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.

LS #108, Karen's Field Day

Karen's school is preparing for Field Day. All the kids are going to compete in sack races and whatnot. Karen is super excited, because the students' families are invited to Field Day and both of her parents are going to come, and they don't often both come to her school events.

Karen, naturally, is positive that she is going to get the most points in her class and win the gift certificate to Phil's Sporting Goods. Pamela Harding is also sure that she will win the gift certificate. Pamela plans to spend the certificate on pom-pom socks. Karen doesn't know what she'll buy, but she knows it won't be goofy socks. She and Pamela get into an argument, leading to possibly my favorite line of Pamela dialogue in the series.

"If  you wore them, they would be goofy pom-pom socks," said Pamela. "When I wear them, they will be stylish and fashionable pom-pom socks."

You have to admit that Pamela might have a point.

Karen decides that she and Hannie and Nancy need to get in shape to win their Field Day events. Borrowing from something Charlie and Sam have taught her, she decrees that they need Preparation, Practice, and Performance. They do jumping jacks and leg lifts and practice the wheelbarrow race. They borrow a workout video from Mommy and are exhausted by the end of the warmup, before they even get into the routine. It's about as interesting in the book as it is right here, but there are more words devoted to it.

Meanwhile, Ms. Colman has assigned the class to each write about a female ancestor. Hannie is related to some famous brain surgeon. Nancy is related to a woman who was a spy for the French in WWII. Karen doesn't know any stories about her female ancestors, so she talks to Mommy and Daddy. Daddy had an aunt who was famous for throwing lavish parties. You would think this would capture Karen's attention, but she's a bit disappointed. Mommy had a cousin who loved fishing, and a great aunt who was a bookie. Karen is reluctant to write her essay about a criminal, and isn't impressed by her mom's aunt who had huge feet or a scullery maid who sailed on a ship that sank. Well, she's excited at first because she's hoping the ship was the Titanic, but when it turns out it was just some ship nobody's ever heard of because it was made up for this book, she's bummed again. She interrogates Daddy again, but he doesn't come up with any better ancestors. He does, however, come up with a series inconsistency. He says that his grandmother Ida Brewer was an expert skier and gave ski instructions in Vermont, which is where she met his grandpa Bill. Now, anyone who knows anything about Karen Brewer knows that she is convinced the third floor of Watson's mansion is haunted by the ghost of Old Ben Brewer, a recluse who ate fried dandelions and was her great-grandfather. And it was established back in LS #12 that Ben Brewer's son Jeremy was Karen's grandfather. So I don't know who the hell "Bill Brewer" was but I can tell you that he was not actually Watson's grandfather unless both sides of his family happened to be named Brewer. Which is unlikely. Maybe Watson is just making shit up at this point, or maybe he slipped and said Bill instead of Ben. He also tells Karen that one of her long ago ancestors may have been a Cherokee Indian.

Karen had recently heard Kristy on the phone telling Mary Anne the plot of a movie called Morning Sky. Karen basically steals the plot of the movie for her ancestor report, putting her possible Cherokee ancestor into the main character's role and naming her Evening Star.

Field Day arrives, and Karen is ready to go. She is leading the class in points going into the final event, the water balloon toss, but she and Ricky lose, and that gives Pamela enough points to tie. I was pretty annoyed by this, but you know. I guess when you're the target age, you don't realize what a cop-out a tie is. Pamela and Karen have to split the gift certificate to Phil's Sporting Goods.

Ms. Colman comes up to Karen and her parents and asks some pointed questions regarding Karen's ancestor report, and as punishment for writing a fictional story when the assignment was meant to be nonfiction, she is ordered to redo the assignment using a real person. Then they eat hot dogs.

Sorry about the pictures in this one. I can't find the cord to connect my scanner to my computer so I had to use photographs. My scanning assistant was quite annoyed by me.

