Super Special #2: Baby-Sitters' Summer Vacation (2/2)
Part 1 here!
Chapter 12: Logan! Apparently he earned his Hiawatha badge, which means he can “do any water sport any time I want.” Shame he won’t be seeing Mary Anne until camp is over; hope his co-CIT is the adventurous sort. (Rim shot.) But water sports are NOT “the biggest thing” in his life right now, because the poor bastard is stuck with Jackie Rodowsky, so mostly he’s focused on surviving camp with the majority of his limbs. Also, he says Matt Braddock was “assigned to [his] cabin” because Logan knows enough sign language to help him. Um, no, I’m pretty sure he was assigned to Cabin 7 because he’s seven years old. That’s how that complicated number scheme works. YOU were assigned to Cabin 7 because you know sign language. Cause and effect, how does it work.
Things get dramatic when he gets the note from Mary Anne over breakfast the next morning and it goes over about as well as you’d expect - complete, of course, with a dramatic reading by his co-CITs, who I don’t feel okay about being in charge of children.
Instead of assuming Mary Anne has been kidnapped by mercenaries and this ransom letter is in some sort of code, or perhaps that she spent a lively evening in the arts and crafts cabin rolling on E: “I had never been so embarrassed in my life. I had also never been so touched.” Oh, Logan. You’re a massive wiener.
He figures that actually getting the letter to him was Mrs. Means’s punishment for Mary Anne sneaking out - which Mary Anne suggested too - but first of all, how did she even know that the letter wasn’t actually meant for Logan to see? Even if Little Shit Tara told her how schmoopy it was, she certainly didn’t know that Mary Anne didn’t mean it. And secondly, Mary Anne snuck out, totally unbeknownst to Logan, so they punish LOGAN by humiliating him in front of his friends? Wow, that’s sure fair. Mrs. Means, you suck ass and completely deserve the food fight Logan starts for this.
Chapter 13: Dawn! The eleven-year-olds get to go on a campout (11A one night, 11B the next night) so of course Mal and Jessi will not go on theirs or ever mention it. I also enjoy the fact that all the other cabin halves seem to do a lot together, but 11A and 11B never interact once, because then we’d have to acknowledge that Mal and Jessi are the same age as the campers Dawn is in charge of.
Her campers are super excited about their campout and are already packing their stuff, including an electric toothbrush, which Heather points out as “useless.” She “wasn’t too popular when she corrected [that] mistake,” apparently, but perhaps that’s because the other campers are not complete dumbasses, unlike Heather Ann, and realize that an electric toothbrush will work just fine in the woods considering it RUNS ON BATTERIES. And even if it DIDN’T work, if it was the world’s only outlet-powered toothbrush or the batteries died or something, you know what? IT WOULD STILL WORK PERFECTLY AS A TOOTHBRUSH VIA THE MAGICAL POWER OF MOVING YOUR HAND BACK AND FORTH. Jesus waterskiing christ, Ann, if you’re going to try to make a character seem smart and sensible, try to have an ounce of goddamn sense yourself when you write them.
Dawn says Heather does quiet things like read and write or go to the arts and crafts cabin, but she won’t socialize. Sounds exactly like me. Maybe I can’t hate Ann for her name too much. Except then Dawn describes Heather as “inscrutable,” which she isn’t at all - she wants to do the things she likes and not talk to your dumb ass. There’s nothing weird to understand about that. Everybody doesn’t have to be exactly like you, Dawn.
Mrs. Means interrupts the Monopoly game they were totally about to go have with 11-B to tell them that Charlene, their counselor, has to go home because her mom is dying or something and puts a harsh on everyone’s buzz. She puts Dawn in charge until tomorrow, when their new counselor will come, and Dawn does the old “I totally order you to cheer up and stay up late and play games and eat a bunch of shit!” routine. So they do, yet they don’t actually have that Monopoly game with 11-B they were just planning. Mal who? Jessi what?
Chapter 14: Stacey! This chapter, I fondly recall, first introduced me to the word “plague.” I still get kind of grossed out when I read it, but less because of Stacey and more because of Nonie’s face-spraying lisp when she pronounces Stacey’s aches, pains, and spreading rash “’tagioush.” Remembering that speech Mrs. Means gave on the first night of camp, Stacey diagnoses herself with Lyme disease, as well as allergies, dyspepsia, and chicken pox, and thinks she probably ought to get to the infirmary or something. By the time she gets there, “The nurse took one look at me and nearly fainted.” Geez, Nurse Dinsmoore, I know the body wave/perm combo is ghastly, but you’re a professional; get a grip on yourself.
Miss Dinsmoore informs her she has the worst case of poison ivy she’s seen in years, which is both hilarious and insensible, because if it’s so horrific, how has no one, including Stacey herself, noticed or commented on it in all this time? Google pictures of “bad poison ivy rash” if you’re not squeamish; that’s some horror movie shit. “Stace, I can’t help but notice there’s a grapefruit-sized, pus-filled boil hanging off your face. Have you considered professional intervention?”
In addition to the poison ivy rash from hell, she also has impetigo, plus pinkeye and a cold from her disgusting little campers. Young children are so gross. I feel like that’s one of those things you don’t realize until your friends either start having kids or become elementary school teachers (I somehow have more of the latter than the former) and all the sudden they’re sick all the time, with stuff they never used to get, like pinkeye and lice and, like, Creeping Fungus Fever.
