Intro: This book is part 1 of the Frightening Four Miniseries! I’m sooooo excited to recap it for you because these are my absolute favorite Sweet Valley Twins books. This was written right around the time I progressed to SVH, so I have only read this miniseries once. I remember it being absolutely terrifying to 12 year old me.
Cover: It appears to be Elizabeth (based on the hairstyle) and a small child. The child is wearing pajamas and has scratches on her back. Elizabeth’s face is very round and her head appears to be too small for her neck. She also has some sort of weird side bang action happening around her hairline. There’s a shadow of what appears to be a person in the left hand corner, and a lamp appears to have been knocked over on the right.
Recap: The inside cover tells me that this was written in July of 1996, so I must have been younger that I thought when I read this. In July of 1996, I would have been 10 and a half, so no wonder I was so captivated by this.
We begin with a cold open. It’s Big Bad POV! In this case, our Big Bad is a girl. She’s climbing stairs to a widow’s walk and brooding about how the house is her’s and she doesn’t want anyone else to live there. Unfortunately, a new family has moved in and the girl is displeased. They have lots of little kids, so I can’t say that I blame her too much. (FYI- I despise children, so forgive me if I get a little upset by this book because there’s just so many pages of them.)
Our story begins on a Saturday. Liz and Jess are riding their bikes to the beach for a volleyball game. They ride past a creepy old Victorian house that is known as the Sullivan Mansion despite the fact that it’s vacant. We learn that it’s a Sweet Valley tradition to run past it on Halloween, shrieking at the top of one’s lungs. I shudder at the thought of multiple screaming children and feel sorry for the neighbors. This book suddenly becomes even more terrifying with that mental image.
Lucky for me, the book then launches into a totally awkward description of the Twins (it seriously just starts out of nowhere, completely unprovoked) as they see a moving truck arrive. There’s a bunch of small children running around (I’m already having nightmares) and a very stressed-out looking woman directing the movers around, so naturally the twins just gawk at them before barging in and introducing themselves.
The newcomers are the Riccoli family. Mrs. Riccoli drops everything to introduce the twins to have 5 (!) children. We have:
Olivia, the oldest
Andrew, 2nd oldest
Gretchen (age 7)
Juliana (age 5)h
And, Nate (age 2)
Jesus fuck, woman! Time to get your husband fixed! He must have a very good job if you can afford a 6+ bedroom mansion, 5 kids, and another house in Sacramento! (Mr. R won’t be moving to Sweet Valley for another 2 months, but I’m going to bet that is a lie that they’re telling the kids.) Mrs. R is a part-time professor at SVU (which I thought was like an hour away from Sweet Valley, buut I guess it’s only 10 minutes away in this book) so I doubt she’s the one paying the bills.
In true Elizabeth form, Liz offers to help, much to Jessica’s disgust. Jess reminds her that they’re on their way to meet friends, but before she can drag Liz away Mrs. R gives them her number and asks if they know any good baby-sitters. Across the country in Connecticut, Kristy Thomas s
Lakes her head in disgust and screams “they took our jobs!”
As you can probably tell, I am not a parent, but I just can’t imagine trusting some random 12 year old kids that you just met with your children! There’s A LOT of irresponsible parenting in this book, even by Sweet Valley standards!
We jump forward a bit and find our favorite twins at Casey’s with Winston, Todd, and Amy. As usual, Jess is stuffing her face. She realizes that she has no money and tries to con Liz into paying for her ice cream, but -oh no!- Liz thought that Jess was paying for both of them! The new manager (WTF happened to Casey?!), Joe, promptly calls the police and has them arrested for stealing. The twins go to jail and the book ends there, sparing me from having to read 100+ pages about a boring baby-sitting job! I celebrate with a cocktail. Oh, wait...since there are never any consequences for Jessica’s actions, Joe promises to start a tab for the twins and tells them that they can pay him whenever they get the money (assuming he doesn’t get fired first, which is what SHOULD happen). Liz suddenly gets a Great Idea (!) and decides to start a baby-sitting service. The Riccoli family alone will be a huge task, so everyone agrees that it’s a Great Idea. Kristy Thomas then begins to make her way to Sweet Valley (just like Margo, but with even more REVENGE!) to put a stop to this.
Later that day, Winston is on a secret mission. No one can find out the horrible secret he’s been hiding, because we need a totally lame subplot or something. His mom is forcing him to take accordion lessons and learn polka! This leads to a very stupid B plot where Charlie Cashman catches him and blackmails him into paying so his secret won’t be exposed. It’s just stupid and I won’t waste much time on it. Basically, Win is afraid of people thinking he’s a super nerd so he goes along with it and is forced to take baby-sitting jobs to get cash for Charlie. I feel a bit bad for him, but it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to me.
Liz calls Mrs. Riccoli that night to volunteer the service of her and her friends. The book tells us that she’s “almost willing to work for free” just to help the lady out. I don’t really understand this. She can obviously afford a nanny, yet she’s going to leave 5 fucking kids alone at night with only a couple 12 year olds for supervision?! I’m beginning to think that she’s lying about her career and is secretly a high end escort from 4 to 8 pm on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Or maybe she’s secretly a member of the Baby-Sitters Club and is using that time to attend meetings via cordless phone like Dawn did when she moved to California.
