BSC Mystery #9: Kristy and the Haunted Mansion

Synopsis:

This was one of the stories I found really creepy as a kid, and even creepier as an adult. Kristy and Bart (her sort of kind of maybe love interest) have put the best players from both of their baseball teams (the Krushers and the Bashers) together to form the Krashers and they play against another rag tag team in a town thirty miles over. Charlie drives Kristy, Bart, and some of their team members and equipment in a van (four Bashers, Karen--insert shudder--David Michael, Jackie, and Buddy). On the way back from the game, there's a storm and they get lost. Outside this huge old mansion known as the Sawyer House, a couple of bridges wash out and so they're stranded. The caretaker who lives in a little old cottage lets them stay up in the old house till morning. Everyone's worried back home because there's no phones to call and it's back in the day before you could just use your crackberry to Twitter: "Staying in a creepy old house with my older brother, my beard, and eight kids, one of whom is Karen Brewer--someone kill me, kthnxbai."

The house is a bit spooky because the electricity is out and there are rumors of ghosts. Doing some snooping (newsclippings and an old diary), the kids find out that a young woman named Dorothy Sawyer used to live here. She wanted to marry her fiance, Will Blackburn, whom her father didn't think was good enough for her. She planned to run off with Will one night outside the creek and elope but she never showed up and was presumed dead (drowned, one assumes).

Kristy and the others figure out that the old caretaker is Will and they ask him what's up. He explains that he moved back here and bought the house as a way of keeping his love for Dorothy alive. Too bad you're separated by oceans and time from another literary loon who'd be perfect for you. Miss Havisham and Will would make quite a couple. I've really got to start up a Missed Connections page on the blog.

Kristy goes back home and a week later the BSC has a sleepover. Karen, bitch that she is, stole a snapshot of Dorothy and brings it up to Kristy's room to show the others because she's figured out who Dorothy is. Turns out she looks just like the woman who owns the Stoneybrook sewing shop and Mary Anne agrees. The next day, the sitters go to the sewing shop to ask Dorothy about what's going on and if all goes well, play matchmaker between her and Will.

Dorothy explains that she ran away because she was afraid Will would make her live the conventional boring existence of a housewife in a pre-Gloria Steinem or Betty Friedan world: "I didn't have to answer to any man: not Father, not Will. For, as much as Will loved me, I knew he would have given me the same sort of life that Father had...I knew it was wrong to let them think I was dead, but it was the only way I could see for me to take control of my life." This is what happens when you base your strong willed female characters off of Aladdin's Princess Jasmine.

• When the kids meet up with Dorothy, they think that she should tell Will she's alive. She smiles, thinking it'll give him a surprise and that she'll do it. Yeah, that won't traumatize him even a little. Dotty, you creep, you're probably planning to give him a heart attack so you can take over your old house, hire the kids who weren't good enough to be Krashers as your Oompa Loompa-esque minions, and make cutesy kitschy craft items galore with an even lower overhead than an Indonesian sweatshop.

(Claire, Margo? "Crap" has a "p" in it.)

• This book was ghostwritten by Ellen Miles. I'll refresh your memory--she normally writes a series called The Puppy Place and no, it's not as cutesy wutesy as it sounds. It's worse. It makes Pound Puppies look like that show on Animal Planet with all the hoarders who collect dogs.

• And yes, this time, I know Ellen didn't farm out any ghostwriting to a hip twentysomething aspiring writer. If some young hipster with more TV knowledge than sense had written this book, Dorothy would be a really awesome old person, like a former hippie who ransacked a Nuclear Power Plant back in the day, now going under the alias Muddy Mae Suggins to escape the fuzz. Or she'd be Dr. Ruth. Or Carol Kane's character in The Princess Bride. But no, Dorothy comes back to Stoneybrook and takes the absolute hippest, coolest job that Ellen and Ann M. could think of. She owns a sewing supply store. It's called Sew Fine. Not even the Widow Towne or Nannie, the resident Stoneybrook biddies, could top that.
  

• You know how we associate some of the books with food? I always associated Island Adventure with candy bars, Stacey's Emergency with homemade brownies, and Jessi and the Awful Secret with Burger King. This one sucks in terms of food. Will gives the kids some apples, bread and a jug of water instead of readimade pop tarts and double chocolate Oreos. And since it's Ellen Miles, not Peter Lerangis writing, you just know that the bread was whole wheat and that those apples weren't even Granny Smith. If the BSC members weren't such goody goods, instead of solving old people love affairs, they'd go back the next weekend to egg and TP Will's house. But no. They had to go and create an American version of As Time Goes By.
  
  
• I wonder how that meeting between Will and Dorothy will go. "So, Dorothy, how's your life been?" "Wonderful! I've been around the world several times, met countless suitors whom I've all turned down, and seen all kinds of thimbles from around the world. How about you?" "My collection of gnarled apples that look like you is almost complete...so...I've got that going for me."
  

• Dorothy thinks she's so empowered because she ran away and let all her friends and loved ones think she was dead. When I reread that, I had the same reaction as when I found out that damned Lindberg baby wasn't kidnapped at all and really ran off to start a career as a baby model for Gerber.
  

• Babysitting! On the fateful night that Kristy's missing, Claudia's babysitting for the Newtons. She shows up wearing a tie dyed shirt. Since it's raining, she's covered in colors and has to call Janine over to bring her fresh clothes. Not shown: Stacey's commentary on Claudia's wardrobe malfunction.

