By Ann M. Martin. Published January 1988.
It always infuriated me that the stairs were going up instead of down, like they're supposed to. |
Y’all, this was my A+ Number One book back in the day. The
spine on this was so curved and beat up from reading it so many times. Let’s
see how the story holds up.
So girls have returned and been reunited after their super long two week break from each
other. There is much squeeing to be done.
The next day, Dawn invites everyone over to help search for
a secret passage in her house. It’s so old she’s sure there is one. The girls
don’t get much accomplished, though, aside from scaring each other. And Jeff
has the last laugh in that, because he is awesome.
Mary Anne gets to meet the Perfect Perkins, and they’re
wonderful and adorable, of course.
Dawn sits for the Pikes, and Mallory gets to be the second
sitter. Yay for Mal. Dawn learns first hand about a problem Stacey and Mary
Anne ran into with Nicky. He’s too young to play with the triplets, and he
doesn’t want to play with girls. So his parents gave him a two block rule,
meaning he can go anywhere by himself as long as it’s within two blocks of
their house. He briefly disappears while Dawn is sitting, but shows up after a
while, sweaty and dirty.
After sitting, Dawn gets home and decides to read in the
barn. She goes to sit on a cool spot, and ends up falling about five feet. I
would think that shit would hurt more than it seems to. But anyway, she’s done
it, she’s found an actual secret passage way. The tunnel goes towards her house, turns into
a set of stairs, and down a narrow hallway. It ends in a secret door leading
right into Dawn’s bedroom. That shit is legit awesome.
Going back more slowly, Dawn finds some stuff in the
passageway. An old button, a buckle, possibly from a shoe, and a key. The key
causes her to become convinced that a prisoner died in there, and scares
herself into thinking her house is haunted. Pretty big fucking leap there,
Dawn.
Kristy sits for the little Thomas-Brewers, and Karen of
course scares the shit out of everyone with a story about old Ben Brewer. I’ve
got to hand it to Karen, though, bitch can tell a hell of a good story. And she
totally shuts Kristy down at one point. Kristy tells a stupid knock-knock joke,
and Karen’s just all, “So, anyway…” It’s pretty hilarious.
That same night, Dawn is sitting for Jeff, because her mom
is going out on a date, but not with Mary Anne’s dad. Dawn’s a little pissy
about this. The guy’s name is Trip, and Dawn and Jeff call him the Trip-Man.
There’s a storm, and the lights go out. Jeff gets bored, so
Dawn shows him the secret passage. They find a couple of new things, a Buffalo
nickel and an “old-fashioned” ice cream cone. Dawn tells Jeff that it’s
haunted, then they hear creaking and a moan, and are freaked the hell out. They
call their mom at their grandparents’, where they went for dessert. Then they
start piling all of Dawn’s shit in front of the door to the passageway, like
that’s going to stop a ghost. Sharon and the Trip-Man arrive, and the Trip-Man
goes in, and says there’s nothing there. He leaves, and Dawn goes to sleep on
the couch. But she finds an old book, “A History of Stoneybrooke”, and reads
the chapter on legends. There she thinks she finds a story about her house, and
a guy named Jared Mullray, and it, to her at least, confirms that the
passageway is haunted.
There’s a chapter where Claudia sits for Jamie Newton, but
it doesn’t have anything to do with anything. Moving on.
Dawn gets Mary Anne into the passageway. They find peanut
shells and a book that weren’t there before. Dawn gets scared, so she tells
Mary Anne about the ghost, and freaks her out. Mary Anne bolts, and almost
locks Dawn in the passageway.
Stacey sits for the younger Pikes, and while she’s having an
issue with the girls and some concentrated shampoo, Nicky disappears again. She
calls Dawn in for back-up. Dawn is eventually able to find him, and again he’s
all sorts of dirty.
And Dawn has a theory brewing.
She gets to test it a few days later. She goes to sit for
just Mallory and the boys. The triplets are really awful to Nicky, and he takes
off. Dawn goes straight to her barn and the passageway. Sure enough, Nicky is
there. She shows him the door into her room, and he explains a few things for
her, that a lot of the stuff in passage he left there. But he was never there
at night.
The BSC has a slumber party at Dawn’s house. Stacey and Dawn
feel like nerdy lepers when the other girls abandon them to go make s’mores.
Dawn tells Stacey of a way to get back at them. A little while later the two of
them leave, to ostensibly get drinks, but they sneak out to the barn and the
passageway instead. When they get up to the wall of Dawn’s room, they start
tapping on the wall and moaning. The other girls start screaming, and Mary Anne
freaks out about the ghost. Dawn and Stacey open the door and laugh at them.
After they’ve closed the door, they hear rapping from the
passageway. They know it’s too late to be Nicky. Is it haunted after all?
Dun-dun-DUN.
o
I had such high hopes when we moved to
Connecticut that we’d get a house and barn like Dawn’s. Instead we got a house
built in the 80’s. Very disappointing.
o
This book is where I learned that heat rises.
Thanks for the education, Ann!
o
Mrs. Pike leaves a list of chores for Stacey to
do. She does get paid more, but really? You’ve got eight able-bodied kids. Give
them some responsibility.
o
This is the book where Mary Anne wants to watch
Sixteen Candles. Probably inappropriate for any twelve-year-old, but especially
overprotected Mary Anne.
This was also one of my favorites growing up because it combined my love for the BSC and ghosts. I too longed for a secret passage, but I grew up in a trailer in Georgia so I had neither snow nor ghosts of my own. Oh how deprived we were!
ReplyDeleteObviously we were totally neglected. Everyone deserves their own haunted passage!
ReplyDeleteThis was my favorite BSC book growing up as well!
ReplyDeleteThis is STILL one of my favorite BSC books! My older brother and I once went around our great-grandparents house (we were four and seven when Grams died, and Pa died about five or so years later) looking for secret passages by tapping on the walls. We even found the hidden compartment in the wall where they kept all their important documents, like the deed to the house and their wills.
ReplyDelete