If I Have a Wicked Stepmother, Where's My

Prince?

Melissa Kantor

To Carol Einhorn

Chapter One

Cinderella

Me

dead mother

dead mother

wicked

wicked

stepmother

stepmother

evil stepsisters

evil stepsisters

(2)

(2)

friendless

friendless

I tapped my pen against my lips, debating whether or not Cinderella is actually friendless. I

mean, she does have all those talking animals helping her out when she gets into a jam. But do

they count as friends? It's not as if a blue jay can meet you at Starbucks for an after-school latte.

As I tried to categorize the small woodland creatures Cinderella associates with, my eyes

accidentally wandered over to Jessica Johnson, this girl who sits across the classroom from me.

When we made eye contact, her expression didn't change--it was as though I wasn't there.

2

I crossed out friendless in the Cinderella column and drew in a woodchuck.

Cindere

Me

lla

father

father

dead

alive

Once more, I wasn't sure this was an accurate description of our respective situations. I mean,

technically, my dad is alive. More than technically--it's not like he's in a coma or anything. But

considering that I am currently living with his new wife and stepdaughters on Long Island while

he spends Monday to Friday back in San Francisco finishing up this mondo case he was

supposed to be done with before we moved to New York in August seven months ago, his being

alive doesn't do me a whole lot of good.

I went back to my list and put quotation marks around alive.

"... that you can't subtract here until you divide here." Mr. Palmer slapped the board, raising a small cloud of chalk dust. Then he spun toward the window. "Mister Marcus," he spat. "Can you tell me why that is?"

John Marcus's head shot up and he looked around the room in a panic. The skateboarding

magazine tucked into his math book slipped to the floor.

I barely listened as Mr. Palmer raged at John, spit flying out of the corners of his mouth. I wasn't

the only

3

one unimpressed by Mr. Palmer's tantrum (his third of the day); even John kept his eyes on his

magazine, sliding it under his chair with his toe. And as usual, even before the bell had rung,

despite the fact that Mr. Palmer was still talking, kids started throwing stuff into their backpacks.

"I think you're going to want to hear this since it involves a possible surprise quiz on Thursday."

No one paid any attention to him. Mr. Palmer is always threatening surprise quizzes and then not

giving them. All first semester I spent my nights cramming frantically for a quiz that never came.

Now I just ignored his threats like everyone else.

Out in the hallway, Madison Lawler, Jessica Johnson's BFF, embraced Jessica passionately, as if

the cruelty of the math-tracking powers that be was almost too much to bear. Maybe I'm

paranoid, but as I walked by, it was hard not to feel that the sole purpose of their daily reunion

was to remind me of my utterly friendless state.

For the record, let's just acknowledge that relocation has not done wonders for my social life. To

say I haven't discovered a soul mate within the Glen Lake population would be an

understatement. I have not even discovered a homework mate. And the irony of my current

situation is that I just went through this a year ago. When I was in eighth grade, my dad got

totally obsessed with how the curriculum at my junior high wasn't rich enough or enriched

enough or whatever, and he decided that if I didn't attend Wellington Academy for high school,

mine

4

would be an empty and meaningless existence (kind of like it is now). So I had to kiss Bay view

Middle School good-bye, leave all my friends, and go off to Wellington, where I knew no one.

Then, just as I'm finally settling in and can stop skulking around the halls like an assassin,

practically at the very moment my cell phone starts ringing with calls from people who don't just

want me to switch my long-distance carrier, my dad announces he's getting married to the

Wicked Witch of the North Shore, we're moving to New York, and I'll be starting sophomore

year at Glen Lake High in the fall.

You know who people don't stay in touch with when she leaves their time zone?

The new girl.

I made my way to my locker and then to the cafeteria. Since January, when I started taking

studio art, I've usually been able to eat my lunch in the art room, thereby avoiding the

humiliation of being the lone occupant of a cafeteria table that could easily seat twenty. But Ms.

Daniels, my art teacher, was holding private conferences in the studio all through lunch today, so

I had nowhere to flee. I bought a sandwich and made my way to what seemed to be an isolated,

undesirable table in the corner of the crowded lunchroom.

It turned out I was wrong about the table's undesirability, just as I've been wrong about pretty

much everything else at Glen Lake High. Within minutes of

5

my sitting down at one end, a noisy group of seniors swarmed and then sat at the other, twirling

car keys around their index fingers and grabbing French fries out of one another's McDonald's

bags.

In the center of the crowd sat Connor Pearson, laughing and chatting with his loyal subjects. The

star of the basketball team and president of the student council, Connor was also voted "Best

Looking" by the senior class. In the fall, to raise money, the cheerleaders raffled off a kiss with

Connor Pearson and two hundred girls bought tickets. (That would be one hundred and ninety-

nine girls plus yours truly.) But sadly for me and all the other members of Glen Lake's female

population, rumor was Connor only had eyes for Kathryn Ford: Homecoming Queen, who, like

all good queens, was currently seated to the right of her lordship.

Some people make me feel freakishly taller and redder-headed than I actually am, and Kathryn

Ford is one of those people. Everything about her is tiny and pale and perfect. I think she might

have been created from a kit. Also, she acts as though ignoring underclassmen is a varsity sport.

Basically, you can't not hate her.

Still, I'm not crazy enough to think it's Kathryn Ford's fault that Connor Pearson doesn't know I

exist. Or that she's blacklisted me, and that's why I have yet to make one friend within the Glen

Lake community. I know I have only myself to blame. I watch the kids in my

6

classes talking before the bell rings, and I know all I need to do if I want to talk to them is talk.

Just say something. Anything. And it's not like I don't want to talk to some of them. It's not as if it's their fault I was dragged kicking and screaming across the continental United States.

If three's supposed to be the charm, it hasn't made me especially charming. Moving to New York

to attend my third school in three years appears to have mutated some friend-making gene I

didn't even know I had. Now, instead of talking to people like I normally would, I just sit

silently, as if I'm watching them swing a jump rope higher and higher while waiting for just the

right moment to step in and start jumping.

And it never comes.