Princess in Training

More to the point, WHY did I let Lilly talk me into going to an Albert Einstein High School SOCCER game today????

It’s so boring. I mean, I’ve always thought sports were boring—God knows Mrs. Potts has yelled “Let’s see some hustle, Mia!” at me enough times when I’ve let balls bounce right past me.

But watching sports is even more boring than playing them. At least when you’re playing sports, you get those sweaty-palmed, heart-pounding moments of Oh, no! The ball’s not coming toward ME, is it? Oh, no. It IS coming toward me. What do I do? If I try to catch it, I’ll miss, and everyone will hate me. But if I DON’T try to catch it, everyone will hate me for THAT, too.

But when you’re WATCHING sports, there’s none of that. There’s just…boredom. Seemingly never-ending boredom.

When Lilly asked me to keep Saturday during the day free for her, I didn’t know she meant it was for a school-related event. Why would I want to do school stuff (besides homework, I mean) on a WEEKEND?

But Lilly says it’s important that I show myself at as many school functions as possible before the election on Monday. She keeps poking me and going, “Stop writing in your journal and go mingle.”

But I’m not actually so sure mingling at a school soccer game is the way to get votes. You know? Because it’s pretty much guaranteed that everyone here is going to vote for Lana.

And why SHOULDN’T they? Look at her over there, doing all those basket tosses, or whatever. She’s totally PERFECT. On the outside, anyway. Inside, I know her heart is black as pitch and all. But outside—well, she’s got that perfect smile with those perfect, gap-free teeth, and those perfectly smooth tanned legs with no razor nicks, and that shiny lip gloss her hair never gets stuck to—why WOULD anyone vote for me when they could vote for Lana?

Lilly says not to be stupid—that the election for student council president isn’t a beauty or popularity contest. But then how come she wants ME to run in her place? And how come I’m HERE? The only people AT this game are the other jocks and cheerleaders. And none of them are likely to vote for ME.

Lilly says they for sure won’t vote for me if I don’t get my nose out of this book and go talk to them. TALK TO THEM! THE PERFECT POPULAR PEOPLE!

They’ll be lucky if I don’t BARF on them.

Saturday, September 12, 3 p.m., Ray’s Pizza

Well, THAT was a big waste of time.

Lilly says it wasn’t. Lilly says that actually, the day was extremely EDUCATIONAL. Whatever that means.

I’m not sure how Lilly would even KNOW this, since she spent almost the entire game sitting behind Dr. and Mrs. Weinberger—who were in the stands—eavesdropping on their conversation with Trisha Hayes’s parents. She didn’t even WATCH the game, so far as I know. I was the one who had to wander around, going up to people who wouldn’t have looked twice at me if we passed in the hallway at AEHS, and going, “Hi, we haven’t met. I’m Mia Thermopolis, princess of Genovia, and I’m running for student council president.”

Seriously. I have never felt like a bigger dork.

Nobody paid the least bit of attention to me, either. The game was apparently a superexciting one. We were playing the Trinity varsity men’s team, who have basically kicked our butts every single year in, like, the history of AEHS soccer, or something.

But not today. Because today AEHS produced their secret weapon: Ramon Riveras. Basically, once Ramon got hold of the ball, it pretty much never left his feet, except when he was kicking it past the Trinity goalie, into the big netty thing. AEHS beat Trinity four to nothing.

And it turned out I was right about Ramon. He fully whipped his shirt off and threw it into the air after the winning goal. I don’t want to start a rumor, or anything, but I saw Mrs. Weinberger sit up a little straighter when that happened.

And of course Lana went running out onto the field and fell into Ramon’s arms. The last time I saw her that day, he was carrying her around on his shoulders as if she were a trophy, or something. For all I know, maybe she is: Win a game for AEHS, get one cheerleader, free.

Whatever. Ramon can have her. Maybe he’ll keep her busy enough to leave ME alone. Me and my “college boy.”

Which reminds me. I’m supposed to go over to Michael’s dorm room after this, to meet his roommate and “catch up” since we haven’t seen each other all week.

At least, that’s what Michael said we were going to do, when we managed to get ahold of each other, earlier today. He sounded kind of annoyed when I finally remembered to turn my cell phone on and he got through at last.

“What was going on last night when I called?” he wanted to know.

“Um,” I said. I was kind of in the middle of buying a pretzel from one of those carts in the park when he called. A lot of people don’t know this, but New York City pretzels—the kind you buy from a vendor on the street—have healing properties. It’s true. I don’t know what’s in them, but if you buy one when you have a headache, or whatever, as soon as you bite into one, your headache goes away. And I had a pretty big headache, on account of not having had any sleep.

“I had the girls over,” I explained to Michael, once I’d swallowed my first bite of hot, salty pretzel. “For a sleepover. Only, you know, there wasn’t much sleeping.” And I told him how we jumped on the bed screaming “Pull…down…your…pants,” and all.

Only, Michael didn’t seem to think it was very funny. Of course, I didn’t mention the part about how later I sang “Milkshake” into the TV remote for everyone while wearing the rubber shower mat as a minidress. I mean, I don’t want him to think I am completely INSANE.