Unicorn Club #10: Mandy in the Middle
or, Lila Learns a Valuable Lesson About Money. And presumably unlearns it again very, very quickly. This book is in first person, alternating between Lila POV and Mandy POV. The Unicorn Club books are oddly inconsistent with first and third person narration, and with one POV or two.
Sadly, this Unicorns vs Angels tug of war over Mandy doesn't actually occur in the book. Also, it always bothered me that the Unicorn jackets have suddenly become navy blue on this cover. I mean, really. That's like giving Jessica barrettes, or dressing Lila in a burlap sack.
Lila POV. Lila, Jessica, Kimberley and Ellen are in Lila's room, trying to come up with Earth Day costumes. Ellen wants them to dress as Unicorns, honouring both the club and an endangered species. Ha, I love that this series repeatedly flogs the "Ellen is a ditz" horse. They discuss how much they miss Mandy, lament the fact that she seems to be choosing the Angels as her Official Friends, and speculate about what she's doing when she mysteriously flees SVMS property the second the bell rings. Putting in time at the daycare centre? Volunteering at the library with the Angels? Yes, that's probably it. Ellen, Jessica and Kimberley proceed to treat Lila like a clothes library. They come, they thoughtlessly ransack her clothes, they go. Leaving a trail of scattered clothes, spilled nail polish, crumpled soda cans, dirty snack plates and makeup smudges. I bet Jessica is responsible for at least 90% of this mess. Lila is peeved. She gets Mrs Pervis to clean it up, so whatever, but the principle is what matters! Her friends raided her stuff without even helping her come up with a costume or offering to clean up after themselves. Which really is quite crap of them - they even state quite clearly that they didn't come over to hang out with Lila, but to nab outfits for Earth Day. Way to make her feel loved! Lila misses Mandy some more - she would never be this thoughtless! So she makes a solemn vow and promise to get Mandy back into the Unicorn Club. Whatever it takes!
Also, this section mentions that the Fowler pool is "black-bottomed". I remain unconvinced. I always imagined it to look kind of like this:
Meanwhile, Mandy is sitting in the hospital and playing I Spy with a 7-year-old cancer patient named Randall Boyer. This is where she goes when she mysteriously flees SVMS property the second the bell rings! Mandy tells us about that time she overcame cancer in a single book and how she had promised to give something back to someone else with cancer. So she started volunteering at the hospital, met Randall, and now visits him every day. Randall is the dictionary definition of Disadvantaged But Very Loveable. He has bone cancer, his dad died a few years ago, his mum is poor, and she can't be with him during the week because they live in Northern California and her boss will fire her if she takes any more time off to go and be with her fatherless, cancer-suffering son.
The next day, Kimberley and Lila wander around the Earth Day displays. They're sad that Mandy's with the Angels, who are selling sugar-free granola cakes to raise money for the rainforests. Lila steels herself to begin Operation Win Mandy Back, and is all "OMG i love sugar-free granola cakes! I'll take them all! Keep the change! In fact, have extra money!" Purchase #1: all the granola cakes. Evie, Elizabeth, Mary and Maria go to look at displays while Lila helps Mandy clean up... and invites her to Casey's after school. Mandy's all "um but I have to go to *mumble*" but she agrees to come along. Somewhere in that conversation she casually mentions that her earrings are really painful. So of course, Lila goes to the fancy jewelry shop in the mall and buys this pair of gold earrings than Mandy's been coveting. Logical, really. This will surely win her back to the club! Purchase #2: gold daisy-shaped earrings.
At Casey's, the Unicorns fawn over Mandy for awhile, spend an entire page talking about how fat Lois Waller is, and complain about how gross and useless environmental causes are. Smooth, guys! Mandy can only afford a small soda, so Lila insists on buying her some ice-cream (Purchase #3: triple fudge brownie explosion with extra whipped cream) and then presents her with the earrings, along with a speech. "This is our way of saying that we'd like you to come back to the Unicorn Club once and for all." Mandy is all "WHAT!?" and runs away, leaving the Unicorns to worry that Mandy is getting more and more attached the Angels.
