Sweet Valley High #125: Camp Killer

Liz and Joey are now officially a couple and can't keep their hands off each other. This displeases Nicole to a great degree. She encourages Joey to tell a story about Crazy Freddy, which has some connection to the original camp legend. This one occurred more recently and involves the police finding boots in the woods with severed legs inside. The cops eventually found more body parts before the killings just stopped.

Nicole decides to make Elizabeth's life a living hell and sneaks a letter into her bunk supposedly from Joey that asks her to meet him in the woods. She then sneaks outside and chops some wood, which causes Liz to flip out. Liz starts to run away but hangs out just in case Joey shows up. Though she thinks Nicole played a trick on her, by the time she gets back to the cabin, she wonders if she just made up the whole thing because she was tired. Sure.

While the two are out making out on the water, Nicole takes a picture of them. She writes a letter to Todd to tell him all about his whore of a girlfriend and while sending it, discovers that Liz finally wrote him a letter. Liz only did so because Todd sent her a care package with some of her favorite stuff. Nicole steals the letter, but Maria catches her. The two have a nice and long talk about their friendship and how upset Nicole is at her best friend moving away. She lets Maria tear up the letter she wrote to Todd and puts Liz's back.

Jessica and Paul don't really seem to mind being stuck at his house in the middle of the night. He “borrows” a neighbor's horse and uses it to get her back to camp. His parents find out though and refuse to let him sneak away to see Jessica in the middle of the night. You know this book must take place in Montana because Sweet Valley parents don't discipline their teenagers. She decides to just sneak around to see him anyway.

I never mentioned this before because I didn't really care, but the camp is hosting Color Wars, which is just an excuse to pit Nicole and Liz against each other. Lacey names them captains of the opposing teams. Nicole sneaks into Lacey's office and changes the names around, so that she can have Joey on her team. When it comes time to announce the assignments though, Joey is on Liz's team. Liz gives her a nasty look and pretty much shoves her tongue down Joey's throat in front of her.

Since Jessica and Elizabeth look exactly alike in their camp clothes, Jess convinces her twin to pull the twin switch so that she can spend the day with Paul. Liz gets stuck working overtime because her twin never comes back. Paul suggests that they pull a prank on the camp and make them think there's a psycho in the woods. Unfortunately, an actual psycho comes out of nowhere and grabs Jess. Tanya, Paul's little sister who is obsessed with her, stumbles across them. The guy punches her in the face and takes her with them.

Lila and Bo spend most of the book ignoring their responsibilities to spend time together. Bo has flowers flown in and caters a special meal to make Lila feel like she's in Paris. She does the same thing for him because he loves Hawaii. They can't stop talking about how rich they are and how perfect they are for each other.

Because of her twin sense, Liz realizes that there is something wrong. People start freaking out about where Jessica is and what happened to her. Joey suddenly remembers an abandoned cabin in the woods and runs off to find her. Paul comes stumbling out of the woods with no idea what happened to him or what happened to Jessica. Nicole and Liz team up to go out and track down the missing twin, though Nicole really only cares about Joey.

Lacey goes to call the cops but comes back to force everyone to the camp. The cops reveal that there is an escaped convict on the loose from North Dakota, which totally made me look up where ND is on the map in relation to Montana, despite me having visited both states on a family vacation. Bo and Lila hear the news and wander off into the woods to look for her best friend.

Cobra, the dude who kidnapped Jessica and Tanya, see Joey coming to the cabin and nail him over the head. He then catches Liz outside and grabs her too. Nicole distracts the guy as she tells him to just kill the twit because she's so annoying. Paul then shows up and bases Cobra over the head, which knocks him out. They tie him up just as the cops get there.

After all this, Nicole decides that she no longer wants Joey and tells Maria that she has her eye on Derek, the counselor who conveniently looks just like Ken Matthews. Maria promises to be her pen pale once she moves back and suggests that Nicole calm down a little and make some new friends. Nicole and Liz bond, with Nicole giving her blessing to Liz and Joey.

Early in the book, Joey gave Liz his Yale sweatshirt because Liz couldn't possibly fall in love with someone going to a state school. She starts thinking about Todd and how much she misses him, which makes her realize that she wants to be with him. In the end, she gives Joey the sweatshirt back and tells him that this is the end of their relationship. He tells her to keep it as something to remember him by, but she cries because she'll never forget him. Ugh. Jess and Paul break up too, but she explains that she'll never forget him because he showed her that she could love again after Christian. And again and again and again and again.

Lila and Bo make it back before camp ends, in case you were wondering. While lost in the woods, they find some crop duster with a plane. He agrees to drop them off before asking his boss, who says no. Conveniently, he and his brother want to start their own crop dusting business and just need $1,000 more. They agree to give him the cash, and he refuses until he calls his brother. His brother was the one flying in all their special crap all summer and knows they have the cash. Lila winds up hanging out of the side of the plane though because the cockpit is so small. Jessica sees her coming because she recognizes her shoes.

*There is no explanation for what happened with the team lists. Nicole changed the names like the night before. Joey thought he was on her team and even dressed in her color, but he was somehow back on Liz's team before the Color Wars started.

*I actually felt really bad for Nicole in this book. Her scenes with Maria show that she's afraid of being on her own and doesn't know what to do when her best friend leaves her. It's kind of bitchy how Maria treats her.

*Nicole also reveals that she met Joey three years ago when she was a camper and he was a counselor. This was the first year that they were both counselors, so she was ready to finally make her move. It sucks that Liz came in with a boyfriend and ruined things for her. It's even worse when you find out that Joey and Nicole both live in New York and Liz lives on the opposite side of the freaking country.

*Why did no one ever consider what would happen at the end of summer? Liz acts like she suddenly just realized that Joey was going to college on the East Coast and she was going back to California.

*I hate Liz for one particular moment in this book. She outright says that she wants to have fun with Joey but wants to know that Todd will be waiting for her at home. Bitch!

*When the crop duster tells Lila and Bo that they don't understand how much money $1,000 really is, she tells him that she has dresses at home that cost twice that lol.