by Meg Cabot
FtLouie
Hey! I'm fine. Thanks for asking. I just can't shake this feeling lately that there's something I've forgotten. I can't quite put my finger on what it is, though. Something to do with this time of year, though, I think . . .
There! Perfect! Subtle, yet pointed. And Michael, being a genius, was sure to get it.
Or so I thought, until he wrote back . . . which he did right away, since I guess he was online as well.
LinuxRulz
Well, judging by the C you got on that quiz today, I'd say what you're forgetting is everything we've been going over these past few weeks in Algebra. If you want, I'll
come over on Sunday and help you with Monday's assignment.
Oh my God. Did any girl ever have a boyfriend so totally clueless? Except possibly Lilly? Except that I think even Boris Pelkowski would have seen through my artless ploy.
I am so depressed. I think I am going to go to bed. There is a Farscape marathon on, but I am not in the mood to watch other people's space adventures. My own are upsetting enough.
Saturday, May 3, DAY OF THE BIG PARTY
My mom poked her head in bright and early and asked me if I wanted to go with her and Mr. G to B.J.'s for party supplies. Normally I love B.J.'s, on account of the cavernous warehouse filled with oversize stuff, and the free cheese samples and the popcorn and everything. Not to mention the drive-through liquor store Mr. G likes to hit on the way home, where they open your boot and fill it with six-packs of Coke without your ever even having to get out of the car.
But for some reason today I was too depressed even for the drive-through liquor store. So I just stayed under the covers
and asked my mom weakly if she minded going by herself. I said I had a sore throat and thought I should stay in bed until it
was time for the party, just to make sure I was well enough actually to attend it.
I don't think my mom really fell for the whole sick act, but she didn't say anything about it. She just went, 'Suit yourself' and
left with Mr. G. Which, considering the mood she's been in lately, is actually letting me off pretty lightly.
I don't know what's wrong with me. I am such a failure. I mean, I have all these problems. I want to go to the prom with my boyfriend, only he hasn't asked me, and I'm too afraid he'll think I'm being pushy to discuss it with him. I don't want to spend my summer in Genovia, but I signed a stinking contract saying I would, and now I don't think I can get out of it. My best friend is trying to do all this good for mankind and everything, and I can't be bothered to lift so much as a piece of posterboard to
help her out, even though the person she's trying to help is someone whose misfortunes are all my fault in the first place. And
my grade is starting to slide in Algebra again, and I don't even care.
Really, with all that weighing on my shoulders, what choice do I have but to turn on the Lifetime Movie Channel for Women? Maybe if I watch some movies about real-life women who've surmounted near impossible obstacles, I might find the courage
to face my own. Hey, it could happen.
Saturday, May 3, 7:30 p.m. half an hour before my party is to begin
I don't think turning on the Lifetime Movie Channel for Women was such a hot idea. All it did was make me feel inadequate. Really, I don't know who could watch movies like that and not feel bad about themselves. I mean, here is just a sample of what some of these women endured:
The Taking of Flight 847: The Uli Derickson Story
The Bionic Woman'?, Lindsay Wagner saves all but one of the passengers in this true story of a plane hijacking in the mid-eighties. In the movie, Uli convinces the hijackers to spare the lives of the passengers by singing a touching folk song, causing the hijackers' eyes to well up.
Unfortunately I don't know any folk songs, and the songs I do know - such as Bif Naked's 'I Love Myself Today (Uh-Huh)' - probably wouldn't soothe anyone, especially a hijacker.
The Abduction of Kari Swenson
Michael J. Fox's wife Tracey Pollan stars in the true story of an Olympic biathlete who gets kidnapped by hillbillies who want
to make her their bride. Ew! As if camping isn't bad enough. Imagine having to camp with people who've never bathed. But Kari gets away and goes on to win the gold, and the bad guys go to jail, where they make them shave every day and brush their teeth.
However, I am no biathlete. I am not even an athlete. If I were kidnapped by hillbillies, I would probably just start crying until they let me go in disgust.
Cry for Help: the Tracey Thurman Story
Facts of Life's Jo get brutally assaulted by her husband while the cops are watching, then successfully sues the police for
failing to protect her, striking a blow for victims of stalking everywhere.
But I have a bodyguard. If anybody tried to assault me, Lars would hit them with his stun gun.
Sudden Terror: The Hijacking of School Bus#17
Maria Conchita Alonso, fresh from her role as Amber in The Running Man, plays Marta Caldwell, the brave driver of a Special Ed. bus which is hijacked by a guy who is mad at the IRS. Her calm and gentle demeanour keeps the hijacker still
long enough for a SWAT officer to shoot him in the head through the bus window, much to the horror of her Special Ed. charges, who are hit with the guy's blood spatter and brain tissue.
But I take a limo to school, so the chances of this happening to me are moot.
