Only Grandmère didn’t look as if she were about to make any phone calls on my behalf anytime soon. Especially when she started making tsk-tsking noises with her tongue.
“I suppose you spent all the money on folderols and gewgaws,” she said, not entirely disapprovingly.
“If by folderols and gewgaws,” I replied—I wondered if these were real words or if she’d suddenly begun speaking in tongues and, if so, should I call for her maid?—“you mean twenty-five high-tech recycling bins with individual compartments for paper, cans, and bottles, with a built-in crushing device for the can part, not to mention three hundred electrophoresis kits for the bio lab, none of which I can return, because believe me, I already asked, then the answer is yes.”
Grandmère looked very disappointed in me. You could tell she considered recycling bins a big waste of money.
And I didn’t even MENTION the whole “Cans and Battles” sticker thing.
“How much do you need?” she asked in a deceptively casual voice.
Wait. Was Grandmère about to do the unthinkable—float me a loan?
No. Not possible.
“Not much,” I said, thinking this was WAY too good to be true. “Just five grand.” Actually, five thousand seven hundred and twenty-eight dollars, which is how much Lincoln Center charges campuses for the use of Alice Tully Hall, which seats a thousand. But I wasn’t about to quibble. I could raise the seven hundred and twenty-eight dollars somehow, if Grandmère were willing to fork over the five thousand.
But alas. It was too good to be true.
“Well, what do schools in your situation do when they need to raise money fast?” Grandmère wanted to know.
“I don’t know,” I said. I couldn’t help feeling defeated. Also, I was lying (so what else is new?) because I knew perfectly well what schools in our situation did when they needed to raise money fast. We’d already discussed it, at length, during the student government meeting, after Ling Su’s shocking revelation about the state of our bank account. Mrs. Hill hadn’t been willing to give us a loan (it’s doubtful she even has five grand socked away somewhere. I swear I’ve never seen her wear the same outfit twice. That’s a lot of Quacker Factory tunic sweaters on a teacher’s salary), but she’d been more than willing to show us some candle catalogs she had lying around.
Seriously. That was her big suggestion. That we sell some candles.
Lilly just looked at her and went, “Are you suggesting we open ourselves up to a nihilistic battle between the haves and the have-mores, à la Robert Cormier’s Chocolate War, Mrs. Hill? Because we all read that in English class, and we know perfectly well what happens when you dare to disturb the universe.”
But Mrs. Hill, looking insulted, said that we could have a contest to see who could sell the most candles without experiencing a complete breakdown in social mores or any particular nihilism.
But when I looked through the candle catalog and saw all the different scents—Strawberries ’n’ Cream! Cotton Candy! Sugar Cookie!—and colors you could buy, I experienced a secret nihilism all my own.
Because frankly, I’d rather have the senior class do to me what Obi Wan Kenobi did to Anakin Skywalker in The Revenge of the Sith (i.e. cut off my legs with a lightsaber and leave me to burn on the shores of a lava pit) than knock on my neighbor Ronnie’s door and ask her if she’d be interested in buying a Strawberries ’n’ Cream candle, molded in the actual shape of a strawberry, for $9.95.
And trust me, the senior class is CAPABLE of doing to me what Obi Wan did to Anakin. Especially Amber Cheeseman, who is this year’s senior class valedictorian, and who, even though she is much shorter than me, is a hapkido brown belt, and could easily pound my face in.
If she stood on a chair, that is, or had someone hold her up so she could reach me.
It was at that point in the student government meeting that I was forced to say queasily, “Motion to adjourn,” a motion that was fortunately unanimously passed by all in attendance.
“Our advisor suggested we sell candles door-to-door,” I told Grandmère, hoping she’d find the idea of her granddaughter peddling wax fruit replicas so repellent, she’d throw open her checkbook and hand over five thousand smackers then and there.
“Candles?” Grandmère DID look a bit disturbed.
But for the wrong reason.
“I would think candy would be much easier to unload on the unsuspecting hordes in the office of a parent of the typical Albert Einstein high school student,” she said.
She was right, of course—although the operative word would be TYPICAL. Because I can’t really see my dad, who’s in Genovia at the moment, since Parliament’s in session, passing around a candle sales form and going, Now, everyone, this is to raise money for my daughter’s school. Whoever buys the most candles will get an automatic knighthood.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. “Thanks, Grandmère.”
Then she went off on John Paul Reynolds-Abernathy the Third again, and how she’s planning on hosting this huge charity event a week from Wednesday to raise money in support of Genovian olive farmers (who are striking to protest new EU regulations that allow supermarkets to wield too much influence over prices), to impress the designers of The World, as well as all the other bidders, with her incredible generosity (who does she think she is, anyway? The Genovian Angelina Jolie?).
Grandmère claims this will have everyone BEGGING her to live on the faux island of Genovia, leaving poor John Paul Reynolds-Abernathy the Third out in the cold, yada yada yada.
Which is all very well for Grandmère. I mean, she’ll soon have her own island to run away to. But where am I going to hide from the wrath of Amber Cheeseman when she finds out she’ll be giving her commencement address not from a podium on the stage of Alice Tully Hall, but in front of the salad bar at the Outback Steakhouse on West 23rd Street?
Tuesday, March 2, the loft
Just when I thought my day couldn’t possibly get any worse, Mom handed me the mail as I walked in the door.
Normally, I like getting mail. Because normally, I receive fun stuff in the mail, like the latest edition of Psychology Today, so I can see what new psychiatric disorder I might have. Then I have something besides whatever book we’re doing in English class (this month: O Pioneers by Willa Cather. Yawn.) to read in the bathtub before I go to sleep.
But what my mom gave me when I walked through the door tonight wasn’t fun OR something I could read in the bathtub. Because it was way too short.
“You got a letter from Sixteen magazine, Mia!” Mom said, all excitedly. “It must be about the contest!”
Except that I could tell right away there was nothing to get excited about. I mean, that envelope clearly contained bad news. There was so obviously only one sheet of paper inside the envelope. If I had won, surely they’d have enclosed a contract, not to mention my prize money, right? When T. J. Burke’s story about his friend Dex’s death-by-avalanche got published in Powder magazine in Aspen Extreme, they sent him the ACTUAL magazine with his name emblazoned on the front cover. That’s how he found out he’d gotten published.
The envelope my mom handed me clearly did not contain a copy of Sixteen magazine with my name emblazoned on the front cover, because it was much too thin.
“Thanks,” I said, taking the envelope from my mom and hoping she wouldn’t notice that I was about to cry.
“What does it say?” Mr. Gianini wanted to know. He was at the dining table, feeding his son bits of hamburger, even though Rocky only has two teeth, one on top and one on the bottom, neither of which happen to be molars.