“I love it when you talk legalese.” BSC #98: Dawn and Too Many Sitters (1996)

So how many of these books feature ‘too many’ of something? Mary Anne gets that a couple times. There have been a few times that it’s been Teeki and Too Many BSC Books (2015), too.

It’s summer vacay, and the BSC is trying to raise money because SMS is sponsoring a trip to Hawaii. Most of the club members get permission to go, but they have to raise their own money to pay half the cost. As such, they’re fundraising through dubious methods and taking as many sitting jobs as possible. They decide to take on Jeff and the triplets as babysitters in training (BITs) after the boys express interest in starting their own club. The BITs all have their shortcomings as sitters, and the four of them eat all of Claudia’s junk food. Just as the club starts thinking of dumping them, the boys quit. All the sitters save enough money and get to go on the trip.

Interesting Tidbits

The cover: Dawn and Kristy’s expressions are priceless here.

Does it surprise anyone that I love this book? It’s got high doses of all my favorite sitting charges, and then some. Plus, as I pointed out in the last entry, it uses the word fart! I’m basically a ten year old boy sometimes myself, so I love that.

Dawn says that Jeff used to be normal, but not anymore. That’s the definition of a preteen boy, I’d say. (Oh, and Sunny knows how to get rid of Jeff when he’s being annoying: she suggests she knows a girl he should meet.)

Sunny’s trying to study by osmosis. This is funny to me because, in seventh grade, my science teacher had us sit with our textbook on our head for an entire class period and then leave our books overnight with him. The next day, we took a test over a chapter we hadn’t studied yet, to see if we’d learned anything by osmosis. (We didn’t.)

Jeff and Dawn start bickering, so Carol yells, “Yo, chill!” I can see why Dawn would find this cringeworthy. That’s the kind of thing I’d say as a joke when I was still working with teenagers instead of thieves.

Reading material for the trip to Stoneybrook? Jeff has The Kannibal Krew and Dawn, a Sierra Club magazine. But Dawn winds up falling asleep and dreaming that the BSC doesn’t want her back. They take a vote and everyone but Mary Anne votes for Abby instead of Dawn. I don’t know why she thinks it needs to be a competition. If it were an Abby story, I’d understand. She is the competitive type, but Dawn shouldn’t really know that.

I’ve always wondered about Dawn and Jeff’s route from CT to CA (or vice versa). It’s always seemed like they take direct flights. I could never figure out which airport they were going to; it could be a Connecticut airport, which would be small, or a New York airport, which would involve a long drive. In this one, they had a connection in an NYC airport to CT.

I love this: Jeff goes straight to the perfect audience for his god-awful jokes…Richard. Not only does he enjoy Jeff’s jokes…he knows a few equally bad jokes of his own. And he actually says something funny the next morning at breakfast!

Sharon-itis: barrette in the spinach salad or house key in Jell-O (hypothetical but still funny)

Ooh, and then Sharon gets to be funny: she says she ‘must attack the mall.’ I know that’s how I always feel about, say, Christmas shopping. It’s a feeding frenzy and the products are chum. (Gross, I know, but I refuse to enter indoor malls between Black Friday and New Year’s.)

I’m so sick of the way the BSC and Dawn’s California friends throw her parties and give her presents every time she leaves or comes back. I could maybe understand it the first time. But think of how much money these girls have spent on presents for someone they’re going to see again in a few months.

Claudia’s the one who first brings up the exciting news that SMS is sponsoring a trip for the students. She doesn’t tell anyone where they’re going, instead asking for suggestions. Which leads to…Mexico, Antarctica, Palo City, Downtown Stamford, and SMS summer school. Yeah, I definitely would want to pay to go to the last two, if I were them.

Shannon can’t go on the Hawaii trip because she’s going to camp starting the next week. (Logan: And I’m leaving for the Swiss Alps tomorrow. Mary Anne: You are? Logan: Nahhh. Sounds cool, though.) Both Mal and Kristy are also unable to go, Kristy because her family is going to Hawaii shortly after the trip ends and Mal because her parents can’t afford to pay half.

A big deal is made out of how expensive this $500 trip is. Now, I know it’s been nearly twenty years, but four of the teens I used to supervise went on a 10 day trip to Europe this summer, very similar to SS#15. All of those girls either agreed to pay the whole total for their trip, or half, same as the BSC. And theirs was $2400.

Sharon says she’d be willing to approve Dawn going on a sailing trip along Long Island Sound. Is she nuts? Not a good idea for Dawn, considering how it worked out last time she went sailing.

Jeff wants some of the ‘orange gloppy stuff,’ at dinner, which turns out to be sweet and sour pork. Or, as Dawn and I would call it, ‘sauce-drenched hunks of cooked dead pig.’ Yum?

Dawn actually questions Jeff’s grammar. I get it, though: he’s taken to calling the triplets JAB and referring to JAB in singular, but I think that she’s missing the point of the whole conversation. (Which is that Jeff and the triplets want to become babysitters, of course.)

The title is what Sharon says when Richard lays out the contract about the Hawaii trip to MA and Dawn.

Dawn keeps trying to insult Jeff’s jokes, but it doesn’t faze him. He thanks her after she calls his joke the worst joke in the history of the universe.

In keeping with my tedious over-chronicling of the Pike triplets, Byron is the one who comes up with the BIT idea. In addition to being described as more sensitive (and sometimes, by certain people, nicer) than his brothers, he’s routinely the logical triplet—the one who has the good ideas.

Abby makes a really terrible joke and Dawn says she should meet Jeff. I knew my most recent-still-in-progress fanfiction had a source!

I like this: Kristy agrees to let Jeff and JAB be trainee sitters because she knows they won’t last at it. This is true specifically of this book, and also true in general of ten year old boys. She says they’ll last until the first diaper change, which is funny given what happens next.

