Super Special #2: Baby-Sitters' Summer Vacation (1/2)
I have several books on the back burner, but I thought, I cannot celebrate the start of summer without the worst of the BSC summer books. It's not that the moral is horrific, like so many others; it's just so badly written right across the board. But first, this cover is a masterpiece:
I love how Stacey (Dawn and Stacey are, as always, indistinguishable, but Stacey has so many accidents in this book I'm assuming it's her) looks like K. Ron just stomped her foot and now she's howling in agony. I'm not clear why only Dawn is wearing a camper uniform like Mal and Jessi instead of a CIT uniform. Claudia, having spent the night with her summer LUV, appears to have done the walk of shame while still wearing his shorts.
I also feel pretty goddamned old, by the way, that this "Win a Visit from the Author" contest form has been filled out by my childhood neighbor across the street, the one who used to baby-sit us (not "Courtney", the one I liked better). This is a twice-secondhand book, because she passed her BSC collection down to my older sister when she outgrew them, who passed her collection down to me in trade for my minifridge because she drives a damn hard bargain. This book is old enough to drink and my neighbor is probably forty.
"Dear Stacey,
This is your last chance. Come to Camp Mohawk or everyone at school finds out you stuff.
Love,
Kristy, Claudia, MaryAnne (sic…twice in this letter; is Kristy a moron?), Logan, Dawn, Jessi, and Mallory"
No, seriously, it actually says "This is your last chance." I know I'd respond to that by hastily flinging it in the garbage. Especially when they tell her that the camp needs more CITs, because I guess if you're a certain age, you're only allowed to come if you work? What if you're a preteen who just wants to have some fun at summer camp without being in charge of a bunch of screaming little snots 24 hours a day? I’m sure their parents are also glad that they have to pay for their kids to have the privilege of baby-sitting for two straight weeks.
The next page is a postcard from Stacey to her parents, cleverly showing that she gave in and went to camp after all - ha ha! Oh, that city girl in the woods! "I really thought I'd miss skyscrapers and cars and especially department stores. But I don't - yet." I can't think of any pastime less appealing to me personally than camping, but fucking really? Skyscrapers? If you get depressed because you have to go two whole weeks without viewing your favorite style of architecture, seek professional help, because you are a self-absorbed jackwagon.
Stacey's chapter begins, of course, with a lot of shit about how she loves concrete and the stench of New York City public transit, so how the hell did she end up surrounded by all this yucky nature and shit. I would really like to snatch her wig right now. Like I said, I wouldn’t want to go to camp either, but I just, you know, don't enjoy camp activities. But I'm not anti-nature. Sometimes I even sit under one of my twelve piece of shit trees and read. I expect Stacey would just sneer about how much more sophisticated the trees are in Manhattan and then go tongue a parking meter.
Anyway, Stacey did refuse to come at first, but then K. Ron threw a molotov cocktail through her window and threatened to assassinate her parents, so she finally agreed. But there's a catch: She and all her friends have to write a book about their experiences at camp! Um, okay. That's a perfectly normal thing for a thirteen-year-old to request. On planet Mimbeebplom, where Ann lives.
In the "first chapter," which is also the first chapter of the actual book - ugh, why do they do this in every Super Special? Is Ann under the impression we'll be reading and suddenly go "Waaaait a minute...HOW ARE THEY TELLING US THIS STORY, HUH" - Stacey's about to be picked up by the camp bus along with all the other Manhattan kids going to Camp Mohawk, who seem normal and not like snottish assholes. Take a letter, Stacey.
Stacey's mom is all "Oh god, what'll I do without you for two whole weeks" and her dad cracks that she'll probably buy out Bloomingdale's to ease the pain, which is something of a funny aneurysm moment considering her out-of-control shopping was cited as a big reason for their divorce just a few books later.
Stacey acts basically like a typical annoying teenager, rating "Remember to take your vitamins!" as a nine out of ten on the scale of most humiliating things ever, then getting all embarrassed that no one sits next to her on the bus, then refusing to read a book because "she'd look like a total dork." Yeah, reading a book by yourself and taking vitamins. How terrible. God, I hope someday she gets the stomach flu and sharts herself. At her own wedding.
Anyway, this perfectly illustrates my problem with the bad characterization in these books. This is realistic behavior for a teenager (meaning I could tolerate it in a different book), but the basic premise of this entire series is that this group of teens is unrealistically adult and responsible, so their thoughts and actions are completely contradictory depending on the situation. Like, if Charlotte were on the bus, and she pulled out a book to read, would Stacey call her a total dork? No, she'd be all "OMG Charlotte is so *~smart and sensitive~* because she reads!" Jesus, this is writing basics, Martin.
With nothing to do that might tarnish her perfect reputation with these people she doesn't know, Stacey just stares out the window for hours, because that doesn't look way more unsettling. She does recall for our benefit that her parents didn't want her to go to camp because of the diabeetus, to which her defense was "I've been away for two weeks before." Uh, when? Not that I think camp is a bad idea, because come on, six year olds go to camp, but when the hell has she been away for two whole weeks at this point in the series? I'm...actually pretty sure I've never been away from home for two whole weeks at a stretch. Not counting college, I mean. Anyway, they gave in, of course, and now she's having a screaming reunion with the BSC at camp, and the other NYC campers are like:
Chapter 2: Kristy! "Well, the tables have turned, the shoe is on the other foot, and all that stuff." What stunning prose. She thinks Stacey can "make" them write a book because she's "made everyone write in the club notebook for ages now." I really really wish Ann would stop promoting the crap notion that teen girls can or should "make" their friends do anything they don't want to do.
Kristy says they're all at Camp Mohawk because of Dawn's obsession with The Parent Trap. I'm obsessed with The Parent Trap too - I have the old Hayley Mills original, and the new Lindsey Lohan (pre-meth) remake, and the weird mid-eighties Parent Trap II with the dude from Alien, and the even weirder late eighties Parent Trap III with Tori from Saved by the Bell, in which I thought she was playing triplets all by herself ala Hayley Mills and then my mind was blown years later when I found out she actually is a triplet - but none of those have ever made me want to go to camp. If anything, they make camping look like a damn nightmare. Did they miss the part where you have to go live in the shitty isolation cabin because another camper (who happens to be your long-lost twin) is a total bitch and plays mean pranks on you?
Anyway, they are all like "HEY, wouldn't camp be WAY COOL" and oooof couuuurse half the kids in Stoneybrook find out about it and want to go, and that's how, in addition to the BSC, the campers include all the Pike kids (except Claire, who's too young), Karen and David Michael, Nancy Dawes, Charlotte, Becca, Buddy, Hayley and Matt, and Jackie and Shea.
Once again, this plot is a fundamental failure of writing on two levels: First, camp is expensive as HELL, especially considering they have to wear uniforms (for two weeks? What is that about, anyway, they really have to buy two weeks' worth of clothes that they will subsequently never wear again, because it all has teepees on it? I could see for the whole summer, but not two weeks). So the Pikes, who couldn't afford to let just Mallory go on a school trip to Hawaii, can afford send SEVEN kids to camp? Ooookay. Second, again with the characterization: K. Ron, dictator from hell, is suddenly a normal kid who wants to go to camp with her friends...even though it means completely leaving all their clients in the lurch for two weeks? And she doesn't even MENTION how much business this will probably lose them? WHATEVER, ANN.
Anyway, the Stoneybrook kids are getting picked up by their bus, which I'm sure is way less glamorous than the New York bus, but the kids are equally excited about all the camp shit they're going to do. Dawn is especially excited to go boating because "there's a famous boating scene in The Parent Trap," which is a strange detail because there is NOT a famous boating scene in The Parent Trap. There is a scene in which a twin ends up kicking over the other twin's canoe, which is brief, not particularly important to the plot, not particularly famous compared to some other scenes in the movie, and not even particularly boat-intensive. I just don't know what Ann's talking about most of the time, and I expect her editor didn't either.
The drive is annoying and boring, of course - Margo pukes, Jackie loses shit out the window, David Michael sings A Million Bottles of Beer on the Wall. And then the irritating thing where the stories overlap, so instead of assuming the reader has a memory span longer than a mosquito's, they helpfully repeat the same thing that happened in the last chapter (OMG STACEY! ALSO CHARLOTTE IS ALREADY AN EMOTIONAL WRECK! THAT CHILD NEEDS SOME DAMN LITHIUM!)
