Meg Cabot - Party Princess

No. Just because you HAVE the power doesn’t mean you should USE it. Or, at least, ABUSE it.

Which is what Grandmère and Lana do with the whole economics thing. If you are lucky enough to HAVE a talent—like mine, for writing—you have a moral obligation to use that talent for GOOD.

That’s what happened with the Michael thing. You know, when I did the sexy dance? That’s why it backfired. Because I was trying to manipulate people. Which is evil, not good.

I’m an evil economics abuser. I’m—

SOMEONE IS IMing ME!!!!!!!!!!

LET IT BE MICHAEL

LET IT BE MICHAEL

LET IT BE MICHAEL

LET IT

Oh. It’s Lilly.

WOMYNRULE: You know, it was really presumptuous of you to have kissed him if you don’t even like him that way. What if he gets the wrong idea? You already sexy danced with him, and now you’re going around kissing him? For someone so worried about hurting his feelings, you sure don’t seem to have thought that through.

!!!!!

FTLOUIE: Oh, yeah? Well, for someone who claims not to like him as anything but a friend, you sure do seem concerned about him liking me.

WOMYNRULE: Only because I THOUGHT you were dating my brother. But apparently one guy’s not enough for you. You have to have ALL the guys.

FTLOUIE: WHAT??? What are you talking about? I DO NOT LIKE J.P.

WOMYNRULE: Sure you don’t. I bet if I looked at your nostrils right now, they’d be flaring.

FTLOUIE: OMG, I am NOT lying. Lilly, I love your brother, and ONLY your brother. You KNOW that. What is WRONG with you?

WOMYNRULE: terminated

Wow. It’s a good thing her parents aren’t telling her about their separation just yet. If this is how she acts when she DOESN’T know about it, I hate to think how she’s going to act when she DOES.

Unless she DOES know, like Michael suspects, and she’s just PRETENDING she doesn’t know. That would explain a lot about her current behavior.

But regardless, at least I know what I have to do now. My mission is, at last, clear. A feeling of calm has descended over me.

Oh, wait, that’s just Fat Louie, sleeping on my feet.

Still. I have a plan.

About how I’m going to keep J.P. from reading “No More Corn!”, I mean. I don’t know what I’m going to do about the rest of the mess that is my life.

But I know what I’m going to do about Fat Louie’s Pink Butthole.

And truthfully, I think Carl Jung AND Alfred Marshall would approve.

From the desk of

Her Royal Highness

Princess Amelia Mignonette

Grimaldi Thermopolis Renaldo

Dear Dr. Carl Jung,

Hi. Sorry about my last letter. I was kind of…you know…cuckoo.

Well, you know all about that. I mean, you devoted your entire career to the study of cuckoos like me.

Anyway, just wanted to say not to worry. Things are better now. I think I finally get it. You know, the whole transcendence thing. It’s not about what’s happening INSIDE you. It’s what you put OUT that matters.

Well, not, you know, put out like sex. But I mean what you put out into the universe. It’s about being kind to others, and telling the truth instead of lying all the time, and using your powers for good and not evil. Like, if your boyfriend is having a party, you should just go and try to have a good time, instead of resorting to elaborate schemes to try to make him think you’re a party girl.

And if your friend is going to run a story in a magazine that could really hurt someone’s feelings, you should stop her.

Right?

Anyway, I’m seriously going to devote the rest of my life to Telling the Truth and Doing Good Works. I really mean that. Because I know now that it’s the only way I’m going to achieve self-actualization, and that people like my grandmother and Lana Weinberger who resort to lies and blackmail and abuse the law of supply and demand will never find spiritual enlightenment.

Anyway, seeing as how I have now pledged to walk the Path of Truth and all of that, do you think there’s a chance that part of my self-actualization, when it comes after I perform all my good works, could be getting my boyfriend to forgive me for being such a freak? Because I seriously miss him.

I hope that’s not asking too much. I honestly don’t mean to be selfish. It’s just, you know. I love him, and all.

Hopefully,

Your friend,

Mia Thermopolis

Wednesday, March 10, Homeroom

So Lilly isn’t speaking to me, apparently. She wasn’t waiting outside her building this morning for us to pick her up and take her to school. And when I ran inside to buzz her apartment, no one answered.

But I know she’s not home sick because I saw her just now outside Ho’s Deli, buying a soy latte.

When I waved, she just turned her back.

So now BOTH the Moscovitzes are ignoring me.

This is not a very nice way to start my first day on the Path to Righteousness.

Wednesday, March 10, PE

Okay, so I know skipping gym is probably not the most direct path to achieving transcendence from the ego.

But it’s for a totally good cause!

Even Lars thinks so. Which is convenient since I’m going to need his help carrying the stuff. I mean, I don’t have the upper body strength to lift 3,700 pieces of paper.

At least, not all at once.

Wednesday, March 10, U.S. Economics

Okay. So I guess I still have a ways to go on the path to righteousness. I mean, I really THOUGHT I was doing the right thing.

At first.

I totally remembered Lilly’s locker combination from the time she got the flu and I had to bring her her books.

And when I opened her locker door, the stack of a thousand copies of Fat Louie’s Pink Butthole , Volume I, Issue 1, was just sitting right there, waiting to be sold today at lunch.

It was so easy to grab them.

Well, okay, not THAT easy, because they were heavy. But Lars and I split the pile between us, and I was frantically looking around for a place to hide them—someplace Lilly would never find them, because you so know she’s going to look—when I spied the men’s room.

Well, come on! How’s she going to look for them there?

So Lars and I staggered in there, with these giant armfuls of paper, and I barely had time to register the fact that in the men’s rooms at AEHS, there is no mirror over the sinks, and also no doors on the bathroom stalls (which is completely sexist if you ask me, because don’t boys need privacy and to see how their hair looks, too?) before I realized we were not alone in there.

Because John Paul Reynolds-Abernathy the Fourth was standing at one of the sinks, wiping his hands on a paper towel!!!!!

“Mia?” J.P. looked back and forth from Lars to me. “Um, hey. What’s up?”

Both Lars and I had frozen. I went, “Um. Nothing.”

But J.P. didn’t believe me. Obviously.

“What’s all that?” he asked, nodding at the huge stacks of papers we were each sagging under.

“Um,” I said, desperately trying to think of some kind of excuse I could give him.

Then I remembered I’m supposed to be treading the Path of Truth, and all, and I had pledged to the memory of Dr. Carl Jung not to lie anymore.

So I had no choice but to say, “Well, the truth is, these are copies of my short story for Fat Louie’s Pink Butthole , which I stole out of Lilly’s locker and am trying to hide in the men’s room, because I don’t want anyone to read them.”

J.P. raised his eyebrows. “Why? You don’t think your story’s any good?”

I REALLY wanted to say yes.

But since I swore I’d tell the truth from now on, I was forced to say, “Not exactly. The truth is, I wrote this story, um, about you. But way before I had ever met you! And it’s really stupid and embarrassing, and I don’t want you to read it.”