M#22, Stacey and the Haunted Masquerade

Oh look, we get our Wizard of Oz reference out of the way on the cover on this one! What middle schooler doesn't want to go as Dorothy, I ask you. Sadly, I'm 15 years too late to join the NEW BSC FAN CLUB!

SMS is having a Mischief Night Masquerade dance, and Stacey's been feeling like she needs to be involved in something, so she signs up on the decorations committee, whose faculty advisor is Mr. Rothman, a new teacher. Stacey suggests a red and purple color theme to change things up from orange and black and a dance theme of Addams Family Reunion, which everyone else on the committee loves except for Cokie Mason, but it's okay, because Cokie is shouted down and the committee carries on and I am yelling that purple is not a Halloween color. Stacey claims that the red and purple will give things a gothic look, but I don't know, because there are only so many ways you can decorate a gym, so they'll probably hang up streamers, and red and purple streamers do not look gothic in any way. Also, even though Claudia is not on the decoration committee, Stacey keeps volunteering her to do things like make posters and do artwork for fake portraits to hang on the walls. And Claudia is totally cool with it, when we hear it from Stacey's perspective, but maybe if this was a Claudia book, we'd be hearing a little more about how busy she is with homework and baby-sitting and her own art and how if she wanted to make decorations she would have maybe signed up for the fucking committee. I'm just saying.

There's a new kid in Stacey's English class, and his name is Cary Retlin. Cary is confident and self assured, not to mention a bit of a joker. Cary is pretty universally reviled by BSC fans. He's supposed to come off like a cool guy who makes life more interesting, but a lot of times, he just seems like a psychopath. Stacey's first impression of him is as follows:

He was cute (but not nearly as cute as Robert), with straight blond hair and brown eyes. He wore a blue denim shirt and khakis, and he was leaning his chair back on two legs, looking totally mellow. I was impressed. I doubt I ever appeared that relaxed when I was new at SMS.

She passes a note to a classmate referring to Cary as "hunky" which is a very BSC word to use to describe a cute guy.

Shortly after Cary's arrival, a bunch of pranks begin to be played at SMS. The pranks don't physically hurt anyone, they're just annoying. Stacey opens her locker to find that her books have been switched with another student's. A teacher's grade book is switched with a blank one. Messages are written on blackboards. A bunch of marbles fall out when someone opens a cabinet in the art room. All of these pranks are accompanied by a slip of paper reading Mischief Knights or just MK. Except the ones written on the blackboards, those just have Mischief Knights written right in the text of the message. Also this book was published in October of 1995. I graduated from high school in 1996, and by that time, the only classrooms in my high school that still had blackboards were the math and science ones. All the rest had gone to whiteboards. The Mischief Knights TP the school and soap the windows of the teachers' cars in the parking lot and put peanut butter on doorknobs. The students think this is great and makes life interesting. The teachers and administration are pissed. But nobody knows who the Mischief Knights are, so the pranks continue.

Then more pranks happen, but these ones aren't accompanied by MK initials. Some decorations bought for the dance are smashed. Posters that Claudia made are ripped to shreds. The lights are turned off while the school is at an assembly in the auditorium. A dummy is hanged from a basketball hoop. Everyone is quick to agree that this isn't the Mischief Knights' style. I wonder how they know. The MKs are a new phenomenon at SMS, and it's very possible that the earlier less harmful pranks were just a buildup to these new more aggressive ones.

The dance that's going to be held is the Mischief Night dance. The BSC speculates that part of the reason the school is having the dance on Mischief Night is to keep kids from going out and playing pranks. I did not grow up in a part of the U.S. that has this particular tradition so I found the wiki article about Mischief Night to be a helpful source of background information. This is the first Mischief Night dance the school has had in 28 years. There is vague mention of a tragedy at the last one, and as the pranks escalate, the club investigates (by using microfiche to read old newspaper articles) and discovers that at that dance nearly 30 years ago, the lights went out, and there was a stampede out of the gym, and a teacher had a fatal heart attack. They also find out that there was something to do with a girl named Liz Connor getting dumped at the dance and then moving away immediately afterward.

Oh hey, guess what! It just happens that Liz Connor lived in the house the Johanssens now occupy, and Mary Anne has a sitting job for Charlotte and Stacey brings over Matt and Haley Braddock and they search the house while letting the kids think they are just playing ghostbusters. The subplot in this book FYI is that one of the cable channels is playing Ghostbusters a bunch that month and all the kids the club sits for are obsessed with the movie and pretending to be Ghostbusters and they all dress as Ghostbusters for Halloween. In 1995, remember. Ghostbusters came out in 1984. The Stoneybrook children are like decades ahead of schedule, since they should all be dressing as Lucy Ricardo and Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and the Three Stooges and Groucho Marx. Anyway while babysitting Stacey and Mary Anne are trying to find clues, which I think is really stupid. Are they expecting a box in the attic marked "THE TRUE STORY OF THE MISCHIEF NIGHT DANCE" or some shit? They find a heart drawn on the wall in the basement with the initials LC and MR.

