SVT Super Edition #13: Elizabeth: Next Stop, Jr. High
This is a glorious book where Elizabeth stuffs everything up for a bunch of poor Costa Ricans. But I'm sure she'll fix it up again. Drat.
Elizabeth says in this book, she's thirteen. It's set in August before the twins' eighth-grade year. But for her to be a Gemini, she's gotta be born in late May/June. I think their birthday is in June, according to SVH. Apparently they're thirteen for all of seventh grade, and eighth grade too. That's odd!
So the timeline of ages (to me) seems to go like this:
First year/kindergarten/new entrant/ whatever you call it: age 5
1st grade: age 6
2nd grade (SVK): age 7
3rd grade: age 8
4th grade: age 9
5th grade: age 10
WHEN ARE THEY 11 YEARS OLD?
6th grade (SVT): age 12
7th grade(Unicorn Club series): age 13
8th grade (SVJH): age 13 again!!
freshman year: age 14
sophomore year: age 15
junior year (SVH series): age 16
senior year: age 17
Then college at 18 and 19 (SVU). Liz goes to London at age 20, maybe?
So everything would make sense if they were 11 in the SVT series. But I guess that's not as grown up as age 12. There's such a huge difference. *rolls eyes*
No snark on the cover. Liz actually looks pretty. Prettier than Jessica on her cover. BUUUURN!
But anyway, back to Elizabeth's adventures in Costa Rica! First up, she talks to the parentals about permission to go on this house-building project to help people whose towns were messed up by floods. But by this point we know she's going, so it's pretty much tension-free. By the way, this whole book is narrated by Elizabeth, because she's writing this in her diary. She's applying for a group called Rain Forest Friends, which reminds me of The Good Friends, that half-assed cult Jessica was in. Elizabeth mentions that she's done work for "Houses for Humans." As opposed to houses for alpacas or zebras or something. Personally she would have been way cooler if she’d volunteered for Houses for Llamas. Why can’t they just say Habitat for Humanity? At least that makes sense.
At the airport, Jessica gives Liz a big bag of rock CDs and teen magazines. Liz isn’t supposed to take ‘American culture’ to Costa Rica with her. Lord forbid she expose the natives to the crap teenagers call music. So Elizabeth, ever charitable, leaves the bag outside the toilets with a note for a bunch of giggly Canadian girls who didn’t have enough cash for magazines. After that, she meets a guy called Andy, who is sweet but nerdy and will of course not be a love interest because of that, and J.P., who’s like, such a babe. He smiles at Liz, and after an internal monologue of over a page, she smiles back. I’m not entirely sure how long it would have taken her in real life to smile back. It would take a while to do all that thinking. Maybe she just sat there blankly for 3 minutes before responding. That would be hilarious.
Liz meets Tanya, who is a know-it-all bragamuffin, Kate, who is really funny and bouncy, and Loren, who never says anything and never smiles. Emo of the Future. Tanya won this trip as a prize for an essay contest on Costa Rica, and she thinks it’s a waste of time because she “already knows everything there is to know about Costa Rica” because of her essay research. To that, I say she’s a tool. You don’t know a country thoroughly till you’ve been there, you fucktard. Shows how much you know. She continues being all vain and uppity all day, and I continue to want to punch her in the face.
When they arrive in Costa Rica, the group is split into two teams. Liz, J.P. (what the hell name is that for a book character anyway?), Andy, Kate and Loren are part of the team working in Valle Dulce (which is the lamest name ever- guess what it translates into?!), and Tanya is in the other team, working in Gemelo (hahahaha, real subtle, ghostwriter!), which is about 1/4 mile away through the rainforest. J.P. (wtf does that even stand for!?) and Liz sit together on the bus, and Liz keeps alternating between thinking he’s a wanker, and that he’s nice. The bus ride is a fairly death-defying kind of ride, and Liz keeps flirting with J.P. Vomit. She realises to her shock that she has a crush on him.
Liz and Kate stay with the same host family. They have four kids, teenage Jorge and Veronica, and little Eugenia and Ricardo. The host daughter, Veronica, is really nice, and speaks English well, using loads of slang. Tanya mocks her for it, and so the others take Veronica’s side, complimenting her English, and using slang too. Personally, I think ‘awesome’ is an awesome word. In this book they act like it’s completely outdated and no one says it anymore.
