Modern Parody of Pride & Prejudice

ANDY ZHANG JOHN BURROUGHS SCHOOL

Written for my 10th grade English class at John Burroughs, these diary entries sought to convey the life of the eccentric Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice as a teenager in the modern world. She begins her journey at NICDS, a parody of MICDS due to their natural rivalry with Burroughs.

Aug 16

The perfect way to start the tenth-grade year as a new transfer student isn’t to be called ugly by the universally-acknowledged hot guy in the grade, but that’s exactly what happened to me. I wanted my impression on other people to be “Wow, the new girl Lizzy Bonnet is really creative, smart, and fiery!” I didn’t expect it to be more along the lines of “Oh, is that new person the one Darcy roasted?” (Which is something I heard literally someone say when I was walking in the halls after school.) I’ll give you the rundown of what the hell I think happened. This morning was my first day at the fancy “Netherfield Institute Country Day School,” or NICDS (which is ironic because people have already made fun of me for looking like a country girl), and I think I hate it already. My mom wanted me and my sister, Jane, to go because it’s going to provide a “good education” and maybe we’ll “end up marrying one of the rich boys.” As if, they’re probably all pretentious pricks. Anyway, I walk through the obnoxiously massive courtyard to get to the main building, and the whole time my sister keeps repeating about how gorgeous it is, or something, and I’m just rolling my eyes, imagining a timeline where she wouldn’t be able to only say nice things. She eventually turned to walk towards the senior commons and I walked by myself to the sophomore commons. My first class was chemistry, funnily enough, as I had the least amount of chemistry for the child I was going to have the dissatisfaction of meeting: Darcy Barnesitano. This guy is your stereotypical jock highschooler, probably with a GPA failing more than Jane trying to be mean. The teacher started to draw names for lab partners (I’m getting to the roasting part now), and I overhear one of Darcy’s friends saying something like “I wouldn’t mind pairing with that cute new girl,” and Darcy audibly says, for the entire class to hear, “Eh for my standards she’s a 4/10 at best.” Cue my red ears and the class going “Oooh burn!” I did not partner with him, thank God, but I learned that I had FOUR

OTHER CLASSES WITH HIM IN THAT DAY! I pray to keep my sanity by the end of the year.

Aug 23

I don’t think I hate NICDS quite as much as before, but that’s also because I think everyone forgot about the roast. Also on that note, I can’t tell if Darcy hates me or not. He’s been really weird since the first day, and I feel like he should hate me as much as I hate him because I’ve made an effort to say as many witty and sarcastic things as possible about him, but he’s just kind of... oblivious, I guess? Like, in English the other day, we were doing peer-editing for a character analysis essay, and he had written “As you can see, there very prominent features in Macbeth’s character because...” Obviously, he should’ve used ‘they’re,’ right? So I sarcastically say “Wow, 178 IQ use of the word ‘there’ Darcy,” and he just says “Yeah thanks, I spent a pretty long time making sure the grammar is right. I don’t know if the content section is going to do well, though.” I genuinely can’t tell if he’s joking or if he’s just being stupid. I just wish that my sister and literally everyone else would also recognize his bullshit. Also, my sister is dating this rich senior guy named Will Bingley. I’ll update on that situation at some point.

Aug 25

Okay, I finally have someone to help justify how much I hate Darcy, and his name is Hamlet Wick. This guy is the exact definition of the guy I need in my life; he’s attra tive, intelligent, and doesn’t like Darcy. According to Ham, Darcy has always just been an arrogant douchebag ever since middle school, self-entitled and snobby. But more importantly, Ham was supposed to receive a scholarship provided by Darcy’s family, but apparently, Darcy convinced his dad to put the money towards a car for himself. I genuinely thought that Darcy couldn’t get any worse, that’s literally like taking candy from a baby, except the baby is a cute guy. This is all I need to finalize my opinion on him. However, the news just keeps on coming. There’s this trivia night event tomorrow that’s sort of a “get to know your classmates” thing, and out of all people, Darcy asked me to be his partner. I absolutely hate myself for doing this, but I said yes, out of sheer surprise. My friend Charlotte said that it won’t be as bad as I think it’ll be, but it most definitely will. I’m just going to predict that it’s going to be super awkward since he’s still being really weird around me, I’ll update tomorrow.