“Do I look like a pleasant third-grade teacher with a headache?” BSC #93: Mary Anne and the Memory Garden (1996)

Uhoh y’all. This book is a Serious Issue. Better be prepared to be preached at, or offended, or…something. Just don’t be prepared to actually learn anything.

Mary Anne is working on a group project for English, with a couple of kids who have been mentioned once or twice before. One of them, Amelia, is killed in a car accident when her family car is hit by a drunk driver. Mary Anne feels down about it, sees her old therapist, and then decides to create the titular memory garden in honor of Amelia.

In the (extremely stupid) B-plot, Dawn has a trash-filled vacant lot near her. She decides to clean it up, but runs into some trouble from the owner. Understandably, given what happens. Just see the tidbits. This plotline is too stupid to go over twice.

Extremely Serious Tidbits

The cover: Aww, Mary Anne is soooooooo sad. The bench is making her want to cry.

So yeah. I’m being Extremely Serious here.

Sharon loves leaving Christmas decorations up. And singing Christmas carols. Neither one of these things surprise me.

Mary Anne’s new year’s resolutions: Do better in English, write letters to Dawn instead of calling her, and be more outgoing. She doesn’t ask for too much, does she? The one that gets me is the first one. The more I reread these books, the more interesting I find Mary Anne. She’s the kind of girl who takes school very seriously, but although she seems fairly studious, she doesn’t always do that well in her classes. I’m not just talking about her flunking home ec either. This isn’t the first time Mary Anne’s English grade has been a concern. I’m pretty sure it was her English grade that led her to seek out therapy, as mentioned in the Chain Letter. I like the fact that she wants to do well but struggles with it sometimes, because I feel like a lot of girls can relate to that.

Speaking of Mary Anne’s therapist, does anyone think that if these books were written now, she’d be the one on antianxiety meds? I can picture MA needing a prescription of Zoloft. It would be the kind of thing that they’d slip into chapter two: Stacey takes insulin, Mary Anne takes Zoloft, Claudia takes Ritalin….

(I’m not saying Claudia needs Ritalin. But I feel like a lot of Claudia-type kids get diagnosed with ADD simply because school doesn’t interest them and their attention wanders.)

Ooh, Mary Anne had a Teeki moment and couldn’t get her locker open on her first day back at school. I’ve always hated lockers, and even though I know how to open my lock, it always takes me several tries. Alan actually has to help her with the locker.

So what is the English project that MA is working on with Amelia, Barbara (Amelia’s best friend) and Gordon? Her teacher calls it Meet Mr. Bill, but it’s not the good Mr. Bill. She’s talking about Shakespeare. Ms. Simon even names the groups with cheesy Shakespeare names: Will Power, Howdy Bard, Play Bill, etc.

Claudia hands out cookies that say Happy New Yeer! For her, that’s pretty good. It’s almost a passing score.

Ha! Amelia’s handwriting looks like a 1980s computer font.

Claudia’s making a Rube Goldberg machine for art class. I remember kids doing that in my high school…for physics class. If they bring some science into it, Claudia could actually learn a lot.

Awww. MA holds hands with Sharon and Richard, who are holding hands with each other. Family circle! How sweet! (If I were a little less hormonal, this would probably make me want to barf.)

Claudia listens to the radio every morning. Mary Anne suggests this is because she’s hoping school will be cancelled because of snow or heavy rain…or, adds Logan, because of a heat wave. I like the way he thinks.

Dammit! I actually did cry during MA’s English class, the class she shared with Amelia, when the various kids were talking about things like how final death is.

I do like this though: Mary Anne’s not just upset because Amelia is dead, but because she’s suddenly realized that she’s not immortal. When I was Mary Anne’s age, I was obsessed with what my mother called ‘death books.’ Those who grew up in the late-80s/early-90s will recognize what I mean with one name: Lurlene McDaniel. However, the best ‘death book’ was actually Lois Lowry’s A Summer to Die. In that book, thirteen-year-old Meg’s older sister is diagnosed with leukemia, which in those days (late 1970s) was still close to a death sentence. At one point, an elderly friend of hers (whose late wife was also a Margaret) recites her part of a poem, about a young girl who is mourning the loss of the leaves in the fall:

            It is the blight man was born for

            It is Margaret you mourn for

(Gerald Manley Hopkins, “Spring and Fall”) That poem has always stuck with me, because it’s the honest truth. When we mourn the loss of others, at least one layer of that is the realization that someday, that will be us that others are mourning. (And the main reason why A Summer to Die is so much better than most of the death books is that the story isn’t about Meg’s sister Molly dying; it’s about how Meg and her family deal with it. Instead of a protracted death scene, Molly’s death is mentioned in passing.)

Oh, look. Let’s counterpoint Mary Anne’s grief with Dawn’s sitting job for the gruesome twosome: Ryan and Erick DeWitt. (Their mother calls them Knights of the Kitchen Table because one of them is dressed as a knight. And the title quote is what she says before she leaves for an aspirin commercial audition.)

Okay, I no longer feel bad about crying, since Kristy is crying. (Yeah, I know. I’m comparing myself to a fictional character. Just…shut up, okay?)

I like this, too: Abby’s the one who tells everyone how to deal with Amelia’s brother and best friend. She should be the one, considering she’d gone through that herself just a few years earlier…

Kristy’s still not back to normal, so it’s Abby who calls the school lunch “Mystery Meat on Toast.”

This book isn’t just a Death book or a Drunk Driving book. It’s also a Depression book. (That’s a lot of Ds, people.) By chapter 11, Kristy—who was teary and at lost ends for a while—is back to normal, planning a SMS chapter of Students Against Drunk Driving. But Mary Anne is tired all the time, doesn’t feel like doing anything, cries at the drop of the hat (of course, she does that anyway, but it’s worse than normal) and when she doesn’t feel like crying, she feels nothing at all. Hmm. I wonder what’s wrong with her?!?

I like Dr. Reese, too. She explains that Kristy was upset after Amelia’s death because it was a problem she couldn’t solve, and now she’s feeling better because she found a purpose. SADD lets her honor Amelia and feel like she’s making a difference, even if it won’t bring her back. She suggests that MA’s feelings are different (grief, not lack of control over her own fate), but that MA find her own way to honor Amelia.

So here’s what’s going on in California. After one of the DeWitts injures himself on a rusty nail in the trash-filled vacant lot in her neighborhood, Dawn decides to clean it up. She writes letters to the lot’s owner, and when he doesn’t respond right away, the We Heart Kids Club and their clients clean up all the garbage, which is fine. But they decide they want to plant a garden there, even deciding to put in a (free) gazebo. Oookay…That sounds nice. Think about flower beds and stone paths and a pretty gazebo. Definitely an improvement, right? But that property belongs to someone, who has the right to do with the property as they see fit, even if they want to leave it as an eyesore. Dawn and her friends have no right. If they just went in and planted a few annuals, no biggie. But they’re talking about making a community garden in a place that’s not community space. (The owner shows up as they’re almost finished. He’s not happy but since he has no actual plans for the lot, he lets them keep going with their garden plans.)

