They Certainly Will Never Grow Up!

Disclaimer: My only Peter Pan knowledge comes from the 1991 Steven Spielberg-directed film, Hook.

It's time for BSC Super Special #9, Starring the Baby-sitters Club! This time instead of going on vacation or being involved in some kind of disaster (say, a shipwreck or a blizzard), this Super Special focuses on the production Stoneybrook Middle School is putting on of Peter Pan. I have qualms with this already. Even though SMS is putting on the play, tryouts are open to "all elementary, middle school, and high school students." WTF? Why not just have the local community theater put on this play? Look, I wasn't a theater kid in school, so maybe it works this way? Maybe a middle school puts on a play and high school and elementary kids are also allowed to be in the play? Somehow I doubt this. I just think this was a plot point to get some of the kids they baby-sit for in there. Like I said, why not just have the local Stoneybrook community theater put on the play and the girls learn about it and want to be in it? They will be performing the play three times: a dress rehearsal one afternoon for the students of SES, then two evening performances. 

My own knowledge of Peter Pan is pretty slim. If I've seen the Disney movie, it's been a very, very very, VERY long time. I've seen Hook several times and that's probably my best knowledge of the movie. I love the part where Maggie Smith, as older Wendy, exclaims, "Peter, you've become a pirate!" But Hook isn't Peter Pan; it's a story of what would happen if Peter Pan DID grow up. 

We get a few non-BSC members chapter POVs including Sam, Cokie Mason, and Jackie Rodowsky. 

The tagline on the back cover reads, "They'll never grow up!" Well considering they never age, that's certainly true!

Let's talk about the role (haha, get it? Role? Since they're putting on a play?) each girl plays in the book:

Jessi is the "host" of this Super Special. She has been chosen as the sixth-grade correspondent for the SMS Express, the school newspaper and she's gathering notes from her friends and other students about the play. I feel like Mallory would have been the more likely choice to be the sixth-grade correspondent. She's the one who loves to write! But I understand why they gave the book about a big production to Jessi. She is very excited about Peter Pan and pretty much tells everybody that she's going to play the lead even before auditions are held. Seriously, WTF? She's pretty egotistical in this one. I mean, I guess I can't blame her for thinking she's going to get the role of Peter Pan since I feel like she's pretty much the lead in all the productions her ballet school in Stamford puts on. I would have the same expectations if I were her! But...is there dancing in Peter Pan? I know there are songs, but I'm not sure about it having any dance numbers. 

Jessi tries out for the play along with the rest of Stoneybrook and feels good about her audition. At the end of the auditions, one of the teachers who's in charge of the play, Mr. Cheney (I wonder if he's related to Dick?), asks for a group of kids to stay behind including Dawn, Kristy, and Stacey. Dawn and Jessi have this exchange:

Dawn clutched at my elbow. "Is this good or bad, Jessi?" she squeaked. "He called my name. Is that good or bad?"

  "Oh, it's very good," I assured her. I smiled. "Mr. Cheney wants to see you again. It means you impressed him."

"Oh." Dawn smiled back, but then she frowned. "He didn't call your name, Jessi."

I patted her arm. "I know. Don't worry about it." Of course Mr. Cheney hadn't called my name. He'd already made up his mind about the role of Peter Pan. I left the auditorium feeling pleased and confident.

The fact that Jessi wasn't called back should have given her a clue. Much to her chagrin, Jessi does NOT get the part of Peter Pan. That role actually goes to Kristy which makes for an extremely awkward BSC meeting where Jessi refuses to talk to anybody. Jessi does get cast as a pirate, but refuses the role. I'm sorry, but she's acting like a brat. She does end up being the assistant choreographer since Mr. Cheney "needs someone to choreograph simple dances for the children." So I guess I answered my question about whether there are any dance numbers in Peter Pan. I'm just not sure how many of them involve the character of Peter Pan. 

The reason Jessi didn't get the lead is because she's already had a lot of starring roles in other productions and they wanted to let someone else get the chance to perform. I do understand that; let someone else have the spotlight. Mr. Cheney also points out that her acting and singing isn't any better than Kristy's, so they're both on the same level there. 