Claudia: "Well, I just made the outfit myself, and I guess the dye didn't hold--"

Stacey: "Gee, Quinn Claudia, it's almost like you're saying that people don't need to buy out Bloomingdale's to look good."

Claudia: "No, Stacey! I just meant that since..."

• Claudia doesn't lose another opportunity to mock Janine for being smart. When she's worried about Kristy, Janine comments that Kristy will probably be fine because she's so intelligent and resourceful and Claudia eyerolls because Janine thinks intelligence can solve any problem. Duh, Janine. Wearing a cute pink tank top with matching pink elephant studs in your ears is the best way of coping in a crisis when you're stranded in the rain. Besides, popular people don't need to be intelligent in a crisis.
  

• Later, Janine has no idea what to do to make baby Lucy stop crying, so Claudia suggests Cheerios (oh, Claud, bleemers and compulsive eating are right around the corner for you, aren't they?). Janine responds with, "'She'll get milk all over herself'" and Claudia smiles thinking that Janine may be booksmart but she sure doesn't know kids. Ann? When I last met you, you said the child you'd must love to spend time with was that five year old Dexetrin addict on last month's Toddlers and Tiaras ("She could be the next Gabby Perkins!"). And Ellen, the last time you spent any meaningful time with an actual puppy was the cover shoot for one of your books where you tried to stick a tutu on a bulldog who promptly peed all over it.

• Claudia almost doesn't take that sitting job, FYI, as she's so worried about Kristy. But she does because she knows Kristy would have made Claudia eat her own head been upset and told her it was unprofessional. BSC Uber Alles!

Conclusions?

Ann M. and Ellen have no clue what feminism really means. Not a clue. That's how they created a character like Dorothy, who thinks that being a strong woman means pulling a Falcon Heene and making your family and friends worry while you go off and have fun. Note to Ann and Ellen: those self involved, "I just need to find myself on my parents' dime in an Indian ashram/hitchhiking around the country/in the loft apartment of every guy in the East village" that you knew in college were not feminists. When I e-mailed Ann about this, I got a smug response about how Amelia Earhart disappeared and isn't she a feminist? Oh, Ann and Ellen, I'll send you guys copies of The Second Sex and Vindication of the Rights of Woman--review before you create another adult female character ever.

BSC Mystery #4: Kristy and the Missing Child

One of the members of the team that Kristy coaches is missing! Little Jake Kuhn is gone and Kristy is the last person to see him go (Thursday night). So she feels majorly guilty about it, and decides to try to find him by mounting a series of search parties full of little kids from the neighborhood and babysitters. It's a pretty uneventful book, actually, full of chapter after chapter of searching. And wondering if maybe Mr. Kuhn (the Kuhns are divorced) kidnapped Jake because that's what fathers in BSC books do. (See also Buddy Barrett.) Finally, Kristy leads a search party on Saturday morning and one of her searchers, Matt Braddock, has the idea to look in a construction site where he and Jake loved to hang out. Turns out Jake pulled a baby Jessica and fell down a hole where the floor wasn't completed. He gets rescued. And scene.

• What do I love most about this book? The fact that Mary Anne clearly cares way more about her Home Ec grade than little Jake Kuhn. She even misses an emergency BSC meeting about finding Jake so she can stay home and work on some sewing project. Actually, I agree. C'mon, if you're going to write a book about a missing child, choose a kid I give a shit about. Nicky Pike. Jamie Newton. Damien. Not some little boy I've barely seen before.

• Speaking of Home Ec, I don't remember ever being graded on things like table setting or recipes. We'd have to bake things in groups and sometimes sew, but it wasn't like they were tests. You'd probably have had to drop arsenic into the cake batter to fail. Or tell the teacher that you didn't make the cookies with love, but rather with spite, and also Ipecac. (Even then, her idea of "failing" you would be to give you a B+ but no smiley faced sticker.) Anyway, Mary Anne makes a Jell-O mold that's too hard. She gets an idea while babysitting to put the Jell-O in a long pan so she can make cookie cut-outs and ends up salvaging her grade. Can anyone say JIGGLERS?! In the distance, I hear Bill Cosby loading his .45 and muttering about how he's going to cut a bitch. Now I know why Ann M. Martin decided to make Charlotte's favorite show The Cosby Show when you know she was jonesing for it to be I Love Lucy--anything so that Bill won't sue, right?
  

• Mrs. Kuhn's first thought is that Mr. Kuhn must have snatched Jake. Which reminds me of the time Dawn is sitting for the Barretts and Buddy Barrett gets into a car with Mr. Barrett who takes him away somewhere. (The Barretts are also divorced.) So, to recap, in Stoneybrook, it's totally normal for a father to try to kidnap his son, for criminals to just set up shop for a while, and for people to regularly get creepy letters in the mail. But no one knows about anorexia, the stork brings babies, and no one drinks.

• Kristy mentions that Jake used to be pudgy and that the Bashers used to make fun of him for it. Translation: fat kid walking! Oink, little piggie, oink! Why the hell is it that Kristy befriends all these people who "used to be" jerks. (She should befriend people who still are snarky, like me!) But really, Bart's Bashers made fun of a lot of Krushers back in the day (like Matt Braddock for being deaf or Gabbie for being a superhuman baby) but it's okay because it was in the past? And Shannon used to be a heinous bitch to Kristy in her first book and even calls in a fake fire alarm when Kristy's babysitting but we overlook all that for some reason because she's a perfect size six blonde.