Chapter 3: Claudia! Everyone gathers for their cabin assignments but it's pandemonium and taking forever to organize, so Claud and Stacey catch up in the meantime. She pronounces Stacey's hair "fabulous" because Stacey got a body wave. Actually, her mom MADE her get a body wave because her perm looked so shitty. That's true motherly love. Stacey admits, "It grew out and looked kind of funny - kind of lank. And orange-ish instead of blonde." It didn't look that way because it grew out; it looked that way because you got a perm in the first place.
Like I've said before, I know what the hell I'm talking about.
Claudia also tells Stacey about Mimi's depressing slide into dementia, and is a complete idiot about it: "Like, she'll wander into my room and ask me what dress Patsy stole for the dance...Who's Patsy? What dance? And why steal a dress instead of buy one or borrow one? I don't get it." There's nothing to get, Claud. That's the POINT. I find it sad and pathetic that she has to watch her grandmother go through this up close and her parents haven't even bothered to explain to her what's happening.
They get interrupted by their cabin assignments then, and Claudia gets assigned to 9A, which includes one counselor, one other counselor-in-training, and five nine-year-olds. It is attached to 9B, which also includes, of course, another one counselor, two CITs, and five nine-year-olds. According to the sketch of the camp that will appear later in the book, the entire girls' side of camp consists of only six cabins (6A/B, 7A/B, etc., on up to 11A/B). So the "pandemonium" getting their cabin assignments is for, what, all of sixty campers and twelve CITs? This camp is in upstate New York and seems to be attracting kids from all over New England (they have pick-ups in Manhattan and Stoneybrook, but that can't be all), but fully half of their CITs and a tenth of their campers are from one little town in Connecticut? How the hell does this camp run?
9A finally gets their shit together and gets to their cabin to unpack and Claudia informs us for the hundredth time that it's like The Parent Trap or Meatballs. ANN. WE GET IT. She shares a bunk with Meghan, her other CIT, and hasn't stopped being an enormous ho-bag since the last time she used a bunk bed, because she stomps Meghan's hand getting down. Oh my god, it is NOT THAT HARD TO GET OFF A TOP BUNK, MARTIN. Luckily, Meghan's good-natured and Claudia is dumb and easy to distract, because she basically pisses herself with glee when she finds out you can buy junk food at the canteen and there'll be a dance with the boy CITs.
Chapter 4: Jessi! I don't know who the hell she's writing to. Some people named "Mr. and Mrs. Alex Ramsey" who she addresses as "Mama and Daddy." So who, exactly, is her brother John Philip Ramsey JUNIOR named after? AAAAAAAAANNNNNN. Lay off the crack and fire your editor.
Mal and Jessi, of course, are "junior CITs," which is not a real thing, because imagine the kind of garment-rending drama if Mallory had to be a plain old diaper-wearing CAMPER while Kristy was a sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll-CIT. We'd NEVER hear the end of it. They wrote to the camp asking to be CITs, letting them know they take care of kids, "sometimes even babies (but not too often)" and they "would very, very, very, very, very much like to be a CIT." I enjoy how immature this sounds, like they couldn't have phrased their request for extra responsibilities any more professionally. And they don't care how often you take care of babies; there are no babies at camp. Other than you two.
Mrs. Means, the camp director, is like, "HAHAHA no" but shuts them up by giving them a meaningless title and saying they can help out with the younger kids on some project, which seems especially funny because this camp already has three grown-ups to every five kids, so they're not really hurting for supervision.
Anyway, Mallory and Jessi are assigned to the same cabin, along with a bunch of other Ma- girls (Mandy, Maureen, and two Marys). "WAHH!" Jessi says. What the hell, Jess. Use your words. "Every camper except me has a name beginning with MA-...I sure stick out." Not to point out the obvious, but much like your lack of pierced ears, your name is not exactly the reason you stick out in a group of white girls.
Although probably she sticks out because her clingy best friend is so pathetic. The other girls are total bitches to them because they're all like "LET'S BUNK TOGETHER AND PUT ALL OUR STUFF ON THE SAME SHELVES AND EVERYTHING TEE HEE" and then Mal makes her wear these matching armbands that say "Junior CITs" because she wants to make sure everyone knows they aren't just some campers, god forbid. Oh god, I'm getting such secondhand embarrassment.
One of the Marys calls them the Bobbsey Twins and Mandi replies "They don't look like any kind of twins, if you know what I mean," which I kind of don't get. It's like, you can tell she meant it in a racist way and so it has a definite veneer of nasty bigot to it, but it wasn't exactly a racist statement. Mal and Jessi don't look like twins. They do not look alike. So what? Not only that, Ann uses those exact words to describe them in half the books (blah blah, they're so alike even though they look so different; they get along even though Mal is white and Jessi is black-"even though," by the way? Because black people and white people shouldn't normally get along?-etc. etc.). I wouldn't really nitpick this, but as long as I'm getting up Ann's ass about everything in this book, it pretty much reads like Ann wanted Jessi to face some racism but didn't want anyone to say anything that was actually racist.
Mal, of course, didn't understand the shade, because she merely sniffs that they can't look like the Bobbsey Twins because the Bobbsey Twins are a boy and a girl. Oh, Mal. The other girls are like "OMG LOL YOU STILL READ THE BOBBSEY TWINS YOU'RE SO LAME" and Jessi defends her by saying they both do, even though they've really "outgrown" them and moved on to older books. This, again, makes no sense, because why didn't they just say that? "No, geniuses, I don't still read them, I'm just capable of remembering a basic detail about a book series I read years ago."
Interestingly, I never read the Bobbsey Twins, and I did not know they were a boy and a girl until I read this very book, and was suddenly horrified that my best friend's aunt referred to us as the Bobbsey Twins every time she saw us.
Although in fairness, she did have Bert's haircut.
And I've only just realized that since my best friend is named Jessie...that would make me Mallory.
Although in fairness, I did have Mallory's haircut.
Chapter 5! Mary Anne, like Charlotte, takes only about three seconds to realize she really isn't the camping type. She thinks it looked like more fun in the movies: "laying around on cushy beds, daydreaming about movie stars or cute boys, making neat things in arts and crafts, making new friends to tell secrets to." Why would you spend a fortune to go to camp to lie in bed and daydream? Like, why would you even think that's the purpose of camp? That's about the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Besides, they're CITs, so they're basically going to be baby-sitting every waking second; when was this lying around even supposed to happen?
The other CITs in her cabin are the way fashionable and sporty Randi, Faye, and Julie, which for some reason Mary Anne feels the need to remind us are old movie star names: "Faye Dunaway, Julie Harris..." Um, sure. Julie Harris. That's certainly who every teenager in the eighties was name-dropping. Randi has to ask Mary Anne's name a second time, because she's so boring even her name just sort of shrugs off in midair. Though really, it's a miracle Ann let Mary Anne say her name two whole times without adding, "and the Skipper, too."
Faye, a camp veteran, snottily asks if this is her first time at camp: "What'd you do? See Meatballs or something and think camp would be the coolest, funnest place in the world?" Oooh, sick burn. Except it only makes sense if camp really sucks, so then why do you keep coming back every summer? Yeah. Logic.
Mary Anne thinks fast, unable to bear being uncool, and decides to go with the bimbo defense: her boyfriend came to camp and she couldn't bear to be away from him for two whole weeks. They're on opposite sides of the lake and aren't even allowed to see each other, so this is way more pathetic than if she'd just admitted to being a loser. It's so sad, actually, that you can tell the girls really don't believe her. Mary Anne doesn't help her case any by being like "My boyfriend that I totally have is so hot and you should hear his real and not at all fake accent."
One of the campers interrupts them to accuse Margo of stealing her hairbrush and is all "Faaaaaaayyyyeeeeeeeeee that ho took my stuff." Mary Anne tries to straighten it out, but Faye's like, "That's my sister and if she says that little bitch took her hairbrush, she did" and Mary Anne is like "Oh, that's how this shit is, huh" and pulls a totally identical hairbrush out of the brat's bag: "This yours?" The other CITs respond to this like "Whatever, she totally doesn't have a boyfriend," which is dumb, because Margo could tell them she does, and so could everyone else from Stoneybrook. I like how Mary Anne just glumly thinks she has no evidence of Logan's existence.
