January 9, 2013
BSC #111, Stacey’s Secret Friend: Don’t Make Me Over
Tess just raided Mallory’s closet, that’s all
Summary: Stacey meets a new girl at SMS, Tess Swinhart, who’s nice but seems a little weird. Stacey thinks she just needs a makeover; she always wears pink, she never wears makeup, and her hair isn’t styled like anyone else’s. Due to the pink thing, Tess’ slightly porcine nose, and the fact that the first part of her last name almost contains the word “swine,” Alan gets everyone at school to start calling Tess “Swine-heart” behind her back. Tess is pretty oblivious and doesn’t get it when people start oinking at her. There’s also a comic book circulating about Swine-heart the Destroyer. Stacey decides not to tell Tess anything because…well, good question.
Since makeovers fix everything, Stacey tries to take Tess on as her project (a la Cher and Tai). She gets her to read some magazines, puts some makeup on her, and encourages her to wear something other than pink. Tess humors her a little but clearly couldn’t care less about whether or not her clothes are trendy or “in.” Most of the time, she just ignores Stacey, which is smart, because Stacey gets super-annoying. She also keeps saying she’s not Tess’ friend, since no one likes Tess and I guess, as Cher would say, Stacey’s “stock would plummet.”
At a football game, the students vote on a new mascot by applauding when Stacey and other students hold up signs with pictures of their choices. Stacey holds up a pig and everyone goes wild. She doesn’t realize until it’s too late that the pig picture has been replaced by a drawing of Swine-heart the Destroyer. Tess is so shocked at the reaction that she falls off the bleachers and breaks her ankle. She’s furious with Stacey and orders her to leave her alone.
Even though everyone knows Stacey would never switch the pictures, a bunch of people tell her that she wasn’t much of a friend to Tess. She just thought of Tess as a project and didn’t tell her what people were saying about her behind her back. Though, in Stacey’s defense, she did warn Tess not to trust a guy named Clarence King who asked her out, since Stacey thought it was some sort of scheme. But anyway, Stacey feels bad about everything and apologizes to Tess. While at Tess’ house, Stacey discovers that Tess lived in France, and her wardrobe is in style there. So suddenly Tess is cool.
The BSC girls band together with Tess and another girl, Barbara (who was best friends with Amelia and has become good friends with Tess), to enact some stupid 13-year-old revenge on Clarence. They mess up Clarence’s clothes and take pictures, then threaten to share them with everyone at school if Clarence and Alan don’t leave Tess alone. And then I don’t think Tess is ever mentioned in the series again.
The B-plot is kind of clever: Jackie Rodowsky and Nicky Pike have been acting weird. In fact, Nicky seems overly protective of Jackie. Eventually Abby learns that some kids were hassling Jackie, so he hired Nicky to be his bodyguard. I guess Nicky is intimidating or something? Why not hire the triplets?
Thoughts: This book brings up an interesting question: If you knew someone was being mocked behind her back, would you tell her? I think I would, because if I were the person being mocked, I’d want to know.
Stacey says that Alan has no sense of humor about himself, but aren’t a lot of his jokes at his own expense?
Tess and her friends once carved a bunch of ducks, painted them to look realistic, and put them in a river to confuse people. I’d rather hang out with that group than the BSC girls.
Nicky, up in a tree with Jackie: “We were practicing invisibility.” Claudia: “Well, practice visibility and come down from there.” That cracked me up, for some reason.
Moral of the story: Solve your problems with blackmail.
May 28, 2012
BSC Super Mystery #3, Baby-sitters’ Fright Night: Which Witch is Which?
Their outfits are the real fright here
Summary: Over Halloween, Abby, Stacey, Kristy, Mary Anne, and Mallory go to Salem, Massachusetts for a school trip. The trip is part history-project research, part excuse to do a lot of shopping (or at least that’s how Stacey sees it). Alan, Cokie, and Cary are also on the trip and being varying levels of annoying. Cokie and her minion Grace are huge mean girls to a sixth-grader named Eileen who rooms with Mallory and is supposedly decended from a witch.