There is a huge spoiler on the cover. It shows Jessi wearing the crocodile costume, but as you're reading the book Jessi is talking about wanting to play Peter Pan, but then cast as a pirate, then ends up being a choreographer, so as you're reading the book for the first time, you're probably wondering why in the world Jessi is wearing the crocodile costume on the cover. Well, to be honest, I don't even remember what my thoughts on that were since it's been so long since I read this the first time! This book was published in nineteen hundred and ninety-two, for God's sake! You expect me to remember reading this for the first time? Pete Black is actually the one who is cast as the crocodile and Nana, the sheepdog. However, the day before the evening of their first performance, he has fallen off his bike and broken his nose.  Um, OUCH! I was expecting the sentence to end with saying that he broke his wrist or arm...I was not expecting his nose to get broken! Makes me wonder exactly what he was doing. For some reason, they have understudies for every single part...except for the animal roles. Jessi steps into these roles, thus why she's wearing the crocodile costume on the cover. Jessi is happy she got to be in the play after all. 

Ironically, Kristy wanted to play the animal roles so she got the role Jessi wanted and Jessi got the role(s) Kirsty wanted. Jackie Rodowsky, who we get a couple chapter POVs from, is scared of the crocodile costume, but once he finds out Jessi is going to be in the crocodile, he's totally cool with it. Gee, what was wrong with Pete Black? Jackie was cast as Michael Darling and he must be a good little actor because you'd think they wouldn't want to deal with a klutzy kid and give him a smaller role (thought maybe Michael isn't that big of a role? But considering that he plays one of the three Darling children, he must have a pretty good-sized role.) Also, we see a couple of Jackie's entries and while he does have some spelling mistakes (the kid IS seven after all), his spelling and penmanship is better than Claudia's, which is kind of sad...for Claudia. 

Here are a couple more tidbits from Jessi chapters that don't really have anything to do with the play, but I found interesting:

When Jessi and Mallory are walking out of SMS after school has ended, Jessi mentions how Mal "is always cold" (she is?) and says, "Mal, its like forty-five degrees or something." Now, if it were 55 degrees, then I would agree Mal acting so cold would be a bit overkill, but 45 degrees is pretty cold! Sure, it's not FREEZING, but the way Jessi says it, sounds like 45 degrees is balmy weather. You know Dawn wouldn't say it's warm weather! Maybe for the Connecticut crowd it would be nice weather! I definitely know that 45 degrees in Minnesota would practically be considered summer (okay, maybe I'm exaggerating...but not by much!) I don't know, I just thought that whole exchange was weird.

We also get this passage from Jessi:

Squirt suddenly decided "Pan" was his new favorite video, and he kept asking to watch it. By asking I mean that he would plant himself in front of the nearest grown-up at our house and say, "Pan, Pan, Pan, Pan, PAN!" until the grown-up dashed for the VCR in order to save his or her eardrums. 

Who wants to bet that Jessi is counting herself as one of the "grown-ups" in this paragraph? Also, I wonder which version of Peter Pan Squirt wants to watch? I'm assuming the Disney one.

Here is the cover with the costume spoiler. Because they're all wearing their costumes, I am able to tell Stacey and Dawn apart; yay! 

Like I mentioned earlier, Kristy gets the role of Peter Pan. Look, I understand this is a BSC book so I guess it makes sense one of the girls would have the lead and I guess Kristy makes the most sense....because she's short? As far as I know, she has never shown any interest in the theater or acting. But...you're telling me there's nobody at SMS who is a theater geek and would have loved to play the lead (not counting Jessi!) Kristy didn't even try out for Peter Pan and still gets the lead! Since she wanted to play the animal characters, the teacher director had her recite some of Pan's lines and I guess she just blew everyone out of the water so she ends up with the part. Kristy is fine in the part, but her big thing is she keeps forgetting her lines throughout rehearsals. During their first evening performance, Kristy forgets her first line, but Jessi prompts her from offstage and after that, she's totally fine. 

We need to talk about the Karen subplot here. Ugh, I hate that little brat. I thought she had her own chapters, but she doesn't. She wants to be Tinker Bell even though Tinker Bell isn't played by a real person. Obviously, because she's so small they just use lights and tinkling sounds to show that she's around. Sure, Julia Roberts played her in Hook, but when you're making a movie you can use force perspective to make people appear smaller on the screen. On the stage, if you see a seven-year-girl playing a tiny fairy, it's going to look fucking weird. Karen sure as hell doesn't understand this or just doesn't care. The director is trying to tell her this and this is the response we get from the little spawn:

"But I want to be Tink! I WANT TO WEAR A FAIRY PRINCESS COTUME! I WANT TO-"

 We get capital AND italicized letters in that last sentence. That's how you know she's really screaming and creating a scene and acting like an all-around champion bratty mcbrat-brat. Kristy is able to stop her tantrum for the time being. Even when she does her regular audition, she's all, "Want to see how I can be a fairy?" She will just not let it go. 