Setting up a later plot: Peaches is pregnant again. Since these books are about one a month (this one is January, #94 is February, #95 March, etc.) then that means that Peaches waited until she was more than halfway through her pregnancy before she announced it this time. I know I said last time that she should have waited a little while before announcing/shopping but that’s pretty crazy. Although, a woman I know who had two miscarriages and a set of stillborn twins waited until she was nearly thirty weeks before announcing her fourth pregnancy, which resulted in a healthy baby boy. (Oh, and Mary Anne says Peaches had a miscarriage, which is never said back in that book. They just say she ‘lost the baby.’)

On a lighter note: I just realized that in her ‘family portrait’ at the end of the book, Mary Anne is wearing spandex. BAD MARY ANNE!

Outfits

Kristy: sweatshirt and jeans

Mary Anne: Claudia-decorated vest with pins and a silk rose; jean skirt, red sweater, loafers; navy plaid skirt and sweater

Claudia: black and white striped trousers, black long-sleeved t-shirt, red suspenders, red-sequined sneakers, black derby with red and white ribbon

Dr. Reese: chinos, sweater, polo

Coming: It’ll be November by the time I post this. I’m going to be doing Kristy, Mary Anne, Abby and Claudia, in that order, in November. Expect a vlog somewhere around there, too. I only have a couple more vlogs planned, but I’m trying to brainstorm a few other ideas.

The time wonkiness thing

I know updates have been slow lately. It's not that I haven't been blogging so much as I haven't been posting. The updates I did last week were all from October--hence why I said that it was a little early for a Thanksgiving book that I was posting right around Thanksgiving--and these little gems I'm about to post represent November and this past weekend.

So what's my excuse? I don't have one! I started a new job in October that basically involves firing people left and right. It's exhausting and takes most of my energy. On the plus side, I can now do my updating from my own couch. Hopefully, now that I'll be caught up, I'll post each entry weekly as I finish.

In the meantime, patience.

“Mary Anne? Is there a reason you want to wait for the bus in the middle of the road?” BSC Super Mystery #2: Babysitters Beware (1995)

I should, in theory, like this book. It’s the sort of book that rewards you for having read earlier books. I’ve always enjoyed that sort of thing on television, whether it was introducing a plot point and then letting it go for so long you forgot about it and then bringing it back up years later (hello, Angela’s real name), or silly self-referential comments (“Would both Alex Yankou and Pete Riley please report to the office?”)

That said, this book BITES! It’s convoluted and the parts that are supposed to be scary are silly and cheesy. The best way for me to lay it out is to literally just make a list of what happens and then tie it together…maybe. Some of it doesn’t tie really well.

1.    Abby and Kristy witness what appears to be an attempted robbery next the Rodowskys’ house, the Seger family

2.    Someone throws a brick through Kristy’s front window and spray paints “You’re next” on her door

3.    Mary Anne and Logan each get notes that look like they are in the other’s handwriting, that say weird things like “Stop crying” and “Why do you do the things you do?”

4.    A fire starts in Claudia’s back yard while she, Janine, MA and Stacey are in the house

5.    Claudia, Mary Anne, Kristy and Stacey all keep getting creepy phone calls—hang ups and someone whispering “You’re next”

6.    Abby finds a photocopy of a photo of the four who keep getting the calls and Dawn in the recycle bin next to the photocopier at the library

7.    Someone sticks a note on Tigger’s collar that says…you got it… “You’re next”

8.    Stacey nearly gets hit by a car with a Springfield Business Bureau sticker on it

9.    Then, at Shadow Lake for some skiing, Stacey gets stuck in the chair lift

10. A snowblower buries Kristy in a little mini-avalanche

11. Someone removes a Closed sign from a black-diamond trail and Claudia nearly falls into a ravine

12. Mary Anne catches someone breaking into the Seger house and the Segers’ son is arrested for it

13. After a blizzard starts at Shadow Lake, someone snaps Kristy’s monogrammed ski poles in half and then Stacey sees a woman from the ski lodge skulking around with a gun

14. Stacey’s insulin goes missing, and some other, less serious stuff occurs in the cabin while the sitters and Kristy’s brothers are in the other room

15. Mary Anne, Shannon and Logan all get locked in the house of their suspected stalker and don’t get in trouble; his wife just says, “You have to stop him!”

16. The Shadow Lakers get chased down the trail by a deranged lunatic, but the woman they saw lurking turns out to be a police officer. They think that’s the end of things, but it turns out the lunatic is really someone else, who attacks them and threatens to throw Stacey in the lake

So what the $^#! is going on here? Woodrow Tate, son of Karl Tate, the villain from the dog-napping mystery, is out to get revenge on the BSC members for what happened to his father. He’s responsible for the vast majority of the above weirdness, but Ol’ Karl himself joins him at Shadow Lake in an effort to stop his son. After Karl gets arrested, Woodie keeps after the BSC. The Seger storyline has nothing to do with the rest of it—it’s just coincidence—and you never do figure out what’s going on with the notes between Logan and Mary Anne.

Interesting tidbits

The cover. Ooh, Scary! But Andrew seems more interested in the snow than the deranged dude outside.

This book’s claim to infamy: It is the introduction of the mystery notebook and Mallory’s near-obsession with it. I think she likes that notebook more than she likes Ben Hobart…or even Misty of Chincoteague.

Books referenced in this flashback: #2, #81; Mysteries #7, #10, #11, #14, #16; Super Special #8 +

Kristy catches DM and Karen watching a really cheesy horror movie and tries to get them to turn it off…because it’s freaking her out. This is the response. Karen: “Don’t worry. He doesn’t eat her yet.” DM: “And it’s really fake-looking when he does.”

It’s insinuated that, even though it hasn’t been mentioned since SS #8, Kristy’s family spends a lot of time at the cabin on Shadow Lake. She always feels left out, so Watson let her bring some friends this time.

SS #12 marked the beginning of something important and realistic in the BSC-verse. The BSC was split up for that book, with half in California, and half in Connecticut. In SM #1, part of them are in Maine, part in Connecticut. Everyone but Mal and Kristy go to Hawaii in SS #13, and some go to Europe while some work a day camp in SS #15. That’s true in this book too, with Kristy, Stacey, Claudia and Abby at Shadow Lake and Mary Anne, Mal and Jessi back in Stoneybrook.

Kristy suggests that Shannon’s life is booked years in advance. I can picture adult Shannon pulling out her date book and telling her fiancé, “Sorry, we can’t get married for at least four years. I’m booked up until then.”

Bad pun alert! Mallory points out how much insulation is in her basement, and Abby says, “I see you’re warming to the subject.”

Stacey calls Abby One Tough Cookie because she’s willing to stand up to Kristy. I don’t think that makes someone a tough cookie, but I do see how that would be refreshing in the BSC.

