Middle Aged Slumber Party #9
Christopher Pike's Slumber Party: Chapter Three, Part Two
Hello, friends.
Welcome to the ninth installment of my deep dive into Christopher Pike’s Slumber Party, in which the Mustachioed Ranger becomes even MORE mysterious.
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.
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 crackling fire in the living room was seductive. Lara took a minute to sit on the surrounding bricks, letting the warmth ease her tired muscles. Nell had piled high the logs. One would have thought she would have been wary of fires.
—Slumber Party, Chapter Three
Scene Five: In the living room with Rachael
Like V.C. Andrews, Christopher Pike appears to hate contractions.
Rachael appears to not know about Lara’s skiing accident?:
“What happened to your head?
Lara had forgotten the dried blood. She would have to take a shower immediately. Curious how Nell hadn’t commented on it.
Anyway, Rachael expresses concern—which makes Lara second guess her assumption that Rachael had deliberately engineered the accident—but then goes fully, hilariously Mean Girlfriend in her next line:
“Better wash that blood out of your hair. It looks totally gross.”
I know she really shouldn’t be my favorite character, but I don’t know, somewhere along the way I think I started regarding Mean Girls as survivors more than straight-up villains. Even though they usually get done in real bad in slashers. Ah, well, as a person who lives in the world, I can handle a little cognitive dissonance, I guess?
She also says that she hasn’t seen Dana and that she assumes that she’s with Cal because:
“Nothing she likes better than a good feel and Cal’s perfect for that, though that’s probably all he’s good for.”
The girls spar a bit about Percy, and then Lara heads off to the kitchen… after taking a pause to reflect on what friendship is really about:
She’d won that round. Still, the final score was all that mattered.
Sigh.
In the kitchen, before taking an inventory of Nell’s stock, Lara called the lodge. The number was on a typed sheet posted next to the phone.
—Slumber Party, Chapter Three
Scene Six: Reporting Dana’s disappearance
I love that little detail from the past, LOL.
So, Lara gets the Parks Administration on the horn and tells them about Dana’s disappearance:
“The problem is — actually, I’m not sure if it is a problem — is that my girl friend has sort of disappeared. Her name is Dana Miller.”
To be completely fair, I really can’t give Lara grief about this—it is entirely possible that Dana is out gallivanting? Though with the Cal thing and the missing ski, calling feels like the smart move.
The ranger is surprisingly receptive—I’d have expected him to totally pooh-pooh her concerns—and he promises to page Dana at the lodge periodically, even taking the house info so that he can at least let her know if she shows up.
And then—AND THEN!!!--she asks about the Mustachioed Wonder:
“One other thing. Do you have a ranger on staff who looks like Colonel Sanders?”
“Pardon me?”
“The chicken guy. A ranger who looks like and calls himself the colonel said he was going to move our cars for us. I was wondering if he was legit.”
“I know of no one on our staff who fits that description. But then again, I am new here. Did he take your keys?”
“Yes he did.”
“Then you might have a problem.”
YOU THINK????
But then she’s like WELP, NOTHING I CAN DO ABOUT IT NOW, I GUESS I WON’T BOTHER MENTIONING IT TO ANYONE ELSE, INCLUDING RACHAEL, WHOSE CAR HE ALSO MOVED.
Food for the party would have to be the priority. She was pleased to discover that Nell had stocked a diverse supply of sandwich ingredients: rye and wheat bread, cold cuts, french rolls, cheese, lettuce, butter, tomatoes, plus bags of chips and cartons of dips, and an entire case of Coke. That would take care of dinner, but dessert would have to have a personal touch. She was flipping through a ten-pound cookbook, thinking that she would never be able to bake anything that ever remotely resembled the luscious color photos, when Celeste came to her rescue.
—Slumber Party, Chapter Three
Scene Seven: In the kitchen with Celeste
Hilariously, Celeste is HORRIFIED at Lara’s plan to serve sandwiches, shoves her in a corner, and makes a lemon meringue pie, two chickens, and:
That was but the beginning. Soon Celeste had the entire contents of the cupboards arranged on the table and counter top, moving each ingredient toward an invisible feast.
I’m actually sneak-writing this while I’m at work, and I’M KIND OF MAD AT CHRISTOPHER PIKE BC NOW I’M FEELING ALL SNACKY AND I ALREADY ATE MY LUNCH.
Celeste gets Lara chatting about Percy, and this next bit feels like another one of those brief moments where everyone acts like a normal human being:
The other girls were working to give the house a festive atmosphere, wandering in and out of the kitchen only to stuff food in their mouths. Rachael strolled in while Lara was describing Percy’s voice. More harsh nonverbal exchanges. Lara was getting used to them. But she was afraid that Nell would be upset at the control Celeste had taken of her kitchen. Yet Nell seemed to take it all in stride.
Well, okay, I guess it was just the first sentence that made them all seem normal, LOL.
With her pie tucked in the oven, Lara left Celeste to take a shower and wash the blood out of her hair. The cut reopened and the red drops trailing down her naked body made her feel slightly dizzy. There was no way she could bandage it. The hot water also made her drowsy and a nap sounded just perfect. But before she lay down on her bed, she gave the house a white-glove inspection. Was she expecting to find Dana tucked away in a secret hideout in Cal’s arms? Not really, but she had a nagging compulsion that bid her search till she could find something.
—Slumber Party, Chapter Three
Scene Eight: Showering, exploring, a return to the snowman murder crime scene
In re: that line about Dana and Cal: GAG. ME.
So Lara wanders around the house, including into the basement, where she Has Dramatic Thoughts At The Propane Tank:
The end of the search found her in the basement, beside a snowmobile and the huge, recently installed propane tank that Nell had mentioned, cold to her hesitant touch. It was scary. The image of a shattered house rising on a mushroom cloud formed and lingered in her mind. Why these constant thoughts about fire? Unseen flames seemed ready to spark out of the air.
Good lord. Thoughts about fire make sense given the history of the friend group, but A MUSHROOM CLOUD is maybe, just MAYBE, pushing it? LIKE, A LITTLE BIT?????? Then again, there was that line earlier about Cal and napalm?
She goes outside and studies the site of the New Wave Snowman’s sudden death and ENDS UP ON HER HANDS AND KNEES IN THE SNOW, where she has a bit of a—forgive me—MELTDOWN (hahahaha, i rule), before staggering back to her bedroom, where the Drama Continues:
Thawing out beneath layers of blankets, colorless fire sparkled inside her closed eyes. There was a face inside the flames, a face that should have slipped into the past, but that continued to shadow her, haunt her — a melting face in horrifying pain. . . .
…I’m not sure what’s going on with the choice to italicize colorless? And I’m starting to wonder a bit Lara’s sanity? REGARDLESS, END OF CHAPTER THREE!!
Next up: Chapter Four, in which WE GET A FULL FLASHBACK OF… THE INCIDENT.
And that’s it for this round! More next Thursday.
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
LOL, the Parks & Rec guy - "Then YOU might have a problem." I mean, it's not THEIR problem that someone is masquerading as a ranger and, you know, interacting with people at a campsite. They don't take a dim view of that at all!
I'm kind of mad Dana vanished, but honestly... I should have expected it. Pike characterizes her sandwich-finishing self as fat, and we know the fat girl gets it first.