SVT#11: Buried Treasure
Ellen Riteman is a major feature of this book, but sadly, she doesn't have the ditzy personality of later books. She's almost... normal.
They both look very... shocked? Not really. A bit slow? Maybe. Jess looks like she's a zombie. There's no raised eyebrows to give her expression like Ellen. Maybe it's because Jessica's embarrassed that her lower body is ridiculously small and she has the world's shortest right leg. It actually freaks me out how stumpy her shins are. And the perspective on her arm is all weird. It reminds me of when I tried to draw people when I was twelve. Ellen's quite pretty though.
Jess and Ellen are over at Ellen's place, having a funeral for Ellen's brother Mark's pet parakeet. The cat killed him. Normally, I would care, but meh. It's another one-book character that never really got a chance to live. A plot point, merely. Anyway, Mark is digging and hits something hard. A toy chest with a dismembered body inside? No, it's a metal box sealed with a sturdy lock. Mark is super excited. Maybe it's treasure! (I guess it is, with the title and all.) Mark trips on Jessica's ankle and she immediately fakes a lot of pain and sends Mark running to her house to get her crutches (Jessica sprained her ankle in the book before this). Now with Mark out of the way, Ellen and Jess can open the chest!! MWAHAHA! There's a bunch of old love letters from the 1920s, and $200 in cash! Would 1920s money still be valid currency in 1980s USA? I'm curious. It wouldn't be over here in New Zealand.
When Mark returns, the money is gone and the girls pretend they have only just cracked the chest. All Mark finds is letters and photographs, so he walks away with nothing. Never trust a Wakefield, Mark! He's pretty suspicious, though.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth is running for class treasurer (why? I don't know). She and her campaign manager Amy Slutton are trying to come up with a slogan for her campaign posters. Ideas include:
-Your Money's In Good Hands with Elizabeth. Vote E.W. for Student Council Treasurer. (BTW, I love that her initials spell 'Ew'. I'm also hoping Amy's middle name starts with 'S', coz then her initials would be 'ASS'. Heh.)
-Wake Up With Wakefield. (what is she, a DJ?)
Anything's better than Don't Despair With Peter, Elizabeth's rival's slogan. Peter DeHaven is her competition, and he's a stereotypical geek (in future books, he's very cute, so I'm not sure what happened there). Amy imitates him, and Liz laughs and tells her that's "not very nice." If it wasn't nice, you shouldn't have laughed, bitch.
Eventually Amy comes up with "Elizabeth Makes Cents." Geddit, sense, cents? I actually think that's pretty cute, if extremely corny.
That evening, Amy is at the Wakefields' helping make campaign posters (with RED GLITTER, even. How professional). Mrs W is heating up frozen pizza for dinner. The twins groan, coz they make pizza in cooking class today. Plus, Steven had it for lunch. So, as a healthy alternative, Mrs W suggests the Dairi Burger. Way to go, Alice. Your kids had fatty pizza for lunch, so you take them for burgers and fries for dinner. You're lucky your kids are the Wakefield twins, or you might be contributing to the obesity "epidemic". They go to the Dairi Burger with Amy, and Steven is embarrassed to be sitting with his mum. Shut up, wanker, she's paying!
Anyway, Peter comes into the Dairi Burger wearing a new pair of surf shorts. Unfortunately the price tag is still hanging from the back. Everyone laughs, except Liz and Amy, because they'd never laugh at him (in public anyway. As shown above, they have no problem with it in private. Hypocrites). When Liz sees Peter at school the next day, she's nice to his face, but snarks his campaign posters in her head, thinking they "looked as though he'd scribbled his campaign motto on with pencil". Come on. If he was a nerd worth his salt, he'd pwn Liz with his computer graphic design skillz. Oh, wait, graphics aren't invented. That's a shame coz I could so see him putting up macros like this:
Witness my mad MS Paint skillz.
Jess bought a Walkman with some of her money, and tells Liz she found it on a bench at the mall. I don't get why this is better than saying you found $100. Technically that's stealing. Especially later when Liz finds the bag and receipt for the Walkman and Jess says she found the Walkman in a shopping bag at the mall. Hand it in, you dumb bitch. If I was St Liz, I'd be telling her off. What a crap story. She also buys some clothes, and Ellen buys nice earrings (they're a one-off design from a Sweet Valley jeweller, and worth $50. Even Lila says they're expensive. Suddenly I lose faith in Lila- $50 is so beneath you!). They each hand in $5 for the school trip fund, pretending they earned it by selling candy bars. Liz knows this is lies, coz Jess's candy bar box is in her closet, still full.
Liz gets out her typewriter (hee!) and works on her speech. It goes like this: "My name is Elizabeth Wakefield, and I'm running for student council treasurer. I think you should vote for me because I'll do a good job." She then puts x's through each letter because it's "too stuck-up". Whaaaaaaaaat?
The next day, Mrs Wyler announces the class trip money has gone missing. This makes Jess and Ellen look pretty suspect, what with all their new stuff. Most people's first instinct is to blame Amy though, because she was the student in charge of the money. Amy's pretty upset. I might care if she wasn't such a FutureSlut.
