Meg Cabot - Mia Goes Fourth

There must be a million girls besides me who know about this. Michael could ask any one of them instead of me and have

a perfecdy wonderful time. Without me.

Lilly is bugging to find out what's wrong. She keeps passing me notes, because they are fumigating the teachers' lounge, so

Mrs. Hill is in here today, pretending to grade papers from her fourth period computer class. But really she is ordering

things from a Garnet Hill catalogue. I saw it beneath her gradebook.

Is your dad super-sick? Lilly's latest note reads. Are you going to have to fly back to Genovia?

No, I wrote back.

Is it the cancer? Lilly wants to know. Did he have a recurrence?

No, I wrote back.

Well, what is it, then? Lilly's handwriting was getting spiky, a sure sign she was becoming impatient with me.

Why won't you tell me?

Because, I wanted to scrawl back, in big capital letters, the truth will lead to the imminent demise of my

romantic relationship with your brother, and I couldn't bear that! Don't you see I can't live without him?

But I couldn't write that. Because I wasn't ready to give up yet. I mean, wasn't I a princess of the royal house of Renaldo?

Do princesses of the royal house of Renaldo give up, just like that, when something they hold as dearly as I hold Michael

is at stake?

No, they do not. Look at my ancestresses, Agnes and Rosagunde. Agnes jumped off a bridge in order to get what she

wanted (not to be a nun). And Rosagunde strangled a guy with her own hair (in order not to have to sleep with him).

Was I, Mia Thermopolis, going to let a little thing like the Contessa Trevanni's black-and-white ball get in the way of my

having my first date with the man I love?

No, I was not.

Perhaps this, then, is my talent. The indomitability that I inherited from the Renaldo princesses before me.

Struck by this realization, I wrote a hasty note to Lilly:

Is my talent that I, like my ancestresses before me, am indomitable?

I waited breathlessly for her response. Aldiough it was not clear to me what I was going to do if she replied in the positive. Because what kind of talent is being indomitable? I mean, you can't get paid for it, the way you can if your talent is playing

the violin or songwriting or producing cable access television programmes.

Still, it would be good to know I'd figured out my talent on my own. You know, as far as climbing the Jungian tree to self-actualization went.

But Lilly's response was way disappointing:

No, your talent is not that you're indomitable, dinkus. God, U R so dense sometimes. WHAT IS WRONG

WITH YOUR DAD?????

Sighing, I realized I had no choice but to write back,

Nothing. Grandmere just wanted to take me to Chanel, so she made up the thing about my dad being sick.

God, Lilly wrote back. No wonder you're looking like you ate a sock again. Your grandmother sucks.

I could not agree more. If only Lilly knew the full extent of just how much.

Wednesday, January 20,

Sixth Period, Third-floor Stairwell

Emergency meeting of the followers of the Jane Eyre technique of boyfriend-handling. We are, of course, in peril of

discovery at any moment as we are skipping French in order to gather here in the stairwell leading to the roof (the door

to which is locked: Lilly says in the movie of my life, the kids got to go on the roof of their school all the time. Just another example of how art most certainly does not imitate life), so that we can lend succour to one of our sisters in suffering.

That's right. It turns out that I am not the only one for whom the semester is off to an inauspicious beginning. Not only did

Tina sprain her ankle on the ski slopes of Aspen -no, she also got a text message from Dave Farouq El-Abar on her new mobile phone in fifth period. It said, U NEVER CALLED BACK. AM TAKING JASMINE TO RANGERS GAME.

HAVE A NICE LIFE ;-)

I have never in my life seen anything so insensitive as that text message. I swear, my blood went cold as I read it.

'Sexist pig,' Lilly said, when she saw it. 'Don't even worry about it, Tina. You'll find somebody better.'

'I d-don't want someone b-better,' Tina sobbed. 'I only want D-Dave!'

It breaks my heart to see her in such pain - not just her emotional pain, either, because it was no joke trying to get up the third-floor staircase on her crutches. I have promised faithfully to sit with her while she works through her anguish (Lilly is

taking her through Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's five stages of grief: Denial - I can't believe he would do this to me; Bargaining — Maybe if I tell him I'll call him faithfully every night, he'll take me back; Anger -Jasmine is a cow who Frenches on the first

date; Depression - I'll never love another man again; Acceptance - Well, I guess he was kind of selfish). Of course, being

here with Tina, instead of in French class, means I am risking possible suspension, which is the penalty for skipping class

here at Albert Einstein.

But what is more important? My disciplinary record or my friend?

Besides, Lars is keeping lookout at the bottom of the stairs. If Mr Kreblutz, the chief custodian, comes along Lars is going

to whistle the Genovian national anthem and we'll flatten ourselves against the wall by the old gym mats (which are quite

smelly, by the way, and undoubtedly a fire hazard).

Although I am deeply saddened for her, I can't help feeling that Tina's situation has taught me a valuable lesson: that the

Jane Eyre technique of boyfriend-handling is not necessarily the most reliable method by which to hang on to your

boyfriend. I mean, the whole reason Dave dumped Tina is because she stopped calling him.

Except that, according to Grandmere, who did manage to hang onto a husband for forty years, the quickest way to turn

a guy off is to chase after him.

And certainly Lilly, who has the longest-running relationship of any of us, does not chase after Boris. Really, if anything,

he is the one doing the chasing. But that is probably because Lilly is too busy with her various lawsuits and projects to

pay much more than perfunctory attention to him.

Somewhere between the two of them - Grandmere and Lilly - must lie the truth to maintaining a successful relationship

with a man. Somehow I have got to get the hang of this, because I will tell you one thing: if I ever get a message from

Michael like the one Tina just got from Dave, I will fully be taking a swan dive off the Tappanzee Bridge. And I highly

doubt any cute coastguard officer is going to come along and fish me out - at least, not in one piece. The Tappanzee

Bridge is WAY higher than the Pont des Vierges.

Of course you know what this means - this whole thing with Tina and Dave, I mean. It means that I can't cancel my date

with Michael. No way, no how. I don't care if Monaco starts lobbing SCUD missiles at the Genovian House of Parliament:

I am not going to that black-and-white ball. Grandmere and the Contessa Trevanni are just going to have to learn how to

live with disappointment.

Because when it comes to our men, we Renaldo women don't mess around. We play for keeps. And we have the battle

scars to prove it.

Homework:

Algebra: probs at beginning of Ch 11, PLUS ??? Don't know, thanks to Grandmere

English: update journal (How I Spent My Winter Break -500 words) PLUS ??? Don't know, thanks to Grandmere

Biology: Read Chapter 13, PLUS ??? Don't know, thanks to Grandmere