BSC #42: Jessi and the Dance School Phantom

Tagline: Someone - or something - is out to get Jessi!

Naturally, Jessi is thrilled when she earns the lead in her dance school's latest ballet. But someone in Jessi's class wants her out of the show.

First Jessi's toe shoes are stolen. Then she gets all kinds of threatening messages!

What kind of ballerina would want to scare Jessi? The Baby-sitters don't know, but they're not going to let anyone get away with it for long!

The book opens with the dance auditions. Jessi's school is putting on Sleeping Beauty, and of course everyone wants a good part in the show. The first chapter quickly sets up the dance class and the other girls and how things typically go. That's so we can know when things are wrong when shit goes down.

The main girls in Jessi's class are Mary Bramstedt, who has perfect form, but is too perfect to the point of being robotic; Carrie Steinfeld, who is one of the oldest girls in the class and really needs a good part in order to get accepted into another school for older dancers; Katie Beth Parsons, who readers may remember as being the next youngest in the class and having a deaf sister; Hilary Morgan, whose mother gave up a budding ballet career to have a family and is now living vicariously through Hilary; and finally Lisa Jones, who is nice, but always critical of herself.

The parts are quickly given out, with Carrie getting the Bluebird of Happiness, Lisa being the Lilac Fairy and of course, Jessi as Aurora. Everyone else in the class is relegated to the ensemble. Jessi is thrilled, but tries not to let it show. She's too nice and humble to rub it in everyone's faces. Even so, Jessi soon realizes that maybe not everyone is happy. At her first rehearsal, her toes shoes go missing while she changes. As the lead, there is no way she can rehearse at all without them. So the whole rehearsal is halted and the entire class is brought back into the change room to search. They can't find them, and eventually Mme Noelle decides to cancel class. Lisa asks if there's any way they can rehearse still, and Hilary insists that they search one more time. It's Katie Beth who finds them, in Jessi's bag. Jessi finds it weird, and is quite shaken and off her game for the rest of rehearsal. When it finally ends and she goes back to get changed, Jessi finds a note in her shoes telling her: BEWARE.

For her next rehearsal, Jessi doesn't take any chances: she brings her entire second spare outfit. She's determined not to let anything get in the way this time. However, she's in a sour mood still, after being reminded of the last rehearsal by Katie Beth. Then all throughout rehearsal, Carrie keeps purposely bumping into Jessi, making Jessi look like an uncoordinated lout! It's a pretty lousy rehearsal, and Jessi can't wait for it to end. When she gets back in the changeroom, she discovers that her entire second outfit is missing! Furthermore, there's another note, this time one written in red ink that looks like blood! It says: WATCH YOUR STEP.

For their next rehearsal, Jessi shows up with all new gear, including a new gym bag that can lock. While out on the dance floor however, Jessi's chain with the key comes loose and while she's able to pick it up, she misses a set of instructions. Carrie quickly tells Jessi what they were, but as Jessi dances, she slips on some water and hurts her ankle. While Mme Noelle attends to her, the teacher asks her why she was doing the wrong dance move. Carrie had lied to Jessi! Mme Noelle determines that Jessi better get her ankle looked at, just in case, and that in the meantime, Katie Beth will take over in rehearsals. Jessi is understandably upset, even more so when she returns to get her stuff and discovers another note: I TOLD YOU SO. FROM NOW ON WATCH OUT.

At the doctor's office, Jessi is told she simply has a bad strain, and that as long as she doesn't use her ankle in any way for a few days, she'll be ready to dance in no time. So Jessi attends the next rehearsal, but just watches on the sidelines. There, she's all suspicious of her classmates and second-guesses everything everyone says. She checks her locker, in case she forgot something the previous day in her rush, and discovers yet another note: IT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE. TOO BAD IT WASN'T.

Jessi finally decides to bring all the drama to the attention of the Club. She'd been keeping it in because she didn't want to burden the girls, plus she still couldn't believe it was actually happening. The girls look at the notes, and then determine that they really need to see all the suspects for themselves. Jessi points out that their next rehearsal is on a Saturday, and in the public theatre that the performance will actually be on, so anyone who can come can sneak into the audience and watch. Jessi is actually disappointed when it's such a great rehearsal with no incidents - had she imagined it all? But no, her friends are convinced that something is going on, based on what they observe of Jessi's classmates and how they all interact with each other. With everyone's help, Jessi narrows her suspects down to three classmates: Carrie, Katie Beth and Hilary.

As rehearsals continue, more things happen again. Jessi's stolen dance outfit is returned - only shredded to death. Someone pushes her into some wet scenery, ruining her clothes and causing rehearsal to end early. Jessi gets another creepy note, this time with a red rose, saying: WATCH OUT FOR THE THORNS. Jessi continues to watch her classmates, becoming more suspicious and confused than ever. The notes continue with GIVE UP THE ROLE BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE and YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. It gets to a point where Jessi stops being scared, and is now just plain annoyed and more determined than ever to do this. One day, she gets a note that says TAKE A REST, SLEEPING BEAUTY, which just makes Jessi roll her eyes, until she realizes that Carrie's home sick that day. Another day, Katie Beth saves Jessi from some falling scenery. That leaves Jessi with only one person: Hilary.