Chapter 6: Dawn! Dawn's been assigned to the other half of the 11-year-old cabin (how fortunate - can you even IMAGINE if one of them got assigned to be in charge of Jessi and Mallory?) She runs down descriptions of everyone in her cabin in bullet-point form, and much as I like to exaggerate Dawn's worst traits, I don't even remember her ever being as disgustingly shallow as she is here. She feels the need to tell us exactly who in the cabin is pretty (her counselor - "but not in a model-ish way") and who isn't (her co-CIT, Amy - "her eyes are kind of close together and her nose is pointy"). Nice, Dawn. Thanks for preserving in Stacey's camp memory book what a judgmental bitch you are.
The other girls in the cabin are variously goofy and outgoing and loud, especially Freddie from New York City, who is - what else - "more sophisticated than the other girls...she looks older and knows about stuff the other girls have never even heard of, such as fur storage and dining al fresco." Is Ann even aware of the millions of people in New York who are normal?
The only one who doesn't fit in is mousy Heather, who is pudgy and quiet (but "very pretty"...thanks, Dawn, she sure needs your validation) and just wants to sit around and read. I swear it, Heathers in books are always like this. You get the occasional bitch Heather in movies, but we're almost always maladjusted. I think I'm just bitter enough at Ann at this point to blame her for pretty much anything, including the pejorative of my name.
Anyway, Dawn muses that she's a bit glad she and Mary Anne aren't together because it's more broadening this way: "'Broadening' is a word Mom has been using a lot lately. She's forever talking about the need to broaden experiences, especially her own." You just know that she's only trying to not-so-subtly hint at Richard that there's only so much time to sign up for that swingers convention Seth and Lisa told her about.
Heather, of course, doesn't give a shit about broadening and just wants to read, so much so that when the other girls start shrieking about a spider and throw a shoe at it, she doesn't notice when the shoe misses and "landed" on her head. "Landed"? Did Ann fail physics? Hit her in the head, maybe, but try to picture a thrown shoe coming in for a landing on top of someone's head and explain to me how that's physically possible. EDITOR. WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU. While everyone else goes out to explore, Heather stays in, to Dawn's dismay: "I thought a lot about Heather that afternoon." Probably wondering how the hell her head has its own gravitational pull.
Chapter 7: Stacey! Ugh, poor thing, she has Karen's cabin. Her kids are both shrill and disgusting, because every one of them is either screeching or dripping out some orifice. (Guess which one Karen is.) Even more annoying than Karen, amazingly, is Nonie, who "talksh like thish," aka in exactly the same dialect as Margo with a mouthful of banana. It's so grating to my brain I almost can't read it. They refer to her as a "lisper," but for years I couldn't figure out what the hell kind of a lisp that was supposed to be. The moment I first heard Neil Goldman on Family Guy, I went, "OHHHHH. THAT'S what that's supposed to sound like." Nonie's also a practical joker, so I pretty much like nothing about this gross little child. Like, this is the kind of thing that makes me worry that I'll have a kid, and it'll turn out to spit on everything when it talks and play mean jokes on people and I won't like it very much.
They all manage to survive the pinkeye and sore throats until dinner, and despite Mrs. Means's assurance that Stacey's food needs would be taken care of, they aren't, so she has to go back to the kitchen and be like "I can't eat this" and the cook is a dick about it and doesn't know what diabetes is, because he's stupid, and Mrs. Means has to step in and get it straight. I hate this, because it's the sort of thing that will happen at some point to everyone who has a different need in any way - there's always some dumb asshole who doesn't understand what the problem is, because if it's not a problem to him, it must not be a problem to you. "Sir, you have to WALK through the metal detector...What? What's a paraplegic? No, our policy is you must WALK through, what's the issue?"
Yes, even when Ann writes something realistic I hate it; sue me.
After dinner comes a group sing around the campfire, but first Mrs. Means gives a speech about Lyme Disease and not eating mushrooms and not sitting in poison ivy, during which Stacey starts getting cold, so she warms herself by curling up in a big patch of poison ivy. I literally clapped my hands with glee at the dramatic irony that Miss Big City Sophisticate could have saved her own ass if she could identify one basic plant.
Chapter 8: Mallory! She rolls over in bed at 6:45 am, fifteen minutes before the campers have to get up, and is like "GOOD MORNING, JESSI!" and Jessi's like "GOOD MORNING, MALLORY!" and the other girls are like "SHUT THE HELL UP." "Sheesh," Mallory thinks. "Jessi and I can't do anything right." It's 6:45 in the morning. The right thing to do would be to SHUT THE HELL UP. Seriously, wake me up in that annoying period of time when I don't have to get up yet but there's not enough time to get back to sleep, and I will break your face.
I guess these girls hold a grudge about that but good, because they continue to be nasty and pretty racist for no particular reason when Mal and Jessi commit the heinous crime of, you know, getting dressed and brushing their teeth. It's really cringeworthy writing, because Jessi and Mal need to face some bigotry, so every other girl assigned to their cabin just happens to be overtly racist while everyone else in the whole camp is perfectly nice. Sure, that's how it always works.
Mal assures us that this unprompted hate crime wasn't going to put a damper on her day (thank god white girls calling you an Oreo didn't bother YOU, Mal), because their special job as Junior CITs is going to be putting together a Parents' Day dance for 8-B, Becca and Charlotte's cabin. Of course, none of the kids can dance and trying to teach them is hilarious (to them; not to me - I would rather toilet train my dog than attend this rehearsal). "We were having a great time. But what on earth were we going to do for our program on Parents' Day?" Um...how about the dance you just taught them? Who cares that it sucks? They're eight. Are the parents under the impression this is Juilliard's summer camp?
Chapter 9: Kristy! Her co-CITs are Tansy, Lauren, and Izzie, and are - you guessed it - way sophisticated because they have boyfriends and nail polish and names that mean things like "tenacious" in Middle Latin. Kristy says she couldn't even find her name in a baby book. ANN. COME ON. Her name is Kristin. The only way that makes any sense is if she were looking in the Big Book of Traditional Korean Baby Names.
Kristy says the other CITs "couldn't have been nicer" to her, which is a complete lie, because they say things right to her face like "you would look so pretty if you cut your hair a little and got rid of your bangs" and "blusher would help." Yeah, that's a perfectly nice and not at all stank thing to say to someone. Kristy gets all embarrassed about this, and about being all flat-chested and not having cool shoes and being really short: "Won't I ever grow up?" Of all the janked-up characterizations when Ann tries to write something realistic, I think Kristy suffers the worst. Being self-conscious is, again, a lifelike teenage portrayal, but it doesn't gel at all with this bossy, no-nonsense tomboy despot she's supposed to be. Since when does Kristy care about having cool shoes? Since when does she care about being short? Why would she be concerned about "growing up" when she runs her own successful business? That's more than most people have when they're forty.
Anyway if I'm going to feel REALLY sorry for Kristy, it's not because the other CITs are stealth skanks; it's because she's personally tasked with taking care of Charlotte. I've been thinking about this for some time, but I think I've finally decided I hate Charlotte as a character. I don't want to, because I identify with her so much - like her, I was a shy, anxious bookworm kid, which prepared me for a blossoming transformation into a shy, anxious bookworm adult - but she is so goddamn emotionally unstable, and everything everyone does for her seems so unproductive, that I can't even stand reading about it sometimes. Case in point, at dinner that night Charlotte bursts into tears because she drops her fork. Like, what is wrong with your child that she's eight years old and this is her level of coping skills with life's simplest challenges. Mr. and Mrs. J., you have failed as parents. Get her into some fucking therapy and figure out the root of this problem before she gets to be a teenager and shit gets real.
She becomes "I WANT TO GO HOOOOME" hysterical and has to call her parents when she gets hit in the head by a thrown biscuit, and they assure her she can, but she won't go because of Becca. So she stays, but she sleeps IN Kristy's sleeping bag with her. Oh HALE no. She's not a toddler. In addition to sleeping in her own damned bed, Char's afraid of horses, boats, and swimming, so the next day Kristy teaches her some archery (she says no one else is doing it and there isn't even an instructor cause it's so lame, which is pretty funny because archery is having a HUGE boom right now). But Charlotte's even afraid of that, because she thinks she shot some kid, so Kristy gives up and they go back to the cabin and read. "But what I was wondering was whether Charlotte should be at Camp Mohawk at all." Um, no. No, she shouldn't. I feel like either she should just go home because it's not worth traumatizing her, or she should face her fears and actually participate in things. What's the point in sending her to camp so she can refuse to do anything there? How is that fair to her parents, who have paid for it, or to the CIT who has to stay with her and do nothing all day? What does this teach her? Ugh.