She Woke Up Pregnant
This is the true story of a woman whose dentist has sex with her while she is under anaesthesia for a root canal. Then the
dentist has the nerve to say he and the patient had an affair and that she's making up the rape thing so her husband won't get mad about the new baby . . . until, that is, a female cop goes undercover as a patient and the cops use a lipstick camera to catch the dentist in the act of taking her shirt off!
But this would never happen to me as I have nothing in the chestal area that would be of interest even to a psychopathic dentist.
Miracle Landing
Connie Sellecca plays First Officer Mimi Thompkins, who manages successfully to land Flight 243 after its roof is ripped off mid-flight due to metal fatigue. She is not the only brave one on that flight, since there was also a flight attendant who kept checking on the people in the front of the plane where there was no roof, and telling them they were going to be fine even though they had giant pieces of aeroplane carpet stuck to their heads.
I would so never be able either to land a plane or tell people with massive head wounds that they were going to be fine, due
to the fact that I would be barfing too hard.
Seriously, I don't know how anyone can be expected to just hop out of bed after viewing movies like that and feel all good about themselves.
Even worse, I happened to catch a few minutes of Miracle Pets, and I was forced to admit that as a pet, Fat Louie is pretty much bottom of the barrel, intelligence-wise. I mean, on Miracle Pets they had a donkey that saved its owner from wild dogs; a parrot that saved its owners from a house fire; a dog that saved its owner from dying of insulin shock by gently shaking her until she ate some gumdrops, and a cat that noticed its owner was unconscious and sat on the auto-dial 911 button on the phone and miaowed until help arrived.
I am sorry, but Fat Louie would be no match for wild dogs, would probably hide in a fire, wouldn't know a gum-drop from a hole in the wall, and wouldn't know to sit on the 911 button if I were unconscious. In fact, if I were unconscious, Fat Louie would probably just sit by his food bowl and cry until Ronnie from next door finally went insane and got the superintendant to let her in to shut the cat up.
Even my cat is a failure.
Worse, Mom and Mr. G had a fabulous time without me at B.J.'s. Well, except for the part where Mom totally had to pee but they were stuck in the middle of the Holland Tunnel, so she had to hold it until they came to the first Shell station on the other side, and when she ran to the ladies' room it turned out to be loc
ked so she nearly ripped the arm off the gas station attendant grabbing the key from him.
But they found tons of Queen Amidala stuff on sale, including panties (for me, not the party guests, of course). My mom poked her head into my room when they got home to show me the Amidala panty six-pack she picked up, but I just couldn't work up any kind of enthusiasm about it, though I tried.
Maybe I have PMS.
Or maybe the weight of my new-found womanhood, seeing as how I'm fifteen now, is simply too much to bear.
And I really should be happy, because Mr. G hung all these Queen Amidala streamers up all over the Loft, and strung flashing white Christmas lights all through the pipework on the ceiling and put a Queen Amidala mask on Mom's lifesize bust of Elvis. He even promised not to jam on his drums along with the music (a carefully selected mix put together by Michael, which includes all of my favourite Destiny's Child and Bree Sharp releases, even though Michael can't stand them).
WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME???? Is this all just because my boyfriend hasn't asked me to the prom yet? Why do I even care? Why can't I be happy with what I have? WHY CAN'T I JUST BE GLAD I EVEN HAVE A BOYFRIEND AND LEAVE IT AT THAT?
This party was such a bad idea. I am so not in a party mood. What was I even thinking, having a party? I AM AN UNPOPULAR NERD PRINCESS!!!!! UNPOPULAR NERD PRINCESSES SHOULD NOT HAVE PARTIES!!!!!!!!! NOT EVEN FOR THEIR UNPOPULAR NERD FRIENDS!!!!!!!!! No one is going to come. No one is going to come,
and I'm going to end up sitting here all night with the twinkling Christmas lights and the stupid Queen Amidala streamers and
the Cheetos and the Coke and Michael's mix, BY MYSELF.
Oh God, the buzzer just went off. Someone is here. Please God give me the strength to get through this night. Give me the strength of Uli, Kari, Tracey, Marta, that dental patient lady, Mimi and that flight attendant. Please, that's all I ask of you. Thanks.
Sunday, May 4, 2 a,m.
Well. That's it. It's over. My life is over.
I would like to thank all of those who stood by me during the hard times - my mother, back before she became a one hundred and eighty pound quivering mass of bladderless hormones; Mr G, for attempting to salvage my GPA, and Fat Louie for just being, well, Fat Louie, even if he is totally useless when compared to the animals on Miracle Pets.
But nobody else. Because everybody else I know is obviously part of some nefarious plot to drive me to madness, just like Bertha Rochester in Jane Eyre.
Take Tina, for example. Tina, who shows up at my party and, first thing, grabs me by the arm and drags me into my room, where everybody is supposed to be leaving their coats, and tells me, 'Ling Su and I have got it all worked out. Ling Su'll keep your mom and Mr G busy, and then I will announce the game of Seven Minutes in Heaven. When it's your turn, get Michael in the closet and start kissing him and when you've reached the height of passion, ask him about the prom.'
