ROUGH DRAFTS
OF JENNA BUSH'S
YOUNG-ADULT NOVEL.
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Are You There, God? It's Me, Jenna
Are you there, God? It's me, Jenna. We're moving today and I'm so scared. Suppose I hate being the daughter of the leader of the free world? Suppose he does a horrible job with everything he touches and, like, the whole world hates him? Please, God, don't let Daddy's presidency be catastrophic and stuff. Thank you.
We moved to Washington today, in the middle of January. Ugh, it's so cold. I'm afraid Daddy's nipples will totally be showing when he's reciting the State of the Inauguration or whatever it is. Mommy wants me to wear a strapless dress, but then some of Daddy's friends accused me of having a sinful lust for increasing my bust. It's sort of true! I hope I don't get my period during Inaugural Ball. I tried to talk to my Daddy about it, but he said he was never that good at grammar.
The Insiders
"Are you OK, My Little Pony Girl?"
Diet Soda Pop was shaking me and I wished she'd stop, because I'd done at least 12 Jell-O shots at the Wild Stallion on Sixth Street last night and I was hung-over something fierce.
I've been a soc ever since my great-grandfather first wanted to have children that were born into ridiculous wealth and unearned, or undeserved, access to power and influence.
Diet Soda got her breath and started to tell the story.
"Greasers," she said. "The greasers started a rumble. Mary's hurt bad."
I started to remember the time that Mary, Diet Soda, and I were at Camp David and she accidentally started to become a lesbian and we were all worried that meant she was actually a greaser. Then we worried about her dad, and told her that being a lesbian would totally hurt her dad in the Southern and Midwestern states.
"Don't do it. For Cheney," we said.
But it was too late and pretty soon the greasers were constantly chasing us, writing articles, and talking about us on The View. At night, as I tried to lose myself in tortured sleep, I kept hearing the last words Mary ever said to me before she went into hiding.
"Stay the course," she said. "Stay the course, Pony Girl."
Harry Potter and the Wand of Betterness
Harry was the first to awake in the White House that morning. He got up, looked around, and slipped into the Oval Office. It was 9 a.m. on a Tuesday, far too early for anyone else to wake up or for anything important to happen.
He sat down at the president's desk and spun around in the big leather chair. As he spun, he started to worry about all the terrible things that were happening in the world, especially the constant, persistent, never-ceasing risk of bad people hurting good people. He opened the desk drawer, pulled out a wand, and waved it in the air, hoping to
cure all the problems. And it worked. All the problems magically went away. No terrorism, no global warming, no hideous wars with no end.
The president walked in the room and gave him a big hug.
"You figured it out, Harry," the president said with a smile. "I've been waving that wand at the desk for six years. I guess I was just doing it wrong."
"It's easy, Mr. President. I just loosened it up for you."
"Thanks, Harry!"
"It just goes to show you: the best thing to do in any situation is to persist, even in the face of futility and tragedy, for six years if you have to, and then one day someone will come along and make everything better!"
"That's what she said!"
The Fledgling Democracy of the Traveling Pants
Somehow all of the girls and I made our way to Baghdad. It was so hot! We looked at each other and laughed because we were all thinking the same thing.
"It's almost like we don't need pants!" Britt said.
"Especially since it's not a civil war," Heather said.
"And what would traveling pants do for us when things are clearly on the upswing?" Audrey said.
"Wow! What this place could really use is a whole bunch more soldiers who have traveling pants."
"But light ones, because it's hot."
Suddenly, a troop of 21,000 really hot soldiers passed in front of us. Again, we all thought the same thing.
"I'd greet them as liberators!" Julianna giggled.
"Of my traveling pants!" we all said.
We all laughed and looked toward the bright future full of vitality and security.
- - - -
OTHER McSWEENEY'S FEATURES:
- - - -
Rough Drafts of Jenna Bush's Young-Adult Novel By Jeff Barnosky
Letters Home From the Cola Wars: Volume One By Peter Hyman
Jean-Paul Sartre, 911 Operator By Tyler Smith
Black Shoe Diary: The Daily Musings of Shuruku Umezawa: Junior Salesman, Ninja—Installment Two By Eric Feezell
A Football Halftime Pep Talk Given by Someone Who Knows Nothing About Football—Namely, Me By Wendy Molyneux
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