Previously: Jessi was the only black girl in town and that somehow coincided with everyone learning ASL miraculously quickly. Yeah, we’re not sure either.
—
Sweeney: While it’s common knowledge that Kristy Thomas is the second most reprehensible character in Stoneybrook (beaten out only by her step-sister, Karen) I’m not a huge fan of Mary Anne either. Basically my triad of Kristy / Mary Anne / Dawn is two parts “WHAT IS THIS BULLSHIT?” and one part, “Hello childhood idol. I feel some combination of shame for my former admiration and lingering fictional character defensiveness because Dawn is still kind of my favorite.”
Nugs: Stacey is still my favorite because she’s from NYC OMG AWESOME and also they had that one book where basically she called Kristy a cunt except she didn’t. Except she totally did.
Sweeney: She totally did.
The thing about Mary Anne is that she’s not a miserable fictional person like Kristy It-Was-All-My-Idea Thomas; she’s just dull as dish water. To be fair, being in eighth grade is inherently boring. I should also add that I can think of only one self-proclaimed Mary Anne off the top of my head and from time to time I read Mary Anne’s internal monologue and think of this friend who I love dearly, and see how she may have been a lot like this at thirteen. I am then forced to accept that maybe if Mary Anne ever got to escape terminal eighth grade, she’d grow up and get out of Stoneybrook and have an actual spine (a thing that my friend possesses but Mary Anne does not; I’ll have to ask if she had one at thirteen) and put her powers of empathy towards saving the world instead of whining. She would also probably be the one person in this group to get her shit together and be the closest thing to a legitimate human being any of these girls know. Clearly, we have been doing these recaps for way too long.
The Bad Luck Mystery is how she had the misfortune to be trapped in middle school for the rest of time.
Unfortunately for Mary Anne, and more importantly me, she is trapped in the eighth grade for the rest of forever and it’s just not a good look for her.
Our story begins with the usual redundant nonsense. Kristy is gross, but Mary Anne is lame and obsessed with her, so we get to hear all about it. Today our girls are placed into predictable developing-complex-characters-is-hard boxes by way of introducing them alongside their lunch choices. Kristy gets the school lunch so she can be gross, Dawn eats granola and tofu and shit, and Claudia loves junk food blah blah blah. Oh and also Kristy lives in a giant-house-no-jk-a-mansion and Claudia is “exotic.” The usual.
Nugs: Listen, GWC, would it really kick your ass that hard to make Claudia not a proverbial stereotype? Or, I don’t know, Mary Anne and Kristy not secret lesbians?
Sweeney: Mary Anne begins to annoy me with her pathetic desperation by the bottom of page two: “The five us began to laugh again. We really are great friends. And we always sit together.” It goes on for a while, but I’ll spare you. WE’RE REALLY GREAT FRIENDS. I PROMISE. THE BESTEST. SEE HOW OFTEN WE LAUGH? HA HA HA HA. HA. HA.
Nugs: But that’s the secret to bestest friendships ever, Sweeney! It’s why you guys still put up with my shirtless Baby Goose pics, or my essay length rants on superhero powers. Because I’m so funny! HAHAHAHAHAHA.
Please still be friends with me.
Sweeney: Right.
It’s almost Halloween and the Halloween Hop is coming up again. Also, a table full of creepy weirdo girls – Grace, Cokie, & friends – stares at the BSC’s lunch table and Mary Anne freaks out and assumes that it means her outfit looks stupid. I mean, it probably does, but these things are most likely unrelated.
Nugs: Yeah, I’m guessing it does, too.
Sweeney: Chapter two begins with a several page ode to checking the mail. That might be only partially true, because around the third paragraph I zoned out and started singing the Mail Time song from Blue’s Clues.
No, just kidding; she’s super busy telling us all about the BSC and how it was ALL KRISTY’S IDEA and meetings and Kid Kits and the notebook and I’m pretty sure the GWC just includes this chapter in each book for their own benefit because no child can possibly find this interesting.
She finally opens the letter and it’s an ominous chain letter promising to basically ruin the lives of Mary Anne and her entire family if she doesn’t forward it. The girls have a brief chat about the legitimacy of this threat before she throws it away.
Also, this is not important for any reason other than to highlight how ridiculous Mary Anne is: When she opens the letter, she says – out loud:
“Oh darn! Darn, darn boring darn!”
Right.
Nugs: Do any of you guys remember when you would get internet chain letters and you were all like, “ZOMG I should forward this to eleventy billion people or I’ll be single forever and ever and ever?” And then you didn’t?
Spoiler: I’m currently single. Maybe I should have forwarded the chain letters. Or, you know, not talked about Star Trek all the time.
