The one with the flies!!! It's crazy how I can remember specific lines and images from certain books even after the 20+ years since I first read the series. This one was one of my favorites, so maybe that's why so many details of this one jumped out at me this time.
So, we start this one with Stacey visiting her dad in NYC, going shopping (where she almost asks her dad to buy her a cropped purple suede fringed jacket - how 80s is that, yikes - but instead gets heart-shaped black-and-white checkerboard sunglasses), plus has brunch on Sunday with Laine, pre-breakup. She gets back to the 'Brook late Sunday evening, so she actually rewears her train outfit to school the next day (which is nice to see, AMM makes it always seem like Stacey and Claudia have these magical, never-ending, Cher Horowitz-type closets. Even Kate Middleton recycles outfits, AMM. Wonder if Duchess Catherine was a BSC fan?). Anyway, that Monday afternoon, the BSC meeting turns out to be a momentous one, at least for this story's purposes. Kristy (whom Stacey refers to as "a little babyish," hee hee) announces that an old historic home is about to be torn down in Stoneybrook, which Stacey thinks is super lame. However, the phone rings, and Dr. Johanssen calls with an interesting proposition. Charlotte's grandfather is having surgery and will be hospitalized for a week (back when insurance companies let you stay that long for a procedure), and the Johanssens want to go stay with him, but don't want Charlotte to miss school. So they ask if Stacey would mind having Charlotte stay with her for the week, and that they would pay her accordingly. Ok, I know Stacey considers Charlotte like a little sister, but this just seemed a little weird. You think maybe they would want Charlotte to stay with the Ramseys, since Becca and Charlotte are best friends, or have some family member from the other side of the family come stay for the week. Whatevs, AMM. Anyway, somehow Mrs. McGill enthusiastically agrees to this, because this is Stoneybrook, after all.
Stacey decides to decorate the guest bedroom for her "little sister," putting some Raggedy Ann bedsheets on the bed (oh, I remember the Raggedy Ann bedsheets!!) and places some of her old stuffed animals (any of her stuffed pigs, I wonder?) on the bed. Charlotte is super homesick the first day, so Stacey decides to walk her down the street to look at the old house that is about to be demolished. The workers have already left for the day, so they walk around the perimeter of the house. Suddenly, Stacey sees a face in one of the turret windows, but dismisses as her imagination. Then, both she and Charlotte hear what sounds like chains being dragged across the floor from somewhere inside, plus some sort of moaning sound. Then, as she and Charlotte walk around the back of the house, they spot a huge swarm of flies right by the back door, which reminds Stacey of The Amityville Horror, which she had recently seen with Claudia (really?!? Not sure if my parents would have let me watch something like that at 13, but then, I do remember watching Alfred Hitchcock movies at a sleepover in 6th grade, so I guess it's plausible...). Anyway, the flies are too much for Stacey, she and Charlotte are seriously spooked and run back to the McGill house.
The next BSC meeting, Stacey brings Charlotte along (with Kristy's permission, of course), and they recount their adventures at the house. Kristy manages to find a book about the history of Stoneybrook in Watson's library, and it contains an old map of the town. Apparently, the old home was built on top of an ancient graveyard (because...of course it is. The thing that gets me, though, is that I don't see there being any way of them not knowing about the graveyard already. Something tells me that something like that would be a story passed down to each generation, to scare young kids and such. I mean, our town had the old Thompson family burial plot, buried deep within the woods, that kids had to hike out to on a dare at some point. Now, of course, those woods have disappeared, and the family graveyard is in the middle of a neighborhood, stupid surburban expansion...). Kristy brings the old book and map over to Stacey's house, so that she and Charlotte can study them as well, and Claudia actually goes to the library *gasp!!* to find out who actually owned the house. She finds out that the last owner's name is Ronald Hennessey, and that he is currently alive and well, and is resident as Stoneybrook Manor.
