Posted on by TracyC

The Mysterious Benedict Society

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart, 2007.

A boy named Reynie (short for Reynard) is taking a series of tests to apply to an unusual school. Reynie lives in an orphanage in Stone Town, and he is highly intelligent. He is often laughed at by the other children for being smart and using big words. He has finished all of the lessons the orphanage has to offer and has been studying with a private tutor, but he is running out of things to do with the tutor. He and his tutor like to read the newspaper together, and they see an advertisement for gifted children looking for new opportunities. His tutor encourages him to look into the advertisement, which is how he comes to take a series of tests to qualify.

The tests have strange instructions. The first part of the tests asks some brain teaser questions and a few personal questions, such as whether Reynie likes to watch tv or listen to the radio (he doesn’t really like either) and whether he thinks of himself as brave. Only a few children qualify to take the next part of the test, which will be given at another building with students only allowed to bring a single pencil and eraser. The instructions say that if they bring anything else with them, they will be disqualified. Reynie would have asked more questions, but the person giving the first test leaves by a window to avoid having to deal with parents who are angry that their child didn’t pass the first test.

When Reynie arrives at the second building, there are two girls there, one of them with green hair. The green-haired girl accidentally drops her only pencil down a storm drain. Since she is only allowed to have one pencil and the others don’t have a spare one to lend her, it looks like she won’t be able to take the test. The other girl seems relieved that there will now be less competition, but Reynie solves the problem of the missing pencil by snapping his own pencil in half and giving the other half to the green-haired girl, who is named Rhonda. She is so grateful that she offers to help him on the test, saying that she already knows the answers. Reynie doesn’t understand how she can know the answers when they’ve only just arrived, but he turns down the offer because he doesn’t want to cheat. It’s just as well because the person administering this test tells them that cheaters will be “executed.” Then, she tells the shocked children that she means “escorted”, as in they will be escorted out of the building. She tells the children that they must follow the test instructions exactly, and although the test looks fiendishly difficult, Reynie does his best.

It turns out that the test is actually a puzzle and that the answers to all the questions are found within the test itself. Following the instructions shows Reynie how to find the answers. Reynie passes the test and is told to go on to the third part. Reynie wants to talk to his tutor, and the woman who administered the test says that she’s already spoken to her. She leaves Reynie to wait with another boy, who has a bald head. The bald boy, called Sticky as a nickname because things he reads stick in his head, says that, like Reynie, he was the only person in his group who passed the second test. When the boys compare their experiences, they realize that Rhonda was a part of the test. Each of them met a girl who lost their pencil and who offered to let them cheat off her.

The boys are soon joined by a girl named Kate, who is carrying a bucket full of random things, which she says are all useful. As an example, she describes how she met a girl earlier who lost her pencil in a storm drain and how she managed to get it back by using things from her bucket. The boys realize that she also met Rhonda and that she also passed the second test, including the Rhonda portion. Actually, Kate tells them that she failed the test, along with the other kids, but she was allowed to stick around for the next test anyway because she helped out the test administrator when she was cornered by angry parents.

The other tests that the children take are similarly puzzles and brain teasers. They all pass by using lateral thinking and unorthodox approaches that highlight their unusual personalities and unique abilities. When they are informed that they’ve passed the tests, they are joined by a fourth test-taker, who has also passed, weirdly by refusing to try to pass the tests. Instead, the fourth test-taker, a girl called Constance Contraire, passed the tests by questioning everything, including the very nature of the tests and trying to go contrary to every rule. The others can’t understand why she passed the tests when the did the opposite of everything she was told to do, but these tests aren’t like the types of tests students usually take.

After they are told that they passed the tests, the test administrators introduce the four children to the man behind the tests, the mysterious and narcoleptic Mr. Benedict. Mr. Benedict says that he has been trying for years to assemble a team of children with unique abilities to undertake a dangerous but important mission. It hasn’t been easy because he’s had a difficult time finding children who can pass his tests, and until now, too few children passed the tests at once to form the team. The test administrators are actually the first children who passed his tests years ago, but they’re too old to really be considered children now. They’re young adults. Now, with four passing children at the same time, Mr. Benedict thinks they finally have the children they need for the team.

Each of the children has demonstrated their thinking skills and unusual approaches to problems. Each of them is also alone, in one way or another, not accountable to any adults, so they can make their own decision to join the team without asking for adult permission. Mr. Benedict says that joining the team will be dangerous, and normally, he would never want to put children at risk, but the situation is serious, and harm may come to them and other people if they don’t solve the problem at hand. Each of the children considers the situation and decides to accept the offer to join the team. (Constance only joins after Mr. Benedict makes it clear to her that she would be joining not because she was told to join, but because she wants to and that her obedience to the group’s rules would also be because she chose it. Constance never does anything just because someone tells her to, which is part of the reason why Mr. Benedict recruited her.)

The kids are given rooms in Mr. Benedict’s book-filled house, which can only be entered through a complicated maze. They are under the guidance and protection of Mr. Benedict’s three assistants:

Rhonda – She was originally from Zambia and was one of the first children to pass Mr. Benedict’s tests several years earlier. Mr. Benedict adopted her.

Number Two – She is also one of Mr. Benedict’s adopted daughters, but she refuses to tell the children what her real name is, preferring to go by her code name. She always wears yellow and rarely ever sleeps.

Milligan – He is an amnesiac who knows nothing about his early life. He’s not even sure that his real name is Milligan, but it’s the only name he could remember. His earliest memory is about escaping from some people who were interrogating him, and he thinks his amnesia is due to a head injury.

When the children are told that they are being protected at Mr. Benedict’s houses, they want to know who or what they’re being protected from. Mr. Benedict explains that he has discovered that someone is sending subliminal messages to the general public through radio, tv, cell phones, and other forms of electronic media. These subliminal messages are being delivered in children’s voices, which Mr. Benedict thinks is part of the sender’s plan. Adults often disregard things that children say, which makes it easier for the messages to go into the adults’ subconscious brains. Some people, like the children and Mr. Benedict and his assistants, are less susceptible to these messages than other people. Mr. Benedict plays the messages for the children so they can hear what they sound like. The things they say are confusing and annoying, but they don’t sound immediately dangerous. Mr. Benedict says that these same messages are being transmitted in different languages all over the world, and he thinks that they’re merely the precursors to something more dangerous. However, Mr. Benedict things that the messages are merely a prelude to something more sinister. Constance asks why Mr. Benedict hasn’t gone to the authorities with what he knows, and he says that he has tried. He used to be a consultant for law and government agencies, but they no longer believe what he has to say. They think that he’s a crackpot. People who would have believed him and been his allies have mysteriously disappeared, and he is sure that’s also part of the sender’s plot, removing anybody who stands in his way.

