“Life is a cheeseburger.” BSC #70: Stacey and the Cheerleaders (1993)

So I’m interrupting my weekend to read this book. I remember being super-annoyed by it the first time around, though I cannot recall why. All I can tell you is it’s going to take a lot of cocoa—peppermint cocoa covered in peppermint whipped topping—to get through it again.

Stacey gets the attention of a basketball player named RJ. The team has been winning and the players—and cheerleaders—are getting a lot of undeserved perks like getting to cut class and getting passed despite not doing the work. Things don’t work out between Stacey and RJ, but she makes friends with some of the cheerleaders and winds up dating basketball player Robert. After Stacey doesn’t make the cheerleading squad because of some shenanigans, Robert quits the basketball team and brings all the perks to the attention of the administration.

Meanwhile, Shannon’s sister Tiffany has been being a holy terror. The BSC realizes that little sister Maria has suddenly turned into a super swimmer, while Shannon, of course, is a super student. They both have all these awards, while Tiffany’s a terrible student with no hobbies and no awards. They help her decide she needs a hobby that’s something she enjoys, rather than something she can use to ‘beat’ her sisters. She winds up happy again, planning a garden for the backyard.

Interesting Tidbits

The cover: Stacey’s hair is not attractive here. And those shoes are very white. (Also, this doesn’t happen in the book. Stacey doesn’t babysit once in the book.)

Heh: the story starts with Stacey getting hit by a snowball while wearing new pants. The pants leave streaks all over the snow.

Did your middle school/junior high have one basketball team, or were the teams divided by grades? We always had separate teams for the grades. Much like the SMS team (for all three grades, although it mostly seems to be eighth graders), our seventh grade boys’ basketball team went undefeated. Our coach—and math teacher—had promised the boys that if they went undefeated, he’d shave his head. I think he regretted that.

Stacey says she’s not boy-crazy. Um, there’s even a book talking about how boy crazy she is. I think that by this point she’s dated or been obsessed with more boys than all the other BSC members put together. She mentions Sam, Pete, Austin, Wes (the sub), and there’s the Scott the lifeguard. I’m sure we could come up with others in the comments, too.

When Stacey tells everyone RJ asked her out, Kristy can’t believe someone in The Group* would date someone who wasn’t a member of The Group. Claudia suggests that maybe RJ’s dated all the girls already.

*The Group seems to be a common name for selective cliques in the media. I remember it was the name of the kids who smoked marijuana on an episode of The Facts of Life. (It was quite possibly the second cheesiest anti-drug episode in the history of television—after that Saved by the Bell one. “I’m so excited! I’m so…scared!”)

There’s this one sentence in the description of Kristy that so poorly written that I had to read it four times before I figured out that it wasn’t a mistake.

Dawn’s been gone for a couple months, but MA is talking about her like she’s dead: “Dawn loved blue chips.” She’s also depressed because she hasn’t heard from her for two days.

Stacey suggests that Claudia dresses hiply and funkily. Reminds me of how my sister and I used to make adverbs out of everything, to the point where if you were being a jerk, you were behaving assily or assholily.

Shannon is mentioned as being an associate member, despite the fact that she’s been the alternate officer for the past two books and is listed as the alternate officer on the back cover. It would be fair to assume that she wouldn’t be able to come to every meeting, though. (She actually is at that meeting, when the job they can’t find a sitter for…is at her house.)

Tiffany, who was introduced as age eleven, has, like many other characters behind her, traveled back in time. Shannon says she missed the terrible twos and is now having the terrible tens.

Did you know Logan is cute with a capital Q? I didn’t. That must be the new alphabet, like the new math.

Why would anyone wear a unitard? Especially a plaid one and especially on a date. It’s like a camel toe waiting to happen. Stacey calls it a ‘beautiful new outfit.’

The date with RJ is a movie and pizza. After the movie, Stacey rates it as a 3 out of 10, but then she gets over it because they run into RJ’s friends at Pizza Express. She clearly likes his friends more than she likes him.

And we’re introduced to Robert, who becomes Stacey’s boyfriend for the next almost thirty books.

Ahh. Middle school cheers. I mostly remember our KMS cheerleaders doing the old “You say Kaneland, we say Knights” and “What’s your battle cry? V-I-C-T-O-R-Y!” I’m trying to decide which of these cheers is better; feel free to vote:

            A tisket! A tasket! Put it in the basket! Who’s the best? SMS! Yeaaaaa, team! (SMS Chargers)

            The Lions can’t be beat! They’re lightning on their feet! They’re the best team on our street…or lots of other streets. (LHS Lions)

Reading this book this time around (now that I’ve had the privilege of reading #83, which will definitely be a OH HELL YEAH! moment) is way more interesting. You get all the little hints that Stacey finds the BSC embarrassing and childish. Love it!

I like Kristy, but you all know I find her to be a little much. (She’s the kind of person I would never have been friends with growing up.) After SMS wins the big game, she totally embarrasses Stacey (and probably everyone else in the club) by whistling loudly and shouting across the entire gym.

I love this: when the BSC arrives at Kristy’s for their sleepover, they find a giant spread of food and Watson wearing a chef’s hat and apron. They all get ready to thank him for all the effort…until Elizabeth points out he just called the deli and ordered it all. He laughs and runs away before Kristy can peg him with a strawberry.

The title quote is part of Stacey’s confusion after Sheila tells her that Robert likes her. She can’t comprehend the idea. I’m still having trouble understanding why myself. Don’t get me wrong, Stacey’s not my least favorite babysitter. She ranks somewhere in the lower middle of the group. (As much as I love numbers, I will NOT actually rank the BSC…right now.) I just don’t understand why so many guys are so into her. It must be because she’s so sophisticated, right?

Stacey said she’s never seen cheerleaders before she moved to Stoneybrook, because they didn’t have them in her school in NYC. Let’s ignore the fact that she’s apparently never watched a professional sports game; I’ll buy that. (I’ve never actually seen a sports game with cheerleaders outside of school games.) She says that girls preferred having their own teams to cheering the boys in her old school. Well, Title IX says that, in publicly funded institutions, schools cannot discriminate between boys and girls. Therefore, there must be an equal number of girls’ teams to boys’ teams and the funding must be the same. In high school we counted up the sports teams and sure enough, they were equal. (Well, sorta. You had to compare girls’ bowling to boys’ wrestling, but there you go.) Yet we still had cheerleaders anyway. And my junior year, boys even started joining the squad. We had three guy cheerleaders my senior year.

We finally get to the B plot in chapter six.

There is apparently a ‘Haitian cotton’ couch in the Kilbourne’s TV room. I don’t even know what that is, so how is Kristy (of the turtlenecks and jeans) supposed to recognize that?