Stacey does cheer up when she gets a roommate named Miko, who broke her leg falling off a horse and who is strangely optimistic considering her life sucks ass. She says she’s at camp for the rest of the summer, for one thing. With a cast up to her thigh? That doesn’t warrant going home early? I’m pretty sure Ann has never had a broken bone. Miko can’t even get around for shit considering that after a weekend in the infirmary she says she’ll be getting her crutches “tomorrow,” so apparently she was brought back from the hospital and left in bed with absolutely no way to even get to the bathroom for the entire weekend? What? Were they forging these crutches from orphan’s tears and the bones of humpback whales or something?
Chapter 15: Kristy! She tells us that Watson has lots of sayings, like “Stupid is as stupid does” and “Yippie-ki-ay, motherfucker” and “I didn’t really say everything I said.” So we can see that his opinion is not really necessary here. He also apparently says “life is full of ups and downs” and “you have to take the good with the bad,” which are approximately as useful as the latest breaking news: “Water wet, Pope Catholic, and don’t miss Buck Clydesdale’s investigative report: Bears may be shitting in the woods! More at eleven!” You mean these troubling situations I have occasionally faced in my twenty-six years on the planet are what you call downs? And I have to take them, you say? Well, damn, I’ve just been cramming them under the bed all this time.
Speaking of people who are dumbasses, Kristy uses this saying to tell us the things that are currently good in her life (sports) and bad (art, the nature cabin, her co-CITs being shitty to her) and then thinks “I better explain some of these things, since they probably don’t make a lot of sense.” Yes, Kristy. We, the reader, are incapable of understanding that you enjoy sports and you don’t enjoy art or your crappy cabinmates. Please draw us a diagram of this labyrinthine situation.
She explains that she enjoys a bunch of shit that I don’t care about, like softball and Jessi and Mal’s stupid dance they’re teaching her campers, but her co-CITs are making her crazy: “I could see them thinking: pluck her eyebrows, cover up that pimple, perhaps get a nose job.” Yeah, Kristy, I’m sure they look at you and all they think about is how you need surgery. Defensive much? I mean, it’s not like Dawn is your co-CIT; then you’d have a valid worry.
Kristy is afraid they’re going to make her over and try to set her up with someone for the CIT dance, so she decides she’s going to get out of it by rolling around in Stacey’s poison ivy patch. Really. This is what Ann has gone with, for Kristy, in this book. That Kristy the dictator would physically hurt herself before she would cut these bitches down to size and just go hang out with her minions at the dance.
But then they do pick out a dress and practice making her over during their free hour, so she doesn’t do it...? This is a weirdly written section. They “attack” her with makeup and she narrates this like she’s a secondhand coffee table they happen to be sanding. Like, did you object to this in any way, Kristin? Agree to it just to make them like you? Did you just turn around in the middle of a softball game and someone jammed you in the eye with a mascara wand by surprise? She doesn’t say or do anything at all; it’s so passive it’s kind of eerie. And then when it’s over she says “I certainly looked better than if I was covered in poison ivy…But I had a feeling this meant I would have to go to the dance.” But…you just came up with the poison ivy thing half a page ago, where did that go. Why can’t you still do that. Basically she was like, “I don’t want to go to the dance! I’m gonna rash myself to get out of this!” and they’re like “Please come to the dance!” and she’s like “Damn, now I HAVE to.”
Anyway, Kristy tries to compare her problems to Charlotte’s problems, which is dumb as shit because they aren’t having the same issues at all: “I needed space. I needed privacy. I needed separateness. Charlotte did, too. Why on earth was she still at Camp Mohawk?” Uh, you love all the camp activities and hate your cabinmates. She hates all the camp activities and is only staying because her best friend is her cabinmate. Quit trying to make this parallel happen, it’s not going to happen.
Chapter 16: Claudia! Her campers have discovered her mystery man-his name is Will Yamakawa! How exactly they came by this information, though, is best left to someone with a stronger imagination than Ann's, because her when her campers inform her that after four Camp Mohawk summers, they "know everything - including how to get in touch with the boy's side" and Claudia only thinks, "I didn't ask any questions. I had a feeling I was better off not knowing what they knew." Uh...why not. That seems like interesting and potentially valuable information to her, especially considering her loins are desperate for this dude. The better translation would have been, "Deus ex machina," or perhaps "We sent them a letter U.S. Postal - you won't have heard of it."
Claudia is mostly disinterested in these magical boy-contacting powers because she's too busy marveling with glee that her latest man meat is Japanese - her parents are going to be stoked! "They've never said so, but I'm sure they want me to carry on our family heritage by marrying a Japanese man and having Japanese children."
Oh, she does temper this with "Not that Will and I had plans for this sort of thing yet," but the force is sort of lost when the reason "you and Will" have no plans for having yourselves a baby is not because you are thirteen years old, but because "you and Will" have never exchanged a single word. Jesus, Claudia. I think your parents aren't so much hoping for a Japanese marriage; they'd be pleased if you just managed not to flunk middle school.
The rest of this chapter is boring as hell. They go to the CIT movie night and Will and Claudia instantly go up to each other and start talking away about their personal lives, because eighth graders with crushes on each other are way smooth and confident about it and not awkward as hell and unable to speak. Also foreshadowingly, Dawn and Mary Anne are not there because of some sort of "camp crisis, but no one else knew too much about it or seemed too concerned," so Claudia doesn't spare it a single thought. Right, these girls who stand outside each other's houses with signs the day after a snowstorm wouldn't even double take at hearing their friends were involved in some sort of "crisis." And like rumors at a CAMP wouldn't be flying fast and wild at the tiniest hint of something interesting going on. By the time she got to Movie Night, Claudia probably would have heard Dawn had been eaten by a bear. No, please, let's hear more about how Will's grandmother died instead, since I'm sure he's going to be a featured character in many future books, and not dropped and never mentioned again.