Stacey deduces that MR is Mike Rothman, the faculty advisor to the dance committee, and talks to him, and he tells her a story about how Liz was an odd girl who got teased a lot, but she had a crush on him, and his friends paid him ten bucks to take her to the dance, and she wore a babyish embarrassing fairy princess costume, and freaked out when she found out he took her to the dance for money. Then she moved away and he hasn't seen her since. He describes himself in the most BSC book way, too.

"I was one of the most popular kids in school," Mr. Rothman continued. "I was good-looking, I was fun to be with, and I was an excellent athelete." He looked up at me. "I don't mean to sound stuck up, but it's true. That's just the way it was."

Don't worry, Mike. That doesn't sound stuck up at all. Honest.

It is the night of the dance. Here are the costumes the club wears: Stacey and Robert are Morticia and Gomez Addams. Mary Anne and Logan are Dorothy and the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz. Abby is Lucy Ricardo from I Love Lucy. Good to know they're picking up the super dated costume slack from the kids. Jessi is a cowgirl and Mallory is a ballerina. Kristy is Amelia Earhart. Claudia is a giant Twinkie. Cary Retlin is wearing a horse's head mask and Stacey realizes that he's not dressed as a horse, he's dressed as a chess piece: a knight. His costume is basically a veiled reference that he is the Mischief Knight. She dances with him and he neither confirms nor denies that he is the leader of the Mischief Knights. He does this in what is supposed to be smooth dialogue that sounds ridiculous and vaguely creepy coming from a middle schooler.

Mr. Rothman is dancing with a substitute Home Ec teacher (I swear I am not making that up) in a long black cloak all night, but toward the end of the night, Stacey finds the teacher in the bathroom and she says someone stole her cloak. Stacey rushes back to the gym to warn Mr. Rothman, but before she can, the lights go out for the unmasking because it is supposed to be a masquerade ball, not that anyone on the cover actually has their face obscured. When they come back on, Liz Connor is standing there in a tattered fairy princess costume and laughing like a crazy person. Apparently she's been in and out of mental institutions for years and has fixated upon the Mischief Night dance, and when she heard that the middle school was having one again after all these years she tried to sabotage it. She was the one who played the destructive pranks. She ends up going back to an institution and I feel kind of sad for her.

I never read the mysteries much when they came out, especially the later ones, which were mostly printed after I'd stopped reading the series, but I enjoy them quite a bit now. They do tend to be a bit far-fetched but they're fairly engaging and the plots aren't as thin as some of the later regular series books. This one in particular is a pretty good read with a lot going on.

LS #8, Karen's Haircut

I told my sister she could pick which book I would do next, and she immediately told me to do the one where Karen gets a mullet. She has good taste. This book is awesome and the illustrations are killer. If you only ever read one Little Sister book it should be this one.

Here's the cover. Karen doesn't look too happy, but the hairstylist looks quite pleased with herself. "Business in the front, party in the back, kid!"

The book starts with Karen playing Lovely Ladies with Nancy and feeling ugly. She doesn't like her glasses, and she thinks her two top teeth look like rabbit teeth, and then she loses the teeth on either side of the top teeth and thinks she looks like a freak. She's trying to play Lovely Ladies with Hannie, but she just feels too ugly. Hannie suggests that maybe Karen should get her hair cut or something, which Karen thinks is a great idea. Hannie says that then Karen will look good for Hannie's upcoming wedding to Scott Hsu who lives down the street. Pretending to get married, is this really a thing? Outside of Stoneybrook? I mean there were a few kids in my elementary school who would say they were boyfriend and girlfriend, but that mostly meant that they would play together on the playground. I don't even remember any hand holding. If they'd tried to stage a wedding and get their friends to come we all would have thought they were loco. Anyway Hannie says that if Karen gets a nice haircut she can be a bridesmaid in the wedding instead of just the wedding photographer.

Karen runs home to ask Daddy if she can get her hair cut and get a manicure and a pedicure at Gloriana's House of Hair, the new salon in town. Daddy doesn't agree to the pedi, but after he talks to Mommy, they make an appointment for Karen to get a haircut and a manicure on Tuesday after school. Karen's super excited, and she even gets a fancy barrette from the Tooth Fairy for her two lost teeth.

Mommy takes Karen and Andrew to the salon after school on Tuesday. Karen is annoyed that Andrew has to come along. She wants to feel like a grown up who doesn't have a four year old brother, and she is afraid Andrew will wreck or break something. I bet Andrew is annoyed too, because waiting around for someone to get their hair cut isn't all that fun.

First, Karen gets her manicure. She picks bright pink polish. Then Gloriana starts cutting her hair. Karen brought in a picture of the cut she wants: shoulder length hair with bangs. Shortly after Gloriana starts cutting, Mommy comes over to say that Andrew is getting bored and she's going to take him for a short walk. Karen feels super grown up, except after Mommy leaves, Karen realizes that Gloriana is not giving her the haircut she wanted, but she's seven, so she's too intimidated to say anything. Mommy comes back just as Gloriana is finishing up cutting Karen's hair into a mullet. She asks suspiciously if this is what Karen wanted, and Karen says no, but Gloriana claims that the mullet is the latest style and very fashionable.

