Well, this is one of the many ridiculous super specials in
the series. It’s also pretty boring;
it’s the only SS I own that is NOT taped up.
In fact, the binding is hardly broken. That is why it has taken over a month for me to get it snarked.
The cover is pretty unremarkable, other than the fact that
if Mallory were to stand up, she’d be over 6 feet tall and Jessi looks like
she’s hissing…and Claudia’s foot is bent a little unnaturally. Plus, there's no way MA would be caught dead having a snowball fight.
We start off with MA’s point of view.
This book takes place before
Richard and Sharon get married and after
Stacey’s parents’ divorce,
so we have an idea of where it falls in the series.
The SMS kids get to go away for a week to a
lodge in Vermont
for almost no cost because of their fundraising.
They do it every year and have their winter
carnival there.
Now, why must they go
all the way to Vermont
for this??
The purpose for this Super
Special is that poor Logan is going to Aruba with his family while the rest of the school goes
on the trip.
MA doesn’t want him to miss
out, so she’s keeping a detailed journal, with help from her friends, of
course.
She and her friends meet at
school to get on the buses to head to the lodge.
It’s time to start Mary Anne’s Magical Winter
Adventure! (barf)
Stacey
Stacey gets the third degree from her mom about her diabetes
and the buses take off. They stop at a
giant cafeteria about halfway to the lodge and terrorize the people who work
there. Stacey says she thinks they’d be
happy for the business; I say wait until you work in customer service and see
how you like having three busloads of preteens traipse into the
restaurant. They head back out and
discover it’s started snowing. They
continue on their way, and the roads become worse. Stacey’s bus slides off the road a bit and
gets stuck, but they are able to get it out and make it to the lodge.
Dawn
The girls get settled in and find out there are going to be
other groups coming up to the lodge during the week. As they’re getting settled in, Kristy finds
herself stuck with Ashley Weyth as a
bunkie. Oh yes, I almost forgot! You hate her because she dared Claudia to
have a life outside the BSC. ~le sigh.
The girls unpack, find Mal and Jessi (who are separated due to age) and explore
the floors. AS they’re settling around
the fire, the door bursts open with a man and woman stumbling in. They’re from an elementary school and the bus
overturned. The woman’s arm is broken
and the man is suffering hypothermia and possible broken ribs.
The lodge owners rush to call the police and rescue squad.
Kristy
When the lodge owners say that they’re going to head to the
scene with a bus, Kristy volunteers the BSC to come along and help with the
kids. Yippee! They arrive at the scene and split up the
sixteen crying children among them. They get together and bring the kids back
to the lodge. Everyone settles in on the
bus and Mary Anne asks the group to chip in some thoughts for her book, since
this is turning out to be an unusual week.
Claudia
They arrive back at the lodge and the kids perk up. They have dinner and Claudia harps about how
the cook at Camp Mohawk kept serving sugary food when
Stacey can’t eat it. Well, honey, she’s one kid of many that the cook needs to
serve; she gets what she has for supplies and makes the best of it. Anyway, they all eat while the lodge owners
try to decide what to do; the teachers that came with the kids aren’t doing
well but the weather is too bad to send the kids back to Maine.
The kids won the trip because of their read-a-thon and it seems a
disappointment to send them back.
Claudia whispers to Kristy that the BSC could watch them and Kristy
volunteers them. The kids would be
included in the winter carnival activities the girls are in. The BSC is moved into a co-ed dorm with the
kids and they work to get the kids ready for bed before they collapse into
their own beds. They don’t fall asleep
until 11.
Mary Anne
Mary Anne wakes up the next morning, feeling a lack of
enthusiasm for breakfast, the weather, everything. She wakes everyone else up and they get
ready for the day. They arrive at
breakfast, where dreaded gym teacher Ms. Halliday squirrels away the kids so
the BSC has some time to themselves. MA
is pretty bored; since she’s not watching the kids and not participating in the
winter carnival. She wanders her way
into the library, where she finds a book about a ghost of Liecester lodge. She asks the cook if there’s a ghost at the
lodge and he gives her a ho-hum answer.
She asks a few more people, who also give her inconclusive answers, so
she goes to write a letter to Logan. She imagines him on a beach in Aruba with a gorgeous girl who’s good in gym and
eventually decides not to mail his letter.
Jessi
Jessi wakes up, excited and happy at the prospect of
spending the day doing fun winter carnival things. Kristy asks who is going skiing and Jessi
almost jumps at the chance to ski, but suddenly the thought of never dancing
again due to a broken leg. For that
matter, she can’t skate or even have a snowball fight. She volunteers to stay with one of the
kids, Pinky, who has a sprained ankle and can’t go out to play. She tries to get to know Pinky (Priscilla),
but Pinky is pretty closed off and a little rude. Jessi brings out Memory and they play until
Pinky accuses her of cheating. Jessi
gets frustrated, grabs a book and throws it at her and then stays on the other
side of the room until the others get back.
