* Photo credit to The Closet *
This story is all about the SATs and how everyone freaks out about them! Liz is practically popping blood pressure meds over the whole thing and studying her ass off, while Jess flutters around, not giving a damn. She even shows up late for the exam, without a pencil and smacking her gum like a cow. And, wouldn’t you know it, Jess scores in the 700s in both math and verbal, while Liz is in the 400s. Oh em gee! Both twins are freaking humiliated—Liz because she thinks everyone’ll think she’s a dumb ass and Jess because she thinks everyone will think she’s a nerd with a capital N. But then the school gives her and Winston Egbert awards for being so damn smart—they were the highest scorers—and Jess decides she likes being intelligent. Unfortunately, her boyfriend Ken Matthews’ ego is threatened by her bigger brain, and then the school accuses her of cheating because she’s such a lackadaisical student and forces her to retake the test. Rumors circulate that Jess even went so far as to switch her test with Liz’s, and Liz even momentarily believes them. Assholes!
Jess studies like whoa before the SATs while Liz has “the best week of her life” reading and eating burgers with Enid Rollins. This time, the scores are reversed, and things are looking pretty bleak for one J. Wakefield. But Ken apologizes for being a dick, and Liz vows to clear her sister’s good name by forcing Principal Cooper to hold a mock trial, during which she will pose as Jessica’s lawyer and present evidence that Jess did not cheat. Of course, Liz makes the principal and school board look like idiots because teenagers are much smarter than the adults in Sweet Valley, and Jess is allowed to keep her original scores. This is a victory for everyone wearing the “I Believe In Jessica!” T-shirts but a dark day for all those who were clad in the “Jessica is Guilty” tees. Really. These shirts happened.
Todd Wilkins is full of douchebaggery in this. He scores in the 600s in both math and verbal and now all these colleges want to give him a basketball scholarship, and his ego inflates to Bruce Patman-sized proportions. Liz’s dreams of them at Harvard shatter as Todd won’t stop talking about his boring-ass self long enough to even address that she’s upset over her scores. He shrugs off her woes and asks, “What school should I go to, Liz? You used to know a lot about college.” Okay, that just made me laugh. But Liz gets so pissed that she kicks him out of her car and they pseudo-break up. Shock! Then he fractures his leg or foot or whatever in The Big Game, during which college scouts came to watch him, so now that his dreams came crashing down around him, he realizes what a jerkoff he’s been and how he effed things up with Liz. But lo and behold, Liz arrives to color on his cast and his heart explodes with love. Screw you, Todd! What if you hadn’t fucked up The Big Game? Would you be feeling so repentant? I’m talking to fictional characters again. But he says, “I guess sometimes you have to hit bottom before you find out who your real friends are.” Well, Liz DID hit bottom, and Todd wasn’t there for her, so what’s that say? Perhaps that I’m reading too much into this. Since when am I on Liz’s side, anyway?
Other Notes:
- Liz is freaking hilarious when she’s depressed. Feeling tragical about her scores and deciding that she’s doomed for vocational school, she wonders if she should give up writing. “Maybe she shouldn’t even be reading books—maybe she should be in the garage, learning how to weld.” Then she pictures “herself taking a weekend off from her job as a forklift operator to visit Jessica at some fancy college.” ::DIES::
- Jess acts like it’s soooooo embarrassing to be seen with Winston, but isn’t Winston sort of popular too?
- Mr. Collins tries to cheer Liz up by saying that college admissions departments will look at everything, not just SAT scores, and that “everything” includes “the undying admiration of [her] school newspaper adviser.” Shun, dude! Just admit that you’re in love with her already.
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