Ahh, here we go. The ‘tooting’ scene, as my niece would say. This scene has been thoroughly analyzed, for one very specific reason. For those of you who haven’t read this book for a while (or aren’t as enthusiastic about bodily function humor as I am), Byron lets loose a silent-but-deadly, and all the boys make a huge scene about it, rolling around laughing and accusing each other of being the one who let one loose. The analysis all comes from one single line: right after the gas-passing, Byron shoots a look at Jeff. There are those who believe that he was embarrassed to fart in front of Jeff specifically; these are, of course, people who believe that Byron had a little crush on Jeff. Me? I just think he’d farted in front of Jeff before and knew it wouldn’t pass unnoticed. The girls could potentially ignore a horrible smell, but Jeff isn’t exactly the type to let that stand. \ bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbm/,. *

Here’s the real kicker on the poot smelled ‘round the world, though: Jeff, Adam and Jordan proceed to accuse each other of the act. Byron, meanwhile, is completely mortified and it shows. It should have been completely obvious to the others exactly who was responsible.

Ha ha! Jeff helps Jessi babysit for the Prezziosos. The whole point of the chapter is that, although he’s good with Jenny, he’s not so good with baby Andrea. The best part is that Jenny calls him a baby for being scared to change a diaper. You know you’re being a weenie when a four year old calls you a baby.

Dawn, Dawn, Dawn. *shakes head* She has a health-foods ‘bake’ sale, and is surprised when she barely sells any food.

So what else are the BITs doing? Jeff wore rubber gloves to his next sitting job. Adam didn’t like the sound of babies crying. Jordan enjoyed changing diapers (uh, no comment) but ruined Jamie Newton’s art work. Byron drank a bunch of formula (I know he’s supposed to like eating, but, seriously…WTF?) and then double booked himself. He almost left Mal alone to sit for his siblings by herself, but instead told his coach he had another commitment instead of staying at the Little League game.

There’s this on-going thing about how the BITs are too young—they aren’t responsible yet. Yet everyone seems to forget that they are only a year younger than Mal and Jessi. Of course, there are many scenes where the older BSC members mention how much younger Mal and Jessi are/act. I don’t know if this book is supposed to be funny/ironic in that respect…and also what happens in Adam’s next babysitting job.

Okay, let’s describe this aforementioned sitting job in detail—or at least in summary—before I explain the implications. Stacey takes Adam to sit for the Braddocks. Haley freaks out about the idea of Adam being her sitter, because he’s only a year older. So she starts acting like a little shithead, suggesting Adam is Stacey’s boyfriend. (He brought her flowers on Mal’s suggestion.) Adam proves he’s not ready to be a sitter by egging her on and making things worse. Being Haley, she’s ready to punch Adam. Stacey has to play referee during her whole job, making it much harder than it should have been.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s discuss what this means. First, it’s proof of what the sitters have been saying: Adam (and the rest of the boys) aren’t really ready to be sitters. A big part of me wants to say duh because they’re only ten years old and most people would agree that kids that age probably should have their own sitter rather than be the sitter, but okay. The other point is Haley’s idea that Adam can’t be her sitter because he’s just a kid like her. She says, “It’s like we’re the same age.” This is the same complaint the triplets occasionally make about Mal. Like I said, I can’t decide if this is supposed to be funny, or ironic, or if this kind of went over all the writers’ heads.

(Oh, and I can’t help but read this and think how much it sounds like Adam and Haley were flirting when they’re calling each other ugly dork and cootie breath and birdbrain. If they were a couple years older… Feel free to let that form all kind of opinions about me in your minds.)

I’d forgotten all about this! Remember how Mary Anne’s behavior in #88 was sort of left dangling? She was cold and distant to Dawn and told her she had to sort things out in her own way. Dawn took that to mean she was planning her own special goodbye, but it never happened. This is Dawn’s next book with Mary Anne (and her second-to-last book in the BSC, period), so it finally gets addressed. MA tells Dawn she thought she had done something to make Dawn leave. It’s so normal-teen and so Mary Anne, but it’s nice that she’s self-aware enough to know it and over it enough to tell Dawn.

Mary Anne actually tells Dawn that because Dawn’s been charged with firing Jeff as a BIT. Mal is supposed to do the same for the triplets. But the two of them wind up getting lucky because the BITs have decided to quit. It’s kind of a cop out, but I think it was another attempt at humor or irony. In the note to the reader, AMM says the boys decided they weren’t ready to sit, but that’s not really true. They decide that sitting is taking up too much time—in other words, they got bored with it.

I don’t know who Livi Becker is, but the book is dedicated to her, and she’s randomly mentioned in the middle of a scene.

In order to raise enough money to get to Hawaii (and not lose their parents’ deposits), the BSC put on a fair at the Fourth of July before the fireworks. It’s all pretty standard BSC fair, although this was funny. The BITs help out, with Adam and Byron as Kristy’s magician’s assistants. When one of the audience members realizes he has the same magic kit at home and knows how all the tricks work, Kristy says, “I shall now perform the magic trick of making Linny Papadakis disappear,” and motions for her assistants, who come at him like bodyguards. Linny pipes down.

So it looks like the BIT experience did some good for the Pikes. Mal and Jessi babysat, but barely had to do anything. Byron played with Claire, Jordan played with Nicky and Vanessa, and Adam made lunch. It’s suggested that, if the triplets are around, only one sitter will be necessary for the Pikes for the future. That lasts for all of, like, ten books or so, I think. We’ll see.

So that’s it. My final Dawn book. I’m actually kind of sad about that. Dawn may not have ever been my favorite sitter, but I’ve invested a lot of time (read: too much time) in this series and the idea of not getting a whole book of Dawn again is a little depressing.

The BSC just depressed me. Oh man, I need a life.

*Sorry. Scout (formerly the B3 kitten, now the B3 fat cat) decided to sit on the keyboard because I was ignooooooooring her. I didn’t notice she’d typed something until I posted this. But the letters in question are appropriate given the topic, so I decided to let it stand.

