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.
How do you make a papier-mache bracelet? Do you just make it onto yourself and cut it off at the end of the day?
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