#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.

#125, Mary Anne in the Middle

I know, you're all thinking, great, a later series book. Nobody remembers the high numbered books because the people who'd been reading since the beginning were too old for them and the people who started reading later were still starting at the beginning of the series. Plus they tend to be terrible somewhat different in style than the early books. This book in particular is just awful. It's allegedly about Mary Anne, but the entire plot is about Mallory and Jessi. I always liked Mary Anne so it bums me out that the whole book is Mallory and Jessi and we don't get any of Mary Anne having dinner with her family or hanging with Kristy or Claudia or something.

The book starts out with Mary Anne babysitting the Pike kids with Mallory. Mrs. Pike has taken a temporary job for plot purposes for a little extra money during the holiday season so they babysit the Pike kids basically constantly. Mallory is anxious to find out whether she has been accepted to Riverbend, a boarding school she has applied to because the kids at school are teasing her and making life miserable. But even if she is accepted, she isn't sure yet whether she should go, so she hasn't discussed it much with the younger kids in her family.

Meeting time, and Mary Anne partially describes Claudia's outfit for us. I mean, I assume Claudia is also wearing pants and it is a partial description. It could just be a really long shirt.

Lately she's been working with colorful polymer clays and incorporating her creations into all her outfits. The shirt she was wearing that day was one she had tie-dyed and then cut into fringe around the bottom. At the end of each fringe was a polymer clay bead she'd made. Her earrings and necklace featured more of the same beads, and so did the barrette holding back her long, silky black hair.

 I have made Claudia's lovely beaded outfit for you in Neopets form. You just kind of have to imagine the beads on the fringe of her lovely tie-dyed outfit. I had a hard time deciding on the shoes, because at this point in the books, Claudia wore Doc Martens a lot, but I always kind of picture her in strappy silver sandals that lace around her leg because she wore those in every book for like six years one single eighth grade year and half of seventh grade.

Kristy asks Mallory if she's heard from Riverbend and that she needs to let them know if she decides to go so they can replace her in the club. Really, your friend might move away and you're talking about replacing her right in front of her? I don't know how bursts-into-tears-all-the-time Mary Anne can be such good friends with Kristy without getting her feelings hurt every other page. I don't imagine that Kristy has much patience for trying to coax someone into feeling better. I think Mary Anne's crying would just piss her off.

The next day Mary Anne is meeting Mallory at her locker after school. She sees that someone has written "SPAZ GIRL" on the locker and tries to scrub it off, but is unable to do so before Mallory sees it. As they walk, Mallory tells Mary Anne how unbearable she finds SMS and how much she liked her visit to Riverbend. Mary Anne realizes that Riverbend might be the best choice for Mallory.

They arrive at the elementary school and Mallory's siblings come out. The book tells us that Claire usually goes to morning kindergarten but for the duration of Mrs. Pike's job she goes to the afternoon class as well. This pisses me off so much every time I read it. It makes no sense that the school would just be like "sure, we'll put your child in a second class every day for three weeks or however long this stupid book your job lasts!" Just say it's all day kindergarten and nobody will even think twice about it. By the fall of 1998, which is the year this book was published, over half of all kindergarten students attended full day programs. It makes a lot more sense than utilizing a second half-day kindergarten class for three weeks in lieu of daycare.

They bring the gross Pike kids home and feed them chocolate milk and peanut butter "slathered" on Saltines. Objectively I don't really mind any of those foods but the Pikes still gross me out. The mail comes and Mallory gets an acceptance letter from Riverbend. They are offering her a full scholarship, probably so she can head up their fledgling baby-sitting program for the teachers' kids. Or because she is the best eleven year old writer in the whole world, because you know, the BSC is the best at everything they try. The kids are upset when they realize that if Mallory goes to boarding school, she will board there and no longer live at home. Then Mallory calls Jessi to tell her she got accepted and surprisingly, Mallory's best friend is not super stoked that she might be moving away. You know, because she's eleven. And she's going to miss her best friend. Mallory is like "omg what a bitch" because she's eleven. And she's only thinking about her own excitement.

