SVT #97 - Too Scared to Sleep
In this story, the twins start their own babysitting service with Todd, Amy and Winston, because they all need cash badly for various reasons. The service’s first clients are the Riccoli family, who have just moved into the spooky house on the hill with the mysterious past that no one likes to talk about. And Nightmare on Elm Street-style hijinks ensue. This book is the first in a series that goes on for a whopping four books (so far in the Sweet Valley Twins series, there has only ever been one miniseries, and it went for only two books). So, to share the load (well, and because zippy’s copy of Too Scared to Sleep got wet and unreadable),
zippyladoodles and I are gonna share the duties of recapping this series. The story is intricate and complex, much like a delicately woven spider web glistening with morning dew, so let us begin the arduous task of unravelling each gossamer-thin strand in order to discover the magical plot treasures within...
Cough. I’ll get on with it, shall I?
Hmm. Liz really likes kids.
The A Plot
The book begins with a not-so-subtle page-and-a-half of italics, from the point of view of an unnamed girl skulking around a widow’s walk. It’s revealed that she is angry that a family has recently moved into the mansion where she lives. Cos they ‘don’t belong there’. “No child will ever sleep safely in this house again,” she says into the quiet, deserted darkness. “Ever!” …That’s ever, y’all! (It’s also Eva. Oh, I’m so clever. Oh my God. Clever rhymed!...I’ll stop now)
The next scene shows the twins bicycling by the old Sullivan mansion on the hill. It’s been deserted for decades, but now suddenly there’s a moving van outside! This apparently gives Jess and Liz the right to go up to the house and snoop around, where they meet Mrs. Riccoli, who seems frazzled and kooky. She has five small kids (Olivia, Andrew, Gretchen, Juliana and Nate) and her husband is still wrapping things up in Sacramento, where they moved from. She needs help! Can the twins recommend some good babysitters? As a matter of fact they can. Themselves. And so it begins.
Next scene (at Casey’s Ice Cream parlour…hey, why not the Dairi Burger? Why do the middle schoolers and high schoolers have separate hangouts?), the twins, Winston, Todd and Amy angst over how broke they are. Lol, Winston is being dramatic with a spoon and it accidentally flies into an old man’s booth, who gets angry and yells that this isn’t a playground. Also, Winston mistakes Mrs. Riccoli’s name for Mrs. Broccoli. Winston rules. Liz suggests that the five of them form a babysitting service (the “Five Friends”) and advertise by putting posters around town. Jess gets greedy and wants the money all to herself, but Liz convinces her that the five of them should all do it.
Liz and Jess (of course) take the very first job at the Riccoli’s. They are totally punk’d by the five kids, who hide and scare the bejeezus out of them upon their arrival. Sidebar - Jess is wearing “worn out” Doc Martens. Is she goth now?
Despite their practical joke, the kids aren’t annoying brats. In fact, they’re all pretty cute and well-behaved. Olivia is the oldest, at 10 - luckily she’s helping to take care of the rest of the kids. I always hated how in the Baby-Sitters Club you have eleven year olds taking care of kids as old as ten. Because a year is a big enough gap to separate “babysitter” from “babysittee”???
Heh, the kids all think Jess and Liz are really old - “dinosaurs”. They call Liz a stegosaurus and Jess a brontosaurus. Eventually they are sent to bed. But oh no - Juliana (the five year old) doesn’t want to go to bed. She reveals she’s had bad dreams every night since they moved there. Poor kid. There’s a scary “monster girl” in her dreams that chases her…ruh-roh.
Jessica notices that the interior of the Riccoli’s house is seriously fug. We’re talking orange shag rug, red plaid couch, green lamp. It does sound kind of gross. She suggests to Mrs. Riccoli that she talk to her mom (Alice Wakefield, interior designer extraordinaire). Despite having a gaggle of kids to support, Mrs. Riccoli takes Alice’s card with enthusiasm. I guess she’s loaded, having just bought a mansion and all. This is kind of weird, considering she’s supposed to be a university professor. Is that really such a lucrative career? Anyway, Liz is shocked at Jess’ rudeness, but I think she did the lady a favour here.
