Sweet Valley Twins: The Magic Christmas
Two recaps in one day! Pretty exciting.
Sweet Valley Twins: The Magic Christmas
Sweet Valley Twins do Narnia, sort of, but not as good as that. And there are living dolls. This writeup was a special request from
katranna. I remember liking it a lot when I read it in seventh grade, but I’m sorry to say that it didn’t really stand the test of time. This is probably pretty light on snark; I don’t read fantasy novels, so I don’t have any basis for comparison here.
The book opens with Elizabeth hanging out with her best friend, Amy Sutton. It’s pretty funny to think what Amy becomes in high school: the girl who broke Bruce Patman and Heroically Deaf Regina up, leading to Regina’s tragic death by coke, and also the girl who used SVH’s Slam Book Fever to try to break up Liz and her boyfriend, as we will see in my next recap for this community. In middle school, though, Amy was best friends with Liz and they really were two peas in a dorky pod. In a sense, Amy is proto-Enid. Anyway, Liz is wrapping Jess’s Christmas gift: a framed photo of the twins at their seventh birthday and a short story she wrote about the birthday party. Amy gushes about how touched Jessica will be when she sees the story, and Liz agrees, but, personally, I wouldn’t count on it.
Meanwhile, Jess is hanging out in her room with Lila Fowler, wrapping Liz’s gift. She got them bus passes to LA for New Years Day and tickets to the Save the Whales concert, the very coolest concert in the history of the world. I would NEVER let my eleven year old daughters take a bus to LA for a rock concert without any kind of parent or chaperone, but Ned and Alice have apparently given Jess permission. It’s just the latest in a long line of questionable parenting decisions on their part. Lila is jealous.
Mr. and Mrs. Wakefield and Steven are off to pick up Mrs. Wakefields’ parents from the airport on Christmas Eve, and the twins stay behind to open their presents to each other. Jess goes first and is seriously not thrilled with getting reading material for Christmas. Liz tells her it’s a story about their birthday, and Jess is like, “Whatever.” Liz doesn’t like Jess’s present either: she’s already planned to have a brunch for the class newspaper staff on New Year’s Day so they can plan their first issue of the year. (What eleven year olds hold brunches for their friends?) Jess and Liz call each other selfish and fight and fight and fight.
The next day, Mr. Wakefield makes them declare a 24-hour truce so they don’t ruin Christmas, but they snark and snipe all day long. Their grandparents give them two harlequin dolls that have been in the family for a hundred years, belonging first to their great great aunt and great grandmother, Amanda and Samantha. Anyone who’s read The Wakefield Saga (or whichever the one is where they have the family history) knows that Samantha and Amanda were twin sisters whose mother was a bareback circus rider, and that the twins grew up to have an amazingly lurid history involving framing each other’s boyfriends for federal crimes and rum running and flappers and betrayal, leading to eventual lifelong estrangement and hatred and a deathbed reconciliation, and also something to do with the French Resistance. Awesome. Each doll has a poem on a medallion around his neck. Liz’s reads:
Together apart,
Wheels on a cart.
Unite all these things:
Eyes, feet, and wings,
Scissors and socks,
Hands found on clocks.
Dolls harlequin.
Jessica’s says:
Together apart,
Joined from the start.
Answer this well,
Escape the dread spell.
Answer again,
And magic’s your friend.
Add a good rhyme,
Escape one last time.
The twins are like, “Whatever.” They go to bed. In the middle of the night, though, each in their own rooms, they wake up and realize that the answer to the puzzle is that all those things come in pairs. The next thing each girl knows, the dolls have come to life and vanish in a gold haze that takes the twins along with them.
Liz finds herself in a meadow or something with the now hot guy who used to be her doll. He tells her that his name is Prince Adair, but she shouldn’t go saying his name because plenty of people would be angry to learn that he’s back, and she got sucked into a vortex. He’s pretty obnoxious about the whole thing, pulls her hair to prove she’s not dreaming, and tells her she’s in The Hidden Kingdom. She asks if that’s in Europe, but he’s never heard of Europe. Adair tries to ditch her, but she follows him. He explains that her world is called the Other Land, and that a bad wizard named Medwin cast a spell on him that turned him into a doll in the Other Land. Then they get chased by monsters called bludrats, which sound kind of like the ROUSes from The Princess Bride. They run for it.
Meanwhile, Jess finds herself in a different meadow with the other doll, who has changed into bookish Prince Dorin. Dorin explains to Jess the exact same things Adair just explained to Liz, so we get a little bit of review, in case we weren’t paying attention in the last chapter. Jess calls him a dweeb. We do learn a little more about the spell, though: it could only be broken if it was solved at the exact same time by two different people in two different places, which is why it took a hundred years. It really isn’t a difficult riddle, so it’s good to know the twins’ ancestors weren’t too stupid to solve it or anything. They probably just didn’t do it at the same time. Dorin further exposits that the only way back to Sweet Valley is through the Labyrinth, which is in the palace, which Medwin currently controls, which means that Jess will need to come with him. Dorin also tells Jess that, in The Hidden Kingdom, everyone has magic powers. All you have to do is think of something and it will appear, so she thinks up a new outfit for herself so she doesn’t have to wander around in her nightgown anymore. It makes her really tired. Dorin and Adair can’t do magic, though, or it would alert Medwin that they’d come back. A monster comes crashing toward them through the trees, and Dorin tells her it’s called a Serpasaur. It’s dragony thing big around as a tree. Jess pulls Dorin into the river to get away from it, but it turns out Serpasaurs can swim really well. The monster follows them down the river to a lake and is poised to eat Jessica.
