Shannon's Sweet Valley High Blog

Read part one of this miniseries here. Read part two here.

The Moral of the Story: Nothing brings people together like a crazed woodsman.

The Big Deal: Summer camp color war

Synopsis:

Even though camp is almost over, Liz is suddenly all spooked out by the camp legend, which is this: A long time ago, a counselor fell in love with a guy who lived in the forest and chopped wood all day long. When the camp owner found out about it, she told the woodsman he could never set foot in the camp again and the counselor wasn’t allowed anywhere near him. So the girl ran away into the forest to be with her woodsman. There was a search after she disappeared, but nobody ever saw her or the woodsman again. People assumed she died, but sometimes you can still hear the sound of chopping wood…

Whatever. It’s a stupid story, but Liz based her play on it and now she’s walking around with a sense of impending doom. ‘Cause she’s psychic, don’t forget. Joey tells the story while everyone sits around the campfire one night and says there’s more to the it, something about an ax murderer named Crazy Freddy. Later, Liz makes out with Joey in the woods for a while and then goes back to the cabin, where she starts to panic because Jessica isn’t back yet. Jessica and Paul woke up in the middle of the night from where they fell asleep looking at the stars. I guess Paul’s parents took his car and are never coming back or something. He and Jessica walk to his neighbors’ house and Paul borrows one of their horses to take Jessica back to camp.

There’s a big camp color war coming up. The teams are announced, and of course Nicole and Liz are the opposing captains. Nicole is crazier than ever and thinks she deserves Joey because she likes him the most or something. She wants to fuck up Liz’s life, so she writes Todd a letter and includes a picture of Joey and Liz kissing. Maria catches her and won’t let Nicole send it. Dammit. Nicole gets Liz out into the woods alone one night and starts swinging an ax around, trying to scare her. Maria has a talk with Nicole and she agrees to stop being such a bitch.

Paul is in big trouble for stealing the neighbor’s horse and he’s grounded or something. This has Jessica in a tizzy, and the day of the color war, she sneaks out to see him, leaving Liz to cover for her and participate in all her color war activities as well as her own. Paul and Jessica have this great idea that they’re going to pretend to be Crazy Freddy and sneak into camp and scare everyone. That goes just great for about five seconds. Then an actual crazed ax murderer grabs Jessica and starts to drag her away. Tanya, Paul’s sister and one of Jessica’s campers, runs into the woods and starts yelling at the guy to let Jessica go, so the guy punches her and takes her with him. He takes them to a cabin where they cower in a corner.

There’s commotion at the camp about Tanya having gone missing. Joey says he knows of an abandoned cabin and runs into the woods alone. The rest of the counselors pair up and start searching. Nicole and Liz have to work together to save the day. Aww. They meet up with Paul, who tells them Jessica was with him and she’s missing now, too. The three of them find the cabin. They look in the window and see Joey, Jessica and Tanya. There’s some plan that involves Nicole and Liz acting as bait and Paul getting the better of the guy, but of course Liz nearly gets captured. Nicole distracts the guy and he captures her while Liz gets away. Meanwhile, Paul breaks a window at the back of the cabin, climbs inside and cuts Tanya and Jessica loose.

You know what, whatever. You know they all get away in the end. Nicole and Liz become friends for the last two days of camp and everything is great. Nicole also gives Liz and Joey her blessing because she’s pissed at him for running into the woods alone like some kind of macho man and she doesn’t want him anymore.

While all this has been going on, Lila and Bo have gotten lost in the woods. It’s kind of hilarious because they’re walking along talking about how they don’t even mind being lost together because they’re so in love. They end up sleeping on a gravel road, and they wake up the next morning to a crop dusting plane landing nearby. The pilot calls his boss to see if he can take Lila and Bo back to camp, but the boss says no way. The guy starts grumbling about how he only needs a thousand more dollars to buy the plane and go into business with his brother. Lila and Bo decide to invest in the company and they each give him five hundred dollars. They get back to camp, where nobody has really even noticed they were gone. I guess if you’re not a Wakefield or a cute eight-year-old, nobody cares about you.

Quotes:

She shoveled a forkful of dry, tasteless scrambled eggs into her mouth.

Ew. Please stop with the forkfuls of food being shoveled into people’s mouths.

Will I be able to stop loving Joey when I return to Sweet Valley?

I predict you will forget all about him.

The Cover: This cover cracks me up. Just look at that madman back there. Ha ha.

Read part one of this miniseries here.

The Moral of the Story: Summer camp sucks unless you can fall in love and/or cheat on your boyfriend.

The Big Deal: Big play at the summer camp

Synopsis:

Todd has apparently not noticed that Liz was holding another guy’s hand and gives her a great big hug. I guess he has a break from basketball camp and is going to stay in Winston’s cabin as a visitor because he’s so co-dependent he can’t even let his girlfriend go to summer camp for a month. Liz is not pleased. She wishes Todd would go home and acts like she’s totally bored with him.

Jessica gets the lead in the play and she’s all happy until she gets a letter from Paul. He doesn’t want her to try to see him again because he doesn’t like dumb blondes. Jessica is pissed and totally determined to make him fall in love with her. What? Guy’s an ass who made out with you and then called you stupid. Forget about him. But no. She cooks up a scheme with Tanya, Paul’s sister, and manages to get him alone so they can talk. She’s found out he dated a camp counselor last summer and she hurt him really bad so now he doesn’t want anything to do with the camp or its counselors. What a drama queen. Jessica tells him she knows everything and calls him a coward. He says he’ll see her, just to prove he’s not afraid of women.

Winston is getting letters from his girlfriend, white Maria, who is staying at her grandmother’s ranch. She keeps talking about some cowboy named Hank. Winston gets jealous and tells Aaron and Todd all about it. They get Winston some cowboy boots and sign him up for horseback riding lessons, figuring that if Maria wants a cowboy, Winston will be the best damned cowboy on the planet. Who wants to bet that Hank is some old man Maria has no interest in whatsoever? Some fifteen-year-old camper named Lara starts flirting with Winston and he tells her his concerns about Maria. He acts like they’re already broken up and lets Lara make out with him a little. Well, hell. If you can’t trust Winston, who the fuck can you trust? Then one day Winston gets a letter and a picture of Maria and Hank. To my complete and utter shock, Hank turns out to be an old man Maria has no interest in whatsoever.

Joey gets Liz alone and tells her he’s seen her with Todd and can tell she’s not in love with him. He wants her to break things off with him, and Liz says she will. Todd’s leaving the next morning, and Liz wakes up early to say goodbye and break his heart. Of course she can’t do it. She knows it’s the right thing to do, but you know how much Liz loves cheating. She figures she’ll just keep her summer fling a secret from Todd. But then Nicole, that bitch, tells Liz to break things off with Joey or she’ll write Todd a letter and tell him everything. Liz does as she’s told and is heartbroken when Joey immediately starts hanging all over Nicole. Jerk.

