Mary Anne has a crush-- on a boy baby-sitter!

The Baby-sitters Club #10: Logan Likes Mary Anne!

Eh, Logan. You could do better.

Well, it's the first day of the BSC's interminable 8th grade year and guess who Mary Anne spies across the crowded cafeteria? None other than her new celebrity crush, Cam Geary. Except, wait!, Stacey tells her, that's not Cam Geary. That's Logan Bruno, recnet transplant from Louisville, Kentucky (that would be Loovull, as we are treated to some delightful stereotyping of Logan's accent.) MA's heart is all aflutter.

The BSC has a huge influx of business thanks to some recent adertising, and it's getting to be too much for them to handle. Logan eavesdrops on their convo at lunch one day, and announces that he used to do a lot of baby-sitting. Mostly, this seems like a ploy to be able to oome sit by the tongue-tied Mary Anne. The BSC invites him to come to one of their meetings.

Can we say awkward? Apparently, the girls can't get through their meetings without discussing things like bra straps and just generally acting weird around boys. I don't know, I would that that Claud and Stacey at the very least would be able to handle it, but Claud's the one who freaks out after getting halfway through a story about Pete Black snapping Dori Wallingford's bra, so apparently, she's not as cool as she'd like us to think.

They decide to send Logan to baby-sit for some new clients, the Rodowskys. I was never a big fan of the Rodowskys, mainly because I don't find accident-prone children cute, I find them annoying as all hell. But since they've never seen him sit before, he has to be accompanied by a BSC member, so they can observe him in action. Guess who's the only one available?

So Logan and Mary Anne go sit for Jackie Rodowsky. Jackie manages to pull down the shower curtain rod, spill a cup of grape juice on the carpet, and get his hand stuck in a glass jar. MA's kind of nit-picky and over-protective, like "Oh, Logan let Jackie go upstairs by himself for too long" and "Oh, Logan didn't check the kid for cuts and bruises after he fell down." but if you ask me, Logan was the way less annoying sitter in this scenario. Overall, MA does feel comfortable recommending him as a sitter for the BSC.

Logan, unfortunately, does not feel comfortable joining the BSC. He does, however, feel comfortable inviting MA to the September dance, and somewhat surprisingly, she accepts! Richard gives her permission to go and even gives her his credit card to buy a new outfit (Go, Richard!) The BSC helps MA purchase a white skirt with Paris, London, and Rome written on it and blue and pink drawings of the Eiffel Tower and other landmarks. I'd make fun of it, but my apartment is decorated in a remarkably similar style, and if I found such a skirt today, I'd be sorely tempted to buy it. MA and Logan go to the dance, where they seem to be having a good time until MA accidentally kicks off her shoe while imitating a Rockette and has to go retrieve it from the vice-principal. Convinced she will never recover from that embarassment, she retreats to the highest row of the bleachers and refuses to be dislodged, despite Logan's pleas.

Logan is undeterred, and continues his pursuit of his lady-love, MAS. Stacey, meanwhile, decides to throw a boy/girl party and make it a sort-of surprise for Mary Anne's birthday. She figures that MA won't like an actual surprise party, but she thinks she would be okay with a surprise cake at a party. She invites the BSC and a few other people, and makes them all bring dates to even out the boy/girl numbers. Kristy brings Alan Gray, who puts yellow m&m's in his eyes and calls himself Little Orphan Annie. I don't get it, because even though that was one of the few movie we actually had a copy of when I was a kid, I always hated it and refused to watch it. Did she have satanic yellow eyes or something? Because to me, yellow eyes implies more the kid from The Exorcist (not that I've ever seen it) than an obnoxiously optimistic red-headed moppet (not that I've ever seen that either.) Also, Dawn apparently hs a crush on some kid named Bruce Schermerhorn. We never hear of him again, and I'm sad, because I think he has a hilarious name.

Anyway, MA most decidedly does NOT like the surprise cake. In fact, she dislikes it so much that she runs out of Stacey's house and goes home, where she lies to Richard that the party broke up early and then goes upstairs thinking that Logan or Stacey will call or come over to apologize. They do not, and I wish it was because they think that MA is an ungrateful little baby who needs to get a grip, but instead it is because they feel bad and think that MA will hate them forever. They all make up the next day, and the BSC brings over the leftover cake and birthday gifts for MA. This also gives them a chance to meet Tigger, MA's new cat, whom she and Logan picked out that morning.

Meanwhile, the BSC still has more business than they can handle, and MA finally comes up with the idea to make Logan an associate member, someone they can call when they need help but who doesn't have to attend meetings. This makes everyone happy. And... that's it.

Final thoughts: I was surprised there was no first kiss in this book. Or if there was, it certainly wasn't memorable. Not that I think little kids need to be running around kissing at their school dances or what not, it just seems like a trope of the "junior high romance" that is missing from this book. Oh well, I'm sure it comes later and I just don't remember. Either that, or Logan truly is the most sexless teenage boy fiction ever created (even moreso than Steve from Full House!)