Beware, Baby-sitters!

This book, Super Mystery #2, Baby-sitters Beware, has to be the most batshit crazy BSC book I've ever read.  It's also very convoluted. Now, I still have the other two Super Mysteries to read and at the time of writing this, I've only read the first twenty mysteries, so perhaps there is another BSC book that's even more batshit insane than this one, but I don't think so! This book has it all: arson, theft, stalking, breaking and entering, creepy notes, nearly missed hit and runs, attempted murder. You know, just another day in Stoneybrook! While this book is set mostly in the 'Brook, we also see Shadow Lake again, so that was a nice callback.

I would like to politely warn you that if you've never read this book, I will be spoiling major details. Although, if you've never read this book, I'm not sure why you would be reading this! But just be warned that spoilers will be aplenty in this review! In fact, I'll be getting to a big one pretty soon so now is your last chance to bow out if you don't want to be spoiled by anything. 

Right away, in the prologue, Kristy tells us the BSC started keeping a mystery notebook when they were in the middle of this particular case. It would be a notebook where they would write notes about certain cases they've cracked. This confused me greatly because I was under the assumption that they've had a mystery notebook since Stacey and the Missing Ring, their first official mystery! There is a moment in the book when Kristy gets the idea for the mystery notebook and I'll talk about that later. She mentions that she wished she had thought of having it sooner because the BSC have solved soooo many mysteries and the first one she brings up is when Dawn found out there was a dog-napping ring in Stoneybrook. Gee, that can't be a coincidence that was brought up first. Other cases she mentions include when they worked at the mall and stopped shoplifters and when Claudia discovered a clue in a photograph that helped solve a mystery. 

This book takes place sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas, so probably early to mid December? In the scheme of the books, it takes place not long after Abby has joined the BSC and Dawn has moved to California permanently. Kristy and her family are going to Shadow Lake for two weeks. You might remember Shadow Lake from Baby-Sitters at Shadow Lake, Super Special #8. It's located in Western Massachusetts and Watson inherited a huge-ass cabin there. I'm confused why they're going up there now. Shouldn't they be going DURING the Christmas holiday? Unless, all the schools in Stoneybrook just randomly give their students two weeks off in the middle of December (plus they get the week of Christmas off) just for the hell of it. It honestly wouldn't surprise me. Kristy feels left out because Sam and Charlie have each other to hang out with and all the younger kids play with each other. Her mom and Watson let her invite a "few friends." I'm sorry, but this is some bs right here. I can understand them letting her invite one friend so she has one peer to hang out with, but a "few friends"? No. Also, I'm surprised David Michael and Karen didn't put up a fuss about not being able to invite their friends. 

The "few friends" Kristy ends up inviting include Claudia, Stacey, and Abby. This is Abby's first Super Mystery as she wasn't in the first one, Baby-sitters' Haunted House. Come to think of it, Stacey wasn't in that one either, so this is her first Super Mystery too! When Kristy asks her friends who wants to go, Mallory is the first to decline. She has to baby-sit her siblings while her parents add more insulation to their house. Once again, Mallory tantalizes us with a thrilling storyline! It sounds like even if she were free, she wouldn't want to go. We all remember her time at Shadow Lake with the mosquitoes trying to eat her alive. Jessi can't go because she's helping Mal baby-sit and Mary Anne and Shannon (this is around the time Shannon has replaced Dawn and has been coming to meetings regularly) can't go because they have school assignments due. Later on, Mallory will find out that bugs don't really bother people at Shadow Lake during winter, so now she's pouting she can't go. Which is pretty funny. And oh-so-typical Mallory. 

It will be awhile before they head to Shadow Lake. We first need to set up a few things in Stoneybrook! One of these is when Kristy and Abby are walking over to Claudia's house for a BSC meeting (after some sports meeting at school) when they hear the sound of glass breaking. They are near the Rodowskys' residence, so they assume Jackie hit a ball thought a window. (Poor Jackie; always getting the blame). Nobody is around when they get there and Abby tells us, "One of the side windows in the Rodowsky's neighbor's house blasted to bits." When they reach the front of the house, Abby notices an old white Ford Escort "chugging up the street" and a short man wearing a ski mask with a duffel bag comes out of the front door. He sees Abby and Kristy before jumping into the car. Abby mentions him seeming to "photograph" them, which "gave her the creeps." Yeah, no kidding!

A couple of things: obviously, they're witnessing a robbery (and we'll learn more about it later), but my question is: why are the burglars (well, I guess there's only one burglar and one getaway driver) doing it in the middle of the afternoon? And I get why he's wearing a ski mask, but maybe that makes him even more conspicuous if he's wearing a ski mask in the middle of the afternoon? IDK. Obviously, they're going to be suspects in this mystery. 

Abby looks at the car's license plate, but notices it's conveniently covered in mud and thinks that was done on purpose. No shit, Abby. Kristy knocks on the Rodowskys' door and Mrs. R. answers. At first I was confused because she seemed not to know Abby that well. But then I did some research and found out that this book came out two books after she was introduced into the series, so that would explain it. Kristy tells the adult what they just saw and Mrs. R. calls the police. I'm shocked that they actually told an adult, but don't worry, they'll soon go back to their ways of NOT telling an adult when something serious is going on. 

The police arrive and take their statements. Abby comments that Kristy already knows Sergeant Johnson and that he helped Claudia solve a bank robbery. Heh, I bet Sergeant Johnson remembers Kristy quite well. I read Claudia and the Clue in the Photograph not that long ago and once they figure out who the culprit is, Kristy demands that they all (meaning the BSC) be in the interrogation room when the suspect is arrested after they confess. WTF? Like a bunch of thirteen-year-olds (and two eleven year-olds) are going to be allowed in an interrogation room! Give me a break! But yet, they are. 

Mr. Seger is the name of the neighbor whose home was broken into. Mrs. R. doesn't know him very well and tells the officer that he usually keeps to himself. 

Remember, before all this happened, they were on their way to a club meeting and Kristy is worried about being late to it (even though she called Claudia). I guess since Kristy is always harping on other club members if they're, like, ten seconds late, she needs to set a good example too. Abby makes a pretty good joke about how they should've gotten Sergeant Johnson to write a note for them. Krsity may not have laughed, but I sure did, Abby! 

At the meeting, they tell everyone what happened, and, surprise, surprise, Kristy mentions she doesn't think she's going to tell anyone (meaning adults) because she doesn't want to worry/upset Waston who recently had his heart attack. Okay, well, what about your mom, Kristy? Or your grandma? Not to mention that more shit is about to go down. I can kind of understand why she doesn't say anything now, but later? It's insane she doesn't mention anything to an adult she lives with. 

They discuss their upcoming Shadow Lake trip and Abby mentions she's "the best" at skiing and how she used to ski at Lake Placid a lot. Are they making Abby into even more of an athlete than Kristy? This seems to be the start of a skiing rivalry between Abby and Claudia. As you remember, we know Claud is a great skier from Winter Vacation and until now, that's pretty much the only time that is brought up. 

We're soon going to get another mysterious plot line, and, in my opinion, this is the dumbest storyline in the book. There are many reasons why it's dumb and we'll discuss them all in due time. Mary Anne finds a note in her locker that says "STOP CRYING". She tells us it looks written "in what looked like Logan's handwriting." Mary Anne tells Kristy that she doesn't remember crying about anything "lately" which gave me a good chuckle because we all know Mary Anne cries over the dumbest shit sometimes. (Didn't she cry over Buddy Barrett giving that goat a bottle of milk?) Does Mary Anne ever confront her own boyfriend and ask him if he wrote those notes? No, she does not. This "mystery" could have been solved a lot sooner if she had just spoken to him. (Spoiler alert: Logan did NOT send her that note or the subsequent ones she will receive). 

 

That night, Mary Anne receives a call from Kristy who tells her there's someone at her (Kristy's) house and she has called the police. During the call, she realizes that someone broke the front window and Shannon (the dog, not the associate member!) is going towards it, so she hangs up the phone to get her. Why did she hang up the phone? Couldn't she just have put the receiver down? But I guess if she didn't hang up the phone, then Mary Anne wouldn't be able call the police, which is what she does. They tell her someone is already there, which makes sense since Kristy said she already called the police herself. Kristy calls Mary Anne back to tell her that someone threw a rock through her window and spray painted the front door with "You're Next".  I'm a little confused if Kristy was alone when this happened. Mary Anne tells us it was nine in the evening when she called. I'm guessing if there were any adults in the house, Kristy would have told them (but then again, this is the BSC we're talking about!). But I was confused if she was baby-sitting and if not, why was she the only one in the house? At least Watson and Elizabeth find out about it because Kristy tells everyone at the next meeting that the police had asked them if they had any enemies. 

Back at Mary Anne's house, after she hangs up the phone, she looks out the window and sees a figure "standing in the shadow of the trees", then realizes the figure can see her in her lit room (duh, Mary Anne) and quickly closes the curtain and turns out the light. She looks out the window again, but doesn't see anything. She decides not to tell her dad or Sharon about it, surprise, surprise. That would be super freaky to see someone outside your window in your yard. I would definitely not be able to sleep. I honestly don't know what I would do. I wonder if Mary Anne was just seeing things. It would make sense because she's already scared about what happened at Kristy's house, that she just imaged someone in the shadow outside.  

The next day, Mary Anne is at the mall with Stacey and Claudia who are helping her look for an outfit for her to wear on a dinner date with Logan. She's told her friends about the note she received and they ask about it: 

Stacey said, "So what did Logan say about the note he sent you?"

"He didn't say anything. I don't think he sent it." I'd told everyone in the BSC about the note I'd found in my locker. Everyone except Logan, that is. For some reason, I was waiting for him to say something.

Okay, did she tell her friends that she thought Logan sent the note or do they (or at least Stacey) assumed he sent it? Also, if Mary Anne believes that he didn't send it, how would he know about it? She's going to be waiting a long time for him to say something about something he doesn't even know about! Unless she thinks one of the other club members (like Kristy) said something to him about it? But she does go on to say that the fact that he doesn't say anything must proven that he didn't send it. Okay, but even if he did send the note, I highly doubt he's going to admit it or ask her about it. Maybe if she just asked him about it in the first place, they could have saved us a lot of time over this stupid subplot!

Claudia offers to lend a pair of earrings to Mary Anne for her date. Uh, did the ghost writers forget that she doesn't have pierced ears? Or did she get her ears pierced sometime during the series and I just forgot? 

The three of them end up at Claudia's house and Mary Anne and Stacey are helping her set the table for dinner when they smell something burning and they see a fire outside the kitchen window. Two trash cans had been set near the kitchen door (I guess they aren't usually in that spot) and according to the firefighters who were called, rags soaked in gasoline had been put in the bins. 

At the next BSC meeting, the girls decide that Mary Anne's note, the rock thrown through the window at Kristy's house and the message painted on her front door, and the fire right outside Claudia's kitchen are all connected. When I first read that, my first thought was, Ya think? But (spoiler alert!) they all aren't related. They think Cokie Mason and Cary Retlin could be possible suspects and if they are, why are they going to all that trouble? I know they hate the BSC, but that seems like a lot of time and effort to do all that. At least, I know Cokie Mason hates the BSC, but I have to admit I don't know much about Cary Retlin. When are we even introduced to him in the regular series because I don't remember him at all. I'm familiar with the name, but I honestly don't remember how he was introduced in the series. Is he just another Alan Gray type? Anyway, it doesn't really matter because (spoiler alert) neither Cokie or Cary (or Alan for that matter) make an appearance in this book.

The phone rings and when Claudia answers it, nobody replies. She says "Hello" again and a voice whispers, "You're next" and hangs up. Ugh. That's some pretty creepy shit. Also, what do they mean by her being next? Did the person not realize they were talking to Claudia and she already had a fire right outside her house? Like, what did they mean by her being "next"? I'm a little confused. Still creepy AF, though.  

Other members start getting similar calls, only nobody says anything on the other end. Kristy mentions:

The BSC was getting swamped with crank calls. Not heavy breathing calls. Just frightening, horrible silences. The silences of someone listening on the other end of the phone, and enjoying the panic in your voice as you say "Hello? Hello? Hello? WHO'S THERE?" before slamming the phone down, good and hard.

