Rancher vs. Rocker … or, Canby Hall #30, Surprise!

This photo is somewhat inaccurate, as Jane is too shocked by Beau’s arrival to really jump joyfully into his arms. Also, why is there a menu with prices posted at a boarding school dining hall? These girls don’t pay for their meals with cash. Maybe it’s for all the random strangers that keep showing up and hanging around?

Ugh. He’s back.

I am greeting the return of Beau Stockton with something less than enthusiasm, but Beau doesn’t care what I think. Jane, his paramour, is also less than wildly enthusiastic, but she never actually tells him to beat it, so … success?

We open with Andy walking the campus and feeling a little down because fall is coming. It is noted that she has been fending off feelings of depression ever since her foot injury. Andy, we count on you for your stability, positive nature, and general good sense. Fight the darkness! Fight it, I beg of you! (Side note: One of my quirks is that I cannot relate at all to being sad as the days get colder. I love fall and winter. It’s spring and summer that I find vaguely depressing. All that relentless sunshine!) In an effort to find something fun to cheer her up, she goes to the student centre and reads the notices on the bulletin board. She finds one posted by Meredith asking for volunteers to help with the Halloween party. For some reason she thinks this sounds amazeballs and becomes immediately determined that she and her roomies will adopt this as their next fabulous project. Unfortunately for her, Gigi Norton was reading the notice over her shoulder. After some mildly nasty back-and-forth, Gigi intuits that Andy was interested in the Halloween party notice and tells her sidekick Yolanda that they’ll be volunteering for the Halloween party too, smiling “as she thought of all the havoc she could wreak on those Baker House babies who thought they ran the school.” So I guess Gigi is somewhat self-aware? She knows she’s awful just for the sake of being awful?

Toby and Jane don’t think they have time for another commitment, but they let Andy talk them into it. She drags them up to Meredith’s apartment, where Gigi and Yolanda have already parked themselves. Gigi informs them, “I have given several parties, and I know quite a bit about planning them.” To which Jane snipes, “Now if you could just get people to come to them after you were finished planning them …” They agree on a time for their first meeting, after which Gigi expresses her certainty that she can plan a wonderful party, “in spite of the handicap of working with people who have less experience than I do in these matters.” Jane notes that “planning the perfect Halloween party should be pretty easy for a witch.” Gigi seems unperturbed. The 407 girls get Dee and Maggie to join the planning committee as reinforcements. Toby silently worries about Gigi’s propensity for cruelty. It is noted that both Gigi and Toby could be intimidating (the latter because of her height), but that Toby’s intimidation of others was completely accidental. Eh, let’s not compare Gigi and Toby in any way, please.

The following day, Meredith is trapped in her apartment with five warring girls. Even though the 407 girls are hardly turning the other cheek, Meredith assigns them no blame, naturally. Gigi starts by saying they simply must hire a decent band this time, since (to paraphrase) Ambulance sucks. She’s speaking the truth here, so what’s the problem? Dee suggests a fairy-tale theme, and Gigi and Yolanda (again, rightfully) note that that’s a tad juvenile. Gigi suggests a horror movie theme, and Jane points out the injustice of that, as “some of you will have a much better chance at being horrible than the rest of us.” They eventually agree that everyone can dress up as their favourite TV character. Gigi pouts, “I still say it won’t be a Halloween party unless there’s something scary about it,” to which Andy responds, “Well you’re going, aren’t you?” Meredith tells Andy she’s never seen her like this before, to which Andy just mutters an apology. Has administration really not heard even a whisper of Gigi’s prior misdeeds? Jane’s put in charge of decorations and Gigi decides she and Yolanda will erect a haunted house. At the end of the meeting, Meredith notices that Gigi lets Yolanda take her dishes to the kitchen for her, and is irritated. That’s about the worst thing that any staff member will feel towards any of the handful of clearly very troubled girls at this institution.

