"They appeared like mushrooms after the rain." BSC Friends Forever #7: Claudia Gets Her Guy (2000)

I am back from NaNoWriMo, 63.5 thousand words later in my original novel (which is now more than 2/3 done!) I'm trying to get back into a BSC groove, because there's nothing I love more at the holidays than a crazy BSC FF book.
Regarding the title: I keep trying to call it Claudia Gets Her Man. But maybe it's because Alan's only thirteen that they didn't use that title?
Oops. I just gave away the plot, didn't I? Claudia learns that Stacey and Jeremy broke up and thinks Jeremy is avoiding her. She writes a note, inviting him to the Valentine's dance, but puts it in the wrong locker. Alan gets the note and thinks it's for him, and tells Claudia he's had a thing for her for a long time. He gives her gifts, treats and flowers, proving to Claudia how sweet he can be. She agrees to give him a chance.
In the B-plot, Claudia and Erica sign up to work with immigrants, teaching them English and helping them with life skills (answering the telephone, shopping, etc.) Erica is paired with a Bosnian family, which sounds about right. Claudia's family is from Japan. It's all about the cultural differences, but falls flat on a couple of levels.
Interesting tidbits
OOOH! The book starts with Claudia babysitting for the Rodowskys. For about the second time all series, we actually get to see a sitting job! And, in a sense of continuity (although I doubt ANYONE else remembers this), the Rodowskys always leave Claudia some Ben & Jerry's ice cream to snack on. They're the family that, when the kids were all eating lunch together back in #24, gave their kids donuts and soda while most of the kids were eating fruit and drinking juice.
Interestingly, this book actually overlaps #6. Claudia is sitting for the Rodowskys during Mr. Zizmore's going away party. I'm trying to remember back 6 weeks ago, but I'm pretty sure Kristy or someone mentioned to Stacey that Claudia took a last minute sitting job during the party.
Despite the fact that Claudia and Stacey are talking again, Claudia is still mad at her and says they're not best friends currently. This is actually beginning to remind me of my college roommate...she reached out and broke up a not-speaking-to-each-other spell we'd been in for two weeks, but I was still really mad at her and avoided her presence as much as possible for several weeks more afterward.
Oh, and Claudia says there were probably friendship problems with Stacey before Jeremy ever came into their lives. If a boy can come between the two of them that easily, I'll agree with her.
Hee hee. Mary Anne starts a conversation with Claudia, "You know how I hate gossip..." and then begins to gossip with her anyway.
There's something wrong wtih Claudia describing Jeremy's hair as a 'delicious brown.' I think it's because she described his teeth as being as white as vanilla ice cream three books ago. Does she want to date him or snack on him? (Zombie Claudia!!! Fanfic, anyone? She'd only nosh on the brains of fashionable people, naturally.)
In the first two chapters, the Kishis get two phone calls for Claudia on the family line--one from Mary Anne and one from Erica. Why don't they call her on her personal phone?
Claudia decides she needs a very special outfit to see Jeremy for the first time since he broke up with Stacey--very typical Claudia. But she can't decide what to wear, so Janine actually gives her style advice. And she's right!
At lunch, the BSC aren't all sitting together this year for every meal. On the day of the kimono blouse, Kristy, MA, Claudia, Abby and Erica sit together, while Stacey sits with Rachel.
I'm a little confused about Claudia's ESL (English as a second language) volunteer gig. She's working with a Japanese family, which makes sense given her background. But...most Japanese students are taught English as a matter of course, and unlike Erica's Bosnian immigrant family, it's not like this family comes from a third-world or war-torn nation. It's still possible that a family would want to get away from Japan and come to the U.S., but it seems a little off. Especially because the family is portrayed as kind of backwards.
The title quote refers to posters for the Cupid's Arrow dance. I've never heard of mushrooms appearing after a rain, but I have heard of worms doing that.
LOTS of Claudia spelling. She tries to write a letter to Jeremy: Jermy, writting, imporetant, questiun. She tries again and comes up with Jermery, ben, wundering, freinds. Third shot: Jerymy, havent', awile, freind. Fourth: Jermie, freind. Fifth: Jaramy, arow, easyest, freinds, eether, specail, udnerstand. She types her letter in to a word processor on the computer so that she she can use the spell check. (She then decides to copy the proper spelling onto nice stationery.) This is necessary to the plot, as spell check can't figure out how to spell Jeremy's name. She leaves it off...which means that when she puts the letter in the wrong locker, Alan doesn't immediately figure out it's not for him.
Kristy does a sports commentator voice of Jeremy walking down the hall, which was annoying me as much as it annoyed Claudia until Jeremy finds a shoe that Kristy says is from the Paleolithic era and that she can smell it from all the way down the hall.
When Claudia realizes she put the letter in the wrong locker, she gets her friends to help. Kristy tries yanking on the locker (always effective.) Stacey actually comes by and tries to open it, credit-card style, with a nail file. Finally, when time runs out, Kristy says she'll ask Cary to open it, since he can open any locker.
After Claudia admits that she's going to the dance with Alan, Kristy gets mad, but the other two are more understanding. Mary Anne says that they should all give him another chance, while Stacey points out he's actually kind of cute. I sort of wish there was a cover with Alan on it--a boy we could look at and gage Alan's cuteness. (Is he in any of the graphic novels? He must be, right? I'll go look shortly. (I didn't find him.))
Alan decides to up his game with Claudia. He gets her flowers and arranges a 'gourmet' meal of Burger King and Sprite. "This was an excellent year for Sprite," he says as he pours it out like champagne.
Erica said she used to wonder whether her biological parents were movie stars or royalty, but now she knows better. I have to laugh because I watched this documentary recently. A family had three sons--the oldest was adopted and had a traumatic brain injury, the youngest was gay, and the middle transitioned into a woman after she hit adulthood. The documentary, made by the daughter, was originally supposed to be about her high school reunion, with everyone seeing her as a woman for the first time. But she and her older (adopted) brother were in the same grade in school, and the majority of the documentary turned out to be about their strained relationship. He'd sought out his birth mother and learned that she was Rebecca Welles Manning...daughter of Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles.
More Claudia spelling: Jermy, avoyding, wont, chek, maldy (madly), shuld, anser, chang, Allan, diffrent, todays. She also uses hats for hates.
Stacey says, "Like boys even notice what we wear." Why do they bother, then? Anyway, Alan proves her wrong a short time later.
Outfits
Claudia: tie-dyed thermal shirt and cargo pants; blouse made from Mimi's kimono, 'swirly' short black skirt; black leggings, green miniskirt, yellow sweater, platform sneakers, star earrings made of Sculpey (I had a LOT of Sculpey earrings in the mid 90s!); short hot pink 1960s dress with white trim and white heart buttons, clunky black shoes, hot pink bangles and barrettes
Alan: cargo pants, suede Converse All-Stars, red shirt
Stephanie Boxer, the girl with a crush on Alan: flouncy, lacy white dress
Next: #8

"His teeth were very white. Like vanilla ice cream." BSC FF #4: Claudia and the Friendship Feud (1999)