I would argue that phone calls with "heavy breathing" are more creepy than just silence. Kristy comes up with an idea that if they call each other, they should ring once, hang up, then call again. Kristy tells us the calls only seem to come when she's alone or the oldest one in the house. (How would the caller even know if that was the case? Were they physically outside her house watching if the adults or older teens left? That's just creepy and pathetic.) The only members who haven't received these phone calls are Abby, Mal, and Jessi. Oh, and Dawn, but I don't know if she should count since she's in California. Oh, and if we're being technical, Shannon and Logan haven't received any creepy phone calls either. 

Kristy also mentions the phantom phone calls, saying that those weren't as creepy as these. I think she's saying this in hindsight since she now knows who was on the other end of those calls. Also, she makes this weird comment how "Claudia in particular" had dealt with hose calls. Uh, hello? Did Nola Thacker (our guest ghost writer) not read Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls? True, we're getting most of the narration from Claudia (well, duh), but she and Kristy are the ones receiving the calls! Hell, I would bet Kristy probably received more calls than Claudia since she was dealing with Alan Gray. 

The burglary Abby and Kristy saw hasn't been reported in the paper. Kristy calls Sergeant Johnson to ask why and he tells her because there hasn't been a complaint. He tells her he talked to Mr. Seger (remember, he's the owner of the house that was robbed) who told him that the window was broken the previous night because he was pruning and a large branch of the tree broke the window.  Kristy thinks this is odd because "no one prunes trees this time of year." (She mentions  that Watson and Nannie love to garden). This reminded me of Legally Blonde when Elle Woods figures out that woman was lying about being in the shower and didn't hear anything, but she had just had her hair permed and Elle knows you're not supposed to get your hair wet after you get a perm. Abby thinks Mr. Seger is hiding something since he lied about the broken glass. You know what, Abby? I think so too. 

Kristy gets the idea for them to keep a separate mystery notebook. Like I mentioned earlier, when I read this, I was so confused. I thought they've always had a separate one since they started solving mysteries. By the time this book came out, the first 22 mysteries had already been out. They didn't have their own mystery notebook by then? What the hell have they been doing? 

There's a small moment when Abby calls Kristy "Agatha" as in "Agatha Christie." Very clever, Abby. 

Kristy, Claudia, Abby and Shannon go to the library to look up Mr. Seger in the Stoneybrook Who's Who. I guess this book gives information about every resident of Stoneybook? It seems more like a convenient plot point more than anything as they find out that Mr. Seger is a member of the Stoneybrook Business Bureau, he has a son named Noah who's in high school, and his wife is deceased. Now I'm curious to know how old Mr. Seger is if he has a son in high school. I was thinking he was more of a senior citizen age. 

Abby goes to make copies of the page and when she comes back, she's also brought back a photographed copy of Kristy, Claudia, Mary Anne, Stacey, and Dawn in a group picture. She tells them she found it in the trash because she wanted to see what other people were making copies of and found this under some papers. Now is this a thing where people sift through the trash at a library to see what people are making copies of? I mean, I get that they do this because they need it for the sake of the plot. Somebody needs to find this photocopied picture of them. Kristy recognizes it as the photo that was taken of them when they solved the dog-napping case. Mallory and Jessi were at either end and both got cropped out and were "majorly annoyed." Ha! I remember them getting their photo in that book, but I don't remember the part about the junior officers getting cropped. Of course Mallory would be cropped out of a photo printed in the paper! They figure this is how their creep got their names, from that article. 

Meanwhile, Mallory is baby-sitting at the Rodowskys' when she notices "a short kid" at the side door of the Segers'. She watches as he takes out a key and opens the door. Now, remember, she doesn't know that Mr. Seger has a son as that's what her friends are finding out at that moment, but she does wonder if Mr. Seger has one. It sure would be handy for them to have smartphones so they could just text their friends what they discovered at the library. 

After Mal's job is over, Abby comes over and tells her to she's going to stakeout the place now. While they're both there, Mr. Seger's car pulls into the driveway and after he goes inside, Abby gets closer to the car to see what the two bumper stickers on it says. And what do you know; they are Stoneybrook Business Bureau stickers, one from last year and one from this year.  

These girls continue keeping watch of the Seger house except for at night. Abby and Kristy even wake up super early to jog around the block the Seger house is on, then go back to get ready for school. Good God, what time are they getting up? Also, who is watching the house when they're all at school? They must have told Mallory about Noah because later on in the same Mallory-narrated chapter, she's talking about "additional sightings of Noah and Mr. Seger", so I guess they must have told her off-page. She notices that Noah looks "glum" and Mr. Seger looks "tense". 

Mallory, Jessi, Mary Anne, and Kristy visit the Stoneybrook Business Bureau which is an old house that has been turned into a business. Sounds absolutely fascinating. Kristy tells the receptionist that she's working on a school report about small businesses in Stoneybrook and wants to interview some members of the bureau. The receptionist gives Kristy a list of their members' businesses and the girls are about to leave when the receptionist tells them he gave her last year's list and gives her the current up to date one. Kristy asks if she can have both. Gee, I bet this will come back.

They find out that Mr. Seger's business is called "Seger Associates". I was wondering what his business was, but it honestly doesn't matter.  Claudia thinks he's an embezzler and that's why he didn't report the robbery because he didn't want the police questioning him. He can't report if his money is stolen if he's the one who stole it first. This is not the case and I'm honestly surprised that Claudia knows the definition of "embezzler"!  She probably learned it from a Nancy Drew book. 

A couple of days go by where they don't receive any creepy phone calls, but then Stacey and Claudia both receive one where the voice tells them "You're next." Next for what, I'm not sure. 

Mary Anne also gets another note in her locker. This one says "Why Do You Do The Things You Do?"  This one obviously isn't Logan's handwriting since all the letters aren't in all caps. I'm also confused because earlier, Mary Anne had told us she didn't think it was Logan, but now she thinks it could be him. When she calls Stacey to tell her about the note, she says: 

What things? What is it I'm doing? Why doesn't Logan just tell me? If it is Logan, I mean." 

Stacey had thought Mary Anne wanted to tell her something worse because when she called her, Mary Anne seemed very somber. When Stacey tells her this (big mistake, Stacey!), Mary Anne huffily replies:

"Worse? What could be worse than your boyfriend sending you weird notes? And you know what? I think he's starting to act weird, too. I mean, if he has a problem with what I'm doing...Of course, it just looks like his handwriting. I mean, it probably isn't Logan. It's probably a bad joke. An extremely bad joke." 

Okay, which is it, Mary Anne? Is Logan sending you these notes or not? And if he is, why is he doing it? Why don't you effing ask him? Ugh, this plot line is SO stupid. 

In a Stacey-narrated chapter, we get a segment of something that happens to Mary Anne. Tigger comes in from the cat door with a note attached to his collar that says "You're Next." Now, if this wasn't from the G-rated, kid-friendly BSC series, I would be VERY VERY VERY worried that something MUCH MUCH MUCH more sinister would have happened to Tigger. Also, you would think that since all these creepy things have been happening to them lately, Mary Anne would try to keep Tigger indoors. I bet you she kept him indoors after THAT incident. Also I'm not sure why this is part of a Stacey chapter. It's not like Stacey was there when Mary Anne found the note attached to Tigger's collar; we're just hearing it offhand. This book is very oddly structured. 

But we do get something that happens to Stacey in the same chapter that's narrated by her: she is almost run over by a red Mercedes as she's walking to a BSC meeting. As she steps off the curb to walk across the street, a car seemingly comes out of nowhere and picks up speed as it heads towards her. Yeah, that would be utterly terrifying! The drivers slams on the breaks and swerves around her at the last minute, speeding away. While she isn't able to read the license plate, she does notice it has a Stoneybrook Business Bureau bumper sticker. Ahh! The plot thickens! 

Of course, at the meeting, Stacey tells the other what had just happened to her and this made me laugh:

"Now who do we know who owns a red Mercedes?" (Claudia)

Silence fell. Then Mary Anne said, "That's easy - no one."

Finally, it's time to go to Shadow Lake! At least for Kristy, Abby, Stacey, and Claudia. Kristy and her family are all bringing their own skis with them. I know they're rich, but do they ski that often to take their own skis on skiing vacations? Why not just rent them? It would save them a lot of room in the car. Although, having grown up skiing in Colorado nearly every winter, I know what a pain in the ass it is to rent skiing equipment, so I can't really blame them. Also, they all may have skis, but do they have the ski boots too? You're just going to have to rent those anyway. 

At first I thought they were going to Shadow Lake super early in the morning when it was still dark out because they talk about Andrew being sleepy and it's dark outside, but no. When they get there, Abby mentions that "it wasn't late", but she feels tired and notices everyone else is too and Kristy suggests they go to bed so they can get an early start tomorrow. What time did they leave and what time is it now? Why did they leave so late? I went to Google maps to see if I could estimate the time between Stoneybrook and Shadow Lake. I used Stamford as my starting point and, just out of curiosity, I typed in Shadow Lake, MA in the search bar, and what do you know? There is a Shadow Lake in Massachusetts. Granted, it's pretty small and I doubt it's the Shadow Lake in the BSC series. This Shadow Lake is in a town called Gill and I guess it's close enough to western Mass (it's definitely not on the coast). The shortest distance from Stamford to Gill is two and a half hours. So it's not far by any means so maybe they didn't think they needed to go super early, which, okay, fine, but why are they getting there so late? I was thinking they got there around eight or nine o'clock, but is it possible that they got there at six and they're going to bed already? I am so confused! 

So they go to bed and the next day there's not enough snow for skiing so they decide to go to the lodge to check out information on walking trails. Hmmm. I wonder why they never did this when they went there in the summer? Anyway, while they're there, they meet a college-aged guy named Woodie Keenan. There's also a man with a patch over one eye and "a sinister expression" (according to Abby) named Mr. Federman who is getting impatient waiting for help. 

As they're exiting the lodge, Abby runs into a red-haired woman named Kris Renn who drops her bag. Abby goes to pick it up, but Kris snatches it right up. Hmmm, what's in the bag? She keeps looking over her shoulder and goes to the front desk to ask for her key. She tells them her name and that she's from Maine, but seems to be making up the info on the spot. Something fishy is going on here. We haven't been in Shadow Lake for too long and already we have two peculiar characters in a short amount of time. I wonder how they will affect the story? I first read this book about a year-year and a half ago and I remembered Kris's role, but I did NOT remember who Mr. Federman is or how he connects to the story. (Spoiler alert: because he does not connect to the story AT ALL; he is just another red herring.)

Meanwhile, back in Stoneybrook, Jessi goes over to the Pikes because she and Mal are supposed to baby-sit. When she arrives, the triplets answer the door and tell her Mal is in her room and she had told them to "keep an eye on things." I rolled my eyes so hard when Jessi internally thinks that Mal isn't doing her job because having her three ten-year-old triplets brothers "keep an eye on things" isn't the same as baby-sitting. Okay, I would expect this from Kristy (and I would still be rolling my eyes), but Jessi? STFU, Jessi. Seriously, why does Mal need to baby-sit her siblings 24/7?  I know the reason she went to boarding school later on in the series is because she was having a tough time at school, but honestly, she could have gone because she was tired of putting up with her parents' bullshit. 

They decide they're going to invite Becca over and take the kids and do some "detective work" to try to find a man with a blue tattoo on his face.

Now would be a good time to backtrack and talk about how the mystery notebook came to be. I bring this up now because at an earlier meeting, Jessi had told the other members that Becca had seen a man with a blue tattoo tattoo on his face around Stoneybrook and they think this might be their culprit because the guy who was making the counterfeit money in Stacey and the Mystery Money had a blue tattoo, although they can't remember where. (But wouldn't you remember if the tattoo was on someone's face?) For some reason, they think this random guy might be the their culprit. They sure are discriminating against people with tattoos! 

Mary Anne says the info is in their club notebook and I'm thinking, how big is this notebook? They have all their baby-sitting jobs written down, PLUS their mysteries. I mentioned earlier that this book came out not long after Abby was introduced to the BSC; it came out the same month and year as Mallory's Christmas Wish, BSC book #92 and Stacey and the Haunted Masquerade, Mystery #22 was the mystery that was right before that, so that's 114 books where they're using the club notebook to write up their baby-sitting job AND mystery notes; not to mention the twelve Super Specials and one Super Mystery that come before this book, so that brings the total up to 127 books! Do you think they use spiral notebooks and just buy more when they've used all the pages or do they have one of those three ring binders and they just add more loose-leaf paper when they need to? Inquiring minds want to know!

