The Unseen Enemy

    Polly and Margot have decided to spend their summer volunteering at Neighborhood House, a large old house where the local youths can take classes, participate in clubs, and play. The house is run by Miss Brian who tells the girls that the community might soon be losing Neighborhood House. The residence had been donated 20 years ago by wealthy Dr. Brighton with the conditions being that if the community house was not a success in 20 years then it would be handed over to his next of kin, whose identity is currently unknown. The place is currently struggling to make ends meet, partially due to the great depression but also by the lack of funding from the community chest.

    A young girl, Juanita, runs into Miss Brian's office then to tell her that little Lois Ames has gone missing. After a thorough search does not find the girl Polly goes home to fetch her dog who then traces the little girl up in the attic behind a wall paneling. The girl says she fell asleep in a room and doesn't know how she came to be hidden in the attic. Not wanting Neighborhood House to get any bad publicity that could cause it to struggle more financially Polly asks everyone involved to keep the incident quiet.

    On their first day of volunteering Polly and Margot are visited at the house by their wealthy and snobbish friend Catherine Peasley.  Catherine's father is the chairman for Neighborhood House and after hearing about Polly and Margot volunteering he makes Catherine volunteer as well. Miss Brian is very excited about this because she hopes it it will influence Mr. Peasley into giving the house more funding.

    The following day Polly is to run a gym class at the house however before the class starts a young boy named Jimmy falls from the gymnastic bars and breaks his arm. Polly runs him to the doctor's office and as she sits in the waiting room she replays the incident in her mind. The way in which Jimmy fell makes her believe the gymnastic bar had been loose. After Jimmy is patched up she goes back to the gym to examine the bars but they're gone. After questioning around the janitor tells Polly he had sold the bars to a junk man. This seems very strange and suspicious.

    The following morning Polly arrives at the house to find Miss Brian crying over a newspaper. An article has been written about Lois and Jimmy's incidents and calls for a full investigation of Neighborhood House and Miss Brian.

    After Polly sees another article in the paper talking about the recent birthday party for 90-year-old resident, Mrs. Heiserling, she decides to pay her a visit and see if she can give any information on who Dr. Brighton's next of kin is. The elderly women tells Polly that Dr. Brighton had a large collection of valuables including jade, gold, and crystal objects. He left them to his wife in his will but she was never able to find them. Polly excitedly returns to Neighborhood House to tell Margot about this missing treasure.

    The girls are overheard by a little boy named Amity and Polly covers up by saying the treasure refers to a treasure hunt Neighborhood House is going to throw for the kids. This is overheard by Catherine who takes control of the idea. She plans out an elaborate night time treasure hunt with rhyming clues and sets the locations as the old quarry, the filling station, the shot tower, and the loading dock of her father's factory. 

    Polly is concerned that these locations are not safe for children, that the children shouldn't be running around town at night, and that the rhymes will be too hard for the younger children to figure out. But Catherine uses her father's position as director of the board to intimidate Polly into accepting her plans.

    However Polly secretly works with Miss Brian to protect the 80 children who sign up for the hunt; the children will work in assigned groups of five, Polly and Margot will check into each location to make sure the children are safe, and the police chief will have the busy road in front of the filling station temporarily blocked off. Catherine is angered over these decisions but as they're announced last minute she can not have them changed.

    The treasure hunt is going well until Amity's group is somehow given the wrong clue and heads to later location before all the other groups, this being the shot tower. Polly arrives just in time as Amity falls from the tower into some water. He is fine but Polly worries about this being more bad publicity. She has the children in Amity's group agree not to tell anyone of the incident.

    After the hunt is over Polly heads to the newspaper office to ask the editor about the articles he's been writing about Neighborhood House. He informs her he's already received a tip off call about what happened to Amity and is writing another article. Polly explains the whole situation to him and he agrees to change his exposé on the suspected mismanagement of the house into a feature story about the treasure hunt.

    The next morning Margot proposes an idea to get good publicity for the house; throw an operetta staring the children to raise money for a sick young boy named Joe. Miss Brian calls in her friend Grace Ellis who will work as the director of the show.

    Polly submits an article to the newspaper about the show which is how Catherine finds out about it. She is livid that she wasn't included and storms over to Neighborhood House and screams at Grace, saying that if she, Catherine, is not made director and given control of the show then she will have her father interfere with the house. Grace doesn't pay Catherine's threats any mind however.

    The night of the show runs smoothly except for the disappearance of Nina, the shows lead. She's no where to be found and Amity has to take her part which turns out to be a huge hit with the audience. After the show Polly, Margot, Grace, and Miss Brian are headed to the police station to report Nina missing when they see the doctor's car parked at Catherine's house. Once inside they find out Catherine had struck Nina with her car and brought the girl to her house to recuperate. Catherine becomes quite angry when she finds out the show went on without Nina.

    The next day Polly is summoned by the newspaper editor to meet him at Neighborhood House. There she meets his friend, Mr. Lemly who is a movie producer. He saw the show last night and is interested in taking a screen test of Amity. The boy is called and they film him performing his numbers from the show. Both men head to Chicago to have the film developed and viewed.

