#72 Dawn and the We <3 Kids Club Part the Second
Here we go again; I'll see if I can get through another 5 chapters.
Chapter 6!
Have I mentioned I don't like Kristy? Well I understated it. I have this hatred for Kristy that lingers like the scent of an unwashed turtleneck after a softball game. Most of the sitters, even Dawn, have a turn sounding like the Reasonable One, but I can't think of a single Kristy book where she isn't a miserable grinch. So I find the subplot introduced in Chapter 6 extremely amusing, even if it does start with Stacey's sophisticated heart-spangled printing.
It seems that Kristy has come up with an Idea. Dawn assures us, perhaps fearing Kristy's wrath from on high, that "ninety-nine out of one hundred of Kristy's ideas are fantastic. But there's always that one clinker." Always, always that one clinker, starting with the founding of a club that somehow caused the entire timestream for a small Connecticut town to stop. Unless Stonybrook was like that before hand.
Anyway, Kristy listens patiently while Claudia does a "dramatic reading" of Ms. Lieb's newspaper article (it probably took Claudia 5 minutes just to sound out the title). Then they watch the video. Claudia, who just read a newspaper article all by herself like a big girl, thinks that Shannon called Dawn "telepathic" instead of "telegenic." Jessi calls her father "daddy." I cringe, thinking this is probably Lerangis's impression of a Black Ghetto accent. Then, Kristy Gets an Idea: the BSC should do their own news video. Her "idea" is to do exactly what Dawn did. Kristy honey, that's not called getting an idea. That's called copying an idea from somebody else. It's kind of like if I re-typed the text to this book on my own computer and then sent it in to a publisher as my own idea. Granted, that's basically what AMM did with Lerangis's hack work, so I can see why you're confused.
The BSC does not think that doing a news video is a very good Idea. First of all, no one has asked them for a video. You don't just send random videos to the local news, and this is years before the advent of YouTube. Kristy insists that the BSC has been around longer than the We Heart Kids Club, and therefore the Stonybrook local news should be told to ask them for a video. And there's only one person to tell them to do it. Kristy Thomas, Stepdaughter of a Real Live Millionaire, is on the case! Kristy is so passionate about this that she doesn't even remember to call the meeting to order. Horrors!
From California, Dawn telegenicly I mean telepathically exposits that Kristy and Mary Anne used to be best friends. Then Dawn showed up and became Mary Anne's stepsister. Dawn suspects that Kristy has always been a little jealous of Dawn for that. It's not that I'm denying that Kristy would be a vindictive hag, I just don't remember any actual instances of Kristy displaying jealousy toward Dawn since Book Five. I think Dawn just wants to remind us that, as in all situations, she's the true victim.
The next day, Saturday, Kristy attempts to "pitch" her story to the local papers and TV stations. "Pitch" is a word she saw in a plot contrivance, and she likes it because it reminds her of baseball. The local newspaper puts her on hold, juggles her between departments, and finally tells her to "pitch" her story to the school newspaper instead. I laugh maniacally. Next, she tries the local television stations, of which Stonybrook has two. The first won't let her past the operator. For the second, she writes a script for her "pitch:" "Hello, this is Kristy Thomas of the Thomas Talent agency, and I have exclusive writes to the story of an extraordinary organization in the Southwestern Connecticut radius. It's called the Babysitters Club."
The operator laughs in her face and asks if this is some kind of joke. I start to have a joy-gasm.
Kristy goes on, "Imagine an answer to the age-old problem of parents everywhere--" and she is cut off again by the operator, who asks for a tape of the "act." Kristy doesn't have a "tape," so she hangs up. Undaunted, she resolves to make a "tape." She shares this Great Idea at the next BSC meeting. The babysitters exchange Looks (except for poor Mary Anne, who Looks at the floor) and inform Kristy that they already told her they didn't want a video on the news. For once, they tell Kristy that they don't like being told what to do without being asked in advance. Shannon reminds Kristy of the time they all ostracized Mary Anne because she got her own hair cut without asking. She also reminds Kristy that they have so many clients already that they've had to make her, the Associate Officer with no personality, into an Alternate Officer. Then Claudia breaks out the Reese's Pieces and everyone changes the subject. In my head, Kristy sings Les Miserables and jumps off a Parisian bridge. In the text, she simply "glowers" and sulks for the rest of the meeting. None of the club members seem to realize they've finally found the way to shut Kristy up, but Stacey promises to keep Dawn posted on the "Kristy Crisis."
Chapter 7!
Today is the day Dawn has to double-sit, since she accidentally double-booked herself at the last meeting. She takes little asthmatic Stephie over to the Dewitt boys' house without asking her if this is a good idea. On the way there, Stephie grumbles that she hates the Dewitt boys; they're "cootie heads." Dawn writes "CP" for "cootie protection" on her hand, saying she used to do that all the time in grade school.
The Dewitt boys (whose mother is an actress, of course; who else lives in California?) are on the lawn playing Peter Pan. They want to tie Stephie Up like Tiger Lily, but she declines. Stephie is also jealous of all the photographs of the Dewitt boys with their mother. The boys fight over cream cheese and jelly sandwiches, and Cheez Doodles: a combination that makes me gag, but inexplicably goes without comment from Dawn. They ask Stephie to play Ninja Turtles or freeze tag; Stephie declines on account of her asthma, and the boys run outside by themselves. For some reason, instead of staying inside where it's safe, Dawn and Stephie go outside to play a game called Skatch. This goes fine until the hellion Dewitts join in, resulting in Stephie getting hit in the head and the boys spotting the "CP" on her hand. They fight about this until Mrs. Dewitt comes home with a bag of things for the boys, including brand new shoelaces. Stephie looks down sadly at her own messy old shoelaces. On the way home, she muses that if Mrs. Dewitt was her mother, she'd have snacks and shoelaces too.
