Sweet Valley Twins #106: Breakfast of Enemies

Jessica and Lila love this magazine called California Girl, which does an article called “Real Girl” each month about a normal reader. They both entered for the next month's issue and used Lila's address so they could find out together. Though letters come, Jessica gets a generic form rejection letter and Lila gets picked. They'll come to her house for a photo shoot and to learn all about her.

This naturally makes Lila the center of attention. Jessica tries to make it seem like she was the runner up, but Lila busts her and tells them she got a form letter. They all want to hear everything about the shoot. Janet even brags about how they're cousins. When Jessica finds out that Corny O wants to shoot a new commercial with twins, she decides that she and Liz should go for it. Liz agrees after realizing that she could use they money to buy software for the newspaper.

After practicing for a few days, they finally tell Ned and Alice about the commercial. They think it's a terrible idea because the way the twins fought during the whole Romeo and Juliet think. The only way they agree to let them try out is if they can be nice and get along until the audition. This leads to them going overboard with the compliments and even getting Steven involved so they can look better when compared to him.

At the audition, they get lines and a new jingle. They have to sing and say the lines together. Jessica gets called in first, and Stan, the director, just wants to hear her. He then calls in Liz. After hours of waiting, they get the news that he picked them. Stan gives them a contract and asks them to take it home and have their parents sign it. He also tells them that they're using twins to get around child labor laws. They'll basically share the commercial and each shoot half.

The problem arises when Jessica gets sick of hearing Lila brag constantly about her photo shoot. Jess tells them all about the commercial, but people just make fun or her and say that she's lying. To prove them wrong, she sings the new jingle. It's so ridiculous that they laugh at her even more. Janet says it would be embarrassing to go on national television and sing that. People start teasing Liz too, which makes her furious and sends her home after her twin.

After they fight again, Ned reminds them that they have a contract and that they have to work together. If he hears one more argument before the commercial is done, they're both grounded for a month. Jessica then watches her favorite actress on television talk about how actors are more important than directors and sometimes need to change things on their own, which gives her a new idea.

She first suggests to Stan that they change the jingle. When he rejects that idea, she shows up in way too much makeup. She then tries to change her outfit. Stan finally says that if she can't get it together, he'll fire them both. Knowing that she has plans for the money, Liz comes up with an idea of her own. She locks Jess in the makeup room and does her part. Liz then leaves and comes back to do Jessica's part.

It works well until Jessica rushes the set. Stan ignores her complaints and gives them one more scene. They both need to run around on an obstacle course and do different tasks that they'll them impose on a different background. The twins end up swings that crash into each other and fight, knocking over a giant box of the cereal and throwing it at each other. Stan then fires them both.

In the middle of all this, Steven decides that he wants to act too and gets Jess to call Stan and suggest him for a different commercial. Stan says he needs male twins for another cereal commercial and has auditions the following week. Steven tries to get Joe to pretend to be his twin and approaches a random guy in the mall named Manny who already has a twin, Danny. He finally finds a guy who kind of looks like him and goes to the audition. Stan throws them out because of his last name and also because he looks too much like the twins.

Liz and Jess feel bad about messing things up, especially Jess. Lila's magazine comes out, everyone makes a big deal out of it, and then they notice an ad for the twins' new commercial. They don't want to tell anyone that they were fired and turn down anyone who wants to watch it together with them. It turns out that Stan used their fighting with words about how twins share everything and love each other until it comes to the last serving of Corny O. Everyone loves the commercial, so the twins agree to stop fighting and enjoy a temporary truce.

*Lila has a lock on her mailbox and seems shocked that the Wakefields don't lock up their mail. As she says, you never know what's in there.

*Since when would Janet be upset about any Unicorn appearing in a national television commercial? She says that Jess singing the jingle will make them all look bad.

*This reminds me of the SVH book with the television show that I just recapped. In no way would Lila represent a typical California girl! Seriously, who thinks that a spoiled rich girl with numerous credit cards and a car phone (in the 80s) is typical?

*In case you were wondering, Manny and Danny get the other commercial LOL.

*The twins beat out more than 200 other twins for the parts despite the fact that other girls could sing and move completely in unison.

*Why would the director make such a big deal out of them doing everything together if he didn't plan on shooting them together? He says it's because he needed their shots to work together but it doesn't really make sense.

*It's nice to see Ned and Alice occasionally acting like real concerned parents of two kids.

*Bruce actually suggests buying enough copies of California Girl that every kid in school would get a copy, just to see Lila.

*When Steven hears who won the commercial he wanted, he runs upstairs and screams.

*Ned and Alice let the twins have a small amount of money for now and put the rest in their college accounts. He says that they'll pick up a lot from interest. I can totally see Jess spending it all in her first semester!