Baby-sitters Haunted House 4
Part the First
Part the Second
Part the Third
And so it comes to an end, not with a bang, but with a whimper. . .from me. This book, you guys.
Chapter 18:
Mary Anne makes a laborious and fairly pointless suspect list: the woman with the European accent nosing around the historical society, the Coopers, and Georgio.
Mary Anne serves tea to the EVIL Coopers and then they all head off to bug the Tronos (Georgio’s adorable grandparents). Georgio, apparently has gone to New Hampshire to buy “special paint” for the Founders’ Day float. That, frankly, sounds like a way crappier cover story than most of the so-called alibis in this book. Maybe “special paint” is roofies or something, because he is a CREEP.
Anyway, they discover the Coopers aren’t Reese locals, as they had claimed, and that the keys they handed over were complete, including the mysteriously vanished key to the fourth floor. And they hear again that the Lydia story was bullshit.
Halfway through this scene, Mary Anne feels sorry for how the Tronos will feel if Georgio is the culprit, but somehow one page later has decided Georgio has been trying to help them. I have no idea how she reached this conclusion based on hearing that the Lydia story was crap, but whatever, this mystery has dragged on for almost 200 pages now. Also, Claudia insists that her “gut feeling” is that Georgio’s “a good person,” despite that being pretty much the opposite of her gut feelings in every previous scene with him. I think maybe Jeanne Betancourt was high when she wrote this chapter. I wish I had been high when I read it.
The Menders and the Engles announce at dinner that the adults will be spending the next day in Boston, “checking out wholesale sources for health foods.” That’s an odd euphemism for the adult expo, but whatever. Mr. Menders announces that they are very seriously considering moving to Reese, but now all the kids are happy because the BSC are magic saints or something. Except that pretty much everything that makes the kids happy--Lionel and Jason bonding over softball and Martha making a friend sans Karen--they did on their own. Jill still wants Dawn’s family to move to Reese. I can’t tell whether or not she knows that includes Mary Anne. There is kind of a cute moment when Kristy and MA actually act like best friends and share a laugh, though.
FINALLY, we get some progress on the mystery: Mr. Menders reveals that if they had decided not to move to Reese full-time, the house would go to his cousin Charles Randolph, who moved to SCOTLAND a long time ago. Because in mysteries, wills are always full of stupid clauses like that. Lionel wants to know why the kids weren’t told this relevant information, and Mrs. Menders claims they didn’t want to pressure the kids. Yeah, they didn’t want to pressure them so much they brought in a gang of experienced cultists to sell them on the town, and basically ignored the kids until they started giving the correct answers.
Also, Dawn all of a sudden remembers Mrs. Cooper spoke with an accent. Which I think is a pretty bizarre way for memory to work, but whatever, if it keeps the plot progressing. She doesn’t remember what country (could it be. . .SCOTLAND?) so Mary Anne gets Lionel to play the “accent game” again, using the overheard sentence until he produces “Ye told me toe, didn’t ye?” Dawn identifies this as Mrs. Cooper’s accent and Kristy identifies it as Scottish. Well, sort of.
But FINALLY the BSC members manage to put together the idea that it was Elton Cooper WITH the Scottish wife IN the attic, trying to scare the Menderses out of the house. Which is actually pretty funny because the sitters have been pretty much the only ones obsessing about this--it’s not clear whether the Menders family has even noticed. None of the kids‘ objections were based on “oh noes scary house.” What a failtastic plan.
Mary Anne is scared when she hears the noises that night, this time because she knows it’s the Coopers. “They wanted the mansion badly enough to come to America, impersonate caretakers, and do all the things they’d done to scare us and the kids. What else would they do?” Which. . .is basically telling crap ghost stories and playing cheesy sound effects tapes. Next they’ll be leaving you fake flowers and chicken bones, MA. No, wait, that’s your loving stepsister.
Chapter 19:
Jessi writes a pointlessly mysterious notebook entry about why people haven’t been calling for sitters. It’s because people are going on vacation.
Oh, all right, there’s massive melodrama while they plan an apology campaign of going door to door allowing people to throw rotten eggs at them, until they start calling people and find out that, no, people just are going out of town. There’s a massive continuity fail, though, when Jessi calls Mrs. Braddock and Mrs. Braddock says she’s “on her way out the door” for a two week camping trip, even though the Braddocks are scheduled to be at Celebrate America! Day. You know, it’s one thing to mess up continuity in 200+ books, but fucking it up within fifty pages is pretty pathetic.
They cheer up enough to eat some of Claudia’s junk food, and try to come up with an activity to do with all their clients on Celebrate America! Day, which is officially 15 kids ages 2 to 10. Mallory says kids with that age range have nothing in common, and Jessi smarms that “Kristy wouldn’t let that stop her.” Gag me. She’s not even there, Jessi, who are you sucking up to? They’ve been eating Chuckles candy, and are now rolling them back and forth on the floor, comparing their task to inventing the wheel.
I’ve eaten Chuckles (well, grocery-brand-generic-equivalents--I think my dad thinks candy actually tastes better if he’s saved 27 cents), and they don’t roll like that. This whole book is so fail.
Chapter 20:
SUPER dramatic Kristy notebook entry. “I am writing this by candlelight. A terrible thunderstorm is raging. The phone and the electricity are out. We’re alone with six children and two evil adults. Above all, we must protect the children.” One of whom is a YEAR OLDER than you, you self-important addlepated twit.