Jessica steals the camp owner’s car so she can sneak into town and visit Paul at his family’s restaurant. She ends up flipping burgers and closing the kitchen down with him. She doesn’t get back to camp until after two in the morning. She plans to meet him again the next night, but Lacey, the camp owner, finds out Jessica took her car and is furious. She’s watching Jessica like a hawk, so Jessica can’t see Paul. She writes him a letter telling him she has to cancel their plans for the day and invites him to see the play on Wednesday. For some reason she thinks her letter will get there that day and she’s shocked when two days go by and she hasn’t heard from him. The day of the play, she takes a bike and rides to the restaurant, but a cook there says it’s Paul’s day off. He gives her a ride to Paul’s house and she ends up missing the play. She and Paul go outside and fall asleep under the stars.

Liz pretends to be Jessica and stars in the play. When it’s over, Joey comes up to her and gives her a great big old kiss. Liz is sad because she thinks that he thinks she’s Jessica, but he says he knew it was her all along. Yeah, right. So now I guess they’re flinging it again.

Quotes:

Jessica let out her breath in a rush. She couldn’t believe it. She had really done it. She had landed the lead role in the summer production.

Yeah, I bet she feels really good, having beaten all the twelve- and thirteen-year-olds who tried out.

She was attracted to somebody else. She had to break up with Todd. Just the thought made her feel like the most disloyal girlfriend on earth.

No, the fact that you constantly cheat on your boyfriend makes you the most disloyal girlfriend on earth.

The Cover: I don’t know who anyone on this cover is supposed to be. I can’t tell which twin is which. That guy in the canoe is making a face that makes me wonder where his other hand is.

The Moral of the Story: Christmas is a bad time to be a Wakefield twin.

The Big Deal: Party at Secca Lake, “Welcome Back from the Dead” party for Jessica

Synopsis:

UGH.

The prologue takes us back to “last year” when Margo died at Fowler Crest on New Year’s Eve. But apparently, nobody noticed the ambulance suddenly stop and then start again after leaving the house. I guess this is a suggestion that Margo is not actually dead and somehow managed to overpower the EMS guys and steal their ambulance.

It’s gonna be a long recap, I can already tell.

A couple weeks before Christmas, a girl named Nora Chappelle is at her father’s wake in Savannah, Georgia. Nora hates her stepmother, Blanche. She overhears Blanche’s cousins talking about Nora’s real mother being insane. After the funeral, Blanche gives Nora a check for fifty thousand dollars and tells her to get lost. Then she says Nora has a twin sister somewhere named Margo. Blanche made Nora’s father put Margo up for adoption when they got married. Nora vows to find her sister. Nora just ain’t right. You can tell because she thinks she can see smells. Also, she suddenly starts talking to mirrors as though her reflection is Margo.

There’s a party up at Secca Lake and Todd is running late. He’s driving way too fast on the winding roads and ends up crashing through the guard rail. Jessica, who is of course also running late, sees Todd’s car about to go over the cliff. She manages to pull him out just before the car falls and explodes. Up at the lake, Liz sees the big fiery ball and calls 911 on Lila’s cellular phone before racing to the scene. She sees Jessica climbing into the ambulance with Todd’s stretcher and gets upset when nobody will tell her anything. At the hospital, Jessica and Todd make googly eyes at each other. The doctor refers to Jessica as Todd’s girlfriend and neither of them corrects him.

When Liz finally gets to the hospital, she’s totally jealous that Jessica was the one who saved Todd, not her. Todd staring at Jessica with “a look he usually reserved for Elizabeth” doesn’t help matters. Jessica can tell Liz is jealous and it irritates her. That night, Liz has the same dream she had last year about a girl who she thinks is Jessica but who has black hair trying to kill her. The next morning, the newspaper runs a picture of Jessica and Todd at the hospital. The headline is, “Local Girl Saves Her Boyfriend’s Life.” Liz goes to the hospital to visit Todd. He tries to reassure her when she says she’s jealous. It works until she gets home and finds Jessica telling all her friends that Todd pledged his undying gratitude to her the night before.

Meanwhile, Nora’s gotten hold of a bunch of documents pertaining to Margo. She learns all about the Wakefield twins and how Margo tried to kill Liz to impersonate her. The article Nora has says Nora was pronounced dead, but on the way to the hospital, the ambulance went off the Palisades bridge and Margo’s body was never recovered. I guess nobody ever thought to inform the Wakefields. Nora is distraught and decides the Wakefield twins should die. Because she’s crazy.

Todd and Liz go to the Dairi Burger for a nice intimate date, but Todd wants to sit with Jessica and her friends. Amy and Lila start hounding Todd for details about Jessica’s rescue and Todd is more than happy to oblige. Liz and Ken are sick of the whole thing so they leave to go to a movie. When Liz gets home that night, Jessica is furious. She accuses Liz of ruining her date with Ken, and Liz accuses her of ruining her date with Todd. On Christmas Eve, Todd and Ken are at the Wakefields’ house for dinner, and Todd stands up and gives a toast to Jessica. Liz runs up to her room and starts crying. The twins, not wanting to have another Christmas like last year’s, make up the next morning.

Nora, who has arrived in Sweet Valley, puts on a blond wig and goes to spend Christmas with Margo’s ghost at the cemetery. A hand closes around her throat and Nora turns around to find Margo trying to kill her. Then Nora’s wig falls off and Margo is super confused. Nora introduces herself and takes Margo back to the hotel with her. Margo says she’s been spying on the twins for the past year. She teaches Nora everything she knows about them. They decide to kill both Wakefield twins and become them. But first, they have to make sure the twins hate each other again.

Nora pretends to be Liz and calls Todd and asks him to a movie, then makes out with him the whole night where Liz, who is at the theater with Enid, can see them. When Jessica gets home that night, Liz starts screaming at her and won’t listen to Jessica’s claims that she was with Ken all night. Nora’s proud of herself for impersonating Liz so well and she’s all psyched to try Jessica, but Margo says Nora has to be Liz. Yeah, Margo and Nora fight over who gets to be Jessica when they kill the twins and take over their lives.

On New Year’s Eve, the twins go to a carnival with their friends. Jessica goes into the House of Mirrors and gets totally creeped out. Then we don’t see her again until she shows up two hours later and Lila asks her where her earrings went. Hmm. Later that night, Nora sneaks into the Wakefield house and kills Jessica, Margo be damned. Liz is in the next room having a nightmare and she screams. Nora freaks out and starts climbing out the window. Liz runs to Jessica’s room and sees her, but thinks she’s Margo. The she sees Jessica’s dead body and starts screaming.

