Kristy's Great Idea, #1

So I think Kristy is the one with the headband (Mary Anne was still in the pigtail wearing phase), but that would mean she is wearing a dress.  Weird.  Kristy mentions that she wears a skirt with knee socks as her standard school uniform, so I guess the tomboy phase didn't start until 8th grade.

I have a confession:  I don't believe I ever actually read this book growing up, nothing about this one triggered any memories.  Is my BSC fangirl card revoked? Let me get to the story quickly so that you can forget I ever mentioned that...

Pre-BSC time warp alert!!  Once upon a time, when time actually progressed in Stoneybrook, Kristy is sitting in her 7th grade class, just waiting for the final bell to ring for the day.  Apparently, the 'Brook is in the midst of a blistering heat wave, and the A/C is not working in SMS, making kids and teachers irritable alike.  Finally, 2:42 hits and the bell rings.  What the...?  I can understand 2:45, or 3:00, but 2:42?  So freaking random. Kristy is so excited that she yells "Hurray!!" or "Yippee!!" or something, and her teacher makes her write a 100 word essay on decorum in school.  At least she didn't get a dot.

Anyway, Kristy hurries home because it is her day to watch David Michael - she, Sam, and Charlie each watch DM one afternoon a week, then they have regular sitter the other two days.  However, that night, Mrs. Thomas discovers that the regular sitter can't make it tomorrow, plus Sam (math club), Charlie (football), and Kristy (sitting at the Newtons') are all busy.  (By the way, Sam never struck me as "mathlete," so that seemed strange...).  Mrs. Thomas frantically calls Mary Anne from next door (sitting at the Pikes') and Claudia from across the street (art class), plus a few different high school girls (cheerleading practice), to no avail.

And the heavens part, the sun shines down, angels are singing...and history is made. Kristy has, well, a great idea.  What if someone could make one call and reach a group of experienced sitters?  Brilliant!!  Kristy is bursting to talk to her BFF Mary Anne, but poor MA is not allowed to talk on the phone after school unless it is about homework  (geez, Mr. Spier, lighten up...).  So using some kind of Morse code flashlight system (their bedroom windows face each other), Kristy communicates her idea to Mary Anne, and she's all, like, "Cool."  (I totally tried to find a clip of the girls using flashlight codes to communicate in Now and Then to use here, but alas...).

After school the next day, Kristy and Mary Anne go over to Claudia's house to invite her to be in the club.  Kristy is a little nervous about asking Claud, because they have grown apart in seventh grade, ever since Claudia starting wearing a bra and crushing on boys. What is AMM's obsession with bras?  Anyway, Kristy explains the idea to Claudia, and she enthusiastically agrees and offers her bedroom as the headquarters.  Plus, she suggests asking her new friend Stacey McGill to join, too. Kristy and Mary Anne don't know Stacey well, because Claudia and Stacey eat lunch with the cool girls and boys at school.

However, Claudia takes time away from her lunch crowd one day to design the logo, and the girls agree to meet Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, 5:30-6:00.  They place an ad in the newspaper and print flyers to stuff in local mailboxes.  On their first official meeting, they get a series of several prank calls from Sam, a sitting job for David Michael that goes to Stacey, and a job for Buffy and Pinky, a pair of 3 year olds on the next street.  Sam sees Stacey at her sitting job and thinks she is a "foxy chick," and Stacey thought Sam was a "gorgeous hunk."  Oh, the days of middle school crushes....

However, Kristy's first job, for Buffy and Pinky, doesn't go as easily.  It turns out Buffy and Pinky are a pair of St. Bernards, not kids.  After that disaster, Kristy decides to start a club notebook to document their experiences.  And apparently Claudia wasn't as bad of a speller in 7th grade, because her club notebook entries only have one or two spelling mistakes each.  I guess the transition to 8th grade was a rough one... 

Meanwhile, Stacey is acting all shady, disappearing on weekends and making excuses about going to New York when she's actually in town.  Kristy even calls her house, and Mrs. McGill lies about Stacey not being home, even though Mary Anne just saw her a couple of hours ago.  Mary Anne and Kristy start to think that Stacey is anorexic because she always refuses candy and watches her diet. Kristy confronts Stacey at the next meeting, calls her and her mom liars (she is known for her bluntness), and a fight breaks out.  My favorite part of the fight:  Claudia makes fun of the way Kristy dresses because her sweater has a snowflake pattern.  Kristy retorts, "You've got sheep barrettes in your hair...you think that's adult?" Aww...snap!  Apparently, the fashion forward in the 'Brook think sheep are in right now. They eventually decide to have the first ever BSC sleepover to talk it out, where Stacey finally admits she has diabetes.  And Kristy is like, "Is that all? Whatevs..."

Oh, and subplot in this one, Kristy is a major brat to Watson, her mom's boyfriend, and refuses to sit for his children, Karen and Andrew.  She even calls him a "horrible father" at one point.  Plus, Kristy mentions that her dad left the family and moved to California and eventually got remarried, plus sends child support, but I'm pretty sure he has always been mentioned as single in the other books I have read, and kind of a deadbeat. We will see what further reading uncovers on that note. Anyway, Watson's ex-wife has an emergency and Kristy is forced to sit for Karen and Andrew, and she ends up really liking them.  At the end of the book, Watson proposes to Mrs. Thomas, and Kristy decides she's okay with that.  Aww...

Yeah, this one was hard to get through, just because you hear a recap of this story in every single BSC book that follows.

Seventh Grade Fashion Time!!

What Claudia wore: "She was wearing short, very baggy lavendar plaid overalls, a white lacy blouse, a black fedora, and red high-top sneakers without socks (eww...).  Her long black hair was carefully arranged in four braids.  There was blue stuff on her eyelids, gold stuff above her eyes, and magenta stuff on her cheeks."  Love how Kristy refers to makeup as "stuff".  Plus the makeup look is very Denise Huxtable.

Claudia, take 2:  "Claudia answered it again, this time wearing a baggy yellow-and-black-checked shirt, black pants, red jazz shoes, and a bracelet that looked like it had been made from a telephone cord.  Her earrings were dangling jointed skeletons that jumped around when she moved."

What Stacey wore:  "Stacey had on a pink sweatshirt with sequins and a large purple parrot on the front; short, tight-fitting jeans with zippers up the outsides of the legs; and pink plastic shoes."  Doesn't sound NYC sophisticated, sounds like something any 12 year old girl would wear.

Stacey, take 2:  "I remembered that she was wearing a matching top and skirt made of gray sweatshirt material with big yellow number tens all over it.  Her hair was pinned back with clips shaped like rainbows.  Little silver whistles were dangling from her ears."