Anyway...I went off on a little tangent there. We do get this explanation of the notebook from Kristy:

I looked at the notebook. It was pretty thick. In fact, it looked like the notes from a thousand classes at school. It was easy enough to look up past sitting jobs: all we had to do was check out the date in Mary Anne's appointment book and then look up that date in the notebook, since all the entries have dates at the top. But there was no way of looking up specific things, no index, no table of contents. 

Then she thinks it's too bad they never kept a mystery notebook, then realizes what a great idea that would be, and, voila!, the mystery notebook was born. That's crazy because I just always assumed there a mystery notebook from the beginning! Mallory volunteers to write the cases from the old notebook into the new one. Of course she does. Sometime I love what a complete nerd Mallory is. Actually, that's some nerd thing I would probably volunteer to do too! 

Anyway, back to the sitting job at the Pikes. They're walking through downtown Stoneybrook trying to look for a man with a blue tattoo on his face. Stoneybrook must be a really small town if they think they're going to randomly run into this guy...and they do when they stop for lunch at Pizza Express. Becca points him out to Jessi. He's an employee there and he's making a salad. They hear him say "Nothing like a good fresh salad, is there Pete?" which made me crack up. They don't hear Pete's reply, but they do hear the man with the blue tattoo say, "The secret is, you make it fresh from scratch every day." Well, good God, I hope they're making their salads fresh every day. I hope that's not too much to ask from Pizza Express! 

They're all so preoccupied staring at the guy with the blue tattoo that when another guy asks them for their order, Mallory tells him they want a blue pizza. Oh, Mallory! The guy tells them they don't have blue pizza (no shit) and gives them a few more minutes to decide. Mallory and Jessi deduce that the guy making the salad isn't the same guy as the counterfeiter because that guy had his tattoo on his earlobe and this guy has it on his cheek. And that's the end of that. Just a really stupid red herring. Or should I say blue herring? Har, har, har. 

It snows a lot in Stoneybrook AND Shadow Lake, so the girls at the cabin are ready to ski. While they're at the ski rental place (for Stacey because everyone else has their own equipment - man, those cars must have been stuffed with the ski equipment of TEN people), they put their stuff on a bench and Kristy notices Mr. Federman bending over the bench and Kristy hears him say:

"I could kill them all," he said as clearly as if no one at all was standing around listening. "They'd deserve it. No jury in the world would convict me..."

 Kristy and the others wonder if he's talking about them or someone else. Abby doesn't think he's talking about them since they've never seen him until they got there. Kristy wonders if they know him from somewhere else. Guess what? They don't. Because this guy will not show up again. And we will NEVER know what the hell he is talking about! This should have been the next BSC mystery! 

They all separate when they go skiing, which is kind of weird. I realize they're all different skiing levels, but wouldn't they want to have fun and ski together. Even though this is a Kristy chapter, we're getting the POVs of the other girls but I guess they have to do it this way since they're not all together. The chairlift that Stacey's riding in suddenly stops and she realizes she's the only one on the lift. That seems a little far-fetched. Is Shadow Lake just not a place where people like to ski? We'll later find out that a winter hat had been jammed into the mechanics of the ski lift and that's why it stopped working. 

Kristy is skiing by herself and she's halfway down the trail when a snowblower comes on, blinding her. She ends up hitting a mogul and being buried under snow. Better than hitting a tree, I suppose! 

Claudia and Abby, the "expert skiers" are skiing together and Claudia is being rude to Abby. She accuses Abby of following her and tells her she's surprised she didn't try to drag Stacey up to this trail to try to turn her into an expert skier. This is so weird that Kristy is narrating this chapter because she's not even there, yet she seems to know that Claudia looks a little ashamed, but still gives Abby the cold shoulder by not waiting for her when they get off the ski lift and just skiing off without her. Abby realizes that Claud is headed towards a double black diamond trail. It's been a long, long time since I last skied, but I remember that green trails are easy (my favorite to ski!), blue trails are moderate, and black trails are the most difficult. I came across a few trails with moguls (probably blue) and I absolutely hated them! Here, Abby mentions a "double black diamond" and I had to look that up because I didn't realize there was something above just a black diamond. Not surprisingly, it's characterized as "expert". Well, thank God Claudia and Abby are super-experienced expert skiers. :::rolls eyes::::

Abby sees that Claud's headed for a trail that's closed for some reason. I guess it's marked on the map, but not on the actual mountain. Later, we'll find out it was marked on the mountain, but the sign was half buried under the snow. It was closed because half the trail had collapsed into the ravine. Abby was able to grab Claud from behind and stop her from going any further. That's when someone on the ski staff saw them and found that the sign was buried under the snow about ten feet from the trail head, so it sounds like someone deliberately took the sign out and buried it under snow.  

They return to their cabin to find the door is wide open. Kristy assumes Mitch, the caretaker, came to deliver wood and didn't latch the door properly when he left and the wind whipped it open. Nothing seems to have been disturbed or taken. But when Watson comes home he tells Kristy they have plenty of firewood and there's no reason for Mitch to bring any. He's going to go see Mitch to see what's going on. Uh, did anyone check to see if any more firewood was brought to them? Like, do they have more than before?

There's a little subplot where Kristy is worried about Watson's health because this takes place shortly after he has his heart attack. He realizes that she's worried that he's overexerting himself, but he tells her the doctor told him he should start exercising and if something did happen, there's a doctor at Shadow Lake. We get this sweet narration from Kristy:

You know what? I didn't want Watson disappearing the way my father had. I wanted Watson around for a long, long time. Like forever.

While Kristy, Abby, Claudia, and Stacey are having their day of hell on the slopes, Mary Anne is baby-sitting for the Rodowskys and she sees a car at the Segers' that looks like the car that Abby and Kristy saw the burglar get into. Getting out of that car, she sees Noah and "a very short person" and remembers that Kristy and Abby had described the burglar as being short. Instead of using the door to enter the house, they get in by prying open a window. Why is Noah breaking into his own house? Doesn't he live there? Mary Anne calls the police (this is the second time in a week she's called the police!) and she also calls Logan. From her perspective, he doesn't sound too happy to hear her, but he tells her he's coming over after she tells him what's going on. 

