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/obvious nutter is.
Tag Line: She's drop-dead gorgeous.From the Back of the Book: There hasn't been a Homecoming queen at Westdale High for twenty-five years. Not since beautiful queen, Brenda Sheldon, was killed in a gruesome car accident. Now the school has brought the tradition back. But is Brenda back too? One by one, the contestants start having nasty "accidents". Deadly accidents....Could Brenda Sheldon's ghost be out for revenge or is someone else? The truth is more terrifying than anyone could ever imagine.....
This book was published in 1996 and it's my first reading. I've actually never read John Hall before so I'm excited to see if he's any good. I'm hoping for an Ellis here and NOT a Cooney.
We begin with three girls in a bedroom
before the first day of their senior year. No idea who our
protagonist is yet but it might be this chick Melissa who is
excited to show her friends Izzy and Celeste the new
her. They haven't seen each other all summer and she's changed
dramatically. And by dramatically she means she lost five pounds of
grotesque fat and she's wearing contacts.
Wow, I busted that out early. I don't know if I've ever flipped a protagonist off on the first page before.
Her friends are excited to see how good
she looks. They ask her about her summer as a camp counselor and she
tells them that she met some guy named Mike from the boys'
camp across the lake. They had a picnic together and did a little
heavy necking but he lives across the country so there's not really
lasting relationship potential.
(((Note from future me: Mike has zero role in this entire story. He was a waste of Bold font.)))
We learn Izzy is the funky one with her
flea market clothes and her buzz cut. Celeste is the conservative,
vanilla one with her cardigan sets and ponytail. Celeste is our
overworked-Type A-needs-to-be perfect-must-get-a-scholarship type.
Odds that Celeste is the bad guy: 50%
This is always the type that cracks.
This is shaping up to be a pretty
standard high school kind of book. We already have the
girl-who-takes-off-her-glasses-shakes-her-hair-and-gets-hot protagonist, the
eclectic-doesn't-give-a-fuck artsy type and our
stressed-out-overachiever. All we need is the Jock, the Bad Boy and
the Mean Girls.
They get to school and Melissa is
pleased to find Seth checking her out. He's our stereotypical
Jock character. Our Mean Girls (Laurel and Betsy) make
their first appearance in homeroom. Izzy hates them but Melissa
secretly wishes she could be their friend because they're just so 💫luminous💫. Laurel is dating Seth and Betsy is dating Zach (our bad boy). Melissa vows to be more like them this year.
In homeroom, the teacher makes an
announcement that the school will be having Homecoming for the first
time in 25 years. Ballots will be handed out to elect a King and
Queen. Melissa is fairly new to the school and can't figure out why
this is a big deal. Maybe she should have read the back of the book.
At lunch, Melissa wants to know two
crucial pieces of information: 1) Are Laurel and Seth still dating
and 2) What's the deal with homecoming. Izzy is happy to answer. 1)
No. Seth dumped Laurel over Labor Day weekend. 2) People are
worried that Brenda's ghost is going to come back and haunt
their asses.
This is where not being familiar with
the author really bites me in the ass.
If this was an Ellis I would say:
Odds of there being an actual ghost in this story: 5% Because Ellis
is reasonable and she would make it look like a ghost but it would
turn out to be Laurel or Celeste.
If this was a Cooney I would say:
Odds of there being an actual ghost in this story: 75% Because
Cooney is an asshole. And there would probably be a sentient shadow
in there somewhere too.
But I have no idea if Hall is
reasonable or an asshole. So........
Odds of there being an actual ghost in
this story: 50%
Celeste tells Melissa the saga of
Brenda. She was elected Homecoming Queen because she was popular and
beautiful and fit the crown. After the dance she went to a party
with her boyfriend who was driving drunk in a car with bad brakes on
a rainy night on curvy roads and then she died of appendicitis.
Nah.
Her boyfriend lost control of the car
and hit an oncoming truck head-on. Everyone died. The school
decided to ban Homecoming to honor the dead and to keep kids from
driving drunk because we all know that could only possibly happen on
Homecoming. They've decided to have it again this year because the
school is falling apart and they need alumni to come back and make
donations.