Kristy’s sitting job for Tiffany and Maria reminds me of me and my sister growing up…except that I didn’t hit her with a yo-yo. I usually just hit her upside the head (and she usually antagonized me into doing it.) Tiffany’s taking out some aggression and hostility on Maria, who’s actually an innocent victim…at first. Later she’s totally egging Tiffany on by pointing out all her honors and trophies and saying Tiffany’s just jealous. (Probably true, but completely unnecessary…also completely realistic.)

I’m sure I’ve said this before, but I like Shannon’s family because it’s sort of realistic. Her parents don’t really get along but also don’t fight constantly like Stacey’s before the divorce. In families with more than a couple kids, there’s always the one who feels like a screw-up in comparison to the sibs. There’s also the ongoing fighting and trying to outdo each other….you almost get the feeling Maria got so into swimming so that she could get some recognition instead of Shannon having all the awards.

Claudia math: 98.2% of girls under age 14 with a single hair kinks report that their dates fell madly in love with them. She read a study, you know. In the Connecticut Journal of Hair Disorders.

Ha! Mary Anne the Meek and Tiffany the Terrible. Awesome. What’s interesting is that Mary Anne figures out Tiffany’s problem…well, half of it. She suggests that Tiffany needs a hobby, but she doesn’t catch the significance of Tiffany’s last statement: “I know I’ll find a hobby I can beat Shannon and Maria with.” I really read into that when I was a kid. I guess I find this more significant than the average person because every activity I joined growing up, my sister followed me into. I did Girl Scouts and 4H; so did she. I played with the band and wrote for the school paper; so did she. The only thing we differed on was sports; she played tennis and I played soccer. And I always felt that she did that to try to one-up me. She wanted to beat me at being me.

Mallory’s too sick to babysit, but apparently she’s not too sick to watch Stacey try out for the cheerleading squad. (Don’t get me wrong; I realize this takes a lot less effort than sitting, but I feel like her parents wouldn’t approve of that.)

Hell, even Shannon came from her school to cheer Stacey on. I’m surprised Logan wasn’t there, too. (Too much estrogen for him, perhaps?)

Claudia spelling time: Tifany (twice), hobies, knoe, realise. She also uses hopping for hoping and says that mary ann opened a can of werms.

Claudia solves the second half of the Tiffany problem by pointing out that a hobby isn’t a weapon against others, but something you enjoy doing. She sets out to try to turn Tiffany into an artist but obviously that doesn’t work out. The two of them also commiserate over having older sisters they feel inferior to.

Because Tiffany is so happy when Mrs. Kilbourne comes home, she jokingly asks to adopt Claudia. But all Claudia really did was say, “What really interests you?” If her parents weren’t so busy and self-involved, they could have done the same thing.

Stacey is so charming in this book. She nearly barfs, she burps and she’s got hiccups. At least she’s realistic.

I never tried out for cheerleading because I knew I could never be a cheerleader. But my sister did once, and the girls who were already on the cheerleading squad had absolutely nothing to do with selecting the new crew. Only the coaches had a say in who got selected. It prevents the kind of pettiness that leads to Stacey—the best candidate—not getting the spot on the cheerleading squad. The other girls are afraid she’s too good and will show them up.

And of course Stacey’s the best. The BSC is only bad at things as a plot point. Claudia’s a terrible student, but that’s okay, because she’s the best artist ever. Stacey is a math genius. Jessi’s the world’s greatest dancer (and choreographer). Mallory gets straight As and wins awards for her writing.

I’m still not sure what annoyed me about this book as a kid.

Outfits:

Stacey: plum corduroy pants and white down coat; black and white plaid unitard, black sweater; jeans, white cardigan with floral embroidery (seems a little girly for someone who just wore a unitard), suede ankle boots

Claudia: baggy wool pants, black belt (or a black leather band, as the book calls it for some reason…), white tuxedo shirt, flats, one black sock and one white sock, glittery bow tie barrette; men’s white shirt, spandex bell bottoms, vest (put a hat on her and she’s Blossom)

New characters:

Basketball players: RJ Blaser, Robert Brewster, Marty Bukowski, Malik Joffrey, Wayne McConnell (party on, Wayne!)

Cheerleaders: Darcy Redmond, Sheila McGregor, Margie Greene, Penny

Weller, Corinne Baker

Next week: Ready for some extra-extra-stupidness? Mystery #12 Dawn and the Surfer Ghost

“The patient was a little cranky at first, but she took her medicine. Luckily, we didn’t have to operate.” BSC #69: Get Well Soon, Mallory (1993)

Is it terribly juvenile of me to point out that book about ‘the kissing disease’ is appropriately numbered? (I’ll answer my own question: Yes. But not enough to stop me from doing it!)

Before I begin the blog, it’s vlog time! I intend to vlog each Babysitter at some throughout the series. The next one after this will definitely be Claudia; you have to wait and see WHY I picked that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MBQAdBeuSw

(I couldn’t get it to imbed, sorry.)

Interesting Tidbits

The cover: That’s Margo and Claire with Mallory and this is straight out of the book. I am amused by the ‘get well soon’ card and flowers in the background.

Did anyone ever actually wait until the day of Halloween to decide what they were going to dress up as? (I know, terrible sentence structure. Suck it. ;) My mom picked my costume out for me every year until I was seven and we moved to England. (In July or August, so that she had time to hand sew it.) When we moved back, we made our own costumes out of things lying around the house. I was a ‘fortune teller’ one year wearing a square dancing costume and a lot of scarves. (I told everyone I was a gypsy, but hell, I was 11. Forgive me. I would say I got the idea from this book, but it was 1992.) The only time I decided upon my costume the day of was my freshman year of high school, when I decided on a whim to be Alexander of Daventry. We went from door to door yelling “Zounds!” instead of trick or treat that year.

I’ve always remembered this! After Mrs. Pike tells everyone they’ll be going to NYC for Thanksgiving and will get to watch the Macy’s parade, Mallory catches Vanessa practicing her waves in the mirror. Who, when they read this book the first time, didn’t practice each of the three types of waves Vanessa mentioned?

I love when they can’t keep track of the ages of various characters, as I’m sure you, my loyal readers, know. In this one, Sam and Charlie are 14 and 16. Oh, and along the same lines, Tigger is mentioned as being black and white striped. He’s usually a gray tabby. He probably looks a lot like my Dobby.
This book was the first place I ever heard of mono. When Mallory’s diagnosed, there’s this whole science-y explanation about glands and the spleen. Mal’s mom says that 99% of the time it’s not serious, but it can damage your spleen. I went to this really weird little school district (oh, Kaney-land!), and seventh through twelfth grades used to be in one building. When I was in eighth grade, the sophomore class president died during surgery from a bizarre combination of spleen damage from mono and a bad reaction to the anesthesia. I remember thinking that mono was suddenly the scariest thing ever, between her death and Mal’s ridiculously long convalescence.