Archibald. Heh. I love the name Archie, but I’d probably just name the kid Archie.

I love that Abby is still so new that people don’t know who she is yet. It’s not like the BSC would send around a flier with her name and photo on it when she joined the club. Mrs. Rodowsky only knows who she is because she’s wearing a nametag that says, “My name is Abby Stevenson, get out of my way.” Oh, Abby.

Oh, Abby, pt. 2: She thinks it’s ‘excellent’ that someone is casing the neighborhood to plan a robbery. Honestly, though, the rest of the BSC feels the same way about it—they just don’t say so in front of Sgt. Johnson.

Really bad pun #2: Abby thinks it would be a crime not to give everyone a clue about the attempted robbery.

The main thing Kristy and Abby relay about the robbery is that the guy they saw running away had “evil, ski-mask framed eyes.” I actually like that turn of phrase.

I love the BSC logic of “I don’t want to worry my parents, so I won’t tell them about all the freaky-deaky and illegal things that are happening around me. I’ll just solve it myself with my middle school friends, and maybe our favorite pedophile detective.” At least Kristy has an excuse for it this time: she’s afraid Watson will have another heart attack. (I never said it was a good excuse.)

Mary Anne’s dressing up for a big date with Logan…to celebrate football season ending. The most interesting part about it is actually the fact that he says he’s going to take her to a ‘real’ restaurant, as opposed to all those fake restaurants they usually go to.

The title quote is what Claudia says when MA stops in the middle of the street after thinking someone’s watching her.

YES! Claudia’s responsible for starting dinner, so she contemplates serving Twinkie casserole with Dream Whip topping. (In reality, she just has to make a salad and set the table.)

Claudia spelling! Smoak, beleieve, hapenned, purpos, firefigters. She also uses off for of.

You know this mystery is really getting to the BSC, because a) Kristy let a meeting run UNTIL 6:10 ONE NIGHT!* and b) they actually forget to answer the phone when it rings. It’s like they forgot they weren’t Scooby Doo in the mystery machine and that their real purpose for getting together is to, y’know, line up babysitting jobs.

(*You have to wonder why Charlie didn’t come ring the doorbell and ask where the #$*! Kristy and Abby were. I have my theories on this. One is the popular fan fiction idea that he likes driving Kristy to meetings so that he can spend time with Janine. Then there’s the boring suggestion that he was studying in the car while waiting. I actually prefer the theory that Charlie isn’t actually Kristy’s brother at all, but a robot in disguise as a teenager, a la Vicki on Small Wonder.)

Claudia worries about Stacey getting “killed dead” skiing on trails that are too hard for her. I wonder what happens if you don’t get killed dead? Zombie Stacey anyone?

Kristy’s the one who suggests having a mystery notebook, but Mal volunteers to go through the gigantic club notebook and find all the clues from previous cases and put them in one place. That must have taken her hours, so it’s no wonder she’s so obsessive about the notebook in later books.

Zounds! A Shannon chapter! She calls Kristy a PI and WOA—“Private Investigator and Woman of Action.”

Mallory’s on a stakeout. That sounds so much more fun than saying she’s sitting at the Rodowskys’.

Really Bad Pun #3: Someone calls Kristy Agatha Kristy. I heartily approve and endorse this pun. (Shannon wonders where Abby gets all her awful puns, but I just hope she doesn’t stop…at least for the rest of this book.)

Kristy describes Claudia as sneaky, devious and excellent…because she knows how to manipulate Janine into giving her information.

Once again, you know something horrible has happened…because Abby’s being deathly serious. The photo Abby finds while digging through the recycle bin is from “The Mallory Book” (Mystery #7). Mal and Jessi were on the ends of the photo and got cropped out…which is symbolic of this whole series to date. But it also explains why they (and Abby) aren’t getting the crank calls.

Mal says she’s not built for stakeouts…because she has red hair. She suggests it’s why she’s the first one called on in class, but I always pictured her being that kid who sits in the front row and looks like she knows what she’s doing. It’s not her hair, it’s the word NERD written across her forehead.

Volume One of the Autobiography of Mallory Pike: Chaos and Catastrophe. I’m not surprised Mal would think she needs a multi-volume autobiography. Come to think of it, that’s probably the reason that she and Jessi didn’t get Portrait Collection books. Hmm…

A final Mal note before the chapter ends: Mal thinks her parents’ obsession with insulation has become unhealthy, because when she arrives home, her mother asks if she’s wearing enough layers. That’s actually funny, and more subtle than most of the jokes in this series.

In case you forgot Stacey was from NYC, she compares something to an express subway train.

“We’re part of his little phone terrorist circle.” Has anyone noticed how many of my favorite quotes in this book are either Claudia (like this one) or Abby? Why not share the love and let Stacey or Jessi say something awesome every now and then?

Speaking of Claudia: Stasey, proboly (that’s how I used to spell it when I was about six), acident, Abbey, polise, sombody, somthing. She also uses shuck for shook and too for to. I have to give her a little bit of credit though: she spelled Kristy correctly.

It's weird to have Abby refer to Watson as ‘Watson’ in one paragraph and then as ‘Mr. Brewer’ in the next. He’s Watson when he’s talking to Kristy and Mr. Brewer when he’s not. They need to be consistent about it. (I mean, when I was growing up I always referred to Tessie’s parents as ‘Greg and Mona’—not their real names, but you get the picture—and my friend Kelly’s parents as Mr. and Mrs. Kellysparents or later as Mama and Papa Kellysparents. But I didn’t just randomly decide to call Mr. Kellysdad Steve one day and see how that went over. I still think I couldn’t call him by his first name to this day.)

YES! Abby says that Karen is “…plugged into Mars. I’ve never met a kid like her.” That doesn’t sound like a compliment, which means I now officially love Abby. (BTW, Karen even annoys her own father on the way to Shadow Lake. He just doesn’t come out and say so.)

Jessi ponders Mal’s life philosophy, which I think is like pondering why Emo kids are so mopey. But she comes up with “Insulation equals Isolation.” I’m not sure what exactly it is that’s making Mal sulk all the time, but I suspect it has more to do with seasonal affective disorder (this is right before Christmas) than the actual insulation.

Actual (although ineffectual) foreshadowing of sorts: Becca had spotted a man with a blue tattoo on his face, much like the one she and Charlotte had seen while playing detective in M#10—the guy who ended up being the counterfeiter. So Mal and Jessi take the Pikes (and Becca) out for the day to look for blue tattoos. Vanessa suggests that the tattoo-faced guy could have broken out of prison to exact revenge on the BSC. Between that and all the references back to earlier mysteries, it should have been easy for first-time readers to see where this story was going…at least, that the suspect related to one of those earlier crimes.

They finally find the guy Becca has seen making salad at the pizza place. Mal’s so distracted that she tries to order a blue pizza.