"Grr! I am vicious!" says Scout

Outfits

Kristy: big purple glasses, loud striped shirt, mismatched suspenders, a pair of antennae

What’s next? Of course! SS #13!

“Where do radiators come from? Well, first a mommy radiator and a daddy radiator have to meet…” BSC Mystery #25: Kristy and the Middle School Vandal (1996)

This one is a big ball of awesome sauce. Why? I’ll tell you why! Two words: Cary Retlin.

Okay, so the cover’s a little premature here, but there ya go. This is Cary’s first appearance on the cover. He’s got the same haircut as this boy I had a giant crush on, starting in fifth grade and ending sometime around high school graduation. He and Kristy are not only dressed alike, they’re also wearing Twin Hideous Expressions.

Kristy tells Cary to stop pranking, and in return, he challenges the BSC to a mystery contest. He gives them a series of clues that lead to another clue…if the BSC solves the mystery in a time frame, Cary will stop pulling pranks.

Meanwhile, the Mischief Knights (presumed but never proven to be Cary and possibly some friends) have ramped up their pranks, but something’s off. The new pranks are less mischievous and more criminal. Plus, instead of using red ink, a MK signature, these new pranks use green ink. Eventually it comes out that someone colorblind is using the MK name to commit these crimes. Cary has the BSC’s mystery contest lead to the identity of the fake knight.

In the B plot, the BSC sets up a ridiculous scavenger hunt for the kids.

Interesting Tidbits

Huh. Kristy’s the only short person in her family. She figures she’ll grow eventually, like a late bloomer. That’s an interesting perspective, considering there’s a lot of theory on Kristy being a sexual late bloomer as well. Or, you know, a lesbian. But in either case, the late bloomer idea would also be another explanation for her not needing a bra.

Hint #1: Abby, Kristy and Shannon are all sharing a hammock, just relaxing and having fun. Abby flashes back to #96, and the boy selling the study guides. Shannon: “Who’s Brad Simon? Is he smart? Is he cute?” Abby’s disgusted at Shannon’s naïve taste in men. Both he and another boy, Troy Parker, both got two week suspensions recently.

INNNNNNN-teresting: Apparently, the dangling plot-point of SM#2—the notes to Mary Anne and Logan—were actually written by the Mischief Knights. Would have been nice if they’d said that at the time.

Abby makes a Mischief Knight pun…and then a pun pun. “What you need to do, Kristy, is catch Cary red-handed. Get it?” “Are you calling me a punhead?”

I love how dismissive Cary is about the BSC and their mysteries. “Do you make citizens’ arrests, too?” He also calls them the babysitter detective squad and BSCPD, too.

Cary takes Kristy’s watch, and says if he wins the contest, he gets to keep it. Kristy’s upset about this, because it’s a ‘fun’ watch—digital, with a bunch of accessories on it. I’m thinking of one of my favorite books:

            Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the

            western spiral arm of the galaxy lies a small, unregarded yellow sun.

            Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an

            utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended

            life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches

            are a pretty neat idea.

Do you think Claudia even knows who Jerry Garcia is? Dawn, definitely. Abby (who said her mom used to love the Grateful Dead), sure. But Claud? She’s probably more familiar with Cherry Garcia.

I love how, every now and then, they throw out the fact that Mal likes to carry a briefcase. It’s weird, sure, but it’s also quirky.

In this book, Abby is described as ‘medium height’, while she was very tall in book #89.

I think this sums up the Abby-Kristy relationship right here: “Abby just won’t back down, even when I know I’m right.” You know Abby would basically say the same thing about her, too.

Claudia is talking with her mouth full and her speaking is described as ‘gummily.’ A) I love that term and B) spell check says it’s a real word!

Okay, BSC quiz time. Only those with a 100 percent score will be allowed to keep reading. Ready? Here we go.

            Who suggested which theme for the scavenger hunt?

1.    Jessi                     a. School

2.    Mallory                 b. Summer

3.    Abby                     c. Art

4.    Claudia                d. Sports

5.    Abby                     e. Famous Writers

6.    Mallory                 f. Dance

Clue # 1: Get your mother (understands). It leads to the gym, under the stands.

Fake MK incident # 1: A car that looks exactly like the vice principal’s bar the color is graffitied with green marker

Hint # 2: Troy Parker, the boy who got suspended with Brad, is in the gym. Claudia remarks on his bad color sense.

Clue # 2: First, it says ‘a clue’ on the envelope. Kristy says that makes Cary sarcastic, which I don’t quite get. But, here’s the clue: A drop of golden sun; just short of failing, a skater’s figure; not him, you see, but… (where does it all come from?) If you’re following that…it’s Re (Julie Andrews, y’all), D (not an F), 8 (figure eight as double four…), Her (not him): Radiator.

While they’re working that out, though, the club tries all sorts of ideas. They try to go The Sound of Music from the first bit, getting the first letter of each music note: drmfsltd. Unfortunately, it has no meaning…not even in ‘Claudia’s dictionary.’

The title quote is Abby’s take on the last piece of the clue. (Stacey determines they actually have to go to the boiler room.)

There’s this whole subplot relating to everything else about how the teachers will strike if an agreement can’t be reached soon. A member of the school board brings up the problems with the Mischief Knights as an example of why the teachers don’t deserve more money. It’s really just an excuse to set him (Mr. Oates, though Abby calls him Mr. Votes after they learn he wants to use the school board as a stepping stone to run for mayor) and a weird school custodian as suspects in the crimes.

Kristy decides that “The Clue in the Boiler Room” sounds like a Nancy Drew book. I snicker a little bit each time someone suggests their mystery is like a Nancy Drew or Claudia wonders what Nancy would do.

Clue # 3 is labeled le clue and reads “Toasted gloves or barbecued bats, anyone?”                                                      It’s a pretty obvious reference to the building that burned to the ground back in #74.

Fake MK incident # 2: the fire alarm gets pulled twice in one day.