Before she has a diagnosis, Mal’s greatest fear is never catching up in her homework and failing sixth grade. After she finds out she has mono? Her fear shifts to everyone thinking she got mono by kissing Ben Hobart. Nice to know she has her priorities straight.

I love Mallory’s commentary on soap operas, which was obviously written by someone who’s never seen a soap (or hadn’t seen one in decades.) I actually started watching soaps in 1993, when a little girl on one show died in a school bus accident and her heart was given to her ailing cousin. I still (sometimes) watch that show on my day off, and when I don’t catch a week, I miss a lot. (I’m still mad that Sonny is Ava’s baby dad instead of Morgan…so freakin’ predictable.) I won’t say that there weren’t soaps out there that you could not watch for a month and come back and nothing would be different, but it’s definitely not really true these days when any one of the few soaps left could be cancelled at any moment.

I loved this bit: Mallory’s trying to convince “Nurse Tiffany” (aka Claire) to eat celery as part of her lunch by suggesting that all great nurses did: Florence Nightingale, Clara Barton and…Hot Lips Hoolihan. The title quote also comes from this “sitting job”, the one shown on the cover. It’s said by “Doctor Margolius.”

Logan’s suggestion after the Pikes say that Mal needs to temporarily quit the club: The BSC should picket their front door, shouting ‘Unfair!’ and ‘Free Mallory!’ Sometimes, I really like Logan. Sometimes.

Mallory suggests a car wash to raise money. In Connecticut. In November. They actually suggest that to the kids before they realize it’s a bad idea.

Jessi is spelled as Jessie at one point. Again.

“Acting like a jerk was hard work.” Just another reason why Mal’s plan was a stupid idea.

It’s established that Claire wears a watch even though she can’t tell time. Mal asks what time it is, and Claire answers by looking at her watch. (Her assessment? Thirty-o’clock.) Adam has to look over at her watch to figure out the correct time. I had always assumed that it was some Pike family thing that everyone wears watches and is on top of their own schedule.

There’s a quote on page 97 with only one quotation mark. There’s usually at least one typo in any book, but I hate when I actually find them.

Jessi takes Charlotte and Vanessa to pick out books for the oldsters. They decide to only get mysteries because Vanessa says her gramma likes mysteries, and then they decide to only get mysteries with ‘nice’ pictures on the front: cats, flowers, houses and horses. But they can’t find enough books that way, so they have to relax the rules to include candles and pretty women. Later, they develop a game for deciding which person gets which book…by rhyming the titles or cover photos with the person’s name.

Mrs. Pike actually lets the triplets polish the carving knives. That seems…not smart. I’m seeing an ER visit.

Claudia makes Mal earrings that are made of wooden bottles labeled ‘miracul cure.’ They’re supposed to magically cure her.

Kristy’s got magical talents, too: she points at the phone, and it rings. (And of course, because this is a BSC book and everyone’s parents agreed to let them visit the Pikes’, the phone call is Dawn from California.)

As I said a couple weeks ago, I only have two more Mallory books left to blog. I actually don’t have copies of either one of them, but I’ve got about another year before I have to worry about it.

Outfits:

Mallory: flowery pajamas; blue velvet skirt and matching bolero jacket, white silk blouse

Byron: maroon corduroy slacks, yellow shirt, blue and yellow sweater

Next week: #70, Stacey and the Cheerleaders

“I haven’t heard any reports of ancient coins being used to buy gummi worms at the candy store.” BSC Mystery #11: Claudia and the Mystery at the Museum (1993)

A new museum has opened in Stoneybrook, and Claudia decides to take Corrie and the Arnold twins to see it. While they’re there, a theft takes place. Later, the BSC goes to try to figure out where the stolen coins have gone, since everyone was searched upon leaving the museum. They discover a couple of things: a man who is always there every time Claudia goes to the museum, and a sculpture that Claudia has seen before that seems ‘different’ to her somehow. It turns out that a custodian had stolen the coins and hidden them in a secret compartment in the sculpture. Claudia happens to be there when he retrieves them, thus solving another mystery just by being in the right place at the right time.

In the really-super-annoying B plot, Claire decides she needs to be a star, Karen style, and pisses everyone off in the process. She goes as far as to ask Rosie Wilder how to get an agent, then decides she doesn’t want to be famous after all.

Interesting Tidbits

The cover: You all know how I hate leggings, but I actually kind of like Claudia’s outfit. If those were tights, I would crave a pair, the same way I want those shoes she’s wearing. I have a ‘thing’ for hot pink. Oh, and Corrie (on the left) is totally a mini-Claudia, since she’s wearing pink leggings, too.

The funniest part of the cover? It says ‘What kind of crook would steal art?’ Umm, no one stole any art. The theft involved ancient coins.

Claudia decides that she doesn’t need to apply herself at school because Van Gogh probably didn’t know how to solve for x. I’m amused by her attempt at logic.

Janine is in awe of Claudia’s art critic-y knowledge, when she discusses the influences of Don Newman’s sculptures.

We’re introduced to the BSC members by a discussion of what animals they would be. Kristy would be a dog, Claudia would be a parrot, Dawn, a dolphin, and both Mal and Jessi, horses. All of these seem appropriate for me. Meanwhile, Stacey wants to be a jungle cat, which I don’t really buy. I can’t picture MA saying she’d be a koala, even if it actually suits her. I’d believe she’d say a cat, which is what Shannon says. Shannon wanted to lie in front of a fire all day, but that doesn’t sound like her. She’s far too active.

The museum is interesting. There’s a science room, a music room, an art room, and my favorite part, the Discovery Room. It consists of activities designed to show what it’s like to have various disabilities. Most of the exhibits in the whole museum are interactive and designed to be touched. I’d love that museum.

Carolyn tries to explain one of those electricity machines to Claud, who cuts her off. She’s afraid Carolyn will pull a ‘Janine’ on her and give her too much information on the subject.

When the fire alarm goes off, Claudia sees the following: a group of scared Brownies, a janitor, and a guy with one blue and one green eye. (He’s a chimera! I forget how it happens, but chimeras have two different sets of DNA. It’s quite possible for a chimera to give DNA samples that don’t match their own children.) Claudia pays extra attention because Nancy Drew says to pay attention to potential suspects.

Claudia cleans her room the same way I did as a kid: by shoving everything in the closet or under the bed without actually cleaning.

