But Grandmère way didn’t believe me. She went, exhaling a long stream of cigarette smoke, even though there is a Smoking in Your Room Only policy at the Plaza, “Your little friend Lilly told me there’s a debate.”

“You talked to LILLY?” I could hardly believe it. Lilly and Grandmère HATE each other. With good reason, after the whole Jangbu Panasa incident.

And now Grandmère is telling me that she and my best friend are in CAHOOTS?

“WHEN DID LILLY TELL YOU THIS?” I demanded, since I didn’t believe a word of it.

“Earlier,” Grandmère said. “Just stand behind the podium and see how it feels.”

“I KNOW how standing behind a podium feels, Grandmère,” I said. “I’ve stood behind podiums before, remember? When I addressed the Genovian parliament on the parking meter issue.”

“Yes,” Grandmère said. “But that was before an audience of old men. Here I want you to pretend to be addressing an audience of your peers. Picture them sitting before you, in their ridiculous baggy jeans and backward baseball caps.”

“We wear uniforms to school, Grandmère,” I reminded her.

“Yes, well, you know what I mean. Picture them all sitting there dreaming of getting their own television show, like that horrible Ashton Kutcher. Then tell me how you would answer this question: What improvements would you implement to help make Albert Einstein High School a better learning facility, and why?”

Seriously, I don’t get her sometimes. It’s like she was dropped at birth. Only onto parquet, not onto a futon couch, like I dropped Rocky not too long ago. Except that that totally wasn’t my fault, on account of Michael walking in unexpectedly wearing a new pair of jeans.

“Grandmère,” I said. “What is the point of this? THERE IS NO DEBATE.”

“JUST ANSWER THE QUESTION.”

God. She is impossible sometimes.

Okay, all the time.

So just to placate her I went behind the stupid podium and said into the microphone, “Improvements I would implement to help make Albert Einstein High School a better learning facility would include incorporating more meatless entrees into the lunch service for vegan and vegetarian students, and, uh, posting homework assignments on the school website every night, so that students who might, er, have forgotten to write them down would know exactly what they have due the next day.”

“Don’t hunch so over the podium, Amelia,” Grandmère said, critically, from where she was standing, blowing her smoke into a large potted rhododendron (Grandmère is so lucky. Because in ten years, when all the petroleum runs out and the polar ice cap is completely melted, she’ll probably be dead already from lung cancer on account of all the cigarettes she smokes). “Stand up straight. Shoulders back. That’s it. You may proceed.”

I had totally forgotten what I was talking about.

“What about teachers?” called Grandmère’s chauffeur, trying to sound like a baggy-panted Ashton Kutcher wannabe. “Whaddya gonna do about them, huh?”

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “Teachers. Isn’t it their jobs to encourage us in our dreams? But I’ve noticed that certain teachers seem to feel that part of their job description includes crushing our spirit and…and…stifling our creative impulses! Just because they might, you know, be more entertaining than educational. Are those really the kinds of people we want molding our young minds? Are they?”

“No,” cried one of the maids.

“Damn straight,” yelled Grandmère’s chauffeur.

“Oh,” I said, feeling more confident on account of their positive feedback. “And the, er, video surveillance cameras outside. I can see how, as a security measure, they are very worthwhile. But if they are being used as—”

“Amelia!” Grandmère screamed. “Elbows off the podium!”

I took my elbows off the podium.

“As a tool with which to monitor student behavior, I have to say, should the administration have the right to essentially spy on us?” I was kind of getting into this debate thing. “What happens to the tapes in the video cameras after they’re full? Are they rewound and taped over, or are they stored in some fashion, so that the contents might be used against us at some future date? For instance, if one of us gets appointed to the Supreme Court, could a tape of our spraying Joe the Lion with Silly String be made available to reporters, and used to bring us down?”

“Feet on the floor, Amelia!” Grandmère shrieked, just because I’d rested one foot on the little shelf in the podium where you’re supposed to put your purse or whatever.

“And what about the issue of girls who wear their boyfriends’ team athletic shorts beneath their skirts?” I went on. I have to admit, I was kind of enjoying myself. The Plaza maids were totally paying attention to me. One of them even clapped when I said the thing about the security video possibly being used against us if we were appointed to the Supreme Court. “As sexist as I find the practice, is it the administration’s business what goes on beneath the skirts of its female student population? I say no! No! Don’t you dare mess with MY underwear!”

Whoa! This last part brought a standing O from the maids! They were on their feet, cheering for me, like I was…I don’t know. J. Lo, or somebody!

I had no idea I was such a brilliant orator. Really. I mean, the parking meter thing had been nothing compared to this.

But Grandmère wasn’t as impressed as everyone else.

“Amelia,” Grandmère said, exhaling a plume of blue smoke. “Princesses do not beat on the podium with their fists when they make a point.”

“Sorry, Grandmère,” I said.

But I didn’t really feel sorry. To tell the truth, I felt kind of stoked. I had no idea how fun it was to address a roomful of hotel maids. When I’d addressed the Genovian parliament on the parking meter issue, hardly any of them had paid attention to me.

But tonight at the hotel, I had those women in the palm of my hand. Really.

Although, it would probably be totally different if I really were addressing an audience of people my own age. Like, if I really were standing in front of Lana and Trisha and the rest of them, that might be a little different.

Like, I actually might throw up on myself.

But I’m not going to worry about it, because it’s not like that’s ever going to happen. I mean, that I’m actually going to be expected to debate Lana. Because no one said anything about a debate.

