Tales From a Not-So-Fabulous Life Read online

  CHEF NIKKI AND HER ASSISTANT PREPARE A TASTY GOURMET DINNER OF FROG LEGS AND SNAILS

  Trying to prepare a gourmet dinner was definitely a lot harder than I thought it would be. The frogs kept jumping out of the bowl, and the snails wouldn’t stay on the plate. Unfortunately, none of those shows on the Food Network explained how to control all the critters while you’re trying to cook ’em.

  And Brianna was no help WHATSOEVER! She was supposed to be my assistant, but she kept swiping the frogs and kissing them to see if they’d turn into princes. I scolded her really good about that because she had NO IDEA where those frogs’ lips had been!

  Not surprisingly, Brianna threw a big hissy fit when it came time to put the food in the oven. She said they were her friends and “friends DON’T COOK friends!” I had to admit, she DID have a good point. So we decided to take Mom and Dad’s anniversary dinner back to the pond and let them go. I guess you could say they were really lucky. “They” meaning the frogs and snails, not Mom and Dad.

  Since our dinner plans fell through, and I didn’t want to part with my life savings, I stuck a big red Christmas bow on my watercolor painting and used that as a gift instead. Mom and Dad must have really loved it, because they paid a ton of money to have it professionally matted and put into an expensive antique frame. Then they hung it in our living room, right over the couch.

  Even though it’s now a priceless family heirloom with tremendous sentimental value, Mom said I could borrow it for the avant-garde art competition as long as I took really good care of it.

  I was like, “Mom, don’t worry! Nothing’s going to happen. I’ll be supercareful. I PROMISE!”

  Although, now that I think about it, Jamie Lynn Spears probably told her mom the exact same thing. Hmmm…

  MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 30

  I couldn’t believe that MacKenzie actually came to school on crutches today. She even stuck little heart stickers on them so that they matched her new Gucci hobo handbag. Only someone as vain as MacKenzie would try to look CUTE while hobbling around on crutches. She didn’t have a cast on her leg or anything. Just a SpongeBob Band-Aid below her left knee. HOW FAKE IS THAT?!!

  According to the latest gossip, MacKenzie was taking scuba diving lessons on Saturday from this really hot ninth grader when she “ruptured her shin” while saving him from drowning. She supposedly did mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on him until the ambulance arrived. And since the poor guy’s dying wish was for her to escort him to the hospital, she was forced to cancel her birthday party. So she rescheduled it for Saturday, October 12th at her parents’ country club. I was like, Yeah, RIGHT!

  MacKenzie is such a LIAR and a DRAMA QUEEN! Why couldn’t she just tell the truth and admit her party was canceled because her house was infested with bugs and stank from bug spray?

  Anyway, today I could hardly wait for lunch. Chloe and Zoey were even more excited than I was. We sat at our usual table and snarfed down our lunch as fast as we could.

  Then I rolled up Zoey’s sleeve, took out my lucky pen, and got started on her tattoo. She kept giggling and squirming and saying it tickled. I said,

  “LISTEN, ZOEY, SHUT UP AND SIT STILL OR I’M GONNA TURN ANY STRAY INK MARKS INTO UGLY BABY SNAKES!!”

  Lucky for her, she stopped moving after that.

  Practically everyone in the cafeteria was staring at us, but I ignored them and kept right on working. Zoey’s tattoo turned out really cool, and she loved it.

  I was just getting started on Chloe’s tattoo when the weirdest thing happened.

  Jason Feldman got up, left the CCP table, and sat down at OUR table to watch. He’s just THE most popular guy in the entire school and president of the student council.

  On the cuteness scale, I would say he was a 9.93 out of 10.

  “You’re doing a tattoo with a pen?! Cool! It looks so real. I should know because my brother just got one for his eighteenth birthday.”

  “It’s our special LSA project for National Library Week,” Chloe said, and batted her eyelashes at him all flirtylike.

  “Yeah! And all the latest fashion magazines say tattoos are HAWT!” Zoey added in this really nasally voice that sounded a lot like Paris Hilton.

  Those two were acting so phony-baloney, it was sickening. I thought I was going to puke up my lunch right in Jason’s lap.

  “So what do I have to do to get one?” Jason asked excitedly. “Donate a book or something? Do you have a sign-up sheet?”

  Zoey’s and Chloe’s faces lit up at the same time, and I could see the little lightbulb click on in their brains.

  I just sighed and rolled my eyes. First it was the tattoo thing, then Ballet of the Zombies, and then running away to live in the secret underground tunnels at the NYC public library.

  I didn’t know if I could put up with much more of this drama.

  Chloe fluttered her eyelashes at Jason again. “Well, Nikki is art director, I’m overseeing book procurement, and Zoey here handles scheduling. Zoey, would you please give Jason our sign-up sheet?”

  “Er…what sign-up sheet?” Zoey asked, looking confused.

  Chloe winked at her and said really loudly, “You know, the SIGN-UP SHEET in your NOTEBOOK, silly!”

