Mallory knows she's a good baby-sitter. She's been looking after her seven younger brothers and sisters for years. So when Kristy offers her a steady job baby-sitting for the Arnold twins, Mal thinks it'll be easy money.
The twins sure are cute in their little matching outfits. But once Mrs. Arnold leaves, Marilyn and Carolyn turn into twin terrors! They run around the house like spoiled brats, and Mallory can't even tell them apart.
Taking care of Marilyn and Carolyn is a baby-sitting nightmare. But Mallory's a responsible member of the Baby-sitters Club — and she's not giving up!
Summary[]
Mallory Pike sits for troublesome twins and her parents let her get her ears pierced. Her parents also let her get a hair cut.
On page 58 Mallory narrates that Claudia's leg had been broken which happened in Claudia and the Bad Joke.
Inconsistencies
It was described that the twins had on white dresses with pink lace for their birthday party. On the cover, they are wearing pink dresses.
Ann M. Martin's Dear Reader Letter[]
Dear Reader,
When I was young, I thought it would be fun to have an identical twin sister. A popular TV show then was The Patty Duke Show, about a teenage girl and her cousin growing up in Brooklyn. Patty and Cathy were identical. They looked so much alike that they were able to fool people. I knew several sets of twins, including my cousins Lyman and Jimmy, but none of them were identical. They couldn’t get away with what Patty and Cathy could on the show. So I created twins who could — Marilyn and Carolyn Arnold. In fact, I like identical twins so much that I put a set in the Baby-sitters Little Sister series, and the newest member of the Baby-sitters Club is a twin, too. Who knows what kind of trouble Abby and her sister, Anna, will get into?
Logan attends a BSC meeting and jokes about Marilyn and Carolyn's name.
There's a fundraising project at Stoneybrook Elementary School where Mrs. Arnold needs a regular sitter. It lasts until 6:00 p.m.
Nicky is making a model of the solar system for the science fair.
Jessi couldn't tell the triplets apart when she first met them.
The BSC had sat for the twins prior to this book despite this being their debut book.
There's a store that sells miniatures and doll house furniture that Claudia makes earrings out of.
Mimi sometimes tries to teach Claudia Japanese.
Stacey calls in chapter 7.
The Arnold twins are the last characters to age.
Elizabeth and Watson's new hobbies is going to estate sales.
Kristy has and wears a matching dress with Karen, a pink sweatshirt and blue pants, like the ones in Karen's Worst Day.
Dawn is tall enough to help Mr. Arnold put up crepe paper at the party.
The cover is described in chapter 10.
Mallory is good at bargaining.
Mr. and Mrs. Pike agree to let Mallory get her ears pierced. Mrs. Pike said that she didn't have to wear anything plain and could wear fun earrings which gets contradicted in later books.
Mrs. Pike says that it's okay for Mallory to pick her own clothes out as long as its sensible.
Marilyn wants to look more grown up and Carolyn wants something cool.
Kristy likes to watch the guys working at Donut Delite.
Mary Anne and Kristy have earrings for non-pierced ears.