#4 Mary Anne Saves the Day
Chapters 1 and 2
Chapter 3
MA wakes up the next morning still feeling bad over the fight and not sure about the Baby-Sitters Club, and she walks to school alone. One of the six times she's ever done so in her life. What bothers me the most about this is that she doesn't want her father to see that she's walking to school alone because then he'll know something's wrong. So what if your father recognizes that something's wrong? He's not going to freaking punish you for a petty argument you had with your friends over something Kristy was freaking at fault for! It's not like Richard doesn't love you or doesn't care! FFS, he's your father, Mary Anne!
She gets to school and sees Kristy and waves at her, anxious to make up. And what does Kristy do? Tosses her head in the air, turns around, and flounces down the hall to homeroom like a pissy bitch. Then Claudia comes down the hall towards Kristy and calls after her. MA panics that the rest of the BSC has made up and left her out, but Kristy just ignores Claudia. Claudia calls after her again.
K: Are you talking to me, or to some other job-hog?
C: No, you're the only job-hog I see at the moment.
K: Then get a mirror. (slams homeroom door behind her)
GOD, Kristy's being a bitch. I can only imagine the bitch-face she had when dealing with Claudia. And just for the record, I'm totally Team Claudia in all of this. She didn't do anything wrong, didn't insult anyone (if you don't count that New York statement she made to Stacey), and she's the one getting shit on.
During homeroom, MA composes notes of apology in her head to give to Stacey, Kristy and Claudia. And I know what you're thinking: "WTF, Mary Anne?! Why are you apologizing?!" But her notes are kind of snarky and sarcastic, so I breathe a sigh of relief. The only genuine apology she has is for Claudia, who really didn't deserve her insult. So MA copies the note all nice with her fancy fountain pen, and makes sure the note is neat and the spelling is correct. I give MA an A for effort, but it's Claudia we're talking about; she's not going to give a shit about the spelling.
Lunchtime. This is before the BSC started eating lunch together. Normally, Stacey and Claudia sit together with the cool kids--"a sophisticated group that included boys." Stacey's sitting with said group, but Claudia is off somewhere else eating lunch with that cutie patootie Trevor Sandbourne. Normally, MA eats lunch with Kristy and the Shillaber twins, Mariah and Miranda. But at their normal table, they have their lunches spread everywhere with no available space for MA, and the 4th chair is not there. I had no idea Kristy would take being called a "bossy know-it-all" so seriously.
So poor MA has no idea where to sit. Don't tell me she'll have to eat in the bathroom like Cady had to in Mean Girls. Finally, MA finds an empty table and prepares to eat her lonesome, boring PB&J when someone asks her if she can sit with her. It's a tall girl with pale blonde hair down to her butt. (GUESS WHO?!!!!) New girl thinks MA is new, too, but MA lies and says all of her friends are absent. NEw girl introduces herself as Dawn Schafer, and she and MA engage in friendly conversation. MA keeps trying to catch Kristy's eye, who's just trying to make it look like she and the twins are having the time of their lives without Mary Anne. So MA decides two can play this game, and tries to get to know Dawn a little better. Dawn invites MA to her place after school the next day, luring her over with the promise of watching a movie on their VCR. (WOW, this book is dated!) MA accepts, and prays that Kristy sees MA walking home the next day with her new BFF. Who knew Mary Anne Spier could be so spiteful?
After school, she notices that Kristy, Claudia and Stacey are all walking home seperately. Then it hits her that she forgot to give Claudia her special note. D'oh!
Chapter 4
Wednesday morning. MA realizes that there's a BSC meeting that day, and wonders if there will even be a meeting, given the giant fight. So she decides to be brave and go over to the Thomases' next door to try to make up with Kristy and find out what's going on with the club. But she ends up getting the door slammed in her face. You fail at life, Kristy.
MA has lunch again with Dawn. Might as well, since she's going over to Dawn's house after school. Kristy's still eating with the twins, but they've gotten someone else to take the fourth seat; Stacey's still eating with the "cool kids" because she's from NYC, so that automatically makes her cool; and Claudia's still eating with Trevor. Stacey and Claudia are still giving each other dirty looks, and at one point, Claudia sticks her tounge out at Stacey in front of Trevor. MA is just so shocked by this, she's practically clutching her pearls.
