The Train - Diane Hoh

SO, we’re back with ‘The Ho’ again, as I like to call her (but please don’t tell her that I called her that, I’m on my final warning.) My expectations for The Train are pretty high, with the awesomeness of The Accident still as fresh in my mind as a newly slaughtered corpse. Also, the cover is pretty amazing, that skeleton/hand thing does indeed appear to be promising me a one way ticket to terror.



But OMG, I guess this one has also been reprinted as a non-Point Horror book, and I must say the new cover is highly disappointing:



What's scary about that??!!

So – this story is about Hannah Deaton and her friends and a wonderful train journey of death and misery. Hannah’s hair is ‘naturally wavy and chocolate-ice-cream coloured.’ What a very strange way to describe hair. She’s dating a guy called Mack, who is described as ‘rugged,’ even though he’s only about seventeen. You’d had to have had a pretty hard life to be ‘rugged’ at seventeen, right? Also in her gang is Kerry (the vain one), Kerry’s boyfriend Lewis (the funny one) and Jean Marie (the one to make up the numbers.)

So, Hannah’s school class are going on a Teen Tour from Chicago to San Francisco travelling aboard a train so they can learn them some geography. It quickly transpires that Hannah is afraid of quite a few things. I made a list of her fears whilst I was reading, they are: trains, tunnels, confines spaces and, ummm, death. Okay, I’ll give her death. But trains? Seriously? I have NEVER heard of that phobia before. And she mentions her fear like once at the very beginning, and then it is completely forgotten about. Tut tut, minus 5 points for the poor continuity.

Also in her class are a girl Lolly Slocum and these guys called Eugene and Dale or something. These dudes are the losers of the school. Euegene and Dale spend the whole book darting their eyes suspiciously and making inappropriate comments but as they turn out to be massive red herrings I’m going to cull them from my recap. Sorry guys, that’s show business. More on Lolly later.

We open as they board the train. Kerry’s carry on bag is put into the baggage car because stupid Lewis screws up the one little job he was asked to do. Kerry storms off to get her bag – and finds a coffin in the baggage car. Kerry decides that her and Hannah have to go back again – and this time look inside the coffin to check there aren’t any icky corpses on the train with them. Hey guys, you know what’s worse than having a dead person on your train? Breaking into said dead person's coffin and ogling their corpse is what.

They realise that the coffin belongs to a guy they knew. His name was Frog and he died in a horrible fiery car accident about a week ago – since he was originally from San Francisco his body is being shipped back. Frog was Lolly’s boyfriend and Eugene and Dale’s friend. Ergo, Frog was also a loser and everyone hated him. Maybe he would have been more popular if he was a pirate frog:



The gang meet in the train’s Diner and all of Hannah’s friends have a story about a time they treated Frog badly, although frankly some of the stories are stronger than others. All except Hannah, who refuses to talk about it. It’s pretty obvious that Hannah’s story of her Frog abuse is going to be the most brutal and important one - oh the suspense.

Suddenly – all the lights in the diner go out. When the teacher (Ms Quick) flicks them back on again, Lolly has some kind of noose thing around her neck that’s choking her. Mack jumps to her rescue and unties the noose. A doctor arrives and plans are made for Lolly to go back home the following day instead of continuing on with the trip. I’m kind of surprised that the attempted murder of one of the students wasn’t enough to get everyone sent home, but hey I guess I’m just weird about stuff like deranged murderers being on the loose in massively confined spaces. Good thing I’m not a teacher. Anyway, we’re promised that a detective will be joining the train to investigate.


Wondering what Lolly looks like? Well, “unlike, Frog, Lolly wasn’t really unattractive’” and was occasionally “almost pretty.” Wow, such glowing praise, I hope someday I get described as being almost pretty. The Ho continues – “”she was a big girl, but it seemed to Hannah that at least she made an effort to look her best, wearing neat, colourful clothes.” Because EWWWW gross she’s a fatty, but at least she isn’t a slob. Nice work, Point Horror – bustin' stereotypes since 1992.

