Super Mystery 1 Baby-sitters' Haunted House Part 2
Back for more, are you?
[okay so here I tried to embed a clip of Vincent Price laughing but after trying six different embed codes, two computers, countless reloads, rich text and HTML, two computer crashes and five WIFI failures and literally crying over my attempts to post a snark, I realized I maybe needed to examine my life and my choices. So if you've never actually since Vincent Price laugh, you can see it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRamB30E9mU]
I imagine Lionel running around doing this a lot. But first, we must go back to. . .
Chapter 5:
BSC HQ, with Jessi writing a ridiculous sunshine suck-up entry in the notebook about how awesome she and Mal are at running the club themselves. They are “taking turns” being president; Logan isn’t there because he is, ahem, “working the Sunday brunch shift at the Rosebud Cafe” and Shannon doesn’t show up until 1:14 and announces she’s leaving at 1:30. Which, yeah, is kind of rude, but on the other hand, she dragged herself across town for this ridiculousness, so I can’t feel too offended about her disrespect for the sacred office of Baby-sitters Club president pro tem.
They’re just now calling all the clients to tell them about the upcoming sitter substitutions, and at least twice, they give this information to ever-reliable children instead of adults. Both Jake Kuhn and Melody Korman are grievously disappointed to be deprived of Kristy’s softball coaching and Mary Anne’s doll clothes tailoring, respectively. Jessi suggests Mal could help Melody make up stories about her dolls, and I find it hilarious when Melody whines “But my dolls don’t have any clothes!” There are stories that work with the premise of “inexplicable clothes shortage,” after all. (Melody, meet fanfic. Fanfic, meet Melody. Er. In seven years or so.) Seriously, though, what kind of cheap-ass dolls do the mansion-dwelling Kormans buy for their daughter that don’t come with any clothes?
Shannon reminds the super-co-presidents to check the answering machine and they’re starting to get crazy booked, and Mal single-handedly takes a two-sitter job for Jenny and Andrea P AND two-year-old twin boys. Godspeed, Mal. Shannon zips off, although she does kindly--or politically--compliment the junior officers on their skillz and apologize for being late just before announcing she “can’t make” the Monday meeting. Well-played, Shannon. I’d take advantage of K.Ron being out of town too, probably. They book an evening job for Logan, but don’t call him because he’s at work, planning to call him later. Gosh, it would sure be awful if they forgot to call and he made other plans, wouldn’t it? Anyway, the Arnolds needed a sitter while they run an auction for Stoneybrook Ambulance Services, which somehow Jessi interprets as the BSC saving people’s lives. Whatever helps you sleep at night, sweetie.
Chapter 6:
Kristy claims they have caught the “ghost”--or have they? And of course, instructs all the other sitters that they must not let the other Menders kids know about the “very weird” things going on in the mansion. Okay, see, it would make sense not to tell the kids Dawn’s crappy ghost speculations, on the grounds that they are ridiculous. But since you’ve taken it upon yourselves to convince these people to live in this town, it’s actually actively shitty to hide so-called “information” from them. Just saying.
They have a barbecue and talk about the Founders Day parade. Mrs. Menders and Mary Anne both affirm that Martha doesn’t have to be on the float if she doesn’t want, so of course Karen starts bugging her about it, telling her that if she dressed up as a cat it would make her very popular. Um. What? Is Reese a town full of furries or something?
Jason and Lionel refuse to be on the float, too--Jason because “dress-up is for girls” and Lionel because it is too “makeshift and unprofessional.” And he hasn’t even SEEN Claudia’s work! (LOL, I first typed that as “makeshit.” Maybe Lionel anachronistically Googled pics from the baby parade?) Hilariously and hypocritically, Kristy judges the Menders kids for being unenthusiastic about the float, even as she admits that Claudia usually has trouble getting even the other sitters excited about these things.
The adults all head off to town to “see how busy the stores are at night,” (I’m sure) and Kristy reads Frog and Toad aloud to the assembled masses, until Karen takes over Toad’s lines and Lionel takes Frog’s. The Karen and Lionel show? That’s the scariest thing in this book so far. Andrew is going through kind of a frog phase, so they head off on a frog and toad hunt (er, just to find them, not to kill them). Elton Cooper points them in the direction of a pond where they might find frogs, and even supplies a flashlight. What a helpful gentleman!
They immediately find a toad and head off to look for frogs, when Kristy and MA notice a light on in the top floor of the house, where no one is supposed to be, which is kind of weird, but Kristy basically freaks out and only Andrew being adorable and way into frogs keeps her from marching everyone home right then. Claudia sees the light, too, on the way home, but it’s out again by the time they get home.
Kristy and Claudia ask the Coopers about the light and Elton insists that no one has been up there for years, when there were “strange goings-on” and Margaret dramatically bangs on the counter with a wooden spoon to shut him up, I guess. Or for atmosphere. Or. . idk, this part of the plot gets pretty strained.
Everyone is freaking out, and Dawn insists it could still be a ghost, and not, you know, Lionel, punking them. So the moaning and flickering lights are back, and Kristy very very bravely flings open the door to find. . .
Lionel.
Actually, everyone laughs it off, until Lionel denies he was up on the fourth floor, even on the pain of no more stupid Hollywood gossip from Dawn. He protests “You guys--gals--are all crazy.” What fourteen-year-old boy says “gals”?
But then, as they all mill around in the hallway (and seriously, the rest of those kids are some nice sound sleepers), they hear footsteps. From the fourth floor. More freaking out, including Lionel, and some weird gambit by Kristy where she pretends they were joking about the fourth floor stuff. I think. Lionel agrees not to prank them anymore and wanders off muttering about “hysterical females.” Then the girls freak out some more, but not so much Kristy can’t make a pass.
“Mary Anne, do you want to sleep in my room tonight?”
“Yes,” she said in a quavering voice. “Yes, I do.”
Mmm-hmmm.
Chapter 7:
Claudia is woken by Dawn to plan “major detective work.” Today she is wearing a “floral-print mini-sundress (the pink and red flower pattern is big and sort of abstract” with a pink baseball cap, dangling yellow glass earrings, and red high-top sneakers. This is actually pretty tame as Claudia outfits go, but it’s actually marginally important to the plot.
Dawn and Claudia are supposed to be taking the girls to the library, when Georgio runs across the lawn to them. “Just as he had done the day before, Georgio checked out my clothes. When you dress the way I do you have to expect people to take notice. But when Georgio looked at me I felt uncomfortable. Did he think I was too wild and colorful?” Claudia, I can’t believe you’re putting me in the position of defending your clothing choices, but you are not the problem in this equation.