Claudia has her priorities straight: when she and the other girls at Shadow Lake go skiing, she refuses to leave until she puts a Ring Ding in her pocket, for ‘nourishment.’

Whenever someone who writes in cursive (Kristy, Mary Anne) wants to put emphasis on something in a notebook entry, they switch to print. It’s odd, especially because they used the Dawn-handwriting font for Mary Anne’s printing.

When Mary Anne sees someone break into the Segers’ house—the same house they’d been staking out every time they sat for the Rodowskys’—she calls Sgt. Johnson, and then Logan. The Rodowskys come home before Logan gets there, but they’re not mad MA invited her boyfriend over, given the circumstances. A) I’m not sure I’d believe her if I were them. B) How the hell is Logan, with his 13-year-old boy skinny body, going to protect her from anyone? Honestly, not that he’d be much better in ‘protecting’ her, but she’d have been better off calling her dad.

CBC: Crime Busters Club. Don’t encourage them, Sgt. Johnson…even if they do your job better than you do.

An emergency meeting at Shannon’s house! That seems sort of odd, but I love it nonetheless. I always feel like, when they have emergency meetings at house with younger siblings, the sibs should be eavesdropping or being pesty.

If Logan really thought Mary Anne was sending him threatening notes, why did he agree to go ‘rescue’ her from burglars? Or show up at Shannon’s for the meeting?

Actually, the best part about the meeting at Shannon’s is the fact that she keeps whipping out the phone every time someone has an idea and just calling about it. When Kristy’s in charge at meetings, they seem to have to run everything by her first. Shannon seems to enjoy the freedom to just do whatever she’s thinking, without checking with the others first.

Watson and Elizabeth go to get supplies before the blizzard gets too bad and take the little kids with them. Sam tells them not to worry, because he’s there. He flexes his muscle. Stacey calls him a ‘nerd body builder.’ Later, the two of them talk, finishing a D-level plot about her worrying about him trying to get back together with her (since they first got together at Shadow Lake). He admits he’s just using her for flirting practice, which I love.

I’m trying to place the first time someone refers to a Pike-family station wagon as a Pike-mobile. I thought I’d coined that one, but Shannon uses it in this book and I’m thinking it’s happened a few other times throughout the series.

OH! I knew there was a book where Logan, Shannon and Mary Anne were in a bad guy’s house together. I just didn’t remember it was this one. Shannon’s dog Astrid chases a cat into Karl Tate’s house. They have to get her back out and she refuses to come when called, so they open an unlocked door and walk in. Trespassers! (Logan even makes the argument that they’re not breaking and entering, since the door wasn’t locked.) Somehow, they get locked into his former office…with the dog.

Spelling! Waching, scarry, readding, becaus, madeup, traped, maneiac. She also uses moor for more.

Claudia keeps getting freaked out during the blizzard, pointing out how horror-movie-esque everything is. To be fair, it’s more because of the woman outside with a gun than the snow, but she refuses to let anyone split off from the six that are locked into the house (four babysitters, plus Charlie and Sam).

Mistake! During the Claudia chapter, someone rips open her pillow and spills her red nail polish in the mess. But it says Claudia’s red nail polish instead of my red nail polish

Shannon should get a job as a mediator. She solves the Logan/Mary Anne fight by making them talk about it.

I love this notebook entry: “Did I ask for this? When I joined the BSC, I wanted a job, some friends. By friends, I did not mean acquaintances in low places. You know, like maniacs. And convicted felons…”

Abby pelts a chunk of frozen snow at Karl Tate, and the police officer they’d seen with a gun earlier, Kris Renn, compliments her aim. (She manages to knock him out.) Because she’s Abby, she decides to enter the Olympics in ice hurling competition.

Horribly awful pun: The BSC solves mysteries with flare.

Is it awful that when Woodie Tate threatens to toss Stacey in the lake, I really wanted him to follow through?

Woodie asks, “My father. Karl Tate? Remember him?” Um, yes. Even if we didn’t remember back when he was kidnapping dogs, much to Mallory and Dawn’s horror, he was literally arrested (again) two chapters ago.

Abby goes to throw something at Woodie, but instead Stacey just elbows him so he’s the one who falls into the lake. I almost wish she’d elbowed him in the groin instead of the stomach, but there you are. I’m clearly just a horrible person by this point.

Ooh, that’s it. Even though they don’t really mention Christmas in this book, I’ll quote the TV episode I was binge watching when I started this sucker: “Happy holidays, broomhead!”

Outfits

Claudia: purple leggings under black bike shorts (NOOOOOOO!), t-shirt that says “This might be art”, suit jacket, Doc Martens with red socks

Stacey: black leggings, turtleneck sweater, cowboy boots, black suede vest

Mary Anne: thin, lace edged sweater, skirt, belt, patterned stockings

Next: We start 1996 with #93. I’d say I’d cry, but y’know. It’s a BSC book. If I were going to cry, it wouldn’t be because someone died, but because there was too much Karen in it.

“Jake didn’t seem to mind being compared to a dish of ice cream.” BSC #91: Claudia and the First Thanksgiving (1995)

Happy Turkey Day! It’s a little early, but since many stores are setting Christmas already, I guess we’re not that far off. Let’s go on.

You know I ‘love’ when the BSC addresses an issue, but does it in a mild, preteen-friendly kind of way. This book surrounds issues of censorship. Claudia’s drama class (another one of those short takes classes) writes a Thanksgiving play to put on with the SES third graders. The trouble is, they research the holiday and then write up a play comparing and contrasting the way things were, then and now. For example, the main character is shocked that Pilgrim women are considered the property of men, and she mentions that these days some Native American tribes protest Thanksgiving and consider it a day of mourning. Parents and some of the teachers read the play and protest; many of them feel that the Pilgrims should be applauded for coming to America and ‘taming the savage natives.’ The class decides to censor their play for the third graders and another group of students put on the original play using a middle school cast.

Meanwhile, everyone’s Thanksgiving plans mysteriously fall through, so the BSC families all get together as Kristy’s for the holiday.

Interesting Tidbits

The cover: Claudia looks like she’s wearing a snood, with a matching vest.

Oh, Claudia. She starts the book making a pun, but then she ruins it by explaining it’s a pun. It’s like a book I once read where one of the characters made really horrible jokes all the time, but made them even worse by saying, ‘Get it?’ afterward. This pun isn’t even good enough for the ‘really bad pun’ tag.

Now she’s color-coordinating her breakfast with her outfit. That’s okay, because it seems like the rest of her family color coordinated too.

Chapter one is chock-full of outfits! I love it! Although, I can understand it when Jessi shows up at a BSC meeting with her leotard under her clothes (since she runs straight from ballet class), but why does she wear them under her clothes a large chunk of the time?

Ah, math jokes. Stacey loved the Math for Real Life short takes class, but Claudia would have rather had a Learning to Hire an Accountant class.

