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Sweet Valley Kids #41
The Missing Tea Set
Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield are nervous about visiting their mother's friend Mrs. Taylor. The old lady is strict, but the girls love the beautiful furniture and decorations in her house. When they find a lovely silver tea set, they can't resist breaking the rules to play with it. Then they discover that one of the pieces is missing! Can they find it before Mrs. Taylor discovers that it's gone?
- GenresMiddle GradeChildrens
68 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 1993
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101 people want to read
About the author
Francine Pascal
1,139 books1,846 followersFrancine Paula Pascal was an American author best known for her Sweet Valley series of young adult novels. Sweet Valley High, the backbone of the collection, was made into a television series, which led to several spin-offs, including The Unicorn Club and Sweet Valley University. Although most of these books were published in the 1980s and 1990s, they remained so popular that several titles were re-released decades later.
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May 29, 2025The Missing Tea Set
The twins and their mother will be spending the weekend with an old friend of Mrs. Wakefield’s named Mrs. Taylor. All the twins know is their mother and aunt Laura use to spend time with her when they were little girls. They have a lot of questions but their mother just says “You’ll see” and doesn’t say anything else. The twins wonder if she’ll be able to tell them apart, but their mother says she’s very sharp and also very strict. She’s old school and believes in manners.
She has to explain to them that she’s from high society. She used to tell them the correct way to hold a fork, drink tea, and shake hands. So, they should be on their p’s and q’s. She says they’ll love the house. It always seemed magical to her. It’s full of exotic things. There’s a clock that plays a lullabye at noon and midnight.
When they get to the house it’s hree stories high, with turrets, balconies, porches, and several stained-glass windows. On one side was a fancy greenhouse. A tall gray-haired woman with a cane steps outside. She’s the most stern looking lady Liz has ever seen. Alice introduces them to Mrs. Taylor and her maid Gladys. She’s just as sour and tells them not to touch anything. “Little fingers can cause big trouble.” (She tells them). Liz and Jessica’s room has a canopy bed, a rug, and country furniture. The twins think it’s nice (Jessica) and cozy (Liz).
Their mom says they should explore the house and Mrs. Taylor agrees. She and Alice need to catch up and don’t need them all up in grown folks’ business. She warns them to stay out of her room. Gladys throws in her two cent “and no running!” They check out the bathroom. It’s huge with marble tiles, and gold-colored faucets, and even a bathtub with claw feet. he towels were stitched with a swirly capital "T." After pretending to ice-skate on the floor they explore some more.
(The book describes the rooms as) Each bedroom had a fancy canopy bed, and one had a cage of singing canaries by the window. Some had shelves full of books, and some had dust sheets draped over the furniture. Jessica wants to go back to the second floor and find the clock that’s probably in Mrs. Taylor’s room. Jessica convinces Liz (who thinks it’s too risky) and they find the blue clock on a vanity table. It’s not noon yet. No problem. Jessica moves the hands so that it starts to play. It must set off a silent alarm because someone starts coming up the steps. Jessica fixes the hands and they room out the room.
When Gladys find them their “looking at a portrait” in the hall. Gladys doesn’t say anything but looks at them and then Mrs. Taylor’s door as if to say I know you were in there. Jessica squeaks they didn’t do anything. Liz grabs her hand and pulls her away and they leave Gladys scowling at them. Liz tells Jessica to cool it. They find the dining room and a suit of armor and a darling silver tea set.
They explore the green house. It has a gold fish pond. Then the garden and find a cave in some bushes. They go inside and Liz says it’s just like camping like their father and Steven (who are on a camping trip). Jessica says they need some camping supplies and rushes off. Liz finds out there are other “caves” that are all connected and form a tunnel. When Jessica comes back she’s holding the tea set.
Liz is shocked and asks if she’s crazy. She orders her to go put the tea set back, and Jessica says she will after they play with it. Liz shows Jessica the rest of the tunnels “rooms” and they give each other rooms. Also, rooms for the tv, their stuffed animals, and real animals. They say they can have their own zoo. Then their mom calls them for lunch. Jessica rushes to get the tea pot and cream pitcher. She’s in time to put the pieces back after Gladys leaves and Mrs. Taylor enters the room.
Mrs. Taylor takes one look at the twins and says I know this would happen, but luckily she’s just talking about she knew they’d get dirty and makes them go wash their hands. Mrs. Wakefield asks what they’ve been up to and Jessica says they found a secret hiding place. Mrs. Taylor says there are a lot of those. Mrs. Wakefield says one day she and Laura were playing hide and seek and it took so long to find her she feel asleep in her hiding place.
