BSC #005 “Dawn and the Impossible Three” – Or really just Dawn and a single mother going through a bad divorce

Previously: The BSC girls have a fight and Mary Anne makes a new friend, Dawn. Dawn helps her remember that “9-1-1-” is a thing, thus Mary Anne saves the day.

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Sweeney: You have to know that much of our snark comes from the embarrassment we feel when thinking back to how our childhood selves received this crap. I will be covering each book that Dawn narrates because I remember little more than that I adored Dawn because she was blonde and from California and I WAS BLONDE AND FROM CALIFORNIA. I wish I could say that there were more reasons than that, but I really don’t think I had anything better. Things were pretty basic in my seven-year-old world.

Nugs: Um, I liked Stacey because she was from New York City. And…that’s it. So yeah, if your opinion of me couldn’t have gotten any lower before, there’s that.

Sweeney: That’s obviously all the reason we needed. My love of Dawn is clear because I placed a large purple heart sticker on this book.
#kidsaredumbyo

I would just like to point out that Dawn’s book begins “a few months” into her life in Stoneybrook. Ann M. Martin, you have not made this shit easy on your ghost writers. You’re aware that they’re going to have to keep these girls in the 8th grade for like 100 books, right?

Anyway, I start off feeling content with my childhood obsession:

I hate cold weather. On the days when the temperature slips back a few degrees, I yell at the weatherman. On the days when it creeps up, I congratulate him and apologize for yelling.

I’m glad Dawn and I can agree that it is acceptable to engage in irrational yelling and conversing with people who are (1) not actually responsible for our problems and (2) can’t actually hear us.
#booksthatruinedus

Irrelevant sidebar: her best friend in California was named Sunny Winslow. Girl in California named Sunny. #soclever

Nugs: How many of these secondary characters are now doing hardcore porn? Let’s find out together.

Sweeney: The list is just so long. Sunny Winslow must live in the town where I grew up – porn capital of the country!

When Dawn gets to take a baby-sitting job for three kids and she’s secretly glad to be the only one available for it, even the most dense of seven-year-olds have to know where it’s going, unless in ten pages they have already managed to forget the title of the book, which is entirely possible. Dawn is excited because the Barretts are going through a divorce and Mrs. Barrett is scatter-brained just like her mother so she feels like she can ~relate. Blah blah blah.

Nugs: Sidebar: She’s excited that this woman is going through a divorce? Dawn is kind of a bitch. Schadenfreude FTW!

Sweeney: Legit. This doesn’t make me like her any less. I support the schadenfreude all the way.

Also happening: more ZOMG! OUR PARENTS ARE DATING talk between Dawn and Mary-Anne. Mary-Anne is mostly just losing her shit because she can finally do scandalous things like wear jeans and redecorate her room (all right, fine, redecorating still gets me super excited). Pretty soon she’ll start being one of those kids that hangs out at the mall. #hosuspension

(Pretty soon this blog is going to stop making sense to anyone who hasn’t read it from the beginning. Gotta keep up with our references, yo.)

So Mary-Anne originally only invites Dawn over for the redecorating and Dawn brings boxes of crap that they don’t have room for in their house to see if any of it might work for Mary-Anne / to save them money. Kristy sees this from her bedroom because in addition to being an annoying twat, she’s also a creepy stalker. Mary-Anne invites her to join in and after expressing how butthurt she is that Mary-Anne asked Dawn, she proceeds to be a raging bitch to Dawn for the rest of the day. And then Dawn punches her in the face. I might have made that last part up.

Nugs: I’m thoroughly disappointed that you made that last part up.

Sweeney: Me too, Nugs. Me too.

Dawn does beat Kristy at her own game during lunch, though. She tries to exclude Dawn by commenting on how California she is, as if that is supposed to be some sort of insult (another reason to hate the little shit) and Dawn one-ups her by changing the subject to the fact that Mama Schafer and Papa Spiers are dating. The twins point out that if they got married, Dawn and Mary-Anne would be step-sisters AND THIS IS APPARENTLY THE FIRST TIME THAT THIS HAS OCCURRED TO EITHER OF THESE GIRLS.
#kidsaredumbyo

Unfortunately, once Dawn realizes that Kristy’s being a bitch because she’s jealous (in addition to the fact that she’s just a bitch) Dawn tries to be nice and include her in stuff. #lame

I just realized that I have ended half of my paragraphs with hashtags. Is that annoying? Do I care? Answers: Probably and no.

