BSC Mystery #22: Stacey and the Haunted Masquerade, Part Two
Hellooooo, everyone! I have this 15 page technical report to do, about the impact of IP-convergence on the telecommunications industry, which caused me to develop writer's block so severe that I snarked a full 6 chapters of Stacey and the Haunted Masquerade! And holy shit, it's a doozy. I jumped up and down on one of my favourite soapboxes so much I dented it. Gotta get a new one for the next installment.
Oh, and here's a link to the first part: Chapters 1 - 5
6th Chapter
The Mischief Knights are wrecking havoc in the school, in preparation for Halloween. Everyone is mighty excited! ('Brookian tweens are very easily excited, it seems. But we knew this, of course, because “OMG, SWEATERPANTS!”)
Stacey arrives early for a committee meeting, and is ambushed by Cokie, who gushes about how she thinks Grace's new boyfriend, who is bringing to the dance, isn't real. She wants Stacey's help... with something. I'm not totally clear on what, because, well, okay, maybe Grace has an imaginary boyfriend. What can Stacey do about it? Refer her to a psychiatrist? But Grace arrives before Cokie can make her point. If she had one in the first place, and wasn't just bitching about her friend for the sheer hell of it. They discuss some letters that an old cranky man has been sending to the local newspaper, protesting about the school budget being wasted on dances. The letters foreshadow a bit about some unknown 'tragedy' that occurred at the last Halloween dance. The girls gloss over this though, and move on to discussing how “the pressure of finding a date for a dance can be pretty tough on some kids”. WAT. So, these dances that SMS have: are you not allowed to go if you don't have a date? Or is it really like that at American schools? This is something that has honestly bothered me in a lot of film and literature. So your school is having a disco, and you don't have a date. Big deal. You're THIRTEEN. This obsession with not having a date is another pet peeve of mine. If it had been me, maybe not at thirteen (because I wasn't self-aware enough at that age to even realise that things like dates might be deemed important) but at fourteen or fifteen, and I was forced into a situation where I HAD to have a date to a school event (although, actually, by the time I reached a self-aware age, the main thing I decided I was aware of was that school events, and all the people who might be associated with them, were dibbly uncool, and I wouldn't be seen DEAD at one. I wore a lot of black, in my early teen years, and an unhealthy amount of eyeliner, you see.) ….Erm. What was I saying? Oh yeah, setting aside those things, what I would have done was dress in a suit and take one of my female friends as a 'date'. I did that for a couple of high school parties. Most people thought it was hilarious slash weird, and I got a lot of “Only you, Dasha!”. It gives me great pleasure to imagine pulling a stunt like that for a date-compulsory school event, and having a teacher challenge me over it. While I am not lesbian or a feminist, I would have been quite happy to pretend to be both, and see how THAT went down. HA!
Wow, that was a long rant. Oh, and as I pick up the book again, I see that it was all completely irrelevant, because Stacey suggests making sure the posters point out that it is fine to come alone. All that flouncing for nothing! Cokie thinks everyone should have a date to come to the dance, but is outvoted, because everybody hates her. They've decided on a red-and-purple colour scheme, and something like a 'Addams family' theme for the decorations. Grace offers up her grandmother's glass punch bowl as a prop, which I think is a TERRIBLE idea, if her grandmother has any attachment at all to that bowl, and not just because all their decorations get destroyed on the next page. Stacey wonders whether Grace might have done it, to get the dance cancelled, so that no one would find out her boyfriend wasn't real. Okay, people, THIS IS WHY YOU DON'T MAKE DATES COMPULSORY. It leads to shit like this! I mean, not REALLY, because it was probably Cokie being a jealous bitch, and nothing to do with the date thing at all... But I can see someone as emotionally fragile about boy-related issues as every female character (except maybe Kristy and Abby) in these books seems to be developing some serious pathologies over it. Fleh. I hope I don't knock myself out with all the flailing I'm doing over this book.
7th Chapter
Claudia's painted five posters for the dance! Maybe one day, the Photocopier will come to Stoneybrook. But today is not that day. We are told that the posters are “professional”, “artistic”, “eye-catching”, “wicked”, and “incredible”, but nothing about what they actually look like. Except that Claud's spelled 'masquerade' wrong on one of them. Heh. See, photocopying could have solved that problem! Oh well. Grace says Ted, her possibly-imaginary boyfriend, is going to be totally impressed. Stacey reflects that she hopes that he will be, because she hopes he is real, because if he isn't, that would mean Grace must have sabotaged their decorations. Oh, Stacey. Not everyone is as deeply insecure (or as much of a dirty liar) as you are.
