#56 Lost At Sea
I don't know how long ago this was recapped, and in fact I've just read another SVH book that felt far more snark-worthy. But everytime I saw that soggy face staring back at me I felt pulled towards this book. It might be Elizabeth, as that’s who the caption refers to - but there is mention of Jess having a gauzy coverup. Either way, the caption asks will Elizabeth ever see Jessica again? I mean…clearly. Who are we kidding.
First Bit
We begin with Jessica and Elizabeth chilling in the bathroom they share, ruminating while ruefully tossing their silky blonde hair, that it has been at least six weeks since one of them has been in mortal danger or undergone some kind of psychological trauma.
Just kidding y’all, they’re just getting ready for a science class field trip to Anacapa Island. For Jessica, this means extra mascara, a skimpy bandeau, and falling into Ken’s muscular arms whenever a wave hits the boat. For Elizabeth, it means finding the sturdiest of her Burmuda shorts and surveying her range of pastel-coloured tshirts, plus hanging out with her best friend Enid, whose serious brown eyes are no doubt twinkling in anticipation at the thought of quality time with Elizabeth. For me, it means humming “I’m On A Boat” by the Lonely Island whether I want to or not.
This boat is real!
Things to note in this chapter - their teacher is referred to as Bob Russo, Jessica promises Elizabeth she’ll try not to scandalise him with her near-nakedness, and Jessica was doing this field trip for extra credit, which is good because Bob Russo could have made her spend hours in the lab doing extra experiments. I dunno. It just seems weird that he’s intermittently referred to by his first name.
Unfortunately Jessica is put into a group with class clown Winston, geeky Randy Mason, and - what fresh hell will this day bring - Lois Waller, who is “shy, chubby” and had “as much personality as a marshmallow.” Not to mention the texture, evidently. If leggy girls like Jessica and Lila were constantly alienating me for not being size 6 I think I’d be a schmeer introverted too. Lila appears but doesn’t do an awful lot apart from sigh with disdain at the boat and refer to Ken as “such old news”. Ha. Lila tells it like it is. Jessica tries desperately to woo Ken but Winston is taking the buddy system seriously and refuses to let Jess out of his site, causing all kind of ‘amusing’ havoc with his clumsiness. Finally her group manages to scrape together a report, but Bob Russo says that they have to head back home early due to storm warnings.
The Pacific Ocean no longer represents the twins’ eyes as it’s all grey and choppy and the boat ride isn’t exactly smooth. This suits Jess just fine as it means she can capitalise on the weather to attempt some vertical snuggling with Ken. They start taking a trip down memory lane, remembering various dates they’ve been on. Jessica reminds him of “that night at the Beach Disco” where they “shared a long, warm kiss” (she doesn’t specifically tell him about the kiss in those words, that’s the narration talking. Praise heavens.)
Things get really rough at this point and the boat starts to take on water. In what seems like a woefully underprepared move, the students have to jump onto lifeboats. The buddy system will not be flouted, so Jessica is forced to jump into a lifeboat with Winston. Winston, who really isn’t doing himself any favours at this point, grabbed three oars instead of two and there is a minor struggle as Liz and Aaron only have one oar. While Winston tries to get the extra oar to Liz and Aaron, a wave hits his and Jessica’s boat and they get flung into the ocean.
Then
Jessica is terrified and can’t see anyone but luckily is a good swimmer. She keeps paddling, fuelled by anger at Winston’s uselessness.
Meanwhile, the other students gather as the fog clears and Elizabeth’s heart sinks as she realises Jess and Winston aren’t there. Clearly the ghostwriter doesn’t appreciate Lila’s subtle charm as she is described as having “screeched”, “wailed” and as being “shrill” already. On cue, a yellow lifejacket that Jess was wearing, and Winston’s San Diego Padres baseball hat float towards them. Elizabeth cries.
Back to Jess. She’s lost her lifejacket and is feeling slightly frantic, as one would in that situation. She considers how easy it would be just to stop paddling. Noo Jess! Suddenly she sees land ahead of her. It’s not Anacapa Island but it will do, and with her remaining strength she swims towards it, staggers ashore, and falls asleep under a palm tree.
Back at the Wakefield’s, Ned and Alice are actually distraught and not even their Spanish style tiles can lift their spirits. Stephen has appeared, because he never actually goes to university, and his girlfriend Cara is with him. Jeffrey French is also there to administer hand-squeezing and meaningful eye contact as and when necessary. I gotta say, if my daughter was missing and possibly drowned, I’m not sure I’d want to be entertaining my remaining children’s girlfriends and boyfriends. Elizabeth notes that she’s never seen her parents looking so sad and old, but doesn’t miss the opportunity to point out how handsome her father is and how slim and youthful her mother is.
