Sweet Valley Twins #17, Boys Against Girls
This is the one with the sexist homeroom teacher.
I have an original copy of this book (without the "and Friends" after Twins) and the cover is pretty similar except I can see a little more on my cover. But there's Jessica -- at least I think it's Jessica, based on her non-pulled back hair -- wearing a pink blouse and pointing her finger at some dorky-looking guy. On my cover, you can also see that she's wearing pleated brown trousers with her blouse. Also, that her lips look kind of big and weird. I think that the dorky-looking guy might be Ronnie Edwards. I don't have any real reason for thinking that; he could be Charlie Cashman or someone, for all I know, but he looks like a Ronnie Edwards to me (and Ronnie does appear in this book).
So we start this one in the Wakefield's spacious Spanish-style kitchen, where the Wakefields are eating breakfast on a sunny Monday morning. Jessica and Elizabeth are all excited because their new homeroom teacher will start that morning -- and the teacher, OMG is a MAN!!! Jessica hopes he'll be young and handsome; this makes Liz roll her eyes and wonder "for the zillionth time" (it actually says that) how two girls could look exactly alike, yet act so totally different. After the zillionth description of their "sun-streaked blonde hair", "peaches and cream complexions", etc. and how despite their differences, they're still the best of friends, Elizabeth starts thinking about all the fun stuff coming up in sixth grade homeroom. A softball game!! A trip to the zoo!! The Sixth Grade Follies!! Jessica says that she'd love to be the star of the follies, but Liz reminds her how much work it would be. So Jess changes her mind and asks to be in charge of makeup instead. 45-year-old Elizabeth replies, "Perfect! I think this is going to be great fun!" and the twins leave for SVMS in good spirits.
They get to homeroom and the teacher isn't there yet. Liz and Amy and Nora sit at their desks and snark on the Unicorns, who are putting on makeup and fixing their hair for the new teacher. Ronnie Edwards and Tom McKay "amble" over and joke with Liz and Amy about the upcoming softball game -- and isn't it just great how the boys and girls are getting along so well?
But that will soon change, as soon as Mr. Clark enters the room, followed by a "distinguished-looking man" in a "neatly pressed gray suit." He's Mr. Davis, the new teacher. Unfortunately for the Unicorns, he doesn't sound very young and handsome. Instead, he's all stiff and serious. He also starts making all these weird changes -- like moving all the boys to one side of the room, and the girls to the other!! WTF? At least Amy and Liz still get to sit together! They wonder what's going on; meanwhile, Mr. Davis starts to assign homeroom duties. All the stereotypical "women's work" gets assigned to the girls (he even puts Lila on the cleanup crew, resulting in her "outraged gasp" ... ha). The boys, on the other hand, get to do fun things like deliver messages.
And it only gets worse from here, as Mr. Davis asks to be filled in on all the fun homeroom activities. He completely ignores the girls, but he lets Ronnie Edwards tell him all about the upcoming softball game. Then Ronnie mentions the trip to the zoo, and tells Mr. Davis that Elizabeth organized it. Mr. Davis is all, "Who?" Because girls don't exist in his weird little mind? Elizabeth raises her hand, and Mr. Davis nods at her to speak. When she's done, he gives her some money ... and orders her and the other girls to make sandwiches for lunch! Instead of protesting, Liz just glumly accepts this. Mr. Davis asks the kids what animals they'd like to see -- and once again, he mostly ignores the girls. Even though he allows Charlie Cashman to shout out loud that he wants to see "The apes!" But when Amy shouts out loud that she wants to see the giraffes, Mr. Cashman YELLS at her! He even yells at Liz, after she gets up to take care of a spider ... and makes a boy take care of it instead!
