All-American Girl by Meg Cabot Page B

to promote it.
    Well, and why shouldn’t I have thought this? It wasn’t as if she’d fallen all over herself trying to tell me what a good artist I was or anything, the one time I had shown up for class.
    â€œListen, Mrs. Boone,” I said, wondering how on earth I was going to say what I had to say—about her stifling me creatively, and where would we be if someone had done that to Picasso—in a way that wouldn’t offend her. Because, you know, she seemed like a pretty nice lady, aside from the whole not-liking-my-pineapple thing.
    â€œSusan,” she said.
    â€œI beg your pardon?”
    â€œCall me Susan.”
    â€œUh. Okay. Susan. I really just don’t think that I have time for drawing lessons right now.” So what if there wasn’t a chance this was going to work? It was worth a try. And it was better than telling her the truth. And, I mean, it was entirely possible, what with the reporters camped outside on our lawn, and the rubberneckers cruising up and down our street, and all the sickos leaving messages on our answering machine, that my parents might completely forget about the whole art lesson thing. Under the circumstances, that C-minus of mine in German might not seem so dire….
    â€œSam,” Susan Boone said in a no-nonsense voice, “you have a lot of talent, but you are never going to learn to draw really well until you stop thinking so much and start seeing . And the only way you are ever going to do that is if you take the time to learn how.”
    Learn how to see? Hello. Maybe Susan Boone thought it was my eyes and not my arm, that had been affected by my little altercation outside her studio.
    Too late, I realized what she was trying to do. Exactly what Jack had warned me about! She was trying to make me into an art clone! To make me start drawing with my eyes, and not my heart!
    But before I could say anything like “No, thank you, Mrs. Boone, I don’t care to be made into another one of your art automatons,” she went, “I will see you in class on Tuesday, or I am afraid I will have to tell your parents how much we all missed you yesterday.”
    Whoa. Now that was harsh. Way harsh. Especially for the queen of the elves.
    â€œUm,” I said. So much for fighting the system. All the fight went instantly out of me. “Okay. I guess.”
    Susan Boone said, “Good,” and hung up. Right before I heard the click, Joe went, in the background, “Pretty bird. Pretty bird.” Then, nothing.
    She had me. She fully had me, and what’s more, she knew it.She knew it! Who would have thought that an elf queen could be so devious ?
    And now I was going to have to go back—go back to Susan Boone’s with everyone in the whole class knowing that I’d ditched last time. And probably knowing why I’d ditched, too. You know, about the whole being publicly humiliated part during the critique session the class before.
    God! It was all so unfair!
    I was still sitting there, shaking my head over it, when Lucy came into my room without knocking, as was her custom.
    â€œAll right,” she said.
    I should have known then and there that I was in trouble, because Lucy had a clipboard and a pen with her. Plus she was wearing her most executive outfit, the green plaid mini with a white shirt and sweater vest.
    â€œI’ve got you down for lunch and shopping in Georgetown tomorrow with the girls,” she said, consulting the clipboard. “Then tomorrow night, you and Jack and I are going to see the new Adam Sandler. You’ll have to put in an appearance both at the show and then at Luigi’s afterwards for pizza. Then Sunday we’ve got brunch with the squad, then the game. Then Sunday night is dinner with the president. We can’t get out of it; I’ve already tried. But maybe if there’s time afterwards we can get someone to whiz us by Luigi’s again, just to see what’s up. Some