Later, Jane meets up with Cary, still seething about Gigi taking digs at Ambulance. Cary thinks to himself that there’s been something different about Jane ever since she got back from Texas, that she often seemed to “just drift away for a few seconds.” Um, there are two whole other books between the Texas visit and this one, and that phenomenon was never mentioned in either of them. Cary had thought for a while that Jane was falling for Randy Crowell, but then realized that that was silly because Randy was almost 21. Ugh, no need to remind us how creepy it is that that dude keeps hanging around with these barely 16-year-olds. Cary and Jane decide to go to that local giant of Italian cuisine, Pizza Pete’s. Once installed there with their pizza, Gigi shows up. But after all her nasty remarks about Cary’s band behind his back, she’s positively simpering to his face, saying she loves his voice and that it’s too bad the rest of the band isn’t as good as he is, and how lots of famous singers had to give up their bands when they hit it big, stars like Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens (!) Then she leans over, takes a piece of pepperoni off of Cary’s slice of pizza, and starts flirting with him as if Jane isn’t even there. She talks about how she can’t believe Ritchie Valens was dead at seventeen, and Jane thinks to herself that she can easily imagine Gigi dead at sixteen. Ha! Then Gigi straightens up and prettily apologizes for ruining their little romantic lunch. Jane tells her not to flatter herself. After she saunters off, Cary comments that Gigi doesn’t seem so bad. BOYS!

That evening in the dining hall, Jane is telling her roommates about Gigi’s two-faced nerve when, with almost no preamble, Beau Stockton just shows up and joins their conversation. It really is the oddest introduction of him back into the story. He tells Jane he had to leave Rio Verde on account of illness. His heart, you see. He saw some blonde girl on campus and just had to get on a plane and see Jane in real life. Gag me. Gigi and Yolanda see the 407 girls chatting with this new hot guy and come over to insert themselves. Gigi deliberately tells Jane how much she enjoyed meeting Jane’s boyfriend earlier that day, then gasps daintily and says she hopes she didn’t say anything wrong. “Yeah, I’ll just bet,” Andy retorts.

This moron Beau has apparently paid for a cross-country plane ticket without once thinking about where he’s going to stay, so Toby takes him over to the Crowells’ and just dumps him on them. Oh hey, here’s a total stranger who showed up with no warning, can he live in your house and eat your food for the next week or until he gets bored, ok thanks byyyyeeeeeee! Also, Beau is still a senior in high school. He can just miss all these classes without his school or parents caring? Maybe they’re secretly hoping he’ll forget the way back.

Saintly Mrs. Crowell gives them all apple cobbler, but without warning Beau takes Jane’s bowl away from her. “Ah ah ah,” he says. “She didn’t finish her dinner. I’m not sure she ought to have dessert.” Everyone including me is stunned at this sexist display and unsure of what to do, until Jane slaps his arm and takes the bowl back. This incident is never mentioned again. I don’t know what we’re supposed to take from it. That Beau is definitely, for sure, a tool?

Beau says he’s staying a week, until the Halloween party. Jane’s already cooking up a plan to just keep him and Cary away from each other for the week until Beau goes home so she never has to actually deal with this situation like an adult. She knows that Beau knows she has a boyfriend, especially since Gigi just mentioned it at the dining hall, but she figures she should probably officially tell him about Cary. But then Beau kisses her, and her resolve is gone. Once again, she just doesn’t have the chance to tell the truth, but she TOTALLY would have! What an awesome girlfriend Jane is — just like Dana before her time.

Back in 407, Andy and Toby tell Jane she better figure out what she’s going to tell Cary. And that she has a lot of work to do for the Halloween party committee. Turtle-like, Jane puts a pillow over her head and says she’ll worry about all of it tomorrow.

The next day Andy is making ghosts out of Kleenexes and Tootsie Pops as decorations for the party. Toby is as skeptical as I am about how classy that’s going to look. Andy is annoyed that neither of her roommates are helping with the task she bullied them into.

Meanwhile Jane is giving Beau a tour of the Canby Hall campus. They pass Ms. Allardyce’s house and Jane says “If you look up strict in the dictionary, there’s a picture of PA.” Oh please! They end up canoodling on a bench when Cary’s car suddenly pulls up. Turns out he’d been studying and had wanted to see Jane as a break. He sees them with their arms around each other and thinks it’s Jane with Randy, the latter acting as a big brother, so he waves. When Jane waves back, Beau says incredulously, “You know that New Age hippie?” I love the specific eighties-ness of this cutting insult. Jane responds, correctly, that Beau has a lot of nerve calling him names. Cary comes up and Jane introduces Beau as a friend of Toby’s. Beau is peeved and takes off. Cary asks Jane who that guy is, really, since they were looking awfully friendly. Jane says he’s just a friend, and because Cary is not a total idiot, he says no guy travels all the way across the country just to see a “friend,” and that Jane has had a lot of chances to explain over the past few months but didn’t. Then he takes off too.

