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Poor, poor Principal Gupta.
Still, I did feel that I had to intrude upon the fanta
sy world in which she so obviously lives, just a little.
“Um,” I said. “Principal Gupta. About Mrs. Hill . . .”
“What about her?” Principal Gupta asked.
“I didn’t mean it when I said she’s always in the teachers’ lounge during my Gifted and Talented class. That was an exaggeration.”
Principal Gupta smiled at me in this very brittle way.
“Don’t worry, Mia,” she said. “Mrs. Hill has been taken care of.”
Taken care of! What does that mean?
I am almost scared to find out.
Tuesday, October 28, G & T
Well, Mrs. Hill didn’t get fired.
Instead, I guess they gave her a warning, or something. The upshot of it is, Mrs. Hill won’t budge from behind her desk here in the G and T lab.
Which means we have to sit at our desks and actually do our work. And we can’t lock Boris in the supply closet. We actually have to sit here and listen to him play.
Play Bartok.
And we can’t talk to one another, because we are supposed to be working on our individual projects.
Boy, is everyone mad at me.
But no one is madder than Lilly.
It turns out Lilly’s been secretly writing a book about the socioeconomic divisions that exist within the walls of Albert Einstein High School. Really! She didn’t want to tell me, but finally Boris blurted it out at lunch today. Lilly threw a fry at him and got ketchup all over his sweater.
I can’t believe Lilly has told Boris things that she hasn’t told me. I’m supposed to be her best friend. Boris is just her boyfriend. Why is she telling him cool things, like about how she’s writing a book, and not telling me?
“Can I read it?” I begged.
“No.” Lilly was really mad. She wouldn’t even look at Boris. He had already totally forgiven her about the ketchup, even though he will probably have to get that sweater dry-cleaned.
“Can I read just one page?” I asked.
“No.”
“Just one sentence?”
“No.”
Michael didn’t know about the book either. He told me right before Mrs. Hill came in that he offered to publish it in his webzine, Crackhead, but Lilly said, in quite a snotty voice, that she was holding out for a “legitimate” publisher.
“Am I in it?” I wanted to know. “Your book? Am I in it?”
Lilly said if people don’t stop bothering her about it, she is going to fling herself off the top of the school water tower. She is exaggerating, of course. You can’t even get up to the water tower anymore, since the seniors, as a prank a few years ago, poured a bunch of tadpoles into it.
I can’t believe Lilly’s been working on a book and never told me. I mean, I always knew she was going to write a book about the adolescent experience in post–Cold War America. But I didn’t think she was going to start it before we had graduated. If you ask me, this book can’t be very balanced. Because I hear things get way better sophomore year.