Everyone is told not to split up and to always stay in a group, so of course Hannah and Kerry immediately split up. Hannah finds herself alone in a train corridor being grabbed and gagged from behind by a stranger. I love it when that happens. The mystery attacker steers Hannah into the baggage room and knocks her out. Oh yeah and when she wakes up she’s in a coffin. It’s immediately obvious that she’s in the damn coffin the second she wakes up and feels wood all around her, but for some reason it takes Hannah about 10 pages to figure this out, I’ll spare you the loooong description of what the inside of a coffin feels like as Hannah’s puny mind grapples with figuring out where she could possibly be. But Christ, she even manages to get this far: “Hannah realized she was lying in a long, narrow, wooden box with an unyielding wooden roof” without ALSO realising that a ‘long wooden box’ commonly goes by the name ‘coffin.’ OK, I’ll move on from this now, although an angry little piece of me will be trapped in that long wooden box with Hannah forevermore.


Hannah is saved from long wooden box hell by her friends, with Ms. Quick and the conductor in tow. Hannah realizes that the long wooden box she was in was Frog’s, meaning what the hell has happened to Frog’s corpse. (please be zombies, please be zombies, please be zombies)




Frog burned to death in his car accident – creating the possibility that it was some other dope’s charred remains in the car, and Frog may not be dead after all. Hannah thinks this is a possibility, because “no one would have checked the identity of the driver. The police would have assumed that, of course, it was Frog driving the car.” Ummmmm, I’m not 100% sure that that’s how these things work. Hannah reckons that Frog faked his death and now he’s out to punish the gang for the way that they mis-treated him. Yeah, and for some insane reason Hannah decides not to go home but to stay on the trip.

The train stops in Denver, and Hannah’s friends go for coffee whilst Hannah visits a doctor. Mack goes missing in Denver. And then he reappears. He ran off by himself because he thought he saw Frog. This adds weight to Hannah’s theory that Frog faked his death so he could get him some consequence free revenge. The only flaw in her theory – why would he attack Lolly, his girlfriend? Jean Marie has an answer – she recently over heard the couple having a nasty argument about Frog going somewhere and Lolly trying to stop him. Hannah knows about this fight – it’s linked in to whatever it was that she did to hurt Frog, although we still don’t find out what that was.


Detective Tesch arrives. Hannah wittily renames him ‘Detective Brown’ because umm, he wears a lot of brown. Quick, someone get this girl a MENSA membership. He doesn’t really do anything, you probably won’t be hearing much about him from me again.

Hannah finds Frog’s dead burned body in Kerry’s bunk bed. Oh, I guess that pretty much de-bunks her theory. I’m still holding out for a zombie. Hannah runs out and tells the others about her discovery, but of COURSE the corpse has vanished by the time they get there to have a look, and they’re all “Hannah babes, you just had a bad dream.”


Ummm, but did nobody else notice that Frog really isn’t in his coffin if Hannah was in there? I mean, I hate to agree with Hannah here but surely his body must be SOMEWHERE? Sadly, Hannah doesn’t think of this argument to use. Man, if it was me in this situation I would just be dealing with it all over the place. Hannah reckons that maybe Frog was just PRETENDING to be dead to scare her and oh my God we are back to square one. Ms. Quick just keeps feeding Hannah aspirin to try to calm her down. I totally didn’t realise that aspirin worked like that, that’s why I love Point Horror, it provides such as vast library of important medical information.

The gang go to the cinema to watch “the latest Schwarzenegger” and a mystery ice pick thrower gets Lewis in the collarbone during the credits. Whoever this attacker is, they suck at making successful kills. Nobody really makes that big a deal about the ice pick thing, the policeman is all kind of ‘meh’ and Lewis just gets bandaged up.

