I think tomorrow I might develop a case of weekend strep throat.

Anyway, I wrote back to everyone, telling them how much I appreciate their support but not to make a bigger deal out of this than it actually is. I mean, I'm not proud of what I did. I would much rather have NOT done it and stayed in school.

One bright note: Michael is definitely getting the cards I've been sending him. Tina walked by his locker today after PE and

saw him take the latest one out and put it in his backpack! Unfortunately, according to Tina, he did not wear an expression of dazed passion as he slipped the card into his bag, nor did he gaze at it tenderly. He did not even put it away very carefully. Tina regretted to inform me that he slipped his Imac laptop into his backpack next, undoubtedly squashing the card.

But he wouldn't, Tina hastened to assure me, have done that if he'd known it was from you, Mia! Maybe if you'd signed it...

But if I signed it, he'd know I like him! More than that, he'd know I love him, since I do believe the L word was mentioned in

at least one card. And what if he doesn't feel the same way about me? How embarrassing! Way worse than being suspended.

Oh, no! As I was writing this, I got Instant Messaged by, of all people, Michael himself! I freaked out so bad that I shrieked and scared Fat Louie, who was sleeping on my lap as I wrote. He sank all of his claws into me, and now I have little puncture marks all over my thighs.

Michael wrote:

CracKing: Hey, Thermopolis, what's this I hear about you getting suspended?

I wrote back:

FtLouie: Just for one day.

CracKing: What'd you do?

FtLouie: crushed a cheerleader's mobile phone.

CracKing: Your parents must be so proud.

FtLouie: If so, they've done a pretty good job of disguising it so far.

CracKing: So, are you grounded?

FtLouie: Surprisingly, no. I told them the attack on the phone was provoked.

CracKing: So you'll still be going to the Carnival next week?

FtLouie: AS secretary to the Students Against the Corporatization of Albert Einstein High. I believe my attendance is required. Your sister is planning for us to have a booth.

CracKing: That Lilly. She's always looking out for the good of mankind.

FtLouie: That's one way of putting it.



Winter Carnival. What is up with that?





Friday, December 11, 9 p.m., the Loft

Now we know why Mr. G was'so late getting home:

He stopped along the way to buy a Christmas tree.

Not just any Christmas tree, either, but a twelve-footer that must be at least six feet wide at the base.

I didn't say anything negative, of course, because my mom was so happy and excited about it and immediately lugged out all

of her Dead Celebrity Christmas ornaments (my mom doesn't use pretty glass balls or tinsel on her Christmas tree, like normal people. Instead, she paints pieces of tin with the likenesses of celebrities that have died that year and hangs those on the tree. (Which is why we probably have the only tree in North America with ornaments commemorating Richard and Pat Nixon, Elvis, Audrey Hepburn, Kurt Cobain, Jim Henson, John Belushi, Rock Hudson, Alec Guiness, Divine, John Lennon and many, many more.)

Mr. Gianini kept looking over at me, to see if I was happy too. He got the tree, he said, because he knew what a bad day I'd had and he didn't want it to be a total loss.

Mr. G, of course, has no idea what my English term paper topic is.

What was I supposed to say? I mean, he'd already gone out and bought it, and you know a tree that size had to have cost a

lot of money. And he'd meant to do a nice thing. He really had.

Still, I wish the people around here would consult me about things before just going out and doing them. Like the whole pregnancy thing, and now this tree. If Mr G had asked me, I would have been like, Let's go to the Big K Mart on Astor Place and get a nice fake tree so we don't contribute to the destruction of the polar bear's natural habitat, OK?

Only he didn't ask me.

And the truth is, even if he did, my mom would never have gone for it. Her favourite part of Christmas is lying on the floor with her head under the tree, gazing up through the branches and inhaling the sweet tangy smell of pine sap. She says it's the only memory of her Indiana childhood she actually likes.

It's hard to think about the polar bears when your mom says something like that.






Saturday, December 12, 2 p.m., Lilly's Apartment


Well, the first meeting of the Students Against the Corporatization of Albert Einstein High School is a complete bust.