In tears, Jane heads back to 407. Andy has little sympathy for her self-made catastrophe and is irritated that no one else is doing any work for the party. Toby comes in and Jane appeals to her, but Toby says she plans to start helping Andy.

Andy goes to the student centre, which we’ve heard a lot about in this book but not in many others, and looks at the vending machines. She gets cheese crackers with peanut butter for dinner and a Baby Ruth for dessert. (The mother in me just dropped to the ground in a dead faint.) Toby shows up and apologizes. They talk about how they’re worried Gigi will do something to make herself look better than them at the party. Gigi magically appears behind them and asks if she heard her name, because she’s always had excellent hearing. “Most dogs do,” Toby mutters under her breath, which is kind of mean. Our protagonists are not completely innocent victims here.

We cut to Andy, Toby, Dee and Maggie carving pumpkins for table centrepieces when Toby gets a phone call from Neal. Toby tells him about Beau showing up and causing problems between Jane and Cary, and Neal muses that it wasn’t so long ago that it was Cary coming between Jane and Neal. Then he hastens to assure Toby that although he still cares about Jane as a friend, he’d be a lot more upset if Beau had come to see Toby instead. Once again, this gem Neal is totally wasted on this group of juveniles. Toby invites Neal to the Halloween party. (Andy mentions, twice, that she wishes Matt didn’t have a wedding to go to that weekend. Conveniently, they seem to be moving poor Matt into the background in preparation for the next two books.) Later, back in their own room, Jane whines again about her Beau/Cary dilemma. Andy and Toby, reasonably, say she needs to decide which one she wants and then tell the other one. Jane, like the narcissist she is, says “Why should I have to make a choice between them? I’m not planning to get married or anything. I don’t know why they can’t get along and make this a good week for everybody.” Andy, speaking for us all, says, “Don’t you mean a good week for you?”

The next morning, overwhelmed with the magnitude of the troubles on her shoulders and wondering how she can POSSIBLY be expected to focus on classwork, Jane runs into Gigi, who asks for Cary’s number so she can ask him for Oakley Prep volunteers to help with the haunted house. Jane tells her not to bother trying to stir up trouble because Cary already knows about Beau, and to look up his digits herself because “he always calls me.” Gigi grins evilly to herself, realizing that there’s trouble in paradise.

After classes Jane heads over to the Crowell ranch to talk to Beau, having decided that she has all the time in the world to make up with Cary but only a week to make up with Beau. It occurs to her that he might have already returned to Texas and for a split second she hopes he has, as that would solve all her problems. The mercenary, utilitarian way these characters think about other human beings just drives me crazy. Anyway, Beau is still there and tells her he might give Cary a run for his money, and that Cary gets her all school year so she should let Beau have her for that one week. Cheating just for a week. What reasonable person could refuse such a charming offer? That Cary is so out of line!

Meanwhile Gigi calls Cary and tells him that they need a favour, and that Jane was too busy entertaining her Texas friend to call him herself. Understandably upset, Cary mechanically agrees to round up some guys to help with Gigi’s haunted house. After they hang up, he fumes about how Jane didn’t want him talking to Gigi at Pizza Pete’s but now is just handing out his number to her. On the other end, Gigi is grinning like a Cheshire cat.

Over in 407, Jane is thinking about how Cary will surely understand her situation if she just calls and explains. After all, she didn’t invite Beau to come, and now that he was here she couldn’t ignore him, could she? It would be INHOSPITABLE, people! “This whole mess certainly wasn’t her fault.” Certainly not! It was probably Obama’s. She calls Cary, who is fresh off his manipulation at the hands of Gigi, and they fight because Cary is not enthusiastic about the idea of being “patient for just one stupid little week.”

After hanging up, Jane wanders in to the ongoing Halloween preparations. Andy is still annoyed that Jane hasn’t been helping. To make up for it, Jane volunteers to ask Randy and Beau to lend them some bales of hay and build them a fence and scarecrow for decorations. Does Randy do any actual work or just spend all his time helping these high school girls with their Halloween parties and carnivals?

