Meg Cabot - All American Girl

“Oh!” Catherine flung both her arms around my neck and gave me a joyful squeeze. Then she pulled away and said, “You won’t regret it! You will have a great time, I promise! I mean, Jack will be there!”

Then she ran down the hallway, since she was late for Bio.

I should have run, too, since I was late for Deutsch class. But instead I just stood there, wondering what I had just gotten myself into.

I was still wondering, all the way up until I walked into Susan Boone’s later that day, got to my drawing bench and saw what was sitting on it.

That’s because sitting on my bench was an Army helmet, dotted with White-Out daisies.

“Like it?” David wanted to know. He was grinning again. And for the second time in two days, the sight of that grin did something to me. It seemed to make my heart flip over in my chest. Frisson?

Or the burrito I’d had for lunch?

“I figured it was exactly what a girl like you needed,” David said. “You know, as long as you were continually getting assaulted by crows and armed assassins.”

It couldn’t be heartburn. It was too much of a coincidence that my heart had done that weird flippy thing at the exact moment David had smiled at me. Something else was going on. Something I did not like at all.

Trying to ignore my staggering heart, I put the helmet on. It was way too big for me, but that was OK, as I had a lot of hair to cover.

“Thanks,” I said, peering out from beneath the brim. I was touched—really touched—that he’d gone to the trouble. It was almost as cool as having my name carved into a White House window sill. “It’s perfect!”

It was perfect too. Later that day, when Joe hopped on to my shoulder, interrupting my drawing—which was of a shoulder of raw beef Susan Boone had brought from the butcher’s shop, telling us that after having found colour in a white egg on Tuesday, our challenge today was to draw something that had every colour in the rainbow in it but still retained its context as a whole—I didn’t mind, because this time Joe didn’t hurt me. In fact, he just sat there, looking kind of puzzled, pecking occasionally at the helmet and letting out little interrogative whistles.

Everybody laughed. I couldn’t help noticing that when David laughed, he looked even cuter than when he was smiling. He looked like the kind of guy who didn’t let stuff bug him. He looked like the kind of guy who could put up with a hundred Kris Parkses.

Which is the only explanation I can give for how it was that I found myself leaning over to him right before we all got up to put our drawings on the window sill for critique, and going softly—so softly I was worried he might not be able to hear me over the sudden pounding of my heart—“Hey, David. Do you want to go with me to this party on Saturday night?”

He looked surprised. For one pulse-stopping moment I thought he might say no.

But he didn’t. He smiled and said, “Sure. Why not?”

Top ten Reasons I Might Have Asked David to Kris Parks’s Party on Saturday Night:

10. Complete and utter lunacy brought on by inhaling too much turpentine.

9. Out of a sense of solidarity with Catherine, who seems to have developed a bad case of Stockholm syndrome, as she appears to have a desire to bond with the very same people who for so many years tormented her mercilessly—so much so that she is willing to risk the wrath of her parents by sneaking out to attend a party given by the ringleader of this group, with a boy she hardly knows.

8. His eyes.

7. How nice he had been that night at the White House, telling me about Dolly Madison. Plus getting me that burger. Oh, and carving my name on the window sill.

6. How nice he’d looked that night at the White House, with his kind of messy thick hair and long eyelashes and big hands.

5. He can draw. He really can. Not as well as Jack, but almost as well as me. Maybe even better than me, only in a different style. Plus you can tell he really likes to draw, that he feels the same way about it that Jack and I do, that it sucks him in the way it does us. Most people—like my sister Lucy, for instance—never get that feeling about anything.

4. The daisy helmet.

3. Because he has to go everywhere with the Secret Service, that means there will be adults in attendance and so my parents will have to let us go.

2. Everybody already thinks we are going out anyway.

AndAnd the number one—and most likely—reason I asked David to Kris’s party:

1. To make Jack jealous, of course. Because it is entirely possible that if he sees me with another boy, he will realize that he could, if he does not act soon, lose me, and that might galvanize him into admitting his true feelings for me at last.

At least, I hope so.

I began to regret having asked David to Kris’s party almost immediately. Not because I didn’t think we’d have a good time together, or whatever. I mean, except when he was teasing me about being a sensitive artist, David was an OK sort of guy.

No, I regretted it because of everyone’s reaction to the news when I told them.

Reaction Number One, Lucy:

“Oh, my God, that is just so great! You two make the cutest couple, because he’s so tall and you’re so little, plus both of you have way sticky-outty hair, and you both like that stupid big band music. This is going to be so cool. What are you going to wear? I think you should wear my black leather mini and green cashmere V-neck, with black fishnets and my black knee-high boots. You can’t wear your combat boots with a mini, they’ll make your calves look fat. Not that you have fat calves, but calves always look fat in combat boots and minis. Fishnets might be too much for a sophomore, though. Maybe you should stick to tights. We could get you a pair of the ribbed kind, though. That would be all right. Want to meet with the rest of the squad and go shopping Saturday before the party?”

Reaction Number Two, Rebecca:

“Ah, I see that the hint I planted about the frisson has germinated and produced a fragile, flowering bud.”

Reaction Number Three, Catherine:

“Oh, Sam, that is so great! Now Paul will have someone to talk to at the party, because he won’t know anyone there either, just like David. Maybe he and David can hang out while you and I work the room? Because I hear it is important at parties like this to mingle. I figure if you and I mingle, we might be able to get invitations to other parties, like maybe even senior parties, although I know this is probably asking a lot. But, you know, if we got invited to senior parties, we’d definitely be as popular as Kris in no time.”

Reaction Number Four, Theresa:

“ You asked him ? How many times have you heard me tell your sister, Miss Samantha, that if you chase boys, you are going to come to no good end? Look what happened to my cousin Rosa. I better not catch you calling him. You let him call you . And none of this instant messaging, either. It is best to be mysterious and aloof. If Rosa had been mysterious and aloof, she would not be where she is today. And where is this party, anyway? Are this girl’s parents going to be there? Will alcohol be served? I am telling you, Miss Samantha, if I find out you or your sister have been to a party where there is alcohol, you will both be scrubbing toilets from here until you start college.”

Reaction Number Five, Jack :

“The President’s kid? He’s not a narc, is he?”