An Open Letter To Ann M. Martin From Mallory Pike

Last week, while describing what she thought her Baby-Sitters Club characters would be up to today, author Ann M. Martin admitted that she had no “strong feelings” about Mallory Pike. Incensed as ever, Mallory Pike wrote in to respond.

Dear Ms. Martin,

It has come to my attention that you recently admitted that you have no “strong feelings” about my future. Well thank effing Christmas crackers, because you didn’t do me any favors in the past!

For years I’ve waited for the opportunity to give you a piece of my mind, but I had to go through a decade of intensive therapy before I could even get my mind together enough to figure out what I was going to say. Do you have ANY idea what my childhood was like? Oh wait! Of course you do! YOU CREATED IT!

Let’s break this down a bit, shall we? In creating a life for me and my friends, you decided that you’d let Claudia be the one who eats whatever the frig she wants and still stays beautiful, that Stacey would have diabetes, but still be super fashionable and cool, that Jessi would be both beautiful and supremely gifted as a dancer, that Kristy would be athletic and business-minded, that Mary Anne would be adorable and shy and loved by boys, that Dawn would be a hippie chick who could wear smocks and look cool simply because she was from California, and that I, Mallory Effing Pike, would be a frizzy Ginger with glasses and braces who bitched all of the time and literally had to share a house with like 900 red-headed step children.

ONE OF THESE KIDS IS DOING HER OWN THING! ONE OF THESE KIDS GOT MAJORLY SCREWED!

I am convinced, Ann M. Martin, that you are anti-Ginger. Who was the only other Ginger kid in the series? Jackie Rodowsky, the worst effing baby-sitting client in Stonybrook. And now I come to find that you’ve imagined great success and happiness for all of my fellow members, but have no “strong feelings” about me? Well I have some strong feelings for you, lady friend! And they’re not good ones! No they aren’t!

If you must know, post-therapy, I turned my life around and am now the head of a Fortune 500 company called “Pike’s Tykes.” Maybe you’ve heard of it? We specialize in daycare for the multi-sibling family. We have an exclusive contract with TLC alone, and are currently providing daycare services for shows like “I Have 94 Siblings” and “My 290 Red Headed Children.” I’m writing this note on a computer that’s encrusted with real diamonds. Claudia and Stacey never made earrings out of those, now did they? No. I didn’t think so.

Though this note may seem a bit harsh, I want you to know that I forgive you. Being pushed around and written as a whiny, pathetic jerk during the formative years of my life forced me to face myself in ways I never thought I would. I decided that I needed to be my own person, outside of the club, and to be more successful than everyone else, so I could rub it in their faces, which I have several times since the club disbanded. Kristy called me a jackass last Christmas. I said, “That’s President Mallory Jackass to you.” She got so mad!

The point is that I don’t need your “strong feelings” anymore, Ann M. Martin. I have feelings of my own. Good feelings. And you can’t take them away from me.

However, if you could write a book that’s all about that gorgeous Ben Hobart coming back into my life and taking me to Sandals for a week, I’d really appreciate it. God, I miss him.