#88 Farewell, Dawn

Summary

Dawn's missing California again. She misses her friends, her family, her school, the weather, everything, Plus, Sunny's mom has just been diagnosed with lung cancer, and Dawn really wants to be there for her best friend and the Winslow family. So, she makes a big decision: she's going to move back to Palo City for good. She breaks the news first to Carol during a phone call from California. Carol promises to tell Jack. Sharon walks in just in time to hear the end of the conversation, so Dawn has to tell her. Sharon is, understandably, upset that Dawn wants to leave Stoneybrook. Richard gets home from work in the middle of their conversation, so he's let in on the plan at that point, too. The one family member that Dawn doesn't tell? Mary Anne. Dawn knows that her stepsister will be upset, and needs to figure out how to break the news to her as gently as possible. Luckily, Mary Anne has been so busy with baby-sitting and spending time with Logan that she doesn't notice how oddly everyone is acting at home.

Dawn is alone one afternoon, and she starts on a list of things she needs to do to get ready for the move. That's when she realizes that she needs to let the BSC know ASAP, so they can find a replacement. Dawn calls Kristy and tells her what's going on, and asks her not to tell anyone, since she STILL hasn't found a way to let Mary Anne know what's happening. Kristy agrees. Dawn finally decides to break the news the next day. She and Mary Anne are planning to make a pizza together for dinner, and Dawn writes a whole speech that she'll give when she tells Mary Anne that she's going back to California. Too bad Dawn never gets a chance to use it; before she can steer the conversation in the right direction, Logan calls Mary Anne to see how she's taking the news that Dawn is moving. Apparently, Kristy told Claudia, who told Stacey, who told Robert, who told Logan. Mary Anne is furious that she was the last to find out, and she says some pretty awful things to Dawn. The girls don't exactly stop speaking, but things are definitely different between them. Mary Anne starts acting like she doesn't care anything about Dawn, and she does her best to avoid her stepsister while the club is working on their latest event (a surprise Christmas in summer for James Hobart, who's laid up with a broken leg).

Dawn really wants to fix things with Mary Anne before she leaves, so she plans a fancy dinner for the two of them one evening when their parents are out. They manage to have some decent conversation, but when Dawn tries to bring up the subject of her move and her friendship with Mary Anne, Mary Anne clams up. Things don't get any better by the time Dawn's farewell party rolls around. She's sure that Mary Anne has some big surprise cooked up for her, but that doesn't seem to be true. In fact, Mary Anne doesn't seem to have had much to do with planning the party at all. It isn't until the day before Dawn leaves that things finally go back to normal, with lots of crying. At least Dawn can leave, knowing that Mary Anne doesn't hate her....

Rating: 3

Thoughts and Things

• For once, the BSC decides that there shouldn't be any kids at Dawn's party so it doesn't seem too much like a baby-sitting job. I wonder how poor Stacey felt about that, since she DID have to put up with a bunch of little kids at her good-bye party way back in the day???
• I can't believe Sharon agreed to let Dawn go with no argument. On one hand, kudos to her for putting Dawn's happiness first. On the other, why is she letting her 13 year old make such important life decisions without any discussion?
• Dawn's hair on the cover comes awfully close to matching the descriptions in the books. Good going, Hodges!
• I liked this book better during this reading than I ever have before. I sort of identify with a lot of what Dawn is feeling; I'm not really happy living where I am, and I wouldn't mind moving somewhere else for awhile...
• Dawn's Big Move is missing from the list of Dawn books after the last chapter.
  

M#21 Claudia and the Recipe for Danger

Summary

Stoneybrook is playing host to a baking contest. There will be a junior division (9 to 15 years old) and and adult division (16 nd up) and the winner from each will get $1000 and have the winning recipe published in a cookbook. Claudia decides to enter, and since teams of up to three people are allowed, Mary Anne and Shea Rodowsky join her. The contest will run over two weekends, and ( as usual) the whole BSC is involved. Mary Anne, Claudia, and Logan are the only members who are actually entering the contest (Logan is on a team with his sister and Austin Bentley); the rest of them are going to help run the day care that's being set up so the adult contestants have a place to leave their kids while they're baking.