Meanwhile, Adair has explained to Liz about the magic thing, so she’s made herself some jeans and a sweatshirt while they ran from the ROUSes. ROUSes hate snow, so they’re running up a mountain, trying to reach the snow line. That doesn’t seem like a very good plan. I mean, aren’t mountains generally…really…big? I’m just saying. Liz cries and keeps groaning, “We’re never going to make it!” and Adair pretty much has to drag her whiny ass all the way up. But, then, they get cornered by the monsters. Liz tries to magic up a sword for Adair, but it’s cardboard covered in tinfoil: the prop sword they used in their third grade production of Cinderella. I bet Jess had the lead. Adair thinks Liz is useless, and he’s not really wrong. On Liz’s next try, she makes a match. Adair uses it to light a branch on fire, and Liz tells him to make a loud noise to trigger an avalanche, so that the snow line will move down to where they are. He uses his flaming branch to light an ROUS on fire - didn’t Westley do that too? - and the thing shrieks loud enough to send all that snow crashing down. They run for a cave, but one of the monsters grabs Liz and she falls down.
We return to Jess in the lake with the dragon. A spear or something comes out of the water and stabs the monster, and then a bunch more follow it. Half fish/half women show up, and Dorin tells Jess that they’re called mermanons. The lead one introduces herself as Meralia, captain of the Guard. Prince Dorin introduces himself, and Meralia insists that they go to the mermanon underwater city, Zerasharb, to see the mermanon queen, Merelantha. Dorin and Jess kind of don’t have a choice, so they agree. Bubble fish, which inflate into clear bubbles that people can ride in and breathe underwater, come for the two of them. Jess complains, but the mermanons stuff her in anyway.
Meanwhile, up on the mountain, Adair kicks the ROUS off of Liz and drags her to the cave, where they’re safe from the ROUSes because the avalanche blocks the entrance with snow. Liz whines and cries the entire way about how far it is and how they’re never going to make it, and he tells her to shut up. Hee. They do make it, though. They find some furs in the cave and settle down for the night. Adair promises to take care of her, since he’s stuck with her. Weirdly, she’s reassured by that. The next morning, Liz wakes up really hungry. She fantasizes about all the things she’d like to eat for breakfast, and finds that she’s accidentally magicked up an entire spread. While she and Adair eat, Adair explains that, when their father died, he left the kingdom to both twins. Dorin is in charge of the country’s laws, education, and infrastructure, and Adair is in charge of festivals, parties, and - I am not even kidding - making sure the knights’ armor is shiny. It kind of seems like Dorin got the better end of the deal, there, when it comes to a power base. Their dad obviously thought Adair was a little slow. Liz gives him a lecture on the benefits of democracy, but he’s incredibly uninterested. So, she builds a fire to melt some of the snow at the mouth of the cave so they can dig themselves out.
Back to the underwater city. Meralia takes them to Queen Merelantha’s palace, and we learn that, in The Hidden Kingdom, people’s hair turns blonde when they get old, not grey or white. So everyone thinks Jess is an old lady. Hee. Merelantha calls Dorin bookish, self-righteous, and overly cautious, and tells him Adair is an irresponsible child. She tells Meralia to hold them both until the next day and then turn them over to Medwin as a peace offering, to postpone his inevitable attack on their city. Jess freaks out, but Dorin is like, “You won’t do that because a hundred years ago, when you were little, Medwin poisoned mermanon Princess Merelinda, your sister.” Merelantha is like, “Yeah, pretty much. Thanks for the history lesson, but I was really just trying to freak you out. I’ll put you up for the night and then you can go on your way. I hope you kick Medwin’s ass.” Okay then. The bubble fish take Dorin and Jess to a room full of air, like being in a reverse aquarium, and Meralia magicks up some food and a couple beds for them. She tells them that Medwin is having a ball the next day, so it would be a good chance for them to sneak into the castle. She also says that it’s just a matter of time before Medwin attacks their city and kills them all. That’s not depressing or anything. The next morning, Jess wakes up to find Meralia wanting to talk to her. She gives Jess a gift from Merelantha: a key with emeralds on it. She delivers a message too, that Merelantha hopes they win and that Jess shouldn’t tell Dorin about the key. Dorin wakes up and Meralia tells them it’s time to go, and that Adair is on his way to the castle with Liz. Once on shore, a couple of unicorns come out of the forest and Dorin is all excited, because riding them will be a lot faster than walking to the castle. Jess flips out, because she loves unicorns. Oh, that’s right. Her Unicorn Club. I’d forgotten about that.
