#15: Little Miss Stoneybrook...and Dawn
So I have a dirty little secret - I LOVE child beauty pageants and this book is to blame. It was easily in my top five favorite BSC books ever growing up. Thanks to this cranked up piece of shit, I freebase Toddlers and Tiaras and I've seen that creepass Living Dolls documentary a hundred times and if some opportunistic schmuck wrote a book about JonBenet Ramsey, I read it. It's like watching your ex get dumped by his new girlfriend over Facebook, you know, you're going, "This is awful. I shouldn't enjoy this, and I shouldn't even look lest someone think I do NOT NOW HONEY FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T BOTHER ME GREAT THINGS ARE HAPPENING HERE."
(My husband has told me that if we ever have a daughter, and the words "grand supreme" leave my lips outside of a Taco Bell drive through, he will leave me. And I would not blame him. And I'm certain he would get custody of little Raignbough Sunshynne.)
Anyway, despite my adoration for it, the reason I never snarked this book before is because the subplot about Jeff deciding to go back to live with his dad is totally unfunny to me. I actually did the same thing as a kid, and it really...is not snarkworthy. Therefore I decided to do a half-snark: A-plot only, plus, in honor of having gone back to my job in editing, I will replace the B-plot with the worst things I ever saw in the line of duty. Deal?
"Order! Order, please! Order!" Kristy all but has to discharge her trusty firearm to get everybody to calm the hell down, because they're all so wound up about their two newest members officially joining the club today. No time to discuss the minion she plugged, though, because "before I go any further, maybe I should explain who the club members are." Wow, right on the first page and everything. You remember that diagram from English class showing the rising action, climax, and denouement in a book? I think a diagram of every BSC book would show the two opening sentences being rocketed at 98 miles an hour directly into a brick wall and then stalling in a crumpled heap for the next ten to fifteen pages.
I skip those, as always, until Kristy gets up her own ass about inducting Mal and Jessi into the club. Dawn gets up her own ass about Kristy using the word "induct" and sounding like a pompous wank, because nobody made a big deal like this back when SHE joined the club, GOD. She snots that this was because Kristy was jealous of her relationship with Mary Anne. Which is probably true, but come on, like K. Ron is going to pass up an opportunity to act bossy and self-important in front of two younger girls who worship her? It's not always about you, Dawn. It's also always about Kristy.
The induction ceremony is interrupted by Dr. Johanssen calling...for Claudia. UH-OH. Claudia speaks with her briefly, then puts herself down for a job without offering it to anyone else first. Kristy yells at her, and when pathetic noob Mallory wants to know what the problem is, Dawn "explodes" that the club doesn't work that way and this is "practically our most important club rule." Not as important as Thou Shalt Have No Other Friends Before the BSC, but close, I guess.
Claudia uncomfortably explains that Charlotte asked for her specifically because she misses Stacey so much and Claudia is the next best thing. I don't follow, because Charlotte is a smart, sensitive kid who would probably be frustrated by being cared for by someone far stupider and less mature than she is, but okay. This whole plot never made any sense to me, even as a kid, because any idiot who goes into business should know the number one rule of business is to make the customer happy. So if the parent asks for a specific babysitter, is she supposed to say, "Well, I'm free, but now I can't do it because you asked"? Or is she supposed to accept it to make the customer happy and then take your abuse for being "unfair"? Why don't you just shut the hell up and do good business, K. Ron?
Kristy finally huffs, "Well, if that's what Charlotte wants," and then reminds everyone that she thought up Kid-Kits. Mary Anne interrupts that she rushed Jenny to the hospital that time. Dawn chimes in that she saved two kids from a fire in California once. That reminds me of this time when my oldest nephew was first born and I was holding him and cooing and all, and all of the sudden I looked up and my sister wasn't in the room anymore. She had gone to the bathroom! I couldn't even stand up and I didn't know how to adjust my arm without jostling him or anything so I was just frozen and it was the most terrifying ninety seconds of my life.
K. Ron manages to fit in the induction ceremony during the rest of the meeting, which involves making Mallory and Jessi put their hands on the club notebook and swear an oath to never turn twelve. Mary Anne actually cries because it is so "beautiful," making me wish someone would recommend her a decent therapist, because that is not healthy.
Chapter 2! One time I was editing a book on tax code, and a heading titled "Senior Citizens' Assessment Freeze Exception" got cut off weirdly in page proofs so it just said "Senior Citizens' Asses" in huge bold letters. I photocopied it, added a jaunty illustration, and hung it in my cubicle for a while.
Chapter 3! Dawn arrives early to find Claudia reading the newspaper, which she claims they all enjoy, especially the "fascinating" police blotter. I believe I have already discussed my thoughts on the Stoneybrook News and its similarity to my own hometown paper, so I will merely note that several years ago, my mother was sitting still at a stop sign when a teenager rode his bike into the side of her car, damaging nothing and hurting no one, and this was the lead in the police blotter that week. Perhaps Dawn was being sarcastic.
They notice an article for the upcoming Little Miss Stoneybrook pageant, which Claudia thinks is sexist because people "think the only thing little girls are good at is dressing up and looking cute." Really? THAT'S the problem she has with pageants? That's like problem #786, well behind the sexualization of kindergarteners, the reinforcement of patriarchal beauty standards, the stupidity of parents who claim to have won five hundred dollars in a pageant they spent three grand to enter in the first place, and early-onset emphysema from hair spray inhalation. Then again, Claudia mistakes the word "stereotype" for "tape deck type," so the fact that she's forming full sentences at all is really remarkable.
The others all enter and variously express their disgust with the pageant, including 93-year-old Mallory, who says, "What a disgrace!" Has Ann ever met a sixth-grader before, do you think?
Someone named "Jessie" asks, "Do you ever see boys competing for a crown? For Little Mr. America or something? No. You do not." Well, "Jessie," whoever you are, do you ever see girls competing for Super Bowl MVP? No. You do not. And yet I don't recall anyone telling little boys they're wrong for wanting to sign up for peewee football, or clambering for the abolishment of the whole sport (except me, every Sunday, October through January). There are a lot of damn things wrong with beauty pageants, but I loooooathe the attitude that feminine or women-dominated pursuits are yucky and that no one should want to do them, while manly pursuits are awesome and everyone should aspire to them (even though only men can actually do them, of course; women have to sit around twiddling their thumbs because they're too good for girl stuff but not good enough for boy stuff). Coding your little girl as "less than" because she wants to wear a dress is a lot more fucked up than putting her in the dress in the first place. And that is the LAST TIME I'm going to defend this braided hayturd of a practice we call child beauty pageants.
Mary Anne points out that a lot of little girls in town won't think it's so stupid. Kristy for some reason refers to it twice as "sexist, but fun." Uh, okay. Misogyny: Fun for the whole family! Dawn agrees it wouldn't be so bad. Mal is holding firm on the "disgrace" thing, but you have to imagine she's just bitter that she'd never win a beauty prize, if you catch my drift.
Kristy then changes the subject to frostily ask Claudia how her "special" job with Charlotte went. Fine, she says. Mary Anne yells out of nowhere "JENNY DIED THAT TIME REMEMBER" and Kristy was like "WELL I CAUGHT THE PHANTOM PHONE CALLER" and Claudia's like "Um excuse me I narrated that book" and Dawn's about to mention that house that exploded in California again when the phone rings. Thank god. At least it's an early book or that could go on for ages in ever more improbable scenarios: "Remember when we were lost in the desert with five kids?" "I was the one who had to rescue Matt Braddock from the bottom of that mine shaft, don't forget!" "Well, I had to perform heart surgery on Nina Marshall once!"
The phone call turns out to be Ma Pike, calling with a "special job" just for Dawn. Despite throwing a tantrum when Claudia did the same thing and then sulking about how Charlotte made everybody else feel awful and inadequate by not choosing them, Dawn accepts it immediately. She's going to need the extra dough to repair the teeth K. Ron is gonna knock out just because Ma P. asked, anyway. The job is to prepare Claire and Margo for the Little Miss Stoneybrook pageant, who of course heard about it and of course want to enter. She's asking Dawn only because Dawn lives nearby and will never need a ride over, which makes perfect sense to me (what make no sense to me is that of the dozens of kids they sit over the series, all of them will like seven sitters totally equally and will never ask for anyone special). Dawn is flattered by this, as if her address is somehow a reflection on her awesome babysitting skills. Kristy is pissed, of course, but not as pissed as Mal, who wasn't asked for the job despite being even more conveniently located than Dawn because her mother knows she would Jessie Spano out and send them out for the swimsuit competition in trenchcoats. She expresses her displeasure by maturely falling on the floor, rending her garments and screaming about how she will die if she has to be the sister of Little Miss Stoneybrook. I think "For god's sake, THIS IS NOT ALL ABOUT YOU" should be the tagline of this book.
