Shannon's Sweet Valley High Blog

The Moral of the Story: Footballs from the 60s bring families together.

The Big Deal: Time capsule contest

Classmate with a Problem: George Henkel, estranged from father

Synopsis:

Sweet Valley Middle School opened twenty-five years ago. To celebrate the anniversary, the school is going to bury a time capsule to be opened another twenty-five years from now. (Incidentally, that would be in 2013. That’s next year. OMG, I’m so old.) To get the kids into it, there’s going to be a contest. Four-person groups will try to find three things that best represent the 60s – because that’s when the school opened –  and whoever finds the most awesome things will get their pictures put into the time capsule. The Unicorns are determined to win because they want everlasting fame. And I guess we’re putting the things from the 60s into a time capsule in the 80s. I don’t really get it.

Liz, Amy and Julie get stuck with a kid named George Henkel. He’s quiet and morose and totally uncommunicative when Liz asks him why he doesn’t live with his father. Mr. Howard Henkel is a wheelchair-bound curmudgeon who lives near the Wakefields. Liz goes to his house sometimes and helps out around the house. Liz is looking through newspapers from the 60s and she finds out Mr. Henkel was a football player. He won some special game for the SVMS team and was given the football from the game. Liz asks George if his dad still has the ball, and George says he didn’t know anything about it because he doesn’t talk to his father.

Liz talks to her own father and finds out Mr. Henkel went off to Vietnam and came back in a wheelchair. His wife died when George was a baby, and then George went to live with his aunt and uncle. Liz thinks it’s tragic, but Ned tells her she should leave it alone. Ned clearly doesn’t know his daughter very well. The next time Liz goes to see Mr. Henkel, she asks him about the big game. He tells her all about it and even shows her the magical football. But he gets crabby when she asks if she can have it for the time capsule. He says it’s all he has.

The school is planning a 60s-style dance and Liz tells George he should go with her, Amy and Julie. At the dance, Liz notices George noticing Nora Mercandy, so she suggests he go ask her to do the twist with him. Everyone has a great time, and George is so relaxed and happy that he finally agrees to talk to his father about getting that football. George shows up at the Wakefield house the next day to tell Liz that his dad sucks and won’t let him have his super important football.

Later that day, Jessica goes to Mr. Henkel’s house to drop off some books Liz got for him. Mr. Henkel thinks she’s Liz and he gives her the football, babbling about how he should have treated his son better and not letting Jessica get a word in to say she’s not Elizabeth. Once she has her hands on the football, though, she shuts up and starts daydreaming about how her team is going to win the time capsule contest. By lunchtime on Monday, everyone at school has heard about Jessica getting the football. The Unicorns are impressed. Liz is not. Liz gets the truth out of Jessica and makes her hand over the football. When Liz tries to give it to George, he says he doesn’t want it unless his father gives it to him in person. So Liz tells Mr. Henkel and Mr. Henkel gets crabby and says the deal’s off.

Time’s up and everyone goes to the big ceremony at school. Jessica’s team has found a movie poster, a Beatles record and an old fashion magazine. Liz’s team has an autographed pictures of President Kennedy and a textbook from the first year the school was open. They weren’t able to find a third item. But wait! In the middle of the ceremony, Mr. Henkel makes a dramatic entrance, wheeling himself onto the field, football in his lap. He goes straight to the stage and talks to Mr. Clark, who calls George to the stage.

Mr. Henkel makes a big speech about looking forward instead of backward and then he hands the ball to George. Big hug, Liz’s team wins, everyone is happy except the Unicorns. Jessica’s silver lining is that Liz is getting her picture put in the time capsule and people might mistake her for Jessica.

Setup for the next book: the twins think their mother is having an affair.

Quotes:

“The Unicorns are very happy about this,” [Janet] told Jessica. “This is a great accomplishment and we won’t forget it.”

Sometimes Janet sounds like a mob boss.

The Cover: I have always loved this cover. I think it’s because I’m obsessed with the 60s and 70s.

The Moral of the Story: People from Tennessee are doll-whittling horse whisperers.

The Big Deal: Arts and Crafts Fair

New Kid with a Problem: Ginny Lu Culpepper, hillbilly

Synopsis:

Ginny Lu Culpepper has moved in with her aunt, Mrs. Waldron, a teacher at Sweet Valley Middle School. Ginny Lu is from Tennessee, so she has red hair and talks loud. The first thing Ginny Lu does when she rolls into town is go to the middle school to find her aunt. She interrupts Elizabeth’s class to ask Mrs. Arnette where Mrs. Waldron is, and her voice and clothes make Ellen Riteman hate her immediately.