Adair and Liz climb the mountain. Liz pesters him with questions about the specifics of the Labyrinth that leads back to Sweet Valley, but he has absolutely no idea and no interest in anything having to do with the history of his nation. All he wants to talk about are the parties he’s thrown. Needless to say, she doesn’t care. Adair tells Liz, though, that there’s a wise man who lives on top of the mountain who can answer her questions, which is why they’re going up instead of down toward the castle. He recites a nursery rhyme about the three wise ones in The Hidden Kingdom: Merelantha underwater, Toramon on the mountain, and Medwin in the forest. Liz asks, if Medwin has gone bad since this rhyme was written, how do they know Toramon hasn’t too? A valid concern, but Adair figures that the furs they conveniently found in their cave were magicked there by him, so he must still be good. We also learn that Toramon can see so far, he can look into the future. They get to his house: a little cottage with lots of flowers, and he talks in silly, circular riddles. When Liz asks if he can see anyone who looks like her, he replies, “Like him, like you, but neither like either, two are the same but not alike.” Just as an example. (It means yes, by the way.) He gives them tea, and the tea tastes like flowers too. He touches Liz’s hand, and for a second she sees everything he does, including the future, because she spots the ball going on at the palace that night. Adair rushes out, in a hurry to get there so he can use the ball as cover to sneak in, and Toramon holds Liz back for a second to give her a key covered in rubies. He tells her to not tell Adair about it, and she sticks it in her pocket. She and Adair start off down the mountain, and come to a cliff surrounded by trees with immense leaves. Adair freaks out, because he’s afraid that if Dorin gets to the castle first and fights Medwin alone, he’ll be killed. Having a brainwave, though, Adair rigs the leaves and vines up into hang gliders - he got the idea from another nursery rhyme - and (with much insufferable complaining and whining on Liz’s part) they jump off the cliff and soar toward the castle.
Back on the ground, Dorin and Jess hop onto their unicorns. Jessica prattles on about the Unicorn Club at Sweet Valley Middle School, and Dorin shyly tells her that, if it’s a club for the prettiest and most popular girls, then it’s no wonder she’s a member. Aw. Jess fondly thinks of Meralia as her new best friend, which seems pretty weird to me, but okay. And then she thinks about how much she misses Elizabeth. Aw again. Jess looks up and sees two little specks soaring in the sky. They’re Adair and Liz, obviously, but she doesn’t know that.
Liz and Adair have a lot of fun swooping around and doing tricks on their leaf gliders, and she looks down and sees two people galloping across the ground on unicorns. They’re Jess and Dorin, of course, but she doesn’t know that. Suddenly, a tornado comes up out of nowhere and they get sucked in. Liz’s leaf is torn away and she plummets to the ground. Suspenseful!
Jess and Dorin ride the unicorns toward the castle, but eventually the unicorns won’t go any further. The landscape is all bleak and the weather is cold because Medwin’s mood controls the weather. And everyone looks forlorn and can’t magic themselves new clothes, because he’s sucked all the magic out of them to keep for himself. Everything looks burned and depressing. Jess and Dorin dismount and start to walk. Jess suggests that Dorin could come to Sweet Valley with her and live in Steven’s room, but he points out that, if he does that, then nobody will defeat Medwin and he’ll keep on oppressing the country, which isn’t fair. Jess has to concede that he has a point. His plan, though, is to get her to the Labyrinth and home before he fights Medwin, so she won’t be in danger. Jess feels kind of bad about leaving him to fight on his own, but she recognizes that her priority should be making sure she and Liz are safe. Jess magicks up some costumes for the two of them so they can sneak into the ball: her dress is a copy of one her favorite actress wore to the Oscars one time and Dorin’s outfit is a copy of an army uniform she saw one time on her favorite soap opera, Days of Turmoil. She tells the guards all about this in great detail, because she’s kind of weird. But Dorin thinks she looks pretty, and nobody recognizes them, so they get in okay.
Meanwhile, Liz is still plummeting to the ground without her leaf glider. Adair swoops out of the tornado and catches her just in time. They sail gently back to earth and she is completely freaked out, but Adair thinks it was hilarious. They walk toward the castle and we have a little more review about the ugly landscape and the weather reflecting Medwin’s mood and stuff. They run into a guy who used to work at the palace when Adair and Dorin were in charge, and the guy tells them that Medwin locked the Labyrinth with his diamond key. He exposits that there are only two other keys: Merelantha, who can’t leave the water, has one and Toramon, who won’t leave his mountain, has the other, and Adair is like, “Crap! I’ll have to kill Medwin and get his key before I can send Liz home!” Liz is still mum about her key. She wonders if Toramon told her to keep it a secret because he saw some reason why she should stay to witness the fight, and figures she’ll roll with it. They sneak into the palace with the rest of the servants for the ball.
Dorin and Jess sneak down to the Labyrinth and see that it’s locked, and we have some more review about how Dorin thinks that Medwin has the only key in the castle. Jess keeps quiet about her key too, because she’s scared that one day Meralia might find out that she disobeyed Merelantha and kick her ass in retaliation. Ooookay. The guards find Jess and Dorin there, and they pretend to have been looking for a secluded space to make out, rather than scoping out the Labyrinth. The guards buy it and Jess and Dorin bolt.
Liz magicks up some servants’ uniforms for Adair and her, and Adair kisses her and tells her he’ll miss her a ton when she leaves. Woo! They go into the ballroom, and Medwin recognizes Adair almost right away.
Jess and Dorin are in the ballroom too, and are shocked when Medwin calls Adair out.