Chapter 4! Kristy is sitting for her siblings but Karen has a meltdown when David Michael and Andrew have had it with playing her make-believe game in which she gets to be the boss and leader and main character of everything. She wails to Kristy that they're just mean boys who won't play a girl game, but actually it sounds like it would have been fun if she weren't such a brat. Kristy cheers her up by asking her if she wants to be in the Little Miss Stoneybrook pageant. Why don't you go jab a needle in a recovering heroin addict while you're at it, K. Ron. Karen is all like "OMG SPARKLES AND ATTENTION OMG OMG."
"I suppose at that moment Kristy felt like I did when Mrs. Pike offered me the special job with Claire and Margo. Here was her chance to prove how great she was with kids." Does this make sense to anyone? How does entering a kid in a beauty pageant prove you're a good babysitter? How does getting a kid to request you prove you're a good babysitter, actually? Kids like people who let them stay up late and eat crap and set things on fire. And they all KNOW that Charlotte misses Stacey and that she's all fragile and stuff, so feeling insecure about that is just plain stupid. It's like assuming everyone hates you because the cat won't sit in your lap.
Chapter 5! One of the worst things about my job is having to find tactful ways to suggest to an author that they might have written something really stupid. Typos, inconsistencies in terminology, rough prose - that stuff is easy to fix. But sometimes you read something that makes your brain gears crash from fourth to first (the very first book I ever edited included a "fact" about Tokyo's population of 13 billion and I was never quite the same) and you're forced to make the dreaded Author Query. What you want to write is, "What the hell are you trying to say?" and what you usually end up writing is "Is this correct?" or "Please clarify" with a passive-aggressive smiley face. This is because authors have egos like elderly hemophiliacs and questioning one the wrong way is a horrific proposition.
Anyway, so just recently I was doing a textbook on using technology in the classroom and there's the usual bit on not trusting everything you read on the internet, because anybody can make a website and say any dumb thing, so evaluate the source, etc., etc. There's a photo, the caption of which reads, "Who really made this website?" or some such. The photo is of…a dog sitting at a computer. I laughed at first, but then I realized that I had no idea if this was supposed to be funny. Given the tone and subject matter, it didn't actually seem like it, but how exactly am I supposed to ask in a delicate way? "I don't believe the dog is behind www.obamaisamuslim.com; please clarify"? "Please cite your source re: the spread of misinformation on the web via canines"? Maybe the dog is the one being scammed? The more I thought about it, the stupider it seemed, and the stupider it seemed, the less able I was to articulate a query that didn't make it sound like I thought the author was a complete moron. So I just gave up. And that's why, if you're ever reading a book and you see something so jarringly bad you can't believe it made it past an editor, know that they did see it. They'd just been drinking the night before and could not manage to be polite.
Chapter 6! Dawn heads over to the Pikes for her first pageant rehearsal with Claire and Margo. Now that I'm older and know how much crap goes into these things, this choice makes no sense, because Dawn doesn't know one bit more about pageants than Claire and Margo do. So if they're not going to go all out and hire an actual coach or something, then all they really have to do is pick out a couple of outfits and practice a "talent" (defined quite loosely, at that). Ma Pike couldn't have managed that on her own? It's not like they even need adult supervision to practice their singing or whatever.
The girls want to wear sparkly dresses and swimsuits like Miss America, but Dawn nixes that fast. So the spray tans, hair pieces, and fake teeth are out too? You are clearly not in it to win it, Schafer. She distracts them by asking what they can do for the talent competition, but gets discouraged at finding out how talentless they are. I guess this is before they had sixty-five talent shows to hammer that point home. Anyway, I don't know why that matters; the kids on Toddlers and Tiaras are always stunningly talentless too. (Like, even more so than you'd think they should be for their age. Even the girls who are eight or ten and perfectly capable of taking lessons to learn decent dance technique just plod around the stage making that grotesque kissy face to techno music.)
Claire decides she can sing, and if you think she's going to sing a sweet little song like Tomorrow or Somewhere Over the Rainbow, you don't know the Pike kids. And you are fortunate, may I say. It's Popeye the Sailor Man for Claire, which is only slightly better than Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts or something. Dawn tries to talk her out of it, but nothing doing. Why don't you just say no? I mean, she's five. Just say, "No. That's not an appropriate song. Pick something else." What's with this "trying to bargain with the kindergartener" shit?
Margo can't carry a tune or put two steps together, but she can remember words, so Dawn suggests she memorize a long poem like The House That Jack Built and recite it. That's actually not bad. A kid on T&T recited all the books of the Bible once, which was weird, but it showed an actual talent, unlike pretty much everyone else's "singing" and "dancing." I mean, she was only four or five! I'm twenty-six and I usually get to Deuteronomy and start trailing off into "Um...Cinderella...First Joe-Bob...Second Joe-Bob..."
Margo doesn't think reciting is enough, though, and suddenly remembers one thing she can do: the banana trick! "The banana trick?" Dawn thinks. "My stomach began to feel queasy…" That is hands down the nastiest, most perverted-sounding line in the BSC, taken out of context. No, even IN context.
Suddenly, everything about this picture comes into horrifying focus.
It turns out Margo can peel a banana with her feet, which is half disgusting and half something I would totally try if there were any bananas in the house, just to see if it's actually hard. And then she eats it while reciting her poem, so it comes out as "Thish ish the housh," which always grossed me out hugely. I like bananas, but I can't STAND the sound they make when you eat them. Can you imagine someone eating a banana while reciting into a microphone in an auditorium? She ought to just play a little song called "Rakes on a Blackboard."
Claire thinks her talent is better than Margo's - now that she's ruined it with the banana, I agree - and Dawn realizes for the first time they're going to be competing against each other. Did she really not think of that? Then again, she thinks privately as they utterly fail to curtsy or walk without looking like cavepeople, there's pretty much no chance either of them will win.
Chapter 7! Mary Anne's turn to be a pushy stage mom! Only she's actually got a talented kid in Myriah Perkins, who knows tap, ballet, gymnastics, singing, acting, chess, archery, glassblowing, thermonuclear engineering, and the cello. Mary Anne subtly suggests that she could take her talents to the stage and also maybe remind those bitches who totally saved Jenny's life that time. Myriah gets all excited, but Mrs. Perkins isn't quite as thrilled when they ask. She says yes, but gently says she might not win because some pageant girls are very cutthroat. Which I find strange, because Myriah's five years old and she's been taking ballet and tap and creative theater lessons and the whole bit. It seems odd you would enroll your toddler in a billion classes from the time she could talk and then balk at the idea of a pageant or being a stage mother. I also find it slightly odd that every single parent so far has said something like, "But what if you don't win? Won't you be upset?" I mean, I guess that discussing winning and losing with your children is healthy, but you don't go, "You want to play youth soccer? But won't you be upset if you lose a game?" Maybe Mrs. Perkins is just trying to look all Mother Teresa cause she knows her kid is all up in this pageant's shit.
Chapter 8! Again, I do not get how Claudia is the next best thing to Stacey, because Stacey never would have forgotten to bring the Kid Kit full of books so she doesn't have to read to Charlotte. Dawn awesomely speculates that Claudia probably did this on purpose, because Charlotte is a better reader than she is. Okay, fine - up top, high five, Dawn. Let's not make this a regular thing.
Without any awkward moments where Charlotte corrects Claudia's pronunciation to fill their time, they just sit around moping and whining about how much they miss Stacey, which is really kind of pathetic. It's so sad that Claudia finally offers to take Char over to her house to call Stacey. Char talks and talks and probably eats up more long distance charges than Claudia's even making on this job, considering this book was written in 1988 (...when I was still two years too young to enter the Little Miss Stoneybrook pageant - holy hell). This was very nice of Claud, I feel, but seeing as how their kid is obviously miserable, and her parents are a doctor and some other big "important job" that keeps them away from home all the time, according to this chapter, I feel the Johanssens could pony up for a phone call to make her happy once in a while.
While in Claudia's room, Charlotte sees the article about Little Miss Stoneybrook in the paper and Claudia jumps at the chance to shove her into it and remind everyone once and for all who is totally the best damn babysitter, even though she has no reason to feel insecure since she's Charlotte's Chosen One. Charlotte of course has no interest in this farce, insisting she has no talent and isn't pretty, but Claudia demands that she go out there and announce to the whole world, the Lord, and K. Ron that it was Claudia who caught the Phantom Phone Caller. Well, I see no way this will end unhappily for a shy, anxious little girl! Much like how she subconsciously forgot the Kid-Kit on purpose, I have a theory that Claudia goaded her into this to make Charlotte hate her and get back in K. Ron's good graces.
Chapter 9! Dawn is too busy worrying about Jeff to be sanctimonious in this book, so Mal and Jessi are doing it for her while they babysit for the Pikes. They're cranky because Claire and Margo won't stop rehearsing their "talents" (I can't in good conscience write that without quotes) over and over and over, which I imagine is annoying, but no more annoying than the kids are in every other book, doing every other thing, ever. I mean, like they aren't singing and yelling and dropping chunks of banana on the floor all the time anyway? Of course, because it's for the ewyucksexistgirly PAGEANT, they just can't bear it.