LS #50, Karen's Lucky Penny

This book is not all that interesting, but I liked a lot of the illustrations, so there is that. It starts out with Karen and Andrew playing with some of their neighborhood friends at Mommy's house. They are discussing a story Sam told Karen about cats using the sewers as a way to travel around town. Apparently Sam is more original than just telling the kids that alligators live in the sewers. I find the idea of a network of underground cats to be somewhat charming. Then Karen and Nancy go over to Bobby's house to deliver his homework to him and Karen finds a lucky penny on the sidewalk. When I was a kid, any penny we found was a lucky penny, but in the BSC books, only heads-up pennies are good luck. This crops up in Mary Anne and the Bad Luck Mystery and possibly more places in the series. I think it may be another regional variation, but I wasn't willing to put more than five minutes of effort into a Google search. I did use the scientific method of asking my coworkers. Different more better K., who grew up in the same state I did, agreed that any penny is lucky. A., who has also lived in Colorado and Alaska, said it must be a heads-up penny. R. who grew up in New Hampshire was unfortunately not at work to be the tiebreaker. At any rate, the penny Karen finds is heads-up, and she gleefully puts it in her pocket.

You don't really see that style of dress anymore. You don't really see kids rocking the side ponytail either. Also the membership form to join Karen's Clubhouse must be filled out and returned by December 31, 1994, so I have apparently just missed the cutoff date.

After Karen finds the penny, a few minor lucky things happen for her, either as a result of confirmation bias or a result of finding a lucky penny. She and Nancy and Bobby go to a little brook (a brook is smaller than a creek, and the bed is made mostly of rocks, according to wikipedia) near their houses and Karen finds a wallet under a bush. She looks in the wallet and there is $800, but no ID. Bobby and Nancy tell her that such things fall under the Finders Keepers act of 1873, so she takes the wallet home, although she does give Bobby and Nancy each $5. Once Karen gets the wallet home, she is a little worried that her parents won't understand about finders keepers, so she hides the wallet in her room, but after a couple of days she gets nervous and is afraid she'll get arrested for stealing. This leads to the following awesome paragraph and illustration:

I looked at the spot where I had hidden the wallet. The wallet was stuffed behind some books on my shelf. Then I thought, what would happen if Mommy and Seth found the wallet all hidden away in my room? Maybe they would think I had stolen it. And if they did maybe I would have to go to jail. Jail. How could I go to jail when I also had to go to second grade? What would Mommy say to Ms. Colman? "I am sorry, Ms. Colman, but Karen cannot come to school today because she is in the pokey."

 You can't really see it in the picture, but the heart on the wall of Karen's imaginary jail cell says MOTHER inside it. Karen decides to show the wallet to Mommy and Seth. Mommy replaces the $10 Karen gave to her friends, and they take the wallet to the police station. The police officer gives them a date by which if the wallet is not claimed, Karen can keep it. But just before that date, they get a phone call saying that the wallet has been claimed and the owner wants to meet Karen. They go to the station and are met by a guy who is wearing old clothes, which Karen notices right away. He wants to give Karen a reward for finding his wallet, and gives her $100, or 12.5% of the money as a finder's fee. Mommy tries to turn him down but he insists. As they are driving home, Karen begs to be allowed to not put any of the reward money in the bank, and Mommy agrees.

Karen pretty much goes on a spending spree, even though she wanted to spend her money wisely.The first thing she does is to take Hannie and Nancy to the movies. Kristy goes along to supervise, but sits in the row behind them so they can feel very grown-up.

 Another time, Mr. Tastee's truck is going past, and Karen's the only one who wants to spend money, so she buys ice cream for everyone. The other kids are all saving up for a trip to Funland their parents have promised them. The deal is that the adults will pay for admission to Funland which includes all the rides and for lunch, but the kids need to have their own money for midway games and snacks and souvenirs. Karen's friends are trying to earn money by doing jobs for their parents.

Karen goes on a trip to the toy store and buys a bunch of stuff. Mommy tries to talk her into getting a smaller package of markers and not spending so much, but she insists on buying all the things she had picked out. Andrew is doing a lot of chores for cash, and he also starts a lemonade stand. Karen wants to help him out, so she finds a bunch of kids and gives them each a quarter to use to buy lemonade from Andrew. It's nice of her to want to help, but Andrew gets mad when he finds out, because he wanted to do it himself. There is also a cute picture of Andrew running the lemonade stand but I already scanned like half the book and, well, you understand. Lazy.  Bobby and Nancy have started a gardening business. The sign says they do weeding and watering, which is probably about the only things you could reliably let a pair of second-graders do in your garden. Karen hires them to do some gardening, but when she goes to pay them, she realizes that she has blown most of her money and is down to only $7.37. She is pissy about this and yells at Nancy and Bobby because she spent her money on her friends and now is not going to be able to buy one of each souvenir at Funland. Mommy  has a chat with her about how the money just slipped through her fingers due to poor record-keeping and overmuch generosity. It's a good lesson in money management skills for Karen, and it doesn't cost Lisa a dime. Win-win.

