#113 Claudia Makes Up Her Mind

Summary

Claudia is still doing well in seventh grade. She's still with Mark Jaffe, and she's got a great group of friends. Plus, she's volunteered to organize the whole grade for the upcoming school color war. She wants Mark to help, but (as always) she has to prod him into it. Then, in the middle of all this, she gets a note from Mrs. Amer (guidance counselor) requesting a meeting in her office that day after school. Claud is convinced that she's going to be bumped back to 6th grade, so she's pretty terrified. It turns out that the news is good: Claudia is doing so well in 7th grade that they want to move her back to 8th. Her first instinct is to go for it, but then she starts thinking. She's got her new friends, Mark, and her queenship to think about. Plus, for the first time in her life, she's the "smart one" in all of her classes, and she doesn't know if she wants to go back to 8th and risk feeling dumb again. She asks Mrs. Amer for some time to think about it.

Claud's friends and family members all have different opinions as to what she should do. Her 8th grade friends want her back in their grade, obviously, and her 7th grade friends want her to stay with them. Her dad doesn't want her to make a decision based on her relationship with Mark, and her mom says she'll support whatever decision Claudia makes. Speaking of Mark, Claud isn't exactly thrilled with his lack of support during the decision-making process, but she chalks it up to him being a typical, unromantic guy.

Mark isn't the only guy who's causing Claudia some confusion at this point; her friend, Josh Rocker, is as well. At least, Claudia THOUGHT he was just a friend, until another one of the kids they hang out with tells her that he's always wanted more. Claudia doesn't believe that at first, but then, during an oh-so-romantic three-legged race for the color war, she realizes that it's true. Now, Claud thinks she might like him back; things are definitely on the fritz with Mark at this point, and Josh definitely cares about her in a way that Mark never did. In fact, Claudia finally just ends things with Mark once and for all. He's always standing her up or cancelling dates, and it just isn't fun for either of them anymore. That leaves Claudia free to start something with Josh, which she does. He's actually the one who makes her see that 8th grade is the place she should be, even though staying in 7th is appealing in a lot of ways. Claud sticks around 7th long enough, though, to watch them win the color war.

Subplot: the BSC charges have their own color war.

Rating: 2

Thoughts and Things

• I don't care much about Claudia's relationship with Josh. I never thought they had good chemistry. Oh, well; at least she broke up with Mark. He was never good enough for her!
• So...the 6th grade color for the color war is white, and their "chant" or slogan is "Fight for White." You mean to tell me that Jessi had absolutely no problem with this???
• So...everyone is all into this particular school spirit event with absolutely no issues when they were all up in arms about it during Dawn and the School Spirit War?
• When Claudia first talks to Mrs. Amer about moving back to 8th grade, Mrs. Amer tells Claud that she's discussed the matter with her parents. Why didn't the Kishis say anything to her? Also, I don't know that the decision should have been left up to Claud....

M#32 Claudia and the Mystery in the Painting

Summary

Claudia has a sitting job for Jimmy Cook, a new client. Claud is especially excited about this because Jimmy's great grandmother was a folk artist known as Grandmother Madden, and Claud has recently become interested in her work. Unfortunately, Grandmother Madden was supposed to have destroyed all her work after a bad review at a show in New York, and the only paintings of hers that are supposed to be left are the ones she gave to family. Claudia doesn't believe this; she doesn't think an artist would ever destroy his or her work just because of a bad review. She hopes that being in the house during her job sitting for Jimmy will give her a chance to look around for the missing paintings.

When Claudia arrives at the Madden house, she meets Jimmy and his mother, Rebecca Madden. Rebecca is actually going to be IN the house the whole time Claudia is there; she's getting the house and its contents ready to be sold, and she figured she'd get more done if Jimmy were occupied. Claudia asks Jimmy to give her a tour of the house, but doesn't find any of the missing Madden paintings. She DOES find a bunch that were done by Grandmother Madden's students, including one of a Japanese woman that particularly catches her eye. Later that day, a man shows up at the front door of the house, claiming he works with the company that's managing the sale of the house. Claudia was told not to let anyone in, so she sends Jimmy upstairs to get his mother. Before he can, the man leaves. Claudia asks Rebecca about him, and Rebecca thinks it was probably Mr. Ogura, who really DOES work for the company that's managing the estate sale.

