The Unicorn Club #17: Boyfriends for Everyone
The Unicorn Club #17: Boyfriends for Everyone
That's right, boyfriends for everyone! You can have one, and you can have one, and you in the back? Yeah, you get one too. It's overstock madness at Crazy Larry's Used Boyfriends, and we're practically giving these boyfriends away! Everything must go!
I ... don't even know where to begin on this cover. We've got twelve-year-old beefcake. I think the long haired one is Emo Ninja Jack from the previous book, but I really don't know which one the other guy is supposed to be. I really don't think it matters, either. In the end, all boys are Unicorn arm candy.
Continuing from the last book, Ellen and the other Unicorns are now staying at a resort hotel for three days before getting back on the cruise ship for the remaining three days of the trip. Ellen recaps the last book for us, which boils down to:
1. Ellen was miserable.
2. Mandy, Jessica, Kimberly, and Lila (MaJiKaL) decided to solve her problems by finding her four different boyfriends.
3. Arguments ensued.
4. Each realized, too late, that she actually liked the guy she found.
5. Arguments ensued.
6. Ellen succeeded in snaring all four guys and in the process developed multiple personality disorder.
7. MaJiKaL were miserable.
8. I contemplated getting very, very, drunk to see if the plot made any sense when viewed through beer goggles.
9. ???
10. Profit.
We now return to your regularly scheduled train wreck, already in progress.
Jessica and Kimberly sit by the pool, talking about how unhappy they are, while Ellen arrives and is immediately surrounded by admirers. At the end of the previous book, Ellen fell flat on her face at a special VIP dinner party and as a result all of the rich and famous kids on the trip think she's the coolest person ever. Well, guess what? I once slipped down half a dozen steps and sprained my ankle! Bow down before my awesomeness!
Kimberly mutters, "I liked Ellen better when she was insecure and didn't have any friends besides us." Kimberly, that says far more about you than it does about Ellen.
My favorite line of the book, though? "Jessica wasn't conceited or anything..." I don't even know how the line ends, because every time I read that first part I fall out of my chair laughing.
Meanwhile, Mandy is on the beach feeling sorry for herself when Emo Ninja Jack approaches her. By the way, she wrote a poem about Jack:
Jack is a dark silhouette against the sun. Bright around the edges and an eternal mystery.
Plus if you look at him too long you get a really big headache. Seriously, though, that sounds more like a fortune cookie than a poem.
Jack leans in, whispers her name, and takes her hand in his. Wow, do you think he's realized that Mandy, not Ellen, is the girl for him? If so, you have obviously never read a Sweet Valley book before. He asks her what rhymes with "Ellen" aside from "Magellan." This is apparently the book's way of reminding us that Jack's a deep, sensitive poet. I think he should stick to ninja-ing.
Ellen meets Peter as she returns to the hotel lobby. He invites her to hike up a mountain, followed by a yoga session at the peak. Either this mountain has an incredibly mild incline or Peter has super powers. I wonder who would win in a fight between Super Peter and Emo Ninja Jack. Ellen accepts the invitation. We also learn that Jared has asked her to come with him to "a very private disco." How private can this disco be? Five people and a boom box?
After Peter leaves, Curtis Bowman (the surfer guy MaJiKaL vetoed in the last book) comes over and invites her to go bodysurfing. She turns him down for reasons too stupid even to recap.
Lila sees Jared (the snobby rich guy who likes inbred girls) while shopping and tries to sabotage Ellen...by calling her fat. Well, she uses the word "heavy," but it's still pretty weak. Jared is not pleased, so Lila switches to Plan B: telling him Ellen is a financial whiz and convincing him to buy her a magazine about mutual funds as a gift. Lila somehow expects this to solve everything. I have to remind myself that Lila will be a much better schemer when she reaches high school.
MaJiKaL hold an emergency Unicorn meeting (without Ellen) to bitch some more about the situation. They decide to work together, and in Lila's words, "we made her and we can break her just as easily." At first I think this means Ellen has a pair of cement shoes waiting for her, but instead the girls intend to be passive-aggressive and freeze Ellen out of their conversations. The possibility of MaJiKaL simply explaining their feelings to Ellen never comes up. What, did you really think it would?
