Middle Aged Slumber Party #15
Christopher Pike's Slumber Party: Chapter Seven
Hello, friends.
Welcome to the fifteenth installment of my deep dive into Christopher Pike’s Slumber Party, in which… OMG APPARENTLY THIS BOOK ONLY HAS SEVEN CHAPTERS??????? LIKE SOMEHOW WE ARE AT THE END??????
Want to start from the beginning?
Chapter One: Part One. Part Two. Part Three. Part Four.
Chapter Two: Part One. Part Two. Part Three.
Chapter Three: Part One. Part Two.
Chapter Four.
Chapter Five: Part One. Part Two. Part Three.
Chapter Six.
Subscribe to follow along, re-read the book if you’re feeling it, and for SURE, please tell me all about your memories of reading this way back when.
There were voices, warm light, thick air that smelled funny. The voices — they were rather annoying — were trying to wake her up. Lara wished they wouldn’t bother. She’d had enough excitement for one day.
—Slumber Party, by Christopher Pike
Scene One: Waking up in the basement
Lara slowly starts coming to, and when she finally opens her eyes—specifically when she hears Rachael call her a jerk, heh—she finds herself bound hand and foot, on the basement floor. With her is Rachael…
…AND ALSO DANA OMG!!
For real, if my supposed best friend thought I was dead and had been swanning around making out with people and hardly worrying about me at all and then SAID THIS when she found out I was ACTUALLY ALIVE, I think the friendship would be over:
“Dana! What relief! I thought you were dead.”
Good grief, I am so happy that Dana is back because she’s just fantastic:
“I wouldn’t start celebrating just yet,” Dana said. “You will note the fact that we are tied up in a basement filled with kerosene.”
So, Lara, Dana, and Rachael are all tied up—clothesline and duct tape—in the basement, and Dana gives us the rundown (with an assist from Rachael):
Turns out that Dana made it back from the lodge just fine, but Nell drugged her cocoa, tied her up, and stuck her in the closet (LARA YOU DUMBASS I TOLD YOU TO LOOK IN THE CLOSET NO ONE EVER LISTENS TO ME UGH)
Also I don’t think she’s had a bathroom break this WHOLE TIME???
Later, when Lara and Percy went out, Nell brained Rachael with the fire poker (OMG AGAIN WITH THE FIRE POKER), dragged her downstairs and tied her up
Then she dragged Dana down (I’d imagine that it was a very bumpity bumpity trip down multiple flights of stairs, ouch)
Cal ran into Lara because he was coming back to the house TO APOLOGIZE???
Rachael and Dana tried getting his attention from the basement, but Nell had their mouths “professionally taped,” whatever that means, so he left thinking everything was fine
Dana comments on the fact that Lara has peed herself, LOL. Lara is predictably a baby about it:
“How can you joke at a time like this!” Lara cried.
Tears swelled out of Dana’s eyes, and Lara could see that she’d been crying already. “What else is there to do?”
Yeah, when you’ve been tied up in a closet for 18+ hours, you can talk, Lara. Until then, ZIP IT.
Despite being all tied up and probably about to die, Rachael wants the dirt and, over the course of her back-and-forth with Lara, it is established that SHE HAS FEELINGS:
“Who made the first move?”
“He did, of course.”
“You liar, Lara, you’re hornier than me. But you don’t have to apologize; I understand.”
“No, I’m sorry because I suspected you as the murderer.”
“Me?” Rachael said softly, a sadness in her voice Lara had never heard before. “Not me, Lara. How could you think that of me?”
Which, I’m of two minds on this: Part of me is like, well, of course she thought that of you, dork, because you go out of your way to be a Total B most of the time. But the other part of me is like, yeah, but it’s also been established that her Total B-ness is largely a persona that she has adopted, so maybe she expects people to see through it. But Lara has not exactly exhibited much in the way of observational prowess OR deductive reasoning, soooo Rachael might have been expecting too much from her?
Anywayyyyy, turns out that Rachael’s suspicious phone call was to someone WHO ISN’T EVEN IN THE BOOK, RUDE. That is a TOTAL CHEAT, Mr. Pike.
