The tagline reads "Kristy's a babysitter - and a bridesmaid, too!" I guess it's not unlike go-getter Kristy to wear lots of hats, mostly of the collie-bearing baseball variety.
So Kristy is all bridesmaided out in her yellow empire waist
dress with a white sash and some snappy slingbacks. Oh, and a wreath of flowers
on her head. She looks roughly like a teenager, so good for Hodges on that one. He makes
some major missteps later in the series, like losing his grasp on what Japanese
people look like.
Kristy is adjusting a similar flower wreath on stupid Karen’s
head. To her credit, Karen does look pretty cute in her flower girl dress (also
yellow with a white sash), ruffly socks and patent leather shoes. She has
straight bangs and wavy, shoulder length hair, a far cry from the crazy top-of-the-head ponytails and Sally Jesse Raphael glasses she rocks in her own series.
Then there’s Andrew. Andrew is wearing a little blue blazer,
creased khakis, a yellow tie and untied brown oxfords (a nice touch). However,
instead of a normal-looking four-year-old boy like in the picture above, Andrew has Reese Witherspoon’s hair circa Sweet Home Alabama, ears like Jeep fenders and the face of Donald
Trump. Seriously, did you click on the link to the cover? Here's a close-up:
Also, is he tying his own tie? I guess when you look like The Donald, you learn how to dress like him pretty quick.
Chapter 1:
Like most books in this completely unpredictable series, Chapter 1 begins with a quote. It's Karen, running her mouth about Ben Brewer, the ghost of one of her relatives that resides in her attic. Andrew's having an internal meltdown, which Kristy notices and tells Karen to STFU, even though she admits to be a little freaked out herself. "Why was I letting a six-year-old get away with this?" she asks. I've been asking the same question for years, Kristy. Every one of you in this series lets Karen get away with whatever the hell she wants and I can't figure out why no one's put their foot in her ass yet.
Kristy begins to give us the rundown on her family situation, which should be imprinted in your permanent memory bank if you've ever read more than one BSC book. Blahblah Bradford Court, Watson, mansion all the way on the other side of town. Then she says something that never really made sense to me: "Watson is okay, but sometimes he can be a jerk." Watson never came across as a jerk in an arrogant dickhead way; maybe Ann just wasn't familiar with the term "douchebag," which is more of the impression Watson gives me. Or maybe it didn't exist in 1987. At any rate, I just subsitute "douche" for "jerk" and it makes me like this book a little better.
So Kristy's mom interrupts her pondering to call her, Karen and Andrew to dinner; they're having pasketti. Kristy remarks that "ever since Mom got engaged to Watson, she's been in a great mood."
We get a brief introduction to Kristy's younger brother, David Michael, and their two stereotypical teenage brothers, Sam and Charlie, who do stereotypical teenage boy things like eat a lot and drive cars. There's a random paragraph about David Michael transferring to Karen's private school, a reportedly "messy" situation that never comes to pass in any subsequent books.
Blahblah brothers and sisters discussion, Charlie wants some wine, wedding date is set, and we reach the point of the book: Elizabeth asks Kristy to be her bridesmaid. Then all canon jumps the rails as Kristy craps her drawers over wearing "a long fancy dress with flowers in (her) hair." Sam tries to remind Ann that Kristy is dyed-in-the-wool butch - "Since when do you like long fancy dresses and flowers?" - but Ann's having none of that. Kristy is EXCITED to be a bridesmaid. Andrew, of course, has to be a pansy-ass when his role in the wedding is announced - escorting Karen down the aisle. But as we know by the cover, Andrew puts on his big-boy khakis and does it anyway.
It's a weird place to end the chapter, but there it is.
Chapter 2:
Shockingly, Ann saves Chapter 3 for the long-winded explanation about the club's inner workings and its members' one-dimensional personality traits. This one is a long-winded exposition of how this wedding was only made possible by the Baby-Sitters Club. In a nutshell, because it's really boring:
- Kristy's mom's company (just referred to as "the company") springs a two-week business trip to Europe (also rather vague) on her, scheduled to overlap with the wedding. I really had no idea that Elizabeth's job was that lucrative.
- Someone already wants to buy the Thomas house. The guy is even willing to pay more than the asking price to be in there by July. This was the 80's, you know.
- All this mayhem has forced them to have the wedding in two and a half weeks. ZOMG PANIC TIME
- There are a lot of a lot of recipes for crab crepes on Google. I looked this up because I'd never really heard of using crepes as hors d'oeuvres as Elizabeth mentions, but maybe they're going to cut them up.
- "Mom went to her bedroom and called Watson privately."
- Kristy claims to be too old to whine about this inconvenient situation and the unfairness of it all. Oh, Kristy. You're never too old to whine, I promise.
- Kristy retreats upstairs to wax nostalgia about living next door to Mary Anne, then lets guilt overtake her and goes downstairs to help Elizabeth make wedding to-do lists. The forecast calls for lots of children. HOW EVER WILL WE DEAL WITH THIS!?!@
Chapter 3
Chapter 3 is the new Chapter 2 in this particular book. We do get an "outrageous" Claudia outfit description that sounds pretty moderate compared to most of them:
She was wearing a black leotard and skintight red pants under a white shirt that was so big it looked like a lab coat. Claudia's a wonderful artist and she had decorated the shirt herself, covering it with designs she had painted in acrylic. She had pinned back her long black hair at the sides with red clips.We know you can do better than that, Klawdeeuh.
The only other thing worth mentioning is that Sam prank-called the club before Kristy got there, saying, "Hello, this is Marmee March. I need a sitter for Amy tonight, someone who has experience with little women." I'm amused and at the same time annoyed, because really, what 15-year-old boy would make a Little Women reference in a prank call?
The rest of the chapter goes something like this:
Fin.
Since these take so long to do (and to read, I imagine), I'll only be doing three or so chapters per entry.
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