Some of these short takes classes do sound pretty interesting. The one the eighth graders are finishing is called Learning to Read and it’s about learning how to interpret what you read in the newspaper, such as reading different sources and determining how they slant the news. I learned all of that in journalism class in high school: where an article is placed, how prominently, how the headline is phrased and how things are reported, etc. (For example, there’s an old story that I’m not sure is true about the Soviets back in the day reporting that they came in second in a race and the Americans came in second to last. They didn’t mention that there were only two contestants, the Americans and the Soviets.)

Claudia points out that all the holidays are at the same time, right as the weather gets bad. She suggests moving them to the spring, but I kind of think that there’s a conspiracy involved here. They put all the holidays in the bad weather so that (most) people don’t get depressed as the days get shorter and the weather gets terrible.

Betsy Sobak gets reintroduced in the beginning of chapter two, where it’s insinuated that the BSC has been babysitting for her ever since #19, even though she hasn’t been mentioned in more than sixty books.

Thanksgiving is Claudia’s favorite holiday. I would think it would be Halloween or Easter, just because of all the junk food potential.

The kids in Claudia’s drama class: Stacey, Abby, Erica Blumberg, Rick Chow, and ten others who don’t get mentioned.

Abby gives the movie version of The Incredible Journey four barks, which Stacey follows up with four meows. The BSC comedy team? I give them half a star.

Stacey calls Thanksgiving the Thanksgiving of Doom, but she seems to think it’s funny, because she keeps snickering about it. I’m mostly amused because it’s the second time the Pike family have been invited to sit in the seats for the Macy’s parade but haven’t been able to go.

Kristy asks how many people it would be if you combine all the BSC families that will be in town over Thanksgiving—everyone but Shannon and Logan—and Stacey instantly gives her a number. How does she know? There are variables. For example, will Karen and Andrew be there? What about Jeff and Dawn? Maybe Nannie is going to visit her other daughters, who will be together for the holiday….

Kristy’s idea of a good conversation starter: “Listen, you know Thanksgiving?” That’s a set up for a smart-ass reply if I ever heard one.

I love how Charlotte was in second grade in the early books, they always mention her skipping a grade and yet here she is…in third grade.

I love the fact that the eighth graders don’t give a copy of the play to the third grade teacher, the elementary school principal or ANYONE outside their class and teacher until the roles have already been cast. This story would have gone very differently if they had. It’s like all the stories of school newspaper censorship. Legally, schools have the right to censor their students on some levels, although they cannot punish them just for having opinions and voicing them. It’s all very complicated, with several court cases involved. My high school newspaper had what’s called a Tinker Clause in our constitution, promising that the school could not censor our work at any time, but most schools don’t have such things, meaning that the administration is allowed to censor the writing of the students for the ‘greater good’ of the student body.

The title quote comes after Laurel calls Jake’s acting ‘super-duper extra-special,’ which is the name of a frozen treat at the ice cream parlor.

When the BSC asks the Brewers to host Thanksgiving dinner, Kristy says, “It’s only thirty-six people.” There’s nothing funnier than Nannie snorting back laughter and trying to hide it by taking a drink of coffee.

By the way, that thirty-six people doesn’t include Karen, Andrew, Dawn, Jeff, or the ghost of Ben Brewer. But as we all know, he only eats ghost pate and other delicacies in the attic, anyway.

“I wondered what Susie’s mom thought we were painting. Naked Pilgrims?” This made me laugh because I started picturing Adam and Eve wearing fig leaves in the background of the play.

I like how Jessi sums up the A-plot of the story: “They’re scared. It’s easier to believe fiction than fact.” Honestly, the problem isn’t that it’s easier to believe fiction. It’s that the parents and teachers who are upset at the portrayal of the first Thanksgiving grew up being taught one narrow point of view, and like Claudia said in her commentary on newspaper articles, how a source feels about something slants how they report is. (She reflects on this herself after the whole event is over.) Americans have always grown up reading the WASP male point of view, and now that other people want to portray a different view—female, Native American, African American, Muslim, atheist, gay, transgender, or whatever—other people get offended and yes, scared. It’s hard to accept that you haven’t been taught the whole truth your whole life.

I’m also not surprised by the roles our principals play in the fight that breaks out. Stacey’s back stage at the time, so she stays out of it and tries to distract the kids. Jessi’s there for Charlotte and Becca, so she does the same with those two. Claudia goes outside and worries about the outcome. I’m sure NO ONE is surprised that Abby, who was onstage directing, is in the middle of it. Not only is she a loud mouth (ha!), but she’s also sort of a feminist. She’s got that ‘I’m a minority and no one’s going to put me in my place’ thing going that I’m surprised they didn’t play up more with Dawn. I guess they couldn’t think of Dawn as minority too much, although Abby points as much to sexism as she does discrimination of the Jews.

Ooh, I like this too. Claudia points out that the story of Thanksgiving they teach kids isn’t made up; it’s just ‘polished’ to present a prettier picture.

Ms. Garcia uses one of my favorite quotes: “I don’t agree with what you say, but I will defend to my death your right to say it.” She says she doesn’t recall whom she’s quoting, but it’s most certainly Voltaire.

Betsy, who had played Alice, the girl who learns how women and minorities were treated in the original play, had to be given a new part, so she plays the governor. She doesn’t care that her part is smaller…because her costume now includes a mustache she can twirl. You have to love how easily kids are reconciled to some losses.

This I love. During the middle school production of the uncensored play, protestors for ‘family values’ and ‘free speech’ are siding off against each other as they do in real life all the time, both outside the school and inside. When they start drowning out the actors and actresses, the principal actually comes on stage and yells at them to stop! He says they’re entitled to their free speech, but by agreeing to come inside and watch the play, they agree to follow the rules of common courtesy.

Claudia: “I wondered…whether the people who censored our play and tried to prevent us from exercising our freedom of speech realized that the only reason they could protest at all was because of the same right to freedom of speech.” I wonder this all the time. I hear people complaining frequently that their First Amendment rights are being restricted because they’re not allowed to take other people’s First Amendment rights away. (Kim Davis, anyone?)

There was no Claudia spelling in this book until chapter 14! Atenshun, clints (clients), parteis, Thankgiving (I have been trying to type it that way all through this entry!) and peple.

I’m trying to do some math here again. (Oh, please shut up. I can hear you groaning across time and space.) All the sitters and all the siblings of the BSC come together at the Pikes while all the adults go to Kristy’s to cook. Let’s stop and think about logistics for a moment: It’s a potluck, so each family brings a dish or two. This is who is at Kristy’s house:

Elizabeth, Watson, Nannie, Mrs. Stevenson, Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey, Aunt Cecelia, Richard, Sharon, Mr. and Mrs. Kishi, Ms. McGill, Mr. and Mrs. Pike. That’s 14 adults in one kitchen using one stove and one oven. Madness! Some of them should go over to the Stevensons’ since they live right there and all.

