If I’d Known a Few Million Bucks Was So Easy to Come By … or, Canby Hall #11, With Friends Like That

I had to take an unplanned hiatus from updating this blog due to some unexpected medical issues, but I’m back! Although the next few months will be crazy, I’m hoping I’ll be able to squeeze in some Canby Hall time here and there. Honestly though, I wonder if the events of the last few weeks haven’t been a conveniently timed excuse, because real-life distractions or no distractions, I was just not motivated to get through this particular bomb. If we have to be told one more story in which Dana saves the day by being irresistible to some conveniently placed guy, I will vomit. And of course that is a totally empty threat, since I am sure we will be told many more of those stories and since I am still planning to complete this blog project. Sigh. Girls of Canby Hall, you have me over a barrel and you know it.

So basically, frosty headmistress PA holds an assembly (I love that in these days before e-mail and texting, every assembly had to be publicized by putting up a million fliers all over campus) and tells the girls that the school’s founder, Horace Canby, did not stipulate in his will that the school should continue in perpetuity. Thus the future of the school has always depended on the current Canby heir thinking the school is worth funding, which in fact the current Canby heir, Owen Canby, does not. He has decided to sell the school property to a computer company (why a computer company would want to headquarter in the minuscule village of Greenleaf is never addressed) and Canby Hall will close at the end of the semester.

Naturally bedlam ensues. I find it particularly demeaning for the teachers that this is apparently the first time they are hearing of this as well. You wouldn’t let the staff in on the news before telling a bunch of kids? Anyway, the girls of 407 are filled with righteous indignation and become the ringleaders of the Save Canby Hall committee. They decide if they can raise enough money to cover a year of the school’s expenses they can keep Canby Hall running on another property. Shelley starts canvassing local businesses for donations. Tom introduces her to a crusty old longtime Greenleaf farmer named Cary Sampton (another Cary! What is WITH this series and that name?) whose grandfather had a fight with Horace Canby in the 1920s and who therefore doesn’t like the Canby family. Of course he’s gruff and blows them off … for now. Faith decides to hit up Pamela Young’s mother, the movie star Yvonne Young, who’s visiting campus. While Pamela is giving her mother a tour (a totally unnecessary tour at that, since Yvonne was just there filming a movie, or don’t they remember that?) Faith barges in and pleads her case. YY blithely agrees to make a large donation but then mentions that she’s headed to Europe for several months and can’t even be bothered to think about it till after she returns, which will be too late.

Of course, we can’t have our young female readers thinking that hard work and creativity will get you anywhere. All you need, ladies, are your feminine wiles! Dana, who is somehow single because Randy is, for the duration of this book, conveniently “more of a friend than a boyfriend” and off in Kentucky horse-shopping with his dad for the winter, bumps into a guy while running. Literally. Conveniently, he turns out to be Chris Canby, the son of Owen Canby. In their first meeting Chris tells Dana he totally agrees with his dad that making money is the most important thing and that closing Canby Hall is inevitable. Dana is outraged at him. Chris, of course, is smitten with her.

The girls then horn in on a meeting between Owen Canby and PA. PA greets them with an “expression of gratitude that she didn’t have to face him all by herself.” Oh puh-leeze. They ask him not to sell. He treats them like the dumb kids they are and tells them it’s a done deal. Meanwhile Chris Canby calls Dana for a date but mentions that Canby girls aren’t being invited to work on a business project with the other schools in town because they won’t be around much longer. Dana is enraged and hangs up on him.

Glutton-for-punishment Chris Canby then calls Dana again and asks her to brunch at his house because he wants to “put an end to this adversarial relationship.” All of a sudden, he’s OK because “there was a lot to be said for a guy who disagreed with all your principles but would defend to the death your right to have them.” Um, Dana? Nothing in his conversation indicated any such thing. But don’t let me enlighten you. She goes to their mansion for a stuffy brunch, harangues Owen Canby again about not closing the school, and he shuts her down again. But now, for no discernible reason, Chris Canby has suddenly decided Canby Hall is an “important community asset” and is on their side, trying to convince his father to change his mind.

PA goes out of town and informs the whole campus. Does no one in this town defecate without an announcement from her? The computer company buying the property comes to the school to do an inventory, so the girls get the idea to stage a protest. They chain themselves to the buildings to prevent the buyers from entering and hold up really stupid signs (sample: “A School is a School!”) No joke, this is at some point compared to MLK marching for justice. I am speechless.

The local media show up and of course pick Dana, Faith, Shelley and Casey out of the crowd for interviews. The computer company people are freaked out by the publicity. Owen Canby gets mad and has the sheriff arrest them all for trespassing. They get transported to the local jail, where of course Chris Canby shows up for no clear purpose, as does Cary Sampton, who pays their bail (all $100 of it) by collecting coins and crumpled bills from his shoe. PA turns up from out of town and is furious, herding all the girls back to school. She demands to see the ringleaders of the operation at her house for further punishment, and they’re all freaking out because of PA’s supposed draconian reputation. But — shocker — no consequences are in store! When they get there, PA tells them she just had to put on a show for the other girls in order to save face, and she’s actually proud of them, and she gathers them in a tearful embrace. Come ON. How does she deserve this tough-as-nails rep when she has never actually followed through on a disciplinary threat at any point in this series?

The parents all see on TV or hear from others that their girls were arrested, and every single one of them responds with joking phone calls or cutesy poems via telegram a la Shelley’s family. You know, I’m not totally sure how my parents would react if they heard from a third party that I was arrested, but I’m fairly confident it would not be with iambic pentameter.

Chris Canby then hides in the bushes outside 407 (I love how the view from 407 changes conveniently for whatever happen to be the purposes of the current story — this week, their room looks out over the back door) and tells Dana he got his dad to drop the charges against the girls. Before they can celebrate, they find out PA just told Alison she is resigning. The whole school is in an uproar at PA’s betrayal as the news spreads overnight. The next morning, PA holds an assembly (more mimeographed fliers! Oh, the trees!) to say she’s actually resigning in protest so no one can say she was involved in the closing of the school. She still plans to stay on and do her job for free. Like a light switch, all the students are on her side again. She couldn’t have told Alison the full story to begin with and saved the drama? Oh, but that wouldn’t be the Canby Hall we all know and, um, tolerate.

In the most dippy turn of events in a largely dippy story, PA’s secretary shows up in the middle of the assembly and climbs on stage with a bunch of shoeboxes and an anonymous note that have just been delivered. The shoeboxes are filled with $6 million in cash. The girls lose their flipping minds in mass ecstasy. Then Owen Canby shows up at PA’s house to tell her the sale to the computer company fell through. Didn’t see that one coming! Now since the school is not going to be sold, all the money from their anonymous benefactor can be used for an endowment and they can be free of Owen Canby.

Shelley (and any reader over the age of two) suspects who the mysterious donor is. She gets her crew to drive randomly around town and refuses to tell them where they’re going. They end up at — I hope you’re sitting down — Cary Sampton’s log cabin. He tells the kids his entire life story; turns out his dad had secretly hidden millions of dollars in their family barn. CS was just bitter about his old family feud with Horace Canby so took awhile to decide to help the school out. Like a doofus, he even shows them the hiding place where he still has $2 million left. Yes, showing a bunch of high school students you don’t know where $2 million in cash is kept sounds extremely responsible. The kids are all delirious with joy and unconcerned about the nausea of the reader. Chris Canby kisses Dana, of course, and she lays the groundwork for us readers to never hear from him again by saying innocently that she’s not ready to go steady but would like to get to know him better. Let me translate that for you, Chris, in the thoughtful words of *NSYNC: bye-bye-bye! The book ends with nonsensical emoting about how Canby Hall can never be removed “from their hearts or minds, not ever.” I don’t know, girls, I’m willing to bet that lobotomies might be reasonably effective.