A local museum is displaying a big diamond called the Witch’s Eye, which is like the poor man’s Hope Diamond, in that it’s allegedly cursed. It’s stolen while some of the students are at the museum. Mary Anne finds a wig that the girls guess was worn by the theif, and Stacey finds a bunch of numbers on a piece of paper. The girls think the person who stole the diamond is staying at the same inn as the students. At the same time, Abby buys a little ceramic pumpkin in a gift shop and starts taking it everywhere with her, calling it her pet pumpkin.
Anyway, the investigation begins, and Mallory gets really obsessed with documenting everything in the club’s mystery notebook. The notebook is back in Stoneybrook, but she has Jessi and Shannon send it to her. Girl needs help. There are a few suspects, including Mrs. Moorehouse, who owns the diamond but may not have insurance; Martha Kempner, a writer who’s in Salem to write about the diamond; Sean Knowles, whose reason for being in Salem isn’t exactly clear; and Harvey Hapgood, who tried to buy the diamond before it was stolen.
In between working on their projects and investigating the mystery, the girls do some sightseeing and various Halloween activities. They also try to avoid Alan and Cary, who are bugging Kristy. Cokie gets nastier and nastier to Eileen, and Mallory winds up sticking up for her and tearing into Cokie, which is both surprising and awesome of her. It also finally, finally gets Cokie to shut up.
Everyone goes to a Halloween parade, where Abby’s fanny pack is stolen, and she’s ticked but mostly just happy that her pumpkin wasn’t in it. Abby and Stacey’s room is broken into, as the theif took Abby’s room key, but nothing is stolen. Then Stacey realizes that the numbers she saw earlier are probably a safe combination, so she thinks the person who stole the Witch’s Eye stashed it in a safe.
Kristy thinks she’s uncovered a clue leading her to the museum, which is closed while the police investigate the diamond theft. She winds up locked inside and runs into Alan, who’s been torturing her the whole trip. But he has a clue, too, and they realize Cary set them both up. They arrange to scare the crap out of him, and the three seem to call a truce. It’s basically just a red herring.
While Kristy’s gone, there’s a storm and the electricity in the inn goes out. The other girls decide to snoop around in the suspects’ rooms and safes, but they don’t find anything. They do, however, see Mrs. Moorehouse and realize how frail she is, leading them to believe she didn’t steal the diamond since she wouldn’t have been able to make a clean getaway. The girls remember seeing Martha wear high heels for most of the trip, except for the day of the theft, when she wore sneakers. This means she may have been planning to move stealthily. The girls also use the combination Stacey found to open Martha’s safe, another strike against Martha.
It’s all dark and creepy in the inn, and the girls are freaked out when they run into Sean, since they still don’t know what he’s up to. He reveals that he’s an insurance agent and has been in Salem to keep an eye on the diamond. The girls head off to…I don’t know, call the police? Probably not. But Abby gets separated from them and runs into Martha, who grabs the pumpkin and breaks it, revealing the Witch’s Eye inside. It turns out she bought the pumpkin at one gift shop, put the diamond inside, and accidentally dropped it in another gift shop, where Abby bought it. She’s also been working with Harvey to get her hands on it.
Abby holds Martha off (yeah, I bet) until the police arrive and the girls are branded heroes yet again. Then they have cake with Mrs. Moorehouse, who tells them that she thought she didn’t have insurance because Harvey called her pretending to be from the insurance company and told her they couldn’t insure the diamond anymore. I don’t know, it’s a stupid wrap-up.
Also stupid: the B-plot involving Claudia, Jessi, Logan, and Shannon organizing a Halloween parade back in Stoneybrook. Jordan Pike is annoying and the sitters let him embarrass himself until he learns A Lesson.
Thoughts: Harvey Hapgood is not a name for a villain, or at least not a dangerous one. It’s a name for a Harold Hill wannabe.
If I were Jessi or Shannon and Mallory asked me to send the notebook, I’d say, “Sure, Mal, it’s on its way,” hang up, snicker, and go back to whatever I was doing. Otherwise I would be an enabler.