The children become fully aware of the danger when some men try to kidnap them from Mr. Benedict’s house. Mr. Benedict’s assistants subdue the kidnappers with tranquilizer darts and remove them from the house. Mr. Benedict explains that, if they had successfully kidnapped the children, they would have likely taken them to the Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened (the acronym isn’t bad, but the reverse acronym is), which is a mysterious boarding school on an island that teaches orphans and runaways and other children who, like the children in Mr. Benedict’s house, are alone and unsupervised by outside adults. Sometimes, the school also kidnaps vulnerable children to use for its sinister purpose.

Mr. Benedict believes that the mysterious messages are being transmitted from this school by a group of its top students. The dangerous mission that Mr. Benedict has in mind for the team of children is for them to infiltrate the school as students and join this elite group so they can learn the truth about what’s happening and how to stop it.

The children spend some time preparing for their mission at Mr. Benedict’s house while Mr. Benedict and his assistants work on forging papers and getting the children admitted to the school as students. The kids practice learning Morse code and other helpful skills. They also learn a little more about each other and start figuring out how they can work together as a team.

Reynie was orphaned as a baby and has no memory of his parents or his life before coming to the orphanage. Nobody really seems to understand him or care about him except for his tutor, Miss Perumal.

Kate also used to live in an orphanage because her mother died when she was small, and she was apparently abandoned by her father. She can’t remember her mother at all, and she only has one memory of her father from a time when he took her swimming. She remembers him as a nice man, but she thinks maybe she was wrong about that, since he abandoned her. She lived in the orphanage for several years before she ran away to join the circus. Because of her circus life, she’s very strong and athletic, and she’s also surprisingly good at estimating sizes and distances with just her eyes.

Sticky isn’t an orphan but a runaway. He thought that he had a happy life with his parents until they discovered his amazing memory. From then on, they insisted on entering him in contests and quiz shows to earn money. As Sticky won these contests, his parents became more and more money-grubbing, entering him in more and bigger contests. They stopped letting him play with friends and made him constantly study so he would know all the answers to everything. Sticky became stressed out and wanted to quit, but they wouldn’t let him. Eventually, he pretended to run away and hid nearby to see what his parents would do. At first, they were worried and tried to find him, but then, people began donating money to them to help in the search. His parents kept up the search in a nominal way, so people would continue to donate, but they weren’t really interested in finding him. They said to each other that they were getting more money for him not being there, so they were better off with him gone. Sticky was shocked at their lack of love and concern for him, so he left for real. The reason why he’s bald is that he used hair remover to disguise himself from anybody who might still be looking for him.

These three children get along well with each other, but Constance is different. She doesn’t tell the others much about herself or her background. She’s a contrarian who rarely shows any consideration for her teammates. She even refuses to stop calling Sticky “George Washington”, which is Sticky’s real name, but he hates it. Kate wonders why she’s on the team when she’s not a team player and doesn’t seem to have any special abilities. She is much smaller than the other kids and has a generally cranky disposition. Reynie talks to Mr. Benedict about it, and Mr. Benedict assures him and the others that he has a reason for wanting Constance for the team. She has traits that will be of help to them later. Constance is the one who names the team The Mysterious Benedict Society when the others have trouble thinking up a good name for themselves.

When the children arrive at the school, they are told that the top students there become “Messengers” and get special, secret privileges, so they have to try to gain those positions themselves. The school also gives them many weird, mixed messages, which sound a lot like the secret messages being broadcast from the school. The kids are told that there are very few rules at the school, but there are so many exceptions to the “no rules” rule that the school effectively has a lot of rules. The Messenger showing the kids around the school doesn’t understand what they mean when they point it out the inconsistency. The kids are encouraged to always leave their television sets on, and they are always watched by well-dressed people known as the Executives.

The Executives are former students, particularly former Messengers, who now act as teachers at the school. The lessons at the school are as contradictory and annoying as the secret messages being sent over radio and tv. The kids are just made to memorize and repeat these contradictory phrases, like “Work longer hours to have more free time” and “War is necessary to have peace.” None of the other students seem to notice how these phrases don’t make sense. They’re all just memorizing the messages to get good grades and competing to be given Messenger status. Nobody knows what the extra privileges are that Messengers have, but everybody wants them. Messengers also fear new students becoming Messengers because there can only be a set number of Messengers at a time, and the current Messengers can lose their status if other students pass them in their classes.

Most of the chores at the school are done by people called Helpers, who are not allowed to be speak unless someone asks them a question. They’re not even supposed to made eye contact with the students. Students are periodically called to a place called “the waiting room”, which seems to involve some kind of punishment. The other students seem terrified about it.

The kids are told that the school was founded by a wealthy man, Mr. Curtain, and that tuition is free for everyone. The messengers say that Mr. Curtain works very hard and never leaves the school. When the kids see Mr. Curtain at the welcoming assembly, they are shocked that he looks exactly like Mr. Benedict! They wonder if he could actually be Mr. Benedict and if they’ve been tricked. However, Mr. Curtain seems to have exactly the opposite character of Mr. Benedict. It seems that Mr. Benedict has an evil twin! The kids of the Mysterious Benedict Society have to figure out who they can really trust and if they’re now trapped at this very weird school with people who are truly dangerous.

I couldn’t find a copy of this book available online, but it’s still in print and easily available. It’s the first book of a series. It’s also been made into a tv series.

My Reaction and Spoilers

Riddles and Brain Teasers

One of the things I loved about this book is that it is full of riddles, brain teasers, and wordplay. The name of the island where the school is located is Nomansan Island, or “No Man’s An Island.” Ha, ha.

Some of the characters’ names are also clues to their characters and identities. I understood the significance of Milligan’s name way before he and Kate did because I was already starting to look for word games and clues.

The messages that the kids and Mr. Benedict and his assistants send to each other take the form of riddles, just in case someone intercepts them. This makes some of Mr. Benedict’s instructions a little difficult for the kids to interpret, but it does add extra challenge for the readers as well.

Emotional Manipulation (Spoilers)

Mental and emotional manipulation are major themes in the book. Mr. Curtain is actually a deeply insecure person who craves control over others. He understands enough about his own personal fears to understand how fear has a strong effect on other people, and he uses that as his weapon. Through his machine called the Whisperer, Mr. Curtain can dispense both fear and reassurance as he tries to steer the entire population in the direction he wants: putting himself in charge.

