Abby the Bad Sport Part One
Hi, longtime commenter, first time snarker. If I make any screw-ups regarding formatting, please let me know.
Anyway, you may be wondering why I chose Abby the Bad Sport for my first attempt at bat so to speak. Well, I was inspired by a bit of trivia in the BSC wiki, in the section about Mallory Pike, #1 Fan, which said this:
Mallory Pike, #1 Fan made it to the final round of the Miss BSC Pageant competition for "Worst Overall Book," but lost to Abby the Bad Sport.
To which I have to scream, “Bullcrap!” There’s no way Abby the Bad Sport could possibly be worse than Mallory Pike, #1 Fan; it just isn’t possible. Maybe a thousand monkeys typing on a thousand typewriters won’t type out the complete works of Shakespeare but I guarantee that whatever they produce, it won’t be as infuriating and stupid as Mallory Pike, #1 Fan. But I was curious as to just how bad Abby the Bad Sport could be, so when I stumbled onto a copy, I decided to give it a shot.
Not much to say about the cover. Abby doesn’t look too bad but the other girl on the cover, who I presume is Erin, lordy does her hair look unfortunate. I’m not even sure how to begin describing it. Maybe a more talented snarker can take a stab at this.
For those of you wondering, the ghostie in question is Nola Thacker, which makes me a little disappointed. Of all the ghosties, I liked Lerangis the best; part of me always wondered if he made some kind of game to see how much crap he could get past the radar, so to speak. He also was the one who seemed to recognize how disturbingly cultish the BSC are. But anyway, on with the book.
Our first chapter begins with that old stand-by trope of a BSC member rushing to get to a meeting on time. Someday, someone really ought to take a count of how many BSC books begin with said member rushing to the meeting and making it just in time to avoid punishment from K.Ron.
There really isn’t a lot to snark in this first chapter. It’s just Abby, our fearless narrator for the book, introducing herself and telling us her life story, not only violating the “Show, don’t tell” rule of storytelling but also the “No info-dump” rule. But then again, by this point in the series, flanderization had set in and hard on the BSC, so I’m not really expecting much. I just know that if I had been drafted as a ghostie for this series, I’d probably insert sentences from erotica at random into Chapters One and Two just to see if I can get away with it because even as a kid, I usually skipped the chapters where the character lays out her history and the history of the BSC.
We do get an example of the “It’s hard to be humble, when I’m perfect in every way” kind of thinking from the BSC on just the second page, when Abby says this:
“I am thirteen years old and in eighth grade at Stoneybrook Middle School in Stoneybrook, Connecticut, where I am an okay student and an excellent varsity soccer player. I’m not bragging. I just don’t believe in pretending not to be good at something when you are. It’s just as dumb as pretending to know how to do something when you don’t.”
I suppose as an ardent feminist I should be grateful to have a female character choosing not to downplay her talents the way so many other girls are forced to, but this still really rubs me the wrong way. Here’s a hint: saying “You’re not bragging” doesn’t make it not bragging and it doesn’t make the character’s arrogance easier to swallow.
Well Abby makes it just in time so we can stop biting our nails in worry. There’s the usual meet’n’greet and Abby asks for water. Stacey, in accordance with one of the BSC rules (Thou shalt have only one personality trait), offers her orange juice mixed with seltzer, saying that she has to mix them because the orange juice would be too much sugar for her otherwise. I raise an eyebrow: on one hand, it’s good that someone finally told Ann or the ghosties that fruit juice has sugar in it, but I fail to see how mixing it with seltzer would solve that problem. Also, that concoction sounds gross.
Abby makes her big announcement: her soccer coach has recommended her for the Special Olympics Unified Team. For those of you unfamiliar with this book, this is a Very Special Episode-type of book, where they talk (usually very badly) about an issue. Today’s issue is people with intellectual disabilities or as the book puts it, people who have mental retardation.
Okay, because I try to see the best in people, I’m going to cut Ann a little slack. This book was published in 1997 so the r-word was probably still the terminology of choice in the mental health field. Since it has now become a pejorative thrown around by the insensitive, I will try to avoid using the r-word as much as possible. Given that I was raised by someone who worked with people with intellectual disabilities, I was raised to be sensitive to that issue, so I suspect this will be a tricky book to get through, but I’ll do my best. That disclaimer out of the way, on with the book.
After talking about how Stoneybrook United has been set up so no single player is a superstar, we get this nice paragraph just brimming with humility from Abby:
I didn’t mention that I didn’t quite believe this. I’d never played on a team where I wasn’t one of the star players. But I had also been very good at helping players who weren’t up to my game. Secretly, I kind of thought that was what I would be doing, operating as sort of an assistant coach.
Yeah, raise your hand if you’re looking forward to the inevitable lesson in hubris. Me, too.