The day before the start of the contest, the girls head to SHS (that's where the contest is being held) to meet with Marty Nisson, the guy who's helping them get the day care set up. He also asks one of them to be a "Cake Cop:" someone who walks around and makes sure everyone is following the rules. Wanna guess who signs up for that? Yep, it's Kristy. On the first day of the contest, the adults are up first, so everyone in the BSC is in the day care, helping. It's a little hectic, since the teacher's lounge is pretty small, and not really designed for the purpose. PRetty soon, though, the afternoon rolls around and it's time for Mary Anne and Claudia to start baking. Strange things start to happen right away; someone substitutes flour for baking soda, causing Claud, Mary Anne, and Shea's cake to come out flat. Someone also turns the temperature on the oven that Logan's team is using, and increases the baking time. Claudia immediately suspects Grace Blume and Mari Drabek; nothing went wrong for them, and they've never gotten along with the BSC. The next day, though, there's a fire in Grace and Mari's oven, and they suspect Claudia and her friends of causing it. Not so; someone had subsituted baking powder for the cornstarch that was supposed to be used in their recipe, causing the batter to rise, spill over the pan, and catch fire. Grace and Mari are given an extension , but still don't finish.

Not long after, Claudia is picking up some things at the hardware store for her parents when she runs into Grace Blume. Grace accuses Claud and her friends of being behind all the sabotage, and Claud accuses her right back. They both deny it and convince each other that they're being truthful. They decide to join forces to try and figure out who's behind the sabotage. There are a few suspects; several of the parents of the younger contestants have been hanging around, trying to interfere (against the rules of the contest). A couple of them have even been escorted out by Kristy the Cake Cop. Jackie Rodowsky has also been acting strangely. He disappears from the day care, and reappears later, covered in white powder. The BSC knocks him off the suspect list pretty quickly; he's been borrowing ingredients to make his own cake, just to prove that he can do what big brother Shea is doing.

When the results of the qualifying round are announced, Claud's team, Logan's team, and Grace's team have all made it into the finals. They celebrate with pizza, and more discussion about who's trying to sabotage the contest. They realize that the culprit seems to be targeting the more successful bakers (duh), but aren't any closer to figuring out who that culprit is. They arrive early on the day of the finals, and another piece is added to the puzzle. They spot one of the older contestants in the junior divison getting out of her car....with Marty Nisson. It's pretty clear they're together. COuld Marty want to help his girlfriend win badly enough to try and wreck other contestants' chances? Yep. Claudia's team sets up a little sting operation to try and catch the culprit. They mix up their cake, and when it's time to bake, they use Grace and Mari's oven. They let it be known that they'll all be away from their cooking station, and they hide in another station across the room to watch. Sure enough, Marty sneaks in and tries tampering with their oven. Claudia had put a thin layer of flour all over everything, so even if Marty had managed to get away, it would have been clear that he was the guilty party. He's not the only one; his girlfriend entered the contest illegally. After all, the junior division is for kids ages 9 to 15. Why would a 15 year old be driving a car?

The rest of the contest runs smoothly. Claud and her team are all nervous when it comes time to announce the winners. They didn't need to be; their chocolate cherry cake (a favorite recipe of Mary Anne's mother) is the big winner.

