Abby and the Secret Society Part2
OMG, you guys. When I slagged on this in my previous snark, I just vaguely remembered the mystery was stupidly complicated and the Serious Message was handled really shoddily. Even when I did the first half, I thought, well, shy-shaming and an idiot plot; that's like 60% of all the books at least. And then I did this half and I can't even. Be warned, there's some incoherent CAPSLOCKING and a higher percentage of swearing.
And so we go.
Split in 2 parts due to excessive need for lolcats. I need them all!
Chapter 8
Is particularly pointless.
Back at Greenbrook, it’s raining, inside jobs blah blah blah. But don’t worry, we still have time to make fun of Cokie for being excited about working with Darcy. Mallory stalking every writer in town is awesome, but Cokie’s enthusiasm deserves repeated and emphatic mocking. But the BSC aren’t bullies or elitist at ALL. Only bad people-like Cokie-are! Alan and Cary are sent off to the greenhouse with Mr. Kawaja, and the BSC-contingent are mostly wandering around aimlessly, I mean, “floaters.”
Everyone starts to leave the lounge, when Stacey notices a piece of paper sticking out of a crack in the doorframe, in a “fairly obvious way.” She wonders why they didn’t see it before and Abby says it must be because usually the lights aren’t on in that room. Sure. She uses her barrette to pry it out (It’s Stacey MacGyver!) and she and Abby examine the note. Abby claims that it looked like it was written in “fountain pen ink.” Okay. Whatever.
“The secret society exists. I have found it. The proof is near. The risk is great. Think penguins.” And it is signed (DF) like the note Kristy found on the floorboard.
OMG it’s a clue! Of course, they have no idea what it means, so they go and discuss it with Jessi, who is with Stephen in Nikki’s office. Jessi is trying to talk up how awesome the neighborhood kids’ club is and how they definitely need his help. Abby tells us “I knew she had talked to Mal about how hard it seemed to be for Stephen to make friends. Now she was doing her best to help him along. But Stephen didn’t seem to be ready to be helped.” GOD. Also, note how carefully they’ve avoided Jessi talking directly to Stephen about how it feels to be a minority in Stoneybrook, or any possibility that he actually is experiencing racism (overt, implicit, or microaggressions), because that might suggest bigotry isn’t a neat and tidy package wrapped up one BSC book at a time.
Abby ignores this and suggests they play a “game” of looking for penguins around the club--since Stephen is there all the time, he might know the grounds better “but I wasn’t sure if I should involve him in our mystery.” Jessi is like “the fuck?” and under the circumstances, I kind of want to imagine her making a “Things White People Like” kind of face. Stacey shows her the note. Abby suggests maybe the clue refers to the photos of men in tuxedos and runs to check them out. Nikki comes out and says she needs someone to scrub down the kitchen, and Jessi volunteers. Abby orders her to inspect the freezers, because penguins = ice.
Stacey checks the outdoor fountains, because they have swans on them, and swans, penguins, all the same, right? Stephen finds pictures of penguins in an old nature magazine, in an article called “Formal Friends of the Frigid Floes.” Has Ann ever SEEN a nature magazine? Abby describes penguin families as “strangely formal little clowns.” They tell Stephen he won and he runs off to tell Nikki, while the sitters sulk about not solving the clue.
Alan comes by and asks if they had a nice penguin search. Oh noes! Abby accuses him of writing the note and he denies it. Stacey inspects the note and says whoever wrote it, it wasn’t David Follman, because it has a watermark with the “recycling” symbol which wasn’t in use in the 60s. So, did Ann and Ellen basically rip off “when do you think they INVENTED transparent tape?”? How badly conceived was this piece of tripe, that they had to rip off a nonsensical video (which, as 3_foot_6 has showed us, was edited with almost as much care as the books)?
They deduce Cary must have written the note, and he shows up to admit it. He also admits to writing the notes to Mary Anne and Logan, because “complications make life more interesting.” He congratulates Stacey on noticing the watermark, and she is snitty about him forcing them to waste an afternoon, but then they all laugh about haha going on a wild PENGUIN chase. This chapter was pointless.
Chapter 9
This one’s just painful.
Stacey entry being cryptic about how Stephen has “solved his problem” of feeling left out, but she isn’t sure it’s the best way.