Chapter One finishes up with more talk about soccer, which I don’t care about because I’m not really that into sports, so let’s move onto the most difficult part of any BSC book to snark, the inevitable Chapter Two.
We get the usually, “First there was nothing…then there was Kristy.” beginning and since this was a later book, where Ann seems to be possessed by a spirit that continually howls, “Tell them about Kid-Kits. This book won’t make any sense without them.” there’s a big long paragraph describing them, along with the Notebook. But let’s cut past all that and get to character descriptions.
K.Ron, according to the book, is “outspoken, opinionated, and, according to some people, pushy.” There’s also a little aside where Abby says, in parenthesis, “Isn’t it interesting that people call someone who can’t be bullied or pushed around pushy?” Yeah, about that, Abby, as I mentioned before as an ardent feminist I’m all about girls being strong and opinionated and standing up for themselves, but thing is, I don’t think the “Ban Bossy” movement wants girls to become so egotistical that they start their own cult where they humiliate and punish anyone who is a minute late or develops interests and friends outside the group. They list the people living at Kristy’s house of which the only one referred to by name is, of course, Karen, who is given the descriptor of “very imaginative.” Yeah, I’m going to just leave that there. And yes, they do mention that her stepfather is a “real, live millionaire” as opposed to all those dead ones who are just a dime a dozen. Seriously, how do they know their parents’ net worth? I’m in my twenties and I still don’t know mine, nor do I want to know because that would be horribly rude. At least, that’s the way I was raised.
Not much to say about Mary Anne, though they do mention she cries at commercials. Though if it’s one of those overly long, incredibly depressing ASPCA commercials, I totally understand. Though I’ve taken to shouting at them, “If you didn’t spend so much god-danged money on super-long commercials, maybe you wouldn’t have to do so much fundraising.”
Next is Claudia. They mention that her older sister, Janine, is a real, live genius. Okay, who here wants to lobby for some kind of law forbidding Ann or the ghosties from overusing the words “babyish” “sophisticated” or the adjective phrase “real, live?” Again, even as a kid that drove me nuts. But here’s the obligatory Claudia outfit:
“A little crop-top muscle shirt that she had batikked green and blue. She’d sewed a bunch of buttons up the front as if it were a vest. She also had on skinny black shorts, one blue sock and one green sock, and black Doc Martens with one blue shoelace (on the foot with the green sock) and one green shoelace (on the foot with the blue sock). Her long black hair had been gathered into a single braid. A blue ribbon with more buttons attached to it was woven into the braid. Her earrings? Buttons, naturally.”
And yes, we get the obligatory “on anyone else it might not have worked, but on Claudia it did,” bit. Still, gotta say compared with some Claudia outfits, this one isn’t too bad. Someday, someone ought to go through all the books in the BSC canon, compile all the Claudia outfits, and figure out which ghostie dresses her the most badly. Inquiring minds need to know!
No Stacey outfit, sorry. Her defining traits are that she’d from New York and she has diabetes. No “eww, yuck” on the insulin injections, though.
Now to our junior members. Jessi is defined, in this book, by her trait of being into ballet. There’s a paragraph that says she gets up every morning at exactly 5:29 to practice ballet at the barre her family has set up for her in the basement, to which I say, “Really? Since when?” because I don’t recall that every being mentioned in another BSC book.
Surprisingly enough, Mallory’s description isn’t too insulting. I’m surprised, myself. It just mentions that she has red hair, freckles, glasses, and braces and plans on getting contacts as soon as she can.
Chapter Two finishes out with long descriptions of Logan and Shannon. Why I’m not sure since I don’t think they have a huge part to play in this book. But the important thing is we’ve made it through Chapter Two; now we get to snark on Abby being a hosebeast.
For the record, I am not an athlete. I hate most sports, so soccer nerds, if I get anything wrong, feel free to let me know.
Chapter Three begins with Abby at sports practice. The team is being coached by Coach Wu, who I vaguely recall from other books. There really isn’t much to say about this chapter, just the soccer team practicing and doing drills and getting to know each other. I’m sure it’s exciting stuff if you’re actually doing it, but to read about it? Total snorefest. Abby snarks a little as a player named Petra (and yes, they use the groan-inducing “petra-fied” pun) is shocked to be playing goalie when she usually plays midfield, but naturally, Abby is shocked, shocked that the coach doesn’t recognize her amazing skills as a forward striker and assigns her to play center fullback.
Okay, like I said before, I don’t really know sports all that well, but I fail to see the flaw in Coach Wu’s thinking. Isn’t it a good thing to be familiar with the various positions on the field and what is expected of each one? Coach Wu’s reasoning is that a good striker can be made into a good defender and that with her offensive experience, she can anticipate and block the play, and I can’t really see anything wrong with that.