The police not only happen to arrive at the same time as Logan gets there, not only at the same time as the Rodowsky parents get home, but also at the same time that Mr. Seger just so happens to pull up to his house. Man, the residents of Stoneybrook have impeccable timing! The two boys are caught coming out of the house carrying a TV and Noah says it's just a joke, that how can he rob his own house? Duh, dumbass, you can rob your own house if the stuff you're taking doesn't belong to you! He tells them that he was taking the TV to sell because he "owes money, lots of money." Wonder if he got caught up in a gambling ring? The officer tells them that they can go down to the station and figure things out. Seeing that Mr. Seger told his son that he should have come to him for help if he needed money, I doubt he's going to press charges. He also tells his son that he suspected him so I guess that's why he lied about the broken glass; he didn't want his son to get in trouble. 

Before Noah and James (that's the name of his friend) are taken down to the police station with for a little "chat", Mary Anne asks Noah if he and James have been the ones bothering her and her friends. This seems like a very un-Mary Anne thing to do. Kristy, I can totally see asking him this, but not the shy Mary Anne. Noah tells her, "I wouldn't pick on a bunch of kids." So the Segers have nothing to do with the notes/calls they've been receiving. It was all just a red herring to throw us off the track! 

The next day, Sunday, they have a meeting at Shannon's house to discuss the mystery. Obviously, Kristy, Stacey, Claudia, and Abby aren't there since they're at Shadow Lake. What is it with Sunday meetings in the Super Mysteries? Mal and Jess had a Sunday meeting in the first Super Mystery. Also, why are they meeting at Shannon's house of all places? Wouldn't it make more sense to meet at anyone else's house since Shannon lives so far away from all of them? 

This chapter is narrated by Logan and we get a Plot Twist! We find out that he's been receiving messages of his own in Mary Anne's "loopy" (good description) handwriting. One of them reads "DON'T YOU DARE" and the other, "LIES AREN'T THE TRUTH." Why are these written in all capital letter? Wouldn't Logan know that Mary Anne doesn't write in all caps? Or is this for the reader's benefit? So, as you can imagine, it's pretty awkward for Mary Anne and Logan as they each think the other is writing mean notes to them. Again, this wouldn't happen if they would, you know, TALK to each other. 

The only real lead they have to go on is the Mercedes that nearly hit Stacey. It had a blue Stoneybrook Business Bureau sticker on it. The blue stickers were from last year and the ones from the current year are orange, but there is no orange sticker on the car. Maybe they just didn't feel like putting one on. I don't think that necessarily means anything. Remember those lists that they had printed for them? And remember how the receptionist had accidentally gave them the one for last year, but Kristy asked if they could still keep that one? Well, the decide to compare there two lists and see who's on last year's list but not the current year's list. I knew having those two lists would come in handy! 

They come up with three names and one of them just so happens to be Karl Tate, the wealthy guy who was caught and sent to jail by the BSC for his dognapping ring. In the mystery notes Mal had copied to the new mystery notebook, they find out that Mrs. Tate was driving a red Mercedes. (You know, if I actually really cared that much, I would read Dawn and the Disappearing Dogs to see if that checked out). Shannon makes a call to the police and find out he's been released from jail for good behavior. They wonder how he would know that a bunch of thirteen-year-old girls were responsible for him going to jail and Jessi realizes it must be their picture that was in the paper and it explains why it was only Kristy, Claudia, Stacey, and Mary Anne who had all these things happening to them. Boy, I bet Jessi and Mal were relieved now that they were cropped out! Shannon calls the Tate house and Mrs. Tate answers and tells her that her husband has been out of town for the last few days and they think this is the reason nothing significant has happened lately. Mrs. Tate offers to leave a message for him, but Shannon declines. Uh, shouldn't Mrs. Tate be a little concerned that a teenaged girl is calling her husband? Unless Shannon disguised her voice? Mrs. Tate must ask who is calling, because we hear Shannon say, "Oh, just, a, ah, friend." If I were Mrs. Tate, I'd definitely have some questions for Mr. Tate! 

Mary Anne calls the cabin at Shadow Lake to warn the others. How does she even know the number? She must have it memorized. She's able to get Stacey, but the power goes out because of the blizzard, but luckily she's able to tell her that it's Karl Tate who's behind what's been going on. Even though Stacey thought she heard Mary Anne say his name, she didn't quite catch everything she was saying and the only thing she tells the others is that she "couldn't understand or hear everything she was saying." 

Watson and Elizabeth go into town to get supplies and take the younger kid with them. Elizabeth tells the older kids that they can go to the lodge if it gets too bad, but not to go if they can't see the trail. I don't get this reply from Sam:

"Don't worry, Mom," said Sam. "I'm here." He flexed his arm like one of those nerd body builders in the backs of magazines.

What magazines are these? I'm picturing a scrawny nerd doing this. 

Woodie Keenan shows up and ask if they're leaving. When Elizabeth tells him they're going into town, he says he needs more firewood so she offers to bring some back for him and he leaves. After Watson, Elizabeth, and the younger kids leave, Stacey and Sam go to get more wood to make a fire. Stacey is the first to volunteer to get firewood and when Sam says she'll go with her, she takes this as him wanting to be romantically involved with her and tells him she's with Robert now and they're "serious." Sam tells her that while he likes her, it's only as a friend and he likes to flirt with her because it "keeps [him] in practice for [his] next girlfriend." In my head, Stacey ended up with Sam once she was a little bit older. 

On their way to get firewood, Stacey sees blood in the snow. Her shriek is so loud that everyone comes running out and Charlie comes to the conclusion it was a bird that a fox got because they see feathers and footprints that could belong to a fox. Everyone goes back inside except for Stacey who notices that Kristy's ski poles have been snapped in half outside the front of the cabin. Are ski poles easy to snap in half? I wouldn't think so, but it's been a minute since I've used any. She also sees something moving in the trees, but we, the dear readers, don't find what it is until she goes inside to tell the others. Luckily, it's literally the next paragraph so we don't have to wait too long with bated breath. She tells them she saw Kris Renn sneaking around in the trees and thinks she may have a gun. Good thing Dawn's not around because we know how she feels about guns! 