Claudia’s reaction to Georgio are all over the map in this chapter, which would probably actually be realistic as a thoughtful portrayal of an thirteen-year-old girl dealing with a flirtatious creeper, but here just comes off as bad writing. Anyway, she cuts Karen off before Karen can reveal their SEKRIT DETECTIN’ plans to research the Randolph mansion at the library, because her Nancy Drew learnings have taught her to be cagy about what you reveal to suspects. Then Georgio says he needs her advice and Claudia is all zomg! “I didn’t even know the guy and he wanted my advice!? Advice about what? School? [LOL] Family problems? Girls? [Oi] How to menace a houseful of kids?” [genuine giggle--Claud brings good snark sometimes.] But seriously it’s not like the BSC has any problem bossing around any other poor saps who cross their path on the flimsiest of conclusions, so the lady is protesting a little bit too much. Anyway, he just wants Claudia to help him arrange some new rosebushes.
“I’ve noticed that Claudia has terrific taste in clothes,” he said. “And puts colors together in a great way.” You know, considering this in conjunction with his all black ensemble, maybe Georgio is just color-blind. How do you feel about mocking him now, Dawn?
Well, she doesn’t feel guilty, but the same Dawn who was calling this dude “evil” a few chapters ago now leaves one of her so-called besties with the creepy older guy who keeps giving her the eye, departing with “one of those we’ll-leave-you-two-alone grins.” Seriously, they’re giving me whiplash.
Anyway, Claudia works on the laying out the rosebushes (um, that’s not a euphemism), and Georgio asks if she has an outlet for her leet art skillz in Reese, and when she tells him about the parade, he volunteers his pick-up truck, and Claudia frantically tries to do the math on just how too-old he is. He offers to show her a picture of a float he and his friends made and takes her back to the toolshed, which leads into what I think is one of the weirdest scenes I’ve ever read in a BSC book. Long quote, because, well, WEIRD.
“The shed was small and dark. All my fears about Georgio came flooding back. I wished I hadn’t followed him there. I bumped into a big lumpy something and let out a shriek of terror. Was it a dead body?
“What happened?” Georgio asked.
In the half light I made out that the “corpse” was a big bag of sand or something.
“I just bumped into this--stuff,” I told Georgio.
“I don’t want anything to happen to you,” he said. I couldn’t tell if he was smiling at me or smirking when he said that. Finally he pulled a cord that switched on an overhead lightbulb. We were facing a wall of neatly arranged tools. There were saws, knives, hammers, and weapon-like instruments. Georgio reached for the ax. I was about to make a run for it when his hand landed on a photo that was pinned between the ax and a hammer.”
Seriously, I don’t even know what to do with this. It’s like the ghostie spaced out and started writing a B-horror movie or something. And I don’t know what kind of message this is supposed to send, but girls? If a guy gives you the creeps, do not let him take you to his “toolshed,” or equivalent isolated spot. /soapbox
Anyway, the photo is of his pickup all decked out in psychedelic paint, and Georgio drops a reference to “campus,” and Claudia asks if he’s in college. Oh, he is.
“I don’t make a big deal about age. Some of my friends are a couple of years older than me. Some are a couple of years younger. Like you. You’re sixteen, am I right?”
Okay, leaving aside the debatable proposition that thirteen-year-olds and sixteen-year-olds are generally indistinguishable (there are exceptions, but honestly, those are pretty big deal years, both physically and in attitude), this passage gives me the yucks, because sure, it’s okay as an 18/19 year old to have “friends” who are a bit younger or older, but hitting on underage girls is not exactly “friendly” behavior. I mean, not to get all personal here, but I’ve known way too many adult men who’ve used that “age doesn’t matter” shtick to make passes at underage girls, and having it in a BSC book, however “innocently” is squicking me. Why can’t I just have nice, innocent, rampant lesbianism between the girls?
That said, it is kind of funny that there’s a promo on the cover for the BSC movie [and here I was going to put a clip to the totally awesome scene in the movie where Luca screams "THIRTEEN!" over and over again in a taxi. So here it is, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXG2XqyCU-g&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PLAA01AB3CE63D1AB4around 1:04:30, if you want to relive the glory for a moment]
Sorry, back on track.
Claudia doesn’t admit she is thirteen, “maybe because I was afraid he’d be mad at me for not telling him sooner” (ugh! that is not a healthy thought! that is a terrible message in a book for little girls!), or maybe because she thinks she thinks she’s being a good detective by revealing as little as possible or maybe because he wouldn’t talk to her so much if he knew she was thirteen. Because now she thinks she isn’t so spooked by him anymore. (Keep in mind this is literally on the page after the lavish description of weaponry.) But then she spots an orange candle and freaks out again. Seriously, whiplash from the mood swings.
She runs all the way to the library, where Dawn is actually attempting to rein in Karen’s maniacal introductions of Martha to every single person present. (We don’t actually see it, but even a half-sentence nod to them not letting Karen trample on Martha’s boundaries is better than I expected. Points to Dawn.) Dawn has also managed to get her hands on a book about Reese, which she passes off to Claudia, who reads two entries about the Randolph mansion. The first is about the guy who built it, who later died at sea, and the second is about his widow Mary, who supposedly spent the next twenty years after Reginald Randolph’s death pacing romantically on the widow’s walk dressed in white until she was hurled to her death during a storm. Yes, that sounds totally convincing and not at all like an urban legend. But clearly Mary is now a “candidate” for the ghost.
Lisa offers to give the BSC lunch to themselves, and Mrs. Menders acts enough like a parent to keep Jill from inviting herself. This is lucky, because now they can talk about Georgio. Kristy, all of people, opines that Georgio has a crush on our Claudia, and Claudia reveals Georgio’s college-attending, drivers’-license-having ways.
“That means he could be nineteen, or even older,” Dawn exclaimed. “Does he know how old you are?”
Claudia shakes her head, but they then entirely drop the “creeper college student hitting on an eighth-grader” angle to discuss his possession of orange candles and whether he and Lionel have both been playing ghost, alone or together (still not a euphemism), and whether Georgio might have access to the fourth floor to do the footsteps and lights. And once again, we end the chapter with everyone freaked out. Is Mary Randolph haunting the mansion, or does someone just want them to think so?
Chapter 8:
Karen. You know, if Karen is so “precocious,” can someone teach her about damn lowercase letters soon? I’m on the first page of her chapter and I already want to say “Shhhhhhh!”
Karen writes to Watson, informing him that the Randolph Mansion is “a lot bigger than the big house.” She tells Watson how hard it is to help Martha make friends because Martha is shy, but luckily, Karen is not shy! Oddly, she signs it “Your daughter, Karen” as opposed to “love, Karen” or something.