Kristy briefly contemplates telling Lisa about their suspicions of the Coopers, but ultimately decides against it. Was there really any doubt?
Instead, she and Dawn set off to indoctrinate Jill into forming a Reese branch of the BSCult. So, just to review, fourteen-year-old Lionel is a child, and ten-year-old Jill is ready to baby-sit. Jill asks how they learned to baby-sit and they tell her by baby-sitting their own siblings, even without telling them. I kind of know what they mean--although considering that the BSCult always seem to get paid for sitting their siblings, but it’s a really weird way to put it. “You could baby-sit for Martha without telling her,” Dawn explained. “Sometimes I do that with my brother Jeff. When we’re doing water sports, like sailing, I watch out for him. I’ve worked in a lot of baby-sitting practice that way.” So really, this is all just a long con to get Jill to agree to join the swim team with Martha. They do.
MA, Kristy and the kids head into town to copy the photo Claudia thought she recognized, and to swing by the historical society again to ask Mrs. Butterfield if the woman asking about the Reese mansion had a Scottish accent. Why, yes, and she was just here! And they see Mrs. Cooper scurrying suspiciously down the road. The clues are just piling on now!
But then, something truly exciting happens. Kristy ACTUALLY offers to let the children watch a video! Sure, it’s just to get them out of her hair while she works on the mystery, but still.
Claudia is supposed to be out in the murdershed working on the float, but she is nowhere to be found, so Kristy and MA go to look for her in the attic. The door to “Lydia’s” room is open, and Kristy sneaks a peek, only to see “two figures--male and female--bending over a wicker basket.” Everyone screams, but MA screams loudest of all, because she is useless in this book. And I like Mary Anne.
Of course, the two figures are Claudia and Georgio, and why Kristy didn’t recognize them in broad daylight I have no idea. Apparently off-screen, Claudia has determined that “Georgio knows everything and is totally innocent,” because that obviously would have been a less interesting conversation than that crap about Jill becoming a baby-sitter. But he’s also been suspicious of the Coopers, which supposedly explains his creeper behavior. Stalking Claudia was just a fringe benefit.
Anyway, they establish the Coopers hid a timer in a sewing basket to make the light go on, and since it’s the Coopers’ day off, they decide to go and snoop in their room. Kristy has a brief moment of wondering if that is invasion of privacy, but they all convince themselves that the Coopers are VERY VERY dangerous, so off they go, with Georgio’s keys. But they are interrupted by the damn kids, coming home from the pool, singing “the theme song” to The Little Mermaid. (Do musical movies have theme songs?) So MA ends up with kid duty, Claudia goes off to do something with the photocopies they made, and Dawn and Kristy go off merrily to spy. They have this hilarious exchange:
As I turned the key in the lock I told Dawn, “I hate sneaking around like this.”
“I love it,” Dawn confessed. “And they deserve it.”
I just find it hilarious that Dawn loves spying on people as well as judging them. She and Mal should have teamed up more. K. Ron may be a cult leader, but Dawn comes off like a sociopath.
Anyway, they find a long white gown, presumably for parading along the widow’s walk, and then the piece de resistance, the element that firmly elevates the book into irredeemable cracktastic-ness. The Evil Mastermind List!
“Ten-Step Plan for when company leaves:
hahahahahahahahah. Because everyone writes down their ten-step plans for evil. Frankly, I’m disappointed Betancourt was too lazy to come up with the rest of the steps.
Kristy freaks out about the fire, although I personally always thought the poison ivy oil was worst. Especially if it were in underwear. (But I assumed they meant to set the fire when she wasn’t there.) Also, I love how number 2 is supposed to be evidence of evil, even though it’s totally true. They haven’t framed him or anything.
Just then they hear the car pull up, so they leave the list and run downstairs, where Margaret smiles at them with “cold and calculating eyes.”
Meanwhile, Claudia has been drawing on the photocopies to see if she can figure out why the photo looked familiar. She starts off with shoulder-length hair, eyeshadow and lipstick, discards it, and tried facial hair until she comes up with a picture of Elton Cooper.
He walks in, possibly seeing her handiwork, just as the suitably dramatic thunderstorm begins.
Chapter 21:
Dawn wishes there were ghosts in the house instead of “calculating criminals.” But she’d be whining just as much if it were ghosts, so whatever. She claims to be the only one awake, obsessing about a “terrible story” Elton told them which--spoiler alert--is really not scary at all.
Thunderstorm, junior pictionary, blah blah blah. Dawn snots that she hopes Lionel knows not to walk home in a lightening storm. HE’S OLDER THAN YOU. The sitters agree not to let anyone wander off alone, and not to let the Coopers know they’re onto them. The electricity goes off. Georgio shows up in yellow rain gear and high black rubber boots (sexay!) and gives them storm supplies, then goes off to look for Lionel and Jason. Before he leaves, he kisses Claudia on the cheek, and Dawn wonders if Elton thinks he can use that as evidence that Georgio was “fooling around with a sitter.” Yes, Dawn.
Elton starts a fire in the fireplace, and Dawn freaks out about “something on fire” being on the list. How dumb is she that she can’t even remember the stupid Evil Plot list she found a few hours ago? Some detective. Dawn is also convinced the Coopers are going to poison them, and “clever Claud” makes Mrs. Cooper drink her hot cocoa first to prove it isn’t poisoned with a really weak excuse about testing if it is too hot for the children to drink, and none of the children over the age of four ask WTF. Even when I read this as a kid, I thought Dawn was being a big drama queen here--there’s a big difference between vandalism and psychological warfare (which seems way too strong for what the Coopers have done--psychological poking, maybe) and killing ten CHILDREN (if Lionel is a child, you bet your dumb ass is too, Dawnie) in cold blood.
