SVT #16: Second Best

Click here for a recap of SVT #15, The Older Boy

Here it is, the obligatory sibling rivalry book—but the rivalry is not between the twins, since Elizabeth and Jessica are so equally perfect in their individual ways. The rivalry is between Tom McKay and his brother…Dylan. Dylan McKay. Dylan McKay?! This book was published in 1988. Beverly Hills, 90210 premiered in 1990—who knew Aaron Spelling was such a fan of Sweet Valley Twins? Why didn’t you give us THAT series, Aaron?

Anyway, let’s check out the cover. Tom is the blond guy on the left. He reminds me of someone, but I’m not sure who. Is it Ricky Schroeder? The tall brown-haired kid with glasses is Dylan. A bit gawky, but I’m pretty sure the reason he never appears in Sweet Valley High (I think that’s the case, at least) is because he transfers to West Beverly and becomes Luke Perry. So, you know. Not too shabby. Elizabeth is in the middle with her hand raised up like she’s about to put it on her face in a clutching-my-pearls moment, because never before has she been witness to such preteen angst. She does look pretty though. You’ll notice that there’s a city bus in the background. This scene seems to blend 2 of the scenes in the book, as there is a high-spirited confrontation between the brothers and a scene with all 3 of these characters at the bus depot. So we’ll consider this one a win.

At the start, we learn that seventh-grade Unicorn Kimberly Haver is planning her birthday party. She’s inviting all of the seventh grade and SOME of the sixth grade. No mention of where the eighth graders stand. Also, for some reason, Jessica isn’t sure she will be invited. Wtf? If they’re both Unicorns, I’d think Jess was pretty much a shoo-in, no? Elizabeth figures nobody will be reading poetry or studying investigative journalism at the party so she doesn’t really care if she gets an invite.

Unfortunately for Jess, an invite is only half the equation—her parents still need to let her go, and she’s been grounded ever since she pretended to be in high school and nearly got statutory raped by Josh Angler. AND her grades are in the toilet. So she’s got some work to do. Luckily there’s a big school-wide social studies project that counts for like, 99.9 percent of your grade so Jess has a chance to pull hers back up.

The project actually sounds fun. Students in the sixth and seventh grades (the eighth graders don’t exist in this book, I guess—not even Janet Howelled be thy name) will be put into groups. Each group will need to start a pretend business. It can be anything they want—they can sell a product, offer a service, etc. But they have to figure out all the businessy stuff that has to do with it. They’re also all given pretend money to spend on the competing businesses and whoever’s business makes the most profit, wins. Wins what? Idk. Probably another freaking dance, just for the eight of them or however many them there are.

Anyway, Elizabeth first becomes inappropriately interested in the McKay boys’ drama when she overhears them having an argument in an empty classroom. We get this rather sad description of Dylan:

Dylan was used to being the boy everyone forgot. In fifth grade, his class had had spelling bees every Friday, and Dylan was always the last kid to be picked—even though he was a good speller. It made him dread Fridays.

OK, first, I wasn’t aware that spelling bees were the type of thing that you did in teams. Although, I do have a vague memory of correctly spelling “license” in a class spelling bee in fifth grade and everyone being very excited, so perhaps I am wrong. Also, fuck Dylan’s shit teacher. They saw this happening and never thought to perhaps change the way teams were formed? Reading this kind of stuff as an adult with a child is really a completely different experience, guys. It gives me anxiety for a bunch of new reasons.

Oh yeah, there’s something else going on, too—there’s a statewide essay contest for middle schoolers and Dylan wants to enter but he thinks he’s so worthless and forgettable that he figures there’s probably no point. But he does write a couple of rough drafts and plans to show one to his English teacher—until he overhears Elizabeth and Amy Sutton talking about how talented Tom is, and that they had heard his essay was very good.

Dylan poked at his food, feeling sick inside. What had made him think this contest would be any different? Tom was a winner. Dylan was a loser. That’s the way it always was, and that’s the way it always would be.

Fuck. My heart, you guys!

To make matters worse, when the sixth and seventh graders gather in the gym to be split up into groups for the project, stupid Mr. Bowman calls out “McKay,” prompting Tom to get up and all the girls to clap. Even the guys are like, “Hooray!” And then he’s like, oh sorry, I meant DYLAN McKay, and everyone’s looks visibly upset.

Fuck you and your striped shirt and polka-dot tie, Mr. Bowman.

Elizabeth is the only one who tries to make Dylan feel included and for once, I don’t mind her being so…Elizabethy. She’s really sweet and doesn’t treat Dylan like a charity case or anything, she simply talks to him and tries to be nice. Elizabeth’s group decides to publish a book of a bunch of student writings for their project—Elizabeth’s idea, obviously. She’s elected president of her company.

Jessica ends up in a group with a bunch of her stupid Unicorn friends and TOM McKay. She convinces everyone that their business should be a boutique. They can sell their old clothes and things they don’t want anymore. Jerry McAllister suggests they call the boutique “Underwear From Outer Space.” Har har. He also fat-shames Lois Waller by suggesting they organize their clothes in “small, medium and blimp—for Lois.” Wtf? Lois is barely even in this book. Shut the ef up Jerry/Ghostie/Francine. Anyway, Tom comes up with the name “Sweet Valley Vogue” and everyone acts like it’s the greatest thing they have ever heard. It’s shit, isn’t it? Like, it’s not just me? Jessica is elected president, also.

I actually like both twins’ ideas. I would have been happy to have been in either group, as I am a multidimensional human being.

At lunch later that day, Tom tries talking to Dylan about the project and Dylan picks a fight with him. Dylan shoves Tom, who falls into a lunch table and causes Elizabeth to spill chocolate milk on her “good blue sweater.” Then Dylan actually punches Tom in the jaw. Damn.

A bunch of kids come to Tom’s defense and say they’ll get Dylan back but Tom is all like, no, we’ll work it out. Amy and Julie Porter start trash-talking Dylan after the scuffle is over and Elizabeth is still saying they need to give him a chance. “Sometimes people do strange things when they’re unhappy,” she says. I really do like Lizzie in this book, guys.

The fight between the McKay brothers is the talk of SVMS, which leads Jessica to make sure that TOM hs been invited to Kimberly’s party. Tamara Chase is like, yes, duh, all the BEST kids from sixth grade are invited.

“It’s going to be a super party,” Betsy said. “Kimberly has a whole stack of new records, and her dad is renting strobe lights to put up in their rec room.”

Sounds like a swell time.

After school, the kids are already working on their projects. Dylan reports for duty and Elizabeth has him type up some of the essays that have been approved for the book, since it’s something he can do by himself.

The slow clatter of the typewriter keys had already revealed to Elizabeth that Dylan’s typing was not very good, but she kept her expression even.

Dylan does a shit job typing the essays and also gets some of his homework mixed in with the papers he gives Elizabeth. Amy says they should try to convince Mr. Bowman to switch Dylan to another group. You know, every so often Amy gives us a glimpse of who she is to become at 16.

That night at Casa Wakefield, Jessica throws a fit because her parents say she can’t go to the movies with Lila on Friday night—she has to go to Steven’s sports banquet, instead. He’s getting his letter, after all! Jessica says “I guess I know who’s important in this family!” which is one of the most 12-year-old things you can say.

Elizabeth sets about redoing Dylan’s work, and lo and behold—she finds his abandoned essay for the contest.

Freedom of speech is one of the quiet freedoms that we sometimes forget that we enjoy. Only when it is lost, when books are burned, when newspapers are silenced, when the ordinary person’s right to speak his or her mind without fear is taken away, do we remember what a precious part of our heritage freedom of speech really is.

Elizabeth is BLOWN. AWAY. She calls Dylan to tell him she found his essay and that he has to get it in the mail that night or else it will be disqualified. Dylan tells her to throw it away. Naturally, Elizabeth enters it in the contest without him knowing, instead. She gets Alice to drive her to the post office. I’m not sure if Big A is aware that she is helping Elizabeth illegally submit another student’s essay into the contest. Also, how late is the Sweet Valley Post Office open? Mine closes at like 4 pm. Just one more way my town can’t compare!

Back to the school project. Jessica’s group is falling behind because she’s appointed nearly everyone Vice President of something and they all think that means they don’t have to do any work. Elizabeth’s group is moving along swimmingly, because they’re not a bunch of idiots.

It’s around this time that Jessica finds her invitation to Kimberly’s party. Yay.

Now that the invites are out, it’s all anyone in school is talking about. Dylan realizes Kimberly invited every single seventh grader except for him. Naturally that feels extremely shitty. He feels even worse when he finds out that Tom, a lowly sixth grader, scored an invite. He gets all huffy but Tom barely notices and neither does Dylan’s mom. All she can talk about is Tom’s jump shot. Dylan decides nobody cares about him and he’s sick of feeling rejected so he’s going to run away.

On Saturday afternoon, Dylan heads to the bus station to buy a ticket to Los Angeles. Ah yes, LA. A land of broken dreams and middle-school dropouts. He runs into Jessica, who is picking up a schedule—apparently she has to come up with a “transportation schedule” for her project.

Dylan doesn’t have enough money for a ticket to LA and he can barely get words out when Jessica casually asks him what he’s doing there. He lies and says he’s checking out schedules for San Francisco because he’s going to visit his aunt next week. Jess is like, Whatever, don’t really care, and forgets about the conversation 5 seconds later.

Dylan commits to running away the following Friday (the same day as Kimberly’s party) and comforts himself with that thought throughout the week. This also happens to be the week all the student companies set up and share their products and services. Elizabeth’s company sells every last copy of the Sweet Valley Journal. Jessica’s company claims all their best inventory for themselves which leaves next to nothing to sell in their boutique.

The winner of the state-wide essay contest has been announced, by the way. Had Elizabeth won, there would have been a special school assembly, I’m sure. But DYLAN won. And…nobody thinks to tell him. Not even the contest people. What the fuck? When Elizabeth finds out she sets out to find Dylan—she never even explained that she submitted his essay—but she can’t find him anywhere. After school, Elizabeth wonders if Dylan might have already left for Kimberly’s party, and then Kimberly admits she didn’t actually invite him. Her mom told her to invite all the seventh graders and Kimberly “forgot” to give Dylan his invitation, which is still in her notebook.

Jessica mentions that she saw Dylan at the bus station and what he said about taking a trip to see his aunt. Then Tom moseys on by and is like, hey, we don’t have an aunt in San Francisco. Elizabeth and Tom put two and two together and head off the bus station, party invitation in hand. Because being invited to some biatch’s party is gonna make everything better?! Actually, these people are like 12 and 13, so I guess it probably would.

Elizabeth drew a deep breath, trying to make her heart stop pounding.

Jesus, Elizabeth. He’s in line for the bus, he’s not threatening the life of the ticket lady.

Unable to fabricate an imaginary relative under his brother’s indignant gaze, Dylan hesitated. “I was running away,” he muttered.

Tom gaped at him. “Of all the stupid things to do,” Tom blustered. “I’d like to knock your block off!”

I was fairly young in 1988 so someone please tell me, is that something people actually said at the time? Dude sounds like Lucy Van Pelt.

Anyway, Tom and Elizabeth convince Dylan not to run away. Elizabeth actually has some wise words. Again, this book really is her shining moment.

“Dylan, don’t you think that some of the kids at school like Jessica better than they do me?” Elizabeth asked.

Dylan seemed startled. He lifted his gaze from the ground to look into her eyes. “You really think so?”

Elizabeth smiled, thinking of Lila and the other Unicorns. “Jessica’s fun to be around, too; she likes to talk and joke and party. Some of her friends think I’m too serious. But, Dylan, just because I like different things doesn’t mean that I’m not a likeable person, too. I have my own friends.”

The moral of the story: JUST BE YOURSELF! Some people will like you, some people won’t. And that, kids, is all you need to know about life. Dylan goes to the party with Elizabeth and Tom. People are nice to him, and then I’m pretty sure we never hear from him again–but some of you have been letting me know when I am mistaken about when and where certain Sweet Valley characters appear and disappear, so if I’m wrong, please let me know! (I honestly love learning these things!)

Oh btw, one of the hot topics of conversation at Kimberly’s party is that one of the teachers is moving so they are getting a new teacher–A MALE TEACHER. And there we have the setup for the next book, Boys Against Girls. And possibly a terrible Lifetime movie.

SVT #113: The Boyfriend Game

Since it’s almost Valentine’s Day, I bring you a recap of a love-themed book. This one was published in 1998, and I think I picked it up on eBay like 10 years ago when I felt like revisiting the series. I’m not sure I ever read it. Perhaps I did and it was just really unmemorable. Anyway, let’s check out that cover.

I don’t want to give anything away, here, so suffice it to say that’s one of the twins and 3 guys from Sweet Valley Middle School. If the description in the book is to be believed, they are, from left, Todd Wilkins, Bruce Patman and Winston Egbert. Isn’t Winston supposed to be not cute? He looks exactly like Todd here. I’m enjoying how Bruce is wearing preppy clothing and that all 3 have some version of the quintessential “cute guy” 90s haircut.

Anyway, as the cover illustrates, the Sweet Valley Middle School kids are chosen to be contestants on a popular preteen game show called Young Love. It’s essentially The Dating Game for 12-year-olds. I always preferred Love Connection, myself. I still remember shouting the number of my favorite candidate at the television when I was 7 years old. “3! 3!!!!!! Ugh, 2?! Really?!” What a childhood.

This book is a lot of build up to the day of the show taping. We learn that schools in the area have been invited to apply, and then they must submit an essay about why their school should be chosen. The winners get to appear on Young Love, and the winners on Young Love get to go to Dizzy Planet, a new theme park that is all the rage. It’s so cool that only Lila Fowler has been there so far. Every club and group of misfits in school writes an essay, including the Unicorns, namely Janet, who dictates:

Other places might be cool, but not as cool as here. Our students know what’s hot and what’s not, and they’re not afraid to show it. Or wear it. And when it comes to hanging out, Sweet Valley is awesome. If you’re a pretty girl or a gorgeous guy, you’ll have no trouble finding someone right for you here.

Sounds like a really sarcastic Yelp review.

Mary Wallace is writing down what Janet says and she doesn’t know how to spell “gorgeous.” Jesus, Mary. I thought you were one of the smarter Unicorns?

This book heavily features a character called Donald Zwerdling. I don’t remember him so I’m assuming he showed up after I outgrew the series (says the girl who is pushing 40 and still reading said series). Donald is a geek. As if that was evidenced enough by his name, he also watches Star Trek and is in the Science Club. Like, we get it, ghostwriter. The Science Club also writes an essay.

Sweet Valley Middle School is unique among middle schools in southern California, which we shall endeavor to prove in the paragraphs below.

Firstly, our student population is quite diverse, with students from a variety of backgrounds and socioeconomic groups.

LOL wut? Last I checked, Maria Slater was the only non-white student in school. And they prob only let her in because she’s a former child star.

Donald says they should insert a poem into the middle of their essay, in an effort to be more romantic.

The thought of love and romance makes me dizzy in the heart.