Elizabeth and Jeffrey sit outside for a bit. Then, what the EFF. Elizabeth, through the most paper thin and tenuous of reasons, claims it’s her fault Jessica is lost at sea and throws a pity party for herself. Sure, be miserable because your sister is missing but don’t make it all about you! Jeffrey gives her a warm lingering kiss and Elizabeth thinks that there couldn’t be anything wrong in the world as long as they’re together. Except your TWIN is missing.
Meanwhile, on the island…
Jessica wakes up and really doesn’t seem that worries that she’s alone and lost. She compares it to Gilligan’s Island and goes off to look for some food. In another WTF moment, it turns out that of all the islands in the Pacific Ocean, Winston ended up on this one too. A friendly face! Winston rowed to the island but…didn’t pull the boat high enough up on the shore and it floated away on the tide, leaving them unable to use it to leave the island. I mean really. His uselessness is staggering. However, Winston is suddenly looking juicier than ever because he’s somehow managed to gather an array of delicious tropical fruits and catch some fish, not to mention start a fire to cook the fish over. He managed to hold onto this emergency kit which has matches in it. How convenient. Jessica finally lets go of her pissed-off-ness (not entirely undeserved, I might add, although Winston is generally endearing in this book, putting up with a lot of crap from Jess) and joins him for some food.
Meanwhile Elizabeth is at school, fluffing around unable to concentrate, and drawing awkward-well-meaning-comments from classmates. She sighs internally about everyone watching her and giving her sympathetic looks. Stay home then, attention-seeker. She learns that the coast guard found Winston’s lifeboat washed up on the shore. Things in Sweet Valley just conveniently wash up when and where they’re needed, don’t they!
Back on the island, Jessica thinks to herself how nice Winston is and that if she’d had food she probably wouldn’t have shared it. Ha! Jess wants to sunbathe and wait to be rescued dramatically, but Winston wants to get to work gathering provisions and building a shelter. He also wants something reflector-y and is eyeing up Jessica’s gold bracelet. She refuses, firstly because it’s 14 karat gold and secondly because her grandmother gave it to her. Priorities, huh. They settle upon using the Swiss Army knife which I think is the stupidest choice possible. Jessica only said that her grandmother gave her the bracelet, not that it was her grandmother’s so it’s not implied that there’s massive sentimental value...only that Jessica doesn’t want to give away a nice gold bracelet. Meanwhile a Swiss Army knife is actually useful in a variety of situations. Winston and Jessica are both losing points.
Jessica is hungry but considers that eating nothing but fish and berries could make for an excellent diet, and then when she gets back to school everyone will be amazed at how slim she is and Ken Matthews will want nothing more than to take her in his arms and kiss her long and lingeringly. Nothing like a bit of healthy body image with your YA lit!
They build a shelter which Jessica then ‘decorates’ with palm fronds and tropical flowers. It’s one of “those” islands, where everything is convenient. Winston is impressed with Jessica’s efforts though and they both admit they’re glad for each other’s company. The whole 'shelter building' bit made me think of that episode of the Mighty Boosh where they get trapped on an island. Fecked if I could find an image of the elaborate shelter that Vince creates but...
Watch out Jessica and Winston! Milky Joe will get you!
Back in Sweet Valley
Stephen is starting to get angry. “I just can’t sit here doing nothing any longer!” he shouts. Elizabeth “flashes him a sympathetic look.” I wonder what would happen if I had a shot everytime Liz flashes someone a sympathetic look. Or everytime Jess flashes someone her upper thighs.
Turns out that heroic Nicholas Morrow has volunteered to take a group out on his boat to search for the missing Jessica (and maybe Winston. We really haven’t heard an ass ton about how the Egbers and Maria Santelli are doing in his absence). It’s all a bit boring and basically they don’t achieve anything and bad weather forces them back to shore. The Wakefield parents are *gasp* worried about Liz and Steve, although Alice does have that weirdly-happy-cookie-baking-overdrive thing going on.
Then on the island...
