Kristy's Great Idea oder Kristy hat eine tolle Idee
I don't think I have posted here since about 2011 or early 2012. Since then, I got married and moved to Germany. Due to the move, my BSC collection is "sadly" very limited at the moment. However, I am learning German (I'm attending a German integration class, which is for some reason cancelled today and tomorrow) and heard that reading German language kids books might be a way to help with the learning process. So I had the "great idea" to read the BSC in German. I have only managed to find titles for books 1-4. I'm not sure if any more of them were translated, but here is my take on book #1: Kristy hat eine tollee Idee.
(from Amazon.de)
The cover art is the same, but not everything else is...
Chapter 1 (Kapitel 1)
Opens with Kristy bragging about how the Baby-sitters Club was her idea.. because nobody else would ever have thought of it. At least she credits her friends Claudia, Mary Anne and Daisy for helping. "Daisy's" last name still gets to be McGill, but I wonder what was wrong with Stacey. You would think they could have at least called her Anastasia, or something...
Anyway, before Kristy can tell us about her great idea, she has to talk about being stuck hot, stuffy Stoneybrook Middle School ("die Middle School von Stoneybrook"). There is no air conditioning, so they open up all of the windows, allowing bees to fly into the room and potentially sting the students. What if one of the students was allergic to bee stings? Sounds like a law suit waiting to happen. Kristy mentions that her teacher, Mr. Redmont (who is oddly also called "Mr." in the German edition, even though that is not typical) allowed his students to stop their class work to make construction paper fans to keep the heat--and bees--away. Did they just happen to have construction paper, or did he thoughtfully bring along with him? Since the BSC members were apparently charming from book #1, Kristy points out that the fans didn't help, "but it was nice to take up ten minutes of social studies making them." Rude, and anyway, they must have been construction paper masterpieces if it takes that long. Anyway, Kristy's long, hot day finally ends at 2:42 (???) and she jumps out of her seat, cheering, "Hooray," or "Juuhuu." I've never seen "Juuhuu" written down, so I don't know if that's the proper spelling, or if the translator got a little bit Lerangis-esque with the extra letter U's.
Mr. Redmont is shocked by Kristy's apparent rudeness (it is bratty, but no other kid ever acts happy that the day is over?) and keeps her after school for a little talk. Kristy tries to be all sweet an apologize first, but Mr. Redmont's little feelings are apparently too hurt to accept her apology and he orders her to write a 100-word essay on "decorum (or Schicklichkeit)," so that she will remember to conduct herself with a bit more.
Kristy slinks away slowly and finds Mary Anne waiting outside for her and biting her nails. This leads to their slightly Wakefield twin-esque "we look (somewhat) alike, but are so different," with Mary Anne in the slightly more "Elizabeth" role. Kristy tries to act like Jessica Wakefield for one of only a few instances in the whole series. She catches Mary Anne biting her nails and scolds her to stop "if she ever wants to wear nail polish." Mary Anne moans about her strict father, and since Kristy has no decorum, she basically ignores Mary Anne's remark.
Both start running home from school as Kristy remembers that it is her day to watch stupid David Michael and she wants to make it home before he does, so that he is not alone. Do you know what else would have prevented David Michael from being alone? Picking him up at his school and walking him home. Now that would have been a great idea. However, since Kristy (and Ann) didn't think of it, Kristy and Mary Anne have to run home in sweltering heat and they still don't manage to make it home before David Michael. Since David Michael (I hate the stupid double name. What's wrong with just David?) is young and silly, he's lost his house key and is stuck outside. He cries once he sees them, basically just to torture Kristy, and she handles the situation okay, but still. You know if a member of the Baby-Sitters Agency had been in a similar situation, or Wendy Loesser, the BSC members so would have judged them.
Once DM is happily settled inside with some lemonade, Kristy and Mary Anne talk about baby-sitting and a little bit about Claudia. In my English language Kindle version of this, they vaguely refer Claudia drifting apart from them "over the summer." Was that added after "The Summer Before?" Let's just say, it doesn't seem to be in the German version. The German version does mention reading as Claudia's other hobby, without mentioning that she likes mysteries. It makes her sound a bit like Janine. Speaking of older siblings, Kristy takes her mind off of Claudia and Sam and Charlie come home and everybody has a lovely afternoon.
