“Have you ever experienced True Boredom?”….BSC Mystery # 35: Abby and the Notorious Neighbor

Memory Reaction

This was the second to last mystery in the series, so it was quite a while after I stopped reading. Therefore, no memory.

Revisited Reaction

Abby gets sick with bronchitis and has to miss a bunch of school. She’s a pretty active person, so she gets bored with this quickly. While watching some America’s Most Wanted-type show, she becomes convinced she recognizes one of the fugatives. Everyone tells her she’s imagining things, but she tracks down a tape of the episode and decides the person she recognizes as an embezzler is her neighbor. Again, people tell her she’s imagining things, but she convinces Kristy to snoop around the guy’s house to find out more information. Abby finally convinces that cop that the BSC has a totally inappropriate relationship with to look into the neighbor. He does, and because we want to encourage kids to spy on their neighbors, it turns out that this man’s the criminal in question.

He also appears to be a rather incompetent criminal, because despite being on the run, he gets mail at his home from his home town (in Iowa) and keeps pictures his kids drew on the refrigerator with their names visibly signed. And by visibly signed, I mean Kristy can look in one of his windows and see the names. We don’t see all the behind the scenes stuff, but apparently the cops found enough evidence that the neighbor was really the embezzler in question. Abby and the rest of the BSC get to watch, because they just happen to be in Abby’s room at the time of the arrest. The whole thing’s filmed by the TV show that first featured him, and Abby gets a reward from the show.

We also get an incredibly boring subplot about how kids in town are entering this go-cart race. The Pike triplets are making one, and Vanessa’s making one with Charlotte and Becca Ramsey. Nicky feels all left out, but manages to worm his way onto the triplets’ team by giving them some decals or something boring like that. The Rodowsky boys are also making a go-cart, but aren’t sure how. The end up spying on the girls’ team because they don’t want to admit they need help. I think it’s supposed to be cute, but it isn’t. There’s also drama with the Rodowskys because Jackie wants to be the driver, and Shea thinks that’s a recipe for disaster. But somehow Jackie convinces him and actually does pretty well. But they all lose to Bill and Melody Kormon, a last minute entry.

High/Lowlights

• Supposed the neighbor embezzled from his company, “driving it into bankruptcy,” then abandoned his family after stealing his wife’s life savings. But then they tell us he disappeared with more than $20,000 of stolen money. Now, I’ll assume that Abby’s interpretation may be exaggerated because she was sick when she first saw the show, but how’s $20,000 enough to warrant a spot on any kind of show like this? Or enough to hide out in the rich section of a Connecticut suburb? How much more do they mean?

• Just for the record, this book totally acknowledges that the plot’s straight out of Rear Window and other similar movies.

• Abby says she and Mary Anne are both old movie buffs, which isn’t usually mentioned, but I think is consistent with their characters/other books.

• Mal asks if he does anything suspicious like go out at odd hours or “wear disguises.” Does she mean leave his house in weird hats or sunglasses? I mean, really. What does she expect to see? I would think someone putting on an actual disguise wouldn’t do it before they left their house, since otherwise it would be obvious who they really were.

• It seems kind of out of character that the girls just laugh about the idea that the Rodowskys are spying on Charlotte, Becca, and Vanessa because they don’t want to ask girls for help. I would think they’d try and convince the boys it’s okay to go to the girls.

• Abby’s sister, Anna, plays the violin and likes classical music. I get that. But why does everything about her need to be connected to that? She tells Abby how if she was home sick and had time to do nothing she would read a biography on Beethoven, catalog her CD collection, and prepare for her Advanced Music Theory class. She can’t play the violin, but also watch soap operas or read romance novels?

• As I was reading this, I started thinking how if these books took place today, these girls (who are always going to the library to research during mysteries) could just Google the neighbor. So, imagine my surprise when Claudia and Stacey actually use the Internet (on Janine’s computer). I guess these books got “modern” after I stopped reading.

• I always wanted to build a go-cart when I was a kid. In TV-shows and books kids were always having chances to do this, but I never heard of one happening in the real world.

• During their Internet hunt, Claudia and Stacey find a couple pictures of the embezzler that Abby can use to compare to the neighbor. And in only “ten minutes” they have two blurry pictured printed out. Isn’t technology amazing?

• While Abby’s home sick she doesn’t just spy on the embezzler, she spies on everyone on her street, with binoculars. Kristy’s torn between being interested by what Abby’s learned and worried (because Kristy herself is a neighbor).

• Kristy and Abby have this ridiculous conversation about how the pictures on the neighbor’s refrigerator (they can see them through the window) are evidence that the guy has kids who are around 6 and 8. Apparently, they know that all six-year-olds draw houses with smoke coming out of the chimney and eight-year-olds draw horses or rocket ships (depending on gender).

• Throughout this book I kept thinking how Karen is always getting in trouble in the Little Sister books for spying on her neighbors, and here we have Kristy helping Abby to spy on the neighbors.

• So, the show Abby watched was actually called “Mystery Trackers,” so I’ll buy that a white-collar criminal would show up on one (when they wouldn’t on America’s Most Wanted). But stealing $20,000 does not seem worthy of that much attention. Not that it isn’t a bad thing to do, there are just worse criminals.

• One of the things Abby tells Kristy’s that the Kormons are building a go-cart that she thinks will be very fast, even though the rest of the BSC and the other kids entering the race don’t know about this. I guess Kristy offers to help the Kormons, because the day of the race she shows up with them, and has to convince the judge to let them enter (since they got there late). Kristy’s all thrilled and pleased with herself after they win, like she had some stake in the competition, but I’m not sure why.

• What annoys me about this book’s that everyone keeps telling Abby that she’s imagining things and that she shouldn’t be spying on her neighbors. But, having her be right basically invalidates all those comments and encourage kids to “snoop.” I hope this reaction doesn’t mean I’m old.

“Kissing was much more fun”…..BSC # 95: Kristy + Bart = ?”

