Princess Mia

by Meg Cabot

  “Right,” Lana said. “Hey, what do you think of glitter gel? You know, for my nails? Too much?”

  When did this become my life?

  Oh, right, I remember. The day my ex-boyfriend dumped me and I lost all will to live.

  Tuesday, September 21, G & T

  Okay, they can’t keep me from writing in here, because

  A) No one knows what I’m supposed to be doing in this stupid class anyway, given the fact that I am neither gifted nor talented, and

  B) Mrs. Hill isn’t even here. There must be an auction on eBay she’s trying to win, or something, because she’s in the teacher’s lounge.

  Anyway, the strangest thing just happened. After lunch I went to the girls’ room and while I was washing my hands Lilly came out of one of the stalls and started washing HER hands.

  She was totally ignoring me, like I didn’t even exist. Just gazing at herself in the mirror.

  I don’t know what came over me. Suddenly, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I turned off the water in my sink and grabbed some paper towels and ALMOST went, while I was drying my hands, “You know what, Lilly? You can ignore me all you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re wrong. I DID NOT cause your breakup with J.P., and I am NOT going out with him. We’re JUST friends. I can’t believe that after all these years of friendship, you’d even THINK that of me. And besides, you know I love your brother. I mean, despite the fact that we’re just friends now, too.”

  But I didn’t.

  I didn’t say a word.

  Because why should I? Why should I make the first move, when I didn’t do anything wrong? She’s the one giving me the cold shoulder, when I’m the one in great personal pain. I mean, has it ever occurred to her that I could really use a friend right now? Has it ever occurred to her that now isn’t the best time to be giving me the silent treatment?

  But it seems like whenever I’m going through a time of personal crisis—when I found out I was a princess; when her brother dumped me—Lilly turns her back on me.

  Lilly must have known I was thinking about saying something to her, though, because she gave me the dirtiest look. Then she rinsed off her hands, turned off the taps, got some paper towels of her own, tossed them into the trash—the same way she seems to have tossed our friendship into the trash—and walked out without a word.

  I almost ran after her. I really did. I almost ran after her and told her that whatever it was I did, I’m sorry, and that I know I’m a freak, but that I’m trying to get help. I almost went, “Look, I’m in therapy. Are you happy, now? You’ve driven me into therapy!”

  But, number one, I know that’s not true. I’m not in therapy because of Lilly or Michael or anyone, really, except the Giant Hole.

  And number two—well, I still have some pride left. I mean, I wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction.

  Besides, what if she told Michael, or something? Then he’d think I was so torn up about our breaking up that I’m suicidal.

  Which I’m not.

  I’m just sad. Dr. K even said so.

  I’m just sad.

  So, anyway. I let her walk out. And I never said a word.

  And now I’m sitting here in G and T, watching her chat on her phone with Perin about their cell tower initiative.

  You know what? I’m not even sure I want to be her friend anymore. I mean, to be honest, Lana Weinberger is actually a BETTER friend than Lilly ever was. At least with Lana, you know where you stand. It’s true Lana’s completely self-absorbed and shallow.

  But at least she doesn’t try to pretend she’s otherwise. Unlike some people I could mention.

  God, I am going to have SO MUCH to talk about with Dr. K on Friday.

  Tuesday, September 21, 4 p.m., Chanel

  Principal Gupta was all, “Mia. Let’s talk,” in a super meaningful way when I went to snag my journal back from her.

  So I had to sit down and listen to her yammer on about what a bright girl I am, with so much to offer—it’s such a shame I quit student council and that I’m not taking part in more extracurricular activities this year. Colleges, she said, look at other things besides grades and teacher recommendations, you know. They want to see that applicants to their schools also have interests outside of academics.

  Lana was so right about Hola.

  “I’m on the school paper,” I offered lamely.

  “Mia,” Principal Gupta said. “You haven’t gone to one newspaper meeting this semester.”

  I’d been hoping she hadn’t noticed that.

  “Well,” I said. “It’s been kind of a bad semester so far.”