Sweeney: Naturally the next day is terrible for our girl Mary Anne. She loses, drops, and/or ruins countless things throughout the day. She considers the possibility that the chain letter is the cause but ultimately decides against it because the day is over and all is well.
Dawn has a disastrous sitting job and maybe-it’s-the-letter-but-no-jk-totes-not-because-kids-are-just-clumsy. Then Mary Anne gets a package and it is addressed to her in crazy magazine-cut-out letters.
“I know it sounds crazy, but my first thought was that Tigger had been kittennapped.”
HOW DOES SHE HAVE FRIENDS? Says the girl with a great many Crazy Cat Lady friends who is clearly on a subconscious mission to alienate all of her own friends by the time this post ends.
She brings it over to the meeting and naturally Kristy is the one to notice that it’s actually addressed to Mary Anne and the BSC because otherwise it wouldn’t be all about her. Mary Anne considers the possibility that it’s a bomb because:
“These days, who knows?”
LOLWUT? That’s my actual note that I wrote down when I got to this part because I have nothing more to add than that.
The meeting is reduced to “just taking phone calls” from its usual official Kristy-wears-a-visor status so that we can deal with Red Alert: Mary Anne Gets A Package.
The package turns out to be a necklace and a note:
“Halloween is coming up. Beware of evil forces. Wear this bad luck charm – or else.”
And then we sit around panicking over the epic question for the ages: to wear or not to wear? The girls basically rattle off all of their problems of late and blame them on Mary Anne’s chain letter. Even Stacey phones in about breaking a paper weight.
The ultimate verdict is to wear the necklace and devise a means for warding off spirits because apparently now that we’re recapping Buffy, we’re gearing up for a BtVS-BSC crossover? The BSC goes to Sunnydale? Can that be a thing? GUYS, CAN WE MAKE THIS A THING?
Nugs: Please don’t. I really don’t want to subject one of the best TV shows ever to the BSC and Kristy Thomas. Unless, of course, she gets staked. Then I’m all for it.
Sweeney: No, but seriously, there is nothing in the BSC canon up to this point to make warding-off-evil-spirits a logical new addition for their CVs, but it’s a solid bet that these will be the least interesting evil spirits ever. (See also: eighth grade girls.)
Another epic disaster baby-sitting experience, only now its totes a result of the necklace, rather than a completely illogical cause like the whole babies-watching-babies thing. And more disaster luck at school, which the girls discuss at lunch and are once again stared at by the table of Grace, Cokie, & Company. To which Dawn responds by summing up my basic feelings about Stoneybrook Middle School:
“It’s probably the most interesting conversation they’ve heard in weeks!”
It’s decided that they will all go to the library and everyone-even-Claudia has to go because the BSC sticks together! Even through horrifying trips to the library! Mary Anne gets me even more excited about the prospect of a BSC Goes to Sunnydale crossover with her vague references to pop culture images of kids going to the library for books on witchcraft and stuff. Unfortunately, I am let down again because this library is not at the entrance to the Hellmouth. Also, Jessi and Mallory – the eleven-year-olds – have to explain how the library works to the older girls.
Jessi sits for Jamie Newton and her experience is ultimately saved by books, because books are awesome and reading is good. Except, apparently, Nancy Drew books, because they are Claudia’s favorite and she’s barely literate. Claudia and Mal had an epic disaster at the Weasley Pike house that is similarly totes-all-the-charm’s-fault. Back here in Traumaland, we are noticing that this is the least interesting curse ever.
The girls gather in Claudia’s room to read their witchcraft books and they occasionally goof off and dig into Claudia’s hoarders-style candy stash, while Kristy is being her usual dictator-bitch self and yelling at them. All of the spells they find are impossible to do because they require unattainable ingredients, because this is not actually Sunnydale and there is no Magic Box just up the street.
There is a lightning storm that gets Claudia thinking about the previous Halloween and the Phantom Caller mystery, the Halloween Hop, and various crushes. The conversation ultimately reveals that all of the girls in the eighth grade but ESPECIALLY GRACE BLUME love Logan and GRACE BLUME PROBS HATES MARY ANNE. Mary Anne would gloat, but she’s too stressed out to gloat. “The news about Grace just seemed like more bad luck.”
I’m going to give you a snark-free (or maybe just Reduced Snark) factual run-down of Logan and Mary Anne’s costumes because the GWC did all the work for me here: They dressed up as cats. Why? Because of the musical Cats. They rented fur headdresses and while Mary Anne is basically just wearing a leotard and ballet slippers with hers, Logan had his mom make him a furry outfit “fur suit.” That is all.
Reduced Snark! Same great taste!
Nugs: If Mary Anne weren’t so fucking boring, I feel like this would be foreshadowing into a weird visual place that we really don’t want to go. Also, I think that this calls for a “pussy whipped” joke.
