Marcy and Patty are 13 now and in the 8th grade. Next year they'll be in high school! Things are changing for them. Marcy's mother is going to have to take her shopping because last year's dresses are too small and childish for her now. However, Marcy has no luck in talking her mother into letting her get a permanent.

Marcy doesn't have much time to imagine what it will be like to grow up before her best friend, Patty, comes over with bad news: stuck-up Gwynn Gilson is back in town. They're sure that everything is going to be ruined. Patty's big sister, Liz, gives them advice on how to handle Gwynn. They're not sure they can manage it. Worse, Folly and Bink, the brothers between Liz and Patty, think Gwynn is pretty. Folly even thinks Marcy and Patty are just jealous.

Of course that's because Folly and Bink don't know what Gwynn is like with her female classmates who aren't her loyal puppy dogs.

From the first day of school it's obvious that under her more sophisticated hair style and clothes better suited to a high school student, Gwynn hasn't changed. She wastes no time in making Patty, Marcy, and their friends feel like ignorant clods. At Mary Banning Hotchkiss School we did this, at Mary Banning Hotchkiss School we did that, blah, blah, blah.

Gwynn doesn't endear herself to any of her classmates by talking the principal into having a weekly social dancing class for grades 6 through 8. The boys complain that it's sissy stuff. The first class certainly doesn't go well. I have to applaud the girl who figured out a way to made sure her partner stopped stepping on her feet.

A subplot starts with Marcy and the Fripseys practicing their recorders in the Fripseys' attic. The author drew a mouse standing on one of the beams over the players. A mouse in a house with four cats??? I think head cat General Custer needs to speak to his troops.

The kids meet Mrs. Fripsey downstairs. She's been on closet inspection -- uh oh! The result is what we would call a yard sale, but they call a white elephant sale. There's plenty of the usual fun and a few disasters -- thanks to the pets. Great-Gram Dundee is reminded of how she met her late husband, Homer. The story made me chuckle.

After that pleasant interlude, Gwynn is at it again -- this time with the help of a handsome college freshman named Ricky Ransom who has a canary-yellow convertible. Marcy and Patty gather the other Bampejens club members for a council of war.

Then it's time for more fun with a warm, late October day. I'm with Great-Gram Dundee on what to do with it.

Gwynn's next move is to give a party -- one where the girls will have to get their own dates for the first time. Don't miss Patty's opinion of knights in shining armor and romance in chapter 8.

Gwynn takes the trouble to be quite nasty to Patty and Marcy about dates in chapter 9. (I enjoyed the session where the Bampejens, except for Sue-Sue, try to practice being more glamorous for the party.)

Clarence, the thoughtful boy, is Marcy's date. She and her family are taken aback by Clarence's new hobby. I see nothing wrong with it.

If you disliked Gwynn in the first book, Bright Days, and loathe her now, you will love what happens to her at the party. Serves her right.

The school Christmas pagent doesn't get a chapter in this book. Valentine's Day does. Marcy gets a beautiful store-bought valentine delivered to her home. Who's her secret admirer?

The class valentine party is spoiled, but it's not Gwynn's fault this time -- not directly. Can anything be done?

It wouldn't be a Fripsey book without ending on a high note of fun. Leave it to the Fripseys does just that. Marcy even learns who her secret admirer is!

I wish there were more than four Fripsey books. It's always hard for me to come to the end of them. If you like warm young adult stories of friendship and family, try one of the books. You'll probably want to get them all if you do. ( )