Girl Talk #14: Earth Alert!

By L.E. Blair. Published 1991.

Allison looks fierce, y'all.

Allison is at her locker one day, when a guy with long blond hair and wearing tie dye comes up and introduces himself. His name is Arizonna. Yes, with two n’s. Spellcheck hates this. He thinks Allison’s idea for an Earth Alert Fair is very cool, and he wants to help. Every year the seventh grade holds a fair to raise money for charity, and Allison came up with the Earth Alert idea. So she also got put in charge. So far the only help she has is Sabrina, Katie, and Randy. And now Arizonna.

At lunch, Sabrina has more info on Arizonna. He’s from L.A., and he surfed for gym class. So obviously, he’s totes awesome. Billy, a broody guy Allison tutored a while back, comes over and offers to help, too. And then he gets all jealous about Arizonna helping. Allison doesn’t see it, but the others do.

In the locker room, Stacy the Great is bitching about how lame the Earth Alert Fair is going to be. She wanted a Romance Fair. Ok, then. Then Randy points out Arizonna is helping, and Stacy and her friends think he’s a hunk, so maybe they should pretend to be interested in the environment.

The whole group meets at Fitzie’s (where else?), plus Sabrina’s brother Sam and his friends. Sabrina has major pull over them. They come up with all sorts of ideas for the fair. They’ll play Native American inspired games, including Hacky Sack. Holy shit, when was the last time you even thought about Hacky Sack? It was so damn prevalent in the 90’s. They’ll also have natural foods, and Randy’s band, the Iron Wombats, will play, but using only instruments that don’t require electricity.

Arizonna and Billy will be helping Allison with the games. I’m sure this is going to turn into a major pissing contest. Arizonna walks Allison home, and tells her she’s his first Minnesota buddy, and gives her a friendship bracelet. Allison tries to tell herself it’s nothing special.

Allison and Randy go in to talk to Mr. Hansen about their budget the next day, and find it’s pretty much gone. Stacy the Great appointed herself co-chair of the committee, and spent most of the money on rides, like a roller coaster and a Ferris wheel and stuff. Holy shit, can you imagine how expensive that must be? The girls are super pissed, not only because of the money, but because the rides will use gas and be bad for the environment. Anyway, they only have two hundred dollars left. They call an emergency meeting that afternoon, but Billy quits, because Allison was talking to Arizonna too much. Sigh.

They’re supposed to have a meeting at Sabrina’s house on Saturday (which is only a week before the fair, btw), but Stacy and her cronies have called a separate meeting at her friend Eva’s house, and have neglected to tell our girls about it. Bitches. But they head over there, and Allison takes charge. It’s good for her. They get the new girls on various committees, and get it all planned out.

At the end of the meeting, Arizonna asks Allison to a movie after the fair. She doesn’t really want to, but says yes anyway. Her friends ask, what about Billy, though? Allison realizes she needs to tell him herself, and goes over to his house and does so. He’s like, why the fuck are you telling me this? You want a medal? He actually says that, it’s hilarious. Allison explains that she likes Arizonna, but only as a friend. That seems to change everything; Billy does a complete 180, and offers help with the food for the fair. He says it would be cheapest if they make it themselves. Well, ok then.

So during Telephone Talk, Katie comes up with an idea for Allison to get out the date with Arizonna, without hurting his feelings. He should date another girl, and realize for himself that he only wants to be friends with Allison. And Sabrina’s the perfect girl, because she thinks he’s totally cute. All the girls approve this convoluted plan.

So Sabrina shows up at school wearing her best version of California Cool. And she studied up on surfing, and talked with Arizonna all the way to school, and during lunch. But Arizonna gives Allison another friendship bracelet.

Stacy and Eva show up in all the homerooms pre-selling tickets for the fair, even though it had been agreed that they weren’t going to do that. And they’re holding on to all the money, which will probably just go to paying for the rides, and not the recycling program Allison wanted.

Friday night, everyone except Billy and the Bitches (sounds like a band name) show up at Randy’s to cook. They get a lot of work done, but Allison is disappointed Billy’s not there. He does finally show up after three and a half hours, and tells Allison he didn’t really want to come, because he knew Arizonna would be there. But Allison is so happy to see him, that it’s all good.  And then, Arizonna comes up to talk to Allison, and says he can tell Billy is her special friend. And he thinks maybe they shouldn’t go on their movie date while he’s hanging out with Sabrina. So, holy shit, their ridiculous plan actually worked. Arizonna also admits to Allison that he knows Sabrina has no idea about surfing.

It’s Saturday, and the fair has been open for an hour, but nobody is at the soccer fields, where Allison and crew are, they’re all on the football field, where the rides are. Boo. But then the Iron Wombats start playing, and Sam and his friends begin a game of Hacky Sack. Suddenly, it’s three hours later, and they’re all out of carrot juice. They make Allison get onstage, and she gives an impassioned speech about the environment. Everyone cheers for her. It’s a huge success.

At the end of the fair, the Bitches have disappeared, and there’s a huge mess to clean up. Even though all the kids seemed into the environment, they still littered everywhere. Assholes. But the remaining kids help, and the hockey team shows up, too. That’s nice. So they get it all cleaned up. But when they head over to Fitzie’s later, Allison is all bummed, because the other kids don’t actually seem to care at all. She wanted to help change the world, but it didn’t work. Arizonna tells her the answer is to think globally, act locally. And that is your PSA of the day.