While the Wakefields are at the hospital, friends of the twins gather on the front lawn. It’s three-thirty in the morning, so I don’t know how any of them heard about what happened, but whatever. At the police station, Liz tries to tell the police that she saw Margo climbing out the window, but the detective is a bitch and just shows her Margo’s death certificate. Liz points out that Margo’s body was never found, but the detective is an idiot. Meanwhile, Nora hasn’t seen Margo all night. She gets it into her head that Margo is going to kill her, so she plans to kill her first. Then she’ll kill Liz and become her, since she fucked up on becoming Jessica.

Ned and Alice try to talk to Liz about funeral arrangements for Jessica, but Liz doesn’t think a funeral parlor is appropriate. She insists the memorial should be held at the school since it was Jessica’s favorite place in the world. Except for all those times she wanted to skip school and shit. But anyway. Two thousand people show up for the service. Liz reads a poem for Jessica and then runs off stage crying. Todd hugs her and says he’s sorry for whatever Liz thinks he did. Liz says she knows he wasn’t with Jessica that night and that Margo was tricking him. Todd acts like she’s crazy (“Margo’s dead. Remember?”) and Liz is all cryptic instead of just explaining that she was at the movies with Enid that night and saw Todd kissing someone who looked just like her.

After the memorial, Liz “feels Jessica’s presence” and is suddenly sure she’s alive. She tries to tell Steve, but he just thinks she’s losing her mind. She has a dream that night that there are two Margos trying to kill her. Now Liz is pretty sure Margo had a twin, that Jessica is still alive and that Margo is the one who got stabbed on New Year’s Eve. That’s a lot of information to glean from a nightmare. The police come over the next day to question her some more and the detective for some reason puts her gun on a table in the dining room. Liz makes an excuse and sneaks out through the dining room, picking up the gun on her way to the Jeep.

Liz goes to the school and sees the furnace room door open. She goes in and sees Jessica and Nora struggling. She holds up the gun, but can’t tell which one is really her twin, even though Jessica is the one who’s tied up. She makes what looks to me to be a random choice and aims the gun at Nora, telling Jessica to pick up Nora’s knife and cut herself free. She explains to Jessica that Margo had a twin, and tells Nora she killed her own twin sister that night, not Jessica.

The cops show up and arrest Nora and the world sits comfortably on its axis for another day. A few days later, Lila, Liz and Steve throw Jessica a “Welcome Back from the Dead” party. Seriously.

Quotes:

Margo shook her head. “This is my show,” she said. Nora detected a hint of menace in her voice. “The cast includes me in the role of Jessica, and you as Elizabeth. There are no understudies.” … [Nora] hated going against Margo’s wishes. But she wasn’t ready to give up her dream. Not by a long shot.

I can’t believe they seriously have a falling out because they can’t agree on who gets to be Jessica.

The Cover: I guess there’s not really much to snark at here. It’s kind of a boring cover.

Read part one of this miniseries here. Read part two here.

The Moral of the Story: Real friends will try to talk you out of getting a jumpstart on your career.

The Big Deal: Frat party

Synopsis:

The last book ended with Zach and Jessica at a restaurant and Magda about to catch them together, which is bad because Magda wants Zach and Jessica wants Magda to like her so she’ll get into the sorority. This book starts with Jessica acting insane and dragging Zach to the ladies’ room. She insists there’s a raging fire in the restaurant and convinces Zach they need to climb out the bathroom window. They do so, and Zach thinks Jessica is just so awesome and wild. Jessica is sure she’s falling in love, so she decides she’s going to stay with Liz at SVU.

Liz calls Todd and tells him she’s not coming home. Seriously? Like, you’re just going to stay at the college? I don’t think you can just, you know, do that. If nothing else, you should probably go home for some clothes or something. Oh, and hey, maybe you should talk to your parents. Anyway, Todd is basically traumatized: “Todd Wilkins let the phone fall with a clatter, his face as white as a sheet…He felt as if he had been punched in the stomach.” He goes driving around to all the places he and Liz love the most, conjuring up all these memories, acting like Liz is dead. When Ken hears from Jessica and learns she’s also going to stay at SVU, he and Todd decide they’re not going to stand for it. They get all the twins’ friends together, pass out some flyers that say “Operation Wakefield Twins” (I’m not making that up) and come up with some elaborate plan to get the twins to come back. It’s basically the same reverse psychology plan the twins used on Steve when he wanted to quit school and work on a boat. So everyone calls the twins and tells them how awesome things are going to be when they’re gone. For instance, now Lila will be the most popular girl in school and Enid will be the smartest. Oh, and Ned and Alice are looking forward to taking that long trip to Europe they’ve always talked about.

Liz hates her internship. The editor-in-chief, Mr. Petherbrook, is a lecherous perv who keeps eyeing Liz’s legs and calling her “honeybunch” and shit. He also won’t give her any real newspaper assignments and just keeps asking her to make copies and get him coffee. Liz finally snaps, tells him off and walks out. So much for your internship.

Suddenly the twins are starting to rethink their decision. Liz has no internship and Jessica finds out she wouldn’t be able to join the cheerleading squad until the following year. They both miss their boyfriends. Of course, these are just the first seeds of doubt. They still totally plan to stay. Besides, there’s a big frat party being given by Zach’s fraternity and Jessica is determined to go. The only problem is that Magda is going to be there. Jessica doesn’t want Magda to see her with Zach, so she browbeats Liz into a really stupid twin switch.

Liz goes to the party dressed all slutty, which means everyone thinks she’s Jessica even though this is a party where she doesn’t know anyone. Jessica goes dressed more conservatively than usual, but she only wants Magda to think she’s Liz. She still wants to be Zach’s date as Jessica.

Operation Wakefield Twins involves everyone driving up to SVU. Steve and Billie are in on the whole thing and they let the gang into their apartment while the twins are at the Zeta party. They’re hanging banners and blowing up balloons when Ken suddenly realizes Jessica wouldn’t want to stay at SVU just for Liz. He deduces there must be another guy involved. He and Todd decide to crash the Zeta party and see what’s going on. When they get there, they look in a window like the creepers they are and see “Jessica” looking bored while “Liz” dances happily with some guy. Todd gets all emo and says he’s going home, but Ken convinces him he should fight for his chick. They decide to go in, but they don’t get past the bouncer.

