Mia the Magnificent: The Mia Fullerton Series

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Mia the Magnificent

Bancroft Press

Chapter One

Decaying hands reached for me and I struggled to break free, but I was surrounded. Rolling over, I tried to protect myself from their attack, but my face landed in a soft pile. Certain it must be the black soil of a newly dug grave, I fought to get away, but the zombies lunged for my skull! Thousands of rotting fingers dug into my scalp as they searched for my brain. A shrill shriek of terror ripped from my lungs, and—

"Holy jockstrap!" my brother Chris yelled. "Why are you screaming like that? Did you have another dream where you looked at yourself in the mirror?"

Breathing hard, I reached for my head. It was still intact. Sighing with relief, I crawled under my blankets and gathered Mr. Snuggles, my teddy bear, into my arms. "Get out of my room," I said from my cocoon of covers. "I'm sleeping."

Chris ripped the blankets from my bed. "Mom just called from St. Hilary's and said that if you were late to school one more time, she was going to ground you for a month. And since there's no way I could stand looking at your face for that long after school and on every weekend, I told her I'd kick your sorry butt out of bed. So get moving."

"Leave me alone," I muttered as my body constricted into the fetal position. "I still have time to sleep. My alarm clock hasn't even gone off yet."

"Uh, yeah, it has," Chris said. "Like a million times. You kept hitting the snooze button."

I cracked open my eyelids. My alarm did sound an awful lot like barbaric wailing.

Shielding my eyes from the harsh overhead light, I slipped on my glasses and squinted at my bedside clock.

Seven-forty-five? School started in fifteen minutes!

Catapulting myself out of bed, I shoved Chris out of my room, slammed the door, and raced around, gathering my clothes. With absolutely no time for a shower, I'd just have to swipe on an extra layer of deodorant, throw my hair into a ponytail, and hope all my classmates had gone blind and lost their sense of smell over the weekend.

Yanking on my blue and green plaid uniform skirt, I slipped on some fresh underwear and socks and then buttoned up my white blouse. I dashed down the stairs, grabbed my backpack with one hand, tucked my shirt in with the other, and was out the door with only seconds to spare. Going from mutant brain-eating zombies to mutant brain-eating teachers in only five minutes—that had to be some sort of record.

I rushed down the sidewalk and saw Lisa waving to me from the corner. "Hurry up, Mia! We're going to be late!" she said.

I smiled at Lisa's petite form bouncing up and down like an overeager blonde puppy. Lisa had been my best friend since forever. Over the summer, she'd taken a job as a counselor- in-training at a genius Mensa camp, and as part of her experience, she'd cut all ties with her "domestic environment" so she could adapt to her new habitat—or something like that—and I didn't communicate with her for two months. So, in order to compensate, we'd done nothing else for the past few weeks but talk to each other.

"Sorry," I said as I caught up. "I overslept again."

"Whoa." She took a step away from me. "What's wrong with your breath?"

"Uh-oh." I covered my mouth with both hands. "I forgot to brush my teeth."

"Well, you don't have time to run home now." Lisa reached into her backpack and pulled out a stick of gum. "Just chew this. And you might want to pull your skirt out of your underwear, too."

I reached for my backside and quickly yanked my skirt from my pink cotton briefs as I jogged after Lisa. No wonder my neighbor, Mr. Slater, smiled so widely at me this morning. That was the last time I'd ever put my underwear on after my skirt—or walk past Mr. Slater's house.

* * *

"What disgustingly healthy food did you bring today?" I asked Lisa as I set my lunch tray onto one of St. Hilary's dilapidated cafeteria tables. "Wheat grass and acorn stew?"

"Nope," Lisa replied, opening up a Tupperware container. "Shi-take and couscous."

When she held the bowl to my face, I nearly gagged. "Is that even food?"

Lisa eyeballed the cheeseburger and French fries on my tray. "Is that?"

"Point taken," I said, dousing a soggy fry in a pool of ketchup.

"So, guess what happened to me this morning," Lisa said as she scooped up a spoonful of brown sludge.

"You won the United Nations' student humanitarian award?"

"Don't be silly. You have to be at least a junior to be eligible," Lisa replied. "No, Mrs. Ingram asked if I would be the student director of the fall musical, The Music Man."

"She did?" I mumbled as I chomped into my meat byproduct burger. "No offense, but what do you know about acting? I mean, I'm the one who spent my summer working on the stage crew for Little Tyke's Theatre."

"I actually know quite a bit about the theater," Lisa replied. "One of my classes this summer discussed the evolution of theater and its impact on modern culture. And when I showed Mrs. Ingram my research paper on the subject this morning, she asked me right then and there to be her student director."

"Oh," I said, feeling a bit humbled by the fact that my acting experience was limited to standing in for sick five year olds and pretending to be a blade of grass.

"It's like all of this was meant to be," Lisa said, her voice brimming with excitement. "I can direct, and since you know how to build sets, make costumes, and create props, you can be my assistant!"

