by Meg Cabot
Tuesday, December 8, 7:30 p.m.
OK, so I was taking a study break and I just realized something. You can learn a lot from watching Baywatch. Seriously.
I have complied a list:
Things I Have Learned from Watching Baywatch
1. If you are paralyzed from the waist down, you just need to see a kid being attacked by a murderer and you will be able
to get up and save him.
2. If you have bulimia, it is probably because two men love you at the same time. Just tell the two of them you only want to
be friends and your bulimia will go away.
3. It is always easy to get a parking place near the beach.
4. Male lifeguards always put a shirt on when they leave the beach. Female lifeguards don't need to bother.
5. If you meet a beautiful but troubled girl, she is probably either a diamond smuggler or suffering from a split personality disorder. Do not accept her invitation to dinner.
6. Dick van Patten, though a senior citizen, can be surprisingly hard to quell in a fistfight.
7. If people are dying mysteriously in the water, it is probably because a giant electric eel has escaped from a nearby aquarium.
8. Girls who are thinking about abandoning their baby should just leave it on the beach. Chances are, a nice lifeguard will take
it home, adopt it, and raise it as his own.
9. It is very easy to outswim a shark.
10. Wild seals make adorable and easily trained pets.
Tuesday, December 8, 8:30 p.m.
I just got an e-mail from Lilly. I'm not the only one who got it, either. Somehow she figured out how to do a mass e-mail to every kid in school.
Well, I shouldn't be surprised, I guess. She is a genius. Still, she has clearly developed atrophy of the brain from too much studying, because look what she wrote:
Attention all students at Albert Einstein High School
Stressed from too many exams, term papers and final projects? Don't just passively accept the oppressive workload handed down to us by the tyrannical administration! A silent walkout has been scheduled for tomorrow. At 10 a.m. exactly, join your fellow students in showing our teachers how we feel about inflexible exam schedules, repressive censorship, and having only one Reading Day in which to prepare for our Finals. Leave your pencils, leave your books and gather on East 75th Street between Madison and Park (use doors by main administration offices, if possible) for a rally against Principal Gupta and the trustees. Let your voice be heard!
I am so sure, I can't walk out tomorrow at 10 a.m. That's right in the middle of Algebra. Mr Gianini's feelings will be so hurt if we all just get up and leave.
But if I say I'm not going to take part in it, Lilly will be furious.
But if I do take part in it, my dad will kill me. Not to mention my mom. I mean, we could all get suspended or something. Or
hit by a delivery truck. There are a lot of them on 75th at that time of day.
Why? Why must I be saddled with a best friend who is so clearly a sociopath?
Tuesday, December 8, 8:45 p.m.
I just got the following Instant Message from Michael:
CracKing: Did you just get that whacked-out mass e-mail from my sister?
I replied at once.
FtLouie: Yes.
CracKing: You're not going along with her stupid walkout, are you?
FtLouie: Oh, right. She won't be too mad if I don't, or anything.
CracKing: You don't have to do everything she says, you know, Mia. I mean, you've stood up to her before. Why not now?
Um, because I have enough to worry about right now — for instance, Finals; my impending trip to Genovia; and, oh, yeah, the fact that I love you — without adding a fight with my best friend to the list.
But I didn't say that, of course.
FtLouie: I find that the path of least resistance is often the safest one when dealing with your sister.
CracKing: Well, I'm not doing it. Walking out, I mean.
FtLouie: It's different for you. You're her brother. She has to remain on speaking terms
with you. You live together.
CracKing: Not for much longer. Thank God.
Oh, right. He's going away to college soon. Well, not too far away. About a hundred blocks or so.
FtLouie: That's right. You got accepted to Columbia. Early decision too. I never did congratulate you. So, congratulations.
CracKing: Thanks.
FtLouie: You must be happy that you'll know at least one other person there. Judith Gershner,
I mean.
CracKing: Yeah, I guess so. Listen, you're still going to be in town for the Winter Carnival, right? I mean, you're not leaving for Genovia before the 18th, are you?
All I could think was, Why is he asking me this? I mean, he can't be going to ask me to the dance. He must know I'm going with Kenny. I mean, if Kenny ever gets around to asking me, that is. Besides, it isn't as if Michael is available. Isn't he going with Judith? Well? ISN'T HE?
FtLouie: I'm leaving for Genovia on the 19th.
CracKing: Oh, good. Because you should really stop by the Computer Club's booth at the Carnival and check out this program I've been working on. I think you'll like it.
