Sweet Valley and Twins Magna Edition: A Christmas Without Elizabeth pt. 3
Sorry for the delay on this one...I've had a lot of family issues and no time for recapping.
Without further ado, we continue with
We left off with Jess reassuring Liz that things always work out in the end.
The following day, Liz wakes up to find more rain. Geez, I think there's been more rain in this book alone than there was during all 140-plus SVH books. She hurries to get ready to visit the Glasses before Jessica wakes up, sure that Mr. Glass will be home, she'll have the money she "borrowed" back in time for the party, and all will be peachy keen.
Well, it is Sweet Valley, after all.
And of course, Liz arrives to find Connie from the shelter at the Glasses' apartment, helping Mrs. Glass and the kids pack their things. Mrs. Glass can't seem to track down her husband, and so the family has lost the apartment. She sends Liz to get Suzannah from her room. Suzannah is more upset about whether or not her dad is okay than about going back to the shelter, and she asks Liz to hand her her belongings, which all fit in one single plastic bag. As Suzannah begins to leave the room, Liz asks her if she's going to take her books. Suzannah responds that it's too noisy to concentrate at the shelter, so Liz can have the books if she wants them. Liz takes the "tattered" Amanda Howard book that Suzannah had been reading with her because she couldn't bear to see it left behind. Liz, it's a book, not a freakin' puppy.
Liz goes home, and that's when the shit hits the proverbial fan. Jessica and all the Unicorns are there, waiting for her to explain where their money is. Apparently Jessica got a clue and asked Mr. Wakefield about the deposit, and he had no idea what she was talking about. Lila begins to lay into Liz about where the money is, and Ellen whines about how many cookies she had to bake to help raise the money. (Cry me a river, Ellen. The cookies were probably crappy anyway.) Janet tells everyone to shut up and she's sure Liz has a rational explanation for everything.
Liz tries to tell them the truth but finds that she can't. She ends up giving them the lame excuse that she lost the money and will find a way to pay it back. (Like how Liz? Selling your masterpiece writing to kids' magazines? Somehow I doubt it.) Jessica explodes that Liz is always the responsible one, the one everyone always counts on, and how could she let them all down that way, especially she, Jess? She yells that Liz has ruined everything and she wishes that she'd never had a twin.
Dun dun DUN!!!
Liz runs off, crying until she can't cry anymore, and finds herself at the Valley Mall. She walks around inside and sees kids sitting on Santa's life. She remembers when she and Jessica were little and had stood in line to see Santa, and how she had always believed that in the end everything would always turn out all right. Then she sees that the Santa's beard is coming unglued from his cheek and the cuffs of his costume were frayed and a little dirty, and she knows now that everything doesn't always turn out all right.
To borrow an old phrase from the 80s, gag me with a spoon.
Liz just watches everything, completely numb. She knows what her wish would be if she sat on Santa's lap; it would be that she had never been born.
Dun dun DUN!!!
The lights dim, the crowd moves in slow motion, the carols fade, and Liz feels like she can't move. It's then that she sees one of the angel mannequins that she had noticed earlier lowering to the ground. Wait - it's not an angel...it's a girl! A girl that's shaking glitter from her long dark braid and is wearing jeans and a t-shirt. As Liz looks more closely at her, she realizes the girl's jeans are torn and shredded, she's wearing a Beatles tie-dyed t-shirt, and peace-sign earrings in her ears.
Liz, understandably, asks this girl who she is, and she puts her arm around Liz's shoulder and introduces herself as Laura. "It's groovy to meet you, Elizabeth," she says. Liz has no idea how this girl knows her name or why she's using the word "groovy." Laura explains that she's Liz's guardian angel.
Liz is completely confused. Laura begins obsessing over the food in the food court. Apparently you not only get a serious case of the munchies after you smoke pot, but also after you've been dead for 25 years. Laura freezes everyone in the mall with the snap of her fingers and Liz thinks she's losing her mind, especially when Laura reveals that she knows about everyone in Liz's life. Laura tells Liz that before she knows it, they'll be the best of friends, and Emo!Liz whines that she doesn't have any friends, and she can't have a long-term friendship with a hallucination.
Laura retorts that she's not a hallucination and Liz is crazy if she thinks she doesn't have any friends. Liz begins to cry and Laura freaks out, since she flunked "Helping With Heavy Emotions" twice. (Yes, this book continues to get cornier. Be warned now.) Laura rambles on some more as she gives Liz a Kleenex from her pocket. As I'm reading the scenes with Laura, I'm thinking of Six from "Blossom" because damn, can this girl talk. After some more rambling from Laura during which Liz decides she's too tired to argue, Laura tells her that she's got places to take her. She's going to make Liz's wish come true - that's what their meeting is all about.
