“Which team is this dog registered to play on?” BSC #110: Abby the Bad Sport (1997)

I’ve never read this book before, for one blatant reason: I knew I was going to hate the dated, non-‘people-first’ language. Actually, if I remember correctly, I started reading it and stopped for that exact reason. Let’s see if I have better luck this time.

Abby’s joined what the book calls a Unified Special Olympics team. Special Olympics athletes are playing on a team with athletes without impairments; quite frankly, the only reason I can see for this is that they can throw a PSA about the Special Olympics, because the rest of the plot doesn’t seem to benefit from that fact. One of the other athletes, Erin, is as good at soccer as Abby is, which is something Abby isn’t used to, and she’s given the position Abby wants. The two of them start competing against each other, trying to one up another, and refusing to play nice. The Krushers form a booster club to support the team, so all the kids get to see Abby acting badly and find out that both Abby and Erin get benched for two games. Abby accepts her position, apologizes to Erin (and Kristy, who calls Abby on her B.S.) and moves on.

Meanwhile, Abby’s mother decides the family needs to spend the weekend of their late father’s birthday with his parents, whom they haven’t spent much time with since he’d died. Abby doesn’t want to go, so she sorta lies/sorta misleads her mother into not making her go. He real reason for not wanting to go? She hates visiting her father’s grave, because it’s too real.

Interesting tidbits

Aaaaaand Abby starts the book with a pun on page one. She’s so late to the meeting that she’s running. You know how BSC books almost always start with the narrator describing the scene and then saying, “I’m getting ahead of myself”? This time, Abby is running ahead of herself.

Abby’s now firmly described as being medium, instead of super-tall like she originally was. This is the second book in a row to use that adjective for her.

In order to verify what I’ve said recently, Abby is indeed allergic to tomatoes and shellfish. Going back to the last book, Abby ate with the Brewers and Derek’s friends at a seafood restaurant. There would be plenty of things she could eat there, but depending on how severe her allergy is, she might have problems just eating near shellfish or if the same cooking surface was used.

Aaaaaaaaand, we have our first ‘mental retardation’ on page 6. It definitely could be worse though, because at least it says ‘players with mental retardation.’ By the way, the players with impairments are known as athletes and the ones without are called partners. I think it’s kind of offensive for them to even create a distinction.

Abby tries to convince the rest of the BSC that soccer is awesome. She tells Claudia it’s a moving art form, and Stacey points out that it’s all based in geometry. I don’t think she could convince my cousin, though, who spends the entire World Cup whining each time because it’s taking televised time from ‘real sports people actually care about.’

Did you know that Kid Kits are not kids used to assemble children? Abby is sooo hilarious.

Since when do middle schools have varsity and junior varsity? We always had A team and B team, which is the same thing SMS has in book #129.

Other players on the team: Jojo (lol), Petra, Connie, Sandy, Annalise, and Jeana

Abby admits to expecting less out of the athletes than partners, simply because they have impairments. I think that’s fair enough, because how many people with mental impairments have they ever met before?

I swear they only have a player named Petra so Abby can make the pun that she looked petra-fied.

There are seriously a whole bunch of pages just explaining soccer positions and rules, and it’s wicked boring. And, unlike my cousin, I love soccer.

Abby’s competition with Erin starts before the first practice even begins, when the two of them get into a race during laps. And then Coach Wu gives Abby’s preferred position—center forward, pretty much the plum position on the team—to Erin, so Abby’s jealous.

Ha! The name of the ice cream store Coach Wu takes the soccer team to? Thirty-two Flavors and Then Some. That’s not so subtle there.

Abby really is a horrible sport. She resents Erin for getting ‘her’ position and being more popular with her teammates, so she decides Erin is a ‘showoff’ and the rest of the team are ‘phonies.’ Later, after the team wins, she tells Erin she knows more about soccer than Erin does…after Erin (truthfully) says that they lost because Abby kept leaving her defensive position to try to score. (It may not have been exclusively Abby’s fault, but when she’s spending all her time in midfield or forward, trying to score, it makes it a lot easier for the other team to get past the defense.) Then again, when Abby was first introduced, she said she wasn’t a team player, so maybe that’s the real problem.

The title quote comes from when Shannon-the-dog decided to join the soccer game and a soccer player tripped over her.

At one point Haley calls the soccer team ‘footballers’ and Karen gets ready to argue with her about it. Haley would be right in just about every other country in the world. (Plus, footballers sounds so much cooler than soccer players.)

Mallory mentions that the triplets play soccer, yet I remember at least once Jeff complaining that the triplets didn’t like soccer. I guess it’s just a sign of the times; in 1986, soccer wasn’t very popular, but by 1997, it was a lot more played.

Stoneybrook United loses a second game, largely because Abby refuses to pass the ball to Erin, who was wide open. Instead, she takes the shot herself and misses; the other team scores through the empty hole Abby created in the defense. She and Erin get into a shouting match and nearly pound each other. The most obnoxious part of this, though? Karen and company sitting on the sidelines, saying things like “Isn’t she supposed to pass now?” “They’re not going to fight, are they?” and “They were bad sports.” We all know all that without the kiddie commentary.

Abby doesn’t tell anyone she’s benched. Instead, Karen finds out by talking to Erin, who was also benched. Kristy gives Abby a totally contemptuous look, but I can only imagine the look Kristy would have given if she’d known the whole story. (Abby didn’t tell her mother she’d been benched either, and used the game as an excuse not to go spend the weekend with her paternal grandparents.)

Claudia spelling. Yay! Hapen, rihgt, wasch, allot (a lot), leest, fighte. She also uses your for you’re, twice.

The boosters throw a carwash, which is (mostly) too boring to mention. But the first customer is the Pink Clinker, which Nannie then agrees they can park on the corner to gather attention for the carwash. They describe the Pink Clinker as “the big, old pink car.” I’ve mentioned before that I pictured the Pink Clinker as a Volkswagen Beetle, but this totally has me picturing an early-80s Cadillac: a giant boat of a car.

Odd. Abby goes running in Miller’s Park, mentioning that “from what I’ve heard” there was a fight with a developer over the park that ended with it being declared a historic monument. Umm, that happened in Mystery #24. Abby’s first mystery was #23, so she was around when that happened.

Leave it to Abby to suggest a whole bunch of really punny soccer team names when Kristy suggests a Krushers-spinoff soccer team.