Hannah decides that her and the gang need to open the coffin to see if Frog is in there. Jeez, maybe it’s just me but I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what happened in one of the first chapters? Reading this book makes me feel like I’m trapped in an Escher drawing.

On the way to the baggage room, Lewis trips into something and ‘utters a mild oath.’ Yeah, this is the same guy who was just stabbed through the collarbone with an ice pick five minutes ago. I wonder what the mild oath was? “oh, boobs”? Anyway, Frog IS in the coffin now, but in the event only Hannah sees him. And she only knows it definitely was him because catches a glimpse of his tattoo. This tattoo sounds amazing, I’m thinking of stealing it for myself: “a rat with wings and bared fangs.” Yeeeeeeaahhh baby.

Anyway, so now we have established once and for all that someone OTHER than Frog is after Hannah and the gang. At least I truly hope with all my heart that this is the case. If there is one more body in the coffin, body out the coffin twist I’m just going to…well, I’ll just get on with my life I s’pose.


This train sounds amazing. It has a diner, a great big shower room, separate bedrooms, a rec room with a pool table and an observation lounge. So, they head to the observation lounge so they can all go to sleep together and so they won’t be in their rooms where the ‘killer’ could find them. I say ‘killer’, it seems a bit kind to describe him/her as a killer, but ‘blundering, incompetent would be-murderer’ would take too long to type. They all survive the night, and the girls head to the shower room to freshen up. Jean Marie goes missing from the shower.

The Detective thinks that Jean Marie is just playing a ‘hilarious’ joke, demonstrating how you can slide away the shower tiles and climb through the train ducts. Umm, first of all, I don’t know what a train duct is and second of all, is this detective actually retarded?


Jean Marie dies, the killer throws her off the train roof. Well done killer, you’re really finding your feet and earning your reputation now, I’m proud of you.

Hannah goes back to her compartment alone and finds Lolly Slocum chilling inside, dressed in one of Frog’s old outfits. This is not looking good. Lolly reveals that she never really left the train, she’s been hiding on it the whole time and she’s been the one attacking everyone and she even put the noose around her neck herself. Yeah, she explains that she could do it because she’s good at knots, having worked on a boat one summer. All of this unnecessary exposition gives me the feeling that The Ho maybe has a minimum word count that she’s desperately trying to reach. Oh, and the corpse in the bed/coffin was also Lolly, in special effects make up. Good old special effects make up.


So, why is Lolly doing all this? Because Frog’s dead and now she’s lonely and Hannah and all her friends were mean to him. Hannah manages to make a run for it and escape Lolly. When Hannah returns with backup, Lolly is gone, and she’s left what looks like a suicide note – they assume she jumped out the window of the moving train and into the canyon. Yeah, it’s probably just safer to assume that, the police do love to assume stuff. Hannah points out that Lolly could conceivably have faked the whole suicide thing, considering she’s already faked a near-death anyway and seeing how she’s a psychopath and all. Once again I’m forced to side with Hannah as all her friends just act kind of embarrassed that Hannah wouldn’t take the word of a deranged and revenge hungry murderer, like ‘oh you’re being so irrational.’

The train reaches San Francisco and the gang go out to visit a house on a cliff. Hannah wanders off by herself and finds a roped off danger area. She leans over the wall. Guess who pops up? Yup, Lolly Slocum. Jeez, she’s probably the LAST person Hannah wants to see right now. Especially because Lolly has a knife pressed to Hannah’s ear.


Except it’s not a knife, it’s a little tin canister that holds Frog’s ashes – Lolly’s plan is to scatter his ashes and murder Hannah at the same time, how efficient. Turns out Frog was never in the coffin at all, his parents didn’t really care about him so Lolly just had him cremated and then ordered the empty coffin to be sent to his parents in San Francisco just to annoy them. This girl has waaaay too much time on her hands.

