SVJH #3 Soulmates
Jessica joining the track team? Elizabeth quitting the newspaper? What series am I reading?
Jessica the Track Star
Jessica, at the peak of loserdom goes to the mall all by her lonesome. She goes to Red Mill Mall, lest anyone from her old school see how uncool she’s become. Great thinking, Jess. Better chance to run into people from your new school and call out “Nice Breaststroke” instead.
And who does she run into but Lacey Frells, the evil queen bee of the school who is babysitting what Jessica thinks is her cute half-sister, Penelope. (It mentions again that Lacey has sun-streaked brown hair). She voluntarily comes over to say hi. Jessica wonders why, surprised that she would ever speak to her again. (even though they had a pleasant conversation in what I can make out of the timeline would’ve been the day before).
A couple of guys come over. Lacey’s none too thrilled for them to be seeing her with her little sis. A guy comes over and snatches Penelope’s stuffed rabbit from her hand and the little girl starts to cry. Lacey calls her a brat (what a wonderful mother she’ll make). Jessica’s become a humanitarian and tells them to give it back to her. The guy smiles and runs away. So what does Jessica do then? She chases after him through the mall determined to get the kid her rabbit back, all the while thinking to herself how lame it is and that Lacey will never speak to her again. They play monkey in the middle with Jess by the fountain and one of the boys misses and little stuffed bunny goes keypunch into the water. But never fear, readers! He’s rescued by Jessica’s favorite kind of boy. A handsome one! Damon Ross, her hero and personal savior, has saved Bunny!
She’s quick to point out she’s not Elizabeth and he tells her “I figured.” I had to laugh at that one. Penelope’s more than grateful and Lacey asks Jess if she likes to run. Jessica says she guesses and Lacey suggests she try out for the cross-country team, and that she’s going to. Jessica immediately proclaims that track was nerdy at her whole school, to which Lacey replies “I don’t let anybody tell me what I should or shouldn’t do.” Lacey’s just awesome.
Lacey wants Jessica to try out with her. She mentions she hangs out with Splendora, the really popular band Liz and Salvador went to see in #1 (gasp!continuity), sometimes. Jessica’s definitely impressed now. She drops the hint that she might introduce Jessica to them. Now Jessica is definitely putty in her fingers.
Lacey’s quick to call Kristin later that day and tell her her magnificent plan. Because you just know she had an ulterior motive since she’s the most Jessica-like person in this series. She’s going to join the track team so her parents won’t question where she goes after school and get Jessica to cover for her now that the girl worships her. Kristin’s none too impressed.
So Jessica gets all into running, going so far as to cut up Steven’s running magazines. (Steven likes running?) So they go to tryouts. Bethel is the star runner and is quick to make fun of Jessica’s athletic shoes which are ill-adept for running. Lacey makes snide remarks and rude gestures to which Jess giggles at every one. Bethel won’t let up on Jess and challenges her to a race. The excitement made my hair stand on end. Anyway, Bethel won, and Jessica’s regretting her shoes now.
Jessica immediately presses her parents for running shoes because hers are hurting her feet. Mrs. Wakefield wisely points out that they’re going to wait to see if Jessica still likes it next week, given that she spent her entire clothes allowance on a purple kilt she only wore once! (gasp!continuity) While at school she passes a stand of which the school is selling the items from lost and found the previous year. And she just happens to find a pair of running shoes (Lacey stole hers from the mall but Jessica’s conscience wouldn’t let her do the same. Yeah. Jessica and conscience in the same sentence.? Don’t make me laugh.) So she buys them for a buck. Rather than admit she bought something used she puts in her purple laces and draws hearts and other girly things in marker. But she didn’t use a sharpie. Forshadowing…. Oooohhhhh….
Jessica continues to try out for track, even after Lacey starts missing practice. Jessica, Bethel, and three other unimportant characters are chosen to run in the first meet. They’re given shirts in the colors of white and purple (one of the school colors is purple and Jessica was complaining about going?). She tries to swipe Lacey a shirt like she asked her two but the coach won’t let her. Lacey has to earn a shirt. It rains at practice and the marker runs from her shoes. Bethel tells her helpfully that she hoped she didn’t pay too much for them. Jessica starts to cry and Bethel feels bad. Don’t feel bad!!! Make the bitch cry some more! I say.
Jessica heads home. Steven offers her a ride when he sees her like a drowned rat on the side of the road but she rejects it, her reasoning being that she’ll look more pathetic and new-shoe worthy if she came home looking her worst. Well, her plan works. Her parents agree to buy her new shoes, but she has to do extra chores around the house. Let’s see if this is actually implemented, shall we? So she gets them. And guess what? They’re purple.
Lacey’s driving around with Gel and sees Jessica on the side of the road and actually stomps her foot on the break of his car for him to stop. She asks Jessica about the shirt and Jess admits she wouldn’t let her take one for her. They make plans to do something the next day. As they drive away Gel asks if she has a boyfriend. She tells him Jessica has two, and an online one. He replies “oh,” and she wishes with annoyance that he wouldn’t believe everything she said.
Lacey calls Jessica up Sunday and invites her to go rollerblading with her. (and I just want to point out that my word processor automatically corrected rollerblading to roller lading. What the hell is roller lading? Lading‘s a word. *looks it up* Apparently, lading means goods carried by a large vehicle (aka; cargo). Well, you learn something new every day) So they go rollerblading together and run into a couple members of Splendora hanging out under a bridge, smoking joints and having orgies. Kidding. Kidding. This is SV. On a side note, Lacey’s house is decorated entirely in black and white and she knows where all the money stashes are and steals from them. I think her parents are definitely one up on the Wakefields for that worst parent of the year award.
