Thoughts before reading:
I've read this one before, but I think it was just a one time library borrow. I don't remember the plot, besides the obvious, or what I thought about it. The school centered plot should be an interesting change though, since we hardly ever have those.
The blond girl on this cover looks so nasty and smug, I think I'd have a hard time not smacking her if I was Claudia. This is also the first cover that shows a teacher; hardly any of them show adults. Claudia has a pretty tame outfit on, but she looks cute.
The basics:
Claudia has a big test coming up in her remedial math class. Janine's helping her study, and for once she actually understands the problems. On test day, she feels confident, concentrating hard on her work, and feeling good about how she did. She's thrilled until the next day, when the tests come back. Her paper is marked with a 94%, but she's asked to see the teacher after class, along with Shawna Riverson. The teacher explains that their tests are identical, so he knows one of them copied. Since Shawna gets good grades usually, he assumes it was Claudia. She knows how bad it looks, and gets really down, not even trying to defend herself. Shawna, however, is quick to deny that she would ever cheat. She's dismissed, and Claudia is told she will get an F.
At home, Janine defends Claudia, and her parents believe them both right away. Despite this, Claudia asks them not to get involved with the school over it. The whole BSC also believes her without question, except Mary Anne (big surprise), who tells her she'll feel better if she confesses, and they'd still support her. Claudia starts to worry that maybe her parents don't believe her completely either.
After the shock has worn off, Claudia decides maybe she can prove Shawna cheated. She follows her into the bathroom and hides in a stall, thinking that's what Nancy Drew would do. It pays off: she hears Shawna bragging to her friends about how she got away with cheating by acting innocent, and she doesn't even feel guilty about it because one more F wouldn't matter much to Claudia anyway. Apparently she overheard Claudia telling Mary Anne about how Janine was helping her study. Since everyone knows Janine is a genius, she decided to cheat off Claudia because no one would ever suspect it.
Dawn and Stacey help Claudia steal a note from Shawna's locker that mentions the cheating, but Claudia knows it's not worth anything because for all the teachers would know, they could have written it. Instead she starts trying her own absurd ideas to make Shawna confess: using "trigger words" like cheating, trying to make Shawna look at her paper again, etc. All she actually accomplishes is getting caught looking at Shawna's paper again after seeing the juicy note she's writing during math class.
In the end, Janine saves the day by simply going to the principal and explaining how she helped Claudia study, and how well she knew the problems. The teacher FINALLY has Claudia take a new test that's very similar, and she gets another A. Once Shawna's told she'll have to also re-take the test, she confesses.
The BSC has a celebration for Claudia, and the Kishis get her a big cake. Shawna is given an F on the test, and suspended.
Timeline:
Nothing given again, and probably spans a few weeks.
My thoughts:
This was a good story, just really frustrating. The whole book's problem could have been quickly and easily solved if they had just made Claudia and Shawna re-take the test to begin with. In a situation like this, that should be the standard solution. Even if Claudia didn't defend herself, her parents did speak to the teacher once when he initially called to inform them of the incident. If only they had defended their daughter then, or communicated with the school about it later on. There was no need for any of the scheming that took up most of the story. Despite that obvious gap in the logic here, this was a nice change of pace. I enjoyed reading about a realistic school problem. This was a story I could actually see helping child readers with problems in their own lives, and teaching them to stick up for themselves. (There was also almost no babysitting, a nice break!)
I also loved how Janine came to the rescue! They've been building up and improving her relationship with Claudia in these last two books, which is a nice change from all the fighting early in the series. I'm actually really liking Janine in this re-read. We only get Claudia's POV, which is often about what a pain her sister can be, but even in books like "mean Janine", she never is. You can tell she loves and admires Claudia, but just has a hard time relating to her, and is even intimidated by her cool, popular little sister.
There was a subplot in this book also, but it made no sense. The Pike triplets break a window at home, and end up grounded because they won't tell who broke it. They have what they call "triplet loyalty", which means they won't tell on each other. Eventually Mal gets them to reenact the incident, which makes it clear all three of them played a role in what happened. Meaning, there was no one to cover for in the first place. Why make a big deal about being loyal instead of just telling their mom they all did it? 10 year old's are old enough to explain how something happened and make people understand.
Misc:
*Ghostwritten by Ellen Miles
*Typo I found on page 63: 'another think coming', instead of 'another thing coming'
*I remember learning about "op-talk" from this book, but I don't think I tried to use it for more than a day or two.
*Shawna is really quite the manipulative bitch! I was kind of shocked. Then again, Claudia also says she's the most popular girl in school. Based on my memories of junior high, this sounds spot on.
*I loved seeing some of the girls (Claudia, Dawn, Stacey) breaking some rules, especially since the latter two did it to help their friend. These girls are usually TOO good, and it was awesome of them to do this for Claudia.
*Claudia's plans to catch Shawna are the biggest epic fails ever, because her ideas were so bad. Didn't Nancy Drew teach her better than this??
*The Triplets played with matchbox cars in here, but aren't they pretty old for that?
*This is the book where Claudia "does a Ms. Frizzle" with her outfit! I totally remember this. (Her theme was the sea.) For those who don't know, Ms. Frizzle is the teacher from the Magic School Bus books, who always wears an outfit with a wild theme matching the book's plot.
Books mentioned:
*The Magic School Bus series, by Joanna Cole
My rating:
3.5 stars, enjoyable and a quick read.
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