When they learn there will be a black tie event honoring Don Newman at the museum on the last day of his exhibit, Mal suggests that only rich patrons will be invited. The girls all look at Kristy, because Watson is rich. Well, Shannon lives in Kristy’s wealthy neighborhood too, and she’s at the meeting. Shouldn’t they assume her parents are rich, too?

If you had as many kids as the Pikes do, would you really take all of them to the mall at the same time to shop for clothes? My friend Zee has four kids, and she doesn’t even take all of them shopping at once. She doesn’t even like to take them all to the grocery store.

When Nicky is grossing Claire out by playing ‘see food’, Mrs. Pike tells him to only play that with his brothers because the rest of the family members aren’t interested. I guess this is what happens when you get tired of fighting with that many boys; it’s easier to tell them to gross each other out than to not be gross at all.

There just are not enough things to mock in this book.

Claudia says Mallory collects words. Not only is this a good pastime, it’s good for making other people feel inferior, or being condescending (which is the word that makes Claud make that comment in the first place.)

Claudia totally steals the museum curator’s resume off his desk. Turns out just about every museum he’s ever worked at has been robbed while he was the curator. His name is Mr. Snipes and I’m totally picturing Wesley Snipes even though he’s described as being extremely pale.

Claire wants to be as famous as Michael Jackson, Roseanne, and the elementary school principal. I have no words.

Claudia helps Claire send off her video to an agent in her quest to become a star. The problems with this? A) It’s Claire’s only copy of the video. What if the agent doesn’t send it back? B) She doesn’t ask the Pikes for permission first.

Claudia decides to contact the artist whose work doesn’t ‘feel right’ to her at the museum. Conveniently, as happens so often in these books, he lives nearby. Also conveniently, he’s the only Don Newman living in the area. Normally you’d think they’d have given Claudia a bunch of numbers. So she calls him and he invites her to the gala event that’s being held for his exhibit.

The title quote is what Stacey says when the BSC is going over the suspects again. Mary Anne reminds the group that there was a Brownie troop at the scene of the crime as well as the other suspects.

When Claudia meets Don Newman, she tells him her suspicions about the Mr. Snipes and then drags him out of the party to tail the curator. She drags him all over the museum in her quest to find out what’s going on with his sculpture…and he’s not only okay with that, he enjoys it!

Even though Claudia babysits earlier in the story, we don’t get any of her spelling until all the Stoneybrook characters write Dawn a letter in chapter 15. Claudia goes last and delights us with the following; whish, mistery, ahsome (I actually love that one!) desserv, creddit, evryboddy, coolist, nigth, museem, partys, freinds. She also uses trusty for trustee, two for two and hole for whole and then signs the letter Claudia Nancy Drew Kishi.

So what’s the deal here? It turns out that Mr. Snipes was experienced in securing museums that were high-risk for theft…hence why so many of his former museums had actually been robbed. The chimera guy (one blue eye, one green eye, remember?) was actually a federal agent specializing in art theft. He tells Claudia she’d make a good federal agent herself. But trust me, she’d need to learn to spell first.

The BSC celebrates solving the case with a pizza toast, of course.

Finally, Claudia writes Don Newman a note, enclosing a sketch she did of his sculpture, complete with the following errors: thot, parntner, allways, famouse, robery, sinserly.

Outfits

Claudia: side braid, red and white striped shirt, red leggings, black high tops; red leggings, white man’s shirt, vest; pale green silk kimono

Claire: spangled tutu, feather boa, high heels; same high heels with a pink dress

Next week: I get to make terrible mono jokes at Mallory’s expense.

“I can see she’s in bad shape. Her hair has even fallen off.” BSC #68: Jessi and the Bad Babysitter (1993)

This was one of the rare books after #40 in the series that I just never read as a child. I think this one and mystery #11 both came out while I was sick or grounded or something, because my collection skipped from #67 to #69 and mystery #10 to #12 (which was the last mystery on my book shelf.) I’m not sure if I just decided to spend my money on something else when I bought the later books or that I’d figured out basically how this one ended because the ‘baby babysitter’ didn’t join the club.

Since Dawn just left and Mallory’s all mono-riffic (although no one knows that yet), the BSC is overbooked. Kristy decides they need a new club member, so Jessi recommends a new friend of hers named Wendy who babysits. Wendy seems like a good sitter, but she’s regularly late for meetings and jobs and routinely takes sitting jobs without offering them to the club. Eventually she quits, robbing us of the opportunity to see Kristy lay the smack down on her.

Meanwhile, the Barretts miss Dawn, so they come up with the idea to make a video to send her that winds up being a mashup of Snow White and Captain Planet, and it’s as ‘interesting’ as it sounds.

There’s also this funky little C plot about Margo being extra-secretive because she’s been shoplifting. I guess this is because they realized they’d never had a Margo-centric plot in something like 100 books by this point.

Interesting Tidbits

Love the Hershey Kiss painting on the wall on the cover. I know that there’s a whole plot about Claud and junk food artwork and I didn’t find it all that appealing then, but it actually kinda looks delicious here.

Oh, and you know Wendy is a ‘bad’ babysitter…because she chews gum! And this cover, of course, is the one that gave birth to Incredulous Kristy, one of my favorite BSC memes. (Interestingly, she’s looking at Jessi, not Wendy.)

By the way, you can make your own Incredulous Kristy at http://memegenerator.net/Incredulous-Kristy Here’s my attempt:

Jessi says Squirt is two, but he’s usually described as being ‘one and a half’ or even, sometimes, younger.

In the first four pages of this book, there’s a partial summary of book #16, #36, and #67. Oh, and they briefly mention #30.

Becca and Squirt are watching Flipper, and rather than whining about being forced to watch crap like that (like I did at her age), Becca is actually enjoying it. Sometimes I think AMM and the ghostwriters forgot that this series is set in the 80s/90s, not the 60s, since everyone loves Flipper, I Love Lucy, Leave it to Beaver and the like.

Mallory calls out sick from a BSC meeting, and instead of worrying about her health, Kristy’s like, “This is a disaster! We can’t be two sitters down!” For once, I actually get it. The members just got three calls in a row for the same time…when they already all have jobs. Dawn calls a short time later, though, and Kristy refuses to hand the phone over to MA until Dawn promises to come ‘right back.’ Knowing Kristy, she means on the next flight.

I’m trying to figure out this logic: Mal stayed home from the BSC meeting on Wednesday and home from school on Thursday. Yet her parents still let her babysit (with Jessi) for her brothers and sisters. She falls asleep on the couch and Jessi does all the work. Wouldn’t Mrs. Pike either a) stay home, knowing Mal wasn’t feeling well or b) arrange an alternate sitter? My favorite moment from that sitting job is that, when the boys come back inside, they all toss their coats everywhere and Adam throws his right on top of Mallory. Yet she sleeps on.