The next day Mary Anne is babysitting the Pikes but with Jessi instead of Mallory. They go to the Pike house and prepare an unnamed snack that makes Adam say, "Gross!" and get out a package of cookies instead. The mind boggles at the existence of a snack that grosses a Pike child out. Jessi spends the sitting job bitching about how Mallory is just running away from her problems and abandoning her family. Then when Mallory gets home she and Jessi have a brief argument and Jessi storms out.

Here is the cover. I don't know whose house they are meant to be in but I doubt it is the gross Pikes' house. As you can see, Mary Anne is standing between Jessi and Mallory, because fuck this book, it's supposed to be about Mary Anne but none of it is. She has one phone conversation with Dawn and other than that she interacts with no one in her family. She doesn't even call her husband boyfriend Logan and rehash Mallory and Jessi's stupid drama, much less go on a date with him.

The next day Mallory tells Mary Anne that she has officially decided to go to Riverbend. Her siblings are acting cold and ignoring her, because their feelings are hurt. Then they go to a club meeting and Mallory announces her decision. Jessi can tell by Mary Anne's reaction that Mallory told her already and her feelings are very badly hurt, even though she and Mallory weren't exactly getting along. Jessi runs out of the club meeting. Then Mrs. DeWitt calls and needs two sitters so Mary Anne sneakily assigns Jessi and Mallory the job together. Because that's what professional sitters do, is send feuding people to someone's house to fight in front of their children.

Mallory's siblings are still mad at her except for Claire who is hanging all over her. Nicky wonders if their parents will have another kid to replace Mallory, because there are only seven of them now. I know eleven is pretty young for Mallory to be going away, but was Nicky planning to have everyone go to Stoneybrook Community College and then live at home forever?  After the job Mary Anne talks to Jessi who is still upset with Mallory, she feels like Mallory made up her mind the first time she visited the school and has been shutting her out ever since then.

By the time Mallory arrives for the job at the Barret/DeWitt house Jessi has told the kids that Mallory is moving away. Mallory is like wtf, and Jessi has a pretty amusing comeback. "Oh, I forgot, this is top secret," Jessi replied snippily. "Only Mary Anne is supposed to know." The DeWitt adults have scheduled this babysitting session so they can go to Bellair's and look at new furniture. Hey, guys? You have seven children under the age of nine. My suggestion is to not buy brand new furniture. Jessi has brought clay for the children to make Kwanzaa decorations, but when Mallory tells the four-year-old that she can make a snowman if she wants, Jessi freaks out on her and says she has to make Kwanzaa things and says, "I brought the clay. I'll be the one to say how she can use it." This is a very good example to set for a bunch of children. By the end of the sitting job Mallory and Jessi hate each other even more and both call Mary Anne to bitch at her for making them sit together without warning. Which is reasonable.

Jessi is having a sleepover at her house because a couple of her Dance NY friends are visiting. She had invited everyone in the BSC before the whole situation blew up, but for some reason Mary Anne manipulates Mallory into coming anyway, even though Mallory knows she's not wanted and Jessi greets her at the door with, "What are you doing here?" Mary Anne should probably have stayed out of this, because Mallory is chatting to one of Jessi's dance friends and Jessi overhears Maritza say "She'll get over it" and is upset that Mallory is talking about her and trying to turn her friends against her. Mallory leaves the sleepover, which, again, she knew in the first place that she probably shouldn't go.

The subplot in this book is that they are making homemade holiday decorations for Stoneybrook Manor, for the old people to enjoy. Abby babysits the Hobart boys and explains Hanukkah to them and they make a felt banner. Mallory, Mary Anne, and the Pike kids make styrofoam ornament balls, and the Pikes also make construction paper chains. Jessi makes the aforementioned Kwanzaa decorations with the Barrett/DeWitt kids. Then they have a party at the manor for all the residents. They make a group of four-year olds sing the Beatles' "Here Comes The Sun" in honor of the winter solstice. Reading about the party is boring, much like Mallory. Maybe that's why books with a Mallory focus always get the nursing home subplots. Because last time we had a shindig at the manor was when Mallory was laid up with mono, if you recall.

