I really could have killed Lucy then. I mean, you should have seen what happened when Kris uttered these words. Catherine, who’d been gnawing on a chicken leg, watching the whole little drama unfold before her, dropped the chicken leg into her lap. All the cheerleaders stopped gossiping and turned to look at me like I was some kind of new sparkly nail polish, or something. Even Jack, who by then had gotten my piece of pie back, paused with a bite of it halfway to his lips and said, “No freakin‘ way.”

I mean, it was a little upsetting.

“Right,” I said. “Jack is absolutely right. No freaking way. I am not going out with him. OK? I am not going out with the President’s son.”

But Kris was already babbling, “Don’t worry about it, Sam, I am the soul of discretion. I won’t say a word to anyone. Do you think reporters will show up, though? I mean, at my party? Because if anyone wants to interview me, you know, that’s all right. They can even take my picture. If you want me to sign a waiver, or whatever . . .”

All this, while Lucy just sat there, flipping through her magazine. I couldn’t believe it. And I had thought the thing with the drawing lessons was bad?

“Hey,” Lucy said, for once noticing by my expression that I wasn’t exactly happy with her. “Don’t blame me. You’re the one who went all frisson on the guy, not me.”

“I do not,” I said, darting a look at Jack, to make sure he was listening, “like David. OK?”

“OK,” Lucy said. “Don’t get your panties in a—OW!”

Really, if anybody deserves to be pinched, and on a daily basis, it’s my sister Lucy.

Top ten Ways You Can Tell That You Have Suddenly Become One of the In Crowd:

10.  Kris Parks invites you to one of her notorious make-out parties.

9.  In PE Coach O’Donnell picks you as team captain for the first time all year, and when it comes to choosing players, all the good athletes actually beg to be on your team.

8.  A lot of the freshmen girls reappear after lunch in new, all-black outfits fresh from the Gap.

7.  The Adams Prep Red Steppers—who perform at half-time during games—ask if you know of a musical selection they might choreograph their next dance number to.

And when you suggest “Pink Elephant” by the “Cherry Poppin” Daddies, they actually take you seriously.

6.  In Deutsch class, when you admit you did not finish your homework, someone hands you theirs.

5.  You begin to notice that a lot of girls who used to wear their hair like your sister’s are now teasing their hair into these giant mushroom clouds that look not unlike the one that is sprouting from your own head.

4.  Everyone in the hallway, instead of painfully averting their gazes as you pass by, like they used to, goes, “Hi, Sam!”

3.  You notice your name (scrawled next to Katie Holmes’s) across the front of a freshman boy’s notebook—with hearts around it, no less.

2.  The whole Mrs. Krebbetts/peanut-butter pie thing.

And the number one way you can tell you are now a member of the In Crowd:

1.  At the sophomore class meeting last period, when the student advisor asks how the surplus funds in the tenth-grade account ought to be spent, and you raise your hand and say, “On new paint brushes and other supplies for the art department,” your suggestion is seconded, put to the general assembly for a vote . . .

   And wins.

It only took about two hours for it to make it all the way around John Adams Preparatory School that I was bringing the President’s son with me as my date to Kris Parks’s party on Saturday night.