Jason wants to tell scary stories, and Elton leaps in with a rehash of the ones we’ve already heard: Reginald Randolph drowned at sea, Mary Randolph hurled from the widow’s walk, blah blah blah. Then he adds the supposedly terrifying episode to cap it: the night Mary Randolph supposedly died, a ship floundering in the storm was supposedly led safely to shore by a boat named Mary, and they saw a woman standing beside the captain as it sailed back into the storm. OMG they were saved by a ghost ship!
See, I don’t get what the hell is so terrifying about that, and I consider myself a big wuss: I’ve creeped myself out reading Wikipedia entries about horror movies. But a helpful, saving people ghost that appears once? Big whoop. At best it’s a sort of “ooh” not an “OMG OMG!” I’ll take a helpful ghost over a vengeful spirit any day.
Elton makes a crack about the sitters “thinking of everything,” and Dawn is convinced he’s onto them, so they convince all the kids to have a sleepover in Kristy and Mary Anne’s room. Lionel, again, has no reaction to all this proximity to the hot stuff that is the BSC. But Dawn notes that he is being a “terrific sport,” telling funny stories and demonstrating how Elton drama-llamed up his ghost story. Way to be condescending, Dawn.
Jill claims to have seen the woman in white the other night, and they cover by saying Mrs. Cooper must have just been checking on them. But now Jill and Martha do want to go back to Boston.
The chapter just kind of peters out there. Will they survive to morning? (Yes.)
Chapter 22:
Mallory has a Great Idea (tm Kristy Thomas and don’t you forget it!) for Celebrate America! Day. They’re going to be the “BSC on Wheels” and march/bike/rollerblade/skateboard/whatever in the parade. Mallory claims to have been inspired by the “wheel-shaped Chuckles” and I already called bullshit on that.
Apparently it takes her and Jessi “forever” to make plans for this, and then they go off to recruit the minions, starting with the Pike clan, and I get to this line and lose it:
My dad said that since he was going to the parade anyway, he’d be an extra sitter and help out, especially during the parade. Good old Dad.
No. No. Not “good old Dad.” That’s not “being an extra sitter,” that’s being a fucking parent. I hate Ann’s stupid version of feminism in which the awesomeness of women (and teenage and preteen girls) is apparently an excuse for men to be worthless fucks and get heaped with praise for doing the bare minimum. HATE. WTF.
Sorry. While I was flipping out, we got unnecessarily detailed accounts of exactly what red and blue ensembles everyone will wear. Although we did learn Mal’s favorite t-shirt is “red and white striped, with blue stars around the neck and sleeve.” I guess it’s a step up from the creepy I <3 Kids shirt and the Mallory jumper, but just barely.
Meanwhile, Jessi heads off to recruit the Braddocks, who are supposed to be on a two-week camping trip. Man, this book bites. Becca pouts because Jessi refuses to teach her to Rollerblade then and there, and she’ll have to bike in the parade like that loser Vanessa Pike. Then Jessi freaks out about how hard it will be to watch the Marshalls in the parade, although I don’t really see why--Eleanor is going to be in a stroller, so unless she’s one of those Houdini babies who crawls out every two minutes, big whoop.
About this time, they call Logan, who has sensibly been avoiding them since they almost got him fired from his lucrative callboy busboy job at the Rosebud Brothel Cafe. No mention of Shannon, so possibly she has escaped. Logan is apparently “grumpy” when Mal talks to him on the phone, but he’s probably just terrified after what she did to his french bread. But he agrees when Mal plays the “think of the children!” card.
Mal makes signs--and hey, no Claudia, so probably all spelled correctly! and go to bed. The next morning, Mal spies Sam riding his unicycle (?) around the town green (??).
Next sentence, she’s telling Jessi she doesn’t know how she convinced Sam to lead them in the parade. I don’t know either, because Betancourt was too lazy to write that scene, even though I had to listen to the wardrobe choices of six Pikes and both Braddocks. I guess Sam has just given up on ever getting laid as long as he lives in the Brook. At least Charlie gets his trysts with Janine.
And Mr. Braddock gets fucking praised to the skies for videotaping them in the parade, although why he couldn’t do that and ALSO TAKE CARE OF HIS DAMN KIDS is beyond me. But at least Kristy will get to see Sam humiliating himself in the name of the BSC. It apparently took Mal two hours to make three signs--one which says “BSC Kids on Wheels” and two that say “Keep the Good Times Rolling.” What, was she drawing mice wearing high tops and sparkly jewelry on them all?
The parade goes off without a hitch, as does the rest of the day. Mr. Pike and Mr. Braddock vanish, presumably to snort coke off the asses of strippers or something, since they’ve obviously cleared their fatherly duties for the year. Also, Jackie “walking disaster” Rodowsky wins a sack race. But also, the entire town comes and sucks up to the BSC for all they do, including Mrs. Pike, last seen throwing a hissyfit at her eleven-year-old. Notably, she only thanks Mal for watching the younger Pikes while Mrs. Pike worked in the kite making booth, not the other hours and days and weeks she acts as an unpaid nanny.
And now that subplot is over.