• Kristy's mom picks Kristy and Shannon up from the emergency BSC meeting Thursday night so she can stop in and visit Mrs. Kuhn afterward (Kristy's mom and Jake's mom are friends). Kristy suddenly feels guilty at the prospect of seeing Mrs. K because she feels responsible for letting Jake go off on his own. Even though Mrs. K says it's not her fault, she still knows she won't rest until Jake is safe. Hm, you think maybe Mrs. Kuhn feels guiltier that that her alimony wasn't covering the rent and she had to sell Jake to the Colombian Drug Cartel to finance her dirty little habit?

• Laurel and Patsy, Jake's two little sisters, are sent off to the Pikes to have dinner the first night Jake is gone. Patsy, the youngest, turns up her nose at spaghetti and says she wants hot dogs. And then all the kids request hot dogs. Mallory offers to boil up some dogs and Mrs. Pike just goes with it. Well, with the Pike kid count up to eight, we know that woman can't say no to a wiener, amirite? (Thank you, thank you, here all week. Hey, did you ever know me to pass up a Dee Pike loves the cock joke?)

• After dinner, Laurel and Patsy Kuhn spend the night with Stacey and her mom night since their mother is, understandably, spazzing out. They have a popcorn party. The girls want to know if Stacey has The Little Mermaid and Stacey says she's afraid that most of her movies are probably too old for them. Um, Mary Poppins is your favorite movie, Stacey. Imagine if the girls were at Mary Anne's house post Internet, though. A thousand archived youtube videos of animals romping, sorted by size, species, and of course, by level of cuteness. (C'mon, don't you think an adult Mary Anne Spier was responsible for Cute Things Falling Asleep? I bet the woman's making a mint on the Internet these days.)

• Mrs. Kuhn calls Kristy at one point saying that they found letters from her ex-husband to Jake that mentioned Mr. Kuhn's girlfriend and that she may know where Mr. Kuhn is so they can contact him. Kristy thinks it's odd that Mrs. Kuhn doesn't seem upset or jealous about her ex having a special lady friend. Uh, because she's probably more concerned with getting her prize pig missing child back than with playing at drama queen? What's the matter with you, Kristy?

• David Michael's a teeny bit jealous of how good Jake's getting as relief pitcher for the Krushers. Kristy always goes out of her way to describe DM as kind of klutzy, too. Is it wrong that I think he pulled a Tonya Harding? Then again, this is Stoneybrook, CT, not South Park, CO, and I doubt that David Michael would stash Jake Kuhn in a nuclear fallout shelter a la Cartman. Still, it made for an entertaining fantasy.

• The BSCers arrange to make groups to help search for Jake. Claudia makes a sign with a sketch of little Jake. Sketch? You didn't have a single photograph to use? Come on, guys. Through the magic of googling I managed to find a few likenesses.

• The kids look in garages, in bushes, and in backyards. What are they expecting to find? Jake sleeping? Or Jake...uh...no longer with us? In which case, is it really appropriate to bring kids along?

• Andrew, David Michael, and Karen start freaking out because they're scared they might be kidnapped. Karen, you know they're going to pull a Ransom of Red Chief and pay your parents to take you back, right?

• Later, Kristy, Bart, and a bunch of kids (Matt and Haley Braddock, Karen, Andrew, and David Michael) set off looking for Jake on Sunday. Matt's first idea is to go to a store where he and Jake used to buy baseball cards and candy called Jugtown. (Yeah, that's why they went to a store called JUGtown.)

• Kristy wants to stop looking, but Matt convinces her to go look in a construction yard where a house is being built. And it turns out he's right. Are you really surprised that the deaf kid pulled it off? For one thing, the Krushers are chock full of shitty players and the one consistently talented one is Matt Braddock. I'm not screaming about PC Gone Amok just yet (not till Rush Limbaugh successfully possesses my body anyway), but c'mon. The only thing more feel good than the spunky disabled kid finding Jake would be if Jake were found by rag tag team comprised of Becca Ramsey, Danielle (the cancer kid), Susan "Rain Girl" Felder and a little person.

• When they find Jake (isn't it always the last place you look), Bart calls the police and Mrs. Kuhn and tosses Jake a paper bag full of Twinkies, Doritos and Kit Kats, courtesy of the owner of JugTown. When Mrs. Kuhn arrives, she says, "'This is one time I don't mind if he eats junk.'" Uh, the fact that you just discovered your missing son who hasn't eaten in 36 hours and your first thought is to point out how much you don't care about the junk food issue makes me doubt that. Methinks she'll be subtracting out these calories from Jake's feed trough tonight.

