“Would you have agreed to it?” Lilly wanted to know.

     “Well,” I said. “No . . .probably not.”

     “There you go,” Lilly said.

     I guess I don’t come off as quite as much of a big-mouthed idiot in Lilly’s interview. I just come off as a whacko who has a thing for cats. I really don’t know which is worse.

     But the truth is, I’m actually starting not to care. I wonder if this is what happens to celebrities. Like maybe at first, you really care what they say about you in the press, but after a while, you’re just like, Whatever.

     I do wonder if Michael saw this, and if so, what he thought of my pajamas. They are quite nice ones.

 

Thursday, October 30, English

 

     Hank didn’t come to school with me today. He called first thing this morning and said he wasn’t feeling too well. I am not surprised. Last night Mamaw and Papaw called wanting to know where in Manhattan they could go for a New York strip. Since I do not generally frequent restaurants that serve meat, I asked Mr. Gianini for a suggestion, and he made a reservation at this semi-famous steak place.

     And then, in spite of my mother’s strenuous objections, he insisted on taking Mamaw and Papaw and Hank and me out, so he could get to know his future in-laws better.

     This was apparently too much for my mother. She actually got out of bed, put mascara and lipstick and a bra on, and went with us. I think it was mostly to guard against Mamaw driving Mr. G away with her many references to the number of family cars my mother accidentally rolled over in cornfields while she was learning to drive.

     At the restaurant, I am horrified to report, in spite of the increased risk of heart disease and some cancers to which saturated fats and cholesterol have scientifically been linked, my future stepfather, my cousin, and my maternal grandparents—not to mention Lars, whom I had no idea was so fond of meat, and my mother, who attacked her steak like Rosemary attacked that raw chunk of ground round inRosemary’s Baby (which I’ve never actually seen, but I heard about it)—ingested what had to have been the equivalent of an entire cow.

     This distressed me very much and I wanted to point out to them how unnecessary and unhealthy it is to eat things that were once alive and walking around, but, remembering my princess training, I merely concentrated on my entree of grilled vegetables and said nothing.

     Still, I am not at all surprised Hank doesn’t feel well. All that red meat is probably sitting, completely undigested, behind those washboard abs even as we speak. (I am only assuming Hank has washboard abs, since, thankfully, I have not actually seen them).

     Interestingly, however, that was the one meal my mother has been able to keep down. This baby is no vegetarian, that’s for sure.

     Anyway, the disappointment Hank’s absence has generated here at Albert Einstein is palpable. Miss Molina saw me in the hall and asked, sadly, “You don’t need another guest pass for your cousin today?”

     Hank’s absence also apparently means that my special dispensation from the mean looks the cheerleaders have been giving me is revoked: This morning Lana reached out, snapped the back of my bra, and asked in her snottiest voice, “What are you wearing a bra for? You don’t need one.”

     I long for a place where people treat each other with courtesy and respect. That, unfortunately, is not high school. Maybe in Genovia? Or possibly that space station the Russians built, the one that’s falling apart above our heads.

     Anyway, the only person who seems happy about Hank’s misfortune is Boris Pelkowski. He was waiting for Lilly by the front doors to the school when we arrived this morning, and as soon as he saw us, he asked, “Where is Honk?” (Because of his thick Russian accent, that’s the way he pronounces Hank’s name.)

     “Honk—I mean, Hank—is sick,” I informed him, and it would not be exaggerating to say that the look that spread across Boris’s uneven features was beatific. It was actually a little bit touching. Boris’s doglike devotion to Lilly can be annoying, but I know that I really only feel that way about it because I am envious.I want a boy I can tell all my deepest secrets to.I want a boy who will French-kiss me.I want a boy who will be jealous if I spend too much time with another guy, even a total bohunk like Hank.

     But I guess we don’t always get what we want, do we? It looks like all I’m going to get is a baby brother or sister, and a stepfather who knows a lot about the quadratic formula and who is moving in tomorrow with his foozball table.

     Oh, and the rule of the throne of a country, someday.

     Big deal. I’d rather have a boyfriend.

 

Thursday, October 30, World Civ

 

 

THINGS TO DO BEFORE MR. G MOVES IN

 

1. Vacuum

2. Clean out cat box

3. Drop off laundry

4. Take out recycling, esp. any of Mom’s magazines that refer to orgasms on the cover—very imp.!!!

5. Remove feminine hygiene products from all bathrooms

6. Clear out space in living room for foozball table/pinball machine/large TV

7. Check medicine cabinet: Hide Midol, Nair, Jolene—very imp.!!!

8. RemoveOur Bodies, Ourselves andThe Joy of Sex from Mom’s bookshelves

9. Call cable company. Get Classic Sports Network added. Remove Romance Channel.

10. Get Mom to stop hanging bras on bedroom doorknob

11. Stop biting off fake fingernails

12. Stop thinking so much about M. M.

13. Fix lock on bathroom door

13. Toilet paper!!!!

 

Thursday, October 30, G & T

 

     I don’t believe this.

     They’ve done it again.

     Hank and Lilly have disappeared AGAIN!

     I didn’t even know about the Hank part until Lars got a call on his cell phone from my mother. She was very annoyed, because her mother had called her at the studio, screaming hysterically because Hank was missing from his hotel room. Mom wanted to know if Hank had shown up at school.

     Which, to the best of my knowledge, he had not.

     Then Lilly didn’t show up for lunch.

     She wasn’t even very subtle about it, either. We were doing the Presidential Fitness exam in PE, and just as it was her turn to climb the rope, Lilly started complaining that she had cramps.

     Since Lilly complains that she has cramps every single time the Presidential Fitness exam rolls around, I wasn’t suspicious. Mrs. Potts sent Lilly to the nurse’s office, and I figured I’d see her at lunch, miraculously recovered.

     But then she didn’t show up for lunch. A consultation with the nurse revealed that Lilly’s cramps had been of such severity, she’d decided to go home for the rest of the day.

     Cramps. I am so sure. Lilly doesn’t have cramps. What she has is the hots for my cousin!

     The real question is, how long can we keep this from Boris? Remembering the Mahler we’d been subjected to yesterday, everyone is being careful not to remark how coincidental it is that Lilly is sick and Hank is missing in action at the same time. Nobody wants to have to resort to the gym mats again. Those things were heavy.

     As a precaution, Michael is trying to keep Boris busy with a computer game he invented called Decapitate the Backstreet Boy. In it, you get to hurl knives and axes and stuff at members of the Backstreet Boys. The person who cuts the heads off the most Backstreet Boys moves up to another level, where he gets to cut off the heads of the boys in 98 Degrees, then ‘N Sync, etc. The player who cuts off the most heads gets to carve his initials on Ricky Martin’s naked chest.

     I can’t believe Michael only got a B on this game in his computer class. But the teacher took points off because he felt it wasn’t violent enough for today’s market.