Then an old man creeps up on them. Aggh! This book is kind of annoying in that, for several chapters, it develops this Goosebumps-like habit of making scary moments happen at the end of a chapter, then at the beginning of the next one, having the scary moment turn out to be something minor (like the kids scaring them). It’s irritating and predictable. So, this old man is Mr. Brangwen, the house’s gardener. He’s really anal about the garden (ze hedges! Ze hedges!) and loves the house, in a nutty way. Hehe, I like how Jess decides he’s creepy:
“There was something very creepy about him, Jessica decided. Or else he really didn’t like her at all. Which was creepy enough on its own.”
Not liking Jess = scary.
He warns them to be very careful around the house - and to never, ever shut their eyes in there. Ooh! Liz wonders if this and Juliana’s aversion to sleeping are connected, but Jess tells her it’s silly and to quit worrying. Funny that Jess is the practical one here, usually she loves to get carried away with a good mystery.
Lol, Jess considers herself “rich” from the $10 she got babysitting that night. Even as a twelve year old, I wouldn’t have considered that very much money…Heh, she thinks she’ll have as much money as Lila soon. Oh Jessica. Jessica, Jessica, Jessica.
Alice agrees to the Riccoli job.
Liz and Amy babysit the kids. Juliana has a bad nightmare where the monster girl is trying to kill her. Liz thinks this sounds like a pretty serious nightmare for a little girl. Liz and Amy calm Juliana down by talking about how dreams are just dreams. Ha. I wouldn’t count on that, Lizzie…
Liz has a run-in with Mr. Brangwen when she’s walking to a movie downtown. He warns her that “she’ll get you in your sleep”. And then it starts thunderstorming (how atmospheric). He acts really crazed and yells that he has more to tell her, but Liz runs away as fast as her toned, tanned, perfect size six legs can carry her.
Soon, she’s babysitting again with TBT (ooh!). Um, why is Liz always babysitting? Ha, she even wonders at this herself when Juliana starts crying again - “Maybe it only happens the nights I’m here. Maybe I’m a jinx!, Elizabeth thought”.
Elizabeth thinks it’s weird that Mr. Brangwen’s warnings match up to Juliana’s bad dreams. But TBT suggests that Mr. Brangwen has been scaring Juliana with the same warnings, and that maybe that’s why she’s having the bad dreams. ‘“Maybe he doesn’t want anyone to live here,” Todd said. “Maybe he likes being the gardener at an abandoned house for some reason”.’
In the next scene, Amy also thinks the gardener has a few screws loose for taking care of an abandoned house. Lol, I love these kids’ theories! It’s never said he does it pro bono (hehe, pro boner). Maybe someone’s paying him. Way to jump to conclusions. Amy asks why Liz hasn’t mentioned Juliana’s bad dreams to Mrs. Riccoli. This is a good question. Liz says she has, but Mrs. Riccoli didn’t seem to think it was a very big deal. Make her see that it is, Liz!
Elizabeth makes another attempt to talk to Mrs. Riccoli about the dreams. Mrs. Riccoli is concerned, but has been noticing the dreams herself (she does live with Juliana after all) and thinks it’s nothing major to worry about. Apparently last time they moved, Andrew had a lot of bad dreams too.
Alice and Jessica finally go by to look at the Riccoli’s house. Magical circumstances have intervened until now, preventing Alice to see which house it is. But when Jessica finally directs her towards the house on the hill, Alice slams on the car’s breaks. She goes really white and nervous and declares that she can’t go into the house. Jess is all “aw, Mom, those rumours about the house being haunted aren’t true!”, but Alice is like “no, it’s not that, I just remembered…something…else…I have to…do. I’m too busy to take this job. It was a mistake. Or something. But there’s no other reason I don’t want to come in. No other reason at all.” *Alice skittishly looks around, then speeds off faster than you can say boo*
Jessica is embarrassed and weirded out, as you would be.
The next morning, Liz notices a headline in the obituary section - “Expert Gardener Dies”. Yep, you guessed it - Mr. Brangwen is dead! And he died in his sleep. Cue twilight zone music. Amy points out that he died at home, though, and he mentioned never to close your eyes in that house, so maybe the two things aren’t connected, and he just died from old age.