Chapter 10: Claudia! Oh my god, you guys. Oh my GOD. Actual quote from the chapter opening postcard to her parents: "Hi how are you? Me just fin." ME JUST FIN.
No, I don't think Claudia has a bag of flaming poo for a brain. I think ANN does, for thinking that this is something that anyone, no matter how dumb, would write past the age of three when English is their first and only language. Claudia can't SPELL; she didn't have a STROKE. "Me just fin." My GOD.
That morning, after the shitty dining hall breakfast, Claudia and her campers run to the canteen to buy a bunch of junk food - specifically, "a Snickers bar, an Almond Joy, a Mars Bar, a bag of Doritos, two packages of peanut M&Ms, a pack of Twinkies, and some Cheese Doodles." The others gape at her and ask how come she's so thin and gorgeous and has such good skin and Claudia's like, "Because Ann would never write about a totally cool artist chick who happened to be a little chubby or have acne." Seriously, I know they like to harp on Claudia's perfect metabolism, but why the fuck would some girls she doesn't know even mention it. They wouldn't care. Shut up about it, Ann.
After breakfast they go horseback riding and then have to brush the horses, muck out the stalls, and get them ready for the next riders. So, remember how I'd never been riding except on Dysentare the Mare that one time? Since I wrote that I did, actually, go riding - and by the way, it was horrific. If you're from a state where the highest altitude you routinely scale is the second floor of the mall, do NOT go on vacation where you go riding for the first time on the side of a fucking MOUNTAIN and then get this bastard of a horse that keeps leaning to eat grass growing over the edge of said fucking mountain and then bites another horse and breaks into a run, because when you get back from the ride and you're crying and your husband wants to know why and you make up a story about how you had a fire-breathing horse and had to jump through flaming hoops, he might laugh. I mean, that's hard on a relationship.
So maybe it was just our experience, but it was pretty much all we could do to mount our horses, ride them around without plummeting off any cliffs (I don't think the instructors cared about us very much, but the horses were probably insured), and get off them again. They sure as hell weren't letting us brush them or muck out any stalls or prepare them for other riders or anything like that. If we'd wanted to they probably wouldn't have let us, because we didn't know shit about it, and if they'd wanted us to we probably wouldn't have done it, because it wasn't our damn job. What kind of a camp is this? Do they have to do the dishes after every meal too? Scrub lake crud off the canoes? Jeez, Mrs. Means.
The campers stink pretty bad from shoveling horse shit, obviously, and are in various states of manure-caked nudity when some boy-CITs come a-knocking, and as the only person with a top on, Claudia has to go out and meet them. Although this turns out to be pretty pointless, because she tunes them out to stare at Super Hot Asian Guy with his studly high tops and Bart Simpson hair, so that by the time the dudes leave she's got no idea why they were there at all. Her campers inform her that they were inviting them to the CIT Movie Night and Dance next week, to which Claudia declares she can't wait that long to see Super Hot Asian Guy again. But she doesn't even know his name! Well, this could have been easily solved if you'd been listening for a damn second, and then you could have ASKED his name.
The campers spring into action, declaring that they'll find him - they know one of the guys was named John. "But there must be a thousand Johns over there." Um, there are only around sixty boys over there, if it's the same size as the girls' side of camp. Based current population statistics, there should only be about two Johns in sixty people, and one of those is likely to be one of the younger boys, leaving just the one CIT John. BUT BASIC MATH IS SO HARD, ANN.
The kids are a-buzz with plans while Claudia is merely pensive about her newest summer love, having forgotten all about Timothy the stalker and his soiled Jockeys. It's going to be really awkward when their high school football teams play against each other.
Chapter 11: Mary Anne! Actual letter to her father: "Hi, how are you? I'm fine. Camp's fine. Gotta go." Why did she even bother to write a letter? Given that the man thinks no news is good news when his wife totally disappears overnight, I don't think he'd be concerned about not hearing from his kid for a single day at camp.
Anyway, Mary Anne has no time because she was too busy writing a fake letter to Logan full of phrases like "love bunny" and "I think of you and want to swon swoon" and "This next week will seem like a year" and "If you were to bring me a yellow flower to match my ribbon, I would melt in your arms." She admits this is stupid and she that and Logan don't talk like that-nor does anyone born after 1890, Mary Anne - but she thinks that if the other CITs find her planted note, they'll think she's more "sophisticated." Or...more brain damaged. I seriously don't understand what this is supposed to prove. Like, if she faked a note that Logan wrote to her, and if it was a little racy instead of sounding like...well, like what an eighth-grader thinks "grown-up romantic" sounds like, this would totally work. But instead she sounds like a stage five clinger who writes creepy notes to a guy who possibly does not exist and then leaves them lying around instead of sending them. How in the HELL does this make her seem less crazy?
And in case you're thinking, like I am, that this doesn't even sound like something our meek little Mary Anne would do: "Since when did I care about stuff like that? Since I got to Camp Mohawk and was kind of separated from my friends, that's when." In other words, hand wave. Ann don't need no justification for the fact that none of the characters make any damn sense in this book.
The other CITs do find it, and rather than acting guilty about getting caught, they're like "HDU leave your pornographic filth lying about where innocent campers could read it?! What smut! Love-bunny? Swonning?" (They actually do say "swonning," which makes no sense, because it doesn't say "swonning" anywhere in the letter. She crossed out the misspelled "swon" and corrected it to "swoon." I swear to all that is holy I will find out who was in charge of editing this book at Scholastic and beat them with my shoe.)
They're like, "So, uh, how you gonna get this letter over to Logan, hmmm? Gonna sneak over to that boys' side?" Um, couldn't she mail it? She just sent a postcard home; why couldn't she just post it over there? I mean, theoretically, if she wanted to send it. But Cabin 7 has never heard of the United States Postal Service or something, because Tara (Faye's shithead little sister) insists that the only way is to sneak through the woods at night, which of course terrifies Mary Anne, because she's kind of dumb. I mean, I'd be scared of getting caught, personally, but she only gets scared because the others are like, "Oh, yeah, you can sneak over there, easy. It's just too bad about those insane murderers who just escaped from the asylum next door" and she totally believes them. Christ, Mary Anne. I have a clock radio that is more intelligent than you are.
She can't back out, though, because that would be way unsophisticated, so that night she does the old "cram a cantaloupe in the sleeping bag to get around bed check" trick and heads out. God, Ann; Mary Anne would NEVER DO THIS. About halfway around the lake she hears this totally brain-busting exchange: "There she is." "That's not her." She starts screaming about how she can't be murdered because she has a kitten at home and also a gun (presumably on her person, and not also at home, or else this is a really ineffective threat) but of course it's just a search team out looking for her. So why the hell were they were arguing about whether it was actually her? "That's too tall to be her. Must be some other camper sneaking around the lake. We'll let that one go." If I ever teach a writing class, this will be the perfect example of Making a Character Do Something That Makes No Sense Just to Move the Plot Where You Want It to Go (Mary Anne believes there are murderers in the woods, therefore she needs to hear some people whispering about her so she can get all Screamy McPisspants, even though a search party has no reason to be whispering about her). Actually, I’m pretty sure I could teach a whole class using nothing but passages from the BSC as examples of writing that will make me throw a chair at you. I…may need to make a couple of phone calls once I finish this.
Anyway, her counselor, Connie, informs her that Little Shit Tara squealed on her the second she left - fucking DUH, Mary Anne - but nobody’s actually that mad at her. The boy counselors promise to get her note to Logan (BAHAHA) and Connie confesses that she tried the same thing once when she was a CIT. But she has to be full of shit, because back at the cabin everyone’s in complete awe of Mary Anne’s ovarian fortitude: “Only two other girl CITs have ever tried to sneak around the lake in the whole history of Camp Mohawk.” And one of them just happens to be Mary Anne’s own counselor? Sure. She just wanted to look cool in front of her little CIT, who totally just showed her up.
