SVH #20: Crash Landing!

Spoiler alert: the cover makes this one look way more exciting than it is. Let’s take a look.

Elizabeth is clutching an unconscious Enid, as if the two of them have narrowly escaped an exploding plane (check out the way Liz is staring out into the distance with fear!)

There is a crash landing in Crash Landing! But Elizabeth isn’t involved. Enid is (so of course it’s kind of a boring crash), as well as her newly-licensed pilot boyfriend, George Warren.

When we open, George and Enid are taking a celebratory flight above Secca Lake. A bunch of classmates from Sweet Valley High are down below, having a picnic. While Enid is oohing and aahing at the scenery, George is thinking about when he can break up with her.

Poor Enid, he thought sadly. She has no idea how I feel. If only there were some way I could have kept myself from falling in love with Robin.

Robin is Robin Wilson—former fat girl, now Sweet Valley High cheerleader. The ultimate turnaround. Robin and George ended up in the same flight class and fell in loooove. The only problem? They were both with other people when it happened. Robin has broken up with Allen Waters but George has yet to break the bad news to Enid.

Soon, however, George has bigger problems. The plane engine stops working. He calls Air Traffic Control and they’re like, yeahhh sorry all you can do is land in the lake. So George and Enid brace themselves for the crash, with Enid screaming, “George, I’m so frightened!” the whole time. I know I shouldn’t feel like this, but really, it was quite irritating.

George is knocked out when they land and Enid somehow saves his life—and in the process, she injures her spine and loses all the feeling in her legs. The pair are rescued from the lake. It’s quite a dramatic scene, and Robin Wilson, who was standing at the water’s edge when the plane crashed, passes out, prompting some of her classmates to be like, hmm, that’s weird.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth is at the Sweet Valley police station with the rest of her fam, helping Jessica fill out a report about her latest boyfriend, Jack Howard. (He threatened her life.) This is all relayed to us readers in a very matter-of-fact way, it’s comical. She hears the call about the crash come in on a radio and loses her mind. After hearing that Enid and George are both alive, the Wakefields race to the hospital.

George is fine. Enid is paralyzed from the waist down and the doctor doesn’t know yet if she will be able to walk again. First, they have to operate. And they can’t operate yet.

George sneaks into Enid’s room so he can have a pity-me monologue while she lies there knocked out from pain meds. He yammers on about how it’s his fault she’s in this position (which of course it is) and that he will never leave her while she’s paralyzed, never hurt her with the truth: that he’s in love with Robin.

Elizabeth knows all about George and Robin, so she’s quite a nasty bitch to George for a good portion of this book. It’s pretty great.

OK, B-plot time: Jessica and Lila have signed up for a gourmet cooking class. This honestly could have been a lot better if they had focused on the girls’ friendship but instead they have Jessica fall in love with the teacher.

In his early twenties, Jean-Pierre was well over six feet tall, his broad shoulders tapering down to a slender waist. He had jet back hair worn a bit longer than that of most of the guys Jessica knew at school, and chiseled features that looked like those of the statues she’d seen in slides in her art class. And his eyes—Jessica had never seen such intense blue eyes before.

Then we get this:

The Eiffel Tower was one thing. But what Jessica really had on her mind was the dance coming up in a few weeks. Jessica had been racking her brains, trying to think of someone interesting to go with, and now this gorgeous creature had just fallen in her lap.

LOL. Yes, yes. The Eiffel Tower has nothing on the Sweet Valley High gymnasium.

After class, Jessica and Lila get into Lila’s fabulous lime green Triumph and head to Robin’s house because Jessica needs to let her know that there’s been a change in the time of their cheerleading practice. Oh, to once again live in a world without text messaging and cell phones!

On their way, they gossip about how Robin broke up with Allen for “some other guy.” When they arrive, they see George and his light-blue GTO at Robin’s house.

“You don’t think George Warren is the reason Robin and Allen broke up, do you?” Lila pressed her.

Interestingly, Jessica initially tries to keep Lila from seeing George’s car because she suspects this very thing—especially after seeing Robin pass out at Secca Lake. It’s a rare human moment for our Jess.

It turns out that George never actually saw Robin at her house—he decided against it, and then called her to tell her they can’t see each other. Still, the damage was done.

Jessica tells Elizabeth what she saw, so Liz has even more reason to hate George. She also tells her friends and fellow cheerleaders, and they all decide to wage a cold war on Robin. God I don’t miss high school. Or middle school, really. I feel like this was more of a middle school thing. God, Jessica and her friends are so immature.

A few days later, Elizabeth and George are at the hospital again while Enid is having her operation. Finally the doctor comes out and says Enid is going to be fine but it may take her awhile to be fully functional again. When Mrs. Rollins goes in to see her, Lizzie is left alone with George and he tries like hell to make her not hate him. He says he isn’t leaving Enid for Robin now, that Enid will never know the truth, that Elizabeth can’t tell her anything, etc.  

“Don’t you see,” he pointed out, “how hard it would be on Enid if she thought things weren’t perfect? After everything she’s been through—”

Elizabeth spun on George, her eyes blazing with anger. “I don’t think I need you to tell me how to treat my best friend. I’d never say a word to her about you and Robin. That’s your business. But that doesn’t mean I have to pretend that everything’s fine when I’m talking to you, does it? When I think about how much Enid loves you, how trusting she is—and how she almost killed herself trying to save you—”

Elizabeth couldn’t help herself. Tears were streaming down her face.

“Stop it!” George cried. “Liz, don’t you think I’ve thought about all that? And Enid isn’t the only one I’ve hurt,” he added bitterly. “I hurt Robin, too. And because of me Robin hurt Allen. Don’t you think I realize what I’ve done?”

Yikes! Straight off the set of General Hospital, these two are.

Chapter Six opens with Robin lamenting her troubles in the student lounge. She’s gained back 10 pounds since the whole ordeal began. She thinks:

It took too long to get myself thin. I’m not going to let my figure go because my whole life is falling apart.

Well, at least she has her priorities straight.

She manages to coax Liz into meeting her at Casey’s Place after school to try and get to the bottom of why everyone is treating her like she has Covid after refusing to get vaccinated.

Elizabeth just says she feels awkward around Robin because of her relationship with George, and then begs off, citing plans with Todd. Robin miserably eats her feelings (in the form of a sundae).

Small aside: that evening during dinner at Casa Wakefield, the twins are officially given the Fiat. Little bit of SVH Trivia there for ya.

Then Elizabeth asks her parents if it’s OK if she has a “dinner party” at the house on Friday night. LOL what? For some reason, Ned and Alice don’t bother reminding their daughter that she’s only 16 years old.

My book has a typo in it—see below. I am not sure if I am the nerd who underlined it in pencil or if it was the person before me. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was me.

Friday/Firday night arrives and Elizabeth is all set for her dinner party. The guest list: Todd, Enid, and George.

She had done everything she could to insure (yeah that’s another error in the book, should be ensure) the night would be a success. She’d dimmed the lights in the Wakefield dining room, setting candles on the table to make the room look more festive. And she’d used one of her mother’s tried-and-true recipes for the spaghetti sauce. Todd had put some classical music on in the living room, and the total effect was charming.

What a bunch of dorks.

Over dinner, Enid (who is in a wheelchair) makes everyone uncomfortable talking about how wonderful George is. She also admits that she hasn’t exactly been keeping up with her physical therapy.

George bails early (who can blame him) and Enid is completely crestfallen. Literally 30 seconds after George leaves with an understanding that Elizabeth and Todd will take Enid home, Enid’s like, actually I’m ready to go, take me home now.

Elizabeth leaves a mess of dirty dishes in the kitchen so they can bring Enid home right that second, thinking to herself that Ned and Alice will understand if they come home to a disaster kitchen.

And where has Jessica spent the evening, you ask? Well, first she went to Cara’s, and then she went to the library to check out some cookbooks. Her parents’ wedding anniversary is coming up and she has decided to surprise them with a romantic gourmet meal and she’s planning the menu. It’s actually very sweet, even though her primary reason or the gesture is that she wants to—for once—outshine Elizabeth, the queen of thoughtful anniversary gifts. Jess is sure that with everything going on with Enid, Liz has totally forgotten their parents’ anniversary. This is her year, she’s sure of it!

Jessica’s dreaming of chicken cordon bleu and veal picatta when Ned and Alice start yelling at her about the dirty dishes. They barely listen when she says she’s not the one who left the mess, and when they do remember about Elizabeth’s dinner, they’re like, “Oh, well. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation.”

This pisses Jessica off even more. I’m on her side with this one.

Sunday afternoon: Enid is sitting around reading magazine articles like “How to Tell if He Doesn’t Love You Anymore.” She knows George has been acting weird and it’s freaking her out. When he finally shows up at her house, she asks him if he’s mad at her, which of course makes him feel like an even bigger piece of shit. Then she tells him he’s her whole world and she doesn’t know what would happen to her if he left her.

No pressure.

Enid resolves to do whatever she can to make sure George doesn’t peace out.

Cut to cooking class—Jessica has decided to stay after to ask Jean-Pierre to the dance. Hahahaha. At least Lila is like, “Don’t you think he’s a little old for a high school dance?” It must be nice to live in such a dream world.

The dream doesn’t last, however—Jean Pierre’s wife shows up at the end of class. Her name is Lizbette and she basically greets him like they’re on The Bachelor, jumping into his arms and wrapping her legs around him.

Unfortunately for us, this display happens before Jessica has a chance to embarrass herself by inviting Jean-Pierre to the dance. She attends with Ken Matthews instead, “undeniably one of the cutest and most popular guys at school. Ken was captain of the football team, and even if he wasn’t as sexy and mysterious as Jean-Pierre, he was a good dancer and a lot of fun at parties.”

Well, what more can a girl ask for?

Enid, George, Elizabeth, and Todd arrive at the dance and everyone stares at them. Robin and George are staring at each other with tortured expressions all night. Finally, George can’t help himself any longer—he dances a slow dance with Robin when the lights dim in the gym. Enid freaks and demands to know if George is in love with Robin. He doesn’t even have to answer.

Strangely, the blowup is all told from Elizabeth’s POV, as she tells Todd the story. No idea why the ghostwriter wouldn’t want to flesh out that scene! It’s basically what the entire book has building up to. Wtf?

The next day, Elizabeth goes to check on Enid and Enid basically tells her she’s going to pretend the other night never happened. She’s going to pretend George isn’t in love with Robin. And if the only way she can hang onto George is to never walk again, then so be it. OK, she doesn’t actually say this, but it’s heavily implied. Enid’s got a major mental block on walking, all because she’s afraid that if she’s alright, George will feel free to do what he pleases.

Elizabeth kind of feels sick. And later, she feels even more sick—Jessica made the family a cold seafood pasta for dinner that evening and included bad mussels. Liz, Ned, and Alice all puke. (Jessica was so busy she didn’t eat, so she was spared her own cooking.) So much for her practice run for the anniversary dinner!

A few days later, the Wakefields are eating out and mercilessly teasing Jessica about her poisionus dinner. Jessica sulks and quietly hates them, but still plans to make her parents an anniversary meal. Oh wait, Elizabeth ruins that too. She chooses that moment to surprise Ned and Alice with tickets to a dinner theater on their anniversary night—the same night Jessica was planning to cook for them. When she tells them this, they’re like, “Um, thanks but no thanks.” Jessica feels like crap and I don’t blame her. She really was trying to do something nice for once.

While Elizabeth is on a roll, she makes up with Robin and finds out that although George went to her house that one day, he didn’t see her. I don’t know why this was such a point of contention. It was pretty obvious in the days that followed that although he was there, they weren’t making out or anything.

Then Liz devises a plan to get Enid to realize she can in fact walk. She enlists the help of Mr. Collins’ son, Teddy. Teddy is 6 and a strong swimmer. She invites Enid over and then pretends like she was babysitting Teddy. She goes in the house to get drinks and Teddy pretends to fall in the pool and that he can’t swim. Enid screams for Elizabeth, but decides she can’t hear her. She heroically leaps out of her wheelchair and saves Teddy.

I mean. I guess this could happen? I get that Enid can walk but she hasn’t gotten out of the wheelchair in weeks, wouldn’t she have some severe muscle atrophy?

In the last chapter, Enid finally lets George go in a healthy way. And George finds out that it wasn’t his fault that the engine stalled. And Jessica keeps finding more reasons to hate her family, teasing the next book, Runaway.

God I can’t do another Enid-centric book for a long time. That was brutal.

SVH #14: Deceptions

Wow. Just wow. This is one of those Sweet Valley books that makes you realize just how much has changed in the world. And just how screwed up our view of women is/was (this book was published in 1984).

Before I get started, I’d like to share a memory I have about this book, which I am assuming I first read in 5th or 6th grade because that’s the last time I can recall being friends with the girl who took this book off my bookshelf, studied the cover, and said, “Deceptions. My mom won’t let me read this.” Thank you, mom, for not robbing me of my Sweet Valley passion. Or for not paying attention to what I was reading. Either or.

Let’s look at the cover. There’s Elizabeth, looking like a 40-year-old country club waitress with her feathered bangs and polo shirt. Gazing at her adoringly (by 1984 standards) or creepily (by 2021 standards) is Nicholas Morrow. He’s rich, he’s 19, and he’s new in town. It’s practically a law that he immediately tries to pursue a relationship with a Wakefield twin. Nicholas seems to find Jessica a bit much, so Elizabeth it is.

When we open, a party is in full swing at Casa Wakefield. Elizabeth has just returned home after having been held hostage by a maniac, and she was like, well gosh darn it, I wanna dance!

Things are weird from page 1 but they take a turn for the REALLY RIDICULOUS on page 17. 17!! Let that sink in. Ghostie wasted no time.

Before you read the following excerpt, I want to make this crystal clear: Nicholas has JUST MET ELIZABETH. Like an hour ago. MAYBE.