Karen doesn't want to go to school the next day, because she's afraid the kids will tease her, and they do. Ricky starts calling her "The Bride of Frankenstein" and the other boys start doing it too. I mean I get that they're just being little assholes, but I don't see a lot of reason why Bride of Frankenstein would be the first thing that popped to mind when a classmate comes to school with a mullet.

The Bride of Frankenstein's iconic hairdo

Not even remotely similar, except I guess hair is involved

This book, by the way, has half-page illustrations sprinkled throughout, which makes more sense to me than the full page ones in the later books that are drawn on half the page and empty at the top or just scribbles at the bottom.

The worst part, though, is that Hannie announces that Karen is completely fug and now cannot be a bridesmaid.  Karen goes home and cries and decides that even though she can't do anything about her hair, she can be glamorous. She announces that she has changed her name to Tiffanie and paints her nails sparkly gold. She wears an assload of plastic bracelets and rings and an ankle bracelet. Hannie says she still can't be in the wedding. Karen goes over to Nancy's house and Nancy shows her the dress she is going to wear to Hannie's wedding, which Karen was not invited to. Really? Even if the kids in my grade school had decided to get married, if they tried to make us dress up to attend, nobody would have gone along with it. Karen's classmates don't remember to call her Tiffanie, so she decides that maybe it's too different from Karen, and changes to Krystal.  She sneaks some discarded makeup of Mommy's to school and starts wearing lipstick and blush every day. She claims that her friends think she's glamorous, except for Hannie, who pointedly says, "You still can't be in my wedding, Karen." Karen tries out other names, including Gazelle (seriously), Desiree, and Chantal. She also starts wearing six ribbons in her hair.

This is the best thing. It was so hard not to scan every mullet-stration in this book, too, I'll tell you what. Hannie tells Karen that her wedding is on Sunday and Karen is still not invited. Karen says she'll come anyway, since she'll be at her dad's that weekend.

Karen's playing outside on Saturday when she sees Hannie go flying off her bike. She runs over and helps Hannie into her house, where it turns out that the bike accident knocked Hannie's front teeth out. Hannie wails that now she is too ugly to marry Scott. Hey, Hannie? You're at least fifteen years too young, too.

Daddy sends Karen over to Hannie's after lunch, and Karen goes, because she doesn't want to explain to Daddy about the fight she and Hannie are having. Scott shows up at the same time and they go up to Karen's room. Hannie is upset and shows Scott the spaces in her mouth and says again that she's now too ugly to marry him. I think these kids in Stoneybrook take losing teeth a little too seriously. It happens to every kid, and really, it doesn't make you ugly. Scott tells Hannie to stop being a drama queen, because he doesn't care what she looks like. "I'm not marrying your face. I'm marrying you," he says, and as he leaves he adds, "See you tomorrow at our wedding!"

Karen tells Hannie she didn't want to come over but Daddy made her, and Hannie admits she's been being a total snot to Karen and apologizes. It's kind of a half-assed apology, including such gems as, "It's terrible to think you look ugly. It's even worse to think people won't like you because of that," and, "I figured out that just because I didn't like your hair and teeth didn't mean I couldn't like you." Hannie says Karen can be her bridesmaid after all, and Karen plans to wear her pink party dress and party shoes. David Michael is performing the ceremony, and he wears a suit. Hannie's brother wears a suit, too, and her sister is dressed up to be the flower girl, and Scott and his brother are wearing suits, and Hannie is wearing her mother's wedding dress. I don't even know. How do you get permission to wear your mom's wedding dress in a backyard wedding at the age of seven? How do you convince 7 to 9 year old boys to wear suits? How do you convince your mother to be your wedding photographer? Also Kristy is one of the guests. David Michael performs a ceremony that ends exactly the same way as the one in Kristy's Big Day, which is to say, he says that they can kiss, and both kids shriek and are utterly disgusted by this.

On Monday Karen sees that a couple of fifth graders have also gotten mullets, and her classmates are totally impressed that Karen started a style that the big kids copied. Then at recess, as the kids are talking about Hannie's wedding, Ricky pulls Karen aside and asks her to marry him. She considers saying no, because this is Yicky Ricky who used to throw spitballs at her, but he was the only one who remembered all her stupid fake names, so she decides she'll marry him.

#36, Jessi's Baby-Sitter

This book opens up with Jessi in ballet class, and Madame Noelle yelling instructions in her heavy accent. When I was younger and read these books, I would often try reading aloud words that were written out in Mme Noelle's French accent, Logan's southern accent, the Hobart kids' Australian accent, or the stuffed up nose dialect where the word Mommy would turn into Bobby. I totally thought I sounded like a French speaker, a southerner, an Australian, or someone with a stuffy nose. Now that I am older, the bits written out in those ways make me get a little annoyed and skim the page. Not a great way to start out the first page of a book.