Continue to Part 2!
I love how Stacey (Dawn and Stacey are, as always, indistinguishable, but Stacey has so many accidents in this book I'm assuming it's her) looks like K. Ron just stomped her foot and now she's howling in agony. I'm not clear why only Dawn is wearing a camper uniform like Mal and Jessi instead of a CIT uniform. Claudia, having spent the night with her summer LUV, appears to have done the walk of shame while still wearing his shorts.
I also feel pretty goddamned old, by the way, that this "Win a Visit from the Author" contest form has been filled out by my childhood neighbor across the street, the one who used to baby-sit us (not "Courtney", the one I liked better). This is a twice-secondhand book, because she passed her BSC collection down to my older sister when she outgrew them, who passed her collection down to me in trade for my minifridge because she drives a damn hard bargain. This book is old enough to drink and my neighbor is probably forty.
"Dear Stacey,
This is your last chance. Come to Camp Mohawk or everyone at school finds out you stuff.
Love,
Kristy, Claudia, MaryAnne (sic…twice in this letter; is Kristy a moron?), Logan, Dawn, Jessi, and Mallory"
No, seriously, it actually says "This is your last chance." I know I'd respond to that by hastily flinging it in the garbage. Especially when they tell her that the camp needs more CITs, because I guess if you're a certain age, you're only allowed to come if you work? What if you're a preteen who just wants to have some fun at summer camp without being in charge of a bunch of screaming little snots 24 hours a day? I’m sure their parents are also glad that they have to pay for their kids to have the privilege of baby-sitting for two straight weeks.
The next page is a postcard from Stacey to her parents, cleverly showing that she gave in and went to camp after all - ha ha! Oh, that city girl in the woods! "I really thought I'd miss skyscrapers and cars and especially department stores. But I don't - yet." I can't think of any pastime less appealing to me personally than camping, but fucking really? Skyscrapers? If you get depressed because you have to go two whole weeks without viewing your favorite style of architecture, seek professional help, because you are a self-absorbed jackwagon.
Stacey's chapter begins, of course, with a lot of shit about how she loves concrete and the stench of New York City public transit, so how the hell did she end up surrounded by all this yucky nature and shit. I would really like to snatch her wig right now. Like I said, I wouldn’t want to go to camp either, but I just, you know, don't enjoy camp activities. But I'm not anti-nature. Sometimes I even sit under one of my twelve piece of shit trees and read. I expect Stacey would just sneer about how much more sophisticated the trees are in Manhattan and then go tongue a parking meter.
Anyway, Stacey did refuse to come at first, but then K. Ron threw a molotov cocktail through her window and threatened to assassinate her parents, so she finally agreed. But there's a catch: She and all her friends have to write a book about their experiences at camp! Um, okay. That's a perfectly normal thing for a thirteen-year-old to request. On planet Mimbeebplom, where Ann lives.
In the "first chapter," which is also the first chapter of the actual book - ugh, why do they do this in every Super Special? Is Ann under the impression we'll be reading and suddenly go "Waaaait a minute...HOW ARE THEY TELLING US THIS STORY, HUH" - Stacey's about to be picked up by the camp bus along with all the other Manhattan kids going to Camp Mohawk, who seem normal and not like snottish assholes. Take a letter, Stacey.
Stacey's mom is all "Oh god, what'll I do without you for two whole weeks" and her dad cracks that she'll probably buy out Bloomingdale's to ease the pain, which is something of a funny aneurysm moment considering her out-of-control shopping was cited as a big reason for their divorce just a few books later.
Stacey acts basically like a typical annoying teenager, rating "Remember to take your vitamins!" as a nine out of ten on the scale of most humiliating things ever, then getting all embarrassed that no one sits next to her on the bus, then refusing to read a book because "she'd look like a total dork." Yeah, reading a book by yourself and taking vitamins. How terrible. God, I hope someday she gets the stomach flu and sharts herself. At her own wedding.
Anyway, this perfectly illustrates my problem with the bad characterization in these books. This is realistic behavior for a teenager (meaning I could tolerate it in a different book), but the basic premise of this entire series is that this group of teens is unrealistically adult and responsible, so their thoughts and actions are completely contradictory depending on the situation. Like, if Charlotte were on the bus, and she pulled out a book to read, would Stacey call her a total dork? No, she'd be all "OMG Charlotte is so *~smart and sensitive~* because she reads!" Jesus, this is writing basics, Martin.
With nothing to do that might tarnish her perfect reputation with these people she doesn't know, Stacey just stares out the window for hours, because that doesn't look way more unsettling. She does recall for our benefit that her parents didn't want her to go to camp because of the diabeetus, to which her defense was "I've been away for two weeks before." Uh, when? Not that I think camp is a bad idea, because come on, six year olds go to camp, but when the hell has she been away for two whole weeks at this point in the series? I'm...actually pretty sure I've never been away from home for two whole weeks at a stretch. Not counting college, I mean. Anyway, they gave in, of course, and now she's having a screaming reunion with the BSC at camp, and the other NYC campers are like:
Chapter 2: Kristy! "Well, the tables have turned, the shoe is on the other foot, and all that stuff." What stunning prose. She thinks Stacey can "make" them write a book because she's "made everyone write in the club notebook for ages now." I really really wish Ann would stop promoting the crap notion that teen girls can or should "make" their friends do anything they don't want to do.
Kristy says they're all at Camp Mohawk because of Dawn's obsession with The Parent Trap. I'm obsessed with The Parent Trap too - I have the old Hayley Mills original, and the new Lindsey Lohan (pre-meth) remake, and the weird mid-eighties Parent Trap II with the dude from Alien, and the even weirder late eighties Parent Trap III with Tori from Saved by the Bell, in which I thought she was playing triplets all by herself ala Hayley Mills and then my mind was blown years later when I found out she actually is a triplet - but none of those have ever made me want to go to camp. If anything, they make camping look like a damn nightmare. Did they miss the part where you have to go live in the shitty isolation cabin because another camper (who happens to be your long-lost twin) is a total bitch and plays mean pranks on you?
Anyway, they are all like "HEY, wouldn't camp be WAY COOL" and oooof couuuurse half the kids in Stoneybrook find out about it and want to go, and that's how, in addition to the BSC, the campers include all the Pike kids (except Claire, who's too young), Karen and David Michael, Nancy Dawes, Charlotte, Becca, Buddy, Hayley and Matt, and Jackie and Shea.
Once again, this plot is a fundamental failure of writing on two levels: First, camp is expensive as HELL, especially considering they have to wear uniforms (for two weeks? What is that about, anyway, they really have to buy two weeks' worth of clothes that they will subsequently never wear again, because it all has teepees on it? I could see for the whole summer, but not two weeks). So the Pikes, who couldn't afford to let just Mallory go on a school trip to Hawaii, can afford send SEVEN kids to camp? Ooookay. Second, again with the characterization: K. Ron, dictator from hell, is suddenly a normal kid who wants to go to camp with her friends...even though it means completely leaving all their clients in the lurch for two weeks? And she doesn't even MENTION how much business this will probably lose them? WHATEVER, ANN.
Anyway, the Stoneybrook kids are getting picked up by their bus, which I'm sure is way less glamorous than the New York bus, but the kids are equally excited about all the camp shit they're going to do. Dawn is especially excited to go boating because "there's a famous boating scene in The Parent Trap," which is a strange detail because there is NOT a famous boating scene in The Parent Trap. There is a scene in which a twin ends up kicking over the other twin's canoe, which is brief, not particularly important to the plot, not particularly famous compared to some other scenes in the movie, and not even particularly boat-intensive. I just don't know what Ann's talking about most of the time, and I expect her editor didn't either.
The drive is annoying and boring, of course - Margo pukes, Jackie loses shit out the window, David Michael sings A Million Bottles of Beer on the Wall. And then the irritating thing where the stories overlap, so instead of assuming the reader has a memory span longer than a mosquito's, they helpfully repeat the same thing that happened in the last chapter (OMG STACEY! ALSO CHARLOTTE IS ALREADY AN EMOTIONAL WRECK! THAT CHILD NEEDS SOME DAMN LITHIUM!)