Mrs. Waldron takes Ginny Lu to the mall for some new clothes, and Ginny Lu is simply amazed at all the shiny sparkly things that just don’t exist in Stony Gap, Tennessee. Ellen and Lila appear out of nowhere and pretend to be helpful, giving Ginny Lu a bunch of really ugly clothes and telling her they’re all the rage out here in California. She comes out of the dressing room wearing the following items of clothing:

• Leopard-skin tights
• Blue and white striped knee socks over the tights
• Orange leather miniskirt
• Huge green sweater
• Banana earrings

Here is a visual representation of this outfit:

Not pictured: banana earrings

The saleslady asks Mrs. Waldron if Ginny Lu is color blind. Ellen and Lila have gathered a crowd outside the shop to laugh at Ginny Lu. The Unicorn Welcome Wagon, ladies and gentlemen.

The next day at school, Ginny Lu overhears Ellen, Janet and Lila talking about her. She decides she’s had enough and she runs away from school. She doesn’t stop running until she comes upon the stables, which is where Liz finds her when she goes for her horseback riding lesson. Ginny Lu has a way with horses, and she’s made friends with a pregnant mare named Snow White. Naturally, Snow White is Ellen’s horse. And naturally, Ellen shows up and yells at Ginny Lu to go away. Liz tells her to leave Ginny Lu alone and stop being such a bitch. Not bloody likely.

Ginny Lu gives Liz a doll she whittled, and Mrs. Wakefield says it’s “a lovely example of Appalachian folk art.” She’s an interior designer so she knows about these things. Liz decides Ginny Lu should enter her dolls in the big Arts and Crafts Fair at school. Ginny Lu would rather keep her head down and keep out of the Unicorns’ way, but Liz is determined and she eventually convinces Ginny Lu to enter.

Things are going just fine at the fair and everyone seems to be getting into Ginny Lu’s weird poem that she’s decided to recite, but Ellen makes fun of her. And so, like a true Sweet Valley girl, Ginny Lu freaks out and runs away in tears. She goes home and packs a suitcase, then goes to the stables to say goodbye to Snow White. She’s running away, back to the mountains, where life is simple for a redheaded girl who talks too loud and wears gingham dresses.

When she gets to the stable, Snow White has given birth and Ted the stable boy is having some trouble. The foal is premature and won’t stand up to nurse and Snow White won’t let Ted get near him. It’s Ginny to the rescue. Ted has called the Ritemans, so of course Ellen shows up during Ginny Lu’s rescue operation, but she finally gets it through her head that the foal will die without Ginny Lu’s help. After things settle down, Ellen apologizes and lets Ginny Lu name the foal. She names him Sooner. “Because he decided he’d rather get here sooner than later. And now that he’s here, he’s decided he’d sooner stay.” Ugh.

Meanwhile, in Jessicaland… Jessica let Janet Howell borrow Ned’s prized tennis racket, and she broke it. Jessica wants to buy a new one before her dad notices the old one is gone, but it’s fifty dollars. After a couple of failed attempts at getting money (selling Liz’s clothes in a garage sale and doing Steven’s chores to get his allowance money), she hits the jackpot when she finds out a local shop will buy Ginny Lu’s whittled dolls for twenty-five dollars each. She sets herself up as Ginny Lu’s agent and slithers away with ten percent. The new tennis racket is on the way and only Liz is the wiser.

Quotes:

Their father, who was usually warm and funny, had no sense of humor when it came to his tennis racket.

Well, sure. Who does?

“I think you should get started right away,” Steven declared. He pulled a broom and dustpan from under his bed and handed them to Jessica.

I’d just like to know if anyone else keeps a broom and dustpan under the bed.

The Cover: First of all, let’s just take a moment to really soak in Liz’s smugface. That self-satisfied “I sure am good at making friends” face just makes me want to puke. (Also, doesn’t she look a little like DJ Tanner here?) And second, Ginny Lu looks exactly like you would expect a Ginny Lu to look: like she came straight out of Little House on the Prairie. (No offense meant to any Ginny Lus in the audience.)

The Moral of the Story: There are no child safety laws in Sweet Valley.

The Big Deal: Nothing exciting.

Synopsis:

Sarah Thomas is working on a history project with Liz and Amy, and for some reason she feels the need to constantly state that she hates weekends. If anyone mentions the weekend, Sarah makes sure that person feels awkward about it. Nobody can figure out what her problem is.

Sarah’s dad has to leave town for a week on business and he leaves Annie, his fiancé, in charge of Sarah. The second his car is out of the driveway, Annie gets a phone call. She tells Sarah it was one of her old neighbors on the phone to tell her that Annie’s little sister is sick and she should come take care of her. So Annie takes off, saying she’ll be back the following day. Two days go by before Annie calls to say she’ll be gone until Saturday. Annie told Sarah not to mention anything to her father, so Sarah pretends Annie is in the shower whenever her dad calls and she doesn’t tell anyone what’s going on. She’s not sleeping because she’s too scared to sleep in the house alone, and she gratefully accepts when Liz asks her to a sleepover at her house for Friday night.