Meanwhile, here’s who is over at the Pikes’, being sat for:

The triplets, Vanessa, Nicky, Margo, Claire, DM, EM, Becca, Squirt. That’s only eleven kids…with the following sitters:

The BSC, Anna, Charlie, Sam, Janine. That’s a great ratio of 1:1…that’s made even better when Dawn shows up part way through. (Although, why is Dawn there and not Jeff? C’mon, people! I need more Jeff in my life.)

Honestly, the babysitting’s not really babysitting for the most part. Abby and Anna are baking with a few kids, while Mary Anne’s helping make decorations with a few others. Charlie, Sam and Janine are pitching in quite a bit. Sam even helps Vanessa with her poems.

Sam sets up a turkey hunt for the triplets, who have to clean their room. This cracks me up…he tapes the turkey origami to the broom, knowing that sweeping’s the last thing they’ll do after they’ve fully cleaned. (Actually, they probably wouldn’t have gotten it at all, except Mal forces them to finish up by dusting and sweeping.)

Come to think of it, why wasn’t Nicky cleaning too? After all, he shares a room with his brothers. Maybe he’d already made his bed and put away his toys.

Dawn comes in the middle of events and Claudia doesn’t even notice at first; she just hands Squirt to her. (Based upon the language, he peed all over Claudia right before that.) She shrieks so loud that everyone comes running and gives her a giant hug. Abby comes up behind them and, in my favorite line of the book, says, “You’re not Dawn, are you?”

Janine points out that some vegetarians won’t eat ‘anything with a face’ and then wonders whether oysters have faces or not. Oh, and then she tries to explain to Claire how to set the table, only to be thrown when Claire asks her ‘why’ the knife blades go in toward the plate. (I don’t know either, other than to guess that it’s safer if the knives are sharp.) Janine finally just says, “Because, that’s why.” Sounds like my mom.

Yes! A moment later, Claudia observes the adults setting an adult table as well, and overhears Watson tell Sharon the same thing about knives. (She does not, however, ask him why.)

I think the dining is a little haphazard at this dinner: instead of the BSC sitting together and various kids arranged age appropriately (Becca, Vanessa, DM and Nicky at one table, for example), Claudia ends up at a table with DM, Sam and Margo.

Ha! In the reader letter at the end, AMM says that her oven once caught on fire on Thanksgiving and the fire department had to come put it out. I wonder if she was cooking or if that was when she was growing up. I bought a copy of her biography but have only skimmed it so far.

Outfits

Claudia: baggy yellow pants, red Doc Martens with yellow and orange laces, leaf-pattern shirt over red and yellow tie dyed waffle weave shirt, yellow and white scarf in her hair, and pumpkin earrings

Mrs. Kishi: navy dress and pearl earrings

Mr. Kishi: navy pinstripe suit

Janine: navy skirt, navy sweater and pink shirt

Stacey: blue turtleneck, black cropped wool jacket, black jeans, black boots

Mal: jeans, red plaid flannel, sweatshirt

Jessi: purple leotard, jeans, lavender sweater

Next: It’s super, and it’s a mystery! Other than that, I’m leaving it dangling.

“Well, let’s see, what shall we have for dinner tonight? Barbecued kitchen or broiled living room?” BSC Portrait Collection: Dawn’s Book (1995)

Time for another collection of random babbling about a specific sitter!

West coast Beginnings: Dawn is a baby and a bratty little kid.

The New Girl on the Block: Dawn hates Sunny when she first meets her and thinks she’s a weirdo, but of course they become friends.

The Golden Anniversary: Granny and Pop-pop are having their 50^th wedding anniversary in San Francisco. Jack and Sharon keep pointing out how old they are, so they keep trying to give them rest breaks and take it easy, but the grandparents would rather do interesting stuff, the kinds of things Dawn and Jeff were suggesting. Dawn also worries about them because they aren’t glued together the way her parents are, holding hands and doing everything together.

Fire!: Dawn becomes obsessed with fire safety and then a fire starts and she has to come to the rescue.

A New Life on the East Coast: Dawn babysits for a little girl in Stoneybrook and accidentally tells her a secret. The mom’s so upset she stops using the BSC; Dawn never tells anyone what happened.

Interesting Tidbits

You know Dawn’s from California because there are seashells and the beach and San Francisco on the cover. Or, because, you know, she reminds you on page one, in the second line.

Apparently Jeff’s idea of showing Dawn he’s glad she’s back is to scare her with a Halloween mask.

Conveniently, Dawn’s school is also making all the eighth graders write autobiographies. I’d make fun of this, but two cousins and I all had to write autobiographies when we were in eighth grade…in three different states. (I also wrote one in fourth grade.)

Interesting. Dawn says Jill reminds her of Mary Anne, because they’re both serious and quiet. What’s intriguing about this is that Dawn, Sunny and Maggie outgrow Jill, leaving her behind in the California Diaries. What does that say about what will happen between Dawn and Mary Anne as they grow older?

Heh. Dawn was a week overdue. That’s pretty typical of first babies, though. She was born first thing in the morning, at dawn. I wonder if they named her that because of her birth time or if she just conveniently arrived at the same time as the name they’d chosen. (A friend of mine decided to name her firstborn August. He obliged by arriving two weeks early…on the last day of August.)

Chapter two makes me want to roll my eyes because Dawn took her first steps at the beach…and walked until she reached the water (rather than taking two or three steps and plopping down like normal babies do). Oh, and her first words included water and beach.

Dawn muses that Jeff learned at a very early age how to gain and keep adults’ attention. I think that’s a) a very ‘big sister’ thing to say—I say the same thing about my younger sister—and b) it’s probably very true, for both Jeff and my younger sister.

Little Dawn was a bit bratty though—between throwing playdoh in the chili and calling it sour cream and throwing things at baby Jeff—but she reaches the apex when she and her friend glue the blocks together at preschool because they’re tired of their tower getting knocked over.

Dawn says Jill and Maggie were her first friends at Vista, but I’m pretty sure she says she didn’t know them well before they joined the We Heart Kids Club.

Continuity: I know Dawn mentioned her parakeet before, though I can’t remember what book that was in. Was it the petsitting one?

It’s kind of funny that one of the things Dawn finds so weird about the Winslows when she first meets them is that they eat kelp soup for lunch. Sounds like something that would be right up her alley.

Sunny has a tie-dyed bedspread, and seven-year-old Dawn contemplates the fact that it doesn’t look as if it were made of dead ties.

Honestly, all the stuff that makes Sunny so ‘odd’ to Dawn when they first meet is the sort of thing that makes Dawn an individual when she’s older. The Winslows won’t give Sunny toys made of synthetic materials because it’s bad for the environment, and Sunny doesn’t like the fact that Jeff and his friend are playing with toy weapons.

Ooh, look. Neglectful parenting! Sharon and Betsy (Sunny’s mom) leave their seven-year-olds alone in the toy department and go to the other floor of the store.