Meanwhile, back at the McGill house, things get even worse. Charlotte wakes up with a sore throat, and when she starts running a fever, Mrs. McGill races her to the pediatrician, Dr. Dellankamp (who seems to be the only pediatrician in Stoneybrook, she is mentioned in several books). It turns out that Charlotte has tonsillitis, and she gets prescribed a massive dose of penicillin and has to stay home from school for several days (which kind of defeats the purpose of Charlotte staying with the McGills in the first place...). Charlotte puts up a major fuss, and Stacey yells, "Shut your whining, you little brat!! I have to give myself insulin injections every day!!" Ok, it didn't happen that way, but after Stacey shows Charlotte what she has to do every day to stay healthy, Charlotte sucks it up and takes her medicine. After a few days, she gets better and can start delving back into the mystery of the Hennessey house.
Stacey and Charlotte decide to take another stroll by the house, and this time, they see a fire coming out of one of the windows. Stacey runs to get a wheelbarrow that is full of rainwater, but by the time she gets back, the fire has disappeared, and there are no scorch marks on the window. That night, both Stacey and Charlotte have nightmares about the house, so Kristy, naturally, calls an emergency meeting. Stacey knows that this is important, because "we rarely have emergency meetings." I might have laughed out loud at that, because they have an emergency meeting every other book - you know, with the vampires, the wedding, missing cats, stolen diamonds, the list goes on and on... At the meeting, Mallory admits to having a nightmare about the house, too, and Claudia confesses that she felt a hand on her arm when she was walking by the house, but no one was there. Kristy decides the best course of action is to go visit Mr. Hennessey at Stoneybrook Manor to find out the history of his home.
The next day, Kristy, Claudia, Stacey, and Charlotte visit Mr. Hennessey, where he spins tall tales of all the ghosts of his house, including one called "Old Rubbernose" and a lady in a green velvet dress. The girls leave the nursing home even more determined to solve the mystery, and they all decide to attend the actual demolition of the house the next day. While there, Stacey sees the house burst into flames, but since no one else reacts, she realizes she is having some kind of vision. She sees Mr. Hennessey walking around in the flames, so she rushes to the nursing home, where she finds out that Mr. Hennessey passed away overnight. He left a letter for her, where he explains that he was just having fun with them the other day, that none of the ghost stories were true. When she meets back up with the rest of the BSC, Kristy explains that Charlie talked to some of the workmen during the demo, and found out that the moaning sound came from the old pipes, the flames were caused by a worker using a torch, and that they mass of flies were actually a hive a bees disturbed by the construction. The girls realize that there is no mystery, and Stacey wisely decides to not tell them about her "vision."
The Johanssens come home, and Charlotte tells them all about the mystery, which Stacey tries to laugh off as just something fun, and Mrs. McGill informs Dr. Johanssen about Charlotte's tonsillitis. And somehow the Johanssens decide that even though Charlotte got sick and had nightmares while with Stacey, that Stacey can still be Charlotte's go-to sitter. Because...yeah.
The Mystery Fashion!!
What Stacey Wore: "For example, I had dressed for my train ride in a white jumpsuit, layered over a blue tank top. I had on white push-down socks with blue hearts all over them, a wide blue patent leather belt, and a wild necklace made of all kinds of plastic sea creatures in a rainbow of colors."
What Stacey Wore (the next day at school) - "The same white jumpsuit, pink shirt, and oops!, red socks."
What Stacey Wore: "I'd gotten this pink polka-dotted short skirt with suspender straps and had worn it with an oversized white T-shirt. I had on my pink high-top sneakers, folded down to show their striped lining. I'd also worn these great earrings Claudia had given me for my last birthday. They had all these little pink plastic hearts dangling down from one bigger heart."
What Claudia Wore: "One earring was shaped like a little a little record, and the other looked like a stereo."
What Claudia Wore: "She was sitting on her bed, chewing grape bubblegum and blowing purple bubbles, which matched her tie-dyed T-shirt dress."
