Chapter 2
Mia gasped as she took out the letter. $100! She could hardly believe it. The letter however, read:
Spend this well, spend it all
Spend it well? Mia wondered what that meant. So in order to find out she went to her mom and asked if she could go to that mall to browse.
"Of course Mia, but if you have little money don't spend any ok? And if you do have money you should put it in the bank unless there is an absolute demand for it to be spent."
So Serina grabbed her coat and went out the door and walked to the mall. By the time it was dinnertime she had gotten a new coat, shoes, hat, scarf, facial, and a hair cut. Thinking that she would have to have her mom's stew when she went home she thought that she'd go for fast food. While enjoying her hamburger and sprite (the newest drink of the time) she saw some people from school. With her new haircut, wearing her new coat and shoes, she looked hardly recognizable. Still no one talked to her. Feeling better than she had in days she walked home.
As soon as she came in the door her mother gasped at the coat and the shoes and the hair cut and yelled:
"Mia Julia Tzenerky! How dare you spend such money that you don't have!" Looking at the shoes and the coat.
"Settle down mother" Mia said quietly, quite intimidated by the unpleasant greeting, "I did have the money, I found a 10 dollar bill on the ground and with it clipped a note: "spend this well", so you see, I was following the rules and your orders. All of these things were on sale, four and half-dollars apiece, and then I spent the rest on a little dinner. I tried something new for a change."
"Well I am glad you found such a good deal but you should have told me that you would have been as long as you were or I would have had your share of stew a long time ago! And so now, I trust that you are full so I will go eat it!" and she walked off into the kitchen where the smell of stew drifted out as soon as the door was open.
Serina's life then took a definite upturn:
-She got new clothes and had things that were 'in'
-She had gotten back at Elizabeth so bad that she wasn't nagging at her also surprised at her new styles, both hair and clothes
-And Joe had become her first ever-real friend
Mia knew it was too good to be true and it was:
Her audition was less than a month away.
Mia panicked and started practicing every moment that she had, perfecting this passage and tuning up that bar, while going through at least 7 pots of lemon squeezed tea. She had scored her first 'B' because her practice time had taken over her homework time. Mia then hit herself in the head and said to herself: "Mia you will do fine on your audition, you need to balance yourself out!" with that she made herself a schedule and she kept to it. Then one day, right out of the blues Joe came to the door when Mia was practicing and her dad answered the door.
"Is Mia there?" Darien asked but Serena's dad looked at him suspicialy.
"what do you want from my daughter? She's practicing and the last thing she need before her big audition of her life is a boyfriend. Good day!" and slammed the door in his face, rather rude. He then went up to Serena's room and stared at her, she stopped singing.
"What is it father?" Mia asked her father, rather disturbed as her piece had been doing better than it had been in a while.
"A boy!" he glared, "asking for you! What is his name and how long have you known each other?"
"His name is Joe and I have known him for about two and a half weeks, now if you'll please excuse me, I am allowed to have a boyfriend, I'm sixteen and I really need to go on with my practicing." but her father wasn't that easy to shake off.
"I would like to tell you that you cannot have a boyfriend until your much older, but I think, I will let you learn the hard way, as it is from that way do you learn best." and with that he left feeling as though he had defiantly gotten through to his daughter. But Mia knew that she had been raised well enough to know true love when she saw it, and she knew that she was in love with Darien.
The next day at school wasn't as good as the week before. Tom had a little talk with Mia and after Mia apologized about a million times he forgave her after realizing that it was not her fault that her father was so rude.
"He's over protective, he is! He has eyed every person that has ever come into the house with me! But I don't care what he thinks about you, I want to be with you, you're the first person that has ever stood by my side."
Later after school, Elizabeth finally thought of a reasonable prank for the insults that Mia threw at her. She was going to show her that she was not good enough for anybody, especially her brother. She was going to make her think that she was using him to get at her once again. She had been spying on her brother's calls and had stuck a $200 recorder in her brother's pocket that day and he had no idea whatsoever. Not only would she break Serena's heart, but also she would ruin her brother's chance with her. She, Joe, and Mia all had lockers in the same area. Then Elizabeth struck out:
"Jeez, congratulations Serena, you had actually come up to speed with the fation trends and you've found a b.f. Well sorry to disapoint you, but you see, my brother, well let him show us that tape recorder in his pocket," Mia gasped and looked at Joe.
"What are you talking about sissy? There is no tape recorder in my pockets, see?" He turned his pockets inside out, there fell out none other than a tape recorder. Elizabeth who was of course grabbed it quicker than anyone else did. She rewound the tape and pressed play. It was a recording of Elizabeth's voice, playing as Joe's and he/she was saying:
"Oh my gosh, I can't believe I wasted a hole $100 on that worm Serena Tznerky, she's nerdy, and ugly too. She's such a freak, when I came to her house the other day she was yelling in that shrill voice of hers, she calls that singing? She has got to be kidding!" Before Joe could say that it wasn't him that said that, Mia was off running with tears pouring down her cheeks.