Project Princess

by Meg Cabot

  I missManhattan already. What I wouldn’t give to be lulled to sleep by the dulcet tones of a car alarm.

  Sunday, March 13, Noon, the dining tent

  Oh, my God, every inch of me is sore. It is no joke trying to sleep on the ground. And the sides of our tents kept flapping all night, and I thought it was the Blair Witch trying to get in.

  Plus when we woke up, everything was drenched with dew.DEW. There is no dew inNew York City .

  Pigeons, maybe.Lots of rats.But no dew.

  Dew is my new enemy. Although thanks to it, my hair no longs smells like Boris’s barf. Now it just smells like…dew.

  It doesn’t help that I’ve done all morning is hold up wood frames. Apparently I am hopeless at hammering, sawing, drilling, and pouring cement. Good thing I came all the way toWest Virginia to find that out.

  So I was in charge of holding up the woods frames while other people hammered them in, a task that requires no skill whatsoever, just plenty of upper body strength… which I am, of course, lacking, but I am not about to admit it to anyone.At least, not out loud.

  Still, those frames are HEAVY! I mean, building houses is not easy.

  Thank God for Michael, Lars, Dr. Gonzales, and PeterTsu . I don’t mean to be sexist, but at this point in the building stage, the guys are definitely doing a better job than girls – although Tina has proven to be pretty adept with the nail gun (lucky duck). I am pretty sure she is just doing it to look good in front of PeterTsu , who has surprisingly shapely forearms – as Lilly was quick to point out and film for posterity.

  Peter is almost as hot asMulan’s boyfriend, and he has the added bonus of not being a cartoon character.

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  Nobody could be hotter than my boyfriend, though. I just wish it were sunnier out so Michael would get all sweaty and have to take his shirt off. That would make building houses WAY fun.

  Well, that and actually knowing I was contributing to its construction in some meaningful way.

  Anyway, our house is going up more quickly than anyone else’s, despite our great handicap: Boris.

  While I am in no real way helping to build our house, at least I am not making things worse, the way Boris is. So far he has had two asthma attacks thanks to all the sawdust, and dropped a cinderblock on his foot (it will be all right, it is just bruised, Dr. Gonzales says). We have now assigned him to keeping Mitchel and Stefano from wandering too close to the chain saw, and refilling everybody’s Gatorade containers.

  Oh, yeah. I know why Gatorade is so important now. Building a house is VERY tiring. You have to replace your electrolytes constantly.

  Mr.Harmeyer says beer is better for replacing electrolytes than Gatorade, but Dr. Gonzales pointed out to him that alcohol dehydrates the body very quickly, and after that, Mr.Harmeyer shut up.

  Lilly, who has been filming our progress with the framework of the house, insists that this new documentary is going to rival her most celebrated work of all, “Travels With Lana’s Coccyx Bone”

  (witch Lilly shot, using somewhat crude animation, after Lana Weinberger’s coccyx bone broke off and disappeared into her bloodstream, thanks to a fall from a badly spotted basket toss. “Travels” showed Lana’s coccyx bone moving through Lana’s body, carrying a little suitcase and visiting with the other bones and stuff).

  Lunch is salad, cornbread, mashed potatoes, and pork tenderloin sandwiches. I am just having salad and mashed potatoes. I am sick of corn already, though I understand that it is a staple of theWest Virginia diet, like bagels and lox are inNew York .

  Sunday, March 13, 9 p.m., the tent

  Too tired to give full account of day.Just held up more wood frames.For hours.

  Dinner: salad, Tater Tots, hamburgers, corn. Just ate salad and Tater Tots. Sight of corn makes me want to puke.

  Fell asleep during inspirational speech by Dr. Gonzales.Woke up with head on Michael’s shoulder. He was very nice about it. Hope I didn’t drool.

  Can’t believe I am too tired even to make out with own boyfriend.

  Amgoing to sleep right now, too exhausted to wait for lights out.

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  Monday, March 14, Noon, the dining tent

  Woke to full-on rain.Wet wipes instead of showers for everyone. That’s okay, my muscles would have been too sore to carry my five-gallon solar shower bag to shower area anyway. Besides, I’m freezing –

  the dew soaked through my sleeping bag, right down to my pajamas. I feel like I’ve already had a shower.