They walk through the mall parking lot where some strange fog has formed; apparently it stays until history has been rewritten. They argue some more over whether or not Laura is a dream or real. Liz starts crying again and Laura is confused because "blubbering" wasn't included in Liz's Personality Problems Profile. Which is most amusing...
Elizabeth can be very self-critical. Occasionally she takes on more responsibility than is age-appropriate. She can be stubborn and exhibits a tendency toward self-righteousness.
HA! I'm loving Laura, in spite of the chattiness.
Liz gets all defensive and says that she's not self-righteous, then admits that maybe she is, just a little. Laura informs her that she's a major goody-goody and gives bad girls like her a complex. Need I say that I love Laura even more?
They go to the frozen yogurt store, where the owner of the store doesn't see them, and Laura sticks her finger into a little girl's sundae, and tosses spitballs at the girl's sister to prove to Liz that as far as the outside world is concerned, they don't exist. Strangely enough, Liz is more outraged by the hole in the sundae and the spitballs than by not existing. Go figure.
However, Liz lowers her hand to touch the head of the little girl behind her and completely freaks when her hand goes right through the girl. It's then that she realizes that Laura is right and she really doesn't exist.
And the world as we know it ends.
Just kidding.
Much like "It's a Wonderful Life," Laura is in training to become an angel and has been since the mid-60s. (Wouldn't it be freaky if she knew Ned and Alice back in the day??) Liz mocks her by saying "If you pass, do you get your wings?" Laura says she knows it's a cliche but her boss is very traditional. She also tells Liz that she has two secrets for her - one is that she changed her name to Pussywillow for six months back in 1968 (SO not going there!), and as they prepare to fly, she reveals her second secret is that she flunked Flyer's Ed twice.
I SO want Laura to be my guardian angel. She's way too cool to be stuck with a stick-up-the-butt like Liz. Which is even funnier because at one point Laura tells Liz that she told her superiors that they were a bad match when she was first assigned to Liz because Liz doesn't have a troublemaking bone in her body.
They head to their first stop, which is Sophia Rizzo's house. Laura explains to Liz that everything will seem a little off to her because there are millions of little changes involved in something like this. When you change one thing, an endless number of other things need to be changed; things are tied together in ways that you never understand. It's called the Sweater Effect: when you start yanking one little thread on the sleeve of your sweater, the entire thing can come unraveled. The Sweater Effect equals the number of Interactions times the number of years on earth squared. Strangely enough, I like this theory.
They spot Sophia and her mother on the corner. Liz notices that Sophia's curls are limp and her mother is scowling. Sophia and Mrs. Rizzo are both wearing torn, faded, secondhand clothes, and one of Mrs. Rizzo's shoes has a broken heel that's barely hanging on. Sophia and her mother have an argument over where they're going and are refused entry to a small grocery store by the shopkeeper, who accuses Sophia of having shoplifted in the past. Liz is appropriately outraged. Then the Rizzos head towards the reform school, where Tony, Sophia's brother, has been all year. They follow the Rizzos into the school, where they meet with a sullen Tony who is rude to both his mother and Sophia. Liz is confused. Tony doesn't fight anymore, not since Mr. Wakefield helped him get counseling, and Mrs. Rizzo is actually Mrs. Thomas, since she married Sarah Thomas's father.
Of course, without Liz, Tony didn't get counseling, and Mrs. Rizzo never met Mr. Thomas.
Then Laura breaks the really shocking news: Sarah Thomas is dead. Apparently the night months ago when Sarah was alone in her house and fell down the stairs, she died. Liz interrupts that she and Mr. Wakefield and Amy found Sarah after she fell; Sarah had a concussion but was otherwise fine.
But because Liz doesn't exist, there was no one to save Sarah, and she died, breaking Mr. Thomas's heart. He lives in his house like a hermit, feeling responsible for Sarah's death, and that's why he and Mrs. Rizzo never met.
Liz refuses to believe Laura, so Laura takes her to the cemetary and shows her Sarah's grave. Then she takes Liz to a freshly-dug grave and tells her that Denny Jacobsen also died, drowned in a surfing accident. He was hit on his head by his surfboard by a huge wave and there was nobody around to save him. Denny's mother had a nervous breakdown and the family left Sweet Valley. In Liz's world, she had saved Denny from drowning, and once again she goes into denial.
Laura time-travels to the day of the accident to prove to Liz that Denny really dies. Amy and Maria Slater eat at the concession stand and then leave because Liz isn't there to suggest that they collect shells for an art project. She then watches Denny's death, which I have to admit is pretty gruesome. Yet I'm amused by the fact that without Saint Elizabeth around, everyone dresses shabbily, forgets how to keep up with basic hygiene, and/or ends up dead.
I guess the world of Sweet Valley really DOES revolve around Liz. Scary thought, that is.
Liz starts trying to ask Laura questions about herself, but all Laura will say is that she was from LA, that she did have family and friends, and was a troubled youth. (I sense Liz saving another soul here....) She distracts Liz by taking her to the scene of the Christmas party at the middle school. This is where things really become amusing.
