Mallory couldn't imagine not being in a big family like hers. There's always someone to do things with, and she likes to help take care of her younger brothers and sisters.
But now Mallory's working on an important writing project, and she needs peace and quiet. So why won't everyone leave her alone? Nicky needs help tying his shoes, Claire wants a sandwich, and soeone has to break up the fight among the triplets.
Mallory feelings like a baby-sitting slave.
And there's only one thing to do: This Baby-sitter is going on strike!
Mallory is at school and is sitting in a special creative writing class. She's especially happy and excited because her teacher just announced a special writing contest that will culminate in a celebration called Young Author's Day. It's in 4 weeks, and Mallory knows she just has to win! She wants to win the Best Overall Fiction for the Sixth Grade category. Mallory rushes home, intending to get all of her homework done and out of the way that afternoon, so that when she gets home from her Club meeting, she can dedicate the whole weekend to coming up with the perfect story.
Things quickly go awry for Mallory though. Upon getting home, she discovers the triplets terrorizing Claire, who for some reason is under the impression that their mother is kidnapped. Mallory gets the boys to go outside, but then has to take Claire around to find their mother. Instead, they find Margo, who has gotten into all the make-up. Mallory manages to hand Claire and Margo off to Vanessa, but no sooner has Mallory sat down before Nicky comes bursting into her room, having lost their pet hamster Frodo in the house. Mallory helps him search, and the next thing she knows, it's 5:15 and time for the Club meeting. Feeling overwhelmed, Mallory heads to the meeting, having not done any of her homework. There, she has to turn down a 4-Saturday job with the Hobarts, because she wants to be able to concentrate on her writing. Mallory feels like she's letting the Club down.
Mallory's weekend doesn't get any better. She wakes up especially early, with the intent on finishing all her homework and then spending the rest of the weekend working on her novel. Two hours later, she's all finished, just in time for breakfast. She helps her mom to serve the family, and then kicks Vanessa out of their room so she can work. However, her parents soon need her to help baby-sit for half an hour while they go check out a yard sale. Although they are true to their word and are only gone for half an hour, the rest of the day doesn't go much better for Mallory. She's constantly disrupted and disturbed, never having more than half an hour at a time to settle in. 6 hours later, all she has to prove for her efforts is a single sentence.
At school, Mallory feels awful because she hasn't gotten much done on her story. Her teacher seems disappointed as well, making Mallory feel worse. She decides to set up a schedule for herself, allotting specific time for homework and specific time for writing. Unfortunately, she keeps getting interrupted and doesn't much get to adhere to the schedule. Finally, it's Friday afternoon, and to Mallory's delight, she's left alone all afternoon. She gets a solid 2 hours of writing done, but loses track of time and is late to a Club meeting. After turning down two jobs, the Club asks her what's wrong, and she explodes, explaining that she's really stressed, under pressure and doesn't have enough time for her writing. The Club is sympathetic, although Kristy expresses displeasure at Mallory having turned down jobs. This makes Mallory feel even worse.
She then has a job with the Barretts, something that had been scheduled before the writing contest was announced. The kids are driving her crazy and while she's trying to help out Marnie (who's only a baby), Buddy and Suzy knock over a bag of flour in the kitchen. Which wouldn't be too bad, except before Mallory can really stop them, they decide to mop up with water, creating a bigger mess. Then Suzy lets the dog in, and it's more than Mallory can handle. She tells them that enough is enough, she'll clean up the mess. While she's doing that, Buddy asks if he can ride his bike, and Mallory says sure, as long as he takes the dog with him. Then Suzy takes Marnie away to go clean up. Just as Mallory is getting a handle on things and putting stuff away, she hears a cry from outside. Buddy's gotten tangled up in his bike, and has cut the bottom of his foot. Turns out that since Mallory wasn't there to supervise and tell him instructions exactly, Buddy decided to go bike riding without any shoes. In the moment, Mallory handles it well, and Mrs Barrett soon returns, but overall Mallory feels terrible for being such a bad and irresponsible baby-sitter.
Enough is enough. At the next Club meeting, Mallory asks to be demoted to associate member. If Kristy won't let her, then she'll outright quit. The Club is flabbergasted, and the girls all try to talk Mallory out of it. She won't budge though. Mallory is at the end of her rope, and it's time she starts taking a stand! Kristy tells Mallory to take time off for the next two weeks (which is when the writing contest is over), and says that if after the writing contest is done and everything has settled, if Mallory still wants to quit, they'll let her. Mallory agrees, and heads home from her last meeting for awhile.
It's Saturday again, and there's only one more week left to finish her story. Mallory is all set for a day of work, when she realizes that she probably won't get much (or any) done. She then decides to go on strike. She tells her whole family off and locks herself in her room. Her parents, true to their word that they won't disturb her, then hire Mary Anne and Dawn for a last minute baby-sitting emergency. When Mary Anne goes to check on Mallory, she finds out what happened, Mary Anne points out that although striking worked that day, Mallory's parents still don't really know how Mallory is feeling. She encourages Mallory to speak to her parents.
