Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen Read Online Free Page A

attention to stuff like that. They’re old-fashioned.”
    “ Old-fashioned? Ella, they’d have to be time travellers from the Victorian era to get upset about a pair of chopsticks.”
    Ella stopped studying the carpet and turned her attention to the CD player. “Forget it,” she said. “It isn’t important.”
    “What do you mean it isn’t important?” I threw myself in front of her. “This is the woman who gave me life we’re talking about. Whose milk fed my fragile body, whose blood flows through my veins. Of course it’s important. What else does your mother have against Karen?”
    Ella smiled wryly. “Well, that’s one thing.”
    “What is?”
    “That she lets you call her Karen. My mother doesn’t like that. She thinks it’s disrespectful.”
    “What else?” I pushed. “There has to be more than that.”
    Ella sighed. She was no match for me in this kind of thing, and she knew it.
    “Well, if you must know, Lola, neither of my parents is too happy about the fact that your mother has three children and no husband.”
    To her credit, Ella was looking pretty embarrassed.
    I was simply stupefied. “What?”
    Ella shrugged helplessly.
    “I do know this is practically the twenty-first century and everything, but my folks really are old-fashioned. At least about stuff like that they are. They think single mothers are a threat to society.”
    Well, you can see their point, can’t you? I mean, what hope is there for our culture when a mother lets her sixteen-year-old daughter call her by her first name, wears chopsticks to hold up her hair, and lives without a husband? The barbarians are practically battering down the gates.
    I was really interested now. I’d never seen my mother as a social outcast before. It was an idea I could warm to.
    “You’ve got to be joking,” I said, even though I knew that she wasn’t. “And anyway, single-motherhood is a transitory state. I mean, Karen used to be a married mother. It could happen again.”
    It was Ella’s turn to look shocked.
    “Your mother was married ?” She couldn’t have sounded more amazed if she’d just learned my mother used to date the President.
    “Of course she was,” I reassured her. “Twice.”
    “Twice?” Ella frowned. “But I thought you said you were a love child.”
    I had said I was a love child. I remembered it clearly – now that Ella had reminded me. The truth, that my father, whom I visit at least twice a month, lives in New York and draws pictures of adorable bears and rabbits for a living, is pretty dull. I thought saying I was a love child made me seem more of a tragic, romantic figure. This happens now and then. When you’re as creative and imaginative as I am, it can be difficult to keep track of your stories one hundred per cent of the time.
    “I was a love child,” I said, ad-libbing quickly. “I mean, they were madly in love when my mother got pregnant. They weren’t planning to get married, of course … my father was a loner by nature, but as soon as they found out that I was on the way they drove his motorcycle to Las Vegas.”
    “Las Vegas?” Ella had yet to stop frowning. “I thought your mother always lived in New York. Isn’t Las Vegas a little far to go for a wedding?”
    You can see why Ella’s in all the advanced classes in school. She has a first-rate analytical mind.
    “They wanted to honeymoon in New Mexico,” I went on, beginning to get into my tale. I could actually see my parents, charging down the highway on a vintage Harley, fuelled by love. “New Mexico is a very spiritual place. They wanted to camp in the desert and count the stars.” I could see them doing that, too. Their arms were around each other, their heads were sticking out of their tiny tent. It was incredibly romantic.
    Ella thought so, too.
    “Geez…” she sighed. “My parents went on a cruise to Jamaica for their honeymoon. They stayed on the boat the whole time. They were afraid to go into town.”
    My voice