    The next morning Polly finds an article in the newspaper recounting how the police were not contacted when Nina disappeared. The newspaper editor calls from Chicago to tell Polly that the article was unknowingly published by one of his men and he fully supports Neighborhood House's success. He also lets her know that Amity's screentest was a huge success.

    Polly and Margot discuss the House's sudden unlucky streak and decide someone must be trying to sabotage it. Polly believes it might be Dr. Brighton unknown next of kin who wants the house to search for the missing treasure. The girls then decide to search it themselves. The begin on the lowest floor which is the gymnasium. While tapping on the walls they discover a hollow spot and begin chiseling the stone out when Catherine walks in and yells that she's going to tell her father what they're doing and runs out. Not wanting the Peaslys to find the treasure Polly moves a rack of exercise equipment in front of the area than chisels the wall six feet away to create a red herring.

    The girls immediately leave and come back the next day to find Miss Brian has been instructed to ban the two girls from entering the house. She says she going to put in her resignation but Polly tells her to wait for three days and she will have everything fixed. 

    Polly then visits Mrs. Heiserling who tells her Dr. Brighton next of kin was a troublesome nephew named Peter Brighton who took off to Florida after a falling out with his uncle. Polly and Margot sneak into the house that night to search for the treasure but have to flee almost immediately when they hear the janitor messing around in Miss Brian's office.

    The next day Miss Brian calls the girls back to the house and asks them to help her. The board has asked her for a report of every expenditure over the last 20 years and it's too large a job for Miss Brian to handle alone, especially since someone has messed with her files. They get to work but suddenly Polly runs off to make a long distance call. When she returns Catherine and Mr. Peasly arrive baring hammers and chiseled and go straight to the gym and start working on removing the stone. 

    Polly calls the newspaper editor, the mayor, and all the members of the city council and the house board and summons them there as witnesses to the discovery of the treasure. She then confronts Mr. Peasly, addressing him by his birth name of Peter Brighton, and reminds him that the treasure is currently the property of Neighborhood House. The Peaslys are helpless to steal the valuables with so many men of power present so they slip out as Polly, the editor, and the mayor discover the cache of jewels, gold, and jade.

    After a celebratory dinner Polly, Margot, Miss Brian, and the editor go to Mrs. Heiserling to share the story and she says her talks with Polly have inspired her to donate her house as a Neighborhood House for her part of the town.

- This book is a rarity in that it has a large cast of minorities and a black supporting character. Amity is an African American boy and he is described as the most talented of all the children, as having a "brilliant grin which makes him one of the favorites of everyone at the community house", and he gets the screen test and becomes a movie actor. 

    It's also interesting to see bigotry is used as one of Catherine's evil characteristics. She is introduced as berating her "colored" servants, something she does often, and when she first appears at Neighborhood House she pulls her skirt away so it won't touch the Mexican children.

- When Nina goes missing they wait an extra hour and a half before considering reporting it to the police because they don't want it to ruin the show. They then decide to search for another hour before mentioning the police again. Miss Brian says they should keep looking themselves cause it'll look careless that they took so long to report it. Maybe Miss Brian does need to be investigated.

- Catherine is similar to Victoria from Betty Baxter's other book, Becky Bryan's Secret, in that she could very possibly be a sociopath. She seems to have no kindness for anyone besides herself and even goes so far as to hit a child with her car to get her way. I'm very curious what would have become of her after the story ends.

- I like the fact that Polly and Margot want to be social workers and that's why they volunteer at the house. I think that's an interesting career goal. A lot of these books have girls wanting to have more glamorous careers.

    Overall I think this is quite good. I really like Betty Baxter's writing because she knew how to keep things moving and there's never any boring spots or places it drags. I think the premise, location, and characters are fun and unique. Baxter wrote a number of books which I look forward to reading some day.

Becky Bryan's Secret

    Becky Bryan is starting her junior year as a new student at Kent High School. The first day of school starts a week long contest to sell the most amount of subscriptions for the school newspaper. Whoever wins has a better chance of getting whichever role they want working for the paper. Becky wants to be editor but knows she's hindered by being a new student so she takes her subscription sales seriously. 

    By the end of the day she's already made 30 sales which provokes Victoria Heath who sees herself as the leader of her peers. Victoria waits for Becky in the girls lounge and informs her that outshining Victoria in any field will result in Becky being outcasted. Becky pays no mind to Victoria who decides to try and destroy Becky's reputation before she even has a chance to acquire one.

    The night before the last day of the competition Victoria sneaks into the school and rearranged the public score board to make it look as though Becky is in the lead then spreads the rumor that Becky changed the score board herself to cheat. Little does Victoria know that Becky has acquired significantly more sales and once she's announced as the winner her name is cleared.

    Hilary, Becky's new best friend, brings her four year old sister to school one day. This so happens to be a day when her and Becky are playing tennis before school. Victoria offers to watch the sister but soon runs to the tennis courts to say the little girl has ran away onto the roof. 

