The Unicorn Club #6: Unicorns at War
Before I begin, I just want to say that I wrote most of this recap over two years ago, around the time of the last US presidential election, but for various reasons never posted it. These jokes are vintage 2008, ladies! (Who knew that Sarah Palin jokes wouldn't stand the test of time?)
Explanation: From left to right, we have Lila, Jessica, Mary (on the poster), Maria, and Liz. This book is all about student elections - and while Liz and Maria are Team Mary, Jess and Lila are Team Kimberly, which explains why the girls are glaring at each other.
Observations: This book is ostensibly not about the Wakefields. Nevertheless, it is Jessica to whom the eye is drawn immediately. Much like renderings of Jesus in Medieval paintings, she is the tallest character present and, by inference, the most important. Moral: You can write books about other Sweet Valley characters, but those Wakefield twins will always crawl their way back to centre stage.
Jessica, in a surprise twist, is left-handed.
Wellness update: I injured my wrist trying to contort my hand to the position that Maria's got hers in. What the hell, Maria?
Kimberly Haver is back in town! Remember Kimberly from SVT? She featured in such memorable books as...ah...Well, the point is, she moved to Atlanta during the summer but now she's coming home. No word on whether Melly Wilkes is in tow. Mandy Miller, Unicorn President, announces the good news at a meeting at Casa Wakefield. Jessica, Lila, and Ellen - the Old Unicorns - are thrilled. Liz and Maria - the New Unicorns - are quietly optimistic. Evie Kim - Just Moved Here - is just kind of confused. Meanwhile, Mary Wallace, our narrator for this book, is concerned.
The Unicorns decide to nominate Mary for student council president. Obama/Wallace 2012! Possible platforms: socialised healthcare and the option for every girl to eat lunch with Bruce Patman up to five days per year. Then the meeting is over. Mary walks home with Maria and tells her about her concerns: apparently Kimberly was always competitive with her, going out of her way to flirt with more boys, buy more dresses, and get better grades than Mary. Mary also suspects that Kimberly won't like the fact that the Unicorns have all become kind of nerdy in her absence. Forget Kimberly - I want to know what Janet "Mad Dog" Howell thinks.
School assembly. Some kid has been run over while crossing the street in order to eat lunch off campus. At my school, he would have been the most popular kid around and everyone would have been asking to borrow his crutches during lunch. At SVMS, however, all the students hate him because the principal has now revoked their privileges for going off campus during school hours. These kids are merciless. He almost died! How selfish!
The Old Unicorns reminisce about times past and how they used to bully everyone in the school. "I loved the time we set our classmates up for years of therapy!" They all have a good laugh about that, and also about how Kimberly will be shocked at how much the club has changed. I wish Kimberly would show up already. This book is all mouth and no trousers so far. She finally makes her entrance halfway through chapter four. Mary decides that she hates her.
At lunch, Kimberly bitches at the other Unicorns for helping out at the daycare centre. Social responsibility is so passé. Then she starts gossiping about boys. Mary decides that she loves her. Insert a joke here about the side-switching politician of your choice.
On the day of the student council nominations, Liz nominates Mary - and Lila and Jessica nominate Kimberly. Bitches! Mary is rightly upset and threatens to drop out. She and Kimberly eventually decide to both run, and have it be a "fair fight". It obviously won't be, as anyone who is at all familiar with fictional tropes (or teenage girls) will have guessed.
Mary chats with Mandy Miller. Mandy doesn't want to side with either Mary or Kimberly, as both of them were really nice to her while she was recovering from cancer, apparently. Yes, that was a tough week for Mandy. She also feels that as Unicorn president, she can't "officially support" one girl over the other. I really love how the Unicorns always talk as though they're a legitimate organisation rather than a gang of girls brought together by their mutual love of the colour purple. Kimberly walks in and makes some mean jokes about Lois Waller, who's also running for president. When I read that Lois was running, I thought, "Fat chance," and then I laughed at my own joke. Mary is annoyed but Kimberly laughs at her for being "preachy".
Slumber party at Casa Wakefield! Aw yis. I always wanted to go to one of these. I would be the fat Unicorn and horrify Lila and Ellen. But it's actually a campaign strategy meeting for Mary's team. They come up with some boring issues to run on: for example, Liz wants to be able to take out more than four library books at a time. With Mary Wallace, YES WE CAN! Then they all make mean jokes about Lois Waller. I'm not really sure what the point of Mary telling Kimberly off was if she was going to turn around and do the same thing. Perhaps the ghost-writer is suggesting that in the gritty world of politics, each candidate is no better than his rival. A valuable lesson for us all.
Kimberly and her supporters sneak off campus during lunch to pay a visit to Guido's, the local pizza place. They're caught and get detention (for Saturday morning! I crave Unicorn Club/Breakfast Club crossover fanfiction) - but are hailed as heroes and freedom fighters! Suddenly Kimberly is the most popular girl in the school as she's brave and stands up for student rights - and she's a shoo-in for president. Mary seethes.
Lila and Ellen don't show up at the daycare centre on the day they're supposed to because they're too busy hanging out with Kimberly Guavera. Everything is in a mess, with food and toys everywhere and only a frustrated Mandy around to deal with the screaming kids. Who leaves a lone thirteen-year-old in charge of a bunch of toddlers? Even in the Babysitters Club, the Pike family hired two babysitters at a time, and they only had seven kids (plus Mal) to worry about.
Mary tries to get Rick Hunter to vote for her. He was her boyfriend in the previous book before he decided to dump her without telling her - and yet there is no mention of any of this in either their conversation or Mary's narrative. I think that this is an all-new continuity low. He does, at least, retain his personality trait of being a dick.
Speaking of dicks, do you know who is conspicuous by his absence in the Unicorn Club series? Bruce Patman. Perhaps he's going through an awkward phase. Adolescence can be very cruel.
Kimberly and her friends sneak out of school again, this time taking some more students with them, and get caught again. Kimberly accuses Mary of ratting them out. Mary truthfully denies it. They agree that they'll both fight dirty from this point onwards. I don't understand why the principal hasn't disqualified Kimberly from the race yet. Maybe he realises that if he did, there wouldn't be a book.
Mary has an idea to win votes and to drum up business for all the shops and restaurants which have been on the verge of closing down ever since the SVMS students were banned from using them at lunch time, which was like a week ago, so whatever. Maybe their business plans shouldn't have been so dependent on the limited disposable incomes of a bunch of thirteen-year-olds, you know? Anyway, the plan is to get a crossing guard to help the students cross the street. Simple but brilliant.
Lila and Ellen put up a poster caricaturing Lois as a hippopotamus, with the slogan, "Hippos belong in the zoo, not running the student council." Inspired. Everyone thinks it's hilarious, of course, except for Mary. Mary is mocked for being boring. Lois cries and decides to drop out of the race. She brought it on herself for overshooting her mark after her brief wave of popularity.
Mary writes a letter addressed to all the merchants, asking them to help pay for a crossing guard, and Liz's dad checks over it due to his capacity in whatever branch of law he's practicing in this book. The merchants are more than happy at the prospect of paying. Even the guy who runs the comic book stall! Sweet Valley didn't fall back on the "embittered loser" comic book guy stereotype?
Mary and Mandy hang out. In spite of having seen the Lois poster, Mandy still thinks that Kimberly is an okay person. What is wrong with her? Oh, apparently it's because Lois put posters up before Kimberly, which depicted Mary as a rat and Kimberly as the Pied Piper. This ghost-writer is really determined to put absolutely no likeable characters at all in the book. Mandy confesses that she's thinking of resigning as Unicorn president. No, Mandy! Anything but that!
Liz exclaims, "Oh, double dog darn!" without any hint of irony.
Evie eavesdrops on Kimberly's friends gossiping and learns that it was Ellen who informed the principal that they were sneaking out. Et tu, Ellen? But apparently it was to drum up publicity for Kimberly and get her known as someone who was willing to stand up to authority. Mary is shocked when she finds out. I am not. Maria wants to get Liz's dad involved. Liz says that he wouldn't do it, but I think she's wrong. We have seen across the series that Ned Wakefield is prepared to tackle any branch of law he stumbles upon. He's not too good for middle school politics.
