Princess' Diaries

Unfortunately, right as I was telling Lilly to shut up, Michael came out, holding an empty cereal bowl and not wearing a shirt.

"Whoa," he said, backing up. I wasn’t sure if he said whoa and backed up because of what I’d said or how I looked.

"What?" Lilly said. "Whatdid you just say to me?"

Now she looked more like a pug thanever.

I totally wanted to back down. But I didn’t, because I knew she was right: Ido have problems being assertive.

So instead I said, "I’m tired of you putting me down all the time. All day long, my mom and dad and grandmother and teachers are telling me what to do. I don’t need myfriends getting on my case, too."

"Whoa," Michael said again. This time I knew it was because of what I said.

"What," Lilly said, her eyes getting all narrow, "is yourproblem?"

I went, "You know what? I don’t have a problem.You’re the one with the problem. You seem to have a big problem with me. Well, you know what? I’m going to solve your problem for you. I’m leaving. I never wanted to help you with your stupid Ho-Gate story anyway. The Hos are nice people. They haven’t done anything wrong. I don’t see why you have to pick on them. And"—I said this as I opened the door—"my hair isnot yellow."

Then I left. I sort of slammed the door behind me, too.

While I was waiting for the elevator, I sort of thought Lilly might come out and apologize to me.

But she didn’t.

I came straight home, took a bath, and got into bed with my remote control and Fat Louie, who’s the only person who likes me the way I am right now. I was thinking Lilly might call to apologize, but so far she hasn’t.

Well, I’m not apologizing until she does.

And you know what? I looked in the mirror a minute ago, and my hair doesn’t look that bad.

Past Midnight, Sunday, October 12

She still hasn’t called.

Sunday, October 12

Oh my God. I am so embarrassed. I wish I could disappear. You will never believe what just happened.

I walked out of my room to get breakfast, and there were my mom and Mr. Gianini sitting at the table eating pancakes!

And Mr. Gianini was wearing a T-shirt and boxer shorts!! My mom was in her kimono!!! When she saw me, she choked on her orange juice. Then she went, "Mia, what are you doing here? I thought you spent the night at Lilly’s."

I wish I had. I wish I had never chosen to be assertive last night. I could have stayed over at the Moscovitzes’ and never had to look at Mr. Gianini in his boxer shorts. I could have lived a full and happy life without ever having seenthat.

Not to mention him seeing me in my bright red flannel nightie.

How am I ever going to go to a review session again?

This is so horrible. I wish I could call Lilly, but I guess we are fighting.

Later on Sunday

Oh, okay. According to my mom, who just came into my room, Mr. Gianini spent the night on the futon couch because a train on the line he normally takes to his apartment in Brooklyn derailed, and it was going to be out of service for hours, so she told him to just stay over.

If I were still friends with Lilly, she would probably say that my mother was lying to compensate for having traumatized my perception of her as a strictly maternal, and therefore nonsexual, being. That’s what Lilly always says when anybody’s mother has a guy over and then lies about it.

I prefer to believe my mom’s lie, though. The only way I will ever pass Algebra is to believe my mother’s lie, because I could never sit there and concentrate on polynomials knowing that the guy in front of me has not only probably stuck his tongue in my mom’s mouth but also probably seen her naked.

Why do all these bad things keep happening to me? I would think it would be time for something good to happen to me for a change.

After my mom came in and lied to me, I got dressed and went out into the kitchen to make breakfast. I had to, because my mom wouldn’t bring me breakfast in my room, like I asked her. Actually, she went, "Who do you think you are, anyway? The princess of Genovia?"

Which I suppose she thinks is hysterically funny, but really it isn’t.

By the time I left my room, Mr. Gianini had gotten dressed, too. He was trying to be all jokey about what had happened, which is the only way you can be about it, I guess.

I wasn’t feeling too jokey at first. But then Mr. G started talking about what it would be like to see certain people from Albert Einstein in their pajamas. Like Principal Gupta. Mr. G thinks Principal Gupta probably wears a football jersey to bed, with her husband’s sweat pants. I kind of started to laugh, thinking about Principal Gupta in sweat pants. I said I bet Mrs. Hill wears a negligee, one of those fancy ones with the feathers and stuff. But Mr. G said he thought Mrs. Hill was more into flannel than feathers. I wonder how Mr. G knows. Did he go out with Mrs. Hill, too? For a boring guy with so many pens in his shirt pocket, he sure gets around.

After breakfast, my mom and Mr. Gianini tried to get me to go to Central Park with them, because it was all nice outside and everything, but I said I had too much homework, which wasn’t too big of a lie. Ido have homework—Mr. G should know—but not that much. I just didn’t really want to be hanging around with a couple. It’s like when Shameeka started going with Aaron Ben-Simon in the seventh grade, and she wanted us to go with her to the movies with him and stuff because her dad wouldn’t let her go anywhere with a guy alone (even a totally harmless guy like Aaron Ben-Simon, whose neck was as thick as my upper arm), but when we went with her she sort of ignored us, which I guess is the point. Only for the two weeks they went out, you sort of couldn’t talk to Shameeka, because all she could talk about was Aaron.

Not that all my mom can talk about is Mr. Gianini. She’s not like that at all. But I had a feeling if I went to Central Park I might have to see kissing. Not that there’s anything wrong with kissing, like on TV. When it’s your mom and your Algebra teacher, though . . .

You know what I mean, right?

REASONS I SHOULD MAKE UP WITH LILLY

1. We’ve been best friends since kindergarten. 2. One of us has to be the bigger person and make the first move. 3. She makes me laugh. 4. Who else can I eat lunch with? 5. I miss her.

REASONS I SHOULD NOT MAKE UP WITH LILLY

1. She’s always telling me what to do. 2. She thinks she knows everything. 3. Lilly is the one who started it, so she should be the one to apologize. 4. I will never achieve self-actualization if I always back down from my convictions. 5. What if I apologize and she STILL won’t talk to me????

Even Later on Sunday

I just turned on my computer to look up some stuff about Afghanistan on the Internet (I have to write a paper for World Civ on a current event), and then I saw that someone was instant messaging me. I hardly ever get instant messages, so I was totally excited.

But then I saw who it was from: CracKing.

Michael Moscovitz? What couldhe want?

Here’s what he wrote:

CRACKING:HEY, THERMOPOLIS. WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU LAST NIGHT? IT’S LIKE YOU WENT MENTAL, OR SOMETHING.

Me? Mental???

FTLOUIE:FOR YOUR INFORMATION, I DID NOT GO MENTAL. I JUST GOT TIRED OF YOUR SISTER ALWAYS TELLING ME WHAT TO DO. NOT THAT IT’S ANY OF YOUR BUSINESS.

CRACKING:WHAT ARE YOU BEING SO SNOTTY ABOUT? OF COURSE IT’S MY BUSINESS. I HAVE TO LIVE WITH HER, DON’T I?

FTLOUIE:WHY? IS SHE TALKING ABOUT ME?

CRACKING:YOU COULD SAY THAT.

I can’t believe she’s been talking about me. And you know she can’t have been saying anything good.

FTLOUIE:WHAT’S SHE SAYING?

CRACKING:I THOUGHT IT WASN’T ANY OF MY BUSINESS.

I’m so glad I don’t have a brother.

FTLOUIE:IT ISN’T. WHAT’S SHE SAYING ABOUT ME?

CRACKING:THAT SHE DOESN’T KNOW WHAT’S WITH YOU THESE DAYS, BUT EVER SINCE YOUR DAD CAME TO VISIT YOU’VE BEEN ACTING LIKE A HEAD CASE.

FTLOUIE:ME? A HEAD CASE? WHAT ABOUT HER? SHE’S THE ONE WHO’S ALWAYS CRITICIZING ME. I’M SO SICK OF IT!! IF SHE WANTS TO BE MY FRIEND, WHY CAN’T SHE JUST ACCEPT ME THE WAY I AM???

CRACKING:NO NEED TO YELL.

FTLOUIE:I’M NOT YELLING!!!

CRACKING:YOU’RE USING EXCESSIVE AMOUNTS OF PUNCTUATION, AND ON-LINE, THAT’S LIKE YELLING. BESIDES, SHE’S NOT THE ONLY ONE CRITICIZING. SHE SAYS YOU WON’T SUPPORT HER BOYCOTT OF HO’S DELI.

FTLOUIE:WELL, SHE’S RIGHT. I WON’T. IT’S STUPID. DON’T YOU THINK IT’S STUPID?

CRACKING:SURE IT’S STUPID. ARE YOU STILL FLUNKING ALGEBRA?

Thatwas out of the blue.

FTLOUIE:I GUESS SO. BUT CONSIDERING THE FACT THAT MR. G SLEPT OVER LAST NIGHT, I’LL PROBABLY SCRAPE BY WITH A D. WHY?

CRACKING:WHAT? MR. G SLEPT OVER? AT YOUR PLACE? WHAT WAS THAT LIKE?

Now, why did I tell him that? It’ll be all over school by tomorrow morning. Maybe Mr. G will get fired! I don’t know if teachers are allowed to date their pupils’ mothers. Why did I tell Michael that?

FTLOUIE:IT WAS PRETTY AWFUL. BUT THEN HE KIND OF JOKED AROUND, AND MADE IT OKAY. I DON’T KNOW. I SHOULD PROBABLY BE MORE MAD, BUT MY MOM’S SO HAPPY, IT’S HARD.

CRACKING:YOUR MOM COULD DO A LOT WORSE THAN MR. G. IMAGINE IF SHE WAS GOING OUT WITH MR. STUART.

Mr. Stuart teaches Health. He thinks he’s God’s gift to women. I haven’t had him yet, since you don’t have Health until sophomore year, but even I know that you should never go near Mr. Stuart’s desk, because if you do, he’ll reach out and rub your shoulders like he’s giving you a massage, but everybody says he’s really just trying to see whether or not you’re wearing a bra.

If my mom ever went out with Mr. Stuart, I would move to Afghanistan.

FTLOUIE:HA HA HA. WHY’D YOU WANT TO KNOW WHETHER OR NOT I’M FLUNKING ALGEBRA?

CRACKING:OH, BECAUSE I’M DONE WITH THIS MONTH’S ISSUE OF CRACKHEAD, AND I THOUGHT IF YOU WANTED, I COULD TUTOR YOU DURING G & T. IF YOU WANTED.

Michael Moscovitz, offering to do something for me? I couldn’t believe it. I nearly fell off my computer chair.

FTLOUIE:WOW, THAT WOULD BE GREAT! THANKS!

CRACKING:DON’T MENTION IT. HANG IN THERE, THERMOPOLIS.

Then he signed off.

Can you believe it? Wasn’t that nice? I wonder what’s got into him.

I should definitely fight with Lilly more often.

Even Later on Sunday

Just when I thought things might be looking very slightly up, my dad called. He said he was sending Lars over to pick me up so me and him and Grandmère could have dinner together at the Plaza.

Notice the invitation didn’t include Mom.

But I guess that’s okay, since Mom didn’t want to go anyway. When I told her I was going she got really cheerful, in fact.

"Oh, that’s okay," she said. "I’ll just stay here and order in some Thai food and watchSixty Minutes."

She’s been really cheerful ever since she got back from Central Park. She says she and Mr. G went on one of those dorky carriage rides. I was shocked. Those carriage drivers don’t take care of their horses at all. There’s always some ancient carriage horse keeling over from lack of water. I had always vowed never to ride in one of those carriages. At least not until they start giving those horses some rights, and I always thought my mom agreed with me.

Love can do strange things to people.

The Plaza wasn’t that bad this time. I guess I’m getting used to it. The doormen know who I am now—or at least they know who Lars is—so they don’t give me a hard time anymore. Grandmère and my dad were both in kind of bad moods. I don’t know why. I guess they’re not getting paid to spend time with each other, like I kind of am.

Dinner wasso boring. Grandmère went on and on about which fork to use with what and why. There were all these courses, and most of them were meat. One was fish, though, so I ate that, plus dessert, which was a big fancy tower of chocolate. Grandmère tried to tell me that when I am representing Genovia at state functions I have to eat whatever is put down in front of me or I will insult my hosts and possibly create an international incident. But I told her I would have my staff explain to my hosts ahead of time that I don’t eat meat, so not to serve me any.

Grandmère looked kind of mad. I guess it never occurred to her that I might have watched that made-for-TV movie about Princess Diana. I know all about how to get out of eating stuff at state dinners, and also about barfing up what you did eat afterwards (only I would never do that).

All through dinner, Dad kept asking me these weird questions about Mom. Like was I uncomfortable about her relationship with Mr. Gianini, and did I want him to say something to her. I think he was trying to get me to tell him whether or not I thought it was serious between the two of them—Mr. G and my mom, I mean.

Well, I know it’s pretty serious if he’s spending the night. My mom only lets guys she really, really likes spend the night. So far, including Mr. G, that’s only been three guys in the past fourteen years: Wolfgang, who turned out to be gay; this guy Tim, who turned out to be a Republican; and now my Algebra teacher. That’s not so many, really. It’s only like one guy every four years.

Or something like that.

But of course I couldn’t tell my dad that Mr. G had spent the night, or I know he’d have had an embolism. He is such a chauvinist—he has girlfriends stay over at Miragnac every summer, sometimes a new one every two weeks!—but he expects Mom to stay pure as the driven snow.

If Lilly were still speaking to me, I know she’d say men are such hypocrites.

A part of me wanted to tell my dad about Mr. G, just so he’d stop being so smug. But I didn’t want to give my grandmother any more ammunition against my mom—Grandmère says my mom is "flighty"—so I just pretended like I didn’t know anything about it.

Grandmère says we’re going to work on my vocabulary tomorrow. She says my French is atrocious but my English is even worse. She says if she ever hears me say "Whatever"again, she’s going to wash my mouth out with soap.

I said, "Whatever, Grandmère," and she shot me this way dirty look. I wasn’t trying to be smart-alecky, though. I really forgot.

To date, I’ve made $200 for Greenpeace. I’m probably going to go down in history as the girl who saved all the whales.

When I got home, I noticed there weretwo empty containers of pad Thai in the trash. Alsotwo sets of plastic chopsticks andtwo bottles of Heineken in the recycling bin. I asked my mom if she’d had Mr. G over for dinner—my God, she’d spent the whole day with him already!—and she said, "Oh, no, honey. I was just really hungry."

That’s two lies she’s told me in one day. This thing with Mr. G must be pretty serious.

Lilly still hasn’t called. I’m starting to think maybeI should callher. But what would I say?I didn’t do anything. I mean, I know I told her to shut up, but that was only because she told me I was turning into Lana Weinberger. I had every right to tell her to shut up.

Or did I? Maybe nobody has a right to tell anybody to shut up. Maybe this is how wars get started, because someone tells someone else to shut up, and then no one will apologize.

If this keeps up, who am I going to eat lunch with tomorrow?

Monday, October 13, Algebra

When Lars pulled up in front of Lilly’s building to pick her up for school, her doorman said she’d already left. Talk about holding a grudge.

This is the longest fight we’ve ever had.

When I walked into school, the first thing somebody did was shove a petition in my face.

Boycott Ho’s Deli!

Sign below and take a stand against racism!

I said I wouldn’t sign it, and Boris, who was the person holding it, told me I was ungrateful, and that in the country he came from voices raised in protest had been crushed for years by the government, and that I should feel lucky I lived in a place where I could sign a petition and not live in fear that the secret police would come after me.

I told Boris that in America we don’t tuck our sweaters into our pants.

One thing you have to say for Lilly: She acts fast. The whole school is plastered with Boycott Ho’s Deli posters.

The other thing you have to say about Lilly: When she’s mad, she stays mad. She is totally not speaking to me.

I wish Mr. G would get off my case. Whocares about integers, anyway?

Operations on Real Numbers: negatives or opposites—numbers on opposite sides of the zero but the same distance from zero on the number line are called negatives or opposites

What to Do During Algebra

O what to do during Algebra! The possibilities are limitless: There’s drawing, and yawning, and portable chess. There’s dozing, and dreaming, and feeling confused. There’s humming, and strumming, and looking bemused. You can stare at the clock. You can hum a little song. I’ve tried just about everything to pass the time along.

BUT NOTHING WORKS!!!!!

Later on Monday, French

So even if Lilly and I weren’t in a fight, I wouldn’t have been able to sit with her at lunch today. She’s become the queen of the cause célèbre. All these people were clustered around the table where she and I and Shameeka and Ling Su normally eat our dumplings from Big Wong.Boris Pelkowski was sitting where I usually sit.

Lilly must be in heaven. She’s always wanted to be worshiped by a musical genius.

So I was standing there like a total idiot with my stupid tray of stupid salad, which was the only vegetarian entree today, since they ran out of cans of Sterno for the bean and grain bar, and I was like, Who amI going to sit by? There are only about ten tables in our caf, since we have rotating lunch shifts: There’s the table where I sit with Lilly, and then the jock table, the cheerleader table, the rich kid table, the hip-hop table, the druggie table, the drama freak table, the National Honor Society table, the foreign exchange students table, and the table where Tina Hakim Baba sits every day with her bodyguard.

I couldn’t sit with the jocks or the cheerleaders, because I’m not either. I couldn’t sit at the rich kids’ table because I don’t have a cell phone or a broker. I’m not into hip-hopping or drugs, I didn’t get a part in the latest play, and with my F in Algebra the chance of my getting into the National Honor Society is like nil, and I can’t understand anything the foreign exchange students say since there are no French ones.

I looked at Tina Hakim Baba. She had a salad in front of her, just like me. Only Tina eats salad because she has a weight problem, not because she’s a vegetarian. She was reading a romance novel. It had a photograph on the front of a teenage boy with his arms around a teenage girl. The teenage girl had long blond hair and pretty big breasts for someone with such thin thighs. She looked exactly the way I know my grandmother wants me to look.

