Wait Till Helen Comes

Molly’s stepsister is a bitch.

she, her brother Michael, her mom, her stepfather, and her wicked stepsister Heather have all moved from Baltimore to a converted church-house in rural Maryland. There’s a graveyard on the property, which skeeves the bejesus out of Molly, but nobody else seems to give a crap. Heather, the seven-year-old manipulator from hell, is focused on splitting her dad and stepmother up because she doesn’t want her dad loving someone else more than her. creeeeeee-py.

Heather begins talking to someone in the graveyard, and Molly is convinced that it is a spirit or ghost or whatever. Everyone thinks she is bonkers, and Heather starts having these wacked out nightmares about her mother’s death in a fire – Molly gets blamed for putting notions of ghosts and shit in Heather’s head. Heather’s dad is a bit of a toolshed. anyway the graveyard’s caretaker tells the three kids to stay the hell away from Helen’s supposed grave, since it’s in a place where snakes like to hang out. everyone but Heather listens.

looking for Michael, Molly stumbles upon a pond behind the ruins of a house, and sees Heather talking to some bluish apparition thing. Molly begs her to come home and tells her Helen is not really her friend, but Helen has given her some ridiculous locket and voila – they are now BFF.

Michael and Molly go to the library in Holwell so that Michael can prove that Helen doesn’t exist. only she does, and her ~legend~ haunts their property and causes children to drown themselves in the pond.

side note: it is a pond. not an ocean, lake, river, etc. when I think pond, I think duck pond/not deep water. but I suppose ponds can be deep?

when they get home, their house has been trashed – but neither Heather nor the stepfather’s stuff has been touched. Molly sees Helen’s initials on the wall, but they quickly vanish. Heather laughs, and everyone else is tired and upset. Heather whines some more about not being paid attention to, but nobody gives a shit and  Heather is forced to call whine-one-one on her own.

despite everyone telling her  that the house and pond are dangerous, Heather the Putz keeps sneaking out to go see her lover Helen. Molly follows her and realizes Helen is trying to kill her obnoxious stepsister. instead of letting her do it and making Molly’s life infinitely easier, she throws the locket into the pond while Helen is trying to drown Heather. emo shenanigans ensue. a storm comes, Heather is pissed at Molly, and they take shelter in the ruins of Helen’s old house.

can we guess where this is going? obviously Heather has to stand in a corner facing a wall while Molly watches. wait, wrong story.

they fall through the floor into the cellar, where they are surrounded by the bones of Helen’s dead mother and stepfather. Helen and Heather are kindred spirits – both lost their mothers in fires that they started accidentally as children, and both fear that nobody will love them if anyone finds out what they did. however, Helen’s been dead for over a century so if her parents don’t forgive her they are assholes. anyway Molly and Heather kiss and make up after Molly calls her out on killing her mom, and suggests that she tell her dad. after being scared shitless that he will hate her, she does tell him, and he kills her with a shotgun at point blank range. just kidding. he forgives her, and they are one big barfy happy family.

moral of the story: a bitchy seven-year-old who has lost her mother probably killed her. take caution.

Gordy might win, or As Ever, Gordy

Gordy can’t fucking win.

he comes to Grandville, overcomes ohsomuch adversity, and finally feels like he belongs, when all of a sudden, bam. Awesome McGrandma kicks the bucket, and it’s back to College Hill for June and him. Justifiably, he suffers a crazy panic attack at the thought of going back, and gets fifty shades of pissed at Donny for only caring about the massive inheritance. but it’s settled: June and Gordy are going to live with Stu, Barbara, and Barbara’s son Brent in a dinky apartment in good ol’ Maryland.

he has to deal with Lizard and Magpie being weird (they are fourteen-year-old girls; of course they are weird,) Brent is a two-year-old demon child, Stuart and Barbara are obsessed with school, and Gordy is fed up with everything again. he fights with Elizabeth’s boyfriend constantly, he has a super crush on her (the enemy!), and he has finally realized Toad and Doug are fucking morons who blame the stupid crap they do on him. All Barbara wants is a nice house for her family, and for everyone to get along. these are Smiths, honey, it’s not going to happen.

I do like when Gordy plants a big, fat kiss on Elizabeth and she socks him. fab-u-lous.

there is this old, crochety professor who has a big yard that all of the kids cut through on their sleds, and he gets ridiculously pissed off when they do it. of course, Gordy gets caught, and Barbara laughs and explains that they’ve been doing that since she was a girl. adults were children once? surely you jest. Elizabeth’s father, the sheriff if I recall, picks Gordy up and takes him home. what is hilarious is that Gordy thinks that Elizabeth’s whole family talks shit about him at the dinner table, and her father is like “no, we can’t get her to stfu about you, actually.” CRUSH! CRUSH! CRUSH!

this is all out of order, I think, because I have had vino. some highlights:

- Gordy steals the Carousel soundtrack for Elizabeth and Margaret and they are honestly disgusted.

- Gordy asks Elizabeth to the Sweetheart Dance. she pretty much tells him to sit & spin.

