VICE PRESIDENT:
Was that ALL you were doing? Just VISITING him?
PRESIDENT:
Yes. Madam Treasurer, we are ready for your report now.
(Okay, seriously. What’s with the Was that ALL you were doing? You so know she was talking about S-E-X. And in front of Mrs. Hill, too! As if Lilly doesn’t know perfectly well where Michael and I stand on that subject!
Could it be that maybe she’s nervous about “No More Corn!” being better than any of her stories? No, that’s not possible. I mean, “No More Corn!” IS about a sensitive young loner who becomes so distressed over the alienation he feels at the expensive Upper East Side prep school his parents send him to, as well as that school cafeteria’s insistence on putting corn in the chili, ignoring his frequent requests to them to not do so, that he eventually jumps in front of an F train.
But is this really a better plot than any of the ones in Lilly’s stories, which are all about young men and women coming to terms with their sexuality? I don’t know.
I do know that Sixteen magazine doesn’t tend to publish stories with explicit sex scenes in them. I mean, it has articles about birth control and testimonials from girls who got STDs or had unwanted pregnancies or got sold into white slavery or whatever.
But it never picks stories with stuff like that in them for its fiction contest.
When I mentioned this to Lilly, though, she said they would probably make an exception if the story were good enough, which hers definitely are—according to her, anyway.
I just hope Lilly’s expectations aren’t TOO unrealistic. Because, okay, one of the first rules of fiction is to write what you know, and I have never been a boy, hated corn, or felt alienated enough to jump in front of an F train.
But Lilly’s never had sex, and all FIVE of her stories have sex in them. In one of them, the heroine has sex with a TEACHER. You KNOW that’s not written from personal experience. I mean, except for Coach Wheeton, who is now engaged to Mademoiselle Klein and wouldn’t even LOOK at a student, there isn’t a single male teacher in this school anyone could remotely consider hot.
Well, anyone except my mom, of course, who apparently found Mr. G’s alleged hotness—EW—irresistible.)
TREASURER’S REPORT: We have no money left.
(Wait. WHAT DID LING SU SAY???????)
Tuesday, March 2, the Plaza, princess lessons
Well, that’s it, then. The student government of Albert Einstein High is broke.
Busted.
Bankrupt.
Tapped out.
We’re the first government in the history of Albert Einstein High School to have run through their entire budget in only seven months, with three more still to go.
The first government ever not to have enough money to rent Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center for the senior class’s commencement ceremony.
And it’s apparently all my fault for appointing an artist as treasurer.
“I told you I’m no good with money!” was all Ling Su kept repeating, over and over again. “I told you not to make me be treasurer! I told you to make Boris treasurer! But you wanted it to be all about Girl Power. Well, this girl is also an artist. And artists don’t know anything about balance sheets and fund revenues! We have more important things on our mind. Like making art to stimulate the mind and senses.”
“I knew we should have made Shameeka treasurer,” Lilly groaned. Several times. Even though I reminded her, repeatedly, that Shameeka’s dad told her she is only allowed one extracurricular activity per semester, and she’d already chosen cheerleading over student governing, in a decision sure to haunt her in her quest to be the first African-American woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court.
The thing is, it really isn’t Ling Su’s fault. I mean, I’m the president. If there is one thing I’ve learned from this princess business, it’s that with sovereignty comes responsibility: You can delegate all you want, but, ultimately, YOU’RE the one who is going to pay the price if something goes awry.
I should have been paying attention. I should have been more on top of things.
I should have put the kibosh on the uber-expensive bins. I should have just made them get the regular blue ones. It was my idea to go for the ones with the built-in crusher.
WHAT WAS I THINKING??? Why didn’t anyone try to stop me????
Oh my God. I know what this is!