BSC #42: Jessi and the Dance School Phantom

In case anyone has had trouble reading this post, sorry, there have been some issues with it. At any rate, here it is now.



To recap this book, I decided I needed a little help from the BSC's token minority. So take it away, Jessi!

Jessi: "I guess you guys noticed right away that something was a little off when you saw me narrating, and not Sadako. I've got cocoa colored skin and a broad flat nose, not pale skin and a non existent anime nose. But I'm used to being a little different, since--"

Sadako: "You said you had a mystery to tell us about? The Dance School Phantom?"

Jessi: "It all started when I was in dance class auditioning for Sleeping Beauty. All the girls in my class wanted the lead, the role of Princess Aurora. There was Katie Beth who was the youngest before I showed up, and the baby of the group. She's always resented me for being younger and more talented. There's Carrie Steinfeld who's always wanted a lead but never got one. And she's kind of old to never have danced a lead. Finally, there's Hilary Morgan whose mom is the stage mom of all time. She's so pushy."

Sadako: "Hm, does Mrs. Perkins secretly have a teenage daughter? Anyway. By Scooby Doo logic, it's Hilary. Yup, it's always the third suspect. Can we all go to Claudia's house for some Milky Ways?"

Jessi: "After my audition, I watched another girl, Mary Bramstedt, auditioning. She's an okay dancer but has no passion. She's stiff, like a robot. There's no mistaking me for a robot, though. Not with my passion. There aren't too many black robots, anyway."

Sadako: "You're blanking out the Urkel-bot episode of Family Matters, too, aren't you?"

Jessi: "I'm black, you know? In the world of dance, there still aren't that many girls with skin like ebony--"

Sadako: "So, um, did you get a good part?"

Jessi: "I got the lead--Princess Aurora. This is the third lead ever for me, too."

Sadako: "Congrats. That must have been some steep competition."

Jessi: "Not really. I have something the other girls don't have."

Sadako: "A built in ego protector that comes of attributing all your failures to the prejudice of those around you?"

Jessi: "A je ne sais quoi! Plus, the other girls just aren't as talented. Like, Carrie Steinfeld--she's definitely over the hill. She's fifteen and never had the leading role in a dance performance. And that Mary who's technically great but doesn't have my...je ne sais quoi. Anyway, the other girls were all trash talking each other after the announcements. Other girls are so catty, don't you think?"

Sadako: "Well, all but you."

Jessi: "Maybe it's because I'm more open minded considering all the prejudice I've encountered."

Sadako: "So what happened next?"

Jessi: "A lot of weird stuff. My toe shoes and my dance clothes were stolen. And there were strange notes left in my locker. Stuff like Beware."

Sadako: "So did you tell Madame Noelle?"

Jessi: "No way she'd believe me."

Sadako: "Even with the fact that she knows you pretty well and you have notes to prove all this. Well, one has to advance the plot somehow. Carry on."

Jessi: "Then one day Carrie told me we were supposed to be doing jetes when we were meant to be doing glissades, and when I went to perform, I slipped and hurt my ankle. Katie Beth got to dance my part in auditions--it was awful."

Sadako: "That's really sad."

Jessi: "I looked up at the picture of Mikhail Baryshnikov on the wall, like I always do when I feel sad. I always like to look at Mischa, as I call him, and draw inspiration. It's like he's saying, Hey, Jessi. Don't worry. It's not so bad!"



Mikhail: "Why I am in a fictional Scholastic Books' fictional wannabe ballet dancer's fantasy? My agent could not get me Harper's?"

Jessi: "Finally, I had to do what I had to do. I decided that I was going to ask for help."

Sadako: "Mme Noelle? Aunt Cecilia? Morbidda Destiny?"

Jessi: "The Babysitters Club! I had them sneak into one of the rehearsals in the auditorium. They observed and reported."

Sadako: "So did they solve the mystery?"

Jessi: "They came up with three suspects. Hilary, Katie Beth, and Carrie who were all eying me jealously."

Claudia: "My back up career in case becoming a starving artist doesn't work out is makeup artist/back alley botox technician, so I have to know all about facial expressions."

Mallory: "What about Lisa Jones? No one can be that sweet and nice."

Jessi: "Lisa's really that nice--she even called to make sure I was okay when I was at home with my hurt ankle."

Kristy: "Are you sure? Maybe she was scoping out the competition."

Jessi: "I really think we should rule her out."