When Alice talks about the old days she seems to turn into a kid again. Liz wonders if she’d ever done something so bad as “borrow” a tea set. She can’t imagine it. When she glances at the tea set, she notices the tongs are missing. She’s so startled she drops her fork and Mrs. Taylor reprimands her on speaking up. She tries to get Jessica’s attention but her mother tells her don’t squirm. She stands up to get a closer look to make sure the tong isn’t there but Mrs. Taylor gets on her for leaving the table in the middle of the meal.
Alice all of a sudden decides she wants tea. Liz jumps up and says it’s too hot for tea. She should instead have some ice-water in the parlor. Mrs. Taylor approves (for the first time). She’s big on having 8-9 glasses of water a day. Alice goes along with it and says it’s a good idea. Liz tells Jessica the tongs are missing. Jessica tells her she thought she brought them inside. Liz wants to tell but Jessica says if they do Mrs. Taylor might do something terrible to them. (Jessica’s been watching too much Disney. She imagines Mrs. Taylor blowing up like Ursula and laughing manically at them). They’ll just have to find the tongs before anyone knows their missing.
Just then Gladys pokes her head in the door and scolds them for whispering and keeping secrets. Then she sends them outdoors. The twins over hear Mrs. Taylor saying to their mother that they must be a handful and their mother saying that they’re really good girls. So, they know they have to find the tongs. Jessica lets Liz convince her to tell -after looking everywhere and not finding the missing tongs-. Alice sees them looking down before dinner and they tell her it’s because Gladys is mean.
She tells them she use to scare her but that’s just how she is and don’t let it get to them. Just remember their manners. When they come downstairs, Mrs. Taylor isn’t pleased because their hands are dirty again. They rush to the washroom and Jessica starts to cry because she knows Mrs. Taylor will punish them. Mrs. Taylor has them so shook that at first they don’t speak. Jessica reaches for the rolls and Mrs. Taylor tells her it’s more polite to *ask* for the peas. Liz then puts her elbows on the table and gets scolded. Then Jessica drops her fork and a bunch of peas fall off the table. Jessica says she can’t do it. She can’t tell. Mrs. Taylor says no secrets at the table.
By bedtime, they still haven’t told. Liz tries to cheer Jessica up by suggesting different things but she says she’ll never be happy again. She says they’ll just have to look again in the morning. That night she has a bad dream that running down a long, dark hallway, opening the doors and glancing in. Each room was filled with strange things, like floating silverware, giant talking plants, and ice-skaters drinking tea from silver teacups. She’s looking for something, but she couldn't find it and someone was following her. A voice is saying. “Brush your hair! Stand up straight!" It was Mrs. Taylor. She was waving her cane in the air as she shouted commands to Jessica. "Don't talk with your mouth full! Mind your p's and q's! Don't fidget!"
Jessica ran on and on through the enormous house, but wherever she went, the voice of Mrs. Taylor followed her, and she never found what she was looking for. The next morning, Alice asks the girls if they want tea with breakfast. She and Laura use to always have tea and it was the silver tea set that made it feel so special. Mrs. Taylor says she never did drink tea. She preferred coffee and she wants to give Alice the set as a gift. Alice is touched. The twins say she doesn’t need it. She already has two tea pots but Alice says she’ll always cherish it and think of happy times there.
Jessica bursts out finally she lost it. Then Liz explains they were playing with it in the bushes and now they cant find the tongs. Liz says they shouldn’t have played with it and offers to pay for it out of their allowance. Alice makes Jessica apologize. Mrs. Taylor tells them to come with her.
Mrs. Taylor knows the exact spot and leads them all in a search (all four of them) and she finds them on a branch. Jessica remembers she hung them there so they wouldn’t get lost. Alice apologizes and says they’ll be disciplined. She says don’t be too hard on them. She lost her mother’s earring when she was young but her mother understood. She forgave her so she forgives them. They both hug Mrs. Taylor and tell her she’s not mean underneath. She says she should hope not. They promise mot to touch her things if she’ll let them come back and she says that can be arranged.
Then they go to explore the rest of the house. They find some neat books in the library. There’s one called “The Almanac of Ghouls and Goblins.” Each page had a color illustration of some horrendous monster from mythologies or legends. Some of them were so terrifying that a shiver went up her spine. Jessica says let’s do something else. Liz asks her if she’s scared and she says not at all. But she shivers.
