"For pity's sake, we aren't destitute," answered Dad. #39 Poor Mallory!

Just wait a couple weeks, Papa Pike, then make the same comment.

Well, it's been a couple weeks since I read this, and my page of notes is pathetically sparse, so I'll have to do this from memory. Which has never been that reliable.

Well, this one starts out with Mallory and Jessi walking home from school, singing stupid camp songs. They go their separate ways with the quote, "Parting is such sweet sorrow," and, "Will we ever pass this way again?" "Yeah, tomorrow!" Hereby setting off tons of slash fanfic. BTW, aren't those quotes from Shakespeare? I dunno, I hated reading plays. And Shakespeare was especially boring to plod through. (Sorry to all you play-lovers out there.)

Mal gets home and Claire tells her that Mommy's upstairs laying down because the phone rang, and all Mommy said was, "Oh, no" over and over again then she got a headache and went to lay down. Actually, Claire says "lie down," but I don't believe that a five year old really knows that. Hell, I feel stupid saying "lie down" and I'm almost 30 years old. Whatever, I digress.

Mal goes to talk to Mom and hears the could-be bad news that Papa might get the dreaded pink slip at his corporate lawyer firm in Stamford. Mal's worried about what this could mean, but Mom reassures her that they have savings, although the savings are actually supposed to be the kids' college funds. Mrs. Pike also says that their savings will go pretty quick, what with paying the mortgage and feeding ten people. Hey, Mrs. Pike? Maybe you should have stopped having kids after your second pregnancy? Four kids should be plenty. But what do I know, having three brothers and three sisters. (Seriously, I do. I only grew up with two of them, the ones immediately older and younger than myself. But that's a story for another day.) Well, again, Mrs. Pike tells Mal not to worry, and they'll know more about what's going to happen after Papa Pike gets home from work, and oh by the way, don't you have a Baby-Sitters Club meeting today?

Mal heads to the meeting a little worried, but not especially. She's already called and told Jessi, but no one else knows yet. At the meeting, the gang gets a phone call from Mrs. Delaney, mother of Amanda and Max, Snobs Extraordinare. She wants to book someone to sit every M-W-F, from right after school till five. (Convenient!) She's taking a refresher course in real estate, and of course, it meets while the kids aren't in school. Kristy and Mallory are the only ones available for it, so Mal insists that Kristy take it, because she's already in the neighborhood. (Pay attention, the Snobs are the subplot!)

When Mal gets home from the meeting, she finds out what everyone else already knows. Papa Pike got canned. And now they're "dessatoot," thinks Claire. At the dinner table, Mrs. Pike gives them all a pep talk combined with a "no more treats/trips/extras for a while" spiel. Yeah, let's go on vacation when our breadwinner just got canned! Mrs. Pike also says she's gonna get a job. To the surprise of everybody, since the main thing she's good at is having babies.

After dinner, Mal gets her sibs together as the "Pike Club" and they discuss ways of saving money. Like, turning off the stereo and the TV when they're done with them, using one kleenex instead of two, etc, etc. Yeah, that's being thrifty anyway, but sometimes you just need two kleenexes.

At the BSC meeting on Friday, Kristy decides to give Mallory the regular job at the Delaneys'. She says that if Mal takes the bus home with her, she can just walk across the street to sit. Then, when Charlie takes Kristy to the BSC meetings, Mal can tag along, and Charlie will even drive her home afterward because Mal won't have her bike. (I told you it was convenient!) Kristy calls Mrs. Delaney to tell the the change in sitters, and Mrs. D doesn't give a rip. Mal says, "She trusts the BSC." No, she's just happy to be away from her bratty kids.

Toward the end of the meeting, the gang is talking about what happened during eighth grade lunch, but Mal is remembering what happened during her lunch period. Nan White and Janet O'Neal (some non-BSC frenemies!) started to hassle her about her dad getting laid off. They join some of Mal's other so-called friends and they all make fun of her. Mal's hurt, but the other BSCers say they'll stick by her.

Monday afternoon, Mallory's first job at the Delaneys', Kristy is giving Mal advice about the kids. Mal doesn't understand why she needs it, but takes it anyway. The first thing she notices about the house is the fountain in the front hall. Stupid! What good is fountain indoors? If it's outside you can at least splash in it, or watch birds bathe in it or whatever. Mrs. Delaney gives Mal all the pertinent information and then starts in about the brand new, built in swimming pool.

