Princess In Training (6 page)

Although, I definitely wouldn’t mind seeing Michael with HIS clothes off.

Is this a double standard?

I wonder if my mom felt the same about Wendell Jenkins. She MUST have, or she wouldn’t have Done It with him.

And yet here she is, more than twenty years later, and she doesn’t even know where he IS now.

Wait, I bet I could find him. I could do a Yahoo! People search!

OH, MY GOD!!! HERE HE IS!!!! WENDELL JENKINS!!! I mean, there’s no picture, but he works for…OH, MY GOD, HE WORKS FOR THE VERSAILLES POWER COMPANY!!!! HE IS THE GUY WHO FIXES THE POWER LINES WHEN YOUR LIGHTS GO OUT BECAUSE OF A TORNADO OR WHATEVER!!!!

I cannot believe my mom gave the flower of her virginity to a guy who now works for the VERSAILLES POWER COMPANY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not that there is anything wrong with someone who works for the power company. It is no different than being a high school Algebra teacher, I guess.

But at least Mr. G doesn’t have to wear a JUMPSUIT to work.

I wonder if April Pollack, the girl who became Mrs. Wendell Jenkins instead of my mom, is on here.

OH, MY GOD! She is!!!! APRIL POLLACK WAS ELECTED CORN PRINCESS OF VERSAILLES, INDIANA, IN 1985!!!!!!!!!!!

My mom Did It with a guy who later went on to marry a corn princess.

Which is very ironic, considering my mom later went on to have the illegitimate child of a prince! Hello, I wonder if Wendell even knows this. That his ex, Helen Thermopolis, is the mother of the heir to the throne of GENOVIA. I bet he wouldn’t feel so good about having dumped her for Miss Corn Princess April if he knew THAT, would he????

Although, I guess he didn’t really dump her, if it’s true what my mom said about her and Wendell wanting different things.

Could this happen to me and Michael? Could we want different things someday? In twenty years, will Michael be married, not to the princess of Genovia, but to some CORN PRINCESS????

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! SOMEONE IS IMing ME!!!! Who could it be NOW?

Help! It’s Michael!

SKINNERBX: Hey!

Since going Mac, Michael’s changed his IM address. It used to be LinuxRulz.

SKINNERBX: How was your first day back?

Oh, my God. He hasn’t heard. Well, how WOULD he? It’s not like he was there. Or like Lilly would tell him. Since they don’t live together anymore.

FTLOUIE: It was…the usual.

Well, it WAS. My life is a constant roller coaster…joy followed by crushing disappointments, with occasional patches where nothing at all happens and I just admire the scenery.

I figured I should change the subject.

FTLOUIE: How was YOUR first day?

SKINNERBX: Fantastic! Today in my Economics of Sustainable Development class the professor talked about how in the next 10 to 20 years, petroleum, the cheapest and most effective fuel on the planet—you know, what we use in cars and to heat our homes and in ChapStick and all—will run out. See, 100 years ago, when petroleum was first discovered, the world population was only two billion. Now, with six billion people—a population explosion almost directly caused by more easily accessible fuel—the earth cannot maintain that many people with the amount of petroleum it has left. Since the population isn’t getting any smaller, oil consumption isn’t going to decrease, so in about two decades—maybe more, but probably less, at the rate we’re going—we’re going to run out, and if we don’t find a way to get at the petroleum buried deep beneath the seas—without destroying the environment—or start converting to nuclear or hydro or solar power, everyone will be plunged back into the dark ages, and people worldwide will starve and/or freeze to death.

FTLOUIE: So, in other words…in about ten to fifteen years, we’re all going to die?

SKINNERBX: Basically. How about you? What did YOU learn today?

Um, that you are going to dump me if I don’t put out.

But, of course, I couldn’t SAY that. So I just told Michael about how this weekend my mom and Mr. G are making an emergency trip to Indiana to introduce Rocky to his Hoosier grandparents. And how Lilly has stabbed me in the back ONCE AGAIN, this time by nominating me for student council president but how she’d said not to worry about it since she “has a plan”; also about how I hate Geometry already.