When Abby’s fanny pack is stolen, she yells out to the crowd that there’s a pickpocket in the crowd. I feel bad for any guy who ever tries to grope Abby in public.
Turns out Mallory is kind of awesome and Jordan is kind of a jerk. Who knew?
April 7, 2012
BSC #98, Dawn and Too Many Sitters: Why Did Anyone Think This Was a Good Idea?
I highly doubt Claudia's room is that neat
Summary: Dawn and Jeff are back in Stoneybrook for the summer, but as soon as they get there, Dawn wants to leave again. SMS has a special offer on a trip to Hawaii, and Dawn has a chance to go even though she doesn’t go to SMS anymoroe. All of the other BSC girls (except Kristy, who’s going later in the summer with her family, and Mallory, who is poor and unloved) want to go, too. Their parents agree, but the girls have to pay half their way themselves. That means they need to earn $250 each. (Cheapest trip to Hawaii ever, I believe.)
The girls start taking on as many jobs as they can, but it’s hard to keep up with them all. Enter Jeff and the Pike triplets, who have decided that, at the seasoned age of ten, that they’re old enough to babysit. Kristy agrees to let them into the club as babysitters-in-training because she believes they’ll get bored soon enough and lose interest. She is exactly right. The guys tag along on the girls’ sitting jobs, and though they’re good with the kids, they don’t want to do anything that would constitute actual work. They also skip meetings and eat all of Claudia’s junk food, which is only okay when the BSC girls do it.
Eventually the girls decide they have to kick the guys out, and Dawn and Mallory are given the task of breaking the news to them. They keep stalling since they don’t want to hurt their brothers’ feelings. But then the guys announce that they’re not enjoying sitting as much as they’d expected, and they don’t like the meetings, so they want to quit. (No comment is made about the fact that I’m sure plenty of parents objected to having their children looked after by ten-year-olds who still play on Little League teams.) The guys part ways with the club with no hard feelings, and the Pikes agree to let the triplets be the “second sitter” whenever the family needs one.
The rest of the book is about the girls trying to earn money for the trip. Eventually they provide entertainment (face-painting, magic tricks, etc.) at a town Fourth of July happening and make all the money.
Thoughts: Claudia screams when she reunites with Dawn, and Abby tells her, “That is an outdoor voice, Claudia.” Hee, awesome.
I can’t believe Watson planned a family trip and didn’t tell Kristy she could invite all her friends. I also can’t believe Kristy’s willing to leave the club without a president for more than one day.
“Byron found he had a taste for baby formula.” Something is not right with that boy.
Mallory: “You’re not supposed to be down here unsupervised.” Nicky: “So, supervise me.” Heh.
With all their sitting, yard sales, car washes, etc., I would think each girl would easily be able to make $250. It’s a large amount of money to a 13-year-old, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s not that much.
The girls realize they’ll also want money for souvenirs, though, and Mallory asks if they’ll really have to buy them. Mal, you’re the only regular member not going – you’re the one getting the souvenirs. Keep your mouth shut and hope for something more than a puka-shell necklace.
Kristy suggests “a special event. Like the haunted house we ran, or the sleepover to raise money for the kids in New Mexico, or Claudia’s art show–.” Abby: “A sleepover in a haunted art gallery!” I love Abby.
December 26, 2011
BSC #92, Mallory’s Christmas Wish: Reality Bites
Nice mom jeans, child I assume is Claire
Summary: Mallory convinces her family to have an old-fashioned Christmas, with homemade presents, home-cooked meals, and the like. Vanessa hears about a contest looking for families with unique Christmas celebrations and enters with the old-fashioned idea. She wins, so the Pikes will have their preparations and holiday activities taped for a TV show. Plus, they get $10,000. The Pikes are all excited, but Kristy’s even more excited because now the BSC can get a ton of free publicity.
Of course, things don’t go smoothly. Because they’re filming a TV show, there are various takes and some things have to be staged. There are cameras in everyone’s faces, and the whole process is just a hassle. Plus, the BSC girls are working at a boutique at Stoneybrook Manor, where Mallory’s Uncle Joe lives, and the filming puts him off. Finally, on Christmas Eve, the kids revolt, and the Pikes decide to shut down filming and give back the $10,000.
Not much else happens in the book, other than the BSC girls working at the boutique, but we get to accompany the Pikes on a lot of Christmas errands. That was kind of nice to read about on…Christmas. (Nice coincidence, huh?)
Thoughts: Suddenly, I’m realized the real plus of having seven brothers and sisters: tons of Christmas presents. Can you imagine all the stuff under the Pikes’ tree?
Claudia’s “Kishi Scientific Ener-joy Theory”: “If you eat what you like, you become happy, and the energy from your joy burns off calories.” I like it!
I’d love to know where the Pikes store the 360 Christmas cookies they make.
I love that Claire believes in Santa but is “suspicious.”
Vanessa’s Christmas song, which cracks me up:
“O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
When I chop you down, don’t fall on me.
You smell so nice, you look so green,
Excuse my axe for being mean.”
This book was published before reality TV really took off, but I can imagine the BSC girls starring on some reality shows:
- Kristy and Abby – partners on The Amazing Race
- Claudia – Project Runway or Work of Art
- Stacey – 16 and Pregnant (let’s be honest)
- Mallory – a Jon & Kate Plus 8/19 Kids and Counting-type show starring the Pikes
- Mary Anne – she’ll have her own show about having a giant family
- Jessi – So You Think You Can Dance
- Dawn – Whale Wars
June 11, 2011
BSC #80, Mallory Pike, #1 Fan: Write What You Know
Again, the British cover, because, again, it's hilarious
Summary: Mallory is assigned a project requiring her to write about the job she wants when she grows up. We all know Mallory wants to be a writer, but for some reason she can’t figure out what to write about writing. Kristy gives her the idea to write a play for the Kids Can Do Anything Club to perform. Mallory thinks it’s great, but her teacher wants more. So Mallory decides to write about her new favorite author, Henrietta Hayes.
Mallory writes Ms. Hayes a couple of letters, but she just gets form letters back. Finally she discovers that Ms. Hayes lives in Stoneybrook, so she stops by for a visit. Ms. Hayes is happy to help Mallory, in turn hiring her as a part-time assistant. The problem is that Mallory’s convinced that writers should only write about what they know, which is why she’s writing her play about her crazy family. But the fun, wacky family Ms. Hayes wrote about in a number of books isn’t based on her own family, so Mallory thinks she’s a fraud.
The Pike kids find out that Mallory’s writing not-so-nice things about characters based on them, so they decide to picket the play. Mrs. Pike is called in to decide whether or not the play is insulting, and she admits to Mallory that it is. Mallory whines that she can’t change too much because then the play won’t be based on her life.
Mal confronts Ms. Hayes about the books, and Ms. Hayes points out that there’s this thing called fiction, where writers basically make stuff up. Finally, Mallory gets a clue and realizes that not all writing has to be autobiographical. She rewrites the play to her siblings’ liking and gets an A on her project.
Thoughts: It’s not enough that I had to read a lame Mallory book, but there wasn’t even a non-Mallory B-plot. That is so not Raven.
Claudia wears a yellow paisley blouse with a yellow and maroon striped vest. She shouldn’t wear either of those, let alone wear them together.
Since when do Mary Anne and Logan live on the same street?
April 19, 2011
BSC #76, Stacey’s Lie: Apparently Stacey’s Dad Has Got It Going On, Too
There is a surprising lack of fire on Fire Island
Summary: Stacey’s dad wants to take her on vacation, and she asks to go to Fire Island, where her boyfriend Robert is working for the summer. She decides not to tell her dad or Claudia, who’s also coming. Claudia finds out about Robert’s presence on the island soon after they arrive, and Stacey tells her she didn’t say anything because she didn’t think Claudia would want to come if she knew she’d wind up as a fifth wheel. Stacey’s dad is, unsurprisingly, never around, so Claudia’s the only person Stacey has to tell where she’s going. Claudia keeps her mouth shut but is obviously not happy to have her vacation with her best friend interrupted.
Stacey rushes a girls’ night with Claudia so she can be with Robert, and Claudia decides that’s the last straw. They stop talking, and when Kristy, Mary Anne, and Shannon come visit for a weekend, Claudia turns them against Stacey. She also leaves early because she can’t stand to be in the same house with Stacey.
Robert and Stacey run into Stacey’s dad and a woman named Samantha, and he reveals that he arranged for Samantha to stay on the island so they could see each other during their vacation. He’s upset with Stacey for lying about her reasons for wanting to come to Fire Island, and they stop talking as well. Even though he brought his girlfriend along and lied about it. Jerk.
Robert doesn’t like how Stacey acted toward her father and best friend, so he dumps her. She finds out that Claudia was selling some photos in a shop on the island, and she’s upset that Claudia didn’t feel she could tell her about it. She realizes that she made a huge mistake and makes up with her dad. She also realizes that she needs to work through her issues about her dad dating someone. And then, almost as an afterthought, Stacey also patches things up with Claudia and Robert.
In the B-plot, Mallory and Jessi are working at a day camp, which Haley and Vanessa are attending. They wear the same bathing suit one day and for some reason it leads to a huge fight. They spend the whole book terrorizing each other until Jessi and Mallory make them work together. Snore.
Thoughts: Stacey wears black jean shorts over blue tights. Shudder.
I have the British version of this book, and when Stacey wonders if Claudia will feel like a fifth wheel to her and Robert, it says, “She might think she’d be a gooseberry.” I’m totally saying that from now on. Other Britishisms: “holiday” for vacation, “subs” for dues, and “vice chairman” for vice president.
There’s a house on Fire Island that a doctor rents called Bedside Manor. That’s awesome.
Another Stacey outfit: She wears a sleeveless denim shirt and green leggings. The horror.
April 11, 2011
BSC Mystery #15, Kristy and the Vampires: Go Away, Twilight Fans, This Isn’t What You Think
I like my vampires broody or platinum blond, thank you
Summary: Derek Masters, my favorite recurring characters, is coming back to Stoneybrook for the summer, to shoot a TV movie called Little Vampires. His parents hire Kristy to look after him on the set. The other BSC girls, as well as many other Stoneybrookites, hang out on the set as well. Strange things start to happen, at first just little walking-disaster-type things perpetrated by Derek, but then a pane of break-away glass is replaced with real glass, and a stuntwoman’s harness breaks. The BSC girls are all, “Mystery! We’ll solve it!”
The girls have a list of suspects, including the prop guy (who was fired after the glass incident), Derek’s co-star Carson (who’s being upstaged by Derek and clearly doesn’t like him), Derek’s manager, the movie’s PR person (since any publicity is good publicity), and even Cokie Mason, who keeps hanging around, trying to get Carson’s attention. But that’s mostly because she throws a party for the cast and crew, and everyone gets food poisoning. She must have served red herring. (Cough. Any laughs for that?)
Kristy finally pieces together that a girl who’s been hanging around Carson is the daughter of the guy who supplied the not-breakaway glass. Kristy finds out that the girl has been reading a manual about car maintenance, and she tampered with the brakes on the car Derek’s being driven around in. She stops the driver from going anywhere and outs the crazy girl, who wanted to get Derek out of the way because he was stealing all of his scenes with Carson. Yes, there was attempted murder in this BSC book. Also, Mallory is hand-picked by the director to be an extra. I ask, which is more surprising?
In the B plot, Claire is too scared to go to the movie set because of all the vampires. Kristy solves that by having her dress up as a witch, which she thinks is scarier than a vampire, and “scare” the vampires on the set. That’s actually pretty brilliant.
Thoughts: Once again, Stoneybrook turns its back on child-labor laws. Having a 13-year-old watch an eight-year-old on a movie set is totally not legal.
Carson doesn’t help to dispel the hunky-actors-are-dumb stereotype by thinking a TV movie about vampires will make his career.
“What good is being a movie star if you can’t eat cookies whenever you want to?” This is why I love Derek.
March 12, 2011
BSC #73, Mary Anne and Miss Priss: Everyone Needs to Calm Down
Mary Anne looks 25. And like she raided Kristy's closet
Summary: Mrs. Prezzioso needs a sitter pretty much every day of the week, but only for Jenny. Mary Anne takes most of the jobs and soon learns that Mrs. Prezzioso has been taking Andrea to auditions for print and TV ads. For the first few days, Jenny has gone back to her super-prissy self – only to the extreme. She’s verging on obsessive-compulsive. Mrs. P. lets Mary Anne and Jenny come along on one of Andrea’s auditions, and Jenny decides she wants to be as pretty and beloved as her baby sister, so she asks to go on auditions, too.
Jenny actually does well following directions, but she’s not as naturally talented as Andrea (though…how talented can a baby be?), so she still doesn’t get quite as much attention. This makes her go to the other extreme, making huge messes of herself and the house. Mary Anne brings the issue up to the BSC girls, and they encourage her to mention it to Mrs. P., because the BSC girls never pass up an opportunity to tell parents what they’re doing wrong. Mrs. P., however, already knows something’s up, she just doesn’t know how to deal with it.
The problem gets kind of solved when Jenny and Andrea both land a job, and though Jenny does well, she realizes she doesn’t really want to be a model. She’d rather play kickball, and wear normal-kid clothes. In fact, when Jenny doesn’t land a later job, she’s happy because it means she can go play kickball. (And she invites the practically-invisible Mr. P. to come watch the game, and he goes, which is really sweet.) Problem solved! And it probably would have been solved without Mary Anne being there, so ha!
In the B-plot, the Pike triplets have decided that they’re too old to need sitters, so their parents give them a little more independence. The boys want to start a kickball team, but there are too many cooks, none of whom know which recipe to use, so games quickly dissolve into chaos. The BSC girls really want to get involved, but they also want the triplets to work things out themselves, so they wait until the boys have run out of ideas and offer some advice. The triplets actually listen and come up with ideas that make everyone happy.
As part of the B-plot, Mallory has become her parents’ slave: since she’s not allowed to do anything but go to school, she’s always at home, which means she’s always available to sit for her brothers and sisters. She’s actually doing more sitting than she was before she got sick. And yet her parents still won’t let her go back to the BSC. Mal gets some advice from the BSC girls (shocker) and talks to her parents, who realize that she’s well enough to resume her normal activities. So I guess it’s back to the minor leagues with Shannon.
Thoughts: What the–? Didn’t I just read a Mary Anne book? This one is really boring, by the way. I hate how the girls are always trying to solve families’ problems. Just watch the kid, mention any major issues to the parents, and stop trying to psychoanalyze four-year-olds.
Also, stop cleaning up her messes. Same with Mallory, who keeps cleaning up after the other Pike kids. Unless the kid is a baby, he or she is old enough to clean up a mess he or she made. And at the Pike house, there are seven kids to be used for manual labor. Stop whining, pick up a magazine, and let your parents yell at the kids for messing up the house.
“Would you believe that I, shy Mary Anne, helped to catch an arsonist who was setting fires with books?” Why do the ghostwriters always think shy people are good at nothing? I’m not entirely sure they know what the word “shy” means.
March 6, 2011
BSC Mystery #13, Mary Anne and the Library Mystery: Get Fired Up for Reading
There is no excuse for those yellow shoes
Summary: Mary Anne volunteers to help out with a children’s readathon at the Stoneybrook library. Some of the kids who’ve signed up are really excited, but some, like Nicky Pike, can’t find books they’re interested in reading. At the same time, there are protesters at the library almost every day, upset that they offer some banned books. Most of the library patrons ignore them, at least until a small fire breaks out and the BSC girls learn it was started by a book that was set on fire.
