Middle Aged Slumber Party #16
Christopher Pike's Slumber Party: Epilogue
Hello, friends.
Welcome to the sixteenth installment of my deep dive into Christopher Pike’s Slumber Party, AND I SWEAR THIS IS FINALLY IT, THE VERY VERY END OF THE BOOK.
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.
Chapter Seven.
Lara leaned against the hospital window on her tender nose, feeling the warmth of the barren sandy landscape beyond. The sky was a hard blue, allowing a clear view of the distant snowcapped peaks. The storm had passed.
—Slumber Party, by Christopher Pike
Scene One: In Nicole’s hospital room
“The storm had passed.” GET IT? Because there was an actual storm, but Lara’s adventure could be called a STORM? Oh, Christopher Pike, you old clever clogs.
It’s Monday afternoon, and Lara is about to be discharged. She’s in Nicole’s room to see her one last time before leaving. Luckily, while she’s in there, Nicole wakes up for the first time since passing out in the snow—her injuries were so serious that she was transported to the hospital VIA HELICOPTER.
Both of Nicole’s arms are “heavily bandaged” and also hanging by wires from the ceiling, I think because of the burns? Lara, meanwhile, is on crutches—her injured knee require surgery—and she has frostbite blisters on all of her fingers, as well as cracked ribs and a burned leg.
They talk a bit about the whole ordeal, mainly their feelings about Nell, which are decidedly mixed—that she did Bad Things, but that they’ll still miss her, etc., etc.
Lara also reassures Nicole that they haven’t told anyone—namely, the authorities—what really happened, and that no one plans to:
“The four of us have taken a solemn vow, and none of them would dare say a word with the skeletons I could drag out of their closets.” Lara hugged her carefully. “In my house, if you like, you can still be Celeste.” She kissed her forehead.
Forehead kisses are never not weird. (Also, I want to know more about these skeletons? What does she have on Mindy? Or Dana??)
Limping out of the elevator into a hospital lobby, Lara saw Rachael and her mother talking to a handsome young gentleman. Rachael, a white bandage wrapped around the top of her head, had her hand on his shoulder and was laughing.
—Slumber Party, by Christopher Pike
Scene Two: In the hospital hallway
The “handsome young gentleman” is, of course, Percy. Barf.
Still alllllllll the sideeye:
She momentarily lost her crutches with his enthusiastic hello. His hug murdered her broken ribs, but it was worth it. “You look a mess,” he laughed, gently touching the bandage on her face.
Like, sideeye because he’s giving her a bear hug despite her injuries, and that’s just RUDE?? And also vaguely negging her, ugh, I get that he’s supposed to be Gently Ribbing Her or whatever but I just can’t stand him.
ANYWAY, Percy only found out what had happened because he left the mountain without talking to Cal because he was mad at him and then when he called Lara’s house—at SIX IN THE MORNING, and OH MY GOD WHAT IS WITH THIS GUY, I mean sure, I get up at four a.m. most days, but calling someone at SIX IN THE MORNING IF THERE’S NOT AN EMERGENCY IS MASSIVELY RUDE. LIKE LET PEOPLE DRINK THEIR TEA IN PEACE OR WHATEVER, YEESH.
So Percy asks-without-asking if it was REALLY an accident:
“It was a terrible accident,” Lara said deliberately.
He understood, probably everything.
I… wouldn’t count on it, and anyway, didn’t she LITERALLY just say something about a solemn vow TO NOT TELL PEOPLE WHAT REALLY HAPPENED? And WHY. WHY would he understand, “probably everything” when HE HAD LESS TO DO WITH ALL OF IT THAN CAL DID???
I’m on the second-to-last page here and it is clear that Percy will NEVER win me over, good lord.
So Lara’s mom is here to pick her up—she literally gets no dialogue because adults purely exist to be chauffeurs, I guess, though I feel like I know a lot of parents who’d say SOUNDS LEGIT—and she basically just stands there in the background crying about The Tragedy Of Nell while all the Youths are being jackasses.
And oh, good—and by “oh, good” I OBVIOUSLY MEAN THE OPPOSITE—I guess we’re back to picking on Dana:
Mindy’s arm was in a sling. The doctors promised a minimum of scarring. Dana hadn’t even required hospitalization. Though she, too, had ended up ruining one fine pair of pants.
