'Mia,' my mom said, 'Michael is not going to break up with you just because you have a familial commitment you cannot

get out of.'

'I wouldn't be so sure,' I said, darkly. 'Dave Farouq El-Abar broke up with Tina today because she didn't return his call.'

'That's different,' my mom said. 'It's just plain rude not to return someone's calls.'

'But Mom,' I said. I was getting tired of having to explain this stuff to my mom all the time. It is a wonder to me she ever got

a single guy in the first place, let alone two of them, when she clearly knows so little about the art of dating. 'If you are too available, the guy might think all the thrill has gone out of the chase.'

My mother looked suspicious. 'Don't tell me. Let me guess. Your grandmother told you that?'

'Urn,' I said. 'Yes.'

'Well, let me give you a little tip my mother once gave me,' my mom said. I was surprised. My mom doesn't get along so well with her parents, Mamaw and Papaw, who run the Handy Dandy Hardware Store of Versailles, Indiana. It is rare that she mentions either of them ever giving her a piece of advice worthy of passing down to her own daughter, as my mom ran away from home as soon as she was financially able to, and has only been back there, like, twice.

'If you think there's a chance you might have to cancel on Michael for Friday night,' she said, 'you'd better cat-on-the-roof

him now.'

I was understandably perplexed by this. 'Cat on the whatta?'

'Cat on the roof,' my mother said. 'You need to begin mentally preparing him for the disappointment. For instance, if

something had happened to Fat Louie while you were in Genovia—' My mouth must have fallen open, since my mom went, 'Don't worry, nothing did. But I'm just saying, if something had, I would not have blurted it right out to you, over the phone.

I'd have prepared you gently for the eventual letdown. Like I might have said, "Mia, Fat Louie escaped through your window and now he's up on the roof, and we can't get him down".'

'Of course you could get him down,' I protested. 'You could go up by the fire escape and take a pillowcase and when you

get near him, you could throw the pillowcase over him and scoop him up and carry him back down again.'

'Yes,' my mom said. 'But supposing I told you I'd try that. And the next day I called you and said it hadn't worked, Fat Louie had escaped to the neighbour's roof—'

Td tell you to go to the building next door and make someone let you in, then go up to their roof.' I really did not see where

this was going. 'Mom, how could you be so irresponsible as to let Fat Louie out in the first place? I've told you again and

again — you've got to keep my bedroom window closed, you know how he likes to watch the pigeons. Louie doesn't have

any outdoor survival skills . . .'

'So naturally,' my mom said, 'you wouldn't expect him to survive two nights out of doors.'

'No,' I practically wailed. 'I wouldn't.'

'Right. See. So you'd be mentally prepared when I called you on the third day to say despite everything we'd done, Louie

was dead.'

'OH, MY GOD!' I snatched up Fat Louie from where he was lying beside me on the bed. 'And you think I should do that

to poor Michael? He has a dog, not a cat! Pavlov's never going to get up on the roof!'

'No,' my mother said, looking tired. Well, and why not? She was hauling around a dozen or so extra pounds all of a sudden. 'I'm saying you should begin mentally preparing Michael for the disappointment he is going to feel if, indeed, you need to

cancel him on Friday night. Call him and tell him you might not be able to make it. That's all. Cat-on-the-roof him.'

I let Fat Louie go. Not just because I finally realized what my mom was getting at, but because he was trying to bite me in

order to get me to loosen the stranglehold I had on him.

'Oh,' I said. 'You think if I do that - start mentally preparing him for my not being able to go out with him on Friday - he

won't dump me when I get around to breaking the actual news?'

'Mia,' my mom said. 'No boy is going to dump you because you have to cancel a date. If any boy does, then he wasn't

worth going out with anyway. Much like Tina's Dave, I'd venture to say. She's probably better off without him. Now.

Do your homework.'

Only how could anyone expect me to do my homework after imparting a piece of information like that?

Instead I went online. I meant to instant message Michael, but I found that Tina was instant messaging me.

Iluvromance: Hi, Mia. What R U doing?

She sounded so sad! She was even using a blue font!

FtLouie: I'm just doing my Bio. How are you?

Iluvromance: OK, I guess. I just miss him so imichimmmilimiim I wish I had never even

             heard of stupid Jane Eyre.

Remembering what my mom had said, I wrote:

FtLouie: Tina, if Dave was willing to break up with you just because you didn't return

         his calls, then he was not worthy of you. You will find a new boy, one who

         appreciates you.

Iluvromance: Do U really think so?

FtLouie: Absolutely.

Iluvromance: But where am I going to find a boy who appreciates me at AEHS? All the boys

             who go there are morons. Except MM of course.

FtLouie: Don't worry, we'll find someone for you. I have to go IM my dad now . . .



I didn't want to tell her that the person I really had to IM was Michael. I didn't want to rub it in that I had a boyfriend and she didn't. Also, I hoped she didn't remember that in Genovia, where my dad was, it was four o'clock in the morning. Also that the Palais de Genovia doesn't have instant messaging.

FtLouie: so TTYL.

Iluvromance: OK, bye. If U feel like chatting later, I'll be here. I have nowhere else

             to go.

Poor, sweet Tina! She is clearly prostrate with grief. Really, if you think about it, she is well rid of Dave. If he wanted to leave her for this Jasmine girl so badly, he could have let her down gently by cat-on-the-roofing her. If he were any kind of gentleman, he would have. But it was all too clear now that Dave was no gentleman at all.

I'm glad MY boyfriend is so different. Or at least, I hope he is. No, wait, of course he is. He's MICHAEL.

