Mystery #12: Dawn and the Surfer Ghost

If you’re familiar with this book but haven’t re-read it lately, you might be a fan of Netflix’s “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.” Dawn and the Surfer Ghost was used as a plot point in the second episode of the series:

In Mystery #12, we head over to Palo City, California to visit Dawn. She and her California bestie Sunny Winslow have begun taking surfing lessons in preparation for an upcoming competition. There’s an older (like, 20 years old) surfer named Thrash who Sunny says is the hottest surfer around, capable of incredible stuff. Thrash is tall and extremely tan, with blue eyes and long white-blond hair, not to mention five ear piercings. He seems to know everything about surfing and he calls dawn “Kelea”:

“A legendary Hawaiian princess who made friends with the water god. She was a radical surfer.” - Thrash, page 30

Dawn and Sunny are spending a lot of time at the beach, between surf lessons and the children’s program they’re helping to run. In California, Dawn is part of the We <3 Kids Club, made up of her friends Sunny (full name: Sunshine Daydream), Maggie Blume (dad in the movie biz), and Jill Henderson (quiet, lives with a single mom). Their club is inspired by the BSC but, natch, way more laid back and ~California casual~ (including healthy snacks at meetings - sorry, Claudia).

Meanwhile, in episode 102 of “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” teenager Xan co-opts this story to brag to her friends about having a boyfriend:

Obv Dawn never did it with Thrash. But Dawn and Sunny are shocked when they show up at the beach one day and hear that Thrash is dead; his mangled surfboard washed up on the beach the previous night and he is nowhere to be found. There are rumors of a shark attack but no one really knows what happened. The police are interviewing serious surfers, including some cocky d-bag named Gonzo (?????) and one named Spanky (??????). Gonzo suggests that Thrash was an old hack and that he might have left town to avoid being embarrassed in the surf competition. SUPER SENSITIVE, DUDE! Dawn later reads an article that states that Thrash’s board may have been tampered with so now she’s out to solve the mystery of whether he was murdered. I’ve never related more to Dawn…

Dawn and Sunny help out at a nighttime beach party with the kids while their parents are inside at a luau. It’s a chilly, foggy night and they’re around the campfire telling ghost stories when they see what they think is a real-life ghost - the ghost of Thrash surfing the waves.

“Don’t think I’m silly, but I had begun to believe that Thrash had been murdered and his spirit was going to haunt the beach until the murderer was caught.” - Dawn, page 64

Dawn tries to talk to the police about Thrash but they seem unconcerned about the prospect of the missing surfer. (If you’re an avid true crime listener/viewer like me, you know that a lot of bad shit could be prevented or bad people apprehended if missing persons cases were taken seriously earlier. Tell em, Dawn!) Dawn and Sunny find a dented can of Thrash’s custom surf wax on the beach near where his body would have washed up, but they have no way of knowing how long it’s been there. Another day, they’re at the beach with Jill and Maggie when the sun starts to go down and the fog starts to roll in, and they see the ~surfer ghost~ again. He does a 360 aerial move that only experienced surfers (like Thrash) can do - but the surfer ghost has short hair. Either way, Sunny and Dawn are convinced something fishy is going on. There have been a lot of minor accidents on the beach since Thrash went missing, and the girls are worried that SHIT MIGHT BE CURSED BY THE SPIRIT OF THRASH.

In reality, though, some of the other experienced surfers clue Dawn in to the fact that someone is messing with other people’s surfboards, likely as a ploy to get them to drop out of the surfing competition (or have to drop out due to injury). But some of these “minor” accidents are really dangerous, so whoever is tampering with boards is a real asshole! Plus, then Sunny gets injured in a surfing accident and has to quit her lessons and drop out of the competition. NOW IT’S PERSONAL.

Dawn has been noticing a guy working at the concession stand who gives her the creeps for some reason. He has short, dark hair that seems to have been buzzed recently (because his neck, unlike the rest of him, isn’t tan) and he doesn’t wear any jewelry but has five pierced holes in his ears. PUT IT TOGETHER, DAWN. IT’S RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF YOU. Put it together she does. Dawn realizes that creepy concession stand guy is Thrash in disguise (although it takes her way too long to realize he’s also the surfer ghost). But… why fake a disappearance? And why stick around?

Turns out someone messed with Thrash’s board, so he fake-disappeared, cut and dyed his hair and took his jewelry out, and then hung around so he could surf at night and later get revenge on whoever tampered with his board. Dawn catches him retaliating and talks him out of it like a good school marm, convincing him to go to the police instead with what he knows about the tamperer. The culprit? Gonzo, of course. What, you thought a dude named Gonzo wouldn’t be a total asshat?

Back on “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” Kimmy puts two and two together about Xan’s tall tales to her friends, and confronts her:

I do have to say I’m with Xan on this part, though:

Anyway, once again a thirteen-year-old baby-sitter has solved a mystery that should have taken the police 20 minutes if they’d shown literally any interest. Gonzo is arrested, Thrash enters the surfing contest legitimately and wins, and Dawn places third in the women’s beginner division. Thrash decides it’s time to peace out and head to Australia, and he gives Dawn his snake ring to remember him by. She puts it on a chain to wear around her neck.

“Friendship. There’s nothing like it.” - Dawn, page 145

Yeah, okay, but 20-year-old dudes don’t need to be friends with 13-year-old girls. Just sayin’, Thrash. (It’s okay, though, Dawn was obviously talking about the BSC.)