Claudia and Stacey are still fighting, avoiding spending time together, and generally making BSC meetings unpleasant. After a sitting job for the Pikes with Erica Blumberg, Claudia discovers she actually likes spending time with her. The two of them become friends, but Claudia keeps trying to mold Erica to be more like Stacey instead of accepting her for who she is. The situation comes to a head when Claudia convinces Erica to go shopping with her--something Erica doesn't enjoy--and then calls her Stacey. She calls Claudia on using her as a Stacey substitute, saying she enjoys her company but isn't--and doesn't want to be--Stacey. 
Meanwhile, Jeremy has been trying to rekindle a friendship with Claudia, who is still harboring feelings for him. The Pike kids hatch a plan to force Stacey and Claudia to talk--it's a lot simpler and a lot less BSC than most of the Pikes' plots--and the two of them wind up talking. Claudia realizes she's not ready to go back to the way things were with Claudia, but she apologizes to Erica, realizing that she was pretty much a jerk to her.
Interesting Tidbits
The story starts with Claud and Mary Anne going to the movies and spotting Stacey and Jeremy. Claudia's paying more attention to them than to the previews until Mary Anne dangles some Milk Duds in her face. Normally, I'd shake my head at Mary Anne for trying to fix a problem with candy, but this IS Claudia. It's a very appropriate distraction in that case.
At this point, Claudia's still hurt over Stacey betraying her to go out with Jeremy, but acknowledges both that she said some things to Stacey she didn't mean, and that she shouldn't have told Jeremy about Ethan.
Since when does Vanessa Pike take ballet? She doesn't seem the type. Margo or Claire...sure. Not Vanessa.
Have I mentioned I love when Janine tries to be funny? Well, I do. Claudia wears braids like Mary Anne used to when she was younger, because she read that they were coming back into style. Janine greets her by calling her Pippi Longstocking--and later, "Pippi gone hippie." (Mrs. Kishi helps Claudia out by pointing out how determined, spirited and motivated Pippi was. Then tells her not to trip on her shoes.)
Claudia is reading Wuthering Heights in class. It's odd how these books mix real middle school reading (Newbery Award winners) with the sort of things I read in high school. This one was something I read for AP English. My senior year.
Claudia calls Stacey her 'best friend for life,' and I laugh. Not just because the two of them aren't talking--even if I hadn't read the rest of the series, I would have known they'd be friends again by the end--but because I called them BFFs in my last entry. A former coworker of mine used to call people 'BFF for life,' and that was not a compliment. The woman whose slack I used to have to pick up when she'd call off nearly every shift at the last possible second was my BFF for life according to him.
Why does Mr. Kishi ring the doorbell at his own house?
Conveniently, Peaches has a story just like Claudia's, about fighting with her best friend over a boy. Peaches' story has a happy ending, of course, because the fight leads to her meeting Russ, her hubby. (This is actually a decent piece of foreshadowing on the Alan/Claudia relationship.) But the point she's really making is that real friendships can withstand fights, no matter how bad they may seem at the time.
The title quote refers to Jeremy. Maybe it's because my parents always bought French vanilla, but I've never thought of vanilla ice cream as being that white.
Since when does SMS have a salad bar option?
I love how the guy that Erica calls a geek has a geeky name. Back in the day, they would always refer to that kid Alexander (Kurtzman, I think) who carried a briefcase. I think AMM thought Alexander was a geeky name, but then when it came back into fashion, she found an even geekier name: Wellner Wallace.
"It looks like you did your hair in the dark." I love you, Janine.
Claudia said she didn't enjoy going to the mall until she met Stacey. How did she get her 'awesome' clothes from the first few books then, like her clock tights? And her sheep barrettes?
I like Erica. She says she doesn't want to go to Macy's because there are too many people there and it makes her nauseous. It's a view that you don't get in the BSC--even Kristy doesn't mind going to the mall under certain circumstances. I'm one of those people who walks into the mall with a certain purpose in mind, a map of where I'm going in my head, and a timeline to get the hell out of there.
"You can make a disco turkey." Erica's suggestion for Claudia's Thanksgiving centerpiece.
Erica makes an Abby-worthy cheese pun. Twice.
Claudia puts a Wee Sing video in for Lynn to watch. Lynn, who is like six months old. Not to mention the fact that I used to LOVE Wee Sing.
"Never eat Oreo creme filling before bed." That's just plain good advice, no matter how delicious the creme is.
Now Claudia is reading A Tale of Two Cities. LOVED that one... read it Freshman year. Of course, it helped having a very good (but very scary) teacher. (There used to be a Facebook group called Mr. Butler is a Scary Mo-fo. I joined it.)
Stacey tells Claudia she forgives her for telling Jeremy about Ethan. She seems to think that will solve anything...despite not apologizing for her own missteps.
Molly, Peaches' old friend, has a glamorous life as a 'famous photographer,' and Peaches is jealous of that experience. Molly is, of course, equally jealous of the fact that Peaches has a family and roots that she doesn't have.
This is nice: Claudia realizes how much she needs to apologize to Erica, for forcing her to go shopping and, worse, talking about Stacey the whole time and even calling her Stace at one point. When she does apologize, Erica laughs and says she's already forgiven her. She then admits she likes Claudia a lot and is jealous of the pull Stacey has on her.
Still no resolution to the Stacey-Claudia feud. I really forgot how long they dragged that story out.
Outfits
Claudia: red woolen sweater, navy blue skirt with flowers embroidered at the bottom, platform loafers, braids (This is SO Mary Anne, circa 1986! Except for the platforms on the loafers); blue angora sweater, hair in small braids all over her head; plaid shirt, brown bell bottoms, maroon sneakers
Lynn: blue romper covered in stars
Jeremy: black denim jacket, painter pants, Doc Martens
Next: #5 and a heavy--and welcomed--dose of Cary Retlin

“Between Haley and Josh, I was beginning to suspect we’d had a pod invasion recently.” BSC #128: Claudia and the Little Liar (1999)

Welp, here we are. Four more original series book, one each for our original four characters. All the Abby, Mal, Dawn and Jessi books are finished…we’re moving on.

Claudia babysits for the Braddocks, and inadvertently busts Haley in a lie. Haley then starts a smear campaign against the BSC and Claudia in particular. In the end, Claudia and the Braddocks talk to Haley and learn that she’s been trying to throw attention off the fact that she’s struggling in school. She says she told one small lie and got away with it, so she let it snowball out of control. Once her parents and the BSC forgive her, she turns back to her usual sunny self.

Meanwhile, Claudia and Josh are having problems. In the end, they decide they’re better off as friends than dating.

Interesting Tidbits

The cover. The facial expressions here are priceless. I also love that, as time moved on, most of the characters eventually changed styles to be more modern. Stacey finally ditched her perm in the late 90s when girls no longer wore them. Haley was originally described as having short hair with a tail, but those went out of style around the same time as perms did. So she’s just got a bob on the cover.

Josh is helping Claudia before a BSC meeting—they’re decorating uniforms for a ridiculous girls’ basketball league the kids in town put together—and leaves just as the first few members show up. What’s notable about it is something Claudia picks up on right away: various club members describe him as ‘cute’ or ‘adorable,’ which makes him sound more like a puppy than a boy.

The Braddocks are going to school for a PTA meeting about the spring dance. What elementary school has a spring dance?

