Welcome to the twenty-seventh installment of Flashback to the Present and I’ll be your contributing writer, Brandy Batz.
You see, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Knauf is detained, off getting the $150 bucks he owes me for losing at the chinchilla races.
Technically, I’m holding his crappy computer hostage while he gets my cash – so by default I’LL be the one writing this week’s article.
So I sit here, dear readers, in a donut shop off the interstate when I spy with my little eye a pastel colored book adorned with two majestic twins. My heart sings as I read the title blasting at me like a symphony.
What roadside donut eater was enjoying this “oh so magnificent” classic piece of 1983 fiction?
Oh yes dear readers, I thumbed that copy of Sweet Valley High and I just so happen to have the perfect subject for Mr. Knauf’s little article:
Francine Pascal’s, Sweet Valley High: Double Love.
If you were alive, breathing, and a female, you know these gripping teenage tales of twin sisters Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield; size six, aquamarine eyes, flawless mirror images with perfectly contradictory personalities. Oh, you minions of Francine Pascal—you’ve lovingly ghostwritten an immaculate duo for the ages!
Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield, may you ever be frozen in time in your brilliant utopia where, if you’re super-pretty times two, nothing that bad can ever happen. That is, unless you count… a motorcycle accident resulting in a coma, an exhilarating kidnapping, joining a twisted cult, snorting the coca, vehicular manslaughter, arson….
Jessica is the enchanting, seductive, rule-bending, “dazzling” (read: bitchy) co-captain of the SVH cheerleaders (odd since she’s only a junior). The one who always seems to win—as if, in the end, only a toss of gossamer hair or the sparkle of an aquamarine eye can carry the day.
Bookish Elizabeth, known for being practical and a good listener, was often confided in by her peers. Really, she was a sweethearted wuss who lets her sister walk all over her and get whatever she wants, then sits at home and cries about it all day.
“Liz” is too busy with her secret writing gig as the “Eyes and Ears” gossip columnist for the SVH newspaper, The Oracle. It’s a tradition every year that when the identity of the Eyes and Ears columnist is discovered, that person gets tossed, fully-clothed, into the school swimming pool.
Considering that Liz is supposed to be tenderhearted, it seems odd that she would be writing this column and not Jessica.
But whatever…
Like a new baby on a hit sitcom, it occurs to me: this series needs a triplet! I channel the spirit of Jane Austen and pen an outline to show Francine Pascal!
Her name will be Acissejzil. Her father runs an illegal chinchilla racetrack in the mountains of San Gabriel. Her step-mother is a Polynesian pro-wrestler who met her father on a GLOW girl audition in Vegas. Mother is of unknown origin, but is rumored to be a ghostwriter for VC Andrews.
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| Welcome to Sweet Valley, Acissejzil! |
Acissejzil’s drunken, sweaty father abandons her outside of a Tasty Freeze in Sweet Valley saying, “If you can’t wrangle a chinchilla, what good are you goddamnit!”
Todd Wilkins, Elizabeth’s on and off again boyfriend, finds Acissejzil scrounging for scraps and living behind a slushy machine. He brings her home, revives her with a blow dryer and harbors her in his basement.
They share many a Les Miserables moment.
Eventually Elizabeth being the sly reporter, discovers Acissejzil hiding in Todd’s room. She flings a JOLT at his head saying, “I forgave you for trying to finger-bang my sister in the back seat of the Jeep, but this…! This is unacceptable! You won’t resuscitate dead frozen chicks who oddly look just like me on my watch, mister” and storms off in her mom’s Fiat Spider.
In the meanwhile, a smile creeps across Acissejzil’s face (who is a dead ringer for Jessica and Elizabeth).
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| Look who had a makeover! |
Her plan has worked.
You see, she has always loved Sweet Valley High. By implementing “Tasty Freeze plan A” and 37 meticulous Swedish plastic surgeries later, Acissejzil can now hip sway her way to the streets of Sweet Valley.
Having successfully caused a rift between Liz and Todd, she departs. Soon, Acissejzil comes across Rick Andover, the classic trashy high school dropout, who screeches up next to her and demands they go on a date.
The two wind up at Kelly’s, a total dive bar down at the beach. Acissejzil demurely sips her beer while having a panic attack over the atmosphere and the fact that Rick is pretty much trying to finger her under the table…
… okay, this is a kids book. Really he’s just sliding his hand around her knee but Rick’s definitely trying to get some.
Acissejzil is properly horrified! Of course, she had NO IDEA that this crazy man who picked her up while she was out peddling around might want to hit it. She asks Rick to take her home, he says no way, and a fight breaks out. Swiftly, this big burly dude tries to help out Acissejzil’s crying, whiny, terrified ass.
A cop shows up and takes Acissejzil home. As she’s blubbering out what happened, he asks for her name. Being an ace cop, the dude doesn’t ask for Acissejzil’s ID or anything. When she sobs “Wakefield” he just assumes she’s Elizabeth …
The cop drops Fake Liz off at her house and yells at “Elizabeth” that he doesn’t want to see her out with Rick Andover again.
And that is how Acissejzil infiltrated the Wakefield home. Promptly she dials her chinchilla racetrack father and says, “Papa. I’m in. Bring them over.”
A mere 35 minutes later the Wakefield home is bursting with chinchilla’s racing around a Hot Wheels track like greased lightning from hell! Men of all ages, Bukowski men, Tupac men, mulleted men, fancy ladies in hats, heck even Jessica and Liz’s parents are all there slinging down hard for those chinchillas.
The basement is then converted into an illegal all lady pro wrestling association called, “Because this B has AQUAMARINE EYES. Does she NEED eye makeup?”
The real Jessica and Liz arrive to see they have both been replaced and their home is in chaos. Gripping their “golden lavaliere necklaces, they burst forth in a fury gushing, ‘It’s hard to stay cool when a psycho’s after you.’”
And like Chun Lee on Street Fighter, they–
–That’s when I hear Charlie honking the horn. I look up and there he is, in that crappy maroon Geo Metro loaded up with (what I can only assume are) stolen goods. “At least it’s not dogs this time,” I think as I gaze down at this tale.
Another time, Francine Pascal … another time.
I pick up my copy of Double Love and off we go to pawn off this crap so Charlie can finally be in the black with me.
FROM COLUMNIST CHARLES KNAUF: I didn’t REALLY owe Ms. Batz any money. Seriously, I’m not so desperate to actually BET on chinchilla racing. I mean, c’mon.
GUEST WRITER’S NOTE: Whatever, Charlie…
