Sweet Valley High #25: Nowhere to Run

Emily Mayer is feeling down in the dumps. Her mom left town and she told everyone that she died. Her dad remarried a rich, bitchy woman named Karen and they now have a baby Karrie. She’s crushing on her bandmate Dan, but even he doesn’t seem to realize she exists. She volunteers to write an article for the paper, at the behest of Karen, which leads to a friendship with Liz.

No matter what Emily does, Karen doesn’t approve. Even though her dad supported her drum playing, Karen thinks it’s a waste of time. She refuses to let her practice anytime Karrie is in the house, which is always, and her dad sides with his wife. She invites Dan over to practice because Karrie has a doctor’s appointment. Karen comes home early and explodes. She calls Emily’s mom a tramp and she runs off in tears.

She goes to the Wakefield house and they try to help, despite never suffering a bad day. They convince Emily to call her dad, but he sides with Karen again and demands she come home. The next day, Emily pretends that nothing happened. She puts her drums for sale in the paper and Dan buys them, saying it’s for a friend of his. Her dad kind of blows it off, saying she overreacted even though Karen refuses to let her practice. Karen also imposed a new curfew and she can’t rehearse with the Droids anymore.

Then Karen gives Karrie a doll that is way too old for her. Emily tries to take it away, but Karen snatches it from her and gives it back to the baby. While she chatters on the phone, Karrie pulls off one of the doll’s eyes, puts it in her mouth and starts choking. Emily saves her life, Karen freaks out and her dad walks into the room. He explodes and hearing her babble about the baby, he freaks out and accuses Emily of hurting the baby, while Karen just cried. Emily runs to the Wakefield house.

Ned’s parents have been visiting and Alice apparently remembers she has children. She keeps worrying because they don’t have time for her and don’t want to spend time together. Their grandparents take them shopping, for a hot air balloon ride and out for Chinese, where we hear for the first time that Ned is allergic. The twins finally pick up on her feelings and get her involved in helping them plan a going away party for their grandparents.

Emily shows up, planning to run away to Chicago where her mom lives. She calls her mom, only to learn that she remarried and moved to Mexico. Liz talks things through with her family and decides to call Emily’s dad, which leads to Jess calling her a rat. I love it! Grandma Wakefield goes upstairs to fuck with the Wakefield family tree.

She explains that her husband had an 11 year old son named Bob when they got married. His first wife died in a train crash and Bob didn’t like her. It took them a long time to start getting along, but eventually she learned to love him and now regards him as a son. So much so, that he wasn’t mentioned in the family history.

Emily goes downstairs and finds her whole family walking inside. Karen apologizes to her in front of everyone. She explains that she was jealous of her because she was so put together and perfect. Her dad apologizes for never siding with her and despite threatening her with boarding school throughout the whole book, promises to not send her away. To make things even better, Dan shows up and gives her back her drums, while also asking her to do a duet with him. Aw.

Oh and there’s a short plot about Regina coming back from Switzerland. Liz sees a classmate that delivers groceries and swears he saw her. She talks to Bruce and he refuses to believe it because she never called. Duh-duh-duh.