**This blog contains adult language.**
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. Please do not continue to read if you don't want to know who the “bad guy” is.
From the Back of the Book: Nail the quarterback...in his coffin. When Reggie Westlake shows up at the pep rally starting off the football season, the crowd goes wild. He's the greatest player Stony Bay High School ever had. Quarterback and captain, he led the team to the championship two years in a row, raising school spirit higher than ever before. No one could forget his black and gold jersey, bearing the number nine. He'll always be the school hero. There's just one thing....Reggie's dead.
This book was published in 1993 and it's my first time reading it. Doing a search of my blog, I've recapped at least five of Steiner's books and I've liked none of them. This does not bode well, my friends. The cover is....predictable. Back in 93, I probably would have passed this one up because I really don't like football much.
We begin with Amelia trying to calm down her friend Jilly. Jilly is hysterical because she doesn't want to go to the pep rally. Instead of being sympathetic, Amelia gets mad at her. She accuses Jilly of enjoying the self-pity and then says she isn't even going to try to help Jilly anymore.
Well, we're starting out strong here.
Unlikeable protagonist? Check
Friends treating friends like actual garbage? Check.
Mind you, we have no fucking idea what is going on here, but it seems like it's serious and Amelia is just being a bitch.
Amelia goes to the pep rally without Jilly and runs into Garth. She tells Garth that Jilly is still “wallowing” and might even quit the cheerleading squad. Clearly, to Amelia, this is the greatest crime of all. Garth, however, understands how Jilly is feeling. He says he almost quit football because he couldn't imagine playing without Reggie. Amelia dismisses this and says that it's time for Jilly to just move on.
So, Jilly used to date Reggie and Reggie fucking died. He suffered a spinal cord injury during the last game of the previous season and died after being in a coma for two weeks. That's why she's upset and why she doesn't want to go to the pep rally. Seeing all the football players will remind her of her dead boyfriend. Wow. Amelia isn't just a bitch, she's the CEO of bitches.
Amelia is the head cheerleader – why am I not surprised? - and she bops off to start the pep rally. She's about to introduce Garth, who is the captain of the football team, when a mist appears in the back of the room and 👻Reggie👻 emerges from the stage curtain. He raises his arm and points at Amelia and Garth for a few seconds before stepping back behind the the stage curtain again.
The crowd starts chanting Reggie's name and the coach rushes up to the podium. He calms the crowd and says that Reggie's ghost was obviously reminding the team that he's with them in spirit.
I'm sorry, what?
Most of the students think the coach staged the “Reggie prank” to rally the team because he was the best player and they're going to struggle with him gone. The coach adamantly denies it.
Jilly comes up to Amelia after the pep rally concludes. She didn't ditch after all and saw the spectacle. She's understandably upset by the entire thing. A boy named Shelby comes up to see if she's okay but she kind of brushes him off, not wanting to talk to anyone. He leaves but Reggie's brother Travis comes up next. He writes for the school paper and asks Jilly for a statement. She snaps at him that he'll never be as amazing as his brother and he takes off too.
That was incredibly harsh. I guess Jilly's got some bitch in her too.
Although, asking her for a statement when she's clearly upset is a dick move.
Jilly tells Amelia that Travis is probably behind the “Reggie prank”. She goes off again about missing Reggie and Amelia is annoyed. She's tired of listening to Jilly talk and cry about Reggie. She thinks Jilly is just being “melodramatic” about everything.
Amelia is kind of the worst.
Finally the girls decide to leave. As they're heading out, they come up on the drama teacher accusing the coach of the “Reggie prank”. He still says it wasn't him. The four of them investigate the area where 👻Reggie👻 appeared and find a box that he was obviously standing on and two tubs that once contained dry ice. Reassured that the whole thing was indeed a prank and not a paranormal event, the girls leave and go to Dexter's which is this book's version of Pizza Pete's.
Bonus points if you get that reference.
Lots of kids from school are there and they all stop to stare silently at Jilly as they walk in. Helpful. The girls take a booth in the back and Jilly tells Amelia that she's planning to quit cheerleading. She doesn't think she can stand out there and cheer for the rest of the team when Reggie isn't there. Amelia tries to guilt her by telling her that they're still Reggie's team and he would want her to support them. Jilly says that the team let him down by not blocking him correctly and letting him get hit. Amelia tells her that it wasn't the team's fault and football injuries just happen.
Shelby shows up and asks Jilly if she wants to go to a movie later. Amelia tells him that Jilly has to be at the football game and Jilly doesn't contradict her. She asks Shelby for a ride home and then leaves with him, his arm wrapped around her. I'm confused. I thought she wasn't moving on? This feels like moving on to me.