I’ve always been interested in when the clients blame BSC members for what goes on in their houses. Remember back in #21 when Marilyn and Carolyn Arnold switched places, and Claudia got blamed when the wrong one went to a piano lesson? That always seemed completely unfair to me. It was the first time Claudia had ever met them, and they were identically dressed and, you know, identical twins. She shouldn’t have been held responsible for not knowing which was which. In this story, Haley doesn’t want to do her homework, but her parents and Claudia insist. She futzes around upstairs for a while and then hands Claudia a book report for her to look over. When the Braddocks get home, Claudia tells them that Haley’s report is on the dining room table…and learns that she just printed out last month’s report instead of doing her new one. Instead of blaming Claudia, like Mrs. Arnold did, the parents blame their daughter, who lied and manipulated.

This was funny: when Haley gets grounded for her lies, Kristy needs another player for her basketball team, so she makes Stacey fill in. Stacey, whom she had roped into volunteering to help coach, pretty much against her will…and whom she harshly coaches (and benches!)

Girls on the basketball team: Haley, Vanessa, Karen, Charlotte, Becca, Sara. Most of the girls are described as ‘eight and nine year olds Stacey didn’t know.’ But I have two thoughts about that. First, Karen is seven; did she get on the team by nepotism or something? Second, Charlotte, Becca and Vanessa aren’t usually into sports, so why are they playing?

“You can’t trust anyone over nine.” Seriously?!?

Claudia is reading The Case of the Artful Crime, which Google tells me is a real Nancy Drew mystery.

The title quote is what happens during a ‘weird’ date with Josh. He’s acting odd and distant, and Claudia remembers the movie Invasion of the Body Snatcher. She later refers to the alien that has taken control of Haley’s body.

Claudia is the perfect person to have these problems with Haley. First, having had her own problems with schoolwork—and having said the exact same things about homework being a conspiracy by teachers to ruin your free time—she gets where Haley is coming from. She’s also become the people-reader of the group, the one who gives good relationship advice. When she overhears Haley and Vanessa talking about her on the phone and calling her a tattletale and traitor, she knows that it shouldn’t hurt, because Haley’s just venting, but of course it does hurt. She’s human and has feelings.

Haley starts telling everyone that the BSC members are spies, so when Abby sits for the Rodowskys, Shea and Jackie hide from her. Archie doesn’t…but only because he wants to spy with her.

Mary Anne solves the Haley problem by suggesting role playing. Haley tries, like most people do, to make herself look better by diminishing everything she’d done wrong. She claims Claudia ordered her around, refused to let her talk on the phone about school work, etc. Between her parents and Mary Anne—an impartial party—pointing out the imperfections in her story (“If you were only on the phone for a second, when did Claudia have time to force you to get off?”), she admits that her story isn’t absolute truth. And finally, she admits that she didn’t want to do her book report because her book was flying right over her head and she didn’t ‘get’ it.

Kristy puts her best players as starters in the basketball game. She says that Haley’s a strong player, but with her grounding, she didn’t practice enough, so she’s second string. She also includes Charlotte on second string, which isn’t too surprising, but Karen is also on the second string. I can argue that she’s younger and likely smaller than the rest, but I’m really just taking pleasure in the fact that Kristy second-stringed her own (annoying) sister.

Not much to say about this one, but that’s probably a good thing. This is the type of problem I could see the BSC having on a regular basis. A lot of kids lie about everything they can get away with, and it’s completely normal for them to blame anyone who spots their lies for their problems. The basketball team suddenly popping out of nowhere is stupid, but otherwise, a very realistic story.

No outfits in this one except boring basketball uniforms. Poop.

Next: #129

“Why does the parade need a grandmother?” BSC #117: Claudia and the Terrible Truth (1998)

Hoo, boy. This is a dilly of a book. The BSC doesn’t have a good history of ‘issue’ books, with the stories coming across as either public service announcements or just laughable ridiculousness. I’ve read this one before, but I don’t remember much about the actual issue except for one, very important detail I’ll discuss in the tidbits below.

Claudia gets a regular sitting job for the Nicholls family, who just moved to town. The two boys are very well behaved, but seem to be afraid of their father, whom Claudia doesn’t really like. She soon finds out why the boys are so scared when she learns their father belittles them and sometimes physically abuses them. Claudia tells her mother, who brings it up to Mrs. Nicholls while they’re at work. The Nichollses drop the BSC and hire Erica Blumberg to sit for them. She calls Claudia, concerned, when both boys are bruised and bloody. Mrs. Kishi and Claudia help get Erica, Mrs. Nicholls and the boys out, and Mrs. Nicholls moves in with her sister to get away from him.

Interesting Tidbits

The cover: I really don’t want to make fun of what these imaginary kids are going through, but doesn’t the cover make it look like that house should be on fire?

Okay, so Peaches and Russ are going out of town for a week, and they’re leaving baby Lynn in the care of…Claudia?!? Seriously, that’s how it’s described in the book. Only Janine points out that there are also two adults living in the home. (Also, who exactly will be watching Lynn during the day? These books have a habit of ridiculous things like putting babies in daycare for two weeks only or arranging for Claire Pike to go to two sessions of kindergarten in one day.)

Oh look, a page-long recap of book number 116. Now, I haven’t read that one since, like 2012 or so, but I still remember the plot enough that I didn’t need a reminder. Chances are most of the readers had just read that story weeks earlier.

And since baby Lynn is at the BSC meeting, we’re introduced to the members by what they were probably like as a baby. Seriously? Just give it up already.

Our first view of the Nicholls family: the whole house is pristine, and everything is lined up just so, like someone with severe OCD had swept through it. The dad barks orders and the boys are overly worried about displeasing him for any reason or leaving even a little mess. Nate gets extremely upset when he accidentally rips a page in one of Claudia’s books. They also let Claudia win at checkers, as if they’re afraid of what will happen if she doesn’t win. Finally, Mr. Nicholls screams at them because Claudia hadn’t put away the peanut butter when she was done with it and calls his sons dumb slobs. That’s not blatant or anything.

So what was happening with Lynn during the day? Mrs. Kishi was taking her to work and making an employee in the children’s library watch her. Way to abuse your powers as head librarian, Mrs. K.

I like this bit: at the ridiculous B-plot-St.-Patty’s-Day-parade-planning-meeting, Charlotte and Becca roll their eyes at the triplets, finding them immature. Becca tells Jessi that girls mature faster than boys, but I think she overheard someone else say that somewhere.

Karen and Andrew want to play bagpipes in the parade. As if you need another reason to hate the Brewers….  (Actually, I usually don’t have a problem with Andrew. But this is enough to make me want to have a problem with him.)

Here’s what KILLS me about the BSC. Claudia feels that something is off about the Nicholls family, with the way Mr. Nicholls talks down about both his wife and children and the way his children are super-obedient and seem to constantly fear him. But despite the fact that her mother works with Mrs. Nicholls and knows the family, Claudia says she ‘isn’t ready’ to tell her parents about what’s going on there. Yeah, I realize that, at this point, she’s just got a hunch that something’s wrong. She hasn’t seen bruises on the boys or seen their father hit them, but come ON. When I teach new employees how to deal with situations, I always tell them that if something seems wrong, it probably IS wrong. If the hair on the back of your neck stands up, then something is off and you need to trust your gut. Especially because, right after she decides not to say anything, she’s actually present when Mr. Nicholls hits Joey.