On the day of the trip to Funland, Karen apologizes and makes up with Bobby and Nancy, and then Karen, Nancy, and Hannie ride all the rides together, play a couple of games and win rubber snakes, and generally have a good time despite not having enough money to buy a ton of souvenirs. While they are there, Karen sees Mr. Beadle again. (The owner of the wallet.) This time he is at Funland with his wife and seven kids. He informs Karen that the money she found was his family's vacation fund, which they are using for one day at Funland and one day at the beach. Karen is appalled by this idea of a poor person vacation, because one day at an amusement park is a mere drop in the bucket of shit she has planned for the summer. She's going to camp later in the year, she's going to the beach for a couple of weeks, she's going to fly out and visit her step-grandparents, and she's recently spent a weekend in New York City. She feels a little guilty for taking his reward money. This to me is the stupidest part of the book, because why would a poor guy with seven kids give out $100 as a reward to a 7-year old in the first place? Seriously. I know poor people. I have some experience in the matter. And after asking around a few people, the MOST any of them said they'd give a kid as a reward for finding $800 was $20. I bet Mr. Beadle's seven kids have never had $100 unless they are old enough to have a job. If they had just made him another random upper-middle-class Stoneybrookite, I could buy giving the large reward, but to make it a guy with seven kids who can barely afford a 2-day vacation just makes the whole thing utterly asinine. But I'm probably overthinking this. Here, have a picture of Karen and her friends riding the T. Rex ride at Funland. Hannie looks way different than usual in this illustration. Also by the way, the curly haired girl next to Andrew in this picture and the ice cream picture is Bobby's little sister Alicia, who is good friends with Andrew.

#69, Get Well Soon, Mallory

This book starts out with the Pike kids picking their stupid Halloween costumes on the day before Halloween. That doesn't seem like a lot of time to create costumes. Because of course nobody in these books can go to the store and buy a costume. They have to make them at home. The triplets decide to be pirates, Vanessa is a gypsy, Nicky is Aladdin, Margo is a princess, and Claire is a ballerina. Mallory being one year older than the triplets is of course FAR too mature to dress up. Stupid Mallory. She decides not to take the kids out trick-or-treating either, because she has been very tired and run down lately. Then she sleeps through the whole night, not even being woken up by the doorbell.

There is more exciting news. Mallory's mom's cousin (thus, Mallory's first cousin once removed) calls and invites the Pike family to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade from special bleacher seats. The Pike parents make reservations at a hotel in New York City and the kids are really excited. This particular plot element, of going to New York City to watch the parade, shows up a few more times in BSC books. I know for sure that it's in at least two Little Sister books.

Okay so the Tuesday after Halloween, Mallory wakes up feeling like shit, and her mom takes her to the doctor and Mallory is diagnosed with mononucleosis. AKA glandular fever, in some parts of the world. One of the things I remember about this book is that Mallory's siblings find out that mono is also called "kissing disease" and they tease that Ben Hobart gave it to her, and she loudly protests that she has never kissed Ben. So if you ever wondered just how steamy Mallory and Ben's hot nerd dates were, now you know. On the cover, you see that she is being tended to by her sister and a midget. The pajamas she is wearing are actually described in the book. They are flannel pajamas with lace around the cuffs and collar. In the book it says Mallory's mom described them as "practical, yet feminine." It does not say whether she added, "You know, if you happen to be 900 years old." Because those are old lady pajamas if I ever saw them. Oh also the other thing about this book is that half the shit Mallory says is phrased as "murmured." By the end of this stupid thing, the word murmured had lost all meaning.