That's because nobody showed up but me and Boris Pelkowski. I am a little miffed that Kenny didn't come. You would think that if he really loves me as much as he says he does, he would take any opportunity whatsoever to be near me, even a boring meeting of the Students Against the Corporatization of Albert Einstein High School.

But I guess even Kenny's love is not that great. As should be obvious to me by now, considering the fact that there are exactly six days until the Non-Denominational Winter Dance, and Kenny STILL HASN'T ASKED ME IF I WANT TO GO WITH HIM.

Not that I'm worried, or anything. I mean, does a girl who set off a fire alarm AND smashed Lana Weinberger's mobile worry about not having a date to a stupid dance? All right. I'm worried.

But not worried enough to completely humiliate myself and ask him to the dance.

Lilly is pretty much inconsolable over the fact that no one but Boris and me showed up to her meeting. I tried to tell her that everybody is too busy studying for Finals to worry about privatization at the moment, but she doesn't seem to care. Right now she is sitting on the couch with Boris speaking to her in a soothing voice. Boris is pretty gross and all -with his sweaters that he always tucks into his trousers, and that weird brace his orthodontist makes him wear - but you can tell he genuinely loves Lilly.

I mean, look at the tender way he is gazing at her as she sobs about how she is going to call her congressperson.

It makes my heart hurt, looking at Boris look at Lilly.

I guess I must be jealous.  I want a boy to look at me like that.  And I don't mean Kenny, either.  I mean a boy who I actually

like back, as more than a friend.

I can't take it anymore.  I am going into the kitchen to see what Maya, the Moscovitzes' housekeeper, is doing.  Even helping

to wash things has to be better than this.




Saturday, December 12, 2:30 p.m., Lilly's Apartment


Maya wasn't in the kitchen. She was here, in Michael's room, putting away his school uniform which she just finished ironing. Maya is going around picking up Michael's things and telling me about her son Manuel. Thanks to the help of the Drs. Moscovitz, Manuel was recently released from the prison in the Dominican Republic where he'd been wrongfully held on suspicion of having committed crimes against the state. Now Manuel is starting his own political party and Maya is just as proud as can be, except she is worried he might end up back in prison if he doesn't tone down the anti-government stuff a little.

Manuel and Lilly have a lot in common, I guess. Maya's stories about Manuel are always interesting, but it is much more interesting to be in Michael's room. I have been in it before, of course, but never while he was gone (he is at school even

though it is Saturday, working in the computer lab on his project for the carnival; apparently, the school's modem is faster than his. Also, I suppose, though I hate to admit it, he and Judith Gershner can freely practice their downloading there, without fear of parental interruption).

So I am lying on Michael's bed while Maya putters around, folding shirts and muttering about sugar, one of her native land's main exports and, apparently, a source of some consternation to her son's political platform, while Michael's dog, Pavlov, sits next to me, panting on my face. I can't help thinking, This is what it would be like to be Michael. This is what Michael

sees when he looks up at his ceiling at night (he has put glow-in-the-dark stars up there, in the form of the spiral galaxy Andromeda) and This is how Michael's sheets smell (springtime fresh, thanks to the detergent Maya uses) and This is

what the view of Michael's desk looks like from his bed.

Except that looking over at his desk, I just noticed something. It's one of my cards! The one with the strawberry on it!

It isn't exactly on display, or anything. It's just sitting on his desk. But hey, that's a far cry from being crumpled at the bottom

of his backpack. It shows that the cards mean something to him, that he hasn't just buried them under all the other junk on his desk - the DOS manuals and anti-Microsoft literature ... or worse, thrown them away. This is somewhat heartening.

Uh-oh. I just heard the front door open. Michael??? Or the Drs. Moscovitz???? I better get out of here. Michael doesn't

have all those 'Enter At Your Own Risk' signs on the door for nothing.






Saturday, December 12, 3 p.m., Grandmere's


How, you might ask, did I go from the Moscovitzes' apartment to my grandmother's suite at the Plaza in the space of a mere half hour?

Well, I'll tell you.

Disaster has struck, in the form of Sebastiano.

I always suspected, of course, that Sebastiano was not the sweet-tempered innocent he pretended to be. But now it looks

like the only murder Sebastiano needs to worry about is his own. Because if my dad ever gets his hands on him, Sebastiano