Wednesday, January 29, 2014

BSC #6: Kristy's Big Day


By Ann M. Martin. Published July 1987.


So Watson and Kristy’s mom, Elizabeth, have set a wedding date, a Saturday in September. It is now June, so they think they have plenty of time to plan. Really? Three months still sounds pretty damn quick to me, but whatever. All the kids except Andrew, who’s too shy, are going to be in the wedding, and everyone’s very excited. Yay.

But of course, this all comes crashing down. Elizabeth’s company is sending her to Europe in September. And even though she just put their current house on the market, it’s already sold. Which would be good news, but the buyer, who of course we later learn to be Mr. Perkins, wants to be in the house ASAP, or July fifteenth. So the wedding has to be next week, and they’re moving two weeks after that. Yikes. I’d be wigging out, too, Elizabeth.

Fortunately, they have some really good friends and family, who are willing to put their entire lives on hold for a week to help make this wedding happen. The only bad news is, that includes fourteen children, mainly Kristy’s cousins, will be under foot the whole time. But never fear, Baby-Sitters Club to the rescue! Elizabeth says she’ll pay them $120 each to watch the kids from nine to five for five days.

The girls do some pre-planning, and split the kids into groups. Each sitter will have three kids, except for Mary Anne, who has two babies.

Their first day starts out pretty badly, with seven crying kids. But they get them settled down, and there are no major catastrophes.

On Tuesday, they break into their groups and head off on different field trips. Dawn takes her group, which includes Karen, to the playground. Karen basically incites a riot telling the other kids at the playground about the Martians that are going to land that night. She heard about them from an eighth-grader in her neighborhood, and in my head cannon, that’s totally Bart. Anyway, Karen gets them all kicked out of the playground.

On Wednesday, Stacey takes her group to the movies to see Mary Poppins. After a few moments of one of the kids’ money being missing, it’s found and they get in. They all have to get candy, of course, which is then dropped over the rail of the balcony onto someone. This gives the kids a case of the giggles, and they can’t stop, so they get kicked out by an usher.

Two days in a row of getting kicked out of places. That doesn’t reflect very well on the BSC.

Thursday, Kristy and Mary Anne have to take six boys, who are vehemently against it, to go get haircuts. I think asking them to do this is taking things a bit far. It’s probably something the parents should take some time out and do themselves. But whatever. The boys are really rude, and Kristy has to threaten them with a visit from Nannie, which eventually works.

On Friday, it rains, so they’re stuck in Kristy’s house all day. The morning passes by okay; they play board games and watch television (sacrilege!). But the kids are bored in the afternoon, so they decide to put on a fake wedding, and it actually sounds pretty cute.

Then the girls have to get all the kids dressed for the rehearsal dinner, in the dressy clothes they brought in bags that day. But Kristy’s cousin Emma switched all the clothes around. As a total goody-goody, I was always fascinated with this part, that someone could do something that seemed to bad. I was a loser. Anyway, they get it all straightened out, and the kids dressed in time.

Saturday is the wedding, and it sounds lovely. There’s only an almost upset, courtesy of Karen and Morbidda Destiny, but it turns out okay.

Throughout the week, Kristy was trying to think of a wedding present for her mom and Watson. She finally comes up with one during the reception, a small family tree of the new blended family. She gets Claudia to help her make it while they’re gone on their honeymoon.











o   The reason Karen and Andrew are part of all this is because, a week before the wedding, Lisa and Seth, their mother and step-father, called Watson to let him know they’re jetting off to England that week. That’s kind of an asshole move.

o   I love the conversation Kristy, Sam, and Charlie have about what it will be like to live at Watson’s. I think it’s sweet they talk to each other about things like that.

o   Ugh. Foreshadowing, talking about how special Mimi is to all of them.

o   Everyone seems to forget that Watson is a freaking millionaire. I’m pretty sure this is just the kind of thing that money smoothes over.

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