Sweet Valley Kids #41: The Missing Tea Set
Sweet Valley Kids #41: The Missing Tea Set
I read an interview with Francine Pascal once where she said that she had the ideas for the first Sweet Valley High novels, but she didn’t write them. The publishers sent people over to her house-probably sad and underpaid assistants who thought going into publishing meant they might win a Pulitzer one day-and she told them what to write and then they had to do it. In my mind, when these meetings happen, the doorbell rings and the butler brings the frightened assistants in to meet Francine on her throne. (Because you know she has a throne.)
And the assistants, all eager and wide-eyed, say, “Hello, Mrs. Pascal. It’s very good to meet you. I had an idea for a novel, perhaps one of the citizens of Sweet Valley contracts AIDS…”
Then Francine bellows, “SILENCE!” See, she comes up with the plots and she has a fine one for these poor assistants. “There’s a tea set and it’s missing.”
“Excuse me,” sputter the assistants.
“A TEA SET IS MISSING!!!”
The assistants bob their little heads. Yes, a tea set. That’s a fabulous idea. Why didn’t they think of that? Then they go home to their sad studio apartments and cry.
Alice is shipping Jessica and Elizabeth off to visit an “old family friend” named Mrs. Taylor. We’re told that Alice and her sister, Laura, used to visit Mrs. Taylor when they were little. So she likes young girls, eh? That’s not at all suspicious. Mrs. Taylor has lots of money, apparently. Liz and Jess ask if there are secret passages or ghosts or something fun like that. Alice says that Mrs. Taylor is very sharp and strict. She won’t let the girls get away with anything.
So basically, Alice is dropping the girls off with a total stranger that she knows will be mean to them. Good going, Alice!
Mrs. Taylor lives in a mansion (of course). It’s filled with all kinds of antiques. Jessica stops to look at a display of porcelain pill boxes. Why Jessica even knows what a porcelain pill box looks like, I don’t know. Gee, Francine, you have your finger on the pulse of youth culture! Gladys-Mrs. Taylor’s token creepy maid-warns the girls against touching anything.
While Alice and Mrs. Taylor talk, the girls set off to explore the house. There’s a bathroom with a shiny marble floor that looks like ice. There’s a bedroom with a huge canopy bed. A room filled with birdcages, with singing canaries inside. Shit like that.
The girls are not allowed to go into Mrs. Taylor’s room, but Alice has helpfully told them an intriguing story about a clock that plays a lullaby. The girls just have to hear it play so they go into the off-limits area. Jessica then compounds the problem by moving the hands on the clock so she can hear it chime. This is a brilliant strategy because, of course, it causes noise. Gladys comes and glares at them.
They proceed to explore the dining room, where we first encounter the silver tea set. I don’t want to ruin it for anyone but I have a hunch it’s going to go missing! Jessica, of course, touches it despite being told not to. Then the girls go into the greenhouse and out into the garden. (Does anyone else picture this house like Mr. Boddy’s mansion from Clue? I keep expecting Wadsworth to come out and say, “I butle, sir.”)
Outside, Liz finds a “cave” made of tree branches. She decides she is going to pretend they are camping, which we’re told is what Steven and Ned are up to. Jessica declares that they need supplies for that and comes back… with the silver tea set. Oh, yes, all the nature books tell you that you simply cannot camp without silver tea sets. It’s just not done!
St. Elizabeth freaks out. She’s like, “You are going to get meus into trouble!” Jessica is like, “Pish-posh! Tea sets are fun! Do you want one lump or two?” Doormat Liz emerges and they play with it for like half a page before being called to lunch. Startled, the girls run back into the dining room and try to put the tea set back before anyone notices.
Mrs. Taylor then appears. Liz thinks they are about to get caught but she just yells at them for not washing their hands before coming to the table. (In her defense, that is how you catch the pig flu.) The girls hustle off to the washroom. Then they come back and eat lunch with Mrs. Taylor and Alice. During the meal, Elizabeth notices some of the tea set is missing. She freaks out. She squirms; she fidgets; she makes an ass out of herself. If Liz were ever interrogated by a competent police force (ie, not SVPD) she would crack in an instant.
She pulls Jessica aside and says that Jessica left pieces behind. Jessica is like no you were supposed to bring those. Liz says they should confess or they’ll get in trouble. (See, told you.) But Sociopathic Jessica is not going down on a tea rap! The girls go back outside and look for the missing pieces, but can’t find them (of course).
Elizabeth has finally convinced Jessica that they have to confess their crime but Jessica can’t make herself do it. First she doesn’t want to get in trouble before dinner, because then she might not be allowed to eat. Then bedtime comes and she still hasn’t come clean. Jessica has a weird dream about Mrs. Taylor and tea cups. But it’s not quite the Tom Sawyer masterpiece Liz dreamed, so it doesn’t get its own book.
The girls are called down to breakfast (damn, there is a lot of eating in this house), and Alice asks them if they want tea with their breakfast. She says tea always made her and Laura feel grown up. Liz and Jess are like “Be cool, baby, damn!!” at their mother but Alice doesn’t get it. She keeps talking about the silver tea service until Mrs. Taylor announces she’s going to give it to Alice as a gift. The girls are like, “Holy shit we’re in trouble now.”
Finally Liz cries and tells what happened. Mrs. Taylor sternly tells the girls to come with her. Jessica cries “Don’t put me in the dungeon!” to which Alice replies that no one will. I laugh at this. Isn’t the correct response “There isn’t a dungeon, honey?” Oh, Alice.
Mrs. Taylor goes outside to the hiding place that Liz and Jessica were playing in. She says she used to play there as a little girl and she crawls into the “cave” with the girls and Alice. Mrs. Taylor finds the missing piece, hanging on a branch and happily announces that she won’t punish the girls because the twins never get punishedbecause she once lost something of her mother’s when she was young and her mother forgave her.
The twins hug Mrs. Taylor and admit that she is not mean at all, so she invites them back to visit. This is the part of the book where the children are supposed to realize that old people are people to. They were kids once! I imagine Francine getting all excited about this bit:
Meanwhile, the assistants are looking at her with quizzical expressions. “But wait,” they say. “Didn’t Mrs. Taylor just give the tea set to Alice? So shouldn’t it be Alice’s job to punish them? And what about the maid-Gladys-why did we have to describe her every frown and glare if she wasn’t going to play a part in the story at all?”
Francine shushes them. How dare they question her genius.
The end.