Hint # 3: Troy is once again near the BSC while they’re outside in the aftermath of the fire alarm. Claudia and Stacey critique his outfit (‘Grunge is so over’) and Abby suggests he got it at a fire sale. This is both a really bad pun and an excuse for Troy to show up wearing hideous clothes again. Although, the custodian and Mr. Oates are both at the school at the time as well.

Kristy dismisses Cary as a suspect in the criminal MK acts, stating: “Cary was too sold in his own cleverness.” Basically, these acts were not Cary’s style. In my words, they didn’t have his sense of flair. (Later, he mentions that the acts lack subtlety, which is also true. Cary’s stuff is usually things that are more subtle and pretty harmless, like how he erases the answers on Kristy’s math homework.)

Here’s something for Mal to put on her resume: Experienced with charging herds of kids. It might be useful in some odd set of circumstances…maybe….

Mal and Stacey actually synchronize their watches before setting off on the first scavenger hunt.

Clue # 4: cafeteria hamburger + A Theory of Man and Woman - SMS on street = a fly on the wall of… It takes the BSC a while to work this one out. Stacey dominates this one, determining it’s numerical. Hamburger: $1.69. Theory’s card catalog number: 305. SMS: 358 Elm Street. That works out to classroom 116, where they find a giant photo of a fly.

Ha! The local newspaper runs an editorial about the vandalism in the school, followed by a bunch of letters to the editor. One of them is written by the same crotchety old man who complained during the whole Mischief Night Masquerade thingee.

Fake MK Incident # 3: A bathroom gets flooded

Mary Anne’s concerned that the green used by the fake Mischief Knights doesn’t fit their aura. Admittedly, she says it’s what Dawn would say, but it still sounds kind of funny. It does lead her to consider that it’s a frame up, someone trying to put the blame on the real Mischief Knights.

Clue # 5: “Nothing personal, Claudia, but check your spelling.” Claudia figures out it means the computer she used to use to write her personals column in #71. It makes her spell a bunch of words, including peculiar. “I think you should be able to spell peculiar any way you want to. It goes with the definition.” It leads them straight to…

Clue # 6: “B2 or not B2…that is the question. (Are you sitting down?)” This one takes the BSC a while, and threw me off entirely…because I’d read it Shakespearean out of force of habit (to be, not B2). It’s a clearly a reference to the aforementioned seat in the auditorium.

Funniest part of Kristy and Claudia in the newspaper office: The computer is giving the spelling test out loud. Kristy keeps waiting for Emily (the paper editor…remember?) to comment, but she waits until everything is over. Then she says she knows Cary is behind it because he came in and asked a bunch of questions about Claudia. This is presumably where he learns how bad Claudia’s spelling is, but Emily jumps to the assumption that Cary has a thing for Claud.

Ooh, remember how Abby referred to Jessi as Jessica in #96? In a joint notebook entry, Abby makes a really bad pun about dancing. In return, Jessi calls her Abigail.

The second scavenger hunt is sports themed, and one of the items asks for something that might be dirty on the court. Jessi’s team (the girls) decide on socks, so they go to that well-known local athlete…Mrs. Porter/Morbidda Destiny. Riiiiiight. Good plan.

Mary Anne says Dawn will be there for the summer, which sets up the last two Dawn books.

Clue # 7: Envelope reads ‘Clue—in case you hadn’t noticed.’ See why I love Cary? What a goof ball. Anyway, the inside says, “Hey Abby. IPA2tFotUSoAand2tR. (look up)” There’s also a drawing of four Harry-Pottery wizards. They don’t figure this one out right away.

Fake MK Incident # 4: The sets for the school play are trashed, right in front of Mr. Oates and the custodian, making them seem more suspicious

Ooh, I like this. The reporter for the Stoneybrook News is Ms. Bernstein. The editor for the SMS paper is Emily Bernstein. Think they’re related?

Kristy turns Cary into the principal after the BSC is caught at the scene of the crime in the auditorium. He shows up at Claudia’s during a BSC meeting to talk to Kristy. A) It’s funny that he knows when the BSC meets, but not entirely out of character. B) He gives her all his alibis for the Fake MK incidents, which is hilarious. First he states that he’s not able to telekinetically turn on faucets in the bathroom, then he offers to get a sworn affidavit from the sixth grader he was tutoring during the auditorium incident.

Is anyone surprised that Mallory spent an inordinate amount of time putting all the clues in the mystery notebook the night before? No? Me neither.

The first scavenger hunt featured Stacey and Mal; the second, Abby and Jessi. The third? MA and Claud. Which means…spelling! (It should be noted that earlier, during her spelling test, we only see Claudia’s spelling on one word: poetatoe.) Awsome, scavinger, realy, reserch, totaly, luved. She also spells Mary Anne wrong as well.

Here’s the problem with the scavenger hunt. There are points for how many items you can find, as well as how quickly you get back (the teams have an hour; lateness costs points) and also creativity. But the three different scavenger hunts have three different themes, so how can you compare stinky gym socks to a square of astro turf from a different list of clues? They do end up declaring a winner, but it’s silly and so subjective.

Back to the last clue: Once they start solving it—Abby takes this clue very personally, since it has her name in it—it should be pretty obvious. And it is. She figures out that USoA is United States of America (duh) and then both Kristy and Abby determine that the rest of the random letters/numbers are the Pledge of Allegiance. The four Harry Potters? Four Witches Stand…or, for which it stands. The clue is found on the flag in the homeroom Abby and Cary share.

Oh, and when Abby finds it, she reads, “Bring me the head of the false Mischief Knight!” But when I first read it, I thought she’d shouted it out loud, instead of that being the last clue. Can you imagine what kind of response that would bring from anyone else who happened to be nearby and had no idea what was going on? Not that Abby’s the type to shy away from that. I could even picture her cackling evilly afterward….