So the girls decide to picket outside the school, against the use of Styrofoam in the cafeteria, and have them switch to recycled cardboard trays instead. Mr. Hansen comes up and tells them they should have gone through proper channels, and picketing is against school rules, and they all have detention. The guys all stand beside them, and they get detention, too. Allison tries to pull out some free speech and First Amendment shit, but it doesn’t get her anywhere. Mr. Hansen says they still have detention, but he applauds their dedication, and says maybe they can talk about it. Everyone cheers, except Stacy, who just gives major bitch-face. Allison thanks her friends, and thinks they’ve really made a difference.

o   Why DID they just go straight to picketing, without, you know, trying to talk to someone first? They just wanted to be dramatic, I guess.

o   There’s no follow-up as to whether there was any of money that they had raised left for the recycling program.

o   Sorry I’ve skipped quite a few books in the series. I just don’t have them all.

Girl Talk #6: The Ghost of Eagle Mountain

By L.E. Blair. Published 1990.

The seventh grade is going on a cross-country ski trip. Did any of you go on school trips like all the YA kids did? I didn’t.

Anyway, they’re going to Eagle Mountain, and will stay in cabins. Our four girls get to stay together. Yay. Bit the other half of the cabin will be filled by Stacy the Great and her clones. Boo.

Allison gets a strange, funny feeling when she learns their cabin in number fifty-three. And then again when she finds an eagle feather in her locker. The night before the trip, her grandmother acts a little funny when she hears Eagle Mountain, and when Allison asks her why, she tells her a story.

Back in the day, there was a Chippewa chief named Eagle Feather, and he had a wife and baby son he loved very much. He had to go fight in a big battle against settlers, and when he returned, his wife and son had disappeared. He searched for them for fifty-three days, and then disappeared himself. Legend has it he still haunts the woods, and it’s disturbing his spirit to sleep there.

Then she and Allison’s mom teach her the lullaby his wife was singing to the baby the last time he saw her.

On the way to Eagle Mountain, the bus the girls are on breaks down, and they have to wait for a new one. Allison gets a bad feeling. But the new bus comes, and they get there okay.

After lunch, Sabrina, Randy, and Allison learns how to cross-country ski. Katie, of course, already knows how. Randy and Alison do all right, but Sabrina is a hot mess.

The next day, there’s a scavenger hunt on skis. Each cabin is split up into two groups. The girls think that’s cool, they’re already split as it is. Everyone is told to stay on their cabin’s trail, and not to go off of it. Stacy and her cronies get a faster start than Allison and the girls. But it’s okay, Sabrina spots a shortcut trail on a map. This goes about as well as can be expected. The trail ends up being an expert level trail, and they have to deal with fallen trees, a stream, and skiing on the edge of a cliff. But they eventually make it back only a little worse for the wear. And everyone wants to hear about their adventure, and not Stacy’s group winning everything.

That night in the lodge it’s ghost story time, told by one of the corny rangers. He tells the story of Flying Eagle. It’s kind of the same story, just ya know, more racist. In this version, he’s a fierce warrior who kept white man skulls. And he had strong magical powers, and is still alive today, sometimes howling in the woods. It’s a ridiculous story, and Alison gets mad, but she doesn’t say anything.

Greg, a new friend of Sabrina’s brother that she has a crush on, calls the story a joke, and starts whooping and dancing around. Randy gets pissed, and the guys are embarrassed. Sabrina’s crush starts to go away.

Later, the guys succeed in scaring all the girls by making creepy noises and running around wearing their sleeping bags.

Once they’re all in bed, they hear a crying sound outside, and figure it must be the boys again. Sabrina gets mad at her brother, and gets up to go yell at him. But she finds the boys at the door, about to knock. They heard the noise, too.

Allison says she’ll go find out what the noise is, and she’s adamant about going out by herself. Her friends, for some reason, let her go alone.

In the woods, it’s dark, windy, and creepy, and she can still hear the howling. Then she sees a shape coming towards her, but it just turns out to be the dog that lives there, Alfie. Allison succeeds in getting the two of them lost. She decides to sit down on a stump and sing the lullaby. Right away, the wind calms down. And then she sees a flashlight coming toward her, and it’s her friends, Stacy and her clones, and the boys. She starts to go to them, when an eagle feather brushes against her cheek.

Back in the cabin, Allison tells them all the real story of Eagle Feather. They all, except for Greg, appreciate the story. Greg’s just an ass. Sabrina’s crush is totally gone, and she stands up to him, and calls him a jerk. It’s pretty awesome.

After the boys leave, Allison teaches all of the girls the lullaby.  The other girls wish they knew the same sorts of things about their families, and it makes Allison proud.

o   Randy calls Stacy a bingo-head. I’ve never heard that before. Is it cool NYC-speak?

o   I guess not, Katie uses it later.

o   The girls make fun of their teacher for having and wearing a lot of plaid. Whatever. Plaid is the shit. Just wait a couple of years when grunge comes in, girls.