Homeroom finally ends. The girls aren't happy. But when Lila says that she's going to complain to her father, Amy dismisses that as "babyish." So instead, the girls just keep quiet about Mr. Davis's sexism. The next morning, they actually ARE making sandwiches (Amy, Liz, and Nora). They're even making two different kinds of sandwiches -- peanut butter and jelly, and bologna and cheese. Jessica comes downstairs, dressed in a "light blue jumpsuit" (lovely) and makes Mr. Davis his own special sandwich of peanut butter, jelly, bologna and cheese, as well as pickles and coconut. The other girls think this is just hilarious. At least Jessica is doing something! Steven also appears in this chapter and the girls decide that it's okay to complain to him about Mr. Davis --- but Steven's no help -- he thinks that Mr. Davis has "the right idea." Oh, Steven...
So the girls go to school and go off to San Diego for their big zoo trip. (What about their other classes?) On the bus, Jessica spreads the word about her "special sandwich" and the other girls eye her with "the utmost respect." The actual zoo trip is okay until lunchtime. Then Jerry MacAllister acts sexist, and Mr. Davis makes the girls go fetch sodas. Lizzie's all feeling guilty about the sandwich up until the soda incident. Then even SHE has to admit that Mr. Davis deserves it! Now we know that something is wrong with Mr. Davis when even St. Elizabeth thinks he deserves the worst! Still, at lunchtime, she has a hard time watching Mr. Davis actually eat his sandwich. So Amy has to give her a running commentary. Mr. Davis spits out his bite of sandwich, and Jessica and Lila are all laughing, but St. Elizabeth shakes her head and whispers "sadly" that it wasn't very nice of them. Please shut up, Elizabeth. She changes her mind yet again when Mr. Davis makes the girls clean up -- that's the last straw, and once again even Liz thinks that Mr. Davis deserves the worst!
But after lunch, Mr. Davis buys the kids ice cream (even the girls!) and on the bus ride home, he announces that they'll be studying poetry! Elizabeth changes her mind yet again and thinks that he might not be so bad after all. How can he be, if he loves POETRY?
By the next morning, she's back firmly on the anti-Mr. Davis side. That's because the poem that he selected specially for the girls is really stupid. It sounds like something Strawberry Shortcake would write:
In my garden every day,
The little fairies come and play.
They romp among the leafy bowers,
Dancing with my pretty flowers...
Poor Amy is stuck reading this masterpiece out loud, and she lets Mr. Davis know that she thinks the poem sucks! He doesn't care. Meanwhile, the boys were given an awesome poem, about a Revolutionary war hero or something, and they're more than happy to discuss it! The boys LOVE Mr. Davis! Once the poetry business is out of the way, Mr. Davis moves on to the Sixth Grade Follies. Elizabeth still has her heart set on directing. Nora tries to nominate her, but Mr. Davis is all "Who said anything about nominations?" and appoints Tom McKay instead. Tom doesn't really want to direct, but he doesn't want to disappoint his fellow boys, so he pretends to be pleased and takes the job. This makes Liz furious (she thought Tom was her friend!) To add insult to injury, Mr. Davis offers Liz the position of "assistant director", meaning that she can run errands for Tom. Liz proudly refuses; Mr. Davis doesn't care.
Before homeroom ends, some of the boys act particularly obnoxious (i.e. knocking down their pencils and telling the girls to pick it up). The girls all leave the classroom FURIOUS. Amy says "I think Mr. Davis is an outright sexist" (gee, Amy, you think?) and stupid Nora's all, "He's not even good-looking!" Amy clarifies that she means that Mr. Davis prefers boys to girls. Worse, the boys are all acting just like clones of Mr. Davis! So all the girls decide to get together at Liz and Jess's (where else?) They come up with a silly plan to act extra-feminine the next day. Somehow, this is supposed to make Mr. Davis (and the boys) all see the error of their ways.
So the next day, the girls show up to school wearing frilly dresses. Ellen pretends she can't water the plants (because she can't lift the can!) and Jessica pretends to be scared of gerbils. When Mr. Davis calls roll, the girls all answer "Here!" in a high-pitched voice and giggle. When he asks for a topic for the upcoming observational visit from Mr. Clark, the girls say they want to talk about fashion and makeup. The boys realize that something's up (Amy Sutton wanting to talk about makeup?!) but clueless Mr. Davis just shakes his head and says, "Well, girls will be girls."