Janet Howell tells Jessica she wants her advice about what to do for the Unicorns’ next party. She comes over to the Wakefield house and seems disappointed that Steven isn’t there. She manages to bring up Steven’s name over and over, but Jessica doesn’t even notice because she’s feeling so special about Janet wanting her advice. Jessica finally figures out that Janet is only hanging around to get a glimpse of Steven. She gets pissed and tells Janet maybe she’ll resign from the Unicorns. So now Janet’s not speaking to Jessica, and Lila’s mad at her because she’s jealous of all the time Jessica was spending with Janet. But don’t worry, it only takes two pages to get all that resolved and then Jessica’s life is back on track.

By the time Friday night rolls around, Sarah is half dead from sleep deprivation and she falls down the stairs and passes out. When Liz, Amy and Mr. Wakefield arrive to pick her up and nobody answers the door, they look in the window and see Sarah in a heap at the foot of the stairs. Ned breaks a window to get inside. After making sure Sarah’s alive, he calls the paramedics. He also finds out where Mr. Thomas works, and a call to his company reveals that he’s in Texas.

Ned and the girls go to the hospital with Sarah and after a while Sarah’s dad shows up. He doesn’t understand why Sarah was alone in the house and he makes some phone calls. He finds out that bitch Annie doesn’t even have a little sister. Then Annie herself comes running into the ER waiting room acting like she cares, but Mr. Thomas tells her to fuck off. Annie leaves and then Sarah’s dead mother’s sister waltzes in out of nowhere and says she knew something like this would happen and that Sarah should go live with her.

But no, Sarah tells her aunt she wants to stay with her dad and nobody seems to care that a twelve-year-old girl just spent five days living by herself. Everyone has a great time at the Unicorn luau that Jessica and Janet planned.

Quotes:

Making Janet think she was mature and sophisticated was hard work!

The “hard work” consisted of Jessica ordering cherry cola (when she really wanted lemonade) and nachos (instead of popcorn) because that’s what Janet ordered.

“The whole world doesn’t revolve around you, Lila Fowler.”

“That’s a nice thing to say! Some friend you are!”

Unicorn friends should never let on that the world doesn’t revolve around other Unicorns.

The Cover: I’m pretty sure I had a lion just like that.

The Moral of the Story: It’s okay to skip school if you have a twin sister. She’ll get punished instead of you.

The Big Deal: Basketball championship game

Synopsis:

The Unicorns’ favorite soap opera, All the World, is coming to Sweet Valley to film an episode. Why? Because Sweet Valley is the most amazing place in the world. Kent Kellerman, heartthrob of the show, is going to be there and the Unicorns are desperate to meet him. Unfortunately, he’s only going to be in town on a Monday during school hours. Brooke Dennis tells Liz her dad is working on the show but she doesn’t want everyone to know because then they’ll all want her to introduce them to Kent. So of course Liz tells Jessica because she can’t possibly keep such a big secret from her very own twin. Jessica promises Liz she won’t say anything, so she has to come up with some devious plan to use this information.

Jessica talks it over with Lila and they decide to offer Brooke a spot on the Booster squad. They figure she’ll be so grateful that she’ll offer to introduce them to Kent. Jessica finds out Liz and Julie are meeting Brooke at Julie’s house to talk to her about being on the school newspaper staff, and since newspaper is the opposite of Booster squad (and a person can only do one or the other) Jessica decides to get to Brooke first. She races over to Julie’s house and catches Brooke before she can knock on the door. She tells Brooke that Julie and Liz aren’t going to make it and Brooke should just come to the Dairi Burger with her. About an hour later, Julie and Liz decide Brooke isn’t going to show, so they decide to go get some lunch. Where? The Dairi Burger, of course.

Jessica’s plan is flawless. After she and Lila tell Brooke she’d make a great Booster, they start talking about Kent Kellerman. Brooke is so grateful that the popular girls want her on their super exclusive cheering squad that she offers to try to get them passes to the set. Liz has arrived by this point and she’s appalled at Jessica’s behavior.

Brooke gets the passes, but she tells Lila and Jessica that the filming will be over by the time school lets out. Caroline says Ms. Langberg the gym teacher has jury duty and won’t be in school all week, so Jessica and Lila decide to skip lunch and gym and go to the film set. Liz thinks this is a horrible idea and she freaks out when Amy tells her Caroline was wrong about Ms. Langberg. Liz uses the rest of her lunch period to go downtown and bring Jessica and Lila back. The girls think they might get away with it, but they run right into Mrs. Knight, the principal’s secretary. Now, somehow, Mrs.  Knight gets back to school before they do (what is she doing downtown in the first place?) and tells Mr. Clark that Jessica and Lila were cutting class. She apparently did not see Liz.