Winston and Jessica are fantasising about food from the Dairi Burger. Jess considers that they’ve been on the island a while now and she thought they’d be rescued by now. She also thinks that People magazine might want her story once she’s rescued. Naturally. As she’s a Wakefield and all. I can see the headline - “Beautiful blonde size 6 teen girl rescued from Tropical Island Peril - uninteresting teen boy also not dead.” They go hunting for more food and firewood after Jessica spots some orange trees. Winston insists they climb to the top of a slope where he remembers seeing some blueberries while circumnavigating the island previously. Naturally, no good can come from this.
In fact, they are ambushed by a bear. I know very, very little about American geography so perhaps it is entirely plausible that there should be a small island in California where tropical fruit abounds and bears wander peacefully. Either way, there’s no use calling upon logic in Sweet Valley. Jessica and Winston are terrified, and Winston excels himself by dropping everything and hiding behind Jessica. Jessica, being the less useless of the two right now, gets an idea that the bear is just hungry for anything, not them in particular, and throws it some fruit. A thunderclap echoes through the sky and the bear is frightened off, but let’s let Jessica take the credit for this - you know she will.
Winston’s manhood is dented after this but Jess talks him round, basically by saying they’re both equally pitiful but have both brought some skills to the table. They get all honest, with Winston saying he always thought Jess was a bit of a snob, while Jess says she always though Winston was a bit of a goon. Deep unpacking of personalities here. They forge a friendship that shall last as long as the ghostwriter remembers about it.
They still haven’t been rescued and the fun of the island paradise is wearing off. Jess starts to think about everyone moving on without her - Stephen marrying Cara, Liz marrying Jeff (oh how simplistic!) She starts to cry because she’ll never get to hang out at the mall or pash Ken or eat fries and starts to do that bargaining-with-God thing about promising to be nice and keep the psychopathicity to a minimum, that sort of thing.
FINALLY
And then they’re rescued! A search helicopter spots their reflectory device. Jessica borrows a comb from the “cute” pilot as she wants to be a glamorous castaway. There are over 100 reporters on the shore waiting to talk to them. I’ve never been stranded on an island (unless you count living in New Zealand) so I don’t know if this is standard practice, but you know. A Wakefield did something. You’d think the reporters would get sick of reporting their near-death experiences, A bit like how Lindsay Lohan’s transgressions stopped being shocking after a while. Jessica takes all the credit for everything on the island, including adding that she swam away from sharks, and Winston doesn’t seem to mind. Eh. Who cares about his opinion anyway. He's not a Wakefield.
The pair are reunited with their respective families to the usual tears and hugs and immediate dismissal of any psychological/physical damage that might have incurred during this traumatic event. And we finish with a ridiculously awkward segue into the next book!
First Bit
We begin with Jessica and Elizabeth chilling in the bathroom they share, ruminating while ruefully tossing their silky blonde hair, that it has been at least six weeks since one of them has been in mortal danger or undergone some kind of psychological trauma.
Just kidding y’all, they’re just getting ready for a science class field trip to Anacapa Island. For Jessica, this means extra mascara, a skimpy bandeau, and falling into Ken’s muscular arms whenever a wave hits the boat. For Elizabeth, it means finding the sturdiest of her Burmuda shorts and surveying her range of pastel-coloured tshirts, plus hanging out with her best friend Enid, whose serious brown eyes are no doubt twinkling in anticipation at the thought of quality time with Elizabeth. For me, it means humming “I’m On A Boat” by the Lonely Island whether I want to or not.
This boat is real!
Things to note in this chapter - their teacher is referred to as Bob Russo, Jessica promises Elizabeth she’ll try not to scandalise him with her near-nakedness, and Jessica was doing this field trip for extra credit, which is good because Bob Russo could have made her spend hours in the lab doing extra experiments. I dunno. It just seems weird that he’s intermittently referred to by his first name.
Unfortunately Jessica is put into a group with class clown Winston, geeky Randy Mason, and - what fresh hell will this day bring - Lois Waller, who is “shy, chubby” and had “as much personality as a marshmallow.” Not to mention the texture, evidently. If leggy girls like Jessica and Lila were constantly alienating me for not being size 6 I think I’d be a schmeer introverted too. Lila appears but doesn’t do an awful lot apart from sigh with disdain at the boat and refer to Ken as “such old news”. Ha. Lila tells it like it is. Jessica tries desperately to woo Ken but Winston is taking the buddy system seriously and refuses to let Jess out of his site, causing all kind of ‘amusing’ havoc with his clumsiness. Finally her group manages to scrape together a report, but Bob Russo says that they have to head back home early due to storm warnings.