How does pay work when Claudia takes the first two-thirds of a sitting job and Jessi takes the last bit? Mrs. Barrett would have to physically pay Jessi, and I’m sure Jessi would pass a fair share of the money along, but that could work out badly.

Speaking of the Barretts, I remember thinking when I was a kid that it was weird that they would call Marnie’s happy face the ‘ham face’ as they do in this book. Not because it’s a stupid nickname for the way the ‘ham face’ is described, but because Buddy’s real name is Hamilton, Jr., and his father goes by the name Ham.

It’s interesting that Dawn made a ‘no guns’ rule for the Barretts and it stuck. I mean, she’s not one of their parents, so she doesn’t really get to make decisions like that.

Suzi wants to put on a play of Snow White and the Seven Zorbs (sic). She comes up with six dwarves: Grumpy, Dopey, Bashful, Sleepy, Doc and Sneezy. It took me a minute to figure out she was missing Happy, which is more than Mary Anne manages. (I always forget Bashful myself.)

The story the Barretts come up is extremely complicated and horribly dated, these days. Even though I can still sing the Captain Planet theme song, I bet most tweens these days* would have no idea who that is.

*I ran across a girl and her mom at my favorite Savers who are also gathering up the whole BSC collection. She and I had a nice talk about the books, and then her mom actually tried to convince me to hand over a copy of #116 that I found before they spotted it. (I left with the book.)

Mary Anne and Jessi take the Barretts and select Pikes to buy accessories for the video. Interestingly, Mal was supposed to go but since she doesn’t feel well, she convinces Vanessa to go in her place. MA and Jessi insist because it’s “a lot of kids to keep track of.” Um, it’s Buddy and Nicky and Margo and Suzi. Two sitters should be plenty.

I remember some time back I pointed out that, of the Pikes, they all have their “things”, except Margo. I guess Margo’s going to be the Pike who has ‘problems’ as she grows up. It starts with shoplifting, then suspensions from school, and then when she’s a teen, it’s getting high in the ‘party corner’ with a bunch of guys…. Heh.

Apparently, Suzi is a top-notch actress. She really gets into her part.

The play the kids put on reminds me of the one I was ‘props master’ for at Girl Scout Camp when I was a teen. It was Snow White and the Five Dwarves (we didn’t have enough actresses). The girls decided to put their names in a hat and draw roles, so one girl with absolutely no acting talent ended up as the Prince. No one minded, because none of the others wanted to play ‘a boy’ anyway.

The title quote is Buddy’s ad lib after a collapsing Carolyn’s Snow White wig falls off (thanks to an apple poisoned by pollution.) He also gets grossed out when Snow White (now Marilyn) kisses him: “Yuck! That’s gross. It’s cheek pollution!”

And then we have to listen to the details of a Dawn sitting job for characters we’ve never heard of before, where she and her charges…make a video. At the same time as the BSC video is being made. Riiiiiiight. (Also, why would you name two kids in the same family Jenny and Jeannette? Those names are just way too similar.)

Has Jeff always had a thing for the Grateful Dead, or is that just in this book? (Although it solves a fanfic problem for me! Hee hee!) (Answer: It's also mentioned here.)

Just before Kristy was going to suggest that things weren’t working out with Wendy (who hasn’t been mentioned since chapter 10, and this is chapter 14), Wendy quits the club. I like Stacey’s take on things: She wasn’t nearly as upset about the whole Wendy thing because she figures that Wendy and Kristy are just two of a kind: ‘headstrong and determined to do things their own way,’ as Jessi says. I love that Stacey has a really good read on Kristy; this isn’t the only time she’s been able to figure Kristy out. I can’t remember every incident, but she definitely figures out Kristy has a crush in SS#15 before Kristy does.

And of course, Shannon just happens to be free(r), starting days after Wendy quits, so she can take over the role of  alternate officer until Dawn comes back.

The BSC goes roller skating because they are all miraculously free one afternoon. Even Mal skates, despite being tired. Mal, Shannon and Jessi are on regular skates while Kristy, Claudia and Stacey are in roller blades. No mention is made of what Mary Anne is doing, so maybe she’s not skating at all (even though we knowshe does sometimes.)

I just realized that there are only two more Jessi books left for me to blog, one I don’t (yet) own, and another I’ve never read.

Outfits

Just for fun today, we are going to play a game with the outfits. I’m not going to tell you who wore them; you get to guess. I may or may not give the answers in the next post.

1. Oversized white shirt, black vest covered in beads, neon green leggings, black beaded ballet slippers, one bead earring and one green hoop earring

2. Faded lavender sweat outfit under a blue terrycloth robe

3. Hot pink stirrup pants, fuzzy pink sweater, neon green pads and helmet

4. Jeans, brown leather jacket, black and silver helmet

Costumes (I will not make you guess who is who here)

Suzi as the Wicked Queen: mom’s dress, bright red lipstick and a crown

Adam as the Magic Mirror: his dad’s bathrobe, even though he complained it looked like a dress

Vanessa as the Woodsman: green tights under gym shorts, a blouse, and a felt hat

Marilyn/Carolyn as Snow White: black wig, blue cape and apparently, nothing else (racy! I guess the BSC is making a porno.)

Buddy as Captain Planet: a Captain Planet Halloween costume

Haley as Swamp Thing: green crepe paper

Marnie as Dopey, Margo as Sneezy, Matt as Grumpy, Nicky as Bashful, Laurel as Doc, Norman as Happy and Sarah as Sleepy: ‘Zorb’ hats, pointy ears, and character appropriate accessories

New characters:

Sally, Jenny and Jeannette Clune (10, 8 and 6): 32, 30 and 28

Next week: Mystery #11: Claudia and the Mystery at the Museum

“Clothes? Uh, yes, she picks them out herself. She’s thirteen, you know.” BSC #67: Dawn’s Big Move (1993)

This is one of those ‘something big happens and it changes the BSC’ books. My only memories of it from when I was 12? Other than (spoiler! not really) Dawn moves back to CA for six months and the BSC throws her a party, I remembered Mary Anne telling her dad he’s being goofy, and he replies by saying, “Gorsh!” like the cartoon character.

Dawn’s been missing her dad and Jeff for some time, so she decides to go back for an extended visit. Everyone’s really supportive, but she starts to wonder if that means that they’re really glad to be rid of her. She starts to question her decision, but it’s already been made, so she heads off to California.