Lauren Conrad likes the purple tie-dyed look too, Claudia
Twilight comes to the 'Brook, y'all. By the way, Kristy's shirt on the cover bugs the crap out of me, it has the name of the movie, Little Vampires, but it has it in quotation marks. Really?!? Come on, random cover artist dude, you don't put the name of a movie, band, book, etc. in quotation marks on a t-shirt, that's just crazy talk talkin'.
So, Derek Masters is back in Stoneybrook for the summer, and this time, he is bringing Hollywood with him. That's right, Derek is filming a TV movie, called Little Vampires (sounds like a Twilight prequel, which would air on ABC Family), right in Stoneybrook. Mrs. Masters calls the BSC needing a set sitter for Derek for the duration of the movie, and Kristy gets the job. Plus, Claudia will watch Derek's little brother, Todd, a few days a week when Mrs. Masters needs to be on set. My question is what movie studio would be happy with a 13 year old girl being the only chaperone at times for 8 year old Derek. Something tells me that some kind of SAG code would require that any chaperone be over the age of 18. But, whatevs, AMM, we'll roll with it, like always.
So, the first day of production rolls around, and Kristy just strolls onto set to meet Derek (because that makes total sense. Why would she need some type of access badge or an escort to show her where to go? Nope, we just let any 13 year old girl stroll onto a movie set at any time...). Anyway , Kristy is surprised when she sees Derek, apparently the boy finally hit puberty and has grown 4 inches (no word is his voice is cracking or not. That would have been a fun detail to provide, AMM). Plus, Derek has grown super clumsy, breaking a Tiffany lamp in the prop department on his first day, which highly aggravates the prop master. However, things start happening on set which can't be attributed to Derek's clumsiness - Todd Masters accidentally breaks a special prop window through which Derek was supposed to fall; however, it turns out that the window had real glass instead of the special breakaway glass that is used for stunts. If Derek had fallen through that, he would have been seriously injured. Furthermore, the wires on Derek's stunt harness break, but since Derek had already been replaced by a stuntwoman due to the window incident, he wasn't hurt, and the stuntwoman only suffered minor bruising. After Kristy finds a menacing note threatening Derek in his trailer, she calls, you guessed it, an emergency meeting.
Here is the list of suspects compiled by the BSC:
Carson Fraser - the star of Little Vampires (he plays Laddie Adulcar, an anagram of Dracula - I see what you did there, AMM). Carson is famous for starring on the television show "Miami Beach, USA" (I'm picturing David Charvet from "Baywatch"). He starts to get jealous when Derek starts to oushine him in the acting department.
Frank Bottoms - Carson's manager, who is getting frustrated that Derek is getting way more press than Carson due to all the accidents on set.
Sheila Mayberry - the movie's publicist, who gets more and more excited with each mishap, because that means more publicity, and all publicity is good publicity when it comes to movies.
Zeke Hill - the movie's prop master, who was fired after the incident with the prop window
Cliff Chase - the producer of Little Vampires, who wants his movie to succeed at all costs
Lindsey Rockaway - the crazy stalker fan of Carson Fraser's, who is on set every single day to catch a glimpse of her object of devotion
Meanwhile, while the BSC investigates, they all continue to sit for neighborhood kids, and they all randomly bring these kids to set to watch filming. Yeah, I'm sure the producers love having random local kids just hanging around, making noise and causing mayhem. Claire Pike is terrified of the "vampires," but Mary Anne solves this by having Clair dress up like a witch to scare the vampires away (see cover image for visual). Mallory does get chosen one day to be an extra in a scene, which gives her a boost of confidence (I guess this director didn't have a problem with her look like the last one). In addition to all of this, Cokie Mason starts hanging around, hoping to meet Carson Fraser as well. She invites all of the cast and crew to a pool party at her house, but the only people that show up are some of the camera guys, Kristy, Claudia, and Derek. Kristy feels sorry for Cokie, until the next day when everyone who went to the party ends up with food poisoning, at which time Special K is back to thinking Cokie is a bee-yotch from Hades.