At the next club meeting they are trying to think of someone to replace Mallory, and decide that maybe they won't replace her, and Mallory feels bad because she "means so little" that they don't even need to replace her. Which was not exactly what they meant but come ON, there's not a good reason to directly discuss replacing your friend right in front of her. Then Mallory and Jessi both bitch to Mary Anne about each other and GODDAMMIT WHY DOES THIS BOOK STILL HAVE PAGES? WHY CAN'T IT BE OVER. You know what, that's it. I'm done with this book. I don't care if Mallory and Jessi make up and I don't care if it makes me a bad blogger, I cannot slog through another fucking page. I am going to make up my own ending.

Mary Anne is woken up very early by a phone call from Jessi, who is hysterical. Something has gone wrong at the Pike house. The entire club goes to look, in time to see Mrs. Pike being led away in handcuffs. Apparently she had been stealing like crazy from her seasonal job and has been tied to a rash of break-ins in Kristy's neighborhood. Mr. Pike, distraught, announces that most of the children will be sent to stay with relatives. The triplets will stay with him because nobody wants them, Mallory will go to boarding school, Claire and Margo will live with an aunt, Vanessa is to stay with a grandparent, and Nicky will live with Uncle Joe at Stoneybrook Manor. Jessi realizes that by fighting with Mallory, she will be missing out on her last chance to see her again. She hugs Mallory tightly as the rest of the Pike children huddle around them, sobbing, except for Byron the fatty triplet who is eating fried bologna and dipping it in leftover chocolate pudding.

LS #110, Karen's Swim Meet

I like this book, except for the part with the main plot.

It starts out with Karen, Hannie, and Nancy talking about what they're going to do on summer break. It turns out that Hannie's family is going on vacation and Nancy's family is having guests, so neither one of them will be available to play with Karen. Instead of being a giant brat about this and getting in a fight with her friends, Karen says she will plan something for the Fourth of July when Hannie will be back and Nancy's guests will be gone. Then Karen goes to help with corn for a cookout with her family.

Here is a picture of Karen eating corn with a couple of her stepbrothers. The smaller one is David Michael, who is supposed to have curly hair but rarely does in the illustrations [source: Kristy's Great Idea], and the other one, well, I don't know if that's meant to be Sam or Charlie but it is a very special drawing. As you can see, they are eating corn, hamburgers, possibly chicken, a bowl of scribbles, and a pan of scribbles. This book makes me hungry.

Karen finds out that some swimmer is going to be in Stoneybrook for the summer coaching the swim team for all ages. He got to the Olympic trials as a swimmer and now wants to coach. Watson calls for information and the community center says that the swim team is a fun summer activity open to swimmers of all ability levels, so he agrees to sign Karen up for the swim team for the summer. Karen makes a new friend there, Kristin, who is visiting in her aunt for the summer. Karen's classmate Terri is also on the swim team, even though she's not a very strong swimmer. Terri's twin sister Tammy is taking tennis lessons and not swim lessons. I appreciate that for once, the books actually don't have the twins doing the same activity.

So Karen makes better friends with Kristin and Terri. She invites them over and they make invitations and plans for the Fourth of July party Karen wants to have with Hannie and Nancy, and they also invite Terri's twin sister. The Kormans are out of town and have let Karen's family use the pool while they are gone, and Karen gets permission from her parents and the Kormans to have her party at their house and use their pool in the afternoon. Nannie helps Karen make red, white, and blue taffy. They also have a no-drip Popsicle eating contest. The main menu isn't spelled out, but they do have watermelon. The kids have fun because who doesn't like picnics? Communists that is who. Okay, well, I'll be honest and say that I don't personally really like picnics, but for some reason the one in this book always sounds fun to me. Maybe it's because most of the menu is left to imagination, and the foods they do have are not ones that get gross and dried out and kind of warm when eaten outside. So I can imagine eating watermelon outdoors and spitting the seeds, and I don't object to that the same way I object to taking a perfectly good sandwich and eating it outside so the pleasant breeze can dry it out and blow specks of dirt onto it. Another thing I like about the party is that even though Karen spent the summer playing with kids who were not Hannie and Nancy we do not have to read about anyone getting in a big fight. They just enjoy each other's company and it is a really sweet ending for the book.