“How hard can it be to make a few cardboard shamrocks?” Mallory of all people should know to never say stuff like this. Especially when Jackie is around; after all, the ghostwriters looooove to make Walking Disaster jokes, right?

Claudia’s mom is actually really awesome in this story. When the BSC decide to go ahead and tell her what’s going on, she points out that it’s a serious accusation, then brings up the ‘mandated reporter’ rule.* She takes everything out of Claudia’s hands by saying she’s going to talk to Mrs. Nicholls and a social worker. She believes Claudia 100 percent without question, going so far as to take detailed notes on what she’d seen. And best of all, she holds Claudia when she cries and doesn’t pretend to have all the answers as to why this is happening.

Actually, with a few exceptions, the BSC parents are awesome overall. Richard may handle parenting very different from the Kishis or the Pikes, but can you call any of those parents a bad parent? We definitely get to see BSC parents make bad choices—Stacey’s parents constantly putting her in between them comes to mind—but all the parents (except maybe Kristy’s dad) truly want what’s best for their kids. Claudia even makes a comment to that effect when talking about the Nicholls.

*Mandated reporting, for those who aren’t up on such things, holds that employees in certain professions, such as health care, education and day care, have a legal responsibility to report suspected abuse. I remember being a child and hearing about the Lisa Steinberg case in New York, in which six-year-old Lisa was systematically abused by her illegally-adoptive father before her death. When her teachers were interviewed, they said that she always seemed withdrawn and was constantly covered in bruises. I forget whether she’d been reported to social services or not, but I know that case spurred a lot of reform in many places.

Ooh, Mrs. Kishi is a liespotter! In my line of work, that’s the term for someone who can see the difference between what’s being said, how it’s being said, and non-verbal behavior. For example, you can tell when Hillary Clinton is lying when being asked a yes/no question, because she’ll answer one way and her head will go the other (she’ll gush on about how positive her relationship is with President Obama while shaking her head no.) Mrs. Kishi notes how Mrs. Nicholls is trying to assure her that nothing is wrong at home while she’s wringing her hands.

There aren’t a whole lot of quotable lines in this book, so I gave Claire her second title quote in less than a month.

Someone actually read the BSC bible! Erica, whom the Nicholls hire to sit for the boys after they ditch the BSC, has a history of sitting. She had babysat for Betsy prior to the events of #19, and she mentions taking care of the Newtons in #100. I’ve always wondered why she was never up for consideration to join the BSC anytime they were looking for new members. Claudia calls her level-headed and responsible.

So Mrs. Nicholls agrees to get away from her hubby and says that she’s been making plans for something like that for a while. She gets a restraining order and moves four hours away to live with her sister. Mr. Nicholls agrees to get counseling for his issues. Mrs. Kishi points out the Nichollses problems are far from over, and that admitting he needs help is just the first step. I remember very distinctly when I read this imagining what happened to the family after. Mr. Nicholls does a couple months of therapy and then starts wooing his wife back. She decides he’s changed and goes back to him, only for him to break one of the boys’ arms this time. Mrs. Nicholls leaves him again, only to repeat the cycle a few more times. She eventually leaves for good, but by then her boys are so emotionally scarred that any chance for them to grow up normal is pretty well destroyed.

Think I’m maybe a little cynical?

Next: #118

“I felt as if a big day-old Swedish meatball had lodged itself in my throat.” BSC #113: Claudia Makes Up Her Mind (1997)

The Claudia-related ridiculosity continues in this classy little number. Claudia’s doing so well in seventh grade that, against all reason and logic, the school gives her a choice. She can either continue in seventh grade or go back to eighth grade. Meanwhile, Claudia has another choice to make, between her loser-slacker-hottie boyfriend Mark and her cute-sweet-maybe-gay friend Josh.

In the sitting plot, the kids decide to throw a Color War as well, with dubious results.

Interesting Tidbits

Le Covere! “Two boys…two grades…How will Claudia ever decide?” Well, Mark’s doing his best Zach Morris imitation with that shirt, and he’s also looking at anything but Claudia. Meanwhile, Josh is doing his best puppy dog impression….

First thing we establish: seventh grade is tres immature, with spitballs being thrown and girls squealing about it. Yet that wouldn’t be too out of place if you replaced Brandon and Bonnie with Alan and Cokie….

So it’s Color War time, a fun SMS tradition that we’ve never heard of before. Each grade picks a color that everyone must wear for the week, and then the grades compete, with the proceeds going to a charity chosen by winning grade. Sounds like fun, honestly. But Claudia’s upset because the seventh grade picked orange for their grade color, saying no one looks good in orange. Umm, she wears orange in a LOT of books. She’s right that it’s not a color that looks good on most people, but it’s not unknown for her to be dressed largely in orange. (And later she finds an orange outfit right in her own closet.) Josh’s response to Claudia’s horror: “Let me guess. You flunked homeroom.”

Josh + Peter Lerangis = gold! First Shira says to ignore Josh because he ODed on Cocoa Puffs that morning, then Josh suggests that Mark can’t help Claudia with the Color War because he’s too involved in “all that extracurricular hanging out.”

Abby chastises Kristy for being bossy by pointing out that the BSC is not a dictatocracy. If Kristy had her way, it would be!

Stacey, regarding the orange seventh graders: “What’s your charity, Fashion Victims of America?” No Stacey, that was you in book #111….

Alan signs up to be eighth grade color war coordinator. He’s got way-girly handwriting, similar to Kristy’s. Josh asks if he’s Claudia’s ex, based upon her reaction to him. Claudia thinks that’s absolutely disgusting, which I find really funny, given the series ends with her dating him.

Claudia’s list of suggestions for the Color War, spelling intact: limrix, stilt race, battel of the rock bands, best originle outfit, race to pull 100 yards of dentle floss across football feild, janiter’s mop toss, hi score on vidio game to be agrede upon. There’s also another entry that might say cheet match or chest match. I think the second makes more sense, assuming she meant chess. Also, Claud’s friends suggest a bake off, a hog-calling contest, art contest and ‘weird foot races’, which sounds awesome until they explain it means three-legged races and stuff like that. (I was imagining ‘weird foot’ races, rather than weird ‘foot races.’)

When Claudia gets a note from the guidance counselor, wanting to meet, her first thought is to panic and assume that she’s getting booted back to sixth grade. This degrades into her being sent to reform school. ‘Cause, likely. But no more stupid than what actually happens.

Mrs. Amer says Claudia hasn’t been in seventh grade for very long and is doing very well and is cognitively working above the seventh grade level. Here are my thoughts on that. 1) She’s actually been in seventh grade for a year or more at this point. She was moved in October and went through an entire year, on to summer vacation. This is likely November based upon the one book a month progression. (This is confirmed later in the book, when Claudia mentions Thanksgiving decorations.) So that argument is very bunk. 2) If she was cognitively way above eighth grade, why did they ever put her back in seventh? 3) I’ll answer that question. She was put back in seventh grade because the subjects start building on themselves about this time. It’s definitely true for math and English; not so much for some other subjects. So since she didn’t retain seventh grade information, they put her back in that grade to re-learn it all. Which makes the argument for putting her back into eighth grade ridiculously stupid.