After school, MA tries to time it so Kristy will see her walking out with Dawn. You know, just to make Kristy jealous. It works. Ah well.
At Dawn's place. Turns out she lives in an old farmhouse that was built in 1795. It's kind of small (some people would call it "cozy") and cluttered. Now they just moved in, so the clutter and disarray is excuseable. For now, anyway. Dawn's mom is sitting in the kitchen, toking up putting pictures in a photo album in the midst of unpacking kitchen stuff. After introducing MA to her mom, they go up to Dawn's room, which:
-- is the only room in the house that is unpacked, organized and clean.
-- has lots of lamps with 100 watt bulbs in them because Dawn hates dimly-lighted rooms. (This is before she went all Al Gore on us, I guess.)
-- also has the TV and VCR in there. Score!
MA asks Dawn if they have The Parent Trap. Dawn says yeah, because it was the last thing her mom taped before.....the divorce. Which is why they moved to Stoneybrook, because Dawn's mom grew up there. Wow, what do you know? So did Mary Anne's dad! They exchange parents' names (and Dawn's mom's maiden name). Hey, wouldn't it be cool if Mary Anne's dad and Dawn's mom went to school together? And does anyone else think Dawn and MA watching The Parent Trap is oddly coincidental or prophetic?
Anyway, the movie ends and it's 5:15. Time for MA to leave Dawn's house and meet her certain doom.
Chapter 5
At Claudia's for the BSC meeting. Mimi answers the door. So far, the only other person who's shown up is Stacey. Stacey's sitting on the bed, staring at her hands. Claudia's in her director's chair, staring out the window. Better get out of that chair before Kristy shows up, Claud, or you'll be a chair-hog next.
A call comes in from the Johanssens. The job is offered around, and Stacey takes it. Good for her, because she likes sitting for Charlotte. Why? Because Stacey's from NYC, that's why. "What about Kristy?" MA asks. So what? Kristy hasn't shown up yet, believe it or not. (WHAT?!! Kristy not show up on time for a BSC meeting?!! Is this some sort of alternate universe?) Oh well, Kristy isn't there, and Claudia points out that Kristy knows the rules, Kristy made the rules, and if she doesn't call to let them know she'll be late or won't be showing up, then she misses out on jobs. Tough titty, said the kitty. Let's see Kristy call Claudia a job-hog now, since Claudia's actually adhering to the damn rules.
Phone rings again. Two times. Three times. Claudia says, "Someone else answer it this time. I'm not a slave." MA answers it. It's Mrs. Thomas, calling for a sitter for David Michael. MA also asks if Kristy's sick or something, and it turns out that....Kristy, the club president, blew off the club meeting to go hang out with the Shillaber twins instead. If they all needed a bigger excuse to be angry at Kristy now, this is it. MA, Claud and Stacey are all free, but since they're fighting, they aren't civil about seeing who wants the job, so they draw scraps of paper out of a shoebox. Whoever gets the scrap of paper with a drawn star on it gets the job. Claud picks out the star. Stacey accuses her of cheating. They bicker some more. MA is mopey and emo.
More jobs are lined up, and at 6 PM precisely, Stacey leaves without so much as a word to either one of them. I sure hope her attitude problem isn't because of a problem with her "dumb diabetes." MA leaves, too, but after she exits the house, she looks up at Claud's window and smiles and waves. Claud smiles and waves back as well. Ah, there's hope! TEAM CLAUDIA!!!
By the time MA gets home, Richard isn't there yet, so she sneaks a call to Claudia. Turns out MA gave Mimi the note, who gave it to Claudia. So they apologize and forgive. Awwww. Then they talk about what to do about Kristy and the status of the club, given that it is Kristy's club and she is the president. So Claudia will try to talk and make up with Stacey, and MA will try to talk and make up with Kristy.