So Stacey goes over to the Stanton-Chas’ house to baby-sit and Stephen is grumpy, so she gives him an “experimental tickle.” That is. . .unfortunately phrased. Blah blah blah, she gets him outside and drags him back to the Pikes’ house, where the backyard has been transformed for the grand opening of the “Slate Street Kids Club.” The triplets are playing Nerf basketball with a homemade hoop, while Jordan gives pointless commentary, since they all have the same last name. Nicky and Matt Braddock are playing handball against the garage door. Carolyn and Marilyn are playing badminton with a tennis ball and no net. Jack Kuhn, Charlotte, Becca, Vanessa, Haley and Margo are playing “miniature golf” with umbrellas and watering cans, or something, and I cannot picture this at all, especially the “teddy bear motif” around the hole. Also, they’ve put all this crap in the middle of Mrs. Pike’s flowerbeds, but based on her upcoming awful, negligent parenting, I don’t give a shit, except to notice that Stacey ominously wonders how Mrs. Pike will feel about this when the plants are janked up come spring, but doesn’t consider telling her, or telling the kids to move. Because for Plot Contrivance reasons, she’s been robbed of all ability to deal with the children whom the club normally micromanages within an inch of their lives.
Stacey says to Stephen it looks like they’re having fun, and he agrees, so she encourages him to go and join in. So he heads over towards Nicky and Matt, while Stacey gives herself asspats and a sugar-free cookie for solving Stephen’s horrible shyness problem.
Then “something awful” happened. Nicky gets all up in Stephen’s face and yells “What do you think you’re doing here?” Stephen says he just wanted to play, and Nicky snottily says he can’t, because you have to be INVITED to join their super-special Members Only Club.
Just. . .the fuck. The fuck. Stacey is too shocked to respond, but I’m not.
First of all, since when the hell is Nicky Pike in charge of anything? I say this because at this point it’s kind of unclear if this was audible to the rest of the kids, but if it was, shame on them, and shame on Stacey for not pulling herself together to ask Nicky just what the fuck he thinks he’s doing. Or to ask the other kids, including her precious Charlotte, if they approve of this behavior.
(I will pause briefly to make mention of Vivian Gussin Paley's You Can't Say You Can't Play, as discussed in the last segment of this This American Life episode, until I stop wanting to spit fire.)
Because it’s awesome to shame kids for being shy, but totally unthinkable to call out ACTUAL shameful behavior. But no, Stacey decides there’s simply nothing to be done, because disciplining kids for actual terrible behavior is unheard of in Stoneybrook, which explains a fucking lot.
And yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe being too shocked to respond would be “normal” for a thirteen-year-old, but these aren’t “normal” thirteen-year-olds; they’re well-established as superior, self-important, faux-adult busybodies. And you know, even when I was an incredibly shy and anxious thirteen-year-old, I would have said something to the mother, even if I couldn’t manage to come up with anything on the spot. And Stacey, let’s remember, has spent weeks on vacation with the Pike family; she REALLY doesn’t have the timid card to play here. I had actually forgotten how awful this subplot is.
Stephen, meanwhile, having not gotten any support or defense from anyone, marches off and Stacey runs after him, having no idea what to say to make him feel better. Because that might involve her admitting a precious Pike child and BSC charge did, in fact, do something awful, and that not all his problems can be solved by forcing him into social situations with no support. It might even involve admitting that :gasp: the SITTERS were wrong about demonizing his “shyness” and not respecting his actual, now-proven-valid, anxiety. But “luckily” by the time she catches up with him, they’ve gone around the Pike house to the front steps, where Claire and Jenny sit looking sad. “Luckily,” in this case means no one will ever actually have a conversation with Stephen about what he just experienced. GOD.
Stacey asks what the girls are doing, and Claire says glumly they aren’t allowed to play in the yard. Stacey asks if Mrs. Pike said so and Claire says no, her mom said they could play, but Nicky and Vanessa won’t let them. They are too little, so they aren’t allowed to join the “club.” “Stupid, stupid club,” Jenny says, trying not to cry. Aw.
Oh, HELL no. Look, I believe kids all deserve some bit of space which is their own, but if I were Mrs. Pike, I would be on my bratty kids saying that actually, this is MY yard, and they do not have the right to preemptively ban anyone, including their own SISTER. And then I would be dismantling their precious club, not indulging this behavior. And I would be raking Nicky over the coals for his rudeness to Stephen, while praying it was “only” a sick power trip and not that my parenting vis a vis race had gone horribly wrong. Of course, this would all involve me having a fucking clue as to what the dozen kids in my backyard were doing, and where my five-year-old was. I worry sometimes about how my depression and anxiety and chronic pain issues might affect me as a mother, or if I’ll even get to BE a mother, but I sure as fuck would be better than this. I’m giving this both the babysitting fail and parenting fail tags.