Mary Anne offers to take Karen and Martha shopping in town. Martha would rather stay home and read (The Secret Garden, which hey, I love too, but must be the Official Signifier of Shy Girls--Stephie and MA bond over it in California Girls, iirc.) And Karen, ugh, pouts and guilt-trips and bullies her into going. And is proud of being a manipulative little brat. “The pouting worked because Martha climbed out of the comfy hammock and came with me.”
Mary Anne asks Martha how she likes Reese, and Martha says she would rather be in Boston with her BFF Louise, and Karen is all shocked and insulted that shy Martha dares to actually have a friend who isn’t her. “Well, I would be her best friend, soon.” Oh my god, she is such a megalomaniac. And you know that she wouldn’t consider Martha to be HER best friend. She goes on bragging to herself about allll the friends she will help Martha make. “I am like Kristy. I enjoy challenges.” Which comes off as a really shitty thing to say about Martha.
They head to an art supply store because MA wants to buy something for Claudia, and Karen stalks the aisles looking for potential besties for Martha. While Mary Anne is paying for a face-painting set of future plot convenience, a girl comes in with her mother and Karen basically accosts them. “Hi. I saw you on the beach yesterday. You had on a red two-piece bathing suit with butterflies.”
Girl and her mom are kind of creeped out by stalker Karen--girl averts her eyes and the mother says “We were at the beach yesterday, but I don’t remember that Amber played with you.” OMG a parent actually took her own kid to the beach and payed attention to what she did and who she played with? And took her into a store the next day? WHAT IS THIS MADNESS? Anyway, Karen continues to creepily say she “noticed” Amber and thought she would like to be friends with Martha, ending with a melodramatic flourish pointing to. . .nobody.
“I think your friends left,” Amber’s mother said. LOL, I hear this as total deadpan sarcasm. On the other hand, WTF Mary Anne? Yes, she and Martha are on the sidewalk and MA can still see Karen through the window, but you should generally leave a building with the same number of sitting charges you came in with. Karen and MA have a gesture duel of beckoning, and Karen loses and is forced to leave with only a final endorsement of Martha. So of course, Karen mouths off to Mary Anne, declaring she found the “perfect” friend for Martha, on the basis that Amber is also shy. Mary Anne tells Karen to let Martha make friends in her own way.
“I did not think Mary Anne was the best person to give me advice about how to help Martha meet people. After all, next to Martha, Mary Anne is the shyest person I know.” And yet, she has two official BFFs, plus the rest to the BSCult “the best friends you’ll ever have,” and a steady boyfriend. Because shy people can still have friends! STFU Karen. But nooo, Karen goes on to tell us that Kristy “not being shy” is one of the things she [Karen] loves most about her, and I’m so sick of shyness being treated like a massive character flaw. I think Ann has some serious self-loathing issues here or something.
Speak of the K.Ron devil, Kristy is trying to take Jason to the playground in hopes he can meet some boys his own age. I seriously can’t tell if the text wants me to think Jason is “stupid” for wanting some respite from a house full of girls (and Lionel), but I don’t really--it’s pretty age appropriate, and between Karen glomming on Martha and Jill glomming on Dawn he’s been pretty left out anyway. Karen invites herself and Martha along, with some nice passive-aggressive self-martyrdom in her head about giving up a trip to the harbor with MA to look at boats because she is so, so crucial to Martha making friends.
At the playground, Kristy even explicitly tells Karen she wants Jason to have a chance to meet some boys his own age, and asks Martha and Karen to give them some space. She and Jason start tossing a softball back and forth while Karen and Martha play on the swings. Karen mentally brags about her softball skills for awhile and then decides Martha needs to play softball to meet people. And true brattiness ensues.
“Martha,” I said, “Come on. Kristy wants us on the ballfield.”
“No, she doesn’t,” Martha said. “I’ve been watching.” [Shy people often do pay a lot more attention to other people’s reactions and body language than self-absorbed braggarts.]
“She does, too,” I said. “I know what Kristy is thinking and she wants to teach you softball. She is my sister and I can read her mind.”
“No, you can’t,” Martha said.
“I can, too. I know she wants us to come over right now and you have to do it because she is our baby-sitter.” [OMG STFU.]
“No, I don’t,” Martha said.
And because Martha has dared to say “no” thrice in a row to the Great and Powerful Karen, Karen loses her shit. “You have to because I said so,” I yelled. “I need to find some friends for you so you will like to live here. Help a little. Say hi to the people I introduce you to. Look them in the eye. Why do you have to be so shy?” And as someone who has been hearing this for the last 25 years, including from my parents, I’m cringing just reading this. (It’s definitely not making the “networking” aspects of my job search any easier, either.) Oh, and she kicks sand at Martha, who kicks back and asks why Karen doesn’t shut up for two damn minutes and leave her the hell alone, that is “Why do you have to bug me?”
“Because I like you,” Karen replies.
Seriously, is this book secretly a grooming manual for abusive relationships or something? We have Claudia worrying Georgio will be “mad” if she admits her actual age, and we have “I yell at you and bully you and make you uncomfortable out of love,” from Karen.
Anyway, Karen kicks more sand, but it blows back in her face, and Martha is sweet enough to actually apologize first, even though even Karen realizes that she’s the asshole who screamed and started kicking sand. Martha asks if they are still friends and Karen says yes, thinking snottily “Martha had a lot to learn about friendship. You can be friends even if you have a fight.” Ugh, Karen, Martha HAS a best friend, and probably other friends, in Boston. She was not raised in a box with no human contact. Maybe she was asking if they were still friends because she doesn’t know how to deal with bossy, delusional people [she claimed freakin’ telepathy!] who throw tantrums and kick sand at her.
They end up going to play softball anyway, even though Kristy and Jason clearly don’t want them there. “But sometimes you have to ignore what people think and do what is right for your friends.” UGH. So again, Karen has learned nothing, inflated her own ego, and has gotten exactly what she wanted, even disobeying her sitter’s explicit instructions with no consequences whatsoever. And she ends the chapter by telling us how awesome she is at softball, and how stupid the boys of Reese are for not immediately falling to her feet in worship.
Chapter 9:
Logan. (You know, I’m skipping ahead, but I’ve long wondered about the meaning of Logan, and I think most of the male characters, printing in all capital letters like children. Is it a comment by the designers about the relative maturity level of males in the BSC-verse? Anyway, I’m skipping ahead, and Lionel, at the end of the book, writes using lower-case letters, with capitals only when appropriate. Just another signifier of me overthinking what is being implied about Lionel in this book.)
Logan is writing to Mary Anne, of course. He tells us all about the Rosebud Cafe, which more and more sounds like some kind of skeevy den of iniquity or a brothel or something, what with the illegal underage workforce and the fact that it is so busy. Well, what else is there to do in the Brook?