Chapter 17: Dawn! It's time to leave on their overnight with their new counselor, Debra, who's only fifteen and was a CIT one year and that is the sum total of her camping experience. Well, that seems..safe. Case in point, they try to leave twice and both times old Heather has to remind them they've forgotten stuff (the compass and the canteens). Why, I'm beginning to get the sneaking suspicion only Heather knows what the hell she's doing! Including Mrs. Means! Because why the hell would the camp would send out a group of preteens alone on an six-mile hike and overnight camping trip without some sort of strict preapproved packing list!
They stomp along through the woods, and just in case we've forgotten for even five seconds this is an Ann M. Martin original, when they decide to sing a song, all the eleven-year-olds in a book set in 1989 decide to sing "an old rock and roll song from the fifties. Something with a good beat we can march to." They stopped using drums in music after that, I guess.
They sing the Monster Mash, which...sort of counts, I guess, until coming to a cairn at an intersection that's supposed to point the way, but it fell over. Debra whips out a map of the woods and is like "Don't worry! My total lack of experience tells me we should go left here!" In another staggering show of shitty writing, Heather says, "I don't think so. I think we turn right," and Dawn says, "But Debra didn't hear her." Okay. Fine. Debra didn't hear her. You know who DID hear her, because she just told us so? DAWN DID. This section is supposed to show how Heather knows exactly what to do but no one hears her, but hello, Dawn hears every fucking word she says and KEEPS IGNORING HER. GOD, Dawn.
Several hours later they realize they haven't seen another cairn, but they can't backtrack anymore because they've taken a bunch of twists and turns. Uh, if there's a cairn at every intersection, as there should be, then why the hell did they take any turns at all? The second they came to an intersection and there was no marker, they should have realized they were on the wrong path and turned around. Every single one of them is criminally fucking stupid, including Heather, who realized right away they were lost and yet wandered deeper into the woods without speaking up.
As you can imagine, she's portrayed as the only one with an ounce of brain, because she suggests stopping in a clearing for the night - because they would have walked all night otherwise? - and they can't get their fire going without her assistance, but they would have had to build a fire anyway, so why the hell were they sent out to camp when they don't know how to camp.
The next day they decide to go straight back to Camp Mohawk - using Debra the genius's map "with Heather looking over her shoulder" - but instead of returning by 5:00 as planned, they end up right back at the clearing at end of the day. Hilarious. Finally Heather's like "Give me the damn map. We're staying here one more night and in the morning I'M leading this shit parade home," which is all well and good, but it still begs the question: If she was looking over Debra's shoulder at the map and she knows how to get back, why the hell was she letting them wander in circles for an entire day? Once they finally get back to Camp Mohawk (Mary Anne was a basket case, but no one else was ever even aware of this "camp crisis") Heather gets awarded a "Camp Mohawk bravery medal." I think she deserves the Spineless Jellyfish award, for letting everyone wander dangerously in the woods for two days when she could have prevented it to begin with OR gotten them home sooner once they were lost, had she opened her goddamn mouth and said something.
Chapter 18: Mary Anne! I don't even know what to do with this anymore. The other CITs want to pierce her ears, and Mary Anne, who isn't allowed and who doesn't even want pierced damn ears, is like, "Sure, whatever." Peer pressure! It's almost as great as making your well-known characters completely unrecognizable for no reason! She makes them a list of stuff they need hoping they won't find it all (alcohol, non-toxic pen, needle, thread, ice) and then takes forever choosing a pair of earrings, but she isn't backing down from this. Thankfully, the others chicken out first: "I can't stand the sight of blood," Faye says. Uh, hon, did your ears bleed when you got them pierced? If so, I suggest you sue, because they did it wrong.
I love, by the way, that this book never shuts up about The Parent Trap, and the remake - which wasn't made yet at the time this book was written - actually goes through with the "camper piercing another camper's ears" thing. I think they ganked it from this book. Although I can't stand that when Hallie shows up in London both her mom and Martin the butler are like, "Oh, hey, you pierced your ears. So, dinner?" Um, hello, you sent her to SUMMER CAMP. HOW DO YOU THINK YOUR ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD'S EARS GOT PIERCED AT SUMMER CAMP. Wouldn't you think they would deduce that another camper must have done it (or somebody sketchy who didn't require parental permission) and get a little angry about that? I'm fairly certain the words "raging infection" and "dumbass" would have been screeched in my pus-dripping ear at top volume.
Anyway, Mary Anne is even slower than they are, because she thinks, "I couldn’t wait for Faye and Julie and Randi to meet Logan at the dance. Even though I knew we were good friends, I had to prove to them that he was real - and not a geek or a nerd." Right, they're your "good friends." That's why they tricked you into sneaking around the lake and why they played chicken with your earlobes and why your word that Logan exists isn't good enough for them. That's how good friends treat each other.
Chapter 19: Logan! Apparently all the dudes are calling Mary Anne a "feeb," meaning "feeble-minded person." I can't decide if this insult is dumb or offensive or hilarious. Possibly all three. They thought her letter was "stupid" (well, it was) and that she's a "jerk" for trying to sneak around the lake to precious Logan (well, she was). I detect no lies in this statement. The only thing I want to know is how Logan accrues no insults for taking this obviously fake letter so seriously, because he gets her the yellow flower and puts on aftershave even though he doesn't shave and "tied my teepee sweater casually around my shoulders." He may be real, but he's gonna need a little more help on the not-a-dweeb factor.
