The four members accounted for in Stoneybrook have an
emergency meeting, but they don’t really accomplish much. Mary Anne is crying,
of course, feeling guilty about what she said to Dawn. But Kristy and Mal are
surprised when Jessi starts crying, too. Really? Her little sister, who she was
responsible for, is fucking missing. Yeah, I’d cry too. They discuss what they
can do to help. Aunt Cecelia isn’t allowing Jessi to go anywhere, and Mary Anne
says she’s too much of a mess to help. What a cop out. Mal is going to go out
on a boat and search with her family, though. Kristy wants to help, but says
she has a Krushers practice that day, and a game the next, and she has
responsibilities to them. Jessi’s all, Bitch, you got responsibilities to your
friends, too. So Kristy cancels all Krushers activities.
Back on the island, they’re spelling out HELP with shells.
Dawn and Claudia know it won’t work though, because the shells are the same
color as the sand. But the kids are having fun. Then they start working on a
fort. While they do that, Dawn and Claudia go looking for the boat, but they
can’t find it. It must have been washed away. Dawn has a breakdown, but Claudia
tells her to pull it together for the kids.
Mary Anne’s moping around her house. Logan calls, he’s sorry
about the accident, but the two of them are still having a fight. Then Dr.
Johannsen calls, asking Mary Anne if she still wants to sit. She had forgotten
about it, but she does. Charlotte’s all torn up about Becca. Mary Anne suggests
they ride down to the community center to see what’s happening. They see a lot
of news people. Apparently earlier Sharon got bitchy with some of them. They
try to talk to Mary Anne, but she copies Sharon. Mal’s family comes in, and she
upset because they didn’t find anything.
The kids on the island ask about the boat, and Dawn and
Claudia tell them it’s gone. Haley has a temper tantrum over it; it’s kind of
awesome. Then they realize Jamie is sick. He has a fever and hurts all over.
Then he gets delirious in his sleep. All the girls can do for him is give him
water.
By the next morning, he’s a lot cooler, and sleeping
peacefully. But the bad news is that they gave him all their water. Then
Claudia, of all people, comes up with an idea. She rigs up a tarp, held up at
the corners by sticks. When it rains again, it catches a bunch of water. It
really is Claudia’s big shining moment in the series.
Then they get the news that Claudia’s boat has been found,
completely empty. Kristy and Stacey go out to search with the Pikes. When they
go out, they find pieces of what is probably Dawn’s boat, and it freaks them
the hell out.
Claudia feels like she needs to do something, so she goes
for a walk. She finds a piece of a mirror, and has another idea. If there’s
sun, they can use it to signal to planes. The kids have fun practicing, and
liken it to calling for Batman.
Kristy and Bart got into a fight because Kristy cancelled
the game. He accused her of just trying to worm out of it. She got pissed and
hung up on him. But he does call to apologize the next day. However, they get
interrupted by the operator, breaking in with an emergency call from Jessi.
She’s calling to let her know the castaways have been found.
The mirror trick works right away. How convenient that a
search plane flies right over so soon. The pilot or somebody talks to them over
a bullhorn, and they answer by waving their arms. He says they’ll send a Coast
Guard boat for them.
It takes a couple of hours, but it finally arrives. They
send a couple of people to the island on a smaller boat, one of which is a
doctor. She checks Jamie over, and tells the girls they did exactly right for
him. Then they finally get to go to the big boat, and are reunited with their
parents. Lots of tears and hugs.
Dawn tells her mom she feels like a failure, because all she
did was nurse Jamie, and otherwise fall apart. But her mom helps her see that
maybe she learned she doesn’t always need to be the strong one, and Claudia
learned she could be.
When they arrive at the dock, there are many more tearful
reunions. Mary Anne and Dawn swear to never not speak again. Yeah, remember
this when we get to the mug-breaking incident, girls. Then all the castaways
are whisked off to the hospital to be checked over.
They’re all ok, except for Jamie, who has strep throat and
an ear infection. Everyone but him gets to go home and rest. But Jamie goes
home the next day, and his fellow castaways are there to greet him.
And then the next day, Wednesday, the girls cancel their club meeting. I know,
right? The reason for it is because the castaways have a press conference. A
very big deal, for five minutes on the local news. And then on Friday (don’t
get those stories out too fast, there), their story makes the front page of the
paper. Again, apparently a very big deal. Kristy is thrilled because there’s a
picture of the club, and she thinks it will be good advertising. I don’t know
Kristy. Two of your members nearly got four kids killed. But, ok. Whatever.
o
They are never able to get ahold of Mr. Schafer,
until they call to tell him they’ve been found. This amuses me for some reason.
o
So when they cancel their Wednesday meeting,
they hook up an answering machine, and ask clients to leave their info, and
they’ll get back to them. It works well. So couldn’t they do that, like, all
the time?
o
I would have liked it if there had been more of
a bond formed between everyone who was on the island. It was pretty traumatic.
I know they do reference the whole thing a few times, but I would have liked to
see the relationships that formed.
And to think I used to agree with Jessi that Aunt Cecilia was this horrible person, when really she was the most (if not the only) responsible adult in the whole book. Of course the first time I read this book, I also thought that being stranded on an island sounded like tons of fun...
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