Chapter 8!
Dawn's plans for a quiet family evening are ruined when she sees Carol's red Miata in the driveway of her house, but she tells herself it doesn't matter. She tries to remember that Carol bought her sunglasses and a director's chair in honor of her being on the local news. She doesn't mean to be a pest. But Dawn feels like going back to Stephie's-- which, as it turns out, would have been a much better idea than going inside.
For her father and Carol and Jeff are waiting to greet her, "Standing up." Carol is all dolled up with makeup and "a colorful beret." The housekeeper is arranging takeout Thai food on their best China. Jeff cries that Dad is going to "make an announcement!"
For the life of her, Dawn still can't guess what her father's going to announce. I really don't get how she can be this thick. Maybe all the California sunshine has gotten to her brain somehow. She's horrified when Dawn's father announces that he and Carol are engaged.
Dawn flies from the room without a word.
Either Jeff and Dad are trying to spare Carol's feelings or Dawn's obliviousness runs in the family, because her father simply doesn't believe she'd be angry about the engagement and Jeff adds that she must have just gone to her room to change into something nicer.
I really want to feel sorry for Dawn, here. It must be traumatic to have your father remarry (never mind that she and Mary Anne practically arranged a marriage for her mother). And while I don't know what the protocol is for this sort of thing, I really do think that her father should have at least mentioned his plans to his children before popping the question. Still:
"How long had they been planning this?" Dawn wonders. "Why did they keep it such a big secret from Jeff and me? How dare they?"
Ah, let's see, Dawn. Your affluent divorced father starts dating an unmarried woman. He invites her over to his house, frequently. Said unmarried woman tries WAY too hard to seem youthful and likable, and plies you with gifts. You really had no clue where this was going? What did you think was going to happen?
Dawn pulls herself together, fakes a smile, and goes to have dinner. Carol emotes over the Thai food. Jeff drinks champagne, which makes him cough, which makes Carol jump up and start pounding him in the back as if he's choking. I take back everything I said. Dawn has a right to be offended that his father is marrying a dufus.
Then Dawn hates Carol some more for eating Thai food with a fork instead of chopsticks, and for wiping up a spill with environmentally unsound paper towels, and I go back to hating her. I also question why in the name of all that's holy the Schafers have paper towels in the first place. Is it just so they can despise people who use them to clean up spills? And for that matter, why are the vegetarian Schafers eating chicken and shrimp?
Dawn goes to her room to hate some more. She decides Carol is a "loud, obnoxious teenage wannabe," which is technically true, but then again Dawn is a loud, obnoxious actual teenager and that's nearly as bad. She also says Carol doesn't deserve her father, a man whose stated reason for divorcing his first wife (according to Book 5) was that she was disorganized. Dawn is offended that they didn't put off getting engaged until her six months with her father were up. And then she has a Great Idea: she's going to move back to Stonybrook.
Chapter 9! Or, shit hits the fan!
Dawn has cobbled together a clever plot all in one night. While her father banters with Jeff, she scribbles a goodbye note and leaves it on her desk. She exposits that she knows she sounds sneaky, but she "had no choice." Then she sneaks into her father's room and copies down his credit card number. She says that she doesn't think it's really stealing-- he'd have to pay for her ticket back eventually, right? I think Dawn is a sociopath.
"Goodbye, Sunshine!" says Dawn's oblivious father.
Dawn wonders if her father's nickname for Carol will be "motormouth."
"Come on, Sunslime," says Jeff.
Dawn walks halfway to school with her friends, then feigns a stomachache. Her friends are very considerate and offer to walk her home, but she talks them out of it. When she gets home, she books herself a flight over the phone. "Being bicostal," she knows all the airlines that fly to Connecticut. Finally, she uses her father's credit card to book a nonstop flight. Her goodbye note starts out passive-agressive, ends with a casual "'bye!" and makes the serious tactical error of mentioning when her flight arrives in Connecticut. Then she calls a cab. She wears a wide-brimmed hat while entering the cab, so that the neighbors won't know it's her and will think it's a totally DIFFERENT thirteen-year-old-girl with white hair down to her buttocks walking out of Dawn's house. Then she takes the cab to LAX, "an hour away," which costs her almost all of her babysitting money. She uses the rest to buy a bag of nuts.
Someone just said that Palo City is supposed to be Malibu; at any rate, it is an hour away from LAX. . Mmmkay, *Googling..." ... ... Hmm... according to taxifarefinder.com, Dawn just paid between $117.70 and $123.45 of today's money for a cab, and had cash left over for nuts. People apparently pay their sitters well in California.
Dawn feels exhilarated as she boards the plane, although she does give the fake name "Mariso Van Raymond" to the passenger next to her. However, by dinner time, somewhere over Nebraska, she begins to get nervous. Also, she turns back into a vegetarian; she's horrified by the fact that she's sharing her tray with an "overcooked chicken carcass" even though she was enjoying Thai chicken the night before. Anyway, Dawn begins to realize that she's just committed one or two CRIMES. She wonders what Ms. Lieb or Chuck Raymond will say about her now. She falls asleep, still feeling guilty, over Indiana.
As the plane lands, Dawn realizes that it's cold in Connecticuit... she mentions she'd almost forgotten what snow was like in the less than six months she spent with her father. But she begins to be excited as well-- she'll stay up all night talking to Mary Anne, and then build a snowman! Whee, committing felonies is fun!!!!!
As she exits the plane, Dawn sees her mother standing there waiting with an expression that "could have burned through sheet metal."
This seems an excellent place to leave off in suspense.