On Monday, Liz and Jess show up and find the Riccoli house empty. They barge in and investigate, but then they hear a scream. The chapter ends very dramatically with them fleeing the house, but of course it’s just the Riccoli kids being assholes and playing a joke in them. Yawn. The inside of the house is absolutely hideous with an orange shag rug, a plaid couch, and pink and red striped bean bag chairs. Jess shudders at the sight, and makes a mental note to tell Mrs. R about the interior design magic of Mrs. Wakefield.
The evening goes smoothly, until bedtime. Juliana (the 5 year old) refuses to go to sleep. She’s been having bad dreams since they moved in. Apparently a “monster girl” keeps attacking her (and I squeal in delight because I just remembered why I love these books so much). I don’t like kids, even fictional ones, but I have a soft spot in my heart for Juliana Riccoli because I know what’s really going on here. Of course, Liz is logical and tells poor Juliana that it isn’t real and her fears are unfounded. Idiot.
Mrs. R returns home and pays each twin $10. Math time! 3 hours for $20 equals $6.67ish an hour. In 1996, that would be acceptable for one person as an hourly wage for watching 1 or 2 children. Bitch has FIVE, and is paying each twin $3.33 an hour, which is like .67 cents per child per hour. That’s fucked up. I wonder how much the BSC charges per hour. Those Kid Kit supplies and pizza parties aren’t cheap, you know. Before leaving, Jess “tactfully” mentions that the house could use some redecorating and that her mother is “a master an renovating old houses”. I call bullshit on that statement, but Mrs. R is thrilled to hear that and promises to give Alice a call soon. Shouldn’t she had called her prior to hiring the twins? In what world do 12 year olds go off to baby-sit for complete strangers without first getting parental consent?! I started baby-sitting when I was 10 and I would never have been allowed to go to a stranger’s house without my parents first meeting them and checking the situation out. Even when I was older, my mom still insisted on meeting anyone I sat for (and it was super rare for me to watch kids that weren’t family friends already).
As the twins are leaving, a creepy old man with hedge clippers accosts them. He says he’s Mr. Brangwen, the gardener. Why is he trimming bushes at 9 pm? Because he’s creepy like that. He yells at them for leaning their bikes against the hedges (which is understandable) and tells them that he’s been the gardener at the mansion for his entire life. I laugh because I picture him as a 3 year old pushing a wheelbarrow, but then I realize that child labor was probably perfectly legal when he was a child so now I feel bad for him. He warns them that the house is bad and to never close their eyes in the house. Creepy.
Not much happens for the next chapter except for Juliana having another nightmare while Liz is baby-sitting with Amy. They debate telling Mrs. R about it, but decide that it will resolve itself eventually.
Meanwhile, in the B plot, Win gets a call for another baby-sitting job. Proving that Sweet Valley parents are all short bus special, the Karsten family asks him to watch their 8 month old twins, Kevin and Karla. This can’t possibly go wrong, but at this point I feel those parents deserve everything they get for allowing an unknown 12 year old boy to watch their infants! I know almost nothing about babies but this is just getting ridiculous. Win arrives at their house and realizes they’re RICh, so he’s excited about the prospect of getting enough money to pay Charlie from just one sitting job. As expected, Win is a complete idiot and is shocked when the twins both start crying and don’t stop. He tries to shut them up by making them bottles but can’t remember what babies drink...same, Winston, same. He finally decided on milk and, since warm milk makes people tired he figures hot milk will knock those semen demons the fuck out immediately. As much as I hate babies, even I know that this is a poor choice. I’m about 10 seconds away from calling Sweet Valley CPS, but then I decide that they’re probably too busy having a Social Services happy hour booze cruise on Secca Lake. As predicted, the babies soil themselves prior to eating and Win is forced to change diapers. He does a decent job, but puts the pink diaper on the boychild. He decides to just leave it that way. He then realizes that he’s burnt the milk so he gives them soda instead. Again, EIGHT MONTHS OLD! I laugh when Kevin throws his against the wall. He settles on feeding them Cheerios and Jell-o, and I wonder if they’re old enough to eat those things, but they don’t choke or anything. Win ends up getting paid $15 for THREE hours. What. The. Fuck.
Back in Twintown, Liz is meeting Maria Slater for a movie. She runs into Mr. Brangwen and thinks he’s following her. He warns her about the house again and says “she’ll get you in your sleep”... Liz runs away from him in fear. Jess, meanwhile, is at home with Alice when Mrs. R calls about her interior decoration skills. Jess wants her mother to get the job so she can get a raise on her allowance, so she volunteers to watch the kids for free while the 2 meet. Mrs. R doesn’t have time to tell Alice her address (again, letting a 12 year old go to a stranger’s house without even knowing the address?! That’s absolutely ridiculous) but Jess promises to show her mom where the house is located.