Deep thoughts:

- When Faith shows up with a donated antique table for their room, we learn that Dana is not just the resident fashion expert. She also loves “sculpting space” and always seems to know just where everything should go in a room. Are there a lot of opportunities for a sixteen-year-old to demonstrate this particular skill in life?

- Poor PA and the incident with her wayward brother gets some unfair documentation here. It’s not really accurate to say PA “had been totally hostile about even seeing him again, until she found out that he’d gone straight,” which is how this ghostwriter describes it. Talk about retrospective editing. Or lack of editing, more likely.

- There wasn’t much of Pernicious Pamela in this book, but the ghostwriters couldn’t let us forget about her repugnance, could they? So while in line in the dorm bathroom, Pamela sweeps in front of three girls waiting in front of her for the shower and just takes the next available stall. Instead of saying anything to her, they all just look at each other like idiots. Are you teenagers or doormats?

- I don’t know if we’ve had this drilled into us enough times, but Pernicious Pamela is rich. How do we know this, you may ask? Because she dresses in the uniform of a rich California girl. And what might that be, you may next ask? A “wide-shouldered” mauve tweed coat dress with “pink tinted stockings” and black patent leather pumps. In the immortal words of Gwen Stefani: Girl, you got style.

Next up: one of the few from the older books that I actually remember. Francophiles, get ready!

Hollywood Must Be Getting Desperate … or, Canby Hall #10, Make Me A Star

OH COME ON.

It’s always so easy to star in a Hollywood movie in the teen novel alterna-world. You know, you’re a high school student just walking along to your second-period geometry class, minding your own business, when whoops! You stumble onto a movie set on your school’s front lawn and the jaded professionals realize YOU have what it takes to be their new star! How charming! And after you captivate them all and make their little film a box-office smash, you crush their dreams by telling them you just want to focus on your regular eleventh-grade life! Say it ain’t so!

That isn’t exactly a synopsis of this preposterous plot (note to self: Google “synonyms for preposterous”, you’re going to need them), but it’s close enough. I mean, maybe it’s just me, but it seems a lot more difficult to become a movie star in my world. As some of you know, I’ve had a brush with fame myself, having once been an extra in a Liza Minnelli music video. (No joke. Yes, I will autograph that jean jacket for you.) But shockingly, it didn’t catapult me into a life of late-night parties at the Chateau Marmont.

I am not here.

But of course, this is not my world, it’s theirs. So I hope you’ve been working out those suspension of disbelief muscles, because here we go.

A Hollywood film company decides to shoot a movie on the Canby Hall campus. Like a dimwit instead of a poised professional who should know better, PA tells all the students before it’s final, but insists that daily life must not change and school must come first. Naturally, everyone forgets all about school as Hollywood-mania sweeps the campus. The biggest lunatic is, of course, the increasingly unlikeable Shelley, who as we’ve heard ad nauseum wants nothing more than to be an actress. She’s determined to get a part in this movie. Because she has the long-term memory of a pot roast, she trusts the villainous Pamela to coach her for the open auditions. (We are finally treated/subjected to the presence of Pamela’s famous movie-star mother Yvonne Young, who of course has a role in this movie. She’s just as much of a fake wretch as her daughter is.) Pamela is personal friends with the director and tells Shelley to underplay her performance because that’s what he likes. Stupid Star-Struck Shelley does, but … it turns out this director likes actors to overplay things. Huh. Who would have seen that coming? Shelley loses the part along with her will to live.

Meanwhile, Dana cheats on Randy yet again with some set technician named Peter who’s really hot, and therefore excellent relationship material. She even chases Randy away when he comes to visit the set so he won’t find out about her new dude. In order to see more of each other, Peter suggests that Dana try out for a part. She gets it. Shelley is insane with third-grade jealousy. However, the famous actor who’s the lead and I guess the Ryan Gosling of his day, Troy Adams, actually starts flirting with Shelley, which is impossible to believe. Why do all these guys fall for this loser? He says she has great talent (which he can somehow intuit even though she spent her whole audition with him monotonically underplaying her role. Idiots.) She actually stands her boyfriend up so she can go to dinner with this big star, he feeds her a line about coming to South America and starring in his next film, and she buys this because she has the IQ of a bowling ball. She’s all set to drop out of school and join him until she goes to his trailer on the last day of filming and finds out he’s forgotten all about her.

In the end, Pamela gets a part written into the film for her, Dana wraps up her part, and Peter dumps Dana for Pamela because it turns out he wants to be an actor too, and the Youngs can get him there. Dana and Shelley realize their naivete and go back to their boyfriends, who never knew they were being cheated on in the first place. Nice! Oh, and Faith’s story was that she really wanted to take photographs of all the goings-on, but no one would ever give her permission, so she … just started taking pictures anyway. And they turned out great. Yawn. Don’t they ever give this girl something to do? In all seriousness, I think the reason they don’t is actually because she’s black. Dana and Shelley keep having all these crushes and love affairs that spawn entire books, but because the publishers can’t conceive of anything resembling an interracial relationship, and because their “character of colour” quota is so low, Faith gets her one African-American boyfriend and her boring photography hobby and that’s it. Although that will change in a few books, if I recall correctly, when a new character does come to town, but that’s only relevant because … he’s black too. Sigh. Anyway, at the very end of this dumb book, Alison catches Pamela coming out of Room 407 with Faith’s portfolio, which she was trying to steal because it has unflattering pictures of her mother, so Alison takes it from her for safe-keeping. The whole thing is mentioned and then brushed aside, like that’s all anyone expects from Pamela. But theft from others’ (perpetually unlocked) rooms doesn’t warrant disciplinary action? This girl was supposedly kicked out of multiple boarding schools before this one, but short of, say, homicide, Canby Hall won’t let you go?

Noteworthy items:

- How is it that Dana has every afternoon off for filming but Shelley’s missing math tests to watch? Girls, you must continue to put your studies first, or … absolutely nothing will happen. And why is a Hollywood film crew bending over backwards to accommodate high school bystanders anyway? The auditions are held after classes, the producer leaves schedule changes for Dana in her school mailbox, and the wrap party is held IN A DORM. In real life, the celebrities would want a glass wall between them and their public, lest the latter’s normalcy rub off on them.

- At one point, it is noted that “Shelley had always been supersensitive about the fact that she was a few pounds overweight.” Seriously? I never thought I’d defend this imbecilic character, but that is a totally inaccurate statement. The girl allows her supposed friends to make cracks about her size, as mentioned here, here and here, and she’s still supersensitive? You can’t win with these people!

- In describing just how exciting this turn of events is to the sleepy world of Canby Hall, the girls wonder if Rick Springfield will show up and also note that the Hollywood crowd is so cool, “they all look like they’re on Dallas.” Ah yes, those 1980s bastions of celebrity and fame! I never watched the show, but I do remember that catchy title song.

In the end, Hollywood leaves and life goes back to normal. But not for long, friends. Not for long. In the meantime, I’m off to put to rest the rumour that Dallas is coming back to TV this year. I don’t know how many shoulder pads our high-definition screens can tolerate.

UPDATE: Egads! It’s true!

It’s Not Cheating If You Really Like the Victim – or, Canby Hall #9, Boy Trouble

The whole premise of this one is so absurd, at least in my world, that I have no choice but to barrel through its recap as quickly as possible. I just don’t understand how even a pre-teen reader in the ’80s was supposed to look up from their Atari for this.