Jessica and Lila are in big trouble. Their punishment is to wash blackboards after school every day for the rest of the week, and they won’t be allowed to participate in any after school activities. Oh no! There’s a basketball championship coming up and Jessica is the star player! (Since when?) Jessica convinces Liz to participate in a good old-fashioned twin switch, and even gets Liz to agree to switch for after-school practices. This means Liz is washing blackboards while Jessica is practicing in the gym. It also means Liz is going to miss an important interview for the Sixers. Mr. Bowman goes to the gym and tells Jessica-as-Elizabeth that the famous ballerina she’s supposed to be interviewing will be at her hotel at four and she can interview her there. Jessica gets Brooke to agree to the interview, but of course she fucks up and tells her to go to the ballet school instead of the hotel.

The ballerina has to go back to San Diego, and Brooke and Liz can’t think of anyone else they can interview for the paper. Then Kent Kellerman falls into their laps. He’s going to be having dinner with Brooke and her father, and Liz is invited to join them. Kent’s even agreed to answer a few questions for the paper. Jessica wants to go, but she’s grounded for cutting class. HA! Liz does get her an autograph though, because that’s what nice sisters do.

Finally, it’s Friday night. Basketball night. Jessica is determined to prove she’s better than Billie Layton, the new girl on the team. Billie starts the game, but Jessica comes in halfway through and wins it for the team. She even wins the MVP trophy (with Elizabeth’s name on it). Hooray. Moving on.

Liz has been feeling guilty all week because she cut class and didn’t get punished (except that she washed blackboards every day as Jessica, but whatever). She tells her parents and Mr. Clark what she did and feels just great when she’s sentenced to another week of washing blackboards. Thankfully, she has the sense to make Jessica switch places with her and wash them herself.

Setup for the next book: Sarah Thomas hates weekends.

Quotes:

“It’s just not right,” Elizabeth said. “I did something wrong and I should be punished, too.”

Shut up, Liz. You can flog yourself later.

“Marvelous Marvin!” Elizabeth said. She remembered how foolish everyone had felt when they discovered Mr. Mercandy was the victim of a stroke and not a zombie as they’d thought.

I love the matter-of-fact way Liz remembers thinking the man was a zombie.

The Cover: I can’t tell which twin that’s supposed to be. Based on the actual story, I’d say it’s actually Jessica because Liz was never caught like that. But the tag line throws me off.

The Moral of the Story: What is this I can’t even…

The Big Deal: Class trip to the Enchanted Forest

Synopsis:

The sixth grade is going to a super cool theme park called the Enchanted Forest. Caroline Pearce wants to sit with Liz on the bus, but Liz hates the idea of listening to her gossip the whole way. Liz asks Jessica to sit with her and Jessica promises she will, but then she goes ahead and sits with Lila instead and Liz has to sit with Caroline after all. Liz spends the whole morning thinking about Jessica’s terrible betrayal.

As soon as they get to the park, Lila ditches Jessica when she runs into a cute guy she knows from camp or something. Feeling hurt, Jessica goes off to find Liz. Liz ignores her and gets on her favorite ride, King Abelard’s Castle, but then she spends the whole ride feeling guilty. She vows to make up with Jessica before she does anything else, but she can’t find her anywhere. After a while, she becomes convinced that Jessica must have disappeared on the castle ride, so she goes back there to find her.

When she gets to the castle, there are no ride attendants and there’s nobody in the queue. No problem, Liz will just use this handy rowboat to get across the moat to a secret door she never noticed before. She goes down a hallway and then falls down a hole, where she runs into a little girl who introduces herself as Princess Charity. Princess Charity is hiding from some bad guys who want to lock her up and make her a slave. The rest of her family has already been locked in a cage, so it’s up to Liz and Charity to rescue them.

Liz uses her camera’s flash to blind the bad guys, and Charity opens the cage while they’re distracted. The good guys escape and pick up their weapons, which have been thrown into a pile conveniently near the cage, and have a battle. Once order and goodness have been restored, someone asks Liz how she got away from the evil King Nestor. Liz deduces that Jessica must have been taken by him, and King Abelard tells her there’s a boy with a raft who can take her to Nestor’s kingdom.

The boy with the raft introduces himself as Tom Sawyer, and he tells her stories about Huck Finn and Injun Joe while he ferries Liz down the river. When they get to Nestor’s kingdom, they follow some footprints into a cave, where Liz immediately causes a cave-in. She and Tom are trapped, but then a kindly mouse gnaws on some grass and the rocks come tumbling loose. Now there’s a barrier between Liz and Tom. Tom goes back the way he came, and Liz continues on to the other end of the tunnel.

It’s night when she emerges, and she sees someone dragging Jessica up a moonbeam and into a cloud. The mouse from the cave comes along, introduces herself as Allegra, and encourages Liz to follow Jessica up the moonbeam path. Why not? They go through a gate and into a gray world where people are chained to the ground and forced to break rocks all day for the gray queen. While Liz tries to figure out how to break the magic chains holding Jessica prisoner, a manacle appears around her own ankle. Things are looking pretty grim, but then Johnny Buck shows up in a flying black limousine. He starts singing and all the chains disappear. The gray queen picks up Jessica and carries her through a door on the side of a boulder that immediately takes off flying into the air.

