The curious case of Shannon Lake.

Over the years, I've noticed that Lynn supplied her fictionl children with a nemesis; Mike had Brad Luggsworth, Elizabeth had Candace and now April has her former BFF Becky (who was in her corner with old foeboy Jeremy). She also gave them a group of supporters, whose job it was to race around flattering the Foobchild in question. For instance, Mike had Gordo, Brian and Laurence and Elizabeth had Ms. Edwards and Dawn. Now that April is high-school age, she needs someone whose sole purpose is to make her feel better about herself. The problem that faced Lynn is which one of the Martian's buddies would be promoted to flatterer-in-chief. It couldn't be a MALE character, because he'd be more of a love interest and it couldn't be Eva, because facing lily-white Becky with a home-girl stereotype would be too obvious even for Lynn. Fortunately, a quick and easy soultion arose in the form of her developmentally-challenged niece Stephanie. The young woman had asked for years to fictionalized so that her aunt could tell people about the hassles she goes through in the course of her everyday life. Thus, Shannon Lake was born. It was contemptuosuly EASY to depict the vain young blond girl as unsympathetic to the needs of special ed students, thereby giving her a comic strip mark of Cain. Lynn should congratulate herself! She's given her Fantasy Daughter a glurge-spouting cheerleader most people don't have the nerve to shout down.