Warning: Spoilers Ahead!!! This is a recap blog which means I read the book and tell you everything that happens so you don't have to read it yourself. Do NOT continue to read unless you want to know who the bad guy/girl/effing Justin is.
Here we go again. Sigh.
Tag Line: The Party had claimed one victim. The Dance would take another.From the Back of the Book: He searched for a murderer that couldn't exist. The party was over. Alice McCoy was dead - a depressed girl who'd taken a gun to her head. At least that's what everyone thought. Everyone except Michael Olson. He knew it was no suicide. But how could he prove it? How could he catch a murderer that seemingly had the power to walk through walls? And how could he tell Jessica Hart that he loved her when she so obviously preferred someone else? Michael did not know, but he would try his best. It will not be enough. For him or Jessica. The homecoming dance will end like the party - in horror. The murderer will walk through another wall...
So Wrath recently reminded me that I
did book one all the way back in December but never did book two.
Oops. I guess I just haven't had time. Or maybe I completely
forgot. Forgot is probably the actual truth. But here we are.......book
two!
Full disclaimer: I have read this book before but I remember absolutely NOTHING about it. Therefore I feel I can do my little odds thing without losing my integrity.
So in book one, very little actually
happened but we met a whole LOT of people. Bear with me here while I
review.
Jessica – pretty and vain.
She likes Bill.
Alice – a sweet artist who is
younger than the rest. She died at the end of book one.
Clair – the head cheerleader
and resident bitch. She was dating Bill through book one.
Clark – a mysterious artist with ties to Polly and Alice.
Michael – cute, sweet and
smart. He has a tragic unrequited crush on Jessica. Alice was his
BFF.
Sara – sassy and a little
violent. She likes Russ.
Bill – quarterback. He dated Clair through book one.
Kats – resident greasy loser.
Once fake held-up the convenience store where Michael and Nick work.
Maria – sweet and
non-descript. Her parents are racist which isn't good since she likes Nick.
Polly – Alice's older sister.
She donates blood to atone for being rich. Frequently has headaches.
Bubba – wannabe gangster. He
likes Clair and sex. Often breaks into the school computer.
Dale – valedictorian who is mentioned twice and never again.
Cindy – big boobed. She likes
Michael.
Nick – an outsider because of the color of his skin. He likes Maria.
The Rock – a do-gooder who seems to have it in for Nick.
Russ – drunken track star who
has moments of awesomeness buried in a pile of douchebaggery.
Whew. That's so many people.
So in book one, Alice thinks Michael
and Jessica are OTP. Michael figures this out but Jessica gets the
erroneous idea that Alice was trying to keep her and Michael apart so
she decides something must be wrong with him. Sara got elected to
student government even though she never entered the race. Russ kept
losing races (cross country) because of Sara. The first time she
literally ran into him mid-race and the second time she screamed his
name and he tripped. Russ gets kicked off the team and tries to chop
down the Varsity Tree but Polly takes his ax. Polly throws a party
which is attended by all our main characters. During the party,
Polly gets an electric shock, throws chlorine in The Rock's eyes and
ends up with a headache. Alice accuses Bubba of rigging the student
government election and then ends up dead from a gunshot wound. The
death is ruled a suicide which Jessica supports but Michael is
determined to prove it's murder and he alienates absolutely everyone.
Got that? No? Well, go read the
recap. It was December of 2017. I can't do everything for you.
We begin with Jessica at the eye
doctor. She's extremely nearsighted but too vain to wear glasses.
Unfortunately she's hypersensitive to contacts and can't wear those.
She's convinced that she won't win Homecoming Queen in glasses and HQ
is all that matters to her right now. Sara is along for moral
support and she tells Jessica that there isn't any way to go without
them anymore. She's walking into things and she almost ran over a
kid on a bike on the way to the appointment.
She was driving? When she can barely
see? Someone should lock this bitch up before she kills someone.