We cut to Gigi and Yolanda planning their haunted house, and Gigi voicing her plan to snag Cary so that by the time Beau goes home, Cary’s dating Gigi and Jane has no one. Then she silently wonders whether her parents would have sent her to Canby Hall if they’d known how crappy it was. But “they were too busy running all over the place to worry about whether she was happy.” Especially since if they’d been able to send their maid to parent-teacher conferences in their place, they would have. Villain Back Story: check. Gigi calls Cary and asks if he’s found haunted house volunteers yet, which he has not, so she asks if she can come to Oakley Prep the next day and have him show her around so she can ask guys herself. Reluctantly, he agrees.

The next day it snows, and we’re treated to the inner musings of household parasite Beau Stockton, who has allegedly been offering to help Mrs. Crowell around the house but she’s so used to doing it all alone that she “wouldn’t know what to do with help if I had it.” Does this woman not have like 5 or 6 able-bodied sons? NONE OF THEM HELP HER AND THEY DUMPED THIS TEXAS LEECH ON HER TOO??

After school, Jane and Toby go to ask Randy and Beau to help with their dumb party decorations, and Beau and Jane take a romantic walk. Meanwhile, over on the Oakley Prep campus, Gigi is also walking with Cary, trying to work her feminine wiles, such as they are. She twists her ankle on a curb and milks it for all it’s worth, letting Cary carry her to a bench and then offering to buy him a pizza for all his trouble. Cary, not thinking fast enough to come up with an excuse, gets roped in, and now it’s a date.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch (literally), Jane and Beau also decide to go get a pizza. Jane thinks of Beau and Cary, “They were so different, and yet she liked them both so much. She was only sixteen. Why should she have to choose between them now? It was unfair.” Um, because they deserve to not be cheated on? Where does this thinking come from? Are these people polygamists, but only until marrying age? I’ve just never known anyone with this mentality in real life.

Of course all four of them end up at Pizza Pete’s at the same time. Jane feels sick at the sight of Cary and Gigi together, Gigi feels triumphant, and Cary doesn’t even like Gigi but plays up their “date” to get back at Jane. Very mature behaviour all around.

Back in their room, Jane is sobbing to her roommates, who try to assure her that maybe it wasn’t what it looked like. In low voices, Andy and Toby wonder whether they should warn Cary about what a terrible person Gigi is (if he’s been dating Jane all this time, how could he not have heard the stories?) but decide to stay out of it. After they leave the room, Jane decides to warn Cary herself. (This will go well.) Of course, when Jane gets Cary on the phone and tells him Gigi is scheming and cruel and will hurt him, Cary says Gigi clearly has a lot in common with Jane and hangs up.

Over in Gigi’s room, Gigi is planning her next move. She told Yolanda that Cary asked her out instead of the other way around, but what’s a little white lie? She also knows that Cary was extra-friendly to her at Pizza Pete’s just to make Jane jealous, but what did that matter? Surely there is no better way to start a solid, lifelong relationship.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch again (I’m getting whiplash) Beau and Randy are talking about Jane. Beau says that Jane was different back in Texas, less uptight. Then he realizes that it’s him, Beau, who’s making Jane uptight, by being his hick self here on the East Coast. He says he’s “used to Yankees being kind of rude” – to which Randy, appropriately, takes offense – and that Texans are a lot more laid-back, which is why he can’t fit into Jane’s world. (Timeout for rant: I am so sick of hearing that southerners are a lot nicer than northerners. First of all, southerners have nothing on Canadians. Secondly, this is a generalization, but southerners are not equally nice to people of all backgrounds. I’m a person of colour who lived in various parts of the American South for years, and I had some of the worst encounters of my life there. It was particularly striking compared to how my Caucasian husband was treated. In my experience, you know who’s always consistently the nicest to me and my family? Northerners. End rant.) Beau decides to start packing and get out of town now, before his week is up. Good riddance.

Back at Canby Hall, Jane’s journalism teacher tells her that the editorial she turned in is sloppy work and not up to par. Jane, the paragon of professionalism that she is, proceeds to babble to her teacher all about her earth-shattering problems and how difficult this week has been. The teacher is sympathetic, but tells her she has obligations to her roommates, the school paper, and herself, and needs to not spread herself too thin.

After class, Randy is waiting for Jane and asks her to talk to Beau and convince him to stay the rest of the week. WHY, for the love of all that is holy? Let that loser ride off into the sunset and leave the rest of us to repair our lives! But like a doofus Jane agrees and goes to Randy’s house to beg Beau to stay. The chapter ends with her “frozen on the floor, waiting for his answer.” Ugh.

