Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen - Dyan Sheldon [4]
Carla Santini’s laugh this time was less like an alarm and more like a flak attack.
“Except that nobody’s going to rape or murder you in the Milky Way,” said Carla.
The cackling only stopped because Mr Finbar, our homeroom teacher, stumbled in just then and told us all to shut up.
Ella is shy and she’s quiet, but she’s kind and has a good sense of humour. We were in all the same classes except maths (Ella was in the advanced maths class, but the creative mind can have a difficult time with mathematics, so I wasn’t), and when she discovered that we had almost identical schedules, she dedicated herself to showing me around. I knew that, subconsciously, Ella wanted to be friends because she was attracted to my style and originality, but I acted like she was the one who was doing me the favour.
We had bonded forever by the end of the day.
It took longer than I’d anticipated, but I finally made Deadwood High recognize my true potential. There are people – like my parents and Mrs Baggoli – who look at what happened another way, of course, as doubters and scoffers always will. My mother said I was lucky. My father said I was lucky. The cops said I was lucky, but also brave. Mrs Baggoli said that I never cease to amaze her.
It was Mrs Baggoli’s idea that I write about what happened in my own “inimitable style” for my final English project.
“Perhaps if you put it down in black and white, you’ll see things a little more objectively,” Mrs Baggoli suggested. She sighed. “Try very hard to stick to the facts, Lola. Don’t embellish too much.”
“I don’t,” I said. “I always try to be as objective as a person can be.”
Mrs Baggoli sighed again. “Well, try a little harder.”
So I’m trying really hard to make sure that the real truth is told. And this is the real truth. Everything I’m about to tell you occurred exactly as I say. And I don’t mean just the everyday, boring things about school, and my family, and stuff like that. I mean everything. Even the things that seem so incredible, so totally out of this solar system, that you think I must have made them up, they’re true too. And nothing’s been exaggerated. Not the teensiest, tiniest, most subatomic bit. It all happened exactly as I’m telling it.
This is my story.
It starts with the end of the world.
THE WORLD ENDS
The world ended on March 5th at exactly 11.13 p.m., give or take a second or two.
It started out as just a regular day. In a play you know something terrible’s about to happen because the weather’s so bad, or you run into a few witches on your way home. But not even the weather was giving any clues that day. It was cold, but bright and sunny, and there wasn’t a witch in sight, unless you count Carla Santini.
I was in a Gone with the Wind kind of mood when I got up that morning, so I wore the black velvet cape I’d just bought in a local charity shop. In the afternoon Ella and I went to her house. We usually go to her house because she’s an only child and, consequently, is allowed to live her life in peace and privacy, unlike some of us who were less fortunate in our choice of parents.
Mr and Mrs Gerard have always been polite and pleasant to me, but I don’t kid myself that that means they like me. They don’t like me. They’re just always polite and pleasant, period. They never yell or are sarcastic, like some people’s parents. They never have bad moods, and they never fight with each other. They’re always giving each other quick cheek smooches and calling each other “darling” and “honey”. They remind me of parents in a cornflakes commercial. You know, perfect and pleasant and reasonable, even when the box is empty.
Ella’s house is always clean and neat, and most of the furniture is covered in plastic. There are never any shoes under the coffee-table or empty cups left by the side of the couch. You never have to wipe off the TV with your sleeve so you can see the picture. Ella’s house is so immaculately frightful that it looks more like a model home than a real house. I’m afraid to touch