Chapter 23:
Incoherent journal entry from Claudia. Everyone wakes up and yay! the parents have just arrived home. That was anti-climactic. The Coopers have supposedly gone for groceries, so Kristy asks for a private meeting with the adults and the sitters lay out all the evidence against the Coopers. Notably, no adult asks why they didn’t mention any of this BEFORE all the adults left the state. Instead, Mr.Menders praises their detective skills. Sigh.
Claudia goes off to finish the float with Georgio, and informs us that she likes being with Georgio more than any guy she’s ever been around. We’ve heard that song before. And, you know, two days ago, he made you sick to your stomach, but whatever.
Anyway, the Coopers have flown the coop (Geddit?). That was also anti-climactic. They left a note, saying “The house--and its ghosts--are yours. C.R.” Incidentally, it’s in much more stereotypically femme-y handwriting (at least by BSC standards) than the Evil Mastermind list. So was Maggie the brains of the operation?
Blah blah blah, Lionel has convinced the theater to sponsor the softball team, so now they have team shirts (“The Locals”) because that is truly the key to victory. They all get dressed up for the parade, and Claudia for some reason goes to wander around the widow’s walk in her white dress. Poor Dawn got stuck with blue velvet, which sounds horribly hot for a June parade. But it’s Dawn, so I don’t really care. Blah blah blah parade is fun whee!
Claudia has a date with Georgio for the carnival at seven, and repeatedly asks Dawn if he’s too old for her. YES. Because Dawn can’t bear to have a conversation not be about her, they bring up Travis, but agree Georgio is nicer than Travis was. And more illegal, too.
At the carnival, Claudia is convincing herself they could totally be long distance boyfriend/girlfriend (have you ever written a letter to any of your previous vacation boyfriends, Claud?) when Georgio takes her hand and invites her to his homecoming weekend and I literally shudder. Ew ew ew. Claudia frets that her parents would never let her (damn fucking right). She compares her situation to Dawn and Travis, and Stacey’s “doomed crush” on a teacher, but then says she loves being with Georgio. “How could that be wrong?” Let me count the ways!
However, I am glad for tiny favors, because apparently somewhere along the line someone figured out how gross it would be if we had to actually see a full-on kiss, so I don’t have to actually get a barf bucket.
Then Mary Anne thinks she sees Mrs. Cooper at the carnival, possibly tampering with the Ferris wheel. She’s not the Joker, FFS. “The mystery might not be over.” STFU Claud, we’re on page 256. IT’S OVER.
Epilogue:
Mary Anne continues to fail, because the police found the Randolphs/Coopers had already left the country.
The last few days in Reese, the sitters continue to look for the stupid treasure. Mr. Menders thinks perhaps the whole estate was the treasure, and Claudia is like lol no, but they haven’t found anything by the time they go home.
And it’s letters time!
Creepy letter from creeper Georgio, who also messes up my handwriting/sexuality theory by using lowercase letters. Even if Claudia weren’t THIRTEEN, the letter would be pretty creepy and over the top for a guy who knew her about a week, half of which she thought he was a criminal. Anyway, in between all the “why does it feel I’ve known you my whole life” and “let’s find a way to be together” crap, he reiterates the Homecoming invite, and sends her a handful of petals from “our” rose garden.
And lol, Claudia shoots him down in type! She confesses that she is only thirteen and says that her parents wouldn’t let her come to homecoming and also she would feel “out of place” around all those college students. “Out of place” doesn’t even begin to cover the grossness, but whatever.
I’m just going to picture Georgio having bragged to all his friends about the underage ass he was going to tap, and being mocked and or shunned when one of them finds that letter.
(For some reason, until I reread, I thought there was actually a sheepish reply letter, but I think I was thinking of a better book, The Morning-Glory War, in which Jeannie Newman’s GI penpal mistakes her for an older girl and she doesn’t correct him because he’s busy pouring out his fears about being killed in action, so the whole thing is kind of heartbreaking and not gross. Also, it has a spelling bee scene in which the crowning moment of glory is Jeannie yelling at her teacher “And how do the British pronounce rhododendron?”)
Jessi owes Becca five hours of Rollerblade instruction. Jill got a job as a mother’s helper. Lionel got a part in Our Town. He also uses lowercase letters. Jason’s softball team won a game. Karen wants Martha to visit Stoneybrook so that she (Karen) can throw a huge party and introduce her to tons of people, because she still refuses to believe that not everyone wants maximum noise and chaos all the time. Martha, who has adorable handwriting AND unlike any of those uneducated Stoneybrook kids, can use lowercase letters, writes back that freed from Karen’s tyranny and creepiness scaring off the locals, she now has three new friends. Bertha Trono has Mary Anne’s handwriting, and she and her husband are re-employed at the Reese mansion. I’d love to know if she wrote this letter to Claudia after she told Georgio she was only thirteen.
And last but not least, Andrew writes to thank the Menderses for giving him the toy boat he found in the attic. Guess what? They cleaned it and on the side it says “Treasure!” Rosebud was the sled! He still spells better than Claudia, and even uses quotation marks correctly.
And Claudia got an A on her composition, thanks to the miracle of spell check. THE END. And that was terrible.
It still makes more sense than this book.
Man, I think maybe I’m not cut out for super books. I start a new job tomorrow, but this angried me up enough to REALLY look forward to tearing into the hagiographical official Ann M. Martin biography. Cheers! Long Live Spooky!
Part the Second
Part the Third
And so it comes to an end, not with a bang, but with a whimper. . .from me. This book, you guys.
