Was I growing out of the Baby-sitters Club?……BSC # 83: Stacey v. the BSC

I was inspired by the latest poll results to do this awesome book:

Memory Reaction

This is another one of those times when I was shocked something actually happened. Stacey quits? Unheard of. I always did kind of agree with her, though. But at the time I thought the BSC acted more ridiculous in this book than any others to drive Stacey’s plot point. Maybe it just took this book to make me realize it.

Revisited Reaction

This might top Mary Anne’s Makeover in terms of bitchy-cat-fights. The basic idea is that Stacey is daring to spend time with her boyfriend and some of his friends. They are much cooler than the BSC, and Stacey realizes she has a much better time with them. She blows off a couple sitting jobs, shows up late to meetings, and does all sorts of other things that will send her straight to hell.

It all come to a head when she throws a party and doesn’t invite any one from the club except Claud. But of course, they find out about it anyway. In an attempt to avoid confrontation she blows off this lame talent show the girls are organizing, which completely breaks the heart of desperate for therapy Charlotte Johanssen. After that, Stacey has a huge fight with the other girls and ends up quitting. It is awesome. Later Kristy (and everyone else) will try to say she quit and was fired at the same time, but that is total crap. Stacey quits, and then Kristy jumps up and says “You can’t quit, you’re fired.” And Stacey is all, “whatever, bitch.” But just for the record, Stacey does quit first.

High/Lowlights

• Claud outfit, yeah! “She was wearing this super-baggy man’s shirt that must have once belonged to a sumo wrestler, enormous light wool black trousers gathered at the waist with a silken sash, and old work boots.” The book was published in 1995, so it is not THAT out there. But there are still way too many adjectives used in that sentence.

• Stacey is just as clothes-conscious as Claudia, but less funky. That is a new description.

• Claudia is making a painting of Stacey, which she calls Anastasia Fantasia. She makes Stacey poise for hours for it, even though it is completely abstract and you can’t even tell it is a person.

• Stacey thinks Mal and Jessi are immature because they start laughing at the fact that Claudia answers the phone, “good afternoon, Baby-Sitters Club.” That isn’t immature, that is stupid.

• Stacey claims that Mr. Spier was strict with Mary Anne because of that time when she was a baby and her grandparents wanted custody that they made up in one of the mysteries. He got scared he would lose her and tried to be a perfect parent. That is lame. He used to just be strict. I am calling total retcon on this exposition.

• Stacey wants to go to dinner with Robert so she calls and asks Mary Anne to cover a sitting job for her. Lame Dawn follows Stacey to the pizza parlor and spends the whole night watching her. They don’t explain how she does this, considering Stacey’s mom drove her to the pizza place. Also, creepy.

• Wow, when Stacey sees Dawn at the pizza place, she is all, WTF? Dawn basically screams out to the whole restaurant, “Mary Anne has a boyfriend too, but at least she honors her responsibility to the Baby-sitters Club?” Someone takes herself a little too seriously, huh?

• Hee. Stacey's cool friends have the same reaction as me, word for word.
  

• Dawn outfit: “her hood, her six-foot knit scarf, her down coat, and her L.L. Bean boots, Dawn looked like Nanook of the North.” You know it is a sign of becoming an adult, when you don’t think it is “uncool” to where a hat/scarf in the winter.
  

• Adam Pike is disappointed Stacey isn’t sitting. All the boys love Stacey. I wonder what was in her kid kit?

• Turquoise, light-wool slacks? To go out for pizza?

• Pineapple pizza? That is what Stacey’s cool new friends eat. I don’t get it.

• Stacey is embarrassed by Mary Anne having a sticker on her backpack that says, “I [heart] my kitty.” It does seem a little juvenile for an 8^th grader.

• Stacey sits with Robert and his friends at lunch and the BSC gives her the stink eye the whole time. Don’t they also claim they are not a clique?

• Would you eat something called a regrub? It is a burger where they fold all the toppings inside, instead of outside. I can’t picture what that looks like.

• Kristy sticks straws up her nose in a restaurant? And they don’t ask her to leave?

• Stacey’s new friends think the BSC are babies because they giggle at the sight of a cute guy.

• It is sort of bitchy to invite Claud to a party and tell her she can’t talk about it to the rest of the BSC. Claud even says she is not comfortable with that and doesn’t want to go, but Stacey insists. There is nothing wrong with not inviting the BSC somewhere, but don’t put Claud in the middle unless she is okay with it.

• Stacey is sitting for Jamie Newton, and he keeps complaining of a stomach ache. She basically blows him off, tells him to go to bed, and talks to Robert on the phone for awhile. Of course, Jamie throws up macaroni and cheese all over the place and she has to clean it. Ew. I didn't need that imagery.
  

• Mrs. Newton finds out Stacey was on the phone all night and tells her not to worry about it. Then she calls Kristy and says she should make a special request that the club not make long phone calls. That is really lame. If she had a problem with Stacey, tell her. It is not like Kristy is her mother. Or does Mrs. Newton just think that highly of Kristy that she knows she will make the other girls do what she says?

• Robert is such a guy. He says it will be okay to have a party at his house, but doesn’t ask until after they have invited everyone. So, of course they say no and the party moves to Stacey.

• You would think Stacey would be embarrassed about her mom hanging out at her party with a backwards baseball cap, while dancing all over the place. But the other kids seem to think she is cool, so maybe that helps. Teenagers are not known for individual thinking.

• A middle school party where everyone dances. I call bullshit on that.

• Mary Anne and Dawn find out Stacey is having a party, so they show up in the middle and act passive aggressive going, “Hey want to hang out….oh wait, you look busy.” Then Mary Anne cries. It is a pretty sad display.

• Ooh, this book has an accidental spoiler. Stacey tells us what happens at the talent show, with the explanation that Claudia told her much later "when they were friends again." But when the book ends, Claud and Stacey are not friends. Maybe that is just bad writing.

• The BSC meeting after the party/talent show is full of great lines. I am going to quote a bunch of them, so sorry if this gets long.

1. First, Stacey laughs when Claud asks her to “explain herself.”

2. Then when the other girls tell her she didn’t act like “this” before Robert, she says: “Like what? Like a person who wants to have a life outside the Baby-sitters Club? Like someone who goes out with other friends from time to time? You’re all like that somewhere inside. Maybe you need to grow up and find out – “

3. Then they call HER immature.

4. Stacey gets another great line out: “This is not a discussion! This is a firing squad. I can’t believe I am sitting here taking this. You don’t want to be my friends. You want to control my life.”

5. Kristy thinks that is the stupidest thing she ever heard, even though it is TOTALLY ACCURATE.

6. So, Stacey tells her how she is tired of meetings, rules, talent shows, fairs, etc. etc. She wants to hang out with people who act their age and don’t just talk about kids. It is awesome.

7. Then she quits and walks out.

• At the end, they try to fake us out, by Stacey leaving her new friends house at 5:15 on a Friday to go somewhere. But it is just to a recital for Charlotte Johanssen. I want to know how Stacey promised to go to this recital at the beginning of the book, when it would have meant missing a meeting. But whatever.

• Anyway, Stacey thinks her new friends rock, they get along great, and she has no regrets about quitting. For now anyway.