OK, remember when Jean Marie said she had witnessed a big old fight between Lolly and Frog? Turns out that Lolly does blame Hannah for that fight and she REALLY wants to kill Hannah. They have a tussle blah blah blah and Hannah manages to pull a lump of cement off the crumbly old wall and knock Lolly over the edge into the sea. Ha! That'll teach her for not conforming and being fat.

Hannah’s friends rush up having witnessed the tussle. And we FINALLY get to find out what it is that Hannah did to Frog that she was so ashamed about. Hannah’s dad hired Frog to work on their garden in the run up to a massive party Hannah was having. Feeling kind of guilty that he was so unpopular, she invited Frog along. Frog was delighted, and whether or not to go to the party was what Lolly and Frog had their big fight about, with Frog desperate to go along and Lolly less keen. Hannah instantly regretted the invite and spent a couple of days worrying about how embarrassing it would be to have him there. So when he and Lolly arrived she slipped out the house and lied to them, saying she was ill and the party was just about to be cancelled. Frog took it sweetly but he was gutted and ran off into his car, sped off and…crashed it and died.

Okay, I guess that was a pretty shitty thing that Hannah did. I was worried it was going to be something really lame, like she sneezed on him and gave him a cold or something.

So I guess Hannah forgives herself, and decides to stay in San Francisco for the rest of the trip and Kerry makes a lame little joke about going shopping. The ending of this book is far less awesome than The Accident. In fact the whole thing doesn't really come close to The Accident. Maybe it's not fair to compre, but I had such high hopes for The Ho.

I guess the moral of the story is – tattoos of rats with wings are fucking incredible. Also, that the inclusion of a zombie would have immensely improved it.

Amazon reviewers– over to you:


“I've caught the train from Chicago to San Francisco and it doesn't stop for a half a day in Denver either, it stops at places to refuel yes but not a whole morning and there's no way it would delay hundreds of passengers to wait for one teenager to reappear or not. Also why they would expect the corpse of Frog to be in the very same coffin they rescued Hannah from seems to defy logic. If you can overlook these things and accept the work as pure fiction then this is a very enjoyable read.”

Hmmm, I HAD enjoyed reading this book, but then I found out that the train route was used was completely illogical and incorrect and now my enjoyment has been retro-actively destroyed, thanks a BUNCH Amazon guy. Nothing makes me madder than lies about trains.


Aww, this one is a review by a kid:

“This is a great book but you have to be ready for it. i went into it thinking that it would somr murder mystery (one of my favorite types of books) but i was totally suprised. it is a very scary, sad and emotional book. Hannah, the main character, is a very distressed and scared girl because trains scare her a lot, especially when going across country”

That’s really sweet, I love that they found this book to be sad and emotional. Kids are so weird aren’t they? With their ‘feelings’ and ‘emotions.’

So next week, I think I’m going to be doing The Mall by Richie Tankersley Cusick, unless something goes wrong and it doesn’t arrive in time. I have a good feeling about The Mall though, I don’t think I’ve ever read it before and the Amazon reviews are pretty gushing. And if this blog has taught me anything it's that Amazon reviewers are frighteningly accurate.

The Accident - Diane Hoh

I felt like I needed a treat after the boredom and the sheer awfulness of Teacher’s Pet – and boy have I got one in the guise of The Accident:



Together with The Twins, this was my favourite Point Horror. You know how everyone has a book that scared them so deeply they’ve never really forgotten it and has probably psychologically scarred them for life? The Accident is mine, so forgive me if I can’t bring myself to criticise this one too heavily. Rereading it, there were obviously moments that annoyed me, but overall this book is just so creepy and so good. I used to be obsessed with drawing the front cover of The Accident, and even now I often find myself doodling the title in that scary font they used – see, even the FONT is terrifying!

Anyway, enough gushing – on with the plot.