But then...in a later chapter after the play has been cast, Kristy tells the other girls this at a meeting of the BSC:

"Hey, I found out about Karen and Tinker Bell. I talked to Karen's mother this afternoon. She told me Mr. Cheney called and said he decided to make Tinker Bell an actual character after all. Maybe Karen's flitting around paid off. Anyway, I do think she'll make a good Tinker Bell. Put her in a fairy costume and she'll be thrilled."

So I guess the lesson is if you act like a total fucking spoiled brat, you'll get what you want, much like one Karen Brewer! Great lesson there! Also, Karen can dress in a fairy costume anytime she wants if she chooses...but why does it have to be at the expense of ruining a middle school play? Dawn wants to tweak a few things in the script and everybody is just aghast about that, but they're totally fine with a young girl playing a tiny, nearly invisible fairy. Give me a break! So do you think Watson called the school and threatened to take away any monetary donations he's offered them OR do you think he bribed Mr. Cheney? It's got to be one of those two. There's no way the teacher just decided to cast this brat in his play. He must haver been threatened or given an offer he couldn't refuse! Ooh, I feel like this would be a great one-off fanfic! 

So even though Satan's Mini-Me gets what she wants, she's STILL whining. She's mad because in the movie (again I assume they're talking about the Disney film), when Tinker Bell talks, there are lights that flash and tinkling noise. She has this exchange with Mary Anne, who is the "backstage baby-sitter":

"Why aren't there lights and tinkling for me?"

"Because in our play people can see you. Remember, you wanted to be a real fairy." 

"But I still can't talk. I don't have any lines. I WANT-"

Honestly, I'm surprised they didn't let Karen have any lines. Hell, I'm surprised they just didn't make Tinker Bell the main character since she always gets what she wants anyway. I'm sure if she screamed and cried and threw more tantrums, she could have made it happen!  

Stacey wants to be involved in the play and is happy to play any part. She ends up being cast as Mrs. Darling and Sam is cast as Mr. Darling. We get a couple chapters from his POV too. I'm only on book 35 in the regular series and this book takes place right before book 60, Mary Anne's Makeover. I know this because Mary Anne has long hair on the cover of this book and her hair is short on the cover of the next SS. Apparently, around this time Sam and Stacey are going out. I do NOT remember this at all. I remember there was a mutual attraction between them and I remember Sam was trying to get her attention in SS #8 (even before I re-read it), but I just never remember them dating. Sam tells the reader that a lot of his friends give him a hard time because he's dating Stacey and calls him cradle robber. Oof. You'd think with Stacey's New York cosmopolitan sophistication, she would be fifteen in small town years! You would think Sam's friends would be impressed the he could nab a sophisticated girl like Stacey even if she is two years younger. Sam doesn't want Stacey to meet his friends because he knows it will embarrass her if she knew about the jokes they made about her (about her needing a nap or a permission slip from her mom to go out, etc.). He thinks the play is a great way for his friends to see what a great time he and Stacey have together. (I'm pretty sure the only reason the ghostwriter allowed high schools students in the middle school play was to be able to have Sam involved; besides him, the only other high schooler mentioned is the guy who plays Captain Hook). Sam still manages to embarrass Stacey by calling her "my darling Mrs. Darling", which personally, I think is hilarious. I don't think that's embarrassing. Now, when he calls her "Mother", (because Mr. and Mrs. Darling call each other "Mother" and "Father" in the play which is super weird), I can understand her being embarrassed by that! 

Anyway, they talk and hash everything out and everything is fine between them. 

Dawn tries out for Tiger Lily and ends up with the part of Wendy. They make a big deal about how FANTASTIC Dawn was in her audition and she got the part of Wendy because she was that good and not because she looks like Wendy. Cokie Mason also tries out for Tiger Lily and is very good in her audition too. She's cast as Tiger Lily and wants to gloat about how she beat Dawn for the role, then realizes Dawn was cast in a bigger role. I have no idea who Tiger Lily is; she wasn't in Hook, so that's probably why I don't remember her character. 

So I mentioned earlier that Dawn wants to tweak a few things in the script. She thinks the play is sexist, and well, she's not wrong. As she tells Mary Anne, Peter Pan has "some nerve" and only wants Wendy to come with him to Neverland because "He just wants someone who will cook and clean and sew for him." All Dawn wants to do is change a few lines and have Wendy teach Peter how to sew on his shadow or how to cook. Seriously, if they're willing to let a child play Tinker Bell, why not throw Dawn a bone and let her have this? I wish Dawn had pointed that out. Sometimes Dawn can be a bit...extra, but I do see her point on this one. I don't think it would be that big of a deal if they have Wendy teaching Peter how to sew his shadow back on. 