Mandy dashes off to the hospital, crippled with guilt over making Randall wait an hour just so she could hang out with the Unicorns. She frets about having no real friends... the Unicorns are mean and shallow, and the Angels are boring. What to do! Randall asks her if she was scared when she overcame cancer in a single book, which kickstarts nice memories of the Unicorns, like when they bought her a wig after her chemo. She decides that the Unicorns have become meaner since the previous year. Seriously?? The Unicorns did some really cruel stuff in the SVT series. Even since the Unicorns/Angels schism, they're nowhere near as mean as they were when they were led by Janet Howell. Meanwhile, the Unicorns try to figure out what they did wrong and decide that Mandy must have run off to be with the Angels. But Elizabeth stops by and informs them that the bake sale that day was the first time in weeks Mandy's spent time with the Angels, and that they'd been assuming she was choosing the Unicorns. So if she's not with the Unicorns and she's not with the Angels... where is she going after school?? If I was them, I would guess that Mandy was hanging out with people who don't give their group of friends a lameo name. Also, I can't quite figure out why Mandy is so desperate to keep Randall a secret. I mean, I get why she's not telling Elizabeth - she'd be all over that Disadvantaged But Loveable boy and edge Mandy right out - but there's nothing inherently underhanded about visiting a kid with cancer.
Lila decides to trail Mandy after school (dark sunglasses, hiding behind telephone poles, the whole bit) and find out where she's going. It's not the most noble of plans because, in her words, "once I found out her destination, I could feign an interest in her new hobby and - presto! - instant bonding." Lila has a cow after seeing her go into the children's hospital and is all "OMG her cancer is back!!!" She scrambles inside and a nurse sets her straight - Mandy's not sick, she's visiting Randall, whose mother can't be with him because she's broke and needs to work. Lila's all, "Like most of life's problems, this one can be solved with money! Emergency Unicorn meeting!" Except it doesn't quite go in the direction you'd expect. Lila proposes providing Mrs. Boyer with enough money to take a leave of absence from her job and stay in a nearby hotel (expected). But she wants to raise the money with her Fowler money-making genes (unexpected!). As Jessica states, "that's a terrible idea!" Nevertheless, they decide to bake cookies and sell them door-to-door in Lila's neighbourhood. Wow, that is a terrible idea. Lila may fancy herself an inheritor of George's money-making genes, but he didn't build his empire on baking cookies. BUT IMAGINE IF HE HAD. Fowler Crest would probably be made out of shortbread or something. Anyway, the Unicorns decide it's totally worth all this work to win back Mandy! Or uh, to help out whathisname.
After burning two separate batches beyond recognition, they just send the chauffeur out to buy cookies to sell. Purchase #4: many boxes of cookies. But Lila's wealthy neighbours are stingy as hell and no-one will part with more than $4. So, after this whole lot of unnecessary rigmarole, Lila calls George and gets him to buy 1000 boxes of cookies. "Only let's not actually buy the cookies, 'cause then he'd just have to pay for those too." Purchase #5: a $3000 donation to the Win Back Mandy Fund Help Randall Fund. Also, Jessica keeps getting his name wrong and Lila is constantly correcting her. She calls him Wendall.
Then she calls him Kendall.
They take Lila's limo to the hospital to find Mandy and give her the money. As they drive, Lila worries that it's not a big enough statement of how extraordinary the Unicorns are. She gazes at the quaint neighbourhood by the hospital with the frolicking children and the ice-cream vans and the "open house" sign... and shrieks at Charles to stop the limo. Lila flits in, chats to the real estate agent (who already knows her by name), buys the house, and flits out. Purchase #6: 1642 Kearsarge Court. Lila is utterly nonchalant about the whole thing, which just makes it even more awesome. She's thirteen and she just bought a HOUSE. The real estate agent is a little taken aback at first but her attitude quickly changes to "well, it is Lila." Damn straight.
Meanwhile, Randall and Mandy are drawing a picture of a superfast jet with a pool and a gameroom, pretending that they can get it built so his mum can be there for his surgery on Tuesday. They can't fit his surgery into the weekend, so his mum won't be there. While Randall has a nap, Mandy tries to study in the hallway but is interrupted by the unexpected arrival of Lila, Jessica, Ellen and Kimberley. They talk to her about Randall and just when she's beginning to think that they are nice people after all, Lila's all "I fixed everything! I bought his mum a house! Also, here's a couple of thousand dollars." Mandy is shocked (in a bad way), and points out that an adult just can't accept a house and a pile of cash from a bunch of 13-year-olds. Lila's all "what's with you not accepting gifts lately?? We're just trying to make you happy!" and it all clicks. They don't care at all what happens to Randall, they're just trying to buy her back into the club! Mandy yells at Lila, says that she can't be bought, and calls her "shallow and spoilt and totally clueless." Mandy watches them slink away and decides that she's severed her ties with the Unicorn Club for good. At home, she cries about having no friends left except Randall.
