January 2, 2011
BSC Mystery #9, Kristy and the Haunted Mansion: Spoiler – It’s Not Really Haunted
You should definitely send Karen in there first
Summary: Kristy, Bart, and Charlie are accompanying a bunch of Krushers and Bashers (AKA the Krashers) home from an away game when a huge storm hits. The group is stuck in some nearby town thanks to a washed-out bridge, and they decide to find a place to spend the night. They come across a huge mansion kept by a caretaker who says they can spend the night there. They start looking around the house and read a diary, which belonged to a girl named Dorothy who lived there back in the 30s. She disappeared when she was 18, the day before she was supposed to elope with a guy named Will, who her father disapproved of.
There have been stories about the mansion being haunted, so the kids are a little freaked out (as is Kristy), and knowing that a person who used to live there may have died under mysterious circumstances doesn’t help. I’m not sure who people think haunts the mansion anyway, since Dorothy didn’t die in the house. But it doesn’t really matter, since nothing really weird happens anyway. The story’s more about the fact that Kristy and everyone disappears and their families don’t know where they are.
In the morning, the group figures out that Will is the caretaker. He confirms this and admits that he bought the house and kept it exactly the same as it was when Dorothy lived there. Later on, Karen admits to Kristy that she swiped a picture of Dorothy from the mansion, and when the other BSC girls see it, Mary Anne recognizes Dorothy as the woman who owns a nearby sewing shop. The BSC girls and Karen go to see her, confirm that she’s Dorothy, and hear her side of the story: On her way to meet Will so they could elope, she decided she liked her freedom so much that she took off alone. (Girl power!) The girls tell her where she can find Will, because they just can’t help playing matchmaker.
Thoughts: I’m not sure I’d let my eight-year-old ride in a van driven by a 17-year-old, who happens to be the oldest person in the group.
Trivia: Kristy’s afraid of lightning.
Bart doesn’t come home, so his father calls…Claudia? Huh?
“Charlie was turning out to be great.” I believe I’ve been saying that for months.
Why does Kristy care if Karen reads a diary from 1935? She didn’t seem to care about someone reading another person’s decades-old diary in Mallory and the Mystery Diary.
Patty, one of Bart’s Bashers, says that when she grows up, she wants to be a carpenter, ride a motorcycle, and be president. Rock on, Patty.
'90s Flashback 
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