Izzy tells Melissa that people have
been seeing Brenda's ghost walking around the woods where she died
for years. They say she's trying to make her way back to the school
to reclaim her crown and scepter.
Seth drops by the table and flirts with
Melissa a little. He confirms that he and Laurel are finished and
makes it pretty clear that he'd like Melissa to slide into her place.
Melissa is putting on her butter socks when Laurel intercepts her
and tells her that the breakup is temporary and Melissa better stay
the hell away from Seth if she knows what's good for her.
Hot girl who has it out for our
protagonist (most likely over a boy)? Check
Izzy and the hot girls get into a bit
of a pissing contest that ends with Izzy saying she's going to
nominate Melissa for Homecoming Queen so she can kick Laurel's ass.
Melissa tries to tell Izzy that she doesn't want to be
nominated for HQ but Izzy doesn't care about that noise. It's a lie
anyway. Melissa is secretly thrilled that she's going to nominated
and she can't wait to soak up all that attention like a greedy little
sponge.
We time hop to Saturday. Melissa, Izzy
and Celeste are poised to sneak into the school to hang Melissa's
posters up so they're the first ones. They don't have permission to
actually be in the school and posters aren't supposed to be put up
until Monday but Izzy doesn't care. Celeste is freaking the fuck
out. She can't get suspended or detention or arrested or anything
else that might derail her perfect path to an Ivy League school.
Melissa finally tells her to wait in the car because she's just a
liability at this point.
And thus we have one little piggy
splintered off from the rest. If anything happen while the other two
are in the school, Celeste is going to look hella suspicious.
Once the get inside the school, they
split up. Melissa finds wandering around a dark, empty school to be
a little terrifying. Everything looks different when she's there
alone. She's never been the bravest person to begin with and this is
freaking her out. She keeps imagining that she hears footsteps but
when she turns around, no one is there.
Melissa explains to us how the voting
works. It's essentially a fundraiser. Each vote costs a dollar and
you can vote as many times as you can pay. This seems very unfair to
me. Typically popular students are the richer students (because they
can buy the “in” clothes and have the cool cars, etc) and they
tend to be friends with people of similar economic status.
Therefore, the popular students have friends who can buy more votes.
I'm not saying this is always the case but popular=rich is how it
worked in my high school. This would seem to give Laurel and Betsy a distinct
advantage.
In addition to Melissa, Laurel and
Betsy, two girls named Tia and Faith had been nominated
for HQ. Melissa doesn't know either of them but tells us that they
seem friendly. Friendly and non-descript. Neither of these sound
like a Survivor Girl to me.
Odds that Tia and Faith die first: 66%
Melissa goes to hang posters in the
auditorium and sees that there is a throne on stage. Upon closer
inspection, she finds a crown, scepter and cape on the throne and she
can't help but try them on.
Naturally this is my first
thought.............
Melissa admires herself in the mirror
that just conveniently happens to be there and then sits in the
throne, closes her eyes and imagines her night as HQ. She's just
thinking of playing tonsil hockey with Seth when it strikes her that
these might be the very things that Brenda wore right before her
death. Freaked out, she opens her eyes just in time to see a sandbag
zipping through the air, aimed right at her head.
Odds that Melissa gets hit by the
sandbag: 1% Hall appears to be very Stine-ish with his chapter
ending cliffhangers. Maybe he's contractually obligated to throw them in.
Melissa jumps out of the way and the
throne is literally smashed to pieces. Either that was a very heavy
sandbag or it was a very poorly constructed throne. Melissa runs out
of the school and encounters Betsy and Zach. They've also come to
sneak in and hang up posters early. Melissa takes a moment out of
her panic to tell us how much she dislikes Zach. He's extremely hot
but he knows it and expects everyone to fall at his feet. Worse,
he's an Alpha-asshole to Betsy – controlling her every move and
flying into a jealous rage if another boy even looks at her.
Laurel rocks up and the four of them
engage in some lame insult-tossing that just makes me cringe.
Eventually Melissa goes back to the car where Izzy and Celeste are
waiting. She tells them what happened with the throne. Celeste says
it has to be the ghost while Izzy is sure it must have been an
accident.
