Karen's Sleepover (7-13)
This is the book that introduces us to Pamela, who is notable for being the only one who does her own thing and doesn't go along with whatever Karen says. Of course, this means she's Karen's "worst enemy" and obviously the most disgusting girl to ever walk the Earth.
Chapter 7
Karen and Nancy are still being bitches to eachother and Hannie is caught in the middle. This happens a lot with the Three Musketeers. Lisa gives Karen a halfhearted talk about why you should make up with your best friends but Karen's like "No, fuck that." At school, Karen's sleepover is the talk of the town. At the risk of derailing due to a personal anecdote, I have hosted exactly one party that was the talk of the town: my 18th birthday/Halloween party (because my birthday is near Halloween). I'd invited about 10 people and everyone was super psyched about it...only for nobody to show up on the day of, because "2 PM to 6 PM? THAT'S not a party!" They all showed up at 8 PM, 2 hours after everything had been cleared up, and said it was my fault for having a party during the day. Bull and shit. Anyway, Karen's classmates are all scared because Karen has brothers and everyone knows brothers are horrible creatures who cannot resist the urge to pester and/or prank little girls. Except for DM, Karen's brothers are actually pretty chill and I don't think they'd try to intrude on the party even if Karen hadn't been so pretentious about "STAY AWAY FROM MY PARTY YOU NASTY BOYS." Ricky tells them he's gonna crash the party, bring rubber snakes (and everyone thinks rubber snakes are horrifying for some reason), and upgrade from spying on nightgowns to spying on underwear. Ricky is scandalous for his age, isn't he?
Chapter 8 (The coming of Pamela)
Miss Colman has a surprising announcement that actually isn't about bullshit this time. They have a new student, Pamela, whose mother writes books and who borrows perfume from her sister. Pamela's wearing some hella cool pink overalls with a pink striped shirt and matching hat, and while everyone in Karen's class thinks this is the shit, Stacey would be absolutely livid and insist that the 7-year-old needed a makeover before she becomes "singled out as an oddball." (Source: Stacey's Secret Friend, my least favorite book in the series.) Karen decides Pamela is hot property and invites her to the sleepover.
Chapter 9
Karen rushes downstairs on the day of the party and starts ordering her minions around, demanding that they drop everything and take her out party shopping RIGHT now. Why didn't you do the shopping BEFORE the party day? Even if she was not at the Big House all week, the grownups knew a party was coming and could have done the shopping over the course of the week. Elizabeth tells her to sit down and stop ordering them around, but all Karen is concerned about is that the store might sell out of its stock of popcorn and balloons in the short time it takes to eat breakfast. Turns out the stores weren't even fucking open, so how the hell could they sell out? Finally, Nannie takes Karen to the stores and Karen bitchfaces about Nancy some more for some reason.
The party setup occurs. Karen is very emotional about balloons. Karen decides her brothers need another stern lecture about "how to behave." Karen is a little twit, and if I was one of Karen's brothers I would take so much advantage of this. My god, poor Charlie is SO pussywhipped and I blame Kristy. I blame Kristy forcing him to drive her to and from her lousy club meetings. I blame Kristy making him buy a "babysitter on board" sticker for his car because there's no fucking way he made the conscious decision to do that himself.
Chapter 10
Pamela is the first guest to arrive, wearing a pink dress over black and pink pants. I always imagined Pamela to be a younger Claudia. Karen is now insecure about her perfectly acceptable sleepover outfit (as awesome as Pamela's outfit is, she did overdress) and Sam takes all the advantage of this by being all "Hey, you're a dweeb by the way." Sam rocks. Karen frets about her outfit after discovering that Pamela refuses to sleep on the floor. You know what, so do I. Unless it's my floor. Elizabeth allows Pamela to sleep in Karen's bed, while Karen bitchfaces about how dare she not sleep on the floor with the rest of the borg. The rest of Karen's friends arrive, and Pamela is incredulous about the playroom. Karen automatically assumes she's being a snob, but what if she's just surprised because she's never actually seen or been to a house with a playroom before? I didn't even know about playrooms until I watched Dragon Tales. My bedroom was/is my "playroom" and I never needed a separate room just to play in.
Everyone shows off their awesome sleepover swag and then David Michael squirts an unidentifiable liquid upon them all before running away. Well, Karen, if you hadn't run around the house yelling STAY AWAY FROM MY PARTY then he probably wouldn't have even given a shit about it. You gave him the ammunition.