Chapter 18:
Mary Anne makes a laborious and fairly pointless suspect list: the woman with the European accent nosing around the historical society, the Coopers, and Georgio.
Mary Anne serves tea to the EVIL Coopers and then they all head off to bug the Tronos (Georgio’s adorable grandparents). Georgio, apparently has gone to New Hampshire to buy “special paint” for the Founders’ Day float. That, frankly, sounds like a way crappier cover story than most of the so-called alibis in this book. Maybe “special paint” is roofies or something, because he is a CREEP.
Anyway, they discover the Coopers aren’t Reese locals, as they had claimed, and that the keys they handed over were complete, including the mysteriously vanished key to the fourth floor. And they hear again that the Lydia story was bullshit.
Halfway through this scene, Mary Anne feels sorry for how the Tronos will feel if Georgio is the culprit, but somehow one page later has decided Georgio has been trying to help them. I have no idea how she reached this conclusion based on hearing that the Lydia story was crap, but whatever, this mystery has dragged on for almost 200 pages now. Also, Claudia insists that her “gut feeling” is that Georgio’s “a good person,” despite that being pretty much the opposite of her gut feelings in every previous scene with him. I think maybe Jeanne Betancourt was high when she wrote this chapter. I wish I had been high when I read it.
The Menders and the Engles announce at dinner that the adults will be spending the next day in Boston, “checking out wholesale sources for health foods.” That’s an odd euphemism for the adult expo, but whatever. Mr. Menders announces that they are very seriously considering moving to Reese, but now all the kids are happy because the BSC are magic saints or something. Except that pretty much everything that makes the kids happy--Lionel and Jason bonding over softball and Martha making a friend sans Karen--they did on their own. Jill still wants Dawn’s family to move to Reese. I can’t tell whether or not she knows that includes Mary Anne. There is kind of a cute moment when Kristy and MA actually act like best friends and share a laugh, though.
FINALLY, we get some progress on the mystery: Mr. Menders reveals that if they had decided not to move to Reese full-time, the house would go to his cousin Charles Randolph, who moved to SCOTLAND a long time ago. Because in mysteries, wills are always full of stupid clauses like that. Lionel wants to know why the kids weren’t told this relevant information, and Mrs. Menders claims they didn’t want to pressure the kids. Yeah, they didn’t want to pressure them so much they brought in a gang of experienced cultists to sell them on the town, and basically ignored the kids until they started giving the correct answers.
Also, Dawn all of a sudden remembers Mrs. Cooper spoke with an accent. Which I think is a pretty bizarre way for memory to work, but whatever, if it keeps the plot progressing. She doesn’t remember what country (could it be. . .SCOTLAND?) so Mary Anne gets Lionel to play the “accent game” again, using the overheard sentence until he produces “Ye told me toe, didn’t ye?” Dawn identifies this as Mrs. Cooper’s accent and Kristy identifies it as Scottish. Well, sort of.
But FINALLY the BSC members manage to put together the idea that it was Elton Cooper WITH the Scottish wife IN the attic, trying to scare the Menderses out of the house. Which is actually pretty funny because the sitters have been pretty much the only ones obsessing about this--it’s not clear whether the Menders family has even noticed. None of the kids‘ objections were based on “oh noes scary house.” What a failtastic plan.
Mary Anne is scared when she hears the noises that night, this time because she knows it’s the Coopers. “They wanted the mansion badly enough to come to America, impersonate caretakers, and do all the things they’d done to scare us and the kids. What else would they do?” Which. . .is basically telling crap ghost stories and playing cheesy sound effects tapes. Next they’ll be leaving you fake flowers and chicken bones, MA. No, wait, that’s your loving stepsister.
Chapter 19:
Jessi writes a pointlessly mysterious notebook entry about why people haven’t been calling for sitters. It’s because people are going on vacation.
Oh, all right, there’s massive melodrama while they plan an apology campaign of going door to door allowing people to throw rotten eggs at them, until they start calling people and find out that, no, people just are going out of town. There’s a massive continuity fail, though, when Jessi calls Mrs. Braddock and Mrs. Braddock says she’s “on her way out the door” for a two week camping trip, even though the Braddocks are scheduled to be at Celebrate America! Day. You know, it’s one thing to mess up continuity in 200+ books, but fucking it up within fifty pages is pretty pathetic.
They cheer up enough to eat some of Claudia’s junk food, and try to come up with an activity to do with all their clients on Celebrate America! Day, which is officially 15 kids ages 2 to 10. Mallory says kids with that age range have nothing in common, and Jessi smarms that “Kristy wouldn’t let that stop her.” Gag me. She’s not even there, Jessi, who are you sucking up to? They’ve been eating Chuckles candy, and are now rolling them back and forth on the floor, comparing their task to inventing the wheel.
I’ve eaten Chuckles (well, grocery-brand-generic-equivalents--I think my dad thinks candy actually tastes better if he’s saved 27 cents), and they don’t roll like that. This whole book is so fail.
Chapter 20:
SUPER dramatic Kristy notebook entry. “I am writing this by candlelight. A terrible thunderstorm is raging. The phone and the electricity are out. We’re alone with six children and two evil adults. Above all, we must protect the children.” One of whom is a YEAR OLDER than you, you self-important addlepated twit.
Kristy briefly contemplates telling Lisa about their suspicions of the Coopers, but ultimately decides against it. Was there really any doubt?
