TREASURER’S REPORT: We have no money left.

(Wait. WHAT DID LING SU SAY???????)

Tuesday, March 2, the Plaza, princess lessons

Well, that’s it, then. The student government of Albert Einstein High is broke.

Busted.

Bankrupt.

Tapped out.

We’re the first government in the history of Albert Einstein High School to have run through their entire budget in only seven months, with three more still to go.

The first government ever not to have enough money to rent Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center for the senior class’s commencement ceremony.

And it’s apparently all my fault for appointing an artist as treasurer.

“I told you I’m no good with money!” was all Ling Su kept repeating, over and over again. “I told you not to make me be treasurer! I told you to make Boris treasurer! But you wanted it to be all about Girl Power. Well, this girl is also an artist. And artists don’t know anything about balance sheets and fund revenues! We have more important things on our mind. Like making art to stimulate the mind and senses.”

“I knew we should have made Shameeka treasurer,” Lilly groaned. Several times. Even though I reminded her, repeatedly, that Shameeka’s dad told her she is only allowed one extracurricular activity per semester, and she’d already chosen cheerleading over student governing, in a decision sure to haunt her in her quest to be the first African-American woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court.

The thing is, it really isn’t Ling Su’s fault. I mean, I’m the president. If there is one thing I’ve learned from this princess business, it’s that with sovereignty comes responsibility: You can delegate all you want, but, ultimately, YOU’RE the one who is going to pay the price if something goes awry.

I should have been paying attention. I should have been more on top of things.

I should have put the kibosh on the uber-expensive bins. I should have just made them get the regular blue ones. It was my idea to go for the ones with the built-in crusher.

WHAT WAS I THINKING??? Why didn’t anyone try to stop me????

Oh my God. I know what this is!

It is my own personal presidential Bay of Pigs.

Seriously. We learned all about the Bay of Pigs in World Civ—where a group of military strategists back in the sixties came up with this plan to invade Cuba and overthrow Castro, and talked President Kennedy into agreeing to it, only to get to Cuba and find out they were outnumbered and also that no one had checked to make sure the mountains they were supposed to flee into for safety were actually on that side of the island (they weren’t).

Many historians and sociologists have blamed the Bay of Pigs on an incidence of “groupthink,” a phenomenon that occurs when a group’s desire for unanimity makes them reluctant to actually check their facts—like when NASA refused to listen to the engineers’ warnings about the space shuttle Challenger because they were so adamant about launching it by a certain date.

This is clearly EXACTLY what went on with the recycling bins.

Mrs. Hill—if you really think about it—could be called a groupthink enabler…. I mean, she didn’t exactly do a whole lot to try to stop us. The same could be said for Lars, for that matter, although ever since he got his new Sidekick he hardly ever pays attention in class anyway. Mrs. Hill refused to offer any workable solutions to the situation, such as a loan of the five grand we’re missing.

Which, if you ask me, is a cop-out, given that, as our advisor, Mrs. Hill is at least partly responsible for this debacle. I mean, yes, I am president, and ultimately, the responsibility lies with me.

Still, there is a reason we have an advisor. I am only fifteen years and ten months old. I should not have to shoulder the burden for ALL of this. I mean, Mrs. Hill should take SOME of the responsibility. Where was she when we blew our entire annual budget on top-of-the-line recycling bins with built-in crushers?

I’ll tell you where: fueling her American flag–embroidered sweater addiction by watching the Home Shopping Network in the teachers’ lounge and paying absolutely no attention!

Oh, great. Grandmère just yelled at me.

“Amelia, are you listening to a word I’m saying, or am I just speaking to myself?”

“Of course, I’m listening, Grandmère.”

What I really need to do is start paying attention more in my economics class. Then maybe I might learn how to hang on to my money a little better.

“I see,” Grandmère said. “What was I saying, then?”

“Um. I forgot.”

“John Paul Reynolds-Abernathy the Fourth. Have you ever heard of him?”

Oh, God. Not this again. Because Grandmère’s latest thing? She’s buying waterfront property.

Only of course Grandmère couldn’t be happy just to own ordinary waterfront property. So she’s buying an island.

That’s right. Her own island.

The island of Genovia, to be exact.

The real Genovia isn’t an island, but the one Grandmère is buying is. An island, I mean. It’s off the coast of Dubai, where this construction company has made a bunch of islands clustered together into shapes you can see all the way up in the space shuttle. Like they made a couple of island clusters shaped like palm trees, called The Palm.

Now they’re making one called The World. There are islands shaped like France and South Africa and India and even like New Jersey, which, when viewed from the sky, end up looking just like a map of the world, like this:

Obviously, the islands are not built to scale. Because then the island of Genovia would be the size of my bathroom. And India would be the size of Pennsylvania. All the islands are basically the same size—big enough on which to put a humongous estate with a couple of guesthouses and a pool—so people like Grandmère can buy an island shaped like the state or country of their choice, and then live on it, just like Tom Hanks did in the movie Castaway.