  Fortunately wehad already framed in the roof of theHarmeyer’s house.Spent morning applying gypsum board to interior walls.Will shingle roof later if rain lets up. May be getting better at this house-building thing, hammer only went through gypsum board five times. Mrs.Harmeyer says that’s okay, she can hang pictures over holes. But Michael says no, we will plaster over them.

  Lunch is turkey sandwiches, potato salad, Jell-O, and corn chips.Ate potato salad and Jell-O.

  Aw,geez , back to work.

  Monday, March 14, 10 p.m., the tent

  Too tired to write much.Rain let up and I spent afternoon on roof shingling with Lilly, Tina, and PeterTsu

  . Only fell off roof once. Landed on Boris, so that was all right. Michael, Lars, and Dr. Gonzales installed the plumbing. Mrs.Harmeyer cried when her toilet flushed for the first time. It was a deeply moving moment.

  After dinner – salad, fried chicken, creamed corn, and rolls (only ate salad and rolls) – Michael surprised me by volunteering the two of us to “inventory the tools” in the supply tent.

  I wasn’t really sure how I felt about that, on account of the whole wet wipe situation. I mean, what if I SMELLED?Made Trina smell me real quick. She said I smelled okay. But who knows if her nostrils are as sensitive as Michael’s????

  Worried the whole way to supply tent that Michael would try to kiss me,then be repelled by possibleb.o

  .

  Except that when we got there, it turned out the supply tent was already occupied… by Mr.Wheeton

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  and Mademoiselle Klein, no less!!!!

  They made us swear not to tell anyone. We said we wouldn’t.

  But that is not even the worst part. The worst part is, after they went away, Michael ACTUALLY

  STARTED INVENTORYING THE TOOLS!!!!!!!

  There is really only one explanation for this, and that is that I smell so bad, my own boyfriend does not even want to make out with me.

  As if this were not bad enough, I felt something crawling up my leg and looked down and saw the world’s biggest bug on my calf. I screamed so loud that Lars came bursting in with his gun drawn.

  Michael said it was only a centipede.

  ONLY A CENTIPEDE?IT TOUCHED MY SKIN!!!!!!!!

  It is much easier to be an environmentalist when you live in the city where there aren’t that many bugs, than when you are in the country and are being eaten alive by them. I am not sure I love nature as much s I used to think I did.

  Tuesday, March 15, Noon, the dining tent

  Worked all morning, still so much left to do, and this is LAST WORK DAY. But still must paint all walls, and trim, too, plus install flooring, etc. Boris dropped a window shutter on his big toe, but Dr.

  Gonzales said it isn’t broken, just dislocated. He manipulated it back into place – I would so never touch Boris’s feet. Dr. Gonzales is truly a saint – and buddy taped it to the toe next to it so it would stay where it is supposed to.

  Mrs.Harmeyer has been complaining of heartburn since breakfast, but no one else is feeling sick.

  Legionnaires’s disease ruled out as we have been dining al fresco. Possibly result of two Diet Cokes she downed with her eggs and bacon? Unborn child could bephenylketonuric .Warned Mrs.Harmeyer about dangers of too much aspartame. It is a good thing I have watche
d so many episodes of A Baby Story on the Learning Channel in preparation for the arrival of my new baby brother or sister. I am truly a front of prenatal information.

  Tuesday, March 15, 9 p.m., last day of home building

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  So tired, but truly amazingday, must get it all down before I forget: Finished building Mr. and Mrs.Harmeyer’s house.When we were done, we all stood around and marveled: we had built a three-bedroom, one-bath house in three days, complete with kitchen, dining room, and family room. I mean, it is not aBIG house (only1,200 square feet , smaller than our loft) and it isn’t like theHarmeyers can afford cable or Ikea furniture or anything. But it is a house, not a double wide like Mitchell and Stefano have been living in their whole short lives.

  And you know,it didn’t look so bad. I mean, we had spackled over the holes I’d made in the gypsum board, so you couldn’t even see them. And with the vinyl siding, it looked, I don’t know. Like a REAL

  house.

