Meg Cabot: Sweet Sixteen Princess

SKINNERBX: Okay. You're on.

WOMYNRULE: POG, are you online with my brother again?

Crud. It's Lilly.

FTLOUIE: Yes. What do you want?

WOMYNRULE: Just to remind you that SHE FLEW IN ON A HELICOPTER.

FTLOUIE: I have flown into tons of things in a helicopter.

Although this is not strictly true. I have only been on a helicopter once, when there was an accident on the FDR and there was no other way to get to the private jet parked at Teterboro.

But I know what Lilly is getting at, and I'm trying to nip it in the bud.

ILUVROMANCE: Mia, you HAVE to have a party. You HAVE to. I know you're upset about what happened at your birthday party last year.

Oh, great! Now Tina's getting in on it, too?

FTLOUIE: Gang up on me, why don't you, everybody.

ILUVROMANCE: Lilly PROMISES what happened last year at your party won't happen this year. We won't play Seven Minutes in Heaven. We are way more mature than that now.

WOMYNRULE: And besides, I'm with J. P. now.

FTLOUIE: YOU were with Boris then. But it still happened.

WOMYNRULE: But things with Boris were so boring. I mean, where could it go?

ILUVROMANCE: Urn. Ahem.

WOMYNRULE: Sorry. I'm sure things with you and Boris are totally different.

ILUVROMANCE: Dang straight.

WOMYNRULE: But you know what I mean. Things with J. P. are still so... well... you know.

Did we ever. Because Lilly can talk of hardly any- thing else. I had never seen her so besotted for a guy.

I suppose because J. P. keeps her guessing as to what his real feelings for her are. It seems like all I ever hear from her these days—when she isn't going on about her hatred for Andy Milonakis—is Do you think he likes me? I mean, we go out, and stuff, and we kiss, but he doesn't say stuff, you know, about how he feels about me. Do you think that's weird? I mean, what kind of guy doesn't talk about his feelings? Well, okay, I know

MOST guys don't talk about their feelings. But I mean, what guy who goes to AEHS doesn't want to talk about his feelings? Who isn't gay, I mean?

As if I'm supposed to know.

ILUVROMANCE: Has he still not said the L word, Lilly?

WOMYNRULE: He hasn't even said the G word. As in, that I'm his girlfriend.

FTLOUIE: Have YOU said the L word to HIM? Or the B word?

WOMYNRULE: Of COURSE not. We've only been going out for a little over a month. I don't want to scare him off.

FTLOUIE: Faint heart never won fair lady.

WOMYNRULE: Stop quoting Gilbert and Sullivan at me. I want him to say the L word first. Is that such a crime? WHY WON'T HE SAY IT????

ILUVROMANCE: Well, you know J. P. has always been something of a loner. He probably just doesn't know how to act around girls.

WOMYNRULE: DO you really think so?

FTLOUIE:Totally. Oh my God, you guys, check it out:

J. P.'s like the Beast from Beauty and the Beast, you know, when Belle first comes to live in the palace, and the Beast is all mean to her? Because, just like the Beast was alone in his castle for all those years, J. P. sat by himself at a lunch table for a really long time, so maybe he isn't entirely sure how people are supposed to interact, because he hasn't had all that much experience with human interaction—JUST LIKE THE BEAST!!! So he may come off as gruff or nonemotional, when I'm sure the opposite is true-JUST LIKE THE BEAST!!!!

WOMYNRULE: Mia, I know Beauty and the Beast is your favorite musical, and all. But I think that's sort of stretching it.

ILUVROMANCE: NO, I think Mia is right. All J.P. needs is the right woman to unlock his heart—which up until now he has kept in a cold, hard shell for his own emotional protection —and he will be like an unstoppable volcano of passion.

WOMYNRULE: In that case, why hasn't he exploded already? Unless you're implying I'm not the right woman to unlock his heart.