Next day at school. MA tries confronting Kristy in school, even though Kristy's still being a total bitch towards her. Kristy's logic for not being at the meeting? "It's my club, so I didn't have to go to the meeting." Nice. She's going to be one of those bosses who decides to take golf trips whenever she feels like it in the future and leave the dirty work to her lackeys, isn't she? MA tells Kristy that she missed out on some good jobs, and that they weren't going to call the Shillabers' every time a job came in. Kristy's all, "You should have." MA sticks to her guns and tells her, "Not according to the rules." Then Kristy finds out that Claudia and MA have made up and are talking to each other and is all, "Brother, whatever happened to faithful friends?" They get doors slammed in the freaking faces, that's what!! (Which is what MA tells her. GOD, Kristy's being such a twat. I want to reach into this book and smack the shit out of her.)
So the rule on the club operation while they're in their time of crisis? They take turns answering the phone at Claud's on meeting days. MA on one day, Claud on one day, Stacey on another. When a club member is on duty, she takes on as many jobs as she can. The only ones she has to offer are the ones she isn't available to take herself. MA agrees to relay the message to Claud.
Then Dawn calls MA from down the hall. Dawn comes over and is all, "Yesterday was fun, wasn't it?" Then MA does something really ballsy: invites Dawn over to her house in front of Kristy. Kristy is aghast, because MA never asks anyone over except for her, and she usually doesn't even invite Claudia or Stacey over. "Well, Dawn's a good friend."
Kristy chooses this moment to tell MA that her mom extended her baby-sitting hours so now she can stay out as late as Stacey: 10 PM on weekends and 9:30 on weeknights. Nyah, nyah, nyah. If MA didn't feel like a baby before, she certainly does now. She just can't win, can she?
Will Mary Anne be able to ger her curfew extended? Did her dad and Dawn's mom go to school together? Will Kristy stop acting like a giant brat? Will we get any sort of journal entry in this book? Will any actual baby-sitting be done? And will we get any sort of crying from Mary Anne, because she didn't cry ONCE in this snark! Tune in for the next installment of "Mary Anne Saves the Day"!
Chapter 3
MA wakes up the next morning still feeling bad over the fight and not sure about the Baby-Sitters Club, and she walks to school alone. One of the six times she's ever done so in her life. What bothers me the most about this is that she doesn't want her father to see that she's walking to school alone because then he'll know something's wrong. So what if your father recognizes that something's wrong? He's not going to freaking punish you for a petty argument you had with your friends over something Kristy was freaking at fault for! It's not like Richard doesn't love you or doesn't care! FFS, he's your father, Mary Anne!
She gets to school and sees Kristy and waves at her, anxious to make up. And what does Kristy do? Tosses her head in the air, turns around, and flounces down the hall to homeroom like a pissy bitch. Then Claudia comes down the hall towards Kristy and calls after her. MA panics that the rest of the BSC has made up and left her out, but Kristy just ignores Claudia. Claudia calls after her again.
K: Are you talking to me, or to some other job-hog?
C: No, you're the only job-hog I see at the moment.
K: Then get a mirror. (slams homeroom door behind her)
GOD, Kristy's being a bitch. I can only imagine the bitch-face she had when dealing with Claudia. And just for the record, I'm totally Team Claudia in all of this. She didn't do anything wrong, didn't insult anyone (if you don't count that New York statement she made to Stacey), and she's the one getting shit on.
During homeroom, MA composes notes of apology in her head to give to Stacey, Kristy and Claudia. And I know what you're thinking: "WTF, Mary Anne?! Why are you apologizing?!" But her notes are kind of snarky and sarcastic, so I breathe a sigh of relief. The only genuine apology she has is for Claudia, who really didn't deserve her insult. So MA copies the note all nice with her fancy fountain pen, and makes sure the note is neat and the spelling is correct. I give MA an A for effort, but it's Claudia we're talking about; she's not going to give a shit about the spelling.
