“For years, my parents have watched me go off to school wearing unusual clothing and accessories”…..BSC # 3: The truth about Stacey

Memory Reaction

I must have read this book, because I read everything up to about book 90. But I have no recollection of it. The back of book description about a rival agency sounds sort of familiar though. I think it is one I didn’t own, so didn’t read it multiple times.

Revisited Reaction

I am not sure why this is called “The Truth About Stacey.” We already knew that Stacey had diabetes, so that is not some big reveal. Maybe the reveal is that her life is….complicated. I hope you were sitting down for that. Maybe it was a little more shocking before it was pounded over our heads in ever Stacey book.

The plot is actually about some 8^th graders (Remember, this is early enough that the BSC was in 7^th grade) opening another baby-sitting club called the Baby Sitters’ Agency and taking the girls clients because they are older and can stay out later. The BSC is upset, and Stacey had no friends besides Kristy, Claud, and Mary Anne, so she is willing to do anything to keep the BSC around. Including blow jobs. The BSC tries to recruit new members to compete, but they end up recruiting moles from the BSA, who make them look bad. But, it turns out the girls in the Baby-Sitters’ Agency all suck at sitting and do things like bring over their boyfriends, smoke, and let poor Jamie Newton wander around by himself outside (with no mittens). This last offense convinces the BSC to talk to Mrs. Newton, who calls all the other parents in town, and they decide to stop using the BSA. Then, the BSC has a showdown with the BSA where they prove they are better sitters because of all the trivia they know about their clients.

Meanwhile, Stacey is annoyed at her parents because they are dragging her to some new doctor who they claim is a “holistic doctor,” but Dr. Johanssen tells her is basically a quack. Stacey is pissed her parents won’t listen to her, but also won’t let Dr. Johanssen talk to them. Her solution is to have Dr. Johanssen get her an appointment with a legitimate specialist, so he can tell her parents that her regular doctor is doing a perfectly fine job. Dr. Johanssen goes along with it, but writes a letter telling her parents that Stacey went to her confidentially, otherwise she would have told them. Amazingly, this idiotic plan works. And, while in NYC, Stacey makes up with Laine, who she hadn’t spoken with since moving to Stoneybrook.

High/Lowlights

• Kristy wants to be available to sit for Jamie when Mrs. Newton goes into labor….cause it couldn’t possible happen in the middle of the night or when they are in school.
  

• Stacey actually realizes about the middle of the night thing, and the girls all realize they were born in the middle of the night. I feel like this happened in another book, because I remember Mary Anne being all pouty about not having a mom to tell her this stuff, only it was different than in this book.
  

• Kristy pretends her name is Candy Kane and that she needs a sitter for her brother while she goes out with a high schooler named Winston Churchill. The head of the BS Agency buys it, so you know they are not dealing with geniuses.

• The description that Stacey gives of finding out she had diabetes is just like what is in that BSC Remember Super Special 11. Which I do remember. Impressive of that ghostwriter to have researched.

• So, Laine apparently never knew about Stacey having diabetes until this book. So, she had no idea why Stacey was in the hospital all the time the previous year? Well, no wonder she didn’t no how to act around Stacey. And if Stacey’s parents are friends with Laine’s parents why didn’t they tell their friends about it ?

• A bunch of kids are making fun of Charlotte, and Stacey asks her why the kids in her class don’t like her. What a dumb question. Sometimes, kids pick on other kids. It sucks, but it’s true.

• So, Mrs. Newton DOES go into labor while the girls are in school and drops off Jamie at Mrs. Thomas’s office. Apparently, the adults were smart enough to have arranged this in advance without counting on twelve-year-olds.

• So, Mrs. Newton called the Agency because she thinks the BSC isn’t old enough to take care of a newborn. But she will still use them, when it is just Jamie or when Lucy is a little older. I have one problem with this. What kind of person is hiring baby-sitters when they gave birth a week ago? Seriously, if you have a newborn, I think you can skip PTA.

• Stacey’s parents have let her go to school with: “the dinosaur on my beret, red sneakers covered with beads and glitter, leg warmers covered with footprints, plastic butterflies in my hair. For two weeks in New York, I even wore red lace gloves with no fingertips.” Now, Stacey thinks the weird thing is a sandwich board to recruit new BSC members.

• Stacey tells the other girls that Jamie told her about hating his new baby-sitters, but not that she told him to tell his parents. Isn’t it like, the most important part? They KNOW the other girls are bad sitters, the important part is getting the parents to stop using them. Weird.

• Stacey takes TWO jobs without consulting the other girls. Once when Dr. Johanssen calls her at home and then once when she just picked up the phone at Claud’s and got excited because Mrs. Newton wanted her to watch Lucy (while she was home, so it is not so unbelievable). But really. Don’t they kick people out of the club for stuff like that?

• Stacey’s mom calls her “Stacey Elizabeth”……Is her name not Anastasia” yet

• Her dad is upset at the appointment, cause they don’t know what the doctor might have cost. When your twelve-year-old is making doctor’s appointments behind your back, the first worry should not be the cost.