“Elizabeth—“ Nicholas began, his face reddening. “I don’t know how to tell you this…I’ve never said anything so difficult in my life. But I guess it’s best just to get it out into the open, so here goes.” He paused for a second, and then said quickly, “Elizabeth, I think I’m falling in love with you.”

WHAT?!

Reminder: Elizabeth was just kidnapped by a psychotic hospital orderly who claimed to love her. But instead of doing something reasonable, like running screaming from the room, Elizabeth is just like, oh come on. I highly doubt that. And then Nicholas is like, nope from the minute I saw you, I fell in love with you. And Elizabeth says…

“There in the moonlight?”

WHAT THE FUCK?!

Nicholas then proceeds to basically force her to agree to go on a date with him, even after she brings up her boyfriend, Todd the Basketball star Wilkins.

First Nicholas pretends he doesn’t think he is good-looking (we are previously told that Nicholas’ looks would “put a Greek god to shame”)

Then he says 16 is too young to be tied down with just one person. Nicholas is giving me vibes that he will be saying the same thing at 45.

Then he suggests that she is AFRAID to see what else is out there.

Nicholas is a Grade A creepazoid gaslighting manipulative douche.

Elizabeth finally agrees to have dinner with him. What I mean is, she allows herself to be guilted into it. It’s horrible, you guys. And let’s not forget that Nicholas is still basically a stranger. This is absolutely insane.

They agree to go to dinner on Sunday, which is just weird. Like these people are teenagers? Liz and Todd have a standing date on Saturday, but what about Friday? I know this isn’t the point but it’s weird. Elizabeth plans to tell Todd about the dinner but then Todd goes on about how he hates Nicholas, etc., and her resolve evaporates.

Meanwhile, Jessica is trying to use Randy Mason to learn about computers because Nicholas is going to be going into his family’s computer business. Jessica thinks being able to throw around terms like…um…”floppy disk”…are going to impress Nicholas, so the opportunistic, shameless fake flirting with Randy Mason begins. Oh, Jessica says she’s in love with Nicholas, btw. So Elizabeth keeps the date a secret from everyone (except eventually E-nerd but who cares?).

Jessica goes all out trying to learn about computers. She even goes to Randy’s house after school.

They went inside, and Randy led to Jessica to his room. There was a bed against one wall, with a chair beside it. There was a dresser, too. But most of the room was taken up with what Randy called his “work center”—a computer, a terminal, a printer.

OK, 2 questions. Wtf is a terminal? And 2, a chair beside the bed? For what? So Randy’s mom can read him bedtime stories?

Randy teaches Jessica how to “run a program” (?) and then offers to help her with her math. Jess is currently flunking and in danger of being kicked off the cheerleading squad.

What Jess actually wants is for Randy to hack into Sweet Valley High’s new computer (a gift from the Morrow family) and change her math grade. If you thought Randy was too smart to do something like that, well, you’ve never read a Sweet Valley book before and have severely underestimated the power of Jessica Wakefield’s dazzling smile.

On Wednesday night, Elizabeth frets because she’s expecting Nicholas to call to arrange their secret dinner date and she doesn’t want Jessica to answer the phone. I love how 1984 that is. I kinda wish we could go back in time in some ways, guys.

She manages to answer the phone when he calls. He suggests they go to a place called Cote d’Or for dinner.

Elizabeth had read something about it in some magazine. “Exquisite,” they had called it. “The specialties are…” A long list followed. After that were prices that made Elizabeth blink.

Since it’s out of town and highly unlikely that she’ll run into anyone from school, Elizabeth is stoked.

On Thursday, Randy—who has confessed to Jessica that he’s never had a girlfriend—changes Jessica’s F to C- in the Sweet Valley High computer system. Then he asks her if she wants to go to the Dairi Burger with him and she’s like, haha, no.

Later that afternoon, while Elizabeth is scrutinizing her neatly folded sweaters to see if Jessica secretly wore any of them, Randy calls. Mistaking Liz for Jess, he blabs about the whole grade-change thing and says the school has changed its access code and he thinks they are on to them and he’s terrified and going to school right now to confess. (How does he even know Mr. Cooper will still be there?) Elizabeth drags Jessica to school also so Randy doesn’t get all the blame, and Mr. Cooper makes a big show of how he is ONLY going to let it slide because ELIZABETH convinced him to. It’s weird. Like everything else in this book.

On Saturday night, Elizabeth chickens out of telling Todd about her dinner with Nicholas again. For good reason, really. She shouldn’t be having dinner with him in the first place. “OK fine Nicholas, I will give you a chance to woo me away from Todd.” Like, what? WTF is that? I remembered Nicholas Morrow quite fondly but upon revisiting this book, I have absolutely no idea why.

OK, Sunday. Go time. Elizabeth wakes up and it’s “the kind of day Sweet Valley was noted for.” Barf. She then has a breakfast of pancakes and maple syrup, prompting me to think about the fact that if I was going to hang out with a guy I liked when I was 16, I’d practically starve myself for like 3 days before so I could get as close to a “perfect size 6” as possible. I hope you choke on your pancakes, Elizabeth!!

…Anyway. We get a neat description of the outfit Liz selects for her date:

She decided on a natural-silk shantung dress that was practically the color of her honey-blond hair. The style was simplicity itself, but Elizabeth dressed it up with a pair of matching shoes, a gold belt, and a bracelet. Aside from that and her watch, she wore no jewelry except for a lavaliere, one of the matched pair their parents had given the twins on their sixteenth birthday.

We’re then told that Lizzie “pirouetted” in front of the mirror to make sure she was good to go. Alrighty then.

Elizabeth opts to drive herself to the restaurant—perhaps the only smart choice she makes in this book.  A “liveried valet” greets her. Honestly, wtf? I think this ghost writer wanted to be writing 17th century romances, or something.

The restaurant is quite fahncy. It’s even got doves flying around in a gold cage. Nicholas is there waiting, wearing charcoal slacks, a black dinner jacket, and—wait for it!—a “tasteful maroon ascot fastened about his neck.”

BAHAHAHAHAHA.

Nicholas orders for the both of them (eyeroll) and then the pair discuss: how rich people can sometimes be snobby and sometimes not, that Nicholas enjoys the Dairi Burger (he’s so down to earth!), swimming, tennis, and skiing. They both like Hemingway and mysteries, and Nicholas wants to go to college. He does not ask Elizabeth about her future plans, but he does ask her if she will go out with him again. She says no, citing that she’s not in love with him.

Nicholas is basically like, oh, damn, and then they’re like, ok, let’s be friends! Nicholas is seriously the biggest turd I didn’t remember.

Anyway, remember how it was Todd’s mom’s birthday today? Well, the Wilkins fam decided to splurge and go to Cote d’Or. Elizabeth pretends she’s Jessica so that Todd won’t flip a shit. Todd buys it but Elizabeth is caught anyway because he decides to go straight to the Wakefield house to…um…apologize for even THINKING Elizabeth would do something so shady. Of course, when he gets there, Jessica is all like, wtf do you want? And Elizabeth’s life is ruined.

For like a day.

Fast-forward a few pages: Todd is blowing it in the big basketball game because Elizabeth broke his heart and she’s watching helplessly and guiltily from the stands. Then NICHOLAS saves the day by telling Todd at half-time that he basically forced Elizabeth to go out with him and that she maintained her love for Todd all along. Todd believes this because I guess forcing people to go out on dates is a common thing amongst Sweet Valley men? I don’t know, you guys.

Overjoyed, Todd heads back out onto the court and scores a bunch of points or whatever and wins the game. And then he makes up with Elizabeth.

It’s terrible, guys. The whole entire thing. Did anyone remember Nicholas having such problematic behavior? I sure didn’t! Jessica winds up being the unlikely hero here, because she decides Nicholas is too boring to be interested in.

SVT #18: Center of Attention

(Click here for a recap of Sweet Valley Twins #17: Boys Against Girls)

I think of this book as the one in which Jessica’s narcissistic tendencies really shine for the first time. Let’s check out the cover.

There’s the 3 Wakefield kids—in a decidedly NOT Spanish-style kitchen, by the way. Jessica’s on the left, shaking her finger at Elizabeth and Steven, who look like they have had enough of her shit. Side note: I think Elizabeth is wearing a Guess Jeans T-shirt. Also, this marks Steven’s first Sweet Valley Twins cover appearance. It’s hard to tell if he’s as cute as we’re constantly told he is because he’s all like, “Grrr, stop being the bad twin!”

In the first scene of the book, Jessica is all pumped up about a sweater she saw at the mall. She’s so excited about it that she tries to tell Steven ALL about it. And he’s like, who gives a crap? She then goes to try and tell her mom about the sweater. Alice is busy with Elizabeth, who is yammering on about her dream to write a horse book like Black Beauty. Jessica is like, “I SAW A BEAUTIFUL SWEATER OMGAHHH”

“It’s pale, pale violet,” Jessica said, “with a white unicorn embroidered across the front.”

Alice is like, sounds great, I’m tired though, byeeee.

Jess pouts because she didn’t get any attention and it doesn’t look like she’s going to get the sweater, either. In an effort to suck up to her mom for sweater money, she decides to make a chocolate parfait for that night’s dessert. I feel like the Wakefields always have dessert. Did anyone else normally have dessert after dinner growing up? I never did. Was I poor? Was I being body-shamed? What gives?

At dinner, Ned announces that he’s going to New York City on a business trip—he’s trying to settle a dispute between 2 candy companies. Alice is supposed to tag along and the kids’ Great Aunt Shirley is supposed to come look after them. Alice starts hinting that she’s too tired to traipse off to New York and taste-test candy bars. Then she announces that she’s going upstairs to lie down, and she politely declines Jessica’s parfait.

The next morning, the twins almost get run over by Dennis Cookman, who has just stolen a bike. Nice going, ghostie! Already setting the stage for the next book, and it’s only chapter 2!

At lunch that afternoon, the Unicorns talk about the upcoming auditions for the school’s production of Carnival and president Janet Howell says a Unicorn should get the lead. They all decide that Jessica should audition for the part, and Jess is delighted. The only problem is that she has to go up against Dana Larson, the best singer in the school. There’s a lot at stake, though—Bruce Patman is auditioning for the male lead! Jessica vows to do whatever it takes to get the starring role. (Side note: Lila brags about having watched Carnival on her “projection TV.” Which I think is just a projector? I’m not sure.)

After school, Jess heads to ballet class and Alice is too tired to pick her up so she arranges for her to catch a ride with Kerry Glenn. Kerry’s mom just had a baby and before she found out she was pregnant, she was tired all the time—just like Alice. Jess freaks, thinking her mom could have a baby that screams the way Kerry’s little brother does the entire way home. Thankfully, that plotline is put to rest within pages. Alice is not pregnant. She probably had her tubes tied after Jessica.

With the expense of a fourth college education out of the way, Jess tries again for the unicorn sweater, which costs $40. Alice tells her if she can save half, she will give her the rest. BUT IT’S THE ONLY SWEATER IN THE WHOLE STORE. Gotta say, I think Alice is being a bit unreasonable here. It DOES sound like a special sweater for Jessica. Can’t she just buy it and then give it to her after she saves half? At least then Jess won’t be scared about it being sold.

At dinner that night, the kids find out that Alice isn’t going to New York City because she doesn’t feel up to it. That means Aunt Sally isn’t coming. Yup, Aunt Sally. And before it was Great Aunt Shirley. Nice job, team.

When the phone rings the next day after school, Jessica picks up. It’s her mother’s doctor’s office—they have the results of her blood test. Jessica didn’t even know her mom had had blood work done, and she’s 12, so she’s understandably nervous now. What she hears on the phone while eavesdropping doesn’t make her feel any better, either: her mom’s white blood cell count is low and there is a lump on her neck that needs to be biopsied. There’s a slight chance it might be cancerous. Jessica instantly becomes convinced that her mom is dying. It’s hard not to feel bad for her, but don’t worry, that feeling will soon go away.

For the next chapter or so, Jessica is consumed by terrible thoughts. When Caroline Pearce calls to talk to Elizabeth about something with the Sixers, Jess snaps at her and Caroline’s all like, hey, what’s up your butt? Then Jessica blurts out that their mom is sick and they don’t know what’s wrong with her, etc.

Obviously since Caroline is a gossip and an exaggerator, the next thing you know…the whole school thinks Mrs. Wakefield is dying. Everyone feels terrible for the twins. Elizabeth sets Caroline straight, but it’s too late. Jessica doesn’t really argue with anyone who expresses their condolences. Is that because she’s THAT convinced her mom is dying or because she likes the attention? You decide.

Jessica DOES express to her mom that she’s not sure if she still wants to try out for Carnival. It will be a lot of rehearsals and she wants to be around in case Alice needs her. It’s actually very sweet. Alice tells Jess that she’s being silly, and besides, she would love to see her on stage. Jessica decides to audition—and also convinces herself that Alice’s dying wish is to see her star in the play.

The next morning before school, Jessica met her friends at the fountain. “I’ve decided to go to the Carnival auditions tomorrow,” she told them. “My mother wants me to try out, and I don’t want to let her down. It would mean so much to her to see me up on that stage before…” Her voice trailed off.

“Oh, Jess, you’re so brave!” Lila breathed, squeezing Jessica’s hand.

“I know you’ll get the part,” Janet said. “You just have to!”

“After all you’ve been through, you deserve it,” Tamara added.

Jessica shrugged modestly. But inside, she couldn’t help feeling Tamara was right. Since her mother had become sick, Jessica’s life had been just awful. Winning the lead in the musical wouldn’t make up for all the sadness, but it might cheer her up just a little bit. Besides, she thought, it would mean so much to Mom.

By lunch time, the whole school had heard that Jessica was auditioning for the musical to please her dying mother.

I mean…guys. This is crazy. Jessica is crazy.