Fast forward to Wednesday's BSC meeting, and Stacey and Claudia are comparing Grace's situation to Carrie. Okay, I love how in the space of one chapter, Stacey's gone from “Grace is really sweet, we're good friends now that she doesn't hang around with Cokie any more!” to deciding that she's a lightbulb-smashing, streamer-shredding, potentially telekinetic psychopath. Without even considering any other possibilities, I might add. How about the girl you all HATE, who's been behind every other damn dirty prank ever pulled in the vicinity of your club? What was her name again...? Oh yeah: COKIE. These girls just never learn.
It transpires that the decorations saboteur has crossed the line by shredding Claudia's posters. They also wrote a scary message on the one in the gym. And hey, I take back the thing about the BSC never learning! Claud pegs Cokie as a potential suspect for the vandalism. Kristy thinks it's the Mischief Knights. Mary Anne thinks it might be Mr Wetzler, the angry old dude. The meeting breaks up, without them coming to any conclusions. They resume for an emergency gossip session meeting the very next day, though, because someone's written '$10' in red spray paint on gym wall. Because the BSC can never leave anything alone, they busy themselves by making a list of suspects. Stacey has a brainwave concerning the mysterious “past tragedy” that keeps being mentioned in connection with the dance. Ooooooohh......
8th Chapter
Uh-oh, Claud's babysitting for the Arnold twins. And I swear I found the handwritten notebook entries much easier to read when I was nine... Hm. Maybe all the drinking I've done in the years since then has actually had a detrimental effect on my mental capabilities...
The Arnold house is already decorated for Halloween, which strikes me as overly keen, but whatever. Mrs Arnold has even accessorised her outfit with pumpkin-shaped jewellery. Now that IS too keen. The twins are working on a ghostbusting project. It seems they have a ghost in their house, and Carolyn has been forced to take drastic measures, by inventing an “ectoplasmic turbulence detector”. They've been hearing scratching noises at night. It's all very spooky and I'm finding it totally boring, I'm afraid. I want to hear more about the poster shredding and girly bitchiness, already!
The noise turns out to be a squirrel, and the girls and Claudia are dead pleased with themselves for busting a real, live ghost. Uhhh, wait, what? Oh, who cares, let's move on!
9th Chapter
Mary Anne, Logan, and Stacey are at MA's house, doing a spot of detecting. They've decided to ask Richard and Sharon is they remember what happened at the last Halloween dance, 28 years ago. Sharon points out that they're asking rather a lot of her, considering she can't remember what she had for dinner last night. Heee. Sharon snarked herself. That's cute. >.<
After much humming and hawing, they remember that there was an incident where a teacher died because of some kind of prank. See, that sounds pretty memorable. Probably the sort of thing you would remember from your childhood, even if you remember nothing else. But memory works in weird ways, I guess, and neither of them are clear on the details, or even the generalities. Logan finally suggests doing what I would have thought was the obvious option, and checking old copies of the town newspaper at the library. They know what year it happened, they even know the date- Mischief Night, the night before Halloween! If something big HAD happened, it would be in the newspaper from that week. It doesn't take a genius...
Here's what they find out: Mischief Night dance = mischief = someone decided to be hilarious and kill all the lights and pull the fire alarm = panic, stampede, a teacher called Mr Brown having a heart attack. :( Boo. That's really sad. He was just there to supervise, being a decent person, probably wasn't even being paid for it. Apparently some football players were suspected, but nothing was ever proved, and no one came forward with information. Our intrepid babysitters are excited to have stumbled on something as serious as that, but disappointed that it gives them no hint as to who might be intent on ruining their dance. Heartless bitches.
The next day at school, they explore old year books for additional clues. Abby comes up with the radical theory that maybe Mr Brown's ghost is responsible for the vandalism. Mary Anne squeals in girly fear, and demands that Abby stop scaring everyone. Stacey is excited to discover that the teacher supervising the decorations committee attended SMS 28 years ago, as did Mr Wetzler. Waaaait, I thought Mr Wetzler was a cranky old guy, and Mr Rothman was young and hip-looking? I guess that was just the impression I got. Well, anyway, Stacey decides that Mr Rothman is a Person of Interest in the case, because he was on the football team that was suspected of being behind the prank. Maybe he's come back for a second round...! (Why? That's a STUPID idea.)
Their investigations are interrupted, however, by the announcement of a special assembly over the loudspeakers! The chapter ends on an ominous note...