Memory Reaction

I remember a few things about this one. The first is being surprised that there was so much kissing in the book. Not that I’m a prude, it’s just that the BSC was usually pretty tame when it came to that stuff…they would mention so-and-so kissing someone, but wouldn’t go into details about it. In this book, I remember how Kristy’s parents walk in on them making out in her house, and that Kristy was annoyed she was missing the movie because Bart wouldn’t stop kissing her. I also think my mother saw me reading it, and was all, “since when is the BSC about romance?” (Not that she thought it was inappropriate, I think it was just surprise). The answer’s pretty much always, but I guess this title stood out to her. Or she never saw the title of some Stacey and Mary Anne books.

I also remember that when Kristy’s grounded, her parents actually don’t let her leave her room (except to use the bathroom). Which seemed a bit over-the-top to me as a kid, and still does now.

Revisited Reaction

Kristy and Bart have been living somewhere in between friends and couple for about 75 books, and Bart’s apparently ready to take it to the next level. He refers to her blatantly as his girlfriend to friends, tries to kiss her the whole time they’re at the movies, and keeps putting his arm around her. Kristy’s a bit confused about it, cause while she likes Bart, she isn’t sure she’s ready for a full-on relationship.

One night while Kristy’s baby-sitting for her siblings, Bart shows up after the kids have gone to bed and Kristy lets him in to watch the Mets game. And that’s really what she was planning on doing, but Bart has other plans and starts kissing her. This is still what’s happening when her mother and Watson get home, and they’re pretty pissed about it. Apparently, there’s some rule about how Sam and Charlie can’t have girlfriends in the house when no one else’s home. It never occurred to Kristy that the same rule would apply to Bart, which tells you everything you need to know about that relationship. But anyway, she’s grounded for the weekend, and blames Bart. When she’s allowed to use the phone again, she tells Bart this and says to stop calling her. But, then she’s all upset that he wasn’t calling her. Anyway, she finally ends up telling him she just wants to be friends. Which he accepts, but then Kristy’s upset that he asks another girl to a dance. This makes it sound like Kristy’s a little bit bi-polar, but I think it’s realistic…definitely more than any other relationship we’ve seen these girls have.

Anyway, Kristy and Bart do have a pretty mature talk about the whole thing, and both acknowledge that neither of them is totally happy with how things worked out, but that that’s kind of the way it has to be. And they still are friendly enough to have Krusher/Basher softball games.

Subplot: Kristy has an idea for creating her own version of the Guinness book of World Records, with crazy records set by kids. So, we’re forced to hear about sitting jobs where little kids do stuff like throw potatoes around the yard or catch cereal with their mouths, with a BSC member getting exhausted from watching them.

High/Lowlights

• Kristy tells us that she lives in the “countryish” section of Stoneybrook. She goes on to say that some people call it the rich section, but she doesn’t because it would make her sound snobby. But telling us that sounds completely un-snobby?

• Kristy’s talking to Anna (Abby’s sister) about music, but starts just going along with what Anna says because she knows nothing about music. She even says, she doesn’t know the difference between a French horn from an English muffin. But I’m pretty sure that isn’t really true. She couldn’t have come up with a better example?

• What’s weird, is that when Bart complains about Kristy always baby-sitting, she tells him he should join the club, then they could see each other more. Bart does the whole, “but I’m a guy” thing, and then says it’s different for Logan because “his girlfriend’s a member.” Which is really weird coming from the guy who keeps announcing himself as Kristy’s boyfriend. I think they just did it so Kristy could angst about he meant by it.

• Even as an adult, it seems really over-the-top of her mother to make her stay in her bedroom all weekend. I get that they didn’t want her to watch TV all weekend, but why not make her clean the place, instead of giving themselves the extra work of bringing her meal to her room?

• Watson’s actually the one who walks in on Kristy and Bart kissing…..it’s pretty awkward.

• So far days after it happens, Kristy keeps thinking about how much she hates Bart for “doing this to her.” Which is kind of bratty, but again, probably realistic.

• Claudia outfit: “A bowling shirt with the name Ralph sewn over the front pocket, and matching loose rayon pants, gathered at the waist with a leather strip. She’d pinned her hair with a barrette in the shape of two bowling pins.” She explains to Mrs. Prezzioso that she doesn’t actually bowl, and Mrs. P pretends that it’s a good look, but clearly thinks it’s weird. That may be one of the few times Claudia gets a weird reaction to her clothes.

• Stacey has to explain to Kristy that she may have hurt Bart’s feelings when she said she didn’t want to date him. Which should seem obvious, but since we’re talking about 13-year-olds, I’m thinking it’s realistic (apparently a theme for this book).

• In an attempt to help Haley and Matt “set records,” Mrs. Braddock buys a whole bag of potatoes, several bunches of bananas, and several rolls of toilet paper that the kids can use to break records. Which seems like a huge waste of money and food. Surely they could have found a more practical way to do it.

• They have this whole set up of Kristy talking about Charlie not being allowed to have his girlfriend over when no one else is home, and it’s really just an obvious set up for Kristy getting in trouble later.

• I’m somewhat surprised by Kristy being surprised that Bart introduced her as “his girlfriend.” I was always under the impression that she was embarrassed to admit it, mainly because she didn’t want Bart to hear her say that before he acknowledged her as his girlfriend. But maybe I was reading her wrong.

• As one of the stupid record things the kids are doing, Margo Pike peels bananas with her feet, which was also her talent from the Little Miss Stoneybrook Pageant. And I like continuity so that was one of the few good parts about the subplot.

• Not only do we have to hear about the kids trying to break records, we also have to see them put on a show demonstrating them.

• Kristy says at the beginning that the rule about Charlie and Sam not having girls over sounds like a dumb rule, but her parents enforce it. But I really don’t think that’s a dumb rule, it seems like a pretty obvious one.

• Whenever I hear about these girls doing a project, I can’t help but think how they would do it differently if the books were taking place today. Like, how they could have created a blog instead of a book, or could have at least made a better book than what’s described (basically a photo album with pages of text stuck in). They even reference using “fancy” computer software to make it, but it’s still sounds old-fashioned.

“I create a mystery. You and the baby-sitter detective squad solve it”….BSC Mystery # 25: Kristy and the Middle School Vandal

Memory Reaction

I actually couldn’t remember if I read this as a kid. I feel like I did, just because the cover looked so familiar, but wasn’t totally sure. I remember the last regular book I read, but not the last mystery. And this one falls right between the last one I definitely remembered and the first one I definitely didn’t read.

