Princess in Pink

by Meg Cabot

  But HELLO. IS IT TOO MUCH TO ASK THAT I GET THE ONE THING FOR MY BIRTHDAY THAT I HAVE ALWAYS WANTED—and that is ONE PERFECT NIGHT AT THE PROM??????????????? I mean, Lana Weinberger is getting that, and she is not even striving to become self-actualized. She probably doesn’t even know what self-actualization means. She has never been kind to anyone in her whole entire life. So why does SHE get to go to the prom?

  I am telling you, there is no justice in the world.

  NONE.

  Expressions with radicals can be multiplied or divided as long as the root power or value under the radical is the same.

  Thursday, May 1, My Birthday, G & J

  Today in honor of my birthday Michael ate lunch at my table, instead of with the Computer Club, even though it’s a Thursday. It was actually quite romantic, because it turns out that not only had he paid that little visit to the Manhattan Muffin Company this morning, but he also ditched fourth period and snuck out to Wu Liang Ye to get me the cold sesame noodles I like so much and can’t get downtown, the ones that are so spicy you need to drink TWO cans of Coke before your tongue feels normal again after you eat them.

  Which was totally sweet of him, and was actually even a bit of a relief, because I have been quite worried about what Michael is going to give me as a birthday present, because I know he must feel like he has a lot to live up to, seeing as how I gave him moon rocks for his birthday.

  I hope he realizes that, being a princess and all, I have access to moon rocks, but that I truly do not expect people to give me gifts that are of moon rock caliber. I mean, I hope Michael knows that I would be happy with a simple, “Mia, will you go to the prom with me?” And of course a Tiffany’s charm bracelet with a charm that says Property of Michael Moscovitz on it that I could wear everywhere I go and so the next time some European prince asks me to dance at a ball I can hold up the bracelet and be all, “Sorry, can’t you read? I belong to Michael Moscovitz.”

  Except Tina says even though it would be totally great if Michael got this for me, she doesn’t think he will, because giving a girl—even his girlfriend—a bracelet that says

  Property of Michael Moscovitz seems a little presumptuous and not something Michael would do. I showed Tina the collar Lilly had given me for Fat Louie, but Tina says that isn’t the same thing.

  Is it wrong of me to want to be my boyfriend’s property? I mean, it’s not like I’m willing to usurp my own identity or take his name or anything if we got married (being a princess, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t, unless I abdicated the throne). In fact, chances are, the guy I marry is going to have to take MY name.

  I just, you know, wouldn’t mind a LITTLE possessiveness.

  Uh-oh, something is going on. Michael just got up and went to the door to make sure Mrs. Hill was firmly ensconced in the teachers’ lounge, and Boris just came out of the supply closet, but the bell hasn’t rung yet. What’s up with that?

  Thursday, May 1, still My Birthday, French

  I guess I needn’t have worried about what Michael was going to get me for my birthday, because just then his band showed up—yes, his band, Skinner Box, right there in the G and T room. Well, Boris was already here because he is supposed to practice his violin during G and T, but the other band members—Felix, the drummer with the goatee, tall Paul the keyboardist, and Trevor the guitar player—all cut class to set up in the G and T classroom and play me a song Michael wrote just for me. It went,

  Combat boots and veggie burgers

  Just one glance gives me the shivers

  There she goes

  Princess of my heart

  Hates social injustice and nicotine

  She’s no ordinary beauty queen

  There she goes

  Princess of my heart

  Chorus:

  Princess of my heart

  Oh I don’t know where to start

  Say I’ll be your prince

  ’til this lifetime ends.

  Princess of my heart

  I loved you from the start

  Say you love me too

  Over my heart you so rule.

  Promise you won’t execute me with those gorgeous smiles you shoot me

  There she goes

  Princess of my heart

  You don’t even have to knight me

  Every time you laugh you smite me

  There she goes

  Princess of my heart

  Chorus:

  Princess of my heart

  Oh I don’t know where to start

  Say I’ll be your prince

  ’til this lifetime ends.

  Princess of my heart

  I loved you from the start

  Say you love me

  too and then together we will rule.