This book opens with Jenny, Barbie and Cappie cutting class and driving at high speed into a pole. Ooops. That’s why you should stay in school kids. We don’t really ever see these characters again throughout the whole book, except through conversations between Megan and Hilary. Megan is our heroine and Hilary is her best friend – together with Jenny, Barbie and Cappie. Megan is going to turn 16 in a week and she’s pretty excited about the big party she’s been planning…

So Megan hears the news that three of her friends are in hospital in a critical condition, and things don’t improve much when the temperature drops, the lights dim and a ghost appears in her mirror.

The ghost is called Juliet. She was born in 1930, and shares the same birthday as Megan. Poor old Juliet’s birthday week was even worse than Megan’s however, having actually died on her 16th birthday. Megan’s a sensitive sort and she feels bad for the ghost, although she convinces herself it was just a dream, brought on by the shock of her friends’ accident.


At school, Megan finds out from Hilary that Barbie is okay, Cappie has a broken wrist and Jenny has a really bad head injury and a shattered collarbone. Everyone is really puzzled as to how the car accident could have happened and the sheriff is checking out the car.

Hilary talks to Megan about a creepy guy at their school who asked her out: “Donny Richardson asked me to a movie. Isn’t that a hoot?” Oh right, I didn’t realise Hilary was actually a 60 year old grandmother until I saw her use the word ‘hoot.’ Maybe this is a clue that Hilary is actually a ghost from the 1930s as well. Oh boy, if I turn out to be right about that I’m going to be feeling pretty pretty pleased with myself.

Megan knows that Donny isn’t Hilary’s type, describing him as “short, squat and moustached.” What is she, crazy? Nothing’s hotter than a 16 year old with a moustache. What? Sixteen’s legal.

They talk about Donny and how all the girls are always turning him down…in fact, Jenny turned him down only a couple of weeks ago. As did Cappie…and he seemed pretty upset about all the rejections….Donny is also highly unpopular and he has a shitty life at home. Nothing says 'I'm going to murder you and all your friends' like a broken home and a teenage moustache.

Someone has left Megan a drawing on construction paper of Jenny’s car filled with cryptic objects. So, there’s a candy bar and a bee – that means Barbie. And there’s a pea wearing a baseball cap (yes, you did read that correctly). That’s Cappie. And there’s a horse in the driving seat, but Megan can’t figure out what the horse means. Ummm, is there are a phrase about horses being called Jennies or something? Or a saying like, ‘dead as a horse?’ No? I didn’t think so. It's a good thing I don’t care.

So, turns out there are some rules that apply to being a mirror ghost– Juliet can’t talk to just anyone, it has to be someone exactly her age, who lives near the lake where Juliet died and who has “imagination and a belief that anything’s possible.’

Megan’s grandma owned the house until she recently died and Megan moved in with her parents. Juliet reveals that she knew Grams when she was alive, although she didn’t know her very well. This little factoid warms Megan to Juliet a bit more.

Megan emphasises with Juliet, thinking about how shit it would be to die at 16. Turns out Juliet wants more than to have cosy little chats from behind the mirror. What she really wants is to trade places with Megan for 7 days, so she can experience living one last time. Of course, Megan has to agree to the switch before it can take place. Jesus Christ, on what level would this ever be anything approaching a good idea? I don’t care how sensitive and thoughtful you are, you do not go around switching places with mirror ghosts. Lord knows I learned that the hard way. Ahem, anyway, back to Juliet and Megan. Juliet promises Megan that after trading for a week, Juliet would be totally at peace. Juliet leaves Megan to think about it.

Next day, Megan has wisely decided to keep quiet about the whole mirror ghost thing, and Hilary tells her that it turns out that Jenny’s car was definitely tampered with. Uh oh, so the accident may NOT have been an accident after all. The good news is that it looks like Jenny is going to be okay. Hilary suspects that the rejected Donny Richardson may be the culprit. This suspicion is backed up by the fact that he works in a garage. Ok, I’m going to get sidetracked for a minute here - if I worked in a garage, or had any kind of obvious specialised murder-y knowledge, say as an expert on poison, or a world renowned authority on axes, and I needed to kill someone, I would make damn sure that I didn’t use my unique skill. When I chop my avowed enemy up with the axe, who are they going to suspect but the axe expert with all that specialist axe knowledge? Stupid, stupid. But all this is probably irrelevant anyway as I’m about 90% sure that Donny is just a poorly written red herring.