Rating: 5 I liked the visual of this house! It sounded like a place that would be fun to explore as a child. I also liked that it brought back thoughts of the tea-parties my aunt and I use to have. Tho what the twins had wasn’t really that much of a tea party. We actually had food at ours. I remember there was a bakery in the mall and we had petite fours and Hawaiian punch and brownies. We were just talking about that the other day. We also had tea sets. Not nearly as nice as the one in the book but. And then it also just made me think of a gift my grandfather left me with. He saved all his money and got me a pink tea set that's sitting in our china cabnet. It makes me a little emotional when I see it. I've never used it but I know (like Alice) I'll cherish it forever. He even got the right color. The good ol days! I think it would have also been fun to have secret hiding places. Books with hiding places and tunnels and secret rooms always fascinate me!
The twins and their mother will be spending the weekend with an old friend of Mrs. Wakefield’s named Mrs. Taylor. All the twins know is their mother and aunt Laura use to spend time with her when they were little girls. They have a lot of questions but their mother just says “You’ll see” and doesn’t say anything else. The twins wonder if she’ll be able to tell them apart, but their mother says she’s very sharp and also very strict. She’s old school and believes in manners.
She has to explain to them that she’s from high society. She used to tell them the correct way to hold a fork, drink tea, and shake hands. So, they should be on their p’s and q’s. She says they’ll love the house. It always seemed magical to her. It’s full of exotic things. There’s a clock that plays a lullabye at noon and midnight.
When they get to the house it’s hree stories high, with turrets, balconies, porches, and several stained-glass windows. On one side was a fancy greenhouse. A tall gray-haired woman with a cane steps outside. She’s the most stern looking lady Liz has ever seen. Alice introduces them to Mrs. Taylor and her maid Gladys. She’s just as sour and tells them not to touch anything. “Little fingers can cause big trouble.” (She tells them). Liz and Jessica’s room has a canopy bed, a rug, and country furniture. The twins think it’s nice (Jessica) and cozy (Liz).
Their mom says they should explore the house and Mrs. Taylor agrees. She and Alice need to catch up and don’t need them all up in grown folks’ business. She warns them to stay out of her room. Gladys throws in her two cent “and no running!” They check out the bathroom. It’s huge with marble tiles, and gold-colored faucets, and even a bathtub with claw feet. he towels were stitched with a swirly capital "T." After pretending to ice-skate on the floor they explore some more.
(The book describes the rooms as) Each bedroom had a fancy canopy bed, and one had a cage of singing canaries by the window. Some had shelves full of books, and some had dust sheets draped over the furniture. Jessica wants to go back to the second floor and find the clock that’s probably in Mrs. Taylor’s room. Jessica convinces Liz (who thinks it’s too risky) and they find the blue clock on a vanity table. It’s not noon yet. No problem. Jessica moves the hands so that it starts to play. It must set off a silent alarm because someone starts coming up the steps. Jessica fixes the hands and they room out the room.
When Gladys find them their “looking at a portrait” in the hall. Gladys doesn’t say anything but looks at them and then Mrs. Taylor’s door as if to say I know you were in there. Jessica squeaks they didn’t do anything. Liz grabs her hand and pulls her away and they leave Gladys scowling at them. Liz tells Jessica to cool it. They find the dining room and a suit of armor and a darling silver tea set.
They explore the green house. It has a gold fish pond. Then the garden and find a cave in some bushes. They go inside and Liz says it’s just like camping like their father and Steven (who are on a camping trip). Jessica says they need some camping supplies and rushes off. Liz finds out there are other “caves” that are all connected and form a tunnel. When Jessica comes back she’s holding the tea set.
Liz is shocked and asks if she’s crazy. She orders her to go put the tea set back, and Jessica says she will after they play with it. Liz shows Jessica the rest of the tunnels “rooms” and they give each other rooms. Also, rooms for the tv, their stuffed animals, and real animals. They say they can have their own zoo. Then their mom calls them for lunch. Jessica rushes to get the tea pot and cream pitcher. She’s in time to put the pieces back after Gladys leaves and Mrs. Taylor enters the room.
Mrs. Taylor takes one look at the twins and says I know this would happen, but luckily she’s just talking about she knew they’d get dirty and makes them go wash their hands. Mrs. Wakefield asks what they’ve been up to and Jessica says they found a secret hiding place. Mrs. Taylor says there are a lot of those. Mrs. Wakefield says one day she and Laura were playing hide and seek and it took so long to find her she feel asleep in her hiding place.
When Alice talks about the old days she seems to turn into a kid again. Liz wonders if she’d ever done something so bad as “borrow” a tea set. She can’t imagine it. When she glances at the tea set, she notices the tongs are missing. She’s so startled she drops her fork and Mrs. Taylor reprimands her on speaking up. She tries to get Jessica’s attention but her mother tells her don’t squirm. She stands up to get a closer look to make sure the tong isn’t there but Mrs. Taylor gets on her for leaving the table in the middle of the meal.
