And choreography? Forget about it. Some people look down on cheerleaders (okay, me included, except for Shameeka—up until now), but that stuff is HARD!!! Remembering all those steps??? Oh my God! It’s like, “Take my chi already, Feather! I can’t step-ball-change anymore!”

But Feather didn’t have the least bit of sympathy for me—and she had even LESS for Kenny, who can’t step-ball-change to save his life.

And guess what? We’re all expected to show up at ten tomorrow morning for more of the same.

Boris said tonight, as we were all leaving, “This is the hardest I have ever had to work for a hundred extra credit points.”

Which is a totally good point. But, as Ling Su mentioned to him, it beats selling candles door-to-door.

After which I had to shush her, because Amber Cheeseman had been standing nearby!

Except of course J.P. overheard me shushing Ling Su, and was like, “What? What’s the big secret? What are you guys talking about? You can tell me, I swear I’ll take it to the grave.”

The thing is, when you are thrown together for so many hours, the way we’ve all been since rehearsals started, you sort of… bond. I mean, you can’t help it. You’re just in each other’s company SO MUCH. Even Lilly, who has markedly antisocial tendencies, yelled, as we were all putting on our coats, “Hey, you guys, I almost forgot! Party tonight at my place! You should totally come, my parents are out of town!”

Which I thought was kind of bold of her—it’s Michael’s party, really, not hers, and I don’t know how thrilled he’ll be if a bunch of high school kids show up (besides me, of course).

But, you know. It’s an example of how close we all feel to one another.

And also why I felt forced to tell J.P. the truth—that the student government had run a little short on cash to pay for the seniors’ commencement ceremony, and that was why we were putting on Braid! in the first place.

J.P. seemed surprised to hear this—but not, as I first thought, because he was shocked to learn I’d messed up the budget.

“Really?” he said. “And here I was thinking that this whole thing was just an elaborate ruse by your grandmother to sucker my dad into giving up his bid on the faux island of Genovia.”

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just stared at him with my mouth hanging open until he laughed and said, “Mia, don’t worry. I won’t tell. About the money for commencement OR your grandmother’s scheme.”

But then I got all curious, and was like, “Why does your dad want to buy the faux island of Genovia, anyway, J.P.?”

“Because he can,” J.P. said, not looking jokey at all—which, for him, was a first. He almost never seems to look upset or worried about anything—except corn, of course.

I could see right away that John Paul Reynolds-Abernathy the Third was a sore subject to John Paul Reynolds-Abernathy the Fourth. So I dropped it. That’s the kind of thing you learn when you’re training to be a princess. How to drop subjects that suddenly seem to turn uncomfortable.

“Well, see you tomorrow,” I said to J.P..

“Are you going to Lilly’s party?” he wanted to know.

“Oh,” I said. “Yes.”

“Maybe I’ll see you there, then,” J.P. said.

Which is sweet. You know, that J.P. feels comfortable enough with us to want to come to Lilly’s party. Even if he doesn’t know it’s Michael’s party and not Lilly’s.

Anyway, I’ve got more important things to worry about right now than J.P. and Lilly and Grandmère and her diabolical schemes for faux island domination.

Because I’ve got a scheme of my own to put into action….

Sunday, March 7, 1 a.m., the loft

I’m so embarrassed. Seriously. I’m MORTIFIED. This is probably the most embarrassed I have ever been in my entire life.

And I know I’ve said that before, but this time, I really mean it.

I really thought, for a while there, that it might have been working. My plan to prove to Michael that I really am a party girl, I mean.

I don’t understand exactly what went wrong. I had it ALL planned out. I did EXACTLY what Lana said. As soon as I got to Lilly and Michael’s apartment, I changed out of my rehearsal clothes into my party clothes:

—Black tights

—My black velvet skirt (transformed into a mini—the edges were kind of raggedy because Fat Louie kept batting at the scissors as I was cutting, but whatever, it still looked okay)

—My black Docs

—A black leotard left over from that Halloween I dressed as a cat, and Ronnie from next door said I looked like a flat-chested Playboy bunny so I never wore it again

—A black beret my mom used to wear when she was performing acts of civil disobedience with her fellow Guerrilla Girls

—And the water bra. Which I didn’t even fill up all that much, because, you know, I was scared of leaks.

Plus I put on red lipstick and tousled my hair all sexily, like Lindsay Lohan’s when she’s coming out of New York clubs like Butter after just narrowly having missed running into her ex, Wilmer.

But instead of being all, “That’s hot,” about my new look, Michael—who was answering the door as the first of his guests began to arrive, just raised his eyebrows at me like he was kind of alarmed about something.

And Lars actually looked up from his Sidekick as I walked by and started to say something, but then apparently thought better of it, since he went back to leaning against the wall and looking up stuff on the Web.

And then Lilly, who was busy getting her camera ready to film the festivities for a piece she’s doing for Lilly Tells It Like It Is on male-female dynamics in a modern urban setting, was like, “What are you supposed to be? A mime?”

But instead of getting mad at her, I tossed my head, the way Lana does, and was like, “Aren’t you funny?”

Because I was trying to act mature in front of Michael’s friends, who were coming in just then.

And I guess I succeeded, because Trevor and Felix were like, “Mia?” as if they didn’t recognize me. Even Paul was all, “Nice sticks,” which I guess was a compliment about my legs, which look quite long when I wear a short skirt.

Even Doo Pak went, “Oh, Princess Mia, you are looking very nice without your overalls.”