FtLouie: Hey!

LinuxRulz:Hey back atcha! Where have you been?

FtLouie: Princess lessons.

LinuxRulz:Don't you know everything there is to know about being a princess yet?

FtLouie: Apparently not. Grandmere's got me in for some fine tuning. Speaking of which,

         is there, like, a later showing of Star Wars than the seven o'clock?

LinuxRulz:Yeah, there's an eleven. Why?

FtLouie: Oh, nothing.

LinuxRulz: WHY?


But see, here was the part where I couldn't do it. Maybe because of the capital letters, or maybe because my conversation

with Tina was still too fresh in my mind. The unparalleled sadness in her blue U letters was just too much for me. I know I should have just come right out and told him about the ball thingy then and there, only I couldn't go through with it. All I

could think about was how incredibly smart and gifted Michael is, and what a pathetic, talentless freak I am, and how

easy it would be for him to go out and find someone worthier of his attentions.

So instead, I wrote:

FtLouie: I've been trying to think of some names for your band.

LinuxRulz: What does that have to do with whether or not there's a later showing of Star Wars Friday night?


FtLouie: Well, nothing, I guess. Except what do you think of Michael and the Wookies?

LinuxRulz:! think maybe you've been playing with Fat Louie's catnip mouse again.

FtLouie: Ha ha. OK, how about The Ewoks?

LinuxRulz:The EWOKS? Where did your grandma take you today when she hauled you out of second period? Electric shock therapy?

FtLouie: I'm only trying to help.

LinuxRulz:! know, sorry. Only I don't think the guys would really enjoy being equated

            with furry little muppets from the planet Endor. I mean, I know one of them

            is Boris, but even he would draw the line at Ewoks, I hope . . .

FtLouie: BORIS PELKOWSKI IS IN YOUR BAND????

LinuxRulz: Yeah. Why?

FtLouie: Nothing.



All I can say is, if I had a band, I would NOT let Boris in it. I mean, I know he is a talented musician and all, but he is also a mouth breather. I think it's great that he and Lilly get along so well, and for short periods of time I can totally put up with him and even have a nice time with him and all. But I would not let him be in my band. Not unless he stopped tucking his sweaters into his pants.

LinuxRulz: Boris isn't so bad, once you get to know him.

FtLouie: I know. He just doesn't seem like the band type. All that Bartok.

LinuxRulz: He plays a mean bluegrass, you know. Not that we'll be playing any

           bluegrass in the band.



This was comforting to know.


LinuxRulz: So will your grandmother let you off on time?



I genuinely had no idea what he was talking about.

FtLouie: What????

LinuxRulz: On Friday. You've got princess lessons, right? That's why you were asking

           about later showings of the movie, wasn't it? You're worried your grandmother

           isn't going to let you out on time?



This is where I screwed up. You see, he had offered me the perfect get-out - I could have said, 'Yes, I am,' and chances

were, he'd have been like, 'OK, well, let's make it another time, then.'

BUT WHAT IF THERE WERE NO OTHER TIME????

What if Michael, like Dave, just blew me off and found some other girl to take to the show????

So instead, I went:

FtLouie: No, it will be OK. I think I can get off early.


WHY AM I SO STUPID???? WHY DID I WRITE THAT???? Because of COURSE I won't be able to get off early,

I will be at the stupid black-and-white ball ALL NIGHT!!!!!

I swear, I am such an idiot, I don't even deserve to have a boyfriend.










Thursday, January 21,

Homeroom



This morning at breakfast, Mr G was all, 'Has anyone seen my brown corduroy pants?' and my mom, who had set her

alarm so that she could wake up early enough to possibly catch my dad on a break between Parliament sessions (no

such luck), went, 'No, but has anyone seen my Free Winona T-shirt?'

And then I went, 'Well, I still haven't found my Queen Amidala underwear.'

And that's when we all realized it: someone had stolen our laundry.

It is really the only explanation for it. I mean, we send laundry out, to the Thompson Street laundry-by-the-pound place,

and then they do it for us and deliver it all folded and stuff. Since we don't have a doorman, generally the bag just sits in

the vestibule until one of us picks it up and drags it up the three flights of stairs to the loft.

Only apparently, no one has seen the bag of laundry we dropped off the day before I left for Genovia!

Which can only mean that some freaky newsreporter (they regularly go through our garbage, much to the chagrin of

Mr. Molina, our building's superintendent) found our bag of laundry, and any minute we can expect a ground-breaking

news story on the front cover of the Post Out of the Closet: What Princess Mia Wears, and What it Means,

According to our Experts.

AND THEN THE WHOLE WORLD WILL FIND OUT THAT I WEAR QUEEN AMIDALA PANTIES!

I mean, it is not like I go around ADVERTISING that I have Star Wars underwear, or even that I have any kind of lucky panties at all. And by rights, I should have taken my

Queen Amidala underwear with me to Genovia, for luck on my Christmas Eve address to my people. If I had, maybe

I wouldn't have gone off on that six-pack-holder tangent.

But, whatever, I had been too caught up in the whole Michael thing, and had completely forgotten.

And now it looks like someone has gotten hold of my special lucky underwear, and the next thing you know, it will be

showing up on Ebay! Seriously! There is a ton of Princess Mia stuff being sold on Ebay, like used copies of the

unauthorized biographies of my life. Who is to say my underwear wouldn't sell like hotcakes? Especially the fact that

they are Queen Amidala panties.

I am so, so dead.

Mom has already called the 6th Precinct to report the theft, but those guys are too busy defusing bombs and tracking