#73: Mary Anne and Miss Priss, Part Two
I deliver on my promise of more snark! Possibly sooner than expected! And oh man, there is so much wrong in this book that half my chapter summaries wound up being longer than the chapters they summarised. Also, so many tags, so little time!
I don't think it's worth linking to the previous installment, as it's in the post right underneath this one.
5th Chapter
Jessi and Mal are sitting together. I exhibit my usual reaction to this, by slamming the book down upon seeing Jessi's handwriting on the notebook entry. I know some people say cursive is the ONLY way to write properly, and sometimes it can look beautiful AND be legible at the same time... But Jessi's just strikes me as being too lazy to lift the pen off the page. Each letter drags on for just a little too long, it's horribly inefficient. I had to write a handwriting recognition system last year, and I would have absolutely MURDERED someone with Jessi's handwriting when I was running tests on it. I think it would probably have broken me. And the system. But mostly me.
It seems it's all go at the Pike house, with the triplets wanting to be in charge. Personally, I vote they be left in charge for an afternoon (with someone there in a purely supervisory capacity, of course), and see how they get on. Who knows, maybe they CAN be responsible enough to look after themselves and their siblings! Then the BSC can have three additional honorary members!
Hee. Pow is, according to Claire, “vacuuming the kitchen”. That's cute. And desperately unhygienic.
I am thrown momentarily by a first person interjection into a third person chapter. Actually, scrap 'momentarily', I'm just thrown. :/ If you're going to HAVE third person chapters in a first person narrative, AMM & friends, don't fuck about with it even more by changing back to first person halfway through the third person interlude! The chapter has now been taken over by MA, who shows up at Jessi and Mal's sitting job (I think) to inform them of Jenny's newly developed obsessive tendencies... Except, no, Jenny's still there, in the background, counting blades of grass, or some shit. So... this happened DURING MA's last chapter? Or is this a different day, and MA stops by with Jenny AGAIN? I... am... so... confused. Thankfully, the chapter is a short one, and I can move on and pretend it never happened. Actually, this book is really very short, and each chapter is only about 5 pages. My summaries of some of the chapters are probably longer than the chapters themselves.
6th Chapter
Mrs P. finally comes clean about taking Andrea to auditions. (ARGH, someone in this episode of Midsomer Murders that I'm watching in parallel to writing this just got crushed by their liquor cabinet... That was unpleasant...) Since Jenny is ill today, Mrs P. agrees to let both her and MA come to this afternoon's audition with them. Bad parenting alert! Since she was just bragging about how sometimes she and Andrea are on the road all day, going between different auditions, SURELY it wouldn't be such a great sacrifice to stay home with her other, sick, daughter for ONE afternoon? However, it seems Jenny was faking her headache, and is happy as larry as soon as they get out the door. Who's surprised? Not I.
At the talent agency's offices, they encounter children who act exactly like Stoneybrook kids (“she looked five, but sounded about fifteen!” remarks Mary Anne), except now it's noteworthy and unnatural. Um, Mary Anne, ever met a young girl called Myriah Perkins, by any chance...?
Turns out Mrs P. is auditioning Andrea for an advert for something called 'Yummy Tummy Grandma Perkins Apple Dumpling baby food'. Err, yeah. Everyone coos over Andrea, and Jenny looks appropriately gutted. Little Andrea is perfect, gets one out of three spots that she auditions for, and Jenny gets dumped with a babysitter every day. No wonder that kid is spiralling towards a psychological breakdown. MA says that she can't wait for her Monday BSC meeting to talk about it. I judge her for her excitement. TALK TO HER MUM. OR TO YOUR DAD, AT LEAST!
7th Chapter
The girls discuss Jenny's mental health problems over a bowl of crisps. Somehow, in my head, this devalues something that could very easily grow into a very serious issue for Jenny. But, well, in Grey's Anatomy they pull this shit all the time (Discussing someone's heart transplant over lunch? Sure! Bringing popcorn to watch an operation? Why not!) so maybe they're just practising for their future careers as oversexed surgeons.