Rebecca needs a lots of help to get the house ready and organized for the sale, so she asks Claud to bring some more of her BSC friends along to help. Kristy, Stacey, and Mary Anne are the lucky ones that gets to help next, and Mr. Ogura shows up again. The weird part? He shows up when Rebecca isn't at home (Claud has a key and permission to be there alone). Later that afternoon, a woman who looks and awful lot like Rebecca knocks on the door, but doesn't wait around to talk the the REAL Rebecca. Next time around, it's Mal (along with Nicky) and Jessi who join Claudia, and they get to meet Jimmy's dad, James. He's not around much, which Jimmy is having issues with, and the none of the girls can see WHY he'd be so upset. Mr. Cook is so grumpy, and Jimmy claims that he doesn't like the fact that he and his mom both like to paint. He also doesn't seem to trust the BSC members...

Claudia decides to take a look at the one Grandmother Madden painting that's hanging in the Stoneybrook Museum. When she gets there, she's surprised to find Mr. Ogura checking it out, along with the woman who resembles Rebecca Madden. Later, she finds out that Mr. Ogura was also at the Madden house, acting like he owned the place. No sign of the Rebecca doppleganger at the house, though. She decides to check Mr. Ogura out, so she heads to Estates Unlimited, the company he supposedly works for. She gets a surprise when she asks the receptionist if she can see Mr. Ogura; there are actually two of them. The young one is the one that the BSC members have been seeing around the Madden house, and the older one is his father.

Claud is still pretty determined to find the missing Madden paintings, and one evening, she comes up with a possible theory. A lot of the student paintings she found are roughly the same size canvas that Grandmother Madden used to use, or the same size as two to four of them put together. The next morning (the day of the sale), she heads to the Madden house as early as possible. She goes to look at the student paintings again, just to check on the size, but before she can go tell Rebecca what she thinks, she's surprised by Mr. Ogura the younger, and the woman resembling Rebecca. She's actually Rebecca's cousin, Suzanne, and both of them had the same idea that Claudia did. Actually, it's more than an idea; Mr. Ogura's father had been good friends with Grandmother Madden, and he knew that she let her students paint over her work. Ogura the son found out, and he and Suzanne had been working together to try and get the paintings. They push Claudia into a storage closet and take off with the paintings. Jimmy and his dad eventually come along and let her out, and she fills everyone in on what's been going on. The culprits are caught at the airport, ready to leave for Japan, and all the paintings are recovered.

Meanwhile, the Stoneybrook Museum is getting ready to open an art room for kids. Mrs. O'Neal, the woman who's in charge, has very different ideas as to what the room should be like than the kids do. She wants them to be quiet and clean, and to ONLY do the projects that she sets out for them. The BSC members eventually help convince her that it would work better to let the kids be a little more creative.

Rating: 2

Thoughts and Things

• There are multiple references to Mrs. O'Neal clutching her pearls. This may sound like an ignorant question, but doesn't that mean something dirty?
• Another repeating plot device in this one: a painting that had been painted over another painting. Plus, there was a cat supposedly belonging to a dead person.
• I don't have much else to say about this one....

#112 Kristy and the Sister War

Summary

When both Shannon and Mrs. Kilbourne find themselves super busy with activities, school, etc, Kristy lands a regular sitting job for Maria and Tiffany. She discovers on her first afternoon with them that the girls are pretty unhappy. Neither of their parents, not to mention Shannon, have any time for them anymore. They especially miss hanging out with Shannon. Kristy suggests that the girls come up with a list of things they could do for their sister that might help her get things done quicker, which would in turn allow for more free time. They mean well, but their plan doesn't exactly go as they would have liked it to. The cookies they make get burned, they leave a huge mess in the kitchen, and Shannon is the one who gets stuck cleaning it up. Then, they try walking Astrid, but she pulls the leash right out of Tiffany's hand and runs away. Only one person can get her to come back when she does that, and it's (you guessed it) Shannon. Next, they try "helping" her with her algebra homework, and Shannon is stuck explaining why it's all wrong at school the next day, and when Tiffany and Maria try cleaning her room for her, well, it ends up looking worse than before.

