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Okay, let’s see if I can manage another one without completely mucking up the page here and making a technical fool of myself. Computers’re hard; I don’t even know a byte from a nibble! Tee hee!
I wonder how Nicholas Morrow is at blogging and Livejournal posting...?
Anyway, I’m gonna tackle one of my favorite Guilty Pleasure three-book arcs: The College Party series (a.k.a., Yes, Jessica, You Really ARE Stupid, Despite Standardized Test Scores, or, “Who’s Really the Dumbest Twin? Because it’s Really Hard to Tell Here”)! Like my other favorite miniseries, the Cheerleaders Do the Funky Monkey one, this one starts off groovy, with potential to actually do something semi-meaningfulish, but quickly ends up veering off someplace else to finally conclude with a circling-the-bowl mish-mash of stupid (as rhitroadkill discovered)!
At least there are no SVHers in drag this time. For that we can be grateful.
So I bring you the first in a three-part series: Jessica the Genius!
The cover is dippy. The twins in the below-scenario pictures look hardly anything like the twins in the title-up-top picture. And it also features two scenes that never take place in this book: Jessica smiling cattily and holding up an SVU sweatshirt in what looks like a student store (because I refuse to believe her bedroom has an SVU banner and stacked folded shirts on a shelf display), and Liz and Todd studying together for the SATs in front of an IKEA-looking bookcase, with a very dated cordless phone and a whole bunch of study guides in Cyrillic or Simlish or something next to them.
And from sentence number one, there’s a mistake. Elizabeth is ostensibly hunched at her OAK desk studying. Wrong! Everyone knows Elizabeth has a giant utility-like table she uses as a desk. Sheesh, man!
Anyway. So Elizabeth is frantically studying words for tomorrow’s SATs. And she studies them by copying them in a big long list in her notebook. Dude. I took the GREs THREE TIMES and I know from studying for standardized tests. Flashcards, Lizzie, FLASHCARDS! Liz is also bemoaning the fact that her desk is messy with math and English workbooks, when she usually keeps it so “impeccably neat” and uncluttered. I wouldn’t trust a writer or scholar with a neat, uncluttered desk, personally. And she’s freaking about how her entire future depends on this exam. She’s spent all week in a prep class. (Scan, Discard, Select, Move On, perhaps?) And she’s decided that she’s going to get perfect scores on both test sections even if she has to study all night. Er, Liz? Aren’t you supposed to be the smart twin? Perfect scores on the SATs is a pretty unreasonable goal, dear. Then Liz frets about how she’ll just have to abandon Jess to go to a prominent university when they graduate high school.
Someone needs a heavy-duty reality check about The Future, and it isn’t just Jessica.
Jess breezes in to borrow Lizzie’s, um, embroidered denim shirt for her hott date with Quarterback Ken. While blowing off reviewing for the test tomorrow morning, natch. And I think her fashion choices indicate her lack of “genius” more than anything, really. Like Lila would be caught dead in embroidered denim?! WWLFD, bitches?!
Todd’s at home studying, too, but he takes a quick time out for a masterbatory read of a letter from University of Michigan, creaming their basketball shorts over his athletic prowess. Todd’s determined to score high on the SATs and earn a scholarship not just for him, but for Elizabeth. “Todd never ceased to be amazed by the incredible, beautiful girl who’d stood by him through so much.” Why Men Love Doormats: How to be His Dreamgirl!, coming soon to a bookstore near you. So, overwhelmed with love, Todd rushes over in his 2Todd2 Beemer to see Liz so they can make out and talk about all the awesome top-tier schools that will be fighting over them. “Won’t it be great when we’re in college together?” Todd asks her, mentally scribbling “Day One of College: Finally Get to Second Base with Liz” on his calendar.
On the morning of the SATs, Liz, of course, is a basket-case, while Jessica is calm and relaxed and perky. Liz gets to the testing classroom on time with the other dozens of students, but Jess manages to breeze in way after the test has started. And in my experience with standardized testing, if you aren’t there a half-hour before the exam starts to check in, you don’t get in. Period. Even if you overslept or your car broke down or whatever. But I guess when you’re Jessica Wakefield, you can just wander into a test whenever you feel like it, make a massive amount of noise, and get away with it. I’m surprised that Ghostwriter didn’t include a line or two about the test proctor being droolingly gobsmacked by Jessica’s California Girl good looks or something, just to underscore the obvious.
Naturally, the night after the SATs, Lila throws a big party where everyone eats fancy salmon puff pastries and talks about how hard the test was, except for Jessica, who just wants everyone to stop being so boring already and makes pointed remark after pointed remark about how she doesn’t care about the test and the future and college and all that icky yucky booky stuff. (Note: no actual pool pushing this time, but a bunch of guys do jump in fully clothed.) In a particularly spectacular moment, Jessica wanders into the Fowlers’ living room, which is decorated in the already-way-passé-by-the-time-this-book-was-published-in-1995 Southwestern décor, and contemplates “a bronze sculpture of a Native American, riding bareback on an Appaloosa, his long straight hair flying in the wind. ...She imagined the muscular rider reaching out a powerful arm and lifting her beside him onto the back of the horse.” Jessica’s Savage Spirit! The Warrior and the Twin! Was Cassie Edwards an SVH Ghostwriter, ‘cos that’d be AWESOME! Anyway, Jessica manages to make some snotty remark to Bruce about how he’ll never ever ever get out of Sweet Valley to go to a decent college, which pisses Bruce off. “At least I have real dreams and serious goals.... What do you have, Jessica? Are you planning to be a professional cheerleader?” Oh, PWNED! Jessica’s big retort, though, is to snip back “Maybe I am.” Like, wow, Jessie.
Elizabeth, in the meantime, falls asleep in a chair, dreaming of her and Todd in a sailboat on the Charles River at Harvard. I would like to apply a liberal dose of “bitch, please” to Elizabeth.
Four weeks later (and yes, the chapter actually begins “Four weeks later. . .”), the SAT results come in, and Liz is devastated to discover that she didn’t even break 1000 with her combined scores.
Jessica, however, manages a 760 verbal and 750 math. Fucking bitch.
Jessica, naturally, pooh-poohs this and whines that she’s only got thirty minutes of sun left for tanning and flits outside to the pool. If ever there was a time for a pool push, Liz....
Next, Jess and Lila (of COURSE!) go shopping at the mall. Lila got a bonus in her clothing allowance for managing to stumble through the SATs, and she encourages Jess to buy a silk outfit because “It’ll be you and me, Jess, catching the attention of every upper-class guy on the volleyball and swim teams at SVU.” Lila’s decided to blow off Daddy’s alma mater, Yale, and go to Sweet Valley University because “there’s no way I’m getting too far from the best beaches and malls in the world-not to mention the best looking guys!” Lila, hi, but maybe you should try Italy if you want gorgeous beaches, shopping, and hot guys. Oh. Wait.