Mary Anne comments that Jenny should realise that she's wonderful, and loads of fun to be with, which is going to be hard, since these older girls who are meant to be rooting for her have spent SO MUCH TIME slagging her off endlessly- probably in front of other kids, considering their professionalism. The phone rings at that point, Claudia jumps in surprise and Kristy explodes crisps out of her face laughing (not my wording, the book's). This is all so very hilarious, and no one is capable of answering the phone due to rampant hysterics. Wow, these girls are SO mature... Once one of them sobers up and answers the phone, we find out that Mrs P. has signed Jenny up to get some head shots taken so she can be a model just like her sister. Just one problem- Mrs P. is taking Andrea to a national audition at the time, and wants MA to take Jenny to the photographer.
(Wow, this is a long chapter by this book's standards...)
We jump straight into Jenny's head-shot session, and the photographer acts quite creepy, telling four-year-old Jenny that she's “much too grown up” to have someone with her to supervise her photos. Okay, so, if this guy does turn out to be a creepy child molester, what exactly will thirteen year old Mary Anne Wet Blanker Spier be able to do about it? Again, maybe I've been watching too much Law & Order: SVU, but really, in a sealed-off photo studio, would a thirteen year old be much harder prey than a four year old? This is messed up. They NEED to have a responsible adult supervising here.
The photographer takes some generic pictures of Jenny against a grey backdrop, before disappearing, and reappearing wearing, and I quote, “a silly black hat with long floppy dog ears on either side” and exclaiming “OK, Jen! We're going to have some fun now!”. I hyperventilate for a while and pour a glass of passionfruit Caprioska, while trying to reassure myself that we are in Vanilla BSC 'verse, and Benson and Stabler are NOT going to burst through the doors of this photo studio yelling “POLICE! You're under arrest for producing and distributing sexual images of a child!”. The photographer takes a bunch of photos of Jenny having a tea party with her doll and teddy bear, then finally announces that the last part of this shoot involves something he likes to call “The Robot”, which means that he will give Jenny instructions and she will do exactly as he says. Since I am trying ignore all the horrifying undertones of this book from now on, I will just say that it goes okay, though not brilliantly, and Jenny is only really happy when it ends. ...Yeah, that chapter goes down in history as a candidate for The Most Fucked Up Thing I Have Ever Read.
8th Chapter
Jenny gets an audition from her creeptastic photos! However, despite both Jenny and Andrea's auditions being on the same day, for the same thing, at the same place, Mrs P. needs MA to tag along and take care of Jenny for her.
Stress, stress, stress, overbearing parents, overbearing children, and apparently four year old Jenny can't read!! O.O Waaaait, I thought all Stoneybrook children were not only literate, but pumping out novels and screenplays by the age of 5? (Except for Claire Pike, but she can peel a banana with her feet, so she gets away with it.) Jenny seems to be rather behind in her personal development, though, and can't even remember the name of the shop whose advert she is auditioning for. It's horribly painful to read, as Jenny tries to practice lines that she doesn't understand, and her mum tells her that she needs to by crying for this one and so on... I feel so terrible for Jenny, is there really any way this could end well..? There is more “we need to cast children who can cope with being alone” talk, wrt FOUR YEAR OLDS.
Aaaaanyway, Jenny's audition doesn't go so well. Andrea got a call-back, but Jenny did not. It's looking pretty dismal for Jenny.
9th Chapter
Yay, Shannon's handwriting! She's sitting for the Barretts, and observing the newly formed kickball team practising. There is much ado about how to split the kids into two teams, which is finally resolved by Byron (probably the only triplet actually organised enough to handle any of this), and even once that's done, the game is a disaster, and the babysitters debate whether or not to interfere. Well, you interfere in everything else, girls, why stop now? Seems like an odd place to draw the line. The triplets finally declare the game cancelled, “due to rain”. This would have been really funny if it was followed up with an allusion to the sky being completely clear or something, but the ghosties miss that one. Oh well, it made me giggle anyway.