I walked over and put my tray down in front of Tina Hakim Baba’s.

"Can I sit here?" I asked.

Tina looked up from her book. She had an expression of total shock on her face. She looked at me, and then she looked at her bodyguard. He was a tall, dark-skinned man in a black suit. He had on sunglasses even though we were inside. I think Lars could probably have taken him, if it had come down to a fight between the two of them.

When Tina looked at her bodyguard, he looked at me—at least I think he did; it was hard to tell with those sunglasses—and nodded.

Tina smiled really big at me. "Please," she said, laying down her book. "Sit with me."

I sat down. I felt kind of bad, seeing Tina smile like that. Like maybe I should have asked to sit down with her before. But I used to think she was such a freak because she rode to school in a limo and had a bodyguard.

I don’t think she’s as much of a freak now.

Tina and I ate our salads and talked about how much school food sucks. She told me about her diet. Her mother put her on it. She wants to lose twenty pounds by the Cultural Diversity Dance. But the Cultural Diversity Dance is this Saturday, so I don’t know how that’s going to work out for her. I asked Tina if she had a date for the Cultural Diversity Dance or something, and she got all giggly and said yes she did. She’s going with a guy from Trinity, which is another private school in Manhattan. The guy’s name is Dave Farouq El-Abar.

Hello? It isn’t fair. Even Tina Hakim Baba, whose father doesn’t allow her to walk two blocks to school, has been asked out by someone.

Well, she’s got breasts, so I guess that’s why.

Tina is pretty nice. When she got up to go to the jet line to get another diet soda—the bodyguard went with her; God, if Lars ever started shadowing me like that, I’d kill myself—I read the back of her book. The book was calledI Think My Name Is Amanda, and it was about a girl who woke up from a coma and couldn’t remember who she was. This really cute boy comes to visit her in the hospital and tells her that her name is Amanda and that he’s her boyfriend. She spends the rest of the book trying to figure out whether or not he’s lying.

I am so sure! If some cute boy wants to tell you that he’s your boyfriend, why wouldn’t you justlet him? Some girls don’t know when they’ve got it made.

While I was reading the back of the book, this shadow fell over it, and I looked up and there was Lana Weinberger. It must have been a game day, because she had on her cheerleader uniform, a green-and-white pleated miniskirt and a tight white sweater with a giantA across the front of it. I think she stuffs her pom-poms down her bra when she isn’t using them. Otherwise, I don’t see how her chest could stick out so much.

"Nice hair, Amelia," she said in her snotty voice. "Who are you supposed to be? Tank Girl?"

I looked past her. Josh Richter was standing there with some of his dumb jock friends. They weren’t paying any attention to me and Lana. They were talking about a party they’d been to over the weekend. They were all "wrecked" from having consumed too much beer.

I wonder if their coach knows.

"What do you call this color, anyway?" Lana wanted to know. She touched the top of my head. "Pus yellow?"

Tina Hakim Baba and her bodyguard came back while Lana was standing there tormenting me. In addition to her diet soda, Tina had purchased a Nutty Royale ice cream cone, which she gave to me. I thought this was very nice of her, considering the fact that I’d hardly ever spoken to her before.

But Lana didn’t see the niceness of this gesture. Instead she asked, all innocently, "Oh, Tina, did you buy that ice cream for Amelia here? Did your daddy give you an extra hundred dollars today so you could buy yourself a new friend?"

Tina’s dark eyes filled up with hurt. The bodyguard saw this and opened his mouth.

Then a strange thing happened. I was sitting there, looking at the tears welling up in Tina Hakim Baba’s eyes, and then the next thing I knew, I’d taken my Nutty Royale and thrust it with all my might at the front of Lana’s sweater.

Lana looked down at the vanilla ice cream, hard chocolate shell, and peanuts that were sticking to her chest. Josh Richter and the other jocks stopped talking and looked at Lana’s chest, too. The noise level in the cafeteria plummeted to the quietest I’ve heard it.Everyone was looking at the ice cream cone sticking to Lana’s chest. It was so quiet I could hear Boris breathing through the wires of his bionater.

Then Lana started to scream.

"You—you—" I guess she couldn’t think of a word bad enough to call me. "You—you . . . Look what you’ve done! Look what you’ve done to my sweater!"

I stood up and grabbed my tray. "Come on, Tina," I said. "Let’s go somewhere a little bit quieter."

Tina, her big brown eyes on the sugar cone sticking out of the middle of theA on Lana’s chest, picked up her tray and followed me. The bodyguard followed Tina. I could swear he was laughing.

As Tina and I walked past the table where Lilly and I usually sat, I saw Lilly staring at me with her mouth open. She had obviously seen the whole thing.

Well, I guess she’s going to have change her diagnosis: I amnot unassertive. Not when I don’t want to be.

I’m not sure, but as Tina and her bodyguard and I left, I thought I heard some applause coming from the geek table.

I think self-actualization might be right around the corner.

Later on Monday

Oh my God. I am in so much trouble. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before!

I am sitting in the principal’s office!

That’s right. I got sent to the principal’s office for stabbing Lana Weinberger with a Nutty Royale!

I should have known she’d tell on me. She is such a big whiner.

I’m kind of scared. I’ve never disobeyed a student rule before. I’ve always been a really good kid. When the student worker came to our G & T class with the pink hall pass, I never thought for a minute it might be for me. I was sitting there with Michael Moscovitz. He was showing me that the way I subtract is all wrong. He says my main problem is that I don’t write my numbers neat enough when borrowing. Also that I don’t keep track of my notes, and scribble them in whatever notebook I happen to have handy. He says I should keep all my Algebra notes in one notebook.

Also, he says I seem to have trouble concentrating.

But the reason I couldn’t concentrate was that I had never sat so close to a boy before! I mean, I realize it was only Michael Moscovitz, and that I see him all the time, and he’d never like me anyway because I’m a freshman and he’s a senior, and I’m his little sister’s best friend and all—at least, I used to be.

But he’s still a boy, acute boy, even if heis Lilly’s brother. It was really hard to pay attention to subtraction when I could smell this really nice clean boy smell coming from him. Plus every once in a while he would put his hand over mine and take my pencil away and go, "No, likethis, Mia."

Of course, I was also having trouble concentrating because I kept feeling like Lilly was looking at us. She wasn’t, of course. Now that she’s fighting the evil forces of racism in our neighborhood, she doesn’t have time for the little people like me. She was sitting at this big table with all of her supporters, plotting their next move in the Ho Offensive. She even let Boris come out of the supply closet to help.

May I point out that he was all over her? How she can stand having his spindly little violin-stroking arm around the back of her chair, I can’t imagine. And hestill hasn’t untucked his sweater.

So I really shouldn’t have worried that anybody was going to notice me and Michael. I mean, he certainly didn’t have his arm around the back ofmy chair. Although once, under the table, his knee touched my knee. I nearly died at the niceness of it all.

Then that stupid hall pass arrived withmy name on it.

I wonder if I’m going to get expelled. Maybe if I get expelled I could go to a different school, where nobody knows that my hair used to be a different color and that these fingernails aren’t really real. That might be kind of nice.

FROM NOW ON I WILL

1. Think before I act. 2. Try to be gracious, no matter how much I am provoked to behave otherwise. 3. Tell the truth, except when doing so would hurt someone’s feelings. 4. Stay as far away as possible from Lana Weinberger.

Uh-oh. Principal Gupta is ready to see me now.

Monday Night

Well, I don’t know what I’m going to do now. I have detention for a week,plus math review with Mr. G,plus princess lessons with Grandmère.

I didn’t get home until nine o’clock tonight. Something hasgot to give.

My father is furious. He says he is going to sue the school. He says no one can give his daughter detention for defending the weak. I told him that Principal Gupta can. She can do anything. She’s the principal.

I can’t say I really blame her. I mean, it wasn’t like I said I was sorry or anything. Principal Gupta is a nice lady, but what could she do? I admitted I had done it. She told me I’d have to apologize to Lana and pay to have her sweater cleaned. I said I’d pay for the sweater but that I wouldn’t apologize. Principal Gupta looked at me over the rims of her bifocals and went, "I beg your pardon, Mia?"

I repeated that I wouldn’t apologize. My heart was beating like crazy. I didn’t want to make anybody mad, especially Principal Gupta, who can be very scary when she wants to. I tried to picture her in her husband’s sweat pants, but it didn’t work. She still scared me.

But I won’t apologize to Lana. I won’t.

Principal Gupta didn’t look mad, though. She looked concerned. I guess that’s how educators are supposed to look. You know. Concerned about you. She went, "Mia, I must say, when Lana came in here with her complaint, I was extremely surprised. It’s usually Lilly Moscovitz I have to pull in here. I never expected I was going to have to pullyou in. Not for disciplinary reasons. Academic reasons, maybe. I understand you aren’t doing very well in Algebra. But I’ve never known you to be a discipline problem before. I really feel I must ask you, Mia . . . is everything all right?"

For a minute I just stared at her.

Is everything all right?Is everything all right?

Hmm, hold on a minute, let me see . . . my mom is going out with my Algebra teacher, a subject I’m flunking, by the way; my best friend hates me; I’m fourteen years old and I’ve never been asked out; I don’t have any breasts; and oh, I just found out I’m the princess of Genovia.

"Oh, sure," I said to Principal Gupta. "Everything is fine."

"Are you certain, Mia? Because I can’t help wondering if this isn’t all rooted in some problems you might be having . . . maybe at home?"

Who did she think I was, anyway? LanaWhine berger? Like I was really going to sit there and tell her my problems. Yeah, Principal Gupta. On top of all that other stuff, my grandmother is in town, and my dad is paying $100 a day for me to get lessons from her in how to be a princess. Oh, and this weekend, I ran into Mr. Gianini in my kitchen, and all he was wearing was a pair of boxer shorts. Anything else you want to know?

"Mia," Principal Gupta said, "I want you to know that you are a very special person. You have many wonderful qualities. There is no reason for you to feel threatened by Lana Weinberger. None at all."

Oh, okay. Just because she’s the prettiest, most popular girl in my class, and she’s going out with the handsomest, most popular boy in school, you’re right, Principal Gupta. There’s no reason at all to feel threatened by her. Especially since she puts me down every chance she gets and tries to humiliate me in public. Threatened?Me? Nah.

"You know, Mia," Principal Gupta said, "I bet if you took the time to get to know Lana you’d find that she’s really a very nice girl. A girl just like you."

Right. Just like me.

I was so upset, I actually told Grandmère all about it at our vocabulary lesson. She was surprisingly sympathetic.

"When I was a girl your age," Grandmère said, "there was a girl just like this Lana at my school. Her name was Genevieve. She sat behind me in Geography. Genevieve would take the end of my braid and dip it in her inkwell, so that when I stood up I got ink all over my dress. But the teacher would never believe me that Genevieve did it on purpose."

"Really?" I was kind of impressed. That Genevieve had some guts. I never met anyone who’d try to dis my grandmother. "What did you do?"

Grandmère let out this evil laugh. "Oh, nothing."

There is no way she didnothing to Genevieve. Not with a laugh like that. But no matter how hard I pestered her, Grandmère wouldn’t tell me what she did to get back at Genevieve. I’m kind of thinking maybe she killed her.

Well? It could happen.

But I guess I shouldn’t have pestered Grandmère so hard, because to shut me up she gave me a quiz! I’m not kidding!

It was really hard, too. I’ve stapled it in here, since I got a 98. Grandmère says I’ve really come a long way since we started.

Grandmère’s Test

In a restaurant, what does one do with one’s napkin when one rises to go to the powder room?

If it’s a four-star restaurant, hand it to the waiter who rushes over to help you with your chair. If it’s a normal place, and no waiter rushes over, leave your napkin on your empty chair.

Under what circumstances is it acceptable to apply lipstick in public?

Never.

What are the characteristics of capitalism?

Private ownership of the means of production and distribution, and the exchange of goods based on the operations of the market.

What is the appropriate reply to make to a man who says he loves you?

Thank you. You are very kind.

What did Marx consider to be the contradiction in capitalism?

The value of any commodity is determined by the amount of labor needed to produce it. In denying workers the value of what they have produced, the capitalists are undermining their own economic system.

White shoes are unacceptable . . . .

At funerals, after Labor Day, before Memorial Day, and anywhere there might be horses.

Describe an oligarchy.

Small group exercises control for generally corrupt purposes.

Describe a Sidecar.

1/3 lemon juice, 1/3 Cointreau, 1/3 brandy shaken well with ice, strained before serving.

The only one I missed was the one about what to say to a man when he tells you he loves you. It turns out you aren’t supposed to say thank you.

Not, of course, that this will ever happen to me. But Grandmère says I might be surprised someday.

I wish!

Tuesday, October 14, Homeroom

No Lilly again this morning. Not that I expected there to be. But I made Lars stop at her place anyway, just in case maybe she wanted to be friends again. I mean, she could have seen how assertive I was with Lana and decided she was wrong to criticize me so much.

But I guess not.

The funny thing is, when Lars was dropping me off at school, Tina Hakim Baba’s chauffeur was dropping her off, too. We sort of smiled at each other, then walked into school together, her bodyguard behind us. Tina said she wanted to thank me for what I had done yesterday. She said she told her parents about it, and that they want me to come over for dinner Friday night.

"And maybe," Tina asked, all shyly, "you could spend the night after, if you wanted."

I said, "Okay." I mostly said it because I feel sorry for Tina, since she doesn’t have any other friends, because everybody thinks she’s so weird, with the bodyguard and all. I also said it because I heard she has a fountain in her house, just like Donald Trump, and I wanted to see if that was true.

And I kind of like her, too. She’snice to me.

It’s nice to have somebody be nice to you.

I HAVEGOT TO

1. Stop waiting for the phone to ring (Lilly is NOT going to call; neither is Josh Richter) 2. Make more friends 3. Have more self-confidence 4. Stop biting my fake fingernails 5. Start acting more: A. Responsible B. Adult C. Mature 6. Be happier 7. Achieve self-actualization 8. Buy:

trash bags

napkins

conditioner

tuna

toilet paper!!!!

More Tuesday, Algebra

Oh my God. I can’t even believe this. But it must be true, since Shameeka just told me.

Lillyhas a date to the Cultural Diversity Dance this weekend.

Lillyhas a date. EvenLilly has a date. I thought all the boys in our school were terrified of Lilly.

But there’s one boy who’s not:

Boris Pelkowski.

AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

More Tuesday, English

No boy will ever ask me out. Ever. EVERYONE has a date to the Cultural Diversity Dance: Shameeka, Lilly, Ling Su, Tina Hakim Baba. I’m the only one not going. The ONLY ONE.

Why was I born under such an unlucky star? Why didI have to be cursed with such freakishness? Why? WHY???

I would give anything if, instead of being a five-foot-nine flat-chested princess, I could be a five-foot-six normal person with breasts.

ANYTHING.

Satire—employs humor systematically for the purpose of persuasion

Irony—counter to expectation

Parody—close imitation that exaggerates ridiculous or objectionable features

More Tuesday, French

Today in G & T, in between showing me how to carry over, Michael Moscovitz complimented me on my handling of what he called the Weinberger Incident. I was surprised he’d heard about it. He said it was all over school, about how I’d decimated Lana in front of Josh. He said, "Your locker is right next to Josh’s, isn’t it?"

I said yes it was.

He said, "That must be awkward," but I told him actually it wasn’t, since Lana seems to be avoiding that area lately, and Josh never talks to me at all, except to say, "Can I get by here?" once in a while.

I asked him if Lilly was still saying mean things about me, and he said, all taken aback, "She’s never said mean things about you. She just doesn’t understand why you blew up at her like that."

I said, "Michael, she’s always putting me down! I just couldn’t take it anymore. I have too many other problems without having friends who aren’t supportive of me."

He laughed. "What kind of problems couldyou have?"

Like I was too much of a kid or something to have problems!

Boy, did I straighten him out. I couldn’t exactly tell him about being the princess of Genovia, or about not having any breasts or anything, but I did remind him that I’m flunking Algebra, I have detention for a week, and I had recently woken up to find Mr. Gianini in his boxer shorts eating breakfast with my mom.

He said he guessed I did have some problems after all.

The whole time Michael and I were talking, I saw Lilly shooting us these looks from behind the poster board she was writing Ho-Gate slogans on with a big black Magic Marker. So I guess because I’m fighting with her I’m not allowed to be friends with her brother.

Or maybe she’s just sore because her boycott of Ho’s Deli is creating serious turmoil within the school. First of all, all the Asian kids have started doing their shopping exclusively at Ho’s. And why not? Because of Lilly’s campaign, now they know they can get a five-cent discount on just about anything. The other problem is that there is no other deli within walking distance. This has caused some serious division within the ranks of the protesters. The nonsmokers want to continue the boycott, but the smokers are all for writing the Hos a stern letter and then forgetting about it. And since all the popular kids in school smoke, they aren’t honoring the boycott at all. They’re going to Ho’s just like they always did to get their Camel Lights.

When you can’t get the popular kids on your side, you have to realize it’s hopeless: Without celebrity supporters, no cause stands a chance. I mean, where would all those starving kids be without Sally Struthers?

Anyway, then Michael asked me a strange question. He went, "So, are you grounded?"

I looked at him kind of funny. "You mean for getting detention? No, of course not. My mom is totally on my side. My dad wants to sue the school."

Michael said, "Oh. Well, I was wondering because, if you aren’t busy Saturday, I thought maybe we could—"

But then Mrs. Hill came in and made us all fill out questionnaires for the Ph.D. she’s doing on urban youth violence, even though Lilly complained that we’re hardly qualified to comment, seeing as how the only youth violence any of us had ever experienced was when there was a sale on relaxed fit jeans at the Gap on Madison Avenue.