Jessica tries to confront her mother about how weird she was acting, asking if she knows anything about the old mansion, but her mom denies ever visiting that house and insists she was just afraid of overextending herself at work. Suuuuure, Alice!
In the last chapter, Liz and Jess are once again babysitting at the Riccoli’s when Juliana has another bad dream. She cries that the monster girl scratched her with her fingernails. Liz offers to give her a back rub to help her sleep (uh, really? I would never do that for a kid I was baby-sitting…just saying). But lo and behold - the skin on her back is completely covered in long, deep, angry scratches! Liz’s eyes fill with tears as she realises someone is really trying to hurt Juliana. Dunn, dunn dunn dunn. Of course, no one in Sweet Valley has ever seen or heard of a movie series called Nightmare on Elm Street. Freddy who?
The book ends with Jessica finding a hidden door at the top of the landing to the third floor. There’s some thin plaster which crumbles at her touch, revealing a young girl’s bedroom (from the looks of it, untouched for years), complete with stuffed toys and a closet full of small dresses. She walks around and finds a noticeboard full of old photographs. And lo and behold - one of the photos holds two girls, one slightly older and very familiar-looking. Jessica turns the photo around and on the back is written “Alice and Eva”. One of the girls is a young Alice Wakefield! =O
End with another page-long italic rant from the mystery girl:
“That pretty blond girl has no business looking through her private room. And one thing is for sure: she is going to regret ever having invaded her secret, special place (*resists urge to make inappropriate joke here*). That girl is going to be sorry.
Because she will meet with a fate worse than she can ever imagine…”
DUN! DUN DUN DUN!!!!!!!!!!!!.........
The B Plot
Winston is taking secret accordion lessons every Saturday afternoon. I know. Could he be more of a geek? Well, in his defence, he hates taking them. He’s practically being forced to by his mother, so he can play the polka at her second cousin’s daughter’s wedding. Uh, what? Yeah. That’s the story. He secretly wants to be taking drum lessons, where he’ll one day blow everyone away at a school concert with an amazing solo…his hands moving like lightning, cymbals crashing…smoke machines and sparks aren’t mentioned, but I’m assuming they’ll be included too. I find his drum fantasy so cute.
At one of his lessons, bully Charlie Cashman happens to come in early for his guitar lesson with Winston’s same teacher. Unfortunately he sees Winston playing the accordion. His secret shame revealed! Ruh-roh. Mean old Charlie threatens to tell anyone and everyone about Winston’s playing of “the instrument that was invented for nerds”. Winston panics, imagining himself banished to the corner of the cafeteria, alone with only his accordion for company. Aw! I wonder if Winston is Jewish…just a random thought…he’s so neurotic, and “Egbert” sounds vaguely Jewish, doesn’t it? Winston, in a bad move of desperation, offers Charlie anything in exchange for keeping quiet. Charlie practically rubs his hands together in glee and cackles evilly, patting his top hat and twirling his handlebar moustache. Charlie wants - get this - $25 by next Monday. He sure thinks big, doesn’t he? But this is enough to worry Winston, who doesn’t even have 25 cents at this point.
Luckily, he soon gets a call from a guy called Mr. Karsten, who wants to hire him to take care of his two infant twins, Karla and Kevin (gag me). Win eagerly agrees (I have a sudden desire to call him Win-win - we can say, hey, it’s a win-win situation!). Winston doesn’t know much about taking care of babies, but he decides to fake it til he makes it.
Wacky hijinks ensue. He gives Kevin a bottle of cola, but Kevin throws it against the wall, where it explodes in a huge sticky brown mess. If you ask me, Win-win deserved this…who gives soda to a baby?! But luckily everything gets cleaned up in time, and Winston makes a graceful exit with $15 in pocket. Honestly, these parents are clueless. They left their kids with a teeth-rotting infant soda-giver and were none the wiser.
On Monday, Charlie Cashman gets Win-win by his locker and…it’s lose-lose. Win only has $15. Charlie is not happy, and demands $15 more by Wednesday. Win is majorly panicked. Um, it’s only fifteen bucks. Can’t you just ask your mom for it? Yeesh.