By the time they start practicing their poise and "walking like, um, females" (what the hell does that even mean, Jessi?) I would desperately like to punch Mallory in the face: "Oh that is pathetic. Look at them...They'll grow up believing they can only be pretty faces, not doctors or lawyers or authors." Hear that, ladies? If you walk like a FEMALE you can't be a doctor! If you have a pretty face you don't even know what a lawyer is, let alone think you can be one! Hurr de hurr beautiful women are so stupid, amirite?
Hey, guess what, Mallory? I'm a successful editor and I have a degree in writing AND I'm hot! And I walk like a woman, because I'm a woman and however the hell I choose to walk is how a woman walks!
Seriously, the only one I see spouting off sexist shit in this book is Mallory.
Chapter 10 - meeting time! Well well well, it looks like everyone has a dog in this pony show now, doesn't it? Or...something. Well, Mal and Jessi don't, but they're busy wanking away about the breakdown of society because of halter tops, so no one cares what they're up to. Dawn tries to ask what everyone else's kid is doing in the talent portion. Kristy? Silence. Mary Anne? Silence. Claudia? "I used to make gum chains." You know, Claud, silence was a perfectly viable option.
Dawn, sounding like a preschooler, exclaims, "No fair!" because everyone knows what Claire and Margo are going to do. So? Is she under the impression this pageant involves some sort of strategy or subterfuge? Does she think someone might try to copy the brilliant, brilliant talent of skinning a fruit with your feet?
She changes the subject to the packet of information about the pageant they all received, hoping for another edge, and Mary Anne says the questions the kids have to answer at the end sound hard - you know, those typical pageanty things like "What is your greatest hope?" Jessi and Mallory are all "Oh goody, something they have to use their brains for!" but...really? It's not a goddamn algebra test; I don't see how beaming and saying you want world peace is more difficult or brain-busting than the talent portion. I don't recall anyone asking Einstein "What three things would you save if your house were burning down?" but he did in fact play a mean violin.
Mary Anne says she's been preparing Myriah for this, which confuses Dawn, who thought they'd just have to wing it. Kristy points out that she has to get them thinking about "peace and good will and humanity" because you don't want them saying they'd rescue their stuffed animals from a fire - you have to prompt them to say they'd rescue their family members and stuff. (Then she gets all abashed at having given away such a crucial trade secret, like you can possibly control what the hell a five-year-old is going to say anyway.)
Mallory of course protests this horrible horrible practice of teaching children to think of their fellow man: "They're even ruining this part of the pageant...Wouldn't you rather see the kids use their heads? Be creative?" Than save a family member from a burning building? Um, no. No, I wouldn't. She and Jessi suggest rescuing the photo album so they still have memories or a lucky penny so they can wish for everything back. Mallory. Jessi. THEY ARE FIVE YEARS OLD. THEY ARE LITERALLY INCAPABLE OF CREATIVE THINKING AT THIS AGE. If you tell them to save a lucky penny from a fire, and there's an actual fire, they are going to shove their little brother into the flames to save that goddamn penny, because that is what you told them to do. THAT IS A FUCKED UP THING TO ENCOURAGE. Besides, it's cute when little kids are honest, and it's refreshing when they're smart, but that kind of answer isn't honest OR smart. If I were a judge, I'd be like, "What the hell is wrong with this child?"
Dawn doesn't care too much all of the sudden, though, because her mom calls in the middle of the meeting and it reminds her about the Jeff situation. You would not BELIEVE how often "public" gets misspelled "pubic." I would say it is the most common typo that isn't a homophone mixup. And depending on how page proofs are typeset, it's not even something your brain is capable of interpreting properly; I swear I have bolted awake at night and gone, "Did page 87 of that book I sent to the printer last week say 'health and pubic safety'?"
Chapter 11! It's Dawn's last practice with the girls before the pageant and she's running them through a dress rehearsal. Mary Anne calls in the middle of in it to check up on the competition, but I'm not sure what useful information you glean from calling someone to say "what's up?" while two children rehearse in the other room. Well, I guess she does give Mary Anne the "great idea" of having a dress rehearsal at all, but if Mary Anne couldn't think of that on her own, I wouldn't be terribly worried about her skills as a coach. Dawn sulks about having given something away and decides the competition isn't fun anymore. I'd say it stopped being fun around the time the banana made its first appearance.
Ann clearly has too much fun showing how pitiful and hopeless the girls are as pageant queens, because they can't even manage the opening sequence - walk across the stage, state their name and age, curtsy, shake the head judge's hand - without Three's Company-style pratfalls. I feel like a seven-year-old, at least, should be able to handle that without falling over or sticking out her tongue at the audience or something, but not a Pike kid. For all Mallory's moaning about how a little girl who enters a beauty pageant will never grow up to be a surgeon, I'd like to know what rosy future she thinks is in store for a little girl who already acts like a homeless drunk.
They give up and move on to talents next, and halfway through Margo's bananamouth Dawn realizes they have an audience - Claudia and Charlotte! She shrieks "Hide!" and pretty much clubs Margo over the head to make her stop and bodily throws them both into the other room. What the hell? You know, I don't even know who that's directed to: Dawn, for thinking that they're staging a top secret military operation here, or Claudia, for letting herself into someone else's home to stare at them like a complete stalker. So what the hell, everyone?
Dawn says it's crap that Claudia won't even tell her what Charlotte's talent is, but thinks it's fine and dandy to invite herself over to see theirs. I think the whole secrecy angle is really stupid, but she's got a point. Now I kind of wish Claire or Margo would have won just to show that practicing your own shit is a better plan than wasting all your time spying on other people.
After they leave, Dawn makes them practice their answering their questions, and I personally would award full marks to Claire, who says she would rescue her family members, world peace, and the fire extinguisher from a burning building. Every one of which is better than goddamn Mallory, who'd have her journal, a single penny, and that photo of Jessi in her swimsuit at Sea City.
Chapter 12! I don't get thanked in acknowledgements a lot. Mostly it doesn't bother me - it's just my job - but once in a while, when I've worked my way through a lengthy list of thanks that include the development editor and the acquisitions editor and the production assistants and the cover artist and the janitor and the author's dog, you can't help but think, "No, it's okay, your copyeditor doesn't really do any work. We're ornamental."
And then once: Vindication! I was thanked in the acknowledgements - by name! My name was spelled wrong, but my maiden name was frequently spelled wrong, so that didn't bother me. I corrected it and sent it on. Page proofs came back. It was still spelled wrong. That's not uncommon either; my name had three vowels in a row so people tended to assume the middle u was really supposed to be a v. I corrected it and sent it on. Corrections came back. Still wrong. I circled the v, wrote "u as in umbrella," and sent it on. I believe the only book in which I was ever thanked, personally, by name, for my stellar spelling skills is out there in print with my name spelled incorrectly. I now ask to not be included in acknowledgements.
Chapter 13 - pageant day! Backstage is pandemonium, with little girls dancing and singing and getting their hair did and subtly trying to psych each other out. It works well, because Claire instantly starts shrieking about some girl wearing makeup, while Margo is put out by Myriah tap dancing away as if possessed by the roaming spirit of Shirley Temple. Margo screams, "Oh, no! Did you remember my banana?" Well, I'm sure you've put the fear of God into the competition now.
Mrs. Bunting, the pageant coordinator, comes over to make sure the girls know to line up in age order. Claire is on right after Myriah, and Margo's right after someone named Sabrina Bouvier. Which I guess makes Margo around 14 years old, because Sabrina Bouvier is one of the snotty girls at SMS in every BSC appearance after this one. I don't even understand how you make a mistake like that as a writer, at least until you become Stephen King levels of successful so that you can afford such good crack that you can forget already using a name like Sabrina Bouvier.
Margo decides the girl wearing spackle must be Sabrina: "I just bet that's her. Who else would have a name like Sabrina Bouvier?" Getting snotty about the name Sabrina is awfully rich coming from a girl named Margo. ( "And why is the carpet all wet, Todd?" "I don't KNOW, Margo!")
Claire and Margo watch Myriah some more and commiserate with Charlotte about how nervous they all are - you know what I absolutely adore about this book? The total lack of Kristy and Karen for most of it; it's like Ann forgot they were here - when Little Miss Mascara herself comes over to tell them "how to get rid of Pageant Jitters forever." She turns out to be Sabrina, of course, and says things like "I do wish you the very best of luck" and "I really must run" and "Jeeves, bring the car around." Ann has never met a child of any kind, has she. Anyway, as far as I can tell, the more experienced in pageants the kid is, the more mumbly and illiterate they tend to be.
"Do you know what that was?" Claudia says knowingly once she's gone. "A pageant-head, that's what." Ten bucks says that Ann couldn't think up any slang for "beauty queen," cast out her mind's net for approximately 1.2 seconds, and went, "Pageant-head! That's something those hep cats say, right?"
Claudia continues that she "probably gets roped into any pageant or beauty contest that comes along." Um, she said this is her sixth pageant. That might impress the rubes in podunk Stoneybrook, but let's get real for a second. She's seven, so if her mom started her in these things when she was a baby (and you have to be sure she did) she's running at a solid one per year. Beauty pageants are fucked and you can certainly believe that entering your kid in one is like meth - not even once - but if you're willing to enter them, say, in the Little Miss Stoneybrook contest, traditionally the sort of pageant held ANNUALLY, then you've firmly lost the high ground to judge someone who also enters their child in a pageant once a year.