Then Elizabeth comes home with a pizza. Apparently this is her oh-so-subtle way of asking her children for a favor. It turns out that she needs somebody to watch David Michael (his "two day a week sitter" is unavailable.) The three are not available, so Elizabeth has to call other sitters, who are also not available (she ends up arranging for him to go along to Kristy's sitting job.) She gets frustrated, which makes DM sad. Get some decorum, Elizabeth and make your calls when he is not sitting right there. Kristy feels bad for her mother because her pizza is getting cold, but why couldn't Elizabeth have just waited until after dinner to make her calls? However, if she had waited, then Kristy might not have had her "great idea" and we wouldn't have had a series...
Chapter (Kapitel) 2
The good thing about this being the first book is that there is no "typical Chapter 2." The bad part is that it is still not the most exciting... Kristy goes to her room and thinks about the BSC (and most of the descriptions for this I am going to skip, because we already know)... but first she decides to do her homework, including her 100-word essay. I don't have an actual German dictionary with definitions, but I looked up "schicklichkeit" on dict.leo.org, which resulted in such words as "decency," "seemliness" and "propriety." Kristy realizes she'd been rude, so Mr. Redmont's little lesson was good there. She rushes through her essay (being two words away from her assigned 100, she ends it with "the end." "Clever.") and the rest of her homework and then starts making a list of how the Baby-Sitters Club will work. It is pretty "Chapter 2," so I'm relieved when Elizabeth interrupts. She and Kristy have a nice little Mother-Daughter talk about school (where Kristy owns up to having to write the essay), which ends just before 9:00 PM. This is Kristy and Mary Anne's meeting time for their little window-to-window flashlight code chat. I've never totally understood how their code is supposed to work (some here have pointed out that it is probably supposed to be like Morse code), but apparently it is sophisticated enough that Kristy can tell Mary Anne about her idea for the BSC, and Mary Anne is (eventually) able to understand. They finish "just in time," before Elizabeth comes back to Kristy's room. Although it is a Tuesday, Elizabeth for some reason wants Kristy to know that she and Watson have a date on Saturday. It's basically just a way for narrator-Kristy to "introduce" us to Watson, whom she doesn't like (because he's always around and... because he is going bald. Brat.) In the German edition, Watson is somewhat hilariously referred to as "Mr. Watson." I wanted to see if they gave him some other last name, but found that his last name is not mentioned even once. Either way, having to call your Mother's Boyfriend "Mr-" anything does strike me as a little bit obnoxious. At least it's a better reason to dislike somebody than because they are going bald...
Chapter (Kapitel) 3
Kristy, back at school, hands in her decorum essay and then that strange little subplot is done. Next thing we know, school is over. Nerdy Kristy and Mary Anne run home together. Both have baby-sitting jobs and Mary Anne plans to bring her "charges" (stupid Claire and Margo Pike) over to the Newtons,' where Kristy is baby-sitting for Jamie and David Michael. What if the kids didn't want to play together?
Kristy goes home, grabs DM, and they arrive at the Newtons' at 3:30 sharp (so that Kristy can brag about her punctuality.) Jamie answers the door, and I rather "enjoy" his German greeting: "Kuckkuck."
Delightfully random and far better than the cutesy "hi-hi" (which he could have said. "Hi" is not super commonly said. Not where I am, at least, but I have heard it.) David Michael looks oh-so-thrilled at the prospect of being stuck with Jamie, until Jamie pulls out his "Soldaat Joe" doll. Thank goodness for "Soldaat Joe!" Kristy bugs Mrs. Newton about the soon-to-be-born Lucy, and practically the minute she is gone, calls Mary Anne and invites her over. Mary Anne arrives (pulling stupid Claire and Margo along in a wagon) and we get our first German edition editing mistake. In the US edition, David Michael and Margo are wary of each other (because David Michael doesn't trust little girls, "especially if they aren't in his class at school,") but in the German one, David Michael is glaring at Claire (and Margo is her usual non-entity self.) Nice to see editing mistakes in the foreign editions, too.
The kids manage to play together on Jamie's swingset while Kristy tries to tell Mary Anne about the BSC. They are soon interrupted, as Jamie falls off of a swing and cries, like most three-year-olds would. For some reason this causes Mary Anne to dramatically take the Pikes back home (it's not like they pushed Jamie off the swing) after she and Kristy decide to meet up with Claudia after their sitting jobs are over.