Medwin uses magic to throw swords and axes and stuff at Adair, but he stops them all. Then he drops a gigantic boulder down on Liz and Adair, and it takes all of Adair’s strength to keep it from mooshing them. Dorin is like, “STOP!” and Jess is all, “AAAAAHHHHH!” and Medwin throws some fire at them. It takes all of Dorin’s strength to keep them from being burnt to a crisp. Things are not looking good for our heroes. And, just when he’s about to win for good, Medwin shoots himself in the foot by falling victim to villainitis, that tendency to talk too much and give away all your secrets before the final battle is over. Medwin taunts the Princes that they’re too stupid to remember that, while every spell has to have an escape, every escape must have a greater mystery still.
Scroll up and reread the poem at the top of the recap. The first bit - Answer this well/Escape the dread spell. - was when the twins clued in that the stuff all came in pairs and broke the spell on the Princes. Jess makes the connection for the second part before Liz does - Answer again/And magic’s your friend - that the things in the rhyme all work better together than separately. In other words, the only way the Princes can defeat Medwin is if they team up. They combine their powers, and the boulder and fire disappear. Medwin runs for it, and nobody stops him. Thanks, Hidden Kingdom Citizens. But the Princes are okay, and they have their kingdom back!
Dorin and Adair have to stay in bed and rest. Jess and Liz have been hanging around the palace for a few days, and they haven’t told anyone about their Labyrinth keys yet, because everyone figures that’s where Medwin’s gone. If they tell anyone, the Princes will want to go in and fight him, and they’re not strong enough yet. Each Prince asks his Wakefield partner to stay and be their princesses, and they both say they’ll think about it, but they reflect privately, how could they ever leave Sweet Valley? They can’t. So, they make a pact to leave through the Labyrinth that night. Liz uses her last morning to arrange a unicorn ride, because she doesn’t want to miss one. The girls have a good time at first, riding around the countryside, but eventually they start to fight about those Christmas presents again. They stomp off in different directions, and each one uses her last afternoon to magic up a goodbye present for her Prince: Liz makes a book all about her family history through the generations for Adair, and Jess makes a photo of herself in a purple frame for Dorin.
The twins unlock the Labyrinth door and find a rose garden there with a little cottage in the middle (the roses look like the wooden one Alice Larson got in the book with their family history). The cottage has a door on each side. Medwin is lurking outside of it, and tries to shoot fire at them, but the fire can’t go into the garden so they’re safe. He tells them that the Guardian of the Labyrinth didn’t let him through even though he’s totally powerful, so they don’t stand a chance. As soon as they’re turned away, he’s going to torture them. He’s all excited about it. Gross. The twins suddenly feel a mysterious force propelling each one to one of the doors on the cottage. Jess’s door opens and it’s her Great Great Aunt Amanda (original owner of one of the dolls), but really it’s the Labyrinth Guardian in disguise. Great Grandma Samantha opens Liz’s door. The Guardian asks each girl the same question: “What was the most important gift you have ever received?”
The girls are at a loss, but Jess eventually guesses Liz’s short story, and Liz guesses Jess’s concert tickets. They are WRONG! The cottage doors slam shut and the rose garden starts to shrink. Medwin laughs and begins shooting fire at them again. It won’t be long before it reaches them! The twins hold each other and say, “I love you,” and apologize for their fight. Then Liz remembers the end of the Princes’ rhyme: “Add a good rhyme and escape one last time.” Scroll up to the top of the recap and read it again; they have to find a rhyme for “Dolls harlequin.” Jess suggests “A pair of asprin,” which gives Medwin pause. He’s like, “Duh. Asprin isn’t even a word.” Well, in any case, it’s not the answer to the rhyme. Suddenly both twins have a brainwave: “Dolls harlequin/my very own twin.” They are each other’s best presents. Aw. The rose garden reappears, and the doors to the cottage open for them. The Princes show up and turn Medwin into a doll. Hee. Then they ask the Wakefields to stay, but Jess and Liz say they just can’t leave their home. So the Princes give them each a harlequin doll that looks like the ones they got from their grandparents and send them on their way.
Next thing the girls know, they’re standing in the street outside their house. It’s the middle of the night on Christmas, and they’re in bare feet and nightgowns, clutching their dolls. They run inside, laughing and happy. The next morning, everyone is pleased that they’re getting along again. Steven tells them he’s figured out the rhyme on their dolls, but when he looks at the medallion around Jess’s doll’s neck, he’s shocked that the poem has changed. Now it says:
A place far away
Where unicorns play,
Where a mermanon dives,
And magic survives.
Two princes the same,
Each with his own name.
Say both names together,
And return here forever.
Jess reads Liz’s story about their seventh birthday and is so moved that she cries. It’s the most wonderful, perfect story she’s ever read. Liz calls everyone on the newspaper and cancels their New Year’s brunch so she can go to the concert with her best friend.
Then Lila shows up with a brown paper bag, and she’s all pissed that her dad got her the ugliest doll she’s ever seen, even though he insists that he didn’t buy it, it just appeared under the tree overnight. She pulls the doll out of the bag and, of course, it’s Medwin. His medallion says:
As a doll he’s been set.
Free him now? Not just yet.
He lived none too well,
To escape a dread spell,
But all in good time,
You’ll find a true rhyme
To send him back to his kingdom.
Lila is all, “This is stupid. The doll is ugly and kingdom is impossible to rhyme.” Jess and Liz are like, “Then don’t spend too much time figuring out the riddle.” Lila tells them they should get out more often, and that’s the end of the book.