Lila and Ellen walk in wearing tough-looking black leather jackets and not one iota of purple. They bully Brooke Dennis - actually, Lila bullies her and Ellen follows along like a little puppy dog. The Unicorns are now the Sharks, and nobody is nice to Brooke because they think she's snobby and mean without Elizabeth around to change their minds. Mary Wallace is still Mary Giaccio and is still living with her foster parents. Without Elizabeth, she was never reunited with her birth mother.
She notices that everyone is grouped in unfamiliar cliques - Todd is all alone playing video games in a corner, and someone named Patrick (sorry but this is the first Twins book I've read so I don't know some of these characters) ran away. This is where we get the first glimpse of what happened to Laura - she says that Patrick needed help and didn't get it, so he ran off, and she sounds angry when she says it.
Liz then asks if Jessica is coming to the party, and Laura tells her she asks too many questions. (Um, Laura? Liz is a reporter, even at this early age. Of course she asks too many questions!) So Liz wanders around.
Amy, Maria and Billy are in a corner - apparently they're the school geeks - and read Lila's gossip column in the Sixers. She's not nearly as considerate as Liz was of other's feelings when Liz wrote the gossip column.Charlie Cashman and Jerry McAllister pick a fight with Winston, and Winston asks a nearby Todd for help.
No, there's no Todd Punch in this book.
I know, the shock nearly killed me too.
Todd tells Winston to give it up and it's not his fight, then goes back to his video game. (See!! This just PROVES all those Todd Punches were for Liz! I think she got off on him acting all alpha male, even though she acted like a big old feminist. I bet if they had ever had sex, she'd want him to tie her up....)
Liz goes outside and finds the Sharks all smoking cigarettes. She's shocked. The Unicorns were selfish and snobby, but I guess they've crossed the line by smoking. The shock! The horror! Janet begins to outline a plan that the Sharks have concocted. They're going to Jessica's house because they like to pick on her, and tell her that they want to let her join as an associate Shark. And they decide they want her to do something dangerous.
Liz runs back into the school to tell Laura that they have to save Jessica. Laura tries to tell her it isn't a good idea to be around her family, but Liz won't listen.
On the way to the Wakefields, she passes a seedy bar and sees a man inside hunched over a drink. She recognizes his overcoat (because apparently only one person in Sweet Valley wears a brown overcoat), and goes into the bar. Big surprise - it's Ned Wakefield. Drunk with stubble and a haunted look in his eyes, and no wedding band on his finger. She passes the homeless shelter, and finds Mrs. Glass and the girls there, with meager Christmas gifts because Liz wasn't there to help.
Finally they reach Calico Drive and Liz can't find her house until Laura points it out to her. The lawn is overgrown with weeds. The paint on the house is peeling. A window is broken and there are no Christmas lights anywhere. (And for you SV trivia buffs, the Wakefields' exact address is 1214 Calico Drive.) Apparently without Liz around to nag them, nobody does any chores. Liz decides to go inside.
Dirty clothes are scattered around, and dust and trash are everywhere. But Liz is moved more by the spindly Christmas tree in the corner. She finds her mother in the kitchen, looking tired and haggard and older - no longer like the twins' older sister. Thank God, because if I have to hear that comparison one more time I'll literally puke.
Laura fills her in. Her parents are divorced because of the rumors a while back that her mother was dating another man. When Liz existed, she helped to squash the rumors by proving they weren't true. Without Liz, Jessica believed it, and Mr. Wakefield was crushed by the rumor. The Wakefields couldn't trust each other anymore, and without Liz to get to the bottom of the issue, their marriage became rocky. When they divorced, there was a horrible custody battle and both Wakefields nearly became bankrupt with lawyers' fees from fighting each other.
Um...Ned's handled just about every kind of law there is in the SVH series. I'm amazed he didn't save himself some money and handle his own divorce.
We find out that Steven's now a punk who hangs out with a bad crowd. The divorce really screwed him up. Two of his friends have been arrested in the last month and he calls his mother "Alice." When she tells him she doesn't have the money to get him the CD player he wanted for Christmas, he takes off to go cause mayhem with his punk friends. Mrs. Wakefield cries and wishes for Mr. Wakefield.
Liz finds Jess upstairs in her bedroom, crying. Jess's closet doesn't have half as many clothes as it used to, but she's still getting C's in English. Lizz finds a photo that Jess has framed, from the days before the divorce. In it, Jessica looks like her old self. But when Jess stops crying and lifts her head, Liz sees that she's changed.
Jessica's hair is short and greasy, and she's wearing thick glasses and badly-fitting clothes. Liz thinks that she looks as if she hasn't seen sunshine in a long time, and there is desperation in Jessica's eyes. I don't doubt it, if she looks that way. The real Jessica would probably keel over from a heart attack from looking so fugly.
