Sweet Janine and Claudia the Mean: Chapter 8
We return for session two of Cult Camp, where would-be baby-sitters learn some sound on-the-job advice such as "Play favourites with your kids! They deserve it!" and "If at first your kids won't do what you want them to, try a spot of emotional blackmail!"
Jenny Prezzioso is spoiled, tantrumy, hates getting dirty and won't share her shit. Karen Brewer is spoiled, tantrumy, an attention whore and likes to make up stories to scare the little kids, some of whom are half her age. However, Karen is ANM's me-Sue, so she is a "handful", with whom "things are never dull", while Jenny is just your garden variety brat.
The chapter opens with the cult blowing a gasket over the fact that Jenny has showed up to playgroup in a pretty white dress and are trying to make her put on an art smock, presumably so they can make her do messy activities that she doesn't want to do. Jenny is having none of it, and it is at that moment that Karen shows up. She and Jenny have a standoff (not a naked one, sadly) and as Karen walks away she says "Watch out for the monster." Kristy calls after her, but then Jenny goes running after her, sans smock, yelling at her to tell her what she means, and the conversation immediately turns back to Bad Little Jenny Who Won't Wear An Art Smock. Not, you know, the fact that one of the older kids is making up stories to scare the younger kids.
David Michael is making up cringe-makingly stupid jokes. Ugh.
Claudia finds Karen's shy younger brother Andrew alone and goes and talks to him. Andrew sounds wicked cute, actually, despite how he was depicted on the cover of the previous book. The two of them go over to some other kids, who scream and run away. Yep, Karen has told the other kids that he is the monster. Or that he is going to turn into a monster at ten o'clock, anyway. Claudia gives Karen the telling-off of her life, makes her sit out the morning's activities, and Kristy tells Watson when she goes home. I wish.
No, you are not going to believe what Claudia does. Or maybe you will; this is, after all, BSC-land. Jenny is still afraid of Andrew later on, even after the other kids have forgotten about it. So when Andrew sees the entire cult fussing about Jenny's smock again (seriously, at the start of the chapter every single baby-sitter has dropped everything to try and get Jenny to put that fucking smock on, and here Claudia says "us sitters", so I presume that once again all five of them are fussing over the smock. Seriously, WTF? Is it, like, a national crisis or something? Has Karen told them that Jenny will turn into a flesh-eating monster if she doesn't have her magic smock on to keep her under control?) Anyway, the five of them are trying to cajole the Jenny-monster into putting on the magic smock, and Andrew, obviously sick of everyone's attention being focused on one four-year-old girl, is all "Just put the fucking smock on, already!!! Jeez!!!" Jenny freaks out and immediately falls all over herself trying to put it on. The Cult go and get Karen and make her tell Jenny that she was making it up and apologise to her for scaring her. Sorry, wishful thinking again.
Guess what Claudia does. Just GUESS.
I grinned. "Andy," I whispered, "tell her to wear it every time she comes to Stacey's."
"Grrr," said Andrew. "You wear that...wear that every day."
"Okay," said Jenny. "Okay."
Across the yard, I saw Karen cover her mouth with her hands and giggle.
I shit you not. Rather than trying to relieve Jenny's fear of the monster Karen made up, Claudia basically manipulates it to get her to do what she wants her to do. And we find out later that this poor kid will not take the thing off! The FUCK?!
OK, let's do a quick recap of Claudia's baby-sitting performance throughout this book:
1. She gets into a yelling match with her sister, in which she almost hits her, in front of the four-year-old and baby she is supposed to be taking care of.
2. She and her friends focus all their attention on a relatively small problem posed by one kid, while completely ignoring the other nine or so kids present at said camp.
3. She and her friends notice that one of the older kids is making up stories to scare the younger kids and basically let her get away with it.
4. She not only allows a seven-year-old to scare a four-year-old, she manipulates this fear to get the kid to do what she wants her to do.
This girl's lack of maturity and professionalism absolutely blows my mind. It scares me that this girl is left in charge of other people's children.
