I’ve been inspired lately to write a sequel to Double Penetration, my 2007 NaNoWriMo parody of Sweet Valley High. Hopefully, it doesn’t suck.

One

Elizabeth Wakefield woke early to a bright and sunny Monday morning. Like every other day in her hometown of Sweet Valley, California, this day promised to be full of endless fun, an irrationally complex misunderstanding or two, and the ever-present threat of kidnapping or date rape.

“Come on, Jess,” Elizabeth called to her twin sister, bursting into Jessica’s bedroom through the bathroom that connected the twins’ rooms.

“Ugh, go away,” Jessica moaned, pulling the covers up over her head.

“It’s a beautiful day,” Elizabeth countered. She sat on the edge of Jessica’s bed. “It’s also a very important day.”

“Well, whatever’s going on must be totally and completely lame if you think it’s important,” Jessica said.

Elizabeth sighed and shook her head, her golden blond hair cascading down her back. She and Jessica may have been identical down to the small dimples in their left ass cheeks, but beyond their looks, the twins were as different as night and day. Elizabeth enjoyed waking up early, schoolwork and her steady boyfriend, while Jessica liked sleeping in, cheerleading and skanking her way through the male population of Sweet Valley High.

Elizabeth was also on the staff of Sweet Valley High’s low-budget student newspaper, The Oracle. Headed for a life of poverty and shrinking job opportunities, Liz wanted to be a writer.

Jessica, on the other hand, had set her sights on becoming an actress, model or something else equally vapid and glamorous. If it put her in the spotlight – and directly in the presence of a marginally famous and handsome man – Jessica was all over it.

“Oh, well, I guess I’m going to have to plan our school’s next big event all by myself,” Elizabeth said with an exaggerated sigh.

“You always do,” Jessica mumbled. She sat up in bed and yawned. “Besides, I’m sure it will be a dance, just like the ones we have every other Friday.”

“Well, I was thinking of something a little bit bigger,” Elizabeth said. “Like a prom.”

“A prom?” Jessica asked, suddenly wide awake. “We’ll need a theme. And we’ll have to decide on the decorations. Oh, and we’ll have to have a queen…”

Elizabeth laughed. “Take it easy, Jess. We don’t even have permission from the school yet. And the students might not want a prom – we’ve already had a couple this year.”

Jessica snorted. “Not want a prom? Sweet Valley High throws the best proms. Way better than any school around here. I’m sure Big Mesa’s prom wasn’t nearly as exciting as our Jungle Prom!”

Elizabeth stared at her sister, open-mouthed. “Jess, your boyfriend died during the Jungle Prom.”

Sam Woodruff, Jessica’s first serious boyfriend, had been killed in a tragic car accident after he and Elizabeth left the Jungle Prom together. Sam and Elizabeth had gotten unusually drunk on a pitifully small amount of grain alcohol which Jessica had discreetly poured into Elizabeth’s punch glass in an attempt to ruin Elizabeth’s chances of becoming prom queen. Jessica hadn’t counted on her sister to have such a low tolerance for alcohol.

Jessica shrugged. “Sure, but I got over him pretty quickly, didn’t I?”

Elizabeth had to hand it to her sister; she did have a point. “Hurry up, Jessica. We don’t want to be late for school!”

“Can you brush my teeth for me?” Jessica asked, yawning.

“Brush your teeth for you?”

“Yeah, whenever I ask you to do something, you pretty much do it, so I just thought…”

Elizabeth sighed. “All right, Jess.”

Once Elizabeth had brushed Jessica’s teeth and hair and dressed her for the day, the twins headed downstairs for breakfast.

“Good morning, girls,” said the twins’ mother, Alice Wakefield, setting a jug of freshly squeezed orange juice on the table. With her blonde hair and youthful looks, Mrs. Wakefield was often mistaken for the twins’ underage sister. Mrs. Wakefield ran her own successful interior design business and attracted a lot of customers, particularly pedophiles.

“Good morning, Mom,” Elizabeth said dutifully, but Jessica just grunted.

“Is something wrong, Jessica?” asked Ned Wakefield, peering with concern at his youngest daughter over a copy of the Sweet Valley News.

“Nothing’s wrong, Dad,” Elizabeth replied. “We’re just in a hurry to get to school this morning.”

Mr. Wakefield nodded and continued to read the paper. “Have you girls heard about what’s been going on over in Big Mesa?”

“No, Dad,” Elizabeth said, pouring Jessica a glass of orange juice. She lifted the glass to Jessica’s mouth and Jessica took a small sip. “What’s happening in Big Mesa?”

“Well, it seems 75 girls at the high school over there are involved in some kind of teen pregnancy pact,” Mr. Wakefield said. “Some of them are even dating poor people just to try to have a baby.”