Dawn somewhat snottily says "She's not that pretty," and Claudia adds "And maybe not very talented," which is a pretty nasty thing to say about a seven-year-old on one hand and so moot on the other, considering Claudia assured Charlotte that the pageant had nothing to do with beauty and, for Christ's green acres, THE BANANA. Claudia says, "But she knows what the judges like," which kind of IS the point. They like an enthusiastic, polite kid who made an effort to dress up and doesn't think talking with their mouth full is a talent. That...pretty much leaves Sabrina out in front.
Shh, it's starting! Places, everyone! For god's sake, now's your chance, Dawn! THROW AWAY THE BANANA!
Chapter 14! Now that they're in the audience and suddenly realize how stupid this whole thing is, everyone stops feeling competitive and becomes friends again. Mrs. Peabody, the announcer, comes out to present the prizes: a 100 dollar savings bond to the winner, a 50 dollar savings bond to third place, and a big old Toy City shopping spree to second place. Which is worth...somewhere between 50 and 100 dollars, I hope, or this contest is really unfair.
Claire comes out early, and gets so caught up waving and yelling hello to everyone she knows in the audience that she walks right past the head judge without shaking her hand. That's one way to make an impression, I guess. Margo doesn't fuck up, but Dawn bemoans that she is "nowhere near as dazzling as Sabrina Bouvier," who smiles "glamorously," curtsies "prettily," and shakes the judge's hand "smoothly." Oh, yes, and she is "sophisticated." Hear that, everyone? A first-grader capable of smiling and walking at the same time while not shitting her pants is sophisticated. Despite their many horrific abuses of the word, I think that is officially a new low.
Talent time! Myriah is amazing, of course, because she can sing The Good Ship Lollipop while tap dancing, which intimidates Claire waiting on deck, who can sing about eating worms while just standing there. Dawn has to push her onstage and she whispers her Popeye song really quietly, until it comes time to make faces and pantomime the worm eating, then she hams it up and everyone thinks it's hysterical. I mean it, I would definitely remember that kid after the pageant, at least. "Remember that worm-eating little girl? Did you manage to get a look at the parents she was waving to before? I want to report them to child protective services."
Ann briefly remembers Karen exists, long enough for her to come out in her old flower girl dress and let loose with The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round. For fifteen verses. So the gateway to hell is in the auditorium of Stoneybrook High. "The judges began to look at their watches...Kristy and I looked at each other and shrugged. We weren't sure how Karen had done." Here's a hint: If anyone looks at their watch during your performance, you didn't knock it out of the park.
Sabrina comes out in an evening gown to sing "some song [Dawn's] never heard of" called Moon River, which is tragic, because Moon River is a classic. Not as much of a classic as the variation my sister and I came up with when I was eleven called Moon My River, but still. She says Sabrina is "awful," which again, DAWN, she's seven. It's not the friggin opera. And if I had to listen to a tone-deaf but normal-length rendition of Moon River or fifteen verses of Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round, that's not even a contest. ("Would you like to sniff this somewhat unpleasant odor or be shanked in the gut?")
Margo once again does fine, although no one seems to understand what the point of the banana is. Maybe she could pass it off as performance art.
Oh, and Charlotte forgets her entire monologue from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, runs off the stage crying, and has to be taken home. You know, if she had stayed home and actually practiced instead of hanging around the Pikes' spying on Margo and Claire, she might've remembered it. Just saying.
Time for the questions! Dawn's more nervous about this than anything, and I guess for good reason, because she's confused by the first question up: "What do you like best about Stoneybrook?" "Whoa! What was that? A trick question?" Dawn thinks. Um...what? How is that a trick? I guess because she told her charges to say "world peace" no matter what the question and it never occurred to her they might ask a question that's not appropriate for. Well, it's not the judges' fault you're a moron, Dawn.
The little girl, the youngest one in the competition, mind, says "The ice-cream store" and everyone groans all "She blew it." What? Why? She's FIVE. That's a cute, honest answer! I mean, there's no way a five-year-old is even capable of thinking up something abstract like "Its wholesome community values" so she's going to think literally - what do I like about Stoneybrook? The park? The playground? My friend Julie's house? ...Actually, never mind, Dawn's right, for a kid this age, that IS a trick question.
The next kid up isn't much better and then it's Myriah's turn: If she could change one thing about this world, what would it be? She's all, "That would be harsher punishments for parole violators, Stan...and world peace." Enthusiastic applause. Claire, what do you hope for most of all? "Santa Claus. I hope he's real." Groans. Karen, what three things would you rescue from a fire? Her stuffed cat, her blanket, and as many toys as she can carry. Oh, can she have a fourth thing? If so, then she would take either her brother or her pen that writes in three colors. Good god. If I were a judge, I would give points for the ice cream and Santa Claus answers because they're cute and honest and harmless, but Karen's is actively selfish. I mean, there actually could be a fire at her house and she admitted her brother is tied with a writing utensil on the list of important things to save. Karen, I award you no points, and may god have mercy on your soul.
Sabrina also uses up the "world peace" answer, and then it's Margo's turn: Margo, what do you most wish to happen in the year 2010? Oh...oh my god. I feel like my brain is leaking out my ears. Margo would have turned 29 in the year 2010, mull on that for a while. I guess it kills Margo's brain, too, because she just stands there agape, unable to think of anything to say but "world peace" but not wanting to use it for fear of sounding like a copycat. Well, Myriah used that answer before Sabrina and she said it anyway, so. After thirty seconds of silence, the judge shepherds her off the stage, which is crap - they let FIFTEEN VERSES of the Wheels of the Goddamn Bus to Hell Go Goddamn Round and Round go on without stopping it, and they can't give Margo a full minute to think?
Dawn is depressed over this and admits she just wanted one of her kids to win to prove that she was still a good baby-sitter. Everybody exclaims they were doing the same thing, as if this weren't transparently obvious. But they agree that they're all great and their kids are great - "And I'd rather have a kid like any one of ours than like Sabrina Bouvier," Mary Anne adds. Seriously, what is this hate they have for this little girl who has done absolutely nothing wrong? She was very nice to them backstage and then went out there and did really well aside from maybe not being the most talented singer, yet they go on and on about how this little pageant bitch is so cutthroat. It's really fucked up.
They all think Myriah will win, but of course she comes in second because that's the best prize. She's thrilled, because a toy store shopping spree of endless limit really is better to a five-year-old than a hundred bucks in the bank and a plastic crown. Mary Anne, however, is devastated and screams, "Why isn't she the grand winner?" Yes, tell us some more about how horrible stage parents are; you know, the kind that wail and whine when their kid doesn't win.
Sabrina wins it, of course, and the baby-sitters become quite vehement about the whole thing, whine about the unfairness of it all, and think Myriah got screwed. Claudia insists she's a "pageant-head" a few more times. Isn't that the point? Myriah may be a more talented singer and dancer, but Sabrina was unquestionably more polished, enthusiastic, and playing to the judges' tastes in every other category. I hate to say "Don't play the game if you don't like the rules," considering the rules are so very gross where pageants are concerned, but...really. She knows how pageants work so she showed up to win, and the other girls didn't. That's not unfair, that's how everything in the world works. It's like if you complain that someone less qualified got hired over you for the job, but fail to mention that you showed up to the interview in sweatpants and clipped your toenails through the whole thing. There's talent, and there's the game. Don't be all precious and pretend you don't know that; I hate those people.
A lot of kids are crying backstage, including Margo, and Mallory is all, "See what beauty pageants can cause?" Yeah, kids never cry when they lose at T-ball, or Candyland, or when they drop their Skittles under the couch, or when they see a clown. Only a beauty pageant could do something so destructive as make a child cry.
Myriah is not crying, and is in fact thrilled, but Mary Anne is doing her best to shit on that by informing her again that she should have won. What the hell is wrong with you, Spier. That is really not an appropriate thing to say to a child, especially one who's perfectly happy with second best. Even Myriah thinks so, and is like, "Well, then I wouldn't have won the way better second prize, dumbass."
Dawn goes over to Mal and Jessi and is like, "I know, I know, this was crap" and they complain that it wasn't based on "character," it was based on "fake personality." Again with this catty shit? They literally know nothing about Sabrina other than that she voluntarily came over to them backstage, introduced herself, and offered tips to make them less nervous - OMG, what a little brat! No character at all! She answered "world peace" to her question, how FAKE [cough so did Myriah cough]! All that smiling? I just can't beliiiiieve the injustice that was done here!
Chapter 15! Claudia has a confession to make - she forced Charlotte into the pageant. Well, yeah, she did. The other sitters admit they kinda did the same thing, except that Mariah and Karen are enormous attention whores, so they didn't, really. They're all like, "Whatever, we're all great sitters anyway even though we totally use other people's children for our own entertainment and validation." Well, that's why the parents of Stoneybrook hire sitters so often; otherwise they'd have to use their own children for entertainment and validation. That's what I like best about Stoneybrook: a total lack of commitment to family.
