Princess in Love

'Live in ... live in Genovia?' For once, I'd caught her off" guard. 'What are you talking about?'

'You know,' I said. 'I could just finish ninth grade in school there. And then maybe I could go to one of those Swiss boarding schools you're always going on about.'

Grandmere just stared at me. 'You'd hate it.'

'No,' I said. 'It might be fun. No boys, right? That would be great. I mean, I'm kind of sick of boys right now.'

Grandmere shook her head. 'But your friends . . . your mother . . . '

'Well,' I said reasonably. 'They could come and visit.'

Then Grandmere's face hardened. She peered at me from between the heavily mascaraed slits her eyelids had become.

'Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Renaldo,' she said. 'You are running away from something, aren't you?'

I shook my head innocently. 'Oh, no, Grandmere,' I said. 'Really. I'd like to live in Genovia. It'd be neat.'

'NEAT?' Grandmere stood up. Her high heels went through the slots between the metal bars of the fire escape, but she didn't notice. She pointed imperiously at my window.

'You get inside right now,' she hissed, in a voice I had never heard her use before.

I have to admit, I was so startled I did exactly what she said. I unplugged Ronnie's electric blanket and crawled right back

into my room. Then I stood there while Grandmere crawled back in too.

'You,' she said, when she'd straightened out her skirt, 'are a princess of the royal house of Renaldo. A princess,' she said,

going to my wardrobe, and rifling through it, 'does not shirk her responsibilities. Nor does she run at the first sign of adversity.'

'Um, Grandmere,' I said. 'What happened today was hardly the first sign of adversity, OK? What happened today was the

last straw. I can't take it any more, Grandmere. I am getting out.'

Grandmere pulled from my wardrobe the dress Sebastiano had designed for me to wear to the dance. You know, the one

that was supposed to make Michael forget that I am his little sister's best friend.

'Nonsense,' Grandmere said.

That was all.

Just 'nonsense'. Then she stood there, tapping her toes and staring at me.

'Grandmere,' I said. Maybe it was all that time I'd spent outside. Or maybe it was that I was pretty sure my mom and Mr.G and my dad were all in the next room, listening. How could they not be? There was no door, or anything, to separate my room from the living room.

'You don't understand,' I said. 'I can't go back there.'

'All the more reason,' Grandmere said, 'for you to go.'

'No,' I said. 'First of all, I don't even have a date for the dance, OK? And P.S., only losers go to dances without dates.'

'You are not a loser, Amelia,' Grandmere said. 'You are a princess. And princesses do not run away when things become difficult. They throw their shoulders back and they face what disaster awaits them head on. Bravely, and without complaint.'

I said, 'Hello, we are not talking about marauding Visigoths, OK, Grandmere? We are talking about an entire high school that now thinks I am in love with Boris Pelkowski.'

'Which is precisely,' Grandmere said, 'why you must show them that it doesn't matter to you what they think.'

'Why can't I show them that it doesn't matter by not going?'

'Because that,' Grandmere said, 'is the cowardly way. And you, Mia, as you have shown amply this past week, are not a coward. Now get dressed.'

I don't know why I did what she said. Maybe it was because somewhere deep inside, I knew that for once, Grandmere was right.

Or maybe it was because secretly, I guess I was a little curious to see what would happen.

But I think the real reason was because, for the first time in my entire life, Grandmere didn't call me Amelia.

No. She called me Mia.

And because of my stupid sentimentalism, I am in a car right now, going back to stupid crappy Albert Einstein High School,

the dust from which I thought I'd managed to shake permanently from my feet not four hours ago.

But no. Oh, no. I'm going back, in the stupid velvet party dress Sebastiano designed for me. I'm going back and I will

probably be ridiculed for being the dateless biological freak that I am.

But regardless of what happens, I can always comfort myself with the knowledge of one thing:

Tomorrow, I will be thousands of miles away from all of this.

Oh, God. We're here.

I think I'm going to be sick.

Saturday, December 19, Royal Genovian Jet

When I was about to turn six years old, all I wanted for my birthday was a cat.

I didn't care what kind of cat. I just wanted one - a cat of my very own. We had been to visit my mom's parents at their farm

in Indiana, and they had a lot of cats. One of them had had kittens - little fluffy orange and white ones, which purred loudly when I held them under my chin, and liked to curl up inside the bib of my overalls and nap. More than anything in the world,

I wanted to keep one of those kittens.

I should mention that, at the time, I had a thumb-sucking problem. My mother had tried everything to get me to stop sucking my thumb, including buying me a Barbie, in spite of her fundamental stand against Barbie and all that she stands for, as a sort

of bribe. Nothing worked.

So when I started whining to her about wanting a kitten, my mom came up with a plan. She told me she would get me a kitten for my birthday if I quit sucking my thumb.