Novels by Cecily von Ziegesar: Gossip Girl You Know You ... - Weebly

Dan suddenly felt bad.
Their mother had run off to Prague with some count or prince or
something, and she was basically a kept woman, letting the count
or prince or whatever he was dress her and put her up in hotels all
over Europe. All she did all day was shop, eat, drink, and paint
pictures of flowers. She wrote them letters a few times a year, and
sent them the odd present. Last Christmas she’d sent Jenny a
peasant dress from Germany. It was about ten sizes too small.
It wasn’t a nice thing for their father to say that Jenny reminded him
of their mother. It wasn’t nice at all.
Jenny looked like she was about to cry.
“Lay off, Dad,” Dan said. “We weren’t invited to the party anyway.
So neither of us could go even if we wanted to.”
“See what I mean!” Mr. Humphrey said triumphantly. “Why would
you want to hang out with those snobs anyway?”
Jenny stared glassy-eyed at the dirty kitchen floor.
Dan stood up. “Hurry up and get dressed, Jen,” he said gently. “I’ll
walk you to your bus stop.”
In the six-minute interval between the bell signaling the end of Latin
and the bell signaling the beginning of Gym, Nate slipped into the
computer lab at the St. Jude’s School for Boys. Every Wednesday,
he and Blair had grown accustomed to e-mailing each other a quick
love note (okay, it was Blair’s idea), to help them get over the hump
of the boring school week. Only two more days until the weekend,
when they could spend as much time together as they wanted.
But today Nate wasn’t even thinking of Blair. He wanted to see how
Serena was doing. Last night she had left a message on the
answering machine in his room while he was watching a Yankees
game with his friends. Her voice had sounded lonely and sad and
very far away, even though she lived only a block and a half away
from him. Nate had never heard Serena sound so down. And since
when did Serena van der Woodsen go to bed early?
Nate sat down in front of one of the humming PCs in the lab. He
clicked on the New Mail window and typed a message to Serena’s
old Constance e-mail address. He didn’t know if she would check it
or not, but it was worth a try.
TO: serenavdw@constancebillard.edu FROM:
narchibald@stjudes.edu
Hey. What are you up to? I got your message last night. Sorry I
wasn’t there. I will definitely see you Friday, okay? Love, Nate.
Then he opened up his own e-mail. Surprise, surprise, there was a
note from Blair. They hadn’t talked since her mother’s party the