  Finally, Zoey caught on. “Oh, THAT sign-up sheet! Of course!” She gazed at Jason and giggled nervously.

  Zoey whipped out her notebook, tore out a sheet of paper, scribbled TATTOO SIGN-UP SHEET across the top, and handed it to Chloe.

  Chloe added the words BOOK DONATION REQUIRED (NEW OR USED)!! in big bold letters and gave it to Jason.

  I was shocked and appalled to see Chloe and Zoey lying like that. I always felt honesty was a very important quality in a friend.

  Jason scrawled his name on the sign-up sheet and then yelled to his lunch table on the other side of the cafeteria, “Hey, Crenshaw! Get Thompson and come check this out.”

  Ryan Crenshaw was a 9.86, and Matt Thompson was a 9.98. They both came over and sat down at OUR table, right next to Jason.

  Then the three of them started laughing and talking to me, Chloe, and Zoey like we were CCP girls or something.

  That’s when I decided that, although an honest friend was nice, an “I-can-hook-you-up-with-really-cute-guys” friend was far better.

  And besides, Chloe and Zoey weren’t actually lying. They were just over-embellishing some fabricated truths.

  Even though I was enjoying all of the unexpected attention, there was an incessant gnawing deep down inside my gut that had me really worried.

  WHY were the three most popular CCP guys suddenly sitting at a lunch table, flirting with Chloe, Zoey, and me, the three biggest DORKS in the school?

  And WHAT exactly did they want from us?

  Then I had to force myself to ponder the most INTRIGUING and TROUBLING question of all…

  Was my lucky pen going to MELT from all of the CCP GUY HOTNESS?!

  Here are the THREE reasons why I was a little worried about my pen…

  Within minutes, seven more guys had crashed our table and were passing around the sign-up sheet and boasting about how wicked their tat was going to be.

  I finally finished up Chloe’s tattoo, and she said it was perfect.

  Jason rolled up his sleeve and took Chloe’s place.

  “Hey, dudes. Listen up! Mine is gonna say, ‘GUITAR HERO’!!”

  All of the guys started slapping him on the back and giving him high fives and fist bumps. He was acting all smug, like he was getting a new sports car or something.

  Then a large crowd of girls gathered around the large crowd of guys to watch me work on Jason’s tattoo.

  “Isn’t she the new girl?”

  “I think her locker is right next to MacKenzie’s.”

  “She’s like THE best artist in the entire school.”

  “Hey, I wanna sign up! Give me the sheet next…”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Mikki, Rikki, or Vicki, I think.”

  “Whatever her name is, the girl’s got SK
ILLZ.”

  “I’m SOOO jealous! I can’t draw a stick figure.”

  “She’s in my French class. Her name is Nikki Maxwell!”

  “I’d LOVE to draw on Jason Feldman. He’s HAWT!”

  “OMG! I’d give ANYTHING to be Nikki Maxwell!”

  I was starting to feel like a POP STAR!

  The only CCPs not at our table were MacKenzie and her little group. They were GLARING at us from across the cafeteria.

  By the end of lunch period, I had completed seven tattoos, Chloe had collected nine books, and Zoey had scheduled eleven people to get tattoos tomorrow at lunch.

  We decided to call our new LSA project:

  “Ink Exchange: Trade a Book for a Tattoo!”

  In no time, the ENTIRE school was gossiping about it.

  Mrs. Peach said collecting books for charity was a wonderful idea, and she was really proud of us. Brandon even congratulated me and said he wanted to interview me for the school newspaper on Friday since I was “breaking news.” He said he planned to photograph a few students showing off their new tattoos for the article. Now I can hardly wait for Friday to get here ! There’s a chance we might actually become good friends.

  But the absolute, most mind-blowing thing about all of this is that Chloe, Zoey, and I started the school day as LSA DORKS and ended it as CCP DIVAS!

  HOW COOL IS THAT?! !!

  TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1

  Today

  Total

  TATTOOS

  17

  24

  BOOKS

  34

  43

  This tattoo craze has really caught on at WCD! I did eleven more during lunch, and most of the CCPs sat at our table to watch. It was pretty cool hanging out with them, and they were not mean or snotty like we thought they’d be. I guess it was just a matter of getting to know them better.

  Surprisingly, I ended up doing another six tattoos while I was on LSA duty. It seemed like everyone and their mother was getting library passes during fifth-hour homeroom and pestering me.

  But Mrs. Peach said she didn’t mind me not shelving books, since I was working on our group project.

  So far, we’ve collected a total of forty-three books for charity, which is fantastic. But it was mainly because Chloe decided to start charging two books per tattoo instead of one. Zoey and I thought one book was perfectly fine, and we told her so.

  But Chloe said that, since she was the director of book procurement, it was her decision, not ours, so it didn’t matter what we thought. Now, how RUDE was THAT?!

  I was like, “Okay, Chloe! We’re supposed to be doing this as a group project! Who DIED and made you QUEEN?!”

