Kidnapped! #13

Is it weird if I say Elizabeth looks more sexy then scared in this picture? Well, I said it, so oh well. That's the first thing that came to my mind when I saw this cover. The hand reaching for her adds a nice, creepy touch to things.
In the last book, Elizabeth and Jessica work in a hospital as candy stripers, and the creepy-creeperton orderly, Carl, chloroforms and kidnaps Elizabeth.

Kidnapped! begins with a slightly disturbing exchange between Jessica and her big bro Steven. Jess calls steve to help her zip up her dress, and then asks him how she looks. Very non-brotherly thoughts start going though his head:

"Steven inspected his sister carefully. Jessica had a knack for picking out clothes that made her look her best-although even a burlap sack couldn't conceal her perfectly-proportioned figure. The dress was no exception. The iridescent material matched her brilliant, blue-green eyes, and the neckline of the sleeveless dress was about as low as a sixteen-year-old could get away with."

Do I even need to say anything about that quote? There isn't much left to say.

Steven does ask her if their parents know Jessica is going out dressed like a two-dollar whore ,(not his exact words), and she tells him to stop treating her like a baby. Steven tries to explain:

"Now, Jessica, I just meant that it looks a little, uh-"
"Sexy?" , Jessica cut in. "Alluring, perhaps?"
"You're putting it mildly Jess. The way you look, you'll be fighting off at lease ninety-percent of the guys in Sweet Valley."
Wow...just....no. You guys are RELATED. Remember?

And oh the incest suggestions don't end there.
"She really thought her brother was the most handsome guy in Sweet Valley"
Okaaayyyy we get it.. they're totally into each other. Get a room!

Steve is going out with Tricia, and Jessica is going to some kind of welcome-to-Sweet-Valley party for the new family in town. The Morrows have a son named Nicholas that Jessica is determined to seduce, even though she's never met him. Steven actually seems surprised that Jessica is going off to lust after a stranger....you know this is Jessica, right Steve?

Steven and Jessica both think Elizabeth is busy tutoring Max Dellon, (guitarist of the Droids). Steve finally leaves, and Jessica is sitting around waiting for Liz to get back, because she has the car. Jess gets an uneasy feeling about Elizabeth, and almost calls Max to see if Liz is there, but brushes it off and decides that Liz just got caught up with tutoring. Why she didn't call, especially after getting her "twintuition" feelings about Liz, I don't know. Probably because chasing after a stranger you've never seen is more important then making sure your twin is okay.

She leaves to the party with Cara, and they talk about Cara's chances with Steven, which Jessica thinks are good now, because Tricia has leukemia. Uh-huh. Jessica explains that Tricia will drop dead soon enough anyways, so the Steven will be available for Cara! See, it all works out perfect!

Geez what a sociopath. At least pretend like you give a crap about her dying. Believe me Jess, I want Tricia The Boring gone just as much as you. But we must be patient. It'll happen soon enough.

They get to the party, which is in a beautiful mansion because the Morrows are rich. Of course. The parents, Skye and Kurt are "strikingly gorgeous". Notice how everyone in Sweet Valley seems to have hot parents? Alice and Ned are always described as young-looking and hot. Annie Whitman's mom is a former model, who even as an alcoholic, is good-looking. I could go on and on....

Jessica and Cara meet Regina Morrow, and Jessica assumes the girl is drunk or crazy because she isn't paying any attention to her. What? But hold on, Regina isn't drunk, she's deaf! The first handicapped character in Sweet Valley land. What a break through!

When Jess realizes Regina is deaf, she gushes tactlessly about how sorry she feels for Regina, who assures her she's just fine. A "horrifying thought" goes through Jessica's mind:

"'Is Nicholas deaf too?"

And yes, she asked that out loud. Luckily for her, Regina seems to ignore all of this. I would've have slapped Jessica by now.

Nicholas isn't deaf, (Thank God, because what could be worse!?) He's charming, sexy, and all the things Jessica heard/assumed he was. Jess gets right to work on Nicholas, and pushes her guilty thoughts about leaving without her sister out of her mind.

We get to Elizabeth, who is has woken up in the back of a van, and has no idea what is going on. She recalls walking to her car in the hospital parking lot, and remembers putting the keys in the ignition, which is funny since she didn't even manage to get in the car when she was kidnapped at the end of the last book. Minus one for continuity (and it only gets worse as the series goes on...)

She's in too much of a fog to remember much, and passes out again.