So one night Dana is too busy to go on a date with Randy, so she begs Shelley to go instead to keep him company. Shelley and Randy really hit it off, so naturally they start seeing each other behind Dana’s back. Yes, just as simply as that. It’s as if the publishers suddenly realized that Shelley and Randy were both “country”  characters and probably would have been a better fit than Dana and Randy in the first place, so they decide to just throw them together now. And we’re supposed to believe that Shelley, who already has two boyfriends, remember, is now going to start dating her best friend’s boyfriend on top of that? How much free time does this chick have? Although I guess it fits with her pattern of loosely defining fidelity, it was so preposterous I couldn’t even stomach most of it. Basically when Randy first makes a move on Shelley, and she not-very-convincingly protests, he says “I’m not married to Dana … I like her a lot. I like you too. I don’t think we need to say anything [to her.]” Your logic is impeccable, Mr. Pseudo-Country-Boy! (I mean, the dude lives 10 minutes outside of Boston, how much of a hick can he be, for heaven’s sake.) So they start sneaking around, and we the readers are treated to endless pages of Shelley’s lame inner monologue of supposed guilt (which, although annoying, doesn’t actually stop her from betraying her best friend.) In the midst of this, Stupid (Strangely Seductive) Shelley thinks that Pamela saw her and Randy on one of their dates, so she unwisely starts a conversation with Pamela to try to find out what she knows, and like the idiot she is, ends up blowing her cover. Pamela gleefully tells Faith. Eventually Tom figures it out. It’s only after HER primary relationship is threatened that Stupid (Strangely Seductive) Shelley grows a conscience. She and Randy have a guilty goodbye scene in which she says of themselves “We’re both such good guys” (I’m still wiping off the coffee I spat onto my computer screen at that one) and he suddenly says “we both know we can’t date anymore.” Oh, now you realize it, buddy? At that moment Dana walks in on them. She’s understandably furious, but then all logic exits the world of Canby Hall, because in the span of about an hour she does the following: 1) yells at Shelley, 2) seeks counsel from Magnificent Michael Frank in his one cameo appearance this book (who tells her she wanted this to happen by sending Shelley on the date in the first place), 3) meets Randy in town and tells him she forgives him, 4) comes back to the dorm and tells Shelley she forgives her. Because Dana has realized she was just as responsible as Shelley and Randy for this happening. ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? Looking back from my vantage point in the 21st-century, I’m naming this as the moment the age of personal responsibility ended. Just sayin’. Also, Dana realizes Shelley and Randy have much more in common than she and Randy do, but the book ends with Dana and Randy still together. Good grief, can someone put this relationship out of its misery already?

OK, I’ve devoted way too many words to that particular plotline. Consider our collective intelligence insulted. Meanwhile, a comparatively more interesting B-plot was going on in which Casey falls in with Putrid Pamela and ends up causing a riot in the local supermarket. Pamela is her usual arrogant unrepentant self about it, so the manager decides to teach them a lesson by getting all the stores and restaurants in the town of Greenleaf to ban all Canby Hall girls from their premises. Nice idea, and one we want to work since Pamela is such a bee-yotch, but let’s be realistic here, the stores in such a small town would be way too dependent on the students’ revenue for this to ever succeed in real life. It is announced that all that needs to happen for the ban to be lifted is for the four girls involved to write apology letters. The other two (one of whom is our old friend Mary Beth) immediately do, but Casey and Pamela see this as a pissing contest and refuse. Everyone keeps wondering what horrible punishment the imposing headmistress is going to mete out, and it turns out to be that she grounds the entire school. No one is allowed off school grounds until Casey and Pamela apologize. Which, although Casey does, Pamela continues to openly and rudely refuse to do. There’s all this blathering about how in its entire 100-year history the relationship between Canby Hall and the town of Greenleaf has never been in jeopardy until now, yada yada, so why is Pamela not expelled? You know, in all the books there’s always so much talk about how afraid everyone is of PA, but when does she ever actually do anything strict? She frequently talks a tough talk, but never really disciplines or gets rid of the instigator, who is usually Pamela. (I mean, I realize the series could never eliminate its villain, but allow me my righteous indignation.) When the girls in the dorm descend en masse on Pamela’s room to make her write the apology letter and lift their collective punishment, she still laughs in their faces and refuses to write it. So after much discussion and planning, the entire school begins giving Putrid Pamela the silent treatment, and she eventually gives in. What I want to know is, why did ignoring a horrid person require so much secretive intrigue and so many hushed executive committee meetings? Who in the school would have been talking to that comic-book she-devil anyway when she was the reason they couldn’t buy groceries or see a movie?

Endnotes:

- Much like the name of Faith’s father and the alma mater of Faith’s sister, the minor character of Cheryl Stern is going through a flip-flopping from “Cheryl Stern” to “Cheryl Stein” and back again, depending on the day. I am seriously going to look into the job requirements for a teen book editor position. I feel like it’s something I could do while simultaneously caring for my toddler and, say, re-shingling our roof.

- Last book’s guidance counselor Michael Frank has suddenly been upgraded to “school psychologist Dr. Michael Frank.” Is that a mail-order certification in Massachusetts?

- Why is Room 407 suddenly on the second floor of Baker House? Does that make any sense at all? You wouldn’t have had to read any of the prior books (which is good, since that obviously wasn’t a requirement for the ghostwriters anyway) to assume that a room number that starts with 4 would be on the fourth floor. Of course, there’s no need to panic, because I’m quite confident the most important room in this dorm will be magically teleported back to its rightful position by the next book.

- You know, Shelley’s actor-boyfriend Tom is kind of bizarre. Apropos of nothing, he randomly dresses up like a clown and juggles in the rain outside a movie theatre for everyone waiting in line. I get it, he likes acting, fine, but does that mean he has to behave like a deranged person?

- Once again, Dana says this isn’t the first time and it won’t be the last time she and Shelley have problems between them. For the love of all that is holy, is that a threat? To the reader?

So overall, I’m annoyed that Shelley’s behaviour is supposed to be excused just because she’s one of the main characters. If the story had been the exact same but with Putrid Pamela in her place, the author’s condemnation of her would have been immediate. Also, for all their torrid attraction, whose strength was such that they could not resist its passionate and inexorable pull, I’m going to wager a bet that we’ll never hear of any interaction between Randy and Shelley again. Ah, continuity … how you elude us so!

Shades of Mary Kay Letourneau … or, Canby Hall #8, The Big Crush

The blurb on this front cover is totally misleading. Three hearts break harder than one? Actually, only two of the intrepid girls of 407 are in luuurve with the new guidance counselor. There is never a whisper of a suggestion that Faith might also like the guy, because he’s not black, and she is, and what is this, 2011?

OK, so this book serves as the introduction of Canby Hall’s good-lookin’ young male guidance counselor, Michael Frank, and in later books he always came across as a cool, benign adult presence. But in his debut performance he is weirdly Jekyll-and-Hyde-ish and no one seems to pick up on the fact that this dude is totally inappropriate with his students and is just a lawsuit waiting to happen. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

So Dana has been feeling depressed lately and can’t snap out of it. Luckily, Canby Hall has hired a new guidance counselor, so she goes to see him.  Of course, he’s hot, so she falls completely in love with him. Neither she nor anyone else except me thinks it’s sketchy that this guy meets with teenage girls alone at his house. He also asks Dana to go running with him, which they do on and off campus. Meanwhile Shelley seems to have a touch of the anorexia, so she goes to see Michael too. He euphemistically asks her if she’s craving pickles and ice cream, which totally shocks our Iowa girl (side note: this reference to pregnancy totally flew over my head in the second grade!) He then proceeds to tell her she has nothing to worry about because she still likes her mom’s cookies, and gives her the worst piece of advice ever: to go to the gym and weigh herself every single day. Somehow this laser-focus on weight will keep an eating disorder at bay. Shockingly, this doesn’t work, but no one blames the sainted Michael. I can only assume this is because he’s hot.