However, once I started reading it, I remembered how it ended, so it turns out I guess I did read it. As soon as the mentioned a signature in green chalk I remembered how the culprit was color blind. But it clearly didn’t make that big of an impression on me, since that memory didn’t hit until I’d started reading.


Revisited Reaction

One day in school, Cary Retlin takes Kristy’s math homework out of her bag and erases all her answers. This leads to an argument between the two of them about whether the girls in the BSC are better detectives than Cary and his friends (the Mischief Knights). Cary totally mocks Kristy when she talks about the BSC having “investigations.” It’s kind of awesome. Anyway, by the end of the conversation, Cary has challenged the BSC to a “mystery challenge,” where he’ll provide a clue that the BSC needs to figure out to find another clue, then another, etc. If they solve all 8 of them within 6 school days, Cary will stop bugging them. If they don’t…..Cary will keep the watch he stole from Kristy. Anyway, Kristy accepts on behalf of the BSC, who are all eager to win.

Meanwhile, someone’s playing some serious pranks around school, including graffiti-ing the principal’s car and some other acts of vandalism. It appears as though this was the work of the Mischief Knights….the graffiti is signed with their traditional “MK.” However, they always sign their work in red, and the more recent pranks are being signed in green. This happens to occur while the teachers at SMS are negotiating a new contract. The chairman of the negotiating committee for the school board claims that the teachers don’t have a right to more money when they can’t control the students (evidenced by the prank/vandalism). There are threats of a strike and since it’s June, everyone’s worried that they’ll need to go back to school over the summer to make up for lost days.

Kristy’s convinced that Cary’s involved, and she even tells the principal about it, but Cary turns out to be innocent (of these more recent pranks, anyway). He’s understandable annoyed that Kristy did that, and she feels a little guilty. But they patch things up enough to continue their “mystery.” The last clue tells the BSC they need to determine who’s trying to frame the Mischief Knights, which the girls had been trying to figure out anyway. Mary Anne figures out that this person must be color blind, hence mixing up the red and green. And Claudia decides it must be this one often-in-trouble guy who has a horrible sense of fashion. But to get proof, they ask Cary to break into the guy’s locker, even though getting his help means forfeiting the challenge.

The reason they’re willing to do this is that the strike’s supposed to start the next day, and the BSC thinks catching the person behind all the vandalism will stop it. Once Cary and the BSC have proof, they go to the school principal, who calls an emergency school board meeting to announce the prankster has been caught and will be dealt with. This somehow gets the school board to stop harping on the behavior issues, which helps the negotiations and the teachers agree not to strike.

And since the BSC didn’t win, Cary continues to annoy Kristy. At least until he matures a couple years and just asks her out.

High/Lowlights

• Here’s what I don’t get. This color blind kid uses green chalk to leave the MK’s trademark, because he doesn’t realize that he isn’t using red. But, if he’s color blind, wouldn’t he have seen any previous MK signature as green? So, when he tries to copy it, it wouldn’t matter that he’s color blind because he’d still know what looks the same to himself. And if someone just told him the signature was always red, he should have known that he doesn’t see red the same as everyone else.

• Pranks are one thing, but it kind of sucks to erase all the answers from someone’s homework.

• Cary challenges the girls to a “mystery,” but it’s really not. The clues he give them are mini-logic puzzles that direct them to an area of the school (like the auditorium), where they find another piece of paper with a new puzzle. The last clue’s about an actual mystery, but that’s not until the last day.

• I don’t think it’s totally fair for Cary to say the girls forfeited the challenge by asking for his help. The clue said, “bring me the head of the false Mischief Knight.” They go to him and give him the name of this person. The proof was needed to go to the principal, but it wasn’t a requirement of Cary’s clue.

• Claudia outfit: “Today she was wearing pink jellies, white ankle socks with pink hearts around the edges, and majorly baggy white overalls cut off just below the knee, over a tie-dyed pink, green, and yellow T-shirt.” And this is the girl who calls the color-blind kid a fashion victim.

• I don’t really follow the logic behind how catching the vandal stops the teacher strike. But whatever.

• I love when Cary mocks Kristy for saying the BSC has “investigations.” Because by this point in the series the BSC was taking their detective work a little too seriously.

• So, the challenge from Cary inspires Kristy to have a scavenger hunt for the kids they sit for. Because they wouldn’t be good baby-sitters if they weren’t going out of their way to do fun projects with little kids.

• Stacey outfit: “She was wearing black leggings, side-zippered flat black ankle boots with pointed toes, a silver-threaded T-shirt dress that stopped at mid-thigh, and heart earrings.” I actually like this, but it seems too wintery for June.

• I hate how one-dimensional these girls sometimes are. They’re coming up with themes for these scavenger hunts, and we get the following suggestions: dance, art, and sports. I bet you have no idea who made them, huh?

• The thing about the kids scavenger hunt’s that they have 3 separate ones with two teams each. But in each hunt they have a different list of clues. So, it makes no sense that at the end they try and come up with winners out of all six teams.

• I thought most of Cary’s clue were pretty obvious, and thought it took the girls forever to solve….but I suppose that isn’t totally fair, since I may have been remembering the answers.

• One of the clues references, “toasted gloves and barbequed bats,” which Kristy realizes is about the shed she thought she had helped burn down. What I like about it’s that the other girls all get quiet when Abby goes, “wow, a shed burned down” because they know the whole story, but she doesn’t, since it was before she moved there.

• One of the kid’s scavenger hunts includes an item that “stinks” about sports, which one teams translates into sweat socks. So, they go to Mrs. Porter’s house and ask her for some. Because they know she’s such an athlete?

• I think this may be the first time Mrs. Porter’s been mentioned without getting the story about Karen thinking she’s a witch.

• One of the clues has the girls going to the boiler room of the school. Now, are places like that normally open to students? They acknowledge that they probably aren’t supposed to be there, but I would think it would actually be locked.

• Another clue’s a reference back to when Claudia ran a personals column at the school paper. For someone who just moved to town, Cary has a really good sense of BSC history. He must have read the books.

• I also like that they mention Claudia PREVIOSULY working for the paper, and don’t try to make it seem like it was still happening.

• Kristy worries about ruining fingerprints when she searches vandal-kid’s locker. Because all middle schools run fingerprints?