It was about Homecoming Queen ballot box stuffing shenanigans, no joke, because Rachael just KNEW that Lara would win:
I never told you, Lara, I know I’m prettier than you, but in every other way, I’ve always felt way behind. I didn’t think I could win honestly.
I am HONESTLY. DISGUSTED.
JUSTICE FOR RACHAEL, SHE DESERVES BETTER.
While they’re squabbling/chatting, Celeste is mentioned, and Lara SUDDENLY HAS AN EPIPHANY. Like, a literal lightbulb moment:
A light bulb exploded in Lara’s mind.
Of course, hilariously, she doesn’t let us—or Rachael and Dana—in on it. Instead, she shifts the conversation back to the night of the accident, and starts pressing Rachael about the moment she frowned at the Ouija board.
But then, yet again, Lara’s line of questioning is interrupted.
There were feet on the steps, moving carefully for they lacked flexibility from being too long in the hospital. Dana and Rachael gasped. Lara didn’t. From the moment they had met in the library, a part of her had known.
—Slumber Party, by Christopher Pike
Scene Two: THE BIG REVEAL
Celeste comes down the stairs, and Dana and Rachael start yelling for her to help them. But:
Celeste ignored them, having eyes for only Lara. Such beautiful green eyes, like a child’s, a child who was never supposed to have grown up.
“Hello, Nicole,” Lara said.
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA EXCUSE ME WHILE I GO RUN A VICTORY LAP AROUND THE HOUSE
Nicole makes it quite clear that she holds them responsible for the fire:
Nicole’s face changed horribly, innocence fleeing from the memory of years of torment. “I could not hurt you enough,” she said bitterly.
And then, as the girls are all processing the reveal, Nicole goes a step further and whips off her sweater?:
Scars of a decade of constant surgery were there; swollen and convoluted red flesh stitched together with only thought for a chance for life — not for what that life may have to be like. Grotesque lumps were her breasts; a tight band of knotted tissue was her abdomen. No nipples, no bellybutton. A touch would bring pain. “I’ve never gone out with a boy.” The sight brought revulsion.
She says that her bottom half is “more interesting,” whatever that means, but leaves her pants on. She goes on to talk about how her parents were ashamed of her, how they told her they were telling people she was dead so she could start over again, but she knows it was because they were ashamed (this is all VERY V. C. Andrews!!!):
Even on the hottest days, even in the backyard, I always had to be totally dressed. They were just ashamed. But it’s funny, you know, there were unique compensations. I got to see pictures of my own funeral!”
Lara starts arguing with her, trying to convince Nicole/Celeste that they are all friends, that she knows that Nicole/Celeste doesn’t really want to hurt them, that it was an accident—which, fair, it sounds like Nell told Celeste that Lara threw GASOLINE on her???—and then really goes for it and flat-out starts trying to convince her that Nell has twisted everything:
Lara decided that the moment had come. “You’re wrong, Nicole. Nell was the only one who didn’t want you there. She was the one who spelled your name on the Ouija board as the demon. She was the one who pointed the planchette at you. Nell caused the accident!”
“Oh, really, Lara,” Nell said quietly, coming down the steps, dressed for the cold, handing Nicole a down jacket. Lara was struck by how at ease she was, how calm. “You want to go now, Nicole? Mindy’s not going to wake up.”
—Slumber Party, by Christopher Pike
Scene Three: ENTER NELL
Nicole tells Nell that she’s not ready to leave yet because she wants to know what happened all those years ago, but Nell puts her off and then goes full Bond villain:
“Everything worked my way. Foolish Cal and his napalm, an accidental plus that helped set the mood. And I even got to light Mindy up! And best of all, my plan worked! I overheard you talking to Percy, Lara. Spontaneous human combustion! Pyro-kinetics! Carrie! Your head was in the palm of my head. You were afraid you’d catch fire any second.” Nell pulled a lighter from her pocket. “And you see, you won’t be disappointed. This place is going to blow. Nicole and I can hover around the flames, keep warm, until help arrives. And no one will go to jail, for there will be no evidence.”
For those who want things tied up: She melted the snowman with a blowtorch and skiied out to the woods and created the spot where Dana “disappeared.” The bones were from grilling out, LOL.