  While we were standing there admiring our handiwork, Mrs.Harmeyer complained that she had a wicked case of heartburn and had anyone else had the potato salad at lunch? I informed Mrs.Harmeyer that, being a vegetarian, I had eaten nothing but potato salad for lunch, as it had been the only non-meat dish available, and I felt fine. Then I opened my diary to the entry I wrote earlier today and showed Mrs.

  Harmeyer that she had complained of indigestion after breakfast, as well. Was it possible, I asked, that she wasn’t having heartburn at all, but contractions? The two have occasionally been confused, even by experienced mothers, at least according to A Baby Story.

  Then Mrs.Harmeyer got all excited and yelled, “Oh, my God! Todd, get the pickup!”

  So Mr. and Mrs.Harmeyer sped off for the hospital, leaving us in charge of Mitchell and Stefano. Dr.

  Gonzales was way impresses by what he called my powers of observation. Not everybody, he said, would have kept such a detailed record of another person’s complaints about their gastritis.

  I told Dr. Gonzales that it was no bigdeal, that I write down everything, really. Then he said the funniest thing. He said: “That’s quite a skill.”

  Wow! It almost made me think maybe being able to write isn’t such a bad talent, after all! I mean, it isn’t as cool as being able to use a nail gun, and all. But hey, it might not be totally useless.

  Then Dr. Gonzales turned to Michael and said, “We’re out of hot-dog buns for the celebration barbecue tonight. If I stay here with Mitchell and Stefano, do you think you could go into town and pick some up?”

  and he handed Michael the keys to his Dodge Chevy!

  And it turns out Michael can drive! He has a driver’s license and everything! He learned two summers ago at his parents’ country house inAlbany .

  There are very few boys who live inManhattan who know how to drive, on account of hardly anyone owning a car inNew York City .

  So Michael said, “Sure, Dr. Gonzales.”

  For a minute I thought a Spring Break miracle had occurred…you know, that Michael and I would be alone, in a motor vehicle, miles from anybody else, and would finally get a chance to feel our two hearts beat as one…

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  That is, if I could get cleaned up fast enough.

  But I needn’t have worried. Because no sooner did Michael get those keys in his hands than we were descended upon by the rest of our group, who all demanded to join us. I tried not to look too depressed as Lars, Lilly, Boris, Tina, and PeterTsu piled into the truck with us. Their enthusiasm was a little bit infectious, I have to admit.

  Town was big disappointment, though. I’d forgotten that Mrs.Harmeyer had said there was nothing to do in it. There is not even a single Chinese restaurant where you can go for cold sesame noodles. We went to the grocery store and got the hot-dog buns, and Lilly was all, “Finally, I can get a bagel!” but they didn’t even have any, not even the Lender’s kind in a bag.

  So then we were all kind of depresses on account of the no-bagel-and-no-cold-sesame-noodle thing.

  But when we got back in the truck, Michael went, “Well, there’s one thingWest Virginia has thatManhattan doesn’t,” and he started driving.

  I thought Michael was talking about theMothman , you know, from that movie, and I couldn’t think what was so great about that because all theMothman does is call people on the phone and say in a scary voice, “Stay away from the chemical plant!”, which isn’t really useful information to anyone.

  But it turns out Michael wasn’t talking about theMothman . He was talking about Dairy Queen! Yes! It turns out there was a Dairy Queen right outside Hominy Knob! There are no Dairy Queens inManhattan

  , except for a gross one nobody but tourists ever goes to in Penn Station.

  We were soexcited, we piled out of the truck and rushed up to the girl in the window. Everybody got something different. Lars got a cherry slush. Lilly got a peanut buster parfait. Boris got a Heath Bar bite blizzard. PeterTsu gota Coke slush. Tina got a low-cal yogurt on account of the fact that PeterTsu was looking. Michael got an Oreo cookie blizzard. I got a chocolate-dipped vanilla soft serve.

  And it was SO good! After all our hand work, and the sleeping in tents and the Port-O-Lets and the wet wipes and slathering on cherryChapStick for nothing and finding out that I actually have a useful talent after all, that chocolate-dipped vanilla cone was really the most delicious thing I had eaten in my whole life.