Anyway, Mallory shows up at the Bud and starts trailing him around while he tries to do his job, “yakking away a mile a minute.” Well, that’s going to kill the mood, for sure. He finally gets her to wait at the kitchen door and tell her tragic tale on the installment plan.
So now, within the letter to Mary Anne, we get Logan describing a Mallory POV flashback. I think. Anyway, Mal and Jessi find no messages on the answering machine and fret that Jake Kuhn has been telling all the kids that only Smelly Mal and Stinki Jessi are around to sit for the moment. Man, these girls have some self-esteem issues. Mal is still wiped out from sitting for four kids under the age of five, including twin toddlers, and I don’t blame her a bit, although I wonder a bit just WTF Mrs. P and her sister-in-law are doing that they need another sitter tomorrow.
Mrs. Arnold calls, asking that Logan get to his job that evening a little bit early, and the girls realize neither of them called him to inform him about the job. Mal is about to call him up at the Bud, despite his instructions to the contrary, but before she can, Mrs. Pike calls for a sitter the next day and Mallory has to tell them her they are all booked. “But I’m one of your best and oldest clients,” Mrs. Pike complained, only half-jokingly. Seriously? Wow. I’m sure she knows that half the club is gone and that Mallory must be pretty much constantly sitting and exhausted. Way to guilt-trip your tragically insecure eldest child, the one who practically runs herself ragged in her own home anyway, because God forbid a ten year old mop up his own spilled milk. STFU, Mrs. Pike. Don’t make me put you on the “groomers of future abuse victims” list.
They then have to turn down a new client, and I’d advise that they never, ever mention that to K. Ron. You girls have so much to live for! (Well, not really, but no one deserves Death by K-Look.)
Janine stops by then and informs them that they have even more calls to make; their answering machine wasn’t actually on and people left messages on the family line. I’m kind of wondering why Janine the Genius didn’t turn on the machine as soon as she realized it was off. Or the Kishi parents, for that matter. Or why when Mal and Jessi checked the machine a page ago, they didn’t notice it was off. Or why, when one of the messages from Shannon leaving her availability, she didn’t call Jessi or Mal to tell THEM the machine was off? Does no one at Scholastic know how answering machines work? This is the true unsolved mystery of the book.
Also, the parents of Stoneybrook are pathetic. If they are THAT desperate for childcare, they should be paying more than $2.00 an hour. Or, you know, take their damn kids with them to the grocery store.
Mal timidly asks if Janine could help them out, and she agrees to take one evening job, with the Hobarts. Well, at least they are close by and decently behaved more often than not. But not tonight, because she has a date, ooh la la.
They spend another 20 minutes returning calls, and have to turn down four more jobs, alas. They are desperate enough to consider calling Evil!Stacey, but decide she can’t be trusted to show up. That’s pretty weak, really, but whatever. It does lead to this hilarious exchange. “You know she puts Robert before anything else.” “That’s what’s so great about Mary Anne and Logan.” I mean, certainly your eighth-grade boyfriend should not come before everything else in your life, but the implication here is not that Mary Anne has a healthy balance of commitments, but that she properly puts the BSCult before everything in her life.
They STILL haven’t called Logan, and it is now 35 minutes before his job is supposed to start, so Mal runs over to the Rosebud Cafe to tell him in person. Jessi realizes she just blew off a planned Rollerblading lesson with Becca, and has to be home in five minutes for dinner and baby-sitting, since her parents are also going to the Ambulance Auction (AA? hmm). It seems to me that if things are so desperate, the Arnold twins could just be taken over to Jessi’s house--three eight-year-olds and a baby aren’t that big a deal, and even if the twins aren’t besties with Becca, they have sort of an overlapping circle with Vanessa and Haley and all. I don’t know how late Ambulance Aunctions run in the Brook (or maybe it really IS AA?) but worse cast scenario, the twins fall asleep on the Ramseys couch or something and have to be woken up to go home. I’m just saying, as Mal descends into the kind of panic mode you usually see in movies with a live bomb countdown. What if there is no one to sit for the Arnolds? The auction will be canceled! People will DIE! And it will all be blamed on the BSC!
No, seriously.
And yet, they STILL forget to turn on the damn answering machine, although Jessi remembers and circles back. Technology is hard, y’all.
Logan listens to Mal’s “tale of woe” (haha, I tend not to be a Logan fan in general, but in his own POV, he sometimes is pretty funny) and tells her calmly that since they never told him about the job, he agreed to “pick up the night shift” for a friend. He tells her this while he’s “slicing french bread,” and together with “night shift” and “Rosebud Cafe,” this all sounds totally like the beginning of a porno now. Incidentally, his friend is named Carlos, which in another book might sound like a racial stereotype about busboys, but in tiny Stoneybrook I think it must be the infamous Carlos Mary Anne was rumored to be dating in #60. So, I guess it’s nice they’ve since bonded?
Mallory is freaking out, turning red, “moving around like a Mexican jumping bean” and snatches Logan’s unsliced loaf (!!!) in order to gesture dramatically when Logan tells her to get a grip.
“She grabbed the bread from my hand and shook it violently. “You get a grip,” she said between clenched teeth. The loaf of bread folded like a rag doll. [Well, a shrill, red-faced Mallory Pike probably would have that effect. Don’t feel bad, Logan; it happens to every guy sometime.] She continued to shake it at me anyway. “This is important, “Mrs. Arnold is running the auction for the ambulance squad. If people die because there’s no ambulance, it will be your fault.”
The Rosebud Cafe Pimp--that is, Logan’s boss, has just noticed the crazy girl scaring the customers, and the other busperson on staff steps in front of Mal so that he can’t see Mal “mangling his french bread.” Well, yeah, you can’t let them damage the merchandise like that. At least not without paying extra. Anyway, the busperson, a Ms. Geraldine Breslin, asks WTF, and she agrees to cover the shift “before all we have left to serve to the customers are bread crumbs.”
Yes, Ms. Breslin, you are too cool for this scene.
Logan finally drags Mallory out of the Bud, still clinging to that “pathetic loaf of bread,” and she declares her gratitude. “You’re a wonderful guy. No wonder Mary Anne loves you. I love you. We all love you.” LOL, I’m flashing back to one of the first BSC crackfics I ever read, where Logan had knocked up everyone of the sitters.
Logan actually closes the letter very sweetly, if unconvincingly for a thirteen-year-old boy: “At the moment I wasn’t feeling very loving toward Mal. But I love you, Mary Anne, even if you have some goofy friends. I can’t wait until you come home. Love, Logan.”
Next chapter we’re back in Reese, for “ghostly” encounters, jailbait hijinx, and ambiguously gay teenagers. Stay tuned!
