“Oh, David,” his mom said in dismay when she saw him. “I thought I told you to change for dinner.”

But David just grinned and reached for some of the mixed nuts in a bowl on the coffee table in front of me. “I did change for dinner,” he said.

I noticed that he only took salted cashew nuts, and left the brazil nuts in the bowl. I could relate to this. Brazil nuts are gross.

Then dinner was ready. We ate in one of the formal dining rooms. I could tell Lucy was very pleased by this, since her outfit, which was royal blue, went better with the decor in the formal dining room than with that of the private one. Theresa, too, was excited, because of the place settings. They were the formal White House china, and they had real gold rims. Theresa said you can’t put gold-rimmed plates in the dishwasher, but have to do them by hand. The idea that someone was going to have to hand wash her plate when she was done eating made Theresa very happy.

I was probably the only unhappy person in the room. That is because as soon as we sat down, I knew I was in big trouble, since the first thing they served us was a salad with these big cherry tomatoes in it. Fortunately the dressing was all right, it was just regular Ranch, so I ate all the lettuce around the tomatoes and hoped no one would notice that they were still sitting there.

Only unfortunately I was seated in a place of honour right next to the President, and he totally noticed. He leaned over and went, “You know those tomatoes were imported all the way from Guatemala. If you don’t eat them, there could be an international incident.”

I was pretty sure he was joking, but it wasn’t very funny to me. I didn’t want anyone to think I didn’t fully appreciate that they were having this nice dinner for us, or whatever.

So what I did was, when no one was looking, I flicked the tomatoes off my plate and into the cloth napkin I had on my lap.

This worked surprisingly well. So well that when the next course came, and it turned out to be New England clam chowder, I ate all the chowder parts, and then again when no one was looking, I dropped all the clammy bits into my napkin.

By the time dessert was served, there was about a pound of food in my napkin including one piece of flounder stuffed with crabmeat; a vegetable medley of peas, carrots and baby onions; some scalloped potatoes; and a piece of onion foccacia.

It was very easy to hide all this food without anyone seeing me do it because the adults were having a very boisterous conversation about the economic situation in North Africa. The only thing I absolutely could not get away with not eating was a tomato cut up to look like a rose, which was served as a garnish on the dish of scalloped potatoes, and which the First Lady scooped up and put on my plate.

“A rose for a rose,” she said, with a nice smile.

What could I do? I had to eat it. Everyone was looking at me. I choked it down as best I could in one swallow, then gulped down about half of my glass of iced tea, which was what the under-twenty-one crowd got to drink. When I put the glass down, I saw Rebecca, who had started watching me very intently the minute the First Lady put the tomato on my plate, do the strangest thing: she lifted up her hands and pretended like she was applauding. Sometimes she does cute things like that, which make me suspect she might not be a robot after all.

It was right about then I realized something horrible: my napkin was leaking. All the food in it hadn’t stained my skirt yet, but it was about to. I had no recourse but to excuse myself, pretending like I was going to the ladies room. Then I slyly took my napkin with me, just crumpled loosely in my hand, like I had forgotten it was there.

Everywhere you go in the White House, there are Secret Service agents standing around. They are actually very nice men and women. When I came out of the dining room, I asked one of them where the nearest bathroom was, and she walked me there. Once I was safely locked inside, I dumped my dinner out in the toilet and flushed it away. I felt kind of bad, wasting all that food when there are people starving, you know, in Appalachia and all.

But what else was I supposed to do? It would have been rude just to leave it there on my plate.

The problem with the napkin, which was soaked through with crabmeat juice, was easily solved by the fact that the bathroom, which was very fancy, had all these cloth hand towels laid out for guests to use, and a gilt basket to throw them in when you were done. I washed my hands and used a couple of the hand towels, then threw them into the basket over the napkin. Whoever emptied the basket would just think I forgot and threw a napkin in there.

I was feeling pretty good about the whole thing—except for the fact that, you know, I was practically starving, having nothing in my stomach except a little lettuce and a tomato garnish—when, on my way back to the dining room, I practically ran into David, who appeared to be headed towards the same bathroom I had just vacated.

“Oh,” he said, when he saw me. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I said. Then—because it was weird, him being the President’s son, and all—I tried to sidle away as quickly as possible.

Only I wasn’t quick enough, since he gave me that little smile of his and went, “So. What’d you do with the napkin, anyway?”

I couldn’t believe it. Busted! I was so busted!