Odds that a ghost tried to kill
Melissa: 10% (hopefully)
Odds that Celeste tried to kill
Melissa: 35% (it's always the scholarship-obsessed)
Odds that Izzy tried to kill Melissa:
10%
Odds that Zach tried to kill Melissa:
10%
Odds that Laurel tried to kill Melissa:
25%
Odds that Betsy tried to kill Melissa:
10%
At the end of voting on Monday, Melissa
is leading the race. There are still four more days to vote though,
so....... {{{shrug}}} Laurel tells her that she's probably just
getting the sympathy vote and that gets in Melissa's head like
poison. Later, Seth tells her that he voted for her 20 times and
she's shocked he would spend $20 voting for her. Then Laurel's words
come back to haunt her and she asks him why he never talked to her
before she lost five pounds and took off her glasses. He seems
insulted by her implication that five pounds and a pair of glasses
turned him off. He tells her he noticed her plenty before (and
proceeds to prove it by listing off a stalkerish list of her
likes/dislikes) but he was dating Laurel and the timing was off.
It starts to rain and Seth offers
Melissa a ride home. She excitedly accepts and they arrange to meet
out front in ten minutes. As she's tearing through the halls to get
to her locker, Melissa remembers she was supposed to go home with
Celeste to help her with an essay. She tries to track Celeste down
but can't find her and she's already late to meet Seth so she just
leaves a note in Celeste's locker and takes off.
The rain begins to come down hard so
Seth pulls over to wait it out. He claims visibility is bad but it
feels more like he just wants to make a move on Melissa. He asks her if she
wants to be his girlfriend and she points out that they haven't even
been on a date yet so he asks her to go to the County Fair on
Saturday. She agrees to that and then they make out in his car on a
public street in the middle of the day.
Celeste calls after Melissa gets home
and she's hella pissed. She waited at the school for more than an
hour for Melissa. Melissa explains about Seth and the note but
Celeste isn't very appeased.
After dinner, Melissa heads to the
library to work on her English paper. She's unexpectedly joined by
the other two HQ candidates, Faith and Tia. Faith begins ranting
about how much she hates Laurel because Laurel kept her off the
cheerleading squad the year before. Faith holds a grudge, y'all.
They sit and gossip for awhile and then Faith and Tia need to leave.
As they're gathering up their stuff, Faith invites Melissa to a party
in two weeks. Melissa has nebulous plans to have a movie marathon
with Izzy that night (who sets up vague plans that far in advance??)
but nothing was definite so she thinks it's okay to accept the
invitation.
Melissa stays for another hour and it's
dark and drizzling by the time she emerges from the library.
Naturally she has to walk home in this very spooky setting that Hall
has crafted for her. She's feeling generally creeped out when she
hears a commotion from the woods across the street. Why are there
woods across the street in the middle of town you ask? Fuck if I
know. She watches in horror as a girl wearing a bloody white dress
steps out of the woods and points at her. The girl tells her if she
wears the crown she will die.
I don't know. I'm not feeling it.
Odds of this being a real ghost: 13%
We hop to the next morning at Melissa's
locker. Izzy is waiting for her and she's annoyed that Melissa
didn't tell her about kissing Seth. Celeste rocks up and Melissa
tells them about seeing “Brenda's” ghost. Izzy doesn't believe
in ghosts and suggests it might have been Laurel or Betsy trying to
get Melissa to drop out of the race. This is super logical and I
want to fist bump Izzy but whenever a character in one of these books
agrees with me, it usually means I'm wrong.
I'm still pumping for Celeste though. 😉
Seth appears and Melissa's friends
scatter. He asks her to go rollerblading at the park on Friday and
she's eager to accept. When she tells Izzy later, though, Izzy is
pissed. Melissa had plans to go dress shopping with her on Friday.
Melissa apologizes for forgetting but Izzy seems convinced that she's
being dumped for cooler kids. Celeste suggests they go shopping that
afternoon instead so Melissa can keep her date and she's happy to
accept that compromise.
After school they go dress shopping at
the mall. Izzy encourages Melissa to get something strapless and
sexy but Melissa frets that it's not her usual style. Izzy says they
can keep it at her house if Melissa is worried about her parents
seeing it and Melissa tells them that her parents will be out of town
on Homecoming weekend.
