Jessica gasped. "Holy sh-"
"It's unbelievable!" Elizabeth interrupted, provoking a glare from her sister. How dare Elizabeth interrupt? That had always been her job, and who cared if she had changed her image? She was still the same old Jessica... apart from the nonsensical British accent, and the pink hair, and the Brody Dalle style trousers, and the putting her new image ahead of the return of Sam. Jessica suddenly realised that, lost in her thoughts, she had been staring at her sister for a good few minutes. Whilst her family focused on her, she did a little dance. Anything for attention.
"Um, Mom... I don't believe I heard you correctly...?" Steven inquired, wishing that he hadn't given up a weekend being intellectual with his girlfriend, Billie, due to his worrying obsession with his wacko family.
"Oh I think you did, Steve. I'm your sister."
Elizabeth couldn't control her breathing. Her aqua marine eyes became an intense shade of blue – perhaps it was down to an eye-rolling extravaganza? – and she began to hyperventilate.
"Liz, chill," ordered Mr. Wakefield, throwing her briefcase to her. Elizabeth clutched it, desperately. Looking in through the window, as he often did nowadays, Todd thought bitterly, 'I wish she'd hold me like that.'
After a few moments, Elizabeth was calm again. It was amazing what that smell of faux-leather could do to her. "Okay, Mom – Alice... could you perhaps explain?"
"Like we need an explanation," Jessica objected, toying with the bracelet she had just expertly removed from her twin's wrist. "To me it sounds like some twisted version of a word what rhymes with grincest."
"What's grincest?" Steve wondered aloud.
Elizabeth, ever the know-it-all eyed her brother, patronisingly. "Grincest. You know... it means, like... when people..." Realising for once that she didn't have all the answers, she turned to her sister helplessly.
"It's okay, Liz," Jessica whispered. "It's a made up word."
"Oh," Elizabeth whispered back, then busied herself in cleaning her briefcase.
"Anyway... no, Jessica, it isn't what you think. Here's the thing..." Alice began, biting her lip as is also common in Wakefield family facial expressions. Jessica does it the most, closely followed by Elizabeth.
"You know how we always call you guys 'the clones' or 'carbon copies?'" Mr. Wakefield took over from Alice, seeing her distress. His children nodded, watching him anxiously. "Well... it's kind of ironic really... because your real mother and I, well, we went and made a clone of you two in case anything ever happened to one of you. The idea was that we lock her in the attic and if one of you died, then the third twin could take over."
"That's a good idea, Dad," Steven said, admiringly. He made a mental note to himself: when he had kids, he would do just as his father did and clone one of them, then forcing them to take over the role as Mommy. That, to him, was the true Wakefield way.
"There's just one thing I don't understand," Elizabeth spoke up, having recovered from the embarrassment of being, once again, less intelligent than her supposedly-dumb sister.
"Yes, Liz?" Alice replied, in her best mothering tone. Heck, she wasn't their real mother, but she had pretended to be for the last eleven years and it was kind of hard to break the habit.
"How, if you are a carbon copy of Jess and I, did you become older, and well, Mom?"
"That's an interesting question, Liz," Mr. Wakefield congratulated his daughter, ever the supportive, loving father, even in these difficult and somewhat confusing times.
"You see, Liz, one night I was in my cage up in the attic and a freak bolt of lightning came clean through the roof and zapped me in the head. Suddenly, I aged thirty years," explained Alice.
Jessica yawned and ran a hand through her long, blonde silky mane. Yes, it had been a crude shade of magenta but minutes before, but inconsistency was a way of life in Sweet Valley. "Listen, Alice, this story is about as believable as the Liz-Bruce plot a few books back. And even if it is true, who was our real mom? And where the smell is she now?"
"No time for that now, Jess," reminded Elizabeth. "We have to cram in the lead-up to the next book."
"Dang, I forgot about that," Jessica said, clapping a hand to her forehead and stuffing an appliquéd cushion up her sweater in one fell swoop. "What's the next adventure?"
Elizabeth reached into her treasured briefcase to pull out a photo. She stared at it, shocked, for a second and then turned to Jessica. "How could you do it, Jess?" she asked brokenly, flinging the photograph at her sister and storming out of the den.
Jessica stared at the picture lying in her lap, crumpled. It showed herself and Todd Wilkins in a very Paris-Hilton-and-Nick-Carter-alike pose, full frontal if ever she saw it. But – shock horror – this wasn't her! She would never get with Todd, not since the return of her darling boy Sam! How could her sister even think she'd stoop so low as to cheat on Sam? So what if she cheated on everyone, ever? And more to the point, who was the girl in the picture? A girl who looked just the same as she and Elizabeth, but different... with steely blue eyes and deep ebony roots to contrast with the golden blonde hair...
Surely... it couldn't be... Margo... or worse... Nora? Or even Norgo, the you-really-should-have-seen-it-coming third sister?!