Tagline: And the new queen is…dead!
Back tagline: Winning isn’t everything.
Summary: Tania is having the best year of her life. She has a hot new boyfriend, she’s landed the starring rile in a student film, and she’s just been voted homecoming queen.
But someone is jealous of Tania. Someone plans to ruin her perfect year—even if they have to kill her. Will Tania live to see the homecoming dance?
First impressions: A corpse on the cover is always a good sign, so I’m looking forward to this one! Hopefully there’s more than one death here because it’s been a while since we’ve had multiple kills in one book. Based on the dead body and the book’s title, I think we can safely assume Tania dies, right? Or maybe a previous Homecoming Queen is the corpse. Only one way to find out. Let’s read!
Recap
Roll call:
Eva – Our protagonist whose best friend goes missing.
Tania – Eva’s bestie and titular Homecoming Queen.
Jeremy – Tania’s stepbrother and Eva’s crush.
Leslie – Tania’s rival.
Sandy – Tania’s boyfriend who’s sneaking around with Cherise.
Cherise – The other woman in Sandy’s life.
Keith – Jeremy’s best friend who’s working on a film for his college portfolio.
We open with our protagonist, Eva Whelan [I hate when the blurbs make it seem like another person is the the main character ;(] heading to the school gym for a pep rally with her best friend, Tania Darman. This is an especially exciting pep rally because the Homecoming Queen is going to be revealed, and Tania is one of the nominees! Woo! The slender, attractive blonde is happy to be nominated but isn’t too fussed about winning since she’s already having an incredible year – her mum’s just remarried and they’ve moved to a great new house; she really likes her stepfather, and her stepbrother is awesome too. Eva particularly agrees with that last part – she’s got a major crush on Jeremy and ‘definitely wanted the chance to get to know him better’ [Hubba hubba!]. Eva’s got her fingers crossed that Tania wins anyway, and Tania jokes about whether Eva can predict the outcome with her psychic abilities:
Eva shook her head. Some of her friends thought she was psychic because she got weird feelings every once in awhile. She could sense when something was wrong, even though she couldn’t tell exactly what.
[…]
She didn’t get these feelings all the time. But when she did get one, she trusted it.
Still, feelings were just that—feelings. She couldn’t predict what was going to happen. She couldn’t look into the future.
[Why do her friends think intuition is a psychic power? Hahaha] Tania’s also dating one of the coolest guys in school, Sandy, who’s the captain of the football team and definitely a little conceited, but he seems crazy about Tania so Eva’s happy for her friend. As they hurry toward the gym with everyone else, the crowd grows thick at the top of the stairs and after being jostled around herself, Eva notices a pair of hands reaching out right before Tania ‘goes hurtling down the stairs’.
Luckily, Tania manages to catch herself on the railing before any damage can be done and her biggest rival, Leslie, appears at the top of the stairs, apologising – she’d slipped and accidentally shoved Tania when she tried to catch her balance [Yeah right, Leslie!]. Eva gives her the benefit of the doubt, is fully aware that a serious injury would knock Tania out of the running and improve Leslie’s chances of becoming Homecoming Queen [Ugh, Leslie’s one of those girls].
Apparently Leslie and Tania used to be close friends, but Leslie was super jealous of her and ended the friendship [Ugh, I hate her already. Tania seems great!]. After making sure Tania’s OK, Leslie apologises some more and heads into the gym before Tania also hurries inside, ahead of Eva for some reason. Almost as soon as she’s gone, Eva gets an intuitive feeling:
As another bunch of students cluttered past her down the stairway, Eva shivered. The laughter and shouts seemed far away, and the sound of the band faded.
She felt as if a dark, chilly cloud had suddenly settled over her.
The sensation lasted for only a second. Then everything became bright and noisy again.
[Now that there’s a description of it, it definitely seems like something more than simple intuition. Maybe she is mildly psychic, to some extent!]. Eva convinces herself it wasn’t one of her feelings, that she’s just hungry after skipping lunch, and nothing bad will happen [That’s a weird reaction to hunger, girl] and follows the crowd into the gym.
Inside, a small platform has been set up where the nominees for Queen are sitting – Tania, Julia, Mei [From What Holly Heard!], and Deidre [The protagonist from the Fear Park trilogy that I’m yet to recap], but Leslie is nowhere in sight. A bad feeling begins to creep over Eva again as she finds a seat, and then she hears a sharp, metallic ‘piercing blast that echoed off the walls of the gym’ – a gunshot [!!!].
Except it’s not a gunshot, as Eva realises shortly after letting out a terrified cry; it’s just the boy next to her crushing his soda can [Really, Eva?].
Eva’s super embarrassed, scolding herself for mistaking a sound she’s heard a million times for a gunshot, but I like her so I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and hope that her bad feeling made her jump to the worst possible conclusion. Sure enough, she also decides it’s because she’s feeling so jumpy, and even though her bad feelings have always been right in the past, she reckons this one won’t come true [Wishful thinking, I guess].
Leslie suddenly appears, running toward the platform to take her seat, eating up the attention from the crowd as Eva realises the girl just wanted to make a grand entrance [Someone kill Leslie, plz]. Then Eva spots Keith, a nice enough guy who dreams of becoming a film director, sitting next to Jeremy, Tania’s stepbrother. She lights up as she notices the empty seat on the other side of Jeremy and plops herself down with the intention of flirting a little before asking him to the Homecoming Dance [We love a girl who takes initiative!].
Jeremy really wants Tania to win since they’ve gotten so close now that they’re siblings, and Eva reveals how happy Tania is about her new family as well. Keith pipes up about a video he’s making in order to score a scholarship to film school and wonders if Tania will act in it. He’s got a crush on her and admits he’ll do anything to get close to her, but there’s something about the look in his eyes that gives Eva the willies [I think we’ve found our red herring!].
He jokes about writing Tania dumping Sandy for him into the script, and Jeremy quips that the only way Tania will notice Keith is if he murders Sandy. Again, Keith gets a weird look on his face that gives Eva the creeps, and the feeling doesn’t go away this time as she wonders what Keith’s thinking.
Keith explains that Leslie, who wants to be an actor, has agreed to be in his film, even offering to play the lead role, but Keith would much prefer Tania, especially if she wins, because the film is titled ‘Who Killed the Homecoming Queen?’ [Ooh, how meta!]. His eyes flash with excitement as he tells Jeremy and Eva the name, and Eva continues to sense that something is wrong.
The Homecoming Queen is announced, and the winner is…Tania Darman! [Woo!] The crowd goes wild and the other nominees, who will be princesses in the Homecoming Court, shower Tania with hugs, except for Leslie [Typical Leslie]. As Tania heads towards the podium, her arms suddenly drop limply to her sides and then ‘as if a giant boot had come crashing down on top of her, she crumpled in a heap to the floor’.
She comes to almost instantly and after reaching the podium, explains she has low blood sugar and too much excitement can make her faint. She humbly thanks the audience for her win and as the pep rally wraps up, Eva and Jeremy head down to congratulate her. Jeremy pulls ahead and Eva bumps into a teary-eyed Leslie and feels sorry for her. Eva offers some supportive words but Leslie’s got some ranting to do:
“It’s just that Tania gets everything she wants—and I get nothing. Even her low blood sugar is a great thing!”
“Huh?” Eva cried. Leslie had to be kidding. “What’s so great about having low blood sugar?”
“It means she gets to eat six candy bars a day!” Leslie wailed. “And look at how thin she is!”
[Ugh, I’m so jealous of people with good genes who don’t have to worry about gaining weight]. Eva tries to point out that Tania hasn’t always had it easy, but Leslie reminds her that even Tania’s parents’ divorce ended well for her, scoring a new family and a great new house. And now she’s Homecoming Queen too! Eva reminds her about the other girls who lost too, but Leslie basically tells her to fuck off and storms away [OK, I feel sort of bad for Leslie now. It’s not that she’s necessarily jealous of Tania’s life, but more that Leslie’s always coming in second best and feels inferior].
Eva’s determined to try get Leslie to stop hating Tania so much and chases after her, but something else catches her attention behind the bleachers – Tania’s boyfriend, Sandy, having a pash with the coppery-haired Cherise [What, right where everyone, including Tania, could possibly see them? Idiot]. The pair is too busy locking lips to notice an audience, and Eva’s torn about what to do – does she let the rumour mill take its course and let her best friend find out that way, or does she simply tell Tania herself, despite the grief it would cause her? [I mean as her best friend, I think you’re obliged to tell her. It’d be rude not to. April made that mistake and look what happened to her!].
As Eva turns back to the exit she finds Leslie blocking her way, and Leslie’s also watching Sandy and Cherise tongue wrestle. She’s positively delighted as she turns to Eva and declares, ‘”This will kill Tania!”‘ [OK, I don’t like her again].