    The three then look and watch as the little girl falls off the roof onto a ledge. Hilary promptly faints and Becky orders Victoria to call the fire department while she climbs a telephone poll and walks the wire like a tightrope over to the ledge. There she sits with the child until the fire department gets them down. During this time the girl informs Becky that Victoria had taken her to the roof herself. Becky believes this was Victoria's revenge on Hilary for befriending Becky.

    The weekend brings the first outing of the junior girls' horse club. Becky has been invited on the horseback ride by Hilary. Victoria arranges it so that everyone else comes early causing Becky to be stuck with the only horse left; the ill tempered Diablo. Becky is a skillful horsewoman and handles the horse magnificently, to Victoria's disappointment. The girls stop for lunch and Victoria suggests Becky stay behind and clean up their picnic area. She then places burs under Diablo's saddle blanket.

    Ten minutes after the other girls have left Becky mounts the horse and is tossed off, with the fall spraining her back. She decides to remain still as to not damage her back more and assumes someone will come back for her when she does not appear. However no one comes back as Victoria insists Becky has not caught up with them because she must have had a hissy fit over having to clean the picnic area and stormed off home. Hilary doesn't believe this and spends the rest of the ride furious over Victoria's continuous insults of Becky.

    After the ride is over Hilary learns that Diablo arrived back at the stable rider-less and that Becky's car is still parked in the stable garage. She quickly heads out looking for her friend and finds Becky struggling to walk back to the stables. 

    Hilary wants to take her straight to a doctor but Becky insists she has to get to the football game to cover it for the school paper. In dirty riding habits the girls arrive to the game on horseback and catch the attention of everyone which infuriates Victoria.

    As Halloween arrives Becky plans a party for the group at an old barn. The party starts out with a scavenger hunt that everyone is thrilled over but the game ends with Tad, the star of the football team, spraining his ankle. Victoria jumps at the chance to blame this on Becky and starts spreading the rumor that Tad is furious at Becky and blames her for his accident. 

    As everyone starts blaming Becky, Hilary decides to clear her friends name by inviting Tad to go to the football game with her and Becky, who he certainly does not blame for his injury. Victoria is yet again furious when she sees Becky and Tad arrive together and sit next to each other, showing everyone that there is no bad blood between them.

    The next football game will be against Kent High School's biggest rival and the town is abuzz with anticipation. The local radio station decides to give some time to a program dedicated to the game and asks the principal to arrange the show. He asks a teacher to get it together and the teacher then asks Victoria to write out a ten minute skit for it. She refuses saying she's too busy with a dress fitting to do it so it gets offered to Becky. Becky writes a two person script with the intention of her and Tad performing it but gets quite a shock when the roles are given to Tad and Victoria and Victoria takes credit for writing it.

    During the winter vacation Becky and Hilary go for a snowshoe hike, get caught in a blizzard, and lost. They try to dig a hole into a snowdrift for protection from the blizzard but end up finding a door in a stone cliff behind the snow. They manage to break the lock and inside they find an up-to-date home complete with electricity and telephone. The phone connects to a ranger station so they are able to get word to their families while they hunker down until the storm is over which ends up being the next day. A ranger comes for them and tells the unique house belongs to the daughter-in-law of the town's founder who uses it as a summer home.

    Back at school after the holidays Victoria announces she will be taking a one month vacation to Florida. The school's newspaper editor comes down with scarlet fever and must quarantine for a month. This leaves Becky in charge of the paper and she decides to make changes. 

    After witnessing a freshman get bullied in the halls and the school monitors not bothering to help she writes a scathing editorial. Later the same bully physically assaults a freshman causing him injury. Becky has to attend the student council disciplinary hearing as a witness. She then writes an article about proceedings with the perpetrator's name clearly stated. 

    The school is shocked to see someone being publicly called out and shamed for their misbehavior. When Victoria returns she runs wild with this and successfully starts turning the student body against Becky, including Hilary.

    As the school year comes to an end Becky throws a giant circus themed party for her to reveal her real identity to her peers. Before the announcement she finds out she has been elected editor for the following school year and senior class president. 

    She then tells everyone that she is in fact Rebecca Bryan Royal, daughter of the famous Royal Circus owner, famed tightrope walker, and famed radio performer. She explains that she wanted to keep her identity secret because she wanted to make friends for who she is and not because of her fame or wealth. Everyone declares that they like Becky for herself, everyone except Victoria. Overtaken with jealousy Victoria tries to one-up Becky's announcement by announcing she will be going to an exclusive Italian school next year but no one cares.

- Victoria is called Virginia on page 29.

- The girls, including Hilary, leave Becky alone to clean up after breakfast and tell her to catch up with them when she's done even though this is her first time in this area. This is so strange and unlikely. It only took Becky 10 minutes to clean up, they could have waited and helped.

- Victoria is a sociopath. She's gonna let a child die to get revenge on Hilary and could have paralyzed or killed Becky with the horse stunt.

- This book is unique in that Becky's rival never sees the err of her ways and never makes peace with Becky nor apologizes. Victoria is bad from start to finish and has no redemption.

    Overall this was an entertaining read. The chapters are short and non-repetitive. I did skim a few pages of the football games cause I really can't stand to read sports scenes but they weren't as bad as other books.