I wondered if Susan Boone was watching this. I sort of couldn’t picture her watching MTV. But hey, you never knew. Maybe Susan was watching. If so, she’d know. She’d know that I finally got it. What she’d been talking about for the past two weeks, about how you couldn’t neglect the whole for the sake of the parts. I got it now. I was ready for her life drawing class. I finally understood.

Too bad it was too late.

“Don’t you guys get it?” I appealed to the other people my age in the audience. “The real reason the United States leads the developed nations in teen birth and STD rates isn’t because clinics aren’t notifying parents about their teenagers’ behavior, but because here, all they teach us is Just Say No. Not, ‘Here’s what you do in case saying no doesn’t work out for you.’ Just…no. In countries where adults are open with kids about sex and birth control, and teens are taught that there’s nothing shameful or whatever about it, the rates of unwanted pregnancies and STDs are lowest—”

“I understand your concern, Samantha,” the president cut me off, smiling a little tensely. “But I’m not talking about families such as those you and your fellow pupils here at this fine school belong to. I’m talking about families who haven’t had the advantages yours has—”

I couldn’t believe it. What was he saying? That families who lived in Cleveland Park were somehow immune from bad parenting and teenage sexual experimentation?

“—families who haven’t taught their children the kind of morals your parents have instilled in you,” the president went on. “You and all of your friends here at John Adams Preparatory Academy are great examples to this nation of the kind of children we should be striving to raise, children who have the moral character to stand up for what they believe in, to say no to drugs and sex—”

“So because I’ve said yes to sex,” I declared hotly, “that makes me a bad example to this nation? Is that what you’re saying?”

There was a beat as everyone—including me—realized what I’d just said.

As the knowledge that I had just announced to the entire country that I’d had sex with my boyfriend (even though I hadn’t) washed over me, I couldn’t help wishing that the gym floor beneath me would open up and swallow me whole.

Sadly for me, however, it didn’t.

“Oh my God,” I heard my mother’s voice, breaking the sudden stillness that had fallen over the gym.

Then:

“Oh my God,” I heard David’s mother’s voice say.

Then Random Alvarez seemed to come awake from the doze he’d sunk into while the president and I had been speaking, and said, into the camera, “And we’ll be back, after these important messages!”


 

Top ten reasons the next time you’re in a position to save the president’s life, you might want to reconsider:

10. Everywhere you go afterward, you will be harassed by Johnson Family Vacationers.

9. You could get asked to go on Oprah and after saying no a million times, decide to do it to promote awareness of the issue of child slavery, which actually does exist, even in America, and then spend the whole time crying because Oprah asked about Mewsie, the kitten you had when you were ten who died of feline leukemia.

8. While working at your part-time job to make enough pocket money to support your lead pencil habit, people returning copies of Men in Black II ask you if you know the real truth about Area 51, seeing as how you have an in at the White House, and all.

7. You will have to spend all of your free time in the White House press office, signing photographs of your own head for fans.

6. Don’t even think about ever setting foot in a McDonald’s again. You will be mobbed.

5. Everyone you know will ask you if you can get them the president’s autograph.

4. You will find old past due notices from your local library that you thought you threw away for sale on eBay because everyone wants to own a piece of you.

3. You might fall in love with his son, and start dating him.

2. Which could make it extremely awkward when the president asks you to support his Return to Family program, and you find out that it violates your personal right to privacy.

And the number-one reason you might want to reconsider saving the life of the president of the United States:

1. You might get mad at him and accidentally announce to the world on national television that you’ve had sex with his son. Even though you haven’t.

Yet.


12

“It’s those damned art lessons,” the president said.

“It wasn’t the art lessons, Dad,” David said, sounding tired. I guess because he was tired. We’d been going back and forth about this for the past hour in our living room, ever since the president stomped out of the disastrous town hall meeting during the commercial break, causing MTV to have to put on a rerun of Pimp My Ride.

“All I know is my son wasn’t interested in sex until he started drawing naked people,” the president said.

