Middle Aged Slumber Party #4
Christopher Pike's Slumber Party: Chapter One, Part Four
Hello, friends.
Welcome to the fourth installment of my deep dive into Christopher Pike’s Slumber Party, in which we will FINALLY come to the end of the first chapter.
Want to start from the beginning? Part One. Part Two. Part Three.
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.
The had scarcely began to chat again when Rachael and Mindy slid onto the scene.
“Percy!” Rachael exclaimed. “So there you are! Where’s Cal?”
Oh no, Lara thought. She braced herself for a scene.
—Slumber Party, Chapter One
Scene Six: Enter Rachael and Mindy
Rachael and Mindy show up, and it is immediately apparent that RACHAEL! KNOWS! PERCY! and Lara knows that she’s In For It.
Which tracks, because Rachael definitely seems like the type to call dibs on another human being.
Mindy’s response when she finds out that Dana is with Cal:
Mindy’s bubble gum slipped out of her mouth and fell on the floor. “With Dana?”
Classic Mindy.
Rachael, meanwhile, sizes the whole Percy/Lara thing up VERY QUICKLY:
“We’ve met,” Lara muttered. Percy nodded, sinking back into his chair.
“Great,” Rachael said brightly, casting her a microsecond glance that communicated a reservoir of hate.
A RESERVOIR OF HATE.
It takes less than a page for Percy to peace out of a suddenly very tense situation, leaving Lara to fend off Rachael on her own, so that doesn’t really speak well to his character EITHER.
I can’t help but kind of like him for very helpfully telling Rachael that he and Lara met at the fruit bowl, though. It plays a little bit like if Johnny Castle had had the “I carried a watermelon” line, but, you know, made it cool.
Anyway, after Percy leaves, a fight breaks out IMMEDIATELY:
Lara bit her lip, and waved her hand impotently. “This is crazy. I just ran into him by accident.”
“At the fruit bowl,” Rachael spat.
“I didn’t know he was with you,” Lara said, raising her voice.
“And I supposed while the two of you were talking, my name was never mentioned!?”
“Right! Why should we talk about you?”
“Because it was me he was supposed to meet!”
“So he got lucky!”
“Why you little tramp!”
“Why you bigger one!”
Every time I re-read this squabble, it gets funnier. I feel like if a modern television show tried to pull it off, the characters would HAVE to start laughing by the end, it just seems IMPOSSIBLE to play it completely straight?
And then Rachael asks a question that she MUST already know the answer to, right?:
There was a pause. Rachael asked with a slow razor: “Why did you invite him up to the house?”
“What a creep!” Dana swore, dropping in on their merry group. Her hair and makeup were a mess. “I’m five minutes in that guy’s room, helping him unpack, you understand, when he sneaks up behind me and begins to maul me like a — like an octopus. What does he think I am!? I should call a cop, or a ranger, or something. For your sake, Lara, I’m glad that Percy said that Cal wasn’t really a friend. Rachael, Mindy, you would had to have seen this guy.”
“They have,” Lara told the ceiling. “They have.”
—Slumber Party, Chapter One
Scene Seven: The Return of Dana
Soooo, obviously our suspicions/concerns about Cal were warranted.
Also, I guess Dana is psychic now, because I’m pretty sure Percy only clarified that he and Cal weren’t really friends after Dana and Cal left, but I could be wrong because this chapter has been approximately 900 pages long.
Also, wait, they have a room? So they must be there for fun, not for work? Even though, according to Percy, they’re not actually friends? I DON’T UNDERSTAND THESE PEOPLE’S LIFE CHOICES.
Everything about Mindy’s reaction—and the narrator’s parenthetical—is *chef’s kiss*:
“Did you sleep with Cal?!” Mindy screamed, bursting into tears. (Mindy suffered from the classically feminist-deficient upbringing. It was never the guy’s fault.)
That said, AGAIN, Percy is not entirely innocent in this either.
Rachael is suddenly exhausted/disgusted/over it, takes Mindy by the hand, and heads out to go skiing.
The chapter ends:
Dana watched them go in wonder. “I must have missed something.”
“You’d be amazed,” Lara said.
So I guess that everyone’s taking a sexual assault in Chapter One—and the fact that this dude is now coming over for a slumber party—in stride??
Next Thursday: WE BEGIN CHAPTER TWO!!
In the meantime, 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