Mrs. Wakefield calls up that Lila and the girls are there to see her, and Jessica gets all excited. She can't hear Liz's warnings not to go, so she flies down the stairs. The Sharks tell Jessica that they're going caroling and they want her to go with them. Mrs. Wakefield is dubious at first but then says that Jess can go, just for an hour.
The Sharks take Jessica to Lila's mansion, and Charlie and Jerry are with them. Liz can't figure out why Jessica would go with them. Duh. She wants to feel like she belongs, you moron. She wants to be part of the in-crowd. Once inside the mansion, the girls decide they're going to make Jessica over and they tell her they want to make her a Shark. Jessica is confused by all the attention until Janet lies and says that she has a crush on Steven. Jessica accepts this and lets the Sharks tease her hair and slather makeup on her. Then they put Ellen's jacket on her for her initiation.
I know it seems like it can't, but it really does get lamer, folks.
Liz and Laura end up at City Hall, where Laura reveals the Sharks' plan. They're going to dare Jessica to climb up on the edge of the peaked roof and take down the Christmas Star. She won't get a ladder; they're going to have her climb the pine tree next to the building and lean over to grab the edge of the building to pull herself onto the roof.
While they wait for Jessica, Liz learns more about Laura. Laura's parents got divorced, they didn't have a lot of money, and she started getting into trouble. She, her mother, and little sister ended up at a shelter, not as nice as the one the Glasses ended up at. She ran away on Christmas Eve and ended up at an abandoned house. There was another girl and a guy living there with her, and they had a stray cat that they kept as a pet. The guy had stolen two cans of spaghetti from a store and they improvised a fire with a lighter and some newspaper to cook the spaghetti. They went to sleep and the house caught fire - somehow it had to do with the fire they had made. Don't ask me how.
Anyway, Laura got out but then ran back in to try to save the cat. And that was how she died.
Somehow there's a lesson in this for Liz. Like if you try to save too many people, you're going to fry in a fire. No? Damn, I tried.
Laura gets all mushy and goes on about how if she'd had someone like Liz around to help her through things, she'd probably still be alive today. Please don't feed her Saint complex, Laura. Laura tells Liz that her biggest wish is that she'd stuck around, because even when things are bad, there's no way to tell how they're going to end up.
Apparently this ghostwriter likes to beat readers over the head with the moral of the story. It's pretty annoying. Especially when Laura asks Liz what she's learned from her story. Please.
Luckily the Sharks show up with Jessica and the moralizing stops. They give Jessica her dare and she tries to get out of it, but the Sharks bully her and she caves. I miss the old Jess. She starts to climb the tree and Liz is freaking out because she can't do anything. Yes, for once Liz has no control over a situation and it's driving her nuts.Once Jess gets even with the roof, they tell her to lean over and grab the roof. She tries but the tree is swaying. Liz is nearly frantic, and Laura tells her this is what she wished for. Somehow I highly doubt that Liz wished for Jessica to fall from a tree and become flat as a pancake.
Jessica gets ahold of the roof and the tree sways back, leaving her hanging from the roof as the cops arrive. The Sharks scatter and leave her there. Liz wishes she could go back just as Jess's fingers start to slip from the roof.
Suddenly Laura says goodbye and disappears and when Liz opens her eyes, she's outside the school auditorium. She finds Sarah, alive and well, and Sophia, who's also back to her normal self. They take her inside the school, where she sees everyone she knows back to their regular selves, acting as if they're waiting for someone. Sophia announces Liz's entrance, and Jessica happily throws herself at Liz, apologizing for acting like such a jerk.
Suzannah is there and says that she called the Wakefield house that afternoon to tell Liz that her father made it home safe and sound, that he had been snowed in. That was when everyone realized what had happened. Apparently Suzannah is a Liz in the making. Can Sweet Valley handle two Lizs? No idea, but I think I prefer Crazy Margo in the role. At least she'd be more interesting.
Anyway, Liz meets Mr. Glass, and discovers that when everyone figured out what happened, they went to Mr. and Mrs. Wakefield. Mr. Wakefield just happened to know someone with a three-bedroom apartment for rent and hooked the Glasses up with an apartment. Saintliness runs in the Wakefield family - with Jessica of course as the exception. Mr. and Mrs. Wakefield run forward to hug Liz and tell her what a wonderful thing she tried to do, and that if she had come to them they would have helped her. Are you listening, Liz? Quit trying to run everything on your own!
There's a barrel at the party for donations to the homeless shelter, and Jessica reveals that she finally came up with a theme for the party. The sign hanging on the wall says "Merry Christmas, Elizabeth! Sweet Valley Loves You!" Jessica makes a toast to Elizabeth, the "very best sister in the world" and Liz notices a finger-sized hole in the bottom tier of the cake. Smiling, she thinks that Laura finally got it right.
And the bell rang, and the angel got its wings.