• At the end, they have these eighth grade awards. Stuff like Class Clown, Best Dresser and so forth. Mary Anne gets one for Most Improved Home Ec student. They give Kristy a very special award because of her work that led to Jake Kuhn being rescued. Kristy does give Matt Braddock a shout-out since it was his idea to look there. I do have to give Kristy props for organizing the search groups. Of course, you know she only organized this because she'd have a fit if someone else could take credit for finding Jake. But I don't think this is one of her Great Ideas. It's a nice effort but NOT an imaginative idea. Seriously. How many other options were there? A kid goes missing. Do you A). Look for him. B). Design a hat. C). Have a snickers bar. D). Throw a party. E). All of the above. (It's only D. if the kid in question is Karen Brewer.) I have the same beef (okay, tofu, whatever) with Dawn's "great idea" of helping the Zunis. ("The Zuni kids are in trouble? What should we do?" "Um...well, we could...HELP them?")

• So they find Jake in the end. In other news, every single member of the Stoneybrook police was summarily fired. Out of a cannon, into the sun. No, but I bet they made Matt Braddock a junior police officer with a little badge and all the other cops were jealous and made snide remarks about him right in front of his back because he can't read lips. And Kristy jealously looked on and pointed out, "Even though Matt may have technically found him, I'm the one who orchestrated The Great Idea(TM) of looking for him. And the one who recorded the Stoneybrook remix of Sending Our Love Down the Well Construction Site featuring Logan on bongos."

• When I reread this, I tried to make a mental note of people who could have kidnapped him. You know, just in case I remembered wrong and he really was stolen. At the top of my list, crazy old Mrs. Towne. I can imagine her defense. "I just wanted a little boy of my own to play with! My own son's all grown up now and the only boys I have are little gingerbread boys! Wouldn't Jake love to live with the gingerbread boys?"
  

Next. The old lady, Aunt Tea, from the Bewitchin' Pool episode of the Twilight Zone. (Only slightly creepier than Mrs. Towne, really.)

But the right answer, of course. He's being fattened up at Morbidda Destiny's crib. Just 'cause Karen Brewer's an ass gasket doesn't mean Morbidda can't really be a witch.

This was sort of a fun book when I was younger. But today it just scares me to think that you could fall down a construction site and not be found for days. What if Kristy hadn't been searching? Would he have died down there?

BSC Mystery #1: Stacey and the Missing Ring

Oh, youth. I had great memories of this book as a child, mainly because it came in a four pack with three other mysteries (Beware Dawn, Mallory and the Ghost Cat and Kristy and the Missing Child). It wasn't very good, but this was the first one, and I had a soft spot for it. Note the key word in that sentence--had a soft spot for it. This book starts off with Stacey deciding that she wants a diamond ring because her birthstone is a diamond. Her mother doesn't ream her ass out for asking (damnit, Maureen, THIS is why she's a spoiled bitch) but tells Stacey she won't buy her the ring. Fast forward a few pages and Stacey ends up with a sitting job for this new family, the Gardellas. They have a seven month old baby, Tara, a dog (Bird) and a cat (Mouse). The G's are rich--Mrs. Gardella sports a buttload of diamonds before she leaves the house. Stacey sits for the baby and animals, and it's uneventful.

So the next day, Mrs. Gardella calls Stacey. Last night before Stacey came over, Mrs. G put her diamond ring on the dresser because she meant to wear it with her outfit, but forgot. This morning, the ring is gone, and they think Stacey took it. The Gardellas don't want to hire any of the BSC to sit and are planning on telling the rest of the neighborhood about the incident. Everyone's totally upset because god forbid they not babysit. No one's calling the BSC and the gang is desperate to clear their good name.

Finally, Stacey decides she'll babysit for the Gardellas until the ring is paid off (so, pretty much until she's thirty, right?). Mrs. G is okay with that as long as another sitter comes along to supervise the first time, so Kristy comes with Stacey. Turns out the cat, Mouse, has a habit of hiding assorted objects in odd places, and he took it and hid it under a rug. Mrs. G. apologizes and then it turns out she didn't tell anyone else about the incident because she didn't have time (she told the Prezziosos but that's it). And business was slow because people just didn't need babysitting services for mundane reasons (family trips, etc.). Some parents like spending time with their kids. Deal with it, bitches.

• In the first chapter, Stacey and her mom clean while sweating to the oldies. Stacey says she loves old music like "Shake It Up Baby" and "Pretty Woman." Nice, except I think you mean "Twist and Shout" and "Oh, Pretty Woman." Well, can't be too hard on Ann M.--I think "Michael, Row the Boat Ashore" and "Kumbaiyah" were more her speed. Then Mrs. McGill starts reminiscing and digs out her old photo album to show off her Sweet Sixteen pictures. Stacey giggles over her mother's beehive hairdo. Oh, Stacey, we're trying to butter your mom up so she'll buy you that rock! Second, not everyone looks hideous in a beehive:

• Anyway, Stacey drops the diamond bomb, saying, "'I love my birthday, too...since my birthday has always had such a special meaning for me, I was wondering if you might like to help me buy this ring I saw at Stoneybrook Jeweler's.'" Wait, your birthday has a special meaning for you? Do you mark the occasion with friends and cake? That's unusual in American culture. Most people don't even know when they were born. Also, is it just me, or does Stacey sound like some Internet scam artist? "Hello, I'm from Nigeria, and I was wondering if you'd like to help me with a special, limited, once in a lifetime offer!"

• Her mother's response is that her birthday is months away. Stacey replies, "'I know. And I didn't mean that the ring would be a birthday present. See, it's a birthstone ring...and it would be so - so meaningful for me.'" Wait, what? You want your single mother to shell out for a diamond ring and then also shower you with gifts several months later on your birthday?
  