Jessica finally relents and picks out
some glasses, wishing that it could have waited until after
Homecoming. They go out to the car where Polly is waiting. She
wanted to come along but didn't want to come in. Since Alice died,
Polly has spent most of her time alone, staring at nothing. She's
lost 20 pounds and Jessica makes sure to tell us how amazing she
looks now.
Jessica drops the girls off at Sara's
house and then drives away, determined to find Michael. She's barely
seen him in the months that have passed since Alice died. He's
polite when they do cross each other's paths but rarely says more
than hello before walking away. She thinks they need to talk and
she's tired of putting it off.
She's a little horrified at his
neighborhood. It's just a little too poor and run down. She feels
bad for being so snobby but tells us that nice things just mean too
much to her. She's extremely unlikeable, y'all.
The garage is open when she gets to
Michael's house but his car isn't in it. She parks on the street and
begins to go through her SAT study book while she waits for him to
get home. She's not doing nearly well enough on the practice tests
to actually get into Stanford so she needs to study, study, study.
She falls asleep at some point and wakes up two hours later when she
hears Michael's truck pull into the driveway. Somehow he appears not
to have noticed her sleeping in her car in front of his house. He
goes inside and instead of going to his door to knock, she just sits
there and creepily stares at his house.
We hop into Sara's head now. She's run
a successful fundraising campaign and now the Homecoming committee
has several thousand dollars in the account for the dance. She's
just gone to the bank to withdraw $3000 to pay the band, the caterer
and some “circus guy” who is renting the school a canopy. She's
arranged for a special castle float to be built by engineers with the
company Polly owns. The Homecoming candidates will ride in on it and
then the queen will ascend a tower to take her throne.
I'm sure nothing bad will happen with
this float.
{{{snort}}}
Odds of someone being horribly injured
on this float: 82%
Sara drops Polly off and then heads out
of her way to go to some hole-in-the-wall grocery store where Russ
works. She's hoping to “accidentally” bump into him. She walks
around the entire store twice before finally seeing him come out from
the back with a pallet of frozen peas. She loiters in the frozen
vegetable aisle hoping he'll notice her but he never does. Finally
she has to say his name to get his attention. They have an inane
conversation about Spam and then Russ has to go back into the freezer
to get another pallet. Sara follows him.
It's super cold in the freezer (duh)
and Sara hangs her purse (with the $3000) on the handle of a hand
truck so she can shiver unencumbered. She brings up the dance in
hopes that Russ will ask her to go with him but he's not planning to
go. Then she mentions the fact that he's in some impressive
cross-country final but he doesn't even seem to care in true Russ
fashion.
Odds that dance money will disappear
and Sara will blame Russ: 90%
Sara starts to yell at Russ for not
being more motivated. If he wins the race, he'll get a huge
scholarship. Russ tells her that he's not intending to go to college
so it doesn't matter. This just pisses her off for some reason.
She's really trying to turn him into something he's not. She tells
him he'd probably be an Olympian if he stopped drinking so damn much
and he's not thrilled with her interference. He tells her that she's
insecure, uptight and just needs to get laid. I think he's rather
insightful for an asshole. Sara stomps away, locking him in the
freezer on purpose and with no remorse.
She forgot her purse, so.....
Also.....Odds that Sara MIGHT be a
sociopath: 70%
We hop into Michael's head. He tells
us that for the first two weeks after Alice died and he screamed at
Jessica, he did nothing. He didn't cry, he didn't feel, he didn't go
to school or talk to anyone. Then he went out into the desert one
night and had some kind of bizarre religious experience and decided
that his life's mission would be to discover a new comet. So, he
came home and began to build a special telescope. Eventually he went
back to school and the telescope became his project for the MGM
(mentally gifted minors) program.
A few weeks ago he discovered something
off of some star or something that he's sure is an undiscovered
comet. He's been tracking it and gathering data to have it declared.
I really don't care about this at all but I can't remember if it's
important, so I'm mentioning it.