The next day is Friday. Audition day and the day they find out what’s wrong with Alice. This chapter opens up with Elizabeth perched on her “thinking seat” in the yard, thinking about how she doesn’t want her mom to die. I guess this scene was thrown in there to add legitimacy to Jessica’s craziness.

Ms. Wyler springs a pop quiz in math class that morning, and Jessica can’t concentrate. She cries and is excused. She goes and sits in the bathroom and studies her Carnival script. Ms. Wyler tells Elizabeth she can be excused also, but Liz holds it together and says she’d rather take the quiz.

The twins call their mom at lunch, but the results of her biopsy still aren’t in.

Jessica bursts into tears in science and English class as well, and is excused both times.

When school is over, the twins race to the pay phone to call their mom again. GREAT NEWS: it’s just a virus! And not the coronavirus! Alice is going to be fine!

Jessica heads to the auditions. Winston asks her how her mom is doing. Now I must note that Jess DOES try to tell Winston the good news. But then Dana Larson interrupts them to tell Jessica she’s decided not to audition for the musical because she wants Jessica to have the lead role. She thinks Jessica needs it more than she does. Ms. McDonald, the music teacher, supports this decision. Jessica doesn’t even have to audition. She’s granted the lead, and everyone applauds.

It only took Jessica a moment to make up her mind. “Thank you, Dana,” she said slowly. “I really appreciate what you’re doing for me. I just hope I can return the favor someday.”

YIKES.

When Jess gets home from school, her dad is back, with a briefcase of free candy bars in tow. And yet he still goes out to the grocery store to buy cake and ice cream for dessert. What is it with this family?

Saturday morning, Ned, Steven, and Elizabeth go swimming. They’re horsing around loudly when Dana, Sandra Ferris, and Brooke Dennis show up to see how Jessica is doing. Jess is panicked thinking about how her family is hardly behaving as if Alice is dying.

She finally decides to call off the whole charade—and also, she’s kind of forced to, when Elizabeth bursts through the door to the den, dripping wet and laughing about Steven putting a fake ice cube with a bug in it in their dad’s lemonade.

“Now that my mother is going to be all right,” she announced, “I want you to audition for the lead in the musical.”

“What?” Dana asked in amazement. “You mean your mother isn’t dying?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you ever since you walked in here,” Jessica lied.

She also leaves out how she found out the news before the auditions. The only person who knows about Jessica’s psychopathic lie is Elizabeth, and all she does is make Jessica do all the chores she assigned to herself and Steven the previous week.

Jessica comes out on top, as always. Her parents think she’s amazing for helping out around the house so much. Ms. McDonald gives her another part in the musical that has a solo dance number. And she gets the Unicorn sweater and all of her friends are jealous.

My mom consistently side-eyes the way I clean my house. I can’t dance. And none of my friends are jealous of my wardrobe. I’m going to bed.

(Click here for a recap of Sweet Valley Twins #19: The Bully)

SVT #19: The Bully

Upfront apologies for any residual anxiety you might feel while reading this recap. The books with the bully/outsider themes are the toughest reads now as an adult, but they have to be done!

Let’s check out the cover. That’s Dennis Cookman, seventh-grader and Sweet Valley Middle School bully, demanding money from Lila Fowler, who is cowering behind Jessica, who is having NONE of this nonsense. I call BS. This scene does happen in the book, and I buy Jessica standing up to Dennis, but LILA being afraid? This I find hard to believe. Equally upsetting: we can’t see what Lila is wearing.

When we open, Jess is holding court at the Unicorner. She announces that Grace Oliver wants to join the Unicorns. Jess thinks Grace is a good fit for her exclusive club, but she’s worried the club is losing its exclusivity factor because they don’t make new members do initiation tasks anymore. If you recall, Jessica had to do some pretty nasty stuff in order to join.

Most of the Unicorns agree with her, and they decide to give Grace a few pledge tasks. The first one is to abruptly get up and recite a poem during Mr. Bowman’s English class.

I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree
Indeed, unless the billboards fall
I’ll never see a tree at all.

It’s still not as bad as the poem Amy had to recite for Mr. Davis.

Ken Matthews passes Elizabeth a note in class, asking her to meet him and a few other kids after school for a “summit” about Dennis Cookman. Yeah, the word “summit” is actually used. The Sweet Valley School District must be much better than the one I went to, I’m pretty sure I would not have used that word in the sixth grade. Elizabeth agrees, because she likes to help feel important.

After class, Dennis goes after Lila in the hallway and we have the confrontation we see on the cover. Afterward, she tells Jess about the meeting after school and they decide to go. Moral of all this: the sixth graders are fed up with Dennis Cookman and determined to do something about him.

That afternoon, Dennis ruins Olivia Davidson and Sarah Thomas’ mural in art class and Elizabeth becomes even more determined to put together a plan. She and Amy head to a place called Larson’s Lot after school for the summit. It’s an empty space that is also for some reason the site of a cave that everyone in town has always heard scary stories about. They all call it “Dead Man’s Cave.” We’re told that many of the Sweet Valley parents want it to be condemned and blocked off somehow but so far, nothing has been done. I guess all their tax dollars go to vocab books. Once at Larson’s Lot, they find out that Dennis gave Jimmy Underwood, the smallest boy in their class, a black eye.

For some reason, Steven comes walking by and the kids explain the Dennis situation to him. Steven doesn’t understand why they don’t just tell an adult what’s going on. He says if they refuse to do that, their only option is to gang up on him.

After some more bullying the following day, the kids decide to try telling a teacher. Of course they select Mr. Bowman, collector of striped shirts and polka-dot ties. Naturally, this accomplishes nothing and ticks Dennis off. He beats up Aaron Dallas and Ken after school.

Meanwhile, Jessica is dreaming up Grace’s next task, and she becomes inspired by this latest Dennis Cookman story. She decides if Grace can get Dennis to eat lunch with her, they’ll let her be a Unicorn. Ellen Riteman and Lila think she’s crazy and it’s too hard but they go along with it anyway.

Elizabeth, Amy, Aaron, Ken, and Jimmy (who have dubbed themselves “The Fearless Five”) have another meeting at Larson’s Lot and Aaron comes up with a plan—and it involves Dead Man’s Cave.

Turns out, Aaron knows that there is a secret way out of the cave, through a malfunctioning rain pipe near the back. So here’s the plan: Amy will fake dare Aaron to spend the night in the cave in front of Dennis.  Aaron will go in, wait like an hour, and then go out the secret passageway and go home. The next morning, he’ll return via the secret passageway and emerge from the front of the cave. Then Ken will do the same thing, and then Jimmy will do the same thing.

“So the idea is that Dennis is supposed to get forced into saying he’ll spend the night in the cave too, right?” Elizabeth asked. “But what if he doesn’t go for it?”

Aaron shook his head. “You know Dennis. He’s got everyone thinking he’s so tough. “If we all say we’ll spend the night in the cave, he’s going to feel like he’s got to do it, too. Especially if we all start hinting that we think he’s too scared to do it.”

The kids decide to keep the cave’s secret passageway between them and put their plan into action the following day.

At lunch, they have a fake conversation about how scary the cave is, Aaron says he doesn’t believe any of the old stories about the place, and commits to spending the night. Dennis says he doesn’t believe him but he’ll be there to watch him make a fool of himself. Then he stomps off, where he encounters Grace and barks “GET OUT OF MY WAY!” before she can ask him to eat lunch with her.

On Saturday, Grace finds Dennis’ baseball mitt and decides to take it over to his house. Dennis’ mom calls him “Denny” when she calls him to the door. He asks Grace if this is why she was “creeping around” him at school yesterday and she lies and says yes. It’s an awkward exchange but Grace feels like maybe it’s a little bit of progress.

That afternoon, everyone heads over to Dead Man’s Cave to watch Aaron go inside. The “Fearless Five” have hidden a flashlight in the cave near the rain pipe. Again, Dennis bets that Aaron won’t make it all night.

On Sunday morning, the twins head back over to the cave. Elizabeth enjoys the fact that Jessica doesn’t know about the plan. There’s a crowd at the entrance to the cave.

“I’ll bet he went home,” Dennis said, sticking his head into the cave. “You in there, Dallas? Or did a ghost get you?”

A few kids laughed nervously, but most just watched with fascination. A minute later, though it seemed like much longer, Aaron crawled out of the cave.

“Here I am, Cookman. No ghosts got me, I’ve got to admit it was a little damp in there.”

Everyone cheered and started chanting Aaron’s name.

Aaron had dirtied himself up and rumpled his clothes to add to the effect.

“It wasn’t so bad in there, Dennis. Maybe you should try it,” he said casually.

That was when Ken piped up. “I bet I could do it, too. I’m going to spend the night in the cave tonight!”

Because Ken is smaller and has more of a wuss rep than Aaron, Dennis says he will stand guard outside the cave all night to make sure he stays inside. Obviously, no problem, given the secret passageway. What is a problem is that Dennis wants Jimmy to sit there all night with him. It’s not really explained why. My guess is Dennis is too scared to sit outside alone all night. Jimmy is terrified but agrees.

Later, Elizabeth overhears Jessica talking to Grace and realizes that Jess is trying to make Grace eat lunch with Dennis as an initiation pledge.

Now Elizabeth was really fuming. “I thought you gave up initiation rites a long time ago. I don’t know what made you bring them back, but if you ask me, you guys are treating Grace horribly. If she’s going to be in your club, you ought to treat her with respect—like a friend. Instead you’re…you’re bullying her, just like Dennis bullies Jimmy and the rest of us,” she concluded. “You have no right to do this to her. In fact, I think you all owe her a big apology. I’m amazed she still wants to have anything to do with you!” With that Elizabeth stormed out of the room.

Gotta give it to Lizzie, that was an excellent and well-deserved takedown. Jessica decides to tell Grace she doesn’t have to do the pledge.

Sunday morning: Ken emerges triumphantly from the cave and asks “who’s next?” Jimmy has to be nudged into agreeing to do it even though he knows he’s not actually doing anything. Dennis is incredulous and says that if Jimmy “Undersized” spends the night in the cave, he will too. The plan is working!

Grace gets to school early on Monday to ask Dennis to eat lunch with her. He’s like, WTF FOR?! And she blinks back tears, thinking about how she’ll never be a Unicorn. Then Jess tells her she can forget the whole Dennis thing, and she’s thrilled. But! Dennis has not forgotten. At lunch, he asks Grace if she still wants to eat together. She’s astonished. The pair share a sandwich Dennis’ mom made (oh the days before people had crippling fears of food allergies!) and she for some reason asks him what the hell his problem is and why he’s so mean to everyone all the time. Dennis says people are mean to him, too. They call him names because he’s big. (I’m guessing that means tall, as the dude on the cover is not big at all.) Grace is like, yeah buddy but nobody would call you names if you weren’t such a bully.

After all this, Dennis decides that Grace is “not that bad” and declares that he might even eat lunch with her again one day. Oh joy, oh bliss.

That afternoon, Dennis, clearly beginning to freak out about the prospect of spending the night in the cave alone, tries to rattle Jimmy with some scary stories. But alas, Jimmy successfully fools him into thinking he spent the night in the cave. Now, it’s Dennis’ turn.

Dennis, too scared—or too smart, if you ask me—begs off, saying he has a sore throat. Everyone mocks him. He swears he has a sore throat and he’ll do it when he feels better.

At school the next day, everyone teases Dennis. His status as a big scary bully is falling fast since he’s afraid of the cave. He laments about his problem to Grace, who is 1) now a Unicorn and 2) not afraid of Dennis anymore.

Grace set her essay aside. “I think a deal is a deal,” she said. “If you don’t do it, you’ll never hear the end of it. Look, Dennis, you’ve been mean to everyone around here. You’ve scared half our class to death. You’ve bullied everybody. You can’t expect people to be nice and forgive you all of a sudden. If I were you, I’d forget about my sore throat and go ahead and do it. Then I’d apologize to Jimmy and Ken and Aaron and some of the others.”

Dennis stomps off, but then he tells everyone he’ll do it. Jimmy, Ken, and Aaron remove their flashlight from the cave and cover up the rain pipe with dirt and branches and stuff so Dennis won’t see it.

“Why do I have a bad feeling about this?” Elizabeth asked in a low voice.

Amy was looking out the window with a frown. “It doesn’t look very nice out,” she said. “Is there supposed to be a storm or something?”

Elizabeth shrugged. She hadn’t heard a weather report. And she was trying to figure out why she felt slightly apprehensive about Dennis Cookman and Dead Man’s Cave.

It’s clearly going to storm, but none of the “Fearless Five” think about the rain pipe that does not drain properly except for Aaron, and he doesn’t think of it until Dennis goes into the cave. They all yell his name, but Dennis doesn’t answer. Aaron, Ken, and Jimmy decide they have to head into the cave to retrieve him. Outside, Elizabeth, Amy, and Grace stand around terrified and soaking wet.

The boys find Dennis sitting on some kind of ledge hugging his knees. They tell him about the rain pipe secret passageway but Dennis isn’t listening. He thinks as soon as they get him out everyone’s going to make fun of him. Jimmy says he’s going to get help, and I think “Go, Jimmy!” because I think he’s going to get an adult or the police or something, but he just tells the girls that Dennis won’t come out because he doesn’t trust them. Grace decides to take a stab at reasoning with Dennis.

“Dennis, you have to listen to them. You have to get out of here. Look at the water!” she cried.

Dennis seemed to snap out of it just then. He stared with horror at the water on the cave floor. “Oh, no!” he cried. “We’re trapped! We’re going to die!”

“Dennis, stay calm.” Ken urged. “We’re going to get you out of here if you’ll just let us help you. Grab hold of my hand,” he instructed.

“Come on, Dennis,” Grace urged. “Please!”

Grace’s voice seemed to be the only thing Dennis could focus on. He leaned forward, trembling violently, and took Ken’s hand.

The water is now up to Grace’s knees and Aaron tells her to make a run for it.

