Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen by Dyan Sheldon

Author:Dyan Sheldon
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction:Young Adult
ISBN: 9781435292659
Publisher: Paw Prints
Published: 2008-05-29T08:32:29+00:00

ONE OF OUR LITTLE DETAILS DISAPPEARS

The house was in its usual state of hysterical chaos when I got home. My family may be hopelessly ordinary, but they’re not quiet. My mother and my sisters were in the kitchen, screaming at each other. Two of them were crying. None of them paid any attention to me.

I stood in the doorway for a few seconds, thinking of poor, only-child Ella, all alone in her big quiet house with her doting parents listening to her every word. Boo hoo.

My close female relatives suddenly noticed me standing there. Not that it occurred to them to say “Hello” or “How are you?” or anything like that. Instead, the three of them immediately began telling me what had happened as quickly and loudly as they could. It was hard to follow – and not worth the trip. As far as I could make out, Pam took something of Paula’s and broke it, so Paula hit Pam, so Pam ran crying to my mother, so my mother yelled at Paula, so Paula started crying, and then, while my mother was giving them Lectures 288 and 289: Sharing and Violence, Pam threw an apple at Paula and my mother whacked Pam with the dish-towel.

“Ah, Lola,” I shouted into the general din. “How was your day? How did rehearsals go? What will you be wearing on opening night?”

Paula and Pam kept shrieking, but my mother stopped talking and looked at me for less time than it takes a spark to die in a tornado.

“I should think you’d be wearing your costume on opening night.”

I gestured despairingly. “I mean after. At the cast party.”

“This isn’t Broadway,” said my mother. “You have a closet full of clothes. Wear whatever you want.”

What I wanted was a drop-dead gorgeous dress that would make me look twenty-five and so sophisticated I should have a perfume named after me.

“But everyone’s going to be really dressed up,” I informed her. “Carla Santini—”

“Please,” begged my mother. “Not Carla Santini again. Isn’t there anyone else at your school?”

You’d think she actually listened to me now and then.

“It’s my big night,” I reminded her. “I want to look right.”

“Forget it,” said my mother. “There’s no way you’re getting a new dress, Mary. Last week it was the boiler, and this week it’s the car. I can’t afford it.”

“Who asked?” I snapped back. “I didn’t ask for anything. God knows I would never expect anyone in this house to worry about me. To care about how I look on one of the most important days of my life. I’ll just don my usual rags, shall I? Maybe you’d like me to wear a bag over my head as well. That way no one will be able to report you to the NSPCC for neglect of a minor.”

Paula looked at my mother. “What’s Mary talking about?”

My mother rolled her eyes.

Pam looked at me. “Why are you wearing a bag over your head? How are you going to be able to see?”

My mother patted Pam’s shoulder.

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