• When her mom refuses to buy her the ring, Stacey's response is, "'Dad would buy it for me.'" Good God. Were I Mrs. McGill, my response would be, "That's it. We're mailing you to Abu Dhabi--er, West Africa. You want diamonds so much, you can mine for them yourself in Liberia." But Mrs. McGill just gets sad and says that Stacey's probably right about Mr. McGill.
  

• So, after her mom tells her no, no, no, no no no no no (see? I can sweat to the oldies, too, damnit), Stacey gets pissed off and decides to go hang out with her friends. Stacey, withholding affection when someone won't buy you something only works when that person's shagging you. At the mall, she complains to her friends about how cruel her mother is. The other girls tactfully point out that by asking for a diamond ring, Stacey's well on her way to earning her chutzpah badge. My reimagining of how that scene SHOULD have gone:

Stacey: "My mom won't buy me the ring! Don't you guys think I have the worst parents ever?"

Kristy: "I haven't seen my biological dad since I was seven."

Mary Anne: "My mom died when I was a baby and till I was twelve, my dad dressed me in styles that made Laura Ingalls look like a hobag."

Claudia: "My mom found a Milky Way under my mattress and used Chinese Water Torture on me for five hours last night."

Mallory: "I sleep in a drawer!"

Stacey: "But my mom won't buy me a ring! And when I was seven, my parents only bought me the small Malibu Barbie Dream House!"

• Mallory says that she'd never even think of asking her parents for a diamond ring. Oh, but asking for a nose job isn't presumptuous at all? No, wait, that was harsh. Poor Mallory needs all the help she can get in that department.

• Next. Stacey meets Mrs. Gardella, a client who apparently never met a diamond she didn't like. She's wearing a velvet dress and velvet shoes (this woman would be a perfect match for George "I would drape myself in velvet if it were socially acceptable" Costanza) diamond necklace, diamond earrings and diamond hair clip. (Hair clip, really?) Stacey gushes over Mrs. G who smiles and says she was thinking of wearing her diamond toe ring, her diamond studded belt, her diamond nose ring, and her diamond tiara, but that would be a bit much, wouldn't it? Aww, Stacey's found a role model. In the meanwhile, I wonder how many of Dr. Joan Bushwell's chimps had to die harvesting diamonds in the mines for Mrs. Gardella to get all her jewels.

• Stacey thinks to herself that Mrs. Gardella seems nice and even though she's rich, she's just like anyone else. While Stacey starts humming If I Were a Rich Man (since, you know, every Stoneybrookite is required to have the soundtrack to Fiddler on the Roof memorized), I feel the urge to point out that a girl who used to attend a Manhattan private school, whose father lives in an upper east side apartment in walking distance of Bloomingdale's, and who regularly dines out and attends Broadway shows is most definitely not one of the simple folk.

• The Gardellas are super obsessive about their animals. Bird eats hamburger with rice and Mouse gets chicken livers. Bird eats off a dish on a little Oriental rug and Mouse eats ON the table along with the family. Eating at the same table as an animal whose paws are regularly in contact with kitty litter. Now that's what I call hygienic. Mrs. Gardella, ever heard of toxoplasmosis? It's a little parasite found in cat excrement that can go to your brain and make you go batshit insane. Oh, wait. Never mind.

• This animal stuff would be cute except the "About the Author" section in EVERY BSC book has a detail about Ann M. Martin having a cat named Mouse and no children. You guys know that this is the ghostwriter paying homage to Ann M. Martin bathing her infant surrogate, dressing it in baby outfits, making it wear a bib when it eats, and then burping it, right? (Okay, I know I'm not allowed to make fun. I do the same thing except the animals in my situation are plush.)

• Stacey's depressed one evening so her mom tries to cheer her up by suggesting they both watch a movie together. Mother McGill proposes It's a Wonderful Life which Stacey vetoes, saying, "'I can't say I agree with that these days.'" Your life sucks because some loon accused you of having sticky fingers, you're spending less time changing diapers, and your parents won't buy you a diamond ring? Yeah, you're really out on the ledge with George Bailey. Please, can I spray paint "I SUPPORT BLOOD DIAMONDS :) :) :)" on her back and send her through an ultra liberal campus?

• At one point, Claudia goes over to Stacey's house to hang out and starts rifling through her things, looking for (you guessed it) the diamond ring. Way to be subtle--I see those Nancy Drew books have really helped. You don't go through her room when she's right there, moron. Put a diet label on one of her Cokes, wait for her blood sugar level to spike and when she's half conscious, THEN ransack the place for stolen goods.

• So, Stacey has offered to babysit for free. She and Kristy go to the Gardellas. The Gardellas say they hope that this works out and that maybe after this little business of Stacey paying off the ring is over, she can sit for them again. (You mean when she's in college?) Mrs. G heads out, presumably to go rehearse Diamonds are a Cat Lover's Best Friend for the Stoneybrook All Singing All Dancing Revue. Kristy wants to give baby Tara her bottle because, "'[she hasn't] taken care of a baby in awhile, and [she misses] it.'" Those are words that should be spoken by a first time grandmother who hasn't held a baby in years, not a thirteen year old girl who was probably thrown out of a hospital maternity ward for smelling the babies' hair this morning. (Also, your sister Emily Michelle is only two, Kristy. Two. What, did she stop being cute? They go stale after twenty four months, like Twinkies? That's not what you said in Kristy and the Baby Parade!)