Rating: 2

Thoughts and Things

• Wow...Claudia's hair isn't in a side ponytail on this cover! I guess that would be kind of hard to manage, given the chef's hat.
• Remember my plan to get through the rest of the mysteries by picturing Sgt. Johnson as super hot? That's been a little tough, considering he hasn't been in any of the mysteries since I made that decision. Oh, well....at least this one had plenty of cake. And pizza!
• I really like Grace Blume in this book, and it's a shame that her friendship with the BSC didn't really continue in any future books. That might have made for some interesting conflicts.
• I wonder what methods Kristy used to escort rule breaking parents out the contest? I'm guessing that most of them were bigger than her, but it only says that she got help once.
• Claudia has a Hershey's Kiss charm on her charm bracelet...which is pretty awesome.
• Claudia also spends half a chapter talking about how awesome her family's new cordless phone is. She's excited about the fact that she can almost walk into the neighbor's yard before it gets staticy. She'd probably pee herself if someone told her about cell phones...

#87 Stacey and the Bad Girls

Summary

For the third book in a row, it's more or less the beginning of summer. Stacey is still out of the BSC, and still heavily involved with Robert and his friends. In fact, some of the girls in her group congregate at Stacey's house on a fairly regular basis, since she's got the place to herself during the day. The girls have a lot of fun...but they also eat a lot of food. Mrs. McGill isn't happy when she figures out what's happening, and she insists that Stacey (her 13 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER!!!) get a summer job. Stacey doesn't mind that idea so much, but it's easier said than done for someone her age to find a job. First, she tries thew wants ads in the newspaper, but most of what she finds there are full time jobs for adults. She then gets the idea to check the bulletin boards at the supermarket, and she finds four possibilities there. The first is a companion position for an elderly person, the second is an ad placed by a new modeling company looking for teens, the third is from people looking for a dog walker, and the fourth is from a store called Sports Town which needs help in their Toddler Center. None of the four jobs pans out, but Mrs. McGill comes the rescue. Bellairs needs a part-time aide in their Kid Center, and she's landed Stacey an interview, which Stacey aces.

After her first day of work, Stacey's new friends meet her for some shopping. This becomes an every day thing, and even though Stacey is glad to see her friends, she starts to get pretty suspicious that shopping isn't all they're doing. The other girls never seem to buy anything, but Stacey notices that they have new stuff on more than one occaision. She starts to wonder if they could be shoplifting, and if they could be using her as a distraction, since all the store clerks know and trust her. She thinks back to when the same thing happened to Logan. She wants to talk to Robert about her suspicions, but she's a little afraid to. She doesn't want to make Robert feel like he has to give up his friends, like he gave up basketball.

The following week, Stacey's friends meet her after work like always, but this time, they want a favor: they want her to buy some expensive things for them with her discount. Stacey isn't sure she should do something like that, but gives in when her friends pressure her. The other girls pay her back for the items...because they returned them without a receipt for full price. Stacey KNOWS that doing that isn't okay, but she doesn't have too much time to dwell on it. That's because their favorite band, U4ME, is going to be playing in Stamford! The girls all go to the ticket line, but Stacey is the only one who ends up waiting the whole time to buy the tickets. She's not thrilled about being ditched, but she's still pretty excited about the concert. On the big night, Mrs. McGill drives all the girls to the concert. Everything's going fine until the others start pulling out hidden liquor bottles and drinking. Stacey is shocked; she'd never seen any of her friends drink before, and it's not something they'd ever talked about. They more they drink, the louder they get, and eventually, it catches the attention of security. A guard searches their stuff and finds a bottle in Stacey's sweater. Since she definitely didn't put it there, she knows that it must have been one of her friends. All five girls are taken to security, where their parents are called. Stacey manages to prove that she wasn't drinking, since it would bother her diabetes if she did, but she's still in big trouble when her mom shows up. Mrs. McGill grounds her for three days, and requests that she not see those friends again. Stacey has no trouble agreeing to that.

Stacey fills Robert in on what happened at the concert, and to her relief, he's on her side. What Stacey really wants to do, though, is get the advice her her BSC ex-friends about the problem. She even starts to think that she might want to be back in the club. After coming through for Dawn and Mary Anne one day (she finds their little cousin who ran away), Stacey gets invited to a meeting. She apologizes for her behavior, and promises to try harder. One again, the BSC is at full strength...at least until #87!