Oh wait I left out the entire part with the main plot because the main plot sucked, oops. It turns out that Coach Awesome Swimmer is an asshole to the kids, because he wants them to be super good swimmers and win all the swimmer meets. He only helps the best swimmers during practice and doesn't help the sucky swimmers and then when the kids don't win the swim meets he is a dick. There's a chapter where is mean to Terri for doing the breaststroke poorly and makes her do it while everyone watches and he says hey kids this is how not to do the breaststroke! Look how bad Terri sucks at it! I can barely read this particular chapter because it ramps up my anxiety level so much. In another chapter, he forces Karen to do flip turns over and over until she is dizzy. Karen and the other kids talk to their parents and they say they will watch the coach, but then the coach is a lot nicer to the kids. Karen says she almost wishes he would be mean so the parents can see how he acts, but I don't know why she wants that. Wouldn't it be nicer if he had just randomly stopped being an asshole? But it doesn't last, and eventually he makes the kids do a bunch of dives off blocks in the rain and Watson confronts him and says, "Why are you making the kids practice in the rain?" The coach runs away and quits being the coach instead of saying "Well I'm not the one who drove the kids to practice in the rain so you don't have tons of room to talk asshole" so then the mean bad ogre of a competitive coach is gone and Karen and her friends can enjoy swimming again.

Also maybe i just sucked at swimming (OK, I sucked really bad at swimming) but they have the kids doing all the strokes at this part of the book and it just surprised me that 7-year olds would be doing the breaststroke and shit because I would expect them to know freestyle and maybe the backstroke but idk. Like I said, I sucked at swimming, so maybe it is expected that second graders should ought to know how to do a breaststroke.

Here is a bonus scan of the coach talking to some of the swim team members. He is probably mad at them for sucking at swimming.

#37, Dawn and the Older Boy

This book starts out with a BSC sleepover at Kristy's house. The girls are doing each other's hair and makeup, and Dawn describes a Claudia outfit for us.

Today, for example, she had stuck to two colors: black and white. Black cotton bib overalls over a white turtleneck with a shiny black patent leather belt looped around her waist. Black suede ankle boots and white cotton socks. Long black hair swept off her face with giant white plastic barrettes. Anyone else would look like a penguin in that get-up, but Claudia looked great.

 They get up the next day because it is 11 am and Mary Anne wakes everyone up and says she's sure the Brewers are expecting them for breakfast and they've already wasted half the day. They all look like shit because they all fell asleep without washing their faces, which is really good when you're a young teenager and prone to acne anyway. Dawn is wearing a "tattered old nightgown and three sizes too big terry robe" which is a super classy thing to bring to a sleepover in the first place. They go downstairs to find basically Kristy's entire family eating breakfast. David Michael, Karen, Andrew, and Emily are eating cereal, and Sam and Charlie and one of their friends are also having breakfast. I don't understand why young children are having breakfast at 11 am. Don't kids usually get up before 9? I don't know why Mary Anne was so worried about the Brewers expecting them for breakfast if they normally serve it at midday. Anyway the girls rush back upstairs to shower and brush their hair. Dawn spends an hour getting ready and when she goes back down, Travis the gorgeous guy is still eating breakfast. She is quite taken by the fact that he is eating granola, because nobody else on the entire East Coast eats granola. Except that he's eating at someone else's house, so apparently the Thomas-Brewer family eats granola, unless they buy it only for Dawn to eat when Kristy has slumber parties. Dawn and Travis chat, and she finds out that he is also from California. He tells her she should always wear blue, because it brings out her eyes, just like the ocean. Because that is a thing a straight teenage male would say.

A few days later, Dawn and Mary Anne are raking leaves at their house when Travis shows up driving a blue Chevy. There is some boring conversation about his car and the fact that he can drive, and then he presents Dawn with a pair of blue hair combs and tells her she should get 3-4 inches cut off her hair because it would give it a little more lift. Because that is a thing a straight teenage male would say. Also, if your hair is down to your waist, not that it ever is in the cover illustrations, and you get three inches cut off of it, it is really unlikely that anyone would even notice.

