“Mr. Renaldo,” I heard her ask my dad. “Is Mia secretly betrothed to some prince somewhere?”

     My dad lowered his newspaper. I could hear it crinkling all the way from my bedroom. “Good God, no,” he said.

     “Moron,” she said to me, when she came stomping back into my room. “And while I can see why you might want to guard diligently against falling in love with David Hasselhoff, who is, by the way, old enough to be your father, and hardly a hottie, what does mybrother have to do with any of this?”

     Too late, I realized what I’d said. Lilly has no idea how I feel about her brother Michael. Actually,I don’t really have any idea about how I feel about him either. Except that he looks extremely Casper Van Dien with his shirt off.

     Iso want him to be the one who’d written that letter. I really, really do.

     But I’m not about to mention this to his sister.

     Instead, I told her I think it unfair of her to demand explanations for stuff I said under the influence of codeine cough syrup.

     Lilly just got that expression she gets sometimes when teachers ask a question and she knows the answer, only she wants to give someone else in the class a chance to answer for a change.

     It really can be exhausting sometimes, having a best friend with an IQ of 170.

 

 

 

 

HOMEWORK

 

Algebra: problems 1–20, pg. 115

English: Chapter 4 of Strunk and White

World Civ: two-hundred–word essay on the conflict betweenIndia andPakistan

G&T: Yeah, right

French: Chaptre huit

Biology: pituitary gland (ask Kenny!)

 

LILLY MOSCOVITZ AND MIA THERMOPOLIS’S LIST OF CELEBRITIES AND THEIR BREASTS

 

CELEBRITY  Britney Spears

LILLY  Fake

MIA  Real

CELEBRITY  Jennifer Love Hewitt

LILLY  Fake

MIA  Real

CELEBRITY  Winona Ryder

LILLY  Fake

MIA  Real

CELEBRITY  Courtney Love

LILLY  Fake

MIA  Fake

CELEBRITY  Jennie Garth

LILLY  Fake

MIA  Real

CELEBRITY  Tori Spelling

LILLY  Fake

MIA  Fake

CELEBRITY  Brandy

LILLY  Fake

MIA  Real

CELEBRITY  NeveCampbell

LILLY  Fake

MIA  Real

CELEBRITY  Sarah Michelle Gellar

LILLY  Real

MIA  Real

CELEBRITY  Christina Aguilera

LILLY  Fake

MIA  Real

CELEBRITY  Lucy Lawless

LILLY  Real

MIA  Real

CELEBRITY  MelissaJoan Hart

LILLY  Fake

MIA  Real

CELEBRITY  Mariah Carey

LILLY  Fake

MIA  Fake

CELEBRITY  Rachael Leigh Cook

LILLY  Fake

MIA  Real

 

Even later on Thursday

 

     After dinner I felt well enough to get out of bed, and so I did.

     I checked my e-mail. I was hoping there might be something from my mysterious “friend.” If he knew my “snail mail” address, I figured he’d know my e-mail address, too. Both are listed in the school directory.

      Tina Hakim Baba was one of the people who e-mailed me. She sent get-well wishes. So did Shameeka. Shameeka mentioned that she was trying to talk her father into letting her have a Halloween party, and that if she succeeded, would I come? I wrote back to say of course, if I wasn’t too weak from coughing.

     There was also a message from Michael. It was a get-well message, too, but it was animated, like a little film. It showed a cat that looked a lot like Fat Louie doing a little get-well dance. It was very cute. Michael signed it “Love, Michael.”

     Not Sincerely.

     Not Yours Truly.

     Love.

     I played it four times, but I still couldn’t tell whether he was the one who’d sent me that letter. The letter, I noticed, never once mentioned the wordlove. It said the senderliked me. And he signed it “sincerely.”

     But there was no love. Not a hint of love.

     Then I saw a message from someone whose e-mail address I didn’t recognize. Oh, my God! Could it be my anonymous liker? My fingers were trembling on my mouse. . . .

     And then I opened it and saw the following message from JoCrox:

 

JOCROX:Just a note to say hope you are feeling better. Missed you in school today! Did you get my letter? Hope it made you feel at least a little better, knowing there’s someone out there who thinks you rock. Get well soon.

Your Friend

 

     Oh, my God! It’shim! My anonymous admirer!

     But who is Jo Crox? I don’t know anyone named Jo Crox. He says he missed me in school today, which means we might be in a class together. But there are no Jo’s in any of my classes.

     Maybe Jo Crox isn’t really his name. In fact, Jo Crox doesn’t sound like a name at all. Maybe that actually stands for Joc Rox.

     But I don’t know any jocks, either. I mean, not personally.

     Oh, no, wait, I get it:

     Jo-C-rox.

     Josie Rocks! Oh, my God! Josie fromJosie and the Pussycats!

     That is just socute.

     But who?Who is it?

