BSC # 95: Kristy + Bart = ?

I decided that instead of recapping this the normal way, I'd pretend I was sitting in on a meeting between this book's ghostwriter, Peter Lerangis, and BSC creator Ann M. Martin. Also present, Ellen Miles, whom I like to think is Ann M's favorite ghostwriter and second in command (she loves writing about sewing, adorable babies, and old women almost as much as Ann).

Ann M.: "Peter. Come on in. Ellen and I were just watching Bob Ross doing a needlepoint segment on PBS."

Peter: "I brought over the first draft of Kristy + Bart = ? I thought we could all go over it."

Ellen: "Have a seat. Would you like a bowl of plain old vanilla?"

Peter: "Ice cream?"

Ann M.: "Peter, it's not the weekend yet. No, it's just vanilla."

Peter: "Well, anyway, the story starts out with Kristy coming home from school one day. No one's home so Kristy walks Shannon out in the woods near her house. On her walk, she notices her older brother Charlie's car. He's in there. And his face is attached. To a girl's."

Ann M.: "Attached?"

Peter: "...because he's giving her mouth to mouth! Er, I'll revise. Anyway. On to Kristy and Bart. They're going to see a movie one Saturday. Kristy says that it's a suspenseful thriller that Stacey and Robert saw last week and loved. Bart wants to sit way in the back. He puts his arm around Kristy. When she glances over at him, she notices him right up in her grill and they start kissing."

Ann M.: "Oh...my...whockety."

Ellen: "Peter, we gave you the list of acceptable films. A...thriller? How about That Darn Cat?"

Peter: "Um, well, this is the 90s and they're teenagers..."

Ann M.: "Well, then how about the movie with that nice Anna Paquin and the geese?"

Peter: "Fine, fine. It doesn't really matter. The kisses are...well, kisses sweeter than Ho-Ho's, they're not. But Bart does ask Kristy to go to a school dance with him and she agrees. One Friday afternoon, they go out for a meal with Mary Anne and Logan. Kristy notices how smoothly things go for Logan and MA--they hold hands without any awkwardness. Mary Anne orders fries when Logan forgets. They know each other really well, whereas Kristy doesn't have this rapport with Bart. She starts to feel a little jealous of her best friend."

Ellen: "I felt that way, too, after I read Maid Mary Anne. Those quilting squares that Mary Anne made were exquisite!"

Ann M.: "Oh, to die for."

Peter: "Well. Later that night, Kristy's sitting for her siblings. After they go to bed, Bart drops by and he and Kristy watch the game on TV. But Bart has more on his mind than just sports. They start to kiss and Kristy finds herself enjoying it this time. But Kristy's mom and Watson come home and Kristy's in trouble."

Ann M.: "Goodnight! Kissing on a babysitting job?"

Ellen: "And I thought we were being permissive letting Stacey talk on the phone to her boyfriend in Stacey vs. the BSC."

Peter: "It's not really a traditional sitting job. It's just her own brothers and sisters. And they're asleep anyway. And it just sort of happened."

Ann M.: "But I don't think Kristy would even be thinking about kissing on a sitting job. Even if Bart is cute."

Ellen: "Oh, I know what you mean, Ann. I feel the same way. When I was writing the Pugsley book of the Puppy Place Series, I couldn't even go on a date without bringing all my sketches and my stuffed pug."

Ann M.: "Peter, couldn't you write that the whole thing was a misunderstanding? Like, Kristy and Bart were really planning a Krusher/Basher Jamboree and Watson thought it was a boyfriend/girlfriend thing?"

Peter: "That's what you made me do in Mary Anne Breaks the Rules! Come on! I sat through your kitty kat slideshow for four hours last month! Can't you give me this one book?"

Ann M.: "On the condition that Kristy has to know what she did was absolutely a hundred percent wrong."

Ellen: "And I get to write the final book of the series."

Peter: "Done. So Kristy's grounded that weekend."

Ann M.: "Confined to her room."

Ellen: "Allowed out only to use the bathroom. It's the only way she'll learn."

Peter: "Okay, in her room. So she calls up Abby because the two of them were supposed to host a tournament for a bunch of the kids in Kristy's yard. Kristy decides to still run it, only she'll do it from her window. When her mom intervenes, she starts to pantomime instructions instead of speaking them. When her mom puts the kibosh on that, she throws down a paper airplane with instructions."

Ann M.: "That seems disrespectful. Aren't most thirteen year old girls more obedient?"

Peter: "No, no. It's because she loves the kids so much and she wanted to honor her commitment. Being there for the children was worth more to her than getting in trouble again."

Ellen.: "Aww."

Peter: "Kristy's really mad at Bart for getting her grounded. She's confused, too. What's going on with them: are they friends? More than friends? Boyfriend and girlfriend like Logan and Mary Anne, or a guy and girl who happen to be friends?"

Ann M.: "Mmmhmm."

Peter: "Right. So Kristy asks Mary Anne who tells her that people do things when they're ready. So she tells Bart she's not ready to be boyfriend and girlfriend. But they should still be friends. Later, there's some event with the kid record tournament and then Kristy sees Bart. She tells him she's looking forward to the dance but he tells her he doesn't just want to go with someone who's a friend. So she's steamed. She vents to her friends who tell her it's OK to feel bad, but that Bart's right to invite another date. She ends saying that she and Bart are friends but not as close as they once were, and that sometimes she feels a little sad and strange when she sees Charlie with his girlfriend, but that's it."

Ann M.: "But what about the younger kids, Peter?"

Ellen: "That's why people read these books, after all. Though we love what you've done with the cute outfits and the dating, those are just extras. The clients are the backbone of the BSC!"

Peter: "Oh. Um...I think they do kind of a world record thing. Guinness book for kids. Kid stuff, like most times hopping while holding a dog or hurling potatoes."

Ann M.: "How darling."

Peter: "And in one scene, Kristy's siblings stay up late singing verses of the Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly. Kristy has to finally put the kibosh on record setting when Andrew and David Michael try to set one flinging boogers at each other--Ann? Ann?"

Ellen: "Be a dear and fetch the smelling salts, Peter. They're in the smiling elephant shaped tin in the cupboard."

Actually, it's always been my theory that the higher ranking ghostwriters (like Peter and Ellen) had their own ghostwriters. You know that sometimes Peter got a bit fed up with writing the little kid plotlines and delegated to a young up and coming ghostie so he could spend his time mapping Stacey's lovelife. And that time Ellen had a longterm BSC super special assignment and she still had to come up with the perfect name for her golden retriever Puppy Place character. (In case you're wondering--Goldie.)