So Abby tells her mother the truth about the soccer team, and about why she didn’t want to visit her father’s grave. Her mom understands her and accepts Abby for who she is and what she’s done, which is really nice, if you think about it. I mean, Abby’s apologizing for not talking to her mother and for not being ready to go back to her father’s grave…and neither of those is really a crime (or even necessarily something to apologize for). And her mom is cool with it because Abby can’t help what she feels, and she’s already worked out for herself that she made some bad choices.

So the Special Olympics aspect could have been way worse. They actually use people-first language throughout the book, and don’t refer to the actual mental impairments much. Instead, a point is made of how similar the athletes and partners are. Most of the time, the only way you can tell the difference between the athletes and partners are that one of the athletes stutters and several of them are described as acting a little younger than the partners. (When I taught special education, my students—ages nine through thirteen—largely still believed in Santa and many of them acted a year or two younger than they really were. It’s not always true, but it’s not horribly offensive, either.) The only awkward part is when Erin calls Abby on her bad sportsmanship. Abby tells Erin she’s a better athlete than Erin is, and Erin replies, “Why? Because I have mental retardation?” I cringed big-time at that point. It’s poorly phrased for a couple different reasons, at least partly because mental retardation is a dated-sounding term. I wouldn’t have been nearly as bothered if Erin had said, “Why? Because I’m in special education?” or used the term special needs or even disability.

Outfits

Claudia: crop top muscle shirt batikked in green and blue, skinny black shorts, one blue sock and one green, Doc Martens, button earrings; oversized t-shirt with purple and white soccer balls and matching earrings

Stacey: purple silk t-shirt

Mary Anne: purple striped shirt

Jessi: purple leotard

Mallory: purple and white socks

Next: Our final super special! Saaaaaaad!

“This is a stupid way to die.” BSC Mystery #30: Kristy and the Mystery Train (1997)

This is the second Kristy mystery centered around a Derek Masters plotline. Were there any justice in the BSC-universe, those both should have been Jessi plots.

Derek’s back in town, and he’s taking a train trip as publicity for his new mystery movie. Kristy, Abby and Stacey go along for the ride, along with Nicky, David Michael, Linny, James and Buddy. Weird things go on during the ride, odd notes show up everywhere, and then Stacey and Kristy see a man pushed overboard (over rail?) Turns out that the screenwriter stole the script from a student of his, who wanted credit. He’d faked his own death and then tried to kidnap the screenwriter’s son before the BSC and a couple of adults subdue him.

The pool at the country club from mystery #23 opens for the summer, and Stephen Stanton-Cha is acting oddly. Eventually, the sitters find out he doesn’t know how to swim. Jessi helps him feel more comfortable in the water and he has a good time after that.

Interesting Tidbits

The cover is completely hideous. I think the mystery of the train is how horrible Kristy and Abby look here…

Kristy introduces Karen as her stepfather’s daughter, which is kind of an odd way of putting it. I mean, it’s technically true, but sort of roundabout. It’s almost as if I identified my mother as my father’s ex-wife.

The Masterses drive a Mercedes station wagon.

Stacey points out that Mal would like to see Louisa May Alcott’s house, but given that that is Mary Anne’s favorite book, wouldn’t see be just as interested?

Elizabeth and Watson are way too nice. After the Masterses agree to take a total of nine kids* on the train trip, the Brewers take the five Stoneybrook kids and the three sitters up to Boston for the night. The kids are all ramped up, so they have to get them a seafood dinner**, three hotel rooms, and all the expenses related to a day-long walking tour of the building.

*Derek, Todd, DM, Buddy, James, Linny, Nicky, Derek’s friend Greg and Todd’s friend Daniel

**I thought Abby was allergic to seafood? I’m going to need to review her allergies here sometime soon.

I can’t explain why, but every time I try to write Buddy Barrett’s name, I type Butty. And then, because I’m so juvenile, I giggle a little bit.

“I woke up early the next morning to…Abby breath.” This also made me giggle.

Oh, here Stacey goes again. She calls Boston a ‘little’ town because it’s smaller than NYC. If Logan’s superpower is superdickery, Stacey’s is supersnobbery.

People we meet on the train (aka suspects): Rock Harding (love that Hollywood name), the director; Ronald Pierce, screenwriter (and Daniel’s father); Anne Arbour, publicist (named after a city, hee hee); Jane Atlantic, reporter (Kristy keeps pointing out how much she looks like Stacey, so you know that’s going to be important); Benjamin Athens (People’s sexiest man on the planet) and Elle San Carlos, leads in the movie; Charlie, Elle’s husband/ex-husband

I loooove the idea that Benjamin and Elle are having an affair for publicity, yet we’re given the impression that Elle and her hubby aren’t quite divorced yet. It’s all insinuation so far, but it’s a lot more adult than you see in most of these books.

Nicky actually asks if everyone who lives in California is a vegetarian, and Greg (who is Californian and vegetarian, hence the question) says no. But the BSC books tend to give the opposite conclusion.

I like this: Kristy decides to keep an eye on Nicky and Greg, because they’re Derek’s two best friends, meeting for the first time. She equates it to when she got to know Dawn. I also related it to SS#8, when Linny and Nicky—DM’s two best friends—fought all the time. Obviously, they got over it, as they’re both on this trip and getting along.

You have to wonder who’s in charge of this train trip and whether they should be fired. I mean, a bunch of tomfoolery occurs and slips of paper saying ‘The truth will come out’ are everywhere, yet no one seems to be doing too much to stop it. Derek suggests that a rubber severed hand served as a lunch entrée was a publicity stunt. Kristy disagrees because Anne, the publicist, seems horrified by it all. Cynical adult me wonders whether Anne’s worried for the movies stars or whether she’s worried about losing her job…

The BSC members who aren’t on the mystery train show up for the first day of the country club to help man it. Mary Anne shows up looking like she stole her dad’s old clothes, which kind of makes me laugh. And Jessi’s wearing ‘reef runners.’ I had to Google that to see what they were.

Oh, and Claudia is teasing Mallory about her hat and cover-up and high powered SPF sunscreen. Mal does seem like the kind of person who would burn very easily in the sun—reddish hair, fair skin—but we all know it’s usually Mary Anne who has to cover up like that. (Mal says she’s worried about getting more freckles, though.)

