“Don’t give up,” he encouraged her.
Jessica turned back to the still figure on the bed. “Annie, listen, I came to see you because I’ve got news. Important news. You see, a huge mistake was made. When the notes were given out, things got mixed up!”
“I’m to blame for that, Annie,” Ricky put in, catching on to Jessica’s plan. “Don’t quit on us just because a dumb, stupid manager messed up.”
Elizabeth listened quietly, sensing Ricky’s deep love for Annie. Up until then, no one had realized just how deeply he cared, maybe not even Ricky himself.
“You hear that?” Jessica was saying. “Ricky needs you to come back, too. But don’t believe him when he says that it was his fault. It wasn’t. It was the fault of somebody who was too stuck-up to see that someone can change by wanting to be better.”
The voices continued as Dr. Hammond slipped out of the room to make arrangements for Ricky and the Wakefield twins to remain past the official visiting hours. Annie’s last hope lay in her visitors, and the doctor knew that their presence and their words might make the difference between life and death.
* * *
Elizabeth stirred as slanting shafts of dawn fluttered across her closed eyelids. She felt a dull ache in her body and realized she was curled up in a chair in a hospital room. As she awakened, she heard a soft voice. Jessica’s voice.
“… because, you see Annie, if you don’t make it, it will be my fault—and I couldn’t live with that. So you’ve got to come back, or else it will be two of us going. Can you hear what I’m saying?”
Elizabeth slowly focused her eyes. Ricky Capaldo was leaning forward in his chair, silently watching Annie, his face close to hers. Next to him, Jessica knelt on the floor, pressed up against the bed, Annie’s hand in her two, prayerful hands.
“Maybe I haven’t made it clear,” Jessica went on, “but we’ve decided to enlarge the cheerleader squad to eight. You’re the eighth cheerleader, Annie, and we’re all counting on you. Now, this is no fooling, Annie; it’s the absolute truth!”
Elizabeth listened for more, but Jessica had fallen silent, her head slumped against the edge of the mattress. Elizabeth stood up and tiptoed over to the other side of the bed, where Jessica had kept her nightlong vigil.
“Jess?”
Jessica’s head popped up, and she looked with hopeful anticipation at Annie Whitman’s face.
“It’s me, Jess,” Elizabeth whispered, coming closer.
“Oh. I thought it was Annie,” Jessica said helplessly. “It’s no use, Liz. I can’t bring her back. She hates the sound of my voice.”
Ricky and Elizabeth watched as Jessica let Annie’s hand slip away. Silent tears rolled down Jessica’s cheeks. Elizabeth had never seen her twin sister so totally defeated.
Thirteen
Somewhere deep in her pool of fright and loneliness, Annie Whitman had found an anchor. Something held her, kept her from drifting beyond the horizon of infinity. Desperately she had clung to that anchor and struggled to listen to a faint voice that reached her as though through the depths of the ocean. Through the long night, Jessica’s hand had kept her from slipping into the total blackness. Jessica’s voice had comforted her.
Now, suddenly, the hand was gone. The voice faded. She had to look for it.
Ricky saw it first. “Jessica!” he cried.
“What?”
“Look at her hand. I think she moved!”
It moved again, ever so slightly.
“Where are you?” a faint voice pleaded. “Please … Jess.…”
Jessica felt an explosion of triumph deep inside, and a warm gush of hope came flooding back through her. Gently she took Annie’s hand, and this time she felt a feeble pressure.
“She’s squeezing my hand,” Jessica said in wonder.
“Is it—true?” the quiet voice said haltingly.
“What, Annie?”
“Eight cheerleaders?…”
“Oh, yes,” Jessica said. “Yes, indeed! Eight cheerleaders! Eight, including you, Annie. And we’ve got a practice coming up on Thursday! That’s only two days from now.”
Elizabeth slipped out of the room and hurried to the nurse’s station.
“Could you call Dr. Hammond?” she asked excitedly. “Annie Whitman is awake!”
Elizabeth raced back to Annie’s room to find the pale-faced patient sipping water through a bent straw as Ricky held the water glass for her. Jessica seemed to have shaken off her exhaustion as though by magic.
“And then there’s the Pendleton game! The Pendleton Tigers always have a really terrific cheerleading squad, but we’re going to leave them in the dust. You just watch!”
“You think so?” Annie replied weakly, smiling up at her squad co-captain.
“I know so,” Jessica declared. “Haven’t we now got two cheerleaders who can do flips? We’re going to work out a whole new routine around you and Maria.”
Annie glanced around at Elizabeth. Then she looked back at Jessica and Ricky.
“How long have all of you been here?” she said softly. “How long have I been here?”
“Never mind that,” Ricky said. “The important thing is that you’re not going to be here much longer.”
Annie reached a shaky hand toward Ricky. He moved closer and took it. Annie reached her other hand to touch Jessica’s. “Thank you, both of you,” she said in a feeble voice. “You really saved my life.”
Jessica smiled broadly. Oddly enough, despite the long, exhausting hours she had spent beside Annie’s bed, she felt wonderful and invigorated.
Moments later, in walked Dr. Hammond, looking very friendly and energetic. He immediately drew the curtains back so that light flooded into the room.
“Well, well,” he said, moving over to Annie’s bed and taking her wrist to feel her pulse. “What’s happened here?”
“Are you the doctor?” Annie asked, looking up at him.
“No, no, not at all,” Dr. Hammond said. “I’m only the assistant here. These three are the doctors.”
“What happened?” Annie asked.
Dr. Hammond studied her face. “You don’t recall?”
“Not very much.”
The doctor smiled. “Well, it will come back to you. Just remember, you have good friends who care about you.”
“Don’t worry,” Annie said faintly. “I’ll never forget that.”
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Weak. Hungry.”
“Hungry, you say? Well, then, let’s get you some breakfast.” Dr. Hammond was actually grinning by now.
But Annie had stopped listening to him. Instead, she was looking toward the door, blinking, trying to focus on someone who had just entered and was standing in the shadow of the doorway.
“Mom?” Annie said hesitantly.
Mrs. Whitman walked quickly to the bed and bent over to hug her daughter. “Yes, darling, it’s me,” she said. “Thank God you’ve come back to us.”
Mona Whitman sat on the edge of the bed, smiling, tears of relief trickling down her cheeks.
Annie glanced toward the empty doorway. She looked back at her mother, studying her smartly tailored blue suit, the smooth hands that held her own, the beautiful face. Mother and daughter held each other’s gaze for several minutes. It was almost as if they were seeing each other for the first time. Finally Annie broke the silence.
“Where’s … you know?” she asked, looking once again toward the doorway.
“Johnny won’t be around anymore, honey,” said Mrs. Whitman, her eyes clear and level now as she touched her daughter’s face.
“He’s gone?” Annie said, her face brightening.
“Never mind that,” Mona replied. “It’s going to be you and me from now on.”
“What happened, Mom?”
“Annie, you might say the roof fell in on me. When you did this—when this happened—and I didn’t have any idea why! Well, that’s when I realized how far we had drifted apart. I’m sorry, Annie. I
hope you can forgive a selfish, blind mother.”
Annie rose in her bed for the first time, sitting up to clutch her mother around the neck. She held on for dear life until she felt her mother’s strong arms around her, holding her.
“Oh, Mom,” cried Annie. “Mom, I love you!”
“I know, honey,” Mrs. Whitman said, slowly easing her daughter back down onto the bed. “I love you, too.”
“How could I have done such a thing, Mom?” said Annie suddenly.
“You wouldn’t have, if I’d been there for you to talk to,” Mona Whitman said.
Dr. Hammond made a move toward Annie and her visitors then, indicating it was time for Annie to rest. “I think we’ve had enough excitement for one morning,” he said. “Our patient needs some breakfast, and then I believe she’ll want to sleep.”
“Please, Doctor,” Annie begged, interrupting him. “Just a few moments more. Jessica … Ricky!”
Jessica and Ricky came over by her bed.
“Listen, I want to thank you again for pulling me through. It’s coming back to me, what happened. I want you to know that I think I can make it now, without the cheerleading. Elizabeth told me not to put too much importance in it. You were right, Liz,” she said. “I’ve got something more important now.” Annie smiled, gazing at her mother.
“Oh, but we want you on the squad,” Jessica insisted.
“Hey, you bet,” Ricky said.
“You don’t have to now,” Annie said.
“Listen,” Jessica said, drawing herself up. “If you’re not on the squad, I’m quitting!”
“Quitting? Jessica—you? The co-captain? Oh, no, you can’t do that,” Annie said.
“Well, then,” said Jessica. “That’s that!”
“Yes, and that’s all for today, too,” said Dr. Hammond, shooing them all out. “You can come again this afternoon.’
“‘Bye, Liz,” Annie said, “‘Bye Jess, Ricky … ‘bye, Mom!”
Walking down the hall toward the elevator, Jessica turned to Elizabeth and said with a big smile, “Hey, you know what? I’m hungry, too! Let’s stop off for brunch on the way home.”