  And this time there was no question the song was about me, like there was that time Michael played me that “Tall Drink of Water” song he wrote!

  Anyway, the whole school heard Michael’s song about me, because Skinner Box had their amps turned up so loud. Mrs. Hill and everybody else who was in the teachers’ lounge came out of it, waited politely for Skinner Box to finish the song, and then gave the whole band detention.

  And okay, on Mademoiselle Klein’s birthday, Mr. Wheeton had a dozen red roses delivered to her in the middle of fifth period. But he didn’t write a song just for her and play it for the whole school to hear.

  And yeah, Lana may be going to the prom, but her boyfriend—not to mention his friends—never got detention for her.

  So really, except for the whole having-to-spend-July-and-August-in-Genovia thing—oh, and the prom thing—fifteen is looking pretty good so far.

  HOMEWORK

  Algebra: You would think my own stepfather would be nice and not give me homework on MY BIRTHDAY, but no

  English: Iceman Cometh

  Biology: Ice worm

  Health and Safety: Check with Lilly

  G & T: As if

  French: Check with Tina

  World Civ: God knows

  Thursday, May 1, still My Birthday, the ladies’ room at Les Hautes Manger

  Okay, this is so my best birthday ever.

  I am serious. I mean, even my mom and dad are getting along with each other—or trying to, anyway. It is so sweet. I am so proud of them. You can totally tell my mom’s maternity hose are driving her crazy, but she isn’t complaining about them a bit, and Dad totally hasn’t said anything about the anarchy symbols she’s wearing as earrings. And Mr. Gianini put Grandmère right off her lecture about his goatee (Grandmère cannot abide facial hair on a man) by telling her that she looks younger and younger every time he sees her. Which you could tell pleased Grandmère no end, since she was smiling all through the appetizers (she can move her lips again now that the inflammation from her chemical peel has finally died down).

  I was a little worried that Mr. G’s observation would cause my mom to go off on the beauty industry and how they are ageist and are constantly trying to propagate the myth that you can’t be attractive unless you have the dewy skin of someone my age (which doesn’t even make sense, since most people my age have zits unless they can afford a fancy dermatologist like the one Grandmère sends me to and who gives me all these prescription unguents so that I can prevent unprincesslike breakouts) but she totally refrained in my honor.

  And when Michael showed up late on account of having been in detention, Grandmère didn’t say anything mean about it, which was such a relief, because Michael was kind of flushed, as if he’d run the whole way from his apartment after he’d gone home to change. I guess even Grandmère could tell he’d really tried to be on time.

  And even someone who is totally immune to normal human emotion like Grandmère would have to admit that my boyfriend was the handsomest guy in the whole restaurant. Michael’s dark hair was sort of flopping over one eye, and he looked SO cute in his non–school-uniform jacket and tie, required by the mandatory dress code at Les Hautes Manger (I warned him ahead of time).

  Anyway, Michae
l’s showing up was kind of the signal I guess for everyone to start handing me the presents they’d gotten me.

  And what presents! I am telling you, I cleaned up. Being fifteen RULES!

  DAD

  Okay, so Dad got me a very fancy and expensive-feeling pen, to use, he said, to further my writing career (I am using it to write this very journal entry). Of course I would have rather had a season pass to Six Flags Great Adventure theme park for the summer (and permission to stay in this country to use it) but the pen is very nice, all purple and gold, and has HRH Princess Amelia Renaldo engraved on it.

  MOM and MR. G

  A cell phone!!!!!!!!!!! Yes!!!!!!!!! Of my very own!!!!!!!!!

  Sadly, the cell phone was accompanied by a lecture from Mom and Mr. G about how they’d only gotten it for me so that they can reach me when my mom goes into labor, since she wants me to be in the room (so not going to happen, due to my excessive dislike of seeing anything spurt out of anything else, but you don’t argue with a woman who has to pee twenty-four hours a day) while my baby brother or sister is being born, and how I’m not to use the phone during school and how it is a domestic-use-only calling plan, nothing transatlantic, so when I am in Genovia don’t think I can call Michael on it.

  But I didn’t pay any attention, because YAY! I actually got something on my list!!!!!