Michael has been dreaming about Alice a
lot lately – specifically he's been dreaming about watching her
paint. He thinks the dream might be significant, so he calls the
detective in charge of Alice's case. The detective isn't surprised
to hear from Michael. Michael hasn't given up on the idea that Alice
was murdered and he calls often to give the detective 'leads' that
might prove his theory. Today he asks the detective what hand Alice
used to shoot herself. The fingerprint analysis showed that Alice
used her right hand. When the detective tells him this, Michael
points out that Alice was left handed. She always painted with her
left hand. He finds this significant but the detective seems
reluctant to consider it a clue.
Michael goes back out to the garage
after the phone call and notices Jessica's car for the first time.
He can't tell who is in it, so he uses his telescope to take a peek.
He's still in love with her. Since Alice died, he's gone out of his
way to avoid her – changing his locker and memorizing her class
schedule so he won't come across her in the halls – but he knows
she's his OTP. After all, Alice said so. He decides to head out to
her car and apologize to her for what he said right after Alice died.
Jessica tries to play it off like she's
there to study with some random chick named Julie who lives on
the block and Michael buys it. They make small talk for a bit and
then Michael apologizes to her. She accepts and then reminds him
that she still owes him a movie. For chemistry tutoring I think. I
don't remember. They set up a 'date' for the next evening although
I'm pretty sure Michael thinks it's an actual date again and Jessica
doesn't. Sigh.
After talking to Jessica, Michael
drives over to Polly's house. He wants to talk to her about Alice's
state of mind before her death but Polly is out of it and seems to
misunderstand everything he says. He doesn't get any real
information from her but he leaves a permission slip with her for her
aunt to sign. It would let him review the autopsy report which he
thinks will reveal something to him that the police have missed.
While they're talking, Polly mentions something about “the
doctor with the electricity” and it strikes Michael as odd. He
thinks to himself that Polly would definitely be a suspect in his
mind if he hadn't seen her go out to the pool right before the
gunshot rang out. He asks her if Clark was at the party and she
hesitates and says he wasn't invited which doesn't really answer the
question.
We hop into Polly's head now and to say
that she's a little disoriented would be a massive understatement.
Her thoughts jump all over the place and it's hard to follow. She
thinks about her parents' car accident when she was little and then
thinks about the doctors with the electricity afterwards that lied
and told her she wouldn't feel a thing. It sure sounds like she had
electro-convulsive therapy done at some point. In the first book,
she gets a pretty bad (and unrealistic) shock before Alice died. Hmmmmmm. I wonder if they're related???????????
It's dark now and Polly is watching TV
with no sound because she can't stand to listen to people talk
anymore. She hears someone outside and finds Clark prowling around.
She goes out to the patio to talk to him and the conversation
is......odd. I'm going to try to sift through the oddness to find
the actual facts. She tells him that Michael has been asking a lot
of questions about him and is trying to find out his last name so the
police can locate him and question him. Clark doesn't seem too
worried about this. She asks him if he was at the party and he
replies that he came at the end like she asked him to. She remembers
then that Clark was in the room with her and Alice when they were
arguing about paper cups........which.......is not what I remember at
all. Admittedly I read the damn book seven months ago, but I don't
remember him being there for that conversation at all.
Polly tells Clark that she thinks she
should die because she failed Alice and he tells her that she didn't
do anything wrong. For some reason she gives him the permission form
that Michael gave her and he puts it in his pocket. Someone knocks
at Polly's front door and Clark tells her that he'll leave. He
kisses her neck and asks her if she wants him to come again. She
does. He tells her that everything Michael knows is backwards and
then leaves her with this:
“It wasn't you who
killed her and it wasn't me who pulled the trigger.”
I kind
of feel like we're developing an “Effing Justin” situation here,
y'all.
Odds
that 'Clark' is really at Polly's house right now: 25%
The
person at the door turns out to be Russ and someone has beaten him
up. His eye and half his face is swollen. He tells Polly that he
needs a place to stay and she brings him inside and cooks him dinner
like a good 50's housewife. She asks who hit him but he just shrugs.
