Dead wrong Book

This is my first time reading this book!

another mystery, also ghostwritten by Ellen Miles (I think she wrote most of the mysteries). the main plot involves an anonymous person (mr. x) harassing the baby-sitters while they sit -- calling them and hanging up, leaving creepy notes and other gross or scary items at the door while playing ding dong ditch, etc. in the vaguely connected subplot, the kids decide to have a contest to pick their favorite baby-sitter/sitter-of-the-month. it turns out that mr. x is mel tucker, a bratty neighborhood kid who got in trouble with his parents for bullying the hobarts. his parents had found out about it thanks to the bsc's intervention, so he became mr. x to get revenge. the way it was connected to the sitter-of-the-month plot was that the kids were so excited about the contest that they were willing to tell mel who was babysitting them without getting suspicious.

highlights:
-ben hobart calls mallory a "bonzer sheila" to his friend. oh, aussies.
-dawn suggests at the brewer-thomases' house that they play let's all come in, which is karen's silly hotel dress-up game. dawn makes up characters including bruce stringbean (david michael in a white t-shirt with rolled-up sleeves and jeans, with a red bandana in his back pocket) the rock n roll star, darryl blueberry the baseball star, and ladonna the glamorous singer. I definitely chuckled.
-dawn thinks the letter she starts writing to jeff isn't cool enough so she scraps it and writes, "dearest little bro, what's up? what's fresh? everything's cool back here in stoneybrook. what's happening out there in sunny cal?"
-snake boy loose in san francisco: the monster movie that jessi and becca watch. I seriously dig this movie name.
-kristy doesn't get harassed by mr. x the way the other baby-sitters do (since she doesn't live and hasn't been sitting in the same neighborhood as the other baby-sitters), but she experiences a couple red herrings when sitting at the kormans': her mom calls and doesn't respond for a second, so kristy thinks the caller hung up. then mr. papadakis rings the doorbell and immediately ties his shoe, so kristy thinks no one is there. I liked this semi-pointless chapter -- it felt like a scene in a horror movie where a character keeps thinking they're going to get killed (and the viewer thinks it too, because of dramatic music or something), but nobody is there and meanwhile the killer is stalking someone else instead.
-at one point mr. x leaves dead flowers without the flower (just stems) on a doorstop. this is pretty creepy. mel is seriously depraved/has some serious problems. on the bright side, his parents seem to realize that. the baby-sitters comfort him once they find out he is mr. x (because he starts crying and freaking out about the prospect of getting punished), and his parents say they want to send him to a psychiatrist to work out whatever's going on with him.

lowlights/nitpicks:
-this sitter-of-the-month thing is the worst. how could you possibly TELL all the sitters you're doing this? it's cruel! forcing them to compete with each other like that! stupid kids. also the way it's resolved is INANE AS HELL. it's a seven-way tie with all of the bsc members winning. "you're all our favorite sitters!" this is such an annoyingly 1950s sitcom way to wrap this up. I know this is a bsc book and ann is all about 1950s squeaky clean crap, but it's still seriously annoying.
-the notes are written in letters cut out from a magazine, which dawn seems to think is so unusual. but that's exactly what the letters were like in Mary Anne's Bad-Luck Mystery. on the bright side, at least cokie mason wasn't the culprit in this book -- apparently the bsc ghostwriters CAN have a somewhat original idea!
-manipulative becca gets jessi to let her watch the snake boy monster movie by bringing up the sitter of the month contest. becca is mostly a good kid so this irritates me. also more proof that the baby-sitters should rise above this idiotic contest.
-dawn is grossed out by the idea of a peanut butter and sardine sandwich. you'd think she'd be more open-minded about food because everyone is grossed out by what she eats.
-dawn thinks that kristy is mr. x. this also pisses me off -- kristy may have problems but she would NOT do something like this. the worst she would do if she were trying to sabotage someone is short-sheet their bed.

no outfits.

claudia's kid kit:
-blocks
-baby puzzles
-teething rings
-rattles
-muggie maggie

dawn's kid kit:
-wiffle ball

jackie disaster:
-knocks over the potted palm tree in their front hall (twice)

snacks in claudia's room:
-orange tootsie pop (n.s.)
-pretzels (n.s.)
-tootsie roll (n.s.)