When her mother gets stuck in an elevator, Dawn calls her dad and starts giving him instructions, such as the fact that he should call Mr. Winslow and the family Jeff is staying with. He tells her he’s proud of her for such good thinking, but it sounds so out of place. Sometimes these stories make the younger versions of the BSC members sound like miniature adults.

Math time! Like the last book, it involves Sharon’s age. She says her parents are celebrating their 50^th anniversary and are ‘almost eighty.’ Depending on what book timeline you go with, Sharon would be somewhere in the vicinity of forty at this point. (In the early books, she’s described as being 42 when Dawn is 12; Dawn is 10 at this point.) So Granny and Pop-pop married when they were approaching 30 and had Sharon when they were closer to 40. My father’s parents were married in the late 40s when she was in her mid-20s and he was three years older; she was considered to be an ‘old maid’ by the time of her wedding. Honestly, though, if Granny and Pop-pop spent years trying for a baby before Sharon was born, it would explain why they were so overly involved in her love life in her teens.

Granny and Pop-pop spend their whole vacation weekend sniping at each other. He calls her old lady and she makes fun of his interest in model boats.

Pop-pop’s name is Charlie, and Granny’s is Rita. Jeff’s middle name is also Charles.

Dawn creates evacuation routes for every room in the house. Sharon asks her how she’d escape from the hallway. I can’t tell if she’s doing it to help her calm down about it and relax, or because she’s just kind of egging her on. (That’s what Jack seems to believe.)

Sharon makes the title quote as a joke. Even though she doesn’t find it funny, Dawn ends up laughing because Jeff proceeds to explain in detail why he does find the comment funny. Which should be even less funny than the joke itself.

When Dawn’s able to get Daffodil and Clover Austin to agree on one activity, their mother calls her a good negotiator and suggests she run for office. That’s not the only skill she’d need; I don’t think Dawn’s any good at being crooked and taking bribes, for example.

Part of the reason for Dawn’s obsession with fire is that it’s an easier, less painful fear than worrying about her parents’ marriage. That’s actually pretty realistic.

Mr. and Mrs. Austin are Ted and Jenny.

Dawn’s picture was in the paper along with another ‘community hero’—a woman who was the foster parent to 20 children, all of whom grew up to be successful college grads. The photo’s in the book, and the woman (Mrs. Hughes) looks just like Rue McClanahan from Golden Girls. Plus, Dawn’s smelling smoke and exiting the building with two little girls is nothing compared to a lifetime of foster kids.

Kristy goes over the basics of sitting with the club, and one of them is to make sure you have all necessary emergency numbers. Stacey suggests that one of them is the number of the nearest pizza place. Kristy doesn’t find that funny, but I do. Kristy knows the other sitters know these things; she’s just taking herself far too seriously.  (A few minute later, Claudia jokes about knowing about the kids’ séance preferences.)

The reason for this ‘review’ is that they discuss not snooping at the clients’ houses. Dawn breaks this rule almost right away when sitting for a new client, the Lazans. She reads a paper from the school that says that Sandra is getting held back a grade. Not knowing this information was not common knowledge, Dawn mentions it to Sandra…whose parents hadn’t told her she was being held back yet. Whoops.

You know I love seeing the BSC make mistakes, but this one is pretty horrible. I can’t imagine any circumstances when talking to a kid about something so massive would be appropriate…unless the parents had mentioned how bummed the kid was about it and then the kid brought it up.

Dawn gets an A- for content and a B for presentation.

Outfits

Seven-year-old Sunny: ankle length hippie dress, no shoes

New characters

Sandra Lazan (7)—27

Next: #91

“For Claudia to spell only one word wrong on five posters is pretty close to a miracle.” BSC Mystery #22: Stacey and the Haunted Masquerade (1995)

 Oh, look. It’s Halloween again. Various people are trying to stop the masquerade from happening because the last time one was held, twenty-eight years, a tragedy happened. Everyone assumes that it was some minor issue, but a girl actually had a meltdown after some boys played a prank on her. She killed the lights and pulled the fire alarm; a teacher died of a heart attack in the aftermath of the resulting stampede. Weird things are happening all over school as the Mischief Knights perform harmless pranks like switching locker contents and filling an art cabinet with marbles, but some other pranks relate directly to the dance, like decorations being shredded. It turns out the mentally disturbed girl from the earlier dance came back to seek revenge on the school and on a new sixth grade teacher, Mr. Rothman, who knew her back in the day.

Meanwhile, the movie Ghostbusters has been playing non-stop on a local movie station and all the kids are crazy about busting ghosts.

Interesting Tidbits

The cover. It’s been a while since I’ve read this, but that has to be Stacey and Mary Anne as Morticia and Dorothy, looking properly outraged at the mysteriousness of this mystery. Why is MA taller than Stacey, though?

The book starts with Stacey waxing philosophical on the meaning of homeroom, aka creative doodling class. She says it’s nothing like home; for example, her mother almost never takes attendance.

Stacey’s new favorite song is “Sister Sally” by the group Great Blue Whales. A) That band sounds like something Dawn would get into. B) I now have that 80’s song “Sister Christian” stuck in my head, only I keep putting Sally into the lyrics. “You’re motorin’… what’s your price for flight?” I don’t know if those are the right lyrics or a mondegreen, though. (They’re right! Usually I can’t get lyrics correct without looking them up.)

Apparently, Mr. Kingsbridge has no fashion sense. I’d honestly be more worried if Stacey, who likes Claudia’s fashion sense, thought he did have some.

I’m trying to figure out why this Halloween Masquerade is any different than any other Halloween dance that they didn’t call a masquerade. Maybe at this one, costumes are required? I mean, Bart and Kristy once dressed as lobsters, and Logan and Mary Anne have dressed as cats before. Not really any different, if you ask me. I know they just had to have not had the Masquerade in 28 years because of what happened ‘last time’ but honestly. I can’t think of a single way this plot would have worked if it were a non-Halloween dance, though, so I’ll let it go.

Hmm. Logan is sitting with the BSC at lunch. I’ll buy that. But so are Pete and Alan. What are they doing there? (Unless they have little crushes on someone else at the table…yes, I’m totally talking about Logan.)

Stacey says there will be a quiz on the information about the BSC. Chapter two would have been a lot more interesting if she had ended the chapter with a minutiae quiz regarding the members. “What color shoelaces was Claudia wearing today? What order were the Pike triplets listed in this time? Which member was described first, Kristy or Mary Anne?” Instead, you get a quiz on whom/what each BSC member will be going to the masquerade as, which is boring because you would have found that out later anyway.

Claudia misplaced a pair of purple orange and green paisley leggings and finds them during the meeting. Kristy: “How could you miss them?” I think she misplaced those in 1990, because I swear I had a pair just like that someone gave me for Christmas when I was nine.

Anyone surprised that Stacey writes with a purple felt-tipped pen? Nope. I didn’t think so.

