After her mother Elizabeth has difficulty finding a sitter for her younger brother, suburban teenager Kristy has the idea to start a neighborhood club of babysitters. She recruits her best friend Mary Anne, their childhood friend Claudia, and Claudia's new friend Stacey. The girls set up a meeting time and distribute flyers around the neighborhood.
Elizabeth tells her children that her boyfriend Watson has proposed. Kristy lashes out and nearly rejects Watson as a client when he calls in the next day. Claudia stops her and Mary Anne babysits Watson's children. Kristy spies on them and screams when she's frightened by Watson's neighbor, embarrassing herself. On the way home Kristy sees Stacey, even though the other girl had said she would be in New York that weekend. Kristy is comforted and advised by Elizabeth when she gets home.
The next day, Kristy offers to resign as president, but the other girls forgive her. They start receiving new clients, recommended by Watson.
Tropes:
- Ambiguous Syntax: Claudia turns down a job because it conflicts with her life-drawing class. A brief misunderstanding arises when Kristy asks what the class is.Claudia: It's a college-level art class where you draw live models in the nude.
Kristy: Claudia, ew!
Claudia: I'm not nude, they're nude. - Asian and Nerdy: Janine is introduced sitting at her computer, then demonstrates that she's rigged up a remote-controlled door-closing device. Later on, Claudia says that Janine runs several computer servers for various projects.
- Big Applesauce: Claudia & Mary Anne (especially Mary Anne) are very impressed when they find out Stacey lived on Manhattan's Upper West Side (one of the trendiest and most affluent areas of the city). Kristy much less so, partially because she's annoyed that Claudia told Stacey about the club before she could tell Mary Anne.
- Blended Family Drama: Kristy couches her protests against her mom marrying Watson in her mother's empowering feminist teachings rather than admit she's jealous the divorced Watson spends time with his children when he can, something her father hasn't done since she was little and which hurts her deeply.
- Intelligence Equals Isolation: Janine is very smart and a computer whiz who spends most of her time alone in her room working on her various programs.
- Sweet Tooth: Claudia keeps stashes of candy in her room.
- Teen Genius: Janine, a computer programming expert with a high IQ and the vocabulary to match.