  “I know,” Principal Gupta said. Behind her glasses, her eyes were kind. For once. “Clearly, you’ve been through a lot lately. But you can’t just shut down because of a boy, Mia.”

  I blinked at her in horror. I mean, even if that might be true, I can’t believe she’d say that.

  “I’m n-not,” I stammered. “This has nothing to do with Michael. I mean, yeah, I’m sad we broke up. But—it’s just…it’s a lot more than that.”

  “What really disturbs me,” Principal Gupta said, “is that you seem to have given up your old friends as well. I’ve noticed that you’re no longer sitting with Lilly Moscovitz at lunch anymore.”

  “She’s not sitting with me,” I said indignantly. “I’m not the one who—”

  “And I’ve noticed you’ve been spending time instead with Lana Weinberger.” Principal Gupta’s mouth got all small, the way my mom’s does when she’s mad. “While I must say I’m grateful you and Lana aren’t at each other’s throats anymore, I can’t help but wonder if she’s someone with whom you really have all that much in common—”

  Now that I have boobs, she is. She knows EVERYTHING about nipple coverage.

  And how to show them off, when it’s appropriate to do that, as well.

  “I really appreciate your worrying about me, Principal Gupta,” I said. “But you have to remember something.”

  She looked at me expectantly. “Yes?”

  “I’m a princess,” I said. “I’m going to get into every college I apply to, because colleges want to brag that they have a girl who’s going to rule a country someday in their incoming freshman class. So it doesn’t really matter if I join the Spanish Club or the Spirit Squad, or whatever. But”—I waved my journal at her—“thanks for caring.”

  No sooner had I stepped out of Principal G’s office than my cell phone rang and I looked down to find Grandmère was calling me.

  Great. Because my day could not, evidently, get any better.

  “Amelia,” she sang when I picked up. “What’s keeping you? I’m WAITING.”

  “Grandmère? What do you mean? We don’t have princess lessons this week, remember?”

  “I know that,” Grandmère said. “I’m outside the school in the limo. Today we’re going to Chanel to find something for you to wear to the gala on Friday. Remember?”

  No, I did not remember. But what choice did I have? None.

  So here I am at Chanel.

  The staff is very excited about my new measurements. Mainly because they no longer have to take in the chest darts on the bodice of any dress Grandmère chooses for me.

  The suit she’s picked out for the gala is pretty nice, actually. And she’s finally letting me wear black.

  “Your first Chanel suit,” she keeps murmuring with a sigh. “Where did the time go? It seems like just yesterday you were a scabby-kneed fourteen-year-old, who came to me not even knowing how to use a fish knife! Now look at you! BREASTS!”

  Whatever. I never had scabs on my knees.

  Then Grandmère handed me the speech she’d had written for me. For the gala. I guess she’d given up on the idea of letting me write my own speech. She’d gone ahead and hired a former presidential speechwriter to come up with a twenty-minute soliloquy on Genovian drainage. The speechwriter she got is apparently a very famous one, who wrote some speech about a thousand points of light.

&nb
sp; I suppose she used to write for Star Trek: The Next Generation, or something.

  I’m supposed to memorize my speech, Grandmère says, so it seems more “spontaneous.”

  Fortunately, I can read while they’re fitting me for my new suit.

  Only I’m not reading my speech. Because Grandmère’s off trying to find her own dress for the gala. Since she’s been invited to attend as my “chaperone.” I know she’s hoping we’ll BOTH get invites to pledge Domina Rei.

  Which might not be so bad, actually. Then I can tell Principal Gupta I have an extracurricular to put on my college apps after all. That will make her happy.

  Anyway, Princess Amelie’s uncle didn’t stay away from the palace for long after she threw him out. That’s because there were no guards left, since they all had the plague, too. He came back and kept telling Amelie how much money she was losing by not allowing the ships exporting Genovian olive oil to leave the ports. Also by not demanding that the Genovian people continue to tithe to her, even though they had no money, since they all had the plague and couldn’t work.

  But Uncle Francesco didn’t care. He kept saying she didn’t know what she was doing because she was Just a Girl, and how she was going to bankrupt the Renaldo royal family, and go down in history as the worst Genovian ruler of all time.