Coming up next: Japanese has its own alphabet, but I don't think ANM got the memo. But I just scored 353/400 in the highest level of the Japanese Language Profiency Test, according to the little piece of paper I got in the mail today. What would I know?
Jenny Prezzioso is spoiled, tantrumy, hates getting dirty and won't share her shit. Karen Brewer is spoiled, tantrumy, an attention whore and likes to make up stories to scare the little kids, some of whom are half her age. However, Karen is ANM's me-Sue, so she is a "handful", with whom "things are never dull", while Jenny is just your garden variety brat.
The chapter opens with the cult blowing a gasket over the fact that Jenny has showed up to playgroup in a pretty white dress and are trying to make her put on an art smock, presumably so they can make her do messy activities that she doesn't want to do. Jenny is having none of it, and it is at that moment that Karen shows up. She and Jenny have a standoff (not a naked one, sadly) and as Karen walks away she says "Watch out for the monster." Kristy calls after her, but then Jenny goes running after her, sans smock, yelling at her to tell her what she means, and the conversation immediately turns back to Bad Little Jenny Who Won't Wear An Art Smock. Not, you know, the fact that one of the older kids is making up stories to scare the younger kids.
David Michael is making up cringe-makingly stupid jokes. Ugh.
Claudia finds Karen's shy younger brother Andrew alone and goes and talks to him. Andrew sounds wicked cute, actually, despite how he was depicted on the cover of the previous book. The two of them go over to some other kids, who scream and run away. Yep, Karen has told the other kids that he is the monster. Or that he is going to turn into a monster at ten o'clock, anyway. Claudia gives Karen the telling-off of her life, makes her sit out the morning's activities, and Kristy tells Watson when she goes home. I wish.
No, you are not going to believe what Claudia does. Or maybe you will; this is, after all, BSC-land. Jenny is still afraid of Andrew later on, even after the other kids have forgotten about it. So when Andrew sees the entire cult fussing about Jenny's smock again (seriously, at the start of the chapter every single baby-sitter has dropped everything to try and get Jenny to put that fucking smock on, and here Claudia says "us sitters", so I presume that once again all five of them are fussing over the smock. Seriously, WTF? Is it, like, a national crisis or something? Has Karen told them that Jenny will turn into a flesh-eating monster if she doesn't have her magic smock on to keep her under control?) Anyway, the five of them are trying to cajole the Jenny-monster into putting on the magic smock, and Andrew, obviously sick of everyone's attention being focused on one four-year-old girl, is all "Just put the fucking smock on, already!!! Jeez!!!" Jenny freaks out and immediately falls all over herself trying to put it on. The Cult go and get Karen and make her tell Jenny that she was making it up and apologise to her for scaring her. Sorry, wishful thinking again.
Guess what Claudia does. Just GUESS.
I grinned. "Andy," I whispered, "tell her to wear it every time she comes to Stacey's."
"Grrr," said Andrew. "You wear that...wear that every day."
"Okay," said Jenny. "Okay."
Across the yard, I saw Karen cover her mouth with her hands and giggle.
I shit you not. Rather than trying to relieve Jenny's fear of the monster Karen made up, Claudia basically manipulates it to get her to do what she wants her to do. And we find out later that this poor kid will not take the thing off! The FUCK?!
OK, let's do a quick recap of Claudia's baby-sitting performance throughout this book:
1. She gets into a yelling match with her sister, in which she almost hits her, in front of the four-year-old and baby she is supposed to be taking care of.
2. She and her friends focus all their attention on a relatively small problem posed by one kid, while completely ignoring the other nine or so kids present at said camp.
3. She and her friends notice that one of the older kids is making up stories to scare the younger kids and basically let her get away with it.
4. She not only allows a seven-year-old to scare a four-year-old, she manipulates this fear to get the kid to do what she wants her to do.
This girl's lack of maturity and professionalism absolutely blows my mind. It scares me that this girl is left in charge of other people's children.
Coming up next: Japanese has its own alphabet, but I don't think ANM got the memo. But I just scored 353/400 in the highest level of the Japanese Language Profiency Test, according to the little piece of paper I got in the mail today. What would I know?