SVT #17: Boys Against Girls

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Davis looked blank. “Who?”

“Elizabeth Wakefield.”

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

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

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

That would be red flag number 4.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyway.

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

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

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

Oh for the love of John Stamos.

After class, the girls gripe.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Well, girls will be girls.”

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

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

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

YIKES.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hahahaha.

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

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

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

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

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

HOLY ACTUAL WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON BALLS

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

HA! TAKE THAT YOU SEXIST SCUMBAG.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.