Leave it to Karen to make sure everyone is following the pool rules. I have to admit, I was that kind of kid too, but I was never outspoken enough to boss my friends around.

The title quote is Kristy’s thoughts when their train car fills with smoke and they can’t get the door open. (It’s just a smoke bomb, but everyone’s majorly tense afterward…until Linny’s grateful it wasn’t a stink bomb and all the boys start laughing.)

I think the only reason Stacey is in on this mystery is because she’s up on Hollywood gossip in a way most of the BSC wouldn’t be.

Grr. Daniel, Todd’s little friend, is described as being stocky in passing when he first appears in the story. The first time Daniel actually gets to talk, he’s mad at his father because Mr. Pierce said Daniel couldn’t have any more ice cream. It’s more subtle than the BSC always mentioning how fat Norman is, but I still don’t like it. Later, when Daniel is upset after he witnesses someone allegedly going over the side of the train, his dad buys him by…getting him more ice cream.

“Next time you decide to witness a murder, could you wait until I’m around?” –Guess who

This is kind of weird. As I mentioned earlier, Mal, Jessi, Claudia and Mary Anne are supervising the kids at the opening of the country club pool. One of the kids hanging around the pool, waiting for it to reopen after lunch, is Ben Hobart. He keeps making jokes about barfing and teasing the kids. I’m wondering if the ghostwriter got the Hobart boys confused. James, the same age as many of the kids who were at the pool—Karen and friends, Charlotte, Becca, Jackie, Luke, etc—was with Derek on the train. Maybe they’ve confused Mathew, who would also fit into this age range, with Ben? Otherwise, there’s a good reason that Mal and Ben never got their pseudo-relationship off the ground.

Okay, I have a favorite scene in this book, for a very odd reason. Mal is putting on more sunscreen—SPF 60 this time, and waterproof. Karen becomes concerned that if the sunscreen is really waterproof, it will never come off and Mallory would be stuck with sunscreen on her forever! Normally, this would turn into Karen going off on a tangent and being obnoxious. When she starts, Mal shuts her down by pointing off that it will wash off with soap, so Karen’s story is moot. She then won’t let her keep talking about it. I now love Mallory.

Abby tells Kristy there’s an ocean of mystery about Jane Atlantic, and even Kristy thinks it’s her worst pun yet. Oh, and Abby thinks that Anne Arbour’s name is a horrible pun as well.

Why in the hell would the babysitters tell the kids—mostly eight year olds—about the alleged murder they witnessed? That’s horribly irresponsible.

You know someone’s got a lot of clothing on the train when even Stacey says that it’s too much clothing.

Why does everyone on this train leave their compartment unlocked? The babysitters take the seven older boys to do some illegal searches, and every sleeper compartment they go into is open, and no one is inside them.

Claudia spelling. Praty (party…she spells it right 4 out of 5 times), anemals.

At the pool party, there is a silly bathing cap contest, and earlier, Mallory notes that Jenny is wearing one. The only time I ever wore a swim cap when I was growing up was when I went to Girl Scout camp and had to wear one. I would have never worn one when swimming for fun.

Kristy thinks she’d like to be a movie director someday…because it would give her a lot of people to boss around.

I only have five more mysteries left to read: two Mary Annes, a Stacey, an Abby and a Kristy. As flat-out awful as some of these books have been, I’m sort of sad about that. (If I keep up this pace, I’ll be done with this blog by the end of the year. Expect a lot more awwwwww! Ultra-mega-sad-face moments out of me…)

Outfits

Stacey: ‘butter-colored’ linen shirt, chino shorts, cork-sole sandals

Claudia: red shorts, purple crop top, red and white muscle shirt, purple socks, red high tops, apple earrings; tie-dyed t-shirt knotted at the waist, flower sandals and barrette

Jessi: pink leotard, jeans; blue bike shorts and sports bra, red t-shirt, reef runners

Mallory: long sleeved shirt, shorts, sneakers, hat

Mary Anne: green Izod shirt, baseball cap with ‘Ted’s Tools’ on it

Next: #110

“I was born to be a victim.” BSC #109: Mary Anne to the Rescue (1997)

Before I begin this book, I have a ‘joyous’ announcement to make. As of this Friday, my BSC collection is almost officially complete. I now own a copy of every book in the original series, all the mysteries, super specials, super mysteries and Friends Forever books. All I’m missing is a copy of the Claudia graphic novel (I’m waiting on that because I want to get all four of them in color…sweetness) and the Secret Santa book. (Considering I’ve never actually seen a copy of that or even a picture of the cover, I don’t think it really exists. I’m convinced it’s a conspiracy against me.)

Mary Anne becomes convinced she’d be terrible in an emergency, so she and the BSC take a first aid class. The class makes her queasy and she doesn’t think it’s helping. But then, while she and Dawn are babysitting at the Korman house, Timmy Hsu is drowning the pool. Mary Anne is the first to respond, pulling him out and performing CPR until he starts breathing again. It gives her the guts to deal with her other problem: Logan’s dad has decided to send him to boot camp for the summer and then boarding school after that. Logan’s too afraid to confront his father, until Mary Anne supports him. Of course, he gets to stay in Stoneybrook.

Interesting Tidbits

Cover! Mary Anne’s trying to be all sweet, but Logan’s showing his superpower, superdickery. (If you’ve never seen the superdickery website, you need to go check it out…after you finish this blog post, of course.)

The whole basis of the plotline of this book is that Sharon saves a guy who is choking by performing the Heimlich on him. Mary Anne worries that she’s bad in an emergency because she just sat there, open mouthed, and watched. She’s afraid that if Sharon weren’t there, the guy would have died. It’s like she’s forgotten that she’s actually quite good in an emergency. (Dawn reminds her of that in chapter 11, and tells her that if she ever needed someone to ‘maneuver [her] Heimlich’ MA would be the first person she would call.)

Ahh, Peter Lerangis. Claudia goes out and buys special food for Dawn, and Abby calls it…boogers and boulders.

Ooh, remember when, at the beginning of the series, the BSC books just kind of flowed together? Like how the vacations in #8 were established in #7. Well, in this one, Mary Anne mentions how Abby is going to be on a Special Olympics soccer team soon….which happens in the next book.

There’s this really goofy joke at the beginning of the first aid class where the teacher’s last name is Golden, and the first two kids in the class are Pete Black and Alan Gray. Their friend Irv introduces himself as Little Boy Blue, which I guess is supposed to be funny. It’s so lame a joke that even Abby wouldn’t make it.