Nicole keeps pressing Nell for details about the night—including the bit about the gasoline, at which point Dana finally pipes up to say WHY WOULD WE HAVE GASOLINE IN THE LIVING ROOM, which THANK YOU, DANA, YEESH—but Nell is distracted, getting out MORE bottles of kerosene.
Nicole keeps unraveling, the other girls keep working on her, Nell keeps ignoring everyone.
Nicole finally snaps, and starts yelling at Nell:
“You lied to me! You said that it was gasoline! You said that she poured me with gasoline! On purpose!”
At which point, Lara realizes that she still has the flare gun in her pants?
Nell tells Nicole off. Her argument is that because her face is scarred and Nicole’s body is scarred, but that the rest of the girls are not, that clearly it was the other girls’ fault? Which, I don’t think that logic tracks, but I also don’t think Nell is big on logic at the moment.
Anyway, they back-and-forth for QUITE A WHILE, but it comes down to this:
“Stop!” Nell said, raising her voice for the first time. Nicole cowered. “We will not argue about this again. Go out on the porch. Wait for me. It’s already done.”
So close, yet with a draining heart Lara saw that it was not to be. Blood was stronger than truth. Nicole bowed to her sister’s command, pulling on her sweater, her jacket, limping toward the stairs, not looking at them.
“Because Celeste was my friend,” Lara said. “And because you’re not. We were right all along. You’ve shown us nothing new. Nicole is dead.”
Nicole is only pulling on her sweater now? Has she been topless this whole time? I guess I need to adjust my mental image of the whole scene??
This is all apparently the last push Nicole needs to go on a full-page monologue about her—very problematic, if you hadn’t picked up on that yet—relationship with her sister that ends with this:
“But I didn’t actually fall in the pool.” She stared at her preoccupied sister. “Nell pushed me in. She ruined my dress. She was always doing things like that. Always.”
Nicole came to a decision. Moving swifter and more silently than Lara had ever seen before, she came down the steps. With a finger to her lips, and her eyes glued on Nell, who knelt with her back to them, she removed an unattached hacksaw blade from the pegboard above their heads. In moments she had cut through the tape on Lara’s hands. The string was more stubborn. Nicole was working on it when Nell sent her flying with a kick to the ribs. Nicole dropped to the floor like a shot animal, the wind knocked from her lungs.
—Slumber Party, by Christopher Pike
Scene Four: RETURN OF CHEKHOV'S FLARE GUN
Nicole starts trying to crawl back up the basement stairs; Nell grabs a thing of kerosene and preps to start MAKING HER PRISONERS DRINK IT, because SHE. IS. PISSED.
Even though her hands aren’t entirely free, Lara starts trying to sit up so that she can reach the flare gun; meanwhile Rachael lets fly with my new fave Dramatic Curse:
“Damn you to the deepest hell!” Rachael cursed.
Lara raises the gun, Rachael and Dana egg her on, Nicole pleads with her from the stairs to not shoot, Nell pulls out a lighter to show how unafraid she is of burning. Lara tries to convince her that they can just forget the whole thing—and, what, enjoy the rest of the weekend???—and that they’ll never tell anyone:
For the first time, Nell allowed her madness to surface. “Then I would have nothing to look forward to,” she said, eyes dilated, voice dreamy, shuffling slowly toward them. “Nothing to plan, nothing to think about, except how ugly I am.”
And then there’s a whole thing where she picks up a mirror and looks at herself and then DROPS IT and looks at herself in the BROKEN PIECES—get it, get it, see, the MIRROR REPRESENTS HER???—and then she gets the sads because, as she puts it, “I’ll never have a boyfriend,” which, excuse me, because seriously I think I might need to go throw myself down a well, because if Nell did all this because she wants a boyfriend good lord I already knew we were doomed but this might just be the final nail in humanity’s coffin, GOOD. GRIEF.
Ahem.
Then she lights her lighter and jumps at Lara, who shoots the flare:
The flare shot through Nell’s legs, ricocheting off the back wall, landing like a squirming snake in front of Nell on her right, where it detonated. The kerosene lit immediately, swallowing flames engulfing her like a hungry maw. Yet she stood her ground silently, not moving. A glimpse through the incandescence revealed an expression of acceptance. Lara thought she had never seen Nell so peaceful. Up until her childhood friend’s face began to melt.