Sweeney: The dance is boring, although Cokie manages to get one dance with Logan, but no SVH style antics follow from that. Cokie does compliment Mary Anne on her “bad luck charm” but Mary Anne is too dumb to be suspicious of this.
When Mary Anne gets home, there’s a new note demanding her presence at midnight the next day (Halloween) at Old Man Hickory’s headstone. Also it’s going to be a full moon. I know because when the girls discuss it, they bring it up approximately eighty bajillion times. “I was totes cool with following this creepy note’s instruction to go to the haunted headstone at the cemetery at midnight on Halloween, but ZOMG FULL MOON, YO!”
Around this point I considered watching Now and Then instead of re-reading this book because Stoneybrook’s teenage-girls-hang-out-in-a-cemetery scene will undoubtedly be vastly inferior.
Nugs: YES! I still love that movie. Mostly because it reminds me of The Snark Squad.
Sweeney: But I soldiered on. The things I do for you people. (JOKES! I left my copy of Now and Then back in the US, otherwise I totally would have abandoned this book.)
During the emergency meeting called to deal with the note situation, Kristy resumes her book-long Bitchface Game Plan (as it seems Kristy has a special Bitchface for each book) of constantly reminding Mary Anne that everyone is doomed and it’s All. Her. Fault. Also, Mary Anne called Kristy, “Sir!” when the meeting was called, which felt like the GWC was giving a nod to the Peppermint Patty / Marcie comparison.
Anyway, the girls dedicate several pages to stupid plans to sneak out before they realize what every kid eventually does, and that is that when you want to go somewhere forbidden, you just say you’ll be at a trusted friend’s house. Duh. The final game plan is for everyone to say they’re going to Kristy’s for a Halloween slumber party, but relying on Kristy’s older brother to take them to the graveyard instead. Huzzah for older brothers!
On Halloween night Mary Anne is a gigantic ball of nerves, since she is convinced that she is going to die in the cemetery. I am sad because I know they won’t. (Zombie BSC, anyone?)
Zombie BSC. They will eat your annoying children for you.
Nugs: Can we make that a thing? Because, GOLD.
Sweeney: I think it has potential.
Finally her dad is all, “You’re being ridiculous, what’s up?” Mary Anne decides to tell a partially true story about the necklace, so her dad will have some idea what happened when she dies. Her dad is all, “LOLZ, that’s not a bad luck charm. It’s a contrivance seed mustard seed, and it’s a sign of faith. Duh.”
And then Mary Anne’s all, “OH BUT WAIT WHY WOULD COKIE CALL IT A BAD LUCK CHARM?” So she calls Kristy, who has a new epic plan for which the girls will need additional supplies.
The girls bring sheets, masks, flashlights, a stereo – basically the supplies from your elementary school’s haunted house – to the cemetery and successfully scare the shit out of Grace, Cokie, & company when they arrive. Cokie’s Crew is carrying more or less the same shit; they were just beaten to the punch.
Then Logan appears because Cokie’s Crew called him mysteriously with the expectation that he would witness Mary Anne’s humiliation and think she was super lame and dump her. Eighth Grade Logic uses a set of rules wholly unrelated to Real World Logic.
Nugs: Unless it’s MTV’s Real World Logic, because that pretty much IS Eighth Grade Logic. Except with more booze.
Sweeney: Anyway, everything is all better, except Cokie’s Crew didn’t actually send the chain letter so ZOMG BAD LUCK IS FOR REALZ, but not because they spend the slumber party talking about the wonderful things happening in their lives like Claudia’s 85 on her math test. Then Mary Anne drops a mirror and breaks it. But it’s all right because she has a contrivance seed and she lives in Stoneybrook so it’s whatever.
Next time on the Baby-sitters Club: The girls head to New York to visit Stacey, but as we Ladies of Snark have known for ages, they are painfully uninteresting. How big of an epic disaster will be introducing the boredom crew to Stacey’s New York friends? Find out in BSC #18 – Stacey’s Mistake.
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
I'm Nugs, the resident In-House Snark Squad Organizational Psychotic, or as Lor, calls it, "Prodigy." I cover the BSC along with Sweeney, Goosebumps, and whatever else I occasionally sneak into. I'm a native New Yorker stuck in LA, so my first language is Brooklynese, with a smattering of colloquial English. I'm a total sci-fi and comic book geek, which the Ladies have fostered by adding to my "impressive" collection of robots and action figures, even though they claim to be afraid of me. Also, if Ryan Gosling ever happens to accidentally stumble upon my posts I will probably be arrested. Oh haaaai.
Pingback: BSC #016 “Jessi’s Secret Language” – More fun with stereotypes!()
Pingback: BSC #018 “Stacey’s Mistake” – Poor people are gross, but at least they’re useful for contrivance!()