Now, I have to admit, I’m not sure exactly what’s going on, here. For some reason Aaron and Ken have to pull Dennis out of the cave. Idk why he can’t run out if Grace just did. But in any case, he’s too heavy for Aaron and Ken to pull, so the rest of the kids outside make a human chain to pull him out. It works, and Dennis hugs Aaron because he’s so grateful. He makes a big speech about how he knows he’s been a jerk and he has a lot to think about and he’s super appreciative of everyone saving his life.

Jessica finds out Elizabeth knew about the rain pipe and didn’t tell her and she complains. Ho-hum.

The following day at school, Dennis is a new person. He even eats lunch with Jimmy Underwood! Looks like he’s reformed, no thanks to Mr. Bowman.

The last few pages are set-up for the next book, Playing Hooky—the Unicorns’ fave soap star is coming to town and they’re determined to see him, but, crap! They’re going to be in school during his visit. Ha. Like that will stop Jessica!

(Click here for a recap of SVT #20, Playing Hooky)

SVT #30: Princess Elizabeth

Considering the collective renewed interest around the royal family lately, I thought, “Why not revisit that book where a prince from a fake country visits Sweet Valley?!”

Here’s the cover. First, props to whomever chose this fitting blue color. It’s not quite royal blue but it is a great choice. Here’s Elizabeth, clad in a white, overly frilly number that resembles a wedding/communion dress, with Prince Arthur, who looks a bit like Ben Feldman (side note: I am really sad that Superstore is over). Between Lizzie’s dress, the flowers, and the title, I feel like the cover is trying to suggest that this is a child bride situation. But fear not—these 2 kiddos just attend a party together.

The opening chapter is used to establish the plot of the book: Arthur Castle of Santa Dora is coming to visit Sweet Valley while his parents tend to business in nearby Los Angeles. He’ll be attending the twins’ school for 2 weeks, during which time, the entire curriculum is apparently changing in honor of his presence—everyone will be studying Santa Dora history, customs, etc. The twins’ reactions to the news highlight their innate differences, as Elizabeth soaks up all she can learn about Santa Dora and Jessica only becomes interested in learning about the country after finding out that it has a royal family.

The sixth graders are doing various projects about Santa Dora, and some of them are doing a few other special things in honor of Arthur’s visit. Elizabeth, editor-in-chief of the Sweet Valley Sixers, is putting together a special edition of the newspaper. Determined to make a lasting impression on Arthur (and one-up her sister), Jessica convinces her Unicorn friends to throw a Santa Dora-themed party in his honor.

Elizabeth isn’t so sure Jess’ idea is a great one. (Because when have they ever been?)

“Of course he’ll be impressed!” Jessica exclaimed indignantly. “Why wouldn’t he be? When he sees all the decorations and the costumes and hears the music and tastes the food, he’ll feel right at home.” She frowned at Elizabeth. Why did her sister always throw cold water on her ideas?

Elizabeth looked thoughtful for a moment. “But if I were a kid visiting America for the first time, I’d be pretty interested in what American kids do for fun. Wouldn’t you?”

She’s got a point, but it doesn’t matter.

Arthur arrives at Sweet Valley Middle School on Monday morning, and Jess and the Unicorns immediately make asses of themselves.

And suddenly, all the Unicorns in the class were out of their seats and running up to the front of the room, where they lined up in a row. While everybody else looked on in surprise, they broke into an ear-splitting cheer, waving their arms and stamping their feet vigorously. “W-E-L-C-O-M-E spells WELCOME,” they chanted. “WELCOME, ARTHUR!”

Yikes. Elizabeth is embarrassed to be related to Jessica (and as we all know, not the first or last time for that!) She also notes that Arthur seems embarrassed by the fuss, and deduces that he doesn’t really like the spotlight. The Unicorns then pass out some traditional Santa Doran pastries, and they are dry and hard and people nearly choke, etc.

Later that day, Elizabeth helps Arthur with a science assignment and they hit it off. She says she’ll walk home with him after school and fill him in on all things SVMS. One of his burning questions is “Why a girl would call herself a Unicorn?”

As Elizabeth and Arthur head out of school that afternoon, he is bombarded by kids asking him questions about Santa Dora. Lizzie remarks that it must be interesting to feel like “such a celebrity” and Arthur is all like, “CELEBRITY?! WHAT DO YOU MEAN?! WHY DO YOU SAY CELEBRITY?!” Elizabeth explains that he’s the first foreign exchange student the school has ever had, and he chills out a bit. He confesses that he hoped to learn a lot about America during his stay and he’s fearing that with everyone studying Santa Dora and asking him questions all the time, it won’t happen. Elizabeth promises to talk to her friends and figure something out. She also explains what the Unicorns are.

“Are you ready to hear about the Unicorns now?”

“I’m glad you remembered,” Arthur said. He shook his head, looking puzzled. “All day this affair of the Unicorn has been a great mystery to me.”

Elizabeth then explains that the Unicorns are a bunch of snobs who don’t really do anything. She doesn’t use those words, but that is def the implication.

Later, she heads to Amy Sutton’s house, where she tells Amy, Julie Porter, and Sophia Rizzo that Arthur wants to learn about America during his stay. The four of them decide to take him to the mall because, as Amy says, “there’s nothing more American than going shopping.” Elizabeth also suggests that they put together a scrapbook for Arthur to take home with him, full of America stuff like baseball cards and music, TV, and movie mementos. The idea is well-received. Elizabeth also says they can do a couple of pages on American politics and she will include campaign buttons from the last presidential election. HMM. Ned and Alice were sort of like hippies in their day, right? Do you think they stayed left-leaning or did they become Republicans as they aged? This book was published in 1989, so Elizabeth’s buttons are either for Dukakis or Bush circa 1988.

Back at Casa Wakefield, Jessica admonishes her sister for the scrapbook idea whilst eating an avocado-and-banana sandwich.

The next day, Arthur and the girls have a great afternoon at the mall, where Artie goes on a bit of a shopping spree.

There was a football, a baseball hat, a stuffed Texas longhorn steer, a pair of Indian moccasins, a jack-knife, a Johnny Buck album, a Confederate Army cap, and two pairs of jeans.

Yikes. A problematic item or two in that haul, no? I mean, a Johnny Buck album?!

After the mall, they show Arthur how to play Frisbee and snack on milk and oatmeal cookies at Amy’s house. Arthur is having a grand time, but when the girls start asking general questions about his life and family at home, he gets uncomfortable and makes an excuse to leave.

At lunch the next day, Jessica and the Unicorns, “with Brooke Dennis’ help” (not sure why that detail was necessary), pass out “mimeographed sheets with the words to a half-dozen folk songs, and everybody sang.” Arthur is like, um, thanks. Jesus Christ that sounds terrible.

Elizabeth and Arthur head to the beach that afternoon, and then to Casey’s Place for milkshakes. Arthur is confused at first, and tells Elizabeth that Mrs. Richardson, the woman he is staying with, doesn’t shake up the milk before she pours it. Har har.

Arthur insists on paying for the milkshakes.

As he pulled out three American dollars and handed them to the clerk, a purple-and-white Santa Doran banknote fluttered onto the floor.

“I’ll get it,” Elizabeth said, bending over to pick it up.

Arthur gasped. “No, let me,” he said, frantically reaching for the bill.

“That’s OK,” Elizabeth said. “I have it.” She turned away from Arthur and held the bill up to the light. “I love to look at money from other countries,” she said, studying the bill closely. “It’s always prettier than ours. And it never seems quite real, somehow.”

Then, suddenly, Elizabeth realized why Arthur hadn’t wanted her to see the bill. The picture in the middle of the note looked exactly like Arthur. In fact, it was Arthur!

Yup, turns out Arthur is royalty. He is Prince Arthur Castillo, son of King Armand and Queen Stephanie of Santa Dora. He wanted to keep his identity a secret so that he could enjoy being a regular kid for once in his sad, royal life.

Elizabeth promises to keep his secret, but the next day, Arthur is still anxious about it. So he corners WHO HE THINKS IS ELIZABETH in the hallway and begs her once again to not tell anyone that he’s a prince.

Jessica immediately tells all the Unicorns.

That evening, Arthur pops by demanding a roller-skating lesson from Elizabeth. The two of them skate, have fun, and he asks her to go the party with him. She happily accepts.

As you might imagine, things go downhill fast. The Unicorns don’t even acknowledge the fact that Arthur was clearly trying to keep his identity a secret. They start curtsying around him and calling him “Your Royal Highness” and Arthur figures that Elizabeth must have blabbed. He tells her off on the phone. Soooo 12 years old.

Jessica says she found out about Arthur’s secret from the Unicorns, and Elizabeth just accepts this. Even Elizabeth’s friends freak out over Arthur being a prince, and they start to reconsider the scrapbook. Elizabeth is the only person who can comprehend that Arthur wants to be treated like a regular person. She continues working on the scrapbook, even though Arthur probs hates her.

That Thursday night is the Unicorns’ party. Arthur asks JESSICA to go with him, presumably to rub it in Elizabeth’s face. Kind of a dick move. Jessica, of course, is worse, because she accepts even though she knows the truth. Elizabeth stays home to finish the scrapbook.

Arthur acts like a real dud at the party because he’s so down. Jessica asks him what’s wrong and he tells her the same thing Elizabeth has been saying all along, even before she freaking MET Arthur: he wants to be treated like a regular person. Jess finally tells Arthur about his mix-up in the hall and he realizes that Elizabeth never told his secret. He then races over to the Wakefield house to apologize. He also tells Elizabeth what Jessica did and she’s so saintly that she tells him not to be mad at Jess. WTF?

Arthur then invites Elizabeth to a party at the Santa Doran consulate in Los Angeles. I’d like to say, “IN YO’ FACE, JESSICA!” but then Jess spreads the word at school that Arthur wants to be treated like everyone else, so people start being, well, quite jerky to him, which he strangely appreciates—and then she gets invited to the party, too.

Anyway. Arthur leaves Sweet Valley and apparently he and Elizabeth never talk to each other again. Call me crazy but if I befriended royalty, I’d at least try to be pen pals.

(EDITED TO ADD: Dear me! It turns out Liz and Arthur DO become pen pals! He makes another appearance in Sweet Valley High 91, In Love With a Prince! In that book, Droids singer Dana Larson falls for his Santa Doran charms. I’m beginning to wonder if I’m too hard on Sweet Valley for it’s continuity?)

The next big news is that Sandra Ferris has been switched into the twins’ homeroom. Jessica calls her “one of the plainest girls” she’s ever seen and Amy says she “isn’t likely to be nominated Prom Queen.” Amy’s bitchiness was always brimming on the surface, wasn’t it? Oh Jessica also gives us this gem:

“And you can tell by looking at Sandra Ferris that she’s an ugly duckling and she’s going to stay that way her whole life.”

WHAT THE FUCK?

 Of course, this is all a set-up for the next book, Jessica’s Bad Idea.

SVT #48: Mandy Miller Fights Back

(Click here for a recap of Sweet Valley Twins #47, Jessica’s New Look)

Ugh, you guys. This book. This book is pretty different from any other Sweet Valley Twins book. Or even any Sweet Valley book, period. Why? Because Jessica shows remarkable humanity. It must be the new glasses she just got and is somehow still wearing. I REALLY did not expect this kind of continuity.

Let’s check out the cover. That’s Mandy Miller in the pink headband. She’s pre-Unicorn here. I’m assuming that once she gets accepted into the club they made her burn that nightgown. Pretty sure that’s Lila sitting next to her in bed. She’s got a cool outfit on, but kind of a questionable expression. Like she’s seeing Mandy in a whole new way, but this isn’t that kind of book, exactly. Jessica looks appropriately sad—you see, Mandy has cancer.

So yeah, this book isn’t really a pick-me-up. The cancer isn’t even the worst part though. Another thing that’s truly sad is that Mandy, who is awesome and funny, if a bit over-eager, is trying like hell to be accepted by the vapid Unicorns. For weeks, she’s been hanging around, offering favors, and letting them take advantage of her.

She mostly sticks with Jessica, who has begrudgingly started to like Mandy even though her dumb friends don’t. She’s in a difficult position because they want her to tell Mandy there’s no way she’ll ever be a Unicorn. She’s not COOL enough, because she has a sense of humor, her own sense of style, and doesn’t exist for the sole purpose of making others feel inferior to her. Jessica agrees to deliver the news, and she’s dreading it.

Things get worse when Mandy and Jessica are paired together for a social studies project. She finds out later from Elizabeth that Mandy did her a solid by volunteering to be her partner because nobody else wanted to. It seems that Jessica is somewhat of a goof-off in class and has a rep for being irresponsible—case in point, she was late to class and missed the whole choosing partners thing.

The social studies project is also a contest. A museum in Hollywood is putting on a 1920s festival (That sounds awesome) and Mrs. Arnette is going to enter the most interesting projects into the festival’s contest. Mandy has a good idea: she and Jessica should do a vaudeville act. Her grandparents were vaudeville actors and she still has a bunch of their costumes and props. Again, Mandy is awesome. Her family tree is far more interesting that any of the Unicorns’, I’m fairly certain.

That night, Mandy calls Jess to suggest that they meet up at the library the next day to do some research on their project. Jessica is worried about being seen in public with Mandy, especially if she’s “wearing one of her weird outfits.” She offers to lend Mandy her “green striped blouse” and Mandy declines.

“The thing is, Jessica, I’m not the kind of person who likes to pretend to be something that she isn’t. I figured out a long time ago that I could never afford the kind of clothes you and the other Unicorns wear. In fact, I’d feel really stupid if I tried to fake everybody out by being a cheap imitation of a Unicorn. Then you’d never want me in your club.”

Jessica winced. “Listen, Mandy, I—“

“So I decided I’d have my own style,” Mandy went on. “It may be weird. But I don’t want to look like everybody else anyway. I want to look like me. So thanks for your offer but no thanks. Your green striped top is very pretty, but it isn’t me. You know what I’m saying?”

