There's some bad news in the Pike family: Mallory's dad has just lost his job. And since money is going to be tight until Mr Pike finds a new job, all eight of the Pike kids decide to help out.As Mallory mentioned a couple of books ago, the company her father works for is going through a rough time. The day has finally come for them to make cuts, and Mr Pike is pretty sure he'll be one of them. Sure enough, when Mallory gets home from her Club meeting that night, she finds that her father is now unemployed.
Nicky gets a paper route, Vanessa tries selling her poetry, and Mallory takes a baby-sitting job in Kristy's ritzy neighborhood. But being around the Delaneys only makes Mallory feel poor. They have a cat that cost $400 and tennis courts in their backyard!
Poor Mallory - she needs the Baby-sitters now more than ever!
It's pretty scary. Not only are Mallory and her siblings worried about money, but their dad is acting completely unlike himself. He's pretty angry and quiet during their initial discussion of what to do. Mrs Pike decides to enroll in a temp agency, to make some extra cash, while Mr Pike starts looking for a job. At first, Mr Pike is all into looking for a job. He gets up, he gets dressed, and starts combing through the papers. Now that Mrs Pike is at work, it's up to Mr Pike to get Claire from kindergarten and to spend the day with her. He's not all super-dad, but he's not neglectful either. Claire's disappointed because she thought it'd be all fun with him around.
Eventually though, Mr Pike exhausts all the options in the newspaper. He starts staying in his pajamas longer, watching more and more trashy TV... he doesn't cook or clean or do any of the things Mrs Pike did when she was home. It gets to the point where he doesn't even leave the house to collect Claire from school: he has Mrs Perkins do it when she's picking up her girls. Mr and Mrs Pike have a huge fight about it, and Mr Pike starts getting dressed and cleaning again.
In the meantime, the Pike kids are doing what they can to make extra cash. Mallory lands herself with a swanky regular job sitting for the Delaneys three times a week for a month. The triplets start and odd-job service. Vanessa attempts to sell her poetry to magazines and papers, but eventually settles on styling kids' hair at recess. Nicky has the most success, actually landing himself a real job: a paper route. It's a tight and tense month for everyone. The kids are teased at school, with some kids being downright mean, while others just being awkward. Mallory discovers that Jessi and the Club are her only real friends.
One day, Mallory comes home and discovers her father not only dressed and smiling, but playing with Claire and interacting with her, doing crafts, going full-on Super Dad. That almost makes Mallory more nervous, because although she's opened to the idea of having a stay-at-home dad, it's not really feasible for the Pikes, since Mrs Pike isn't making that much money.
Everything turns around though when Mr Pike finally gets a call back. After three excruciatingly dramatic interviews, we find out that he gets the job! All is well and back to status quo in Pike-land.
The subplot in this one revolves around the Delaneys and their pool. They just got a brand new pool put in, and of course all the neighbourhood kids love it. But the more and more time passes, the more Amanda and Max suspect that kids are only coming over to play in the pool - not because they actually like spending time with Amanda and Max. Eventually Mallory comes up with the idea that they should tell their friends that they aren't allowed to be in the pool when a sitter is over anymore, then see who still wants to come over and play: those would be their real true friends. Despite the attitudes of most of the kids over the course of the book, only one kid actually doesn't show up. Amanda and Max feel better, knowing who truly likes them and who doesn't.
Random Thoughts:
- We actually get to hear of some of the girls in the sixth grade! Mallory apparently has friends other than Jessi and the BSC! Of course, they stop being her friend when her dad loses his job, but yeah. It's interesting seeing them even mentioned at all.
- I'm pretty sure Rachel is the same girl who made fun of Jessi in Mallory's first book.
- I like how Mallory's two friends betraying her to go tease her with the popular girls is played out like some huge drama, but it has no impact on the reader because we never ever see Mallory and Jessi at school, nor them interacting with other sixth graders. The only time we ever heard about other sixth graders was at the start of Mallory's first book, before she joined the Club. Even then, we knew that 1) she wasn't particularly close to anyone and 2) they were all kinda bitchy and mean anyways, cuz they were totes racist against Jessi.
- This makes me wish we saw more of Jessi and Mallory at school and/or outside of the Club. For the other girls, we know tons of their classmates: Cokie, Grace, Pete Black, Alan Gray, Erica Blumberg, Trevor Sandbourne... a few others too.
- It's pretty mean of Mr and Mrs Pike to make their money issues sound tremendous, and not tell the kids about Mr Pike's severance package. My dad got laid off when I was in high school, and of course, my immediate thought was, "But... but... money???" I was all set to worry when my dad told me that he got a severance package worth about 6 months' salary. It then only took him about 2 weeks to find a new job, and it was pretty much close to the same pay he was previously getting. So, you know haha
- Mr Pike's reactions to getting laid off are pretty realistic, and absolutely terrifying for a kid. I would've liked to have seen more of this and Mallory's home life.
- I don't really have much to say about this book haha I don't really remember reading it much (or at all) as a kid (although I know for sure that I read it at least once) and yeahhhh... not my favourite, but not terrible either.
