The Baby-Sitters Club Super Special #15: Baby-Sitters European Vacation

In case you missed the multiple books leading up to this one, some members of the BSC are heading to Europe for vacation while the rest remain in Stoneybrook to help run a playground camp. Jessi decides to keep a diary that everyone will write in to tell the others everything they did.

Claudia was excited about staying home and working at the camp until Janine became a counselor at the last minute. Jerry, her ex-boyfriend, called and begged her to help out when one of his other counselors backed out at the last minute. Janine proceeds to make Claudia's life a living hell. She lectures her all the time, puts the blame on her for things that go wrong, and acts like she has no experience working with kids. When Claudia finally snaps and goes off on her, Janine breaks down and says that Jerry kept acting like he was better than her and basically treating her like Claudia, so she sent her frustrations to the one person she loved and trusted. They make up, and Janine winds up telling Jerry off.

Mary Anne spends her chapters moaning and whining about Cokie and how she doesn't deserve to be a camp counselor. It doesn't help that Cokie keeps going after Logan, who has no interest in her, and lets one of the Hobart kids stay outside in a storm. Claudia explains that Cokie's mom is on the Board of Education, which is why she got the job. Mary Anne swears that she will get Cokie back but never really does anything. Cokie volunteers to coach softball with Logan and does a little victory lap when Jerry picks her over Mary Anne, but when she realizes that Logan doesn't want her there, she quits and storms off, which leads to Janine bringing her back.

Dawn doesn't need to go to Europe because she apparently went to France with her dad and Carol. Janine originally planned on working at a camp for special needs kids and found a replacement but volunteered Dawn to help one day when they needed extra hands. She gets to actually see Susan, the autistic girl Kristy worked with, but keeps comparing her to Whitney. Susan uses a special machine that replicates hugs, but it's so big that it freaks Dawn out. She then kind of realizes that all special needs kids are different. Honestly, she didn't need a chapter in this book.

Robert cannot escape Jacqui, the girl Stacey went to the concert with, and just wants to hang out with his boys. Jacqui constantly hits on him and is always around. When she follows him into the elevator and tries to kiss him, he finally stands up for himself and tells her that he doesn't want a girlfriend right now, though he does have to explain that it has nothing to do with Stacey.

Jessi finds out that Dance NY, the dance company she came thisclose to joining, will be performing during her trip and makes plans to see them. Conveniently, one of the dancers hurts herself while her understudy has food poisoning. Since she learned the routine while in the program, the leader convinces her to dance with them. Jessi does such a fantastic job, even though she misses steps and loses her balance, that people can't stop applauding. The whole crew them comes to see her before she leaves to give her toe shoes from the performance.

Mallory gets to meet her mom's cousin who lives in England with her husband and two sons. It turns out that she's an economics professor and a part-time author with a deal for her first fiction book. She also compiled their family history and shows Mallory that they are somehow related to Shakespeare because, of course they are. When they go to his birthplace, the girls find a picture of his daughter who looks almost exactly like her cousin Gillian. Mallory then gets an idea for a new book and spends all her time writing instead of sightseeing until Jessi finally points out that she actually needs to experience life to become a writer.

Kristy meets this guy Michel and immediately puts her foot in her mouth because she tells him that's a girl's name like her sister. He keeps hanging around her though, and she keeps trying to find ways to avoid him. They wind up getting lost from the group and left in Paris for five hours on their own. When she pretends like she doesn't know him, he orders at a pastry shop and walks off, only for her to order and have the clerk not know what she's talking about. It turns out that he asked the woman to pretend that she couldn't speak English. She eventually agrees to pretend that she likes him to get through the day, only she actually starts to like him. Abby convinces her to tell him how she feels. He comes to her hotel room, and they kiss on the balcony. They exchange addresses and agree to write too.

Abby is somehow most excited about seeing Victoria Kent and can't wait to see her castle. They almost miss out because the other chaperon doesn't show up in time. Victoria seriously exaggerated where she lives though, which is just a house, so Abby doesn't believe her when Victoria says she gets to meet the Queen. She really does though and asks Abby to come with her. Abby flips out and keeps talking about meeting the Queen, but she really just gets to stand on the side of the road with other people when Victoria and a bunch of other little girls give the Queen flowers. She does, however, step on the foot on the Prince and get her picture in the paper.