And then Claire calls Dawn at home to ask if she'll coach her in a Beautiful Child contest at Bellair's, prompting the world's most stilted, "Here we go again!"
She can't lose with her new dramatic mime routine.
(My husband has told me that if we ever have a daughter, and the words "grand supreme" leave my lips outside of a Taco Bell drive through, he will leave me. And I would not blame him. And I'm certain he would get custody of little Raignbough Sunshynne.)
Anyway, despite my adoration for it, the reason I never snarked this book before is because the subplot about Jeff deciding to go back to live with his dad is totally unfunny to me. I actually did the same thing as a kid, and it really...is not snarkworthy. Therefore I decided to do a half-snark: A-plot only, plus, in honor of having gone back to my job in editing, I will replace the B-plot with the worst things I ever saw in the line of duty. Deal?
"Order! Order, please! Order!" Kristy all but has to discharge her trusty firearm to get everybody to calm the hell down, because they're all so wound up about their two newest members officially joining the club today. No time to discuss the minion she plugged, though, because "before I go any further, maybe I should explain who the club members are." Wow, right on the first page and everything. You remember that diagram from English class showing the rising action, climax, and denouement in a book? I think a diagram of every BSC book would show the two opening sentences being rocketed at 98 miles an hour directly into a brick wall and then stalling in a crumpled heap for the next ten to fifteen pages.
I skip those, as always, until Kristy gets up her own ass about inducting Mal and Jessi into the club. Dawn gets up her own ass about Kristy using the word "induct" and sounding like a pompous wank, because nobody made a big deal like this back when SHE joined the club, GOD. She snots that this was because Kristy was jealous of her relationship with Mary Anne. Which is probably true, but come on, like K. Ron is going to pass up an opportunity to act bossy and self-important in front of two younger girls who worship her? It's not always about you, Dawn. It's also always about Kristy.
The induction ceremony is interrupted by Dr. Johanssen calling...for Claudia. UH-OH. Claudia speaks with her briefly, then puts herself down for a job without offering it to anyone else first. Kristy yells at her, and when pathetic noob Mallory wants to know what the problem is, Dawn "explodes" that the club doesn't work that way and this is "practically our most important club rule." Not as important as Thou Shalt Have No Other Friends Before the BSC, but close, I guess.
Claudia uncomfortably explains that Charlotte asked for her specifically because she misses Stacey so much and Claudia is the next best thing. I don't follow, because Charlotte is a smart, sensitive kid who would probably be frustrated by being cared for by someone far stupider and less mature than she is, but okay. This whole plot never made any sense to me, even as a kid, because any idiot who goes into business should know the number one rule of business is to make the customer happy. So if the parent asks for a specific babysitter, is she supposed to say, "Well, I'm free, but now I can't do it because you asked"? Or is she supposed to accept it to make the customer happy and then take your abuse for being "unfair"? Why don't you just shut the hell up and do good business, K. Ron?
Kristy finally huffs, "Well, if that's what Charlotte wants," and then reminds everyone that she thought up Kid-Kits. Mary Anne interrupts that she rushed Jenny to the hospital that time. Dawn chimes in that she saved two kids from a fire in California once. That reminds me of this time when my oldest nephew was first born and I was holding him and cooing and all, and all of the sudden I looked up and my sister wasn't in the room anymore. She had gone to the bathroom! I couldn't even stand up and I didn't know how to adjust my arm without jostling him or anything so I was just frozen and it was the most terrifying ninety seconds of my life.
K. Ron manages to fit in the induction ceremony during the rest of the meeting, which involves making Mallory and Jessi put their hands on the club notebook and swear an oath to never turn twelve. Mary Anne actually cries because it is so "beautiful," making me wish someone would recommend her a decent therapist, because that is not healthy.
Chapter 2! One time I was editing a book on tax code, and a heading titled "Senior Citizens' Assessment Freeze Exception" got cut off weirdly in page proofs so it just said "Senior Citizens' Asses" in huge bold letters. I photocopied it, added a jaunty illustration, and hung it in my cubicle for a while.
Chapter 3! Dawn arrives early to find Claudia reading the newspaper, which she claims they all enjoy, especially the "fascinating" police blotter. I believe I have already discussed my thoughts on the Stoneybrook News and its similarity to my own hometown paper, so I will merely note that several years ago, my mother was sitting still at a stop sign when a teenager rode his bike into the side of her car, damaging nothing and hurting no one, and this was the lead in the police blotter that week. Perhaps Dawn was being sarcastic.
They notice an article for the upcoming Little Miss Stoneybrook pageant, which Claudia thinks is sexist because people "think the only thing little girls are good at is dressing up and looking cute." Really? THAT'S the problem she has with pageants? That's like problem #786, well behind the sexualization of kindergarteners, the reinforcement of patriarchal beauty standards, the stupidity of parents who claim to have won five hundred dollars in a pageant they spent three grand to enter in the first place, and early-onset emphysema from hair spray inhalation. Then again, Claudia mistakes the word "stereotype" for "tape deck type," so the fact that she's forming full sentences at all is really remarkable.
The others all enter and variously express their disgust with the pageant, including 93-year-old Mallory, who says, "What a disgrace!" Has Ann ever met a sixth-grader before, do you think?
Someone named "Jessie" asks, "Do you ever see boys competing for a crown? For Little Mr. America or something? No. You do not." Well, "Jessie," whoever you are, do you ever see girls competing for Super Bowl MVP? No. You do not. And yet I don't recall anyone telling little boys they're wrong for wanting to sign up for peewee football, or clambering for the abolishment of the whole sport (except me, every Sunday, October through January). There are a lot of damn things wrong with beauty pageants, but I loooooathe the attitude that feminine or women-dominated pursuits are yucky and that no one should want to do them, while manly pursuits are awesome and everyone should aspire to them (even though only men can actually do them, of course; women have to sit around twiddling their thumbs because they're too good for girl stuff but not good enough for boy stuff). Coding your little girl as "less than" because she wants to wear a dress is a lot more fucked up than putting her in the dress in the first place. And that is the LAST TIME I'm going to defend this braided hayturd of a practice we call child beauty pageants.
Mary Anne points out that a lot of little girls in town won't think it's so stupid. Kristy for some reason refers to it twice as "sexist, but fun." Uh, okay. Misogyny: Fun for the whole family! Dawn agrees it wouldn't be so bad. Mal is holding firm on the "disgrace" thing, but you have to imagine she's just bitter that she'd never win a beauty prize, if you catch my drift.
Kristy then changes the subject to frostily ask Claudia how her "special" job with Charlotte went. Fine, she says. Mary Anne yells out of nowhere "JENNY DIED THAT TIME REMEMBER" and Kristy was like "WELL I CAUGHT THE PHANTOM PHONE CALLER" and Claudia's like "Um excuse me I narrated that book" and Dawn's about to mention that house that exploded in California again when the phone rings. Thank god. At least it's an early book or that could go on for ages in ever more improbable scenarios: "Remember when we were lost in the desert with five kids?" "I was the one who had to rescue Matt Braddock from the bottom of that mine shaft, don't forget!" "Well, I had to perform heart surgery on Nina Marshall once!"
The phone call turns out to be Ma Pike, calling with a "special job" just for Dawn. Despite throwing a tantrum when Claudia did the same thing and then sulking about how Charlotte made everybody else feel awful and inadequate by not choosing them, Dawn accepts it immediately. She's going to need the extra dough to repair the teeth K. Ron is gonna knock out just because Ma P. asked, anyway. The job is to prepare Claire and Margo for the Little Miss Stoneybrook pageant, who of course heard about it and of course want to enter. She's asking Dawn only because Dawn lives nearby and will never need a ride over, which makes perfect sense to me (what make no sense to me is that of the dozens of kids they sit over the series, all of them will like seven sitters totally equally and will never ask for anyone special). Dawn is flattered by this, as if her address is somehow a reflection on her awesome babysitting skills. Kristy is pissed, of course, but not as pissed as Mal, who wasn't asked for the job despite being even more conveniently located than Dawn because her mother knows she would Jessie Spano out and send them out for the swimsuit competition in trenchcoats. She expresses her displeasure by maturely falling on the floor, rending her garments and screaming about how she will die if she has to be the sister of Little Miss Stoneybrook. I think "For god's sake, THIS IS NOT ALL ABOUT YOU" should be the tagline of this book.
Chapter 4! Kristy is sitting for her siblings but Karen has a meltdown when David Michael and Andrew have had it with playing her make-believe game in which she gets to be the boss and leader and main character of everything. She wails to Kristy that they're just mean boys who won't play a girl game, but actually it sounds like it would have been fun if she weren't such a brat. Kristy cheers her up by asking her if she wants to be in the Little Miss Stoneybrook pageant. Why don't you go jab a needle in a recovering heroin addict while you're at it, K. Ron. Karen is all like "OMG SPARKLES AND ATTENTION OMG OMG."