Anyway, Juliet appears in the mirror again and picks up where she left off with her whining about dying young, trading places blah blah blah. Megan’s mind is somewhat open to the possibility because three of her best friends recently came so close to dying. But, Megan is worried that someone is targeting her and her friends – they cut the brakes on Jenny’s car, something could happen to Megan next. And what then – if Megan’s’ body died whilst Juliet was in it? Juliet hones right in on Megan’s worries and uses it to clinch the deal - Juliet should totally apply to go on The Apprentice or something. As a ghost, Juliet can sense evil, and she reckons she could find out who sabotaged the car for Megan. Megan promises to think about it some more.

Next morning, Megan chats to Justin about the car accident some more, and reveals that she too has turned Donny Richardson down for a date. I’m kind of proud of Donny Richardson, he must be pretty thick skinned to keep going back for more rejection. I mean, surely he realises that he’s just GROSS right?
Oh, and Megan shows Justin the weird drawing of Jenny’s car and he figures out what the horse thing is – it isn’t a horse, it’s a donkey – and a donkey is called a JENNY. Oh my god, that so wasn’t worth it. I mean, surely any idiot could have figured out that it was going to signify Jenny somehow? And knowing the donkey thing hardly adds any meaning to this information. Unless, like, a rage-filled donkey is released into Jenny’s hospital room and stampedes her to death, but sadly I highly doubt that that will happen. Megan and Justin arrange to meet later to discuss the drawing and its implications even further. I AM SO BORED OF THIS DRAWING RIGHT NOW.

Megan is really into Justin, but she’s too shy and sensitive to ask him out, even though she really wants him to be her date for her birthday party. Another character is introduced – Vicki Deems. Hilary really hates this chick, she calls Vicki a viper and says that she makes Hilary’s skin crawl – Hilary is mainly jealous because all the boys love Vicki Deems. Vicki makes Megan nervous as well, because she’s so sexy: “It was the way those cold, dark eyes looked at a boy that made Megan shiver: black spider eyes spotting a nice juicy fly.” Yeah, sounds hot.

Oh, FFS, now Megan finds another drawing. This time the drawing is of a hill. That means Hilary. Seriously, WHAT IS THE POINT of making your message cryptic if the clues are so TERRIBLE and immediately obvious???? This is making me very angry, I have steam coming out of my ears just thinking about it.

Anyway, Megan is like “Oh Noes – this means Hilary is next!” and she goes to find Hilary, just in time to see Hilary fall off a plank at the top of the school auditorium or something ridiculous. Luckily, Hilary manages to grab onto a rope. Hilary tells Megan that she didn’t slip – she was PUSHED. Unfortunately, nobody saw who pushed her, and everyone except Megan is pretty blasé about the whole thing.

Megan goes to meet Justin as planned, but she gets a pretty nasty shock – Vicki ‘Viper’ Deems is there, sleazing all over him and wearing one of those bright red halter tops and leather miniskirt combinations that we were all so into in the early 90s. Megan turns and runs home – she’s decided enough is enough and she’s going to swap places with Juliet.

Juliet reassures Megan that she will be able to take care of her body better than Megan could – she needn’t worried about the mystery attacker coming after her. AND, as a little extra, Juliet promises to ask Justin out for Megan. Juliet walks out of the mirror, and Megan walks in. They try it out a couple of times, Megan gets back out of the mirror by saying “I am Megan and I want to be me again.” They decide to do the official switch the next day, so Juliet can have a full week and they can switch back again in time for Megan’s big birthday party.