“Dad,” David said, “I’ve always been interested in sex. I’m a guy, all right? I’m just not actually having sex. Nor am I planning to do so in the near future.”

Wow. I never knew David was such a good liar. Seriously.

“Then why,” his father began, “did Sam say—”

“Wait a minute,” my dad said. “Who’s drawing naked people?”

“Sam is.” My mom leaned forward to pour the first lady some more coffee. “Susan Boone asked her and David to take her adult life drawing class on Tuesday and Thursday nights.”

My dad looked blank. “How’s that supposed to have made them want to have sex?”

“We’re not having sex,” I said, for what had to have been the thirty thousandth time.

“Then why, in the name of God,” the president said, “did you tell everyone in America that you’ve said yes to sex?”

“I don’t know,” I said. I had hunched myself up into the smallest ball imaginable on the sofa, hugging my legs to my chest, and resting my chin on my knees. “You were just making me so mad—”

“ME?” The president looked more annoyed than ever. “How do you think I feel? I’m standing there like an idiot going on about what a great example my son is, and it turns out the whole time he’s been making me into the biggest hypocrite on the planet—”

“No, he hasn’t,” I said, feeling worse than ever. “Because we’re not having—”

“Yeah, well, I don’t exactly recall your asking me if I supported your whole reproductive health clinic parental consent bill, Dad,” David said, at the same time. “In fact, I don’t remember Sam seeing it anywhere in any of the Return to Family literature you gave her, either. Because if she had, I’m sure she’d have mentioned it to me.”

“Parents should have the right to know what their children are doing behind their backs,” the president declared.

“Why?” David wanted to know. “So they can act like you’re acting now about it? What’s the point, Dad? They’re just going to freak, the way you are.”

“If they find out BEFORE their child goes ahead and HAS sex,” the president said, “they MIGHT be able to try to stop him, to open up the lines of communication so that they can keep that child from making the worst mistake of his or her life—”

“Let’s not get too dramatic here, shall we?” My mom’s tone was steady—the same one she uses in the courtroom. “Sam has apologized for what she did, and explained that she was speaking hyperbolically.” (SAT word meaning “an exaggerated statement uttered in excitement”). “I think the real issue now is what we are going to do about it.”

“I’ll tell you what WE’re going to do about it,” the president said. “Boarding school.”

David lifted his gaze to the ceiling with a bored expression. “Dad,” he said.

“I’m serious,” the president said. “I don’t care if you only have a year of high school to go. I’m sending you to military school, and that’s final.”

I glanced, panic-stricken, at David.

But he looked calm…much calmer, as a matter of fact, than you would think, considering that he was about to be enrolled in some boot camp in the Ozarks.

“You’re not sending me anywhere, Dad,” David said. “Because I haven’t DONE anything. Instead of jumping to conclusions like a reactionary, why don’t you try to understand what Sam was saying during the town hall meeting…that there has to be a balance within families in order for them to work. Everyone is entitled to his or her rights, but only so long as they don’t infringe on the rights of another. Just because they aren’t old enough to vote doesn’t mean it’s okay for you to strip teens of their rights.”

David’s dad glowered. “That is an oversimplification of—”

“Is it?” David asked. “You might want to keep in mind that in a few short years, those teens will be old enough to vote. And how kindly do you think they’re going to feel toward the guy who made the law that rats them out to their mom and dad every time they want to buy a rubber?”

“Enough,” my mother said emphatically, before the president, who looked madder than ever, could open his mouth. “We’re not solving all of society’s problems tonight.” She sent the president her best courtroom look—the one her coworkers over at the EPA called Death to the Industrialist. “And no one is getting sent to boarding school. Let us, for the moment, be grateful that we have two smart, healthy children, who have always made the right decisions in the past. I, for one, intend to trust them to continue to make the right decisions in the future.”

“But—” the president began.

But this time it was his wife who cut him off.

“I agree with Carol,” the first lady said. “I think we should just put this whole, unfortunate incident behind us, and try to look on the bright side.”