Not really, but that's how it should have ended.
And thank God, this recap is over. LOL!
Without further ado, we continue with
We left off with Jess reassuring Liz that things always work out in the end.
The following day, Liz wakes up to find more rain. Geez, I think there's been more rain in this book alone than there was during all 140-plus SVH books. She hurries to get ready to visit the Glasses before Jessica wakes up, sure that Mr. Glass will be home, she'll have the money she "borrowed" back in time for the party, and all will be peachy keen.
Well, it is Sweet Valley, after all.
And of course, Liz arrives to find Connie from the shelter at the Glasses' apartment, helping Mrs. Glass and the kids pack their things. Mrs. Glass can't seem to track down her husband, and so the family has lost the apartment. She sends Liz to get Suzannah from her room. Suzannah is more upset about whether or not her dad is okay than about going back to the shelter, and she asks Liz to hand her her belongings, which all fit in one single plastic bag. As Suzannah begins to leave the room, Liz asks her if she's going to take her books. Suzannah responds that it's too noisy to concentrate at the shelter, so Liz can have the books if she wants them. Liz takes the "tattered" Amanda Howard book that Suzannah had been reading with her because she couldn't bear to see it left behind. Liz, it's a book, not a freakin' puppy.
Liz goes home, and that's when the shit hits the proverbial fan. Jessica and all the Unicorns are there, waiting for her to explain where their money is. Apparently Jessica got a clue and asked Mr. Wakefield about the deposit, and he had no idea what she was talking about. Lila begins to lay into Liz about where the money is, and Ellen whines about how many cookies she had to bake to help raise the money. (Cry me a river, Ellen. The cookies were probably crappy anyway.) Janet tells everyone to shut up and she's sure Liz has a rational explanation for everything.
Liz tries to tell them the truth but finds that she can't. She ends up giving them the lame excuse that she lost the money and will find a way to pay it back. (Like how Liz? Selling your masterpiece writing to kids' magazines? Somehow I doubt it.) Jessica explodes that Liz is always the responsible one, the one everyone always counts on, and how could she let them all down that way, especially she, Jess? She yells that Liz has ruined everything and she wishes that she'd never had a twin.
Dun dun DUN!!!
Liz runs off, crying until she can't cry anymore, and finds herself at the Valley Mall. She walks around inside and sees kids sitting on Santa's life. She remembers when she and Jessica were little and had stood in line to see Santa, and how she had always believed that in the end everything would always turn out all right. Then she sees that the Santa's beard is coming unglued from his cheek and the cuffs of his costume were frayed and a little dirty, and she knows now that everything doesn't always turn out all right.
To borrow an old phrase from the 80s, gag me with a spoon.
Liz just watches everything, completely numb. She knows what her wish would be if she sat on Santa's lap; it would be that she had never been born.
Dun dun DUN!!!
The lights dim, the crowd moves in slow motion, the carols fade, and Liz feels like she can't move. It's then that she sees one of the angel mannequins that she had noticed earlier lowering to the ground. Wait - it's not an angel...it's a girl! A girl that's shaking glitter from her long dark braid and is wearing jeans and a t-shirt. As Liz looks more closely at her, she realizes the girl's jeans are torn and shredded, she's wearing a Beatles tie-dyed t-shirt, and peace-sign earrings in her ears.
Liz, understandably, asks this girl who she is, and she puts her arm around Liz's shoulder and introduces herself as Laura. "It's groovy to meet you, Elizabeth," she says. Liz has no idea how this girl knows her name or why she's using the word "groovy." Laura explains that she's Liz's guardian angel.
Liz is completely confused. Laura begins obsessing over the food in the food court. Apparently you not only get a serious case of the munchies after you smoke pot, but also after you've been dead for 25 years. Laura freezes everyone in the mall with the snap of her fingers and Liz thinks she's losing her mind, especially when Laura reveals that she knows about everyone in Liz's life. Laura tells Liz that before she knows it, they'll be the best of friends, and Emo!Liz whines that she doesn't have any friends, and she can't have a long-term friendship with a hallucination.
Laura retorts that she's not a hallucination and Liz is crazy if she thinks she doesn't have any friends. Liz begins to cry and Laura freaks out, since she flunked "Helping With Heavy Emotions" twice. (Yes, this book continues to get cornier. Be warned now.) Laura rambles on some more as she gives Liz a Kleenex from her pocket. As I'm reading the scenes with Laura, I'm thinking of Six from "Blossom" because damn, can this girl talk. After some more rambling from Laura during which Liz decides she's too tired to argue, Laura tells her that she's got places to take her. She's going to make Liz's wish come true - that's what their meeting is all about.
They walk through the mall parking lot where some strange fog has formed; apparently it stays until history has been rewritten. They argue some more over whether or not Laura is a dream or real. Liz starts crying again and Laura is confused because "blubbering" wasn't included in Liz's Personality Problems Profile. Which is most amusing...