The real switch feels different than the test runs – instead of a sensation of weightlessness, it feels all wrenchy and cold and ick. Juliet is over the moon but, unsurprisingly, Megan starts regretting her decision pretty soon. Megan doesn’t have to stay in the mirror, she can get out and move around, it’s just that nobody can see her. So she goes for a little wander, does a little spyin’, and gets a little freaked out watching Juliet in her body interacting with Megan’s family and friends as Megan.

Juliet-as-Megan is far more fun and flirty than Megan herself, and she wastes no time in making a beeline for Justin. The only one who seems unhappy with the way Megan has changed is Hilary. HEllllOOoooOooo – earth to Hilary –surely everyone knows the symptoms of your best friend’s body being borrowed by a mirror ghost? They include – wearing out-dated heavy blue eye shadow, embracing life with a gusto suspicious of a 16 year old, and suddenly developing a voracious sexual appetite more suited in its intensity to someone who’s spent the last 60 years trapped behind a mirror with no human contact.

Ghost Megan finds her mother lying unconscious in the lake – jeez, it’s times like these when you really wished you hadn’t agreed to trade places with a mirror ghost. Luckily, her Dad and brother spot Mom and pull her out the lake. Mom says that someone pushed her into the lake.Megan tells Juliet that if one more bad thing happens to her family or friends they will have to switch back.

Megan spots ANOTHER drawing – this time on her bedroom floor, spilling out of her purse – where ANYONE could have slipped it. The drawing is of a convict and a knee. Connie. I just threw up a little in my mouth. I guess Megan's mom is called Connie? Megan also finds out that if anything were to prevent her returning into her body by midnight next Saturday, she would be trapped in Juliet’s world forever. Uh oh.

Justin and Juliet gets closer, Megan spies on them getting hot and heavy in Justin’s car. Megan’s feelings about this are understandably mixed. As Juliet grows ahem, *friendlier* with Justin, she gets colder towards Hilary. Basically the theme is “What’s got into Megan? Why has she suddenly become such a massive slutty bitch?”

Megan finds another drawing. I can barely bring myself to type about it. These drawings had better turn out to be massively significant by the end of this book. This drawing is of a tom-tom drum. Megan’s dad and brother are both called Tom. Ok, can we move on from the drawings now please?

Megan’s dad forbids Juliet-as-Megan from going out on a date with Justin that night, but she sneaks out anyway. Ghost Megan is all, “OMG, sigh, I’d better follow her to make sure she doesn’t go and get my body all killed.” On the way, she spots Hilary arguing with Vicki Deems. Hilary is standing up for Megan to Hilary and Vicki is really really mad that Justin and Megan are together. Mad enough to….KILL?????? (no)

Justin suggests a boat ride to Juliet-as-Megan, who freaks out - presumably because she died on the lake. Justin asks about the creepy drawings, but Juliet plays them down, which confuses Megan since Juliet had promised to help her find the murderer. Oh Megan, Megan, Megan. You should never trust a mirror ghost sweetie. Not that I have anything against them. Lots of my best friends are mirror ghosts.

Juliet tells Megan that her ghosty senses are tingling and there is definitely something weird about Donny Richardson. Juliet also discusses with Megan how much the world has changed since her time, raving about “MTV and compact discs and hot rollers.” This isn’t in any way important to the plot, but it tickled me so I thought I’d throw it in.

The next day, Megan’s 10 year old brother Thomas is knocked off his bike by a truck. Hmmmm. The brakes on his bike were tampered with, and he isn’t dead but he’s not in a good way and he gets carted off to hospital. The only thing that Juliet is worried about is that Megan’s party may get cancelled. Juliet goes on about this party an awful lot, despite the fact that she’s promised to be long gone by the time the party rolls around. Suspicious.