10th Chapter
Back at Casa Prezzioso, Jenny's understandably miserable. Andrea's off to do a shoot, and Jenny didn't even get invited to another audition since the fiasco of her last one. She's also acting much less concerned about her appearance: her dress is wrinkled, she's slouching, and there's a stain on the knee of her tights. Mary Anne seems.... happy about this. “Amazing!” she exclaims, practically clapping her hands, as Jenny spills juice on herself and doesn't care. Obviously she's forgotten all about that reading she did of her dad's psychology textbooks, back in Chapter 4, or she would notice the warning signs of depression.
Jenny proceeds to act out, jumping around in the mud outside. She says she's going to make a mud pie for Andrea to eat for dinner. “Andrea will eat anything!” she sings. Yes, even (yikes!) Yummy Tummy Grandma Perkins apple dumpling baby food. MA comes to the astonishing conclusion that Jenny might be jealous of her baby sister's success. Medal for Mary Anne! She tries to reassure Jenny that she's not a bad model, just the jobs she auditioned for are more difficult than Andrea's, because she has to act as well. This just makes it worse, though, because Jenny's now convinced that she's a bad actress. Oh man, MA, stop. Just stop.
She buys Jenny an ice cream, which Jenny promptly gets all over her dress. With the help of Jenny's non-committal comment that her mum will probably be furious, Mary Anne realises that Jenny is probably acting out because she wants attention! Notably, she wants her mother to notice her. However, this realisation is followed up immediately by another one, that Mrs P. would be more furious with Mary Anne for letting Jenny get in the state she's in, so she quickly takes her home for a bath before Mrs P. gets back. Now, despite the amount of brain work MA's been doing in this chapter, she fails to come to the most important conclusion of all- that Jenny's mother SHOULD BE TOLD ABOUT WHAT IS GOING ON! She goes home, and calls Dawn to tell her, instead. Dawn suggests ask the rest of the BSC for help. * facepalm*
11th Chapter
We open with Kristy graciously “giving the floor to Mary Anne”. Mary Anne has the flo', yo! Let's hope she a) uses it wisely and, b) SOMEONE FINALLY GIVES HER SOME DECENT ADVICE! Tell Jenny's mother! Tell your dad! Tell Jenny's school counsellor, or her P-fucking-E teacher (Because according to #116: Stacey's Ex-Boyfriend, depression magically goes away after one chat with a baseball coach), or SOMEONE!
Stacey accidentally notes that Andrea is pretty much a perfect angel-baby, and Mary Anne counters with “I'm sure things will change as she gets older and learns to say words like 'no' and 'why'.” Oh, SNAP! XD
Oh man, guys, they're actually being sensible! Kristy and Claudia say that Mrs P. needs to be told what's going on! However, Kristy “I'm-in-charge-and-you'd-better-do-as-I-say-or-else” Thomas ruins it by adding that “we don't want to get a reputation for being too pushy, that could hurt the club”. Because no one could ever accuse you of being pushy, Thomas.
They move on, and discuss the triplets' antics instead. Jessi haughtily points out that the 10-year-old triplets are too young to be treated as responsible, or to be babysitters. Well, I think 11 is too young to be a babysitter, JESSI. They call Mal for advice at home, since she's still not allowed to leave the asylum except for short, educational day-trips (i.e. school). She complains about how she's not really the Pike's daughter any more, but more like the Pike's live-in nanny. She has a point. I hope she's getting paid. I mean, I assume her parents must pay the other babysitters, and thanks to Mal's illness, they no longer have to call those in. So if they didn't pay her before, or gave her half-wages or something to sit for her own siblings, in all fairness, they should definitely be paying her full rate now. She comments that she's babysitting now more than she was before she became ill, and proactive Kristy shows sympathy and suggests she draw a chart to show to her parents, and force them to believe that she's well enough... to rejoin the BSC and take more sitting jobs. Sigh. Oh Kristy, you were doing so well. Re: the triplets, Mal gets tasked with talking to them about their kickball team, and trying to convince them that they need to make some rules in order for it to run smoothly. None of the other BSCers dare to do this themselves. Man, I really feel bad for Mallory. Why does everyone treat her like such a doormat?
Mary Anne, empowered by Mal's decisions to talk to her parents and her brothers, grows a spine and announces that she will talk to Mrs Prezzioso about Jenny. Tomorrow. Dun dun DUUUN.