So I just spoiled the last clue for you, obviously. Kristy wonders whether Cary knows the identity of the false Mischief Knight, and if he does, would he turn the person in if the BSC doesn’t figure it out. “Or did he think going to school in the middle of summer was another one of those complications that make life more interesting?” I love it when they reference my favorite BSC line of all time.

It’s around this time that the BSC Mary Anne realizes that the fake Mischief Knight is colorblind, unable to tell the difference between green and red. It explains why the fake MK always writes in green instead of red, as Cary does, as well as mistaking a teacher’s green car for the vice principal’s red car of the same model. Claudia then makes the connection that it must be Troy, whose clothes never match.

Someone calls Mary Anne ‘Sherlock Spier’…and no, it’s not Abby. That’s more surprising than the nickname itself.

I like this: Even though they suspect Troy is the faux Mischief Knight, Kristy halts the group from going to the principal again…because she already turned in the wrong person once. Good to know Kristy has a conscience.

So, to get more proof, the BSC decides to…break into Troy’s locker. Because I know if I were the principal, I’d be swayed with some illegally gathered evidence. Now, kids do not have a right to privacy in their school lockers, but as a general rule, you can’t open just one person’s locker without some proof. Random locker checks—every locker in this hallway, for example—are acceptable, but you can’t target one person without proof.

Cary says the BSC needs him, because he keeps them from being complacent and boring. I looooooove (luv, maybe?) it. And to prove it, he papers Kristy’s locker with magazine perfume ads…the type that have a sample of the perfume.

Outfits

Nannie: overalls covered in dirt and grass, giant hat, gardening gloves (hee hee!)

Watson: ancient dirty khakis, giant hat, gardening gloves and pitchfork (but apparently, no shirt. Go Watson!)

Emily Michelle: Oshkosh overalls, sunbonnet.

Claudia: baggy white overalls, yellow, pink and green tie dye t-shirt, white socks with pink hearts, pink jellies, a ring on every finger, peace sign earrings, and a button with ‘Jerry Garcia lives’ on it

Stacey: black leggings, silver t-shirt dress, heart earrings, black and silver headband

Mrs. Prezzioso: ‘blinding’ tennis whites

Jenny: perfectly creased overalls, scallop-edged white shirt, red bandana around her neck, red lace-trimmed socks and white sneakers

Next: one of my favorites. It’s got my five favorite sitting charges, four of them in large doses. And, I’m pretty sure it’s the only BSC book to ever use the word FART! You have to love that, right?

“I felt as if I’d just been kicked in the stomach by a Tyrannosaurus rex.” BSC #95: Kristy + Bart = ? (1996)

This book is one big OH HELL YEAH! moment. I mean, let’s look at all the reasons.

1.    It’s an issue book, which always equals awesome.

2.    The title is a math problem, which means Stacey should like it.

3.    There’s making out!

4.    KRISTY is the one making out!

5.    Kristy also gets super-duper-mega grounded.

Come on, people! How does it get any better than that?

As for the plot: Do I really need to explain it? Or can you get it from that synopsis?

Interesting Tidbits

As I’ve mentioned before, the last regular-series book I owned as a child was #73. But it wasn’t the last book I read. About once a month, my mother would drop my sister and I off at the mall. I wasn’t really much of a shopper, so I used to always go to the bookstore and spend 90% of the time we were at the mall curled up in the Super Crown or Waldenbooks. In March of 1996, I was fifteen, and I spent almost two hours reading this piece of literary genius. I literally remembered two pieces about it later: one was the basic plot that Kristy was ambivalent about Bart and a real relationship. The other part, I’ll mention as it pops up. 

The cover: Kristy looks like she’s got a serious problem with Bart’s arm. Incredulous Kristy is back, and this time, she’s gonna take revenge…on an appendage!

Here’s #6 for our reasons this book rocks: Peter Lerangis wrote it.

I love it when Claudia uses vocabulary words no one else knows. I also love it when Abby makes fun of her by making words up.

I can’t understand Kristy’s obsession with Anna. She’s nice but not exactly friendly, and she seems to constantly blow Kristy off. Yet Kristy spends a lot of time trying to be good friends with her. Also, Anna is so one-dimensional at this point; she thinks only of music.

Nannie’s handwriting looks a lot like Kristy’s. I love the fact that she wrote her note in little snippets, as if she were giving quick directions before rushing out the door.

Apparently the Pink Clinker has more than 100K miles on it….like that’s some sort of accomplishment.

Haha! Charlie’s making out in the Junk Bucket, which Kristy insists is no big deal. Yet she gets all embarrassed and runs off before he can see her “spying” on him.

Kristy says that the rule that no girlfriends are allowed in the house when no one else is home is stupid. This is how you can tell she’s too young for a boyfriend (or girlfriend, if you subscribe to that logic), because she doesn’t have any clue why her mom’s rule is a good one…and pretty standard for most parents. I would have understood that rule at her age. Hell, I would have understood that rule at Karen’s age.

“Joke. Get it? Eye exam…Ralph?” No, I don’t get it. Does anyone get it? Care to explain it to me? Actually, better yet, don’t.

Leave it to Karen. Bart points out they can’t play softball yet because they’re still wearing down coats. Karen: “Mine’s not down. It’s Hollofil.” She’s so literal it’s annoying.

How do the Pikes not have a toilet plunger? Mrs. Pike calls the BSC and, in addition to asking for a sitter, she asks Mallory to borrow the Kishis’ plunger. Mal isn’t at all concerned about why the plunger is necessary…just the fact that she has to carry it down the street.

Oh, and there’s a bad pun: Abby volunteers to take the plunge and sit for the Pikes with Mal.

I’m with Kristy. When someone puts his arm around you and you sit in the same position for too long, it’s uncomfortable. Of course, Kristy’s really just having an issue with it because she doesn’t like Bart that way, but I happen to agree with her on that part of it.

Kristy suggests that the Pike neighbors must all use earplugs all day long to deal with how loud they are. I would think that if the houses are far enough apart, it would muffle the sound enough.