Later the class is playing softball (boring) and getting ready for the upcoming big softball tournament. Naturally all the best players are girls, but since the girls are still acting stereotypically "feminine," that means they're forced to play badly. Their plan backfires big-time after they lose the game to some other homeroom class. Mr. Davis, who's way too into sixth-grade softball, is aghast at their loss! He reacts by ... removing all the girls from the team. Once again, the girls just accept this fate.
But they're not done fighting, and they decide to take another tactic with Mr. Clark's visit. Now they want Mr. Davis fired! When Mr. Clark comes, instead of frilly dresses, the girls all dress up in their scruffiest clothes. They chomp on gum and act very bored by the discussion on democracy. Mr. Davis just ignores them, but Mr. Clark stands "with his hands on his hips" (ha) and watches with disapproval. Finally, Mr. Clark rightfully declares the scene "ridiculous" and calls Mr. Davis out into the hallway to lecture him.
It doesn't change things much -- Mr. Davis continues to act sexist. The girls do score a small victory in their war, after Ricky Capaldo succumbs to Jessica Wakefield's charms and skips school so he doesn't have to be on some committee (instead, Liz and Amy and Nora all get to be on it, since there were more girls voting than boys ... by the way, why did Mr. Davis allow an election for THIS project, but not the others? And don't these kids have any other classes besides homeroom? Where are Mr. Bowman, the Hairnet, etc.?)
Soon the day of the Follies comes. Earlier, after she saw how badly their class skit was coming along, Liz tried to get Tom to quit as director. But Tom refused to budge! So on the morning of the Follies, Liz and her friends watch two skits from the other homeroom classes. One is a takeoff on Alice in Wonderland, and the other is all about a mysterious football player who turns out to be a girl (Claire Middleton?) Both skits are well received, and Liz and Amy wonder if Mr. Davis "got" the message about the football skit. Then they watch sadly as Tom and Ronnie and some other boys make a mockery of their homeroom with their lame skit, which is all about apes running around in the jungle and ... not much else.
After the skit, Mr. Clark lectures Mr. Davis again. Finally Mr. Davis acknowledges to his class that he's from a military academy, he's never taught girls before, blah blah. He admits that he should have let girls participate in the skit and promises he'll let them take part in future activities that are "suitable" for them. Elizabeth and Amy are hopeful -- will everything change now?!
Not quite. Mr. Davis still refuses to let the girls take part in the big softball game... he said suitable! And everyone knows that girls can't play sports!! The girls don't argue with him at first; they're back to square one.
But on the day of the game, their class plays badly ... EVEN without the girls. So Jessica tells Janet and the other Unicorns (the cool kids) all about sexist Mr. Davis and how he won't let the girls play. The Unicorns spread the word; soon the whole crowd knows ... and soon everyone in the bleachers starts to chant "We want the girls! We want the girls!" Charlie Cashman jeers at the chanting, but good old Tom McKay knows the team is losing. He finally sees the error of his ways; he knows they need the girls to win! So Tom and Ronnie talk to Mr. Davis and try to get him to let the girls back on the team.
Finally, Mr. Davis "wearily" agrees. He's too tired to be sexist anymore! But before they agree to play, the Wakefields DEMAND an apology to all the girls! Mr. Davis is all, "Excuse me, but teachers do not apologize to students" but Amy retorts "Why not, my parents would?" So Mr. Davis is all, "Okay, whatever, I'm sorry. Now get out there!"
So the girls get dressed up in their baseball uniforms, win the game, and save the day with Jessica's awesome playing. After the game, Mr. Davis and the kids are hanging out together ... Lizzie's all "You don't know much about girls, do you?" and Mr. Davis is all thoughtful, "No, I guess I don't." He takes ALL of the kids out for pizza to earn their forgiveness. And from here on, Mr. Davis is never, ever sexist again!
