Sweet Valley High #73: Regina's Legacy
Sweet Valley High #73: Regina’s Legacy
Backstory: Regina is dead. I don’t know if you knew that already, but now you can’t say nobody told you.
This is not something that ever annoyed me before this week, but WTF is with Liz matching her barrettes to her shirts? She must have a whole crate of barrettes in her room.
By the way, you can't tell from the title but this book? Is about drug smugglers.
The A Plot
At the beginning of the book, Jess is walking Liz to her first meeting of the school’s new Contrivance Club. I mean Photography Club. We have to have a club to get the plot going, you know. Otherwise, there’d be no reason for Liz to take a picture that unmasks a major drug ring and puts everyone she knows in danger.
Oops, I’ve said too much.
Jess, of course, thinks the Photography Club is stupid and boring, but Liz is excited because it’ll add “a whole new dimension to [her] journalism!” What a dork. The club decides to make a mural of life at SVH, so they all plan to take pictures of the school from their own points of view, each kid with a different theme. Liz plans to photograph the teachers, of course. If I hadn’t already told you in this paragraph that she’s a dork, I’d say it again right here.
The kids think the mural will help unite the school after some racial violence they had earlier. (Say what? Who’s recapping that book? I’ll be your new best friend.) The mural is Liz’s idea, of course, and they all promise to keep it a secret from the rest of the kids at school, so it’ll have maximum impact when it’s unveiled.
Later that day, while Liz and Enid do their homework by the pool, Dead Regina’s mom, Skye Morrow, stops by. What a name! The Morrows have been going through Regina’s stuff. Skye found a fancy, expensive camera they’d given Regina for her birthday, and thinks Regina would’ve wanted Elizabeth to have it. Why? I don’t know. Liz is grateful for this most convenient present, which she will use to take photos for the Contrivance Club. She sniffles a little over Regina, and how she’s dead, and then shows off her camera to Enid.
Liz takes Prince Albert the dog to the beach and spends the morning taking photos of people she sees. When she looks through the camera, she feels like she’s seeing the world through Regina’s eyes. Ugh, whatever. Anyway, Liz is just about to go home when she sees three guys running along the water, but they’re not dressed for running: they’re in dress pants and nice shirts. She thinks they make a weird group, so she snaps their picture. One of the guys sees her and is all, “What do you think you’re doing?” Liz is all, “Duh, I’m taking a photo of you.” The guy lunges at her, raging “Mind your own business!” and trying to snatch the camera away. Prince Albert jumps at him, snapping his teeth, and Liz hops in the Fiat, grabs her dog, and races away, pretty shaken up. That night, when she tells Todd, he’s hilariously unsympathetic. He basically tells her, “Well, little miss nosy, you shouldn’t take pictures of people without their permission. It’s rude. No wonder someone got mad at you.”
Oh, and also, Todd’s new BMW isn’t working right. Cars never do when there are criminals on the loose.
Liz develops the photo, and it’s as weird as she remembers. There’s a nervous looking guy in the middle, and he’s being watched carefully by the other two: the bald guy who tried to take her camera and a hot young guy. Instead of leaving the picture and negative in her darkroom cubby, she takes them home with her.
Meanwhile, Jess and Lila drive to the beach. A guy starts tailgating them. Lila checks him out, pronounces him cute, and makes Jess pull over. It’s the hot guy from the beach trio: his name is Chad and he thinks Jess is Liz and apologizes for his friend attacking her. Jess goes with it. He asks to see the picture, and Jess tells him it’s still at school, drying. She’ll show it to him in a few days if he calls her. She gives him her number and he flirts a little more and takes off. Lila glumly points out that the guy wasn’t into Jess, he was into Liz. Jess is like, “Who cares? I’ll just get the photo from Liz; she won’t mind.” I bet she will.