“You’re allowed to sneak off with your boyfriend. These things are important.” The California Diaries have started by this point, so this is a little more adult than most of the BSC usually sound. I like it.

Logan says he and Mary Anne can email each other if he goes off to boarding school. I find it odd to see the word email in a BSC book. Even when they talk about cell phones, they call them cellular phones, so it doesn’t seem modern or anything.

“I had to perform emergency hair support.” There’s only one person in the entire book series who could have said that…and only one person she could have said it about.

Oh, Dawn. She suggests that Mary Anne’s ‘just grossed out’ by the idea of going to the ER as part of their first aid class…and then says that it’s the same way she feels about a pork chop. ‘Cause bleeding, injured humans is totally the same thing as a hunk of meat.

Sharon-itis: tennis shoes in the kitchen with the pots and pans

Nooo, Kristy. She teaches the Pike kids to use ‘stop, drop and roll’ if they encounter a fire in their house. She says it helps you stay under the smoke. I remember second grade really well (not to mention the fact that I taught for a couple of years) and ‘stop, drop and roll’ is for when your clothes catch on fire. This bugs me more than the usual mistake in these books.

Logan shops like I do. His mom gives him a list and a credit card, but it takes him hours to complete the list…because he looks at everything in Bellair’s except what’s on the list.

The title quote is one of many things Dawn says about the first aid class’s role in the Safety Weekend. She also says that Carol has a friend whose entire professional life is screaming for horror and disaster movies. Logan: Do you have to go for college for that?

I’m amused by who likes the idea of being in the disaster drill and who doesn’t. Claudia finds the whole idea sick (but will do it anyway), Stacey doesn’t want to lie in the sun and the germs and ruin her clothes, and Mal’s not an actress. Dawn’s all about it, and Jessi likes the idea as well. Logan says he’ll be in it…as long as he doesn’t have to be beheaded. And one person doesn’t even come at all…because the disaster is a car accident. I cringed when I read that, because I wasn’t even thinking about Abby’s dad as they were setting up the accident.

Dawn’s a little bitchy in this story. It’s as if being away from Mary Anne for a school year has made her completely forget her stepsister’s personality. Dawn volunteers to be the broken leg victim in the car crash, because it lets her scream. After Logan decides to be the head-wound, Dawn volunteers Mary Anne to lie in the street with a heavily-bleeding leg wound. MA feels violated afterwards, and she blames Dawn for it.

After the two of them fight, MA finds Dawn ‘trying to meditate’ even though she doesn’t know how. I’m kind of surprised that someone—Mrs. Winslow, Carol, Sharon, one of Maggie’s Buddhist friends—hasn’t taught her how to meditate somewhere along the way. “See? Meditating does help. Even if you don’t know how to do it.”

Claudia spelling: Firefitters, becuase, rellative, thot, shoud. She also uses hurry for hurray and fare for fair.

Dawn’s being more preachy than normal. She scolds various BSC members for eating ‘processed animal entrails and spun pancreas poison’: hot dogs and cotton candy.

When Jamie freaks out at the mock-fire, Mrs. Pike offers to drive him, Claudia and Lucy home. Instead of thinking about how nice that was, I worried about Lucy not having a car seat. (Also, I’m wondering about Claudia’s judgment in having Jamie watch that…after he was afraid MA was dead after the mock-car crash.)

I’m still confused about the idea the Delaneys used to have that their kids could use the pool while being babysat if the next door neighbor is home. The Kormans have a similar rule, but poor goodhearted Mr. Sinclair has to be in his own yard, watching. (The Delaney/Kormans live in a massive house with a giant yard, including tennis courts and more. How convenient is it that he is able to put a chair within sight of the Korman pool from his own yard.)

I love when we learn more about the parents of the clients. Mrs. Hsu is head chef at Renwick’s.

Logan and Mary Anne sit down with the Brunos to discuss Logan’s future. Mr. Bruno’s first thought? He asks if they’re getting married. They’re thirteen; that’s not legal in any state that I know of. But I could understand if he thought MA was pregnant. (Heyyyy, if this weren’t a BSC book, someone would have suggested that MA get pregnant to prevent Logan from getting sent up river to boarding school.)

Outfits

Claudia: felt hat, oversized white button-down shirt, hand-painted wide tie, cuffed khaki shorts, white knee highs and brown and white bucks

Shelley Golden, the first aid teacher: chambray shirt, shorts, running shoes

Next: Mystery #30

“Saved by the Mal!” BSC #108: Don’t Give Up, Mallory (1997)

This isn’t the last Mallory book, but it is the last one I’ve never read.

Mallory’s latest Short Takes class is Children’s Literature, which should be a breeze for her. Instead, the class is torturous because the teacher lets the boys dominate the class by shouting out answers, something Mal isn’t comfortable with. Despite not being comfortable speaking out in class, Mal has no problem speaking up to the principal after discovering that money had been set aside for a student lounge was used for building repairs instead. She leads the class to raise enough money to get their lounge, despite the fact that several of her classmates discovering the idea of playing dumb to get boys. She eventually talks to her teacher, who realizes he’s not being fair and starts giving the girls willing to talk equal time.

In the sitting-related subplot, Buddy Barrett claims to be in a marching band so that he can march in a parade. Rather than make him tell the truth and face the consequences, the BSC scramble to amass a band full of random kids with ridiculous homemade instruments that don’t make noises.

Interesting Tidbits

The cover: By this point, the kids—at least, just the sixth graders—have started to look age-appropriate. Also, you kind of get why the teacher is calling on the boys instead of the girls in this set up. Mal is the only girl who is raising her hand, and she looks really reluctant. The boys seem more enthusiastic.

You would think that straight As were really unusual in a middle school, given the way everyone keeps acting at SMS. Mal has straight As on her midterm report—not even a regular report card—and she gets called brainiac and know it all. I had straight As every quarter in middle school…and so did seven other people in my class. And it was a really small school. Anyway, I know for a fact that Kristy had straight As the last quarter of seventh grade, as reported in #6.

I like this: Mal says that Abby talks loud and fast, but Abby blames this on being from Long Island. (As opposed to my gut instinct, which is just that Abby is loud and talks fast simply because she’s Abby.)

