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lulu-world · 8 months

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LuluWorld, Episode 1: "How Am I Supposed To Be A Writer With This?!"

I’m sorry, what?!

“Passable“?

I just wrote the best possible paper on Pride and Prejudice this school has ever seen and I get a passable?!

How am I supposed to be the most magnificent author in this and all future days and ages if my understanding of one of the key feminist literary works is passable?!

It had to be a mistake. I was staring at the scribbled word in red pen, on the bottom of the page, under my meticulously written conclusion, cursing the day my English teacher, Ms. Austen (the irony!) was born. Who does she think she is, a descendant?

Could she be?

Let me rewind a bit.

I’m Lulu, of Lulu’s World fame. Okay, that fame part might be an exaggeration - I have a book podcast that has about ten regular listeners, and I can name three of them. Jack, Ava and my dad, and even he isn’t that much of a regular. My mom is too busy and my sister “cannot be bothered with childish takes on books of dubious quality”. She’s so annoying.

I learned to read at three.

By age seven, I had read all the fairy tale books I could get my hands on.

By age nine, I had decided.

I’m going to be a writer.

Yes.

And now, weeks before my sixteenth birthday, I am being discarded in the basket of semi-literate high-schoolers who write passable papers on serious literature.

How is passable even an acceptable grade?

“You can wipe the shock off your face, Lulu,” I heard the treacherous voice behind me.

Ms. Austen.

“It’s far from what I’m used to from you,” she said casually. “It’s written well, but you’ve completely missed the point of the novel. Excellent work, Ava,” she added casually.

My best friend did not get passable. On the contrary.

“Isn’t that debatable, though?” I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.

“It is,” my teacher said. “However, you’ve set the bar high with your previous work. You’ll have to do better next time.”

Oh, so it’s my fault I’ve set the bar high. She must have thought it was such a motivating thing to say. Gah, I can’t even be bothered anymore. This is counterproductive to my work. I need my writing brain stable. I need my beauty nerves intact. Not all bookworms need to look like they’ve been dragged through mud, thank you very much, movies from the early 2000s. I just need to snap out of it, because it’s coming.

My birthday is coming and I will finally gather the courage…

To invite him.

Aren’t you just amazed at how you can do everything right, like, you’re smart, you’re doing good in school, you have friends, you have a family you don’t hate (okay, I love them), you have everything planned so well…

And you’re a complete idiot when it comes to the guy you like?

I’m sorry. Not like. Have an epic crush on. A crush of soul-drenching, knee-trembling, cheek-exploding proportions.

And he, given my luck these days - has a girlfriend.

Of course he does.

Like he’s going to wait for me to gather the courage and say a tiny, croaky ‘hi’, at his age of sixteen, in a school full of hot girls, in the presence of a thousand batting eye-lashes? And I’m not even that shy!!!

At lunch, I had my forehead on the table, completely uninterested in the food in front of me, thinking only of how miserable I felt watching him from a distance.

Ava patted my back.

“Just screw him,” she said. “He’s not worth it, someone new will come along.”

I admire her attitude sometimes.

“I don’t want someone new,” I said, staring at my knees. “I want Lucas.”

“Who is she, anyway?” Ava asked, as I had already informed her the second I found out. It was a long, long texting sessions, with me freaking out and her trying to talk me out of freaking out.

“I don’t know. I just saw a story on his Instagram where he’d put his hand around her and plastered a tiny heart emoji somewhere between them. It was horrible.”

“The tragedy,” Ava said.

“I know you’re mocking me.”

“I swear I’m not.”

But Ava wouldn’t understand. She had a boyfriend of two years and her days of quiet romantic suffering were over. Mine on the other hand were threatening to rain on every other aspect of my life.

“What’s the next episode of The World about?” Ava tried to change the subject, in hope of me getting unglued from the table and engaged in productive conversation.

“Well, it was going to be on Pride and Prejudice, but it turns out I completely missed the point, didn’t I?" I snapped. Not at her. At the world.

I spent the rest of the classes sulking and jotting down ideas for short stories. And when I left the building, I could swear I heard a sad blues song as the soundtrack to my pathetic being.

I’m illiterate.

Lucas has a girlfriend.

I have a few hours to think of a completely new concept for the podcast.

I’ll never find love, will I?

Of course, when I got home, my dad immediately had an opinion.

“And what tragedies have the heavens bestowed upon my child, might I ask?” he quipped from behind his laptop. To the uninitiated, this would sound like my dad was a Biblical character, of the most solemn kind.

But it was his way of showing that he’s once more unbothered by my life’s turmoil, in fact - he thought banter would be more appropriate. A comic, my dad. And a horror writer by day.

“Not now, dad,” I dropped my backpack and made my way towards the stairs.

Up in my room, I buried my face in my pillow. I was preparing to treat myself to a thorough cry, it was long overdue. The paper, Lucas, the stupid girlfriend, who wasn’t even that ugly. Who am I kidding, she was gorgeous. One can’t even take a break.

And just as I was about to surrender, I felt my phone vibrate from somewhere under me.

I swear, if it’s dad with another attempt at a joke, I’ll…

But the name on the screen certainly wasn’t Dad.

My jaw dropped and my heart started pounding, threatening to rise up in my throat.

It was him.

And right under the name Lucas, it said:

Hey.

NOW WHAT?!

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