Daddy picks Jessi up from class and drives her home. He's got a bakery cake in the backseat because they have a surprise. Mama has decided to go back to work. She used to work in advertising before the kids were born and she's going to go back to it. Jessi figures she'll have to babysit Becca and Squirt every afternoon, but wonders who will watch Squirt during the day. Has she never heard of daycare? Don't worry, though, Squirt will not be going to daycare. Daddy's recently widowed older sister Cecelia will be moving in to act as a live in housekeeper slash babysitter. Have Mama and Daddy never heard of daycare?

Jessi is not thrilled with this news because Aunt Cecelia is a rather one-dimensional character, and that dimension is shrew. She's bossy and judgmental. She judges Jessi's family because (I swear I am not making this up) a while ago when Mama and Daddy left Jessi in charge for an entire weekend, Becca got shipwrecked and was missing for several days, and even though her parents had given Becca permission to go sailing, Aunt Cecelia thought that Jessi was somewhat responsible for the whole deal, and she didn't think that the Ramseys should have left Jessi in charge for an entire weekend anyway. Jessi presents this to us as though we're supposed to nod along and say how unreasonable and downright wrong Aunt Cecelia is, but honestly? If I knew that someone was leaving an 11, 8, and 1 year old home alone overnight, I'd judge the hell out of them, no matter how responsible the 11 year old is supposed to be.

Here's the book cover. Sadly I'm 20 years too late to win the trip to New York City. I love Jessi's sweater on this cover. Also, note that she is wearing two pairs of socks so that she can have both orange and blue to pick up the colors in the sweater.

Aunt Cecelia moves in with a small U-Haul full of stuff. Jessi is pissed that Aunt Cecelia has the nerve to own so much stuff. Mama tells her that Aunt Cecelia had to bring all the stuff because it reminds her of her old life, and she misses Uncle Steven very much. Jessi is sympathetic for like one sentence, because Aunt Cecelia can't fit all the stuff in her own room, so some of it goes in other rooms. Jessi herself has a small end table and a couple of china eggs (?) placed in her bedroom. She bitches that now instead of saying "Jessi" her room says "Jessi and some old lady". Their house is totally crowded and Jessi is unhappy.

When Jessi's family moved to Stoneybrook, they moved into Stacey's old house. Remember when Stacey moved back to New York City, she had to have that big yard sale? Makes sense now that you realize Stacy and her folks were living in a five bedroom house. Because Jessi, Becca, and Squirt all have their own rooms, their parents have a room, and there's the former guest room turned Aunt Cecelia's lair. And reference is made to both a living room and a den. And Jessi has her ballet practice area in the basement, which leads me to believe that the basement is either finished or partially finished, because Jessi wouldn't be practicing on a bare concrete floor, right? I wonder what the square footage of the house is. Whatever Daddy does must pay pretty decently.

The next day, a Sunday, Mama and Daddy go out for brunch leaving Aunt Cecelia in charge, and she is completely bossy and controlling. She leaves Squirt sitting in his high chair instead of cleaning him up and playing with him, and Jessi judges her for that. I am just impressed that Squirt is OK with sitting in his high chair and is not screaming his little baby head off after five minutes.She won't let Jessi take Squirt for a walk in his stroller because it's too cloudy. She won't let Jessi go over to Mallory's house, because it looks like it might rain and the roads will get too slippery for bicycle tires. So Jessi and Becca short-sheet her bed, put shaving cream in one of her slippers, and put a rubber spider on her pillow. Surprisingly, Aunt Cecelia says nothing about any of those pranks. She does however keep on being a shrew. The first afternoon that she's watching the kids, she doesn't want to let Jessi go to her babysitting job with Jackie Rodowsky or to Claudia's for the BSC meeting because those people are strangers to her. Apparently Mama and Daddy didn't bother to tell Aunt Cecelia that Jessi is not only the Greatest 11 Year Old Ballerina, she's also a responsible junior member of the Baby-Sitters Club. She does finally relent and let Jessi go, but only after giving her a crappy snack of milk and cookies when Jessi wanted a sandwich.

There is a bit where Stacey is sitting for Charlotte and Becca comes over and gripes about Aunt Cecelia, and one of her gripes is that she leaves Squirt in his playpen alla time when he should be playing or exploring. Again, I'm mostly wondering how Squirt does not cry himself hoarse, because I really don't know any babies who are content to just sit in playpens or high chairs for long stretches.

A couple of days later, Jessi leaves a sitting job late and returns home ten minutes late, and Aunt Cecelia is pissed and forbids her to go to the BSC meeting as punishment. Jessi thinks Aunt Cecelia is ridiculous for getting mad over ten minutes, but Aunt Cecelia says that late is late, period. Perhaps the recently widowed Aunt Cecelia is just one of those people whose minds immediately leap to "dead in a ditch somewhere" when anyone is more than two minutes late. Jessi calls the BSC to tell them she'll have to miss the meeting, so they take turns calling Jessi from the Kishi family's downstairs phone to make it seem like she's the most important member of the club.  That night Aunt Cecelia styles Jessi's hair very tightly. Jessi thinks the hairdo is awful. This is one of the scenes I always remember the most when I think of this book.