And a trip to Dizzy Planet makes romantic feelings start.

Appearing on the Young Love show would be my dearest wish.

Being chosen for your show would be better than getting a brand-new satellite dish.

Yikes. Well, it is the Science Club, not the creative writing club.

The jocks also try to write an essay. Amy Sutton, Todd Wilkins, Aaron Dallas, Jo Morris…Jo Morris?! Haven’t seen her since Sweet Valley Twins No. 2, Teacher’s Pet! My how time flies. Anyway, they all put their heads together and can’t come up with anything more interesting than just saying they are the best at everything and that no team practice ever runs late on Monday because everyone has to rush home to watch Young Love.

The Chess Club submits an essay that leads off with “Who can determine the strategy of love?” The Foreign Exchange Student Association also submits an essay. (The what? Well, I stand corrected, perhaps there is diversity at Sweet Valley Middle School. I cannot begin to imagine the horrors of studying abroad in Sweet Valley though, what with the rampant crime, Margo, fatal cocaine parties, Jessica living there, etc.) Anyway, their essay is written in several different languages that none of their fellow classmates have bothered to learn. The Drama Club begins their submission with “Lights, Camera, Action! It’s time for Young Love and we have just the cast for you at Sweet Valley Middle School!” Well, that’s kind of cute, at least.

Elizabeth saves the day by putting each essay on a big piece of poster board. It’s the only way to give fair representation to everyone in school, after all.

And what do you know it—they win! IT TAKES UNTIL CHAPTER 8 FOR THEM TO WIN.

Kids have to sign up to be on the show, and then a lucky few are randomized into being contestants (those asking the questions) or candidates (those who sit on a panel answering the contestant’s questions and competing to their dream date).

If anyone reveals their status to anybody else before the taping, the whole school is disqualified. Nobody appears on the show, and nobody goes to Dizzy Planet. Oh and apparently the show throws the school a dance too, and that will get canceled as well. Which would mean they would have to wait, like, until the next day for another frigging dance.

I know you’ll be shocked, but both twins are selected to be on the show. Elizabeth is a contestant, Jessica is a candidate.

But the first two to break the rules are Sophia Rizzo and Patrick Morris, who are kind of an item. Patrick is a candidate and Sophia is a contestant. They start scheming to ensure that Patrick chooses Sophia and they can go to Dizzy Planet together. (The show disguises the contestants’ voices.)

Sophia comes up with a code question for Patrick to ask: What’s your favorite food? And she will answer: “Poetry, for woman does not live by bread alone.”

LOLOLOLOLZ.

On Monday night, Jessica sits in front of the TV with a soda and plate of cookies (my god it has been a lifetime since I did that and I am really jealous) and watches Young Love. A candidate says she chose her winner because he was “honest and sincere.” Jess deduces that this is the only way to get picked on Young Love, and the only way to ensure her trip to Dizzy Planet, so she asks Elizabeth for a few pointers on being “honest and sincere.” Trust me, Jess, guys don’t care about that. Especially not if you’re thin and blonde.

While talking to Amy, Elizabeth realizes that perhaps she doesn’t want to be a contestant—the show host, Byron Miller, tends to make fun of them if they are nervous. Swell dude. Amy tells Liz about a recent episode where someone was chosen for being “honest and sincere” and she realizes that this is why Jessica asked her about how to be a better person the other night—she must be a contestant.

For once, Elizabeth is the one to approach Jessica with the trading places scheme, and Jess readily agrees, of course. As a contestant, she is guaranteed to go to Dizzy Planet, and she can flirt with Byron Miller.

OK, finally, it’s showtime. “Elizabeth” is up first. Jessica is blinded by the stage lights and surprised by how hot it is underneath them. She immediately loses her cool and starts stammering all over the place. She screws up the questions. She gets made fun of by Byron. She’s a disaster. But! She does end up picking Todd (over Bruce and Winston) as her dream date. Elizabeth is jealous AF.

Elizabeth ends up on a panel vying for the affection of Aaron Dallas, Jessica’s sort-of boyfriend. She decides the thing to do is make sure she DOESN’T get picked, out of loyalty to Jessica. Ummm OK.

Elizabeth acts like a complete ditz on the stage. Case in point:

“Um, I mean, I don’t like sad movies because they make my mascara run.” She giggled again. “The other kinds are okay.”

Aaron chooses Amy Sutton because between her, Ellen Riteman, and Elizabeth acting like a tool, Amy is the only one who seems normal. Bad move, Aaron. Ellen is a freaking blast.

Amy apologizes to “Jessica” before heading offstage, saying that she wishes they could trade places so Jess can go to Dizzy Planet with Aaron. And only then does Elizabeth realize she should have just been normal and been chosen, then she and Jess could have just switched back for the Dizzy Planet trip and both been with their fave guys. DUH.

Janet Howell is also a contestant. To her dismay, she chooses Donald Zwerdling as her dream date. Patrick Morris screws up his code question and winds up with Maria Slater, former child star. Sophia is seething with jealousy.

Weirdly, Aaron reveals himself to be a giant jerk in this book, remarking to “Elizabeth” that Jessica sounded like “the airhead who ate California” on the show. Jessica then loses her shit on Elizabeth and they get into a full-fledged shouting match backstage. Sophia gets angry (and kind of violent—way to go with the Italian stereotypes, ghostie) with Patrick and cries. Janet verbally attacks a production assistant and demands a do-over. Donald awesomely sticks up for himself and says there’s no way he’s going anywhere with a snob like Janet. Eventually Byron Miller comes in and gets all Mr. Belding on them, demanding to know HEY, HEY, HEY WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?

He informs all these entitled snot-nosed kids that if anyone backs out, there’s no trip to Dizzy Planet or Valentine’s Day Dance for anyone. The next book is about the Dizzy Planet trip—which apparently Byron will be attending as well. Sorry guys but it’s gonna be a long time before I seek to read that installment!

SVT #13: Stretching the Truth

(Click here for recap of SVT #12, Keeping Secrets)

OK guys. This book is really weird. It’s mostly about Mary, so I suppose I should have known it would be pretty insipid, but still. STILL. I don’t understand her motivations. I also don’t understand this cover. Let’s take a look.

As you can see, the cover line says, “Will Mary’s friends discover what she’s hiding?” So, you would think the cover would picture Mary, but that’s clearly Jessica, as evidenced by 1) her face and 2) the fact that she’s wearing that super cool purple sweatshirt to Mary’s boat birthday party. This is described in the book. (Mary wears a green dress with “big, loose sleeves.”) Who is that…boy? Man? Woman with short hair? I’m not sure. Some options: it’s Mary’s stepfather, Tim. It actually makes sense that Jess would be looking at him like that, because (spoiler alert) by the end of the book, all the Unicorns think Tim is DREAMY. Another option: it’s Bruce Patman. He also attends the boat party and in this book, Jessica thinks Bruce is DREAMY.

Another question: is this unidentified person giving Jess the thumbs up? Is he saying, “Cool sweatshirt?” Or is he pointing at the boat in the background with his thumb? Your guess is as good as mine.

OK, let’s get on with it. Mary’s mom (who just found Mary again after she spent years in foster homes) has remarried, to a guy called Tim Wallace. Tim is a handyman. For some reason, this embarrasses the hell out of Mary. Listen, Mary. I’d love to marry a handyman. Your dumb 12-year-old self has no idea how great this would be.

Mary tells all her friends that Tim is an architect who builds skyscrapers. What good does that do when your closet door comes off the hinge, or you need something put together?

She also tells them that Tim is buying her and her mom and huge new house. This is just a flat-out lie. Mary thinks it’s “stretching the truth” because Tim’s talked about buying the house her mom has been renting.

Tim does have enough money to buy a boat—the Unicorns all assume it’s some Kardashian-style yacht, and Mary lets them think so. It’s actually a dilapidated tugboat that he plans to fix up. Again, none of this should be embarrassing. I don’t know anything about boats, btw, but tugboats are supposed to be pretty cute, right? That one on the cover looks quite nice, anyway.

Elizabeth is the only person who thinks Mary’s anecdotes about Tim are strange, but both she and Jessica are bummed that Mary doesn’t want to hang out much anymore—every day after school, she runs home to be with her mother. This is the part where I can’t help but feel bad for Mary. After all, she just found her mom again and now this Tim guy is around all the time and their bonding has considerably slowed.

Liz and Jess tell their parents about Mary’s behavior and they decide that Mary’s trouble must be that she doesn’t have the same last name as her mom anymore. Yup. Check out this delightful little anti-blended family passage:

“Oh, I’m sure Mr. Wallace will be adopting Mary as soon as it’s legally possible,” said Mrs. Wakefield. “Then they’ll all have the same name.“

“Yes, Mr. Wakefield agreed. These things take time, but as soon as they’ve located Mary’s real father and made the proper application, they can all become Wallaces.”

WELL! THANK GOD. Honestly, I know this book was published in 1987 but that just made me sick.

Anyway, pretty much the whole book is Mary feeling sorry for herself that her stepfather isn’t a millionaire. There are a couple of small, terrible B-plots. One, the Unicorns want to throw a party and Jessica is convinced that they can get movie star Tom Houston to come and sing. Two, an after-school jewelry-making class has become all the rage and Jessica is using it to cozy up to Bruce Patman. Because Bruce, popular, handsome, athletic seventh-grader, is taking the jewelry class, as is equally popular, handsome, and athletic Rick Hunter. Sure. SURE. Quite progressive for 1987, especially considering the ghost writer’s attitude toward last names.

Anyway, eventually Mary’s mom and Tim get a clue and realize that Mary is depressed because she’s afraid she’s losing her mom again. They decide to throw her a surprise birthday party…on the tugboat! For a little while, Mary notices that all conversations come to a grinding halt whenever she’s around, and she starts getting upset. Obviously. Eventually, Elizabeth spills the beans about the party because Mary is so distraught. Mary feels better—until she finds out that the party is going to be on the hideous tugboat.

This is a fate Mary simply cannot accept. Everyone will find out she doesn’t have a rich, famous architect, yacht-owner for a stepfather. HOW EMBARASSING!

She decides to run away. She thinks maybe she can find her real father. Yeah, because he sounds like a stand-up individual, what with the running off and not looking for you when you were bouncing around foster homes. She packs a small bag, grabs an apple and a pear (? OK…she must think her biological dad lives close by!) from the fridge and heads out the back door at night. Then she trips over her bike and breaks her arm.

Tim finds her and they have a heart-to-heart. He doesn’t tell Mary’s mom that she was planning to run away. Now Mary trusts him. The three of them head to the emergency room, where Tim sings a song about doctors treating ridiculous illnesses. I’m not kidding. Tim is a singer-songwriter wannabe, guys. It’s really awful. Earlier in the book, this happened:

“That’s right,” Tim said, strumming a few chords. “He liked the work I did on his house so much, he said he’d love to see me try my hand at restoring the tug. One look and I fell in love with the old boat.” He laughed and then began to sing a silly song called “I Think I Can” about a decrepit old boat. The boat got into a race with a sleek yacht, and in the last verse chugged its way to victory.

When the song was over, Mrs. Wallace clapped loudly. She thought her new husband a very talented musician. “Oh, Tim, you’re wonderful! Mary and I are lucky to have you in our family. Right, Mary?”

OK, at second glance I’m not surprised that Mary tried to run away.

The next day is the party. Mary is astonished to see how Tim and her mom have fixed up the boat and made it party-ready. Everyone from school oohs and aahs. They all love the boat, it’s the neatest thing they have ever seen, etc. AND TIM PLAYS GUITAR AND SINGS and all the Unicorns tell him he’s better than Tom Houston and Johnny Buck. What?! EVEN THE BUCK?

The high point of the party came when Tim took out his guitar. “I have a special song I’d like to sing for a special person,” he announced. As everyone gathered around him, he sang the song he’d written just for Mary. “Love takes time,” he sang. “Love takes work. Brick by brick and stone by stone, we’ve built a house of love.” His voice was deep and rich, and Mary watched the way all the Unicorns’ eyes got misty when he smiled at them. “Love takes time,” he sang again. “Love takes work, but now my love castle is finished, and my princess can move in.”

UM.

Does anyone else think “love castle” sounds like…I don’t know…a porno? A motel in a nudist colony? The stuff of nightmares?

Anyway, at some point near the end we also learn that Mary’s biological father has been contacted and he has agreed to let Tim adopt Mary as he has zero interest in her. Hooray! We also learn that Linda Lloyd, president of the sixth grade, missed the boat party because she had to help her family pack up their house—she’s moving, so the sixth grade will need a new president. And there’s the set-up for book #14, Tug of War.

SVT Super Edition #2: Holiday Mischief

OK, guys. It’s that time of year, and so I give you this recap of Sweet Valley Twins Super Edition No. 2, Holiday Mischief. I admit that the holidays don’t really play a huge role, but this is one of my favorite Twins books. I think I like any story set in a big city hotel.

Let’s look at the cover. This scene actually happens in the book, right down to the outfits! There’s Jessica and Anna Barrett a (I’m pretty sure) one-off character. She might get a mention here and there in subsequent books, when Ms. Wyler is taking attendance or something, but she basically disappears after Jessica uses her for an adventure in “international intrigue,” as the back cover says. We’re told that Jess’ dress is red silk and Anna’s is blue taffeta. Stunning.

At the top of chapter 1, principal Mr. Clark makes an exciting announcement: Sweet Valley Middle School has been chosen to participate in the National Middle School Choral Competition in Washington, D.C.

I kind of rolled my eyes at such an idea, so I Googled “national middle school choir competition” to see if that was a real thing. Apparently there is something called a “show choir” which has competitions. Show choirs have choreographed dance routines and creative costumes. I don’t think I knew this existed, and I dare say that hearing Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield belt out baroque Christmas carols in their (for this book anyway) stunning soprano voices kind of pales in comparison to what a show choir competition could offer.

Anyway. The twins are momentarily bummed but then Mr. Clark announces that because the other schools have larger groups, the choir is holding auditions for TEN new members. TEN. That seems a lot, no? How on earth did they qualify in the first place if they have so few members? The twins decide to try out because they want to see D.C.

I won’t keep you in suspense—they make it! And they also help Anna snag a spot even though she can’t sing. Anna, who is adopted, wants to go on the trip because she recently discovered that she has a long-lost sister named Leslie who is headed to Washington D.C. Leslie is 13, and was adopted by some pretty important people. Her dad is an Australian Ambassador and the whole fam will be attending a welcome reception at the Australian Embassy.

Now, how did they all manage to sneak Anna into the group? Apparently, Mr. Stefan and Ms. McDonald decided to audition the kids in groups of 4. I don’t have any singing experience, but this seems like…not a good idea, to me. I get wanting to hear what different voices sound like together, sure, but don’t you also need to hear how each person sings alone? Anyway, Anna, Jessica, Elizabeth, and national treasure Ellen Riteman audition together. Anna mouths the words, and they all get picked. Yahoo!