Then the bell rang, and I ran out as fast as I could. I knew what Michael was going to ask me, see. He was going to suggest we meet to go over my long division, which he says is a human tragedy. And I just didn’t think I could take it. Math? On the weekend? After spending almost every waking moment on it all week?

No, thank you.

But I didn’t want to be rude, so I left before he could ask me. Was that terrible of me?

Really, a girl can only take so much criticism on her remainders.

mamontes

tatontes

sasonses

notrenotrenos

votrevotrevos

leurleurleurs

HOMEWORK

Algebra: pg. 121, 1–57 odd only English: ??? Ask Shameeka World Civ: questions at end of Chapter 9 G & T: none French:pour demain, une vignette culturelle Biology: none

Tuesday Night

Grandmère says Tina Hakim Baba sounds like a much better friend for me than Lilly Moscovitz. But I think she is only saying that because Lilly’s parents are psychoanalysts, and it turns out Tina’s dad is this Arabian sheikh and her mom is related to the king of Sweden, so they are more appropriate for the heir to the throne of Genovia to hang out with.

The Hakim Babas are also superrich, according to my grandmother. They own about a gazillion oil wells. Grandmère told me when I go have dinner with them on Friday night, I have to bring a gift and wear my Gucci loafers. I asked Grandmère what kind of gift, and she said breakfast. She’s special-ordering it from Balducci’s and having it delivered Saturday morning.

Being a princess is hard work.

I just remembered: At lunch today Tina had a new book with her. It had a cover just like the last one, only this time the heroine was a brunette. This one was calledMy Secret Love, and it was about a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who falls in love with a rich boy who never notices her. Then the girl’s uncle kidnaps the boy and holds him for ransom, and she has to bathe his wounds and help him to escape and stuff, and of course he falls madly in love with her. Tina said she already read the end, and the girl gets to go and live with the rich boy’s parents after her uncle goes to jail and can no longer support her.

How come things like that don’t ever happen tome?

Wednesday, October 15, Homeroom

No Lilly again today. Lars suggested we’d make better time if we just drove straight to school and didn’t stop by her place every day. I guess he’s right.

It was really weird when we pulled up to Albert Einstein. All the people who normally hang around outside before school starts, smoking and sitting on Joe, the stone lion, were all clustered into these groups looking at something. I suppose somebody’s dad has been accused of money laundering again. Parents can be so self-centered: Before they do something illegal, they should totally stop and think about how their kids are going to feel if they get caught.

If I were Chelsea Clinton, I would change my name and move to Iceland.

I just walked right on by to show I wasn’t going to have any part in gossip. A bunch of people stared at me. I guess Michael’s right: It reallyhas gotten around, about me stabbing Lana with that Nutty Royale. Either that or my hair was sticking up in some weird way. But I checked in the mirror in the girls’ room and it wasn’t.

A bunch of girls ran out of the bathroom giggling like crazy when I went in, though.

Sometimes I wish I lived on a desert island. Really. With nobody else around for hundreds of miles. Just me, the ocean, the sand, and a coconut tree.

And maybe a high-definition 37-inch TV with a satellite dish and a Sony PlayStation with Bandicoot, for when I get bored.

LITTLE KNOWN FACTS

1. The most commonly asked question at Albert Einstein High School is "Do you have any gum?" 2. Bees and bulls are attracted to the color red. 3. In my homeroom, it sometimes takes up to half an hour just to take attendance. 4. I miss being best friends with Lilly Moscovitz.

Later on Wednesday, Before Algebra

This totally weird thing happened. Josh Richter came up to his locker to put his Trig book away, and he said, "How you doin’?" to me as I was getting out my Algebra notebook.

I swear to God I am not making this up.

I was in such total shock, I nearly dropped my backpack. I don’t have any idea what I said to him. I think I said I was fine. Ihope I said I was fine.

Why is Josh Richter speaking to me?

It must have been another one of those synaptic breakdowns, like the one he had at Bigelows.

Then Josh slammed his locker closed,looked right down into my face —he’s really tall—and said, "See you later."

Then he walked away.

It took me five minutes to stop hyperventilating.

His eyes are so blue they hurt to look at.

Wednesday, Principal Gupta’s Office

It’s over.

I’m dead.

That’s it.

Now I know what everyone was looking at outside. I know why they were whispering and giggling. I know why those girls ran out of the bathroom. I know why Josh Richter talked to me.

My picture is on the cover of thePost.

That’s right. TheNew York Post. Read by millions of New Yorkers daily.

Oh, yeah. I’m dead.

It’s a pretty good picture of me, actually. I guess somebody took it as I was leaving the Plaza Sunday night, after dinner with Grandmère and my dad. I’m going down the steps just outside the revolving door. I’m sort of smiling, only not at the camera. I don’t remember anybody taking my picture, but I guess somebody did.

Superimposed over the photo are the wordsPrincess Amelia, and then in smaller lettersNew York’s Very Own Royal.

Great. Just great.

Mr. Gianini was the one who figured it out. He said he was walking to catch the subway to work and he saw it on the newsstand. He called my mother. My mom was taking a shower, though, and didn’t hear the phone. Mr. G left a message. But my mom never checks the machine in the morning, because everyone who knows her knows she is not a morning person, so nobody ever calls before noon. When Mr. G called again, she had already left for her studio, where she never answers the phone, because she wears a Walkman when she paints, so she can listen to Howard Stern.

So then Mr. G had no choice but to call my dad at the Plaza, which was pretty nervy of him, if you think about it. According to Mr. G, my dad blew a gasket. He told Mr. G that until he could get there, I should be sent to the principal’s office, where I would be "safe."

My dad has obviously never met Principal Gupta.

Actually, I shouldn’t say that. She hasn’t been so bad. She showed me the paper and said, kind of sarcastically, but in a nice way, "You might have shared this with me, Mia, when I asked you the other day if everything was all right at home."

I blushed. "Well," I said, "I didn’t think anybody would believe me."

"It is," Principal Gupta said, "a bit unbelievable."

That’s what the story on page 2 of thePost said, too.FAIRY TALE COMES TRUE FOR ONE LUCKY NEW YORK KID was how the reporter, one Ms. Carol Fernandez, put it. Like I had won the lottery, or something. Like I should behappy about it.

Ms. Carol Fernandez went on at length about my mom, "the raven-haired avant-garde painter Helen Thermopolis," and about my dad, "the handsome Prince Phillipe of Genovia," who’d "successfully battled his way back from a bout of testicular cancer." Oh, thanks, Carol Fernandez, for letting all of New York know my dad’s only got one you-know-what.

Then she went on to describe me as "the statuesque beauty who is the product of Helen and Phillipe’s tempestuous whirlwind college romance."

HELLO??? CAROL FERNANDEZ, ARE YOU ON CRACK????

I am NOT a statuesque beauty. Yeah, I’m TALL. I’m way TALL. But I am no beauty. I want what Carol Fernandez has been smoking, if she thinksI’M beautiful.

No wonder everybody was laughing at me. This is SO embarrassing. I mean, really.

Oh, here comes my dad. Boy, doeshe look mad. . . .

More Wednesday, English

It isn’t fair.

This is totally, completely unfair.

I mean, anybody else’s dad would have let them come home. Anybody else’s dad, if his kid’s picture was on the front of thePost, would say, "Maybe you should skip school for a few days until things calm down."

Anybody else’s dad would have been like, "Maybe you should change schools. How do you feel about Iowa? Would you like to go to school in Iowa?"

But oh, no. Notmy dad. Becausehe’s a prince. And he says members of the royal family of Genovia do not "go home" when there is a crisis. No, they stay where they are and slug it out.

Slug it out. I think my dad has something in common with Carol Fernandez: They’re BOTH on crack.

Then my dad reminded me that it’s not like I’m not getting paid for this. Right! One hundred lousy bucks! One hundred lousy bucks a day to be publicly ridiculed and humiliated.

Those baby seals better be grateful, that’s all I have to say.

So here I am in English, and everybody is whispering about me and pointing at me like I’m a victim of alien abduction or something, and my dad expects me to sit here and let them, because I’m a princess and that’s what princesses do.

But these kids arebrutal.

I tried to tell my dad that. I was like, "Dad, you don’t understand. They’re all laughing at me."

And all he said was, "I’m sorry, honey. You’re just going to have to tough it out. You knew this was going to happen eventually. I’d hoped it wouldn’t be quite this soon, but it’s probably just as well to get it over with. . . . "

Um, hello? I didnot know this was going to happen eventually. I thought I was going to be able to keep this whole princess thing a secret. My lovely plan about only being a princess in Genovia is falling apart. I have to be a princess right here in Manhattan, and believe me, that is no picnic.

I was so mad at my dad for telling me I had to go back to class, I accused him of having ratted me out to Carol Fernandez himself.

He got all offended. "Me?I don’t know any Carol Fernandez." He shot this funny look at Mr. Gianini, who was standing there with his hands in his pockets, looking all concerned.

"What?" Mr. G said, going from concerned to surprised real fast. "Me?I’d never evenheard of Genovia until this morning."

"Geez, Dad," I said. "Don’t blame Mr. G.He had nothing to do with it."

My dad didn’t look very convinced. "Well,somebody leaked the story to the press. . . . " He said it in this mean way, too. You could totally tell he thought Mr. G had done it. But it couldn’t have been Mr. Gianini. Carol Fernandez wrote about stuff in her story that there’s no way Mr. G could know, because evenMom doesn’t know about it. Like how Miragnac has a private airstrip. I never told her about that.

But when I told my dad that, he just shot Mr. G a suspicious look. "Well," he said again. "I’m just going to give this Carol Fernandez a call and see who her source is."

And while my dad was doing that, I got stuck with Lars. I’m not kidding. Just like Tina Hakim Baba, I now have a bodyguard trailing around after me from class to class. Like I’m not enough of a laughingstock already.

I now have an armed escort.

I totally tried to get out of it. I was like, "Dad, I can seriously take care of myself," but he was completely rigid and said that even though Genovia is a small country, it is a very wealthy country, and he cannot take the risk of my being kidnaped and held for ransom like the boy inMy Secret Love, only my dad didn’t say that because he’s never readMy Secret Love.

I said, "Dad, no one is going to kidnap me. This isschool," but he wouldn’t go for it. He asked Principal Gupta if it was all right, and she said, "Of course, Your Highness."

Your Highness! Principal Gupta called my dad Your Highness! If it hadn’t been all serious and stuff, I would have wet my pants laughing.

The only good thing that has come out of this is that Principal Gupta let me off detention for the rest of the week, claiming that having my picture in thePost is punishment enough.

But really the only reason is that she is totally charmed by my father. He pulled such a Jean-Luc Picard on her, you wouldn’t believe it, calling her Madam Principal and apologizing for all the fuss. I practically expected him to kiss her hand, he was flirting so hard with her. And Principal Gupta has been married a million years, and has this big black mole on the side of her nose. And she totally fell for it! She was eating it up!

I wonder if Tina Hakim Baba will still sit with me at lunch. Well, if she does, at least our bodyguards will have something to do: They can compare civilian defense tactics.

More Wednesday, French Class

I guess I should have my picture on the front of thePost more often.

Suddenly I am very popular.

I walked into the cafeteria (I told Lars to keep five paces behind me at all times; he kept stepping on the backs of my combat boots), and Lana Weinberger, of all people, came up to me while I was in the jet line getting my tray, and said, "Hey, Mia. Why don’t you come and sit with us?"

I am not even kidding. That lousy hypocrite wants to be friends with me now that I’m a princess.

Tina was right behind me in line (well, Lars was behind me; Tina was behind Lars, and Tina’s bodyguard was behind her). But did Lana invite Tina to join her? Of course not. TheNew York Post hadn’t calledTina a "statuesque beauty." Short, heavyset girls—even one whose father is an Arab sheikh—aren’t good enough to sit byLana. Oh, no. Only purebred Genovian princesses are good enough to sit byLana.

I nearly threw up all over my lunch tray.

"No, thanks, Lana," I said. "I already have someone to sit with."

You should have seen Lana’s face. The last time I saw her look that shocked, a sugar cone had been stuck to her chest.

Later, when we were sitting down, Tina could only nibble at her salad. She hadn’t said a word about the princess thing. Meanwhile, though, everybody in the whole cafeteria—including the geeks, who never notice anything—were staring at our table. Let me tell you, it was way uncomfortable. I could feel Lilly’s eyes boring into me. She hadn’t said anything to me yet, but I think she had to have known. Nothing much escapes Lilly.

Anyway, after a while I couldn’t stand it anymore. I put down a forkful of rice and beans and said, "Look, Tina. If you don’t want to sit with me anymore, I understand."

Tina’s big eyes filled up with tears. I mean it. She shook her head, and her long black braid swayed. "What do you mean?" she asked. "You don’t like me anymore, Mia?"

It was my turn to be shocked. "What? Of course I like you. I thought maybe you might not likeme. I mean, every-one is staring at us. I could see why you might not want to sit with me."

Tina smiled sadly. "Everyone always stares at me," she said. "Because of Wahim, you see."

Wahim is her bodyguard. Wahim and Lars were sitting next to us, arguing over whose gun had the most firepower, Wahim’s 357 Magnum or Lars’s 9mm Glock. It was kind of a disturbing topic, but they both seemed happy as could be. In a minute or two, I expected they’d start to arm wrestle.

"So you see," Tina said, "I’mused to people thinking I’m weird. It’syou I feel sorry for, Mia. You could be sitting with anyone—anyone in this whole cafeteria—and yet you’re stuck with me. I don’t want you to feel you have to be nice to me just because no one else is."

I got really mad then. Not at Tina. But at everybody else at Albert Einstein. I mean, Tina Hakim Baba is really, really nice, and no one knows it because no one ever talks to her, because she isn’t very thin and she’s kind of quiet and she’s stuck with a stupid bodyguard. While people are worrying about things like the fact that a deli is overcharging some people by five cents for gingko biloba rings, there are human beings walking around our school in abject misery because no one will even say Good morning to them, or How was your weekend?

And then I felt guilty, because a week agoI had been one of those people. I had always thought Tina Hakim Baba was a freak. The whole reason I hadn’t wanted anyone to find out I was a princess was that I was afraid they’d treatme the way they treated Tina Hakim Baba. And now that I know Tina, I know just how wrong I’d been to think badly of her.

So I told Tina I didn’t want to sit with anybody but her. I told her I thought we needed to stick together, and not just for the obvious reason (Wahim and Lars). I told her we needed to stick together because everyone else at this stupid school is completely NUTS.

Tina looked a lot happier then, and started filling me in on the new book she’s reading. This one is calledLove Only Once, and it’s about a girl who falls in love with a boy who has terminal cancer. I told Tina it seemed like kind of a bummer thing to read, but she told me she’d already read the end, and that the boy’s terminal cancer goes away. So I guess that’s okay then.

As we cleared our trays, I saw Lilly staring in my direction. It wasn’t the kind of stare someone who was about to apologize would use. So I wasn’t too surprised when later, after I got to G & T, Lilly sat there and stared at me some more. Boris kept on trying to talk to her, but she obviously wasn’t listening. Finally he gave up and picked up his violin and went back into the supply closet, where he belongs.

Meanwhile, this is how my tutoring session with Lilly’s brother went:

Me:Hi, Michael. I did all those problems you gave me. But I still don’t see why you couldn’t just look at the train schedule to find out what time a train traveling at 67 miles per hour will arrive in Fargo, North Dakota, if it leaves Salt Lake City at 7A.M.

Michael:So. Princess of Genovia, huh? Were you ever going to share that little piece of info with the group, or were we all supposed to guess?

Me:I was kind of hoping no one would ever find out.

Michael:Well, that’s obvious. I don’t see why, though. It’s not like it’s a bad thing.

Me:Are you kidding me? Of course it’s bad!

Michael:Did youread the article in today’sPost, Thermopolis?

Me:No way. I’m not going to read that trash. I don’t know who this Carol Fernandez thinks she is, but—

Then Lilly got into the act. It was like she couldn’t stand not to get involved.

Lilly:So you’re not aware that the crown prince of Genovia—namely, your father—has a total personal worth which, including real estate property and the palace’s art collection, is estimated at over three hundred million dollars?

Well, I guess it’s pretty obvious thatLilly read the article in today’sPost.

Me:Um . . .

Hello? Three hundred million dollars?? And I get a lousy $100 a day???

Lilly:I wonder how much of that fortune was amassed by taking advantage of the sweat of the common laborer.

Michael:Considering that the people of Genovia have traditionally never paid income or property taxes, I would say none of it. What iswith you, anyway, Lil?

Lilly:Well, ifyou want to tolerate the excesses of the monarchy, you can be my guest, Michael. But I happen to think that it’s disgusting, with the world economy in the state it’s in today, for anyone to have a total worth of three hundred million dollars . . . especially someone who never did a day’s work for it!

Michael:Pardon me, Lilly, but it’s my understanding that Mia’s father works extremely hard for his country. His father’s historic pledge, after Mussolini’s forces invaded in 1939, to exercise the rights of sovereignty in accordance with the political and economic interests of neighboring France in exchange for military and naval protection in the event of war might have tied the hands of a lesser politician, but Mia’s father has managed to work around that agreement. His efforts have resulted in a nation that has the highest literacy rate in Europe, some of the best educational attainment rates, and the lowest infant mortality, inflation, and unemployment rates in the Western Hemisphere.

I could only stare at Michael after that.Wow. Why doesn’t Grandmère teach me stuff likethat at our princess lessons? I mean, this is information I could actually use. I don’t exactly need to know which direction to tip my soup bowl. I need to know how to defend myself from virulent antiroyalists like my ex–best friend Lilly.