The next day, Eva sneakily watches near the bleachers as Tania confront Sandy about his infidelities. She declares that not only did her friends see him sneaking around, but she did too, so he may as well stop lying. Sandy’s totally gaslighting her though, denying the whole thing and declaring her and her friends are wrong about what they think they saw [Fuck off, Sandy]. Tania knows what she saw, though, and in a major display of self-respect not often seen in these books, declares their relationship over [I love her!].
Sandy’s all like ‘”What’s that supposed to mean?” [Even though, like, what else could it possibly mean, lol], so Tania makes her single status more clear, announcing that as the Homecoming Queen, she won’t be going to the dance with him and looking like an idiot [Good girl!]. Sandy’s super mad and grabs her arm as she begins to walk away. He starts shaking her by the shoulders ‘until her head wobbled like a rag doll’s’ until finally Tania manages to twist in his grip and punch him in the side of the head [Get him, Tania!].
He’s briefly stunned, but then he lunges at Tania, wrapping his meaty paws around her neck and strangling her. Eva hurries over to intervene, but she’s too late save her friend, who slumps lifelessly to the ground [!!!] as Eva lets out a horrified scream.
And then Keith yells ‘cut’ from behind the camera [Hahaha you’re bloody joking! That little fake-out was pretty good, Stine! Although one thing that doesn’t make sense is that right at the start, Eva stopped herself from sneezing because she didn’t want Tania and Sandy to notice her, since ‘who knows what might happen then?’. But in reality, they already know she’s there as part of the scene, so the only reason she shouldn’t want to sneeze is to not ruin the scene, right?] and tells everyone to take five before congratulating Eva on her believable performance. Unfortunately though, a plane is overhead and the sound of it was picked up on the tape, so they’ll have to shoot the scene again much to Sandy’s annoyance. As they reset for the scene, Tania, who’s been laying on her back staring up at the sky this whole time, is completely unresponsive [Is it her blood sugar levels again?].
She comes to pretty quickly and explains she just needs a candy bar [How many times is this girl going to faint, Stine?]. Keith whips out a Hershey’s bar from his backpack and everyone’s relieved Tania’s OK, especially Sandy:
“You really gave me a scare. I don’t know what I’d do if something really bad happened to you.”
You’d run straight to Cherise for sympathy, Eva thought in disgust. And she’d give you plenty of it.
“I’m fine,” Tania assured Sandy. “But thanks for being so worried.”
Sandy smiled and pulled Tania closer to him.
Eva felt like gagging.
What a two-faced creep he is! she thought.
[Hahaha I love Eva]. After the disgusting display of false affection, Eva decides Tania needs to know the truth about her boyfriend ASAP. Keith asks everyone to reset for another take, but Tania doesn’t have time because she has to be in the auditorium in 10 minutes for a rehearsal of the Homecoming ceremony. She apologises for fainting and wasting precious time and heads off.
Eva catches up to her as they enter the auditorium and struggles with how to tell Tania about Sandy. Before she can even start talking, though, Leslie rushes out from the darkness, threatening to kill Tania! She’s mad because Tania’s stolen yet another thing she wanted, the lead role in Keith’s film. Leslie was counting on it for her college portfolio and accuses Tania of stealing it despite knowing of Leslie’s life goal to become an actor [It’s not all about you, Leslie].
Tania’s super understanding of Leslie’s anger and explains she didn’t know she wanted the role, and if Keith had said something, she would have told him to use Leslie instead. Leslie grudgingly accepts it, but since her day is ruined, she thinks it’s only fair to ruin Tania’s as well. Eva refuses to let this little cow be the one to break the news about Sandy, especially because Leslie will enjoy it way too much, so she quickly pulls Leslie aside and warns her to keep her mouth shut. Leslie agrees not to tell her… for now.
As she stalks off, Tania asks Eva what that was all about, but the rest of the Homecoming Court arrives and Eva decides now is not the time.
The following day, Saturday, Eva waits by the fountain in the Division Street Mall for Tania to arrive so they can shop for Homecoming dresses. She spots cutie patootie Jeremy in the crowd and calls him over, who explains Tania dropped him off, but had to head back home because she forgot something she wanted to return at the mall. Eva jumps at the chance to spend a little time with Jeremy and the pair heads to Pete’s Pizza for a Coke wile they wait.