SKINNERBX: Wait…your parents are going to Indiana this weekend?

FTLOUIE: Not my parents. My mom and Mr. G.

I love Mr. G and all, I guess, but it still weirds me out when anyone refers to him as my parent or my dad. I already have a dad.

I forgive Michael for this common mistake, however, as he does not know—as I do—what it’s like to come from a broken home.

FTLOUIE: What do you think your sister could be up to, anyway? I mean, I would be the worst student council president EVER.

SKINNERBX: What day are they leaving?

Why is Michael fixated on the fact that Mom and Mr. G are going out of town? This is totally the LEAST of my problems.

FTLOUIE: I don’t know. Friday, I guess.

Which reminded me:

FTLOUIE: Do you still want me to come over on Saturday to meet Doo Pak?

SKINNERBX: Sure. Or if you want, I could come over there.

FTLOUIE: With Doo Pak?

SKINNERBX: No. I meant by myself.

FTLOUIE: Well, if you want to. But I don’t know why you would, nobody’s going to be here but me.

Oh, no. Rocky’s crying again.

I’m not a baby-licker. I’m NOT.

SKINNERBX: Mia? Are you still there?

But how can they just sit there and listen to him cry like that? It’s just WRONG.

SKINNERBX: Mia?

FTLOUIE: Sorry, Michael, I gotta go. I’ll talk to you later.

I wonder if there’s a Baby-lickers Anonymous I could join.

Wednesday, September 9, Homeroom

Well, Lana certainly didn’t waste any time launching her campaign for student council president into overdrive.

When Lilly and I walked into school this morning, it was to find the hallways WALLPAPERED with giant full-color glossy posters of Lana with the words VOTE LANA written underneath them.

Some of the posters are just like headshots, showing Lana tossing her long shimmery golden hair back and laughing, or with her chin cupped in her hands, smiling with the angelic sweetness of Britney on her first album cover. In the pictures, Lana doesn’t look at all like someone who might grab the back of another girl’s bra and hiss, “Why do you bother to wear one of these when you have nothing to put in it?”

Or someone who might tell a girl in the jet line that college boys expect their girlfriends to Do It.

Some of the other posters show Lana in full-on action shots, like jumping into the air and doing the splits in her cheerleading uniform. One of them shows Lana in her prom dress from last year, standing at the bottom of some staircase. I don’t know where, since there was no staircase like it at the actual prom. Maybe her apartment? I wouldn’t know, of course, having never been invited there.

Lilly took one look at all the posters and then down at her own posters—yes, Lilly spent all last night, while I was learning about Wendell Jenkins, making campaign posters for me—and said a very bad word.

Because even though Lilly’s posters are very nice—they say MIA RULES and PICK THE PRINCESS—they are only glitter poured over Elmer’s on white foam core (for rigidity). Lilly didn’t exactly blow up any full-color glossy headshots of me and plaster the school with them.

“Don’t worry, Lilly,” I told her, very sympathetically. “I don’t want to be president anyway, so maybe this is for the best.”

Even Boris noticed how sad Lilly was and felt bad for her, which I thought was really nice of him, given how she’d ripped his heart out of his chest and stomped all over it just last May.

“Your posters are much nicer than Lana’s,” he told her. “Because they come from the heart, and not some photocopy shop.”

But Lilly ripped her posters in half and stuffed them into a trash can outside the administrative offices anyway. There was glitter everywhere by the time she was done.

She did say, kind of darkly, “She wants war? She’s got one.”

But Lilly may have been referring to the fact that they are serving brandade for lunch today in the caf. With cod, the main ingredient in brandade, being nearly extinct due to overfishing, Lilly’s been conducting a very vocal campaign on her public access show against its use in New York City restaurants.

I really wish those producers who optioned Lilly’s show would hurry up and find a studio to buy it already. Lilly really needs a new project. She has WAY too much time on her hands.

I have not heard from Michael since I signed off last night. I’m hoping this means he is busy with the whole petroleum-running-out thing, and not, you know, that he’s breaking up with me because he’s realized I’m not exactly the Do It type.