Andy has a crush on Liz. Because it’s compulsory for all males and most females to do so at some point in their lives.
Liz is chosen by leader Marion to be team foreman, which I think is bullshit because she’s only 13. Surely there’s someone older? And less, well, stupid? Liz feels embarrassed. She thinks J.P. thinks she’s like Tanya- an annoying, braggart overachiever. Oh, and by the way, J.P. hates Tanya. They come from the same school, and they used to date. Because people have real relationships at age 13. Apparently J.P. is some kind of genius, but he doesn’t put any effort in. He’s practically flunking his advanced classes. He only likes art class, which he’s really good at. He’s basically a white Claudia Kishi, only with a Y chromosome and less psychotic fashion sense. Actually, his fashion sense is never described, so for all I know he could be running around the rainforest with a parrot-printed Hawaiian shirt, yellow and orange Hammer pants, and green Chucks with pink laces on one shoe and dental floss lacing the other. Oh, and with his hair in a side ponytail, and lots of papier-mâché jewellery he made himself.
Jorge takes the group out to show them the rainforest, and pretends a harmless snake is a dangerous one. Liz, of course, knows it’s harmless, coz she knows everything, and she pretends it bit her and collapses. Everyone freaks out, but then she jumps up. Everyone cracks up. J.P. is impressed that Saint Liz has a sense of humour. Personally I think that’s a pretty crap joke, but that's because I have no snake knowledge. Snakes occur in foreign zoos. That's it for me.
J.P. calls Liz Bob, because she’s a Bobbsey twin. Heh.
Liz’s group is supposed to rebuild the community centre. They prepare the ground and build the foundation while waiting for the truck to arrive with the building materials. The truck hasn’t arrived, so the team want to go and spend the day in the rainforest. Liz doesn’t want the team to leave and abandon the duties, and she and Andy get left behind. Suckers.
Later, Liz finds out that the supply truck has arrived at Gemelo, but Tanya stole the gas cap so the supplies can’t arrive at Valle Dulce. She wants to win the Outstanding Volunteer plaque. Bitch. Liz decides to get her revenge. That night, she catches a little tree boa in the rainforest and sneaks over to Gemelo. She finds Tanya’s tent and climbs in the back zippered door, and slips the snake into Tanya’s sleeping bag. She sneaks out, and hears a huge scream. Tanya sprints out of her tent, and Liz quietly slips in to search her bag for the gas cap. And lo, what does she find? Her bag of CDs and magazines from Jessica! Tanya took them from outside the toilets at the airport! Liz steals them back, finds the gas cap, screws it back on the truck, and bolts back to Valle Dulce.
The next moring, Robert and Marion tell Liz's team the situation, and J.P. quickly susses that it was Liz, because of what type of snake was used. He’s impressed. Liz gives the CDs and stuff to Veronica, coz she’s obsessed with America pop culture. J.P. ends up alone with Liz in the rainforest, and they flirt more. Gag. J.P. claims to have found the snake Liz put in Tanya’s tent, and it slithers out of his pocket. But it’s the wrong snake! It’s an eyelash viper and deadly poisonous!!! EGADS!
Liz hits the snake off his jacket and collapses in fright onto a log. J.P. is pretty freaked out, and decides to stick to Liz like glue. They nearly kiss, because snake venom is clearly an aphrodisiac. But they get interrupted when the supply truck arrives.
To get a chance to kiss J.P. again, Liz plans a rave in the rainforest, and it’s a big hit. Andy loses his crush on Liz and likes Kate instead. And Kate’s actually into him, so that helps make up for the fact that he didn’t land a Wakefield. But then Tanya shows up to talk to Liz, and says she knows what Liz did and she can’t tattle, but she’ll get her revenge.
Oooooh.
J.P. explains to Liz why he hates Tanya. She used to be cool, but then got all obsessed with grades. And then J.P. built a scale model of a city for art class, and was going to enter it in a fine arts fair. The night before the fair Tanya came over to J.P.’s house, and then Tanya excused herself to go to the loo. J.P. went into the room where the city was to show it to her, and saw Tanya holding his cat above the city, ready to destroy it so the cat would get the blame. Evil wench.
