#66, Maid Mary Anne

One of my favorite recurring mentions in the series is that Dawn's mother, Sharon, is "scatter-brained" and leaves shit in weird places. Unfortunately the examples given tend to be less scatter-brained and more "on heavy drugs." In this book, Mary Anne is trying to give us examples.

Sharon's personality couldn't be more different than my father's. She might not notice if her sweater or coat were buttoned up the wrong way -- or maybe even if it were inside out or backwards. If she were going to organize the bathroom cabinet, she'd probably arrange things according to color, or shape. And it's a definite possibility that sooner or later you'd look in the cabinet and find something that didn't belong at all, like a letter stamped and ready to be mailed. Sharon is absent-minded that way.

A few pages later: "Plate! Now I remember!" she cried. "The laundry soap! I put it in the kitchen cabinet with the dishes!"

Tell me that is just normal scatter-brained behavior. Oh also Mary Anne says earlier that her father has organized their bathroom cabinet by alphabetizing it. I dunno, I think that's just as weird as arranging it by shape or color. I lump like things together, so if I need to patch up a cut, the bandaids and Neosporin are next to each other, not next to the cotton balls and nose drops, respectively. (Richard has nose drops. You know he does.)

One of the things the good people of Stoneybrook are obsessed with is a baby goat by the name of Elvira. She belongs to a couple named Stone, who live on a farm that is in the middle of a residential area. I am not sure how that zoning works, but I imagine the farm was grandfathered in. I also imagine I would not want to live next door to a farm. Anyway I get that baby animals are cute and all, but I don't know why everyone goes crazy over Elvira the goat.

Mary Anne babysits the Arnold twins. They are identical twins, but Carolyn has a mullet and Marilyn plays the piano, so you can tell them apart. She takes them to the Stone farm, because why not. Mrs. Stone tells Mary Anne that she should meet an old lady named Mrs. Towne, who is good at sewing. Mary Anne tells this to the rest of the club at the meeting, and Kristy is all "Well did you call?" and Mary Anne's all "No, I'm pathologically shy, remembers?" and Kristy is all, "Well this was a waste of three chapters if you don't," so Mary Anne calls and Mrs. Towne invites her over.

No Claudia outfit, just a brief mention that she has a unique sense of style and she painted her sneakers with her own personal designs.

Mary Anne and Mrs. Towne hit it off and Mary Anne is going to take sewing lessons from her. Also she randomly brings the Pike kids to visit the damn goat and on the way home they stop by to harass visit Mrs. Towne and the kids are enchanted with all her sewing projects and Mary Anne gets a fabulous idea to teach a kids' sewing class. The kids are super excited about this. Mary Anne teaches them to make a quilt, and there's another bit where the two boys in the class get teased for doing girl stuff, so they quit the class and try to act really macho in the way only 8-year old boys can, and then it turns out all right and the boys re-join up just in time to add their squares to the friendship quilt the class is making.

When Mary Anne shows up for her first sewing lesson, she finds that Mrs. Towne has fallen and broken her ankle, so she calls an ambulance. Then she visits Mrs. Towne in the hospital and brings her one of her quilts to cheer her up. I would be somewhat less than cheery if my handcrafted quilt was brought to me in a hospital, but that's probably because smells are a huge trigger for my migraines and I'd be afraid I'd never get the hospital smell out. Mrs. Towne is happy, anyway, or at least fakes it.

Then Mary Anne does a few chores for Mrs. Towne, and Mrs. Towne suggests that Mary Anne can pay for her sewing lessons by doing chores, and Mary Anne says okay, and then she ends up spending an inordinate amount of time at this old lady's house. She's all right with it until it ruins a date with Logan. They were supposed to ride their bikes to the lake and go swimming and have a picnic and go hiking but Mrs. Towne calls and is like "ZOMG a wasp got in my kitchen!" so they go chase it out and Logan keeps almost kissing Mary Anne and then they eat their picnic on Mrs. Towne's porch instead because eating with an old person is exactly as fun as swimming in a lake with no adults around. So then a few days later Mary Anne tells Mrs. Towne that she doesn't want to do chores all the fucking time anymore and Mrs. Towne says that's okay and she's going to hire a housekeeper and Mary Anne can pay for her sewing lessons with money instead of mopping the kitchen floor, and Mary Anne says okay even though she knows Mrs. Towne is a One Book Character so it doesn't matter what kind of agreement they have, there will never be another lesson.

Harriet the Spy mentioned in passing as a book that Mallory and Jessi both enjoyed.