Mary Anne just loves her little kitten, Tigger. So when he disappears one afternoon, Mary Anne is a little concerned. The next morning Tigger is still missing... and Mary Anne is frantic. It's time for an emergency meeting of the Baby-sitters Club.
The girls pool together a reward for the return of Tigger, and they search everywhere for him. But there's still no sign of him... until Mary Anne receives a frightening letter in the mail. Someone has taken Tigger, and Mary Anne must pay a hundred dollars to get him back.
Is this some mean practical joke... or has Tigger really been cat-napped?
This one starts off with Mary Anne being completely obsessed with Tigger. She's on her way downtown to buy more cat toys for her kitten. She rushes home to give the toys to Tigger, then runs to a Club meeting. Immediately after the Club meeting, she rushes home once more to play with Tigger. Next, we've got her hanging out with Logan on her porch (no boys allowed inside the house!), playing with Tigger. Everyone is all happy and yay Tigger. Apparently it's another Club day, because Mary Anne has to go to a meeting. Tigger doesn't want to go inside, so Mary Anne figures that he'll be fine outside for half an hour, and leaves for her meeting.
When the meeting is over, Mary Anne can't find Tigger. At first, it's no big deal, but as she starts making dinner and realizing there's still no sign of him, she starts to worry. Her dad gets home, and to his credit, he's pretty cool and agrees to help Mary Anne do a cursory search. Of course, they don't find him, and Mr Spier tries to reassure Mary Anne that cats like to wander and that he's sure he'll turn up soon enough.
However, come the next morning, there's still no signs of Tigger. Same thing when Mary Anne gets home from baby-sitting. At this point, Mr Spier concedes that maybe Tigger really is missing and that it might be time to start worrying. Mary Anne then calls up the Club to tell them the news. They immediately declare it an emergency, and together, the girls put together a missing poster and agree to start papering the neighbourhoods as soon as possible, which turns out to be the next day (Sunday). They also pool together their money and come up with a reward of 30$ for Tigger's safe return.
The girls get together and start passing posters around. They put them on signs and in people's mailboxes. Mr Spier even asks for a couple to put on the community bulletin boards while he's out getting groceries, something that surprises Mary Anne and makes her feel incredibly grateful. While she's out, she runs into a little boy, about 10 years old, who sees the posters and claims he's seen Tigger. Mary Anne quickly realizes it's a scam and is upset and tells the boy to go away.
The day after putting up the posters, Mary Anne finds a ransom note in her mailbox, demanding 100$ for Tigger's return. At that night's meeting, the girls (and Logan) discuss what to do. Based on the childish scrawl and the fact that the letter wasn't actual sent through the post, they figure that it's probably some kid who did, not hardened dangerous criminals. Either way, it's their only lead, so they decide to follow up on it. They organize a stakeout, where Mary Anne will leave the ransom (fake money) where the note says to, and then the rest of the girls will wait and watch to see what happens.
Of course, when the girls (and Logan) go through with it, they soon discover that it's the same boy from Sunday who tried to scam Mary Anne. They threaten and scare the boy, then send him on his way. The girls are no closer to finding Tigger than they were before, and Mary Anne is feeling even more discouraged.
The next day (Wednesday), Mary Anne is baby-sitting for Hunter, while Kerry and Logan go to the dentist. (Hunter was supposed to go, but with all his allergies, he's liable to accidentally bit off the dentist's fingers with a sneeze.) Eventually, Mary Anne goes sleuthing, trying to find the source of Hunter's allergies. Unable to find anything (without going through closets and doing a massive invasion of privacy), Mary Anne eventually concludes that the only safe place for Hunter is the kitchen. Hunter, upset at that, finally confesses to Mary Anne the source of his allergies: a kitten that Kerry has been hiding in her closet! Of course, the kitten turns out to be Tigger. Afterwards, Mary Anne confronts the Brunos. Kerry admits that although she didn't know who Tigger belonged to at first, she did know who he was now. Mary Anne thinks that Logan knew the whole time, since he'd been distant and kind of a jerk the whole book, and was covering up to protect Kerry, so she takes Tigger and leaves upset.
