By Ann M. Martin. Published March 1988.
You guuuuys. I don’t know if I can handle this book. I
haven’t let myself read it since my own childhood dog died when I was ten. I
cannot deal with animals dying, hurt, scared, or confused. No matter how
fictional they are. But I’m going to push on through, just for y’all.
So poor old Louie starts limping one morning, but it doesn’t
look too bad, so Kristy’s mom just says they’ll keep an eye on it. That same
morning, Kristy’s bus is late, and while she’s waiting, she gets her first look
at bunch of private school girls. They get into it a bit, and Kristy calls them
snobs while one of them calls her a jerk. It’s very mature.
That afternoon, Kristy calls Louie to her, and he walks into
a table leg instead. Her mom decides he should go to the vet. The vet tells
them simply that he’s getting old, has arthritis, and is losing his eyesight.
She gives him some pills for pain, and tells them to take him for slow walks.
Kristy decides to do just that when they get home.
Unfortunately, they run into some of the snobs, and they introduce themselves.
There’s Shannon Kilbourne with her perfect Bernese mountain dog, Astrid, and
the younger Amanda Delaney, with her $400 cat Priscilla. Shannon says Louie
smells, and they call each other jerks and snobs again.
Kristy has a job in her neighborhood sitting for the
Papadakis kids. They’re not snobs, though, they’re normal rich people. Linny
tells her about some of the people in their neighborhood. Then Kristy gets a
call. It’s Shannon, and she says she saw smoke coming from an upstairs window.
Kristy rushes the scared kids outside, but when they get out there, Kristy
can’t see or smell any smoke at all. But Shannon’s in her front yard laughing
her ass off. To get her back, Kristy sets her up with a diaper delivery
service. Again, super mature.
Mary Anne sits for the Perfect Perkinses, and they have a
tea party. It’s boring.
Kristy sits for Amanda Delaney and her brother Max, and they
truly are awful, bratty snobs. They boss Kristy around all afternoon, and she
puts up with it because she doesn’t want to make new clients mad. She gets
another call from Shannon, this time saying she’s sitting at the Papdakis’, and
Sari won’t stop crying. So Kristy and the kids haul ass over there, but of
course, nothing’s wrong. As they’re leaving, Shannon yells something about
thanks for pushing her out of sitting jobs. Kristy finally gets it.
We begin the foreshadowing for Jeff returning to California,
with the usually awesome Jeff being a real pain in the ass to Dawn. I like how
it’s set up over a few books. More on that to come.
Back at the mansion, Louie’s barely moving, and when he
does, he has an accident in the house. It’s heartbreaking.
Stacey sits for the Delaney brats, and totally weirds them
out by taking every annoying thing they do one step further. They think she’s
crazy, but it works. They’re not angels, but they’re a lot better behaved than
they were.
Kristy sits for them, and tries out Stacey’s trick, and it
works. Then the doorbell rings. It’s guy with a pizza she didn’t order. But
Kristy picks up on what happened quickly, and tells him it’s actually meant for
next door. A few minutes later, Shannon, her sister Tiffany, and Astrid show up
with the pizza, demanding money. Kristy says it’s her damn fault, and she
doesn’t owe her anything. Shannon picks up a piece, and says she’s going to
throw it at Kristy. Kristy says she’ll throw it at Astrid, and then she’ll have
a pepperoni mountain dog. For some reason, this pathetic joke breaks the ice,
and Shannon starts laughing, and all of a sudden they’re on their way to being
friends.
Claudia and super helper Mallory sit for the Pike kids, and
five of them have chicken pox. It’s about as crazy as you’d think. Then at the
end of the night, Vanessa and Nicky, the only two to not have it, are sitting
there counting their spots.
Louie’s having more accidents, and is in more pain. Watson
and Elizabeth are doing everything they can, even taking him for shots twice a
day. They’re good people. But one day, Louie can’t work his back legs at all,
and he tries to drag them behind him. It sounds traumatizing for the little
kids. That night they have a family meeting, and they make the decision that
it’s time he was put down.
I cried through the entire next chapter. I’m such a wuss.
It’s decided that Kristy, David Michael and Elizabeth will
take him to the vet, and only Elizabeth will go in with him. David Michael gets
her to promise to hold him while it’s happening. All the feels, y’all, all the
feels. After they get back home, they decide to have a funeral for him.
Everybody’s got a job to do, and I think that makes them feel better. When
they’re about to start, Shannon and Tiffany, Hannie and Linny, and Max and
Amanda show up. Karen invited them. Of course she did. Everyone says one nice
thing about Louie, and it’s sweet. Afterwards, Shannon gives Kristy her
condolences.
A couple of days later, Shannon shows up with a puppy for
Kristy. It’s one of Astrid’s. Shannon’s family has decided to give her to
Kristy’s family. After some play time with her, David Michael’s okay with it,
and decides to name her Shannon.
One day the whole club is over at the mansion, when Shannon
comes over as well. The girls ask her if she wants to join the club, but
Shannon says she likes the idea of the club, but she’s just too busy to go to
all the meetings. So the girls have the bright idea of asking her to be an
associate member, like Logan. That, she gladly accepts. Yay.
o
All right, I made it through. I do appreciate
how frank everything was. I’m sure this did help out quite a few kids who had
to go through the same situation.
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