Well, that was... interesting. It'll probably be a few days before I can round this up, but I will try not to forget! Hope no one is left in too much suspense!
I don't think it's worth linking to the previous installment, as it's in the post right underneath this one.
5th Chapter
Jessi and Mal are sitting together. I exhibit my usual reaction to this, by slamming the book down upon seeing Jessi's handwriting on the notebook entry. I know some people say cursive is the ONLY way to write properly, and sometimes it can look beautiful AND be legible at the same time... But Jessi's just strikes me as being too lazy to lift the pen off the page. Each letter drags on for just a little too long, it's horribly inefficient. I had to write a handwriting recognition system last year, and I would have absolutely MURDERED someone with Jessi's handwriting when I was running tests on it. I think it would probably have broken me. And the system. But mostly me.
It seems it's all go at the Pike house, with the triplets wanting to be in charge. Personally, I vote they be left in charge for an afternoon (with someone there in a purely supervisory capacity, of course), and see how they get on. Who knows, maybe they CAN be responsible enough to look after themselves and their siblings! Then the BSC can have three additional honorary members!
Hee. Pow is, according to Claire, “vacuuming the kitchen”. That's cute. And desperately unhygienic.
I am thrown momentarily by a first person interjection into a third person chapter. Actually, scrap 'momentarily', I'm just thrown. :/ If you're going to HAVE third person chapters in a first person narrative, AMM & friends, don't fuck about with it even more by changing back to first person halfway through the third person interlude! The chapter has now been taken over by MA, who shows up at Jessi and Mal's sitting job (I think) to inform them of Jenny's newly developed obsessive tendencies... Except, no, Jenny's still there, in the background, counting blades of grass, or some shit. So... this happened DURING MA's last chapter? Or is this a different day, and MA stops by with Jenny AGAIN? I... am... so... confused. Thankfully, the chapter is a short one, and I can move on and pretend it never happened. Actually, this book is really very short, and each chapter is only about 5 pages. My summaries of some of the chapters are probably longer than the chapters themselves.
6th Chapter
Mrs P. finally comes clean about taking Andrea to auditions. (ARGH, someone in this episode of Midsomer Murders that I'm watching in parallel to writing this just got crushed by their liquor cabinet... That was unpleasant...) Since Jenny is ill today, Mrs P. agrees to let both her and MA come to this afternoon's audition with them. Bad parenting alert! Since she was just bragging about how sometimes she and Andrea are on the road all day, going between different auditions, SURELY it wouldn't be such a great sacrifice to stay home with her other, sick, daughter for ONE afternoon? However, it seems Jenny was faking her headache, and is happy as larry as soon as they get out the door. Who's surprised? Not I.
At the talent agency's offices, they encounter children who act exactly like Stoneybrook kids (“she looked five, but sounded about fifteen!” remarks Mary Anne), except now it's noteworthy and unnatural. Um, Mary Anne, ever met a young girl called Myriah Perkins, by any chance...?
Turns out Mrs P. is auditioning Andrea for an advert for something called 'Yummy Tummy Grandma Perkins Apple Dumpling baby food'. Err, yeah. Everyone coos over Andrea, and Jenny looks appropriately gutted. Little Andrea is perfect, gets one out of three spots that she auditions for, and Jenny gets dumped with a babysitter every day. No wonder that kid is spiralling towards a psychological breakdown. MA says that she can't wait for her Monday BSC meeting to talk about it. I judge her for her excitement. TALK TO HER MUM. OR TO YOUR DAD, AT LEAST!
7th Chapter
The girls discuss Jenny's mental health problems over a bowl of crisps. Somehow, in my head, this devalues something that could very easily grow into a very serious issue for Jenny. But, well, in Grey's Anatomy they pull this shit all the time (Discussing someone's heart transplant over lunch? Sure! Bringing popcorn to watch an operation? Why not!) so maybe they're just practising for their future careers as oversexed surgeons.