"I suppose at that moment Kristy felt like I did when Mrs. Pike offered me the special job with Claire and Margo. Here was her chance to prove how great she was with kids." Does this make sense to anyone? How does entering a kid in a beauty pageant prove you're a good babysitter? How does getting a kid to request you prove you're a good babysitter, actually? Kids like people who let them stay up late and eat crap and set things on fire. And they all KNOW that Charlotte misses Stacey and that she's all fragile and stuff, so feeling insecure about that is just plain stupid. It's like assuming everyone hates you because the cat won't sit in your lap.
Chapter 5! One of the worst things about my job is having to find tactful ways to suggest to an author that they might have written something really stupid. Typos, inconsistencies in terminology, rough prose - that stuff is easy to fix. But sometimes you read something that makes your brain gears crash from fourth to first (the very first book I ever edited included a "fact" about Tokyo's population of 13 billion and I was never quite the same) and you're forced to make the dreaded Author Query. What you want to write is, "What the hell are you trying to say?" and what you usually end up writing is "Is this correct?" or "Please clarify" with a passive-aggressive smiley face. This is because authors have egos like elderly hemophiliacs and questioning one the wrong way is a horrific proposition.
Anyway, so just recently I was doing a textbook on using technology in the classroom and there's the usual bit on not trusting everything you read on the internet, because anybody can make a website and say any dumb thing, so evaluate the source, etc., etc. There's a photo, the caption of which reads, "Who really made this website?" or some such. The photo is of…a dog sitting at a computer. I laughed at first, but then I realized that I had no idea if this was supposed to be funny. Given the tone and subject matter, it didn't actually seem like it, but how exactly am I supposed to ask in a delicate way? "I don't believe the dog is behind www.obamaisamuslim.com; please clarify"? "Please cite your source re: the spread of misinformation on the web via canines"? Maybe the dog is the one being scammed? The more I thought about it, the stupider it seemed, and the stupider it seemed, the less able I was to articulate a query that didn't make it sound like I thought the author was a complete moron. So I just gave up. And that's why, if you're ever reading a book and you see something so jarringly bad you can't believe it made it past an editor, know that they did see it. They'd just been drinking the night before and could not manage to be polite.
Chapter 6! Dawn heads over to the Pikes for her first pageant rehearsal with Claire and Margo. Now that I'm older and know how much crap goes into these things, this choice makes no sense, because Dawn doesn't know one bit more about pageants than Claire and Margo do. So if they're not going to go all out and hire an actual coach or something, then all they really have to do is pick out a couple of outfits and practice a "talent" (defined quite loosely, at that). Ma Pike couldn't have managed that on her own? It's not like they even need adult supervision to practice their singing or whatever.
The girls want to wear sparkly dresses and swimsuits like Miss America, but Dawn nixes that fast. So the spray tans, hair pieces, and fake teeth are out too? You are clearly not in it to win it, Schafer. She distracts them by asking what they can do for the talent competition, but gets discouraged at finding out how talentless they are. I guess this is before they had sixty-five talent shows to hammer that point home. Anyway, I don't know why that matters; the kids on Toddlers and Tiaras are always stunningly talentless too. (Like, even more so than you'd think they should be for their age. Even the girls who are eight or ten and perfectly capable of taking lessons to learn decent dance technique just plod around the stage making that grotesque kissy face to techno music.)
Claire decides she can sing, and if you think she's going to sing a sweet little song like Tomorrow or Somewhere Over the Rainbow, you don't know the Pike kids. And you are fortunate, may I say. It's Popeye the Sailor Man for Claire, which is only slightly better than Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts or something. Dawn tries to talk her out of it, but nothing doing. Why don't you just say no? I mean, she's five. Just say, "No. That's not an appropriate song. Pick something else." What's with this "trying to bargain with the kindergartener" shit?
Margo can't carry a tune or put two steps together, but she can remember words, so Dawn suggests she memorize a long poem like The House That Jack Built and recite it. That's actually not bad. A kid on T&T recited all the books of the Bible once, which was weird, but it showed an actual talent, unlike pretty much everyone else's "singing" and "dancing." I mean, she was only four or five! I'm twenty-six and I usually get to Deuteronomy and start trailing off into "Um...Cinderella...First Joe-Bob...Second Joe-Bob..."
Margo doesn't think reciting is enough, though, and suddenly remembers one thing she can do: the banana trick! "The banana trick?" Dawn thinks. "My stomach began to feel queasy…" That is hands down the nastiest, most perverted-sounding line in the BSC, taken out of context. No, even IN context.
Suddenly, everything about this picture comes into horrifying focus.
It turns out Margo can peel a banana with her feet, which is half disgusting and half something I would totally try if there were any bananas in the house, just to see if it's actually hard. And then she eats it while reciting her poem, so it comes out as "Thish ish the housh," which always grossed me out hugely. I like bananas, but I can't STAND the sound they make when you eat them. Can you imagine someone eating a banana while reciting into a microphone in an auditorium? She ought to just play a little song called "Rakes on a Blackboard."
Claire thinks her talent is better than Margo's - now that she's ruined it with the banana, I agree - and Dawn realizes for the first time they're going to be competing against each other. Did she really not think of that? Then again, she thinks privately as they utterly fail to curtsy or walk without looking like cavepeople, there's pretty much no chance either of them will win.
Chapter 7! Mary Anne's turn to be a pushy stage mom! Only she's actually got a talented kid in Myriah Perkins, who knows tap, ballet, gymnastics, singing, acting, chess, archery, glassblowing, thermonuclear engineering, and the cello. Mary Anne subtly suggests that she could take her talents to the stage and also maybe remind those bitches who totally saved Jenny's life that time. Myriah gets all excited, but Mrs. Perkins isn't quite as thrilled when they ask. She says yes, but gently says she might not win because some pageant girls are very cutthroat. Which I find strange, because Myriah's five years old and she's been taking ballet and tap and creative theater lessons and the whole bit. It seems odd you would enroll your toddler in a billion classes from the time she could talk and then balk at the idea of a pageant or being a stage mother. I also find it slightly odd that every single parent so far has said something like, "But what if you don't win? Won't you be upset?" I mean, I guess that discussing winning and losing with your children is healthy, but you don't go, "You want to play youth soccer? But won't you be upset if you lose a game?" Maybe Mrs. Perkins is just trying to look all Mother Teresa cause she knows her kid is all up in this pageant's shit.
Chapter 8! Again, I do not get how Claudia is the next best thing to Stacey, because Stacey never would have forgotten to bring the Kid Kit full of books so she doesn't have to read to Charlotte. Dawn awesomely speculates that Claudia probably did this on purpose, because Charlotte is a better reader than she is. Okay, fine - up top, high five, Dawn. Let's not make this a regular thing.
Without any awkward moments where Charlotte corrects Claudia's pronunciation to fill their time, they just sit around moping and whining about how much they miss Stacey, which is really kind of pathetic. It's so sad that Claudia finally offers to take Char over to her house to call Stacey. Char talks and talks and probably eats up more long distance charges than Claudia's even making on this job, considering this book was written in 1988 (...when I was still two years too young to enter the Little Miss Stoneybrook pageant - holy hell). This was very nice of Claud, I feel, but seeing as how their kid is obviously miserable, and her parents are a doctor and some other big "important job" that keeps them away from home all the time, according to this chapter, I feel the Johanssens could pony up for a phone call to make her happy once in a while.
While in Claudia's room, Charlotte sees the article about Little Miss Stoneybrook in the paper and Claudia jumps at the chance to shove her into it and remind everyone once and for all who is totally the best damn babysitter, even though she has no reason to feel insecure since she's Charlotte's Chosen One. Charlotte of course has no interest in this farce, insisting she has no talent and isn't pretty, but Claudia demands that she go out there and announce to the whole world, the Lord, and K. Ron that it was Claudia who caught the Phantom Phone Caller. Well, I see no way this will end unhappily for a shy, anxious little girl! Much like how she subconsciously forgot the Kid-Kit on purpose, I have a theory that Claudia goaded her into this to make Charlotte hate her and get back in K. Ron's good graces.
Chapter 9! Dawn is too busy worrying about Jeff to be sanctimonious in this book, so Mal and Jessi are doing it for her while they babysit for the Pikes. They're cranky because Claire and Margo won't stop rehearsing their "talents" (I can't in good conscience write that without quotes) over and over and over, which I imagine is annoying, but no more annoying than the kids are in every other book, doing every other thing, ever. I mean, like they aren't singing and yelling and dropping chunks of banana on the floor all the time anyway? Of course, because it's for the ewyucksexistgirly PAGEANT, they just can't bear it.
By the time they start practicing their poise and "walking like, um, females" (what the hell does that even mean, Jessi?) I would desperately like to punch Mallory in the face: "Oh that is pathetic. Look at them...They'll grow up believing they can only be pretty faces, not doctors or lawyers or authors." Hear that, ladies? If you walk like a FEMALE you can't be a doctor! If you have a pretty face you don't even know what a lawyer is, let alone think you can be one! Hurr de hurr beautiful women are so stupid, amirite?
