Thoughts before reading:
This is the only mystery book I still have from my childhood collection! I don't remember much about it, but it must have been my favorite mystery? The fact that I kept it means something, so I'm surprised that I can't remember anything about the story. I'm excited to revisit it to find out, and to see how familiar it is.
I actually love this cover. How cute do the girls look? And Claudia's jacket is perfect for her!
The basics:
Kristy's sitting for her siblings one afternoon, and it's a real challenge because all the kids have cabin fever and are moping. After lots of whining, they finally agree to explore Watson's library together. Kristy and David Michael start looking around for old books, and come across one called The Stoneybrooke Town Record, from 1864. It contains a directory of residents from that time, where Kristy happens to see a Christina Thomas, who disappeared "under mysterious circumstances" when she was 18. She's intrigued, mainly because their names are so close. Later she tells the rest of the BSC, and they all decide to try and solve the mystery of her fate.
That weekend, Kristy heads to the library to do some research. She learns that Christina's parents died together "in a freak carriage accident" when she was 16. The accident made her rich, as their vast estate was then divided between her and her two younger brothers, Devon and Edward. When she disappeared two years later, so did a small fortune in gold, as well as documents representing a share of the Thomas family holdings. (Edward was the last person to see her, so this was his claim.)
Claudia and Mary Anne join in the research efforts, working to piece together a family tree. It's mostly dead ends, except for one possible great-great niece who still lives in Stoneybrook, Mildred Abbott. Kristy calls her up, and gets invited to tea. From Mildred, Kristy learns that Christina's brother Devon had had plans to force her to marry his business partner, Simon Clock. That way, her inheritance would become his, to invest into his business. Christina was in love with a union soldier, Henry Gordon, however. She sent him a letter saying she was coming to Pennsylvania to look for him, and that letter is the last anyone ever heard from her. She also included in it a date and time for him to look in their special place if she never showed up. Mildred says they never did marry though, because he was killed in battle before Christina arrived in Pennsylvania. (Kristy makes a copy of the letter so they can refer back to it.)
Armed with these new clues, Kristy starts trying to figure out where the "special place" could be. She heads for the library again, where she notices Cokie lurking. Using old maps, she determines Christina's land was on the modern day arboretum's. (This is a great coincidence, since Jessi has a job plant sitting in this book, and has been visiting the arboretum already.) The girls discuss where in the gardens the fortune could be hidden. Stacey suggests the rose garden, since Christina drew roses on her letter.
While all of this has been going on, Jessi's been struggling with her plant sitting job, which was what led her to start visiting the arboretum. While there, she learned it will have to close down soon if some plans go through to build subdivisions on its land (to make a VERY long story short). The curator is trying to fix the place up to get a wealthy donor interested in buying the land and preserving it instead. Jessi volunteers to help, and rounds up some kids to join her. Strange things start happening around the place while they're working though: mysterious footprints in weird places, supplies vanishing. Kristy also finds a business card from the developers while she's there one day.
When the BSC arrives at said arboretum to search, it looks like someone's already been digging by the rose garden, but they gave up. The girls set to work, but while in the midst of their own digging, the curator shows up with the investor and catches them. The investor declines to buy.
Feeling stuck, the girls study the letter yet again for more clues. Kristy consults an almanac and discovers that the date given for Henry to go to the special place was on a full moon. Since the date in the letter is also circled, they decide this could be important, and make plans to go back and try again during the next full moon. (Unfortunately, they are discussing all this in public, and Cokie is lurking nearby again.)
When the night of the next full moon arrives, the BSC girls all sneak out to stake out the garden. While there, Kristy realizes that the developers trying to get the land are called DT Developers: descendants of Devon Thomas. They also catch Cokie, who has followed them. She says Mildred is her grandma, so she has rights to the missing fortune. Together, the girls figure out the roses in the letter look like the ones carved on the porch rail, and when they stand by it, the light from the full moon illuminates a nearby tree perfectly. Digging at the base of the tree reveals a metal box, containing a locket (with a picture inside of a girl who looks like Kristy), and a letter Christina wrote Henry. In it she says she carried her gold with her. They also find the original deed to the land, which leaves it to Stoneybrook.
The discovery of the deed saves the arboretum, and the BSC, along with many of their charges, help to fix it up for good. The town celebrates with a fancy party.
Timeline:
It's February (hence the cabin fever).
Misc. thoughts:
*Ghostwritten by Ellen Miles
*Kristy used to refuse jobs that weren't babysitting, but now I guess they take any job, because she says it's good for business. Hence Jessi taking a job plant sitting in here.
*I can see why I liked this one as a kid. This is the type of mystery I was expecting when I started re-reading, not all those kids catching criminals books. The ones where they find something interesting from the past and try to figure out what happened are SO much better. I still enjoy these types of plots in mystery/thriller books I read now.
*Error on page 58, where only is spelled "ony". Wouldn't spell check have caught that?
*The side plot with the arboretum tied nicely into the main plot, which is a rarity. It was a pretty fleshed out story on it's own though, so I'm surprised they didn't milk these ideas for two separate mystery books.
*Nothing's mentioned in here about Stacey missing meetings or having problems with jobs.
*This book was weirdly unfamiliar for a BSC book I still owned. All I remembered was the roses in the letter bit, and how the full moon had something to do with where to dig.
*I wonder if this partially inspired the movie? The bits about the arboretum, fixing it up, and the sabotage all reminded me of it.
*So... what else happened? I would love to know what happened to Christina after she left Stoneybrook on her own. Also, why did she look just like Kristy and have such a similar name? Are they related or not?
Books mentioned:
None
My rating:
3 stars. I mostly enjoyed this, despite it being built on a series of crazy coincidences.
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