Jeremy talks about getting used to his new family, but he’s not complaining – he actually likes curfews and chores that his new mother has introduced [Gross]. Before his dad remarried, Jeremy was left on his own a lot, and he’d gotten into trouble at his old school. He doesn’t want to talk about it though, and although Eva’s super curious, she drops it because a nice, shy guy like Jeremy couldn’t have gotten into any major trouble, right? [He probably just had a cigarette].
The conversation turns to the Homecoming Dance and Eva shoots her shot, asking if he’s got a date yet. Unfortunately for her, Jeremy’s not listening because something behind her has caught his attention and he’s glaring angrily at whatever it is. Following his gaze, she spots none other than Sandy and Cherise canoodling in a booth towards the back of the restaurant [These two are so fkn stupid hahahaha. If you’re gonna cheat on someone, don’t do it in public]. Disgusted, Eva turns away and at that same moment, Tania walks into the restaurant [Oooh, I hope she sees!].
Fortunately for Tania [But unfortunately for us] and Eva, who wants to be the one who tell her bestie about Sandy [Although she’s taking her sweet ass time], Jeremy dashes over to Tania and ushers her out of the store while Eva concludes she needs to break the news as soon as she can.
Tania’s way too excited about finding a dress for Homecoming, so Eva doesn’t want to burst her bubble. She tries to phone her on Sunday, but there’s no answer. On Monday afternoon, the gang is shooting Sandy and Tania’s argument scene again, and Eva still hasn’t told Tania [Surely you had plenty of chances throughout the school day, Eva]. During a break from filming, Eva confronts Sandy about seeing Cherise behind Tania’s back, but he insists he can explain. She doesn’t want to hear it though and stalks away.
After shooting the scene once more, Keith’s video camera jams, and Sandy stomps away in frustration. Jeremy, who’s assisting Keith today, makes a snide comment about throwing a tantrum, and Eva realises he’s just as angry as her [Couple goals!]. During the next take, they get all the way to the part where Tania slumps to the ground, acting dead, before they’re interrupted once more. As they go to reset one last time, Tania’s still on the ground. They assume she’s just fainted again, but Sandy soon realises she’s no longer breathing [!!!].
Jeremy bolts over to his fallen stepsister and backs up Sandy’s claims as he tries to shake her back to life. Eva orders Keith to call the police and an ambulance and coldly instructs Sandy to go with him, suspecting his acting got a little too method in that last take [Is Tania really dead this time? lol]. As they scurry off, a totally distraught Jeremy decides he needs to do something and races off as well, and unsure of what he’s planning to do in his hysterical state, Eva takes off after him [You’re really just gonna leave a dead body there, huh?].
She doesn’t get far before she hears sirens approaching and spots Keith and Sandy heading back to Tania’s body. Jeremy is also drawn by the sound of help, and Eva waits for him before they both head back too, but something’s wrong – Tania’s body has disappeared [Lol whaaaat? Was it a stupid prank? But then why would Jeremy participate when he’s mad at Sandy? And why would Tania and Sandy let Keith call the authorities and waste their time like that?].
Two police officers approach, but with no body to be found, the female one instruct her partner to call off the ambulance and take a look around [I guess she thinks it’s a prank, because why else would she send a potentially life-saving resource away?]. Jeremy and Sandy follow the male officer as he makes the call, then the three of them split up in search of Tania. Meanwhile, Keith explains to the female cop what happened, starting from the beginning, and Eva can’t stop crying for her dead friend, barely listening.
She glances up as she wipes her face, and who does she see standing on the bleachers with a gleeful smile? That pesky Leslie, of course! Eva gets one of her bad feelings and points Leslie out to the cop, suggesting she might know what happened to Tania. Leslie shits her pants and scampers off, but the officers give chase and return shortly after with Leslie between them and Jeremy bringing up the rear.
When asked why she ran, Leslie explains she simply got scared when Eva pointed at her and the cops started chasing her [Ugh boring]. She had come to check out how the film was going, but didn’t arrive until everyone was already running around, so has no idea what’s happened. Eva explains Tania’s death and disappearance and Leslie seems as shocked as the rest of them, but Eva can’t shake the feeling that someone is lying.
Sandy reappears, admitting he thought Tania would be waiting in his car, but she wasn’t there. No-one quite understands what he means, so he admits it was all a joke [Fuck offfffffff] he and Tania had come up with – she’d pretend to really be dead, and then when everyone got all frantic, she’d jump up and yell ‘surprise’. You know, just for a bit of banter [Good one, guys…]. Eva points out that Jeremy confirmed Tania’s lack of breath, but he admits he was freaked out because she was so still and didn’t check her properly [Are you fucking kidding me, Jeremy? The one thing you should do if you think someone’s dead, and you didn’t do it, but pronounced her dead anyway? Idiot].