Kristy goes to visit Claudia and remarks that she doesn't feel comfortable visiting Claudia because she is "growing up faster" than Mary Anne and Kristy. She's even wearing a bra now (a commonly heard German word for bra is "BH," which sounds like "Bee Hah," which to my childish self, looks and sounds funny) and talking about boys "like they've just been invented." Middle school boys, ugh. Kristy is accurate in describing how immature and obnoxious they are. Too bad later in the series, she would more-or-less be acting like them... Anyway, she "bravely" knocks on Claudia's door and Claudia answers. She is wearing the oh-so-lovely outfit of short, very baggy lavender plaid overalls (the German edition awesomely describes them as looking "like a sack"), a lacy white blouse, a black fedora (while lounging around in her house?) and red high-top sneakers without socks (gross, and again, while lounging around in her house?). For some reason Kristy feels "extremely blah" (or "ganz idiotisch") next to Claudia. I'm sure whatever she was wearing (no description) could not have been any worse. Although German-speaking Kristy feels "ganz idiotisch," she does call Claudia's outfits "komisch" (meaning "strange," "weird," or "funny"), but doesn't bat an eye... until she sees that Claudia is wearing makeup. In the German version, she is only wearing eye shadow (blue, gold, and silver. Hideous!), however, in the original version, Kristy simiplistically informs us that Claudia had "blue stuff" on her eyelids, "gold stuff" above her eyes, and "magenta stuff" on her cheeks. Just because Kristy is "immature" doesn't mean she wouldn't know the names of makeup. She apparently knows that Claudia's makeup looks like crap, because she is shocked and appalled and blurts out that Claudia looks like she got made up for the circus (as a clown?). She tries to back-peddle by saying Claudia doesn't need makeup. Kindle-edition Claudia says "nice try," but German-language Claudia says a line more along what I remember from my old version of this book of, "you just think I'm exotic." (or something like that, and shut up Claudia.) Narrator-Kristy launches into the typical "Claudia is beautiful and eats her weight in Twinkies, but still stays thin," descrption, and then they finally go to the future BSC headquarters: Claudia's room.
They rudely discuss Janine along the way, and narrator-Kristy launches into a mean, childish description of Janine who "makes her want to barf" because she does things like corrects her grammar (speak properly, Kristy, and then Janine wouldn't have to) and sounds "like a text book" ("aus der englischen Grammatik.") According to Kristy, Janine's best friend is a "Math Nerd" (Stacey?) and her "second best friend" is her Computer. She is "sure that it is because of Janine that Claudia concentrates on art and is a terrible student." And I can tell by Kristy's bratty tone, that this is supposed to be good on Claudia's part and nice message there, Ann: be a bad student, or else you might end up having only one "uncool" friend. Ugh!
Anyway, after Kristy gets all of the Janine-hate out of her system, she tells Claudia (and Mary Anne, once she arrives) about the club. Claudia is all excited about the club. She offers her room as the "club headquarters" and suggests that her "echt cool" new friend "Daisy" McGill join too. Kristy is rudely all secretly wary about the thought of "Daisy," but agrees to meet her. They agree to meet on the next day (at 5:30.. but it would have been a Thursday) and "that was how the Baby-sitters Club officially began." In case we thought otherwise, I guess...
Kapitel 4:
Kristy arrives at Claudia's house the next day at 5:30. Considering it would take her a minute or so to get upstairs, that would have made her "late" in future BSC books. Claudia answers, dressed in the lovely ensemble of a baggy yellow and black checkered shirt (in the German language edition, it is a plaid shirt that is "much too wide!" Ha ha!), black pants, red jazz shoes (as in, for jazz dancing??), a bracelet that looked like it was made from a telephone cord (I loved those!) and earings that looked like dangling, jointed Skeletons (I guess Halloween was somewhat coming up.) However, she is wearing no makeup. Her parents wouldn't let her. Good, John and Rioko. Now if you could just say no to the silly outfits...
Kristy and Claudia run upstairs, groaning at the thought of Janine being home. Her door is open, too, and she comes out when she hears them. Janine very nicely tells Kristy that the Baby-sitters Club sounds like an outstanding idea. She does get a little annoying when she corrects Kristy's use of the word "hopefully" (or her German misuse of the word "ich glaube," which means "I believe"), making Kristy and Claudia run away and Kristy think bratty thoughts about how she doesn't know how Claudia manages to live in the same house as Janine. I could think that too, only my version of Kristy's sentence might end with, "and not be at least a little bit smater than she is."
