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Sweet Valley Twins
Super Edition #6: The Twins Take Paris
aka: "In which the twins have read 'Hansel and Gretel' way too many times"
Note: Since the A and B plots have to do with each other, I combined them in my post. Even so, I somehow managed to make this entry almost as long as the book itself. XD Apologies for the length.
The girls have won a two week trip to Paris during their Spring Break (again with the two week breaks) through an exchange program called Bonjour, Paris! (At least they call it an exchange program. Nobody actually comes back to take the twins' place.) The book opens the night before the trip and the twins are studying their French maps and phrase books at the kitchen table. I don't know where Jess got her phrase book, Speak French Just as a Native Might, because it contains the phrases "He is not dead yet" and "Hail to the never-dying ancestors of long ago." Liz agrees that it's lame; I just wonder what kind of French people this author has met. There's also a brief mention of some language tapes that Liz has been listening to, one of which includes the phrase "Oh my! I am late for luncheon with the queen!" Seriously. What year were these books and tapes made in? Because France totally still has a queen. (And in a somewhat subtle bit of foreshadowing, Liz also has some trouble translating the above phrases.)
Jess gets the idea to create her own phrase book, which, considering it comes from Jess, is actually a pretty good idea. No mention of Liz being jealous that she didn't think of it first, however. Steven comes in at this point (and devours two apples in, like, 5 minutes--and yet is able to speak perfectly clearly) and teases them about French food. Jess wisely ignores the talk of intestines and octopus stomachs while Liz gets scared and wonders if she should bring some American food with her, asking herself Do they have pizza without intestines in France? Goodness, Liz, one page ago you were chiding Jess for not paying attention in French class and you have no idea what food they eat there? Nice to know their class doesn't teach about culture at all.
We also learn that the family the girls will stay with have a daughter their age and an older brother. (Gee, how convenient.) Jess fantasizes about the older brother and then, when Steven continues teasing her, begins batting her eyelashes at him and then wishes outloud that she had a cuter older brother. (We know she doesn't like to read educationally; you think she likes VC Andrews?) Unfortunately, a letter arrives just at that moment from the host family. Their grandmother is sick and they have to go take care of her so they arrange for a kindly old widow woman, Madame du Noir, to take care of the girls, and the girls are suitably scared though not over the woman's name but of how the Montclaire family are really bad spellers.
Liz decides to read a mystery on the plane flight, scaring herself silly over the old woman villain who turns into a monster which then leads to bad images of Madame du Noir. Jess spends her time talking to a nosy flight attendant, who, throughout all her questioning, smartly asks if the exchange program knows anything about the Madame since she wasn't originally supposed to watch them. Jess gets scared as well and imagines the Madame to be like the witch in Hansel and Gretel. (Ha!)
Later on, Jess gets bored and the flight attendant lets her go up the flight attendant station to rummage through their magazines. (Don't they have some in the chair pockets?) And in another attempt to be funny, the author includes the wonderful publications, The Antique Lampshade Collector, Classical Music Illustrated, Tax Shelter Digest, and Popular Hairstyles for Poodles. My favorite, however, is From Wimp to Hunk Quarterly. She decides to read International Traveler and comes across a "Have you seen me?" ad for a lost American girl who was last seen in the company of an old woman (wearing a polka dot scarf in the picture) and Jess gets scared again. And even more scared when it turns out several young girls, all blonde of course, have all gone missing. Author, the horse is dead. Stop beating it.
Oh, wait, looks like she's got a few more whacks in her. In the biggest coincidence in the history of the world, the girls meets up with Madame and find she looks exactly like the nasty old woman they both dreamed about on the plane, right down to her black and white-dotted scarf. And while she can speak most words normally, the girls' names are apparently really hard to say. According to Madame, Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield translates as "Ay-lee-sa-bess and Zhes-see-ca Oo-ake-feel." The girls freak out (over her looks or accent, we're not sure) and they hop into the nearest cab and run away. Because two 11 year old girls who don't speak French very well can totally make it in France on their own. Madame immediately calls the Wakefield home to tell them their girls have run away and to come to France to get them back. (Dude, at least try to find them yourself before freaking the parents out!)