At their rehearsals, Dawn keeps changing the lines which doesn't help Kristy who is already having trouble remembering her line. Finally, Dawn realizes it's just a play and there's nothing she can do, so she just reads the lines as is. 

She doesn't tell her dad about the play because she doesn't want him to feel bad about missing it, which is pretty sad. Richard video tapes the play so they're able to send him a copy of it and Dawn says that her dad cried when he watched it which is sweet. 

Mallory is the apprentice costume designer which makes me scratch my head. Since when has Mallory been interested in making clothes? I think this would have been better suited for Mary Anne; doesn't she like to sew? Anyway, Mallory is helping an 8th grader named Savannah and they're both working with the home-ec teacher. I'm confused. So you're telling me there are only three people making all the costumes (well, all except for the animal costumes which are rented from a costume shop in Stamford). 

Mallory is embarrassed because she has to measure a few of the actors and she's mortified she has to measure boys. I don't blame her; that would be extremely awkward, especially for an eleven year old. I would hate that job because I hate being in people's personal space and I also would be worried I would get the measurements wrong and all the costumes would be too big/too small. Mal gets a list of the people she needs to measure and they include Dawn, Jackie, Karen, Alan Gray, Cokie Mason, and Lucas Danver. Lucas is the "most gorgeous guy at the high school" (according to Dawn) and he's playing Captain Hook. She's able to measure the first three without any problems but is worried about the latter three because she knows Alan is going to embarrass her, Cokie is going to be a bitch, and she's too intimidated to measure Lucas. She manages to weasel her way out of measuring those three, though. 

Some of her storyline ties in with Mary Anne's which we'll talk about next.

Mary Anne gets the title of "backstage baby-sitter" because she's baby-sitting for the Braddocks and accompanies them to a rehearsal. She ends up helping and assisting any kid who needs help or assisting and Mr. Cheney notices this and asks her to come to every rehearsal and watch the kids. 

There's this really stupid part where Mary Anne is afraid to go with Haley and Matt backstage because she thinks she will end up in the play. WTF? Like Mary Anne, I also have stage fight and would never want to be in a play, but I have never been afraid to go backstage and I know that doesn't mean I'm going to end up being onstage! Sometimes I think Mary Anne is too sensitive. 

Mary Anne gets pissed at Mal (poor Mal; I feel like everybody always gets mad at her in the SSs) because Mallory starts taking over her job and is all, "Let me do my job!" I'm sorry, but I think Mary Anne is being a bit bitchy here. You would think she would appreciate the help. At the time she explodes at Mal (Mal tells us she was not quiet when she says that), there are three different issues going on with the kids. There's also at least twenty kids in this cast. Chill the fuck out, Mary Anne, and appreciate Mallory's help. Mallory really does get the shaft in these SSs, doesn't she? 

Claudia is basically a non-entity in this. So much in fact that there's a scene where she's in her bedroom talking to the portrait of Mimi about the play. It's a sweet scene, but it also makes me think they couldn't think of anything to write for the Claud chapters so they just threw that in there. 

Not surprisingly, Claud is creating the backdrop scenery for the play. There's a little subplot where she's worried something is going to happen and a piece of scenery will fall off and hit somebody in the head, but of course, nothing of the sort happens. 

Cokie Mason is a bitch to both Claud and Mal. She tells Mal that she better make her look good and she tells Claud that if anything goes wrong, she's going to blame it on her. I think the ghost writer forgot what job Claudia had because in the following chapter, Claudia is thinking about what Cokie said and she internally narrates, "What did she mean, I better make her look good?" Um, she said that to Mal! 

Oh, yeah, Logan also narrates a chapter. He plays a pirate named Noodler and he's super embarrassed about his name. Get over it, Logan. He also gets kicked out of the play because he keeps fooling around with Alan Gray and the other pirates, but he gets back in the next chapter. Way to keep the suspense there! Jessi throws some serious shade on Logan when he auditions: 

I have to tell you that Logan's audition had not gone too well. He spoke his lines in a loud, flat monotone, barely pausing at commas or periods. He seemed to have forgotten the purpose of punctuation. His singing had not been much better.

I'm guessing his character has no lines; he sounds absolutely awful at acting! Jessi gave him a massive burn with that! 

To end this review, here is my favorite line from Hook: