Sweet Valley Twins #14: Tug of War

Elizabeth's class holds a big going away party for some random character named Linda. She was the president of the sixth grade class, but her family recently decided to move to Texas. This means that the school needs to elect a new president. Lila thinks that they should elect a Unicorn, but Elizabeth thinks that they should have someone who cares about the needs of the entire student body.

Jerry makes a joke about electing a guy and decides to pick on Randy Mason. Randy doesn't realize that it's a joke and willingly agrees to run if nominated. They all talk about who will get nominated without making any real decisions. When it comes time to pick people, Amy puts up Elizabeth's name. Lila immediately nominates Jessica, and Jerry selects Randy. No one thinks Randy has a shot, so it's down to the twins.

Elizabeth, Julie, and Amy work on her campaign. They learn that the sixth grade class is in charge of the upcoming book fair and get to decide what to do with the money raised. The school decides to let the new president decide what to do with the funds. Elizabeth wants to buy a VCR for the library, and Jessica wants to throw a big party where everyone comes dressed as their favorite characters from books.

Elizabeth's group makes a big bunch of fliers to pass out around school, but they get distracted helping the librarian unpack some new books. When they come back, the fliers are all gone. They later see the fliers floating around in the fountain and Lila and Ellen giggling about it. The principal calls her into his office, lectures her on her fliers, and warns her about being a troublemaker.

Jessica hears about what happened and feels bad, but not bad enough to do anything about it. When she comes home, she sees her twin and her friends talking about doing something special. She snoops and finds that her sister plans to throw a big rally after the next soccer game. Knowing this could get people excited, she turns to Lila who comes up with something big.

Cut to the rally. Lila arranged for delivery of new album singles before the album drops in stores. Everyone leaves the game to get a free record, leaving only ten people behind. Liz goes through with her rally, but she feels pretty miserable. When she gets home, Steve offers her some help. He shows her some fancy posters that Ellen's uncle made up for Jessica. Elizabeth draws mustaches on the posters with a black marker.

Jessica is pissed off, but Elizabeth points out that she started the war. Jess denies that she did anything to her fliers, but Liz rightly points out that she did ruin her rally. Ned and Alice show up just in time to lecture them about being pests. They tell them that they expect the two to have a clean fight and not be asses to each other. It kind of works, but it really just makes the twins stop talking to each other.

Elizabeth goes to Randy's rally and he has a really good idea. He wants to use the money to throw a party and charge admission and use those funds to pay for a VCR. Her friends try to convince her to just steal his idea and claim it as her own. She talks to Alice, but Alice thinks that Randy has a shot at winning just because of his good idea.

On election day, Jessica gives a speech where she talks about parties and how she doesn't like meetings. Elizabeth tells everyone that Randy has a really good idea and that he deserves to be president. She decides to drop out and asks people to vote for him. Randy ends up winning by a landslide, and she keeps seeing Jessica pouting the rest of the day.

Turns out that Jessica has no problem with losing. She didn't really like the idea of going to meetings or doing any work. Plus, Randy put her in charge of the party. He also asked Liz to be his special assistant, which would sound dirty if this wasn't sixth grade. And then at the end, Jessica meets an older boy at the skating rink.

*Why would they blame Elizabeth for the fliers? If you found a bunch floating in a fountain, would you blame the girl with her face on them or someone else? It seems like a classic prank to me.

*Since when does Ellen have an uncle with his own printing shop? That seems like something that might be helpful when the Unicorns throw all their parties or when they did that celebrity cookbook.

*Why is it that adults always think that school elections are fair? The popular people are always the ones who win. I was so not popular and only won a spot because I was more liked than the annoying girl who previously had the spot.

*Jessica decides that people can dress up as characters from movies or books but not TV shows because she wants to have some power.

*She also has no idea what a class president does. She gets weirded out when someone tells her it takes a lot of work and decides that she would just eliminate meetings.

*It's so cute that Ned and Alice think that the girls can remain friendly and finish the election without fighting.

*I do love that they get equally ticked at both girls. Yes, Elizabeth drawing mustaches on her posters was bad, but she wouldn't do it if Jessica hadn't dragged everyone away from her rally first.

*Check out that cover! I think the artist got the twins confused. There is no way that Jessica would wear a blue polo short, while Elizabeth wore a frilly pink dress.