Eventually Mary Anne talks things out with Logan and finds out what's wrong with him (baseball stuffs). They kiss and make-up and everyone is happy. Mary Anne brings Tigger to another Club meeting. Yay!
The subplot in this one is that Logan's siblings are acting strangely. Kerry is being more helpful than usual, and Hunter is being more sneezy than usual. This of course is because Kerry has had Tigger and is attempting to prove that 1) she's responsible and 2) Hunter's allergies aren't that bad. She's wrong on both accounts. Also: Logan is on the verge of being kicked off the baseball team, so all in all, it's a pretty shitty month for the Brunos.
Random Thoughts:
- Again, we learn of Mary Anne's love of mail and getting mail. It's always her that seems to get the bad stuff! haha
- Dawn's mom and MA's dad go on a date again. A couple of dates in fact. But just two months ago she was dating the Trip-Man! haha
- There's more foreshadowing of Mimi in this one:
- As she's leaving a meeting, MA says by to Mimi, who replies, "I will take six, please."
- When the girls are making their posters for Tigger, Mimi wanders in and asks what they're for. When the girls tell her it's Tigger, she replies, "Eggplants", and then wanders out in confusion.
- At some point, Claudia is baby-sitting, and she thinks about how devastated MA would be if it turned out that Tigger had died. She reflects on the fact that although her mother had died, MA was too young to have any conscious memories or thoughts of it, and thus Tigger's death would be almost worse. Claudia further concludes that she wouldn't know what to say or do to help Mary Anne in that case: no one Claudia has ever known has died. Claudia specifically then mentions how Mimi had her stroke, and while it was scary, Mimi ultimately recovered.
- Logan really sucks in this one. We eventually find out that he's going through some shit of his own (he was the star baseball player at his old school, but here he's on the verge of getting kicked off the team), but he's still really shitty to MA. He's generally distracted and doesn't seem to care about what she's talking about or anything. Again, that's somewhat understandable. What really takes the cake for me though is that when MA gets the ransom note, and wonders what will happen if they don't get the money and is understandably upset, Logan says, "Mary Anne, would you calm down? You are being so... sensitive. You're acting like such a girl." To MA's credit, instead of breaking down further and crying more, she glares at Logan and replies, "There's nothing wrong with being sensitive, and besides, I am a girl." (you go girl!) 1) Her beloved pet is missing, 2) potentially being held ransom, 3) she's generally pretty sensitive to begin with and 4) she is a girl.
- I suppose this is fairly realistic though. 13 year olds aren't the most mature. It makes sense that Logan would fixate on his own problems and bottle it up, instead of being honest and talking it out with MA like a more mature couple would.
- I also hate how Logan is upset over Mr Spier's rule about no boys in the house when no one's home. I mean, sure, as the weather cools, it's pretty shitty and it sucks, but Logan glares at MA and acts all exasperated, as if it's her rule. Sure, she could break it, but that's not in her character, and not fair to expect that of her.
- In my re-read of the series though, Logan's really pissing me off. They always describe him as the perfect boyfriend, but I'm starting to think he's a bit of a jerk. MA could do way better! I think she just settles for him cuz 1) he's hot and 2) she has zero self-confidence.
- lolz when Dawn is baby-sitting for the Barretts, and the kids are worried about their own pets going missing, Buddy essentially outlines the entire premise of Mystery #7 Dawn and the Disappearing Dogs: sometimes people go around steal pets because it's easy to do with them being out in the yard, and then sell them to new unsuspecting owners. This really makes me want to re-read Mystery #7 now. It was always one of my favourites.
- Claudia baby-sits for the Perkins, and the girls want to play "Hawaii Private Eyes". Are they talking about the show Magnum P.I.??
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