Luckily, Mr. Karsten calls again to hire him for Tuesday night. Win-win is psyched. Then Cashman calls to kindly ‘remind’ Win about getting the money to him by Wednesday. Cashman greedily asks Win what time he’ll give the money to him. I have to transcribe this:
“Winston might be an easy target for blackmail, but he was at least going to set some standards. “How about…sundown on Wednesday?” he suggested, trying to be dramatic.
“Huh?” Charlie asked. “Do you mean, like, after school?”
Winston sighed. Drama was wasted on someone like Charlie Cashman. In fact, Charlie’s last name was beginning to take on a whole new meaning…as in, Where’s the cash, man?”
I like the way Win-win thinks in this book.
Unfortunately, he totally stuffs up his next baby-sitting job. He puts the twin’s dinner in the microwave in a “glass bowl with pretty metal edges”. Don’t do it, Win-win! Turns out it’s Mrs. Karsten’s favourite Tiffany bowl, and, well, we all know what metal does in microwaves. Kerpow. Kablam. Kaput. The parents are horrified and fire him, letting him go without paying him. Jeez, be glad they didn’t send you a bill for the damage, Win. He’s understandably distraught. He regrets scheduling he and Charlie’s tryst for sundown, thinking it’ll be all the easier for Charlie to beat him up when it gets dark. Hee.
But wait! Charlie goes looking for Win in Win’s garage, and in a moment of awesomeness, Winston traps Charlie into the garage by using the automatic door. Deux ex machina - Charlie’s yelling to get out turns into whimpering and then crying - and he confesses that he’s really, really afraid of the dark. What luck for Win-win! Now Charlie’s got nothin’ on Win, because Win has something much worse on him. Problem solved! Winston convinces Charlie to give him back his first $15, to call it even. But he gets a little creepy:
“I’ll - I’ll get it to you,” Charlie stammered.
““When?” Winston demanded. “What time?” This put a whole new light on being a bully. Winston could suddenly see why Charlie enjoyed it so much!”
Um, yikes. Way to teach kids a lesson, SVT ghostwriters.
Sweetly enough, at the end, Mr and Mrs. Karsten re-hire Winston, confessing that the twins have been crying for “Win-win” for days. Lol! I don’t know if I’d be that forgiving, but all’s well that ends well.
…Except for the evil monster dream-killing girl and stuff.
Next up, “The Beast is Watching You”. Were Alice Wakefield and Eva secretly in love? Will Liz and Todd make out during their next baby-sitting session? Will Jessica make friends with a rogue camel named Blinky? Find out soon!
zippyladoodles and I are gonna share the duties of recapping this series. The story is intricate and complex, much like a delicately woven spider web glistening with morning dew, so let us begin the arduous task of unravelling each gossamer-thin strand in order to discover the magical plot treasures within...
Cough. I’ll get on with it, shall I?
Hmm. Liz really likes kids.
The A Plot
The book begins with a not-so-subtle page-and-a-half of italics, from the point of view of an unnamed girl skulking around a widow’s walk. It’s revealed that she is angry that a family has recently moved into the mansion where she lives. Cos they ‘don’t belong there’. “No child will ever sleep safely in this house again,” she says into the quiet, deserted darkness. “Ever!” …That’s ever, y’all! (It’s also Eva. Oh, I’m so clever. Oh my God. Clever rhymed!...I’ll stop now)
The next scene shows the twins bicycling by the old Sullivan mansion on the hill. It’s been deserted for decades, but now suddenly there’s a moving van outside! This apparently gives Jess and Liz the right to go up to the house and snoop around, where they meet Mrs. Riccoli, who seems frazzled and kooky. She has five small kids (Olivia, Andrew, Gretchen, Juliana and Nate) and her husband is still wrapping things up in Sacramento, where they moved from. She needs help! Can the twins recommend some good babysitters? As a matter of fact they can. Themselves. And so it begins.
Next scene (at Casey’s Ice Cream parlour…hey, why not the Dairi Burger? Why do the middle schoolers and high schoolers have separate hangouts?), the twins, Winston, Todd and Amy angst over how broke they are. Lol, Winston is being dramatic with a spoon and it accidentally flies into an old man’s booth, who gets angry and yells that this isn’t a playground. Also, Winston mistakes Mrs. Riccoli’s name for Mrs. Broccoli. Winston rules. Liz suggests that the five of them form a babysitting service (the “Five Friends”) and advertise by putting posters around town. Jess gets greedy and wants the money all to herself, but Liz convinces her that the five of them should all do it.