  How ironic that in the end, HE was the one who earned that distinction.

  Anyway, Amelie told her uncle to back off. She knew she was saving lives. Fewer new cases of the disease were being reported because of her initiatives.

  Too late for her, though. Because she’d noticed her first pustule.

  She decided not to tell her uncle. Because Amelie knew when she went, he’d get what he wanted: the throne, which was all he cared about. He didn’t care if there were no people left over to rule. He only wanted her money. And her crown.

  Which she wasn’t about to relinquish just then. Because there was one more thing she had to do.

  Too bad Grandmère’s back and WON’T STOP TALKING SO I CAN FIND OUT WHAT IT WAS!

  Wednesday, September 22, 1 a.m., the loft

  Oh my God! That was so sad! Princess Amelie totally died!

  I mean, I knew she was sick.

  And, obviously, I knew she was going to die.

  But it was just so…traumatic! She was completely alone! There was no one even to hand her a tissue in the end because everyone else was dead (except her uncle, but he stayed away because he didn’t want to catch what she had).

  Plus, there was no such thing as tissues back then.

  That is just so…wrong.

  Not about the tissues. About being alone.

  I can’t stop crying now. Which is, you know, great. Since I have to get up and go to school tomorrow. For some reason. And it’s not like I haven’t exactly been depressed anyway. This is just, you know. Another shove farther down that hole.

  I don’t even know why I bother to go on. I mean, look at the facts:

  We’re born.

  We live for a little bit of time.

  And then we die, our uncle assumes the throne, burns all our stuff, and does everything he possibly can to illegitimize the twelve days we spent ruling by basically being the suckiest prince of all time.

  At least Amelie managed to save her journal, which—she wrote, on the last few pages—she intended to send back to the convent where she’d been so comparatively happy, for safekeeping, along with her little portrait. The nuns, she said, would “know what to do.”

  There’s something else she managed to save from burning, too—aside from Agnès-Claire, whom I have to imagine died happy and full of mice at the abbey where her mistress’s journal obviously eventually showed up, only to be returned to the Genovian palace by the dutiful nuns, according to Amelie’s wishes, to parliament, who…

  …ignored it.

  I can only assume they ignored it because they all figured, what could a sixteen-year-old girl have to say?

  Plus, her uncle wasn’t exactly making life easy for them, what with his goal to spend every last penny in Genovia’s treasury. So it wasn’t like they had time to go home and read some dead princess’s diary.

  Anyway, that other thing Amelie managed to save was one last copy of the thing she had drawn up and signed by those witnesses—whatever it was. She says she hid the parchment “somewhere close to my heart, where some future princess will find it, and do what is right.”

  Except, of course, if you’re dying of the plague, it’s really not a good idea to hide anything close to your heart.

  Because your corpse is just going to get burned to a cinder by your uncle in a fiery funereal pyre.

  Wednesday, September 22, G & T

  Lana just dropped a small weapon of mass destruction on the lunch table. Just dropped it, then shrugged, like it was nothing. But that, I’m learning, is her way.

  “So how long has that been going on?” she wanted to know, waggling her fingers at the lunch table where Lilly was sitting with Kenny Showalter, et al.

  I glanced over to where she was pointing. “Oh. Well, Lilly isn’t speaking to me for a number of reasons. First, and probably foremost, she blames me for J.P. dumping her—”

  “Hey!” J.P. protested. “I didn’t dump her! I told her I thought it would be better if we were just friends.”

  “Yeah. There’s a lot of that going around. Second,” I informed Lana, “Lilly’s upset because I refused to run for student council president. Even though I never wanted to be student council president in the first place, she did. Third, she—”

  “I don’t mean how long have you two been fighting,” Lana said, rolling her eyes. “I meant, how long have she and the Beanpole been banging?”

  Sometimes it’s quite difficult to understand what Lana is saying, because she uses a type of slang with which no one else at our lunch table (aside from Trisha Hayes and Shameeka, who has also come back into the fold) is familiar.

  “Beanpole?” I echoed.