• Cary’s rather amusing....he has the clues placed in envelopes at various places around the school, and one of them is labeled as “Le Clue.” He also calls them the BSCPD. He’s a big improvement over Alan Gray.

• So, an example of the clues from Cary: “a drop of golden sun; just short of failing; a skater’s figure; not him, you see, but; (where does it all come from?). This translates to “Re; D; 8; Her” or radiator and the school’s boiler room.

“How about some good old-fashioned bartering?”…..BSC # 66: Maid Mary Anne

Sorry about the delay with this one....my internet connection has not been working very well.

Memory Reaction
This wasn’t one of my favorites as a kid. I’m not exactly sure why, but I know I didn’t read it over and over as the way I did with some of the others. I definitely read it more than once, but certainly not dozens of times. I don’t think it’s because I disliked the plot, I just didn’t like it as much as others.

Even so, I do have two pretty vivid memories of it. The first is that at one point, Mary Anne’s mopping the floor for this woman she’s helping out. A couple of kids the club sits for show up, and they end up slipping around having fun on the wet floor. I don’t think I’m only remembering this because it’s on the cover….it’s more likely because I also thought playing on a wet floor was fun as a kid.

The second memory’s how Mary Anne drags Logan over to help her clean or do something for this woman, and even though he helps her, he complains about it. It was one of the few times we see him act like a normal teenage boy would.

Revisited Reaction

Mary Anne has gotten really into sewing and meets Mrs. Towne, a neighbor who’s a very experienced with quilting, smocking, and embroidery. Mrs. Towne agrees to give her lessons. The day of her first lesson, Mrs. Towne doesn’t answer the door when Mary Anne arrives. Mary Anne thinks this is weird, so she tries opening the door, only to hear Mrs. Towne calling for help….it turns out she slipped and broke her ankle. Mary Anne calls 911 and helps gets Mrs. Towne to the hospital.

A few days later Mary Anne goes back for her lesson, and ends up helping Mrs. Towne with some household chores (she’s a widow with grown children living out-of-state, so she has no one to help her out). They decide that instead of paying for lessons, Mary Anne should help her out around the house while the ankle heals. At first this goes well, but then Mary Anne ends up doing more and more things. Mrs. Towne’s constantly calling asking for help with minor chores. Mary Anne has it in her head that she’s a selfish person, so she feels like she needs to jump whenever Mrs. Towne calls her. This starts to interfere with her baby-sitting and her time with her friends and Logan. But she actually decides to talk to Mrs. Towne about it, which is pretty rare for the BSC. Mrs. Towne’s very understanding, and the two agree that Mary Anne will just pay for the lessons with money, and Mrs. Towne will get a housekeeper to help out. Because things always go great when you decide to talk out problems like this.

Meanwhile, Mary Anne started a sewing class for kids in town, because it’s not possible for her to do something and not bring in baby-sitting. Nicky Pike and Buddy Barrett are the only two boys in the class, but then they start getting made fun of for doing something as “sissy” as sewing. So, they drop out run around with tool belts trying to be all manly. But they realize the kid making fun of them will just find something else to pick on them about. So they re-join the class, just in time to get their work into a quilt the class is making for Mrs. Towne.

High/Lowlights

• There’s a scene where Stacey’s baby-sitting the Barrett and she watches Suzi playing with Pow (the dog). Supposedly, Suzi’s holding Pow’s ear up to her cheek, while he licks her other cheek…..which sounds like the most disgusting thing ever. But I’ve never had pets so maybe it’s normal?

• Nicky and Buddy both call to drop out of the sewing class the same night. Nicky also tells Mary Anne that he knew Buddy was quitting. And Mary Anne and Dawn can’t think of any explanation for why they would quit. But I don’t think it’s that hard to come to the conclusion that they thought it was too girly. The boys had already complained about not wanting to embroider flowers.

• Mrs. Towne sure is nice about having kids always stopping by. I don’t think it’s a big deal that Mary Anne calls her neighbor and asks for sewing lessons, but it seems a bit rude to keep dropping by with little kids that various BSC members are sitting for.

• Speaking of dropping by with little kids, the girls are always doing this with Mrs. Stone, that woman with a farm that appeared in Stoneybrook half-way through the series.

• Do we hear of Mrs. Towne again? I don’t think so. It’s nice of Mary Anne to keep up with agreeing to see her.

• The kids in the sewing class decide to make a garden-theme quilt for Mrs. Towne, so Buddy decides do a square with a spider on it for his section….as soon as I started reading about the class I remembered that he did that.

• At a sitting job for the Pikes, Mallory and Jessi start baking a bunch of cookies with the kids. They end up using all sorts of ingredients to make different flavors. They use various combinations of chocolate chips, peanut butter, M&Ms, oatmeal, raisins, nuts, and coconut. I’m trying to figure out how much flour and sugar and other ingredients the Pikes would have needed to make that many batches of cookies.

• Actually, later Mary Anne says they made about six dozen cookies, which is really hardly any, so they must have only made a few of each. Later Mallory brings cookies to a BSC meeting to get rid of all the extras. But how many extras could there be if they if they were splitting them between all the Pikes, Jessi, Becca, and Buddy were involved?

• The quilt the kids make is a “friendship quilt,” which means everyone does one or two squares that eventually get sewn together. The only time I ever did this was when I was in high school and my geometry teacher had us make quilt patches to show practical application of angles and shapes or something.

• There’s all sorts of foreshadowing to Dawn leaving for California. She talks about it in every scene, as opposed to other books where she only talks about it in every other scene.

• Almost nothing happens in this book. Seriously. I know it’s not a mystery so it’s not quite as convoluted as some books, but it’s still really lacking in plot.

• I’m honestly surprised Nicky and Buddy took the sewing lessons to begin with. I mean, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with boys sewing, but Nicky and Buddy aren’t really as open-minded as me. Isn’t Nicky always complaining about not even wanting to be in the same room as his sisters?

• The Arnold twins are the kids who come over and play on the wet floor. They look nothing alike on the cover, but I guess that’s expected.
  

• Mary Anne and Logan are going on a picnic and they pack up a ton of food for just the two of them….cream cheese and jelly sandwiches, avocado and cheese sandwiches, pimento cheese, salsa and chips, grapes, and Oreo cookies. I think they do this in a lot of books…but who needs that much food for one afternoon?