They watch TV and then he goes to sleep in her room while she stays
down on the couch so she can tend to her sick aunt in the night. Her aunt
is an invalid now after having a heart attack and Polly takes care of
her at night instead of hiring a nurse for some reason.
Kind of
going back to feeling sorry for Russ here, y'all. Maybe he's a drunk
because of something bad going on at home.
We land
in either Sara's or Jessica's head. It's impossible to tell and
that's frustrating. It's the next day before school and they're
discussing Sara's missing money predicament. Sara went back to the
store when she finally figured out that she'd left the money and
found her purse but the money was gone. Jessica asks if Russ could
have taken it and Sara tells her that she doesn't think Russ is that
kind of guy. I mostly agree with her. But after Sara locked Russ in
the freezer he had to chop the door down with an ax (why was there an
ax in the freezer????). He was fired when the boss saw he destroyed
the freezer even though he only did it so he wouldn't die. After he
was fired, his father kicked him out of the house and now Sara has no
idea where he is.
Odds
that Daddy Russ did a little more than kick him out: 95%
Definitely
feel sorry for Russ now.
Sara
tries to make the freezer destruction and firing out to be Russ'
fault but Jessica points out that Sara tried to kill him. Apparently
after the freezer was destroyed they called in extra employees to
move all the food to another store so any one of them could have
taken the money. Now there's nothing left to pay for the band, food
or tent. Sara's already tried to hit up Polly but Polly can't
withdraw an amount like that without her aunt's signature.
We're
definitely in Jessica's head now. She and a huge chunk of the
student body are gathered around the Varsity Tree to hear the
announcement of the Homecoming court. Jessica notes that Clair looks
worried and sad and she wonders what the hell is wrong with her. She
talks briefly to Maria who is sad herself. Maria has been forbidden
to date Nick by her racist parents.
The
court is finally announced and the candidates for queen are Clair,
Maria, Jessica and Cindy-the-big-boobed. Jessica and Maria are super
excited but Clair still seems worried. She and Jessica spar a bit
and Clair seems pretty sure that she can't lose. Probably because
Bubba knows how to game the system and he'll make sure she wins.
After
the announcement, Bill comes up to congratulate Jessica and she
flirts her way into a date with him that night. I have no idea if
this is the night she has a date with Michael or not since I can't
keep track of what day it is while I'm trying to keep track of all
these damn characters.
Odds of
Jessica double booking: 80%
Sara is
desperate and she's heard Bubba has a lot of money so she goes to him
to get a $3000 loan. Bubba propositions her pretty heavily and tells
her he might be able to get her the money but he'll want sex in
return. She thinks he's disgusting but doesn't stop listening. He
says he'll need the remaining $1000 in the account and he'll invest
it to get her money for her. This sounds like a bad plan to me.
Odds
that Bubba will lose all the money: 99%
Bubba
says he'll work with the band and the caterer to get them to accept a
late payment and then he'll triple her money for her. Sara asks how
many times she'll have to trip his trigger and he tells her only
once. I think she takes the deal but it doesn't really say at this
point.
We're in
Nick's head now. Michael has joined the basketball team and he's
been pestering Nick to join too. Michael says it's a good way to get
a scholarship. Nick hasn't thought much about college. He never
expected to graduate high school but Michael has helped get him on
track for that. Nick tells Michael that some guy named Randy
has repeatedly tried to sell him drugs and he won't take no for an
answer.
Odds
that Randy is a narc: 75%
Nick
sees Maria leaving the school and tries to talk to her. She pretty
much blows him off which hurts him deeply. He asks her if she thinks
he killed Alice and she says she doesn't but he doesn't believe her.
He decides he needs to go out for the basketball team because then
people will respect him and maybe Maria will go out with him again.
We're
back in Michael's head. He tries to get the permission slip from
Polly but she doesn't have it. He goes to Bubba and asks if Bubba
can break into the county system and find the autopsy results. Bubba
says maybe but it depends on their system. Clair walks in then and
it's clear she's been crying.