Things keep getting weird at the cabin. Stacey can't find her insulin in her suitcase, but luckily she keeps a spare case in her backpack. However, the weirdest thing is that the pillow on Claudia's bed as been split open and her red nail polish has been emptied on top of the pillow. I guess this is to give the illusion that a bird has been killed on her bed. It's pretty twisted if you think about it. Of course, Claudia is freaked out that somebody got in and did this and I would also be freaked out. She thinks it's even possible someone could have done that while they were sitting by the fire in the main room. Claud insists that they search the cabin to make sure the "maniac" isn't still inside. I agree with her on that, but for some reason, they do this without letting Sam and Charlie know what they're doing. They don't find anybody lurking in the closet or anything.

Woodie appears at their door a little later, wearing snowshoes. He tells them he came over with some extra wood he found in his basement. When he starts heading back to his cabin, Claud can't help but think the back of his head seems familiar. She thinks from the back, Woodie looks like a young Karl Tate. Okay, can you really recognize somebody from the back of their head? Why doe he look like a young Karl Tate from the back of his head, instead of, you know, from his face. This is super weird, but it's kind of obvious now that this Woodie character isn't as innocent and helpful as he seems. They're just trying to send clues to the reader, but they're just very odd clues. Before Claudia can tell the others this observation, everyone realizes the cabin is filling with smoke. Things are starting to get explosive at Shadow Lake! But now it's time to return to Stoneybrook. 

After the meeting at Shannon's house, Mal and Jessi go back to Mal's house to continue baby-sitting; but Shannon, Mary Anne, and Logan take Astrid for a walk. Seeing what happens next, now it makes sense why they were already at Shannon's house to begin with because Astrid helps move the plot along. She (Shannon, not Astrid) tells Mary Anne and Logan she wants to walk past the Tate house to check it out. Now, I could have sworn that the neighborhood Mr. Tate lived in was an even more ritzier and fancier neighborhood than where Kristy and Shannon lived, so I did some research (some very light research as I only spent five minutes doing it) and combed through an e-copy of Dawn and the Disappearing Dogs. The only thing I found out about the location of his house is that "it's sort of in Kristy's neighborhood". I bet Kristy and Shannon live in the modest mansions, then Mr. Tate lives in the next neighborhood over and it's even more bougier than theirs. Oh, and I also checked on the red Mercedes while I had the e-book and that checked out too, so good job with that, Nola. 

Anyway, as they're passing the house, there's a cat nearby and Astrid sees it and starts chasing it. The cat goes through a pet door at the house and Astrid follows it through. Now, I can believe that the pet door would be big enough for Astrid to get through, but would a dog really follow a cat into a home that is not theirs, especially a well trained dog like Astrid? I feel like she would know better. Of course, I've never owned a dog before, but I have walked my brother's dogs a few times in my life and while they may get excited if they see a squirrel ("Squirrel!"), I am able to hold on to their leash tight enough so they can't get loose. I also have never seen them a chase a cat into a pet door, but I don't really see many pet doors these days anyway. I don't know, I just don't buy that a well trained dog like Astrid would just chase a cat into a random house, but I understand it's for the purpose of the plot. Also, it's totally convenient that she just so happens to chase the cat into the Tate home. That would have been hilarious if it was just some random house she ran into. 

Shannon calls for Astrid, but she doesn't exit through the pet door. Then, instead of first knocking on the door like anyone else in this situation would do, they just open the door which is unlocked. Now, with an unlocked door, I would assume that whoever lives there would be home, but that doesn't seem to be the case.  They walk into Karl Tate's home office and Logan thinks they should be "investigating" and says that they're not breaking in since the door was unlocked...uh, I don't know if I would agree with that statement, but that does seem like the kind of logic a thirteen-year-old boy would come up with. Astrid comes into the office and Shannon closes the door so she can't escape. She's able to get the dog, but when they try to leave the room, the door won't open. They try to see if they can escape through the windows, but they won't open either. Oh, and the phone is disconnected. Shannon thinks since Mr. Tate isn't in business anymore, he doesn't need it anymore. 

There has been some tension between Mary Anne and Logan (you might remember because they think the other is writing mean notes to them) and Shannon tells them they need to "clear the air". Uh, does she know them well enough to say that to them? I can see Kristy or Dawn telling them this, but not Shannon. This prompts Logan to tell Shannon about the notes he received. He is furious when Mary Anne's reaction is to laugh at this, but she quickly explains that the same thing's been happening to her. They realize there's been a misunderstanding and make up. Gee, if only they had communicated with each other in the beginning and they never would have been in this stupid mess in the first place! 

They decide that since they're already locked in Karl Tate's office, they might as well start snooping around. When in Rome! Shannon notices some old photos of the Tate family: Mr. Tate, his wife, and their son as a young boy. Logan takes out paper that's in the wastebasket. (I guess he and Abby have something in common.) It's got the address and phone number of the Brewer cabin at Shadow Lake. Okay if that doesn't send full body chills down your spine, I don't know what would. Not only that, but there's also a photocopied article of the BSC when they were in the newspaper for nabbing Karl Tate for the dog abduction ring. I think they may have found their suspect! 

They need to promote Astrid to their mystery mascot. Of all the homes she runs into, it's the Tate home and of all the rooms they catch her in, it's Mr. Tate's office with all his incriminating evidence. Just think, if Astrid had never done this, they'd still be trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Er, maybe!

Then they hear a car pull up in the driveway. Who could it be? We'll have to wait to find out! (Just a few pages though, since these chapters are about six or seven pages at the most). 

We're back at the cabin. The fire is still in the fireplace, but the smoke is pouring out. They realize that someone has blocked the chimney so they put out the fire. Woodie has come back to help them when he hears all the commotion. Yeah, he just seems to conveniently pop up all the time, doesn't he? Since there's no way they'll be able to start another fire, they head to the lodge to stay warm. 

Claud tells the other club members that she think she saw Karl Tate and how Woodie looks like him from behind. The others are a little wary of what she thought she saw because they don't understand how Karl Tate could disguise himself as a college kid. Kristy think it's about time to tell Charlie and Sam what's going on, but she'll let them know when they reach the lodge. It might be too late by then, Kristy! 