Anyway. Stephen tells the girls that the kids wouldn’t let him join their club either, because he’s different, so they’ll start their own, better club, and they won’t let THEM join. Claire and Jenny are in awe that a “big boy” is willing to play with them, and ask eagerly for permission to come to Stephen’s house. Stacey isn’t sure this is a good idea, but why actually engage in a conversation? She also says (to herself) that she isn’t “convinced” that Stephen’s background has anything to do with his exclusion, which I’m pretty sure is meant to affirm that racism and bigotry only happen in cartoonishly clear-cut people who can easily be avoided, and not in small or subtle ways by people you might like or be close to.
And really, considering that Stephen has experienced people asking bossy, demanding questions about his ethnicity and name--and may well be aware that his own grandfather rejects the existence of his family--it’s a lot more logical a conclusion than “ Pinky is rude because she is racist--it couldn’t possibly be that she’s grumpy and homesick and in pain.” Also, note how carefully Jessi and Claudia--who have experienced racism in Stoneybrook first hand--have been kept away from this plot line. Stacey frets about another “exclusive” club being formed, and there will be a lot of false equivalency about Stephen’s reaction, as well as the incredibly awkward attempt to graph this onto a “ah, do you SEE?” analogy for Dark Woods/Greenbrook. But more on that, later.
But Stacey goes inside to ask for permission for the girls to come over, figuring at least Stephen is playing with other kids and that’s ALL THAT MATTERS, right? So, for the record, Stacey actually talks to Mrs. Pike, but does not deign to tell her about Nicky’s behavior, so that Mrs. Pike might actually be aware of what’s going on in her yard, or with her children. Nor at any point will she discuss this with Mallory. In fact, this actually disturbing behavior will be totally dropped between sitting jobs, because hurtful, rude and possibly racist behavior from a client child is not really a big deal. Not like a child being scared of vampires or carrying a blankie to preschool or a two-year-old crying during a thunderstorm.
I really do hate everyone.
Chapter 10
BSC meeting, wherein all the sitters are mocking Jessi, Abby, and Stacey for falling for the penguin “clue.” The level of insight is perfectly captured by Claudia giggling that it would be perfectly sensible to look for hidden passageways or secret trapdoors, but looking for penguins is just madness! Kristy laughs herself sick by coming up with the idea for a Nancy Drew book called “The Puzzle of the Purloined Penguin.”
Hilarious, indeed. Is that really any sillier than “The Clue of the Dancing Puppet” or “The Mysterious Mannequin”? Or “Werewolf in a Winter Wonderland?” (All real titles-thanks, Wikipedia!)
(Also, go read Hark! A Vagrant, because it is made of constant win.)
Abby takes the mocking in stride, since she knows that all the other sitters are equally foolheaded-I mean, persistent in “following a lead.” They vow revenge on Cary Retlin for the 900th time, and than K. Ron is all “ENUF HUMUR. WE CAN HAZ MYSTERI IT ARE BE SRS BIZNS TIME Y?”
So, of course, they drag out That Fucking Notebook, and Claudia passes out Twizzlers and pretzels. To my amusement, Claudia notes they’ve written a bunch of crap down, but it isn’t necessarily useful. Claudia is emerging as the smartest person in this book. Think about it.
So they rehash the chats with Sergeant Johnson and Granny and Pop-Pop, and Abby retcons to say she felt there was something weird about the club from the very beginning. ABBY. I have the book in my hands, you liar. Then they rehash Mayor Armstrong, including his pimpin’ duck cane, and Abby shivers because she’d gotten a “bad vibe” off him, and she could “easily imagine him keeping Jewish people-like me-out of a club.” But was he evil enough to be part of a secret society (that threw around its weight in small town ordinances) and murder a journalist who was about to reveal it?
Abby reflects that if so, this is serious stuff, and David Follman died for this cause, but surely the thirteen- and eleven-year-old sitters can finish the job.
They spend another page rehashing everything-blah blah blah maze with mysterious structure in the center, blah blah blah Mr. Kawaja, blah blah blah “secret message” which they decide is the only REAL clue.
Stacey points out that 1954 is earlier than the time of the supposed mystery (although if the secret society was such a big fucking deal they probably didn’t pop up just in 1966) and Kristy self-importantly groans that she’s thinking. Mary Anne asks why he didn’t just write in pen-which I’m not completely sure why they know he didn’t, but whatever, and Jessi asks why write on the floor at all. Abby says it would be a sure place to leave a lasting message, because no one ever looks under the carpeting-unless they, you know, redo the carpeting or there’s a flood or something. She says “I think I was beginning to understand how David Follman’s mind worked,” which might be true in that they both make RIDICULOUS plans, except Abby usually bounces back down fairly quickly. Because, oh, God, this plot.