This is also a book that features a Claudia outfit that borders on the ridiculous. Claudia wears, "a bowling shirt with the name Ralph sewn over the front pocket, and matching loose rayon pants, gathered at the waist with a leather strap." She also sports a barrette shaped like two bowling pins. Mrs. Prezzioso asks her if she's in a league while staring at her as if she's wearing, "a cheese jumpsuit." Gotta say--I liked the bowling outfit. In fact, I'm jealous--it's awesome enough to be included in my BSC Raiding Sadako's Closet blog post from a couple months back.

BSC Mystery #9: Kristy and the Haunted Mansion

Synopsis:

This was one of the stories I found really creepy as a kid, and even creepier as an adult. Kristy and Bart (her sort of kind of maybe love interest) have put the best players from both of their baseball teams (the Krushers and the Bashers) together to form the Krashers and they play against another rag tag team in a town thirty miles over. Charlie drives Kristy, Bart, and some of their team members and equipment in a van (four Bashers, Karen--insert shudder--David Michael, Jackie, and Buddy). On the way back from the game, there's a storm and they get lost. Outside this huge old mansion known as the Sawyer House, a couple of bridges wash out and so they're stranded. The caretaker who lives in a little old cottage lets them stay up in the old house till morning. Everyone's worried back home because there's no phones to call and it's back in the day before you could just use your crackberry to Twitter: "Staying in a creepy old house with my older brother, my beard, and eight kids, one of whom is Karen Brewer--someone kill me, kthnxbai."

The house is a bit spooky because the electricity is out and there are rumors of ghosts. Doing some snooping (newsclippings and an old diary), the kids find out that a young woman named Dorothy Sawyer used to live here. She wanted to marry her fiance, Will Blackburn, whom her father didn't think was good enough for her. She planned to run off with Will one night outside the creek and elope but she never showed up and was presumed dead (drowned, one assumes).

Kristy and the others figure out that the old caretaker is Will and they ask him what's up. He explains that he moved back here and bought the house as a way of keeping his love for Dorothy alive. Too bad you're separated by oceans and time from another literary loon who'd be perfect for you. Miss Havisham and Will would make quite a couple. I've really got to start up a Missed Connections page on the blog.

Kristy goes back home and a week later the BSC has a sleepover. Karen, bitch that she is, stole a snapshot of Dorothy and brings it up to Kristy's room to show the others because she's figured out who Dorothy is. Turns out she looks just like the woman who owns the Stoneybrook sewing shop and Mary Anne agrees. The next day, the sitters go to the sewing shop to ask Dorothy about what's going on and if all goes well, play matchmaker between her and Will.

Dorothy explains that she ran away because she was afraid Will would make her live the conventional boring existence of a housewife in a pre-Gloria Steinem or Betty Friedan world: "I didn't have to answer to any man: not Father, not Will. For, as much as Will loved me, I knew he would have given me the same sort of life that Father had...I knew it was wrong to let them think I was dead, but it was the only way I could see for me to take control of my life." This is what happens when you base your strong willed female characters off of Aladdin's Princess Jasmine.

• When the kids meet up with Dorothy, they think that she should tell Will she's alive. She smiles, thinking it'll give him a surprise and that she'll do it. Yeah, that won't traumatize him even a little. Dotty, you creep, you're probably planning to give him a heart attack so you can take over your old house, hire the kids who weren't good enough to be Krashers as your Oompa Loompa-esque minions, and make cutesy kitschy craft items galore with an even lower overhead than an Indonesian sweatshop.

(Claire, Margo? "Crap" has a "p" in it.)

• This book was ghostwritten by Ellen Miles. I'll refresh your memory--she normally writes a series called The Puppy Place and no, it's not as cutesy wutesy as it sounds. It's worse. It makes Pound Puppies look like that show on Animal Planet with all the hoarders who collect dogs.

• And yes, this time, I know Ellen didn't farm out any ghostwriting to a hip twentysomething aspiring writer. If some young hipster with more TV knowledge than sense had written this book, Dorothy would be a really awesome old person, like a former hippie who ransacked a Nuclear Power Plant back in the day, now going under the alias Muddy Mae Suggins to escape the fuzz. Or she'd be Dr. Ruth. Or Carol Kane's character in The Princess Bride. But no, Dorothy comes back to Stoneybrook and takes the absolute hippest, coolest job that Ellen and Ann M. could think of. She owns a sewing supply store. It's called Sew Fine. Not even the Widow Towne or Nannie, the resident Stoneybrook biddies, could top that.
  

• You know how we associate some of the books with food? I always associated Island Adventure with candy bars, Stacey's Emergency with homemade brownies, and Jessi and the Awful Secret with Burger King. This one sucks in terms of food. Will gives the kids some apples, bread and a jug of water instead of readimade pop tarts and double chocolate Oreos. And since it's Ellen Miles, not Peter Lerangis writing, you just know that the bread was whole wheat and that those apples weren't even Granny Smith. If the BSC members weren't such goody goods, instead of solving old people love affairs, they'd go back the next weekend to egg and TP Will's house. But no. They had to go and create an American version of As Time Goes By.
  
  
• I wonder how that meeting between Will and Dorothy will go. "So, Dorothy, how's your life been?" "Wonderful! I've been around the world several times, met countless suitors whom I've all turned down, and seen all kinds of thimbles from around the world. How about you?" "My collection of gnarled apples that look like you is almost complete...so...I've got that going for me."
  

• Dorothy thinks she's so empowered because she ran away and let all her friends and loved ones think she was dead. When I reread that, I had the same reaction as when I found out that damned Lindberg baby wasn't kidnapped at all and really ran off to start a career as a baby model for Gerber.
  

• Babysitting! On the fateful night that Kristy's missing, Claudia's babysitting for the Newtons. She shows up wearing a tie dyed shirt. Since it's raining, she's covered in colors and has to call Janine over to bring her fresh clothes. Not shown: Stacey's commentary on Claudia's wardrobe malfunction.

Claudia: "Well, I just made the outfit myself, and I guess the dye didn't hold--"

Stacey: "Gee, Quinn Claudia, it's almost like you're saying that people don't need to buy out Bloomingdale's to look good."

Claudia: "No, Stacey! I just meant that since..."

• Claudia doesn't lose another opportunity to mock Janine for being smart. When she's worried about Kristy, Janine comments that Kristy will probably be fine because she's so intelligent and resourceful and Claudia eyerolls because Janine thinks intelligence can solve any problem. Duh, Janine. Wearing a cute pink tank top with matching pink elephant studs in your ears is the best way of coping in a crisis when you're stranded in the rain. Besides, popular people don't need to be intelligent in a crisis.
  

• Later, Janine has no idea what to do to make baby Lucy stop crying, so Claudia suggests Cheerios (oh, Claud, bleemers and compulsive eating are right around the corner for you, aren't they?). Janine responds with, "'She'll get milk all over herself'" and Claudia smiles thinking that Janine may be booksmart but she sure doesn't know kids. Ann? When I last met you, you said the child you'd must love to spend time with was that five year old Dexetrin addict on last month's Toddlers and Tiaras ("She could be the next Gabby Perkins!"). And Ellen, the last time you spent any meaningful time with an actual puppy was the cover shoot for one of your books where you tried to stick a tutu on a bulldog who promptly peed all over it.

