SVT #75: Jessica and the Earthquake
In which we have Jessica and an earthquake. That's it, guys! Well, that's about as exciting as it gets, anyway! Not a patch on SVH: Earthquake.
Jessica, in her Unicorn approved pajamas, under her Unicorn approved sheets, awake because there's an earthquake. Yawn.
Lame A Plot
Jessica wakes up at 3:42 am because she's felt her room shaking - she thinks a mouse is on the bookshelf above her head - probably true because she'd never look up there to disturb a mouse, anyway. The rumbling stops and she goes back to sleep, thinking it was a dustbin lorry. Yeah, because they're always out at nearly 4 o clock in the morning. Maybe UK dustbin men are lazy, not doing the bins until 6am.
Next morning, Ned announces there was an earthquake during the night measuring 3.2 on the Richter scale. Jess must be sensitive; we had one in the UK in Feb that measured 5.2 and it only just woke me up, and initially I thought it was the Boyfriend snoring and hit him before I realized. Yeah, I'm nice like that. Jess of course is really excited because she's the only one who woke up, and when the twins get to school she realizes that nobody woke up at all, apart from her. She starts embellishing the story; saying her room was basically destroyed, and telling everyone she has super sensory earthquake powers. She even attracts the attention of Lloyd Benson (apparently the resident science nerd but I thought that was Randy Mason, as told in SVT #91: Deadly Voyage.) Lloyd tells her that she should contact the Center of Earthquake Research and he will personally follow her around for the next week so he can track her seismic powers, as there will probably be an aftershock or even another earthquake, and Jess will be able to predict it. He wants to use her as his Science project. Oh Jess. The situations you get yourself into. I'd just like to say here that apparently the last quake in SV was in 1972, so the odds of having two proper earthquakes within a week are…..rather slim, I'd say.
Janet and Lila are not impressed with Jessica's story telling, and plot to wreak revenge (for what, I'm not sure). They research earthquakes and find out that a quake with a 3.2 measurement would not be able to destroy her room. They plot to force Jessica to predict the aftershock, and of course she will embarrassed when she's wrong. Nice friends to have.
They force her into predicting Thursday as the day of the next Great Quake (even though the first one wasn't anything to get excited about but I shall indulge). Then Lila announces she will be throwing a special Earthquake Party, to, erm, celebrate the earthquake (??? - yeah, I know). I'm guessing she didn't do that in SVH because of people getting squashed under fridges. Jessica is horrified; she really will be humiliated because at least the whole 6th grade will be there. It doesn't help Lloyd is following her around everywhere, and has even lent her his dad's beeper, so if she feels anything strange like an earthquake coming she can call him to let him know. It's actually funny,
daniellafromage, that in your recap of Earthquake, you said the Wakefield's are like cockroaches, purely because it's mentioned that creatures such as cockroaches can sense quakes, like Jessica supposedly can. Are you super sensitive, too?
Meanwhile, Amy and Liz are really upset they slept through it, as they're supposed to be news reporters. Girls, remember Michael Fish and the hurricane fiasco. These things happen. They want to write a Sixers special edition on earthquakes, but they feel they must experience one first hand before they do. As there's likelihood there will be an aftershock in the next week, they decide to stay awake all night, every night, to catch it. It's an example of Wakefield parenting they're allowed to do this.
The Unicorns make earthquake based invitations and decorations (why are they making them? Lila's rich. Buy them, tightwads). They diss Jessica all the time, when she's not around, obviously, except Ellen, who stands up for her. Loff you Ellen. Actually, I don't; she's one of the most annoying SVT characters ever and thank heavens she didn't appear in SVH but right now, go Ellen. Jessica arrives and is horrified to see Lila's inviting 150 people. She tries to convince everyone to stay home instead of going to Lila's party, saying it would be safer, but everybody wants to go. It's a school night. The whole Sweet Valley parenting network is a joke. Bruce - Hey, Bruce
Has even made up some custom T-shirts that he's going to be selling with ' I Survived the Big One' and the date printed on them. Jessica's worried. She keeps insisting the quake will happen in Thursday, but she knows, deep down, she's in trouble.