If she's into him, why did she brush him off earlier when he tried to talk to her? Jilly is confusing, y'all.
We skip to the football game. The crowd is pumped and the team ends up winning despite having to struggle without Reggie. Amelia asks Jilly to go to Dexter's with the squad and the team afterward but Jilly refuses. She has a date with Shelby. Amelia asks her to help plan a beach party for the next night to celebrate and Jilly agrees. I guess they'll plan it in the morning? Who the hell knows.
Jilly and Shelby take off, leaving Amelia all alone. I guess the stands cleared out pretty quickly. She gets a little freaked out but then Garth appears. I think I forgot to mention they were dating. It's hard to care when Amelia is so awful.
They talk about the game and Garth says that it's different playing with a QB that doesn't hog all the glory. He still feels guilty about not tackling the guy who hit and injured Reggie but knows deep down there was nothing he could do. A guy his size should never have been protecting the QB in the first place and it was the coach's error for having him in a position he wasn't physically capable of playing. They discuss the prank again because we're surely not sick of hearing the exact same thing for the seventh time and then head off to Dexter's.
We skip to the next morning. Amelia calls Jilly to talk about the party and gets irritated with her again for showing emotions. Amelia tells us that she's tired of being careful of Jilly's feelings. Amelia is a real gem, y'all.
The party is being held at the lake and there's the option of either boating to the location or driving. Amelia and Garth decide to sail over on his dad's boat. At his private dock, she notices that Reggie's boat is still being kept there. She asks Garth about it and he says that Travis takes it out once in awhile. Apparently Travis is afraid of water, though, so he just sits on it more than sailing it.
Garth and Amelia get to the party location and are joined by Shelby and Jilly who have also chosen to sail over. Other kids begin arriving by car and they aren't exactly happy to see Jilly with Shelby. He's a theater kid and not cool enough to hang with the jock/cheerleader crowd. I feel kind of bad for Shelby. They really bully him and I can't get a handle for how Jilly feels about him. She keeps telling Amelia that she's into him but she seems irritated by him most of the time. It's weird.
Several of the kids are swimming when suddenly 👻Reggie👻 rises out of the lake. In full football uniform and oddly glowing. People panic and scream. 👻Reggie👻 points at Amelia, Garth and some dude bro named Buddy (apparently the new QB) before vanishing back into the lake. Several kids dive under the water to try to catch 👻Reggie👻 but come up empty because the water is too dark.
There's a huge debate whether it was a prank or a ghost. Most kids seem to come down on the side of prank and none of them are particularly freaked out about it. Except for Amelia who is in near hysterics. She freaks out about the ghost for several paragraphs and then almost immediately gets pissed when another person agrees that it's paranormal.
They build a bonfire and roast hot dogs. Everyone except Amelia is pretending that nothing weird ever happened. Someone starts playing music and a cooler is brought out with beer. The party starts getting a little wild as the sun sets.
Buddy is roasting a hot dog beside Garth when suddenly he falls toward the fire. Garth tries to catch him but Buddy falls into the flames. Garth and another boy grab him out and roll him on the sand to douse the flames before covering him with damp towels. He seems badly burned so they load him into a van and drive him to a hospital. Garth is upset because he thinks Buddy was pushed. Amelia thinks the ghost of Reggie pushed Buddy into the fire because Buddy took his place as QB. It's a weird stance to take when she JUST got mad at someone for suggesting there was a ghost (right after she suggested there was a ghost).
So....two things. 1) Rolling a burn victim in sand seems like a terrible idea. Not only are you essentially rubbing sandpaper over their open wounds (OUCH!) but sand particles are going to get inside the wounds and potentially cause an issue down the road. They had plenty of damp towels. Why didn't they use those first? 2) Why the hell are they loading him in the back of a van and driving him nearly an hour away instead of calling paramedics who could at least treat him on the way to the hospital? Is it because they were drinking and didn't want to get caught? Sounds pretty selfish to me.
The party breaks up and everyone goes home. Garth breaks down in tears in Amelia's driveway. Not only did he fail to tackle the person that injured Reggie and led to his death but he failed to catch Buddy before he fell into the fire. Amelia actually comforts him which feel out of character for her since she seems to think she's the only one allowed to express emotions.
We skip to the next day. Amelia and Garth to to the hospital to check on Buddy and are surprised to find most of their friends already there. Apparently Jilly spent the night there to comfort Buddy's girlfriend, Sandy. Amelia feels a little guilty because she just went to sleep the night before and wasn't concerned about Buddy at all.
Feels about right.