Real books: Charlotte’s Web, Where the Wild Things Are, Polar Express, The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, The Wreck of the Zephyr, Make Way for the Ducklings, Dinosaurs and How they Lived, Dinosaur Discovery, Dinosaurs A to Z, Dinosaur Bob, Dinotopia, Goodnight Moon, The Runaway Bunny, Animalia, Eleventh Hour,

Elise, Jessi’s synchronized swimming partner, is in Mal’s literature class. I don’t know why I thought she was in seventh grade. The Complete Guide says she’s in sixth grade, though. I think it’s because Jessi had to switch around lunch periods or something to take ‘synchro.’

I had an experience similar to Mallory’s first day of lit class, with a substitute teacher. Class policy said if you wanted help, you raised your hand and the teacher would come to you. So I sat at my desk with my hand raised for fifteen minutes while the sub ignored me and the other kids all got out of their seats and went to the teacher’s desk. Finally I went over to the teacher’s desk, where I got chewed out for not getting my assignment done, because I was sitting at my desk with my hand raised. Why am I bringing this up? Because it took me fifteen minutes to get into the sub’s groove of how she wanted the class run. Mal’s sitting at her desk with her hand raised, but not getting called on. The back cover says that the teacher is favoring boys, but at one point in the class, a boy and a girl get into a discussion. It’s clear reading the chapter that the teacher isn’t calling on raised hands; he just wants the kids to shout out their opinions. Let’s see how long it takes before Mal figures that out.* Oh, and as the book goes on, he does lean more toward favoring the boys.

*(I get it; she’s also not really comfortable just shouting out her opinions. But there are going to be times in her life where that’s necessary, so maybe it’s time to start acquiring that skill now.)

Claudia spelling time! It’s only one sentence: I dont know, Stacey, waht do you git? This would be a lot less funny if Stacey hadn’t started the notebook entry by asking What do you get… and therefore, modeling the spelling of most of those words for Claudia…

Ooh, I like this, too! The sixth grade class officers have their meeting in the memory garden from book #93. Glad to hear that place is getting some use.

Sandra, the class vice president, figures out that some years back, the funds raised during Sixth Grade Fundraiser Week were earmarked for a student lounge but were used for repairs instead. Sandra says that it’s misappropriation of funds, but I guess it depends upon circumstances. If I were eleven, I’d completely agree with her, but as an adult, I think that roof repairs are way more important.

Mallory is late two BSC meetings in a row. When she’s on time the next meeting, Kristy points it out as first order of business. I think I liked it better when she would just yell at them for being late.

Mallory figures out how to save the ridiculous ‘marching band’ by giving the kids kazoos to play. The title quote is Stacey’s response. (It ends up being ridiculous…twenty kazoos playing twenty different tunes at the same time. Abby calls it an attack of the killer bees.)

Remember when puff paint was cool? That was more like 1989 than 1997.

The whole Sandra plotline is interesting because it’s the most realistic in this book. Sandra is eleven or twelve at this point and she’s really aware of what the boys think of her…as most girls her age are. She purposely tries not to appear too smart or strong so that boys will like her better. She wears shoes that hurt her feet so that she’ll seem more feminine. (I’m picturing Quinn from Daria, who did the same thing for a while but stopped because she didn’t need to wear shoes to make her legs look hot, because her legs look hot no matter what she’s wearing…)

This is ridiculous. The marching band story line is stupid (why, oh why, do the BSC members not just tell Buddy he’s out of luck when he tells them he wants to make a marching band), but the actual parade takes the cake. On practice day, the BSC handed out twenty kazoos to whomever showed up. They never sent out a date everyone had to sign up by or spoke to any parents. Kristy agreed to babysit for a ridiculous 9 children by herself in the time period leading up to the parade. But then, proving that Stoneybrook parents are the worst in the world, various parents start dropping their kids off, assuming the BSC will watch them. In a couple of cases, parents literally pull up in a car, drop off their four year old, and don’t even speak to Kristy (who is left alone with a whopping twenty-three children) before driving off. Horrid, horrid parenting.

I’d expected this book to suck, but it really didn’t. (Well, except the marching band part.) Mal had said, early on, that her parents were proud of all of her siblings, no matter their grades, as long as they did their best. Mal found the courage to speak up to her teacher and point out his unconscious bias to him. He denies calling on boys more than girls or letting boys have more time to think on a topic, but later that day, he realizes it’s true. He apologizes to the class and makes a concerted effort to be more fair. But then Mal realizes that wasn’t the only reason she wasn’t speaking up in class. She proves she knows her stuff in the final written project for the class, and the teacher gives her a B+. Even though it’s her first ever B, Mal’s not disappointed, because she realizes it’s the grade she deserved (and in my opinion, probably nicer than she deserved) and she tried her hardest.

Outfits

Mr. Cobb: collarless white shirt, jeans and a black vest; tan chinos, leather boat shoes, blue linen shirt

Stacey: jeans with rolled cuffs, denim work shirt, backwards painter’s cap

Claudia: shorts, tie-dyed t-shirt with matching scrunchie, red high tops

Helen Gallway (who?): hot pink bike shorts, t-shirt with puff-painted hearts on it

Next: #109

BSC Fun! Or not.

In my latest vlog, I mentioned my similarity to Mallory in appearance. To misquote myself, I looked just like Mallory when I was eleven, except the hair. And I promised to prove it. Before we get to that, I want to prove that I wasn’t always a big dork. So here are two photos of me when I was cute, before I wore Hufflepuff shirts and randomly quoted Doctor Who.

And…here I am, circa age twelve. Wasn’t I gorgeous? Don’t you love my oversized glasses, great hair choices, and amazing sense of fashion? I knew you would.

Here’s the (allegedly) fun part. How many people here will admit they’ve ever dressed up like Claudia? Or that there is a photo of them, somewhere, wearing an outfit like Mary Anne used to wear? Or even that they’ve seen a stock photo and said to themselves, “Hey, it’s Stacey!” and are willing to prove it? If I have enough responses, I’ll make it a contest and find an appropriately cheesy prize to mail to the winner.

Don’t let me down now, guys. 

“This is even more boring than being bored.” BSC Mystery #29: Stacey and the Fashion Victim (1997)

I know we’ve vlogged Stacey before…okay, no we haven’t. We’ve (what’s this we crap? I must have multiple personalities or something…) only vlogged Stacey’s Emergency. So let’s talk.