One of the officers ask if Sandy’s sure she was breathing when he pretended to check her body, but he’s not totally certain, since he was only pretending and also didn’t check properly [These people are killing me]. Jeremy accuses him of killing her and promptly gives Sandy a taste of his own medicine, wrapping his fingers around the possible killer’s throat [Isn’t it more plausible that Tania got up and walked away than that she’s actually dead? Surely someone would have seen someone take her body if that’s the case, right?].
The officers pull Jeremy off of Sandy and like me, they’re pretty sure it’s just part of a big joke because ‘”bodies don’t just disappear”‘. They promise to get to the bottom of it if it’s not, but reassure Jeremy that Tania’s probably giggling about it at home.
15 minutes later, the officers drop Eva off at her house before heading to Jeremy’s to take him home. As soon as she’s inside, Eva races up to her room and calls Tania’s house, but the line is busy. She tries a few more times, but nothing changes [Is Tania alive? Or are one of the parents hogging the phone lines?]. Pacing around her room, Eva suddenly remembers Keith’s camera – it was left on the tripod while they all scattered, but if it was turned on, maybe it caught on tape what happened with Tania [Good thinking, Eva!]. She phones Keith, who’d had the exact same idea and invites Eva over so they can watch the tape together.
Unfortunately, all the tape reveals is that the camera was jammed, so nothing was actually recorded [Bloody ’90s technology!]. Although he feels terrible, especially because he had a crush on Tania, Keith still needs to get his video done, so he’ll need to replace Tania in his film or else he won’t have anything for his college applications [Jesus, give her body time to get cold first].
Jeremy bursts in and reveals wasn’t at home and her room was exactly how it was this morning, so he’d called everyone she knew, but no-one had seen or heard from her. The police suspect it’s either a prank or Tania ran away from home, but Jeremy’s certain neither of those options are accurate. Eva’s still got her bad feeling and since they’ve always been right before, she knows something is terribly wrong, that someone was lying today. Jeremy declares that he knows for a fact that Sandy killed Tania and lets Eva and Keith in on something he didn’t even tell the police:
Jeremy stood in the middle of the room, his brown eyes narrowed in anger. “I overheard Sandy and Cherise planning to kill Tania,” he said. “That’s how I know that Sandy killed her. I heard him plotting to do it.”
[OK, why the fuck would you not tell the police that?!? It doesn’t make sense. Could Jeremy be our bad guy? Him and Tania are awfully close, could he have unrequited feelings for her or something? But then he couldn’t possibly have gotten rid of the body, since he’d ran away. I don’t know what to think and I like it!]. He explains that before the shoot today, he heard people whispering around the corner from his locker. He heard Tania’s name mentioned, so snuck up and listened. Keith questions why he didn’t mention it to the police [Good question, Keith], but Jeremy reckons he was out of his head this afternoon and couldn’t think clearly, and Eva wonders if he’s thinking clearly now.
She stops Keith from calling the police, arguing that Jeremy might have heard incorrectly since they were whispering. The boys agree to let her call Cherise instead so Eva can suss out if it’s just a simple misunderstanding [You really think Cherise would admit to you that she was plotting to kill someone, Eva? OK…]. There’s no answer though, so the next morning, which everyone has off school due to teacher conferences, Eva heads over to Cherise’s house.
As she pulls to the curb out front of Cherise’s place, she spots Cherise and Sandy sitting on the porch swing doing what else but kissing [Sandy’s the worst]? Sandy leaves a short time later and Cherise heads inside, and as Eva approaches the screen door on the porch, she hears Cherise screaming ‘”I’ll kill you, too!”‘
Except it’s not Cherise at all, but the TV, as we quickly learn when Cherise appears at the door [I feel like you’d be able to tell the difference between someone speaking nearby and the fkn TV, Eva. Guess I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt again because of her bad feeling, which still hasn’t gone away]. Cherise notices that Eva looks upset and invites her in for a Coke [A well-known solution to any teenage problem!]. Cherise brings up Tania’s disappearance and mentions what a mess Sandy is because of it [Why is she so blasé about confirming she’s the other woman to Tania’s best friend?].