Kind of long-winded and serious for the offer to borrow a top, but I appreciate the sentiment, Mandy. The Unicorns are on Jessica’s ass to tell Mandy that she’s not getting into the club. Jess finally gives her the bad news when Mandy starts to tell her a joke she wrote for their vaudeville act that involves a Unicorn walking down the street wearing purple sneakers.

Mandy is crushed. Jess actually feels really bad, too. She thinks her friends are total snobs for not wanting Mandy.

“I may not have as much money as Lila Fowler, or as many clothes as Janet Howell,” she said through clenched teeth. And I may not be as pretty as you are, or as popular as Ellen Riteman. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not good enough to be a Unicorn!”

Hold up. Is Ellen popular? Don’t get me wrong, I think she’s hilarious. But is popularity really her “thing”? Her own friends don’t seem to like her half the time.

Mandy and Jessica fight and Jessica goes home and cries. But life, and social studies projects, go on. Mrs. Arnette asks everyone to give the class an update on their project progress and Mandy and Jess do a bit of their act, which everyone thinks is hilarious—everyone except Lila and Ellen, that is. It’s clear that Jess and Mandy work well together and actually like each other, and Lila and Ellen find it rather off-putting, because they’re snobs.

Jess goes to Mandy’s house after school because Mandy’s mom was making costumes for them and she wants to see how they fit. The girls have a heart-to-heart during which Mandy says she was angry and Jessica but she’s over it because she is, in fact, an individual, and she doesn’t want to change anything about herself, even if it means she can’t be a Unicorn.

After they eat peanut butter sandwiches, they go back down to the basement to look through the old vaudeville trunk and see if they can find some wigs. They both spot a pink feather boa at the same moment, and each grab an end, arguing over who will get to wear it.

Each girl yanked one end in a silent tug of war. Then, without warning, the feather boa tore and Jessica landed against the basement wall with a thud. Mandy tumbled backward over the trunk, still clutching her half of the pink feather boa.

Jessica straightened up and rubbed the back of her head. She looked around. “Mandy?” she called.

For a moment, there was silence. Then Jessica heard a loud sneeze. “Mandy?” she called again. “Are you all right?”

Mandy appeared from behind the trunk. She laughed and rubbed her right side by her ribs. “Yeah, I’m all right,” she said.

But moments later she notices a lump under her right arm, which is strange because it was her ribs that she bumped while falling.

The girls get back to rehearsing their act and forget about the lump. Jess tells Mandy she wants to do the unicorn in the purple sneakers joke because it’s funny and Lila and Ellen need to get over themselves. I’m telling you, guys, Jessica is like a whole different person in this book!

The day the projects are due, Jess and Mandy perform their act and are a hit. The unicorn joke is a particular success.

“Hey, Jessica,” Mandy said. “Did you see what I just saw?”

“No, what did you just see, Mandy?” Jessica asked.

“I just saw a unicorn walking down the street,” Mandy replied, pretending to be awestruck. “And it was wearing two pairs of purple sneakers!” In the back row, Charlie Cashman guffawed loudly.

Jessica looked blandly at Mandy. “What’s so weird about a unicorn wearing two pairs of purple sneakers?” she asked. “Did you expect it to go barefoot?”

OK, that’s sort of cute.

Anyway, the act was a success but Jessica is bummed because she knows it could have been better. Mandy’s timing was off, and she had forgotten one of her lines, something she had never done before. Afterward, Mandy confesses that she’s been tired lately and that the lump on her arm has been bothering her.

On Monday, Lila and Ellen remark to Jessica that now that the social studies project is over, she doesn’t have to spend so much time with Mandy. This annoys Jess, but she soon had bigger things to worry about—Mandy is mysteriously absent that day. She’s not in school the next day either. That night, Jess calls Mandy to see how she’s doing, and to tell her that the Hairnet wants them to videotape their act for submission into the festival. Mandy sounds terrible. On Wednesday, she’s back in school, but is sent home early after she faints while playing volleyball in gym. That afternoon, Jess skips out on a Unicorn meeting (gasp!) to bring Mandy her homework. Mandy’s mom tells her that Mandy isn’t allowed to have any visitors, and that she went to the hospital that afternoon for some tests. Needless to say, making the video for the festival is out of the question.

With Mandy’s blessing, Elizabeth and Jessica do the act instead because the submissions are due by that weekend. On Monday, Mandy is still absent. Lila guilts Jess into accepting an invitation for dinner at her house, but just as Jess is about to leave, Mandy’s mom calls and she sounds really upset. She asks Jessica to come over because Mandy wants very much to see her. Mandy’s mom also asks to talk to Jessica’s mom. Jessica bails on Lila and heads over to Mandy’s with her mom and Elizabeth. She goes inside while the two of them wait in the car. And here’s where things get very sad, and very weird.

Mandy leaned forward and grinned. I tell you, Jessica. The Unicorns are going to turn absolutely green when they hear what I’ve got. I am going to get so much attention from everybody, they’re going to wish they had let me into their club after all.” Her grin faded a bit. “What I’ve got is cancer.”

Mandy is scheduled for surgery that Friday to see if her cancer has spread. What follows is a lot of teachable convos, talking about cancer appropriately for kids.

As per Mandy’s request, Jessica tells Caroline Pearce about the cancer so that the whole school knows by that afternoon. Jess is astonished and grossed out by the fact that none of the Unicorns mention it to her. Instead they carry on like usual, talking about purple and planning their next party. She bails on another Unicorn meeting and instead asks Elizabeth to go to the park with her so they can talk. Elizabeth is waiting for Julie Porter to bring her a Sixers story, so Jess hangs around. When Julie arrives, she tells Jess that she heard about the flowers and card the Unicorns sent to Mandy. Of course, Jessica doesn’t know anything about it, and she can’t figure out why her friends wouldn’t tell her. Honestly neither can I.

Friday afternoon, Alice tells Jessica that Mandy came through her surgery well and that she has an excellent chance for a full recovery. More good news arrives later: Jess’ social studies project won the festival contest and she and Elizabeth have been invited to perform the skit live at a museum in Hollywood. Jess heads to Mandy’s house after school and is surprised to find the rest of the Unicorns there. Then that loser Janet Howell tells Jessica that they didn’t invite her, or ask her to chip in for the flowers or sign the card, because JESSICA was the one to tell Mandy she couldn’t be a Unicorn. It’s really ridiculous and gross. Then Janet says she wonders if they misjudged Mandy.

UGH.

Anyway, Mandy has to have chemotherapy and all of her hair falls out. Her mom is poor so she buys her a crappy wig that makes her look like Little Orphan Annie and Mandy is mortified. The Unicorns all decide to chip in and buy her a nice wig. Then they ask her to join the club. Mandy says she has to think it over, but then, of course, she accepts.

So that’s that. Sorry if this one was a dud, guys. There just wasn’t much to snark on, what with the whole cancer diagnosis and Jessica having a conscience.

SVT #71: Jessica Saves the Trees

I thought this would be a feel-good book about kids coming together to do something for the environment, but it was just another one of Jessica Wakefield’s crazy schemes! Oh well. That’s probably more fun, anyway. Let’s look at the cover.

Jessica’s chained herself to a tree that looks like you could cut it in half with a pair of scissors. Gotta hand it to her though, it does look like her fingertips would reach the end of her shorts, making them school regulation. That geek with the soccer ball is supposed to be Aaron Dallas, Jessica’s “sort-of boyfriend” in many of the Twins books. They are having a lovers’ quarrel. I guess that’s why Aaron is holding his soccer ball all protectively, as if he’s saying, “I won’t play with you anymore!”

So, here’s the deal: 3 things are set up from the very beginning of this book that drive the entire thing. It’s almost like it’s well written, or something.

  1. Sweet Valley Middle School has, for the first time, qualified to play in the Division A soccer league. I don’t know what that means but apparently it’s a big deal. When we open, a scrimmage is about to begin that will determine who will be on the team. How did they qualify without a team already in place?
  2. Elizabeth is tasked with proving she can be an objective journalist after she ran a story in the Sixers that claimed the owner of the Sweets for the Sweet Shop told 2 students that she doesn’t like kids without checking her facts. It turns out that the owner actually told the students, Dennis Cookman and Alex Betner (who?), that she doesn’t like kids who throw food around her store, as they had done last time they were there. (The owner actually comes to school waving the Sixers around demanding an explanation.)
  3. Jessica and Lila are trying to one up each other (in a passive-aggressive way, of course)

The boys playing in the scrimmage are dedicatIng goals to girls. How quaint. Jessica is on top of the world because Aaron makes 3 goals and dedicates them all to her, and none of the other Unicorns get any. By the way, the dedication process seems to be that after a boy makes a goal, he looks at the girl it’s dedicated to and gives her a thumbs up. Yeah. This sounds not special and potentially awkward. How do you know if you’re being looked at or not? I mean, he’s out in the field, it’s kinda hard to tell exactly, isn’t it? Oh well, this wouldn’t have been my problem in the sixth grade because I was sadly not the kind of girl who got goals dedicated to her. I’m a real bitch because of that now, too.

The next day, Aaron becomes the only sixth grader to make the team and Jessica is thrilled. I guess it’s all some middle school social status thing. Aaron even offers his arm for Jess to hold as they walk down the hall.

The day is going far less well for Elizabeth, who gets in trouble with Mr. Bowman again. It seems that she accidentally printed the wrong version of her retraction story. The one where Amy had added a few lines calling Dennis Cookman and Alex Betner (the sources of her original story) “low-down, lying, slimy, food-fighting finks.”

What exactly is a fink? Is this a regional term?

Anyway. It’s assembly time, as it so often is at SVMS. Mr. Clark has some terrible news. Turns out that the school’s soccer field isn’t regulation size for Division A. Womp womp. He was unable to secure another field and the school board won’t give him the $5000 it will cost to expand their current field to regulation size. That means the soccer team doesn’t get a season.

Everyone’s outraged. Honestly, I kinda get it. Nobody ever looked into this before now? Before you qualified? Before you held freaking tryouts? Where are the adults?

The kids decide to try to raise the money themselves. They have a week. They hit the mall with their tin cans. They get nowhere. UNTIL! Jessica makes an impassioned speech that she basically stole from movie star activist Lois Lattimer.

“The whole world would be better off if we stopped thinking me, and started thinking we,” she said forcefully. “The students of Sweet Valley Middle School are the future of California. Why shouldn’t people want to help us help ourselves? Doesn’t everybody benefit if we grow into healthy, athletic citizens? Citizens who learn how to play by the rules. Citizens who know how to compete. She paused dramatically and lifted her hands. When you look at it that way, five thousand dollars isn’t a lot of money. Not when you consider the return they’ll get on their investment.”

Of course, passers-by burst into wild applause and suddenly people are lining up to drop coins and dollar bills into the kids’ cans.

A week later, there is another assembly to announce the total money raised. Mr. Clark announces that they will indeed get their soccer field, and there is one student in particular they all need to thank. Jess is sure it’s her because of her superior begging skills.

Mr. Clark gave a big smile. “So let’s have a big round of applause, for…”

Jessica began to get to her feet.

“Lila Fowler,” Mr. Clark finished.

Womp womp again!

Turns out the kids only raised $1,767 on their own, and Lila’s billionaire dad said he’d make up the difference. So they really need to be thanking Lila’s dad, not Lila, who, by the way, thanked the audience in a “breathy voice” as they cheered for her.

Aaron and everyone else starts fawning over Lila instead of Jessica. This sets off Jess’ innate narcissism. That day after school, she sits in the woods beyond the soccer field and sulks, listening to the soccer players and the Unicorns having fun. She chats to a bird about her troubles the cries. Oh, to be 12 again. Or 37 and drunk and depressed.

The next afternoon, Lila and the other Unicorns go to Casey’s Place with the soccer team. Jessica goes to Elizabeth’s interview with the engineer who is in charge of the soccer field expansion. Side note: the engineer is a woman! Go, ghostwriter! The twins learn that in order to expand the field, some trees are going to be knocked down. The very same trees where Jessica sought solace the day before! Both twins are horrified. They tell Ned and Alice, and Ned starts reminiscing about his boyhood in those very same woods. Steven mentions that LOIS LATTIMER says old trees are treasures and shouldn’t be knocked down.

The girls pay a visit to the Nature Society to see if they can find out how old the trees are. A man called Bill tells them that “some trees in this part of California are more than 400 years old” and that “if” the trees are that old, the construction should be challenged—but the Nature Society doesn’t have time to worry about it because they already have so much going on.

Jessica takes this idea and runs with it. NEVER MIND the fact that Bill clearly never said the soccer field trees were that old. She starts telling everyone that the trees the school plans to cut down for the soccer field are 400 years old. This causes a big divide amongst the Sweet Valley Middle School students—and even the Unicorns! (The ones with brains, like Mandy and Mary, support Jessica. Alas their brains never tell them to check Jessica’s facts.) Jessica, Mandy, and Mary, along with Amy Sutton and Sarah Thomas, make posters and pamphlets to spread the word about their cause. Lloyd Benson starts a petition. Pretty soon, bunches of kids are running around yelling, “SAVE THE TREES!” Other kids are yelling, “SAVE THE SOCCER FIELD!” It’s chaos.

Elizabeth insists that as a journalist, she must stay neutral. She runs around school getting quotes from people for her Sixers article while trying to figure out how she feels about the situation. Her efforts trach the reader that not all decisions are cut and dry and not every argument has a right side and a wrong side. Well done, ghostie. Elizabeth also finds herself with no friends because everyone is mad at her for not choosing a side. Bummer.

After school, both sides for some reason choose to meet and demonstrate their positions at Casey’s Place—and for (I THINK) the first time, we meet the owner, Mr. Casey. Mr. Casey! I didn’t know there was such a person, did you? And he’s savage. He tells all the kids to beat it and has a voice “like a foghorn.” They all scurry out of there fast.

