This was another large print library book. What really makes me feel old is that I kept thinking how much easier this was to read. Sigh...
This book opens with Jessi thinking how much she misses her family in Oakley, NJ, especially her cousin and BFF, Keisha. I totally didn't remember that she was from NJ, and I don't remember Keisha being mentioned in other books. I didn't read that many Jessi books as a kid, so that's probably why. I guess I'm allowed to forget some details over the past 20 years, too. And why does Jessi look about 30 on the cover? She's supposed to be 11, one year older than the Pike triplets, also on the cover, and she looks older than I do.
Let's get some plot in here: Jessi finds out that her favorite character on the TV show P.S. 162 is actually from the 'Brook, and used to attend SES. His name is Derek Masters, and now that his show is on hiatus, his family is returning to Stoneybrook. Mayhem ensues. Anyway, next BSC meeting, Mrs. Masters calls for a sitter for Derek and his brother, Todd, and Jessi gets the job. She is super excited, but the more she asks Derek about the show, the more he changes the subject. Jessi invites some of the other BSC charges over to play with Derek, the same things happen - the kids want to talk about Hollywood, Derek just wants to be a normal kid. When Derek returns to school, he talks about being bullied by this kid named John, who the BSC promptly dubs "the Superbrat."
Meanwhile, in ballet land, Madame Noelle, Jessi's dance teacher, announces that the Stoneybrook Civic Center is holding auditions for Swan Lake, and encourages Jessi to audition. Jessi needs a resume and photo for the audition, and after talking with Derek about headshots, she decides that she may need to get into modeling around Stoneybrook. Plus, after she gets to the first round of auditions for the ballet, where there are professional dancers from New York also auditioning (umm...is the 'Brook that big of a cultural mecca, that professional dancers would come audition for a production here?), she thinks that she may drop ballet altogether and do acting as well. However, Jessi gets called back for a second audition, and then a third...and then gets a part as a swan maiden. And promptly decides that ballet is her true calling.
And things settle down for Derek Masters at school, he even makes several friends again. However, he gets cast in a TV movie (I really hope it's a Lifetime movie. Or maybe Syfy.) and the Masters family must return to LA. The BSC decides to through a going-away breakfast party for Derek (cause apparently 9am on a Saturday was the only time they were all free...), and they decide to invite the Superbrat so that they can help Derek confront him. However, no one named John shows up to the party, and all the kids at the party were nice to Derek. Then, Derek pulls Jessi aside and confesses that he was actually the Superbrat, because he didn't know how to be a normal kid at school at first and wanted the other kids to like him. Yeah, cause dumping someone's lunch over their heads is a great way to make friends. Well, if you are a child actor, maybe. True Hollywood Story: How Derek Masters Spiraled Out of Control in his Hometown.
What Claudia wore: "That Monday, for instance, she had two french braids pulled back and wound into one. She's also a wild dresser. At that meeting, she was wearing a bright pink T-shirt, a short red flouncy skirt, and underneath the skirt she had on black footless tights that she had rolled up to mid-calf."
I think Emma Stone is a fan of BSC fashion, too...
Mallory totally has on tight rolled jeans, white slouchy socks, and Keds on the cover shot. I think she has been raiding my fifth grade closet.
So, Mallory comes home from school to find out that her dad's law firm is downsizing, and her mother is afraid that Mr. Pike won't have enough seniority to keep his job. However, pink slips have been flying all day, and Mr. Pike still hasn't received one. So, Mal goes off to the BSC meeting with hopes high.
Oh, and as she goes off to the BSC meeting, we get our typical description/introduction to each BSC member, and for the first time since this project has started, I came across Kristy's "bio" where is mentions that she doesn't even wear a bra yet. I remember how often AMM would use this to describe Kristy in her books (I'm somewhat shocked that it took this many books into my project to come across the reference), and it always bothered me. It's not that it's necessarily inappropriate, I guess, and maybe AMM wanted to reassure her readers that every girl matures differently, but I just never liked reading how Kristy didn't wear a bra yet. Maybe it offends my delicate Southern sense of propriety. Who knows.
Anyway, once Mallory returns home, she finds out her dad received a pink slip at the end of the day (Mallory thought that was really "stale" of his company. OMG.) So, Mrs. Pike signs up for a temp agency while Mr. Pike job hunts. After several weeks of looking with no results, Mr. Pike gets depressed and watches soap operas in his sweats. And this is the mental picture I have of the Pike household:
And if you don't recognize that movie, then I feel sorry for you for not being a kid of the 80s.
The Pike kids from the "Pike Club" to help think of ways to save money (turning off electronics and such), plus ways to earn money as well. The triplets, Adam, Byron, and Jordan, do odd jobs like mowing and dog walking, Nicky gets a paper route, the girls have a lemonade stand. Mallory, meanwhile, gets a month-long sitting job, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, for one of the rich families in Kristy's neighborhood.
Plus, all the Pike kids share that they are being bullied in school because their father lost his job. Some of the 6th grade mean girls spread gossip that he was caught stealing, and some of Mal's school friends believe that. I was a little skeptical, at first, that kids would care this much about adult jobs that they would bully other kids over something like this. But then I remembered what middle school was like, and kids can be mean for the stupidest reason, so I can see this actually happening. Good lesson, AMM.
While all this is going on, Mallory is babysitting the Delaney kids, who are so rich that they have a golden fountain in their house, 2 tennis courts, and a Persian cat that costs $400 (all I can think of is Mariah Carey doing the Stairmaster in her high heels on MTV Cribs). Plus, they have a new pool that all the neighborhood kids want to use. After a while, Amanda and Max Delaney realize that some kids are using them for their pool. Mallory saves the day and helps them find out who their real friends are, and she realizes that rich kids have problems too. Mo' money, mo' problems.