The subplot of this book is that Jessi is helping Jackie Rodowsky with a science fair project. He is building a volcano. He didn't really want to enter the fair, he just wanted to build a volcano like the one he saw on The Brady Bunch (season 4 episode 4, "Today, I Am a Freshman") but Jessi pressures him to enter the fair anyway, and then proceeds to do most of his project for him. She reads the books, she learns about volcanoes, and she builds a lot of the model. Jessi thinks it will lead to competition with the other sitters, as Kristy's brother, Mallory's sister, and Stacey's favorite kid Charlotte are all also entering, but the other sitters are laid back about the whole thing and aren't going overboard to do an elementary school science fair project. On the night of the fair, Jackie has a rehearsed speech, but isn't able to answer any questions the judges have that take him away from his script. He's mad at Jessi, because all he really wanted to do was make a volcano and watch it go fwoom!

Jessi realizes that she was treating Jackie like Aunt Cecelia treats her and Becca, trampling his ideas because she was convinced her own way was better. She and her parents sit down and talk, and she tells them that she thinks Aunt Cecelia is treating her like a baby. The adults decide that Jessi and Becca will ask their parents in advance for permission to go places after school, and after Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey approve the plans, they'll share them with Aunt Cecelia so she'll know what's going on. That's actually pretty logical. They also tell her the girls can make their own decisions about what to eat and wear. Nobody brings up leaving Squirt in the playpen for hours on end, so apparently that's OK with everyone.

There is another BSC meeting and Jessi finally describes some outfits. She does not, however, tell us how Claudia had fixed her hair.

Claud was wearing a fake leapord-skin vest, a fairly tame blouse, and blue leggings. She had made her jewelry herself -- five papier-mache bracelets that were painted in soft desert colors.

After the meeting, Jessi gets home to discover that Aunt Cecelia has filled her and Becca's slippers with shaving cream and short-sheeted her bed. They laugh over this and end the book on a cozy domestic note.

This book also has a chapter where Mallory and Dawn are babysitting for the Pike kids and they decide to make a lending library in their house. It sounds like fun and it made me remember another book I had when I was younger: The Mariah Delaney Lending Library Disaster, by Sheila Greenwald, which I may now have to track down a copy of. I loved that book.

LS #54, Karen's Candy

So usually when I skip a weekend of updating this blog, it's either because I spent the weekend at my parents' house and didn't have anything pre-written to post, or because I got bogged down trying to recap a book that is not holding my interest. In this case it's the second thing, so I decided to put the super mystery I've been trying to write about for 3 weeks on the back burner and recap the Little Sister book where Karen punches Pamela in the face.

Here is the cover. It's one of my grungy ex-library books, sorry for the creases and all. Karen and Hannie are sticking their tongues out at what is presumably Pamela and either Leslie or Jannie. Leslie and Jannie aren't pictured often enough for me to have any idea who it's meant to be. I actually am also not sure which one is Pamela. In the books she usually wears trendy clothing, so I'll guess she's the girl with the yellow tights and striped skirt, but I don't know, because the other girl is making a much better "I am far superior to you" face. I don't know what the hell Karen is wearing. A medieval tunic of some sort?

Okay, so this book takes place in October. It's after Karen and Andrew's custody arrangement switches to alternating months at each house, and this particular month they are at their mother's house. Karen spends a bunch of the early book trying to decide what to be for Halloween, and her mom hires Kristy to help her and Andrew with their costumes. Karen ends up being one of the Wild Things from the book Where the Wild Things Are and Andrew is the Little Engine That Could.

Ms. Colman makes one of her announcements. The candy store in town is selling candy with part of the proceeds going to help rebuild a library in Stamford that burned down. All the kids have to do is sell candy and collect money, and the candy will be delivered to the buyers the week before Halloween. The person who sells the most candy also gets a gift certificate to Polly's Fine Candy. Karen is of course absolutely positive that either she, Hannie, or Nancy will sell the most candy. If they were smart they'd all share one order sheet and put it under one name, because there's basically no way that any one of them will sell the most candy if they all go out together and take turns getting credit for the sale. But they didn't think of that.

Pamela, Leslie, and Jannie are going to sell candy too, and Pamela is being kind of a snot about it. She first makes a bet with Karen that she and her friends will sell more than Karen and her friends, and then she brings her buddies over to hawk their wares in Karen's mother's neighborhood, enraging Karen, who feels that it should be her territory. Then Karen wants to sell candy to the teachers at school, but Pamela and her friends beat them to that, too, by minutes. On like the fifth day of the candy sale, which was announced to the whole school. So probably any teachers who wanted candy would have gotten hit up for it by kids in their classes a lot earlier. But whatever. Karen is pissed off. So after school, she and her friends walk over to Pamela's neighborhood to sell candy. Pamela sees them and gets annoyed, of course.

The next day at recess, Hannie wants to swing, but Pamela and her friends are already swinging. She asks for a turn but Pamela says she'll have to wait. Ten minutes later, she asks again, and Pamela laughs and tells her again to wait. Karen is furious. She walks in front of Pamela's swing (smart move; I see why she skipped a grade) and grabs Pamela's legs and tries to pull her off the swing, but Pamela's not budging. So Karen punches Pamela in the face. All the other kids are staring at them and Pamela runs off.