Sweet Valley Twins: The Magic Christmas
Sweet Valley Twins do Narnia, sort of, but not as good as that. And there are living dolls. This writeup was a special request from
katranna. I remember liking it a lot when I read it in seventh grade, but I’m sorry to say that it didn’t really stand the test of time. This is probably pretty light on snark; I don’t read fantasy novels, so I don’t have any basis for comparison here.
The book opens with Elizabeth hanging out with her best friend, Amy Sutton. It’s pretty funny to think what Amy becomes in high school: the girl who broke Bruce Patman and Heroically Deaf Regina up, leading to Regina’s tragic death by coke, and also the girl who used SVH’s Slam Book Fever to try to break up Liz and her boyfriend, as we will see in my next recap for this community. In middle school, though, Amy was best friends with Liz and they really were two peas in a dorky pod. In a sense, Amy is proto-Enid. Anyway, Liz is wrapping Jess’s Christmas gift: a framed photo of the twins at their seventh birthday and a short story she wrote about the birthday party. Amy gushes about how touched Jessica will be when she sees the story, and Liz agrees, but, personally, I wouldn’t count on it.
Meanwhile, Jess is hanging out in her room with Lila Fowler, wrapping Liz’s gift. She got them bus passes to LA for New Years Day and tickets to the Save the Whales concert, the very coolest concert in the history of the world. I would NEVER let my eleven year old daughters take a bus to LA for a rock concert without any kind of parent or chaperone, but Ned and Alice have apparently given Jess permission. It’s just the latest in a long line of questionable parenting decisions on their part. Lila is jealous.
Mr. and Mrs. Wakefield and Steven are off to pick up Mrs. Wakefields’ parents from the airport on Christmas Eve, and the twins stay behind to open their presents to each other. Jess goes first and is seriously not thrilled with getting reading material for Christmas. Liz tells her it’s a story about their birthday, and Jess is like, “Whatever.” Liz doesn’t like Jess’s present either: she’s already planned to have a brunch for the class newspaper staff on New Year’s Day so they can plan their first issue of the year. (What eleven year olds hold brunches for their friends?) Jess and Liz call each other selfish and fight and fight and fight.
The next day, Mr. Wakefield makes them declare a 24-hour truce so they don’t ruin Christmas, but they snark and snipe all day long. Their grandparents give them two harlequin dolls that have been in the family for a hundred years, belonging first to their great great aunt and great grandmother, Amanda and Samantha. Anyone who’s read The Wakefield Saga (or whichever the one is where they have the family history) knows that Samantha and Amanda were twin sisters whose mother was a bareback circus rider, and that the twins grew up to have an amazingly lurid history involving framing each other’s boyfriends for federal crimes and rum running and flappers and betrayal, leading to eventual lifelong estrangement and hatred and a deathbed reconciliation, and also something to do with the French Resistance. Awesome. Each doll has a poem on a medallion around his neck. Liz’s reads:
Together apart,
Wheels on a cart.
Unite all these things:
Eyes, feet, and wings,
Scissors and socks,
Hands found on clocks.
Dolls harlequin.
Jessica’s says:
Together apart,
Joined from the start.
Answer this well,
Escape the dread spell.
Answer again,
And magic’s your friend.
Add a good rhyme,
Escape one last time.
The twins are like, “Whatever.” They go to bed. In the middle of the night, though, each in their own rooms, they wake up and realize that the answer to the puzzle is that all those things come in pairs. The next thing each girl knows, the dolls have come to life and vanish in a gold haze that takes the twins along with them.
Liz finds herself in a meadow or something with the now hot guy who used to be her doll. He tells her that his name is Prince Adair, but she shouldn’t go saying his name because plenty of people would be angry to learn that he’s back, and she got sucked into a vortex. He’s pretty obnoxious about the whole thing, pulls her hair to prove she’s not dreaming, and tells her she’s in The Hidden Kingdom. She asks if that’s in Europe, but he’s never heard of Europe. Adair tries to ditch her, but she follows him. He explains that her world is called the Other Land, and that a bad wizard named Medwin cast a spell on him that turned him into a doll in the Other Land. Then they get chased by monsters called bludrats, which sound kind of like the ROUSes from The Princess Bride. They run for it.
Meanwhile, Jess finds herself in a different meadow with the other doll, who has changed into bookish Prince Dorin. Dorin explains to Jess the exact same things Adair just explained to Liz, so we get a little bit of review, in case we weren’t paying attention in the last chapter. Jess calls him a dweeb. We do learn a little more about the spell, though: it could only be broken if it was solved at the exact same time by two different people in two different places, which is why it took a hundred years. It really isn’t a difficult riddle, so it’s good to know the twins’ ancestors weren’t too stupid to solve it or anything. They probably just didn’t do it at the same time. Dorin further exposits that the only way back to Sweet Valley is through the Labyrinth, which is in the palace, which Medwin currently controls, which means that Jess will need to come with him. Dorin also tells Jess that, in The Hidden Kingdom, everyone has magic powers. All you have to do is think of something and it will appear, so she thinks up a new outfit for herself so she doesn’t have to wander around in her nightgown anymore. It makes her really tired. Dorin and Adair can’t do magic, though, or it would alert Medwin that they’d come back. A monster comes crashing toward them through the trees, and Dorin tells her it’s called a Serpasaur. It’s dragony thing big around as a tree. Jess pulls Dorin into the river to get away from it, but it turns out Serpasaurs can swim really well. The monster follows them down the river to a lake and is poised to eat Jessica.