“You’re on,” Elizabeth said. “You earned a pancakes and eggs breakfast with all the trimmings, and I’m buying! Gee, Jess, you were wonderful!”
“Really?” said Jessica.
“Really.”
“OK. You drive to the diner, and on the way you can tell me how I was! And don’t leave anything out.”
Elizabeth laughed. “Jessica, you are too much!”
* * *
That afternoon the twins and Ricky returned to visit their patient and found a smiling, pretty Annie sitting up and looking almost like her old self.
“Mom brought me this kimono.” She giggled. “Isn’t it terrific?”
“It really is,” Elizabeth agreed.
“Well, since she’s got that neat kimono,” Ricky said, “she might not want this.”
In his hands Ricky held a large cardboard box with an immense red ribbon around it.
“What is it?” Annie asked eagerly, her eyes wide.
“You probably don’t even want it now,” Jessica teased.
“You guys better show me what that is before I scream,” Annie threatened laughingly.
Ricky put the box on the bed, and Annie’s hands attacked the ribbon feverishly. Off came the ribbon, and she snatched the cover off the box.
“Ohhhhhh!”
There it was, all red and white. A Sweet Valley High cheerleader sweater.
Annie looked at it for a moment, frozen as though afraid to touch it. Then she snatched it up fiercely and clutched it to herself. She held it out at arm’s length and examined it everywhere.
“Ricky, get out of the room,” Annie squealed.
“What?”
“Out!” she ordered.
Out went Ricky, and the giggling girls made short work of removing Annie’s kimono and getting her into her cheerleader sweater. She grabbed her hand mirror and examined herself with satisfaction.
“Can I come back in?” Ricky yelled, rushing back through the door.
“How does it look?” Annie asked proudly.
“Perfect,” he said. “Just perfect!” He walked to the window, looked out for a moment, and then came back to Annie.
“OK, Whitman,” Ricky barked officially. “Now, as squad manager, I’m giving you your first order. Get out of that bed and get over here to the window.”
“What?” said a puzzled Annie.
“You heard me!” Ricky snapped. “Jessica, Liz … help her.”
Mystified, Elizabeth and Jessica helped the still unsteady Annie out of her hospital bed and supported her as they moved to the window.
Ricky waved his arms above his head.
Looking out of the window, Annie saw them spread across the hospital’s great front lawn in formation. Robin Wilson, Helen Bradley, Jeanie West, Maria Santelli, Cara Walker, and Sandra Bacon—the entire Sweet Valley High cheerleading squad.
At Robin’s signal, they all let go with their loudest yell ever:
“Get well, Annie!”
“Oh, my goodness,” Annie said. “I’m going to cry.”
* * *
When visiting hours ended that night and Annie Whitman was well on her way to recovery, Jessica and Elizabeth hurried to the hospital parking lot and climbed into the little red Fiat.
“Come on,” Jessica ordered her sister. “Let’s get this heap moving! This is D-Day!”
“I know it is,” Elizabeth replied. “Just don’t be in too much of a hurry. We don’t want Decision Day to turn into Disaster Day.”
Elizabeth started the little convertible and headed out of the hospital onto Walton Boulevard, whipping around for home.
“Well?” said Jessica. “Who’s going to New York, and who’s going to stay here and show Suzanne Devlin around?”
“You tell me,” Elizabeth said.
“I wish I knew. Let’s get home so we can both find out.”
Elizabeth, with uncharacteristic impatience, pushed her foot down hard on the accelerator, and the red Fiat Spider zoomed toward the Wakefields’ house.
Two weeks in New York City for one twin and two weeks showing off the fabulous, glamorous Suzanne Devlin of New York, Paris, and London! Both girls were filled with anticipation as they pulled into the driveway, jumped out of the car, and raced toward the house.
Both twins get more than they bargained for in Sweet Valley High #11, TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE.
Also by Francine Pascal
SERIES
Sweet Valley High
Sweet Valley Twins
Sweet Valley Kids
Fearless
NOVELS
Save Johanna
If Wishes Were Horses (La Villa)
My First Love and Other Disasters
Hanging Out with Cici
NON-FICTION
The Strange Case of Patty Hearst
WRONG KIND OF GIRL. Copyright 1984 by Francine Pascal. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Sweet Valley ® is a registered trademark of Francine Pascal
ISBN 1-250-03056-0
EAN 978-1-250-03056-6
First published in the United States by Bantam Books.
First U.S. Edition: July 1984
eISBN 9781250030566
First eBook edition: November 2012
Wrong Kind of Girl Page 10