[okay so here I tried to embed a clip of Vincent Price laughing but after trying six different embed codes, two computers, countless reloads, rich text and HTML, two computer crashes and five WIFI failures and literally crying over my attempts to post a snark, I realized I maybe needed to examine my life and my choices. So if you've never actually since Vincent Price laugh, you can see it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRamB30E9mU]
I imagine Lionel running around doing this a lot. But first, we must go back to. . .
Chapter 5:
BSC HQ, with Jessi writing a ridiculous sunshine suck-up entry in the notebook about how awesome she and Mal are at running the club themselves. They are “taking turns” being president; Logan isn’t there because he is, ahem, “working the Sunday brunch shift at the Rosebud Cafe” and Shannon doesn’t show up until 1:14 and announces she’s leaving at 1:30. Which, yeah, is kind of rude, but on the other hand, she dragged herself across town for this ridiculousness, so I can’t feel too offended about her disrespect for the sacred office of Baby-sitters Club president pro tem.
They’re just now calling all the clients to tell them about the upcoming sitter substitutions, and at least twice, they give this information to ever-reliable children instead of adults. Both Jake Kuhn and Melody Korman are grievously disappointed to be deprived of Kristy’s softball coaching and Mary Anne’s doll clothes tailoring, respectively. Jessi suggests Mal could help Melody make up stories about her dolls, and I find it hilarious when Melody whines “But my dolls don’t have any clothes!” There are stories that work with the premise of “inexplicable clothes shortage,” after all. (Melody, meet fanfic. Fanfic, meet Melody. Er. In seven years or so.) Seriously, though, what kind of cheap-ass dolls do the mansion-dwelling Kormans buy for their daughter that don’t come with any clothes?
Shannon reminds the super-co-presidents to check the answering machine and they’re starting to get crazy booked, and Mal single-handedly takes a two-sitter job for Jenny and Andrea P AND two-year-old twin boys. Godspeed, Mal. Shannon zips off, although she does kindly--or politically--compliment the junior officers on their skillz and apologize for being late just before announcing she “can’t make” the Monday meeting. Well-played, Shannon. I’d take advantage of K.Ron being out of town too, probably. They book an evening job for Logan, but don’t call him because he’s at work, planning to call him later. Gosh, it would sure be awful if they forgot to call and he made other plans, wouldn’t it? Anyway, the Arnolds needed a sitter while they run an auction for Stoneybrook Ambulance Services, which somehow Jessi interprets as the BSC saving people’s lives. Whatever helps you sleep at night, sweetie.
Chapter 6:
Kristy claims they have caught the “ghost”--or have they? And of course, instructs all the other sitters that they must not let the other Menders kids know about the “very weird” things going on in the mansion. Okay, see, it would make sense not to tell the kids Dawn’s crappy ghost speculations, on the grounds that they are ridiculous. But since you’ve taken it upon yourselves to convince these people to live in this town, it’s actually actively shitty to hide so-called “information” from them. Just saying.
They have a barbecue and talk about the Founders Day parade. Mrs. Menders and Mary Anne both affirm that Martha doesn’t have to be on the float if she doesn’t want, so of course Karen starts bugging her about it, telling her that if she dressed up as a cat it would make her very popular. Um. What? Is Reese a town full of furries or something?
Jason and Lionel refuse to be on the float, too--Jason because “dress-up is for girls” and Lionel because it is too “makeshift and unprofessional.” And he hasn’t even SEEN Claudia’s work! (LOL, I first typed that as “makeshit.” Maybe Lionel anachronistically Googled pics from the baby parade?) Hilariously and hypocritically, Kristy judges the Menders kids for being unenthusiastic about the float, even as she admits that Claudia usually has trouble getting even the other sitters excited about these things.
The adults all head off to town to “see how busy the stores are at night,” (I’m sure) and Kristy reads Frog and Toad aloud to the assembled masses, until Karen takes over Toad’s lines and Lionel takes Frog’s. The Karen and Lionel show? That’s the scariest thing in this book so far. Andrew is going through kind of a frog phase, so they head off on a frog and toad hunt (er, just to find them, not to kill them). Elton Cooper points them in the direction of a pond where they might find frogs, and even supplies a flashlight. What a helpful gentleman!
They immediately find a toad and head off to look for frogs, when Kristy and MA notice a light on in the top floor of the house, where no one is supposed to be, which is kind of weird, but Kristy basically freaks out and only Andrew being adorable and way into frogs keeps her from marching everyone home right then. Claudia sees the light, too, on the way home, but it’s out again by the time they get home.
Kristy and Claudia ask the Coopers about the light and Elton insists that no one has been up there for years, when there were “strange goings-on” and Margaret dramatically bangs on the counter with a wooden spoon to shut him up, I guess. Or for atmosphere. Or. . idk, this part of the plot gets pretty strained.
Everyone is freaking out, and Dawn insists it could still be a ghost, and not, you know, Lionel, punking them. So the moaning and flickering lights are back, and Kristy very very bravely flings open the door to find. . .
Lionel.
Actually, everyone laughs it off, until Lionel denies he was up on the fourth floor, even on the pain of no more stupid Hollywood gossip from Dawn. He protests “You guys--gals--are all crazy.” What fourteen-year-old boy says “gals”?
But then, as they all mill around in the hallway (and seriously, the rest of those kids are some nice sound sleepers), they hear footsteps. From the fourth floor. More freaking out, including Lionel, and some weird gambit by Kristy where she pretends they were joking about the fourth floor stuff. I think. Lionel agrees not to prank them anymore and wanders off muttering about “hysterical females.” Then the girls freak out some more, but not so much Kristy can’t make a pass.
“Mary Anne, do you want to sleep in my room tonight?”
“Yes,” she said in a quavering voice. “Yes, I do.”
Mmm-hmmm.
Chapter 7:
Claudia is woken by Dawn to plan “major detective work.” Today she is wearing a “floral-print mini-sundress (the pink and red flower pattern is big and sort of abstract” with a pink baseball cap, dangling yellow glass earrings, and red high-top sneakers. This is actually pretty tame as Claudia outfits go, but it’s actually marginally important to the plot.
Dawn and Claudia are supposed to be taking the girls to the library, when Georgio runs across the lawn to them. “Just as he had done the day before, Georgio checked out my clothes. When you dress the way I do you have to expect people to take notice. But when Georgio looked at me I felt uncomfortable. Did he think I was too wild and colorful?” Claudia, I can’t believe you’re putting me in the position of defending your clothing choices, but you are not the problem in this equation.