Liz notices the commotion at the door and runs into Todd’s arms. He’s confused and then relieved that it’s not his girlfriend who’s dancing with some other guy. Then the bouncer throws him outside. Ken’s pissed, so he taps Jessica on the shoulder and asks what her deal is. She tries to say it was a blind date, which upsets Zach, so he’s all, “But what about our love?” and Ken’s all, “But what about me?” and Jess is all, “You’re tearing me apart!” Ken leaves, and just when things couldn’t get any worse, Magda comes up to Jessica (who she still thinks is Liz) and tells her she can have Zach because he’s only a junior in high school, “Just like you.” Jessica and Zach yell at each other for a minute and then decide the whole thing is hilarious. Then Jessica says she’s got to go and find her boyfriend.

The twins leave the party but don’t see the boys anywhere. They go back to Steve’s apartment where they find a surprise party waiting for them. All their friends are there to wish them luck and say goodbye. They put on some slideshow highlighting awesome high school times. Todd comes in with chips and soda and stuff. He tells Jessica Ken’s in the car. She runs outside and makes him stop the car. She jumps in and they have a talk and of course Ken forgives her for everything. They go back inside and the twins decide they would really be much happier if they decided to forget this whole college thing.

Quotes:

“SVU is only two hours away from Sweet Valley, after all.”

Why? Why is Sweet Valley University two hours away from Sweet Valley? That doesn’t make sense.

Just then a big blond guy walked by with a shaggy sheepdog by his side. He did a double take as he passed Jessica, tripping over the dog’s leash and stumbling to the ground.

Because she’s just that hot, folks. But isn’t it funny that these things never happen to Elizabeth?

Enid Rollins’s mouth dropped open.

Olivia Davidson’s eyes bugged out.

Winston Egbert dropped his fork with a clatter.

“Elizabeth’s not coming back?” they exclaimed in unison.

Oh, fuck off, all of you.

Elizabeth took a quick look in the mirror and stared at herself, aghast…She had never shown so much skin in her entire life.

Don’t you go to the beach – in a swimsuit – like every day?

The Cover: I don’t remember either twin taking any classes in this book, so I don’t really know what’s up with the blonde in the classroom. I think the guy with glasses is Liz’s nerd friend, Ian, which means the other guy is probably Zach. SVU’s color is purple, I guess.

The Moral of the Story: If you send criminals to jail, they’ll come back to kill your family.

The Big Deal: Summer vacation

Synopsis:

So, this book has a prologue, which is weird. A man named John Marin sits in a prison cell staring at the newspaper clippings he’s gathered over the last few months. Each one contains something about the Wakefield twins. They sure are in the paper a lot. Anyway…

It’s the first day of summer vacation again, and this time the twins are for once NOT going to work at a newspaper. They’ve taken jobs as waitresses at the Marina Café. Alice will be spending the summer working on a new job at a mansion that’s being remodeled, Steve will be working at Ned’s law firm and Ned will be fretting about the twins because John Marin just got out of jail. Marin, who is now twenty-eight but still looks like he’s twenty, killed a mother and daughter ten years ago and Ned was the attorney that put him away. Marin didn’t like that much and threatened Ned’s family and now here we are.

The twins’ boss, Mr. Jenkins, can’t get tell them apart. Rather, he obviously can since he’s pretty consistent in calling Liz Jess and Jess Liz. Whatever, I don’t even care. Liz is awed by another waitress, Jane, who’s on her fourth summer at the Marina Café. Jane tells Liz she just graduated from college and Liz just can’t believe it because Jane doesn’t look twenty-two. Jane laughs and confirms that she’s really twenty-six. Oh, shut up. Jessica flirts with a customer named Scott Maderlake who looks about twenty and has blue eyes. He says he’s an intern scouting out locations for his boss’s next film, which will take place at a high school. Of course, Jessica offers to show him Sweet Valley High. He’s like Jessica’s dream man. When Ned gets home from work that night, he finds that John Marin has broken into the house and left him a threatening note.

This book sucks already.

Liz is tired of her boring life (again) and wants to do something adventurous (again). After she and Todd see some movie for the fourth time, they go to the Dairi Burger, where Liz looks across the room and sees her soulmate, some guy who looks about twenty with blue eyes. She doesn’t speak to him or anything, but she knows he was meant for her. He shows up at the café the next day, sailing up on his boat, The Emily Dickinson. Both twins notice a creepy old man watching them all day, and Liz actually runs into him in the storage room. She runs out and straight into the arms of soulmate guy. His name is actually Ben Morgan and he seems like Liz’s dream man. Neither twin wants to tell the other about her new boyfriend.

After showing Scott the high school and then having dinner with him, Jessica goes home and discovers her lavaliere is missing. Ned later finds the lavaliere, along with a note that says “Such a lovely young neck,” in an envelope with his name on it. He calls the private investigator he’s had watching the twins. His name is Jim Battaglia and he tells Ned that Jessica has been seeing a guy, but he doesn’t look anything like the mug shot Jim received (Marin intercepted the real mug shot and replaced it with someone else’s). Jim offers to investigate the boyfriend, but Ned says not to bother since he’s “no different from the other hundred or so that she’s been out with in the last year.”

The days go by and nothing much happens. Jessica secretly goes out with Scott, Liz secretly goes out with Ben, Marin sends Ned threatening notes, Ned freaks out. The twins are being followed and watched by at least two men, one having been hired by Marin and one by Ned’s P.I. We’re not supposed to know which is which. Then one day Jim calls and tells Ned that Marin’s been taken into custody. He had a lavaliere on him. Yeah, right. You know it’s the wrong guy.

The twins are locking up the café the next night. Jessica sees a man with a knife in the storage room. She screams and the guy runs away. They call the police and then go down to the station. The cops have them pick the guy out of a lineup, but the guy they pick is “Marin,” who’s been in jail since the night before. The cops finally figure out the guy they have isn’t Marin, but some guy named Pilchard. Marin hired him to watch the twins and gave him Jessica’s necklace as part of his payment. Ned, intending to demand how the mugshot got mixed up, drives to Jim’s house and finds the P.I. dead. There’s a note from Marin next to the body.

On the way home from the police station, Liz tells Jessica about Ben and asks her to cover for her while she goes sailing with him. Later that night, Jessica is confronted by Ned and a couple cops. They tell her about Marin and show her Marin’s picture and she’s all, “Don’t be silly, that’s my new boyfriend!” It finally sinks in that her new boyfriend is a murderer, but she still insists that Liz’s secret boyfriend is someone different altogether. Jane the waitress is the only one who’s seen Ben, so they find her at the Beach Disco and she confirms that the guy in the mugshot is Ben.