Number one thing I did not expect in a Christopher Pike book: A runner about two of the main characters peeing themselves??
FINALLY, when the book ends, it’s basically like the end of an episode of Murder, She Wrote, where the main cast all start laughing and then there’s a freeze frame??
Also Dana and Cal ARE AN ITEM???:
“Is Cal out in your car?” Mindy demanded of Dana.
“I didn’t bring my car,” Dana muttered.
“Is he out in your van?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Mindy,” Lara said.
Mindy lost her wad of gum, accidentally stomped her foot on it. “Is he?!”
Dana was fixing her blouse. “Well. . . .” she began.
The coffee shop all over again.
With the exception of her mother, they all rode home in the back of Dana’s van. Never a dull moment.
So Lara’s mother drove all the way to the hospital to pick Lara up, only to drive home alone????
That is… an anticlimatic ending, but it kind of works??
Next up: I’M NOT SURE?
Maybe Prom Dress, which isn’t by Christopher Pike but is about a cursed/haunted prom dress?? Open to suggestions!
(My feeling is that I’m not going to start it until we’re through Summer Reading at the library, because we’re barely a week into it and my brain is ALREADY completely shot, so I’m thinking early September?)
In the meantime: Thank you SO MUCH for going on this weird-ass, somewhat ridiculous journey with me.
Subscribe so that you don’t miss future installments, and 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
Hahaha, this was hilarious, thank you! Ooh, yes please do Prom Dress next! I remember that one from when I was a teenager, about these girls all stealing this dress from each other because it looks so incredible on them a la Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, then awful things happen to them.
Thank you for reminding me of the MANY freeze-frame endings of 80's sitcoms, now am going to laugh hysterically and freeze with my face in a ghastly rictus JUST BECAUSE.
Aww, just the idea that Cal came to apologize - even though he never did it out loud and nobody (readers, anyway) heard or saw it - is enough to render him wholly harmless once again. Additionally, as all the fats must stick together it is written in the stars that he be with Dana, whatever trunk she's stuffed him into, AND SO MOTE IT BE. Honestly, it makes the most sense for Lara to continue to be consistently ridiculous and HINT at things she's solemnly sworn not to reveal. (LOLOLOL that Perry is So Wise that he understands "probably everything." Mr. Pike has no understanding of human females and clearly no memory of being an adolescent male, because comprehension = not high on the list of characteristics. At all.)
Sadly, I kind of feel like it's realistic for Perry to crush Lara; my friend Eddie fractured his skull and had to be airlifted from the lake at the camp where we worked, and what's the first thing I did to him when I saw him? I whacked him upside the head for saying something dumb like "Oh, hi." I kid you not. I was a very dumb seventeen-year-old, so relieved he was alive I did something wholly mortifying. Oy.
I also love Lara's naive belief that Dana's driving has improved by now and will make her bashed ribs feel just fine... um, this belief is not shared amongst readers, as Dana will now be doubly distracted.. "fixing her blouse." Yeah, I see you implying, Mr. Pike.
Someday Lara will be just as much as a dialog-less prop as her mother. I wish her joy of that day.
(PS, did you ever read SWEET VALLEY HIGH's "Murder in Paradise?!" I somehow had no idea there was a SVH murder mystery, and am cackling.
Thinking back on it, Richard Peck's "Are You in the House Alone" is the only horror I read as an Actual Teen (TM) and it was ...DREADFUL, cw for rape and violence, and yikes. That wasn't going after my lizard brain, my forebrain was pretty terrified of that one, too. I think the Goosebumps thing was as far as I got after that, and my students read those, and I rolled my eyes a lot, but meh, they were reading, who cares. I just can't seem to take horror seriously, and maybe that was the problem - maybe I should always have been reading them like this and laughing a lot.
I am here for the prom dress - it's like a really bad traveling pants/wedding dress match-up. It's supposed to bring every wearer luck on their special day, but instead it traps them within its airless polyester folds and EATS THEM, bwa-HAHAAHAHA. Yeah, I'm down.)