Karen has gotten a pair of roller skates. They are red with yellow wheels. On the third page of the book she describes the outfit she likes to wear while she skates, which is pretty much what is pictured on the cover, except the cover shows elbow pads which aren't on the list and doesn't show wrist guards which are. Foreshadowing! She's going to Daddy's house for the weekend, because the early books are pretty much all set during the weekends she is at her dad's. Later on, when it switches to being one month at each house, I think there are actually more plots where she's mostly at her mom's.
Karen gets up on Saturday morning and goes outside to skate. First she and Andrew take the dog for a walk while he rides his trike and Karen roller skates. Then Karen sets up a couple of coffee cans on the sidewalk and jumps over them. She successfully does this trick, then loses her balance while turning around, falls, and breaks her wrist. Daddy and Kristy take her to the hospital. Elizabeth tries to make Kristy babysit Andrew and David Michael so she can go to the hospital, but Kristy refuses and insists on going.
There are a couple of chapters of hospital stuff, where it is confirmed that Karen's wrist is broken, and she gets a cast and a sling. Then when they get home, Karen makes her dad carry her inside because she is too tired and her wrist hurts. Her brothers set her up a little sick nest on the couch in the den, and Elizabeth brings her lunch on a tray, and she calls and talks to Mommy. But later when she orders Andrew and David Michael to fetch her coloring book and wants to eat on the couch again, everyone tells her no.
FOOLS! YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS! YOU WILL PAY!
Is it just me or does Karen have a tiny right arm in this picture?
The next day Karen gets up and is feeling pretty chipper. She puts on her clothes herself, even though it takes her forever one-handed. She bounces downstairs and makes herself toast. Then she is pissed off when Daddy refuses to let her go roller skating even though she is clearly capable of doing absolutely everything. She has to go back to the hospital for a follow-up. While she's there she sees Ricky Torres, who is in her class. He has broken his ankle by falling down the stairs. Falling down the stairs always makes me think "code for abusive situation" but I suppose he could have fallen down the stairs. Cliches have to start somewhere.
Ricky has already gotten a bunch of people to sign his cast, and Karen decides that she has to get more and better signatures. Ricky is even going to have a baseball player's signature, because the player is a friend of his dad's. The player is apparently famous enough that Karen has heard of him, because when Ricky says by Monday he will have Hubert Gregory's signature, she replies, "The baseball player?"
So when Karen gets home, she rushes off to force all her family and neighbors to sign her cast so she can show it off to her classmates. I think Karen might get more attention if she went to school with lots of space for her classmates to sign instead of filling it all up with her family's signatures, but I'm obviously not wise to the politics of Ms. Colman's second grade. Also when Karen is talking to Ricky and then when she is going around getting signatures she keeps telling exaggerated lies about how she broke her wrist. First she makes it four coffee cans she jumped over, then five, then seven while doing a double twist in the air, then it's seventeen coffee cans and helicopters and ambulances. I don't know why she expects anyone to believe any of this. Particularly since her neighbors might have noticed helicopters. Andrew keeps trying to tell people that Karen is a lying liar who lies, but nobody pays him much attention because in the beginning of the series Andrew was quiet and shy. Finally he yells and tells the real story and Karen stops making up ridiculous and annoying lies.
While Karen is asking everyone if they know someone famous to sign her cast, Hannie's mother says she knows the mayor. Karen asks if he can sign the cast and Hannie's mom says that he's out of town that weekend. This is interesting only because in every other mention of the mayor in this series, she is a woman. Apparently there was an election soon after this book.
Karen gets an autograph from the ice cream truck driver. She is a little disappointed to find out that his name is not actually Mr. Tastee. She wants some more special autographs, so she makes Hannie go over to Mrs. Porter's house with her so she can have a witch's autograph.
You can almost hear her thinking, "What does that little brat want NOW?"
She signs the cast and that is when we find out that Mrs. Porter's first name is Tabitha. Karen thinks it's a witchy name, possibly because Bewitched is suitably old enough for Stoneybrook kids to watch. I don't think Tabitha is a witch name but perhaps I'm just in denial since I have a cousin with that name.
Mommy comes to pick the kids up and on the way home she announces that her friend Amy Morris is in town and can sign Karen's cast. Karen says, "Amy Morris? The movie star?" Karen thinks it's funny that she went looking for a famous autograph and couldn't find one, then when she stopped looking, one fell into her lap. They continue home to the little house, with Karen secure in the knowledge that her cast will beat Ricky's cast in the next day's popularity contest.
Amy Morris will never be mentioned again.