So they're walking single-file through the knee-deep snow in a blizzard on their way to the lodge. They're able to follow these bright blue markers which makes it easy for them to see where they're going. Claudia is in front of Abby and they hear something "crash through the woods behind [Abby]." Claudia looks behind her and warns Abby to watch out. She tells her, "Look out, it's him! It's Karl Tate!" Abby sees a "dark form" rushing towards them and she stops to grab a chunk of ice which she throws at him and it "clocked him right in the head." Nice throw, Abby. Someone else comes running through the woods and this time it's Kris Renn, ordering the figure to stop. She has a gun and it turns out Stacey did see her sneaking around in the woods with a gun. But it's okay; she's not some lunatic, she's Detective Renn and she's been on Karl Tate's trail for awhile. As she tells the BSC, "He's violated the terms of his parole by leaving Connecticut, among other things." 

Now we're back in Stoneybrook, about to find out what happens with Shannon, Mary Anne, and Logan in the Tate home! See, you didn't have to wait that long! It's Mrs. Tate who has returned and Shannon's first instinct is to order all of them to hide. Now, I don't know what their plan is. Do they hope someone will open the door while they're hiding, then they will all sneak out when the coast is clear? I'm not really sure what I would do in this situation, however I would not be in this situation. Astrid barks, giving them away. I can only imagine how freaked out Mrs. Tate was when she heard there was a dog in her house, but when she discovered three non-threatening baby-faced barely teens in her husband's office, she was probably more confused than anything. She recognizes Mary Anne as being "one of the girls from the club." She absolutely has no questions about why they're in her home (although Shannon will explain how they got in there), but instead tells them that they "have to stop him." They assume she's talking about her husband, but no, she's talking about her son, Woodrow! Ruh-roh! Woodrow....Woodie....do you see where this story is going?

They call the police at a pay phone after they leave (not sure why Mrs. Tate didn't offer to let them use her phone) and tell Sergeant Johnson what they found out, then they call Kristy, but no one answers because no one is at the cabin. 

So the baby-sitter members at Shadow Lake think they're in the clear and we get this passage from Kristy: 

I trudged along behind Charlie, glad the mystery was solved, glad the terror was over, and wishing more than anything for a warm, dry, quiet place. I was thinking hot chocolate. I was thinking nachos. 

Hot chocolate and nachos? Together? WTF? That sounds terrible. I love nachos and I like hot chocolate (I'll only drink it when it's super cold outside and even then I would take apple cider or a vanilla latte over hot chocolate), but having them together? No, thank you. I need a soda or a beer with my nachos. 

Their flashlights aren't working too well in the dark so Kristy decides she's going to light a flare. Sam suggests that a couple of them continue on to the lodge. He and Abby are the ones to go. I'm not sure why they need to go without the others, but I guess it's for the plot's sake. They walk single file - Charlie, Stacey, Woodie, Claudia, and Kristy bringing up the rear. On one side is a drop down to the lake, the other side is a hill covered in trees. Stacey starts to slip and Woodie reaches for her. Kristy sees this and thinks he's going to hep her, but instead, he pulls her towards him and backs away with her into the trees. He tells the others to "Stay back or she goes in!" (meaning the lake) and "It's your fault. You made me do it. You're the ones who caused all the trouble!" (I feel like there should be exclamation points after the first two sentences; not sure why only the third one gets an exclamation point.) He mentions his father is Karl Tate and says:

"Remember him?" Woody's lip lifted into a sneer. "Or have you already forgotten how you ruined him? Humiliated him? Sent him to prison!" 

"But we didn't," I (Kristy) said. "We just-"

"Don't try to get out of it. Oh, you were big heroes, weren't you? Had your picture in the newspapers! Well so did my father. Everyone pointed and and stared and whispered. Suddenly we had nothing! Nothing! Do you know what's that like?" 

Kristy sees a flare and that Abby and Sam are coming back towards them. Oh, now I understand why they randomly went ahead to the lodge. They are sneaking up behind Woody who has his arm around Stacey's throat. (A tad dramatic). Abby motions for Kristy to throw her flare and she throws it at Woodie who raises his hands and ducks. Stacey jabs him in the stomach and runs away from him. He loses his balance and Sam tries to catch him, but he ends up falling in the cold, icy lake. I like how this whole scene is pretty much a page and a half. 

Detective Kris Renn comes up then. Karl Tate had regained conscious (I didn't even realize he had been unconscious) and told her about how his son was trying to get back at the BSC:

Karl Tate told Detective Renn his story - how his son, unable to endure the shame and poverty his father's actions had caused, had become obsessed with the BSC, blaming them for his family's troubles. By the time Mr. Tate was released from jail, Woodie was beyond control and had already embarked on his mad campaign of terror...He didn't know what Woodie planned to do with the BSC members, but he feared the worst. 

His "father's actions" caused "poverty"? I highly doubt that. So I'm a little confused. Was Mr. Tate at Shadow Lake to warn the BSC about his son? If so, he did a terrible job at it. Also, why not just call the police? And, uh, what exactly was Woodie's plan? Did he want to murder them? Are we going down that dark path? Or did he just want to give them a good scare? Still not cool, but the fact that Mr. Tate says he "feared the worst" is a little concerning. We are told Woodie is now behind bars, but maybe he should be getting psychologically evaluated. 

Kristy calls it their "creepiest case" and I agree. Most of their cases deal with "ghosts" (who are usually people just trying to scare them (not kill them!) or shop lifters or trying to clear their names when a ring goes missing. I honestly can't think of a BSC mystery that is more batshit crazy than this one. 

I was glad to hear that Watson and Elizabeth are pissed when they hear about this and are not happy that Kristy didn't tell them. Thank you! I don't know why they need to keep such important information from adults. (Well, I get that it's part of the plot to keep the story going, but it's still so unrealistic). I'm re-reading Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls and they talk about not telling their parents about that because they don't want to worry them so this has been going on since the near beginning! Kristy uses the excuse that she didn't want to worry them because of Watson's health. 

Remember those notes that Logan and Mary Anne received and stupidly thought they were from the other? Well we get no closure on that. They do bring it up at the end and they're like, Guesss we have another mystery for the BSC! Hopefully this will be answered in another book. I haven't read the (regular) mystery that comes out after this one, so I'm guessing I'll have my answers in that book. My guess is that it's Cokie. 

Also, I want to know the deal with Mr. Federman!