In a rare stroke of maturity, Abby doesn’t openly whine “But that’s not fa-aair!” She only just thinks it and Chapter Three ends with this bit, foreshadowing the bitchiness to come:
I also vowed, as we trotted out onto the field into our positions, to stop one player FIRST.
Erin.
Because Coach Wu had given Erin my job. My position. Erin was the center forward.
But not for long, I vowed. Not if I had anything to do with it.
Oh boy…the grandiose sense of entitlement, the screw-everyone-if-I-don’t-get-my-way kind of thinking…it never fails to make me see red.
But for those looking forward to more epic bitchiness, I’m afraid I’ll have to put you on hold for awhile, because we immediately cut to Chapter Four.
Not going to lie: this chapter’s kind of impossible to snark too. Abby meets up with her mom and sister in New York and they go out to eat. While eating, Abby’s mom talks about how it’s been four years since their father died and that since they hadn’t visited his grave since moving to Stoneybrook, she’s decided that they should make a trip to Long Island to visit the grave and spend time with relatives. Abby’s like “Hell no!” in response to all of this and I’ll give them credit: they do a good job of showing why Abby would be uncomfortable with the idea. For all their faults, they do a good job of portraying her grief. But I have a feeling, based on Chapter Three, that this may be the only positive thing about this book.
Chapter Five is even more impossible to snark. It’s a babysitting job with Kristy and Claudia sitting for her step-siblings, David Michael, and the Papadakis siblings. Thankfully, there are very few Karen antics. But that just makes it less interesting. Basically, Kristy has one of her Great Ideas™ and decides to rope a bunch of kids into raising money to buy uniforms for Abby’s soccer team. I yawn and wonder what the point is seeing as even Abby had already mentioned that soccer, unlike football, doesn’t require fancy uniforms.
Chapter Six, however, begins with the stuff we’ve come to expect from a BSC book: epic bitchiness. And I mean, epic. There’s not even any buildup, the bitchiness begins right with the first sentence which is: “How many practices does it take to convince a coach that she’s made a mistake?”
Abby’s gotten over what little enthusiasm she had for Coach Wu, saying that she might be a great softball coach, but what does she know about soccer, even though in the same paragraph she admits that Coach Wu had played a little varsity at UNC. But that means Coach Wu is old! And everyone knows that thirteen-year-old girls know more about everything than a college-educated adult, who has played sports for years.
But in Abby’s defense, she is not a quitter (I’m not kidding: the book makes a point of having her say it). Abby spends the rest of practice playing her position and sniping at Erin, who is guilty of the unthinkable! Being chosen for Abby’s position! But you think that’s awful, we haven’t even yet reached the tip of the bitchy summit. Bear with us.
Coach Wu ends practice by saying, “Good practice. Play like that on the game on Sunday and we won’t have any problems.” But not even this bland comment soothes Abby’s wounded soul:
I looked at Coach Wu in disbelief. How could we play great without me on the front line?
Yeah, because it’s all about you, Abby. It’s not like soccer’s a team sport.
Coach Wu then decides to take everyone out for ice cream. After a practice? That’s awfully nice of her. I thought most coaches just took you out for treats after a game. But not even that kind gesture can soothe Abby’s torment.
Abby spends the ride basically bragging about her Long Island team and what a great center forward she was on that team, but Coach Wu, continuing to be awesome, shoots her down by saying “Don’t worry. You’ll eventually get the hang of center back.” Gotta love anyone who shoots down such an overinflated ego.
They pull into the ice cream place, which is called 32 Flavors and Then Some. Erin further earns Abby’s ire, when all the employees of the place (which is where Erin works part-time) compliment Erin. Erin then says the worst thing she could possibly say: that she wants extra-big scoops for all her friends. The nerve of that girl, asking that her friends get plenty of ice-cream! Abby is like, “What a show-off,” and further snipes to herself about Erin basking in the attention as the other players ask questions and she points out the various flavors.
:clutches head in hands: For all characters in the BSC-verse, here’s some words of advice: if you commit any offense against a member of the all-mighty BSC, however slight, nothing, I repeat, nothing you do will escape scrutiny and judgment. You could be a saint who cures cancer with your tears and the BSC will snipe about you taking away jobs from oncologists. It doesn’t matter. Because let me remind you: so far Erin’s only crime was playing the position the coach assigned her to, a position that a BSC member wanted. She hasn’t done or said anything remotely offensive to Abby.
Erin then asks Abby what kind of ice cream she wants. Abby responds by bitching that she’s not a baby and she can order for herself. Abby orders vanilla and makes a point of sitting as far away from Erin and her teammates as possible and spends the meal thinking about how Erin is such a show-off and her teammates are such phonies for liking her. The chapter ends with Abby smirking and thinking about how Erin may shine in practice but she’ll crack under the pressure and then the team will lose. I’m surprised she didn’t steeple her fingers ala Mr. Burns as she thought all this.