A couple of days later, Dawn is walking home from school with her friends and Travis pulls up and asks her to go shopping with him to pick out a birthday present for his dad. After a quick trip to the sporting goods store, he takes her to a restaurant and orders for her, which she doesn't like. She doesn't mention that she doesn't eat meat but he orders grilled cheese for them both. I guess this is one of the books Dawn is a vegetarian in. I should keep track of that, because in other books she just doesn't eat red meat. Then Travis takes Dawn to the Merry-Go-Round and buys her a pair of silver butterfly earrings. He tries to convince her to have a third hole pierced in her ears to wear them in because he thinks the butterflies would look better higher on her ears. Because that is a thing a straight teenage male would think about.

Here's the cover. Travis looks about thirty-five and is wearing pretty much exactly one of the outfits Dawn described herself as wearing. Dawn, despite being in middle school, apparently has a letter jacket. Maybe she lettered in baby-sitting, or maybe she's wearing Travis's jacket. Dawn's hair is not down to her waist. I don't know who the children are supposed to be.

When Dawn gets home, she gets in trouble for riding in a car with a boy her mom and stepdad hadn't met. This is one of the more logical reactions any of the parents in this series ever has, but Sharon ruins it two pages later by saying that she'll probably allow Dawn to continue to see Travis after he meets them. Richard and Sharon argue about this, because Richard thinks that a middle-school girl shouldn't be dating a high-school boy with a driver's license. I can't really disagree with him here.

At a BSC meeting a couple of days later, Kristy casually mentions that Travis is dating a really hot chick. Kristy says that she is fantastic looking. Yes, it is in italics in the book. Dawn decides she needs to see what is going on. She waits outside SHS and follows Travis and the girl. This is not the only book in which Dawn sneaks around and spies on people. Apparently it's one of her hobbies. Dawn sees Travis take the girl to the same restaurant he took her to, and to the Merry-Go-Round, and then they kiss. Dawn is pretty devastated. When she explains the situation to her friends, Kristy points out that Travis never actually asked her on a date or tried to kiss her (thank goodness), but Claudia says that a boy coming to your house and bringing you presents is a pretty strong indication that he likes you romantically. Dawn is just sad because her dreams of becoming Mrs. Travis...well, I don't know if she even knows his last name, but her dreams have been crushed like a bug.

Dawn follows Travis and the hot chick again and talks to them in the Merry-Go-Round, where Sara refers to Dawn as the little girl Travis was telling her about. Dawn is very upset. When she gets home, she talks to Mary Anne, who says that Travis spent all of their time together trying to change Dawn, instead of appreciating her for who she is. Dawn realizes that this is so, and she calls Travis to yell at him and tell him goodbye. She says she hopes he finds the perfect girl for him, but it's not her. The perfect person for Travis is maybe actually a dude, but as the book was published in 1990, Dawn does not expand her statement in that direction.

The subplot in this book is that James Hobart has written a play that he is putting on with some neighbor kids, and his friend Zach keeps making fun of him for playing with girls. They have several rehearsals for the play spanning the course of the book. I used to try and get neighbor kids to act in plays and none of them ever showed up for more than one rehearsal. James wants Zach to like him so he goes and plays with Zach and hurts the little kids' feelings. It actually feels developmentally appropriate to me but of course the club is concerned that James is changing himself so Zach will like him. At the end they put on the play for an audience, and although the audience loves it, James goes off to play with Zach after it is over instead of hanging around so people can give him accolades.

LS #74, Karen's Softball Mystery

So, the regular series BSC books have a couple where the club solves mysteries, and then there was a whole spinoff series of mysteries, and it was frankly kind of ridiculous that 13-year old girls would be solving mysteries, but what's even worse are the Little Sister books where Karen and her stupid friends solve mysteries. This one isn't as unbelievable as the one where she catches the art thief (I swear I am not making this plot up) but it makes up for it by being way more boring, probably because it is also a Krushers book.

Here's the cover. Nancy, Karen, and Hannie are looking oddly sinister, which is impressive for Karen particularly, because it's hard to look sinister when you have rolled up the cuffs of your jean shorts.