The Pikes actually make Abby cry! The subplot of the book is the various kids setting crazy records. (Vanessa wins a speed multiplication contest; Margo wears the most hats on her head, etc.) Claire and Vanessa start a bubble gum spit, and a wad (I love that word) ends up in Abby’s hair. When peanut butter and ice don’t work, Mal has to cut the gum free.

Bart suggests that Logan’s only in the BSC because Mary Anne is in it. It rubs Kristy the wrong way even though it’s actually true. Logan only tries to join the BSC because Mary Anne was a member. I have the feeling if she was in the glee club, he would have joined that instead. Or the cheerleaders….

Oh, and interestingly, Bart says Logan’s only in the BSC because ‘his girlfriend’ is in it as a way of dismissing Kristy’s idea that he should join the club. But…he called Kristy his girlfriend earlier and clearly wants the kind of relationship Logan and Mary Anne have, so why would he say that?

This is actually what’s interesting about this book: Kristy isn’t totally comfortable with Bart, and she doesn’t want a kissyface (her word) lovey-dovey relationship with him. She’d rather play softball than hold hands, and actually watch movies instead of making out in the back of the theater. Yet she’s jealous of Logan and Mary Anne and how easy and natural romance seems for them. Who didn’t feel that way at one point or another in their teens? Or at least know someone who felt that way? It’s a lot more realistic than many of the other book plot lines, even though Kristy’s all muddled. She’s acting like a normal teenager, blaming Bart for everything even though she’s as much at fault as he is.

Another really bad pun: The Brewer-Thomas kids were singing the longest version of The Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly. Karen sings the wrong line, about a yak swallowing a platypus when she should have said the yak swallowed the gnu. David Michael pipes up from his own room and shouts, “No gnus is good news!” Abby would be so proud.

Let’s back up here a minute. Remember the rule about no girlfriends when no one else is home? Remember how Kristy would have rather been watching the movie with Bart than kissing him? Okay. Bart shows up at Kristy’s house while she’s babysitting and everyone else is in bed. She lets him in to watch the game, and doesn’t even stop to consider that no girlfriends when no one else is home also means no boyfriends when no one else at home is awake. This is because a) she doesn’t consider Bart her boyfriend, really, and b) she is actually just thinking about watching the game, not making out. But of course Watson and her mother come home while they’re kissing. (It’s nothing too wild and crazy, of course: all their clothes are still on and all of their hands are still where they can be seen…)

“As if he’d just stumbled onto a murder scene, with the killer still there.” Kristy’s take on Watson’s expression when he finds her and Bart alone.

Ooh, you know Kristy’s mom is mad because she calls her Kristin Amanda. Heehee!

The title quote is Kristy’s reaction to having to have a long talk with her mother…which then doesn’t happen. She apologizes and her mom grounds her.

I’ve heard some other people complain about the way Kristy is grounded. She’s not allowed to leave her bedroom except to go to the bathroom. If Kristy were an only child, I’d agree that was cruel. But honestly, being punished by being stuck in your house when there are 9 other people running around isn’t really a punishment. So they have to lock her away.

Sorry, I had to take an hour long break to cry because I just finished watching the episode of Doctor Who in which the tenth doctor sacrifices himself to save the most awesome old man. “I’m still not ginger!” So much more heartbreaking than Kristy’s whininess about being grounded.

So what’s Kristy’s whine? She blames Bart for what happened that night, and for her getting caught. This is such a teenager thing and so realistic. Yes, Bart came over when she was sitting, but she didn’t have to let him in. Yes, he kissed her, but she let him…and kissed him back. She could have stopped it, but, as she says, “Kissing was much more fun.” So she’s as much to blame as he is, but her attitude is so typical.

Oh, and Kristy imagines that Abby can’t handle all the kids at the record-making event the two of them had scheduled. She seems to think Abby will have an allergic reaction to that many children. Not only is this really silly, but it verifies the fact that Kristy doesn’t completely trust Abby. (I’m sure Kristy thinks she could handle all the kids on her own, no problem.)

Although, Kristy keeps finding humorous ways to spend her incarceration, such as looking up prison-related words in the thesaurus. She decides she’s a political prisoner under house arrest.

When Kristy calls Abby, Abby almost hangs up on her because it feels like “minus one in the morning.” I’m guessing Abby is NOT a morning person.

My one really strong memory of this book was actually a little hazy. I thought that Kristy had Krushers practice during her grounding and kept yelling out the window to give Abby direction. It was actually that stupid record-setting-meeting that Kristy keeps yelling out the window about. And when her mom tells her she can’t talk, she pantomimes. And when her mom catches her at that, she throws paper airplanes. This is both so silly and so Kristy-resourceful.

I love Abby’s thoughts on Kristy’s weekend (paraphrased): “So, you guys are going to have to play tonsil hockey at Bart’s from now on, huh?” This is also accurate to teens. I know I had that one friend who thought/spoke like that in my teens.

Stacey actually wears a designer baseball cap…but brings along an old, dirty one in case it rains. Oh, Stacey. (You also know she’s in for a great sitting job when she’s greeted at the door by Haley screaming at the top of her lungs.)

Kristy’s trying to figure out her emotions. She doesn’t want to call Mary Anne, since she’s afraid she’ll sound like a baby in comparison to the whole long-term relationship thing MA’s got going, so she calls Jessi…who suggests she call MA. I can only imagine how MA feels when Kristy calls her—crying—and speaks so fast that Mary Anne has to respond, “Say it again, slowly, as if I’m just learning English.”

I like Mary Anne’s response. She points out how young Kristy was when she learned to walk, while MA was a late walker, and then reminds her how everyone grows and matures at their own rates. Even Kristy admits it’s not something she didn’t already know.

Claudia spelling! HOO-ray! Desided, somthing, gyes, realy, funy, evry, somtimes. She also uses no for know, write for right, two for too and grate for great. But best of all, she knows she has lousey speling.