Chapter 11
It's pizza time, Pamela doesn't like pizza, and this gives Karen more reason to bitchface. Karen, not everyone is going to like what you like so get the fuck over it. She whispers with her friends about how Pamela must not be any fun. She is new, in a strange MANSION with girls she's only known for a day, and just because she doesn't like the same shit you like doesn't mean she's not having any fun. The girl is probably nervous as hell and you're not making it any better. Karen longs to have Nancy back because "She would not stand for what Pamela is doing." No, I'm pretty sure Nancy would shut the fuck up and let the poor girl do whatever she wants to make herself feel comfortable.
So now they're gonna watch a scary movie and they pick...The Wizard of Oz. That is NOT a scary movie. That. Is. NOT. A scary movie. Sure, it has some nightmare fuel, but as a whole it is not a motherfucking scary movie. They couldn't have watched some Don Bluth? Or Labyrinth? Or RETURN to Oz? These girls are total wusses, even at 7. And Pamela tells them so, as the girls sit and pee their pants over the Wicked Witch of the West.
Chapter 12
They continue being terrified and act like The Wizard of Oz is the motherfucking scariest thing ever. Again, they need to watch Return to Oz. Let us unleash the headless princess and the Nome King upon them all! Again, Pamela calls them all out on their wussiness and is just like "Bitch, I've seen this movie 87 times and it's not fucking scary. Get over yourselves." They go downstairs to make cookies while Karen again longs for Nancy because Nancy would never call her out or go against the hivemind (well, not for longer than a few chapters, anyway). They throw batter at eachother and it's fine for them, but when Lou McNally does it in "Worst Kid Ever" it's a big fucking deal that causes Hannie to break down crying. They decide to make a cookie in the shape of Ricky Torres, before Karen confides in Kristy that Pamela is ruining everything. How is she ruining everything by minding her own business on the side? I fucking hate people who try to FORCE others to socialize or go along with the flow at a party. They have their own reasons for staying in the corner, leave them be.
Chapter 13
Karen tells Kristy about the fight with Nancy. Kristy tells her that she needs to call Nancy and apologize, and then invite Nancy to the party on the fly. During a thunderstorm. So Karen calls and apologizes, but only because she wants the extra borg minion when Pamela is not delivering. Karen and Nancy make up and bond over how much of a bitch Pamela is for thinking the Wizard of Oz isn't scary, for not liking pizza, for being too nervous to sit with the group, and for wanting to sleep in a bed. It's very telling how Karen treats people who do not think or act like she thinks they ought to. Pamela's not the alpha bitch, Karen is.
Chapter 7
Karen and Nancy are still being bitches to eachother and Hannie is caught in the middle. This happens a lot with the Three Musketeers. Lisa gives Karen a halfhearted talk about why you should make up with your best friends but Karen's like "No, fuck that." At school, Karen's sleepover is the talk of the town. At the risk of derailing due to a personal anecdote, I have hosted exactly one party that was the talk of the town: my 18th birthday/Halloween party (because my birthday is near Halloween). I'd invited about 10 people and everyone was super psyched about it...only for nobody to show up on the day of, because "2 PM to 6 PM? THAT'S not a party!" They all showed up at 8 PM, 2 hours after everything had been cleared up, and said it was my fault for having a party during the day. Bull and shit. Anyway, Karen's classmates are all scared because Karen has brothers and everyone knows brothers are horrible creatures who cannot resist the urge to pester and/or prank little girls. Except for DM, Karen's brothers are actually pretty chill and I don't think they'd try to intrude on the party even if Karen hadn't been so pretentious about "STAY AWAY FROM MY PARTY YOU NASTY BOYS." Ricky tells them he's gonna crash the party, bring rubber snakes (and everyone thinks rubber snakes are horrifying for some reason), and upgrade from spying on nightgowns to spying on underwear. Ricky is scandalous for his age, isn't he?
Chapter 8 (The coming of Pamela)
Miss Colman has a surprising announcement that actually isn't about bullshit this time. They have a new student, Pamela, whose mother writes books and who borrows perfume from her sister. Pamela's wearing some hella cool pink overalls with a pink striped shirt and matching hat, and while everyone in Karen's class thinks this is the shit, Stacey would be absolutely livid and insist that the 7-year-old needed a makeover before she becomes "singled out as an oddball." (Source: Stacey's Secret Friend, my least favorite book in the series.) Karen decides Pamela is hot property and invites her to the sleepover.
