But I couldn’t help thinking if it really were the end of the world, it might be better to be with Michael, even if he isn’t so hot, because at least he makes me laugh. I think at the end of the world a sense of humor would be important.

Plus, of course, Michael looks really good without a shirt.

And if it really was the end of the world, Lilly would be dead, so she’d never know her brother and I were procreating!

I’d never want Lilly to know that I feel that way about her brother. She’d think it was weird.

Weirder even than me turning out to be the princess of Genovia.

Later on Saturday

The whole way home from Lilly’s I worried about what my mom and dad were going to say when I got home. I had never disobeyed them before. I mean, really never.

Well, okay, there was that one time Lilly and Shameeka and Ling Su and I went to see that Christian Slater movie, but we ended up going to The Rocky Horror Picture Show instead, and I forgot to call until after the movie, which ended at like 2:30 in the morning and we were in Times Square and didn’t have enough money left among us for a cab.

But that was just that one time! And I totally learned a lesson from it, without my mom having to ground me or anything. Not that she would ever do something like that—ground me, I mean. Who would go to the cash machine to get money for take-out if I were grounded?

But my dad’s another story. He is totally rigid in the discipline department. My mom says that’s because Grandm่re used to punish him when he was a little boy by locking him into this one really scary room in their house.

Now that I think about it, the house my dad grew up in was probably the castle, and that scary room was probably the dungeon.

Geez, no wonder my dad does every single thing Grandm่re says.

Anyway, when my dad gets mad at me he really gets mad. Like the time I wouldn’t go to church with Grandm่re because I refused to pray to a god who would allow rain forests to be destroyed in order to make grazing room for cows who would later become Quarter Pounders for the ignorant masses who worship that symbol of all that is evil, Ronald McDonald. Not only did my dad tell me that if I didn’t go to church he’d wear out my behind, he said he wouldn’t let me read Michael’s webzine, Crackhead, again! He refused to let me go on-line again for the rest of the summer. He crushed my modem with a magnum of Chateauneuf du Pape.

Talk about reactionary!

So I was totally worried about what he was going to do when I got home from Lilly’s.

I tried to hang out at the Moscovitzes’ as long as possible: I loaded the breakfast dishes in the dishwasher for Maya, since she was busy writing a letter to her congressman asking him to please do something about her son, Manuel, who was wrongfully imprisoned ten years ago for supporting a revolution in their country. I walked Pavlov, since Michael had to go to an astrophysics lecture at Columbia. I even unclogged the jets in the Drs. Moscovitzes’ Jacuzzi—boy, does Lilly’s dad shed a lot.

Then Lilly had to go and announce that it was time to shoot the one-hour special episode of her show, the one dedicated to her feet. Only it turned out the Drs. Moscovitz had not left, like we thought they had, for their rolfing sessions. They totally overheard and told me that I had to go home while they analyzed Lilly about her need to taunt her sex-crazed stalker.

Here’s the thing:

I am generally a very good daughter. I mean it. I don’t smoke. I don’t do drugs. I haven’t given birth at any proms. I am completely trustworthy, and I do my homework most of the time. Except for one lousy F in a class that will be of no use to me whatsoever in my future life, I’m doing pretty well.

And then they had to spring the princess thing on me.

I decided on my way home that if my dad tried to punish me I was going to call Judge Judy. He’d really be sorry if he landed in front of Judge Judy because of this. She’d let him have it, boy, let me tell you. People trying to make other people be princesses when they don’t want to be? Judge Judy wouldn’t stand for any of it.

Of course, when I got home, it turned out I didn’t have to call Judge Judy at all.

My mom hadn’t gone to her studio, which she does every Saturday without fail. She was sitting there waiting for me to come home, reading old copies of the subscription she got me to Seventeen magazine before she realized I was too flat-chested to ever be asked out on a date, so all the information provided in that particular periodical was worthless to me.

Then there was my dad, who was sitting in the exact same spot as he’d been when I’d left the day before, only this time he was reading the Sunday Times, even though it was Saturday, and Mom and I have this rule that you can’t start reading the Sunday sections until Sunday. To my surprise, he wasn’t wearing a suit. Today he had on a sweater—cashmere, no doubt given to him by one of his many girlfriends—and corduroy pants.

When I walked in, he folded the paper all carefully, put it down, and gave me this long, intent look, like Captain Picard right before he starts going on to Ryker about the Prime Directive. Then he goes, “We need to talk.”

I immediately started in about how it wasn’t like I hadn’t told them where I was, and how I just needed a little time away to think about things, and how I’d been really careful and hadn’t taken the subway or anything, and my dad just went, “I know.”

Just like that. “I know.” He completely gave in without a fight.

My dad.

I looked at my mom to see if she’d noticed that he’d lost his mind. And then she did the craziest thing. She put the magazine down and came over and hugged me and said, “We’re so sorry, baby.”