The rest of this chapter is also boring as shit, as Mary Anne and Logan - who Mary Anne insisted are NOT a schmoopy couple - are pretty much like gagging down a sugared haggis, and for some reason Logan's friends are all like, "OMG you aren't a feeb, we were so wrong!" which, whatever, I don't know how meeting her has changed their opinion; she still wrote a stupid letter and she still snuck around the lake like a dumbass. Also Logan tries to dance with Claudia and she acts like a cyborg that's been unplugged until he manages to reunite her with Will. That seems healthy.
Chapter 20: Claudia! She writes a postcard to Ashley informing her that she met a dude named Will "isnt' that a funny name." I don't know. It's short for William. Why is that a funny name, Claudia? "And I'll will probly never see him agian...I think maybe my heart is bracking so I will be abel to make a good sclupture or painting from my pain." And that's basically all I have to say about this chapter. They dance, they realize they live pretty far apart, they say things like "Next summer! What about next month, next week?" and "I wish I could hold you forever" and "I wish time could stop right now" and they sob in each other's arms. They are, I reiterate, a pair of eighth graders who have met each other TWICE.
Chapter 21: Kristy! She says she wasn't "forced" into going to the dance, but she finally opens her mouth and uses the words "I'm not going" - repeatedly - and they tell her she is going and seem to be making her up against her will, so I don't know what else you'd call it. Charlotte butts in and actually says Kristy isn't going, "she's staying here with me" and I'm like
Goddammit, I have HAD IT with Charlotte. This is between Kristy and them, not Charlotte "WAHHHH DON'T LEAVE ME WITH THE ACTUAL PAID COUNSELOR" Johanssen. What if Kristy wanted to go to the dance; does a sitter once again have to abandon her own life to attend to delicate little Charlotte's every precious need?
Whatever. Kristy does end up going to the dance, and she ends up having a perfectly fine time socializing with her friends, like she does at all the other dances she's been to before this one. What was the big damn deal?
Chapter 22: Stacey! Sometimes, especially since I've been snarking the TV series, I try to imagine the TV actresses delivering the lines that are written in the books to gauge how right for their characters they are. Kristy was born for her role, as we all know. Claudia, despite not actually being Asian, has a wonderful ditzy charm and slightly clueless delivery that might not actually be intentional, but it works. Mary Anne gets flack from the fandom for being about seven feet tall, but she has this breathy little voice and this gentle soft face that's just perfect. Even though Dawn's blonde wig makes Shatner's rug look like a good piece, she's tall and willowy and has this kind of loud, abrasive, know-it-all voice that I always imagined Dawn to have.
I mention this only because Stacey's mom calls the infirmary to check on her, and Stacey decides to try to gross her out by informing her that her poison ivy rash is "getting to the scabby stage." When I tried to picture the Ghastly Grinner saying "scabby," I nearly wet my pants.
Like she could unclench her teeth long enough to speak.
Stacey finally gets out of the infirmary after sustaining a few more bruises and scrapes catching Miko, who falls down trying to use her crutches for the first time. That's why they usually let you try them out in the hospital before you leave.
She gets back to her cabin just in time to be "Chrishmashed" (ugh), where 6A surprises them one morning with stockings and gifts and baby powder snow. They say that "during each session of camp, one cabin in each age group surprises the other cabin with Christmas in Summer." How fun, to be assigned to the cabin that has to surprise the other with gifts and get nothing in return. I'm sure children, six-year-olds in particular, are always such good sports about that kind of thing. I also enjoy that this happened in every cabin and none of the other sitters even mention it. But I'm willing to let all that go, for just one reason - that Karen Brewer woke up to gifts on an unexpected Christmas morning and we did not have to hear a word about her. I don't often say it, but - thanks, Ann.
Chapter 23: Jessi! Time for their Parents' Day program, which naturally they wrote to make a point about racism that's about as subtle as a jackhammer to the face: they cast Becca and Charlotte as" twins" and then a bunch of dancers are mean and taunt them but eventually everybody makes friends. Oh, I see what you did there. Jessi worries that their bunkies "might not get the point. They might think we're trying to make them feel mean or dumb." Well, they ARE mean and dumb, and you are, in fact, attempting to point that out to them, so who cares? They did something to feel embarrassed about, so they certainly ought to feel embarrassed. Why are you tiptoeing around a bunch of racists' feelings? Mal hopes they'll be "ashamed and apologetic," which would be nice, but I'm not really clear on how that will occur. If they see nothing wrong with their behavior, then...why would they see anything wrong with their behavior.
Anyway, the dance goes fine - well, it sucks, like all BSC productions do, but the crucial bits go fine - and just as the parents are packing up the campers to go home, all the 11-B campers, except one who mistakenly believes herself to be a character in a more realistic book, apologize to Jessi and Mallory for the derogatory remarks and whatnot. Social problems: Apparently can be solved with simple interpretive dance. Get your tap shoes, folks, I'm putting together a War on Poverty clogging troupe. Our first number will involve 99 dancers forming a threatening circle around one mortgage lender until he surrenders his yacht.
Epilogue! Or, Stacey wraps up with a bunch of random letters I mostly can't read and thoroughly don't give a shit about. Claudia's campers managed to get Will's address through their mysterious connections, so she decides to write to him after all, but given the sample we're shown, I'm guessing she's going to get a letter back pretending he enrolled in the space program: "P.S. Today is the thrid day in a row Ive' worn something with no TP on it." Aw, Claud. You're crafty. Get a hot glue gun and some Charmin and go to town.