Stupid Mary Anne arrives and she and Kristy get to meet "Daisy" McGill (who was waiting in Claudia's room.) I know in some of the foreign language editions of BSC books, the girls have different names and the books are even set in somewhere else besides Stoneybrook, Connecticut, USA (like in the French Canadian ones, or...???) However, the German versions are set in Stoneybrook and mostly seem similar. "Daisy" is even from New York. So it just makes the name change seem that much more strange. Oh well... Anyway, Kristy and Mary Anne can automatically tell that Daisy is sophisticated. She is wearing such timless fashions as: a pink sweatshirt with sequins and a large purple parrot on the front (it vaguely sounds like something Tess Swinhart would wear), short, tight-fitting zippered jeans, and pink plastic shoes. Totally sophisticated. Kristy sees hers and Mary Anne's "babyish" clothes of skirts and blouses (Kristy Thomas wore a skirt? And she wasn't attending a funeral or a wedding? Whomever updated these for the Kindle version changed her outfit to jeans and sneakers. I guess she is babyish and too young to dress herself if she couldn't even remember to put on a shirt) and feels like they "looked like second graders" while Daisy and Claudia "looked like models" (an observation that is boringly removed from the Kindle version.) They are all shy and uncomfortalbe for a moment, but Kristy finally starts talking to Daisy and finds that she would make a good club member. Mary Anne asks annoying during this session and keeps saying "wow," after not-all-that-interesting statements like Daisy's apartment having over 200 residents. Shy Mary Anne would want to live in the same building as hundreds of other people? Mary Anne is so taken in by the sophisticated Ms. McGill's tales of New York that she forgets to be shy and asks her why her family left New York. Daisy acts all evasive and changes the subject. "Sensitive" Mary Anne changes the subject right back to New York and continues with her stupid "wows" until Kristy finally interrupts her to talk about the club. "Daisy" is accepted into the club(very informally. No ceremonies or pizza toasts for her) and Claudia pulls out a package of Peanut M&Ms to celebrate. In the German edition, it is a package of peanuts. They have Peanut M&Ms in Germany now, but I don't know how long they have been available there. It will be the first of many "candy changes" between the two versions. it is kind of an odd change, though. There isn't even any mention of the peanuts being sugared. At first she tries to say that there are only a few left, so that Narrator Kristy could explain Claudia's "quirky trait" of hiding junk food. Twinkies and Wint-o-Green Lifesavers have been changed in the German edition to Bubblegum, and Gummibars. I don't know that Twinkies ever made it over here and now they never will. :( Anyway, after Kristy badgers Daisy about refusing food (maybe she wasn't hungry), Daisy tells them she's on a diet, and Kristy bugs her a little bit about that. Then Mary Anne has to go home, so the four girls agree to meet the next day at recess (are they second graders?) to talk about the club.
Suddenly, it is the next day (end, chapter!). Mary Anne and Kristy order the "disgusting" hot lunch of a Sloppy Joe, red Jell-o with canned fruit in it, a "dinky" cup of cole slaw, milk and a Fudgesicle. The food is kept in the German version (except that the cole slaw cup is more kindly referred to as "small"), but with descriptions of Sloppy Joes and cole slaw are (i.e. "cole slaw is similar to kraut salad."), except that the Fudgesicle is merely Fudge. German Kristy informs us that she likes that, as well as Caramel. Since she wasn't eating Caramel, who cares...
Mary Anne and Kristy "choke" down their food and go outside to the playground (they actually call it that) and wait for Claudia and Daisy to finish eating lunch with the "popular kids." They play Tetherball ("Federball") while they wait, so that Kristy could win and brag about how good she is in sports. Then Claudia and Daisy join them and they find some conveniently available packing crates to sit on (what were those DOING outside in a playground) and boringly discuss the club. Such "thrilling" decisions are made as: they can make flyers." Then they discuss what symbol to put on them. Mary Anne makes old lady suggestions like a child or a helping hand. Then she makes bizarre suggestions like a frog. Everybody laughs and Mary Anne freezes. I don't think this book has mentioned yet that she cries at the drop of a hat, or else she might have. Instead, she laughs too and "sophisticated" Daisy and Claudia chime in with such "mature" suggestions as a "warthog" and a "nerd" (actually Daisy says "Depp," which I had to look up, but means "fool," "dork" or "dweeb." Does Johnny Depp know this?) They "get serious" and Claudia thinks up their little logo with the block design (which looks really strange on the Kindle version.) Kristy almost calls her a "genius," but remembers Claudia is "touchy" about the word. Because of Janine, or because of her own stupidity? Who knows. Anyway, the girls agree to meet on the weekend to discuss the Baby-sitters Club, and run back inside.
