Your Life, but Better

by Crystal Velasquez

  4. Your history teacher gives you an assignment to write about a woman who inspires you. You choose:

  Marie Curie. She was a physicist and a chemist, and she was the first person to win a second Nobel Prize and the first female professor at the University of Paris. Basically, she kicked scientific butt! If you accomplish half as much as she did, you’ll be happy.

  Hillary Clinton. She’s a strong, educated woman who came from Wellesley and Yale Law School and ended up almost making it to the White House! She seems to care about people, and even if she hadn’t become the secretary of state, she still would have been an amazing lawyer.

  Emma Watson—one of your favorite actresses. Of course she played a know-it-all on-screen when she starred as Hermione in all the Harry Potter movies, but she’s a smarty-pants in real life too! She was accepted into Yale, Cambridge, and Brown. Gotta love a girl with brains and talent.

  Maya Angelou. She’s a writer, dancer, artist, actress, and all-around creative soul. There is nothing artistic that this woman can’t do. She’s even won a few Grammys! That’s your kind of role model.

  5. You and your parents are strolling along the boardwalk on the beach when you see a palm-reading table. Do you stop to get your palm read?

  What for? Everybody knows there’s no scientific proof to show that any of that stuff is real. You haven’t seen any hard evidence that anything a palm-reader says is true, so you wouldn’t waste your time—or your parents’ money—on that.

  You probably won’t have your palm read. You don’t buy into any of that, really. But you’ll stop to watch someone else have theirs read, just for fun.

  Why not? You aren’t sure you believe that the palm-reader can see your future, but hey, you never know. If you’re about to run into that adorable guy from your math class, you wouldn’t mind a heads-up!

  Of course! You’re open to all the mysteries of the universe. And the palm-reader’s shimmering silk scarves and amber rings speak to your creative side. Before she even asks if you want a reading, you’re sitting in the chair across from her with your palm in her face.

  Give yourself 1 point for every time you answered A, 2 points for every B, 3 points for every C, and 4 points for every D.

  —If you scored between 5 and 12, go to chapter 15

  —If you scored between 13 and 20, go to chapter 14

  You’re no shrinking violet. When it comes to getting what you want, you aren’t shy at all. That can be a good trait in some situations. You should never be afraid to demand the things you deserve. The problem is you think you deserve everything and rarely consider what anybody else wants. Sometimes seeing someone else happy can make you feel even better than getting your own way does.

  “All right, campers,” Lena says, clapping her hands and breaking the awkward silence, “all this sitting around and staring at the straw dispenser is fun, but we really need to get moving.”

  You shoot Lena a look. Is she nuts? If you go now, Jimmy will leave to meet Mona. Not how you want this to play out at all. True, he’s taking Mona to the party, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that he really likes her. You’re sure that if he just spent a little time with you, he’d see that you two would have way more fun together. But that means you can’t go splitting up right now. What you need is a plan.

  You’re still trying to come up with one as Jimmy settles the bill and you all file out of Johnny Rockets. The halls are teeming with your classmates, who are running around the mall, frantically looking for Shawna. Just seeing all of them clearly lights a fire under Jessie, who is bouncing up and down where she stands. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” she shouts.

  And just when all hope seems lost, you spot the most beautiful thing in the mall against the far wall. With its drab brown curtain and faded lettering, you almost missed it. But now it seems to glow with an angelic light, and you can almost hear the trumpets in the background, hailing your next great idea. The photo booth! It’s perfect. Lots of people + tiny space = you getting much closer to Jimmy. Being in there with your friends is always fun, but posing for shots with Jimmy would probably be superromantic. And this could be your last chance before he runs off to meet (gag) Mona. So it’s now or never.

  “Wait!” you cry, tugging the back of Jessie’s T-shirt, not giving her a chance to get away. “Before we go, we should really pile into the photo booth over there and take a few pictures. You know, to remember this day by.”

  Lena, Jessie, and Jimmy don’t seem too into this idea. They all start shifting around uncomfortably, and Jimmy starts rubbing his head again.

  “Now?” Jessie asks incredulously. “Have you gone all head-shaving Britney on me or something? There are only a handful of tickets left.”

  “And we’re seriously running out of time,” Lena adds reasonably.

  “Plus, I’m already pretty late as it is to meet my, um … you know. She’s probably going to kill me.”

  These are all compelling reasons not to get into the photo booth, but you still want what you want. It’s time to pull the guilt-trip card.

  “Oh,” you say in your saddest voice, looking down at your shoes. “Okay … I just thought that since I missed out on a chance to be a model today, it might make me feel better to at least take some pictures with my friends. But that’s all right. I understand.” You shrug and wipe an imaginary tear from your eye. Oh, you’re good.

  The three of them look at one another, and Lena lets out a sigh. “Okay. Maybe just a few quick pictures. Get thee to a photo booth, and quickly too!”

  You immediately brighten up. “Yay!” You grab Jimmy’s hand and pull him toward the booth. “Come on!”