• I like that Logan gets all annoyed at having to go over to Mrs. Towne’s to catch a wasp instead going on a picnic. Then he gets annoyed again when Mrs. Towne starts talking to them when he’s about to kiss Mary Anne (she was talking through the door).

• Mary Anne actually leaves in the middle of a BSC meeting to go help Mrs. Towne. Now, I get that she wants to be helpful, but I’m not sure why she couldn’t tell Mrs. Towne’s she’d be over in a half hour.

• The whole plot about Mary Anne wanting to be less selfish was based on a conversation with Dawn, I guess “off-screen” of the book. Mary Anne was nervous about giving a speech in school, and Dawn told her that all the kids she’s giving it to will be thinking about other things, so Mary Anne should think about that instead of how she’ll do. Which isn’t horrible advice, and Mary Anne’s probably the only person who would take that and think she’s being called selfish. Which pretty much proves she’s NOT selfish.

• Of course at the end, Dawn tells Mary Anne she never thought she was selfish, and that it’s okay for people to think of themselves….then turns it into a conversation about how she needs to think about California because her feelings about missing it are important. Then Mary Anne apologizes for not paying enough attention when Dawn said she missed California.

“Maybe they didn’t catch all the shoplifters last week, after all”…..BSC Mystery # 14: Stacey and the Mystery at the Mall”

Memory Reaction

I totally loved this book as a kid, because it includes kids living in a mall, and as a kid I always thought it would be cool to spend the night in one. Not because I loved shopping. I just thought it would be really fun to roller blade up and down the aisles and wonder around with no one there. I also had a fantasy of putting in a rope swing and riding from level to level. I’m weird, I know.
In terms of specifics, I mainly remember the girls running through the mall at the end trying to find the kids who were living out my fantasy. Then after the BSC finds them, the girls take the kids to a restaurant while one of them calls the cops. Then the oldest of the kid looks at them all betrayed because of it.

Revisited Reaction

The BSC has a class/project where they have to take part time jobs after school three days a week to learn about being in the workplace. They don’t actually earn any money, it’s just for school credit. The BSC all gets jobs at Washington Mall, although they could have chosen different locations. Stacey ends up with a job at the toy store, probably because it worked kids into the better than if she was at some fashion boutique.

All the girls (and Logan) find out right away that there’s a lot of shoplifting at the mall. And a week or so into the project, mall security catches a bunch of teenagers supposedly behind it. But after that, stealing continues. There are some big things being taken (TVs, treadmills, etc.) and smaller things (towels, childrens clothes, etc.). Someone’s also sneaking into a kitchen in the food court and cooking at night. At one point, Stacey comes face to ski-mask-covered face with one of the thieves in the storeroom of the toy store.

Because these girls are goody-goody, they can’t stop at just working at the mall. They also notice that their bosses sometimes need to bring their kids to work, and that parents sometime leave their kids at the toy store/bookstore/whatever while they do other shopping. So, the BSC decides that the mall needs a day care center. Because of this they meet the mall manager, who’s excited about the idea and gives them (or the daycare) a space at half the normal rent (without a second thought) and they get to help make the thing happen.

The girls start talking about the thefts and decide there must be two sets of people stealing. Their impressive library research skills tell them the mall’s been having financial trouble since the new manager took over (who has been having new community-building events). They decide the mall manager must be stealing because his new policies have been losing money for the mall. They also put together the fact that a bunch of kids that always seem to be around are living at the mall and behind the rest of the thefts.

There’s a fire alarm at the mall one day, and when reviewing security tapes (which Kristy has access to for her job), the girls realize these kids must have done it. They think that maybe they pulled it when they caught the mall manager stealing. Now because this is the BSC, the conclusions they jumped to are actually right…..the manager had threatened them, so they pulled the alarm to find good hiding places.

But anyway, the girls go back to the mall and run all over to find out where these kids are hiding. They think they are in danger now that they now about the mall manager. The BSC finally finds the kids, and get the sob story about how their mom’s in the hospital, their aunt never showed up to take care of them, and their electricity was turned off. So, these kids moved into the mall. The BSC does realize this is a problem they can’t solve themselves and call the police, who bring in social services. The kids tell the cops about the mall manager, and before they have to worry about social services splitting them up, the mother’s magically out of the hospital and ready to go home. And she won’t have any trouble getting back into the apartment the kids had abandoned weeks ago, or paying rent on top of hospital bills, when she likely doesn’t have great insurance or even a job.

High/Lowlights

• You’ll never believe the stores these girls picked to work at. Claudia worked at an art store, Mallory worked at the book store, and Mary Anne worked at a pet store. Aren’t those the most original places for those characters to get jobs?

• Kristy works for mall security. I’m sure the ghostwriters wanted her to work at a sporting goods store, but they needed someone in security to give the girls the inside info on all the shoplifting. And Kristy made the most sense.

• Logan works at the Mexican restaurant in the food court. I can’t imagine how this taught him anything he didn’t already know from working in the Rosebud Café in Stoneybrook.

• Jessi gets stuck working at the movie theater. She says it isn’t her first choice, which I’m guessing means there was no ballet store at the mall.

• During story hour at the book store, Mallory reads the books Stone Soup and Tikki Tikki Tembo, both of which are real books I remember reading as a kid.

• I can buy a bunch of kids living in the mall for a few days, or even a couple weeks. But these kids were apparently living there for (at least) the entire six weeks that the project lasts. And no one noticed?

• Speaking of these kids….they don’t say what their mother’s sick with, but apparently she was hospitalized several weeks before the kids were living in the mall (long enough for their electricity to get turned off). But suddenly, she’s going to go back to being a full time single parent?

• The kids’ aunt was supposed to stay with them, but she never showed up. Now, they had just moved to town so they hadn’t enrolled in school or gotten a phone hooked up. But, are we really supposed to believe their mother didn’t realize what was going on? Especially since the kids only visited a couple of times without any aunt. The mother never wanted to speak to her?

• Also, what’s the deal with this Aunt who never shows up?

• I can’t believe how much I want to rant about a book I liked so much originally.

• I wish I went to SMS. Not only do they have awesome vacations, they have all sorts of cool projects. Going to zoos, meeting famous authors, writing school plays, etc.

