Sweet Valley High #127: Dance of Death

Jessica is still caught up in Jonathon's arms and kissing him when the book opens. He then pauses long enough to tell her that he never wants to see her again before kissing her some more. Jessica basically forces him to give her a tour of his house, which gives her an excuse to gripe about how it's oh so dirty and not at all like a place he should actually live. They start kissing again, but then Jonathon throws her off, tells her to leave, and actually makes her leave.

Meanwhile, poor Enid is outside all gothed up and ready for some action. When she sees the twins' Jeep though, she realizes that Jessica is there and that Jess found out where he lived from her. Just as she's about to burst into tears though, she sees Jessica rush outside with tears streaming down her face and decides this is the perfect time to make her move. Pretending that her car broke down, she gets inside. Jonathon offers her some wine, they start kissing, he sucks on her neck, and she basically passes out.

Back at Casa Wakefield, Todd sees Liz in the arms of Joey and just leaves. She runs outside to stop him and even stands in front of his car. Todd is, finally, sick of her bull shit and tells her to screw off. Liz heads back inside and cries to Joey about how she's sure her twin is dead. Joey agrees to drive her to the lake but tries to calm her down by pointing out that hundreds of girls look just like the twins. Ah, he probably met Margo then.

The cops refuse to let them do anything until Liz cries about her twin. Cop in charge then realizes that she means Jessica Wakefield and thinks that maybe the murderer from the first book thought Jessica saw him and so he killed her. The cop lets Liz just bypass all the crime scene tape to check out the body. Naturally, it's not Jessica. She gets home to her twin coming back from Jonathon's and bitches at her before crying.

Liz tries to talk to Todd, even sneaking into the locker room to grab him after basketball practice, but he already left for the day. Todd decides to go full on goth and dyes his hair black and starts dressing in all black. He, Bruce, Aaron, and Ken go full goth together. Girls start flirting with him all the time and fawning all over him, which makes him realize there are other fish in the sea outside of the Wakefield pond.

Though she makes a few lame attempts to talk to Enid, Liz seems perfectly ready to replace the role of best friend with Maria. She even talks to her about Joey and what it means now that he's in town. Maria convinces her to do compare both guys in different categories, and Joey wins almost all of them. Since Todd no longer talks to her, she calls Joey and agrees to date him.

Trying to be the best potential boyfriend ever, Joey takes her to all these “new” places he found. First on his list is the most romantic place in the world: Miller's Point. That makes her think of all the times she went there with Todd, but she kisses Joey a bunch of times to cover up how she really feels. He then takes her to the Dairi Burger, apparently forgetting the hundreds of stories she told him about the place.

It also bothered her that Joey changed since they first met. He keeps talking about how she's “too much woman” for a high school boy and then gets annoyed when she says it's appropriate for a high school girl to date a high school guy. Joey decided to pledge a frat and went to a party on, gasp, a Monday night, gasp. He also wants to give up on directing and acting and just take it easy for awhile. Liz begins wondering if she made a mistake. Yes, yes you did.

Jessica can't wait for Monday because she wants to tell all her friends that she and Jonathon are officially a couple. She also gets the chance to meet Katrina, Amy's cousin from out of town. Lila and Amy keep joking about Jonathon and finally tell her that he gave Enid one monster of a hickey. Jessica instantly goes to Enid and demands that she tell everyone she's a big old liar. Enid shows her the hickey though, tells her all about his house, and describes his kisses in the same way Jessica herself would.

Since she's completely delusional, Jessica keeps making up excuses for why he might not want her. She approaches him outside of school and demands that he tell her he doesn't have feelings for her. He can't, but he reminds her that they can't be together before getting on his motorcycle and riding off. She also tries calling him at home and gets basically no response from him at all.

For some reason though, Jonathon is secretly in love with Jessica. To get her out of his system, he calls Enid and invites her over for another make out session. She tells him that she wants more though and doesn't want to just be a sex toy. Uh, does that mean what I think it means? Jonathon tells her how much he missed her and makes out with her some more. She wakes up at home once again with no memories of what happened or how she got there.

In one last desperate attempt to win him over, Jessica calls and learns that he's sick. She makes him some homemade chicken soup, takes it over in a thermos, and finds Enid there with a dazed look on her face. Jessica throws the soup at him and storms off. Jonathon makes Enid leave and then basically sits in front of the fire as the soup burns his skin because he deserves it. Ugh, I miss the old Sweet Valley books.