During this car ride, Jess tells Lila about cheer practice and I just realized for the first time that Lila isn’t on the cheer team. Does anyone know why not? If she’s the most awesome girl at Sweet Valley High, shouldn’t she be a cheerleader? Especially if Jess, Amy, and Cara, her three best friends, are all on the team? Weird.
Jess gets home and tries to tell Liz about meeting Chad - she’s kind of sweet about it, really; she wants to thank Liz for indirectly causing her to meet the boy of her dreams - but Liz rushes out for dinner at Todd’s. Jess is annoyed, and decides that she’ll just keep Chad to herself, then, and not tell Liz a thing.
After dinner, Todd and Liz drink iced tea and watch the news. Because they’re sixty. The top story is that the US Senate is having a hearing about some gigantic drug ring, and the key witness, a man named Ron Hunter, is suddenly recanting his whole story. They’d been counting on him to testify against some major dealers, but now he’s saying he has no criminal connections at all. The existence of the drug ring is now in doubt, and the whole investigation is going to fall apart. They show Hunter’s photo, and Liz is astonished to see that it’s the guy from her photo: not the attacker or the hottie, but the third guy. Todd says it’s impossible that she photographed Hunter on the beach two days ago, since he’s been in DC testifying all week, but Liz insists. She shows Todd the photo and sees that the blond hottie is wearing a shirt with words on it. They decide to enlarge the picture in the school darkroom the next day to see what it says. Todd thinks Liz is being weird, but he says he’ll help, mostly just because he wants to spend time with her and doesn’t really care what they’re doing. Enlarging photos is as fun as anything else.
Well, not really, Todd. There are more fun things you could do with your girlfriend, but you won’t find that out until SVU, with Enid.
In a really cute scene, Jess tries to remind Liz that she blew Jess off the night before and fish for an apology, and Liz is clueless about it. Just as Liz realizes what Jess is getting at and starts to ask about the hot guy Jess met, they get to school and find that the night before someone broke in and vandalized the darkroom. They tore up all the pictures and scattered the negatives everywhere. The kids are devastated about their mural, and Liz just knows it was because of her picture. She feels like it’s her fault everyone’s work was destroyed, but is also glad the people didn’t find the photo, because she’s kept it in her purse the whole time. She’s upset that she won’t be able to enlarge her picture, though, to read the guy’s shirt.
Chad calls for Jess, and Liz answers. He’s rude to her, and won’t give her his number or a last name, but just says he’ll call back. Jess is on her way out to meet Lila and Amy: they’re going to play with a beauty treatment Jess mixed up that’ll give their hair highlights: it includes mayo, lemon juice, avocado, and beer. “Don’t worry,” Jess tells Liz, “Dad gave me permission to use the beer any way I wanted as long as I didn’t drink it!” Hee. And with a trustworthy daughter like Jessica, Ned can be sure she’ll obey.
Jess comes through for Liz on the darkroom thing: Amy’s dad is a photographer with a darkroom downtown, and Jess and Amy set it up with him so Liz and Todd can use it, though Liz doesn’t tell Jess why they want to so badly. Jess thinks it’s just a dorky photographer thing. Mr. Sutton is a nice man who gives Liz and Todd the run of the place. Liz enlarges her print, and the guy’s T-shirt says Rick’s Place. A quick check of the phone book tells them it’s a restaurant in Big Mesa. (Uh oh. No good ever came out of Big Mesa.) Todd and Liz head over there for dinner.
Meanwhile, we’re reminded that the ignition on Todd’s car still doesn’t work right. I wonder if that will be important later? He should probably get it fixed before he and Liz have to chase down some drug smugglers, but I bet he won’t.
Chad calls Jess and asks her out for that night. Before he hangs up, he tells her that he really, really wants to see the picture from the beach. Jess pulls Liz’s room apart looking for it, going through her shelves, cabinets, drawers, and even looking under her bed, but can’t find it anywhere. Finally, she gives up and leaves on her date.