Chapter Seven is game day. Once again, nothing Erin does escapes scrutiny and judgment as she says she’d rather play in weather like this than in rain or snow. Abby snaps that a good player can play in any weather. Erin responds, “Then I’m not worried.” Abby notes that she responded with (and I’m using her words) “annoying self-confidence” even though if Abby or another BSC member had said it, they would just follow it up with something along the lines of “I’m not bragging; it’s true.”
Abby continues to sulk about Erin playing her position while she’s stuck in the “hard-work-for-no-glory, kill-or-be-killed zone of the soccer field.” Once again, I’m betrayed by my lack of knowledge of soccer, but I feel the old saying “There are no small parts, only small actors,” applies here. Maybe the defensive positions don’t get the glory the way the offensive ones do, but they’re still important to the team, Abby. She sulks about how if their team lost, the offense wouldn’t get blamed for not scoring, but the defense would get blamed for letting the other team score against them, and I bang my head against the table at her getting upset at the idea that people would get upset at her for not doing what she’s supposed to do. Isn’t the whole point of the defense to guard the goal and keep the other team from scoring?
So the game commences. Abby spends the game trying to score goals, ignoring Coach Wu who keeps yelling “ABBY! GET BACK IN POSITION!” And once again, I’m totally on Coach Wu’s side. From what I heard about soccer, pretty much everything hinges on everyone knowing where they’re supposed to be on the field and being there. So shut up, Abby!
But Abby’s inner monologue continues going on and on about how her teammates aren’t supporting her and how the opposing team’s defense keeps swarming her even though that’s what they’re supposed to do. They’re supposed to defend the goal, not escort you to it so you can score the winning kick.
Erin, by virtue of doing what she’s supposed to be doing, manages to get the ball and scores the team’s only goal. Abby snipes that since she was only a few feet away from the goal, she’d have a hard time missing. How dare Erin do what she’s supposed to do and score goals!
Abby’s team loses 2-1. I’ll cut past the part where Abby talks with the kids and get straight to the part where, well if you didn’t think she was being a bitch before, you will think it now.
Abby decides that since Coach Wu isn’t going to do anything to solve the Problem of Erin, she should have a talk with her. Abby’s like “We could be a winning team. But we have to play like a team and I totally could have scored several times if the rest of the team could have given me support.” I admit, I’m paraphrasing a little, but her speech really is that whiny.
Erin responds by saying, “But you play defense. They scored because you weren’t in your place.” To which I say, go Erin go! Her summation is correct. If Abby had done the job she was assigned, instead of showboating and sulking, their team might have won.
Abby’s too shocked to respond with anything but a “What?!” Erin reiterates her previous point: that Abby wasn’t where she was supposed to be. Abby whines that it’s called total soccer and someone was supposed to cover her. Erin, standing strong, again says Coach Wu said for you to stay in place and you didn’t.
Then we get to the one cringingly awkward part everyone remembers from this book. Abby pouts and is like “Excuse me, I think I know a little more about soccer than you."
That’s when Erin got me. “Why?” She looked at me directly, and I saw a flash of anger in her eyes. “Because I have mental retardation? Do you think I can’t play as well as you because of that?”
For the record, I am still totally on Team Erin here, but I find myself going “What?” at how awkwardly her objections were written. I suppose Ann is bending over backwards, trying not to offend with this dialogue, but it makes Erin sound more like an android trying to imitate human behavior than an actual human. Still, given that Ann’s permanently stuck in the fifties, I suppose we should be grateful she didn’t use worse terminology than the r-word.
Abby’s all “I didn’t say that!” though you know she was probably thinking it. Erin, continuing to be awesome, says, “I stay in my position. And I scored. I am a good player. Better than you.” And bad grammar aside (“I stay in my position”), Erin is totally in the right here. She did her job. Abby didn’t.
Abby says “That’s what you think!” then sulks away. She goes back to her house, continuing to sulk as her sister, Anna, has the nerve to ask, “How she did?” Abby says, “If you’d been there, you’d know.” In her monologue, she admits that she had told Anna and her mom not to show up until later in the season when the team was “more together.” Or in other words, when she’s got her spot as center forward back.
Abby’s mom comes in and wants to talk some more about making a trip to Long Island, but Abby is having none of this. She yells about how she doesn’t want to go and runs to her room to have a good cry. Normally, I’d be sympathetic to her-losing a loved one is something that will always hurt-but at this point, I want her to suffer.
And that’s the first seven chapters of Abby the Bad Sport. I’ll post the second half when I can. So far, I do agree that it deserves to be called one of the worst in the BSC canon, but I still don’t feel it’s as bad as Mallory Pike, #1 Fan.