I really think that someone came up with the title of this book, and then worked out a convoluted plot line to fit the very punny tag. Stacey is modeling at an event at Bellair’s Department Store called Fashion Week, which consists of catalogue shoots and fashion shows. Someone keeps sabotaging the models and shoots, so Stacey and the BSC investigate, and they find out the culprit was a model with a very pushy stage mother. She wanted to stop modeling and thought making it look like someone was out to get her would get her mother to back off.

In the B plot, Abby catches Buddy Barrett and Lindsey DeWitt getting ready to try a cigarette, leading to the kids in town convincing various adults in their lives to quit.

Interesting Tidbits

The cover: I think Stacey is the fashion victim here. I do know the seventies were back around that time, but still. Ew.

This book is going to be chockfull of outfits, isn’t it? I’m excited, but only if the clothes are better than what Stacey’s wearing on the cover.

Remember mini backpacks? Those were definitely all the rage when I was a teen. Stacey wears one with her ‘business-y outfit’ for Take Your Daughter to Work Day, totally ruining the adultness of the outfit.

What did everyone do for TYDtWD? Stacey helped her mom be a buyer at Bellair’s. Claudia went with her dad to his investment banking job, where she understood nothing but lunch. (Sounds like a normal day at school for her, before she went back to seventh grade.) Kristy rearranged her mom’s desk for efficiency.* Mary Anne thought watching Richard—who’s a corporate lawyer at this point; that seems to change on a regular basis—work was pretty interesting. Both Abby and Jessi did their mom’s photocopying…and they both copied their faces.

*Do we even know what Kristy’s mom does? She works in an office with a copy machine, but I think that’s all I know about her job.

When Stacey tells everyone she’ll be a model for Fashion Week, Mal and Jessi are predictably against it, which is no surprise. They also had a problem with the Little Miss Stoneybrook pageant, remember? And Kristy is against it as well, but mostly because Stacey won’t be able to do any sitting that week. (Typical.) Interestingly, it’s Mary Anne—who’s experienced the world of catalog modeling and commercial auditions with the Prezziosos—who suggests that some non-professional modeling could help Stacey learn to be more independent and confident.

Ooh, I have a new goal in life: to become Princess Bellair. Forget using my brain for anything!

Oh, and I now have the Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme song stuck in my head. Think Princess Bellair is related somehow?

Stacey gets bored enough during the Fashion Week intro meeting that she lets Cokie tell her all the gossip about all the other models. Stacey says she doesn’t even like gossip. (Bitch, please. I don’t know a single girl her age who doesn’t enjoy at least a little gossip. I do understand her point about the fact that all the models want to do is badmouth each other behind their backs, but a little rundown of who’s who, like Cokie gave, is something most of us can appreciate on some level.) The title quote relates to this passage, only it’s not from the book. It’s what my sister used to say when she was a small fry and my mother used to try to get her to clean instead of whining and moping.

Oh, and then guess who’s gossiping with Claudia about one of the models a couple pages later…

So the mystery begins in earnest at the end of chapter five. Before that, we are introduced to only some of the people involved in Fashion Week, so each of the people with a name is automatically a suspect. I give you:

            Mrs. Maslin, who runs the show

            Harmony Skye, a ridiculously named up-and-coming model

            Sydney, the latest thing in fashion**

            Cynthia, who’s past her peak (at sixteen)

            Blaine, a local girl who is just getting started and trying to break into the big time

            Mrs. Skye, a totally obnoxious stage mother

            Roger Bellair, who used to date Sydney and is working on the shoot

            Dylan Trueheart, the agent who ‘discovered’ Cokie

**If Sydney’s that big a model—she was on the cover of a teenage fashion magazine recently—what the **** is she doing surrounded by amateurs at a small-time fashion show in Podunk, USA?

First incident: Harmony, who hasn’t eaten all day, drinks some tea and then has stomachaches, gets sleepy and becomes pale. Mrs. Skye thinks someone drugged her.

The instructions the photographer gives the models are laughable: “Okay, girls, let’s see you act like long-lost sisters who are thrilled to see each other again.” But I’ve read and seen other materials about fashion shoots, and they’re equally laughable. I’m thinking about Tootie on The Facts of Life: “How can I make love to a camera when I’ve never even kissed a boy?”

Second incident (and a bunch of little ones that only get a sentence or two): Blaine, Sydney and Harmony find some of their outfits from the shoot shredded. Someone exposed a bunch of rolls of film. A model discovered a spider in her shoe (although that might just be a coincidence.) Blaine gets locked in an elevator. Harmony fell off the catwalk when she was blinded by the light. (I forget who sings that song, but it’s now stuck in my head.) Someone got a rash from their foundation—which is exactly why I don’t wear makeup. A bunch of creepy notes keep showing up, written in makeup.

Claudia spelling! Wacthing, shur, defenetly.

Wow, this story is so boring that I can’t even find anything to mock.

I’m amused by the fact that various people keep talking on ‘cellular phones.’ I realize they were still sort of new technology—my friends started getting cell phones in 98—but I can’t imagine using that many syllables to discuss something that’s so common place these days.

Stacey’s from New York, so when she references tall buildings, she mentions the Empire State Building and the World Trade Center.

Incident 3: Stacey and Harmony lean on a railing on the roof of Bellair’s. It gives way and they fall a few feet, not injured. Someone had removed the screws…and it had been Harmony’s idea to stand against the railing.

I know I’ve been very quiet about the B-plot, and that’s because it’s basically been a non-entity. I don’t think it’s ever been mentioned in any of the books that anyone smoked unless it was a specific plot point. (The girls on the SMS softball team, for example, when they thought they’d burned down that shed with their cigarettes.) I guess we’re supposed to be surprised that Franklin DeWitt and Mrs. Hobart smoke, but I wasn’t really shocked to find that Watson occasionally puffs on a cigar or that Aunt Cecelia smokes. If anyone in this book was going to have a humidor, it would definitely be Watson.

Stacey decides that modeling was fun, but she never wants to do it again. It would have been an awesome spin-off series if she’d been discovered: much edgier than the California Diaries—with cocaine, affairs, and even more gossip! I’m so sad we didn’t get that series.