The Unicorns dress up as Peter, all wearing brown socks with brown shoes. This is probably an improvement on their normal purple-unicorn-decorated clothes. I am always dumbfounded by how much unicorn apparel Sweet Valley sells. I guess demand=supply. I had a purple unicorn knitted sweater once with sparkles. But I was six years old. Hey, if I find a picture of it, I'll so post it up here. :)
Elizabeth confides her fears about the source of Jessica's new wealth to Amy, who gets angry and tells Caroline that Jessica stole the school trip money. Of course, Caroline tells everyone. The next day, Jess notices that everyone's giving her the evil eye. She and Ellen are unnerved. Jess has bad dreams. What if the woman was buried next to the chest? Then they would be GRAVE ROBBERS! Somehow, I think this would never stop Jessica when she's in high school.
Amy and Liz fight about it. Liz cries. I'm shocked. Ken walks Liz to class. Amy gets jealous, and quits as Liz's campaign manager, signing up to help Peter. Soon, Peter has funky new campaign posters (with red glitter. I'm glad Amy is so versatile), and a new campaign slogan: Rockin' Peter, He's Your Man.
Um, is there meant to be something witty in there? Coz I don't see it. There's not even alliteration.
Later, Jess and Ellen get in trouble in art class for drawing pictures of Mr Sweeney with devil horns and fangs. Rembrandt-worthy, indeed. When Mr Sweeney tries to intercept it, Ellen stuffs it under her sweater. That wouldn't stop Mr Collins!
Elizabeth confronts Jessica about the money. They fight, and Jess is really gutted that Liz doesn't believe her. Then at school, Mrs Wyler asks them about the money. She has to accept it when they insist on their innocence, but she doesn't seem to believe them.
HAHA! Someone crossed out Liz's ELIZABETH MAKES CENTS poster and wrote in JESSICA TAKES CENTS. Oh, snap!
It's the night before the speeches, and Jess borrows Liz's notebook to copy her maths homework. Liz puts her speech in Jess's notebook, thinking it's hers. Then Jess swaps them back. Uh oh. When Liz gets onstage at assembly, she sees Peter in a new orange T-shirt. His looks had certainly improved, Elizabeth thought, studying him more closely. She could even detect the faint beginnings of a tan.
Yes. Because once you've got a tan, you're accepted into society. Without that, you're still nothing.
Anyway, Liz looks in her notebook, and her speech is gone. It's in Jess's notebook, you see. Liz is panicking. Peter comes on to do his speech. Amy plays music in the background, and he rocks out. Everyone loooves him. "I'll watch your cash, I'll guard your stash..." Nice. Maybe the next line is "Sure I'm weedy, and kinda shy, but some girlie out there must be needy for a weedy shy guy". Pete, you got it going on.
Liz is next and mumbles through her speech without cue cards, remembering most of it. She gets a "smattering of polite applause." Burn. After, Liz finds out that Jessica has her speech, and yells at her. Jessica has ruined Elizabeth's life!
Liz is crying in Mr Bowman's room when Amy comes in, feeling a little bad. Mr B sends them to the supply room to get more mimeograph paper. While they're in the supply closet, another teacher comes in to put up a sign and sees the door open. Rather than asking if anyone's in there, he turns off the light and shuts the door. Amy and Liz are trapped! Amy worries that they could run out of air and die in there. Liz says it doesn't matter anymore, nothing matters. That's awesome that Liz is suicidal so easily. *rolls eyes* She's so happy to give up on life at the slightest hurdle. Amy and Liz manage to sort their shit out and be friends again. Suddenly, they see a familiar box on the floor. The class trip money! Mrs Wyler must have left it there! I love that she blamed the students for stealing before trying something like, I don't know, RETRACING HER STEPS? Way to promote trust in her class.
Jessica and Ellen are at the Ritemans', waiting for Mrs R to come home from work. Suddenly a woman appears on the road who looks exactly like the woman in the photos in the chest. AHHHHHH! The girls freak, and offer her the chest. But the lady's name is Laura. It's her grandma, Jane, in the pictures! Mrs Riteman and Mrs Wakefield arrive, and Jess and Ellen slowly start explaining everything. Then Laura explains. The man who wrote the love letters in the chest wasn't the man her granny Jane married. She ended up making the wrong choice, and this has helped Laura make a choice about which man to marry herself. She says the girls can keep the $200. Mrs R says the girls have to give some to Mark. About $50 is left between them, so Mark is stoked. That's a lot of candy and baseball cards, right!?
And to end everything perfectly, the twins make up, and Elizabeth gets the treasurer job! The weird thing is, the president job goes to Olivia Davidson, yet 3 books from now, someone called Linda Lloyd is president, and she's moving! CONTINUITY ERROR!
Oh, Sweet Valley, you were going so well. I guess they realised that Olivia can't move away, she has to stay through high school and die and then come back to life.
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