Liz finds some inner tubes, and they all bail on work to go floating down the river all day. The next day, the team goes to San Sebastian for a market day that only happens once a month. To save time building, Liz uses a Web page printout called Coco’s Cost-Cutting Construction Concepts. You all know that’s going to end well.
Tanya’s getting suspicious at how quickly Liz's team is getting stuf done. Nobody cares. Not even me.
Liz keeps skimping on work, taking the team out for lizard-catching contests, listening to bands, strolling with J.P., and other things. Real leadership skillz there.
The group, thanks to Coco’s Concepts, finishes the community centre a week early. Liz is promptly awarded the Outstanding Volunteer plaque. The only problem is when Veronica and Liz try to tack a poster onto the wall in the community centre, and the whole wall breaks and collapses. Whoops. No one is hurt, but Liz is in the shit. The building manager José shows Marion and Robert all the materials left over, and Liz is REALLY in the shit. Turns out her Construction Concepts were bogus. That’s what you get from using Google to learn about building, you moron. J.P. is pretty furious, because he thinks Liz skimped on building so she could beat Tanya. Liz trudges back to the Herreras’ house. Robert is obviously desperate to send her home. He even takes her plaque away (that makes him sound like a dentist).
And so Saint Liz reaps what she sows. Justice? Karma? Awesome? I think so.
Liz explains everything to J.P., and he’s not mad anymore. Awwwww. Robert and Marion come to talk to her, and they have decided to give her another chance. They have to rebuild the community centre in just one week. Ay chihuahua!
But of course, it’s Elizabeth Wakefield’s team, so they manage to do it by working their undropped balls off. They finish just as the sun is setting on their last day, and Liz and Veronica rehang the poster. It doesn’t fall down! Woot! Success! Everyone loves Liz again.
Liz and J.P. have their goodbyes. Despite only living a couple towns away from each other, neither suggest meeting up again. Burn. Liz decides that she used to be too uptight, but in Costa Rica she was too irresponsible. Can she live between these two extremes?
Yes, Liz. You can. Pretty much everyone else does.
Elizabeth says in this book, she's thirteen. It's set in August before the twins' eighth-grade year. But for her to be a Gemini, she's gotta be born in late May/June. I think their birthday is in June, according to SVH. Apparently they're thirteen for all of seventh grade, and eighth grade too. That's odd!
So the timeline of ages (to me) seems to go like this:
First year/kindergarten/new entrant/ whatever you call it: age 5
1st grade: age 6
2nd grade (SVK): age 7
3rd grade: age 8
4th grade: age 9
5th grade: age 10
WHEN ARE THEY 11 YEARS OLD?
6th grade (SVT): age 12
7th grade(Unicorn Club series): age 13
8th grade (SVJH): age 13 again!!
freshman year: age 14
sophomore year: age 15
junior year (SVH series): age 16
senior year: age 17
Then college at 18 and 19 (SVU). Liz goes to London at age 20, maybe?
So everything would make sense if they were 11 in the SVT series. But I guess that's not as grown up as age 12. There's such a huge difference. *rolls eyes*
No snark on the cover. Liz actually looks pretty. Prettier than Jessica on her cover. BUUUURN!
But anyway, back to Elizabeth's adventures in Costa Rica! First up, she talks to the parentals about permission to go on this house-building project to help people whose towns were messed up by floods. But by this point we know she's going, so it's pretty much tension-free. By the way, this whole book is narrated by Elizabeth, because she's writing this in her diary. She's applying for a group called Rain Forest Friends, which reminds me of The Good Friends, that half-assed cult Jessica was in. Elizabeth mentions that she's done work for "Houses for Humans." As opposed to houses for alpacas or zebras or something. Personally she would have been way cooler if she’d volunteered for Houses for Llamas. Why can’t they just say Habitat for Humanity? At least that makes sense.