Odds
that Clair is pregnant: 60%
We hop
into Polly's head. She's thinking about going to buy some condoms in
case Russ wants to have sex with her. He's been distant and quiet
since his arrival but she thinks romance might be in the air
eventually. She talks to the guy building the float before she
leaves and he tells her that the whole thing is really unstable and
he isn't sure they should continue as planned. Her keys are missing
when she goes to leave and so is the ax that she took from Russ in
the last book. She doesn't give either of those much thought,
though. She's been forgetful since Alice died.
At the
family planning clinic she runs into Clair. Clair has just come out
from the back and she looks weak and sick. She sits in the waiting
room until Bubba appears to take her home.
Odds
that Clair just had an abortion: 80%
We're in
Michael's head now. He stops by before his date with Jessica to
question Kats about the night Alice died. He presses Kats about the
fact that Alice was shot with Kats' gun and that Michael was sure he
saw Kats on the roof of the second floor around the time of the
gunshot. Kats gets hostile but eventually tells Michael that he was
pretty sure the shot came from outside, not inside. This surprises
Michael. Kats is kind of an expert on guns, more so than any of the
rest of them.
Michael
gets home and finds out that Jessica called. Sure enough she
double-booked the night and she wants to cancel on Michael. He's
crushed. He really needed this time with her because he's just been
so broken inside lately. She fully expects him to just go out with
her tomorrow but he tells her he has to work. She feels bad then but
not bad enough.
Michael's
mom is going to spend the weekend with her boyfriend so Michael
decides to take his telescope out into the desert and do some comet
hunting. Before he leaves, his mom tells him she's pregnant. Man,
Pike really has a lot going on reproductively in this book.
Do
yourselves a favor and watch that link. You won't regret it. 😉
We
briefly land in Jessica's head just long enough for her to tell us
that she thinks she's going to lose her virginity to Bill tonight.
What the
hell is up with Pike in this book? Was he going through a dry spell
or what?
Now
we're in Polly's head. Russ is still sleeping in her bed which I
call bullshit on because this is a mansion and she could put him in a
guest room if she wanted. Clearly she likes the idea of him between
her sheets instead. Clark comes over and he wants to go up to her
room to have sex which would just be really inconvenient for poor
Russ.
When
Clark realizes he isn't getting any, he begins to talk about the
party again. He mentions that Jessica, Clair and Maria are all
princesses now and I'm just wondering how he knows that since he
doesn't even go to their school.
Odds
that Clark is really at Polly's house right now: 10%
He tells
her that Jessica and Sara have abandoned her and that if they hadn't
forced her to have the party her sister would still be alive. Y'all,
clearly Clark is entirely in Polly's head right now. It couldn't be
more obvious. Anyway, he tells her she should kill her sick aunt and
put her out of her misery and then he leaves. Polly strips off all
her clothes and gets into bed with a sleeping Russ who has not
invited her to get into his bed naked in any way, shape or form.
THIS IS NOT OKAY, POLLY!
We land
in Jessica's head. She's sitting on Bill's couch trying to make a
move on him without actually seeming like she's making a move on him.
Bill is pretty thick and isn't picking up the hints she's throwing
at him and she's beginning to get really flustered. She accidentally
tells him that he's wearing a lovely zipper and then nearly dies of
embarrassment. He gets really uncomfortable and tells her he needs
to take her home. He drops her off without walking her to the door
or giving her a goodnight kiss. She looks up at the sky and wishes
she'd gone out with Michael instead.
We stay in Jessica's head but now it's a week later. She's taking pictures of
the basketball game for yearbook but she's refused to wear her
glasses so they're probably turning out completely blurry. She's
taken an inordinate number of pictures of Michael despite the fact
that he hasn't played much. Nick's been a star.
Sara is
with her bitching about the money for Homecoming again. She thinks
Bubba has already lost the $1000 she gave him to invest. Maria and
Polly are there as well. Maria is amazed at how good Nick is.