The strange messages being transmitted are meant to plant fearful and contradictory images in people’s minds, making them feel like everything is out of control. Then, he can present himself as the man with all the answers, soothing the fears that he intentionally created. He wants to be be put in a position of being in control of everyone and everything because that’s what he feels like he needs to feel safe and reassured.

The contradictory lessons and rules at the school are part of the images that he wants to place in people’s minds. The rules that there are no rules except when there are gives people a false sense of freedom when he’s in control. They no just longer notice the control because he’s told them to feel free, and they do. This goes along with the school’s teachings that there is no need for regulation of businesses except when there is. This leads up to government is good, except when it’s bad, and it’s always bad … because Mr. Curtain isn’t in charge. He wants everyone to distrust and disregard the forces that might oppose him and trust only him: the guy who says what everyone is apparently thinking and tells them things that make them feel good. (This all sounds scarily familiar.)

At one point in the story, Mr. Curtain explains to Reynie that the messages he transmits with the Whisper are simple ones with hidden layers of meaning and complexity because people who are scared, which is what Mr. Curtain wants them to be, crave simple answers to complicated questions to soothe their minds. Mr. Benedict says that one of the gifts that the children share is a love of truth, which allows them to resist the messaging, but I would argue the children also have a love for complexity. The puzzles and brain teasers bring out their complex thinking, and the kids like to think about things and examine them from different angles. They’re creative and unconventional, not just doing what other people might tell them is the “smart” thing to do. They’re not looking for just the easy answers and the warm fuzzies or what gets them ahead of other people today but the bigger pictures. Some people are scared to confront complexity and things they don’t understand, but other people thrive on it. They’re not scared by mere ideas or trying to avoid thinking because it’s difficult or unpleasant. In the end, it’s partly the children’s ability to confront some of the things that they’re truly afraid of, whether it’s doubts about themselves or their own cravings for comfort and belonging, that help them overcome Mr. Curtain and his machine. Fear is powerful, but facing up to it with honesty does more in the long run than trying to hide from it.

Memories and Hidden Pasts (Spoilers)

Many people in the story have repressed memories an hidden pasts. When some of these are revealed, t’she story also raises the question of how sorry we should feel for the villains. We learn that Mr. Benedict and Mr. Curtain are identical twins who were separated as babies when their parents will killed in a lab accident. They were raised by different people, but they both had hard childhoods. They are very much alike, but they are different in the ways they were raised and also in the ways that they responded to adversity in their lives. Mr. Benedict coped with his lack of family by surrounding himself with good friends, who became his new family. Mr. Curtain has gone a different route, seeking to control and manipulate other people.

Mr. Curtains evil plan, which he calls the “Improvement” is based on his hard childhood and his need for control over other people as an adult. We can feel badly that his youth was terrible, but he is doing truly evil things that harm people. The kids discover that many of the children at the school were actually kidnapped. When the children first arrive at the school after being kidnapped, they’re terrified, but they later become happy and obedient because Mr. Curtain has developed a method of wiping people’s memories (more accurate, hiding people’s memories from themselves), so he can make the people’s he’s kidnapped forget that they were kidnapped and scared. He targets orphans and runaways for his school because they won’t have parents or anyone else looking for them, and many of the kids cling to the school and try to excel there, becoming Messengers and Executives, because it gives them the feeling of belonging that they’ve always craved. Yes, Mr. Curtain had a bad childhood, but he’s using his adulthood to do horrible things to vulnerable kids who are very much like he was at their age.

When the kids realize that many of the people who are now Executives were once lonely, kidnapped children, they wonder if they should feel sorry for them. They think it over and decide that they don’t really feel sorry for them and that they still hate them. They feel that way because the Executives have become like Mr. Curtain. They have no empathy toward children who are very much like they were once, they knowingly do things to these vulnerable children that once terrified and hurt them, and they do it all for their own personal promotion and the good feelings they get from doing Mr. Curtain’s bidding. The machine Mr. Curtain uses for the children to transmit his messages to the world gives the children good feelings when they use it, feelings of comfort and having their worries wiped away, which is why the Messengers cling so hard to the “privilege” of using it. They all have sad pasts and a craving for belonging and achievement, but there are acceptable and unacceptable ways to deal with those types of feelings. Everything the Executives do, from assisting in the kidnapping other kids and punishing them in horrible ways at Mr. Curtain’s direction, is terrible. The kids know that the Executives have had their minds and emotions manipulated by Mr. Curtain, but even knowing that doesn’t help them relate much to the Executives because the Executives are still their enemies and still doing horrible things. Trying to sympathize with them won’t change that because the Executives only care about pleasing Mr. Curtain and get their comfort from his machine and sense of power and authority he gives them over the kids. They are not open to sympathy or bonding with others. Their only chance at redemption is getting their memories back and seeing Mr. Curtain and his manipulation of them for what it is.

The kids also realize that the missing agents and allies that Mr. Benedict talked about are the Helpers at the school. Mr. Benedict wiped their memories more thoroughly than he did the children’s because they were adults and had established lives, duties, and families outside of the school. He gave them mental reconditioning to turn them into the grunt workers at the school and to keep them from prying into the memories they have of their lives which periodically resurface. Unfortunately, he can do little about the depression that hangs over them constantly because, on some level, they know that they’re missing parts of themselves and their past lives. The kids realize that’s what happened to Milligan. He had his memory wiped by Mr. Curtain, but he escaped before he was reconditioned, which is why he’s more aware than the Helpers are. People whose memories were apparently wiped haven’t actually lost them, but they need reminders of things and people who were important to them in their past lives to bring their memories to the surface again.

I was pretty sure that I knew Milligan’s real identity and the fate of Kate’s father early in the book when Milligan said that “Milligan” was all that he could remember as his name. The entire book makes use of puzzles, and I realized that “Milligan” isn’t really a real name but a dim memory of the last thing that Kate and her father talked about doing. Later in the book, the kids find out that what triggers memories in the Helpers is someone mentioning people who were important to them or unfulfilled obligations. When Kate last saw her father, she wanted to go to the mill pond again, and they never did because her father disappeared, and everyone assumed that he had abandoned her instead of that he’d gone missing. This was partly the fault of Mr. Curtain because one of the secret messages he’s been transmitting is that “the missing are not missing, merely departed”, discouraging anyone from trying too hard to find all of the people he’s kidnapping. Therefore, it never occurred to anyone that Kate’s father was a missing person, only that he’d left. Kate is not only glad to have her father back but relieved to understand that the father she’d loved was abducted instead of abandoning her.

