#74: Kristy and the Copycat
I’m here for a Kristy-falls-from-grace plot, so let’s go!
Kristy misses playing softball and decides to try out for the Stoneybrook Middle School softball team. She makes it, and Stacey and Claudia volunteer to cover Krushers coaching duties for her until the end of her softball season.
Kristy’s softball glory comes at a price, though: she has to complete an “initiation” (read: hazing) with the three other new members of the team (Bea, Dilys, and Tonya). The two queen bees of the team, Tallie and Marcia, tell the four newbies that they have to spray paint graffiti on the SMS equipment shed. Kristy originally says no and stands her ground, but eventually gives in to the pressure from her teammates. Kristy, Bea, Dilys, and Tonya sneak onto the SMS field on a Friday night and spray the shed. Afterward, Bea and Tonya smoke a cigarette, which Kristy and Dilys aggressively decline. They peace out and Kristy gets home safely without any trouble. BUT when she wakes up the next morning she hears on a news report that the shed burned down the night before, and that the neighbor who called it in had tried to put it out but had been injured, and the authorities were investigation. THE SHIT HAS HIT THE FAN FOR OL’ KRISTIN AMANDA THOMAS.
Kristy feels sick about it and wants to confess but the whole softball team says they’ll stick together and say she’s lying and then she’ll get in double trouble. Plus someone is leaving creepy notes in her locker, that say things like I SAW WHAT YOU DID and I’M BIDING MY TIME and PAY ME FIFTY DOLLARS OR I WILL TELL. Turns out Bea, Tonya, and Dilys all got the same notes. It seems like their problems are solved when the boys’ baseball team gets blamed for the fire - and disbanded. But Kristy feels awful about it, especially because Logan is on the team. Kristy confesses to the BSC, who are super supportive, and decides she is going to tell the principal the truth too.
Of course, it’s just perfect that the next morning Kristy hears another news report that a small group of kids has come forward and admitted to starting the fire because they were bored and they wanted to come back and put out the fire to look like heroes. Kristy’s off the hook! (Shocking, a neatly tied-up plot in Stoneybrook?!) We also find out that the threatening notes were sent by Dilys… she wanted to come clean and hoped the others would feel pressured to. Kristy doesn’t know if she wants to stay on the team, but she says she’s never going to be a mindless follower again. (Kristy? A follower? Please.)