Meanwhile, Adair has explained to Liz about the magic thing, so she’s made herself some jeans and a sweatshirt while they ran from the ROUSes. ROUSes hate snow, so they’re running up a mountain, trying to reach the snow line. That doesn’t seem like a very good plan. I mean, aren’t mountains generally…really…big? I’m just saying. Liz cries and keeps groaning, “We’re never going to make it!” and Adair pretty much has to drag her whiny ass all the way up. But, then, they get cornered by the monsters. Liz tries to magic up a sword for Adair, but it’s cardboard covered in tinfoil: the prop sword they used in their third grade production of Cinderella. I bet Jess had the lead. Adair thinks Liz is useless, and he’s not really wrong. On Liz’s next try, she makes a match. Adair uses it to light a branch on fire, and Liz tells him to make a loud noise to trigger an avalanche, so that the snow line will move down to where they are. He uses his flaming branch to light an ROUS on fire - didn’t Westley do that too? - and the thing shrieks loud enough to send all that snow crashing down. They run for a cave, but one of the monsters grabs Liz and she falls down.
We return to Jess in the lake with the dragon. A spear or something comes out of the water and stabs the monster, and then a bunch more follow it. Half fish/half women show up, and Dorin tells Jess that they’re called mermanons. The lead one introduces herself as Meralia, captain of the Guard. Prince Dorin introduces himself, and Meralia insists that they go to the mermanon underwater city, Zerasharb, to see the mermanon queen, Merelantha. Dorin and Jess kind of don’t have a choice, so they agree. Bubble fish, which inflate into clear bubbles that people can ride in and breathe underwater, come for the two of them. Jess complains, but the mermanons stuff her in anyway.
Meanwhile, up on the mountain, Adair kicks the ROUS off of Liz and drags her to the cave, where they’re safe from the ROUSes because the avalanche blocks the entrance with snow. Liz whines and cries the entire way about how far it is and how they’re never going to make it, and he tells her to shut up. Hee. They do make it, though. They find some furs in the cave and settle down for the night. Adair promises to take care of her, since he’s stuck with her. Weirdly, she’s reassured by that. The next morning, Liz wakes up really hungry. She fantasizes about all the things she’d like to eat for breakfast, and finds that she’s accidentally magicked up an entire spread. While she and Adair eat, Adair explains that, when their father died, he left the kingdom to both twins. Dorin is in charge of the country’s laws, education, and infrastructure, and Adair is in charge of festivals, parties, and - I am not even kidding - making sure the knights’ armor is shiny. It kind of seems like Dorin got the better end of the deal, there, when it comes to a power base. Their dad obviously thought Adair was a little slow. Liz gives him a lecture on the benefits of democracy, but he’s incredibly uninterested. So, she builds a fire to melt some of the snow at the mouth of the cave so they can dig themselves out.
Back to the underwater city. Meralia takes them to Queen Merelantha’s palace, and we learn that, in The Hidden Kingdom, people’s hair turns blonde when they get old, not grey or white. So everyone thinks Jess is an old lady. Hee. Merelantha calls Dorin bookish, self-righteous, and overly cautious, and tells him Adair is an irresponsible child. She tells Meralia to hold them both until the next day and then turn them over to Medwin as a peace offering, to postpone his inevitable attack on their city. Jess freaks out, but Dorin is like, “You won’t do that because a hundred years ago, when you were little, Medwin poisoned mermanon Princess Merelinda, your sister.” Merelantha is like, “Yeah, pretty much. Thanks for the history lesson, but I was really just trying to freak you out. I’ll put you up for the night and then you can go on your way. I hope you kick Medwin’s ass.” Okay then. The bubble fish take Dorin and Jess to a room full of air, like being in a reverse aquarium, and Meralia magicks up some food and a couple beds for them. She tells them that Medwin is having a ball the next day, so it would be a good chance for them to sneak into the castle. She also says that it’s just a matter of time before Medwin attacks their city and kills them all. That’s not depressing or anything. The next morning, Jess wakes up to find Meralia wanting to talk to her. She gives Jess a gift from Merelantha: a key with emeralds on it. She delivers a message too, that Merelantha hopes they win and that Jess shouldn’t tell Dorin about the key. Dorin wakes up and Meralia tells them it’s time to go, and that Adair is on his way to the castle with Liz. Once on shore, a couple of unicorns come out of the forest and Dorin is all excited, because riding them will be a lot faster than walking to the castle. Jess flips out, because she loves unicorns. Oh, that’s right. Her Unicorn Club. I’d forgotten about that.
