Meg Cabot - Ready or Not

Which is kind of surprising, because before he left for college, Jack never struck me as the needy type. I guess college can change people.

This isn’t a very encouraging thought, considering that my boyfriend, who is Lucy’s age, will be going off to college next year. At least Jack drives down to see Lucy every weekend, which is nice, instead of hanging with his college friends. I hope David will do this as well.

Although I’m beginning to wonder if Jack actually even has any. College friends, I mean.

“I have to look at myself in the mirror all the time,” is what I said to Lucy’s remark about how I don’t have to look at myself. “Besides, no one asked you.”

And I turned to continue down the hallway, which is where I’d been headed when Lucy had stopped me, having spied me attempting to slink past her open bedroom door.

“Fine,” Lucy called after me, as I attempted to slink away again. “But just so you know, you don’t look like her.”

Of course I had to come back to her doorway and go, “Like who?” Because I genuinely had no idea what she was talking about. Although you would think by this time, I would have known better than to ask. I mean, it was Lucy I was talking to.

“You know,” she said, after taking a sip of her diet Coke. “Your hero. What’s her name. Gwen Stefani. She has blond hair, right? Not black.”

Oh my God. I couldn’t believe Lucy was trying to tell me—me, Gwen Stefani’s number-one fan—what color hair she has.

“I am aware of that,” I said, and started to leave again.

But Lucy’s next remark brought me right back to her doorway.

“Now you look like that other chick. What’s her name?”

“Karen O?” I asked, hopefully. Don’t even ask me why I thought Lucy might be about to say something nice, like that I looked like the lead singer of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I think I had inhaled too much ammonium hydroxide from the hair dye, or something.

“Nuh-uh,” Lucy said. Then she snapped her fingers. “Got it. Ashlee Simpson.”

I sucked in my breath. There are way worse things than looking like Ashlee Simpson—who actually looks fine—but it’s the idea that people might think I was trying to copy her that so utterly repulsed me that I could feel the Doritos I’d scarfed after school rising in my throat. I couldn’t actually think of anything worse at that particular moment. In fact, at that particular moment, it was lucky for Lucy there was nothing sharp sitting around nearby, or I swear, I think I might have stabbed her.

“I do not look like Ashlee Simpson,” I managed to croak.

Lucy just shrugged and turned back to her computer screen, as usual showing no remorse whatsoever for her actions.

“Whatever,” she said. “I’m sure David’s dad is going to be thrilled. Don’t you have to go on VH1 or something next week to promote his stupid Return to Family thingie?”

“MTV,” I said, feeling even worse, because now I was remembering that I still hadn’t read any of the stuff Mr. Green, the White House press secretary, had given to me in preparation for that particular event. I mean, come on. Between homework and drawing lessons and work, how much time do I even have for teen ambassador stuff? That would be zero.

Besides, a girl has to have her priorities. And mine was dyeing my hair.

So that I looked like an Ashlee Simpson wannabe, apparently.

“And you know perfectly well it’s MTV,” I snapped at Lucy, because I was still smarting over the Ashlee thing. Also because I was mad at myself for not having started studying up on the stuff I was supposed to say. But better to take it out on Lucy than myself. “And that it’s a town hall meeting, and the president will be there. At Adams Prep. Like you weren’t planning on going to it and using the opportunity to test out those new pink jeans you got from Betsey Johnson.”

Lucy looked all innocent. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You are so full of it!” I couldn’t believe she had the nerve to sit there and pretend like that. Like anyone at school could talk about anything else. That MTV was coming to Adams Prep, I mean. No one could care less that the president was coming. It was the hot new VJ, Random Alvarez (Seriously. That’s his name. Random), who was hosting the stupid thing, that Lucy and her friends were all excited about.

Not just Lucy and her friends, either. Kris Parks (who happens to have a particular personal dislike for me, though she tries to hide it, seeing as how I’m a national heroine and all. But I can tell it’s still there, just brewing under the surface of her Hi, Sam, how are you’s), panicked recently that her transcript isn’t crammed with enough extracurriculars (considering she’s only a varsity cheerleader, a National Merit Scholar, and president of our class), founded this new club, Right Way, that is supposed to be this big call to action for teens to take back their right to say no to drugs, alcohol, and sex.

Although to tell you the truth, I didn’t actually know this right had ever been threatened. I mean, as far as I knew, no one has actually ever gotten mad at people who say no thanks to a beer or whatever. Except maybe a girl’s boyfriend, when she wouldn’t, you know, Do It with him.

I had, however, noticed that whenever word got around that a girl had, you know, Gone All the Way with her boyfriend, Kris Parks in particular, and her fellow Right Way-ers in general, were always the first to call that girl a slut, generally to her face.

Anyway, because of Right Way, Kris is one of the people who is going to be on the student panel during the president’s town hall meeting at Adams Prep. All she’d been able to talk about since finding this out was how this is her big chance to impress all the Ivy League universities who are going to be beating down her door, begging her to attend them. Also how she is going to get to meet Random Alvarez, and how she is going to give him her cell number, and how they are going to start dating.

Like Random would look at Kris twice, since I heard he’s dating Paris Hilton. Although “dating” might be the wrong word for it. But whatever.

“Anyway,” I said to Lucy, “for your information, that happens to be why I did it. Dyed my hair, I mean. I need a new look for the town meeting. Something less…girl-who-saved-the-president. You know?”

“Well, you certainly accomplished that,” was all Lucy said. Then she added, “And Mom’s still going to kill you,” before she went back to IMing Jack, since he’d sent her two messages that she’d ignored during the time I’d walked back into the room. You could bet he wasn’t too happy about her not paying attention to him. Like he thought maybe she was paying attention to her other boyfriend (the imaginary one, from Sunglass Hut) instead of him for a minute.

At least, that’s how it sounded from the angry pinging.

I told myself I don’t care what Lucy thinks. What does she know about fashion, anyway? Oh, sure, she reads Vogue every month from front to back.

But I’m not going for the kind of look you could find in Vogue. Unlike Lucy, I am not a fashion conformist. I am striving for my own personal sense of style, not one dictated to me by any magazine.

Or Ashlee Simpson.

Still, when I went downstairs to get my jacket before heading downtown, I have to say, I’d expected a better reaction to my new look than the one I received from Theresa, our housekeeper.

“Santa María, what have you done to your head?” she wanted to know.

I put a hand up to my hair, sort of defensively. “You don’t like it?”

Theresa just shook her head and called once more upon Jesus’ mom. Though I don’t know what she was supposed to do about it.

My younger sister, Rebecca, looked up from her homework—she goes to a different school than Lucy and I do. In fact, Rebecca goes to a school for gifted kids, Horizon, the same school my boyfriend, David, goes to, where they don’t have cheerleaders or pep rallies or even grades and everyone has to wear a uniform so no one makes fun of other people’s fashion sense. I wish I could go there instead of Adams Prep. Only you practically have to be a genius to go to Horizon. And while I am what my guidance counselor, Mrs. Flynn, likes to call “above average,” I’m no genius.