Liz and Johnny fly after them in Johnny’s flying limo, and Johnny starts singing again when they get close. Jessica tries to make a jump for the car, but then a witch comes out of nowhere and throws Jessica onto the back of her broomstick. Liz falls off the limo’s wing and into the Enchanted Sea, where she meets a sea serpent named Sidney. After a game of checkers played with seashells and pebbles, Sidney tells Liz that the witch who snatched Jessica is named Grisolda and she’s taken over Fairy Tale Land.

Liz catches a ride to Fairy Tale Land on the back of a friendly turtle. Since Grisolda’s occupation, it’s become known as Sorrowland. Rapunzel is bald, Peter Pan is a middle-aged accountant, and other fairy tale characters are equally miserable. Liz finds Grisolda’s gingerbread house and rescues Jessica from the stove, and then they laugh at the witch until she dies. Fairy Tale Land and all its inhabitants are all put back to normal, and they put the twins on a magical boat and send them home.

And then Liz wakes up. During the King Abelard ride, she and Amy knocked their heads together and Liz blacked out. She gets up and spends the rest of the day having a super awesome time with Jessica, who has apologized for sitting with Lila on the bus.

The absolute worst thing about this book is that I read it over and over again when I was a kid. What was wrong with me?

The Cover: Who’s that boy? And based on hairstyles, it would appear that Liz is the one wearing all that purple.

The Moral of the Story: If you want someone to stop being a bully, arrange things so that he owes you his life.

The Big Deal: Nothing special happening this week.

Synopsis:

Dennis Cookman is a jerk. He’s a great big seventh-grader who likes to pick on all the sixth-graders. In the last week, he’s punched Jimmy Underwood in the eye, ruined Olivia’s mural and gotten Lila to give him twenty-five dollars. The sixth-graders have a meeting – at some vacant lot that’s described as a favorite place for meetings even though we’ve never heard of it – to discuss what’s to be done about this Cookman slob. Steven Wakefield wanders by, and his sage advice is to tell a teacher.

This turns out to be a bad idea. Mr. Bowman tells Dennis to straighten up, so of course Dennis just terrorizes the kids more. They come up with a plan to scare Dennis. At this vacant lot where everyone’s been having secret meetings, there’s a cave. Right. This cave is called Dead Man’s Cave and all the kids are afraid of it. Aaron’s plan is to say, in front of Dennis, that he’s going to spend the night in the cave. He knows about a hidden pipe that leads out of the cave. I guess Dennis watching him go into a cave and then come out again in the morning is supposed to be some kind of payback. I don’t know why.

The Unicorns want Grace Oliver to join in their awesomeness. They’ve decided to bring back initiation rites. They make Grace stand up and recite a poem in the middle of English class and then get her to steal a bunch of people’s history homework. Then Jessica comes up with the grand idea to make Grace eat lunch with Dennis. Grace is terrified, but she does her best to be nice to Dennis, even when he tells her to get lost. Somehow, she actually does get Dennis to eat with her and she decides he’s really not so bad.

After Aaron comes out of the cave unscathed, Ken and Jimmy each spend a night there. They figure Dennis will want to show he’s tougher than them, but Dennis is scared to sleep in the cave and he says he can’t do it because he has a sore throat. The whole school taunts him until he agrees to do it. Everyone gathers at the cave that night and Dennis goes in. And then it starts to rain. Aaron panics because he knows the cave will flood, so he and Ken go running in to save Dennis. Dennis won’t listen to them and thinks they’re just trying to get him out of the cave so they can make fun of him for being scared. Then Grace comes along and convinces Dennis the boys are telling the truth. I don’t really get what happens next, but for some reason Ken, Aaron and Jimmy have to pull Dennis out of the cave because the water is rising and…I don’t know, Dennis can’t walk out on his own, I guess. Dennis stops being mean to everyone after they save his life.

This is a terrible book.

Quotes:

“Well, maybe this whole thing isn’t boring after all,” Jessica pronounced, tossing back her hair. “If it’s going to make Dennis look like a baby, it might just turn out to be fun.” Her eyes sparkled. “We better make it official Unicorn business to bug him today – and to be sure to be at Larson’s lot tonight!”

It’s good to have official business to take care of.

The Cover: I LOVE Lila hiding behind Jessica.

The Moral of the Story: Wakefields never die.

The Big Deal: Nothing much.

Synopsis:

The school is putting on a production of Carnival, and Jessica wants to play the leading role for two reasons: 1.) She’s Jessica and that’s what Jessica does, and 2.) she’d be playing opposite Bruce Patman and he’s, like, so dreamy. Jessica is a little concerned because the role requires singing and her main competition is Dana Larson, who knows how to sing.