  “Banging?” Tina added.

  Lana rolled her eyes again and said, “How long has Lilly Moscovitz been sleeping with Mr. Rocket Science?”

  I dropped my beef and cheese taquito.

  “WHAT?” I cried. “Lilly and Kenny?”

  But Lana just blinked her super long, volume-enhanced, mascaraed lashes and went, “Duh. I told you I saw them sucking face at Around the Clock this past weekend.”

  “You said you saw Lilly and a NINJA making out,” I said. “Not KENNY. Kenny Showalter is not a ninja.”

  “No,” Lana said as she chewed her tuna-avocado roll—which she has specially delivered every day for lunch since the caf doesn’t do sushi. “It was definitely that guy over there.”

  “Totally,” Trisha said. “I’d recognize that bulbous Adam’s apple anywhere. It was bobbing all over the place.”

  Tina and I looked at each other in shock. Then Tina swung an accusing glare at her boyfriend.

  “Boris,” she said. “Was the guy Lilly was making out with in her kitchen KENNY?”

  Boris looked uncomfortable. “It was hard to tell,” he said. “His back was to me. And all those muay thai fighters looked the same with their shirts off.”

  “Oh my God!” Tina cried. “It was Kenny! Boris! You got Mia all upset for nothing, thinking Lilly was hooking up with a random strange muay thai fighter in her despair over J.P. dumping her, when really it was Kenny all along!”

  “I didn’t dump her!” J.P. insisted.

  But Boris just looked bored. “Who cares?” he wanted to know. “When are things going to go back to normal around here?”

  On the word normal, he looked over at Lana and Trisha.

  No one, of course, noticed. Except for J.P., who smiled at me. J.P. really does have a nice smile.

  Not that that has anything to do with any of this.

  Anyway, at first I was like, “But Lilly could so easily break Kenny’s neck with her thighs, like Daryl Hannah in Blade Runner.”

  But then I remembered how Kenny�
��s been bulking up with all that muay thai fighting.

  So. I’m happy for her. I really am. I mean, if she’s happy, I’m happy.

  But still. KENNY SHOWALTER????????

  Wednesday, September 22, Chemistry

  I don’t care about the ban on my writing in class: I HAVE to get this down.

  I couldn’t stand it anymore. I HAD to ask Kenny what was going on with him and Lilly.

  So I just went, “Kenny. Is it true about you and Lilly going out? Because if so I want you to know, I think you guys make a really nice couple.”

  (Lie. But since when do I ever tell the truth?)

  Anyway, Kenny totally didn’t seem to appreciate my kind remarks. He went, “Mia! Do you mind? I’m in the acid neutralization phase!”

  So then I was like, “Fine, sorry I said anything,” and went back to my stool to write this.

  And then a second ago J.P. sat down next to me and was like, “So, am I in the clear now?”

  And I was like, “In the clear for what?”

  And he was like, “Breaking Lilly’s heart. Now that she’s learned to love again, as Tina would put it.”

  So I laughed and said, “J.P., whatever, I never blamed you for what happened between you and Lilly. You can’t help it if you didn’t feel the same way about her that she felt about you.”

  Although he could probably have helped by not leading her on for so long. But I didn’t add that part out loud.

  “I’m glad you feel that way, Mia,” J.P. said. “Because there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you for a long time now, and every time I start to, something seems to happen to interrupt me, so I’m just going to say it now, even though this might not be the ideal mo———————————————————”

  Wednesday, September 22, East Seventy-fifth Street AEHS evacuation rendezvous

  Oh my God.

  Oh my God.

  J.P. is in love with me.

  And we blew up the school.

  Wednesday, September 22, Lenox Hill Hospital emergency room

  To tell you the truth, I didn’t know which to write first back then.

  I mean, I don’t know which is more upsetting—that it turns out J.P. has fallen in love with me, or that we all nearly died from Kenny’s experiment, in which he was trying to recreate—unbeknownst to the rest of us—a substance formerly used as filler in hand grenades during World War II, with a very high deflagration point, which means, in English, that it’s very unstable and BLOWS UP A LOT.