Chapter 12: Logan! Apparently he earned his Hiawatha badge, which means he can “do any water sport any time I want.” Shame he won’t be seeing Mary Anne until camp is over; hope his co-CIT is the adventurous sort. (Rim shot.) But water sports are NOT “the biggest thing” in his life right now, because the poor bastard is stuck with Jackie Rodowsky, so mostly he’s focused on surviving camp with the majority of his limbs. Also, he says Matt Braddock was “assigned to [his] cabin” because Logan knows enough sign language to help him. Um, no, I’m pretty sure he was assigned to Cabin 7 because he’s seven years old. That’s how that complicated number scheme works. YOU were assigned to Cabin 7 because you know sign language. Cause and effect, how does it work.
Things get dramatic when he gets the note from Mary Anne over breakfast the next morning and it goes over about as well as you’d expect - complete, of course, with a dramatic reading by his co-CITs, who I don’t feel okay about being in charge of children.
Instead of assuming Mary Anne has been kidnapped by mercenaries and this ransom letter is in some sort of code, or perhaps that she spent a lively evening in the arts and crafts cabin rolling on E: “I had never been so embarrassed in my life. I had also never been so touched.” Oh, Logan. You’re a massive wiener.
He figures that actually getting the letter to him was Mrs. Means’s punishment for Mary Anne sneaking out - which Mary Anne suggested too - but first of all, how did she even know that the letter wasn’t actually meant for Logan to see? Even if Little Shit Tara told her how schmoopy it was, she certainly didn’t know that Mary Anne didn’t mean it. And secondly, Mary Anne snuck out, totally unbeknownst to Logan, so they punish LOGAN by humiliating him in front of his friends? Wow, that’s sure fair. Mrs. Means, you suck ass and completely deserve the food fight Logan starts for this.
Chapter 13: Dawn! The eleven-year-olds get to go on a campout (11A one night, 11B the next night) so of course Mal and Jessi will not go on theirs or ever mention it. I also enjoy the fact that all the other cabin halves seem to do a lot together, but 11A and 11B never interact once, because then we’d have to acknowledge that Mal and Jessi are the same age as the campers Dawn is in charge of.
Her campers are super excited about their campout and are already packing their stuff, including an electric toothbrush, which Heather points out as “useless.” She “wasn’t too popular when she corrected [that] mistake,” apparently, but perhaps that’s because the other campers are not complete dumbasses, unlike Heather Ann, and realize that an electric toothbrush will work just fine in the woods considering it RUNS ON BATTERIES. And even if it DIDN’T work, if it was the world’s only outlet-powered toothbrush or the batteries died or something, you know what? IT WOULD STILL WORK PERFECTLY AS A TOOTHBRUSH VIA THE MAGICAL POWER OF MOVING YOUR HAND BACK AND FORTH. Jesus waterskiing christ, Ann, if you’re going to try to make a character seem smart and sensible, try to have an ounce of goddamn sense yourself when you write them.
Dawn says Heather does quiet things like read and write or go to the arts and crafts cabin, but she won’t socialize. Sounds exactly like me. Maybe I can’t hate Ann for her name too much. Except then Dawn describes Heather as “inscrutable,” which she isn’t at all - she wants to do the things she likes and not talk to your dumb ass. There’s nothing weird to understand about that. Everybody doesn’t have to be exactly like you, Dawn.
Mrs. Means interrupts the Monopoly game they were totally about to go have with 11-B to tell them that Charlene, their counselor, has to go home because her mom is dying or something and puts a harsh on everyone’s buzz. She puts Dawn in charge until tomorrow, when their new counselor will come, and Dawn does the old “I totally order you to cheer up and stay up late and play games and eat a bunch of shit!” routine. So they do, yet they don’t actually have that Monopoly game with 11-B they were just planning. Mal who? Jessi what?
Chapter 14: Stacey! This chapter, I fondly recall, first introduced me to the word “plague.” I still get kind of grossed out when I read it, but less because of Stacey and more because of Nonie’s face-spraying lisp when she pronounces Stacey’s aches, pains, and spreading rash “’tagioush.” Remembering that speech Mrs. Means gave on the first night of camp, Stacey diagnoses herself with Lyme disease, as well as allergies, dyspepsia, and chicken pox, and thinks she probably ought to get to the infirmary or something. By the time she gets there, “The nurse took one look at me and nearly fainted.” Geez, Nurse Dinsmoore, I know the body wave/perm combo is ghastly, but you’re a professional; get a grip on yourself.
Miss Dinsmoore informs her she has the worst case of poison ivy she’s seen in years, which is both hilarious and insensible, because if it’s so horrific, how has no one, including Stacey herself, noticed or commented on it in all this time? Google pictures of “bad poison ivy rash” if you’re not squeamish; that’s some horror movie shit. “Stace, I can’t help but notice there’s a grapefruit-sized, pus-filled boil hanging off your face. Have you considered professional intervention?”
In addition to the poison ivy rash from hell, she also has impetigo, plus pinkeye and a cold from her disgusting little campers. Young children are so gross. I feel like that’s one of those things you don’t realize until your friends either start having kids or become elementary school teachers (I somehow have more of the latter than the former) and all the sudden they’re sick all the time, with stuff they never used to get, like pinkeye and lice and, like, Creeping Fungus Fever.