Dawn sits for the Barretts and they are actually pretty un-terrible. The mom left the house a freaking disaster and Dawn gets all judgey mc judgerson about that, because the BSC girls are all from cozy middle class homes that clean up for company and in spite of the fact that only 2/5 have both parents together and alive, they’re pretty unsympathetic. But in Dawn’s defense, who the hell leaves a twelve-year-old in charge without at least a list of emergency numbers? It seems apparent that the tagline for this book “Dawn thought she’d be baby-sitting — not monster-sitting!” (#soclever) as well as the title are ridiculous because the problem is totes the mom and not the kids.

Nugs: It seems like the parents are just as retarded as the kids in these books. Actually, they’re probably even stupider, seeing as how they’re the ones that are actually AGREEING to pay the twelve-year-olds to watch their children.

Has no one looked into Child Services for this town? I mean, seriously.

Sweeney: I don’t think that exists in Stoneybrook.

One of the few subjects that Dawn can get Kristy to talk about without being a giant bitch is Andrew and Karen, her future step-siblings. This is Ann M. Martin’s shoddy excuse for how she is able to give a full recount of Kristy’s babysitting experience there. For those of you who have not read these books, several chapters begin with the BSC Notebook entry of some character other than the narrator for a page or two and the narrator takes over telling the story in great detail, including dialogue and specifics about clothing (which a character like Kristy would not remember and share in her version of the story) and other mundane details. This, of course, is absurd and a tactic only usable in a children’s book because kids are the only ones dumb enough not to question this.

Dawn finally has enough of Kristy being a brat so she decides to invite her over. Admittedly, I was a little dismayed that she decided to go the mature route because it would be more fun to snark on if she were catty and ridiculous too. But I guess I can declare this a general win for my childhood self. Aside from her somewhat holier-than-thou attitude about health food, adult-me is starting to like Dawn the most too. (because also! zomg! her blonde hair is super long! twinsies!)

After Dawn and Kristy bond over the fact that she has a barn with a rope to swing from that wet-blanket Mary-Anne refuses to go in, Kristy appoints Dawn the Official Alternate Officer. This is a completely stupid consolation title if I’ve ever heard one. Her job is to know all of the jobs in the event that someone isn’t there, but since Claudia’s job is having a room with a phone and Kristy’s job is just being bossy, and none of these girls ever miss a meeting, it’s just plain pointless. But Dawn’s thrilled all the same.

She babysits for the Barretts again while Claudia and Stacey are sitting for the millionty Pike kids. The kids get into some stupid fight and then I get another line I really wish I could have used in a college paper:

This may be how a war gets started. One day, a world leader pokes another world leader in the ribs and says, “Nyah, nyah, nyah.” The second world leader begins to cry, and suddenly their countries are fighting each other.

This kids book is deep, guys. Earlier Dawn also references a panoply of large cultural events that people lived through in her house because its super old. The biggest continuity error in these books is the fact that they alternate between brilliance and utter stupidity.

Anyway, Dawn resolves the fight by threatening to withhold brownies. When brownies are finally dispensed, Mallory has to stop Dawn from giving one to Marnie because Marnie is allergic to chocolate and this is another detail that Mrs. Child Neglect failed to mention to Dawn. Obviously this woman accidentally wandered out of a Goosebumps book and while roaming the halls of Scholastic, she stumbled in here.

In addition to her disregard for leaving any instructions or information with her baby-sitter, this woman has also taken to leaving her house cleaning for this twelve-year-old, without ever paying her anything extra. Dawn plans to say something, but loses her will when Mrs. Barrett comes home and says nice things about her. Proving that compliments can actually have monetary value…when dealing with children who don’t understand how money works.

But the grievance list piles up when the woman is late coming home because she was busy shopping with her friends and also Dawn is sitting for them almost every single night. Dawn has to ask the neighbors questions to help with a family tree assignment because Mrs. Barrett can’t be bothered and he brings his gold star assignment over to her house to show off, rather than his mother who clearly won’t give a shit. The kids also call Dawn all the time and show up at her house and stuff. I didn’t realize this level of negligence existed in Stoneybrook.

Nugs: I did. See: IDIOTS.

Sweeney: Dawn tries to talk to Mrs. Barrett about the allergies but all she can say is some nonsense about keeping the kids away from the soon-to-be ex-husband. Then she reverts to gushing about how Dawn is the “glue that holds this family together” and Dawn is all “lolwut? Calm down, crazy lady, I’m twelve and not part of your family.” Or something like that.