And Jessica, because she’s Jessica, has a deep and meaningful philosophical internal dialogue about her self and her goals: “Nothing was going to interfere with Jessica’s reputation for being gorgeous, fashionable, and too cool to care about school.” I want to punch her in the face. I mean, why should Todd have all the fun?!
Then Jess goes out to dinner with Ken, where he tells her how proud he is that his girlfriend is the sexiest girl in school, and she flirts all over the waiter because she’s JESSICA FUCKING WAKEFIELD and she’s TOTALLY HOT! But then... Ken insinuates that she probably didn’t do so good on the SATs, so she tells him actually she did REALLY well, and he doesn’t believe her, and she gets all hurt that he doesn’t think she’d do well scholastically. Despite downing a burger, fries and a shake, Jessica’s “stomach felt strangely hollow.”
And after countless pages of Jessica pretty much shitting on any semblance of a goal for the future or serious consideration of anything or anyone, of her constant comments about how life’ll work out and she always lands on her feet and maybe she’ll be a professional cheerleader and the future is soooo boring, Jessica is affronted that anyone - her boyfriend, her friends, her own twin sister - might think she’s just some dumb blonde bimbo. So now we’re supposed to... feel sorry for Jessica, the poor victim, I guess. I only hope that Quaterback Ken takes her for a double STFU sundae at Casey’s for dessert after all that.
In the meantime, Liz is super-angsty that she might not be smart after all. Sweetie-pie, if we look at your various life choices and decision-making skills, not to mention the examples of your poetry and newspaper work, I don’t think we needed a standardized test to come to that conclusion.
Jessica and Winston are hailed at school the next day as the highest scorers. *snicker* Jessica, of course, acts like an entitled brat and hams it up, not to mention makes some more snotty comments to Bruce. Uh-oh!
Toddy “Whizzer” Wilkins, because of one letter from a college basketball scout, has quickly morphed from merely a self-congratulatory asshole to majorly smug, egotistical, completely obnoxious dickwad. He sits at the lunch table with Ken, bragging about how it’s okay that Winston’s getting a plaque today because “I’ve had a lot more successes in general than Winston” and how he’s “worked hard enough to achieve something truly great” and how easy it was to ace the SATs and how he’s “heading for the big time, leaving the tiny world of Sweet Valley behind.” And that’s how we REALLY know Todd is headed for trouble, because come on, no one leaves the world of Sweet Valley behind! It’s probably on Page One of Francine’s Sweet Valley Bible! It’s the Hotel Sweet Valley, California: you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. But this doesn’t occur to Todd as he sits around dreaming about Ivy League schools’ coaches humping his leg and whispering “You’re a shooting star. And I can take you to the moon.” Gee whiz. And Todd? If you want a serious basketball career...? Don’t play sports on an Ivy League team, creampuff. Head to the Midwest or down south instead.
Jessica is surprised and hurt that her classmates keep expressing amazement over her SAT scores, and is insulted when someone compliments her outfit or tells her how gorgeous she is. But six pages ago, you wanted to be known for being gorgeous, fashionable and “too cool to care about school”! So suck it up and deal!
Elizabeth is still upset and questioning her own intellectual abilities. She sees Todd showing a bunch of guys - including a “Ron Edwards” - his U of M letter. She goes to throw herself on him and cry, but he’s too high on his own awesomeness to notice. Liz with her low SAT scores realizes she’s not good enough for Todd, and “I’m going to lose him forever. My life is over” because Todd will leave her to go to a big university. C’mon, Liz, can’t you at least be noble and tell yourself you wouldn’t want to hold him back?
In the school cafeteria, for the first time ever, we see Jessica consuming a meal that might be what a perfect size six California girl would eat: a small salad. But this isn’t because she has to diet to maintain her figure or anything... no, it’s because she’s too upset to eat her usual Tuna Surprise or spaghetti and meatballs or whatever goodness the caf is serving today. So after bitching at her friends, she snags a magazine - yes, a magazine! Quel surprise! - from Lila because it features an article on “College Men to Pine For”! And the reason why Jessica can rub her friends’ noses in her stellar SAT scores is not because she’ll get into good colleges and maybe become famous or wealthy because of her own academic and career achievements, oh no. It’s because she’ll “be sharing the campus with these hunks!” who “wear long-sleeved polo shirts!” Uh, wow. Dudes, I went to an Ivy League school. I still spend chunks of time doing research at various Ivy League school libraries. There are certainly no more “hunks” there than anywhere else. Maybe less, even. If Jessica wants College Beefcake, go to USC or UCLA for fuck’s sake! Plus, Jessica gloats that “Great-looking, successful guys are always proud to be around smart girls.” Oh, absolutely, go for the generalization! Plus, just look around Los Angeles or New York City, Jessie, and that’s what you’ll see... brilliant Adonises who are proud to be with their smart girls. Of course, if you’re ALSO blonde, tanned, fashionable, gorgeous, wear a perfect size zero (which is the contemporary equivalent of a Wakefieldian size six), have YOOOGE knockers, can suck a golf ball through a yard of garden hose, wax off all your pubes, swallow, and happily have threesomes with your hottt girl friends and him, you can go far with those great-looking, successful guys who will be totally proud of your intellectual prowess.
Ken isn’t proud of Jess, though. Ken blows her off between classes and Jessica gets all teary-eyed. Snurfle.
At home that night, Liz is trying to read something for Collins’s class - probably Lolita - but can’t concentrate. So she attempts to, um, fill out some college application essays. I mean, by scratching an answer in pencil on the form. No rough draft? No outline? Honey, IT’S A COLLEGE APPLICATION ESSAY! You don’t scribble a thought here and a thought there right on the page and expect it all to come together. And anyway, you write it on your computer and electronically submit it! We also learn Liz has a Shakespeare poster in her room. What ever happened to Jason Robards in A Touch of the Poet?
Liz whines to herself that, instead of writing or studying, she should “be in the garage, learning to weld” because she’s “obviously headed for vocational school.” Oh, don’t sell yourself so short, Liz... you could make WAY more money down at the Spearmint Rhino.
Jessica comes in to borrow not an embroidered denim shirt, but rather, Liz’s college catalogues. So she can flip through them and admire all the gorgeous guys pictured in them. If Liz is learning to weld, I want to borrow her blowtorch for just a few minutes....
But then, wait! There’s a spark of something! Jessica, after admiring guys’ haircuts and cable-knit sweaters, suddenly starts realizing that these guys aren’t just hot; they’re also studying things like physics or history. And she wonders if maybe by not buckling down, she’s instead copping out by “hiding whole pieces of her personality behind clothes and charm” and wonders if maybe she can be fun and flirty “and study art or science-all at the same time?”
You mean... there might be more to life than boys and shopping?! Little things like ambition, achievement, and personal fulfillment? Is our little girl finally growing up?