• When the girls first hear about the project, Kristy’s worried about the affect it will have on the club. But then they all decide to take jobs at the mall, which means all seven of them (including Logan, Dawn's in California) will always be busy on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. Wouldn’t it have made more sense if some of them took jobs in downtown Stoneybrook and worked on different days?

• Stacey’s teacher says that he and the other teachers split up all the jobs and are now assigning their group of jobs to their students. But this seems like a weird way to assign jobs. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to split the kids into classes based on the jobs they wanted? Otherwise, it’s hard to believe that most of these girls all got their dream jobs.

• Shannon says she can take extra sitting jobs while the rest of the club’s working at the mall. But if these girls get so many sitting jobs, how can Shannon cover them all herself.

• Right before the mall project started, Stacey had a class called “Math for Real Life.” As part of this, Stacey got to play the stock market with an imaginary $5,000, and apparently did crazy-well. Re-reading the books now makes me realize that Stacey wasn’t just supposed to be pretty good at math, she’s written as being exceptional at math and great with money in general.

• The way this day care center comes together makes no sense. The girls all mention the idea to their managers and get a list of store owners who want to help run the place. Because these people have enough spare time to do something like that. Then a few weeks later the BSC’s helping to paint the empty storefront where the center's going to exist? I’ll admit I don’t know everything that would be involved in such a venture, but I’m sure it’s more complicated than that.

• They make a big deal about telling us how nervous the entire BSC is about asking the mall manager about a day care. This is because they were told the old mall manager was really mean. But I still don’t buy that Kristy would be so terrified about it.

• The girls all get dressed up so that they can go ask the mall manager about the day care. But why are they the ones asking about? Just because it was their idea doesn’t mean they should be the one talking to him.

• How’s stealing a treadmill and a couple of TVs going to solve a mall’s financial issues?

• Jessi’s working at the movie theater, and is helping at a kid’s birthday party when a fire alarm goes off. Her manager shows up and leads them down a hallway to the exit. But they previously said that the theater was on the 4th floor, so why is there no mention of steps?

• The thief Stacey sees is supposedly the one working for the mall manager. But why would he be stealing from the toy store? That’s not really on the same level as big screen TVs.

• They’d also been making a big deal out of the fact that the thefts have been happening at night and when security cameras were pointed elsewhere. So, why would this guy be going around in his ski mask in the middle of the day.
• The only real outfit we get is what Claudia wore to the painting party. She “had wrapped a neon-pink bandana around her head, and she was wearing a humongous pair of overalls over an ancient striped T-shirt.” That seems like a pretty appropriate outfit for such work, which is much less fun than usual.

• When Stacey and her manager are helping set up the day care, another employee covers at the toy store. Supposedly, she’s a part time employee who only works weekends. That’s the only person we ever hear about working in the store, other than Stacey and her manager. Does this store have no other employees?

• Stacey doesn’t tell her mom about seeing the thief in a ski mask in the store, because she doesn’t want to have to quit working at the store. Nice to see she has such an open relationship with her parents.

• Charlie drives the BSC to the mall when they decide to look for the kids living there, and the girls actually tell him what’s going on. He says they have to call the police in two hours if they haven’t found anyone. That may be the most authority these girls ever deal with in the mysteries.

• When the girls call the police, they show up with someone from “Stoneybrook Social Serves,” but it’s been established Washington Mall isn’t in Stoneybrook.

• On the cover, you can see that Zingys is in the background, which is that store they always talk about as having “wild” clothes. But it looks like there’s a pink jumper on display in the window, which is anything but wild.

“Tell me you didn’t go and solve the mystery without me”……BSC Super Mystery # 3: Baby-sitters Fright Night

Memory Reaction

This is the first time I read this one, so memory doesn’t really apply.

Revisited Reaction

Stacey, Mary Anne, Kristy, Abby, and Mallory are spending a few days in Salem, Massachusetts on one of their school’s cool but unrealistic field trips. They’re supposed to do a history project about whatever they learn there, but the girls really spend the whole trip solving a mystery.

The case revolved around a famous diamond called the Witch’s Eye that’s rumored to have a curse on it. The current owner’s loaning it to a museum in Salem for display, and it’s immediately stolen. Stacey and Mary Anne are there at the time, and Stacey finds a piece of paper with what she eventually realizes is a safe combination. Later, Mary Anne and Abby find a disguise in some bushes outside the inn they’re staying at, and decide the culprit must also be a guest there.

The suspects are Martha Kempner - a famous mystery writer, who’s writing an article on the diamond, Harvey Hapgood – a guy who offered to buy the diamond a day before it was stolen, and Sean Knowles – who the BSC thinks is spying on the diamond’s owner, but is actually an insurance agent. They briefly consider Mrs. Moorehouse, the diamond’s elderly owner, and/or her nurse, but take her out of the running since she didn’t have insurance and wouldn’t benefit from the theft.

So, for the next few days, the girls talk about the clues while sightseeing, going to a Halloween parade, and dealing with middle school drama. Alan Gray and Cary Retlin both play a bunch of pranks on Kristy and Cookie Mason keeps picking on Mallory’s roommate Eileen. At one point, Abby’s waist pack’s stolen, and the room she and Stacey are staying in is broken into.

At the end of their trip there’s a big storm and the power goes out in the inn. Stacey, Abby, Mary Anne, and Mallory realize that since the room doors are opened with electronic key cards, anyone who left their room after the power went out wouldn’t have been able to lock their doors. They decided to just go ahead and enter the rooms belonging to their suspects, to see if their safes open with the combination Stacey found. Martha Kempler’s opens, and the girls realize she must be connected to the crime. Instead of calling the police or telling their chaperones, they decide to go off to stop her from escaping. But it turns out Martha and her partner (Harvey Hapgood) was watching the girls. The final confrontation happens in a dark hallway. It turns out that Martha had hidden the diamond in a ceramic pumpkin in the gift shop, which Abby had bought, so Marha’s trying to get it back. After a ridiculous scene where Abby physically fights with the culprits the police show up and arrest the thieves. In the middle of all this, the diamond “glows,” in what is supposed to be a sign of it having supernatural powers, or something.

While all this is going on, Kristy was off dealing with her prank war with Alan and Cary. Cary had tricked her, as part of a plan to scare her and Alan Gray. Instead, Alan and Kristy scare each other, then team up to get Cary.

