The Moral of the Story: Who cares? I’m done! Last book of the series!
The Big Deal: Graduation! Birthday party! Woohoo!
Synopsis:
Monday: Maria is freaking out about her valedictorian speech. She hasn’t even started it yet. She wants to be there for Ken, who is clearly upset about the upcoming anniversary of Olivia’s death, but she can’t focus on him while she still has this speech to write.
Liz tells her parents she got into Oxford, and Alice tells Jessica. Jessica freaks out and tells Liz she doesn’t want anything to do with her on their birthday, which is Thursday. Jessica calls Jeremy and gets pissed when he says his parents planned a graduation party for him on Thursday night. Jessica somehow turns this around to mean that Jeremy doesn’t care about her anymore. Oh, boy.
Tuesday: Liz decides to make things better with Jessica by planning a surprise party for their birthday. Again? Didn’t we try this last year? I recall it ending in tragedy. Liz talks to Conner and Tia and they decide to have it at the Riot. Maria sits around feeling sorry for herself all day because she needs help with her speech, and she’s annoyed when Liz says she needs to work on the party plans and can’t help her. Jessica decides she’s going to throw a party and not invite Liz, but Tia tells her Liz is already throwing one and the entire senior class is going. Jessica is pissed that Liz is having a party and not inviting her. Oh, Jessica.
Tia, Andy and Conner are all excited about their post-graduation road trip. It’s supposed to be just the three of them, but Tia has told Trent he can come along. She tells Andy, and he says that in that case, Dave is coming, too. Before Andy can tell Conner, Conner says he appreciates Tia and Andy leaving Trent and Dave behind for three weeks so the three of them can have their special best friend alone time.
Jessica’s home ec teacher tells Liz that Jessica never made up her risotto assignment, and she won’t be able to graduate unless she makes it up the next day. Liz knows Jessica has plans with Jeremy the next afternoon, so she decides to pull a twin switch and do it herself.
Wednesday: Liz has a meeting with a rep from Oxford. She kind of hopes the meeting will suck so she’ll have an excuse not to go, but the rep tells her all the wonderful things about Oxford and makes Liz want to go there more than ever.
Conner overhears Tia talking about how excited Trent is about the road trip, and he loses his shit. He tells Tia and Andy to uninvite their boyfriends, but they don’t want to. So Conner says they can all go together and he’ll just stay home.
Liz is the salutatorian, so she and Maria meet in the library to work on their speeches together. Liz says she hasn’t even started hers yet, and Maria flies off the handle because Liz isn’t taking it seriously enough. Then Liz gets really stupid and says she should have been valedictorian. So now Liz and Maria are in a fight. Liz heads to the home ec room to make a risotto.
Jessica goes to dinner with Jeremy and his family, who are all in town for graduation. As the family catches up on stuff, Jessica keeps thinking of how awful it’s going to be next year when she’s separated from both Liz and Jeremy. She gets up and leaves the table, and Jeremy follows her. He asks her what’s wrong, and she decides she’s pissed at him for not inviting her to his graduation party the next night. He says he figured she’d want to do something else since it’s her birthday, but Jessica is beyond reasoning. She runs to the parking lot in tears.
Evan gets off Berkeley’s waiting list. Thanks, Tia.
Thursday: Jessica wakes up in a terrible mood. Liz tries to make up over breakfast, and she tells Jessica she saved her from having to make a risotto. Jessica accuses Liz of thinking she’s so flaky that she can’t even do her own schoolwork. An argument ensues and Jessica takes the Jeep and goes to school.
Today is for graduation practice, but neither Liz nor Maria have their speeches prepared. Liz tells Maria not to worry about it, and subtly points out Conner, who is backstage cutting the wires to the microphone. Principal Chrome Dome suddenly can’t be heard, and Maria is worried Conner will be caught. Liz tells her not to worry, and at that moment, Jade stands up in the middle of the seated seniors and yells that Evan can’t stop her if she wants to go commando under her graduation robe. She starts a “Naked!” chant, and in all the confusion, Conner manages to get back to his seat before anyone notices he’s gone. Maria and Liz apologize to each other for their fight, and then Maria takes off for the library to work on her speech.