Send the parents of the protagonist off
on a trip early in the book? Check.
Also, you're NEVER supposed to reveal
when you're home alone. How many times have I had this conversation
with a PH protagonist and how many times has it come back to bite
them in the ass when they don't listen to me? ALWAYS.
Melissa runs into Laurel and Betsy in
the dressing room and Izzy ends up revealing that Melissa hopes to go
to the dance with Seth. That doesn't go over well at all. Laurel
warns her again to keep her distance from Seth but Melissa doesn't
care.
We get a little backstory afterwards.
Apparently Izzy and Laurel have a long-standing feud going on. A
couple of years ago, Laurel found out that Izzy had a crush on some
boy. She started sending Izzy letters pretending to be said boy.
Izzy finally went up to him and declared her love and he laughed at
her. Worse, he told everyone and everyone laughed at her. Izzy
swore eternal hatred at that point and has stoked the fires ever
since.
They go to a candy shop after that and
brainstorm ways that Melissa can use candy in her campaign for Queen.
Izzy actually had pretty good ideas for this HQ thing. While
they're in there, Faith rocks up. She gives Melissa some party
details and then departs. Izzy jumps on it. She's furious that
Melissa is spending so much time with anyone else and even more
furious that Melissa won't be at the nebulously-planned movie night.
Melissa points out that the plans weren't definite and asks if they
can just switch it to another night but Izzy tells her off and stomps
away.
Now we're at the gym with Melissa. I
don't know if it's the same day or another day. She's on the
stationary bike fretting about the situation with Izzy. She finally
decides she doesn't want to risk an old friendship for a new one, so
she resolves to break plans with Faith instead. She's no sooner come
to this conclusion than Faith appears. The girls go to get carrot
juices together and chat. Melissa tells her about the conflict on
party night and Faith encourages her to just bring Izzy and Celeste
along. Melissa thinks this is the perfect solution to her problem.
Faith tells Melissa she's off to use
the tanning beds. This is a full-service gym apparently. Melissa
warns her that the beds aren't good for her and tells her not to
“bake herself” for too long. I'm sure that's not foreshadowing
or anything. {{{rolls eyes}}}
I guess I should mention that Laurel
and Zach are also present in the gym. It's probably going to be
important if Faith ends up charcoal.
Odds that Faith ends up charcoal: 88%
Melissa is in aerobics class when she
hears the screaming start. She runs toward the area with the tanning
beds and an onlooker tells her that one of the beds malfunctioned and
a girl was badly burned. Melissa sees paramedics wheeling Faith out
on a stretcher. Gosh golly gee I didn't see that coming at all.
Laurel and Zach don't seem very broken
up about it. Melissa wonders if one of them had something to do with
the bed malfunctioning. THEY'RE WAY TOO OBVIOUS, MELISSA. On her
way out, Melissa runs into Izzy and wonders what she's doing there.
Odds of Laurel being the bad guy: 20%
Odds of Zach being the bad guy: 10%
Odds of Izzy being the bad guy: 10%
Celeste is still my favorite. It's
ALWAYS the uptight one.
Odds of Celeste being the bad guy: 60%
I know, she's not at the gym but I
don't care. She's my pet suspect in this book and I'm not letting her
go.
Izzy apologizes to Melissa for being so
jealous and tells her that they can move their movie marathon to
another night. Melissa tells her about the invitation to the party
but mentions that it might not happen since Faith was just roasted.
Melissa finally finds Tia at school the
next day and asks about Faith's condition. Tia tells her that Faith
has third degree burns on her arms and legs and is being sent to a
clinic in New York for skin grafts. She's going to be out of school
for a really long time.
We hop to Friday afternoon and Melissa
is getting ready for her skating date with Seth. Izzy calls to help
her pick out an outfit and mentions that she'll be at the park too
with the Nature Club planting a butterfly garden. Which seems like a
strange activity for fall. Then again, I know nothing about
butterfly gardens. Anyway, she says Celeste will be at some college
campus going to an open house or something. ((I believe this like I
believe Stine's chapter-ending-cliffhangers.))