Mary Anne comments that Jenny should realise that she's wonderful, and loads of fun to be with, which is going to be hard, since these older girls who are meant to be rooting for her have spent SO MUCH TIME slagging her off endlessly- probably in front of other kids, considering their professionalism. The phone rings at that point, Claudia jumps in surprise and Kristy explodes crisps out of her face laughing (not my wording, the book's). This is all so very hilarious, and no one is capable of answering the phone due to rampant hysterics. Wow, these girls are SO mature... Once one of them sobers up and answers the phone, we find out that Mrs P. has signed Jenny up to get some head shots taken so she can be a model just like her sister. Just one problem- Mrs P. is taking Andrea to a national audition at the time, and wants MA to take Jenny to the photographer.
(Wow, this is a long chapter by this book's standards...)
We jump straight into Jenny's head-shot session, and the photographer acts quite creepy, telling four-year-old Jenny that she's “much too grown up” to have someone with her to supervise her photos. Okay, so, if this guy does turn out to be a creepy child molester, what exactly will thirteen year old Mary Anne Wet Blanker Spier be able to do about it? Again, maybe I've been watching too much Law & Order: SVU, but really, in a sealed-off photo studio, would a thirteen year old be much harder prey than a four year old? This is messed up. They NEED to have a responsible adult supervising here.
The photographer takes some generic pictures of Jenny against a grey backdrop, before disappearing, and reappearing wearing, and I quote, “a silly black hat with long floppy dog ears on either side” and exclaiming “OK, Jen! We're going to have some fun now!”. I hyperventilate for a while and pour a glass of passionfruit Caprioska, while trying to reassure myself that we are in Vanilla BSC 'verse, and Benson and Stabler are NOT going to burst through the doors of this photo studio yelling “POLICE! You're under arrest for producing and distributing sexual images of a child!”. The photographer takes a bunch of photos of Jenny having a tea party with her doll and teddy bear, then finally announces that the last part of this shoot involves something he likes to call “The Robot”, which means that he will give Jenny instructions and she will do exactly as he says. Since I am trying ignore all the horrifying undertones of this book from now on, I will just say that it goes okay, though not brilliantly, and Jenny is only really happy when it ends. ...Yeah, that chapter goes down in history as a candidate for The Most Fucked Up Thing I Have Ever Read.
8th Chapter
Jenny gets an audition from her creeptastic photos! However, despite both Jenny and Andrea's auditions being on the same day, for the same thing, at the same place, Mrs P. needs MA to tag along and take care of Jenny for her.
Stress, stress, stress, overbearing parents, overbearing children, and apparently four year old Jenny can't read!! O.O Waaaait, I thought all Stoneybrook children were not only literate, but pumping out novels and screenplays by the age of 5? (Except for Claire Pike, but she can peel a banana with her feet, so she gets away with it.) Jenny seems to be rather behind in her personal development, though, and can't even remember the name of the shop whose advert she is auditioning for. It's horribly painful to read, as Jenny tries to practice lines that she doesn't understand, and her mum tells her that she needs to by crying for this one and so on... I feel so terrible for Jenny, is there really any way this could end well..? There is more “we need to cast children who can cope with being alone” talk, wrt FOUR YEAR OLDS.
Aaaaanyway, Jenny's audition doesn't go so well. Andrea got a call-back, but Jenny did not. It's looking pretty dismal for Jenny.
9th Chapter
Yay, Shannon's handwriting! She's sitting for the Barretts, and observing the newly formed kickball team practising. There is much ado about how to split the kids into two teams, which is finally resolved by Byron (probably the only triplet actually organised enough to handle any of this), and even once that's done, the game is a disaster, and the babysitters debate whether or not to interfere. Well, you interfere in everything else, girls, why stop now? Seems like an odd place to draw the line. The triplets finally declare the game cancelled, “due to rain”. This would have been really funny if it was followed up with an allusion to the sky being completely clear or something, but the ghosties miss that one. Oh well, it made me giggle anyway.
10th Chapter
Back at Casa Prezzioso, Jenny's understandably miserable. Andrea's off to do a shoot, and Jenny didn't even get invited to another audition since the fiasco of her last one. She's also acting much less concerned about her appearance: her dress is wrinkled, she's slouching, and there's a stain on the knee of her tights. Mary Anne seems.... happy about this. “Amazing!” she exclaims, practically clapping her hands, as Jenny spills juice on herself and doesn't care. Obviously she's forgotten all about that reading she did of her dad's psychology textbooks, back in Chapter 4, or she would notice the warning signs of depression.