We’ll have to wait to find out, though, because first Elizabeth has to go all melodramatically into The Oracle office and quit and cry all over Mr. Collins about how she bombed the SATs and she’ll never get into college now and will never be a writer. And really. Going to college doesn’t make you a writer, Liz. Writing makes you a writer. Writing is, in fact, one of the most potentially autodidactic of professional fields. Anyway, so Mr. Collins starts feeding her tissues and assuring her that she’s the best writer he’s ever seen in twelve years of teaching (which makes him 32-33 years old), and that makes me wonder how piss-poor his other students have been. Based on my own experience with teaching English, I’m willing to allow that, dreck though it is, Liz’s writing might actually be the best Mr. Collins has seen. So he assures her that despite crappy test scores, she’s still rilly rilly S-M-R-T, and please don’t quit the paper! Then he adds that while he’s surprised by Jessica’s scores, he always knew she was a “bright girl” and Liz agrees that Jess “is smart when she wants to be.” How convenient.
Can... can it be? Jessica Wakefield in science class, doing careful lab experiments?! You mean she’s really taking this smart thing seriously?!
Well, no.
Actually, she’s back to thinking about being on a campus with “the smartest, best-looking guys in the country” and having “an extremely handsome” lab partner. We were so close, folks. *sigh* Then Chrome Dome Cooper calls Jessica into his office to tell her she’s charged with cheating on the SATs and has to retake them.
At lunch, Liz tries to have a heart-to-heart with Todd, but he’s still too busy gooning over a letter that my alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, sent to him, and they’re sending a scout to come watch him play in a game next month. Go Quakers. And Todd pretty much runs right over Liz’s needs and insecurities like a Septa train. But then Liz hears about the accusations against Jessica, and jumps to conclusions, and rushes to scream at Jess in front of the whole school for somehow managing to swap their tests and stealing her - Liz’s, that is - scores. And the battle is on!
That night, Liz and Jess take turns trying to out-smart (geddit?!) each other, with Jess reading War and Peace and Liz reading aloud a history paper on ethics. Harsh! Anyway, then Mr. Cooper calls to drop the bombshell on Mrs. Wakefield. Over dinner, Ma and Pa Wakefield discuss the situation and assure Jessica they know she didn’t cheat, and tell her to retake the test and prove everyone wrong.
After dinner, Liz goes to her room and mulls over how Jess didn’t look guilty over the accusations. Er, again, Liz? That kind of logic is proof that you aren’t the smart one after all, sweetie. Even Michael Jackson doesn’t “look guilty” over his many accusations, but that doesn’t mean shit. And Liz thinks that “stealing exam scores isn’t exactly in character for” Jessica. The fuck it isn’t?! How many tests has she cheated on in the past? How about getting Robin Williams to steal Russo’s science test? Or even just snooping through people’s private papers and letters? I’m not convinced in any way that Jess might not find some way to dishonestly obtain stellar SAT scores, whether or not Liz thinks Jess “doesn’t care” about tests at all. Anyway, so then Liz goes upstairs to look over all of her essays and poetry, rereading things, and is struck by the sudden urge to “bundle up her years of writing and burn it all.” And based on my own work on Künstlerroman issues in girls’ lit., Liz, I think it’s a darned good idea. I’ll get the matches. But before Liz can do the writing world, if not the environment, a favor, Pa Wakefield comes up to suggest that Liz retake the test too.
Ken takes Jessica out for ice cream, where Jess defies the SVH gossipmongers, and orders a strawberry sundae for good measure. Heather comes over to snip and tell Jessie she’s off the squad, and Jess is all “Don’t lean on the table, it might break under your weight.” Bitch. And Heather smacks back with the obvious “I’m not the one who just ordered a strawberry sundae loaded with walnuts and M&Ms.” And Jess is all “I guess some of us are lucky enough to be able to maintain our perfect, perfect, awesome size-6 figures without being pathologically obsessed [and yes, Jess does use the phrase “pathologically obsessed”] about our weight all the time.” And why should Jess be pathologically obsessed about her weight when she has four dozen Ghostwriters to be pathologically obsessed with her weight for her instead? Jess, wait until you hit your mid-20s, punkin. Then she and Ken stomp out to go make out at Miller’s Point.
Liz tries whining to Todd one more time, but once again, Todd’s head is so far up his own self-congratulatory douchebag ass that he needs to install a window in his belly button to see out. Todd actually sits around and thinks about how he’s a humble and generous guy, but ought to cut Liz loose because they clearly aren’t headed in the same direction any more, now that he’s a dazzling superstar. But he decides, out of humbleness and generosity, I guess, to invite Liz to go up to Miller’s Point so he can try to get her to give his superstar woody a hand job or something. And because Liz clearly is stupid, she actually agrees.
And even without breaking 1000 on the SATs, you can tell what’s gonna happen, right? Jess and Ken have a fight, and she gets out of the car to walk home. Liz and Todd have a fight, and she kicks him out to drive home. Which means Liz gives Jess a lift, and the two of them bond over their dickhead boyfriends, and how awesomely smart they each are in their own special ways, and head to Casey’s for triple hot-fudge sundaes. Pathologically obsessed? Me? Nah. (So I won’t even mention the health class lecture where Ms. Rice (pun?) tells everyone that they need to eat four servings of grains and pasta every day, and two servings of cooked green vegetables. *eye roll*)
If that last scene wasn’t contrived enough, I don’t suppose you’d be surprised to find out that the next one involves Jessica now studying frantically for the new SATs, and Elizabeth taking it easy and relaxing. Which means you know what happens this time around: LIZ aces it (with higher scores than Jess’s original ones, just to restore order) and JESS bombs big time. Guess they didn’t cover logical fallacies on the SATs, huh?
How did they manage to retake ‘em so quick, anyway? Because there are all sorts of registration deadlines and stuff, and usually the test is only scheduled a handful of times a year.
And passage of time in this book is weird, because we get yet ANOTHER “Weeks later. . .” break, which means that the trajectory of this plot is supposed to take place over at LEAST two months. But such is the never-ending junior year of high school at Sweet Valley High.
Anyway, with her Epic Fail scores in as conclusive proof that she cheated on the test, Jess is suspended from school, and spends the next several days on her ass in front of game shows, eating three bowls of Rocky Road ice cream in one go. I hope she at least got gas.
Liz, in the meantime, is back to Superstar Student Status and pitches a FABULOUS and CREATIVE idea to Mr. Collins based on one of her pre-SATs adventures: she wants to write about “a typical afternoon in the Valley Mall” and interview people about their day. I can just imagine how the piece would go:
• Shopowner 1: Well, today I carried clothes back and forth to the dressing room for a spoiled girl with her daddy’s credit card and her friend who looked just like you.
• Shopowner 2: Today I carried clothes back and forth to the dressing room for a spoiled girl with her daddy’s credit card and her friend who looked just like you.
• Shopowner 3: Let’s see... today, I carried clothes back and forth to the dressing room for a spoiled girl with her daddy’s credit card and her friend who looked just like you.
• Shopper 1: I was trampled by two SVH girls who were shrieking something about a sale on leather pants at Foxy Mama’s.
• Shopper 2: All I was trying to do was return a pair of sneakers, but I got whacked over the head by two teenaged girls who were pushing past me to get to the designer handbags!
