REGARDING THE BATHROOMS

Regarding—once again—the town of Geyser Springs, Mo.as a fine setting for pun-laden hijinks, the Klise sisters present a fourth set of developments in their ongoing tangle of criminal activities (both big time and small), local romances and ambitious student projects. All are presented in a mix of reproduced documents, letters and newspaper pages. As the central activity involves efforts to renovate the filthy restrooms beneath the Middle School before an upcoming Society of Principals and Administrators conference, no opportunity for alimentary double-entendres is left unplumbed. They go from frantic Principal Walt Russ’s loo-sing battle with galloping constipation (despite consultations with bowel specialist Gladys Ownleepoup, M.D.) to soothing letters from the “Bath Room” of omni-competent fixer-upper Florence Waters, currently vacationing in England (guess where). By the end, the town has both a new spa and a newly active volcano to draw tourists, the children (along with readers) have been exposed to some geology, world history and even Latin, and everyone, except for a quartet of would-be fraudsters and thieves, is marching off to the next episode flushed with triumph. (Fiction. 9-11)