It’s been so long since I recapped any of these; I’ll link the earlier ones at the bottom if anyone needs to refresh their memory. Because you need Fear Street Seniors occupying some of your brain cells, obviously.
Title: Fight, Team, Fight!
The Plot: Phoebe Yamura is head cheerleader, and she’s secretly “dating” Ty Sullivan, if sneaking under the bleachers to kiss counts as dating.
They have to sneak around, because her parents are strict because they weren’t born in America. Although frankly any parent in Shadyside SHOULD be over-protective; it’s hardly a cultural thing in this case.
You may remember Ty:
Greta Bradley had been a cheerleader, too. And Ty’s girlfriend. Then she died at Jennifer Fear’s New Year’s Eve party. Sometimes Phoebe felt a little weird about going out with Ty. She even tried to talk about it, but he always changed the subject. (p. 6)
I hate to side with Ty, but Phoebe, no one wants to talk about their recently-dead girlfriend with their new girlfriend who used to be her teammate. That is beyond awkward.
Also on the squad are Jade and Dana, two ginormous bitches who deliberately drop new cheerleader Samantha and injure her. Dana is the feels-regrets less bitchy one, and Jade is the one you hope gets murdered.
Phoebe is afraid of bugs. I’m sure that won’t be at all important to the plot.
Someone shreds her uniform and leaves it in her locker with a note that says GIVE ME AN H-E-L-P. That’s almost funny.
A new girl, Gina, gets to try out for the squad even though it’s late in the year, because “it’s been an unusual year,” by which their advisor means “our cheerleaders keep dying.” Fair enough.
Jade “passes” a chemistry test by erasing Phoebe’s name and signing her own, thereby stealing Phoebe’s grade. Lessons learned from Fear Street: write your name on tests in pen. Also, wouldn’t a teacher be able to compare it against other tests and see it wasn’t Jade’s handwriting?
Then Dana tries to guilt Phoebe into not reporting it, because they need Jade on the team. No, they don’t, they have a new girl. But Phoebe goes along with it because 1) if she tells the chem teacher she was sick he’ll let her rewrite it and 2) she has no backbone.
At lunch she’s upset because Jade and Dana are sitting with their boyfriends and Gina joins them. While explaining to her best friend Samantha that Jade and co. will only end up stabbing Gina in the back, Phoebe knocks over an iced tea. Someone named Griffin Smith helps her clean it up. Apparently he’ll be driving the cheerleaders to their state competition on Saturday, so I guess he’s the equipment manager like Sid in Give Me a K-I-L-L.
Jade drops a bug on Phoebe and she and Dana laugh because phobias are hilarious. I’d feel sorrier for Phoebe if she grew a spine and turned them in, though.
Gina shows up lugging a box of pom-poms and gets mad at Phoebe because she’s only the alternate, not an actual cheerleader, even though that wasn’t Phoebe’s decision to make. PHOEBE. Stop letting everyone else make you responsible for their problems. Gina also reveals that the picture in her locket isn’t her; it’s her twin sister who died.
Phoebe finds a scary doll in her locker. Ms. Bell (the team’s advisor) tells the principal. Griffin shows up and calls it a sick joke.
Someone puts red ants in the box of pom-poms and Phoebe gets bitten. Jade denies it was her, but says she does want to replace Phoebe as captain of the squad. Gina confronts her and ALSO denies it, but at least apologizes for getting mad at her.
Phoebe gets a phone call that consists of a recording of the cheerleaders doing their “We’re gonna get you!” cheer, which is admittedly pretty creepy.
After a lousy practice Phoebe images ripping Dana’s ponytail right off her scalp. Only this is a Stine cliffhanger, so the last page of chapter eleven makes it look like she actually did it. Sigh. Then chapter eleven ends with a “stranger” attacking Ty, only that immediately turns out to be his friend Kenny.
Her mother catches her with Ty, only Phoebe lies that he’s just a friend. She goes up to her bedroom and discovers someone’s been in her room and stolen her picture of the cheerleaders. Even Phoebe recognizes that this would be a weird thing for Jade or Dana to do.
There’s an accident with a fire baton and Phoebe’s hand gets burned. So, just like a scene in Give Me a K-I-L-L, only Phoebe wakes up in hospital with a mild burn, whereas the girl in the newer book almost lost the use of both hands. Still: shouldn’t Shadyside maybe have banned fire batons after someone sabotaged Phoebe’s?
Jade and Dana visit her in hospital and deny trying to hurt her, so now everyone suspects Gina.
Samantha gets sick and Gina gets to take her place at the state competition. This also makes Gina and Phoebe roommates for some reason.
That evening Jade shows up at their room door, upset, claiming Dana fell in the empty pool and is really hurt. Phoebe, Gina, and Jade go to the pool. Dana isn’t at the pool when they get there.
Someone hits Phoebe from behind and gags her, dragging her off. She gets thrown in a van; she sees Griffin locking up the school van but he can’t hear her. Two men show up with Gina and Jade, and the van drives off. Meanwhile they discover that Dana’s ALSO in the van.
Shrinking back into the van, Phoebe watched in terror as a thin, rubbery face appeared in the doorway. “Hello, girls,” his low voice growled. “Welcome to Camp Kidnap.” (p. 104)
Camp Kidnap should definitely be the title of a Stine book.
The cheerleaders escape from the two men and make it to the road, where Griffin picks them up. Yay, they’re saved!
The Twist: They’re not saved! Griffin is driving them further from the hotel. When he suggests they do his favourite cheer, “We’re gonna get you!,” Phoebe realizes he was the one behind all the pranks.
Jade and Dana confess that they HIRED Mitch and Jenner to fake the first kidnapping.
Griffin exposits about how his sister, Laura, used to be a cheerleader. The other cheerleaders made fun of her, and then she fell and broke her neck. So as revenge, he’s now taking four cheerleaders to an abandoned meat factory.
He threatens them with electric saws and meat hooks and whatever, then gives them five minutes to come up with four perfect cheer routines or else he’ll kill them. Gina tries to appeal to his sympathies by telling him about her own dead cheerleader sister, but it doesn’t work.
Jade makes a mistake during one routine, but Phoebe uses the moment to grab Griffin’s flashlight and knock him over the head with it, and they all scatter. Gina gets stuck on a conveyor belt that feeds into a meat grinder (literally stuck, her shoe is wedged in somehow) but Phoebe rescues her. They hear Jade scream.
On their way to escape they see Dana sitting on a wall, and when they run to her Griffin pops out, having used her as bait. He makes them do one more cheer. Gina collapses (her ankle is twisted), and Phoebe runs. She finds Jade, cold and dead and hanging in the meat locker.
Phoebe tries to set off a fire alarm:
There was no noise, no sign that the matches triggered the alarm. It probably doesn’t even work, she thought. (p. 148)
Gina leaps on Griffin from behind and claws his face, but he throws her off and she hits the concrete floor and passes out.
The doors burst open and a bunch of firefighters show up to rescue them. Well, you know: all except Jade.
In the epilogue Phoebe is openly dating Ty, Dana is crying as she remembers Jade, and Gina is expected to be the sixth team member as soon as she gets better (right now she’s watching from the bleachers).
Previously:
Seniors #1 and #2: Let’s Party! and In Too Deep
Seniors #3 and #4: The Thirst and No Answer
Seniors #5 and #6: Last Chance and The Gift
The Mummy Reads 