The Baby-sitters Club #29: Mallory and the Mystery Diary
Oh, boy, I'm about to have to admit to something pretty darn embarrassing. Apparently, I didn't always realize what a dingbat Mallory Pike is. Why, you ask? Because when I read this book again, a memory that I've apparently long suppressed came rushing back to me. Mallory opens this book prattling away in her journal. Her final line was "If only I were 13 instead of 11. Life would be a picnic." I totally stole that line! I thought it was hilarious. To be fair, I was maybe 8, tops. More likely I was 6 or 7 (I was a very advanced reader. No, seriously, I was. By the time I was 10, I read Gone with the Wind, Little Women, and Pride and Prejudice all for the first time.)
But anyway, here's what happened: I remember sitting in our basement playroom at home, mad about something, and I decided to make a "Hate List" as this was before I actually had a proper journal. So I took a piece of paper, labeled it "My Hate List" and wrote a list of things I hated, ending with "Not having Christmas at Grandma's." I don't remember any of the other things on the list. Anyway, I wrote all the things on my list and then added the line "If I only I were 13, life would be a picnic." And of course, my nosy mother found my list, laughed at it (Thanks a lot, Mom. Maybe if you'd taken me seriously as a kid, I wouldn't have felt the need to move across the country. Think about that the next time you start harping on me for my life choices) and then was like "What is this about being 13? Where on earth did you come up with that?" so I had to show her this book and then she laughed some more and then she showed my relatives my hate list, like it was just so funny, and I HATE being laughed at (I bet that was on the list!) and wow! I clearly have some residual anger, so I'm just going to move on into the book before it becomes even more blatantly obvious once again that perhaps reliving my childhood through BSC books is not the best idea, and it might be more prudent for me to relive my childhood with the help of a competent and licensed therapist.
One day, Mal and Claudia are at Stacey's helping her and her mom continue to unpack. They take some boxes up to the attic, which they discover is full of old junk. Didn't they have the house inspected or anything before they moved in? Does this actually happen? I mean, my house didn't have an attic when I was growing up, but we did have a basement, and I can't imagine just leaving random stuff down there, like we were too lazy to bother removing it. I mean, I get that you might forget some of it was there, but you probably wouldn't forget that the space exists, and when it comes time to move, shouldn't some little light bulb go off that says "Better get the crap out of the attic"?
One of the things they find is an old trunk. Stace and her mom have no use for it, but Mal thinks its "romantic" and takes it home. She can't figure out how to open it without breaking the locks, so for several days she and Vanessa just leave it in their room and stare at it until it drives them crazy and Mal lets the triplets break the locks. Inside, they find a bunch of old clothes, which Vanessa immediately tries on (which is exactly what I would do in the situation as well.) Mal keeps poking around in the trunk and eventually unearths an old diary, written by a 12-year-old girl named Sophie in 1894.
Mal thinks Sophie's story is so sad! Basically, Soph was an only child because the doctor had told her mother not to get pregnant again. But when Soph was 12, her mother died in childbirth with her brother Edgar. Sophie's mother's father blamed Sophie's father for the mother's death, and accused him of stealing a painting of Mom from Grandpa's house. Since Soph's dad was kind of a ne'er-do-well with a checkered past, and her grandfather was the richest man in town, everyone in town turned on her father. Sophie vowed to clear his name but the journal ends before she does so.
Mal is intrigued! So are the other BSC-ers. They attempt to unravel this mystery and find out if Soph ever cleared her dad's name. If not, they are afraid she might be haunting Stacey's new house. They try the usual things: Library research, holding a seance... No really, they hold a seance at Stacey's house. It's hilarious. Kristy only agrees to attend if she can be the medium, so she dresses up like a gypsy and makes the others call her "Madam Kristin" and then totally fakes this awesome ghost visit, and then when the others are like "Oh my gosh, Sophie, is that really you?" Madam Kristin bursts out laughing and is like "No, you losers, I'm making it up. Geez, you'll fall for anything."
