Sorry, everybody.
I totally thought I had posted this weeks ago. Enjoy!
I am not a ghost person.
I do not believe in ghosts and if they do exists, they don’t bother
me. I am not totally freaked out by the
thought of ghosts. My sister Angie is; I
am not. Dawn is in the same camp as
Angie and is all about the ghosties and ghoulies. Let’s dive right in, shall we?
The cover has Dawn and Jeff looking up a staircase that is
apparently the secret passageway. The
only real beef I have with this cover is that it’s supposed to be late August
and hot; I sincerely doubt that Jeff will be wearing a sweatshirt and jeans.
The book begins with the reuniting of the BSC. They spend TWO WHOLE WEEKS apart from each
other. They talk about their sitting
jobs and MA and Stacey talk about some issues with the Pike boys, a little
carry over from book 8. Kristy also
talks about sitting for the St. Perkins family, who are new charges in this
book. Hooray! Children who make the other children of the
world look like blithering idiots! We
get the intro stuff here too.
Dawn goes home and looks around for Jeff so that they can
get ready for dinner. Sharon got a job and dinner somewhat falls to
the kids. He’s goofing around in the
barn; Dawn thinks he’s a ghost. They decide
to eat dinner outside and Dawn gets a little spooked out in the house while
Jeff is out setting the table. Their
house is an old farmhouse from the late 1700’s, so Dawn is sure it’s haunted. Which is probably why she jumps a mile when Sharon comes in and
touches her arm. The have dinner outside
and just as they finish eating, a storm arrives.
Dawn decides to spend the evening reading her ghostie and
ghoulie book, because she won’t be at all freaked out by it. She ends up hearing tapping and moaning and
whining and shrieks for her mom. Sharon comes in, calmly
and logically points out that they’re in the midst of a big storm and
recommends Dawn go to bed. Dawn, of
course, cannot sleep after scaring herself like that. Mommy Moment: Sharon
was calm and logical; I sure hope she also knew that Dawn was in no calmed by
her logic. Kids (in my experience)
generally aren’t.
The next day is kind of a rainy day, so Dawn invites the BSC
over to search for a hidden passageway.
They split into teams and start searching. One of Dawn’s walls has a hollow thud, but
nothing comes of it. One team (Stacey
and MA) decides to scare the other after some snotty comments are made. Then the other team gets back at them. Then Jeff scares them. That’s the extent of the day.
A sitting chapter. MA
introduces us to the St. Perkins girls. Mommy Moment: Now I get that
Gabby is the second child and second and third children tend to be a bit more
advanced than their elder siblings. I
think we all hate these kids because the girls make such a big deal about how
awesome they are compared to other kids.
Dawn has a sitting job with the Pikes and Mal is the second
sitter. Mrs. Pike again reiterates that
they don’t like rules, except for safety reasons, and proceeds to explain that
Nicky can go anywhere in a two block radius of the house. Mommy Moment: Mrs.
Pike says the rules are all about safety, but they won’t let Mal dye her hair
or get contacts. How are those safety
issues? It just don’t jive. Right away the triplets decide to go swimming
at a friend’s house and, rather than take Nicky, they ask Dawn if Jeff can
come. Nicky gets mad and storms off.
Dawn gets worried and goes to look for Nicky while Mal stays with the girls. She finds him later, dirty, but smug and cool. Mommy Moment: I might suspend the two-block rule while a
sitter was there. I don’t think that
it’s a good idea to put that kind of responsibility on a sitter and Dawn’s
panic kind of proves my point.
Dawn goes home and the house is hot, so of course she
decides to go sit in the barn to read her book.
It’s not cool, but it is relaxing.
She finds a haybale, sits down and falls through the floor. It turns out she’s found a secret passage
that leads to her room! She also finds a
shoe buckle and a key, which of course means the passage is …HAUNTED!! Yes, because finding junk in a secret
passageway automatically equals ghost.
Seriously, Ann, if you want me to believe these girls are intelligent,
have them use better deduction skills than this!
Another sitting chapter.
Kristy sits for her sibs, the power goes out and Karen proceeds to scare
the snot out of everyone with her ghost stories. (Will these girls ever learn with that
kid???)
Across town, Dawn and Jeff spend the evening in the secret
passage. Sharon is out with “the Trip Man,” which no
one is happy about. When the power goes
out, Dawn and Jeff grab a flashlight and investigate the passageway. Dawn finds a nickel and an ice cream cone,
tells Jeff the passageway is haunted and they run screaming out of the
passageway to call their mom. She heads
for home while Jeff and Dawn try to
block the passageway with shelving.
The lights come on as Sharon
and Trip enter Dawn’s room. They look
over the passageway, decide there isn’t anyone in there and plan to get a lock
for the door.
Dawn is freaked out and decides to sleep downstairs. She finds a book on the history of
Stoneybrook in her mom’s purse and decides to read it. She stumbles across a chapter on legends. She reads one about the Mullray family, with
a mentally unstable son named Jared, who refused to leave their farm. No one could find him; his voice seemed to
come from between the house and the barn…as though he were in a passageway!. Of course, Dawn surmises, it’s HER house and
HER barn. Jared Mullray is haunting the
passageway.
Another sitting chapter.
Claudia is at the Newton’s
and Jamie is a handful.
Dawn and MA are hanging out in the barn and MA says she’s
too scared of things. So Dawn tests her
out by taking her into the secret passageway.
As they go through, Dawn looks for the nickel, but it’s not there, but
there are peanut shells. She starts
flipping out and tells MA the passageway is haunted, which causes MA to go
running out. She and Dawn run into her
room and slam the door shut. As they sit
talking, there are more thumps and thuds and Dawn is convinced there is a
ghost, especially when she goes in again and there’s now a book.
Stacey sits for the Pikes and Nicky disappears right after
she gets there. Vanessa and Margo decide
to shampoo Claire’s hair with a sample and Stacey is trying to get it out and
is worried about Nicky, so she calls Dawn.
Dawn is sitting at the house listening to thumps in the passageway and
freaking out, so she jumps at the chance to go looking for Nicky. She finds him, smelling vaguely familiar, and
returns him to the Pikes, sure she won’t hear anything more noises from the
passageway. She’s right.
A few days later, she’s sitting for the Pike boys and
Mallory. The triplets tease Nicky, he
runs off and Dawn decide to test her theory.
She goes to the passageway and finds Nicky in there. They have a talk about him coming there, he
apologizes for scaring her and they head for home. Nicky talks to his mom about needing space
and she says she’ll have a talk with the triplets about their behavior to
Nicky. Mommy Moment: I guess it’s time
to break your rule about rules that aren’t about safety, huh Dee?
The BSC has a sleepover at Dawn’s house and they decide to
watch movies. The picks are Ghostbusters
(holla!) and Sixteen Candles (Ann has never seen that movie, has she? It’s MA’s pick and I sincerely believe
Richard would never let that movie in the house). They watch Ghostbusters first, then Claudia
decides they should have s’mores. It
turns out they’ve brought junk food and Dawn and Stacey are a little
ticked. Dawn tells Stacey about the
secret passage, so they sneak through and scare the other girls in Dawn’s
room. Then there is a rapping noise that
freaks everyone out and they spend the rest of the night in the living
room. They wake up the next morning and
start talking about how few days there are left of summer vacation. Dawn’s excited; she’s not going to let a
ghost get in her way!