Over the weekend, Lila takes Mandy's words to heart and has an epiphany. "Money buys property, not people. Possessions, not love. Houses with picket fences, not friendships with Mandy Miller." She heads to the hospital after school on Monday to apologise to Mandy, but she's not there. Lila meets sweet little Randall, who nicknames her Lily Flower and would rather challenge her to checkers than accept her offer of a stuffed animal, comic book, pinball machine and hired clown. Lila and Randall bond, and this sweet little disadvantaged boy starts to melt Lila's heart. While this is all happening, Mandy is at her great aunt and uncle's 50th anniversary dinner. Mandy is jittery and nervous, trying to make the dinner go as fast as possible so she can still visit Randall (it's the night before his surgery). The dinner ends well after visiting hours are over and Mandy is very distressed. We immediately flick back to Lila's POV, where she's talked the hospital staff into letting her stay past visiting hours until Randall's mother arrives. Mrs Boyer is driving down after work, spending an hour with Randall, and driving home again to be on time for work the next day.
Mrs Boyer arrives and Randall laments that his super-powered plane doesn't really exist. Lila thinks "a plane? I have a plane..." but keeps quiet for a good two minutes. After all, she's just learnt not to throw her money around! But she decides Randall's recovery is too important not to risk offending someone and offers Mrs Boyer use of the Fowlers' personal plane. Plan: spend time with Randall tonight, stay at the Fowlers' overnight, visit Randall in the morning, fly to work! And fly back in time to see Randall when he wakes. It sounds just crazy enough to work, and Mrs Boyer accepts. Wouldn't you? After school on Tuesday, Mandy dashes to the hospital so she can be by Randall's side when he wakes up... only to find Mrs Boyer there! She gushes to Mandy about what a wonderful person Lila is ("she was a saviour", "I would have expected your friends to be as giving and caring as you are", "she just bubbles over with warmth"), and Mandy remembers all the good things the Unicorns (and Lila) have done. Like when they helped paint the Millers' furniture to bring it up to Sweet Valley standard. And when Lila reunited Ellie McMillan and her mother by getting her a job at Fowler Enterprises.
So Mandy skips off to Casey's to tell the Unicorns the big news - she's a fully-fledged Unicorn now! Which I assume means she can never speak to Elizabeth, Maria, Evie or Mary ever again. I never read the next book, Angels Keep Out, but it has an ominous build-up and I always wondered what happens in it.
Oh, and Randall died.
(lol, not really)
Sadly, this Unicorns vs Angels tug of war over Mandy doesn't actually occur in the book. Also, it always bothered me that the Unicorn jackets have suddenly become navy blue on this cover. I mean, really. That's like giving Jessica barrettes, or dressing Lila in a burlap sack.
Lila POV. Lila, Jessica, Kimberley and Ellen are in Lila's room, trying to come up with Earth Day costumes. Ellen wants them to dress as Unicorns, honouring both the club and an endangered species. Ha, I love that this series repeatedly flogs the "Ellen is a ditz" horse. They discuss how much they miss Mandy, lament the fact that she seems to be choosing the Angels as her Official Friends, and speculate about what she's doing when she mysteriously flees SVMS property the second the bell rings. Putting in time at the daycare centre? Volunteering at the library with the Angels? Yes, that's probably it. Ellen, Jessica and Kimberley proceed to treat Lila like a clothes library. They come, they thoughtlessly ransack her clothes, they go. Leaving a trail of scattered clothes, spilled nail polish, crumpled soda cans, dirty snack plates and makeup smudges. I bet Jessica is responsible for at least 90% of this mess. Lila is peeved. She gets Mrs Pervis to clean it up, so whatever, but the principle is what matters! Her friends raided her stuff without even helping her come up with a costume or offering to clean up after themselves. Which really is quite crap of them - they even state quite clearly that they didn't come over to hang out with Lila, but to nab outfits for Earth Day. Way to make her feel loved! Lila misses Mandy some more - she would never be this thoughtless! So she makes a solemn vow and promise to get Mandy back into the Unicorn Club. Whatever it takes!
Also, this section mentions that the Fowler pool is "black-bottomed". I remain unconvinced. I always imagined it to look kind of like this:
Meanwhile, Mandy is sitting in the hospital and playing I Spy with a 7-year-old cancer patient named Randall Boyer. This is where she goes when she mysteriously flees SVMS property the second the bell rings! Mandy tells us about that time she overcame cancer in a single book and how she had promised to give something back to someone else with cancer. So she started volunteering at the hospital, met Randall, and now visits him every day. Randall is the dictionary definition of Disadvantaged But Very Loveable. He has bone cancer, his dad died a few years ago, his mum is poor, and she can't be with him during the week because they live in Northern California and her boss will fire her if she takes any more time off to go and be with her fatherless, cancer-suffering son.