Liz and Jess (of course) take the very first job at the Riccoli’s. They are totally punk’d by the five kids, who hide and scare the bejeezus out of them upon their arrival. Sidebar - Jess is wearing “worn out” Doc Martens. Is she goth now?
Despite their practical joke, the kids aren’t annoying brats. In fact, they’re all pretty cute and well-behaved. Olivia is the oldest, at 10 - luckily she’s helping to take care of the rest of the kids. I always hated how in the Baby-Sitters Club you have eleven year olds taking care of kids as old as ten. Because a year is a big enough gap to separate “babysitter” from “babysittee”???
Heh, the kids all think Jess and Liz are really old - “dinosaurs”. They call Liz a stegosaurus and Jess a brontosaurus. Eventually they are sent to bed. But oh no - Juliana (the five year old) doesn’t want to go to bed. She reveals she’s had bad dreams every night since they moved there. Poor kid. There’s a scary “monster girl” in her dreams that chases her…ruh-roh.
Jessica notices that the interior of the Riccoli’s house is seriously fug. We’re talking orange shag rug, red plaid couch, green lamp. It does sound kind of gross. She suggests to Mrs. Riccoli that she talk to her mom (Alice Wakefield, interior designer extraordinaire). Despite having a gaggle of kids to support, Mrs. Riccoli takes Alice’s card with enthusiasm. I guess she’s loaded, having just bought a mansion and all. This is kind of weird, considering she’s supposed to be a university professor. Is that really such a lucrative career? Anyway, Liz is shocked at Jess’ rudeness, but I think she did the lady a favour here.
Then an old man creeps up on them. Aggh! This book is kind of annoying in that, for several chapters, it develops this Goosebumps-like habit of making scary moments happen at the end of a chapter, then at the beginning of the next one, having the scary moment turn out to be something minor (like the kids scaring them). It’s irritating and predictable. So, this old man is Mr. Brangwen, the house’s gardener. He’s really anal about the garden (ze hedges! Ze hedges!) and loves the house, in a nutty way. Hehe, I like how Jess decides he’s creepy:
“There was something very creepy about him, Jessica decided. Or else he really didn’t like her at all. Which was creepy enough on its own.”
Not liking Jess = scary.
He warns them to be very careful around the house - and to never, ever shut their eyes in there. Ooh! Liz wonders if this and Juliana’s aversion to sleeping are connected, but Jess tells her it’s silly and to quit worrying. Funny that Jess is the practical one here, usually she loves to get carried away with a good mystery.
Lol, Jess considers herself “rich” from the $10 she got babysitting that night. Even as a twelve year old, I wouldn’t have considered that very much money…Heh, she thinks she’ll have as much money as Lila soon. Oh Jessica. Jessica, Jessica, Jessica.
Alice agrees to the Riccoli job.
Liz and Amy babysit the kids. Juliana has a bad nightmare where the monster girl is trying to kill her. Liz thinks this sounds like a pretty serious nightmare for a little girl. Liz and Amy calm Juliana down by talking about how dreams are just dreams. Ha. I wouldn’t count on that, Lizzie…
Liz has a run-in with Mr. Brangwen when she’s walking to a movie downtown. He warns her that “she’ll get you in your sleep”. And then it starts thunderstorming (how atmospheric). He acts really crazed and yells that he has more to tell her, but Liz runs away as fast as her toned, tanned, perfect size six legs can carry her.
Soon, she’s babysitting again with TBT (ooh!). Um, why is Liz always babysitting? Ha, she even wonders at this herself when Juliana starts crying again - “Maybe it only happens the nights I’m here. Maybe I’m a jinx!, Elizabeth thought”.
Elizabeth thinks it’s weird that Mr. Brangwen’s warnings match up to Juliana’s bad dreams. But TBT suggests that Mr. Brangwen has been scaring Juliana with the same warnings, and that maybe that’s why she’s having the bad dreams. ‘“Maybe he doesn’t want anyone to live here,” Todd said. “Maybe he likes being the gardener at an abandoned house for some reason”.’