The other girls are modeling their Halloween costumes. Dee is Madonna, Maggie is the Pink Panther, Andy is a bag of jellybeans (which counts as a TV character because she’s a commercial) and they talk Toby into being Raggedy Ann. Neal, prize that he is, readily agrees to be Raggedy Andy. However, Jane comes in and deflates the party atmosphere. Toby thinks to herself that Jane has been like a manic-depressive ever since Beau showed up, and that it’s a good thing that that shining example of manhood is leaving soon, because no one can take much more of this. After hearing the latest in the Beau saga, TOBY volunteers to go talk to him. For crying out loud! This guy has caused nothing but annoyance, why are they all so eager for him to stay and continue the misery? Toby goes to the Crowells’ and tells Beau that Jane is crying her eyes out, which strokes his masterful ego and convinces him to stay. (WHY is she crying? Wasn’t she thinking just a few pages ago that it would solve all her problems if he left?) (Also, he tells Toby he thinks he’s in love with Jane, which is just the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, and that’s really saying something since this is the 32nd book in this series.) Thank goodness BS (hehe) is sticking around, because imagine all the Halloween party awkwardness we would have otherwise missed out on. BS calls Jane and tells him he’s staying but will not be dressing up because a guy only has so much pride he can swallow. Contrast this attitude to the lovely, participatory Neal.

The next evening, Toby is getting ready for dinner with Neal. She and Andy muse about the financial bonanza a McDonald’s would be in Greenleaf. I’ve always wondered about the dearth of fast-food chains in that town too! Neal ends up taking her to the Greenleaf Inn, where we are treated to one of the best food scenes in this entire series. Toby spends nearly a full page creating a custom salad for herself, followed by filet mignon. Neal comments that he gets tired of girls eating just a few pieces of lettuce and that it’s such a pleasure to see one enjoy eating. Now I know Neal is by far the best guy character in this series, but that attitude irks me. Claiming that girls are vain and appearance-obsessed for dieting, but then only ever finding thin girls beautiful, is part of the spectrum of misogyny. I absolutely love to eat, but if I chose to excessively diet, I would be entitled to sympathy for the brainwashing our society puts us through, not meal-shaming.

Toby and Neal take a post-dinner walk through town to window-shop, where Neal comments that this town must be a great place to save money, as he hasn’t yet seen anything he’d want to buy. Ha! Toby then thinks about how different her world is from Neal’s, what it would be like to see him in Texas, and how she isn’t planning to marry Neal or even introduce him to her father, because they’re just good friends. Then they kiss and she thinks about how she never thought she could like a boy so much. Um, OK?

The next morning is finally the day of this blasted Halloween party. The 407 girls show up at the infamous student centre to find Gigi and Yolanda working on building their haunted house, with a No Trespassing sign up. “Who’d want to?” Toby queries. Neal arrives and immediately starts helping out like the gentleman he is, not even blinking when a pumpkin smashes on the ground, spattering its guts all over his no-doubt-very-expensive trousers. Jane runs to hug him when she sees him, leaving Gigi and Yolanda wondering where she found a third guy in the course of a week. Beau and Randy show up, and Toby introduces Neal to Beau. Neal literally does nothing more shocking than extend his hand for a handshake and say it’s nice to meet him, and Beau wonders if he’s for real. What about basic civility is so foreign to you, you jerk? Beau proceeds to smirk about Toby’s new Yankee boyfriend and she’s glad she has Jane to hold over his head too. Then they all go inside for naptime, because they are toddlers.

Gigi and Jane exchange more nasty remarks and nearly get into a fistfight. Cary and the Ambulance guys arrive and start setting up. Gigi offers to give Cary a private tour of the haunted house. He sees Jane watching them, so he squeezes Gigi’s arm and accepts. Jane can’t take it and runs into Beau’s arms. The spectators resolve to transfer schools.

That night, the girls of 407 are putting on their costumes. Jane is going as Major Houlihan from M*A*S*H*. She comments that Beau seems so different than he did last summer. Toby points out that he’s been transplanted into a completely new world and she knows from personal experience that it takes time to adjust. She also thinks to herself that she finally knows why she and Beau have never gotten along: it’s because they’re too alike.

