Ainslee’s Reviews > Baby-Sitters Beware > Status Update

OTHER NOTES:
--Kristy implies she's gone to Shadow Lake a GAZILLION times since the Super Special, including during the winter. Try figuring the timeline out now!
--The weird Shadow Lake mystery with the family in the middle of the lake is referenced at the start and never again.
--There's actually a lot of funny lines in this one. Maybe I'm just tired.

MALLORY: Her parents are installing insulation in her house, and she turns it into suuuuch a big deal and I don't gettt it. She also takes forever to make a Mystery Notebook (which I always thought was in a regular notebook but turns out to be a binder).

JESSI: Becca's scared of the guy with the blue tattoo on his face (also from Mystery #7?) and Jessi convinces her tattoos are perfectly fine.

No one else is bothered by Abby, either. But Claudia gets frostier with her until Abby saves her from a double black diamond slope that was closed, and they become friends again JUST LIKE THAT.

STACEY: She's concerned Sam will want to get back together with her, since he just broke up with his girlfriend, but she's happily with Robert. But he considers her his best girl friend, and she's pleased with that.

KRISTY: She's concerned Watson's going to strain himself and get another heart attack, but he figures this out and they have a nice moment where he consoles her and says his doctor actually wants him to do more activity.

CLAUDIA AND ABBY: Claudia feels like Abby brags about her skiing ability, which is particularly weird since they always pull the "I'm not bragging, it's how it is" deal, including in this book.

They don't even bring it up in FF when Mary Anne becomes friends with him. I'd reaaaaally like to know the rationale on this one. I feel like the likeliest answer would be chapters got deleted from this Super Mystery, but who knows!!!

Anyway, there's this Super Mystery: so atmospheric, so ???

Here's some character-specific stuff:

...The answer is revealed two months after this Super Mystery in Mystery #23, where Abby, on her way to the titular secret society headquarters, asks Cary Retlin on the school bus if he's the one who sent the notes, and he's like, "lol yeah took you long enough," and she's like "But why," and he's like, ":) because complications make life interesting" and no one ever brings it up again.

It's either Cokie Mason (who wrote Kristy weird love notes allegedly from Bart in regular series #38) or Cary Retlin (who was just introduced two months earlier in Mystery #22 and mainly interacted with Stacey and didn't have scenes with Mary Anne or Logan; he also did school-wide pranks and didn't do any specialized individual-focused ones). With no evidence for either, and neither one even APPEARING in this book...

At that point they realize conclusively that someone's messing with them and make up (and actually start making out, in the middle of Karl Tate's office, until Shannon is like "What is WRONG with you guys"). So WHO sent these notes, you ask? Well, keep asking, because the book is like "WHO CARES did you see Kris Renn has a GUN?" and never gets around to solving this one.

But they do discuss potential culprits.

THIRD MYSTERY: Mary Anne gets two notes in Logan's handwriting that read "STOP CRYING" and "WHY ARE YOU THE WAY YOU ARE?" Unbeknownst to her, Logan's received two in Mary Anne's handwriting that, uh, I don't remember off the top of my head but seemed way more disconnected. They both get frostier with each other until they're trapped with Shannon in the Tate house, and Shannon finally screams at them to make up.

They then use sitting jobs at the Rodowskys to stake out the place, and then Mary Anne finally gets lucky and catches another burglary taking place. But it turns out it's Mr. Seger's son Noah and some friend, because Noah owes someone a lot of money (never explained), and Mr. Seger suspected this and didn't want to get him in trouble. In the end everyone, including the friend, goes to therapy. Which is good, I guess?