Elizabeth heads back to the Nature Society to try to find an answer to her dilemma. Bill tells her,

“There may not always be an answer, but there is always a solution.”

I find this to be surprisingly kick-ass good life advice, what say you? And in a Sweet Valley Twins book of all places!

Bill gives Elizabeth some books, which she takes home and pores over until almost midnight.

But just then, as she turned the page, something caught her eye and she sat up a little straighter.

It was a picture of a tree. A tree just like the ones that stood behind the school. And something about the picture looked very familiar.

In the photograph there was a big circle around the bark at the base of the tree. Elizabeth quickly removed her magnifying glass from her desk drawer and examined the picture more closely. “Ah ha,” she breathed. “I think I’m finally on to something.”

Here’s the lowdown: Elizabeth has figured out that the trees Jessica and everyone else are trying so hard to protect are rotting. The next morning, Elizabeth gets up early to confirm what she suspects. But when she tries to tell Jessica, Jess won’t listen. More stunningly simple and wise life advice:

“Stop twisting my words around, and look at this book!” Elizabeth said, suddenly losing her temper. “I know you feel really passionate about this, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be reasonable, too.”

Obviously, Jessica and “reasonable” don’t go together. She won’t listen. And Elizabeth just knows Jessica is planning on something stupid, since today is the day that the bulldozers are coming to knock down the trees.

There was the grinding sound of an engine, and then the loud, unmistakable sound of a bulldozer.

“It’s zero hour!” Jessica shouted, jumping up from her seat and grabbing her backpack.

Before the words were out of her mouth, Amy, Winston, and Maria jumped up too.

“Let’s move!” Jessica shouted, running for the door.

Ms. Wyler doesn’t have a chance. Suddenly, kids are running through the halls shouting, “It’s zero hour!”

It’s really quite dramatic.

Jessica and all her followers make a mad dash to the trees and chain themselves to them. The pro-soccer field faction yells that they are “tree-huggers” and they yell back that the other side are “tree-killers.”

Shortly after, Elizabeth comes running up with Bill from the Nature Society, whom she called from the office phone. Jessica is so excited. She’s blinking back happy tears! She thinks Elizabeth has brought Bill because she’s finally on her side and now Bill is going to convince everyone that Jessica is right and she’s the best activist in the world.

But Bill has other plans. He examines the trees.

“Yep! They’re going to have to come down all right!”

Turns out the trees have a fungus or something and they ALL have to come down, not just the ones needed for the soccer field space. And oh by the way, Bill corrects Jessica in front of everyone about the age of the trees.

“I said some of the trees in Sweet Valley were four hundred years old. But not these. These trees are probably around sixty years old.”

BAHAHAHA.

Ned and Alice ground Jessica for causing such drama. It also turns out that because all the trees have to come down, it’s going to be a way more expensive project than the school board thought. So now the kids don’t get their soccer field, either. All the money has to be used to take down the trees. Nobody thinks it is “appropriate” to ask Lila’s dad for more money. That’s all well and good, but why is it appropriate to use the money he donated for a soccer field for any other purpose?

Jessica then gets another bright idea: if the tree disease can spread, then it’s really in the best interest of the community to knock the trees down. So the community should have to share the cost with the school. AKA the taxpayers. Everyone thinks this is brilliant. So now the school does get to have the soccer field and Jessica redeems herself in the eyes of her classmates.

Oh, and Mr. Clark writes to Lois Lattimer about Jessica’s efforts and Lois sends Jessica a letter. WTF?

By the last page of the book, the Unicorns are talking about how they are tired of soccer because the boys aren’t paying much attention to them anymore. LOL. And then we have the setup for the next book, The Love Potion.

SVT #26: Taking Charge

OK, looking at the cover, I always thought this book was going to be about Elizabeth getting some badseed who kicked a ball through a church window to get his life straightened out, but that’s not the case.

That boy on the cover is Patrick Morris. He looks younger than 12, no? I guess boys do mature slower.

When we open, Patrick—or “Pat” as he is called in this book—is hesitant to go inside the Wakefield home. Does he have an aversion to Spanish-style kitchens? No, no. It’s just that his parents are lunatics and don’t want him to have a social life. He finally goes inside, where he’s hesitant to eat a sandwich because his mom is suddenly telling him that 3 meals a day are enough. Way to give the kid food issues that will last a lifetime, Mrs. Morris. Lately, Patrick’s parents have gotten way strict—they cut his allowance in half, he has to do 3 hours of homework a night (extra reading if it doesn’t take him that long) and he can only have 1 friend over at a time.

Both twins are perplexed by Pat’s behavior but ultimately, there are more important things going on, like a science fair and a concert at Secca Lake. Jessica is lost in daydreams of attending the concert with cute and popular jerk Bruce Patman. She imagines listening to the romantic sounds of a high school band called The Wild Ones next to him. A band so “wild” that they are performing as a fundraiser for the middle school library.

Can we pause a second? Why is everything a fundraiser to benefit the middle school library? Are there no other depressed areas in town? Remember when the Unicorns raised money for a new encyclopedia set? And when the school had that bike-a-thon? How about we clean up the trash-strewn street where Tricia and Betsy Martin live?

Anyway. Jessica’s life ends in science class, when Mr. Siegel announces that they will randomly choose partners for the science fair. WHAT?! She had planned to work with Lila, and do a project about rainbows. Sounds thrilling. No such luck. She draws Winston Egbert’s name, and he wants to do a project about mold. Gotta say that I too prefer rainbows to mold.

“But it would make a great experiment,” Winston told her. “You take pieces of bread and put them in different places. Then you record how fast the mold grows.”

Pat was not in school that day (suspicious!) so the twins stop by his house on their way home to give him his homework assignments. Jessica invites herself in, and Pat is a ball of nerves the entire time because his parents aren’t home and he isn’t allowed to have 2 people over at once. Even if they’re twins. There’s a dumb scene where his mom comes home and the twins have to scurry around a change places to make it seem like only 1 person was there. Pat’s mom seems perfectly nice, so the mystery continues. Perhaps Pat just doesn’t like Elizabeth and Jessica?!

There’s a long weekend because of a teachers’ convention. Jessica oddly decides to use the time working on her science project with Winston, and Elizabeth invites a few friends over to go swimming: Amy, Julie, and Pat.

Pat’s parents let him out of the house since Julie is his partner for the science project. When Jess and Winston finish working, everyone gets in the pool. We learn that Pat has been trying to teach himself how to play saxophone and is thinking about trying out for the school band. The conversation about music leads to conversation about the Wild Ones and their concert the next evening. Everyone plans to go—except Pat.

Before he can offer an explanation, the doorbell rings. It’s all of Jessica’s friends, and she’s looking like a mess because she purposely dressed down for Winston. Now she’s embarrassed. HAHA, Jessica!

The following evening, the twins stop by Pat’s house on their way to the concert. Amy apparently got sick and gave them her ticket. Mrs. Morris answers the door and it looks like she’s been crying. She turns the twins away, saying it’s “just not possible” for Patrick to buy Amy’s ticket and go to the concert. WTF? It’s THREE DOLLARS. Pat probably has that much money saved from his cut-in-half allowance.

At the lake, Jessica “boldly” decides to set up her blanket alone so that Bruce will notice her. She’s hoping he will come sit with her but he just asks her if she’s sitting alone because she’s had a fight with her friends. When she says no, he’s like, “Well, they’re all over there” and she’s like, “Um, thanks.” And then she gets up and joins them. It’s pretty awkward. As being 12 or 13 is, generally.

There’s a meeting about the school band the next day. Pat attends and finds out that he doesn’t have to buy his own saxophone, the school will lend him one. Surely there is no reason why his parents won’t let him join the band now! One would think, right? That night at dinner, Pat’s parents shoot down his plans, saying that music will get in the way of his schoolwork and that he has to be a perfect student to set a good example for his 2 younger brothers. I’m really feeling bad for Pat, guys. His parents suck.

Not to be deterred, Pat asks Elizabeth and Jessica if he can hide his saxophone at their house and practice in their toolshed. They agree. Of course, Liz is nervous about it.

Just as Jessica is thinking to herself how awesome she is for sticking Winston with all the work for their science project, he grows a pair and tells her she’s done “zilch” so she needs to make a display and write their report. It’s pretty great to see Jessica get knocked down a few pegs, not going to lie.

About a week later, band tryouts are happening. Pat nails his audition and makes it. He’s delighted. Everyone is delighted for him. Everyone except his shitty parents.

“I practiced the saxophone all week and I managed to do all my homework, too. I got a hundred on my social studies test, and an eighty on my math test. That’s the best I’ve gotten all year. Plus, I finished my science project three days before it was due.”

Mr. Morris’s face grew red. “You deliberately disobeyed me.”

Pat fights with his parents and vows to make them sorry about their decision. Can’t say I blame him.

Jessica and Winston find out that their science project on mold is so fascinating that Mr. Seigel wants to display it at the public library for their upcoming Science Day. Jessica is crushed because it means she has to spend Saturday at the library rather than at the football game. She strikes a deal with Winston to split the day: he’ll go during the first half, and she will come relieve him in the afternoon at football’s halftime.

Saturday comes. For some reason, Pat is allowed to go to the football game so he meets up with everyone at the twins’ house so they can walk over together. But, he ends up getting into a fight with his friends because he’s so upset about not being able to join the band and they are saying things like “your parents must have a good reason.” He takes off.

Then, Lila calls and tells Jessica that Bruce is throwing a party after the game—and the Wild Ones might even be playing! There’s just one problem—Jessica is supposed to be at the library during this time.

Jessica stood by the phone and glanced at her watch. (JESSICA WEARS A WATCH? SINCE WHEN?? #GhostwriterFail) Winston was already at the library. He’d be really upset if he knew she wasn’t coming to relieve him. So rather than calling him, Jessica decided it would be best to simply not show up.

WTF?

Turns out Bruce’s “party” is just him and his friends hanging around. There isn’t even any food. Jessica actually asks him if he was planning on “serving refreshments.” Look who is Miss Manners all of a sudden.

Jess is so bored that she decides to head to the library.

Jessica looked over her shoulder to wave goodbye to Janet and Lila when she suddenly found herself headlong on the grass. She opened her eyes to see Jerry McAllister hovering over her. “Sorry, Jessica,” he said. “I was going out for a pass.”

A mortified Jessica looked up to see a crowd looking down at her. Then she heard Bruce’s voice. “Hey, Wakefield, couldn’t you watch where you were going?”

Charming.

Now that Jessica is all dirty, she can’t go the library. She stomps all the way home in anger but before she can tell Elizabeth what happened, Elizabeth tells her that Patrick has disappeared. The twins tell their parents everything Patrick has been telling them over the last several weeks. Then when the cops show up with Patrick’s parents, they tell them everything too.

The next morning, Steven and his friends begin an unofficial search for Patrick in the woods. Ned tells Elizabeth and Jessica and to stay close to home and search the neighborhood. Then the doorbell rings. Nobody’s there, but there is a note saying Patrick has been taken and to stop looking for him. The twins tell Alice, who calls the police, who don’t believe the note is real.

Winston shows up just as the twins are leaving the house and says he knows where Patrick is: his basement. In fact, he stayed there last night.

Elizabeth couldn’t have been more shocked if Winston had said that Patrick was on the moon.

LOLZ.

Anyway. Patrick wrote the fake note and Winston left it at the Wakefields’ door even though he didn’t want to because Pat said that if he didn’t, he would run away and never come back. Jessica sides with Winston because he bought them time, and because she feels guilty about ditching him at the library. (By the way, she also tried to play off like she left him there for his own good, so he could get practice talking to people. Winston is shy in this book. So I guess we have Jess to thank for him becoming a class clown later on? Idk. It is rather cute how Jess and Winston sort of form an alliance in this book, though. She even tells him, “You’re all right.”)

They all go back to Winston’s house to confront Patrick.

“I don’t know whether to kiss you or kill you!” Elizabeth admitted.

“Hey, don’t do either one,” Patrick cracked a smile.

That was pretty good, Pat!

Elizabeth tries to convince Pat that he has to go home, but he refuses. Jessica muses that Patrick’s parents should at least make some concessions and relax their rules, but he says it’s too late for that. Winston loans him $20 and is like, “yo, good luck.” Much to Elizabeth’s dismay, Jessica offers up the Wakefields’ shed as Pat’s next place to sleep. Then she begrudgingly agrees to not tell anyone.

When the twins get home, Patrick’s parents are there looking disheveled and heartbroken. Elizabeth’s heart goes out to them. Jessica is unmoved. After about 30 seconds, Liz cracks and screams that Patrick is at Winston’s house. Everybody heads over there, but Pat is gone before they arrive. He knew Elizabeth wouldn’t keep his secret and hightailed it out of there.

Winston says he followed him to an abandoned church on Somerset Street. Then he just…turned around and came home, I guess? Everything must be damn close together in Sweet Valley. Patrick’s parents freak because the church has been condemned by the city and is super dangerous. Patrick’s jerky dad is a construction foreman, btw. So I guess he would know.

Everyone races over to the church. Patrick refuses to come out. The police and fire department show up and try to force him out. Patrick falls through some rotting wood and gets trapped. What a buffoon. Honestly. Patrick is 12. He should know better than to run into condemned buildings, shouldn’t he? Or am I so old that I don’t remember the age at which I realized that that was not a good idea?

Then Patrick’s dad gets involved and there’s this whole rescue scene. There’s a lasso involved. Idk. It’s crazy, guys. But Patrick is OK, and goes home with this parents. There, they tell him the reason they have gotten so strict is because his dad lost his job. That’s it? Guys, at certain points I was wondering if Pat’s dad was abusing his mom or something because she seemed so scared of him. Anyway, Patrick tells them AGAIN that he wouldn’t have to buy a saxophone or take lessons because of the school, and they’re like, oh, sorry, I guess, we, uh, didn’t hear that? And they tell him he can join the band. Then they hug.