I picked up my carton of milk. "Well ..."

"Come on, Mia," Lisa coaxed. "I promise I won't make you go on stage. All you have to do is help me behind the curtain."

"It's not that I don't want to help you." I paused. "It's just that I was kind of thinking about trying out for a part in the musical this year."

Lisa leaned over the table and stared into my eyes. "Are you being serious or did some sort of alien invader take over your body during the summer? Because I was reading in one of my scientific journals about some strange, unexplained magnetic forces—"

"There were no aliens," I said, pushing her away. "OK, some of the people I worked with could've been mistaken for alternate life forms, but it's still me in here."

"So you're telling me that I spent fifteen years trying to get you to come out of your shell and failed miserably, but after only ten weeks of working at Little Tykes, you became Super Thespian?"

"I'm not Super Thespian; I just discovered that I like being in plays. It's sort of nice getting to be someone else for a while." I shrugged. "I shouldn't have even mentioned it to you. I probably won't get a part. I mean, I sing so off-key that even my grandma asked me to stop singing her 'Happy Birthday.'"

"Don't be so hard on yourself," Lisa said. "I know for a fact you can sing middle C really well."

"In case you hadn't noticed, most songs are written with more than one note."

"OK, so we'll improvise," Lisa replied. "I'm the director. I can do whatever I want."

"You're the student director," I said, "and I don't want any special favors. I want to see if I can get a part on my own."

Ignoring my request, Lisa threw her hands up in the air in a way that can only be described as "jazz hands," and exclaimed, "My best friend is going to be a superstar!"

As Lisa launched into full spirit finger mode and a table of senior guys stared at us, I suddenly began wishing that the stories of alternate life forms were true so they could beam me up right now to take me back to their home planet.

"This is going to be so much fun!" Lisa said as, thankfully, she set her hands back on the table. "It's exactly the sort of thing we both need now that we're footloose and fancy free."

"Footloose and fancy free?" I asked with a raise of my eyebrow. "Have you been volunteering at the senior center again?"

"You know what I mean," Lisa replied. "I broke up with Mike and you broke up with Tim. Being involved in the school play will help us not only fill up our free time, but also meet some new guys."

"Are you sure you're ready to meet someone new?" I asked. "After all, you and Mike were pretty serious. It might take a while before you get over him."

"Not according to my calculations," Lisa replied.

I wiped off the ketchup dribbling down my chin. "There's a formula for that sort of thing?"

"There wasn't, so I created one," Lisa stated. "I started with the fact that Mike and I dated for nine months, which is approximately 297 days, or 7,128 hours, or 427,680 minutes. If I allowed myself to be sad for one-tenth of each minute we were together, that would be 42,768 minutes, or 712 hours—or roughly 29 and a half days. Since I found out that Mike dumped me for that girl 18 days ago, I concluded that within 11 days, I should be completely over him. So far, my time/sadness ratio seems to be accurate. I'm more than halfway through the equation and my bitterness is evaporating accordingly."

"Good for you," I said, having lost track of what she was actually saying as soon as she started rattling off her numbers.

"I still can't believe Mike fell for a... lifeguard." Lisa spat out the word like it was something vile.

"He was a lifeguard, too," I replied, feeling the need to defend Mike. After all, I'd been friends with him since forever, too. "And you did agree to see other people while you were away at camp."

"So you're on his side now?" Lisa snapped.

"Of course not," I said, thinking Lisa might need to tweak her bitterness equation a little bit. "It's just that Mike and Mandy spent a lot of time together over the summer and—"

"Mandy." Lisa made a face as she jabbed a fork into her bowl. "What kind of name is that? Mandy. The mediocrity of it is mind-boggling."

I bit my lip, figuring now wouldn't be the best time to mention how I had always kind of liked the name Mandy.

"And speaking of mediocrity, do you even know what her GPA was last year in Texas?" Not waiting for a reply, Lisa exclaimed, "Two-point-nine! She wasn't even on the honor roll."

"What did you do, hack into our school's database?" I asked.

"Hack is such a hostile word," Lisa replied. "I prefer investigated. But don't worry. I logged in under Mrs. Jensen's account. No one can trace it back to me."

Deciding I really didn't want to know how Lisa was able to sign into the school computer using our principal's name, I said, "Well, personally, I don't need a mathematical formula to know I'm one hundred percent over Tim Radford."

"Which might sound a little more convincing if you weren't currently staring at him," Lisa remarked.

"I'm not staring at him," I said, quickly averting my eyes from my former boyfriend's back. "I'm just trying to figure out what Tim is doing sitting right next to Alyssa Brooks."

To get a better look, Lisa turned completely around in her seat. "I've seen that girl in the hallway a few times. She's pretty."

"If you think a spray tan and peroxide are pretty, then I guess she is," I said with a bit more cattiness than I intended. "Anyway, Alyssa's in my geometry class with Tim and she's got this weird habit of giggling all the time. I mean, what's so funny about geometry?"