Elizabeth can be very self-critical. Occasionally she takes on more responsibility than is age-appropriate. She can be stubborn and exhibits a tendency toward self-righteousness.
HA! I'm loving Laura, in spite of the chattiness.
Liz gets all defensive and says that she's not self-righteous, then admits that maybe she is, just a little. Laura informs her that she's a major goody-goody and gives bad girls like her a complex. Need I say that I love Laura even more?
They go to the frozen yogurt store, where the owner of the store doesn't see them, and Laura sticks her finger into a little girl's sundae, and tosses spitballs at the girl's sister to prove to Liz that as far as the outside world is concerned, they don't exist. Strangely enough, Liz is more outraged by the hole in the sundae and the spitballs than by not existing. Go figure.
However, Liz lowers her hand to touch the head of the little girl behind her and completely freaks when her hand goes right through the girl. It's then that she realizes that Laura is right and she really doesn't exist.
And the world as we know it ends.
Just kidding.
Much like "It's a Wonderful Life," Laura is in training to become an angel and has been since the mid-60s. (Wouldn't it be freaky if she knew Ned and Alice back in the day??) Liz mocks her by saying "If you pass, do you get your wings?" Laura says she knows it's a cliche but her boss is very traditional. She also tells Liz that she has two secrets for her - one is that she changed her name to Pussywillow for six months back in 1968 (SO not going there!), and as they prepare to fly, she reveals her second secret is that she flunked Flyer's Ed twice.
I SO want Laura to be my guardian angel. She's way too cool to be stuck with a stick-up-the-butt like Liz. Which is even funnier because at one point Laura tells Liz that she told her superiors that they were a bad match when she was first assigned to Liz because Liz doesn't have a troublemaking bone in her body.
They head to their first stop, which is Sophia Rizzo's house. Laura explains to Liz that everything will seem a little off to her because there are millions of little changes involved in something like this. When you change one thing, an endless number of other things need to be changed; things are tied together in ways that you never understand. It's called the Sweater Effect: when you start yanking one little thread on the sleeve of your sweater, the entire thing can come unraveled. The Sweater Effect equals the number of Interactions times the number of years on earth squared. Strangely enough, I like this theory.
They spot Sophia and her mother on the corner. Liz notices that Sophia's curls are limp and her mother is scowling. Sophia and Mrs. Rizzo are both wearing torn, faded, secondhand clothes, and one of Mrs. Rizzo's shoes has a broken heel that's barely hanging on. Sophia and her mother have an argument over where they're going and are refused entry to a small grocery store by the shopkeeper, who accuses Sophia of having shoplifted in the past. Liz is appropriately outraged. Then the Rizzos head towards the reform school, where Tony, Sophia's brother, has been all year. They follow the Rizzos into the school, where they meet with a sullen Tony who is rude to both his mother and Sophia. Liz is confused. Tony doesn't fight anymore, not since Mr. Wakefield helped him get counseling, and Mrs. Rizzo is actually Mrs. Thomas, since she married Sarah Thomas's father.
Of course, without Liz, Tony didn't get counseling, and Mrs. Rizzo never met Mr. Thomas.
Then Laura breaks the really shocking news: Sarah Thomas is dead. Apparently the night months ago when Sarah was alone in her house and fell down the stairs, she died. Liz interrupts that she and Mr. Wakefield and Amy found Sarah after she fell; Sarah had a concussion but was otherwise fine.
But because Liz doesn't exist, there was no one to save Sarah, and she died, breaking Mr. Thomas's heart. He lives in his house like a hermit, feeling responsible for Sarah's death, and that's why he and Mrs. Rizzo never met.
Liz refuses to believe Laura, so Laura takes her to the cemetary and shows her Sarah's grave. Then she takes Liz to a freshly-dug grave and tells her that Denny Jacobsen also died, drowned in a surfing accident. He was hit on his head by his surfboard by a huge wave and there was nobody around to save him. Denny's mother had a nervous breakdown and the family left Sweet Valley. In Liz's world, she had saved Denny from drowning, and once again she goes into denial.
Laura time-travels to the day of the accident to prove to Liz that Denny really dies. Amy and Maria Slater eat at the concession stand and then leave because Liz isn't there to suggest that they collect shells for an art project. She then watches Denny's death, which I have to admit is pretty gruesome. Yet I'm amused by the fact that without Saint Elizabeth around, everyone dresses shabbily, forgets how to keep up with basic hygiene, and/or ends up dead.
I guess the world of Sweet Valley really DOES revolve around Liz. Scary thought, that is.
Liz starts trying to ask Laura questions about herself, but all Laura will say is that she was from LA, that she did have family and friends, and was a troubled youth. (I sense Liz saving another soul here....) She distracts Liz by taking her to the scene of the Christmas party at the middle school. This is where things really become amusing.
