Sweet Valley High #9: Racing Hearts

Publication Date: June 1984

This book is about Roger Barrett. His main personality trait is that he’s poor. His mother has a heart condition and can’t work, so Roger works every day after school and all day on Saturdays to pay the bills. He’s a janitor in an office building and it’s a deep dark secret. Even his BFF Olivia Davidson doesn’t know. Everyone knows he’s poor because he wears shabby clothes, so I don’t know what the big secret is. Roger is in love with Lila Fowler but she wants nothing to do with him because, you know, poor. She calls him Bugs Bunny because he bugs her. Clever.

Our story begins with Elizabeth walking in on Jessica trying on one of their mother’s suits. She tells Liz she’s no longer interested in juvenile things like fun and friends. At breakfast, she announces she wants her father to get her an after-school job at his law firm. She’s decided she wants to become a lawyer. Can you imagine? She tells Lila her plans, and Lila reacts in horror to the idea of someone wanting to work. Jessica tries out some lawyering by arguing the pros for Lila to date Roger Barrett, but gives it up as a lost cause. He’s poor and therefore undateable.

Everyone at school is looking forward to a race called the Bart, which follows the Barton Ames Memorial Mile, and the dance that will follow it. I’ve scoured the internet for Barton Ames and come up with nothing, so I have no idea what this is all about except that it’s a race between a bunch of schools in the area and nobody from Sweet Valley has won since 1956. All the boys are talking about it in the locker room and I almost fell asleep reading about it. The gist is that Bruce thinks he’s going to win and everyone is excited about the dance afterward. Bruce also says that his dad, who is on the school board, thinks Coach Schultz is going to quit after the race. Rumors start flying about how Coach Schultz has cancer or a bad heart or he’s retiring. It’s big news.

On Jessica’s first day at work she can’t wait to see what case her father will have her help him on first, but after an hour of doing nothing but making copies in a back room she’s ready to quit. Then she meets a boy. His name is Dennis Creighton and his dad owns the ad agency across the hall. She assumes he’s in college but he says he goes to El Carro High. He’s cute so maybe Jessica won’t quit after all. She starts staying late at the office and making out with Dennis every night after everyone else goes home.

Everyone is excused from first period one day to watch the Bart race trials, and by the way, it looks like only boys are allowed to be in the race. Which is bullshit for a number of reasons, but mostly because the prize is a full scholarship to Sweet Valley College and, you know, girls go to college, too. Anyway, Liz is surprised Roger isn’t trying out because she knows he’s a fast runner. He says he can’t, presumably because he’s poor and has to work, but she won’t shut up about it. Then Lila gets in on it and for some reason she says she’d love to see Roger run and beat Bruce. I guess she just wants to see if he’ll do what she says. Roger is in love with Lila so he goes down to the field and tells Coach Schultz he wants to run. Bruce leads the guys in a round of “Let’s Make Fun of the Poor Guy’s Clothes,” but karma gets him when Roger actually wins the race. Lila, figuring Roger might be popular soon, goes to the finish line to hug and congratulate him. Roger basks in his glory until Coach tells him practices are every day at 2:30, which is when Roger has to be at work. While all this is going on, we find out Olivia Davidson has a crush on Roger and she’s feeling pretty down after Lila’s affectionate display at the finish line. She writes some poetry about it and acts bitter and angry at Roger for most of the rest of the book.

Lila makes Roger sit with her and the popular kids at lunch, leaving Olivia to sit alone writing poetry. Principal Cooper, old Chrome Dome himself, calls Roger into his office to congratulate him and bestow upon him a brand new Sweet Valley High sweatsuit. Roger is enjoying his popularity while it lasts, but he knows he’ll turn into a pumpkin eventually. After several days of not showing up to practice, Coach Schultz calls Roger into his office to talk about his missing practices. He demands Roger explain himself but interrupts him every time Roger tries to talk. Roger is just holding onto his fame as long as he can.

Lila stops Roger in the hallway and tells him she wrote a poem about him. I will now transcribe it for you.

Roger Barrett, a boy so fine.

His speedy running is so divine.

In school, too, he is very smart.

He’ll walk away with the trophy at the Bart.

In everything he operates at the highest stratum.

We at Sweet Valley are so proud to have him.

Lila has lost her mind.

Liz is suspicious of Jessica’s sudden work ethic, so she sneaks into the office building one night and sees Jessica and Dennis making out. She also sees Jessica and Roger run into each other while Roger is janitoring. To keep Jessica from telling everyone that Roger works for a living, she threatens to snitch to their dad about Dennis if Jessica blabs. Roger is certain Jessica is going to tell everyone, so he calls Olivia to tell her she’s been friends with a “cleaning boy” this whole time. Obviously, Olivia doesn’t care.

Lila keeps trying to get Roger to hang out with her and she doesn’t understand why he’s playing hard to get so she enlists Jessica’s help. Jessica comes up with a plan. Everyone is convinced Coach Schultz is quitting or getting fired or dying or something right after the Bart race, so Jessica tells Lila to throw a party in his honor before the Bart dance and invite Roger, and then since everyone will be heading to the dance right after, it would be natural for Roger to go with Lila. Then Jessica plans to make a remark about how great it is that Roger could get time off work for the party, thereby outing Roger as a cleaning boy and ruining Lila’s good time. This will make way for Jessica to introduce Dennis to the gang and then she’ll be the star of the party. It’s pretty convoluted. At the same time, Liz asks her dad to talk to Roger’s boss about letting him out of work.

At school the next day, Roger decides to get ahead of Jessica telling everyone about him. He marches up to Lila and tells her he’s a janitor and he can’t run in the race. She’s horrified that he’s a cleaning boy. Everyone keeps calling him a cleaning boy. Then he tells Coach Schultz he can’t race because he has a job. Schultz says he knows that and that Roger’s boss already called him that morning to say he’s a big supporter of the race and he’s surprised Roger never even tried to ask for time off to run. The boy has been freaking out this whole time but he never even tried to get time off. So now Roger is allowed to be in the race. He tells Coach he’ll run the race in his honor because he’s leaving, and Coach tells him he’s not going anywhere and the rumors are just a big misunderstanding. Apparently he throws a big fit at a board meeting about once a year and threatens to quit if he doesn’t get more funding for sports.

Roger figures out it was Liz who orchestrated him being able to participate in the race. He thanks her, but she knowingly says he should be thanking Olivia. I don’t know what for, all she’s done for a hundred pages is write sad girl poetry. He talks to Olivia and realizes he’s in love with her. Ugh.

Jessica has been hinting to Dennis that she wants him to take her to the Bart dance, but he hasn’t asked her. She finally straight up asks him what the deal is and he says he can’t ever take her out because he can’t drive. Because he doesn’t have a license. Because he’s fifteen. Fifteen! It’s terrible! He’s a whole year younger than her! What would people think? So she breaks up with him.

Roger wins the race. Lila tries to get back into his good graces, assuming he made up the whole thing about having a job. He blows her off and makes out with Olivia.

The End.

Notes:

1.     At the race trials, Coach Schultz kicks things off with a speech about the Barton Ames Memorial Mile. He says it’s an event to honor a young man who loved to run and lost his life too early. It’s a lot of detail for something completely made up, but I couldn’t find anything in real life this could be based on. I thought I was onto something when I found a runner named John Frank, but he died two years after this book was published. If anyone has any ideas, let me know in the comments!

2.     Roger thinks he and Olivia are just good friends, and she knows about his crush on Lila, so it’s really not fair of her to be mad at him when he spends time with Lila.

3.     The whole concept of Roger being embarrassed about his job is completely alien to me. Pretty much everyone I knew in high school had after school jobs.