“The only thing that was obvious was that she hated eggplant.” BSC #120: Mary Anne and the Playground Fight (1998)

I thought I had blogged this one before? If I have, I apologize. I’m usually pretty OCD about keeping track, so since it’s not marked off, I’m going to assume I didn’t actually blog it. I might be getting it confused with another book, or maybe I referred to the plot when I blogged SS#15 or something.

Two exciting events are happening this summer in Stoneybrook. First, a camp is opening, and the staff is looking for middle-school aged counselors with babysitting experience. All the BSC members, including Dawn, who’s in town for the summer, and Logan apply. When the club learns that SMS is sponsoring another summer trip—to England and France, this time—several of the members are excited to go to Europe. The trouble comes when the two events, camp and the trip, overlap. Fighting between BSC members over who is the best sitter and deserves the camp job becomes constant. A few even consider lying during the interview process to get a better edge. In the end, the members who decide not to go to Europe get the job, while the others make plans for their vacation.

Meanwhile, Victoria from #102 is heading back to England. The BSC invites various kids to a going away party for her. Victoria wants MA to visit her in England, only to learn that MA isn’t going on the trip…she’s staying in CT because Dawn is.

Interesting Tidbits

The cover: This is not a good look for Mary Anne. This isn’t the first time she’s worn attire that makes her look like a boy, either. Even Karen and friends in the background are better clothed.

Mistake: MA says she lived with her grandparents in Nebraska when she was little. Her grandmother lives in Maynard, Iowa. It’s actually Karen’s step-grandparents—her stepfather’s parents—who live in Nebraska. It disturbs me that I remember that.

I LIKE this a lot: After English class, Mary Anne walks back to her locker with Gordon and Barbara. If you remember all the way back to #93, the two of them and Amelia were her English project group. It’s nice to see her still be friendly with them and that they’re actually still in her English class. Later, it’s mentioned that MA and Abby have the same math teacher, but not the same math class, as mentioned in #96.

Victoria tells MA and Logan she doesn’t want to move back to England, as she’s ‘Americanized,’ and that having to move sucks. I just love that they got away with putting that phrase in a kids’ book, even with Miss Rutherford chastising her afterward.

I’m still trying to figure out in what universe the airfare to London is less than the airfare to Hawaii. I know I’ve mentioned it before, but some girls I know went on a trip very similar to one to London and Paris in SS#15, and it cost them $2400. Now, these girls were born in1998, not traveling in 1998, but you know prices haven’t sextupled in the past eighteen years.

Abby’s mom studied abroad at ‘London University’ in college.

“Sometimes Logan sounded just like Kristy.” Even more reason to ship them? I know I’ve seen that somewhere, and not just in FF#3…

Charlie agrees to drive Kristy, Vicki (what Victoria insists upon being called, because it’s more American) and a slew of neighborhood kids around the neighborhood so she can…say goodbye? Reminisce? I’m not exactly sure. But if I were Victoria’s guardian, I wouldn’t want some seventeen year old I don’t know driving my kid around without my knowledge. Not to mention the fact that Kristy told Miss Rutherford she and Victoria would be at her house. What kind of responsible babysitter takes the kid elsewhere without letting her guardian know?

So Dawn is on her way back to Stoneybrook, and MA decorated her room…which is steeped in presents. I’ve said before that I don’t get why Dawn needs a present every time she goes from one house to the other, but here are my questions this time: Did they completely redecorate her room for her? That’s what the book makes it sound like. Also, is Jeff’s room also piled high with gifts and redecorated?

The title quote is about Claudia, who is eating at her ‘favorite’ restaurant, Cabbages and Kings.

Dawn likes to sleep in, and Jeff apparently repeatedly tells her she doesn’t live up to her name. I think that joke would get old after about the first time he said it…

Wow, a lot of people are going to the bathroom in this book. Dawn does it during a BSC meeting, and then Claudia (during another meeting). It’s really just an excuse to talk about her or read her playground job application without her being in the room, but it reminded me of a whole chapter in one of my favorite book series. These books would have chapters that seemed to have absolutely nothing to do with moving the plot forward, but were funny and brilliant anyway—and actually did relate directly to the plot, if not right away. At one point, the author discusses how a lot happens to the main character that doesn’t get into the books, like eating breakfast and going to the bathroom, because that would make the story drag on and be 3000 pages long. We know the BSC members have to pee sometimes, but rarely does it actually come up in the story.

It must be super-fun to go out for pizza with the BSC and try to share a pizza. Between certain members preferring meat, Dawn refusing to eat meat, and Abby being allergic to pizza on the whole…awesome.

I love this technique; I’ve tried it myself and it works. When Stacey arrives at the Kent house, she can hear Victoria shouting before she even gets into the house. When she’s let in, Victoria is still screaming at Miss Rutherford. Stacey walks and whispers her hello, explaining—when Victoria asks—that she’s whispering specifically to counterbalance the shouting. The person shouting starts to realize how ridiculous they sound.

Victoria is angry when she learns MA won’t be going on the Europe trip, because she thinks Mary Anne doesn’t want to see her anymore. She points out that ever since Dawn came home, she’s been seeing a lot less of MA. This is interesting for two reasons: it’s also part of the reason Kristy is angry (although Kristy hasn’t said that, and it’s never acknowledged in the book), and when MA shows up at the Kent house to apologize to Victoria for not telling her herself, Miss Rutherford says Victoria doesn’t wish to see Mary Anne. Umm, Victoria’s seven. I can see honoring her wishes to some extent, but it seems a little silly to send MA away when she just walked all the way across town to come visit, without even letting her say her piece through a closed door or something.

Alan tells the interviewer during camp interviews that he knows CPR and has lots of sitting experience. Well, who knows whether or not he’s got sitting experience, but he does know CPR. He was in the same safety class the BSC took in #114, where MA learned the CPR that saved Timmy Hsu’s life. And he could have babysat before. The BSC aren’t the only sitters in town.

Okaaaay. The interviews are in alphabetical order, so the BSC members would go Logan, Claudia, Stacey, Dawn, Mary Anne, Abby and then Kristy. Yet, in the book, Abby is somehow interviewed before Dawn and MA.

This was actually funny. Victoria wants some ‘cool American clothes’ so she buys an outfit that hadn’t been cool since 1991. But the funny part was when she called them authentic American clothes and Karen pointed out that the shirt was made in China.

The ending to this book is dumb and unrealistic. The counselors are chosen, and Logan, Mary Anne, Claudia and Dawn, who all weren’t going to Europe, were the winners. As soon as that happens, everyone makes up, with no hard feelings. Yeah, right. If Kristy’s that quick to get snippy, I can’t imagine she’d really be that quick to get over it.