At the end of the book, it’s also revealed that Sticky’s parents were similarly victims of Mr. Curtain’s messaging. When their son disappeared, they knew only that he’d left, and they were stuck in the mode of not trying too hard to look for a missing person. I felt like the matter of Sticky’s parents was a little too easily resolved when Mr. Benedict reveals that they had not been saying that they were better off without Sticky but they felt like Sticky might be better off without them because he was much smarter than they were, and they felt like they’d failed as parents. They were charmed by living the high life for a while, but before the end of the book, they regretted not trying harder to find Sticky and blew all of their money in a real search. Mr. Benedict says that he believes that they’re sincere in wanting Sticky back because they really do love him, enough to throw off the last of the influence Mr. Curtain’s messages had on their minds.

Earlier in the story, Mr. Benedict told Reynie that, as a child, he used to wish for a family, but not anymore. Reynie asks him if he grew out of wanting a family, but Mr. Benedict says no, it’s just that he’s been able to build one of his own as an adult. He has his friends and associates and his adopted daughters. He also adopts Constance. Reynie is adopted by his beloved tutor, so he also gains a family, along with his new friends.

Posted on by TracyC

The FunCraft Book of Spycraft

The FunCraft Book of Spycraft by Falcon Travis and Judy Hindley, 1975, 1976.

This book is a part of a series of craft and hobby books that was first printed in Britain. It’s meant for kids who like to play at being spies, and it teaches kids how to use secret codes make disguises, and other tips and tricks for being a spy.

Much of the book focuses on different types of secret codes and techniques for sending secret messages. In fact, I would say that there is more about secret codes and messages than there is about anything else, but what they have to say is interesting. Most of the codes in the book are fairly easy, which is good for kids who are just beginning. The book explains popular codes like the pig-pen code and gives instructions for making simple code machines, like the popular code wheels for alphabet shifts. However, I enjoyed the variety and creativity of other codes and methods of sending secret messages, like the code based on music notes and the suggestion of using clocks or watches to represent semaphore figures.

The book not only explains some well-known and standard codes and signals, like semaphore and Morse code, but also explains how to adapt these codes in new ways. Morse code messages could be shown in a sequence of knots on a rope or in the placement of objects in a picture.

Some methods of sending secret messages don’t rely on codes so much as pre-arranged signals, like the placements of certain objects or arrangements of certain colors. These objects or color patterns might look completely ordinary to most people, but they can have special meanings to those who understand what each signal stands for.

The book also covers other topics related to spies, like how spy rings are organized, where messages can be concealed, types of equipment spies use, how to make maps, how to spot and interpret clues, and how to set traps.

There are also disguise tips. The book points out various ways that people can make themselves look different, like changing the way they comb their hair, changing their hair color, or trying to make themselves look older or fatter. One piece of advice about changing your skin tone by rubbing talcum powder on it to make it look lighter or cocoa powder on it to look darker sounds messy, and I’m not sure I’d recommend it, but the other parts seem okay. There are instructions for making a false beard, nose, and glasses and a bald-headed wig. None of these would really be convincing disguises, but they could be entertaining for kids to try to make and might be useful for Halloween costumes.

There is also a spy-themed board game in the book where one player controls a pair of spies and the other controls a pair of spycatchers. The player controlling the spies has to evade the spycatchers in order to win.

Overall, I think that the book is pretty entertaining, and kids who are really into spies and spy games would find it fun. With all of the different codes, disguise ideas, and the board game, there are plenty of fun activities to try!

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (under an alternate title – The Knowhow Book of Spycraft).

Posted on by TracyC

Mystery of the Empty House

Mystery of the Empty House by Dorothy Sterling, 1960.

Patricia Harrison’s family has recently moved from their apartment in New York to a house in Haven. Her father used to live in Haven when he was a boy. His mother still lives in town, and he still knows some of the other people who live there. Patricia, called Pat, is still unpacking her belongings when a boy from across the street, Jim Gray, calls to invite her to play ball with him and some of his friends in the field behind her house because his mother used to know his father when they were kids. Pat isn’t very used to playing with boys because she went to an all-girls school when she was in New York, but she agrees to go play ball with the boys.

When she goes to meet the boys, some of the other boys, the Paine brothers, don’t want her to play with them. When Jim said they were meeting “Pat”, they assumed that “Pat” was another boy. Jim says he doesn’t care if Pat is a girl or not because they could really use another player. Pat thinks they’re rude, and since they don’t seem to want her, she starts to leave, but Jim stops her and persuades her to stay. Even though Pat is usually good at baseball at school, she finds herself making clumsy mistakes when she plays with the boys, probably because she feels uncomfortable with them. Finally, she hits a home run, which is great, but there’s a problem. She accidentally hit the ball into the window of an old, abandoned house nearby that looks haunted.

The boys are mad because it’s the only baseball they have. Pat says they could just go get the ball, but the boys say they can’t. When she asks them if they’re scared, they say that’s not the problem; they’ve just promised that they won’t go near the old house. Pat says that, since she didn’t promise, she can just go get the ball, but Jim stops her from going into the house. He tells her that they can just buy a new ball. When Pat asks him why he doesn’t want her to go in, Jim says that it’s a secret having to do with the Paines. Pat says that she’s sick of the Paines and insists on going into the old house.

The old house is dark and spooky. When she climbs in through the window, Pat is startled when she runs into another person inside. At first, she can’t see the other person too clearly because it’s dark, but when she asks the girl who she is, the girl tells her that she’s Patricia Harrison. Pat is shocked and tells her that she can’t be Patricia Harrison because that’s her name. The girl finally laughs and admits that her real name is Barbara Thomas. Barbara lives next door to Pat’s grandmother and decided to stop by and meet her. When she saw Pat playing with the boys, she decided to go explore the old house instead.

Barbara is the one who explains the history of the house and the Paines’ attitude to Pat. The Paine family used to live in the old house. It’s the oldest house in town, dating back to the Colonial era. Nat Paine, the oldest of the Paine boys, was always proud of his family’s old home and used to brag about how George Washington and Lafayette visited the house during the Revolutionary War. It was even occupied by British soldiers at one time. Unfortunately, the father of the Paine boys was killed during the Korean War several years earlier (dating this story to the late 1950s or 1960, the year it was published). Since then, the family has fallen on hard times, and they’ve been unable to pay the taxes on the house. Now, because of the unpaid taxes, the town council is threatening to sell the old house to pay the unpaid taxes. The Paines have been forced to move out of the house and into a much smaller place, and Nat is very upset about it. Plus, he’s been going through this phase where he’s decided that he hates girls because he’s just getting into middle school, where all the boys either start developing crushes or decide that they hate girls. His younger brothers are being pests because they’re following his lead.