In the next scene, Amy also thinks the gardener has a few screws loose for taking care of an abandoned house. Lol, I love these kids’ theories! It’s never said he does it pro bono (hehe, pro boner). Maybe someone’s paying him. Way to jump to conclusions. Amy asks why Liz hasn’t mentioned Juliana’s bad dreams to Mrs. Riccoli. This is a good question. Liz says she has, but Mrs. Riccoli didn’t seem to think it was a very big deal. Make her see that it is, Liz!
Elizabeth makes another attempt to talk to Mrs. Riccoli about the dreams. Mrs. Riccoli is concerned, but has been noticing the dreams herself (she does live with Juliana after all) and thinks it’s nothing major to worry about. Apparently last time they moved, Andrew had a lot of bad dreams too.
Alice and Jessica finally go by to look at the Riccoli’s house. Magical circumstances have intervened until now, preventing Alice to see which house it is. But when Jessica finally directs her towards the house on the hill, Alice slams on the car’s breaks. She goes really white and nervous and declares that she can’t go into the house. Jess is all “aw, Mom, those rumours about the house being haunted aren’t true!”, but Alice is like “no, it’s not that, I just remembered…something…else…I have to…do. I’m too busy to take this job. It was a mistake. Or something. But there’s no other reason I don’t want to come in. No other reason at all.” *Alice skittishly looks around, then speeds off faster than you can say boo*
Jessica is embarrassed and weirded out, as you would be.
The next morning, Liz notices a headline in the obituary section - “Expert Gardener Dies”. Yep, you guessed it - Mr. Brangwen is dead! And he died in his sleep. Cue twilight zone music. Amy points out that he died at home, though, and he mentioned never to close your eyes in that house, so maybe the two things aren’t connected, and he just died from old age.
Jessica tries to confront her mother about how weird she was acting, asking if she knows anything about the old mansion, but her mom denies ever visiting that house and insists she was just afraid of overextending herself at work. Suuuuure, Alice!
In the last chapter, Liz and Jess are once again babysitting at the Riccoli’s when Juliana has another bad dream. She cries that the monster girl scratched her with her fingernails. Liz offers to give her a back rub to help her sleep (uh, really? I would never do that for a kid I was baby-sitting…just saying). But lo and behold - the skin on her back is completely covered in long, deep, angry scratches! Liz’s eyes fill with tears as she realises someone is really trying to hurt Juliana. Dunn, dunn dunn dunn. Of course, no one in Sweet Valley has ever seen or heard of a movie series called Nightmare on Elm Street. Freddy who?
The book ends with Jessica finding a hidden door at the top of the landing to the third floor. There’s some thin plaster which crumbles at her touch, revealing a young girl’s bedroom (from the looks of it, untouched for years), complete with stuffed toys and a closet full of small dresses. She walks around and finds a noticeboard full of old photographs. And lo and behold - one of the photos holds two girls, one slightly older and very familiar-looking. Jessica turns the photo around and on the back is written “Alice and Eva”. One of the girls is a young Alice Wakefield! =O
End with another page-long italic rant from the mystery girl:
“That pretty blond girl has no business looking through her private room. And one thing is for sure: she is going to regret ever having invaded her secret, special place (*resists urge to make inappropriate joke here*). That girl is going to be sorry.
Because she will meet with a fate worse than she can ever imagine…”
DUN! DUN DUN DUN!!!!!!!!!!!!.........
The B Plot
Winston is taking secret accordion lessons every Saturday afternoon. I know. Could he be more of a geek? Well, in his defence, he hates taking them. He’s practically being forced to by his mother, so he can play the polka at her second cousin’s daughter’s wedding. Uh, what? Yeah. That’s the story. He secretly wants to be taking drum lessons, where he’ll one day blow everyone away at a school concert with an amazing solo…his hands moving like lightning, cymbals crashing…smoke machines and sparks aren’t mentioned, but I’m assuming they’ll be included too. I find his drum fantasy so cute.