Here is the picture of Karen trying to pull Pamela off her swing. Sadly there is not a picture of Karen punching Pamela in the face, cause I would frame that shit. Pamela's hair looks very dark in this drawing, so maybe she's the one in the Peter Pan collar on the front of the book.

Ms. Colman sees that someone hit Pamela, but Pamela won't tell her what happened, and nobody else will tell either, so she takes away recess for the whole class until someone tells her who punched Pamela. The next day, all the boys stand up and tell on Karen. It is a personal annoyance of mine when books have large groups speak in unison. I had a teacher when I was young who told us it was lazy writing, and asked us to pay attention to people talking in everyday life, and make note of the times when any group of people spoke together. It very rarely happens in non-rehearsed situations. Also the book says they said together, "Karen Brewer did it." which makes me wonder how many other Karens are in their class, and also makes me ponder the improbability of all the boys in the class saying that little phrase in unison. The BSC series in general also does this with the Pike triplets a lot.

Ms. Colman sends Karen and Pamela to the principal's office. The principal says they both have a lot to learn about manners, courtesy, and working out disagreements, and announces that they will both be punished by not being in the school's costume parade. That's right, Karen gets the exact same punishment for punching someone in the face as Pamela does for not sharing her swing with Hannie. The principal calls their parents, so Karen gets punished at home, too. She doesn't get to watch TV for three nights. I assume she also gets a lecture or something offscreen. Taking away TV is apparently Mommy's go-to punishment, because that's what she did when Karen was cheating off Ricky's tests, too.

Karen and Pamela are pretty bummed about the punishment, because the costume parade is srs bzns. They talk about it on the playground one day while their friends are off playing elsewhere. They agree that they both should have been nicer, and they come up with a plan to sneak into the costume parade. Pamela brings a sheet so they can disguise themselves as a ghost, and they join the class as they march past around the gym.  It's kind of a cute idea, but it only works if you don't think about the logistics of it at all. Where did Pamela hide the sheet before and after the costume parade? Why didn't anyone notice a ghost jumping into the middle of the class as they paraded?  But if you ignore that it's nice that Karen and Pamela work together.

Mommy hires Kristy to take Karen and her friends trick-or-treating. Kristy is surprised that every house is giving out the same candy, but Karen explains that it's the kind they were selling, and all the neighbors bought it. Kristy hopes they like it, and Karen says, "Candy is candy." This may be the dumbest thing Karen says in any Little Sister book ever, because anyone who's discovered a vile Bit O Honey when dumping out their candy bag knows that not all candy is created equal.

They go to the candy store to find out the results of the sales, and someone we've never heard of wins the gift certificate. Adding up shows that Karen and her friends sold exactly the same number of bags of candy as Pamela and her friends, although Pamela personally sold one more bag of candy than Karen. Pamela and Karen smile at each other in a friendly fashion, but don't worry, because by the start of the next book, they'll be over trying to be nice.

The subplot in this book is puzzling and stupid. I'll explain it to you, but you might just want to go reread the bit where Karen punches Pamela instead. See, Ms. Colman's class of second graders has a project for the month of October wherein they are helping a kindergarten class make Halloween costumes to wear in the costume parade. Even though all the other grades bring their costumes from home. The kindergarten makes theirs at school. With help from second graders. I bet they look fantastic. Each second grader is assigned a kindergarten buddy to help. This takes up quite a bit of class time. Karen's buddy, Leah, is really shy. She doesn't want to march in the parade with her class. Karen suggests she could just walk and not wear a costume, but Leah says everyone will stare at her if she's the only one without a costume. Finally Karen offers to march with her and hold her hand. So when Karen gets punished, the principal says that even though Karen can't march with her class, she can still march and hold Leah's hand, but Karen can't wear a costume. Leah wants to dress as an elf, and the costume she and Karen makes wins third prize for her class. Don't bother remembering Leah's name, because she will not appear in any more Little Sister books.

#49, Claudia and the Genius of Elm Street

I can't believe I haven't done a Claudia book yet. Not only do I love Claudia and her crazy art projects, but when you read the books she narrates, it cuts way down on your chances of having to read her handwriting in a notebook entry. And this one has my favorite Claudia art project of all. The junk food paintings.

The book starts out with Claudia watching a documentary on Andy Warhol.  While watching it, she gets the idea to do a series of paintings of junk food. She's so excited that she doesn't even finish watching the documentary. Luckily, before she got distracted with her new art project, she took the time to describe her outfit for us.

That afternoon, for instance, I was wearing a man's paisley vest I'd found at a yard sale, over a striped button-down shirt with tuxedo-stripe black Spandex stirrup pants, held up with pink-flecked black suspenders. My hair was pulled straight back with a paisley comb, and I was wearing electric-pink ankle boots. The boots really set off the formality of the rest of the outfit, sort of like the punchline of a joke. I think you can tell a lot about people from the way they dress. If you saw me, you might think: artistic, fun-loving, good sense of humor. At least I hope you'd think that.