This whole book is boring as hell because it's Mallory. Feeling like shit. And being in bed. She'll try to do some math homework and fall asleep, or she'll watch a soap opera and then fall asleep. Or she'll bitch about how boring it is to be stuck in bed, then fall asleep. Don't worry, though, Mallory being confined to bed doesn't stop her parents from asking her to babysit. This is the scene pictured on the cover. I guess that's actually supposed to be Claire and Margo, not Claire and a midget. Anyway even though Mallory is supposed to stay in bed in her old lady pajamas, her mom is like "hey, watch Claire and Margo while I take the other kids to the mall lol," and Mallory's like "woo hoo!" And her mom leaves cheese sandwiches and celery sticks for the girls, and Mallory tells them that all the great nurses ate celery sticks. Clara Barton, Florence Nightingale, and Hot Lips Hoolihan. Yes, those are the three nurses she comes up with. It is the other thing I remember about this book. Then after Mallory's mom gets home with the other kids, Mallory falls asleep.

Meanwhile the Baby Sitters Club has decided they need to have a shindig for the old folks at the old folks' home. For Thanksgiving. They are going to have a carnival and also give each resident a goodie basket. They are having a hard time getting ready for this, because this is one of the books where Dawn is in California and of course Mallory spends most of this book drooling into her pillow. If they're so damn busy with baby-sitting and school and everything else, why did they need to plan something else on top of it? Nobody knows. But the club wants Mallory to help them out by making phone calls for fundraisers and baking and sewing beanbags and shit. Is everyone in this book fucking stupid? Mallory is supposed to stay in bed. Just doing three math problems or reading two chapters of a book exhausts her. And now she's supposed to organize a fundraiser and bake damn cookies? FUCK OFF. SHE IS SICK.

Mallory's parents sit her down for a talk. Or maybe she lies in bed and they talk. Anyway, talking is done. The doctor says that mono hits some people harder than others, and Mallory is one of the unlucky ones, which anyone who has ever read one of these books could tell you. So after Mallory is better, they are going to allow her to go to school, and that's it. No extracurricular activities, no baby-sitting, no BSC. Mallory has to call Kristy and tell her she has to quit the club. She is devastated, in the way only 11-year old girls can be. She says, "This is the worse [sic] thing that has ever happened to me." I almost threw the book in the trash at that point, because misuse of worse/worst is one of my biggest grammatical pet peeves. I restrained myself only because I knew I'd have to rebuy it in the future, for a complete collection and also for the most angsty paragraph of Mallory angst ever:

It was hard to imagine my life without the BSC. No more meetings. No more baby-sitting, or talent shows, or backyard circuses, or group hikes. No more pizza parties. No more fun.

Mallory is a huge drama queen (who by the way does not feel the need to describe a single Claudia outfit)  and she feels a ton of guilt that the club is working so hard and she is stuck in bed, so she decides to try and get kicked out of the club. She is nasty to Jessi and Claudia when they make her a list of shit to do for the fundraiser, and she is rude to Kristy and Mary Anne when they come by to "visit". Which really it seems like their visit is just them checking how she is doing on her assigned list of tasks. And again, FUCK OFF. Oh also when Kristy and Mary Anne come, Mallory has not combed her hair for two days. With her curly hair, I bet that's lovely. 

The club figures out that Mallory is just trying to get kicked out of the club so instead of giving her what she wants, they call and reassure her that they love her and don't want to replace her. They'll muddle through somehow. Mallory is totes inspired by this and decides to get to work on the fundraising. They need to raise a hundred dollars in one night, even though most of the kids in the project have already donated their allowances and done some extra chores. The Pike kids hit on the concept of selling future chores to their parents. Mallory calls up a ton of other kids the club sits for to order them to hit their parents up for 50 cents to do chores at some unspecified point in the future. She starts making these calls at 7:30 and says she has about two hours to make calls. My mom would never have let me call people until 9:30 at night. I don't remember what time it was that our friends couldn't call our house after, but I'm thinking it was 9:00, and that was when we were in like 6th grade. These are grade school kids. Are they all going to even be awake to sell promises at 9 pm? At the end, Mallory's ear aches from talking on the phone so long, and her finger is sore from dialing, but they meet the fundraising goal. Then she falls asleep.