Back in club land, Kristy has a meltdown about the potential move to Watson’s house, as it’s apparently quite far away and the fact that Watson is rich is somehow one of Kristy’s complaints because she just likes to whine about things. This creates the millionth OMG THERE MIGHT BE NO MORE BSC moment in five books.

Then Dawn’s mom has a picnic because they have lots of picnics in this town. The picnic is clearly a ploy to make her judgey parents see that Papa Spier turned out to be a successful lawyer and generally a decent catch. Her snooty rich parents had disapproved of him back when they were high school kids. Here again I am disappointed by how mundane it all turns out because they parents are impressed and everyone is happy.

When Dawn sits for the Barretts again, Buddy (this is a nickname, fortunately, but still a really stupid one) goes outside to play and while Dawn is getting his younger sisters changed to go outside and in that time he goes missing. Half the neighborhood is enlisted to join the search for him, with no luck.

Then Jordan Pike returns home from piano and insists that Buddy went to his lesson, because he saw Buddy get into a car as he was leaving for his piano lesson and obviously all kids who get into cars at that time are going to their lessons? I don’t follow this stupid kid logic, but it’s clear that Jordan saw Buddy get into a car so everyone is all OH SHIT STRANGER DANGER and they call the cops.

Mrs. Barrett is out shopping again, by the way, in some sort of touristy town nearby, so they can’t really call her (life was hard before cell phones) and apparently nobody had the smarts to remember that these kids also have a father.

The cops show up and know nothing about talking to children because they grill this poor Jordan kid until he cries. The search goes on a little while longer and somebody calls Dawn’s mom because she’s obviously frazzled.

Buddy calls Dawn to say he’s with his dad and on his way home, but hangs up before the cops manage to get a hold of the phone. Mrs. Barrett comes home and the cops scare the bejeezus out of her by pointing out that most of the missing kids in this country are children of divorce whose non-custody-receiving parents just kidnap them.

But you can’t feel too sorry for her, because she walks over to her calendar and says “OH HEY, YEAH, I GUESS IT IS HIS WEEKEND TO HAVE THE KIDS AFTER ALL.”

For serious. For seriously for serious.

Nugs: This may be the dumbest book in this series yet. Everyone is a moron and there are fucking orange alerts all over the damn place for no reason. And… 12-year-olds. Let’s remember that the whole time, shall we? OK, just keeping that theme in place.

Sweeney: Shortly after this, the dad and Buddy roll in. The dad explains that he came by and saw Buddy outside and since he knew that Mrs. Barrett had forgotten, figured he would just take the kid and teach her a lesson. When Buddy later explained that he was concerned about Dawn not knowing where he was, dad rushes home because this is the first time he realized that Mrs. Barrett hadn’t been home and that he’d only succeeded in traumatizing a poor twelve-year-old.

The next day Dawn had to go over to Mrs. Barrett’s and have a super awkward conversation where she’s all, “Look, your kids call me about shit all the time that they really should be talking to you about and you are a disorganized disaster who never explains where you’re going or how you can be reached or any important details about the kids like what they might be allergic to and I just can’t sit for you any more because you’re ridiculous.”

But Mrs. Barrett promises to be better and begs her to stay as a sitter on a trial basis because the kids love Dawn and even though this woman is negligent as hell, the fact that she swallowed her pride and did that after this twelve-year-old put her in her place is impressive.

Nugs: What the fuck? I’m sorry, but this shit is ridiculous. This would never, ever happen in real life. If a twelve-year-old little pissant ever said anything like that to me I would laugh in her face and then tell her to go watch Sesame Street and then tuck herself in- really tight, so she got strangled by the blanket.

Sweeney: Agreed, especially since this woman is clearly fucking crazy. Regardless of the fact that Dawn is right, there is no way she’d be so chill with that.

But everyone in Stoneybrook is ultimately a really good person, and if you’re not, you just can’t live there. Sorry.

Then they have another meeting and they take a picture for Mary-Anne’s wall, and this book literally ends with the five girls smiling in a picture-perfect moment. And then I threw up all over my book. Kidding. Maybe.

 

Next time on The Baby-Sitters Club:  How can Kristy possibly make her mother’s wedding all about her? Find out in BSC #6 – Kristy’s Big Day.