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Super Star: Todd’s Story

Super Star: Todd's Story

* Photo credit to The Closet *

Todd’s story! At last, we’ll be able to delve into the innermost thoughts of Elizabeth Wakefield’s stud muffin. I am mildly attracted to him on this cover, I must admit, and even throughout the story! He just broods so nicely. It detracts from the annoying switching of POVs in this tale—one of my biggest writing pet peeves. Why isn’t Todd’s Story solely about Todd’s story? But who am I to give Sweet Valley ghostwriters writing tips?

So Secca Lake is starting a two-week day camp for 100-some campers and hiring area teenagers to work as counselors. This includes some of the Sweet Valley staples: Todd, Liz, Jess, Enid Rollins, Aaron Dallas, and Winston Egbert. But Todd has some misgivings about the situation. First, his dad, Mr. Wilkins, is urging him to get a “real job” at Varitronics, the computer firm that he oversees, and isn’t giving a crap that Todd’s heart belongs to sports. Secondly, Kevin Holmes is working as a camp counselor too. Kevin who? He’s a guy who was mugging and beating up the elderly in Burlington, VT, until Todd testified against him. Kevin was sent to prison, but now he’s in Sweet Valley, prepared to make life hell for poor Todd. He threatens Todd when they’re alone, but wins over everyone else—including Todd’s father, who offers Kevin a job at Varitronics because he’s so sure Kevin turned his life around.

Todd doesn’t tell anyone how Kevin is ruining his life; he just lets Kevin go on manipulating his emotions. And like I said, Kevin is the golden boy: Jessica’s convinced he’s her “destiny” (no big feat, considering he’s male and alive—and foxy!), he saves a kid from drowning, he plays basketball better than Todd, and everyone just loves him. No one can understand why Todd’s being such an “antisocial loser,” and they assume Todd’s just being a poor sport that Kevin’s better than he is. Even Aaron and Winston are against him. And Todd just takes it and doesn’t say a word about Kevin’s threats to anyone, because he doesn’t want Kevin to hurt his beloved Liz. Speaking of whom, Liz is having serious doubts about her and Todd, making it just your average Tuesday. He’s just not being emotionally available enough! Didn’t they learn about fifty books ago that communication is the way to keep their relationship afloat?

Either way, Liz dumps Todd for about the thirty-seventh time and then wonders why he’s not trying to make up with her. Kevin sees this a perfect opportunity to weasel in on Liz and take her out for a romantic dinner at the Box Tree Cafe and she accepts, despite that he’s Todd’s rival and Jess’s latest flame and, from the way he talks when he’s alone with her, a psychopath. I scoff in her general direction. Meanwhile, robberies are happening all over Sweet Valley, and Todd just so happens to see one live: Kevin stealing from one of their co-workers. Someone’s up to their old tricks again! Todd tries to tell Aaron and Winston going on, but their like, “Mmmkay.” Then! It just so happens that Todd gets arrested for the crime because his monogrammed pen was at the scene of the crime (oh, for the love of—a monogrammed pen?!), and everyone hates on Todd, especially since Kevin had told them all that in Vermont, Todd was a bully and a date rapist. I can’t believe all these people have known Todd since he was in second grade or so, and yet they believe this Kevin guy without question. Actually, I can believe that; this is Sweet Valley.

Mr. Wilkins picks up Todd from the police station, and the father and son have a heart to heart and agree to love and respect each other forever more. Meanwhile, Jess has just found Liz’s lavaliere—which had gone missing, along with a bunch of other crap that the counselors owned—in the back of Kevin’s car, and everyone realizes that Todd’s innocent. Oh, them. Everyone starts freaking out because Liz just went on a walk with Kevin, but don’t worry: As Kevin’s strangling her, Todd shows up just in the nick of time to save her. Then it lapses into a Scooby Doo ending where Kevin explains all his motives to a pack of teens and the cops without his lawyer present: His parents hate him because he accidentally killed his older brother during a driving lesson, so now he steals things.

But! Who cares about that? Because like Liz says to Todd, “In all this serious discussion, we’re forgetting the most important thing… That we’re together again.” And don’t you all forget it!

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