And that's all for now. Will they... really meet on the weekend? Will they write more to-do lists? Will Mary Anne get caught with her flashlight? Stay tuned for the next installment...
(from Amazon.de)
The cover art is the same, but not everything else is...
Chapter 1 (Kapitel 1)
Opens with Kristy bragging about how the Baby-sitters Club was her idea.. because nobody else would ever have thought of it. At least she credits her friends Claudia, Mary Anne and Daisy for helping. "Daisy's" last name still gets to be McGill, but I wonder what was wrong with Stacey. You would think they could have at least called her Anastasia, or something...
Anyway, before Kristy can tell us about her great idea, she has to talk about being stuck hot, stuffy Stoneybrook Middle School ("die Middle School von Stoneybrook"). There is no air conditioning, so they open up all of the windows, allowing bees to fly into the room and potentially sting the students. What if one of the students was allergic to bee stings? Sounds like a law suit waiting to happen. Kristy mentions that her teacher, Mr. Redmont (who is oddly also called "Mr." in the German edition, even though that is not typical) allowed his students to stop their class work to make construction paper fans to keep the heat--and bees--away. Did they just happen to have construction paper, or did he thoughtfully bring along with him? Since the BSC members were apparently charming from book #1, Kristy points out that the fans didn't help, "but it was nice to take up ten minutes of social studies making them." Rude, and anyway, they must have been construction paper masterpieces if it takes that long. Anyway, Kristy's long, hot day finally ends at 2:42 (???) and she jumps out of her seat, cheering, "Hooray," or "Juuhuu." I've never seen "Juuhuu" written down, so I don't know if that's the proper spelling, or if the translator got a little bit Lerangis-esque with the extra letter U's.
Mr. Redmont is shocked by Kristy's apparent rudeness (it is bratty, but no other kid ever acts happy that the day is over?) and keeps her after school for a little talk. Kristy tries to be all sweet an apologize first, but Mr. Redmont's little feelings are apparently too hurt to accept her apology and he orders her to write a 100-word essay on "decorum (or Schicklichkeit)," so that she will remember to conduct herself with a bit more.
Kristy slinks away slowly and finds Mary Anne waiting outside for her and biting her nails. This leads to their slightly Wakefield twin-esque "we look (somewhat) alike, but are so different," with Mary Anne in the slightly more "Elizabeth" role. Kristy tries to act like Jessica Wakefield for one of only a few instances in the whole series. She catches Mary Anne biting her nails and scolds her to stop "if she ever wants to wear nail polish." Mary Anne moans about her strict father, and since Kristy has no decorum, she basically ignores Mary Anne's remark.
Both start running home from school as Kristy remembers that it is her day to watch stupid David Michael and she wants to make it home before he does, so that he is not alone. Do you know what else would have prevented David Michael from being alone? Picking him up at his school and walking him home. Now that would have been a great idea. However, since Kristy (and Ann) didn't think of it, Kristy and Mary Anne have to run home in sweltering heat and they still don't manage to make it home before David Michael. Since David Michael (I hate the stupid double name. What's wrong with just David?) is young and silly, he's lost his house key and is stuck outside. He cries once he sees them, basically just to torture Kristy, and she handles the situation okay, but still. You know if a member of the Baby-Sitters Agency had been in a similar situation, or Wendy Loesser, the BSC members so would have judged them.
Once DM is happily settled inside with some lemonade, Kristy and Mary Anne talk about baby-sitting and a little bit about Claudia. In my English language Kindle version of this, they vaguely refer Claudia drifting apart from them "over the summer." Was that added after "The Summer Before?" Let's just say, it doesn't seem to be in the German version. The German version does mention reading as Claudia's other hobby, without mentioning that she likes mysteries. It makes her sound a bit like Janine. Speaking of older siblings, Kristy takes her mind off of Claudia and Sam and Charlie come home and everybody has a lovely afternoon.
Then Elizabeth comes home with a pizza. Apparently this is her oh-so-subtle way of asking her children for a favor. It turns out that she needs somebody to watch David Michael (his "two day a week sitter" is unavailable.) The three are not available, so Elizabeth has to call other sitters, who are also not available (she ends up arranging for him to go along to Kristy's sitting job.) She gets frustrated, which makes DM sad. Get some decorum, Elizabeth and make your calls when he is not sitting right there. Kristy feels bad for her mother because her pizza is getting cold, but why couldn't Elizabeth have just waited until after dinner to make her calls? However, if she had waited, then Kristy might not have had her "great idea" and we wouldn't have had a series...