• Claudia almost doesn't take that sitting job, FYI, as she's so worried about Kristy. But she does because she knows Kristy would have made Claudia eat her own head been upset and told her it was unprofessional. BSC Uber Alles!

Conclusions?

Ann M. and Ellen have no clue what feminism really means. Not a clue. That's how they created a character like Dorothy, who thinks that being a strong woman means pulling a Falcon Heene and making your family and friends worry while you go off and have fun. Note to Ann and Ellen: those self involved, "I just need to find myself on my parents' dime in an Indian ashram/hitchhiking around the country/in the loft apartment of every guy in the East village" that you knew in college were not feminists. When I e-mailed Ann about this, I got a smug response about how Amelia Earhart disappeared and isn't she a feminist? Oh, Ann and Ellen, I'll send you guys copies of The Second Sex and Vindication of the Rights of Woman--review before you create another adult female character ever.

BSC #122: Kristy in Charge

I know, I know what you're all thinking. Too many rich/preppy themed recaps. Where have your BSC recaps gone, Sadako? A nation of addled, twenty somethings turn their lonely eyes to you! On to what we know and love--the BSC! In honor of school being in, I present a very SMS themed BSC book.

The kids at SMS are doing a week long project where some of the students will get the opportunity to take over a teacher's class and teach it for them. It's part of the TOT--Teachers of Tomorrow--Program. Cool, can the next book be BSC #123: Mary Anne and the PTA Disbanding in a Bloody Coup? Kristy gets to be a gym teacher along with Cary Reitlin, Kristy's arch nemesis. The two of them of course clash because Kristy's a Type A personality wrapped in a Japanese POW camp director wrapped in an Adderall laced Twinkie...and Cary Reitlin's a loose cannon with a heart of gold (you can tell because he's wearing a tie dyed shirt). The two kids end up working together and using teamwork. But there's no obligatory make out scene where it's revealed that it's sexual tension making them act up because A, they're thirteen and B, Kristy's still got her heart set on playing Gertrude Stein to Abby's Alice B. Toklas.

There's also a subplot where Mallory has to teach an 8th grade English class and ends up becoming SMS's loser du jour.

• The gym teacher that Kristy is "replacing" is Ms. Walden. Everything about her--from the "Ms." to her habit of calling students by their surnames--is designed to be vintage butch dyke gym teacher. Let's introduce the reader to Ms. Walden, shall we? "'Thomas,' a voice barked from behind me." Ah. Frau Walden. Welcome. Ms. Walden goes on to give Kristy some tips. "'...don't expect much from these girls. This group isn't especially athletic...Some of them will try to fool you. They'll say they feel sick...Don't believe them. It's just a con job.'" Con job? Oh, Ms. Walden, my uterus would love to go a round with you the third week of every month. To be fair, it's probably been eons since you had enough body fat to expel so much as half an ounce of menstrual blood, so I can't blame you for assuming that we're all lying.

• Ms. Walden tells Kristy to make sure the kids are wearing the proper gym uniform, how to line up, what exercises to have them do, and also to stand outside the locker room and feel the girls' hair to make sure it's wet and that they really did shower after class. Then Ms. Walden's got to go, because she needs to write Castor Semenya a letter complaining about the patriarchal powers that be, and if Castor's ever in Stoneybrook, she'd love to show her around all the hot night spots...

• On her first day as a PE teacher, Kristy wears a lanyard with a whistle, plaid pleated shorts, and white sneakers that she polished with white shoe polish. Well, even if you flunk out of TOT, I've got good news. You're just been accepted to that pre-pre women's studies college program at Smith. ("But...I didn't even apply!")

• Mallory tells Kristy that Ms. Walden wasn't so bad when Kristy complains about her. Back when Mallory had issues with gym (Mallory Hates Boys...and Gym), Ms. Walden was a bitch to her at first but then was more understanding when Mal got good at archery and encouraged her to try out for the SMS archery team. (Oh, alienate the loser until you realize you can use them for something--I see Ms. Walden subscribes to the Santa from Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer school of thought.)

• Kristy introduces us to all the BSC members by telling us which subject each member would best teach. Like Stacey=math, Claud=art. Apparently MA would be a great guidance counselor. To which I say, start smoking more pot and learning more Alice Cooper songs to connect with the kids. (Sorry, all my guidance counselor exposure comes from McKinley High's Mr. Rosso. I can't help it--the "counseling" at my high school pretty much consisted of "Mau! Didi Mau!" when we didn't want to take the extra chemistry class and roasting our nuts over an open fire if the Ivy League letter came back "wait listed.")
  

• Kristy wears umbros during one of her classes. For warm up exercises, she tells the kids to do high kicks, but she can't really demonstrate because the Umbros tend to reveal your underwear. (Yes, seriously.) Kristy tells them to kick their legs higher and when the students point out that she's not kicking high, she yells at them and then starts to have some sympathy for the she-devil that is Frau Walden. You know, I always thought gym teachers would be a lot less cranky if they had better fitting undergarments. Also, surgical interventions--you know, for the sticks lodged up lots of rectums.

• Also. I submit for your approval, Umbros.

Why, gym teachers of the world, why? The better to show us your unshorn, Jheri-curlable leg hair?

• Their second day, Cary and Kristy coach a soccer game together. Eventually they start arguing and then a physical fight breaks out among the players which gets Kristy and Cary to the principal's office. (And the European preteens reading this book roll their eyes because this barely constitutes a soccer riot, as there was no scrotum ripping and no one took a melon baller to the eyes.) In addition to this, Kristy didn't even hand in a lesson plan her first day. Gasp. Okay, let's count down how much time it takes before Frau Walden snaps and Kristy's bloody Umbro's are found stuffed in a gym locker in a "workplace related act of violence" a la Annie Le?

• The kids in the the class Mal teaches make fun of her at first, but then they realize how smart she is and some of them begin to have a real appreciation for literature and the arts. No, psych, I was just playin' wit y'all. The kids revile Mallory as the loser she is. They leap on their desks on her last day of TOT, screaming, "Oh, Spaz Girl, my Spaz Girl!" And the awkward looking girls reading BSC books who love writing, wear glasses, and also longed for nose jobs all realized the ugly truth--that life sucks if you're not a Stacey or a Claudia.

• Actually, it was stuff like "Spaz Girl" and Mal's transformation from ugly duckling to deformed swan who's been exposed to nuclear fallout in California Girls! that made me decide to switch my allegiance from the bespectacled outsider that was Mallory to the bespectacled outsider that was Daria. Hey. She had misanthropy, better hair and a nose so tiny and barely there that it probably made Michael and LaToya weep with envy.