Frantically Lara rolled to the corner, banging and bloodying her nose in the process. The binds to her feet took a lot of sweat. Smoke stung her eyes. Finally, she was able to rush to Dana’s side. While hacking at the string, Rachael commented. “I knew you wouldn’t do me first.”
“I won’t leave without you,” Lara said.
“I might,” Dana said. “Hurry!”
—Slumber Party, by Christopher Pike
Scene Five: ESCAPE, MAYBE
At this point, Nicole has run back down the stairs and has tried to put the fire out with her BARE HANDS, which goes just about as well as you’d expect.
Nicole helps to free the girls, then tries to stay in the soon-to-be-inferno with her dead sister. Lara, in her most likeable move to date, is not having it:
Lara grabbed Nicole by the ear and yanked her onto the steps. “I’m not in the mood to argue with you!”
I am weirdly always here for an exasperated ear grab, I don’t know why.
They make it all the way outside—up the stairs and through the hall, a shock wave hits, but they assume it’s the extra bottles of kerosene because it’s not nearly a big enough explosion for it to be the propane tank—and then once they’re outside, they’re like…
DAMN IT, WE FORGOT MINDY!!!!
Which, like, same.
Nicole tries to go in solo, but Lara dives back in with her.
The fire was spreading from the north wind, which was to their advantage, allowing them to cut through the kitchen and take the back stairs to the top floor. The power was out. Currents of black smoke and dancing red light pursued them. Lara slammed each door shut at her back. It would be a literal hell getting back out — if the propane tank didn’t solve that problem for them.
—Slumber Party, by Christopher Pike
Scene Six: BACK IN THE HOUSE
Lara kicks open Mindy’s door!
Mindy won’t wake up.
Nicole throws a glass of water in Mindy’s face!
Mindy won’t wake up.
They start to carry her out and realize that Nicole CAN’T HELP because the SKIN ON HER HANDS IS LITERALLY FALLING OFF!
Lara tries to carry her solo but her knee gives out!
Dana and Rachael to the rescue!
Dana is TOTALLY making up for lost time, OMG:
“One for all, and all for one, and all that crap,” Dana said, grabbing Mindy by the hair.
And Rachael just keeps being rad:
“I figure that being a hero has got to help me in the homecoming voting,” Rachael panted, lifting one of Mindy’s feet.
They make their way to Lara’s room. Always the one for brute force, Rachael smashes a window with a desk chair, and they all jump out the window:
Her leap through the jagged window was so hurried that when she hit the icy wooden shingles she immediately fell on her rear end and slid right off the side of the house, burying herself deep in the snow. Moments later Nicole fell out of the sky and landed beside her. Rachael and Dana were dragging Mindy to safety like a side of beef.
LIKE A SIDE OF BEEF
MR. PIKE YOU. ARE. A. MANIAC.
They were fifty yards from the house, stumbling down a steep incline, when the world erupted in a deafening light. A giant’s slap catapulted them head over heels toward suddenly brilliant trees. Lara felt as if she was flying rather than falling, and again briefly wondered if she were dead.
—Slumber Party, by Christopher Pike
Scene Seven: KABLAMMO, OR, RETURN OF THE COLONEL OMG
As you’ll have gathered from the above quote, THE HOUSE BLOWS UP.
Nicole and Lara do their “I am going to die”/“I will not let you die” couplet again, but THIS TIME, we know it will COME TRUE. (Or, well, I assume it will come true.)
But more importantly than the dead body and the exploded house, THE COLONEL IS HERE TO SAVE THE DAY AND ALSO MONOLOGUE A WHOLE LOT OMG THIS GUY:
They were huddled around the unconscious Nicole when the old man with the sunburned face and white moustache walked down from the fires of the ruined house and asked if they would like a ride back to the lodge.
Like, do you not notice the burning house and bleeding teenagers sitting in the snow, sir? No? Apparently not:
“Watching the football game in the bar, I got so drunk by the fourth quarter that I passed out. Can’t hold my liquor like I used to. The bartender, Old Ed, he and I go way back. He just let me sleep.”
He goes on and ON AND ON—for, I kid you not, like, A FULL PAGE—and it turns out.