The Papadakis kids actually threaten Abby that she’ll never sit for them again if she doesn’t agree to take them to the kids Color War that was arranged behind the BSC’s back. Future mafia members, maybe?

It’s interesting that both Mr. Kishi and Janine are advocating for Claudia to go back to eighth grade. Mrs. Kishi’s response is nicer (“I support you whatever you decide”) but if Claudia were my daughter, I’d be more like, “You’re doing well in school for the first time, and it’s really important that you get a solid foundation before head off to high school.”

Favorite image in this book so far: Josh threatening to beat someone up for Claudia. Since he’s mentioned as being short/hinted at being prepubescent, I’m sure he’s really scary to other guys.

The title quote is Claudia’s reaction to debates about her choice.

Awww. Josh reminds me so much of a guy I had a huge crush on when I was about fifteen. That’s probably why I like him so much. He lives the opposite direction from the school from Claudia, but says he doesn’t mind walking, because he’ll reach his house eventually anyway. “Columbus proved it.” And he gets so flustered when talking to Claudia that he starts babbling.

Alan’s way of showing his admiration of Kristy: he picks his nose over her lunch tray. (And we’re supposed to think that the seventh graders are all immature?!?) Claudia gets back at him by writing a backwards KICK ME on his chair and then feeling glorious when people kicked him later in the day.

I love that Claudia is the only person in the whole of the universe who doesn’t realize that Josh has the hots for her. I’d say she was clueless, but Tessie went through the same thing one time. Her: “You knew he liked me? Why didn’t you tell me?” Me: “I thought you knew! He wasn’t exactly subtle!”

Ha ha! Kristy wrote the word butt! Ha! (I’m now officially as mature as Alan and Brandon-the-seventh-grader.)

“I’d kiss the ground you walk on if it wouldn’t ruin my orthodontia!” Josh admits his crush for the first time. Sooooo sweeeeet! And then he asks Claudia if they can go to a PG-13 rated movie, because he never gets carded. Heh.

Anyone surprised that Claudia won a Snickers eating contest, decided to go back to eighth grade, and got together with Josh at the end of the book?

Outfits

Claudia: plaid skirt, purple leggings, lace-up boots, white linen skirt, black tie, vest; orange rayon bowling ensemble; orange striped harem pants (I have no idea what these are, but they sound absolutely awful) and navy blouse

Next: #115

“If there’s one thing worse than a cute, obnoxious boy it’s a cute, obnoxious boy who thinks he’s smart.” BSC #106: Claudia, Queen of the Seventh Grade (1997)

Claudia’s doing much better the second time around in seventh grade, and has amassed a loyal group of friends. Her friends nominate her for seventh grade queen, which, of course, she wins. Her king is Mark Jaffe, who’s a cute slacker. Claudia plans this epic, ambitious ‘prom’ complete with a food and clothing drive. She and Mark squabble a bit but of course, they end up dating. Claudia also feels pulled between her (eighth-grade) BSC friends, who are kind of pissy about her queendom because ‘you’re really an eighth grader,’ and her seventh grade friends. Each group seems to be a little jealous of the other.

The Addisons are looking for a sitter for the first time since Sean caught the pyromaniac bug back in Mystery #13, and Sean is one angry kid. He’s being teased at school, and decides he’s too old for a sitter. You know how I love dysfunctional families. J

Interesting Tidbits

The cover: All hail Claudia! I’m surprised no one is salaaming.

Aaaaaand…the book begins with Claudia helping her classmates with their homework because she ‘gets’ it better than they do. Although, I do love her mnemonic device for remembering the classification for living things: Kindly Pass Claudia Oreos, For Goodness Sakes. (We always used King Philip Came Over For Good Spaghetti…because we weren’t allowed to use the original version. “No Spaghetti Before Marriage!”)

I like Russ, who says he was meant to be a pioneer in the Wild West but was born in the wrong era.

This says so much about Josh, right here. Everyone—Claudia, Josh, and their other friends Jeannie and Shira—are in Joanna’s room. Shira reminds Joanna that she’s not allowed to have boys in her room, and Joanna says, “Josh doesn’t count.” I can take that one of two ways. Either Joanna and Josh have been friends since they were in diapers, so she just considers him one of the girls, or Josh is feminine or non-threatening…and probably gay. Hell, he even briefly considers running for seventh grade queen before stating he’s the wrong gender.

By this point in the series, Claudia’s fashion is considered ‘found fashion’ and she’s described as shopping in thrift stores a lot. I guess that was the mid-nineties version of funky clothes.

Real book, one that makes MA cry (natch): Mrs. Fish, Ape, and Me, the Dump Queen (I’ve never read that. it sounds…odd.)

Babysitters Club, the Musical. Coming to Broadway next spring!

More real books, these ones for seventh graders: Call of the Wild (I read that in eighth grade and hated it, but I think that had more to do with hating the teacher than the material…) and Hatchet.

Shira’s mom is apparently an adult Dawn. She has a car covered in environmental group bumper stickers and she wants Shira to start a food drive at school. Although Dawn would probably have a bike instead of a car, because it’s more environmentally friendly.

What kind of name is Duryan? I understand that, after a while, the authors ran out of names and started digging deeper and repeating names. I’ve always loved Shira and Shiri, which is Hebrew for song or tune, and Joanna and Jeannie are pretty normal names. But the two other candidates for seventh grade queen are Abigail and Duryan. I know a Darian, and a durian is a southeastern Asian fruit, but what is Duryan?

Either Kristy thinks the ‘graduation song’ is Pumpin’ Circumstance or she knows the correct name and Claudia misheard her. I’m leaning toward the second.

The title quote is Claudia’s take after talking to Mark for the first time.

This is soooooo Mary Anne: When she takes her first job for the Addisons, the Addison parents ask to talk to her before the job begins, and she thinks they’re going to fire her before she even starts the job. I was always paranoid like that growing up: The teacher wants to talk to me, so I must be in trouble.

Later, Claudia describes Mary Anne’s emotions after discovering the truth about the Addisons as her ‘internally having a cow.’ (Okay, she didn’t say internally; that was my word. But it’s what she meant.) 1. I can’t imagine MA having a cow…unless she was fighting with Dawn. 2. I’m totally going to use that every time I pissy and don’t display it.

First Claudia confuses scepter with septic—suggesting she doesn’t need one because she can use the public restroom—then she wonders what the purpose of a scepter is for. Shira: Hitting peasants over the head, I think.

I really don’t like Mark. I can’t decide if it’s because he reminds me of too many boys I knew in school, or because the fighting is too obviously setting Mark and Claudia up to date, or the fact that I know she breaks up for him in favor of Josh later…I just want to skip all the pages with Mark on them….

Ooh, I can see why Claudia would (eventually) want to date Josh: “Under his green woolen watch cap, his ears stuck out at an odd angle. He looked like an earnest little chipmunk.” Sezzy.

Ha. After Mrs. Addison calls and wants to set up further sitting jobs with the BSC, where they are sitting for Corrie but supervising Sean, Abby ‘looks green.’ She’s never met the Addisons, just heard about Sean setting fires and heard how the two kids verbally assaulted each other throughout Mary Anne’s job, so I don’t blame her. She demands a police escort for her job with them, but honestly. It’s no different than the setup the BSC has with the Pikes at this point, where they only have one sitter because the triplets are considered to need less supervision.