At the airport, Jessica gives Liz a big bag of rock CDs and teen magazines. Liz isn’t supposed to take ‘American culture’ to Costa Rica with her. Lord forbid she expose the natives to the crap teenagers call music. So Elizabeth, ever charitable, leaves the bag outside the toilets with a note for a bunch of giggly Canadian girls who didn’t have enough cash for magazines. After that, she meets a guy called Andy, who is sweet but nerdy and will of course not be a love interest because of that, and J.P., who’s like, such a babe. He smiles at Liz, and after an internal monologue of over a page, she smiles back. I’m not entirely sure how long it would have taken her in real life to smile back. It would take a while to do all that thinking. Maybe she just sat there blankly for 3 minutes before responding. That would be hilarious.
Liz meets Tanya, who is a know-it-all bragamuffin, Kate, who is really funny and bouncy, and Loren, who never says anything and never smiles. Emo of the Future. Tanya won this trip as a prize for an essay contest on Costa Rica, and she thinks it’s a waste of time because she “already knows everything there is to know about Costa Rica” because of her essay research. To that, I say she’s a tool. You don’t know a country thoroughly till you’ve been there, you fucktard. Shows how much you know. She continues being all vain and uppity all day, and I continue to want to punch her in the face.
When they arrive in Costa Rica, the group is split into two teams. Liz, J.P. (what the hell name is that for a book character anyway?), Andy, Kate and Loren are part of the team working in Valle Dulce (which is the lamest name ever- guess what it translates into?!), and Tanya is in the other team, working in Gemelo (hahahaha, real subtle, ghostwriter!), which is about 1/4 mile away through the rainforest. J.P. (wtf does that even stand for!?) and Liz sit together on the bus, and Liz keeps alternating between thinking he’s a wanker, and that he’s nice. The bus ride is a fairly death-defying kind of ride, and Liz keeps flirting with J.P. Vomit. She realises to her shock that she has a crush on him.
Liz and Kate stay with the same host family. They have four kids, teenage Jorge and Veronica, and little Eugenia and Ricardo. The host daughter, Veronica, is really nice, and speaks English well, using loads of slang. Tanya mocks her for it, and so the others take Veronica’s side, complimenting her English, and using slang too. Personally, I think ‘awesome’ is an awesome word. In this book they act like it’s completely outdated and no one says it anymore.
Andy has a crush on Liz. Because it’s compulsory for all males and most females to do so at some point in their lives.
Liz is chosen by leader Marion to be team foreman, which I think is bullshit because she’s only 13. Surely there’s someone older? And less, well, stupid? Liz feels embarrassed. She thinks J.P. thinks she’s like Tanya- an annoying, braggart overachiever. Oh, and by the way, J.P. hates Tanya. They come from the same school, and they used to date. Because people have real relationships at age 13. Apparently J.P. is some kind of genius, but he doesn’t put any effort in. He’s practically flunking his advanced classes. He only likes art class, which he’s really good at. He’s basically a white Claudia Kishi, only with a Y chromosome and less psychotic fashion sense. Actually, his fashion sense is never described, so for all I know he could be running around the rainforest with a parrot-printed Hawaiian shirt, yellow and orange Hammer pants, and green Chucks with pink laces on one shoe and dental floss lacing the other. Oh, and with his hair in a side ponytail, and lots of papier-mâché jewellery he made himself.
Jorge takes the group out to show them the rainforest, and pretends a harmless snake is a dangerous one. Liz, of course, knows it’s harmless, coz she knows everything, and she pretends it bit her and collapses. Everyone freaks out, but then she jumps up. Everyone cracks up. J.P. is impressed that Saint Liz has a sense of humour. Personally I think that’s a pretty crap joke, but that's because I have no snake knowledge. Snakes occur in foreign zoos. That's it for me.
J.P. calls Liz Bob, because she’s a Bobbsey twin. Heh.
Liz’s group is supposed to rebuild the community centre. They prepare the ground and build the foundation while waiting for the truck to arrive with the building materials. The truck hasn’t arrived, so the team want to go and spend the day in the rainforest. Liz doesn’t want the team to leave and abandon the duties, and she and Andy get left behind. Suckers.
Later, Liz finds out that the supply truck has arrived at Gemelo, but Tanya stole the gas cap so the supplies can’t arrive at Valle Dulce. She wants to win the Outstanding Volunteer plaque. Bitch. Liz decides to get her revenge. That night, she catches a little tree boa in the rainforest and sneaks over to Gemelo. She finds Tanya’s tent and climbs in the back zippered door, and slips the snake into Tanya’s sleeping bag. She sneaks out, and hears a huge scream. Tanya sprints out of her tent, and Liz quietly slips in to search her bag for the gas cap. And lo, what does she find? Her bag of CDs and magazines from Jessica! Tanya took them from outside the toilets at the airport! Liz steals them back, finds the gas cap, screws it back on the truck, and bolts back to Valle Dulce.
The next moring, Robert and Marion tell Liz's team the situation, and J.P. quickly susses that it was Liz, because of what type of snake was used. He’s impressed. Liz gives the CDs and stuff to Veronica, coz she’s obsessed with America pop culture. J.P. ends up alone with Liz in the rainforest, and they flirt more. Gag. J.P. claims to have found the snake Liz put in Tanya’s tent, and it slithers out of his pocket. But it’s the wrong snake! It’s an eyelash viper and deadly poisonous!!! EGADS!
Liz hits the snake off his jacket and collapses in fright onto a log. J.P. is pretty freaked out, and decides to stick to Liz like glue. They nearly kiss, because snake venom is clearly an aphrodisiac. But they get interrupted when the supply truck arrives.
To get a chance to kiss J.P. again, Liz plans a rave in the rainforest, and it’s a big hit. Andy loses his crush on Liz and likes Kate instead. And Kate’s actually into him, so that helps make up for the fact that he didn’t land a Wakefield. But then Tanya shows up to talk to Liz, and says she knows what Liz did and she can’t tattle, but she’ll get her revenge.
Oooooh.
J.P. explains to Liz why he hates Tanya. She used to be cool, but then got all obsessed with grades. And then J.P. built a scale model of a city for art class, and was going to enter it in a fine arts fair. The night before the fair Tanya came over to J.P.’s house, and then Tanya excused herself to go to the loo. J.P. went into the room where the city was to show it to her, and saw Tanya holding his cat above the city, ready to destroy it so the cat would get the blame. Evil wench.
Liz finds some inner tubes, and they all bail on work to go floating down the river all day. The next day, the team goes to San Sebastian for a market day that only happens once a month. To save time building, Liz uses a Web page printout called Coco’s Cost-Cutting Construction Concepts. You all know that’s going to end well.
Tanya’s getting suspicious at how quickly Liz's team is getting stuf done. Nobody cares. Not even me.
Liz keeps skimping on work, taking the team out for lizard-catching contests, listening to bands, strolling with J.P., and other things. Real leadership skillz there.
The group, thanks to Coco’s Concepts, finishes the community centre a week early. Liz is promptly awarded the Outstanding Volunteer plaque. The only problem is when Veronica and Liz try to tack a poster onto the wall in the community centre, and the whole wall breaks and collapses. Whoops. No one is hurt, but Liz is in the shit. The building manager José shows Marion and Robert all the materials left over, and Liz is REALLY in the shit. Turns out her Construction Concepts were bogus. That’s what you get from using Google to learn about building, you moron. J.P. is pretty furious, because he thinks Liz skimped on building so she could beat Tanya. Liz trudges back to the Herreras’ house. Robert is obviously desperate to send her home. He even takes her plaque away (that makes him sound like a dentist).
And so Saint Liz reaps what she sows. Justice? Karma? Awesome? I think so.
Liz explains everything to J.P., and he’s not mad anymore. Awwwww. Robert and Marion come to talk to her, and they have decided to give her another chance. They have to rebuild the community centre in just one week. Ay chihuahua!
But of course, it’s Elizabeth Wakefield’s team, so they manage to do it by working their undropped balls off. They finish just as the sun is setting on their last day, and Liz and Veronica rehang the poster. It doesn’t fall down! Woot! Success! Everyone loves Liz again.
Liz and J.P. have their goodbyes. Despite only living a couple towns away from each other, neither suggest meeting up again. Burn. Liz decides that she used to be too uptight, but in Costa Rica she was too irresponsible. Can she live between these two extremes?
Yes, Liz. You can. Pretty much everyone else does.