Lunchtime. This is before the BSC started eating lunch together. Normally, Stacey and Claudia sit together with the cool kids--"a sophisticated group that included boys." Stacey's sitting with said group, but Claudia is off somewhere else eating lunch with that cutie patootie Trevor Sandbourne. Normally, MA eats lunch with Kristy and the Shillaber twins, Mariah and Miranda. But at their normal table, they have their lunches spread everywhere with no available space for MA, and the 4th chair is not there. I had no idea Kristy would take being called a "bossy know-it-all" so seriously.
So poor MA has no idea where to sit. Don't tell me she'll have to eat in the bathroom like Cady had to in Mean Girls. Finally, MA finds an empty table and prepares to eat her lonesome, boring PB&J when someone asks her if she can sit with her. It's a tall girl with pale blonde hair down to her butt. (GUESS WHO?!!!!) New girl thinks MA is new, too, but MA lies and says all of her friends are absent. NEw girl introduces herself as Dawn Schafer, and she and MA engage in friendly conversation. MA keeps trying to catch Kristy's eye, who's just trying to make it look like she and the twins are having the time of their lives without Mary Anne. So MA decides two can play this game, and tries to get to know Dawn a little better. Dawn invites MA to her place after school the next day, luring her over with the promise of watching a movie on their VCR. (WOW, this book is dated!) MA accepts, and prays that Kristy sees MA walking home the next day with her new BFF. Who knew Mary Anne Spier could be so spiteful?
After school, she notices that Kristy, Claudia and Stacey are all walking home seperately. Then it hits her that she forgot to give Claudia her special note. D'oh!
Chapter 4
Wednesday morning. MA realizes that there's a BSC meeting that day, and wonders if there will even be a meeting, given the giant fight. So she decides to be brave and go over to the Thomases' next door to try to make up with Kristy and find out what's going on with the club. But she ends up getting the door slammed in her face. You fail at life, Kristy.
MA has lunch again with Dawn. Might as well, since she's going over to Dawn's house after school. Kristy's still eating with the twins, but they've gotten someone else to take the fourth seat; Stacey's still eating with the "cool kids" because she's from NYC, so that automatically makes her cool; and Claudia's still eating with Trevor. Stacey and Claudia are still giving each other dirty looks, and at one point, Claudia sticks her tounge out at Stacey in front of Trevor. MA is just so shocked by this, she's practically clutching her pearls.
After school, MA tries to time it so Kristy will see her walking out with Dawn. You know, just to make Kristy jealous. It works. Ah well.
At Dawn's place. Turns out she lives in an old farmhouse that was built in 1795. It's kind of small (some people would call it "cozy") and cluttered. Now they just moved in, so the clutter and disarray is excuseable. For now, anyway. Dawn's mom is sitting in the kitchen, toking up putting pictures in a photo album in the midst of unpacking kitchen stuff. After introducing MA to her mom, they go up to Dawn's room, which:
-- is the only room in the house that is unpacked, organized and clean.
-- has lots of lamps with 100 watt bulbs in them because Dawn hates dimly-lighted rooms. (This is before she went all Al Gore on us, I guess.)
-- also has the TV and VCR in there. Score!
MA asks Dawn if they have The Parent Trap. Dawn says yeah, because it was the last thing her mom taped before.....the divorce. Which is why they moved to Stoneybrook, because Dawn's mom grew up there. Wow, what do you know? So did Mary Anne's dad! They exchange parents' names (and Dawn's mom's maiden name). Hey, wouldn't it be cool if Mary Anne's dad and Dawn's mom went to school together? And does anyone else think Dawn and MA watching The Parent Trap is oddly coincidental or prophetic?
Click to viewAnyway, the movie ends and it's 5:15. Time for MA to leave Dawn's house and meet her certain doom.
Chapter 5
At Claudia's for the BSC meeting. Mimi answers the door. So far, the only other person who's shown up is Stacey. Stacey's sitting on the bed, staring at her hands. Claudia's in her director's chair, staring out the window. Better get out of that chair before Kristy shows up, Claud, or you'll be a chair-hog next.