Chapter (Kapitel) 2
The good thing about this being the first book is that there is no "typical Chapter 2." The bad part is that it is still not the most exciting... Kristy goes to her room and thinks about the BSC (and most of the descriptions for this I am going to skip, because we already know)... but first she decides to do her homework, including her 100-word essay. I don't have an actual German dictionary with definitions, but I looked up "schicklichkeit" on dict.leo.org, which resulted in such words as "decency," "seemliness" and "propriety." Kristy realizes she'd been rude, so Mr. Redmont's little lesson was good there. She rushes through her essay (being two words away from her assigned 100, she ends it with "the end." "Clever.") and the rest of her homework and then starts making a list of how the Baby-Sitters Club will work. It is pretty "Chapter 2," so I'm relieved when Elizabeth interrupts. She and Kristy have a nice little Mother-Daughter talk about school (where Kristy owns up to having to write the essay), which ends just before 9:00 PM. This is Kristy and Mary Anne's meeting time for their little window-to-window flashlight code chat. I've never totally understood how their code is supposed to work (some here have pointed out that it is probably supposed to be like Morse code), but apparently it is sophisticated enough that Kristy can tell Mary Anne about her idea for the BSC, and Mary Anne is (eventually) able to understand. They finish "just in time," before Elizabeth comes back to Kristy's room. Although it is a Tuesday, Elizabeth for some reason wants Kristy to know that she and Watson have a date on Saturday. It's basically just a way for narrator-Kristy to "introduce" us to Watson, whom she doesn't like (because he's always around and... because he is going bald. Brat.) In the German edition, Watson is somewhat hilariously referred to as "Mr. Watson." I wanted to see if they gave him some other last name, but found that his last name is not mentioned even once. Either way, having to call your Mother's Boyfriend "Mr-" anything does strike me as a little bit obnoxious. At least it's a better reason to dislike somebody than because they are going bald...
Chapter (Kapitel) 3
Kristy, back at school, hands in her decorum essay and then that strange little subplot is done. Next thing we know, school is over. Nerdy Kristy and Mary Anne run home together. Both have baby-sitting jobs and Mary Anne plans to bring her "charges" (stupid Claire and Margo Pike) over to the Newtons,' where Kristy is baby-sitting for Jamie and David Michael. What if the kids didn't want to play together?
Kristy goes home, grabs DM, and they arrive at the Newtons' at 3:30 sharp (so that Kristy can brag about her punctuality.) Jamie answers the door, and I rather "enjoy" his German greeting: "Kuckkuck."
Delightfully random and far better than the cutesy "hi-hi" (which he could have said. "Hi" is not super commonly said. Not where I am, at least, but I have heard it.) David Michael looks oh-so-thrilled at the prospect of being stuck with Jamie, until Jamie pulls out his "Soldaat Joe" doll. Thank goodness for "Soldaat Joe!" Kristy bugs Mrs. Newton about the soon-to-be-born Lucy, and practically the minute she is gone, calls Mary Anne and invites her over. Mary Anne arrives (pulling stupid Claire and Margo along in a wagon) and we get our first German edition editing mistake. In the US edition, David Michael and Margo are wary of each other (because David Michael doesn't trust little girls, "especially if they aren't in his class at school,") but in the German one, David Michael is glaring at Claire (and Margo is her usual non-entity self.) Nice to see editing mistakes in the foreign editions, too.
The kids manage to play together on Jamie's swingset while Kristy tries to tell Mary Anne about the BSC. They are soon interrupted, as Jamie falls off of a swing and cries, like most three-year-olds would. For some reason this causes Mary Anne to dramatically take the Pikes back home (it's not like they pushed Jamie off the swing) after she and Kristy decide to meet up with Claudia after their sitting jobs are over.