AWWWW.

The 2 big news stories in the Sweet Valley Tribune are about Patrick’s rescue and Science Day at the library. Jessica is miffed that there’s a photo of Winston in the paper. THAT COULD HAVE BEEN HER. Instead it says “Jessica Wakefield, not present.” Her parents act like they might punish her for 5 seconds because she ditched Winston but then they basically decide they are too tired from all the Patrick drama. Oh, Ned and Alice. You guys are gold.

SVT #47: Jessica’s New Look

This is kind of an obligatory subject to tackle, isn’t it? GLASSES. DO THEY EQUAL NERD OR NOT? I’d like to start by saying that the title for the preview excerpt in this book is “Four Eyes and No Friends?”

LOL. WHAT THE HECK, GHOSTIE? Let’s check out the cover. We have Elizabeth doing one of her best-ever shoulder pats and wearing what looks like a rather tight skirt by Elizabeth Wakefield standards. Jessica is scowling because she’s been told she has to wear glasses (for a couple of months, aka, until the end of this book) and she’s convinced that this is going to ruin her status at Sweet Valley Middle School. Most kids would probably just be afraid of getting teased, but for Jess, her REPUTATION is at stake.

OK let’s get on with it, shall we? When we open, the twins are in the lunch line. Jessica has cut in front of a bunch of people so she can piggy-back on Elizabeth’s order but nobody cares because she throws them a “dazzling smile.” Barf. Elizabeth is getting Brussels sprouts, which is just ridiculous. Elizabeth is a 12-year-old in 1991. No 12-year-old in 1991 knew that Brussels sprouts are in fact delicious. I’m also willing to bet that middle school cafeteria Brussels sprouts are QUITE subpar, even today. Jessica wants a huge piece of chocolate cake. This is how they show us that the twins are different.

When they exit the lunch line, Jessica squeals excitedly. There are BOYS at the Unicorner. CUTE, POPULAR BOYS: Bruce Patman, Jake Hamilton, and Aaron Dallas. Jessica decides to leave her cake with Elizabeth because god forbid she EAT in front of the BOYS. Then when Lila asks her where her cake is, Jessica says:

“Cake? What cake? You know I don’t eat cake. Cake makes you fat.”

Yikes. Food-shaming aside, the awkward exchanges between the Unicorns and the boys are pretty delightful. We’re told that Kimberly Haver laughs too loudly at something and that when she “flutters” her eyelashes, Jessica asks if she has something in her eye.

Serious question: has anyone ever successfully “fluttered” or “batted” their eyelashes? I feel like this must be just an expression. Doesn’t it just look like you’re blinking rapidly? That’s no good.

Finally, Jessica brings up basketball and the conversation gets easier—at least between her and the boys. None of the other Unicorns know anything about basketball. (Except Belinda Layton but she’s not talking. Maybe she’s doing something wild, like eating.) They gab about the Laker game the night before.

Lila tossed her light-brown hair over her shoulder. “The Lakers are an incredible baseball team,” she agreed, still focusing her attention on Bruce.

BAHAHA.

Jessica goes on to impress the boys with her actual knowledge of the game and then Aaron invites her to come to a Lakers game with him (and his parents).

As you might imagine, this is the most exciting thing to happen to Jessica in her 12 years. For some reason everyone agrees this is a REAL DATE. Again, I’d like to bring up the fact that Aaron’s parents are going. Wouldn’t a real date be more like if Aaron and Jessica went to the movies and then Casey’s Place by themselves?

At dinner that night, both twins have exciting news—Jessica’s is of course her “date,” which Ned and Alice agree to because Aaron’s parents will be there. Elizabeth’s is that she has been selected as the school’s “Junior Journalist” which means she’ll get to write an article for the Sweet Valley Tribune. It means her first real published story in a real newspaper with a real byline and it is a really big deal. I’m not kidding, it is. I would have been fucking ecstatic. I didn’t get my first real byline in a real newspaper until I was in college and an editor from a local paper came to talk to my media writing class and I chased her down the hall afterward. We writers can be scrappy.

Steven is jealous because Jessica gets to go to the basketball game. I have to mention that in Sweet Valley Confidential, Steven and Aaron Dallas are dating. I’d say this was all just a ruse to get to Steven but I like to pretend Sweet Valley Confidential never happened. (Not because of Steven and Aaron, but just because it was a Dumpster fire.)

The next day at school, Jessica fancies herself a celebrity because she has a date. She can’t stop thinking about Aaron. She’s rudely awakened from her daydreaming when Ms. Wyler calls on her to solve a math problem written the board. Jessica adds the numbers instead of subtracting them because she did not see the minus sign. Dun dun dunnnn.

After class, Mandy Miller (who is not yet a Unicorn in this book—I believe she had to get cancer and nearly die in order for them to let her into the club) approaches Jessica and happily listens to Jess carry on about how Aaron asked her out.

That afternoon at lunch, Janet Howell says they’ve all got to think of something they can do to ensure that they are the focus of Elizabeth’s article. The topic is “Students Who Make a Difference” and since I’m assuming the Tribune wants to see an article about kids making a POSITIVE difference, the Unicorns don’t really qualify. They finally decide to raise money for something. Ideas include new uniforms for the Boosters and a TV for the lunchroom so they can watch their soap operas. Then they’re like hey, the thing we raise money for should probs benefit everyone, not just us. The next idea is curling irons for the girls’ locker room. They’re pretty hot on that until they remember that boys go to their school, too. They finally decide on raising money for a new encyclopedia set. You guys remember encyclopedias, right?

Moving on. After English class, Mr. Bowman tells Jessica he’s noticed her squinting a lot and says he thinks she needs to get her eyes checked. And she’s like, “YOU think I need to get my eyes checked?! You’re wearing a striped shirt with a polka-dot tie!” JK. He gives her a note for her parents.

Jess is scared because she knows she’s been having headaches and trouble seeing things far away lately, but she’s obviously determined to NOT wear glasses and she thinks she can hide Mr. Bowman’s concern from her parents. She does, however, tell Elizabeth.

“I do not need glasses, Elizabeth. And even if I did, I would never wear them. I’d be the laughingstock of the whole school. The Unicorns would take away my membership. I’d have to hang around with Lois Waller and Randy Mason. It would mean permanent nerdhood!”

I have to admit, I think “nerdhood” is a pretty funny word.

That afternoon, the twins go for a bike ride and Jessica asks if they can ride by Aaron’s house. When they do, a giant piece of white paper floats in front of her bike—only Jess doesn’t realize it’s not a piece of paper, it’s actually a frigging CAT, until the last second.

Jessica squeezed her brakes, and her front wheel swerved.  The bike went spinning out of control and slammed into the curb. The bike stopped there but Jessica kept going. In a flash of panic, she realized she was flying through the air!

Where does she land? Aaron’s yard, of course. Way to play hard to get, Jessica. It’s all worth it though because Aaron touches her shoulder when inquiring if she’s OK. Hey, that’s Elizabeth’s move!

The next day is Friday. Mr. Bowman asks Jessica if she gave her parents the note and she’s all like, yeah, sure did. Because he knows Jessica, Mr. Bowman calls Alice. Cover blown. Alice decides to take both twins to the eye doctor. Jess is horrified. She decides to “exercise” her eyes all weekend to improve her vision before her appointment on Monday. This means staring at a moving pencil. She also eats almost nothing but carrot sticks.

The Unicorns decide that in order to raise money for the new encyclopedia set, they will have a skate-a-thon. How very 1991. They brag to Elizabeth and Amy about their planned good deed.

“We’re going to help the library.” Lila smiled grandly.

“How do you plan to do that?” Amy asked skeptically. “By painting the library purple?”

On Monday, Alice picks the twins up early from school to go the eye doctor.

Jessica sees Dr. Cruz, and I am delighted that there is some non-white representation in Sweet Valley. And a doctor!

“I don’t think your eyes are silly, Jessica,” Dr. Cruz said seriously.

“Yes, but I can see fine. I can see you, and I can see that stool over there.” Jessica glanced around the room. “I can even see that picture on your desk. Is that your dog?”

“Actually, no,” Dr. Cruz said. “That’s my grandson.”

Bahaha.

Anyway, Jessica’s told he has to wear glasses for a couple of months. Elizabeth’s eyesight is perfect. Was there ever any doubt?

They all head to the “Valley Vision Center” to get some glasses. She chooses a pair of light violet frames. While the glasses are being made, Alice takes the twins shopping and buys Jessica a new outfit from Kendall’s. We’re told it’s a dark purple skirt with a matching top, which I assume is that lovely ensemble we see on the cover, except Jessica never actually wears the outfit in the book. But since when does that matter?

For the next few days, Jessica only wears her glasses around the house and Elizabeth acts like an old schoolmarm about it, admonishing her every chance she gets. It’s really annoying.

One night the whole Wakefield fam goes to the movies to see Tale of Love II. Sounds like a cinematic masterpiece. Lila happens to be at the theater too and catches Jessica wearing her glasses. Jessica buys Lila’s silence by promising Lila she will give her the new purple outfit, plus the purple earrings. Lila still treats Jessica like a slave for the rest of the book.

I’m starting to wonder why I have such fond feelings for Lila. She’s kind of awful. Does she only get awesome in Sweet Valley High? I always liked her as both a worthy adversary and friend of Jessica but, shit. I’m glad I had better friends than Lila when I was 12!

Chapter 9 gives us the big skate-a-thon. Elizabeth and Amy are amazed to see that the Unicorns pulled off a successful fundraiser. Frankly, so am I. Elizabeth agrees to cover the event for the Tribune. Unicorns rejoice!

Aaron asks Jessica to skate with him (aww) and while they’re going around the rink, Jess notices her parents come in. How bad could Jessica’s eyesight be if she can spot her parents out of a crowd of people while she’s skating around the rink, not expecting them?

Of course, she’s not wearing her glasses so she has to come up with a plan.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Jessica put on a sudden burst of speed and plowed directly into Lois.

Both girls went sprawling, and Lois’ glasses popped off her face and went skittering across the floor. In an instant Jessica was back up on her skates. She swooped down on Lois’ glasses and snatched them back up.

“My glasses!” Lois wailed.

“I have them,” Jessica called. “’I’ll skate all the way around and bring them back to you. Wait there!”

Then as she goes around, she puts the glasses on and waves to her parents.

Quite brilliant, but it doesn’t work. Jess gets in trouble for not wearing her glasses and then she decides to sulk in her room for the rest of her life.

Elizabeth is the one to relay this message to the family.

“Bad news, mom and dad,” she announced grimly when she got to the den. “Jessica says she’s never coming out of her room again.”

“Bad news?” Steven exclaimed. “That’s great news!”

Freshman-year-of-high-school Steven was so funny in a typical older brother way. Idk what happened to him when he went away to college. Here’s another example of young Steven’s awesomeness:

“I just wanted to tell you that you’re all wrong about your glasses,” Steven began.

He paused, and Elizabeth gave him a nod of encouragement.

“I mean, they don’t make you look any worse than usual.”

OK, let’s get on with it, we’re almost done. Jessica announces she’s not going on her date with Aaron and Elizabeth decides to scheme to get to change her mind. Her first plan is to make Jessica jealous by telling her she likes Aaron. Jessica doesn’t care. Then she pretends to call Amy and talk about how cute she thinks Aaron is so Jessica will overhear. Jess cares so little, she takes a nap.

But she only slept for a few minutes. She woke with heavy pressure on her face. Slowly, she struggled to sit up, and as she did, she caught sight of herself in the mirror. The pressure on her face was from a pair of glasses wider than her head! They were so huge that her entire face was hidden, all but her eyes, which were magnified until they were big as apples!

Jessica jumped to her feet and tried to take the glasses off, but her mother suddenly appeared, wagging her finger in warning. “You have to keep them on!” her mother scolded.

Jessica tried to leave her bedroom, but the glasses were so huge, they wouldn’t even fit through the door. She turned sideways and at last managed to slide out, but as soon as she did she was suddenly surrounded by all the Unicorns, laughing and pointing and calling her “geek”!

“I am not a geek!” Jessica cried. “I’m the most popular girl in school!”

“Oh, no, you’re not!” Aaron Dallas said, appearing right in front of her. “You’re the biggest nerd in school. And I don’t go out with nerds!”

“I’m not a nerd! I’m not a nerd!” Jessica cried desperately.

“Nerd, nerd, nerd,” the Unicorns chanted.

Well, that was indeed horrifying, wasn’t it?

Elizabeth’s Plan C is to tell Jessica she’s going to the game with Aaron, but first, she’s going to the mall to find something new to wear. Jessica’s like, whatever.

When Elizabeth comes back, she’s wearing glasses! And Jessica thinks Elizabeth looks great in them! And they’re twins! So if Elizabeth looks great in glasses, Jessica must look—wait, no. In Jessica’s warped mind, Elizabeth looks good in glasses because they go with her nerdy image. She still refuses to be seen in hers.

Sunday is date day, and Elizabeth has one last plan. Rather than cancel Jessica’s date as Jessica asked (Jessica couldn’t even tell Aaron herself that the date was off?!), she pretends to be Jessica and greets Aaron—wearing her fake glasses. And Aaron thinks she looks great. Then Elizabeth is like, oh just let me get my purse and she runs upstairs. Jessica is finally convinced that she can in fact still be cute and popular with glasses. Thank god, right? She goes to the game with Aaron. They have a wonderful time.

But that’s not all. Before we go, we are treated to an excerpt from Elizabeth’s Junior Journalist article.

Ahem.

The Friday night skate-a-thon, sponsored by a group of sixth graders who call themselves “Unicorns,” raised enough money to purchase a new encyclopedia set for the Sweet Valley Middle School library. While Unicorns may be rare, this hard-working group proved that generosity is not.

Um. OK first, we have 2 factual errors. The Unicorns is a club made up of sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-graders, and all of them organized the skate-a-thon. Second, unicorns are not “rare.” They don’t exist. At all.