Jenny proceeds to act out, jumping around in the mud outside. She says she's going to make a mud pie for Andrea to eat for dinner. “Andrea will eat anything!” she sings. Yes, even (yikes!) Yummy Tummy Grandma Perkins apple dumpling baby food. MA comes to the astonishing conclusion that Jenny might be jealous of her baby sister's success. Medal for Mary Anne! She tries to reassure Jenny that she's not a bad model, just the jobs she auditioned for are more difficult than Andrea's, because she has to act as well. This just makes it worse, though, because Jenny's now convinced that she's a bad actress. Oh man, MA, stop. Just stop.
She buys Jenny an ice cream, which Jenny promptly gets all over her dress. With the help of Jenny's non-committal comment that her mum will probably be furious, Mary Anne realises that Jenny is probably acting out because she wants attention! Notably, she wants her mother to notice her. However, this realisation is followed up immediately by another one, that Mrs P. would be more furious with Mary Anne for letting Jenny get in the state she's in, so she quickly takes her home for a bath before Mrs P. gets back. Now, despite the amount of brain work MA's been doing in this chapter, she fails to come to the most important conclusion of all- that Jenny's mother SHOULD BE TOLD ABOUT WHAT IS GOING ON! She goes home, and calls Dawn to tell her, instead. Dawn suggests ask the rest of the BSC for help. * facepalm*
11th Chapter
We open with Kristy graciously “giving the floor to Mary Anne”. Mary Anne has the flo', yo! Let's hope she a) uses it wisely and, b) SOMEONE FINALLY GIVES HER SOME DECENT ADVICE! Tell Jenny's mother! Tell your dad! Tell Jenny's school counsellor, or her P-fucking-E teacher (Because according to #116: Stacey's Ex-Boyfriend, depression magically goes away after one chat with a baseball coach), or SOMEONE!
Stacey accidentally notes that Andrea is pretty much a perfect angel-baby, and Mary Anne counters with “I'm sure things will change as she gets older and learns to say words like 'no' and 'why'.” Oh, SNAP! XD
Oh man, guys, they're actually being sensible! Kristy and Claudia say that Mrs P. needs to be told what's going on! However, Kristy “I'm-in-charge-and-you'd-better-do-as-I-say-or-else” Thomas ruins it by adding that “we don't want to get a reputation for being too pushy, that could hurt the club”. Because no one could ever accuse you of being pushy, Thomas.
They move on, and discuss the triplets' antics instead. Jessi haughtily points out that the 10-year-old triplets are too young to be treated as responsible, or to be babysitters. Well, I think 11 is too young to be a babysitter, JESSI. They call Mal for advice at home, since she's still not allowed to leave the asylum except for short, educational day-trips (i.e. school). She complains about how she's not really the Pike's daughter any more, but more like the Pike's live-in nanny. She has a point. I hope she's getting paid. I mean, I assume her parents must pay the other babysitters, and thanks to Mal's illness, they no longer have to call those in. So if they didn't pay her before, or gave her half-wages or something to sit for her own siblings, in all fairness, they should definitely be paying her full rate now. She comments that she's babysitting now more than she was before she became ill, and proactive Kristy shows sympathy and suggests she draw a chart to show to her parents, and force them to believe that she's well enough... to rejoin the BSC and take more sitting jobs. Sigh. Oh Kristy, you were doing so well. Re: the triplets, Mal gets tasked with talking to them about their kickball team, and trying to convince them that they need to make some rules in order for it to run smoothly. None of the other BSCers dare to do this themselves. Man, I really feel bad for Mallory. Why does everyone treat her like such a doormat?
Mary Anne, empowered by Mal's decisions to talk to her parents and her brothers, grows a spine and announces that she will talk to Mrs Prezzioso about Jenny. Tomorrow. Dun dun DUUUN.
Well, that was... interesting. It'll probably be a few days before I can round this up, but I will try not to forget! Hope no one is left in too much suspense!