On Thursday, she makes an announcement in English class that everyone should stay home, as the quake will be massive compared to the other one but nobody cares. Janet and Lila gloat that they've got her panicking. At lunch, Lloyd gives her a vest contraption to wear that he's made to sense earthquakes, put together with wires and tubes, but Jessica refuses. I just added it in because it's funny. Lloyd is all upset because he's already told the Center for Earthquake Research about his Science project and now Jessica's refusing to help. Poor Jess. I get the feeling the people at places like that don't like time wasters. I mean, have you ever read The Stand where Stu has to escape from a lab place. Scary shit. If you haven’t, ignore me.
At home, an hour before the party, Jessica resorts to doing an Earthquake Dance - yes, you read that right. An Earthquake Dance. I'll transcribe it here so you can get the full hilarity:
'She put one hand on her head and started hopping around her room. "Earthquake, earthquake, please come soon," she sang, hitting her bureau and desk with her hand as she danced past."If you don’t come I'll…" She kept dancing until she could think of something that rhymed. "Earthquake , earthquake, please come soon. If you don't come, I'll be ruined," she chanted.'
Oh dear. Liz catches her, anyway, and she admits that she is terrified about the earthquake not coming because she knows she'll be caught out in a lie. Liz offers some words of advice, like, 'tough it out you might get lucky you never know' and Jess feels a bit happier. They go to the party where Lloyd has been eagerly waiting Jessica's arrival. Bless. Todd and Aaron have set up a booth where people can guess the time of the earthquake; whoever wins gets a gift certificate to Caseys (where else) donated by George Fowler. She feels even worse and rushes off to a couch to hide, followed of course by Lover Lloyd. Give it up, mate!
Lila comes over and does some bitching about how Jessica is wrong; she makes her choose a time at ToddAaron's booth. She eventually says it will happen by 8:30pm, which Todd announces over the loudspeaker to the whole room. Jessica is not amused. Bruce is also not amused as nobody's buying his T-shirts - at $10 each I'm not surprised. He tells Jess she will have to pay for them all if her prediction is wrong and it doesn't happen that evening.
At 8:30, Lila turns off the music and they all await the earthquake. Surprisingly enough, it doesn't happen. Wait, a Wakefield twin is humiliated? Jessica takes off and hides, not that I blame her, but, come on, Lila will win otherwise. She eventually falls asleep in a dark corner. Lila, meanwhile, announces that Jessica is a big phony but, as the hostess, she's pleased everyone had a good time even if Jessica is a liar. As she brings out the Earthcake (a cake decorated to look like Sweet Valley that was going to be cut when the quake hit), everyone feels a rumbling under their feet……and Lila falls head first into the cake. HAHA! Yes, the earthquake arrived. Jessica was right, albeit lucky. Lila ends up covered in cake and frosting, and Amy delights in taking a picture to be used in the Sixers edition. Who else expected that. Hands up, please!
Everyone asks where Jessica is, and Liz eventually finds her asleep and takes a picture. Jess wakes up, everyone congratulates her, and all is well. Once again, a happy ending. Liz puts the picture of her asleep on the front page of the Sixers (who needs Lila and Janet as friends when you have a sister who'll embarrass you that way, eh), and the picture of Lila covered in cake on the second. I think they should have been swapped. Lila deserved it.
We finish with a lead in to the next book, SVT #76: Yours for a Day.
Righteous Ranting B Plot
Steven is obsessed with a new band, the Katybugs (WTF!!). They are trying to promote awareness of animal cruelty and vegetanarism by releasing a single with lyrics such as:
"Prime rib, filet mignon, shank,
Delmonico, T-bone, flank
Does this make sense to you?"
Whilst showing pictures of chickens with their beaks cut off. You know, while I wholeheartedly agree with animal rights supporters, I don't know if an SVT book is the place to be ranting about it. Besides, this plot doesn't even have a happy ending (read on).
Steven thinks how cute the animals are and decides to be a vegetarian, even though Cathy Connors, his girlfriend (one up for continuity) and Joe Howell, his boyfriend, ahem, best friend, take the piss out of him and laugh. He lectures the Wakefield clan on giving up meat and eating things such as lentils and nuts. They all feel annoyed.