Melissa and Seth skate for awhile and
then he asks her to go to the Homecoming dance with him. She accepts
and this impulsively kisses him. She's embarrassed about it and
jumps up to challenge him to a race to the pond. He suggests that
the winner gets another kiss and it makes her happy. They can't
actually get to the pond, though. The path has been blocked off and
a park ranger tells them that they are going to have to “smoke out”
the area because a large number of wasps and bees have taken up
residence there and people are getting stung.
Why do they have a park ranger at their
city park? Is it the same reason they have woods in the middle of
town? WHERE DO THESE PEOPLE LIVE??
Laurel and Betsy skate up and they have
a semi-pleasant conversation. Melissa is surprised that Laurel
didn't try to ruin her date. Laurel and Betsy skate away and turn a
corner out of sight. Ten seconds later they hear a cry and Betsy
calls out for help. When Seth and Melissa reach them, Laurel has
fallen. She tells Seth that she's sprained her ankle and she needs a
ride home. Betsy quickly mentions that Laurel will need the entire
back seat to put her foot up and Betsy will need to ride in the front
seat because she's going to go home with Laurel and stay with her
until her parents get home. Thus, there will be no room in the car
for Melissa. Seth asks her if she can walk home and Melissa feels
like she has no choice but to say yes. If she insists on being in
the car she'll look like a heartless, jealous bitch. Seth picks up
Laurel and carries her away. Before she's out of sight, Laurel gives
Melissa a triumphant smile over Seth's shoulder.
Suddenly we're at the movies with
Melissa, Celeste and Izzy. I have no idea what day it is or how much
time has passed. I just know that Seth still hasn't called and
they're all going to see some slasher movie in 3-D. The theater is
crowded and they can't find three seats together. Melissa goes alone
up to the balcony. The movie freaks her out right from the
beginning. She notices that she's having trouble breathing and
thinks that it's because she's so frightened but then she realizes
she's being strangled from behind.
I'm calling BULLSHIT on that. You'd
fucking know if someone had their hands around your neck and was
squeezing.
And another BULLSHIT because the
theater is so packed that there weren't three seats together anywhere
which means that Melissa is surrounded by people who would notice if
someone was strangling her. This just isn't possible.
Melissa screams and the attendant stops
the movie and turns the lights one which is another BULLSHIT moment
because it's a scary movie and people are probably screaming all over
the place. Anyway, the culprit turns out to be some random teenage
boy who had gone to get popcorn and decided to play a prank on his
girlfriend when he got back by pretending to strangle her but he got
the wrong aisle. This is hilarious and I can actually see it
happening but Melissa is not amused. She decides to go home but
tells her friends to stay and enjoy the rest of the movie.
Melissa is still pretty jumpy when she
gets home. Her parents are out, naturally, so she checks all the
doors and windows and then peeks into every closet and closed door.
When she's satisfied that no misplaced teenage boys are lingering
around to strangle her, she settles down in the living room with a
magazine.
At this point, Hall realizes that he's
contractually obligated by the rules of PH to include a creepy phone
call in his book and the phone rings. At first Melissa can only hear
breathing but then she gets this....
“You're being bad,
Melissa. Very bad. And bad girls have to be punished.”
Sounds like bad porn to me.
The caller identifies herself as Brenda
and hangs up.
Melissa waits 24 hours to tell her
friends about it. Izzy thinks it's Laurel trying to get Melissa to
drop out of the HQ race.
Odds of Laurel being the bad guy: 25%
Odds of Celeste being the bad guy: 70%
(I know I have no proof. What I have are INSTINCTS.)
Odds of Brenda's ghost being the bad
guy: 5% (I think this guy is more of a Stine than a Cooney.)
Melissa, however, doesn't think I know
what I'm talking about and insists that it's a ghost. Small tip,
honey, ghosts don't need to call you on the fucking phone to talk to
you.
Melissa's parents are conveniently out
again so she's alone in the house again. After she gets off the phone with
Izzy, she decides to set the table for dinner. The doorbell rings
and she finds a long, white box on her porch. She thinks Seth must
have dropped off flowers but when she opens the box, the roses are
dead. And because Hall has remembered that he's contractually
obligated to include a badly-rhymed anonymous note in his book, we
get this.............
