Teen Idol Read Free Page A

pinky slim!" I was still trying to jam those super absorbency plus ones of my mom’s up in there, and, let me tell you, it wasn’t quite working out for me.), I had no choice but to stay home.
    But Trina, whom I’d expected to be sympathetic, was anything but. She was all, "I don’t care if your stupid pad comes out from under your suit and floats away! You are coming to my party! You HAVE to! You’re the mayonnaise!"
    I didn’t know what Trina was talking about. But it turns out she was more than happy to explain.
    "Because you get along with everyone," she told me over the phone that day. "Like mayonnaise. Without mayonnaise, the whole sandwich just falls apart. Like my party’s going to if you don’t come."
    It did, too. Her party, I mean. Elizabeth Gertz accused Kim Doss of copying her because they both ended up wearing identical red J. Crew swimsuits and French braids, and Kim, to prove she had a mind of her own, pushed Elizabeth into the deep part at the base of the waterslide, and she chipped a tooth on the pool’s cement floor.
    If I had been there, I totally would have intervened before anyone got hurt.
    So, you know, it wasn’t this huge shock when Mr. Shea handed me the Ask Annie position. Because the person who holds it has to give the people who write in not only good advice but also advice that the school counselor, Ms. Kellogg, will be able to endorse and stand behind.
    Which isn’t easy. Because Ms. Kellogg is a freak. She is all into yoga and biorhythm and feng shui, and always wants me to tell the people who write in that if they’d move their bedroom mirror so it isn’t facing a window or door, they’d stop losing so much karmic energy.
    I’m not kidding.
    And this is the person who is supposedly going to help me get into a good college someday. Scary.
    But Ms. Kellogg and I actually have a pretty good relationship. I listen to her drone on about her macrobiotic diet, and she’s always willing to write me a note so I can get out of volleyball in RE. or whatever.
    Anyway, the thing about Ask Annie is, the person who is Annie is supposed to be this huge secret, on account of Annie isn’t supposed to have any biases toward certain peer groups, as Ms. Kellogg calls them. Like Annie can’t be "known" to be a member of any particular clique, or people will think she can’t relate to, like, the problems of someone unpopular like Cara Cow or a jock like Kurt Schraeder or whoever.
    Plus, you know, if people knew who Annie was, they might not be willing to write to her at all, since she might guess who the author of the letter was, and spread it around. People don’t really do that good a job of disguising their identity when they write to Annie. I mean, maybe they try, but you get people like Trina, who writes to Annie at least once a month about whatever is bugging her (usually it’s something about Luke Striker, the love of her life). Trina doesn’t even attempt to disguise her handwriting or use a fake e-mail address.
    Another reason for the anonymity of Annie is that she is privy to a lot of people’s deepest, darkest secrets.
    So I have this totally fab position on the paper, but I can’t tell anybody about it. I can’t even tell Trina or my mom, because they both have the biggest mouths in the entire state of Indiana. I just have to go along, letting them all think I have this very integral role with the paper’s layout. Whoopee.
    Which is fine. I mean, it’s not a big deal. I’m easy.
    Except when it comes to people like Geri Lynn. I’d like to tell Geri Lynn. Just so she doesn’t keep on thinking Scott is taking advantage of me.
    So, anyway, being Annie and all, I get called to Ms. Kellogg’s office a lot. She always wants to talk to me about who I think might have written some particularly disturbing letter or e-mail.
    Sometimes I know. Sometimes I don't. Sometimes I tell her. Sometimes I don't. I mean, you have to respect a person’s right to privacy unless, you know, the