Outfits

Stacey: white linen blouse, navy skirt, heels; raspberry romper, white sneakers, white baseball cap, pigtails; red/white striped bathing suit and cover-up, red flip flops, straw hat, slicked-back hair; denim minidress, espadrilles, bangles, French braid; pink wool jumper; plaid skirt and white shirt; navy blue suit; trendy jeans, tight shirt, platform shoes; flowery, ankle-length dress

Claudia: white jeans with artistic paint on them, denim shirt (stealing Dawn’s attire, I think), high top sneakers, chopsticks in her hair

Harmony: long skirt, crop top; neon paisley miniskirt, white gogo boots, fluffy white jacket (this outfit is making my eyes hurt and I can’t even see it)

Watson: a tux (seriously)—and all the rest of the Brewer-Thomas family also dresses up

Next: #108

“Some of us need to concentrate when we’re driving.” BSC #107: Mind Your Own Business, Kristy (1997)

Okay. This book drove me nuckin’ futs when I first read it a couple years ago, and there is one, very simple reason why. If you’ve never read this book before, here’s a very quick summary: Kristy meddles in Charlie’s love life. That’s annoying enough by itself, but it’s so Kristy that you’re not even surprised by it. Here’s what I found so obnoxious about this book: Kristy keeps telling Charlie to give up his new girlfriend because she’s trouble, and she’s flippin’ right! I would have liked the book a hell of a lot more if Kristy had warned Charlie that this girl, Angelica, was no good, and she turned out to be wrong and Angelica was harmless….

A more detailed plot summary: Kristy throws a spring-break spring training for the Krushers and Charlie agrees to help. He just broke up with his girlfriend and enjoys the attentions of the Hsus’ sitter, Angelica, so much so that he slacks on his part of the deal. He promises to get some famous baseball player to come to the training camp but doesn’t follow through. Kristy tries to get Charlie and his ex back together but just pisses him off.

Kristy wins four tickets to a rock concert and agrees to give two to Charlie in exchange for a ride to the concert. Kristy, Charlie, Angelica and Claudia are on their way to the concert with Angelica driving Watson’s car when they get pulled over. Angelica crashes the car and admits she doesn’t have a license. Charlie realizes that Angelica’s a liar and a bad seed and he gets back together with his ex, who gets the baseball player to come to the training camp.

Interesting Tidbits

The front cover: All the ladies love Charlie…

The back cover: The story summary begins “Kristy’s brother Charlie is a good guy….” This is an understatement. Not only does Charlie shuttle Kristy (and her friends) all over the place, but every time he drops her off and discovers she needs help with whatever she’s gotten herself into, he drops everything and takes care of it. He does things like run concession stands at Krushers’ games and transport the team from place to place, even when it means getting stranded at a ‘haunted’ house. He came in during the Pike plague and helped cook and clean even though he didn’t get paid. Charlie’s the kind of kid you can be proud of, whether he is your son, your neighbor or your brother.

Porky, Arnold and Piglet: Kristy’s nicknames for her brothers. I get Porky and Piglet, but it took me fifteen minutes to get the Arnold reference. It shouldn’t surprise me that Kristy would make a Green Acres reference, given the fact that these girls love Leave it to Beaver and I Love Lucy.

Kristy makes the Hillary Clinton argument: if you have a forceful personality and a penis, people call you strong-willed and a born leader. But a female with the same quality is either bossy or a bitch. (Okay, Kristy doesn’t say the latter, but it’s obviously what she means. You all know that’s what some of her classmates will call Kristy behind her back.)

The Brewer-Thomas clan has six pets, but it took me absolutely forever to list them all, since it’s usually just Boo-Boo and Shannon that get mentioned. The rest of the pets are all Karen and Andrew’s—two goldfish, and two caged small animals that used to live at the ‘Little House’ until Karen and Andrew started switching houses every other month instead of just staying with their dad on weekends. (I still haven’t pinpointed exactly when that happened.) Karen’s rat is named Emily Jr.—which is supposed to be a compliment, but hopefully that rat’s dead long before Emily Michelle is old enough to figure that one out. And if I remember correctly, Andrew’s hermit crab is named Bob.

Charlie is looking at college brochures…during spring break…of his senior year. He should have already chosen a school by then.

Oh, and the brochures include Levithan Polytechnic Institute and Rhineback School of Arts. Would any person be considering those two schools at the same time? If you really don’t know what you want to study, you go to a big state school, where you have 3000 major choices. (David Michael suggests that Charlie go someplace where he can train to be an astronaut, which is such a 7 year old thing to suggest.)

Obviously, this story revolves around the Krushers, and Bart does indeed show up. There goes my theory that Bart does not show up again after he breaks up with Kristy.

When Kristy calls the meeting to order while picking up a phone call, Mrs. Kuhn thinks she dialed Pizza Express by accident. That leads to various BSC members quipping, “One babysitter, extra cheese with pepperoni?” and “Is that a deep dish sitter or a Sicilian?”

I’m picturing Jessi giving the Kuhn kids ballet lessons and it’s hilarious. I think it’s mostly because they always describe Jake as being pudgy and klutzy—the eight year old boy version of myself—that I find him plié-ing so funny.

Kristy asks Bart to help with her Spring Klinic (she spells it with a c at this point, but it’s the Krushers, so k it is. Plus, then I can all it Kristy’s Krushers’ Klinic and shorten it…) He turns her down because then the Krushers would know all his secrets. Kristy says it’s only a game, so who cares, but I’m actually with Bart on this one. Plus, that may be the only time in the history of the world that Kristy’s called softball ‘only a game.’

Ha! Charlie knows just how to annoy Kristy, which is absolutely no surprise. When the radio station called Kristy to let her know she’d won four tickets to the Blade concert, she thought it was Alan making fun of her. (She didn’t realize that they pre-tape most radio segments. I had that argument repeatedly with my sister when she was tying up the phone line trying to win radio contests in her teens. Seriously, people: when you hear them answering the phone and telling some schmuck he’s the 57^th caller out of 101, that’s when you can quit calling, because they’re recording the call with the actual winner.) So later when Kristy’s crabby, Charlie asks her if she had a fight with her boyfriend, Alan.

Charlie’s post-high school dreams? Clown college. Awesome.

