Princess in the Spotlight

Anyway, I exited really fast from the You and Your Pregnancy site I had been looking at, but not fast enough for Lilly. She kept going, “Oh, my God, Mia, why didn’t you tell me?”

It was getting kind of embarrassing, even though I explained that I was doing an extra-credit report for Biology, which isn’t really a lie, since my lab partner, Kenny Showalter, and I are ethically opposed to dissecting frogs—which the class would be doing next—and Mrs. Sing said we could do a term paper instead.

Only the term paper is supposed to be on the life cycle of the mealworm. But Lilly doesn’t know that.

I tried to change the subject by asking Lilly if she knew the truth about alfalfa sprouts, but she just kept blabbing on and on about me and Josh Richter. I really wouldn’t have minded so much if it hadn’t been for her brother Michael sitting right there, listening instead of working on his webzine, Crackhead, like he was supposed to be doing. I mean, it’s not like I haven’t had a crush on him since forever.

Not that he’s noticed, of course. To him, I’m just his kid sister’s best friend, that’s all. He has to be nice to me, or Lilly will tell everyone in school how she once caught him getting teary-eyed over an old 7th Heaven rerun.

Besides which, I’m just a lowly freshman. Michael Moscovitz is a senior and has the best grade point average in the whole school (after Lilly) and is covaledictorian of his class. And he didn’t inherit the squashed-in-face gene, like his sister. Michael could go out with any girl at Albert Einstein High School that he wanted to.

Well, except for the cheerleaders. They only date jocks.

Not that Michael isn’t athletic. I mean, he doesn’t believe in organized sports, but he has excellent quadriceps. All his ceps are nice, actually. I noticed last time he came into Lilly’s room to yell at us for screaming obscenities too loudly during a Christina Aguilera video, and he didn’t happen to be wearing a shirt.

So I really didn’t appreciate Lilly standing there talking about how I might be pregnant, right in front of her brother.

TOP FIVE REASONS WHY IT’S HARD BEING BEST FRIENDS WITH A CERTIFIED GENIUS

1. She uses a lot of words I don’t understand.

2. She is often incapable of admitting that I might make a meaningful contribution to any conversation or activity.

3. In group situations, she has trouble relinquishing control.

4. Unlike normal people, when solving a problem, she does not go from A to B, but from A to D, making it difficult for us lower human life forms to follow along.

5. You can’t tell her anything without her analyzing it half to death.

HOMEWORK

Algebra: problems on pg. 133

English: write a brief family history

World Civ: find an example of negative stereotyping of Arabs (film, television, literature) and submit with explanatory essay

G&T: N/A

French: ecrivez une vignette parisiene

Biology: reproductive system (get answers from Kenny)

ENGLISH JOURNAL

My Family History

The ancestry of my family on my father’s side can be traced back to A.D. 568. That is the year when a Visigothic warlord named Albion, who appeared to be suffering from what today would be called an authoritarian personality disorder, killed the king of Italy and all these other people, then made himself king. And after he made himself king, he decided to marry Rosagunde, the daughter of one of the old king’s generals.

Only Rosagunde didn’t much like Albion after he made her drink wine out of her dead dad’s skull, and so she got back at him the night of their wedding by strangling him with her braids while he slept.

With Albion dead, the old king of Italy’s son took over. He was so grateful to Rosagunde that he made her princess of an area that is today known as the country of Genovia. According to the only existing records of that time, Rosagunde was a kind and thoughtful ruler. She is my great-grandmother times about sixty. She is one of the primary reasons why today Genovia has some of the best literacy, infant mortality, and employment rates in all of Europe: Rosagunde implemented a highly sophisticated (for its time) system of governmental checks and balances, and did away entirely with the death penalty.

On my mom’s side of the family, the Thermopolises were goat herders on the island of Crete until the year 1904, when Dionysius Thermopolis, my mom’s great-grandfather, couldn’t take it anymore, and ran away to America. He eventually settled in Versailles, Indiana, where he opened an appliance store. His offspring have been running the Handy Dandy Hardware store on the Versailles, Indiana, courthouse square ever since. My mom says her upbringing would have been much less oppressive, not to mention more liberal, back in Crete.

A Suggested Daily Diet for Pregnancy

• Two to four protein servings of meat, fish, poultry, cheese, tofu, eggs, or nut-grain-bean-dairy combinations

• One quart of milk (whole, skim, buttermilk) or milk equivalents (cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese)

• One or two vitamin C–rich foods: whole potato, grapefruit, orange, melon, green pepper, cabbage, strawberries, fruit, orange juice

• A yellow or orange fruit or vegetable

• Four to five slices of whole-grain bread, pancakes, tortillas, cornbread, or a serving of whole-grain cereal or pasta. Use wheat germ and brewers’ yeast to fortify other foods.

• Butter, fortified margarine, vegetable oil

• Six to eight glasses of liquid: fruit and vegetable juices, water, and herb teas. Avoid sugar-sweetened juices and colas, alcohol, and caffeine.