Mary Anne should never have thrown away that chain letter she got in the mail. Ever since she did, bad things have been happening - to everybody in the Baby-sitters Club. With Halloween coming up, Mary Anne's even more worried - what kind of spooky thing will happen next?
Then Mary Anne finds a new note in her mailbox: Wear this bad-luck charm, it says, OR ELSE. Mary Anne's got to do what the note says. But who sent the charm? And why did they send it to Mary Anne?
If the Baby-sitters don't solve this mystery soon, their bad luck might never stop!
It's Halloween again, and Mary Anne's life is going pretty well. She's dating Logan, who is apparently the object of every girls' affection, and the Halloween Hop is coming up. What could possibly go wrong?
Everything, apparently. One day Mary Anne receives a chain letter in the mail. It says that if Mary Anne doesn't forward it to another 20 people, she and everyone she loves will receive bad-luck. Not wanting to annoy all her friends and family with junk mail, Mary Anne tosses the letter away and doesn't think twice about it.
The next day, Mary Anne has one of her worst days ever. She falls out of bed, she spills orange juice on her white dress, she forgets her homework at home - you name it! Soon the other girls start realizing that they're experiencing bad luck as well. Even worse, Mary Anne soon receives a mysterious package in the mail: it's a bad-luck charm, complete with magazine cut-out letters telling her to wear it or else!
As their luck worsens, the girls decide to take matters into their own hands. They try to research ways to counteract the curse or to reverse their luck. Nothing works though, and soon the girls are resigned to their fate. If only they could figure out who sent the letter and the charm in the first place!
On the night of the Halloween dance, Mary Anne receives another letter, telling her and the club to go to Old Man Hickory's grave the next night (Halloween) at midnight... or else. With no other ideas, the girls decide to go through with it. So that they don't have to sneak out, Kristy decides to hold a late-night Halloween slumber party, with Charlie coming to pick up all the girls.
During the day on Halloween, Mary Anne finally confesses to Richard what's been bothering her (sort of): she doesn't tell him where she got the necklace, but she does tell him that someone told her it was a bad-luck charm. Richard laughs, and tells Mary Anne that it's a mustard seed, which is a symbol of faith. Relieved, Mary Anne reflects on how if it wasn't some universally known bad-luck charm, then how come she was getting all this bad luck, and why did Cokie say something about it being bad-luck at the dance...?
Suddenly it occurs to Mary Anne that she's been had! Cokie and her friends have been behind this the whole time! She quickly calls Kristy, who comes up with a plan to get back at Cokie. When Charlie comes to pick up the girls, he takes them to the cemetery. Since it's still another hour or so til midnight, the girls start setting up fake ghosts and other scary things. Soon enough, around 11:30, Cokie and friends show up. Mary Anne and the girls scare them silly, and are about to make them confess when a male voice interrupts them. It's Logan!
Turns out that Cokie and friends were going to set up a prank similar to what the girls did, to scare Mary Anne and the others. They called Logan, because they wanted him to see what big babies Mary Ann and the girls were, so that he'd stop hanging out with them and start seeing other girls. Logan quickly shuts them down, and says that he's well-aware that other girls exist, but he hasn't found any worth hanging out with. Besides, Mary Anne is his girlfriend, and he likes baby-sitting, so there's no reason for him not to hang out with the Club so often!
The girls head to Kristy's for their sleepover, and they laugh about how silly they had been about everything. There's just one question: Cokie and friends sent the necklace and threats, but who sent the original chain letter?
There was really no subplot in this one, other than Mary Anne finding out that her man is hot stuff and us hearing about how Cokie and Grace covet him.
Random Thoughts:
- As a child, I knew right away that Cokie and friends were behind the notes. Why else put such an emphasis on them so frequently throughout the book?
- I remember receiving a chain letter when I was like, 10 years old, and being so excited. On the envelope, there were 5 names/addresses. I was supposed to send the letter to 5 friends of my choosing, and then a postcard to the first name on the back of the envelope. Then on my friends' envelopes, I would bump the remaining 4 names up, and add mine to the bottom. I don't think I did it right, and I remember being really shy about asking my parents for stamps, so I never sent out the postcard. In the end, I never received any postcards either =(
- I agree with Mary Anne: getting mail is awesome! Sadly, the only things worth getting in the mail cost money: magazine subscriptions, online shopping, etc
- It's funny how Mary Anne acknowledges that they've abandoned all the friends that they used to have and eat with in grade 7. She even acknowledges that it probably has caused a lot of resentment, and that some people might even think that the girls think they're better than everyone else.
- It's Halloween again! Or is it for the first time in grade 8? BSC 10 was definitely the first day of grade 8. The next few books mention it being fall. In fact, we haven't had any new seasons from what I can tell. But then we've had 5 books cover ONE MONTH??? Fuck, how is the timeline already this confusing?? Anyways, "last Halloween" was apparently the Phantom Phone Caller, which jives with them being in grade 7.
- I kinda love how the girls are superstitious. I was totes superstitious at their age. I still am, kinda. I mean, I don't seriously believe in ghosts and breaking chain letters and broken mirrors, but if something happens and too many coincidences start to pile up... yeah, not gonna lie, I'm gonna milk the shit out of the superstition excuse haha
- Oooh! Continuity!! They mention that Jessi still has a regular job on Mondays and Wednesdays for the Braddocks!
- For once, the girls consider themselves to be children. When looking up witchcraft books, they wonder if they should look in the children's section or the adult section. Mallory says the adult section would be a lot more informative, but that they need to be really quiet, because the librarian doesn't take kindly to children fooling around in the adult section.
- How does Charlie not have anything better to do on Halloween than to drive his little sister and her friends around? It's also a Saturday night! When Halloween proper falls on a Saturday, that is a magical event. And Charlie doesn't have anything to do?? We always hear about how he's a good-looking, well-liked guy. I'm not saying he has to go to parties with underage drinking or other less-than-legal shenanigans, but you're saying he doesn't have a bunch of buddies who can get together at someone's house and eat pizza and junk food and watch horror films?? Or a hot date he can take to the movie theatre?
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