Mallory knows she's a good baby-sitter. She's been looking after her seven younger brothers and sisters for years. So when Kristy offers her a steady job baby-sitting for the Arnold twins, Mal thinks it'll be easy money.
The twins sure are cute in their little matching outfits. But once Mrs. Arnold leaves, Marilyn and Carolyn turn into twin terrors! They run around the house like spoiled brats, and Mallory can't even tell them apart.
Taking care of Marilyn and Carolyn is a baby-sitting nightmare. But Mallory's a responsible member of the Baby-sitters Club - and she's not giving up!
This book starts off with a trip to the Washington Mall, the infamous mall that's an hour drive from Stoneybrook. The Pikes are on a mission to buy everyone new shoes. Mallory wants crazy fun pink ones with green trim, but when you have to shoe a large family, everyone gets what they need, not what they want, so Mallory ends up with loafers. We're reminded yet again of how babyish Mallory thinks she looks and how much better her life would be with pierced ears.
Mallory finds herself with a steady sitting job, sitting for the Arnold twins. The twins aren't new clients to the Club per se, but the other girls have only sat for them once or twice. Anyways, Mrs Arnold is on some temporary committee, and needs a regular sitter every Tuesday and Thursday for 8 weeks. Mallory is excited, thinking of all the money she'll get to make and all the things she wishes she could buy, but isn't allowed.
At first things go well for Mallory, but as soon as she remarks how cute the girls look with their identical matching outfits, all hell breaks loose. They take off their name bracelets and start talking gibberish to each other and playing tricks on Mallory. Mallory doesn't understand what's going on. She's grown up with triplet brothers, and they have never been this bad!
It takes the entire book for everyone to realize that the problem is that the twins want to be individuals, much like anyone else would. Mallory's never had problems with her brothers because they have never been forced to dress identical every single day. In the meantime, Claudia has a particularly bad time when she has to watch the twins one day over the weekend. Marilyn is supposed to go to an important piano recital rehearsal, but Claudia accidentally sends Carolyn instead!
Eventually the girls figure out that while little girls like to pretend to have twins, and like to occasionally dress alike, it can't be much fun to do it every single day, especially when no one can even attempt to tell you apart. This comes to a head when the twins have a birthday party, with some of the Club members helping, and Mallory notices that each girl gets the exact same identical generic 8 year old girl gift from her classmates.
Mallory helps the twins to talk to their mom, who feels awful because she always assumed that the girls liked dressing identically. It's then decided that the girls would be allowed to dress individually and would have more of a say in their outfits and individual expression. Everyone is happy!
The subplot in this one is Mallory's ongoing quest to stop "looking like a baby". Finally she decides to just straight-up ask her parents if she can get her ears pierced and a haircut and start buying some of her own clothes. The Pikes, being super cool, of course agree.
Random Thoughts:
- Jessi is still rocking the steady job with the Braddocks
- "Pretty much money" comes back, only this time, it's "pretty much birthday money". Is this a New England thing? Or weird slang that AMM is trying to make catch on??
- I find it interesting that the Arnold twins aren't new clients. The other girls mention having baby-sat for them occasionally in the past. Yet the twins never gave the girls many problems before. And now they become regulars.
- For some reason, this one has some of Mallory's sitting chapters start with Notebook entries. They normally don't do that for the narrator. I was pretty confused, thinking "Maybe I don't know the girls' handwriting well enough? Maybe someone had different writing in the beginning of the series??" But nope, it was Mallory.
- The Pikes actually aren't that strict. The only reason why Mallory still "dresses like a baby" is because the Pikes have to be practical. They know that everything they buy Mallory has to last, preferably long enough to get passed down to Vanessa and/or Margo. Because of that, they go for simple, classic wardrobe staple pieces. They obviously cannot afford a whole new wardrobe for Mallory and while I do know some children who wear contacts (if they're super hardcore athletic), most people I know don't get contacts til they're at least 13. The Pikes never said Mallory couldn't get her ears pierced. They probably just couldn't be bothered to waste the money on something so frivolous. So as soon as Mallory said that she wanted to spend her baby-sitting money on clothes and ear piercings, they were like, "Sure, why not?" The trouble is that Mallory had never asked before.
- There really wasn't much to this story. Basically the twins are tired of being considered one person and being completely matching. It takes the entire book for everyone to figure this out.
- If I had been Claudia, when I found out it was Marilyn I had with me, I would have made her spend the whole afternoon practicing. Yes, it's the not the same as being at rehearsal with your instructor, getting one on one feedback, but it's better than the entire afternoon going to waste.
- Mrs Arnold seems like a child. She uses her daughters as dolls essentially, dressing them up in identical matching cute outfits. All of the outfits described are pretty much "picture day" outfits: dresses with tights and matching accessories. A single bracelet. A necklace. Matching hair ribbons. All tastefully done. But highly impractical for children. How are the girls supposed to play?? Then the descriptions of Mrs Arnold herself sounds like an accessory store exploded on her, because she's described as wearing a million bracelets and necklaces and having bows on everything. It's like a little kid's version of "being fancy".
- This is the one where Claudia gets an extra hole pierced into one of her ears, resulting in her having three holes: one in one ear and two in the other. Fun fact: this is partly what inspired me to get a third hole pierced into one of my ears. I remember as a child thinking that Claudia's extra asymmetrical hole was the epitome of cool. It took me awhile to get over my fear of needles to convince myself to get my ears pierced the first time around. That was such an ordeal that I decided to leave it at that for now. But I never forgot Claudia's extra hole. When I got older, I decided to get a second hole punched into both of my ears. Again, I thought of Claudia, but I wasn't bold enough to go asymmetrical. I figured two holes would be hardcore enough. Finally, in my early 20s, I decided to get a cartilage piercing done. It was 2-for-1 piercing day at the tattoo parlor, and I wasn't sure I wanted TWO cartilage piercings. So instead I took a page out of Claudia's book: I got a third hole put into only one ear. Ta-da!
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