“I was already a beauty”…..BSC # 37: Dawn and the Older Boy

Memory Reaction

All I remember is Travis giving her gifts. And this scene where Dawn is surprised that Travis could drive at 16 – because even though it is the legal driving age, most parents make their kids wait until they are 17. Or, so Dawn claimed. I didn’t believe it at the time, but I grew up in NJ where you can’t get your license until 17. So, I have no idea what people in other states did.

Revisited Reaction

At a sleepover at Kristy’s, Dawn meets this guy who is friends with Charlie and Sam. He is from California, so Dawn is instantly into him. For some reason, he decides to talk to her, even though he is at least three years older than her. Plus, afterwards, he visits Dawn, then gives her jewelry and hair clips to wear. Then he starts giving her “advice” like saying she should cut her hair or get another ear piercing, etc. Some of this she does. Cause, as we already know, Dawn will change anything for a guy.

Then she finds out that Travis is actually dating a HS girl and feels all betrayed. But she eventually does tell him off for leading her on. And, she kind of has a right to because he shouldn’t be giving gifts to some girl he has no interest in. Especially a thirteen-year-old. So, good for her. Then Mary Anne gives Dawn Lewis’s address, and they start to exchange letters.

Interestingly, the BSC doesn’t know about all this as it is happening. She finally tells them the whole story, but not until the end. What they are doing in the meantime, is dealing with a baby-sitting crisis: The Perkins and the Hobarts are putting on a play. James wrote it, which makes one of the assholes from THIS book make fun of him. Plus, the Perkins dog is in the play, which makes things difficult. I always pictured that dog as this huge monster-size one. I think they had a similar one in Sleepover Friends…One of the girls had a large dog, and the scenes always made me think it was a crazy-big animal. But, anyway, the play goes well enough, I guess. And James sort of makes friends with the asshole. Of course, I think he did this in an earlier book too, so who knows how long it will last.

High/Lowlights

• Claud outfit: “Today, for example, she had stuck to two colors: black and white. Black cotton bib overalls over a white turtleneck with a shiny black parent leather belt lopped around her waist. Black suede ankle boots and white cotton socks. Long black hair swept off her face with giant white plastic barrettes.” I actually think it sounds kind of cute.

• Stacey does some weird style to Mary Anne’s hair where she scrunches it into a tangled “mane.” I am not sure I am picturing that correctly, but I am also not sure I want to. Anyway, Mary Anne hates it, but is afraid to tell Stacey.

• Mary Anne wakes the other girls up after a sleep-over at Kristy’s because she thinks the Brewers will be expecting them for breakfast. Um, really? The parents of a teenage girl expect them to get up early after a slumber party.

• Kristy convinces everyone to go down to the kitchen in their pajamas and old makeup cause no one important would be there. And of course, this is where Travis enters. Dawn and the other girls keep hiding behind each other, than run up to change. Then spend over an hour primping before going back down. I can’t believe that Stacey (who had a crush on Sam), wouldn’t look in a mirror before going downstairs.

• Dawn’s after sleep-over outfit: “A pale blue ten-button top with my favorite jeans.

• Travis hears Dawn is from California and is all, “I like to take long walks on the beach.” Then Dawn says she didn’t live on the ocean. Even though she always talks about the ocean. I mean, I know she didn’t live right on it, but I would think she would mention going there.

• And also, long walks on the beach? Cliche, much?

• How big are kid-kits supposed to be? I always picture them as shoeboxes, but they can’t fit that much stuff in a shoebox. But do they really carry around huge boxes.

• The timing is really off in this thing – the sleepover was a Friday night, so Dawn met Travis on a Saturday morning. Then at the Monday meeting Dawn asks Kristy if she has seen Travis again. I guess it could have been a full week away, but it seems weird to expect him to be there every day.

• Dawns says she sometimes gets a feeling when it is going to be an exciting day. Apparently, it happened the day Claud broke her leg. If Dawn thinks she is psychic, she should warn her friends.

• Now Dawn’s house has a smoke house and an out house? Seriously?

• Travis just pulls up outside Dawn’s house when she and Mary Anne are raking leaves and chats with her. How did he know where she lived?

• Would the Hobarts really be hanging out with the Perkins girls? I know they live next door, but they are not really that close in age – at least not James Hobart.

• I still think kids would think kids from Australia and being like “Crocodile Dundee” was cool.

• Travis is kind of an ass. He keeps talking about how all these sports teams and clubs at school are begging him to join them, because he is just so good at everything.

• If Kristy didn’t know Travis and Dawn had a ‘thing’, why would she start talking about him? I don’t know how much time has passed, so it is hard to judge, but it seems like it is supposed to be over a few weeks. Would the BSC think what Charlie’s friend does is interesting?

• Dawn totally stalks Travis. Twice. She goes down to his school and follows him downtown. She is lucky that those two days he just happens to walk downtown, not drive.

• Travis’s new girlfriend wears “a white cotton flight suit” that is supposedly like something Claud or Stacey would wear. WTF is a flight suit?

• Dawn doesn’t let Travis talk her into getting her pierced ears (as if she could get it done without her parents) and she says she had to work hard to get permission for the earrings in the first place. That’s not really how I remember it. She just makes a random phone call, right?

• So the kids just decide what day they want to perform the play, and expect people to show up. They want an adult, so Mary Anne calls Mrs. Pike, but it doesn’t seem like any other adults show up. Wouldn’t these kids want to put on the play for their parents?

• When Travis’s girlfriend is all, “I heard he turned you into a beauty.” Then Dawn is all “I already was a beauty.” Even she realized how conceited that sounded. But, I actually don’t think it was so bad to say.

• On two separate occasions Dawn’s teacher lets her out early and she gets to leave school ten minutes early. That never happened in my school. I think there was supposedly a legal thing.

• She writes in a letter to Lewis that she will make him vegetarian food….which she actually does. So, yea, continuity.

By the way, sorry if this post isn't showing up correctly, I am having issues with blogger.