10th Chapter
...which the next chapter totally fails to follow through on, because the assembly is a theatre group doing a performace about how to say “no” to somebody asking you to do something you don't want to. Heee!! Stacey thinks that she'll be bored, because she's had practice saying “no”, and I get all excited about there maybe being some mention of Robert moving too fast in their relationship (Robet has been conspicuously absent so far, for all the “he's my life, my luv!” stuff that Stacey gushed in the first chapter. I am disappoint.), but is was just when Sheila tried to make her have alcohol at a concert. Which book was that in, chaps? Sounds like a giggle!
Stacey is captivated by one of the actresses in the theatre group, and is fantasising about being a professional actress (interior designer... actress... Stacey has a LOT of ambitions), when... the lights all go out! Ohs noes! O.O Because people are idiots, and who cares about teachers telling you to stay put, everything goes to hell. Luckily, the lights come back on pretty quickly. No one was seriously hurt, but an ambulance is called for the pretty actress who Stacey was daydreaming about. The Mischief Knights do not claim responsibility, and the babysitters decide that they have to step up to their A-game to solve this mystery, before someone gets really hurt... Or worst of all, the dance gets cancelled!
Stacey's contribution to the mystery solving consists of lying her way into an interview with Mr Wetzler. He mentions that the stampede that killed Mr Brown may have had something to do with a girl being jilted at the dance. Okay, time for me to get back on my soapbox. HELLO. THIRTEEN. THIRTEEN! 'Jilted'? Really? 'Stood up', maybe. 'Cheated on', maybe. Though even those are going a bit far. So some lazy-arsed thirteen year old boy decided that he couldn't be bothered with the dance on the night. Maybe he was watching TV and forgot. Maybe he turned up, but decided that hanging out with a girl the whole night was lame, and ditched her for his mates. THIRTEEN!!! SERIOUSLY!!! Luckily the chapter ends before anything else hair-pull-worthy can be said. I want to chew on some scenery or kill people or something.
And now I am going to put out a call for feedback on my snarking. Nothing too strenuous, I'm just interested in a quick poll: Do people prefer reading a snark divided into parts, or posted in one big entry? Both appear to have their merits, and I'd like to know what the general consensus is. I am perfectly happy doing either; one big post just involves a longer period between snarks, because it takes me a while to get through a whole book, I tend to only read a couple of chapters at a time, then forget for a while. Thoughts, please! It would make me happy to know how best to make y'all happy! :)
Oh, and here's a link to the first part: Chapters 1 - 5
6th Chapter
The Mischief Knights are wrecking havoc in the school, in preparation for Halloween. Everyone is mighty excited! ('Brookian tweens are very easily excited, it seems. But we knew this, of course, because “OMG, SWEATERPANTS!”)
Stacey arrives early for a committee meeting, and is ambushed by Cokie, who gushes about how she thinks Grace's new boyfriend, who is bringing to the dance, isn't real. She wants Stacey's help... with something. I'm not totally clear on what, because, well, okay, maybe Grace has an imaginary boyfriend. What can Stacey do about it? Refer her to a psychiatrist? But Grace arrives before Cokie can make her point. If she had one in the first place, and wasn't just bitching about her friend for the sheer hell of it. They discuss some letters that an old cranky man has been sending to the local newspaper, protesting about the school budget being wasted on dances. The letters foreshadow a bit about some unknown 'tragedy' that occurred at the last Halloween dance. The girls gloss over this though, and move on to discussing how “the pressure of finding a date for a dance can be pretty tough on some kids”. WAT. So, these dances that SMS have: are you not allowed to go if you don't have a date? Or is it really like that at American schools? This is something that has honestly bothered me in a lot of film and literature. So your school is having a disco, and you don't have a date. Big deal. You're THIRTEEN. This obsession with not having a date is another pet peeve of mine. If it had been me, maybe not at thirteen (because I wasn't self-aware enough at that age to even realise that things like dates might be deemed important) but at fourteen or fifteen, and I was forced into a situation where I HAD to have a date to a school event (although, actually, by the time I reached a self-aware age, the main thing I decided I was aware of was that school events, and all the people who might be associated with them, were dibbly uncool, and I wouldn't be seen DEAD at one. I wore a lot of black, in my early teen years, and an unhealthy amount of eyeliner, you see.) ….Erm. What was I saying? Oh yeah, setting aside those things, what I would have done was dress in a suit and take one of my female friends as a 'date'. I did that for a couple of high school parties. Most people thought it was hilarious slash weird, and I got a lot of “Only you, Dasha!”. It gives me great pleasure to imagine pulling a stunt like that for a date-compulsory school event, and having a teacher challenge me over it. While I am not lesbian or a feminist, I would have been quite happy to pretend to be both, and see how THAT went down. HA!