Anna tells her parents that she made it and they give her permission to go to Washington, D.C., but they don’t say anything about Leslie. Meanwhile, Jessica is fretting that she has no stylish cold-weather clothes so she convinces Alice to take her and Elizabeth shopping.

Jessica found a display of purple sweaters and skirts, and set to work finding her size. Elizabeth discovered a pink and yellow sweater in a soft wool and a matching pink skirt.

Nice choice, as always, Liz.

Alice insists on buying each a girl a pair of cold-weather boots. Jessica laments that they are hideous, and she’s probably right, but a salesperson convinces her otherwise. I find the scene quite charming.

“I know they’re not high fashion, Jessica, but they’ll keep you warm,” said Mrs. Wakefield.

“Actually, they are in fashion,” interrupted a saleswoman. She showed Jessica a picture of the same pair of boots from a popular magazine. “With these bright-colored socks, they look super.”

Jessica’s eyes grew wide with excitement. “Oh, Mom, can we have the socks, too?”

Mrs. Wakefield agreed on the socks and paid for their purchases.

“I love this,” Jessica breathed as they emerged from the store loaded down with packages. “I wish I lived somewhere where the seasons change all the time. Just think of all the clothes we’d have to buy!”

It’s very clear that this book was published in 1988, now, right? What with the socks and the shopping mall and the popular magazine? I always pictured this scene happening at Lord & Taylor. (Tear.)

WHY CAN’T THINGS JUST BE THE WAY THEY WERE???

Anyway. The hallways of SVMS are abuzz with excitement over the competition. And probably the filmstrip about Washington, D.C. that Mr. Stefan rented, if I had to guess.

Anna fakes sick during rehearsal so she doesn’t have to sing solo, and the next day, she’s boarding a plane to the capital. Nice work, kid!

The bus drew up outside the Whitney Hotel, an old-fashioned, elegant building with doormen outside and a red carpet on the sidewalk.

Jessica set down her bags and looked around the luxurious lobby. The dark red carpeting and heavy, gold-trimmed drapes looked very rich against the gold-and-glass chandeliers. There were glass-topped tables and antique brocade couches and chairs against the walls. Beautifully dressed men and women were sitting and talking or making their way toward the elevators.

Sounds like my kind of place. Does not sound like the kind of place a middle school would put up a bunch of kids and staff in.

Jessica remarks that she wants to stay there forever, and Elizabeth gets all butthurt, saying, “But you love Sweet Valley!”

God, lighten up, Liz.

Before they go upstairs, they get their first glimpse of Sherrie Dunston, a gorgeous girl from a competing middle school—she’s their star soprano, in fact. Both twins are intimidated by the mere sight of Sherrie and Dana Larson’s intel that Grant Middle School has won the competition for the past 3 years.

The next day when all the kids are on some sightseeing trip, Sherrie throws a snowball at Anna and points and laughs.

At the Sweet Valley rehearsal that afternoon, Mr. Stefan announces that they’re going to choose their soloists. Anna panics. By the way, the kids are rehearsing in some grand auditorium. There are purple velvet curtains and a carved ceiling dripping with old-fashioned chandeliers. Jessica thinks about how she never saw anything so majestic in Sweet Valley. I guess the Dairi Burger kind of pales in comparison, but surely there must be a room in Lila’s house like this?!

To help Anna get out of rehearsal, Jessica squirts disappearing ink at her. It creates a huge splotch on the front of her white sweater and she has to leave to go change. I never really understood how this plan worked. Jessica says that her pen leaked. All over someone else? Is that possible? I haven’t had enough pen accidents in my life to be sure.

After rehearsal, the group runs into Sherrie again, who continues to taunt Anna. I’m honestly not sure how, but this girl seems to know that Anna can’t sing. It’s kind of a weird plotline. I get that Anna’s afraid of being caught and this is supposed to create tension, but I don’t know how Sherrie would come to this conclusion. The next day/chapter is all about a stupid sledding race between the Grant kids (who are from Ohio, btw) and the Sweet Valley kids. Sherrie runs Jessica off her sled but then Jessica beats her when they race again and Sherrie sulks. Exciting stuff.

Anna and Elizabeth decide that Anna better come down with laryngitis, and Sherrie continues to accuse Anna of not being able to sing. To get back at Sherrie, Jessica and Ellen buy some plastic bugs at a novelty shop and fill a box of lozenges with them. They plan to switch their box with Sherrie’s when she’s not looking.

The next day, Anna and Elizabeth get permission from Mrs. Isaacs, chaperone extraordinaire, to go for a walk. In the city that they have never been to before, unsupervised. And, without cell phones, as it is 1988. They walk by the Australian Embassy in the hopes that Leslie is just hanging around outside. No such luck. But they do learn that the reception welcoming Leslie’s family—the Linwoods—will be that night. Anna decides she simply must sneak out that night to go to the reception. Elizabeth is like, nooooo. Jess decides she would be HAPPY to sneak out with Anna and attend a glamourous soiree. Sometimes I love Jess, guys. Is that bad?

If you’re wondering where Mrs. Isaacs is during all of this, we’re told that she’s getting her hair done. Yup.

That night at dinner, Jessica and Ellen play their trick on Sherrie. During all the commotion, Jessica and Anna sneak out of the dining room, put on their silk and taffeta party dresses respectively, and slink out of the hotel, unseen by any adults. We’re actually told that they nearly come to face to face with that buffoon Mrs. Isaacs, but she’s too busy digging around her purse to look up and see them. Wtf is she looking for? Gum? A condom? Is she hurrying to Mr. Stefan’s room? Just what is going on here?

Of course, SHERRIE sees Jessica and Anna sneak out, and she promptly tells on them. Unfortunately, she rats them out to Mrs. Isaacs. This is basically like telling an 8-month-old.

The Australian Embassy looked dazzling. Jessica thought it looked like a fairy-tale castle decorated for the holiday. Heavy red curtains framed each window. Twinkling party lights were strung around the entrance and on the trees outside, and huge wreaths hung on doors. Even the doormen were dressed in red uniforms. A group of beautifully dressed people stood waiting to get inside.

The girls sneak in by pretending to be the children of a well-to-do couple.

“Look over there, by the tree,” Jessica said. There were kids of all ages milling about near the huge Christmas tree. Presents were piled high under evergreen branches. A handsome teenage boy was helping a little girl fix the sail on a toy boat. But there was no one who looked like she could be Leslie.

Upstairs, they find a game room and then a secret study. While they’re in there, a man sneaks in so they hide behind a screen. They crouch down there all scared while this guy looks through papers on the desk.

Back at the hotel, Elizabeth caves and tells Mrs. Isaacs, Mr. Stefan, and Ms. McDonald that she’s pretty fucking sure Jessica and Anna went to the Australian Embassy to look for Anna’s long-lost relative. Mrs. Isaacs and Mr. Stefan declare that they are going to the embassy to drag the girls back to the hotel. Ms. McDonald is like, “IthigI Ithingwill Ithinghold ithingdown ithingthe ithigfort!”

Behind the screen, the two girls held their breath. The man crossed the floor to the massive antique desk in the center of the room. He was not even five feet away from them! He was so close that Jessica could make out a huge diamond ring on the little finger on his left hand. It flashed as he started going through the drawers, riffling papers.

A diamond pinkie ring? Who is this guy, The Situation?

He stuffs some papers in his pocket, and Jessica mouths to Anna that they have to get the fuck out of there.

Just then, the cute teenage boy that they spotted downstairs appears and shows them a secret way out of the room. The thief chases after them but they get away.

Jessica pulled the panel closed. It was a relief not to hear that heavy breathing behind her. Then she noticed how good-looking the boy really was. He was tall and had curly red hair, blue eyes, and lots of freckles.

HMM. I refer you to the cover image, above.

The thief finds them in a nursey room as they are climbing through an attic door. He actually says, “You can’t get away from me, you rotten kids!”

This is the worst chase scene ever. It’s full of pauses, Idk how this kid knows his way around the embassy so freaking well, it’s just a big clusterfuck.

Jessica and Anna tell the boy that the man stole some papers and he says he’ll tell his father. Somehow they get back down to the party and realize that the boy’s father is Mr. Linwood! They deduce that the boy must be Leslie’s brother. Mr. Linwood, the boy, and Jessica and Anna search the embassy but can’t find the thief. They head into the kitchen as a last resort, where Jessica spots that telltale diamond pinky ring of the hand of a chef taking a turkey out of an oven.

The chef stared at her wide-eyed. Then with one quick movement he threw the tray with the turkey on it toward her. Jessica dodged out of the way. The turkey fell on the floor. Juice and stuffing splashed over everyone—including Jessica. The chef lunged for the swinging kitchen doors.

“I can’t believe you’ve ruined my dress! Jessica cried, gazing down at the splotches of grease.

So, yeah. Jessica saves the day. And she’ll prob get a new dress, too.

Fucking finally, Anna asks the boy about his sister. He’s like ummm my sister is 2 years old, she’s def not your sister.

“A-are you sure there isn’t another Linwood family then? I mean, I know my sister’s part of the Linwood family. Her name is Leslie Linwood, and her father was coming here from Australia.” Suddenly, Anna burst into tears.

“Leslie? The boy asked, looking a little baffled. “I’m Leslie Linwood. Could you be related to me?”

For the first time, Anna notices that she looks exactly like this person. She’s like, “I thought that with a name like Leslie, you’d be a girl.”

That’s hella rude, Anna.

Eventually, everything comes out. Anna explains to Leslie’s parents how she found a letter from them to her parents. Then Mr. Stefan and Mrs. Isaacs show up and she confesses she can’t actually sing.

“You mean you got into the choral group and you can’t sing?” Mrs. Isaacs practically screeched. Her face had turned beet red.

Mrs. Isaacs really needs to take it down a notch. Man.

Everything is forgiven because Jessica and Anna caught the spy. Anna is excused from the competition, no consequences. Her parents come, they all have a sit-down where they explain why they chose to not tell Anna and Leslie about each other (for some reason the twins are invited). Jessica and Anna get their picture in the paper with the headline CHILDREN SOLVE CRIME AT AUSSIE EMBASSY.

Ned and Alice don’t even call, by the way

Finally, it’s competition day. Do I even need to tell you what happens? Sweet Valley wins. Grant Middle School comes in second. Sherrie and Jessica tie for the soprano soloist competition.

The freaking end. Didn’t picture that one being so long, but here we are.

SVT #2: Teacher’s Pet

(Click here for recap of SVT #1: Best Friends)

OK, here it is, Sweet Valley Twins No. 2, Teacher’s Pet. No, this isn’t about Elizabeth’s affection for Mr. Bowman and his horrible wardrobe. It’s about the twins’ ballet teacher, Madame Andre, and her somewhat creepy fixation on Elizabeth and total disregard of the existence of Jessica.

Let’s look at the cover. That’s Lizzie in the front, looking all angelic ballerina like. Looming behind her is Jessica, looking like the brat that she is (although she has good reason to, this time).

I already have problems with this book on page 1. We’re told that Madame Andre has just phoned and asked the twins to come to the dance studio. Elizabeth and Jessica are 12 years old, Madame Andre. You can’t just order people around like that. It kind of reminds me of when I was around 15 and I worked in this clothing boutique for tween girls and my manager tried to put me “on call”—my dad was not having that, as he had to drive me to work. He called her and told her to get real, I’m not a nurse, nor do I have a driver’s license.

Anyway. Luckily for Madame Andre, the dance studio is easily accessible by bus, bike, or carpool, as is nearly everything in Sweet Valley. The ease of commuting in this town must make the taxes ridiculous, amiright?

At the studio, Madame Andre tells them about their upcoming recital. The class will be performing a number from Coppelia, which is an actual ballet and really screwed up. As Madame Andre explains, Coppelia is a lifelike doll. In fact, she is so lifelike and beautiful that Swanilda and her true love, Franz, are tricked into thinking she’s a real person. And Franz falls in love with her. Yikes. I don’t care what you’ve been through in your life, it’s not as bad as that.

There are 4 small solos and, of course, the lead role of Swanilda. The rest of the crappy dancers will be in the corps de ballet. Auditions are 1 week away—and of course both Elizabeth and Jessica want the lead. Unfortunately for Jessica, Madame Andre doesn’t think anyone in class can hold a candle to Elizabeth—least of all Jess, who got off on the wrong foot when she showed up to their first class wearing a purple leotard, purple legwarmers, and barrettes with purple ribbons hanging from them.

Jessica laments that she has no shot at the lead because Liz is teacher’s pet, which Liz denies. The girls decide that maybe the reason Madame Andre never notices Jess is because she always stands next to Amy Sutton, who sucks at ballet. (This is a strategy Jess uses to make herself look better.) They decide to invite Amy over to help her with ballet, in the hopes of making Jess look better. Idk why Jessica doesn’t just stand somewhere else, but OK.

The day Amy is supposed to come over to the twins’ house to practice, Jessica forgets all about the plan—there is a “special Unicorn meeting,” after all!

Elizabeth and Amy practice. When Jess gets home, Amy is gone and Liz blasts her for forgetting their plans. They fight and Jess calls her teacher’s pet again. At the next ballet practice, even AMY gets praise from Madame Andre. Amy, of course, tells her that Elizabeth gave her some pointers.

“But of course. Elizabeth is a dedicated dancer,” said Madame, giving Elizabeth a radiant smile.

Jessica felt her throat tighten and her eyes fill with tears. She had dreamed that Madame would say those words to her. If only she hadn’t gone to that Unicorn meeting! No, she thought quickly. It was all Elizabeth’s fault. Elizabeth had betrayed her!

In Jessica’s defense, Madame Andre is defo up Elizabeth’s ass. In Elizabeth’s defense, she didn’t really do anything to get Madame Andre to like her so much.

Much of the rest of the book is about the twin war. When Jessica asks Steven to ask Elizabeth to pass the mashed potatoes at dinner, we get this:

“Tell Jessica to eat my share. I’m watching my weight for the recital.”

OH SNAP. Gotta love some 80s body shaming—and I guess it never really went out of style with ballet. I never danced as a kid, and good thing. A friend who did ballet for years told me her teacher would point at each kid and say, “skinny, fat, skinny, fat,” etc. WHAT THE FUCK? I really can’t help but question people who get their kids into dance, it seems like it’s asking for them to have an eating disorder, or at the very least, body image issues. Luckily, the twins are perfect.

As audition day approaches, Jessica practices nonstop and when she does, we’re told she is “transported to another world, where she danced among fluffy pink clouds and soared and dipped with a grace of a bird.” Wow.

On the day of the audition—which is supposed to be at 3 p.m.—Madame Andre calls and changes the time to 11 a.m. Man, my dad would have had a fit. HOW CAN SHE DO THAT? Elizabeth decided to go to the mall with Alice, so Jessica takes the call.

She smiled as she hung up the phone. Madame Andre didn’t know it, but she had done Jessica a big favor.

Jessica half-heartedly writes a note for Elizabeth and practically skips all the way to the dance studio, thinking Liz will never make it to the audition on time. And if she doesn’t audition, of course, she can’t dance the lead. When asked what happened to Elizabeth, Jessica is all like, “Yeah, I don’t know. I guess she didn’t want to come!” That part is kinda fucked, Jessica.

