Three's a Crowd

This is one of the old Sweet Valley books, before they got silly. Twin sisters Jessica and Elizabeth have noticed that their friend Mary spends a lot of time at their house. When she is over, she doesn't want to talk to the twins, instead she always wants to hang around with Jessica and Elizabeth's mom. One day Jessica gets fed up and tells Elizabeth to tell Mary that she cannot come over anymore. When Elizabeth discovers the real reason that Mary wants to spend so much time with the twins' mom, she regrets telling Mary that she is no longer welcome at their house. Can Jessica and Elizabeth become friends with Mary again? And just what is the secret that Mary and her foster parents are hiding?

When Mary Giacco spends time at The Wakefields,Jessica suspects that Mary is trying to take Mrs.Wakefield away from them,Mary tells Elizabeth that when she was 4 years old,her parents separated and divorced.Mrs.Robinson worked as a waitress and a woman named Annie Desavio took care of her,then Annie soon kidnapped Mary and changed the last name to Annie's mom's maiden name.Andrea Robinson has been looking for Mary,too. She does find her at the Wakefields.Mary's father has remarried and has 2 stepbrothers. The Sweet Valley Sixers has won a contest.Mary has an idea for a celebrity cookbook.Annie has been arrested for the kidnapping of Mary. The Altmans want to Adopt Mary,but she turned them down,now that she found her real mother.

This is the story of twins Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield and their friend Mary Giaccio. Mary was the foster child of the Altman's. She often went to visit the Wakefield's, walking home with either Elizabeth or Jessica from school. Jessica noticed that Mary was far too close with her mother. She felt jealous and resented Mary's easy going ways in their home. She noticed that Mary was always following her mother around, chatting and laughing with her. Sometimes, she felt ignored because her mother was busy talking with Mary. One day, she approached her twin sister Elizabeth and told her of her observations. She said that Mary didn't really go to their house to be with them - it was really to be with their mother. She asked Elizabeth not to invite Mary to their house anymore. She made it clear that she didn't want another sister! Elizabeth, realizing that Jessica really resented Mary's presence in their house, tried to avoid Mary at school. She would run off after school or pretend to be busy with her newspaper work. Mary noticed this and felt very hurt. Elizabeth, who is really a warm and understanding person, decided to tell Mary the truth. She told Mary that Jessica no longer wants Mary to visit their home because she didn't want to have to share their mother's attention with anyone. Since then, Mary avoided the twins. She would sit alone in school and really looked miserable. During one occasion, Mary had a chance to sit beside Jessica. She gave Jessica a gift and told her that she really wanted to be friends again. Jessica was surprised and pleased when she saw that the gift Mary gave her was a gold and silver bracelet Mary had worn so often and which she really liked. She also needed some help in typing some recipes to be published in a book in school. So she decided to be friends with Mary again. She even invited Mary to go her house after school for snacks. While they drank grape juice in Jessica's kitchen, they read the master newspaper article Elizabeth wrote about someone who gave a talk about proper dressing in school. Unfortunately, Jessica accidentally spilt the grape juice on the paper. The ink ran out and no matter how they tried to blot the paper, the whole article which Elizabeth wrote was erased. Afraid of Elizabeth's reaction, Jessica proceeded to fill in the missing paragraphs with her own ideas. Mary typed the article on the paper. That evening, Jessica overheard her parents saying that the Altman's have decided to adopt Mary. Despite Elizabeth's warning that she should not repeat that information to anyone else, Jessica decided that it was such good news and everyone should know about it. The Altman couple were so nice and finally Mary would stop following her mother around since Mrs. Altman would made a very good mother. Just before going to sleep, Jessica wrote an additional sentence in the Elizabeth's article in the master newspaper. It read: "Mary will be adopted by Mr. & Mrs. Al