Tiffany Tumbles: Book One of the Interim Fates by Kristine Grayson Page A

scribbling notes. She’s not pretty like Helen. Jenna’s skinny and she doesn’t dress well at all, and she looks like she’s never stood up straight in her whole life. But she’s nicer, and that’s got to count for something, right?
    That’s what all the movies teach anyway.
    But I’m thinking about her last few words, and Megan’s from the day before. I mean, if dreams and goals are what you want and desire, your hopes and plans for the future, then what does it say about Jenna that she wants to be Helen?
    Is that Jenna’s dream or her goal? Or is it just something she said to throw me off?
    I plan to ask her after class, but just before the bell, Mr. McG tells me to talk to him after class and I miss my chance.
    He wants me to do make-up work since it seems that I’m not absorbing the important stuff. I have no idea how makeup will help me with history, and I tell him.
    He gives me that “how dumb is she” look, and then tells me that he means I have to catch up to everyone else. “You do understand ‘catch-up’ right? You use so much slang, dated as it is, that I thought you understood idioms.”
    “I get slang,” I say (although I had no idea that what I say is dated. I guess that means old. And does that make me sound stupider than I already do? I have no idea). “I don’t know what idiotums are.”
    “Idiotums.” He laughs. “Sometimes, VanDerHoven, I can’t tell if you’re Gracie Allen or Roseanne Roseannadanna.”
    I frown. I’m going to have to jot those names down when I leave so that I can Google them later to understand what he means.
    “I’m just me,” I say as primly as I can. “I have another class.”
    He hands me a slip of paper with printing all over it. “Extra reading,” he says. “And a pop quiz once a week. You’re probably going to want some tutoring help, so if you can’t get it at home, see me and maybe we’ll assign someone. You have no real concept of America at all, VanDerHoven, and that makes this class really hard for you. Weren’t you ever in the States before this year?”
    I shake my head.
    “Well, here’s a tip,” he says. “Everything we’ve talked about in this class has happened in the United States.”
    “Then why were you talking about French and Indians?” I ask.
    He shakes his head. “Roseanne Roseannadanna, you’d better go before the next bell.”
    And I scurry out of there, wondering how come he suddenly cares.

 
     
     
     
    NINE
     
     
    BY LUNCH, IT’S all over the school that I “took on” Helen. People actually mention it to me. They’re talking to me like I’ve done something major.
    It doesn’t seem major. I just corrected the airhead about her misconceptions about my people. I tell the kids that who stop to talk to me, and they want to know about “my people.” By that, I guess they mean Greeks, because they don’t know about mages. So I say a few things, and suddenly I’m totally exotic.
    Finally, after lunch, I see Jenna in the hall, and I know I meant to ask her something, but I can’t remember what. So I stop her and say, “Is my slang dated?”
    She grins. “You sound a little Valley Girl.”
    “I don’t know what that is,” I say.
    “Like you come from the Valley, y’know?”
    “This is the valley,” I say.
    “This is the Willamette Valley,” she says. “Valley Girls are from some valley in California. They’re very 90210 or Clueless , that movie, you know?”
    “I love that movie,” I say.
    “It’s ancient,” Jenna says. “If you’re trying to learn stuff to fit in, don’t get it from the movies. If it’s in a movie, it’s already too old to be cool.”
    “Oh.” I nod, and worry all the way to English class. I’m not sure what I say that’s slang and what isn’t. I just learned to talk like my favorite characters. It seemed like the best way.
    I’m not even paying attention as I go into class. The English classroom is my favorite room in the whole school. Mrs. Fiddler has busts of