Ellen assumes that the cold shoulder is about her speaking to Curtis earlier that day. She decides to try even harder to keep all four boyfriends. Look, we get it already. Can we skip to the part where everyone learns an Important Lesson about Being Yourself and Telling the Truth?
Later, Ellen and Emo Ninja Jack come up to Mandy on the beach. Jack gave Ellen the poem he wrote for her, although he doesn't recite it, so we never find out what else rhymes with "Ellen." Ellen found the fortune cookie poem Mandy wrote and gave it to Jack. Mandy's urge to kill rises, and she tries to criticize her own poem to make Ellen look bad. Ellen explains that it's a haiku. Um, doesn't a haiku have seventeen syllables? This poem has twenty-five. I don't get it, but maybe that's why I'm not an Emo Ninja.
Kimberly is playing gin rummy with two of Ellen's VIP friends. Because they're eighty years old and the shuffleboard court is taken. Peter and Ellen arrive, leading me to wonder why Ellen never runs into, for example, Lila when she's with Jack, or Jess when she's with Jared. It's like fate or destiny or a really formulaic young adult novel.
Meanwhile, Sam and Jessica are talking about Ellen. Sam says, "I like a girl who knows how to flirt and have fun with a lot of people...I'm that kind of person myself." Wait, did Sam just say he was a girl? Samantha nearly kisses Jessica--or at least, that's what Jessica says--but Ellen arrives just in time for a last-minute cockblock.
Captain Jackson tells Kimberly about a tropical storm warning. Of course, he adds, "it's really just a precaution at this point. We may not have any kind of storm of all." Which is almost as good as saying, "Nothing could possibly go wrong!" We're pretty much guaranteed a hurricane by the end of the book.
MaJiKaL are having another bitch session Unicorn meeting. They're all depressed and, frankly, kind of boring. Kimberly gives me a brief, shining moment of hope when she declares that they're going to use "the deadliest weapon of them all...The truth!" Then I remember that I've still got almost a hundred pages to go. Now I'm depressed, too.
Ellen is now with Jared, being careful to perform a massive tic every twenty minutes. She keeps elbowing Jared in the ribs, but of course he doesn't care because she's just so delightfully eccentric and aristocratic and inbred! As he walks her to her room she considers dumping him, but then overhears MaJiKaL laughing inside and decides against it. She tells him he'll "always have a place in the lineup" and he gives her a tennis racket. Least. Romantic. Couple. Ever. He kisses her, keeping a firm grip on her elbow for his own safety.
MaJiKaL puts their "honesty" plan into action, which pretty much includes telling Peter/Jack/Sam/Jared that Ellen is only pretending to be athletic/emo/hyper/inbred. The guys all think they're just jealous, lying bitches--which they are--and ignore them.
Quoted for Truth: Peter says, "Let me see if I understand this. You thought I was a great guy. So you thought I would be perfect for Ellen--who, according to you, has nothing in common with me and no interest in anything that interests me. Kimberly, that doesn't make any sense." Peter, you are officially too smart for this book. Collect your things and make your way to the nearest helipad; you'll be evacuated as soon as possible.
The next morning, Ellen wakes up early, has some obligatory foreshadow-chat with Captain Jackson about the tropical storm, and gets some breakfast. Curtis joins her, but is quickly shooed away by Jack. I don't blame him; if an Emo Ninja told me to leave, I'd get the hell away. Jack warns her that Mandy isn't a good friend and leaves again, probably to get out of the way of the other three guys lined up to tell Ellen the same thing about Kimberly, Jessica, and Lila. Yes, they actually come up to her, one after another, just to badmouth her friends and leave again. Of course, they're all cryptic about it, so Ellen still has no idea what's going on with MaJiKaL.
Jared also shows Ellen the shoes Lila loaned her for the VIP dinner at the end of the previous book, which Captain Jackson had given him to return to her. He shows her that they'd been sawed partway through, and Ellen begins to freak out. No kidding. When Lila Fowler sacrifices a pair of her own shoes to bring you down, you know things are serious.