Kristy waves over this, because it wasn’t her idea, and says what’s important is what he wrote with and why. She says it wasn’t blood (EW!) because that would have turned brown, not purple-and considering that these girls immaturely shriek “EW!” at broken bones, insulin injections, loose teeth, and shingles, I can’t believe none of them blink at Kristy suggesting David Follman opened a vein to leave this damn note. Because, EW, and secondly, RIDICULOUS.
“Use a pen, Sideshow Bob.”
They decide that he must have used something he found in the dining room or kitchen-which kind of would undermine the idea that it was selected because of DEEP and SERIOUS SIGNIFICANCE, wouldn’t it? Claudia of all people says they should be scientific, like she is when mixing paint, and there conveniently happens to be a piece of leftover wood flooring in the Kishi garage. (Because all wood is the same color and absorbs liquid the same way, speaking of SCIENCE.)
(psst--is a secret CLUE!)
So they go to the kitchen and waste a bunch of the Kishis’ food by pouring a sample of every red or purple liquid they can find on the board, including ketchup, canned cranberry sauce, and food coloring, and this scene was a lot more charming when Betsy, Tacy, and Tib made Everything Pudding. It smells disgusting, and nothing is the right color-because Claudia the Color Scientist doesn’t point out that how colors DRY might be different than how they look WET-and they almost give up, but Abby uses some grape juice at the last minute. Why you would try spaghetti sauce or cranberry sauce before grape juice for this experiment is beyond me.
But they clean up and go home, and later Claudia calls Abby all excited because the grape juice stain faded the right color. Then Claudia remembered from the blueprints that right below where they found the message is. . .the wine cellar! And wine is just fancy grape juice, right? And so the message must refer to a 1954 bottle of wine! This is actually a reasonably good deduction, within the NO-SENSE-MAKING parameters of this book.
The next day, they sneak past Nikki because she might not approve, but she will obviously be thrilled once they solve the mystery. On the way, they spot Grandpa Stanton and wonder why he’s there, then immediately forget about it. I kind of wish he were going to be calling out a hit on them.
Claudia guides them down to the wine cellar, and it is just so awesome and responsible that Nikki has provided teenagers with unsupervised access to huge amounts of alcohol, seeing as the door isn’t even locked. Fantastic job. I hope Cary steals a bunch and sells it to the Bad Girls on the SMS black market to solve his money woes.
Abby complains about the dust, and puts her turtleneck over her nose-isn’t she supposed to have a surgical mask with her all the time? For that matter, how safe is she to work in this environment? EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS IS TERRIBLE.
Luckily the wine is “well-organized” so it doesn’t take them long to find the 1954 bottles, and Mallory points out one in particular where the cork is broken. Abby pulls out her trusty Swiss Army knife (really? Sure, whatever.) because she remembers seeing her mother open wine when she was in cooking school, because God forbid we think the adult Rachel Stevenson might simply enjoy a glass of wine now and then without it being for super-educational purposes.
Sophisticated Stacey stops her, saying old wines can be expensive (I’m amazed just saying the word wine doesn’t spike her blood sugar) but Abby says there isn’t much wine in there and shakes the bottle, producing a thunk. I’m no sommelier, but if your wine thunks, it’s probably not a good thing.
Abby opens it and all the other sitters whine (punny) about how it smells like vinegar, so Abby pours it out into the floor drain, hoping for a note. Instead they get a yellow golf tee, which says “OPEN WWII (DF).” Ermahgad, another clue, but what could it mean zomg!”
And it’s just-this is so beyond asinine. This is not how any actual person, ever, would act in that situation. If David Follman had time to sneak around and leave elaborate clues, he damn well could have dropped his findings in the mail to his editor, or to Sergeant Johnson, or his parents, or his own damn house. NO ONE WOULD DO THIS, ANN. Even if he were super-duper undercover, if’s the fucking Stoneybrook Country Club, not some compound in the middle of nowhere. Even people who are part of Evil Secret Societies can go to the mailbox. GOD. Compared to this, National Treasure looks like a goddamned marvel of reason. NICOLAS CAGE MAKES MORE SENSE THAN YOU DO, ANN.
Sigh.