Anyway, you may be wondering why I chose Abby the Bad Sport for my first attempt at bat so to speak. Well, I was inspired by a bit of trivia in the BSC wiki, in the section about Mallory Pike, #1 Fan, which said this:
Mallory Pike, #1 Fan made it to the final round of the Miss BSC Pageant competition for "Worst Overall Book," but lost to Abby the Bad Sport.
To which I have to scream, “Bullcrap!” There’s no way Abby the Bad Sport could possibly be worse than Mallory Pike, #1 Fan; it just isn’t possible. Maybe a thousand monkeys typing on a thousand typewriters won’t type out the complete works of Shakespeare but I guarantee that whatever they produce, it won’t be as infuriating and stupid as Mallory Pike, #1 Fan. But I was curious as to just how bad Abby the Bad Sport could be, so when I stumbled onto a copy, I decided to give it a shot.
Not much to say about the cover. Abby doesn’t look too bad but the other girl on the cover, who I presume is Erin, lordy does her hair look unfortunate. I’m not even sure how to begin describing it. Maybe a more talented snarker can take a stab at this.
For those of you wondering, the ghostie in question is Nola Thacker, which makes me a little disappointed. Of all the ghosties, I liked Lerangis the best; part of me always wondered if he made some kind of game to see how much crap he could get past the radar, so to speak. He also was the one who seemed to recognize how disturbingly cultish the BSC are. But anyway, on with the book.
Our first chapter begins with that old stand-by trope of a BSC member rushing to get to a meeting on time. Someday, someone really ought to take a count of how many BSC books begin with said member rushing to the meeting and making it just in time to avoid punishment from K.Ron.
There really isn’t a lot to snark in this first chapter. It’s just Abby, our fearless narrator for the book, introducing herself and telling us her life story, not only violating the “Show, don’t tell” rule of storytelling but also the “No info-dump” rule. But then again, by this point in the series, flanderization had set in and hard on the BSC, so I’m not really expecting much. I just know that if I had been drafted as a ghostie for this series, I’d probably insert sentences from erotica at random into Chapters One and Two just to see if I can get away with it because even as a kid, I usually skipped the chapters where the character lays out her history and the history of the BSC.
We do get an example of the “It’s hard to be humble, when I’m perfect in every way” kind of thinking from the BSC on just the second page, when Abby says this:
“I am thirteen years old and in eighth grade at Stoneybrook Middle School in Stoneybrook, Connecticut, where I am an okay student and an excellent varsity soccer player. I’m not bragging. I just don’t believe in pretending not to be good at something when you are. It’s just as dumb as pretending to know how to do something when you don’t.”
I suppose as an ardent feminist I should be grateful to have a female character choosing not to downplay her talents the way so many other girls are forced to, but this still really rubs me the wrong way. Here’s a hint: saying “You’re not bragging” doesn’t make it not bragging and it doesn’t make the character’s arrogance easier to swallow.
Well Abby makes it just in time so we can stop biting our nails in worry. There’s the usual meet’n’greet and Abby asks for water. Stacey, in accordance with one of the BSC rules (Thou shalt have only one personality trait), offers her orange juice mixed with seltzer, saying that she has to mix them because the orange juice would be too much sugar for her otherwise. I raise an eyebrow: on one hand, it’s good that someone finally told Ann or the ghosties that fruit juice has sugar in it, but I fail to see how mixing it with seltzer would solve that problem. Also, that concoction sounds gross.
Abby makes her big announcement: her soccer coach has recommended her for the Special Olympics Unified Team. For those of you unfamiliar with this book, this is a Very Special Episode-type of book, where they talk (usually very badly) about an issue. Today’s issue is people with intellectual disabilities or as the book puts it, people who have mental retardation.
Okay, because I try to see the best in people, I’m going to cut Ann a little slack. This book was published in 1997 so the r-word was probably still the terminology of choice in the mental health field. Since it has now become a pejorative thrown around by the insensitive, I will try to avoid using the r-word as much as possible. Given that I was raised by someone who worked with people with intellectual disabilities, I was raised to be sensitive to that issue, so I suspect this will be a tricky book to get through, but I’ll do my best. That disclaimer out of the way, on with the book.
After talking about how Stoneybrook United has been set up so no single player is a superstar, we get this nice paragraph just brimming with humility from Abby:
I didn’t mention that I didn’t quite believe this. I’d never played on a team where I wasn’t one of the star players. But I had also been very good at helping players who weren’t up to my game. Secretly, I kind of thought that was what I would be doing, operating as sort of an assistant coach.
Yeah, raise your hand if you’re looking forward to the inevitable lesson in hubris. Me, too.
