Sweet Valley High #38: Leaving Home

 

So this is one of the earlier books where Regina was still alive. Since coming back from Switzerland, all she can talk about is how much she loved it and how gorgeous everything was. When Liz hears about her experiences, she starts thinking that it would be the perfect place to study writing. Lucky for her, there's some fancy boarding school with a creating writing program. And even more luckily, they have a scholarship for girls exactly like her.

In a poor attempt at being good parents, Ned and Alice decide not to tell her hell no right off the bat and instead wait for her to get more information. The packet comes in the mail with the news that she still has time to apply, not a ton of time but enough if she's willing to ignore everything else in her life. Can you see where this is going?

This makes Liz decide that she should focus on nothing but herself in the coming weeks for once in her life (ha!). She constantly blows off Jeffrey, remember that poor guy? Though she conveniently has time to babysit for Mr. Collins and go with Enid to the Beach Disco, she can't even meet him for dinner. He buys her a pearl pin to make sure that she never forgets him.

While feeling super lonely, Jeffrey runs into Enid who is also down in the dumps. They decide to make Liz a scrapbook of all their favorite memories that she can take to Switzerland. Liz keeps calling and learning that they're together or seeing them sneaking off, which makes her worry. It gets even worse when Lila mentions that people are noticing them spending a lot of time together.

She finally tells Alice about all her worries. Alice does the right thing and points out that Liz never gave Jeffrey a say in anything. She just assumed that he would be fine with her taking off for a year. Alice also says that nothing could ever happen between them, even if Enid was obsessed with Jeffrey when he first moved to town.

Mr. Sterne is the dude in charge of narrowing down candidates for the scholarship and has Liz meet him in his office. After their first meeting goes well, he arranges to meet her family. Jess and Steve scheme to make him think Liz's family is crazy, or crazier than they are. They have a motorcycle outside, Jess shows up in a leather mini, and Steve goes on and on about how their family is super close and never can be apart. Plus, her parents both show up late.

While Liz thinks they ruined her chances, she hasn't seen nothing yet. Jessica dresses up just like her to meet Mr. Sterne the next day at school. She enlists random guys to make it seem like Liz is obsessed with guys and even claims that she has the hots for Mr. Collins. Mr. Sterne is super upset and says that he needs to think about her application more before making a final decision.

It all comes to a head when Steve and Jess fess up. They feel bad enough that they call Mr. Sterne and tell him everything. When he shows up to offer Liz the scholarship, Jeffrey and Enid show up with their scrapbook. Liz gets him alone for a few minutes before crying and deciding to turn down the offer. Everyone is all shocked because no one – in 20 years – has turned it down before. No worries though because Liz says that she can get all the inspiration that she needs in Sweet Valley.

In the B-plot, Winston has his dad buy him a lottery ticket and invites the gang over to watch him win. Liz notices that his ticket starts with the same three numbers as Jeffrey's birthday. When shopping for the party with Maria, Winston puts his coat down. An older man is there with his granddaughter and has to tell her that she can't get cookies because they don't have enough money.

Winston picks up his coat and later realizes that he has the old man's jacket. But luckily for him, there's a lottery ticket in the pocket. That ticket turns out to be a $25,000 winner. Winston meets the old man to exchange jackets and finds out that his family is pretty poor. They can't afford to send the little girl to horse camp, which is the only thing she wants in the world. Winston uses some of his money to buy her a fancy doll but still feels super bad. It takes some time, but he eventually confesses and gives the guy the winning ticket.

*Ned says that he'll call Mr. Sterne first thing in the morning and catch him by dinner, except that the dude is literally in the same state. If Ned calls him at 9 am, I'm pretty sure he's not sitting down to dinner.

*Winston's parents agree to put his money in a bank account and let him use the interest as fun money every week. How much interest would that be in a week in the 80s? Also, they completely overlook the fact that his dad has to sign the ticket for him because he's a minor. He's the one who would pay taxes on it.

*This is the book that introduces us to Kirk “The Jerk” Anderson. He pops up to watch the tennis team at the same time that the cheerleaders practices. Jess pretty much instantly dislikes him.

*The older I get, the more I hate Liz. She completely blows off Jeffrey's concerns because she thinks her life is more important than his and ignores him until she thinks he's seeing someone behind her back.

*Jeffrey literally points out that Todd moved to the other side of the country and they couldn't make it work. Liz blows him off because she thinks they're somehow different, even though she admits to herself that they can't talk on the phone due to the time difference and that letters will take a long time to reach each other.