The twins run into each other in the line for yearbooks, and Liz apologizes. It seems like Jessica is just about to lighten up and talk to her, but then the home ec teacher comes running down the hall. She says the risotto was horrible and Jessica will have to try again that afternoon. Jessica is pissed and hates Liz all over again.
Tia, Trent, Andy and Dave go to the Riot to start setting things up, and Trent and Dave say they’ve been looking over the itinerary and have some changes they’d like to make. Tia and Andy get irritated and decide they’ll just have to tell their boyfriends they can’t come. They don’t have to, though. After listening to Tia, Andy and Conner tell stories about each other for a while, they announce the three of them should go alone.
In really sickening news, Jade’s mother has written a book and a publisher has offered her a lot of money to turn it into a series. That’s not the sickening part. The sickening part is this: “It’s about a pair of twins who have very different personalities…But they’re still closer to each other than to anyone else in the world…” Barf.
While she’s cooking, Jessica says something about the dress she wore yesterday, and Ms. Goldberg realizes it was Elizabeth who made the awful risotto. Jessica explains that she and Liz have been fighting, and Ms. Goldberg actually makes her feel better about things. Jessica goes to Jeremy’s graduation that night, and they make up afterward. Then she goes home and gets ready to go to the Riot and make up with Liz. She falls asleep instead.
Liz is at the party, feeling miserable about Oxford. She decides she’ll miss Jessica too much if she goes. She goes home to tell her so. The twins make up and talk about how much fun they’ll have at Sweet Valley University next year.
Friday: Graduation day. At the ceremony, the twins sit next to Todd because of stupid alphabetical order, and Todd asks Liz to go out with him after graduation. She accepts. Dammit, we just got rid of one codependency, and now you’re going back to an old one? UGH.
Liz never actually got around to working on a speech and all she has is a bunch of note cards. She’s nervous about making a fool of herself, so Jessica takes her notes and pulls another twin switch. Two in one book! Jessica, as Elizabeth, gives an awesome speech and everyone applauds.
THE FREAKING END!!!!!
Quotes:
A few of our old friends make cameo appearances in this book, even Robin Wilson, who came all the way back from Denver. It’s like graduation day on Boy Meets World. I wonder if they’ve been hanging out with Minkus in the other hallway?
When Enid turned into the classroom, her shirt slipped down, exposing a little skull tattoo on her back. Elizabeth shot Maria a look. She didn’t know if Enid’s tattoo was real, but if there was a yearbook award for most changed, Enid would definitely win. She’d gone from geeky to goth in less than a year.
Winston Egbert handed Elizabeth her test paper and flashed her a quick thumbs-up for luck.
Robin Wilson grimaced and held her gown up to her slim body. Her soft brown hair tumbled down over her face as she looked down at the shiny fabric. “Please, Liz. I mean, you spend all this time and effort dropping weight, and then they make you wear a muumuu to graduation.”
Bruce Patman, of all people, walked in – someone she hadn’t seen since he left for college and hadn’t liked much before then. He was all prepped out in a light blue button-down and khakis, and the second he saw Ken Matthews and Aaron Dallas, he dove into the crowd and started shaking hands like a politician.
And there is actually some mention of the more bizarre happenings from junior year:
Almost every single good memory Jessica cherished had occurred inside the sprawling building. And some bad ones, of course – kidnappings, bomb threats, gang wars, that crazy Margot [sic] chick who had come to town and tried to pretend she was Elizabeth. Junior year had definitely been tumultuous.
Definitely.
[Elizabeth] turned her full attention to Maria, whose expression made her look almost exactly the same as she had when she’d broken the news to Elizabeth and Jessica that their dog, Prince Albert, had run away during the earthquake last year – very uncomfortable.
So that’s what happened to the dog. I wonder why Maria had to be the one to break the news.
“We’ve lost many friends – Olivia Davidson, Roger Patman, Ronnie Edwards, Regina Morrow, to name a few.”
I don’t remember Roger Patman dying.
The Cover: Sorry about the terrible image. This book is all shiny and metallic and didn’t scan well. I went to The Closet, but theirs is the same.
This cover is totally lame. I have no idea which twin is which. I’d guess the one on the right is Jessica, but after 180+ books in the original series telling me Liz always wears her hair in a ponytail, I don’t quite believe it. Also, I think the one on the right looks kind of stoned.