It's spring, and practices for Kristy's Krushers are getting started. Apparently a lot of new players want to join the team this year. Because that's what you do when you want your kid to play ball, is you go search out a team run by a 13-year old. You don't look into Little League or anything. So practices are pretty overwhelming and also boring, because there is one 13-year old coach for all these players, and not everyone gets a turn to bat, and Kristy announces that for the first time, the Krushers may have to make some cuts.

This is one of the new players, Julian, and his older sister, Barbie. Karen describes Barbie as wearing "cool clothes" and Julian as "not as cool." They both look to be wearing about the same thing to me, but I guess shirts with scribbles on them are way more cool than shirts with no scribbles. Barbie tells Kristy that they are new in town and Julian is kind of shy and she is hoping that he will make new friends by joining the team. Where are these kids' parents? Why is the 12-year old in charge of arranging extracurricular activities and managing the social life of the 8-year old?

Practices are still chaotic and they start to get more so because things start to come up missing. Some equipment disappears, and some pages out of Kristy's notebook. Also a few of the new players have pushy parents or siblings who don't like the way Kristy is running the team.

Here is a high-school aged kid yelling at Kristy because he thinks she's not coaching his sister on how to hold the bat the right way. I've mentioned before that Karen looks awkward in a lot of the illustrations of her playing softball, but really, if you don't like the way that someone is coaching your kid, maybe you should sign them up for something else instead of bitching about the free option. The high school kid also comes to practices with his sister. You know, because, again, that's what older siblings DO, is watch and critique boring little kid sport practices. There's another kid whose dad is overbearing and wants him to hit home runs all the time, and again I'm left to wonder why the hell he wouldn't sign his kid up for actual Little League if he wants him to become a good player. Because being the best player on Kristy's Krushers isn't really that much of an accomplishment.

Anyway, the mystery. Karen, Hannie, and Nancy notice that all of the equipment stolen is for right-handers. They decide the thief must be a lefty, who is trying to remove equipment so that the right handed players can't use it. They find a baseball card on the ground near some bats that got knocked over or moved or something. And they see that whoever stole Kristy's stats notebook and changed some numbers used a dark pencil with a pink eraser that left pink smudges on the paper. Pencil with pink eraser should help us catch that thief right away, amirite?

The subplot in this book is that Ms. Colman the greatest teacher ever has been out of school for a while because of having a baby but she is going to come back and the class plans a welcome back party for her. She doesn't come back on the scheduled day so they have the party anyway to cheer themselves up, and then have another party when she really returns. They also combine it with a going away party for their substitute teacher Mrs. Hoffman. Normally I'd say something snotty about how many parties a classroom really needs, but these kids were in second grade for like 10 years, so I guess it doesn't hurt anything to have extra parties and field trips.

Kristy wants to hold a toy sale to raise money for new equipment. Mommy helps Karen and Andrew sort through their toys. Andrew is willing to donate everything, but Karen refuses to part with her toys. Raise your hand if you are surprised. Nobody? Eventually Mommy donates Karen's old tea set despite Karen's protests, but don't worry, because Nancy buys it at the sale so Karen can still play with it. Also some of the shit Mommy is talking Andrew into donating is clearly broken, like a wind-up bear which no longer winds, which doesn't make much sense to me. Who is going to buy broken toys at Kristy's yard sale spectacular? Toss them, seriously.

Barbie and Julian come to the toy sale and Karen says Barbie is wearing another cool outfit but I don't see anything notably cool about it. There aren't even any scribbles on her shirt. Julian apparently only owns the one outfit. Barbie has a binder of baseball cards and Karen realized that it has one missing card where the card found at the crime scene would go. Barbie also has a pencil. With a pink eraser. No, for real. So Karen confronts her with the evidence and Barbie confesses that she just wanted Julian to look good so she was trying to make some better players look bad so that he'd make friends. Seems a bit convoluted to me but that's okay. Barbie buys some new equipment for the Krushers with her own money which along with the proceeds from Kristy's yard sale is enough to outfit the team nicely, and then they play a game against the Bashers and Julian hits a home run.

Oh also every time Karen gets up to bat in this book she gets on base, even though pretty much everyone else on the team strikes out repeatedly. Maybe she's getting too good for the Krushers and should go join Little League.