Lila and Ellen walk in wearing tough-looking black leather jackets and not one iota of purple. They bully Brooke Dennis - actually, Lila bullies her and Ellen follows along like a little puppy dog. The Unicorns are now the Sharks, and nobody is nice to Brooke because they think she's snobby and mean without Elizabeth around to change their minds. Mary Wallace is still Mary Giaccio and is still living with her foster parents. Without Elizabeth, she was never reunited with her birth mother.
She notices that everyone is grouped in unfamiliar cliques - Todd is all alone playing video games in a corner, and someone named Patrick (sorry but this is the first Twins book I've read so I don't know some of these characters) ran away. This is where we get the first glimpse of what happened to Laura - she says that Patrick needed help and didn't get it, so he ran off, and she sounds angry when she says it.
Liz then asks if Jessica is coming to the party, and Laura tells her she asks too many questions. (Um, Laura? Liz is a reporter, even at this early age. Of course she asks too many questions!) So Liz wanders around.
Amy, Maria and Billy are in a corner - apparently they're the school geeks - and read Lila's gossip column in the Sixers. She's not nearly as considerate as Liz was of other's feelings when Liz wrote the gossip column.Charlie Cashman and Jerry McAllister pick a fight with Winston, and Winston asks a nearby Todd for help.
No, there's no Todd Punch in this book.
I know, the shock nearly killed me too.
Todd tells Winston to give it up and it's not his fight, then goes back to his video game. (See!! This just PROVES all those Todd Punches were for Liz! I think she got off on him acting all alpha male, even though she acted like a big old feminist. I bet if they had ever had sex, she'd want him to tie her up....)
Liz goes outside and finds the Sharks all smoking cigarettes. She's shocked. The Unicorns were selfish and snobby, but I guess they've crossed the line by smoking. The shock! The horror! Janet begins to outline a plan that the Sharks have concocted. They're going to Jessica's house because they like to pick on her, and tell her that they want to let her join as an associate Shark. And they decide they want her to do something dangerous.
Liz runs back into the school to tell Laura that they have to save Jessica. Laura tries to tell her it isn't a good idea to be around her family, but Liz won't listen.
On the way to the Wakefields, she passes a seedy bar and sees a man inside hunched over a drink. She recognizes his overcoat (because apparently only one person in Sweet Valley wears a brown overcoat), and goes into the bar. Big surprise - it's Ned Wakefield. Drunk with stubble and a haunted look in his eyes, and no wedding band on his finger. She passes the homeless shelter, and finds Mrs. Glass and the girls there, with meager Christmas gifts because Liz wasn't there to help.
Finally they reach Calico Drive and Liz can't find her house until Laura points it out to her. The lawn is overgrown with weeds. The paint on the house is peeling. A window is broken and there are no Christmas lights anywhere. (And for you SV trivia buffs, the Wakefields' exact address is 1214 Calico Drive.) Apparently without Liz around to nag them, nobody does any chores. Liz decides to go inside.
Dirty clothes are scattered around, and dust and trash are everywhere. But Liz is moved more by the spindly Christmas tree in the corner. She finds her mother in the kitchen, looking tired and haggard and older - no longer like the twins' older sister. Thank God, because if I have to hear that comparison one more time I'll literally puke.
Laura fills her in. Her parents are divorced because of the rumors a while back that her mother was dating another man. When Liz existed, she helped to squash the rumors by proving they weren't true. Without Liz, Jessica believed it, and Mr. Wakefield was crushed by the rumor. The Wakefields couldn't trust each other anymore, and without Liz to get to the bottom of the issue, their marriage became rocky. When they divorced, there was a horrible custody battle and both Wakefields nearly became bankrupt with lawyers' fees from fighting each other.
Um...Ned's handled just about every kind of law there is in the SVH series. I'm amazed he didn't save himself some money and handle his own divorce.
We find out that Steven's now a punk who hangs out with a bad crowd. The divorce really screwed him up. Two of his friends have been arrested in the last month and he calls his mother "Alice." When she tells him she doesn't have the money to get him the CD player he wanted for Christmas, he takes off to go cause mayhem with his punk friends. Mrs. Wakefield cries and wishes for Mr. Wakefield.
Liz finds Jess upstairs in her bedroom, crying. Jess's closet doesn't have half as many clothes as it used to, but she's still getting C's in English. Lizz finds a photo that Jess has framed, from the days before the divorce. In it, Jessica looks like her old self. But when Jess stops crying and lifts her head, Liz sees that she's changed.
Jessica's hair is short and greasy, and she's wearing thick glasses and badly-fitting clothes. Liz thinks that she looks as if she hasn't seen sunshine in a long time, and there is desperation in Jessica's eyes. I don't doubt it, if she looks that way. The real Jessica would probably keel over from a heart attack from looking so fugly.