Instead, she and Dawn set off to indoctrinate Jill into forming a Reese branch of the BSCult. So, just to review, fourteen-year-old Lionel is a child, and ten-year-old Jill is ready to baby-sit. Jill asks how they learned to baby-sit and they tell her by baby-sitting their own siblings, even without telling them. I kind of know what they mean--although considering that the BSCult always seem to get paid for sitting their siblings, but it’s a really weird way to put it. “You could baby-sit for Martha without telling her,” Dawn explained. “Sometimes I do that with my brother Jeff. When we’re doing water sports, like sailing, I watch out for him. I’ve worked in a lot of baby-sitting practice that way.” So really, this is all just a long con to get Jill to agree to join the swim team with Martha. They do.
MA, Kristy and the kids head into town to copy the photo Claudia thought she recognized, and to swing by the historical society again to ask Mrs. Butterfield if the woman asking about the Reese mansion had a Scottish accent. Why, yes, and she was just here! And they see Mrs. Cooper scurrying suspiciously down the road. The clues are just piling on now!
But then, something truly exciting happens. Kristy ACTUALLY offers to let the children watch a video! Sure, it’s just to get them out of her hair while she works on the mystery, but still.
Claudia is supposed to be out in the murdershed working on the float, but she is nowhere to be found, so Kristy and MA go to look for her in the attic. The door to “Lydia’s” room is open, and Kristy sneaks a peek, only to see “two figures--male and female--bending over a wicker basket.” Everyone screams, but MA screams loudest of all, because she is useless in this book. And I like Mary Anne.
Of course, the two figures are Claudia and Georgio, and why Kristy didn’t recognize them in broad daylight I have no idea. Apparently off-screen, Claudia has determined that “Georgio knows everything and is totally innocent,” because that obviously would have been a less interesting conversation than that crap about Jill becoming a baby-sitter. But he’s also been suspicious of the Coopers, which supposedly explains his creeper behavior. Stalking Claudia was just a fringe benefit.
Anyway, they establish the Coopers hid a timer in a sewing basket to make the light go on, and since it’s the Coopers’ day off, they decide to go and snoop in their room. Kristy has a brief moment of wondering if that is invasion of privacy, but they all convince themselves that the Coopers are VERY VERY dangerous, so off they go, with Georgio’s keys. But they are interrupted by the damn kids, coming home from the pool, singing “the theme song” to The Little Mermaid. (Do musical movies have theme songs?) So MA ends up with kid duty, Claudia goes off to do something with the photocopies they made, and Dawn and Kristy go off merrily to spy. They have this hilarious exchange:
As I turned the key in the lock I told Dawn, “I hate sneaking around like this.”
“I love it,” Dawn confessed. “And they deserve it.”
I just find it hilarious that Dawn loves spying on people as well as judging them. She and Mal should have teamed up more. K. Ron may be a cult leader, but Dawn comes off like a sociopath.
Anyway, they find a long white gown, presumably for parading along the widow’s walk, and then the piece de resistance, the element that firmly elevates the book into irredeemable cracktastic-ness. The Evil Mastermind List!
“Ten-Step Plan for when company leaves:
- poison ivy oil inside Lionel’s and Mrs. Menders’ clothes
- Get Georgio fired for fooling around with sitter
- plumbing breakdown
- disappearance of Jason’s baseball glove (and any replacements)
- small electrical fire in Martha’s room”
hahahahahahahahah. Because everyone writes down their ten-step plans for evil. Frankly, I’m disappointed Betancourt was too lazy to come up with the rest of the steps.
Kristy freaks out about the fire, although I personally always thought the poison ivy oil was worst. Especially if it were in underwear. (But I assumed they meant to set the fire when she wasn’t there.) Also, I love how number 2 is supposed to be evidence of evil, even though it’s totally true. They haven’t framed him or anything.
Just then they hear the car pull up, so they leave the list and run downstairs, where Margaret smiles at them with “cold and calculating eyes.”
Meanwhile, Claudia has been drawing on the photocopies to see if she can figure out why the photo looked familiar. She starts off with shoulder-length hair, eyeshadow and lipstick, discards it, and tried facial hair until she comes up with a picture of Elton Cooper.
He walks in, possibly seeing her handiwork, just as the suitably dramatic thunderstorm begins.
Chapter 21:
Dawn wishes there were ghosts in the house instead of “calculating criminals.” But she’d be whining just as much if it were ghosts, so whatever. She claims to be the only one awake, obsessing about a “terrible story” Elton told them which--spoiler alert--is really not scary at all.
Thunderstorm, junior pictionary, blah blah blah. Dawn snots that she hopes Lionel knows not to walk home in a lightening storm. HE’S OLDER THAN YOU. The sitters agree not to let anyone wander off alone, and not to let the Coopers know they’re onto them. The electricity goes off. Georgio shows up in yellow rain gear and high black rubber boots (sexay!) and gives them storm supplies, then goes off to look for Lionel and Jason. Before he leaves, he kisses Claudia on the cheek, and Dawn wonders if Elton thinks he can use that as evidence that Georgio was “fooling around with a sitter.” Yes, Dawn.