The next day Mallory's parents announce they won't be going to the parade after all, because the doctor is worried that the excitement and activity could cause a relapse. Mallory offers to stay home and the rest of the family could go, but, in a rather uncharacteristic bit of caring about Mallory, her parents refuse and say the whole family will just spend Thanksgiving at home. The rest of the kids are pissed.

While Mallory naps, the club takes a bunch of kids to Costco some unspecified warehouse store that Watson has a membership to. They buy paperback books for the old people baskets, and apples and oranges, and a toy for each old person. The kids are sure the old folks will just love the toys and the sitters think it will be fun. The carnival goes well and the old people and the kids play with the toys together and the book makes it sound like all the old people were just dying for a Mr. Potato Head or a set of jacks, but I'm pretty sure the second the kids left the toys got put aside only to be brought out if a grandkid came to the home to visit. The kids tell her all about it when they get home, then Mallory takes a nap. Then the club and some kids surprise Mallory by bringing the carnival shit to her house. She gets to play the fishing game and wins a cookie, throws a beanbag through a cutout and wins some jellybeans, and wins a cake in the cakewalk. Well really Vanessa wins, but she gives the cake to Mallory.

At the end of the book it is Thanksgiving. The Pike family has a tradition of listening to classical music on Thanksgiving, and they all watch the parade together on TV while deciding which float, balloon, and celebrity they like best. Mallory says that her favorite balloon is Clifford the Big Red Dog. When it's time to eat, Mallory's mother makes her lounge reclining in a lawn chair at the dining room table. Is it just me or does that sound like a recipe for spilling shit all over one's fancy clothes? Mallory wears a blue velvet skirt with matching bolero and white silk blouse. Byron wears maroon corduroy slacks, a yellow shirt, and a blue and yellow sweater. Nobody else's clothes merit a description. After dinner, the whole BSC shows up as a surprise to eat pie with Mallory's family. Dawn even calls from California to say hello. Then Kristy tells Mallory they are going to send out new fliers and wants to know if she should put Mal's name on them. Mal sadly has to tell her no, because she hasn't even gone back to school yet and nobody knows how long it will be before she can babysit again.

Then Mallory takes a nap.

LS #64, Karen's Lemonade Stand

The illustrations in this book are super cute. I wanted to scan them all, but you know. Lazy.

Here's the front cover. Karen is sitting around looking bored with a much curlier side ponytail than usual.  This is another of my ex-library copies, but judging by the date stamps on the back, it was only checked out twice.

This book starts out in the middle of a heat wave. Karen is tired of the heat, and Kristy is worried that the weather will force her to cancel a Krushers practice. Karen decides that she's going to sell lemonade. She makes a pitcher of lemonade. She makes it one glass at a time because she isn't sure how much a quart or a gallon is. Then she takes her pitcher outside and sets up shop. There aren't many people outside. She sells lemonade to Nannie, Sam, Charlie, Hannie, and Linny. She also sells lemonade to some people in a car who stop. Lucky Karen. In all the times I set up a lemonade (or more often, Kool-Aid) stand in my childhood, never once did a car full of people stop and buy five cups. This is part of the reason that I will stop and buy lemonade whenever I see a kid with a stand, even though I hate lemonade. Anyway after three hours of selling lemonade, Karen has a buck fifty to show for it, and she's pretty disappointed, naturally.

It's time for Krushers practice. Here's a picture of Karen batting. Everything about this seems pretty awkward if it's the follow-through on her swing. I guess Kristy has some more coaching to do. Karen gets to first base on an error, but then Hannie strikes out to end the inning. Karen hunts her down after practice and screams at her that she should have tried harder, even though Karen herself dropped two balls in the outfield due to lack of paying attention. Karen is also mean to Andrew when he asks for help tying his shoe. Kristy takes Karen aside to ask her why she's being so mean and Karen explains that she is just frustrated due to slow lemonade sales. Kristy says that Karen can't just wait for customers to come to her, she'll have to figure out where customers will be. Karen apologizes to Hannie and Andrew for her outbursts, explaining that one must be prepared for stuff like that to come out of left field when one is on a baseball diamond. (No she doesn't really use that explanation but she totally should have.)