Dana convinces herself that Michael feels their connection too, so she dumps poor Randy. One might ask oneself, how dumb can an eleventh-grader be, thinking that a faculty member is actually going to be interested in her? Well first of all, it happened for Newt Gingrich, so why not anyone else? Seriously, if it happened for Newt freaking Gingrich, this occurrence has got to be at least 47% more likely to happen to any other person on earth. Secondly, one cannot completely blame Delusional Dana for her dreams of happily ever after when Magnificent Michael does demented things like whisper, in regards to the upcoming school dance, “Will you save me a dance?” and then actually slow-dance with her at said event. I mean really, are there no boundaries here? Also at this dance, Shelley passes out from not eating, and Michael’s solution is for her to come to his house every night for dinner. NO ONE at this school thinks this guy is creepy???

Unfortunately for Dana, Michael begins quietly dating Alison, their entirely more-age-appropriate housemother. Dana, like a moron, starts seeing Alison as competition. FOR A GUY SHE CAN NEVER HAVE. Everyone else gives Dana entirely too much sympathy over this nonsense, saying that getting over Michael is going to be way harder for her than getting over Bret Harper. Who she actually dated and was not an unattainable crush. The reasons for this stretch of logic are beyond my capacity, or more accurately my desire, to understand.

Meanwhile, the writer needed to give Pernicious Pamela (PP) something to do, so her poor grades start coming to the attention of  the faculty, including Michael the guidance counselor. In order to get back at him for recommending that she be expelled, or for thinking about recommending that she be expelled, or for choosing Lucky Charms over Cocoa Puffs, or something, PP comes up with a scheme wherein she convinces Delusional Dana to put in a good word for her during one of Dana’s sessions with Michael. PP then turns around and accuses Michael of breach of privacy by discussing her with another student. The headmistress makes Michael defend himself in front of Dana and Pamela (awesome boss!) which he does in a Grisham-like moment of … showing them his planner with his penciled notes that somehow exonerate him. Anticlimax. Let’s be real, if Pamela was really so worldly and conniving, she would have accused him of sexual assault, which would have been totally believable BECAUSE THE DUDE MEETS WITH GIRLS AT HIS HOUSE. For crying out loud. Oh, and Mary Beth Grover is somehow Pamela’s friend now, with no mention of the lifelong bond she apparently forged with the 407 girls back in book #4.

Like a weirdo, Dana blurts out that she loves Michael (come on, do students really do this?) and then avoids him for weeks. Eventually Dana and Alison have some boring talk and Dana and Michael go on a make-up run and everyone realizes their true place in life (hint: Dana’s is not beside Michael.) It’s been pretty clear throughout all these books that Dana was never that into Randy, but her masochistic roommates who apparently don’t mind the drama inexplicably convince her to get back together with him. Poor Randy. To the writers’ credit, it is rather evident in later books that he becomes totally messed up by Dana’s head games.

This whole thing is a pretty standard premise, I guess, the high schooler having a crush on a teacher, but I just didn’t get what the readers were supposed to think of Michael. Besides his complete dearth of appropriate boundaries, he was weirdly mean at strange moments. He’s noted to have a “smug self-satisfied look on his face” when Alison walks by, he snaps at Dana not to be “coy” or “flippant” with him when she wasn’t being either, and he “growls” at her not to make light of their amazing, wonderful friendship when they’re discussing her Dumb Declaration of Love. And his advice to her for getting over the prize that is Himself? “Maybe if you like me more, you’ll love me less.” I don’t even know what that means but if I were him I’d be keeping this chick at least 500 yards away at all times rather than having private chitchat in the woods with her. And if I were her I would look for someone my own age, but that’s neither here nor there. In the end, all is right again in the world of Canby Hall. Including Shelley, whose eating disorder has been miraculously cured. Natch.

Obligatory list of examples of prejudice against overweight people:

- Michael’s secretary tells him she thought about jogging once but lay down till the thought went away, and his response is that “all flabby people” need that excuse. Nice, Michael. Nice. I totally feel like telling you all my problems now.

- At the height of Shelley’s Adventures in Anorexia, she borrows her roommates’ clothes. Faith notes that when Shelley first came to school her right leg couldn’t have worn those pants, and now both legs can. Wow! Shelley finally has worth as a human being! Instead of telling Faith where she can stuff said pants, Shelley responds, “How true. I really was gross.” There’s nothing I like more than an example of healthy self-image. Or supportive friendship.

And so ends our foray into the world of questionable teacher-student relationships. But stay tuned, friends, because no one can stay focused on schoolwork — or stay faithful — for long at West Beverly High Canby Hall. Despite their most mediocre efforts.

Sociopathy is Not Scary, Just Mildly Annoying … or, Canby Hall #7, Four Is A Crowd

This is the first time they come right out and say Dana is supposed to be one of the best-looking girls in the school, but from this cover, I’m not buying it. And we are supposed to believe the haughty chick with the prim pink turtleneck and skirt — and brown purse strap — is a Hollywood hottie. I call BS.

I always loved the second set of Canby Hall roommates much more, and therefore owned and repeatedly reread nearly all of the later books in the series which were about them, so some of these Dana/Faith/Shelley ones I genuinely don’t remember. But what I have long suspected has been proven in this one: Shelley has the intelligence and social maturity of a kidney bean. Which is an insult to legumes everywhere.

So the girls are back at Canby Hall for their junior year of high school. Somehow there were a few extra weeks between Faith’s late-summer brush with death and their return to school, so these kids live in a world where July and August are like four months long. Anyway, the big buzz around campus is that the daughter of famous Hollywood movie star Yvonne Young is transferring to Canby Hall. We are shown that said daughter, Pamela Young, is a big deal because she shows up in a limo with servants and has personal electronics and matching baby-blue luggage. (The limo has California plates — this rich kid drove cross-country instead of just catching a flight?) And also because she name-drops big Hollywood actors like Joan Collins and Timothy Hutton. Hee hee! She also talked about Tom Cruise and Michael Jackson though, as well as Matt Dillon who I guess is still around, so that made this book feel not quite so old.

Clearly, the publishers decided that this series needed a villain, so enter Pamela. She’s blonde and super-glamorous, which is usually suspicious in this world to begin with. She’s everything else you’d expect a stereotypical teen novel adversary to be: selfish, snobby, arrogant, condescending, etc. She demands a single room, whines about being separated from her Jaguar, brags about her Hollywood connections, and so on. But the ghostwriter takes it one step further, and I kind of admire their nerve: when Shelley has breakfast with Pamela the first day and Faith comes up to the table, Pamela assumes Faith is a servant and tells her to clear the dishes. Faith is furious and Pamela is unashamed when corrected, saying, “Oh, well she must be used to people making that mistake.” What a bee-yotch! The truly infuriating thing about this scene, though, is that Shelley continues to hang out with Pamela. Who was just openly racist to her best friend. Shelley even lies to Faith and tells her she told Pamela off for it. Pamela does a bunch of other really crappy things to other girls, but this thing with Faith was the worst, because there’s a difference between brattiness and unrepentant prejudice. And this made me loathe Shelley more than I did Pamela, because I assume if you’re a sociopath you don’t know any other way to be, but if Shelley is supposed to be a non-sociopath, she is particularly scummy to tolerate this treatment of her friends because of the off-chance that she might get to visit Pamela’s house in Hollywood. That is way too much thought I just put into this dime-store novel.