So the big baseball star Kristy promises the kids will be at the KKK? (I told you I was going to shorten it!) His name is Jack Brewster and he used to play for the Mets. What bugs me is that Kristy goes all gaga and starts telling the kids everything, and Charlie just says he ‘might’ be able to get him to come. It tells me Kristy wasn’t really listening—she only heard the words she wanted to hear. (I don’t know anyone who does that. Certainly not my mother, who tells all my relatives all the prospective details about my wedding that ‘might’ happen…just after I told her not to tell anyone anything until it’s set in stone!)*

Huh. I don’t remember ever hearing that Kristy’s dad used to play minor league ball, but he makes a lot more sense when you factor that in. He’s like a little boy who didn’t get what he wanted for Christmas…so he ups and leaves his family for the chance to be a reporter for a sports team instead. Still not okay, but his logic is a teensy bit less shady now.

I’m not surprised that the kids on the Krushers love Charlie. I kinda love him myself.

Various things Kristy calls Angelica before she learns her name: Monica, Jessica, Seneca, Veronica, Cressida, Sparticus.

Oh, and Kristy does eventually call it Krushers Klinic. I don’t know if I remembered that or it was just a logical assumption. (You know Karen’s sitting back there on the bench going, Crushers’ Clinic in her head…)

Double Ha! Mr. Pike calls Jessi ‘Jesserina’. It’s such a dad joke and I adore it.

I no longer have that list I used to amass of the members of Kristy’s Krushers, but I do know that the KKK has more members than the team usually has. As of now, the only additions to the regular krew (see what I did there?) that I’m aware of are Vanessa and the triplets. Vanessa’s usually a cheerleader, but she’s playing in this book. And I guess that the triplets’ can attend the KKK around their Little League practices….

Kristy refers to the sounds Charlie’s car makes as ‘the mating call of the Junk Bucket.’ That put a really inappropriate picture in my head, like a scene out of a documentary about wildlife.

You know Angelica is a bad girl because she smokes!

Claudia’s idea of a good snack: she wraps a licorice string around a pretzel.

This is interesting, and I never noticed it before. After Mrs. Barrett became Mrs. DeWitt, the assorted Barrett-DeWitt kids seemed to do everything together. But only Buddy and Suzi are Krushers, despite the fact that Lindsey, Taylor and Madeleine are all the right age to join.

Dumbass. Kristy tries the sitcom-staple of setting Charlie and Sarah up to go to dinner together. It never works for kids of divorcing parents, so why does she think it will work in this case? It’s double-bad because Charlie invites Angelica along. Kristy talks him out of it, but it still goes very badly.

Number of baseball puns in Abby’s KKK sitting notebook entry: five. Number of sentences: five. She’s batting a thousand.

Abby’s method of dividing the kids up for a practice game: “All kids with vowels in their names, to my right. All kids with consonants in their names, to my left.”

Shocking. Kristy admits that she was an idiot for butting into Charlie and Sarah’s break up.

*It wasn’t until chapter 9 that I realized Kristy didn’t tell the kids at the KKK that Jack Brewster might come. The kids weren’t all showing up because of JB; they were showing up because they idolize Charlie. He’s the one who tells the kids Jack Brewster will be coming.

Ooh, this is awful: when Charlie slacks on his co-coach duties, Kristy calls him on it. Charlie points out that he’s volunteering, and therefore, he can slack if he wants to. Kristy suggests he’s just like their father. This has to be the ultimate insult for one of the Thomas kids, but especially for Charlie. (Part of the reason I liked the FF series so much was that Patrick leaving was addressed: Charlie was allowed to be angry at this dad—for good reason—while Sam got to play peacekeeper, a role that I think matured him.)

Finally, a sign that Charlie is a teenaged boy and not perfect: He’s really mad—understandably so—after Kristy’s comment, but he comes to KKK anyway. He then makes Mary Anne play message girl and relay questions and messages to Kristy, because he doesn’t want to talk to her. Passive aggression at its finest, folks.

So Blade—the band Kristy, Claudia and Charlie love—has a new CD called…Shrunken Heads. Yet they write love songs that Abby and Kristy were embarrassed that Charlie was singing along with.

Watson drives an Oldsmobile, which Charlie asks to borrow. When I was remembering this story, I thought that Watson’s car was a stick, because Charlie sucked at driving it. Instead, he says he’s not used to power breaks and power steering. (I’ve driven a car without those things, and it’s really not that different, so I don’t get this, but okay.) Angelica convinces him to let her drive because she’s getting car sick. Kristy hates the idea because Watson loaned Charlie the car and she feels like letting Angelica drive is sneaky and wrong. Kristy’s right, for more reasons than she knows, but Charlie’s so mad at her he won’t listen.

I don’t understand why Mr. Kishi is mad at Claudia when he picks her up at the police station. Watson? Yeah, I get him being pissy. His car is stranded on the highway and possibly totaled. Plus, Charlie let someone else drive the car, a totally stupid choice. But Mr. Kishi? I don’t get that one.

Oh, snap. The title quote is Watson’s snarky response when Charlie tries to defend his actions on the way home from the Stamford police department. Later, he tells Charlie to ‘rethink his social attachments’, which is Watson-speak for ‘you’re not to see Angelica anymore.’

Ha ha! Angelica convinces Kristy to hand a letter over to Charlie. Kristy notices the letter is typewritten and suggests that’s formal and took extra effort. This is no longer true. These days, if I wanted to take extra effort, I’d definitely handwrite it.

Oh, and then Charlie actually reads the letter out loud to Kristy! I’ve got a younger sister and if I got a letter from a significant other like that, I’d never let her know what it said.

In the aftermath of everything, Charlie fears that he actually is like his father, because he promised to help Kristy with the KKK and instead, let her and the kids down. He thinks he’s immature because he can’t figure out where he wants to go to college or what he wants to study. But Kristy points out that he held the family together when Patrick left. Charlie would get up in the middle of the night to feed David Michael. He even learned to write a check and paid the bills. Kristy tells him she looks up to him so much that she sometimes asks herself, “What would Charlie do about this?” when she’s stuck on a problem. That’s sweet.

In the author’s note, AMM says that she actually went to Walt Disney World as ‘research’ for super special #1. Sure, Ann. I believe that’s the only reason you went there. *wink*

This is my 200^th post. I should celebrate, and I think I will…by eating a few Cadbury Crème Eggs…(Actually, watch this space. I plan to do something fun..ner than normal coming up in a few posts.

Outfits

Claudia: fringed leather vest, oversized plaid shirt, wide tie, bell bottoms with two different color legs, VCR hair clips

Next: Mystery #29