Eva tells Cherise what Jeremy heard yesterday and although appalled at first, Cherise quickly realises Jeremy heard them going over Sandy’s lines for the film. It makes complete sense and Eva’s super relieved, explaining to Cherise that Jeremy’s just a bit of a mess at the moment. Cherise accepts the explanation and as she makes a beeline for her coke, the phone rings and I find a typo in the book:
She turned back to the counter and punched a button on the telephone. “Hello?”
A muffled hissing sound filled the room. Eva glanced around.
“Speakerphone,” Eva whispered to her.
“Hello?” she repeated.
[It should say Cherise whispered to her, not Eva. Silly old Stine!]
Anyway, the caller takes a long, slow breath and whispers that he/she killed Tania, and ‘”You’re next”‘ [!!!] before hanging up. Spooked, Eva suggests they alert the police, since it may have something to do with the bad feeling she’s got [I mean, it was also a threat, which is an even better reason to call them…].
The next day after school, Eva’s in the car park with Jeremy and Keith as she tells them what happened at Cherise’s place. Jeremy doesn’t say a word and walks off, while Keith wants to know what the police said. Apparently they didn’t believe the girls and think it’s part of the joke [Bruh, are you kidding me?!? Shadyside police are fucking useless hahaha].
Leslie stalks over to offer her services for the lead role in Keith’s film now that Tania’s gone, but Keith reveals he’s dropped his original idea and is working on a secret project with Sandy now, and there’s no part for Leslie in it. She storms off just as Sandy’s walking by, looking like absolute shit. He explains that he hasn’t slept and must be losing his mind, since he left all his books at school. He hurries into the building as Keith offers Eva a lift home, but she wants to find Jeremy and see if he’s OK. She can’t see him anywhere in the car park though and decides he must have gone home, and then she realises she’s left her bag in her locker.
She heads into the school building and up to the second floor where she hears a locker slam in the distance, followed by footsteps echoing closer. As she rounds a corner, she spots Leslie looking an absolute mess:
Eva sucked in her breath, shocked and frightened. She stared hard at Leslie. At the bloodstain on the front of her sweater.
Then she raised her eyes to Leslie’s face—and gasped.
A streak of blood washed across one of Leslie’s cheeks and dripped slowly down, onto her neck. Beads of bright red glistened on her eyelashes and scattered across her cheeks.
Her hands looked as if she’d dipped them into a bucket of blood.
[Great description, Stine!]. Leslie explains that she was in such a foul mood after her conversation with Keith that she slammed her locker door against the wall when she opened it. The mirror she kept on the inside shattered and the glass sprayed all over her, hence all the blood [Boring]. After helping Leslie clean up in the bathroom, Eva finally heads to her locker where there’s a dark puddle pooled on the floor. Upon opening the locker, Sandy’s corpse falls out, a blade planted viciously in his back, and Eva spots ‘”Your Turn Next!”‘ scrawled in blood on the inside of the door [Wasn’t it supposed to be Cherise’s turn after Tania?].
Three hours later, Eva, Leslie, Cherise, Keith and Jeremy have gathered at Eva’s house after being grilled separately by the cops. They’re struggling to think of why someone would be killing them off [Leslie and the boys have included themselves as targets, even though nothing threatening has happened to them. Not sure why], and they all think Leslie’s got the biggest motive for both Tania’s disappearance and Sandy’s death [Since Tania was her rival and Sandy is the subject of Keith’s new project]. She insists she’s as innocent as the rest of them and the conversation is interrupted by a phone call.
It’s the same caller who phoned Cherise’s house, who informs Eva that she’s next, after Tania and Sandy [OK, so was the phone call at Cherise’s house meant for Eva? But still, why would they tell her she’s next when Sandy was the next victim? And if it was meant for her, Keith and Jeremy are the only ones who knew she went there, so are one of them the bad guy? Or, could Tania be alive and behind this whole thing as some sort of revenge on everyone for knowing about Sandy and Cherise’s affair?!].
The next afternoon, Eva and Keith are getting set up so he can film a video profile of her for his new film project, ‘”candid video portraits”‘ of his friends. Cherise is also supposed to come film, but so far she’s a no-show [Where could she be? It’s not like she’s sneaking around with Sandy anymore, hehe]. It’s cold and Eva’s not in the mood, but Keith [Or Sandy, according to another typo, but Sandy’s not even there!] insists it has to be shot here on the bleachers because that’s where he filmed profiles of Jeremy, Sandy and Tania [But Keith didn’t change his project until after Tania died, so how does he have one of her?]. They begin filming and upon Keith’s instruction, Eva moves back against the railing for a more casual pose. But then the railing gives way and she begins to fall [!!!!].