In the midst of all of this mystery, Mallory is hired by Mrs. Barrett to tutor Buddy in reading. I really, really hate Mrs. Barrett here. I don't remember hating her in other books, although I haven't reread many where she's been a main parent, but if she acts like this in all of them, then I am going to hate her A LOT. Buddy comes home with a note from his teacher saying that he is behind in reading and needs help at home in order to catch up. Mrs. Barrett freaks out because, are you ready for this? She doesn't have time to help him because she works a part-time job and has 2 other kids. A PART-TIME JOB. 2 OTHER KIDS. And she can't help her son learn how to read? She doesn't think that's important enough to find an extra 30 minutes a day? I respect that it's hard to be a single parent, but the BSC always reminds us that Mrs. Barrett manages to look like a model every day. Hey Mrs. B, maybe you could spend less time curling your hair and more time helping your son learn a vital life skill. Also, you work part-time! Part-time! First, most single mothers would kill to get enough child support money from the father to be able to work ONLY part-time. And really, if you only work 20 hours a week, what the hell else are you doing for the other 148? God. Elizabeth Thomas Brewer should kick your ass, Mrs. Barrett. You suck.
So Mrs. B decides instead to hire a Mal to tutor Buddy (and most single mothers would kill to have the extra money to hire someone to help their child as well, so STFU, Mrs. Barrett.) Mal is really excited at first, because she loves reading and wants Buddy to love it as well, but she gets disheartened as she goes along because Buddy really hates it and is not interested. Finally, she comes up with the idea to have him read different things to find something he's interested in, rather than just reading his homework or the stories in his schoolbook. They start by reading comic books, then they make their own, which helps him focus on grammar and spelling too. I don't hate Mal here! She's actually thinking about Buddy instead of herself and really focusing on ways to help him, and she comes up with good ideas. It's shocking.
Finally, she and Buddy move on to Encyclopedia Brown stories (J'adore Encyclopedia Brown!!!) Buddy gets really into the mysteries, so Mal tells him about the Sophie mystery she's trying to solve. He wants to see the trunk and the diary, so she takes him over to her house. While he's digging around in the trunk, he finds a secret compartment full of papers, which turns out to be Sophie's grandfather's confession--After his daughter's death, he couldn't stand to look at her portrait any more, so he hired an itinerant painter to paint over it. Then he was embarrassed because he knew people would notice, so he blamed his son-in-law. Wow. Sophie's grandfather (who happens to be Old Hickory) sounds like a real class act.
Mal and Buddy still want to find the painting, so they go over to Stacey's house. Up in the attic they search with Stacey until, just before giving up, they find a painting of sailboats "sailing over a finger". Um, not going to lie, that would freak me the hell out. It just sounds creepy. Apparently, some of the paint chipped away, so that's how Mal was able to recognize the painting as Sophie's mother's portrait. Also, apparently, people left a lot of damn paintings in Stacey's attic. I really, really don't get it.
Anyway, Stace and her mom decide to get the painting restored and hang it in their house. I hope they also get all the paintings in their attic appraised as well, because they could be sitting on some serious money. Antiques Roadshow, welcome the McGills!
I know you hate Mallory and all( i don't blame you. that whinning and complaing would get on my nerves all the time.)
ReplyDeletebut this book is actually my favorite mallory book, simply because of the seance thing(and kristy being ridiculous in that book.)
also i thought the sophie story was quite sad as well as a good ghost story, because in a way she was somehow related to old hickory from book 17, and maybe crazy jared from book 9.
may i add that charlotte and buddy barrett totally rocked in that book. i love the barrett kids, as well as charlotte. theyre one of my favorites.
I agree, Charmecia! My Mallory hate is still strong, but I actually found her somewhat amusing and reasonably likeable in this book. I liked how she worked with Buddy Barrett and really listened to him and tried to figure out ways to engage him, instead of just complaining that he was being difficult. Also, the seance was absolutely classic!
ReplyDeleteIf all the Mal books were like this, I think I wouldn't hate them nearly so much!