A week of skiing, skating, and snowball fights. Why can't homework always be like that?
Every year, Stoneybrook Middle School (the whole school!) gets invited to Leicester Lodge in Vermont for a week of winter adventure!
This trip sure isn't like any other! A busload of little kids unexpectedly needs baby-sitters. Mary Anne uncovers a ghost in the lodge. Claudia and Stacey both fall in love with handsome French skiers. Kristy is helping her team win the Winter War... while California Dawn can barely stand up in her skates. And if it doesn't stop snowing, SMS may be snowbound until spring!
Super Special Gimmick: Mary Anne is both the historian for the trip, as well as compiling a journal to give to Logan, since he couldn't come due to a pre-booked family vacation.
Alright, before I break things down into the individual girls' plots, I'll kinda give an overall recap, since everything is kinda centred on one thing.
As the description says, the girls (and their entire school) is headed off on their annual winter trip. This time around though, the weather is particularly bad. Even before they left, there were massive snowfalls and snowstorms being predicted. Everyone thought that the trip was going to be cancelled. But it doesn't, and everyone leaves anyways. On their way to the lodge, it starts snowing really heavily. The bus the girls was on skids off the road, but with some help from another bus, manages to get back on track. They arrive to the lodge way late (had to move super slowly on account of the weather), but otherwise in tact. However, shortly after they arrive, two adults stumble in. They're the chaperones for a group of elementary students who were supposed to be staying at the lodge. They got hit bad by the snow, and ended up crashing into a tree off the side of the road. Everyone is okay, but the adults (who were obviously sitting at the front of the bus) have various injuries. Rather than sending the kids home, the BSC volunteer to look out for the kids and watch them and help out the adults when they get back from the emergency room.
In addition to this, there's a Winter War going on. There's two teams: Red and Blue. Kristy is the captain of her team, and Claudia is on the other team. They're super competitive because they're the two best skiers of the school. Other events include ice skating, snow sculpting, downhill skiing and cross-country skiing. There's also going to be a talent show and a dance.
Also: students get extra credit for volunteering to help run and organize events and things.
Kristy is the captain of the Blue Team and is helping to organize all the events in general. Kristy ends up getting way way way competitive, to the point where it actually ruins people's lives. Her first chapter is about helping to rescue the elementary school kids, but then afterwards, it's all about the Winter War. When her team loses the first event (more on that later), Kristy doubles down. At first, she'd been encouraging everyone to participate, but then decides that she doesn't need anymore klutzes on her team. She worries about potential snowfall cancelling the snow sculpting competition, which she doesn't want because she thinks she has it in the bag: Ashley Wyeth is on her team, and Claudia is stuck judging, so she's out of the competition. When Claudia and the teacher award someone else from Claudia's team, Kristy gets really nasty to Claudia. Realizing that her team now needs to win the cross-country skiing portion, Kristy goes back to recruiting. She figures that by having sheer numbers, she can hedge her bets. She manages to convince a bunch of reluctant people into participating, including a seventh-grader named Jay. Of course, that fails miserably, and Jay ends up breaking his ankle. At first, Kristy just seems upset at having lost the entire Winter War, to which people are like, "wtf Kristy? priorities!", but then it turns out that she's also feeling super ridiculously guilty about having pushed Jay into participating. She ends up breaking down and crying to Mary Anne, but eventually moving on and apologizing to Jay.
Mary Anne is the trip historian, which means she needs to write a short report on the lodge's history, and chronicle how the week goes. However, she spends most of the time being mopey about Logan being in Aruba. She starts thinking he's going to leave her for some gorgeous outgoing girl he'll meet on the beach. She makes everything about her, and gets into a fight with Dawn (more on that in a minute), and doesn't even realize what she's doing. She also tries to avoid Mrs Halliday, the gym teacher, thinking that the teacher hated her from last year (Mary Anne's not exactly athletic). The gym teacher sets Mary Anne straight, and she starts feeling better. She interviews the workers at the lodge, and is convinced that there's a ghost. Eventually, she's set straight, and even better, Logan calls her and tells her that he misses her, so everything ends up alright. She finishes up her report, and even has time to write a whole new skit for Jessi to use in her Talent Show.
Dawn is not having a good time. She was originally looking forward to the trip, because despite being a California Girl, she isn't completely horrible at winter sports (at least, considering she's not even remotely athletic like Kristy is). Dawn's even gone skiing a few times when she lived in California! But things go all wrong for Dawn in the Winter War. In the first event, ice skating, Dawn is a total klutz and falls down a million times, and even drops the baton during the relay. Everyone laughs at her, and she feels bad for letting Kristy down (they're on the same team). Determined not to have a repeat of that, Dawn goes to the practice for the snowball fight, but soon leaves after Alan Gray is a jerk to her. She then decides to practice skiing (something she likes and knows), but the fails at getting on the ski lift. Completely frustrated and discouraged, she retreats to the lodge, where she hopes to find a sympathetic ear in Mary Anne. Of course, Mary Anne is all caught up in her "troubles" with Logan, and dismisses Dawn's feelings, making Dawn feel worse. Dawn later bonds with Pinky, one of the elementary school kids, and Dawn realizes that she's been kind of apprehensive and tense about everything, because this is her first time being away with people she sees every day, and it's important to her not to make a fool of herself. Of course, this puts added pressure on her, which makes everything worse. So Dawn decides to stop being so hard on herself. And that's pretty much it for Dawn. She eventually makes up with Mary Anne, and yeah.