Of course, Elizabeth bursts into the room just before the audition is over. It turns out that Alice forgot her credit cards so they came back home and saw Jessica’s note. Madame Andre is visibly relieved. This, after she spent most of the audition staring at the door hoping Elizabeth would show up. It’s really gross. Elizabeth thinks Jessica is THE GREATEST SISTER IN THE WORLD for leaving the note, and she tells Amy so later that evening, when they’re talking on the phone. Amy informs Liz that Jessica told Madame Andre Liz wasn’t interested in coming to the audition. Liz is crushed. She spends the next few days avoiding Jess.

At the next ballet class, the solo parts are announced: the four smaller solos go to Cammi Adams, Jo Morris, Kerri Glenn, and Melissa McCormick. Elizabeth lands Swanilda. Jessica is stuck in the corps de ballet.

Elizabeth confronts Jessica about her stunt and Jessica just shrugs and says it wouldn’t have mattered anyway because Liz is teacher’s pet. She was never not going to get the part.

Suddenly, Madame Andre came rushing into the dressing room. “Something terrible has happened,” she cried. Her face was creased with concern. “Coppelia is missing!”

Coppelia is the life-size doll—a pretty important prop for the performance. Everyone looks for the doll—except Jessica. They are unsuccessful.

At the next practice, Coppelia is still missing. And Elizabeth starts to notice that Jessica is actually a really good dancer. A seed of doubt is planted—might Jessica be a better dancer than Elizabeth? Could it be that Elizabeth really is teacher’s pet? Did Jessical steal Coppelia in an effort to sabotage the recital?

Elizabeth is having trouble learning her steps for the recital. She practices at home but two days before the recital, she’s not getting any better—and Jessica notices.

Jessica’s anger and resentment began to melt as she watched Elizabeth try to master the turns, a look of utter panic on her face.

She’s going to make a terrible Swanilda if she doesn’t get that step right, thought Jessica. She’ll embarrass herself and Mom and Dad and me. Jessica tried to fight down the tide of sympathy that was sweeping over her. Part of her wanted to see Elizabeth fail so she could say I told you so. But the rest of her couldn’t forget that no matter what, Elizabeth was still the most important person in the world to her.

Aw. I miss when Jessica was sweet.

Jess helps Elizabeth with the steps and is able to explain—better than Madame Andre, apparently—what she needs to do differently. Elizabeth takes her advice and feels the improvement.

That night, Liz is convinced—Jessica is right. She is teacher’s pet. And Jessica is way better dancer than anyone else in the class.

At dress rehearsal, Coppelia is still missing. Amy volunteers play Coppelia, since she can’t dance at all—she actually fell down during her audition. As Coppelia, all she has to do is sit in a chair the whole time. Madame Andre is like yes, thank you, please just sit there because you’re a shit dancer, that’s perfect.

That night, Elizabeth decides she is going to fake an injury so that Jessica has to dance the lead in her place. At the same time, Jessica decides she’s not even going to go to the stupid recital.

At breakfast the next morning, Jessica tells her family she isn’t going to the recital. Steven jumps all over her, saying she just can’t stand to hear Elizabeth get applause. Jessica finally says fine, she’ll go, but she’s not dancing. She’s just going to sit in the audience. I’m sure that won’t fuck with the blocking of the routine at all.

When they get to Sweet Valley High (hee hee!) that evening, Elizabeth hops out of the van and pretends to twist her ankle. She implores Jess to take her place, and citing time, says they can’t let Madame Andre know about their plans. Ned and Alice are just like, sure, whatever. Yeah I don’t know, either, guys.

The only person Elizabeth told about her plan was Amy, and because Amy is a good friend and a sweet kid when she’s 12 (not so much when she’s 16), she decides to dance in the corps and let Elizabeth be Coppelia. That way she’ll at least get to be on stage.

Jessica blows everyone’s minds as Swanilda.

Madame Andre races to tell Ned and Alice what a talent, what a prodigy, what a miracle of a dancer Elizabeth is, and they’re like, yeah so actually, that was Jessica.

“Surely it can’t be,” said Madame Andre. She was shaking her head in disbelief. “Jessica could never dance that well. Oh my…” Her words trailed off and her face clouded with sadness. “It is obvious that she can. How could I have been so blind?”

Good question. You’re a shit teacher, perhaps?

Finally, Jessica gets the praise she wants from Madame Andre. Elizabeth confesses that she faked her injury. And Amy confesses that she hid Coppelia because she was afraid to dance in front of an audience.

All’s well that ends well. The last chapter is set up for the next book, The Haunted House.

SVT #6: The New Girl

(Click here for recap of SVT #5: Sneaking Out)

OK, so here’s the thing: this book is horrendous. Were people really this awful in 1987? I don’t remember what I thought of this one as a kid, but as an adult I’m pretty appalled. I really want to recap the first 10 books in the Twins series though, so let’s get on with it.

Here’s the cover. There’s Brooke Dennis, looking all snooty and prim, pointing her finger at Jessica-as-Jennifer, the third Wakefield sister they make up as an elaborate hoax. Jennifer always wears a bow in her hair and Steven’s clothes. So yeah that’s Steven’s super kewl red cardigan.

Sorry about the stains, I set a glass of wine down on top of this book. 😦

Brooke is new to Sweet Valley and she’s…well…she’s pretty shitty herself, honestly. She’s rude, she’s prissy, and she—gasp—wears stockings on the weekend, according to an incredulous Jessica. Dated details, for the win!

Mrs. Wakefield has invited Brooke and her dad (a Hollywood director and one of her interior design firm’s new clients) over for dessert. Just dessert? Not dinner? I actually kind of like this idea. She knew her kids would house the doughnuts she brought home so she also got a gigantic lemon meringue pie. Wtf? Hey, Alice, when I wasn’t allowed to eat something my parents were saving for guests, they pretty much threatened my life. Worked well.

Jessica fakes sick so she doesn’t have to see Brooke (she’s hated her ever since she ran into her while walking Mrs. Bramble’s dog a week or so earlier). Brooke is rude to everyone, including the adults. Elizabeth makes an honest effort to be nice, but she’s rebuffed.

Elizabeth gets stuck walking to school with Brooke the next day and Brooke is still awful. She meets Amy Sutton and Julie Porter and is awful to them, as well. During homeroom, she tells on Charlie Cashman after he flicks a rubber band at Caroline Pearce. Pretty much everyone hates her after that. Nobody like a tattle-tale, Brooke!

Mr. Bowman is too lazy to teach English that day so he tells everyone they can work on their posters for the book fair. It seems each student is painting a poster highlighting a specific author or book. Mr. Bowman tells Brooke she can help Lila with her Charlotte’s Web poster.

Isn’t Charlotte’s Web like, a kids’ book? I don’t really remember. I was never into animals.

After insulting Lila’s artistic ability, Brooke grabs the paint brush and knocks a jar of blue paint over onto Jessica’s Nancy Drew poster, ruining it.

Jessica almost cries. We’re told that her poster was unlike anything the world has ever seen, Jessica is a raw talent that rivals Van Gogh, Sweet Valley University has already offered a full ride, world leaders are asking if she does portraits, the Sistine Chapel is like, “Fuuuuucccck we suck now,” etc, etc.

At lunch, Jessica and Lila fill Elizabeth and Amy in on the paint disaster. Then Caroline Pearce comes over and tells them Brooke told off THE BRUCE PATMAN and said that between him and “crybaby Wakefield” she’s had enough of Sweet Valley Middle School. THEN Brooke comes over tries to sit with them, and Jessica is all

Suddenly Jessica came alive. She had come up with the perfect scheme. “That seat’s saved for my sister.”

“Your what?” For the first time, Brooke looked confused. “What do you mean? Your sister’s right here.”

“My other sister. Didn’t you know? We’re triplets. That seat’s saved for Jennifer.”

And so it begins.

Jessica goes off to “get more pizza” and Elizabeth tells Brooke that Jennifer had a stomachache the night before as well. Then Jess returns wearing a blue cardigan we’re told she keeps in her locker, and a blue bow behind one ear. No word on where she acquired the bow, probably stole it from someone too timid to mess with the mean Wakefield twin. As “Jennifer,” Jessica’s voice changes, too. It’s soft and whispery.

The four girls cook up a plan to get Brooke to trust Jennifer and then, ummmm I guess embarrass her by being like, surprise, there is no Jennifer! They all vow to spread the word and the entire school is in on the plan before the end of the day.

Jessica-as-Jennifer bonds with Brooke by agreeing with every nasty thing she says about everyone, including herself (meaning Jessica). She gets Elizabeth to agree to play Jennifer too, as she needs someone to go to the basketball game with Brooke. (Jessica’s cheering at the game.)

At the game, Brooke tells Elizabeth-as-Jennifer that her dad doesn’t really spend too much time with her. She also confides that he paid someone to pick out a school wardrobe for her and she hates everything because it’s too tight or too hot and she would give anything to have an outfit like Jen’s.

Elizabeth starts to feel a bit guilty but then Brooke INSULTS JESSICA’S CHEERLEADING and all bets are off, especially after Jessica screws up a cartwheel and falls on her face and Brooke smiles.

While getting ready for dinner out with the family at the Beach View Inn, Elizabeth tells Jessica that Brooke told Jennifer (got that?) that her birthday is next Monday and she promised not to tell anyone. Jess immediately decides that Brooke’s birthday is the perfect day for all this Jennifer stuff to blow up in her face.

But first, there’s another, more important birthday to think about—Lila Fowler’s! Lila is having a gigantic sleepover at her mansion for the occasion, instead of a Unicorns-only affair. Idk if this is just laziness on the part of the ghostwriter or if we are supposed to infer that Lila has bonded with the likes of Amy Sutton and Julie Porter over their mutual hatred of “Disgusting Dennis,” as Brooke is now known.

Also, Tamara CHASE is at this party but she’s referred to as Tamara POWELL. WHAT THE FUCK. Tamara Chase is a way cooler name. Good decision to change it.

It turns out that the “book fair awards ceremony” (huh?) is on Brooke’s birthday, so the girls decide to use the event as the backdrop for whatever they think up. Apparently, Jessica was a shoe-in to win the prize for best book fair poster before Brooke spilled paint all over it. I don’t know if there are other awards to be handed out at this ceremony. I also think having book fair awards sounds very millennial and over-the-top, what say you?

Jessica’s plan was simple, but it required fast action. “We’ll have to talk to the boys tomorrow,” she explained to Lila’s guests. “If we want to give Brooke the special treatment she deserves on Monday, Jerry and Bruce will have to start work on a collapsible chair right away.”

“A collapsible chair?” Elizabeth couldn’t picture what her sister had in mind.

She can’t picture it? She said exactly what she has mind, Elizabeth. Some writer’s imagination.

“Sure. Brooke’s friend, Jennifer, is going to save her a very special seat for the book fair assembly. It’ll be right up front, where everyone can watch when Disgusting Dennis falls right through her chair.”

That’s the plan. I’m really rather underwhelmed.

The girls also scheme to get Brooke to carry her own booby-trapped chair to school, under the guise that it’s Jennifer’s book fair project.

Of course, Elizabeth starts to have a crisis of conscience the day of the assembly. She (as Jennifer) eats lunch outside with Brooke, who brings 2 pieces of chocolate birthday cake wrapped in foil. She tells Elizabeth-as-Jennifer that she hates chocolate but her dad didn’t even ask her what she wanted.

“The bakery’s delivery man was the only one who wished me a happy birthday today.” Her voice caught as if she were trying not to cry. “Not that I care,” she said, clearly fighting tears, “but my dad wasn’t even home this morning. He had another script conference in Hollywood. I wish we’d never moved.”

Then all of Brooke’s sob story came out. Her mother basically abandoned her and her dad is barely around. The second Brooke saw Jessica for the first time, she knew she had 2 parents who care about her and everything else that Brooke doesn’t have. Brooke actively works to make people dislike her so she won’t feel bad when they do, yada yada.

By the end of the lunch period, Elizabeth is trying desperately to avoid the book fair ceremony so that the plan to humiliate Brooke doesn’t get the chance to happen, but Brooke is determined to go because she thinks “Jennifer” has chance of winning first prize in the poster contest.

Elizabeth tries to sit in the booby-trapped chair herself, but Jessica won’t let her. There’s mass confusion until suddenly Mr. Bowman asks Jessica to come up to the stage to announce the winner of the poster contest. Surprise! JESSICA STILL WINS THE CONTEST.

I can kind of see why Brooke is annoyed with Jessica. I mean that is just crazy.

Elizabeth is so happy that Jessica is the winner that she forgets about the chair. Brooke sits in it.

With a sickening crack, the false bottom of the rigged chair collapsed, and Brooke fell through her seat. She sat on the floor in the hushed gym, with her feet sticking foolishly out of the empty chair bottom. The silence was replaced by titters and then chuckles and finally loud laughter. Brooke looked over at her friend. Suddenly, all the foolish arguments about the chair made sense. “You knew about this!” The pain and hurt that showed on Brooke’s face made Elizabeth wish she were anywhere else in the world.

OK I have to admit, that does sound terribly embarrassing. Mr. Bowman steps in to help Brooke get up and Brooke screams like a madwoman about how JENNIFER tricked her.

“It’s Jennifer,” insisted Brooke, not realizing how badly she’d been tricked. “They’re not twins. They’re triplets.”

The students in the seats nearby couldn’t contain themselves. They roared with laughter at Brooke’s confusion.

“Well I admit that sometimes it may seem like there are 3 Wakefiels in this school,” conceded Mr. Bowman. “But I’m afraid Jessica and Elizabeth are the only Wakefields here.”

At first, Brooke seemed to refuse to believe she’d been tricked. “No,” she said shaking her head. “This is Jennifer.” Then, looking at Elizabeth’s sorrowful, guilty expression and hearing the howls of laughter that surrounded her, Brooke finally realized the truth.

Brooke runs off, Elizabeth chases after her and tries to be her friend but obviously Brooke is like, ummm no thanks I’m good.

Back at their split level ranch house on Calico Drive, Alice is mighty angry at the twins—Brooke’s dad told her everything.

The twins are trying to think of a way to show Brooke that now that they know what a pathetic life she leads they feel really bad about what they did. Steven comes up with a brilliant plan. And when I say brilliant, I mean that I don’t really think it’s good at all.

“Easy,” their brother told her. “You both dress up as Jennifer and make her understand you’re double sorry. Show her she’s got two real friends instead of one phony one.”

Soon the Wakefield house is full of kids from school all feeling like big assholes. They decide to throw Brooke a surprise birthday party at the Wakefields’. WHY is the Wakefield residence always the birthday party venue for school misfits?

Unfortunately, Brooke is like, “Yeah no way am I going to that house under any circumstances.”

BUT BROOKE. THEY HAVE ALREADY ORDERED A VANILLA CAKE AND HUNG CREPE PAPER.