MaJiKaL are badmouthing Ellen when they hear the door slam across the hall. Their door was open a crack, because of course how else would Ellen have overheard them? That's not contrived at all. No, sir.
Mandy insists on going over to check on Ellen, and is shocked to find Ellen's clothes and suitcase gone. I wish they were still on the boat so we could see her fall into the ocean again.
In the lobby, the concierge is in a panic over the approaching storm. Ellen asks him if there's an airport nearby, and he tells her there's an airstrip on the other side of the island. Ellen reasons that she'll get to the other side of the island by walking in a straight line away from the shoreline. There's the Ellen we all know and sort-of-tolerate-while-rolling-our-eyes!
The concierge apparently just watches her walk outside with her suitcase, because he doesn't even try to stop her from going out in hurricane weather. Doesn't it occur to him that this girl might be wandering out into the storm? Or does he think she's writing a guidebook about local airports, and is now taking her suitcase for a walk around the pool? His grasp of logic rivals Ellen's.
MaJiKaL arrive in the lobby shortly after, find Captain Jackson, and tell him they think Ellen may have left in spite of the storm. Captain Jackson scoffs at the idea that anyone might want to leave the hotel. He apparently also scoffs at the idea that Ellen Riteman's parents might want to sue the hell out of him and the cruise line for letting their daughter die in a hurricane.
Captain Clueless figures there's no reason to go look for her, and the girls decide that Ellen would have been smart enough to turn back when the weather started getting worse. Wow. They suddenly have a lot of unfounded faith in Ellen's intelligence.
Ellen, meanwhile, is stumbling around in the rain and has gotten completely lost. The book mentions that the island is "volcanic," which at first made me think the ghostwriter was going to cram both a hurricane and an erupting volcano into this book. Ellen trips and sprains her ankle. Are we in a horror movie now?
Back at the hotel, the storm has officially been upgraded to a hurricane, as if there was ever any doubt that would happen. MaJiKaL wail and rend their garments in a truly melodramatic scene until Mandy approaches the hotel manager to tell him that Ellen is out there. He actually waves his hand and calls it "nonsense." Oh, the Ritemans are going to lose a daughter and gain a fortune. The girls insist he call the coast guard, but he says he's sure they'll find Ellen somewhere in the hotel and scurries off to distribute some blankets. Seriously, aren't they even going to do a roll call or something? If I have kids, I am never sending one on a Dream Teen Cruise. The body count on those things must be astounding.
Ellen is now limping around in the wind and rain, but doesn't think about trying to get back to the hotel until it's too late. She ends up holding on to a tree for dear life as the storm rages around her. This would be a dramatic, poignant moment if only I could forget that Ellen was the idiot who wandered out into a damn hurricane in the first place.
MaJiKaL run into Jack, Sam, Peter, and Jared and explain that Ellen is out in the storm. They all go out to look for her, splitting up into four pairs. I'll let you guess who's paired up with whom. However, the hotel has now stationed security guards around the exits to keep the kids from leaving. Or maybe it's to keep Ellen from getting back in.
Ellen is still clinging to her tree when someone grabs her and drags her away. She panics--until she realizes that it's Curtis! Apparently he'd been out surfing. In a hurricane. Yup, these two are made for each other.
MaJiKaL and the guys (which sounds like the name of a band, by the way) enlist some of Ellen's VIP friends to create a diversion so they can sneak out of the hotel. They get outside easily, meaning a lot of parents had better start calling their lawyers.
Ellen and Curtis are in a cave when everything dies down outside. (Wait for it...) They go to the cave entrance and look outside to see that the wind and rain are gone. (Wait for it...) Ellen exclaimes that the hurricane is over. (Wait for it...now!) Curtis tells her that they're just in the eye of the hurricane and the worst is yet to come. By the way, am I the only one now humming, "The Big, Wet Rainstorm's Over" right now? (Extra super bonus points for anyone who gets that reference!)