Jessica suggests she bring her parents to the game the next week so
they can see that Nick isn't some banger on drugs. If they show up I might die from shock. I don't think we've seen anyone's actual parent except Michael's mom. I'm pretty sure they're all figments of these kids' imaginations.
Polly
mentions that she saw Clair at the family planning clinic the week
before and everyone around them stops talking so they can listen. Jessica knows that
she shouldn't question Polly about it because clearly something very
personal was going on there. She even kind of guesses that Clair had
an abortion. But Jessica really wants to win Homecoming queen and
she knows she doesn't have much of a chance against pretty, popular
Clair so she asks Polly what Clair was doing there. Polly absently
mentions that Clair had come out of the office with a nurse holding
her up looking completely stoned. Jessica asks if it looked like
Clair had just had an “operation” and Polly answers
affirmatively. Jessica knows about a three foot radius of students
just heard this and she feels bad but not bad enough.
Michael
and the coach get into it in the locker room when Michael tries to
suggest that the team actually play as a team and not a bunch of
showboating ball-hogs. He ends up being kicked off but
he doesn't care too much. He just hopes Nick will do okay without
him there to be a buffer with The Rock. He runs into Jessica on his
way out of the school and she asks him if he can go out with her
after the SATs the next day. He's happy to accept even though he
knows she broke their date the week before to go out with Bill.
We hop
into Jessica's head for the SATs. She didn't sleep well the night
before and she got lost on the way to the location which made her
late and Michael with her since he'd been waiting on her to go in.
She gets stuck on the very first question and her confidence tanks.
During
break Jessica, Bubba and Michael are standing outside getting some
fresh air. Jessica is popping No-Doz to stay awake but Bubba notices
that they look weird. She's accidentally grabbed her dad's Valium
instead. Michael encourages her to throw them up but she can't.
She's terrified to vomit which I completely understand. I suffer
from this affliction myself.
Jessica
gets sleepier and sleepier through the second section of the test and
Michael feels awful for her. Finally he decides to slip her some of
his answers. He writes them down and then creates a diversion so he
can get them to her. It goes off without a hitch and she uses the
answers he gave her to fill in her test. It isn't until afterwards
that they find out that they had two different tests.
We spend
a chapter in Nick's head but all we really learn is that The Rock
hates him because of a case of mistaken identity. When they get it
cleared up, The Rock apologizes and they become friends.
We're in
Sara's head for the next chapter. She parks outside of Polly's house
and waits for Russ to go on his nightly run. She follows him for two
miles before he's finally curious enough to flag her over and ask
what the hell she's doing. She apologizes for trying to kill him and
getting him fired. He's really sweet to her through this entire
conversation and I'm beginning to wonder if he's only an asshole
because he drinks because he's in so much pain from his home life. I
don't know what to make of Russ. Sara is combative as usual and he
asks her why she always yells at him. It's a good question. She
yells at everyone. He tells her that he really wants to get sober
and I have a little hope for this character.
We're
back with Jessica and another week has gone by. She's gotten her
dismal SAT scores and knows she won't be going to Stanford. Clair
confronts her about the abortion rumor and Jessica tries to pin it on
Polly because she's just awful. Clair says again that there's no way
she can lose and she stalks off.
Jessica
feels awful. Between the test scores, Clair and the Homecoming
dance, she feels like her life is crap. Most of it is her own fault,
but whatevs. Bill has asked her to go to the dance with him and she
accepted but she feels awful about it because she's finally realized
she's in love with Michael.
He can
do so much better, y'all.
Now
we're in Michael's head. He's been collecting yearbooks from every
school in the area trying to find Clark. He hasn't had any luck. He
heads back to the computer lab at school to seek Bubba's help and
overhears a conversation between Bubba and Clair. Clair wants him to
fix the Homecoming vote and Bubba is refusing. He says it will be
too obvious since public opinion is way against her at the moment.