Alice Wakefield hasn’t been feeling well lately. She goes to the doctor and tells the kids she has to have a lump in her neck biopsied. Since Ned is out of town, it’s just Alice and the kids at home. Jessica puts herself in charge of bossing around her siblings, telling them to do the laundry and make dinner, while she hangs out in her mother’s bedroom, taking care of her. Steven is pissed but Liz tells him they shouldn’t bother their poor sick mother with such nonsense. This apparently means they also can’t tell Jessica she’s being obnoxious, because Liz pokes Steven in the ribs every time he starts to yell at Jessica.

Alice tells the children there’s a very small chance the lump on her neck could be cancerous. Jessica immediately assumes that’s exactly what it is and she starts imagining how all alone and depressed she’ll be when her mother dies. Caroline Pearce calls the house for some stupid contrived reason, and Jessica tells her she can’t talk because her mother is very sick and needs her right away.

Caroline apparently has the phone number of every kid at Sweet Valley Middle School, and everyone has heard the news about Mrs. Wakefield by the time the twins get to school the next morning. Jessica, who truly does believe her mother is dying, lets everyone take care of her and be super nice to her, while Liz tries to dispel the rumors.

On Friday, Alice finally gets her test results back and tells the kids she just has a virus. Jessica doesn’t get a chance to fill her schoolmates in before Carnival auditions, and since everyone still thinks her mother is dying, Jessica is offered the role. The drama teacher has talked it over with Dana and the other hopefuls, and everyone agrees it’s the right thing to do. Jessica decides she’ll let everyone go on thinking that just over the weekend and on Monday she’ll tell them her mother is fine.

To Jessica’s horror, Dana and the other girls show up at the Wakefield house on Saturday. When they walk in and find a happy family instead of a family in mourning, they want to know what’s going on. Jessica lies and says they just found out her mom is going to be fine, and to ease her guilty conscience, she tells Dana she should play the lead in the musical. The drama teacher calls the next day to tell Jessica she heard about Dana taking the lead and she’d like to offer Jessica another part that will give her a chance to show off her dancing. Hooray for never having to work to earn anything.

There’s also a bit about Jessica obsessing over some amazing sweater with a unicorn embroidered on it. Her parents buy it for her in the end. Of course.

The Cover: Steven looks like he’s trying really hard to have a real expression on his face. He’s almost pulling it off! Liz is wearing a very stylish outfit. And by stylish I mean AWFUL.

The Moral of the Story: You’d better be good at sports if you want to change a sexist’s mind about women.

The Big Deal: Field trip to the zoo, Sixth Grade Follies, softball championship

Synopsis:

The twins have a new homeroom teacher, Mr. Davis. The first thing Mr. Davis does is change everyone’s seating. He puts the boys on one side of the room and the girls on the other. Then he changes everyone’s classroom assignments. He puts the girls in charge of “girly” things like feeding the gerbils and cleaning up after class, and the boys get all the cool jobs, like taking messages to the office. The class is taking a field trip to the zoo the next day, and money was collected for everyone to buy lunch there. Instead, Mr. Davis gives the money to the girls so they can buy stuff to make sandwiches. At the zoo, Mr. Davis tells the girls to go get sodas for everyone, and then makes them clean up after everyone has eaten.

More injustices: Mr. Davis gives each group a different poem to read. The boys get an awesome poem about the Revolutionary War, while the girls have to read something stupid about fairies in a garden. When Amy says the poem was silly and asks why they couldn’t have a good poem like the one the boys had, Mr. Davis says he felt the fairy thing was more appropriate for girls.

It’s almost time for the Sixth Grade Follies and Liz was hoping to direct a skit written by Nora. However, Mr. Davis thinks directing is a man’s job and he doesn’t even glance at Nora’s skit before deciding on Ross Bradley’s dumb thing about apes. The upshot of all this is that the boys are now feeling like they’re superior to the girls. The girls are pissed.

But nobody wants to tell their parents or the principal. They decide to take care of things themselves.

The girls’ big plan is to act as helpless and weak as the boys seem to think they are. So Jessica says she can’t feed the gerbils because they scare her, Ellen can’t water the plants because the watering can is too heavy. You see what I’m saying. But then it’s time for the big softball game (yeah, suddenly there’s a softball championship going on between all the homerooms) and the girls have to act like they can’t play. When his class loses the game, Mr. Davis kicks all the girls off the team.

And still nobody tells an adult.

Principal Clark observes the twins’ homeroom one day to see how Mr. Davis is getting along. The girls are prepared. They pop their gum, talk loudly to each other, act stupid in general. Mr. Davis doesn’t notice because he’s started tuning the girls out entirely. Mr. Clark has to tell him that the girls might not be so bored if they were included in the class discussion. Mr. Davis replies, “What do you expect from girls?” What a douchecanoe.

New development: the Sweet Valley Town Council has decided to remodel the middle school and the school is getting a committee of students together to contribute ideas. Liz wants on that committee, but she knows the boys will all vote for each other and Mr. Davis would break the tie in their favor. She and Jessica figure if they can get one of the boys to be absent the day the homeroom votes on its committee members, the girls will get voted in, no problem. So they tell Ricky Capaldo they’re going to make sure he wins, and he’s so shy that he decides not to come to school so he can’t be nominated. The plan works! Nora, Amy and Liz are on the committee. Neither the committee nor the remodeling plans are ever mentioned again.

