The Baby Sitters Club #2 Claudia and the Phantom Caller

The Baby Sitters Club

#2 Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls

It’s late October, and the weather is typically dark and stormy. After finishing her homework, Claudia has Mimi sit for the portrait she’s been working on. They have nice conversation about sibling relationships, in which Mimi advices Claudia to try and make time for Janine if she wants their friendship to grow. Seriously, if Claudia had just DONE that, most of book #7 wouldn’t have been necessary at all! Anyway, Claudia is also in major crush mode over Trevor Sandbourne, and she and Stacey commiserate via the phone about that crush and Stacey’s crush on Sam Thomas. The club gets together that weekend, and out of boredom, Claudia confesses her undying love for Trevor to Kristy and Mary Anne. They’re a little hurt that she told Stacey first, but they get distracted by an article in the paper about the Phantom Caller. Apparently, someone has been calling people and hanging up when someone answers. Once no one answers, he robs the house. Claudia remembers that she got two hang up calls at a recent sitting job, and the BSC goes into the panic mode. The girls call an emergency meeting of the club, and make up their famous ribbon code for alerting each other (and the police) or any problems when their sitting. Frankly, if I were in the house and someone was breaking in, I’d just call the police myself rather than waste time calling a friend.

Back at school, everyone seems to know about Claudia’s crush on Trevor, but no one knows how the word got out. Claudia originally suspects Kristy, but Kristy denies it on the grounds that she doesn’t care about stuff like that and would never voluntarily speak to Alan Gray, who was teasing Claudia earlier.

Both Kristy and Claudia continue to get funny calls, although no one else in the club does. When the Goldman’s (the Kishis’ next door neighbors) are robbed, Phantom style, the BSC becomes even more convinced that he’s in Stoneybrook and out to get them. Things come to head when Kristy and Claudia are sitting for the Newtons and Feldmans, and they see a prowler outside the house. They call 911 (no ribbon codes this time) and the officers catch Alan Gray sneaking around the house. It turns out that he had been the one calling Kristy, because he wanted to ask her to the Halloween Hop and didn’t know how. She agrees to go, in spite of the fact that he’s basically been stalking her. That solves the problem of Kristy’s mysterious calls, but about Claudia? Well, anyone with half a brain could see that one coming a mile away; it was Trevor. Alan just didn’t mention him because he didn’t want him to get in trouble with the police. He likes Claudia as much as he likes her, and they go to the Halloween Hop together, and live happily ever after. Or not; we don’t hear much about Trevor after this.

A phantom phone caller is striking areas around Stoneybrook. He calls people frequently and when they stop answering, he knows they’re missing and sneaks into the house to steal all their jewelry. The BSC is a little worried because they don’t know what to do if it happens while they’re sitting. They finally decide to come up with a code. They’ll call another and ask about a red ribbon, which is a sign that something is wrong.

Meanwhile Claudia is crushing hardcore on Trevor Sandbourne, the new boy in school, but she isn’t sure if he even knows who she is. She takes a couple of sitting jobs and keeps getting random hang up calls, which freaks her out. The other girls aren’t experiencing the same thing, but Kristy starts to get a few calls too.

Mary Anne gets so freaked out by the calls that she decides to set up alarm systems around the house, while sitting for a sick David Michael. She rigs pots and pans on one door, rigs a radio to go off on another and ties a bag of marbles to the last door. One of the alarms goes off and she flips out, but Louis the dog accidentally set it off. The Thomas family gets a kick out of it when they get home to find her.

The club members start bringing their record book to school every day. They check out who is sitting where so they can call the cops if they need to. Stacey sits for Charlotte and the only unordinary thing that happens is when a storm knocks out the power. She points out that she didn’t get any calls, but no one seems to think it’s too weird.

Claudia and Kristy take a job sitting for Jamie Newton and his cousins. They get several hang up phone calls and it worries them even more because someone in their neighborhood was recently robbed. The kids notice a weird noise outside and the girls see a shadow outside. Claudia calls the cops and they show up, only to find Alan Gray sneaking around outside.

It turns out that Alan stole the club record book every day, looking for Kristy’s information. He wanted to ask her to the Halloween Hop dance, but was too scared to ask her. She agrees to go and the cops take him home. At her next sitting job, Trevor calls and asks Claudia to the dance. He got her information from Alan and was behind her phantom calls. They go to the dance the real phantom caller is captured.

*Mary Anne’s dad won’t let her sit until the phantom caller is caught. She also opts not to go to the dance and is the only club member without a date.

Claudia keeps complaining about Janine, but Janine actually comes in and wants to hear the whole story of what happened with the police. She also admits that she hides candy all over her room too, but of course they dislike each other again by the next book.

*Mimi helps Claudia with her math homework. I know Mimi helped her with school a lot, but given the description of her, I don’t know how helpful she would really be.

*Claudia wears purple knee length pants, clock patterned tights, matching purple plaid hat and shirt and lobster earrings, with high tops. That sounds… wait, is Claudia color blind? That would explain a lot.