Super Special #13: Aloha, Baby-sitters!
These bitches. I was just saying that Hawaii would be a pretty damn cool vacation spot, and then today I remembered that (as usual) a bunch of fictional thirteen year olds are waaaay better traveled than I am.
This trip is some school excursion, and everyone* gets to go except for Mallory**, because she's practically a member of the Duggar family. (Okay, the Pikes are just rational people who were like "hmm, send our eleven year old on an expensive Hawaiian vacation? No thanks." As this is an extremely practical viewpoint, it is not shared by any of the other parents.) So the concept behind this book is that it's a travel journal put together by the more fortunate babysitters as a gift to Mallory. I don't know. If all of my best friends were going off on a trip together, I feel like maybe a better gift would be some new Fryes, not a scrapbook documenting the totally awesome times they had without me.
No wonder Mallory ends up fleeing Stoneybrook for boarding school.
In the introductions, we learn that Claudia buys "the ugliest junk at thrift shops and somehow turns it into cool outfits. Stacey wears great clothes, too, but her theory of fashion is more cool-at-the-store, cool-on-the-body. Her style is Young Sophisticate. (At least that's the name of the section she shops in at Bellair's department store.)"
Young Sophisticate? So that's where she's getting all those wool slacks.
We also learn that "if a study showed that grass was nutritious, Dawn would graze for her supper." Ah, Kristy. I feel like she and I would be really good -- steak-eating, denim-wearing -- friends. Maybe I would pull her aside for a talk about the dorky white sneakers and baggy socks.
Abby Stevenson's Patented Suitcase Packing Method: "I went to my dresser and removed the contents of Drawer Number One, and shoved it into the suitcase. All underwear and bathing suits. About three-quarters of Drawer Number Two (summer shirts) made it, and the same with Drawer Number Three (shorts, skirts). Then I human-vacuumed the bottom of my closet for shoes and dumped them in, too."
Customary "Claudia Is An Overpacker" Paragraph: "Claudia arrived last (surprise, surprise). We peered through the window as her family tried to load two enormous suitcases into the jammed cargo hold. It was like watching a pair of tardy hippos crowding onto Noah's Ark."
Poetic.
That's all the fashion you get in the text, so here are some notable plot points:
- Abby gets cast in a sunscreen commercial, simply because she's hot and sporty. She pretends she's 18 and somehow everyone buys it.
- Pearl Harbor gives Claudia a massive guilt complex about being Japanese. She's kind of a bummer to be around.
- Stacey and a couple other SMS students get into a helicopter crash and are lost for a day or so. Naturally, this turns into a diabetic emergency.
- Jessi spends so much time documenting the trip that she barely even gets to experience it.
- Dawn cleans up a beach. She and Jessi both really need to learn how to relax.
Bonus fashion advice for poorly dressed thirteen year olds over on the tumblr.
* Including Dawn, who now lives in California. So she flew out to see her mom for the summer and then immediately decided to peace out and go to Hawaii instead. Such a kind, considerate young lady.
** Actually, Kristy doesn't go either. Why? Well, because Watson is taking the entire Thomas-Brewer clan to Hawaii later in the summer. So you can save your tears.
I've retained a troubling amount of information about books I read during my childhood.
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8 comments
Holy crap, when they said "it was like watching a pair of tardy hippos" I thought they meant "retarded hippos".... I was wondering when the BSC become so un PC, until I realised they meant late.... oops! Bit of a cultural misinterpretation there...
by Kirsty W on 1:48 AM. #
by LJ on 2:31 AM. #
i've done the travel journal thing as a gift to friends too, but it was never for a friend who wanted to come but couldnt. that did always seem like a bit too much of a rub in the face, you know? great post (as usual)!
by RMb on 7:19 PM. #
At least, on the cover, the guy wearing sandals doesn't have socks on at the same time.
by SJSiff on 12:33 AM. #
If you updated this site once a day, it still wouldn't be enough for me. I love it so much!
by Miss K on 10:29 AM. #
This was a Super Special with so much potential (helicopter drama! Starring in an ad!) but was really pretty awful. And yeah, Dawn shooting off as soon as she got back to Stoneybrook was pretty cold.
I'm pretty sure the whole "X Babysitter's Theory of X" or "Y Babysitter's Rules of Y" increased heaps during the later years - or am I overthinking it?
by hungryandfrozen on 5:16 AM. #
oh my god. i remember reading this on the plane on my way to MY summer vacation the summer going into 5th grade.
i curse at myself everyday for donating all my original bscs to the public library.
www.SHINYUPSIDEDOWNCROSSES.BLOGSPOT.com
by Anonymous on 11:56 PM. #
That cover is pitiful! Only the fella in the skirt has on beach-appropriate footwear. The one place it's appropriate to wear flip flops, and everyone's in white socks and sneaks (even Claud; not buying it!) Their feet must be dying! Plus, you can't just kick those off and dig your feet in the sand, one of the great beachy pleasures.
by Libellule on 1:09 AM. #