During all of this, Max Dellon is sitting at his house waiting for Elizabeth to come tutor him. We learn a bit about how the Droids came together, and who plays what. Dana Larson is the singer, Guy Chesney is on keyboards, Dan Scott is the bass guitarist, and Emily Mayer's on drums. I've never heard a song by the droids, (has anyone? I don't remember them even being in the SVH T.V show.), but I already know I would not enjoy their music.

Any-hoo, Max is grounded because he's failing English, so naturally Mr. Collins assigned Liz to tutor him. Max is starting to get worried, and calls the Wakefield's house. When no one answers, he gets on his motorcycle and goes to the hospital to find her, ignoring the fact that he's grounded. Random how this guy that barely knows Liz cares more about her whereabouts and safety then her own twin.

Max discovers Elizabeth's abandoned car in the parking lot with the driver's door opened and her sweater left on the seat. He starts looking through her stuff (for clues, I guess?), and a cop comes up and starts questioning him. Things get worse when another cop, who had an altercation with Max not too long ago, joins them and Max gets arrested.

He's let out for lack of anything to hold him on, but he knows that until Elizabeth is found, he's the main suspect.

Elizabeth comes to again, blind-folded, gagged and tied up. The kidnapper finally appears:

"What the man did next was something Elizabeth couldn't believe. Gently, he ran his thick, stubby fingers across her hair, and then unwound her braid, slowly, methodically until her soft blonde hair fell to her shoulders."

He undid her hair.  Ruining Elizabeth's Wakefield's perfect braid. How could he?!
She realizes it's none other then creepy-creeperton hospital orderly Carl. She helped him clean up when he dropped some stuff at the hospital, and smiled at him once or twice.

So in his demented brain, she's his perfect woman. But we knew this was bound to happen sooner or later, right? Liz is soooo great and thoughtful, it's only natural people would get crazy-obsessed with her.

Todd is wondering around the Morrow's party, anxious about Elizabeth. He brought up his fears to Jessica earlier, but she was too busy drooling all over Nicholas and brushed him off, lying and saying that Liz was babysitting for Mr. Collins. Todd has Mr. Collins' number memorized for whatever reason, and calls him up. After that confusing call, Mr. Collins wearily thinks;
 "Sometimes, being a teacher at Sweet Valley High felt like a twenty-four hours job."

We-elllll Mr. Collins. You are the one that gets all up in everyone's biz, and you're always encouraging students to confide in you! Not to mention having them babysit for your kid, attending their parties....
Todd is totally pissed at Jessica and pushes her in the pool in front of Nicholas, which is just great. She finally gets it through her thick skull that her twin is in trouble.

They run off to go search for Liz, Jessica whining the whole time about how if Liz is hurt it's her fault blah blah blah. Of course Todd reassures her of how blameless she is. I really wish someone would just say to her one of these times "Yeah, it is all your fault." Just once.

Carl still has Liz tied up, and explains to her how in love he is with her, because she's the only person who cares about him in his crazy mind. She attempts to escape, but she doesn't plan it out too well and he catches her before she can even leave the house. He later tortures Liz further by forcing her to eat frozen pancakes, and read boring investing and children's books he got for her from the hospital gift shop. The horror! I had a hard time sleeping after reading this terrifying novel.

It does get pretty creepy when Carl lets us in on his plans. He wants to take Liz somewhere far away in the mountains, where she can bathe in streams. Oh that lucky girl. He explains that the place is so far into the woods that Elizabeth would get lost and die trying to escape, and no one would ever be able to find them.

The Wakefield family and Todd call the police ,and find out about Max's arrest. Despite the fact that Max hangs around with "some real bad-news types and his metal-spiked wristbands and the scowling expression he wore around school", Jess doesn't thinks he's the culprit. She actually admits that she has no one to blame but herself. Of course she doesn't admit it out loud to anyone else, but hey it's a step in the right direction.

Todd, on the other hand, decides Max and his spiked wristbands must know something, so he attacks Max in the school halls. Jessica plays Elizabeth's role,and gets in the middle of them, convincing Todd that Max isn't guilty. They all run to the hospital, and Carl spots Jessica. Thinking she's Elizabeth, (yes folks, he stalked Liz for a whole book and never realized she had a twin.), he runs and grabs her, asking her how she escaped.

Max tackles Carl, and they find out about all of his plans for Liz. Carl is taken to jail, and Liz and Jessica have an adorable twin reunion. Liz and Todd have their own romantic mushy reunion, and everything is right in Sweet Valley. Well, at least until the next book.

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