The girls look over the notes again, and determine that Hilary must have written using a calligraphy pen. They decide that all Jessi really needs to do is get Hilary to write something in front of her using that pen, and then it'll be all over! So with that in mind, Jessi goes to her next rehearsal with a plan. She tells Hilary that Mme Noelle needs a sign to be made. Lo and behold, Hilary is caught in the act! Hilary is super apologetic, citing stress from her extremely pushy stage mom, and vows to pay Jessi back for all the ruined outfits and things. Jessi agrees not to tell anyone, and they part on good terms.

The night of the ballet, everything goes perfectly. Jessi dances magnificently and gets a standing ovation, plus some flowers from her sister. Hilary apologizes yet again for all the horrible things she did, and then confesses something to Jessi: she's quitting ballet. She knows her mom will be furious, but Hilary also knows that nothing she does will please her, so she might as well please herself.

The subplot in this one is that the Club decides to put on a Pet Show for their clients. At first it seems like a good idea, with all the kids getting excited. Soon though, the kids start getting very competitive over who will win first prize. Those with smaller pets get very upset over not being able to compete against cats and dogs, Becca, being one of these kids, because of their hamster. After many dramas and troubles, the girls decide to award each pet their own individual prize, like Nicest or Best Behaved. The Pike triplets end up entering themselves as a two-man horse.

Random Thoughts:

• This one is ghostwritten by Ellen Miles
• What kind of ballerina would want to scare Jessi? If I've learned anything from the bits of reality TV I've gleamed from living with my mom for so long: ANY BALLERINA??? Haha from what I gather, ballerinas are only next to beauty pageants in how crazy and vicious some girls can be when competing.
• Man, I had no idea how many mysteries we had gotten in the regular series before they officially introduced the Mystery series. I'm especially surprised, since this one comes so soon after the last one.
• This one mentions that Hannie is pretend-married to Scott Hsu! I honestly do not remember this detail at all, despite having read pretty much the entire Little Sister series as a child, and almost the entire Baby-sitters Club series as well!
• Oh the early '90s, where you could cram way more people than seatbelts into a car, and it not be an issue at all. I remember when I was younger, like age 4-6, my parents didn't make me wear a seatbelt cuz I didn't like it because it would choke me. I should have had a booster seat, but they weren't overly common at the time.
• Okay, this one actually made me look up on YouTube videos of 11-13 year olds dancing en pointe and Sleeping Beauty and what not. God damn, they must have ankles of steel. My own ankles hurt just watching! But yeah. I wanted to look it up, because this is the one-millionth book where Jessi has had the lead in a ballet production, and I was starting to feel jaded. No, 11 year olds really can be performing these things at ballet school. I guess now I need to know how common this is. Like, yes, it's possible for 11 year olds to perform at this level... BUT ONLY IF THEY STARTED AT AGE 3, DO NOTHING BUT BALLET, AND ARE TRAINING FOR LIKE, THE BALLET OLYMPICS AND BEING TOTES PRO BALLET IS THEIR LIFE? Or is it more like, yes, it's possible for an average 11 year old to perform at this level, as long as they're dedicated and really love ballet and practice a lot, but not to a crazy extent? I mean, for all I know, it could be like, uhhh... this is totes normal, if you've taken regular ballet lessons, you should be able to achieve this easily in like 4 years.
• I also wonder what it means to be dancing at this age, versus being an adult professional dancer. Jessi mentions that playing Aurora is the role of a lifetime. Obviously, being the lead in any production is a big deal, but I wonder if they simplify the choreography at this age. Or if this is it: now that Jessi's played Aurora, there's no reason for her to ever play her again as an adult. She can just go in to auditions and be like, "Pfft... I was dancing this part when I was 11 years old!" haha As a musician, I've played the theme song to Harry Potter a bajillion times, but each time has been different orchestrations, getting progressively harder and more intricate and complex. The version I played in grade 8 is completely different than the version I played in my final year of university. It was never just "Harry Potter again".
• Although having an individual award for each pet makes the most sense, I'm surprised the girls didn't briefly discuss or contemplate having different categories. Like, cats compete against each other, dogs in another category, rodents such as guinea pigs and hamsters in another, reptiles, etc etc
• Maybe it's because I already know French, but I would love this book (and any of the other Jessi-does-ballet books) more if they didn't add phonetic pronunciations of all the ballet terms.
• Actually, I feel this way about anytime a language is in a book. Except if it's an Asian language: obviously I need it to be written in English characters, not kanji or katakana or other Asian characters.
• Spoiler alert: I didn't realize that Mary Bramstedt was mentioned in this book. She's the one who eventually develops an eating disorder in another book. This actually makes sense, based on what we hear of her this time around.
• There are like, 6 roles in this ballet. The fact that Carrie got a named role at all is a big deal. Same with Lisa, especially after hearing that she's good, but overly critical of herself.
• Continuity with the Ramsey's and the Pike's hamsters having come from Jessi's crazy pet-sitting adventure.
• I had never realized how many times Dr Dellenkamp is referenced in the series. Here, she's Jessi's doctor as well.
• Man, Jessi could have been seriously hurt. She was lucky it was just a strain. What if she had broken her ankle, and had to give up dancing for a month or two? And that would just be the best case scenario in that one. She really should have told Mme Noelle what was going on.
• Charlie is a saint of a brother for always driving Kristy and her friends around.