Free Sweet Sixteen Princess by Meg Cabot Page B

around—“we’ve assessed the overall costs involved in implementing this kind of health program, and found that it is much more cost-efficient than our current physical education curriculum, if you take into account the staggering amount of money you’ll be paying to your child’s physicians for treatment of juvenile onset diabetes, asthma, high blood pressure, and the many other dangerous health conditions caused by obesity.”
    This information was not met with the kind of enthusiastic response we—meaning my fellow student council members, Lilly, Tina, Ling Su, and I—had been hoping for. Parents, I noted, tended tolook heavenward, and Principal Gupta glanced at her watch.
    â€œThank you for this, Mia,” she said, holding up the copy of the cost breakdown I’d given her. “But I’m afraid what you’re proposing would be far too cost-prohibitive for us at this time—”
    â€œBut as you can see by our projections,” I said desperately, “if you were to just take a small amount of money away from, say, the Intramural Athletics Fund—”
    At this , suddenly everyone was paying attention.
    â€œNot the lacrosse team!” one father in a Burberry raincoat bellowed.
    â€œNot soccer,” cried another, looking up from his BlackBerry with a panicked expression on his face.
    â€œNot cheerleading!” Mr. Taylor, Shameeka’s dad, gave me a dirty look that could have rivaled one of Grandmère’s.
    â€œYou see the problem, Mia?” Principal Gupta shook her head.
    â€œBut if each team just gave up a little—”
    â€œI’m sorry, Mia,” Principal Gupta said. “I’m sureyou worked very hard on this. But your track record where financial matters are concerned hasn’t exactly been the most stellar—” I couldn’t believe she’d be so heartless as to bring up the slight miscalculation that had caused me to bankrupt the student government several weeks earlier. Especially considering the fact that, with the help of my grandmother and her tireless work on behalf of the Genovian olive growers, I had more than replenished the empty coffers. “And I haven’t heard any other complaints about our current P.E. curriculum. I move that we conclude this meeting—”
    â€œI second the motion,” cried Mrs. Hill, my Gifted and Talented teacher, in an obvious ploy to get home in time for Dancing with the Stars.
    â€œThis meeting of the Albert Einstein High School Parent Teacher Association is adjourned,” Principal Gupta said.
    Then she and everybody else booked out of there like winged monkeys were on their tails.
    I looked down at Lars, the only person left in the room besides me.
    â€œâ€˜The first resistance to social change is to say it’s not necessary,’” he said, obviously quoting somebody.
    â€œSun Tzu?” I asked, since The Art of War is Lars’s favorite book.
    â€œGloria Steinem,” he confessed. “I was reading one of your mother’s magazines in the bathroom the other day.” Lars has apparently never heard of the phrase Too Much Information. “Let’s go home, Princess.”
    And so we did.
    Wednesday, April 28, 10 p.m.,
limo ride home
    How am I ever going to rule an entire country someday when I can’t even get my high school to install a row of stationary bikes in the gym?
    Wednesday, April 28, 10:30 p.m.,
the loft
    At least I have the comforting words of my boyfriend to soothe my frazzled nerves when I get home after a long day of fighting for the rights of the unathletically inclined students of Albert Einstein High. Even if I hardly ever get to talk to him—except via Instant Messaging—because he’s so busy with his college courses, and I’m so busy with Geometry, princess lessons, student council, and keeping my baby brother from sticking his tongue in a light socket.
    S KINNER B X : Do you