I should have known. Michael isn't going to ask me to any dance. Not in this lifetime, anyway. I should have known it was just his stupid computer program he wanted me to see. Who even cares? I suppose dumb Army guys will pop out at me, and I'll have to shoot them or whatever. Judith's idea.
I'm sure.
I wanted to write to him, Don't you have the slightest idea what I'm going through? That the only person whom
I can see myself committing to for all eternity is YOU? Don't you KNOW that by now????
But instead I wrote:
FtLouie: Can't wait. Well, I have to go. Bye.
Sometimes I completely hate myself.
Wednesday; December 9, 3 a.m.
You're never going to believe this. Something Grandmere said is keeping me awake.
Seriously. I was dead asleep - well, as asleep as you can be with a twenty-five-pound cat purring on your abdomen — when all of a sudden I woke up with this totally random phrase going around in my head:
'Well, you're his girlfriend now, aren't you?'
That's what Grandmere said when I asked her what was so ingenious about Kenny having sent me those anonymous love letters.
And do you know what?
SHE'S RIGHT.
It seems totally bizarre to admit that Grandmere might be right about something, but I think it's true. Kenny's anonymous love letters DID work. I mean, I AM his girlfriend now.
So what's to keep me from writing some anonymous love letters to the boy / like? I mean, really? Besides the fact that I
already have a boyfriend, and the guy I like already has a girlfriend?
I think this is a plan that might have some merit. It needs further work, of course, but hey, desperate measures call for desperate times. Or something like that. Too sleepy to figure it out.
Wednesday, December 9, Homeroom
OK, I was up all night thinking about it, and I'm pretty sure I've got it figured out. Even as I sit here, my plan is being put into action, thanks to Tina Hakim Baba and a stop at Ho's Deli before school started.
Actually, Ho's didn't really have what I wanted. I wanted a card that was blank inside, with a picture on the front that was sophisticated but not too sexy. But the only blank cards they had at Ho's (that weren't plastered with drawings of kittens on them) were ones with photos of fruit being dipped into chocolate sauce.
I tried to choose a non-phallic fruit, but even the strawberry I got is kind of sexier than I would have liked. I don't know
what's sexy about fruit with chocolate sauce dripping off it, but Tina was like, Whoa, when she saw it.
Still, she gamely agreed to print my poem on the inside of the card, so Michael won't recognize my handwriting. She even
liked my poem,
which I came up with at five this morning:
Roses are red
Violets are blue
You may not know it
But someone loves you.
Not my best work, I will admit, but it was really hard to come up with something better after only three hours of sleep last night.
I hesitated somewhat over the use of the L word. I thought maybe I should substitute Like for Love. I don't want him to think there's a creepy stalker after him, and all.
But Tina said Love was absolutely right. Because, as she put it, 'It's the truth, isn't it?'
And since it's anonymous, I guess it doesn't matter that I am laying open my soul.
Anyway, Tina goes by Michael's locker right before we have PE, so she's going to slip it to him then.
I can't believe that this is the low I have stooped to. But like Dad said, faint heart never won fair lady.
Wednesday; December 9, Later in Homeroom
Lars just pointed out that I'm not exactly risking anything, seeing as how I didn't sign the card and even went to the extreme
of having someone else write out the poem for me (Lars knows all about this, on account of the fact I had to explain to him
why we had to go into Ho's at eight-fifteen in the morning). He helped pick the card, but I would be happy if that was the extent of his contribution to this particular project. As a man, I cannot imagine his input is at all valuable.
Besides, he's been married like four times, so I highly doubt he knows anything about romance.
Also, he should know by now we're not allowed to talk during homeroom.
Wednesday, December 9, Algebra, 9:30 a.m.
I just saw Lilly in the hallway. She whispered, 'DON'T FORGET! TEN O'CLOCK! DON'T LET ME DOWN!'
Well, the truth is, I did forget. The walkout! The stupid walkout!
And poor Mr Gianini, standing up there going over Chapter Five, not suspecting a thing. It's not his fault Mrs Spears didn't like Lilly's term paper topic. Lilly can't just arbitrarily punish all the teachers in school for something one teacher did.
It's already nine thirty-five. What am I going to do?
Wednesday, December 9, Algebra, 9:45 a.m.
Lana just leaned back and hissed, 'You gonna walk out with your fat friend?'