Lilly:(to Michael) Shut up. (to me) I see they already have you spouting off their populist propaganda like a good little girl.

Me: Me?Michael’s the one who—

Michael:Aw, Lilly, you’re just jealous.

Lilly:I am not!

Michael:Yes, you are. You’re jealous because she got her hair cut without consulting you. You’re jealous because you stopped talking to her and she went out and got a new friend. And you’re jealous because all this time Mia’s had this secret she didn’t tell you.

Lilly:Michael, SHUT UP!

Boris:(leaning out of the supply closet door) Lilly? Did you say something?

Lilly:I WASN’T TALKING TO YOU, BORIS!

Boris:Sorry. (goes back into closet)

Lilly:(really mad now) Gosh, Michael, you sure are quick to come to Mia’s defense all of a sudden. I wonder if maybe it ever occurred to you that your argument, while ostensibly based on logic, might have less intellectual than libidinous roots.

Michael:(turning red for some reason) Well, what about your persecution of the Hos? Is that rooted in intellectual reasoning? Or is it more an example of vanity run amok?

Lilly:That’s a circular argument.

Michael:It isn’t. It’s empirical.

Wow. Michael and Lilly are so smart. Grandmère’s right: I need to improve my vocabulary.

Michael:(to me) So does this guy (he pointed at Lars) have to follow you around everywhere from now on?

Me:Yes.

Michael:Really?Everywhere?

Me:Everywhere except the ladies’ room. Then he waits outside.

Michael:What if you were to go on a date? Like to the Cultural Diversity Dance this weekend?

Me:That hasn’t exactly been an issue, considering that no one’s asked me.

Boris:(leaning out of the supply closet) Excuse me. I accidentally knocked over a bottle of rubber cement with my bow, and it’s getting hard to breathe. Can I come out now?

Everyone in the G & T room:NO!!!

Mrs. Hill:(poking her head in from the hallway) What’s all this noise in here? We can hardly hear ourselves think in the teachers’ lounge. Boris, why are you in the supply closet? Come out now. Everybody else, get back to work!

I need to take a closer look at that article in today’sPost. Three hundred million dollars?? That’s as much as Oprah made last year!

So if we’re so rich, how come the TV in my room is only black and white?

Note to self: Look up the wordsempirical andlibidinous

Wednesday Night

No wonder my dad was so mad about Carol Fernandez’s article! When Lars and I walked out of Albert Einstein after my review session there were reporters all over the place. I am not even kidding. It was just like I was a murderer, or a celebrity, or something.

According to Mr. Gianini, who walked out with us, reporters have been arriving all day. There were vans there from New York One, Fox News, CNN,Entertainment Tonight —you name it. They’ve been trying to interview all the kids who go to Albert Einstein, asking them if they know me (for once, being unpopular pays off; I can’t imagine they were able to find anybody who could actually remember who I was—at least, not with my new nontriangular hair). Mr. G says Principal Gupta finally had to call the police, because Albert Einstein High is private property and the reporters were trespassing all over, dropping cigarette butts on the steps and blocking the sidewalk and leaning on Joe and stuff.

Which, if you think about it, is exactly what all the popular kids do when they hang around the school grounds after the last bell rings, and Principal Gupta never calls the cops onthem . . . but then again, I guess their parents are paying tuition.

I have to say, I sort of know now how Princess Diana must have felt. I mean, when Lars and Mr. G and I came out, the reporters started trying to swarm all over, waving microphones at us and yelling stuff like, "Amelia, how about a smile?" and "Amelia, what’s it like to wake up one morning the product of a single-parent family and go to bed the next night a royal princess worth over three hundred million dollars?"

I was kind of scared. Even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t have answered their questions, because I didn’t know which microphone to talk into. Plus I was practically rendered blind by all the flashbulbs going off in front of my face.

Then Lars went into action. You should have seen it. First, he told me not to say anything. Then he put his arm around me. He told Mr. G to put his arm around my other side. Then, I don’t know how, but we ducked our heads and barreled through all the cameras and microphones and the people attached to them, until the next thing I knew, Lars was pushing me into the backseat of my dad’s car and jumping in after me.

Hello! I guess all that training in the Israeli army paid off. (I overheard Lars telling Wahim that’s where he’d learned how to work an Uzi. Wahim and Lars actually have some mutual friends, it turns out. I guess all bodyguards go to the same training school out in the Gobi Desert.)

Anyway, as soon as Lars slammed the back door shut, he said "Drive," and the guy behind the wheel hit the gas. I didn’t recognize him, but sitting in the passenger seat beside him was my dad. And while we’re pulling away, brakes squealing, flashbulbs going off, reporters jumping onto the windshield to get a better shot, my dad goes, all casual, "So. How was your day, Mia?"

Geez!

I decided to ignore my dad. Instead, I turned around in my seat to wave good-bye to Mr. G. Only Mr. G had been swallowed up in a sea of microphones! He wouldn’t talk to them, though. He just kept waving his hands at them and trying to head for the subway, so he could take the E train home.

I felt sorry for poor Mr. Gianini then. True, he had probably stuck his tongue in my mom’s mouth, but he’s a really nice guy and doesn’t deserve to be harassed by the media.

I said so to my dad, also that we should have given Mr. G a ride home, and he just got huffy and tugged on his seat belt. He said, "Damn these things. They always choke me."

So then I asked my dad where I was going to go to school now.

My dad looked at me like I was nuts. "You said you wanted to stay at Albert Einstein!" he kind of yelled.

I said, well, yes, but that was before Carol Fernandez outed me.

Then my dad wanted to know what outing was, so I explained to him that outing is when somebody reveals your sexual orientation on national TV, or in the newspaper, or in some other large public forum. Only in this case, I explained, instead of my sexual orientation, my royal status had been revealed.

So then my dad said I couldn’t go to a new school just because I’d been outed as being a princess. He said I have to stay at Albert Einstein, and Lars will go to class with me and protect me from reporters.

So then I asked him who’ll drive him around, and he pointed to the new guy, Hans.

The new guy nodded to me in the rearview mirror and said, "Hi."

So then I said, "Lars is going to go with me everywhere I go?" Like how about if I just wanted to walk over to Lilly’s? I mean, if Lilly and I were still friends. Which is certainly never going to happen now.

And my dad said, "Lars would go with you."

So basically, I am never going anywhere alone again.

This made me kind of mad. I sat in the backseat with red from a traffic light flashing down on my face, and I said, "Okay, well, that’s it. I don’t want to be a princess anymore. You can take back your one hundred dollars a day and send Grandmère back to France. I quit."

And my dad said, in this tired voice, "You can’t quit, Mia. The article today closed the deal. Tomorrow your face will be in every newspaper in America—maybe even the world. Everyone will know that you are the princess Amelia of Genovia. And you cannot quit being who you are."

I guess it wasn’t a very princessy thing to do, but I cried all the way to the Plaza. Lars gave me his handkerchief, which I thought was very nice of him.

More Wednesday

My mom thinks the person who tipped off Carol Fernandez is Grandmère.

But I really can’t believe Grandmère would do something like that—you know, give thePost the inside scoop on me. Especially when I’m so far behind in my princess lessons. You know? It’s almost guaranteed that now I’m going to have to start acting like a princess—I mean,really acting like one—but Grandmère hasn’t even gotten to all the really important stuff yet, the stuff like how to argue knowledgeably with virulent antiroyalists like Lilly. So far all Grandmère has taught me is how to sit; how to dress; how to use a fish fork; how to address senior members of the royal household staff; how to say thank you so much and no, I don’t care for that, in seven languages; how to make a Sidecar; and some Marxist theory.

What good is any of THAT going to do me?

But my mom is convinced. Nothing will change her mind. My dad got really mad at her, but she still wouldn’t budge. She says Grandmère is the one who tipped off Carol Fernandez and that all my dad has to do is ask her and he’ll find out the truth.

My dad did ask her—not Grandmère. Mom. He asked her why she never bothered to consider that her boyfriend might be the one who spilled the beans to Carol Fernandez.

The minute he said it, I think my dad probably regretted it. Because my mom’s eyes got the way they do when she’s really mad—I meanreally mad, like the time I told her about the guy in Washington Square Park who flashed his you-know-what at me and Lilly one day when we were filming for her show. Her eyes got narrower and narrower, until they were nothing more than little slits. Then, next thing I knew, she was putting on her coat and going out to kick some flasher butt.

Only she didn’t put on her coat when my dad said that about Mr. Gianini. Instead, her eyes got very narrow, and her lips almost disappeared, she pressed them together so hard, and then she went, "Get . . . out," in a voice that kind of sounded like the poltergeist in that movieAmityville Horror.

But my dad wouldn’t get out, even though technically the loft belongs to my mom (thank God Carol Fernandez didn’t put the loft’s address in the paper; and thank God my mom is so paranoid about Jesse Helms siccing the CIA on sociopolitical artists like herself, in order to yank their NEA grants, that she keeps our phone number unlisted; no reporters have discovered the loft, so we can at least order in Chinese without fear of hearing a story onExtra on how much the Princess Amelia likes moo shu vegetable).

Instead, my dad went, "Really, Helen. I think you’re letting your dislike of my mother blind you to the real truth."

"The real truth?" my mom yelled. "The real truth, Phillipe, is that your mother is—"

At this point, I decided it might be best to retire to my room. I put my headphones on so I wouldn’t have to listen to them fight. This is a trick I learned from watching kids on made-for-TV movies whose parents are divorcing. My favorite CD right now is the latest Britney Spears, which I know is really dorky, and I could never tell Lilly, but secretly I sort of want to be Britney Spears. Once I had a dream Iwas Britney, and I was performing in the auditorium at Albert Einstein, and I had this little pink minidress on, and Josh Richter complimented me on it right before I went onstage.

Isn’t that an embarrassing thing to admit? The funny thing is, while I know I could never tell Lilly about that dream without her going all Freudian on me and telling me how the pink dress is a phallic symbol and being Britney signifies my low self-esteem or something, I know I could tell Tina Hakim Baba, and she would totally get into it and just want to know whether or not Josh was wearing leather pants.

I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned this, but it’s really hard to write with my new fake fingernails.

The more I think about it, the more I wonder whether or not Grandmère really is the one who tipped off Carol Fernandez. I mean, when I went to my princess lesson today I was still crying, and Grandmère was totally unsympathetic about it. She was all, "And these tears are because . . . ?" And when I told her, she just raised her painted-on eyebrows—she plucks hers all out and draws on new ones every day, which kind of defeats the purpose, if you ask me, but whatever—and went,"C’est la vie," which means "Well, that’s life" in French.

Only in life, I don’t think a whole lot of girls get their faces plastered across the cover of thePost, unless they’ve won the lottery or had sex with the president or something.I didn’t do anything except get born.

I don’t think "that’s life" at all. I think that sucks, is what I think.

Then Grandmère started talking about how she’d been fielding calls all day from representatives of the media, and how all these people want to interview me, like Leeza Gibbons and Barbara Walters and stuff, and she said I ought to have a press conference, and that she’d already talked to the Plaza people about it, and they’d set aside this special room with a podium and a pitcher of ice water and some potted palms and stuff.

I couldn’t believe it! I was like, "Grandmère! I don’t want to talk to Barbara Walters! God! Like I really want everyone knowing my business!"

And Grandmère said, all prissy, "Well, if you don’t try to accommodate the media, they’re just going to try to get the story any way they can, which means they’ll keep showing up at your school. And at your friends’ houses, and at your grocery store, and at the place where you rent those movie videos you like so much."

Grandmère doesn’t believe in VCRs. She says if God meant for us to watch movies at home He wouldn’t have invented coming attractions.

Then Grandmère wanted to know where my sense of civic duty was. She said it would greatly promote tourism in Genovia if I just went onDateline.

I really want to do what’s best for Genovia. I really do. But I also have to do what’s best for Mia Thermopolis. And going onDateline would definitely not be good for me.

But Grandmère seems really gung-ho on the whole promoting Genovia thing. So I sort of started to wonder if maybe, just maybe, my mom is right. Maybe Grandmèredid talk to Carol Fernandez.

But would Grandmère do something like that?

Well. Yeah.

I just lifted up my headphones. They’re still at it.

Looks like it’s going to be a long night.

Thursday, October 16, Homeroom

Well, this morning my face was on the covers of theDaily News andNew York Newsday. My picture was also in the Metro Section ofThe New York Times. They used my school photo, and let me tell you, my mom wasn’t too happy about that, since that meant either somebody in our family, to whom she sent copies of that photo—which looks bad for Grandmère—or someone at Albert Einstein must have leaked it, which looks bad for Mr. Gianini. I wasn’t too happy about it because my school photo was taken before Paolo fixed my hair and I look like one of those girls who are always going on TV to talk about their bad experience being in a cult or escaping from an abusive husband or something.

There were more reporters than ever in front of Albert Einstein when Hans pulled up in front of it this morning. I guess all the morning news shows needed something they could report live. Usually it’s an overturned chicken truck on the Palisades Parkway or a crackhead holding his wife and kids hostage in Queens. But today it was me.

I had sort of anticipated that this might happen, and I was a little more prepared today than I was yesterday. So, in flagrant violation of my grandmother’s fashion dictums, I wore my newly relaced combat boots (in case I had to kick anybody holding a microphone who got too close), and I also wore all of my Greenpeace and antifur buttons, so at least my celebrity status will be put to good use.

It was the same drill as the day before. Lars took me by the arm and the two of us sprinted through a sea of TV cameras and microphones into the school. As we ran, people shouted stuff at me like, "Amelia, do you intend to follow the example of Princess Diana and become the queen of people’s hearts?" and "Amelia, who do you like better, Leonardo di Caprio or Prince William?" and "Amelia, what are your feelings on the meat industry?"

They almost got me on that one. I started to turn around, but Lars dragged me on into the school.

HERE’S WHAT I NEED TO DO

1. Think of some way to get Lilly to like me again 2. Stop being such a wimp 3. Stop lyingand/orThink of better lies 4. Stop being so dramatic 5. Start being more A. Independent B. Self-reliant C. Mature 6. Stop thinking about Josh Richter 7. Stop thinking about Michael Moscovitz 8. Get better grades 9. Achieve self-actualization

Thursday, Algebra

Today in Algebra Mr. Gianini was totally trying to teach us about the Cartesian plane, but nobody could pay attention because of all the news vans outside. People kept jumping up to lean out the windows and yell at the reporters: "You killed Princess Di! Bring back Princess Di!"

Mr. Gianini kept trying to bring people to order, but it was impossible. Lilly was getting all burned up because everyone was coming together against the reporters but no one had wanted to stand outside Ho’s Deli and do her chant, which was "We oppose the racist Hos."

That’s kind of harder to say than "You killed Princess Di! Bring back Princess Di!" so maybe that’s why. Lilly’s chant has too many big words.

So then Mr. Gianini had to have a talk with us about whether the media was really to blame for killing Princess Diana, or if maybe it was the fact that the guy driving the car she was in might have been drunk. And then somebody tried to say the driver hadn’t been drunk, that he’d been poisoned and that it was all a plot by the British secret service, but Mr. Gianini said could we please come back to reality now.

And then Lana Weinberger wanted to know how long I’d known I was a princess, and I couldn’t believe she was actually asking me a question without being snotty about it, and I was like, well, I don’t know, a couple of weeks or something, and then Lana said if she found out she was a princess she would go straight to Disneyworld, and I said, no, you wouldn’t, because you’d miss cheerleading practice, and then she said she didn’t see why I didn’t go to Disneyworld since I’m not even that involved in extracurricular activities, and then Lilly started in about the Disneyfication of America and how Walt Disney was actually a fascist, and then everybody started wondering if it was really true about his body being cryogenically frozen under the castle in Anaheim, and then Mr. Gianini was like, could we please return to the Cartesian plane?

Which is probably a safer plane to be on, if you think about it, than the one we live on, since there aren’t any reporters there.

Cartesian coordinate system divides the plane into 4 parts called quadrants

Thursday, G & T

So I was eating lunch with Tina Hakim Baba and Lars and Wahim, and Tina was telling me about how in Saudi Arabia, where her father comes from, girls have to wear this thing called a chadrah, which is like a huge blanket that covers them from head to foot with just a slit for them to see out of. It’s supposed to protect them from the lustful eyes of men, but Tina says her cousins wear Gap jeans underneath their chadrahs, and as soon as there aren’t any adults around they take their chadrahs off and hang out with boys just like we do.

Well, like wewould do if any boys liked us.

I take that back. I forgot that Tina has a boy to hang out with, her Cultural Diversity date, Dave Farouq El-Abar.

Geez. What iswrong with me, anyway? How come no boys likeme?

So Tina was telling me all about chadrahs when all of a sudden Lana Weinberger set her tray down next to ours.

I am not even kidding.Lana Weinberger.

I, of course, thought she was going to whip out the receipt for the Nutty Royaled sweater’s dry cleaning or start shaking Tabasco sauce all over our salads or something, but instead she just went, all breezy, "You guys don’t mind if we join you, do you?"

And then I saw this tray sliding over next to mine. It was loaded down with two double cheeseburgers, large fries, two chocolate milks, a bowl of chili, a bag of Doritos, a salad with French dressing, a pack of Yodels, an apple, and a large Coke. When I looked up to see who could possibly be ingesting that many saturated fats, I saw Josh Richter pulling out the chair next to mine.

I am not even kidding.Josh Richter.

He went, "Hey," to me and sat down and started eating.

I looked at Tina, and Tina looked at me, and then both of us looked at our bodyguards. But they were busy arguing over whether rubber-tipped bullets really did hurt rioters or if it was better just to use hoses.

Tina and I looked back at Lana and Josh.