Rating: 3

Thoughts and Things

• Stacey actually quit her job at Bellairs so she'd have time for the BSC. She really couldn't do both?
• I wonder how Stacey explained her absence from the BSC to the Johanssens', whom she's been sitting for all along. Kristy must have hated that.....
• The Stamford U4Me concert was arranged days before it actually took place. I don't know much about the music business, but I DO know that it takes quite awhile to set up a major concert like that. You have to book the venue, set up opening acts, arrange for ticket sales, etc. There just doesn't seem to be much of a chance that a show of that type could come together practically overnight.
• Sunny's mom is diagnosed with cancer in this book...and all Dawn can talk about is moving back to CA to be with the Winslows. Foreshadowing alert!!!!

SM#1 Baby-sitters' Haunted House

Summary

Summer is just beginning (I'll ignore the fact that it began in the last book, too) and the BSC wants a vacation. Big surprise; Kristy doesn't like that idea. Then, the club gets a call from Lisa, Karen and Andrew's mother. They have some friends, the Menders family, who've just inherited a mansion in a little seaside town in Maine. Lisa, Seth, Karen, and Andrew are going up to Reese with the Menders family, and they need two sitters to go along. Claudia is one of them; she already has a long-term sitting job with Karen and Andrew. The girls can't agree on who should be the second. In spite of her earlier reluctance to take a vacation, Kristy pretty much insists that it should be her. When Lisa calls needing an answer as to who her second sitter will be, the girls are honest with her. Kristy, Mary Anne, and Dawn all got permission to go to Reese with Claud. Lisa then invites them all to come.

The car ride up to Reese is pretty uneventful, although Mary Anne annoys everyone by playing tour guide. THe mansion is very cool, and the Menders kids are nice, but really reluctant at the idea of moving from Boston. Lionel, 14 and too old to be sat for, wants to be an actor. He doesn't think he'll be able to make that happen in a tiny town like Reese. Jill is 10, and obsessed with being a teenager (she starts following Dawn around and copying her right from the get-go). Jason, 9, is into sports, and Martha, 7, is very shy. Karen Brewer convinces herself that it's her mission to help Martha make friends, but all that happens is that Karen acts like an irritating nuisance and pisses Martha off. The girls also meet Mr. and Mrs. Cooper, the couple that the Menders family has hired as caretakers for the summer. They're nice enough, although Mrs. Cooper can't talk (she has some problem with her vocal cords).

Since no BSC member can go into an old house without thinking that it might be haunted, the girls of course think that the Randolph Mansion is home to a ghost. It actually looks like they might be right, because odd things start happening that first night. They see someone (or something) out in the hall with a candle, but none of them are brave enough to actually step outside their bedrooms and investigate. The next morning, they find spots of wax on the hall carpet. The girls suspect Lionel Menders; he was acting strangely that morning, and he seemed awfully interested when he caught them looking at the wax blobs. Lter that day, they meet Georgio Trono, grandson of the former Randolph Mansion caretakers. He's the tall, dark, handsome, and (as the girls think) sinister type. He makes all of them uncomfortable, especially when he warns them about staying out of the fourth floor and attic of the mansion, but he seems to take quite a shine to Claud....

Creepy things keep happening. Their second evening in Reese, the BSC members are taking some of the kids on a frog and toad hunt. All of a sudden, they see a light go on in a window in the fourth floor of the mansion. The door to the fourth floor is locked, and no one had been up there since they arrived the previous day. The Coopers suggests that it might have been a reflection from the nearby lighthouse, but the BSC members aren't so sure. That night, the hallway ghost makes another appearance. This time, the girls catch the ghost in the act; it IS Lionel. Too bad they can't explain who's causing the noises upstairs when they're all together.