He has to eat things like plain spaghetti and broccoli at school, which obviously, being Steven, he's not happy about, although the thoughts of the 'cute animals' spur him on. I'm sure most 14 year old boys don't act like this. He then decides to be a vegan, and give up dairy products as well as not wearing anything made from leather and/or wool. Alice points out he in that case will happily give his new Ultimate Leather baseball sneakers to charity - something he's not happy about, either. The Wakefield parents, in a rare show of supportive parenting, stock the fridge with things like soy milk and whole grain bread, which Steven thinks is disgusting. He gets really hungry because he doesn't like his new diet, and dreams of cheeseburgers and bacon. But he can’t give up his crusade because he would be humiliated. The thoughts of the 'cute animals' have gone right out of his head.
He goes to the Dairi Burger, but Joe won't let him order anything except salad because even fries are too unhealthy. When Joe leaves the table for a minute, Steven goes to eat a bite out of Joe's mega burger, but Joe catches him so he can't. At dinner, Ned cooks mushroom-tofu-pecan stuffed squash (which sounds disgusting) and all the Wakefields love it and they all give Steven lots of praise for being so dedicated, even though he now really wants to eat meat. When he sees Cathy, he asks for a bite of her chicken sandwich, but she refuses, and he goes home and throws out all his Katybugs CDs. It's a stupid name, anyway.
The night of the party (see Lame A Plot), Steven sneaks into the kitchen while his parents are picking the twins up and finally gets his hands on some leftover spaghetti sauce with meatballs but then the earthquake hits and he drops it. Of course, he has to clean it up by the time everyone gets home, or they will know what he's been up to. Buggar! However, Jess goes rummaging for food and finds the broken jar and stained tissues in the bin. That sounds really bad, doesn't it. The twins plan to catch Steven out to get him back for lecturing them before.
They sneak out of school at lunch and lo and behold, there's Steven, sneaking off to buy illicit burgers from Hughie's Burger Shack, an until now unknown restaurant in SV, at least to me, anyway. Steven orders the Big Burger basket but then the twins come in and force him to 'fess up. They make him promise not to force his beliefs down other people's throats in the future, and everyone's happy. Yays. What a lame ending to a lame plot. I mean, really. I thought we were trying to teach a lesson here. Believe in something and then go against it, anyway. Yeah, thanks, ghostwriter.
Jessica, in her Unicorn approved pajamas, under her Unicorn approved sheets, awake because there's an earthquake. Yawn.
Lame A Plot
Jessica wakes up at 3:42 am because she's felt her room shaking - she thinks a mouse is on the bookshelf above her head - probably true because she'd never look up there to disturb a mouse, anyway. The rumbling stops and she goes back to sleep, thinking it was a dustbin lorry. Yeah, because they're always out at nearly 4 o clock in the morning. Maybe UK dustbin men are lazy, not doing the bins until 6am.
Next morning, Ned announces there was an earthquake during the night measuring 3.2 on the Richter scale. Jess must be sensitive; we had one in the UK in Feb that measured 5.2 and it only just woke me up, and initially I thought it was the Boyfriend snoring and hit him before I realized. Yeah, I'm nice like that. Jess of course is really excited because she's the only one who woke up, and when the twins get to school she realizes that nobody woke up at all, apart from her. She starts embellishing the story; saying her room was basically destroyed, and telling everyone she has super sensory earthquake powers. She even attracts the attention of Lloyd Benson (apparently the resident science nerd but I thought that was Randy Mason, as told in SVT #91: Deadly Voyage.) Lloyd tells her that she should contact the Center of Earthquake Research and he will personally follow her around for the next week so he can track her seismic powers, as there will probably be an aftershock or even another earthquake, and Jess will be able to predict it. He wants to use her as his Science project. Oh Jess. The situations you get yourself into. I'd just like to say here that apparently the last quake in SV was in 1972, so the odds of having two proper earthquakes within a week are…..rather slim, I'd say.
Janet and Lila are not impressed with Jessica's story telling, and plot to wreak revenge (for what, I'm not sure). They research earthquakes and find out that a quake with a 3.2 measurement would not be able to destroy her room. They plot to force Jessica to predict the aftershock, and of course she will embarrassed when she's wrong. Nice friends to have.