Y'all.
This author. I can't....I'm just going to quote this.
“How is Buddy?” asked Garth.
“Not great, Garth,” Sandy shook her head. “His hands are burned the worst. He put them right in the center of the fire to catch himself. He has first-degree burns all over.”
“He won't play football again,” Garth predicted.
FIRST DEGREE BURNS! FIRST DEGREE! Did Steiner do any research at all? I know the internet wasn't at her fingertips in 1993 but if I were going to write a book, I'd sure as hell consult an encyclopedia or something. First degree burns are SUNBURNS essentially. Give me a minute.
From childrenshospital.org: “A first-degree burn, also called a superficial burn, only affects the epidermis, or outer layer of skin. The burn site appears red, painful, dry, and absent of blisters. Scarring is rare or minimal. The most common type of first-degree burn is mild sunburn.”
Clearly Steiner meant third degree burns here. How did an editor not catch this?
Sandy says that Buddy will never use his hands again due to his potentially fatal case of FIRST DEGREE BURNS.
That is one wicked sunburn, y'all.
Garth runs off, upset. Travis is in the waiting room and he insinuates that Garth might have pushed Buddy because he wants to be the QB. Amelia gets pissed and defends Garth before running out to sit in the car.
Why are people always running away in this book? It's so fucking dramatic for absolutely no reason.
Garth eventually returns to the car. He says he got in to see Buddy who is barely clinging to life due to his FIRST DEGREE BURNS. Buddy told him that he was pushed into the fire and that someone wants him dead. Garth and Amelia both agree and disagree with Buddy's perception of the event. Consecutively and concurrently. They can't decide. Ever. It's both true and untrue. Shrodinger's FIRST DEGREE BURNS I guess.
We skip to Monday. Buddy is still alive despite his fatal FIRST DEGREE BURNS. Garth is named the new QB. Amelia watches him in his first practice and he does well. Better than Buddy. Travis rocks up and makes a whole new batch of insinuations about Garth causing Amelia to run into the school in order to get away from him. The building seems empty as she walks through it. She walks past the case containing the memorial to Reggie – including his complete uniform – and notices water and wet weeds on the floor underneath. She freaks out again, imagining that a ghost is coming to get her. She yells “nothing is there” over and over out loud before running out to her car.
Now Amelia is convinced that Reggie's ghost is taking revenge on all the new QBs and Garth is in grave danger. I sure hope he doesn't get a case of fatal FIRST DEGREE BURNS. She leaves a note on his car asking him to call her when he gets home and then she leaves the school. On her way home, she hallucinates voices telling her that Garth is in danger.
Is Amelia okay, y'all?
When Garth calls her later, Amelia tells him that she thinks he's in danger because there was water and weeds under the memorial case. Despite having agreed with her about the ghost just a couple days ago, Garth now thinks a rival school is just pulling pranks to mess with them. He says they just need to ignore everything and keep calm.
It's both a ghost and not a ghost all at the same time, obvi.
Amelia begs him to come over but he says he has to study. All the extra QB practice is putting him behind with his school work and he has to maintain his grades to stay on the team. She starts to beg him and he just tells her 'no' again and hangs up. Within minutes he calls her back and asks if she just prank called him with the sound of running water. She says 'no' and he says he's going to unplug the phone so he can study. I don't think he believed her.
The phone immediately rings again and this time there's the sound of waves in the background. A creepy voice moans the name Reggie and then says to beware Friday's game. Amelia freaks out and hangs up. It instantly rings again but this time it's Shelby. He asks Amelia to stop pressuring Jilly to stay on the cheer squad. He says that Jilly needs to move on without the constant reminders of Reggie and Amelia is being a selfish friend. He's not wrong but it's also a conversation Jilly should be having with Amelia.
{{{Author's note: EVERY SINGLE TIME I type the name 'Jilly' I accidentally type 'Killy' instead. Every time. I'm beginning to think it's a Freudian slip.}}}
We skip to Friday. Travis publishes an article in the school paper (that somehow gets picked up by the city paper) about the team being jinxed. As a result, attendance at the game is higher than normal. The team wins and everyone fawns all over Garth who enjoys the attention. Amelia worries that he'll get a big ego like Reggie. Nothing bad happens, though, so I guess our prank caller was just being dramatic.
The next day, Garth, Jilly, Amelia and some random dude named Frank go to visit Buddy. Not gonna lie, I don't feel good about Frank's future here. Last time a random dude popped up in this story he was fatally wounded with FIRST DEGREE BURNS. If Frank's not careful, he's going to fall down and get covered in booboos. Nothing really happens and we don't actually see them visit poor Buddy and his awful sunburn. I don't even know why it was included in the book except to introduce Frank who will probably scratch his knee or something soon.
