The Baby-Sitter’s Club Mystery #12: Dawn and the Surfer Ghost

This is one of those books that take place when Dawn moves back to California, but before she decided to move back permanently. You know, how she moved there and back like six times in the course of a year.

Anyway, Dawn is now taking surfing lessons, even though I swear she already knew how to surf. Sunny keeps flirting with random guys, but apparently draws the line at this guy named Thrash. Dawn thinks he’s about 20, which is way too old for her. He has long blond hair, wears a snake shaped ring and has surfed all around the world. She makes up an excuse to talk to him and learns that he’s ready for the big surf competition and plans to win. He shows her a jar of specially made wax and kalls her Kaela, some hawaiian princess name.

A few days later Dawn learns that Thrash is dead. His surfboard washed up on shore and no one has seen him since. She tries talking to the cops, but they tell her that he was just a drifter, no one filed a missing person’s report and basically they don’t really care. She gets all caught up in the “mystery” of what happened to him.

Not long after, Dawn sees a weird looking guy with short black hair who always seems to be lurking around. Then she finds a jar of Thrash’s special wax in the sand. She and Sunny are doing a special kids project (of course) that involves taking a bunch of kids to the beach. During a beach party, they spot someone surfing in the distance. Rumors get started that it’s a surfing ghost, especially after multiple people see the figure and always at night.

Of course Dawn keeps seeing the dark haired guy and realizes that it’s actually Thrash. It turns out that someone tampered with his board, so he faked his death and kept hiding around. She finds him messing with someone else’s board and she convinces him to talk to the cops. The day of the surfing competition shows up and Thrash walks out. Another surfer sees him and freaks out, so the cops come at him and he confesses. Dawn wins third place in the beginner round and Thrash wins the overall competition. He gives her his lucky snake ring and takes off for Australia.

The other story takes place back in Stoneybrook. Mary-Anne is watching the Arnold twins do gymnastics and has to run upstairs to take a phone call. Carolyn falls off the beam and sprains her ankle. Marilyn feels bad and stays by her side constantly. The girls keep trying to find ways to split the twins up and Stacey decides to just use their friends. When two different friends want to hang out with each twin, they realize they can’t always be around each other.

*Dawn mentions multiple times that she can’t wait to go back to Connecticut and be around her friends. Yeah, I can’t wait for that to happen.

*Dawn writes letters to nearly every member of the club, including Shannon. That seems…off to me for some reason. I never really got the feeling that these two were friends.

*She mentions that Stacey used to hang out with surfers and that some people still ask about her. Given how it all ended when she was out there, I don’t really see that happening.