• One detail I found particularly grating was at the end. Mary Anne goes through the record book and sees a note saying that the Barretts were out of town on vacation and that's why they haven't called. (Ha! MA made a mistake. Sort of.) But mostly it just pisses me off that they keep tabs on their clients.

• At the end, Claudia makes Stacey a present to make up for suspecting her (it's an earcuff). Then Stacey tells the gang that she might get the ring after all because her parents talked about going in for it together for her birthday or Christmas. Goddamnit, Mr. and Mrs. MGill! Rules, boundaries and limitations! One, call in Cesar Milan. Two, think twice before you sing your child, "Mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring." Three, she's thirteen and it's the early 90s. This is more her speed:

In conclusion, diamonds will make everything all right! Diamonds! Diamonds!

BSC Mystery #3: Mallory and the Ghost Cat

Brief Synopsis:

This was one of the most non-mysterious BSC mysteries out there. In fact, the main plot really has nothing to do with the ghost cat--it's mostly about Mallory's great uncle Joe. I get the feeling that this was supposed to be a Very Special Book entitled Mallory and her Demented Uncle but they recycled it into a mystery when they started the BSC mystery series. I mean, the BSC mystery serial.

So the main storyline is that Mr. Pike's Uncle Joe is coming from the nursing home where he lives to stay with the Pikes for a month. Mr. P always told the kids stories about all the fun things he used to do with Uncle Joe, but when they meet him, it turns out he's stiff and not very lovable. Oh, and he obviously has Alzheimer's (often forgets things in the short term but has a keen grasp of things from a long time ago, gets confused about what time it is, doesn't remember the kids' names, etc.) but the Pikes don't think to tell their kids till the end of the book. So they cut short the visit since he needs more intensive care. Finally, it turns out that Uncle Joe IS nice but the kids don't realize till the last day. He's more comfortable with interacting with the kids one at a time. Then they visit him in his nursing home, and all's well. I guess. Except that Alzheimer's isn't curable yet, so this is actually pretty depressing.

Mysteeeeeerious subplot. Mallory is sitting for a new family, the Craines. They have three girls (Margaret who's six, Sophie who's four, and Katie who's two). When sitting, Mal and the girls find a white cat in the attic. The mystery is that sometimes Mallory hears mewing noises from the attic when the cat (named Ghost Cat) is downstairs. And also they find some letters and photographs in the attic from the original owner of the house who talks about having this white cat named Tinker that he loved. Then Tinker dies and the old man (Kennedy Graham) goes a bit mad and hears cat noises. Oh, then Ghost Cat's real owner shows up and he looks just like Kennedy Graham. So...he was a ghost? Then the girls adopt their own cat, called Tinkerbell, who's deaf, much like Matt Braddock. Maybe Jessi will show up to teach us all ASL for cats. And...scene. God, I don't even care.

• In the early chapters where all the descriptions are given (you know, how many different ways can we say that Mary Anne should be on some kind of emotional suppressant and that Jessi's skin is the color of ebony), Mal tells us that she doesn't like her looks, but that her dad says one day she'll be a knockout. Why do I have an image of Mallory standing in front of a mirror a few years in the future, her glasses and braces off, all made up, saying, "I'm...I'm ugly...I'm an ugly girl, daddy."

• So it's mysterious that there are mewing noises heard only by only Mallory (and also by Kennedy Graham). No mystery there. Mallory's as cracked as an old man who's been living alone with only the company of a cat. (Hey, rooming with Vanessa Pike will do that to you!)

• Oh, it's also mysterious that the cat gets out of the laundry room where it was staying and runs around the house. They all look for it everywhere but can't find it. And then they find the cat in the laundry room again. Okay, next let's solve the mystery of why the cat turns into a demon at 6:00 AM when everyone's still in bed and he absolutely must be fed. (Hint: cats is weird.)

• When Uncle Joe first arrives, Mallory's a bit shocked that he doesn't say anything about the hideous banner Claire and Margo made welcoming him to the house. And then Claire grabs him by the hand and leads him into the house, at which point he asks Mrs. Pike if he can wash his hands because Claire's hands were sticky. Mr. and Mrs. Pike think this is indicative of some OCD tendencies. Uh, no, he's not an elderly Adrian Monk. Your unwashed kids are just not that cute. And Uncle Joe? I think I love you. Can you roll your eyes at "silly billy goo goo" next? Please?

• Mallory and Claudia are babysitting together for the Pikes at one point. When Claudia first meets Uncle Joe, she's gushes, "Hi, Uncle Joe!" He stares at her and is all, "My name ain't Uncle. It's Joe. Mr. Pike, if you're nasty--which you are." Well, not really, he just tells her to stick to Mr. Pike. When he's gone, Claudia's in shock and blurts out what a mean old man he is. Okay, if my awkward great niece brought home a ridiculous looking moppet who called me Uncle, I'd be weirded out, too. But then every old person in Stoneybrook seems to relish being called Grandma or whatnot by relative strangers (Mimi, Nannie, etc.).