Hey, guess what, Mallory? I'm a successful editor and I have a degree in writing AND I'm hot! And I walk like a woman, because I'm a woman and however the hell I choose to walk is how a woman walks!
Seriously, the only one I see spouting off sexist shit in this book is Mallory.
Chapter 10 - meeting time! Well well well, it looks like everyone has a dog in this pony show now, doesn't it? Or...something. Well, Mal and Jessi don't, but they're busy wanking away about the breakdown of society because of halter tops, so no one cares what they're up to. Dawn tries to ask what everyone else's kid is doing in the talent portion. Kristy? Silence. Mary Anne? Silence. Claudia? "I used to make gum chains." You know, Claud, silence was a perfectly viable option.
Dawn, sounding like a preschooler, exclaims, "No fair!" because everyone knows what Claire and Margo are going to do. So? Is she under the impression this pageant involves some sort of strategy or subterfuge? Does she think someone might try to copy the brilliant, brilliant talent of skinning a fruit with your feet?
She changes the subject to the packet of information about the pageant they all received, hoping for another edge, and Mary Anne says the questions the kids have to answer at the end sound hard - you know, those typical pageanty things like "What is your greatest hope?" Jessi and Mallory are all "Oh goody, something they have to use their brains for!" but...really? It's not a goddamn algebra test; I don't see how beaming and saying you want world peace is more difficult or brain-busting than the talent portion. I don't recall anyone asking Einstein "What three things would you save if your house were burning down?" but he did in fact play a mean violin.
Mary Anne says she's been preparing Myriah for this, which confuses Dawn, who thought they'd just have to wing it. Kristy points out that she has to get them thinking about "peace and good will and humanity" because you don't want them saying they'd rescue their stuffed animals from a fire - you have to prompt them to say they'd rescue their family members and stuff. (Then she gets all abashed at having given away such a crucial trade secret, like you can possibly control what the hell a five-year-old is going to say anyway.)
Mallory of course protests this horrible horrible practice of teaching children to think of their fellow man: "They're even ruining this part of the pageant...Wouldn't you rather see the kids use their heads? Be creative?" Than save a family member from a burning building? Um, no. No, I wouldn't. She and Jessi suggest rescuing the photo album so they still have memories or a lucky penny so they can wish for everything back. Mallory. Jessi. THEY ARE FIVE YEARS OLD. THEY ARE LITERALLY INCAPABLE OF CREATIVE THINKING AT THIS AGE. If you tell them to save a lucky penny from a fire, and there's an actual fire, they are going to shove their little brother into the flames to save that goddamn penny, because that is what you told them to do. THAT IS A FUCKED UP THING TO ENCOURAGE. Besides, it's cute when little kids are honest, and it's refreshing when they're smart, but that kind of answer isn't honest OR smart. If I were a judge, I'd be like, "What the hell is wrong with this child?"
Dawn doesn't care too much all of the sudden, though, because her mom calls in the middle of the meeting and it reminds her about the Jeff situation. You would not BELIEVE how often "public" gets misspelled "pubic." I would say it is the most common typo that isn't a homophone mixup. And depending on how page proofs are typeset, it's not even something your brain is capable of interpreting properly; I swear I have bolted awake at night and gone, "Did page 87 of that book I sent to the printer last week say 'health and pubic safety'?"
Chapter 11! It's Dawn's last practice with the girls before the pageant and she's running them through a dress rehearsal. Mary Anne calls in the middle of in it to check up on the competition, but I'm not sure what useful information you glean from calling someone to say "what's up?" while two children rehearse in the other room. Well, I guess she does give Mary Anne the "great idea" of having a dress rehearsal at all, but if Mary Anne couldn't think of that on her own, I wouldn't be terribly worried about her skills as a coach. Dawn sulks about having given something away and decides the competition isn't fun anymore. I'd say it stopped being fun around the time the banana made its first appearance.
Ann clearly has too much fun showing how pitiful and hopeless the girls are as pageant queens, because they can't even manage the opening sequence - walk across the stage, state their name and age, curtsy, shake the head judge's hand - without Three's Company-style pratfalls. I feel like a seven-year-old, at least, should be able to handle that without falling over or sticking out her tongue at the audience or something, but not a Pike kid. For all Mallory's moaning about how a little girl who enters a beauty pageant will never grow up to be a surgeon, I'd like to know what rosy future she thinks is in store for a little girl who already acts like a homeless drunk.
They give up and move on to talents next, and halfway through Margo's bananamouth Dawn realizes they have an audience - Claudia and Charlotte! She shrieks "Hide!" and pretty much clubs Margo over the head to make her stop and bodily throws them both into the other room. What the hell? You know, I don't even know who that's directed to: Dawn, for thinking that they're staging a top secret military operation here, or Claudia, for letting herself into someone else's home to stare at them like a complete stalker. So what the hell, everyone?
Dawn says it's crap that Claudia won't even tell her what Charlotte's talent is, but thinks it's fine and dandy to invite herself over to see theirs. I think the whole secrecy angle is really stupid, but she's got a point. Now I kind of wish Claire or Margo would have won just to show that practicing your own shit is a better plan than wasting all your time spying on other people.
After they leave, Dawn makes them practice their answering their questions, and I personally would award full marks to Claire, who says she would rescue her family members, world peace, and the fire extinguisher from a burning building. Every one of which is better than goddamn Mallory, who'd have her journal, a single penny, and that photo of Jessi in her swimsuit at Sea City.
Chapter 12! I don't get thanked in acknowledgements a lot. Mostly it doesn't bother me - it's just my job - but once in a while, when I've worked my way through a lengthy list of thanks that include the development editor and the acquisitions editor and the production assistants and the cover artist and the janitor and the author's dog, you can't help but think, "No, it's okay, your copyeditor doesn't really do any work. We're ornamental."
And then once: Vindication! I was thanked in the acknowledgements - by name! My name was spelled wrong, but my maiden name was frequently spelled wrong, so that didn't bother me. I corrected it and sent it on. Page proofs came back. It was still spelled wrong. That's not uncommon either; my name had three vowels in a row so people tended to assume the middle u was really supposed to be a v. I corrected it and sent it on. Corrections came back. Still wrong. I circled the v, wrote "u as in umbrella," and sent it on. I believe the only book in which I was ever thanked, personally, by name, for my stellar spelling skills is out there in print with my name spelled incorrectly. I now ask to not be included in acknowledgements.
Chapter 13 - pageant day! Backstage is pandemonium, with little girls dancing and singing and getting their hair did and subtly trying to psych each other out. It works well, because Claire instantly starts shrieking about some girl wearing makeup, while Margo is put out by Myriah tap dancing away as if possessed by the roaming spirit of Shirley Temple. Margo screams, "Oh, no! Did you remember my banana?" Well, I'm sure you've put the fear of God into the competition now.
Mrs. Bunting, the pageant coordinator, comes over to make sure the girls know to line up in age order. Claire is on right after Myriah, and Margo's right after someone named Sabrina Bouvier. Which I guess makes Margo around 14 years old, because Sabrina Bouvier is one of the snotty girls at SMS in every BSC appearance after this one. I don't even understand how you make a mistake like that as a writer, at least until you become Stephen King levels of successful so that you can afford such good crack that you can forget already using a name like Sabrina Bouvier.
Margo decides the girl wearing spackle must be Sabrina: "I just bet that's her. Who else would have a name like Sabrina Bouvier?" Getting snotty about the name Sabrina is awfully rich coming from a girl named Margo. ( "And why is the carpet all wet, Todd?" "I don't KNOW, Margo!")
Claire and Margo watch Myriah some more and commiserate with Charlotte about how nervous they all are - you know what I absolutely adore about this book? The total lack of Kristy and Karen for most of it; it's like Ann forgot they were here - when Little Miss Mascara herself comes over to tell them "how to get rid of Pageant Jitters forever." She turns out to be Sabrina, of course, and says things like "I do wish you the very best of luck" and "I really must run" and "Jeeves, bring the car around." Ann has never met a child of any kind, has she. Anyway, as far as I can tell, the more experienced in pageants the kid is, the more mumbly and illiterate they tend to be.
"Do you know what that was?" Claudia says knowingly once she's gone. "A pageant-head, that's what." Ten bucks says that Ann couldn't think up any slang for "beauty queen," cast out her mind's net for approximately 1.2 seconds, and went, "Pageant-head! That's something those hep cats say, right?"
Claudia continues that she "probably gets roped into any pageant or beauty contest that comes along." Um, she said this is her sixth pageant. That might impress the rubes in podunk Stoneybrook, but let's get real for a second. She's seven, so if her mom started her in these things when she was a baby (and you have to be sure she did) she's running at a solid one per year. Beauty pageants are fucked and you can certainly believe that entering your kid in one is like meth - not even once - but if you're willing to enter them, say, in the Little Miss Stoneybrook contest, traditionally the sort of pageant held ANNUALLY, then you've firmly lost the high ground to judge someone who also enters their child in a pageant once a year.