Chapter One finishes up with more talk about soccer, which I don’t care about because I’m not really that into sports, so let’s move onto the most difficult part of any BSC book to snark, the inevitable Chapter Two.
We get the usually, “First there was nothing…then there was Kristy.” beginning and since this was a later book, where Ann seems to be possessed by a spirit that continually howls, “Tell them about Kid-Kits. This book won’t make any sense without them.” there’s a big long paragraph describing them, along with the Notebook. But let’s cut past all that and get to character descriptions.
K.Ron, according to the book, is “outspoken, opinionated, and, according to some people, pushy.” There’s also a little aside where Abby says, in parenthesis, “Isn’t it interesting that people call someone who can’t be bullied or pushed around pushy?” Yeah, about that, Abby, as I mentioned before as an ardent feminist I’m all about girls being strong and opinionated and standing up for themselves, but thing is, I don’t think the “Ban Bossy” movement wants girls to become so egotistical that they start their own cult where they humiliate and punish anyone who is a minute late or develops interests and friends outside the group. They list the people living at Kristy’s house of which the only one referred to by name is, of course, Karen, who is given the descriptor of “very imaginative.” Yeah, I’m going to just leave that there. And yes, they do mention that her stepfather is a “real, live millionaire” as opposed to all those dead ones who are just a dime a dozen. Seriously, how do they know their parents’ net worth? I’m in my twenties and I still don’t know mine, nor do I want to know because that would be horribly rude. At least, that’s the way I was raised.
Not much to say about Mary Anne, though they do mention she cries at commercials. Though if it’s one of those overly long, incredibly depressing ASPCA commercials, I totally understand. Though I’ve taken to shouting at them, “If you didn’t spend so much god-danged money on super-long commercials, maybe you wouldn’t have to do so much fundraising.”
Next is Claudia. They mention that her older sister, Janine, is a real, live genius. Okay, who here wants to lobby for some kind of law forbidding Ann or the ghosties from overusing the words “babyish” “sophisticated” or the adjective phrase “real, live?” Again, even as a kid that drove me nuts. But here’s the obligatory Claudia outfit:
“A little crop-top muscle shirt that she had batikked green and blue. She’d sewed a bunch of buttons up the front as if it were a vest. She also had on skinny black shorts, one blue sock and one green sock, and black Doc Martens with one blue shoelace (on the foot with the green sock) and one green shoelace (on the foot with the blue sock). Her long black hair had been gathered into a single braid. A blue ribbon with more buttons attached to it was woven into the braid. Her earrings? Buttons, naturally.”
And yes, we get the obligatory “on anyone else it might not have worked, but on Claudia it did,” bit. Still, gotta say compared with some Claudia outfits, this one isn’t too bad. Someday, someone ought to go through all the books in the BSC canon, compile all the Claudia outfits, and figure out which ghostie dresses her the most badly. Inquiring minds need to know!
No Stacey outfit, sorry. Her defining traits are that she’d from New York and she has diabetes. No “eww, yuck” on the insulin injections, though.
Now to our junior members. Jessi is defined, in this book, by her trait of being into ballet. There’s a paragraph that says she gets up every morning at exactly 5:29 to practice ballet at the barre her family has set up for her in the basement, to which I say, “Really? Since when?” because I don’t recall that every being mentioned in another BSC book.
Surprisingly enough, Mallory’s description isn’t too insulting. I’m surprised, myself. It just mentions that she has red hair, freckles, glasses, and braces and plans on getting contacts as soon as she can.
Chapter Two finishes out with long descriptions of Logan and Shannon. Why I’m not sure since I don’t think they have a huge part to play in this book. But the important thing is we’ve made it through Chapter Two; now we get to snark on Abby being a hosebeast.
For the record, I am not an athlete. I hate most sports, so soccer nerds, if I get anything wrong, feel free to let me know.
Chapter Three begins with Abby at sports practice. The team is being coached by Coach Wu, who I vaguely recall from other books. There really isn’t much to say about this chapter, just the soccer team practicing and doing drills and getting to know each other. I’m sure it’s exciting stuff if you’re actually doing it, but to read about it? Total snorefest. Abby snarks a little as a player named Petra (and yes, they use the groan-inducing “petra-fied” pun) is shocked to be playing goalie when she usually plays midfield, but naturally, Abby is shocked, shocked that the coach doesn’t recognize her amazing skills as a forward striker and assigns her to play center fullback.
Okay, like I said before, I don’t really know sports all that well, but I fail to see the flaw in Coach Wu’s thinking. Isn’t it a good thing to be familiar with the various positions on the field and what is expected of each one? Coach Wu’s reasoning is that a good striker can be made into a good defender and that with her offensive experience, she can anticipate and block the play, and I can’t really see anything wrong with that.