Elizabeth and Jessica both dress like Jennifer, then they go pick up Mrs. Bramble’s dog, put a bow behind her ear, and head to Brooke’s. I don’t know why they felt the need to do that. Brooke told Elizabeth-as-Jennifer that her shitty mom raises show dogs or something, so I guess this was supposed to be a nod to that? But why would they want to make a nod to Brooke’s shitty mom? Like, I’m very confused, guys.

Anyway, Brooke forgives the twins, forgives everyone, and stops being such a bitch. She lives out the rest of sixth grade making occasional appearances, some more notable than others, but never quite reaches main character status. Then she disappears, I can’t recall if she ever made an appearance in the Unicorn Club series, but she definitely doesn’t exist in Sweet Valley High. I’ll pretend that at 16, she moved to West Hollywood with her dad, who continued to be absentee. She started sneaking out to nightclubs and became one of Paris and Nicole’s lesser-known cronies. Eventually, she married the son of an oil tycoon, had 3 babies, and now has a Moira Rose-type relationship with prescription pills.

On the rare occasion that she speaks of the Wakefield twins, it’s clear that she still harbors resentment toward Jessica and begrudgingly admits to herself that Elizabeth is nice.

(Click here for recap of SVT #7: Three’s a Crowd)

SVT SUPER CHILLER #4: The Ghost in the Bell Tower

Ah, The Ghost in the Bell Tower. Ghostwriter gets an A for setting the scene. Editor gets an F for failing to do anything at all. Way too many unnecessary things happen in this book. THE INN IS HAUNTED, WE GET IT.

Here’s the cover. There’s Jessica and Elizabeth looking simultaneously the way I always picture them and not like that at all. Dude standing menacingly at the top of the stairs with a green light around him is, as you may have guessed, the ghost in the bell tower.

When we open, the twins are watching a scary movie on TV with Steven and Joe Howell. When it comes to all things supernatural, the twins assume their expected roles—Jessica scares too easily and Elizabeth thinks there’s a logical explanation for everything. How about the mess that is my life, Elizabeth? How about the fact that I’m pushing 40 and nearly everything in my life is a Dumpster fire? What’s your explanation FOR THAT?

…Anyway. Steven and Joe try to scare the girls with a prank. Jessica is ready to move to Europe to get away from “the ghost” and Elizabeth is ready with a Scooby Doo explanation of the boys’ plan within 30 seconds.

Everyone’s annoyed at Elizabeth for being so logical and Jessica is embarrassed because she always falls for Steven and Joe’s practical jokes.

The next day, a letter arrives from Aunt Helen, who has just been willed the Lakeview Inn, a rundown 15-room building that hasn’t been occupied or maintained for 70 years. Um, thanks? Is it me, or does this just more seem like a pain in the ass than a gift? She’s inviting Elizabeth, Jessica, Steven, and their cousins Robin and Stacey to come stay with her there for a few weeks and help her with the renovations. She says the property also includes a “crystal-clear lake” and “100-foot pines” in effort to sweeten the deal. This would not entice me, what say you? But the kids are all about it, and Steven gets permission to bring Joe along so he’s not the only boy. Ned and Alice are thrilled to send their kids off for some hard labor and get a little alone time. So off they go!

Here’s the description of the inn:

Before them in the dim twilight sat a huge, ramshackle building. The yard was overgrown with weeds and bushes, and the porch was sagging in the middle. Shutters hung at odd angles, and the paint was peeling and blistering.

But Elizabeth didn’t dwell on any of those things. Her eyes were drawn to the bell tower at the very top of the inn. The black bell hung motionless, vividly outlined against the deep red sky.

Aunt Helen shares a little bit about the inn with the kids—including that locals say a ghost has been haunting the place for 70 years. “So far, he’s been very polite,” she says. “I haven’t heard a peep out of him.”

Har har, Aunt Helen.

Upstairs, the kids pick out their bedrooms. Jessica and Elizabeth share a room next to a room shared by Robin and Stacey, and Steven and Joe take a room at the end of the hallway. Aunt Helen sleeps on the main floor, because stairs, and because there has to be reason she doesn’t hear any of the ruckus.

On the wall in the twins’ room hangs a portrait of a dude with handlebar moustache: Phineas Whyte, Alexandra’s father. I’m really glad that at some point, it stopped being a trend to have gigantic individual portraits of yourself and your family members hanging around the house, by the way.

That night, Robin and Stacey knock on the twins’ door.

Robin and Stacey were each swathed in a huge blanket. Their faces were as pale as the moonlight, and their lips were tinged with blue. Both girls shivered uncontrollably.

They say their room is freezing and Elizabeth says there must be a logical explanation. She goes and investigates all the logical possibilities: windows, fireplace flue, radiator. Everything checks out. Everyone but Elizabeth declares that the room must be haunted.

The next day, the work starts. Steven and Joe take on an old boathouse, while Jessica, Elizabeth, Robin, and Stacey are tasked with cleaning up the attic, because there are too many stairs for Aunt Helen to climb.

The four girls stood in the middle of the attic and surveyed the chaos. Piles of musty books, trunks of every shape and size, and cardboard boxes brimming with odds and ends filled the space. Clothes hung on a long rack against one wall, and an odd assortment of mismatched china filled an antique cupboard. A moth-eaten wicker mannequin stood at attention in a corner. A broad-brimmed hat decorated with faded flowers sat on its head.

“Where do we start?” Jessica asked. She turned to her sister, but Elizabeth was staring fixedly at a little door at the back of the attic. It was barely visible behind towering piles of cardboard boxes.

“Elizabeth,” Jessica said again.

“That must be the door to that leads to the bell tower,” Elizabeth said slowly.

So, logic queen Lizzie is creeped out by the bell tower, guys. Got that?

Elizabeth starts sorting through the books while the other girls go for the old clothes. Honestly, I’m not sure where I’d begin. Both of those sound potentially fun and fascinating. Elizabeth discovers the diary of Alexandra Whyte in the pile, which reminds me that at some point I’ve got to destroy all of my old diaries, lest some pesky little preteen discover them after I’m gone.

Steven and Joe come up to brag that they found a cave. (What is it with this series and caves? Am I the only one who would not be like “OOH A CAVE, SHOW ME RIGHT NOW!” ???? I did a cave tour once, in Iceland. One of my friends accidentally passed gas in the tour guide’s face while climbing out of a hole. The rest of us laughed for days.

Stacey says she’s thirsty, and Jessica tricks Elizabeth into going downstairs to fetch them all lemonade. Then literally right when they are all finished with the lemonade they decide to break for lunch. And Elizabeth doesn’t even say, YOU COULD HAVE SAVED ME THE TRIP FOR LEMONADE, YOU KNOW!

On their way back downstairs, Elizabeth stops in her bedroom to put Alexandra’s diary, and a photo album she discovered, on her bed. There’s a photo in the album that looks like Phineas Whyte.

Elizabeth glanced up to compare the photo to the oil painting. Suddenly a cold shiver ran the length of her spine.

Phineas Whyte had disappeared! In his place was a portrait of a woman in a blue dress, holding a tiny baby in her lap. The painting of Alexandra’s father had vanished into thin air!

When she drags Jessica back up to the bedroom to show her the switch, the painting has been switched back. Jess casually suggests maybe the ghost is at work but Elizabeth decides she must have just been mistaken. Yeah, def.

After lunch, Elizabeth helps Aunt Helen in the garden while the other three girls head back up to the attic. Stacey accidentally knocks over a can of bright red paint, which gets all over her shoe. How long does paint stay good? Seventy years seems like a long time, but I’m no expert. Robin and Stacey go off to find paper towels to clean up the mess and leave Jessica in the attic alone. She’s trying on a veil and wonders aloud to herself it was a bridal veil.

“It was indeed.”

Jessica whirled around to find one of the workers standing behind her.

“Where did you come from?” she asked suspiciously.

“I’m awfully sorry if I startled you, miss,” he said, smiling shyly.

Jessica eyed the workman carefully. His eyes were black and his skin was pale, and he was wearing overalls. His jet black hair was parted in the middle and slicked down. It was a very old fashioned hairstyle, Jessica thought, but on him, it seemed appropriate.

“I’m Bill,” the workman said, extending his hand.

Bill calls the inn “a grand old house” and says he knows everything about it. He shows Jessica the plans of the house and points out a secret passageway between the room the twins are sharing and Robin and Stacey’s. When Robin and Stacey return, Jess tells them Bill gave her the plans, and they’re all like, who? And there’s no one there.

“That’s strange,” Jessica murmered. “I guess he had to get back to work.”

Dun dun dunnnn.

That night, Elizabeth puts some fresh flowers from the garden in a vase by her bed and announces that she’s going to lock their bedroom door from the inside so that only a real ghost can get in.

The night passes without incident, but in the morning, Elizabeth’s flowers are dead. Creepy.

That day, Elizabeth, Jessica, and Robin go “explore” downtown Holton. Jessica first runs upstairs to change her shoes and again runs into Bill, who tells her that there’s a 2-way mirror in the secret passageway between her room and the one Robin and Stacey are sharing.

The most interesting thing in Holton is a drugstore. We’re told that Robin and Jessica buy cosmetics and candy while Elizabeth browses the paperback books. Can nobody in Sweet Valley enjoy makeup and reading? I did and do. Did anyone else feel a weird sense of having to choose between being an Elizabeth or a Jessica in their youth?

On their way back to the inn, they notice some footprints leading off the road. Jessica decides the footprints must belong to Steven and Joe and that they will lead to the cave. She insists they follow them. One set of footprints is too small to belong to either boy, but Elizabeth just ignores this. For now. They find an old mine shaft and decide to investigate it. Don’t ask me why.

Suddenly, a bloodcurdling scream echoed down the narrow corridor of the mine shaft.

All three girls screamed in response. Elizabeth tried to move, but she was frozen for that moment.

Then she saw it—a huge, billowing white figure flying toward them! It was speeding from the blackest reaches of the tunnel, screaming as it came!

Well, gotta admit, that would scare the crap out of me.

As they’re running out of the mine, Elizabeth purposely drops the small notebook she always carries with her on the sandy ground. She uses that as an excuse to go back and dust away all the footprints at the mine’s entrance. She tells Jessica and Robin she suspects that Steven was the ghost.

“It all fits. The ghost was taller than us. Joe is about the same height as we are, but Steven is taller.”

Wait a minute. Joe Howell is the same height as these 12-year-old girls?! LOLOLOLOL. Rough. I expected Janet Howell’s brother to be studlier.

When they get back to the inn, Elizabeth is floored, just floored, to find that Steven is there—and Aunt Helen reports that he’s been trying to teach her how to play pool for an hour. Elizabeth is stumped. Or so she says.

That night, Elizabeth considers reading some of Alexandra Whyte’s diary but then says, “I have some thinking to do instead,” which I accidentally read as, “I have some drinking to do instead,” and I was like, damn, never before have I related so hard to Elizabeth.

In the middle of the night, the twins are awakened by a strange light coming in from the mirror.

Elizabeth took an involuntary step backward, but could not tear her fascinated gaze from the words, now horribly distinct and written in red:

I am coming for you, Elizabeth Wakefield! Though you do not believe, you cannot escape!

Then, the words disappear and a scary face with 2 glowing eyes appears. Even Jessica—who is totally in on this trick, if you didn’t already know—is freaked out by the face, which she was not expecting.

The next morning, Elizabeth infuriates Jessica by saying perhaps what happened the night before is dream. Then she bails on cleaning out the attic to go back to the mine shaft, where she discovers 2 sets of footprints, even though she cleared the sand of footprints the other day. She measures them and discovers one set belongs to Joe, the other Stacey. So all the kids have been in cahoots this whole time, trying to scare the crap out of Elizabeth. By the way, there were subtle cues here and there when “ghostly” things were happening that this was the case, but I didn’t get into them—this recap is already way long.

Elizabeth confronts Steven and Joe and gets them to switch to her side of the prank war. They cook up a plan to make it look like there’s a ghost out on the lake that night. Bill wanders by and suggests they use a light, otherwise it will be too dark for anyone to see anything from a window at the inn.

That night, Steven and Joe sneak out to the lake and rig up a “ghost” on a boat, light and all. Elizabeth gets the other 3 girls to look out the window and panic. Then, the “ghost” suddenly bursts into flames. Not part of the plan.

Still, Elizabeth remains calm and relishes in seeing the other 3 scared. Stacey almost breaks and tells Liz what they were up to, but Jessica “glares” at her. Now all three of them are definitely scared, probably especially Robin because she knows she didn’t hold up an ugly mask in the 2-way mirror, as Jessica assumes.

Steven and Joe tell Elizabeth they don’t know why the ghost exploded, but they all ignore it and assume there must be a “logical” reason. Elizabeth then says they have to move on to plan #2, because nobody confessed to pulling tricks.

This trick involves a recording of some moaning to scare the crap out of Jessica after she wakes up from a nap in the attic. There’s no way Jess would ever be tired enough to sleep in the attic. Did Elizabeth also drug her? Wtf. Makes sense, she’d do anything to get the last word!

Jessica is also confronted by a ghost in the attic, and nearly jumps out the window trying to get away from it. Elizabeth promptly puts an end to all the fun. All the girls come clean and Elizabeth explains that she never fell for any of their tricks at all, #becauselogic. She explains away every single thing.

Robin and Stacey’s cold room: the radiator was snapping when Elizabeth came in, indicating that it had been turned off so the room would get cold and they’d turned it back on before they came to get her. Their lips were blue because they put blue eyeshadow on them. Jessica switched the paintings when Elizabeth went downstairs to get lemonade. Jessica put Elizabeth’s flowers in the oven so they would dry out. Joe and Stacey were in the mine shaft. And, of course, the secret passageway/2-way mirror between the rooms, which Elizabeth discovered because of an imprint in the carpeting.

Liz is a bit confused when Jessica tells her about the ghost she saw in the attic. That was not part of the plan. But she assumes Steven and Joe took things too far.

The next day is a big day in Holton—Gold Rush Day. Sounds like a flea market with a band kind of thing. Elizabeth is thrilled that they are “Just in time for the history lecture!” Honestly I’d rather go to a history lecture than pretend I might just buy someone’s handmade-with-uncooked-noodles jewelry or whatever the f else is going on at this thing.

An old dude called Homer gives the lecture, and Elizabeth tells him that she’s helping her aunt restore The Lakeview Inn. He then tells her about the Lakeview Inn ghost. Basically, it goes like this: a loser in love, William Cliff, was in love with a beautiful girl who lived at the inn (Alexandra, obviously). She loved him too but her parents wanted to force her to marry someone more suitable.

The old man paused to clear his throat. “Just as the preacher asked, “Does anyone here know any reason why these two should not be joined in holy matrimony?” the bell in the tower began to ring. The young bride looked up to see her jilted lover draped over the railing of the bell tower.”

“He killed himself?”” Elizabeth cried in horror.

“No,” Homer corrected her. “He had died of a broken heart at that very moment.”

Oh, come on.