Adair and Liz climb the mountain. Liz pesters him with questions about the specifics of the Labyrinth that leads back to Sweet Valley, but he has absolutely no idea and no interest in anything having to do with the history of his nation. All he wants to talk about are the parties he’s thrown. Needless to say, she doesn’t care. Adair tells Liz, though, that there’s a wise man who lives on top of the mountain who can answer her questions, which is why they’re going up instead of down toward the castle. He recites a nursery rhyme about the three wise ones in The Hidden Kingdom: Merelantha underwater, Toramon on the mountain, and Medwin in the forest. Liz asks, if Medwin has gone bad since this rhyme was written, how do they know Toramon hasn’t too? A valid concern, but Adair figures that the furs they conveniently found in their cave were magicked there by him, so he must still be good. We also learn that Toramon can see so far, he can look into the future. They get to his house: a little cottage with lots of flowers, and he talks in silly, circular riddles. When Liz asks if he can see anyone who looks like her, he replies, “Like him, like you, but neither like either, two are the same but not alike.” Just as an example. (It means yes, by the way.) He gives them tea, and the tea tastes like flowers too. He touches Liz’s hand, and for a second she sees everything he does, including the future, because she spots the ball going on at the palace that night. Adair rushes out, in a hurry to get there so he can use the ball as cover to sneak in, and Toramon holds Liz back for a second to give her a key covered in rubies. He tells her to not tell Adair about it, and she sticks it in her pocket. She and Adair start off down the mountain, and come to a cliff surrounded by trees with immense leaves. Adair freaks out, because he’s afraid that if Dorin gets to the castle first and fights Medwin alone, he’ll be killed. Having a brainwave, though, Adair rigs the leaves and vines up into hang gliders - he got the idea from another nursery rhyme - and (with much insufferable complaining and whining on Liz’s part) they jump off the cliff and soar toward the castle.
Back on the ground, Dorin and Jess hop onto their unicorns. Jessica prattles on about the Unicorn Club at Sweet Valley Middle School, and Dorin shyly tells her that, if it’s a club for the prettiest and most popular girls, then it’s no wonder she’s a member. Aw. Jess fondly thinks of Meralia as her new best friend, which seems pretty weird to me, but okay. And then she thinks about how much she misses Elizabeth. Aw again. Jess looks up and sees two little specks soaring in the sky. They’re Adair and Liz, obviously, but she doesn’t know that.
Liz and Adair have a lot of fun swooping around and doing tricks on their leaf gliders, and she looks down and sees two people galloping across the ground on unicorns. They’re Jess and Dorin, of course, but she doesn’t know that. Suddenly, a tornado comes up out of nowhere and they get sucked in. Liz’s leaf is torn away and she plummets to the ground. Suspenseful!
Jess and Dorin ride the unicorns toward the castle, but eventually the unicorns won’t go any further. The landscape is all bleak and the weather is cold because Medwin’s mood controls the weather. And everyone looks forlorn and can’t magic themselves new clothes, because he’s sucked all the magic out of them to keep for himself. Everything looks burned and depressing. Jess and Dorin dismount and start to walk. Jess suggests that Dorin could come to Sweet Valley with her and live in Steven’s room, but he points out that, if he does that, then nobody will defeat Medwin and he’ll keep on oppressing the country, which isn’t fair. Jess has to concede that he has a point. His plan, though, is to get her to the Labyrinth and home before he fights Medwin, so she won’t be in danger. Jess feels kind of bad about leaving him to fight on his own, but she recognizes that her priority should be making sure she and Liz are safe. Jess magicks up some costumes for the two of them so they can sneak into the ball: her dress is a copy of one her favorite actress wore to the Oscars one time and Dorin’s outfit is a copy of an army uniform she saw one time on her favorite soap opera, Days of Turmoil. She tells the guards all about this in great detail, because she’s kind of weird. But Dorin thinks she looks pretty, and nobody recognizes them, so they get in okay.
Meanwhile, Liz is still plummeting to the ground without her leaf glider. Adair swoops out of the tornado and catches her just in time. They sail gently back to earth and she is completely freaked out, but Adair thinks it was hilarious. They walk toward the castle and we have a little more review about the ugly landscape and the weather reflecting Medwin’s mood and stuff. They run into a guy who used to work at the palace when Adair and Dorin were in charge, and the guy tells them that Medwin locked the Labyrinth with his diamond key. He exposits that there are only two other keys: Merelantha, who can’t leave the water, has one and Toramon, who won’t leave his mountain, has the other, and Adair is like, “Crap! I’ll have to kill Medwin and get his key before I can send Liz home!” Liz is still mum about her key. She wonders if Toramon told her to keep it a secret because he saw some reason why she should stay to witness the fight, and figures she’ll roll with it. They sneak into the palace with the rest of the servants for the ball.
Dorin and Jess sneak down to the Labyrinth and see that it’s locked, and we have some more review about how Dorin thinks that Medwin has the only key in the castle. Jess keeps quiet about her key too, because she’s scared that one day Meralia might find out that she disobeyed Merelantha and kick her ass in retaliation. Ooookay. The guards find Jess and Dorin there, and they pretend to have been looking for a secluded space to make out, rather than scoping out the Labyrinth. The guards buy it and Jess and Dorin bolt.
Liz magicks up some servants’ uniforms for Adair and her, and Adair kisses her and tells her he’ll miss her a ton when she leaves. Woo! They go into the ballroom, and Medwin recognizes Adair almost right away.
Jess and Dorin are in the ballroom too, and are shocked when Medwin calls Adair out.