Stacey does cheer up when she gets a roommate named Miko, who broke her leg falling off a horse and who is strangely optimistic considering her life sucks ass. She says she’s at camp for the rest of the summer, for one thing. With a cast up to her thigh? That doesn’t warrant going home early? I’m pretty sure Ann has never had a broken bone. Miko can’t even get around for shit considering that after a weekend in the infirmary she says she’ll be getting her crutches “tomorrow,” so apparently she was brought back from the hospital and left in bed with absolutely no way to even get to the bathroom for the entire weekend? What? Were they forging these crutches from orphan’s tears and the bones of humpback whales or something?
Chapter 15: Kristy! She tells us that Watson has lots of sayings, like “Stupid is as stupid does” and “Yippie-ki-ay, motherfucker” and “I didn’t really say everything I said.” So we can see that his opinion is not really necessary here. He also apparently says “life is full of ups and downs” and “you have to take the good with the bad,” which are approximately as useful as the latest breaking news: “Water wet, Pope Catholic, and don’t miss Buck Clydesdale’s investigative report: Bears may be shitting in the woods! More at eleven!” You mean these troubling situations I have occasionally faced in my twenty-six years on the planet are what you call downs? And I have to take them, you say? Well, damn, I’ve just been cramming them under the bed all this time.
Speaking of people who are dumbasses, Kristy uses this saying to tell us the things that are currently good in her life (sports) and bad (art, the nature cabin, her co-CITs being shitty to her) and then thinks “I better explain some of these things, since they probably don’t make a lot of sense.” Yes, Kristy. We, the reader, are incapable of understanding that you enjoy sports and you don’t enjoy art or your crappy cabinmates. Please draw us a diagram of this labyrinthine situation.
She explains that she enjoys a bunch of shit that I don’t care about, like softball and Jessi and Mal’s stupid dance they’re teaching her campers, but her co-CITs are making her crazy: “I could see them thinking: pluck her eyebrows, cover up that pimple, perhaps get a nose job.” Yeah, Kristy, I’m sure they look at you and all they think about is how you need surgery. Defensive much? I mean, it’s not like Dawn is your co-CIT; then you’d have a valid worry.
Kristy is afraid they’re going to make her over and try to set her up with someone for the CIT dance, so she decides she’s going to get out of it by rolling around in Stacey’s poison ivy patch. Really. This is what Ann has gone with, for Kristy, in this book. That Kristy the dictator would physically hurt herself before she would cut these bitches down to size and just go hang out with her minions at the dance.
But then they do pick out a dress and practice making her over during their free hour, so she doesn’t do it...? This is a weirdly written section. They “attack” her with makeup and she narrates this like she’s a secondhand coffee table they happen to be sanding. Like, did you object to this in any way, Kristin? Agree to it just to make them like you? Did you just turn around in the middle of a softball game and someone jammed you in the eye with a mascara wand by surprise? She doesn’t say or do anything at all; it’s so passive it’s kind of eerie. And then when it’s over she says “I certainly looked better than if I was covered in poison ivy…But I had a feeling this meant I would have to go to the dance.” But…you just came up with the poison ivy thing half a page ago, where did that go. Why can’t you still do that. Basically she was like, “I don’t want to go to the dance! I’m gonna rash myself to get out of this!” and they’re like “Please come to the dance!” and she’s like “Damn, now I HAVE to.”
Anyway, Kristy tries to compare her problems to Charlotte’s problems, which is dumb as shit because they aren’t having the same issues at all: “I needed space. I needed privacy. I needed separateness. Charlotte did, too. Why on earth was she still at Camp Mohawk?” Uh, you love all the camp activities and hate your cabinmates. She hates all the camp activities and is only staying because her best friend is her cabinmate. Quit trying to make this parallel happen, it’s not going to happen.
Chapter 16: Claudia! Her campers have discovered her mystery man-his name is Will Yamakawa! How exactly they came by this information, though, is best left to someone with a stronger imagination than Ann's, because her when her campers inform her that after four Camp Mohawk summers, they "know everything - including how to get in touch with the boy's side" and Claudia only thinks, "I didn't ask any questions. I had a feeling I was better off not knowing what they knew." Uh...why not. That seems like interesting and potentially valuable information to her, especially considering her loins are desperate for this dude. The better translation would have been, "Deus ex machina," or perhaps "We sent them a letter U.S. Postal - you won't have heard of it."
Claudia is mostly disinterested in these magical boy-contacting powers because she's too busy marveling with glee that her latest man meat is Japanese - her parents are going to be stoked! "They've never said so, but I'm sure they want me to carry on our family heritage by marrying a Japanese man and having Japanese children."
Oh, she does temper this with "Not that Will and I had plans for this sort of thing yet," but the force is sort of lost when the reason "you and Will" have no plans for having yourselves a baby is not because you are thirteen years old, but because "you and Will" have never exchanged a single word. Jesus, Claudia. I think your parents aren't so much hoping for a Japanese marriage; they'd be pleased if you just managed not to flunk middle school.
The rest of this chapter is boring as hell. They go to the CIT movie night and Will and Claudia instantly go up to each other and start talking away about their personal lives, because eighth graders with crushes on each other are way smooth and confident about it and not awkward as hell and unable to speak. Also foreshadowingly, Dawn and Mary Anne are not there because of some sort of "camp crisis, but no one else knew too much about it or seemed too concerned," so Claudia doesn't spare it a single thought. Right, these girls who stand outside each other's houses with signs the day after a snowstorm wouldn't even double take at hearing their friends were involved in some sort of "crisis." And like rumors at a CAMP wouldn't be flying fast and wild at the tiniest hint of something interesting going on. By the time she got to Movie Night, Claudia probably would have heard Dawn had been eaten by a bear. No, please, let's hear more about how Will's grandmother died instead, since I'm sure he's going to be a featured character in many future books, and not dropped and never mentioned again.
