The Baby-Sitters Club #73: Mary Anne and Miss Priss

Mrs. Prezzioso calls the BSC because she needs a regular sitter every afternoon. Mary Anne is the only one free enough for the job, but even she can only take three nights a week. Every time she goes to the house, the mom disappears with baby Andrea for a few hours.

Mary Anne notices right off the bat that Jenny is even more prissy than usual. She wears matching dresses, socks, tights, shoes and hair ribbons. She freaks out when she spills apple juice on her clothes and flips when Mary Anne takes her outside and she gets mud on her feet.

The triplets are ticked off because they don’t think they need a sitter anymore. They decide to start their own kickball team because they get to be in charge. Jenny wants to join the team, but all the other kids shoot her down because she never wants to get dirty and is too prissy.

Mrs. Prezzioso tells Mary Anne that she’s been taking Andrea on auditions for photo shoots and commercials. Jenny changed because she wants some attention from her mom. Jenny decides that she wants to audition too and Mary Anne goes with them when she has her headshots taken and when she auditions for a few commercials. Jenny doesn’t book anything, but Andrea does, which makes things even worse.

Jenny does a complete 180 and changes into a pig. She spills stuff all over her clothes, plays in a muddy sandbox and makes a bunch of mud pies. She spills food on the counters, plays with clay in the middle of the living room and knocks over a vase. She also revels in playing outside in the dirt and mud.

Jenny finally books a job and actually does a really good job. On the way home, she spots the kids playing kickball and makes her mom stop the car. The triplets let her play, provided she doesn’t whine about dirt or mud. Jenny runs home, changes and runs back to the game.

Mrs. Prezzioso asks Mary Anne for help because Jenny didn’t land a big commercial and Andrea did. They make a big deal of it, sitting her down for the news. Jenny gets all excited and announces that she would rather play kickball. She changes into jeans and a baseball cap before running off for the game.

The other storyline is about Mallory because she is still just an honorary member. She isn’t sick anymore, but the Pikes only let her sit for her own family and won’t let her rejoin the club. She complains to everyone and they tell her to talk to her parents. She sits them down and shows them a chart detailing how much time she spends sitting, which is more than she did before getting sick. They formally let her rejoin the club at the end of the book.

*There is a mention of Claudia not having an afternoon free because of the newspaper. Of course that was only a few books ago and I don’t think it really gets mentioned again.

*Dawn calls Mary Anne and MA limits the call to 15 minutes because her dad has a 15 minute limit for long distance calls. That only makes sense if she called Dawn. Shouldn’t Dawn’s dad have some kind of limit, seeing as how he pays the phone bill?

*I love how the triplets think Mallory has more freedom and yet when she was ten, she still had a babysitter. I think early on after she turned 11, she still had a sitter too.

*The Pike thing is kind of funny because they explain that they never knew Mallory was sitting so much. And yet every time there is a mention of the Pikes, Mallory is sitting.

*The Prezziosos must have a shit load of money! They hire someone to watch Jenny at least two hours every day and have enough money to drive all over Connecticut booking jobs.

*Speaking of booking…Mary Anne gets all confused because she doesn’t know what “booking a job” means. Really Mary Anne? I’m pretty sure my 10 year old niece knows what it means.

*Are there really that many jobs for babies and kids in Connecticut? At one point Andrea is up for a nationwide commercial, but there’s no mention of them ever leaving the state.