• Shoppers 3 & 4: MOVE, LIZ! We’re trying to find the perfect pair of sandals for the party at the Beach Disco tonight! MOOOOVE!
Collins, natch, thinks this is BRILLIANT. And Liz’s awesomely awesome “unifying theme to pull it all together”...? That “people may seem a certain way on the surface, but once you get to know them a little, they have many sides to them.” What an amazing study of human character, Liz! You is sooooo smart! Whee! Look out, Harvard! Get ready, Princeton!
She and Todd, meanwhile, haven’t OFFICIALLY broken up for the ten millionth time, but are “awkward” around each other. And breaking up is “just a matter of time-unless she apologized and really talked to him about why she’d been so upset.” Like that’ll happen. And as if Todd’s being a complete wank had nothing to do with anything?! Why do people think Liz and Todd are the ultimate supercouple again...? Especially after Liz AGAIN goes to talk to him and he AGAIN blows her off because he’s too awesome and too busy practicing for the basketball scouts to listen to her.
Ken comes over to share ice cream with Jessica and tell her how beautiful she is. Then Liz shows up with “a plan to clear Jessica’s name.” Seems Liz was all super-inspired by Mr. Collins’s class today about the play Inherit the Wind. This is supposed to make us think that Liz is super-smart and literary, but really, cutting-and-pasting literature to apply it to your own life (ahem) is hardly the mark of deepest intellect. So she’s decided, based on this play, not anything like “Fuck, in 2008, America going to be TERRIFYING when, despite everything this trial did, there are still people who will argue that they don’t ‘believe’ in evolution, as if it’s Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy, and that there is no separation between church and state and Christianity needs to be taught in schools instead of science, and WHAT THE FUCK HAS HAPPENED IN THE LAST GENERATION?!?” but rather, that what is really the issue about Jessica’s SAT scores is her, um, right to be different as a “smart” person.
I’m actually not surprised we haven’t heard people protesting that not only should schoolkids not be taught evolution, but they shouldn’t be taught about the Scopes trial or read Inherit the Wind, either. I’m sure it’s just a matter of time.
So Liz decides to hold a mock trial at school in lieu of a school board hearing to defend Jessica’s right to be a fucking selfish airhead twat and still get stellar SAT scores.
In the meantime, Jessica - despite being suspended, which, one assumes, means she is not to be on school grounds, period - decides to go to the basketball game with Ken, and makes Liz come with her, even though Todd Terrific’s going to be playing BMoC for all the talent scouts. And Liz actually feels guilty, DESPITE THE FACT THAT TODD HAS BEEN AN ABSOLUTE ASSHOLE, because tonight is the biggest night of Todd’s life! W00t! So therefore it’s totally okay that he’s been a dick for the two-three months this book encompasses...? Thus, I am totally and ridiculously happy when, at the Big Game with all the Ivy League scouts, Todd gets his ass kicked by an opposing team member and fractures his ankle. It’s called schadenfreude, Toddy-kins. And you suck. I repeat:
Jess has another brief crisis of self-esteem when she watches Heather leading the Gladiator cheerleaders without her, but Ken assures Jess that SHE’S the one who really gets the people fired up, so Jess is happy again. Because she’s an awesome cheerleader. What happened to the smart, Jessica? What happened to the smart?
On Monday morning, Liz and Jess march into Mr. Cooper’s office to deliver his summons to appear in the trial Liz has planned to prove Jessica’s innocence. And for some reason, Chrome Dome and the school board AGREE to this mock trial, no questions. I guess Mr. Cooper’s comment to Mr. Wakefield when he was suspending Jessica about “with all due respect to your highly regarded place in the community” was secret principal code for “Holy shit, I can’t forget that this brat’s daddy is a lawyer!” The trial is set for Wednesday. So on Tuesday, there’s a whole Rah-Rah Jessica!!! non-official pep rally, with Ken leading the half of the junior class who believe in Jessica. (According to Dana Larson, the class is split clean down the middle on Jessica’s guilt or innocence. I sure hope the mock trial doesn’t include people standing on certain sides of the gym bleachers to vote or anything.) All the cheerleaders, minus Heather, do pyramids for Jessica. But a group of Bad Boys, with metal chains and leather motorcycle jackets so we know they’re REEEEALLY bad, lead by Bruce, are having a Jessica is Guilty party on the front steps. The conflict! The drama!
For some reason, all this Jessica-Rallying makes Elizabeth think about “real friends” and that maybe Todd, poor broken-ankle’d Todd, needs her after all. So she takes him fresh-baked cookies and coloring books and lets him grovel a bit about how self-centered he’s been (y’think?) and how much he looooves her (actions speak louder than words, dicksmack). Problem solved! And they live happily ever after! MWAH!
So the next day, Big Trial Day, Mrs. Wakefield fixes them pancakes for breakfast. I mean, I have never gotten how this family manages all of the homemade big ol’ breakfasts on regular weekdays. I know they’re better than us and all that, but really. No one would question your parenting abilities, Alice, if y’all just did the big breakkies for Sunday brunch, and made the brats fix their own damned toast when you’re on your way to the office. And when the girls get to school, somehow it’s been deemed acceptable for people to hang banners all over school property declaring Jessica’s guilt or innocence. The one Lila hangs is purple. Of course. And classes are even canceled for the morning so everyone can watch this awesomeness unfold. Screw Jessica; SVH Academics are Guilty!
The trial is totally boring. Liz makes like every bad prime time court show lawyer. Mr. Cooper is bald and petulant. Mrs. Jefferson the school librarian and trial judge is high on power yet endearing. And I just want to know... how has anyone managed to find a non-prejudice jury of people who don’t know Jessica - the dazzling, popular, school-spirited leader of SVH, the most gorgeous girl in the junior class, the queen of everyone’s hearts - Wakefield very well in a matter of 24 hours?! A moment of unintended hilarity, however, occurs when Liz calls Ms. Dalton on Jessica’s behalf, who tells everyone that Jessica “always speaks perfectly” when called on in French class. And having witnessed Jessie’s trip to Nice and seen her at various foreign films where she can only remember the most basics, like “bonjour” and “madam,” We-the-Readers know this is total bullshit. Then Jessica is called to the stand, and instead of being questioned, she instead gets to give some inspirational yet adorable speech which she likens to being like accepting an Academy Award, albeit not quite as much fun. She makes some dumb jokes, even throws in a “but seriously, everyone.” And then, after her heartfelt declaration of innocence, Liz gets to make a big speech too, about how she “unwittingly conducted an experiment” with their changing study conditions and test results. Someone, sign this girl up for NASA, ‘cos boy does she understand scientific method and controlled environments!
Really, it’s a fight to figure out who is dumber in this book under a variety of situations and with a variety of conditions: Jess or Liz.
So Jess is quickly declared not guilty, and, instead of having to spend time catching up on schoolwork or anything, the twinsies get rewarded with a week-long, spending-money-provided, hard-partying school-missing trip up to Sweet Valley University to hang out with Steven (which, yup, I’ll do next)!