Karen realizes that the place she's been with the most potential customers is Krushers practice. People are staying in their air-conditioned houses because of the heat, except when they have to go out for things like work or parctices. She decides that she will sell lemonade before the next practice. She lets an adult help her this time so that she doesn't have to make it a glass at a time.

Karen's pre-practice sales are a rousing success. Because apparently her pitcher of lemonade holds a LOT. At the next practice, she even runs over during the practice game to serve customers. By the next practice, Kristy is getting annoyed with Karen's continual running over to sell lemonade, and talks to her about it. Karen decides to quit the softball team and sell lemonade full time. At the next practice, Bobby also sets up a stand, selling chocolate chip cookies, and he also quits the team. Then Hannie quits. Then Nancy.

There's a chapter where Karen goes over to Melody Korman's house to swim in their pool because of the heat wave. This is notable only because of this cute picture of Karen jumping into the water. Then the air conditioner at the Big House breaks, and they spend three days with no a/c while waiting for it to be fixed. It sounds pretty miserable.

Kristy announces that the team will be playing a World Series against the Bashers. Yet again, Kristy does not seem particularly concerned about the definition of the word Series, as it will only be one game. But by now, six kids have quit the team to be full time salespersons. Kristy is kind of sadface about this, because it's going to make it hard to play the game, but this is really what you should expect when you try to start a softball team that is not part of any league and does not charge any fees. If it was a thing the parents were paying for, they'd probably make their kids keep going to practice. If it was part of a standard league, the kids would have more to do than just practice all the time and occasionally play one other team. As it is, they're just going to get bored. Plus, Kristy always says the team is for kids who are too young or not good enough for Little League. Well, if you suck at baseball, it follows that you might not really enjoy playing after a while, because striking out every time isn't fun. So anyway everyone quitting to sell each other random crap is more likely than the team continuing to run like a well oiled machine.

Jackie Rodowsky's dad suggests the kids have a sales fair on a Saturday when they can all set up their tables and sell each other crap. The kids are excited, and spend a lot of time planning. Karen helps Hannie make friendship bracelets to sell on a day when Kristy is babysitting Hannie. Kristy pretty much ignores them and plays with Sari the whole time. Like, she makes Karen and Hannie some lunch, but doesn't sit with them while they eat. It seems a lot more petty than Regular Series Kristy would probably like us to believe.

The sale ends up  having to be postponed because of a big storm. Karen goes with Charlie and Sam to the grocery store to stock up on bread and milk, and there's this adorable picture of Andrew being afraid of the storm, and the power goes out and Karen and Hannie (who spends the night at Karen's house the night of the storm) pretend to be pioneer girls. Which is totally what I would have forced my sister to do when we were kids. The next morning, the kids go walk around to look at the storm damage, and discover that the bleachers at the field where they play softball have been demolished. They decide to donate all of the money from their sales day to rebuild the bleachers. The money raised is not enough, but it is a start, and the sale is successful and fun. The kids decide they miss softball and give up their lemonade and other stands and rejoin the Krushers, then they play the Stoneybrook Non League Softball Championship Game against the Bashers and win, and they are all very happy.

M#2, Beware, Dawn

This mystery is terrible. Not because it's a Dawn book, though that doesn't help. Not because the premise is pretty stupid, though that doesn't help either. No, it's terrible because almost every chapter is about a babysitting job. I know that's supposedly the main focus of these books, but it's really not why I liked reading them. Give me the plots that are all about the girls having boyfriends and vacations with a couple of sitting chapters inserted in such a way that you can skip them and not miss anything.

Here's the cover. How come Dawn never has waist length hair on the covers even though it's always mentioned in the books?

Even the first chapter is a babysitting job. Dawn is babysitting for James, Mathew, and Johnny Hobart while their mom runs errands and Ben and Mallory go on a hot nerd date to the library. She helps Johnny with a find the picture activity in his Highlights for Children magazine while the older two play ball or something with some neighbor kids, including Zach and Mel. As previously mentioned, Zach and Mel are only friends with the Hobart kids, not anybody else in the neighborhood. While the kids are playing, Dawn notices that Mel is calling the Hobart kids names (Croc is his insult of choice. Like Crocodile Dundee, the book explains. It feels contrived.) Dawn mentions this to Mrs. Hobart when she gets home.

