Excerpt...And we're off! Nanowrimo Has Begun....

After my mom finished icing the nasty lump on her forehead, she came into my room to look over my (way amazing) report card.I had already kicked my feet up onto my desk and leaned back in my chair, figuring that this one should be worth at least fifty bucks.

I got six a's and one b-.When mom gasped--probably overwhelmed with joy--I extended my open hand toward her, ready to receive my accolades and my cold, hard cash.

Those gothalicious ankle boots I've had my eye are so mine, I thought.

Mom's brows knit together in a (faux) blonde slash of ire. "Kathi Jo Roberts, I thought I'd taught you better than this."

My chair fell backwards onto the carpet, taking me with it. "What? Whaddid I do? And did you just call me Kathi?"

Mom breathed so deeply that her shoulders rattled with the effort. "It's obvious, by the looks of these grades that we still have a lot of work to do."My mother's index finger wagged before my nose. "Your head is clearly not in the right place, young lady.

Is mom lecturing me?, I wondered. My mom? No way.

I scrambled to my feet and snatched my report card out of my mother's freshly manicured hand, thinking that Grets and I surely must have gotten our cards mixed up.

I don't get it, I thought as I scanned the grades. This was clearly my report card, and these were clearly my awesome grades.

"Mom? I made the Dean's List!" I cried, shoving the card back under her nose."

"I know, Kathi Jo. You certainly don't have to rub it in."

"It's Katya now, Mom. Or Kat. Anything but--brr--Kathi Jo!"

"Honey," Mom said as she reached out and clasped my hand into hers. " A new name is not going to solve your boy problems."

"Mom?" I said as I took in the blonde hair, the pink t-shirt, the maribou trimmed mules. Maybe we should call a doctor..."

My mother reached out to smooth my hair away from my face. "Let's not fret, now. It's not like being smart is a t-terminal disease. No doctor can fix this. We'll just have to b-buck up and work harder..."

I could see tears--actual honest to God tears--welling behind my mom's false lashes.

"What needs fixing, Mom? My good grades? My free ticket to Juilliard?"

"Sweetie, you'll never get a date to the prom with these grades."

"The prom?" I scanned my mother's face, looking for the evidence that one of those cackles that so often marked the punch lines to her jokes was about to erupt.

"The prom?" I repeated, unable to believe that my brilliant, bohemian, bizarre mother thought I'd even consider such an anti-goth rite of passage.

Not a single muscle quivered on my mother's face. She just looked pissed beyond reason. And sad---truly heartbroken. And really, really blonde.

Cold fingers of fear began to work their way through my gut as I backed away from my mother.
"No, mom. No prom. Not now. Not ever."

My mother's lower lip quivered as she backed up to my desk and picked up my Day Runner. "You'll thank me for this someday."

Thunk. My mom dumped my Day Runner into the trash.

My mouth fell open. My jaw hung slack. "You've gone completely emo."

Klunk. My calculator followed my Day runner.

"And just how do you propose to fix the fact that I have an IQ, mom? Are you going to throw my brain away, too?"

Mom picked the poetry and astrology books up off of my desk and dumped them one by one into the trash pail.

"Don't be silly! You're going to do what girls like us have done since the dawn of time."

"And that is?"

"You're going to fake it."

"Fake what?" I shouted as I dove to intercept the trash can before Mom could leave with it.

In spite of the frilly maribou trimmed mules that forced my mom to stand on her tiptoes, she pirouetted out of my reach with a ballerina's grace.

"You're going to fake being dumb."

Kaplonk. My slide rule and calculator followed the books.

One more time, I lunged for my stuff. My mom, the mega-klutz who once broke her nose by walking into a wall, danced out of my reach again. She executed a perfect split-leap to close the space in between me and the trash receptacle that overflowed with everything I needed to complete tonight's assignments.

"Mom? You can't throw my books out. I have homework."

Mom looked at me. Her blue contact clad eyes remained as wide and vacant as a high desert sky. "Trust me sweetie," she said as she picked up my trash can and hugged tight against her chest. "This is for the greater good."

As my mom backed slowly towards my bedroom door, she kept talking. "If only I'd taken more care back when I was your age.....well, I'd never have l-lost my chance with K-Ken.

A huge teardrop dangled pathetically on the thick crescent of my mom's lashes. "I had to settle for less, Kathi Jo."

My mom's wagging finger emphasised her clipped words. "No daughter of mine. Is going to grow old. Living on. If only's."

Then my mother turned on her pink kitten heel, her gleaming, blonde ponytail swishing behind her.

Obviously my mom had inhaled a good bit more up there in the attic than the dust that covered that old box of fashion dolls.

I picked up the Prom Queen Barbie that my mother had left lying in the lonely space that my books used to occupy.

"Where is my mom and what have you done with her?" I picked the plastic antithesis of everything I've worked so hard for by her bouffant skirt and hurled her across the room.