Thus, this tri-book recap stands in recess! Dismissed!
I wonder how Nicholas Morrow is at blogging and Livejournal posting...?
Anyway, I’m gonna tackle one of my favorite Guilty Pleasure three-book arcs: The College Party series (a.k.a., Yes, Jessica, You Really ARE Stupid, Despite Standardized Test Scores, or, “Who’s Really the Dumbest Twin? Because it’s Really Hard to Tell Here”)! Like my other favorite miniseries, the Cheerleaders Do the Funky Monkey one, this one starts off groovy, with potential to actually do something semi-meaningfulish, but quickly ends up veering off someplace else to finally conclude with a circling-the-bowl mish-mash of stupid (as rhitroadkill discovered)!
At least there are no SVHers in drag this time. For that we can be grateful.
So I bring you the first in a three-part series: Jessica the Genius!
The cover is dippy. The twins in the below-scenario pictures look hardly anything like the twins in the title-up-top picture. And it also features two scenes that never take place in this book: Jessica smiling cattily and holding up an SVU sweatshirt in what looks like a student store (because I refuse to believe her bedroom has an SVU banner and stacked folded shirts on a shelf display), and Liz and Todd studying together for the SATs in front of an IKEA-looking bookcase, with a very dated cordless phone and a whole bunch of study guides in Cyrillic or Simlish or something next to them.
And from sentence number one, there’s a mistake. Elizabeth is ostensibly hunched at her OAK desk studying. Wrong! Everyone knows Elizabeth has a giant utility-like table she uses as a desk. Sheesh, man!
Anyway. So Elizabeth is frantically studying words for tomorrow’s SATs. And she studies them by copying them in a big long list in her notebook. Dude. I took the GREs THREE TIMES and I know from studying for standardized tests. Flashcards, Lizzie, FLASHCARDS! Liz is also bemoaning the fact that her desk is messy with math and English workbooks, when she usually keeps it so “impeccably neat” and uncluttered. I wouldn’t trust a writer or scholar with a neat, uncluttered desk, personally. And she’s freaking about how her entire future depends on this exam. She’s spent all week in a prep class. (Scan, Discard, Select, Move On, perhaps?) And she’s decided that she’s going to get perfect scores on both test sections even if she has to study all night. Er, Liz? Aren’t you supposed to be the smart twin? Perfect scores on the SATs is a pretty unreasonable goal, dear. Then Liz frets about how she’ll just have to abandon Jess to go to a prominent university when they graduate high school.
Someone needs a heavy-duty reality check about The Future, and it isn’t just Jessica.
Jess breezes in to borrow Lizzie’s, um, embroidered denim shirt for her hott date with Quarterback Ken. While blowing off reviewing for the test tomorrow morning, natch. And I think her fashion choices indicate her lack of “genius” more than anything, really. Like Lila would be caught dead in embroidered denim?! WWLFD, bitches?!
Todd’s at home studying, too, but he takes a quick time out for a masterbatory read of a letter from University of Michigan, creaming their basketball shorts over his athletic prowess. Todd’s determined to score high on the SATs and earn a scholarship not just for him, but for Elizabeth. “Todd never ceased to be amazed by the incredible, beautiful girl who’d stood by him through so much.” Why Men Love Doormats: How to be His Dreamgirl!, coming soon to a bookstore near you. So, overwhelmed with love, Todd rushes over in his 2Todd2 Beemer to see Liz so they can make out and talk about all the awesome top-tier schools that will be fighting over them. “Won’t it be great when we’re in college together?” Todd asks her, mentally scribbling “Day One of College: Finally Get to Second Base with Liz” on his calendar.
On the morning of the SATs, Liz, of course, is a basket-case, while Jessica is calm and relaxed and perky. Liz gets to the testing classroom on time with the other dozens of students, but Jess manages to breeze in way after the test has started. And in my experience with standardized testing, if you aren’t there a half-hour before the exam starts to check in, you don’t get in. Period. Even if you overslept or your car broke down or whatever. But I guess when you’re Jessica Wakefield, you can just wander into a test whenever you feel like it, make a massive amount of noise, and get away with it. I’m surprised that Ghostwriter didn’t include a line or two about the test proctor being droolingly gobsmacked by Jessica’s California Girl good looks or something, just to underscore the obvious.
Naturally, the night after the SATs, Lila throws a big party where everyone eats fancy salmon puff pastries and talks about how hard the test was, except for Jessica, who just wants everyone to stop being so boring already and makes pointed remark after pointed remark about how she doesn’t care about the test and the future and college and all that icky yucky booky stuff. (Note: no actual pool pushing this time, but a bunch of guys do jump in fully clothed.) In a particularly spectacular moment, Jessica wanders into the Fowlers’ living room, which is decorated in the already-way-passé-by-the-time-this-book-was-published-in-1995 Southwestern décor, and contemplates “a bronze sculpture of a Native American, riding bareback on an Appaloosa, his long straight hair flying in the wind. ...She imagined the muscular rider reaching out a powerful arm and lifting her beside him onto the back of the horse.” Jessica’s Savage Spirit! The Warrior and the Twin! Was Cassie Edwards an SVH Ghostwriter, ‘cos that’d be AWESOME! Anyway, Jessica manages to make some snotty remark to Bruce about how he’ll never ever ever get out of Sweet Valley to go to a decent college, which pisses Bruce off. “At least I have real dreams and serious goals.... What do you have, Jessica? Are you planning to be a professional cheerleader?” Oh, PWNED! Jessica’s big retort, though, is to snip back “Maybe I am.” Like, wow, Jessie.
Elizabeth, in the meantime, falls asleep in a chair, dreaming of her and Todd in a sailboat on the Charles River at Harvard. I would like to apply a liberal dose of “bitch, please” to Elizabeth.
Four weeks later (and yes, the chapter actually begins “Four weeks later. . .”), the SAT results come in, and Liz is devastated to discover that she didn’t even break 1000 with her combined scores.
Jessica, however, manages a 760 verbal and 750 math. Fucking bitch.
Jessica, naturally, pooh-poohs this and whines that she’s only got thirty minutes of sun left for tanning and flits outside to the pool. If ever there was a time for a pool push, Liz....
Next, Jess and Lila (of COURSE!) go shopping at the mall. Lila got a bonus in her clothing allowance for managing to stumble through the SATs, and she encourages Jess to buy a silk outfit because “It’ll be you and me, Jess, catching the attention of every upper-class guy on the volleyball and swim teams at SVU.” Lila’s decided to blow off Daddy’s alma mater, Yale, and go to Sweet Valley University because “there’s no way I’m getting too far from the best beaches and malls in the world-not to mention the best looking guys!” Lila, hi, but maybe you should try Italy if you want gorgeous beaches, shopping, and hot guys. Oh. Wait.
And Jessica, because she’s Jessica, has a deep and meaningful philosophical internal dialogue about her self and her goals: “Nothing was going to interfere with Jessica’s reputation for being gorgeous, fashionable, and too cool to care about school.” I want to punch her in the face. I mean, why should Todd have all the fun?!