I have an original copy of this book (without the "and Friends" after Twins) and the cover is pretty similar except I can see a little more on my cover. But there's Jessica -- at least I think it's Jessica, based on her non-pulled back hair -- wearing a pink blouse and pointing her finger at some dorky-looking guy. On my cover, you can also see that she's wearing pleated brown trousers with her blouse. Also, that her lips look kind of big and weird. I think that the dorky-looking guy might be Ronnie Edwards. I don't have any real reason for thinking that; he could be Charlie Cashman or someone, for all I know, but he looks like a Ronnie Edwards to me (and Ronnie does appear in this book).
So we start this one in the Wakefield's spacious Spanish-style kitchen, where the Wakefields are eating breakfast on a sunny Monday morning. Jessica and Elizabeth are all excited because their new homeroom teacher will start that morning -- and the teacher, OMG is a MAN!!! Jessica hopes he'll be young and handsome; this makes Liz roll her eyes and wonder "for the zillionth time" (it actually says that) how two girls could look exactly alike, yet act so totally different. After the zillionth description of their "sun-streaked blonde hair", "peaches and cream complexions", etc. and how despite their differences, they're still the best of friends, Elizabeth starts thinking about all the fun stuff coming up in sixth grade homeroom. A softball game!! A trip to the zoo!! The Sixth Grade Follies!! Jessica says that she'd love to be the star of the follies, but Liz reminds her how much work it would be. So Jess changes her mind and asks to be in charge of makeup instead. 45-year-old Elizabeth replies, "Perfect! I think this is going to be great fun!" and the twins leave for SVMS in good spirits.
They get to homeroom and the teacher isn't there yet. Liz and Amy and Nora sit at their desks and snark on the Unicorns, who are putting on makeup and fixing their hair for the new teacher. Ronnie Edwards and Tom McKay "amble" over and joke with Liz and Amy about the upcoming softball game -- and isn't it just great how the boys and girls are getting along so well?
But that will soon change, as soon as Mr. Clark enters the room, followed by a "distinguished-looking man" in a "neatly pressed gray suit." He's Mr. Davis, the new teacher. Unfortunately for the Unicorns, he doesn't sound very young and handsome. Instead, he's all stiff and serious. He also starts making all these weird changes -- like moving all the boys to one side of the room, and the girls to the other!! WTF? At least Amy and Liz still get to sit together! They wonder what's going on; meanwhile, Mr. Davis starts to assign homeroom duties. All the stereotypical "women's work" gets assigned to the girls (he even puts Lila on the cleanup crew, resulting in her "outraged gasp" ... ha). The boys, on the other hand, get to do fun things like deliver messages.
And it only gets worse from here, as Mr. Davis asks to be filled in on all the fun homeroom activities. He completely ignores the girls, but he lets Ronnie Edwards tell him all about the upcoming softball game. Then Ronnie mentions the trip to the zoo, and tells Mr. Davis that Elizabeth organized it. Mr. Davis is all, "Who?" Because girls don't exist in his weird little mind? Elizabeth raises her hand, and Mr. Davis nods at her to speak. When she's done, he gives her some money ... and orders her and the other girls to make sandwiches for lunch! Instead of protesting, Liz just glumly accepts this. Mr. Davis asks the kids what animals they'd like to see -- and once again, he mostly ignores the girls. Even though he allows Charlie Cashman to shout out loud that he wants to see "The apes!" But when Amy shouts out loud that she wants to see the giraffes, Mr. Cashman YELLS at her! He even yells at Liz, after she gets up to take care of a spider ... and makes a boy take care of it instead!