At the club meeting, Dawn doesn't describe anyone's outfit. See? I told you that this is a terrible book. Then we get another chapter of her babysitting. She babysits Kristy's younger siblings. The kids want a snack, and she gets out a box of Cheez-Its, which she manages to do without making any snotty comments about their lack of organic ingredients. This book must have been before Dawn became Super Militant Dawn. She hands the box to Karen and tells her to take some and pass it, but Karen tells her that they like to eat their crackers in bowls. I approve of this, because pouring crackers into bowls is a lot more sanitary than letting four kids stick their grubby hands in and contaminate the whole lot. Mind you this is one of my personal hangups and I don't judge you if you reach your hands into bags of chips and boxes of crackers. But I'm not going to share them with you either. Then the kids have a slow eating contest with the crackers and Karen yaps about how her goldfish are getting pretend married. Dawn is thinking how it's nice to have a relaxing job where the kids are mostly entertaining themselves. But then David Michael comes in and takes her picture and tells her that there is a Sitter of the Month contest and Jamie Newton's mom is going to help with the voting and they're going to send the winning sitter's picture to the newspaper. And since this is Stoneybrook, the newspaper will probably publish it, too.

Dawn decides that she needs to really liven up the sitting job by playing a fun game with the kids. She chooses to play Let's All Come In. Frankly I am surprised I've done this many recaps without this game coming up. It's a game Karen Brewer invented. The premise is that the kids dress up in various outfits and pretend to be checking into a hotel. I'm not saying I wouldn't have played it but it doesn't sound all that fun either. Just dressing up and checking into a hotel? Yeah. I read somewhere (either Ann M. Martin's biography or one of those letters to the reader in the back of one of the books) that Let's All Come In was a game invented by her father and aunt when they were kids and the younger one had to play the crappy parts like being someone's dog. Just like Andrew does in the books.

David Michael doesn't want to play because the game sucks and is boring, but Dawn convinces him to join in and she invents new characters for him to play. Bruce Stringbean the rock star, Darryl Blueberry the baseball player, and Dawn herself dresses up as Ladonna the rock star. I am mostly surprised that Dawn has any idea who Bruce Springsteen, Darryl Strawberry, and Madonna are to make characters based on them. They seem far too modern. Not that I'm complaining.

At the club meeting, the girls are all feeling pretty competitive about the Sitter of the Month contest. They talk it over and decide not to go overboard trying to show each other up, although not till after Kristy makes some snide comments to Dawn for daring to add new characters to Karen's game.

In the next chapter Dawn babysits for Jenny and Andrea Prezzioso. It's pretty boring. There's only so much description of getting a baby ready for bed and then watching a four year old color that one can handle without eyes glazing over. After the kids are in bed, Dawn writes a letter to Jeff.

"Dearest Little Bro," I wrote. "What's up? What's fresh? Everything's cool back here in Stoneybrook. What's happening out there in sunny Cal?" 

That was better.  

I told Jeff the latest news about the neighborhood and about our mother. "Mom actually cleaned out the refrigerator the other day," I wrote. (Our mom isn't the world's best housekeeper.) "Guess what she found? That G.I. Joe you lost while you were visiting."

Two things. First of all, I hope Jeff and Dawn, despite being fictional characters, kept the letters they wrote to each other, because it would be fun to have them to look back at and remember the days when you wrote things like "What's fresh?" in all seriousness. Secondly. Why the hell was the G.I. Joe in the refrigerator in the first place? Did Jeff put it there and forget? Did Sharon find it lying around somewhere and absently hide it behind the sprouts? And most of all, how does a man who alphabetizes the soup cans have a refrigerator in enough of a state that you can hide a G.I. Joe in it?

There is a weird phone call where the caller just hangs up (ah, 1991. Caller ID would make this book so much shorter.) and then after the kids are in bed, the doorbell rings and Dawn finds a creepy note on the front step. It's made of cut out letters from newspapers and signed "Mr. X."