• Predictably, Kristy learns that teaching gym (much like being a carrot) isn't as easy as it looks, and starts to turn into Walden Lite. And I think we're supposed to feel a little bad for Frau Walden. Sorry, ain't gonna happen. There's a little girl deep inside me with some dark memories who hasn't stopped screaming ("Mrs. Pommelhorse...I'd like to come down now!") and reading this book just made me want to curl up in a fetal position until my horrible gym memories go away. Pass the Repressitol, please.

• MA and Stacey are also part of TOT, but since they couldn't cram in another "Stacey starts creaming herself over an older man who did his dissertation on the complete works of Nabakov and is pissing himself in fear to get away from her" plotline or a "Mary Anne is shy but eventually learns to assert herself" plot, we don't learn much about what happens to them. And of course, Kristy and Cary decide to work together by the end. They have some kind of soccer game where players have to cooperatively pass the ball to each other (teamwork, man), and it's basically the gayest thing since Kanye spent his spring break at Sea World. And, I reiterate, Mal was full of fail. She eventually ends up dropping out of SMS over this and going to boarding school. This post dedicated to Spaz Girl, with Love.

FTR, it's a certain blogger's birthday this Wednesday. In honor of the occasion, I might decide to return to my BSC roots and recap another one of the books that I have lying around my apartment. What do you guys think?

BSC Mystery #4: Kristy and the Missing Child

One of the members of the team that Kristy coaches is missing! Little Jake Kuhn is gone and Kristy is the last person to see him go (Thursday night). So she feels majorly guilty about it, and decides to try to find him by mounting a series of search parties full of little kids from the neighborhood and babysitters. It's a pretty uneventful book, actually, full of chapter after chapter of searching. And wondering if maybe Mr. Kuhn (the Kuhns are divorced) kidnapped Jake because that's what fathers in BSC books do. (See also Buddy Barrett.) Finally, Kristy leads a search party on Saturday morning and one of her searchers, Matt Braddock, has the idea to look in a construction site where he and Jake loved to hang out. Turns out Jake pulled a baby Jessica and fell down a hole where the floor wasn't completed. He gets rescued. And scene.

• What do I love most about this book? The fact that Mary Anne clearly cares way more about her Home Ec grade than little Jake Kuhn. She even misses an emergency BSC meeting about finding Jake so she can stay home and work on some sewing project. Actually, I agree. C'mon, if you're going to write a book about a missing child, choose a kid I give a shit about. Nicky Pike. Jamie Newton. Damien. Not some little boy I've barely seen before.

• Speaking of Home Ec, I don't remember ever being graded on things like table setting or recipes. We'd have to bake things in groups and sometimes sew, but it wasn't like they were tests. You'd probably have had to drop arsenic into the cake batter to fail. Or tell the teacher that you didn't make the cookies with love, but rather with spite, and also Ipecac. (Even then, her idea of "failing" you would be to give you a B+ but no smiley faced sticker.) Anyway, Mary Anne makes a Jell-O mold that's too hard. She gets an idea while babysitting to put the Jell-O in a long pan so she can make cookie cut-outs and ends up salvaging her grade. Can anyone say JIGGLERS?! In the distance, I hear Bill Cosby loading his .45 and muttering about how he's going to cut a bitch. Now I know why Ann M. Martin decided to make Charlotte's favorite show The Cosby Show when you know she was jonesing for it to be I Love Lucy--anything so that Bill won't sue, right?
  

• Mrs. Kuhn's first thought is that Mr. Kuhn must have snatched Jake. Which reminds me of the time Dawn is sitting for the Barretts and Buddy Barrett gets into a car with Mr. Barrett who takes him away somewhere. (The Barretts are also divorced.) So, to recap, in Stoneybrook, it's totally normal for a father to try to kidnap his son, for criminals to just set up shop for a while, and for people to regularly get creepy letters in the mail. But no one knows about anorexia, the stork brings babies, and no one drinks.

• Kristy mentions that Jake used to be pudgy and that the Bashers used to make fun of him for it. Translation: fat kid walking! Oink, little piggie, oink! Why the hell is it that Kristy befriends all these people who "used to be" jerks. (She should befriend people who still are snarky, like me!) But really, Bart's Bashers made fun of a lot of Krushers back in the day (like Matt Braddock for being deaf or Gabbie for being a superhuman baby) but it's okay because it was in the past? And Shannon used to be a heinous bitch to Kristy in her first book and even calls in a fake fire alarm when Kristy's babysitting but we overlook all that for some reason because she's a perfect size six blonde.

• Kristy's mom picks Kristy and Shannon up from the emergency BSC meeting Thursday night so she can stop in and visit Mrs. Kuhn afterward (Kristy's mom and Jake's mom are friends). Kristy suddenly feels guilty at the prospect of seeing Mrs. K because she feels responsible for letting Jake go off on his own. Even though Mrs. K says it's not her fault, she still knows she won't rest until Jake is safe. Hm, you think maybe Mrs. Kuhn feels guiltier that that her alimony wasn't covering the rent and she had to sell Jake to the Colombian Drug Cartel to finance her dirty little habit?

• Laurel and Patsy, Jake's two little sisters, are sent off to the Pikes to have dinner the first night Jake is gone. Patsy, the youngest, turns up her nose at spaghetti and says she wants hot dogs. And then all the kids request hot dogs. Mallory offers to boil up some dogs and Mrs. Pike just goes with it. Well, with the Pike kid count up to eight, we know that woman can't say no to a wiener, amirite? (Thank you, thank you, here all week. Hey, did you ever know me to pass up a Dee Pike loves the cock joke?)

• After dinner, Laurel and Patsy Kuhn spend the night with Stacey and her mom night since their mother is, understandably, spazzing out. They have a popcorn party. The girls want to know if Stacey has The Little Mermaid and Stacey says she's afraid that most of her movies are probably too old for them. Um, Mary Poppins is your favorite movie, Stacey. Imagine if the girls were at Mary Anne's house post Internet, though. A thousand archived youtube videos of animals romping, sorted by size, species, and of course, by level of cuteness. (C'mon, don't you think an adult Mary Anne Spier was responsible for Cute Things Falling Asleep? I bet the woman's making a mint on the Internet these days.)

• Mrs. Kuhn calls Kristy at one point saying that they found letters from her ex-husband to Jake that mentioned Mr. Kuhn's girlfriend and that she may know where Mr. Kuhn is so they can contact him. Kristy thinks it's odd that Mrs. Kuhn doesn't seem upset or jealous about her ex having a special lady friend. Uh, because she's probably more concerned with getting her prize pig missing child back than with playing at drama queen? What's the matter with you, Kristy?