Liz and Marin are about to make out on “Ben’s” boat when a Coast Guard boat carrying Ned, Jessica and some cops shows up. Marin threatens Liz with a knife and there’s a struggle. Liz gets away from him and somehow falls overboard. Jessica seems to be the only one who notices, so she jumps off the Coast Guard boat to rescue her. In the end, Marin manages to escape in a dinghy and later the cops find evidence that he’s been eaten by sharks. But of course he wasn’t. He’s hiding in the Wakefields’ basement. After the twins go to sleep, Marin goes to their room to kill them, but Ned comes along and knocks him out the window. The cop outside says Marin is going back to jail. Yeah, right. If he was, I wouldn’t have a whole second book to read in this miniseries.

Quotes:

Elizabeth tried to listen, but she found herself focusing on Todd’s neat, conservative haircut, his wholesome good looks, and his mall-store rugby shirt. He was so ordinary…For the first time, Elizabeth realized just how unsophisticated her boyfriend really was.

Ugh, you are such a snob.

Jessica: The money isn’t what’s important!

Lila: Bite your tongue!

Your daily dose of Lila.

The Cover: Awesome floppy nineties hair, John! Love it. The best part of this cover is the clippings on the wall. Most of them are whatever, but you can clearly see the covers of Jessica Quits the Squad and Murder in Paradise. Up at the top you can see Marin in his twin-tailored personalities – the poet sailor with Liz and the movie guy with Jessica.

Read part one of this miniseries here.

The Moral of the Story: One week of cheerleading and Liz’s life is ruined.

The Big Deal: Regional cheerleading competition, party at Lila’s

Synopsis:

Jessica is still upset about not being a cheerleader anymore, so Ken suggests she start her own squad. She gets Maria, Sandy and Lila on board, and then Patty Gilbert and Jade Wu because they can dance. Jessica really wants Liz on the squad, even though cheerleading goes against all her feministic ideals. Lila bets Jessica that she won’t be able to get Liz to join, and then has to buy the new squad’s uniforms when Jessica blackmails Liz, saying she’ll tell Todd about Liz’s fling with Ken if she doesn’t pick up some pom-poms and get to cheering.

Jessica gets a pretty good turnout at her first practice, but she kind of freaks out when she tells the girls to work on herkies and nobody knows what she’s talking about. She’s all worked up because Heather’s squad is going to regionals and Jessica only has a week to make her squad good enough to qualify. Liz hates everything about it, but after an argument with Heather, she decides to give it her all and help Jessica out. A few days later, Jessica tries to sit with Amy, Annie and Jean (Helen seems to have disappeared again) at lunch, but they tell her Heather doesn’t want them to be friends with Jessica, and might even kick them off the squad if they’re seen talking to her.

George Herkie

Liz gets pages and pages of inner dialogue. “Blah, blah, Ken. Blah, blah, Todd.” She’s so confused about her feelings, and the only way she can make out with Todd one night is to pretend he’s Ken. Then she feels terribly guilty for doing that and cries some more and wonders if she’s still in love with Ken and more blah blah blah and for the fuck of shit (™), would you just stop your whining already? Jeez. At a cheerleading practice, Liz is so upset that Ken is there to see Jessica and not her that she suddenly runs and does a round-off and two back handsprings. Seriously? Okay. I used to dance and tumble and all that good stuff and I know there’s just no way that this chick who sits around writing for the newspaper, never doing anything more physical than swimming at the occasional pool party, can possibly pull this kind of tumbling run out of her ass like this. Fucking Wakefield twins. They have to be good at everything. Sorry. The damned Wakefield twins get my Irish up sometimes.

A week goes by. Heather watches Jessica’s squad practice and is surprised to see they’re actually good. She tells Amy it’s too bad that only one squad from each school can go to regionals and the original squad was already chosen. When Jessica finds out, she calls the scout, Mr. Jenkins, to try to get him to reconsider. He says no, so Jessica gets her squad together and they all drive out to Mr. Jenkins’ house in Bridgewater and perform their routine on his front yard. He’s very impressed, but still won’t send them to regionals since he already gave the spot to Heather. Dejected, the girls drive back to Sweet Valley. They hear on the radio that Sweet Valley is losing the football game currently going on. Jessica figures that since they’re already in uniform, they should stop by and put on a show. Jessica goes to the sound booth and gives the girl there the tape with her routine’s music on it and says to play it at halftime. They perform better than ever while Heather, Amy, Annie and Jean stand on the sidelines looking like idiots. Of course, Sweet Valley goes on to win the game.

The whole school ends up at the Dairi Burger after the game. After Amy screams at Jessica for embarrassing her and then leaves, everyone else tells Jessica how awesome her squad was. Everyone thinks hers should be the official Sweet Valley squad, so Jessica goes to talk to Mr. Cooper about it on Monday. Old Chrome Dome says the two squads can hold a cheer-off the next day.

More of Liz worrying about Ken. She decides she has to tell Todd about her fling, but before she can do it, Todd starts going on about how happy Jessica and Ken seem to be and what a good friend Ken is. Liz decides she simply can’t tell Todd about her and Ken.

The day of the cheer-off, Amy apologizes to Jessica for everything and says she still wants to be friends, no matter which squad wins. The cheer-off results in a tie, but Mr. Jenkins is there and he says Sweet Valley can go to regionals if the two squads merge. Both Jessica and Heather hate that idea and they decide nobody is going to regionals.

The rest of the cheerleaders really want to go so they come up with a plan. They go to Jessica and Heather separately and tell each that the other has stepped down as captain so the squads can merge. They get to practicing, but the two captains can’t stop fighting. When they get to the competition and start warming up, Heather and Jessica have another argument and start to walk off, but Amy and Liz tell them to shut the fuck up or go home, the rest of the squad is performing either way. Jessica and Heather call a truce. Just before the squad is about to go on, Ken puts his arms around Liz, thinking she’s Jessica, and wishes her luck. Heather sees them, but doesn’t say anything.

Sweet Valley wins the competition. Are you totally surprised? I know I am. When the judges announce “co-captains Heather Mallone and Jessica Wakefield,” both girls get all pissed off again and try to quit (because they hadn’t already figured out they were tricked). Once again, Liz and Amy step in and tell them to shut the fuck up and go get the fucking trophy.

That night, Liz pretends to be Jessica so she can go out with Ken. As soon as they start making out, though, Liz realizes she really wants Todd and Ken realizes he’s kissing Liz. They have a long talk about their feelings. Ken says he was drawn to Jessica at first because she looked like Liz, but he really is in love with her. Liz and Ken decide to go to Todd’s house together and explain everything.

Lila is throwing a party to celebrate winning regionals. Heather comes up to Jessica and says she saw Ken and Liz getting pretty friendly at the competition earlier. Jessica races home and notices her brand new outfit is missing. She calls Todd, but he says Liz decided to stay home that night. Jessica figures out that Liz is out with Ken and she’s super pissed. When Liz and Ken get to Todd’s house to tell him the truth, Jessica is already there with Liz’s diary. Neither Todd nor Jessica wants to speak to Liz or Ken.