When none of the girls' best efforts get Shannon to spend more time with them, they take a completely different tactic. Instead of doing nice things for her (or trying to, anyway), they declare war. That means lots of pranks, like driving her crazy at the dinner table by insterting her name into conversation at random times, and messing with her date book so she misses some of her club meetings. They also put purple dye into her shampoo bottle (it was the kind that washes out). Kristy has a talk with Shannon at this point, and finds out that she's been feeling really overwhelmed with all that she's taken on. She misses having time to relax, she feels wrong about the fact that Kristy knows more about what's up with her sisters than she does. Kristy points out that Tiffany and Maria miss her, too, and that everything they've been doing has been for attention. The pranks basically stop after that, but things aren't much better in the Kilbourne family. Everyone is still too busy to spend time with each other, and after a very awkward and quiet family dinner, Kristy encourages both girls to write letters to their parents and Shannon, telling them how they feel. The older Kilbournes take the letters to heart, and they show up at the kids' dance that Maria and Tiffany helped organize. They also agree to give up or scale back some of their activities so they can spend more time as a family.

Subplot: The aforementioned kids' dance. There's an All-Stoneybrook dance for middle schoolers in the works, and the younger kids feel left out. So, they have their own party. :)

Rating: 2

Thoughts and Things

• Shannon and Kristy seemed awfully excited to go to the All-Stoneybrook dance together. ;)
• In the first chapter, it states VERY clearly that Shannon's hair is thick and curly, yet it's totally flat on the cover. Oh well; at least Hodges got Tiffany's and Maria's hair colors right.
• This book kind of "borrowed" a lot of elements from other books: the kids' dance and the issues that came along with it of who liked who, etc, Kristy getting made over for a dance, Kilbourne family problems...I think the writers were running on empty at this point.
• In the letter from Ann in the back of the book, she tells us that the title for this one was created without a plot in mind. Everyone liked it so much that they just made up a plot to go along with it.
• Speaking of the title, I think it matches up better with the plot from another book where Tiffany and Maria are fighting because Maria has suddenly become a super athlete, and Tiffany doesn't really have anything that she can be good at, too.

#111 Stacey's Secret Friend

Summary

Stacey and Barbara Hirsch (Amelia Freeman's best friend from Mary Anne and the Memory Garden) are both on the Pep Squad. It's their job to put together a papier-mache jaguar (the school mascot) for the first big SMS football game of the season. They're working on it outside right at the end of the school day when disaster strikes: a girl Stacey has never seen before walks right into the jaguar....literally. She introduces herself as Tess Swinhart, and it's pretty clear that she feels awful about ruining the jaguar. She offers to help them repair it the next day.

At the BSC meeting that afternoon, the whole club gets to talking about Tess. Everyone thinks she's odd; the way she looks, the way she dresses, her klutziness, etc. By the next morning, the whole school is talking about Tess. They've started calling her Swine-heart the Destroyer, and drawing her as a big (her penchant for wearing pink just feeds into this). Then, Stacey and Tess are paired up on an English project about the Middle Ages, which Tess loves. Stacey thinks it odd for anyone to "love the Middle Ages," but doesn't really mind being teamed up with Tess. In fact, she's decided that Tess would basically be all right, if she changed her appearance a little and got more involved at school. If people got to know her, the pig jokes (which are running rampant) might stop.

Stacey and Tess meet about their English project for the first time at Stacey's house. She "accidentally" leaves some fashion books and magazines laying around where Tess is sure to see them, and drops lots of hints as to what Tess could do to improve her appearance. Tess doesn't take the bait, though, so Stacey finally just offers to give her a makeover. Stacey also talks her into joining the Pep Squad as a way to meet more kids. Tess isn't too enthusiastic about either the makeover OR the Pep Squad, but she agrees to try.

At school the next day, Tess shows up in one of her weird outfits, and no makeup. She also seems totally bored by the Pep Squad meeting, and doesn't even care when the group decides to vote on a new mascot for the next school year. Stacey's getting really frustrated with Tess for not getting into any of the things that she, Stacey, is suggesting. The other members of the BSC start suggesting that Stacey might be going overboard, and that she should just let Tess be herself. Stacey insists that she's "helping" Tess, and that she knows what she's doing. Unfortunately, Stacey seems to be the only one who cares much about Tess; the pig jokes have continued, and Tess is starting to take notice. Things really come to a head at a school football game. During halftime, Stacey and Barbara are supposed to hold up drawings of the possible new mascots for the other kids to vote on. When they come to the picture of a pig, though, they find that someone has replaced it with a picture of Tess. The kids in the stands think that's hilarious, and they start throwing food at her. She tries to duck and avoid it, and ends up falling off the bleachers. She breaks her ankle, and sprains her wrist, and when the ambulance arrives, Stacey volunteers to go to the hospital with her. She claims to be a friend of Tess's, but Tess sets her straight by telling her to go away, and that Stacey ISN'T her friend.

