Sweet Valley Kids #72: The Macaroni Mess

At some point in time and in one of the books I never read, the twins got a new teacher named Mr. Crane. He takes the whole class to a massive art exhibit and then announces that he wants them to put on their own show. Mr. Crane also loves animals and brings in a different animal each week. This week is a parrot named Petey.

The kids all have complete freedom to make anything they want. Winston goes totally creative and makes a bunch of abstract paintings. Jessica decides to make her own glittery crown that she can play with and wear later. Todd keeps sketching, and Charlie steals his pad to see what he's doing. It turns out that Todd is secretly an amazing caricature artist and did cartoons of everyone. He does Lois as a bunch of grapes because she wears purple all the time and draws Elizabeth with big feet playing soccer. All the kids start making fun of her, and Charlie gets them to call her Bigfoot.

Elizabeth eventually comes up with the best idea ever. She decides to paint a picture of a pony and then cover it in dried macaroni. All the other kids things this is the most creative and unique thing that anyone ever did in the history of the world. Caroline is less than pleased because she wanted to make a potato head doll. It doesn't go right and she can't get any help because people keep fawning over Elizabeth.

Lila shows up with a brand new art set that her mom sent from France. It literally has every type of art supply you can imagine in it. The kids all love it, and the teacher even says it looks like a professional artist's kit. Though she likes being the center of attention, she refuses to share with anyone but Jessica. When she can't get her project done in time because it turns out that she doesn't actually know how to use most of the supplies, Jessica helps her make a fairy wand out of a cardboard tube and some glitter.

Liz comes back to the classroom one day and sees her picture ruined. Someone ripped pieces of the macaroni off and threw them around the room. She blames Caroline and claims that the other girl was jealous. This causes a split right down the middle of the classroom with half of each side blaming the other. Elizabeth sneaks in and hides one day, which lets her catch Caroline touching her painting. Caroline denies ruining it and says she just wanted to see it.

Since Liz refuses to believe her, they have a big fight and start throwing paint at each other. Winston tries to break it up and gets covered in paint. He looks so ridiculous that they all start laughing. Liz then offers to help Caroline finish her doll in time for the show. They then see Petey come off his perch and start snacking on the macaroni, so they discover what actually happened.

Todd comes to Elizabeth to apologize about his caricature. He tells her that he drew her with big feet because she's so fast and so much better than him at soccer. They make up and he offers to not show her caricature. She takes the time to show Lois the nice things about the drawing he did, which leads to the kids all liking Todd again. In the end, all the parents come to the show and ooh and awe over their work.

*Lila doesn't find any of the art they see very impressive except for a single Picasso painting and only then it's because it looks like one her dad owns. Of course they have an original Picasso at home.

*Sweet Valley Kids books mention Lila's mom way more than any of the other ones do, which I think is because some of these books came out after she came back to SV and married George again.

*Elizabeth literally does macaroni art, and everyone acts like they've never heard of such a thing before. Even Alice and the teacher talk about how she's super creative. Um, have they literally never seen a preschool or kindergarten class before?

*Jerry finds bird feathers in the park and makes them into brushes he uses for painting, which is way more creative. Even more creative is Charlie. He coats marbles in different paint colors, puts a frame around a piece of paper, drops the marbles on top, and shakes the frame to get the paint onto the paper, which totally sounds like something I want to try.