ILUVROMANCE: I'm not saying that! I'm just saying that it won't be easy.

FTLOUIE: Yeah. Like it wasn't easy for Belle to win the Beast's trust.

WOMYNRULE: Whatever! It took her, like, two songs!

ILUVROMANCE: Yeah, but real life isn't like a musical. Unfortunately.

FTLOUIE: Maybe if you said you loved him first, it would cause the first crack in his hard outer shell

WOMYNRULE: I AM NOT SAYING I LOVE HIM FIRST!!!!

SKINNERBX: Mia? Are you still there?

My boyfriend! I had gotten so involved talking about Lilly's boyfriend, I totally forgot about my own!

FTLOUIE: Of course I am. Hang on a minute.

FTLOUIE: YOU guys, I have to go, but one last thing: I AM NOT HAVING A SWEET SIXTEEN PARTY ANDTHAT'S FINAL. GOT IT?

WOMYNRULE: God, alright already. You don't have to shout.

ILUVROMANCE: Mia, no one wants you to do anything you don't want to do. But your sweet sixteen IS a big deal

FTLOUIE: NO PARTY.

WOMYNRULE: Well, better make sure your grandma knows that, then.

FTLOUIE: Wait. What is THAT supposed to mean?

WOMYNRULE: Nothing. I have to go now.

FTLOUIE: LILLY!!! ARE YOU AND GRANDMÈRE PLOTTING SOMETHING BEHIND MY BACK AGAIN????

WOMYNRULE: terminated

FTLOUIE: I'm going to kill her.

ILUVROMANCE: She can't help it. You know how upset she's been since her parents' separation. Not to mention this Andy Milonakis thing. And the fact that J. P. won't admit his true feelings for her. Oops, I hear my mom calling. I have to go. Bye!

ILUVROMANCE: terminated

Great. Just great.

FTLOUIE: Michael, do you know if your sister and my grandmother are planning something for my birthday? Like a surprise party?

SKINNERBX: Not that I'm aware of. Can you imagine what kind of party those two would come up with?

Actually, I can:

The kind of party I'd really, really hate.

Thursday, April 29, Homeroom

I asked my mom at breakfast this morning if Grandmère and Lilly were planning a surprise party for my sweet sixteen, and she choked on her fresh- squeezed OJ from Papaya King and went, "Sweet Jesus, I hope not."

To which Mr. Gianini added, "Don't expect me to chaperone if they are. I saw enough grinding at the Nondenominational Winter Dance this year to last me a lifetime."

Which is true. Grinding does seem to be all the rage around Albert Einstein High lately. I wish it were krumping, instead. But no. My peers (all except for Michael, who is opposed to grinding for reasons he has yet to share with me, beyond saying it's "stupid looking") seem only to want to rub their private parts against one another.

Too bad they won't let us do THAT in PE.

"I thought you didn't want a party this year," my mom said. "Because of what happened at your party last year. "

"I don't," I said. "But, you know... people don't always listen to me."

By people, of course, I meant Grandmère.

As my mom well knew.

"Well, you can rest easy," my mom said. "I haven't heard anything about Lilly and your grandmother planning any party."

I quizzed Lilly at length about my suspicions in the limo on the way to school, but she never once cracked.

Perhaps I was only imagining the whole Grandmère/Lilly plot to fete me against my will.

Which isn't any wonder, really, if you think about all the stuff they've gotten up to behind my back in the past. Really, they are like the Snape/Malfoy pairing of the Muggle world. Only without the capes.

I observed J. P. closely all through lunch to see if I could detect any signs that he might explode in a vol- cano of passion, as Tina suggested he was going to someday.

He must have noticed me staring at him though, because at one point when Lilly got up to get a second helping of mac and cheese (her mother's low-carb diet has had the opposite effect she'd evidently hoped for where Lilly is concerned—it has only turned Lilly into even more of a raging carboholic), he looked at me and went, "Mia. Do I have some- thing on my face?"