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
down real criminals to go after a laundry swiper. They practically laughed her off the phone.
It is all very well for her and Mr G — all they lost were regular clothes. I am the only one who lost underwear. Worse,
my lucky underwear. Though I fully understand that the men and women who fight crime in this city have more important
things to do than look for my panties.
But the way things have been going, I really, really need all the good luck I can get.
Thursday; January 21
Algebra
Today, before class started, Lana was on her mobile, and this is what I overheard her saying:
'No, I can't make it to Pam's on Friday, I've got this stupid thing to go to. I don't know, it's some patient of my dad's.
Every year she has this stupid dance where everybody has to dress up in black and white.'
I froze, my Algebra I-II textbook only halfway open. Lana's dad, I remembered, all of my blood turning cold, is a plastic surgeon. Could he have been the one who gave Contessa Trevanni her anteater face?
'I don't know,' Lana was saying, into her phone. 'She claims to be some kind of countess. I swear to God, this town is
littered with wannabe royals.'
As she said the words wannabe royals, Lana swivelled her head around — getting her long, shiny blonde hair all over
Chapter Twelve of my Algebra book - and looked at me.
Um, excuse me. I never wanted to be royal. Never, ever, ever did I even remotely suggest to anyone that I thought it might
be cool to be a princess.
Oh, sure, I wouldn't mind being a princess the way Belle became a princess at the end of Beauty and the Beast. You know,
a fairy-tale princess with no problems or responsibilities, except to look pretty and be all sweet to people.
But being a princess in real life is nothing like that. You have to make all these decisions that affect the good of your country. Like should you or should you not make tourists pay for parking? And should you, or should you not, protect dolphins and
sea turtles from pollution?
Clearly Lana has never thought about any of this, however.
'No, I'm not taking Josh,' she said scornfully into the hone, as more of her stupid hair fell all over my textbook. In fact, I
thought about closing my book on her hair, just to hear her scream, but I wanted to hear why she wasn't taking her long-time boyfriend, Josh Richter, to the black-and-white ball with her.
'He is so immature at these things,' Lana said to her friend. 'I mean, at the last one we went to together, he actually started throwing grapes down the front of this one girl's dress. I know. High-school boys just don't know how to act. Besides,
there'll be all these West Pointers there. It'll be nice to be with some college boys for a change.'
Really, I may not have had a boyfriend all that long (thirty-four days to be exact) but it seems pretty disloyal to be looking forward to going to a dance with someone other than your significant other. I mean, I am totally dreading going to the contessa's black-and-white ball without Michael.
And now I am dreading it even more, knowing that Lana is going to be there.
Especially when Mr G walked into the classroom, and Lana — who had learned a lesson from last time — went,
'Oops, gotta go,' into her mobile and hung up, then happened to glance in my direction.
'What are you looking at, fish breath?' she wanted to know.
Now, I happen to know that I don't have fish breath. For one thing, I fully had oatmeal for breakfast, and for another, Lars
is addicted to those Listerine Pocket Pak thingies that melt on your tongue and is always handing them out, and I had just
had one in anticipation of Michael possibly stopping by my Algebra class on his way to Senior English (which he did, to
hand me a CD he burned for me last night of Pearl Jam's greatest hits, even though of course I don't really like bands that
don't have girls in them, except *NSYNC of course, but I will totally pretend that I listened to it and liked it).
So I know that my breath did not smell like fish.
But I didn't get to say anything back to Lana because Mr. G told us to get out last night's homework problems
(which I actually had done) so my opportunity was cut off.
But I am going to remember what she said for ever, because we Renaldo women, we can really hold a grudge when
we want to.
Defn: Square root of perfect sq. is either of the identical factors
Defn: Positive sq. root is called the principal sq. root
Negative numbers have no sq. root
Things to Do:
1. Have Genovian ambassador to the UN call the CIA. See if they can dispatch some agents to track down my
underwear (if it falls into the wrong hands, could be an international incident!)
2. Get cat food!!!!!
3. Check on Mom's folk-acid intake.
4. Tell Michael I will not be able to make first date with him.
5. Prepare to be dumped.
Thursday, January 21,
Health and Safety