They force her into predicting Thursday as the day of the next Great Quake (even though the first one wasn't anything to get excited about but I shall indulge). Then Lila announces she will be throwing a special Earthquake Party, to, erm, celebrate the earthquake (??? - yeah, I know). I'm guessing she didn't do that in SVH because of people getting squashed under fridges. Jessica is horrified; she really will be humiliated because at least the whole 6th grade will be there. It doesn't help Lloyd is following her around everywhere, and has even lent her his dad's beeper, so if she feels anything strange like an earthquake coming she can call him to let him know. It's actually funny,
daniellafromage, that in your recap of Earthquake, you said the Wakefield's are like cockroaches, purely because it's mentioned that creatures such as cockroaches can sense quakes, like Jessica supposedly can. Are you super sensitive, too?
Meanwhile, Amy and Liz are really upset they slept through it, as they're supposed to be news reporters. Girls, remember Michael Fish and the hurricane fiasco. These things happen. They want to write a Sixers special edition on earthquakes, but they feel they must experience one first hand before they do. As there's likelihood there will be an aftershock in the next week, they decide to stay awake all night, every night, to catch it. It's an example of Wakefield parenting they're allowed to do this.
The Unicorns make earthquake based invitations and decorations (why are they making them? Lila's rich. Buy them, tightwads). They diss Jessica all the time, when she's not around, obviously, except Ellen, who stands up for her. Loff you Ellen. Actually, I don't; she's one of the most annoying SVT characters ever and thank heavens she didn't appear in SVH but right now, go Ellen. Jessica arrives and is horrified to see Lila's inviting 150 people. She tries to convince everyone to stay home instead of going to Lila's party, saying it would be safer, but everybody wants to go. It's a school night. The whole Sweet Valley parenting network is a joke. Bruce - Hey, Bruce
Has even made up some custom T-shirts that he's going to be selling with ' I Survived the Big One' and the date printed on them. Jessica's worried. She keeps insisting the quake will happen in Thursday, but she knows, deep down, she's in trouble.
On Thursday, she makes an announcement in English class that everyone should stay home, as the quake will be massive compared to the other one but nobody cares. Janet and Lila gloat that they've got her panicking. At lunch, Lloyd gives her a vest contraption to wear that he's made to sense earthquakes, put together with wires and tubes, but Jessica refuses. I just added it in because it's funny. Lloyd is all upset because he's already told the Center for Earthquake Research about his Science project and now Jessica's refusing to help. Poor Jess. I get the feeling the people at places like that don't like time wasters. I mean, have you ever read The Stand where Stu has to escape from a lab place. Scary shit. If you haven’t, ignore me.
At home, an hour before the party, Jessica resorts to doing an Earthquake Dance - yes, you read that right. An Earthquake Dance. I'll transcribe it here so you can get the full hilarity:
'She put one hand on her head and started hopping around her room. "Earthquake, earthquake, please come soon," she sang, hitting her bureau and desk with her hand as she danced past."If you don’t come I'll…" She kept dancing until she could think of something that rhymed. "Earthquake , earthquake, please come soon. If you don't come, I'll be ruined," she chanted.'
Oh dear. Liz catches her, anyway, and she admits that she is terrified about the earthquake not coming because she knows she'll be caught out in a lie. Liz offers some words of advice, like, 'tough it out you might get lucky you never know' and Jess feels a bit happier. They go to the party where Lloyd has been eagerly waiting Jessica's arrival. Bless. Todd and Aaron have set up a booth where people can guess the time of the earthquake; whoever wins gets a gift certificate to Caseys (where else) donated by George Fowler. She feels even worse and rushes off to a couch to hide, followed of course by Lover Lloyd. Give it up, mate!
Lila comes over and does some bitching about how Jessica is wrong; she makes her choose a time at ToddAaron's booth. She eventually says it will happen by 8:30pm, which Todd announces over the loudspeaker to the whole room. Jessica is not amused. Bruce is also not amused as nobody's buying his T-shirts - at $10 each I'm not surprised. He tells Jess she will have to pay for them all if her prediction is wrong and it doesn't happen that evening.
