Still. It could have been totally romantic, if my dad hadn't gone and ruined it all.

Lilly says my father clearly has abandonment issues from when his father died and left him all alone with Grandmere and that's why he is being so totally rigid on the whole spending-my-summer-in-Genovia thing.

Except that Grandpere died when my dad was in his twenties, not exactly his formative years, so I don't see how this is possible. But Lilly says the human psyche works in strange and mysterious ways and that I should just accept that and

move on.

I think the person with issues might be Lilly on account of how it's been almost four months since her cable access television programme Lilly Tells It Like It Is was optioned by the producers who made the movie based on my life and they still

haven't managed to find a studio willing to tape a pilot episode. But Lilly says the entertainment industry works in strange

and mysterious ways (just like the human psyche) and that she has accepted it and moved on, just like I should about the

whole Genovian thing.

BUT I WILL NEVER ACCEPT THE FACT THAT MY DAD WANTS ME TO SPEND SIXTY-TWO WHOLE DAYS AWAY FROM THE MAN I LOVE!!!! NEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tina says I should try to get a summer internship somewhere here in Manhattan, and then my dad won't be able to make me go to Genovia, on account of how that would be shirking my responsibilities here. Only I don't know of any place that would want a princess for an intern. I mean, what would Lars do all day while I was alphabetizing files or making photocopies or whatever?

When I walked in before class started, Mademoiselle Klein was showing some of the sophomore girls a picture of this slinky dress she is ordering from Victoria's Secret to wear to the prom. She is a chaperone. So is Mr.Wheeton, the track coach and my Health and Safety teacher. They are going out together. Tina says it is the most romantic thing she has ever heard of, besides my mom and Mr. Gianini. I have not revealed to Tina the painful truth about my mom being the one to propose to

Mr. Gianini, because I don't want to crush all of Tina's fondest dreams. I have also hidden from her the fact that I don't think Prince William is ever going to email her back. That's on account of how I gave her a fake email address for him. Well, I had

to do something to get her to quit bugging me for it. And I'm sure whoever is at [email protected] is very appreciative of her five-page testimonial on how much she loves him, especially when he is wearing his polo jodhpurs.

I sort of feel bad about lying to Tina, but it was only to make her feel better. And someday I really will get Prince William's

real email address for her. I just have to wait until somebody important dies, and I see him at the state funeral. It probably

won't be long - Elizabeth Taylor is looking pretty shaky.

Il mefaut des lunettes de soleil.

Didier demand a essayer lajupe.

I don't know how someone who is as deeply in love with Mr.Wheeton like Mademoiselle Klein is supposed to be can assign

us so much homework. Whatever happened to spring, when the world is mud-luscious and the little lame balloon-man whistles far and wee?

Nobody who teaches at this school has a grain of romance in them. Ditto most of the people who go here, too. Without Tina,

I would be truly lost.

Jeudi, jai faitde I'aerobic.

Homework

Algebra: pages 279-300

English: The Iceman Cometh

Biology: Finish ice-worm essay

Health and Safety: pages 154—160

Gifted and Talented: As if

French: Ecrivez une histoire personnelle

World Civ.: pages 310-330

Wednesday, April 3O, in the limo on the way home from the Plaza

Grandmere fully knows there is something up with me. But she thinks it's because I'm upset over the whole going-to-Genovia-for-the-summer thing. As if I don't have much more immediate concerns.

'We shall have a lovely time in Genovia this summer, Amelia,' Grandmere kept saying. 'They are currently excavating a tomb they believe might belong to your ancestress, Princess Rosagunde. I understand that the mummification processes used in the 700s were really every bit as advanced as ones employed by the Egyptians. You might actually get to gaze upon the face of

the woman who founded the royal house of Renaldo.'

Great. I get to spend my summer looking up some old mummy's nasal cavity. My dream come true. Oh no, sorry, Mia. No hanging out at Coney Island with your one true love for you. No fun volunteer work tutoring little kids with their reading. No cool summer job at Kim's Video, rewinding Princess Mononoke and Fist of the North Star. No, you get to commune with

a thousand-year-old corpse. Yippee!

I guess I must be more upset about the whole Michael thing than even I thought, because midway through Grandmere's

lecture on tipping (manicurists: $3; pedicurists: $5; cab drivers: $2 for rides under $10, $5 for airport trips; double the tax for restaurant bills except in states where the tax is less than 8 per cent; etc.) she went, 'AMELIA! WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?'

I must have jumped about ten feet into the air. I was totally thinking about Michael. About how good he would look in a tux. About how I could buy him a red-rose boutonniere, just the plain kind without the baby's breath because boys don't like

baby's breath. And I could wear a black dress, one of those off-one-shoulder kinds like Kirsten Dunst always wears to

movie premieres, with a butterfly hem and a slit up the side, and high heels with laces that go up your ankle.

Only Grandmere says black on girls under eighteen is morbid, that off-one-shoulder gowns and butterfly hems look like they were made that way accidentally, and that those lace-up high heels look like the kind of shoes Russell Crowe wore in Gladiator - not a flattering look on most women.