Before
I begin this book, I have a ‘joyous’ announcement to make. As of this Friday,
my BSC collection is almost officially complete. I now own a copy of every book
in the original series, all the mysteries, super specials, super mysteries and
Friends Forever books. All I’m missing is a copy of the Claudia graphic novel
(I’m waiting on that because I want to get all four of them in color…sweetness)
and the Secret Santa book. (Considering I’ve never actually seen a copy of that
or even a picture of the cover, I don’t think it really exists. I’m convinced it’s
a conspiracy against me.)
Mary
Anne becomes convinced she’d be terrible in an emergency, so she and the BSC
take a first aid class. The class makes her queasy and she doesn’t think it’s
helping. But then, while she and Dawn are babysitting at the Korman house,
Timmy Hsu is drowning the pool. Mary Anne is the first to respond, pulling him
out and performing CPR until he starts breathing again. It gives her the guts
to deal with her other problem: Logan’s dad has decided to send him to boot
camp for the summer and then boarding school after that. Logan’s too afraid to
confront his father, until Mary Anne supports him. Of course, he gets to stay
in Stoneybrook.
Interesting
Tidbits
Cover!
Mary Anne’s trying to be all sweet, but Logan’s showing his superpower,
superdickery. (If you’ve never seen the superdickery website, you need to go
check it out…after you finish this blog post, of course.)
The
whole basis of the plotline of this book is that Sharon saves a guy who is
choking by performing the Heimlich on him. Mary Anne worries that she’s bad in
an emergency because she just sat there, open mouthed, and watched. She’s
afraid that if Sharon weren’t there, the guy would have died. It’s like she’s
forgotten that she’s actually quite good in an emergency. (Dawn reminds her of
that in chapter 11, and tells her that if she ever needed someone to ‘maneuver
[her] Heimlich’ MA would be the first person she would call.)
Ahh,
Peter Lerangis. Claudia goes out and buys special food for Dawn, and Abby calls
it…boogers and boulders.
Ooh,
remember when, at the beginning of the series, the BSC books just kind of
flowed together? Like how the vacations in #8 were established in #7. Well, in
this one, Mary Anne mentions how Abby is going to be on a Special Olympics
soccer team soon….which happens in the next book.
There’s
this really goofy joke at the beginning of the first aid class where the
teacher’s last name is Golden, and the first two kids in the class are Pete
Black and Alan Gray. Their friend Irv introduces himself as Little Boy Blue,
which I guess is supposed to be funny. It’s so lame a joke that even Abby
wouldn’t make it.
“You’re
allowed to sneak off with your boyfriend. These things are important.” The California Diaries have started by this
point, so this is a little more adult than most of the BSC usually sound. I
like it.
Logan
says he and Mary Anne can email each other if he goes off to boarding school. I
find it odd to see the word email in
a BSC book. Even when they talk about cell phones, they call them cellular
phones, so it doesn’t seem modern or anything.
“I had
to perform emergency hair support.” There’s only one person in the entire book
series who could have said that…and only one person she could have said it
about.
Oh,
Dawn. She suggests that Mary Anne’s ‘just grossed out’ by the idea of going to
the ER as part of their first aid class…and then says that it’s the same way
she feels about a pork chop. ‘Cause bleeding, injured humans is totally the
same thing as a hunk of meat.
Sharon-itis:
tennis shoes in the kitchen with the pots and pans
Nooo,
Kristy. She teaches the Pike kids to use ‘stop, drop and roll’ if they
encounter a fire in their house. She says it helps you stay under the smoke. I
remember second grade really well (not to mention the fact that I taught for a couple of years) and ‘stop,
drop and roll’ is for when your clothes
catch on fire. This bugs me more than the usual mistake in these books.
Logan
shops like I do. His mom gives him a list and a credit card, but it takes him
hours to complete the list…because he looks at everything in Bellair’s except
what’s on the list.
The
title quote is one of many things Dawn says about the first aid class’s role in
the Safety Weekend. She also says that Carol has a friend whose entire
professional life is screaming for horror and disaster movies. Logan: Do you
have to go for college for that?
I’m
amused by who likes the idea of being in the disaster drill and who doesn’t.
Claudia finds the whole idea sick (but will do it anyway), Stacey doesn’t want
to lie in the sun and the germs and ruin her clothes, and Mal’s not an actress.
Dawn’s all about it, and Jessi likes the idea as well. Logan says he’ll be in
it…as long as he doesn’t have to be beheaded. And one person doesn’t even come
at all…because the disaster is a car accident. I cringed when I read that,
because I wasn’t even thinking about Abby’s dad as they were setting up the
accident.
Dawn’s
a little bitchy in this story. It’s as if being away from Mary Anne for a
school year has made her completely forget her stepsister’s personality. Dawn
volunteers to be the broken leg victim in the car crash, because it lets her
scream. After Logan decides to be the head-wound, Dawn volunteers Mary Anne to
lie in the street with a heavily-bleeding leg wound. MA feels violated
afterwards, and she blames Dawn for it.
After
the two of them fight, MA finds Dawn ‘trying to meditate’ even though she
doesn’t know how. I’m kind of surprised that someone—Mrs. Winslow, Carol,
Sharon, one of Maggie’s Buddhist friends—hasn’t taught her how to meditate
somewhere along the way. “See? Meditating does help. Even if you don’t know how
to do it.”
Claudia
spelling: Firefitters, becuase, rellative, thot, shoud. She also uses hurry for
hurray and fare for fair.
Dawn’s
being more preachy than normal. She scolds various BSC members for eating
‘processed animal entrails and spun pancreas poison’: hot dogs and cotton
candy.
When
Jamie freaks out at the mock-fire, Mrs. Pike offers to drive him, Claudia and
Lucy home. Instead of thinking about how nice that was, I worried about Lucy
not having a car seat. (Also, I’m wondering about Claudia’s judgment in having
Jamie watch that…after he was afraid MA was dead after the mock-car crash.)
I’m
still confused about the idea the Delaneys used to have that their kids could
use the pool while being babysat if the next door neighbor is home. The Kormans
have a similar rule, but poor goodhearted Mr. Sinclair has to be in his own
yard, watching. (The Delaney/Kormans live in a massive house with a giant yard,
including tennis courts and more. How convenient is it that he is able to put a
chair within sight of the Korman pool from his own yard.)
I love
when we learn more about the parents of the clients. Mrs. Hsu is head chef at
Renwick’s.
Logan
and Mary Anne sit down with the Brunos to discuss Logan’s future. Mr. Bruno’s
first thought? He asks if they’re getting married. They’re thirteen; that’s not
legal in any state that I know of. But I could understand if he thought MA was
pregnant. (Heyyyy, if this weren’t a BSC book, someone would have suggested that MA get pregnant to prevent Logan
from getting sent up river to boarding school.)
Outfits
Claudia:
felt hat, oversized white button-down shirt, hand-painted wide tie, cuffed
khaki shorts, white knee highs and brown and white bucks
Shelley
Golden, the first aid teacher: chambray shirt, shorts, running shoes
Next:
Mystery #30
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