Shannon's Sweet Valley High Blog

I have giveaway winners!

T-shirt winners are:

• Commenter Melissa
• Commenter Cyprienne
• Facebook user Rachel Slavin
• Tumblr user starluxury
• One of my fave bloggers, Fear Street (who, by the way, is doing a horror-related post every day this month because October is awesome)

And the lucky winner of one hardcover copy of Sweet Valley Confidential is my good friend Megan at Trapped in the Attic. (And please go check out her blog if you want some hilarious V. C. Andrews snark.)

Thank you so much to everyone who entered! Winners, send your mailing addresses to me at shannon@shannonsweetvalley.com. Your shirts will ship directly from Sarah at St. Martin’s Press because she’s amazing. Big thanks to her for making this giveaway possible!

Today is a special day: the trade paperback edition of Sweet Valley Confidential is now available! To help us celebrate, our good friend Sarah at St. Martin’s Press is letting me give away FIVE Sweet Valley Confidential t-shirts!

As if that weren’t enough to make your Tuesday afternoon, I also have an extra hardcover copy of SVC just chilling on my bookshelf, and I figure this is as good a time as any to give it away.

I want to make this is easy as possible, both for you guys to enter and for me to keep track of. So here’s what you can do:

1. Reblog this post on Tumblr. Everyone who shows up in my feed as having reblogged it will get an entry.
2. Retweet this tweet on Twitter. Everyone who retweets gets an entry.
3. Go to my Facebook page and share the link I put up. Everyone who shares the link gets an entry.
4. Leave a comment on this post and tell me you want in!

So, you can potentially have four entries. I’ll announce the six winners on Thursday morning!

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.

When I heard Children of the 90s was looking for guest bloggers, I knew I had to jump all over that. Children of the 90s is one of my very favorite blogs and I’m always excited to be a part of it. (You might remember the Glamour Shots awesomeness I took part in a while back.)

Since I was clearly quite fashionable in the 90s, I decided to write about my favorite clothing item: Umbro shorts. You can read my post here. After you get totally blown away by me and my Umbros, check out the rest of the Children of the 90s blog. I promise, you will not regret it. And while you’re at it, make sure to follow Children of the 90s on Twitter and Facebook.

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.

 

Hey, big costume party tonight! Don’t forget to wear a costume!

 

Liz: I think we’ll be Romeo and Juliet.

Todd: Todd no want wear tights.

Oh, hi, guys. This is my friend Gary. He just transferred to Sweet Valley.

I’m Lila. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?

So, you guys know about this Larry Manson guy? He died at Sweet Valley High twenty-five years ago and now he comes back every Halloween to scare kids. I’m going to see his ghost tonight instead of going to that dumb costume party. Who’s in?

What about you, Winston? Or are you too chicken?

That sounds really scary, but Bruce called me a chicken so I have to go.

Check out my costume!

Jessica: I’m going as Catwoman.

Later that night…

Lila: You said you were going to be Catwoman!

Jessica: I lied. I just wanted to look better than you in the genie costume.

Let’s go fight over Gary now.

Gary: I like how we all dressed up even though we all decided not to go to the costume party.

Enid: We have a flat tire and it’s all your fault.

Winston: Let’s just walk! I know these woods like the back of my hand.

 

Well, that was inevitable.

Oh, spirit of Larry Manson. Come scare us and stuff…

OMG, the lights went out!

OMG, there’s a thing rolling toward us!

Todd: It was just Bruce pulling it on fishing line.

I hate you, Bruce!

I’m having a good time, Gary. How about you?

Ugh.

I’m out of here.

OMG, it’s a monster!

Hi. I fell in some mud.

Mysterious someone locking the children in the school.

Gary: I just heard a noise. I’m brave and handsome, so I’ll go investigate.

I’m going after him! Stay here, Lila.

Ha! Yeah, right.

Mysterious someone turning out the lights.

Walking along, walking along…

*sounds of Gary screaming*

It’s Gary’s costume! That means he must be walking around here naked!

Scary ghost!

Winston: JK LOL. It was just me.

Patty: Let’s forget about Gary and get out of here.

Oh no, we’re stuck!

    

And now it’s time for a montage. A stuck-inside-the-school-with-a-ghost montage.

 

This is my Plan Working Perfectly So I’m Eating An Apple face.

Lila and Winston are missing now!

Mysterious someone watching the children.

 Winston: I’m going to see if Gary’s in that closet.