“ROSES ARE RED
VIOLETS ARE BLUE
THESE FLOWERS ARE
DEAD
AND SOON YOU WILL BE
TOO.”
Congratulations, Hall, you hit your
quota.
Hall missed the memo about his
protagonist hiding the threatening note, however and he has her
report it to both her parents AND the police. Wow. Did not see that
coming. The police don't take it seriously at all and call it a
prank. That part was pretty predictable.
We skip to the next evening. Melissa
has become obsessed with finding out if Brenda's grave is undisturbed
so she and Izzy are sneaking into the cemetery after dark. Why do
they have to sneak in after dark you ask? I'm fucked if I know.
Usually you can just stroll into these places during the day, idiots.
They get to Brenda's grave which is overgrown with weeds and
crumbling. Melissa is glad she brought some daisies with her and she
kneels down to start pulling weeds from around the stone. She asks
Izzy to help her but Izzy is gone. Suddenly a decomposing hand
shoots out of the grave and I realize we're in the middle of a
fucking dream. Good fake out, Hall. Usually it doesn't take me this
long to figure it out.
The next day, Melissa oversleeps and is
groggy from the nightmare. She misses homeroom but makes it to first
period gym just in time to get dressed and get to the floor. She
tells us she doesn't have time to lock her locker which is just
BULLSHIT again because it takes two seconds to lock a lock. Betsy
and Tia are in her class and Laurel is in the second period class so
she arrives just as the first period girls are heading back to
change. I know Hall needed her there to be a suspect but this is
wrong because first period hasn't even ended yet and Laurel shouldn't
be there.
Anyway, Tia needs to borrow some book
from Melissa and Melissa tells her to go ahead and get it out of the
locker because it's not locked. She's talking to Laurel who is being
oddly civil to her again when she hears Tia scream. A swarm of bees
flew out of Melissa's locker and attacked her.
This is getting so stupid, y'all.
Melissa immediately accuses Laurel of
putting the bees in her locker because she's falling for Hall's trap.
Think about it, Melissa. It's never the super-obvious person
(except in an effing-Justin situation which I really don't think this
is). Betsy turns the accusation back on Melissa and says she's going
to tell the entire school that Melissa put the bees in her own locker
and then manipulated Tia into opening it so Tia would be knocked out
of the HQ competition. Melissa lividly says that no one is going to
believe that and Betsy just shrugs. She thinks enough people will
wonder and that will affect Melissa's vote tallies.
By lunch, everyone in school is
shunning Melissa and she's devastated. Only Izzy, Celeste and Seth
believe her 100%. Of course Celeste believes her since she's the one
who put the bees in her locker. I can hear you all telling me I have
no basis for his suspicion and you're right. It's just a hunch.
It's kind of my job to make wild assumptions here.
They discuss suspects and Celeste
offers up Zach on a platter. She says she saw him hanging around the
girls' locker room. Why was Celeste there? Hmmmmmmm.
The HQ tallies are posted again to let
people know who is in the lead and Melissa is still on top with Betsy
in second and Laurel and Tia trailing after them.
We take a sudden hop to Saturday. We
learn the rest of the week was boring so I guess I'm glad Hall didn't
write it in for us. Melissa and Seth are on their date at the fair.
Seth gives Melissa his letter jacket which pretty much means
they're an official couple in High School language. He wins her a
teddy bear and they eat cotton candy. It's all very twee. They run
into Betsy, Zach and Laurel and Laurel is pretty pissed to see
Melissa in the jacket. At the end of the night, Seth and Melissa go
into the Haunted House. They're the last two customers and the only
two in there.....supposedly.
The place is pretty lame and the scares
are pretty tame but Melissa gets herself all freaked out anyway. She
and Seth get separated because Hall knows he's contractually
obligated to scare the fuck out of Melissa in the haunted house.
Sure enough, she starts hearing voices say they want to kill her and
she begins to run. A figure dressed in black with a black ski mask
on appears with an ax and says Melissa must die.