Quotes:

“Girls should play sports on their own, not just sit on the sidelines cheering on the guys!”

Shut up, Liz. Cheerleading is a sport, yabitch.

“What drew me to Jessica at first was the fact that she was your identical twin sister. I could almost pretend she was you.”

My god, this whole fucking town is so unhealthy. The twins really need to stop making out with the same boys.

The Cover: Liz (I think) looks like she’s having an awful lot of fun jumping around with her pom-poms while all the brunettes are shoved into the background. That must be Heather and possibly Amy spying on Jessica’s squad and pointing at them.

Jessica’s boyfriend, Jack (who?), tells her he’s really in love with Elizabeth. Jessica decides she hates being a twin and she’s going to run away. As she’s packing her things, she comes across a bunch of diaries that she’s never told anyone about:

First we recap the Jessa Fields incident in #32, The New Jessica. Then the Prince Albert fiasco in #33, Starting Over. There’s a recap of #34, Forbidden Love, even though Jessica is hardly in that one. And then there was Tofu-Glo. The only thing we learn from #35, Out of Control, is that Jessica actually gets stage fright.

In #36, Last Chance, Jessica tries to break up Cara and Steve. While recapping #37, Rumors, Jessica actually uses the phrase “piss off,” which kind of has me floored. During the recap of #38, Leaving Home, Jessica confesses that she’s in love with Jeffrey. Apparently, she pretended to be Liz at one point and asked how he felt about her going to Switzerland. She briefly considered breaking up with him as Liz so she could go out with him as herself while Liz was at Interlochen. But her loyalty won out and she and Steven carried out their horrible plan to keep Liz in the States. After that, we get into #39, Secret Admirer, and hear about Lila and Jessica getting the same guy through The Oracle’s personal ads.

Then, while recapping #40, On the Edge, we learn that Jessica pretended to be Liz and went on a date with Jeffrey. They went for a walk on the beach and then started making out. After a minute, Jeffrey realized he was making out with the wrong twin, but then he pulled Jessica to him and started kissing her again. What a couple of jerkfaces. I always liked Jeffrey, dammit. Then Regina died and that’s pretty much the end of the diary. Jessica realizes she loves her sister and doesn’t really want to run away.

These diaries are super lame.

The Cover: Why are Michael and Maria stuck in there? Who cares about them?

Read part one of this miniseries here.

The moral of the story: Werewolves are serious business.

Synopsis:

Of course Jessica’s not dead. The dead blond woman lying facedown in Jessica’s bed is Joy Singleton, fiancé of Sheriff Andrew Thatcher. Joy and Andrew, like Luke and the twins, are spending the weekend at Pembroke Manor. After Liz’s screams, everyone gathers near the doorway to the bedroom. Jessica says Joy wanted to switch rooms with her because she couldn’t sleep with the full moon shining in her window. Robert Pembroke starts ordering his servants to call the constable and shit like that, and Liz can’t stand how bossy he’s being. Ugh, I hate when Liz decides she doesn’t like people. She’s so annoying about it.

For the rest of the morning, Liz follows everyone around being suspicious of them. She questions the servants, Maria and Alistair, and they say they saw someone leaving Jessica’s room around four in the morning but they won’t say who. Liz goes up to the bedroom to look for clues because you know she’s a better investigator than the actual police. She finds a tuft of animal hair and a scrap of fabric caught in the doorway. Luke and Liz, through the process of elimination, decide that one of the Pembrokes must be the werewolf.

Lord Pembroke, who owns the London Journal, has been suppressing stories about the murders, using exaggerated stories about the missing Princess Eliana as a cover. Liz is talking to Jessica and she expresses her dislike for Robert. Jessica gets mad and storms off. Eliana has overheard the argument and tells Liz that Robert, a distant cousin of hers, isn’t so bad. Liz explains what happened at Pembroke Manor and asks Eliana why Lord Pembroke would keep the murder out of the newspaper. Eliana says there was a scandal involving the Pembrokes fifteen or twenty years ago, and Lord Pembroke has been terrified of sullying the family name ever since. Liz vows to find out what that scandal was about.

The next day, Liz pretends to be Jessica and goes to talk to Lady Pembroke, ostensibly as a follow up about her mink coat that went missing last week. She asks if Lady P. has any enemies and says it could even be someone holding a grudge for, oh, say, twenty years. Lady P. gets super pissed, calls “Jessica” ill-bred and kicks her out. Robert calls Jessica later and asks her to dinner because he wants her to get along with his mother. Jessica realizes what Liz has done and wants to kill her. Of course, Jessica thinks Liz was out to sabotage her relationship with Robert.

Liz has lunch with Rene, who has finally come around and stopped being so mad at Liz for not being in love with him. She tells him that she and Luke believe the murderer might be a werewolf. Rene tells her that’s ridiculous, and suddenly Liz doesn’t believe in werewolves anymore. Then she and Luke go see The Howling and then Liz believes in werewolves again.

I hate this book.

Not satisfied that she’s completely ruined Jessica’s love life, Liz decides she’d better pull another twin switch and get back out to Pembroke Manor to talk to Robert’s father. We get a chapter inside Lord Pembroke Senior’s head and find out he, like Luke, is a werewolf scholar. The reason he’s been keeping news of these murders out of the paper is because he knows a werewolf is behind it and he wants to be the one to hunt it down and kill it. The only problem is that he’s worried the werewolf might be his son Robert. Liz-as-Jessica calls to ask if she can come talk to him about his wife’s mink. Pembroke thinks it’s really sweet that she wants to impress him by making the story seem more important than it is. He tells “Jessica” that he’s grateful for the changes she’s brought about in Robert and that Robert loves her very much.

When Liz arrives at Pembroke Manor later, the place is a madhouse. Maria the cook has been murdered in the same fashion as all the other murder victims, her throat torn out. Liz explores Robert’s room and finds a robe matching the scrap of fabric found at the scene of Joy’s murder. The robe has a tear in it. Liz goes to the library and starts to pull a book off the shelf. When she does, a secret door opens onto Lord Pembroke’s secret werewolf room. All the trophies on the wall are wolf heads and all the books are about werewolves. It’s weird. Liz opens one of the books and finds an inscription from someone named Annabelle. Liz decides Annabelle, whoever she is, has something to do with this whole thing. What? Liz snoops a little more, but is interrupted by voices from outside the library. She leaves the secret room and hides under the desk in the library. There, she overhears Sheriff Thatcher telling Pembroke to turn over his evidence and out the werewolf. Pembroke says he will, but he wants to talk to his suspect first. Thatcher gives him until ten o’clock that night. As soon as Pembroke goes away, Liz finds a phone and calls the Journal office to tell Luke what she just heard. Tony Frank tells her Luke isn’t there, and then mentions that Jessica took the day off to go to hang out with Robert. Liz freaks out about her sister spending the day alone with a werewolf.

