Summer after their 3rd 8th grade year.
Plot
MaryAnne is on this kick thinking she is selfish and self centered, so she is making a valiant effort to be the most giving person in the world. She takes the kids she is babysitting to visit that goddamned goat from the last book, she ends up meeting the goat's neighbor, Mrs. Towne. Mrs. Towne is really good at sewing and making quilts, so she and MA decide to work out a little side hustle - MA will pay MT to give her sewing lessons. It works well until MT gets hurt; she falls and breaks an ankle. She ends up in the hospital for awhile. MA spends her every waking moment helping her, and then MT is all "hey, rather than pay me with money, how about you work off the cost for your lessons?" so then MA feels even more obligated. MT starts calling all the time, and MA ditches all her friends, and Logan, and club meetings to be at her beck and call. Her friends are starting to get pissed (she leaves two meetings in a row to run and like, move something out of a closet for MT).
In the meantime, MA has started a "sewing class" for the neighborhood kids. Some girls and two boys, Nicky and Buddy, take the class. They decide to make a quilt for Mrs. T, and the kids are all fucking pumped. Nicky and Buddy start getting made fun of because they are acting like girls and sewing, so they quit and start doing more manly things. Then they realize that the kid making fun of them is just a bully who will make fun of them no matter what, so they rejoin the class in enough time to finish the quilt.
MA finally grows a pair and tells Mrs. T. she needs to stop taking advantage. Mrs. T admits she didn't really need help, she just wanted MA to come over because she is lonely. They make up.
The end.
Takeaways
The visiting hours at this hospital are from 4-530p and 7-830p. Um...that must be an 80's thing because visiting hours now are whenever the hell you want. Also, when I was in the hospital for my neck I can't imagine if I had been alone all that time.
Mrs. Towne is in the hospital and decides to stay a few extra days. Um. Nope. Or maybe insurance was more relaxed back in the 80's, but there is no way in this day and age you could treat a hospital as a hotel.
It is summer in Stoneybrook. The kids are out of school. I 100% don't believe that they would all be so pumped to sit inside and sew.
Dawn whines her ass off throughout this entire book about how Connecticut is not California.
Best Character
MaryAnne wins, because she honestly tried really hard to be a good person, she just gets taken advantage of.
Worst Character
There are a couple. Mrs. T's son, who can't seem to ever make it to Stoneybrook to help his mom. The bully who bullies Nicky and Buddy. And that fucking goat, because anytime it is mentioned in a book it will be the worst.
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