Ruling Class

Chapter 1 My dream has so come true. Totally. I've only been waiting since my first day in high school, and I'm a junior now, but I don't care how long it took, it was way worth it. It's all about Jeanette Sue, even the name is gorgeous, you have to see her -- she's, like, fantastic. Every bag she has is either Kate Spade or Coach or Vuitton, and she wouldn't put her big toe, which has the most fabulous gold and diamond ring on it, into anything that wasn't at least Jimmy Choos or Manolos or better. She has four Harry Winston chains with silver links and one Tiffany bracelet with a tiny charm with her name on it. I mean, she's all Diesel or Gaultier or Armani, and everything looks, like, fabulous because she's got a to-die-for figure. And she only smokes these long, skinny, wicked Vogue cigarettes and she sort of, like, flips her hair, a quick back-forth, when she exhales, so that the smoke kind of goes all over like a cloud around her face, which looks fabulous when she wears her Von Dutch hat. You know all that baloney about smoking being addictive and causing cancer and all? Not true. Rush Limbaugh said so on the radio. It absolutely hasn't really been proved yet. On top of all that she's part of the horsey set, a champion jumper. Like, she won the blue ribbon two years in a row at the Fairmont Riding Club. That's the most totally elegant horse club in Dallas. In fact, she has her own horse.Anyway, with her so blond hair (somebody said it's not really blond, but they don't know) and her aqua eyes (I heard they're color contacts, but I don't believe that) and the whitest teeth (this girl in my math class said they're all caps, but that's not true), she's way the most perfect girl in the school.And everybody knows she's so the absolute queen. Now get this, the queen has invited me to have lunch with her and her whole gang today. These are not just regular nobody people, these are the absolute coolest guys at Highland Park High. She just asked me yesterday and I've been going so nuts ever since. She sort of suggested that it was going to be like a picnic and I should bring some sandwiches. She said probably there would be about six of us. I hope everyone likes ham. If they don't, like if somebody doesn't eat meat, I made some tuna salad. Well, not exactly me, the maid, but I told her to do it. And then if somebody else, like maybe a couple of the other cheerleaders, drops by, I threw in some extra stuff, like some peaches, but no bananas. Everyone knows that South American bananas are contaminated with that flesh-eating disease. Whatever. What with all the sodas, no Dr Pepper; I know for a fact that they put out a special-edition can that had the Pledge of Allegiance and they took out the "under God" part. Anyway, I had to buy an assortment, and I've been lugging this huge Armani shopping bag around all morning. But I so don't mind. I'm, like, totally excited that she chose me. I mean, this is blast-me-out major. We're supposed to meet under the big pear trees on the back lawn behind the school. Somebody planted them when they first built the school, and now they're fully grown, and the way they've got them, like, in two lines facing each other, they sort of form a tunnel. Even though they never have pears, which seems, like, really dumb for a pear tree, still they make a perfect tent for a picnic. And you really need shade down here in Dallas when it gets closer to summer, that sun is totally like a ball of fire. It's such a bore how they're always going on about the ozone layer, how it's getting, like, holes in it 'cause of spray cans. Hello. Like I'm really going to stop using hair spray just 'cause of global warming. Gimme a break. Who doesn't love warm weather?Anyway, all this was actually a desert before everybody came here. That's what my boring history teacher said. You should see her, my teacher I mean, she has the hairiest legs and she never shaves them.Pascal, Francine is the author of 'Ruling Class', published 2004 under ISBN 9780689873324 and ISBN 0689873328.