“It might as well be the North Pole.” BSC #131: The Fire at Mary Anne’s House (1999)

Well, the title and cover are kind of spoilers, aren’t they?

I’m sure no one is surprised to find out that Mary Anne’s house burns to the ground in this book. It comes at a time of change for the Spiers anyway. Richard was just offered a job in Philadelphia, and Sharon wants to change careers. They figure they’ll move to Philly and get a fresh start. But Mary Anne, who takes the fire very stoically, isn’t up for the move. In the end, it’s actually still up in the air.
Meanwhile, the BSC had planned to enter a ‘sitter of the year’ contest in some magazine. When the fire happens, they forget all about it, so their clients work together and mail the entry in for them. 
Interesting Tidbits
I can’t imagine that Richard allows Logan into Mary Anne’s bedroom, which is probably for the best. After all, MA reveals she has a collage of Cam Geary pictures. I was/still am more of a ‘collage of random thoughts/affirmations/pictures’ kind of girl, but I can’t imagine Logan would be too happy to find out just how many pictures of ol’ Cam MA has…
OOH! Sharon-itis in the very first chapter! Mary Anne has found Sharon’s socks in the linen closet, the crisper in the fridge, and the china cabinet.
It bothers me that the ghostwriters like to make the same jokes over and over again. In this case, it’s the old “I-don’t-know-one-sport-from-another” line where Mary Anne says something about winning the World Series after Kristy is playing waste-basket basketball.
In this book, the BSC is out of school for the summer, yet Mallory isn’t back from Massachusetts. I haven’t read that one yet, but I know one of the FF books has the opposite be true: Mal comes home before everyone else is out of school, and is truly bored.
Mary Anne is rereading the club notebook and a lot of BSC clip show stuff comes by, with references to old plots. I’m really tempted to try to figure out what book each of these comes from and pull the book out and see if it’s just copy/paste, or if these notebook entries are all new. (Also, some of them are so generic, like Dawn writing about sitting for Jackie R, that I could never figure out where they came from…)
Plots I actually can narrow down a book for: #100, M#4, #9, #22, #24, M#36.
I remember feeling like this growing up (and sometimes even now). Charlotte: “What does testimonial mean again? I think I know, but not really.”
The chapter with the fire starts off very reflective, asking the kinds of questions people ask after a life-changing event: If I’d known, would I have done anything differently? It’s very deep, and not normal for the BSC members….
I think this is the first time Sharon’s job has been filled out in any way. She currently works for an accountant, and she hates her job.
Sharon-itis: keys in the silverware drawer
Mary Anne’s idea of a good morning? Browsing the LL Bean catalogue. Whoa, there, MA. Stop being so wild and crazy!
Logan and Mary Anne have a picnic in the barn. Some part of me wants to point out that you can do the exact same things in the barn that you can in the house. It would just be dirtier. Oh, and they take turns jumping from the hay loft, which MA says she hasn’t done in years. Umm…she met Dawn halfway through seventh grade and just finished eighth grade. How is that ‘years?’ (I mean, I know she met Dawn in like, 1987, but seriously.)
MA is rereading My Side of the Mountain.
The whole thing with MA’s house actually burning down is sad, and I don’t have many comments. Just…it’s very lucky that Tigger didn’t get scared and claw his way out of Mary Anne’s arms. That would have been very realistic, and he probably wouldn’t have made it out of the house safely. Also, once again, someone has no idea what ‘stop drop and roll’ means. Richard tells MA to ‘drop and roll’ to stay under the smoke. But stop drop and roll is what you do when you’re on fire, not how to get under smoke.
People keep hugging MA and all I could think is…where’s Tigger? If my neighbor’s house went up in flames and I saw them struggling to hold their pet, I’d offer my bathroom to lock it up in temporarily, but no one mentions him. It’s almost as if MA just put him down and forgot about him in her shock. (Later she mentions holding him for quite a while, and that he stayed near her when she finally put him down. And after the fire is out, Mrs. Brewer takes him to her house to keep him safe.)
Most of the neighbors just stand there and watch the fire, but some of them are pretty awesome. Stacey is the BSC member who lives closest to MA. MA refuses to leave the fire, wanting to see what happens, so Stacey brings her a coat and a backpack with a change of clothes, and make sandwiches for the Spiers and the firefighters. Mrs. Prezzioso actually lends the Spiers her cell phone to make phone calls, telling them to hang on to it as long as they need to. Someone brought whatever shoes they could find that would fit the family, too.
Umm. Richard keeps a notepad in his car, and he and Sharon note that it’s a good thing they didn’t park too close to the house. All I can think is, do they leave their cars unlocked? How are they going to drive those cars? I can’t imagine Richard keeps a set of keys in his pajama pockets.
I’ve never understood this one. The Spiers are homeless. They’ve literally lost almost everything, and they don’t even know where they’re spending that night. And Dawn’s first response is to…get on a plane and fly out so that she can be homeless too? Even dumber…Dawn’s apparently old enough and mature enough to go on this trip, but Jeff’s not.
I wanted to cry reading the part of the book where the Spiers walk through the house for the first time after it burns down. It was the way they kept finding small things that were now gone. It wasn’t just all of Sharon’s pictures of Jeff and Dawn, which is a huge loss, but little things like the tin can covered in macaroni that MA made for Richard in kindergarten and the large collection of spices Sharon had amassed in the kitchen.
You know Byron’s upset when Jessi and Abby are sitting, because he’s not eating his breakfast. And then there’s Vanessa, who’s all worried about the ‘tragedy of Mary Anne’s life.’
Kristy tries to treat Mary Anne the way she would treat someone if their house burns down, but MA tells her to stop. She says, “you’re scaring me,” because Kristy's not being herself.
How big is Kristy’s house, exactly? I know that question has come up before. But each member of the family (except Watson and Elizabeth) have their own room, which makes nine bedrooms. And there’s still room for Sharon and Richard to have a room with its own private bathroom, and MA and Dawn to share yet another room. The description of the room MA is in (pink curtains and striped wall paper) does make me think that maybe they temporarily moved Karen and Emily in together, but not necessarily.
This was funny in the midst of all the sorrow. The Brewer-Thomas house is very crowded and noisy, and the Spier-Schafer contingent just aren’t used to it. They tried to have a quiet breakfast in the sunroom, but just kept being interrupted. The next day, when they went to go back in, Karen announced that Emily Jr. (her pet rat) was running around in there for her weekly fitness time. With nowhere else to go, they end up in the kids’ playhouse in the backyard, sitting in child sized chairs around a tiny table.
Claudia spelling! And…Kristy spelling? Claudia: thouhgt, definately, excellant, univers, softee. Kristy, meanwhile, spells speechless as speechles.
Interesting mistake: there’s a reference to the Pike Plague, only it’s referred to as the time they all had the chicken pox. Only…they didn’t all have the chicken pox. Mal did, and I think Margo and Claire did too. Nicky and Vanessa injured themselves in other ways (I remember Vanessa sprained her ankle falling off her bike), and the triplets had some respiratory thing (like bronchitis.) Is it really sad that I remember all that? It’s always been one of my favorite plots, though.
The title quote is Kristy’s reaction to learning that the Spiers might move to Philly.
As the book goes on and Mary Anne still isn’t crying, all I can think is that maybe she’s got posttraumatic stress disorder. But it’s only been a couple of days, so she could still be in denial. And then the nightmares start… I know everyone in the book—Kristy, Logan, Dawn—is worried about her lack of emotion, but once again, it’s completely normal! It’s not regular Mary Anne, but as I read, it’s obvious that Mary Anne can never go back to who she used to be.
I actually like that the book ends on a cliffhanger. The note from AMM at the end specifies that the series is ending and the FF series starting soon, so it’s not like The Face on the Milk Carton where so many preteen girls wanted to strangle Caroline Cooney for several years until she released the sequel. Plus, it’s so much more realistic: not much gets wrapped up in fifteen neat chapters in the real world.
Outfits
Mary Anne: red plaid bathrobe; pjs covered in kittens; jeans and a sweatshirt
Sharon: holey green shirt, gray boxers
Richard: red plaid pajamas (do they match MA’s bathrobe?!)
Next: Everything Changes