In a rare stroke of maturity, Abby doesn’t openly whine “But that’s not fa-aair!” She only just thinks it and Chapter Three ends with this bit, foreshadowing the bitchiness to come:
I also vowed, as we trotted out onto the field into our positions, to stop one player FIRST.
Erin.
Because Coach Wu had given Erin my job. My position. Erin was the center forward.
But not for long, I vowed. Not if I had anything to do with it.
Oh boy…the grandiose sense of entitlement, the screw-everyone-if-I-don’t-get-my-way kind of thinking…it never fails to make me see red.
But for those looking forward to more epic bitchiness, I’m afraid I’ll have to put you on hold for awhile, because we immediately cut to Chapter Four.
Not going to lie: this chapter’s kind of impossible to snark too. Abby meets up with her mom and sister in New York and they go out to eat. While eating, Abby’s mom talks about how it’s been four years since their father died and that since they hadn’t visited his grave since moving to Stoneybrook, she’s decided that they should make a trip to Long Island to visit the grave and spend time with relatives. Abby’s like “Hell no!” in response to all of this and I’ll give them credit: they do a good job of showing why Abby would be uncomfortable with the idea. For all their faults, they do a good job of portraying her grief. But I have a feeling, based on Chapter Three, that this may be the only positive thing about this book.
Chapter Five is even more impossible to snark. It’s a babysitting job with Kristy and Claudia sitting for her step-siblings, David Michael, and the Papadakis siblings. Thankfully, there are very few Karen antics. But that just makes it less interesting. Basically, Kristy has one of her Great Ideas™ and decides to rope a bunch of kids into raising money to buy uniforms for Abby’s soccer team. I yawn and wonder what the point is seeing as even Abby had already mentioned that soccer, unlike football, doesn’t require fancy uniforms.
Chapter Six, however, begins with the stuff we’ve come to expect from a BSC book: epic bitchiness. And I mean, epic. There’s not even any buildup, the bitchiness begins right with the first sentence which is: “How many practices does it take to convince a coach that she’s made a mistake?”
Abby’s gotten over what little enthusiasm she had for Coach Wu, saying that she might be a great softball coach, but what does she know about soccer, even though in the same paragraph she admits that Coach Wu had played a little varsity at UNC. But that means Coach Wu is old! And everyone knows that thirteen-year-old girls know more about everything than a college-educated adult, who has played sports for years.
But in Abby’s defense, she is not a quitter (I’m not kidding: the book makes a point of having her say it). Abby spends the rest of practice playing her position and sniping at Erin, who is guilty of the unthinkable! Being chosen for Abby’s position! But you think that’s awful, we haven’t even yet reached the tip of the bitchy summit. Bear with us.
Coach Wu ends practice by saying, “Good practice. Play like that on the game on Sunday and we won’t have any problems.” But not even this bland comment soothes Abby’s wounded soul:
I looked at Coach Wu in disbelief. How could we play great without me on the front line?
Yeah, because it’s all about you, Abby. It’s not like soccer’s a team sport.
Coach Wu then decides to take everyone out for ice cream. After a practice? That’s awfully nice of her. I thought most coaches just took you out for treats after a game. But not even that kind gesture can soothe Abby’s torment.
Abby spends the ride basically bragging about her Long Island team and what a great center forward she was on that team, but Coach Wu, continuing to be awesome, shoots her down by saying “Don’t worry. You’ll eventually get the hang of center back.” Gotta love anyone who shoots down such an overinflated ego.
They pull into the ice cream place, which is called 32 Flavors and Then Some. Erin further earns Abby’s ire, when all the employees of the place (which is where Erin works part-time) compliment Erin. Erin then says the worst thing she could possibly say: that she wants extra-big scoops for all her friends. The nerve of that girl, asking that her friends get plenty of ice-cream! Abby is like, “What a show-off,” and further snipes to herself about Erin basking in the attention as the other players ask questions and she points out the various flavors.
:clutches head in hands: For all characters in the BSC-verse, here’s some words of advice: if you commit any offense against a member of the all-mighty BSC, however slight, nothing, I repeat, nothing you do will escape scrutiny and judgment. You could be a saint who cures cancer with your tears and the BSC will snipe about you taking away jobs from oncologists. It doesn’t matter. Because let me remind you: so far Erin’s only crime was playing the position the coach assigned her to, a position that a BSC member wanted. She hasn’t done or said anything remotely offensive to Abby.
Erin then asks Abby what kind of ice cream she wants. Abby responds by bitching that she’s not a baby and she can order for herself. Abby orders vanilla and makes a point of sitting as far away from Erin and her teammates as possible and spends the meal thinking about how Erin is such a show-off and her teammates are such phonies for liking her. The chapter ends with Abby smirking and thinking about how Erin may shine in practice but she’ll crack under the pressure and then the team will lose. I’m surprised she didn’t steeple her fingers ala Mr. Burns as she thought all this.