Jessi’s take on this is spot-on: She suggests that the sitter will be sitting for both Addison kids, but will have to make Sean feel like he’s not being sat for. It’s kind of a precarious position. Remember the problems Dawn had when she babysat for Whitney but didn’t/couldn’t tell Whitney she was her sitter?

Sean is reading My Side of the Mountain. Don’t worry; he didn’t set the book on fire.

Josh signed up for every committee for the dance, but he signed up for the food committee as Ronald McDonald and the music committee as E. Presley and so on.

Mark has a friend who goes by Spud. I think that says everything you need to know about Mark.

I like that Mal and Jessi are actually really nice to Claudia throughout this whole book. Abby, Stacey and Kristy keep teasing Claudia about Josh, Mark and the seventh grade, but Mal and Jessi want to know all about her whole committee meeting and whether or not Mark’s being an ass (answer: yes, of course he is.)

OOH! Mr. X is back! When Abby sat for Corrie (and supervised Sean), she wound up at the grocery store with both kids, because Sean decided to buy steak for dinner but didn’t bring enough money. He spotted a blond boy and refused to be spotted with Abby because he didn’t want the boy to realize he had a sitter. After Sean convinces his parents to let him stay home alone one afternoon, he has an accident and calls the BSC for help. Stacey discovers that that boy was Mel, aka Mr. X. Mel’s been making fun of Sean, claiming he doesn’t have to have a sitter—which turns out to be a lie.

Come to think of it, Mel and Sean should get along pretty well. They both had to get counseling after being the culprit in a BSC mystery.

The dance isn’t coming together exactly the way Claudia planned, but she’s trying to keep everything together…until she starts laughing hysterically over something really stupid.

Ha. Jeannie calls Mark Markie-poo. I might only find this funny because I hate Mark so much, but I don’t even care.

Claudia gets mad at Kristy because Kristy keep suggesting that all the seventh graders are babies…so she throws Milk Duds at her and points out how that makes her (and Mal and Jessi) feel. Kristy pauses for a moment…then tells her how to improve her aim. And admits she’s been acting like a jerk! That may not be a first, but it’s close to it.

I think Josh is the only person more surprised that Claudia kissed Mark than Claudia is. Obviously, he’s got a little crush on her. Aww, so sweet. (I like Josh and liked Claudia with him, even if I think he’s gay.)

The end. BLECH!

Outfits

Claudia: leopard print blouse, hip huggers, headband, flats, ankle socks; foulard dress (wearing Queen Elizabeth’s clothes); spandex pants, Hawaiian shirt with ‘Ed’s diner’ on it, and Doc Martens (actually QE wearing Claudia’s clothes)

Next: Back to Abby…

“Oops, I have to use the Vanessa toilet.” BSC Mystery #27: Claudia and the Lighthouse Ghost (1996)

Enough with the ghosts already, BSC! There is no such thing! Even Scooby Doo would reject your ghosts at this point.

The Kishis’ old friends, the Hatt family, comes to stay with them for a while. The Hatts used to live in Stoneybrook, and they own the old lighthouse (that of course has never been mentioned before.) Years ago, a tragedy happened at the lighthouse when a teenaged boy named Adrian Langley jumped out of a window and into the water. Mr. Hatt spotted him in the sound and pulled him out, but he died of trauma and exposure anyway. Mr. Langley and a lot of other people in town blamed Mr. Hatt, so the family left town. Someone keeps sending the Hatts threatening messages, and the BSC (who are helping clean up the property) keep seeing someone/hearing voices while on the property. It turns out to be one of Adrian’s friends, the leader of a gang Adrian wanted to join. He had locked Adrian in the lighthouse, leading to his death. Mr. Langley realizes Mr. Hatt wasn’t responsible for his son’s death, and the Hatts move into their own house and are never mentioned again.

Meanwhile, the Veehoff comet is going to be visible soon and it’s all the kids want to talk about. Because little kids are so into astronomy.

Interesting Tidbits

The cover. It’s pretty standard for a mystery cover, as it shows Claudia looking fearfully at something that really doesn’t deserve that reaction. I mean, it’s not even dark and sinister looking!

So apparently, Abby and Claudia planned a whole I Love Lucy routine, recreating a scene from the show…and all the Barrett/DeWitt kids found it hysterical. I call bull on that one. Probably a lot of kids wouldn’t even know what I Love Lucy was by 1996. I remember watching it some in the 80s, but much preferring The Brady Bunch or Gilligan’s Island or even Diff’rent Strokes.

“I used to think algebra was a type of lingerie.” Sure you did, Claudia. Sure you did. This, from the same girl who said that she used to think Alice in Wonderland was a woman’s name: Allison Wonderland. Oh, and she believed her dad’s friend, Mr. Hatt, when he told her his first name was Cat-in-the.

Claudia’s mom says she doesn’t think something is prudent. Claudia automatically thinks of prunes; I think of Dana Carvey’s George Bush imitation. “Naganna do it; wouldn’t be prudent.”

Leave it to the BSC to believe that a comet coming to town will cause people to turn into werewolves or vampires. (Anyone else think that Mal would be a huge, huge, huge Twilight fan if these books were written now?)

OOH, I like this. Claudia acknowledges the fact that the BSC members all call Richard by his first name. It kind of makes sense for them to think of him that way, because Dawn calls him that, even if they always think of Mal’s dad as Mr. Pike (to give an example). But Claudia points out it’s even funnier for Richard because he’s such a formal kind of guy. He does seem like the type who, before he married Sharon, would have been horribly offended if his daughter’s friends called him by his first name. (Growing up, I always called all my parents’ friends by their first names, but I know that’s not always the norm for kids.)

Claudia’s countdown of the coolest places

            2. New York City

            1. Ben & Jerry’s factory in Vermont

Hmm, interesting. Both Jessi and Mal claim to be victims of Oldest Child Syndrome, in which parents are hardest on the first born and ease up as kids go by. Claudia claims it isn’t true in her house; her parents are stricter/just as strict with her as they are with Janine. I’m tempted to agree with Jessi and Mal, though. I’m not sure parents are even aware they’re doing it to some extent. My mom swears up and down that my sister and I were raised completely equally and that we had the same curfew all the way through growing up. Um. My curfew was nine until I was seventeen, and then it was eleven until the day I graduated high school. My sister’s curfew was ten until she turned sixteen, and then eleven until the day she turned eighteen (six months before she graduated.) There are thousands of other examples, too. But I also figured a couple things out as an adult. When my parents set a rule, I just followed it. My sister would whine and plead and beg and bend the rules until my parents changed it…which is why she always got away with so much more.

Claudia confuses halitosis with trichinosis. And I’m quite frankly impressed that she knows what either of those are.

Janine’s being a bit bitchy in this book. She keeps rubbing it in Claudia’s face that she has a boyfriend and Claudia doesn’t. And then, she’s making fun of Claudia’s math skills.