"They can use the pool whenever they want, as long as an adult is supervising them. When a sitter is in charge, then one of the next-door neighbors must be at home--just in case of emergency. Both Mr. and Mrs. Kilbourne work, as you probably know, but Mrs. Winslow [the other next-door neighbor] said she'd be home all afternoon, so swimming is okay today. Now, a lot of Amanda's and Max's friends want to go swimming as well. The rule for them is when a sitter is in charge, they can only use the pool if they are good swimmers--if they can swim the width of the pool without stopping to rest. Amanda knows who those children are, and that the others may not go in the water."

Amanda calls three other kids to come over and swim. Mal's a little worried, because four kids is the highest charge-to-babysitter ratio the club allows. She also watches Amanda smugly boss some other kids away from the pool and tells Amanda to tell them nicely that they can't swim today. Amanda replies, "He hurt my feelings once, so he deserves it." Zing! Mal sits in the "hot sun" thinking about the injustice of the Delaneys' materialism. She gets depressed.

Stacey gets a last-minute job at the Delaneys' on a Saturday, and when she shows up in with her bikini, Mr. Delaney hits on her she goes out to the pool and finds four extra kids in it. Angie, Huck, Timmy, and Karen Brewer. Eventually, Amanda decides she doesn't want to swim anymore, and Max agrees. Stacey tells everyone else to clear out, and everyone but Karen complains. Loudly. Amanda is hurt, especially when her friend Angie says she's going to Millers' to play in their pool. She and Karen end up playing "Lovely Ladies" but Stacey says it's only "half-hearted."

Things fall into a routine at Casa Pike. Everyone gets up early; the kids for school, Mrs. Pike for possible work, and Mr. Pike to help out in case Mrs. Pike gets a job. And then they steadily decline to the point of Mr. Pike becoming a couch potato. Mal gets home one day and finds her dad hanging out in his PJs watching TV. She rats him out to her mom, Parents Pike argue, but Dad starts getting dressed and helping do housework again.

Mal and her sibs meet again as the Pike Club, and they decide to get jobs, whatever they can find. The triplets end up starting an odd-job service called "ABJ Inc," Vanessa says she's gonna sell her poetry (but ends up as "Miss Vanessa," styling kids' hair at school), Nicky gets a paper route, and Margo and Claire set up a lemonade stand as CM, Inc.

Eventually Mr. Pike gets another job, and all the kids find out that he'd been getting severance pay the whole time! Mal gets all huffy, "Well, I didn't know!" His new job at Metro-Works is pretty much the same as his old one, but a little smaller, and a little less paying. Good thing you guys just went on vacation cuz you probably don't get much vacation time now!

Subplot: Finding Out Who Your Real Friends Are. Mal finds out who her frenemies are, and so do Amanda and Max, thanks to Mallory's advice.

Continuity Issues:
*Mallory says she's riding home in the semi-darkness after a BSC meeting, yet, it's warm enough during the day to go swimming? And being that this takes place in the fall (I'm assuming, because #34 was in the summer), it couldn't really be getting dark at six o'clock yet. Nor does it get dark at six o'clock in the springtime. Eh, time line is goofy. I'll let it slide.


WTF Moments:
*Mrs. Pike temporarily suspends the kids' allowances. Mallory is ok with it, because she can make it up with baby-sitting. Mal still gets an allowance, when she gets paid to baby-sit all the time?

*First time Mal sits at the Delaneys', they have a snack of Oreos and Coke. Hellooo, everybody knows you eat Oreos with milk.

*The first time Mal rides the bus to Kristy's neighborhood, she thanks Kristy for letting her ride the bus. Um, it's a public school bus?

*Mal thinks her dad went to pick up Claire from kindergarten in his PJs and is embarrassed. Haha! When I take my kid to school in the morning, I'm still in my pajamas! Mainly because I don't have to get out of the car.

*Mary Anne talks about making fun of people to make yourself feel better.

Other notables:
*In Mal's description of Stacey, Mal calls her the Queen of Dibbleness. I misread it as "the Queen of Diabetes."

*There's foreshadowing to #43 Stacey's Emergency. "My friends and I are worried because Stacey hasn't been feeling too great lately."

*On the day Mallory comes home and find her dad in his jammies yet, she says there's a half a box of crackers next to him and he has a "glass of something" in his hand. I sincerely hope it was whiskey. I LOLed when I read that line in the book.


Whew! Finally! This one took a while. Next up will probably be a Stacey book.