So Pamela alienates everyone on campus except Stupid Star-Struck Shelley (SSSS), but our kidney bean’s big dumb eyes are opened once Pamela does something bad to her: she makes a play for SSSS’s boy-toy Tom. Ah, now SSSS sees what everyone was trying to tell her! Being a racist is one thing, but flirting with the guy you’re cheating on your hometown boyfriend with is really over the line! So Shelley and Tom ditch Pamela at the restaurant, and we all know you don’t incite the ire of the resident mean girl. Because now Pamela declares secret war on the girls of 407, and strange things start happening. An unkind letter appears in the typewriter on Faith’s desk, and Dana and Shelley are insulted while Faith insists she didn’t write it. Faith gets a phone message from Shelley to meet her, forcing Faith to miss Johnny’s birthday, but Shelley didn’t make the call. The girls fail their weekly room inspection because someone mysteriously messed up their room after it was cleaned, but Faith and Shelley assume Dana never cleaned it in the first place. (Why do these dorm rooms not have locks?) What’s amazing is that these supposed inseparable best friends forever (before the term BFF was part of our global vocabulary) are so quick to believe the worst and turn on each other. Dana even makes the prescient comment “There’s been trouble in 407 before and I suppose there’ll be trouble again.” Well, until this publisher’s contract runs out, at least!

The B-story is that the aloof and intimidating headmistress Patrice Allardyce is finally given a personal life. The girls see her with a twenty-something blond hunk, first in her house, then hiking in the mountains, and each time they’re in the midst of some emotional meltdown. PA is crying, he has his hands on her shoulders, then they’re running after each other … it’s all very Young and the Restless and melodramatic. Naturally they’re intrigued, so Dana and Casey decide to spy on PA to find out about her mad love affair. Now, I can totally understand the fascination with the private lives of figures of authority. My friend Ollie and I in college, and Sandy and I in elementary and high school, used to make up elaborate backstories for our teachers and professors and went gaga whenever they revealed any tidbit of personal information to us in class. But even we, with our questionable social boundaries, would have thought setting up a telescope on the dorm roof and hiding in the headmistress’ bushes were a bit much. Anyway, Stupid Star-Struck Shelley blabs this scheme to Pamela, who tattles on Dana and Casey. They get in big trouble and Dana says it’s a first getting summoned to the headmistress’ house, even though you and I know this happened to Faith and Casey in book #1. Whatevs. PA actually makes a good point when she says that teens think this kind of thing is funny, a cute schoolgirl prank, but they’d be outraged at the invasion of privacy if she did it to them. Too true, PA. But then she validates their behaviour by giving them some random social restriction punishment and introducing them to the blond hunk, who turns out to be her kid brother. Turns out he was in jail and she couldn’t tell anyone because it would hurt her career as a hotshot private school headmistress, but now he’s gone straight, as evidenced by his new job as a mechanic in town. (I’m calling it now that despite becoming a Greenleaf resident we will never hear from Baby Bro Allardyce again.) OK great, PA is a human with problems just like the rest of us, but without the sense not to go all over town rehashing them in public.

Anyway so the girls figure out Pamela was behind all the shenanigans and decide to exact revenge. They send her messages ostensibly from Bret. (Oh yeah, she’s been dating Bret and rubbing it in Dana’s face, and he’s been doing his usual thing and seeing someone else behind Pamela’s back even though you’d think he’d want to suck up to her to milk her Hollywoodness for all it was worth.) The messages send her running all over campus and eventually sitting in the middle of the woods with a huge romantic picnic waiting for Lover-Boy Bret, who of course never shows because he never knew anything about this in the first place. Pamela figures out the 407 girls were behind it and ends the book with a threat: that she isn’t finished with them yet. This is more a threat to us the readers though, because it means we’re going to see a lot more of this criminal-behaviour-treated-like-regular-school-hijinks before this series is through.

And now for my patented end-of-blog-entry random thoughts:

- Were people less sensitive about their weight in the ’80s? When Shelley arrives back at school after summer break, she says she’s going to miss her mother’s cooking, to which Dana replies “Yes, we can see it was delicious,” implying that Shelley’s gained some obvious chub. Now if Pamela said that, it’d be an example of her malicious soul, but sainted Dana can do no wrong?

- When the girls are discussing how it’s not OK for Pamela to look down on others just because her mom is famous, Dana makes the sage comment that she, Dana, is better-dressed than the other girls because her mom is a fashion buyer, but she doesn’t think it makes her better than anyone else. The girl IS a saint! (Interestingly, Dana’s little sister Maggie, who is a prominent character in the later books, is never held up as a fashion icon as far as I recall. But we can all understand that’s probably because she wears glasses.)

- At one point Dana is blow-drying her hair early on a Saturday morning, and another girl comes in and asks her to stop because she’s trying to sleep. So Dana leaves for the day with wet hair. Not to reveal the crusty old curmudgeon I secretly am (these damned kids these days!) but that would NEVER HAPPEN TODAY. One person would never think about the inconvenience of their actions for someone else. They would just think about their God-given right to bouncy hair. Seriously, did you hear that awful story about the girl who stabbed her roommate to death over a fight about an iPod? I really do think the world has changed in this respect. It’s all about us, never about anyone else. Makes me sad. Guess I should be glad we have Canby Hall to remind us of what once was.

- The girls paint their room black. Seriously. And that’s all I have to say about that.

The Great Healthcare Debate … or, Canby Hall #6, Best Friends Forever

Dana and Shelley have the exact same face, and once again it is insulting to describe Shelley as chubby. Moving on.

I don’t mean to frighten you, but this is another Patricia Aks special. I realized this partway through when I was wondering why the cheese factor had been ratcheted up again. There was no need to wonder! But let us muddle through nonetheless. So Dana and Faith are spending two weeks visiting Shelley in Iowa. Because they’re “East Coast big-city snobs,” they’re bracing themselves for two boring weeks in Hickville with no modern amenities. (As an aside, do you know any New Yorkers who consider their city equal to D.C.? I just think in real life Dana would have thought both Shelley and Faith were small-town girls.) Anyway, so our worldly city girls’ prejudices are challenged, because they have an exciting trip that includes the following: Shelley’s brother Jeff (naturally) falls instantly and totally in love with Dana. A runaway horse during a horseback-riding expedition becomes a near-death experience for Dana, and Jeff bravely risks his life to save hers. A town hayride goes awry when a random twister comes up, nearly killing them all. The girls are impressed that the whole town turns out to build a new roof for a family who lost theirs in the storm. Faith is worried people will stare at her because she’s black, but everyone’s nice to her. It turns out Shelley’s mom could have been an accomplished musician but gave it up so she could be a happy stay-at-home mom, and Dana is shocked that this outcome is even possible. Dana and Faith are impressed that Shelley can drive. (Sometimes I forget how young these kids are supposed to be.) Shelley waxes philosophical about 4-H. Besides his feelings for Dana, Jeff is madly in love with a cow named Gertrude whom he’s grooming for the Iowa State Fair. Seriously, he puts hairspray on her and everything. It’s worse than Toddlers and Tiaras.

But the biggest story is that Faith has been feeling sick through the whole book and doesn’t want to bother anyone. She keeps popping aspirin and hoping it’ll all go away. Aspirin for dizziness, really? After the amount she ingested over the course of this trip, I’d want to guaiac her. Anyway, on the day of the fateful Iowa State Fair, the most important day of young Jeff’s entire life, when all his hard work raising Gertrude will pay off with … a ribbon, the whole family goes but Faith stays behind. Once Jeff finds out that Faith is a no-show, all his stress over winning said useless ribbon boils over and he becomes irrationally furious at her. He gets sent home to shower and relax until show time, but (foreshadowing!) he’s reminded that “The entrants must show the animals — no substitutions allowed — so be back here on time.” Guess who’s not going to be back in time?