Jack and Mandy find Ellen's shawl, and Jack sees, "To Ellen. With Love From Mandy," embroidered on it. Mandy starts crying and Jack sees that Mandy really is artistic and sensitive enough to become his Emo Ninja bride. Peter and Sam have similar revelations about Jessica and Kimberly. Oh, wait, I mean Kimberly and Jessica. But wouldn't it be funny if they started switching love interests at the last minute?
Back at the cave, Ellen and Curtis bond over divorced parents and junk food, and Curtis takes off his wet suit. Don't worry, though, the book is not going in that direction. He's wearing swim trunks underneath. He rigs the wet suit into a hammock so they can get away from the rising water in the cave. Curtis is now kind of like MacGuyver if MacGuyver talked like a surfer dude and ate Cheez Doodles.
MaJiKaL and the guys get back to the hotel after failing to find Ellen. I'm a little sad that not one person has reported Curtis missing. Has he not made a single friend on this trip? Lila finally walks up to the hotel manager and insists that he send out a Rescue Patrol for Ellen. The manager scoffs again at the thought that a preteen girl that he is legally responsible for might be facing certain death, and Lila grabs his cell phone. She tells him she's going to call her father, Mr. Fowler. At the name Fowler, the manager immediately falls into line--apparently Lila's father owns the hotel.
Lila, Ellen has been stumbling around in a hurricane for how long? And you're just now playing the "My Daddy Owns Your Ass" card? And I love that only the fear of getting fired will convince this guy to alert the authorities about a missing child. I bet if the hotel was burning down, you'd have to threaten him with a pink slip just to get him to call the fire department.
In the Soggy Cave of Love, Curtis climbs the cave wall, sets up the hammock, and pulls Ellen up to safety just before the cave floods. Ha! Let's see Emo Ninja Jack or Super Peter do that!
At the Negligent Hotel of Love, meanwhile, MaJiKaL pair off with their guys and it's all very romantic as long as you forget the part about Ellen being in mortal danger while they're cuddling. Suddenly, the hotel shakes and the lights go out. Jessica is terrified and thinks, "Oh, Elizabeth...Wish me good luck! I need it more than I've ever needed it in my life." Pshh, for a measly little hurricane? Save some of that luck for the stalkers and vampires and would-be-date-rapists-who-are-scared-of-birds.
The danger finally passes and everyone's fine, except for Kimberly who got hit on the head. It doesn't say what hit her, but I bet one of the other girls decided to take a quick cheap shot at her while the lights were out. I know I would.
Ellen and Curtis are safe, too, and they celebrate by making out. Aww. It's cute, preteen, dim-witted love.
Mandy, Jessica, and Lila (Kimberly stays behind because of her head injury, which totally ruins the MaJiKaL thing I had going) rush outside just in time to see Ellen and Curtis arrive. Cheering. Group hug. Vomit.
Later, Ellen tells the girls that she's done with the other guys and just wants to spend time with Curtis. They try to contain their disappointment. No one ever apologizes for being a total bitch to Ellen and ultimately driving her out into a hurricane.
While Curtis teaches Ellen how to surf, they end up missing the boat because Ellen's watch isn't waterproof. Um? Cruise line people? Don't you think you ought to have instituted some kind of check in procedure, especially as you very recently nearly lost two passengers you didn't even know were missing to a hurricane?!
MaJiKaL are on the deck with Captain Jackson when he spots Ellen and Curtis through binoculars. Frustrated, Captain Jackson resigns as captain of the ship. Considering he is about the least efficient and responsible captain in the history of captaining, I say good riddance. Then he throws his hat into the air and says, "Party on!" No, really, he does. I think the ghostwriter didn't know how to end the story, so he/she just threw in a party like at the end of Caddyshack.
We don't, as far as I know, ever hear about Jack, Peter, Jared, and Sam ever again. I assume that Sam died shortly after leaving the cruise ship, considering A) his name is Sam and B) he dated Jessica Wakefield. Poor kid didn't stand a chance.
At the end of the book, Lila gets a call from her father letting her know that they'll need to "make some lifestyle changes." Lila thinks it sounds like he's going on a new diet. I think it sounds like he's coming out of the closet. Either way, it's a lead-in to the next book, "Rachel's In, Lila's Out," which has yet to be recapped.