Then Jess goes out to dinner with Ken, where he tells her how proud he is that his girlfriend is the sexiest girl in school, and she flirts all over the waiter because she’s JESSICA FUCKING WAKEFIELD and she’s TOTALLY HOT! But then... Ken insinuates that she probably didn’t do so good on the SATs, so she tells him actually she did REALLY well, and he doesn’t believe her, and she gets all hurt that he doesn’t think she’d do well scholastically. Despite downing a burger, fries and a shake, Jessica’s “stomach felt strangely hollow.”
And after countless pages of Jessica pretty much shitting on any semblance of a goal for the future or serious consideration of anything or anyone, of her constant comments about how life’ll work out and she always lands on her feet and maybe she’ll be a professional cheerleader and the future is soooo boring, Jessica is affronted that anyone - her boyfriend, her friends, her own twin sister - might think she’s just some dumb blonde bimbo. So now we’re supposed to... feel sorry for Jessica, the poor victim, I guess. I only hope that Quaterback Ken takes her for a double STFU sundae at Casey’s for dessert after all that.
In the meantime, Liz is super-angsty that she might not be smart after all. Sweetie-pie, if we look at your various life choices and decision-making skills, not to mention the examples of your poetry and newspaper work, I don’t think we needed a standardized test to come to that conclusion.
Jessica and Winston are hailed at school the next day as the highest scorers. *snicker* Jessica, of course, acts like an entitled brat and hams it up, not to mention makes some more snotty comments to Bruce. Uh-oh!
Toddy “Whizzer” Wilkins, because of one letter from a college basketball scout, has quickly morphed from merely a self-congratulatory asshole to majorly smug, egotistical, completely obnoxious dickwad. He sits at the lunch table with Ken, bragging about how it’s okay that Winston’s getting a plaque today because “I’ve had a lot more successes in general than Winston” and how he’s “worked hard enough to achieve something truly great” and how easy it was to ace the SATs and how he’s “heading for the big time, leaving the tiny world of Sweet Valley behind.” And that’s how we REALLY know Todd is headed for trouble, because come on, no one leaves the world of Sweet Valley behind! It’s probably on Page One of Francine’s Sweet Valley Bible! It’s the Hotel Sweet Valley, California: you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. But this doesn’t occur to Todd as he sits around dreaming about Ivy League schools’ coaches humping his leg and whispering “You’re a shooting star. And I can take you to the moon.” Gee whiz. And Todd? If you want a serious basketball career...? Don’t play sports on an Ivy League team, creampuff. Head to the Midwest or down south instead.
Jessica is surprised and hurt that her classmates keep expressing amazement over her SAT scores, and is insulted when someone compliments her outfit or tells her how gorgeous she is. But six pages ago, you wanted to be known for being gorgeous, fashionable and “too cool to care about school”! So suck it up and deal!
Elizabeth is still upset and questioning her own intellectual abilities. She sees Todd showing a bunch of guys - including a “Ron Edwards” - his U of M letter. She goes to throw herself on him and cry, but he’s too high on his own awesomeness to notice. Liz with her low SAT scores realizes she’s not good enough for Todd, and “I’m going to lose him forever. My life is over” because Todd will leave her to go to a big university. C’mon, Liz, can’t you at least be noble and tell yourself you wouldn’t want to hold him back?
In the school cafeteria, for the first time ever, we see Jessica consuming a meal that might be what a perfect size six California girl would eat: a small salad. But this isn’t because she has to diet to maintain her figure or anything... no, it’s because she’s too upset to eat her usual Tuna Surprise or spaghetti and meatballs or whatever goodness the caf is serving today. So after bitching at her friends, she snags a magazine - yes, a magazine! Quel surprise! - from Lila because it features an article on “College Men to Pine For”! And the reason why Jessica can rub her friends’ noses in her stellar SAT scores is not because she’ll get into good colleges and maybe become famous or wealthy because of her own academic and career achievements, oh no. It’s because she’ll “be sharing the campus with these hunks!” who “wear long-sleeved polo shirts!” Uh, wow. Dudes, I went to an Ivy League school. I still spend chunks of time doing research at various Ivy League school libraries. There are certainly no more “hunks” there than anywhere else. Maybe less, even. If Jessica wants College Beefcake, go to USC or UCLA for fuck’s sake! Plus, Jessica gloats that “Great-looking, successful guys are always proud to be around smart girls.” Oh, absolutely, go for the generalization! Plus, just look around Los Angeles or New York City, Jessie, and that’s what you’ll see... brilliant Adonises who are proud to be with their smart girls. Of course, if you’re ALSO blonde, tanned, fashionable, gorgeous, wear a perfect size zero (which is the contemporary equivalent of a Wakefieldian size six), have YOOOGE knockers, can suck a golf ball through a yard of garden hose, wax off all your pubes, swallow, and happily have threesomes with your hottt girl friends and him, you can go far with those great-looking, successful guys who will be totally proud of your intellectual prowess.
Ken isn’t proud of Jess, though. Ken blows her off between classes and Jessica gets all teary-eyed. Snurfle.
At home that night, Liz is trying to read something for Collins’s class - probably Lolita - but can’t concentrate. So she attempts to, um, fill out some college application essays. I mean, by scratching an answer in pencil on the form. No rough draft? No outline? Honey, IT’S A COLLEGE APPLICATION ESSAY! You don’t scribble a thought here and a thought there right on the page and expect it all to come together. And anyway, you write it on your computer and electronically submit it! We also learn Liz has a Shakespeare poster in her room. What ever happened to Jason Robards in A Touch of the Poet?
Liz whines to herself that, instead of writing or studying, she should “be in the garage, learning to weld” because she’s “obviously headed for vocational school.” Oh, don’t sell yourself so short, Liz... you could make WAY more money down at the Spearmint Rhino.
Jessica comes in to borrow not an embroidered denim shirt, but rather, Liz’s college catalogues. So she can flip through them and admire all the gorgeous guys pictured in them. If Liz is learning to weld, I want to borrow her blowtorch for just a few minutes....
But then, wait! There’s a spark of something! Jessica, after admiring guys’ haircuts and cable-knit sweaters, suddenly starts realizing that these guys aren’t just hot; they’re also studying things like physics or history. And she wonders if maybe by not buckling down, she’s instead copping out by “hiding whole pieces of her personality behind clothes and charm” and wonders if maybe she can be fun and flirty “and study art or science-all at the same time?”
You mean... there might be more to life than boys and shopping?! Little things like ambition, achievement, and personal fulfillment? Is our little girl finally growing up?