A brief tussle commences and Melissa's
teddy bear gets his head axed off. Melissa runs through the
building, accidentally tripping a secret passageway and then she's
able to escape. Seth is waiting outside. He says that he
accidentally tripped a secret passage too and fell down a laundry
chute into the basement.
Why does a portable Haunted House in a TRAVELING
fair have a basement? THIS MAKES NO SENSE!!
Melissa tells Seth about her ordeal and
Seth thinks that it was all part of the Haunted House shtick. He
totally discounts Melissa's experience but I can see where he's
making the mistake. She should have held onto the decapitated teddy
bear as proof but she didn't and I can see where he'd think it was
just part of the show.
Back at home that night, Melissa gets
another creepy phone call. This time the caller tells Melissa that
she'd better not lose her head because she can't wear the HQ crown if
she doesn't have a head. It's pretty dumb but Melissa is spooked.
Melissa breaks all the laws in PH land
and also reports the incident at the Haunted House and the phone call
to the police. They do a very superficial investigation and decide
that it was likely a practical joke. At least the cops are living up
to their PH duty here since Melissa isn't.
Monday arrives and everyone is waiting
anxiously for the announcement of who won HQ. To Melissa's complete
surprise, Betsy is named HQ and Seth is named HK. I'm actually kind
of surprised too because Melissa is our protagonist and they usually get the
best of everything. Hall just doesn't seem to know his place here.
Izzy is furious at the outcome. She
vows that she's going to make Betsy regret her nomination and she
stomps away. Celeste pulls Melissa aside and says she thinks Izzy
might be behind all the “accidents”. Izzy is carrying around the
newspaper announcement of the Homecoming race in her History book and
she's X'd out everyone's face but Melissa's. You know what it means
when one character suddenly throws another character under the bus,
don't you?
Odds of Celeste being the bad guy: 98%
Later, Melissa comes across Betsy and
Zach arguing in the hallway and she ducks behind a locker to listen.
Betsy is breaking up with Zach and he's pissed. He says she can't do
that after all he's done for her and that she wouldn't have won HQ if
it wasn't for him. Melissa wonders what he did to make sure Betsy
won and she seems to be coming to the conclusion that he might be
behind all the “accidents” but I think it's more likely that he
tampered with the totals somehow.
That evening Melissa's parents are
conveniently out at a bridge tournament until late so she's home
alone. The washing machine is broken so Melissa is supposed to take
some clothes to the laundromat. She heads out and hasn't gotten very
far when she becomes convinced that a station wagon is following her.
Nothing happens with that, though, and she gets to the laundromat
unscathed. She's the only one in there and that gives her the
creeps.
The washing goes off without a hitch
and Melissa decides to walk to the deli down the block while her
clothes dry. That's a really good way to get your clothes stolen,
Missy. You always stay with your laundry. She gets a drink
and plays some video games and then finally heads back to the
laundromat to get her clothes. When she sticks her hand in the
dryer, she pulls out a severed head.
Of course it turns out to be a
mannequin head and it was put there by Laurel and Betsy who have a
huge laugh at Melissa's expense. Melissa gets them back by sloshing
laundry detergent on their clothes. Melissa is just a badass, y'all.
She grabs her clothes and stomps out of the laundromat. She doesn't
get far, though. About two blocks away, she realizes that she left
her Psychology book on one of the tables. She turns back to get it.
The laundromat is empty again when she
gets there and she's grateful that Betsy and Laurel have left. She
doesn't spare one thought to how the two of them knew she was going
to be there in the first place but I guess we're just moving on now.
She finds her book easily enough and is headed back for the doors
when all the lights go out. She's terrified and afraid to move very
quickly because some the washing machines have leaked and the floor
is slippery. Convenient. Suddenly the lights come back on and she
sees Betsy's dead body coming out of one of the dryers. There's a
note pinned to it.
“THE ONLY GOOD QUEEN
IS A DEAD QUEEN.”
Not exactly Shakespeare.