(Oh for crying out loud. I just went back and reread the page and this whole shebang is a county fair. It’s not even the state fair. I don’t think the sentence “It’s like Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, Halloween and any other holiday you can think of wrapped in one” is really very accurate.)

OK, so Jeff storms back home all pissed at Faith but then finds her collapsed and nearly unconscious. Knowing it will mean his lover Gertrude the Cow will miss her chance at stardom and his months of work grooming her will have been a waste (and, in my opinion, not having the sense to know his months of work grooming her were a waste anyway) he chivalrously abandons his fair plans and rushes Faith to the hospital. This is apparently a training hospital because an intern sees her first, and she is then seen by the resident physician. However, the resident is bald (I assume this means older than 40) and “famous” across the Midwest for his diagnostic skill, so I’m guessing Patty Aks doesn’t actually know what a resident is. Faith gets admitted immediately and Jeff waits all afternoon and evening until his family finds the note he left at the house and arrives at the hospital. Man, the days before cell phones were complicated, weren’t they? The characters even admit that when Jeff didn’t show up to present Gertrude, everyone assumed he’d been in a car crash but had no way of knowing.

It is implied that Faith is close to death, so Dana and Shelley start to lose their marbles. She is diagnosed with lymphocytic choriomeningoencephalitis, which by virtue of being in a YA novel is impressive. There is no mention of the fact that this is usually contracted from mice, but whatever. Faith’s mom arrives and everyone goes through this mainly unspoken song and dance of “East Coast hospitals are better!” “No, medical care in Iowa is just as good!” etc. etc. Faith’s mom wants her transferred to George Washington University Hospital in D.C. (if they said her sister Sarah went there I was going to kick someone) so Shelley’s family gets one of their friends to lend them his private plane. Just as simple as that. These people don’t have answering machines but they can access personal aircraft. Yeesh. So Faith, her mom, Dana and Shelley fly to D.C. (Shelley’s parents don’t seem to mind that they saw their teenage daughter for exactly one week this entire year) where D.C.’s best doctors declare that Faith got excellent treatment at the hospital in Iowa (treatment that consists, they claim, of aspirin and IV fluids … we didn’t worry about Reye’s Syndrome back then?) By the end of the book, Faith turns a corner and is on her way to recovery. Lesson of the day? Do not look down on small-town medical care, people! The East Coast snobs are properly chastened! Oh, and somewhere in the middle of all this, Dana lets Jeff down easy. Early on in the book she had enough self-awareness to note that Jeff was the third guy she’d been involved with that year, and to be concerned because she didn’t want to be casual about her relationships with guys. In the blink of an eye, though, she suddenly knows he’s just a summer romance and basically makes it clear she’s saying goodbye forever as he pines away. Nice!

Miscellany:

- Naturally, Faith’s summer job is as a photography assistant, and naturally, Dana’s is as a model (oh give me a break), and conveniently both last only two weeks, leaving plenty of time for their God-given duties as the Girls of Canby Hall.

- Man, how different flying was in the Golden Age. At the airport, Faith “filled out” a boarding pass (I guess by herself? In pencil?), wheeled her suitcase through a gate, and sat down on the plane. No security line, no TSA attitude, and no bodily orifice exploration anywhere. To add insult to our 21st-century injury, the girls then get lunch on the next flight. And it’s free. I’m not making this up.

- Inconsistency alert! Shelley’s hometown best friend was named Cindy in the first book, but now is named Cary. Inconsistencies drive me crazy, if you haven’t noticed. My mind is filled with a million and one things and I still noticed this, how hard would it have been for the editor whose job it was to notice it? I also think it’s weird that of all names they picked “Cary,” when, as faithful Canby Hall readers will know, Cary is a major guy character in the later books about Toby, Andy and Jane. Maybe I need to lend this publishing team my copy of 100,000 Baby Names.

- News flash: we in the present day can rest assured that race relations have improved at least a smidge since 1984. When Dana and Faith first arrive in Iowa and meet Shelley’s brothers, the roommates are all giddy to see each other and keep talking in unison. Jeff says the three of them are like triplets and then “gulps” when he realizes his apparently highly offensive remark. Because they couldn’t possibly be triplets. Because Faith is black. (Has that been mentioned before?) I don’t even get the discomfort in this.

- Dana, the erstwhile New York fashion model, describes what’s in that season: hot pink and robin’s egg blue bouffant skirts, puffed sleeves and flower garden prints that have a “fairy tale look.” Hawt.

And now friends, we have made it unscathed (well, I’m assuming) through another Patricia Aks gem. Now that the miracles of semi-modern medicine have cured Faith and the girls have successfully frittered their summer away, we will be back at Canby Hall for the next book. Hopefully, no IV fluids will be necessary.

Two-Timing is the New Monogamy … or, Canby Hall #5, Summer Blues

Regarding this cover, may I remind you that we are supposed to believe that Shelley is chubby, and may I also point out that Faith looks like a creepy child molester? “Heeeere, kiddies, want some candy?”

Because there is no story if these girls are ever allowed to return home, it turns out that each of them is staying for a month of summer school in an artsy subject. Shelley will immerse herself in drama, of course, Faith will study photography, naturally, and Dana will be doing poetry. Before final exams are even over, though, Bret finally shows his true colours and asks Casey out as a prelude to dumping Dana. “I told you in the beginning I wasn’t a one-girl guy,” he tells her by way of explanation. Actually, I’m probably the only person faithfully reading these books in chronological order, and I don’t think you did, buddy. Everyone else told her that, but not you. Anyway, Dana is blindsided — blindsided, I say! — and moping around, especially when she runs into Bret getting cozy with the hot French exchange student. I love how she’s so devastated that she just skips her philosophy final, and no consequence to this action is ever mentioned. At a school as hard-nosed as Canby Hall? I still have a recurring nightmare in which I find out I have a final exam in a class I never attended (and I am twice this character’s age) but I guess that’s just me.

But don’t worry too long about Dana, friends! No one in these books is ever single for long! She randomly meets what must be the only cowboy in Massachusetts, who of course spontaneously falls for her. This is the official introduction of long-running character Randy Crowell. She obsesses over whether they have too little in common (because Dana is a big-city New Yorker, in case this fact wasn’t mentioned enough) but when Bret weasels his way into Randy and Dana’s date in order to check Randy out and embarrass him for being a country boy, Dana realizes that Randy is who she really wants. Bret shows up the next day to ask Dana to take him back and, in a stunning show of YA-novel brazenness, comments that he still can’t promise to be faithful to her. In a not-so-stunning show of YA-novel spinelessness, she actually considers this tempting offer, but finally comes to her senses and sends him packing. She does this by reading a poem very obviously directed at Randy during the summer school closing program. Because Randy, despite being said country boy, wrote her a poem that showed her there was more to him than she thought. Or something. I don’t know, it was all getting kind of ridiculous. I don’t know any teenagers this obsessed with poems.

Meanwhile, Shelley has been blithely dating her new guy Tom while conveniently never mentioning that fact to her hometown boyfriend Paul. Unfortunately for her, Paul surprises her by showing up at Canby Hall. Shelley embarks on an incredibly immature and farfetched scheme in which she tries to make Paul think Tom is Casey’s boyfriend while simultaneously making Tom think Paul is just an old school friend. Did you get that? Never mind, it’s over soon enough. While Shelley and Casey are in the bathroom, the two guys talk to each other, figure out the truth, and leave, ditching the girls at the restaurant. Now there’s some spine, even if it is short-lived. Eventually, Shelley works things out with Paul — apparently he’s been seeing someone on the side too — and they both agree to … well, I couldn’t really figure out what their agreement was, except that they both get to do whatever they want and see each other too, I guess. That would totally work in real life. Anyway, Shelley somehow manages to wrangle the same deal with Tom by placing a rose on his doorstep, but not before a nosy neighbour calls the police on her because they suspect she might be the famed Greenleaf Cat Burglar. (Really, the police in this small town are seriously overworked. For a relaxing break, they might want to moonlight with the NYPD.) So in the end … Shelley emerges unscathed and no longer has to hide her cheating. Life lesson noted.