Outfits

Victoria: t-shirt, jeans, red high tops; jean shorts, Mets t-shirt, no shoes; hot pink shirt, pink and black leggings, pink sunglasses

Next: Mystery #36

“You guys wouldn’t mind if I did a little embezzling, would you?” BSC Mystery# 35: Abby and the Notorious Neighbor (1998) AND BSC Little Sister #111: Karen’s Spy Mystery (1999)

Oh, holy hell. I haven’t read this Abby book, but I have seen it summarized and nitpicked on a couple other blogs. So while I was picking up Little Sister books for my niece a year or so ago, I found this Karen book. And realized, “Hey, wait a minute…isn’t this the exact same plot, only simplified for younger readers?” And it so is. Heck, look at the covers:

Different angles, but almost exactly the same. Karen’s obviously taking notes, while Abby, being Abby…has a box of tissues so she can blow her nose. Oh, and Abby has Anna hair, but that’s another story.

Let’s start the book summary by saying how jealous I am of Abby. I watched America’s Most Wanted for years, wanting to recognize and catch a criminal. Abby’s home with bronchitis, and while watching hours of television, catches a show with wanted fugitives. Later, when she gets super bored, she starts spying on all the neighbors and realizes that one of her neighbors, Mr. Finch, looks exactly like an embezzler she saw on the show. She and Kristy begin spying on him, looking at his mail, and peeking in his windows. They get some proof that he’s actually the embezzler by digging in his trash.

Meanwhile, all the kids are building go-karts for a soap box derby. There’s a few little dramas, like the triplets not wanting to let Nicky be on their team, and a girls team (Vanessa, Charlotte and Becca) and a boys team (the Rodowskys) copying each other. At the last second, the race is won by a ‘secret’ team that Abby learns about by spying.

Interesting Tidbits

Before I get to the books—I will comment on the Karen Krap at the end of this blog entry—let’s talk about Karen’s glasses for a moment. Or rather, the one time in my life I made a Karen-related comment that wasn’t mean, and nobody was around to appreciate it. I was once glasses shopping and, as usual, hated every pair of frames. I finally found a pair I didn’t hate, and considered getting two pairs of that frame. As I was making up my mind, I realized that they had the same pair, in another shade. I ended up with two pairs of glasses, same frames, two different colors. I said, “Just like Karen Brewer! She’s my role model, after all.” And of course, no one got the joke. Maybe that’s why I’ve never bought matching frames like that again….

We first meet Mr. Finch when he’s mowing his lawn. At eight o’clock. On Monday morning. Mrs. Stevenson decides she should go talk to him, because that’s just too early. Two comments to this: a) Someone in Kristy and Abby’s neighborhood actually mows their own lawn?!? b) They should meet my old high school teacher. He lived in the school district, and his neighbors reported that he would mow his lawn at six am on a Saturday.

The title quote is from chapter two. (See, sometimes it pays to read chapter two.) Stacey says there’s enough money in the club treasury for a leather jacket she’s been eyeing. This is even funnier, given the comments about Stacey’s dad in last week’s entry.

As Abby is flipping channels while home sick, she watches a snippet of soap opera: “Oh Jose, I never knew love could be like this—or perhaps I did, before I was kidnapped and developed amnesia…” That’s kinda funny. My favorite moments on soaps have always been the ones where a) they insert random comedy and b) they acknowledge the absurdity of their situation. For the former, there was a scene between a father and son (Luke and Lucky, General Hospital) who are doing the bachelor thing. Lucky doesn’t have a napkin, so he says he’ll wipe his hands on his shirt. (He’s about thirteen.) Luke tells him to wipe his hands on the dog instead. For the latter, there was a wedding on As the World Turns years ago. A woman was sitting in the pews and muttered, “I’m the sister of the groom and the mother of the bride.” And she was completely accurate, yet no laws had been broken! Ahh, soaps.

Abby calls her mother Ma at one point. That actually sounds pretty New England. My dad called his mother Ma, and so do a lot of my cousins in Rhode Island.

Apparently, three different buses drop off elementary school kids in Abby’s neighborhood. And they conveniently all arrive at the same time…. Abby already has binoculars out, for some innocent bird watching, so she starts watching the kids instead. She doesn’t want to call it spying, but that’s just semantics. Even if she calls it looking or watching, it’s still spying. I mean, she’s observed the fact that Scott Hsu’s underwear is sticking out of his pants, for crying out loud. If that’s not snooping, I don’t know what is.

Heh. When Mal and Stacey are supervising two teams of go-kart builders, the girls—Vanessa, Charlotte, and Becca—stop for a candy break. Becca squeals and Mallory’s first response is…to ask if she needs the Heimlich maneuver. Abby says the BSC all know how to respond to choking. But if that’s true, shouldn’t they know you never do the Heimlich on anyone who can make noises, like Becca was doing? I think the funniest part about that is that, to me, that was more of a Mary Anne, worry-wart type of response.

The BSC doesn’t believe that Abby actually spotted a wanted criminal, but Kristy is especially dubious. Later, Abby is ‘watching’ Mr. Finch again, and becomes convinced she was right about him. She calls Kristy, who is so ridiculously sarcastic about the whole thing (and I can’t blame her). She suggests Abby saw him holding a machine gun, and then after finding out he was just eating dinner, says, “Oh my lord! How suspicious can you get?”

Abby calls the Mystery Trackers hotline to ask some questions about the two men she saw, trying to sort out details she was only half watching in a feverish haze. She talks to a summer intern, who is completely clueless and says something like, “Oh, cool, you spotted one of our criminals? Should I call the authorities?” I never called America’s Most Wanted, but I imagine that they have a script they would have to follow, and it never includes saying how cool the information is.

Ooh, Mary Anne goes to talk to Sgt. Johnson. He gives her a ‘Look’ when he suggests that there’s no harm in checking into Mr. Finch as long as he doesn’t know about it. Not only does that sound so wrong—like he’s giving the BSC permission to spy—but I totally read that Look as a sexy Look rather than a ‘don’t go spying’ Look. Now we know why Sgt. Johnson takes the BSC so seriously: it’s not because they’re good detectives, but he and Mary Anne have a little thing on the side. (Later, Abby says that he’s good looking.)

Claudia and Stacey do some cyber-sleuthing for information about Mr. Finch and the two criminals he might be. Janine helps them use the computer. Not only is it so far too modern for the BSC, but it’s also hilarious now. First, there’s the squeal of dial-up. And then when they search the criminals, they decide to print out some pictures of them to compare to Mr. Finch. And only ten minutes later, they have their pictures! It’s so technological!

Abby finally convinces Kristy she’s right about Mr. Finch, and they discuss the fact that Arthur Maguire—the embezzler they think is Finch—abandoned his kids, who were ‘about six and eight.’ Kristy says that all six year olds draw houses with smoke coming out of the chimneys, and all eight year old girls draw horses, while all eight year old boys draw rocket ships. First off…the hell? Really? That is the most ridiculous generalization ever. Let’s assume for a second that it might be true. Even if all eight year old boys do draw rocket ships, they probably also draw aliens, robots, cartoon characters, and all kinds of other objects. We all know, of course, that not all six year olds draw houses. I’ve never drawn a horse in my life, for example. At age eight, I was more into ‘fashion’ design.