  We were all enjoying our ice cream, leaning against the side of the Dodge Chevy in the soft pre-spring sunshine, when a large black limo slithered into the Dairy Queen parking lot. I swear I nearly dropped my vanilla cone as the chauffeur came around to open the rear passenger door, and out popped –

  “Grandmère!”I cried, barely able to believe my eyes.

  “Amelia,”Grandmère said, looking around in distaste. She was dressed in a big feathered purple velvet coat, withRommel in one arm and a purse in the other. All the residents of Hominy Knob who happened to be in the vicinity could not take their eyes off her. “You’re looking …fit.”

  “Grandmère,” I said. “What are you doing here? I thought you were going toPalm Springs .”

  “I do go there. I thought I would stop by to see you on my way home. I’ve been to your,er , work site.”

  “Really?”I was still shocked to seeGrandmère in Hominy Knob. “Did you see the house we built?”

  “I did,”Grandmère said. “I must admit, when you told me this is what you wanted to do with your

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  Spring Break, I thought you were mad. But I met Dr. Gonzales, and he seems like a very nice man. And your house is… adequate. That is not, however, why I am here. I’ve taken rooms at the Hampton Inn –

  sadly, the finest quarters I was able to procure. I thought perhaps you all might like to come back with me and shower before your little celebration dinner, to which Dr. Gonzales has very kindly invited me. I understand the bathing conditions at the camp are on the primitive side, and all of you have a very long bus ride ahead of you tomorrow.”

  We piled back into the truck without another word. Take a shower? No one needed to ask us twice.

  The thought that we might, at long last, be able to scrape four days of sweat and dew from our bodies was even better than ice cream – even better, I must admit, than the prospect of uninterrupted kissing.

  So we all followedGrandmère’s limo to the motel, where she’d taken seven rooms for herself and Rommel , her bodyguards, her personal maid, her assistant, her chauffeur, and her clothes. Everybody got to fully submerge themselves under nice hot water and use some clean towels for a change. I myself borrowed some ofGrandmère’sChanel No. 5 and fullyspritzed my clothes with it. Bliss!!!! Now there was NO WAY my boyfriend would be able to resist me.

  Although when I presented myself to him, in all
of my squeaky-clean glory, by the ice machine in the Hampton Inn hallway, any attempt Michael might have made to kiss me was cruelly thwarted by Grandmère’s maid, who came strolling by withRommel on a leash, because it was time for “walkies”.

  After we had all finished washing away the sawdust and dew, we politely thankedGrandmère and said we had to be going back to camp in order to deliver the hot-dog buns. When we got there, we found out that Mrs.Harmeyer had given birth to a healthy six-pound-five-ounce baby girl. Butwhat REALLY blew me away was when Dr. Gonzales said, “And, Mia, theHarmeyers said to tell you that they named her after you.”

  “Really?”I was flattered. “They named their baby Mia?”

  Dr. Gonzales looked uncomfortable. “Uh,” he said.“Not exactly. They named her Princess.”

  PrincessHarmeyer . Oh, well. It’s still nice to know I have left my mark on Hominy Knob.Sort of.

  After the celebration dinner – which was really nice; they seemed to have run out of corn products – Dr.

  Gonzales built a campfire and we roasted marshmallows. Michael got out his guitar and we all sang that “

  Kumbaya” song, the one that makes me feel like crying every time I hear it.

  Then to show our West Virginia hosts some New York City “flava,” Lilly, and Tina, and I sang our version of Destiny’s Child’s “Survivor,” which we do very well (Lilly even let me beBeyoncé for a change).Grandmère clapped like crazy, even though Lars laughed so hard that he almost choked on a s’more and Mrs. Hill had to smack him on the back.

  Then the host families sang aWest Virginia song that was very sad, about a girl who may have been born poor white trash, but Fancy was her name. It was all about how Fancy used her talents to get ahead in life. She never complained about having the WRONG KIND of talents, she just used what God gave her. That, I realized, it was what I needed to start doing: stop wishing for better talents, and just learn to use the one I have to the best of my ability.