LS # 102, Karen's Black Cat

This book opens up with Karen sitting in the waiting room at the vet's while Elizabeth is in the exam room with the vet and Boo-Boo, Watson's 17 pound tomcat. Throughout the books, Boo-Boo has always been described as cranky. He doesn't like kids and he destroys the neighbors' gardens and he left a dead mouse on Morbidda Destiny's porch and she brought its remains over in a paper bag while Kristy was babysitting and scared her half to death. For all of these reasons and more, Boo-Boo is my favorite pet in the series. He's far, far superior to Mary Anne's stupid kitten. Anyway, as it turns out, there's nothing specific wrong with Boo-Boo, he's just getting older.

The family decides that they will get a new kitten. Elizabeth says it might cheer Boo-Boo up, but I sort of think her real reasoning is that Boo-Boo is going to die soon and it's easier to get a new kitten now then after. At least, that is the reasoning I had for getting a kitten when my old cat was old. Here is a picture of my Simon being cheered up by the new kitten:

Karen doesn't understand why everyone is so sad about Boo-Boo getting older. He's been old as long as she's known him. But she is told sharply that she can't hog the new kitten, and that she should try to think about Boo-Boo. She takes this to mean that she shouldn't love or play with the new kitten when they get it, because it might hurt Boo-Boo's feelings or make him feel resentful. Daddy tells Karen the story of how he got Boo-Boo from the shelter when he was single. He named the cat Boo-Boo because he nearly picked a different cat, and he wanted to remember that he almost made a boo-boo. I don't even know. That's the stupidest cat name logic I ever heard. I will confess that the orange kitty pictured above is called Boo-Boo, but a) that's not her official name and b) it's not after the books, either! Do you remember the show Animaniacs? They had this segment called Chicken Boo, and there was a little song. "You wear a disguise to look like human guys, but you're not a man, you're a chicken, Boo." We used to sing that to our kitten but with "kitten, Boo" instead of chicken, and it morphed into calling her Boo and Boo-Boo.

Karen's class at school is having a Halloween party wherein the children can have a parent bring in a pet during the party. This sounds like the stupidest idea in the world. A bunch of overexcited kids in Halloween costumes and a bunch of animals running around, really? Karen rejects all of the other pets at her house for various reasons and decides that she will honor Boo-Boo by inviting him to her party. Watson says that she may not bring Boo-Boo, because he is getting old, hates children, and needs peace and quiet. Karen ignores this and tells the teacher she will be bringing Boo-Boo, but then Daddy overhears her talking to Hannie and Nancy about it and she is told again that she cannot bring Boo-Boo to the Halloween pet party.

The cover shows Karen, wearing glasses that look more red than pink, holding a kitten while dressed as a witch. She is not wearing a side ponytail, probably because witch hats make side ponytails difficult.

When the family goes to pick out a new kitten, Karen really wants to get an orange tiger striped one and name it Pumpkin because it is so close to Halloween, but the rest of the family votes to get a black kitten. Karen is bitterly disappointed by this. She hopes the black kitten will turn out to have feline leukemia or something so they'll have to change their minds, but no, the black kitten is perfectly healthy and comes to live with them. Boo-Boo loathes the new kitten and hisses and growls at her.

My cat Gideon is 14.4 pounds, and Simon was even bigger, and I have to tell you, the cat in this illustration is no 17-pounder. Look at those tiny legs, and he barely comes up to mid-calf on a seven-year old. Also, he is pissed. You can see him thinking "Fuck this shit. I'm going to die in the next book."

Karen ignores the kitten while the rest of the family plays with her. Then they all sit down to suggest names for the kitten. David Michael suggests Midnight. This amuses me because Morbidda Destiny next door also has a black cat named Midnight. That wouldn't get confusing at all. Of course David Michael is the one who named their dog after a neighbor, so maybe he's just not great at thinking up names on his own. Karen suggests they let Watson choose the name and everyone else agrees. Watson decides that the cat will be named Pumpkin.

Karen tries to be nice to Boo-Boo but he spends a lot of time hiding under Watson's bed and running away from her. Then when she is in her room, Pumpkin comes in and plays with a piece of paper and Karen's determination to resist Pumpkin's charms melts away. She asks the family if she can take the new kitten to her pet party at school. They all agree. At the party, Karen dresses as a witch and shares her pet with Natalie Springer, who is dressed as, I don't know, a storybook character of some sort? Probably one with droopy socks.

#17, Mary Anne's Bad Luck Mystery

This book opens with Mary Anne eating lunch with her friends. Here is what Claudia was wearing.