Really attractive people, like Lana and Josh, don’t ever go anywhere alone. They always have this sort of entourage that follows them around. Lana’s entourage consists of a bunch of other girls, most of whom are junior varsity cheerleaders like she is. They are all really pretty, with long hair and breasts and stuff, like Lana.

Josh’s entourage consists of a bunch of senior boys who are all on the crew team with him. They are all really large and handsome, and they were all eating excessive amounts of animal by-products, just like Josh.

Josh’s entourage put their trays down beside Josh’s. Lana’s entourage put their trays beside Lana’s. And soon, our table, which had consisted only of two geeky girls and their bodyguards, was being graced by the most beautiful people in Albert Einstein—maybe even in all of Manhattan.

I got a good look at Lilly, and her eyes were bugging out the way they do when she sees something she thinks would make a good episode of her show.

"So," Lana said, all chatty-like, while she picked at her salad—no dressing, and only water on the side. "What are you up to this weekend, Mia? Are you going to the Cultural Diversity Dance?"

It was the first time she’d ever called me Mia and not Amelia.

"Uh," I said brilliantly. "Let me see . . . "

"Because Josh’s parents are going away, and we were thinking about having a thing at his place on Saturday night, after the dance, and all. You should come."

"Huh," I said. "Well, I don’t—"

"She should totally come," Lana said, stabbing at a cherry tomato with her fork. "Shouldn’t she, Josh?"

Josh was shoveling chili into his mouth using Doritos instead of a spoon. "Sure," he said with his mouth full. "She should come."

"It’s going to be socool," Lana said. "Josh’s place is likegreat. It’s got six bedrooms. On Park Avenue. And there’s a Jacuzzi in the master bedroom. Isn’t there a Jacuzzi, Josh?"

Josh said, "Yeah, there’s—"

Pierce, a member of Josh’s entourage, and a six-foot-two-inch rower, interrupted. "Hey, Richter, remember after the last dance? When Bonham-Allen passed out in your mom’s Jacuzzi? That wasrad."

Lana giggled. "Oh, God! She chugged that whole bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream. Remember, Josh? She drank practically the whole thing herself—what a hog!—and then she wouldn’t stop throwing up."

"Major vomitage," Pierce agreed.

"She had to have her stomach pumped," Lana said to Tina and me. "The paramedics said if Josh hadn’t phoned them when he did she’d have died."

We all turned to look at Josh. He said, modestly, "It wasway uncool."

Lana stopped giggling. "It was," she said, all solemn now that Josh Richter had declared the incident uncool.

I didn’t know what I was supposed to say about that, so I just said, "Wow."

"So," Lana said. She ate a shred of lettuce and swished some water around in her mouth. "Are you coming, or not?"

"I’m sorry," I said. "I can’t."

A lot of Lana’s friends, who’d been talking among themselves, stopped talking and looked at me. Josh’s friends, however, went right on eating.

"Youcan’t?" Lana said, making this very astonished face.

"No," I said. "I can’t."

"What do you mean, youcan’t?"

I thought about lying. I could have said something like, Lana, I can’t go because I have to have dinner with the prime minister of Iceland. I could have said, I can’t go because I have to go christen a cruise ship. There were all sorts of excuses I could have made up. But for once, for once in my stupid life, I went and told the truth.

"I can’t go," I said, "because my mom wouldn’t let me go to a party like that."

Oh, my God. Why did I say that? Why, why, why? I should have lied. I totally should have lied. Because how did I sound, saying something like that? Uh, like a total freak. Worse than a freak. A dork. A grade A nerd.

I don’t know what compelled me to tell the truth in the first place. It wasn’t even thereal truth. I mean, it wasa truth, but it wasn’t thereal reason I was saying no. I mean, it’s true there was no way my mom was going tolet me go to a party in a boy’s apartment when his parents are out of town. Even with a bodyguard. But the real reason, of course, is that I wouldn’t know how toact at a party like that. I mean, I’ve heard about these kinds of parties. There are likewhole rooms reserved for people to go into to make out. We’re talking major French kissing. Maybe even MORE than French kissing. Maybe even like above-the-waist touching. Maybe even below-the-waist touching. I don’t know for sure, because no one I know has ever been to one of those parties. No one I know is popular enough to get invited.

Plus everybody drinks. But I don’t drink, and I don’t have anybody to make out with. So what would Ido there?

Lana looked at me, and then she looked at her friends, and then she burst out laughing. Loud. I mean, REALLY loud.

Well, I guess I can’t really blame her.

"Oh my God," Lana said when she had gotten over laughing so hard that she couldn’t talk. "You can’t be serious."

I knew right then Lana had just latched upon a whole new thing to torture me about. I didn’t really care so much about me, but I felt bad for Tina Hakim Baba, who’d managed to keep such a low profile for so long. Suddenly, because of me, she was being sucked into the middle of the popular girl torture zone.

"Oh my God," Lana said. "Are you kidding me?"

"Um," I said. "No."

"Well, you’re not supposed to tell her thetruth," Lana said, all snotty again.

I didn’t know what she was talking about.

"Your mom.Nobody tells their mom thetruth. You tell her you’re spending the night at a girlfriend’s house.Duh."

Oh.

She meant lie. To my mom. Lana had obviously never met my mom.Nobody lies to my mom. You just can’t. Not about something like that. No way.

So I said, "Look, it’s not like I don’t appreciate being asked, and all, but I really don’t think I can come. Besides, I don’t even drink. . . . "

Okay,that was another big mistake.

Lana looked at me like I’d just said I’d never watchedParty of Five, or something. She went: "You don’tdrink?"

I just looked at her. The truth is, at Miragnac I do drink. We drink wine with dinner every night. That’s just what you do in France. You don’t drink it forfun, though. You drink it because it goes with the food. It’s supposed to make the foie gras taste better. I wouldn’t know about that, since I don’t eat foie gras, but I can tell you from experience that wine goes better with goat cheese than Dr Pepper does.

I certainly wouldn’t chug a whole bottle of it, though, not even on a dare. Not even for Josh Richter.

So I just shrugged and went, "No. I try to be respectful of my body and not put a whole lot of toxins into it."

Lana snorted at that, but across from her—beside me—Josh Richter swallowed the mouthful of burger he was chewing and said, "I can respect that."

Lana’s mouth dropped open. So, I’m sorry to say, did mine. Josh Richter respected somethingI had said? Are youkidding me?

But he looked perfectly serious. More than serious. He looked the way he had that day at Bigelows, like he could see into my soul with those electric blue eyes of his. . . . Like he alreadyhad seen into my soul. . . .

I guess Lana didn’t notice her boyfriend looking into my soul, though. Because she said, "God, Josh. You drink more’n anybody else in this wholeschool."

Josh turned his head and looked at her with those hypnotic eyes. He said, without smiling, "Well, maybe I should quit, then."

Lana started laughing. She said, "Oh, right! That’ll happen!"

Josh didn’t laugh, though. He just went on looking at her.

That’s when I started to get the heebie-jeebies. Josh just kept staring at Lana. I was glad he wasn’t staring atme like that; those blue eyes of his are no joke.

I got up real fast and grabbed my tray. Tina, seeing what I was doing, did the same.

"Well," I said, "bye."

Then we booked out of there.

On the way to drop off our trays, Tina was like, "What wasthat all about?" and I said I didn’t know. But I know one thing for sure:

For once, I’m kind of glad I’m not Lana Weinberger.

More Thursday, French

When I went to my locker after lunch to get my books for French, Josh was there. He was sort of leaning on his closed locker door, looking around. When he saw me coming, he straightened up and went, "Hey."

And then he smiled. A big smile that showed all of his white teeth. His perfectly straight white teeth. I had to look away, those teeth were so perfect and so blindingly white.

I said, "Hey," back. I was really embarrassed and all, since I had sort of seen him fighting with Lana a few minutes before. I figured he was probably waiting for her, and that the two of them would make up and probably French kiss all over the place, so I tried to work my combination as quickly as possible and get the heck out of there so I wouldn’t have to watch.

But Josh startedtalking to me. He said, "I really agree with what you said in the caf just now. You know, about respecting your body and everything. I think that’s really, you know, a cool attitude."

I could feel my face start to burn. It was sort of like I was on fire. I concentrated on not dropping anything as I moved books around in my locker. It’s too bad my hair is so short now. I couldn’t duck my head to hide the fact that I was blushing. "Huh," I said, real intelligently.

"So," Josh said, "are you going to the dance with anyone, or not?"

I dropped my Algebra book. It went skittering across the hall. I stooped down to pick it up.

"Um," I said, by way of answering his question.

I was down on my hands and knees, picking up old worksheets that had slid out of my Algebra book, when I saw these knees covered in gray flannel bend. Then Josh’s face was right next to mine.

"Here," he said, and handed me my favorite pencil, the one with the feathery pom-pom on the end.

"Thanks," I said. Then I made the mistake of looking into his too-blue eyes.

"No," I said, real faintly, because that’s how his eyes made me feel: faint. "I’m not going to the dance with anyone."

Then the bell rang.

Josh said, "Well, see you." And then he left.

I am still in shock.

Josh Richterspoke to me. He actuallyspoke to me.Twice.

For the first time in like a month, I don’t care that I’m flunking Algebra. I don’t care that my mom is dating one of my teachers. I don’t care that I’m the heir to the throne of Genovia. I don’t even care that my best friend and I aren’t speaking.

I think Josh Richter mightlike me.

HOMEWORK

Algebra: ??? Can’t remember!!! English: ??? Ask Shameeka World Civ: ??? Ask Lilly. Forgot. Can’t ask Lilly. She’s not speaking to me. G & T: none French: ??? Biology: ???

God, just because a boy might like me, I completely lose my head. I disgust myself.

Thursday Night

Grandmère says: "Well, of course the boy likes you. What wouldn’t he like? You are turning out very well, thanks to Paolo’s handiwork and my tutelage."

Geez, Grandmère, thanks. Like it would be impossible for any guy to like me forme, and not because all of a sudden I’m a princess with a $200 haircut.

I think I sort of hate her.

I mean it. I know it’s wrong to hate people, but I really do sort of hate my grandmother. At least, I strongly dislike her. I mean, besides the fact that she’s totally vain and thinks only about herself, she’s also kind of mean to people.

Like tonight, for instance:

Grandmère decided that for my lesson today we would go to dinner somewhere outside of the hotel so she could teach me how to deal with the press. Only there wasn’t a whole lot of press around when we went outside, just some kid reporter fromTiger Beat, or something. I guess all the real reporters had gone home to get their dinner. (Plus it’s no fun for the press to stalk you when you’re ready for them. It’s only when you least expect them that they come around. This is how they get their kicks, at least as far as I can figure out.)

Anyway, I was pretty happy about this, because who needs the press around, yelling questions and setting off flashbulbs in your face? Believe me, as it is, I see big purple splotches everywhere I go.

But then as I was getting into the car Hans had brought around, Grandmère said, "Wait one moment," and went back inside. I thought maybe she’d forgotten her tiara or something, but she came back out a minute later looking no different than before.

But then, when we pulled up in front of the restaurant, which was the Four Seasons, there were all these reporters there! At first I thought somebody important had to be inside, like Shaquille O’Neal or Madonna, but then they all started taking pictures of me and yelling "Princess Amelia, how does it feel to grow up in a single-parent household, then find out your mom’s ex has three hundred million dollars?" and "Princess, what kind of running shoes do you wear?"

I totally forgot my whole fear of confrontation thing. I was mad. I turned to Grandmère in the car, and I said, "How did they know we were coming here?"

Grandmère just dug around in her purse for her cigarettes. "Now, what did I do with that lighter?" she asked.

"You called them, didn’t you?" I was so mad, I could hardly even see straight. "You called and told them we were coming here."

"Don’t be ridiculous," Grandmère said. "I had no time to call all these people."

"You didn’t have to. You’d just have to call one, and they’d all follow. Grandmère,why?"

Grandmère lit her cigarette. I hate when she smokes in the car. "This is an important part of being a royal, Amelia," she said between puffs. "You must learn to handle the press. Why are you taking on so?"

"You’re the one who told all that stuff to Carol Fernandez." I said it totally calm.

"Of course I did," Grandmère said, with a kind ofSo, what? shrug.

"Grandma," I yelled. "How could you?"

She looked totally taken aback. She said, "Don’t call me Grandma."

"Seriously," I yelled. "Dad thinks Mr. Gianini did it! He and Mom had this totally big fight about it. She said it was you, but he wouldn’t believe her!"

Grandmère blew cigarette smoke out of her nostrils. "Phillipe," she said, "always was incredibly naïve."

"Well," I said, "I’m telling him. I’m telling him the truth."

Grandmère just waved a hand, as if to sayWhatever.

"Seriously," I said. "I’m telling him. He’s going to be really mad at you, Grandmère."

"He won’t. You needed the practice, darling. That piece in thePost was only the beginning. Soon you’ll be on the cover ofVogue, and then—"

"Grandmère!" I yelled. "I DO NOT WANT TO BE ON THE COVER OFVOGUE! DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND? I JUST WANT TO PASS THE NINTH GRADE!"

Grandmère looked a little startled. "Well, all right, darling, all right. You needn’tshout."

I don’t know how much of that sank in, but after dinner I noticed the reporters had all gone home. So maybe she heard me.

When I got home, Mr. Gianini was here, AGAIN. I had to go into my room to call my dad. I said, "Dad, it was Grandma, not Mr. Gianini, who told Carol Fernandez everything," and he said, "I know," in this miserable way.

"Youknow?" I could hardly believe it. "Youknow, and you haven’t said anything?"

He went, "Mia, your grandmother and I have a very complicated relationship."

He means he’s scared of her. I guess I can’t really blame him, considering the fact that she used to lock him in the dungeon and everything.

"Well," I said, "you could still apologize to Mom for what you said about Mr. Gianini."

He went, still sounding all miserable, "I know."

So I said, "Well? Are you going to?"

And he said, "Mia . . . " Only now he sounded all exasperated. I figured I’d done enough good deeds for one day, and hung up.

After that, I sat around while Mr. Gianini helped me with my homework. I was too distracted by Josh Richter’s talking to me today to pay attention while Michael was trying to help me in G & T.

I guess I can sort of see how my mom likes Mr. G. He’s okay to just hang out with, you know, like in front of the TV. He doesn’t hog the remote, like some of my mom’s past boyfriends. And he doesn’t seem to care about sports at all.

About a half hour before I went to bed, my dad called back and asked to speak to my mother. She went into the room to talk to him, and when she came out again she looked all smug, in an I-told-you-so sort of way.

I wish I could tell Lilly about Josh Richter talking to me.

Friday, October 17, English

OH MY GOD!!!

JOSH AND LANA BROKE UP!!!!

I am not even kidding. It’s all over school. Josh broke up with her last night after crew practice. They were having dinner together at the Hard Rock Cafe, and he asked for his class ring back!!! Lana was completely humiliated under the pointy cone bra Gaultier made for Madonna!

I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.

Lana wasn’t hanging around Josh’s locker this morning, like usual. And then when I saw her in Algebra, her eyes were all red and squinty, and her hair looked like it hadn’t been brushed, let alone washed, and her thigh-highs had come unglued and were all baggy around her knees. I never thought I’d see Lana Weinberger looking like a mess!!! Before class started, she was on her cell phone with Bergdorf’s, trying to convince them to take her Cultural Diversity Dance dress back even though she’d already removed the tags. Then, during class, she sat there with a big black marker crossing out "Mrs. Josh Richter"from where she’d written it all over her book covers.

It was so depressing. I could hardly factor my integers, I was so distracted.

I WISH I WERE

1. A size 36 double D 2. Good at math 3. A member of a world-famous rock band 4. Still friends with Lilly Moscovitz 5. Josh Richter’s new girlfriend

More Friday

You will not even believe what just happened. I was putting my Algebra book away in my locker, and Josh Richter was there getting his Trig notes, and he goes, in this totally casual way, "Hey, Mia, who you going to the dance with tomorrow?"

Needless to say, the fact that he actually spoke to me at all practically caused me to pass out. And then the fact that he was actually saying something that sounded like it might be a prelude to asking me out—well, I nearly threw up. I mean it. I felt really sick, but in a good way.

I think.

Somehow, I managed to stammer out, "Uh, no one," and he goes, and I kid you not:

"Well, why don’t we go together?"

OH MY GOD!!!!! JOSH RICHTER ASKED ME OUT!!!!!

I was so shocked I couldn’t say anything at all for like a minute. I thought I was going to hyperventilate, like I did the time I saw that documentary about how cows become hamburgers. I could only stand there and look up at him. (He’s so tall!)

Then a funny thing happened. This tiny part of my brain—the only part that wasn’t completely stunned by his asking me out—went: He’s only asking you out because you’re the princess of Genovia.

Seriously. That’s what I thought, for just a second.

Then this other part of my brain, a much bigger part, went: SO WHAT???

I mean, maybe he asked me to the dance because he respects me as a human being and wants to get to know me better and maybe, just maybe, likes me, sort of.

It could happen.

So the part of my brain that was rationalizing all this made me go, all nonchalantly, "Yeah, okay. That might be fun."

Then Josh said a bunch of stuff about how he’d pick me up and we’d have dinner beforehand or something. But I barely heard him. Because inside my head, this voice was going:

Josh Richter just asked you out. Josh Richter just asked YOU out. JOSH RICHTER JUST ASKED YOU OUT!!!!

I think I must have died and gone to heaven. Because it had happened. It had finally happened: Josh Richter had finally looked into my soul. He had looked into my soul, and had seen the real me, the one beneath the flat chest. AND THEN HE’D ASKED ME OUT.

Then the bell rang, and Josh went away, and I just kept standing there until Lars poked me in the arm.