The next day, Kimberley and Lila wander around the Earth Day displays. They're sad that Mandy's with the Angels, who are selling sugar-free granola cakes to raise money for the rainforests. Lila steels herself to begin Operation Win Mandy Back, and is all "OMG i love sugar-free granola cakes! I'll take them all! Keep the change! In fact, have extra money!" Purchase #1: all the granola cakes. Evie, Elizabeth, Mary and Maria go to look at displays while Lila helps Mandy clean up... and invites her to Casey's after school. Mandy's all "um but I have to go to *mumble*" but she agrees to come along. Somewhere in that conversation she casually mentions that her earrings are really painful. So of course, Lila goes to the fancy jewelry shop in the mall and buys this pair of gold earrings than Mandy's been coveting. Logical, really. This will surely win her back to the club! Purchase #2: gold daisy-shaped earrings.
At Casey's, the Unicorns fawn over Mandy for awhile, spend an entire page talking about how fat Lois Waller is, and complain about how gross and useless environmental causes are. Smooth, guys! Mandy can only afford a small soda, so Lila insists on buying her some ice-cream (Purchase #3: triple fudge brownie explosion with extra whipped cream) and then presents her with the earrings, along with a speech. "This is our way of saying that we'd like you to come back to the Unicorn Club once and for all." Mandy is all "WHAT!?" and runs away, leaving the Unicorns to worry that Mandy is getting more and more attached the Angels.
Mandy dashes off to the hospital, crippled with guilt over making Randall wait an hour just so she could hang out with the Unicorns. She frets about having no real friends... the Unicorns are mean and shallow, and the Angels are boring. What to do! Randall asks her if she was scared when she overcame cancer in a single book, which kickstarts nice memories of the Unicorns, like when they bought her a wig after her chemo. She decides that the Unicorns have become meaner since the previous year. Seriously?? The Unicorns did some really cruel stuff in the SVT series. Even since the Unicorns/Angels schism, they're nowhere near as mean as they were when they were led by Janet Howell. Meanwhile, the Unicorns try to figure out what they did wrong and decide that Mandy must have run off to be with the Angels. But Elizabeth stops by and informs them that the bake sale that day was the first time in weeks Mandy's spent time with the Angels, and that they'd been assuming she was choosing the Unicorns. So if she's not with the Unicorns and she's not with the Angels... where is she going after school?? If I was them, I would guess that Mandy was hanging out with people who don't give their group of friends a lameo name. Also, I can't quite figure out why Mandy is so desperate to keep Randall a secret. I mean, I get why she's not telling Elizabeth - she'd be all over that Disadvantaged But Loveable boy and edge Mandy right out - but there's nothing inherently underhanded about visiting a kid with cancer.
Lila decides to trail Mandy after school (dark sunglasses, hiding behind telephone poles, the whole bit) and find out where she's going. It's not the most noble of plans because, in her words, "once I found out her destination, I could feign an interest in her new hobby and - presto! - instant bonding." Lila has a cow after seeing her go into the children's hospital and is all "OMG her cancer is back!!!" She scrambles inside and a nurse sets her straight - Mandy's not sick, she's visiting Randall, whose mother can't be with him because she's broke and needs to work. Lila's all, "Like most of life's problems, this one can be solved with money! Emergency Unicorn meeting!" Except it doesn't quite go in the direction you'd expect. Lila proposes providing Mrs. Boyer with enough money to take a leave of absence from her job and stay in a nearby hotel (expected). But she wants to raise the money with her Fowler money-making genes (unexpected!). As Jessica states, "that's a terrible idea!" Nevertheless, they decide to bake cookies and sell them door-to-door in Lila's neighbourhood. Wow, that is a terrible idea. Lila may fancy herself an inheritor of George's money-making genes, but he didn't build his empire on baking cookies. BUT IMAGINE IF HE HAD. Fowler Crest would probably be made out of shortbread or something. Anyway, the Unicorns decide it's totally worth all this work to win back Mandy! Or uh, to help out whathisname.