Barbara says that her father felt bad about what happened to the family and tried to convince other people in town to help the Paines pay the taxes on the old place. They could have helped, but they’ve made it plain that they just don’t want to. As Barbara’s father put it, “people in Haven are a bunch of rock-ribbed, rugged individualists who wouldn’t help their own grandmas.” (I have strong feelings about that, and I’ll explain them in the reaction section.) Barbara reveals right away that the secret Jim is keeping for the Paine brothers is that Nat made his brothers take a vow with him that they wouldn’t enter that house again “until it was rightfully theirs.” Barbara says that Nat’s sense of pride talking, and “You know how boys are.” She thinks Nat’s being overly dramatic, although she sympathizes with the family’s plight. When Pat suggests that maybe they shouldn’t be in the house, either, Barbara says that she comes there all the time to explore. Barbara thinks the old house is fascinating and that there might be a secret passage somewhere. She invites Pat to help her look for it sometime.

At dinner that night, Pat finds out that her parents already know about the death of the boys’ father and the trouble that the family is having over their old house. Pat’s mother says that the old house is a good example of the saltbox style of house that was popular in Colonial New England. (I remember my old high school history teacher explaining how the slope of the roof was meant to help snow slide off during the winter, but the uneven slope also allows more living space to be added onto an existing house.) However, Pat’s mother says that there probably aren’t any secret passages in the house because houses from that time were built pretty simply and didn’t even have closets or bathrooms. She doesn’t think that there’s any place in the old house to conceal a secret passage.

Now that Pat knows the issues with the Paine family, she begins to feel better about them, and they start being nicer to her. As Pat begins settling in, she becomes better friends with Barbara and is happy that she has another girl as a friend. They ride their bikes downtown together, and Barbara sleeps over at Pat’s house. As the girls are getting ready for bed, Pat looks out the window and sees a light in the old Paine house when no one is supposed to be there. Barbara says that whoever’s in the house is probably looking for the secret passage and the treasure. When Pat asks what she means by “treasure”, Barbara says that there’s a rumor that there’s treasure hidden in the house from Revolutionary times. The family used to be rich, but after the American Revolution, when the children of the family returned to the house after their parents were killed, the family fortune had vanished. People think that the ancestors of the Paines hid their fortune somewhere during the war and that it’s still waiting to be found. (I already had some misgivings about the people of Haven and their intentions in kicking the Paines out of their house, and now, suddenly, my suspicions are even worse.)

Barbara says that they can’t just let this mystery sneak steal what should rightfully belong to the Paines and ruin the only chance they have left of regaining their house. The girls sneak over to the house to spy on the intruder, and they end up frightening him away. The girls tell the boys about what they witnessed the next day, and they persuade the Paine brothers to come into the house with them in spite of their “vow” to look around and see what the intruder was searching for. As they inspect the kitchen fireplace, where the man was searching, and look at the flashlight he dropped, the man shows up again. It turns out that he’s a college student doing research on the Paine family.

Back in Revolutionary times, the family that lived in the house was the Woodruff family. (A Paine ancestor married into the Woodruff family, changing the family name, but the Woodruffs are also ancestors of the current Paines. It’s the same family.) The college student, Robert Popham, found some old papers that indicate that the head of the Woodruff family, the first Nathaniel Woodruff, was a Tory. Nat, who was named for this ancestor (full name Nathaniel Woodruff Paine IV), angrily denies it, saying that his family was known to associate with George Washington and Lafayette, hosting them at their house. Robert explains more about the papers he found, but he also says that the last letter Nathaniel Woodruff wrote to his wife before he was killed indicates that he feared for his life and left something hidden in an old post box to pass on to his young son. However, as Nat points out, the date on this final letter was shortly after Nathaniel Woodruff’s wife was murdered by unknown assailants. (She was found scalped, so people blamed her death on American Indians, but it’s also possible that she was killed by someone else who just wanted to make it look that way to cover up the real reason for her murder.) Nathaniel Woodruff didn’t know his wife was already dead, and since she never got the letter and he was also killed soon after, the box is probably still hidden somewhere. Robert thinks that what Nathaniel hid was proof that he was actually a spy for the Patriots and that he feared for his life because he suspected that the British knew he was a spy. He says that he wants to find this hidden box and the information it holds because it would make a fantastic historical research paper.

The kids are completely on board with the search for the hidden box, both because the Paines want to preserve the reputation of their ancestors and because there may be valuables hidden in the box that will help the Paines pay their taxes and keep their home. However, they only have until August 15, the date that the town council has set for selling the Paine house. They only have until the end of summer to figure it out!

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive. The book is also known by the title Secret of the Old Post Box.

My Reaction and Spoilers

To begin with, I didn’t like the people of Haven right from Barbara’s description of them as “rugged individuals who wouldn’t help their own grandmas.” It is pretty cold to turn out a war widow who is working as an underpaid nurse in the community and her children after their father was killed serving his country. I completely agreed with Barbara’s father’s assessment of the townspeople’s levels of generosity from the first. I suppose at least some of the townspeople of Haven probably thought they were actually being kind, giving Mrs. Paine several years after her husband’s death to come up with the mounting tax money, while doing nothing to help her and not actually paying her enough to manage and letting her family sink deeper into the hole until there was no way for them to escape, but in realistic terms, that’s not really kind at all.

We don’t actually hear the townspeople express their own feelings because the children don’t talk to the adults about their search and discoveries until they’re sure of what they found. When Barbara explained how her father felt about the townspeople’s unwillingness to help the Paines, I was also a little suspicious of their motives, and when Barbara mentioned that there’s been a popular rumor about hidden treasure in the Paine household for years and everyone has heard of it, I got really suspicious. Basically, I started looking for thieves among the townspeople. I immediately suspected that the “rugged individuals”, or at least some influential ones in the community, wanted to steal some historical treasure from a veteran’s widow and orphans because people who would would kick the widow and orphans out of their home might as well be out to steal their legacy, too.

If that was part of their plan, they weren’t very good at it, and they never even show up in the story. Perhaps I’m judging them a bit harshly, although in a way, I’m a little disappointed because that kind of Machiavellian plot would have made the story much more exciting. From the way the story goes, the townspeople might just not believe that there’s any treasure to be found because that rumor has been going around for so long and nothing has come of it. Still, I was suspicious of them for a good part of the book because it looked like the author was setting them up to be suspicious.