Kristy goes to visit Claudia and remarks that she doesn't feel comfortable visiting Claudia because she is "growing up faster" than Mary Anne and Kristy. She's even wearing a bra now (a commonly heard German word for bra is "BH," which sounds like "Bee Hah," which to my childish self, looks and sounds funny) and talking about boys "like they've just been invented." Middle school boys, ugh. Kristy is accurate in describing how immature and obnoxious they are. Too bad later in the series, she would more-or-less be acting like them... Anyway, she "bravely" knocks on Claudia's door and Claudia answers. She is wearing the oh-so-lovely outfit of short, very baggy lavender plaid overalls (the German edition awesomely describes them as looking "like a sack"), a lacy white blouse, a black fedora (while lounging around in her house?) and red high-top sneakers without socks (gross, and again, while lounging around in her house?). For some reason Kristy feels "extremely blah" (or "ganz idiotisch") next to Claudia. I'm sure whatever she was wearing (no description) could not have been any worse. Although German-speaking Kristy feels "ganz idiotisch," she does call Claudia's outfits "komisch" (meaning "strange," "weird," or "funny"), but doesn't bat an eye... until she sees that Claudia is wearing makeup. In the German version, she is only wearing eye shadow (blue, gold, and silver. Hideous!), however, in the original version, Kristy simiplistically informs us that Claudia had "blue stuff" on her eyelids, "gold stuff" above her eyes, and "magenta stuff" on her cheeks. Just because Kristy is "immature" doesn't mean she wouldn't know the names of makeup. She apparently knows that Claudia's makeup looks like crap, because she is shocked and appalled and blurts out that Claudia looks like she got made up for the circus (as a clown?). She tries to back-peddle by saying Claudia doesn't need makeup. Kindle-edition Claudia says "nice try," but German-language Claudia says a line more along what I remember from my old version of this book of, "you just think I'm exotic." (or something like that, and shut up Claudia.) Narrator-Kristy launches into the typical "Claudia is beautiful and eats her weight in Twinkies, but still stays thin," descrption, and then they finally go to the future BSC headquarters: Claudia's room.
They rudely discuss Janine along the way, and narrator-Kristy launches into a mean, childish description of Janine who "makes her want to barf" because she does things like corrects her grammar (speak properly, Kristy, and then Janine wouldn't have to) and sounds "like a text book" ("aus der englischen Grammatik.") According to Kristy, Janine's best friend is a "Math Nerd" (Stacey?) and her "second best friend" is her Computer. She is "sure that it is because of Janine that Claudia concentrates on art and is a terrible student." And I can tell by Kristy's bratty tone, that this is supposed to be good on Claudia's part and nice message there, Ann: be a bad student, or else you might end up having only one "uncool" friend. Ugh!
Anyway, after Kristy gets all of the Janine-hate out of her system, she tells Claudia (and Mary Anne, once she arrives) about the club. Claudia is all excited about the club. She offers her room as the "club headquarters" and suggests that her "echt cool" new friend "Daisy" McGill join too. Kristy is rudely all secretly wary about the thought of "Daisy," but agrees to meet her. They agree to meet on the next day (at 5:30.. but it would have been a Thursday) and "that was how the Baby-sitters Club officially began." In case we thought otherwise, I guess...
Kapitel 4:
Kristy arrives at Claudia's house the next day at 5:30. Considering it would take her a minute or so to get upstairs, that would have made her "late" in future BSC books. Claudia answers, dressed in the lovely ensemble of a baggy yellow and black checkered shirt (in the German language edition, it is a plaid shirt that is "much too wide!" Ha ha!), black pants, red jazz shoes (as in, for jazz dancing??), a bracelet that looked like it was made from a telephone cord (I loved those!) and earings that looked like dangling, jointed Skeletons (I guess Halloween was somewhat coming up.) However, she is wearing no makeup. Her parents wouldn't let her. Good, John and Rioko. Now if you could just say no to the silly outfits...
Kristy and Claudia run upstairs, groaning at the thought of Janine being home. Her door is open, too, and she comes out when she hears them. Janine very nicely tells Kristy that the Baby-sitters Club sounds like an outstanding idea. She does get a little annoying when she corrects Kristy's use of the word "hopefully" (or her German misuse of the word "ich glaube," which means "I believe"), making Kristy and Claudia run away and Kristy think bratty thoughts about how she doesn't know how Claudia manages to live in the same house as Janine. I could think that too, only my version of Kristy's sentence might end with, "and not be at least a little bit smater than she is."