Back on set, Derek continues to get notes, and Kristy somehow talks one of the production assistants into letting her look over the film's purchasing orders (I just...can't. Seriously, AMM?). She finds out that the window was ordered from Rockaway Glass (or something like that, didn't write down the company name, because I'm lazy). She sees Lindsey, the pyscho stalker, hanging around Derek's limo, covered in some type of oily fluid. Kristy somehow deduces that the brake lines have been cut (again, just no words), and stops the driver from leaving the set with Derek. She also chases down and catches Lindsey, who admits to doing everything out of love for Carson. And instead of being arrested, AMM does this PSA-type happy ending where Lindsey enters some type of mental institution for intensive therapy (if you can call that a happy ending, anyway). The production moves out to LA to finish filming, where Dawn, who is on one of her Cali extended stays, takes over duties as Derek's set sitter.
And the movie about vampires is a huge success. Maybe Hollywood should jump on the vampire bandwagon already...cause we haven't had a vampire fix in a long time...
Forks Fashion!!
What Claudia Wore (party edition): "Claudia was looking great in a loose, flowery jumpsuit."
What Cokie Wore (movie set edition): "Cokie was wearing a white, ruffly peasant blouse that was pulled off her shoulders and a pink flowered skirt with white high-heeled sandals."
What Cokie Wore (party edition): "Well, Cokie was wearing a tight mini-dress (pink, of course), pink heels, and nail polish and lipstick to match." Sounds like a Barbie doll, right?
So, raise your hand if you liked gym in middle school. Anyone...anyone? Actually, I didn't mind gym, I was just athletic enough to get by, never picked last or teased for my skills (or lack thereof...). Plus, doesn't that cover shot bring back memories of middle school gym clothes? We didn't have school-provided uniforms, had to provide our own clothes, and Umbros seemed to be the most popular selection. I do feel sorry for that one dude on the cover with the unnaturally short shorts there, why aren't his buddies laughing at him? Seriously.
So, Mallory is over at the Hobart house (which used to be Mary Anne's house) "studying" with Ben (oh, who am I kidding, Mallory is 11 and Miss Prude, so I'm sure they were actually doing homework). Anyway, Ben mentions that he heard a rumor that the gym class is about to switch activities from field hockey to volleyball. Mal cringes, because she hates volleyball, but hopes that the rumor is just that, a rumor. Plus, Ben mentions that in Australia, his motherland, that they only had gym once a week. Really? I just find that really hard to believe, we had gym every day through 9th grade, then it became an elective. Just can't see another country, especially one like Australia, only having physical education once a week. Good one, AMM.
However, it's getting close to 5:30, so Mallory rushes across the street to Claudia's for the BSC meeting, where nothing of major note happens, except that Logan is randomly in attendance today. However, when we get to our intros for each BSC member, Mallory provides this nugget on Claudia, "I can't believe the word she spells wrong! Honestly, half the time I think she's kidding. But she swears she's not." I might have snorted out loud when I read that (is that redundant? Can you silently snort? Mull it over...).
The next day at school, Mallory's worst nightmares come true - not only is gym switching from field hockey to volleyball, but they are also making the volleyball coed. Apparently field hockey, and every other activity so far, has been divided boy-girl. Mallory is literally terrified of playing with boys (Kenny Loggins + volleyball = awesomesauce. To be fair, none of the 6th grade boys looked like that. Ok, back on track, now). Plus, Mal is disgusted when she finds out that they have to wear those ratty pinnies over their gym uniforms. Oh, gym pinnies, that is a smell that I don't ever want to relive. So the games begin, and the boys serving on the other team quickly realize that Mallory sucks at volleyball. So, naturally, the other team's strategy is to keep serving to Mallory.