I was also annoyed by the townspeople because I found them ineffectual and uncreative in their approach to a community problem. They miss opportunities, and worse, they deny opportunities to others because they’re apparently stuck in their “rugged individual” mindset and won’t even entertain ideas that might help themselves as well as others when people like Barbara Thomas’s father suggest them. I often think that high-and-mighty rugged individualistic attitude cuts out so many genuinely fun, creative, and amazing possibilities that can make a community rich in character as well as money. It’s maddening to a person who thrives on creativity and likes to consider possibilities.

When I started getting really irritated at the townspeople, I guessed that, before the end of the story, they would do something to redeem themselves that would simultaneously leave me unsatisfied. I figured that the point where the townspeople finally come together would probably result in something that I thought they should have been working on from the beginning, and then, they’d act like it was such an amazing idea that they’d never thought of before and I’d be really irritated with them all over again because I thought of something like it very early in the story. Actually, that’s not how the story goes, and it’s still irritating to me.

So, what would I want them to do in this situation? Basically, the community wants its tax money, and the family wants to keep their house with a living wage that can support them. Fine. So, I asked myself, why not make this historic house, which is known to be the oldest house in town, into a community project which would actually contribute to the common good of the community (I don’t think “common good” is a dirty word, although I’m aware that some “rugged individualists” think so) and provide the Paine family with an additional source of income? If the town council invested in fixing up the house, which is also known to contain some very interesting Colonial antiques as well as fascinating architectural details and a unique history, the house could be turned into either a museum or a period bed-and-breakfast to encourage local tourism. (Sleep where George Washington and Lafayette slept!) Since it does have original furnishings and actual bedrooms, it probably wouldn’t take a lot to make the conversion for either of those projects.

The town and its business owners would benefit from the tourism, giving them an actual monetary return on their investment, and the Paine family could stay on with the house as its caretakers, receiving additional wages from visitors. People couldn’t say that the Paines simply received a handout because they would be doing valuable community work to support the town’s image and industry. It would satisfy Nat Paine’s family pride because he could talk to tour groups on the weekends and during the summer about his family’s great legacy to the history of his town. The whole community could even expand on the idea to further attract visitors, setting up a sort of local living history center, where people can learn Colonial crafts and recipes (something like what the Townsends demo on their YouTube channel), and schools from neighboring towns and cities could book field trips. Local business owners could support it with a themed restaurant and shops selling Colonial-era replicas and memorabilia and books about the time period. The town could hold special celebrations a few times a year to draw in more visitors, like a big Fourth of July parade or a Colonial Christmas celebration (although I known not all of the American colonies actually celebrated Christmas) or a re-creation of old harvest parties (more historically accurate) with plays by the local theater group (if they don’t have one, they could form one) or dramatic readings from Washington Irving at the local library or a themed fair with people selling local artisan crafts. They wouldn’t have to do all of this at once, but they could start with the matter of the house and build up from there. It’s an idea that has the potential for future expansion. This story is even set pre-Bicentenniel, so imagine what the town could do if they already had everything up and running by July 4th, 1776! Doesn’t anybody plan ahead? That’s creative use of resources. That’s community action. That’s job creation. Even if it’s not as big as Plimoth Plantation (now called Plimoth Patuxet to better incorporate the Native Americans) or Colonial Williamsburg (which both already existed by the time this story was written and could have provided inspiration), it’s still a money-making industry that is inherently built into the town’s very nature and won’t disappear tomorrow because some outside business decides to move or close a job-providing factory or something. Even if they didn’t get national or international attention, they would probably still be a destination for people from around their state and neighboring ones, and there’s potential for continued development. The project just need to be supported and promoted by the community.

Unfortunately, that’s not what they do. My griping aside, I guess if the solution was really that simple and the townspeople were more thoughtful and pro-active, we would lose the source of tension and the obstacle that our heroes have to overcome. The August 15th deadline is what pressures the kids to hurry up and find the treasure, so as irritating as it is to me, I have to put up with it.

The treasure hunt part is a lot of fun, and I liked the children’s logical, methodical approach to their search. When the children eventually find the hidden box, the story isn’t over. There are coded messages in the box that they have to decode to learn the full truth about Nathaniel Woodruff. Part of the story explains how they figure out how to decode the substitution code and the book code that compose parts of the message. The story they learn about Nathaniel Woodruff is better than anything the Paines had originally thought.

So, did they save the old house and do anything cool, like start a unique museum? Yes, and no. Although they don’t find any jewels, gold, or traditional sort of treasure, the letters that they find in the box are worth quite a bit. They sell them to a wealthy local business owner, and he donates them to a local university library. (So, you know, the wealthy business owner who never makes an actual appearance in this story and who wouldn’t have helped a war widow and her orphans for their sake can buy their family legacy and present it as his magnanimous gift to the university. I can’t say that he’s terrible for doing this because it does help, but I still think my idea was better.) The Paine family has enough money to keep their house and fix it up. It’s a pretty good ending, but I still prefer my vision. The story points out that it’s not a matter of everyone living happily ever after because they’re all their imperfect selves and still have some problems, but one lesson that they all learned from this experience is how to create their own book code to use for passing notes in class. It’s not profound, but codes are fun.

Posted on by TracyC

The Mystery of the Other Girl

The Mystery of the Other Girl by Wylly Folk St. John, 1971.

It’s a rainy Saturday in Florida for the Barron family when Stevie (short for Stephanie) gets a strange phone call from Mobile, Alabama that’s meant for her ex-boyfriend, John Henderson. Stevie just broke up with John, who likes to call himself “Ian” because he thinks it sounds classy, the day before, and she has no idea who the strange girl on the phone is or why she’s trying to reach John/Ian at her number. Stevie asks the girl for her name, and she says that she’s Morna Ross, but suddenly, the girl screams and is cut off, like someone put a hand over her mouth, and then someone hangs up the phone at her end. Stevie is disturbed by the call, fearing that something bad happened to the other girl, but she doesn’t know what to do about it because she doesn’t know Morna Ross and doesn’t know exactly where she was calling from or why she wanted to talk to Ian.

Since Stevie already has a date to go dancing with friends at a place where Ian and his band are performing that night, she tells her friends about the weird phone call and asks them what she should do. They say that they’ve never heard of Morna Ross and tell her that she should talk to Ian about it. However, Stevie feels too awkward about the breakup to talk to Ian and asks a couple of her friends to do it for her.