The Pacific Ocean no longer represents the twins’ eyes as it’s all grey and choppy and the boat ride isn’t exactly smooth. This suits Jess just fine as it means she can capitalise on the weather to attempt some vertical snuggling with Ken. They start taking a trip down memory lane, remembering various dates they’ve been on. Jessica reminds him of “that night at the Beach Disco” where they “shared a long, warm kiss” (she doesn’t specifically tell him about the kiss in those words, that’s the narration talking. Praise heavens.)
Things get really rough at this point and the boat starts to take on water. In what seems like a woefully underprepared move, the students have to jump onto lifeboats. The buddy system will not be flouted, so Jessica is forced to jump into a lifeboat with Winston. Winston, who really isn’t doing himself any favours at this point, grabbed three oars instead of two and there is a minor struggle as Liz and Aaron only have one oar. While Winston tries to get the extra oar to Liz and Aaron, a wave hits his and Jessica’s boat and they get flung into the ocean.
Then
Jessica is terrified and can’t see anyone but luckily is a good swimmer. She keeps paddling, fuelled by anger at Winston’s uselessness.
Meanwhile, the other students gather as the fog clears and Elizabeth’s heart sinks as she realises Jess and Winston aren’t there. Clearly the ghostwriter doesn’t appreciate Lila’s subtle charm as she is described as having “screeched”, “wailed” and as being “shrill” already. On cue, a yellow lifejacket that Jess was wearing, and Winston’s San Diego Padres baseball hat float towards them. Elizabeth cries.
Back to Jess. She’s lost her lifejacket and is feeling slightly frantic, as one would in that situation. She considers how easy it would be just to stop paddling. Noo Jess! Suddenly she sees land ahead of her. It’s not Anacapa Island but it will do, and with her remaining strength she swims towards it, staggers ashore, and falls asleep under a palm tree.
Back at the Wakefield’s, Ned and Alice are actually distraught and not even their Spanish style tiles can lift their spirits. Stephen has appeared, because he never actually goes to university, and his girlfriend Cara is with him. Jeffrey French is also there to administer hand-squeezing and meaningful eye contact as and when necessary. I gotta say, if my daughter was missing and possibly drowned, I’m not sure I’d want to be entertaining my remaining children’s girlfriends and boyfriends. Elizabeth notes that she’s never seen her parents looking so sad and old, but doesn’t miss the opportunity to point out how handsome her father is and how slim and youthful her mother is.
Elizabeth and Jeffrey sit outside for a bit. Then, what the EFF. Elizabeth, through the most paper thin and tenuous of reasons, claims it’s her fault Jessica is lost at sea and throws a pity party for herself. Sure, be miserable because your sister is missing but don’t make it all about you! Jeffrey gives her a warm lingering kiss and Elizabeth thinks that there couldn’t be anything wrong in the world as long as they’re together. Except your TWIN is missing.
Meanwhile, on the island…
Jessica wakes up and really doesn’t seem that worries that she’s alone and lost. She compares it to Gilligan’s Island and goes off to look for some food. In another WTF moment, it turns out that of all the islands in the Pacific Ocean, Winston ended up on this one too. A friendly face! Winston rowed to the island but…didn’t pull the boat high enough up on the shore and it floated away on the tide, leaving them unable to use it to leave the island. I mean really. His uselessness is staggering. However, Winston is suddenly looking juicier than ever because he’s somehow managed to gather an array of delicious tropical fruits and catch some fish, not to mention start a fire to cook the fish over. He managed to hold onto this emergency kit which has matches in it. How convenient. Jessica finally lets go of her pissed-off-ness (not entirely undeserved, I might add, although Winston is generally endearing in this book, putting up with a lot of crap from Jess) and joins him for some food.
Meanwhile Elizabeth is at school, fluffing around unable to concentrate, and drawing awkward-well-meaning-comments from classmates. She sighs internally about everyone watching her and giving her sympathetic looks. Stay home then, attention-seeker. She learns that the coast guard found Winston’s lifeboat washed up on the shore. Things in Sweet Valley just conveniently wash up when and where they’re needed, don’t they!
Back on the island, Jessica thinks to herself how nice Winston is and that if she’d had food she probably wouldn’t have shared it. Ha! Jess wants to sunbathe and wait to be rescued dramatically, but Winston wants to get to work gathering provisions and building a shelter. He also wants something reflector-y and is eyeing up Jessica’s gold bracelet. She refuses, firstly because it’s 14 karat gold and secondly because her grandmother gave it to her. Priorities, huh. They settle upon using the Swiss Army knife which I think is the stupidest choice possible. Jessica only said that her grandmother gave her the bracelet, not that it was her grandmother’s so it’s not implied that there’s massive sentimental value...only that Jessica doesn’t want to give away a nice gold bracelet. Meanwhile a Swiss Army knife is actually useful in a variety of situations. Winston and Jessica are both losing points.