Of course, Mallory's teammates start giving her snide remarks, and the opposing team continues to heckle her. The teacher, Coach Walden, does nothing to stop the jeering. Mallory gets so upset and flustered that a serve hits her right in the face. As she starts crying, Coach Walden yells at her for daydreaming during the game. Mallory shows a little spine and yells back at the coach, which causes Mallory to be benched the rest of the game. Now I find the whole coach-ignoring-the-bullying thing a little hard to believe here, not because that doesn't ever happen, but because the whole point of this is to have everybody learn volleyball, and you've got one whole team basically doing nothing. Plus, would a teacher just blame someone for getting hit in the face like that? And even if they did, I would think they would bench the student for safety's sake the rest of the game, and not just tell the 11 year old girl to "man up and pay attention." Maybe AMM had a bad gym experience as a child...
After that horrible first day, Mallory comes up with a plan - she is going to bench herself for every game until they switch to another sport. Of course, Coach Walden is not happy, and tells Mallory that she will get detention every time she does this. As a group of boys walk by and taunt Mallory, she decides that this is a consequence she is willing to take. Ben, who has gym a different period than Mal, tries to dissuade her that afternoon from doing this by telling her that she will fail gym, but Mallory's mind is set. She willingly goes to detention every day, and then rushes home to get the mail before her parents can see the detention notices mailed out by the school. Such a deviant, Mal.
Meanwhile, in BSC-land, the girls start to notice that some of their regular, well-behaved clients, namely Jamie Newton, the Rodowsky boys, Hunter Bruno, and Squirt (Jessi's little brother), are suddenly acting up and causing mayhem. As they continue to compare notes on recent sitting jobs, Mallory realizes the common denominator in all of this ruckus at school and in the club is boys. The boys at school are jerks, the boys they sit for are jerks-in-training. She points this out to the club, and everyone looks at her like "oh sweetie, bless your heart." Stacey mentions all the boys who have been behaving, and starts throwing some statistical analysis at her, and Mary Anne brings up Ben and Logan as examples of fine, upstanding youths. Mallory then says that Ben and Logan are nice because they are not from Stoneybrook, so they haven't been tainted. Oh, the logic of an 11 year old...
Back at SMS, Coach Walden realizes that detentions are not working for Mallory, so after telling her that "life eats up quitters," (that sounds like a motivational poster at Globo Gym, doesn't it?) she makes Mallory wash the pinnies after school as punishment. When she gets home from school that day, the mailbox is empty. Yep, Mrs. Pike finally got the mail and confronts Mallory. She promptly bursts into tears, and after sobbing out her story, Mrs. Pike tells Mallory that she needs to try again, plus go talk to her coach to see if she can get extra help. Coach Walden refuses to give Mallory extra help, but does say that as long as Mallory tries to play, she will make the boys lay off of her (because apparently that wasn't logical enough to think of the first day, way to go, Coach). Mallory soldiers through the rest of the term, then, mercifully, they switch to archery (by the way, I have fond memories of archery in middle school, at the end of the week Coach Schmidtke, maker of the famous Schmidtke juice, would bring out deer targets for us to shoot. Gotta love school in the South...). Mallory turns out to be a natural at archery, hits the bullseye on her second try, and Coach Walden encourages her to try out for the archery team (what the..? Does any middle school have an archery team?). Mallory makes the team, and Katniss Pike is born.
Fashion: Catching Fire!!!
What Claudia Wore: "Claudia was wearing a pair of soft, balloony, purple pants; a neon green long-sleeve leotard top; a wide, red braided belt; and a pair of soft, red ballet shoes. Her hair was swept into a French braid with wispy tendrils hanging loose. From one ear dangled a long earring made of small papier-mache tropical fruit. In the other ear, where she had two holes, Claudia wore two small papier-mache hoops."
What Dawn wore: "For example, today she was wearing black stirrup pants, a long, fleecy red-and-pink rose-print top, and black high top sneakers. She has two holes pierced in each ear. In those she wore four matching sparkly rose earrings."
What Mallory wore: "It was a one piece denim jumpsuit. I think it's "too high-style" for me." You're probably right, Mallory.