We’ll have to wait to find out, though, because first Elizabeth has to go all melodramatically into The Oracle office and quit and cry all over Mr. Collins about how she bombed the SATs and she’ll never get into college now and will never be a writer. And really. Going to college doesn’t make you a writer, Liz. Writing makes you a writer. Writing is, in fact, one of the most potentially autodidactic of professional fields. Anyway, so Mr. Collins starts feeding her tissues and assuring her that she’s the best writer he’s ever seen in twelve years of teaching (which makes him 32-33 years old), and that makes me wonder how piss-poor his other students have been. Based on my own experience with teaching English, I’m willing to allow that, dreck though it is, Liz’s writing might actually be the best Mr. Collins has seen. So he assures her that despite crappy test scores, she’s still rilly rilly S-M-R-T, and please don’t quit the paper! Then he adds that while he’s surprised by Jessica’s scores, he always knew she was a “bright girl” and Liz agrees that Jess “is smart when she wants to be.” How convenient.
Can... can it be? Jessica Wakefield in science class, doing careful lab experiments?! You mean she’s really taking this smart thing seriously?!
Well, no.
Actually, she’s back to thinking about being on a campus with “the smartest, best-looking guys in the country” and having “an extremely handsome” lab partner. We were so close, folks. *sigh* Then Chrome Dome Cooper calls Jessica into his office to tell her she’s charged with cheating on the SATs and has to retake them.
At lunch, Liz tries to have a heart-to-heart with Todd, but he’s still too busy gooning over a letter that my alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, sent to him, and they’re sending a scout to come watch him play in a game next month. Go Quakers. And Todd pretty much runs right over Liz’s needs and insecurities like a Septa train. But then Liz hears about the accusations against Jessica, and jumps to conclusions, and rushes to scream at Jess in front of the whole school for somehow managing to swap their tests and stealing her - Liz’s, that is - scores. And the battle is on!
That night, Liz and Jess take turns trying to out-smart (geddit?!) each other, with Jess reading War and Peace and Liz reading aloud a history paper on ethics. Harsh! Anyway, then Mr. Cooper calls to drop the bombshell on Mrs. Wakefield. Over dinner, Ma and Pa Wakefield discuss the situation and assure Jessica they know she didn’t cheat, and tell her to retake the test and prove everyone wrong.
After dinner, Liz goes to her room and mulls over how Jess didn’t look guilty over the accusations. Er, again, Liz? That kind of logic is proof that you aren’t the smart one after all, sweetie. Even Michael Jackson doesn’t “look guilty” over his many accusations, but that doesn’t mean shit. And Liz thinks that “stealing exam scores isn’t exactly in character for” Jessica. The fuck it isn’t?! How many tests has she cheated on in the past? How about getting Robin Williams to steal Russo’s science test? Or even just snooping through people’s private papers and letters? I’m not convinced in any way that Jess might not find some way to dishonestly obtain stellar SAT scores, whether or not Liz thinks Jess “doesn’t care” about tests at all. Anyway, so then Liz goes upstairs to look over all of her essays and poetry, rereading things, and is struck by the sudden urge to “bundle up her years of writing and burn it all.” And based on my own work on Künstlerroman issues in girls’ lit., Liz, I think it’s a darned good idea. I’ll get the matches. But before Liz can do the writing world, if not the environment, a favor, Pa Wakefield comes up to suggest that Liz retake the test too.
Ken takes Jessica out for ice cream, where Jess defies the SVH gossipmongers, and orders a strawberry sundae for good measure. Heather comes over to snip and tell Jessie she’s off the squad, and Jess is all “Don’t lean on the table, it might break under your weight.” Bitch. And Heather smacks back with the obvious “I’m not the one who just ordered a strawberry sundae loaded with walnuts and M&Ms.” And Jess is all “I guess some of us are lucky enough to be able to maintain our perfect, perfect, awesome size-6 figures without being pathologically obsessed [and yes, Jess does use the phrase “pathologically obsessed”] about our weight all the time.” And why should Jess be pathologically obsessed about her weight when she has four dozen Ghostwriters to be pathologically obsessed with her weight for her instead? Jess, wait until you hit your mid-20s, punkin. Then she and Ken stomp out to go make out at Miller’s Point.
Liz tries whining to Todd one more time, but once again, Todd’s head is so far up his own self-congratulatory douchebag ass that he needs to install a window in his belly button to see out. Todd actually sits around and thinks about how he’s a humble and generous guy, but ought to cut Liz loose because they clearly aren’t headed in the same direction any more, now that he’s a dazzling superstar. But he decides, out of humbleness and generosity, I guess, to invite Liz to go up to Miller’s Point so he can try to get her to give his superstar woody a hand job or something. And because Liz clearly is stupid, she actually agrees.
And even without breaking 1000 on the SATs, you can tell what’s gonna happen, right? Jess and Ken have a fight, and she gets out of the car to walk home. Liz and Todd have a fight, and she kicks him out to drive home. Which means Liz gives Jess a lift, and the two of them bond over their dickhead boyfriends, and how awesomely smart they each are in their own special ways, and head to Casey’s for triple hot-fudge sundaes. Pathologically obsessed? Me? Nah. (So I won’t even mention the health class lecture where Ms. Rice (pun?) tells everyone that they need to eat four servings of grains and pasta every day, and two servings of cooked green vegetables. *eye roll*)
If that last scene wasn’t contrived enough, I don’t suppose you’d be surprised to find out that the next one involves Jessica now studying frantically for the new SATs, and Elizabeth taking it easy and relaxing. Which means you know what happens this time around: LIZ aces it (with higher scores than Jess’s original ones, just to restore order) and JESS bombs big time. Guess they didn’t cover logical fallacies on the SATs, huh?
How did they manage to retake ‘em so quick, anyway? Because there are all sorts of registration deadlines and stuff, and usually the test is only scheduled a handful of times a year.
And passage of time in this book is weird, because we get yet ANOTHER “Weeks later. . .” break, which means that the trajectory of this plot is supposed to take place over at LEAST two months. But such is the never-ending junior year of high school at Sweet Valley High.
Anyway, with her Epic Fail scores in as conclusive proof that she cheated on the test, Jess is suspended from school, and spends the next several days on her ass in front of game shows, eating three bowls of Rocky Road ice cream in one go. I hope she at least got gas.
Liz, in the meantime, is back to Superstar Student Status and pitches a FABULOUS and CREATIVE idea to Mr. Collins based on one of her pre-SATs adventures: she wants to write about “a typical afternoon in the Valley Mall” and interview people about their day. I can just imagine how the piece would go:
• Shopowner 1: Well, today I carried clothes back and forth to the dressing room for a spoiled girl with her daddy’s credit card and her friend who looked just like you.
• Shopowner 2: Today I carried clothes back and forth to the dressing room for a spoiled girl with her daddy’s credit card and her friend who looked just like you.
• Shopowner 3: Let’s see... today, I carried clothes back and forth to the dressing room for a spoiled girl with her daddy’s credit card and her friend who looked just like you.
• Shopper 1: I was trampled by two SVH girls who were shrieking something about a sale on leather pants at Foxy Mama’s.
• Shopper 2: All I was trying to do was return a pair of sneakers, but I got whacked over the head by two teenaged girls who were pushing past me to get to the designer handbags!
