Thoughts before reading:
It's really late in the game for a new cover style, but I actually do like them... they're very 90s.
The basics:
It's almost Valentine's Day, once again, and SMS is doing valentine-grams. For a dollar, kids can send a personal note to someone during school hours. (My middle and high schools did this too, with candy.) Pete Black asks Stacey to help out with running the booth, before and after school, and during lunch. She agrees, and ends up enjoying helping kids with their valentines. It makes her feel a little like cupid.
One afternoon when Stacey's working the booth after school, the whole bag of finished valentines vanishes from her side, without her seeing a thing. She calls Pete for help, in a panic. Together they decide to keep things quiet and not tell anyone while they try to find the missing valentine-grams. It ends up not mattering much though... by the next day, they're all over school, beginning with fliers about Cokie's. Stacey immediately suspects Cary Retlin, but he claims innocence: he was at the dentist.
All throughout the day, various kids keep getting mean anonymous notes about their valentine-grams. After Jacqui yells at Stacey in the halls and accuses her of being behind the prank, Robert comes over to cheer her up and offers to walk her home. Andi had mentioned to Stacey earlier that Robert had been down and mopey lately, and was hoping Stacey could talk to him about it. Now she finally gets the chance to mention it. He thanks her for caring and explains that everything just seems boring to him lately. (Sounds like depression to me.)
The BSC gets buys investigating the kids at school that they think might be suspects. They notice that one of the Xeroxed v-grams shows part of a striped sleeve. Excited to finally have a clue, the BSC fans out over SMS to see what people are wearing. The only striped sleeve wearer Stacey can find is... Cary Retlin. She confronts him again, and he once again claims innocence. This time though, he tells her a story, asking her to imagine being a boy with a crush on a girl. This boy goes to send her a valentine-gram, and while doing so overhears that a bunch of kids are planning on sending him prank grams. Stacey realizes he must be referring to Alan Gray (big shocker!). She confronts him at home, and asks that the valentines be returned to her tomorrow, no questions asked.
Alan never admits to anything, but the valentine-grams are waiting for Stacey at school the next day. She feels bad for him, and also realizes the kids whose valentines were made public must have been the kids who were discussing sending Alan the prank ones. He had kept most of them private, after all, only targeting certain kids. She decides not to tell anyone.
Side plot: Kristy's feeling a bit down about Valentine's Day, and decides to hold a festival for kids to make the holiday more fun for everyone.
Timeline:
It's February.
Misc. thoughts:
*This mystery actually wasn't bad at all. It was fun to hear about the romances at SMS, who likes who, and all the little dramas.
*Stacey's cut her hair off to shoulder length, as the cover shows.
*Stacey's a lot nicer than me. I wouldn't be too worried about Robert being down after he'd cheated on me.
*Mal and Ben send each other valentine-grams... so I guess they still sort of like each other?
*Mathew Hobart likes Mary Anne.
*Margo Pike likes James Hobart.
*Some of the kids from Claudia's personal ad days make another appearance in here (Claudia and the Perfect Boy).
*Now Jacqui likes Robert. Eww. Is this entire friend group going to share him? This may happen on teen drama shows all the time, but it's not something you really see among groups of friends. Usually girls don't like their friends' boyfriends all that much, or see them that way.
*I definitely got the vibe in here that Robert regrets ending things with Stacey, although I'm not sure if that has anything to do with him being mopey.
*Pete Black likes Emily Bernstein.
*Ghostwritten by Ellen Miles.
*Cary Retlin has an armchair in the basement of SMS where he hangs out? That's really weird. Also, this school has terrible supervision.
*We never find out which girl Alan likes.
*It was really nice to see Stacey rise above and not tell on Alan, but I don't feel sorry for him, or people like him.
Books mentioned:
*Shiloh, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
*The Great Gilly Hopkins, by Katherine Paterson
*A Chair For My Mother, by Vera B. Williams
*Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare
My rating:
3.5 stars. This was actually pretty good. It was an actual middle school, age appropriate mystery. If the series had stuck with these, the mysteries would have been a thousand times better.
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