  GRANDMÈRE

  Okay, this is very weird because Grandmère actually gave me something else from my list. Only it wasn’t bungee cords, a cat brush, or new overalls. It was a letter declaring me the official sponsor of a real, live African orphan named Johanna!!!!!!! Grandmère said, “I can’t help you end world hunger, but I suppose I can help you send one little girl to bed every night with a good dinner.”

  I was so surprised, I nearly blurted out, “But Grandmère! You hate poor people!” because it’s true, she totally does. Whenever she sees those runaway teen punk rockers who sit outside Lincoln Center in their leather jackets and Doc Martens, with those signs that say HOMELESS AND HUNGRY, she always snaps at them, “If you’d stop spending all your money on tattoos and navel rings, you’d be able to afford a nice sublet in NoLita!”

  But I guess Johanna is a different story, seeing as how she doesn’t have parents back in Westchester who are sick with worry for her.

  I don’t know what is going on with Grandmère. I fully expected her to give me a mink stole or something equally revolting for my birthday. But getting me something I actually wanted… helping me to sponsor a starving orphan… that is almost thoughtful of her. I must say, I am still in a bit of shock over the whole thing.

  I think my mom and dad feel the same way. My dad ordered a Kettle One Gibson, up, after he saw what Grandmère had given me, and my mom just sat there in total silence for, like, the first time since she got pregnant. I am not kidding, either.

  Then Lars gave me his gift, even though it is not correct Genovian protocol to receive gifts from one’s bodyguard (because look what happened to Princess Stephanie of Monaco: Her bodyguard gave her a birthday present, and she MARRIED him. Which would have been all right if they had had anything in common, but Stephanie’s bodyguard isn’t the least bit interested in eyebrow threading, and Stephanie clearly knows nothing about jujitsu, so the whole thing was off to a rocky start to begin with).

  Anyway, you could tell Lars had really put a lot of thought into his gift.

  LARS

  An authentic New York Police Department Bomb Squad baseball cap, which Lars got from an actual NYPD Bomb Squad officer once, when he was sweeping Grandmère’s suite at the Plaza for incendiary devices prior to a visit from the Pope. Which I thought was SO sweet of Lars, because I know how much he treasured that hat, and the fact that he was willing to give it to me is true proof of his devotion, which I highly doubt is of the matrimonial variety, since I happen to know Lars loves Mademoiselle Klein, like all heterosexual men who come within seven feet of her.

  But the best present of all was the one from Michael. He didn’t give it to me in front of everybody else. He waited until I got up to go to the bathroom just now, and followed me. Then, just as I was starting down the stairs to the ladies’, he went, “Mia, this is for you. Happy birthday,” and gave me this flat little box all wrapped up in gold foil.

  I was really surprised—almost as surprised as I’d been over Grandmère’s gift. I was all, “Michael, but you already gave me a present! You wrote that song for me! You got detention for me!”

  But Michael just went, “Oh, that. That wasn’t your present. This is.”

  And I have to admit, the box was little and flat enough that I thought—I really did think—it might have prom tickets in it. I thought maybe, I don’t know, that Lilly had told Michael how much I wanted to go to the prom, and that he’d gone and bought the tickets to surprise me.

  Well, he surprised me, all right. Because what was in the box wasn’t prom tickets.

  But still, it was almost as good.

  MICHAEL

  A necklace with a tiny little silver snowflake hanging from it.

  “From when we were at the Nondenominational Winter Dance,” he said, like he was worried I wouldn’t get it.

  “Remember the paper snowflakes hanging from the ceiling of the gym?”

  Of course I remembered the snowflakes. I have one, in the drawer of my bedside table.

  And okay, it isn’t a prom ticket or a charm with PROPERTY OF MICHAEL MOSCOVITZ written on it, but it comes really, really close.

  So I gave Michael a great big kiss right there by the stairs to the ladies’ room, in front of all the Les Hautes Manger waiters and the hostess and the coat-check girl and everyone. I didn’t care who saw. For all I care, Us Weekly could have snapped all the shots of us they wanted—even run them on the front cover of next week’s edition with a caption that says MIA MAKES OUT!—and I wouldn’t have blinked an eye. That’s how happy I was.