• David Michael's a teeny bit jealous of how good Jake's getting as relief pitcher for the Krushers. Kristy always goes out of her way to describe DM as kind of klutzy, too. Is it wrong that I think he pulled a Tonya Harding? Then again, this is Stoneybrook, CT, not South Park, CO, and I doubt that David Michael would stash Jake Kuhn in a nuclear fallout shelter a la Cartman. Still, it made for an entertaining fantasy.

• The BSCers arrange to make groups to help search for Jake. Claudia makes a sign with a sketch of little Jake. Sketch? You didn't have a single photograph to use? Come on, guys. Through the magic of googling I managed to find a few likenesses.

• The kids look in garages, in bushes, and in backyards. What are they expecting to find? Jake sleeping? Or Jake...uh...no longer with us? In which case, is it really appropriate to bring kids along?

• Andrew, David Michael, and Karen start freaking out because they're scared they might be kidnapped. Karen, you know they're going to pull a Ransom of Red Chief and pay your parents to take you back, right?

• Later, Kristy, Bart, and a bunch of kids (Matt and Haley Braddock, Karen, Andrew, and David Michael) set off looking for Jake on Sunday. Matt's first idea is to go to a store where he and Jake used to buy baseball cards and candy called Jugtown. (Yeah, that's why they went to a store called JUGtown.)

• Kristy wants to stop looking, but Matt convinces her to go look in a construction yard where a house is being built. And it turns out he's right. Are you really surprised that the deaf kid pulled it off? For one thing, the Krushers are chock full of shitty players and the one consistently talented one is Matt Braddock. I'm not screaming about PC Gone Amok just yet (not till Rush Limbaugh successfully possesses my body anyway), but c'mon. The only thing more feel good than the spunky disabled kid finding Jake would be if Jake were found by rag tag team comprised of Becca Ramsey, Danielle (the cancer kid), Susan "Rain Girl" Felder and a little person.

• When they find Jake (isn't it always the last place you look), Bart calls the police and Mrs. Kuhn and tosses Jake a paper bag full of Twinkies, Doritos and Kit Kats, courtesy of the owner of JugTown. When Mrs. Kuhn arrives, she says, "'This is one time I don't mind if he eats junk.'" Uh, the fact that you just discovered your missing son who hasn't eaten in 36 hours and your first thought is to point out how much you don't care about the junk food issue makes me doubt that. Methinks she'll be subtracting out these calories from Jake's feed trough tonight.

• At the end, they have these eighth grade awards. Stuff like Class Clown, Best Dresser and so forth. Mary Anne gets one for Most Improved Home Ec student. They give Kristy a very special award because of her work that led to Jake Kuhn being rescued. Kristy does give Matt Braddock a shout-out since it was his idea to look there. I do have to give Kristy props for organizing the search groups. Of course, you know she only organized this because she'd have a fit if someone else could take credit for finding Jake. But I don't think this is one of her Great Ideas. It's a nice effort but NOT an imaginative idea. Seriously. How many other options were there? A kid goes missing. Do you A). Look for him. B). Design a hat. C). Have a snickers bar. D). Throw a party. E). All of the above. (It's only D. if the kid in question is Karen Brewer.) I have the same beef (okay, tofu, whatever) with Dawn's "great idea" of helping the Zunis. ("The Zuni kids are in trouble? What should we do?" "Um...well, we could...HELP them?")

• So they find Jake in the end. In other news, every single member of the Stoneybrook police was summarily fired. Out of a cannon, into the sun. No, but I bet they made Matt Braddock a junior police officer with a little badge and all the other cops were jealous and made snide remarks about him right in front of his back because he can't read lips. And Kristy jealously looked on and pointed out, "Even though Matt may have technically found him, I'm the one who orchestrated The Great Idea(TM) of looking for him. And the one who recorded the Stoneybrook remix of Sending Our Love Down the Well Construction Site featuring Logan on bongos."

• When I reread this, I tried to make a mental note of people who could have kidnapped him. You know, just in case I remembered wrong and he really was stolen. At the top of my list, crazy old Mrs. Towne. I can imagine her defense. "I just wanted a little boy of my own to play with! My own son's all grown up now and the only boys I have are little gingerbread boys! Wouldn't Jake love to live with the gingerbread boys?"
  

Next. The old lady, Aunt Tea, from the Bewitchin' Pool episode of the Twilight Zone. (Only slightly creepier than Mrs. Towne, really.)

But the right answer, of course. He's being fattened up at Morbidda Destiny's crib. Just 'cause Karen Brewer's an ass gasket doesn't mean Morbidda can't really be a witch.

This was sort of a fun book when I was younger. But today it just scares me to think that you could fall down a construction site and not be found for days. What if Kristy hadn't been searching? Would he have died down there?

BSC Friends Forever #5: Kristy Power!

Oh no! Sadako recapped a BSC Friends Forever book! I know that most of you reading haven't read this book. (I doubt anyone really read these books.) That's okay. They're not that different from the old series. Ann M. just 86ed the ethnic and ugly BSC characters and wrote some slightly different plots. Take my hand, and we'll get through this together.

This book is pretty much notable for the fact that every single aspect of it has already been done in some 90s TV show. Which leads me to believe that whoever ghostwrote this was probably not that much older than me, was doing this in a hurry and was also watching DVDs of My So Called Life and Beverly Hills 90210 while writing, all the while thinking, "God, why couldn't I have gotten the ghostwriting for Gossip Girl gig? Then I could just throw in some mindless sex and binge drinking. Ooh--internet debate on who's sexier, Jordan Catalano or Dylan McKay!"

Okay, okay, according to the acknowledgments page, it was written by BSC ghostwriter Ellen Miles who writes her own series called The Puppy Place (from what I saw on Amazon.com, it's a series even more innocent and cutesy than BSC world). I get the feeling that bulimia references and underage drinking are things that give Ms. Miles the vapors, and that she probably thinks that the characters on Gossip Girl should spend more time picking out stuffed animals and trading Lisa Frank stickers. But damnit, in my fantasy, there are ghostwriters for the ghostwriters and Ellen Miles was too busy doing research on pugs for Puggsley (yes, that's a real title) and decided to farm out this book to a jaded twenty eight year old. Don't worry, young Ghostwriter (word!). In a few years, you'll be able to move on to ghostwriting things of quality, like the newest Muppet Christmas Special, A Toy Story Reunion, and Can't Touch This: Elmo Learns a Valuable Lesson in Private Places (featuring former rap artist and current welfare recipient M. C. Hammer).

Snark on, MacDuff! Kristy's English teacher gets suspended for putting controversial books on a reading list that he hands out. Kristy and her friends lead a protest and eventually get him back. They're also doing a project where they have to do biographies of fellow students. Kristy is paired with her arch nemesis Cary Reitlin. She discovers an awful secret about him when she goes through his journal (apparently he got kicked out for sabotaging the school computer system or something). But it's okay because it's really just a story he was writing. To the talking points!