Chapter 11
Abby sleeps with the golf tee under the pillow, but the Mystery Fairy doesn’t come by to leave her another clue. When Abby looks at the clue and thinks David Follman actually touched it, she gets a very special feeling in her secret place-that is, her heart beats faster. She’s positive Cary couldn’t have faked this one, although I don’t know why not, especially if it only takes three hours for grape juice to fade to the color of thirty years.
So the BSC get back on the case-Abby is sure the golf tee itself is a clue and that they should investigate the golf clubhouse. Kristy is sure the significant part is the WWII, and says she’s positive it “has something to do with that time in history and how it affected Stoneybrook.” Um. Why. Why would you think that, Kristy? So she orders a contingent to the library. So Kristy takes the nerdy half of the BSC to the library, while Abby, Stacey and Claudia go to the clubhouse.
Kristy takes incredibly stupid and pointless notes on WWII, like the dates 1939-1945. She claims that Stoneybrook was “mostly run by its women” during the war years, because all the man were off being manly and fighting. And, um, no, probably not, since at its height the draft ratio was about one in five, so I don’t know what Ann is smoking to come up with this version of WWII-America as some kind of gyno-topia. There are three “major” war memorials in Stoneybrook, which seems-odd, for a town that size, but whatever. They’re going to go investigate those. For what? Who the hell knows.
Abby’s entry is in entirely different handwriting, like, how drunk did the editors have to get to work on this text? It’s several point sizes smaller and much “lighter” than Abby’s normal handwriting. Anyway, they learned about golf, or at least the history of golf at Dark Woods.
Stacey and Claudia go straight to the clothes in the pro shop and seriously, clothes just sat there for twenty years? Wouldn’t they be all musty and gross? Why wouldn’t they have been sold off? This is SO STUPID. Abby swings around a golf club and yells “Fore!” and Stacey grumbles they have four tons of stuff to clean up. Because, seriously, they sealed up the clubhouse without even emptying the ashtrays. Disgusting. This time Abby brought a mask, although she says without it she’d have ended up in the emergency room. GREAT JOB, NIKKI.
They decide they’ve done enough work and go looking for clues, but all they find is a box of yellow golf tees. Abby is excited that this “proves” David Follman bought the tees at the pro shop, but Stacey points out golf tees pretty much all look the same.
This goes on for three days and Abby is getting cranky. The sitters are taking a break in the lounge when Alan and Cary come by and bust the girls for lying around while they’ve been working in the greenhouse. Abby gets super-defensive and yells that they cleaned the whole clubhouse, and they’ve worked “harder than [the boys] ever will.” Alan is all, what do you want, a TROPHY, and he and Cary go back to work. Hmm.
Abby snits about Alan a little more until she’s like OMG a TROPHY maybe the clue is in the TROPHY case because the TROPHIES are for the Dark Woods OPEN. I’d think a sports nut like Abby might have made that connection before. They ask what the WWII part means, and Abby thinks maybe it means a trophy from that time period. She asks Kristy again what years those were and Kristy-who supposedly has been researching this all week-has to stop and think about it, and I weep for the Stoneybrook Public School system.
They run back to the clubhouse and there is only one trophy from those years, a 1942 trophy awarded to Christopher Armstrong zomg Evil, Draft-Dodging Mayor dude. (So if all the men were at war, K. Ron, who was Evil Armstrong playing against?) Conveniently the trophy case is unlocked, so Abby takes out the trophy and finds that it has a false bottom, with two keys and a note, saying “Shelter Favorite Food” (DF).
Okay, WHAT? Are we supposed to believe Evil Armstrong “strong-armed” someone into making a fake bottom for his trophy so he could store keys there instead of, oh, pretty much any place else that would be more convenient? Or that super-sekrit undercover reporter David Follman took the trophy, had a fake bottom added, and put stuff there instead of doing, oh, pretty much ANYTHING that would make more sense, be less risky, draw less attention to himself, and actually get his information out to the public or the police? Or that Dark Woods just happened to routinely put fake bottoms in their trophies, for the convenience of Evil Sekrit Society members? On what PLANET does that make sense? I think David Follman may have actually been Too DumbTo Live, with a Complexity Addiction to boot.
Kristy declares they now have to tell Sergeant Johnson, like Office Muffin-Brain is going to be any good.
Indeed, his first reaction is to scratch his head and say “Beats me.” Stoneybrook’s finest, y’all. He declares that David must have just covered his tracks too well, but he must have thought SOMEONE could figure them out.
Abby mutters to herself about Mayor Armstrong, the “only man in Stoneybrook during the war years” and I can’t even, but based on the NOTHING that Kristy has learned and the NOTHING that Granny told them, Abby has an Idea.