And J.P.—who showed up a little while later, at the same time as Tina and Boris—said, “‘Your beauty would put even the loveliest Mediterranean sunset to shame, my lady,’” which is one of his lines from the play, but whatever, it was still nice.

And he accompanied it with the same courtly bow from the play, too. I mean, musical.

Michael was the only one who didn’t say anything. But I figured it was because he was too busy putting on the music and making everyone feel at home. Also, he wasn’t too thrilled Lilly had invited Boris and those guys without asking him first.

So I tried to help him out. You know, make things go smoother. I went up to some girls from his dorm who had come in—none of whom was wearing a beret or even a particularly sexy outfit. Unless you consider Tevas with socks sexy—and was like, “Hi, I’m Michael’s girlfriend, Mia. Would you like some dip?”

I didn’t mention that I’d made the dip myself, because I didn’t think a true party girl would really make her own dip. Like, I doubt Lana’s ever made dip. Making dip was a bad miscalculation on my part, but not one that was impossible to overcome, because I didn’t have to tell people I’d made the dip.

The college girls said they didn’t want any dip, even when I assured them I had made it with low-fat mayonnaise and sour cream. Because I know college girls are always watching their weight in order to avoid gaining that Freshman Fifteen. Although I didn’t SAY this to them, of course.

But I wasn’t going to let their refusal of dip get me down. I mean, that had really just been an opening to start a conversation with them.

Only they didn’t seem to really want to talk to me very much. And Boris and Tina were making out on the couch, and Lilly was showing J.P. how her camera worked. So I didn’t have anyone to talk to.

So I sort of drifted over to the kitchen and got a beer. I figured this is what a party girl would do. Because Lana had told me so. I took the cap off with the bottle opener that was lying there, and since I saw that everyone else was drinking their beer straight out of the bottle, I did the same.

And nearly gagged. Because beer tasted even worse than I remembered. Like worse than that skunk Papaw ran over smelled.

But since no one else was making a face every time they drank from their beer bottle, I tried to control myself, and settled for taking very small sips. That made it a little more bearable. Maybe that’s how beer drinkers stand it. By taking in very small amounts of it at a time. I kept on taking small sips until I noticed J.P. had Lilly’s camera, and was pointing it right at me. At which point I hid the beer behind my back.

J.P. lowered the camera. He said, “Sorry,” and looked really uncomfortable.

But not as uncomfortable as I felt, when Lilly, who was standing next to him, went, “Mia. What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” I said to her in an annoyed voice. Because that is how I imagined a party girl would feel about her friend asking her what she was doing. Unless she was one of those party girls from Girls Gone Wild, in which case she’d just have lifted up her shirt for the camera.

But I decided I wasn’t that kind of party girl.

“You’re drinking?” Lilly looked sort of shocked. Well, maybe more amused than shocked, actually. “Beer?”

“I’m just trying to have a good time,” I said. I was excruciatingly aware of J.P.’s gaze on me. Why that should have made me feel so uncomfortable, I don’t know. It just did. “It’s not like I don’t drink all the time in Genovia.”

“Sure,” Lilly said. “Champagne toasts with foreign dignitaries. Wine with dinner. Not beer.”

“Whatever,” I said again. And moved away from her—

—and smacked right into Michael, who was like, “Oh, hey, there you are.”

And then he looked down at the beer in my hand and went, “What are you doing?”

“Oh, you know,” I said, tossing my head again, all casually and party-girl-like. “Just having a good time.”

“Since when do you drink beer?” Michael wanted to know.

“God, Michael,” I said, laughing. “Whatever.”

“She said the same thing to me,” Lilly informed her brother, as she took her camera from J.P. and stuck the lens into both our faces.

“Lilly,” Michael said. “Quit filming. Mia—”

But before he got to say whatever it was he was going to say, his computer’s Party Shuffle (he’d wired the speakers in his parents’ living room to his hard drive) started to play the first slowish song of the evening—Coldplay’s “Speed of Sound”—so I went, “Oh, I love this song,” and started dancing, the way Lana had said to.

The truth is, I am not even the biggest Coldplay fan, because I don’t really approve of the lead singer letting his wife, Gwyneth Paltrow, name their kid Apple. What is going to happen to that poor kid when she gets to high school? Everyone is going to make fun of her.

But I guess that beer, skunky as it had been, did the trick. Because I didn’t feel anywhere near as self-conscious as I had before I’d started sipping it. In fact, I felt sort of good. Even though I was the only person in the whole room who was dancing.

But I figured that was okay because a lot of times when one person starts dancing, everyone else does. They are just waiting for someone to break the ice.

Only I couldn’t help noticing that as I danced, no one was joining me. Especially Michael. He was just standing there staring at me. As was Lars. As was Lilly, although she was doing it through a camera lens. Boris and Tina, over on the couch, stopped kissing and started looking at me instead. The college girls were staring at me, too. One of them leaned over to whisper something to one of her friends, and the friend giggled.

I figured they were just jealous because I had actually made an effort to dress up for the party, what with my beret and all, and kept dancing.

Which was when J.P. totally came to my rescue. He started dancing, too.

He wasn’t really dancing with me, since he wasn’t touching me, or anything. But he kind of walked over to where I was and started moving his feet around, you know, the way really big guys dance, like they don’t want to draw a lot of attention to themselves, but they want to join in the fun.

I was so excited someone else was finally dancing, I sort of shimmied (Feather taught us that term—it’s when you wiggle your shoulders) closer to him, and smiled up at him, to say thanks. And he smiled back.