Jessica and Robert have plans to go to Stonehenge, but they don’t actually make it out there. While Liz was calling Luke, Lord Pembroke was calling Robert to tell him to get out of town for a few days. When Robert picks up Jessica, he takes her to breakfast and tells her he has to disappear for a while. Jessica is depressed and decides to go to Harrod’s, figuring shopping will make her feel better. Meanwhile, Liz starts running all over London looking for Jessica. She goes to the newspaper office and tells Tony Frank everything and says they have to find Jessica. Then Jessica comes in all disheveled. Some hairy creature attacked her and now she’s convinced a werewolf is out to get her.

One of the other kids at the boardinghouse, David, discovers that Lina is really Princess Eliana. David is poor, and he and Eliana have been dating. After his discovery, Eliana says he should claim the million pound reward. Liz and Tony Frank arrange a press conference. After Eliana outs herself to the reporters, Sheriff Thatcher kind of takes over and says there’s a warrant out for the arrest of Sir Robert Pembroke, Junior. Jessica is distraught and decides it’s all Liz’s fault.

This book is horrible.

Quotes:

“Don’t make light of werewolves, Jessica,” Luke said in a quiet voice. “They’re very serious business.”

Best quote of the book.

“Lord Pembroke must be some kind of werewolf fanatic,” [Elizabeth] whispered, more because of the eeriness of the room than out of a fear of being discovered. “How creepy!”

Liz talks to herself a lot in this book. In this case, I can just imagine her considering speaking in a normal tone of voice and then deciding a whisper is more appropriate. I hate Liz.

The Cover: I guess that’s Lina and David being all shocked about the newspaper. I’m not sure, but I think that’s Jessica on the tube platform running away from the “hairy creature” that attacked her.

Read part one of this miniseries here. Read part two here.

The Moral of the Story: You should just stay in bed when Mercury is in retrograde.

The Big Deal: Winston and Maria throw a barbecue beach party. It’s a total snooze.

Synopsis:

Jessica and her friends are all about the zodiac right now, and Mercury rules Gemini and is in retrograde, which basically means that anything Jessica tries to do is going to go wrong. (Yes, the twins are Geminis. What else would they be?) This is bad news because she’s supposed to be trying to get Bruce’s parents back together. She asks Bruce what his parents’ zodiac signs are and decides to write a love letter to Marie from Hank. Disaster strikes when she goes to mail the letter: for plot convenience, Jessica decides to mail the letter from the corner mailbox instead of the Wakefields’ very own mailbox. As soon as she drops the letter in the box, she realizes she forgot to stamp it. She reaches in to try to get it out, but her bracelets get stuck and she can’t get her arm out. Just then, two cars pull up. One is driven by a hot new senior named Michael Hampton. The other is a police cruiser. The officer tells her he’s taking her to the station for tampering with the mailbox, but she says she’s stuck. Michael gets out of his car, assesses the situation and manages to get Jessica unstuck. Jessica, embarrassed, tells him she’s Liz. Ned has to pick her up from the police station.

Liz gets home from a date with Todd later that night and the family has a meeting. For throwing a party while their parents were out of town the previous week, both twins are grounded. For living with her boyfriend, Liz has to do all the chores while she’s grounded. The twins go upstairs to try to come up with a new plan for Bruce’s parents since the letter plan didn’t work. I guess it’s too much trouble to just write a new letter. Jessica, Liz and Bruce plan to meet at lunch the next day, but Jessica doesn’t show up. As they pass Jessica’s locker on their way to their next classes, they hear someone shouting for help. Jessica has locked herself in her locker. They get her out, and then Jessica notices Michael watching her. Totally embarrassed again, she turns to Liz and loudly calls her Jessica before running off to class.

Bruce and the twins meet at the Dairi Burger after school and Jessica devises a new plan while spilling her milkshake everywhere. The Patmans are meeting with their lawyers the next morning, so Jessica comes up with a way to get them together without the lawyers present. Bruce and Liz leave, and Jessica sees Michael sitting alone at another table. She sits across from him and starts babbling on about sports and cheerleading, then she orders an espresso and talks with a British accent. Michael leaves. Jessica is confused. On his way home, Michael thinks about “Liz” and how cute and clumsy she is. Michael is from the east coast, so that means he doesn’t play any sports and is used to a more conservative environment. Girls like Jessica make him nervous.

Bruce picks up the twins at five o’clock the next morning and they go to the Traceys’ house. Martin and Jan Tracey are the Patmans’ lawyers, and to get them out of the way, Jessica and Liz put Krazy Glue on their ignition locks. Both cars are unlocked, of course. As a disguise, Jessica is wearing one of her mother’s scarves and one of Bruce’s jackets. The next step is to go to the Traceys’ office during study hall and put the Patmans’ wedding album out where they can see it. Jessica gets stuck in the elevator. The Patmans start to bond in the waiting room and Hank says he was never having an affair with Alice. Marie believes him and agrees to go out to brunch. She asks him if he still has the scarf that goes with the jacket he’s wearing. Having mixed up his coat with Bruce’s that morning, Hank reaches into his pocket and pulls out a scarf that says “Alice” all over it. Marie freaks out and runs away.

Liz gets flowers from Michael, and the card attached mentions her clumsiness. Liz understands everything at once. Instead of just telling Michael what Jessica’s been doing, she goes to Michael posing as an extra aloof version of herself. Michael gives her a ride home and she acts totally calm and together. At home, Liz runs inside and then runs out a few minutes later dressed as Jessica. She pretends to trip on her way to the Jeep. Then she sees Michael, so she turns to the house and loudly yells, “Bye, Jessica!” Michael, thinking he’s caught her in the act, figures out that Jessica has just been posing as Liz to hide her embarrassment.

Jessica’s next plan for the Patmans is to fill Marie’s new house with flowers. She picks goldenrods because Bruce says gold is her favorite color. Turns out Marie is allergic to goldenrods. She ends up in the hospital. While she’s there, Jessica puts her next plan into motion. She gets a mini cassette recorder and tells Liz to record Alice talking about the reasons she broke it off with Hank back in the day. Liz does it and lets Jessica deliver the tape. Unfortunately, Jessica accidentally delivers the test tape she and Lila made on which it becomes clear Jessica is the one who has been interfering with the Patmans’ lives.