Claudia solves a record-related problem by finding records the little kids—Jenny, Jamie, and Claire—could make without the older kids wanting to best them. (Haley had taught Jenny the potato throw during Stacey’s sitting job, but because she couldn’t throw as far, she threw a tantrum about it.)

Claudia’s signs for the record-setting talent show: Outrageous, Death-Defying, Stupendist, Hare-Raising, Sensational, Colossal and Phenominal.

Jessi asks Mary Anne how to spell Ohdner. Why bother? The Ohdners never go to events like this, because they’re not insane like the rest of Stoneybrook.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Kristy says Zounds! That’s one of my favorite expressions, (as should be clear from a couple books ago) ever since I discovered King’s Quest VI and everyone’s least-favorite computer game character, Alexander of Daventry. I even dressed at Prince Alexander for Halloween one year.

It wouldn’t be a Peter Lerangis book if someone weren’t throwing food. Logan pretended to throw a roll at Bart earlier, and now Claudia throws a chocolate croissant at Kristy. I’m surprised Claudia didn’t eat the croissant instead. What a waste of something chocolaty.

I’m not sure Bart ever shows up in another book. I’m glad that the two of them worked out their differences, but the whole point is that they decide to just be friends…and then stop talking to each other. At some point, they even stop mentioning the Krushers altogether.

Outfits

Claudia: Bowling shirt with the name Ralph (‘get it?’) on it

Next: Mary Anne’s book

“For Claudia to spell only one word wrong on five posters is pretty close to a miracle.” BSC Mystery #22: Stacey and the Haunted Masquerade (1995)

 Oh, look. It’s Halloween again. Various people are trying to stop the masquerade from happening because the last time one was held, twenty-eight years, a tragedy happened. Everyone assumes that it was some minor issue, but a girl actually had a meltdown after some boys played a prank on her. She killed the lights and pulled the fire alarm; a teacher died of a heart attack in the aftermath of the resulting stampede. Weird things are happening all over school as the Mischief Knights perform harmless pranks like switching locker contents and filling an art cabinet with marbles, but some other pranks relate directly to the dance, like decorations being shredded. It turns out the mentally disturbed girl from the earlier dance came back to seek revenge on the school and on a new sixth grade teacher, Mr. Rothman, who knew her back in the day.

Meanwhile, the movie Ghostbusters has been playing non-stop on a local movie station and all the kids are crazy about busting ghosts.

Interesting Tidbits

The cover. It’s been a while since I’ve read this, but that has to be Stacey and Mary Anne as Morticia and Dorothy, looking properly outraged at the mysteriousness of this mystery. Why is MA taller than Stacey, though?

The book starts with Stacey waxing philosophical on the meaning of homeroom, aka creative doodling class. She says it’s nothing like home; for example, her mother almost never takes attendance.

Stacey’s new favorite song is “Sister Sally” by the group Great Blue Whales. A) That band sounds like something Dawn would get into. B) I now have that 80’s song “Sister Christian” stuck in my head, only I keep putting Sally into the lyrics. “You’re motorin’… what’s your price for flight?” I don’t know if those are the right lyrics or a mondegreen, though. (They’re right! Usually I can’t get lyrics correct without looking them up.)

Apparently, Mr. Kingsbridge has no fashion sense. I’d honestly be more worried if Stacey, who likes Claudia’s fashion sense, thought he did have some.

I’m trying to figure out why this Halloween Masquerade is any different than any other Halloween dance that they didn’t call a masquerade. Maybe at this one, costumes are required? I mean, Bart and Kristy once dressed as lobsters, and Logan and Mary Anne have dressed as cats before. Not really any different, if you ask me. I know they just had to have not had the Masquerade in 28 years because of what happened ‘last time’ but honestly. I can’t think of a single way this plot would have worked if it were a non-Halloween dance, though, so I’ll let it go.

Hmm. Logan is sitting with the BSC at lunch. I’ll buy that. But so are Pete and Alan. What are they doing there? (Unless they have little crushes on someone else at the table…yes, I’m totally talking about Logan.)

Stacey says there will be a quiz on the information about the BSC. Chapter two would have been a lot more interesting if she had ended the chapter with a minutiae quiz regarding the members. “What color shoelaces was Claudia wearing today? What order were the Pike triplets listed in this time? Which member was described first, Kristy or Mary Anne?” Instead, you get a quiz on whom/what each BSC member will be going to the masquerade as, which is boring because you would have found that out later anyway.

Claudia misplaced a pair of purple orange and green paisley leggings and finds them during the meeting. Kristy: “How could you miss them?” I think she misplaced those in 1990, because I swear I had a pair just like that someone gave me for Christmas when I was nine.

Anyone surprised that Stacey writes with a purple felt-tipped pen? Nope. I didn’t think so.

Oooooooooh! I’m so excited. Ladies and gentlemen (if any are reading this), I’m proud to introduce my favorite non-sitting charge character in the entire history of the BSC: Mr. Cary Retlin. I didn’t realize this was his first appearance. Mr. Retlin proceeds to be one of the most entertaining characters throughout the rest of the series, on into the Friends Forever/Forever Friends/Whatever the Hell That’s Called series.

Stacey is a girl after my own heart. She says that the BSC has been ‘Cokified’ a few times. I just recently was referring to a day with my least-favorite coworker as being ‘Jessinfected,’ but I may have to use ‘Jessified’ instead.

When Abby arrives at the Pike house, Adam and Byron are ‘ghostbusting’ with the aid of a plastic ray gun and a vacuum cleaner hose. I was always the kid who had the gun made of vacuum cleaner tubing or the fairy wand that was really just a stick. I think a lot of the problem with kids these days is that they don’t play imagination games, and when they do, their parents buy them the toys. Little girls playing Frozen with their mom’s old blue dress and winter gloves and a homemade Olaf have so much more imagination and fun than those whose parents buy them a $50 costume and all the expensive toys.