Chapter 17: Dawn! It's time to leave on their overnight with their new counselor, Debra, who's only fifteen and was a CIT one year and that is the sum total of her camping experience. Well, that seems..safe. Case in point, they try to leave twice and both times old Heather has to remind them they've forgotten stuff (the compass and the canteens). Why, I'm beginning to get the sneaking suspicion only Heather knows what the hell she's doing! Including Mrs. Means! Because why the hell would the camp would send out a group of preteens alone on an six-mile hike and overnight camping trip without some sort of strict preapproved packing list!
They stomp along through the woods, and just in case we've forgotten for even five seconds this is an Ann M. Martin original, when they decide to sing a song, all the eleven-year-olds in a book set in 1989 decide to sing "an old rock and roll song from the fifties. Something with a good beat we can march to." They stopped using drums in music after that, I guess.
They sing the Monster Mash, which...sort of counts, I guess, until coming to a cairn at an intersection that's supposed to point the way, but it fell over. Debra whips out a map of the woods and is like "Don't worry! My total lack of experience tells me we should go left here!" In another staggering show of shitty writing, Heather says, "I don't think so. I think we turn right," and Dawn says, "But Debra didn't hear her." Okay. Fine. Debra didn't hear her. You know who DID hear her, because she just told us so? DAWN DID. This section is supposed to show how Heather knows exactly what to do but no one hears her, but hello, Dawn hears every fucking word she says and KEEPS IGNORING HER. GOD, Dawn.
Several hours later they realize they haven't seen another cairn, but they can't backtrack anymore because they've taken a bunch of twists and turns. Uh, if there's a cairn at every intersection, as there should be, then why the hell did they take any turns at all? The second they came to an intersection and there was no marker, they should have realized they were on the wrong path and turned around. Every single one of them is criminally fucking stupid, including Heather, who realized right away they were lost and yet wandered deeper into the woods without speaking up.
As you can imagine, she's portrayed as the only one with an ounce of brain, because she suggests stopping in a clearing for the night - because they would have walked all night otherwise? - and they can't get their fire going without her assistance, but they would have had to build a fire anyway, so why the hell were they sent out to camp when they don't know how to camp.
The next day they decide to go straight back to Camp Mohawk - using Debra the genius's map "with Heather looking over her shoulder" - but instead of returning by 5:00 as planned, they end up right back at the clearing at end of the day. Hilarious. Finally Heather's like "Give me the damn map. We're staying here one more night and in the morning I'M leading this shit parade home," which is all well and good, but it still begs the question: If she was looking over Debra's shoulder at the map and she knows how to get back, why the hell was she letting them wander in circles for an entire day? Once they finally get back to Camp Mohawk (Mary Anne was a basket case, but no one else was ever even aware of this "camp crisis") Heather gets awarded a "Camp Mohawk bravery medal." I think she deserves the Spineless Jellyfish award, for letting everyone wander dangerously in the woods for two days when she could have prevented it to begin with OR gotten them home sooner once they were lost, had she opened her goddamn mouth and said something.
Chapter 18: Mary Anne! I don't even know what to do with this anymore. The other CITs want to pierce her ears, and Mary Anne, who isn't allowed and who doesn't even want pierced damn ears, is like, "Sure, whatever." Peer pressure! It's almost as great as making your well-known characters completely unrecognizable for no reason! She makes them a list of stuff they need hoping they won't find it all (alcohol, non-toxic pen, needle, thread, ice) and then takes forever choosing a pair of earrings, but she isn't backing down from this. Thankfully, the others chicken out first: "I can't stand the sight of blood," Faye says. Uh, hon, did your ears bleed when you got them pierced? If so, I suggest you sue, because they did it wrong.
I love, by the way, that this book never shuts up about The Parent Trap, and the remake - which wasn't made yet at the time this book was written - actually goes through with the "camper piercing another camper's ears" thing. I think they ganked it from this book. Although I can't stand that when Hallie shows up in London both her mom and Martin the butler are like, "Oh, hey, you pierced your ears. So, dinner?" Um, hello, you sent her to SUMMER CAMP. HOW DO YOU THINK YOUR ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD'S EARS GOT PIERCED AT SUMMER CAMP. Wouldn't you think they would deduce that another camper must have done it (or somebody sketchy who didn't require parental permission) and get a little angry about that? I'm fairly certain the words "raging infection" and "dumbass" would have been screeched in my pus-dripping ear at top volume.
Anyway, Mary Anne is even slower than they are, because she thinks, "I couldn’t wait for Faye and Julie and Randi to meet Logan at the dance. Even though I knew we were good friends, I had to prove to them that he was real - and not a geek or a nerd." Right, they're your "good friends." That's why they tricked you into sneaking around the lake and why they played chicken with your earlobes and why your word that Logan exists isn't good enough for them. That's how good friends treat each other.
Chapter 19: Logan! Apparently all the dudes are calling Mary Anne a "feeb," meaning "feeble-minded person." I can't decide if this insult is dumb or offensive or hilarious. Possibly all three. They thought her letter was "stupid" (well, it was) and that she's a "jerk" for trying to sneak around the lake to precious Logan (well, she was). I detect no lies in this statement. The only thing I want to know is how Logan accrues no insults for taking this obviously fake letter so seriously, because he gets her the yellow flower and puts on aftershave even though he doesn't shave and "tied my teepee sweater casually around my shoulders." He may be real, but he's gonna need a little more help on the not-a-dweeb factor.
