BSC #17: Mary Anne's Bad-Luck Mystery

Tagline: When is Mary Anne's bad luck going to end?

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?

BSC #2: Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls

Front Cover: Claudia's not sure she wants to find out who's on the other end of the line.

Back Cover: Kristy, Claudia, Mary Anne, and Stacey have had some strange adventures since they started the Baby-sitters Club. But nothing's been as spooky as what's going on right now. The baby-sitters have been getting mysterious phone calls when they're out on their jobs. When a phone rings and they pick up, there's no one on the other end of the line.

Claudia's sure it's the Phantom Caller, a jewel thief who's been operating in the area. Claudia has always liked reading mysteries, but she doesn't like it when they happen to her. So she and the baby-sitters decide to take action - with some very mixed results!

So the main plot is yeah: the girls are plagued by weird phone calls while they're sitting and pretty much everyone except Stacey thinks it's the Phantom Caller. The girls start getting freaked out and they invent a code to use on the phone if they think they might be in trouble. Nothing in particular really happens though. Aside from a few hang-ups, most of what happens is in the girls' heads.

Claudia's next-door neighbours, The Goldmans, do end up getting robbed, but it turns out that it's just a copycat, and not the actual Phantom Caller.

In the meantime, Claudia's crushing on a boy, Trevor Sandbourne, and is hoping he'll ask her to the Halloween Hop, happening at the end of the book. The problem is that they don't have any classes together and don't exchange words at all. Claudia is convinced he doesn't even know she exists. This distracts Claudia immensely, and she's put on a homework lockdown by her family, so there's many passages of her doing homework under someone's supervision.

Eventually, the girls find out that their mysterious phone calls have been Alan and Trevor trying to work up the nerve to ask Kristy and Claudia to the Halloween Hop. Claudia is super-happy and all's well that ends well.

 Random Thoughts

• I always hated this cover. That girl does not look Asian at all. MAYBE half-Asian, but yeah. That is definitely not a full-blooded Japanese-American girl.
• I really like Janine. She's a bit insufferable at times, but I think Claudia's too hard on her. I imagine that if Claudia just toughed out a conversation for more than 5 minutes, Janine would loosen up and talk about normal things again.
• No wonder the Kishis are on Claudia's case: she hasn't done ANY of her homework at all so far this year (two months). I get the feeling that while the Kishis would obviously prefer Claudia to have super awesome A++ grades, they'd be fine with her achieving Bs or whatever, so long as she's trying. But obviously she's not trying. At this point, Claudia does come across as just simply a student who isn't applying herself and who maybe needs a bit of help. There's a difference between someone who isn't "academically inclined" (Claudia as she's being portrayed now) and someone who is mentally handicapped (the way later Claudia comes across in her handwritten entries)
• Apparently Claudia has an above average IQ, but just doesn't apply herself. Her mispellings in this book and the last book ("cuzin", "Ocober", "thier", etc) reflects that. She has other things on her mind, probably her art and boys
• She gets a 70% on an English quiz. This is actually a pretty damn decent grade. Again, her parents probably want better for her (as they should), but 70% is not dumb at all. It's definitely not "hold you back, you're failing this grade" bad. She gets marked off for stupid mistakes, which again probably comes from just not paying attention.
• Claudia also ends up getting an 86% on her math test, which is also REALLY GOOD. Here, I learned that an 86% is a "B or B+, depending on how the rest of the class does". Up here in Canada, an 86% is an A.
• I'm sad that the "red ribbon/blue ribbon" code never comes up again
• I love how Kristy spends the whole book hating Alan Gray, but when it turns out he's just been bugging her cuz he likes her, she goes along with it. I mean, it's terrible, but it's very realistic to how a 12 year old would react. Plus I like this well-rounded Kristy. She's not horribly into boys, but does get a little starry-eyed at the idea of one liking her.
• I love how their dance outfits are pretty much the opposite of what they'd wear in the later books. Claudia and Stacey wear baggy jeans and large sweaters (this just sounds like too much material and very shapeless; I would've thought they'd wear either leggings or tight jeans) and Kristy wears a plaid jumper and turtleneck. In later books, Claudia and Stacey would most definitely be wearing dresses/skirts or oversized sweaters with leggings (essentially being very dress-like), while Kristy would be in the one in jeans.
• I miss Mimi
• I like how Kristy and Claudia seem kinda close in this one. Not as close as Mary Anne and Kristy, but yeah. I don't think we ever see Claudia and Kristy hangout or confide deeply in each other like they do in this one again.
• Claudia mentions how Kristy and Mary Anne still bring their lunches to school, and how that makes them babies, but then she immediately follows with how gross the school lunches are. Why would you waste money on something gross, when you can bring foods that you like from home?? 
• Related to that: because of this, I thought high school cafeteria food would be like it is in the series. Everyone always had the same proportioned lunches. It's not like that here at all. There's a daily special, but you can always choose from a bajillion other options and mix and match and buy as much or as little as you want of whatever you want. These books gave me such unrealistic expectations of high school xD haha

[Although I read and reviewed one of the original copies of this book, I currently also own one of the updated copies, with the Notebook Pages in the back.]

Author's Note:
AMM talks about the sitting adventures she used to have with her best friend Beth, and how the two of them came up with a code in case either of them ever got into trouble. She admits that they never needed to use the code, but that it was fun to have and being scared sometimes. She goes on to reassure the reader that it's okay to get scared while baby-sitting at night, like she sometimes did. Apparently AMM read a lot of mysteries as a child, and this was her first attempt at writing one. She mentions that she does several more over the course of the series, and that they became so popular that they eventually became a regular installment. (On a personal note: I love the Mysteries, and upon seeing the publishing order of the books, I was surprised to see how late in the series the Mystery series came in.)

Notebook Pages

The person who previously owned this book actually filled out the notebook pages. Her name was Sarah, and she was 10 years old. Her favourite part was when they found out who was doing the calling, her favourite character is Claudia and she is most like Kristy. I'm going to fill in the pages specific to this book with my own answers now.

Claudia and the Baby-sitters were really afraid of the phantom caller. The time when I was the most afraid was when the first thing that popped into my head was this one time, when I was 8 years old: I was staying at a neighbour's house because my parents were in the hospital for the delivery of my brother. I really had to go to the bathroom, but the only bathroom available was in the master bedroom, and they had a giant dog in there and it was 5am and the husband scared me. I had no real reason to be afraid of neither the husband nor the dog, but I guess it was because I was young and unfamiliar with either of them.

Other things that I am afraid of are doctors.

Things that don't frighten me are uh, lots of things?? 

If I were baby-sitting like Claudia and I kept getting scary phone calls, I would call my boyfriend, or my mom haha

The scariest book I have read is hmmm... I dunno; the first thing that popped into my head was Super Mystery #2, Baby-Sitters Beware!, but I know I have read far scarier books than that haha

The person I like to talk to on the phone the most is my boyfriend.

Other people I talk to on the phone are my mom haha

My phone number is 314-2875.

My favourite phone number is my boyfriend's because it's my boyfriend haha 

The most surprising phone call I ever got was nowadays, pretty much any phone call is surprising to me haha

The kind of phone that I have or would like to have is a:

[] Princess phone (like Claudia's), [] Old-fashioned phone, [] Cordless phone, [] See-through phone, [x] Cellular phone