Elton starts a fire in the fireplace, and Dawn freaks out about “something on fire” being on the list. How dumb is she that she can’t even remember the stupid Evil Plot list she found a few hours ago? Some detective. Dawn is also convinced the Coopers are going to poison them, and “clever Claud” makes Mrs. Cooper drink her hot cocoa first to prove it isn’t poisoned with a really weak excuse about testing if it is too hot for the children to drink, and none of the children over the age of four ask WTF. Even when I read this as a kid, I thought Dawn was being a big drama queen here--there’s a big difference between vandalism and psychological warfare (which seems way too strong for what the Coopers have done--psychological poking, maybe) and killing ten CHILDREN (if Lionel is a child, you bet your dumb ass is too, Dawnie) in cold blood.
Jason wants to tell scary stories, and Elton leaps in with a rehash of the ones we’ve already heard: Reginald Randolph drowned at sea, Mary Randolph hurled from the widow’s walk, blah blah blah. Then he adds the supposedly terrifying episode to cap it: the night Mary Randolph supposedly died, a ship floundering in the storm was supposedly led safely to shore by a boat named Mary, and they saw a woman standing beside the captain as it sailed back into the storm. OMG they were saved by a ghost ship!
See, I don’t get what the hell is so terrifying about that, and I consider myself a big wuss: I’ve creeped myself out reading Wikipedia entries about horror movies. But a helpful, saving people ghost that appears once? Big whoop. At best it’s a sort of “ooh” not an “OMG OMG!” I’ll take a helpful ghost over a vengeful spirit any day.
Elton makes a crack about the sitters “thinking of everything,” and Dawn is convinced he’s onto them, so they convince all the kids to have a sleepover in Kristy and Mary Anne’s room. Lionel, again, has no reaction to all this proximity to the hot stuff that is the BSC. But Dawn notes that he is being a “terrific sport,” telling funny stories and demonstrating how Elton drama-llamed up his ghost story. Way to be condescending, Dawn.
Jill claims to have seen the woman in white the other night, and they cover by saying Mrs. Cooper must have just been checking on them. But now Jill and Martha do want to go back to Boston.
The chapter just kind of peters out there. Will they survive to morning? (Yes.)
Chapter 22:
Mallory has a Great Idea (tm Kristy Thomas and don’t you forget it!) for Celebrate America! Day. They’re going to be the “BSC on Wheels” and march/bike/rollerblade/skateboard/whatever in the parade. Mallory claims to have been inspired by the “wheel-shaped Chuckles” and I already called bullshit on that.
Apparently it takes her and Jessi “forever” to make plans for this, and then they go off to recruit the minions, starting with the Pike clan, and I get to this line and lose it:
My dad said that since he was going to the parade anyway, he’d be an extra sitter and help out, especially during the parade. Good old Dad.
No. No. Not “good old Dad.” That’s not “being an extra sitter,” that’s being a fucking parent. I hate Ann’s stupid version of feminism in which the awesomeness of women (and teenage and preteen girls) is apparently an excuse for men to be worthless fucks and get heaped with praise for doing the bare minimum. HATE. WTF.
Sorry. While I was flipping out, we got unnecessarily detailed accounts of exactly what red and blue ensembles everyone will wear. Although we did learn Mal’s favorite t-shirt is “red and white striped, with blue stars around the neck and sleeve.” I guess it’s a step up from the creepy I <3 Kids shirt and the Mallory jumper, but just barely.
Meanwhile, Jessi heads off to recruit the Braddocks, who are supposed to be on a two-week camping trip. Man, this book bites. Becca pouts because Jessi refuses to teach her to Rollerblade then and there, and she’ll have to bike in the parade like that loser Vanessa Pike. Then Jessi freaks out about how hard it will be to watch the Marshalls in the parade, although I don’t really see why--Eleanor is going to be in a stroller, so unless she’s one of those Houdini babies who crawls out every two minutes, big whoop.
About this time, they call Logan, who has sensibly been avoiding them since they almost got him fired from his lucrative callboy busboy job at the Rosebud Brothel Cafe. No mention of Shannon, so possibly she has escaped. Logan is apparently “grumpy” when Mal talks to him on the phone, but he’s probably just terrified after what she did to his french bread. But he agrees when Mal plays the “think of the children!” card.
Mal makes signs--and hey, no Claudia, so probably all spelled correctly! and go to bed. The next morning, Mal spies Sam riding his unicycle (?) around the town green (??).
Next sentence, she’s telling Jessi she doesn’t know how she convinced Sam to lead them in the parade. I don’t know either, because Betancourt was too lazy to write that scene, even though I had to listen to the wardrobe choices of six Pikes and both Braddocks. I guess Sam has just given up on ever getting laid as long as he lives in the Brook. At least Charlie gets his trysts with Janine.
And Mr. Braddock gets fucking praised to the skies for videotaping them in the parade, although why he couldn’t do that and ALSO TAKE CARE OF HIS DAMN KIDS is beyond me. But at least Kristy will get to see Sam humiliating himself in the name of the BSC. It apparently took Mal two hours to make three signs--one which says “BSC Kids on Wheels” and two that say “Keep the Good Times Rolling.” What, was she drawing mice wearing high tops and sparkly jewelry on them all?
The parade goes off without a hitch, as does the rest of the day. Mr. Pike and Mr. Braddock vanish, presumably to snort coke off the asses of strippers or something, since they’ve obviously cleared their fatherly duties for the year. Also, Jackie “walking disaster” Rodowsky wins a sack race. But also, the entire town comes and sucks up to the BSC for all they do, including Mrs. Pike, last seen throwing a hissyfit at her eleven-year-old. Notably, she only thanks Mal for watching the younger Pikes while Mrs. Pike worked in the kite making booth, not the other hours and days and weeks she acts as an unpaid nanny.