Anyway, the wedding was called off and then the inn was abandoned. The bell has never sounded since. Not even when they pulled poor William’s body off the thing? Seems unrealistic.

Elizabeth keeps this story to herself. I don’t know why. Probably because she likes to be a know-it-all.

Some more strange goings-on happen at the inn. A few too many, if you ask me.

Elizabeth finally gets spooked enough to tell Jessica, Robin, and Stacey about William Cliff. They all decide that the Lakeview Inn Ghost is William Cliff and he’s after them.

But they’ll worry about that later. (I know, wtf?) For now, they must finish their work in the attic. They run into Bill on the way up and he tells them not to worry about ghosts, that’s crazy talk.

Elizabeth later decides Bill knows more about the inn and the bell tower than he’s saying, but she can’t find him anywhere to bother him with her questions. She approaches the head of the work crew.

“Must be a mistake,” Mr. Hollyfield said. “There’s no one named Bill working here.”

AHHHHH.

After THAT, it STILL takes a few pages for the girls to realize that Bill and the ghost of William Cliff are one in the same. Then they realize with lightning speed that he doesn’t want them to get into the bell tower because if they ring the bell, he’ll be banished from the inn, and he’s been waiting 70 years for Alexandra to come back. Do they not notify the dead folks when people they knew in their earthly lives die? I feel like that ought to be considered common courtesy.

MORE crazy shit happens as Bill tries to scare the girls into leaving the inn.

Of course, they decide they MUST go in the bell tower. On their way, Bill does things to scare them. He moves furniture in the attic and blocks their path back toward the stairs. He makes clothes dance around in thin air. He makes spiders appear everywhere. He makes a big huge fucking mess, sounds like.

Then he appears, tells the girls he’s gonna kill them. Liz calls his bluff. He’s like, “Ah yeah you’re right I can’t hurt anyone.” Then she tells him how Alexandra never married and never returned to the inn because the memories were too painful. He asks them to ring the bell for him so he can get the fuck out of there. They do, and he disappears.

A week later, during their last evening at the inn, the girls are sitting outside by the lake when they see the spirits of Bill/Will and Alexandra join hands and walk into the moonlight together.

When Jessica caught her breath, she turned to Elizabeth. “All right, Lizzie,” she said. “Explain that logically!”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Elizabeth said, smiling wistfully. “True love is very, very logical.”

WTF? No it’s isn’t. Was she making a joke? That’s the last line of the book. I don’t need more, but I need more. You know what I mean?

SVT SUPER CHILLER #8: The Secret of the Magic Pen

Brace yourselves, people. It’s a rather campy camp story.

Here’s the cover. The artist really did a shit job with this. First, this picture on the top really bugs me. Why include this and make the twins look different from that picture? For me, this picture on the top is classic Elizabeth and Jessica. THIS IS WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE. I get that continuity is a problem for this series but man…you can’t even stay consistent on ONE COVER? Anyway. I’m assuming that’s Jessica in the purple shirt and the other girl is Miranda Page, a fellow camper who only appears in this book. This scene never happens. Two comments on Miranda: 1) I totally had this outfit. 2) I never realized until very recently that she’s peeking through a bush, or something. I thought she was just standing like that for no reason. That red thing glowing on the ground would be the aforementioned “magic pen.” The fact that the word “Beware” is coming out of Jessica’s flashlight, well, I’m just going to try to ignore that.

Anyway. It’s the summer before the twins’ tenth trip through sixth grade, and they’re bored AF. All of their friends are doing cool things and they’re doing nothing. Elizabeth decides she’ll try to write a mystery novel that rivals her favorite author, Amanda Howard, but when she sits down and tries to start, she can’t think of anything to write about.

There were so many choices to make, she hardly knew where to begin. Should her heroine be a young girl, a college student, or an adult? Should her setting be Sweet Valley, or should she make up a fantasy world where only the strangest things happen?

LOLLOLOLOLOL.

Elizabeth, of course, doesn’t realize the irony of that last thought.

That night at dinner, Ned and Alice have a surprise: they’re sending Elizabeth and Jessica to Camp Faraway for two weeks. The twins are ecstatic. There are writing workshops for Elizabeth and acting classes and dance lessons for Jessica.

On the bus to Faraway, they discover that their friend, Mandy Miller (one of the nice Unicorns) is also coming to camp. They also meet Miranda Page, a pretty, confident, but nice, wannabe actress like Jessica, and Starr Johnson, a reader-writer type like Elizabeth who quotes Shakespeare ad nausem.

All the girls are assigned to Cabin Windlewisp. The first night, the camp director, a lady named Gunnie, tells the campers a bit about the history of Faraway. Of note: one of the most famous people to ever come from the area was a mystery writer named Roland Barge, and, oh, yeah, a long time ago there were supposedly some murders committed on the Camp Faraway property. Cool thing to tell a bunch of 12-year-olds, Gunnie. And you call yourself camp director!

The next day, the twins go on a tour of a place called Hangman’s Cave with their counselor Holly and some other girls, including Mandy, Miranda, Starr, and an annoying pain in the ass called Priscilla Westover. Priscilla is a rich southern belle who says things like, “If mommy and daddy find out that anything has happened to me, all I can say is, lawsuit!” The cave is pretty creepy, on account of being a cave and everything. When a bat starts flapping around, Priscilla loses it (I know she’s supposed to suck, but like, I would definitely lose it as well) and she accidentally knocks Elizabeth on the ground. By the way, what appears to be a bottomless depth of water lies below. While Jessica yells at Priscilla, Elizabeth discovers something in a crevice of the cave.

It was a beautiful, ornate antique fountain pen. It was made of a shiny red stone carved so thinly it was almost transluencent. And from the inside, something was making the pen glow. Elizabeth had never seen anything like it in her entire life. A million questions raced through her mind. How did this get here? Who does it belong to? Do they know it’s missing? How long has it been here?

She decides to keep the pen to herself but show Jessica later. Jess is unimpressed by the pen, but Elizabeth feels like it was meant to be that she found it. After all, her goal during these two weeks is to write the greatest mystery novel ever, and what better way to do it than, you know…writing it all down by hand? (It’s 1994 in this book. I really feel like Camp Faraway ought to have at least a couple of computers.)

The next day is the first day of the real camp schedules, meaning Jessica has acting class and Elizabeth has a journalism class. She volunteers to write an article about Roland Barge for the newsletter that will go home with all of the campers. Jessica finds out that the play being put on by the campers on the last night of the session is called The Royal Switch, and she’s determined to get the lead. As someone who has done some theater here and there, I just have to say…2 weeks is NOT enough time to put an entire production together. Gunnie is the director of the acting workshop and I CALL BULLSHIT, GUNNIE.

That night, Elizabeth fakes sick to get out of going to the lodge for Bingo with the rest of her cabin so she can work on her article. But instead, she starts writing a story.

The story takes place on the grounds of Camp Faraway in the early 1900s. It’s about Amelia Champlain, a kitchen maid, and Richard Bittle, a “dashing” young man who worked in the horse stables. They are in love, and Amelia shares her passion and talent for writing only with him. He urges her to keep her writing a secret so that other people don’t laugh at her. Um, OK.

“You are so full of love and advice, Richard,” Amelia said as they embraced. “How would I ever do without you?”

LOL what a shit sentence.

Elizabeth is sort of startled by the way the details of this story are just spilling out of her, but she decides she must just be inspired by the pen. Yeah, that’s it.

“You are radiant with passion,” Richard told her admiringly. “I adore the way your cheeks are flushed with excitement.”

Oh, jeez. Put down the pen, Elizabeth. And the pipe.

Amelia turned to get her manuscript—but it was missing. She looked under the table, on the counter, and even in the most unlikely places, like the icebox and cabinets. She ran to the parlor where a housekeeper was dusting, and enlisted her help in the search. But it was all to no avail. Finally, she glanced into the roaring kitchen fire. The title page was at the edge, just starting to char around its corners.

Elizabeth is moved to tears. Probably not the first time Lizzie has shed a tear over her own writing, but OK.

Jessica stays behind in the lodge after Bingo so she can prepare for her audition. At some point, she gets up to get a drink and when she comes back, her script is gone! She accuses Priscilla of taking it but the other campers agree that she hasn’t left her seat all evening. Holly helps Jessica look for the script, and eventually they find it—in the fire.

Jessica tells Elizabeth what happened and Elizabeth is freaked out because it’s the same thing she wrote in her story. Jessica chalks it all up to a coincidence/twintuition and politely suggests that Elizabeth is losing it with this whole pen thing. I love when Jessica is the rational one.

The next day is the play audition. Jessica nails it and is cast as the lead, Penelope, a peasant girl who finds out that she was switched at birth and is actually a princess. I’m still waiting for that to happen to me.

Elizabeth researches her article on Roland Barge and finds out that he was a recluse and a bit of a jerk. He never spoke to anyone about his writing. He turned out masterpiece after masterpiece until his last book—that one was a piece of crap and everyone blasted him for it, and then he just disappeared.

Elizabeth can’t focus on Roland Barge, though. She’s too consumed with thoughts of Amelia and Richard and decides to continue writing her mystery. But when she goes to put regular old Bic pen to paper, nothing happens. Elizabeth is convinced that the power is all in the pen, and the pen is telling her its own story.

That night, the pen “calls” to Elizabeth and she starts writing again. This time, Amelia has just returned from an afternoon of strawberry picking with friends to find a note from Richard, asking her to meet him on Emerald Lake that evening. She’s elated.

She takes her boat out even though it looks like a storm is coming in. Out in the middle of the lake, she decides Richard must have felt it was unsafe to go out on the water and trusted that she had enough sense to avoid it as well, but before she can row back to shore, her boat begins filling with water. She almost drowns but is saved by a young fisherman, who later tells her that her boat was sabotaged. CREEPY.

The next day, Jessica is blowing it at play rehearsals and Gunnie acts like a huge bitch because she doesn’t have the entire play memorized yet. Um, it’s been A DAY, Gunnie. Perhaps Camp Faraway should begin offering yoga classes, because you need to chill the f out.

Feeling the pressure, Jessica takes a boat out on Emerald Lake to go over her lines. You can guess what happens next. Back at the cabin, Elizabeth starts to put two and two together and she takes off for the lake, determined to save Jessica but she nearly drowns herself. Both twins are saved, because really, none of us would ever recover if the series suddenly ended here. Liz tells Jess twintuition took her to the lake, and keeps quiet about the pen.

The next day, everyone’s fawning over the twins. Don’t ask me how that’s any different from their regular lives! Gunnie comes over just as Elizabeth is talking to Jessica about the Roland Barge article she has yet to write. You’d think Gunnie would be informing them both that they’re being sent home for breaking the camp rules and almost dying, but no.

Gunnie says she knew Roland Barge when she was a girl. Her uncle owned the property that is now Gunnie’s Camp Faraway, and she visited every summer. And for some reason knew a reclusive famous writer who lived in the area. Something is weird here, am I wrong?

“Of course, that was before he changed his name,” said Gunnie.

DUN DUN DUNNNN.

Roland Barge’s real name was Richard Bittle, and he was a lowly servant with an ambition for fame and fortune before he was a famous writer. Gunnie recalls that he was rather friendly with a beautiful kitchen girl named Amelia. She also recalls that Amelia broke Richard’s heart by running off with another man. Gunnie suspects that’s why Roland became such a grumpy old man. She also casually suggests that maybe Amelia was murdered because nobody ever heard from her again.

Later, Elizabeth tells Jessica she’s worried that something terrible is going to happen to her because everything that happened to Amelia has happened to Jessica. Did that make sense? I’m tired. Elizabeth wants to go home but Jessica refuses on account of the fact that she’s starring in a play in a few days.

Mandy and Miranda head to dress rehearsal without Jessica because Jessica’s curling her hair. Elizabeth claims to be terrified for Jessica’s safety but then she watches her leave the cabin alone, rather than, I don’t know, getting off her ass and walking to the theater with her.

She starts to write again. Why doesn’t she just write more than three sentences at a time? Maybe then she’d get the whole story in one shot and could stop fearing for her sister’s life? When Elizabeth picks up the pen again, Amelia has received another note from Richard.

Amelia, my love,

Perhaps we should stay away from the lake. Instead, I thought we’d meet for an evening stroll through the cave on the far end of the property. I count the moments until I see you.

With love and adoration,
Richard

Amelia is kind of put off by the whole cave thing but figures Richard will protect her from anything dangerous. She also thinks that this is the night they will finally get engaged. Who the hell wants to get engaged in a cave?

When she gets there, Richard is a bit of a dick about helping her into the cave, and worse yet, he strangles her to death once she’s finally inside.

Elizabeth is horrified and runs to the theater to find Jessica, but when she gets there she discovers that Jess never showed up to rehearsal. She insists that Gunnie come with her to Hangman’s Cave. Inside, they find Jessica, cowering against a wall and clutching her throat.

“I was on my way to play rehearsal and something pulled me toward here. I can’t explain it.” She put her face in her hands.

Jess can’t explain it and neither can the ghostwriter. Weak. This just seems lazy after inventing a perfectly good reason for Jessica to take the boat out alone on the lake, but whatever. This book is almost over, thank god.

Elizabeth’s hand felt a sudden surge of electricity. We can’t leave yet. The pen is calling for me.”

“What’s calling–?” Gunnie began.

Elizabeth’s fingers trembled as she pulled the pen from her pocket. It was glowing so brightly, it was almost blinding. Gunnie shielded her eyes.

Elizabeth puts the pen on the cave wall, where it writes just fine, which I find to be one of the most implausible things in this whole book.

“Richard killed me,” she read aloud from the wall. “He lured me into the cave with promises of love. He tried to strangle me then he drowned me in the bottomless pool. All so he could steal my art, my dream.”

The pen then tells them to go look under the floorboards in the stable to find Amelia’s orginial manuscripts. They’re there, along with Richard’s failed attempts at writing his own books and his journal, which recounts every step of his plot. He also expresses remorse for what he did to Amelia and writes that he’s going to go off himself in the cave where she died so they can be together again. Hate to break it to you, dude, but Amelia will def not give you another chance, even in the afterlife.

Elizabeth finally writes her article, in which she exposes Roland Barge. Jessica stars in the play and is a big hit. They go back home untraumatized and never again think of how a haunted pen almost killed them both.

SVT SUPER CHILLER #7: The Haunted Burial Ground

OK guys. For the month of October, my goal of completing recaps for the first 10 Twins books is on hold. I LOVE the Chillers, and, well, tis the season!

Here’s the cover.

That’s Elizabeth in the very-problematic-by today’s-standards costume and Jessica’s attempt to be a sexy witch in her mom’s dress. The fugly girl in the vampire cape is Amy Sutton and the cat is Tamara Chase. I believe this is her one and only cover appearance? She’s also entirely inconsequential in this book so I’m convinced the only reason she snagged a spot is because she has an easy-to-draw costume. Oh, and there’s a really laughable skeleton on there, too.

When we open, Jessica is riding her bike home from Lila’s house—in the dark. And in the fog. Oh, to be 12 again. I see so poorly at night that I have bailed on plans when rain is expected.