And even if there is one, I’m not going to end up having to do it anyway.

Because Lilly said so. She has a plan.

Whatever that means.Wednesday, September 9, the loft

I walked in on utter chaos at the Thompson Street loft again. Since Mom and Mr. G are going to Indiana this weekend, Mom had to move Ladies’ Poker Night from Saturday to tonight. So, all of the feminist artists from Mom’s poker group were sitting around the kitchen table eating moo goo gai pan when I walked in.

They were being really loud, too. So loud that when I called Fat Louie, he didn’t come. I shook his bag of low-fat Iams and everything. Nothing. I actually thought for a minute that Fat Louie had run away—like he’d gotten out somehow in all the confusion of the feminists coming in. Because you know, he hasn’t been all that happy about sharing the loft with a new baby. In fact, we’ve had to chase him out of Rocky’s crib more than a few times, since he seems to think it’s a bed we put there just for him, since it IS kind of Fat Louie–sized.

And I’ll admit, I DO spend a lot of time with Rocky. Time I used to spend giving Fat Louie his kitty massages and all.

But I’m TRYING to be a good mother—a baby-licker to BOTH my brother AND my cat.

I finally found him hiding under my bed…but just his head, because he’s so fat, the rest of him wouldn’t fit, so his kitty butt was kind of sticking out in the air.

I didn’t blame him for hiding, really. Mom’s friends can be scary.

Mr. G agrees, apparently. He was hiding, too, it turned out, in the bedroom he and Mom share, trying to watch a baseball game with Rocky. He looked up all startled when I came in to give Rocky a kiss hello.

“Are they gone yet?” he wanted to know, his eyes looking kind of wild behind his glasses.

“Um,” I said. “They haven’t even started playing.”

“Damn.” Mr. G looked down at his son, who wasn’t crying for once. He is usually fine if there is a television on. “I mean, darn.”

I felt a spurt of sympathy for Mr. G. I mean, it is not easy being married to my mom. Aside from the whole crazy painter thing, there’s the fact that she seems to be physically incapable of paying a bill on time, or even of FINDING the bill when she finally does remember to pay it. Mr. G transferred everything to online banking, but it doesn’t help, on account of all the checks my mom gets sent for her art sales end up wadded up somewhere weird, like in the bottom of her gas mask container.

I swear, between my inability to divide fractions and her inability to assume any sort of adult responsibility—aside from attending political rallies and breast-feeding—it’s a wonder Mr. G doesn’t divorce us.

“Can I get you anything?” I asked Mr. G. “Some spare ribs? Shrimp with garlic sauce?”

“No, Mia,” Mr. G said, wearing a look of long suffering that I recognized only too well. “But thanks, anyway. We’ll be fine.”

I left the menfolk to themselves and went into the kitchen to scrounge some food up for myself before sneaking off to my bedroom to do all my homework. Fortunately, none of my mom’s friends paid any attention to me, because they were too busy complaining about how male musical artists like Eminem are responsible for turning a generation of young men into misogynists.

Really, I could not stand idly by and allow that kind of talk in my own home. Maybe it was the aftereffects of my powerful speech-giving experience in the empty conference room at the Plaza, but I put my plate of moo shu vegetable down and told my mom’s friends that their argument against Eminem was specious (I don’t even know what this word means, but I’ve heard Michael and Lilly use it a lot) and that if they would just take a moment to listen to “Cleaning Out My Closet” (one of Rocky’s favorites, by the way), they would know that the only women Eminem hates are his mom and the hos that be trippin’ on him.

This statement, which I felt was quite reasonable, was met by utter silence by the feminist artists. Then my mom went, “Is that the door? It must be Vern from downstairs. He gets so upset these days when he thinks we’re having a party and we haven’t invited him. I’ll be right back.”

And she scurried to the door even though I hadn’t heard the buzzer ring.

Then, one of the feminists went, “So, Mia, is your defense of Eminem the kind of thing your grandmother teaches you during your princess lessons?”

And all the other feminists laughed.

But then I remembered that I actually needed some advice on the feminist front so I was all, “Hey, you guys, I mean, women, do you know if it’s true that all college boys expect their girlfriends to Do It?”

“Uh, not just college boys,” said one of the women, while the rest of them laughed uproariously.

So, it IS true. I should have known. I mean, I’d kind of been hoping that Lana was just trying to make me feel bad. But now it looked as if she might actually have been telling the truth.

“You look worried, Mia,” commented Kate, the performance artist who likes to stand up onstage and smear chicken fat on herself to make a statement about the beauty industry.

“She’s always worried,” said Gretchen, a welder who specializes in metal replicas of body parts. Particularly of the male variety. “She’s Mia, remember?”

All the feminist artists laughed uproariously at that, too.

This made me feel bad. Like my mom’s been talking about me behind my back. I mean, I talk about HER behind HER back, of course. But it’s different when your own mother has been talking about YOU.

Clearly, Lilly is not the only one who thinks I’m a baby-licker.

“You spend way too much time freaking out about things, Mia.” Becca, the neon light artist, waved her margarita glass at me knowingly. “You should stop thinking so much. I don’t remember thinking half as much as you do when I was your age.”

“Because you were already on lithium when you were her age,” Kate pointed out.

But Becca ignored her.

“Is it the snails?” Becca wanted to know.

I just blinked at her. “The what?”

“The snails,” she said. “You know, the ones you dumped in the bay. Are you worried about how everyone is upset about them?”

“Um,” I said, wondering if she, like Tina, had seen this on the news. “I guess so.”