I love that they actually built a ‘don’t try this at home’ into the plot, right before Abby and Kristy do something stupid. I have no idea what, as I haven’t read it yet. But the BSC are always doing things in these mysteries that are supremely bad ideas. When they’re not chasing counterfeiters down the street, they’re chasing dogs into suspect’s houses…

Kristy goes and peeks in Mr. Finch’s window, looking for proof that he really is Arthur Maguire, and almost gets caught. First Kristy called and made up a story to get him out of the house. I misread the part when he comes back, and thought he’d used *69 to call back whoever had pranked him. Instead, Abby actually hit redial to force him into the house, and it worked!

Claudia spelling! There was actually a brief moment of it earlier in the book, when she wrote serfing and awsome. This time, we get waching and curiose. She also uses sped for speed, there for their and herd for heard.

Okay. Now that we’ve learned all there is to learn about Abby spying, let’s talk about Karen. In Karen’s Spy Mystery, the Dawes family, who live across the street, go on a business trip to Seattle. A family friend, Bill Barnett, is going to be housesitting, and Karen is supposed to give the family kitten eye drops in the middle of the day and watch the house while Bill is at work. Karen starts spying on the house because she doesn’t like Bill. (He finds her annoying and slams the door in her face, and that’s all it takes for her.) She sees some mildly suspicious behavior and jumps to the conclusion that Bill is trying to rob the Daweses. Hannie tries to talk her out of it, but Karen follows him around and even puts a tape recorder in the Dawes house to try to catch him doing something bad. She records him admitting that he stole money from Nancy’s father’s bank, and the police take him away.

Let’s compare here. Each story features a young female who becomes convinced that a neighbor is doing something illegal. They both have a friend they can’t convince of that fact, until they do some serious spying and get a small amount of evidence. The two friends then do something unethical and probably illegal to get enough proof for the police. Not only do the police accept the tip solely on the basis of hunch and illegal evidence, but each girl gets reward money for her bad behavior.

So what did we—and the preteen girls who read these books—learn? Always trust your instincts when it comes to your neighbors? I think the message is more like “Spy on your neighbors and you will reap in moola.” I’m suddenly glad we didn’t own a pair of binoculars when I was a kid, and that the houses in my neighborhood were far enough apart to not be able to look in windows.

Next: #120

“You’ve been watching too many daytime dramas or something.” BSC #119: Stacey’s Ex-Boyfriend (1998)

I’ve never read this one before, and I’ve kind of been dreading it. Teen/pre-teen literature has a very hit or miss history with the subject of depression. Most of the books either come across as preachy, and/or feature someone who attempts suicide and is saved at the last second. (As much as I love the California Diaries, they fell straight* into that trap.)

*No Ducky-is-gay pun intended, y’all.

Stacey notes that Robert’s been depressed for months and doesn’t seem to be getting any better. He hits every stereotype for depression, from pushing away friends to giving up previously loved activities. Stacey tries to fix him but finds she’s just dragging her own emotions down. Finally, she asks an adult for help, and gets told that she can’t handle Robert’s problems on her own. She urges him to seek help himself, and he does.

Interesting Tidbits

The cover. Robert looks like he’s about twenty. Also, I know depression is hard to draw, so to speak, but his emotionless, blank stare isn’t too terrible at expressing it.

I know I sorta made fun of the foreshadowing of this book in M#33, but I’m actually glad they did that. It allows Stacey a chance to point out that Robert has been down, out of sorts, and bored for at least three months at this point. (They keep describing him as being ‘bummed,’ which is making me picture Robert as a surfer for some reason.)

Claudia’s outfit is so bad, I have no words.

Stacey’s shocked when Claudia suggests Robert could be using drugs. I know from an article I recently read that AMM wanted the series to be more edgy but the publishers wouldn’t allow it. (She said she wanted all the BSC members to have a secret—MA’s mom was dead, Kristy’s dad took off, etc.—and she wanted Stacey’s dad to be in prison for embezzlement. When that was denied, she gave Stacey diabetes instead.) I think this is the closest that the BSC comes to someone having a drug problem in the series. There’s #87, where the ‘bad girls’ are drinking, and #74, where some of Kristy’s teammates smoke, but nobody tries pot that I can recall, or any other drugs.

When Robert says that he doesn’t see the point of everything, Stacey tries to force him. Because, you know, that works so well. He says life’s just the same old, same old. Be glad you figured that out at thirteen, kid. At the time, the baseball team (starring both Logan and Robert) is gearing up for ‘the big game,’ and Robert quits just days before the game. If that’s not a giant warning sign, I don’t know what is.

Seriously…Mr. and Mrs. Pike drop five of their kids—everyone but the triplets—plus all three Ramsey kids off at the strawberry picking place. They give Mal twenty dollars, but make no other instructions to the children (except, don’t eat too many…which Claire ignores. She throws up on Mal’s shoes.) It would have made more sense to find out approximately how much a ‘little green basket’ of berries costs and then tell them how many baskets they can pick. Instead, the kids go overboard, challenging each other over who’s going to pick the most, and throwing berries around. They end up picking thirty dollars in berries and needing extra money. No adult ever comments on the fact that Claire was eating as she’s picking or that the others are wasting berries, and you know they didn’t pay for the thrown/eaten berries.

I like how insightful about people this book makes Claudia. As an artist, she’s naturally observant about the world around her. She points out how Robert is trying to alienate Stacey like he has all his other friends. Stacey hadn’t even realized that Robert didn’t talk to anyone else anymore.

Robert is a textbook case of depression: in addition to quitting the baseball team (giving up activities he previously loved), he lost all his friends, only focused on the negative (how pointless everything is), and is flunking out of school.

To this story’s credit: Most television shows showing a depressed character follow a very simple format: everyone ignores/misinterprets all the symptoms of an unhappy individual and only sees them after the person is dead/attempting suicide. (Facts of Life, Beverly Hills 90210, even Degrassi High**) For example, a girl who shows up for the first time in that episode gives Tootie a necklace and tells her how much she’s appreciated Tootie making her feel welcome at the school. She then goes back to her dorm and swallows a massive amount of pills, killing herself. Tootie wonders how she didn’t know the girl was depressed. But Stacey, although she’s not sure how to help Robert, keeps trying. She won’t let Robert push her away, like he’s done everyone else in their lives. It starts alienating the other members of the BSC, but like she did with Tess in #111, Stacey is convinced she knows best and is going to ‘save’ Robert. She takes on his problem as her own. It is a lot less cringe-worthy this time and a lot more noble, because, unlike Tess, Robert actually does need help.