Someone is following Jess on a bike and she’s trying not to freak out. She’s wishing she took her mom up on her offer to come pick her up or have Steven ride over to Lila’s to ride home with her but noooo, she’s much too mature for that!

It soon becomes clear that the person on the bike IS following her—and just when she reaches her split-level ranch house with a charm all its own, it becomes clear that the person on the bike has no head. Jess freaks and screams for her mom and dad while making a mad dash toward the door.

The headless bike rider (a 90s version of the headless horseman, I presume) is actually Steven and his friend, a super cute lead singer and guitarist for a super cool local band called The Skeletons. I can’t decide if that name is cool or lame, or so lame it’s cool. Help me out.

Despite the prank, the singer, Scott Timmons, seems like a nice dude. He compliments Jessica on mostly keeping it together, and he mistakenly assumes she’s 13. Jessica is in love. When she tries to tell Elizabeth about Scott, Liz is uninterested and demands to know where Janet Howell was that afternoon because she sure as hell wasn’t at the site for Houses for the Homeless even though she signed up to volunteer. God, Elizabeth is such a pain sometimes, you guys. And I know she was the twin I more identified with growing up, so this worries me. Who asked you to take roll, Elizabeth?!

Jessica informs her that the Unicorn president had to attend an emergency club meeting because Ellen Riteman proposed changing their official color from purple to orange and black, for Halloween. I recall that in another book, Ellen proposed changing their color from purple to red, an idea I would have supported whole-heartedly.

Elizabeth tells her that’s not a good excuse for failing to show up and Jessica asks her why she has to turn every conversation into an I Hate the Unicorns Festival. Ha! Then she “flounces” out of the room. Man. Been a long time since I’ve flounced anywhere.

After school the next day, Elizabeth is in the girls’ room changing into her painter’s overalls for another afternoon of work for the imitation Habitat for Humanity. We’re told she folds the plaid skirt and green turtleneck she wore to school that day and places them in her backpack. Leave it to Elizabeth to voluntarily wear an outfit that resembles a school uniform.

She starts to hear strange noises and then, an ear-splitting scream. No worries, it’s just Jake Hamilton, scaring the crap out of the new girl by pretending to have been bludgeoned with an ax in the hallway. Elizabeth tells Jake to get lost and helps the new girl, Kala, recover.

Kala is part Native American. She tells Elizabeth that her family moves around a lot for her dad’s job and that next summer, she and her dad are going to drive around Northern California for a family research project. Elizabeth suggests she come along with her to the house-building site to meet Jack Whitefeather, the Native American lead of the project. Kala agrees and also volunteers to help.

Meanwhile, Jessica is making a fool of herself with Scott downtown. She screams his name when she spies him coming out of the music store to the point where he half expects he was close to being hit by a car, or something. He makes a remark about her “lung power” and asks if she’s ever done any singing. OF COURSE SHE HAS. WITH A BAND AND EVERYTHING. Scott says it’s too bad she’s not a few years older or he would sign her up to sing with The Skeletons. Jess immediately starts saying she can look older but she’s interrupted by Steven and Joe Howell (brother of Janet, who doesn’t seem as douchey as Janet).

As the boys talk, Jess learns that the Skeletons haven’t taken any Halloween gigs yet but that Scott is planning on doing a cover of “Monster’s Ball,” a duet jam by Johnny Buck and Melodie Powers (or, as she’s known in Sweet Valley Twins #34, Jessica, The Rock Star, Melody Power).

“I think I’ve got the melody down. And the sheet music will show me what chords to play on the guitar. Now all I need is a gig and a girl to sing with on Halloween night.”

“I could be the girl!” Jessica exclaimed breathlessly.

Oh, Jess. The 3 boys walk away but Jessica of course has come up with a perfect plan. SHE will throw a party on Halloween night and it will be so awesome that the Skeletons will want to perform at it. And Scott will ask her to sing with the band. I’d love to Sure Jan Jessica right now but let’s face it, she’s prob right. She convinces the Unicorns to back her on the idea by calling it a Monster Ball. They all convince Mr. Fowler to let them use some creepy property he owns on Sleepy Hollow Road. This man is the head of a multimillion dollar corporation, by the way. And this is a decision he makes.

On Friday night, Elizabeth is having a sleepover with Kala and Jessica is having a sleepover with the Unicorns. Eventually Elizabeth and Kala join them for some Ouija board fun. I was never allowed to have a Ouija board, even though I’m pretty sure neither of my parents believe in ghosts. I should ask them what their reasoning was for this.

The girls decide to summon the spirits who “hang out” around Sleepy Hollow Road. Legend has it that people have seen skeletons at the property—one of them headless. The marker on the Ouija board spells out “STAY AWAY.” Jessica accuses Ellen of pushing the marker because she doesn’t want to do all the work to prepare for the party. Honestly, I wouldn’t either. I hate hosting parties. I have to clean my whole house and I always spend too much money on food, most of which is not eaten. And this Halloween party requires the girls to clean up outside and everything, because apparently the area around the shack they’re going to have the party in has been used as a junkyard.

Janet decides they should have a séance. I’m not sure how this solves things, but hey, this is the girl who thought she was reincarnation of a Hawaiian princess. Elizabeth remarks that any self-respecting ghost would have better things to do than hang out at a Unicorn slumber party. Good one, Elizabeth! Although, I see YOU are hanging out at a Unicorn slumber party. That’s right, I can take roll, too.

Janet leads the séance because she feels that it’s sign of respect to the spirit world. LOLz.

Ellen let out a long moan, then she began to speak in a strange, high-pitched voice. “Staaay away,” she said. “It’s daaannngerousssss.”

One by one, each girl opened an eye. Everybody at the table was peeping except for Ellen, who swayed back and forth dramatically, and Kala, whose chin continued to rest on her chest.

“It’s daaaanngerous,” Ellen moaned again.

“No, it’s not,” Jessica said.

“Pay nooooo attention to Jeeeesica,” Ellen continued in a high, whining tone. “She doesn’t caaare if the property is hauuuuunted or not—she probably just has some costume she wants to show offfff. Why should weeee do a lot of work so sheeeee can show offfff?”

How many times can I say it? Ellen Riteman is a national treasure, and I love her.

Jessica starts tickling Ellen and pretty soon all the Unicorns are laughing hysterically. Alice comes downstairs and tells them to shut the hell up and go to bed. Kala is strangely quiet and Elizabeth suggests they go upstairs to sleep.

A few hours later, the Unicorns are all still awake, talking from their sleeping bags in the living room, when they hear tapping against the window. When Jessica checks it out, she sees 2 skeleton faces pressed against the glass. All the Unicorns freak. Elizabeth comes downstairs when she hears the commotion, but she doesn’t fall for the trick. (I guess Ned and Alice took some Percocet and passed out, idk.) Turns out the skeleton faces are just masks. And behind the masks are Bruce Patman and Rick Hunter, 2 of the cutest guys in school. They ask how the Unicorns fell for such a lame trick.

“We just thought we’d raised the dead, that’s all,” Jessica said. “Want some hot chocolate?”

The boys come in and the girls tell them about their plan for the Monster Ball. They’re psyched. Elizabeth agrees to help them clean up the property if the Nature Scouts, a group of homeless kids who, uh, like nature, I guess, can use it as a clubhouse once the party is over. Sounds like the kind of thing George Fowler would have to agree to, but the Unicorns go ahead and say deal.

Just then, the kitchen door swung open and Kala stood in the doorway. Her eyes were strangely distant and unfocused.

“What’s the matter, Kala?” Elizabeth asked, feeling a tingle of worry in her stomach. “Did we wake you up?”

“The old ones say they are resting,” Kala said in a flat voice. “Please do not disturb them.”

“If she’s talking about your parents,” Bruce said, throwing a wary look toward Elizabeth and Jessica, “we’d better get out of here. Come on, Rick, let’s go.”

Honestly, I kinda snorted at that.

Kala doesn’t remember anything the next morning.

Elizabeth tells Jack Whitefeather that she won’t be available to work on the houses for the homeless for the next couple of weeks because she’ll be cleaning up the other property in the hopes that the Nature Scouts can use it. When he finds out it’s the property on Sleepy Hollow Road, he’s all like, “OH. THAT PROPERTY. I’VE HEARD STORIES. LET ME KNOW IF YOU FIND ANYTHING…UNUSUAL.” Jack also mentions that he’s going to be out of town for a bit due to his brother’s wedding in Boston.

Kala offers to help Elizabeth clean up the Sleepy Hollow Road property. On their way there, Kala tells Liz she had a dream that a bat flew into her room and told her to volunteer. Um, OK. The bat asked her, “Who will remember that you were here? What will you leave behind?” Man, deep bat with the tough questions. Kala tells Liz that Native Americans placed a lot of importance on dreams and thought they were visions of the past or prophecies of the future. Liz thinks this is “kind of spooky.” Can you stop with the judgement for one second, Elizabeth?

The girls check out the property and find a creek with supposedly clean water. Kala drinks some which I find questionable. Granted, I’m no nature scout, but how do you just trust that this random creek has water suitable for drinking?

The Unicorns arrive and Janet makes fun of Kala’s feather earrings, a move that would get her labeled racist today. I don’t know where Janet stands on this issue, but she’s defo a bitch in this book.

Suddenly, Jessica comes running out of a cave, screaming that there are bats chasing her. And there actually are! After the bats are done swarming the Unicorns, Kala confesses to Liz that she’s scared she somehow willed the bats to attack. She was so mad at Janet that she pictured the bat from her dream and wished it would….”never mind,” she says.

Later in the afternoon, Elizabeth sees the shadow of an eagle, but the sky is empty. A minute later, Ellen screams that there’s a bear, but nobody else sees anything and they all accuse her of being spooked by a tree stump. Later, Mandy thinks she sees the shadow of a wolf.

“Bears. Wolves. Shadows of the past,” Kala said softly as Mandy ran off to the group of Unicorns still collecting trash.

“What?” Elizabeth asked in a low tone.

Kala shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m remembering the rest of the dream I had last night. The bat said something about a bear and a wolf being shadows from the past.”

Elizabeth stared. Had the bat incident—not to mention the bear-shadow incident and the wolf-shadow incident—jump-started Kala’s imagination? It would be too weird a coincidence if she had dreamed about all of those animals.

The only thing missing is the eagle,” Kala muttered, almost to herself.

DUN DUN DUNNNNN.

Overwhelmed, Elizabeth and Kala decide to go sit in the shade for a few minutes. There, they find an Indian arrowhead. Kala remarks that it’s strange to find one there, and Elizabeth says she’ll show it to Jack Whitefeather.

“Kala,” Elizabeth began in a tentative voice.

Kala’s dark eyes looked very weary and strained. “Yes?”

“Let me know if you have any more…you know…dreams.”

Much of the rest of the book is kind of whateves, sadly. Bruce, Jake, and Rick try to prank the girls by hiding in those orange trash bags that look like pumpkins but then the garbage men come and Jake freaks because he thinks they loaded Rick and Bruce into the truck—but it turns out the bags Rick and Bruce were hiding in were mysteriously moved, and everyone’s fine. The guys say they heard voices telling them to find another place to play tricks. Everyone’s weirded out and the Unicorns are ready to throw in the towel on the whole Monster Ball, until Jessica tells them that she got the Skeletons to play. Of course, this isn’t exactly true.

One morning, Kala and Elizabeth are having breakfast up at the Sleepy Hollow Road party site (your guess is as good as mine as to why) and a dude from Fowler Construction moseys on by and tells them that 2 days after their Halloween party they’re going to tear the shack down and start building a 20-story office building.

Kala starts to think maybe her dreams are telling her she has to do something to stop the construction. Then the girls find a bear tooth on the ground and Kala is more convinced than ever she’s supposed to protect the land, since the bear in her dream said something about showing her proof. Proof of what? Idk. That it’s a real talking bear that appears in dreams and asks for favors, I guess. Kala bails on clean-up for the day because she’s tired.

When the Unicorns arrive to start working, Mandy says they have to do something to better reinforce the walls. She wants to use sheetrock but Janet insists they can use the rotten lumbar outside since the place only needs to stand for 1 night—and since Janet is in 8^th grade, president of the Unicorns, and has consistently bailed on building houses for the homeless, everyone listens.

Then the Unicorns reach a new low when they decide that instead of hauling their trash to the dump (the garbage men were pissed off about the whole incident with the dudes and the bags and told them they weren’t coming anymore) they will just throw them over the fence onto the property of the old people next door. Really? Even Mandy and Mary? Apparently.

Kala suddenly appears and tells everyone she had another dream and the animals have a message for the Unicorns. This Kala certainly isn’t trying to win any popularity contests, I’ll say that.

“They wanted me to give you a warning,” Kala said. “They said the old ones are angry.”

Nobody cares. Shock.

The next afternoon, Ellen finds a skull in the creek. She freaks (justifiably). Jessica uses the story to drum up interest about the Monster Ball with the kids at school and with Scott, and the girls decide to put the skull in a tree, which is just…I’m really not sure if they think the skull is fake, or what. But the tree business is disturbing.

Smart kid Randy Mason remarks that the story is “macabre” and LILA explains to everyone what macabre means. I just thought that was worth noting.

Jessica finds Scott downtown (Doesn’t this kid ever have band practice? Or homework? A dentist appointment? Anything?) and tries to convince him to play for her party. He says he will on 2 conditions—that she spend the night at Sleepy Hollow Road and that she sings a song with a band. SCOTT HASN’T EVEN HEARD JESSICA SING. Whatever. I’m so done with this.

Jessica accepts the deal and convinces her friends and Elizabeth to spend the night with her at Sleepy Hollow Road. Because the second half of this book isn’t dragging enough, Amy Sutton and Maria Slater also join the slumber party. Kala begs off.

The girls decide to have another freaking séance, and Elizabeth hears a voice whisper in her ear, “Believe.”

In the middle of the night, the door violently opens and wakes everyone up. Standing in the doorway is Kala, with dead eyes. It’s freaky as hell. She tells everyone that the old ones are angry and that the construction must be stopped. Then she leaves.

By the way, there’s zero mention of where anyone’s parents think their kids are while all of this is going on.

The next morning, Elizabeth heads to Kala’s house and discovers that Kala has no memory of making a cameo at Sleepy Hollow Road last night.

Jessica calls Scott and tells him she spent the night and survived. He doesn’t even ask for proof. Since when is Jessica’s word good enough to go on? He agrees for his band to play at the party.

Elizabeth and Kala head to George Fowler’s office. They speak to various people to try to stop the construction but they begin all of their explanations with “So, we had this séance…” so nobody listens. Even George eventually agrees to talk with them but this time he doesn’t bend to the will of sixth graders. The construction shall go ahead as planned. As for the “old ones”? George informs Elizabeth and Kala that they’re now going to enjoy retirement in Palm Springs, because he bought their property, too.

This whole time, Elizabeth’s been calling the lady Jack Whitefeather left in charge to see if he’s back from Boston, but no dice.