  Inside, it’s a lot smaller than you remembered, with just one tiny bench that barely seats two people and a sliver of standing room behind it. Right away you decide that you and Jimmy need to be on the bench so that you have an excuse to sit close to him. The blood circulation to Jessie’s and Lena’s legs will probably be cut off as they to squish in behind you, but they’re good friends. You’re sure they don’t mind taking one for the team. You look back at them, certain that they understand the romance of this moment and will be beaming back at you. Instead, they just look antsy and a little bit mad. And Jimmy keeps checking his watch and biting his lip.

  Though the booth itself is old, they have upgraded the photo machine so that it takes digital pictures and you have the option of viewing them first before you print them. You slip in your three dollars and press the Start button. Before you even have a chance to sit back, the flash goes off, blinding you.

  “Hey! I wasn’t ready yet!” you cry.

  Flash!

  “What’s wrong with this thing?” you say angrily. “I didn’t even get to—”

  Flash!

  “Stop that!” you say, as if there’s a person back there taking the snapshots. “Everybody get ready—”

  Flash!

  You know that the machine takes only four pics at a time, so you’ve already blown this round. You press View, and when the pics show up on the screen, all your friends start laughing hysterically. In the first one, your forehead is filling up almost the entire frame. In the second one, your mouth is wide open and your eyes are unfocused. Jimmy is blinking, so it kind of looks like he was asleep, and Lena and Jessie are behind you, trying to hold in a laugh. The next one is even worse. You’re shaking a fist at the camera, your eyebrows knitted in anger. In the last one, you’re not even facing the camera. It’s a great shot of the back of your head and everyone looking at you as if you’re a mental patient.

  “Great looks,” Jessie says, doubling over with laughter—well, as much as she can double over in this cramped booth. “Kind of like those Mischa Barton mug shots.”

  “You definitely missed your calling,” adds Lena. “I especially like the fist-of-fury shot.” She holds up her fist and scrunches up her face.

  Okay, okay, it was pretty funny. You start laughing too, glad that something loosened everybody up, even if it had to be y
our utter embarrassment.

  “How bout we try that again?” Jimmy resets the camera and pauses with his finger over the Start button. “Okay, everybody get ready now.”

  Jessie and Lena link arms and lean in. You take the opportunity to link your arm with Jimmy’s and scoot a little closer. His face turns bright red and he clears his throat nervously. “Here we go,” he announces, his voice cracking slightly.

  He pushes the button and sits back quickly. Two seconds later, you’re all blinded by the flash.

  “Funny face now!” you call out. You stick your tongue out to the side and cross your eyes. Jimmy hooks two fingers in his mouth and pulls the corners as far as they’ll go. Jessie sucks in her cheeks and makes her eyes big and round—her famous fish face. And Lena imitates your fist-of-fury shot again.

  Flash!

  You all crack up. “Now pretend there’s an earthquake!” Jessie yells.

  You immediately swing one leg over Jimmy’s lap and pretend you’re being tossed around the booth. Everybody flails their arms and screams, “Whooooa!”

  Flash!

  Now you’re laughing so hard your face hurts. And when you look at Jimmy, he’s staring right back at you, his messy brown hair hanging over his gorgeous green eyes. He is so Milo Ventimiglia in Heroes, you can’t stand it. And for a moment it’s like you two are the only ones in the whole mall. You’re mesmerized.

  Flash!

  “I have to hand it to you—that was fun,” Jessie admits, breaking you out of your trance.

  “Definitely,” Lena says. “Now just press Print and let’s get out of here. My legs are falling asleep!”

  You reluctantly move away from Jimmy so you can pull back the brown curtain and squeeze out of the booth. Jimmy and your friends are right behind you. You check the slot where the photos come out, and there is already a strip of pictures there. “Wow! That was fast,” you tell everyone. “Usually that takes a couple of minutes at least.”

  But when you pull the strip toward you, you see that they aren’t pictures of you and your friends at all. They’re pictures of Shawna! “Huh? What are these doing here?”

  “Hey, there’s writing on the back,” Jimmy points out.

  You turn the strip over in a hurry and see Shawna’s neat handwriting. You read it out loud.

  “Whoever found this strip,

  you just missed me!

  Study the pictures for clues and you

  just might get your golden ticket!”

  The four of you crowd around the photos, your heads almost touching. In each shot, Shawna is wearing dark glasses and a trench coat, so you can’t see what she has on underneath. But she has different accessories each time. Jessie zooms in on the iPod sticking out of one pocket in the first shot. “Check out the nano,” she says. “Maybe that means she likes music. I’ll go to the Music Megastore and see if she’s there.” Before you even have a chance to argue, Jessie is jogging away, her ponytail bouncing happily behind her.

  Lena, meanwhile, studies the second frame. “Hey, is that a tub of popcorn next to her on the bench? You can only get those at the movie theater. I’m going to go check it out!” And Lena is gone in a flash, leaving you and Jimmy standing together. Finally you’re alone! You’re sure that after the great time you had in the photo booth, he’s forgotten all about his meeting with Mona and wants to spend the rest of the summer with you—or at least, the rest of the afternoon.

  “So where should we go?” you ask, smiling up at him.