She manages to catch the edge of a bleacher step on her way down and dangles there until Keith is able to help her back up, and after inspecting the railing, which was installed recently so can’t have just broken, they realise it’s been sawn through [Keith told her to lean on it, so maybe we’re supposed to suspect him, but why would he bother to save her? I’m ruling him out, which only leaves Cherise, Jeremy and Leslie. Leslie’s too obvious and Jeremy’s hinted at a troubled past, which is red herring territory, so Cherise is my prime suspect – maybe she took Tania out of the live triangle, then a mourning Sandy broke up with her, so she axed him as well?]. They head off to alert the police because with Sandy’s death and now this, they’ll surely start believing them [You’re in Shadyside so I doubt it]. As Eva glances back up at the bleachers, though, there’s someone standing there – Tania! [How’d she teleport there so quickly?].
Eva and Keith rush back up the steps and embrace their friend, demanding to know where she’s been. Tania reveals she’s been staying with some cousins in Waynesbridge and her disappearance was a joke to get back at them for keeping Sandy and Cherise’s affair from her. It turns out Jeremy told her about it, and he cooked up the plan for Tania’s disappearance, with Sandy in on it up until her strangled body disappeared. Tania was behind the phone calls, but returned after hearing of Sandy’s death [But the call Eva got implied the caller killed Sandy… Did Tania know he was dead at that stage, or was she just trying to be intimidating?]. Apparently the reason the cops weren’t investigating was because Tania’s family had told them she was fine [And the police really just kept it to themselves to go along with a petty high school joke? Wow. How unprofessional].
Eva and Keith scold her for such a heartless prank, but Tania just wanted to make them feel like complete fools like they did to her [Fair, but like, that’s a bit extreme]. Eva suddenly gets a strong bad feeling and senses that someone’s in danger – it must be Cherise, who should have been here by now!
They dash to one of the school’s payphones and call Cherise’s house, but there’s no answer, so they jump in Keith’s minivan and speed over. Upon arrival, they jump out the car, Keith’s video camera in his hand [I bet that’ll come in handy soon], and hear Cherise screaming from inside. They burst through the door and into the living room:
Eva saw Jeremy race across the rug, heading for the dining room.
The toe of his sneaker caught on the rug. He stumbled sideways, and fell to the floor.
As he tried to scramble up, Eva could hear him gasping in fear.
A whimpering sound made Eva turn. She bit back a scream of her own as she stared.
Cherise crouched on the floor near the couch, her red hair tangled, her eyes wild with terror.
In one hand, she clutched a long-bladed butcher knife.
Eva’s mouth opened in a horrified cry.
“He…he killed Sandy!” Cherise screamed.
[She is definitely trying to frame Jeremy right now]. Cherise explains that Jeremy tried to stab her but she snatched the knife from him [I call bullshit] before Jeremy scrambles up and races off, followed by Tania who begs to know why he’s doing this. The brief chase ends when she lunges for him and knocks him off balance, his head slamming into the corner of a table on the way down.
With Jeremy unconscious, Cherise explains that he’s obsessed with his new family and couldn’t stand to see Tania hurt, so he killed Sandy and was now trying to kill Cherise as revenge for his new sister. She says he even planned to kill Eva so he could have Tania all to himself:
“And that’s why he sawed the bleacher railing,” Cherise added. “To get rid of you. Thank goodness you didn’t fall!”
[I bet in a chapter or two, Eva’s gonna be like “How did you know about the railing?” Of course, we could assume that Jeremy gave Cherise a bad guy monologue and that’s why she knows about it, but it makes much more sense that she did it and is framing him. But we know she didn’t kill Tania, so what was her motive for murdering Sandy? Maybe he broke up with her]. As Cherise is insisting they call the police ASAP, Jeremy begins to regain consciousness. He scrambles to his feet, points directly at Cherise and says ‘”She killed Sandy!”‘
Cherise brands him a liar, saying he broke into her house, didn’t say anything [You’ve fucked yourself over now, Cherise!] and came at her with a knife. Jeremy’s version of events is pretty different:
Jeremy turned to Eva and the others. “Cherise called me and asked me to come over to her house,” he told them. “A few seconds after I got here, she saw you guys piling out of Keith’s van. And then she screamed.”