• So during dinner (again, while Mal and Claud sit for the kids), Margo and Nicky squabble, and then Jordan laughs and spits food out that lands a few inches from Uncle Joe's plate. Uncle Joe gets pissed and leaves and the others are in shock because this was a relatively calm dinner for the Pikes. Okay, but Mallory? You think it's normal that your seven year old sister vomits at the drop of a hat and peels bananas with her feet. And Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts are a staple of the Pike kids' dinner conversation. You don't get to judge what's gross.

• Later on, Margo and Claire bring Uncle Joe a slice of cake and perform their "play" for them (it's some lame fairy tales). Uncle Joe falls asleep while they perform (thank you, Uncle Joe, the Pikes put me to sleep as well). But Mallory thinks it's slightly encouraging that the chocolate cake is gone. No, it doesn't mean you guys are any more tolerable, Mal. It just means that Uncle Joe, like all normal human beings, enjoys chocolate. I'd sit through a Vincent Gallo production if it meant a steady stream of chocolate.

• Jessi and Mal feel like their parents treat them like babies. But the other 13 year old sitters assure them that that's normal at age eleven. I really hated when they got all world weary about being thirteen. You can't be jaded yet! None of you even menstruate! No one here has gotten a weird piercing. No one's been anorexic, smoked so much as a cigarette, or had a drink. Go rent Thirteen, then we'll talk. (I'm giving Dawn a pass for taking a sip of wine cooler in California Diaries.)

• In one scene, Uncle Joe and Mallory's dad are reminiscing about the old days. All of a sudden, Uncle Joe gets confused and says he doesn't remember Mr. Pike's name. Oh, Uncle Joe, it's John. It's always John. John Ramsey, John Pike, John Kishi, and every other client is a John. (That sounded so dirty.)

• Also, Mallory seems to think it's weird that Uncle Joe arrived at the Pike house wearing a blue suit buttoned all the way to the top. I'm not taking fashion advice from the girl who wore an "I HEART KIDS" shirt to her first BSC meeting. I'm just not. Uncle Joe, I already like you way better than most of the BSC members.

• Dawn shows up at one of Mallory's sitting jobs to test if Ghost Cat is...well, a ghost. Mallory says that the Craine girls are still at the age where ghosts aren't scary but rather are fun. Really? Because I seem to remember Andrew--and pretty much EVERY small child--being utterly terrified by Karen's stories about Old Ben Brewer. Also, does that mean when you reach the age of eleven, it's the age where you learn that ghosts are frightening and real?

• Well, anyway, Dawn has this ectoplasm meter that she sent away for (advertised on the back of a comic book) made from cardboard that's supposed to test if something is a ghost. Huh. Dawn reads comics. Then they test to see if Ghost Cat is transparent or if he's actually solid by having him go through a piece of string. (Um, how about the fact that you can pick him up?) Then Unchained Melody plays as Mallory and Dawn sculpt a piece of pottery--oh, no, wait. They take a Polaroid shot of Ghost Cat and he shows up, so it looks like he's not a Vampire Cat either, in case you were worried. (Speaking of vampire books, why couldn't this book be Bunnicula instead?!) It disturbs me that neither Mallory nor Dawn displays a hint of irony. Then again, Mary Anne genuinely believes that ghosts drove her out of Dawn's room in Dawn's Wicked Stepsister.

• Speaking of an unchained (or unhinged?) Melody, Kristy babysits for the Korman kids, and her own sister, Karen. Melody Korman, who's Karen's age, spends the evening pretending to be a cat. Skylar (her one year old sister) is scared at first because she's got a cat phobia. Skylar's also scared of the fish fountain in the hall so they never turn it on. Did I mention I hate Skylar? Kristy thinks Emily Michelle's weird for being afraid of the dark and for having separation anxiety. But you just know that one day, one of the sitters will walk in to find Skylar curled up in her crib rocking back and forth anxiously screeching "NO TAT!" or howling something about the Toilet Monster.

In conclusion, now I know why Mallory and Jessi each only got one mystery book. This was abysmal. It was a bad mystery (well, non existent, really) and a bad Very Special Book (c'mon, when Full House does a better Alzheimer's episode, you know your book is lame). I always hoped that maybe this cat plot would dovetail with the Uncle Joe plot. Like, maybe Uncle Joe was Kennedy Graham in a past life? Or he'd adopt Ghost Cat and be happy? But no, these are two hastily slapped together plots in one book.

Also, Uncle Joe is my new favorite character. I want to hang out with him. We can kvetch about "kids these days" and make fun of Dora the Explorer, Miley Cyrus, and Teen Vogue. And then I'd film a movie starring him!

On that note, I don't really have anything in mind for my next recap just yet. If anyone wants to suggest anything (specific BSC titles or anything, really) to help me get my snark on, suggestions are more than welcome.

BSC Mystery #17: Dawn and the Halloween Mystery

Brief Synopsis:

This book takes place when Dawn is living in California for six months with her dad and Jeff. A little before Halloween, Dawn witnesses an armed robber wearing a clown mask making a hasty getaway in the parking outside a costume store. As a result of the robbery, the parents in the neighborhood decide to call off trick or treating. So Dawn and her California friends (Sunny, Maggie and Jill) try to both solve the crime based on Dawn's recollections of the robber (clown mask, make of the car, etc.) and come up with a Halloween party as an alternative to trick or treating.

