Gossip Girl
You Know You Love Me
All I Want Is Everything
Because I?m Worth It
bbonds with j over breast size
?Just a few fries and some ketchup; please;? Jenny Humphrey told Irene; the
one…hundred…year…old bearded lunch lady behind the counter in the basement cafeteria of the
Constance Billard School for Girls。 ?Just afew ;? Jenny repeated。 Today was the first day of peer
group; and Jenny didn?t want her senior peer group leaders to think she was a total pig。
Peer group was a new program the school was trying out。 Every Monday at lunchtime the
freshman girls were to meet in groups of five with two senior girls to discuss peer pressure; body
image; boys; sex; drugs; alcohol; and any other issues that might be bothering the freshman girls
or that the two senior peer group leaders deemed important enough to talk about。 The idea was
that if the older girls shared their experiences with the younger girls and started a sympathetic
dialogue; the younger girls would make informed decisions instead of stupid
high…school…career…damaging mistakes that might embarrass their parents or the school。
With its beamed ceiling; mirrored walls; and birchwood modernist tables and chairs; the
Constance Billard School cafeteria looked more like a hot new restaurant than an institutional
dining room。 The dingy old cafeteria had been redone last summer because so many students had
been going out for lunch or bringing their own that the school had been losing money on wasted
food。 The new cafeteria had won an architectural prize for its appealing design and high…tech
kitchen; and it was now the students? favorite in…school hangout; despite the fact that Irene and her
mean; stingy; grubby…fingernailed old cronies were still the ones serving the food from the
cafeteria?s updated; nouvelle American menu。
Jenny wove her way through the clusters of girls in pleated navy blue; gray; or maroon wool
uniform skirts; picking at their wasabi…smoked tuna burgers and Red Bliss pommes frites and
chatting about the parties they?d been to this past weekend。 She slid her stainless steel tray onto
the empty round table that had been reserved for peer group A and sat down with her back to the
mirrored wall so she wouldn?t have to look at herself while she ate。 She couldn?t wait to find out
who her senior peer group leaders were going to be。 Supposedly the petition had been fierce;
since being a leader was a relatively painless way of showing colleges that you were still involved
in school activities even though your applications were already in。 It was like getting extra credit
for eating fries and talking about sex for fifty minutes。
Who wouldn?t want to do that?