Baby-Sitters' Island Adventure (SS#4)

Original Publication Date: 1990

Ghostwriter? No, Ann gets all the credit for this!

Synopsis:

Dawn and Claudia go sailing with Becca Ramsey, Haley Braddock, Jeff Schafer, and Jamie Newton and get ship-wrecked on an island in Long Island Sound.

No, seriously.

Dawn and Claudia are taking a sailing class and have a race. It ends in tie, so they agree to a rematch. They will race to a specific island, Dawn taking along Jeff and Haley; Claudia taking Becca and Jamie, and have a picnic there. During the race, a storm comes up and Dawn's boat starts sinking. The six of them manage to get to a nearby island with most of their picnic supplies and end up stranded there for two days and nights. Fortunately, they have food, and Jeff helps keep the younger kids occupied. Jamie ends up getting pretty sick, and Dawn gets freaked out enough to be useless. Claudia ends up getting them rescued by finding a broken piece of a mirror to reflect the sun back toward the rescue planes. She also devises a rain-catcher to collect water while they wait.

Back on the mainland, the rest of the BSC is trying to cope. Mary Anne feels guilty because, after a fight (Dawn forgot to tell Mary Anne that Logan couldn't meet her somwhere; she and Logan got in a fight about that), she told Dawn she wished she'd never see her sister again. Stacey's in New York, and her dad doesn't want to her come home early. Kristy cancels a Krusher-Basher softball game and at first Bart thinks she's just wimping out (they work things out). Mallory and her family go searching quite a bit. Jessi, who was left in charge of Becca and Squirt for the weekend (her parents did give permission for Becca to go sailing, by the way), has to call in her dreaded and strict Aunt Cecelia. More about her next book.



Established or continued in this book:


The Girls (and Logan):

Claudia candy: Ring-Dings and pretzels in her closet

Apparently, Dawn and Claudia have been learning to sail for years; the former in California and the latter on summer vacations.

Jessi has taken after Mallory, and now keeps a journal.


Their Families:

Carol (Mr. Schafer's girlfriend) is starting to grow on Jeff.

Hunter Bruno, in addition to his myriad of allergies, has asthma. If he's gone sailing, they could have played Lord of the Flies!

Sharon Spier lets off on a TV reporter, responding to "How do you feel with two of your kids missing?" with "How do you THINK I feel?!" I wouldn't mention it except that she reacts similarly to a reporter later in Dawn and the School Spirit War. In her defense, I'd probably be more worried about my kids than some TV reporter, too.


The Club:

Haley Braddock still appears to have her mullet/rattail thing, according to the illustrations. On the front cover, the one I think is her also has somewhat dark skin, like Matt Braddock does on the cover of Jessi's Secret Language.


SMS: Nothing new


PSA time: Nothing new


Misc:

So, bulking up on pasta, what Dawn wants to do? Carb-loading works for strenuous sports, but it's best eaten two nights before the cross country race or whatever it is. Not sure if sailing is strenuous enough to warrant carb-loading. I've never sailed, but it seems less physically demanding than a 90-minute soccer game.

Know why you lose more body heat through your head in the cold? Because the rest of you is usually clothed. Meaning, if you're wearing shorts and T-shirt, your head won't be losing heat at a radically different rate than your arms and legs.


The numbers:

Starting 8th grade: 3

Halloweens in 8th grade: 1 (plus one in seventh)

Summers after 8th grade: 2

BSC Fights: 5

SMS Staff: 15

Students (other than the BSC): 35 8th graders, five sixth-graders, five unspecified

Clients: 24

Types of candy in Claudia’s room: 38 (bubble gum, Butterfingers, butterscotch candy, Cheese Doodles, a chocolate bar, cookies, Cracker Jacks, crackers, cupcakes, Ding-Dongs, Doritos, Fritos, gumdrops, Gummi Bears, Heath bars, Hershey's kisses, Ho Hos, jawbreakers, licorice, licorice whips, Lifesavers, M&Ms (regular and peanut), Mallomars, marshmallows, Mentos, mini candy bars, Oreos (Double Stuf), popcorn, pretzels, pretzel sticks, Ring Dings, root beer barrels, salt water taffy, Snickers, taco chips, Tootsie Roll Pops, Tootsie Rolls, Twinkies)

Crushes: Claudia-5 (Guy, Austin Bentley, Timothy Carmody, Trevor Sandbourne, Will Yamakawa), Dawn-1 (Parker Harris), Mary Anne-2 (Alex, Logan Bruno), Stacey-5 (Toby, Pete Black, Pierre D'Amboise, Scott Foley, Sam Thomas), Kristy-1 (Bart Taylor), Mallory-1 (Ben Hobart)