Liz and Todd stop at the Wakefield house on their way to Rick’s Place, and Liz is shocked to see her room has been ransacked. Todd says it was probably just Jess looking for something to wear, but she asks him why Jess would go through her bookshelves. Todd has to concede the point. Liz is seriously freaked out now.
Todd is like, “I think you’re imagining things about this picture, but if you really think someone broke into your house, we should call the police.” Why is Todd smart in this book? I’m baffled. Liz refuses, since nothing was stolen. She insists on going to Rick’s Place instead, and Todd is like, “Whatever.”
Jess is confused when Chad doesn’t seem interested in her at all, and it’s not more than ten minutes into their date that she decides there won’t be another one. He smirks that he’s an entrepreneur, but won’t elaborate. She realizes, seeing him up close, that he’s even older than she thought he was, and thinks it’s weird that he asked her out. She’s way too young for him. He makes her go bowling at a really ghetto alley - she is not amused - and then he tells her they’re off to one of his favorite restaurants. She just wants the evening to be over.
Rick’s Place is an upscale hamburger restaurant. Liz and Todd show their photo to the hostess, who says the blond guy comes in a few times a week. (Liz lies that one of the guys in the photo dropped his watch at the beach, and she’s trying to find them to return it.) None of the men from the photo are there at the moment, so Todd gamely uses his new wealth to order one of everything on the menu, explaining to Liz that the more food they have, the longer they can sit there, and maybe the blond guy will show up.
Well, he does show up. With Jessica. Gasp!
Liz puts it all together right away: the hot guy from the photo saw Jess and thought she was Liz, and is now trying to get his hands on the picture. Jess looks really uncomfortable, and Liz wants to go over and interrupt their date, but Todd, who finally seems to be taking the situation seriously, points out that if they scare the guy off they’ll never find out about the photo. The two of them have to content themselves with staring anxiously at Jess and Chad from across the room.
Meanwhile, Chad finally brings up the picture, he wants it, and he wants it now. Jess says she forgot it at school, but Chad grabs her and says, “No you didn’t, I already looked there.” Jess realizes he’s the one who ransacked the darkroom, and is full-out scared now. She tells him it’s in her locker, and Chad is like, “Let’s go get it,” and hauls Jess out of the restaurant.
Todd and Liz run after them, but get caught up in a huge crowd of kids. A boy their age steps in front of Liz and is like, “Hey, what’s the hurry! Stay and celebrate my birthday with me!” Does Todd have any other choice but to punch him? Of course not.
So Todd punches him.
In the parking lot, Todd’s BMW won’t start, of course. His trusty old Datsun never would've punked out like that. Jess manages to glimpse Todd and Liz out the window of Chad’s car, and she frantically points at the sleeve of her varsity jacket as Chad peels away. Liz realizes this means Chad’s taking Jess to Sweet Valley High.
Todd finally gets moving, and speeds after Chad. What could happen next? Why, they get pulled over, of course. The Sweet Valley police only ever seem to do their jobs if it’ll enable a crime. Liz sobs to the cop that her sister has been kidnapped by someone involved with drugs, and he’s taking her to the high school.
Jess is frantic when she sees in the rearview mirror that Todd’s been pulled over. It’ll be forever before they get to the school. Chad kicks in the glass door of SVH, and Jess, trying to stall him as long as possible, leads him a long way around before she gets to Liz’s locker. Then, she’s shaking so badly she can’t enter the combination. She has no idea what she’s going to do if the picture isn’t really there, and is sobbing with fear. Chad finally pushes her aside and kicks the locker door in, but just then, the police flood the hall!
Chad turns and runs right into Todd.
So Todd punches him.
Jess cries: she knew Liz would save her! The kids are all taken to the police station to give their statements, and Chad spills everything: he’s a ringleader of the largest drug smuggling operation in the country. His colleague, Ron Hunter, decided he didn’t want to make a living “ruining people’s lives anymore,” so he went to Washington to testify. They couldn’t have that, so they kidnapped Ron and Ron’s identical twin brother, Rich, took his place. That’s how he could be in Congress at the same time as on the beach. And Chad would’ve gotten away with it, if it weren’t for those darn kids!
The day Liz took the photo, Ron had tried to escape, so Chad and the other guy were chasing him down. Liz points out that Chad’s friend trying to steal the camera was what made her suspicious: she wouldn’t have thought twice about the whole thing otherwise. Liz thinks fond thoughts about Regina’s camera, and the important work they accomplished together. Gag.
At school the next day, the twins are heroes. Jess says that she was just an “ordinary citizen, doing my small part to keep this beautiful nation free from crime and vice,” but Lila sulkily points out that Liz was the one chasing down criminals; Jess was just trying to score a hot guy. Hee.
The B Plot
Jim Roberts is the president of the Photography Club. His girlfriend is Shelley Novak, super-competitive star of the girls’ basketball team. She used to be kind of a brat about having her picture taken while she was playing, apparently, yelling at the photographers from The Oracle and the local paper. But then she started going out with Jim, and getting that validation from a boy has toned her down and made her more comfortable and accepting of having her photo taken. Just as feminism intended. She’s pretty annoyed that he carries his camera everywhere and won’t ever stop taking pictures, though. Also, she doesn’t like that he won’t show her the photos he’s taken for the Club. It’s because the mural they’re creating is secret, but she doesn’t know that. She just thinks he’s hiding something. Shelley is intense.
Shelley comes by the Photo Club after practice, and Jim hustles her out of the room before she can see the pictures for the mural. She’s suspicious and annoyed at being run off. The project is giving everyone else relationship trouble too: for example, Andrea Slade with the rock star dad is dating Nick Morrow right now. He found her photos of Max Dellon of the Droids (her portion of the mural is about musicians) and now Nick thinks Andrea has a crush on Max, and she can’t set him straight because she can’t tell anyone about the club’s project. Nick doesn’t even go to SVH! He has bigger things to think about. Like his dead sister, for instance. Why can’t she just tell him about the stupid mural?
Anyway. It’s apparently better for Andrea to let fragile, depressed, needy Nicholas believe she’s cheating on him with a rock guitarist so that the mural can stay a secret.
Jim plans to meet Shelley at the Dairi Burger at 4:30, but that’s the day of the vandalized darkroom, so he’s so busy helping to clean it up that he forgets their date. He gets there at 5:30, just as she’s leaving, and begs her to stay. She’s like, “No way, I already stayed for an hour,” and leaves with her friend Greg to play some basketball. Jim is pissed off and jealous.
After the whole crime thing has died down, Liz tries to ask Shelley a question about Jim, but Shelley is still pissed off and hurt about his standing her up and refusing to talk to her about the photos he’s been taking. Saint Elizabeth resolves to stick her nose into their business. I kind of hate her when she gets like this.
The Photo Club puts up their mural. Some of the kids have weird topics: a boy named Andy took photos of interracial friendships. Jim took pictures of the other club members. Tina Ayala, Oracle editor Penny’s little sister, did Sweet Valley Sweethearts, and Liz and Todd are the centerpiece, of course. Gag. Liz has her pictures of the teachers, and her focal point is a 9x12 of Mr. Collins. HA! Jim confides in her about how keeping the mural a secret caused problems with Shelley - why do people always confide in Elizabeth? She is not that cool - and Liz advises him to put a photo of Shelley in his portion of the mural, like a secret message that he still loves her.
So he does: a picture of her scoring a basket. They make out. The rest of the school loves the mural too. Mr. and Mrs. Morrow show up and volunteer to pay for a new darkroom, since the old one was wrecked. Liz tells them she feels like she busted the drug ring with Regina at her side, because Regina died of drugs and Liz was using her camera. Now Liz feels like justice has been done for Regina. I roll my eyes so hard they almost fall out.
As a lead-in to the next book, Amy brings donuts for all the Queen Bees, but Robin Wilson doesn’t want to eat one because she used to be fat. Find out what happens with that (it’s fascinating and horrible) in #74: The Perfect Girl.
Backstory: Regina is dead. I don’t know if you knew that already, but now you can’t say nobody told you.
This is not something that ever annoyed me before this week, but WTF is with Liz matching her barrettes to her shirts? She must have a whole crate of barrettes in her room.
By the way, you can't tell from the title but this book? Is about drug smugglers.
The A Plot
At the beginning of the book, Jess is walking Liz to her first meeting of the school’s new Contrivance Club. I mean Photography Club. We have to have a club to get the plot going, you know. Otherwise, there’d be no reason for Liz to take a picture that unmasks a major drug ring and puts everyone she knows in danger.
Oops, I’ve said too much.
Jess, of course, thinks the Photography Club is stupid and boring, but Liz is excited because it’ll add “a whole new dimension to [her] journalism!” What a dork. The club decides to make a mural of life at SVH, so they all plan to take pictures of the school from their own points of view, each kid with a different theme. Liz plans to photograph the teachers, of course. If I hadn’t already told you in this paragraph that she’s a dork, I’d say it again right here.
The kids think the mural will help unite the school after some racial violence they had earlier. (Say what? Who’s recapping that book? I’ll be your new best friend.) The mural is Liz’s idea, of course, and they all promise to keep it a secret from the rest of the kids at school, so it’ll have maximum impact when it’s unveiled.
Later that day, while Liz and Enid do their homework by the pool, Dead Regina’s mom, Skye Morrow, stops by. What a name! The Morrows have been going through Regina’s stuff. Skye found a fancy, expensive camera they’d given Regina for her birthday, and thinks Regina would’ve wanted Elizabeth to have it. Why? I don’t know. Liz is grateful for this most convenient present, which she will use to take photos for the Contrivance Club. She sniffles a little over Regina, and how she’s dead, and then shows off her camera to Enid.
Liz takes Prince Albert the dog to the beach and spends the morning taking photos of people she sees. When she looks through the camera, she feels like she’s seeing the world through Regina’s eyes. Ugh, whatever. Anyway, Liz is just about to go home when she sees three guys running along the water, but they’re not dressed for running: they’re in dress pants and nice shirts. She thinks they make a weird group, so she snaps their picture. One of the guys sees her and is all, “What do you think you’re doing?” Liz is all, “Duh, I’m taking a photo of you.” The guy lunges at her, raging “Mind your own business!” and trying to snatch the camera away. Prince Albert jumps at him, snapping his teeth, and Liz hops in the Fiat, grabs her dog, and races away, pretty shaken up. That night, when she tells Todd, he’s hilariously unsympathetic. He basically tells her, “Well, little miss nosy, you shouldn’t take pictures of people without their permission. It’s rude. No wonder someone got mad at you.”
Oh, and also, Todd’s new BMW isn’t working right. Cars never do when there are criminals on the loose.
Liz develops the photo, and it’s as weird as she remembers. There’s a nervous looking guy in the middle, and he’s being watched carefully by the other two: the bald guy who tried to take her camera and a hot young guy. Instead of leaving the picture and negative in her darkroom cubby, she takes them home with her.
Meanwhile, Jess and Lila drive to the beach. A guy starts tailgating them. Lila checks him out, pronounces him cute, and makes Jess pull over. It’s the hot guy from the beach trio: his name is Chad and he thinks Jess is Liz and apologizes for his friend attacking her. Jess goes with it. He asks to see the picture, and Jess tells him it’s still at school, drying. She’ll show it to him in a few days if he calls her. She gives him her number and he flirts a little more and takes off. Lila glumly points out that the guy wasn’t into Jess, he was into Liz. Jess is like, “Who cares? I’ll just get the photo from Liz; she won’t mind.” I bet she will.
During this car ride, Jess tells Lila about cheer practice and I just realized for the first time that Lila isn’t on the cheer team. Does anyone know why not? If she’s the most awesome girl at Sweet Valley High, shouldn’t she be a cheerleader? Especially if Jess, Amy, and Cara, her three best friends, are all on the team? Weird.
Jess gets home and tries to tell Liz about meeting Chad - she’s kind of sweet about it, really; she wants to thank Liz for indirectly causing her to meet the boy of her dreams - but Liz rushes out for dinner at Todd’s. Jess is annoyed, and decides that she’ll just keep Chad to herself, then, and not tell Liz a thing.
After dinner, Todd and Liz drink iced tea and watch the news. Because they’re sixty. The top story is that the US Senate is having a hearing about some gigantic drug ring, and the key witness, a man named Ron Hunter, is suddenly recanting his whole story. They’d been counting on him to testify against some major dealers, but now he’s saying he has no criminal connections at all. The existence of the drug ring is now in doubt, and the whole investigation is going to fall apart. They show Hunter’s photo, and Liz is astonished to see that it’s the guy from her photo: not the attacker or the hottie, but the third guy. Todd says it’s impossible that she photographed Hunter on the beach two days ago, since he’s been in DC testifying all week, but Liz insists. She shows Todd the photo and sees that the blond hottie is wearing a shirt with words on it. They decide to enlarge the picture in the school darkroom the next day to see what it says. Todd thinks Liz is being weird, but he says he’ll help, mostly just because he wants to spend time with her and doesn’t really care what they’re doing. Enlarging photos is as fun as anything else.
Well, not really, Todd. There are more fun things you could do with your girlfriend, but you won’t find that out until SVU, with Enid.
In a really cute scene, Jess tries to remind Liz that she blew Jess off the night before and fish for an apology, and Liz is clueless about it. Just as Liz realizes what Jess is getting at and starts to ask about the hot guy Jess met, they get to school and find that the night before someone broke in and vandalized the darkroom. They tore up all the pictures and scattered the negatives everywhere. The kids are devastated about their mural, and Liz just knows it was because of her picture. She feels like it’s her fault everyone’s work was destroyed, but is also glad the people didn’t find the photo, because she’s kept it in her purse the whole time. She’s upset that she won’t be able to enlarge her picture, though, to read the guy’s shirt.
Chad calls for Jess, and Liz answers. He’s rude to her, and won’t give her his number or a last name, but just says he’ll call back. Jess is on her way out to meet Lila and Amy: they’re going to play with a beauty treatment Jess mixed up that’ll give their hair highlights: it includes mayo, lemon juice, avocado, and beer. “Don’t worry,” Jess tells Liz, “Dad gave me permission to use the beer any way I wanted as long as I didn’t drink it!” Hee. And with a trustworthy daughter like Jessica, Ned can be sure she’ll obey.
Jess comes through for Liz on the darkroom thing: Amy’s dad is a photographer with a darkroom downtown, and Jess and Amy set it up with him so Liz and Todd can use it, though Liz doesn’t tell Jess why they want to so badly. Jess thinks it’s just a dorky photographer thing. Mr. Sutton is a nice man who gives Liz and Todd the run of the place. Liz enlarges her print, and the guy’s T-shirt says Rick’s Place. A quick check of the phone book tells them it’s a restaurant in Big Mesa. (Uh oh. No good ever came out of Big Mesa.) Todd and Liz head over there for dinner.
Meanwhile, we’re reminded that the ignition on Todd’s car still doesn’t work right. I wonder if that will be important later? He should probably get it fixed before he and Liz have to chase down some drug smugglers, but I bet he won’t.
Chad calls Jess and asks her out for that night. Before he hangs up, he tells her that he really, really wants to see the picture from the beach. Jess pulls Liz’s room apart looking for it, going through her shelves, cabinets, drawers, and even looking under her bed, but can’t find it anywhere. Finally, she gives up and leaves on her date.
Liz and Todd stop at the Wakefield house on their way to Rick’s Place, and Liz is shocked to see her room has been ransacked. Todd says it was probably just Jess looking for something to wear, but she asks him why Jess would go through her bookshelves. Todd has to concede the point. Liz is seriously freaked out now.
Todd is like, “I think you’re imagining things about this picture, but if you really think someone broke into your house, we should call the police.” Why is Todd smart in this book? I’m baffled. Liz refuses, since nothing was stolen. She insists on going to Rick’s Place instead, and Todd is like, “Whatever.”
Jess is confused when Chad doesn’t seem interested in her at all, and it’s not more than ten minutes into their date that she decides there won’t be another one. He smirks that he’s an entrepreneur, but won’t elaborate. She realizes, seeing him up close, that he’s even older than she thought he was, and thinks it’s weird that he asked her out. She’s way too young for him. He makes her go bowling at a really ghetto alley - she is not amused - and then he tells her they’re off to one of his favorite restaurants. She just wants the evening to be over.
Rick’s Place is an upscale hamburger restaurant. Liz and Todd show their photo to the hostess, who says the blond guy comes in a few times a week. (Liz lies that one of the guys in the photo dropped his watch at the beach, and she’s trying to find them to return it.) None of the men from the photo are there at the moment, so Todd gamely uses his new wealth to order one of everything on the menu, explaining to Liz that the more food they have, the longer they can sit there, and maybe the blond guy will show up.
Well, he does show up. With Jessica. Gasp!
Liz puts it all together right away: the hot guy from the photo saw Jess and thought she was Liz, and is now trying to get his hands on the picture. Jess looks really uncomfortable, and Liz wants to go over and interrupt their date, but Todd, who finally seems to be taking the situation seriously, points out that if they scare the guy off they’ll never find out about the photo. The two of them have to content themselves with staring anxiously at Jess and Chad from across the room.
Meanwhile, Chad finally brings up the picture, he wants it, and he wants it now. Jess says she forgot it at school, but Chad grabs her and says, “No you didn’t, I already looked there.” Jess realizes he’s the one who ransacked the darkroom, and is full-out scared now. She tells him it’s in her locker, and Chad is like, “Let’s go get it,” and hauls Jess out of the restaurant.
Todd and Liz run after them, but get caught up in a huge crowd of kids. A boy their age steps in front of Liz and is like, “Hey, what’s the hurry! Stay and celebrate my birthday with me!” Does Todd have any other choice but to punch him? Of course not.
So Todd punches him.
In the parking lot, Todd’s BMW won’t start, of course. His trusty old Datsun never would've punked out like that. Jess manages to glimpse Todd and Liz out the window of Chad’s car, and she frantically points at the sleeve of her varsity jacket as Chad peels away. Liz realizes this means Chad’s taking Jess to Sweet Valley High.
Todd finally gets moving, and speeds after Chad. What could happen next? Why, they get pulled over, of course. The Sweet Valley police only ever seem to do their jobs if it’ll enable a crime. Liz sobs to the cop that her sister has been kidnapped by someone involved with drugs, and he’s taking her to the high school.
Jess is frantic when she sees in the rearview mirror that Todd’s been pulled over. It’ll be forever before they get to the school. Chad kicks in the glass door of SVH, and Jess, trying to stall him as long as possible, leads him a long way around before she gets to Liz’s locker. Then, she’s shaking so badly she can’t enter the combination. She has no idea what she’s going to do if the picture isn’t really there, and is sobbing with fear. Chad finally pushes her aside and kicks the locker door in, but just then, the police flood the hall!
Chad turns and runs right into Todd.
So Todd punches him.
Jess cries: she knew Liz would save her! The kids are all taken to the police station to give their statements, and Chad spills everything: he’s a ringleader of the largest drug smuggling operation in the country. His colleague, Ron Hunter, decided he didn’t want to make a living “ruining people’s lives anymore,” so he went to Washington to testify. They couldn’t have that, so they kidnapped Ron and Ron’s identical twin brother, Rich, took his place. That’s how he could be in Congress at the same time as on the beach. And Chad would’ve gotten away with it, if it weren’t for those darn kids!
