly thick. She goes to a private school called Stoneybrook Day School, and she's involved in a lot of extracurricular activities. Lately, though, she's been picking up some of the slack for Dawn and Mallory. Logan (who is cute with a capital Q) is Mary Anne Spier's boyfriend. He's on the football and track teams, and he works part-time as a busboy, so he's often unavailable to sit.
    Doesn't it figure that the quietest, shyest BSC member would be the only one with a steady boyfriend? Well, I must admit Logan has good taste. Mary Anne is also about the nicest, most sensitive and caring person I've ever met. She cries at sad movies. She cries at happy movies. Logan says she cries at store openings.
    She does not cry over the BSC record book, which is a good thing, because the book is filled to the brim with her neat, tiny handwriting. As BSC secretary, Mary Anne keeps track of our sitting jobs in that book. She writes down all our conflicts in advance — Jessi's ballet classes, Mallory's orthodontist appointments, and whatever else comes along for the rest of us. She also keeps an updated client list, including the rates they pay and the special likes and dislikes of our charges. And she never, ever makes a mistake.
    I told you how sweet-toothed Claudia and diabetic me are best friends. Well, shy Mary Anne and loudmouth Kristy are best friends, too. They are very different. But I can think of two things they have in common. The first is looks. Mary Anne is pretty short too, and both girls have brown hair and brown eyes.
    The second thing Mary Anne has in common with Kristy is an unusual family history. Mary Anne's mom died when Mary Anne was a baby. Her dad was so overwhelmed by this that he had to send Mary Anne away to her grandparents while he recovered. When he took her back, he tried hard to be a good father and mother. His rules were very strict. Mary Anne had to go to bed early every night. She had to wear old-fashioned little-girl clothes and keep her hair in pigtails.
    Mr. Spier changed radically, though, when he met his high-school sweetheart, who just happened to have moved back to Stoneybrook after living for years in California. (Can you guess who she is? I gave you a hint earlier.)
    Yup. Mrs. Schafer, Dawn's mom. She is the opposite of Mary Anne's dad. In other words, she's wild, funny, and absentminded. Mary Anne and her dad now live in what was the Schafers' house. (It's a two-hundred-year-old farmhouse with a barn and a secret passageway to Dawn's bedroom!)
    Nowadays Mary Anne looks exactly her age. She's allowed to wear the clothes of her choice and experiment with her hair and makeup.
    Okay, I've told you about everyone except our junior members. Mallory Pike and Jessi are both eleven years old and in sixth grade. (The rest of us are thirteen and in eighth grade.) They have weeknight curfews, so they take mainly afternoon jobs. Since Mal came down with mono, Jessi has really missed her in meetings. They're absolutely best friends. Both of them love to read, especially horse books. Both are the oldest among their siblings, and both are convinced their parents treat them like babies.
    Those are the similarities. The girls are also quite different. For one thing, Mal is Caucasian and Jessi's African-American. For another,
    Jessi has two younger siblings and Mallory has seven (yes, seven). Mal's not a ballerina, like Jessi. She loves to write and illustrate,