Oooooooooh! I’m so excited. Ladies and gentlemen (if any are reading this), I’m proud to introduce my favorite non-sitting charge character in the entire history of the BSC: Mr. Cary Retlin. I didn’t realize this was his first appearance. Mr. Retlin proceeds to be one of the most entertaining characters throughout the rest of the series, on into the Friends Forever/Forever Friends/Whatever the Hell That’s Called series.

Stacey is a girl after my own heart. She says that the BSC has been ‘Cokified’ a few times. I just recently was referring to a day with my least-favorite coworker as being ‘Jessinfected,’ but I may have to use ‘Jessified’ instead.

When Abby arrives at the Pike house, Adam and Byron are ‘ghostbusting’ with the aid of a plastic ray gun and a vacuum cleaner hose. I was always the kid who had the gun made of vacuum cleaner tubing or the fairy wand that was really just a stick. I think a lot of the problem with kids these days is that they don’t play imagination games, and when they do, their parents buy them the toys. Little girls playing Frozen with their mom’s old blue dress and winter gloves and a homemade Olaf have so much more imagination and fun than those whose parents buy them a $50 costume and all the expensive toys.

When Cary unleashes the Mischief Knights on the school, one of his earliest pranks is to write messages on various blackboards. When MA asks what the message says, Kristy cracks that it said not to eat the Salisbury Steak that MA had just taken a bite of.

I love that no one can figure out who is responsible for the Mischief Knights, despite the fact that everything starts right after Cary shows up. Of course, it’s also right after Abby shows up, too. In fact, she suggests she could be responsible…and Mary Anne also says she could be the prankster, which makes everyone laugh, including me.

I love that Grace sides with the majority against Cokie during the dance committee meeting. I know these characters aren’t real (I know you may not be able to tell, but I do! I do!) but I really want to see Grace break free from Cokie altogether.

I love it! Abby pulls apart a Twizzler pull and peel and then braids it back together during one of the meetings. I used to do that all the time.

Ooh, suspect list time. Mr. Wetzler, the guy who keeps writing to the editor about how the school shouldn’t be having a masquerade at all. Grace, who’s just being ‘too nice.’ Cokie, because she didn’t like the red and purple dance color scheme (and so far, the decorations and posters are the only thing that have been vandalized). The Mischief Knights, because, well. Mischief.

Time for some awesomely bad spelling! Wuld, thouhgt, eigth, coud, gohst, beleive, becuase, gohstbusters.

Consistency: Mrs. Arnold goes crazy decorating for holidays, including decorating herself.

The Arnold girls have been building an ‘ectoplasmic turbulence detector’ in the basement. Or, as Marilyn calls it, a ghost finder. They do, indeed find a ghost…or at least a squirrel.

Ha! Best line of the entire book: “Twenty-eight years ago? You’re asking a lot. I can’t even remember what I had for dinner last night.” This is what Sharon says when Mary Anne, Logan and Stacey ask her about the last masquerade.

Richard does seem to remember, though. I’m trying to do some math again. The dance was 28 years ago and Richard says he was in sixth grade at the time, making him 39 or 40, but in an earlier book he was 43 or so. I think it would have been more interesting if he’d actually been at the dance and knew these people instead of the BSC falling into the information.

In 1995, 28 years ago would have been 1967. So I’m not too surprised that the name of the band that played the masquerade is The Groovy Tangerine. But, honestly? I know I’ve said it before, but…a band at a middle school dance? They can’t have been very good.

Abby would be the one to suggest that the teacher who died, Mr. Brown, is the vandal. I mean, Dawn’s no longer around to bring up ghosts. (After she says that, Mary Anne tells Stacey to turn the yearbook page because she doesn’t like the way Mr. Brown’s photo is ‘looking at her.’)

Stacey actually calls the nutcase, Mr.Wetzler, who keeps going on about waste in the school budget. She lies that she’s a reporter for the school paper to get more information about the last masquerade out of him. All she’s able to find out is that a girl got jilted and then never came back to school.

When Logan says Alan once showed him a bunch of old records in the basement, Stacey thinks he means old vinyl records, ‘like the BeeGees.’ Where has Stacey ever heard of the BeeGees?

The BSC figures out that the girl, Elizabeth Connor, lived in Charlotte’s house at the time of the ‘incident’ in 1967. Isn’t that convenient? Stacey brings the Braddocks over so that the kids can all ghostbust together and she and Mary Anne can do the kind of snooping you normally need a warrant for. There’s a mistake in among that, though: Charlotte has both a spirit collector, like Abby made with the Pikes, and a ghost detector like the Arnolds created. But it says that Arnold made the ghost detector.

Costumes:

            Robert and Stacey: Gomez and Morticia Addams                  

            Mary Anne and Logan: Dorothy and the Scarecrow

            Mal: ballerina

            Jessi: cow girl

            Abby: Lucy Ricardo

            Kristy: Amelia Earhart

            Claudia: giant Twinkie

            Grace: Snow White

            Todd and Rick: Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble

            Mr. Rothman: football player

            Sabrina Bouvier: Cleopatra

            Cary: a knight chess piece

Heh. Grace isn’t talking to Cokie because Cokie thinks that Grace’s boyfriend is imaginary. It’s the stupidest D plot ever, but almost realistic.

So Elizabeth Connor had been unpopular and the butt of jokes back in the day. She had a giant crush on Mike Rothman (who is now a new sixth grade teacher and the dance committee’s supervisor.) His friends bet him he wouldn’t take her to the dance and last the whole night. He didn’t tell her what was going on, but she figured it out when she saw the exchange of money. She went outside, the fire alarm got pulled…you can make the connection.

Oh, I figured out the way they can get away with the dance issue. This isn’t a Halloween dance. It’s a Mischief Night dance, on October 30^th. Because that’s such a big difference.

“It was like something out of a bad horror movie.” Funniest, most ironic line in one of these books.

Stacey still considers the fact that the ghost of Mr. Brown could be behind all the vandalism.

Lame-o. The story leaves off at the end of chapter 14 when Liz Connor removes the cape she stole from Mr. Rothman’s date, revealing a fairy princess costume—which is what she was wearing the night of the dance years ago. The next chapter starts with Shannon asking, “And then what happened?” It spoils all the drama because you know all the BSC members are okay. It's a (Like any of them would actually get injured or anything. This isn’t a Temperance Brennan book, where the main character nearly dies in every one of her adventures.) It's a total copout.

Grace and Cokie make up and go back to normal. I’m so sad about that.

Outfits

Mr. Fiske: yellow tie covered in punctuation marks (very apropos for an English teacher)

Grace: thermal leggings, blue plaid flannel shirt

Mrs. Arnold: black velvet skirt, white satin blouse, dangly pumpkin earrings, pumpkin pendant, dangly pumpkin bracelet

Jessi: fringed leather vest and skirt, cowboy boots, ten gallon hat (ooh, is she not wearing anything under the vest? racy!)

Kristy: leather jacket, high boots, long white scarf, helmet and goggle

New Characters:

Cary Retlin (13)—33

Next: Dawn’s Book