He continues that she threw herself to the floor in a frightened pose while he was on the other side of the room as the others came in, and insists he’s telling the truth. Cherise denies his claims, but just like I suspected, Eva’s picked up on the idiot’s lie. She explains that she knows Cherise is a pretty little liar because A, Eva already knows Jeremy came up with the plan for Tania to fake her disappearance, so he wouldn’t have killed Sandy, and B, Cherise said Jeremy told her he was going to kill Eva, and she somehow knew about the railing, even though she declared to them that he didn’t say a word as he tried to kill her [OK, I didn’t pick up on the Jeremy telling her he’ll kill Eva part, but I was still right xoxo]. With her charade over, Cherise bitterly admits she was planning to kill all of them:
“I hate you all! You think you’re so smart! Hey, let’s keep a secret from poor, dumb Cherise. Won’t that be a kick? The way you were laughing at me behind my back. Don’t think I didn’t catch on!”
Cherise knows Sandy was only pretending to like her for ‘”Keith’s other video project”‘, but no-one knows what she’s talking about, so Keith finally pipes up. He explains that he and Sandy were making a secret tape [Ohhhhh, the one he told Leslie she couldn’t be a part of. So I guess the video portraits were just additions to his portfolio! Makes more sense now] and admits to using secret camera as Sandy pretended to like Cherise [OK, but why? Like, what’s the point? Why wouldn’t you let Cherise in on it as well?].
Cherise admits she was so humiliated that she killed Sandy and decided to go after the rest of them, one by one, with Eva the next target, hence the sawed rail. She figured she could pin it all on Jeremy, oblivious to the fact that he’d orchestrated Tania’s disappearance [Wait, so she thought Tania was missing, presumed dead, and was going to pin her own murders on Jeremy, even though she had no idea who had “killed” Tania? Isn’t that a bit of a patchy plan, Cherise?].
Eva wants to call the police, but Cherise insists it won’t do any good since it’s her word against theirs and she’ll deny the whole thing [It’s also four against one, so I don’t think the odds are in your favour, hun]. Keith quickly points out that she’s wrong because guess what? He’s still holding his video camera, and it’s been on this whole time!
Cherise demands Keith give her the camera and when he doesn’t oblige, she lunges at him, knife aimed at his chest. He blocks it with the camera and the knife goes flying from her hand. Cherise dives for it, but Eva kicks it away from her grasp and the boys manage to get her to the ground. Cherise stops trying to fight and begins to sob helplessly.
Our heroes call the police to the house and explain everything. Keith informs them he got it all on tape, and the officers instruct them all to come down to the station tomorrow to give their official statements before leaving with the Cherise. They forget to to take the tape with them, though, and Keith realises too late, so Eva suggests they watch it before taking it to them and we end on this:
Bouncing snowflakes covered the television screen.
Static crackled from the speakers.
Everyone waited.
But the snow and the static remained.
Eva and Keith exchanged glances. “I don’t believe it!” he cried. “The camcorder jammed again.”
[Hahaha I actually exhaled at this].
Final thoughts
There’s a lot of things wrong with this one, but it was still a fun read. Yes, the title lied to us, but it was the name of Keith’s film, so it still makes sense, and I actually think it was a pretty clever way to throw us off the scent of predictability. I’m convinced whoever wrote the blurb only read the first few chapters, though, because that is not a good summary at all. There were a few silly typos and I’m also mad the scene on the cover never actually happened, but besides those superficial issues, the story was pretty interesting!
I liked that Tania was alive the whole time because it was less predictable, but I feel like it was a bit of a cop-out. Cherise is probably the most sympathetic character in the end because Keith and Sandy were totally using her when they didn’t need to. Honestly, what was the point of Keith’s secret movie? Like, why couldn’t Cherise been acting as well? Or if Keith really wanted it to be candid, why couldn’t Tania and Sandy been the subjects? You know, an actual couple?
OK now I’m thinking it wasn’t as good as I thought hahaha. I don’t know. The story was interesting and kept me turning the pages and I liked all the characters, except for Sandy. I was expecting more Homecoming stuff based on the title and the cover, but I wasn’t disappointed with what we got instead and I would recommend this one if you want something with less obvious plot twists. But of course if you’re reading this, I’ve already spoiled everything for you so there’s no point reading it now… Maybe wait a while until it’s out of your memory.
71 fake disappearances to get back at your friends out of 97!
