Meg Cabot - All American Girl

I don’t know how long I would have stood there and stared down at the President’s hand if Lucy hadn’t poked me in the back. It really hurt, too, because Lucy has these really long nails that she files into points practically every night.

But I didn’t let it show that my big sister had just stabbed me in the back with one of her talons. Instead, I went, “Gee, thanks,” and stuck out my own hand to shake the President’s.

Except of course the hand I stuck out to shake was my right hand, the one in the cast. Everyone laughed, like it was this hilarious joke, and then the President shook my left hand, the one not encased in plaster.

Then the First Lady shook my hand, too, and said that she hoped my family and I would join her and the President for dinner at the White House sometime ‘when things have settled down a little’ so that they could really show their appreciation for what I’d done.

Dinner ? At the White House? Me ?

Thankfully my mother took over then, saying that we would be delighted to join the First Family for dinner sometime.

Then the First Lady turned and kind of noticed someone standing in the doorway to my hospital room. And her face brightened up even more than it already was and she went, “Oh, there’s David. May we introduce our son, David?”

And into the room walked David, the President’s son.

Who also happened to be David from my drawing class with Susan Boone. Save Ferris David. “Nice boots” David.

And now I knew why he looked so familiar.

Well, how was I supposed to know he was the son of the President of the United States?

He didn’t look anything like the guy I was used to seeing on the news, the geeky one who’d trailed along after his parents on the election campaign. That guy had never worn a Save Ferris T-shirt, much less a pair of combat boots. That guy had never seemed interested in art. That guy had always been dressed in dweeby looking suits, and had mostly just sat around looking interested in what his dad had to say, which was basically a lot of stuff that bored me very deeply and usually caused me to change the channel . . . although I know that as a citizen of this country and a member of this planet, I should be a lot more politically aware than I actually am.

Anyway, the fact is, after David’s dad became president, and David started going to school here in Washington, well, every time they showed him on the news he was in the goofy uniform all the kids who go to Horizon have to wear every day: khaki pants (skirt for girls), white shirt, navy blue blazer, red tie.

And although David certainly looked way better in his uniform than most Horizon attendees, with that dark curly hair and those green eyes and everything, he was still, you know, this huge geek. I mean, there wasn’t even the slightest chance that this guy was going to be on the cover of Teen People every other month, like Justin Timberlake. Not unless he started wind-surfing shirtless in Chesapeake Bay this summer, or something.

Even as I stood there staring at him, it was hard to believe this was the same guy who, only a few days ago, had said he liked my boots.

Then again, maybe it wasn’t so hard to believe. Because, you know, seeing him like this—up close, and not on TV, waving from the door of a plane, or in a still photo, looking up at his father from a seat off the side of some dais in Kentucky—he looked much more like the cool guy in the Save Ferris T-shirt who’d liked my boots than he did the President’s geeky son.

I really couldn’t say which of us, between the two, was more astonished to see the other. David seemed pretty astonished, and I don’t think it was because it was such a weird coincidence . . . you know, that we knew each other from drawing class. It wasn’t actually all that weird: obviously the reason the President had been in the area had been to meet David after class. The whole stopping-at-Capitol-Cookies-thing had just been because the commander-in-chief must have a little sweet tooth . . .

No, David wasn’t staring at me because he couldn’t place me. I think he was trying to figure out what had happened to me. I mean, last time he’d seen me, I’d been all in black, with daisy-studded combat boots and copper-wire hair and no make-up. Now here I was, in my sister’s skirt and Cole Haans loafers, with nicely smooth hair and lips that were supposed to look utterly kissable ... at least, that’s the result promised on the tube of gloss Lucy had smeared all over my mouth.

No wonder he was staring: I looked just like Lucy!

“Uh,” David said, for which I didn’t blame him one bit. “Hi.”

I came right back at him with a bitingly witty reply:

“Um. Yeah. Hi.”

David’s mom looked from him to me, and then back again. Then she went, in a curious voice, “Do you two know one another already?”

“Yeah,” David said again. He was smiling now. It was a nice smile. Not as nice as Jack’s, of course, but nice just the same. “Samantha is in my drawing class at Susan Boone’s.”

That was when it hit me.

Samantha is in my drawing class at Susan Boone’s.

This guy could totally blow the one thing I’d managed, so far, to keep my parents from finding out: the whole skipping art class thing.

And yeah, OK, what was the big deal, right? So my parents were going to find out I skipped drawing class. So what? I had saved the life of the President . That had to be a get-out-of-jail-free card, if anything was.

And it probably would work on my parents. They are not exactly the sternest disciplinarians on the planet.

But it would never, ever work on Theresa, to whom I’d given my solemn word I wouldn’t skip class. Much as Theresa esteems the President of this country that she has come to love so dearly, the minute she heard I’d disobeyed her, my life was going to be over with a capital O. No more Entenmann’s chocolate doughnuts for me after school. It would be granola bars and Graham Crackers from here on out. Theresa could forgive just about anything—bad grades, missed curfews, lost homework, dirt tracked in from the park all over her newly washed kitchen floor—but lying?

No way. Even if it had been for a totally good cause, such as preserving my creative integrity.

Which was why I did what I did next, which was throw David a pleading look, hoping against hope that he would understand. I didn’t see how he possibly could. I mean, he wasn’t wearing his Horizon uniform, but he still had on a button-down shirt and these pants with pleats in them. He looked like a guy who had never, not once in his life, disobeyed his parents, much less his extremely strict housekeeper. How could he possibly relate?

Still, if there was any chance, any chance at all, I could get him, like his dad’s Secret Service agents, not to mention that I hadn’t been in class last night . . .

“Oh, you have her at Susan Boone’s?” the First Lady asked my mother brightly. “Isn’t Susan wonderful David just loves her.” She reached out and touched her son’s shoulder in a gesture that was surprisingly momlike, for a lady who was married to the most important man in the Free World. “I’m just so glad David was late leaving the studio last night. Who knows what could have happened if he had walked out just as . . .”

She couldn’t finish that sentence. I guess she meant who knows what could have happened if David had walked out just as Mr. Uptown Girl started shooting. But the fact is, nothing would have happened. Because I had been there. And I had stopped it.