Creaky stairs, spooky noises, secret passages-- it must be a ghost!

The Baby-sitters Club #9: The Ghost at Dawn's House

I was always sort of jealous of Dawn's secret passageway. And I definitely spent many an afternoon tapping walls in my basement and shining flashlights around the garage, hoping for a secret space of my own. Of course, a large portion of that might have come from growing up with six people in a 900 square foot house. I carved a secret "cave" out of junk in the basement storage room (mainly some precariously stacked luggage and reams of half used computer paper that my dad used to bring home from work for my sister and I to color on) and spent a lot of time there wishing it were a real secret, and that my dad wouldn't come traipsing in looking for his cordless drill and that my sister wouldn't be able to find me to beg me to play "Barbie Flower Shop" with her. Dawn did not have these problems and she got a secret passageway... lucky duck.

Plot: So basically, it's the end of summer in Stoneybrook and it's really hot and humid, leading to a lot of stormy weather, setting a "spooky" stage for all the "spooky" happenings at casa O'Dawn. Dawn's house was built in 1795 and she hears strange noises and, let's face it, has something of an overactive imagination, so one dreary afternoon she invites the BSC over to look for secret passageways. They don't find anything that day, although they do have fun scaring the bejeezus out of each other (until Jeff gets them all something awesome with his green monster suit. Seriously, Jeff is the best. Why can't he stick around and we'll send stupid Karen Brewer off to California?) A few days later, Dawn goes into the barn to read and ends up sitting on the barn floor with some hay scattered around because... it's comfortable? Really, I don't get it. I had friends with barns when I was a kid and they were really fun for playing in haylofts and swinging on ropes from the rafters, but I have no idea why anyone would want to just go sit in one in stifling late August heat. But then Dawn falls through a trapdoor and ta-da! discovers her secret passageway, which she follows to her bedroom. She also finds some old detritus in the passageway, a shoe buckle and an indian head nickel. The next few times she goes back in there, with Jeff and the BSC, she finds other things. She's convinced there's a ghost.

While all of this is going on, Dawn also sits for the Pikes several times (which apparently, she does a lot? I don't know, I never got that impression, but okay, let's run with it. BTW, this is also the first time that Mrs. Pike allows Mallory to be the 2nd sitter, setting the stage for us to be subjected to much more of her in the next 120+ books. Sigh. Damn you, Mrs. Pike, and your appalling child-rearing skills.) As was set up in the last book, Nicky is having a tough time because he wants to hang out with the triplets but they won't let him and are pretty mean to him. You'd think that this would be something that the Pike PARENTS might want to do something about, but no, they're too busy being all "oh, we don't have any rules. Except we made this one silly rule that we made up so that Nicky to roam the neighborhood alone as long as he stays within two blocks of our house, rather than actually creating rules about BEING NICE TO EACH OTHER, which might actually help to create a harmonious living environment." Seriously, the Pike parents suck. But that's a topic for another day. So Nicky keeps roaming around on his own and Dawn keeps freaking out when she can't find him and finally one day she follows him and sees him in the secret passageway and realizes that he is the reason she's been finding things like a half eaten ice-cream cone and a book of Amazing Dog stories in the passageway (what is it with the Pikes and animal books?) But there's still some unsolved mysteries like where did this old key come from and why does Dawn still hear noises in the middle of the night? So we are left with the "chilling" possibility that it really is haunted by poor old Jared Mullray.

Honestly, I left out the best, most important, and pretty much only redeeming plotline in this book: the introduction of Mr. Theodore Gwynne, better known as THE TRIP-MAN, Sharon Schafer's date. I love the Trip-man. As a young'un, I couldn't imagine why anyone would call themselves "Trip." Then I went to college and knew no less than three Trips, and even briefly dated one, so I can say with great certainty that Dawn and Jeff managed to pretty much hit the nail on the head with their characterization. Allow me to transcribe: "Mr. Gwynne's name is Trip," was all I [Dawn] could answer. "Trip. Can you believe it?" Jeff laughed. "Oh, yeah. Man, that is so cool," he said sarcastically. "I bet he wears pink socks and alligator shirts and his friends call him, like, the Trip-Man or something." "I bet he plays golf," said Jeff, with a snort of laughter. "I bet his idea of an amusing afternoon is balancing his checkbook. And," I added, "I bet he has real short hair, wearswire-rim glasses, and has gray eyes, but wears contacts to make them look blue." Yep, that pretty much sums up every Trip I ever knew. But come to think of it, it also pretty much sums up Richard Spier, who Sharon ends up marrying. I'd say Sharon has a type, huh? I never got the impression that Dawn and Jeff's dad was of this ilk... he always seemed pretty cool. Maybe Sharon has decided to do a complete 180 in her dating life? Either way, Dawn and Jeff are introduced to Trip after they freak themselves out by exploring the passageway during a power outage when Sharon and Trip are on a date (a date on which they were going to dinner at a restaurant and then going to Sharon's parents' house for dessert. What the hell kind of date is that?) The kids call Granny and Pop-Pop's house in a panic, convinced the ghost is chasing them. Sharon and Trip come to check on them, and Trip goes to explore the passageway. He comes back to tell them that there is no one and nothing in there, and then, and this is why I really do love Trip and I think he is the most sensible character and probably the best parent in these books, and he doesn't even have any damn kids, Trip points out what would have been the first thing that would have occured to me: This passage is another entrance into their house and who knows what kind of people are aware of its existence and maybe they should find a way to lock it??? DUH. Sharon is an idiot, and so is Dawn. Even at 13 that would have been the first thing I would have thought of, and I too lived in a sleepy little Stoneybrook-type town where we all left our front doors unlocked and bikes on the grass and all that, but you better believe that there's no way in hell my mother would have let us stay in a house with an unlocked secret passeway. She'd have packed us all up and made us sleep at Granny and Pop-Pop's until she could get a locksmith out at the crack of dawn the next morning. But Sharon, she's just all tutti-frutti like "Oh, yeah, ok." and then Trip leaves and she and the kids go off to bed, and then a few days later we learn that rather than seal off the entrance way in the barn they just sort of spread some hay over it, which, duh, totally did not prevent Dawn from discovering it in the first place. To be fair, they did fashion some sort of lock for Dawn's door, but Sharon, honey, that's not going to be so useful when Dawn starts sneaking her boyfriend in through the secret passageway (a very special BSC, The High School Years!)

Final Thoughts: I'd date the Trip-Man.