Meg Cabot - Third Time Lucky

with no shirt on, like he does every time I sleep over at Lilly's). But I've never really looked at his lips. You know. Up close.

Michael actually has very nice lips. Not thin lips, like mine. I don't know if you should say this about a boy's lips, but Michael's look like if you kissed them, they'd be very soft.

It was while I was noticing this about Michael's lips that the very bad thing happened: I was looking at them, you know, and wondering if they'd be soft to kiss and, as I looked, I sort of actually pictured us kissing, you know, in my head. And right then I got this very warm feeling - the one they talk about in Tina's romance novels - and RIGHT THEN was when Kenny went by on his way to get his usual lunch, Coke and an ice-cream sandwich.

I know Kenny can't read my mind - if he could, he totally. would have broken up with me by now - but maybe he caught some hint as to what I was thinking, and that's why he didn't say 'hi' back when Michael and I said 'hi'.

Well, that and the whole part where I said Um, OK after he said he loved me.

Kenny must have known something was up, if my face was anywhere near as red-hot as it felt. Maybe that's why he didn't

say 'hi' back. Because I was looking so guilty. I'd certainly felt guilty. I mean, there I was, looking at another guy's lips and wondering what it would be like to kiss them, and my boyfriend goes walking by.

I am so going to bad-girl hell when I die.

You know what I wish? I wish everyone could read my mind. Because then Kenny would never have asked me out. He'd

have known I don't think of him that way. And Lilly wouldn't make fun of me for not letting Kenny kiss me. She would know the reason I don't is that I'm in love with someone else.

The bad part is, she'd know who that someone else is.

And that someone probably wouldn't even speak to me again, because it's totally uncool for a senior to go out with a freshman. Especially one who can't go anywhere without a bodyguard.

Besides, I'm almost positive he's going out with Judith Gershner, because after he came back from the grill, he went and sat down next to her.

So that settles that.

I wish I were leaving for Genovia tomorrow instead of in two weeks.

Monday; December 7, trench

In spite of that disastrous incident at lunch, I had a pretty good time in Gifted and Talented. In fact, it was almost like old

times again. I mean, before we all started going out with each other and everyone became so obsessed with the inner

workings of my mouth, and all that.

It was really nice. Mrs. Hill spent the whole class period in the teachers' lounge across the hall, yelling at American Express

on the phone, leaving us free to do what we usually do during her class . . . whatever we wanted. For instance, those of us who, like Lilly's boyfriend Boris, wanted to work on our individual projects (Boris is learning to play some new sonata on his violin) which is what Gifted and Talented class is supposedly for, did so.

Those of us, however, like Lilly and me, who did not want to work on our individual projects (mine is studying for Algebra; Lilly's is working on her cable access TV show) did not.

This was especially satisfying because Lilly had completely forgotten about the whole kissing thing between Kenny and me. The reason for this is that now she's mad at Mrs Spears, her Honours English teacher, who shot down her term paper proposal.

It really was unfair of Mrs Spears to turn it down, because it was actually very well thought out and quite creative. Here is a copy of it I made:

How to Survive High School

by Lilly Moscovitz

Having spent the past two months locked into that institution of secondary education commonly referred to as high school, I feel that I am a qualified authority on the subject. From pep rallies to morning announcements, I have observed high school life and all of its complexities. Sometime in the next four years I will be granted my freedom from this festering hellhole, and then I will publish my carefully compiled High School Survival Guide.

Little did my peers and teachers know that as they went about their daily routines, I was recording their activities for study by future generations. With my handy guide, every ninth grader's sojourn in high school can be a little more fruitful. Students of the future will learn that the way to settle their differences with their peers is not through violence, but through the sale of a really scathing screenplay - featuring characters based on those very individuals who tormented them all those years - to a major Hollywood movie studio. That, not a Molotov cocktail, is the path to true glory.

Here, for your reading pleasure, are a few examples of the topics I will explore in 'How to Survive High School', by Lilly Moscovitz:

1. High School Romance: Or, I cannot open my locker because two oversexed adolescents are leaning up against it, making out.

2. Cafeteria food: Can corndogs legally be listed as a meat product?

3. How to communicate with the subhuman individuals who populate the hallways.

4. Guidance Counsellors: Who do they think they're kidding?

5. Get Ahead by Forging: The Art of the Hall Pass.

Does that sound good, or what? Now look what Mrs Spears had to say about it:

Lilly: Sorry as I am to hear that your experience thus far at AEHS has not been a positive one, I am afraid I am going to have to make it worse by asking you to find another topic

for your term paper. A for creativity, as usual, however. Mrs. Spears

Can you believe that? Talk about unfair! Lilly's been censored! By rights, her proposal ought to have brought the school's administration to its knees. Lilly says she is appalled by the fact that, considering how much our tuition costs, this is the kind of support we can expect from our teachers. Then I reminded her that this isn't true of Mr. Gianini, who really goes beyond the

call of duty by staying after school every day to conduct help sessions for people like me who aren't doing so well in Algebra.

Lilly says Mr. Gianini probably only started pulling that staying-after-school thing so that he could ingratiate himself with my mother, and now he can't stop because then she'll realize it was all just a set-up and divorce him.

I don't believe that, however. I think Mr. G would have stayed after school to help me whether he was dating my mom or not. He's that kind of guy.

Anyway, the upshot of it all is that now Lilly is launching another one of her famous campaigns. This is actually a good thing,

as it will keep her mind off me and where I am putting (or not putting) my lips. Here's how it started:

Lilly. The real problem with this school isn't the teachers. It's the apathy of the student body. For instance, let's say

we wanted to stage a walkout.

Me: A walkout?

Lilly. You know. We all get up and walk out of the school at the same time.

Me: Just because Mrs. Spears turned down your term paper proposal?

Lilly: No, Mia. Because she's trying to usurp our individuality by forcing us to bend to corporate feudalism. Again.

Me: Oh. And how is she doing that?

Lilly: By censoring us when we are at our most creatively fertile.

Boris: (Leaning out of the supply closet, where Lilly made him go when he started practising his latest sonata): Fertile? Did someone say fertile?

Lilly: Get back in the closet, Boris. Michael, can you send a mass e-mail tonight to the entire student body, declaring a walkout tomorrow at ten?

Michael: (Who was working on the booth he and Judith Gershner and the rest of the Computer Club are going to have up at the Winter Carnival) I can, but I won't.