The day Liz took the photo, Ron had tried to escape, so Chad and the other guy were chasing him down. Liz points out that Chad’s friend trying to steal the camera was what made her suspicious: she wouldn’t have thought twice about the whole thing otherwise. Liz thinks fond thoughts about Regina’s camera, and the important work they accomplished together. Gag.
At school the next day, the twins are heroes. Jess says that she was just an “ordinary citizen, doing my small part to keep this beautiful nation free from crime and vice,” but Lila sulkily points out that Liz was the one chasing down criminals; Jess was just trying to score a hot guy. Hee.
The B Plot
Jim Roberts is the president of the Photography Club. His girlfriend is Shelley Novak, super-competitive star of the girls’ basketball team. She used to be kind of a brat about having her picture taken while she was playing, apparently, yelling at the photographers from The Oracle and the local paper. But then she started going out with Jim, and getting that validation from a boy has toned her down and made her more comfortable and accepting of having her photo taken. Just as feminism intended. She’s pretty annoyed that he carries his camera everywhere and won’t ever stop taking pictures, though. Also, she doesn’t like that he won’t show her the photos he’s taken for the Club. It’s because the mural they’re creating is secret, but she doesn’t know that. She just thinks he’s hiding something. Shelley is intense.
Shelley comes by the Photo Club after practice, and Jim hustles her out of the room before she can see the pictures for the mural. She’s suspicious and annoyed at being run off. The project is giving everyone else relationship trouble too: for example, Andrea Slade with the rock star dad is dating Nick Morrow right now. He found her photos of Max Dellon of the Droids (her portion of the mural is about musicians) and now Nick thinks Andrea has a crush on Max, and she can’t set him straight because she can’t tell anyone about the club’s project. Nick doesn’t even go to SVH! He has bigger things to think about. Like his dead sister, for instance. Why can’t she just tell him about the stupid mural?
Anyway. It’s apparently better for Andrea to let fragile, depressed, needy Nicholas believe she’s cheating on him with a rock guitarist so that the mural can stay a secret.
Jim plans to meet Shelley at the Dairi Burger at 4:30, but that’s the day of the vandalized darkroom, so he’s so busy helping to clean it up that he forgets their date. He gets there at 5:30, just as she’s leaving, and begs her to stay. She’s like, “No way, I already stayed for an hour,” and leaves with her friend Greg to play some basketball. Jim is pissed off and jealous.
After the whole crime thing has died down, Liz tries to ask Shelley a question about Jim, but Shelley is still pissed off and hurt about his standing her up and refusing to talk to her about the photos he’s been taking. Saint Elizabeth resolves to stick her nose into their business. I kind of hate her when she gets like this.
The Photo Club puts up their mural. Some of the kids have weird topics: a boy named Andy took photos of interracial friendships. Jim took pictures of the other club members. Tina Ayala, Oracle editor Penny’s little sister, did Sweet Valley Sweethearts, and Liz and Todd are the centerpiece, of course. Gag. Liz has her pictures of the teachers, and her focal point is a 9x12 of Mr. Collins. HA! Jim confides in her about how keeping the mural a secret caused problems with Shelley - why do people always confide in Elizabeth? She is not that cool - and Liz advises him to put a photo of Shelley in his portion of the mural, like a secret message that he still loves her.
So he does: a picture of her scoring a basket. They make out. The rest of the school loves the mural too. Mr. and Mrs. Morrow show up and volunteer to pay for a new darkroom, since the old one was wrecked. Liz tells them she feels like she busted the drug ring with Regina at her side, because Regina died of drugs and Liz was using her camera. Now Liz feels like justice has been done for Regina. I roll my eyes so hard they almost fall out.
As a lead-in to the next book, Amy brings donuts for all the Queen Bees, but Robin Wilson doesn’t want to eat one because she used to be fat. Find out what happens with that (it’s fascinating and horrible) in #74: The Perfect Girl.