Dawn's been babysitting for Erik and Ryan DeWitt and their new friend, Timmy Ford, whose parents are recently divorced and who lives with his dad. When Dawn sees the same car from the robbery in the Fords' driveway, she calls the cops and they arrest Mr. Ford. But then of course, it turns out that Timmy's mother, Mrs. Ford, was the robber because she wanted to earn more money to try to take care of her son. Dawn sheds a tear, and then it's on to the Halloween party.

• Dawn tells us about her Dad's girlfriend, Carol, whom she used to hate but now likes. According to Dawn, she used to think that adults shouldn't wear ripped jeans, MTV t-shirts, neon sunglasses or listen to new music or drive little red sports cars. Apparently, Dawn's dad is dating a 40 year old with a midlife crisis.

• Dawn and her friends think hot dogs are the height of grossness because they're made from things like pigs ears. The girls complain about them when they stake out Frank's Franks (the armed robber had a bumper sticker from there on the getaway car). One day I want to take her out to Katz's Deli for some kielbasa and chicken liver. (And then if I'm feeling brave, to Harlem for some chitlins.) Claudia's twinkies aren't looking quite so bad now, are they?

• The girls come up with three suspects based on people who bought clown masks. The first was a man from the flower store (ruled out because he had the mask lying around in the open). The second was a boy from the track team (ruled out because he was too nice). And of course, it ends up being the third one (a blonde woman). The ghostwriter clearly was watching Scooby Doo when he wrote this (the criminal is always the third person they meet). There's even an unmasking! Zoinks!

• I love the fact that Dawn and Sunny find three people who bought this exact clown mask at one store and assume that the robber had to have bought it there. No, he/she couldn't have bought it in another town or...you know...have stolen it.

• And by the way, when Dawn is given descriptions of people who bought clown masks, she rules out the tall, blonde woman right away. Even though the robber was 5'8, which is short for a man, as the police point out. Score one for sexism! Someone's going to have a hard time getting into Smith or Wellesley. (Or even Vassar.)

• Dawn's sleuthing really bites. She and Sunny follow Tom (the track team guy) home and decide he's too nice to be the criminal. He's running a Halloween party at the high school, he's nice to dogs, he helps old ladies across the street. Yeah, criminals and sociopaths are never deceptively charming pillars of the community. Oops, I just tripped over my biographies of Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, and Leopold & Loeb.

• Sunny flirts with the guy who works at the costume store to get him to tell them who bought the clown mask, and it totally works. Rereading this book made me think of California Diaries and how I couldn't wait till Sunny got all wild and out of control. And till Maggie got anorexic and Jill got...well, dropped in favor of Amalia and Ducky. Now I have to look back with sadness on the day that I came home from school to discover that all my Ann M. Martin books had been given away to poor children and my puppy had gone to live on a farm. Stupid traumatic childhood.

• Dawn calls the cops when she's trick or treating with some of her babysitting charges and sees a creepy looking figure wearing a clown mask digging something up in the Fords' yard. I have no idea why the robber decided to wear the clown mask. Or how Dawn even knew that it had to be the robber and not some random person in a clown outfit. Or an actual clown who chewed through his ropes and escaped from a local circus.

• Oh yeah, the Barretts and the DeWitt kids are having problems in Stoneybrook. Mrs. Barrett and her new flame, Franklin, find a house to buy that's big enough for the whole family for when they finally tie the knot. Only problem? The Barrett and DeWitt kids are upset because they'll have to move away from their old neighborhood and change schools. The BSC, of course, has to butt in and Mrs. Barrett and Franklin decide they'll move into a smaller house that's still in Stoneybrook. I'd like to see a realistic reaction from Mrs. Barrett if a bunch of 13 year old girls tried to interfere with their house hunting, but then this book would be entitled "Dawn and the Lesson in Household Finances" and that wouldn't be any fun.

• Speaking of the DeWitts, the fact that there are two DeWitt families (the kids that Dawn sits for in California and the family that Mrs. Barrett is going to marry into) in BSC world is finally addressed. Dawn says something about how it's a huge coincidence and the California DeWitts are not related to the Stoneybrook ones. Of course, it's kind of bizarre that Cynthia DeWitt (in California) is described as a totally gorgeous actress who's always going on auditions for TV commercials and that Mrs. Barrett (soon to be Mrs. DeWitt) is also described as super hot as well. But not an actress.

Assessment of Dawn

As the BSC's resident sleuth? Fail. As a feminist? Fail. As an individual? Fail. I did really like this book back when I first read it because so many of the other so called BSC mystery books were pretty non mysterious (Mallory and the Ghost Cat and The Mystery at Claudia's House, I'm looking at you) or they were just plain unrealistic (pretty much all of the later ones). Still, for someone who supposedly loved mysteries/ghost stories so much, Dawn made a terrible detective. Dawn, go away. You're no good.

Clownalysis

Because clowns figured so heavily in this book, a list of all the clowns that have ever creeped me out:

David Friedman (as in "Capturing the Friedmans")

Possible pedophile clown!

John Wayne Gacy (serial killer clown)
Yes, this guy would give me insomnia even if he wasn't a serial killer.

Ronald McDonald (the Joe Camel of the clown world)
He gets points off because he himself is less scary than one of his best friends. I'm talking, of course, about creepiness personified: the Grimace.

Binky the Clown from "Garfield" (creepy animated clown)
Don't look too deep into his eyes--you'll get sucked in!


Clarabell (old school creepy clown)
I have no words.