And now that subplot is over.
Chapter 23:
Incoherent journal entry from Claudia. Everyone wakes up and yay! the parents have just arrived home. That was anti-climactic. The Coopers have supposedly gone for groceries, so Kristy asks for a private meeting with the adults and the sitters lay out all the evidence against the Coopers. Notably, no adult asks why they didn’t mention any of this BEFORE all the adults left the state. Instead, Mr.Menders praises their detective skills. Sigh.
Claudia goes off to finish the float with Georgio, and informs us that she likes being with Georgio more than any guy she’s ever been around. We’ve heard that song before. And, you know, two days ago, he made you sick to your stomach, but whatever.
Anyway, the Coopers have flown the coop (Geddit?). That was also anti-climactic. They left a note, saying “The house--and its ghosts--are yours. C.R.” Incidentally, it’s in much more stereotypically femme-y handwriting (at least by BSC standards) than the Evil Mastermind list. So was Maggie the brains of the operation?
Blah blah blah, Lionel has convinced the theater to sponsor the softball team, so now they have team shirts (“The Locals”) because that is truly the key to victory. They all get dressed up for the parade, and Claudia for some reason goes to wander around the widow’s walk in her white dress. Poor Dawn got stuck with blue velvet, which sounds horribly hot for a June parade. But it’s Dawn, so I don’t really care. Blah blah blah parade is fun whee!
Claudia has a date with Georgio for the carnival at seven, and repeatedly asks Dawn if he’s too old for her. YES. Because Dawn can’t bear to have a conversation not be about her, they bring up Travis, but agree Georgio is nicer than Travis was. And more illegal, too.
At the carnival, Claudia is convincing herself they could totally be long distance boyfriend/girlfriend (have you ever written a letter to any of your previous vacation boyfriends, Claud?) when Georgio takes her hand and invites her to his homecoming weekend and I literally shudder. Ew ew ew. Claudia frets that her parents would never let her (damn fucking right). She compares her situation to Dawn and Travis, and Stacey’s “doomed crush” on a teacher, but then says she loves being with Georgio. “How could that be wrong?” Let me count the ways!
However, I am glad for tiny favors, because apparently somewhere along the line someone figured out how gross it would be if we had to actually see a full-on kiss, so I don’t have to actually get a barf bucket.
Then Mary Anne thinks she sees Mrs. Cooper at the carnival, possibly tampering with the Ferris wheel. She’s not the Joker, FFS. “The mystery might not be over.” STFU Claud, we’re on page 256. IT’S OVER.
Epilogue:
Mary Anne continues to fail, because the police found the Randolphs/Coopers had already left the country.
The last few days in Reese, the sitters continue to look for the stupid treasure. Mr. Menders thinks perhaps the whole estate was the treasure, and Claudia is like lol no, but they haven’t found anything by the time they go home.
And it’s letters time!
Creepy letter from creeper Georgio, who also messes up my handwriting/sexuality theory by using lowercase letters. Even if Claudia weren’t THIRTEEN, the letter would be pretty creepy and over the top for a guy who knew her about a week, half of which she thought he was a criminal. Anyway, in between all the “why does it feel I’ve known you my whole life” and “let’s find a way to be together” crap, he reiterates the Homecoming invite, and sends her a handful of petals from “our” rose garden.
And lol, Claudia shoots him down in type! She confesses that she is only thirteen and says that her parents wouldn’t let her come to homecoming and also she would feel “out of place” around all those college students. “Out of place” doesn’t even begin to cover the grossness, but whatever.
I’m just going to picture Georgio having bragged to all his friends about the underage ass he was going to tap, and being mocked and or shunned when one of them finds that letter.
(For some reason, until I reread, I thought there was actually a sheepish reply letter, but I think I was thinking of a better book, The Morning-Glory War, in which Jeannie Newman’s GI penpal mistakes her for an older girl and she doesn’t correct him because he’s busy pouring out his fears about being killed in action, so the whole thing is kind of heartbreaking and not gross. Also, it has a spelling bee scene in which the crowning moment of glory is Jeannie yelling at her teacher “And how do the British pronounce rhododendron?”)
Jessi owes Becca five hours of Rollerblade instruction. Jill got a job as a mother’s helper. Lionel got a part in Our Town. He also uses lowercase letters. Jason’s softball team won a game. Karen wants Martha to visit Stoneybrook so that she (Karen) can throw a huge party and introduce her to tons of people, because she still refuses to believe that not everyone wants maximum noise and chaos all the time. Martha, who has adorable handwriting AND unlike any of those uneducated Stoneybrook kids, can use lowercase letters, writes back that freed from Karen’s tyranny and creepiness scaring off the locals, she now has three new friends. Bertha Trono has Mary Anne’s handwriting, and she and her husband are re-employed at the Reese mansion. I’d love to know if she wrote this letter to Claudia after she told Georgio she was only thirteen.
And last but not least, Andrew writes to thank the Menderses for giving him the toy boat he found in the attic. Guess what? They cleaned it and on the side it says “Treasure!” Rosebud was the sled! He still spells better than Claudia, and even uses quotation marks correctly.
And Claudia got an A on her composition, thanks to the miracle of spell check. THE END. And that was terrible.
It still makes more sense than this book.
Man, I think maybe I’m not cut out for super books. I start a new job tomorrow, but this angried me up enough to REALLY look forward to tearing into the hagiographical official Ann M. Martin biography. Cheers! Long Live Spooky!