Claudia has been spending more and more time with Georgio. She's still not exactly comfortable with him, though, especially after she goes to the gardener's shed with him to take a look at a picture of a float he made once. Not only does she find out that Georgio is in college, but she also spots some orange candles that are the same color as the wax the girls found on the floor after the first ghost appearance. They never actually asked Lionel if it was him that first night; they just assumed it was. Now, they're not so sure. Georgio is just plain creepy, and STILL seems determined to keep them out of the fourth floor. When the girls add up all the evidence (lights going on and off, ghost appearances not explained by Lionel, screams in the walls), it looks like someone might be trying to make the Menders family and the sitters think the place is haunted. The question is...why???

One day, Mary Anne decides to do some research on the mansion. She heads to the historical society, and what she learns is pretty interesting. The house has a dumbwaiter, which none of the girls had noticed before. One of its "stops" is actually in Dawn's bedroom. Also, as Mary Anne is returning the materials to the woman at the front desk, she finds out that someone else had been in, asking about the mansion. It was a woman with a thick accent, which rules out Mrs. Menders. Claudia is also doing some research of her own; as scared as she is of Georgio, she goes with him to meet his grandparents in the hopes that she'll learn more about the house. The Tronos tell her that the dumbwaiter has been boarded up for years, and every time Claud tries to learn more mansion secrets, Georgio tries to steer the converstation to other things.

THere's a mini fair in Reese, and sitters take advantage of the time without kids too investigate the dumbwaiter. They find the kitchen entrance to it behind a painting, and they see something down in the bottom of the shaft. Dawn volunteers to go down and see what it is. Just as she gets in there and sees that the object is a tape recorder, the Coopers come back from running their errands. The other members of the BSC get the dumbwaiter closed and the painting back in place just in time; poor Dawn is stuck in there for the time being. That turns out to be a good thing; when the other three sitters leave the kitchen to go bring in the bags of groceries, Dawn learns that Mrs. Cooper can talk. She fills her friends in as soon as they get the Coopers out of the kitchen and Dawn out of the dumbwaiter. They also find out that the Coopers aren't lifetime residents of Reese, as they've always claimed. The mystery gets even more interesting when the girls learn from Mr. and Mrs. Menders that Mr. Menders has a cousin living in Scotland who will inherit the mansion if he doesn't want to live in it full time. That's when Dawn remembers; Mrs. Cooper spoke with a heavy accent. They recruit Lionel to imitate some accents for them, repeating a phrase that Dawn heard Mrs. Cooper say. Sure enough, the accent that matches the one Dawn heard is Scottish. The pieces of the puzzle are starting to come together.

Lisa, Seth, and the Menders parents take a day trip over to Boston, leaving the kids alone with the Coopers. The BSC members aren't thrilled about this, given what they now know (or at least suspect) about the Coopers (actually, the Randolphs). Nothing scary happens, although they DO find a list of horrible things the couple had come up with to do to the Menders family, the BSC, and even Georgio (who turns out to be totally innocent). There's a horrible storm that night, and the adults can't get back to Reese until the next morning. They fill them in on everything they've discovered about the Coopers, but they've already left the country. That's probably a good thing; the Menders family has decided to move to Reese permanently. Also, for those of you who are concerned about Claudia (aka "Jailbait") and Georgio, she finally confesses her real age to him in a letter.

MEanwhile, back in Stoneybrook, the BSC is being run by Jessi and Mal, with occasional help from Shannon and Logan. They have to turn down quite a few jobs, since there are next to no sitters available, and pretty soon, people stop calling. Mallory and Jessi are sure they've ruined the club...until they find out that people haven't been calling because they've been on vacation. They should know by now that that's ALWAYS the case when the club stops getting calls!