After burning two separate batches beyond recognition, they just send the chauffeur out to buy cookies to sell. Purchase #4: many boxes of cookies. But Lila's wealthy neighbours are stingy as hell and no-one will part with more than $4. So, after this whole lot of unnecessary rigmarole, Lila calls George and gets him to buy 1000 boxes of cookies. "Only let's not actually buy the cookies, 'cause then he'd just have to pay for those too." Purchase #5: a $3000 donation to the Win Back Mandy Fund Help Randall Fund. Also, Jessica keeps getting his name wrong and Lila is constantly correcting her. She calls him Wendall.
Then she calls him Kendall.
They take Lila's limo to the hospital to find Mandy and give her the money. As they drive, Lila worries that it's not a big enough statement of how extraordinary the Unicorns are. She gazes at the quaint neighbourhood by the hospital with the frolicking children and the ice-cream vans and the "open house" sign... and shrieks at Charles to stop the limo. Lila flits in, chats to the real estate agent (who already knows her by name), buys the house, and flits out. Purchase #6: 1642 Kearsarge Court. Lila is utterly nonchalant about the whole thing, which just makes it even more awesome. She's thirteen and she just bought a HOUSE. The real estate agent is a little taken aback at first but her attitude quickly changes to "well, it is Lila." Damn straight.
Meanwhile, Randall and Mandy are drawing a picture of a superfast jet with a pool and a gameroom, pretending that they can get it built so his mum can be there for his surgery on Tuesday. They can't fit his surgery into the weekend, so his mum won't be there. While Randall has a nap, Mandy tries to study in the hallway but is interrupted by the unexpected arrival of Lila, Jessica, Ellen and Kimberley. They talk to her about Randall and just when she's beginning to think that they are nice people after all, Lila's all "I fixed everything! I bought his mum a house! Also, here's a couple of thousand dollars." Mandy is shocked (in a bad way), and points out that an adult just can't accept a house and a pile of cash from a bunch of 13-year-olds. Lila's all "what's with you not accepting gifts lately?? We're just trying to make you happy!" and it all clicks. They don't care at all what happens to Randall, they're just trying to buy her back into the club! Mandy yells at Lila, says that she can't be bought, and calls her "shallow and spoilt and totally clueless." Mandy watches them slink away and decides that she's severed her ties with the Unicorn Club for good. At home, she cries about having no friends left except Randall.
Over the weekend, Lila takes Mandy's words to heart and has an epiphany. "Money buys property, not people. Possessions, not love. Houses with picket fences, not friendships with Mandy Miller." She heads to the hospital after school on Monday to apologise to Mandy, but she's not there. Lila meets sweet little Randall, who nicknames her Lily Flower and would rather challenge her to checkers than accept her offer of a stuffed animal, comic book, pinball machine and hired clown. Lila and Randall bond, and this sweet little disadvantaged boy starts to melt Lila's heart. While this is all happening, Mandy is at her great aunt and uncle's 50th anniversary dinner. Mandy is jittery and nervous, trying to make the dinner go as fast as possible so she can still visit Randall (it's the night before his surgery). The dinner ends well after visiting hours are over and Mandy is very distressed. We immediately flick back to Lila's POV, where she's talked the hospital staff into letting her stay past visiting hours until Randall's mother arrives. Mrs Boyer is driving down after work, spending an hour with Randall, and driving home again to be on time for work the next day.
Mrs Boyer arrives and Randall laments that his super-powered plane doesn't really exist. Lila thinks "a plane? I have a plane..." but keeps quiet for a good two minutes. After all, she's just learnt not to throw her money around! But she decides Randall's recovery is too important not to risk offending someone and offers Mrs Boyer use of the Fowlers' personal plane. Plan: spend time with Randall tonight, stay at the Fowlers' overnight, visit Randall in the morning, fly to work! And fly back in time to see Randall when he wakes. It sounds just crazy enough to work, and Mrs Boyer accepts. Wouldn't you? After school on Tuesday, Mandy dashes to the hospital so she can be by Randall's side when he wakes up... only to find Mrs Boyer there! She gushes to Mandy about what a wonderful person Lila is ("she was a saviour", "I would have expected your friends to be as giving and caring as you are", "she just bubbles over with warmth"), and Mandy remembers all the good things the Unicorns (and Lila) have done. Like when they helped paint the Millers' furniture to bring it up to Sweet Valley standard. And when Lila reunited Ellie McMillan and her mother by getting her a job at Fowler Enterprises.
So Mandy skips off to Casey's to tell the Unicorns the big news - she's a fully-fledged Unicorn now! Which I assume means she can never speak to Elizabeth, Maria, Evie or Mary ever again. I never read the next book, Angels Keep Out, but it has an ominous build-up and I always wondered what happens in it.
Oh, and Randall died.
(lol, not really)