Party Day: Elizabeth heads to the Houses for the Homeless site and the lady in charge tells her she can go into Jack’s office to leave him a note. While in there, she decides to snoop around, because she’s Elizabeth. There are some books on Native American History on a shelf and as she’s looking at them, a big heavy book on his desk blows open and turns to a page.

Slowly, with her heart pounding in her throat, Elizabeth looked down on the page. She gasped.

They were all there.

The bat.

The bear.

The eagle.

And the wolf.

They were painted on the border surrounding the base of a clay pot. Elizabeth squinted, reading the small type of the caption underneath the photograph.

“A Native American burial pot,” it read.

Elizabeth then heads over to Sleepy Hollow Road, digs for like a second, and finds a pot that looks exactly like the one in the book. She puts it in the mantle above the fireplace (the shack has a firellace?) and tries to tell George Fowler he can’t build an office building over a burial ground, but he can’t be reached.

Meanwhile, the Unicorns are all getting ready at Jessica’s house, which makes no sense since I’m sure Lila has a much bigger bathroom. It’s a cute scene that sort of made me miss having places to go and being, well, any number of years younger than the age I am now.

Elizabeth tells Kala what she discovered and it’s kinda anticlimactic. Kala’s basically like, oohhhhh. I get it now. Um, OK. Kala decides not to go to the party because she thinks it might be seen as disrespectful to “the old ones.” For some reason, though, she suggest that Elizabeth go to the party dressed as a Native American. I get that these costumes weren’t generally seen as problematic in 1996 but still. Still.

PARTY TIME: Jessica is having the time of her life. Scott’s flirting with her “like she’s at least 14.” He even puts his arm around her while the Unicorns are watching. Having been a teenage girl, I can confirm that this is the best night of Jessica’s life. She gets up to sing “Monster Ball” with Scott and the band. Of course she’s fantastic. BUT the music is so loud that the walls begin to shake, and the pot Elizabeth put on the mantel topples over and breaks.

Well. That’s sure to piss off the old ones.

Suddenly, everyone takes note of a few skeletons that are hanging around outside. One of them is headless. The headless skeleton walks over to the tree where the girls stuck the skull. Gotta figure he or she would want that back, amiright?

They quickly deduce that it’s not any of the kids at the party in costumes but for some reason remain convinced that the whole thing is a gag. Then Kala appears (again?!) and tells everyone to LEAVE THIS PLACE.

Oh, you’re wondering if there are any adults at this event? Yes, don’t worry. Mrs. Pervis, Lila’s housekeeper, got stuck ALONE supervising the whole thing. I’m gonna try to work, “I need to drink like Mrs. Pervis at a Sweet Valley Middle School Halloween party” into my general vernacular. Think that will catch on?

Pretty soon the whole freaking building is caving in and everyone’s running for their lives.

“Well,” Janet Howell said in a huffy tone. “I guess this is what we get for listening to Mandy!”

LOLZ.

Apparently unshaken by all of these events and almost dying, the kids all decide to move the party to Lila’s house.

Yes, I’m serious. Literally no one is the least bit affected by the fact that they just saw a gang of skeletons, one of whom was reclaiming his/her head, and that they almost got trapped in a collapsed building. Who knew the Sweet Valley kids were so tough?

A few days later, Elizabeth, Jessica, Kala, Jack Whitefeather, and George Fowler are at the Sleepy Hollow Road site. Kala says she doesn’t remember showing up to the party. They all figure they will never know if the shack collapsed because of the old ones’ anger or the faulty construction.

Jack finds a piece of the broken burial pot. Together, they all convince George he can’t very well build over a burial ground. Finally, a good decision from George. An eagle swoops around overhead. It’s supposed to be a sign, or something. I guess its celebrating.

George then declares that the property will become the Sweet Valley Nature Scout Wildlife Preserve and they will build a proper clubhouse on the other side of the property line and teach the kids about the people who are buried there.

He shot a look at Kala and lifted an eyebrow. “If you think the old ones will approve.”

There was a shrill cry and a loud thudding sound in the wind. The eagle reappeared over their heads and circled twice before disappearing again behind the treetops.

Elizabeth looked at Kala intently.

Kala smiled at the group gathered around her. Her eyes shone brightly. When she spoke, her voice was quiet. “I think that means they do.” She smiled at Elizabeth. “And so do I.”

Well, it’s better than the ending of The Unicorns Go Hawaiian, anyway.

If you’re craving more spooky Sweet Valley, I’ll be focusing on Chillers and the like for the month of October! Follow me on Instagram (@SassValley) for more spooky nostalgia on the daily. Also, check out my recaps for:

SVT #3: The Haunted House

SVT SUPER CHILLER #5: The Curse of the Ruby Necklace

SVT #4: Choosing Sides

(Click here for recap of SVT #3: The Haunted House)

Here it is, the one where Amy wants to be a cheerleader. But she’s a tomboy! She’s not a Unicorn! She’s not even a blonde! Or is she?

Amy’s repeatedly described as having kind of dirty blonde hair in these books but on the covers her hair is always brown, until the middle of the series. This is the least of our concerns, though. Look at this outfit.

A brown blouse, too? And a gigantic one at that. Although, that seems like a rather large baton. Can anyone with twirling experience tell me if this illustration is to scale?

OK let’s get started. We open with Jessica chattering way about cheerleading tryouts while Elizabeth is suckered into doing her chores. Eyeroll.

She’s hell bent on making sure the only cheerleaders—who are called “the Boosters” for some reason—are her friends in the Unicorn Club. She CAN’T BELIEVE some of the “gross girls” who have signed up for the tryouts.

“Girls like Lois Waller, who’s so fat she’s really two people, and Leslie Forsythe—she’s skinny and scrawny and always has a runny nose.”

Wow, thanks for the equal-opportunity body-shaming, there, Jess!

Worst of all is “that icky tomboy Amy Sutton.” Who just happens to be Elizabeth’s best friend.

The tryouts for both cheerleading and the school basketball team are the next day. (In this book, the school only has a boys’ basketball team.) Elizabeth decides to cover both events for the Sixers.

Jessica and Lila are basically running the Boosters tryouts, which is a terrible idea. Their goal is to make the squad Unicorn-exclusive. Where the hell is Ms. Langberg? Coach Cassels is running the basketball tryouts. I guess she doesn’t think of cheerleading as a real sport. MAYBE THIS IS WHERE IT ALL STARTED.

[Lila] casually flipped her luxurious, light-brown hair back over one shoulder and looked several girls over from head to toe and then made some light check marks on her clipboard. Her cold scrutiny obviously did the trick, because several girls meekly stepped away from the line, mumbling excuses and hurrying for the locker room.

Lila really was terrible in the beginning of the series, as much as I don’t like to admit it. I totally would have backed out, too. Actually, I wouldn’t have even had the nerve to try out to begin with, so YOU. GO. GIRLS. At least you tried.

Jessica is to teach the remaining group a cheer.

Elizabeth watched with a fresh feeling of anxiety as her twin stepped forward. Jessica’s attitude and expression made her almost a stranger to Elizabeth. She couldn’t believe her own twin could act so superior.

I love when Elizabeth is surprised by Jessica being Jessica.

The cheer is the “Tom, Tom, he’s our man” crap. Do people still do that? Oh, 1986. A simpler, and yet in many ways, more problematic, time.

Ellen teaches a baton drill for the girls to practice. Amy is SUPERB at the baton, somehow. Even more puzzling, she doesn’t let the Unicorns see how good she is. Elizabeth thinks this must be because Amy has decided to forget about becoming a Booster and is just going through the motions to make a quiet exit.

That would make a lot more sense than Amy’s actual reasoning, which is…nothing. I don’t know what the fuck she’s doing.

Across the gym, shortest-kid-in-school Ken Matthews is trying out for the basketball team. Coach Cassels coached Ken’s dad, who was a superstar. He goes on and on about how amazing Ken’s dad was. Then he assumes tallest-kid-at-tryout Tim Davis is Ken Matthews, which everyone thinks is hilarious. Bruce Patman informs the coach that Ken is actually “the midget at the end of the line.”

The coach is embarrassed (as well he should be, dumb asshole) but not as embarrassed as Ken. He prolongs Ken’s misery by saying things like, “Well, I bet you inherited your dad’s shooting arm!” And “I bet you inherited your dad’s handwork—here, try to steal the ball from me!” Ken has inherited nothing and can do nothing, and at one point has to chase a basketball halfway across the gym.

It’s the kind of thing he’s going to remember on a random Tuesday night when he’s 40 years old and it’s STILL GOING TO BOTHER HIM. (Even though he does become a hot football star in Sweet Valley High.)

Elizabeth talks Ken in to sticking it out with basketball since that’s what he really wants to do. It’s nice, but totally hypocritical also because she’s trying to convince Amy to bail on cheerleading nearly every chance she gets.

Liz invites Ken home with her so Steven can teach him a few things about basketball. Ken continues to suck. Then Liz remembers that she and Jessica used to play basketball with a tennis ball when they were little, because Steven was always hogging the basketball. Little like who, Elizabeth? You mean when you and Jessica were the same height Ken is now?

Somehow, the tennis ball trick works some magic and Ken’s spirits are renewed. At least until Bruce comes along on his bike and makes fun of Ken for practicing with Elizabeth, a girrrrrl.

I feel like it would be harder to play basketball with a tennis ball? But I was never interested in sports, so who cares what I think?

Later that night, Amy calls Elizabeth and questions her about talking to Ken. It becomes apparent that Amy has a crush on Ken. AW.

Unfortunately for Amy, Bruce is still making fun of Ken and Elizabeth the next day and eventually the whole school is convinced that they’re secretly dating. This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to JESSICA, though, because Ken is short and it’s embarrassing. Jessica can be such a turd.

Elizabeth refuses to set the record straight about her and Ken, because she ~~likes the attention~~ feels that doesn’t need to justify her friendship with Ken.

Over the next week or so, Ken practices basketball (with a tennis ball) and Amy practices cheerleading. The two of them sort of bond over their similar situations and Amy’s crush continues to grow. (Ken, unfortunately, does not.)

Lila and Ellen call Amy to try to convince her to drop the whole Boosters thing but she refuses and tells them off quite well.

Now comes the weird part. The Unicorns decide to write a letter from Ken to Amy, urging her to drop cheerleading. Jessica writes the letter:

Dear Amy,

I watched you at cheerleading practice. I hate to say it, but the other girls are a lot better than you, and I think you should quit. I’m saying this because I really like you and I don’t want you to get hurt. But no way are they going to pick you. When you’re up against competition as awesome as the Unicorns, you shouldn’t even bother. Even Elizabeth agrees with me.

Maybe we could sit together at lunch sometime.

From,
Ken

Then Jessica writes a note from Amy to Ken.

Dearest Ken,

The past week has been terrible. Or do I mean wonderful. Ever since getting to know you, I can’t stop thinking about you. Every time I see you walking down the hall, I wish we were walking together. I even dream about you. It’s wonderful! I don’t care if you’re so much shorter than me. I love you anyway, Ken, I really do.

I talked to Elizabeth about this and she told me I should come right out and tell you. She’s always saying honesty is the best policy and she’s right. But I’m too shy to tell you to your face. So next time you see me, all you have to do is smile and I’ll know you feel the same way too. Oh, Ken! I can’t love another day without knowing if you love me, too.

I love you.

Love and kisses,
Amy

YIKES. Jessica is hoping that between the two letters, Ken and Amy will both stop talking to Elizabeth, and Amy will drop out of the cheerleading tryouts. What a little b.

Amy gets her note, but she suspects the Unicorns wrote it, not Ken. Ken clearly believes Amy wrote the note he got, because the next time he sees Amy he turns red and runs away.

Elizabeth overhears Lila and Ellen talking about what they did and how Jessica wrote the notes. She also hears Lila say she’s got a plan to take Amy down at the audition and it will be humiliating.

Here’s what I don’t understand. Amy hasn’t shown them that she’s good yet. So what are they worried about? If she’s legitimately not good, they can cut her. WHAT IS THE BIG DEAL?

Elizabeth finds Ken and tells him Amy didn’t write the note, Jessica did. Then she tells Amy all about what the Unicorns did and are planning to do, and tells her she’s got to drop out now. BUT AMY REFUSES. SHE WILL FIGHT TO BECOME A CHEERLEADER, DAMNIT.

The second and final tryouts for both the Boosters and the basketball team are again held in the gym on the same day at the same time.

After a one round of baton-twirling, Amy is the only cheerleading hopeful left who isn’t a Unicorn or a friend of a Unicorn.

Each of the remaining girls has to do the “he’s our man” cheer with the already-established Boosters, and they go one at a time. Each time, they pick a different boys’ name for the cheer.

GUESS WHAT NAME THEY PICK WHEN IT’S AMY’S TURN?!

Ken is across the gym, not sucking as badly at basketball anymore. Coach Cassels separates the boys into group 1 and group 2 for a faux game—Ken is a 1, and Bruce is a 2.

Then, the cheer starts—or at least, Amy starts cheering. ALONE. FOR KEN.

The sight of Amy Sutton, all by herself, kicking and yelling her way through a cheer for that midget, Ken Matthews, was more than Bruce could stand. He stopped in his tracks and started laughing and pointing.

That was all the opportunity Ken needed. He ducked in toward Bruce and grabbed the basketball. He rain madly for the other end of the court. Bruce was left staring at him, with a dumbstruck look on his face.

Weaving and turning, Ken dribbled the basketball with skill and coordination. The other players on his side took a moment to come to their senses. But then they ran with him, and they passed the ball back and forth on the way to the net.

Amy took it all in. Then, with even more energy than before, she started the cheer again. “Ken, Ken, he’s our man! If he can’t do it, no one can!”

The crowd quickly realized what was happening at the other end of the gym and started cheering. Ken Matthews was dodging around Bruce Patman, who had finally caught up. Ken’s short stature seemed to help him. He kept ducking and slipping around the other players. It seemed as if every time the oppposite side thought they had the ball, Ken was running with it again. No one could catch him!

Coach Cassels was standing with his mouth open. His clipboard forgotten at his side.

This is quite a display, I must admit. And it gets better. When Amy finishes the cheer, solo, for the second time, she goes into the Boosters baton routine.

The baton flashed and spun as she twirled it over her shoulders and behind her back. It flipped under her legs, and flew higher and higher in the air as Amy spun beneath it. She grabbed the baton with her left hand as she was spinning it with her right, and passed it back. She didn’t break the rhythm once.

The silver wand (UM, IT’S FUCKING BLACK ON THE COVER) became hypnotic in Amy’s hands. It spun faster and faster, and seemed to be everywhere at once.

The crowd goes bonkers over Amy and Ken. When they’re finished proving themselves, Ken calls “We showed them, Amy!” across the gym. Amy responds, “Boy, we sure did!”

Guys, it’s really pretty cute.

They both make their respective teams, and Elizabeth forgets that Jessica is a terrible person, a theme we see again in the next book, Sneaking Out.