**Regular readers of this blog know how much I love Degrassi Junior High/Degrassi High. I will give them some extra props because one girl actually did notice something was off about the boy who committed suicide. Oh, and unlike the other two shows I mentioned, the character was a familiar one whom the audience knew, and the repercussions of his death played on through pretty much the rest of the series.

So, after nearly every family in the neighborhood has picked more strawberries than they can eat (and Linny, in addition to Claire, ate so many berries he was sick), Kristy decides that the best solution to strawberry fever is…a strawberry festival.

OMG…Kristy goes into a CHAT ROOM to look for strawberry-related ideas, with Linny helping her. Not only does that bring this book into the digital age, but this was obviously before all the warnings to kids not to post in chat rooms and other places without an adult. I can picture Kristy posting something like this:

           Hi, I’m Kristy Thomas, president of the Babysitters Club in Stoneybrook,

Connecticut! I’m with one of my favorite babysitting clients and we want ideas on how to have a Stoneybrook Strawberry Festival. What do you recommend?

PS For a great babysitter, call KL5-5555!

Great idea, no? Well, great idea for calling out child predators to her whole name, location and phone number, at least. (Can’t you just see a modern version of the BSC advertising on Craigslist?)

Stacey’s supposed to be writing her ‘self-portrait.’ Didn’t she already do that? The BSC has been in eighth grade for so long, they’re repeating assignments now.

Stacey calls a radio show, asking for help with Robert. Of course, Dr. Gupti gives her all the right answers, but best part about it is this: She changed her name, and Robert’s, and the sport he’d quit, so that no one will recognize the situation. The phone rings a moment after she hangs up and it’s Claudia, laughing and calling her by her fake name, but agreeing with the advice. (Janine apparently enjoys Dr. Gupti’s show, although it’s largely relationship advice and doesn’t sound like something she’d like.)

The title quote is part of Robert’s rant when Stacey tells him he needs to ask for help.

YES! Claudia spelling, to lighten up the Robert drama! Toosday, nevur, meny, strabarries, shure, agian, festivul.

So Robert talks to his baseball coach, and he’s magically improved? To be fair, he isn’t 100% back to the way he used to be, but he actually goes to the damn ‘strabarry festivul’ and then has a good time at a random dance with Stacey. I guess it could be worse; no one died in this book.

Outfits

Claudia: zebra striped leotard, leopard spot overall shorts, tiger stripe scarf, lizard scrunchie, giraffe earrings

Next: Mystery #35 and an extra-special extra book. You all seriously owe me for actually reading this crap.

“Am I getting old, or is very noisy in here?” BSC Mystery #34: Mary Anne and the Haunted Bookstore (1998)

I want to point out, before I begin, that this is the most Scooby-esque title of them all in the BSC mysteries series. Maybe if they’d kept going, there could have been a “[Insert your favorite babysitter] and the Mystery of the Abandoned Amusement Park”, where in there’s a monster. Stacey rips the monster’s mask off and discovers it’s really the groundskeeper, and then Shannon the dog and Logan have some Scooby snacks and eat everything in the kitchen at the Spier-Schafer house. Possible, but let’s move on.

A new, mystery-themed bookstore is opening in town. It’s called Poe and Company, and the building it’s housed in had a Poe connection: allegedly, the original owner of the house, Benson Dalton Gable, either was an admirer of Poe’s, or Poe stole his best work from Gable (depending on whom you believe.) There’s even a rumor that Poe killed Gable. Weird, Poe-related things keep happening in the house, and the BSC moves to figure out who’s behind them. It turns out that the owner, Mr. Cates, and his assistant, Ms. Sparks, did everything as a publicity stunt. Then the BSC and the kids discover hidden compartments in a desk and reveal the true relationship between Gable and Poe.

In the B-plot, Mr. Cates uprooted his two children to open the bookstore. His wife recently left the family, and no real reason is ever given for why. However, Kristy helps his two kids realize that it’s not their fault and that they shouldn’t be angry with their father or his potential new girlfriend, either. Then the BSC helps them feel like they fit in.

C-plot: another ridiculous festival.

Interesting tidbits

Heehee, Mary Anne’s wearing a tank top! Oh, and that’s clearly a wig, see?

The story starts with a pretty detailed retelling of Poe’s “The Tell-tale Heart,” which MA is reading for English class. (I never liked Poe’s scary stories, and would never read them voluntarily myself.)

Sharon-itis: work papers in the fridge

Okay, so the whole plot of this book revolves around a niche bookstore, right? This was 1998, so maybe it was before online shopping started killing even large box stores. But why create a bookstore that focuses exclusively on mysteries? It cuts down your choices of titles, and it cuts down your customer base. I like some select mysteries, but I wouldn’t set foot in a store like that.

Since I haven’t done this in a while: when the triplets are first mentioned in this book, it’s done alphabetically.

You know it’s been raining a lot in Stoneybrook when all the BSC members are tired of rain jokes and puns…even Abby.

“Here’s the office where the old guy wrote stuff.” You can tell Tom Cates really loves living in a historic building and hearing about it all day long.

Mr. Cates and his coworker/possible girlfriend, Cillia Sparks, keep making Poe jokes all the time. It makes me want to retch.

Haven’t even gotten to the mystery yet, but here are the suspects so far: Ms. Sparks, a big Poe fanatic who is helping Mr. Cates open the store; Alex Gable, descendent of Benson Dalton Gable, and his father; a construction worker who seems to do more eavesdropping than working*; Ramona Kingsolver, a professor from Stoneybrook University; and Mr. Cates himself. Kingsolver expresses that she believes Gable admired and respected Poe and initiated a relationship with him. Alex, on the other hand, believes that his ancestor was a superior, more popular writer, and Poe stole ideas from him.

*At this point, MA is supposed to be painting, but she’s doing more eavesdropping than painting. She really shouldn’t judge anyone.

You know it’s important that Ramona Kingsolver is superstitious, because she’s completely nuts-believes-every-ridiculous-story kind of superstitious. She freaks when Alex walks under a ladder, goes ballistic when he opens his umbrella in the house, hates Pluto the cat simply because black cats are unlucky, and wears a rabbit’s foot and four-leaf clover.

Some real (non-Poe) books mentioned for the bookstore: The Westing Game and From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Both of those are actually awesome books. (The former was the first mystery I actually loved and, at least partly, solved prior to the big reveal at the end.)

Mr. Cates and Ms. Sparks leave the house, but need someone to stay behind and accept a delivery. MA and Logan volunteer. Maybe Mr. Cates doesn’t know they’re dating, but to me, leaving two teens, one of each gender, alone in your house—especially teens that aren’t related to you and you aren’t legally responsible for—sounds like a horrific idea. (Interestingly, when Mr. Cates comes back with his kids, Gillian says bye to MA and MA’s boyfriend. Claudia told her who Logan is. Mr. Cates still seems unconcerned. I guess coming home and finding them still clothed probably helped.)

