“Oh, did I say Jessi is African-American? Well, she is.” BSC #76: Stacey’s Lie (1994)

This is where we learn just how much Stacey is her father’s daughter.

Stacey’s dad offers to take her on a two week vacation. Since the BF (Robert) is working the ferry on Fire Island, she decides to go there. Stacey doesn’t tell either her father or Claud (who comes on the vacation as well) that Robert will be there. Stace and Claud get into a giant fight over what Claud sees as Stace’s insensitivity. It turns out that Stacey’s dad is also lying to her. He says he’s been spending all his time with a male friend when he’s really been spending most of his time with his girlfriend.

Meanwhile, Vanessa and Haley get into a giant fight over the stupidest thing EVER. Anyone who’s read my fanfic knows how much I love those characters*, but I just wanted to smack them both.

Interesting Tidbits

The cover: Hate, hate, hate Stacey’s outfit, although I’m not sure why. And isn’t Robert supposed to be all basketball-player tall?

Stacey says that she’s glad her mom works, because it distracts her from worrying about Stacey. It’s an interesting perspective, and probably pretty accurate, too. I mean the whole Truth About Stacey was that her parents were smothering her.

I guess I’ve never noticed it before, but there’s a lot of food in the Stacey books: probably more than is described in anyone else’s books except Claudia’s junk food and the Spier/Schafer household’s mixed meals.

Aww, Stacey says Robert isn’t as gorgeous as Jason Priestly. There’s a dated reference.

Stacey’s dad makes up for working a couple of hours into the night by giving Stacey some money and telling her to buy herself “a pretty, summery something.” How much do you want to bet that he told his (ex-)wife that on a regular basis? Remember, when they divorced, he complained about all the money she was spending.

Stacey’s dad’s name has been established as Edward, but he apparently goes by Ed.

Here’s the thing that kills me: Stacey’s dad tells her he’ll take her anywhere on vacation…even overseas. (Hope they have passports; they’re booking everything very last minute.) Yet she chooses Fire Island simply because that’s where Robert’s family has a summer house. I think Stacey’s dad is right when he says that they might be too involved and it’s not healthy at their age.

The ‘clever’ way the BSC is introduced in this episode? Claudia has drawn a caricature of the club and each person complains about the exaggerated feature Claud has emphasized. Stacey’s permed hair is too curly; Kristy’s too short. Unfortunately, you don’t get to hear about Mal’s giant glasses and someone else’s oversized head or something.

Ha! Claudia keeps telling Stacey she’s so mature for the way she’s handling being separated from Robert, and Stacey just has to keep putting on a fake smile. (Moral of the story: don’t lie to your friends.)

OH HELL YEAH! Stacey, her dad and Claudia eat babaghanouj along with other ‘Middle Eastern” foods. I forget what kind of restaurant we were at when I ordered that just because I liked the sound of it. (Of course, I also once ordered a pu pu platter because the name was funny.)

Hah! Claudia and Stacey also watch a ‘Johnny Depp movie’ because they think he’s cute (cuter than Jason Priestly? It doesn’t say). I just find him…creepy.

Chapter 4 includes a whole set of directions on how to get from Manhattan to Davis Park by train/ferry. Now I’ll know, if I ever want to go to either of those places.

Ahh, crappy puns. The house rented by a doctor is known as Bedside Manor.

I’m not even going to ask how Mal and Jessi got paying summer jobs.

Math? Mal and Jessi’s daycare group is divided into three smaller groups of five, five and seven. That should be seventeen kids, correct? Later, the kids are put into two teams of seven and eight…which is fifteen. What happened to the other two kids?

The reason for Haley and Vanessa’s fight? They bought the same swimsuit. When I was nine, I would have LOVED to have a matching swimsuit with my bestie. I could understand this fight if they were a pair of high school girls, but not out of a couple nine-year-olds.

I want to know how Vanessa can spike a beach ball with her head hard enough to get yelled at for it. Can someone demonstrate that for me?

I honestly thought there would be a longer wait until Claudia found out that Stacey only wanted to go to Fire Island because Robert was there.

Claudia’s art for the beach: building sand castles and photographing their destruction. I…actually like that.

Claudia wants Kristy to bring some supplies with her when she comes to Fire Island. (She, MA and Shannon are coming for July 4^th.) Stacey suggests faxing her. I have to giggle at this for two reasons. First, they’re talking about how wonderful technology is when a fax machine is so dated now. These days, Claudia would have just sent a text to Kristy and gotten an almost-instantaneous response. Second, Stacey actually has Watson’s fax number in her address book. (The goofy part of me has all these really-wrong reasons for that just spewing out right now.)

I really don’t blame Claudia for getting pissed at Stacey. She keeps dragging her along when she meets Robert so her father doesn’t get suspicious. She keeps ditching Claud to spend time with Robert. Twice she promises to spend the night just with Claud only to a) run into Robert and invite him to join them and b) rush Claud along so she can ditch her and spend time with Robert.

