Saving the Moon

by Mette Ivie Harrison

  Anne is sick. Anne will marry Mr. Darcy. Won't Mr. Darcy make her happy, Elizabeth? They will both be miserable together. Very, very miserable. See Elizabeth's fine eyes shine.

  Then Mr. Darcy surprises Elizabeth. I love you, Elizabeth, he says. I don't want to love you, but I do. Marry me, Elizabeth. Marry me because I am rich and handsome and wealthy. You must marry me.

  I won't marry you, says Elizabeth. I don't like you. You are the last man I would ever marry. And you are rude. Very, very rude. You are not a gentleman.

  Is this your answer, says Mr. Darcy. Why won't you marry me? He is very sad. Sad and mad.

  Elizabeth says that Mr. Darcy made her sister sad. And Mr. Wickham sad. He is very bad, says Elizabeth. Very, very bad.

  Mr. Darcy goes away. He goes to his home. Look, Elizabeth. Mr. Darcy is writing. He is writing you a letter. It is a long letter. Read it, Elizabeth.

  Read the letter. Now you are mad. Mad and glad. Mr. Wickham is bad. Elizabeth does not like Mr. Wickham now.

  Look, look, Elizabeth. Mr. Darcy is hot. Now Mr. Darcy is in the water. Swim, Mr. Darcy, swim. Swim in white. Look at Mr. Darcy swimming, Elizabeth. See how hot he is.

  Mr. Darcy drips water on Elizabeth. He is nice to her. Now Elizabeth is glad. And Mr. Darcy is glad. Elizabeth plays the piano for Mr. Darcy. Mr. Darcy stares at Elizabeth's fine eyes. She has fine, fine eyes.

  Bad Mr. Wickham runs away. He runs away with Elizabeth's sister Lydia. Run, Lydia. Run, Wickham. Run all the way to London.

  Elizabeth reads a letter about her sister running away. Now Elizabeth is sad. And Mr. Darcy is sad. Mr. Darcy must help Elizabeth.

  Help her, Mr. Darcy. Save her sister. Save all her sisters. And save her. Help Mr. Wickham and Lydia marry. Help them with money.

  Now Mr. Darcy tells Mr. Bingley he was wrong. He tells Mr. Bingley that Jane loves him. Mr. Bingley loves Jane. He asks Jane to marry him.

  Jane is glad. Elizabeth is glad. Mr. and Mrs. Bennet are glad. But Mr. Darcy is not glad.

  Thank you for helping my sister, Mr. Darcy, says Elizabeth. Thank you. You are not bad. You were never bad. You have made me very glad.

  Tell me if you do not like me, Elizabeth, says Mr. Darcy. Tell me if you feel like you did before. Tell me if you will not marry me. Do not trifle with me. No trifling, Elizabeth. Trifling is bad.

  I am not trifling, says Elizabeth. I would never trifle. I do not feel like I did before. I do like you, I do. I will marry you now. I love you, Mr. Darcy.

  I love you, too, Elizabeth. I love you very much. I will tell your father that I love you, and then he will let us marry. Then we will be glad.

  Look, Mr. Darcy. There is Mr. Bennet. He tells you you can marry Elizabeth. Now you are glad.

  Mr. Bennet talks to Elizabeth. He does not understand. Elizabeth, how can you marry a man Mr. Darcy? Mr. Darcy is bad. You do not love Mr. Darcy.

  But I do love him, says Elizabeth. I do. I love him. He is not bad. He makes me glad. He saved my sister Lydia. He saved my sister Jane. He saved us all. Now he will marry me.

  He will marry you, says Mr. Bennet. Then you will have carriages, Elizabeth. Many fine carriages. And you will be happy.

  Look, here are the happy couples. Kiss Elizabeth, Mr. Darcy. Kiss, kiss. Kiss Jane, Mr. Bingley. Kiss, kiss. You are very glad. All are glad.

  SEVEN RULES FOR FINDING A DEAD BOYFRIEND

  So we met, like, two days ago, and the first thing I thought when I saw him was how hot he was. Dark hair, dark eyes with circles under them, pale skin—almost gray—and these lips that were pouty and kissable.

