“I don’t know,” I told him. “I have nothing to do with it.”

“But it’s named after your cat,” he said, looking dismayed.

“Yeah,” I said. “But I still have nothing to do with it.”

He doesn’t seem to believe me.

I can’t say I blame him.

HOMEWORK

PE: WASH GYM SHORTS!!!

U.S. Economics: Chapter 8

English: pages 116–132, O Pioneers

French: Écrivez une histoire comique pour vendredi

G&T: Figure out what I’m going to wear to The Party Geometry: Worksheet

Earth Science: Ask Kenny

Don’t forget: Tomorrow is Grandmère’s birthday! Bring gift to school so I can give it to her at princess lessons!!!!!!!!

Wednesday, March 3, the Plaza

Something is definitely up with Grandmère. I knew this the minute I walked into her suite, because she was being WAY too nice to me. She was like, “Amelia! How lovely to see you! Sit down! Have a bonbon!” and shoved all these truffles from La Maison du Chocolat in my face.

Oh yeah. Something’s going on.

Either that or she’s drunk. Again.

AEHS should really do a convocation about coping with alcoholic grandparents. Because I could use some tips.

“Good news,” she announced. “I think I might be able to help you with your little financial predicament.”

WHOA. WHOA!!!!!! Grandmère is coming through with a loan? Oh, thank you, God! THANK YOU!

“When I was in school,” she went on, “and we ran low on funds for our spring trip to Paris to visit the couture houses one year, we put on a show.”

I nearly choked on my tea. “You WHAT?”

“Put on a show,” Grandmère said. “It was The Mikado, you know. That we put on, I mean. Gilbert and Sullivan. Quite difficult, particularly since we were an all-girls school, and there are so many male leads. I remember Genevieve—you know, the one who used to dip my braids into her inkwell when I wasn’t looking—was so disappointed in having to play the Mikado.” An evil grin spread across Grandmère’s face. “The Mikado was supposed to be quite large, you know. I suppose Genevieve was upset about being typecast.”

Okay. So, obviously, no loan was forthcoming. Grandmère just felt like taking a little jog down memory lane, and had decided to drag me along with her.

I wondered if she’d even notice if I started text messaging Michael. He’d just be getting out of his Stochastic Analysis and Optimization class.

“I had the starring role, of course,” Grandmère was going on, lost in reverie. “The ingenue, Yum-Yum. People said I was the finest Yum-Yum they had ever seen, but I’m sure they were only trying to flatter me. Still, with my twenty-inch waist, I did look absurdly fetching in a kimono.”

Text message: STUCK W/GM

“No one was more surprised than I was when it turned out there was a Broadway director in the audience—Señor Eduardo Fuentes, one of the most influential stage directors of his day—and he approached me after opening night with an offer to star in the show he was directing in New York. I never even considered it, of course—”

Text message: I MISS U

“—since I knew I was destined for much greater things than a career in the theater. I wanted to be a surgeon, or perhaps a fashion designer, like Coco Chanel.”

Text message: I LUV U

“He was devastated, of course. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out he was a little bit in love with me. I did look smart in that kimono. But, of course, my parents never would have approved. And if I HAD gone to New York with him, I’d never have met your grandfather.”

Text message: GET ME OUT OF HERE

“You should have heard my rendition of ‘Three Little Maids’:

‘Three little maids from school are we—’”

Text message: OMG SHE IS SINGING SEND HELP NOW

“‘Pert as a schoolgirl well can be—’”

Fortunately Grandmère broke off at that point in a coughing fit. “Oh dear! Yes. I was quite the sensation that year, let me tell you.”

Text message: THIS IS WORSE THAN WHAT AC WILL DO 2 ME WHEN SHE FINDS OUT ABOUT THE $

“Amelia, what are you doing with that mobile phone?”

“Nothing,” I said, quickly pressing SEND.

Grandmère’s face still had a dewy look from her stroll down memory lane.

“Amelia. I have an idea.”

Oh no.

See, there are two people in my acquaintance from whom you never want to hear the words “I have an idea.”

Lilly is one.

Grandmère is the other.

“Would you look at that?” I pointed at the clock. “Six o’clock already. Well, I better get going, I’m sure you have dinner plans with some shah or something. Isn’t it your birthday tomorrow? You must have some pre-birthday reflection to do….”

“Sit back down, Amelia,” Grandmère said in her scariest voice.

I sat.

“I think,” Grandmère said, “that you should put on a show.”

