The penultimate book in TGMOAT finds Margo coming completely unhinged, and has a rather irritating subplot of Wacky Baby-sitting Hijinks with a side order of All Adults are Morons, apparently. I think this is the weakest book in the miniseries; maybe this is colored by my adoration of the previous book.

Let's cover the wacky subplot first. One of Winston's neighbors has to go to some unnamed central American country that just had a military coup in order to rescue her husband. She has an eight-month-old baby that she doesn't want to take with her (for obvious reasons), so she stops by to leave the baby with Winston and his parents, promising that she'll be back overnight. There are just two problems with this: Winston's parents are on a weeklong vacation to see relatives, and the baby's mother doesn't come back the next day. Hence, Winston finds himself caring for baby Daisy solo, and for some reason he decides he can't tell any adult person, ever, about this situation. He doesn't want to tell anyone, actually, but he is so comically horrible at caring for Daisy by himself that he relents and tells his girlfriend, who proceeds to invite pretty much every girl in their junior class to Winston's house to assist him. They all instantly fall in love with Daisy, and of course, being girls, know exactly what to do to care for her. (Of course.) Winston and Amy Sutton even make a side bet: if Winston can learn how to properly change a diaper by the end of the week, he gets to dictate the costume Amy wears to Olivia Davidson's upcoming costume party. If he doesn't, Amy will chose his costume.

Winston misses three days of school and returns on a Thursday, carrying baby Daisy in a duffel bag(!). His female friends have agreed to help him watch her while they're at school, each of them taking her for one of the periods. He hides the fact that he brought a baby to school from Chrome Dome Cooper, and they even fool Mr Collins. This whole sequence was just cringingly awful. No adult is going to be that stupid, not even the Sweet Valley adults. But of course they have no idea of this coordinated effort by a group of sixteen year olds, and of course no idea why said kids are taking turns taking care of an eight-month-old baby. I basically had to grit my teeth while reading these scenes; not even the scene where Daisy accidentally unties Bruce's shoelaces while he's rocking out to The Who, and then he unceremoniously falls over his feet when he stands up, was enough to wipe away the absolute cringe of it all.

The main plot follows Margo as she creeps ever close to Elizabeth, sometimes quite literally. She's staking out the Wakefield home, and even greets Alice one afternoon as Liz. She then sees Liz hurrying away from the house and hotwires a car to follow her. She follows Liz all the way to Todd's house and witnesses their happy reunion.( Apparently Jessica kept the note she intercepted from Todd back in #97 instead of tearing it up. Really, Jessica??) Liz is equally happy to be reunited with Todd as she is furious with Jessica for keeping the note from her. Oh, Liz, if only you knew that was the least of Jessica's secrets!

Liz and Todd are blissfully unaware of their witness hiding in the bushes, but Margo has become unhinged to the point of carrying around a butcher knife on the off chance that she can kill Elizabeth at any moment. I'd forgotten this; I thought Margo's plans were much more cold and calculating. But it seems that now that she's close to the twins, she's becoming openly psychotic. The raspy voice she hears in her head is now coming out of her mouth (a creepy notion), and her patience is wearing thin with everyone, not just the twins.

Margo gets a job at the Little Darlings Day Care center, where she starts pumping the kids for information about the ever-popular Wakefields.

James, Jessica's new boyfriend who's also been feeding Margo information about the twins in exchange for money, is starting to second-guess this deal. Margo is creeping him out, and he's both annoyed and frightened by her. He's also starting to care for Jessica. This doesn't stop him from giving Margo all the details about Jessica's costume for the ball, of course, but he does wonder if he did the right thing. (Spoiler alert: no, he didn't.)

The main plot and the subplot intersect when Winston is convinced to take baby Daisy to Little Darlings after her parents have been gone for nearly a week, because he can't take care of her anymore. He talks to Margo on several occasions, and even leaves Daisy with her in the second-to-last chapter. This is where my lone memory of the book comes in: Winston driving Daisy around in his orange VW Beetle. Winston, too, is creeped out by Margo, though he can't put his finger on why. It doesn't help that she shows up to his house one day in the middle of the book, offering to take care of Daisy.

Margo has honed in on Daisy because she's seen Elizabeth interact with the baby and feels that this is the key to getting close to her. She's more right than she realizes, when Liz unexpectedly shows up at Winston's house that same day. For the first time ever, Margo is speechless and unprepared to be so close to her prey. She actually runs away.

The subplot is wrapped up when Winston takes Daisy to the day care center and leaves her in Margo's care, then the baby's parents return. They race to the day care center and have no idea how close they came to finding a dead baby instead of a live one; Daisy's cries have driven Margo to try to suffocate her. But, she's still alive, the parents are happy, and Margo disappears before Winston can talk to her and ask her to keep his secret that his parents weren't home to care for Daisy.

Perhaps the best scenes of the book are at Olivia's costume ball, which is being held at her wealthy boyfriend Harry's house in Bridgewater. All of her classmates come in costume, including the Wakefields: both Liz and Jess independently decide to go as Cinderella, and choose pale pink gowns and shimmery veils. They don't realize they've chosen the same costume until they come face to face with each other when they go down to meet their dates. Both girls have deja vu from the night of preparing for the Jungle Prom; they weren't talking to each other then, either, and of course Jessica knows better than anyone else what else happened that night.

They decide to go to the costume party in their near-identical outfits, but there's no picture taking this time. They mingle with the other guests, but Elizabeth in particular feels very weirded out by everything. She has some surreal moments as well, and these were described quite nicely: how everyone looks just a little bit off, how odd it is to see familiar people in unfamiliar surroundings.

Margo is also at this party, dressed almost exactly the same as Jessica. Only their earrings are different, Jessica at the last moment deciding to wear pearls she was given by Sam. Margo encounters both twins, and is mistaken as Jessica by nearly everyone at the party. She enjoys this so much that I'm not sure why she decides she'd rather be Elizabeth. Margo also snags a dance with Todd - but unlike what the back blurb says, Todd is not fooled by this. He thinks he's dancing with Jessica, but maybe not because Jessica is not usually so forward and touchy-feely. Margo thoroughly creeps Todd out and he quite literally runs away from her.

Josh Smith is also at the costume party, having decided to crash it during his search for Margo. He's seen Liz around town and is convinced that he's seeing Margo, so imagine his surprise when he sees three Margos at the party. He grabs one of them, only to realize that it's not Margo, but some girl named Jessica. The third Margo rushes up in the commotion, and he realizes that Margo is likely stalking these two twin girls and that they're in danger from her. He's kicked out of the party before he can say or do anything, but he's FINALLY stumbled upon the reason why Margo came to California in the first place. We still have no explanation of how he put together Margo's past crimes, which is disappointing, but alas.

Josh, James, Winston, and Liz are all feeling very unnerved by Margo, whether they realize its her or not, and Margo is so far gone that she doesn't realize or care. She wants Liz's life and she's tired of waiting for it, so she puts her plans into motion: she writes a letter to Ned Wakefield, inviting him and Alice down to San Francisco for a two-day business meeting at a lavish hotel. Ned, being a moronic adult in this book, immediately accepts and is excited by the idea.

The setup for The Evil Twin is there, but this was a rather painful way to get to it. I've been a bit disappointed by how sloppy Margo has gotten in this book (or maybe I'm just disappointed with myself for forgetting it? LOL), so I'm hoping #100 is as good as I remember it to be. This miniseries started off strongly, and I'm ready for it to finish the same way. ( )

Book five of the six-part mini-series where an evil woman named Margo is determined to make herself at home in the Wakefield family... by killing Elizabeth and taking over her life! Awesome book, awesome mini-series. ( )