Party Princess (2 page)

(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!

It is my own personal presidential Bay of Pigs.

Seriously. We learned all about the Bay of Pigs in World Civ—where a group of military strategists back in the sixties came up with this plan to invade Cuba and overthrow Castro, and talked President Kennedy into agreeing to it, only to get to Cuba and find out they were outnumbered and also that no one had checked to make sure the mountains they were supposed to flee into for safety were actually on that side of the island (they weren’t).

Many historians and sociologists have blamed the Bay of Pigs on an incidence of “groupthink,” a phenomenon that occurs when a group’s desire for unanimity makes them reluctant to actually check their facts—like when NASA
refused to listen to the engineers’ warnings about the space shuttle
Challenger
because they were so adamant about launching it by a certain date.

This is clearly EXACTLY what went on with the recycling bins.

Mrs. Hill—if you really think about it—could be called a groupthink enabler…. I mean, she didn’t exactly do a whole lot to try to stop us. The same could be said for Lars, for that matter, although ever since he got his new Sidekick he hardly ever pays attention in class anyway. Mrs. Hill refused to offer any workable solutions to the situation, such as a loan of the five grand we’re missing.

Which, if you ask me, is a cop-out, given that, as our advisor, Mrs. Hill is at least partly responsible for this debacle. I mean, yes, I am president, and ultimately, the responsibility lies with me.

Still, there is a
reason
we have an advisor. I am only fifteen years and ten months old. I should not have to shoulder the burden for ALL of this. I mean, Mrs. Hill should take SOME of the responsibility. Where was she when we blew our entire annual budget on top-of-the-line recycling bins with built-in crushers?

I’ll tell you where: fueling her American flag–embroidered sweater addiction by watching the Home Shopping Network in the teachers’ lounge and paying absolutely no attention!

Oh, great. Grandmère just yelled at me.

“Amelia, are you listening to a word I’m saying, or am
I just speaking to myself?”

“Of course, I’m listening, Grandmère.”

What I
really
need to do is start paying attention more in my economics class. Then maybe I might learn how to hang on to my money a little better.

“I see,” Grandmère said. “What was I saying, then?”

“Um. I forgot.”

“John Paul Reynolds-Abernathy the Fourth. Have you ever heard of him?”

Oh, God. Not this again. Because Grandmère’s latest thing? She’s buying waterfront property.

Only of course Grandmère couldn’t be happy just to own
ordinary
waterfront property. So she’s buying an island.

That’s right. Her own island.

The island of Genovia, to be exact.

The real Genovia isn’t an island, but the one Grandmère is buying is. An island, I mean. It’s off the coast of Dubai, where this construction company has made a bunch of islands clustered together into shapes you can see all the way up in the space shuttle. Like they made a couple of island clusters shaped like palm trees, called The Palm.

Now they’re making one called The World. There are islands shaped like France and South Africa and India and even like New Jersey, which, when viewed from the sky, end up looking just like a map of the world, like this:

Obviously, the islands are not built to scale. Because then the island of Genovia would be the size of my bathroom. And India would be the size of Pennsylvania. All the islands are basically the same size—big enough on which to put a humongous estate with a couple of guesthouses and a pool—so people like Grandmère can buy an island shaped like the state or country of their choice, and then live on it, just like Tom Hanks did in the movie
Castaway
.

Except that he didn’t do it by choice.

Plus his island didn’t have a fifty-thousand-square-foot villa on it with a state-of-the-art security system and central air and a pool with a waterfall in it, like Grandmère’s will.

There’s just one problem with Grandmère’s island: She’s not the only bidder.

“John Paul Reynolds-Abernathy the Fourth,” she said again, all urgently. “Don’t tell me you don’t know him. He goes to your school!”

“A guy who goes to my school is bidding on the faux island of Genovia?” That seemed kind of hard to believe. I mean, I know I have the smallest allowance of anyone at AEHS, since my dad is worried about me morphing into someone like Lana Weinberger, who spends all her money bribing bouncers into letting her into clubs she’s not old enough to get into legally yet (her rationale is that Lindsay Lohan does it, so why can’t she?). Plus, Lana also has her own American Express card that she uses for everything—from lattes at Ho’s Deli to G-strings at Agent Provocateur—and her dad just pays the bill every month. Lana is so LUCKY.

But still. Someone getting enough allowance to buy his own ISLAND?

“Not the boy who goes to your school. His FATHER.” Grandmère’s eyelids, with their tattooed black liner, were squinted together, always a bad sign. “John Paul Reynolds-Abernathy the THIRD is bidding against me. His SON goes to your school. He is a grade ahead of you. Surely you know him. Apparently, he has theatrical ambitions—not unlike his father, who is a cigar-chomping, foul-mouthed producer.”

“Sorry, Grandmère. I don’t know any John Paul Reynolds-Abernathy the Fourth. And I actually have something a little more important to worry about than whether or not you get your island,” I informed her. “The fact is, I’m broke.”

Grandmère brightened. She loves talking about money. Because that often leads to talking about shopping, which is her favorite hobby, besides drinking Sidecars and smoking. Grandmère is happiest when she can do all three at the same time. Sadly for her, with what she considers fascist new smoking regulations in New York City, the only place she can smoke, drink, and shop at the same time is at home, on the Net.

“Is there something you want to buy, Amelia? Something a little more fashionable than those hideous combat boots you continue to wear, despite my assurances that they do not flatter the shape of your calf? Those lovely snakeskin Ferragamo loafers I showed you the other day, perhaps?”

“I’m not PERSONALLY broke, Grandmère,” I said. Although actually I am, since I only get twenty dollars a week allowance and out of that I have to pay for all of my entertainment needs, and so my entire allowance can be
wiped out by a single trip to the movies, if I splurge on gingko biloba rings AND a soda. God forbid my dad should offer ME an American Express card.

Except that, judging by what happened with the recycling bins, I guess he’s probably right not to trust me with an unlimited line of credit.

“I mean the student government of Albert Einstein High School is broke,” I explained. “We went through our entire budget in seven months instead of ten. Now we’re in big trouble because we’re supposed to pay for the rental of Alice Tully Hall for the seniors’ commencement ceremony in June. Only we can’t, because we have no money whatsoever. Which means Amber Cheeseman, this year’s valedictorian, is going to kill me, most likely in a lengthy and extremely painful manner.”

In confiding this to Grandmère, I knew I was taking a certain amount of risk. Because the fact that we’re broke is this huge secret. Seriously. Lilly, Ling Su, Mrs. Hill, Lars, and I all swore on pain of death we wouldn’t tell anybody the truth about the student government’s empty coffers until we absolutely couldn’t avoid it anymore. The last thing I need right now is an impeachment trial.

And we all know Lana Weinberger would leap at any chance to get rid of me as student government president. LANA’s dad would fork over five grand without batting an eye if he thought it would help his precious baby daughter.

MY relatives? Not so much.

But there’s always the chance—remote, I know—that Grandmère might come through for me somehow. She’s done it before. I mean, for all I know, maybe she and Alice
Tully were best friends back in college. Maybe all Grandmère has to do is make a phone call, and I can rent Alice Tully Hall for FREE!!!!

Only Grandmère didn’t look as if she were about to make any phone calls on my behalf anytime soon. Especially when she started making tsk-tsking noises with her tongue.

“I suppose you spent all the money on folderols and gewgaws,” she said, not entirely disapprovingly.

“If by folderols and gewgaws,” I replied—I wondered if these were real words or if she’d suddenly begun speaking in tongues and, if so, should I call for her maid?—“you mean twenty-five high-tech recycling bins with individual compartments for paper, cans, and bottles, with a built-in crushing device for the can part, not to mention three hundred electrophoresis kits for the bio lab, none of which I can return, because believe me, I already asked, then the answer is yes.”