Aaron Dallas agrees to vote for Mary. Did he ever kiss Jessica in the Twins series? I feel he should be supporting her candidate.
Election day! Kimberly decides to crank things up a notch: the team that loses has to drop out of the Unicorn Club. Mary agrees to this without consulting any of her friends. I love how the Unicorn Club series is really just a chain of demonstrations of how the Unicorns can't function without Janet Howell. She's the most effective mob-boss ever. She's Paulie from Goodfellas. (Jessica is Joe Pesci's character.)
Anyway. Jessica steals Mary's speech and gives it to Kimberly. So Kimberly's speech is great and she's campaigning for a crossing guard, while Mary is stuck with Liz's library books idea. To her credit, she finishes the speech in spite of heckling from the entire school, but then she runs away to hide in the library. I have to ask: didn't Mary mention her crossing guard idea to anyone else in the build-up to election day? Did none of the other kids ask her what her platforms were? I know that half the student body hates and spurns her for most of this book, but what about Liz's nerd friends like Cammi Adams and Sophia Rizzo?
Anyway, Kimberly wins by a landslide. Mary decides not to tell Mr. Clark that she stole her speech.
Mandy reveals that she knows that Kimberly stole the speech. And she STILL wants to be friends with her?
The following day, Mr. Clark announces that he too knows that Kimberly stole the speech. Man, at this point, who doesn't know? Keep up, Clark. He says: "Unfortunately, our national elections do not set a standard of honesty or integrity for our young people to emulate." A biting piece of political backlash from our ghost-writer! What occurred in American politics while this book was being written to provoke that, I wonder? Bill Clinton was president at the time, so maybe the ghost-writer was an indignant Republican. Anyway, he decides that the way to resolve this is to have another election.
Mary wins. But! Instead of making Kimberly stop being a Unicorn, she and her friends quit. They create a counter-Unicorn group called the Angels. Mary should model her presidential technique on Teddy Roosevelt, who hunted big game. Like Unicorns. Watch out, Kimberly!
The subsequent books in the series are a gritty exploration of rival gang violence in California schools.
B-plot
Psych! There are no B-plots in the Unicorn Club series. Maybe Bruce Patman is playing Halo while all this is going on. I don't know why they didn't just let him be a Unicorn. They let Liz in, after all. Sexism!
Explanation: From left to right, we have Lila, Jessica, Mary (on the poster), Maria, and Liz. This book is all about student elections - and while Liz and Maria are Team Mary, Jess and Lila are Team Kimberly, which explains why the girls are glaring at each other.
Observations: This book is ostensibly not about the Wakefields. Nevertheless, it is Jessica to whom the eye is drawn immediately. Much like renderings of Jesus in Medieval paintings, she is the tallest character present and, by inference, the most important. Moral: You can write books about other Sweet Valley characters, but those Wakefield twins will always crawl their way back to centre stage.
Jessica, in a surprise twist, is left-handed.
Wellness update: I injured my wrist trying to contort my hand to the position that Maria's got hers in. What the hell, Maria?
Kimberly Haver is back in town! Remember Kimberly from SVT? She featured in such memorable books as...ah...Well, the point is, she moved to Atlanta during the summer but now she's coming home. No word on whether Melly Wilkes is in tow. Mandy Miller, Unicorn President, announces the good news at a meeting at Casa Wakefield. Jessica, Lila, and Ellen - the Old Unicorns - are thrilled. Liz and Maria - the New Unicorns - are quietly optimistic. Evie Kim - Just Moved Here - is just kind of confused. Meanwhile, Mary Wallace, our narrator for this book, is concerned.
The Unicorns decide to nominate Mary for student council president. Obama/Wallace 2012! Possible platforms: socialised healthcare and the option for every girl to eat lunch with Bruce Patman up to five days per year. Then the meeting is over. Mary walks home with Maria and tells her about her concerns: apparently Kimberly was always competitive with her, going out of her way to flirt with more boys, buy more dresses, and get better grades than Mary. Mary also suspects that Kimberly won't like the fact that the Unicorns have all become kind of nerdy in her absence. Forget Kimberly - I want to know what Janet "Mad Dog" Howell thinks.
School assembly. Some kid has been run over while crossing the street in order to eat lunch off campus. At my school, he would have been the most popular kid around and everyone would have been asking to borrow his crutches during lunch. At SVMS, however, all the students hate him because the principal has now revoked their privileges for going off campus during school hours. These kids are merciless. He almost died! How selfish!
The Old Unicorns reminisce about times past and how they used to bully everyone in the school. "I loved the time we set our classmates up for years of therapy!" They all have a good laugh about that, and also about how Kimberly will be shocked at how much the club has changed. I wish Kimberly would show up already. This book is all mouth and no trousers so far. She finally makes her entrance halfway through chapter four. Mary decides that she hates her.
At lunch, Kimberly bitches at the other Unicorns for helping out at the daycare centre. Social responsibility is so passé. Then she starts gossiping about boys. Mary decides that she loves her. Insert a joke here about the side-switching politician of your choice.
On the day of the student council nominations, Liz nominates Mary - and Lila and Jessica nominate Kimberly. Bitches! Mary is rightly upset and threatens to drop out. She and Kimberly eventually decide to both run, and have it be a "fair fight". It obviously won't be, as anyone who is at all familiar with fictional tropes (or teenage girls) will have guessed.
Mary chats with Mandy Miller. Mandy doesn't want to side with either Mary or Kimberly, as both of them were really nice to her while she was recovering from cancer, apparently. Yes, that was a tough week for Mandy. She also feels that as Unicorn president, she can't "officially support" one girl over the other. I really love how the Unicorns always talk as though they're a legitimate organisation rather than a gang of girls brought together by their mutual love of the colour purple. Kimberly walks in and makes some mean jokes about Lois Waller, who's also running for president. When I read that Lois was running, I thought, "Fat chance," and then I laughed at my own joke. Mary is annoyed but Kimberly laughs at her for being "preachy".
Slumber party at Casa Wakefield! Aw yis. I always wanted to go to one of these. I would be the fat Unicorn and horrify Lila and Ellen. But it's actually a campaign strategy meeting for Mary's team. They come up with some boring issues to run on: for example, Liz wants to be able to take out more than four library books at a time. With Mary Wallace, YES WE CAN! Then they all make mean jokes about Lois Waller. I'm not really sure what the point of Mary telling Kimberly off was if she was going to turn around and do the same thing. Perhaps the ghost-writer is suggesting that in the gritty world of politics, each candidate is no better than his rival. A valuable lesson for us all.
Kimberly and her supporters sneak off campus during lunch to pay a visit to Guido's, the local pizza place. They're caught and get detention (for Saturday morning! I crave Unicorn Club/Breakfast Club crossover fanfiction) - but are hailed as heroes and freedom fighters! Suddenly Kimberly is the most popular girl in the school as she's brave and stands up for student rights - and she's a shoo-in for president. Mary seethes.
Lila and Ellen don't show up at the daycare centre on the day they're supposed to because they're too busy hanging out with Kimberly Guavera. Everything is in a mess, with food and toys everywhere and only a frustrated Mandy around to deal with the screaming kids. Who leaves a lone thirteen-year-old in charge of a bunch of toddlers? Even in the Babysitters Club, the Pike family hired two babysitters at a time, and they only had seven kids (plus Mal) to worry about.
Mary tries to get Rick Hunter to vote for her. He was her boyfriend in the previous book before he decided to dump her without telling her - and yet there is no mention of any of this in either their conversation or Mary's narrative. I think that this is an all-new continuity low. He does, at least, retain his personality trait of being a dick.
Speaking of dicks, do you know who is conspicuous by his absence in the Unicorn Club series? Bruce Patman. Perhaps he's going through an awkward phase. Adolescence can be very cruel.
Kimberly and her friends sneak out of school again, this time taking some more students with them, and get caught again. Kimberly accuses Mary of ratting them out. Mary truthfully denies it. They agree that they'll both fight dirty from this point onwards. I don't understand why the principal hasn't disqualified Kimberly from the race yet. Maybe he realises that if he did, there wouldn't be a book.
Mary has an idea to win votes and to drum up business for all the shops and restaurants which have been on the verge of closing down ever since the SVMS students were banned from using them at lunch time, which was like a week ago, so whatever. Maybe their business plans shouldn't have been so dependent on the limited disposable incomes of a bunch of thirteen-year-olds, you know? Anyway, the plan is to get a crossing guard to help the students cross the street. Simple but brilliant.