Wow, that was a long rant. Oh, and as I pick up the book again, I see that it was all completely irrelevant, because Stacey suggests making sure the posters point out that it is fine to come alone. All that flouncing for nothing! Cokie thinks everyone should have a date to come to the dance, but is outvoted, because everybody hates her. They've decided on a red-and-purple colour scheme, and something like a 'Addams family' theme for the decorations. Grace offers up her grandmother's glass punch bowl as a prop, which I think is a TERRIBLE idea, if her grandmother has any attachment at all to that bowl, and not just because all their decorations get destroyed on the next page. Stacey wonders whether Grace might have done it, to get the dance cancelled, so that no one would find out her boyfriend wasn't real. Okay, people, THIS IS WHY YOU DON'T MAKE DATES COMPULSORY. It leads to shit like this! I mean, not REALLY, because it was probably Cokie being a jealous bitch, and nothing to do with the date thing at all... But I can see someone as emotionally fragile about boy-related issues as every female character (except maybe Kristy and Abby) in these books seems to be developing some serious pathologies over it. Fleh. I hope I don't knock myself out with all the flailing I'm doing over this book.
7th Chapter
Claudia's painted five posters for the dance! Maybe one day, the Photocopier will come to Stoneybrook. But today is not that day. We are told that the posters are “professional”, “artistic”, “eye-catching”, “wicked”, and “incredible”, but nothing about what they actually look like. Except that Claud's spelled 'masquerade' wrong on one of them. Heh. See, photocopying could have solved that problem! Oh well. Grace says Ted, her possibly-imaginary boyfriend, is going to be totally impressed. Stacey reflects that she hopes that he will be, because she hopes he is real, because if he isn't, that would mean Grace must have sabotaged their decorations. Oh, Stacey. Not everyone is as deeply insecure (or as much of a dirty liar) as you are.
Fast forward to Wednesday's BSC meeting, and Stacey and Claudia are comparing Grace's situation to Carrie. Okay, I love how in the space of one chapter, Stacey's gone from “Grace is really sweet, we're good friends now that she doesn't hang around with Cokie any more!” to deciding that she's a lightbulb-smashing, streamer-shredding, potentially telekinetic psychopath. Without even considering any other possibilities, I might add. How about the girl you all HATE, who's been behind every other damn dirty prank ever pulled in the vicinity of your club? What was her name again...? Oh yeah: COKIE. These girls just never learn.
It transpires that the decorations saboteur has crossed the line by shredding Claudia's posters. They also wrote a scary message on the one in the gym. And hey, I take back the thing about the BSC never learning! Claud pegs Cokie as a potential suspect for the vandalism. Kristy thinks it's the Mischief Knights. Mary Anne thinks it might be Mr Wetzler, the angry old dude. The meeting breaks up, without them coming to any conclusions. They resume for an emergency gossip session meeting the very next day, though, because someone's written '$10' in red spray paint on gym wall. Because the BSC can never leave anything alone, they busy themselves by making a list of suspects. Stacey has a brainwave concerning the mysterious “past tragedy” that keeps being mentioned in connection with the dance. Ooooooohh......
8th Chapter
Uh-oh, Claud's babysitting for the Arnold twins. And I swear I found the handwritten notebook entries much easier to read when I was nine... Hm. Maybe all the drinking I've done in the years since then has actually had a detrimental effect on my mental capabilities...
The Arnold house is already decorated for Halloween, which strikes me as overly keen, but whatever. Mrs Arnold has even accessorised her outfit with pumpkin-shaped jewellery. Now that IS too keen. The twins are working on a ghostbusting project. It seems they have a ghost in their house, and Carolyn has been forced to take drastic measures, by inventing an “ectoplasmic turbulence detector”. They've been hearing scratching noises at night. It's all very spooky and I'm finding it totally boring, I'm afraid. I want to hear more about the poster shredding and girly bitchiness, already!
The noise turns out to be a squirrel, and the girls and Claudia are dead pleased with themselves for busting a real, live ghost. Uhhh, wait, what? Oh, who cares, let's move on!