Chapter Seven is game day. Once again, nothing Erin does escapes scrutiny and judgment as she says she’d rather play in weather like this than in rain or snow. Abby snaps that a good player can play in any weather. Erin responds, “Then I’m not worried.” Abby notes that she responded with (and I’m using her words) “annoying self-confidence” even though if Abby or another BSC member had said it, they would just follow it up with something along the lines of “I’m not bragging; it’s true.”
Abby continues to sulk about Erin playing her position while she’s stuck in the “hard-work-for-no-glory, kill-or-be-killed zone of the soccer field.” Once again, I’m betrayed by my lack of knowledge of soccer, but I feel the old saying “There are no small parts, only small actors,” applies here. Maybe the defensive positions don’t get the glory the way the offensive ones do, but they’re still important to the team, Abby. She sulks about how if their team lost, the offense wouldn’t get blamed for not scoring, but the defense would get blamed for letting the other team score against them, and I bang my head against the table at her getting upset at the idea that people would get upset at her for not doing what she’s supposed to do. Isn’t the whole point of the defense to guard the goal and keep the other team from scoring?
So the game commences. Abby spends the game trying to score goals, ignoring Coach Wu who keeps yelling “ABBY! GET BACK IN POSITION!” And once again, I’m totally on Coach Wu’s side. From what I heard about soccer, pretty much everything hinges on everyone knowing where they’re supposed to be on the field and being there. So shut up, Abby!
But Abby’s inner monologue continues going on and on about how her teammates aren’t supporting her and how the opposing team’s defense keeps swarming her even though that’s what they’re supposed to do. They’re supposed to defend the goal, not escort you to it so you can score the winning kick.
Erin, by virtue of doing what she’s supposed to be doing, manages to get the ball and scores the team’s only goal. Abby snipes that since she was only a few feet away from the goal, she’d have a hard time missing. How dare Erin do what she’s supposed to do and score goals!
Abby’s team loses 2-1. I’ll cut past the part where Abby talks with the kids and get straight to the part where, well if you didn’t think she was being a bitch before, you will think it now.
Abby decides that since Coach Wu isn’t going to do anything to solve the Problem of Erin, she should have a talk with her. Abby’s like “We could be a winning team. But we have to play like a team and I totally could have scored several times if the rest of the team could have given me support.” I admit, I’m paraphrasing a little, but her speech really is that whiny.
Erin responds by saying, “But you play defense. They scored because you weren’t in your place.” To which I say, go Erin go! Her summation is correct. If Abby had done the job she was assigned, instead of showboating and sulking, their team might have won.
Abby’s too shocked to respond with anything but a “What?!” Erin reiterates her previous point: that Abby wasn’t where she was supposed to be. Abby whines that it’s called total soccer and someone was supposed to cover her. Erin, standing strong, again says Coach Wu said for you to stay in place and you didn’t.
Then we get to the one cringingly awkward part everyone remembers from this book. Abby pouts and is like “Excuse me, I think I know a little more about soccer than you."
That’s when Erin got me. “Why?” She looked at me directly, and I saw a flash of anger in her eyes. “Because I have mental retardation? Do you think I can’t play as well as you because of that?”
For the record, I am still totally on Team Erin here, but I find myself going “What?” at how awkwardly her objections were written. I suppose Ann is bending over backwards, trying not to offend with this dialogue, but it makes Erin sound more like an android trying to imitate human behavior than an actual human. Still, given that Ann’s permanently stuck in the fifties, I suppose we should be grateful she didn’t use worse terminology than the r-word.
Abby’s all “I didn’t say that!” though you know she was probably thinking it. Erin, continuing to be awesome, says, “I stay in my position. And I scored. I am a good player. Better than you.” And bad grammar aside (“I stay in my position”), Erin is totally in the right here. She did her job. Abby didn’t.
Abby says “That’s what you think!” then sulks away. She goes back to her house, continuing to sulk as her sister, Anna, has the nerve to ask, “How she did?” Abby says, “If you’d been there, you’d know.” In her monologue, she admits that she had told Anna and her mom not to show up until later in the season when the team was “more together.” Or in other words, when she’s got her spot as center forward back.
Abby’s mom comes in and wants to talk some more about making a trip to Long Island, but Abby is having none of this. She yells about how she doesn’t want to go and runs to her room to have a good cry. Normally, I’d be sympathetic to her-losing a loved one is something that will always hurt-but at this point, I want her to suffer.
And that’s the first seven chapters of Abby the Bad Sport. I’ll post the second half when I can. So far, I do agree that it deserves to be called one of the worst in the BSC canon, but I still don’t feel it’s as bad as Mallory Pike, #1 Fan.