BSC #004 “Mary Anne Saves The Day” – …by calling someone else to do it for her.

Previously: Stacey had sad-abetes. Sad.
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Sweeney: For those of you who were not personally ruined by the BSC and are merely enjoying our snark and second-hand trauma, let me take a moment to introduce you to Mary Anne Spier, the narrator of this particular book. Think of her as the BSC’s Enid. Except the BSC girls are all 12 and think kids who hang out at the mall are trouble-makers (fine, so, in my time working at the mall I learned to maybe agree with this theory) (“the wild kids at the mall” came up again in this book) and would thus never in a million years understand the debauchery that is SVH.

Considering how proper these girls are, the fact that Mary Anne is the resident wet blanket says a lot. Her sole interest to me comes in the form of the two characters she brings to the table (and distance her from that dumb ho, Kristy). The first one we meet in this book.

Sidebar: this book kicks off in January (Nugs: For my birthday, maybe Kristy will get horribly maimed). This is the 4th book. There will be over 100 books and the girls never make it past the 8th grade. Poor planning, Ann M. Martin. Also in four books, we can’t clear the first chapter without talking about how this whole thing was Kristy’s idea. I don’t really remember how long this trend continues but it’s already pissing me off.

Nugs: Here’s something I always considered: Maybe the girls never made it past the eighth grade because they’re really just dumb. Maybe they’re just stuck in eighth grade forever because they’re so stupid that the school never let them leave. Or maybe this is just a whole Narnia-type deal and they’re trapped in limbo for all eternity.

Those are much more substantial books, BTW. Why don’t we review those?

Sweeney: You answered your own question. What the hell would we do with books that have substance?

Anyway, more background stuff: she tells us about the agency, blah blah Claudia is Japanese, blah blah Mimi’s “soft accent,” blah blah Mary Anne has a huge fucking girl crush on Stacey because she’s so glamorous and from New York!  (Nugs: Wrong foreshadowing, Martin) Which is clearly a trillion lightyears away from Connecticut. Stacey is also very sophisticated and dresses like a model.

“My dad let’s me dress like a model too – a model of a six-year-old.”

Gotta love Mary Anne’s biting wit.

Anyway, the opening chapter quickly progresses into an argument that I seriously don’t understand. The girls are supposed to offer a job to everyone when they get a call but Kristy didn’t and then that turned into CLAUDIA DOES THAT ALL THE TIME ZOMG and then they were just calling each other names, all of which for no apparent reason. Having recently pulled two sixth grade boys apart who randomly started shouting “YOU WANT TO GO?” at each other, also for no apparent reason, this seems logical to me and falls under the general umbrella of “kids are dumb” that is the foundation for this blog.

So Mary Anne gives us a detailed explanation of all the stomping and slamming she did to demonstrate her insane rage and then I fell asleep while she described her house and her struggles with her overprotective dad. She tells us how great it would be to put posters up like all the other kids. She thinks about what she would put up all the time and item #1 would be posters of kittens, of course. Step back, wild child.

Nugs: God, Mary Anne is so boring. They even give her the most boring-ass name on the planet: “Mary Anne.” 

Sweeney: Mary Anne writes the girls notes that she will never deliver in her homeroom. This is unfortunate because it would make me care about her a million times more, as I actually did giggle at this one:

“Dear Kristy,
I’m sorry you’re the biggest, bossiest know-it-all in the world, but what can I do about it? Have you considered seeking professional help?”

Other than that, it’s a general snooze-fest like Mary Anne’s entire personality — so much so that she frequently comments on how dull she is.

Nugs: So did I. Are you sure we didn’t write this book together- FROM THE FUTURE???

Sweeney: Probably.

The fight forces her to sit by herself at lunch which allows the new girl to ask to sit at her table. This new girl is Dawn Schafer, who my childhood self thought was totally awesome. Whatever cache Mary Anne bought with me by writing Kristy a snarky note was totally lost when she noted that Dawn “wasn’t exactly pretty.” YOU SHUT YOUR BORING WHORE MOUTH, MARY ANNE. Besides, DAWN HAS A VCR, ALL RIGHT? She’s super cool.

(Except I’m pretty sure maladjusted adult Nicole isn’t going to like this girl so much. We’ll see.)

Mary Anne goes over to Dawn’s house mostly to piss Kristy off, and not to actually be nice to the sad lonely new girl, making Mary Anne both boring and a bitch. (zing)  It comes up several times throughout the story that Mary Anne is only hanging out with Dawn to make the other girls (particularly Kristy) jealous. Meanwhile, Dawn is new in town and thinks that she’s found a nice new friend. When you are as boring as Mary Anne is, you are obligated to also function as the group’s moral compass. The fact that Mary Anne is both boring and a bitch makes me particularly annoyed with her.

I then realize that aside from the fact that Dawn and I were both from California and I would go on to be a high school sad lonely new girl, we have nothing in common, as Dawn is a neat freak who happens to be the only fully unpacked member of her family.

Nugs: This is actually why maladjusted, adult Nugs kind of likes Dawn. Folding and unpacking gets me hot.

I probably shouldn’t have said anything. No one needs to know about that.

Sweeney: No, I’m glad we know. I’m filing that tip away. Rawr.

Also, I am actually a bit curious to see what they did to this book in the updated version, as Dawn is supposed to be an envrionmentalist (you know, because everyone in California is…) and yet one of her favorite things about her room are the million 100-watt bulbs.

Anyway, Dawn moved to Stoneybrook because her parents got divorced and her mom grew up there. OH HEY SO DID MARY ANNE’S DAD. OH HEY MAYBE THEY KNEW EACH OTHER. MAYBE.