Alice all of a sudden decides she wants tea. Liz jumps up and says it’s too hot for tea. She should instead have some ice-water in the parlor. Mrs. Taylor approves (for the first time). She’s big on having 8-9 glasses of water a day. Alice goes along with it and says it’s a good idea. Liz tells Jessica the tongs are missing. Jessica tells her she thought she brought them inside. Liz wants to tell but Jessica says if they do Mrs. Taylor might do something terrible to them. (Jessica’s been watching too much Disney. She imagines Mrs. Taylor blowing up like Ursula and laughing manically at them). They’ll just have to find the tongs before anyone knows their missing.
Just then Gladys pokes her head in the door and scolds them for whispering and keeping secrets. Then she sends them outdoors. The twins over hear Mrs. Taylor saying to their mother that they must be a handful and their mother saying that they’re really good girls. So, they know they have to find the tongs. Jessica lets Liz convince her to tell -after looking everywhere and not finding the missing tongs-. Alice sees them looking down before dinner and they tell her it’s because Gladys is mean.
She tells them she use to scare her but that’s just how she is and don’t let it get to them. Just remember their manners. When they come downstairs, Mrs. Taylor isn’t pleased because their hands are dirty again. They rush to the washroom and Jessica starts to cry because she knows Mrs. Taylor will punish them. Mrs. Taylor has them so shook that at first they don’t speak. Jessica reaches for the rolls and Mrs. Taylor tells her it’s more polite to *ask* for the peas. Liz then puts her elbows on the table and gets scolded. Then Jessica drops her fork and a bunch of peas fall off the table. Jessica says she can’t do it. She can’t tell. Mrs. Taylor says no secrets at the table.
By bedtime, they still haven’t told. Liz tries to cheer Jessica up by suggesting different things but she says she’ll never be happy again. She says they’ll just have to look again in the morning. That night she has a bad dream that running down a long, dark hallway, opening the doors and glancing in. Each room was filled with strange things, like floating silverware, giant talking plants, and ice-skaters drinking tea from silver teacups. She’s looking for something, but she couldn't find it and someone was following her. A voice is saying. “Brush your hair! Stand up straight!" It was Mrs. Taylor. She was waving her cane in the air as she shouted commands to Jessica. "Don't talk with your mouth full! Mind your p's and q's! Don't fidget!"
Jessica ran on and on through the enormous house, but wherever she went, the voice of Mrs. Taylor followed her, and she never found what she was looking for. The next morning, Alice asks the girls if they want tea with breakfast. She and Laura use to always have tea and it was the silver tea set that made it feel so special. Mrs. Taylor says she never did drink tea. She preferred coffee and she wants to give Alice the set as a gift. Alice is touched. The twins say she doesn’t need it. She already has two tea pots but Alice says she’ll always cherish it and think of happy times there.
Jessica bursts out finally she lost it. Then Liz explains they were playing with it in the bushes and now they cant find the tongs. Liz says they shouldn’t have played with it and offers to pay for it out of their allowance. Alice makes Jessica apologize. Mrs. Taylor tells them to come with her.
Mrs. Taylor knows the exact spot and leads them all in a search (all four of them) and she finds them on a branch. Jessica remembers she hung them there so they wouldn’t get lost. Alice apologizes and says they’ll be disciplined. She says don’t be too hard on them. She lost her mother’s earring when she was young but her mother understood. She forgave her so she forgives them. They both hug Mrs. Taylor and tell her she’s not mean underneath. She says she should hope not. They promise mot to touch her things if she’ll let them come back and she says that can be arranged.
Then they go to explore the rest of the house. They find some neat books in the library. There’s one called “The Almanac of Ghouls and Goblins.” Each page had a color illustration of some horrendous monster from mythologies or legends. Some of them were so terrifying that a shiver went up her spine. Jessica says let’s do something else. Liz asks her if she’s scared and she says not at all. But she shivers.
Rating: 5 I liked the visual of this house! It sounded like a place that would be fun to explore as a child. I also liked that it brought back thoughts of the tea-parties my aunt and I use to have. Tho what the twins had wasn’t really that much of a tea party. We actually had food at ours. I remember there was a bakery in the mall and we had petite fours and Hawaiian punch and brownies. We were just talking about that the other day. We also had tea sets. Not nearly as nice as the one in the book but. And then it also just made me think of a gift my grandfather left me with. He saved all his money and got me a pink tea set that's sitting in our china cabnet. It makes me a little emotional when I see it. I've never used it but I know (like Alice) I'll cherish it forever. He even got the right color. The good ol days! I think it would have also been fun to have secret hiding places. Books with hiding places and tunnels and secret rooms always fascinate me!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 2, 2022
3 stars.