I take real objection to this. Only in a culture as screwed up as ours, where girls like Christina Aguilera are held up as models of beauty, when clearly they are in fact suffering from some sort of malnutrition (scurvy?), would Lilly ever be considered fat. Because Lilly isn't fat. She is just round, like a puppy.
Wednesday, December 9, Algebra, 9:50 a.m.
Ten minutes until the walkout. I can't take this. I'm getting out.
I hate it here.
Wednesday, December 9, 9:55 a,m.
OK. I'm standing in the hallway next to the fire alarm by the second-floor drinking fountain. I got a hall pass from Mr.G.
I told him I had to go to the bathroom.
Lars is with me, of course. I wish he'd stop laughing. He does not seem to realize the seriousness of the situation. Plus Justin Baxendale just walked by with a hall pass of his own, and he gave us this really weird look.
Yeah, I probably do look a little strange, hanging out in the hallway with my bodyguard, who is currently experiencing a fit of the giggles, but still. I do not need to be looked at weirdly by Justin Baxendale.
His eyelashes are really long and dark and they make his eyes look sort of smoky . . .
OH MY GOD! I CAN'T BELIEVE I AM WRITING ABOUT JUSTIN BAXENDALE'S EYELASHES AT A TIME
LIKE THIS! I mean, I am in a real bind here: If I do not walk out with Lilly, I'll lose my best friend. But if I do walk out with everyone, I will be totally dissing my stepfather.
So I really only have one choice.
Lars just offered to do it for me. But I can't let him. I can't let him take the fall for me if we get caught. I am the princess.
I have to do it myself.
I just told him to get ready to run. This is one time being so tall comes in handy. I have a pretty long stride.
Well, here goes.
Wednesday, December 9,10 a.m.,
East 75th Street, Beneath Some Scaffolding
I don't get why she's so mad. I mean, yeah, it isn't the same thing if everyone evacuates the building due to a fire alarm going
off as opposed to everyone leaving in protest against the repressive teaching techniques of some of the teachers.
But we're still all standing in the middle of the street in the rain, and nobody has coats on because they wouldn't let us stop at our lockers for fear we'd all be consumed in a fiery conflagration, so we're probably going to get hypothermia from the cold and die.
That's what she wanted, right?
But no. She can't even be happy about that.
'Somebody ratted us out!' she keeps yelling. 'Somebody told! Why else would they schedule a fire drill for exactly the same time as my walkout? I'm telling you, these bureaucrats will stop at nothing to keep us from speaking out against them. Nothing! They'll even make us stand out in freezing drizzle, hoping to weaken our immune systems so we'll no longer have the strength to fight them. Well, I, for one, refuse to catch cold! I refuse to succumb to their petty abuses!'
I suggested to Lilly that she write her term paper on the suffragettes, because they, like us, had to put up with numerous indignities in their battle for equal rights.
Lilly, however, told me not to be facile.
God, being best friends with a genius is hard.
Wednesday, December 9, Gifted and Talented
I can't tell if Michael got the card or not!!!!
Worse, stupid Judith Gershner is here AGAIN. Why can't she stay in her own class? Why is she always hanging around ours? We were all getting along perfectly well until SHE came along.
My life is pathetic.
I thought about going across the hall to the teachers' lounge and asking Mrs. Hill a question about something — like why she had the custodians remove the door to the supply closet so we can't lock Boris in there any more - so she'd maybe look over and NOTICE that there's a girl in our classroom who is NOT supposed to be there.
But I couldn't bring myself to do it, because of Michael. I mean, Michael obviously WANTS Judith here or else he'd tell her
to go away. RIGHT?????
Anyway, with Michael so busy and all with Miss Gershner, I guess I am on my own with the whole Algebra review thing.
That's all right. I'm completely fine with that. I can study on my own just fine. Watch:
A, B, C = disjoint partition of universal set Collection of non-empty subsets of U which are pairwise disjoint and whose union is equal to the set of U
I get that. I totally get what that means. Who needs Michael's help? Not me. I am totally cool with the collection of
non-empty subsets.
TOTALLY COOL WITH IT.
Oh, Michael
You have made my heart
a disjoint partition.
Why can't you see
that we were meant to be
a universal set?
Instead, you have turned my soul
into a collection of non-empty subsets.
I cannot believe
that our love was meant to be
pairwise disjoint.
But rather
a union
equal to the set of
U and me.
Wednesday, December 9, French
You know what else I just realized? That if this thing works - you know, if I do manage to get Michael away from Judith Gershner, and I break up with Kenny, and I end up, you know, in a potentially romantic situation with Lilly's brother — I