The Unicorn Club #6: The Unicorns at War

You know how the Unicorns have been a little nicer and less selfish lately? Yeah, well that's all about to change. While hanging out with the kids they started working with earlier in the series, Jessica announces that Kimberly Haver is coming back. Apparently her dad got a job in Atlanta, but they all hated it there, so even though they just moved a few months ago, he took a job at another company.

Jessica, Lila, and Ellen are all pretty excited, while Elizabeth, Maria, and Evie don't know what to expect. Mary Wallace, who narrates this one, isn't too excited because Kimberly constantly competes with her over everything. The school recently announced student council elections, and the convince Mary to put her name in the ring. Kimberly wants any of the girls who can to come over and spend the night with her before she starts school again. Jessica, Lila, Ellen, and Mandy go, while Mary stays home to work on her campaign.

Kimberly shows up in school wearing a special Unicorn jacket that the girls got earlier in the year. Lila had her dad's tailor make an exact replica just for her. Kimberly seems pretty pissed that things changed, and she wants them to go back to the way they were. She makes fun of Lois, makes snide comments about the newest members, and complains that other people get to sit with them at lunch.

When it comes time for the student council nominations, Jessica nominates Kimberly for president. Mary is shocked, but Jessica tells her that Kimberly wanted it as a way to help her get back into the swing of things at school. Mandy decides that she isn't going to take sides because as Unicorn president, she should remain impartial and stay out of things. Kimberly remains just as rude, by Mary says that she wants a clean fight between them.

Of course nothing the Unicorns ever do is clean. There's construction going on, and the school let kids go off campus for lunch. Construction started on a nearby street and a student was hit by a car, so the principal says that no one can ever leave. Kimberly doesn't give a crap, so she sneaks off-campus with Jessica, Lila, and Ellen. She then tells the other students that she knows a surefire way to get around the rules. A huge group of them sneak off and get caught and given Saturday school. Kimberly accuses Mary of ratting them out and everyone hates her.

Mary decides to focus on the issues and work on her platform, while Kimberly makes up lies to gain votes. The Unicorns end up split down the middle, with half the girls siding with Mary and half with Kimberly. They all work at the Wakefield house, and Kimberly's group spends more time dancing and eating than doing any real work.

Someone finds a drawing of Lois as a pig, which makes her cry. Mary sees it, rips it down, and crumples it into a ball. Lois decides to withdraw because she's tired of being the butt of the joke. Randy Mason also drops out to focus on his special lab experiments, leaving Mary and Kimberly as the only two left.

Mary tries to talk to Mandy several times, but she still says that she won't take sides. She doesn't agree with what Kimberly does and she hates the way she treats other people, but golly gee, they are friends! She still remembers when Kimberly came to see her every day when she was sick with cancer, which is completely not true. Mary tells her that she should know the difference between right and wrong and shows her the drawing of Lois. Mandy snaps back by showing her a drawing of Mary as a rat. She says that Lois did one of her and one of Kimberly, and that Kimberly was only retaliating.

While eating after-school, Mary talks to a waitress who tells her that the principal asked them not to serve any students during school hours and that it's really hurting their business. She sees a private security guard eating there and comes up with an idea. She goes to every business owner and asks them to donate a small amount of money to pay for a guard. The guard will walk the students over at lunch, which will help with their businesses. She gets 20+ businesses to sign her pledge.

Mary uses it as her platform, but the girls decide to keep things a secret. Kimberly is so sure that she'll win that she comes up with a proposal: whoever win will get to remain in the club, but the loser and her friends will have to turn in their jackets. Elizabeth and Mary go shopping to pick up some supplies and see Mandy giving Kimberly advice on her posters. They have a huge fight and Mandy storms off.

They work on her speech in Elizabeth's room and she thinks she has it down pat. When she walks into the bathroom, she sees that Jessica made a huge mess and she hears her on the phone. She doesn't think much about it, though she does notice that Kimberly's group seems pretty smug the next day. Elizabeth rushes up to tell her that her speech disappeared from her room, but they work together to put it back together.

Kimberly gets to go on first, and she uses Mary's speech word for word, including taking credit for the security idea. Jessica leans forward to let her know that playing dirty is a part of politics and smacks palms with Ellen and Lila. Mary gives a half-hearted speech and loses the election. She goes home to mope about her life.

The next day, she gathers the Unicorn jackets from her friends and puts them in a box to give Kimberly. The principal makes an announcement to have everyone come to the auditorium, where he makes an announcement that Kimberly stole Mary's idea. He gives everyone a chance to vote again and has the two girls come to his office.

He basically tells Kimberly that he won't tolerate lying, and that she will get four Saturday detentions, and that the next time she screws up, she will be expelled. He also announces that Mary won the new election and that he's proud of her idea. She asks him who told the truth but he doesn't have an answer.

It turns out that Mandy told him. She went to a party to celebrate Kimberly's win and they were all bragging about what they did. Kimberly hands over her jacket and makes a snide comment, which sets off Mary. She throws the jacket in her face and tosses hers over too. She announces that she doesn't want to be part of the club anymore, and Elizabeth, Maria, and Evie all resign too. Mandy quits too before running off in tears, and the other girls decide to form a club called the Angels.

*Yeah, so the story about Lois starting the dirty tactics is so not true. Mary sees Ellen and Lila hanging up the drawing early in the day, but Mandy says that Lois started it. When, at six am?

*Mandy says that she was only giving Kimberly advice and would do the same thing if Mary asked, so she wasn't taking sides. BUT, she kind of was. She should have just told her that she couldn't help.

*All the girls love working in the program with the kids, but they completely forget about it when Kimberly shows up. She hates kids, and they all say that they will keep volunteering, but then when she tells them that they can't, they just go along with her.

*How is this fair? The Unicorns have to actually disband after a few pranks in the first book, but Kimberly then does this and just gets a slap on the wrist?

*It's funny how Jessica goes from bitchy in this series to a sweet girl to super bitchy, and then a normal girl in the next series.

*Ellen purposefully let it slip that a group of kids were slipping off campus so they could blame Mary and make Kimberly look like a star.

*If I had a nickel for every time that someone mentioned student elections being a popularity contest...

*Does anyone else find it odd that they would run elections in the middle of the year? We always had ours at the end of the school year for the people who would take over when classes started the following year, and in college, I think elections were early in the first semester.