9th Chapter
Mary Anne, Logan, and Stacey are at MA's house, doing a spot of detecting. They've decided to ask Richard and Sharon is they remember what happened at the last Halloween dance, 28 years ago. Sharon points out that they're asking rather a lot of her, considering she can't remember what she had for dinner last night. Heee. Sharon snarked herself. That's cute. >.<
After much humming and hawing, they remember that there was an incident where a teacher died because of some kind of prank. See, that sounds pretty memorable. Probably the sort of thing you would remember from your childhood, even if you remember nothing else. But memory works in weird ways, I guess, and neither of them are clear on the details, or even the generalities. Logan finally suggests doing what I would have thought was the obvious option, and checking old copies of the town newspaper at the library. They know what year it happened, they even know the date- Mischief Night, the night before Halloween! If something big HAD happened, it would be in the newspaper from that week. It doesn't take a genius...
Here's what they find out: Mischief Night dance = mischief = someone decided to be hilarious and kill all the lights and pull the fire alarm = panic, stampede, a teacher called Mr Brown having a heart attack. :( Boo. That's really sad. He was just there to supervise, being a decent person, probably wasn't even being paid for it. Apparently some football players were suspected, but nothing was ever proved, and no one came forward with information. Our intrepid babysitters are excited to have stumbled on something as serious as that, but disappointed that it gives them no hint as to who might be intent on ruining their dance. Heartless bitches.
The next day at school, they explore old year books for additional clues. Abby comes up with the radical theory that maybe Mr Brown's ghost is responsible for the vandalism. Mary Anne squeals in girly fear, and demands that Abby stop scaring everyone. Stacey is excited to discover that the teacher supervising the decorations committee attended SMS 28 years ago, as did Mr Wetzler. Waaaait, I thought Mr Wetzler was a cranky old guy, and Mr Rothman was young and hip-looking? I guess that was just the impression I got. Well, anyway, Stacey decides that Mr Rothman is a Person of Interest in the case, because he was on the football team that was suspected of being behind the prank. Maybe he's come back for a second round...! (Why? That's a STUPID idea.)
Their investigations are interrupted, however, by the announcement of a special assembly over the loudspeakers! The chapter ends on an ominous note...
10th Chapter
...which the next chapter totally fails to follow through on, because the assembly is a theatre group doing a performace about how to say “no” to somebody asking you to do something you don't want to. Heee!! Stacey thinks that she'll be bored, because she's had practice saying “no”, and I get all excited about there maybe being some mention of Robert moving too fast in their relationship (Robet has been conspicuously absent so far, for all the “he's my life, my luv!” stuff that Stacey gushed in the first chapter. I am disappoint.), but is was just when Sheila tried to make her have alcohol at a concert. Which book was that in, chaps? Sounds like a giggle!
Stacey is captivated by one of the actresses in the theatre group, and is fantasising about being a professional actress (interior designer... actress... Stacey has a LOT of ambitions), when... the lights all go out! Ohs noes! O.O Because people are idiots, and who cares about teachers telling you to stay put, everything goes to hell. Luckily, the lights come back on pretty quickly. No one was seriously hurt, but an ambulance is called for the pretty actress who Stacey was daydreaming about. The Mischief Knights do not claim responsibility, and the babysitters decide that they have to step up to their A-game to solve this mystery, before someone gets really hurt... Or worst of all, the dance gets cancelled!
Stacey's contribution to the mystery solving consists of lying her way into an interview with Mr Wetzler. He mentions that the stampede that killed Mr Brown may have had something to do with a girl being jilted at the dance. Okay, time for me to get back on my soapbox. HELLO. THIRTEEN. THIRTEEN! 'Jilted'? Really? 'Stood up', maybe. 'Cheated on', maybe. Though even those are going a bit far. So some lazy-arsed thirteen year old boy decided that he couldn't be bothered with the dance on the night. Maybe he was watching TV and forgot. Maybe he turned up, but decided that hanging out with a girl the whole night was lame, and ditched her for his mates. THIRTEEN!!! SERIOUSLY!!! Luckily the chapter ends before anything else hair-pull-worthy can be said. I want to chew on some scenery or kill people or something.
And now I am going to put out a call for feedback on my snarking. Nothing too strenuous, I'm just interested in a quick poll: Do people prefer reading a snark divided into parts, or posted in one big entry? Both appear to have their merits, and I'd like to know what the general consensus is. I am perfectly happy doing either; one big post just involves a longer period between snarks, because it takes me a while to get through a whole book, I tend to only read a couple of chapters at a time, then forget for a while. Thoughts, please! It would make me happy to know how best to make y'all happy! :)