#68: Jessi and the Bad Baby-sitter
With Dawn back in California and Mallory literally asleep at the wheel (foreshadowing her mono diagnosis in the next book), the BSC is totally overwhelmed and in need of some extra hands on deck. Jessi thinks her friend Wendy, a fellow sixth-grader, would make a good baby-sitter, and Kristy tells Jessi to bring Wendy to the next meeting.
Kristy is known for taking everything super-seriously (which, yes, is part of the reason the BSC is successful and well-respected in Stoneybrook) so of course Wendy’s gonna have to go through the ringer before she’s made an official member of the club. Kristy quizzes her at the meeting, and then Jessi takes Wendy on a test sitting job with the Barretts - and she aces it.
Meanwhile, a bunch of the baby-sitting charges get together to make a video for Dawn - it’s a version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in which the dwarves are called Zorbs, and it also involves Captain Planet and Swamp Thing? Okay. It’s a cute idea, and the Barretts, Braddocks, some of the Pikes, and the Arnold twins are all involved. Plus, one of the wilder BSC subplots is in this book - Margo Pike is a kleptomaniac! More on that later.
Kristy is livid (and the rest of the club is displeased) when Wendy shows up super late to the next BSC meeting without calling, and reveals that a baby-sitting job had run over. But it was a job she took outside of the club - and everyone’s annoyed about that too. (Wendy is a little incensed that she is not expected to offer her regular sitting jobs to the rest of the club first and, honestly, that’s legit.) Then she’s late to an important sitting job with Jessi for the Pikes, and she doesn’t seem to think anything of it. Jessi is pissed, but then Wendy once again proves to be really good with kids, so Jessi is conflicted. Can Wendy be a great baby-sitter but bad for the BSC? (Answer: yes.)
Of course, everything turns out fine in the end. Mallory and Jessi convince Margo to confess her klepto crimes to her parents and return/pay for the things she stole. The BSC sends a video to Dawn and she sends one to them - a tour of her neighborhood. And Wendy decides to quit the BSC because all the rules and Kristy’s dictatorship are just not for her. FAIR ENOUGH. Luckily for Jessi, though, Wendy still wants to be her friend. And Shannon offers to be the Alternate Officer for a little while - just until Dawn comes back.
Whoops, Mallory just fell asleep again…