The girls run away to, any guesses? A mall. After ordering some food, Liz has some doubts about running away so quickly as she might have misinterpreted Madame saying "Those girls are never going home again." (You think?) Jess agrees but only because her hair's a mess and she can use her blow dryer at Madame's house. Yes, that's really her reason for agreeing. But once they find a phone booth, it turns out Madame is at the booth next to them and Liz "hears" her saying she's going to cook the girls for dinner and put them under glass so they run away again. In the meantime, the other three Wakefields are trying to book a flight to Paris and Steven randomly thinks about how he shoved half of his 86 college t-shirts into a backpark as his luggage. What?? The girls then go to a bakery to eat, in which they watch as the baker, in a fight with his either coworker or wife, throws jelly donuts at her. Uh, yeah. And then we find that Steven is bringing all those shirts with him to sell them while he's in France! *dead!* What a way to care about your missing sisters, Steven. (And then he gets mad that his French phrase book doesn't include the phrase "Only worn twice.") *DEAD!*
We are taken back to the bakery where it turns out the woman was the baker's assistant who has quit for the bazillionth time. They have a wedding to bake for the next day so he complains to the girls about how ruined he will be so Jess tells him that she and Liz are actually really good bakers. Somehow, she manages to convince him of this and he lets them sleep on cots in the back. Apparently staying at a strange man's house is ok when being chased by a murderous old woman. Back at the airport, Steven runs into Katharine, that nosy flight attendant, and flirts with her big time. He learns that she saw the twins and that Katharine suspects the girls probably thought Madame was the one kidnapping the young girls. (Thanks for trying to reassure the girls when they were in your custody, Katharine.)
The Wakefields meet up with Madame while the baker drives the girls crazy with his baking instructions and the fact that they can't understand his accent. In yet another coincidence, Madame offers to buy pastries for the family and of course, enters the girls' bakery. The baker is happy to get rid of the girls (as his assistant has once again come to get her job back) but the girls are suddenly nowhere to be found. During the above, they tried calling home, got the machine, and then decided to quit baking so they could see the Louvre. And, in order to thank the baker for his hospitality, they scrawl the word "Merci" on the wall in frosting. Because paper doesn't exist in this world.
At the Louvre, they see all the big name items. Jess thinks the Mona Lisa makes an ugly lady. After awhile, they stop in a cafe in the museum to eat and use the payphone to call home. And only after a million calls do they realize they can call collect so as not to waste their money. (And even later on, they wonder why they didn't bring phone cards. I wonder that too.) Meanwhile, Steven decides two missing kids aren't enough and slips away from his parents at the bakery because he thinks he sees the twins though obviously he doesn't. While he's out running, he runs into a local youth who informs him that no one wears American college shirts anymore. Oh, snap! And he wishes again that he could go rollerblading. You are an outstanding older brother, Steven.
Once he gets back to the bakery, Madame gets the idea that the girls are probably hiding in some place where they think they won't be found so they all immediately head to--where? Yep, the Louvre. Steven nearly gets to them in the cafe but, when he runs into a guard and says, "J'ai sorry" ("I have sorry"--trying to apologize), a whole bunch of guards pour out of the woodwork and tackle him. In the middle of the Louvre. It's great. They think he said "I have sari" which they take to mean that he's admitting to stealing a sari from the Indian clothing exhibit. Of course, it doesn't help that he's already got 43 t-shirts stuffed in his bag. XD
The girls nearly get caught again by their parents and Madame so they hide underneath one of Napoleon's beds and then decide to spend the night there. Because of course the guards won't notice that the curtains around the bed, which are always open, are now suddenly closed. The next day they go back out into the city and run into another old woman, Madame Renault, (this time with a blue and pink polka-dotted scarf) who wants to know where they're from. ("Shee-cago? Bang bang?" and "Teck-sas?") She offers to make them some tea and Jess notices the old woman has a little bit of a mustache. But that doesn't stop either of them from going to her apartment. Or from noting how much her mustache seems to be growing the longer they are in her apt.
Steven and Madame, who got separated from the Wakefields on the Tube, are out on the streets when who should arrive but the crazy baker from before! The wedding is over and he has plenty of spare time to drive our crazy heroes around the city. Having previously spotted the girls on the Tube (going to Renault's apt) Steven sees them in Renault's apt and they try to get inside. Renault, however, has a bajillion locks on her door and the girls have time to escape again, this time to the Eiffel Tower. Madame du Noir calls the cops on Madame Renault because of the girls and also because something just seems fishy. The cops come and say Renault looks like the old woman who has killed (before it was just kidnapped, I guess they've found bodies now?) those girls. But, darn their luck, Renault has escaped to the Tower to find the girls.
After this follows some sneaking up the Eiffel Tower, knocking out cops by bashing their faces in with doors, and dodging crafty old, mustache- and wig-wearing, knife-bearing old women who turn out to be men. The Eiffel Tower is lots of fun! But in the end, they all discover it was a big misunderstanding, all because Liz misheard the French she heard Madame speak. The girls realize Renault was the one trying to kill them, Madame du Noir is suddenly a saint, and everyone forgets about Steven who is huffing and puffing his way up the Tower by stairs.
I have to give Alice and Ned credit in this book, though. Despite the fact that they let their 11-year old daughters go on this trip by themselves, they are the only ones not laughing at the crazy girls' escapades at the end of the book. Seriously, everyone else is happy and laughing at all the trouble the girls caused. And in the bakery no less! Oh, that baker. The parents even go one step further and tell the girls they are *all* leaving the next day back to Sweet Valley so the girls are not allowed to finish their trip but instead will be forced to do chores the rest of their break. Finally the girls get in trouble for something.
And Liz did not cry at all in this book. I was le disappointed. :(