Poor Mallory!, #39

Mallory totally has on tight rolled jeans, white slouchy socks, and Keds on the cover shot.  I think she has been raiding my fifth grade closet.

So, Mallory comes home from school to find out that her dad's law firm is downsizing, and her mother is afraid that Mr. Pike won't have enough seniority to keep his job.  However, pink slips have been flying all day, and Mr. Pike still hasn't received one.  So, Mal goes off to the BSC meeting with hopes high.

Oh, and as she goes off to the BSC meeting, we get our typical description/introduction to each BSC member, and for the first time since this project has started, I came across Kristy's "bio" where is mentions that she doesn't even wear a bra yet.  I remember how often AMM would use this to describe Kristy in her books (I'm somewhat shocked that it took this many books into my project to come across the reference), and it always bothered me.  It's not that it's necessarily inappropriate, I guess, and maybe AMM wanted to reassure her readers that every girl matures differently, but I just never liked reading how Kristy didn't wear a bra yet.  Maybe it offends my delicate Southern sense of propriety.  Who knows.  

Anyway, once Mallory returns home, she finds out her dad received a pink slip at the end of the day (Mallory thought that was really "stale" of his company. OMG.)  So, Mrs. Pike signs up for a temp agency while Mr. Pike job hunts.  After several weeks of looking with no results, Mr. Pike gets depressed and watches soap operas in his sweats.  And this is the mental picture I have of the Pike household:

And if you don't recognize that movie, then I feel sorry for you for not being a kid of the 80s.  

The Pike kids from the "Pike Club" to help think of ways to save money (turning off electronics and such), plus ways to earn money as well.  The triplets, Adam, Byron, and Jordan, do odd jobs like mowing and dog walking, Nicky gets a paper route, the girls have a lemonade stand. Mallory, meanwhile, gets a month-long sitting job, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, for one of the rich families in Kristy's neighborhood.  

Plus, all the Pike kids share that they are being bullied in school because their father lost his job.  Some of the 6th grade mean girls spread gossip that he was caught stealing, and some of Mal's school friends believe that.  I was a little skeptical, at first, that kids would care this much about adult jobs that they would bully other kids over something like this.  But then I remembered what middle school was like, and kids can be mean for the stupidest reason, so I can see this actually happening.  Good lesson, AMM.

While all this is going on, Mallory is babysitting the Delaney kids, who are so rich that they have a golden fountain in their house, 2 tennis courts, and a Persian cat that costs $400 (all I can think of is Mariah Carey doing the Stairmaster in her high heels on MTV Cribs).  Plus, they have a new pool that all the neighborhood kids want to use.  After a while, Amanda and Max Delaney realize that some kids are using them for their pool.  Mallory saves the day and helps them find out who their real friends are, and she realizes that rich kids have problems too.  Mo' money, mo' problems.

Then Mr. Pike gets an interview, then a second interview, then a third interview (this seemed like a lot when I was a kid, but now that I'm adult who has been through the hiring process a few times, I know what that feels like.)  Finally, good news, he got the job!!  Mrs. Pike decides she will keep temping a few days a week just to keep her sanity with 8 kids (ok, AMM didn't specify the reason, but come on, the woman has 8 kids, she needs to get out of the house some.)

To celebrate, Mallory hosts a BSC sleepover at her house, where they prank call the girls who bullied Mallory.  Oh, I miss the days of prank calling...


Return of the word "dibble" (slang for incredible, apparently):

 -  the most dibble family
 -  dibbly sophisticated
 -  height of dibble-dom
 -  Queen of Dibbleness
 -  dibbly strict
 -  dibbly great
 -  dibbly disgusting
 -  dibbly happy

Final "dibble" count - 8.  Did she actually make "fetch" happen here?  Oh, and spell-check is fine with the word "dibble," but doesn't like any iterations of the word.  That's dibbly uncool.

Claudia didn't get an actual outfit description in this one, just a general style statement: "Claudia wears wild clothes like big hats; flowered vests over long shirts that belong to her father and which she leaves untucked; short black pants; and then, something just a little offbeat like penny loafers from the 1950s with white bobby socks."  Also, her jewelry is "the height of dibble-dom, she might wear a monkey in one ear and a banana in the other."  I'm telling you, she and Clarissa Darling are style sisters.