#11, Kristy and the Snobs

This book starts out with Kristy talking about how she doesn't like snobs, and then she describes her new neighborhood as being full of snobs because the older teenagers are given cars as soon as they can drive and the houses on their street mostly have swimming pools, tennis courts, and a cook named Agnes. Watson's house has none of those things. I was under the impression that being a snob was more about attitude and looking down on people who can't afford the nicer things, but apparently just having a swimming pool makes you an automatic snob, which is good to know.

Anyway, Kristy gets up for school and puts on her clothes. She says that ever since school started she's been wearing jeans, a turtleneck, a sweater, and sneakers. I have probably mentioned it on this blog before, but in fifth grade, I wanted to be like Kristy so on school picture day, I put on a turtleneck under a sweater and went to school. Unfortunately pictures were taken early in the school year and it was still hot outside, so in the picture I am about the color of a ripe tomato. I have not worn a turtleneck under a sweater since. So what I'm saying is, Kristy must get really warm, since this book takes place in the fall. Kristy goes to the bus stop and while she is waiting for her bus, she sees some girls wearing a private school uniform and immediately judges them to be snobs. The girls and Kristy fling a few mean comments back and forth until Kristy's bus gets there, and she gets on and sticks her tongue out at the snobs, because Kristy is apparently six years old.

I have the new cover version of this book, so it is not pink like it should be. Kristy, who is not wearing a sweater in the picture, is walking Louie and has met Shannon Kilbourne and Amanda Delaney who are out walking their pets. This is the first time we are introduced to Astrid of Grenville, the Bernese Mountain Dog, and also to Priscilla the purebred Persian, who cost four hundred dollars. For some reason I always liked that Amanda and Max would tell everyone how much their cat cost. Shannon makes some rude comments about Louie, because he is bedraggled and he stinks because he just got back from the vet. Bitch.

There are some chapters where the club sits for Max and Amanda Delaney who are bossy and rude, but then Stacey decides to use reverse psychology on them and it makes them behave. I think my favorite part of this book is this bit of dialogue the first time Kristy sits for Amanda and Max:

But when a commercial came on, Amanda said, "Get me a Coke, Kristy."
"What do you say?" I replied in a singsong voice. When you have a little brother, a littler stepbrother, and a little stepsister, you find yourself repeating this all the time, as a reminder to say "please" and "thank you."
"I say, 'Get me a Coke,'" Amanda repeated dryly.
"Get me one, too," said Max.

Love it. Love the Delaney kids.

Shannon is mad that her clients are calling the BSC, so she plays some lame pranks on Kristy while she is babysitting, like calling and telling her the Papadakis's house is on fire, and Kristy plays lame pranks back. Finally Shannon calls and orders a pizza while Kristy is sitting, and Kristy sends the pizza to Shannon's house instead, and Shannon comes over with it and Kristy threatens to throw the pizza at Astrid and then she will be a "pepperoni mountain dog." This stupid bit of dialogue causes Shannon to start laughing and stop playing pranks on Kristy instead of making her roll her eyes and make fun of her even more, I don't even know.

Louie has been getting sicker and sicker through the book and the decision is made to have him put to sleep, and it's very sad. They have a funeral for Louie and Karen invites a bunch of the neighborhood kids including Shannon, who attends the funeral despite being a teenager who is not a family member of the dog in question. Because that's a thing that happens. The family each says one nice thing about Louie.

Kristy babysits Max and Amanda again, and Amanda says that if Priscilla died, she would say at her funeral, "Priscilla cost four hundred dollars." I got a cat a few months ago. I might start introducing him to people as, "This is Gideon. He cost thirty-five dollars." It's good information for people to have. Anyway while Kristy is babysitting, Shannon comes over to offer Kristy's family one of Astrid's puppies, Kristy's mom says they can have it, and David Michael decides to name it Shannon. This is one of the stupider things in the books in my opinion because it's confusing and a little weird.

Later, the club decides to invite Shannon to be an associate member, so that she can still get sitting jobs now that the BSC has moved into her territory. Be one of us or don't sit, because the parents of Stoneybrook will happily drop their long-term sitters if someone shoves a flyer into their mailbox.