Oh, nice. The Hatt family is being put up for free in the Kishi’s house, in order to avoid the expense of a hotel. I understand it must be hard for their two daughters—moving across country, leaving behind all their friends, etc.—but the two of them insist they must share a room at the Kishis’. What I don’t understand is the parents’ not reasoning with them and telling them they’re lucky they’ll have a bed to sleep in at all. (That’s what my dad would have done.) The whole family hasn’t even arrived yet and they’re already causing problems.

Ha! Claudia and Janine remember Steve Hatt as Thtevie, because that’s how he said Stevie with no front teeth. Janine even calls him that when he first arrives—not to his face. But Claudia is mortified when Mr. Hatt calls her Dodee-a, which is apparently how she said Claudia when she was tiny.

Leave it to Claudia to color-coordinate the lighthouse. Although, come to think of it, it is kind of lame that Mr. Hatt thought that he’d paint the whole thing white. Whoever heard of an all-white light house?

I’m so not surprised that Abby, in a notebook entry for a sitting job for the Hobart boys, would throw out some stereotypical Australian-isms. She says it wasn’t shrimp on the bahhh-bie weather. I used to watch an Australian soap opera when I was young. One of the characters was a young girl who came into her aunt’s house wearing a cowboy hat and announced, “Howdy!” She then followed this up by explaining, “That’s cowboy for ‘g’day!’” My sister and I (seven and nine) about fell over laughing, and this became an on-going joke in our family for years to come. I can only imagine what Abby would do with that one.

Claudia spelling: May be (maybe), wright (right), infact, mite (might), beleave, tho.

This book keeps cutting off the last letter of words in the right-hand margin of handwritten entries, and it’s driving me nutty.

Oh, good plan, Mr. Hatt. He hires members of the BSC to help with the cleanup. That’s kind of odd to begin with—since when did they become hired hands for any purpose? But then he takes Stacey and Mary Anne up to the lighthouse, and Mary Anne is scared the whole time. I think just about anyone would have been a better choice. (I know he didn’t know that, but still…)

Mistake! The Pikes have a new telescope (of course they do) and pretty much the entire sitting job consists of supervising each kid’s turn on the new mechanism. The kids are lined up in reverse-age order. (This book confirms the final ‘official’ triplet birth order, by the way). Vanessa is taking her turn and stops to make up a poem. She gets into a little fight with the triplets (see the next note), and Nicky steps up to the telescope, saying it’s now his turn. He’s younger than Vanessa and would have gone before her. That should have been Byron who stepped into her spot, according to the order established earlier in the chapter.

The title quote comes when Mal points out that the comet was named after Shelmadine Veehoff, who discovered it. Margo points out that astronomers should name comets after regular people. This leads to each member of the family naming things after themselves: Adam tree, Claire picnic table, Margo cloud, Nicky bush, Byron house. After Jordan proclaims the whole world is named after him, Vanessa calls him greedy. He then says the title quote and Vanessa loses her place at the telescope while chasing him around the yard. (The resulting fight is broken up when Mal invites everyone inside for a ‘Mal and Jessi snack.’)

“Aaaaagh. How could I possibly sleep, knowing I might be living in a house full of criminals?” I love you, Peter Lerangis. I really do.

Thanks, Janine. I’d always wondered what QED meant, and she explains it quite well—and at Claudia’s level.

Stacey must be taking stupid pills. The BSC is going to go help the Hatts paint the lighthouse, and she shows up wearing high fashion. She looks at Claudia, in an old, dirty coat, and asks if it’s going to be messy. Paint, Stacey, paint. Common sense, Stacey, common sense.

Claudia is concerned that both she and Stacey are hearing voices at the lighthouse. I suspect it’s a case of group schizophrenia, which I just made up right here and now. Sounds good, though.

HA HA! At the comet party, the kids all have their own superstitions, most of which are too stupid to even repeat. But Ben Hobart still keeps riling the younger kids up by telling them historical superstitions about comets. The best response? Ben mentioned that ‘in olden days’, sickness always followed a comet and someone would die. Suzi mentions she’s got the sniffles and Buddy responds that no one is sick, “Just Ben—sick in the head.” Kristy is eventually able to talk the kids out of all of their worries.

Claudia wonders why there’s a gargoyle over the entrance to SHS, as it ‘doesn’t fit the architecture.’ Most of the BSC members think the gargoyle is gross, except Abby…who calls it a hunk. (Now we know Abby’s ‘type.’ Strong, silent and…made of stone.)

Oh, this is soooo realistic. Paul Langley, the son of the man who keeps being mean to Mr. Hatt—and the brother of Adrian Langley, the boy who died after jumping out of the lighthouse—agrees to let the BSC see his brother’s room. All it took to convince him was Claudia showing him the note she’d found in the lighthouse; before that, he didn’t even acknowledge Kristy when she spoke to him.

Heh. After someone sets off a smoke bomb or something inside the lighthouse, Mr. Hatt is livid. The message out front referred to a party Steve Hatt was throwing in the lighthouse for his high school friends. Mr. Hatt decides that they won’t cancel the party—instead, they’ll invite everyone, including the BSC and all the Hatt family friends. He thinks this is a great idea, but Steve can’t believe his ears. I just love the fact that what was sure to be a drinking, sex-fueled romp now includes Steve’s parents and little sisters.

Janine is actually really juvenile throughout this book. She uses Steve Hatt to make her boyfriend jealous, but when she catches Steve with another girl, she goes back to her boyfriend…and makes Steve jealous in the process. Well, she is sixteen after all, even if she normally acts and sounds like a thirty year old….

And of course, they catch the bad guy, who was really just a confused young man. And no one admits to making a statement that creeped Claudia out while she was in the lighthouse, so she’s still scared of a ghost. Yawn.

New characters

Steve, Laura and Caryn Hatt (16, 12 and 10)—36, 32 and 30*

(I’m guessing on Steve’s age, because I can’t find an actual age for him. He might be 15 or even 14 instead…)

Outfits

Claudia: high-collared ‘dentist’ shirt, Chinese silk jacket, orange scarf belt, black flared pants, orange hair bandana

Janine: gray pleated wool skirt, white Oxford shirt

Stacey: black cashmere coat, silk scarf

Who’s next: It’s Stacey! Oh noes!

“A little softball flavoring never hurt anyone.” BSC #101: Claudia Kishi, Middle School Dropout (1996)

OMG. I haven’t even opened this book yet and it’s already made me…itchy.

School is barely back in session, and Claudia has just started eighth grade (…again). Her schoolwork slacker-ism is worse than normal, and everyone involved is concerned that Claudia didn’t get a solid foundation the year before and that her grades are just going to be worse as the year goes on. So they…put her back in seventh grade.

Yup.

This is so preposterous for a couple of reasons. This would never happen in real life. A lot of decision making goes in to deciding to retain a child in a grade or skip them ahead. It’s not just a matter of grades or ability but of social standing. Kids know when one of their classmates repeats a grade, and they are merciless. Now, imagine if they put a kid back a year in the middle of the school year. Claudia manages to make some good friends, but many kids would never survive.

And then of course there is the aspect of the ongoing Time Warp Stoneybrook exists in. I might—might­—buy this plot line if Claudia hadn’t been through eighth grade approximately 7x10²⁵ times. (I’m only exaggerating slightly.)