• The English class is taught by Mr. Morley but they all call him Ted. Yes, Mr. Morley actually says that the name "Mr. Morley" makes him think of his dad and that's why they should call him Ted. Someone was watching that Family Guy where Brian teaches Chris's class. How much do you bet that Ghostwriter wanted to have Cokie Mason raise her hand and say, "I thought your dad's name was Cocoa and he got hit by a milk truck"?

• So, Mr. Morley (I'm NOT calling him Ted--I refuse to equate informality with coolness) teaches them to stand up against censorship by giving them a list of books, some of which have been banned in the past. Nice, but I preferred The Substitute episode of My So Called Life. When the principal suspends Mr. Racine (whom the kids call Vic) in MSCL, at least it's over a juicy poem published by one of the students in the lit magazine. In Kristy Power!, it's because of books like The Catcher in the Rye. Boooring. I do get the sense that our overworked Ghostwriter probably wrote in a scene where it was hinted that Mr. Morley wasn't all that he seemed (like, maybe he had a wife and kids he abandoned, a la Mr. Racine?) but Ann M. probably sent the first draft back marked up with a note saying, Teachers who challenge banned books are GOOD. A good teacher can't be BAD in his personal life. Please work on your continuity errors. Silly Ghostwriter! Plagiarizing from My So Called Life is one thing (like Ann M. or Ellen Miles would even notice?), but introducing the concept of moral ambiguity? Heresy!

• Mr. Morley is fairly hairy, in addition to inspiring the kids. (Well, he has a very thick black beard.) A hairy anti-establishment English teacher? Someone was watching Dead Poets Society. Actually, I prefer to believe that our young and hip Ghostwriter was surfing for House/Wilson slash porn and then said, "Hmm, wasn't Wilson a suicidal student in some Robin Williams movie before he was a weak willed oncologist? Hey, there's already a teacher character I can rip off, sweet. Screw well nuanced character development--I can make Happy Hour!" (Okay, I know House didn't exist back when this book was written. Leave me to my fantasy.)

• When Kristy comes over to Cary's house so they can work on their projects, she sneaks into his bedroom to get an idea of what he's really like. She opens up one of his notebooks and glances through it and sees something he's written about why he had to leave his old school. Then she acts all weird and broody until she finally snaps and tells him what she saw. He gets angry, she realizes she screwed up, but she's still curious. Then she finds out that Cary writes short stories and that none of that really happened, and she's furious. And I get distracted and wonder whom I hate more, Kristy for reading Cary's private notebook and then getting pissed at him for not telling her it was just a short story draft...or Dawson Leery for reading something mean written about him in Joey's diary and then thinking he's entitled to an explanation. Well, Dawson doesn't stand out on a building ledge when his friends tell him they don't want to be part of his babysitting club anymore. But Baby Boy Spielberg basically manipulated his mom into not having an abortion so he gets points for that.

• Also, if Kristy is the Dawson Leery of the BSC World, does that make Mary Anne the Little Joey Potter? They're both brunettes who lost their mothers, except that MA isn't from the wrong side of the tracks and Richard isn't trafficking marijuana (that's Sharon's gig). Hmm--this has some amazing implications for future BSC Friends Forever books. And both worlds have a sophisticated blonde girl from New York City. Hmmm. Maybe Kevin Williamson is the one plagiarizing. Or maybe a Kristy-MA-Stacey love tri is in the works!

• So, there's one girl in the class (Merrie Dow) whose mother is always protesting and making a fuss. Mrs. Dow leads the fight to get Mr. Morley kicked out of school. Merrie ends up surprising everyone by going to the administrative hearing and sitting with the other kids who support Mr. Morley. The other kids are pleased and break out in cries of, "DONNA MARTIN GRADUATES, DONNA MARTIN--" Oops. Right character. Wrong meme. Well, at least this time the ghostwriter changed things up a little--the issue that Donna's mom was protesting in that Beverly Hills episode was the distribution of condoms at West Beverly, not inappropriate literature. Not that they'd need to distribute condoms at SMS--this place is like pre Reese Witherspoon Pleasantville.

• When Kristy reads Cary's notebook, she assumes it's his diary. The passage she reads involves the reason why he had to move (something to do with sabotaging the school's computer system). None of the BSC girls is really all that computer savvy and I always got the sense that it was a point against Janine that she could work a computer. Apparently knowing how to use a computer is just plain diabolical. I really think that Ann M. Martin, for all her facebook and livejournal use, still distrusts her computer. Despite the fact that tech savvy people were ghostwriting these books, Ann was overseeing and she's a Luddite at heart. I feel like the following exchange between her and her assistant happens a lot:

Assistant: Finished updating a new Facebook note for you, Ann. Sure you don't want to give Twitter a try yourself now?

Ann M.: I don't think it would be right--I'm not in my Sunday best. And you know what happened that time I entered my Spam folder and saw what those people were peddling...

Assistant: Oh. Right. The neighbors still ask about the screaming.

Ann M.: Well, that's all for today, dear. Unless you'd like to fix us some ice cream before you go?

Assistant: No problem. Want me to use the new cones I picked up at the store?

Ann M.: No, that might be too much excitement for us. It is a weeknight.

Assistant: Okay. Plain old vanilla as usual?

Ann M.: You know me too well!

• I have no shame. Especially since I'm getting Ann M. Martin's autograph in about a month. If you're reading this, Ann, I only snark the ones I love to hate.

• The book ends with a fiesta! Kristy throws a party at the mansion and Mr. Morley shows up dressed as Santa Claus. Ugh. (This is weirder if you pretend it's not actually Christmas when the book takes place.) This is so unbelievably creepy that I have the sneaking suspicion that our hip young Ghostwriter was trying to pull a fast one on Ann and Ellen. You know, "How utterly pervy can I make this teacher before anyone catches on?" But I get the impression that A&E probably reacted with, "Awww. Let's have Kristy dress up as Mrs. Claus! The Pike kids can be elves!" Hip young Ghostwriter: "Can I put in a scene where Stacey sits on Mr. Morley's lap and strokes his beard while Santa Baby plays in the background?" Ann: "How sweet!" Ghostwriter: *head on desk*

Quotable Quotes

"'That's right...The First Amendment rules!'" Mr. Morley? Shut up, you're a walking cliche. If only you'd replaced the word "first" with "third" and made a little speech about how students should beware insidious British soldiers trying to take shelter in their houses, I might respect you a little more.