"What do you call a man on the beach?"

"Excuse me?" I asked, a bit confused at the turn in conversation.

"A tan-gent!" Lisa replied with a grin. "See, that's something funny about geometry."

"I think you're missing my point."

"What do you say when you see an empty bird cage?"

I sighed. "Lisa, I'm not really in the mood for this right now."

"Polygon!"

"OK, I get it," I said. "Geometry is a laugh a minute. Now, can we move on?"

"What did the acorn say when he grew up?"

"You're not seriously going to keep this up for the rest of our lunch period, are you?"

I wiped my snickerdoodle cookie crumbs off my uniform skirt and onto the gray cafeteria floor.

"I swear, you have absolutely no sense of humor," Lisa replied, obviously disappointed that her stand-up career was coming to such a sudden halt. "So, what were we talking about?"

"We were discussing why Tim is cuddled up next to Alyssa when he's supposedly dating Cassie Foster," I said, giving an involuntary shudder as Cassie's name crossed my lips.

Cassie Foster was every average high school girl's worst nightmare. She was stunning, vicious, and vengeful—a lethal combination which made every guy want her and every girl fear her.

"Why do you even care who Tim is sitting next to?" Lisa asked as she put the lid back onto her Tupperware bowl. "I thought you were one hundred percent over him."

"I am over him." I wadded up my napkin and threw it onto my tray. "I was just making an observation. Excuse me for being curious."

"Curiosity killed the cat," Lisa said as the ending bell rang.

I glanced over at Tim as Alyssa playfully hit him on the arm. Lisa was right. It was none of my business who Tim was sitting next to during lunch. I was through with Tim and all of his games. It was time for me to move on. After all, a cat may have nine lives, but I had only one. And I wasn't going to let Tim Radford ruin it for me.

Chapter Two

"It's not a convent. It's a Catholic school," I replied to Zoë, who was sprawled out on my living room couch. "And how did you get in my house?"

"Your brother let us in before he took off to play baseball, badminton, basketball, or some other sport that starts with B. I wasn't really listening," Zoë said, plopping her black military boots onto the coffee table. "Those nuns sure do keep you late. Eric and I were out of school, like, an hour ago."

My focus shifted to Eric, the cute blonde guy sitting in the chair beside Zoë. Even after two months, I still couldn't get over the fact that Zoë and Eric were cousins. I'd worked with them both over the summer at Little Tykes Theatre, and they were as different from each other as two relatives could possibly be. Eric was tall, blonde, and sweet. Zoë was Goth, pierced, and cynical.

I blushed as Eric's eyes met mine. "Hi, Eric."

"Hi, Mia," Eric replied with a shy smile.

Zoë rolled her eyes. "One date and you two become as mushy as a loaf of Wonder Bread. It's creeping me out."

"So, is there a reason you decided to break into my house?" I asked, opting to veer away from the delicate subject of my first and only semi-disastrous date with Eric.

"We didn't break in—not that I couldn't have," Zoë replied, removing from her ear one of the fifteen rings on her face and cleaning it with the front of her black T-shirt. "That lock you have on the front door would have only taken seconds to pick. Your brother let us in because I need to hitch a ride with you to driver's ed."

"You're taking driver's ed with me?" I asked, not sure if I was more horrified at the thought of Zoë breaking into my house, Zoë driving a car, or Zoë shoving the now "clean" earring back into the cartilage at the top of her ear.

"Yeah, your mom arranged some sort of carpool so all of us can ride together," Zoë said. "Eric will drop me off on the way to his acting lessons, and then I'll hitch a ride with you to driver's ed. It's win-win. You get the pleasure of my company and Eric gets a little Preppy love."

"Zoë," Eric said, his fair skin turning redder than a discount sales tag, "that's not why—"

"Cool it, cuz," Zoë replied, switching on the TV. "Just take Princess out back so you two can do whatever it is you do together and I don't have to watch any of it."

Helplessly, Eric said, "I swear I didn't—"

"I really don't think—" I said at the same time.

"Look, you've got about ten minutes before we have to leave, so get out of here," Zoë said, switching channels. "Tick, tock, tick, tock."

Not knowing what else to do, Eric and I stood clumsily and went outside to the backyard.

Hoping to break the cement wall of awkwardness Zoë had built, I picked up the basketball lying on our backyard court and said, "Want to play a little one-on-one?"

Eric shrugged as he sat on one of the plastic lawn chairs on the deck. "I don't really like basketball."

I looked at him in surprise. "You don't like basketball? What's not to like?"

"I don't know. I probably don't like it because everyone thinks I'd be good at it since I'm so tall. But actually, I'm really a klutz. That's why my acting coach signed me up for dancing lessons this year. To get a theater scholarship at a really good college, an actor needs to sing, dance, and act."

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Mia the Magnificent by Eileen Boggess Copyright © 2009 by Eileen Boggess. Excerpted by permission of Bancroft Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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