I don’t know what Lars’s problem is. Iknow he’s not my personal secretary.

But thank God he was there, or I’d never have known Josh was picking me up tomorrow night at seven. I’m going to have to learn not to be so shocked the next time he asks me out, or I’ll never get the hang of this dating thing.

THINGS TO DO (I THINK, NEVER HAVING BEEN ON A DATE BEFORE, I AM NOT EXACTLY SURE WHAT TO DO)

1. Get a dress 2. Get hair done 3. Get nails redone (stop biting fake ones off)

Friday, G & T

Okay, so I don’t know who Lilly Moscovitz thinks she is. First she stops talking to me. Then, when she finally does deign to speak to me, it’s only to criticize me some more. What right has she got, I ask you, to dump all over my Cultural Diversity Dance date? I mean,she’s going with Boris Pelkowski.Boris Pelkowski. Yeah, he might be a musical genius and all, but he’s stillBoris Pelkowski.

Lilly goes: "Well, at least I know Boris isn’t on the rebound."

Excuse me. Josh Richter isnot on the rebound. He and Lana had been broken up for sixteen whole hours before he asked me out.

Lilly goes: "Plus Boris doesn’t dodrugs."

I swear, for someone so smart, Lilly sure does go for the whole rumor and innuendo thing in a major way. I asked her if she’d everseen Josh do drugs, and she looked at me all sarcastically.

But really, if you think about it, there isn’t anyproof Josh does drugs. He definitely hangs out with people who do drugs, but hey, Tina Hakim Baba hangs out with a princess, and that doesn’t makeher one.

Lilly didn’t like that argument, though. She went: "You’re overrationalizing. Whenever you overrationalize, Mia, I know you’re worried."

I amnot worried. I am going to the biggest dance of the fall semester with the cutest, most sensitive boy in school, and nothing anyone can do or say will make me feel bad about that.

Except that it does kind of make me feel weird, seeing Lana looking so sad and Josh looking like he doesn’t care at all. Today at lunch, he and his entourage sat with Tina and me, and Lana and her entourage sat back with the other cheerleaders. It was just sostrange. Plus neither Josh nor any of his friends talked to me or to Tina. They just talked to each other. Which didn’t bother Tina any, but it kind of bothered me. Especially since Lana kept trying so hard not to look over at our table.

Tina didn’t say anything bad about Josh when I told her the news. She just got very excited and said tonight, when I spend the night, we can try on different outfits and experiment with our hair to see what will look best for tomorrow night. Well, I have no hair to experiment with, but we can experiment with her hair. Actually, Tina’s almost more excited than I am. She is a much more supportive friend than Lilly, who went, all sarcastically, when she heard: "Where’s he taking you to dinner? The Harley-Davidson Cafe?"

I said, "No," very sarcastically. "Tavern on the Green."

Lilly went, "Oh, how imaginative."

I suppose superartsy Boris is takingher somewhere in the Village.

Then Michael, who had been pretty quiet (for him) all through class, looked at Lars and went, "You’re going, too, right?"

And Lars went, "Oh, yes." And the two of them looked at each other in that infuriating way guys look at each other sometimes, like they have this secret. You know in sixth grade, when they made all of us girls go into this other room and watch a video about getting our periods and stuff? I bet while we were gone, the boys were watching a video about how to look at each other in that infuriating way.

Or maybe a cartoon or something.

But now that I think of it, Joshis kind of dissing Lana. I mean, he probably shouldn’t have asked out another girl so soon after breaking up with her—at least, not to something he was going to go to with her. Know what I mean? I kind of feel bad about the whole thing.

But not bad enough not to go.

FROM NOW ON I WILL

1. Be nicer to everyone, even Lana Weinberger. 2. Never ever bite my fingernails, even the fake ones. 3. Write faithfully in this journal every day. 4. Stop watching oldBaywatch reruns and use my time wisely, like to study Algebra, or maybe improve the environment, or something.

Friday Night

Abbreviated lesson with Grandmère today because of my spending the night at Tina’s. Grandmère had pretty much gotten over my yelling at her yesterday about the press. She was totally into helping me figure out what I’m going to wear tomorrow night, just like I knew she would. She got on the phone with Chanel and set up an appointment for tomorrow to pick something out. It will have to be a rush job, and will cost a fortune, but she says she doesn’t care. It will be my first formal event as a representative of Genovia, and I have to "sparkle" (her word, not mine).

I pointed out to her that it was a school dance, not an inauguration ball or anything, and that it wasn’t even a prom, just a stupid dance to celebrate the diversity of the various racial and cultural groups that attend Albert Einstein High School. But Grandmère went ape anyway, and kept on worrying there wouldn’t be time to dye shoes to match my gown.

There’s a lot of stuff about being a girl I never realized. Like having your shoes match your gown. I didn’t know that was so important.

But Tina Hakim Baba sure knows. You should see her room. She must have every women’s magazine ever printed. They are in order on shelves all around her room, which, by the way, is huge and pink, much like the rest of her apartment, which takes up the entire top floor of her building. You hit PH on the elevator buttons, and the elevator opens in the Hakim Babas’ marble foyer, which really does have a fountain, only you’re not supposed to throw pennies in it, I found out.

And then there’s just room after room after room. They have a maid, a cook, a nanny, and a driver, all of whom live in. So you can imagine how many rooms there are, on top of the fact that Tina has three little sisters and a baby brother, and all ofthem have their own rooms, too.

Tina’s room has its own 37-inch TV with a Sony PlayStation. I can see now that I have been living a life of monastic simplicity compared to Tina.

Some people have all the luck.

Anyway, Tina is a lot different at home than she is at school. At home, she’s totally bubbly and outgoing. Her parents are pretty nice, too. Mr. Hakim Baba is really funny. He had a heart attack last year and isn’t allowed to eat practically anything but vegetables and rice. He has to lose twenty more pounds. He kept pinching my arm and going, "How do you stay so skinny?" I told him about my strict vegetarianism, and he went, "Oh," and shuddered really hard. The Hakim Babas’ cook has orders to prepare only vegetarian meals, which was good for me. We had couscous and vegetable goulash. It was all quite delicious.

Mrs. Hakim Baba is beautiful, but in a different way than my mom. Mrs. Hakim Baba is British and very blond. I think she’s pretty bored, living here in America and not having a job and all. Mrs. Hakim Baba used to be a model, but she quit when she got married. Now she doesn’t get to meet all the interesting people she used to meet when she was modeling. She once stayed in the same hotel as Prince Charles and Princess Diana. She says they slept in separate bedrooms. And that was on their honeymoon!

No wonder things didn’t work out between them.

Mrs. Hakim Baba is as tall as me, which makes her about five inches taller than Mr. Hakim Baba. But I don’t think Mr. Hakim Baba minds.

Tina’s little sisters and brother are really cute. After we messed around with the fashion magazines, looking up hairstyles, we tried some of them out on Tina’s sisters. They looked pretty funny. Then we put butterfly clips in Tina’s little brother’s hair and gave him a French manicure like mine, and he got very excited and changed into his Batman suit and ran around the apartment, screaming. I thought it was cute, but Mr. and Mrs. Hakim Baba didn’t think so. They made the nanny put little Bobby Hakim Baba to bed right after dinner.

Then Tina showed me her dress for tomorrow. It’s a Nicole Miller. It’s so pretty, like sea foam. Tina Hakim Baba looks much more like a princess than I ever could.

Then it was time forLilly Tells It Like It Is, which comes on on Friday nights at nine. This was the episode dedicated to exposing the unjust racism at Ho’s Deli. It was filmed before Lilly called off the boycott due to lack of interest. It was a very hard-hitting piece of television news journalism, and I can say that without bragging, since I wasn’t involved in its creation. IfLilly Tells It Like It Is ever went network, I bet it would be as highly rated as60 Minutes.

At the end, Lilly came on and did a segment she must have shot the night before, with a tripod in her bedroom. She sat on her bed and said that racism is a powerful force of evil that all of us must work to combat. She said that even though paying five cents more for a bag of gingko biloba rings might not seem like much to some of us, victims of real racism, like the Armenians and the Rwandans and the Ugandans and the Bosnians, would recognize that that five cents was only the first step on the road to genocide. Lilly went on to say that because of her daring stand against the Hos there was a little bit more justice on the side of right today.

I don’t know about that, but I did sort of start to miss her when she waggled her feet, in their furry bear claw slippers, into the camera as a tribute to Norman. Tina is a fun friend and everything, but I’ve known Lilly since kindergarten. It’s kind of hard to forget that.

We stayed up really late reading Tina’s teenage love novels. I swear, there wasn’t a single one where the boy broke up with a snotty girl and started going out with the heroine right away. Usually he waited a tactful amount of time, like a summer or at least a weekend, before asking her out. The only ones with a guy who started going out with the heroine right away turned out to be ones where the guy was just using the girl to get revenge or something.

But then Tina said even though she loves reading those books, she never takes them as a guide to real life. Because how many times in real life does anybody ever get amnesia? And when do cute young European terrorists ever take anybody hostage in the girls’ locker room? And if they did, wouldn’t it be on the day when you’re wearing your worst underwear, the kind with the holes and loose elastic, and a bra that doesn’t match, and not a pink silk camisole and tap pants, like the heroine of that particular book?

She has a point.

Tina’s turning out the light now, because she’s tired. I’m glad. It’s been a long day.

Saturday, October 18

When I got home, the first thing I did was check to make sure Josh hadn’t called to cancel.

He hadn’t.

Mr. Gianini was there, though (of course). This time he had pants on, thank God. When he heard me ask my mom if a boy named Josh had called, he was all, "You don’t mean Josh Richter, do you?"

I got kind of mad, because he sounded . . . I don’t know. Shocked or something.

I said, "Yes, I mean Josh Richter. He and I are going to the Cultural Diversity Dance tonight."

Mr. Gianini raised his eyebrows. "What about that Weinberger girl?"

It kind of sucks to have a parent who’s dating a teacher in your school. I went, "They broke up."

My mom was watching us pretty closely, which is unusual for her, since most of the time she’s in her own world. She went, "Who’s Josh Richter?"

And I went, "Only the cutest, most sensitive boy in school."

Mr. Gianini snorted and said, "Well, most popular, anyway."

To which my mom replied, with a lot of surprise, "And he askedMia to the dance?"

Needless to say, this was not very flattering. When your own mother knows it’s weird for the cutest, most popular boy in school to ask you to the dance, you know you’re in trouble.

"Yes," I said, all defensively.

"I don’t like this," Mr. Gianini said. And when my mom asked him why, he said, "Because I know Josh Richter."

My mom went, "Uh oh. I don’t like the sound of that," and before I could say anything in Josh’s defense, Mr. Gianini went, "That boy is going one hundred miles per hour," which doesn’t even make any sense.

At least it didn’t until my mom pointed out that since I’m only going five miles per hour (FIVE!) she was going to have to consult my father "about this."

Hello? Consult him about what? What am I, a car with a faulty fan belt? What’s this five-miles-per-hour stuff?

"He’s fast, Mia," Mr. Gianini translated.

Fast? FAST? What is this, the fifties? Josh Richter is a rebel without a cause all of a sudden?

My mom went, as she was dialing my dad’s phone number over at the Plaza, "You’re just a freshman. You shouldn’t be going out with seniors anyway."

How unfair is THAT? I finally get a date, and all of a sudden my parents turn into Mike and Carol Brady? I mean, come on!

So I was standing there, listening to my mom and dad over the speakerphone go on about how they both think I’m too young to date and that I SHOULDN’T date, since this has been a very confusing time for me, what with finding out I’m a princess and all. They were planning out the rest of my life for me (no dating until I’m eighteen, all-girls dorm when I get to college, etc.) when the buzzer to the loft went off, and Mr. G went to answer it. When he asked who it was, this all-too-familiar voice went, "This is Clarisse Marie Grimaldi Renaldo. Who isthis?"

Across the room, my mom nearly dropped the phone. It was Grandmère. Grandmère had come to the loft!

I never in my life thought I’d be grateful to Grandmère for something. I never thought I’d be glad to see her. But when she showed up at the loft to take me shopping for my dress, I could have kissed her—on both cheeks, even—I really could have. Because when I met her at the door, I was like, "Grandmère, they won’t let me go!"

I forgot Grandmère had never even been to the loft before. I forgot Mr. Gianini was there. All I could think about was the fact that my parents were trying to low-ball me about Josh. Grandmère would take care of it, I knew.

And boy, did she ever.

Grandmère came bursting in, giving Mr. Gianini a very dirty look—"This ishe?" she stopped long enough to ask, and when I said yes, she made this sniffing sound and walked right by him—and heard Dad on the speakerphone. She shouted, "Give me that phone," at my mother, who looked like a kid who’d just gotten caught jumping a turnstile by the Transit Authority.

"Mother?" my dad’s voice shouted over the speakerphone. You could tell he was in almost as much shock as Mom. "Is that you? What areyou doing there?"

For someone who claims to have no use for modern technology, Grandmère sure knew how to work that speakerphone. She took Dad right off it, snatched the receiver out of my mother’s hand, and went, "Listen here, Phillipe," into it. "Your daughter is going to the dance with her beau. I traveled fifty-seven blocks by limo to take her shopping for a new dress, and if you think I’m not going to watch her dance in it, then you can just—"

Then my grandmother used some pretty strong language. Only since she said it all in French, only my dad and I understood. My mom and Mr. Gianini just stood there. My mom looked mad. Mr. G looked nervous.

After my grandmother had finished telling my dad just where he could get off, she slammed the phone down, then looked around the loft. Let’s just say Grandmère has never been one for hiding her feelings, so I wasn’t too surprised when the next thing she said was, "Thisis where the princess of Genovia is being brought up? In this . . . warehouse?"

Well, if she had lit a firecracker under my mom, she couldn’t have made her madder.

"Now look here, Clarisse," my mother said, stomping around in her Birkenstocks. "Don’t you dare try to tell me how to raise my child! Phillipe and I have already decided she isn’t going out with this boy. You can’t just come in here and—"

"Amelia," my grandmother said, "go and get your coat."

I went. When I got back, my mom’s face was really red, and Mr. Gianini was looking at the floor. But neither of them said anything as Grandmère and I left the loft.

Once we were outside, I was so excited I could hardly stand it. "Grandmère!" I yelled. "What’d yousay to them? What’d you say to convince them to let me go?"

But Grandmère just laughed in this scary way and said, "I have my ways."

Boy, did I ever not hate her then.

More Saturday

Well, I’m sitting here in my new dress, my new shoes, my new nails, and my new panty hose, with my newly waxed legs and underarms, my newly touched-up hair, my professionally made-up face, and it’s seven o’clock, and there’s no sign of Josh, and I’m wondering if maybe this whole thing was a joke, like in the movieCarrie, which is too scary for me to watch but Michael Moscovitz rented it once, and then he told Lilly and me what it was about: This homely girl gets asked to a dance by the most popular boy in school just so he and his popular friends can pour pig blood on her. Only he doesn’t know Carrie has psychic powers, and at the end of the night she kills everyone in the whole town, including Steven Spielberg’s first wife and the mom fromEight Is Enough.

The problem is, of course, I don’t have psychic powers, so if it turns out that Josh and his friends pour pig blood on me I won’t be able to kill them all. I mean, unless I call in the Genovian national guard or something. But that would be difficult, since Genovia doesn’t have an air force or navy, so how would the guards get here? They’d have to fly commercially, and it costs A LOT to buy tickets at the last minute. I doubt my dad would approve such an exorbitant expenditure of government funds—especially for what he’d be bound to consider a frivolous reason.

But if Josh Richter stands me up, I can assure you, I willnot have a frivolous reaction. I got my LEGS waxed for him. Okay? And if you think that doesn’t hurt, think about having your UNDERARMS waxed, which I also had done for him. Okay? That waxing stuff HURTS. I practically started to cry, it hurt so bad. So don’t be telling ME we can’t call out the Genovian national guard if I get stood up.

I know my dad thinks Josh has stood me up. He’s sitting at the kitchen table right now, pretending to readTV Guide. But I see him sneaking peeks at his watch all the time. Mom, too. Only she never wears a watch, so she keeps sneaking peeks at the blinking-eye cat clock on the wall.

Lars is here, too. He isn’t checking the clock, though. He keeps checking his ammunition clip to make sure he has enough bullets. I suppose my dad told him to shoot Josh if he makes a move on me.

Oh, yes. My dad said I can go out with Josh, but only if Lars goes, too. This is no big thing since I always expected Lars would go, anyway. But I pretended to be all mad about it so my dad wouldn’t think I was getting off too easy. I mean, HE’s in BIG trouble with Grandmère. She told me while I was being fitted for my dress that my dad has always had a problem with commitment and that the reason he doesn’t want me to go out with Josh is that he can’t stand to see me dumped the way my dad has dumped countless models all over the world.

God! Assume the worst, why don’t you, Dad.

Josh can’t dump me. He’s never even been out with me yet.

And if he doesn’t show up soon, well, all I can say is HIS LOSS. I look better than I have ever looked in my whole entire life. Old Coco Chanel really outdid herself; my dress is HOT, pale, pale blue silk, all scrunched up on top like an accordion, so my being flat-chested doesn’t even show, then straight and skinny the rest of the way down, all the way to my matching pale, pale blue silk high heels. I think I kind of resemble an icicle, but according to the ladies at Chanel, this is the look of the new millennium. Icicles arein.

The only problem is I can’t pet Fat Louie or I’ll get orange cat hair on myself. I should have got one of those masking tape roller thingies last time I was at Rite Aid, but I forgot. Anyway, he’s sitting beside me on the futon, looking all sad because I won’t pet him. I picked up all my socks, just in case he got it into his head to punish me or something by eating one.