Later Amelia asks Garth if he wanted to be QB so bad that he “helped” Reggie and Buddy have their accidents. I guess Travis got into her head. Garth gets understandably pissed about this so she ends up immediately taking it back and saying she never believed it for a second.
I plan to call my lawyer about my personal injuries after I finish this book. Expect to see me in one of those soft collar things real soon.
On Saturday, Coach holds a cookout at his house to celebrate the team's win the night before. He owns a huge house on the lake but only one grill so Garth brings along a grill and some charcoal. When they get there, there are signs nailed all over the trees saying things like “Killers. You are all killers.” and “Who is next? Football sucks. Someone has to pay.”.
I guess Coach left the signs up to rally the team or something? Garth sets up his grill but then Amelia comes up to him all upset so he steps away with her to calm her down. Coach lights the grill instead and there's a minor explosion that injures no one. Someone doused Garth's charcoal with gasoline.
I refuse to believe that Coach didn't smell that before he lit it.
Also, he'd definitely be injured from that.
The party just goes on because none of them care about anything. Four football players shove poor Shelby into a trash barrel because he's not cool enough to be there. Jilly is pissed but both Amelia and Garth seem to find it amusing and dismiss it as 'boys being boys'. I hate them both. Truly. Shelby swears revenge and then he leaves with Jilly.
It gets foggy and someone suggests playing “Reverse Hide and Seek”. Steiner tries to explain how it works but it makes absolutely no sense at all. I think it's kind of like Sardines. Amelia gets freaked out during the game because she thinks the ghost is after her so Garth takes her home.
We skip ahead to Friday night's game. Apparently football is the only thing that matters here. During the 3rd quarter, Frank staggers onto the field and promptly collapses. Everyone assumes he has the flu because it's been going around. He's loaded into an ambulance and taken away without lights and sirens.
I KNEW Frank was going to fall down and get covered in booboos!!!
Later Garth says that Frank was poisoned. The doctor on the field realized that Frank's shoulders were covered in weird scratches and they investigated his shoulder pads and found pins that had been soaked in poison. They think it was benzene.
Was benzene easy to obtain in 1993? I mean, I just did a quick Google because I'm a thorough bitch like that and you can apparently buy it off Amazon now but how easy was it to get back then?
Anyway, the shoulder pads didn't even belong to Frank. They belonged to Garth. We're not really given any kind of explanation of how they ended up on Frank other than he must have picked up the wrong ones.
Seriously? And he didn't feel the pins as soon as he put them on? Are you telling me that they made scratches all over his shoulders and he never felt them and wondered what the hell was going on? This MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE. He would have felt them poking and scratching at him as soon as he put them on, taken them right back off and discovered the pins. This is beyond dumb. Stine would never.
Travis rocks up and yells at Garth for letting Frank play when he obviously had the flu. Amelia corrects him that Frank was poisoned but Travis doesn't really back down. He says that Garth never should have let Reggie play in that final game because he was hungover. Garth says that if had told the Coach, Reggie would have been kicked off the team permanently and maybe kicked out of school. Travis still holds him solely responsible for the decisions that Reggie made. Steiner really hammers us over the head with the fact that Travis blames Garth and it feels....well.....
It's not going to be Travis. It's just not.
Amelia tells Garth that someone is obviously trying to kill him but Garth dismisses her. I guess poison in the shoulder pads is just another harmless prank. Or maybe it was a laundry mistake. Even odds.
We skip a week ahead to the next game because FOOTBALL IS LIFE. It's an away game and, for some reason that makes no legal sense, Garth is allowed to drive to the game in his car instead of riding the bus with the rest of the team. I can't imagine a school allowing this. Especially since the weather is foggy and drizzly. Garth and Amelia make it up there in one piece. The team wins. No one is poisoned or receives FIRST DEGREE BURNS.
Amelia tries to get Jilly to ride back with them but Jilly wants to ride on the bus with the rest of the squad. On the way back, 👻Reggie👻 appears in the middle of the road. Garth swerves to miss it and rolls the car. Neither of them are hurt and they're picked up by the bus that is just behind them.
A bus full of people that apparently saw nothing because of the fog but managed to see Garth's car in the ditch.
The next morning, Jilly calls to invite Amelia to go shopping in Chicago with her. Amelia says that she's too sore, which is true, but she also just wants to spend the day with Garth instead. Jilly presses her but Amelia won't change her mind. Jilly is angry but I don't really understand why. She knows Amelia was in a car accident the evening before. Why would she be mad that Amelia doesn't want to spend the day walking around a mall? It makes no sense.