'Tina!' I was really annoyed. And not just because I thought her plan was totally weak, either. No, I was miffed because Tina was wearing body glitter. Really! She had it smeared all over her collarbones. How come I can't even seem to find body glitter in the store? And if I did, would I have the coolness to smear it on my collarbones? No. Because I am too boring.
'We are not playing Seven Minutes in Heaven at my birthday party' I informed her.
Tina looked crestfallen. 'Why not?'
'Because this is a nerd party! My God, Tina! We are nerds. We don't play Seven Minutes in Heaven. That is the kind of thing people like Lana and Josh play at their parties. At nerd parties, we play things like Spoon, or possibly Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board. But not kissing games!'
But Tina was totally adamant that nerds DO play kissing games.
'Because if they don't,' she pointed out, 'then how do you think little nerds get made?'
I suggested that little nerds get made in the privacy of nerd homes after nerds marry, but Tina wasn't even listening any more. She flounced out into the main room to greet Boris, who'd actually, it turned out, arrived a half-hour before, but since he hadn't wanted to be the first one at the party had stood in my vestibule for thirty minutes, reading all of the Chinese menus the delivery boys shove under the door.
'Where's Lilly?' I asked Boris, because I would have thought the two of them would arrive at the same time, seeing as how they are dating and all.
But Boris said he hadn't seen Lilly since the march on Les Hautes Manger that afternoon.
'She was at the front of the group,' he explained to me as he stood by the refreshment table (really our dining table) shoving Cheetos in his mouth. A surprising amount of orange powder got trapped between the spokes of his orthodontic brace. It was oddly fascinating to watch, in a completely gross way. 'You know, with her megaphone, leading the chants. That was the last I saw of her. I got hungry and stopped for a hot dog, and next thing I knew, they had all marched on without me.'
I told Boris that that is, actually, the point of a march . . . that people are supposed to march, not wait for members of the
group who'd stopped for hot dogs. Boris seemed kind of shocked to hear this, which I guess is not surprising, since he is from Russia, where marching of any kind was outlawed for many years, except marches for the glorification of Lenin, or whatever.
Anyway, Michael showed up next with the mix for the CD player. I'd thought about having his band play for my party, since they are always looking for gigs, but Mr. G said no way, as he gets in enough trouble with our downstairs neighbour Verl just for playing his drums. A whole band might send Verl over the edge. Verl goes to bed promptly every night at 9 p.m. so he can be up before dawn to record the activity of our neighbours across the way, whom he believes are aliens sent to this planet to observe us and report back to the mother ship in preparation for eventual interplanetary warfare. The people across the way don't look like aliens to me, but they are German, so you can see why Verl might have made such a mistake.
Michael, as usual, looked incredibly hot. WHY does he always have to look so handsome, every time I see him? I mean, you would think I would get used to how he looks, seeing as how I see him practically every day ... a couple of times a day, even.
But each and every time I see him, my heart gives this giant lurch. Like he's a present I'm just about to unwrap, or something. It's sick, this weakness I have for him. Sick, I tell you.
Anyway, Michael put the music on, and other people started to arrive, and everyone was milling around, talking about the march, and last night's Farscape marathon - everybody except for me, who hadn't taken part in either. Instead, I just ran around taking people's coats (because even though it was May it was still nippy out) and praying that everybody was having a good time and that no one would leave early or overhear my mother telling anyone who would listen about her Incredible Shrinking Bladder . . .
Then the doorbell rang and I went to answer it, and there was Lilly, standing with her arms around this dark-haired guy in a leather jacket.
'Hi!' Lilly said, looking all bubbly and excited. 'I don't think you two have met. Mia, this is Jangbu. Jangbu, this is Princess Amelia of Genovia. Or Mia, as we call her.'
I stared at Jangbu in shock. Not because, you know, Lilly had brought him to my party without asking first, or anything. But because, well, Lilly had her arm around his waist. She was practically hanging on him, for crying out loud. And her boyfriend Boris was right there, in the next room, trying to learn the electric slide from Shameeka . . .
'Mia,' Lilly said, stepping inside with a look of annoyance. 'Don't say hi, or anything.'
I said, 'Oh, sorry. Hi.'
Jangbu said hi back, and smiled. The truth was, Jangbu WAS incredibly good-looking, just like Lilly had said. In fact, he was way better looking than poor Boris. Well, I hate to admit it, but who isn't? Still, I never thought Lilly liked Boris for his looks, anyway. I mean, Boris is a musical genius and, as I happen to know, given the fact that I myself go out with one, they are not easy to find.
For
tunately Lilly had to let go of Jangbu long enough for him to take off his leather jacket when I offered to put it in the bedroom for him. So when Boris finally saw that she'd arrived and went over to say hello, he didn't notice anything amiss. I took Jangbu and Lilly's jackets and wandered, in a daze, back towards my bedroom. I ran into Michael along the way, who grinned at me and said, 'Having fun yet?'
I just shook my head. 'Did you see that?' I asked him. 'Your sister and Jangbu?'