Rating: 4

Thoughts and Things

• Why didn't any of the sitters have a fling with Lionel? He was the perfect age, and they DID make it clear that they weren't actually sitting FOR him.
• This book is actually kind of awesome. Think the fact that it's a Super Special (yay!) makes up for the fact that it's also a mystery (boo!).
• Karen drove me and everyone in the book crazy. She just needs to shut the heck up and leave people alone.
• Jill Menders and her crush on Dawn was annoying, too. Dawn was very patient to put up with her the way she did. It's also another example of how childish the BSC views 10 year olds, and how 11 year olds are suddenly mature enough to be considered friends instead of sitting charges.
• This is actually the last BSC book I got before I stopped collecting the first time. I'd only been collecting sporadically since #60, but this marked the end of my childhood BSC reading.
• I wonder what Georgio thought when he got that letter from Claud, telling him that she's actually 13? Also, I find it hard to believe that a dark, brooding college guy wouldn't have tried more with her than taking her on a Ferris wheel and kissing her on the cheek. This wasn't the 1950's, people.
• I really like the Menders kids, and I wish we'd seen them in another book.

#86 Mary Anne and Camp BSC

Summary

School is just about to end, and everyone is looking forward to summer vacation. There's a three week gap between the end of school and the beginning of most camps and summer programs, so the BSC decides to run their own day camp for their charges. It'll be held at the Schafer/Spier house, and the girls choose the circus as their theme. More than twenty kids sign up, which is good. There are, however, problems right from the start, which is bad. The kids kind of split into two groups by school: about half of them go to SES, and half of them go to SDS. To make things even worse, most of the SDS kids had been to another circus camp, and think that makes them too good for the BSC's version. There's also one other problem, and that's four year old Alicia Gianelli. She's got major separation issues, and won't go on any of the field trips that the rest of the camp takes. She's afraid that if she DOES go, her mom won't be able to find her when she arrives to pick up Alicia and her brother. Mary Anne insists on letting Alicia stay behind rather than forcing her to go places that she doesn't want to go. The other sitters think that Mary Anne is just babying Alicia, and that Alicia should be joining the rest of the campers.

At the end of camp, the kids put on a circus for their friends and family. Rehearsals are kind of a mess, thanks mostly to the SDS students who don't see the BSC camp as a "real" circus camp. Most of them take roles reluctantly, and then don't learn their parts. The sitters have to scramble around at the last minute, adjusting things so their lack of preparation doesn't stick out as much. The performance ends up going pretty well, and most of the SDS kids stop acting so surperior to everyone else. Alicia Gianelli also changes her tune by the end of the camp; she realizes that she's been missing out on an awful lot of fun by throwing fits and staying behind, and joins the group on one last trip to the park.

While the camp is being held, Mary Anne is dealing with some issues of her own. Her dad is away on a business trip, and she's surprised by how much she misses him. Dawn and Sharon are totally into being "bachelor girls," as Sharon puts it, but Mary Anne isn't thrilled. They're ordering take-out food every night, and not cleaning up anything. The mess really bothers Mary Anne, and she's finding it hard to get into the spirit of things. She doesn't talk to Sharon and Dawn about how she's feeling, though, since the two of them are having such a good time. Then, Mary Anne gets hurt falling off her bike. It's nothing serious, but she starts feeling even more sorry for herself. She even tries to get her dad to come home early to take care of her. Eventually, Mary Anne pulls herself together, stops acting like a pouty little kid, and apologizes about her behavior to Sharon. She also manages to enjoy the rest of their little vacation from Richard, even though she's really happy to see him when he comes home.

Rating: 2.5

Thoughts and Things

• There's one place in the book where Mary Anne is talking about the SES versus SDS feud at camp, and she says SMS instead of SDS.
• I have to side with Mary Anne about the take out food issue; just READING about them eating all that junk made me feel fatter....
• I actually like that Mary Anne missed her dad so much and didn't quite know how to deal with it; 13 is still a kid in so many ways, and I don't blame her for wanting her dad back, especially after she was hurt.
• Alicia really annoyed me.
• The notebook entry at the beginning of chapter 9 is in Kristy's handwriting, but it's clearly Logan talking.
  

#85 Claudia Kishi, Live From WSTO!

