The Baby-sitters Club #21: Mallory and the Trouble with Twins
Oh, I so wanted to be a twin when I was a kid. But now that I look back on it, I would have been a horrible twin. I don't share well. I'm kind of a self-centered bitch and I'm definitely an attention whore (but a lovable one!) To this day, I hate being given the same present as my sister, who's only three years younger than me (yes, I'm also an ungrateful bitch. I am infamous in my family for being unable to keep disgust and disappointment off my face on Christmas morning.) That said, while I understand and sympathize with the twins' desire for individuality, I pretty much hate everyone in this book. The twins are just annoying, their mother is a wanna-be Mrs. Prezzioso with none of Mrs. P's charm, and of course, there's my old nemesis, Mallory Pike. We all knew that sooner or later I'd have to write about Mal, but in the interest of not repeating myself, I'll try to keep my loathing mostly to myself.
Okay, so Mal gets a regular sitting job for the Arnold twins, Marilyn and Carolyn. Right away, I hate their parents. So the twins are nice enough at first, but then Mal has to go and be all "Oh, aren't you two just the cutest little things! You look exactly the same and it's so darling, blah, blah, blah" which of course the twins don't want to hear, because what 8-year-old does, twins or not? I mean, I went through a phase for about 4 years where I yelled at anyone who called me cute. I did not want to be cute, I wanted to be cool. DUH, Mal. So the twins take off their name bracelets (again, I hate their parents) and proceed to talk in their own language and completely disregard any and all instructions Mal attempts to impose. They are annoying, but since it's Mallory they are harassing, I am slightly more inclined to be on their side. If it were my beloved Stacey they were harassing, I'd kick their asses from here to next Thursday. But then, it wouldn't have taken Stacey the entire stupid book to figure out how to deal with them.
Seriously, so Mal has to keep sitting for the twins and they keep acting out while she's there and I really just don't get it. So what, she feels like she can't punish both of them? Why not just separate them and make them sit quietly? Why not tell their mother? Why not freaking just ask what you did to piss them off? Try being nice to them and see if they'll talk to you. But no, not Mal. She just gets all pouty and whines about their behavior. So I say, suck it Mal. You deserve what you get.
Now, you know who does not deserve what she gets? Poor Claudia, that's who. Claud ends up sitting for the twins one Saturday, and they act up for her too, I guess because she's friends with Mal and because they are annoying twins who hate everyone. They switch places, so Marilyn skips her piano lesson and the teacher gets really pissed, and Carolyn doesn't work on her science fair project like she's supposed to. Then the parents come home and rather than yell at their dumb daughters, they yell at Claudia and call her irresponsible. Um, dumbass parents, do you think that maybe it would be a good idea to make some arrangements to ensure that your IDENTICAL TWIN daughters aren't able to switch places on a totally unsuspecting baby-sitter? Are you so dumb that you don't realize that THEY ARE FREAKING IDENTICAL TWINS, which means that it's going to be tough for the uninitiated to tell them apart. God, the entire town of Stoneybrook should just not be allowed to breed.
Anyway, Mal finally grows a pair and stoops to the twins' level (which, honestly, is not much below her own maturity point) by speaking to them only in pig-latin, which first pisses them off but then I guess makes them respect her? I don't know, they're idiots. So they finally start talking to her, and they tell her that they'd like to be treated as individuals rather than always as a set. So then when Mrs. Arnold comes home, Mal helps the twins have a conversation with her (because no baby-sitter can resist sticking her nose where it doesn't belong) in which Mrs. Arnold acts all surprised that her daughters would want to be different, like she's never given any thought to the as individuals. Geez, this is just like that episode of Full House where Jesse and Rebecca went to that Parents of Twins Support Group and met the parents whose kids, Phil and Phil, dressed up like lobsters and hung out at Fisherman's Wharf. Mrs. Arnold totally belongs in that support group... she's just as moronic as the rest of them. Also, Mrs. A agrees to let Mal take her daughters shopping, and they buy such delightful items as yellow push down socks and a pink jeans skirt. Oh dear. Maybe the Arnold twins were better off when their mother was dressing them.
In other news, seeing her 8-year-old sitting charges approach their mother calmly and rationally about growing up inspires her to do so herself. God, Mallory, seriously? 8-year-olds are more mature than you are. Reflect on that in your journal, dumbass. So the Pikes decide to let Mal get a haircut and get pierced ears. Can I just say that I really don't understand the Pikes? They are not written very consistently. Half the time they're all "Woo-hoo! No rules!" and then the other half the time they're making all these rules for Mal. I just don't think that the original Pike parents, like in the Jersey shore book, the ones who let their kids eat whatever they want and do whatever they want, wouldn't have let Mal get her ears pierced or hair cut whenever she wants. I get some of the clothing issues and the contact lenses, and other things that might be more issues of money than anything else, but otherwise, it doesn't really fit. But the BSC makes a big trek out to the mall so Mal and Jessi can get their ears pierced, and so Claudia can get a third hole in one of her ears, and so Dawn can suddenly decide that she wants pierced ears as well (what happened to being an individual there, Ms. California Casual?) and so endeth the book, and thank God, so also endeth Mal's whining about not having pierced ears. Now we just get to listen to the refrain of "I want contact lenses and I don't want braces" for the next one hundred books.
What I learned from this book: Pig-latin. No, seriously. I then taught it to my brother. We thought we were AWESOME. Takes a long time to say anything, though. Or, if you prefer, akes-tay a-hay ong-lay ime-tay o-tay ay-say anything-hay, ough-thay.
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