The Baby-Sitters Club #5: Dawn and the Impossible Three

Dawn is still new to the world of the BSC and she’s having some hard times with Kristy who obviously doesn’t like her very much. One day while sitting for the Pike family, she meets Buddy and Suzi Barrett, two new divorced kids living in the area. Suzi trips and skins her knee, but she gives her a bandaid and it’s all good.

A few days later Mrs. Barrett calls during a club meeting and requests a sitter. Dawn takes the job and she’s actually kind of excited. On her first job, Mrs. Barrett runs off in a hurry without giving her any information. Buddy keeps pointing his finger at her like a gun and being a beast. She finally manages to get them under control and even creates races to clean the house.

Before long Dawn becomes the primary sitter for the family. Every time she goes, the kids are wild and crazy, the house looks like a mess and Mrs. Barrett is running off somewhere in a hurry. Dawn keeps the kids under control, but whenever another sitter is there, the kids barely listen. One day they have a picnic at the Pike house and Dawn tries to give baby Marnie a brownie when Mallory attacks. It turns out that Marnie is severely allergic to chocolate.

The next day Dawn sits Mrs. Barrett down and tells her that she can’t sit anymore. She begs her to stay, telling her that things will change and that she won’t be so flightly anymore. Dawn agrees to work three more days on a trial basis. Then when sitting for the kids, Buddy goes outside to play while she gets the girls ready. When she goes outside, Buddy has disappeared!

Dawn calls Mrs. Pike and she rallies the neighbors. The cops come and everyone looks for Buddy. Byron reveals that he saw Buddy getting in a car with some guy. Just as everyone freaks out, Buddy calls and he’s with his dad. Mrs. Barrett shows up and realizes that she forgot it was his weekend with the kids. They have another long talk and she agrees to keep sitting for them, as long as Mrs. Barrett makes some changes.

The other storyline is the Dawn and Kristy rivalry. Mary Anne asks Dawn to help her redecorate her room. Kristy sees them, comes over to help and kind of takes over. She starts acting rude to Dawn all the time and Dawn can’t do anything right. Like she brings up Kristy’s mom getting married and she snaps because she doesn’t want to move.

Dawn finally asks her to come over and hang out one day. She shows her the old barn, they jump off the hayloft and she points out that Mary Anne never does stuff like that. They have a long talk about divorces and moving. Kristy decides that she should become the alternate officer for the BSC and they make up.

Kristy also worries that she will have to quit the BSC once they move across town. She finally decides to raise the club dues and pay someone to drive her to and from meetings. Luckily Charlie will have his license by then and he’s totally willing to help.

*It cracks me up whenever the sitters make brownies or something with their charges. That seems far too messy and time consuming!

*I love how in the older books Dawn is obsessed with health food, but still indulges. In this one, she eats saltwater taffy, but still brings tofu salad, dried apple rings and granola for her school lunch.

*Mrs. Schafer and Mr. Spier go out at least three times in this book, which is kind of heavy. Yet in later books, her mom still dates Trip, so I guess she’s kind of a slut.

*Dawn’s family throws a barbeque and her grandparents come. They pepper Richard with 900 questions about his life and seem kind of impressed, especially since they didn’t think he was good enough for their daughter.

*At one point Dawn mentions that she’s 12 and that seems so young for talking/flirting with guys. I always thought it was weird that Jessi and Mallory had boyfriends when they were 11.

*Mary Anne takes the Barrett kids on a puddle walk, which sounds like fun! Yet the idea of taking three young kids around town in their bathing suits is kind of creepy. I picture some pedophile sitting on his stoop saying, “mmmhmmm.”

*Mary Anne wears contacts? Dawn explains that she uses them in place of her reading glasses. That kind of seems like a pain in the ass to take them out and put them in just for reading. Plus is it mentioned a lot in the other books?

*Claudia sits for Jeff and thinks he wants to go back to California.

*Kristy is super shocked that Mary Anne’s dad is going to let her use thumbtacks. Thumbtacks, gasp, the horror!