3 out of 5 stars
Okay, honestly I'm kind of with Mallory on this one. Gym in middle/high school sucked. Gym in elementary was only moderately better, unless you had a sadistic gym teacher that made you beat her to the jungle gym or you had to run laps. Oh and she didn't hold back either. She didn't care if you were in 1st or 5th grade, she'd still give it her all! Wow, I might still be a little bitter. Moving on!
The book starts out with Mallory putting her new vocabulary word, "pandemonium", to the test when she arrives home. The Pike clan is in full crazy mode and Mal is anxious about her study date with the wonderful Australian, Ben Hobart. Liking a guy is so weird. There's just no way to explain why suddenly you're so crazy about someone. Unfortunately, her brothers & sisters pretty much ruin the date so they head over to Ben's house, where she raves about how good and polite his 3 brothers are. Then she's almost late to a BSC meeting and we get a Claudia outfit along with a special What Dawn Was Wearing.
Claudia was wearing a pair of soft, balloony, purple pants; a neon green long-sleeve leotard top; a wide, red braided belt; and a pair of soft, red ballet shoes. Her hair was swept into a French braid with wispy tendrils hanging loose. From one ear dangled a long earring made up of small papier-mache tropical fruit. In the other ear, where she had two holes, Claudia wore two small papier-mache hoops. (This earring set is her own creation.)
2 things: I had purple pants exactly like that in 5th grade. We called them (MC) Hammer pants and I wore them with a white tshirt tucked in and black patent leather shoes with big silk laces. I was dibbly fresh and wore this outfit at our talent show, where my friend and I danced to Tevin Campbell's Round & Round. (I just listened to again, so good still lol.)
And also, it would have been nice to have some continuity from the previous book and have her wear her cat & dog earrings.
Today [Dawn] was wearing black stirrup pants, a long, fleecy red-and-pink rose-print top and black high-top sneakers. She has two holes pierced in each ear. In those she wore four matching sparkly rose earrings. (Seems more like a Stacey outfit than Dawn, but whatevs.)
Logan is at the meeting, because he & Mary Anne were studying together, and there's a big point of his mom calling for a sitter because Logan doesn't want to be asked all the time. Just like Mallory. I was never given a choice to baby-sit my sister or not. And I definitely didn't get paid for it. After the meeting, Jessi & Mallory are walking home and Jessi reminds her that they are starting the volleyball unit in gym on Monday and they'll be co-mingled with the boys. Mal immediately freaks out. I was expected to appear in front of a bunch of boys in my gross, disgusting gym suit (which is really just a tshirt & shirts) and demonstrate that I was probably the most klutzy, uncoordinated girl in the sixth grade. And she pretty much does that for the rest of the book.
On Monday, she decides to wear a one-piece denim jumpsuit that she'd gotten for her last birthday and never worn. Not because I hate it or anything. It's just not me. It's a little too high-style or something. I'm sorry. Isn't that exactly what she's been begging for for the last 59 books?? I decided to do a special for this outfit: what Mallory thinks she looks like and what she probably looks like. Always fun. :)
Every book that has even the slightest hint of physical activity makes Mallory panic and immediately come up with plans to get out of it. In this one, she begs her parents to let her stay home, pretends to faint in the locker room (no one is around), WALKS OFF THE COURT after getting hit with a ball (I don't blame her for that one), gets detention on purpose for a week when she sits out each day (and hides the papers from her parents. Trust me, that never works for long.) It's all a bit ridiculous.
The side plot is that all the boys they baby-sit for are suddenly little monsters. Just the boys, not the girls. Mallory comes up with this long convoluted theory that makes no sense; something about if they were raised in Stoneybrook and went to gym class there, they were super aggressive animals. Meaning, Logan and the Hobart boys are excluded. This doesn't pan out though, when Mal and Ben agree to switch brothers for the evening and the Hobarts turn into little hellions while Nicky & the triplets are perfect angels. She can't believe it. But what do you expect when they go to a house like the Pikes where there are basically no rules?
Back in gym class, Mal keeps walking off and the gym teacher finally sits down and talks to her. She asks her to just try and she'd get the boys to back off on their attack. Also, she makes Mal wash all the pinnies one afternoon gross. Mallory agrees to try, her parents find out about the detentions (and don't punish her whaaattt??!), and finally the volleyball unit is over. Next up? Archery! Is anyone surprised at all that Mallory is good at it? So good that her teacher tells her to try out for the archery team and she makes it. I wonder if that will come up again in later books. And her brothers make her a congrats cake, ruining her "boys suck" theory. The end. And hey, I've got another Super Special already after this one! Woo!!
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