Claudia’s reaction to Georgio are all over the map in this chapter, which would probably actually be realistic as a thoughtful portrayal of an thirteen-year-old girl dealing with a flirtatious creeper, but here just comes off as bad writing. Anyway, she cuts Karen off before Karen can reveal their SEKRIT DETECTIN’ plans to research the Randolph mansion at the library, because her Nancy Drew learnings have taught her to be cagy about what you reveal to suspects. Then Georgio says he needs her advice and Claudia is all zomg! “I didn’t even know the guy and he wanted my advice!? Advice about what? School? [LOL] Family problems? Girls? [Oi] How to menace a houseful of kids?” [genuine giggle--Claud brings good snark sometimes.] But seriously it’s not like the BSC has any problem bossing around any other poor saps who cross their path on the flimsiest of conclusions, so the lady is protesting a little bit too much. Anyway, he just wants Claudia to help him arrange some new rosebushes.
“I’ve noticed that Claudia has terrific taste in clothes,” he said. “And puts colors together in a great way.” You know, considering this in conjunction with his all black ensemble, maybe Georgio is just color-blind. How do you feel about mocking him now, Dawn?
Well, she doesn’t feel guilty, but the same Dawn who was calling this dude “evil” a few chapters ago now leaves one of her so-called besties with the creepy older guy who keeps giving her the eye, departing with “one of those we’ll-leave-you-two-alone grins.” Seriously, they’re giving me whiplash.
Anyway, Claudia works on the laying out the rosebushes (um, that’s not a euphemism), and Georgio asks if she has an outlet for her leet art skillz in Reese, and when she tells him about the parade, he volunteers his pick-up truck, and Claudia frantically tries to do the math on just how too-old he is. He offers to show her a picture of a float he and his friends made and takes her back to the toolshed, which leads into what I think is one of the weirdest scenes I’ve ever read in a BSC book. Long quote, because, well, WEIRD.
“The shed was small and dark. All my fears about Georgio came flooding back. I wished I hadn’t followed him there. I bumped into a big lumpy something and let out a shriek of terror. Was it a dead body?
“What happened?” Georgio asked.
In the half light I made out that the “corpse” was a big bag of sand or something.
“I just bumped into this--stuff,” I told Georgio.
“I don’t want anything to happen to you,” he said. I couldn’t tell if he was smiling at me or smirking when he said that. Finally he pulled a cord that switched on an overhead lightbulb. We were facing a wall of neatly arranged tools. There were saws, knives, hammers, and weapon-like instruments. Georgio reached for the ax. I was about to make a run for it when his hand landed on a photo that was pinned between the ax and a hammer.”
Seriously, I don’t even know what to do with this. It’s like the ghostie spaced out and started writing a B-horror movie or something. And I don’t know what kind of message this is supposed to send, but girls? If a guy gives you the creeps, do not let him take you to his “toolshed,” or equivalent isolated spot. /soapbox
Anyway, the photo is of his pickup all decked out in psychedelic paint, and Georgio drops a reference to “campus,” and Claudia asks if he’s in college. Oh, he is.
“I don’t make a big deal about age. Some of my friends are a couple of years older than me. Some are a couple of years younger. Like you. You’re sixteen, am I right?”
Okay, leaving aside the debatable proposition that thirteen-year-olds and sixteen-year-olds are generally indistinguishable (there are exceptions, but honestly, those are pretty big deal years, both physically and in attitude), this passage gives me the yucks, because sure, it’s okay as an 18/19 year old to have “friends” who are a bit younger or older, but hitting on underage girls is not exactly “friendly” behavior. I mean, not to get all personal here, but I’ve known way too many adult men who’ve used that “age doesn’t matter” shtick to make passes at underage girls, and having it in a BSC book, however “innocently” is squicking me. Why can’t I just have nice, innocent, rampant lesbianism between the girls?
That said, it is kind of funny that there’s a promo on the cover for the BSC movie [and here I was going to put a clip to the totally awesome scene in the movie where Luca screams "THIRTEEN!" over and over again in a taxi. So here it is, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXG2XqyCU-g&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PLAA01AB3CE63D1AB4around 1:04:30, if you want to relive the glory for a moment]
Sorry, back on track.
Claudia doesn’t admit she is thirteen, “maybe because I was afraid he’d be mad at me for not telling him sooner” (ugh! that is not a healthy thought! that is a terrible message in a book for little girls!), or maybe because she thinks she thinks she’s being a good detective by revealing as little as possible or maybe because he wouldn’t talk to her so much if he knew she was thirteen. Because now she thinks she isn’t so spooked by him anymore. (Keep in mind this is literally on the page after the lavish description of weaponry.) But then she spots an orange candle and freaks out again. Seriously, whiplash from the mood swings.
She runs all the way to the library, where Dawn is actually attempting to rein in Karen’s maniacal introductions of Martha to every single person present. (We don’t actually see it, but even a half-sentence nod to them not letting Karen trample on Martha’s boundaries is better than I expected. Points to Dawn.) Dawn has also managed to get her hands on a book about Reese, which she passes off to Claudia, who reads two entries about the Randolph mansion. The first is about the guy who built it, who later died at sea, and the second is about his widow Mary, who supposedly spent the next twenty years after Reginald Randolph’s death pacing romantically on the widow’s walk dressed in white until she was hurled to her death during a storm. Yes, that sounds totally convincing and not at all like an urban legend. But clearly Mary is now a “candidate” for the ghost.
Lisa offers to give the BSC lunch to themselves, and Mrs. Menders acts enough like a parent to keep Jill from inviting herself. This is lucky, because now they can talk about Georgio. Kristy, all of people, opines that Georgio has a crush on our Claudia, and Claudia reveals Georgio’s college-attending, drivers’-license-having ways.
“That means he could be nineteen, or even older,” Dawn exclaimed. “Does he know how old you are?”
Claudia shakes her head, but they then entirely drop the “creeper college student hitting on an eighth-grader” angle to discuss his possession of orange candles and whether he and Lionel have both been playing ghost, alone or together (still not a euphemism), and whether Georgio might have access to the fourth floor to do the footsteps and lights. And once again, we end the chapter with everyone freaked out. Is Mary Randolph haunting the mansion, or does someone just want them to think so?
Chapter 8:
Karen. You know, if Karen is so “precocious,” can someone teach her about damn lowercase letters soon? I’m on the first page of her chapter and I already want to say “Shhhhhhh!”
Karen writes to Watson, informing him that the Randolph Mansion is “a lot bigger than the big house.” She tells Watson how hard it is to help Martha make friends because Martha is shy, but luckily, Karen is not shy! Oddly, she signs it “Your daughter, Karen” as opposed to “love, Karen” or something.