I'm totally underrating this.
It's been quite a while since I last read Sweet Valley kids. I'm an avid Sweet Valley Twins and Sweet Valley High reader. I'm not kidding when I say I grew up reading this series considering the fact that I was born a generation after these books came out.
Reading this I realized how silly this book actually was. Now I'm wondering if all the books I read as a child were all this silly and i really want to reread them. Jessica and Elizabeth literally think they'll be punished for life or put into a dungeon just because they misplaced a pair of tongs! Totally haywire. I can expect this sort of thing from Jessica but Elizabeth? Goody two shoes, mature and someone who solves other people's problems, that's literally the opposite of what I had expected of her and it came as a shock to me until I realized she's just 7 in this book but one thing I really appreciated about this was that the contrast in personality among Elizabeth and Jessica is explicitly showcased even though this book is for kids. The fact that they manage to do this even though the writer is not the same in every book. That's the essence of Sweet Valley and what makes me enjoy each and every book.
Edit: One more thing I'd like to add to this is how these books can teach kids lessons about life without shoving it into their faces. Now that's the art of writing!
I'm totally underrating this.
It's been quite a while since I last read Sweet Valley kids. I'm an avid Sweet Valley Twins and Sweet Valley High reader. I'm not kidding when I say I grew up reading this series considering the fact that I was born a generation after these books came out.
Reading this I realized how silly this book actually was. Now I'm wondering if all the books I read as a child were all this silly and i really want to reread them. Jessica and Elizabeth literally think they'll be punished for life or put into a dungeon just because they misplaced a pair of tongs! Totally haywire. I can expect this sort of thing from Jessica but Elizabeth? Goody two shoes, mature and someone who solves other people's problems, that's literally the opposite of what I had expected of her and it came as a shock to me until I realized she's just 7 in this book but one thing I really appreciated about this was that the contrast in personality among Elizabeth and Jessica is explicitly showcased even though this book is for kids. The fact that they manage to do this even though the writer is not the same in every book. That's the essence of Sweet Valley and what makes me enjoy each and every book.
Edit: One more thing I'd like to add to this is how these books can teach kids lessons about life without shoving it into their faces. Now that's the art of writing!
January 27, 2024
In this book, the twins are visiting a mansion and have a tea party in a cave by themselves where they lose a tea tong that belongs to a tea set. The lady of the house seems stern and her maid is a bit rude and scary. So the twins try to find the tong by themselves. In the end they had to tell that they lost it and everyone goes to the cave where they originally had the tea party.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 5, 2021
The twins and Alice are going to visit Mrs Taylor in her 150 year old mansion! Alice has fond memories of playing there as a child, although I don’t know why, because Mrs T and Gladys her maid are horrible and grumpy and strict. The twins run off to explore and the house sounds awesome. Liz finds some ‘caves’ in bushes outside (they weren’t described well, that’s all I got 🤷🏼♀️) and the twins pretend it’s a house. Jess goes back into the main house and comes back with a silver tea set 😱 They play with it until called in for lunch. sneaking it back inside. But then Liz notices the tongs are missing! They rush off to find it but no luck 😔 They decide to come clean at dinner, but Mrs T is so strict they chicken out. At breakfast the next morning Alice asks for tea, and reminisces about drinking from the tea set as a child. Mrs T gifts it to her, and the twins come clean. Alice is quite firm with them, Gladys is delighted but Mrs T is understanding. She takes them to the caves and said she too played there as a child and lost her mother’s ring, so she forgives them. Everyone but Gladys goes in on their hands and knees to search, and Mrs T finds the tongs on a branch - Jess put them there for safe keeping 🤦🏼♀️
My rating - 5/10 - Extra points for the cool house! Minus points for Gladys.
My rating - 5/10 - Extra points for the cool house! Minus points for Gladys.
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February 23, 2023A fairly solid offering in the series. The twins mess up and have to get the courage to confess to what they've done. I think the book would have been better without the maid, Gladys, as she just seemed like a sterner version of Mrs. Taylor, but I did think the ending was good as it shows children that you shouldn't judge a person just by one aspect of who they are.
July 26, 2012
I like the huge old house & the concept of exploring it. It just sounds so mysterious!
June 22, 2013
I remember the cover but just not the story.
January 17, 2016
This is the best book i have ever read.Firstly ms.Taylor seems to be very mean and strict but in the end she was very kind and understanding.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews