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."
Seriously, Laine looks 35 on this cover. And kind of like a Real Housewife by that facial expression. Something else I realized, Claudia has a side ponytail on almost every cover shot. Give me a different hairstyle, illustrator.
This book opened with a snowfall, and Stacey is at home with her mom. She then says how much she loves living in the country, that it's so much more peaceful than the city. I got really confused, because they bought a house right behind the Pikes, so that would indicate a suburban neighborhood, not the country. Stace then explains that she considers the 'Brook "the country" because it's not New York City. Umm...no. That's not how that works.
Anyway, Stacey's NY BFF Laine calls for a chat, and tells Stacey that she has winter break coming up from February 7 - February 15 (one week surrounded by two glorious weekends, in Laine's words). Wow, those NYC prep schools give nice holidays, we got Christmas break and Spring Break, but nothing midwinter. Laine then goes on and on about how hard it is to be rich, I mean, how she can't decide what to do over break. Should she go in the school ski trip? Stay in NYC and party with her high school boyfriend (more on that later)? Or fly down to Florida to say at her family's condo on the beach. Umm...February in the Northeast? I'm voting condo in FL, Laine.
Stacey has the brilliant idea to invite Laine to Stoneybrook for that week, even though SMS will still be in session. She tells Laine that she can come to BSC meetings, have a BSC party, come to SMS with her one day, and even go to the Valentine's Dance at school. Stacey assures Laine that it will be "so distant" (another BSC slang term, I'm sad that she didn't say dibble), and Laine says "what?" (that totally made me laugh out loud). After Stacey explains what "distant" means, Laine does what any sensible 13 year old girl would do, and says she is going to the beach. Oops, no, this is AMM's crazy universe, so of course Laine chooses to visit Stoneybrook.
So, as Stacey heads to the BSC meeting, we get our Who's Who description of each member, and Stacey mentions that Mary Anne wears reading glasses. I'm pretty sure I have never heard these glasses mentioned before, that kind of bugs me. Plus, Dawn is described has having straw-colored hair, but the other books I've read so far say that she has white-blonde hair. Maybe her hair is like those old Hypercolor tshirts, and changes based on the temperature or mood or something. While at the meeting, Kristy decides they should give a Valentine's Day party for the BSC charges, that it can be a Valentine's Masquerade and all the kids can sign their names in code on the cards. I bet the parents in Stoneybrook love the BSC, because the parents can basically get off the hook for every holiday since they know the BSC will throw a party.
Oh, and at the meeting, Claudia indicates that she won't have time to make the invitations, and Stacey secretly thinks that's a good thing, because the invites would probably say "It's a haliday! Come celabrat Vanentins Day with the BSC!" (My spell check totally freaked out, hee hee.) She justifies the thought because she loves Claudia and knows that she's smart, but just doesn't apply herself. Sounds like the Stoneybrook version of "Bless her heart."
Anyway, the day of Laine's arrival comes, and Stacey is frantically trying to make her room more sophisticated, changing the posters on her wall and hiding her stuffed pig collection (Laine makes fun of the pigs every time she calls, apparently). After the house is deemed appropriate, they go to the train station to pick up Laine. They drive back through Stoneybrook, and Laine is all, "Where's the town?" Stacey is all taken aback, explains that the pizza parlor and library that she just pointed out was the town.
So, Stacey has a BSC sleepover at her house to welcome Laine to the 'Brook. They are talking about the upcoming dance, and Jessi mentions that Quint won't be able to come to town for this dance like he did for the Winter Wonderland dance (Snowbound shout out!!), and that she's going with Curtis Shaller, a 7th grader. And Stacey has this Deep Thought by Jack Handey: "When you're eleven, though, I guess you don't expect relationships to last very long." I might have snorted out loud there. As the rest of the girls discuss their dates, Laine states that 13 year old boys are too dorky to date (Mary Anne gets all huffy) and that she's dating a 15 year old named King (*cough*trust fund baby*cough). I got kind of confused by the description of King, though - initially Laine says he has long black hair with the ends dyed purple that he wears in a ponytail, but later mentions the he uses mousse to make his hair bushy and spiky. Sounds like an NYC mullet going on, y'all.