  CHLOE THE GREAT, QUEEN OF BOOKS

  But I just said it in my head, so no one else heard it but me. So now we’re getting TWO books for each tattoo, although it seems a bit GREEDY, if you ask me. !

  WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2

  Today

  Total

  TATTOOS

  19

  43

  BOOKS

  57

  100

  I used to daydream about everyone at WCD knowing my name. And today, more than two dozen people said hi to me before I even got to my first-hour class. It made me happy to have so many new friends .

  In biology, we had to choose a lab partner and look at dust mites under a microscope. I thought for sure that Brandon was going to ask me to work with him. But three people interrupted him while he was trying to talk to me.

  They were all like, “Hey, Nikki, let’s work together so we can talk about my new tattoo design.” But I didn’t want to talk to people I hardly knew about tattoos. I wanted to have a really deep emo convo with Brandon about dust mites.

  In the end, I got stuck with Alexis Hamilton, the captain of the cheerleaders. The whole time we were working, all she did was blab about how they (the cheerleaders) needed me to come up with a “superhot” tattoo for their big game against Central, which, BTW, was on Friday.

  But I already knew this because I overheard them talking about it in front of my locker this morning. A few of them were waiting around for me after second hour, and they seemed pretty cranky. It wasn’t like I was afraid of them or anything; I just jumped inside my locker because I can be a little shy at times.

  HEY…! WHERE’D SHE GO?! ME BEING HUNTED DOWN BY AN ANGRY MOB OF CHEERLEADERS!

  Anyway, I told Alexis that everyone had to sign up with Zoey first. But she said Zoey had a waiting list of 149 people through next Wednesday, and she needed the tats right away since it was kind of an emergency. Alexis said she had already donated three books for each tattoo to Chloe, and Chloe was authorizing the squad to be placed at the top of the waiting list.

  So, NOW it was THREE books?!

  I told Alexis that since Zoey was director of scheduling and Chloe was director of book procurement, she should probably just ignore Chloe. Then Alexis got an attitude about the whole thing and refused to talk to me or help write our lab report on dust mites. Talk about a cruddy lab partner!

  But what really upset me was that Zoey had scheduled 149 people without asking me first. I have a French test on Friday and a geometry test next Monday, and I’m barely pulling a C in each of those classes.

  How am I supposed to study if I’m staying up past midnight EVERY night designing tats for all of these people?! And I haven’t had time to eat lunch for the past two days!

  Then, as I was leaving class, Samantha Gates stopped me to say how much she loved her tat of Justin Timberlake. She said all of her friends in the drama club wanted one too. She invited me to hang out with them after school on Friday, and I told her I’d let her know. But how can I have a social life when I have to draw tattoos 24/7? !

  THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3

  Today

  Total

  TATTOOS

  33

  76

  BOOKS

  99

  199

  I had a really CRUDDY day today! It seems that all Chloe, Zoey, and everyone cares about is TATTOOS.

  I came to school early and did nine. Then I did fourteen at lunchtime and another ten during library. That’s thirty-three tattoos!

  Then I overheard Zoey tell Chloe, behind my back, that I worked “slower than a constipated snail in an ice storm,” and I needed to speed up since she now had 216 people on the waiting list for next week. I was so NOT doing 216 tattoos in one week! And I told Zoey that right to her face. In a really friendly way.

  Then Chloe wanted to know why I told Alexis to ignore her. She said that, since the cheerleaders had a big game, she thought they should be put at the top of the list for tomorrow. That’s when Zoey said, as the director of scheduling, that the decision was hers alone and she didn’t care what Chloe thought. Which was the EXACT same thing Chloe had said to us a few days ago.

  Then Mrs. Peach came over and asked us to PLEASE lower our voices because we were, after all, in a library.

  But I knew better. It WASN’T a library…!

  IT WAS A WICKED TATTOO SWEATSHOP!

  ME (feeling very miserable)

  FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4

  TATTOOS TODAY—A BIG FAT ZERO!

  BOOKS TODAY—A BIG FAT ZERO!

  WHY?

  First of all, Chloe and Zoey were mad because I didn’t come to school early, and they had seventeen people waiting for tattoos.

  Well, excuuuuse me! But I had a French test today that I had to study for.

  Then, at lunch, there were twenty-five people waiting. But instead of sitting at table 9 and helping me, Chloe and Zoey sat at the CCP table on the other side of the cafeteria.

  I could see them giggling and acting all flirty with Jason, Ryan, and Matt while I was supposed to be working my butt off like CINDERELLA or somebody!

  But I nearly FREAKED when I saw MacKenzie give Chloe and Zoey INVITATIONS to her rescheduled party for next Saturday!

  They were pink envelopes with big white satin ribbons tied around them, just like the one she had
given ME.

  And then taken back when she UNINVITED me!

  Chloe and Zoey were acting all happy and sucking up to MacKenzie, even though they knew she HATED my guts.

  SO I did the most mature and rational thing possible under the circumstances…

  I QUIT !