     I figured there was only one way to find out, so I wrote back right away:

 

FTLOUIE:Dear Friend, I got your letter. Thank you very much. Thanks also for the get-well wishes.

WHO ARE YOU? (I swear I won’t tell anyone.)

Mia

 

     I sat around for half an hour, hoping he would write back, but he never did.

     WHO IS IT??? WHO IS IT??

     I have GOT to get well by tomorrow so I can go to school and figure out who Jo-C-rox is. Otherwise, I will go mental, just like Mel Gibson’s girlfriend inHamlet, and I’ll end up floating in my Lanz of Salzburg nightie in theHudson with the rest of the medical waste.

 

Friday, October 24, Algebra

 

     I AM BETTER!!!!!

     Well, actually, I don’t feel all that great, but I don’t care. I don’t have a temperature, so my mother had no choice but to let me go to school. There was no way I was going to lie in bed another day. Not with Jo-C-rox out there somewhere, possibly loving me.

     But so far, nothing. I mean, we swung by Lilly’s in the limo and picked her up, as usual, and Michael was with her and all, but by the casual way he said hello to me you would hardly have known that he’d ever sent me a get-well e-mail signed “Love, Michael,” let alone ever called me the Josiest girl he’s ever met. It is so very clear that he isn’t Jo-C-rox.

     And thatLove at the end of his e-mail was just a platonicLove. I mean, Michael’sLove obviously didn’t mean he actuallyloves me.

     Not that I ever thought he did. Or might. Love me, I mean.

     He did walk me to my locker, though. This was extremely nice of him. Granted, we were in the middle of a heated discussion about Tuesday’s episode ofBuffy the Vampire Slayer, but still, no boy has ever walked me to my locker before. Boris Pelkowski meets Lilly at the front doors to the school and walks her to her lockerevery single morning, and has done so ever since the day she agreed to be his girlfriend.

     Okay, I admit that Boris Pelkowski is a mouth-breather who continues to tuck his sweaters into his pants despite my frequent hints that inAmerica , this is considered aGlamour “Don’t.” But still, he is a boy. And it is always cool to have a boy—even one who wears a retainer—walk you to your locker. I know I have Lars, but it’s different having yourbodyguard walk you to your locker, as opposed to an actualboy.

     I just noticed that Lana Weinberger has purchased all new notebook binders. I guess she threw away the old ones. She had written “Mrs. Josh Richter” all over them, then crossed it out when she and Josh broke up. They are back together now. I guess she’s willing once again to have her identity obfuscated by taking her “husband’s” name, since she’s already got threeI Love Josh es and sevenMrs. Josh Richter s on her Algebra notebook alone.

     Before class started, Lana was telling everyone who would listen about some party she is going to tonight. None of us are invited, of course. It’s a party given by one of Josh’s friends.

     I never get invited to parties like that. You know, like the ones in movies about teenagers, where somebody’s parents go out of town, so everybody in the school comes over with kegs of beer and trashes the house?

     I do not actually know anybody who lives in a house. Just apartment buildings. And if you start trashing an apartment, you can bet the people next door will call the doorman to complain. That could get you in major trouble with the co-op board.

     I don’t suppose Lana has ever considered these things, however.

The 3rd power ofx is called cube ofx

The 2nd power ofx is squared

 

Ode to the View from the Window in My Algebra Class

 

Sun-warmed concrete benches

next to tables with built-in checkerboards

and the graffiti left by hundreds

before us in

Day-Glo spray paint:

 

Joanne Loves Richie

Punx Rule

Nuke Fags andLesbos

And

Amber Is a Slut.

 

The dead leaves and plastic bags scatter

in the breeze from the park

and men in business suits try to keep the

last few remaining strands of hair covering

their pink bald spots.

Cigarette packets and used-up chewing gum

coat the gray sidewalk.

 

And I think

What does it matter

that it is not a linear equation if any variable is raised to a power?

We’re all just going to die anyway.

 

Friday, October 24, World Civ

 

 

LIST FIVE BASIC TYPES OF GOVERNMENT

 

anarchy

monarchy

aristocracy

dictatorship

oligarchy

democracy

 

LIST FIVE PEOPLE WHO COULD CONCEIVABLY BE JO-C-ROX

 

Michael Moscovitz (I wish)

Boris Pelkowski (please no)

Mr. Gianini (in a misguided attempt to cheer me up)

My dad (ditto)

That weird boy I see sometimes in the cafeteria who gets so upset whenever they serve chili and there’s corn in it (please please no)

     AAAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Friday, October 24, G & T

 

     It turns out that since I’ve been gone, Boris has started learning some new music on his violin. Right now he is playing a concerto by someone named Bartok.

     And let me tell you, that’s exactly how it sounds. Even though we locked him and his violin into the supply closet, it isn’t doing any good. You can’t even hear yourself think. Michael had to go to the nurse’s office for ibuprofen.