Jessi, Claudia, Shannon, and Logan are keeping the fort down back in Stoneybrook. They end up helping the kids put on a Halloween parade, and deal with Jordan Pike thinking he has magic powers. There’s not much else to say about that.

High/Lowlights

• Claudia doesn’t go on the trip because her parents are too worried about her grades, and Jessi doesn’t go because she is in a Halloween dance at Stoneybrook University. Claudia I can understand, but what exactly is a Halloween dance?

• Stacey outfit: “Black jeans, black boots, black turtleneck, silver cropped top over that, black boots with silver side buttons and silver X earrings.” I’m not sure why (or how) she was wearing two pairs of boots, but other than that it sounds decent.

• When talking about the Scarlett Letter, Stacey comments about how awful the movie was. This was written in 1996, so I’m assuming she means the Demi Moore one. You know you’ve made a bad movie when it gets trashed in a kids book.

• Now for a little game….which of the following outfits was worn by Claudia, and which was worn by the poor-fashion-less girl everyone makes fun of? Answer at the end of this post.

1. “Doc Martens with pumpkin stickers, a hand-batiked shirt in orange and black, plus one orange sock and one black sock.”
2. “A huge purple dress, a puffy orange windbreaker, and these really clunky shoes. Her hair stuck out in spikes beneath a wool hat that had a pattern of white snowflakes on a red background.”

• Why would a thief carry around a piece of paper with a safe combination when they’re stealing a diamond? She wouldn’t need the combination until she got back to her hotel room.

• The museum the diamond was stolen from, is part of a complex of museums/historic buildings. A group from SMS is there, with kids splitting up to go to various sections. After the theft, Mary Anne and Stacey are separated. Mary Anne ends up outside and sees that the complex is closing. The police are taking everyone’s name, and they tell her that everyone else from SMS went back to the inn and she should do the same. Now, what the hell kind of chaperons just leaves the area without all their students? Especially when a crime has just taken place.

• As soon as theft occurs, Mallory decides she HAS to have the mystery notebook to write down clues. Writing them in another notebook’s just not an option for her. It seems a bit out of character for her to be so obsessive about it, but whatever. She has Jessi give the notebook to the spouse of one of the teachers, who’s joining the trip a day later. How Jessi gets it to this person, I don’t know.

• Kristy’s upset that she wasn’t around when the theft occurred, or when Abby and Mary Anne found the disguise. So, when she finds what she thinks is a clue, she sneaks off by herself to investigate, hoping to solve the thing herself. It ends up being Cary’s trick, and Kristy ends up annoyed that they “solved” the case without her.

• For part of the trip, Mary Anne’s watching the daughter of one of the teachers on the trip. I guess they needed to have some baby-sitting in there (even though we got some in the Stoneybrook chapters).

• Martha wanted to steal the diamond from the museum, because she had previously tried to buy it from Mrs. Moorehouse, and didn’t want a connection being there. So, why did her partner offer to buy the diamond from Mrs. Moorehouse (in public) right before the stole it? That’s just calling attention to yourself.

• The girls come up with some relatively cute last-minute costumes. (Claudia helped via the phone):

• Kristy wore her collie hat, a necklace made of dog biscuits, and went around with a magnifying glass and a name tag reading “Sherlock Bones.”

• Mary Anne went as a boring cat like she always does.

• Stacey went as Mother Time (all black and numbers painted on her face).

• Abby went as the women’s soccer World Cup (a soccer shirt, and a blow-up globe and plastic cup tied to her arms.

• Mallory was a pumpkin patch, which is more creative than just a pumpkin I guess. She dressed orange, and pinned pumpkins cut out from orange paper all over her, tied with green yarn.

• Apparently Stacey’s so good with math, that when she sees a set of numbers, she instantly memorizes them (which is how she remembers the safe combination after giving the piece of paper to the police). I don’t remember hearing about that skill before.

• Why do these kids always write letters to each other when the person out-of-town will be home in a day?

• During the Alan/Cary incident, Alan’s trying to scare Cary and tells him Kristy’s baby-sitting, but might have followed him. But Cary’s all, “oh no. Kristy’s way too responsible a baby-sitter to put a child at risk like that.” Now really, what 13-year-old boy says stuff like that?

• After Martha’s safe opens, Mallory does some actual thinking and remembers that on the morning of the theft, Martha wore sneakers (to run away quietly), and every other time they’ve seen her she’s been in high heels (that make a lot of noise). So, they don’t completely luck into solving this one.

• I’m trying to figure out how these girls avoided getting into trouble with their teachers for wandering off during the storm and getting so mixed up with the thieves.

• I also can’t believe these girls actually walked into other people’s hotel rooms and tried opening their safes.

• At the end, Mrs. Moorehouse tells the girls how Abby ended up with the diamond because the theft took longer than she thought and didn’t have time to get back to her room before the police came around….so she hid it in the pumpkin in the gift shop. But how would Mrs. Moorehouse know that? The last we saw of Martha was her telling her partner not to talk to the cops and asking for a lawyer. I don’t think she was ready to confess.

• After Martha’s been arrested Kristy suddenly shows up, and the rest of the girls ask how she found them. And she’s like, “oh that doesn’t matter.” Which seems like the ghostwriter’s way of admitting it doesn’t make sense but she put it in anyway.

• Answer to the fashion game? Claudia wore the stickered Doc Martens and Eileen (the fashion disaster) wore the purple and orange ensemble. I think they're both pretty awful.
  

“I used to think Algebra was a type of lingerie”……BSC Mystery 27: Claudia and the Lighthouse Ghost

Memory Reaction

This was just after I stopped reading the books……

Revisited Reaction

The Hatts, old friends of Claudia’s parents are moving back to Stoneybrook and are staying at the Kishi’s. The Hatts are the owners of the Stoneybrook lighthouse, which has been shut down/boarded up for years. Because yes, the town apparently has a lighthouse. There are vague references to something bad happening there a few years back, right before it closed and the Hatts left town. Claudia goes with Mr. Hatt and his daughter to see the lighthouse, and a neighbor sees them and gets pissed that Mr. Hatt’s back in town. Then a bunch of threatening letters made by cutting out letters from magazines show up at the Kishi house.

