George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment. While fast paced and featuring perfectly fine character development, this effort, hampered by its thriller ambitions, fails to reach the lofty standard Parry set in her luminous debut, Heart of a Shepherd (2009). Military children everywhere will recognize the wrenching loss their coming separation will cause, but the only mildly suspenseful spy-novel action ultimately minimizes that issue, leaving an entertaining but never fully engaging coming-of-age tale in a well-realized setting. Fending for themselves in Paris, the girls, initially naive, intrepidly discover their inner resources. The girls witness a brutal attack on a Soviet soldier and save his life he then disguises himself as their chaperone to escape Germany and, possibly, the KGB. A trip to Paris for a music competition seems like the perfect finish to their time together, but at the last moment their music teacher backs out, jeopardizing the trip.

Their fathers are being sent to different military assignments, and they will be separated.

Eighth-grade BFFs Jody, Giselle and Vivian are facing their last few days together in Germany, some months after the Berlin Wall has been dismantled. Post–Cold War thriller meets teen-friendship story with uneven results.

Second fiddle rosanne parry