Mary Anne offers to take Karen and Martha shopping in town. Martha would rather stay home and read (The Secret Garden, which hey, I love too, but must be the Official Signifier of Shy Girls--Stephie and MA bond over it in California Girls, iirc.) And Karen, ugh, pouts and guilt-trips and bullies her into going. And is proud of being a manipulative little brat. “The pouting worked because Martha climbed out of the comfy hammock and came with me.”
Mary Anne asks Martha how she likes Reese, and Martha says she would rather be in Boston with her BFF Louise, and Karen is all shocked and insulted that shy Martha dares to actually have a friend who isn’t her. “Well, I would be her best friend, soon.” Oh my god, she is such a megalomaniac. And you know that she wouldn’t consider Martha to be HER best friend. She goes on bragging to herself about allll the friends she will help Martha make. “I am like Kristy. I enjoy challenges.” Which comes off as a really shitty thing to say about Martha.
They head to an art supply store because MA wants to buy something for Claudia, and Karen stalks the aisles looking for potential besties for Martha. While Mary Anne is paying for a face-painting set of future plot convenience, a girl comes in with her mother and Karen basically accosts them. “Hi. I saw you on the beach yesterday. You had on a red two-piece bathing suit with butterflies.”
Girl and her mom are kind of creeped out by stalker Karen--girl averts her eyes and the mother says “We were at the beach yesterday, but I don’t remember that Amber played with you.” OMG a parent actually took her own kid to the beach and payed attention to what she did and who she played with? And took her into a store the next day? WHAT IS THIS MADNESS? Anyway, Karen continues to creepily say she “noticed” Amber and thought she would like to be friends with Martha, ending with a melodramatic flourish pointing to. . .nobody.
“I think your friends left,” Amber’s mother said. LOL, I hear this as total deadpan sarcasm. On the other hand, WTF Mary Anne? Yes, she and Martha are on the sidewalk and MA can still see Karen through the window, but you should generally leave a building with the same number of sitting charges you came in with. Karen and MA have a gesture duel of beckoning, and Karen loses and is forced to leave with only a final endorsement of Martha. So of course, Karen mouths off to Mary Anne, declaring she found the “perfect” friend for Martha, on the basis that Amber is also shy. Mary Anne tells Karen to let Martha make friends in her own way.
“I did not think Mary Anne was the best person to give me advice about how to help Martha meet people. After all, next to Martha, Mary Anne is the shyest person I know.” And yet, she has two official BFFs, plus the rest to the BSCult “the best friends you’ll ever have,” and a steady boyfriend. Because shy people can still have friends! STFU Karen. But nooo, Karen goes on to tell us that Kristy “not being shy” is one of the things she [Karen] loves most about her, and I’m so sick of shyness being treated like a massive character flaw. I think Ann has some serious self-loathing issues here or something.
Speak of the K.Ron devil, Kristy is trying to take Jason to the playground in hopes he can meet some boys his own age. I seriously can’t tell if the text wants me to think Jason is “stupid” for wanting some respite from a house full of girls (and Lionel), but I don’t really--it’s pretty age appropriate, and between Karen glomming on Martha and Jill glomming on Dawn he’s been pretty left out anyway. Karen invites herself and Martha along, with some nice passive-aggressive self-martyrdom in her head about giving up a trip to the harbor with MA to look at boats because she is so, so crucial to Martha making friends.
At the playground, Kristy even explicitly tells Karen she wants Jason to have a chance to meet some boys his own age, and asks Martha and Karen to give them some space. She and Jason start tossing a softball back and forth while Karen and Martha play on the swings. Karen mentally brags about her softball skills for awhile and then decides Martha needs to play softball to meet people. And true brattiness ensues.
“Martha,” I said, “Come on. Kristy wants us on the ballfield.”
“No, she doesn’t,” Martha said. “I’ve been watching.” [Shy people often do pay a lot more attention to other people’s reactions and body language than self-absorbed braggarts.]
“She does, too,” I said. “I know what Kristy is thinking and she wants to teach you softball. She is my sister and I can read her mind.”
“No, you can’t,” Martha said.
“I can, too. I know she wants us to come over right now and you have to do it because she is our baby-sitter.” [OMG STFU.]
“No, I don’t,” Martha said.
And because Martha has dared to say “no” thrice in a row to the Great and Powerful Karen, Karen loses her shit. “You have to because I said so,” I yelled. “I need to find some friends for you so you will like to live here. Help a little. Say hi to the people I introduce you to. Look them in the eye. Why do you have to be so shy?” And as someone who has been hearing this for the last 25 years, including from my parents, I’m cringing just reading this. (It’s definitely not making the “networking” aspects of my job search any easier, either.) Oh, and she kicks sand at Martha, who kicks back and asks why Karen doesn’t shut up for two damn minutes and leave her the hell alone, that is “Why do you have to bug me?”
“Because I like you,” Karen replies.
Seriously, is this book secretly a grooming manual for abusive relationships or something? We have Claudia worrying Georgio will be “mad” if she admits her actual age, and we have “I yell at you and bully you and make you uncomfortable out of love,” from Karen.
Anyway, Karen kicks more sand, but it blows back in her face, and Martha is sweet enough to actually apologize first, even though even Karen realizes that she’s the asshole who screamed and started kicking sand. Martha asks if they are still friends and Karen says yes, thinking snottily “Martha had a lot to learn about friendship. You can be friends even if you have a fight.” Ugh, Karen, Martha HAS a best friend, and probably other friends, in Boston. She was not raised in a box with no human contact. Maybe she was asking if they were still friends because she doesn’t know how to deal with bossy, delusional people [she claimed freakin’ telepathy!] who throw tantrums and kick sand at her.
They end up going to play softball anyway, even though Kristy and Jason clearly don’t want them there. “But sometimes you have to ignore what people think and do what is right for your friends.” UGH. So again, Karen has learned nothing, inflated her own ego, and has gotten exactly what she wanted, even disobeying her sitter’s explicit instructions with no consequences whatsoever. And she ends the chapter by telling us how awesome she is at softball, and how stupid the boys of Reese are for not immediately falling to her feet in worship.
Chapter 9:
Logan. (You know, I’m skipping ahead, but I’ve long wondered about the meaning of Logan, and I think most of the male characters, printing in all capital letters like children. Is it a comment by the designers about the relative maturity level of males in the BSC-verse? Anyway, I’m skipping ahead, and Lionel, at the end of the book, writes using lower-case letters, with capitals only when appropriate. Just another signifier of me overthinking what is being implied about Lionel in this book.)
Logan is writing to Mary Anne, of course. He tells us all about the Rosebud Cafe, which more and more sounds like some kind of skeevy den of iniquity or a brothel or something, what with the illegal underage workforce and the fact that it is so busy. Well, what else is there to do in the Brook?