A few more fires break out, always when Mary Anne is in the library, and the girls, of course, take it upon themselves to solve the mystery. One of their suspects is poor Nicky, when Mary Anne sees a pack of matches in his backpack. He promises that he doesn’t know how they got there, and she believes him. The girls also suspect a woman who works at the library – her family owns the land the library was built on, and her grandfather, who left the land to the city in his will, stipulated that if the library was ever damaged or destroyed, the land would go back to the family. The family now needs money, which could point to them trying to destroy the library to get the land back, but the girls investigate an learn that everyone in the family is super-nice and could never be an arsonist.
Mary Anne realizes that all the burned books are banned books, and also on the fifth-graders’ reading list for the readathon. In addition, they were each burned near the area where they’re shelved. The girls use the reading list to figure out what the next book will be, then stake out the area around it. When they do, they catch Sean Addison, brother of Corrie Addison, just as he’s about to burn a book. The little pyromaniac’s excuse is that he feels like his parents don’t want him around, and he hates reading. Yes, Sean, burning books is totally a reasonable response. Fortunately, he’s going to get therapy. And hopefully an episode of Beyond Scared Straight.
Oh, and Nicky wins the readathon because he secretly read a bunch of books in order to win it for Mary Anne, since she taught him to like reading. Which is actually really adorable.
Thoughts: “True, some books have bad words in them, but so what? It isn’t as though I would never hear those words anywhere else. And reading those books doesn’t make me want to use the words myself. As for books that are about subjects such as divorce or drugs, well, those things exist in the world, and books aren’t the cause.” Censors of the world: you just got schooled by a fictional 13-year-old.
Mary Anne can’t remember anything bad about Bridge to Terabithia. Uh, how about the fact that (SPOILER ALERT!) one of the kids dies?
Isn’t it weird that there are kids in Stoneybrook the BSC girls don’t know? Their parents must never go anywhere.
“If we don’t solve this case soon, Mary Anne is going to have a nervous breakdown.” Holy crap, Kristy, she’s your best friend. Take it down a notch.
Where are the police, you ask? According to Claudia’s mom, they don’t really take the fires seriously because they think they’re pranks. Uh, pranks that could destroy property and even a building are not pranks, they’re crimes. The Stoneybrook Police Department doesn’t care about arson. Hear that, arsonists? Stoneybrook is your playground! Do whatever you want!
Claudia: “Sean’s such a little kid.” Actually, he’s only a year younger than Mallory and Jessi.
Okay, seriously, how long has Mallory been sick? She has the world’s longest case of mono.
February 13, 2011
BSC #69, Get Well Soon, Mallory!: Mallory Has Cooties
Nice nightgown, Cootie Queen
Summary: Mallory’s two-book-long illness finally gets a diagnosis: The dweebiest member of the BSC has the kissing disease, mono. She has to stay home from school and can’t go to BSC meetings, which is, of course, a fate worse than death. Since Mallory can’t babysit or go to meetings, she worries that Kristy will replace her in the club, but then all of a sudden she decides she needs to get herself kicked out and replaced. I don’t know. Mallory starts acting like a bitca, but her friends catch on and tell her to cut it out. I would’ve taken advantage of the opportunity to rid my life of her, but that’s me.
Most of the book is Mallory complaining about being sick and not being allowed to do anything. Her parents definitely go overboard with how much they make her rest. The BSC girls and a bunch of their charges are also putting together a special Thanksgiving visit and presents for some nursing-home residents, and Mallory complains about not being able to help them. The BSC girls are incredibly patient and nice to her, which is probably more than she deserves. By the end of the book, Mallory is an honorary member of the club, but there are no immediate plans to replace her.
Thoughts: There is absolutely no way all of the seven younger Pike kids waited until October 30th to pick Halloween costumes. Hardly anyone does that.
Yes, Mallory, a car wash in November in Connecticut is a great idea. Maybe she wants to get everyone else sick, too.
Dawn: “I wish I were with you. It’s seventy degrees here.” SHUT UP.
Jessi: “Kristy thought, with Christmas only a month away, it would be a great time to post advertisements.” Um, why? In case Santa brings someone extra kids?