Meanwhile, everyone’s practicing for a charity event called Run for Your Money between Stoneybrook and Lawrenceville. It’s really not that interesting except that Richard agrees to strip down for everyone for everyone in both towns for a pole dance the ‘underwear race.’ And after it’s over, the BSC throws Dawn a goodbye party with 300,000,000 little children in attendance. No wonder Dawn doesn’t miss her CT friends or babysitting in the California Diaries!

Interesting Tidbits

The cover: It’s the eighth grade BSC members doing what they do best. Claudia and Stacey are looking into a mirror, with another mirror behind them. Kristy’s writing in what I assume is the BSC notebook. (I have no proof of that, but it’s what I prefer to think.) Mary Anne’s got a photo of someone who is either Logan or Cam Geary in her locker. Meanwhile, the dress is nearly uniformly atrocious. I have one word for MA and Kristy’s shirts: EWWW! Claudia’s leggings should be outlawed, and Stacey (not for the first time either, mind you) is wearing all black…except for her brown shoes. I actually blame Hodges Soileau for that, rather than Stacey. Dawn’s outfit isn’t that bad, except for that giant scrunchie. Scrunchies are possibly the root of all evil.

I’d eat Tofu Garden Delight, even if I’m (apparently) allergic to soy.

Sharon-itis symptoms: finding mittens in the refrigerator and keys in the microwave, raisins in the clam chowder. I really hope they didn’t turn the microwave on.

Isn’t the BSC policy that they get the info for the job, decide who’s going to take the job and then call back? They’re really bad at that in some of these books, including this one. They just cup their hands over the phone and say, ‘Who’s going to take the job?’

Claudia discovered Christmas M&M’s in the back of her closet, while this book is set in September. I found Cadbury Crème Eggs in my house in September. Sadly, I’m pretty sure that, while the ones in the fridge were from Easter, 2014, the ones under my end table were likely from Easter, 2012.

ZOMG! Dawn calls Claudia’s room “a junk food Where’s Waldo?” This is both awesome and accurate.

Umm, Dawn, Stacey is not the only member of the BSC (besides yourself) to know what divorce is like. Have you forgotten Kristy?

There’s something both funny and really disturbing about Richard Spier agreeing to be part of the underwear race, where he has to drop his clothes while he’s running. I’ve never thought of Richard as tubby, but “his belly jiggled beneath his undershirt” while he was stripping. And then the Arnold family catches him in his undies.

Claudia spelling! Dont, orgenising, tryed, seemd, perfict, practis, didnt’, pased (this is after she tried collapsed three times. Oh, and did you know the club sits for Jammie Newtn?

Mr. Arnold’s name is Jack…and his boxers for the underwear race are covered in Garfield pictures.

The Schafer-Spier family actually read their fortune cookie fortunes and seem to put some stock in them, until Dawn’s says, “You will be going on a long journey to a faraway place.” This would have been much funnier if they’d played the ‘in bed’ game.

I wanted to use this as the title quote but I think it’s too long: “Mom was practically asleep, watching some old bearded man conduct an orchestra full of younger bearded men and unbearded women.” I should hope the women were unbearded.

The actual title quote comes from the conversation between Jack (Schafer, not Arnold) and Sharon regarding Dawn’s potential move and how to keep things consistent. They also talk about stuff like whether Dawn dates and what her curfew is, so it’s not all stupid questions.

I want to study Ancient Streptococcus with the kids at Vista in Palo City.

Kristy/Stacey math (as opposed to Laura math): Everyone was happy for Dawn to visit her father except Kristy, who gets upset because she’ll be short a member. She makes Stacey do the math: six months, twenty-six weeks, seventy-six meetings.

I actually kinda feel sorry for Dawn. She really wants to see her dad and Jeff again, but she starts to feel guilty about leaving her CT family behind…and then she worries that the fact that her friends and family are being so supportive means that they’re glad to be rid of her. It must be hard to be in her shoes. (LOOK PEOPLE! I’M BEING NICE TO DAWN!) My parents didn’t divorce until I was in college, and even then, ever since my dad moved back from China (don’t ask), they’ve lived in the same town, on ‘opposite sides of the river.’ Back when I lived with my mom, my dad was a ten minute drive away. I can’t imagine how I would have felt if my dad and sister lived three thousand miles away when I was thirteen.

Ha! The Papadakis family reunion includes four lambs rotating in the backyard. It actually grosses Kristy out. (I’d be absolutely disgusted, but I’m a vegetarian. It’s usually pretty hard to gross Kristy out with food.) She does end up eating some and finding it delicious, though. Humorously, when Mr. Papadakis later offers some lamb to Melody Korman, she replies, “Do you have any Triscuits?”

You know I love stuff like this: the extended Papadakis clan includes five Nikos, 4 Alexandras, 3 Peters, 2 Marias, 2 Takis and a Gus.

Sari runs a three-legged race…with a Cabbage Patch doll as her partner.

Why the hell would Claudia buy ‘Chock Full of Chakra Macrobiotic Dessert Snacks?’ They’re made with comfrey, kelp, barley malt and raisin juice. Even Dawn finds them disgusting.

Because the BSC loves them some heavy-handed foreshadowing (although this isn’t actually foreshadowing), Jessi goes back to visit her old neighborhood in Oakley, where everything’s changed. Her old dance school no longer exists, the trees in the front yard of her old house were being chopped down, and her cousin Keisha only wanted to talk about the mall and boys. Stacey says it’s also weird for her to go back to NYC, because things keep changing while she’s gone.

Someone explain to me why Mal and MA thought it would be smarter to bake the cake for Dawn’s party with the Pikes instead of, you know, doing by themselves after Mr. and Mrs. Pike got home. Margo drops an egg, Byron slips and falls in it…you get the picture.

Richard’s pre-Run for Your Money workout? He calls it calisthenics and a jog, while Sharon says it was three pushups and ‘halfway around the block.’ That’s a man after my own heart right there.

What a rip-off! After all that, Richard actually refuses to participate in the underwear run. Now I have to sublimate my previously unknown urges to see him in his underthings. (Please know I am just kidding here. If I weren’t, I’d want you to have me locked away.)

Other tidbitty goodness from the RfYM (which is what cool people call it): Janine gets all excited about playing foosball with her parents, like she really wants to kick their asses; Adam backs out of doing the rolling race with Jordan at the last second because he was too embarrassed to hold his own brother’s hand; Squirt ran the wrong way in the baby race because he decided he wanted to give Becca a hug.

If Logan spent all morning working at the Rosebud, why would he suggest going there to hang out? I don’t like know many people who work in food service who like going to their restaurant on their off time if they can avoid it.

Why would Richard ring the doorbell at his own house? He does it twice in this book, rather than just walking in the door.