The last plan before Hank and Marie sign the divorce papers is a trip down memory lane. Bruce and the twins find a bunch of slides from the Patmans’ honeymoon and love letters and junk, and they set everything up in the “screening room.” Bruce has arranged for Hank and Marie to meet him and the twins at seven o’clock the next night.

Everything is a disaster, of course. Jessica is taking a bath and gets her toe stuck in the faucet. Liz comes running in when she screams for help. She gets Jessica’s toe out, but the doors have gotten stuck, so now they’re stuck in the bathroom. Meanwhile, Bruce is on his way home with a rented slide projector when he gets a flat tire. His spare is also flat, so he’s waiting on the motor club when his mother arrives at the Patman mansion. When Bruce and the twins finally get there, they find Hank and Marie kissing on the loveseat.

Michael finally ends up asking Jessica out, but they have a horrible time because Michael is an even bigger klutz than she is. Bruce gets back together with Pamela.

Quotes:

“Your mother’s right,” agreed Mr. Wakefield. “As a family, we’ve never believed in meddling in other people’s private affairs, and I don’t think this is the time to start.”

What family does Ned think he’s part of?

Elizabeth had saved up for a laptop computer and had given Jessica her old word processor.

Could a sixteen-year-old really save up and buy herself a new laptop in March of 1994, especially if she had no job and only an allowance?

The Cover: The twins are hard to tell apart here because neither one is wearing a watch or barrettes, but I’m going to guess Liz is the one comforting Bruce by patting him on the shoulder. Jessica looks bored, and I swear Bruce looks just like that guy from That Thing You Do.

The moral of the story: Girls are just as stupid as boys.

The Big Deal: No parties or dances. No fun.

Synopsis:

The International Federation of Teachers has chosen Sweet Valley for some honor that I don’t understand, but it means that for the next three Thursdays, teachers from all over the world will be hanging out at Sweet Valley High. Liz hopes she’ll get picked to host the teachers and show them around the school. And of course she does, along with Todd, Enid, Penny and some other nerds.

Bruce keeps talking about how totally bored he is with Sweet Valley. He comes to school one day wearing a leather jacket with a big white X on the back and says he’s created a club for “real men who know real excitement when they see it.” The twins think he looks like an ass. Bruce spends his lunch trading wisecracks with Jessica, who doesn’t think Bruce is being fair about his club. She decides to try to join. Sam is in Colorado for a month, so Jessica has nothing better to do, anyway.

The Federation of Teachers show up, and Liz and Todd take them to the cafeteria at lunchtime. They walk in to find Jessica and Bruce at the center of a loud debate. The foreign teachers act all scandalized, but Liz manages to convince them it’s all practice for a debate tournament. At the end of the argument, Bruce relents and says Jessica can join the club.

Jessica goes to Bruce’s house that night. On a table in the basement is a roulette wheel divided into four sections, one each for Bruce, Ronnie Edwards, Tad Johnson and Jessica – all the members of the club so far. Jessica spins the wheel and it stops on her name, which means she has to perform a dare. And her dare is to drive to the bottom of the hill … with no headlights! I’m frightened, but she totally gets there in one piece, and when she does, Bruce presents her with her very own Club X jacket. She goes home and tells everything to Liz, who disapproves but agrees to keep it all a secret. She’s pissed, though, because the club keeps pulling all these crappy stunts (pulling the fire alarm, gluing lockers shut, etc.) while the foreign teachers are visiting and it’s making Sweet Valley High look less than perfect.

The next night, Bruce looks surprised when the wheel lands on Ronnie’s name instead of Jessica’s. Ronnie’s dare is to jump over the fence at the community pool and dive off the high dive. Ronnie does it, and then Jessica feels like showing off, so she does it, too. They all go out to the Dairi Burger afterward. Michael Harris sees them looking all cool in their jackets and decides he wants to join. Not long after, Charlie Cashman and Jim Sturbridge join, too. Even with so many names on the wheel, it keeps landing on Jessica. One of her pranks is to smoke a cigarette in Mr. Cooper’s office. Another day, Ronnie shows everyone how to hotwire a car because that’s going to be that night’s stunt. The wheel lands on Jessica again and now she knows Bruce is rigging it because of his smug attitude. So she hotwires his Porsche and drives it to the Dairi Burger. Which is probably one of the coolest things Jessica’s ever done.

For her next stunt, Bruce tells Jessica she has to walk across the train trestle at the edge of town. He says it’s okay because he knows there aren’t any trains scheduled for that day. So Jessica starts across and has a total Stand by Me moment when a train starts to come. She pulls a Vern and trips and falls, then manages to get to her feet and jump to the ground with no time to spare.

After that, Jessica plans to quit Club X, but she wants to get revenge on Bruce first. There’s going to be an assembly at school dedicated to the foreign teachers, and Jessica wants Bruce to rig the PA system to play KZZP, “the hardest hard-rock radio station in the valley.” She manages to get everyone out of the basement by saying she saw a crack in Bruce’s windshield. When she’s alone, she examines the roulette wheel and finds a magnet under the piece of cardboard with her name on it. She moves the magnet to Bruce’s name, and he looks shocked when it lands on him.

In the auditorium, Jessica sits next to Liz, who tells her Mr. Cooper asked her to deliver a speech for the teachers. Jessica is upset because she knows the prank will embarrass Liz. She runs out of the auditorium to find Bruce and tell him not to do it, but Mr. Collins stops her in the hallway. He’s suspicious and says he knows the club has been pulling all the stupid pranks around school. He drags Jessica back to the assembly and makes her sit with him. In the middle of Liz’s speech, KZZP starts to play. Bruce is caught and given two weeks of detention. Not one to go down gracefully, Bruce gives up the names of the other club members, and they’re all given one week in detention.

Jessica is grounded, which sucks because Sam is coming home that night and she desperately needs to see him. Even though Liz is super pissed about the assembly, she lets Jessica convince her to pretend to be her while she sneaks out to see Sam. Jessica dresses as Liz and goes to the Dairi Burger, where she tells Sam everything and says she loves him. Aw.

Quotes:

Tad, Bruce, and Ronnie were leaning against a tree, hands in their jacket pockets and grins of superiority on their faces.

I feel like they’re going to break into song at any second. “Here come the Jets!”

“Where’s our Jeep?” Elizabeth demanded. “And what are you doing with Bruce’s car?”

“Oh,” Jessica said lazily. “That. I stole it.”

Okay, for real, this is one time where I really just love Jessica.

And she didn’t know what she was going to tell her parents, either. They were bound to notice her coming home at five-thirty every afternoon for a week.

Since when? I thought the twins had to make dinner every night because they have absent workaholic parents.

The Cover: I swear, Jessica gets uglier and uglier with every passing book. But check out those totally awesome jackets.