And now it’s time for the Sixth Grade Follies. Mr. Clark tells Mr. Davis his boys did a horrible job and says the girls should have been involved, too. Mr. Davis sort of apologizes to the girls and it looks like things might be turning around, but when Amy asks if they can play in the next softball game, Mr. Davis says girls suck too much at sports to play in such an important game. The girls go to the game and sit in the stands wearing their uniforms. The boys play like crap. Jessica gets a bunch of seventh- and eighth-grade Unicorns to start chanting, “We want the girls!” and Tom McKay, who has finally seen the light, convinces Mr. Davis to let them play.

Naturally, the girls win the game for the whole team, and Mr. Davis sees the error of his ways. He promises things will be different from now on and the whole class celebrates with a pizza party.

Quotes:

“Look, girls. It is important to all of us that we win this game, right? Well, when it comes to athletics, boys are simply better suited than girls. It’s a fact of nature that no one can change. I’m sorry, but maybe you can play next time when it’s less crucial.”

How did this jackhole even get hired?

The Cover: I read this book many times as a kid, and I always hated the cover. Does that guy have the biggest butt you ever saw? If not, he must be standing in the most uncomfortable butt-sticking-out stance possible.

The Moral of the Story: If you win a contest, everyone will like you. (I feel like this is a recurring theme.)

The Big Deal: Party at Kimberly’s

New Kid with a Problem: Dylan McKay, loser

Synopsis:

Three super important things are happening in the lives of the Wakefields. 1. Steven has some kind of sports banquet coming up. *yawn* 2. Liz is all excited about an essay contest. *double yawn* 3. Jessica wants to go to Kimberly Haver’s upcoming birthday party but she’s still grounded because of last week’s shenanigans. Her parents have been thinking she might have been grounded long enough, but then they get the kids’ report cards and decide Jessica could do with another two weeks. Jessica schmoozes herself into a “probation period” and if her grades haven’t improved in two weeks she’ll be regrounded.

Liz overhears an argument between the cute and popular new kid, Tom McKay, and his awkward older brother Dylan. Tom would like Dylan to get involved in stuff at school, but Dylan doesn’t feel like there’s any point because he sucks at everything. Dylan is actually a pretty good writer and he’s been working on a piece for the essay contest, but he gives up when he hears some kids talking about how great Tom’s essay is.

There’s a schoolwide project everyone has to do, that thing where students have to create a business. Liz is determined to be nice when Dylan McKay is assigned to the group she’s in, but he’s unfriendly and shoots down all Liz’s suggestions about contributions he could make. Tom is in Jessica’s group and he’s all excited about Jessica’s idea to start a boutique. When Dylan sees how much fun the other group is having with Tom, he gets even crabbier and pretty soon nobody wants to talk to him because he’s acting like a jerk. That makes him even more crabby and he decides it’s all Tom’s fault. He starts a fight in the cafeteria and punches Tom in the nose.

Liz’s group is going to publish a book of students’ writing, and she puts Dylan on typing duty. When Liz gets home that night, she finds Dylan’s essay mixed in with the other papers. She thinks it’s great and she calls Dylan to tell him it has to be postmarked today or it won’t be counted. Dylan tells her to throw it away. Liz can’t bring herself to do that; instead, she gets her mom to drive her to the post office so she can mail it herself.

Everyone in the seventh grade gets invited to Kimberly Haver’s party. Except Dylan. This is the last straw; he’s going to run away. He goes to the bus station, but realizes he can’t afford a ticket. Then Jessica (who is at the bus station for some dumb contrived reason) sees him and he makes up a lie about seeing an aunt in San Francisco. Jessica loses interest almost immediately, but Dylan decides to wait until next Friday. Everyone will be at Kimberly’s party and nobody will even notice Dylan is gone.

When Friday rolls around, Liz finds out Dylan actually won the essay contest, but he’s nowhere to be found. The Scooby gang gets together: Kimberly says she “forgot” to give Dylan his invitation, Jessica says she saw Dylan at the bus station, Tom says there is no aunt in San Francisco, and Liz puts it all together and she and Tom run off to the bus station. They find Dylan about to get on a bus to Los Angeles and they pull him out of line. Dylan whines about how everyone likes Tom better than him and he’s such a loser who’s not good at anything, so Liz tells him he won the essay contest. With his newfound confidence, Dylan goes to the party and has a grand time because everyone wants to hear about his awesome essay.

Quotes:

“We’ll probably need to construct a booth or something. How are you in wood shop?”

Dylan shook his head, still refusing to meet [Liz’s] eyes. “Terrible. The only thing I ever managed to do in wood shop was almost cut off my finger,” he told her glumly. “The teacher would hardly let me near the tools after that.”