After watching The Parent Trap (ahem) with Dawn, Mary Anne heads off to the first post-fight BSC meeting. Kristy bails to hang with her new BFFs, probably because she’s so pissed that her wet blanket best friend was able to make another friend. The other three girls sit there in passive aggressive silence, taking phone calls and arranging jobs. Mary Anne and Claudia manage to make up. Kristy continues to be a big bitch. I fell asleep somewhere in here.

Mary Anne babysits for this little girl with a weirdly proper family whose father wears three piece suits all the time and whose mother thinks it’s important for a three-year-old to be constantly adorned in expensive frilly dresses. Obviously it makes a mess and Mary Anne fixes it an blah blah blah this is boring but the kid will be important later. Also Mary Anne’s kid kit had Colorforms! A lot of nostalgia in this particular book.

Nugs: OHMYGOD! I totally had these! Thank you, Nicole, for making this book relevant and less obnoxious.

Sweeney: Also during the fight, Kristy gets her baby sitting hours extended on the weekends, deliberately to make Mary Anne feel more like a baby and later the two are forced to baby sit together for the four hundred eight Pike kids. The girls weren’t speaking but somehow manage to turn the entire evening into an interminable game of telephone so that the kids don’t notice that they’re fighting. Kristy, in her unending humility writes in the club journal that they deserve to be in some sort of baby sitting hall of fame for pulling it off. Mary Anne correctly calls bullshit on that and admits that it was immature. Or something like that.

So Mary Anne is the mature one and starts plotting to get the band club back together, but she has to hang out with Yoko Dawn first. Mary Anne chickens out on asking her dad if he knew Mama Dawn in high school because Mary Anne already had her failed confrontation about staying up later and apparently asking her dad a basic question about his high school life falls under confrontation for Mary Anne.

The girls decide to dig up his old yearbooks instead and it turns out that they wrote each other awkward love notes via their yearbook. As in, actually printed in the yearbook. Facebook for the pre-digital age.

Mary Anne is now distracted from getting the club back together because for some reason she and Dawn have elected to keep their discovery a secret from their parents and instead spend a solid week analyzing the yearbooks wistfully and trying (but failing) to track down old prom pictures.

Nugs: Did NO ONE ELSE find this creepy, and also slightly overbearing? They obviously aren’t together for a reason. Move the fuck on.

Sweeney: BUT THEY WERE IN LOVE, NUGS. HIGH SCHOOL ROMANCES ARE FOREVER.

She is further distracted from restoring order by her catastrophic baby sitting job for Little Bo Peep. Little Bo Peep is kind of a bitch of a three-year-old, largely because her mother is psychotic and giving her a complex. Mary Anne notices that she is oddly subdued and then the kid passes out and Mary Anne realizes that she has a fever. She gets the thermometer and it turns out to be 104. Then, since this is the days before cell phones, she calls eighty people to no avail. Even the doctor’s receptionist is this gum-popping bitch who’s all “We’ll get back to you.”

Since the fight is still going on, she decides to call Dawn instead of the other girls because OMG PRIDE, ALL RIGHT? I mean, I know a three year old is running an insanely high fever and I am responsible for her, but dude, THOSE GIRLS CALLED ME A BABY, YO.

Anyway, Dawn’s all “Hey, every responsible adult we know has miraculously vanished, so maybe now might be a good time to call 911 and ask someone to tell us what to do.” And Mary Anne’s all, “I totally never could have thought of that without you.”

So after asking her about all of the adults who should be around, he tells her take the kid to the emergency room. “But I’m 12, yo.” “OH I SEE.” And he sends an ambulance.

After all of that, the girls go back to Mary Anne’s to look at more photo albums, and then Kristy is creepily staring into Mary Anne’s bedroom from her own room. Mary Anne throws her arm around Dawn and sticks her tongue out at Kristy. This is the first time that Dawn realizes that Mary Anne’s “other friends” were real and that they were fighting. Dawn calls Mary Anne a liar and storms out. There has been a lot of storming out going on in this book. Have they been reading Sweet Valley? Don’t they know that they’re supposed to cry as they storm out?

Nugs: BSC Cry Count, yo! It starts here.

Sweeney: Oh and Mary Anne also squeezes in this zinger: “‘Watch those steps,’ I said sarcastically. ‘Hope you have a nice trip.'”

But then Papa Spier comes home and during dinner Little Bo Peep’s parents call to thank Mary Anne and gush about how responsible she was so he sighs and he’s all, “FINE YOU CAN BABY SIT UNTIL TEN ON THE WEEKENDS AND ONLY SOME DAYS I’LL LET YOU NOT WEAR THE PIGTAIL BRAIDS BECAUSE I DON’T WANT YOU TO HANG OUT AT THE MALL AND GET STDS.” These are her struggles. I know she’s 12, but fuck this kid is dull. Given that my mother wouldn’t know how to create a rule, let alone enforce one, I’m pretty sure I found Mary Anne insanely boring even at 7 or 8.

Anyway, the girls agreed to be guests/helpers at the fourth birthday party of a favorite client, Jamie Newton. There a few squabbles and then Mary Anne lays down the law and calls an emergency meeting after the party and says: “BE THERE.” Which is obvs a super big deal because she’s a doormat and she was being super authoritative.

And then her dad scandalously agrees to allow her to host a Baby-Sitters Club party at their house. Dawn has her mom come to the door when she drops her off so that the two can make sexy eyes at each other and set a date for Saturday, and then Kristy asks Dawn four hundred million questions even though everyone else is all, “LET HER IN, YO.” And then they do. And they have a pizza toast.

In short, Mary Anne’s life is perfect now that she’s allowed to put kittens on her walls because her dad is about to start getting laid again recognized her out-of-this-world maturity.

 

Next time on The Baby-sitters Club: Can the negligent parents in Stoneybrook get any worse? Find out in BSC #5 – Dawn and the Impossible Three.