Stacey feels guilty about what happened. Claudia wonders if she maybe feels guilty about the way she treated Tess in general, and not just about what happened at the football game. Stacey STILL won't admit that she'd done anything wrong, though. As soon as Tess is back in school, Stacey continues trying to be all friendly. Tess wants nothing to do with her, though. She doesn't seem to be mad at Barbara, though, which totally mystifies Stacey. She feels like she has to try and sort things out, so she goes to Tess's house after a BSC meeting one evening. Stacey is really impressed by Tess's room, and by the fact that Tess grew up in Paris. There are pictures of her with some of her friends...and everyone is more or less dressed the way Tess usually dresses. There's also a French fashion magazine sitting nearby, and the cover model is wearing bright pink, just like Tess does. Tess isn't any friendlier; she points out that Stacey never really wanted to be her friend; it was more of a pity thing, and Tess knows it. She kicks Stacey out of her room, and Stacey is just about ready to be done with Tess. Then, Emily Bernstein approaches her at school a couple of days later. She heard that Alan Gray, Clarence King, and Jim Poirier are planning a huge prank on Tess. Clarence, who's been flirting with her as a joke, is going to take her to dinner at Hog Heaven. Alan will be nearby, and he'll take pictures of Tess standing next to all the pig decorations in the restaurant, without her knowledge. Jim will them publish the pictures in the school paper, along with his review of Hog Heaven, which is actually his assignment for the paper that month. Stacey pulls Tess aside to warn her, and instead of just cancelling the date, Tess and the BSC decide to get even. Just as Tess and Clarence get to the restaurant, the BSC members "accidentally" show up. Then, Claudia "accidentally" spills her very ketchupy fries all over Clarence, Stacey wipes blue paint all over him as she's helping him clean up, and Tess tops it all off with whipped cream. Abby is nearby, taking pictures, and they threaten to have them posted all over the school if he ever bothers Tess again.

Subplot: Jackie R. is being bullied, so he asks Nicky Pike to act as his bodyguard. Jackie ends up talking things out with the bullies, though, and there's no blood shed.

Rating: 1.5

Thoughts and Things

• Stacey was horrible in this book. Even her narration was mean.
• I wonder what kind of food Hog Heaven serves? Is it all pig products? If so, that's kind of gross.
• How did Stacey and Barbara NOT check their potential mascot posters before they went out on the field? If nothing else, you'd think they would want to make sure all of them are present and accounted for.

M#31 Mary Anne and the Music Box Secret

Summary

Granny and Pop-Pop are away on a cruise. They're having a great time...but their house isn't. There's a problem with the plumbing, and their basement gets flooded. Sharon asks the BSC to help the plumbers and contractors get the place cleaned up, and Mary Anne ends up with most of the work time. She's pretty dismayed when she and Sharon head over there for the first time to check out the damage; there's all sorts of stuff (magazines, board games, etc) that just can't be saved. There's plenty more that CAN be saved, though, so Mary Anne and Sharon get right to work moving things upstairs and away from the dampness. Just as Mary Anne is finishing up with one particular shelf, she notices that the paneling on the wall behind it is a little crooked. When Mary Anne touches it, that section of paneling falls away. She reaches inside, and finds a box wrapped in paper. That's not the most unusual part, though; that would be the writing on the paper. It says, "Do not open or you will be cursed." At first, Mary Anne obeys. She puts the box aside, keeps working, and doesn't say anything to Sharon about what she found. Then, she finally gives in and unwraps the package. Inside, she finds a beautifully carved box, but doesn't open it. She finally shows it to Sharon, who doesn't recognize it. Mary Anne takes it home with her, to keep it safe until Granny and Pop-Pop get back.