Jessica is hungry but considers that eating nothing but fish and berries could make for an excellent diet, and then when she gets back to school everyone will be amazed at how slim she is and Ken Matthews will want nothing more than to take her in his arms and kiss her long and lingeringly. Nothing like a bit of healthy body image with your YA lit!
They build a shelter which Jessica then ‘decorates’ with palm fronds and tropical flowers. It’s one of “those” islands, where everything is convenient. Winston is impressed with Jessica’s efforts though and they both admit they’re glad for each other’s company. The whole 'shelter building' bit made me think of that episode of the Mighty Boosh where they get trapped on an island. Fecked if I could find an image of the elaborate shelter that Vince creates but...
Watch out Jessica and Winston! Milky Joe will get you!
Back in Sweet Valley
Stephen is starting to get angry. “I just can’t sit here doing nothing any longer!” he shouts. Elizabeth “flashes him a sympathetic look.” I wonder what would happen if I had a shot everytime Liz flashes someone a sympathetic look. Or everytime Jess flashes someone her upper thighs.
Turns out that heroic Nicholas Morrow has volunteered to take a group out on his boat to search for the missing Jessica (and maybe Winston. We really haven’t heard an ass ton about how the Egbers and Maria Santelli are doing in his absence). It’s all a bit boring and basically they don’t achieve anything and bad weather forces them back to shore. The Wakefield parents are *gasp* worried about Liz and Steve, although Alice does have that weirdly-happy-cookie-baking-overdrive thing going on.
Then on the island...
Winston and Jessica are fantasising about food from the Dairi Burger. Jess considers that they’ve been on the island a while now and she thought they’d be rescued by now. She also thinks that People magazine might want her story once she’s rescued. Naturally. As she’s a Wakefield and all. I can see the headline - “Beautiful blonde size 6 teen girl rescued from Tropical Island Peril - uninteresting teen boy also not dead.” They go hunting for more food and firewood after Jessica spots some orange trees. Winston insists they climb to the top of a slope where he remembers seeing some blueberries while circumnavigating the island previously. Naturally, no good can come from this.
In fact, they are ambushed by a bear. I know very, very little about American geography so perhaps it is entirely plausible that there should be a small island in California where tropical fruit abounds and bears wander peacefully. Either way, there’s no use calling upon logic in Sweet Valley. Jessica and Winston are terrified, and Winston excels himself by dropping everything and hiding behind Jessica. Jessica, being the less useless of the two right now, gets an idea that the bear is just hungry for anything, not them in particular, and throws it some fruit. A thunderclap echoes through the sky and the bear is frightened off, but let’s let Jessica take the credit for this - you know she will.
Winston’s manhood is dented after this but Jess talks him round, basically by saying they’re both equally pitiful but have both brought some skills to the table. They get all honest, with Winston saying he always thought Jess was a bit of a snob, while Jess says she always though Winston was a bit of a goon. Deep unpacking of personalities here. They forge a friendship that shall last as long as the ghostwriter remembers about it.
They still haven’t been rescued and the fun of the island paradise is wearing off. Jess starts to think about everyone moving on without her - Stephen marrying Cara, Liz marrying Jeff (oh how simplistic!) She starts to cry because she’ll never get to hang out at the mall or pash Ken or eat fries and starts to do that bargaining-with-God thing about promising to be nice and keep the psychopathicity to a minimum, that sort of thing.
FINALLY
And then they’re rescued! A search helicopter spots their reflectory device. Jessica borrows a comb from the “cute” pilot as she wants to be a glamorous castaway. There are over 100 reporters on the shore waiting to talk to them. I’ve never been stranded on an island (unless you count living in New Zealand) so I don’t know if this is standard practice, but you know. A Wakefield did something. You’d think the reporters would get sick of reporting their near-death experiences, A bit like how Lindsay Lohan’s transgressions stopped being shocking after a while. Jessica takes all the credit for everything on the island, including adding that she swam away from sharks, and Winston doesn’t seem to mind. Eh. Who cares about his opinion anyway. He's not a Wakefield.
The pair are reunited with their respective families to the usual tears and hugs and immediate dismissal of any psychological/physical damage that might have incurred during this traumatic event. And we finish with a ridiculously awkward segue into the next book!