If anyone suspects a fix, it won't be hard to figure out who did it
and it might lead to the administration figuring out some other
nefarious things he's done.
We're in
Polly's head and it's now the day before the Homecoming dance. Polly
gets home late to find a note from Russ saying he found a new place
to stay and thanking her for everything she did for him. She's
crushed for an instant and then a peculiar numbness washes over her
and she feels absolutely nothing. She stands, staring into the
mirror for a long time but seeing nothing.
Seriously, y'all. Polly's fine.
Polly
goes downstairs and eats an entire two pound box of chocolates while
holding an imaginary conversation out loud with her dead mother.
She
decides she wants to drink a Pepsi out of a paper party cup and goes
into the room where she shocked herself during the party. The light
still hasn't been fixed. She gets up on a ladder to get the cups out
of the closet and then is shoved hard from behind. She falls,
hurting her wrist and ankle and is stunned to see Clark there. He's
pissed about the note from Russ which he could never have seen or
known about if he wasn't a figment of Polly's broken mind.
They
argue and Clark points out a broken shingle on the outside below the
window. You know....as if a gun were shot from outside like Kats
said.
PLOT
POINT HERE
He
encourages Polly to smother her aunt again and fills her head with more venom toward Jessica and Sara and then he leaves.
We hop
into Sara's head. She's encouraged Russ to take part in that big
race they were blathering about earlier in the book and she's super
nervous for him. He's been staying in her guest room but her parents
aren't happy about it and she's worried he'll move back in with Polly
if they kick him out. Russ is feeling confident about the race. He
confides in Sara that he really wants a drink but she's more
important to him that the alcohol which she oddly decides is some
kind of insult. I will never understand this girl. She's irritated
he compared her to beer because she's fucking clueless. Russ is
irritated that she's being a bitch. He still asks her to the dance
though. She says she'll go with him if he wins.
The race
goes on and Russ is in the front when he comes around the corner
toward the finish line. Unfortunately he slips and falls and Sara
rushes out to help him up. He finishes the race first but doesn't
win. He's disqualified because Sara helped him up. She feels awful.
She didn't realize it would cost him everything.
Russ
takes it in stride though. He tells Sara he's not upset about it.
He won and everyone knows he won, he just didn't get the trophy or
the scholarship. He tells her he doesn't run for recognition – he
runs because it makes him feel alive. She's mad at him for not being
mad at her.
We hop
into Jessica's head during the basketball game before the Homecoming
dance. She's taking pictures again but thinks they'll probably end up
blurry because she's still refusing to wear her glasses. Sara is
nervous about the dance and Jessica is nervous about the crowning.
Polly is a wreck. She says the lightning kept her awake all night
and Jessica helpfully tells us that Polly had ECT after her parents
died which I figured out about six chapters ago.
We land
in Michael's head. He's in the computer lab with Bubba and they've
broken into the hospital files. They're having to download
everything though and it's like '88 so you know that dial-up bitch is
slow. Bubba's estimate is that it will take 12 hours to complete.
Michael's going to stay and babysit the download while Bubba changes
into a bright yellow shirt and green tie to go to the dance. Kats
arrives. He's apparently driving the float that the princesses will
be riding on.
Does
anyone else think that Maria is going to win this thing? Bubba
doesn't think Jessica deserves to win (not arguing with him there)
and he can't fix it so Clair wins without being obvious. Cindy is
kind of a non-entity in these books. All Pike told us is that she
has big boobs and a crush on Michael. So Maria seems to be the
obvious choice for princess sacrifice here.
Odds
that Cindy will be Homecoming Queen: 5%
Odds
that Clair will be Homecoming Queen: 5%
Odds
that Jessica will be Homecoming Queen: 20%
Odds
that Maria will be Homecoming Queen: 70%
We land
in Nick's head for a chapter that is nothing but a description of the
end of the basketball game. I'm skipping it. Nick sank two free
throws to win the game. 'Nuff said. Maria meets him after the game.