“You’re in the Babysitters Club with Darth Vader.” BSC #130: Stacey’s Movie (1999)

The latest (and, probably, last) short takes class is happening. Stacey is excited for her class, which is on film making. She’s placed in a group with Pete, Emily and Erica, and they decide to make a documentary on middle school students. In the course of their interviews, they speak with various BSC members. When Mary Anne is interviewed, she makes some comments that she wishes she hadn’t said. Stacey’s sympathetic, but it’s not until she says some things she regrets during her own interview that she really pushes to get MA's comments revoked. In the end, both Mary Anne and Stacey are allowed to record a second interview, explaining what they said the first time. And all is well.
In the B plot, Kristy is stepping on Alan’s toes by not letting him direct their movie. She makes several other people—Jackie R, Mary Anne, and Abby, to name a few—annoyed with her antics as well.
Interesting Tidbits
Is that Pete on the cover? He looks even more excited than Stacey does.

Attack of the Giant Idiot: The Alan Gray Story. Is it a comedy? Sci-fi? Horror? You decide.
Did it ever occur to anyone else that Stacey actually helps Claudia in some ways? For example, in this book, Claudia goes downstairs to get some carrot sticks for Stacey to eat during the meeting. Since Claud’s hiding the junk food in her room, Mrs. Kishi probably thinks the whole BSC is eating the carrots…meaning that she thinks Claudia’s eating them, too.
Mary Anne is taking an Egyptology class, which leads to Abby making an Egypt pun that is so bad, even I don’t want to repeat it.
The filmmaking teacher, who is a documentarian in her real life, asks the groups to assign the roles of cinematographer, director, producer and screenwriter. Then, when everyone agrees, she shuffles the roles, to take people out of their comfort zone. For the record, Emily wanted to be screenwriter but ends up producing; Pete wanted to produce but winds up cinematographer, Erica wanted to be cinematographer by winds up directing. Stacey, who wanted to direct, is the screenwriter.
Kristy’s group (which includes Anna, Logan and Alan) is making a Kids Say/Do the Darnedest Things type movie, and they start by filming the Rodowskys while Mary Anne is sitting. Kristy keeps trying to get Jackie to do something entertaining, but Jackie tells MA that she’s making fun of him. It’s actually quite sad. Even after he specifically says he doesn’t want to be in the movie, Kristy keeps filming him anyway.
We learn all kinds of fun things during assorted interviews, which Stacey and Emily take turns doing:

• Pete says that he hates the feeling of ‘being stuck’. He comments on not being allowed to drive, despite knowing how, and not being able to get a real job (despite the fact that Logan has worked as a busboy for quite a while now…) It made me chuckle, because Mallory is always saying how she thinks that once she turns thirteen, her life will be perfect. And here are the thirteen year olds, all wishing they were sixteen. You know that once they’re sixteen, they’ll want to be eighteen…or twenty-one….
• Abby comments on how overbooked her mother is, and how she doesn’t want to be like her. But then Emily points out that Abby said she’s always tired, and says maybe she too is overbooked. I didn’t really notice this the first time I read the book. But think about it now: it’s only two books from now that Abby drops out of the BSC to focus on soccer. Think that this interview had something to do with that?
• Jessi makes it very plain that, although she likes her friends in the BSC, she’s more at ease with her friends from Dance NY. It’s not just a race thing (although Stacey gets stuck on that), but also because they have a lot more in common besides babysitting. And as I said during that book, Jessi was almost a different person in front of those friends, a ham and a leader. She makes a comment about the BSC members—now that Mal is gone—all being older than she is, and that making it difficult. At first I called bull on that, but then I remembered way back in book #75 when Jessi was the same way during Sixth Grade Follies.
• Cokie suggests that Stacey has what it takes to hang out with her and her friends, but that the BSC is just as snobby as they consider Cokie’s group to be. YES! That’s what BSC fans have been saying for YEARS! She follows it up by saying that even geeks hang out with other geeks because they consider them superior to others. It’s very true, in a middle school way of thinking. By the time kids finish high school, a lot of those clique lines have blurred, because someone can be a cheerleader and class valedictorian, or be a jock and a stoner. Labels like that become less important than having good friends.
• Mary Anne blurts out that she’s angry at her mother for dying. The comment is doubly harsh, because she says she’s angry with her mother, and when Stacey says, “Sharon?”, MA basically says, “No, my real mother!” Later, she explains that she and Sharon had gotten into a fight right before school that day, explaining everything. Honestly, I’d say her comment is completely, utterly normal. Anger at a dead parent? Normal. Not always considering a stepparent to be a parent? Normal. But at the same time, I understand Mary Anne not wanting her interview to air as is, because those emotions aren’t how she normally feels.
• Alan says the title quote at the start of his interview, and yes, he’s referring to Kristy. But then he gets deadly serious and says he doesn’t always want to be the class clown, but he feels locked into the role. Even when he tries to be not a goofball, no one takes him seriously. He says he ruined the t-shirt Claudia was going to decorate because he wanted to talk to her and she just ignored him. Not only do I bet a lot of class clowns feel that way, but this sets up the whole Alan/Claudia pairing from the FF series.

Maybe it’s a bad idea to allow Kristy to work on her film during her own sitting jobs, especially with the Pike family. She’s encouraging the kids to behave badly in the process of performing, without thinking of their safety. Abby becomes (rightfully) pissed at her after she has to rescue Claire from a concussion and the four Pike boys nearly destroy the whole living room.
Alan, meanwhile, is annoyed because he’s the director of the movie, and Kristy—the cinematographer—keeps taking over his role, deciding what to film, and telling the kids not to listen to Alan. Logan even spoke up on Alan’s side. After Alan’s interview with Stacey, she encourages Kristy to actually give him a chance. She does…and discovers that Alan’s got more talent than she expected.
In the end, Stacey films Mary Anne talking about how words are imprecise and we don’t always express ourselves clearly, but once something’s on film (or, Teeki adds, been heard by others) we can’t take it back.
Over all, this was actually pretty awesome as far as BSC books go. Lots of character development, and in some cases, just reaffirmation of what we already knew. Which is really nice, too.
Outfits
Claudia: tie-dyed t-shirt, overall shorts with a painted rain forest scene
Next: #131

“Trust Claudia to believe a handful of chips can change your outlook on life.” BSC #129 Kristy at Bat (1999)

It’s softball season again, and Kristy goes to tryouts for the SMS team. Since she was on the team ‘last season’, she figures she’s made in the shade and doesn’t give it her all. Kristy is embarrassed that she is then placed on second string. Meanwhile, Watson has signed him and Kristy up for a fantasy baseball camp. The camp in run by Bill Bain, Watson’s baseball hero, and Watson can’t wait to meet him. Only the camp is disorganized and Bain barely even shows up. Watson’s miserable about Bain, Kristy’s miserable about second string—and thinking about her bio-dad a lot—and the team’s not coming together like they should. Kristy winds up telling off Bill Bain and he learns his lesson and coaches their team to victory! Or something.
In the B plot, the kids are all swapping baseball cards, and David Michael gets ripped off. It’s as boring as it sounds.
Interesting Tidbits
I find it really interesting that Kristy didn’t join the school softball team until book #74, which had to be at least the fifth time she’d gone through eighth grade. And then she’s not mentioned being on the team again until this book. I guess that it takes up too much of her Krusher/sitting/being an idea machine time?
Kristy thinks Watson is handsome, if you like balding types. If I had a stepdad, I wouldn’t even stop to think if he was handsome or not. Far too Oedipal for me.
“I dress like a seven year old boy. Except for the Spiderman underwear.” This is much funnier if you take it to mean that she wears Spiderman underwear, not David Michael.
The Brewers have a minivan. I love how more and more minivans (and even SUVs) show up in these later books, while everyone had a station wagon in the early days.
Fun fact: Bill Bain played for the Orioles.
We’re introduced to the BSC members by what fantasy camp they would want to attend. Some of them are obvious: soccer camp for Abby, ballet camp for Jessi. But Kristy thinks that Mary Anne would probably want to attend needle point camp. I’m picturing needle craft fantasy camp and it’s hilarious. Meet world famous needle-pointers! Be a smocking rock star!
Mistake: Kristy says Anna’s hair is longer than Abby’s, when the opposite is true.
My middle school didn’t have first and second string as is standard; instead we had “A” and “B” teams. I think the idea was to soften the stigma of being second string by calling it B team? But it’s not like anyone didn’t know they were the same thing. (This is also a school that wouldn’t let us play dodgeball, so we played bombardment instead. It was the same exact thing.)
I like this a lot: Kristy’s more upset at herself for not trying her hardest than she is at the coach for putting her on second string. It’s very mature, and that’s not a word you get to use for Kristy too often. I also like that she admitted it to everyone and didn’t try to keep it a secret. It’s the opposite of, say, Abby’s behavior in #110.
The title quote comes from everyone trying to make Kristy feel better.
Ha! Dream camp is in Delaware. Glad to know there’s something in Delaware.
Watson is all kinds of stalker-y about Bill Bain. He knows his middle name, his parents’ names, all his stats and when he was on Johnny Carson. Kristy guesses that he knows his shoe size, too. (I can’t help thinking that if Watson and Elizabeth had those lists of celebrities they have permission to cheat with, Bill Bain would right at the top of Watson’s…the way Justin Timberlake is at the top of my brother-in-law’s. [Don’t ask. Please don’t ask.])
Claudia spelling: Mickel (Michael), corse, Bary (Barry.) She also uses your for you’re and pore for poor.
How you know it’s not 1986 anymore: Emily Michelle has a play date with a little girl named Dakota. I think it’s funny to compare the kids introduced early in the series (Alan, Pete) to the kids introduced later (Josh) in terms of names. Of course, there are exceptions: Logan was introduced long before that name became super-trendy like Stacey’s clothes.
Interesting. I can’t decide if this is a mistake or just an attitude held by the kids. Claudia sees Jake and Laurel Kuhn among the kids who are trading baseball cards with David Michael. She says that Mrs. Kuhn and ‘their baby sister Patsy’ are nearby. But Laurel is six and Patsy is…five. I know Laurel thinks Patsy is babyish, but Patsy is most certainly not a baby.
Another mistake: “Also, even though she’s a year younger, she much taller than me.”
The characters all get a pep talk from one of their coaches, Gloria Kemp, who played on the Georgia Peaches (as seen in A League of the Their Own.) Reading that now, all I can think is how old she must be. My grandparents were in school during the war, and they’re now in their eighties. I realize this story takes place 17 years ago, but if Gloria Kemp was 22 when she was playing professional ball, she would have been 78 in 1999 and would be 95 today. (That is, if she played on the 1943 team.)
The third coach, Matt, played for the White Sox.
Kristy waxes nostalgic about the first time she went to Shea stadium with her dad and older brothers. But isn’t that where she was almost born? I can see her dad not wanting to take her until she’s old enough to enjoy the game (or, given that he wasn’t much of a parent, until she was old enough to not need diaper changes and be distracting), but you’d think they’d have gone other times. There’s also the whole thing in an early book about Kristy never having left the state of Connecticut. Did Shea Stadium come to her or something?
Matt says he’s high tech. He then pulls out a cell phone and ‘yanks up the antenna.’ Yeah, that’s real high tech.
Mary Anne doesn’t know Willie Mays from Michael Jordan. I know enough about sports to know that those two played two different sports…for the most part….
The David Michael subplot is so boring that I didn’t even want to bring it up. But this was interesting. The whole plot is that DM—and his friends—originally just liked the cards because of the player stats, or what they knew about the players. (Laurel, for example, was trading to try to get every player she could that was named Joe.) But this kid Barry knew the value of all the cards and was really into trading and making his collection more valuable. He tricked DM into trading him a card that was worth a lot for a couple of cards that weren’t worth squat. DM was upset about it, until Abby pointed out (my paraphrase): “Look, he got that card fair and square. It’s not his fault you left your value guide at home, and you agreed to the trade. Suck it up.”
Kristy spends a lot of time thinking about her dad, as he’s the one who gave her her love of baseball. But she’s idolizing him a couple of times, especially when Watson’s upset with her. It’s kind of obnoxious, because there’s no way her father would ever have taken her to a fantasy campy like this one, but it seems pretty realistic for a teenager who grew up without a parent to romanticize what their relationship would be like.
And, to be fair, she does say she feels disloyal to Watson when she thinks like that. And says that even though baseball will always make her think of her dad, it will now always make her think of Watson and the game they played together. Awww!
The staff makes up a special award for Kristy to win at the end of the book, and it’s such bullplop. I really wished they’d ended with Watson and Kristy hugging at the end of the game instead.
New characters
Vicki Sahadeven (12)—29
Next: #130

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

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

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

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

Interesting Tidbits

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next: #129

“I need to English muffin.” BSC #127: Abby’s Un-Valentine (1999)

It’s Valentine’s Day (duh…) and Abby’s not feeling the love. Ross Brown asks her to the V-Day dance and she turns him down, because she’s not interested in dating, or dancing, or romance. Most of her friends don’t understand her attitude and try to get her to change her mind. Even Anna is trying to get Abby and Ross together, and when Abby realizes those two have more in common, she tries to get Ross to switch his affection. It doesn’t go right—he mistakes Anna for Abby and thinks the twins tried to trick him--but eventually, he and Anna hit it off and go to the dance together. Meanwhile, Kristy and Abby spend V-Day watching horror movies.

In the B-plot, Scout the guide dog puppy is graduating to real training, meaning it’s time for her to leave the Thomas-Brewer house. Andrew, who had gotten close to the puppy, is upset because Shannon is DM’s dog while the kitten apparently likes Karen best (stupid kitten.)

Interesting Tidbits

I love this cover. Abby has a real WTF look on her face.

Abby-logic: Valentine’s Day is not a real holiday, because they don’t close school for it. I sorta get that—especially if you don’t like V-Day—but then Halloween and most (especially non-Christian) religious holidays aren’t real, either. She also says that V-Day is just an excuse for candy and silliness, and she doesn’t like the silliness. WHAT? You’d think Abby would love ridiculosity. (not a real word, apparently, but it should be.) She seems to enjoy chaos, especially of her own making.

I like that Abby’s main objection to dating is that boys are completely immature at her age. She’s not opposed to dating, per se, and has mentioned several times that she finds various guys cute. (Including Sgt. Johnson…maybe she has a thing for older men?!? They’re…usually…not middle-school immature.)

“Mallory is no longer with us.” Whenever someone says something like that, I assume the person has passed.

One of Abby’s complaints about V-Day? Too much PDA. I have to agree with that one!

Do you think Abby read the BSC books before she joined the club? How else would she know that Erica Blumberg got the Most Creative Excuse award in mystery #4 or that Jacqui Grant was one of the girls who got busted for drinking at a concert in #76? I realize that the others could have told her these things, but who would remember all these details? She’d have to be Dr. Spencer Reid… (Yes, I am watching Criminal Minds right now. I bought the entire series on DVD in the past few weeks…)

Bad pun alert! Josh (remember him? He really only gets mentioned in Claudia book, and it’s been a while since I’ve done one of those) decorated up Claudia’s locker in candy and kiddy-Valentines. Abby mentions how…sweet…it is.

“Email and romance do not belong in the same sentence.” How true.

Abby’s version of the love story between Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning (with a little bit of paraphrasing on my part): Lizzie Barrett enjoyed ill health and lying on a couch until the Robster came along. I’m remembering…something…I read once about how in the Victorian era, fainting and looking ill were trendy.

There’s this whole Little Sister plot about how Karen and Andrew’s mom and stepdad, Lisa and Seth Engle, moved to Chicago for six months. Karen and Andrew were supposed to live with them, but Karen got too homesick and moved back to live with her dad. Much like the whole Pumpkin-the-kitten-thing, it’s barely mentioned in the BSC books, until now, when Andrew moves back.

I’m not up on beef suet, but is that the sort of thing most people just have sitting around in their fridge? We never did growing up, and I certainly don't now. MA uses it to make the pinecone bird feeder craft, but I remember making the same thing in Brownies with just peanut butter, which most people DO stock.

Interesting. At one point, Abby says that neither she nor Anna has too many friends. Later, she mentions that she and Kristy aren’t close, because Kristy’s too bossy. (Read: both Kristy and Abby are bossy and the neither of them likes it when the other bosses her around.) So who does Abby consider herself to be close to?

Heh. Abby keeps turning nouns into verbs. Anna is violining, while Abby bagels herself. (Kristy’s response is the title quote.)

Kristy is actually pretty insightful about her friends’ behavior. She tells Abby that Mary Anne, Claudia and Stacey all want Abby to get together with Ross because they’re happy with their boyfriends and want Abby to feel that too. Kristy also says that she knows that people can be happy when single, but her friends have a little growing up to do. I don’t know about the last part, but some people do have to learn that they can be happy when they’re single. A friend of mine from high school constantly had to have a boyfriend, and if she broke up with one, she instantly found someone else, no matter how unsuitable, to date. She’s now married to a guy whom she told ‘propose or I’ll break up with you’ and that worked out so well that she’s cheated on him for most of their marriage. But I think it’s overstating things to say that most people don’t know that you can be happy without a significant other, especially at an age where a lot of girls have never had a date before.

Kristy relates the Abby-Ross relationship to hers with Bart. She says that she went out with him to dances and stuff mostly out of peer pressure, even though she knew she’d never feel romantically about him. Abby then stares at her…and somewhere, some people’s minds go straight to the two of them kissing. (I know I made fun of the over-‘lesbianity’ of fanfic. I want to straighten out my opinion…I don’t have a problem with ficters choosing to interpret the characters as gay. I just want to see a logic behind it, or a buildup.)

“Thanks for the roses. They’re very…pink.” Here’s what’s interesting about Ross showing up at Abby’s house with a bouquet. Claudia, Stacey and Mary Anne were all horrified that Abby turned Ross down, and that she didn’t do it gently, because she might have hurt his feelings. Seems they couldn’t be more wrong. She needs to be even more obvious with him.

Claudia spelling: cant, beleve, leeving, shes, warnd. She also uses fore for four (type that four times fast), its for it’s, groan for grown, and to for two.

Nannie has a catering business? That must also have been more of a plot in the Little Sister books. This is pauling me off. I don’t want to have to read those awful books in order to understand what’s going on in Kristy’s house! (I used to post at message board that would turn curse words and certain ‘trigger’ words into ****. The name Paul was considered a trigger word for reasons that are far too stupid and complicated to explain. For a long time, I would say that things pauled me off instead of pissed me off, since both words turned into ****.)

Jessi has to play peacemaker during a BSC meeting. It’s actually a nice role for her; with Mal gone, she’s got no set place anymore. Abby gets tired of the three with boyfriends trying to shove her at Ross, so she (not-so-nicely) insinuates that they would date anyone just for the sake of having a boyfriend. When neither side will back down, Jessi jumps in with a question about the Andrew plotline that throws everyone off her stride.