At least, that’s what I could have sworn she said.

But that couldn’t be correct. Because no one in her right mind would say something like that.

Wait. Did I just write “in her right mind”?

“A show?” I knew Grandmère had recently cut back on her smoking. She hadn’t quit or anything. But her doctor told her if she didn’t cut back, she’d be on an oxygen tank by the time she’s seventy.

So Grandmère had started limiting her cigarettes to after meals only. This is on account of her not being able to find an oxygen tank that goes with any of her designer outfits.

I decided that maybe the nicotine patch she was wearing had backfired or something, sending pure, unadulterated carbon monoxide into her bloodstream.

Because that was the only explanation I could think of for why she might possibly consider it a good idea for Albert Einstein High School to put on a show.

“Grandmère,” I said. “Maybe you should peel off your patch. Slowly. And I’ll just call your doctor—”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Amelia,” she said, sniffing at the suggestion that she might be suffering from any sort of brain aneurysm or stroke, either of which, at her age, are highly likely, according to Yahoo! Health. “It is a perfectly reasonable idea for a fund-raiser. People have been putting on benefits and amateur entertainments for centuries to generate donations for their causes.”

“But, Grandmère,” I said. “The Drama Club is already putting on a show this spring, the musical Hair. They’ve started rehearsals and everything.”

“So? A little competition might make things more interesting for them,” Grandmère said.

“Uh,” I said. How was I going to break it to Grandmère that her idea was totally subpar? Like, almost as bad as selling candles? Or starting a literary magazine and calling it Fat Louie’s Pink Butthole?

“Grandmère,” I said. “I appreciate your concern for my economic blunder. But I do not need your help. Okay? Really, it’s going to be all right. I will find a way to raise the cash myself. Lilly and I are already on it, and we—”

“Then you may tell Lilly,” Grandmère said, “that your financial problems are over, since it is your grandmother’s intention to put on a play that will have the theater community begging for tickets, and everyone who is anyone in New York society dying to be involved. It will be a completely original spectacle, in order to showcase your myriad talents.”

She must have meant Lilly’s talents. Because I have no theatrical skills.

“Grandmère,” I said. “No. I really mean it. We don’t need your help. We’re fine, okay? Just fine. Whatever you’re thinking of doing, cut it out. Because I swear, if you butt in again, I’ll call Dad. Don’t think I won’t!”

But Grandmère had already drifted away, asking her maid to find her Rolodex…she apparently had some calls to make.

Well, it shouldn’t be too hard to stop her. I can just tell Principal Gupta not to let her into the building. With the new security cameras and all, they can’t claim they didn’t see her coming: She doesn’t go anywhere without a stretch limo and a hairless toy poodle. She can’t be too hard to spot.

Wednesday, March 3, the loft

Lilly says Grandmère must be projecting her feelings of powerlessness over being outbid by John Paul Reynolds-Abernathy the Third for the fake island of Genovia onto my problems with the student government’s financial situation.

“It’s a classic case of transference,” is what Lilly said when I called her a little while ago to beg her one last time to change the name of her literary magazine. “I don’t understand why you’re so upset about it. If it makes her happy, why not let her put on her little play? I’ll happily play the lead…I have no problem taking on yet another responsibility, in addition to the vice presidency, my role as creator, director, and star of Lilly Tells It Like It Is, and editing Fat Louie’s Pink Butthole.”

“Yeah,” I said. “About that, Lilly…”

“Well, it was my idea, wasn’t it?” Lilly reminded me. “Shouldn’t I be editor? This magazine’s going to ROCK, we’ve had so many kick-ass contributions already.”

“Lilly,” I said, mustering all of my carefully honed leadership qualities and speaking in a calm, measured voice, the way my dad addresses Parliament, “I don’t care about your being editor, and all of that. And I think it’s great and everything that you’re doing this—providing a forum in which the artists and writers of AEHS can express themselves. But don’t you think we need to concentrate on how we’re going to raise the five grand we need for the seniors’ gradua—”

“Fat Louie’s Pink Butthole IS going to raise five grand,” Lilly said confidently. “It’s going to raise MORE than five grand. It’s going to raise the roof off the publishing industry as we know it. Sixteen magazine is going to be put out of business when people get hold of Fat Louie’s Pink Butthole and read the honest, raw pieces it contains, slices of American teen life that will have 60 Minutes pounding on my door, demanding interviews, and no doubt Quentin Tarantino, asking for the film rights—”