At 8:30, Lila turns off the music and they all await the earthquake. Surprisingly enough, it doesn't happen. Wait, a Wakefield twin is humiliated? Jessica takes off and hides, not that I blame her, but, come on, Lila will win otherwise. She eventually falls asleep in a dark corner. Lila, meanwhile, announces that Jessica is a big phony but, as the hostess, she's pleased everyone had a good time even if Jessica is a liar. As she brings out the Earthcake (a cake decorated to look like Sweet Valley that was going to be cut when the quake hit), everyone feels a rumbling under their feet……and Lila falls head first into the cake. HAHA! Yes, the earthquake arrived. Jessica was right, albeit lucky. Lila ends up covered in cake and frosting, and Amy delights in taking a picture to be used in the Sixers edition. Who else expected that. Hands up, please!
Everyone asks where Jessica is, and Liz eventually finds her asleep and takes a picture. Jess wakes up, everyone congratulates her, and all is well. Once again, a happy ending. Liz puts the picture of her asleep on the front page of the Sixers (who needs Lila and Janet as friends when you have a sister who'll embarrass you that way, eh), and the picture of Lila covered in cake on the second. I think they should have been swapped. Lila deserved it.
We finish with a lead in to the next book, SVT #76: Yours for a Day.
Righteous Ranting B Plot
Steven is obsessed with a new band, the Katybugs (WTF!!). They are trying to promote awareness of animal cruelty and vegetanarism by releasing a single with lyrics such as:
"Prime rib, filet mignon, shank,
Delmonico, T-bone, flank
Does this make sense to you?"
Whilst showing pictures of chickens with their beaks cut off. You know, while I wholeheartedly agree with animal rights supporters, I don't know if an SVT book is the place to be ranting about it. Besides, this plot doesn't even have a happy ending (read on).
Steven thinks how cute the animals are and decides to be a vegetarian, even though Cathy Connors, his girlfriend (one up for continuity) and Joe Howell, his boyfriend, ahem, best friend, take the piss out of him and laugh. He lectures the Wakefield clan on giving up meat and eating things such as lentils and nuts. They all feel annoyed.
He has to eat things like plain spaghetti and broccoli at school, which obviously, being Steven, he's not happy about, although the thoughts of the 'cute animals' spur him on. I'm sure most 14 year old boys don't act like this. He then decides to be a vegan, and give up dairy products as well as not wearing anything made from leather and/or wool. Alice points out he in that case will happily give his new Ultimate Leather baseball sneakers to charity - something he's not happy about, either. The Wakefield parents, in a rare show of supportive parenting, stock the fridge with things like soy milk and whole grain bread, which Steven thinks is disgusting. He gets really hungry because he doesn't like his new diet, and dreams of cheeseburgers and bacon. But he can’t give up his crusade because he would be humiliated. The thoughts of the 'cute animals' have gone right out of his head.
He goes to the Dairi Burger, but Joe won't let him order anything except salad because even fries are too unhealthy. When Joe leaves the table for a minute, Steven goes to eat a bite out of Joe's mega burger, but Joe catches him so he can't. At dinner, Ned cooks mushroom-tofu-pecan stuffed squash (which sounds disgusting) and all the Wakefields love it and they all give Steven lots of praise for being so dedicated, even though he now really wants to eat meat. When he sees Cathy, he asks for a bite of her chicken sandwich, but she refuses, and he goes home and throws out all his Katybugs CDs. It's a stupid name, anyway.
The night of the party (see Lame A Plot), Steven sneaks into the kitchen while his parents are picking the twins up and finally gets his hands on some leftover spaghetti sauce with meatballs but then the earthquake hits and he drops it. Of course, he has to clean it up by the time everyone gets home, or they will know what he's been up to. Buggar! However, Jess goes rummaging for food and finds the broken jar and stained tissues in the bin. That sounds really bad, doesn't it. The twins plan to catch Steven out to get him back for lecturing them before.
They sneak out of school at lunch and lo and behold, there's Steven, sneaking off to buy illicit burgers from Hughie's Burger Shack, an until now unknown restaurant in SV, at least to me, anyway. Steven orders the Big Burger basket but then the twins come in and force him to 'fess up. They make him promise not to force his beliefs down other people's throats in the future, and everyone's happy. Yays. What a lame ending to a lame plot. I mean, really. I thought we were trying to teach a lesson here. Believe in something and then go against it, anyway. Yeah, thanks, ghostwriter.