  He looked like he was dead, you know, and that is so irresistible to me. The smell of death and the whole death thing is so in. I mean, leggings and bangs and short skirts are in, too, but not like having a dead boyfriend. If you can keep a boy who is dead interested in you, that proves you are almost perfect.

  There's a myth or something about having a dead boyfriend, right? You know the one about going into the underworld to bring someone back. That's real love. That's what being with this guy is like. I mean, he's walking around, up here again, living and breathing for me. I'm the only reason he's not moldering in a grave somewhere.

  A girl whose boyfriend commits suicide because she breaks up with him—that is just plain pathetic. But this boy feels like he is carved of stone. When I brush up against him, it makes me shiver. He is so cold he was hot.

  Don't hate me, please. I know you all want to get boyfriends who are dead—or you know, almost dead. And this is my way of, you know, giving back to the world. I'm just going to write all my rules down. If you follow these rules, you will have a boyfriend just like me.

  Rule number one: He can never talk about himself.

  A regular, living guy wants to talk about footballs games and movies and maybe even school or something. You know, real boy stuff. They have hobbies and dreams for the future. Whatever. That's the problem. You have to listen to them yammer on and on and why? Because they're not going to jump in front of a moving train to save you. Even if you're screaming out for them, and you did it just so they could prove their love to you. They won't. Because they're afraid of dying. Who wants that?

  Here’s the test:

  Say something like, “Hey, what's up?” Casual, right?

  If he says, “I'm thinking about this test I have to take—” wrong answer.

  If he says, “I was thinking about my parents who are getting divorced—” Wo, get out of there as fast as you can.

  If he says, “I'm hungry—” No way.

  What you are looking for is something like, “Nothing. I wasn't thinking about anything but you and how much I like you and would like to fall in love with you. You, you, you, that's all that matters to me because you are the most important person on the planet.”

  You see? That's the kind of dead-like guy that is going to follow you around for the rest of your life. He'll be there no matter how badly you treat him, no matter what you say to him. You could be going out with someone else, his worst enemy or whatever, and it won't matter. Because you are everything to him. That's what it's like with someone who doesn't have his own life. And every girl wants that, right?

  Rule number two: He doesn't need sleep.

  You don't want a boyfriend who needs to sleep, believe me. Have you met any living teenage boys lately? They sleep all the time. Or they whine about not doing it. They're tired from studying all night. They're tired because of the game they had to play in, or because they were working til midnight at some fast food job. Boring.

  Also, this is a big, fat clue immediately that this is not a guy who is going to be able to watch you day and night, no matter what you are doing. Every girl wants a guy who will watch her while she is sleeping, to make sure she is safe. And how would that work if he needs sleep?

  So, here’s the test:

  Just watch to see if he ever closes his eyes or makes that snoring noise that boys make when they are almost asleep.

  If you touch his shoulder and he snorts awake, just tell him that you were leaving. If he yawns—sayonara, buster.

  If he has a watch, you might want to be careful. The only reason a boy needs a watch is if he is checking the time to see if he needs to get to bed.

  Another danger sign is brushing his teeth. A guy who never sleeps will never get that nasty bed bad breath, so why would he bother?

  If you have a chance to check his bedroom, that will give you a lot more clues.

  If it looks like the blankets have been sat mostly on top of, but not gotten underneath, that's good.

  Rule number three: He is extremely jealous of any other guys in your life.

  See, if you’re the only reason he’s alive, then he won’t be able to stand the idea that you could enjoy time with other people. Especially other guys who might take you away from him and make you realize that he isn’t the only option. He won’t listen to you telling him that you’re “just friends,” either, because it doesn’t matter. Friends take you away, too
. And besides, he’ll know that there’s really no such thing as “just friends.”

  Here’s the test:

  You want to be in a room of lots of guys, maybe a dance or a party, or possibly just the school hall during the day time. It's really up to you, depending on where you feel most comfortable. It helps if you have a guy who will play along with you, so think of someone who has a crush on you, or maybe a guy you dumped in the past because he wasn't the right one. It could also be a guy who is gay.

  You want to press your body up against this other guy while the guy you are testing is watching. You know, put your lips really close to his and murmur something completely innocuous. You could be talking about a test you have to study for, or maybe asking him to pass the chips.