Or I might think: homeless, lost a bet, where does one even buy tuxedo-striped spandex? So, you know. That's pretty much the same, right? Oh also guys Janine is smart so she has a page-boy haircut and wears plain skirts and blouses all the time because I guess that's what smart people were wearing in November of 1991 when this book was published. I'm surprised Janine doesn't have a monocle or ink-stained fingers from her fountain pen or something.

Unfortunately this is one of the books where the baby-sitting isn't relegated to one or two chapters. The club has a new client, Ginger Wilder, whose daughter Mary Rose, aka Rosie, is 7 and in the third grade. Mrs. Wilder's mother is ill with the flu and a broken ankle and shingles, and has to be looked after so Ginger needs a regular sitter for Rosie for about a month. Our lucky Claudia gets the job. When Claudia explains to the others at the meeting that Mrs. Wilder's mother has shingles, nobody seems to know what that is, except Mary Anne, who announces that her grandfather had shingles and it's a disease that old people get. Richard's dad died when Mary Anne was six, and she didn't see her maternal grandfather between the time she was a year and a half old and when he passed away, so apparently she has a hell of a memory. I was always annoyed when I read that line about it being a disease old people get, too, because while people over 65 have a much higher incidence of shingles, the only actual requirement to having shingles is that you've had chicken pox. Having a high stress level ups your risk of getting it, too. I know this because one year when I was still in elementary school I got so worked up and excited about my upcoming birthday party that I got shingles.

When Claudia goes to the Wilder house, she is impressed with their sound system, and even more impressed when she realizes it isn't a sound system at all but Rosie playing the piano. It turns out that Rosie's parents have her in all sorts of lessons. Voice, piano, dance, violin, the advanced reader's group at the library, and more. Rosie is a talented kid who excels at most of the things she tries, and she's been in several commercials. At the first sitting job Claudia has for her, Rosie comes off as unfriendly and a little rude, and Claudia feels like a dunce when she sees how talented Rosie is. I can't imagine that feeling like a dunce is a new situation for Claudia to find herself in. Claudia takes Rosie for a walk and leaves a note in case her mother comes home early. Rosie corrects her spelling. This makes me happier than it probably should.

The next time Claudia sits, Rosie's mom has left a note. Claudia says to Rosie, "Your mom says there's tuna salad," to which Rosie responds, "I can read."

I fucking love this kid.

Claudia is unable to help Rosie with her third-grade science homework, so she calls Janine over to do it. Rosie isn't very friendly to Janine either. There's no chattering or getting to know each other beyond just the homework. And I guess my question is, so what? It's not like a 7 year old and a 16 year old should be BFFs. Rosie is just trying to get the homework done, so she's asking Janine questions about the homework.

Here's the cover depiction of the scene. The free baby-sitter bookmark is long gone from the inside of my book, so I can't collect them all.

Rosie is rehearsing for an audition, and she gives Claudia a little speech. "You don't know, Claudia. When you go to an audition, you're up against dozens of other kids with just as much talent as you. Not only do you have to be perfect, but you have to bring a special something to it. Something that sets you apart. And the only way you can do that is by rehearsing." Rosie's voice and tap teachers come over to give her a lesson for an hour, and Claudia almost feels sorry for Rosie because they're both yelling out directions to her and she thinks they're going overboard. I can't really get too worked up about it. It's not like Rosie is upset. She doesn't want to embarrass herself at her audition or anything.

Stacey is the next BSC member to sit for Rosie. She has to pick up Rosie from school and walk her home. She sees and hears Rosie talking to some girls in her class, and it sounds like the girls don't much care for Rosie. Back at the Wilder house, Uncle Dandy, who is starting a new variety show, is coming over along with Rosie's agent so Rosie can audition. She plays the piano and violin, dances, and performs a scene from a soap opera, and Stacey has to read the part of her father, and apparently it's really embarrassing for Stacey for some reason. I mean not just the part where Stacey drops the script and steps on it and rips it, but the very idea of reading the lines so that Rosie can do her prepared piece is horrendously embarrassing.

Claudia is working on the first of her junk food paintings when it's time for the next BSC meeting, and Kristy sees them and really likes them. They make her laugh and she suggests that Claudia have a show and invite people to view them. Claudia loves the idea and the rest of the club agrees to help her clean the garage so she can have her show there.