IT. TURNS. OUT.
IT TURNS OUT THAT HE IS THERE BECAUSE CAL REPORTED SOMETHING BEING SKETCHY UP THERE OMG
“Nice fellow, that Cal. Real conscience.”
“Sure is,” Lara said, thinking that he had probably saved her life twice.
Coming to at the mention of Cal, Mindy said, “I’m his girl friend.”
“Oh, God,” Dana muttered.
I. CAN’T. EVEN.
Is the moral of this story that we should actually trust dudes who sexually assault us because actually, underneath it all, they’re nice guys?
Because that’s what I feel like it’s telling me.
The colonel suddenly notices that they’re one teenager down:
“Yes,” Lara bowed her head, touching Nicole. “Nell was our other friend. We did everything we could to save her. But it wasn’t enough.”
Despite the abject sketchiness of whatever we’re supposed to be taking away from the Cal Business, I AM GENUINELY. DELIGHTED. that Percy had nothing whatsoever to do with the rescue??????
Next up: OMG WAIT THERE’S AN EPILOGUE
Subscribe so that you don’t miss installments, let me know about your memories of reading (and watching!) horror as a tween and teen. I’m also always here if you’ve got recommendations.
Talk soon,
Leila
`\(>o<)/` Wait, WHAAAAAT....!?!
How is this ALL stuffed into the last chapter, and there's still room for MONOLOGUES!?
I have to give Mindy props - her motives at least remain consistent, and hilarious. But srsly, all this murder and mayhem was about not having a boyfriend!~?! (Also, think back to fifteen-sixteen year old you: where are you buying mass quantities of kerosene and sedatives? And with what money? DETAILS, man.) Mr. Pike clearly believes teen girls are dumber than protozoa. Nell's face melting with acceptance (urg) is one thing; she apparently has tormented herself with guilt and in fiction parlance she receives A Fitting End. I mean, I GUESS. But Celeste/Nicole is apparently still the dumb little sister following along - wouldn't she have just offed her parents and been done with it? It's their shame that's hurt her most - and kept her from better reconstructive surgery, because COME ON, in 1984 it was available, people were getting sandbags put into their boobs already.
There's still a blatant othering of the disabled that's implied; Pike handily reminds teen readers that a.) their looks are the only thing that will make them lovable or find them partners and b.) imperfections in said looks are worth dying over, because c.) without a partner, YOU MIGHT AS WELL DIE. God forbid if you are born with marks, have scarred or something like a harelip or vitiligo or whatnot. NO ONE WILL EVER LOVE YOU, FREAK.
That such a weirdly 19th century attitude, and it's bizarre that his entire plot pivots on reinforcing old school tropes - all men who want sex are dogs (esp. if they're characterized as sloppy or fat), all women who want sex are whores, (esp. if they're fat and too enthusiastic), everyone who is disabled/disfigured/different is some kind of murderous freak. Okay, so those are typical horror tropes - poking at our primal fears, and I can see that Mr. Pike struggles to reverse this in the single chapter in which he allows everything to unspool --
*Cal turns out to be both a Manly Man with Appetites and a Stand-Up Man in the end,
*Nicole turns out to do the "right" thing - of a sort,
*Dana turns out to be all right after all - even if still unseemly in her hungers.
But, Pike left very little time for any of this to be ...um, believable? Which is I guess... okay. It's horror. It's supposed to be just Scary not Sensible. One of the reasons I don't always care for horror so much, aside from the obvious gore (for some reason, I don't mind a body count, as I do read mysteries? But it has to make...sense?) is that some of the lazier writers ONLY play on people's lizard-brain fears for plot devices and don't do anything more than the characters or plot. Mindy is comedy GOLD, and Dana makes me snort. He could have done more with humor but I remain convinced that this is not a man who a.) understands teens, b.) understands females, c.) understands teen females d.) ought to write books featuring any of the above. Ever.
Okay, though, not gonna lie. I'm so glad we're spared the unctuous Perry this chapter. Of course, he's going to pop back up like recurring acne in the epilogue, but still - it's been a nice break.
This book still cracks me up. Our library doesn't carry a lot of him - he's gotten weeded no doubt - but I'm going to have to look better for a copy next time.