When Cary unleashes the Mischief Knights on the school, one of his earliest pranks is to write messages on various blackboards. When MA asks what the message says, Kristy cracks that it said not to eat the Salisbury Steak that MA had just taken a bite of.

I love that no one can figure out who is responsible for the Mischief Knights, despite the fact that everything starts right after Cary shows up. Of course, it’s also right after Abby shows up, too. In fact, she suggests she could be responsible…and Mary Anne also says she could be the prankster, which makes everyone laugh, including me.

I love that Grace sides with the majority against Cokie during the dance committee meeting. I know these characters aren’t real (I know you may not be able to tell, but I do! I do!) but I really want to see Grace break free from Cokie altogether.

I love it! Abby pulls apart a Twizzler pull and peel and then braids it back together during one of the meetings. I used to do that all the time.

Ooh, suspect list time. Mr. Wetzler, the guy who keeps writing to the editor about how the school shouldn’t be having a masquerade at all. Grace, who’s just being ‘too nice.’ Cokie, because she didn’t like the red and purple dance color scheme (and so far, the decorations and posters are the only thing that have been vandalized). The Mischief Knights, because, well. Mischief.

Time for some awesomely bad spelling! Wuld, thouhgt, eigth, coud, gohst, beleive, becuase, gohstbusters.

Consistency: Mrs. Arnold goes crazy decorating for holidays, including decorating herself.

The Arnold girls have been building an ‘ectoplasmic turbulence detector’ in the basement. Or, as Marilyn calls it, a ghost finder. They do, indeed find a ghost…or at least a squirrel.

Ha! Best line of the entire book: “Twenty-eight years ago? You’re asking a lot. I can’t even remember what I had for dinner last night.” This is what Sharon says when Mary Anne, Logan and Stacey ask her about the last masquerade.

Richard does seem to remember, though. I’m trying to do some math again. The dance was 28 years ago and Richard says he was in sixth grade at the time, making him 39 or 40, but in an earlier book he was 43 or so. I think it would have been more interesting if he’d actually been at the dance and knew these people instead of the BSC falling into the information.

In 1995, 28 years ago would have been 1967. So I’m not too surprised that the name of the band that played the masquerade is The Groovy Tangerine. But, honestly? I know I’ve said it before, but…a band at a middle school dance? They can’t have been very good.

Abby would be the one to suggest that the teacher who died, Mr. Brown, is the vandal. I mean, Dawn’s no longer around to bring up ghosts. (After she says that, Mary Anne tells Stacey to turn the yearbook page because she doesn’t like the way Mr. Brown’s photo is ‘looking at her.’)

Stacey actually calls the nutcase, Mr.Wetzler, who keeps going on about waste in the school budget. She lies that she’s a reporter for the school paper to get more information about the last masquerade out of him. All she’s able to find out is that a girl got jilted and then never came back to school.

When Logan says Alan once showed him a bunch of old records in the basement, Stacey thinks he means old vinyl records, ‘like the BeeGees.’ Where has Stacey ever heard of the BeeGees?

The BSC figures out that the girl, Elizabeth Connor, lived in Charlotte’s house at the time of the ‘incident’ in 1967. Isn’t that convenient? Stacey brings the Braddocks over so that the kids can all ghostbust together and she and Mary Anne can do the kind of snooping you normally need a warrant for. There’s a mistake in among that, though: Charlotte has both a spirit collector, like Abby made with the Pikes, and a ghost detector like the Arnolds created. But it says that Arnold made the ghost detector.

Costumes:

            Robert and Stacey: Gomez and Morticia Addams                  

            Mary Anne and Logan: Dorothy and the Scarecrow

            Mal: ballerina

            Jessi: cow girl

            Abby: Lucy Ricardo

            Kristy: Amelia Earhart

            Claudia: giant Twinkie

            Grace: Snow White

            Todd and Rick: Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble

            Mr. Rothman: football player

            Sabrina Bouvier: Cleopatra

            Cary: a knight chess piece

Heh. Grace isn’t talking to Cokie because Cokie thinks that Grace’s boyfriend is imaginary. It’s the stupidest D plot ever, but almost realistic.

So Elizabeth Connor had been unpopular and the butt of jokes back in the day. She had a giant crush on Mike Rothman (who is now a new sixth grade teacher and the dance committee’s supervisor.) His friends bet him he wouldn’t take her to the dance and last the whole night. He didn’t tell her what was going on, but she figured it out when she saw the exchange of money. She went outside, the fire alarm got pulled…you can make the connection.

Oh, I figured out the way they can get away with the dance issue. This isn’t a Halloween dance. It’s a Mischief Night dance, on October 30^th. Because that’s such a big difference.

“It was like something out of a bad horror movie.” Funniest, most ironic line in one of these books.

Stacey still considers the fact that the ghost of Mr. Brown could be behind all the vandalism.

Lame-o. The story leaves off at the end of chapter 14 when Liz Connor removes the cape she stole from Mr. Rothman’s date, revealing a fairy princess costume—which is what she was wearing the night of the dance years ago. The next chapter starts with Shannon asking, “And then what happened?” It spoils all the drama because you know all the BSC members are okay. It's a (Like any of them would actually get injured or anything. This isn’t a Temperance Brennan book, where the main character nearly dies in every one of her adventures.) It's a total copout.

Grace and Cokie make up and go back to normal. I’m so sad about that.

Outfits

Mr. Fiske: yellow tie covered in punctuation marks (very apropos for an English teacher)

Grace: thermal leggings, blue plaid flannel shirt

Mrs. Arnold: black velvet skirt, white satin blouse, dangly pumpkin earrings, pumpkin pendant, dangly pumpkin bracelet

Jessi: fringed leather vest and skirt, cowboy boots, ten gallon hat (ooh, is she not wearing anything under the vest? racy!)

Kristy: leather jacket, high boots, long white scarf, helmet and goggle

New Characters:

Cary Retlin (13)—33

Next: Dawn’s Book