It takes Mary Anne the whole weekend to finally open the carved chest, and when she does, she discovers that it's a music box. It plays "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," and Mary Anne asks Granny about it the next time she calls. Granny denies knowing anything about it, and changes the subject pretty quickly. Mary Anne doesn't think anything of it; she's got other things on her mind. She's noticed some of the workers who are cleaning up the house snooping in places that they shouldn't even need to be. Mary Anne catches Jim the plumber looking through a file cabinet, and when the contractors mention digging in the backyard, Hank and Esther (friends of the Porters) seem awfully interested. Other BSC members notice odd stuff, too, when they're helping with the cleanup. Eddie the contractor was found in the toolshed, looking for something that he should have had on him in the first place (a shovel). Hank and Esther STILL seem really interested in the backyard, and there's also this old man who's been hanging around whom no one seems to know. No one can figure out why everyone is acting so strangely, so Mary Anne decides to show the rest of the BSC the music box. That's when she finds the secret compartment. It contains a note that says, "Dearest L.S., They're playing our song. Think of me whenever you look up at the night sky. I'll be on the other side of the world, thinking of you. And, before long, I'll be back and we can loog at the stars together, forever. H.I.W." The note is interesting enough, but the photo is what really captures Mary Anne's attention. It's actually half of a picture, featuring a young sailor from WWII. The creepy thing? Mary Anne had been having dreams about this guy...and she'd never seem him or that picture before. She thinks that there was a girl in the other half of the picture, but all she can see is a hand, wearing an ID bracelet.

Granny and Pop-Pop's anniversary is happening right after they get back from their cruise, and Sharon has a special present in mind; she wants to put their old letters and things into a scrapbook, and she enlists Mary Anne's help in sorting everything out. With Granny's permission, she reads through some of the letters. Granny had actually grown up in the house next door to the one that she and Pop-Pop currently live in, and she wrote quite a few times to her cousin and best friend, June, about everything that went on with the Bailey family who lived there. They had a daughter, Lydia, who had a boyfriend, Johnny, that her parents didn't approve of. Then, Mr. Bailey (a bank president) was caught stealing from his company. Mary Anne thinks that he must have buried the money in the backyard, which would explain why everyone is so interested in it. She also thinks that the music box was a gift from Johnny to Lydia, and that Johnny was the sailor in her dreams and in the photo. No one can figure out what L.S. and H.I.W. stand for, though, so the BSC decides to concentrate on the stolen money/backyard part of the mystery. They set a trap for Hank, Esther, and the workmen, just to see who's most interested in the case. They (loudly) claim to have found something in the backyard, and all the adults take the bait. Before they can confess that they didn't actually find anything, they catch the mysterious old man digging in the backyard. As it turns out, he's the father of Jim the plumber. Their family had lived in the neighborhood years ago, and he's still interested in what happened to the omney. Since the backyard needs to be dug to replace some pipes, everyone sticks around to see what's found in the process. There was a tree planted right around the time that Mr. Bailey had his money troubles, so they start there. Sure enough, up comes a metal box. Unfortunately, there's no money inside; just some papers that aren't worth anything.

Granny and Pop-Pop come home from their vacation, and are happy to see that their house is almost back to how it was. What they don't know is that Sharon, Richard, and Mary Anne have a surprise party planned for them. Mary Anne asks Sharon's permission to wear a piece of her jewelry to the party, and when she's searching the jewelry box for something, she finds something very interesting: the same ID bracelet that whoever was cut out of the photo in the music box was wearing. There's no name on it; just some stars. Mary Anne asks Sharon about it, and Sharon tells her that Granny gave it to her back in high school. Mary Anne is sure that the bracelet belonged to Johnny and Lydia, just like the music box, and she takes the first chance she can that night to talk to Granny about it alone. That's when Granny makes her confession: the music box and bracelet were hers. She's L.S., which stands for "Little Star," and the guy in the picture was her first love, Frank (she called him "How I Wonder." Both nicknames came from the song that the music box played). He was killed in WWII. Granny also gives Mary Anne the music box. Also, Johnny and Lydia ended up eloping, and lived happily ever after. :)

Subplot: the addition to the Barrett/DeWitt house is finished.