Stacey meets a boy named Pierre, who lives up by the border ("almost in Canada"). That's about it. They ski together lots. Stacey pines for him. She says that she's never met anyone like him, that all her past crushes have meant absolutely nothing. That's her first chapter. Her second and last chapter is their last night together, at the dance. They talk about how they have to say goodbye, but it'll be okay because they'll write each other lots. Pierre kisses Stacey and Stacey vows to never wash her hand again (it has Pierre's address on it). Boring.
Claudia also meets a French ski dude (because apparently all skiiers are French? All French guys ski??), only he's older. His name is Guy (rhymes with "ski") and he's like, 25. But it's okay, because Claudia knows that true love transcends age. Anyways, Claudia's a little bummed because she's agreed to be the judge of the snow sculpting contest, which means she can't participate. (But it also means she gets extra credit, which we all know she needs. Badly.) However, she's really excited for the downhill skiing contest, since Claudia is indubitably the best skiier in the entire school. Just to make sure though, she signs up for some lessons, which is where she meets Guy. Guy takes a shine to her, and offers her a private lesson. Claudia is all giddy, and Guy keeps giving her tips and pointers (most importantly reminding her to concentrate and to stop being distracted). Claudia of course tells everyone what's happening, so that what happens next is especially embarrassing. After the ski competition (which Claudia aces), Guy decides to introduce Claudia to... his family! Yes, not only is he 25 and married, not only does he have a baby, but he actually has a little girl as well! Poor Claudia is heart-broken, but reminds herself that she still has Will.
Jessi in charge of the Talent Night, as part of her role for extra credit. Her story is pretty boring. For Talent Night, she holds auditions, and the kids who actually have a good act are allowed to perform their individual acts, and everyone else, if they want to, can do a skit or group performance, as organized by her. Jessi also helps the elementary school kids put together a skit of their own. Of course, for Talent Night, Jessi does ballet, which is special for her, because it's the first time she's performed it in front of her classmates and she still feels a lot of prejudice from them. Jessi has a running subplot with one of the elementary school kids, Pinky, who Jessi thinks is racist against her. Turns out that Pinky is just incredibly homesick and is being nasty to everyone, which people point out to Jessi, but it takes Jessi awhile to realize it. She also helps Mallory build a snow sculpture as part of the Winter War.
Mallory apparently has learned nothing from SS1, and decides to try the whole spying thing again. She ends up failing even harder this time, and gets pretty much none of the facts right. (She even thnks Mrs Halliday, the gym teacher, is crying because of unrequited love and rejection from the vice principal.) Eventually, Mallory concludes that she doesn't need to hone her observation skills, she needs to acquire them. (She also needs to learn to be more objective and stop jumping to conclusions, but since she wants to be a fiction writer, it's not as important and her imagination will serve her well.) After she abandons her spy pursuits, she then spends the rest of the book freaking out about the dance. Apparently, she has never really danced before and is afraid of making a fool of herself. Mallory tries to find excuses to get out of the dance, but eventually goes and discovers that it's not that big of a deal after all. She even dances with a boy from her math class, named Justin Price.
Random Thoughts:
- Totes not my favourite Super Special. At all. Everyone has such stupid, petty problems, and pretty much everyone is super self-absorbed. The only mildly likeable character is Dawn, and we don't see nearly enough of her. Overall, this is just really boring.
- I'm surprised we got another Super Special so soon. Only 4 books have gone by since the last one!
- This trip sounds ridiculous. They just close up shop for the entire week and transport everyone over? Plus it seems crazy to expect parents to pay for 3 trips (assuming their child goes to SMS all three years). Yeah, I know there's fundraisers and apparently the Georges subsidize the trip... but wtf! I think this would be far more realistic if it was like, a grade 8 treat. Plus, it would still be a great opportunity for the sixth-graders and the seventh-graders back home. With all those available classrooms, they could maybe do a week of special interest courses and studies. And the 8th grade students who didn't want to or couldn't afford to go on the trip could shadow a teacher for the week, and be their helper and learn about school from the other side of the desk.
- There's some foreshadowing in this one about Mary Anne and Dawn preparing in case their parents get married and they get to share a room. However, they fail at being bunkmates.
- This one has those weird drawings again. I know the next one for sure has illustrations. I like the illustrations much better.
- I love how Dawn is always described as an individual, but in this one, she outright admits to caring what others think of her.
- It's super weird for me, as a 27 year old who is more or less single (I mean, I'm in a relationship, but it's definitely not super-serious or marriage worthy anytime soon), to read about a 25 year old being married with TWO kids. Like, wtf! But this was like, 25 years ago, so you know, different times haha (and some people still get married young and start a family right away too)
- Mallory super annoys me in this one. I can see why people don't like her as much sometimes.
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