Stacey
Stacey heads out to go skiing, but decides to stick to the
beginner trails because a)she’s not that good and b) she volunteers to help
with the younger kids. They just get
started getting dressed when there is a troupe of kids who need to use the
bathroom. However long later it takes
them to get ready they finally make it onto the slopes. Stacey goes off on her own on the beginner
trail and makes it down ok. The second
time down there’s someone right behind her and she turns to yell at them,
thinking it’s Alan Gray. They crash…but
the guy’s gorgeous so it’s all good.
He’s Pierre, fully French. Ooo
lala. She spends as much time as she can
with him and decides all past crushes are nothing compared to this one.
Mallory
So Mallory is spazzing out because there is going to be a
dance at the lodge. She hates dances
because she’s afraid of dancing with boys.
She muses on how to get out of going.
Kristy stands and announces the ice skating contest at 10:30 and the
sculpture contest is at 2:30p. Jessi
remembers that she needs to announce auditions for the talent show. Once everyone is off on their activities, Mallory
decides to play Harriet the Spy. C’mon Ann, can’t you think of something new
and interesting for her to do? It’s the
second super special that you’ve had her doing this dopy game. The rest of her chapter is random notes from
the chef wielding a knife and “poisoning” the soup to spying on Stacey kissing Pierre.
Dawn
After breakfast Dawn heads out to practice ice skating
before the competition. Things kick off
with a speed skating challenge. Halfway
through her turn, Dawn hits a bump and falls; her team wins anyway. During the relay, she drops the baton and
falls on her face. Her teammates are not
amused, especially when they go through a tie-breaker and their team
loses. She decides she better go
practice for the snowball fight. This
time Alan Gray hits her in the face with a snowball and he smashes one down her
back. Dawn leaves the fight and decides to
go skiing, where more people make fun of her.
She falls trying to get on the chairlift and storms back to the lodge,
where she expects MA to commiserate with her.
MA is too busy trying to figure out how far away Aruba
is. She’s really empathetic, that one. Dawn explodes at MA; MA explodes at Dawn and
they fire each other as bunkies.
Mary Anne
MA starts her day by interviewing staff and asking them
about the lodge’s “ghost”. No one wants
to talk; they clam up when she asks that question. She decides to talk to Mr. George himself
about it; he scoffs at the idea of there being a ghost at the lodge. MA returns to the commons and day dreams
about Logan,
thinking about him. She has her tiff
with Dawn and storms off to sit in a corner.
She tries to work, but someone sits next to her. Lo and behold it’s Ms.Halliday, dreaded gym
coach. Turns out Ms. Halliday is missing
her fiancé, so MA commiserates about missing Logan.
Yep, that's right, obsessing over your teenaged boyfriend IS the same thing as missing your fiance. MA tells Ms. Halliday that she thinks she doesn’t like her because she’s
bad at gym; Ms. Halliday tells MA that she wanted MA to work her hardest and do
her best. MA feels better.
Kristy
Kristy is busy running the winter war. After the ice skating debacle, she rounds up
some of the younger kids for a snowman building contest and drags Claudia over
to help her judge. Claudia takes a
picture of each of the winning snowman and posts them in the common room. After lunch, the snow sculpture competition
starts and Claudia is once again the judge.
Of course, she chooses someone from the red team, which means that the blue
team has to win every other even to win the winter war. Kristy needles Claudia about her skiing, but
deep down Kristy knows Claudia’s better.
Claudia
Claudia knows Kristy is mad, so she heads to take a skiing
lesson for advanced skiers. Her
instructor’s name is Guy and he is dreamy.
Claudia crushes on him as she works on her skiing. He calls her a champion and she swoons. She heads back to the lodge and gushes to all
of her friends about her “older man”.
Jessi
Jessi decides to do the snow sculptures and she and Mal make
a really nice pair of ballet slippers.
They are pretty bummed when a different team wins, but they move on to
prepare for the talent show. Jessi’s
worried that no one will want to participate, but they have more than enough
kids. The auditions begin! They have some talented kids and some not so
talented kids. They also include the younger
kids, which makes Jessi really excited.
Her creative juices are flowing.
Hooooray!!! Aaaaaaaaaaaand then
we find that MA hasn’t written a skit for them.
Jessi gets a little po’d at her, but suggests an idea of them putting on
a play about their school in Maine. Everyone loves the idea…except Pinky. Jessi calls her prejudiced; Mal doesn’t think
so.