Homeroom finally ends. The girls aren't happy. But when Lila says that she's going to complain to her father, Amy dismisses that as "babyish." So instead, the girls just keep quiet about Mr. Davis's sexism. The next morning, they actually ARE making sandwiches (Amy, Liz, and Nora). They're even making two different kinds of sandwiches -- peanut butter and jelly, and bologna and cheese. Jessica comes downstairs, dressed in a "light blue jumpsuit" (lovely) and makes Mr. Davis his own special sandwich of peanut butter, jelly, bologna and cheese, as well as pickles and coconut. The other girls think this is just hilarious. At least Jessica is doing something! Steven also appears in this chapter and the girls decide that it's okay to complain to him about Mr. Davis --- but Steven's no help -- he thinks that Mr. Davis has "the right idea." Oh, Steven...
So the girls go to school and go off to San Diego for their big zoo trip. (What about their other classes?) On the bus, Jessica spreads the word about her "special sandwich" and the other girls eye her with "the utmost respect." The actual zoo trip is okay until lunchtime. Then Jerry MacAllister acts sexist, and Mr. Davis makes the girls go fetch sodas. Lizzie's all feeling guilty about the sandwich up until the soda incident. Then even SHE has to admit that Mr. Davis deserves it! Now we know that something is wrong with Mr. Davis when even St. Elizabeth thinks he deserves the worst! Still, at lunchtime, she has a hard time watching Mr. Davis actually eat his sandwich. So Amy has to give her a running commentary. Mr. Davis spits out his bite of sandwich, and Jessica and Lila are all laughing, but St. Elizabeth shakes her head and whispers "sadly" that it wasn't very nice of them. Please shut up, Elizabeth. She changes her mind yet again when Mr. Davis makes the girls clean up -- that's the last straw, and once again even Liz thinks that Mr. Davis deserves the worst!
But after lunch, Mr. Davis buys the kids ice cream (even the girls!) and on the bus ride home, he announces that they'll be studying poetry! Elizabeth changes her mind yet again and thinks that he might not be so bad after all. How can he be, if he loves POETRY?
By the next morning, she's back firmly on the anti-Mr. Davis side. That's because the poem that he selected specially for the girls is really stupid. It sounds like something Strawberry Shortcake would write:
In my garden every day,
The little fairies come and play.
They romp among the leafy bowers,
Dancing with my pretty flowers...
Poor Amy is stuck reading this masterpiece out loud, and she lets Mr. Davis know that she thinks the poem sucks! He doesn't care. Meanwhile, the boys were given an awesome poem, about a Revolutionary war hero or something, and they're more than happy to discuss it! The boys LOVE Mr. Davis! Once the poetry business is out of the way, Mr. Davis moves on to the Sixth Grade Follies. Elizabeth still has her heart set on directing. Nora tries to nominate her, but Mr. Davis is all "Who said anything about nominations?" and appoints Tom McKay instead. Tom doesn't really want to direct, but he doesn't want to disappoint his fellow boys, so he pretends to be pleased and takes the job. This makes Liz furious (she thought Tom was her friend!) To add insult to injury, Mr. Davis offers Liz the position of "assistant director", meaning that she can run errands for Tom. Liz proudly refuses; Mr. Davis doesn't care.
Before homeroom ends, some of the boys act particularly obnoxious (i.e. knocking down their pencils and telling the girls to pick it up). The girls all leave the classroom FURIOUS. Amy says "I think Mr. Davis is an outright sexist" (gee, Amy, you think?) and stupid Nora's all, "He's not even good-looking!" Amy clarifies that she means that Mr. Davis prefers boys to girls. Worse, the boys are all acting just like clones of Mr. Davis! So all the girls decide to get together at Liz and Jess's (where else?) They come up with a silly plan to act extra-feminine the next day. Somehow, this is supposed to make Mr. Davis (and the boys) all see the error of their ways.
So the next day, the girls show up to school wearing frilly dresses. Ellen pretends she can't water the plants (because she can't lift the can!) and Jessica pretends to be scared of gerbils. When Mr. Davis calls roll, the girls all answer "Here!" in a high-pitched voice and giggle. When he asks for a topic for the upcoming observational visit from Mr. Clark, the girls say they want to talk about fashion and makeup. The boys realize that something's up (Amy Sutton wanting to talk about makeup?!) but clueless Mr. Davis just shakes his head and says, "Well, girls will be girls."