Jessica cries her heart out to Liz about how Jonathon broke her and how she'll never love anyone else the same way until she meets someone new in a week. Liz uses this as an excuse to talk to Enid and try to warn her away. Enid pretty much tells her that he was probably a dick because he kept telling Jessica to back off and she wouldn't go away. She also tells Liz to just leave her alone already.

Bruce decides that since Jonathon lives on his own and doesn't have parents that his mansion is the perfect place for a party. Jonathon gives him a hard pass on that idea, but Bruce goes ahead and invites everyone anyway. It's a big deal because Chrome Dome called the whole school in for an assembly and announced the town had a curfew of 10 pm for all kids now. Todd invites Katrina who tells him that she'll be there as long as he is before flirting with him.

Jessica is moping around the house when she realizes that Jasmine is missing and discovers that someone left the sliding door open. She finds the poor little cat's mutilated body outside under the bushes. Someone watches from the dark and thinks about how the cat was just an appetizer. Since they don't want to upset Alice, the twins agree to tell their parents the cat ran away and bury it in the backyard. Their parents come home early though, so they tell them that she got hit by a car in a hit and run.

Elizabeth has no real desire to go to the party or to sneak out for the party, but she can't possibly expect her twin to behave herself without some help. She gets Maria to agree to go too. Pretty much the whole school turns out for the party. Liz gets all sad because she keeps seeing Todd dancing and flirting with Katrina. She's also upset because she lied to Joey about not being able to go out with him because she was going to the movies with Jessica. He caught her when Caroline interrupted them to talk about the party and walked out on her.

Enid assumes that Jonathon will profess his undying love for her and make them an official couple, but he hardly looks at her and actually walks away from her when she tries to talk to him. Jessica gets him alone for a fraction of a second and tells him to meet her upstairs. She then finds his room and just totally makes herself at home on his bed because that's what any normal high school virgin girl would do. Jonathon stops for a “snack” before seeing her in the hopes of controlling himself around her. He sees Jessica, tells her that he only made out with Enid to take his mind off her, and she goes weak in the knees before making out with him.

Downstairs at the party, all the lights go out at the same time. Couples use this as an excuse to make out some. Liz keeps asking people for help before finding Todd. Though he initially tells her to sod off, he agrees to help her turn the lights back on. They find their way to the basement, she gets weak at him being so close to her, and they manage to get the lights on. There are some screams from upstairs, they rush back to the party, and find poor Katrina dead and drained of blood on the living room floor.

*I can understand Joey taking her to Miller's Point because he probably heard about it from his college friends, but why would he assume the Dairi Burger was some place she never went to before? It's always full of high school kids!

*Elizabeth calls Enid and asks her to come over and make chocolate chip cookies with her. Enid gets a little excited because she thinks her friend wants to make it up to her, but then Liz says that Maria is coming too, which causes Enid to be off. To make things even worse, Liz actually tells her that Maria is coming over early to help her shop for ingredients but that they thought Enid might want to help too. Nice, real nice.

*The categories they used to compare Todd and Joey are insane! Like integrity, artistic ability, and athletic ability. Todd only wins in who knew Liz the longest, athleticism, and intelligence. And to be fair to Todd, I'm not sure how he won against someone who got into an Ivy League school!

*Despite Jessica being a terrible cook, she somehow manages to make homemade chicken soup from fresh vegetables and raw chicken in 45 minutes. She literally starts cooking right around eight and has it ready to go and in the thermos before nine.

*Alice is all worried about her making soup and taking it to a “friend” because she might miss curfew. I should also point out that it's almost eight when Alice comes into the kitchen to say she's starting dinner. Don't they always eat at like six on the dot in the Wakefield house?

*Jessica pisses me off so much! Dude tells you multiple times that he doesn't want to see you, keeps lying to you, throws you out of his house, and then lets you catch him with another girl! Oh, but he only went after her to take his mind off you, so that makes it okie dokie.

*I get that Jessica and Enid aren't friends, but they actually are friends by association. She should have smacked Jonathon across the face for saying that, stormed downstairs to tell Enid about it, and then united all the girls in school against him.

*Jessica sings I Could Have Danced All Night, which totally does not seem like a song she would know.