My dad just looked at his watch and went, "Hmm. Seven-fifteen. I can’t say much for this boy’s promptness."

I tried to remain calm. "I’m sure there’s a lot of traffic," I said, in as princessy a voice as I could.

"I’m sure," my dad. He didn’t sound very sad, though. "Well, Mia, we can still make it toBeauty and the Beast, if you want to go. I’m sure I can get—"

"Dad!" I was horrified. "I am NOT going toBeauty and the Beast with you tonight."

Now he sounded sad. "But you used to loveBeauty and the Beast. . . . "

THANK GOD the intercom just rang. It’s him. My mom just buzzed him up. The other stipulation, before my dad would let me go, is that besides Lars going, Josh has to meet both my parents—and probably submit proof of ID, though I’m not sure Dad’s thought of that yet.

I’m going to have to leave this book here, because there’s no room for it in my "clutch," which is what my skinny, flat purse is called.

Oh my God, my hands are sweating so hard! I should have listened when Grandmère suggested those elbow-length gloves—

Saturday Night, Ladies’ Room,

Tavern on the Green

Okay, so I lied. I brought this book anyway. I made Lars carry it. Well, it’s not like he doesn’t have room in that briefcase he carries around. I know it’s filled with silencers and grenades and stuff, but I knew he could fit one measly journal into it.

And I was right.

So I’m in the bathroom at the Tavern on the Green. The ladies’ room here isn’t as nice as the one at the Plaza. There isn’t a little stool to sit on in my stall, so I’m sitting on the toilet with the lid down. I can see a lot of fat ladies’ feet moving around outside my stall door. There are a whole lot of fat ladies here, mostly for this wedding between a very Italian-looking dark-haired girl who needs a good eyebrow waxing and a skinny redheaded boy named Fergus. Fergus gave me the old eyeball when I walked into the dining room. I am not kidding. My first married man, even if he has only been married about an hour and looks my age. This dress is the BOMB!

Dinner’s not so great as I thought it would be, though. I mean, I know from Grandmère which fork to use and all that, and to tilt my soup bowl away from me, but that’s not it.

It’s Josh.

Don’t get me wrong. He looks totally hot in his tux. He told me he owns it. Last year, he escorted his girlfriend before Lana to all the debutante events in the city, his girlfriend before Lana having been related to the guy who invented those plastic bags you put vegetables in when you go to the grocery store. Only his were the first to sayOPEN HERE so you knew which end was the one you were supposed to try to open. Those two little words earned the guy half a billion dollars, Josh says.

I don’t know why he told me this. Am I supposed to be impressed by something his ex-girlfriend’s dad did? He isn’t acting very sensitive, to tell you the truth.

Still, he was really good with my parents. He came in, gave me a corsage (tiny white roses tied together with pink ribbon, totally gorgeous; it must have cost him ten dollarsat least —I couldn’t help thinking, though, that he’d originally picked it out for another girl, with a different color dress), and shook my dad’s hand. He said, "It’s a pleasure to meet you, Your Highness," which made my mom start laughing really loud. She can be so embarrassing sometimes.

Then he turned to my mom and said, "You’re Mia’s mother? Oh my gosh, I thought you must be her college-age sister," which is a totally toolish thing to say, but my mom actually fell for it, I think. She BLUSHED as he was shaking her hand. I guess I am not the only Thermopolis woman to fall under the spell of Josh Richter’s blue eyes.

Then my dad cleared his throat and started asking Josh a whole lot of questions about what kind of car he was driving (his dad’s BMW), where we’re going (duh), and what time we would be back (in time for breakfast, Josh said). My dad didn’t like that, though, and Josh said, "What time would you like her back, sir?"

SIR! Josh Richter called my dad SIR!

And my dad looked at Lars and said, "One o’clock at the latest," which I thought was pretty decent of him, since my normal curfew is eleven on weekends. Of course, considering that Lars was going to be there, and there wasn’t anything that could actually happen to me, it was kind of bogus that I couldn’t stay out as late as I wanted, but Grandmère told me a princess should always be prepared to compromise, so I didn’t say anything.

Then my dad asked Josh some more questions, like where was he going to college in the fall (he hasn’t decided yet, but he’s applying to all the Ivy Leagues) and what does he plan on studying (business), and then my mom asked him what was wrong with a liberal arts education, and Josh said he was really looking for a degree that would guarantee him a minimum salary of eighty thousand a year, to which my mom replied that there are more important things than money, and then I said, "Gosh, look at the time," and grabbed Josh and headed out the door.

Josh and Lars and I went down to Josh’s dad’s car, and Josh held the door to the front seat open for me, and then Lars said why didn’t he drive so Josh and I could sit in the back and get to know each other. I thought this was way nice of Lars, but when Josh and I got in the back, we didn’t have a whole lot to say to each other. I mean, Josh was like, "You look really nice in that dress," and I said I liked his tux and thanked him for my corsage. And then we didn’t say anything for like twenty blocks.

I am not even kidding. I was so embarrassed! I mean, I don’t hang around with boys that much, but I’ve never had that problem with the ones I HAVE hung around with. I mean, Michael Moscovitz practically never shuts up. I couldn’t understand why Josh wasn’t SAYING anything. I thought about asking him who he’d rather spend eternity with if it was the end of the world and he had to choose, Winona Ryder or Nicole Kidman, but I didn’t feel like I knew him well enough. . . .

But finally Josh broke the silence by asking if it was true my mom was dating Mr. Gianini. Well, I should have expectedthat to get around. Maybe not as fast as my being a princess, but it had gotten around, all right.

So I said, yes, it was true, and then Josh wanted to know what that was like.

But then for some reason I couldn’t tell him about seeing Mr. G in his underwear at my kitchen table. It just didn’t seem . . . I don’t know. I just couldn’t tell him. Isn’t that funny? I had told Michael Moscovitz without even having been asked. But I couldn’t tell Josh, even though he had looked into my soul and everything. Weird, huh?

Then after like a zillion more blocks of silence we pulled up in front of the restaurant, and Lars surrendered the car to the valet and Josh and I went in (Lars promised he wouldn’t eat with us; he said he’d just stand by the door and look at everybody who arrived in a mean way, like Arnold Schwarzenegger), and it turned out all of Josh’s entourage was meeting us here, which I didn’t know but was kind of relieved to see. I mean, I’d sort of been dreading sitting there for another hour or so with nothing to say. . . .

But thank God, all the guys on the crew team were at this big long table with their cheerleader girlfriends, and at the head of this table were these two empty places, one for Josh and one for me.

I have to say, everyone has been pretty nice. The girls all complimented me on my dress and asked me questions about being a princess, like how weird was it to wake up and see your picture on the front of thePost, and do you ever wear a crown, and stuff like that. They’re all much older than me—some of them are seniors—so they’re pretty mature. None of them have made any comments about how I have no chest or anything, like Lana would have if she’d been here.

But then, if Lana were here I wouldn’t be.

The thing that most surprised me is that Josh ordered champagne, and nobody even questioned his ID, which, of course, was totally fake. The table’s been through three bottles already, and Josh just keeps ordering more, since his dad gave him his platinum American Express card for the occasion. I just don’t get it. Can’t the waiters tell he’s only eighteen and that most of his guests are even younger than that?

And how can Josh sit there and drink so much? What if Lars hadn’t been here to drive? Josh would be driving his dad’s BMW half sloshed. How irresponsible can you get? And Josh is class valedictorian!

And then, without even asking me, Josh ordered dinner for the whole table: filet mignon for everyone. I guess that’s very nice and all, but I won’t eat meat, not even for the most sensitive boy in the world.

And he hasn’t even noticed I haven’t touched my food! I totally had to fill up on salad and bread rolls to keep from starving to death.

Maybe I could sneak out of here and get Lars to pick up a veggie wrap for me from Emerald Planet.

And the funny thing is, the more champagne Josh has to drink, the more he keeps on touching me. Like he keeps on putting his hand on my leg under the table. At first I thought it was a mistake, but he’s done it four times now. The last time, he squeezed!

I don’t think he’s drunk, exactly, but he’s certainly friendlier than he was in the car on the way up. Maybe he’s just feeling less inhibited, with Lars not hovering around, two feet away.

Well, I guess I should go back out there. I just wish Josh had told me we were meeting his friends. Then maybe I could have invited Tina Hakim Baba and her date—or even Lilly and Boris. Then at least I’d have someone fun to talk to.

Oh, well. Here goes nothing.

Later Saturday Night, Girls’ Room,

Albert Einstein High School

Why?

Why??

Why???

I can’t even believe this is happening. I can’t believe it’s happening to ME!

WHY? WHY ME? WHY IS IT ALWAYS ME these things have to happen to????

I’m trying to remember what Grandmère told me about how to act under duress. Because I am definitely under duress. I keep trying to breathe in through my nose, out through my mouth, like Grandmère said. In through my nose, out through my mouth. In through my nose, out through my—

HOW COULD HE DO THIS TO ME???? HOW, HOW, HOW?????!!!

I could rip his stupid face off, I really could. I mean, who does he think he is? Do you know what he did? Do you know what he did? Well, let me tell you what he did.

After polishing off NINE bottles of champagne—that’s practically one bottle per person, except I only had a couple of sips, so somebody drank my bottle as well as his—Josh and his friends finally decided it was time to go to the dance. Oh, gee, let me see, the dance had only started an HOUR earlier. It was only about TIME we left.

So we go and wait for the valet to bring the car around, and I was thinking maybe everything would be all right, since while we were waiting Josh had his arm around my shoulders, which was really nice, since my dress is sleeveless, and even though I have a wrap it’s just this shimmery see-through veil thing. So I’m appreciative of this arm, since it’s keeping me warm. It’s a nice arm, really, very muscular from all that rowing. The only problem is, Josh doesn’t smell that good, not a bit like Michael Moscovitz, who always smells like soap. No, I think Josh must have taken a bath in Drakkar Noir, which in large doses actually smells pretty vile. I could hardly breathe, but whatever. In spite of that, I’m thinking, okay, things aren’t so bad. Yes, he didn’t respect my rights as a vegetarian, but you know, everybody makes mistakes. We’ll go to the dance and he’ll look into my soul again with those electric blue eyes and everything will be all right.

Boy, was I ever wrong.

First of all, we can barely pull up to the school, there’s so much traffic. At first I couldn’t figure it out. Yes, it was Saturday night, but there shouldn’t be THAT much traffic in front of Albert Einstein’s, right? I mean, it’s just a school dance. Most kids in New York City don’t even have access to cars, right? We’re probably like the only people who go to Albert Einstein’s who drove.

And then I realize why there’s so much congestion. There are news vans parked all over the place. They’re shining these big bright lights all over the steps to Albert Einstein’s. There are reporters swarming around all over the place, smoking cigarettes, talking on cell phones, waiting.

Waiting for what?

Waiting for me, it turns out.

As soon as Lars saw the lights, he started to swear very colorfully in some language that wasn’t English or French. But you could tell they were swear words by his voice. I leaned forward and was like, "How could they have known? How could they have known? Could Grandmère have told them?"

But you know, I really don’t think Grandmère would have done this. I really don’t. Not after our talk. I laid it on the line for Grandmère. I came down on her like a New York cop on a game of three-card monte. Grandmère would not, I’m sure, EVER call the press on me again, without my permission.

But there they all were, and SOMEBODY called them, all right, and if it wasn’t Grandmère, then who was it?

Josh was totally unconcerned by all the lights and cameras and everything. He goes, "So what? You ought to be used to it by now."

Oh, right. Let me tell you how used to it I am by now. So used to it that the thought of getting out of that car, even with the arm of the cutest boy in the school around me, made me feel like I was going to barf up all of that salad and bread.

"Come on," Josh said. "You and I can make a run for it while Lars goes and parks the car."

Lars totally did not like that idea. He went, "I think not.You will park the car, and the princess andI will make a run for it."

But Josh was already opening his door. He had hold of my hand. He said, "Come on. You only live once," and started dragging me out of the car.

And like the really stupid chump that I am, I let him.

That’s right. I let him drag me out of the car. Because his hand felt so nice over mine, so big and protective, so warm and secure, I thought, Oh, what could happen? So a bunch of flashbulbs will go off. So what? We’ll just make a run for it, like he said. Everything will be fine.

So I said to Lars, "That’s okay, Lars. You park the car. Josh and I’ll go on inside."

Lars said, "No, Princess, wait—"

Which were the last words I heard out of him—for a while, anyway—since by that time Josh and I were out of the car and he had slammed the door shut behind us.

And then, instantly, the press was on us, everyone throwing down their cigarettes and pulling the lens caps off their cameras, yelling, "It’s her! It’s her!"

And then Josh was pulling me up the steps, and I was sort of laughing, since for the first time itwas sort of fun. Flashbulbs were going off everywhere, blinding me, so that all I could see were the steps underneath us as we ran up them. I was totally concentrating on holding up the hem of my dress so I didn’t trip on it, and had put all my faith in those fingers wrapped around my other hand. I was completely dependent on Josh to lead the way, since I couldn’t see a blessed thing.

So when he suddenly stopped, I thought it was because we were at the school doors. I thought we’d stopped because Josh was opening the doors for me. I know it’s stupid, but that’s what I thought. I could see the doors. We were standing right in front of them. Below us, on the stairs, the reporters were screaming questions and taking pictures. Some moron was yelling, "Kiss her! Kiss her!" which I don’t need to tell you was way embarrassing.

And so I just stood there, like a complete IDIOT, waiting for Josh to open the doors, instead of doing the smart thing, which was open the doors myself and get inside where it was safe, where there weren’t any cameras or reporters or people yelling "Kiss her, Kiss her!"

And then, I don’t know how, the next thing I knew Josh had put his arm around me again, dragged me to him, and smashed his mouth against mine.

I swear, that’s exactly what it felt like. He just smashed his mouth up against mine, and all these flashes started going off, but believe me, it wasn’t like in those books Tina is always reading, where the boy kisses the girl and she sees like fireworks and stuff behind her eyelids. I really WAS seeing lights go off, but they weren’t fireworks, they were flashes from cameras. EVERYONE was taking a picture of Princess Mia getting her first kiss.

I am not even kidding. Like it wasn’t bad enough that this was my first kiss.

It was my first kiss andTeen People was photographing it.

And another thing about those books Tina reads: In those books, when the girl gets her first kiss, she gets this warm gushy feeling inside. She feels like the guy is drawing her soul up from deep within her. I didn’t get that feeling. I didn’t get that feeling at all. All I got was embarrassed. It didn’t feel especially good, having Josh Richter kiss me. All it felt, really, was strange. It felt strange, having this guy stand there and smash his mouth against mine. And you would think that after I’d spent so much time thinking this guy was the greatest thing on earth I’d have felt SOMETHING when he kissed me.

But all I felt was embarrassed.

And like our car ride to the restaurant, I just kept wishing it would end. All I could think was, When is he going to stop doing this? Am I even doing this right? In the movies they move their heads around a lot. Should I move my head around? What am I going to do if he tries to stick his tongue in there, like I used to see him do to Lana? I can’t letTeen People take a picture of me with some guy’s tongue in my mouth; my dad will kill me.

Then, just when I thought I couldn’t stand it another minute, that I was going to DIE of embarrassment right there on the steps of Albert Einstein High School, Josh lifted up his head, waved to the reporters, opened the doors to the school, and pushed me inside.

Where, I swear to God, every single person I knew was standing, looking at us.

I am not kidding. There were Tina and her date from Trinity, Dave, looking at me in a sort of shocked way. There were Lilly and Boris, and for once Boris hadn’t tucked in anything that wasn’t supposed to be tucked. In fact, he almost looked handsome, in a geeky, musical genius kind of way. And Lilly, in a beautiful white dress with spangles all over it, and white roses in her hair. And there were Shameeka and Ling Su with their dates, and a bunch of other people I probably knew but didn’t recognize out of their school uniforms, all looking at me with the same sort of expression Tina was wearing, one of total and complete astonishment.

And there was Mr. G, standing by the ticket booth in front of the doors to the cafeteria, where the dance was being held, looking more astonished than anybody.

Except maybe me. I would have to say, out of everybody there, I was the person in the most shock. I mean, Josh Richter HAD just kissed me. JOSH RICHTER had just KISSED me. Josh Richter had just kissed ME.

Did I mention that he’d kissed me ON THE LIPS?

Oh, and that he did it in front of reporters fromTEEN PEOPLE?

So I’m standing there, and everybody is looking at me, and I could still hear the reporters yelling outside, and inside the cafeteria I could hear thethump, thump, thump of the sound system as it ground out some hip-hop, a tribute to our Latino student population, and these thoughts are moving really sluggishly through my head, these thoughts that are saying:

He set you up.

He only asked you out so he could get his picture in the paper.

He’s the one who notified the press that you’d be here tonight.

He probably only broke up with Lana just so he could tell his friends he’s dating a girl worth three hundred million dollars. He never even noticed you until your picture was on the cover of thePost. Lilly was right: That day in Bigelows, he WAS only suffering from a synaptic breakdown when he smiled at you. He probably thinks his chances of getting into Harvard or whatever are way enhanced by the fact that he’s the princess of Genovia’s boyfriend.

And like a big idiot, I fell for it.

Great. Just great.

Lilly says I’m not assertive enough. Her parents say I have a tendency to internalize everything and fear confrontation.

My mom says the same thing. That’s why she gave me this book, in the hopes that what I won’t tell her, I’ll at least get out into the open somehow.

If it hadn’t turned out that I’m a princess, maybe I might still be all that stuff. You know, unassertive, fearful of confrontation, an internalizer. I probably wouldn’t have done what I did next.

Which was turn to Josh and ask, "Why did you do that?"