  Am. That’s how happy I am. My fingers are trembling as I write this, because I think, for the first time in my life, it is possible that I have finally, finally reached the upper branches of the Jungian tree of self-actual—

  Wait a minute. There is a lot of noise coming from the hallway. Like breaking dishes and a dog barking and someone screaming…

  Oh, my God. That’s Grandmère screaming.

  Friday, May 2, midnight, the loft

  I should have known it was too good to be true. My birthday, I mean. It was all just going too well. I mean, no prom invitation or cancellation of my trip to Genovia, but, you know, everyone I love (well, almost everyone) sitting at one table, not fighting. Getting everything I wanted (well, almost everything). Michael writing that song about me. And the snowflake necklace. And the cell phone.

  Oh, but wait. This is ME we’re talking about. I think that, at fifteen, it’s time I admitted what I’ve known for quite some time now: I am simply not destined to have a normal life. Not a normal life, not a normal family, and certainly not a normal birthday.

  Granted, this one might have been the exception, if it hadn’t been for Grandmère. Grandmère and Rommel.

  I ask you, who brings a DOG to a RESTAURANT? I don’t care if it’s normal in France. NOT SHAVING UNDER YOUR ARMS IF YOU ARE A GIRL IS NORMAL IN FRANCE. Does that maybe TELL you something about France? I mean, for God’s sake, they eat SNAILS there. SNAILS. Who in their right mind thinks that if something is normal in France, it is at all socially acceptable here in the United States?

  I’ll tell you who. My grandmother, that’s who.

  Seriously. She doesn’t understand what the fuss is about. She’s all, “But of course I brought Rommel.”

  To Les Hautes Manger. To my birthday dinner. My grandmother brought her DOG to MY BIRTHDAY DINNER.

  She says it’s only because when she leaves Rommel alone, he licks his fur off. It is an obsessive compulsive disorder diagnosed by the Royal Genovian vet, and Rommel has prescription medication he is supposed to take to help keep it at bay.

  That’s right: My grandmoth
er’s dog is on Prozac.

  But if you ask me, I don’t think OCD is Rommel’s problem. Rommel’s problem is that he lives with Grandmère. If I had to live with Grandmère, I would totally lick off all my hair, too. If my tongue were long enough, anyway.

  Still, just because her dog suffers from OCD is NO excuse for Grandmère to bring him to MY BIRTHDAY DINNER. In a Hermes purse. With a broken clasp, no less.

  Because what happened while I was in the ladies’ room? Oh, Rommel escaped from Grandmère’s purse. And started streaking around the restaurant, desperate to evade capture—as who under Grandmère’s tyrannical rule wouldn’t?

  I can only imagine what the patrons of Les Hautes Manger must have thought, seeing this eight-pound hairless toy poodle zipping in and out from beneath the tablecloths. Actually, I know what they thought. I know what they thought, because Michael told me later. They thought Rommel was a giant rat.

  And it’s true, without hair, he does have a very rodent-like appearance.

  But still, I don’t think climbing up onto their chairs and shrieking their heads off was necessarily the most helpful thing to do about it. Although Michael did say a number of the tourists whipped out digital cameras and started shooting away. I am sure there is going to be a headline in some Japanese newspaper tomorrow about the giant rat problem of the Manhattan four-star restaurant scene.

  Anyway, I didn’t see what happened next, but Michael told me it was just like in a Baz Luhrmann movie, only Nicole Kidman was nowhere to be seen: This busboy who apparently hadn’t noticed the ruckus came hustling by, holding this enormous tray of half-empty soup bowls. Suddenly Rommel, who’d been cornered by my dad over by the raw bar, darted into the busboy’s path, and the next thing everyone knew, lobster bisque was flying everywhere.

  Thankfully, most of it landed on Grandmère. The lobster bisque, I mean. She fully deserved to have her Chanel suit ruined on account of being stupid enough to bring her DOG to MY BIRTHDAY DINNER. I so wish I had seen this. No one would admit it later—not even Mom—but I bet it was really, really, really funny to see Grandmère covered in soup. I swear, if that’s all I had gotten for my birthday, I’d have been totally happy.