#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.