Wednesday, September 9, PE

There should be a law against dodgeball.

Also, what did I ever do to HER? I mean, she’s clearly winning this stupid election.

What is the point of even HAVING a bodyguard if he is going to allow me to be pelted in the thigh with red rubber balls?

I think that’s definitely going to leave a mark.

Wednesday, September 9, Geometry

“a if b” and “a only if b”

The phrase “if and only if” is represented by the abbreviations “if” and by the symbol

a b means both a b and b a.

Is the converse of a true statement necessarily true?

Excuse me, but

WHAT???????????????

There is a Euler diagram appearing on my thigh where Lana hit me with that ball.

Wednesday, September 9, English

Don’t you LOVE that pink sweater thing Ms. M’s wearing? She looks so totally Elle Woods in it! If Elle Woods had black hair, I mean.—T.

Yes. It’s nice.

R U OK? R U mad about what Lilly did? I think you’d make a reallly good student council prez, 4 what it’s worth.

Thanks, Tina. Actually, I’d sort of forgotten about that. So much other stuff is happening.

What other stuff? That thing with the snails?

You KNOW about that????

It was on the news last night. I guess those people in Monaco are kind of mad.

They have no right to be mad! It’s all their fault!

Yeah, the reporter kind of mentioned that. Is that what’s bothering U?

No. Well, partly. I mean—can you keep a secret?

Of course!

I know, but like a REAL secret. You CANNOT tell Lilly.

Pinky swear.

OR BORIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PINKY SWEAR!!! I SAID PINKY SWEAR!!!!

Okay. Well. It’s just that yesterday in the jet line Lana told me that college boys expect their girlfriends to Do It and that means Michael must be expecting for ME to Do It, only I’m not sure I want to. I mean, I guess I WANT to, but not if it involves taking my clothes off in front of him. But I’m not sure there’s any way around that. Also, I thought college boys only Did It with college girls. But I’m not a college girl, I’m a high school girl. But then I talked to my mom about it and she said she Did It when she was 15 with this guy named Wendell Jenkins but then he married this corn princess named April and my mom hasn’t even seen him since. And what if that happens with me and Michael? Like, what if we Do It and then we break up because it turns out we want different things and he marries a corn princess? I think that might kill me. Although my mom says she hasn’t thought about Wendell in years. I don’t know. What should I do?

Just because things didn’t work out with Wend dell and your mom is no reason to think that you and Michael are also going to break up. And what kind of name is WENDELL, anyway?

So you’re saying…I should Do It?????

I don’t think Lana really knows what college boys do. She doesn’t know any college boys. Or if she does they’re probably frat boys. And Michael isn’t even in a frat. Besides, Michael really loves you. It’s obvious just in the way he looks at you. If you don’t want to Do It, don’t Do It.

Yeah, but what about what Lana said?????

Michael isn’t one of those guys who would dump you just for not Doing It with him. I mean, maybe the guys LANA knows would do this. Like Josh Richter, for instance. Or that Ramon guy. He looks kind of sketchy, But not Michael. Because he actually CARES about you. Besides, I really don’t think Michael expects you to Do It. At least, not right now.

REALLY??????

Really. I mean, it would be kind of presumptuous of him. You guys have not even been going out for a year. I don’t think anyone should Do It with a guy unless they’ve been going out for at least a year. And then they have to Do It for the first time on prom night. Because when you Do It for the first time, the boy should be wearing a tux. It’s only polite.

Tina, I barely managed to get Michael to take me to the prom once. I highly doubt I’m ever going to be able to get him to go again.

Hmmm. Well, coronations count. I’m sure it would be just as romantic to Do It for the first time after your coronation.

I’m not having a coronation until after my dad dies and leaves me the throne!!!! I could be as old as Prince Charles by the time that happens!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I do WANT to Do It, before I’m ANCIENT, you know. Just not, you know. NOW.

Well, then you just need to tell Michael that. You two really need to have The Talk. You need to get this all out in the open. Because communication is the key to success in a romantic relationship.

Have you and Boris had it? You know, The Talk. About DOING IT?