Another thing, how did they prove that generosity is not rare?

This is the worst fake article I’ve ever read in my life.

Click here for a recap of the next Sweet Valley Twins book: Mandy Miller Fights Back

SVT #17: Boys Against Girls

(Click here for a recap of SVT #16, Second Best)

Here’s a good title for Women’s History Month! In Boys Against Girls, the boys are INDEED against girls, and the girls are against being treated like second-class citizens at the hands of their idiotic and impressionable classmates. One such classmate is on the cover with Jessica. I would guess that’s Jerry McAllister or Charlie Cashman, because they are the 2 biggest assholes in this book, other than the adults.

Truth be told, the examples of sexism in this book are so outlandish that it scared me a bit—everything is kept pretty tame in the Twins books because of the younger audience, so if these examples were meant to show “sexism lite” for kids in 1988, well, then…wow, that’s FUCKED, and we’ve come a long way.

Quick personal note before we begin—in fifth grade, I was a staunch supporter of my female classmates’ assertion that our new gym teacher was sexist. He gave all the boys in our grade “Es” (my school’s “A” equivalent) and all the girls “Gs” (equivalent for “B”).  There were 2 exceptions on either side, I believe. We started a petition saying he was sexist and a teacher’s aide or somebody found it before we were ready to turn it in. As we all stood lined up to go back inside after recess, he and bunch of female teachers stood there and LAUGHED AT IT. It was quite appalling, actually.

Looking back, I know 2 things for sure. 1) If anything like this happened now, it would be approached respectfully. Maybe not seriously, but respectfully. I think that’s progress. 2) There’s no way I deserved an E in Gym.

Anyway! Let’s get on with it! The twins’ homeroom teacher has fled Sweet Valley (no doubt because she has a secret past that’s catching up with her) and their new teacher is A MAN. This is big news. His name is Mr. Davis and he’s a piece of shit. He immediately rearranges everyone’s seats so that all the boys are on one side of the room and all the girls are on the other. Then he blatantly ignores the girls except to hurl the occasional belittlement in their direction. This includes things like sticking them with classroom chores he deems “appropriate,” like cleaning up after class and watering the plants.

Cleaning up after class? Wtf? What are they doing, arts and crafts? How about everyone cleans up after themselves, because you know. These people are 12.

The kids fill him in on some homeroom activities. Apparently, each homeroom has a baseball team (again, WTF) and the playoffs are fast approaching. Mr. Davis’ new homeroom is in the playoffs.

“Excellent!” Mr. Davis exclaimed, smiling broadly. “You boys must be terrific ballplayers.”

I guess that’s red flag number 3, after the seating arrangement and the chores.

“Tomorrow we’ve got our homeroom outing to the San Diego Zoo. Elizabeth organized it.”

Mr. Davis looked blank. “Who?”

“Elizabeth Wakefield.”

Mr. Davis can barely compute that there is a female student in the class, let alone one capable of organizing a class trip. (I know it’s not the point, but what HOMEROOM takes a class trip? When I was in school, homeroom was like a place to sit for 5 minutes before school started. I don’t think it was even a thing past the first day of each year.)

Elizabeth tells Mr. Davis about the trip, including the fact that they collected money for admission and lunches.

Mr. Davis counted out some bills and put them in a separate envelope. Then he got up, went to Elizabeth’s desk, and handed her the rest. “You girls buy whatever you need and make sandwiches for lunch.” Then he returned to his desk.

That would be red flag number 4.

Red flag number 5 comes when Mr. Davis asks for suggestions about the exhibits they want to hit and only takes suggestions from the boys.

By the way, Elizabeth says admission to the San Diego Zoo is $2 a person. I know this was a long time ago, but still, that seems cheap. Perhaps they gave her the Wakefield twin discount. Also, I just looked online and adult admission is defined as being 12+ and it costs $62 a person. Just in case you were planning anything.

Red flag number 6 comes when Mr. Davis has a hernia over Elizabeth volunteering to get rid of a spider and he appoints Tom McKay to the task.

The next chapter leads off with the sandwich-making, and Jessica rather awesomely decides to make a special sandwich for Mr. Davis.

She took a piece of bread and spread it with peanut butter and jelly, then she added slices of bologna and cheese. Then she went to the refrigerator and extracted a jar of pickles.

“Jessica!” Amy squealed. “That’s awful!” But, she was grinning as Jessica pulled out a pickle, neatly sliced it, and added it to the mess on the sandwich.

Nora was watching in awe. “That’s the most revolting thing I’ve ever seen.”

Elizabeth gasped. “Jess, you’re not really going to give that to Mr. Davis, are you?”

Jessica stepped back and examined her work critically. “Just one more thing.” She went back to the refrigerator and pulled out a bag of flaked coconut left over from a cake Mrs. Wakefield had baked.

Haha. I miss being 12. Mr. Davis does take a bite out of the sandwich, by the way. He turns green but doesn’t say anything, and I’ll never know why.

After the zoo trip, Mr. Davis passes out poems—one for the boys and one for the girls—that he wants everyone to read before their next homeroom. The boys’ poem is about a soldier fighting in the Revolutionary War. The girls’ poem is about fairies dancing in a garden.

In class, he makes Amy read the poem out loud. It contains lines like, “In my garden every day, the little fairies come and play.” It’s really embarrassing, and Amy rightly tells Mr. Davis the poem is dumb.

Mr. Davis raised his eyebrows. “I felt your poem would be more appropriate for girls.”

I’ve lost count on the red flags, guys.

The next thing for Mr. Davis to screw up is something called the Sixth Grade Follies. Each homeroom is to write and perform a skit. Amy and Nora try to nominate Elizabeth to be the director.

The teacher’s face was stern. “I don’t recall saying anything about an election for director. I’ve already decided to ask Tom McKay to direct the skit.“

Tom clearly doesn’t want to be the director but he doesn’t object. I guess because he’s a man and he feels it’s his duty to fulfill whatever responsibilities are asked of him and then treat whoever he deems responsible with passive aggression for the next several years, until eventually, the relationship cannot be repaired.

Anyway.

Nora tells Mr. Davis that she’s written a skit.

“That’s nice, but the boys said that they’ve already got a skit. Ross, why don’t you tell the rest of the class about it.”

Ross Bradley (Who?!) stood up and waved a few sheets of paper in the air. “I got this from my brother. He’s in college, and his fraternity did this skit. It’s really cool. See, a bunch of guys are in this jungle, trying to capture an ape. Only they can’t, cause the ape’s very strong, and keeps knocking them all down. So all the guys dress up like apes and trick the real ape into following them.”

Oh for the love of John Stamos.

After class, the girls gripe.

“My skit’s much better than Ross’s, Nora said mournfully.

“And I was counting on directing it,” Elizabeth added in the same tone. “I just don’t understand Mr. Davis at all.”

“I do,” Amy said unexpectedly. “I mean, I think Mr. Davis is an outright sexist.”

Nora’s mouth dropped open. “You’re nuts! He’s not even good-looking!”

I expected more from Nora. I’m not sure why, but I did. This is an Ellen Riteman line. And she would have delivered it better.

The twins have all the girls in their homeroom over for chips, pretzels, sodas, and scheming. They decide to start acting the way Mr. Davis believes they are: dumb, silly, and helpless. They all decide to wear their frilliest dresses to school tomorrow and put the plan into action.

Jessica says she can’t feed the gerbils because she’s scared they might bite her. Ellen complains that she can’t water the plants because the watering can is so heavy. They all giggle uncontrollably and talk in squeaky high voices. Mr. Davis’ response to all of this?

“Well, girls will be girls.”

Then they talk about the upcoming softball game. Ross begrudgingly admits that Amy and Nora are 2 of their best hitters.

Mr. Davis frowned. “Amy and Nora? Are you telling me you have girls on this team?” When Ross nodded, Mr. Davis’ frown deepened. “I certainly hope the girls aren’t in key positions.”

“Yeah,” Charlie said. “I don’t know why we let girls on the team in the first place.” Several other boys nodded in agreement.

YIKES.

Game time: the girls throw the game completely and their team loses. Mr. Davis acts like a maniac who had money on it or something.

“That was terrible!” he yelled. “I thought you were supposed to be such a good team! And you were leading! What happened out there?”

“It was those stupid girls,” Charlie said angrily. “We could have won that game easily.”

“Well, you can’t really blame them,” Mr. Davis replied. “That’s the way girls play. The real question is, why are they on the team?”

And that’s that. The girls are taken off the team.

Jessica says they’ve got to amp up their efforts. The next goal is to get Mr. Davis fired, and they have the perfect opportunity to do it that coming Monday, when Mr. Clark will be observing their homeroom.

When Ross (he’s really a star player in this book—is he ever seen again?) starts reading the preamble to the Constitution out loud, the girls all start obnoxiously cracking their gum.

Mr. Davis didn’t pay any attention to the unusual behavior, but Mr. Clark did. He frowned slightly and turned to the teacher just as Ross was getting to the part about “domestic tranquility.”

“Mr. Davis, do you allow students to chew gum in class?”

Mr. Davis appeared startled by the question. “Uh, no, of course not.” He looked at the girls, as if he was surprised to see them there. “Would you all please get rid of that gum?”

“But we just put it in our mouths!” Jessica yelled indignantly.

“Yeah!” called Ellen. “It hasn’t even lost the flavor yet!”

When Mr. Clark commands them to lose the gum, they all take it out of their mouths, put it in wrappers, and toss the wrappers on the floor.

Mr. Clark was aghast. “Girls! Pick those up!” He turned to Mr. Davis. “Do they always behave like this?”

Mr. Davis looked at him blankly. “Who?”

The girls continue to behave terribly, talking loudly about music videos and throwing pencils across the room, etc.

LOL. I’m sorry but Mr. Davis is such a loser, I can hardly stand it. And honestly, so is Mr. Clark. Excellent vetting process you have for hiring teachers, dude. He does, however, seem to notice that Mr. Davis is blatantly ignoring the girls and suggests he try to involve them in the discussion so they’re not bored.

Mr. Clark decides he’s seen enough. He pulls Mr. Davis into the hallway and tells him he’d better get his class under control or he’s going to be in serious trouble. Mr. Davis’ chance of redemption is the Sixth Grade Follies. He asks Tom how rehearsals are going, and Tom’s all like, huh, rehearsals, what?

Hahahaha.

Mr. Davis then tells the class that the Sweet Valley Town Council is considering remodeling the school and they have invited a representative body of students to come to their next meeting and give opinions. Elizabeth MIGHT have a chance to be on the committee—the students will be elected by their classmates. There’s only one problem: there are 10 boys and 10 girls in the class, and the divide Mr. Davis has caused means the boys will only vote for the boys, and the girls will only vote for the girls. And he, as the teacher, will cast the deciding vote in the event of a tie. We all know Mr. Davis will vote for one of the gerbils over one of the girls, so this is a problem.

That night, the twins almost tell Ned and Alice about Mr. Davis but they decide not to. Apparently they have a habit of complaining about teachers. Both of them? Not buying it, ghostie. But anyway, they keep quiet and devise a plan: Jessica will tell shy Ricky Capaldo that she’s going to nominate him for the committee, which will absolutely terrify him. Then Elizabeth will suggest that if he’s absent on the day of the election, he can’t be nominated.

Lo and behold, Ricky doesn’t show up the next day. Success! After a momentary scare when Lila is late (probably due to being awesome somewhere), the girls quietly celebrate—they have successfully tipped the boy/girl balance in their favor! Amy nominates Elizabeth. Elizabeth nominates Amy. The boys stay quiet, as none of them want to be involved because it = work. Elizabeth nominates Nora.

Mr. Davis glared at her with annoyance. He went back to the board, scrawled Nora’s name quickly, and looked at the boys, his eyes pleading.

“Boys, are you going to let this happen? This committee could affect everything that happens here at Sweet Valley Middle School. You could help the school get a bigger gym, or even a new science lab. Come on, boys! We need some men on that committee!”

HOLY ACTUAL WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON BALLS

Some of the boys finally nominate each other, but it doesn’t matter. Elizabeth, Amy, and Nora all win.

HA! TAKE THAT YOU SEXIST SCUMBAG.

That afternoon, the girls go watch the boys’ rehearsal for the Follies and it’s fucking terrible, as expected. Tom McKay has zero control and the boys are all running around the stage yelling things like, “Pow!” Desperate, he asks Elizabeth for help, and she quite awesomely is like, UM. NO. Tom then gets all mad and yells at her as if she didn’t just help him keep his brother from running away from home like 1 book ago.

The show is just as bad on the day of the Follies. The boys get booed and Mr. Davis gets in trouble. Mr. Clark wanted to know why none of the girls were involved and I’m guessing Mr. Davis didn’t say, “because I am a sexist piece of shit.”

It almost seems like he’s going to apologize to the girls, but then he confirms that they still aren’t allowed back on the softball team because it’s not a “suitable” activity for girls and the championship is at stake.

Some of the girls say they’re not even going to go to the game that afternoon but Elizabeth convinces them that they all have to show up, in uniform, and let everyone see that they are supposed to be on the team but Mr. Davis won’t let them play. I must say I agree whole-heartedly with Lizzie on this.

The game is hella boring. Then Jessica tells Janet Howell, 8th grade president of the Unicorns and most important girl at Sweet Valley Middle School, that they girls aren’t playing because Mr. Davis won’t let them. The message quickly spreads to everyone in the stands, and suddenly everyone’s shouting, “WE WANT THE GIRLS! WE WANT THE GIRLS!”

Mr. Davis is forced to let them play. Naturally, the girls kick ass. The game gets exciting and their team wins. And Mr. Davis is just like, dur, I didn’t know girls could do that. He explains that he used to teach in an all-boys school. That doesn’t explain anything, you twit. But he does agree to let the kids go back to their old seating arrangements and vows to try not to be such a sexist imbecile. So I guess that’s progress.