Random noteworthy items:

- Shelley says to Faith, who’s attempting to roller-skate, “I thought black people were supposed to be more coordinated. Where’s all that natural rhythm?”

!!!

- Alison’s close friendship with Dana is illustrated by the fact that she “gasps” and dashes up four flights of stairs when she hears something is wrong with Dana, and is especially upset because no one told her about it. Dana’s crisis? A sunburn. The time elapsed in which the entire planet was conspiring to keep this momentous news from Alison? Approximately 8 minutes.

- Randy and Dana have the following exchange the first time they meet, when she tells him she’s from New York. (Did you know that? Because she’s from New York.)

Randy: “We’ve got some of my mother’s kin in New York. Up in Hunter’s Junction.”

Dana: “Oh, I meant New York City. Manhattan.”

Randy: “Yep. I’ve heard of that too. It’s south of Hunter’s Junction, I believe.”

This Randy guy ain’t so bad!

- Faith refers to Dana as “culturally overprived” because she knows all about ballet and highfalutin’ stuff like that (because did you hear? She’s from New York) but doesn’t know what s’mores are. Apparently knowing what eggs Benedict are is further proof of this, because no one else at Canby Hall has ever heard of them. Were we really that uninformed in the eighties?

And that was book #5. It ends with them all heading home for what’s left of summer vacation and Shelley inviting Dana and Faith to come stay with her in Iowa for two weeks. And everyone’s parents cheerily agree. These kids are away at boarding school all year, then spend an extra month in summer school, and their parents don’t care if they spend another two weeks away from home? Neglectful parents or problem kids? Discuss.

Luckily, Crime of Any Type Can Be Taken Care of in 186 Pages … or, Canby Hall #4, Keeping Secrets

My copy of this one has the old-school cover, and man, I can see why Scholastic put out the call for a new graphic designer.

 

That’s better.

As Tolkien and Baby Howie would say, this book was a steaming turd. Where to begin? All right, so there’s a rash of thefts at Baker House, because for some reason no one locks their doors, and the girls all suspect a very aloof dormmate named Mary Beth. MB is rude and standoffish to everyone, so she has no friends. Meanwhile, another dormmate named Millie, whom we have never met before and I’m going to guess we will never hear from again, starts turning up in every scene. She’s kind of the school dunce, always getting the answer wrong in class or falling down stairs or throwing up in biology lab or breaking things. Spoiler alert: these Canby girls can’t be too smart. The whole time they’re suspecting Mary Beth, this Millie moron is everywhere.

Eventually Dana walks in on Mary Beth crying, and after a year of not getting close to anyone she suddenly decides to put her full trust in Dana and … wait for it … tell the secret she’s been keeping. Ah, as per the title! Brilliant! Well, it seems MB’s dad is in prison for having embezzled from his company, and she’s afraid people will find out. But lest we the readers recoil at his being a convicted felon, we are quickly told that MB’s dad didn’t want anything for himself. He only wanted to buy the best for MB and her mom! Even his boss understood! What a saint! What coldhearted snake even put this guy in jail in the first place?

MB is immediately taken under the collective wing of the girls of 407 and her whole world is bright now that she suddenly has them for friends. She loooves studying French with Shelley and being part of their perfect lives. It’s so great that she’s happy now! “What’s really great,” she murmurs, “is that I have you three.” Gag me! But then a Boston paper does a “Year in Review” column and mentions that a year ago one Melvin Grover was convicted of embezzlement. MB nearly goes back into her loner shell at this, worried that the whole school will shun her, but when the girls of 407 help spread the “truth” — that MB’s dad is really a good guy! His heart was in the right place! — the other girls accept MB and all her problems are solved. As idiotic as this premise is, my question is, would an entire school figure out from one line in a newspaper that some random person was Mary Beth’s father? It’s not like Grover is a totally unique name.

Meanwhile, Faith has a love interest at last. Naturally, he’s African-American, (I’m sorry, “black”) because so is Faith and, well, this is the 1980s. Our new boyfriend Johnny is a great guy, but he has one flaw: he plans to be a police officer. This understandably bothers Faith, since her father was a policeman who was killed in the line of duty. Luckily for Johnny, however, their local ice cream parlour is held up while he and Faith are in it, all the customers are taken hostage, and Johnny’s calm, police-officer-like, high-school-aged head saves the day. Afterwards, Faith totally changes her mind and Johnny’s career plans are A-OK with her! Geez, the child lost her father, she’s not allowed to have any reservations that aren’t neatly cleaned up at the end of the book?

And by the way, that whole hold-up was hilarious. Is the tiny town of Greenleaf, Massachusetts some sort of criminal haven? Between these ice-cream store robbers, Shelley’s kidnappers, and Mary Beth’s dad, it’s starting to look a lot like the Sopranos’ New Jersey. The police burst in to save the hostages and the robbers are so surprised they drop their guns. Instead of, you know, firing them. A policeman gives a long artificial explanation of how they got there (sample sentence: “Without Mrs. Leeds knowing it, we followed her to the Tutti-Frutti, crept towards the windows in a crouched position, waited for her to enter, and quietly watched the proceedings.”) The police knew these criminals were serious, because they demanded “the big bucks” — fifty thousand dollars. It reminds me of Dr. Evil in Austin Powers. Was the owner of a dinky ice cream store really the guy with the deepest pockets in town? You’re telling me Ms. Allardyce doesn’t make serious money on the stock market with all those girls’ private school tuitions?

After this, the ghostwriter realizes she only has a few more pages in which to tie up all the loose ends, and there’s still that pesky thief running around, so while Faith is developing pictures in a darkroom she overhears … SPOILER ALERT, DON’T SAY I DIDN’T WARN YOU … Millie confessing that she was the thief all along. “Because everybody’s better than I am, and I wanted to do something special.” Uh, OK. She was about to get away with the whole thing, and she suddenly decided to confess and face the school administration? Makes perfect sense. Everyone except the reader is shocked. Shocked, I tell you. But they all feel bad that they were never all that nice to her, and she gets sent to counseling and is reformed. Presto!

Miscellaneous observations:

a) Faith wants to buy her sister a birthday present, so she gets her a country record, her favourite. Because D.C. is a real hotbed of college-aged country music fans.

b) Shelley is known for having a small-town Midwest sense of style, as evidenced by an outfit she wears consisting of chartreuse pants and an orange plaid shirt. I don’t think that’s small-town Midwestern, that’s colour-blind. Or preschooler.

c) The entire dorm, during a midnight birthday party, holds off on singing “Happy Birthday” until one of the girls can run to her room and get her violin. To accompany them. Yeah, I can’t count the number of teenage parties I attended that included violin-playing.

d) This book, the fourth in the series, was the most obviously cheesy so far. The ghostwriter’s name on the copyright page is Patricia Aks. In my effort to track down the person unembarrassed to be responsible for this inanity, I discovered that she doesn’t have a Wiki page, but she apparently authored a bunch of other ’80s teen fiction which is no doubt as stellar as this production.

e) I checked. The next book is not written by her. This project can go on.