I think it’s interesting that the Pikes all (at some point or another) find Vanessa annoying—she’s poky and dreamy and turns everything into a poem—but when she wants someone to help her pull pranks on Haley, just about everyone is on board. Nicky and Margo help her deliver a note signed ‘Citizens against Stinky Haley’ (I assume this is like the letter I once mailed my sister from an anonymous source telling her that her butt was too big...when she was about 5'0", 80lb and had no butt.) Later Adam delivers a box of shredded Vanessa-Haley mementos on Vanessa’s behalf.

Haley’s not exactly being angelic, either. She makes violent signs about Vanessa, but Mary Anne tells her it’s illegal to post signs without a permit. (Can you imagine if she filled out a permit form?! Reason: “I want to let everyone know my ex-best friend is a big jerk!”) Instead, she posts one on the Pikes’ fence—and gets water-bombed in reply.

Okay, Stacey is pretty much being a queen bitch by this point. Claudia’s mad at her because Claud treated Stacey to a meal but Stacey kept rushing her so she could ditch her. [See ‘b)’ above.] Stacey gets upset with Claud because she thinks she WAS being sensitive to Claudia’s family. After all, she could have ditched Claudia entirely!

Stacey? If everyone is mad at you (Dad, Claud, Robert), maybe it’s YOUR fault and you should accept that. [Robert’s not actually mad at Stacey…yet. But he does suggest that she should have handled things differently when Stacey says that everything is Claudia’s fault.)

Oh, now THIS is interesting: after Robert and Stacey ran into Dad and Samantha, Stacey and Dad went home and fought. Robert and Samantha actually ended up walking and talking together as well.

The ferry Robert works is called the Kiki. This is funny mostly because I watched General Hospital for the first time in a couple months today (while reading this) and kept shouting “Fake Kiki!” every time the new actress playing the character Kiki appeared on screen.

Kristy says Mary Anne and Shannon are waiting ‘on line’ as opposed to ‘in line.’ I don’t know if that’s a New England thing or just a New York thing.

Isn’t it amazing that Shannon has this much free time? They obviously enjoy her company, so why didn’t they keep inviting her to stuff after she goes back to being an associate member? I mean, even Logan gets to come along on stuff sometimes.

Claudia makes costumes so the sitters can all be in the parade together. Mary Anne plays the princess; Shannon, the lady-in-waiting; Kristy, the prince; Claudia, the jester; and Stacey, the dragon. Stacey says her costume was an obvious dig at her, but what do the other costumes say?

Ha! Kristy’s sword comes from the Snow White and the Seven Zorbs meet Captain Planet video.

Ooh, and Stacey’s dad and his girlfriend are also dressing up for the parade, making Stacey’s humiliation complete!

Oh, and now Kristy and Mary Anne are all telling Stacey she’s being a bitch, but she’s not listening. What I’d love is if these girls could actually talk like real teenagers. Claudia: You selfish ass. Stacey: You self-absorbed douche bag! (Okay, maybe that was just me and my friends.)

Stacey can’t understand why all of her friends—including Claudia—want to leave early. She’s not usually this stupid.

Haley and Vanessa’s fight sounds more like me and my sister as teens than Claud and Stacey’s does (minus the curses, of course.) The accuse each other of having big butts.

The ending of that feud is pretty stupid, too. Let’s just say that the BSC (Mal and Jessi) saved the day and leave it at that.

Yes! Robert actually does chew Stacey out. He does it nicely, but he points out she was really awful to just about everyone in this story. She lied to her dad, was horrible to Claudia, and put Robert and the rest of the BSC in a really awkward position.

LAAAAAAME ending. Blech.

Outfits

Maureen McGill (Stacey’s mom): cream silk shirt and slacks, purple and gold striped apron

Stacey: blue tights, black ‘walking shorts’ (WTF are those?), blue t-shirt and black flats; one piece shorts dress (again, WTF?) in a gold, red and green print and tan flats; navy pants outfit (covered with sunflowers) with a high waist, cap sleeves, scoop neck and long, full pant legs; green leggings and sleeveless denim top; blue and white sundress with dropped waist and a sailor collar

Claudia: black crocheted vest, black shorts, ruffly white blouse, black platform sandals with white ribbons that lace up the calves (Claud LOVES those sandals); tie dye leggings and silk screened t-shirt with birds on it; denim jumper

Kristy: jeans, t-shirt, sneakers, ponytail (gee. sounds like what I was wearing today)

Samantha (Stacey’s future stepmother): gauzy flower-print skirt, crocheted top and gold hoop earrings

*The final chapter of April, which has Vanessa telling Haley to cut the crap (again! Only she listens this time!) should be published very shortly. As in, probably five minutes after I post this.

Coming next: Mystery #16

Oh, and in a couple installments, we’ll be vlogging our favorite sugar junkie.