All-American Girl by Meg Cabot

like Jack.)
    Lucy didn’t look too upset about my parents’ saying she wasn’t going to be allowed to take Jack to Kris’s party. Instead, she went to the window to wave some more at all the reporters who were out on our front lawn.
    Kris Parks’s message wasn’t even the most unbelievable one, however. We also got calls from half the reporters who’d been at the press conference, wanting to know if they could arrange exclusive interviews with me. All the television news shows—like 60 Minutes, 48 Hours, Dateline, 20/20 —wanted to do a feature on me, and asked us to call them at our earliest convenience.
    I am so sure. Like there is an hour’s worth of stuff to even say about me. My life so far has basically been just a long series of one humiliation after another. If they want to go in depth on my lisp and how I was cured of it by my irrational desire to call Kris Parks every bad S -word I could think of to her face, well, then, more power to them. But somehow I suspected they were after something a little more triumph-of-the-human-spirit-y.
    Then there were the calls from the soda companies. Seriously. Coke and Pepsi wanted to know if I was interested in endorsement deals. Like I was going to stand in front of a camera and go, “DrinkCoke like me. Then you, too, can throw yourself at a crazed Christie Brinkley fan and get your wrist broken in two places.”
    Finally, but most disturbingly of all, was the call I had most been dreading. I’d actually hoped against hope that, when we played the messages back, this one wouldn’t be there. But I was wrong. So wrong.
    Because message number one hundred and sixty-four contained the following, in an all-too familiar voice:
    â€œSamantha? Hi, this is Susan Boone. You know, from the studio. Samantha, I would really appreciate it if you would call me back as soon as you get this message. There are some things we need to talk about.”
    Hearing this, I panicked, of course. That was it. All those pleas to the Secret Service guys had been for nothing. My cover was blown. I was dead.
    I had to return Susan Boone’s call in secret—so no one would overhear what I suspected was going to be a lot of groveling on my part—which meant that I had to hang around and wait while my dad called the phone company and got our number changed to a new, unlisted one. We had to do this on account of the fact that some of the one hundred and sixty-seven messages had been a little too effusive, if you know what I mean. Like some Larry Wayne Rogers types—Larry Wayne Rogers was now tucked safely away in a maximum-security prison cell, awaiting arraignment—who really, really wanted to meet me. Apparently, to them, my heinous school ID photo was not a turnoff at all.
    The Secret Service guys recommended that we change our phone number and perhaps install an alarm system in the house. They were still hanging around outside, generally keeping people back, while some metro cops directed traffic along our street, which was suddenly getting four or five times the amount of trafficit usually got, with people who’d found out where I lived driving by very slowly, trying to catch a glimpse of me—though don’t ask me why . I am very rarely doing anything interesting. Most of the time I am just sitting in my room eating Pop-Tarts and drawing pictures of myself with Jack, but whatever. I guess people wanted to see what a real live hero looked like.
    Because that’s what I am now, whether I like it or not. A hero.
    Which is just another name, it turns out, for someone who was at the wrong place at the very worst possible time.
    Anyway, when Dad was done dealing with the phone company, I called Susan Boone back—but not until after I’d consulted with Catherine.
    â€œDinner?” That was all Catherine could say. “You take a bullet for the president of the United States of America, and all you get out of it is