Caludia speling! Do’nt, annother, Saterday, was’nt, teling, wurest (worst), everybudy, werld, geting. Also, she uses there for they’re, wurst for worst and hole for whole. She also spells Gillian as Jilian, but a) she’s never met her before and b) Jillian is more common than Gillian, so I’ll give her a pass.

Claudia and Stacey take the Cates kids and Charlotte to see Star Wars. Tom says everyone’s seen that movie before. I’m pretty sure all three Star Wars movies replayed that year or there abouts, leading up to the release of The Phantom Menace. That was actually the first time I’d ever seen Star Wars. So, shut up, Tom.

Mrs. Pike says the title line at Pizza Express, right after she gives the triplets money to play video games. Look, lady. You’re the dingbat who took five of your kids out for pizza…right after a very crowded movie…on a day when it’s too wet to play outside. Take some aspirin and get over it.

This is pretty funny, though. When Claudia loses Tom in the bathroom at the movie theater, she runs into Alan. She asks him if a boy named Tom is in the restroom, and Alan says he’s alone. He then laughingly suggests that Claudia lost her date, even as Claud explains that she’s babysitting. Later, he runs into Claudia sitting at the table and asks if her new boyfriend ever came back.

Vanessa even writes a poem about her pizza. I fear for the Pikes when she’s old enough to discover Poe and his ilk.

Ha ha! Alex meets Stacey and starts flirting with her. He says he thought she went to SHS with him, but Stacey confirms she’s in middle school. All I could think was that he must not be that cute, or Stacey would have pretended to be older (like she did in the BSC movie.)

So apparently, since Gable’s grave has never been found (WTF? How do you lose a grave?), Alex believes that Poe killed Gable and walled him up in his own house, and then stole his ‘missing documents.’ (For those not up on Poe, he references “The Tell-tale Heart” and “The Cask of Amontillado,” both of which involve burying someone in a house.) Someone is behind the wall, but it’s the cat, just like Poe’s “The Black Cat.”

Alex claims that the Gable house was the inspiration for Poe’s “The Raven” because there are ravens carved in to the fireplace (or something lame like that). Then MA finds words from the poem carved into a shelf in Gable’s bookcase. Ooh, and then Mr. Cates drops a paper that is signed Annabel Lee, like the Poe poem, and tells MA not to tell anyone else. It’s all so mysterious! (You should hear my sarcastic happiness in that statement.)

Mistake! In Kristy’s notebook entry, she writes ‘Aunt Cecilia.’ Jessi’s aunt’s name is spelled Cecelia. Prior to these books, every one I’d ever known with that name spelt it Cecilia, which is the original spelling. (It’s the feminine of Cecil). However, I’ve since met a real-life Cecelia, and I’m assuming her parents chose that spelling for the nickname Celia, which is indeed how she’s known.

Maybe we were weird little kids, but when we used to play hide and seek, there was no base or home. You stayed hidden until you were found; you didn’t try to escape from your hiding place and race around the house. Anyone else play like that?

Tom has a theory, which is probably at least partly true: he thinks his parents only got married because his dad is obsessed with Poe, and his mother’s name is Annabel Lee. That’s probably what got his attention about her in the first place, but hopefully not what caused him to propose or anything

I keep trying to type Pow instead of Poe. Honestly, this story would be a lot more awesome if Mr. Cates and the rest of the characters were all obsessed with the Pikes’ dog.

Ms. Spark keeps calling Mary Anne Dupin, which I assume is a Poe reference I can’t immediately place. Logan and Claudia suggest calling in the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew to help solve the mystery, but Ms. Sparks says the BSC is better. (A reporter came to interview Mr. Cates about the bookstore, and the random reporter actually recognizes MA from earlier mysteries.)

After someone lets a raven into the building, MA decides to check everyone’s shoes to see who was outside (and would therefore have muddy shoes, since it had been raining for weeks straight). You’d think EVERYONE in the building would have muddy shoes at this point. This doesn’t seem like the best way to make a determination of guilt. So much for MA being Dupin…

I love when AMM and her ghostwriters throw little tidbits about not trusting media coverage. This time, it stems from something Poe wrote (from Dupin’s point of view), but relates directly to the newspaper article posted about the bookstore.

Ha! Remember the reference to The Westing Game earlier in the book? MA goes to a pet store and finds out they ordered a raven for a woman, whom the clerk couldn’t describe. MA says she found a raven—which she sort of did—and gives the clerk her name. Only she writes Marie Roget, a character in one of the Dupin mysteries. It reminded me of a plot point in another of Ellen Raskin’s books, The Tattooed Potato and Other Clues. The main character, who has the improbable name of Dickory Dock, claims she’s a famous poet to hide her identity, only to have that be more disastrous than if she’d just given her own name.

The BSC continues to believe there’s actually a ghost until they find definitive proof that someone’s been creating these situations as a hoax of some kind. (They find the Cates’ missing stereo in the basement, with a ‘beating heart’ tape still in it, explaining the sounds MA and Logan heard while alone in the house.) I love how these teenaged girls, very much old enough to know better, keep believing in ghosts over and over again, despite Dawn and her ghost stories leaving town.

You know the BSC is getting desperate when they start borrowing detective tools from the triplets…

Claudia spelling, part two: furst, pikture, mach (match), difrent, smal, difrences, desine. She also uses its for it’s and to for too.

My only comment on the ‘sunny day festival’? I can’t believe that Stacey would voluntarily make a mud pie, but it’s actually all her idea.

In the end, Mary Anne, with Gillian’s help, finds a hidden compartment in Gable’s desk. Inside is a lap desk, full of the letters between Gable and Poe. There are a lot of unanswered questions though: whatever happened to Gable’s body? What did MA do for her Poe English project? And what kind of name is Cillia, anyway?

Oh, and the last page of the book—before the preview for mystery #35—notes that Benson Dalton Gable was not real and didn’t exist, but Poe did. Well, duh.

I also just realized that MA has #34 and M#34. I wonder if that happens any other time? I can't think of one, but I'm also not trying to hard either. :P

New characters

Tom and Gillian Cates (10 and 7)—28 and 25

Outfits

Mary Anne: yellow slicker with navy lining

Claudia: jeans painted with raindrops on the legs, long white shirt, gray vest painted with umbrellas, parasol earrings

Stacey: navy rain hat, navy miniskirt, white ribbed turtleneck, white ribbed stockings, navy nail polish; turquoise sundress, white sunglasses with turquoise polka dots, denim jacket

Jessi: t-shirt with shiny gold sun

Next: #119. Can’t wait! (There goes that sarcasm again.)

“Puppies are a lot easier to potty train.” BSC #118: Kristy Thomas, Dog Trainer (1998)

Oh look. Another issue book. I haven’t read this one, but I really hope it’s a lot less depressing than the last title.