That evening, Stevie and her friends run into Stevie’s old friend, Hope. She and Hope haven’t seen too much of each other lately because she’s not interested in dancing and dating and other things that Stevie wants to do. This evening, though, Hope is out with a visiting cousin from Mobile, Alabama named Phil Walters. Stevie is glad that Phil is getting Hope to come out of her shell a bit. Stevie and Phil say that the style of dancing popular with teenagers today is better than older styles of dancing because they don’t have to take any lessons to learn it – it’s just moving to the music, like everyone else. On impulse, she asks Phil if he’s heard of Morna Ross, but he says he hasn’t. Stevie’s friends say that when they asked Ian, he claimed not to know Morna Ross at first, but then he said something about her being a girl who’s “crazy about him.” Apparently, he dated her before he dated Stevie, and since he and Stevie broke up, he decided to invite her to the Old Seville Festival that’s happening next week, a local celebration of the history of their town. Stevie thinks it’s strange that Ian didn’t mention that Morna lives in Mobile, since that’s the place she was calling from. Stevie’s friends think maybe Ian was lying about Morna being crazy about him and that he probably doesn’t really know her because Ian is always bragging about things, like how great his family is. Hope thinks Ian makes up things to brag about because he wishes they were true even though he knows they really aren’t. After she thinks it over, Stevie thinks that’s true, that Ian likes to keep up appearances and a superior attitude because, underneath it all, he’s actually a very insecure person. But if he made up his relationship with Morna, and he doesn’t really know her, why was Morna trying to call him?

Before the evening is over, Ian confronts Stevie and reminds her that their first date was almost a year ago, at the last Old Seville Festival and that he’s planning to see her there again this year because they promised each other that they would see each other during the festival every year. In return, Stevie confronts Ian about Morna. Ian says that she’s just another of the girls who have come to see his band perform and likes him. When Stevie asks why nobody’s met Morna at any of the teenage hangouts in town, he says that they like to hang out at the more adult spots. He begins spinning a story that Stevie is sure is at least half fiction about how he and Morna order non-alcoholic drinks at adult nightclubs but they sneak in some gin to mix in with it and how they’ve tried marijuana. (Keep in mind that marijuana was illegal everywhere in the US at this time.) Ian says that he and Morna don’t really want to become potheads, but they see trying these things as part of growing up, “to experience everything and then make a choice.” Stevie pauses to wonder about the word “everything.” (That is always a good thing to wonder about when someone talks about wanting to try “everything.” Define “everything.”) Stevie asks him where Morna lives, and he says that she lives across town, but her family has moved around a lot because her father deals in real estate and sometimes even sells their own house and moves his family to a different one. (Ian sounds like he thinks that’s clever. I thought it sounded really suspicious, like maybe Morna’s family is actually involved with the mafia or something and has to keep on the move.) Stevie doesn’t really believe any of this, but she pries a few more details out of Ian about what Morna looks like. Although she thinks that Ian made up most of the things he said about Morna, there is still the girl who called her earlier and screamed like she was in trouble. She was a real person, even if what Ian said about her wasn’t all true.

When Stevie gets home, she tells her mother what Ian said about Morna and how Ian likes to make up things. Stevie is still concerned about the girl who called and wants to find out who and where she is and if she’s okay. Her mother says that her father will be coming home from a business trip the next day, and they can ask him what to do about it. Stevie’s father is a fingerprint expert at the police department, so he knows about police procedures and can make inquiries. Stevie wishes that she had Morna’s fingerprints so her father can analyze them himself, and in another weird development, she gets that opportunity.

The next day, Stevie gets a letter from Morna. The letter is addressed to her and not Ian. Morna didn’t know her home address, so she addressed it to the high school she attends, and the letter was forwarded to her from there. Stevie handles it carefully so she won’t disturb any fingerprints. The letter even has Morna’s return address, so she knows where she lives in Mobile. The contents of the letter are strange. Morna talks about her school band and how they’re always short of instruments. She says that she’s liked Stevie since she saw her playing with her school band in a competition (Stevie really is in her school’s band) and wonders if her school would be willing to sell spare instruments. The letter is oddly worded, the word “see” is underlined twice, and there are doodles all over page. Also, the specific instrument Morna says that she wants is written in French and doesn’t sound at all familiar to Stevie. Stevie looks up the term Morna uses, and it turns out to be a French horn. But, if Morna meant “French horn”, why didn’t she just say that? Also, the price she mentions for the French horn is far less than what an actual French horn would cost. It seems like Morna is either crazy or trying to say something else in her letter.

Stevie has a younger brother named Lyle who is really smart, and he suggests that the letter might be in some kind of code. As they talk it over, Stevie realizes that the French horn refers to Ian because he plays the French horn in her school band. Lyle wants to study the letter more to see if he can figure out other parts of the code, and Stevie decides to invite her friends over to see it, too, because most of them are also in the band and might notice something else in the message that’s music-related. Little by little, the kids begin working out the real meaning of Morna’s message. First, the amount of money that didn’t make sense is meant as a clue the reader that there’s more to this message than just an inquiry about musical instruments. Second, Morna phrases sentences oddly in order to work certain words into the message and put them in the right order for her hidden message. Third, the doodles around the message are the beginnings of pieces of music. Stevie and her friends providing their musical knowledge and Lyle coaches them through code-breaking techniques. After awhile, Lyle goes to his room to work on the code alone because he finds it easier to think by himself and likes surprising people with his discoveries. When he returns, she has the final solution.

Morna’s message says that she has to get in touch with Ian. She says that she is being watched and her mail is being read, which is why she has to communicate in this way. Morna asks Stevie to write to her in the same way, promising to explain the situation later. Stevie remembers that Ian wanted to see her at the Old Seville Festival, so she decides to tell Morna when and where to come if she wants to see Ian. Shortly after Stevie mails the letter, Morna calls again, saying that she needs to warn Ian because someone might try to kill him. Then, she screams and someone hangs up the phone again.