-  at the dance, her boyfriend goads Gordy into a fight and then knocks the shit out of him. Elizabeth is totally not impressed and writes a letter to the principal explaining what happened, which (in a way) keeps Gordy out of more trouble

- Margaret is now eighty-three feet tall and frightening

- Brent calls Gordy “Yuncle Poopoo;” Elizabeth calls him “GAS”

- Gordy and William are still bffs and communicate through the mail

while Gordy is serving out his punishment for the professor, Elizabeth walks by,  and the creepy old fart whistles at her. grosssssssssss. but  Gordo runs after her, and they actually have a conversation not filled with insults. then he invites her to a movie and she says yes! wow! amazing! things are looking decent for him, and he’s run out of batshit/elderly relatives. he might actually be okay now.

one big frowny pile of :( – or, Stepping on the Cracks

I finally found it. I am stuffed full of wine and turkey goodness and might just explode in a minute, too. therefore – this is quite abridged.

okay, backstory: this book, and the Gordy books take place in College Hill, Maryland, which is basically College Park in the 1940s. each of the books are set about a year apart, and Stepping on the Cracks is the first one.

we start on one of those fabulous Maryland days where it is hot and humid as fuck and most normal people are inside. but, it’s 1940-something and Margaret and her bff Elizabeth are outside playing an endless game of Monopoly.  they get bored and do the “stepping on a crack” thing, except they WANT to step on a crack to break Hitler’s back. Margaret waxes nostalgic about having her brother and Elizabeth’s brother off fighting, and explains the difference between a blue star (alive!) and a gold one (dead!)

the girls hate Gordy; Gordy hates the girls. he terrorizes them and calls them Lizard and Magpie, respectively, with his douchey friends Toad and Doug. Elizabeth is a spitfire, and Margaret is a pussy. that’s pretty much the basis of everything. to recap: Elizabeth is Jessica Wakefield. Margaret is Elizabeth Wakefield without the sainthood.

Margaret’s parents have paid no attention to her whatsoever since her brother, Jimmy, was deployed. Her dad sits in front of the TV/drinks all the time and her mom is in la la land. Margaret thinks that Jimmy will come home, and everything will be back to normal. I pity her.

Gordy terrorizes the girls again, and destroys their treehouse – Margaret is screaming bloody murder from  A TREE IN HER OWN YARD and her mother doesn’t hear her. Elizabeth vows revenge,  and follows the boys into the ~forbidden woods~ across the train tracks, where the crazy man lives.

Gordy and his butt buddies have built some ridiculous hut in there, and “play war.” They also do the guy thing and brag about how awesome their family members are, by comparing how many Nazis they have destroyed. oh, and gratuitous pinup girl references abound here, as well. the girls are found, the boys chase them, and Margaret sees the crazy man. but wait.. is he a crazy man?

we find out more about College Hill people: Donny and Stu, Gordy’s brothers who are off at war. Barbara, Stu’s good friend, who lost her husband in the war. Gordy does not like to discuss Stu. oh, for fuck’s sake. Stu is the crazy man. he deserted, and Gordy is hiding him in the woods to keep him safe from ABUSIVE BASTARD FATHER. Margaret and Elizabeth are the only people who know this outside of Gordy’s dopey buddies, so of course – they blackmail him with this scandalous information to get a new treehouse. priorities, ladies. priorities.

Stu gets sick, and Gordy freaks. the kids all take turns skipping school to help him, but there’s nothing they can do and he obviously needs medical attention. cue Barbara. let’s ask the lady whose husband was killed in the war to assist a deserter, shall we? but, she helps. she takes him to a doctor and lets him crash at her parents’ house while he recovers. meanwhile, Gordy is getting the shit knocked out of him at home,  and Stu is catching on (since Gordy hasn’t been to see him in a while.) Margaret kind of lets it slip – and idiot Stu decides to face his father, Skywalker-style.

in other news, Margaret’s brother is killed in action. she comes home from HELPING A DESERTER to her parents reading a telegram. I will admit, I cry like a baby every time I read this. she cries, the parents are numb, and it doesn’t really hit her that it’s real until Elizabeth and Gordy give her condolences. what’s that? a budding friendship with Gordy? hmm.

Stu goes home to face Darth Vader. I mean, his father. predictably, he gets the shit kicked out of him, to the point where he loses most of his hearing and the army finds out he deserted. Barbara rushes off to the hospital to see him, and Gordy thanks the girls for helping him. Margaret goes home, and her mother knows Stu deserted. uh… oh. she asks Margaret if she knew, and – like any dumb twelve-year-old girl would have done – she is indignant and proud of helping him. she goes so far as to say she wished her brother had deserted. incoming slap from Mom. so what if Stu is a special snowflake? every soldier is. and I hate war, especially the current one, but still.

Margaret and Elizabeth are both grounded for life. Gordy and his family move to North Carolina. Stu and Barbara get engaged. and Margaret has reached the special age where there is no black and white, it’s mostly gray and all confusing. (Following My Own Footsteps is the second one, by the way.)