Kristy’s family takes in a guide dog trainee puppy. Their main job is to teach the dog to obey simple commands like sit and stay, how to ‘go’ on command, and how to behave in public, so the puppy, Scout, can then go to a formal guide dog school, to learn special skills. Watson got the idea from a coworker of his, whose daughter recently lost her vision after an illness. Deb, who is twelve, is angry and mourning the loss of her sight and freedom, and the BSC decide to ‘fix’ that by trying to make her new friends.

During a sitting job, Deb decides to go to the video store, but her brothers aren’t ready to leave. So while Kristy’s not looking, she leaves on her own. Kristy finds her in the intersection and leads her back to the house.

Interesting Tidbits

The cover. Kristy actually looks super cute here, and the puppy is pretty adorable. (Not as cute as my Scout, but a lot less fat….) And this happens in the book, when Kristy meets a guy with a guide dog.

Ew. Kristy’s making dog puns, and they’re even worse than Abby’s puns. Boo, Kristy!

Then, to make matters worse, Abby points out that, even though they’re babysitters, they’re not supposed to sit on babies. And then makes a horse pun that related right into a very stupid exchange right before that.

Stacey makes a comment about how blind people have to learn to tell coins apart by feeling them, and wonders how they differentiate paper money. Well, first, I have the comment that a lot of people have complained about the 2006 update to money being ‘Monopoly money’ because it was different colors. Well, in other countries, not only is the money different colors but different denominations are also different sizes, specifically for this reason. I’ve seen people with visual impairments who fold different denominations in their wallets in different ways so they know what they have. I’ve also heard that Ray Charles used to insist in being paid in singles so that he knew he wasn’t being ripped off.

Karen asks what happens to the guide dog puppy if it fails its training. I actually knew the answer to that before I read it, because I read a magazine article back in my early teens about a family that raised a guide dog puppy. They updated on the puppy a few months later, stating that the puppy had failed guide dog school, but was now in training to be some type of police dog—either a cadaver dog or a drug sniffing dog or something similar.

Kristy loves Scout’s name because it reminds her of To Kill a Mockingbird. My Scouty is named after that same character.

I love this: after hearing that the Brewer-Thomas family will be getting a guide dog, Mallory and Shannon give Kristy books on dog training. This makes sense, as Mallory’s a book/library nerd, while Shannon’s family probably just had one of those lying around. (Although, couldn’t you picture the Kilbournes hiring someone to train Astrid?)

So Kristy. She brings Scout to a BSC meeting, and it’s not till she gets there that someone else points out that Abby’s allergic to dogs. Shouldn’t she have considered that before? My mother’s allergy to dogs is very serious, and she would have had to leave an enclosed space like Claudia’s room if there was a dog there.

It annoys me how one-dimensional they make most of the characters in these stories. When Jessi finds out that guide dogs can go anywhere, her first response is, even the ballet? Claudia is curious about McDonald’s. I expected them to continue the trend: Mallory to ask about the library, or Stacey to ask about the mall.

Real book: Nate the Great, which Mark is reading for school

Mary Anne is the first to sit for the Coopers. She wants to help Deb, who’s angry and resentful over the loss of her independence. Mary Anne feels very helpless to assist Deb in anyway, but I think she actually did a good job. When Deb knocks over a chair, she rights it and then tells Deb where it is so she can find it and sit in it on her own. And then she lets her vent her frustration.

The Abby groan fest continues: after she inadvertently rhymes a sentence, Mal tells her she sounds like Vanessa. So Abby voluntarily keeps up the very grade-school poetry.

After MA’s experience with Deb, the BSC decides to ‘fix’ her situation by making new friends for her. Kristy’s supposed to be a sort of companion for her for the afternoon—kind of the way Dawn was supposed to be Whitney’s companion once upon a time—and the other sitters decide to bring their charges over to see her so that she could have other people who didn’t know her before to hang out with, people who wouldn’t judge her by the person she used to be. That’s a sweet idea, but again, Deb is twelve. The kids they plan to pair her up with are between the ages of four and eight. Good friends for her little brothers, but for her? The BSC members themselves would be smarter choices. (Oh, Mary Anne brings Ben Hobart along with the other Hobart boys, which is more appropriate. But why is she sitting for him? And he already knows her, since James and Mark are friends, but doesn’t that sort of defeat the purpose here as well?)

Karen suggests that Scout could go on safari with a blind person. While that’s technically true, where the hell did she come up with that idea?

HA HA! Kristy nearly makes Karen cry!

Watson say the title quote when Kristy equates raising a guide dog puppy to raising a child.

I feel for Mark and Jed. One of them makes a comment about how Deb gets to watch as much television as she wants, then self-consciously amends that to say she listens to television. They have to keep the floor clean and not move anything around, and since Deb is so angry, they tiptoe around her, trying not to set her off. While Deb is getting help from a social worker, the two of them just have to deal with the changes to their lives.

When Kristy finds Deb in the middle of the intersection, she winds up telling her off. Deb suggests she’d be better off dead, and Kristy tells her she’s not dead—she’s got family and friends who care. Deb says she doesn’t want her friends feeling sorry for her, which is a noble sentiment. But Kristy points out that she then should stop feeling sorry for herself. Easier said than done, but I think it did need to be said.

Small mistake: the word ‘warning’ appears in the middle of a sentence and in the middle of a line in a book, yet it’s written as warn-ing.

That really wasn’t as bad as I thought. I think it’s because the BSC members don’t ‘fix’ or ‘save’ Deb. She still has a long ways to go, her attitude is still intermittently crappy, and she still lacks the independence of kids her age. Nothing’s really solved, but Deb has started on the right track. Much more realistic than most BSC books.

New characters

Deb, Mark and Jed Cooper (12, 8 and 4)—30, 26 and 22

Outfits

Stacey: black jeans, black cropped sweater, ankle boots

Claudia: hot pink bike shorts, Hawaiian print shirt, hot pink and lime socks, Doc Martens painted swirls of colors. Other than the Docs, this outfit SCREAMS 1990.

Next: Mystery #34

“Why does the parade need a grandmother?” BSC #117: Claudia and the Terrible Truth (1998)

Hoo, boy. This is a dilly of a book. The BSC doesn’t have a good history of ‘issue’ books, with the stories coming across as either public service announcements or just laughable ridiculousness. I’ve read this one before, but I don’t remember much about the actual issue except for one, very important detail I’ll discuss in the tidbits below.

Claudia gets a regular sitting job for the Nicholls family, who just moved to town. The two boys are very well behaved, but seem to be afraid of their father, whom Claudia doesn’t really like. She soon finds out why the boys are so scared when she learns their father belittles them and sometimes physically abuses them. Claudia tells her mother, who brings it up to Mrs. Nicholls while they’re at work. The Nichollses drop the BSC and hire Erica Blumberg to sit for them. She calls Claudia, concerned, when both boys are bruised and bloody. Mrs. Kishi and Claudia help get Erica, Mrs. Nicholls and the boys out, and Mrs. Nicholls moves in with her sister to get away from him.