That's right, boyfriends for everyone! You can have one, and you can have one, and you in the back? Yeah, you get one too. It's overstock madness at Crazy Larry's Used Boyfriends, and we're practically giving these boyfriends away! Everything must go!
I ... don't even know where to begin on this cover. We've got twelve-year-old beefcake. I think the long haired one is Emo Ninja Jack from the previous book, but I really don't know which one the other guy is supposed to be. I really don't think it matters, either. In the end, all boys are Unicorn arm candy.
Continuing from the last book, Ellen and the other Unicorns are now staying at a resort hotel for three days before getting back on the cruise ship for the remaining three days of the trip. Ellen recaps the last book for us, which boils down to:
1. Ellen was miserable.
2. Mandy, Jessica, Kimberly, and Lila (MaJiKaL) decided to solve her problems by finding her four different boyfriends.
3. Arguments ensued.
4. Each realized, too late, that she actually liked the guy she found.
5. Arguments ensued.
6. Ellen succeeded in snaring all four guys and in the process developed multiple personality disorder.
7. MaJiKaL were miserable.
8. I contemplated getting very, very, drunk to see if the plot made any sense when viewed through beer goggles.
9. ???
10. Profit.
We now return to your regularly scheduled train wreck, already in progress.
Jessica and Kimberly sit by the pool, talking about how unhappy they are, while Ellen arrives and is immediately surrounded by admirers. At the end of the previous book, Ellen fell flat on her face at a special VIP dinner party and as a result all of the rich and famous kids on the trip think she's the coolest person ever. Well, guess what? I once slipped down half a dozen steps and sprained my ankle! Bow down before my awesomeness!
Kimberly mutters, "I liked Ellen better when she was insecure and didn't have any friends besides us." Kimberly, that says far more about you than it does about Ellen.
My favorite line of the book, though? "Jessica wasn't conceited or anything..." I don't even know how the line ends, because every time I read that first part I fall out of my chair laughing.
Meanwhile, Mandy is on the beach feeling sorry for herself when Emo Ninja Jack approaches her. By the way, she wrote a poem about Jack:
Jack is a dark silhouette against the sun. Bright around the edges and an eternal mystery.
Plus if you look at him too long you get a really big headache. Seriously, though, that sounds more like a fortune cookie than a poem.
Jack leans in, whispers her name, and takes her hand in his. Wow, do you think he's realized that Mandy, not Ellen, is the girl for him? If so, you have obviously never read a Sweet Valley book before. He asks her what rhymes with "Ellen" aside from "Magellan." This is apparently the book's way of reminding us that Jack's a deep, sensitive poet. I think he should stick to ninja-ing.
Ellen meets Peter as she returns to the hotel lobby. He invites her to hike up a mountain, followed by a yoga session at the peak. Either this mountain has an incredibly mild incline or Peter has super powers. I wonder who would win in a fight between Super Peter and Emo Ninja Jack. Ellen accepts the invitation. We also learn that Jared has asked her to come with him to "a very private disco." How private can this disco be? Five people and a boom box?
After Peter leaves, Curtis Bowman (the surfer guy MaJiKaL vetoed in the last book) comes over and invites her to go bodysurfing. She turns him down for reasons too stupid even to recap.
Lila sees Jared (the snobby rich guy who likes inbred girls) while shopping and tries to sabotage Ellen...by calling her fat. Well, she uses the word "heavy," but it's still pretty weak. Jared is not pleased, so Lila switches to Plan B: telling him Ellen is a financial whiz and convincing him to buy her a magazine about mutual funds as a gift. Lila somehow expects this to solve everything. I have to remind myself that Lila will be a much better schemer when she reaches high school.
MaJiKaL hold an emergency Unicorn meeting (without Ellen) to bitch some more about the situation. They decide to work together, and in Lila's words, "we made her and we can break her just as easily." At first I think this means Ellen has a pair of cement shoes waiting for her, but instead the girls intend to be passive-aggressive and freeze Ellen out of their conversations. The possibility of MaJiKaL simply explaining their feelings to Ellen never comes up. What, did you really think it would?
