* Photo credit to The Closet *
What’s weird is if you look closely, you can see an outline of a short haircut atop Claire Middleton’s head—perhaps a shorter style was used in the original artwork and then vetoed for being too boyish? You have to literally and figuratively draw the line somewhere on matters of femininity when it comes to a book titled Ms. Quarterback, by golly!
This book doesn’t even get underway until a third of the way in. Here’s the dizzle: Ken Matthews has survived a “fatal” car accident (only in Sweet Valley, folks) that temporarily blinded him and left him dependent on football team manager/his girlfriend Terri Adams. But now Ken has gotten better, and the team’s current first-string quarterback Scott Trost has been kicked off the team for crappy grades, so everyone figures Ken is a shoo-in and the king will rise again!
But ah ah ah! Also trying out for quarterback is Claire Middleton, a withdrawn tomboy who just moved to Sweet Valley. We know she’s rude and anti-social because she won’t give the Wakefield twins the time of day. No wayz! That’s like walking into a Christian town and announcing, “I hate Jesus!”
Anyway, Terri’s all insecure now that Ken no longer needs her to be his eyes and that he’s finding Claire hot. Meanwhile, Jess is pissed that Claire shunned her for being a cheerleader and vows to make the girl miserable, in true Jessica Wakefield fashion, so she assembles a “revenge squad” and spreads a bunch of rumors about Claire being a douche to everyone, which she sort of is anyway. The revenge squad pulls a bunch of pranks on her but nothing works. But, after Ken and Terri get in a screaming match after Terri witnesses Ken’s vision black out, Terri decides to join the dark side and really screw with Claire in her jealousy. Terri tells Jess and Amy about how she saw Claire sobbing in the locker room in regards to a snapshot of a boy in a football uniform, signed “To Claire—with all of my love, Ted.” Jess and Amy decide to invent a cheer regarding this mysterious, eponymous Ted fellow, and Terri immediately feels ill; her conscience just kicked.
Then along comes Steven Wakefield—why is he home?—with the key to the mystery: He tells Liz that he had a class with a dude named Ted Middleton who’d been quarterback and died of a brain tumor. Ohhh, snap. But Jess and the cheerbitches have no idea about this and cheer:
Who needs a guy
when a girl instead
can play like Claire?—
We know about Ted!
It’s so awful and embarrassing…for the cheerleaders. Speaking of brain tumors, that cheer is pure idiocy. Nevertheless, Claire gets so pissed and upset that she quits the tryouts, all the while Liz is wondering, “How could they have made a cheer about Claire’s dead brother?” which totally made me laugh, having it be phrased like that. Liz tells Jess off, and Jess starts crying, and the cheerleaders rat out Terri for telling them about Ted in the first place. So Liz turns to lecture Terri about it—“Why on earth would you have wanted to embarrass Claire in the first place? What did she ever do to you, anyway?” (I’d be so pissed if I had someone all up in my face, questioning my bitchy motives)—and insists that Terri go over to Claire’s right away and set things right. HATE! How is it possible that Liz is so invested in everything?
So Terri apologizes, Claire talks about her brother and mentions how Ken talks about how much he lurves Terri all the time, and the girls call a truce. Then Terri goes over to Ken’s house and confesses her evil deeds, and he forgives her. The world of Sweet Valley is so forgiving!
Ken gets first-string quarterback, and Claire gets second-string and she and Terri become bestest buds. Then there’s The Big Game against Big Mesa! And for a moment, it actually looks like Big Mesa is going to win for the first time in 137 years! This is because Ken’s blacking out and effing up, so Claire’s called in the game and scores 500 touchdowns and wins the game AND her teammates’ respect. They even lift her up on their shoulders and into the atmosphere! And the cheerleader’s have a nice new cheer about Claire that doesn’t mention anything about dead relatives! EVERYBODY WINS!
Other Notes:
- Does anyone aside from me find that the words “Sweet Valley” and “Gladiators” don’t belong in the same sentence, let alone stand together as the name of a team?
- Dana Larson is suddenly “extremely vocal… about the lack of funding and attention given to girls’ sports.” Why is she all up in arms? She’s just a rock star. Didn’t she get the memo that you’re not allowed to have a multi-faceted personality in Sweet Valley?
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