Then later he said, in the way he does when he gets excited about something, “You know who would be a good Eliza Doolittle? Mia, I think you would.”

I thought I would totally die. I know Mr. Gianini was only trying to be nice—I mean, he is dating my mom, after all—but he was SO far off: First of all because of course they already held auditions, and even if I could’ve gone out for a part (which I couldn’t, because I’m flunking Algebra, hello, Mr. Gianini, remember?) I NEVER would’ve gotten one, let alone the LEAD. I can’t sing. I can barely even talk.

Even Lana Weinberger, who always got the lead in junior high, didn’t get the lead. It went to some senior girl. Lana plays a maid, a spectator at the Ascot Races, and a Cockney hooker. Lilly is house manager. Her job is to flick the lights on and off at the end of intermission.

I was so freaked out by what Mr. Gianini said I couldn’t even say anything. I just sat there and felt myself turning all red. Maybe that was why later, when Lilly and I went by my locker at lunch, Lana, who was there waiting for Josh, was all, “Oh, hello, Amelia,” in her snottiest voice, even though nobody has called me Amelia (except Grandm่re) since kindergarten, when I asked everybody not to.

Then, as I bent over to get my money out of my backpack, Lana must have got a good look down my blouse, because all of a sudden she goes, “Oh, how sweet. I see we still can’t fit into a bra. Might I suggest Band-Aids?”

I would have hauled off and slugged her—well, probably not; the Drs. Moscovitz say I have issues about confrontation—if Josh Richter hadn’t walked up AT THAT VERY MOMENT. I knew he totally heard, but all he said was, “Can I get by here?” to Lilly, since she was blocking his path to his locker.

I was ready to go slinking down to the cafeteria and forget the whole thing—God, that’s all I need, my lack of chest pointed out right in front of Josh Richter!—but Lilly couldn’t leave well enough alone. She got all red in the face and said to Lana, “Why don’t you do us all a favor and go curl up someplace and die, Weinberger?”

Well, nobody tells Lana Weinberger to go curl up someplace and die. I mean, nobody. Not if she doesn’t want her name written up all over the walls of the girls’ room. Not that this would be such a heinous thing—I mean, no boys are going to see it in the girls’ room—but I sort of like keeping my name off walls, for the most part.

But Lilly doesn’t care about things like that. I mean, she’s short and sort of round and kind of resembles a pug, but she totally doesn’t care how she looks. I mean, she has her own TV show, and guys call in all the time and say how ugly they think she is, and ask her to lift her shirt up (she isn’t flat-chested; she wears a C cup already), and she just laughs and laughs.

Lilly isn’t afraid of anything.

So when Lana Weinberger started in on her for telling her to curl up and die, Lilly just blinked up at her and was like, “Bite me.”

The whole thing would have escalated into this giant girl fight—Lilly has seen every single episode of Xena: Warrior Princess, and can kick box like nobody’s business—if Josh Richter hadn’t slammed his locker door closed and said “I’m outta here” in a disgusted voice. That was when Lana just dropped it like a hot potato and scooted after him, going, “Josh, wait up. Wait up, Josh!”

Lilly and I just stood there looking at each other like we couldn’t believe it. I still can’t. Who are these people, and why do I have to be incarcerated with them on a daily basis?

HOMEWORK

Algebra: problems 1–12, pg. 79

English: proposal

World Civ: questions at end of Chapter 4

G & T: none

French: use avoir in neg. sentence, rd. lessons one to three, pas de plus

Biology: none

B = {x|x is an integer}

D = {2,3,4}

4ED

5ED

E = {x|x is an integer greater than 4 but less than 258}

Tuesday, September 30

Something really weird just happened. I got home from school, and my mom was there (she’s usually at her studio all day during the week). She had this funny look on her face, and then she went, “I have to talk to you.”

She wasn’t humming anymore, and she hadn’t cooked anything, so I knew it was serious.

I was kind of hoping Grandm่re was dead, but I knew it had to be much worse than that, and I was worried something had happened to Fat Louie, like he’d swallowed another sock. The last time he did that, the vet charged us $1,000 to remove the sock from his small intestines, and he walked around with a funny look on his face for about a month.

Fat Louie, I mean. Not the vet.

But it turned out it wasn’t about my cat, it was about my dad. The reason my dad kept on calling was because he wanted to tell us that he just found out, because of his cancer, that he can’t have any more kids.

Cancer is a scary thing. Fortunately, the kind of cancer my dad had was pretty curable. They just had to cut off the cancerous part, and then he had to have chemo, and after a year, so far, the cancer hasn’t come back.

Unfortunately, the part they had to cut off was . . .

Ew, I don’t even like writing it.

His testicle.

GROSS!

It turns out that when they cut off one of your testicles, and then give you chemo, you have like a really strong chance of becoming sterile. Which is what my dad just found out he is.

Mom says he’s really bummed out. She says we have to be very understanding of him right now, because men have needs, and one of them is the need to feel progenitively omnipotent.