But I bet I could figure out a way.

Still. It sucks to make your mother cry. Maybe I should make her a card or something.

Except that would involve getting out of bed to look for markers and stuff. And I am way, way too tired to do all of that.

Wednesday, September 15, 5 p.m., the loft

I guess my mom wasn’t kidding about bringing out the big guns. Tina didn’t show up after school today.

Grandmère did.

But—much as I love her, and sorry as I am to have made her cry—Mom’s totally wrong if she thinks anything Grandmère says or does is going to change my mind about going back to school.

I’m not doing it. There’s just no point.

“What do you mean, there’s no point?” Grandmère wanted to know, when I said this. “Of course there’s a point. You have to learn.”

“Why?” I asked her. “My future job is totally assured. Throughout the ages, most reigning monarchs have been total morons, and yet they still were allowed to rule. What difference does it make whether I’ve graduated from high school or not?”

“Well, you don’t want to be an ignoramus,” Grandmère insisted. She was perched on the very edge of my bed, holding her purse in her lap and looking around all askance at everything, like the homework assignments Tina had left the day before and which I’d sort of thrown across the floor, and my Buffy the Vampire Slayer action figures, apparently not realizing they are expensive collectibles now, like her stupid Limoges teacups.

But from Grandmère’s expression, you could tell that, instead of being in her teenage granddaughter’s bedroom, she felt like she was in some back alley pawnshop in Chinatown, or something.

And okay, I guess it is pretty messy in here. But whatever.

“Why don’t I want to be an ignoramus?” I asked. “Some of the most influential women on the planet didn’t graduate from high school either.”

“Name one,” Grandmère demanded, with a snort.

“Paris Hilton,” I said. “Lindsay Lohan. Nicole Richie.”

“I am quite certain,” Grandmère said, “that all of those women graduated from high school. And even if they didn’t, it’s nothing to be proud of. Ignorance is never attractive. Speaking of which, how long has it been since you washed your hair, Amelia?”

I fail to see the point in bathing. What does it matter how I look now that Michael is out of my life?

When I mentioned this, however, Grandmère asked if I was feeling all right.

“No, I’m not, Grandmère,” I said. “Which I would have thought was obvious by the fact that I haven’t gotten out of my bed in four days except to eat and go to the bathroom.”

“Oh, Amelia,” Grandmère said, looking offended. “We’ve stooped to scatological references now, as well? Really. I understand you’re sad about losing That Boy, but—”

“Grandmère,” I said. “I think you’d better go now.”

“I won’t go until we’ve decided what we’re going to do about this.”

And then Grandmère tapped on the Domina Rei stationery from Mrs. Weinberger, which she’d found peeping out from beneath my bed.

“Oh, that,” I said. “Please have your secretary decline for me.”

“Decline?” Grandmère’s drawn-on eyebrows lifted. “We shall do no such thing, young lady. Do you have any idea what Elana Trevanni said when I ran into her at Bergdorf’s yesterday and casually mentioned to her that my granddaughter had been invited to speak at the Domina Rei charity gala? She said—”

“Fine,” I interrupted again. “I’ll do it.”

Grandmère didn’t say anything for a beat. Then she asked hesitantly, “Did you just say you’ll do it, Amelia?”

“Yes,” I said. Anything to make her go away. “I’ll do it. Just…can we talk about it later? I have a headache.”

“You’re probably dehydrated,” Grandmère said. “Have you drunk your eight glasses of water today? You know you need to drink eight glasses of water a day, Amelia, in order to keep hydrated. That’s how we Renaldo women preserve our dewy complexions, by consuming plenty of liquids…”

“I think I just need to rest,” I said in a weak voice. “My throat is starting to hurt a little. I don’t want to get laryngitis and lose my voice before the big event…it’s a week from Friday, right?”

“Good heavens,” Grandmère said, leaping up from my bed so quickly that she startled Fat Louie from the pillow fort I’d made him at my side. He was nothing but an orange blur as he ran for the safety of the closet. “We can’t have you coming down with something that might endanger your attending the gala! I shall send over my personal physician immediately!”

She started fumbling in her purse for her bejeweled cell phone—which she only knows how to work because I showed her about a million times—but I stopped her by saying weakly, “No, it’s all right, Grandmère. I think I just need to rest…you’d better go. Whatever I have, you don’t want to catch it….”

Grandmère was out of there like a shot.

And FINALLY I could go back to sleep.

Or so I thought. Because a few minutes later, Mom came into the doorway and stood there peering down at me with a troubled look on her face.