Homework

Algebra: Who knows

English: Who cares

Biology: Whatever

Health and Safety: Please

Gifted and Talented: As if

French: Something

World Civ.: Something else









Friday, May 2, in the limo on the way home from Grandmere's


Grandmere has decided to act like nothing happened last night. Like she didn't bring her poodle to my birthday dinner and

get an innocent busboy fired. Like her face wasn't plastered all over the front of every newspaper in Manhattan, minus the Times. She was just going on about how in Japan it is considered terrifically rude to poke your chopstick into your rice bowl. Apparently, if you do this, it is a sign of disrespect to the dead, or something.

Whatever. Like I am going to Japan anytime soon. Hello, apparently I am not even going to my own PROM.

'Grandmere,' I said, when I couldn't take it any more. 'Are we going to talk about what happened at dinner last night, or are you just going to pretend like it didn't happen?'

Grandmere looked all innocent. 'I'm sorry, Amelia. I can't think what you mean.'

'Last night,' I said. 'My birthday dinner. At Les Hautes Manger. You got the busboy fired. It was all over the papers this morning.'

'Oh, that.' Grandmere innocently stirred her Sidecar.

'Well?' I asked her. 'What are you going to do about it?'

'Do?' Grandmere looked genuinely surprised. 'Why, nothing. What is there to do?'

I guess I shouldn't have been so shocked. Grandmere can be pretty self-absorbed, when she wants to be.

'Grandmere, a man lost his job because of you,' I cried. 'You've got to do something! He could starve.'

Grandmere looked at the ceiling. 'Good heavens, Amelia. I already got you an orphan. Are you saying you want to adopt a busboy, as well?'

'No. But, Grandmere, it wasn't Jangbu's fault that he spilt soup on you. It was an accident. But it was caused by your dog.'

Grandmere shielded Rommel's ears.

'Not so loud,' she said. 'He's very sensitive. The vet said—'

'I don't care what the vet said,' I yelled. 'Grandmere, you've got to do something! My friends are down at the restaurant picketing it right now!'

Just to be dramatic, I switched on the television and turned it to New York One. I didn't really expect there to be anything

on it about Lilly's protest. Just maybe something about how there was a traffic snarl in the area, due to rubberneckers peering

at the spectacle Lilly was making of herself.

So you can imagine I was pretty surprised when a second later, a reporter started describing the 'extraordinary scene outside Les Hautes Manger, the trendy four-star eatery on 57th Street,' and they showed Lilly marching around with a big sign that

said LES HAUTES MANGER MGMT UNFAIR. The biggest surprise wasn't the large number of Albert Einstein High School students Lilly had managed to talk into joining her. I mean, I expected to see Boris there, and it wasn't exactly astonishing to see that the AEHS Socialist Club was there as well, since they will show up to any protest they can find.

No, the big shocker was that there was a large number of men I'd never seen before marching right alongside Lilly and the other AEHS students.

The reporter soon explained why.

'Busboys from all over the city have gathered here in front of Les Hautes Manger to show their solidarity with Jangbu Pinasa, the employee who was dismissed from Les Hautes Manger last night after an incident involving the Dowager Princess of Genovia.'

In spite of all of this, however, Grandmere remained completely unmoved. She just looked at the screen and clacked her tongue.

'Blue,' she said, 'isn't Lilly's best colour, is it?'

I seriously don't know what I am going to do with the woman. She is completely IMPOSSIBLE.







Friday, May 2, the Loft

You would think in my own house I would find a little peace and quiet. But no, I come home to find my mom and Mr.G in a raging fight. Usually their fights are about the fact that Mom wants a home birth with a midwife and Mr G wants a hospital

birth with the staff of the Mayo Clinic in attendance.

But this time it was because my mom wants to name the baby Simone if it's a girl, after Simone de Beauvoir, and Sartre if it's

a boy, after - well, some guy named Sartre, I guess.

But Mr. G wants to name the baby Rose if it's a girl, after his grandma, and Rocky if it's a boy, after . . . well, apparently after Sylvester Stallone. Which, you know, having seen the movie Rocky, isn't necessarily a bad thing, since Rocky was very nice and all...

But my mom says over her dead body will her son - if she has a son - be named after a practically illiterate prizefighter.

Still, if you ask me, Rocky is better than the last name they came up with if it's a boy: Granger. Thank God I went and looked up Granger in the baby-name book I bought them. Because once I let them know that Granger means 'farmer' in Middle French, they totally cooled on it. Who names their baby Farmer?

Amelia doesn't mean anything in French. It is said to be derivative of Emily, or Emmeline, which means 'industrious' in Old German. The name Michael, which is old Hebrew, means 'He who is like the Lord'. So you see that, together, we make a

very nice pair, being industrious and lord-like.

But the fight didn't end with die whole Sartre versus Rocky thing. Oh no. My mom wants to go to B.J.'s Wholesale Outlet in Jersey City tomorrow to buy the supplies for my party, but Mr. G is scared terrorists might set off a bomb in the Holland Tunnel, trapping them in there like Sylvester Stallone in the movie Daylight, and then Mom might go into labour prematurely and have the baby with the water from the Hudson River gushing all around.

Mr. G just wants to go to Paper House on Broadway to buy Queen Amidala birthday plates and cups.

Hello, I hope they know I am fifteen years, not months, old, and that I can perfectly understand everything that they are saying.