Dawn realizes that MA has a surprise planned for her when she keeps rushing her to eat breakfast and get dressed, so she keeps expecting to find people hiding in her den or waiting outside when the doorbell rings. She gets more suspicious when they get to Kristy’s, but still no one. Finally Kristy suggests they go see the monster zucchini in Watson’s garden. Dawn: See? All was not lost. Maybe I wasn’t getting a party, but at least I’d get to see a very large vegetable. (Of course, the party’s in the backyard.)

Do you think the BSC gets sick of throwing Dawn parties and giving her presents? She’s constantly leaving and coming back. Speaking of, I think the reason no one in the BSC gets a birthday (except Mary Anne) is that they’d have to invite a bunch of kids to their birthday parties.

As for the 300,000,000 kids I said were at the party: obviously, that was just a charming, Laura-style over-exaggeration. I’ve attempted the math, and I think there were closer to 20. It depends on whether Lucy, Sari and Marnie were part of the party. (If yes on all counts, probably 23 kids. If no, then probably 20. Only 19 other kids were mentioned, but I assume Becca is there for logical reasons.) 

And, as anyone could have seen coming, Dawn decides at the last minute not to go. And, as anyone could also see coming, Richard and Sharon convince her to go ahead and go to CA, not just because they’d already bought her tickets and worked out things with her schools, but, because, as Kristy said earlier in the book: The most important thing is for Dawn to be happy.

Outfits:

Sharon: summery print oversized blouse and shorts (sounds like something my mom would have worn in that era); running shorts and top, leg warmers, sneakers (something my mom would NOT have worn in that era)

Richard: Simpsons undershirt, red-heart boxers, pants (not described, other than you can see his shorts through them and he can’t get them off); baggy jeans, sweat shirt, ‘walking shoes’

Dawn: bathing suit, sweat suit, sneakers; cream colored drawstring pants, ribbed t-shirt with buttons

Next week: There will be a lot less math, for starters. I hope, in any case. I’ll be critiquing #68.

“Officially, I was babysitting for her, but unofficially we were McGill and Johanssen, Private Investigators.” BSC Mystery #10: Stacey and the Mystery Money (1993)

Happy new year, everyone? (Yes, that’s a question, not a statement.) Did you miss me during my little unplanned hiatus? Don’t worry; it was just a temporary thing, and barring any additional weirdness, things should go back to normal. Except…this is me we’re talking about here, and weird is practically my middle name. In any case, I’ll be continuing on with the blog although there might be a few more gaps here and there.

So this mystery starts off pretty normal and winds off in the Twilight Zone a little. Counterfeiters are taking Stoneybrook by storm, and Stacey inadvertently passes a fake $10 bill. She gets hauled into the police station and the BSC decides to try to catch the counterfeiters. (This has to be the dumbest decision in the history of the world, but it is the BSC.) Meanwhile, Stacey’s got this crush on a boy at school named Terry Hoyt. All these clues start developing that Terry’s dad might be involved in the counterfeiting. Instead, he turns out to be Secret Service, investigating the counterfeiters. With help from Stacey, the BSC and Charlotte and Becca, they catch the counterfeiters. Terry, because he likes Stacey so much, tells her his secret identity, a secret she “has to take to her grave with her.” Or, just until the Friends Forever series….

Interesting Tidbits

Laura’s random math time: I just did a few calculations. More than a quarter (28%) of the BSC mystery books have the word ‘mystery’ in the title. They couldn’t have been more creative than that? I wonder what the percentage of BSC books, total, would be, that could be considered mysteries (and how many of those have ‘mystery’ in the title.) Hmmm….I might get back to you with that. (Yes, I am a nerd…why do you ask?)

The cover: Stacey looks fashionable now. Make her a little taller and she’d look just like my coworker. Meanwhile, Charlotte’s outfit looks charmingly dated, and you can actually read where it says ‘Betty’ on the clerks name tag.

Janine comes into Claudia’s room to borrow magic markers. When Claudia asks her what colors she needs, Janine launches into a whole long, science-y spiel, trying to figure that out. Why didn’t she either figure it out in advance or just ask to borrow all the colors, which is what Claudia eventually suggests?

I love when Stacey gets all condescending about the shopping opportunities in Stoneybrook. Paraphrase of her comments here: Bellair’s isn’t nearly as good as Bloomingdale’s, but what do you expect in hicksville? It’s a nice little store, though.

During Charlotte and Stacey’s shopping extravaganza, Charlotte decides to spend her money on…a troll doll. I used to have a whole collection of those, but now they freak me out.

Ewww. Stacey’s looking for earrings to go with her purple jumpsuit. I guess it really doesn’t matter what you wear with a purple jumpsuit, does it? You’re still going to be wearing a purple jumpsuit.

We don’t call the cops when people try to give us counterfeit money at my store. We just turn it down and ask for another method of payment. Generally, it’s not worth the hassle.

Charlotte actually gets so upset at the thought that Stacey might be arrested over the counterfeit bill that she demands to be arrested too. She puts her wrists out to get handcuffed.

This made me laugh, even though I’d feel like doing the same thing at Stacey’s age (or even my age): when her mom shows up at the police station, Stacey shouts “Mommy!” and runs into her arms. I think it’s just the image of ‘sophisticated’ Stacey calling her mom Mommy that makes it funny.

Ew. Charlie is checking out Tasha Hoyt and thinks she’s cute. But she’s a lot younger than he is and the whole thing just seems wrong. It’s bad enough Sam wants to date someone Kristy’s age.

Kristy judges the fact that the Hoyts aren’t fully unpacked after three weeks of being moved in. Honestly, with three kids and a lot of stuff, it wouldn’t be unsurprising. (We had Christmas at Tessie’s, and she’d been in her house for five weeks. We had to keep unpacking things in her kitchen so she could make dinner.)

Is there a more fun character name in the BSC-verse than Mr. Zizmore? I always have the urge to say it out loud. It’s got Zizz! (bonus points to anyone except my mother who gets that reference.)

They have an emergency meeting to deal with the counterfeiters. You know it’s big, because even Shannon shows up!

Oh, Kristy. The first thing she thinks of when Stacey tells her how awful the whole experience at the police department? She hopes their clients don’t find out, because it would give the club a bad image. Sometimes, I think Kristy is just put in the club so she can say insensitive and blunt things.

Oh, and then Jessi has to bring up the missing ring from the first mystery book, because Stacey’s not feeling bad enough already.

Alan’s lurking in the library while MA, Kristy and Stacey are researching counterfeiting. When they’re trying to figure out why he’s there, Kristy thinks he’s probably just looking up dirty words in the dictionary.