Her parents were watching and they're now reassured that Nick won't
knife their only daughter. She asks him to forgive her and he kisses
her.
We hit
Jessica's head now. She's spotted Michael in the crowd watching the
end of the game. She chases after him, feeling like she needs to
tell him she loves him or she'll never get another chance. Michael's
heard she's going to the dance with Bill though and he's a little
closed up. For his part, he feels like he can't even live without
her and he'll never have her. It's all very tragic. In the end, she
doesn't tell him anything. She asks if he's going to the dance but
he says he has something to do and they part.
We hop
from head to head at the dance. Nothing important is happening.
They're all dancing and thinking about each other. Michael's
searching through files for Alice's report.
Maria
wins Homecoming Queen to everyone's surprise except ALL THE PEOPLE
READING THIS RECAP. What other way could it have possibly gone? She
ascends the hidden staircase in the float to stand high above the
crowd with her roses and crown and then.................we hop into
Michael's head.
Michael's
been smelling formaldehyde all night from the biology lab. He has a
headache and his eyes are burning but he doesn't leave the computer.
I hope he doesn't end up with cancer when he's 30 from inhaling the
fumes. He thinks he hears a strange rhythmic banging sound but
doesn't get up to investigate. Alice's file has finally downloaded.
We hop
into Jessica's head. The dance is over and she's helping Sara clean
up but she's tired. Maria is still drifting about on a high from
being Queen and Jessica's trying not to resent it. She decides to
head for home. Outside she can hear a sound like someone chopping
wood and then she hears a huge crash.
We're
back with Michael. The only noteworthy thing in the autopsy is that
Alice had a broken nose that couldn't be explained by the gunshot
wound. He also hears the crash and he goes running outside and bumps
into Jessica. They find the Varsity Tree chopped down.
In
Sara's head now. She's still cleaning up. She watches with
amusement as Maria climbs to the top of the float again reliving her
moment of glory. This time, however, the float collapses and Maria
goes plummeting to the ground. She's alive but her spine is twisted
in an impossible angle.
Now
we're with Polly. She sees Clark leaving her house when she gets
home and she immediately knows he's killed her aunt. Sure enough,
when she goes inside her aunt is dead.
The book
ends with an epilogue. Most of the gang is hanging out at the
hospital. Maria had a broken back but she came through surgery okay.
Her prognosis is unclear. Russ has been arrested for chopping down
the Varsity Tree. He denies he did it but the evidence is pretty
damning.
Michael
and Jessica talk about Polly for a bit. She seems to be Michael's
number one suspect because he's not an idiot but Jessica defends her.
She's about to tell Michael she loves him when Maria asks to speak
to her. Maria is hella pissed and blames Jessica for everything.
She wishes that Jessica was the one to get hurt and asks Jessica to
get the fuck out of her life and never talk to her again.
Well.
Can't
really blame her for never wanting to see Jessica again (I kinda don't either) but this anger is pretty misplaced.
Jessica
feels tainted when she leaves Maria's room. She yells at Michael to
leave her alone because she just destroys everyone she touches and
then she runs out of the hospital.
Michael
and Nick talk a little bit. Nick mentions that he also thought the
gun was fired from downstairs or outside which backs up what Kats
said. I haven't forgotten that damaged shingle, Pike. Or the broken
nose. Clearly Alice was dead before the shot was fired.
The book
ends with Michael finally finding a picture of Clark that lists his last name. He vows to
track the guy down and question him.
The thing I usually like about Pike is the thing that drove me crazy in this book. I feel like Pike writes pretty realistic teenagers and I love that he lets his girls be just as sexual as his boys. Normally in these books, a boy can think about sex but if a girl does, she's a whore. Pike doesn't play that game. He recognizes that girls can have a healthy sex drive as well. Maybe it's because we had SO MANY characters in this book but I swear every other chapter was about sex. It was a little overpowering. I suppose it's realistic, though.
Hopefully it won't take me another 6 months to do book three but I make no promises. 😆
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