Super Special #11: The Baby-sitters Remember
I vividly remember reading this book in the summer as a kid, because all the gold on the cover definitely sweat off onto my fingers, hahahahaha. ANYWAY, the baby-sitters are having a slumber party at Kristy’s manse when Mallory brings up the two-page “What I Did This Summer” essay that all the SMS kids have to write.
“It’s really a shame… that Mal’s such a dork.” - Claudia(/me), page 4
The baby-sitters start talking about things that would be better topics, like their happiest days or most embarrassing moments or most vivid memories. Each BSCer at the slumber party has a section of the book in which they recount their most vivid memory.
Kristy recounts the very first time she was allowed to baby-sit David Michael on her own, and Stacey flashes back to life in New York before the BSC, before the divorce, and before diabetes. She describes her clique and how Laine, as the leader, was basically a fascist. Stacey befriends a new girl at school, Allison Ritz, and invites her to join the group for a sleepover. At the sleepover, though, Stacey wets the bed she’s sharing with Laine. She hasn’t been feeling right lately, and this is the final straw on top of how hungry, thirsty, dizzy, and shaky she’s been. Laine freaks out and completely overreacts, humiliating Stacey; it only gets worse when Allison spreads the story all over school, using it for social caché. Stacey is diagnosed with diabetes and her whole life changes in that moment. Her memory leads right up to moving to Stoneybrook, when everything changed for the better (BOO LAINE, YAY CLAUDIA!).
Claudia writes about the first time she felt like she could really be an artist. In first grade, their art teacher had assigned them to draw a self-portrait and everyone just did boring drawings of themselves, but Claudia drew a beautiful colorful butterfly. Her art teacher, though, scolded her for not taking the assignment seriously. Mimi was furious when she found out and marched into the classroom to defend Claudia’s intelligence and creativity, and explain that Claudia “sees herself like a free spirit, like a butterfly.” Claudia’s art teacher was properly shamed, and Mimi’s support encouraged Claud’s art habit. BRB I need to cry in private for a few minutes. Jessi recalls the weeks just before Squirt was born, when her family was still living in New Jersey; she didn’t want a new smelly attention-hogging baby around, but she was scared to voice her thoughts because her mother had already had a couple of miscarriages and Jessi didn’t want to jinx the baby. When the baby arrives (early) he is colicky and cries all the time. This ends up bringing Jessi and the baby together, though; turns out she is the only one who can calm Squirt down (by singing songs from Annie to him in a rocking chair). The rest is history!
Logan, who would totally be an Instagram husband in 2020, says that his most vivid memory is “moving here, showing off [his] baby-sitting skills, and falling for” Mary Anne. Really, Logan recounts how he completely stalked Mary Anne and used baby-sitting as an in to get to know her. Um, cool, Logan. Mallory’s most vivid memory is when she wrote a letter to her favorite author, Amelia Moody, and then went to an Amelia Moody book signing at the Washington Mall. (Ugh, I always get a little stomachache when I relate too much to Mallory.) Mallory brings flowers, practices what she’s going to say, and then when she gets in front of Amelia Moody, she just bursts into tears and can’t say anything. But it cements for her that she wants to be an author someday.
This book is one of the first times we’ve gotten any Shannon backstory; turns out there is some tension between her parents at home and Shannon considers school a safe haven. That’s why, when a new girl named Sally started creating tension in her friend group at school, Shannon was quite displeased… until the new girl (who is rich AF and has a famous mom) decided that Shannon was going to be her new best friend. Shannon even almost blew her shot at getting into the astronomy club to please Sally, but in the end she stuck to her guns and Sally cut Shannon off and chose a new best friend. It explains why Shannon was originally mean to another new girl, Kristy, but we all know she eventually got over that (and even had a dog named after her!). Dawn recalls the circumstances surrounding her parents’ divorce and her move to Stoneybrook, including the first time she met Mary Anne.
Mary Anne has the final memory to share, and it’s about having a baby-sitter over a weekend when her dad is in Chicago for business. Kristy and Claudia sleep over and they decide to get revenge on the baby-sitter, Mrs. Tate, because she wouldn’t let Mary Anne eat pizza and a brownie in the same day. First Kristy dumps a ton of pepper in Mrs. Tate’s food, but when it doesn’t get a reaction they decide to nail her slippers to the floor. Mrs. Tate actually laughs, so they pull prank after prank all night on good-natured Mrs. Tate (who also teaches them some pranks of her own).