Chapter 9
Karen rushes downstairs on the day of the party and starts ordering her minions around, demanding that they drop everything and take her out party shopping RIGHT now. Why didn't you do the shopping BEFORE the party day? Even if she was not at the Big House all week, the grownups knew a party was coming and could have done the shopping over the course of the week. Elizabeth tells her to sit down and stop ordering them around, but all Karen is concerned about is that the store might sell out of its stock of popcorn and balloons in the short time it takes to eat breakfast. Turns out the stores weren't even fucking open, so how the hell could they sell out? Finally, Nannie takes Karen to the stores and Karen bitchfaces about Nancy some more for some reason.
The party setup occurs. Karen is very emotional about balloons. Karen decides her brothers need another stern lecture about "how to behave." Karen is a little twit, and if I was one of Karen's brothers I would take so much advantage of this. My god, poor Charlie is SO pussywhipped and I blame Kristy. I blame Kristy forcing him to drive her to and from her lousy club meetings. I blame Kristy making him buy a "babysitter on board" sticker for his car because there's no fucking way he made the conscious decision to do that himself.
Chapter 10
Pamela is the first guest to arrive, wearing a pink dress over black and pink pants. I always imagined Pamela to be a younger Claudia. Karen is now insecure about her perfectly acceptable sleepover outfit (as awesome as Pamela's outfit is, she did overdress) and Sam takes all the advantage of this by being all "Hey, you're a dweeb by the way." Sam rocks. Karen frets about her outfit after discovering that Pamela refuses to sleep on the floor. You know what, so do I. Unless it's my floor. Elizabeth allows Pamela to sleep in Karen's bed, while Karen bitchfaces about how dare she not sleep on the floor with the rest of the borg. The rest of Karen's friends arrive, and Pamela is incredulous about the playroom. Karen automatically assumes she's being a snob, but what if she's just surprised because she's never actually seen or been to a house with a playroom before? I didn't even know about playrooms until I watched Dragon Tales. My bedroom was/is my "playroom" and I never needed a separate room just to play in.
Everyone shows off their awesome sleepover swag and then David Michael squirts an unidentifiable liquid upon them all before running away. Well, Karen, if you hadn't run around the house yelling STAY AWAY FROM MY PARTY then he probably wouldn't have even given a shit about it. You gave him the ammunition.
Chapter 11
It's pizza time, Pamela doesn't like pizza, and this gives Karen more reason to bitchface. Karen, not everyone is going to like what you like so get the fuck over it. She whispers with her friends about how Pamela must not be any fun. She is new, in a strange MANSION with girls she's only known for a day, and just because she doesn't like the same shit you like doesn't mean she's not having any fun. The girl is probably nervous as hell and you're not making it any better. Karen longs to have Nancy back because "She would not stand for what Pamela is doing." No, I'm pretty sure Nancy would shut the fuck up and let the poor girl do whatever she wants to make herself feel comfortable.
So now they're gonna watch a scary movie and they pick...The Wizard of Oz. That is NOT a scary movie. That. Is. NOT. A scary movie. Sure, it has some nightmare fuel, but as a whole it is not a motherfucking scary movie. They couldn't have watched some Don Bluth? Or Labyrinth? Or RETURN to Oz? These girls are total wusses, even at 7. And Pamela tells them so, as the girls sit and pee their pants over the Wicked Witch of the West.
Chapter 12
They continue being terrified and act like The Wizard of Oz is the motherfucking scariest thing ever. Again, they need to watch Return to Oz. Let us unleash the headless princess and the Nome King upon them all! Again, Pamela calls them all out on their wussiness and is just like "Bitch, I've seen this movie 87 times and it's not fucking scary. Get over yourselves." They go downstairs to make cookies while Karen again longs for Nancy because Nancy would never call her out or go against the hivemind (well, not for longer than a few chapters, anyway). They throw batter at eachother and it's fine for them, but when Lou McNally does it in "Worst Kid Ever" it's a big fucking deal that causes Hannie to break down crying. They decide to make a cookie in the shape of Ricky Torres, before Karen confides in Kristy that Pamela is ruining everything. How is she ruining everything by minding her own business on the side? I fucking hate people who try to FORCE others to socialize or go along with the flow at a party. They have their own reasons for staying in the corner, leave them be.
Chapter 13
Karen tells Kristy about the fight with Nancy. Kristy tells her that she needs to call Nancy and apologize, and then invite Nancy to the party on the fly. During a thunderstorm. So Karen calls and apologizes, but only because she wants the extra borg minion when Pamela is not delivering. Karen and Nancy make up and bond over how much of a bitch Pamela is for thinking the Wizard of Oz isn't scary, for not liking pizza, for being too nervous to sit with the group, and for wanting to sleep in a bed. It's very telling how Karen treats people who do not think or act like she thinks they ought to. Pamela's not the alpha bitch, Karen is.