Rating: 3

Thoughts and Things

• Granny never really explained why she lied about the music box in the first place. Was Pop-Pop in the room when she was talking to Mary Anne on the phone about it?
• This wasn't a bad mystery, but I think I liked it a little more the first time I read it. I DO like that Mary Anne was the one to narrate it, rather than having Dawn come back from CA to do it or something.
• I'm kind of glad that Granny had a first love that wasn't Pop-Pop. :)
• I have a shirt that's the exact same color as the one that Mary Anne is wearing on the cover.

#110 Abby the Bad Sport

Summary

Abby has just gotten involved with a Special Olympics Unified Soccer team. The unified teams integrate "athlete" players who have a disability and "partner" players who don't. Abby really thinks she's going to havea good time; she'll get more soccer practice in (always a good thing in her mind), and she gets to work with Coach Wu of SMS softball fame. At the first practice, Abby notices that there are a few really good players on their team, including one of the athlete team members named Erin. When it comes time to scrimmage at the end of the practice, Abby is assigned a defensive position. She's pretty surprised, and not exactly happy, especially when she learns that Erin has been assigned to the offensive position that Abby herself used to play. Abby doesn't intend to let things end there; she's sure Coach Wu made a mistake, and she plans to take her rightful place (as she sees it) back from Erin as soon as possible.

At the next few practices, Abby does her best to show Coach Wu that she should be playing offense. She mentions that she was the leading scorer on her team back on Long Island, but Coach Wu isn't falling for it. Abby starts to question whether or not she's even a good coach, and she also gets more and more jealous of Erin. By the time the first game rolls around, Abby decides to take matters into her own hands. Instead of staying in her proper position on the field, she takes every opportunity to show off and try to score. When the team loses, Abby blames everyone else but herself for the way things turned out. Erin points out that Abby didn't stay in her position, making it easier for the other team to score. Soon, other people are notiocing that neither Abby nor Erin are being good sports or team players. Then, they almost end up fighting, and Coach Wu benches them for two games. Of course, Abby blames Erin for it completely; she STILL thinks she deserves to be the star, and she STILL doesn't see what she's doing wrong. At the end of the second game. Coach Wu relents and puts both girls back in the game, as long as they can work together and act like teammates. The team ends up losing, but Abby is still relieved to be playing again. Afterwards, she's still got a lot of energy to burn off., so she goes for a run in Miller's Park instead of having pizza with the team. She's doing a few laps around the track when who should show up but Erin! They have a sort of impromptu race, which ends in a tie. Abby apologizes for being a jerk (finally!) and things are a little friendlier.

In other news, Mrs. Stevenson wants to take the girls to see their grandparents in New York and pay a visit to their father's grave in honor of his birthday. Abby doesn't want to dredge up memories of his death, so she begs off the visit by claiming that she can't let her soccer team down. Also, a bunch of BSC charges and the other sitters form a Booster Club to help out Abby's team.

Rating: 1

Thoughts and Things

• Even thought I basically hate this book, I like how they wrote the disabled characters. There really wasn't much of a fuss made over which players were and which weren't, and Erin wasn't made out to be some sort of saint who was being wronged by big, bad Abby. She was just a big a jerk as Abby was at times. :)
• I don't get why Kristy took Abby's unsportsmanlike conduct so personally. They actually fought over it!
• As much as I've come to like Abby, I didn't like her in this book. She was so conceited it was ridiculous.

SS#14 BSC in the USA

Mr. Schafer's friend, Mr. Choi, is an art dealer in New York. He's moving to L.A., though, and needs to have his huge RV moved there, too. Since he doesn't have time to drive it himself, he asks good old Jack to do it for him. Jack heads to Stoneybrook to pick up Dawn and Jeff, so he can drive them back to CA instead of them taking a plane later. When Watson gets wind of what the Schafers are doing, he decides it's a pretty good idea and rents his own RV. He also invites the BSC to go along. Not to be outdone, Jack also invites any of Dawn's friends to go along. In the Brewer RV are Watson, Elizabeth, David Michael, Karen, Andrew, Abby, Jessi, and Mallory. They'll be heading across the southern part of the country. That leaves Jack, Dawn, Jeff, Mary Anne, Kristy, Claudia, and Stacey in the Schafer RV; they'll be going north. Here's what happens along the way:

Jessi gets to visit Oakley, NJ right off the bat, and spends most of the visit thinking Mallory is racist because she seems uncomfortable when visiting the Ramsey grandparents. Jessi's grandma points out that Mallory seems tense because she wants to make a good impression. Later, Jessi visits Dalton, Mississippi, where her ancestors were supposedly slaves. It's an eye opening experience for her, and she even meets a woman who might be a distant relative.

