The Babysitters Club #116: Abby and the Best Kid Ever

Abby is moping around the house because it's still winter or winter again, which means that she can't run and play outside when Kristy shows up with some big news. The Addison family is moving because the dad got a new job in Seattle. Before Abby can really react, Kristy freaks out because it's time for their meeting and rushes her out the door. At the meeting, they get a call that the McNally family is moving to Stoneybrook permanently, which means they'll need to sit for Lou again. Remember Lou, the kid who liked torturing poor Boo-Boo? Yeah, I haven't forgotten that.

The first person to sit for Lou and her brother Jay is Abby. Lou is a perfect angel. She's polite, never says a bad or rude word, dresses like a prissy kid, asks about other members, and even apologizes when she think she's being rude. The only thing odd is that she doesn't seem happy to let her brother walk their dog, Happy. She also flips out when she drops a plastic cup of water, which causes Happy to knock over her water dish, even though her aunt says it's fine.

Abby gets to sit again when the movers bring in their stuff. Lou kind of keeps getting in the way and almost bursts into tears when she drops a box. She also tries to drag a box out of her aunt's hands to help, which leads to the aunt suggesting Abby take the kids outside. They wind up playing kickball at the playground until Lou freaks out because she got some mud on her coat. Since it's Black History Month and the middle school kids get extra credit for doing a project, Abby asks them for help. They run down a whole list of things before she falls in love with Nicky's idea of doing a project on the Underground Railroad.

After talking with Dolly One about her project, she decides to do something in the education realm and teach kids. This leads to everyone going to the library and doing some research. Lou, in her helpful way, knocks over an entire cart of books and then puts all the books that Abby wanted to check out back, which means that she needs to stay there even longer. Though she worries that Kristy doesn't give her any feedback and that she has too many plans in mind, she finally settles on one thing. They'll do a fake television report about the UR, complete with interviews and real footage.

While working on the shoot, Lou accidentally walks in front of a pivotal scene to bring Abby hot apple cider. She kind of goes off on her in a really harsh way, which almost makes Lou cry. Since she absolutely must get in that shot though, she can't run over and check on her, so she just lets her go. This causes a little of the old Lou to come out. She draws mustaches on pictures for the video, pops out of boxes to scare kids, and gives them gum to chew right before the camera goes on.

While sitting for them again, Lou apologizes and asks Abby not to say anything to her aunt and uncle. After doing homework, they go to set the table. Lou jumps out of the closet to scare them all and just laughs it off. Lou later drops a plate and completely breaks down sobbing. While Jay cleans it up, she cries to Abby about how if she's bad, her aunt and uncle will send her back. Jay tells her that's not true and talks about how they went to court, but she tells him that they'll keep him because he's good and she's not. When their aunt and uncle come home, Jay tells them what happened. Their aunt picks her up into a hug and tells her how much she loves her. Abby goes home and sits with her own mom because she eventually realizes that something similar could have happened had her mom not been there when her dad died.

Her video winds up being twenty freaking minutes long. She shows up super early to present the project just like all the other kids do and sets up a special viewing area. At the end, she gets a standing ovation and invites the kids up on stage with her. Lou then invites the whole BSC up on stage too, even though they did absolutely nothing.

In other news, Sean is all butt hurt that no one will miss him when he's gone. Claudia sits for them once and helps Corrie create a funny map of Stoneybrook to take with her, but Sean refuses to help. He then tells Mary Anne when she sits for him that they'll all miss Corrie but no one cares about him. A group of BSC members make Sean king for the hour and let him do anything he wants, which involves sledding. They all have fun until Stacey makes a comment about how it was hard work and she's glad it's over, which causes him to throw his sled against the garage and storm off.

The BSC throw the Addison family a going away party. Corrie brings her map, everyone agrees to help finish it, and Claudia promises to mail it to her. Mary Anne and Abby take Sean a plate of food, which causes him to have a mini breakdown. He explains that he'll really miss everyone and they all kind of make up.

*When they hear about a new family moving to town, Abby just naturally assumes that the family will move into the Addison house, which confuses everyone. Come on, you know they all thought the same thing. One person moves one, one person moves in, that's how it always worked in the past!

*Kristy is in such a hurry to get to the meeting that she drags Abby out of the house before she can even put on her gloves or grab her coat, which seems out of character for her, especially since they still make it to the car before Charlie does.

*Claudia wears a red dress with snowflake earrings she made, a red-orange sash around her waist, a matching headband in the same shade, and red-pink tights, plus ballet flats with rosettes on the toes. That screams color blind to me, but Abby says it's smashing.

*Abby gently turns down an idea about doing a project on Kwanza because so many kids learned about it recently but goes crazy about the Underground Railroad. Yeah, I'm sure no one else will do something similar.

*At one point, Lou scares her and causes her to drop the camera. Totally acting on “instinct,” Abby kicks the camera with her foot. While I get that she plays soccer a lot, I highly doubt her brain would confuse an expensive camera with a ball. Luckily, Jay catches it before it hits the ground.

*Abby notices Stacey reading Finance for Dummies in the library and laughing like it's the funniest thing ever. Given what we know are the type of math problems her “genius” brain can handle, I have a hard time believing she could even understand that book.

*Honestly, even if my kid was in the damn thing, I'm not sure I would want to sit around for 20 minutes to watch scenes of them preparing for the video and the making of crap.

*I get that this is an Abby book, but we really should have had more moments between Claudia and Corrie. They supposedly have that whole artist bond, and Claudia even brings up how Corrie was there when Mimi died, even though it doesn't seem like they talked much since then.

*Yeah, I foresee problems in the future for that family. If Sean is already that unhappy in a place that he loves, can you imagine what he will do when they get to Seattle?

*Ann's notes in the end talk about how Susan will come back, which happened in the last BSC book I did and how other characters might come back too, which totally did not happen. She also says that a lot of kids wrote in and wanted to hear more about Lou, which I find really hard to believe. I seriously cannot get that whole scene of her tossing the cat in the bag and torturing it out of my mind.

*We meet the family that serves as the focus of the next book. He's super grumpy all the time, always shooting daggers at his kids or yelling at them, and keeps grabbing his wife by the arm. I already know he's an abusive douche bag.

*I”m really surprised that not one BSC person thought that maybe Lou was being abused at home. She asked them not to tell the adults what she did, she kept looking to them for approval, and seemed scared to do anything in her home. Those are all classic signs of abuse.

*Jay points out that he doesn't need a sitter since he's 11, which everyone just kind of ignores. Aren't there other 11 year old kids in Stoneybrook who sit or at least don't need sitters? The triplets were 10 when they got their first taste of freedom!

*Ugh, the book ends with Abby thinking about how Stoneybrook really does feel like her home now and how she's glad they made the move, ugh. Didn't we get that summary in another book too?