Mallory and Jessi do some research and find out that nine years ago, a 16-year-old boy named Adrian was pulled from the water near the lighthouse in the middle of winter, and he ended up dying. The coroner noted that he showed signs of a head injury, gotten by a fall from 20-30 feet up. Adrian’s fingerprints were found in the lighthouse, but it was locked up, so it appeared that he had been inside when Mr. Hatt locked the lighthouse, and decided to climb out the window because he was claustrophobic and couldn’t take being locked in the place. The neighbor’s Adrian’s father, and he blames Mr. Hatt for the death.

In the basement of the lighthouse, Claudia finds an old note that says “If you last the night in the lighthouse you will be one of us” and has a picture of a gargoyle. Some investigation reveals that the gargoyle is a statue at the high school and there used to be gang-type groups who acted as his fans, or something dumb like that. The BSC goes there to look at it, and happens to meet the brother of the kid that died. They go back to his house to talk about Adrian, then Claudia steals/borrows a picture of a bunch of his friends.

Meanwhile, the Hatts keep getting notes, and then a smoke bomb goes off in the lighthouse. To send a message to the person doing this, the Hatts let their teenage son, Steve, have a party at the lighthouse, which the parents and the BSC attends. Even though the stairs to the top of the lighthouse were closed off, Claudia sees someone up there, and she recognizes him as someone in the picture of Adrian’s friends. She gets Mr. Hatt, but then the guy tries to climb down the side of the lighthouse. He falls, but they’re able to save him. It turns out that this guy, Patrick was the leader the group Adrian wanted to be a part of. Adrian was supposed to stay in the lighthouse overnight as an initiation, and his friends locked the door to make sure he did it. Patrick was trying to find the note that proved that. It’s kind of convoluted and anti-climactic.

Subplot: Some comet’s going to be visible in Stoneybrook. It’s not Halley’s Comment, but it seems to be comparable. All the kids can’t stop talking about it and the BSC has a comet viewing party. Some of the kids think the comet will make them sick or cause other negative events, but Kristy gets them to calm down. I may have liked this subplot if I read it when I was a kid, but now it just comes off as annoying.

Highlights/Lowlights

• Did you ever notice how all sorts of landmarks pop up in Stoneybrook for certain books? A country club? An arboretum?
  

• Janine seems kind of out of character in this one. She’s pretty bitchy to Claud. She’s also having problems with her boyfriend, and is flirting (sort of) with Steve. It’s not unrealistic, but she just seems more immature than usual.

• Claudia comments that teachers get excited when they see Janine’s IQ score. But would teachers see Janine’s IQ scores? I didn’t think that kind of information was typical for a school record, but I could be wrong. Or maybe Janine’s IQ was documented because it’s so high?

• Claudia says that her parents love Janine, but tolerate her. I think it’s kind of sad if she really feels that way.

• The comet story’s boring, but also typical BSC. Of course they have a viewing party. No parents would have wanted to see this rare event WITH their children. And it’s certainly logical to gather as many people in one place so that each person has the least time looking through the one telescope.

• What’s interesting, is that this book takes place in the weeks leading up to Christmas, but it isn’t Christmas-themed or anything. Claudia says that Steve’s party’s a Christmas one and mentions shopping, but that’s it. And that makes me think of that mystery with the old diary where Charlotte talks about a book with a similar treatment.

• Janine has to move into Claudia’s room while the Hatts are staying with them because the two Hatt daughters “refused to be separated”…meaning they couldn’t have one girl stay in Claudia’s room and one in Janine’s room. But they kind of have a lot of nerve making that demand when they’re asking the Kishis to host five people for a minimum of two weeks. Especially, if those are two weeks in December when most people are busier than usual.

• Claudia outfit - “I was wearing a white high-collared dentist’s shirt and a loose-fitting Chinese silk jacket, cinched at the waist by a bright-orange scarf, over tight black flared pants. My hair was gathered on top of my head with an orange bandanna.”

• For anyone who ever wondered about the birth order of the Pike triplets, it was Jordan, Adam, Byron. For some reason I always assumed it was alphabetical.

• So, Janine and Claudia hate sharing a room (shocking, I know). But at one point, Janine decides to do some schoolwork at a Wednesday at 5:30. So, Claudia has to turn on call forwarding and meet with the BSC in the living room. But then, Mr. Hatt needs to use that room, so the girls have to keep roaming around the house with a cordless phone. But, anyway, my point is that I don’t think it would have been unreasonable for the Kishi’s to tell Janine she needed to stay out of Claudia’s room for a half hour.

• I think Claudia mysteries are usually good ones, but this one fell a little short. Mainly cause there isn’t really a lot of mystery about it. However, Claudia did call 911 as soon as she saw smoke in the lighthouse, and manages to get Mr. Hatt as soon as she sees the guy at the top of the lighthouse. The girl may suck at school, but she does stay calm in emergencies.

• Janine eats a bunch of Claud’s candy while rooming with her. Which I think is some nice continuity about her personality from one of the early books.

• I don’t really get the motivation for this guy to send notes to the Hatts. He said he wanted to find the note he’d written to Adrian years ago. I don’t really see how sending the notes helps his situation. He should have just broke in and tried to find it himself, without drawing attention to himself. Claudia found the note by accident, so it couldn’t have been too hard to find. And he’s had nine years to work on it.

• The BSC helps the Hatts paint the lighthouse, and Stacey wears a black cashmere coat and silk scarf. Claud has to tell her to change. Would she really be that clueless about it?

• Because this is a mystery, the BSC have a few other suspects for the notes to the Hatts get, but they’re really lame...Adrian’s father, Janine’s boyfriend (because he’s jealous of Steve, or the Hatt daughters (because one of them had been using scissors).

• At the party, Claudia says that people are hanging out outside as well as in. However, like I said, it takes place in Connecticut in December. It’s usually not the time for outdoors parties.

• Kristy leads the rest of the girls over to the guy whose son died and starts talking to him about it. Cause strangers love that.

• I think the whole mystery of why Adrian was in the lighthouse was pretty much obvious when Claudia finds the note, but the girls don’t piece it together until the end when they catch Patrick and he tells them. But maybe it just seemed clear to me because it reminded me of an episode of the “Littles.”