“Charlie, you’re a guy, right?” If I were Charlie, my answer to this would be so sarcastic: ‘Well, I haven’t checked in the last half hour or so….’ Instead, he actually listens to Abby and then gives her solid advice.

When will the BSC learn that their ‘great ideas’ that involve manipulating people will never work?!?

Is anyone surprised that Valentine’s Day is on Saturday? No, me neither. Moving on.

I love this: Abby makes a pun in her head, and it cheers her up. She doesn’t even need to share it with anyone else.

Kristy and Abby’s V-Day plans? They’re skipping the dance in favor of pizza and a movie: Pepperoni Man, a horror film about a delivery guy. I’d watch it! (Abby makes a horror movie pun about sitting dead center.) She even wins a prize at the theater: a giant box of chocolates to share with her Valentine. She says she’ll take it to the BSC meeting on Monday, but I couldn’t help but think that she went back to sit next to Kristy….

Outfits

Claudia: blue, white and gray woolly sweater covered in snowflakes, long black tights, thick blue socks, hiking boots with silver snowflake shoelaces

Stacey: short brown leather skirt, pale stockings, knee-high boots, soft butter-colored sweater with pearl buttons

Shannon: jeans and blue sweater

Abby: sweats

Anna: jeans and old sweater

Next: #128

“What am I going to do with a silver doorknob?” BSC #126: The All-New Mallory Pike (1999)

Ahh, here we go. This book begins a change in the BSC. By this point, they must have realized that the series were coming to an end. The Friends Forever series narrowed the focus of the characters and the action. There were fewer characters—fewer sitters and fewer clients—and the plots were (mostly) more realistic. There were no more festivals, no more giant group activities. Just four girls, their friendships, their love lives, their homes and the occasional sitting drama. Interestingly, it’s not just the BSC who wind up being the focus of stories. I’ve always wondered whether the characters who got more page-time in the FF series were the authors’ favorites, or whether fan letters had any input. I say that because, for the most part, the non-BSC members who get stories are often ones who interested or intrigued me through the whole BSC-universe.

Why am I saying this? Because the evolution and development of one of those characters starts here. He’s always been one of my favorites, but small pieces of development through the years led to this, and then much more development through his sporadic appearances thereafter.

Mallory leaves for Riverbend Hall. She feels like she fits right in, except with her roommate, Alexis. Alexis creates impossible rules, rifles through Mal’s stuff—including her diary and a care package sent by the BSC—and even draws on pictures of Mal’s friends. She tries to get along with her, talking things out, but Alexis won’t budge. After Mal gets the school staff involved, Alexis tears the room apart entirely. The staff admits that they put Alexis with Mal because they thought she’d be able to get along with her where no one else could, but it’s decided that Alexis’ problems are just too big, so the two of them are separated.

Meanwhile, the sitters are dealing with Pike Family Room Wars. With Mal gone, Vanessa has her own room, which most of her siblings are not happy about. This includes Vanessa, who likes the idea of her own room, but not the realities. The ideal situation would seem to be putting the four girls in the larger bedroom, because only three of them would be in it most of the time, while the boys could room in twos. The trouble? Adam and Jordan are fighting the idea. Byron agrees to room with Nicky, solving the problem and leading him to take a leadership role among his siblings.

Interesting Tidbits

Did you know that Sam Thomas set the spaghetti-sucking record? I’m more than a little disturbed that Mal knows that. Was she there, or did Kristy just…brag…about that during a BSC meeting?

When Mal describes her family as all matching except for her, does anyone else think about the possibility that she’s got a different father than the rest? I mean, I know it’s possible for her to just have different looks. My friend Zee has four kids and three of the four all look like a combo of their dad, with his straight brown hair, and their mother, with her pale coloring, gray eyes and freckles. The other daughter has curly hair, much lighter in color, and a much fuller face. She’s still an obvious combo of the two families—she’s the spitting image of one of her aunts—but when my mom saw pictures of the oldest two girls, she assumed they had different dads.

Mallory and Jessi plan on emailing each other once she leaves for school. It was one thing when Mrs. Pike was emailing in the last book, or when characters were surfing the ‘net, but these girls are eleven. My niece will be nine in a couple weeks, and I can’t imagine her mom letting her have her own email address, but maybe things were different back in 1999? (Later you learn that Mal’s email address is provided by her school, which is a little different. You know that’s got to be monitored.)

Mal has this little moment the morning she leaves for school wherein she realizes she already packed her robe, so she’s going to have to go to breakfast in her pajamas. This is the same house where ‘see food’ and running around naked are normal. Is she really concerned about her P.J.s?

There is a joint Mary Anne-Jessi notebook entry, and I really had trouble differentiating their handwriting for some reason.

When the Pike parents drive Mal to Riverbend, Claire gets very upset and wants to know why all three of three of them need to go live in Chassamoosetts. Meanwhile, Vanessa dresses all in black, looking like ‘a romantic heroine wasting away from sorrow.’ I can totally picture this.

Mal’s friends? Smita Narula, Pam the prefect, and Sarah Bernhardt, an actress who was named after a famous actress, and Jen Bodner, who used to be Alexis’ roommate.

Mallory says she doesn’t really miss boys. Insert your own gay joke here….

Oh no she din’t! Mal’s roomie is a real piece of work. When Mal comes home after her first day of class, Alexis is reading her diary. She claims Mal left it open on the bed, and that she considered that an invitation to read it. That’s someone with absolutely no sense of boundaries. You almost want to get a lock for your trunk after something like that…

Ahh, Byron is already a teenager in training at age ten. When asked how he feels about the room situation, he just shrugs and says, ‘whatever.’