Summary

Claudia is at loose ends, and she decides she needs a hobby. She finds out that WSTO is looking for a kid to run a kids' radio show twice a week for a month. Claud enters, and she wins. She's excited but nervous when she heads down to the radio station for her first meeting with the station staff. She's also surprised when they tell her that she's going to have an assistant. The assistant is the one who came in second in the contest, and that person is none other than...Ashley Wyeth. Claudia isn't exactly thrilled; she and Ashley haven't been on the best of terms since the whole Claudia and the New Girl debacle. At least, they haven't according to Peter Lerangis.

At first, it looks like their partnership isn't going to be a pleasant one. They can't agree on anything, and Claudia gets frustrated at Ashley for constantly treating her like she's stupid. They also can't agree on what acts to put on the show during auditions. They make it to the first show without any bloodshed. There are some minor problems (dead air, finishing up too early), but things go pretty well overall. Claudia and Ashley DO learn, though, that the station is in some kind of financial trouble. That's why WSTO ran the contest: they needed someone to fill that airtime that they don't have to pay. People are really enjoying the show, though, and Claudia and Ashley actually manage to help some people. In fact, their last call on their last show is from the mother of a kid that had called in at the beginning. He'd been really upset about his parents' divorce, and Claudia had given him the number of Dr. Reese, the therapist that Mary Anne saw at one point. HIs mother was so grateful to them that she decided to make a donation to WSTO, and it just happens to be enough to keep the station afloat for another six months. Also, just as CLaudia is about to leave the station for the last time, she gets a call from none other than Stacey McGill. Claud had made some comments about friendship to fill up extra time on the first show, which Stacey had heard. So, the BSC-McGil rift begins to heal...

Also, Kristy is desperate to get on the show. She writes a bunch of ridiculous plays about baby-sitting and tries to make everyone else star in them with her. She also kind of steals a character Mallory made up and writes a play about that. She eventually makes it on the show with a Jeopardy-style game about kiddie lit.

Rating: 3

Thoughts and Things

• I wonder when Claudia stopped writing for the paper? As of this book, she's no longer running her column.
• Peter L. probably should have reread some of the earlier BSC books, because Claudia and Ashley weren't exactly enemies like he makes them out to be. They just weren't super close friends, due to their different priorities.
• It would have been nice to have a book centered around Mary Anne and whatever depression issues caused her to seek therapy. Lots of kids and teens deal with problems like that, and reading about one of the BSC members facing something like that might have been helpful.
• Mallory should totally sue Kristy for stealing the character she made up!

M# 20 Mary Anne and the Zoo Mystery

Summary

The 8th graders at SMS have a new biology assignment: they'll be put into groups, and each group will study an animal and write a report based on their observations. The best project will win it's creators passes to a local water park. To make things even more interesting, the local zoo has partnered with SMS to help with the projects. Buses will take any intersted kids to the zoo after school so they can study the animals there.

Mary Anne is put into a group withy Alan Gray and Howie Johnson. She's not thrilled about that, and she's REALLY not thrilled about the competitiveness that Logan and Alan have going. Her group DOES manage to come up with a good idea, though. They're going to study the bears, the seals, and the emu and call it "Fur, Feathers, and Fippers." Mary Anne studies the emu first, but there isn't a whole lot to study; it pretty much just rests under a tree. She DOES decide to name it Edith, so the day wasn't a total waste. :) The next day, there's a demonstration of painting elephants, and Mary Anne decides to attend before workring on her project. While she's there, she overhears two of the zoo's employees discussing Edith's escape. She was caught and herded back to her enclosure before any damage was done, but Mary Anne still rushes right over to Edith's pen as soon as the elephants are done painting. There are no broken fences or anything, but Mary Anne DOES notice some berry stains on the ground nearby. She also overhears the zoo director, Mrs. Wofsey, tell another worker that she's lost her master key...the one that can open all the cages in the zoo.