Jessi wants to see what happens if she just copies her money on the photocopier, but Stacey freaks out and stops her. I remember rolling my eyes about that as a kid, and I do so even more now. No one would arrest Jessi for copying a dollar bill on the photocopier as long as she didn’t try to pass it as real, and even then she’d probably just get yelled at. The police and Secret Service don’t have time to deal with small time bungling like that.

Ha ha! When Dawn, Claudia and Stacey show up at the police department to talk about counterfeiting, the desk officer recognizes Dawn from the dog-napping case and calls her Nancy Drew.

Charlotte gets Becca into the whole BSC detective thing because she wants to clear Stacey’s name. (No matter how many times people tell her that Stacey wasn’t actually arrested, she doesn’t seem to believe it.) She decides they need to stake out copiers in order to see who’s copying money. Even Jessi knows that a counterfeiter wouldn’t use a public copy machine.

Stacey’s English teacher Mr. Fiske actually becomes a suspect because he happened to be shopping in Bellair’s at the same time Stacey got the fake bill and happened to be looking at a copy machine at the office supply store when Jessi and her mini-detectives staked it out.

Stacey starts to get suspicious of Terry because he introduces himself to her mother as Terry James Hoyt and to Logan and Mary Anne as Terry John Hoyt. If you had a fake identity that you had to relearn on a regular basis, would you introduce yourself by full name ever? Most people don’t do that anyway. It’s not like Claudia goes around introducing herself as Claudia Lynn Kishi all the time.

Dawn wants to take a cooking class about ‘new ways to cook tofu.’ Mary Anne gets all grossed out, but really. Tofu has no flavor. You WANT to find sauces and marinades and casseroles and stuff to put it in.

Kristy begins to suspect the Hoyts of counterfeiting. Her evidence: they move all the time. They’re really secretive about what their dad does. She saw a school ID with Terry’s twin sister Tasha’s photo and the name “Tina Harris” on it. Their house isn’t unpacked all the way. There’s a closet in their house that Georgie didn’t want her to open.

Finally, I can use the quote I’ve been thinking of the entire time I’ve been reading this book: “This mystery is getting really mysterious.” –Fred from Scooby Doo

Claudia spelling, yo. First, let’s get right to the point before I even address the rest of this notebook entry (in which just about every other word is spelled wrong.) She spells Stacey as Stasey. That’s her flippin’ best friend! I don’t care if she spells everything else in her notebook entry wrong, she should at least get that one right.

Anyway, the rest of the spelling: begining, Fisk (Fiske), susspishions, befour, contrafeeting (I had to look at that one several times before I realized she was trying for counterfeiting. I could understand counterfitting, counterfeeting, or counterfetting, but I don’t understand this.) Also, Charlatte, deffinitly, detectiv.

Charlotte and Claud first start out trying to copy money larger than life, just to see how hard it is. After that they make their own fake money. Claudia’s is from the land of Total Coolness and Charlotte’s is from Johanssenland. They talk about how boring U.S. money is by comparison. Wonder how they’d feel about the new $100 bills, the ones many of my customers call ‘Monopoly money.’ They’re full of anti-counterfeiting features and also colored for those with low vision.

When the BSC tails Mr. Fiske (who was also at the office supply store when Claudia and Charlotte went spying again), Claud offers to take notes, but Stacey says, “What if the rest of us want to be able to read them?” So Jessi takes notes instead.

Stacey contemplates what goes on in the faculty lounge. Apparently, the only images she has to go on are the original vision of the place smelling like potpourri and being full of comfortable chairs and pretty wallpaper, based upon the word ‘lounge.’ Later, the door opens and Jessi smells coffee and cigarettes, which changes the image to something more accurate. (Take a high school cafeteria and clean it up a bit and you have most faculty lounges/lunch rooms.) But I sincerely doubt most schools would allow teachers to smoke in the building in the nineties.

Mr. Fiske keeps being ‘suspicious.’ He digs around in his desk and pulls out…counterfeit money? No! A red pencil, which he uses to…color counterfeit money? NO! Grade papers. (Claudia suggests he’s grading Stacey’s paper because he’s making a LOT of red marks. This makes me smile.)

Oh, and then Stacey nearly follows him into the men’s room.

I know this was quite a ways back up, but ever since Claudia wrote Charlatte, I’ve been trying to spell Charlotte that way. And I keep reading it as Char-latte, like the coffee drink.

Claudia spent a couple pages wondering, back when she and Charlotte were spying, how much it hurts to get a tattoo on your ear and whether she could get away with a temporary ear tattoo after seeing a guy with a “blue moon and star tattoo” on his ear. It’s not until Stacey and Char happen to be in the right spot at the right time and see a guy dropping a shit-ton of counterfeit cash that anyone actually goes back and rereads all the entries in the notebook Charlotte makes Jessi buy. They realize that Becca had already made an entry on the same guy. Who, of course, is actually the counterfeiter.

It’s around this time that Terry admits his dad is SS and trying to catch the counterfeiters.

I might have to go back and see how many times I’ve used counterfeit or some version thereof in this post. (Answer: 23, if you include my misspellings of it but not Claudia’s.)

Bonus math time: Leaving out the ‘special editions,’ ‘portrait collections’, Friends Forever series and random books like the complete guide and postcard book, I have counted 186 BSC books. (If you’re counting with me, that leaves the original series, mysteries, super specials and super mysteries.) Of these, I counted that 45 are mysteries: 36 from the mysteries series, 4 super mysteries, and 5 BSC books that are mysterious. There might be more of the last, but I counted fast. This is 24% of the 186 books. Of these, 16 have mystery in the name, which is 36% of the mystery books.

New characters:

Terry (aka David Hawthorne), Tasha and Georgie Hoyt (13, 13 and 7)—35, 35 and 29

Outfits

Charlotte: pink skirt, frilly white blouse

Stacey: white miniskirt, blue and white striped sweater; Date outfits: red jumpsuit (“too flashy”); floral sundress (“too summery”); purple sweater, bleached jeans with bows at the ankles (“too casual”); black sweater dress (“too hot and dressy”); white sweater, blue and white polka dot leggings, white hair bow (apparently perfect)

Claudia: tie dyed pajamas

Terry: chinos and tan sweater

Coming soon: #67: Get Lost, Dawn (or Dawn’s Big Move. Whatever)

BTW, if anyone has been following my fanfic and wondering if I’m ever going to finish February…well, I have five pages. This is impressive only because, until this morning, I had one page. Don’t despair of me; once I finish February, the story should just flow.  About two thirds of April and May are already written, and I know what will be happening in the rest of the story (including March, which includes more Dawn…I’m so much nicer to her in fanfic than I am in my head or in this blog! Ha ha!)