Then Mr. Pike gets an interview, then a second interview, then a third interview (this seemed like a lot when I was a kid, but now that I'm adult who has been through the hiring process a few times, I know what that feels like.) Finally, good news, he got the job!! Mrs. Pike decides she will keep temping a few days a week just to keep her sanity with 8 kids (ok, AMM didn't specify the reason, but come on, the woman has 8 kids, she needs to get out of the house some.)
To celebrate, Mallory hosts a BSC sleepover at her house, where they prank call the girls who bullied Mallory. Oh, I miss the days of prank calling...
Return of the word "dibble" (slang for incredible, apparently):
- the most dibble family
- dibbly sophisticated
- height of dibble-dom
- Queen of Dibbleness
- dibbly strict
- dibbly great
- dibbly disgusting
- dibbly happy
Final "dibble" count - 8. Did she actually make "fetch" happen here? Oh, and spell-check is fine with the word "dibble," but doesn't like any iterations of the word. That's dibbly uncool.
Claudia didn't get an actual outfit description in this one, just a general style statement: "Claudia wears wild clothes like big hats; flowered vests over long shirts that belong to her father and which she leaves untucked; short black pants; and then, something just a little offbeat like penny loafers from the 1950s with white bobby socks." Also, her jewelry is "the height of dibble-dom, she might wear a monkey in one ear and a banana in the other." I'm telling you, she and Clarissa Darling are style sisters.
I found out in this book that apparently the BSC keeps a separate "mystery notebook," which is completely separate from the regular club notebook. Given that this is mystery #34, I guess the mystery notebook is justified.
It was a dark and stormy season in the 'Brook (apparently it has been raining for several weeks now). Mary Anne has a school project on Edgar Allan Poe, so of course the bookshop she ends up working in is called Poe and Co. Mary Anne gets a job sitting for the two children of the owner, Mr Cates, while they prepare to open Stoneybrook's new mystery bookstore. Of course, she and the rest of the BSC (this falls during the Abby years) also end up helping paint the bookstore and doing inventory. Cause that makes total sense. Child labor laws, what?
So the bookstore is opening in the historic home of Benson Dalton Gable, Stoneybrook's own mystery writer and contemporary of Poe's. In fact, the rumor around the 'Brook is that Poe stole his ideas from Gable, then murdered Gable to keep the secret. Gable's body has never been found.
So, right away, objects go mysteriously missing, strange things go bump in the night, and Poe coincidences abound. Then one of the workers sees a ghost in the basement, right before a mystery concrete slab is unearthed in the basement, that eerily resembles a tombstone. M-A has a feeling that someone is behind these shenanigans, but who can it be?
STOP!! Collaborate and listen as I give you a breakdown of every Poe reference AMM throws at us:
"The Tell-Tale Heart" - Mary Anne hears the sound of a heartbeat coming from the walls of the bookstore
"The Fall of the House of Usher" - M-A thinks the windows of the Gable house have the "vacant, eye-like" look of the House of Usher
"The Purloined Letter" - some sketches of bookshelves go missing, then turn up on a bookshelf in plain sight
"The Black Cat" - the owner's black cat is named Pluto after this story, the Pluto gets walled up after new drywall is installed, similar to the cat in the Poe story
"Annabel Lee" - we find out the owner's ex-wife's name is Annabel Lee, like the poem
And, of course, "The Raven" - the word "Nevermore" is found carved on an old bookshelf, then a raven flies through the main room, which the owner catches and names "Lenore"
Suspects:
Mr. Cates - the owner of the bookstore, possibly trying to drum up publicity before the grand opening?
Cillia Spark - Mr. Cates assistant, who also enjoys the mystery and publicity, and who used to work in special effects in Hollywood?
Tom & Gillian Cates - the kids of the owner, whose mother abandoned them and who can't stand Ms. Spark?
Professor Kingsolver - the English professor from Stoneybrook University who wants to prove that Poe and Gable were all buddy-buddy?
Alex Gable - the last teenage descendant of Benson Dalton Gable, trying to prove that Poe stole his ancestor's stories?
Benson Dalton Gable - could his ghost be haunting the location, doomed to search for revenge for all eternity?
Drumroll, please....
Mary Anne channels Poe's famous Detective Dupin, and figures out it was Mr. Cates behind the disturbances, trying to guarantee the bookstore will be a success. The heartbeat sound came from a stereo system hooked up in the basement, the stone slab and ghost were props from Cillia Spark's movie days. Plus, the raven was purchased at a local pet store. All the news stories make the bookstore a huge success, and the BSC is invited to the grand opening party. Good times.
Oh, and I love a good "crazy cat lady" moment - Mary Anne is thirsty, but won't get up to get a drink because Tigger is asleep on her lap. Umm...I must confess that I make decisions on a daily basis based on where my cats may be sleeping at the moment. That hits a little too close to home, AMM.
And today in BSC fashion....
What Claudia wore: "Today she had on a pair of jeans, but they weren't like anyone else's jeans. She'd painted raindrops down each leg. Over the jeans she wore a long white shirt and a gray vest. For earrings she was wearing paper parasols attached to gold chains." That's almost normal. Wow.
What Stacey wore: "Today she'd painted her nails navy blue to match her outfit. She wore a navy blue miniskirt and a white ribbed turtleneck with matching white ribbed stockings. Although it sounds plain, nothing looks plain on Stacey. Around her neck she wore a thick gold chain that hung about halfway down her sweater." This outfit is giving me a Blair Waldorf vibe.
Stacey, take 2: "Stacey pulled out her white plastic sunglasses with turquoise polka dots out of her pocket and put them on. They matched her turquoise sundress - which was covered by a denim jacket."