Ellen assumes that the cold shoulder is about her speaking to Curtis earlier that day. She decides to try even harder to keep all four boyfriends. Look, we get it already. Can we skip to the part where everyone learns an Important Lesson about Being Yourself and Telling the Truth?
Later, Ellen and Emo Ninja Jack come up to Mandy on the beach. Jack gave Ellen the poem he wrote for her, although he doesn't recite it, so we never find out what else rhymes with "Ellen." Ellen found the fortune cookie poem Mandy wrote and gave it to Jack. Mandy's urge to kill rises, and she tries to criticize her own poem to make Ellen look bad. Ellen explains that it's a haiku. Um, doesn't a haiku have seventeen syllables? This poem has twenty-five. I don't get it, but maybe that's why I'm not an Emo Ninja.
Kimberly is playing gin rummy with two of Ellen's VIP friends. Because they're eighty years old and the shuffleboard court is taken. Peter and Ellen arrive, leading me to wonder why Ellen never runs into, for example, Lila when she's with Jack, or Jess when she's with Jared. It's like fate or destiny or a really formulaic young adult novel.
Meanwhile, Sam and Jessica are talking about Ellen. Sam says, "I like a girl who knows how to flirt and have fun with a lot of people...I'm that kind of person myself." Wait, did Sam just say he was a girl? Samantha nearly kisses Jessica--or at least, that's what Jessica says--but Ellen arrives just in time for a last-minute cockblock.
Captain Jackson tells Kimberly about a tropical storm warning. Of course, he adds, "it's really just a precaution at this point. We may not have any kind of storm of all." Which is almost as good as saying, "Nothing could possibly go wrong!" We're pretty much guaranteed a hurricane by the end of the book.
MaJiKaL are having another bitch session Unicorn meeting. They're all depressed and, frankly, kind of boring. Kimberly gives me a brief, shining moment of hope when she declares that they're going to use "the deadliest weapon of them all...The truth!" Then I remember that I've still got almost a hundred pages to go. Now I'm depressed, too.
Ellen is now with Jared, being careful to perform a massive tic every twenty minutes. She keeps elbowing Jared in the ribs, but of course he doesn't care because she's just so delightfully eccentric and aristocratic and inbred! As he walks her to her room she considers dumping him, but then overhears MaJiKaL laughing inside and decides against it. She tells him he'll "always have a place in the lineup" and he gives her a tennis racket. Least. Romantic. Couple. Ever. He kisses her, keeping a firm grip on her elbow for his own safety.
MaJiKaL puts their "honesty" plan into action, which pretty much includes telling Peter/Jack/Sam/Jared that Ellen is only pretending to be athletic/emo/hyper/inbred. The guys all think they're just jealous, lying bitches--which they are--and ignore them.
Quoted for Truth: Peter says, "Let me see if I understand this. You thought I was a great guy. So you thought I would be perfect for Ellen--who, according to you, has nothing in common with me and no interest in anything that interests me. Kimberly, that doesn't make any sense." Peter, you are officially too smart for this book. Collect your things and make your way to the nearest helipad; you'll be evacuated as soon as possible.
The next morning, Ellen wakes up early, has some obligatory foreshadow-chat with Captain Jackson about the tropical storm, and gets some breakfast. Curtis joins her, but is quickly shooed away by Jack. I don't blame him; if an Emo Ninja told me to leave, I'd get the hell away. Jack warns her that Mandy isn't a good friend and leaves again, probably to get out of the way of the other three guys lined up to tell Ellen the same thing about Kimberly, Jessica, and Lila. Yes, they actually come up to her, one after another, just to badmouth her friends and leave again. Of course, they're all cryptic about it, so Ellen still has no idea what's going on with MaJiKaL.
Jared also shows Ellen the shoes Lila loaned her for the VIP dinner at the end of the previous book, which Captain Jackson had given him to return to her. He shows her that they'd been sawed partway through, and Ellen begins to freak out. No kidding. When Lila Fowler sacrifices a pair of her own shoes to bring you down, you know things are serious.