So Mallory does. She tells her parents how she feels stressed and taken advantage of. Her parents apologize and decide to give her an entire day to herself: a Mallory Appreciation Day. Since Mallory made so much progress on her story, she decides to take the day immediately. The next day, she and Jessi head to the mall. They spend the whole morning there (2 hours to be exact) and then get lunch, go to a movie, and eat ice cream sundaes. At the end of it all, Mallory is feeling much better, and is even missing her siblings.
Finally, the big day has arrived. It's Young Author's Day, and the middle school is host to all sorts of guest speakers and workshops. Mallory has a blast, and of course wins first place in the Best Overall Fiction for the Sixth Grade category. Everything is perfect. To make it all up to her siblings, she takes them on their own special day, and all is right in the world. Mallory decides that she could never ever quit baby-sitting.
There's no subplot in this one. Instead, the chapters of baby-sitting are dedicated to the Club sitting for Mallory's siblings, and reflecting on Mallory's situation. Jessi has to look after Margo and Claire while Mallory goes to the orthodontist, and the rest of the kids go shoe shopping. Margo and Claire are mad at Mallory because she won't play with them and is crabby. Jessi tries to get them to work out their feelings, but it ends with them making a mean play about Mallory, which obviously upsets her.
At some point Kristy gets a chapter, where she feels like she gets a taste of what Mallory must face. She was planning on going shopping with Mary Anne when her parents suddenly need her to baby-sit due to an emergency. It's raining outside, and the kids are all cranky. David Michael invited a friend over, and Kristy is less than pleased to now be stuck with five kids. However, his friend's parents aren't too pleased to find them at home without an adult, and decide not to let him stay. They instead invite David Michael over. However, since this friend is new, and Kristy knows that their parents haven't met him or his parents, she decides that it'd be best not to let DM go over either. This sets him off and he storms up to his room. The remaining three kids aren't much better, with the cat eating their lunch and Andrew dropping a glass and shattering it. Suddenly, Kristy feels a lot more sympathetic to Mallory's plight.
Random Thoughts:
- This one has TWO ghostwriters! Jahnna Beecham and Malcolm Hillgartner
- Right in the beginning, Mallory describes her family (herself included!) as having chestnut brown hair! From what I can tell, that's a dark brown with some reddish overtones. Definitely a brown, and not a red. Then why is Mallory always drawn and described as a redhead???
- Mallory's parents are horrible. They just take advantage of her. It's not even like she wants to be left alone to hang out with friends. As we know, before she met Jessi, she didn't even have any friends! She said she never needed them/got a chance to know them because she was always so busy with her family!
- That being said, I don't know why Mallory didn't just go to the school library or the public library right after school. She could've gotten 2 hours of solid, uninterrupted work time in. It's not like her parents could be like, "No! You have to come home and fix Nicky's finger and play with Claire, and make a snack for Margo, and mediate the triplets!!!" Even they would realize how ridiculous that sounded. It's easy to lose track of how many random and meaningless tasks they're asking of her when they do it in the moment when she's around. I mean, it wouldn't have solved anything in the long-run, but as a short-term solution, there's merits.
- I hope the writing contest was opened to the whole school. They made it seem like only the writing club would be participating, and that's only 10 members! I'd like to think that there's a writer out there who's better than Mallory, but doesn't have the time or patience or need for the club haha
- I find it hard to believe that the Pikes would let Mallory cut up their family photos to create a collage for book cover. I know that with the negatives, you can get re-prints done, but I remember as a child my parents being super strict about family photos. We always got doubles of everything, and anything I wanted to take to school or use for a school project, it had to be a photo we had a double of, and even then, I had to take very good care of it and not do anything permanent to it. I'm definitely glad that digital photos exist now, so I can print and re-print photos all I want for all my art project needs haha
- I'm glad that Kristy was able to sympathize with Mallory, but one inconvenienced afternoon is nothing compared to what Mallory puts up with. Mallory's family is always 6 younger siblings, and they live in a regular-sized house, where everyone has to share rooms. Kristy's family may be large, but they live in a mansion, where everyone gets their own bedroom, even Karen and Andrew who only live there some of the time. Furthermore, even with Karen and Andrew around, Kristy only has 4 younger siblings, and most of the time, it's really only 2. The rest of the household is older, meaning there's always 5 people to share in the child-rearing duties. That's 6 baby-sitting aged people (Kristy plus her older siblings, plus the adults) for at most 4 children. As opposed to Mallory's family, which is 3 baby-sitting aged people for 6 children.
- This book, plus a few comments from one of my students, plus some new reviews on an old fanfic I wrote a few years ago, really make me miss writing. Maybe in the new year I can set up a schedule and get back into it. I need time to read, to write, to crochet and to run haha
- I know they say to write what you know, but Mallory's story is a bit too on the nose: it's about a girl who feels neglected by her parents. Her older sister is an academic star, but her younger brother is a troublemaker, leaving her caught in the middle. Oddly enough, it does sound exactly like the kind of novel you'd find in an elementary school library haha
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