Medwin uses magic to throw swords and axes and stuff at Adair, but he stops them all. Then he drops a gigantic boulder down on Liz and Adair, and it takes all of Adair’s strength to keep it from mooshing them. Dorin is like, “STOP!” and Jess is all, “AAAAAHHHHH!” and Medwin throws some fire at them. It takes all of Dorin’s strength to keep them from being burnt to a crisp. Things are not looking good for our heroes. And, just when he’s about to win for good, Medwin shoots himself in the foot by falling victim to villainitis, that tendency to talk too much and give away all your secrets before the final battle is over. Medwin taunts the Princes that they’re too stupid to remember that, while every spell has to have an escape, every escape must have a greater mystery still.
Scroll up and reread the poem at the top of the recap. The first bit - Answer this well/Escape the dread spell. - was when the twins clued in that the stuff all came in pairs and broke the spell on the Princes. Jess makes the connection for the second part before Liz does - Answer again/And magic’s your friend - that the things in the rhyme all work better together than separately. In other words, the only way the Princes can defeat Medwin is if they team up. They combine their powers, and the boulder and fire disappear. Medwin runs for it, and nobody stops him. Thanks, Hidden Kingdom Citizens. But the Princes are okay, and they have their kingdom back!
Dorin and Adair have to stay in bed and rest. Jess and Liz have been hanging around the palace for a few days, and they haven’t told anyone about their Labyrinth keys yet, because everyone figures that’s where Medwin’s gone. If they tell anyone, the Princes will want to go in and fight him, and they’re not strong enough yet. Each Prince asks his Wakefield partner to stay and be their princesses, and they both say they’ll think about it, but they reflect privately, how could they ever leave Sweet Valley? They can’t. So, they make a pact to leave through the Labyrinth that night. Liz uses her last morning to arrange a unicorn ride, because she doesn’t want to miss one. The girls have a good time at first, riding around the countryside, but eventually they start to fight about those Christmas presents again. They stomp off in different directions, and each one uses her last afternoon to magic up a goodbye present for her Prince: Liz makes a book all about her family history through the generations for Adair, and Jess makes a photo of herself in a purple frame for Dorin.
The twins unlock the Labyrinth door and find a rose garden there with a little cottage in the middle (the roses look like the wooden one Alice Larson got in the book with their family history). The cottage has a door on each side. Medwin is lurking outside of it, and tries to shoot fire at them, but the fire can’t go into the garden so they’re safe. He tells them that the Guardian of the Labyrinth didn’t let him through even though he’s totally powerful, so they don’t stand a chance. As soon as they’re turned away, he’s going to torture them. He’s all excited about it. Gross. The twins suddenly feel a mysterious force propelling each one to one of the doors on the cottage. Jess’s door opens and it’s her Great Great Aunt Amanda (original owner of one of the dolls), but really it’s the Labyrinth Guardian in disguise. Great Grandma Samantha opens Liz’s door. The Guardian asks each girl the same question: “What was the most important gift you have ever received?”
The girls are at a loss, but Jess eventually guesses Liz’s short story, and Liz guesses Jess’s concert tickets. They are WRONG! The cottage doors slam shut and the rose garden starts to shrink. Medwin laughs and begins shooting fire at them again. It won’t be long before it reaches them! The twins hold each other and say, “I love you,” and apologize for their fight. Then Liz remembers the end of the Princes’ rhyme: “Add a good rhyme and escape one last time.” Scroll up to the top of the recap and read it again; they have to find a rhyme for “Dolls harlequin.” Jess suggests “A pair of asprin,” which gives Medwin pause. He’s like, “Duh. Asprin isn’t even a word.” Well, in any case, it’s not the answer to the rhyme. Suddenly both twins have a brainwave: “Dolls harlequin/my very own twin.” They are each other’s best presents. Aw. The rose garden reappears, and the doors to the cottage open for them. The Princes show up and turn Medwin into a doll. Hee. Then they ask the Wakefields to stay, but Jess and Liz say they just can’t leave their home. So the Princes give them each a harlequin doll that looks like the ones they got from their grandparents and send them on their way.
Next thing the girls know, they’re standing in the street outside their house. It’s the middle of the night on Christmas, and they’re in bare feet and nightgowns, clutching their dolls. They run inside, laughing and happy. The next morning, everyone is pleased that they’re getting along again. Steven tells them he’s figured out the rhyme on their dolls, but when he looks at the medallion around Jess’s doll’s neck, he’s shocked that the poem has changed. Now it says:
A place far away
Where unicorns play,
Where a mermanon dives,
And magic survives.
Two princes the same,
Each with his own name.
Say both names together,
And return here forever.
Jess reads Liz’s story about their seventh birthday and is so moved that she cries. It’s the most wonderful, perfect story she’s ever read. Liz calls everyone on the newspaper and cancels their New Year’s brunch so she can go to the concert with her best friend.
Then Lila shows up with a brown paper bag, and she’s all pissed that her dad got her the ugliest doll she’s ever seen, even though he insists that he didn’t buy it, it just appeared under the tree overnight. She pulls the doll out of the bag and, of course, it’s Medwin. His medallion says:
As a doll he’s been set.
Free him now? Not just yet.
He lived none too well,
To escape a dread spell,
But all in good time,
You’ll find a true rhyme
To send him back to his kingdom.
Lila is all, “This is stupid. The doll is ugly and kingdom is impossible to rhyme.” Jess and Liz are like, “Then don’t spend too much time figuring out the riddle.” Lila tells them they should get out more often, and that’s the end of the book.