Jessi is the next to baby-sit for Rosie. First Rosie shows Jessi a video of all five of the commercials that Rosie has been in. She describes the acting techniques she used, like when she had to pretend to see gremlins that would later be added in. It sounds interesting, but the book makes it sound like Rosie is being a total bore, even though Jessi was the one who asked about the commercials in the first place. Then Jessi tries to talk to Rosie about ballet, but Rosie doesn't want to talk about dance, and wants to do practice crosswords for the all-school crossword competition she's going to be in. Jessi wonders if Rosie doesn't want to talk about dance because she's afraid Jessi will show her up, but Rosie has no way of knowing that Jessi is the Best Eleven Year Old Dancer In The Universe, so I don't know why she'd have any idea that Jessi would "show her up." It's like all these sitters are just threatened by Rosie and annoyed by her so they've decided that everything she does is annoying. And yeah, there are some lines in the book where it's clear that Rosie lacks social skills, but it strikes me as counterproductive to ask a kid about the commercials she's been in, get annoyed when she tells you the details of acting in them, and then get more annoyed when she won't talk about the subject you want to talk about. If Rosie had talked to Jessi about dance and mentioned having been in productions or recitals, Jessi probably would have gotten annoyed at her for that, too. Jessi is shit at helping with crosswords so she calls Janine to come over and help Rosie. Janine doesn't mind, but Rosie is kind of obnoxious toward her, getting frustrated when Janine doesn't instantly know the answer to every crossword clue. Then when Janine leaves, Rosie yells that she only wants Claudia to sit for her from now on because she likes Claudia best. Jessi is surprised but thinks they can work it out.

The club comes over to make invitations to Claudia's show and clean her garage to get ready for the show. They're complaining because cleaning garages isn't honestly all that fun, which pisses Claudia off because if you're having such a terrible time why don't you go home? But Stacey points out that every project starts with less fun stuff and there's no law that you have to like everything you do. This makes Claudia think of Rosie, with her talents and her pasted on smile while tap dancing, and she starts to think that maybe Rosie doesn't like all of the things she does.

Claudia baby-sits for Rosie. She is working on one of her junk food sketches while Rosie does crosswords, but after a while Rosie starts drawing too, and Claudia is surprised that Rosie is quite good, and that she seems more relaxed while drawing than she does while playing the piano. When her dad gets home, though, Rosie quickly hides her sketch. This is the first place in the book where it actually says that Rosie "scowls" while playing the piano or violin, I'm just sayin'. Also I know more than one person who looks angry while concentrating on something even if they're perfectly happy.

Claudia goes with Rosie and her parents to the Uncle Dandy taping. A woman with a beehive hairdo directs them where to go. More people need to wear beehives nowadays.  Apparently the Uncle Dandy show is incredibly cheesy. Two of the letters spelling out UNCLE DANDY'S STAR MACHINE are burnt out so it says UNCLE ANDY'S TAR MACHINE. This is the first taping. The premiere show. Someone got fired for that, I bet. Rosie does a great job playing the piano, but on the ride home afterward, she doesn't want to talk to Claudia about it. Claudia says it's as though Rosie has completed a semi-interesting chore and wants to move on to the next thing. I don't really know why Claudia thinks Rosie will be a big chatterbox about playing the piano on the Uncle Dandy show. It's not like Rosie's been big into talking to people for the entire rest of the book. Rosie wants ice cream, but her parents tell her no, and Rosie throws a tantrum. Her mother tells her that performers need to have discipline and Rosie screams that she's a kid, not a performer, and she wants to have ice cream like a normal kid.

The next day Claudia and Mary Anne go to the crossword puzzle competition at the elementary school. Because crossword puzzle competition in the auditorium after school with a bunch of kids staying to watch, that's a thing, right? Anyway the kids are assholes toward Rosie and yell mean things, and even though Rosie wins the competition, she cries on the way home because nobody likes her and she doesn't know why. She just tries to do her best but the other kids make fun of her for it. That may be why I identify with the Rosie character so much. When they get home she and Claudia draw and it cheers Rosie up considerably, but when her parents get home they aren't happy that she's drawing instead of getting ready for her lesson. Rosie shrieks at them and runs to her room, and Claudia tries to explain to them that Rosie is actually super good at art. That makes her parents start to talk about things they can do like sign Rosie up for classes or private lessons, and Claudia thinks they'll suck all the fun out of art for Rosie. She suggests that Rosie can put a couple of her sketches into Claud's art show to get some "exposure." Then she tells Rosie to have a talk with her parents about what she wants to do and what she doesn't, because clearly pushy showbiz parents will be completely convinced by one talk with their 7 year old and won't in any way suggest that Rosie has to keep doing the things she does because she will regret it when she's older if she gives them up.

The art show goes very well, except for Alan Gray coming by. First he hangs up a few of his own crude drawings: a dead cat lying next to a candy wrapper, and a toothless man eating a candy bar. Claudia rips them down and kicks him out, and then he puts bits of chewed gum all over the garage floor. But otherwise it's a roaring success and Claudia sells two paintings. One to Kristy's stepdad and one to Ms. Besser, who teaches at SES. Later, Janine buys a painting also. Janine is a pretty awesome sister, really, and very supportive of Claudia.

Claudia babysits for Rosie again and discovers that Rosie has had a talk with her parents and is going to drop most of her activities. She told them she wanted to do one school thing, one performance thing, and one creative thing, and picked math club, violin, and art classes. And apparently her parents were totally cool with this. And this is why this book is stupid, because in the beginning, there's no real clue that Rosie feels over scheduled at all, and at the end, it's all wrapped up with one chat with her folks even though they weren't even willing to buy her an ice cream cone after a performance like 50 pages ago.