The Unicorn Club #3: The Best Friend Game

It's been awhile since I did one of these books, so you should know that the Unicorn Club now consists of Mandy, Mary, Ellen, Lila, Jess, Liz, Maria, and Evie, a new girl who is in the sixth grade. During a meeting at the Wakefield house, they watch an episode of Best Friends, the hot new show, and talk about how much they hate the Eight Times Eight club, which is a club of eight girls in the eighth grade. They decide that they have to go on the show to prove that they're cooler and nominate Liz to write in for them.

Their other big problem is that during a prank gone wrong, they ruined Mr. Clark's toupee and he wants them to pay the $300 it will cost to replace it. Ellen gives him this tape all about how hair loss isn't such a big deal, and he sends the club a stern note in response. Mandy then buys him a can of that spray on hair stuff. During her presentation though, the “artificial hair” drips everywhere and causes a huge mess. He tells them that they need to give him $50 a week until they pay off their debt and that they absolutely cannot just use Lila's money.

To make money fast, they hang up flyers all over town and offer to do odd jobs. They wind up sitting kids, cleaning floors, scrubbing bathrooms, and that kid of stuff. Jessica does take the time to tell the Eight Times Eight girls that they're going on television before they actually hear anything. It's pretty convenient that they get a call and wind up on the show. Unfortunately, so do the other girls, and they announce that they will go up against each other the next week.

No matter what the Unicorns do, the Eight Times Eight girls compete. Lila gets the club an article in the newspaper, so the other girls get an article in the junior high paper that their friends actually read. They even show up at the big game in matching outfits and do a new cheer they created. When both clubs come to school to hang up banners for the show, they make a bet. The club who loses will have to sing Puff the Magic Dragon in front of the whole cafeteria.

The Unicorns spend days getting ready and going over all types of questions before the show. It turns out that all their practice doesn't help though. They score zero points, while the Eight Times Eight club gets every question right. Liz thinks they got harder questions and that it wasn't fair. The girls all either fight all the time or just stop talking.

When lunch time comes the next day, Liz is the only one who shows up. Everyone else flakes. Though they keep avoiding each other, she finally calls Mandy who schedules an emergency meeting. They decide to go through with the song in their own way. It becomes a rap song with its own hip hop dance, which I would totally pay money to see. Everyone loves their song and goes crazy, but Amanda, the leader of the other club, storms off. Liz realizes that the Eight Times Eight club won because they all think alike and are basically the same person but the Unicorns are all different, which makes them better.

*Lila says that she helped form the Unicorns, Liz says she thought it was always Janet, and Lila says she was there anyway and that there wouldn't be a club without her. I thought this was a club that had been around for several years?

*Elizabeth gets super annoyed when they ask her to write the letter to the show and then when they ask her to write an article for the paper. She's the one who goes on and on and on and on about how much she loves to write!

*While I agree with Mr. Clark to a point, where does he expect girls in the seventh grade to come up with $50 a week without them asking their parents?

*Elizabeth says that Mary had a rough childhood until her foster family adopted her. Say what now? Does anyone else remember the book where her mom came back and got her? And all the other books in SVT where she lived with her mom and stepfather Tim?

*Steven is on some weird diet where he eats vegetarian one day and then can eat anything he wants the next day. That sounds not at all healthy.

*Mandy is surprisingly one of the only Unicorns without pierced ears. That seems oddly strange to me.

*The Eight Times Eight girls literally wear the same outfit every day, which I'm sure their parents love. They wear matching sweatshirts with khaki shorts and white socks with eight balls on them one day and jeans, black boots, and flannel shirts another day.

*The Unicorns all wear their matching club jackets to the show and decide to wear something else purple. Since Liz wears a lavender sundress and Jessica wears a purple turtleneck, black skirt, and striped black and purple socks, I have no idea who that twin on the cover is supposed to be.

*Questions asked on the show include stuff like favorite sport or where you want to travel most, but the Unicorns mainly get stuff like describe so and so's idea of perfect happiness or how so and so would spend a perfect day. So, not exactly fair.