Sweet Valley High #132: Once Upon a Time

Jessica and Elizabeth are heading to France yet again, only this time they’re working as au pairs for a wealthy French prince and princess. Apparently Jess heard about the job through their dad and got the job, but they wanted someone with more experience too, hence Liz’s role in everything. I guess those six times she sat for Mr. Collins is really going to pay off!

Right before they leave for the trip, Lila throws them a huge goodbye party. Liz wants the chance to spend some time alone with Todd and make sure he knows how she feels. When he makes a comment about long distance relationships not working out, she thinks about what happened with Ken when Todd moved to Vermont. Then Todd brings up her cheating on him in the recent past and she explains that she would never cheat on him again. He finally drops a bombshell: he wants them to date other people for the summer.

Liz spends the whole night crying and wondering why Todd can’t trust her. Um yeah, he doesn’t even know about all the other times you cheated on him! Jess manages to get her on the plane and convince her that if he can’t handle a month long separation, then he isn’t the right guy for her. After a long ass plane ride, the two wind up on a long ass train ride.

Jess meets a super cute guy named Jacques and his father. Jacques claims that he’s a duke from a random French area and of course she falls in love. His dad spends most of the trip trying to get the two of them together and keeping Liz from freaking out. He gives her a big ass gem pendant and swears that it’s a fake, just before he departs the train. They also make plans to see each other again.

Liz has a fairly uneventful trip, except that she dreams of a super cute guy. Unbeknownst to her, that cute guy is actually Prince Laurient (Laurie) who is also dreaming about her. The girls also meet a wealthy countess and her daughter, but the two are incredibly snotty. They talk down to Liz and then reveal that they are both spending time at the castle.

Working as au pairs isn’t what either girl expects. Not only is the work really hard, but they’re treated like servants (gasp!) and given rooms in the attic. Liz starts getting pissed because every time she turns around, Jess is shirking her responsibilities. Has she ever met her sister before? They’re warned to stay away from the large hedge maze on the property, but Liz has to chase the little boy in there. She accidentally sees Prince Laurie and realizes he’s the guy from her dreams.

The twins keep fighting and eventually have a huge fight that ends in a screaming match. They stop talking and work with the kids in shifts. Liz takes a walk one night, gets caught in the rain and finds herself outside Laurie’s house. He invites her in, realizes he dreamed about her and they go ga-ga for each other. He makes her dinner and she sleeps on the couch.

Jess is worried when Liz doesn’t come home, but also hurting because she hasn’t heard a peep from her guy. She doesn’t know that (a) the countess is missing a priceless gem and (b) Jacques feels bad about deceiving Jess, even though his dad forced him into it. She mentions his title to one of the other workers and learns that he made up his title. Then Liz gets a letter from Todd and Jess tosses it in the fire. When Liz comes back, they make up and Jess decides that Todd will write another letter, so she doesn’t feel bad about destroying it.

Unfortunately Liz disappears again with Laurie and Jess gets pissed off because she skipped out on her shift and she has to take care of the kids again. She also feels bad because Jacques still hasn’t called her or came by and she’s convinced herself that he really is royalty and everyone else is wrong. A second storm hits, she goes upstairs and gets grabbed from behind. She discovers that Jacques snuck in and was going through her room. He swears that he was just making sure it was her room, they make out a little and she decides that she’s really in love.

*Jessica mentions that she’s never really been in love before. Poor AJ and poor Sam!

*Lila wears a black silk pantsuit for the party. That sounds like a great outfit for me today, but not so much for a high school party.

*Jess also mentions Cameron, the guy she dated at Flair, but says they grew apart because he travels too much for his job. Wow, they grew apart in less than a book!

*Speaking of Flair…Liz says that she turned down a job working there for the summer, so she could go to France. Considering how badly she wants to be a writer, that sounds like a really stupid choice.

*It’s kind of nice to see Todd growing a pair! He totally calls Liz out for cheating on him while at camp, though he doesn’t mention Ken, Luke (from London) or any of the other dozen guys.