Stupid Mary Anne arrives and she and Kristy get to meet "Daisy" McGill (who was waiting in Claudia's room.) I know in some of the foreign language editions of BSC books, the girls have different names and the books are even set in somewhere else besides Stoneybrook, Connecticut, USA (like in the French Canadian ones, or...???) However, the German versions are set in Stoneybrook and mostly seem similar. "Daisy" is even from New York. So it just makes the name change seem that much more strange. Oh well... Anyway, Kristy and Mary Anne can automatically tell that Daisy is sophisticated. She is wearing such timless fashions as: a pink sweatshirt with sequins and a large purple parrot on the front (it vaguely sounds like something Tess Swinhart would wear), short, tight-fitting zippered jeans, and pink plastic shoes. Totally sophisticated. Kristy sees hers and Mary Anne's "babyish" clothes of skirts and blouses (Kristy Thomas wore a skirt? And she wasn't attending a funeral or a wedding? Whomever updated these for the Kindle version changed her outfit to jeans and sneakers. I guess she is babyish and too young to dress herself if she couldn't even remember to put on a shirt) and feels like they "looked like second graders" while Daisy and Claudia "looked like models" (an observation that is boringly removed from the Kindle version.) They are all shy and uncomfortalbe for a moment, but Kristy finally starts talking to Daisy and finds that she would make a good club member. Mary Anne asks annoying during this session and keeps saying "wow," after not-all-that-interesting statements like Daisy's apartment having over 200 residents. Shy Mary Anne would want to live in the same building as hundreds of other people? Mary Anne is so taken in by the sophisticated Ms. McGill's tales of New York that she forgets to be shy and asks her why her family left New York. Daisy acts all evasive and changes the subject. "Sensitive" Mary Anne changes the subject right back to New York and continues with her stupid "wows" until Kristy finally interrupts her to talk about the club. "Daisy" is accepted into the club(very informally. No ceremonies or pizza toasts for her) and Claudia pulls out a package of Peanut M&Ms to celebrate. In the German edition, it is a package of peanuts. They have Peanut M&Ms in Germany now, but I don't know how long they have been available there. It will be the first of many "candy changes" between the two versions. it is kind of an odd change, though. There isn't even any mention of the peanuts being sugared. At first she tries to say that there are only a few left, so that Narrator Kristy could explain Claudia's "quirky trait" of hiding junk food. Twinkies and Wint-o-Green Lifesavers have been changed in the German edition to Bubblegum, and Gummibars. I don't know that Twinkies ever made it over here and now they never will. :( Anyway, after Kristy badgers Daisy about refusing food (maybe she wasn't hungry), Daisy tells them she's on a diet, and Kristy bugs her a little bit about that. Then Mary Anne has to go home, so the four girls agree to meet the next day at recess (are they second graders?) to talk about the club.
Suddenly, it is the next day (end, chapter!). Mary Anne and Kristy order the "disgusting" hot lunch of a Sloppy Joe, red Jell-o with canned fruit in it, a "dinky" cup of cole slaw, milk and a Fudgesicle. The food is kept in the German version (except that the cole slaw cup is more kindly referred to as "small"), but with descriptions of Sloppy Joes and cole slaw are (i.e. "cole slaw is similar to kraut salad."), except that the Fudgesicle is merely Fudge. German Kristy informs us that she likes that, as well as Caramel. Since she wasn't eating Caramel, who cares...
Mary Anne and Kristy "choke" down their food and go outside to the playground (they actually call it that) and wait for Claudia and Daisy to finish eating lunch with the "popular kids." They play Tetherball ("Federball") while they wait, so that Kristy could win and brag about how good she is in sports. Then Claudia and Daisy join them and they find some conveniently available packing crates to sit on (what were those DOING outside in a playground) and boringly discuss the club. Such "thrilling" decisions are made as: they can make flyers." Then they discuss what symbol to put on them. Mary Anne makes old lady suggestions like a child or a helping hand. Then she makes bizarre suggestions like a frog. Everybody laughs and Mary Anne freezes. I don't think this book has mentioned yet that she cries at the drop of a hat, or else she might have. Instead, she laughs too and "sophisticated" Daisy and Claudia chime in with such "mature" suggestions as a "warthog" and a "nerd" (actually Daisy says "Depp," which I had to look up, but means "fool," "dork" or "dweeb." Does Johnny Depp know this?) They "get serious" and Claudia thinks up their little logo with the block design (which looks really strange on the Kindle version.) Kristy almost calls her a "genius," but remembers Claudia is "touchy" about the word. Because of Janine, or because of her own stupidity? Who knows. Anyway, the girls agree to meet on the weekend to discuss the Baby-sitters Club, and run back inside.
And that's all for now. Will they... really meet on the weekend? Will they write more to-do lists? Will Mary Anne get caught with her flashlight? Stay tuned for the next installment...