#120 Mary Anne and the Playground Fight

Summary

The school year is just about over (for the 3978343th time since the series started), and the BSC is buzzing over two big pieces of news. First, the school is going to be offering another trip for students, like they did with the Hawaii trip. This trip, though, is to London and Paris. Next, Mrs. Simon (one of the SMS teachers) calls during a BSC meeting to let the club know that SES is going to be running a playground camp during the summer, and she wants all of them to consider applying to be counselors. There are six slots open for SMS students, and all the BSC members (except Shannon) plan to apply. That's nine people applying for those six slots....in addition to all the non-BSC kids who are going to be throwing their hats in the ring. Mary Anne is really worried about all the competition.

Soon, Dawn arrives for the summer, and she has some big news of her own: she doesn't want to leavce Stoneybrook at all, even for the nine days that the Europe trip would last. Mary Anne decides that she won't go, either. The others are busy trying to earn money for their trips, though...and preparing their applications for the playground jobs. Everyone except Jessi and Mallory end up making it past the first round of cuts and gets an interview, but not everyone in the BSC who's applied is being totally honest. Kristy, Stacey, and Abby are all planning to go to Europe, but they've really downplayed that on their applications. That just makes the sniping and fighting within the BSC even worse, and by the time the interviews are over, hardly anyone eis getting along. Mary Anne starts to wish that the whole playground job thing had never happened.

As it turns out, Claudia, Mary Anne, Logan, and Dawn get offered jobs, and the others don't. The sitters apologize, and everything is good again.

Subplot: Victoria Kent is getting ready to head back to England, and she doesn't want to go. She's still obsessed with all things American (because they don't have jelly doughnuts in England, apparently), but she's excited that some members of the BSC will be able to visit her on her turf later in the summer. When she finds out that Mary Anne won't be one of them, though....trouble. Mary Anne writes her a note explaining everything, and they're friends again.

Rating: 2.5

Thoughts and Things

• In chapter 2, Mary Anne says that her dad sent her to live in Nebraska when she was younger, not Iowa. It's kind of funny that this mistake was in a Mary Anne book! :)
• At Victoria's going-away party, it's stated that she and Abby do some bonding. That explains so much about the next book I'm going to recap...
• I can understand Dawn's reasons for not wanting to go on the trip, and I can understand Mary Anne's reasons, but Claudia? Why in the world would she want to give up a chance to see some of the greatest museums anywhere to hang out on the playground with a bunch of kids she can see anytime?
• Mary Anne keeps talking about how there are 9 BSC members applying for 6 jobs; she barely acknowledges that there are other students who might be interested. That's totally a Kristy thing to do.
• The food at the Kents' party sounded awesome!
• It still drives me crazy how obsessed with being American that Victoria is, and how she acts like all things American are so different and foreign. I hate to break to the ghostwriters, but they have a lot of the same things over there that we have over here. Plus (I've said it before and I'll say it again), NOT EVERYONE WANTS TO BE LIKE US!!!!