Mary Anne is pretty suspicious about the circumstances surrounding Edith's break for freedom. After all, the bird bascially just sits around all day. There's very little chance, as Mary Anne sees it, that she let herself out of the pen. The BSC members talk about possible suspects; there have been protestors outside the zoo every day they've been there, and some of them have even sent Mrs. Wofsey threatening notes. They've also noticed a couple in matching sweatsuits who seem awfully interested in the animals, but not in the same way that most zoo visitors usually are. One of the next times that Mary Anne is at the zoo, she sees those same people. There's also another escape; a giraffe.

There are two gorillas at the zoo (they're on loan from another place), and one of them can use sign language. Jessi brings Matt Braddock to talk to her, and Matt asks her who let the emu out of her cage. Mr. Chester, one of the zoo's employees, enters the gorilla cage with their meals just then, and Mojo doesn't want to "talk" with him around. Matt asks again, and this time, Mojo signs "food." They figure she's just hungry, and leave it at that.

On another zoo afternoon, Mary Anne is attending a lecture about Mojo and James (the gorillas) when news breaks that there was almost another escape. It was the gibbons that time, and Mary Anne is and Logan think they know who did it. They'd seen that couple in matching outfits discussing the price of a gibbon, and they of course assumed that they were going to steal and then sell them. Jessi takes Matt Braddock to talk to Mojo again, and once again, the only answer she'll give is "food."

Each SMS student was given a key when they started observing animals at the zoo. Those keys could be used to "unlock" information about each animal, but when Mary Anne tries using hers at the bear exhibit, she finds that it doesn't work. She'd had no problem with it previously, and it doesn't take her long to realize that she's holding Mrs. Wofsey's missing master key. She knows it has to have come from someone in her group, and that Mary Anne picked it up by mistake when they all emptied their pockets onto a picnic table to find money for a soda. She thinks it's Alan, but he denies knowing everything about it. It was actually Howie; he'd found the key in some bushes, and he'd been the one to open Edith's cage. He didn't have anything to do with the giraffes and gibbons, though. The key was already in Mary Anne's possession at that time. Luckily, she has plenty of witnesses who could vouch that she was nowhere near either exhibit when the gates were opened. Mary Anne, Logan, and their group members put their heads together, and settle on Mr. Chester as the one who's guilty. He doesn't like Mrs. Wofsey much, and he's been caught lying about his whereabouts. He also has a key, and could easily unlock any gate he wanted. Mary Anne and her friends go to tell Mrs, Wofsey about what they suspect, and she sets up a trap for Mr. Chester. If he really wants to make the zoo look bad, he'll try and set Mojo and James free. Sure enough, he tries just that. What he DOESN'T know, though, is that Mojo and James were moved to another pen, and the two gorillas in the cage are zoo employees in disguise. Mrs. Wofest is so grateful to Mary Anne and her friends for their role in catching Mr. Chester that she gives each of them lifetime passes to the zoo. Also, Mr. Chester's guilt explains why Mojo kept signing "food;" he was the one that fed them.

Meanwhile, the BSC and their charges are helping raise money to free an elephant that's being kept in a small cage at a local mall. They want him moved to a more appropriate home, so they organize all sorts of fundraisers to help. The donations they recieve, with some help from a wealthy donor, get the elephant moved to a wildlife park in Florida.

Rating: 2.5

Thoughts and Things

• When I was a little kid, my mom took me to a mall that was displaying a tiger in a cage. I don't remember which mall it was, but I do remember that the tiger could only take two or three steps in either direction. He just kept pacing back and forth, over and over again. Even though I was really young at the time, it disturbed me to see him like that, and I've never forgotten it. That's probably why I didn't hate the elephant subplot.
• Mary Anne, Howie, and Alan complain at one point that a soda costs them a whole dollar. Sheesh. At my local zoo, a 20 oz bottle from a vending machine would run them $3.
• The protestors in front of the zoo wanted the animals freed. How is it more humane to set animals free that probably couldn't survive than to have them in zoos, where they're well taken care of and can educate people?
• By the way...MAry Anne's group got an A- on their project. They had to toss their zoo idea since Alan cheated, and study Tigger instead.