Stacey gets my least favorite story. She flips out right away because she's on this trip with both her ex-boyfriend and her mom. Stacey keeps complaining about how her mom treats her like a child and how Robert is always around. She then finds that she grabbed the wrong bag. Her bag has ashes in it, which leads her to decide she has the luggage of a serial killer. Maureen makes plans for her bag to come to London and for them to drop the other bag off in Paris because the ashes are the best friend of the bag's owner and a man he served with in WW II. Stacey finds the whole thing ridiculous, though she does cheer up when her mom agrees to buy her some new clothes. After touring the War Room, she reads up on the war and can't wait to meet the man. Both her and her mom wind up going with him to put his friend's ashes on the beach.

*Janine goes off on Claudia really bad one time, and when Claudia fights back, Mary Anne tries to calm her down and even tells her to back off. Hell no. Janine was all like, “do I need to spell that out for you?” and acting like her big brain made her a better person. She deserved for Claudia to tell her off.

*We get told that Cokie keeps chasing after Logan, even though he shows her no interest, but that isn't really true. Hasn't he actually gone out on dates with her?

*When Mary Anne and Claudia get soaked by the rain, Cokie says it must be the BSC wet tee shirt contest though no one could tell. Oh, snap. They tell her to stuff it, she says she doesn't need to stuff, and Claudia says she does between the ears.

*Some girl on the bus asks Jessi how she knows the dance guy because she's a dancer also. Jessi proceeds to tell her the WHOLE story going all the way back to DECEMBER! Are you kidding me? The poor girl was probably just being polite, but that doesn't mean she wants your whole life story.

*The first time Kristy meets Michel, he's wearing a black pirate like shirt, expensive shoes made from imported glove leather, and has long hair that sweeps over his eyes. It's like the ghostwriter completely forgot that description though because he's shown with shorter hair and wearing jeans and a ball cap.

*Kristy gets so annoyed with him in the pastry shop that she picks up a cream puff and drops it in his lap, which leads to people applauding for her. Yeah right. I'm pretty sure people in that shop could care less what a couple of barely teen kids do.

*Their chaperons are absolutely horrible! Kristy and Michel literally get separated from the group for FIVE hours, and the adults think it's perfectly okay to jet let them wander around Paris freaking France until they can meet up. AND THEN, Kristy and Michel are actually ALONE in her hotel room! If I was a Stoneybrook parent, I would be mad as hell.

*Despite having major, major allergies, Abby decides to go on a tour of the catacombs instead of going to Euro Disney with most of the kids. She starts sneezing as soon as they get inside and sneezes so much that other kids make fun of her. Why would any chaperon even let her go down there?

*Maureen buys Stacey an outfit for sightseeing, but the next day, Stacey puts on the outfit they had laundered through the hotel that she wore on the flight over. It makes no sense for her to get something new and not wear it.

*Stacey's story is super annoying. She bitches about Robert because he needs to learn to take care of himself but then bitches when he gets attention from other women. She whines that her mom is too strict when she just acts like a normal mom. With the whole ashes thing, she goes from being freaked out, to supportive, to irritated, to suddenly okay with everything. When they meet up with him, she's seriously rolling her eyes and wondering when they can leave before suddenly deciding she wants to go with him.

*The other Stoneybrook chaperon is this guy who constantly keeps going off on his own or making plans for new side/day trips. Shouldn't there be some set schedule they follow? Also, Stacey thinks he's super immature for spending a lot of time at an art gallery while she wants to go shopping. Yes, because the needs of a 13 year old kid are more important than an adult who probably waited his whole life for this trip.

*Michel writes Kristy and teases her about her taste in baseball. She writes back in her super sarcastic way before kid of suggesting that she might come for a visit.

*The owner of the dance company writes Jessi to offer her a role in the Nutcracker at Christmas and explains that she can work in rehearsals around her schedule. Of course he can.

*I do not find the Stacey story moving AT ALL, like some people do. She comes across as really selfish to me. One thing I hate is that she says it's just weird that he wants to spread his friends ashes because the war happened so long ago. Yet somehow, she thinks her own friends are oh so important.

*Michel flips out on Alan when he says that he's from America. He tells him that they are all American and that Alan is from a country called the United States. Yeah, the United States of America. Seriously, I have never heard of someone from Canada saying they are American or from North America. Even foreign languages use a version of American to describe someone from the US.