MaJiKaL are badmouthing Ellen when they hear the door slam across the hall. Their door was open a crack, because of course how else would Ellen have overheard them? That's not contrived at all. No, sir.
Mandy insists on going over to check on Ellen, and is shocked to find Ellen's clothes and suitcase gone. I wish they were still on the boat so we could see her fall into the ocean again.
In the lobby, the concierge is in a panic over the approaching storm. Ellen asks him if there's an airport nearby, and he tells her there's an airstrip on the other side of the island. Ellen reasons that she'll get to the other side of the island by walking in a straight line away from the shoreline. There's the Ellen we all know and sort-of-tolerate-while-rolling-our-eyes!
The concierge apparently just watches her walk outside with her suitcase, because he doesn't even try to stop her from going out in hurricane weather. Doesn't it occur to him that this girl might be wandering out into the storm? Or does he think she's writing a guidebook about local airports, and is now taking her suitcase for a walk around the pool? His grasp of logic rivals Ellen's.
MaJiKaL arrive in the lobby shortly after, find Captain Jackson, and tell him they think Ellen may have left in spite of the storm. Captain Jackson scoffs at the idea that anyone might want to leave the hotel. He apparently also scoffs at the idea that Ellen Riteman's parents might want to sue the hell out of him and the cruise line for letting their daughter die in a hurricane.
Captain Clueless figures there's no reason to go look for her, and the girls decide that Ellen would have been smart enough to turn back when the weather started getting worse. Wow. They suddenly have a lot of unfounded faith in Ellen's intelligence.
Ellen, meanwhile, is stumbling around in the rain and has gotten completely lost. The book mentions that the island is "volcanic," which at first made me think the ghostwriter was going to cram both a hurricane and an erupting volcano into this book. Ellen trips and sprains her ankle. Are we in a horror movie now?
Back at the hotel, the storm has officially been upgraded to a hurricane, as if there was ever any doubt that would happen. MaJiKaL wail and rend their garments in a truly melodramatic scene until Mandy approaches the hotel manager to tell him that Ellen is out there. He actually waves his hand and calls it "nonsense." Oh, the Ritemans are going to lose a daughter and gain a fortune. The girls insist he call the coast guard, but he says he's sure they'll find Ellen somewhere in the hotel and scurries off to distribute some blankets. Seriously, aren't they even going to do a roll call or something? If I have kids, I am never sending one on a Dream Teen Cruise. The body count on those things must be astounding.
Ellen is now limping around in the wind and rain, but doesn't think about trying to get back to the hotel until it's too late. She ends up holding on to a tree for dear life as the storm rages around her. This would be a dramatic, poignant moment if only I could forget that Ellen was the idiot who wandered out into a damn hurricane in the first place.
MaJiKaL run into Jack, Sam, Peter, and Jared and explain that Ellen is out in the storm. They all go out to look for her, splitting up into four pairs. I'll let you guess who's paired up with whom. However, the hotel has now stationed security guards around the exits to keep the kids from leaving. Or maybe it's to keep Ellen from getting back in.
Ellen is still clinging to her tree when someone grabs her and drags her away. She panics--until she realizes that it's Curtis! Apparently he'd been out surfing. In a hurricane. Yup, these two are made for each other.
MaJiKaL and the guys (which sounds like the name of a band, by the way) enlist some of Ellen's VIP friends to create a diversion so they can sneak out of the hotel. They get outside easily, meaning a lot of parents had better start calling their lawyers.
Ellen and Curtis are in a cave when everything dies down outside. (Wait for it...) They go to the cave entrance and look outside to see that the wind and rain are gone. (Wait for it...) Ellen exclaimes that the hurricane is over. (Wait for it...now!) Curtis tells her that they're just in the eye of the hurricane and the worst is yet to come. By the way, am I the only one now humming, "The Big, Wet Rainstorm's Over" right now? (Extra super bonus points for anyone who gets that reference!)