He was busy patting himself down, trying to find the dance tickets to hand to the sophomores who were manning the ticket table. "Do what?"

"Kiss me like that, in front of everybody."

He found the tickets in his wallet. "I don’t know," he said. "Didn’t you hear them? They were yelling at me to kiss you. So I did. Why?"

"Because I didn’t appreciate it."

"You didn’t appreciate it?" Josh looked confused. "You mean you didn’t like it?"

"Yes," I said. "That’s exactly what I mean. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all. Because I know you didn’t kiss me because you like me. You just kissed me because I’m the princess of Genovia."

Josh looked at me like he thought I was crazy.

"That’s crazy," he said. "I like you. I like you a lot."

I said, "You can’t like me a lot. You don’t evenknow me. That’s why I thought you asked me out. So you could get to know me better. But you haven’t tried to get to know me at all. You just wanted to get your picture onExtra."

He laughed at that, but I noticed he didn’t look me in the eye when he said, "What do you mean, I don’t even know you? Of course I know you."

"No, you don’t. Because if you did, you wouldn’t have ordered me a steak for dinner."

I heard a murmur go around through all of my friends. I guess they recognized the seriousness of Josh’s mistake, even if he didn’t. He heard them, too, so when he replied, he was talking to them, too. "So I ordered the girl a steak," he said, with his arms open in a so-sue-me sort of way. "That’s a crime? It wasfilet mignon, for God’s sake."

Lilly said, in her meanest voice, "She’s a vegetarian, you sociopath."

This information didn’t seem to bother Josh very much. He just shrugged and went, "Oops, my bad."

Then he turned to me and said, "Ready to slide?"

But I had no intention of sliding with Josh. I had no intention of doing anything with Josh, ever again. I couldn’t believe, after what I’d just said to him, he thought I’d stillwant to. The guy reallywas a sociopath. How could I ever have thought he’d seen into my soul? How???

Disgusted, I did the only thing a girl can be expected to do under those circumstances:

I turned my back on him and walked out.

Only, since of course I couldn’t go back outside—not if I didn’t wantTeen People to get a nice close-up of me crying—my only recourse was to walk out into the girls’ room.

It finally registered on Josh that I was ditching him. By that time, all of his friends had shown up, and they came tumbling through the doors just as Josh said, sounding totally peeved, "Jesus! It was just a kiss!"

I whirled around. "It wasn’t just a kiss," I said. I was getting really mad. "Maybe that’s how you wanted it to look, like it was just a kiss. But you and I both know what it really was: A media event. And one that you’ve been planning since you saw me in thePost. Well, thank you, Josh, but I can get my own publicity. I don’t needyou."

Then, after holding out my hand to Lars for my journal, I took it and stalked into the girls’ room. Which is where I am now, writing this.

God! Can you BELIEVE that? I mean, I ask you: My first kiss—my first kiss ever—and next week it’s going to be in every teen magazine in the country. Probably even some international magazines will pick it up, likeMajesty magazine, which follows the lives of all the young royals in Great Britain and Monaco. They ran a whole article on the wardrobe of Prince Edward’s wife, Sophie, once, rating each one of her outfits on a scale of one to ten. They called it "Out of the Closet."I don’t suppose it will be too long beforeMajesty magazine starts following me around, rating my wardrobe—and boyfriends—too. I wonder what the caption under the picture of me and Josh will be. "Young Royal in Love"?

Excuse me, butew.

And the kicker of it all is that I am totally NOT in love with Josh Richter. I mean, it would have been nice—Who am I kidding? It would have been GREAT—to have a boyfriend. Sometimes I think there really is something wrong with me, that I don’t have one.

But the thing is, I would rather not have a boyfriend at all than have one who is only using me for my money or the fact that my father is a prince or for any reason, really, except that he likes me forme, and nothing else.

Of course, now that everyone knows I’m a princess, it’s going to be kind of hard to tell which guys like me for me and which guys like me for my tiara. But at least I realized the truth about Josh before things went on too long.

How could I have ever liked him? He’s such a user. He totally used me! He purposefully hurt Lana and then tried to use me. And I played right into his hands like the stupid sap that I am.

What am I going to do? When my dad sees that photograph, he is going to FLIP OUT. There is no way I will ever be able to explain that it wasn’t my fault. Maybe if I’d punched Josh in the stomach in front of all those cameras, maybe then my dad would believe I was an innocent bystander. . . .

But probably not.

I will never be allowed out of the house with a boy again, ever, for the rest of my natural life.

Uh-oh. I see shoes outside my stall. Somebody is talking to me.

It’s Tina. Tina wants to know if I’m all right. Somebody is with her.

Oh my God, I recognize those feet! It’s Lilly! Lilly and Tina both want to know if I’m all right!

Lilly is actually speaking to me again. Not criticizing me or complaining about my behavior. She is actually speaking to me in a friendly manner. She’s saying through the stall door that she’s sorry for laughing at my hair and that she knows she’s controlling and that she suffers from a borderline authoritarian personality disorder, and she says she’s going to make a concerted effort to stop telling everyone, especially me, what to do.

Wow! Lilly is admitting she did something wrong! I can’t believe it! I CAN’T BELIEVE IT!

She and Tina want me to come out and hang out with them. But I told them I don’t want to. It would be too awkward, all of them with dates and me by myself like a big dope.

And then Lilly goes, "Oh, that’s okay. Michael’s here. He’s been hanging around by himself like a big dope all night."

Michael Moscovitz came to a school event??? I can’t believe it!! He never goes anywhere, except to like lectures in quantum physics and stuff!!

I have got to see this for myself. I am going out there right now.

More later.

Sunday, October 19

I just woke up from the strangest dream.

In my dream, Lilly and I weren’t fighting anymore; she and Tina had become friends; Boris Pelkowski actually turned out to be not so bad when you got him away from his violin; Mr. Gianini said he was raising my nine week grade from an F to a D; I slow-danced with Michael Moscovitz; and Iran bombed Afghanistan, so there wasn’t a single picture of me and Josh kissing in any newspaper on the newsstand, since all the papers were filled with photos of war carnage.

But it wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t a dream at all, none of it! It had all really happened!

Because I woke up this morning with something wet on my face, and when I opened my eyes, I saw that I was lying in the spare bed in Lilly’s room, and her brother’s sheltie was licking me all over my face. I mean it. I have dog spit all over me.

And I don’t even care! Pavlov can drool all over me if he wants to! I have my best friend back! I’m not going to flunk out of ninth grade! My dad isn’t going to kill me for kissing Josh Richter!

Oh, and I think Michael Moscovitz might like me!

I can hardly write for happiness.

Little did I know when I came out of the girls’ room last night with Lilly and Tina that all this happiness lay in store for me. I was morbidly depressed—yes,morbidly. Isn’t that a good word? I learned it from Lilly—over what had happened with Josh.

But when I came out of the girls’ room, Josh was gone. Lilly told me later that after I publicly humiliated him and then went storming off into the bathroom, Josh went on into the dance, not looking as if he cared too much. Lilly isn’t sure what happened after that, because Mr. G asked her and Tina to go and check on me (wasn’t that sweet of him?), but I have a feeling Lars might have used one of his special nerve-paralyzing holds on Josh, because the next time I saw him, Josh was slumped over at the Pacific Islander display table with his forehead resting on a model of Krakatoa. He didn’t move all night, either, but I just thought that was because of all the champagne he’d had to drink.

Anyway, Lilly and Tina and I joined Boris and Dave—who is really nice, even if he does go to Trinity—and Shameeka and her boyfriend, Allan, and Ling-Su and her date, Clifford, at this table they had snagged. It was the Pakistani table, with a display sponsored by the Economics Club, detailing how the market for maunds (a Pakistani unit of measurement) of rice was falling. We moved some of the maunds and sat there anyway, right on the tabletop, so we could see everything.

And then Michael suddenly appeared out of nowhere, looking crescent fresh—isn’t that a funny expression? I learned it from Michael—in the tux his mom made him get for his cousin Steve’s bar mitzvah. Michael really didn’t have anyone else to hang out with, since Principal Gupta ruled that the Internet is not a culture and therefore cannot have its own table, and so the Computer Club boycotted the Cultural Diversity Dance on principle.

But Michael didn’t seem to care what the Computer Club thought, and he’s the treasurer! He sat down next to me and asked if I was all right, and then we had fun for a while CracKing jokes about how all the cheerleaders sure don’t practice any cultural diversity, since they were all dressed in practically the same gown, a slinky black number by Donna Karan. Then somebody started talking aboutStar Trek: Deep Space Nine and whether or not there’s caffeine in replicator coffee, and Michael insisted that the matter used to make the things that come out of the replicator is from refuse, which means maybe when you order an ice cream sundae it might be made out of urine, but with the germs and impurities extracted. And we were all getting kind of grossed out when the music changed, and a slow song came on, and everybody left the table to go and dance.

Except for me and Michael, of course. We just sat there amid the maunds of rice.

Which wasn’t too bad, actually, since Michael and I never run out of things to talk about—unlike me and Josh. We kept on arguing about the replicator, and then we moved on to who was the more effective leader, Captain Kirk or Captain Picard, when Mr. Gianini came over and asked me if I was okay.

I said of course, and that was when Mr. G told me he was glad to hear it, and, by the way, based on my latest scores on the practice sheets he’d been giving me evey day, I had brought my F in Algebra up to a D, for which he congratulated me, and he urged me to keep up the hard work.

But I credited my improved math performance to Michael, who taught me to stop writing my Algebra notes in my journal, not be so messy with my columns, and to cross things out when I borrow during subtraction. Michael got all embarrassed and claimed not to have had anything to do with it, but Mr. G didn’t hear him since he had to hurry off and dissuade a group of Goths from embarking upon a demonstration over the unfair exclusion of a table dedicated to Satan worshipers by the event organizers.

Then a fast song came on and everybody came back, and we sat around and talked about Lilly’s show, which Tina Hakim Baba is now going to be producer of, since we found out she gets $50 a week in allowance (she is going to start borrowing teen romances from the library instead of buying them new so that she can use all of her funds for promotingLilly Tells It Like It Is ). Lilly asked if I’d mind being the topic for next week’s show, titled "The New Monarchy: Royals Who Make a Difference." I gave her exclusive rights to my first public interview if she’d promise to ask me about my feelings on the meat industry.

Then another slow song came on, and everybody went to go and dance to it. Michael and I were left sitting amid the rice again, and I was about to ask him who he’d choose to spend eternity with if nuclear armaggedon wiped out the rest of the population, Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Sabrina the Teenage Witch, when he asked me if I wanted to dance!

I was so surprised, I said sure without even thinking about it. And then the next thing I knew, I was dancing my first dance with a boy who wasn’t my dad!

And it was aslow one!

Slow dancing isstrange. It isn’t even dancing, really. It’s more like standing there with your arms around the other person, moving from one foot to the other in time to the music. And I guess you aren’t supposed to talk—at least, nobody else around us was talking. I guess I could sort of see why, since you’re so busyfeeling stuff it’s hard to think of anything to say. I mean, Michaelsmelled so good—like Ivory soap—andfeltso good—the dress Grandmère picked out for me was pretty and everything, but I was kind of cold in it, so it was nice to stand close to Michael, who was so warm—that it was next to impossible tosay anything.

I guess Michael felt the same way, because even though when we were sitting there on the table with all the rice neither of us ever shut up, we had so much to talk about, when we were dancing together neither of us said a word.

But the minute the song was over Michael started talking again, asking me if I wanted some Thai iced tea from the Thai Culture table, or maybe some edamame from the Japanese Anime Club’s table. For somebody who’d never been to a single school event—aside from Computer Club meetings—Michael sure was making up for lost time in his enthusiasm over being at this one.

And that was how the rest of the night went: We sat around and talked during the fast songs and danced during the slow ones.

And you know, to tell the truth, I couldn’t say which I liked better, talking to Michael or dancing with him. They were both so . . . interesting.

In different ways, of course.

When the dance was over we all piled into the limo Mr. Hakim Baba sent to pick up Tina and Dave (the news vans had all left by then, since the story about the bombing had broken; I suppose they went to go stake out the Iranian embassy). I called my mom on the limo cell phone and told her where I was and asked if I could spend the night at Lilly’s, since that’s where we were all headed. She said yes without asking any questions, which led me to believe that she’d already talked to Mr. G and that he’d filled her in on the night’s events. I wonder if he told her he’d raised my F to a D.

You know, he could have given me a D plus. I have been nothing but supportive of his relationship with my mother. That kind of loyalty ought to be rewarded.

Dr. and Dr. Moscovitz seemed kind of surprised when all ten of us—twelve, if you count Lars and Wahim—showed up at their door. They were especially surprised to see Michael; they hadn’t realized he’d left his room. But they let us take over the living room, where we played End of the World until Lilly’s and Michael’s dad finally came out in his pajamas and said everybody had to go home, he had an early appointment with his tai chi instructor.

Everybody said good-bye and piled into the elevator, except for me and the Moscovitzes. Even Lars hitched a ride back to the Plaza—once I had been locked down for the night, his responsibilities were over. I made him promise not to tell my dad about the kiss. He said he wouldn’t, but you can never tell with guys; they have this weird code of their own, you know? I was reminded of it when I saw Lars and Michael giving each other high fives right before he left.

The strangest thing out of everything that happened last night is that I found out what Michael does in his room all the time. He showed me, but he made me swear never to tell anyone, including Lilly. I probably shouldn’t even write it down here, in case someone ever finds this book and reads it. All I can say is Lilly’s been wasting her time worshiping Boris Pelkowski; there’s a musical genius in her very own family.

And to think, he’s never had one lesson! He taught himself how to play the guitar—and he writes all his own songs! The one he played for me is called "Tall Drink of Water." It’s about this very tall pretty girl who doesn’t know this boy is in love with her. I predict that one day it will be number one on theBillboard chart. Michael Moscovitz could one day be as famous as Puff Daddy.

It wasn’t until everyone was gone that I realized how tired I was. It had been a really long day. I had broken up with a boy I had only been out on half a date with. That can be very emotionally wearing.

Still, I woke up way early, like I always do when I spend the night at Lilly’s. I lay there with Pavlov in my arms and listened to the sound of the morning traffic on Fifth Avenue, which isn’t really very loud, since the Moscovitzes had their windows soundproofed. As I lay there, I thought, Really, I am a very lucky girl. Things had looked pretty bad there for a while. But isn’t it funny how everything kind of works itself out in the end?

I hear stirrings in the kitchen. Maya must be there, pouring out glasses of pulpless orange juice for breakfast. I’m going to go see if she needs any help.

I don’t know why, but I AM SO HAPPY!

I guess it doesn’t take much, does it?

Sunday Night

Grandmère showed up at the loft today with Dad in tow. Dad wanted to find out how things went at the dance. Lars didn’t tell him! God, Ilove my bodyguard. And Grandmère wanted to let me know that she has to go away for a week, so our princess lessons are suspended for the time being. She says it’s time to pay her yearly visit to somebody named Baden-Baden. I suppose he’s friends with that other guy she used to hang around with, Boutros-Boutros Something-or-other.

Evenmy grandmother has a boyfriend.

Anyway, she and Dad just showed up out of the blue, and you should have seen my mom’s face. She looked about ready to heave. Especially when Grandmère started bossing her around about how messy the loft is (I’ve been too busy lately to clean).

To distract Grandmère from my mom, I told her I’d walk her back to her limo, and on the way I told her all about Josh, and she was way interested, since the story had everything in it that she likes, reporters and cute boys and people getting their hearts totally stomped on and stuff like that.

Anyway, while we were standing on the corner saying good-bye until next week (YES!No princess lessons for a whole week! She shoots; she scores!) the Blind Guy walked by, tapping his cane. He stopped at the corner and stood there, waiting for his next victim to come along and help him cross the street. Grandmère saw this and totally fell for it. She was like, "Amelia, go and help that poor young man."

But, of course, I knew better. I said, "No way."

"Amelia!" Grandmère was shocked. "One of the most important traits in a princess is her unfailing kindess to strangers. Now, go and help that young man cross the street."

I said, "No way, Grandmère. If you think he needs help so much,you do it."

So Grandmère, all bent out of shape—and I guess intent on showing me how unfailingly kind she is—went up to the Blind Guy and said in this fakey voice, "Let me help you, young man. . . . "

The Blind Guy grabbed Grandmère by the arm. I guess he liked what he felt, because the next thing I knew, he was going, "Oh, thank you so much, ma’am," and he and Grandmère were crossing Spring Street.

I didn’t think the Blind Guy was going to try to feel up my grandmother. I really didn’t, or I wouldn’t have let her help him. I mean, Grandmère is no spring chicken, if you know what I mean. I couldn’t imagine any guy, even a blind one, feeling her up.

But next thing I knew, Grandmère was yelling her head off, and both her driver and our neighbor who used to be a man came running out to help her.

But Grandmère didn’t need any help. She whacked the Blind Guy across the face with her purse so hard his sunglasses went flying off. After that there was no doubt about it: The Blind Guy can see.

And let me tell you something: I don’t think he’ll be taking any more trips down our street for a while.

After all that yelling, it was almost a blessing to go inside and work on my Algebra homework for the rest of the day. I needed some peace and quiet.

About the Author

Meg Cabot has lived in Indiana, California, and France, and has worked as an assistant dorm manager at a large urban university, an illustrator, and a writer of historical romance novels (under a different name). She is still waiting for her real parents, the king and queen, to come and restore her to her rightful throne. She currently resides in New York City with her husband and a one-eyed cat named Henrietta.

Visit Meg’s website at: www.megcabot.com

About this Title

This eBook was created using ReaderWorks®Publisher 2.0, produced by OverDrive, Inc.

For more information about ReaderWorks, please visit us on the Web atwww.overdrive.com/readerworks