#31, Dawn's Wicked Stepsister

You guys. This book has the most well-known inconsistency in the whole Baby-sitters club series. See, in this book, Dawn wants to take lots of sitting jobs because she is saving up to buy Mary Anne a "now we're sisters" present, because Mary Anne surprised her with one at the end of the last book. BUT. If you read the last book, it says that Dawn is the one who gave Mary Anne the present. Totally glaring error, amirite?

Oh no! Mary Anne and Dawn do not look like happy sisters at all! I hope there is not tension ahead in this book!


This book opens up at the wedding reception, where Dawn's mom Sharon is throwing her bouquet. Mary Anne catches it, and Dawn tries to congratulate her, but she's secretly feeling kind of pissy about it because she thinks she should have caught her own mother's bouquet. Then she says that there's no RULE that a daughter should catch her mother's bouquet. Really, no rule? Ya think? Also apparently Dawn had a hard time finding a vegetarian entree on the menu at Chez Maurice, which is where the reception was held.

Richard and Sharon are going to spend the night in a hotel in a nearby town. Jeff, who is in town for the wedding, is going to spend the night with friends, and Mary Anne and Dawn are going to spend one last night in Mary Anne's house, all alone. Their friends come over and hang out for a while, but after they leave, Mary Anne and Dawn wake up at every slight noise because they're not used to sleeping without any adults around.

Moving day is tense because Mary Anne is in a bad mood. Dawn tries to tell us that maybe Mary Anne just didn't get enough sleep, but it's pretty freaking obvious that she just doesn't want to leave the only house she's ever lived in. Mary Anne's kitten wanders around the house crying for six hours. Dawn and Mary Anne are going to share a room even though there are enough bedrooms for Mary Anne to have her own, because they are just soooo excited to have a sister and it will be soooo much fun. I give Mary Anne a pass here, because she was an only child, but Dawn has a brother. She should have known that siblings aren't all rainbows and unicorn farts. Also throughout this whole book, they keep calling each other Sis, and it feels like they're trying too hard.

The next chapter is at a BSC meeting and we have to hear what everyone's jobs are, and this annoys me because it's basically an appendix to chapter 2, which was when the club was at Mary Anne's old house, and Dawn already told us that Claudia wears funky clothes and Mallory has a big family and Stacey comes from New York City and no, the emphasis is not mine. So at the end of auxiliary Chapter 2, Mallory goes home sick from the meeting, and it turns out she has chicken pox. By the end of this book, every member of the Pike family will have a disease or injury. SPOILER: none of them are fatal.

Dawn describes a weekend day with her new family. Richard gets up early and makes coffee and breakfast and reads the paper, and arranges his socks in the drawer in alphabetical order by color. Oh, that Richard! He should know that Sharon hates pancakes and waffles and bacon, and let her get her own breakfast! Dawn can't believe she didn't forsee these problems. I find it interesting that Sharon hates pancakes, because IRL I only know one person who hates pancakes. I wonder if Sharon hates peaches and apples, too. And then they have a spring cleaning day and Dawn gets annoyed when her mom is just brushing shit onto the floor and Mary Anne is following her around with a Dustbuster. Then Sharon cooks supper, and it's vegetarian, and Richard and Mary Anne bitch about that, and then Richard cleans up the kitchen right away instead of waiting until the movie they're watching is over, and Dawn is pretty sure this marriage is doomed.

There's a school dance and Dawn is not going. She helps Mary Anne get ready and tries to rush her along to get her out of the house, but on the way out the door, Mary Anne yells, "Just try to enjoy the evening, Dawn. Don't think of yourself as someone who can't get a date, okay? It isn't healthy."

Harsh.

Dawn calls Jeff in California and bitches about Mary Anne, and finds out that her dad has a new girlfriend. SPOILER: way later in the series, they will get married.

Dawn and Mary Anne get in a fight because they are doing their homework and Dawn wants to listen to the radio and Mary Anne needs silence. Dawn is very excited when she turns on the radio and it is a Fifties Festival. Stoneybrook is so weird with their retro music and television. Richard sides with Dawn and Sharon sides with Mary Anne. She says she doesn't think the girls should be listening to music while doing homework. This is another thing that probably would have to be rewritten if the books came out today, because Dawn could solve the problem by popping in earbuds and listening to her iPod.

Dawn decides she will scare Mary Anne into wanting to have her own room. She doesn't want to talk to Mary Anne and suggest she switch rooms because she was the one who practically forced Mary Anne into sharing in the first place. No, talking is for the weak! Dawn cannot admit that she was wrong! She scares Mary Anne by using the secret passage and it works and Mary Anne moves her shit out and then she and Dawn get along a lot better. Then the family discusses things and Dawn tells Richard that her mom hates bacon and Richard says they should make a chore chart and Dawn makes sure to point out that Mary Anne doesn't like the way Sharon cleans things.

Other random things from this book: When all the Pikes are getting injured, Nicky breaks three fingers and the next time a sitter comes he is lying around on the couch, and he misses a few days of school.  I just have a hard time thinking I could ever have talked my mother into letting me stay home from school because I had broken fingers. When all of the Pikes are out of commission, Jessi and Kristy go to babysit, and they have to serve breakfast in bed to seven of the ten Pikes. Mallory is mostly better and helps them, and Nicky and Vanessa are almost healed and eat at the table. The others are all in bed. Fair enough, except Mr. Pike's injury is a burned hand. So apparently he was just like "Fuck it, I have people willing to bring me food, and I'm not getting out of bed." Mrs. Pike's injury was a knee injury from playing tennis, and earlier in the book Mr. and Mrs. Pike go to watch a tennis match because they are huge tennis fans. I will make a note to look for any references to that in any other BSC book ever.