  But he just hands you the strip of photos and looks sadly at his watch. “I’m so sorry,” he tells you, “but I should really go. I’m beyond late.”

  He heads down the hallway, yelling, “Good luck!” over his shoulder. You stand there for a second, sadly watching his back as he sprints away. Did you just imagine the moment you shared in the photo booth? Was his arm touching yours only in your mind? You’re crushed. You were so sure your plan would work you even risked making your friends mad at you—all for nothing.

  As you stand there, the photos you and your friends just took finally drop into the slot.

  Only when Jimmy is completely gone from view do you bother to glance down at them. They came out great. But seeing how happy Jimmy looked while sitting next to you makes tears well up in your eyes. So you quickly shove the strip into your back pocket and focus on Shawna’s clues.

  In one of the remaining two photos, Shawna is wearing a beret and holding a paintbrush. In the other, she has a bookmark sticking out of her pocket. Hmmm … You have a couple of ideas about where those clues lead. The question is, which clue do you choose?

  It seems that selfishly putting your own needs ahead of your friends’ doesn’t necessarily get you what you want. Sure, you had a great time in the photo booth, but in the end, Jimmy still left to find Mona and you got your heart broken again. And Lena and Jessie took off mighty quickly too. Yes, they wanted to go find Shawna, but could it be that they were still a tiny bit peeved by the way you manipulated them to get your way, and they needed a little break from you? Very possibly. Perhaps it’s time to rededicate yourself to the mission and prove to your friends that you’re on their team. But which clue are you leaning toward? The next quiz should clear it up for you.

  QUIZ TIME!

  Circle your answers and tally up the points at the end.

  1. When you grow up, you want to be:

  a rocket scientist. You would love pursuing the kind of career that only a handful of people in the world are smart enough to handle. You know that it would take lots of extra years of school, and you’d spend most of that time studying and reading, but for you, that’s the fun part! Plus, you are crazy about science. Your friends may think you’re a super-geek, but you know there’s nothing wrong with using your brain to the max.

  an English teacher. You’re always correcting everyone’s grammar anyway, so this seems like a good fit. Besides, from Shakespeare to Stephanie Meyer, you’ve read it all, and nothing would suit you better than to be in a classroom day after day, sharing your love of books with your students.

  a Web designer. Some serious computer skills are necessary for this gig, but once you have those down pat, you can be as creative as you want. And your Web sites would never be boring, since you’d know how to jazz ’em up with animation, streaming video, interactive links, music, and whatever colors or crazy fonts you could think of!

  an art photographer. What could be better than traveling the world in search of that perfect shot, and possibly having your work hang in a gallery one day? Your family might think you’re cuckoo because you have no steady address (and no steady paycheck), but hey, that’s the life of an artist!

  2. Your ideal holiday present would be:

  the deluxe, oh-my-God-these-questions-are-so-hard edition of Trivial Pursuit. You prefer presents that will give your brain a real workout (although it’s already pretty buff).

  the complete collection of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books. Fun, friendship, and love all wrapped up with some great writing and smart female characters? Yes, please!

  the computer game that lets you design your own roller coaster. Figuring out how to design a ride that is fast and safe is actually a lot more complicated than people think, but you would love getting to decide how the ride would look and what kind of death-defying turns and loops you could throw in there.

  an easel and canvas with a full set of acrylic paints—the ideal companions for an artiste (that’s “ar-teest”) such as yourself. The only thing better than going to a museum to see priceless works of art is to put some paint on a canvas and create one of your own! It’s the perfect way to let your imagination run wild.

  3. The walls of your room are:

  plain white, with a map of the world on one and a framed photograph of Albert Einstein on another. And don’t forget the Socrates quotes above your bed. Oh, and all your academic achievement awards and science fair plaques…

  tan, with a simple corkboard where you tack up your best
and worst test scores. The good scores make you feel smart, and the not-so-great scores motivate you to work harder.

  blue, with a few framed photos of your friends and family. The blue is a soothing, relaxing color that makes you think of the ocean. And it’s always nice to see your loved ones’ faces smiling back at you.

  bright purple, with pictures of all your favorite things covering almost every inch. Near your bed are the scrap-book-type collages you made of your friends, with funny sayings underneath, and your mom lets you keep a string of colorful twinkle lights up all year long because you think they look festive.

  4. Your history teacher gives you an assignment to write about a woman who inspires you. You choose:

  Marie Curie. She was a physicist and a chemist, and she was the first person to win a second Nobel Prize and the first female professor at the University of Paris. Basically, she kicked scientific butt! If you accomplish half as much as she did, you’ll be happy.

  Hillary Clinton. She’s a strong, educated woman who came from Wellesley and Yale Law School and ended up almost making it to the White House! She seems to care about people, and even if she hadn’t become the secretary of state, she still would have been an amazing lawyer.

  Emma Watson—one of your favorite actresses. Of course she played a know-it-all on-screen when she starred as Hermione in all the Harry Potter movies, but she’s a smarty-pants in real life too! She was accepted into Yale, Cambridge, and Brown. Gotta love a girl with brains and talent.