But that is only the beginning of Miss Snotty McSnotterson. She goes to school with Stacey, and when Pete Black asks her to the dance, she basically laughs in his face and only agrees to go with him after she calls King (or as she calls him, "Heart"), and makes fun of Pete and the whole BSC within earshot of Stacey. Then, at the next BSC meeting, she asks when the BSC are going to get "real jobs." Apparently, Laine got a job as a cashier in a trendy boutique in NYC. Seriously, AMM? Laine is 13 years old. Even assuming that she may be 14 by the time the summer hits, there are very strict child labor laws out there, and if I remember Alabama laws when I was a teenager, any child under 16 could only work, like, 3 hours a day or something. You really want me to believe that, in a city the size of NYC, the best candidate for this job was a 13 year old? Pffft.
Friday night hits, and we get all Real World: Stoneybrook - that's right, people stop being polite and start getting real. Laine gets all snarky because Pete and Austin Bentley (Stacey's date) aren't picking them up, instead everyone is meeting at the dance. Plus, Pete buys Laine a corsage, but drops it and it gets trampled by the crowd. Laine just waves it off like it isn't even worth her time, and after they walk in, makes fun of the decorations, food, and band. She dances once with Pete, then tells him she is too tired to dance. Literally 5 seconds later, as they are walking to a table, a hot guy asks Laine to dance and she immediately agrees. And Stacey flips a table over (not really, but that girl was pissed). A brouhaha ensues, claws come out, weaves end up on the floor, and Laine demands to go home to NYC that night. Stacey can't agree fast enough.
A few days later, Stacey calms down and decides to write Laine a letter about how awful she is - "You, with your words like knives and swords and weapons that you use against me...why you gotta be so mean?" (Ok, maybe that was Taylor Swift, but you get the picture). Stacey says the she doesn't love Laine, but she always will (dang it, that's the Civil Wars...). She also returns the BFF necklace Laine gave her when she moved back to Stoneybrook. And she signs this epic write-off: Stacey, your ex-best friend (she still dots all the i's with hearts though, so hard to take that seriously...).
Let's get some fashion here before things get too sad:
What Stacey wore (train station edition): "This is the outfit I had chosen in which to meet Laine: a purple shirtwaist top over flowered leggings, my cowboy boots (cowgirl boots? cowwoman boots?), a purple hair ornament made from shoelaces (I totally has a shoelace hairbow in elementary school. And one made from balloons.) and long dangly silver earrings." Stacey has a serious thing for flowered leggings.
What Stacey wore (Valentine's dance): "I chose a red top and short jean skirt." Pretty lame description, AMM.
What Stacey wore (BSC Valentine's Masquerade): "I was wearing red leggings, red ankle boots, a bulky red sweater, and red barrettes." Sounds kind of like the all green elf outfit my seventh grade teacher, Mrs. Carpenter, used to wear. Yikes.
Howard Wolowitz called; he wants his wardrobe back.
What Laine wore (train station edition): "She was hard to miss, considering she was wearing a jean coat with a fur collar (I sincerely hoped the fur was fake), black capri pants edged with lace, very chic black ankle boots, and on her head, a brilliant oversized red beret."
What Laine wore (Valentine's dance): "She had on a black leotard, long black jacket, black leggings over black stockings (What!?! Why, just...why?), and black shoes. Her jewelry was silver though. And big."
"Do you think kids can save the planet?" Sure, if they are not obnoxious asshats like Dawn is in this book. Seriously, Dawn really annoyed me in this one, normally only Kristy gets on my nerves as much. But I get ahead of myself...
The book opens with Dawn in her science class, and they are beginning the study of ecology. Dawn's somewhat hippie teacher Mrs. Gonzalez (sorry, AMM described the teacher as having a long braid down her back, and I'm just thinking hippie. Roll with me, people) asks the above question, and Dawn gets super pumped and excited, raising her hand with every environmental question, practically singing out the answers. Alan Gray makes fun of her in class, which makes me like Alan Gray just a little bit.