Anyway, Mallory shows up at the Bud and starts trailing him around while he tries to do his job, “yakking away a mile a minute.” Well, that’s going to kill the mood, for sure. He finally gets her to wait at the kitchen door and tell her tragic tale on the installment plan.
So now, within the letter to Mary Anne, we get Logan describing a Mallory POV flashback. I think. Anyway, Mal and Jessi find no messages on the answering machine and fret that Jake Kuhn has been telling all the kids that only Smelly Mal and Stinki Jessi are around to sit for the moment. Man, these girls have some self-esteem issues. Mal is still wiped out from sitting for four kids under the age of five, including twin toddlers, and I don’t blame her a bit, although I wonder a bit just WTF Mrs. P and her sister-in-law are doing that they need another sitter tomorrow.
Mrs. Arnold calls, asking that Logan get to his job that evening a little bit early, and the girls realize neither of them called him to inform him about the job. Mal is about to call him up at the Bud, despite his instructions to the contrary, but before she can, Mrs. Pike calls for a sitter the next day and Mallory has to tell them her they are all booked. “But I’m one of your best and oldest clients,” Mrs. Pike complained, only half-jokingly. Seriously? Wow. I’m sure she knows that half the club is gone and that Mallory must be pretty much constantly sitting and exhausted. Way to guilt-trip your tragically insecure eldest child, the one who practically runs herself ragged in her own home anyway, because God forbid a ten year old mop up his own spilled milk. STFU, Mrs. Pike. Don’t make me put you on the “groomers of future abuse victims” list.
They then have to turn down a new client, and I’d advise that they never, ever mention that to K. Ron. You girls have so much to live for! (Well, not really, but no one deserves Death by K-Look.)
Janine stops by then and informs them that they have even more calls to make; their answering machine wasn’t actually on and people left messages on the family line. I’m kind of wondering why Janine the Genius didn’t turn on the machine as soon as she realized it was off. Or the Kishi parents, for that matter. Or why when Mal and Jessi checked the machine a page ago, they didn’t notice it was off. Or why, when one of the messages from Shannon leaving her availability, she didn’t call Jessi or Mal to tell THEM the machine was off? Does no one at Scholastic know how answering machines work? This is the true unsolved mystery of the book.
Also, the parents of Stoneybrook are pathetic. If they are THAT desperate for childcare, they should be paying more than $2.00 an hour. Or, you know, take their damn kids with them to the grocery store.
Mal timidly asks if Janine could help them out, and she agrees to take one evening job, with the Hobarts. Well, at least they are close by and decently behaved more often than not. But not tonight, because she has a date, ooh la la.
They spend another 20 minutes returning calls, and have to turn down four more jobs, alas. They are desperate enough to consider calling Evil!Stacey, but decide she can’t be trusted to show up. That’s pretty weak, really, but whatever. It does lead to this hilarious exchange. “You know she puts Robert before anything else.” “That’s what’s so great about Mary Anne and Logan.” I mean, certainly your eighth-grade boyfriend should not come before everything else in your life, but the implication here is not that Mary Anne has a healthy balance of commitments, but that she properly puts the BSCult before everything in her life.
They STILL haven’t called Logan, and it is now 35 minutes before his job is supposed to start, so Mal runs over to the Rosebud Cafe to tell him in person. Jessi realizes she just blew off a planned Rollerblading lesson with Becca, and has to be home in five minutes for dinner and baby-sitting, since her parents are also going to the Ambulance Auction (AA? hmm). It seems to me that if things are so desperate, the Arnold twins could just be taken over to Jessi’s house--three eight-year-olds and a baby aren’t that big a deal, and even if the twins aren’t besties with Becca, they have sort of an overlapping circle with Vanessa and Haley and all. I don’t know how late Ambulance Aunctions run in the Brook (or maybe it really IS AA?) but worse cast scenario, the twins fall asleep on the Ramseys couch or something and have to be woken up to go home. I’m just saying, as Mal descends into the kind of panic mode you usually see in movies with a live bomb countdown. What if there is no one to sit for the Arnolds? The auction will be canceled! People will DIE! And it will all be blamed on the BSC!
No, seriously.
And yet, they STILL forget to turn on the damn answering machine, although Jessi remembers and circles back. Technology is hard, y’all.
Logan listens to Mal’s “tale of woe” (haha, I tend not to be a Logan fan in general, but in his own POV, he sometimes is pretty funny) and tells her calmly that since they never told him about the job, he agreed to “pick up the night shift” for a friend. He tells her this while he’s “slicing french bread,” and together with “night shift” and “Rosebud Cafe,” this all sounds totally like the beginning of a porno now. Incidentally, his friend is named Carlos, which in another book might sound like a racial stereotype about busboys, but in tiny Stoneybrook I think it must be the infamous Carlos Mary Anne was rumored to be dating in #60. So, I guess it’s nice they’ve since bonded?
Mallory is freaking out, turning red, “moving around like a Mexican jumping bean” and snatches Logan’s unsliced loaf (!!!) in order to gesture dramatically when Logan tells her to get a grip.
“She grabbed the bread from my hand and shook it violently. “You get a grip,” she said between clenched teeth. The loaf of bread folded like a rag doll. [Well, a shrill, red-faced Mallory Pike probably would have that effect. Don’t feel bad, Logan; it happens to every guy sometime.] She continued to shake it at me anyway. “This is important, “Mrs. Arnold is running the auction for the ambulance squad. If people die because there’s no ambulance, it will be your fault.”
The Rosebud Cafe Pimp--that is, Logan’s boss, has just noticed the crazy girl scaring the customers, and the other busperson on staff steps in front of Mal so that he can’t see Mal “mangling his french bread.” Well, yeah, you can’t let them damage the merchandise like that. At least not without paying extra. Anyway, the busperson, a Ms. Geraldine Breslin, asks WTF, and she agrees to cover the shift “before all we have left to serve to the customers are bread crumbs.”
Yes, Ms. Breslin, you are too cool for this scene.
Logan finally drags Mallory out of the Bud, still clinging to that “pathetic loaf of bread,” and she declares her gratitude. “You’re a wonderful guy. No wonder Mary Anne loves you. I love you. We all love you.” LOL, I’m flashing back to one of the first BSC crackfics I ever read, where Logan had knocked up everyone of the sitters.
Logan actually closes the letter very sweetly, if unconvincingly for a thirteen-year-old boy: “At the moment I wasn’t feeling very loving toward Mal. But I love you, Mary Anne, even if you have some goofy friends. I can’t wait until you come home. Love, Logan.”
Next chapter we’re back in Reese, for “ghostly” encounters, jailbait hijinx, and ambiguously gay teenagers. Stay tuned!