Ghostwriter Ellen Miles: "And I agree. I popped in to reassure the girls that Lisa was nice. I told them, Being nice makes you happy, and happy girls can't be dance school phantoms! They just can't! And besides, writing more than three suspects would have been hard work, especially since back when I wrote that book I was facing a lawsuit from the publishers of Shiloh about my book Patches--a novel about an abused beagle."

Jessi: "We all told Claudia what a great detective she was."

Stacey: "Claud, You're a regular Nancy Drew!"

Claudia: "Oh yeah, well if I'm Nancy, who's Bess?"

Mallory: "How come detectives always have a plump friend? It's true in the Hardy Boys and the Three Investigators."

Claudia: "Guess you're going to have to put on some weight, Stace!"

Jessi: "We all cracked up at that."

Sadako: "Fat people really are a gas."

Jessi: "Next week, Carrie didn't show up to dance class a couple days because she was sick and I still got a note. I knew it wasn't her."

Sadako: "Okay, two suspects left."

Jessi: "Then another day in dance class, a scenery flat almost came down on me. Katie Beth pushed me out of the way. She didn't want me to die a horrible death or become a comatose vegetable, so I knew she couldn't have been the Dance School Phantom."

Sadako: "She could have still been the Phantom. Just because she didn't want you to die, doesn't mean--"

Ellen: "No, Jessi's right. Bad people try to have you killed. Good people save you. Good people can't be the Phantom."

Sadako: "Couldn't a person be bad but not all bad? Like, you know...shades of gray?"

Ellen: "Gray would be a nice name for the next puppy in my Puppy Place book. He's a spunky abandoned Weimarener puppy."

Jessi: "Dawn and Claudia helped, too. Dawn noted that the lettering on the notes was most unusual, and Claudia said it was calligraphy."

Mary Anne: "Calligraphy? What's that?"

Claudia: "Oh, Mimi didn't tell you about that over special tea, my Mary Anne? It's a special way of writing letters to make them pretty."

Sadako: "So you decided to confront Hilary. How?"

Jessi: "By having her draw a sign and then comparing the handwriting to that on the evil notes."

Sadako: "Okay. So let me guess what happens. Hilary confesses and apologizes, and Jessi decides she's been punished enough? And then Hillary says it was all her mother's fault for pushing her and that she never had a childhood and now she's going to quit dance and they go out for frosty chocolate milkshakes?"

Ellen: "Almost, but Suzanne Weyn pointed out that chocolate milkshake is bad for ballet dancers."

Sadako: "And do the kids put on some kind of performance or competition? You know, the way they do in every Ellen Miles book?"

Jessi: "There's a pet contest in Stoneybrook but the kids get really competitive and argue about who will win. We're afraid of hurt feelings until I come up with a solution. Everyone gets a prize. Misty, my sister Becca's hamster, got best all around pet. Myrtle the Turtle got best colorful reptile. Carrot the Schnauzer got best talented Germanic breed. Even Matt and Haley who don't have a pet got best handlers for holding the dog leashes before the show."

Sadako: "Great. Did Mary Anne and Dawn's barn get awarded Nicest Location?"

Ellen: "No--we were afraid the other BSC related venues might feel bad. After all in my book, everyone's a winner!"

Sadako: "Glad to have you with us, Jessi. Join us next time. Claudia Kishi will be channeling her inner Carrie Bradshaw."

BSC #36: Jessi's Baby-sitter

Jessi’s mom goes back to work and so her dad’s older sister, her Aunt Cecilia, comes to live with the Ramseys to help run the household. Jessi and Becca feel that Aunt Cecilia treats them like little kids and they resent this, referring to her secretly as Aunt Dictator (ouch!). The subplot is that there’s a science fair at Stoneybrook Elementary School, and Jessi helps Jackie build a working model of a volcano, but ends up doing the whole project for him. Jessi learns to empathize with her aunt when she sees that she was just as controlling of Jackie as Cecilia was over her and Becca.

• I love Jessi's dibbly fresh vintage wear on the front cover. And by love I mean hate. And by vintage wear I mean Bill Cosby sweater. With both parents working full-time, they're on their way to becoming the Huxtables in no time.
  

• Jessi thinks that the big news is that her mom is expecting a new baby, and she’s super excited. What is with these kids? Kristy wanted her mom to have another baby and they go to pieces every time a client is expecting a baby. And Jessi’s got enough experience to know that having a baby around is kind of obnoxious.