In conclusion, this is only the second BSC Friends Forever I've read. I received it from a friend (and BSC addiction enabler) because even though we never read this heinous series when we were kids, we're obsessed with our childhoods. Also, I just have to say that they went about this series all wrong. A little background for those of you not in the know--in this series, the club is still intact (and so are their hymens--ooh, I went there), but it has downsized (Dawn's in Cali, Mal's at boarding school, Jessi quit to take more ballet classes, Abby's too busy being a normal 13 year old) so it's all about the original four. There's a little more drama and things don't get resolved at the end of every book. I would have moved them up to ninth grade and done it a bit more like California Diaries myself, but whatevs. This series may not have anorexia or domestic violence like Cali Diaries. But at least it has a major Stacey/Claudia cat fight.

I'd like to pretend these books are too bad for me to read more of them, but we all know that is not true. On the bright side, these books seem to have little to no babysitting stories. Hey come on, you know you're glad that my recap didn't contain the words "silly billy goo goo," "toshe me up," or "hi-hi!"

BSC #45: Kristy and the Baby Parade

Synopsis:

Kristy and co apparently don't have enough kid related stuff going on in their lives. At the beginning of this book, Kristy reads about an event in Stoneybrook called a baby parade. Yes, a baby parade. With themed floats with babies in costumes or, alternatively, babies in strollers or in go-karts. Kristy thinks this is a wonderful idea for her adopted sister, Emily Michelle. At the same time, Mrs. Prezzioso (mother of infant Andrea and four year old Jenny) hires Kristy for a regular twice weekly sitting job for four weeks, but only after Kristy (and all the sitters) take a class in infant care.

Then the girls decide to have their own float in the baby parade, using The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe as their theme. They borrow nine babies from clients and use two of the girls' siblings (Emily Michelle and Jessi's brother, Squirt). For once, everything goes terribly wrong: the float looks awful, the babies all cry, and the girls get into a big fight. But they patch things up and they also get a few new clients from the baby class. There is a bright side (sort of). Mrs. Prezzioso, who entered Andrea in the parade, wins first prize in the stroller division.

• Kristy's sitting for her brother David Michael as well as Emily Michelle when she reads about the baby parade and thinks that it would be a great idea to enter her sister:

But after I'd read that ad, my glance kept resting on Emily Michelle...I looked at her glossy, straight black hair cut like a Dutch girl's. I looked at her sparkling brown almond-shaped eyes. I looked at her plump, pink cheeks and at her sturdy little hands...and at her round little tummy.

• Can we rename this book Kristy and the Baby Fetish? Or could we at least end the above passage with "and then I broke free from my humanoid suit and devoured the fleshling" because that would make more sense and be slightly less frightening.

• So, the baby parade actually has divisions. Division A is for kids in fancy, decorated strollers and so forth, Division B is for kids in comically decorated strollers, and then there are divisions for the floats. I'm supposed to think that a thirteen year old who has friends would voluntarily enter this? We've entered the realm of barren, lonely middle aged women who go into chatrooms to bond over their shared love of Anne Geddes pictures, voluntarily wear snuggies, and watch Jon and Kate Plus Eight to fill the void in their lives. Kristy, get out while you still can. You're only thirteen--it's NOT too late for you!

• The cover of this book makes it look like the baby parade was a big success but in actuality the shoe looked like a big orange blob. Also, the cover of this edition says you can enter to win a BSC party with Ann M. Martin. Considering that Ann M. Martin admits that her favorite ice cream flavor is "plain old vanilla" and that based on reading BSC books, her idea of fun sleepover movies are "The Parent Trap" and "To Kill a Mockingbird," I'm not sure that's much of a prize. (Of course, the little eight year old who resides inside of me would be breaking out the bubbly and screeching excitedly if I ever got the chance to really party with Ann M.)
  

• When Kristy and Mary Anne arrive at the baby course, Mary Anne looks a little frightened and overwhelmed to be surrounded by pregnant women. Kristy scolds her, telling her she's seen pregnant women before, but MA points out that usually that was only one at a time, and this is a whole room full of them. I was kind of hoping the pregnant ladies would break out into screams of, "ONE OF US, ONE OF US, GOOBLE GOBBLE" but no luck!

• There's a really odd part where Kristy mentions having a crush on one of the men running the baby course. It's only odd because it goes nowhere (Kristy thinks he's pretty cute and then her crush disappears a few pages later because she sees him as a family man with a wife and kids). My theory is that they put that in to dispel any inappropriate rumors of Ms. Thomas's budding sexuality. Yep, she may be a tomboy who loves sports, but she still likes men. Yup, absolutely. No sexual ambiguity there.

• In one scene, Jessi sits for her little brother, Squirt. He loves watching Sesame Street, especially his favorite character, Elmo, who isn't featured very often. And that's how you can tell this is a very old book. Oh, for the days when it wasn't the Elmo Show and when Cookie Monster got to eat cookies whenever he damn well pleased!

• I really love the scene where the girls argue about the float theme. Kristy wants to do a baseball theme, Dawn wants to do a surfing one, and Mary Anne wants to do a Three Little Kittens one. Stacey tells Mary Anne that her idea is too immature and that they need to do something more glamorous. She then proposes to dress the babies up in little tuxedos and evening gowns for a New York City theme. I don't know whose idea is stupider, and I'm not even sure I care. It's like LARPers vs. Furries: Which Are Slightly Less Maladjusted?

• This is definitely the book where I started to think that maybe Ann M. had a warped view of babies and children. When you add it all up, it starts to look odd. References to characters winning cutest baby contests when they were little (Dawn and one of Stacey's "cool" friends, Andie). Little girls in beauty pageants (Little Miss Stoneybrook...and Dawn). Rosie Wilder, Stoneybrook's wunderkind. Derek Masters, the TV star. All the little kids who love to perform on cue (Gabbie and Myriah, I'm looking at you). On the plus side, maybe Ann M. Martin was on the cutting edge of the "Exploit your child for fun and profit trend." You just know that Patsy Ramsey was reading stuff like this when she was pregnant with JonBenet.
  

• Mrs. P. really, really wants Andrea to win the stroller division. She has the baby dressed up as Queen Andrea. She then takes a page from "Pimp My Stroller" and has Kristy decorate the baby carriage to look like a little horse drawn carriage. Jenny's too old for the competition, so apparently all her hopes are pinned on baby Andrea. Later on in the book Mary Anne and Miss Priss, Mrs. P. also has Andrea star in some baby commercials. Jenny also wants to act, but apparently doesn't quite have the same sparkle. I saw Gypsy, so I know where this is going. Mrs. P., after Andrea gets tired of this and runs off in about sixteen years, you'd better get used to whoring out your eldest.

• Mallory is assigned to make the costumes and like everything else associated with this awful, awful float, they are chock full o' fail! The costumes look like clown outfits and they clash with the float, so Dawn (who is sitting for one of the babies, Eleanor Marshall) tells Mrs. Marshall to put Eleanor in a blue party dress instead, without telling anyone else. Let's file this under Dawn is a passive aggressive bitch, okay?