Anyway, Mrs. Gonzalez assigns everyone the task of coming up with a project on ecology. Dawn can't figure out what she should do until she is babysitting the Barrett kids and starts teaching them about recycling. At one point, she picks up the plastic rings that hold a six pack of Cokes together and lectures the kids about how these need to cut up to save the dolphins and tuna and stuff. And I get an instant flashback to Can't Hardly Wait.
Sara Rue is awesomesauce. Anyway, Dawn figures out that she should lead an afterschool class for the BSC charges about how to save the planet. And since Stacey also has Mrs. Gonzalez for science (a different period, though), they decide to team up and teach the class together, focusing on subjects like recycling, water conservation, saving energy, yada, yada, yada. They end up having 13 kids "sign up" for the class, and then the Green Machine sweeps through the kids of the 'Brook.
The Pike kids decide to form the "Green Police" (sounds vaguely SS-ish from WWII) and lecture Mallory and Jessie every time they use a paper towel instead of a dish cloth/cloth napkins, or if they try to serve lunch on paper plates instead of real dishes (they do realize that running the dishwasher/washing machine uses energy and water, right?). Every time Mallory and Jessie have an infraction, they have to go to Green School. Most of the other kids in Stoneybrook get equally annoying, I mean socially active, as well.
Meanwhile, Dawn realizes that there is no centralized recycling center and Stoneybrook, and starts a campaign to have one started as SMS. However, her version of "campaigning" is to lecture every single kid in school about recycling, even yelling at them if they throw an aluminum can in the trash. She even lectures between calls at the BSC meetings, and yells at Claudia for buying individually wrapped candies (umm...I don't want your hands touching my Hershey Kisses, back off, wench!!). Seriously, I can totally see Dawn growing up to be one of those PETA protesters at Fashion Week who throw red paint at people who wear fur coats. "MURDER!! FUR! IS! MURDER!!"
Continuity alert!! Dawn is horrified when Styrofoam fast food containers fall out of the locker next to her, owned by the popular Shawna Riverson (the cheater from Claudia and the Middle School Mystery returns!!) Anyway, Dawn asks Shawna Riverson if she cares about saving the planet, and Shawna is all, "No" and rolls her eyes. And now I like Shawna a little bit, too. (For the record, I do recycle, I just can't stand obnoxiousness.)
The recycling center is approved, but after Dawn has alienated the entire student body, no one votes for her to chair the recycling committee. Mrs. Gonzalez gets chosen instead (why would it make sense to even have a 13 year old girl on the ballot for such a position? I mean, really). Dawn sulks at the Grand Opening ceremony when no one publicly recognizes her efforts, but the BSC end up calling her out at the next meeting for being a total jerk. Even Mary Anne is mad at Dawn, and that's saying something. Dawn realizes the error of her ways, and apologizes to everyone.
At the end of the project, the BSC charges throw a "Green Fair" to show everyone how much they have learned about saving the planet. The sell reusable canvas shopping bags, bird feeders made out of milk cartons, and so on. Mrs. Gonzalez attends the fair, and ends up giving Dawn and Stacey an A on the project. Plus, she invites Dawn to be the student co-chair of the recycling center. Yay.
Oh, and something completely random thrown into this book: two 8th grade boys decide to protest the awful school lunches by bringing Brie cheese, pate (ok, I couldn't figure how to get the accent mark over the "e" in pate, sorry), and sparkling cider, and eat all of this on china and a cloth tablecloth. Umm...really? I'm sorry, do most 13 year old boys even know what those foods are? Wouldn't they get picked on something fierce for having the equivalent of a candelit, romantic dinner together? Plus, don't you get suspended for bringing your own silverware to school these days?
Fashion show time!!
What Stacey wore: "Today she was wearing floral leggings, a pink shirt with big sleeves, and a long vest covered in antique pins. A black fedora with a red cloth rose was perched on top of her shoulder length hair." Very Pretty in Pink.