Interesting Tidbits

The cover: I really don’t want to make fun of what these imaginary kids are going through, but doesn’t the cover make it look like that house should be on fire?

Okay, so Peaches and Russ are going out of town for a week, and they’re leaving baby Lynn in the care of…Claudia?!? Seriously, that’s how it’s described in the book. Only Janine points out that there are also two adults living in the home. (Also, who exactly will be watching Lynn during the day? These books have a habit of ridiculous things like putting babies in daycare for two weeks only or arranging for Claire Pike to go to two sessions of kindergarten in one day.)

Oh look, a page-long recap of book number 116. Now, I haven’t read that one since, like 2012 or so, but I still remember the plot enough that I didn’t need a reminder. Chances are most of the readers had just read that story weeks earlier.

And since baby Lynn is at the BSC meeting, we’re introduced to the members by what they were probably like as a baby. Seriously? Just give it up already.

Our first view of the Nicholls family: the whole house is pristine, and everything is lined up just so, like someone with severe OCD had swept through it. The dad barks orders and the boys are overly worried about displeasing him for any reason or leaving even a little mess. Nate gets extremely upset when he accidentally rips a page in one of Claudia’s books. They also let Claudia win at checkers, as if they’re afraid of what will happen if she doesn’t win. Finally, Mr. Nicholls screams at them because Claudia hadn’t put away the peanut butter when she was done with it and calls his sons dumb slobs. That’s not blatant or anything.

So what was happening with Lynn during the day? Mrs. Kishi was taking her to work and making an employee in the children’s library watch her. Way to abuse your powers as head librarian, Mrs. K.

I like this bit: at the ridiculous B-plot-St.-Patty’s-Day-parade-planning-meeting, Charlotte and Becca roll their eyes at the triplets, finding them immature. Becca tells Jessi that girls mature faster than boys, but I think she overheard someone else say that somewhere.

Karen and Andrew want to play bagpipes in the parade. As if you need another reason to hate the Brewers….  (Actually, I usually don’t have a problem with Andrew. But this is enough to make me want to have a problem with him.)

Here’s what KILLS me about the BSC. Claudia feels that something is off about the Nicholls family, with the way Mr. Nicholls talks down about both his wife and children and the way his children are super-obedient and seem to constantly fear him. But despite the fact that her mother works with Mrs. Nicholls and knows the family, Claudia says she ‘isn’t ready’ to tell her parents about what’s going on there. Yeah, I realize that, at this point, she’s just got a hunch that something’s wrong. She hasn’t seen bruises on the boys or seen their father hit them, but come ON. When I teach new employees how to deal with situations, I always tell them that if something seems wrong, it probably IS wrong. If the hair on the back of your neck stands up, then something is off and you need to trust your gut. Especially because, right after she decides not to say anything, she’s actually present when Mr. Nicholls hits Joey.

“How hard can it be to make a few cardboard shamrocks?” Mallory of all people should know to never say stuff like this. Especially when Jackie is around; after all, the ghostwriters looooove to make Walking Disaster jokes, right?

Claudia’s mom is actually really awesome in this story. When the BSC decide to go ahead and tell her what’s going on, she points out that it’s a serious accusation, then brings up the ‘mandated reporter’ rule.* She takes everything out of Claudia’s hands by saying she’s going to talk to Mrs. Nicholls and a social worker. She believes Claudia 100 percent without question, going so far as to take detailed notes on what she’d seen. And best of all, she holds Claudia when she cries and doesn’t pretend to have all the answers as to why this is happening.

Actually, with a few exceptions, the BSC parents are awesome overall. Richard may handle parenting very different from the Kishis or the Pikes, but can you call any of those parents a bad parent? We definitely get to see BSC parents make bad choices—Stacey’s parents constantly putting her in between them comes to mind—but all the parents (except maybe Kristy’s dad) truly want what’s best for their kids. Claudia even makes a comment to that effect when talking about the Nicholls.

*Mandated reporting, for those who aren’t up on such things, holds that employees in certain professions, such as health care, education and day care, have a legal responsibility to report suspected abuse. I remember being a child and hearing about the Lisa Steinberg case in New York, in which six-year-old Lisa was systematically abused by her illegally-adoptive father before her death. When her teachers were interviewed, they said that she always seemed withdrawn and was constantly covered in bruises. I forget whether she’d been reported to social services or not, but I know that case spurred a lot of reform in many places.

Ooh, Mrs. Kishi is a liespotter! In my line of work, that’s the term for someone who can see the difference between what’s being said, how it’s being said, and non-verbal behavior. For example, you can tell when Hillary Clinton is lying when being asked a yes/no question, because she’ll answer one way and her head will go the other (she’ll gush on about how positive her relationship is with President Obama while shaking her head no.) Mrs. Kishi notes how Mrs. Nicholls is trying to assure her that nothing is wrong at home while she’s wringing her hands.

There aren’t a whole lot of quotable lines in this book, so I gave Claire her second title quote in less than a month.

Someone actually read the BSC bible! Erica, whom the Nicholls hire to sit for the boys after they ditch the BSC, has a history of sitting. She had babysat for Betsy prior to the events of #19, and she mentions taking care of the Newtons in #100. I’ve always wondered why she was never up for consideration to join the BSC anytime they were looking for new members. Claudia calls her level-headed and responsible.

So Mrs. Nicholls agrees to get away from her hubby and says that she’s been making plans for something like that for a while. She gets a restraining order and moves four hours away to live with her sister. Mr. Nicholls agrees to get counseling for his issues. Mrs. Kishi points out the Nichollses problems are far from over, and that admitting he needs help is just the first step. I remember very distinctly when I read this imagining what happened to the family after. Mr. Nicholls does a couple months of therapy and then starts wooing his wife back. She decides he’s changed and goes back to him, only for him to break one of the boys’ arms this time. Mrs. Nicholls leaves him again, only to repeat the cycle a few more times. She eventually leaves for good, but by then her boys are so emotionally scarred that any chance for them to grow up normal is pretty well destroyed.

Think I’m maybe a little cynical?

Next: #118

“Mary Anne had never imagined herself hanging around outside the boys’ bathroom.” BSC Mystery #33: Stacey and the Stolen Hearts (1998)

I actually kind of like this mystery. Why? Because it’s something that could actually happen. As opposed to when Stacey actually helped the Secret Service catch a counterfeiter (M#10) or appeared in the world’s worst horror movie (M#24).

Pete and Stacey create a Valentine-Gram fundraiser, which is a pretty standard school fundraiser. The problem? The bag of valentines goes missing, and then someone starts posting facts gleaned from the bag to embarrass various students. The BSC suspects Cary, naturally, along with a variety of random students. It turns out that Cary didn’t steal the bag, but he did post all the notes around school. The culprit was actually Alan, who’d asked to get a valentine back and had been refused. He returns the bag and the valentines are (almost) all delivered.