Vanessa’s door sign? “Poet at work/Knock, you silly jerk” Niiiice.

Mal’s way of handling Alexis is to avoid her and allow her to have the room to herself except when sleeping. Sarah, Mal’s actress friend, is making a drama out of the Alexis situation. She’s so stealthy and spy-like in her tracking of Alexis that Mal keeps waiting for her to suggest they synchronize watches. (I’m picturing a scene from Soap: “Let’s synchronize watches. It is now…threeish!”)

I miss Claudia spelling. Oh, sure, she still misspells things on emails, but it’s not the same when it’s not in her belabored handwriting. Wasnt, eether, thats. She also uses gong for going.

The title quote comes from Abby and Claudia’s joint email. Abby says that, for solving the Room Wars, Ambassadors Kishi and Stevenson will be awarded the Silver Doorknob. After Claud’s question, Abby suggests she could make an earring out of it.

The Siege of Vanessa’s Room. Sounds like an epic saga poem, penned by one V. Pike.

You’d think the Pikes would be better able to handle fights between their kids, even with their obvious hands-off policy. (To some extent, I agree with this policy. Give them a chance to sort things out for themselves before dictating a solution.) But Mr. Pike sits the seven kids down and asks them to tell him what’s going on, without any direction. He seems surprised that everyone starts talking at once. Abby has to whistle before they get quiet.

If I wanted to, I could write a whole dissertation on the ‘evolution of Byron.’ A lot of you are aware of my extreme fondness for that character, which stems from several different scenes throughout the series. In one book, he offers Nicky part of his lunch after Adam and Jordan tease him; in another (#73), he’s the logical brother who is the only one of the triplets able to bring any sense of order—however small—to their kickball team. Here, it takes a while to notice that while the Pike kids are arguing about Vanessa’s room, Byron never takes part. He simply complains that Adam and Jordan’s posturing causes the three of them to be punished with extra housework, and then says ‘whatever’, like I mentioned before. While his brothers and sisters are laying siege (I just love that term), Byron is sulking in the basement. He tells Abby that Adam and Jordan are acting like babies about the whole situation, and he just wants some peace and quiet. He’s not the actual one to solve the problem here—Abby is—but his attitude allows the solution to work. Later, in the FF series, he takes a more mature role in things. He fills the big sibling role Mal used to play, and more.

The Alexis situation is solved when Jen, her ex roomie who had a single room, agrees to switch rooms with her. She and Mal get along okay, and that lets Alexis have her own room. Mal finally feels completely happy at school.

You do have to wonder why they didn’t give Alexis a single room after two different bad roommate experiences, anyway. My sophomore year of college, there was a freshman who, like Alexis, went through two roommates in one semester. She was really immature and would walk into your dorm room and start going through your stuff without being invited in. Her first roomie was very easygoing and could get along with (almost) everyone, so we all knew who was the problem when they fought. Her second roommate wouldn’t put up with a single ounce of crap, so that pairing lasted about two weeks. They told her she had two options at that point: she could either pay more money for a single room, or she could get the hell out of the dorms. That wouldn’t work with a sixth grader, but it seems pretty cruel to start Mal off at boarding school with a roommate who had already terrorized two others on the thought that the oldest of eight could make it work.

Outfits

Mallory: jeans and blue sweater; flowered flannel pajamas

Alexis: black sweater, short black skirt, black high tops, five black metal hoop earrings; orange sweater, black jeans

Sarah: long purple skirt, silky, shimmery purple shirt

Next: #127

“They’ll either kill each other or make up.” BSC #125: Mary Anne in the Middle (1998)

*Sniff, sniff* This is the last original BSC book that haven’t read.

Mallory is waiting to hear whether she got in to Riverbend, the boarding school she visited in the previous book. When she learns she received a full scholarship, she’s thrilled and definitely plans to attend. However, not everyone is as excited. The Pike kids waver between being marginally happy to thinking that Mal leaving means that she’ll no longer be their sister, while Jessi is beyond angry. She feels that Mal is running away from her problems, abandoning her and her family, and being selfish. The two of them keep using Mary Anne for a sounding board, and push her to the point where she brings the two of them together and forces them to talk to each other instead of her. Then the BSC has a ridiculous We Love Mallory Day to celebrate Mal before she leaves.

In the B plot, the old people at the nursing home get a Christmas party. Again.

Interesting Tidbits

The cover: My only comment here is that Jessi is wearing her watch on her left wrist, which is normal for right handers. (I think my obsession with watches comes from being a lefty and wearing my watch—back when I wore one—on the ‘wrong’ side.) Oh, and that is not a flattering look on Mary Anne.

Mallory is supposed to be helping Mary Anne babysit for the various younger Pikes. Instead, the triplets and Vanessa are off…somewhere…being quiet, and no one thinks that’s a bad thing. Mal’s instead checking out her appearance in the mirror, wondering if she should cut her hair. It leads to a fabulous conversation in which Margo, trying to be helpful, points out that Mal’s face is ‘too fat’ for short hair. When Mal gets upset, Claire tries to soothe her by pointing out she likes people with fat faces…like Barney the dinosaur.

I need to go back and reread chapter 2 in several books until I pinpoint where Boo-boo the cat died and was replaced by Pumpkin the kitten. Pumpkin first shows up in Little Sister #102, but the BSC glosses over it. In #122, which is a Kristy book, Boo-boo is still around, #123 mentions ‘several pets’, while #124 doesn’t mention the Brewer-Thomas pets at all. There’s my answer… RIP Boo-boo. We hardly knew ye.