Interesting Tidbits

The cover: Just two little things. What in the blazes is Claudia eating here? And what’s with that boy right behind Claudia, just to the right? He looks like he’s about to vomit.

Ha! Claudia gets a phone call that starts, “So, what are you wearing?” Unfortunately, it’s not a dirty caller. It’s just Stacey.

Claudia acknowledges the events of #100, saying that everyone is still formally-polite with one another, not quite comfortable. (For those of you who are wondering, as someone does every now and then, what happened to #100 and the other books I’m ‘skipping’…it’s because I’ve already blogged them.)

Claudia says her IQ is just fine. In fact, I’d bet her IQ is actually pretty high. Claudia says she’s been tested for learning disabilities and doesn’t have any. I know a lot of people disagree with that assessment—sometimes, I wonder about it myself—but I stick by my theory that Claudia was dealing with old-school teachers who didn’t present the information in a way that she could relate. If there were more projects in her history class, she might enjoy it more. (Claudia even says she likes science, because there are so many experiments.)

Even Rosa, Claudia’s tutor, points out how smart she is. She’s smart enough that she can skate by in subjects, learn enough just to pass a test, but never really confine any of the information to her brain. I like that Rosa—who takes college classes with Janine—gets Claudia in a way that Janine and Stacey, who are always offering to help her, don’t.

Claudia wears a clip on nose ring, and only Mallory thinks it’s cool. Does anyone else picture Mal someday with thick eyeliner, dark red lipstick, Buddy Holly glasses and a couple piercings herself?

You know that one of the guys in Claudia’s art class—which is by invitation only—because he wears a goatee and beret. I rolled my eyes so hard when I read that that they still hurt.

Abby likes sitting for the Pikes, because there’s so much chaos and movement there. I buy that. (Mal leaves to take another sitting job while Abby and Jordan are in charge at the Pike household, which I still find weird even though I just read the book where the triplets were promoted to ‘official helpers.’ Oh, and Jordan’s idea of ‘helping’ is to tell Nicky his Halloween costume idea was dumb. He eventually agrees to help him make it better, though.)

The B plot in this oh-so-lovely-not-at-all-a-waste-of-my-time book is that Jackie is still in the hospital and he’s bored out of his skull. (Get it? He had a head injury. I figure that pun is about as good as any Abby ever makes, so get over it.) So Kristy came up with the idea to write letters and cards to all the kids in the pediatric ward. This leads to a whole Halloween party in the hospital and what a hospital I used to be affiliated with called ‘Reverse Trick or Treating,’ which is actually Carolyn Arnold’s idea.

I never stopped to think about this when I was a kid, but now that I’m older—and reading these books back to back to back, I really wonder how they decided which kids should be involved in each project. Adam is the one who made the phone calls inviting people over and he called…James Hobart, Shea Rodowsky, and the Arnold twins. I’ll buy the first two, as there are virtually no other ten year old boys in this series that currently live in this town. (The only one I can think of is Sean Addison.)  And while Marilyn is Margo’s friend and Carolyn, Vanessa’s, they’re also girls and probably, in Adam’s point of view, have cooties. It all goes back to my theory that sometimes, the writers would just throw darts at a wall with all the character names on it, and have those kids be involved in the B-plot project.

The BSC throws a welcome-home party for Jackie, and, among other minor disasters, David Michael drops a softball in the punch. The title quote is Mary Anne’s response.

Apparently, Claudia is soooooo cool that all the seventh graders want to be like her. Everyone wants to sit with her; many think her clothes are really cool and copy her; and the boys are all in awe. (She eventually calls the girls who copy her clothes ‘Claudia wannabes.’ If that were a band, I’d so buy their music.) That’s not even close to the experience I had in school with kids who were held back. They were almost universally pariahs, but I suspect that they were marginalized long before they were ever held back.

Claudia is actually happy to be back in seventh grade—because she’s doing so much better, academically—until she learns about the dance. She’d been planning what she would wear and who she would hang out with…and then she learns that the evening dance is just for eighth graders. I can understand this, but it goes back to my second point in the beginning of this entry: this is at least the tenth time Kristy and company have gone through eighth grade, and never once has there been a dance that the younger grades, including Mal and Jessi, haven’t been able to attend.

Heh heh. Claudia’s mom is that mom—the one who hands out raisins or dried apricots to the trick or treaters. Most people know that fact and don’t even come to the Kishis door any more. It’s like Mrs. Kishi knows that if she buys candy, Janine and Claudia will eat half of it before she gives it out.

Costume time! Mary Anne is Little Red Riding Hood, while Kristy is the Big Bad Wolf. Abby is going to be a soccer player and Jessi, a ballet dancer; way to put so much effort into it, girls. Stacey is going to be a flapper, while Mallory wants to be Emily Dickinson. I love the latter idea, but who would recognize her? It’s like the time I dressed up as Laura Bow—which involved looking a little flapper-y—and no one knew who I was at all. “I wanna marry an archeologist…and keep his artifacts warm!”*

HA! Claudia is depressed about not getting to go to the dance, so she doesn’t feel like doing her homework. She imagines that means she’ll get sent back to sixth grade and then some: “Claudia Kishi, Teenaged Kindergartner.”

More costumes: Alan Gray, the guy from The Mask. (There’s a dated reference.) Cokie, Barbie. Ron, the guy who has a crush on Claudia, is dressed as a knight. Claudia also sees kids dressed as Bart Simpson, Spock and a werewolf. Some of the teachers even get into the spirit of getting dressed up. Claudia sees Dracula, the bride of Frankenstein, Einstein and a gypsy.

Kiddy costumes: The triplets are all pirates, while Vanessa is a hippie and Nicky, a mummy. Margo and Claire are Pocahontas and/or Sacajawea. (They were arguing because they, like many other girls in 96, both wanted to be Pocahontas. Abby suggested Sacajawea instead and then they argued over that.) Charlotte and Becca are a doctor and ballerina, Jamie, a robot, and Jenny, a kitten. Laurel Kuhn was a fifties bobby socks and poodle skirt girl, while Patsy is a fairy princess.

Oh, pizza toast. The best way to celebrate? I guess….

So Claudia’s artwork wins first prize, and she learns her art teacher was held back not once but twice and survived. Suddenly she realizes how good her friends are and that this being-sent-back-illogically-to-seventh-grade thing isn’t as bad as she thought.

*No, I’m not marrying an archeologist. But…I did get engaged this Christmas! So I have that going for me…Maybe I should celebrate with a pizza toast?!

Yes, I am wearing a Hufflepuff shirt!

Outfits

Claudia: tie-dye leggings, black overall shorts, red high tops; black sweatshirt with the collar cut off, black jeans, purple high tops with orange laces; black wool jumper over red turtleneck; moss green Gap jeans, rust cardigan, platform Mary Janes, Pebbles Flintstone ponytail with moss green scrunchie; punk Halloween costume that she never wears: leather jacket, fishnet tights, spandex miniskirt, colored streak in her hair; black jumper with red embroidery, white turtleneck, earrings with red glass beads

Rosa: overalls, Doc Martens, black newsboy cap; overalls, shirt and straw for a scarecrow costume

Stacey: khaki skirt, white blouse

Next: We get to polish off the super mysteries! Hooray!