Don’t you just hate it when you can’t find the book you set
out to snark? I think one of the kids
ran off with it and now I have no idea where it is. I read it before they lost it, so I will give
this snark my best effort.
A little shout out to the cover: We see a 35 year old Jessi
with a couple of kids surrounded by animals and a great dane looking rather
superimposed in a random place.
Jessi is sitting in her room trying to do her homework when
Becca comes in and meows at her, wanting to play cat. Then Ann jumps right into the introduction of
the BSC. It’s not quite to the extent of
chapter two just yet, but the descriptions are pretty in-depth.
The next chapter starts with Jessi rushing into the meeting.
She’s almost late, not even late, just almost late, but she gets the feeling
she should apologize. Kristy’s in some
sort of mood and doesn’t even want Claudia to get her junk food out. Then the Mancusis call and explain their
predicament. Their pet sitter backed out
last minute and they are desperately trying to find a replacement. Now it just so happens that Jessi’s ballet
class is on vacation and the Braddocks (her long term sitting job) aren’t
around either, so she has a free week.
She volunteers her time and Kristy is all like, “heck no, we don’t sit
no pets” and “I haven’t given you my permission.” At that point she stops and realizes that
she’s going too far, relents, and “allows” Jessi to take the job. If I were Jessi and Kristy “forbade” me, I
would say fine and call the Mancusis later and take the job. But we’re talking about an 11-year-old with a
serious case of hero worship going on here; that’s not going to happen.
Jessi heads to the Mancusis, who have an obscene amount of
pets, and we get our token vocab lesson: cacophony. She meets all the animals and notices one
hamster who is fat and alone in the corner.
The next chapter is a Claudia sitting chapter. She takes Jamie Newton and Nina Marshall to
see Jessi and all the Mancusis’ pets. They
all go on a walk with the dogs and run into the Perkins’ dog, Cheewbacca…yawn… Oh,
and fat hamster is still fat and sleeping in the corner.
Well, at least the drama in the club is interesting. Kristy starts being all dictatorish and
Claudia calls her out on it. Kristy’s
lame ass excuse is that Charlie’s going to college next year and is bossing the
rest of them around. Heh, Chuck-o, you
ain’t going to college for another 20 some years; save the angst. All the older girls argue and Jessi and Mal
sit and look on in horror as they watch their idols tear each other apart. When
they leave, Mal points out that they might want the two of them to take sides
and that causes more worry.
Another babysitting chapter, another visit to the
Mancusis. Seriously, I wonder how
stressed out these animals already are having a stranger caring for them while
their owners are away. Really, is
bringing more strangers into the mix a good idea? Anyway, a snake escapes and girl genius
Myriah Perkins figures out where to find him.
Oh, and fat hamster is still fat and sleeping in the corner.
Another club meeting, more drama. Kristy brings in a checklist to ensure the
girls are reading the club notebook. She
pins it over pictures of Claudia and Stacy on Claudia’s bulletin board. Really, girlfriend, did you not think this
through?? I find the club notebook a
little annoying unless something important happens or changes with a sitting
family, but since it seems that they have to write in it for EVERY SINGLE JOB
it’s highly unlikely they aren’t reading it.
And really, right over top of the pics of Claudia’s best friend? Claud rips Kristy a new one, and eventually
all the older girls join in for a nice , rip-roaring fight, during which they
all say they don’t like their jobs. At
the end of the day, Kristy calls an emergency meeting for Saturday to vote for
new officers.
Jessi and Mal take Becca to the Mancusis and discuss the
election while Becca plays with the animals.
They fear the club could break up over this. Oh, and fat hamster is
still fat and sleeping in the corner.
Babysitting chapter, involving Kristy and Jackie
Rodowski. Jackie pretty much points out
that Kristy is bossy.
She obviously didn’t learn her lesson because at the next
meeting she dictates down to the letter how the elections are going to
run. There are tears from MA, which Dawn
blames Kristy for. Best line in the
book: “Look what I did? I didn’t do that! MA cries all the time! She does it by herself!” hehe….why yes, Kristy, you’re right on that
one. Everyone leaves as Kristy bellows
that they should all be back the next day.
At four. On the dot. No tardiness.
No one is listening anymore, Kristy.
The next day Jessi talks to her mom before she goes pet
sitting. She wants her mother to tell
her how to vote, but Mama doesn’t. She
tells Jessi to make up her own mind. With
that parental bit of wisdom (which I use myself from time to time) floating in
her brain., she goes to feed the Mancusis’ pets and decides to try to touch fat
antisocial hamster and almost gets bit….okay, time to take this pet to the
vet! She calls her mother, who bundles
up Squirt and comes tot take her to the vet.
It is, of course, running up against the special meeting, so Jessi calls
Kristy, who (rather kindly) reschedules the meeting. Turns out the hamster is
prego. Jessi puts her in an empty cage
alone and just needs to wait for the babies.
Jessi wakes up early the next morning to take care of the
Mancusis’ pets before they get home that day.
Then she heads to the emergency meeting, which is rather anticlimactic,
with everyone voting themselves into their old offices. Then they all go to the Mancusis’ house and
watch the hamster give birth…then the other girls bug out because they
shouldn’t be there when the Mancusis come home.
Hmmmm….perhaps you shouldn’t be there in the first place?? Anyway, they come home and offer Jessi a baby
hamster in addition to the money they’re paying her.
The last chapter.
Hallelujah. Everything’s back to
normal. Kristy puts up another checklist
as a joke and ripping it up. Um, haha? Mal calls her parents to ask if they can have
a hamster, which is supposedly their first pet, but in book one it was stated
that they have a cat. Anyway, everyone
is happy and the hamsters will have a good home.
This was actually a boring book. It was one of my faves as a kid, but I,
yeah. I can’t say that I miss my lost
copy all that much.
This was a snark without a book? Pretty thorough, I'd say...
ReplyDeleteI had some notes written down...
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