Well, That Was Fast … or, Canby Hall #3, You’re No Friend of Mine

First of all, Faith’s sister now goes to Georgetown again. And their father suddenly has a different name. Is a pulse the only requirement to be a teen book editor? Is even that optional?

So essentially, just weeks after dramatically showing the FBI how it’s done and rescuing Shelley from armed criminals, Dana and Shelley now can’t stand each other. Shelley has discovered her love for the stage and is babbling on incessantly about how she’s decided to ditch her dreams of becoming an Iowa homemaker, because her new future is as her generation’s greatest actress. While rehearsing for the school play, she falls for a town boy and is worried about how she’ll break the news of him and her new ambitions to her small-town boyfriend Paul. Meanwhile, her grades take a nosedive. Dana is annoyed (and you can’t blame the girl) by Shelley’s immature habit of going on and on about her self-created situation, because Dana has a real problem: her father is getting remarried and moving to Hawaii for a year, and wants Dana to leave Canby Hall and go with him and his new wife. 80% of the book is some variation on this theme:

Shelley: My heart is in the theat-ah! Whatevah will I do? Woe is me!

Dana: Shut up! You don’t know what a real problem is! I hate you!

Faith: I want a single room.

Dana starts actively snubbing Shelley and spending all her time with new friends. Which I remember is a very effective weapon in the world of teenage girls. Despite this, for some unclear reason, once it becomes known that Shelley is failing French, Faith and Dana take it upon themselves to tutor her. Somehow Dana is able to do this in a language she is not taking. Because she’s a “language buff.” Yes, that makes sense. It also makes complete sense that two girls would feel it’s their responsibility to carve out time in their own busy schedules to tutor their roommate so that she won’t fail and Room 407′s honour will be protected, or something like that. It’s not that I didn’t care about my friends in high school, but my own packed study schedule left barely enough time to brush my teeth, let alone theirs. But I digress. Anyway, Shelley continues to be a big immature baby about it all, blowing off study sessions when Dana and Faith have killed themselves to be there. This is the last straw for Dana, who after something like 15 chapters of angst about what decision she’s going to make, finally decides to move to Hawaii.

But then Shelley, in a moment of weakness, decides to cheat on her French final. Just as she pulls out her cheat sheets during the exam, her conscience intervenes. But she is caught and sent to see the dreaded headmistress Ms. Allardyce, who will most likely expel her. In the most absurd plot development ever, Dana and Faith, overcome with sympathy, rush to Shelley’s defense, and Shelley is forgiven because a witness said that although she took her notes out, she didn’t actually look at them. Now, I’m no academician, but that seems like splitting hairs to me. And Dana realizes, in the last two pages of the book, AFTER GOING ON AND ON ABOUT IT TILL I WANTED TO STAB MYSELF IN THE EYE, that oh, she actually belongs at Canby Hall. Sorry, Dad and Hawaii and carefully-thought-out decision! Now that she and Shelley have suddenly stopped fighting (because the ghostwriter reached her word quota) Dana can just change her mind back.

In the end, Shelley never bothers to tell Paul about her new guy, which, believe me, will be a trend with these Canby girls over the rest of the series. But that’s not cheating, because … because … well, because this is some sort of alternate universe.

Snarkable moment: Shelley doesn’t understand what Dana means when she says she left a message for her mom at home. Because Shelley doesn’t know what an answering machine is. Because they’re not very common in Pine Bluff, Iowa. These writers hate Iowa!

Honestly, these characters are more capricious than the weather in April. I’m not sure how we went so suddenly from weeping over their beloved roommate’s kidnapping to wanting to end their friendship over a part in the school play and a D in French. But why am I questioning it, these are the girls of Canby Hall. And you know, in just 3 books, they’ve gotten almost to the end of their sophomore year — and there are still 14 books till they graduate. This should be interesting.

Tom Clancy Called, He Said This Doesn’t Count as a Thriller … or, Canby Hall #2, Our Roommate Is Missing

First of all, Shelley looks about 35. Also, both she and her kidnapper look like they’re trying not to laugh. Maybe they read this book.

I don’t know how ghostwriting works, but this strikes me as having been written by someone who got assigned a Canby Hall novel but had her heart set on being the next Grisham/Baldacci, so she tried to scratch her suspense-fiction-writing itch by producing this book. It’s so out of place in a teen girls’ series that starts out being about regular school life and, I assure you, quickly goes back to being about regular school life. They just take this one detour into the world of international crime, and pretty much never mention it again. So odd.

So basically, Shelley is kidnapped by art thieves who mistake her for Casey and want to prevent Casey’s parents from testifying against them at some federal art trial. This case of mistaken identity is made possible by the fact that Casey has recently started dressing and doing her hair like Shelley, and by the fact that Shelley is conveniently carrying no ID at the time she is snatched. Seriously, does anyone ever leave home without ID? I am paranoid that I’ll get hit by a car and admitted to the hospital as “Jane Doe #47″ if I don’t have my license on me. Is that just me? And talk about suspension of disbelief, why would a supposedly rich girl like Casey ever start copying the look of the country hick they keep telling us Shelley is? To quote Faith, “One loses one’s mittens. One can even lose a reputation. One does not lose a slightly overweight but nonetheless adorable roommate like our Shelley.” Geez, with friends like these, who needs enemies? Girlfriend probably ran away.

Our friendly ghostwriters never lose much sleep over maintaining continuity, as Casey, who in other books is portrayed as the roommates’ fourth Musketeer, is pretty much a loudmouthed brat throughout this story. Also, Faith’s sister went to Georgetown in the last book but now is a student at George Washington. Because all those D.C. schools are the same, you know! It’s because of this book that, for the longest time, I thought “Georgetown” was GWU’s nickname. (That may say more about me than about the book, but nevertheless.)

So Shelley is held hostage in a sawmill, she manages to get a few murky clues across in a telephone call, and Dana and Faith naturally figure out where she’s being held. I’m amazed at the expertise these fifteen-year-olds have when it comes to mills, by the way. If it were me, those clues would have sailed right over my head. Guess we had a different collective knowledge base back in 1983. So they decide to sneak out and go find her by themselves. The lamest of excuses is given for two tenth-graders not to tell, oh, say, THE FBI AGENTS investigating this case: that the authorities wouldn’t take them seriously. Really? Even though police officers always tell you to tell them anything you remember, no matter how seemingly insignificant, because it could be helpful? Well in the end the FBI agents tell the girls they could never have cracked the case without them, that they would have thought the clues “too whimsical to follow up on,” so I guess the joke’s on me. So anyway, D and F drive all over the state in a snowstorm (with Bret as their driver — he’s a completely normal, accommodating boyfriend all of a sudden instead of his previous lyin’ cheatin’ self), find the mill, get chased by the bad guys, Dana falls into a frozen pond but miraculously avoids hypothermia, Bret crashes into a snowplow, and somehow the day and Shelley are saved. Meanwhile, her poor parents, who fly in from Iowa when she goes missing, get zero face time in this whole book. And there is never once the suggestion that perhaps Shelley ought to think about going home. If you were from a small town and sent your kid to a boarding school out of state, and she got herself kidnapped within days of returning after Christmas break, wouldn’t you be transferring her out of there faster than she could say “baggy pleated jeans“? I guess Shelley’s parents knew this series was just getting started.

Really, this was impossible to take seriously. I did get one thing out of this, though — the solution to this country’s war on crime. What we need is more high schoolers showing that bumbling FBI how it’s done. Somebody write a memo.

UPDATE: Apparently Courteney Cox was the model for Shelley on this cover! She actually name-drops this book in that article! Ironic because not only does the face not look anything like Courteney Cox, it doesn’t look particularly afraid either. And yet this is what taught a future star how to act. Monica Geller, what humble beginnings you had.