The Babysitters Club Mysteries #15: Kristy and the Vampires

There's some television movie called Little Vampires shooting in Stoneybrook, so you know that means Derek is coming back to town. He actually isn't the star this time, but that doesn't mean he isn't super popular. The Masters call to hire a sitter to stick with him on set, and Kristy is available. They also hire Claudia to watch over Todd since he has a small role in the movie.

It turns out that Derek shot up a few inches since the last time he was in town and isn't sure how to use his new body. He keeps tripping over his feet and drops a very expensive Tiffany lamp that shatters. Kristy later finds a threatening note in his trailer, someone switches breakaway glass with real glass for a stunt he had planned, and someone sets up his stunt double to fall really bad. Kristy and the BSC quickly put together a list of suspects.

Carson Fraser: Carson is the star of some super popular surfing television show, but Kristy thinks he's conceited and stuck up and doesn't think he's nearly as talented as Derek. She puts him at the very top of her suspect list. Kristy also notices a young blond woman who keeps following him around. She always wears a rose and keeps talking about how he's the biggest star ever.

Frank Bottoms: Frank is Carson's agent and convinced that Derek is trying to take over the movie. No one really suspects him except for Kristy.

Zeke Hill: Zeke is the propmaster on set, so they think he's behind everything. It doesn't help that he has a grudge with the director. When the glass thing happens, he gets fired. They then suspect him of keeping up with the pranks to make the director look bad.

Sheila Mayberry: Sheila is Derek's press agent. They suspect her because she keeps spinning all the bad stories to draw attention to him and the movie. In other words, they suspect her because she actually does her job.

Charlotte and Becca get all caught up in the idea of another mystery in town. While Shannon sits for them, they follow all the suspects around town. All they really see is Zeke sitting by the pool at his hotel and hoping that the director will call him and hire him back. They also go to the set and wind up getting yelled at because Charlotte actually wanders into the shot.

They also suspect Cokie for awhile. She has a huge crush on Carson and keeps hanging around set to stare at him and drool over him. Then she throws a huge party at her house for the whole cast. Carson doesn't show up, but everyone who was there gets sick. It turns out that it was just food poisoning and not her trying to kill everyone.

Kristy, Shannon, and Claudia go to the place where the glass came from and find out nothing except that the girl following Carson around is the daughter of the owner. Kristy later sees the girl looking sneaky and finds her with grease under her nails. She follows the girl, Lindsey, into town and sees something fall out of her bag. It's a manual for the car Derek drives around in marked to a section on brakes.

This leads Kristy to run back to the set, find Derek, and stop him from driving off. His driver finds that someone really did cut the brake lines, which could have killed them. Kristy tells everyone what she saw and points to Lindsey, who conveniently breaks down in the middle of the crowd. She cries about how Carson is so talented and how Derek was trying to take over the movie. In the end, Derek doesn't press charges, so she just goes to a mental institution or something.

The Masters then go back to California to shoot the rest of the film. They hire Dawn to do the same job Kristy did. She keeps them informed of everything, including how people can't stop talking about the movie. Kristy keeps a scrapbook of all the news articles and ends the book laughing about how she can't wait to enjoy the rest of her summer.

Another story is all about Claire and how she's petrified of vampires. She freaks out on the set and refuses to go back. The triplets keep telling her stories until she winds up locked in her room with a mirror, garlic, and a wood stake from the garden. Kristy comes up with an idea to convince Claire that there are scarier things than vampires. Claire dresses up like a witch and can suddenly handle going to the set.

*Take a look at that cover. Could her shorts be any shorter? Kristy's shorts are actually shorter than the skirt Mary Anne is wearing.

*Speaking of clothes, Cokie shows up on set wearing an off the shoulder peasant shirt, a short skirt, and white heels. She then wears a bright pink minidress and matching heels to her party. Yeah, that's totally appropriate for a middle school kid.

*Remember how there was all that drama when Kristy moved to Watson's because it was oh so far away from Claudia's house? Mary Anne has no problem riding her bike to Kristy's house in this one, and Kristy later walks home from a meeting.

*Kristy is such a brat in this book. Every time Carson makes a star comment, she goes off on him being spoiled, but when Derek does it, she says nothing. Like she gets angry when Carson asks some girl to get him a drink, but says nothing when Derek makes a comment about how there's no point in being a movie star if he can't have cookies all the time.

*She also says that Carson is what some girls might consider a hunk but isn't her type. Yeah, I bet he isn't your type. What middle school girl would have a crush on a guy with shaggy blond hair, blue eyes, and a surfer look, especially in the 90s?

*The whole plot revolves around Laddie, who is Dracula or the son of Dracula. He comes to town and tries to make Derek's character a vampire. They all act like this is the biggest movie ever made and not some TV movie that 16 people will watch.

*The whole set is always open. They literally let anyone wander on whenever they want.

*Mallory actually gets picked by the director for a short walk-on role in the movie, which leads to her retelling the story from California again.

*How did Kristy even get this job? All the other books make it out like her and Mallory are almost always sitting for their siblings. When Mrs. Masters calls to hire a sitter, Kristy is the ONLY one who can take the job. That's especially strange given that the book opens with her sitting at her house.