Jessica's Secret

This is a storyline that I have a problem with. Elizabeth gets her first period and is really happening, considering herself now basically grown up. Jessica is angry that she hasn't gotten her first period and so pretends she has gotten it.

The reason is that the girls want to visit a friend and, until now, their parents did not think they were mature enough to go there by themselves on a bus. This is one of the reasons Jessica has lied so then can make the trip.

Here is where I have a rather major problem with the storyline. Elizabeth has already been the more mature of the two sisters with Jessica generally being a responsible young girl and she is even, at times, outright devious.

Herein is the rub. Just getting a period does not make a girl a totally responsible, mature person overnight. Jessica, especially, is not going to change into someone who is as responsible and obedient as Elizabeth just because she's gotten her period (or, in her case, pretended she has gotten it.) I just don't think parents would make such an assumption.

They visit their cousin. Elizabeth is bored with the kinds of girls her cousin hangs around with but Jessica fits in automatically. There is one girl that is rejected by the others and that is he one Elizabeth becomes friends with. The other girls, along with Jessica, get into trouble (as expected.) Jessica gets mad at Elizabeth for supposedly telling on her.


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