At first, Stevie’s father thinks that Morna is some kind of prankster or maybe having some kind of paranoid fantasy because she’s into drugs or something, but Stevie is sure that Morna really is scared. The danger is real, and Stevie’s family realizes it when Lyle is kidnapped at the Old Seville Festival.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction

I was pretty sure, for much of the early part of the book, that the whole thing with Morna’s mysterious phone calls and messages was just an act that Ian dreamed up and got someone to do for him as one of his dramatic bids for attention. It seemed weird to me that Morna second phone call ended exactly the same way as her first, like it was part of a rehearsed routine. Also, someone who wanted to interrupt Morna’s phone calls and keep her from talking could do it in easier ways that wouldn’t involve dramatic screams that would get attention. They could have just unplugged the phone or held down the hang up button. (Remember, this is the early 1970s. Morna’s using an older style of telephone that has to plug into the wall, and there are buttons where the handset rests that hang up the phone. That was the first type of phone I ever used as a kid, and I know that you can push those buttons down with your hand to end a call even if someone is still holding the handset.) I would think that if a sinister person was watching Morna, they would cut her off that way rather than try to put a hand over her mouth while she screams. Also, if they really didn’t want her to communicate with anyone, I don’t think they’d let her write any kind of letter, not even one that just seems to be about band instruments. Even if they couldn’t figure out the code, I doubt that they’d want to take the chance that she might communicate something to the wrong person. It all just seemed too theatrical and not realistic. So, I couldn’t really blame Stevie’s father for initially thinking that the whole thing might just be some kind of prank. However, I did wonder why he didn’t just phone the Mobile police department and ask a colleague to do a welfare check on the girl at the address on the envelope to find out if it was a prank or not. Better safe than sorry, and if it turned out to be just a prank, knowing that the police knew about it would probably be enough to get the girl to stop.

As it turns out, it’s not just a prank. There is something genuinely sinister going on, although I wasn’t sure what it was for quite awhile. I thought it might have something to do with drugs because there were repeated references to drugs in the story, but that’s not what’s going on. It turns out that Ian/John has been having trouble with his self-image and even self-identity because he’s adopted. He’s aware that he’s adopted, which is why he secretly worries that he doesn’t really fit in with his family or friends and makes up fantasies about himself to impress people while being inwardly insecure. However, there’s quite a lot that Ian/John doesn’t know about his past, not even his birth name, and the truth of Ian’s past is even stranger than anything that he’s ever imagined. His blood relatives love him and didn’t forget about him, even though they couldn’t take care of him when he was a baby, and now, they’re trying to protect him from a very real threat. Finding out the truth comes as a shock to Ian, but it’s an important step in making peace with himself and realizing just how important he is just for being himself, not only to his adoptive family but to the family who gave him up for adoption and to the friends who cared about him even when he was a bit of poser and who took great risks to protect him and help him find the truth.

Lyle is fun as an eccentric genius character who has a pet walking catfish. I hadn’t actually heard of a walking catfish before reading this book, but that’s part of the fun. I enjoy stories that bring up interesting facts that I didn’t know before. Walking catfish can actually survive out of water for long periods of time and move across land. The walking catfish ends up playing a role in catching the bad guys in a way that actually makes sense, which is nice. I also like that, although Lyle is pivotal in solving the mystery, he didn’t get all the answers too easily, like some geniuses in stories, and he needed some specialized knowledge from other people. That makes him a more realistic character.

I would like to discuss the costumes that the characters wear to the Old Seville Festival, though. They explain that it’s common for people attending the festival to dress in historical costumes from different time periods in the town’s history to get into the spirit of the event. Ordinarily, I would think that’s fun and be completely supportive, but there’s one exception that I think crosses the line a little. Some people, including Lyle, dress in Native American costumes. I’m not Native American myself, but I know that real Native Americans are usually not too happy to see traditional forms of dress being used as costumes. I would cut the characters more slack for it if they confined themselves only to wearing clothes like traditional Native Americans, but what pushes it over the line for me is that Lyle is described as darkening his hair and his skin as part of his costume. He also does some kind of warpaint on his face, but it’s the skin coloring that he does that I think is unacceptable. I think that’s going too far, and that’s what pushes this costume into the realm of the tasteless and offensive. A little more restraint, just sticking to the clothes might have been okay, but looking like one of those white actors trying too hard with makeup to pass for a minority in an old black-and-white movie is just too much. It’s one of the things that really dates this book because fewer people today would be willing to take it that far, at least not without some embarrassment or criticism from other people. It was published in the early 1970s, and may possible take place a little earlier, in the 1960s, because no exact year is given. I’ve heard some people claim that it was normal for them to wear racial face makeup as part of costumes when they were kids, and never having seen that even once when I was a kid in Arizona during the 1980s and 1990s, I’ve wondered just when and where kids did that of their own free will when they were given the opportunity to wear literally anything else, and I think I have at least a partial answer here. Lyle carries a tomahawk as an accessory to his costume and gives war cries. He also comments about how hippies are bringing Native American style headbands back into style, which further dates the story.

I should also explain that Lyle is not just dressing as any random Native American; he is trying to be a real historical figure. He is specifically trying to be William Weatherford, a mixed-race plantation owner known for his involvement in the Creek War in the 1810s. I like the part where Stevie wonders about the authenticity of Lyle’s costume. Apparently, Lyle got some help from someone at the local museum, but Stevie realizes that nobody else at the festival is going to know (or care) whether Lyle’s war paint designs are accurate or not, and even if he’s dressed accurately as a Native American of the area, the real William Weatherford probably typically dressed in the British style favored by other plantation owners of the era because he was living in the same manner as fully white plantation owners and going by his English name rather than his Native American name. I’m not actually sure how the real William Weatherford dressed because this isn’t a part of history that I know much about, but Stevie’s logic makes sense. My guess is that he probably wore a variety of different clothes in his life, depending on his circumstances at the time. (After all, various other historical figures did. Emperor Hirohito was photographed at various times wearing traditional Japanese ceremonial clothing, Western-style suits, and military uniforms, depending on the event.) One thing I could state with confidence is that William Weatherford probably didn’t have a pet walking catfish on a leash, which Lyle does because he insists on bringing his pet to the festival with him.

It’s part of the plot that Lyle is wearing an outlandish costume and has his walking catfish with him when he’s kidnapped, but I still think that there are equally outlandish historical costumes that he could have chosen that could have chosen that would have worked. It’s important that Lyle dyed his hair for the costume, so he had the same hair color as Ian on the day he was kidnapped when his ordinary hair color is much lighter, but I think there could be other ways around that or maybe he could have worn a hat so his hair wasn’t visible at first. I wouldn’t mind if he just dyed his hair, but the skin coloring is just too much.

Personally, I prefer the costumes that Stevie and her friends wear to the festival. They decide to dress as Gibson girls from the late 1800s and early 1900s. They basically wear old-fashioned-looking skirts and blouses and put their hair in the typical Gibson Girl hairstyles. Historical costumes that are based on wearing different clothes and hairstyles are the type of costumes I favor.

Aside from the costume issue, I really liked the story. I honestly wasn’t sure what the real problem was until the very end of the book. I had several theories, but Morna really surprised me when she explained who she really was and why Ian was in danger. I thought that she might turn out to be a relative, but the situation wasn’t what I expected.