“How terrible,” said Mrs. Wakefield, carrying a plate piled high with eggs and bacon to the table. “I’m glad that in Sweet Valley, we teach our kids real values. If you’re going to be part of a teen pregnancy pact, aim high, girls. That Bruce Patman’s a wealthy boy.”

Elizabeth stuffed a forkful of eggs into Jessica’s mouth. “Maybe I’ll write up something for The Oracle on teen pregnancy pacts. It sounds like a really important issue.”

“Those stupid kids from Big Mesa,” Jessica mumbled around a mouthful of food. “I bet we could out-pregnant them any day.”

“Jessica!” Elizabeth said, shocked. “We don’t even know where babies come from. And they’re a lot of work, you know.”

“Maybe that could be the theme of our prom,” Jessica said, suddenly struck with inspiration. “The teen pregnancy prom.”

“No way, Jessica,” Elizabeth said, setting down the fork and crossing her arms over her chest. “We are not having a teen pregnancy prom.”

“Why not?” Jessica said hotly. “Do you have a better idea?”

“No,” she admitted.

“We could decorate the gym with pink and blue streamers,” Jessica said, her blue-green eyes shining with excitement. She opened up her mouth so Elizabeth could hand-feed her a piece of bacon and then continued to talk with her mouth full. “And we could get somebody to sponsor it, maybe that Planned Parenthood place in that sketchy area downtown, you know, where the Martins live?”

“I’ll ask Annie Whitman to talk to them,” Elizabeth said, thoughtfully. “I see her going in there a couple times a week.”

“You girls are planning another prom?” asked Mrs. Wakefield. She placed several pancakes on Jessica’s plate, and Elizabeth started cutting them into tiny pieces.

“Let’s hope you don’t kill anyone this time, Elizabeth,” joked Mr. Wakefield.

“But Dad, that wasn’t really my fault,” Elizabeth protested. “It was – ouch!” Jessica had bitten down on Elizabeth’s hand, drawing blood. “I mean, it was all my fault.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, dear,” Mrs. Wakefield said, handing the maple syrup to Elizabeth. “It was really the fault of that surprise witness your father called to the stand. And now he’s rotting in jail, as he should be.”

Elizabeth glanced down at her watch. “Come on, Jess, we really should get going.”

“All right,” Jessica grumbled. “See you later, Mom, Dad.”

“Have a good day at school, girls,” Mrs. Wakefield said, smiling at her daughters.

Elizabeth picked up both of their backpacks and carried them out to the Jeep the twins shared. She held the passenger-side door open and helped her sister into the car, fastening the seat belt around Jessica.

“I’m so glad we have our assembly first thing this morning,” Elizabeth said, carefully adjusting the rearview mirror before backing down the driveway. “We can announce our prom idea to the entire school right away.”

“I’m sure Chrome Dome Cooper will go along with the idea,” said Jessica. She used her fingers to fluff up her hair. “He lets us do whatever we want.”

“Let’s not exaggerate, Jess,” Elizabeth said. “He is the school’s principal. And he did give me some attitude when I wanted to write that article on teachers sexually harassing students.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t even get in trouble for that,” Jessica said. “Chrome Dome was all impressed because you knew so much about your conversational rights or something.”

“Constitutional rights, Jessica.”

“Yeah, whatever. I’m a cheerleader, Liz. I don’t have time for constitutional rights,” Jessica said. “Speaking of cheerleaders, I have to catch Robin Wilson before school to talk to her about our new routine. She’s really starting to pile the weight back on, and the last thing we need is a BBW at the top of our pyramid.”

“Jessica, that’s not nice,” Elizabeth admonished. “It took a week of crash dieting and compulsive exercising for her to lose all that weight. So what if she gains back a pound or two? She’s still come a long way.”

Jessica stared at her twin. “I cannot believe we are even related to each other,” she said. “Look, there’s Robin. Hurry up and park the car.”

Just then, a black Porsche with vanity plates reading 1BRUCE1 whipped around the Jeep and took the parking spot Elizabeth was about to pull into. The car’s driver, a tall, handsome senior at Sweet Valley High, stepped out of the Porsche and casually flung an expensive-looking leather jacket over his shoulder.

“Bruce Patman is such a jerk,” Elizabeth said, looking around for another parking spot.

“He is pretty hot, though,” Jessica said. “And rich.”

Bruce was the wealthiest boy at school. His father owned the Patman Canning Factory, where upper management fathered assembly-line employees’ children out of wedlock. Bruce had recently found out that a fellow classmate at Sweet Valley High, orphan Roger Barrett, was the product of one such union and was in fact, his own cousin. Roger had since tacked Patman onto the end of his name and moved into the basement of the Patman mansion, where Bruce wouldn’t have to see him.