Jessi’s having a party at her house to introduce her Dance NY friends to her BSC friends. Almost everyone is excited about that, except Mal (who was jealous of Jessi’s dance friends, remember?) and Kristy…who’s worried that there won’t be any sitters available that night. That’s never stopped them before!

Poor Mal. I really do feel sorry for her. I know a lot of people find her to be a hopeless dork—even I do sometimes—but that doesn’t mean she deserves the bullying she’s getting at school. Period.

Once again, Claire is taking both an a.m. kindergarten session and a p.m. session. I’m not sure how that works. I can imagine a school being willing to swing that once—in an emergency—but this is every day for several weeks. Is she really doing the same assignment in the morning and again in the afternoon? Listening to the teacher read the same story? How do they arrange a lunch for her? It’s all so illogical.

“Probably for the first time ever, all the Pike kids were silent.” Probably true and definitely a little funny.

Oo-ooh! Angry Jessi is so manipulative. She knows Mal wants to go to Riverbend, but when she hears that the Pike sibs are less set on the move, she tells them Mal only thinks she wants to go, giving them a chocolate-related analogy, and encourages them to tell her they don’t think she should go.

Mary Anne is the perfect first-person for this story. Not only is she sensitive to everyone’s point of view—to the point where she’s actively flip-flopping on what she thinks Mal should do*—but Jessi brings up the fact that she dealt with Dawn leaving. MA points out that her head knew Dawn had to go, but her heart felt deserted. (*At first she was vehemently opposed to the move. Then, after talking to Mal and realizing how happy she was about it, she supported the move. After talking to the Pikes and Jessi, however, she feels really conflicted.)

I like this: Abby teaches the Hobart boys about Chanukah. James accepts an explanation about the menorah, but wants to know why the Jewish people are celebrating. (That’s pretty cool in and of itself; when I was teaching elementary school, the kids didn’t care why—they just wanted to play with the dreidel and get gelt.) Abby originally says that people celebrate Chanukah so they can get presents for eight days. I’m reminded of the episode of South Park where Stan and Cartman decide to become Jewish to get more presents…

Mal is obviously depressed. Among other things, she tells Mary Anne that she’s considered not telling the rest of the BSC she decided to attend Riverbend: “What if I simply didn’t show up one day?” she says. This is partly based on the fact that she’s so angry at Jessi for not supporting her, but that's the kind of comment I said all the time when I was depressed: No one would notice if I just disappeared.

The title quote is Abby’s reaction when MA schedules Mal and Jessi for a joint job with the Barrett-DeWitt kids. This sounds exactly like all those wacky sitcoms where the kids are trying to get their parents back together. Only Claudia seems to think this could be a bad idea. At this point in the series, Claudia has become the sensible, people-savvy person. I’d honestly listen to her in this case.

Mr. and Mrs. DeWitt are going shopping for furniture…in December…right before the holidays. I can’t help thinking that, with seven kids, they should be strapped for cash. That furniture will make a pretty crappy Christmas present….

Here’s what gets me about this story. Jessi’s friends from Dance New York come to visit, and one of them completely understands what Mal is going through and encourages her to go ahead, because Jessi will come around. That feels like a slap in the face to Jessi, but it’s true. Why doesn’t Jessi point out to Mal that she had the opportunity to become a full-time member of the dance troupe out in New York, and gave it up at least partly because of Mal? Mary Anne brings it up a couple chapters later, reminding Mal of how unhappy she was seeing Jessi making other friends.

Honestly, I’ve always seen Mal and Jessi, like many of the other BSC friends, being friends partly because they like sitting and partly because of some tenuous hold on each other. In the case of these two, they both like horse stories and are oldest children. As they age, that would probably change a bit. They’d probably outgrow most horse stories. Jessi, who’s outgoing and a ham, would probably become friends with theater-acting kids or jocks as time went on. Mal, who’s more introverted, would find friends more into sitting-type activities, like writing and theater-watching kids. That doesn’t mean they couldn’t stay friends, but much like most elementary or middle school friends, they probably wouldn’t be best friends any more. These books, and other series like them, which featured groups of girls with one thing in common, had to create friendships like that. In order to appeal to the widest audience, the stories needed to have outgoing characters, introverted characters, and the girls need to have a wide variety of interests.

Kristy’s mom buys bulk at Cost Club. That’s almost as bad a rip-off as Ricky Rouse and Monald Muck.

Mary Anne is able to very quickly convince the four youngest Pikes that Mal isn’t abandoning them simply by talking to them. If Jessi hadn’t encouraged them in that thinking, they probably would have been supportive from the start. They’re a little hurt still, and worry about missing her, but MA is able to convince them that she’ll come back, and that they can visit and write her letters.

Continuity: Mrs. Hobart brings ‘one of her famous homemade cakes’ to the old-folk’s Christmas party. Mal made a whole point about how awesome Mrs. Hobart’s cakes were in an earlier book, commenting on how her mother always bakes from a mix. (I think that was book #59, when she and Ben switched brothers for the night…)

“I’m staying home and being the ref for the fight of the century.” Mary Anne finds her balls and brings Mal and Jessi together to end this once and for all. Mal admits that it’s very hard for her to leave Jessi—as hard for her as it is for Jessi—but that she feels like she has to do this for herself. That’s all it takes for them to start hugging and (all three of them) to start crying.

Outfits

Claudia: self-tie-dyed t-shirt cut into beaded fringe, matching beaded jewelry

Next: #126