The Cover: Liz looks like she’s messing with a hearing aid or something, and Tom just looks confused. His left hand is clawing at his back pretty intensely.

The Moral of the Story: If you lie about your age, you’ll end up on a double date with your brother.

The Big Deal: Circus!

Synopsis:

Jessica has made it her mission in life to meet an older guy. She’s sick to death of being treated like a twelve-year-old. With this in mind, she and Lila go to the roller rink, where Jessica meets Josh Angler. He’s sixteen and can DRIVE! Jessica tells him she’s fourteen and a half, and he asks her out for Saturday night. Jessica knows her parents will never go for this, so she tells Josh to pick her up at Lila’s instead.

Josh decides they should double with his friend Sam Morse. Sam’s girlfriend, Melanie, is a freshman at SVH. This is a problem because Jessica told Josh she was a freshman. She can’t answer any of Melanie’s questions about homeroom teachers and whatnot, so Jessica says she just moved to Sweet Valley a couple months ago. Then Josh takes them all to the Dairi Burger. Caroline Pearce is there and Jessica ignores Caroline’s attempts to speak to her. Melanie refers to Caroline as “Anita’s younger sister” and later mentions that Josh recently broke up with someone named Anita, but Jessica doesn’t put any of this together. Josh asks Jessica out for the following weekend.

Liz and Amy go to the mall a few days later, and a really cute blond guy tells Liz he can’t wait to see her Saturday night. Amy tells her that was JOSH ANGLER, OMG. Josh is apparently some kind of celebrity in Sweet Valley. He plays SOCCER AND EVERYTHING! Liz realizes Josh must have mistaken her for Jessica, and now she’s worried about Jessica going out with someone so much older. She confronts Jessica and tells her going out with Josh would be a bad idea, but Jessica acts all hurt and says she and Josh just talk on the phone and they have a phone date for Saturday. At dinner that night, Jessica tells her parents she’s been invited to stay with Kerry Glenn’s family at their Tahoe cabin that weekend. (Who the hell is Kerry Glenn?) The Wakefield parents would like to talk to Kerry’s parents, so Jessica gets Lila to call and pretend to be Mrs. Glenn. Alice Wakefield is a moron, remember, so of course she falls for it and tells Jessica she can go.

In other news…the circus is in town and Mr. Wakefield has disappointed the whole family by forgetting to get tickets. Going to the circus is a yearly family tradition, but Ned is a doofus. He finally does end up acquiring tickets, but Steven says he’s already made plans to go with friends, and of course Jessica will be at “the cabin.” Jessica calls Josh later that night and asks him what they’re going to be doing that Saturday. He says it’s a big surprise, but they’ll be going with some friends of his. I have a prediction. Do you think…maybe…they’ll be going to the circus? And maybe…there’s a connection between Steven’s friends and Josh’s friends? Hmmmm.

Amy Sutton has been talking to Caroline and she’s found out all kinds of stuff about this Josh character. He used to go out with Anita Pearce, but they broke up three weeks ago. Anita wants to get back together, but she’s heard around school that Josh has met someone named Jessica. Amy tells all this to Liz, who goes home and yells at Jessica. Jessica plays dumb and says Josh lied to her about his age. She promises to tell him off next time she talks to him. Yeah, right.

On Saturday night, Josh picks Jessica up at Lila’s, then gets his cousin Megan. As Megan directs Josh to her date’s house, Jessica realizes they’re driving through her own neighborhood. Oh, dear. While Megan goes to the door to get Steven, Josh tells Jessica he just wants to be friends because he’s still in love with Anita Pearce. Jessica hardly cares because at this point the date is a total disaster anyway. Steven doesn’t see Jessica until he’s in the car. He doesn’t give her away, but hollers at her as soon as they get to the circus and have a minute alone. Then, of course, the rest of the Wakefield clan shows up and Jessica runs off to hide in the bathroom. Anita Pearce walks in and Jessica has an idea. She tells Anita that Josh still loves her and she should go talk to him.

After the show, Jessica’s group runs into the Wakefields and the whole sordid thing comes out. Josh is pissed at first, but he gets over it because he and Anita are getting back together. The Wakefield parents aren’t quite as understanding and they ground Jessica for two weeks. Things aren’t all bad, though. Everyone at school thinks Jessica’s secret affair with an older man is the height of romance, and they think she’s just so amazing for stepping aside so Anita and Josh could get back together.

Quotes:

In all likelihood Jessica was telling the truth, and Josh had just mistaken her for someone else.

Yeah, that’s the most likely scenario…

“He obviously likes you and was afraid – and rightly so – that you wouldn’t agree to go out with him once you knew his real age. But it’s a rotten, rotten thing to do. He could have really hurt you. If I were you, I’d tell him exactly what you think of the way he’s behaved!”

Sometimes Liz sounds like a British nanny.

The Cover: Josh looks like a giant.