At one of his lessons, bully Charlie Cashman happens to come in early for his guitar lesson with Winston’s same teacher. Unfortunately he sees Winston playing the accordion. His secret shame revealed! Ruh-roh. Mean old Charlie threatens to tell anyone and everyone about Winston’s playing of “the instrument that was invented for nerds”. Winston panics, imagining himself banished to the corner of the cafeteria, alone with only his accordion for company. Aw! I wonder if Winston is Jewish…just a random thought…he’s so neurotic, and “Egbert” sounds vaguely Jewish, doesn’t it? Winston, in a bad move of desperation, offers Charlie anything in exchange for keeping quiet. Charlie practically rubs his hands together in glee and cackles evilly, patting his top hat and twirling his handlebar moustache. Charlie wants - get this - $25 by next Monday. He sure thinks big, doesn’t he? But this is enough to worry Winston, who doesn’t even have 25 cents at this point.
Luckily, he soon gets a call from a guy called Mr. Karsten, who wants to hire him to take care of his two infant twins, Karla and Kevin (gag me). Win eagerly agrees (I have a sudden desire to call him Win-win - we can say, hey, it’s a win-win situation!). Winston doesn’t know much about taking care of babies, but he decides to fake it til he makes it.
Wacky hijinks ensue. He gives Kevin a bottle of cola, but Kevin throws it against the wall, where it explodes in a huge sticky brown mess. If you ask me, Win-win deserved this…who gives soda to a baby?! But luckily everything gets cleaned up in time, and Winston makes a graceful exit with $15 in pocket. Honestly, these parents are clueless. They left their kids with a teeth-rotting infant soda-giver and were none the wiser.
On Monday, Charlie Cashman gets Win-win by his locker and…it’s lose-lose. Win only has $15. Charlie is not happy, and demands $15 more by Wednesday. Win is majorly panicked. Um, it’s only fifteen bucks. Can’t you just ask your mom for it? Yeesh.
Luckily, Mr. Karsten calls again to hire him for Tuesday night. Win-win is psyched. Then Cashman calls to kindly ‘remind’ Win about getting the money to him by Wednesday. Cashman greedily asks Win what time he’ll give the money to him. I have to transcribe this:
“Winston might be an easy target for blackmail, but he was at least going to set some standards. “How about…sundown on Wednesday?” he suggested, trying to be dramatic.
“Huh?” Charlie asked. “Do you mean, like, after school?”
Winston sighed. Drama was wasted on someone like Charlie Cashman. In fact, Charlie’s last name was beginning to take on a whole new meaning…as in, Where’s the cash, man?”
I like the way Win-win thinks in this book.
Unfortunately, he totally stuffs up his next baby-sitting job. He puts the twin’s dinner in the microwave in a “glass bowl with pretty metal edges”. Don’t do it, Win-win! Turns out it’s Mrs. Karsten’s favourite Tiffany bowl, and, well, we all know what metal does in microwaves. Kerpow. Kablam. Kaput. The parents are horrified and fire him, letting him go without paying him. Jeez, be glad they didn’t send you a bill for the damage, Win. He’s understandably distraught. He regrets scheduling he and Charlie’s tryst for sundown, thinking it’ll be all the easier for Charlie to beat him up when it gets dark. Hee.
But wait! Charlie goes looking for Win in Win’s garage, and in a moment of awesomeness, Winston traps Charlie into the garage by using the automatic door. Deux ex machina - Charlie’s yelling to get out turns into whimpering and then crying - and he confesses that he’s really, really afraid of the dark. What luck for Win-win! Now Charlie’s got nothin’ on Win, because Win has something much worse on him. Problem solved! Winston convinces Charlie to give him back his first $15, to call it even. But he gets a little creepy:
“I’ll - I’ll get it to you,” Charlie stammered.
““When?” Winston demanded. “What time?” This put a whole new light on being a bully. Winston could suddenly see why Charlie enjoyed it so much!”
Um, yikes. Way to teach kids a lesson, SVT ghostwriters.
Sweetly enough, at the end, Mr and Mrs. Karsten re-hire Winston, confessing that the twins have been crying for “Win-win” for days. Lol! I don’t know if I’d be that forgiving, but all’s well that ends well.
…Except for the evil monster dream-killing girl and stuff.
Next up, “The Beast is Watching You”. Were Alice Wakefield and Eva secretly in love? Will Liz and Todd make out during their next baby-sitting session? Will Jessica make friends with a rogue camel named Blinky? Find out soon!