Mrs. Wakefield calls up that Lila and the girls are there to see her, and Jessica gets all excited. She can't hear Liz's warnings not to go, so she flies down the stairs. The Sharks tell Jessica that they're going caroling and they want her to go with them. Mrs. Wakefield is dubious at first but then says that Jess can go, just for an hour.
The Sharks take Jessica to Lila's mansion, and Charlie and Jerry are with them. Liz can't figure out why Jessica would go with them. Duh. She wants to feel like she belongs, you moron. She wants to be part of the in-crowd. Once inside the mansion, the girls decide they're going to make Jessica over and they tell her they want to make her a Shark. Jessica is confused by all the attention until Janet lies and says that she has a crush on Steven. Jessica accepts this and lets the Sharks tease her hair and slather makeup on her. Then they put Ellen's jacket on her for her initiation.
I know it seems like it can't, but it really does get lamer, folks.
Liz and Laura end up at City Hall, where Laura reveals the Sharks' plan. They're going to dare Jessica to climb up on the edge of the peaked roof and take down the Christmas Star. She won't get a ladder; they're going to have her climb the pine tree next to the building and lean over to grab the edge of the building to pull herself onto the roof.
While they wait for Jessica, Liz learns more about Laura. Laura's parents got divorced, they didn't have a lot of money, and she started getting into trouble. She, her mother, and little sister ended up at a shelter, not as nice as the one the Glasses ended up at. She ran away on Christmas Eve and ended up at an abandoned house. There was another girl and a guy living there with her, and they had a stray cat that they kept as a pet. The guy had stolen two cans of spaghetti from a store and they improvised a fire with a lighter and some newspaper to cook the spaghetti. They went to sleep and the house caught fire - somehow it had to do with the fire they had made. Don't ask me how.
Anyway, Laura got out but then ran back in to try to save the cat. And that was how she died.
Somehow there's a lesson in this for Liz. Like if you try to save too many people, you're going to fry in a fire. No? Damn, I tried.
Laura gets all mushy and goes on about how if she'd had someone like Liz around to help her through things, she'd probably still be alive today. Please don't feed her Saint complex, Laura. Laura tells Liz that her biggest wish is that she'd stuck around, because even when things are bad, there's no way to tell how they're going to end up.
Apparently this ghostwriter likes to beat readers over the head with the moral of the story. It's pretty annoying. Especially when Laura asks Liz what she's learned from her story. Please.
Luckily the Sharks show up with Jessica and the moralizing stops. They give Jessica her dare and she tries to get out of it, but the Sharks bully her and she caves. I miss the old Jess. She starts to climb the tree and Liz is freaking out because she can't do anything. Yes, for once Liz has no control over a situation and it's driving her nuts.Once Jess gets even with the roof, they tell her to lean over and grab the roof. She tries but the tree is swaying. Liz is nearly frantic, and Laura tells her this is what she wished for. Somehow I highly doubt that Liz wished for Jessica to fall from a tree and become flat as a pancake.
Jessica gets ahold of the roof and the tree sways back, leaving her hanging from the roof as the cops arrive. The Sharks scatter and leave her there. Liz wishes she could go back just as Jess's fingers start to slip from the roof.
Suddenly Laura says goodbye and disappears and when Liz opens her eyes, she's outside the school auditorium. She finds Sarah, alive and well, and Sophia, who's also back to her normal self. They take her inside the school, where she sees everyone she knows back to their regular selves, acting as if they're waiting for someone. Sophia announces Liz's entrance, and Jessica happily throws herself at Liz, apologizing for acting like such a jerk.
Suzannah is there and says that she called the Wakefield house that afternoon to tell Liz that her father made it home safe and sound, that he had been snowed in. That was when everyone realized what had happened. Apparently Suzannah is a Liz in the making. Can Sweet Valley handle two Lizs? No idea, but I think I prefer Crazy Margo in the role. At least she'd be more interesting.
Anyway, Liz meets Mr. Glass, and discovers that when everyone figured out what happened, they went to Mr. and Mrs. Wakefield. Mr. Wakefield just happened to know someone with a three-bedroom apartment for rent and hooked the Glasses up with an apartment. Saintliness runs in the Wakefield family - with Jessica of course as the exception. Mr. and Mrs. Wakefield run forward to hug Liz and tell her what a wonderful thing she tried to do, and that if she had come to them they would have helped her. Are you listening, Liz? Quit trying to run everything on your own!
There's a barrel at the party for donations to the homeless shelter, and Jessica reveals that she finally came up with a theme for the party. The sign hanging on the wall says "Merry Christmas, Elizabeth! Sweet Valley Loves You!" Jessica makes a toast to Elizabeth, the "very best sister in the world" and Liz notices a finger-sized hole in the bottom tier of the cake. Smiling, she thinks that Laura finally got it right.
And the bell rang, and the angel got its wings.
Not really, but that's how it should have ended.
And thank God, this recap is over. LOL!