Dawn somewhat snottily says "She's not that pretty," and Claudia adds "And maybe not very talented," which is a pretty nasty thing to say about a seven-year-old on one hand and so moot on the other, considering Claudia assured Charlotte that the pageant had nothing to do with beauty and, for Christ's green acres, THE BANANA. Claudia says, "But she knows what the judges like," which kind of IS the point. They like an enthusiastic, polite kid who made an effort to dress up and doesn't think talking with their mouth full is a talent. That...pretty much leaves Sabrina out in front.
Shh, it's starting! Places, everyone! For god's sake, now's your chance, Dawn! THROW AWAY THE BANANA!
Chapter 14! Now that they're in the audience and suddenly realize how stupid this whole thing is, everyone stops feeling competitive and becomes friends again. Mrs. Peabody, the announcer, comes out to present the prizes: a 100 dollar savings bond to the winner, a 50 dollar savings bond to third place, and a big old Toy City shopping spree to second place. Which is worth...somewhere between 50 and 100 dollars, I hope, or this contest is really unfair.
Claire comes out early, and gets so caught up waving and yelling hello to everyone she knows in the audience that she walks right past the head judge without shaking her hand. That's one way to make an impression, I guess. Margo doesn't fuck up, but Dawn bemoans that she is "nowhere near as dazzling as Sabrina Bouvier," who smiles "glamorously," curtsies "prettily," and shakes the judge's hand "smoothly." Oh, yes, and she is "sophisticated." Hear that, everyone? A first-grader capable of smiling and walking at the same time while not shitting her pants is sophisticated. Despite their many horrific abuses of the word, I think that is officially a new low.
Talent time! Myriah is amazing, of course, because she can sing The Good Ship Lollipop while tap dancing, which intimidates Claire waiting on deck, who can sing about eating worms while just standing there. Dawn has to push her onstage and she whispers her Popeye song really quietly, until it comes time to make faces and pantomime the worm eating, then she hams it up and everyone thinks it's hysterical. I mean it, I would definitely remember that kid after the pageant, at least. "Remember that worm-eating little girl? Did you manage to get a look at the parents she was waving to before? I want to report them to child protective services."
Ann briefly remembers Karen exists, long enough for her to come out in her old flower girl dress and let loose with The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round. For fifteen verses. So the gateway to hell is in the auditorium of Stoneybrook High. "The judges began to look at their watches...Kristy and I looked at each other and shrugged. We weren't sure how Karen had done." Here's a hint: If anyone looks at their watch during your performance, you didn't knock it out of the park.
Sabrina comes out in an evening gown to sing "some song [Dawn's] never heard of" called Moon River, which is tragic, because Moon River is a classic. Not as much of a classic as the variation my sister and I came up with when I was eleven called Moon My River, but still. She says Sabrina is "awful," which again, DAWN, she's seven. It's not the friggin opera. And if I had to listen to a tone-deaf but normal-length rendition of Moon River or fifteen verses of Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round, that's not even a contest. ("Would you like to sniff this somewhat unpleasant odor or be shanked in the gut?")
Margo once again does fine, although no one seems to understand what the point of the banana is. Maybe she could pass it off as performance art.
Oh, and Charlotte forgets her entire monologue from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, runs off the stage crying, and has to be taken home. You know, if she had stayed home and actually practiced instead of hanging around the Pikes' spying on Margo and Claire, she might've remembered it. Just saying.
Time for the questions! Dawn's more nervous about this than anything, and I guess for good reason, because she's confused by the first question up: "What do you like best about Stoneybrook?" "Whoa! What was that? A trick question?" Dawn thinks. Um...what? How is that a trick? I guess because she told her charges to say "world peace" no matter what the question and it never occurred to her they might ask a question that's not appropriate for. Well, it's not the judges' fault you're a moron, Dawn.
The little girl, the youngest one in the competition, mind, says "The ice-cream store" and everyone groans all "She blew it." What? Why? She's FIVE. That's a cute, honest answer! I mean, there's no way a five-year-old is even capable of thinking up something abstract like "Its wholesome community values" so she's going to think literally - what do I like about Stoneybrook? The park? The playground? My friend Julie's house? ...Actually, never mind, Dawn's right, for a kid this age, that IS a trick question.
The next kid up isn't much better and then it's Myriah's turn: If she could change one thing about this world, what would it be? She's all, "That would be harsher punishments for parole violators, Stan...and world peace." Enthusiastic applause. Claire, what do you hope for most of all? "Santa Claus. I hope he's real." Groans. Karen, what three things would you rescue from a fire? Her stuffed cat, her blanket, and as many toys as she can carry. Oh, can she have a fourth thing? If so, then she would take either her brother or her pen that writes in three colors. Good god. If I were a judge, I would give points for the ice cream and Santa Claus answers because they're cute and honest and harmless, but Karen's is actively selfish. I mean, there actually could be a fire at her house and she admitted her brother is tied with a writing utensil on the list of important things to save. Karen, I award you no points, and may god have mercy on your soul.
Sabrina also uses up the "world peace" answer, and then it's Margo's turn: Margo, what do you most wish to happen in the year 2010? Oh...oh my god. I feel like my brain is leaking out my ears. Margo would have turned 29 in the year 2010, mull on that for a while. I guess it kills Margo's brain, too, because she just stands there agape, unable to think of anything to say but "world peace" but not wanting to use it for fear of sounding like a copycat. Well, Myriah used that answer before Sabrina and she said it anyway, so. After thirty seconds of silence, the judge shepherds her off the stage, which is crap - they let FIFTEEN VERSES of the Wheels of the Goddamn Bus to Hell Go Goddamn Round and Round go on without stopping it, and they can't give Margo a full minute to think?
Dawn is depressed over this and admits she just wanted one of her kids to win to prove that she was still a good baby-sitter. Everybody exclaims they were doing the same thing, as if this weren't transparently obvious. But they agree that they're all great and their kids are great - "And I'd rather have a kid like any one of ours than like Sabrina Bouvier," Mary Anne adds. Seriously, what is this hate they have for this little girl who has done absolutely nothing wrong? She was very nice to them backstage and then went out there and did really well aside from maybe not being the most talented singer, yet they go on and on about how this little pageant bitch is so cutthroat. It's really fucked up.
They all think Myriah will win, but of course she comes in second because that's the best prize. She's thrilled, because a toy store shopping spree of endless limit really is better to a five-year-old than a hundred bucks in the bank and a plastic crown. Mary Anne, however, is devastated and screams, "Why isn't she the grand winner?" Yes, tell us some more about how horrible stage parents are; you know, the kind that wail and whine when their kid doesn't win.
Sabrina wins it, of course, and the baby-sitters become quite vehement about the whole thing, whine about the unfairness of it all, and think Myriah got screwed. Claudia insists she's a "pageant-head" a few more times. Isn't that the point? Myriah may be a more talented singer and dancer, but Sabrina was unquestionably more polished, enthusiastic, and playing to the judges' tastes in every other category. I hate to say "Don't play the game if you don't like the rules," considering the rules are so very gross where pageants are concerned, but...really. She knows how pageants work so she showed up to win, and the other girls didn't. That's not unfair, that's how everything in the world works. It's like if you complain that someone less qualified got hired over you for the job, but fail to mention that you showed up to the interview in sweatpants and clipped your toenails through the whole thing. There's talent, and there's the game. Don't be all precious and pretend you don't know that; I hate those people.
A lot of kids are crying backstage, including Margo, and Mallory is all, "See what beauty pageants can cause?" Yeah, kids never cry when they lose at T-ball, or Candyland, or when they drop their Skittles under the couch, or when they see a clown. Only a beauty pageant could do something so destructive as make a child cry.
Myriah is not crying, and is in fact thrilled, but Mary Anne is doing her best to shit on that by informing her again that she should have won. What the hell is wrong with you, Spier. That is really not an appropriate thing to say to a child, especially one who's perfectly happy with second best. Even Myriah thinks so, and is like, "Well, then I wouldn't have won the way better second prize, dumbass."
Dawn goes over to Mal and Jessi and is like, "I know, I know, this was crap" and they complain that it wasn't based on "character," it was based on "fake personality." Again with this catty shit? They literally know nothing about Sabrina other than that she voluntarily came over to them backstage, introduced herself, and offered tips to make them less nervous - OMG, what a little brat! No character at all! She answered "world peace" to her question, how FAKE [cough so did Myriah cough]! All that smiling? I just can't beliiiiieve the injustice that was done here!
Chapter 15! Claudia has a confession to make - she forced Charlotte into the pageant. Well, yeah, she did. The other sitters admit they kinda did the same thing, except that Mariah and Karen are enormous attention whores, so they didn't, really. They're all like, "Whatever, we're all great sitters anyway even though we totally use other people's children for our own entertainment and validation." Well, that's why the parents of Stoneybrook hire sitters so often; otherwise they'd have to use their own children for entertainment and validation. That's what I like best about Stoneybrook: a total lack of commitment to family.
And then Claire calls Dawn at home to ask if she'll coach her in a Beautiful Child contest at Bellair's, prompting the world's most stilted, "Here we go again!"
She can't lose with her new dramatic mime routine.