Biogeography: a study of plants in the ecosphere Book

Claudia's english teacher, mrs. hall, informs claudia that a big test is coming up, & claudia needs to do really well (not just pass) if she wants to pass english altogether. mrs. hall suggests that claudia take advantage of the tutoring available in the resource room, but claudia freaks. for some reason, she thinks using the resource room will cause everyone at school to think/know she's a dummy. that doesn't seem very charitable to the kids that currently use the resource room, but hey.

at the babysitters club meeting that afternoon, mrs. rodowsky calls to request a tutor for shea, the oldest of the rodowskys. he has been struggling in school for a long time, & was recently diagnosed with dyslexia. however, even with a diagnosis that explains the real issue behind his learning difficulties, shea thinks he is dumb, & he has become suspicious of all the help & encouragement offered by adults. mrs. rodowsky hopes that tutor closer to him in age will be more successful.

claudia immediately begs off tutoring duty & explains her own school situation to the other sitters. they suggest that she get a tutor too. claudia is sad...until stacey offers to be her tutor. claudia is pleased that her best friend is stepping up to make herself truly helpful, & agrees to stacey's offer. meanwhile, mary anne takes the first tutoring session with shea.

the first time stacey comes over to help claudia study for her english test, she suggests that they work in the kitchen. she covers up all the clocks so claudia won't be distracted by the passage of time, & she gets very school marm-ish, making claudia work with spelling flash cards & such forth. claudia is grumpy, but tries to remember that stacey is trying to be helpful & be a friend. the next time stacey comes by for a tutoring session, she gives claudia a gift: a marbled composition book. at first, claudia is grateful, because she thinks stacey has given her a new sketchbook. claudia often uses the marbled composition books as sketchbooks because she can use them to draw in class & it looks like she's taking notes. then stacey explains that the notebook is claudia's new journal. she says that keeping a journal will help claudia practice writing in full sentences & paragraphs, & that she should try to work her vocbulary words into her entries. stacey will then correct her entries for spelling & grammar.

claudia is NOT pleased. she thinks it's pretty damn presumptuous of stacey to think she's going to take a red pen to claudia's innermost thoughts. so she decides to write very impersonal entries in the "official" journal, for which she look up every single word & prevent stacey from finding any fault, & she'll keep a private journal in which she complains about stacey's dictatorial tutoring style. i think we all see the wacky mishap soon to occur.

meanwhile, mary anne didn't have much luck with shea. he is really struggling & he really seems to think he is dumb. he often becomes frustrated & gives up on his work. & jackie & archie act weird when mary anne is over. she turns around to find them staring into shea's bedroom at the tutoring session, giggling together. at first she wonders if they're laughing at shea for needing extra help, but she reminds herself that jackie may be clumsy, but he's not mean-spirited. then she wonders if maybe they are jealous of the attention shea is receiving.

after mary anne's first study session with shea, she goes to a babysitters club meeting, which is interrupted by janine delivering a note she found addressed to the babysitters club on the front door. it says, "you are nice." janine cracks me up by saying something to the effect of, "it appears you are receiving special recognition for your positive efforts. how gratifying." god, i love janine. none of the sitters have any clue who is sending the notes...but they all wonder if maybe it's a boy working up the courage to ask them to the upcoming spring dance at the community center. hey, geniuses? why is it addressed to the entire babysitters club, then?

claudia isn't taking many new sitting jobs because she needs to spend all her time preparing for her english test, but she did have a job with the rodowskys already lined up. the boys are practicing softball when she arrives, & claudia notices that shea is a really good player, & really patient at helping the younger boys out with their skills. later, she asks him about his schoolwork & he becomes very critical of himself. claudia is all, "you can do it, shea, you're a smart kid," but she can tell it's not helping him. she knows because that's the same thing her parents & teachers have been telling her for years, & it's never helped her. but she doesn't know what else to say.

at her next tutoring session with stacey, stacey asks to correct claudia's journal. claudia forks it over, feeling quite smug about its perfect spelling. so she's shocked when stacey starts marking it up with a red pen. turns out, claudia made quite a few grammatical errors (writing "it's" for the possessive form of "its," for example). claudia is outraged & asks how she's supposed to learn with all the confusing rules of the english language. stacey is also not especially impressed by all the work claudia did decorating her flash cards with cute drawings. claudia thinks stacey is acting like a stern alien teacher.

it all comes to a head during the babysitters club meeting, when the girls get another weird secret admirer note on the door. this one says, "you're the greatest." stacey immediately concludes that it's for her, from sam. claudia hulks out & accuses stacey of being conceited. stacey has some choice words about claudia's lack of effort in school. claudia ends up kicking stacey out of her room, & hence, out of the meeting. all the other sitters are like, "holy shit." but none of them want to get in the middle of it. after everyone cleaves, claudia lets fly in her secret journal, writing all about how much stacey sucks as a friend & tutor.

claudia has nother job at the rodowskys, but she's in a shitty mood because of her fight with stacey. shea says something about his homework, & rather than lathering him up with platitudes, claudia sighs & says, "i know what you mean." she goes on to explain that she really struggles in school too, & might even fail english if she doesn't do okay on an upcoming test. shea is really interested & curious in her problems, & asks her to help him work on his spelling. claudia's all like, "okay, but i'm going to have to see the words, because otherwise i will have no idea if you're spelling them right." while she is quizzing him, she notices that shea has developed a few little tricks for sounding out words & figuring out how they're spelled. she asks him about his technique & is bowled over by the elegant simplicity of his explanations. she then asks him to quiz her, & she tries out some of his tricks & finds they work for her too. shea crunches some numbers in his head & tells claudia how many questions she needs to get right to get a high enough grade to pass her class, & she is like, "whoa, how did you do that in your head?" it turns out that shea is really good at math, & lots of other things too. it's just reading & writing that are hard for him, because of his dyslexia. together, they make a good tutoring team, each helping the other.

back home, claudia wants to tell stacey about her awesome session with shea...but they're not talking. claudia is sad.

after the next babysitters club meeting, stacey asks for claudia's journal because she needs to correct it again. claudia is distracted & stacey accidentally takes the secret journal. we all saw this one coming. when claudia realizes the mistake later that evening, she is like, "oh shit. so much for having a best friend." she seems to have a pretty easy time compartmentalizing the problem, & gets to work on her flash cards instead.

when the test rolls around, claudia works really, really hard...& scores a B-, which is enough to pass the class. she is overjoyed...but she still has to sort things out with stacey. meanwhile, the babysitters got another note, asking them to meet their admirers at the rosebud cafe on saturday morning. they become convinced that the admirers are cokie & grace trying to pull some mean trick of them (since sending fake admirer notes does seem to be cokie's stock in trade), so kristy suggests they all dress really badly & come armed with practical joke supplies. the whole "dressing badly" thing is a transparent plot device. i don't see how cokie & grace would be impacted in any negative way by the babysitters looking ugly. when the girls show up, they discover that their admirers are some of their charges--the rodowsky boys, the arnold twins, the braddocks--wanting to treat them to ice cream to thank them for being awesome sitters. the babysitters quickly de-uglify themselves (with limited success in cases like mallory) & enjoy their ice cream.

that afternoon, stacey calls claudia & asks if they can talk. claudia heads to stacey's house, & they both wind up apologizing: claudia for writing mean things about stacey, & stacey for turning into a bossy britches over the tutoring. they patch things up, & later, claudia receives a hand-written note for shea, thanking her for study help & being a friend.

the tagline on the cover is, "claudia & shea can't spell...but they can still be friends!" like spelling is some kind of pre-requisite for being friends in some parts of the world? weird.