Whatever. I put on my headphones and turned on my computer in the hopes of finding some solace away from all the raised voices, but no such luck. Lilly could only have just got home from her protest thingy, but she's already managed to send

around a mass email to everyone in school:



Fr: WomynRule


ATTENTION ALL STUDENTS OF ALBERT EINSTEIN HIGH: Your help and support is vitally needed

by the Students Against The Wrongful Dismissal Of Jangbu Pinasa Association (SATWDOJPA)! Join us tomorrow (Saturday, May 3) at noon for a rally in Central Park, and then a

protest march down Fifth Avenue to the doors of Les Hautes Manger on 57th Street. Show your disapproval over the way New York City restaurateurs treat their employees! Do not listen to the people who argue that Generation Y is the Materialistic Generation! Make your voice heard!

Lilly Moscovitz, President

SATWDOJPA



Hello. I didn't know my generation was the Materialistic Generation. How can "that even be? I hardly own anything. Except

a mobile phone. And I've only had that for like a day.

There was another message from Lilly. It went:

Fr: WomynRule

Mia, missed you today at the rally. You should have been there, it was totally AMAZING! Busboys from as far away as Chinatown joined our peaceful protest. There was such a feeling of camaraderie and warmth! Best of all, you'll never guess who showed up ... Jangbu Pinasa himself! He came to Les Hautes Manger to pick up his last pay cheque. Was

he ever surprised to see us all there, picketing on his behalf! He was really shy at

first and didn't want to talk to me. But I informed him that, though I might have been brought up in an upper-class household, and my parents are members of the intelligentsia, at heart I am as working class as he is, and have only the best interests of the common man at heart. Jangbu is coming to the march tomorrow! You should come, too, it's going to be awesome!!!!!!!!

Lilly

PS You didn't tell me Jangbu was only eighteen years old. Did you know that he is a Sherpa? Seriously. Prom Tibet. Back in his home country, he already graduated from high school. He came here searching for a better life because agricultural trade in his homeland has been brought to a standstill by the politics of the Chinese occupying power, and the only non-agricultural job young Sherpas can get is serving as porters and guides in the Himalayas. But Jangbu doesn't like heights.


PPS You also didn't tell me he was so HOT!!!! He looks like a cross between Jackie Chan and Enrique Inglesias. Only without the cheek mole.




It really is quite exhausting to have geniuses as both your best friend as well as your boyfriend. I swear I can hardly keep up with the two of them. Their mental gymnastics are totally beyond me.

Fortunately there was also an email from Tina, whose intellectual capacity is more equal to my own:

Iluvromance

Mia, I've been thinking it over, and I've decided that the best time for you to ask Michael whether or not he is going to ask you to the prom really will be tomorrow night

at your party. What I think we should do is organize a game of Seven Minutes in Heaven. (Your mom won't care, right? I mean, she and Mr G aren't going to actually BE THERE

during the party, are they?) And when you are in the closet with Michael, and things get hot and heavy with him, you should pop the question. Believe me, no boy can say no to anything during Seven Minutes in Heaven. Or so I've read.


Jeez! What is with my friends? It is like they live in a completely different universe from me. Seven Minutes in Heaven? Has Tina lost her mind? I want to have a NICE party, with Coke and Cheetos and maybe the Time Warp if I can get Mr G to help me move the futon couch. I do NOT want a party where people are going off in the closet to make out. I mean, if I want to make out with my boyfriend, I will do it in the privacy of my own room . . . except of course that I'm not allowed to have Michael over when no one else is home, and when he is over I have to leave the bedroom door open at least four inches at all times (thanks, Mr G. You know, it totally sucks having a stepfather who is also a high-school teacher, because who is better equipped to rain on a teenager's parade than a high-school teacher?).

I swear, between my grandmother and my friends, I don't know who causes me the most headaches.

At least Michael left a nice message:

LinuxRulz

You seemed pretty quiet during G and T today. Are you OK?


Thank God my boyfriend can be counted on to always be supportive of me. Except, of course, when he neglects to ask me

to the prom.

I decided to ignore Lilly's and Tina's emails, but I wrote back to Michael. I tried to implement some of that subtlety Grandmere was talking about the other day. Not that I approve of Grandmere right now, or anything. Still, it must be stated that she has had a lot more boyfriends than I have.

FtLouie

Hey! I'm fine. Thanks for asking. I just can't shake this feeling lately that there's something I've forgotten. I can't quite put my finger on what it is, though. Something to do with this time of year, though, I think . . .


There! Perfect! Subtle, yet pointed. And Michael, being a genius, was sure to get it.

Or so I thought, until he wrote back . . . which he did right away, since I guess he was online as well.


LinuxRulz

Well, judging by the C you got on that quiz today, I'd say what you're forgetting is everything we've been going over these past few weeks in Algebra. If you want, I'll

come over on Sunday and help you with Monday's assignment.



Oh my God. Did any girl ever have a boyfriend so totally clueless? Except possibly Lilly? Except that I think even Boris Pelkowski would have seen through my artless ploy.

I am so depressed. I think I am going to go to bed. There is a Farscape marathon on, but I am not in the mood to watch other people's space adventures. My own are upsetting enough.





Saturday, May 3, DAY OF THE BIG PARTY

My mom poked her head in bright and early and asked me if I wanted to go with her and Mr. G to B.J.'s for party supplies. Normally I love B.J.'s, on account of the cavernous warehouse filled with oversize stuff, and the free cheese samples and the popcorn and everything. Not to mention the drive-through liquor store Mr. G likes to hit on the way home, where they open your boot and fill it with six-packs of Coke without your ever even having to get out of the car.