  You could try to fall down and then get him to fall on top of you. You don't want it to look fake, so you might actually have to fall first. You could get hurt. Love is a dangerous thing, you know? But you need to have a good chance to watch the reaction. A dead boyfriend will be frothing at the mouth—literally. Then he'll come over and hit the guy who has no idea what is going on.

  If he yanks you out of there, extra points. Because true love causes people to get violent. A living boyfriend might just decide you aren't worth it, and he should go look for someone who doesn't make him crazy all the time. But like I said before, a guy who is dead—he has nothing else to fight for except you.

  Rule number four: He isn’t interested in sex.

  This is really important. Regular living boyfriends have these things called hormones. But the ones who are dead, their hormones are gone. So, they don't have needs of their own. All they want to do is kiss you. Mostly that's because they are cold and kissing you keeps them warm. They could get a scarf and hat and some gloves or whatever. But they like girls instead.

  Here’s the test:

  If a guy ever wants to do more than kiss you, that's a clue he's the wrong one. Holding your hand, that's iffy. Could be for warmth. Could be just to be nice. But anything more than kissing, and get away.

  Rule number five: no parents.

  A guy who has a curfew and parents who are always checking up on him is a drag. That should be obvious already. But the tricky thing is the guys who are pretending to be regular, living teenage guys and who have people who are pretending to be their regular parents.

  There are some tricks to discerning the difference. For one thing, real parents are going to answer the telephone sometimes. Real parents will set limits. Real parents will want to meet you. But if he only has fake parents, you can skip all those difficult moments when you are trying to impress them and they are trying to figure you out.

  Rule number six: The guy needs a lot of money.

  You want him to be able to buy you the kinds of gifts that you would never admit to wanting for yourself. A fancy car. A diamond necklace. Eternal life. Stuff like that.

  There is one danger to this money thing, and that is that some living teenage boys will try to act like they are dead by hitting banks or grandma and grandpa. You've got to make sure that this stuff isn't stolen. Not because it's against the law or anything, but because you want to know if it's going to keep on going like this forever. When you're fifty or sixty, you don't want to be visiting him in jail. You want to keep living like this forever. You're going to want plastic surgery and a boob job, maybe a personal trainer and a cook. So, you need the real money.

  The test:

  I'd ask to look at a bank account. Nothing wrong with being honest and up front about this. If he's legitimately living-dead, he will have the money somewhere. He can help you pay for that expensive college you want to go to, even if you don't earn a scholarship.

  Rule number seven: He needs to have super powers.

  This is really, really important. It's one thing for a guy to be strong, to work out and stuff like that. You can see that pretty easily just by asking him to take his shirt off. Or, you know, pouring hot chocolate on him and then begging him to let you clean his shirt and get him another one. I'm sure you can think up other tricks to see a guy's muscles. Not hard stuff. It's been done before and there are lots of books written about that. Ditto on a guy who is going to be a fast runner or swimmer. You just go to a meet or a race and the proof is in the pudding.

  But super powers are harder to see. You know why you want them, obviously. To protect you from the evil super villains who are going to come after you. Why you? Well, because you are just such a good person. They're drawn to you and will want to destroy you. There's nothing you can do about that. In fact, you might want to worry more if there aren't any super villains after you. It means you aren't trying hard enough to be helpless and rescuable, if you know what I mean.

  If the super villains come after you, I mean, right then it's a good chance for you to see his super powers. But you might not want to wait until then, just to be sure. So you could throw yourself off a cliff or something. If he can save you, that would be proof right there. You could drive a car so fast that you almost crash into something. If he's driving with you, it's not going to tell you much. He could just grab the wheel. But if he has to chase after you on foot, then it's the real deal.

  Other ways to test the super power thing include: asking him to change the past, being in the middle of an earthquake or other natural disaster, stopping terrorists (which is a lot more likely these days than it used to be) and climbing up the top of a really high tree with you in his arms. That last one is fun in addition to being helpful. I mean, who wouldn't want to be carried up a tree in someone's arms? It's better than a roller coaster. If you have a heart attack, he can give you mouth to mouth, too.

  So, there they are. All seven rules for finding a dead boyfriend. Good luck. And coming up next week: rules for all those guys out there looking for a werewolf girlfriend. My brother is an expert at this, so I've asked him to write a column for the other half. A werewolf girlfriend is going to rip your throat out and then kiss you. What is hotter than that, right, guys?