Mallory wants to visit Chincoteague and Assateague Islands to see the ponies that Marguerite Henry descirbed in her books. She's a little sad at how touristy everything is, but actually seeing the wild ponies kind of makes up for it. She and everyone else in the RV also spend the entire trip dodging and annoying know-it-all named Liz Hoyer.

Claudia gets to visit the Art Institute in Chicago. She also pisses off Stacey by accidentally picking up her private journal, and buys a Georgia O'Keeffe sketch near the Wall Drug Store in South Dakota.

Abby the Elvis fan chooses Memphis/Graceland. That part of the trip is fun, but she not too excited to learn that Elizabeth's place of choice is the Grand Canyon. Abby's dad loved the Grand Canyon, and the family had been planning a trip there just before he died. Abby doesn't particularly want to be reminded of that, so she's not looking forward to being there. It turns out to be a really nice experience for her, and makes her feel a little closer to her dad.

Mary Anne chooses to visit Maynard, Iowa, so she can see her grandmother again. Verna won't let them drive all the way to Iowa, and meets them at the Mall of America in Bloomington, MN instead.

Jeff wants to go rock climbing, so he chooses Yellowstone National Park. When he finds out that there IS no rock climbing in Yellowstone, he talks his dad into going to Grand Tetons National Park instead.

Dawn wants to visit a ghost town, but they still haven't come across one by the time they get to Idaho. Then, she sees a brochure for a place called Buzzard Gulch which looks like exactly what she's been wanting. It turns out to be a cheesy theme park, and Dawn is embarrased at first. Everyone has a really good time, though. I would, too. :)

Karen wants to go to Four Corners so she can stand in four states at once and wave to Stoneybrook.

Stacey chooses Seattle because she's awesome. :) Just kidding; Ethan is staying there and she wants to see him again. She's a little nervous, since the only time they were together was her visit to New York when she was in the process of breaking up with Robert. Things go very well, and they kiss at the top of the Space Needle.

Kristy wants to visit as many Major League ballparks as possible. She hits quite a few of them along the way, and drags everyone else to a bunch of games. At a Giants game in San Francisco, Kristy spots her dad on the big screen during the seventh inning stretch. She's not sure she wants to see him, but her friends talk her into it. They have an awkward chat, and just as Patrick is about to introduce the girls to the women he's with, Kristy bails.

The Schafer RV runs out of gas in the Badlands, and the Brewer RV gets rear-ended, gets stuck in a tornado in Oklahoma, and makes a side trip to visit Zuni country, but everyone makes it to Palo city safe and sound.

Rating: 4

Thoughts and Things

• How in the world did Watson get his RV home? Was he able to pick it up back East and drop it at another office of the same company in CA? Also, did he pay everyone's airfare home from CA?
• I'm a Seattle native, and I can tell that Peter Lerangis has never been here. There's absolutely NO WAY that Jack Schafer would have been able to park an RV big enough for all those people on the streets of downtown near Westlake Mall. I'm not even sure that would be legal! Also, that awkward kiss picture on page 184; if they're still on top of the Space Needle, there should be a much higher fence than the one drawn. It's there to keep people from jumping off. At least, I THINK there's still a higher fence there. It's been awhile since I've seen pictures, and believe it or not, I've never actually been to the top. :)
• Andrew Brewer is eager to see a baby panda that's supposed to be born at the San Diego Zoo right when they arrive. I don't know how that zoo operates, but generally, baby animals aren't put on display right away.
• The Abby/Grand Canyon stuff is actually very touching. That combined with Stacey's WWII plot from the next Super Special makes me forgive Lerangis for describing what Bart Taylor tastes like when he's being kissed. :)
• Look at the picture on pages 22-23. Why in the world is Karen so tall? David Michael is tiny compared to her, and I thought he was supposed to be a little older. Also, why is Dawn drawn with shoulder-length hair through the whole book? There was definitely no mention made of her getting a haircut.
• I heard not too long ago that Four Corners isn't technically in the traditional place that everyone thought it was. I wonder what Karen would have thought of that?