Amelia goes to Garth's house and he shows her a note that he found shoved under his front door. It accuses Garth of being a killer and asks him to come to Reggie's boat that evening to “talk”. Why would Garth do that? It's not like he's being threatened with blackmail or exposure or anything. He's just supposed to drop by because the bad guy asks him to? This is so fucking dumb. Anyway, Amelia wants him to go to the cops but Garth just wants to ignore it. She gets mad at him and says she's going to spend the day shopping with Jilly after all instead of spending it with him. I don't think he cares.
She goes to Chicago with Jilly. They have fun. Nothing happens. After they get home, Jilly tells Amelia that she might go live with her aunt in New York for the rest of senior year. She thinks it might be good for her depression to get a change in scenery and routine. Amelia doesn't care what's best for Jilly and tells her she can't leave because that would fuck up all of their plans for their senior year. Jilly seems more and more unwell to me but Amelia doesn't notice or care.
Amelia decides to go to Reggie's boat that night to try to confront the person behind all these “accidents”. You know, the one she insisted not too long ago was a ghost. The one she's been terrified of for the entire book. Yeah. Makes sense.
Amelia dresses in one of Garth's hoodies and a hat so the bad guy won't notice right away that she's not Garth. Is Garth short or is Amelia tall? How is this supposed to work? Sigh. She gets on the boat and suddenly there's an explosion and a person tackles her into the lake. She passes out from the shock of the cold water.
When she wakes up, she's being carried out of the water by Travis. She thinks he tried to kill her but he actually saved her by tackling her into the water and away from the fire on the boat. He says he was heading to Reggie's boat to sit in the moonlight as he sometimes does and he saw her climbing on board. He thought she might be a boat thief but then someone shot a flare or something at the boat and it went up in flames.
Garth comes running up. He says he called her house to talk to her but her mom said that she was supposed to be out with him. He knew immediately that she'd come to the boat so he raced over.
We skip directly to Monday. Fuck that boat I guess. Amelia is waiting for Garth to come out of the locker room after practice. When he doesn't come out after the last player has left, she goes in. He's sitting dejectedly on a bench with his head down. When he sees her, he panics and tells her to leave. She asks him what's wrong and he says he found another letter in his locker. This one accused him of almost getting Amelia killed like he killed Reggie and then instructed him to wait in the locker room after everyone else left.
AND HE JUST DID IT? NONE OF THIS MAKES SENSE!
Garth tries to get Amelia to leave but she refuses. Suddenly 👻Reggie👻 shows up. He's holding a gun but seems surprised to see Amelia there. She is sure that Shelby must be behind all this because he has “the theater know how” so she stands up and calls him by name. The ghost runs for the door. They chase it into the gym where it climbs a rope onto the catwalk overhead. Garth pursues.
The ghost stops moving and removes the helmet. It's not Shelby.
You know who it is.
It's Jilly because of course it is. Freud had nothing to do with this. My hands just knew she was Killy all along.
Jilly says that Reggie is still with her and he wants her to punish them. Amelia yells up at her that Reggie isn't really here. Jilly says if he isn't here, then she needs to join him and then she just rolls off the catwalk and plummets to the floor below.
The fall doesn't kill her immediately. Amelia rushes over to her to hold her hand. Jilly says that she couldn't let anyone replace Reggie and she couldn't allow his fans to forget him. Garth climbs down to call an ambulance and then Shelby runs in. He admits that he helped Jilly stage all the ghost appearances but he didn't know she was hurting people until after Frank was poisoned.
Um.
How the hell did Jilly get so far ahead of Garth on that foggy highway that she had time to change into Reggie's uniform and stand in the middle of the road? And how the hell did she know that he'd see her in time and swerve? Was she planning to just die? THIS MAKES NO SENSE! I AM LOSING MY MIND, STEINER, AND YOU WILL PAY FOR MY THERAPY.
And my whiplash.
It's first-degree and, therefore, clearly very serious.
Jilly says she made Shelby fall in love with her so he'd help her but she never loved him. Reggie was the only man she could ever love. It's a little harsh. Shelby's not an angel but I can get why he'd help her. He wants his own revenge on people who treat him like literal garbage. He's crushed by her admission that she never cared about him at all.
Jilly dies on the floor and the book just ends.
Steiner. I don't even have words for this. How did this get published? How did an editor read this and not mention that it makes no fucking sense? I will never recover from the FIRST DEGREE whiplash I got from this book.
I'm reading a Pike for this blog next and no one can stop me.
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