Jack and Mandy find Ellen's shawl, and Jack sees, "To Ellen. With Love From Mandy," embroidered on it. Mandy starts crying and Jack sees that Mandy really is artistic and sensitive enough to become his Emo Ninja bride. Peter and Sam have similar revelations about Jessica and Kimberly. Oh, wait, I mean Kimberly and Jessica. But wouldn't it be funny if they started switching love interests at the last minute?
Back at the cave, Ellen and Curtis bond over divorced parents and junk food, and Curtis takes off his wet suit. Don't worry, though, the book is not going in that direction. He's wearing swim trunks underneath. He rigs the wet suit into a hammock so they can get away from the rising water in the cave. Curtis is now kind of like MacGuyver if MacGuyver talked like a surfer dude and ate Cheez Doodles.
MaJiKaL and the guys get back to the hotel after failing to find Ellen. I'm a little sad that not one person has reported Curtis missing. Has he not made a single friend on this trip? Lila finally walks up to the hotel manager and insists that he send out a Rescue Patrol for Ellen. The manager scoffs again at the thought that a preteen girl that he is legally responsible for might be facing certain death, and Lila grabs his cell phone. She tells him she's going to call her father, Mr. Fowler. At the name Fowler, the manager immediately falls into line--apparently Lila's father owns the hotel.
Lila, Ellen has been stumbling around in a hurricane for how long? And you're just now playing the "My Daddy Owns Your Ass" card? And I love that only the fear of getting fired will convince this guy to alert the authorities about a missing child. I bet if the hotel was burning down, you'd have to threaten him with a pink slip just to get him to call the fire department.
In the Soggy Cave of Love, Curtis climbs the cave wall, sets up the hammock, and pulls Ellen up to safety just before the cave floods. Ha! Let's see Emo Ninja Jack or Super Peter do that!
At the Negligent Hotel of Love, meanwhile, MaJiKaL pair off with their guys and it's all very romantic as long as you forget the part about Ellen being in mortal danger while they're cuddling. Suddenly, the hotel shakes and the lights go out. Jessica is terrified and thinks, "Oh, Elizabeth...Wish me good luck! I need it more than I've ever needed it in my life." Pshh, for a measly little hurricane? Save some of that luck for the stalkers and vampires and would-be-date-rapists-who-are-scared-of-birds.
The danger finally passes and everyone's fine, except for Kimberly who got hit on the head. It doesn't say what hit her, but I bet one of the other girls decided to take a quick cheap shot at her while the lights were out. I know I would.
Ellen and Curtis are safe, too, and they celebrate by making out. Aww. It's cute, preteen, dim-witted love.
Mandy, Jessica, and Lila (Kimberly stays behind because of her head injury, which totally ruins the MaJiKaL thing I had going) rush outside just in time to see Ellen and Curtis arrive. Cheering. Group hug. Vomit.
Later, Ellen tells the girls that she's done with the other guys and just wants to spend time with Curtis. They try to contain their disappointment. No one ever apologizes for being a total bitch to Ellen and ultimately driving her out into a hurricane.
While Curtis teaches Ellen how to surf, they end up missing the boat because Ellen's watch isn't waterproof. Um? Cruise line people? Don't you think you ought to have instituted some kind of check in procedure, especially as you very recently nearly lost two passengers you didn't even know were missing to a hurricane?!
MaJiKaL are on the deck with Captain Jackson when he spots Ellen and Curtis through binoculars. Frustrated, Captain Jackson resigns as captain of the ship. Considering he is about the least efficient and responsible captain in the history of captaining, I say good riddance. Then he throws his hat into the air and says, "Party on!" No, really, he does. I think the ghostwriter didn't know how to end the story, so he/she just threw in a party like at the end of Caddyshack.
We don't, as far as I know, ever hear about Jack, Peter, Jared, and Sam ever again. I assume that Sam died shortly after leaving the cruise ship, considering A) his name is Sam and B) he dated Jessica Wakefield. Poor kid didn't stand a chance.
At the end of the book, Lila gets a call from her father letting her know that they'll need to "make some lifestyle changes." Lila thinks it sounds like he's going on a new diet. I think it sounds like he's coming out of the closet. Either way, it's a lead-in to the next book, "Rachel's In, Lila's Out," which has yet to be recapped.