The B-plot is so stupid, I almost didn’t write about it. The BSC throws a ‘festival’ for V-Day for the kids, because the kids are all bummed out about the holiday. It has snacks and crafts and everyone’s required to make a valentine for every other person who goes to the festival. In other words, it’s exactly like nearly every elementary classroom’s party. It’s pretty par for the course these days that, in elementary school, valentines are required for every member of the class, there are heart shaped cookies and crafts, and romance is pretty much not allowed.

Interesting Tidbits

Not only is Stacey appropriately V-Day garbed, she’s overly horrified by the hearts all over the lockers. I tried to read them, but all I can discern is a few capital letters. Very disappointing.

YAY! Stacey finally cut off her perm. For someone so (allegedly) stylish, she’s at least five years behind the times, there.

Apparently Ethan scores a gazillion on the hunk-o-meter. Very mature, Stacey. She describes him and I’m totally picturing him as a borderline-Emo artist.

We meet the BSC by what kind of Valentine they send. I swear, some of these intros are so cheesy, they have to stretch quite a bit to make them work.

Heh. When Kristy makes fun of Stacey’s fish sticks, suggesting they look like gopher nuts, Stacey shoots back that it’s actually monkey snot. Not only does this gross Kristy out, but all I could imagine when Kristy said gopher nuts was gopher testicles…Now I’m grossed out.

Should I transcribe all the Valentine-Grams? Sure, why not. This first one is to Claudia from ‘an admirer’ (aka Josh): Sometimes roses are white/And sometimes violets are too/I’ve been as high as a kite/ever since I kissed you. BLECKK!

The first note that’s plastered all over school? Cokie sent her latest boyfriend 12 valentines, and he sent her none in return. It also says that Cokie called him Sugarbear.

Cary has an alibi for the time of the theft—he was at the dentist. He even offers to provide Stacey a sworn affidavit from the hygienist. Everyone say it with me: I love Cary Retlin.

The second note is similar to the first, only it’s addressed to Jacqui, the ‘bad’ girl Stacey used to hang out with, who has a big thing for Robert and sent him several valentines.

Abby takes Logan’s joke, and when Kristy calls the meeting to order, she asks for a BLT. I rolled my eyes, but Kristy’s response was pretty good: “That joke is so old. Last time I heard it, I fell off my dinosaur.”

Suspects: Brian and Rose Marie, this couple who got together through Claudia’s matchmaking service in #71 (I had totally forgotten about them); Alan; Pete; Robert; Cary; Cokie. The only way to narrow the list down? You got it. The BSC divided it up and played spy/detective.

Claudia spelling: franckly, dissapointed, brot, gess. She also uses there for their, ferry for fairy. And she spells Brian as Brain. (This makes me laugh. I have a cousin named Brian, and my one uncle went to Disney for his honeymoon. He brought back mouse hats for all the nieces and nephews with our names on them, but Brian’s said Brain.)

The title quote comes from Mary Anne’s stakeout of Pete. Mal and Jessi also do the same thing of lurking around the potty, but Jessi calls it Lavatory Listening. (The book says the two of them were hiding in a stall. Were they sharing a stall? That’s going to get noticed. Now I’m picturing an episode of Degrassi the Next Generation in which three boys were reading the directions to a penis pump while sharing a bathroom stall…)

Valentine thief strikes for a third time, plastering the halls with valentines exchanged between Rose Marie and King.

Oh boy, a Logan notebook entry! It’s not actually that interesting, except that he tells Kristy she’s right, and Stacey thinks Logan is pretty much now Kristy’s new best friend because of that.

Stacey explains what a focus group is, which is boring. However, the items she makes up to describe focus groups are pretty awesome: Maxi-Clean for Small Dogs, Spring-Fresh Mitten Deodorizer, and, my personal favorite, Chocolate Covered Fish Zingies (which apparently snowboarders think are ‘totally awesome.’)

Becca, about Valentine’s Day: “I like to send cards to my friends, but that doesn’t mean I want to marry them.” No, of course not, Becca. You’re in third grade. When you start pulling their hair and calling them Puke Face, then you want to marry them.

Valentine-gram from Jim Poirier (who?) to our favorite, Sabrina Bouvier: Dear Sabrina, I knew from the moment I saw your beautiful eyes and perfect nose that you were something special. Will you go out with me?

The Scooby-gang gets their first and only clue, which breaks the case open: when Cary copies the Jim-to-Sabrina VG, part of his hand and stripy sleeve appear on the paper. This is not up to his usual standard of sneakiness. (Earlier in that same chapter, Stacey tries to sneak information about his dentist out of him. He figures it out and gives her his dentist’s name and tells her to look him up under ‘alibi.’ Of course, because HIPPAA or however it’s spelled does not exist in the BSC-universe, the dentist’s receptionist gladly verifies that Cary was indeed there during the crime.)

While trying to figure out who’s wearing stripes, the characters check the cafeteria: “It was strange to be looking only at people’s clothes and not their faces.” Of course. You can’t fully judge someone unless you check their hair and makeup in addition to their fashion.

“The BSC version of the SWAT team.” BSCSWAT…if it were a TV show, I’d watch it.

Claudia is actually the one who makes the Cary connection: not only is he wearing stripes, but he offered an alibi for the time of the crime before they ever told him when it happened. It’s like this situation we had at work: an employee was accused of going into a single-stall bathroom with a customer. When I interviewed her and told her what she was accused of, she said, “I never even go into the men’s room unless I’m cleaning it.” I’d never told her it was the men’s room she was accused of going into.

“Should we syncopate our watches?” Ahh, Claudia. (By the way, Stacey is wearing a Swatch. Hee hee!)

My random thoughts about the boring Valentine’s Day party? Jake and Laurel show up without Patsy. There’s no age minimum, though, because Ryan DeWitt and Marnie Barrett are both there. (Besides, the BSC usually sets a minimum at five or younger, to prevent Claire Pike tantrums.) Adam Pike made a really gross, bloody card that Stacey assumes must be for one of his brothers. Mathew Hobart asks MA to be his Valentine, despite the fact that all his friends say she’s too old for him.

Stacey winds up going to Alan’s house, and suggesting that he tell whoever took the bag of VGs to bring them back. She was originally very angry with him, but Cary had told Stacey that Alan stole the bag to retrieve both a note he’d written and prank notes that had been written to him. Alan realized a bunch of girls—including the one he’d written to—were writing prank love notes to him and stole the bag to avoid the embarrassment of the girl discovering he liked her. I think just about everyone’s been teased or bullied at some point or another and can relate to Alan’s pain. Stacey, who was ostracized due to her diabetes at her old school, definitely should be able to.

Outfits

Rose Marie: olive green sweater, denim miniskirt

Next: #117