Sweet Valley Kids #40: Robin in the Middle

Jessica and Elizabeth just can't wait until their cousins Robin and Stacey come down from San Francisco. They haven't seen Robin since they were in first grade and worry that she might have changed a lot since then. The twins hang a bunch of balloons on their mailbox to help the family find their house.

Stacey brings along a battered doll that looks just like one the twins had when they were younger. Jessica even shows it to her little cousin who promptly decides they must be twins and plans on sleeping with the two dolls every night. Robin gives them gifts: a pink satin hair ribbon for Jess and a comic book for Liz. She then gives Steven a gift too, which is actually a pen with disappearing ink inside. Robin makes him think he spilled ink all over himself before laughing and telling him what she did.

Robin then convinces the girls to play some more pranks on him. They give him a hamburger with a thick layer of hot sauce on it, which almost makes his head explode. The girls then let the air out of the tire on his bike and hide the pump. When she goes to tell his mom, they pump the tire back up. He comes out again, sees it, and goes back to hell his mom that it's okay and he's leaving. The girls then deflate it again, which he doesn't notice until he takes off. Steven eventually catches him and throws a hissy fit. The parents lay down the law that there will be no more pranks.

The twins take Robin to the park, where Liz tells her all about how she just learned how to play soccer. They run onto the super muddy field to kick around the ball, while Jessica hangs back and complains about all the dirt and mud. The two then gang up on her and toss mud at her, which leads to a huge mud fight. Jessica has fun but pretends she hates it.

When they get home that night, Robin agrees to sleep in Elizabeth's bed the first night. Jessica hates this plan until her cousin agrees to sleep with her the next night. The next day, Robin and Jessica get caught up in playing with dolls. Elizabeth hopes they get bored soon because she hates dolls. She does tell Alice that the twins want to throw Robin a birthday party before she leaves, and Alice just asks them to decide what they want to eat.

After breakfast, Jessica and Robin start playing dress up, which is yet another activity Liz hates. Luckily, Amy comes over and suggests they all go to the park. This leads to the twins fighting over what to do and each one trying to make Robin side with them. Robin tries to be neutral and tell them she likes all the same things as them but winds up spending more time with Amy than either twin.

Things get so tense that Stacey gives Jessica back her doll and tells her that she doesn't want the dolls to be twins anymore because being twins isn't fun now. Suddenly remembering the whole birthday party thing, Jessica runs downstairs and finds out that Alice didn't plan anything because the twins could never agree on anything. After a quick fight, they run back downstairs with new plans. Turns out that the parents just lied to them and already made party plans in the hopes they would start getting along again. We don't get to her about the party though. The last chapter picks up after the family leaves as Alice tells them about how they're all taking a trip to visit an old friend of the family.

*Not only does Nancy, their aunt, look almost exactly like Alice, but Robin is almost a spiting image of the twins. Hm, I thought that was Kelly...

*Poor Stacey looks nothing like a blue eyed and blond hair goddess. She took after her dad and has thick red hair.

*Has any YA author ever actually seen or used disappearing ink before? They always make it out like it does on one color and instantly disappears in seconds. It doesn't actually go away until it completely dries, which takes some time, and even then, it doesn't always go away. This comes from someone who stained a shirt with the ink as a kid.

*Steven screams about how there are too many girls around as soon as they get there and asks if he can go to his room. Ned and Alice tease him a bit before letting him go off by himself. Yeah, there is no way my mom would let me hide out in my room if we had family over.

*Jessica allegedly hates the banana pancakes that Alice makes for breakfast, which is odd because she eats pancakes all the time in other books in this series.

*One thing they fight over is whether to have a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting or a yellow cake with chocolate frosting. Personally, I'm a vanilla cake with vanilla frosting gal, but I don't know why they couldn't just have a half and half cake. Better yet, why not ask Robin what kind of freaking birthday cake she would like?

*Jessica wants burgers. Ned says it's too late for a barbecue, but then Alice suggests making spaghetti and meatballs. In what universe is it easier to make spaghetti and meatballs for nine people than to make burgers?