Meg Cabot - All American Girl

So as soon as I hung up with Catherine, I dialled Susan Boone’s number, anxious to get the whole thing over with already.

“Um, hi,” I said, hesitantly, when she picked up. “This is Samantha Madison.”

“Oh, hello,” Susan Boone said. I heard a familiar cawing in the background. So Joe the Crow didn’t live at the studio, but travelled to and from it with his owner. Some life for a big, ugly, hair-stealing bird. “Thank you for returning my call, Samantha.”

“Um, no problem,” I said. Then, after a deep breath, I took the plunge: “Listen, I’m really sorry about the other day. I don’t know if you heard what happened—”

Susan Boone surprised me by chuckling. “Samantha, there isn’t a human being south of the North Pole who hasn’t heard what happened to you outside my studio yesterday.”

“Oh,” I said. Then I hurried to spill out the lie I’d made up. If I had been Jack, I’d have just told her the truth: you know, that I’d resented her attempt to subjugate my artistic integrity.

But since I am not Jack, I just blabbed the first thing that came into my head:

“The thing is, the reason I wasn’t in class was because it was raining really hard, you know, and I got really wet, and I didn’t want to come to class wet, you know, so I stopped into Static to dry off, you know, before class, and then I don’t know what happened, but I guess I just sort of lost track of time, and before I knew it—”

“Never mind that, Samantha.” Susan Boone, to my great surprise, interrupted me. I will admit it wasn’t the greatest lie, but it had been the best I could come up with at such short notice. “Let’s talk about your arm.”

“My arm?” I looked down at my cast. I was already getting so used to it, it was like it had always been there.

“Yes. Was the arm you broke the one you draw with?”

“Um. No.”

“Good. Then I’ll see you in class on Tuesday?”

I had an ungenerous thought, then. I thought that Susan Boone, like Coke and Pepsi, only wanted me to stay in her art school so she could use my celebrity to promote it.

Well, and why shouldn’t I have thought this? It wasn’t as if she’d fallen all over herself trying to tell me what a good artist I was or anything, the one time I had shown up for class.

“Listen, Mrs. Boone,” I said, wondering how on earth I was going to say what I had to say—about her stifling me creatively, and where would we be if someone had done that to Picasso—in a way that wouldn’t offend her. Because, you know, she seemed like a pretty nice lady, aside from the whole not-liking-my-pineapple thing.

“Susan,” she said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Call me Susan.”

“Uh. OK. Susan. I really just don’t think that I have time for drawing lessons right now.” So what if there wasn’t a chance this was going to work. It was worth a try. And it was better than telling her the truth. And I mean it was entirely possible, what with the reporters camped outside on our lawn, and the rubberneckers cruising up and down our street, and all the sickos leaving messages on our answering machine, that my parents might completely forget about the whole art lesson thing. Under the circumstances, that C-minus in mine in German might not seem so dire . . .

“Sam,” Susan Boone said, in a no-nonsense voice. “You have a lot of talent, but you are never going to learn to draw really well until you stop thinking so much, and start seeing . And the only way you are ever going to do that is if you take the time to learn how.”

Learn how to see? Hello? Maybe Susan Boone thought it was my eyes, and not my arm, that had been affected by my little altercation outside her studio.

Too late, I realized what she was trying to do. Exactly what Jack had warned me about! She was trying to make me into an art clone! To make me start drawing with my eyes, and not my heart!

But before I could say anything like, “No, thank you, Mrs. Boone, I don’t care to be made into another one of your art automatons,” she went, “I will see you in class on Tuesday, or I am afraid I will have to tell your parents how much we all missed you yesterday.”

Whoa. Now that was harsh. Way harsh. Especially for the Queen of the Elves.

“Um,” I said. So much for fighting the system. All the fight went instantly out of me. “OK. I guess.”

Susan Boone said, “Good,” and hung up. Right before I heard the click, Joe went, in the background, “Pretty bird. Pretty bird.” Then, nothing.

She had me. She fully had me, and what’s more, she knew it. She knew it! Who would have thought that an elf queen could be so devious ?

And now I was going to have to go back—go back to Susan Boone’s with everyone in the whole class knowing that I’d ditched last time. And probably knowing why I’d ditched too. You know, about the whole being publicly humiliated part during the critique session the class before.

God! It was all so unfair!

I was still sitting there, shaking my head over it, when Lucy came into my room without knocking, as was her custom.

“All right,” she said.

I should have known then and there that I was in trouble, because Lucy had a clipboard and a pen with her. Plus she was wearing her most executive outfit, the green plaid mini with a white shirt and sweater vest.

“I’ve got you down for lunch and shopping in Georgetown tomorrow with the girls,” she said, consulting the clipboard. “Then tomorrow night, you and Jack and I are going to see the new Adam Sandler. You’ll have to put in an appearance both at the show and then at Luigi’s afterwards for pizza. Then Sunday we’ve got brunch with the squad, then the game. Then Sunday night is dinner with the President. We can’t get out of it, I’ve already tried. But maybe if there’s time afterwards we can get someone to whizz us by Luigi’s again, just to see what’s up. Some of the gang show up there on Sunday nights to do their homework together. Then Monday—now, this is important, Sam, pay attention—Monday we are going to launch your new look. You are going to have to get up at least an hour before you usually do too. I mean, there can’t be any more of this rolling out of bed, putting on the first thing you see, then slouching into school like it’s community service and nobody’s going to care how you look, or something. You are really going to have to start making an effort. Besides, it’s going to take at least half an hour every day to do your hair.”

I blinked at her. “What,” I said, speaking slowly because my tongue felt like it was a dead weight, all of a sudden. “Are. You. Talking. About.”

Lucy looked heavenward, then flopped down on to my bed beside Manet and me.

“Your new social agenda, silly,” Lucy said. “I’m handling all your public appearances from now on, OK? You don’t even have to worry about it. Not that it’s going to be easy. Don’t get me wrong. I mean, let’s face it, your stock is pretty low. And it doesn’t help that you hang around with Catherine, who is nice, and all, but talk about fashion-challenged. But we might be able to overcome it if, you know, you just stop talking to her during school hours, or whatever. Now, the only thing I want to know is, did you dye all your clothes black? Are you sure you don’t have any holdouts?”

“Lucy,” I said. I couldn’t believe this was happening. I really couldn’t. “Get out of my room.”

Lucy tossed around some of her long silky hair. “Now, Sam, come on. Don’t be that way. Opportunities like this don’t come around all that often. You really have to grab them when they do. You know, like that brass ring, or whatever it is Dad’s always talking about. Although I can tell you, some guy offers me a ring made out of brass, I will so be, like, ‘See ya.’”