The rest of this chapter is also boring as shit, as Mary Anne and Logan - who Mary Anne insisted are NOT a schmoopy couple - are pretty much like gagging down a sugared haggis, and for some reason Logan's friends are all like, "OMG you aren't a feeb, we were so wrong!" which, whatever, I don't know how meeting her has changed their opinion; she still wrote a stupid letter and she still snuck around the lake like a dumbass. Also Logan tries to dance with Claudia and she acts like a cyborg that's been unplugged until he manages to reunite her with Will. That seems healthy.
Chapter 20: Claudia! She writes a postcard to Ashley informing her that she met a dude named Will "isnt' that a funny name." I don't know. It's short for William. Why is that a funny name, Claudia? "And I'll will probly never see him agian...I think maybe my heart is bracking so I will be abel to make a good sclupture or painting from my pain." And that's basically all I have to say about this chapter. They dance, they realize they live pretty far apart, they say things like "Next summer! What about next month, next week?" and "I wish I could hold you forever" and "I wish time could stop right now" and they sob in each other's arms. They are, I reiterate, a pair of eighth graders who have met each other TWICE.
Chapter 21: Kristy! She says she wasn't "forced" into going to the dance, but she finally opens her mouth and uses the words "I'm not going" - repeatedly - and they tell her she is going and seem to be making her up against her will, so I don't know what else you'd call it. Charlotte butts in and actually says Kristy isn't going, "she's staying here with me" and I'm like
Goddammit, I have HAD IT with Charlotte. This is between Kristy and them, not Charlotte "WAHHHH DON'T LEAVE ME WITH THE ACTUAL PAID COUNSELOR" Johanssen. What if Kristy wanted to go to the dance; does a sitter once again have to abandon her own life to attend to delicate little Charlotte's every precious need?
Whatever. Kristy does end up going to the dance, and she ends up having a perfectly fine time socializing with her friends, like she does at all the other dances she's been to before this one. What was the big damn deal?
Chapter 22: Stacey! Sometimes, especially since I've been snarking the TV series, I try to imagine the TV actresses delivering the lines that are written in the books to gauge how right for their characters they are. Kristy was born for her role, as we all know. Claudia, despite not actually being Asian, has a wonderful ditzy charm and slightly clueless delivery that might not actually be intentional, but it works. Mary Anne gets flack from the fandom for being about seven feet tall, but she has this breathy little voice and this gentle soft face that's just perfect. Even though Dawn's blonde wig makes Shatner's rug look like a good piece, she's tall and willowy and has this kind of loud, abrasive, know-it-all voice that I always imagined Dawn to have.
I mention this only because Stacey's mom calls the infirmary to check on her, and Stacey decides to try to gross her out by informing her that her poison ivy rash is "getting to the scabby stage." When I tried to picture the Ghastly Grinner saying "scabby," I nearly wet my pants.
Like she could unclench her teeth long enough to speak.
Stacey finally gets out of the infirmary after sustaining a few more bruises and scrapes catching Miko, who falls down trying to use her crutches for the first time. That's why they usually let you try them out in the hospital before you leave.
She gets back to her cabin just in time to be "Chrishmashed" (ugh), where 6A surprises them one morning with stockings and gifts and baby powder snow. They say that "during each session of camp, one cabin in each age group surprises the other cabin with Christmas in Summer." How fun, to be assigned to the cabin that has to surprise the other with gifts and get nothing in return. I'm sure children, six-year-olds in particular, are always such good sports about that kind of thing. I also enjoy that this happened in every cabin and none of the other sitters even mention it. But I'm willing to let all that go, for just one reason - that Karen Brewer woke up to gifts on an unexpected Christmas morning and we did not have to hear a word about her. I don't often say it, but - thanks, Ann.
Chapter 23: Jessi! Time for their Parents' Day program, which naturally they wrote to make a point about racism that's about as subtle as a jackhammer to the face: they cast Becca and Charlotte as" twins" and then a bunch of dancers are mean and taunt them but eventually everybody makes friends. Oh, I see what you did there. Jessi worries that their bunkies "might not get the point. They might think we're trying to make them feel mean or dumb." Well, they ARE mean and dumb, and you are, in fact, attempting to point that out to them, so who cares? They did something to feel embarrassed about, so they certainly ought to feel embarrassed. Why are you tiptoeing around a bunch of racists' feelings? Mal hopes they'll be "ashamed and apologetic," which would be nice, but I'm not really clear on how that will occur. If they see nothing wrong with their behavior, then...why would they see anything wrong with their behavior.
Anyway, the dance goes fine - well, it sucks, like all BSC productions do, but the crucial bits go fine - and just as the parents are packing up the campers to go home, all the 11-B campers, except one who mistakenly believes herself to be a character in a more realistic book, apologize to Jessi and Mallory for the derogatory remarks and whatnot. Social problems: Apparently can be solved with simple interpretive dance. Get your tap shoes, folks, I'm putting together a War on Poverty clogging troupe. Our first number will involve 99 dancers forming a threatening circle around one mortgage lender until he surrenders his yacht.
Epilogue! Or, Stacey wraps up with a bunch of random letters I mostly can't read and thoroughly don't give a shit about. Claudia's campers managed to get Will's address through their mysterious connections, so she decides to write to him after all, but given the sample we're shown, I'm guessing she's going to get a letter back pretending he enrolled in the space program: "P.S. Today is the thrid day in a row Ive' worn something with no TP on it." Aw, Claud. You're crafty. Get a hot glue gun and some Charmin and go to town.