• Jessi and Becca play pranks on Aunt Cecilia in the hopes that she’ll leave. You know, when Jessi whines about not being treated like an adult by her parents, I find her a lot harder to take seriously considering she short sheets her aunt’s bed, puts shaving cream in her slippers and puts a spider on her pillows. Actually, the hardest part of this to believe is that someone her age knows how to short sheet a bed. I always thought that was one of those lame fifties summer camp things. Then again, the girls have already been to Camp Mohawk.

• And word to the wise, Jessi, punking your nanny isn’t effective. It’s not even cute unless you look good in lederhosen and enjoy romping around the Alps.

• And it’s not like you have the excuse of having no mom and a strict dad who doesn’t let anyone have a good time until a free spirited woman enters his life. That’s Mary Anne’s story.

• Jessi and Mal put ridiculous signs on their doors to keep people out. Jessi’s is:

KEEP OUT (please)
THIS MEANS YOU
PRIVACY NEEDED
(THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION)

• Even Mallory thinks the sign is dumb. Always worrying when even Mal thinks you’ve done something stupid. (Mallory’s sign is much more succinct. Hers says “KEEP OUT OR ELSE.” Love the brevity—someone’s been digging out her Strunk and White!)

• Jackie Rodowsky gets the idea for the volcano from The Brady Bunch. Good to know Ann M. has moved on from I Love Lucy.

• Jessi describes Kristy as being less mature than the other thirteen year old members of the club because she doesn’t date and pays no attention to clothes or make up. Jessi, you know you just lost all credibility, right?

• Kristy’s really condescending. David Michael keeps pitching ideas for the science fair and she ends up rejecting most of them (drawing a diagram of the planets, etc.). Dude, he’s seven. She also tells the others that she knows he won’t win. Hey, for a second grader, a mobile of the solar system is pretty good. And speaking of projects, the fact that Charlotte Johannssen is only eight years old and yet knows enough about science to make a control group when she’s doing an experiment about the effect of music on plants raised my eyebrows. (And that’s really hard to do, especially since the incident.)

• Aunt Cecilia’s not even all that bad as a sitter. Jessi thinks she’s a bitch for not letting them take Squirt out for a walk when it’s cloudy. (I don’t think it’s all that realistic that an eleven year old would want to spend all her time taking care of her siblings, though, which is what Jessi would prefer to having Aunt C. here.) It sucks that she’s so upset about Jessi being ten minutes late. And not letting her go to the BSC meeting as a punishment is overkill, but the fact that Jessi doesn’t even say anything to her parents is just stupid. Oh, she also tells Jessi and Becca that they can’t have a sandwich for a snack, but instead have to eat some weird Dawn-esque health cookies. For really bad living situations, turn on TLC any time of the day or night.
  

• Jessi also asks Kristy to phone her during the meeting so that Aunt Cecilia will feel bad for not letting her go to the meeting. The girls call fourteen times. Because that’s not passive aggressive at all.
  

• Aunt Cecilia’s also apparently a bitch because she thought it was irresponsible for the Ramseys to go out of town for the weekend and leave Jessi in charge of her siblings. Gotta agree with her there. She’s eleven! Jessi didn’t earn herself any responsibility points when she wanted Aunt Cecilia not to call Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey and tell them Becca was missing because it would ruin their vacation. Aunt Cecilia, you rock.

• We have to have yet another Jessi-is-black talk here. Aunt Cecilia explains that part of the reason she’s so hard on Jessi and Becca is because black people have to work so much harder to be respected. Okay, true, but some people just are dominating—the story plot works well even if her aunt is just a fairly critical type without dragging in the painfully labored racial awareness angle. Now, Aunt Cecilia, go give Obama a talk about how not wearing a suit and tie is going to hold him back.

• Besides, lots of white people have horribly controlling relatives who micromanage their lives and sometimes they even manage to get a book deal out of it. Hmmm. Jessi is a dancer already…

I Hate Mallory Alert

Jessi mentions that Mallory isn’t feeling particularly pretty these days because of her braces. And I think that’s the closest they can get to saying Mallory’s ugly. It’s a little worse since Jessi goes on to describe herself as having super long legs and thick eyelashes. Well, when you got it, flaunt it, I suppose.

Continuity Alert

Jessi talks about the Little Miss Stoneybrook pageant, and says “‘We rehearsed the girls for the pageants” and Mal points out that they did, but they didn’t get up and do everything for them. Except Mal and Jessi were the only two who made a point of not getting involved because they thought the pageant was sexist.