The very next page finds Dawn babysitting for the Rodowsky family. There is another hangup phone call and another creepy note. The Rodowsky kids are older and they notice that something's going on and they see the note. Dawn tries to play it off like it's nothing. Then she remembers the plot of Claudia and the Phantom Phone calls and decides it must be Alan Gray playing pranks on her. She calls his house, but his mother answers and says he's been at a basketball game with his dad all evening, so Dawn is back to square one. She decides not to mention Mr X to the other sitters because she is afraid it will cause her to lose the contest.

The next chapter has Jessi babysitting for Becca and Squirt. Again there's like a whole page description of Jessi getting the baby ready for bed. Becca talks her into watching a scary movie after Squirt is in bed. The description of the movie sounds really stupid, but apparently it terrifies Becca. Then after Jessi shuts the movie off in the middle and sends Becca to bed, there is a hang up phone call and a note from Mr X. She also decides not to tell the other sitters.

The next chapter has Mary Anne and Mallory babysitting for the gross Pike kids. They are eating spaghetti for dinner, and they are all being stupid with it. All of them want their spaghetti served in different ways because the Pike kids like to be annoying as hell. Oh but when I say all of them, I of course mean that the triplets all want theirs in cereal bowls because heaven forbid that Adam should eat his out of a mixing bowl and Jordan put his in the blender and drink it through a straw. They are triplets, so they have to want the same things. After the meal gets over, there is a ring of the doorbell and a note from Mr X.

Mary Anne tries to hide the note but the kids see it and proceed to be stupid with their hamster for the rest of the chapter. They take it out of its cage and put it in a shoebox and keep moving the shoebox to different spots. As though none of them are aware that hamsters can chew through cardboard. Also the hamster gets loose twice and breaks for freedom, but alas, escape is but a dream. Mary Anne and Mal decide not to tell the rest of the club about Mr. X.

The next chapter is another damn babysitting chapter. Kristy babysits for the Korman kids on Friday the 13th. Nothing mysterious happens and there is no visit from Mr. X. When Kristy gets there, Skylar the 1.5 year old is napping. Then she shrieks and Kristy gets her up. They go downstairs to the kitchen and Kristy makes hot chocolate and then the kids play a game and then it is time to get ready for bed. So, I guess Skylar was napping at 7 pm? And after getting up, is ready for bed at 8 or 8:30 or whatever? It just seems weird.

There is finally a chapter where nobody is babysitting. They have a club meeting and talk about Mr. X. Dawn suspects Kristy might be Mr. X because nothing happened when she was sitting, but she doesn't say anything. Kristy isn't dumb. If she was going to do this Mr. X shit why wouldn't she say she'd gotten a note or a phone call? Dawn's reasoning for suspecting Kristy is that she might want to win the sitter of the book contest. I don't understand why the contest results would be jeopardized by the actions of outside persons, but I am not one of the people voting, either.

The next chapter is right back to the babysitting bullshit. Claudia babysits for Charlotte Johanssen and they take turns reading out loud to each other from a chapter book. I bet listening to Claudia read out loud is excruciating, I'm just saying. There is a hangup call and then a doorbell, but no note this time. Instead, someone has covered the porch with a couple of cans of baked beans. Claudia and Charlotte hose them off into the bushes. Gross.

Then in the next chapter, Dawn freaking babysits AGAIN. This time for Jamie Newton, who spills the beans that Mel Tucker is doing "secret babysitting checks". Dawn decides that Mel must be Mr. X. She and the rest of the club spread a story that Dawn will be babysitting a cousin from out of town at her house, and the night of the fake job, they set up to catch Mr. X, assuming he will use the secret passage to try to scare her, which he does, and it does turn out to be Mel Tucker, who is mad at all the babysitters because he got grounded for two months because Dawn tattled to Mrs. Hobart that he was calling her kids Crocs. So he has been making creepy letters and phone calls, and sneaking out to leave the letters when the sitters are babysitting. That's...pretty disturbed, really. Mel Tucker's parents say they are going to take him to a psychiatrist. And Dawn goes home and the club has a pizza party sleepover, but it is too little, too late as far as non-sitting portions of this book are concerned. Oh and then at the end we find out the entire club tied in the Sitter of the Month contest. I bet Mrs. Newton fudged the numbers a little, just to save Mallory's self-esteem.