School is canceled the next day and
Melissa doesn't want to be home alone so she invites Izzy and Celeste
over. They talk briefly about Betsy as they make cookies. Izzy
seems to be morbidly fascinated but Celeste doesn't want to hear any
details. Melissa mentions that she told the police about Betsy's
argument with Zach and somehow the conversation turns around to
Melissa's suspicions that Izzy might have had something to do with
Betsy's death. Izzy is hurt. She'd planned to play a prank on Betsy
to embarrass her in front of the whole school but she'd never kill
someone. She leaves in a huff and I can't really blame her. As soon
as she's gone, Celeste tells Melissa that she went looking for Izzy
the previous evening. Izzy's mom said she was at the library but
when Celeste looked there, Izzy was nowhere to be found.
Yeah right, Celeste. I'm not buying
any of this and none of you should either.
Celeste leaves and soon after Zach
comes to Melissa's house. He knows she told the police about the
fight. He has a very good alibi for Betsy's murder but Melissa goes
ahead and accuses him of the “accidents” that she's just accused
Izzy of. MAKE UP YOUR DAMN MIND! He says all he did was convince
all this friends to vote for Betsy and Melissa is out of her mind.
He vows revenge on her and leaves.
We skip to Homecoming night. Melissa
was runner-up in the voting so she has been named queen. It came
with a price though. Pretty much the entire school thinks she killed
Betsy to get the title and no one except Celeste is really talking to
her. Izzy is refusing to take her phone calls and she's been out
“sick” all week. Melissa is feeling pretty sorry for herself.
Melissa is paranoid that something
awful is going to happen during the crowning ceremony at halftime but
it goes off without a hitch. The team wins and there's a victory
party before the dance starts. This confuses me. Typically a
homecoming game is in the evening. It would end somewhere around
9:00 or even later than that. Hall tells us the party lasted two hours
and then Melissa still had an hour to get ready to go to the dance.
Either they are playing their homecoming game early in the afternoon
or this dance isn't starting until midnight. It's very odd.
When Melissa gets home, she finds her
dress slashed to ribbons in her closet. Melissa is devastated. The
mall is about to close and she has nothing else that she can wear.
The phone rings and it's Celeste calling to check on her. Melissa
tells her the tragic dress story and Celeste offers to meet Melissa
in the locker room with a dress she can borrow. She's recently
bought a dress for her cousin's wedding and she thinks it will be
perfect on Melissa.
When Melissa gets to the locker room,
Celeste offers her a gorgeous white dress. She tells Melissa to be
careful with it because it's special to her – it belonged to her
aunt.
Odds that Celeste just handed Melissa
her dead Aunt Brenda's dress: 99%
Melissa is confused because Celeste
told her she bought the dress but Celeste says that Melissa must have
misheard. She takes the cape, crown and scepter so Melissa can
change. Melissa asks her some questions about her aunt and Celeste
reveals that Brenda was her aunt. She puts on the HQ accessories and
shows Melissa the knife she's holding. She tells Melissa that there
should never be another HQ since her Aunt Brenda died so tragically.
Okay, so I had the wrong motive but I had the right person and that counts.
We get about six pages of Celeste
bragging about how she engineered all the “accidents” and all the
pranks and she's pretty damn smug about how smart she's been.
Melissa knows she needs to get away so she pretends to see Izzy over
Celeste's shoulder which is the oldest trick in the book. It works,
though, which just shows that Celeste isn't near as smart as she
thinks she is. Now we have the chase scene that Hall is
contractually obligated to include.
They run though the school and no one
sees them despite the fact that there's a dance happening on the
premises. It ends by the koi pond. Don't ask me why they have a koi
pond in this school. I have no idea. Melissa and Celeste struggle
over the knife and just when Melissa is about to get julienned, she
kicks Celeste over. Celeste falls into the convenient koi pond,
pulling some twinkle lights in with her. She's electrocuted.
That was pretty shocking.
Sorry. Couldn't resist. It actually
wasn't very shocking at all.
The book ends with an epilogue.
Melissa, Izzy and Seth are eating pizza and watching horror movies.
They talk briefly about how awful it is that Celeste became obsessed
with her aunt and went crazy and tried to kill lots of people. But
everything is okay now because she's dead.
What kind of friends are these??? No wonder Celeste tried to filet them all.
The End.
So.....I didn't hate John Hall. I'd read him again.
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