Lila: Bad idea!

A monster is getting me!

Oh Winston, let’s put Mr. Bones back in the closet.

Winston: A mysterious someone has locked us in!

Lila: Worst. Halloween. Ever.

As long as everyone else is missing, let’s make out a little.

Me and my fake mustache will keep you safe.

Enid: What’s this piece of paper that just appeared on the floor?

It’s a test with all the answers! OMG, it’s dated 1969!

 

The lights went out and everyone disappeared! This is so hilarious!

Oh, crap.

I can’t get a signal on my Zack Morris phone!

 

Winston, I’m so scared. I’m just glad I’m not alone.

Someone’s at the door!

What were you guys doing in there?

Nothing!

Hide! Someone’s in the hall!

Man, we’re so awesome and scary.

Todd: Did you hear that? They’re scaring us on purpose! TODD SMASH!

Let’s get even.

Hey, Gary. Did you see how much we scared everyone? We’re so cool.

You guys!

It’s in there!

Let’s see what she was screaming about.

 

They’re all dead!

And we’re locked in!

Haha, we scared you!

 

Someone’s coming down the hall! Run away!

Stupid kids. Don’t they know it’s always the janitor?

The Moral of the Story: Only nerds can be class president.

The Big Deal: Sixth grade class presidential election, party at Lila’s

Synopsis:

Linda Lloyd, sixth grade class president, has to move to Texas, so the sixth grade gets to elect someone new. The Unicorns, of course, think the new president should be a Unicorn. To complicate matters, there’s a question of what should be done with the money the book fair brings in. The Unicorns think the money should go toward a big party for the sixth grade, while Liz and Amy think it should buy a VCR for the library. (LOL, remember VCRs?)

Amy and Julie nominate Liz, and the Unicorns nominate Jessica. Oh, disaster. Jim Sturbridge nominates Randy Mason as a joke. Jessica is sure she’s got this thing in the bag, considering Randy is a great big nerd and Liz isn’t far off. Lila calls Amy and says the Boosters are having a campaign pool party at Lila’s, and when Liz mentions it to Jessica, Jessica accuses her of spying.

So now the twins are fighting, and the next morning Liz’s stack of campaign flyers goes mysteriously missing from the school library. Liz gets in trouble later because they’ve been thrown into the school fountain. While she, Amy and Julie fish them all out, they see Lila and Ellen watching them and giggling. When Jessica finds out what Lila and Ellen did, she gets it into her head that Liz is going to do something awful to get back at her. She goes snooping in Liz’s room and finds out Liz is planning to hold a rally after the soccer game on Friday. Jessica and Lila decide they have to figure out a way to stop it.

Because of her rich daddy, Lila is able to get her hands on a few boxes of Johnny Buck’s not-yet-released single. The Unicorns spread out through the crowd at the soccer game and tell everyone they need to get out to the parking lot now if they want a copy. By the time the game is over, the stands are empty and Liz’s rally is ruined. In retaliation, she draws mustaches on all Jessica’s flyers. A big fight ensues and the twins aren’t speaking to each other.

Randy Mason has his own little rally, and he says he would use the book fair money to throw the party, but he’d sell tickets to get in and use the ticket money to buy a VCR. Liz is too dumb to have thought of that and she thinks it’s a great idea. She’s pretty sure Randy won’t get elected because he’s such a nerd, so she decides to say that’s what she’ll do with the money. She’s sure she’ll get elected that way, and then the school can have the party and the VCR, as opposed to just the party if Jessica wins. However, she feels like it might not be the right thing to do, even if she gives Randy credit for the idea.

At the assembly the next day, Jessica gives a speech that makes it clear she has absolutely no idea what a class president does. All she wants to talk about is the party. When it’s Liz’s turn to speak, she tells everyone she’s dropping out of the race and she hopes all her supporters will vote for Randy instead because he has the best ideas. Then Randy talks about all his ideas and it’s obvious he’s the best man for the job. He wins the election and asks Liz to be his “special executive assistant” and asks Jessica to help him organize the party.

Quotes:

Julie looked worried. “I hope Lila isn’t planning any dirty tricks to play on you.” Lila was famous for her clever schemes.

Elizabeth shook her head firmly. “Even if she does, Jessica would never go along with it. She wouldn’t do anything like that.”

Since when?

The Cover: Liz needs to stop baring her teeth like that. She looks like she’s going to bite someone. And holy Jesus, that button is as big as her head. Literally.