Lila and Ellen put up a poster caricaturing Lois as a hippopotamus, with the slogan, "Hippos belong in the zoo, not running the student council." Inspired. Everyone thinks it's hilarious, of course, except for Mary. Mary is mocked for being boring. Lois cries and decides to drop out of the race. She brought it on herself for overshooting her mark after her brief wave of popularity.
Mary writes a letter addressed to all the merchants, asking them to help pay for a crossing guard, and Liz's dad checks over it due to his capacity in whatever branch of law he's practicing in this book. The merchants are more than happy at the prospect of paying. Even the guy who runs the comic book stall! Sweet Valley didn't fall back on the "embittered loser" comic book guy stereotype?
Mary and Mandy hang out. In spite of having seen the Lois poster, Mandy still thinks that Kimberly is an okay person. What is wrong with her? Oh, apparently it's because Lois put posters up before Kimberly, which depicted Mary as a rat and Kimberly as the Pied Piper. This ghost-writer is really determined to put absolutely no likeable characters at all in the book. Mandy confesses that she's thinking of resigning as Unicorn president. No, Mandy! Anything but that!
Liz exclaims, "Oh, double dog darn!" without any hint of irony.
Evie eavesdrops on Kimberly's friends gossiping and learns that it was Ellen who informed the principal that they were sneaking out. Et tu, Ellen? But apparently it was to drum up publicity for Kimberly and get her known as someone who was willing to stand up to authority. Mary is shocked when she finds out. I am not. Maria wants to get Liz's dad involved. Liz says that he wouldn't do it, but I think she's wrong. We have seen across the series that Ned Wakefield is prepared to tackle any branch of law he stumbles upon. He's not too good for middle school politics.
Aaron Dallas agrees to vote for Mary. Did he ever kiss Jessica in the Twins series? I feel he should be supporting her candidate.
Election day! Kimberly decides to crank things up a notch: the team that loses has to drop out of the Unicorn Club. Mary agrees to this without consulting any of her friends. I love how the Unicorn Club series is really just a chain of demonstrations of how the Unicorns can't function without Janet Howell. She's the most effective mob-boss ever. She's Paulie from Goodfellas. (Jessica is Joe Pesci's character.)
Anyway. Jessica steals Mary's speech and gives it to Kimberly. So Kimberly's speech is great and she's campaigning for a crossing guard, while Mary is stuck with Liz's library books idea. To her credit, she finishes the speech in spite of heckling from the entire school, but then she runs away to hide in the library. I have to ask: didn't Mary mention her crossing guard idea to anyone else in the build-up to election day? Did none of the other kids ask her what her platforms were? I know that half the student body hates and spurns her for most of this book, but what about Liz's nerd friends like Cammi Adams and Sophia Rizzo?
Anyway, Kimberly wins by a landslide. Mary decides not to tell Mr. Clark that she stole her speech.
Mandy reveals that she knows that Kimberly stole the speech. And she STILL wants to be friends with her?
The following day, Mr. Clark announces that he too knows that Kimberly stole the speech. Man, at this point, who doesn't know? Keep up, Clark. He says: "Unfortunately, our national elections do not set a standard of honesty or integrity for our young people to emulate." A biting piece of political backlash from our ghost-writer! What occurred in American politics while this book was being written to provoke that, I wonder? Bill Clinton was president at the time, so maybe the ghost-writer was an indignant Republican. Anyway, he decides that the way to resolve this is to have another election.
Mary wins. But! Instead of making Kimberly stop being a Unicorn, she and her friends quit. They create a counter-Unicorn group called the Angels. Mary should model her presidential technique on Teddy Roosevelt, who hunted big game. Like Unicorns. Watch out, Kimberly!
The subsequent books in the series are a gritty exploration of rival gang violence in California schools.
B-plot
Psych! There are no B-plots in the Unicorn Club series. Maybe Bruce Patman is playing Halo while all this is going on. I don't know why they didn't just let him be a Unicorn. They let Liz in, after all. Sexism!