But she totally didn’t seem to notice or care.
“So, what time can we come over?” she wanted to know.
“Just because my mom and Mr. G are going away does NOT mean I’ll be having a party,” I yelled, all panicky.
“Yeah,” Lilly said, looking thoughtful. “I forgot. You’re heir to the throne of Genovia. It’s not like they’re going to leave you there alone. But that’s okay. We can probably get Lars and Wahim to go off by themselves somewhere—”
“NO,” I said, “that’s not it. I’m not having a party because the last time I had one, it was a total disaster.”
“Yeah,” Lilly said. “But this time, Mr. Gianini won’t be there—”
“NO PARTIES,” I said, in my most princessy voice.
Lilly just sniffed and went, “Just because you got a B on an English paper, don’t take it out on me.”
Oh, okay, Lilly, I won’t. And just because YOUR parents don’t trust you enough to let you stay alone in the house on account of that one time you set off the sprinkler system in the building with your homemade lighter-and-Rave-hairspray flamethrower, don’t take it out on me.
Only, of course, I didn’t say that out loud.
“Wait,” Boris said. “YOU got a B on an English paper, Mia? How is that possible?”
So then I had no choice but to break the news to everyone at the lunch table. You know, about Ms. Martinez being a big huge uber-phony.
They were all shocked, of course.
“But she has such cute clogs!” Tina cried, her heart clearly breaking.
“It just goes to show,” Boris said, “that you can’t tell what’s in someone’s heart by the way he or she dresses.” He shot a very significant look at me while he said this.
But I don’t care. Tucking your sweater into your pants is not a good look for ANYONE.
“She probably means well,” Tina said, since she tries to find the good in everyone.
“There is never any justification for crushing the artistic spirit,” Ling Su said—and, since she can draw better than anyone in our whole school, she would know. “Lots of so-called critics and reviewers meant well when they ravaged the works of the Impressionists in the nineteenth century. But if artists like Renoir and Monet had followed their advice, some of the greatest works of art in the world would never have been created.”
“Well, I wouldn’t exactly compare my writing to a Renoir painting,” I felt obligated to say. “But thanks, Ling Su.”
“The thing is, even if Mia’s writing DOES stink,” Boris said, in his usual blunt fashion, “does a teacher really have the right to tell her so?”
“It does sort of seem antieducational,” Shameeka said.
“Something’s got to be done about this,” Ling Su said. “The question is, what?”
But before we could come up with anything, this dark shadow fell over our lunch table, and we looked up, and there was…
Lana.
Our hearts sank. Well, mine did, anyway.
Lana was accompanied by the new Grand Moff Tarkin to her Darth Vader, Trisha Hayes.
“Nice posters, PIT,” Lana said. Only, of course, she was being sarcastic. “But they aren’t going to do you any good.”
“Yeah,” Trisha said. “We took a random poll of the cafeteria, and if the election were today, you’d only get sixteen votes.”
“You mean there are sixteen people in this cafeteria,” Lilly said, mildly, as she peeled the chocolate coating off a Ho Ho, “who were willing to tell you to your face that they aren’t voting for you? God, I had no idea there were so many masochists in this school.”
“Keep sucking on that Twinkie, fatty,” Lana said. “And we’ll see who’s the masochist.”