Oh that’s why, is it? His inherent sexism, arrogance and entitlement have nothing to do with it, hmmm?

Anyway, Jane also says that she knows every day she and Beau spend together is pulling her and Cary farther apart, and Toby says maybe she should think about that the next time she starts flirting with some guy. SERIOUSLY.

They finally end up at the party, where Gigi is dressed as a fairy princess. Wasn’t she the one who thought a fairy-tale theme was too childish? Jane notes that they’re both changing their image for the evening. Andy is on the dance floor constantly, with no shortage of willing partners since Matt is out of town. Poor Matt, they really are setting you up for a permanent shove offstage, aren’t they? Jane coaxes Beau onto the dance floor, even though he says he doesn’t “do that kind of dancing.” What, do they not have radios or pop music in Texas? Multiple people compliment him on his amazing costume. (He’s wearing his regular clothes.) They start slow-dancing, with Cary essentially serenading them from the stage. Can you believe the heartlessness of Jane? Girlfriend, why are you needlessly hurting this guy? Cary is, naturally, upset and tries to speed up the song. As soon as it’s over, he calls a break, and Gigi materializes to give him his haunted house tour. He wants to say no, but because he sees Jane walk off the dance floor with Beau, he agrees. But at that moment, Meredith gets on stage to give out the prizes for best costume. Andy wins (they think she’s a cold capsule), as does Beau. After Jane forces him onstage to accept, Cary hears another girl call Beau cute and, fed up, rushes to join Gigi.

Naturally, Gigi has set it up so that the haunted house is empty during their “tour,” and once inside, she kisses Cary. He escapes and runs into Jane, who looks at him coldly, takes a handkerchief from his pocket (just what every modern teenage boy carries around) and tells him he missed a spot before wiping Gigi’s lipstick off his face.

Andy talks a dejected Jane into joining her and Toby in checking out the haunted house. It’s full of the usual exhibits, but it seems Gigi has also stolen live rats from the science lab. When Andy touches one, she screams and triggers a panic. A stampede ensues, causing the haunted house to collapse. Gigi crawls out from the rubble and shrieks that she’ll get even with Andy if it’s the last thing she does, and Toby notes that at least now everyone will be talking about Gigi’s haunted house forever, just like she wanted. Gigi looks around at the circle of people laughing at her, and then catches sight of one person who’s not laughing: PA. (However we can be sure, knowing this school, that a severe look will be the extent of her punishment.)

The next morning the 407 girls go to clean up after the party. Beau shows up to say goodbye, and tells Jane they should keep in touch but date around, because “what’s a good relationship if it can’t stand a little testing?” THESE TWO have a good relationship? Neal also comes to say goodbye, and Toby kisses him this time. Meredith bakes cookies and has the girls over to her apartment to thank them for their help.

And then who shows up? Cary! To explain to Jane that things weren’t how they looked with Gigi, and that he doesn’t want to be with anyone else but Jane! And that he’s “realized” he doesn’t want Jane to be with anyone else either! Dude, I think THAT’S WHAT YOU WERE SAYING ALL ALONG. Jane assures him, as if he’s insane for even thinking otherwise, “I won’t be.” Oh, because your word can SO be trusted! She tells Cary that she still plans to write to Beau. Cary says he doesn’t really like that. Jane points out that Beau will be 2,000 miles away while Cary will be just down the road. Cary responds that he does like that part, so everything’s just peachy then. Honestly, these guys are being emotionally abused! The book ends with Andy and Toby saying that no one but Jane could start out with two guys, look like she would lose both of them, and end up with two guys again. Ick. After some cheesy pontification about friendship, the book mercifully arrives at its finis.

Miscellaneous notes:

• Andy tells Gigi that she has an audition with the New York City Ballet over Christmas. She already missed most of the summer with her family, now she’s not going home over Christmas either? And what kind of part would only need her over her Christmas break? Or is she planning to leave Canby Hall if she gets the role? If she’s good enough at 16 to dance with the New York City Ballet, wouldn’t she be in a ballet academy instead of regular high school anyway?
• The morning of the first snowfall, the girls of 407 gather at the window to watch. Toby is amazed “that these two girls who saw snow every winter of their lives could get so excited about it.” But we do, Toby, we do.

Next up: get those Kate Middleton china sets ready. It’s time for a royal wedding!