Under the bridge Lacey does introduce Jessica as her friend. Two of the band members are named Lynx and Rocky. Man I hope those aren’t their real names. Anyway, they make plans for Lacey to be a roadie and Jessica to cover for her. The next day Jessica hides from Lacey in the library at lunch. Afterwards she finds two notes in her locker. The first one’s from Lacey announcing she managed to steal a team shirt. The second one is either a riddle or a bad poem.
Jessica,
Good luck today
Run fast as a rabbit
But stay dry.
She must really be an idiot to have figured out who that was from. To further complicate her life she finds she has two copies of her Shonen Knife tape (Shonen Knife being a Japanese dance group.) She figures someone else on the track team must listen to them and how there couldn’t possible be too many people who listen to Japanes dance music. (OMG, I listen to Japanese dance music! I’m becoming mainstream…. *pout*)
So the day of the big meet comes. As a plus Jess and Bethel get to leave math early to go. Lacey breezes in the room all dolled up like a runner and acts excited to go to the meet, dangling Rocky in front of Jessica to get her to go along with it). But Bethel calls her on it and the teacher looks to Jessica for the truth. Yeah, the tears were rolling down my cheeks at the irony. But, surprise surprise, Jessica sides with Bethel, annoyed with Lacey using her. Well, Lacey sure is pissed now.
So they go to the meet. Bethel gets first, Jessica gets third. And SVJH wins overall. Hurray! And now that Jessica and Bethel are friends she admits that she bought the shoes from the lost and found. To which Bethel replies, “Guess that makes us sole mates.” (Title!) They go out for pizza at Vito’s (guess Guido’s isn’t good enough for them anymore), and are joined by Elizabeth’s merry band, and happiness is had by all.
Elizabeth the Journalist
Liz isn’t satisfied being a copier and editor. She wants to have another article in the paper after her interview went over well. Salvador suggests a parody of school bus etiquette. She writes it, wondering dreamily if Salvador can draw a cartoon to go along with it so they could work together. Her article’s rejected.
Anna tells her she’s better off not volunteering since all they print is stuff you read to fall asleep. Liz asks about her submitting her poems and she stammers and spits an excuse that they need work. Salvador hopes she doesn’t ever submit them because he doesn’t want anyone telling her they’re no good when they were. Awww. He’s not a complete bastard.
Liz asks him about his cartoons. He’s doubtful he’ll get anything published since Mr. Lime sees over the art that gets printed, and the year before he photoshopped a great masters painting with a the teachers heads and put it on the school website, and hung it on the school bulletin board the day the superintendent was visiting. Anna complains about Charlie and is about to suggest something but breaks off midsentence. Salvador asks her what she’s thinking and she tells him nothing really. Forshadowing alert!
Liz writes another parody article featuring the disgusting lunches they serve at the school. Anna goes with her to find out if it was accepted. Anna has made up her mind to quit the paper and hopes Liz does get rejected so she’ll quit with her. Well it was rejected and Anna flies off the handle, about how they don’t care about news and will only print what the PTA wants the to. So she quits. Oooh, the drama.
Salvador writes an article about school uniforms, featuring the Retro, Preppo, and Nerdo uniforms, parodying the school districts controversy about implementing mandatory uniforms. Obviously, it was reject. Poor Sal’s kind of depressed about it and doesn’t want to tell Liz. Anna ‘s happy he’s comfortable telling her things that he won’t tell Liz, and she confesses that she quit. He immediately asks if Liz knows and if she quit. She gets that jealous ping of Liz again. He asks he what she’s thinking and she won’t tell him and they both get mad. Damn, these are the most realistic best friends I’ve ever read about in SV books. They run into Jess in the mall buying he running shoes and they demand they each tell each other what’s on their minds lately. Neither do.
Liz decides to give it one more try and writes and ecology article that Charlie and some nerd on the paper suggested she do. Liz laughs at Jess acting like a jock and Jess teases Liz about liking Salvador. Liz won’t quite admit it to herself. She gets jealous that Anna and Salvador went out for ice cream without her.
Well, her stupid article is accepted and she’s offered a permanent position for writing ecology articles. She’s ashamed of the thing and wants to pull it. Salvador catches up to her and confesses that he was rejected. She hugs him. She confesses she wrote a horrible article and it was accepted. He hugs her. This is starting to get nauseating.
Anna hangs out in the library avoiding her friends and runs into Brian Rainey, Liz’s locker pal. They have a heart-to-heart and he gets her to admit she’s starting to like Salvador. He holds her hand. Brian sounds like a real sweetheart. Sal and Liz finally catch up with her to invite her to dinner at Vito’s. She gives a feeble excuse of having to help her mother and runs off. She changes her mind and does end up meeting them. They then announce they were tired of the paper’s crap and have quit too. Overjoyed, Anna suggests they start a magazine. Yippy! The wife of the owner of Vito’s overhears them and tells them if they give them advertising they would invest. Convenience!
Thus ends another fun-filled installment to the Junior High Saga
These are quickly becoming an addiction and are now my favorite guilty pleasure. So inspired am I, that I decided to write one of my stories in the same style. I’ve had the story planned out for years but have never written it down. I’m on chapter two. If anyone wants to read this out of morbid curiosity drop me a line and I’ll post it. ^_^
Next up, #5 Boy. Friend.