Meg Cabot - All American Girl

“LUCY!” I shrieked, picking up one of my shoes and hurling it at her. “GET OUT OF MY ROOM!!!!!”

Lucy ducked, then, looking offended, stood up to leave.

“God,” she said. “Try to do a person a favour. See if I ever help you again.”

Then, to my very great relief, she stomped from the room, leaving me alone in my unpopularity.

Top ten Things Gwen Stefani Would Never Be Caught Dead Doing:

10. Gwen Stefani would never, ever allow her sister to pick out her clothes for her. Gwen Stefani has devised her own unique and identifiable style. Gwen finds charming little tops in thrift shops and makes them look sporty and cool by tying them into a halter top, or whatever. Gwen would never ever wear the navy, grey and tan slacks her sister spent three hundred and sixty-five dollars on for her at Banana Republic.

9. If Gwen’s sister told her she was going to have to dump her best friend because of the bad clothes her mother makes her wear, Gwen would probably have just laughed dismissively, not thrown a shoe at her.

8. It is quite unlikely that Gwen Stefani, in an effort to avoid the reporters staked out in her front yard when it came time for her to walk her dog, would sneak out of the back of her house in a hooded sweatshirt, sunglasses, and a pair of her father’s khakis with the legs rolled up. Gwen would have strolled boldly out amongst the reporters and used their tireless interest in her as a vehicle with which to promote ska.

7. I highly doubt that Gwen Stefani would turn bright red if the man she secretly loved—who happens to be her sister’s boyfriend—told her that she looks nice in her dad’s rolled-up khakis.

6. Also, Gwen Stefani has too much integrity ever to fall in love with her sister’s boyfriend.

5. Probably if Gwen Stefani had saved the President of the United States from being assassinated, she wouldn’t hide in her house, embarrassed by the hordes of people telling her how brave she was. Gwen would write a song about it, filled with searing wit and self-deprecation. The video of it would probably feature Gwen’s ex, Tony Kanal, as the President, and that weird naked drummer as Larry Wayne Rogers.

But it would still never get higher than number five on

Total Request Live

, as ska is seriously underappreciated by Middle America.

4. If Kris Parks called Gwen Stefani, like she did me just now, and went, “Oh, hi, Gwen. So can you come? I mean, to my party next Saturday?” Gwen would probably say something witty and charming, not what I said, which was, “How did you get my new number?” forgetting, of course, that my sister Lucy had emailed our new number to practically everyone in the whole school for fear she might otherwise miss out on one of the many crucial social events taking place this weekend, such as pizza at Luigi’s or an all-night Pauly Shore filmfest at Debbie Kinley’s house.

3. I am thinking that if anybody ever tried to stifle Gwen’s creative impulses, she would never agree, even with the threat of blackmail, to go along with it.

2. Gwen Stefani would definitely never spend her Sunday afternoon, instead of doing the German homework her best friend had brought over for her, composing a letter to her sister’s boyfriend, outlining all the reasons why he should be with her and not her sister, then rip the letter into little pieces and flush it down the toilet instead of giving it to him.

And the number one thing Gwen Stefani would never, ever do?

1. Wear a navy-blue suit her mom had bought her from Ann Taylor to dinner at the White House.

I have been to the White House many times. I mean, if you live in the Washington, DC, area, starting in like the third grade they make you tour the White House practically once a year, then write a stupid report on it. You know, My Trip to the White House . That kind of thing.

I have been to all the rooms they show you on the tour: the Vermeil Room, the Library, the China Room, the Map Room, the East Room, the Green Room, the Blue Room, the Red Room, yadda yadda yadda.

But Sunday night was the first time I’d ever been to the White House not as part of a tour, but as an actual guest.

It was pretty weird. Everyone in the whole family was feeling the weirdness of it, except maybe for Rebecca. But since Rebecca had just gotten a new shipment of Star Trek books from Amazon, this was only to be expected.

Besides, I suspect Rebecca is secretly a robot and therefore immune to human emotion.

The rest of us, however, were totally freaked. I could tell my mom was especially nervous because she wore her power suit and her pearls, the ones she only wears to court, and she took away my dad’s cell phone and his Palm Pilot, so he couldn’t try to use any of them during dinner. Theresa—who, as an important part of our family, was of course invited as well—was in her Sunday best, which included purple high heels with sparkle clips on them, and didn’t yell at any of us once, not even when Manet came barrelling in from outside and shook out his fur and sprayed rainwater all over the newly vacuumed living-room rug. Even Lucy spent about two hours longer than usual on her beauty regime, and emerged looking like someone going to guest star on VIP , and not enjoy a nice meal with a family who lived, if you thought about it, only a little ways down the street from us.

“Now whatever you do, Sam,” Lucy said, as we pulled out of the driveway—which was no mean feat, since there were still hordes of reporters hanging around, trying to photograph our every move. They liked to do things like dive on to the hood of the station wagon to snap a quick one of Dad on his way to the Seven Eleven for more milk. Backing out of the driveway had gotten perilous because there was always two or three of them darting out from behind the car—“do not try to hide the food you don’t like under your plate.”

“Lucy!” I was nervous enough as it was. I fully did not need her making it worse. “God, I know how to act at a dinner party, OK? I am not a child.”

The thing is, at home when we have stuff I don’t like at dinner, I fully slip it under the table to Manet, who’ll eat anything—carrots, eggplant, peas, cantaloupe, chicken sausage, you name it. The First Family does not have a dog. They are cat people. Cats are nice and everything, but they are no help to finicky eaters like me. I highly doubted the First Cat was going to chow down on any cauliflower heads I slipped under the table.

So the question was, what was I going to do if they served broccoli (gag me) or worse, anything involving tomatoes or fish, two things I really cannot abide, and which tend to show up at most fancy meals? I knew I couldn’t hide it under my plate. Supposing somebody picked it up and saw all the food under it? That would be almost as embarrassing as having drawn a pineapple where there wasn’t supposed to be one.

It was weird turning on to Pennsylvania Avenue. Normally the part in front of the White House is completely closed off to cars. The only way you can go up to the fence in front of the President’s house is on foot.

But since we were special guests, we got to drive right up to the big barricade that blocks off the street. A bunch of policemen were there, and they checked our licence plate and my dad’s ID, and then they lowered the barricade into the ground and we drove over it.

Then we were in front of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, which is the address of the White House.

But we weren’t the only people there, by any means. For one thing, there were cops all over the place, on horseback and bikes, as well as on foot. They were all standing around, talking to one another. They looked at our car curiously as we drove by. Lucy waved. Most of them waved back.