"No, he hasn't! And he's not likely to," Elizabeth said angrily.

"Why not, for heaven's sake? If a guy I liked came to see me in my sickbed, I'd sure make the most of it." Jessica sighed dramatically, placed the back of her right hand on her forehead, and intoned, "Dahling, so good of you to come when I am at death's door!"

Mimicking Jessica, Elizabeth put her own hand to her head. She giggled. "That's a great line, Jess. I'll have to use it sometime."

"Oh, Liz, it is so terrific having you home again," Jessica said, giggling herself. "I never have as much fun with anyone else. Besides, in a week you'll be well enough to do your share of the dishes and the vacuuming and all the other boring chores I've been stuck with for the past lifetime and a half." She said the words with a grin, but Jessica was only half kidding. Even though doing dishes usually involved nothing more strenuous than loading and unloading the dishwasher, she was always looking for excuses to avoid her turn at it.

Elizabeth raised her right hand and in her most serious voice said, "I solemnly swear to take over my share of the chores as soon as I have made a total recovery-which should be in about three months!"

"What!"

Elizabeth smiled mischievously.

Jessica was about to give Elizabeth a snappy answer when she heard the chimes of the front doorbell. She scrambled off the bed and started for the door. "I'll bet that is the star of the Sweet Valley High basketball team. He said he was going to come over this afternoon."

"Todd is coming over here?"

"Yeah. Fix your face. I'll bring him right up."

"No!"

Jessica looked at her sister in amazement. "You don't want to see Todd?"

"No. Tell him I'm too tired to see anyone. Tell him I'll see him when I'm allowed to go back to school."

"Well, if you're sure...."

Elizabeth's eyes were already closed. She did look tired, Jessica thought.

Jessica hurried down the stairs as the chimes sounded again. "I'm coming, I'm coming," she called.

She swung the door open and found Todd standing in the doorway.

"Hi, Jess. Can I see-"

"Shush," she whispered. "Into the kitchen."

Todd followed her through the large, airy living room and dining room to the kitchen at the back of the house.

"Why are you shushing me, Jess? Is something wrong?"

"No, of course not. It's just that Liz is sleeping. She can't have any visitors."

"She's all right, isn't she?" Jessica saw the look of worry on Todd's face.

"She's fine. But can't you understand that she's tired? She's been through so much in the past few weeks."

"Yes, but she seemed so different when I saw her in the hospital, as if something were wrong. I know she's tired and the doctors say she's all right-physically. But the accident was a nightmare. It must have been terrible for her."

"You're absolutely right, Todd. It was just awful. And that's why she needs as much rest as she can get, as few people bothering her as possible."

"Then she does remember the accident?"

"Oh, sure," Jessica said, not quite certain if that were true.

Todd's expression was haggard. "Does it haunt her, Jessica? Does she blame me? Jessica, does she ever ask for me?"

"Oh, Todd, she's too busy getting well to ask for anyone yet."

Todd's face fell. Then he looked straight at Jessica. "Tell me, do you think anything is different about Liz?"

"Todd Wilkins, don't talk like a jerk! Of course nothing's different. She's my twin sister, and I'd notice if there were. She's absolutely fine."

"I hope you're right, Jess." Todd got up and paced back and forth across the kitchen floor, uncertain what to do next. Finally he walked to the back door. "Tell Liz I'll stop by tomorrow afternoon, will you? Maybe she'll feel better then."

"Don't do that, Todd."

"Huh?"

Elizabeth always knew how to break bad news to people without making them feel rotten, Jessica thought. That was because she could understand how they were feeling. But I'm not that way, Jessica said to herself. How does she do it?

Crossing her fingers under the table, Jessica said, "My folks have decided that Liz shouldn't have any visitors until she's ready to go back to school."

"But that's over a week," Todd protested.

"Orders are orders," Jessica insisted. "Once Liz gets back to school, everything will return to normal. You know how much she likes school. She'll probably have all the work made up and a dozen stories written for The Oracle before I finish that one stupid book report on Moby Dick. I mean, Todd, who really cares about whales?" Jessica asked in annoyance.

Todd did, but he let the comment slide by. For the first time that afternoon, he smiled. "You're right, Jess, I am being a jerk. When Liz gets back to school, everything will be terrific again. I mean, Liz is really something. She's smart, she's hardworking, she's a good writer, she's nice to everybody-and she's beautiful!"

Todd suddenly stopped talking and looked at Jessica, who was grinning up at him. He had forgotten for a few moments that he had an audience. Embarrassed, he mumbled, "You're her twin, so I guess that makes you beautiful, too."

"Thanks a heap, Todd," she said, still grinning. "Why don't you get out of here now and go bounce a basketball or something? I have to get dinner started."

Jessica watched Todd's tall, lean form disappear around the corner of the house and thought how curious life could be sometimes. Who would have thought the two of them would ever be able to talk together like friends? They had been barely civil to each other ever since she'd tried to steal Todd away from her sister. Now they had a common cause-helping Elizabeth.

The sharp ring of the telephone interrupted Jessica's thoughts. She picked up the kitchen extension.

"Hello? Oh, hi, Mom." Jessica wound a strand of hair around her finger as she listened to her mother.

"Yes, Mom. Liz is fine.... Yes, I'm fine, too.... Of course I've already started dinner. Didn't I promise I would? 'Bye."

For the next twenty minutes, Jessica rushed from refrigerator to counter to pantry to oven in a frantic effort to get dinner ready on time. "How did Liz do it?" she muttered, remembering that her sister had almost always been the one to start dinner. But that was before the accident.

"Hey, you almost ready?" Jessica asked, coming into Elizabeth's room. "This is the big day. You-"

Jessica completely forgot what she was going to say when she got a look at her sister standing in front of the full-length mirror.

"Freedom day, Jess, that's what it is. How do I look?" she asked, turning around.

"Terrific, Liz, really terrific," she said, eyeing her sister's green minidress with envy. "Where'd the new outfit come from?"

"Mom let me pick out a 'return to the world' dress. And get that look out of your eye, Jessica. This is definitely not borrowable."

"Why in the world would you think-?"

"Because I know you, sister dear," Elizabeth answered, grinning. "Hands off."

Jessica looked at her own reflection in the mirror. The jeans and shirt had looked great five minutes ago. Now they looked dull and uninteresting.

Throughout breakfast, Elizabeth was subdued. She smiled and said "yes" every time her mother and father asked her if she felt well enough to return to school. During the ride to the Sweet Valley High campus, she nodded and smiled occasionally as Jessica kept up a steady stream of chatter. Jessica was in great spirits, as she always was when she was allowed to drive the little red Fiat Spider to school.

"You're not nervous, are you, Liz?" she asked. "I mean, it's not like you've been gone for years. It's only been a few weeks. You won't have any trouble catching up," she assured her sister.

"Jess, you're beginning to bug me." Elizabeth snapped. "I am fine. I am not nervous. I am not worried about catching up-or anything else!"

"Of course you're not," Jessica said quickly, realizing she was the one who was nervous. She wanted everything to go perfectly for her sister that day. It just had to.

Jessica pulled the car into a spot in the student parking lot with her usual flourish. She halfway expected Elizabeth to tell her to stop showing off, but Elizabeth got out of the car without giving the expected lecture on safe driving.

At that moment Enid Rollins dashed over to welcome her best friend back to school. Her large green eyes glowed happily, lighting up her whole face.

"Liz!" she cried, throwing her arms around Jessica. "I've been dying to talk to you, but Todd said you couldn't have visitors or telephone calls. It's so great to see you! You look terrific!"

"Enid, you are about to choke me, for heaven's sake," Jessica said, pulling away. "You are really dumb, you know that? I'm Jessica, can't you tell?"

Enid dropped her arms quickly. "But I thought you were-" she hesitated. "Where's Liz?"

"There she goes," Jessica said, pointing to the figure in green hurrying across the wide front lawn. Elizabeth waved to friends as she made her way quickly under the columns and through the front entrance of the school building.

She decided she had enough time to check in at The Oracle before her first class. As she walked into the cluttered newspaper office, Roger Collins, the good-looking young teacher who served as the paper's adviser, was relaxing over a cup of coffee. He looked up with a smile that quickly became a frown.

"Jessica, I certainly hope you're not here to tell me Elizabeth still isn't well enough to come to school."

"Mr. Collins, we just may have to get your eyes checked out," Elizabeth teased. "Don't you recognize your ace reporter, the distinguished author of 'Eyes and Ears'?"

Mr. Collins's jaw dropped slightly. "Elizabeth?"

"Elizabeth," she confirmed, dropping gracefully into a chair.

"Well, maybe a little knock on the head would be good for all of us," he said. "You look wonderful, and I'm glad to have you back. We all missed you."

"You look pretty good, too," Elizabeth said. Every girl at Sweet Valley High would have agreed with her. Roger Collins wasn't the most popular teacher at school only because he was interesting in class. In fact, most of the girls would have loved a little after-class attention from this teacher.

"Believe it or not, Mr. Collins," Elizabeth continued, "I missed this dusty old room and all the last-minute deadline hysteria."

"Well, it's still here, exactly the way you left it." Then he turned serious. "Being in the hospital must have been a horrible ordeal," he said.

"Not all of it was bad." She gave him a dazzling smile. "Fowler Hospital has some fantastic-looking doctors and interns. And some of the nurses aren't at all bad, in case you're interested."

For the second time that morning, Mr. Collins's jaw dropped in surprise.

"Just a suggestion, Mr. Collins," Elizabeth said and grinned. "I'd better go now. I don't want to be late for my first class. See you later!" And she was gone.

"See you. Welcome back, Elizabeth?" he questioned faintly.

Mr. Collins wasn't the only confused one at Sweet Valley High that day. Other teachers and many of the kids kept mistaking Elizabeth for Jessica. None of this bothered Elizabeth at all, but Jessica was beginning to have an identity crisis.

The rest of the week wasn't much different from that first day. Elizabeth didn't wear the green minidress again, but she showed up in one new outfit after another.

"Mom must have bought you an entire new wardrobe," Jessica said with a trace of envy.

"Just a few things I needed, Jess. And you're a fine one to talk. You've always wrangled more clothes out of her than I did."

"But you never wanted them," she pointed out.

"I do now."

Why don't I like the sound of that? Jessica asked herself. The only thing that kept Jessica going that week was the thought of the pool party she and Elizabeth were throwing on Saturday night.

She spent Saturday afternoon at the beach, playing volleyball with the kids, working on her tan, and feeling sorry for everyone who didn't live in Southern California. She was also feeling sorry for Todd Wilkins, who wasn't having any fun at the beach.

"I thought Liz would be coming with you today, Jess."

"She's home resting up for tonight's party. She's still kind of weak, you know."

"Oh."

"Why the long face, Todd?"

Todd squinted up at the bright sun for a moment, then shrugged his broad shoulders. "I just never seem to get a chance to be alone with Liz. Every time I've seen her this past week, she's been too busy to talk."

"Well, she is busy, for heaven's sake. Liz has a lot of catching up to do."

"I guess you're right, but I wish-"

Jessica shook her head in exasperation. "Of course I'm right. You'll have plenty of time to be alone with her tonight."

The thought of being alone with Elizabeth brought a smile to Todd's face. "Yeah, tonight will be great."

Jessica hummed happily as she came into the kitchen late that afternoon. Alice and Ned Wakefield would be out the rest of the day and evening but had given their daughters special permission to have a party without their supervision. "We know we can trust you," they'd said.

Jessica was wondering whether she should go up and wake Elizabeth when the phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Jess, it's me."