• Apparently, there really are baby parades out there. Or so Google tells me. So Ann M. didn't just come up with this all on her own, which is a relief. But it also disturbs me that there really are people who think dressing up babies in cute outfits and putting them on wagons is a good time. I have to find these people and introduce them to a little thing called Wikipedia. You can waste hours of time and never have to humiliate your baby.

Conclusions:

Cat Fashion Shows. Cuddle Parties. Everybody Loves Raymond. System of a Down. Liking the aforementioned things makes you bizarre and possibly not worth knowing. But all of these things have some redeeming social value. Unlike a baby parade. If you are reading this and you know me in real life, you have permission to slaughter me the minute I propose having a baby parade. (Stuffed animal parades, however, are still in play.)

BSC #100: Kristy's Worst Idea

For once, the babysitters actually start acting like 13 year old girls and not like forty year old PTA president wannabes. They shop and goof off and consider non-BSC activities. Naturally, any desire to stray from the group must be quashed in the next 100 pages.

Eighth grade yet again (no time paradoxes here!). Kristy proposes that the club plan a Fall Into Fall block party that no one else is remotely interested in. Then she flips out when it turns out that some members have other commitments besides the club and want to be more flexible. Can we please replace the adjectives “bossy” and “stubborn” with “type-A control freak”?

Kristy votes to disband the club after Jackie Rodowsky sprains his ankle under her watch because she feels she's a terrible babysitter. The rest of Stoneybrook falls apart and eventually, they start up the club again when Kristy realizes she's not so bad, everyone misses the club (read: she has no one to bully).

I Hate Mallory Alert

When five thirty rolls around on the next non-meeting day, who calls up Kristy all wounded in a vulnerable post-break up invitation for a booty call? Okay, okay, she just wants to see if anyone else wants to hang out, just so they can still be friends without necessarily being in the club. But everyone else is too busy having a life. Poor Mallory.

Fun Observations

• Mary Anne's last name, Spier, rhymes with “fear.” I always pronounced it to rhyme with “flier” until I read this one. Incidentally, Claudia thinks the name is spelled "S-P-E-A-R."
  

• The club meets on a Labor Day Monday. The Kishis were at Claudia’s aunt and uncle’s barbeque and apparently Claudia’s parents agreed to cut it short and come home early so a group of thirteen year olds can hang out. (Though considering they let the rest of the club hang out in Claudia’s rooms during times when even she couldn’t make it to a meeting, somehow I’m not surprised.)

• There’s a picture of a parrot on Claudia’s easel. Hmmm. Another self-portrait?

• The rest of the Stoneybrook really needs their BSC fix. Mrs. Wilder offers counseling, Mr. Papadakis offers to pay them a retainer, and Mrs. Arnold is almost reduced to tears. Wow, for once they'll have to spend time with their own offspring.

• Kristy eavesdrops on Erica Blumberg and Lily Karp (remember when they used to fraternize with non-BSC members?) and overhears Erica not realizing that Lucy Newton needed a diaper change when she sat for her. Kristy barges in and starts giving advice about the best thing to put on a diaper rash (hmmm, why does Kristy know so much about baby asses?) and then gets offended when Lily and Erica tell her that the BSC had the racket on babysitting covered.

• Jessi can’t make Friday meetings because of a ballet class conflict. Rather than excusing Jessi once a week, they have to change Friday meetings to Thursdays. Um, what? And in what world is missing one meeting where babysitting doesn’t even occur all that big a deal? Could be worse—initially Kristy thinks it’s reasonable that Jessi either has to quit ballet or the club.

• Kristy has a meltdown when Abby and Mary Anne are late for a meeting after they go shopping and Abby has an allergy reaction. Kristy: “I am a reasonable person. Really…that is, if a BSC member has a good reason, like an accident or a death or a horrible family crisis. But for a shopping trip? I was seeing red.” Makes you wonder if Kristy asked Claudia to produce a death certificate when Mimi died.

• Oh yeah, Claudia and Mary Anne get into an awesomely bitchy fight when babysitting the Barrett-DeWitts. Too bad it’s not over anything fun like Claudia job hogging or when MA will grow a spine and tell Logan about that secret abortion Claudia had to help finance — no, it’s about babysitting. MA is supervising the kids while they play board games, Claudia wants to do art, MA is too dull, Claudia leaves the toddlers alone and they dump out all the silverware from the dishwasher, boooring. However, it is always fun how passive aggressive MA gets. Loved this line: “[Marnie and Ryan are] already making a silverware sculpture!” Burn!

• Poor Jackie Rodowsky sprains his ankle when he falls out of a tree and later gets a concussion while riding his bike, helmetless. Horrible things happen to this kid all the time, but never to his two brothers. It’s sick but whenever I think of Jackie, I can’t help picturing this book:

• Incidentally, aren’t you NOT supposed to move someone who may have broken their leg? Yet Kristy helps Jackie inside before she even knows if it’s a break or a sprain.

• One of Stacey’s motivations for wanting the club back is that she misses the money. Yes! A normal, non-fixated-on-the-lives-of-eight-year-old-kids reason!

• Kristy’s English teacher: “Stay with me, and you’ll be richly rewarded, as we visit the vastly different worlds of Dickens, Stevenson, Faulkner, Blume, Cormier…” Blume and Cormier? Hey, I love Forever as much as the next gal (any book where a guy decides to nickname his pistol Ralph is all right with me) but we never got to read her in eighth grade. Though Kristy’s English teacher did inspire me to read The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, so maybe he’s not all bad.

BEEP BEEP—Continuity Alert

Mary Anne claims that Kristy stood up for her and that’s why Alan Gray stopped teasing her in third grade. Except in Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls, in the fifth grade, Alan picked on everyone and Kristy fooled him into stealing her lunch (which was actually full of dead spiders and mud pies)—and that’s why he picks on Kristy. Bad ghostwriter—no twinkie!

Outfit Alert

Claudia:

At that Labor Day meeting she was wearing a bracelet of dyed, braided shoelaces, along with a blousy ruffled shirt that looked like it once belonged to Captain Hook; mismatched high-top Converse sneakers; and baggy, pinstriped men’s suit pants, gathered at the waist with a bungee cord.

Claudia, Claudia, Claudia, the puffy shirt didn’t work for Jerry Seinfeld. It’s NOT going to work for you.

Also, even the hipsters manage to coordinate themselves by color, and I don’t even want to know what you’re doing with a bungee cord.

Conclusions

Kristy thinks it’s reasonable to blow up when club members want to do things that interfere with the club (Mal’s writing workshop, Jessi’s new dance class conflict, Abby possibly taking up a new instrument, Stacey going to a Broadway show on the night of a club meeting). Nope, not cult like at all.