Chapter 3: Claudia! Everyone gathers for their cabin assignments but it's pandemonium and taking forever to organize, so Claud and Stacey catch up in the meantime. She pronounces Stacey's hair "fabulous" because Stacey got a body wave. Actually, her mom MADE her get a body wave because her perm looked so shitty. That's true motherly love. Stacey admits, "It grew out and looked kind of funny - kind of lank. And orange-ish instead of blonde." It didn't look that way because it grew out; it looked that way because you got a perm in the first place.
Like I've said before, I know what the hell I'm talking about.
Claudia also tells Stacey about Mimi's depressing slide into dementia, and is a complete idiot about it: "Like, she'll wander into my room and ask me what dress Patsy stole for the dance...Who's Patsy? What dance? And why steal a dress instead of buy one or borrow one? I don't get it." There's nothing to get, Claud. That's the POINT. I find it sad and pathetic that she has to watch her grandmother go through this up close and her parents haven't even bothered to explain to her what's happening.
They get interrupted by their cabin assignments then, and Claudia gets assigned to 9A, which includes one counselor, one other counselor-in-training, and five nine-year-olds. It is attached to 9B, which also includes, of course, another one counselor, two CITs, and five nine-year-olds. According to the sketch of the camp that will appear later in the book, the entire girls' side of camp consists of only six cabins (6A/B, 7A/B, etc., on up to 11A/B). So the "pandemonium" getting their cabin assignments is for, what, all of sixty campers and twelve CITs? This camp is in upstate New York and seems to be attracting kids from all over New England (they have pick-ups in Manhattan and Stoneybrook, but that can't be all), but fully half of their CITs and a tenth of their campers are from one little town in Connecticut? How the hell does this camp run?
9A finally gets their shit together and gets to their cabin to unpack and Claudia informs us for the hundredth time that it's like The Parent Trap or Meatballs. ANN. WE GET IT. She shares a bunk with Meghan, her other CIT, and hasn't stopped being an enormous ho-bag since the last time she used a bunk bed, because she stomps Meghan's hand getting down. Oh my god, it is NOT THAT HARD TO GET OFF A TOP BUNK, MARTIN. Luckily, Meghan's good-natured and Claudia is dumb and easy to distract, because she basically pisses herself with glee when she finds out you can buy junk food at the canteen and there'll be a dance with the boy CITs.
Chapter 4: Jessi! I don't know who the hell she's writing to. Some people named "Mr. and Mrs. Alex Ramsey" who she addresses as "Mama and Daddy." So who, exactly, is her brother John Philip Ramsey JUNIOR named after? AAAAAAAAANNNNNN. Lay off the crack and fire your editor.
Mal and Jessi, of course, are "junior CITs," which is not a real thing, because imagine the kind of garment-rending drama if Mallory had to be a plain old diaper-wearing CAMPER while Kristy was a sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll-CIT. We'd NEVER hear the end of it. They wrote to the camp asking to be CITs, letting them know they take care of kids, "sometimes even babies (but not too often)" and they "would very, very, very, very, very much like to be a CIT." I enjoy how immature this sounds, like they couldn't have phrased their request for extra responsibilities any more professionally. And they don't care how often you take care of babies; there are no babies at camp. Other than you two.
Mrs. Means, the camp director, is like, "HAHAHA no" but shuts them up by giving them a meaningless title and saying they can help out with the younger kids on some project, which seems especially funny because this camp already has three grown-ups to every five kids, so they're not really hurting for supervision.
Anyway, Mallory and Jessi are assigned to the same cabin, along with a bunch of other Ma- girls (Mandy, Maureen, and two Marys). "WAHH!" Jessi says. What the hell, Jess. Use your words. "Every camper except me has a name beginning with MA-...I sure stick out." Not to point out the obvious, but much like your lack of pierced ears, your name is not exactly the reason you stick out in a group of white girls.
Although probably she sticks out because her clingy best friend is so pathetic. The other girls are total bitches to them because they're all like "LET'S BUNK TOGETHER AND PUT ALL OUR STUFF ON THE SAME SHELVES AND EVERYTHING TEE HEE" and then Mal makes her wear these matching armbands that say "Junior CITs" because she wants to make sure everyone knows they aren't just some campers, god forbid. Oh god, I'm getting such secondhand embarrassment.
One of the Marys calls them the Bobbsey Twins and Mandi replies "They don't look like any kind of twins, if you know what I mean," which I kind of don't get. It's like, you can tell she meant it in a racist way and so it has a definite veneer of nasty bigot to it, but it wasn't exactly a racist statement. Mal and Jessi don't look like twins. They do not look alike. So what? Not only that, Ann uses those exact words to describe them in half the books (blah blah, they're so alike even though they look so different; they get along even though Mal is white and Jessi is black-"even though," by the way? Because black people and white people shouldn't normally get along?-etc. etc.). I wouldn't really nitpick this, but as long as I'm getting up Ann's ass about everything in this book, it pretty much reads like Ann wanted Jessi to face some racism but didn't want anyone to say anything that was actually racist.
Mal, of course, didn't understand the shade, because she merely sniffs that they can't look like the Bobbsey Twins because the Bobbsey Twins are a boy and a girl. Oh, Mal. The other girls are like "OMG LOL YOU STILL READ THE BOBBSEY TWINS YOU'RE SO LAME" and Jessi defends her by saying they both do, even though they've really "outgrown" them and moved on to older books. This, again, makes no sense, because why didn't they just say that? "No, geniuses, I don't still read them, I'm just capable of remembering a basic detail about a book series I read years ago."
Interestingly, I never read the Bobbsey Twins, and I did not know they were a boy and a girl until I read this very book, and was suddenly horrified that my best friend's aunt referred to us as the Bobbsey Twins every time she saw us.
Although in fairness, she did have Bert's haircut.
And I've only just realized that since my best friend is named Jessie...that would make me Mallory.
Although in fairness, I did have Mallory's haircut.
Chapter 5! Mary Anne, like Charlotte, takes only about three seconds to realize she really isn't the camping type. She thinks it looked like more fun in the movies: "laying around on cushy beds, daydreaming about movie stars or cute boys, making neat things in arts and crafts, making new friends to tell secrets to." Why would you spend a fortune to go to camp to lie in bed and daydream? Like, why would you even think that's the purpose of camp? That's about the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Besides, they're CITs, so they're basically going to be baby-sitting every waking second; when was this lying around even supposed to happen?
The other CITs in her cabin are the way fashionable and sporty Randi, Faye, and Julie, which for some reason Mary Anne feels the need to remind us are old movie star names: "Faye Dunaway, Julie Harris..." Um, sure. Julie Harris. That's certainly who every teenager in the eighties was name-dropping. Randi has to ask Mary Anne's name a second time, because she's so boring even her name just sort of shrugs off in midair. Though really, it's a miracle Ann let Mary Anne say her name two whole times without adding, "and the Skipper, too."
Faye, a camp veteran, snottily asks if this is her first time at camp: "What'd you do? See Meatballs or something and think camp would be the coolest, funnest place in the world?" Oooh, sick burn. Except it only makes sense if camp really sucks, so then why do you keep coming back every summer? Yeah. Logic.
Mary Anne thinks fast, unable to bear being uncool, and decides to go with the bimbo defense: her boyfriend came to camp and she couldn't bear to be away from him for two whole weeks. They're on opposite sides of the lake and aren't even allowed to see each other, so this is way more pathetic than if she'd just admitted to being a loser. It's so sad, actually, that you can tell the girls really don't believe her. Mary Anne doesn't help her case any by being like "My boyfriend that I totally have is so hot and you should hear his real and not at all fake accent."
One of the campers interrupts them to accuse Margo of stealing her hairbrush and is all "Faaaaaaayyyyeeeeeeeeee that ho took my stuff." Mary Anne tries to straighten it out, but Faye's like, "That's my sister and if she says that little bitch took her hairbrush, she did" and Mary Anne is like "Oh, that's how this shit is, huh" and pulls a totally identical hairbrush out of the brat's bag: "This yours?" The other CITs respond to this like "Whatever, she totally doesn't have a boyfriend," which is dumb, because Margo could tell them she does, and so could everyone else from Stoneybrook. I like how Mary Anne just glumly thinks she has no evidence of Logan's existence.