Later the class is playing softball (boring) and getting ready for the upcoming big softball tournament. Naturally all the best players are girls, but since the girls are still acting stereotypically "feminine," that means they're forced to play badly. Their plan backfires big-time after they lose the game to some other homeroom class. Mr. Davis, who's way too into sixth-grade softball, is aghast at their loss! He reacts by ... removing all the girls from the team. Once again, the girls just accept this fate.
But they're not done fighting, and they decide to take another tactic with Mr. Clark's visit. Now they want Mr. Davis fired! When Mr. Clark comes, instead of frilly dresses, the girls all dress up in their scruffiest clothes. They chomp on gum and act very bored by the discussion on democracy. Mr. Davis just ignores them, but Mr. Clark stands "with his hands on his hips" (ha) and watches with disapproval. Finally, Mr. Clark rightfully declares the scene "ridiculous" and calls Mr. Davis out into the hallway to lecture him.
It doesn't change things much -- Mr. Davis continues to act sexist. The girls do score a small victory in their war, after Ricky Capaldo succumbs to Jessica Wakefield's charms and skips school so he doesn't have to be on some committee (instead, Liz and Amy and Nora all get to be on it, since there were more girls voting than boys ... by the way, why did Mr. Davis allow an election for THIS project, but not the others? And don't these kids have any other classes besides homeroom? Where are Mr. Bowman, the Hairnet, etc.?)
Soon the day of the Follies comes. Earlier, after she saw how badly their class skit was coming along, Liz tried to get Tom to quit as director. But Tom refused to budge! So on the morning of the Follies, Liz and her friends watch two skits from the other homeroom classes. One is a takeoff on Alice in Wonderland, and the other is all about a mysterious football player who turns out to be a girl (Claire Middleton?) Both skits are well received, and Liz and Amy wonder if Mr. Davis "got" the message about the football skit. Then they watch sadly as Tom and Ronnie and some other boys make a mockery of their homeroom with their lame skit, which is all about apes running around in the jungle and ... not much else.
After the skit, Mr. Clark lectures Mr. Davis again. Finally Mr. Davis acknowledges to his class that he's from a military academy, he's never taught girls before, blah blah. He admits that he should have let girls participate in the skit and promises he'll let them take part in future activities that are "suitable" for them. Elizabeth and Amy are hopeful -- will everything change now?!
Not quite. Mr. Davis still refuses to let the girls take part in the big softball game... he said suitable! And everyone knows that girls can't play sports!! The girls don't argue with him at first; they're back to square one.
But on the day of the game, their class plays badly ... EVEN without the girls. So Jessica tells Janet and the other Unicorns (the cool kids) all about sexist Mr. Davis and how he won't let the girls play. The Unicorns spread the word; soon the whole crowd knows ... and soon everyone in the bleachers starts to chant "We want the girls! We want the girls!" Charlie Cashman jeers at the chanting, but good old Tom McKay knows the team is losing. He finally sees the error of his ways; he knows they need the girls to win! So Tom and Ronnie talk to Mr. Davis and try to get him to let the girls back on the team.
Finally, Mr. Davis "wearily" agrees. He's too tired to be sexist anymore! But before they agree to play, the Wakefields DEMAND an apology to all the girls! Mr. Davis is all, "Excuse me, but teachers do not apologize to students" but Amy retorts "Why not, my parents would?" So Mr. Davis is all, "Okay, whatever, I'm sorry. Now get out there!"
So the girls get dressed up in their baseball uniforms, win the game, and save the day with Jessica's awesome playing. After the game, Mr. Davis and the kids are hanging out together ... Lizzie's all "You don't know much about girls, do you?" and Mr. Davis is all thoughtful, "No, I guess I don't." He takes ALL of the kids out for pizza to earn their forgiveness. And from here on, Mr. Davis is never, ever sexist again!