The best way to get this point across is to describe to you what Claudia was wearing at lunch that day. It was her vegetable blouse: an oversized white shirt with a green vegetable print all over it -- cabbages and squashes and turnips and stuff. Under the blouse was a very short jean skirt, white stockings, green anklets over the stockings, and lavender sneakers, the kind boys usually wear, with a lot of rubber and big laces and the name of the manufacturer in huge letters on the sides. Wait, I'm not done. Claudia had pulled the hair on one side of her head back with a yellow clip that looked like a poodle. The hair on the other side of her head was hanging in her face. Attached to the one ear you could see was a plastic earring about the size of a jar lid.

 That is an epic outfit description. It really sets the tone for this book.

Mary Anne gets a chain letter in the mail. It claims that if she breaks the chain, she and her friends and loved ones will have bad luck. Mallory and Jessi think she shouldn't break the chain, but none of her other friends want to get chain letters, and Mary Anne doesn't want to spend $3 on photocopies and a few bucks more on postage, so she throws the letter away. After throwing away the letter, she has a terrible day, including such things as falling out of bed in the morning, spilling orange juice on a white dress, forgetting a babysitting job, and dropping some food on the floor in the cafeteria.

The next chapter has Dawn babysitting for Jackie Rodowsky, who is crafting a robot costume for Halloween and wants Dawn to help him. There are a lot of spills and messes, and the costume falls apart when he tries it on, but still, I've always thought making a robot costume out of cardboard boxes and jar lids and an old Slinky and things sounds like fun.

Mary Anne gets a package in her mailbox addressed to her and the rest of the club. It contains a jewelry box with a necklace in it, and a note saying that it is a bad luck charm and she has to wear it or else. Mallory and Jessi are all, "This is why you don't break chains." Mary Anne has some more bad luck, as do the other club members and some kids at school. One of the things that happens is that Jamie Newton falls down some stairs while Mary Anne is babysitting him and skins his knee. This is the scene depicted on the cover. Mary Anne is wearing what looks like sweats, and of course the bad luck charm, but Jamie is in shorts.

The club goes to the library to check out books about magic, because they are just sure they need a spell of some sort to counteract Mary Anne's bad luck. Once again they look things up in the card catalog and I feel a wave of nostalgia.

Jessi babysits Jamie Newton. It's not a bad chapter, as far as babysitting chapters go, but it's not all that interesting either. Then Claudia and Mallory sit for the Pike kids in one of the more memorable jobs in the series. First of all, Mr. Pike has left a stew with cut up hot dog pieces on the stove. Claudia thought it looked revolting, but the gross Pike kids were all really excited about it. They call it Daddy Stew and it is a special treat.

Mmm, that shit looks tasty as hell. The stew is supposed to cook until 6:30, but Byron the fatty triplet can't wait, and turns up the burner under it, burning and ruining the dish. Claudia tells Byron he is in charge of cleaning up the mess. Cleaning burned on stew from a big pot sounds like a pain in the ass, not to mention that thirty books from now, he won't even be able to clean up his own spilled milk, and Mallory will have to do it for him. Then a sparrow flies into the house through the chimney, and they have to open doors and windows and shoo it out. Then Vanessa knocks out a loose tooth and has blood pouring from her mouth. Claudia and Mallory make 18 tuna fish sandwiches (2 apiece) which is the only thing everyone will agree to eat what with the disappointment over the Daddy stew. Then the Pikes are late getting home and they don't even call, because they were stuck in traffic and couldn't call.

The girls get together to go through the books, but they don't really find anything useful. The spells all call for things like scrapings from the underside of a sea snake. I don't really know what they were expecting, but they set the books aside and prepare to go to the school dance. Well, Mallory and Jessi's parents won't allow them to go, but the eighth graders go. Mary Anne and Logan go in costume as cats. Mary Anne's costume has a leotard and tights, and Logan had purchased fabric and his mother sewed him a "fur suit." I snickered. Nobody in 1988 could have guessed what would pop into my head seeing "fursuit" in 2012. Claudia didn't wear a costume

unless you'd consider Claudia's wild floral outfit, gigantic hair clip, and armload of silver bangle bracelets a costume. Most people would. Claudia didn't.

and Dawn dressed in regular clothes but smeared green makeup on her face and stuck a plastic wart on it. For some reason I'd never really paid attention to that detail before, and I find it intriguing. I have recreated Dawn's outfit for you in Neopets form:

At the dance, Cokie Mason tells Mary Anne "Nice bad luck charm." Mary Anne is upset by this and more upset when she gets home and there is a note telling her that the whole club needs to go to Old Hickory's grave at midnight the next night, which is Halloween. The girls decide to have a sleepover at Kristy's, and tell their parents that Charlie will be picking them up at 10:30. For some reason all of the parents, even the ones who won't let their kids go to a school dance with chaperons (which was over well before 10:30 because Mary Anne had to be home by 10) are totally cool with this. Mary Anne realizes that the only people she's told about the bad luck charm are her friends, so if Cokie called it a bad luck charm, she must be the one who sent it. The girls get Charlie to drive them to the graveyard early, where they rig up some traps and scare the pants off of Cokie and her group of friends, who had indeed been planning to try to scare the club. Then they really do have a sleepover at Kristy's house, and Mary Anne decides to keep the necklace, which her father had told her was a mustard seed, a symbol of faith.

LS #66, Karen's Monsters

This book basically has three plots and I can't figure out which one is supposed to be the main plot. I guess it's the bit about the monster, because that's what the book is titled, so I'll start there.

Here is the cover. Karen has a really curly ponytail on this one, and I love her outfit. I would seriously buy it for my niece if I found it in a store, although maybe not with the boots. Karen is reacting in horror to a monster that is sitting in her garage. Charlie is building the monster (who he names Frankenstone) for the football team's homecoming float. (Sam, by the way, is riding on the Math Club float. Dressed as a giant number 5.) The parade is Halloween themed because the homecoming game is right around Halloween. Anyway, Charlie is apparently quite talented in the monster building department, because he is able to make a realistic looking monster, add LED lights to its eyes, and make it moan. Karen is a little scared of the monster, especially after a chapter where Sam and Charlie are babysitting and they turn the lights off and scare Karen, Hannie, and Nancy with the monster.

A day after the scare, Karen notices that Frank is missing from the garage. She naturally assumes he's come to life and is out menacing the neighbors, but Charlie correctly realizes that Frank has, in fact, been stolen. He thinks it might be someone from one of the other clubs who want to use Frank on their own float. He lets Karen help him look for clues. They find a tire track and some cleat marks.

Charlie's outfit did not stand the test of time nearly as well as Karen's, sorry Charlie. Karen remembers that one time, Charlie stole a rival school's mascot and hid it in their toolshed, so she suggests that they look in toolsheds. Instead, Charlie realizes that the captain of the Bricktown Bulldogs football team stole his monster. He and Karen drive to Bricktown and steal Frank back from Ellis Wood. It is a very exciting moment for Karen. Charlie is so glad to have his monster back that he arranges for Karen, David Michael, Andrew, and Emily to ride on the float in the parade. He gets monster costumes for them to wear.

As you can see, the float is a box floating in space, with the word "Halloween" printed on one end and "SCHOOL" on the long side. Karen is wrapped in bubble wrap and has cat whiskers. Andrew appears to be a Ninja Turtle, and Emily looks like a lion. David Michael is wearing rubber hands and Groucho glasses. They are the scariest monsters I ever did see.

Meanwhile, Karen's class in school is going to put on a program for their families. It is an autumn themed program. Each of the kids has to write a story and read it aloud during the program. It's a good thing there are only 18 kids in their class, because that sounds really boring for the attendees. The class makes decorations and refreshments. Nancy, despite wanting to be an actress when she grows up, is a total whiny baby about having to read her story aloud. She's scared. Karen and Hannie try to help her, by letting her practice with them as the audience, but Nancy is still terrible at it. She tries writing a story that she knows Ms. Colman won't allow her to read, titled "Fall is Stinky", but Ms. Colman just makes her write a new story. Finally on the day of the program, Karen orders everyone in the audience to turn their backs to Nancy, and she is able to overcome her stage fright and read her story aloud.

Also, Emily has been throwing tantrums in the morning through the whole book. When Nannie and Watson bring her to the program at Karen's school, Emily disappears and they find her in the kindergarten classroom. They realize that Emily has been throwing fits in the morning because she wants to go to school like the big kids. They can't find a preschool program for her, but Kristy (naturally) suggests they start a playgroup for her with Sari Papadakis and two other nearby toddlers who were made up for this book and will never be mentioned again. (Petey and Nelson are their names.)

Here is Karen, wearing a bitchin' jean jacket, stepping over a tantrum throwing Emily. But don't worry, because after Kristy comes up with the idea and Nannie is able to take Emily to her playgroup, she stops throwing tantrums in the morning, and all is (relatively) peaceful once again.