Chapter 6: Dawn! Dawn's been assigned to the other half of the 11-year-old cabin (how fortunate - can you even IMAGINE if one of them got assigned to be in charge of Jessi and Mallory?) She runs down descriptions of everyone in her cabin in bullet-point form, and much as I like to exaggerate Dawn's worst traits, I don't even remember her ever being as disgustingly shallow as she is here. She feels the need to tell us exactly who in the cabin is pretty (her counselor - "but not in a model-ish way") and who isn't (her co-CIT, Amy - "her eyes are kind of close together and her nose is pointy"). Nice, Dawn. Thanks for preserving in Stacey's camp memory book what a judgmental bitch you are.
The other girls in the cabin are variously goofy and outgoing and loud, especially Freddie from New York City, who is - what else - "more sophisticated than the other girls...she looks older and knows about stuff the other girls have never even heard of, such as fur storage and dining al fresco." Is Ann even aware of the millions of people in New York who are normal?
The only one who doesn't fit in is mousy Heather, who is pudgy and quiet (but "very pretty"...thanks, Dawn, she sure needs your validation) and just wants to sit around and read. I swear it, Heathers in books are always like this. You get the occasional bitch Heather in movies, but we're almost always maladjusted. I think I'm just bitter enough at Ann at this point to blame her for pretty much anything, including the pejorative of my name.
Anyway, Dawn muses that she's a bit glad she and Mary Anne aren't together because it's more broadening this way: "'Broadening' is a word Mom has been using a lot lately. She's forever talking about the need to broaden experiences, especially her own." You just know that she's only trying to not-so-subtly hint at Richard that there's only so much time to sign up for that swingers convention Seth and Lisa told her about.
Heather, of course, doesn't give a shit about broadening and just wants to read, so much so that when the other girls start shrieking about a spider and throw a shoe at it, she doesn't notice when the shoe misses and "landed" on her head. "Landed"? Did Ann fail physics? Hit her in the head, maybe, but try to picture a thrown shoe coming in for a landing on top of someone's head and explain to me how that's physically possible. EDITOR. WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU. While everyone else goes out to explore, Heather stays in, to Dawn's dismay: "I thought a lot about Heather that afternoon." Probably wondering how the hell her head has its own gravitational pull.
Chapter 7: Stacey! Ugh, poor thing, she has Karen's cabin. Her kids are both shrill and disgusting, because every one of them is either screeching or dripping out some orifice. (Guess which one Karen is.) Even more annoying than Karen, amazingly, is Nonie, who "talksh like thish," aka in exactly the same dialect as Margo with a mouthful of banana. It's so grating to my brain I almost can't read it. They refer to her as a "lisper," but for years I couldn't figure out what the hell kind of a lisp that was supposed to be. The moment I first heard Neil Goldman on Family Guy, I went, "OHHHHH. THAT'S what that's supposed to sound like." Nonie's also a practical joker, so I pretty much like nothing about this gross little child. Like, this is the kind of thing that makes me worry that I'll have a kid, and it'll turn out to spit on everything when it talks and play mean jokes on people and I won't like it very much.
They all manage to survive the pinkeye and sore throats until dinner, and despite Mrs. Means's assurance that Stacey's food needs would be taken care of, they aren't, so she has to go back to the kitchen and be like "I can't eat this" and the cook is a dick about it and doesn't know what diabetes is, because he's stupid, and Mrs. Means has to step in and get it straight. I hate this, because it's the sort of thing that will happen at some point to everyone who has a different need in any way - there's always some dumb asshole who doesn't understand what the problem is, because if it's not a problem to him, it must not be a problem to you. "Sir, you have to WALK through the metal detector...What? What's a paraplegic? No, our policy is you must WALK through, what's the issue?"
Yes, even when Ann writes something realistic I hate it; sue me.
After dinner comes a group sing around the campfire, but first Mrs. Means gives a speech about Lyme Disease and not eating mushrooms and not sitting in poison ivy, during which Stacey starts getting cold, so she warms herself by curling up in a big patch of poison ivy. I literally clapped my hands with glee at the dramatic irony that Miss Big City Sophisticate could have saved her own ass if she could identify one basic plant.
Chapter 8: Mallory! She rolls over in bed at 6:45 am, fifteen minutes before the campers have to get up, and is like "GOOD MORNING, JESSI!" and Jessi's like "GOOD MORNING, MALLORY!" and the other girls are like "SHUT THE HELL UP." "Sheesh," Mallory thinks. "Jessi and I can't do anything right." It's 6:45 in the morning. The right thing to do would be to SHUT THE HELL UP. Seriously, wake me up in that annoying period of time when I don't have to get up yet but there's not enough time to get back to sleep, and I will break your face.
I guess these girls hold a grudge about that but good, because they continue to be nasty and pretty racist for no particular reason when Mal and Jessi commit the heinous crime of, you know, getting dressed and brushing their teeth. It's really cringeworthy writing, because Jessi and Mal need to face some bigotry, so every other girl assigned to their cabin just happens to be overtly racist while everyone else in the whole camp is perfectly nice. Sure, that's how it always works.
Mal assures us that this unprompted hate crime wasn't going to put a damper on her day (thank god white girls calling you an Oreo didn't bother YOU, Mal), because their special job as Junior CITs is going to be putting together a Parents' Day dance for 8-B, Becca and Charlotte's cabin. Of course, none of the kids can dance and trying to teach them is hilarious (to them; not to me - I would rather toilet train my dog than attend this rehearsal). "We were having a great time. But what on earth were we going to do for our program on Parents' Day?" Um...how about the dance you just taught them? Who cares that it sucks? They're eight. Are the parents under the impression this is Juilliard's summer camp?
Chapter 9: Kristy! Her co-CITs are Tansy, Lauren, and Izzie, and are - you guessed it - way sophisticated because they have boyfriends and nail polish and names that mean things like "tenacious" in Middle Latin. Kristy says she couldn't even find her name in a baby book. ANN. COME ON. Her name is Kristin. The only way that makes any sense is if she were looking in the Big Book of Traditional Korean Baby Names.
Kristy says the other CITs "couldn't have been nicer" to her, which is a complete lie, because they say things right to her face like "you would look so pretty if you cut your hair a little and got rid of your bangs" and "blusher would help." Yeah, that's a perfectly nice and not at all stank thing to say to someone. Kristy gets all embarrassed about this, and about being all flat-chested and not having cool shoes and being really short: "Won't I ever grow up?" Of all the janked-up characterizations when Ann tries to write something realistic, I think Kristy suffers the worst. Being self-conscious is, again, a lifelike teenage portrayal, but it doesn't gel at all with this bossy, no-nonsense tomboy despot she's supposed to be. Since when does Kristy care about having cool shoes? Since when does she care about being short? Why would she be concerned about "growing up" when she runs her own successful business? That's more than most people have when they're forty.
Anyway if I'm going to feel REALLY sorry for Kristy, it's not because the other CITs are stealth skanks; it's because she's personally tasked with taking care of Charlotte. I've been thinking about this for some time, but I think I've finally decided I hate Charlotte as a character. I don't want to, because I identify with her so much - like her, I was a shy, anxious bookworm kid, which prepared me for a blossoming transformation into a shy, anxious bookworm adult - but she is so goddamn emotionally unstable, and everything everyone does for her seems so unproductive, that I can't even stand reading about it sometimes. Case in point, at dinner that night Charlotte bursts into tears because she drops her fork. Like, what is wrong with your child that she's eight years old and this is her level of coping skills with life's simplest challenges. Mr. and Mrs. J., you have failed as parents. Get her into some fucking therapy and figure out the root of this problem before she gets to be a teenager and shit gets real.
She becomes "I WANT TO GO HOOOOME" hysterical and has to call her parents when she gets hit in the head by a thrown biscuit, and they assure her she can, but she won't go because of Becca. So she stays, but she sleeps IN Kristy's sleeping bag with her. Oh HALE no. She's not a toddler. In addition to sleeping in her own damned bed, Char's afraid of horses, boats, and swimming, so the next day Kristy teaches her some archery (she says no one else is doing it and there isn't even an instructor cause it's so lame, which is pretty funny because archery is having a HUGE boom right now). But Charlotte's even afraid of that, because she thinks she shot some kid, so Kristy gives up and they go back to the cabin and read. "But what I was wondering was whether Charlotte should be at Camp Mohawk at all." Um, no. No, she shouldn't. I feel like either she should just go home because it's not worth traumatizing her, or she should face her fears and actually participate in things. What's the point in sending her to camp so she can refuse to do anything there? How is that fair to her parents, who have paid for it, or to the CIT who has to stay with her and do nothing all day? What does this teach her? Ugh.