Dawn
Everyone wakes up the next morning in a bad mood, except for
Mal and Jessi…and Stacey, spacey Stacey.
Claudia pulls MA and Dawn into the bathroom and lectures them about
behaving in front of the younger kids. Kristy
and Jessi make more announcements and Dawn feels like a dud. She doesn’t feel like participating and she’s
not planning on the talent show. She
escapes after breakfast, hoping to find a book, but ends up running into Dori Wallingford
(a forgotten friend from 7th grade) who offers a game of Monopoly. Dawn loses really fast and, to hide her
tears, she heads to the bathroom. She
discovers Pinky there, bawling her eyes out.
Turns out Pinky is homesick, which is making her behavior less than
optimal. Dawn gives her a hug and takes
her in search of cavity inducing, refined sugar saturated, sure to kill you instantly hot chocolate.
Mary Anne
Dawn approaches MA and they make up at lunchtime and become
bunkies again. After lunch, MA is alone
while the snowball fight is taking place.
She tries writing numerous letters to Logan, but she either sounds desperate for
marriage or like a stranger at the bus stop.
She ends up writing a skit for the kids’ show, which is a leeetle too
mature for the kids. It involves chauvinistic
boyfriends and a feminist lead. Yeah,
maybe a bit much. She goes back to Logan letter-writing, but
is interrupted by a long distance phone call.
Turns out it’s Logan. They love each other. They phone smooch. The bloody end.
Mallory
Mal’s journal writing isn’t going too well. Stacey catches her spying on her make-out session
with Pierre and
her random assertions are wrong, except about Pinky. She can tell she’s homesick. How????
Another big storm blows in Thursday night. They have hot chocolate and talent night,
including spooky story telling. Mal
warns against it and Jessi pooh-poohs her.
Of course, this does not end well.
I’m amazed the teachers went along with it. ANYONE who has an iota of experience with
children knows you don’t tell scary stories when a)you’re in the middle of a
storm b)it’s dark and almost bedtime and c) THEY’RE AWAY FROM HOME WITHOUT
THEIR PARENTS!!! The storm will pass;
they will be able to go home. This news, apparently, is enough to calm everyone down to the point that the scary stories continue. Brilliant!
Jessi
After scary stories, the talent portion of the evening
begins. Everything goes well and at the
end, Pinky apologizes to Jessi for being so mean because she was homesick. Jessi is stunned. There ARE people in the world who are mean
for other reasons other than racism.
Claudia
Claudia is prepping for the big skiing competition by having
a private ski lesson with Guy. ~swoon. Kristy gloats that they’re going to win the
war and Claudia doesn’t really care.
She’s in LUV! Still, she has an
amazing run, but the blue team won the beginners and intermediates runs, thus
winning the event. Claudia’s too busy
crushing on her older LUV, Guy. Turns
out he’s married with a kid. Talk about
crushing disappointment!
Kristy
Kristy gloats about Claudia’s crushing disappointment, but
only for a little bit. ‘Cuz you know,
that’s kind of mean. Kristy then goes to
recruit cross-country skiers for her team.
She brow-beats a couple of kids into competing, one of whom BREAKS HIS
ANKLE! Yeah, probably not ever going to
listen to Kristy Thomas again. They end
up losing the winter war. Aaaaaaaaaaaand
Kristy is more concerned about that than Jay, the kid with the broken
ankle. It finally hits her and she goes
back to the dorm to have a good cry with MA.
She admits she pushes people around and MA says Kristy’s not as bad as
she used to be. Kristy is consoled by
this; I don’t find it all that consoling.
Mallory
Mallory is hoping that ANYTHING will cancel the dance. Jessi tells her to calm down, she’s never
been to a dance and she’s looking forward to it. Mal doesn’t know how to dance, so Jessi shows
her some basic steps. While they’re
dancing, the little kids start imitating them and are pretty good. Mal suggests they bring them along to the
dance. It’s okayed and the kids get all
dressed up and ready to go. Mal
volunteers to watch them at the dance, but they hop right out onto the dance
floor, leaving her alone by the punch bowl.
A boy named Justin asks her to dance and they spend the rest of the time
together.
Stacey
Stacey wonders if this is what it’s like to be in love and
her heart is breaking at the thought of saying goodbye. They spend the night together, watching Mal
have her first dance and seeing Kristy dancing with Jay, in spite of his broken
ankle. They decide not to say goodbye,
but rather they write down their addresses and promise to write.
Mary Anne
They leave the lidge and make it home safely; Ann makes a
fat joke about a girl named Ethel, who eats three Snickers bars while the boys
are singing a fat song about her.
Niiiiiiiice, Ann. MA says that
the most important thing that happens is that she and Logan are reunited. Barf~