Juliet has a little surprise for Megan – she found a whole bunch of construction paper in the same style as all those little annoying notes Megan had been receiving in Donny Richardson’s locker. Juliet tells Megan that she left her body for a minute to sneak a peek into the locker, so there was no chance of her getting caught. Megan freaks out at this new information, entirely uncomfortable at the thought of her body being left unattended. Juliet is all “LOL, chill out, I’ll go to the Sheriff tomorrow and all these attempted murders will stop.” Naturally, she goes back on her word and doesn’t bother.

Later, Megan finds Juliet lying on her bed surrounded by voodoo-style candles with her eyes shut, looking strangely not present - hmmm, almost as if there's nobody in the body. At that moment, Megan's dad slips and falls off a ladder. Megan FINALLY starts to get suspicious about Juliet, especially now she knows that Juliet can leave her body whenever she likes. Could she be the one pushing people off of great heights and preventing brakes from working etc etc? Yes, yes she could. Megan also figures out that maybe Juliet isn’t actually intending on swapping back. Well done Megan, it only took you 132 pages to figure that out.

Megan confronts Juliet, and the whole sorry truth comes out Juliet was Megan’s grandmother’s stepsister (‘s dog’s dad’s uncle’s mother). Yes, she was her stepsister, and poor old Juliet really really hated her new family and just wanted her father to herself. It turns out that Megan’s grandmother (Martha) was there for the accident that killed Juliet. Juliet fell out of the boat, but Martha didn’t. Instead of helping Juliet get back in, Martha stayed in the boat and watched her drown. Megan calls bullshit. Juliet elaborates – her and Martha had started fighting in the boat, over Juliet stealing all of Martha’s friends. Struggling for control of the oars, Juliet fell in and hit her head. Megan reckons that Granny Martha would have tried to save Juliet, although being unconscious and all Juliet obviously wouldn’t have noticed. Juliet admits to causing all of the accidents in present day. It’s a revenge thing. Presumably she also drew the pictures.

Megan tries saying the magic words – “I am Megan and I want to be me again.” It doesn’t work – turns out Juliet left out a little detail – she needs to give her consent for them to switch back again. I’m guessing that consent won’t be forthcoming any time soon. And if Megan isn’t back in her body by midnight tonight, that’s it, she’s a ghost forever. Nooooooo!

Justin is at home, thinking about Megan and how she’s changed. He preferred the old sweeter, softer Megan. Awww. Suddenly he’s worried that there’s a reason why she’s changed so much, that something bad has happened and instinctually goes off in search of her.

Megan remembers Juliet’s terror when Justin suggested a boat ride. Ah ha. Next step of the plan – somehow try and get Justin to hear Megan’s wispy ghost voice and get him to take Juliet onto the lake, with the hope of freaking her out so much that she leaves Megan’s body voluntarily. Megan finds Justin on the dock and gets him to feel her presence. He can hear her but not see her. She tells him the whole crazy story. Justin agrees to the lake plan.

With half an hour to go until midnight, Justin finds Juliet-as-Megan. Her persuades her to go for a moonlit boat ride. Man, Juliet must be really really horny to agree to it. Justin steers the boat to the cove where Juliet died. Juliet freaks out. Megan pops up just to really send Juliet over the edge. Juliet realises that Megan managed to communicate with Justin and that she planned this little excursion with him. Justin and Juliet fight for control of the boat, and Juliet is sent flying into the cove. Juliet in Megan’s body is drowning, but Megan won’t let Justin save her – they need to wait until Juliet is so scared that she leaves Megan’s body willingly. Wow, things are getting pretty tense around here.

It works. Megan gets her drowning body back just as the clock bongs midnight. Phew. Justin and Megan leave together – “And only the wildest of forest creatures continues to hear the echo of a despairing, tortured wail in the soft whisper of the wind.”

WOW – I LOVE this book, although all that business with the stupid little drawings really got on my nerves. Especially because it turns out the drawings don’t even have any impact on the plot to speak of. Damn it.

Next week - we're still with Diane Hoh, this time for The Train.