• Shoppers 3 & 4: MOVE, LIZ! We’re trying to find the perfect pair of sandals for the party at the Beach Disco tonight! MOOOOVE!
Collins, natch, thinks this is BRILLIANT. And Liz’s awesomely awesome “unifying theme to pull it all together”...? That “people may seem a certain way on the surface, but once you get to know them a little, they have many sides to them.” What an amazing study of human character, Liz! You is sooooo smart! Whee! Look out, Harvard! Get ready, Princeton!
She and Todd, meanwhile, haven’t OFFICIALLY broken up for the ten millionth time, but are “awkward” around each other. And breaking up is “just a matter of time-unless she apologized and really talked to him about why she’d been so upset.” Like that’ll happen. And as if Todd’s being a complete wank had nothing to do with anything?! Why do people think Liz and Todd are the ultimate supercouple again...? Especially after Liz AGAIN goes to talk to him and he AGAIN blows her off because he’s too awesome and too busy practicing for the basketball scouts to listen to her.
Ken comes over to share ice cream with Jessica and tell her how beautiful she is. Then Liz shows up with “a plan to clear Jessica’s name.” Seems Liz was all super-inspired by Mr. Collins’s class today about the play Inherit the Wind. This is supposed to make us think that Liz is super-smart and literary, but really, cutting-and-pasting literature to apply it to your own life (ahem) is hardly the mark of deepest intellect. So she’s decided, based on this play, not anything like “Fuck, in 2008, America going to be TERRIFYING when, despite everything this trial did, there are still people who will argue that they don’t ‘believe’ in evolution, as if it’s Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy, and that there is no separation between church and state and Christianity needs to be taught in schools instead of science, and WHAT THE FUCK HAS HAPPENED IN THE LAST GENERATION?!?” but rather, that what is really the issue about Jessica’s SAT scores is her, um, right to be different as a “smart” person.
I’m actually not surprised we haven’t heard people protesting that not only should schoolkids not be taught evolution, but they shouldn’t be taught about the Scopes trial or read Inherit the Wind, either. I’m sure it’s just a matter of time.
So Liz decides to hold a mock trial at school in lieu of a school board hearing to defend Jessica’s right to be a fucking selfish airhead twat and still get stellar SAT scores.
In the meantime, Jessica - despite being suspended, which, one assumes, means she is not to be on school grounds, period - decides to go to the basketball game with Ken, and makes Liz come with her, even though Todd Terrific’s going to be playing BMoC for all the talent scouts. And Liz actually feels guilty, DESPITE THE FACT THAT TODD HAS BEEN AN ABSOLUTE ASSHOLE, because tonight is the biggest night of Todd’s life! W00t! So therefore it’s totally okay that he’s been a dick for the two-three months this book encompasses...? Thus, I am totally and ridiculously happy when, at the Big Game with all the Ivy League scouts, Todd gets his ass kicked by an opposing team member and fractures his ankle. It’s called schadenfreude, Toddy-kins. And you suck. I repeat:
Jess has another brief crisis of self-esteem when she watches Heather leading the Gladiator cheerleaders without her, but Ken assures Jess that SHE’S the one who really gets the people fired up, so Jess is happy again. Because she’s an awesome cheerleader. What happened to the smart, Jessica? What happened to the smart?
On Monday morning, Liz and Jess march into Mr. Cooper’s office to deliver his summons to appear in the trial Liz has planned to prove Jessica’s innocence. And for some reason, Chrome Dome and the school board AGREE to this mock trial, no questions. I guess Mr. Cooper’s comment to Mr. Wakefield when he was suspending Jessica about “with all due respect to your highly regarded place in the community” was secret principal code for “Holy shit, I can’t forget that this brat’s daddy is a lawyer!” The trial is set for Wednesday. So on Tuesday, there’s a whole Rah-Rah Jessica!!! non-official pep rally, with Ken leading the half of the junior class who believe in Jessica. (According to Dana Larson, the class is split clean down the middle on Jessica’s guilt or innocence. I sure hope the mock trial doesn’t include people standing on certain sides of the gym bleachers to vote or anything.) All the cheerleaders, minus Heather, do pyramids for Jessica. But a group of Bad Boys, with metal chains and leather motorcycle jackets so we know they’re REEEEALLY bad, lead by Bruce, are having a Jessica is Guilty party on the front steps. The conflict! The drama!
For some reason, all this Jessica-Rallying makes Elizabeth think about “real friends” and that maybe Todd, poor broken-ankle’d Todd, needs her after all. So she takes him fresh-baked cookies and coloring books and lets him grovel a bit about how self-centered he’s been (y’think?) and how much he looooves her (actions speak louder than words, dicksmack). Problem solved! And they live happily ever after! MWAH!
So the next day, Big Trial Day, Mrs. Wakefield fixes them pancakes for breakfast. I mean, I have never gotten how this family manages all of the homemade big ol’ breakfasts on regular weekdays. I know they’re better than us and all that, but really. No one would question your parenting abilities, Alice, if y’all just did the big breakkies for Sunday brunch, and made the brats fix their own damned toast when you’re on your way to the office. And when the girls get to school, somehow it’s been deemed acceptable for people to hang banners all over school property declaring Jessica’s guilt or innocence. The one Lila hangs is purple. Of course. And classes are even canceled for the morning so everyone can watch this awesomeness unfold. Screw Jessica; SVH Academics are Guilty!
The trial is totally boring. Liz makes like every bad prime time court show lawyer. Mr. Cooper is bald and petulant. Mrs. Jefferson the school librarian and trial judge is high on power yet endearing. And I just want to know... how has anyone managed to find a non-prejudice jury of people who don’t know Jessica - the dazzling, popular, school-spirited leader of SVH, the most gorgeous girl in the junior class, the queen of everyone’s hearts - Wakefield very well in a matter of 24 hours?! A moment of unintended hilarity, however, occurs when Liz calls Ms. Dalton on Jessica’s behalf, who tells everyone that Jessica “always speaks perfectly” when called on in French class. And having witnessed Jessie’s trip to Nice and seen her at various foreign films where she can only remember the most basics, like “bonjour” and “madam,” We-the-Readers know this is total bullshit. Then Jessica is called to the stand, and instead of being questioned, she instead gets to give some inspirational yet adorable speech which she likens to being like accepting an Academy Award, albeit not quite as much fun. She makes some dumb jokes, even throws in a “but seriously, everyone.” And then, after her heartfelt declaration of innocence, Liz gets to make a big speech too, about how she “unwittingly conducted an experiment” with their changing study conditions and test results. Someone, sign this girl up for NASA, ‘cos boy does she understand scientific method and controlled environments!
Really, it’s a fight to figure out who is dumber in this book under a variety of situations and with a variety of conditions: Jess or Liz.
So Jess is quickly declared not guilty, and, instead of having to spend time catching up on schoolwork or anything, the twinsies get rewarded with a week-long, spending-money-provided, hard-partying school-missing trip up to Sweet Valley University to hang out with Steven (which, yup, I’ll do next)!
Thus, this tri-book recap stands in recess! Dismissed!