L
Liz has the next sitting job, this time with Todd. I’m bashing my head against the wall at the ignorance of the Wakefield parents. I know Liz is the responsible twin, but leaving her and her boyfriend unsupervised just seems wrong. Liz tells Todd about how creepy Mr. Brangwen is acting and they decide that she should just tell him to fuck off with his creepy bullshit. And then they go makeup in Mrs. R’s bedroom, probably.
On Monday, Alice is celebrating getting not just the Riccoli job, but also 2 of Mrs. R’s professor friends have called for her services. She’s making a special dinner, which Jess describes to Lila over the phone. (Side note: This is Lila’s only appearance in this book, on pages 90-92, and I am upset by this. Lila must despise children as much as I do.). The menu is pretty Basic Bitch: steak, baked potatoes, corn, salad, and cherry pie. It sounds good, but doesn’t seem very special to me. Lila agrees, and makes some comments about how ugly the Riccoli house sounds. Jess gets hypocritical and tells Lila that it’s wrong to judge someone based on their decor. She thinks about how snobby Lila is acting (ha) and how Lila never has to work for anything. I really wish there was more Lila in this book, she is such a delight.
Back to Winston, Charlie is pressuring him for more money, so he agrees to sit for the twins again. They’re being little assholes and breaking everything in the house (which reads as more like Win is being an asshole and breaking shit by playing airplane with them). He finally gets them to sleep and decides to microwave some spaghetti before cleaning up. Dumbass puts it in a metal-rimmed bowl and throws it in the microwave for 5 minutes. He abandons it and sits on his ass for a few minutes, until the Karstens come home unexpectedly. They’re understandably displeased by the state of their house, and absolutely livid when they microwave explodes. To make it worse, dumbass Win used Mrs. K’s fucking TIFFANY bowl! (Although, keeping something like that with your everyday dishes is a bit stupid, IMO. That was probably a $200 bowl.). Of course, he’s fired. He’s stupid enough to ask for payment, which he doesn’t receive. Charlie comes to collect payment the next evening, but Win thinks fast and locks him in the garage. Charlie starts CRYING because he’s afraid of the dark. This means that he can’t extort and blackmail Win anymore because Win will tell everybody.
While Win is blackmailing his blackmailer, Jess and Alice are on their way to the Riccoli house. Alice freaks out when she sees it, and refuses to go inside. Jess and Mrs. R are very confused by her sudden departure. Still, the evening goes fairly well. Jess is sitting with Todd this time, and I’m too lazy to make a Sweet Valley Confidential joke.
The next morning, Liz is shocked when she sees an article in the newspaper. Creepy Mr. Brangwen has died in his sleep! In. His. Sleep. Dun dun dun... Jess, meanwhile is pressuring Alice about the previous afternoon. She wants answers, but Alice isn’t talking. Alice says she just doesn’t want to decorate that house, and basically tells Jess to fuck off with all the questions.
Our B plot concludes with Mrs. K calling Win to apologize. She’s practically groveling because, in the 2 days since he destroyed her house, they tried a new baby-sitter and it didn’t go well. Boychild kept screaming “Win-Win” all night, and girlchild cried the entire time. Since no one in Sweet Valley wants to parent their own children these days, she begs him to sit again on Friday. He has to practice the accordion that night, but decides that he can bring it along for the twins to play with (because, fuck the neighbors and my sanity). He’s offered double pay, and I still think $5 an hour to watch an infant is absolutely ridiculous. But he’s happy about it.
Liz tries to get out of sitting with Jess, but no one will cover for her. Amy convinced her that the house isn’t haunted and that Juliana’s night terrors will stop now that Mr. Brangwen is dead (and...that is a disturbing sentence to type out). Spoiler- the bad dreams haven’t stopped, and now Juliana isn’t sleeping at all. Liz bargains with her and let’s her sleep on the couch. Juliana is excited about sleeping on the couch “like a grown-up”, which just fuels my theory that Mr. and Mrs. R are actually in the process of a divorce. She wakes up from a particularly bad dream with scratches all over her body and Liz is terrified because they look fresh. And, in all honesty, that’s creepy as hell.
Jess puts Gretchen to bed and is asked to go fetch her teddy bear that Andrew threw on the 3rd floor (asshole). The third floor is creepy as fuck with no lights and Jess trips over something. She crashes into the wall and notices a hidden, sealed door. Of course, she opens it and just happens to find a candle and matches. The light illuminates 2 large windows and a glass door, which are “covered in wood”. I’m not sure if that means they’re boarded up or just have wooden framework. The room appears to be a little girl’s room, but it obviously hasn’t been used in years because it’s super dusty. Jess snoops around a bit before noticing a bulletin board with photos on it. A photo of two teenage girls in party dresses catches her eye, so she takes it down. She realizes that one of the girls is in fact a young Alice Wakefield, and the caption of the back confirms this. The other girl is named Eva, and shits about to get real!
Flashback to the Big Bad POV, the girl is watching Jess and getting upset that she keeps touching things that aren’t hers. She swears that she will make Jess suffer... To be continued.
Final thoughts: I hate children, but I hate the parents of Sweet Valley so much more! This book was infuriating, but I can’t wait to read part 2! This is such a fucked up story arc and I love when Sweet Valley gets dark.