Chapter 10: Claudia! Oh my god, you guys. Oh my GOD. Actual quote from the chapter opening postcard to her parents: "Hi how are you? Me just fin." ME JUST FIN.
No, I don't think Claudia has a bag of flaming poo for a brain. I think ANN does, for thinking that this is something that anyone, no matter how dumb, would write past the age of three when English is their first and only language. Claudia can't SPELL; she didn't have a STROKE. "Me just fin." My GOD.
That morning, after the shitty dining hall breakfast, Claudia and her campers run to the canteen to buy a bunch of junk food - specifically, "a Snickers bar, an Almond Joy, a Mars Bar, a bag of Doritos, two packages of peanut M&Ms, a pack of Twinkies, and some Cheese Doodles." The others gape at her and ask how come she's so thin and gorgeous and has such good skin and Claudia's like, "Because Ann would never write about a totally cool artist chick who happened to be a little chubby or have acne." Seriously, I know they like to harp on Claudia's perfect metabolism, but why the fuck would some girls she doesn't know even mention it. They wouldn't care. Shut up about it, Ann.
After breakfast they go horseback riding and then have to brush the horses, muck out the stalls, and get them ready for the next riders. So, remember how I'd never been riding except on Dysentare the Mare that one time? Since I wrote that I did, actually, go riding - and by the way, it was horrific. If you're from a state where the highest altitude you routinely scale is the second floor of the mall, do NOT go on vacation where you go riding for the first time on the side of a fucking MOUNTAIN and then get this bastard of a horse that keeps leaning to eat grass growing over the edge of said fucking mountain and then bites another horse and breaks into a run, because when you get back from the ride and you're crying and your husband wants to know why and you make up a story about how you had a fire-breathing horse and had to jump through flaming hoops, he might laugh. I mean, that's hard on a relationship.
So maybe it was just our experience, but it was pretty much all we could do to mount our horses, ride them around without plummeting off any cliffs (I don't think the instructors cared about us very much, but the horses were probably insured), and get off them again. They sure as hell weren't letting us brush them or muck out any stalls or prepare them for other riders or anything like that. If we'd wanted to they probably wouldn't have let us, because we didn't know shit about it, and if they'd wanted us to we probably wouldn't have done it, because it wasn't our damn job. What kind of a camp is this? Do they have to do the dishes after every meal too? Scrub lake crud off the canoes? Jeez, Mrs. Means.
The campers stink pretty bad from shoveling horse shit, obviously, and are in various states of manure-caked nudity when some boy-CITs come a-knocking, and as the only person with a top on, Claudia has to go out and meet them. Although this turns out to be pretty pointless, because she tunes them out to stare at Super Hot Asian Guy with his studly high tops and Bart Simpson hair, so that by the time the dudes leave she's got no idea why they were there at all. Her campers inform her that they were inviting them to the CIT Movie Night and Dance next week, to which Claudia declares she can't wait that long to see Super Hot Asian Guy again. But she doesn't even know his name! Well, this could have been easily solved if you'd been listening for a damn second, and then you could have ASKED his name.
The campers spring into action, declaring that they'll find him - they know one of the guys was named John. "But there must be a thousand Johns over there." Um, there are only around sixty boys over there, if it's the same size as the girls' side of camp. Based current population statistics, there should only be about two Johns in sixty people, and one of those is likely to be one of the younger boys, leaving just the one CIT John. BUT BASIC MATH IS SO HARD, ANN.
The kids are a-buzz with plans while Claudia is merely pensive about her newest summer love, having forgotten all about Timothy the stalker and his soiled Jockeys. It's going to be really awkward when their high school football teams play against each other.
Chapter 11: Mary Anne! Actual letter to her father: "Hi, how are you? I'm fine. Camp's fine. Gotta go." Why did she even bother to write a letter? Given that the man thinks no news is good news when his wife totally disappears overnight, I don't think he'd be concerned about not hearing from his kid for a single day at camp.
Anyway, Mary Anne has no time because she was too busy writing a fake letter to Logan full of phrases like "love bunny" and "I think of you and want to swon swoon" and "This next week will seem like a year" and "If you were to bring me a yellow flower to match my ribbon, I would melt in your arms." She admits this is stupid and she that and Logan don't talk like that-nor does anyone born after 1890, Mary Anne - but she thinks that if the other CITs find her planted note, they'll think she's more "sophisticated." Or...more brain damaged. I seriously don't understand what this is supposed to prove. Like, if she faked a note that Logan wrote to her, and if it was a little racy instead of sounding like...well, like what an eighth-grader thinks "grown-up romantic" sounds like, this would totally work. But instead she sounds like a stage five clinger who writes creepy notes to a guy who possibly does not exist and then leaves them lying around instead of sending them. How in the HELL does this make her seem less crazy?
And in case you're thinking, like I am, that this doesn't even sound like something our meek little Mary Anne would do: "Since when did I care about stuff like that? Since I got to Camp Mohawk and was kind of separated from my friends, that's when." In other words, hand wave. Ann don't need no justification for the fact that none of the characters make any damn sense in this book.
The other CITs do find it, and rather than acting guilty about getting caught, they're like "HDU leave your pornographic filth lying about where innocent campers could read it?! What smut! Love-bunny? Swonning?" (They actually do say "swonning," which makes no sense, because it doesn't say "swonning" anywhere in the letter. She crossed out the misspelled "swon" and corrected it to "swoon." I swear to all that is holy I will find out who was in charge of editing this book at Scholastic and beat them with my shoe.)
They're like, "So, uh, how you gonna get this letter over to Logan, hmmm? Gonna sneak over to that boys' side?" Um, couldn't she mail it? She just sent a postcard home; why couldn't she just post it over there? I mean, theoretically, if she wanted to send it. But Cabin 7 has never heard of the United States Postal Service or something, because Tara (Faye's shithead little sister) insists that the only way is to sneak through the woods at night, which of course terrifies Mary Anne, because she's kind of dumb. I mean, I'd be scared of getting caught, personally, but she only gets scared because the others are like, "Oh, yeah, you can sneak over there, easy. It's just too bad about those insane murderers who just escaped from the asylum next door" and she totally believes them. Christ, Mary Anne. I have a clock radio that is more intelligent than you are.
She can't back out, though, because that would be way unsophisticated, so that night she does the old "cram a cantaloupe in the sleeping bag to get around bed check" trick and heads out. God, Ann; Mary Anne would NEVER DO THIS. About halfway around the lake she hears this totally brain-busting exchange: "There she is." "That's not her." She starts screaming about how she can't be murdered because she has a kitten at home and also a gun (presumably on her person, and not also at home, or else this is a really ineffective threat) but of course it's just a search team out looking for her. So why the hell were they were arguing about whether it was actually her? "That's too tall to be her. Must be some other camper sneaking around the lake. We'll let that one go." If I ever teach a writing class, this will be the perfect example of Making a Character Do Something That Makes No Sense Just to Move the Plot Where You Want It to Go (Mary Anne believes there are murderers in the woods, therefore she needs to hear some people whispering about her so she can get all Screamy McPisspants, even though a search party has no reason to be whispering about her). Actually, I’m pretty sure I could teach a whole class using nothing but passages from the BSC as examples of writing that will make me throw a chair at you. I…may need to make a couple of phone calls once I finish this.
Anyway, her counselor, Connie, informs her that Little Shit Tara squealed on her the second she left - fucking DUH, Mary Anne - but nobody’s actually that mad at her. The boy counselors promise to get her note to Logan (BAHAHA) and Connie confesses that she tried the same thing once when she was a CIT. But she has to be full of shit, because back at the cabin everyone’s in complete awe of Mary Anne’s ovarian fortitude: “Only two other girl CITs have ever tried to sneak around the lake in the whole history of Camp Mohawk.” And one of them just happens to be Mary Anne’s own counselor? Sure. She just wanted to look cool in front of her little CIT, who totally just showed her up.
Continue to Part 2!