Party Pressure is the thirty-first book written by D. Isaac Thomas. It is part of the Dougall-Fowl Universe.
Summary
Birdie asks Bonnie to her party, but refuses to invite Bonnie's best friend. Get ready for an epic adventure as Bonnie and Sally take action for what they think is right!
Synopsis
The story opens with a conversation between Bonnie and Birdie. Birdie asks Bonnie to attend her party. Bonnie is excited until Birdie swears her to secrecy over Bonnie's best friend, Sally. Bonnie asks Birdie what she dislikes about Sally, and Birdie simply replies that she thinks Sally is odd. Bonnie agrees to go, but later in the night, she lies in bed feeling guilty and disloyal. Finally, she gets an idea. The story is about a party that Bonnie attempts to rig after Sally is rejected. She is up too late thinking, however, and she continually falls asleep during the school day. The following day, Bonnie reveals to Sally that the party is happening, which makes Sally upset, especially because her birthday is on Saturday. Bonnie suggests they tie up Cactus so Bonnie can disguise as him, which Sally reluctantly agrees to assist her in, despite briefly attempting to talk her out of it. When Bonnie captures Cactus, she brings him home. There, her mother, SoccerGirl, unintentionally reveals that Birdie and two of her cronies have captured Sally.
When Bonnie arrives, she learns that Birdie's party is imminent, and more importantly, that Sally was captured and bound to the DUNCE seat with a relative cap after Birdie saw through her act. Horrified, Bonnie calls SoccerGirl, but the battery power in the latter's phone was dead. Bonnie pleads for help from Cactus, who is appalled by Sally's capture. Cactus agreed to do anything he could. He tells Bonnie how to get inside and begins painting her to look like one of Birdie's cronies. As he finishes up, Bonnie's ears burn with guilt for Cactus' recent capture, considering him a friend now.
Bonnie tells Cactus her plan - she will go and see if she can sing Birdie to sleep. Then she will outfit Birdie with the DUNCE cap and put the guards in a permanent sleep by _. She then plans to use her disguise as a crony to announce that the party is cancelled. When Cactus questions his role in this, Bonnie tells him to stall Birdie while she sneaks in and takes out the guards. To do this, Cactus goes to Birdie's house and rings the doorbell. When Birdie answers, she formally points out that Cactus is early. Cactus pretends to apologize for mistaking the time, Cactus tickles his nose to make himself sneeze, which blows cactus quills all around the house. This damaged the furniture and destroyed the balloons. Just then, Bonnie climbs onto the roof and enters through the chimney, before shaking off all the soot and ashes off of her and around the room, infuriating Birdie even further. Birdie takes to picking out the quills while she has her cronies pick up the broken balloons. Bonnie begins getting to work and successfully puts Birdie into slumber. Bonnie and the crony pull Birdie away from the living room.
From there, the rest of the plan is a success, though Bonnie begins to feel guilty afterwards. At lunch, she tells this to Sally, and suggests they apologize to Birdie. Sally also agrees to postpone her birthday celebration until Friday (it was on Sally's birthday that Birdie's party crashed). Everything turned out fine.
Critical response
Party Pressure was not as successful as some of D. Isaac Thomas' other stories. Although critics virtually bashed it, the fans certainly did not.
New characters
- Sally
- Birdie's cronies
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