A call comes in from the Johanssens. The job is offered around, and Stacey takes it. Good for her, because she likes sitting for Charlotte. Why? Because Stacey's from NYC, that's why. "What about Kristy?" MA asks. So what? Kristy hasn't shown up yet, believe it or not. (WHAT?!! Kristy not show up on time for a BSC meeting?!! Is this some sort of alternate universe?) Oh well, Kristy isn't there, and Claudia points out that Kristy knows the rules, Kristy made the rules, and if she doesn't call to let them know she'll be late or won't be showing up, then she misses out on jobs. Tough titty, said the kitty. Let's see Kristy call Claudia a job-hog now, since Claudia's actually adhering to the damn rules.
Phone rings again. Two times. Three times. Claudia says, "Someone else answer it this time. I'm not a slave." MA answers it. It's Mrs. Thomas, calling for a sitter for David Michael. MA also asks if Kristy's sick or something, and it turns out that....Kristy, the club president, blew off the club meeting to go hang out with the Shillaber twins instead. If they all needed a bigger excuse to be angry at Kristy now, this is it. MA, Claud and Stacey are all free, but since they're fighting, they aren't civil about seeing who wants the job, so they draw scraps of paper out of a shoebox. Whoever gets the scrap of paper with a drawn star on it gets the job. Claud picks out the star. Stacey accuses her of cheating. They bicker some more. MA is mopey and emo.
More jobs are lined up, and at 6 PM precisely, Stacey leaves without so much as a word to either one of them. I sure hope her attitude problem isn't because of a problem with her "dumb diabetes." MA leaves, too, but after she exits the house, she looks up at Claud's window and smiles and waves. Claud smiles and waves back as well. Ah, there's hope! TEAM CLAUDIA!!!
By the time MA gets home, Richard isn't there yet, so she sneaks a call to Claudia. Turns out MA gave Mimi the note, who gave it to Claudia. So they apologize and forgive. Awwww. Then they talk about what to do about Kristy and the status of the club, given that it is Kristy's club and she is the president. So Claudia will try to talk and make up with Stacey, and MA will try to talk and make up with Kristy.
Next day at school. MA tries confronting Kristy in school, even though Kristy's still being a total bitch towards her. Kristy's logic for not being at the meeting? "It's my club, so I didn't have to go to the meeting." Nice. She's going to be one of those bosses who decides to take golf trips whenever she feels like it in the future and leave the dirty work to her lackeys, isn't she? MA tells Kristy that she missed out on some good jobs, and that they weren't going to call the Shillabers' every time a job came in. Kristy's all, "You should have." MA sticks to her guns and tells her, "Not according to the rules." Then Kristy finds out that Claudia and MA have made up and are talking to each other and is all, "Brother, whatever happened to faithful friends?" They get doors slammed in the freaking faces, that's what!! (Which is what MA tells her. GOD, Kristy's being such a twat. I want to reach into this book and smack the shit out of her.)
So the rule on the club operation while they're in their time of crisis? They take turns answering the phone at Claud's on meeting days. MA on one day, Claud on one day, Stacey on another. When a club member is on duty, she takes on as many jobs as she can. The only ones she has to offer are the ones she isn't available to take herself. MA agrees to relay the message to Claud.
Then Dawn calls MA from down the hall. Dawn comes over and is all, "Yesterday was fun, wasn't it?" Then MA does something really ballsy: invites Dawn over to her house in front of Kristy. Kristy is aghast, because MA never asks anyone over except for her, and she usually doesn't even invite Claudia or Stacey over. "Well, Dawn's a good friend."
Kristy chooses this moment to tell MA that her mom extended her baby-sitting hours so now she can stay out as late as Stacey: 10 PM on weekends and 9:30 on weeknights. Nyah, nyah, nyah. If MA didn't feel like a baby before, she certainly does now. She just can't win, can she?
Will Mary Anne be able to ger her curfew extended? Did her dad and Dawn's mom go to school together? Will Kristy stop acting like a giant brat? Will we get any sort of journal entry in this book? Will any actual baby-sitting be done? And will we get any sort of crying from Mary Anne, because she didn't cry ONCE in this snark! Tune in for the next installment of "Mary Anne Saves the Day"!