But whatever. I could fully put on body glitter. Grandmere doesn't even KNOW about body glitter.

'Amelia!' Grandmere was saying. She couldn't yell too loud because her face was still stinging from the chemical peel. I could tell because Rommel, her mostly hairless miniature poodle who looks like he's seen a chemical peel or two himself, kept

leaping up into her lap and trying to lick her face, like it was a piece of raw meat or whatever. Not to gross anybody out, but that's sort of how it looked. Or like Grandmere had accidentally stepped in front of one of those hoses they used to get the radiation off Cher in that movie Silkwood.

'Are you listening to a single word I've said?' Grandmere looked peeved. Mostly because her face hurt, I'm sure. 'This could

be very important to you someday, if you happen to be stranded without a calculator or your limo.'

'Sorry, Grandmere,' I said. I was sorry, too. Tipping is totally my worst thing, on account of how it involves maths and also thinking quickly on your feet. When I order food from Number One Noodle Son back home I always have to ask the restaurant while I am still on the phone with them ordering how much it will be so I can work on calculating how much to tip

the delivery guy before he gets to the door. Because otherwise he ends up standing there for like ten minutes while I figure

out how much to give him for a seventeen dollar and fifty cent order. It's embarrassing.

'I don't know where your head's been lately, Amelia,' Grandmere said, all crabby. Well, you would be crabby too if you'd

paid money to have the top two or three layers of your skin chemically removed. 'I hope you're not still worrying about your mother, and that ridiculous home birth she's planning. I told you before, your mother's forgotten what labour feels like. As

soon as her contractions kick in, she'll be begging to be taken to the hospital for a nice epidural.'

I sighed. Although the fact that my mother is choosing a home birth over a nice safe clean hospital birth - where there are oxygen tanks and candy machines and Dr. Kovach - is upsetting, I have been trying not to think about it too much . . . especially since I suspect Grandmere is right. My mother cries like a baby when she stubs her toe. How is she going to withstand hours and hours of labour pains? She was much younger when she gave birth to me. Her thirty-six-year-old

body is in no shape for the rigours of childbirth. She doesn't even work out!

Grandmere fastened her evil eye on to me.

'I suppose the fact the weather's starting to get warm isn't helping,' she said. 'Young people tend to get flighty in the spring. And, of course, there's your birthday tomorrow.'

I fully let Grandmere think that's what was distracting me. My birthday and the fact that my friends and I are all twitterpated, like Thumper gets in springtime in Bambi.

'You are a very difficult person for whom to find a suitable birthday gift, Amelia,' Grandmere said, reaching for her Sidecar

and her cigarettes. Grandmere has her cigarettes sent to her from Genovia, so she doesn't have to pay the astronomical tax

on them that they charge here in New York, in the hopes of making people quit smoking on account of it being too expensive. Except that it isn't working, since all of the people in Manhattan who smoke are just hopping on the PATH train and going

over to New Jersey to buy their cigarettes.

'You are not the jewellery type,' Grandmere went on, lighting up and puffing away. And you don't seem to have any appreciation whatsoever for couture. And it isn't as if you have any hobbies.'

I pointed out to Grandmere that I do have a hobby. Not just a hobby, even, but a calling. I write.

Grandmere just waved her hand, and said, 'But not a real hobby. You don't play golf or paint.'

It kind of hurt my feelings that Grandmere doesn't think writing is a real hobby. She is going to be very surprised when I grow up and become a published author. Then writing will not only be my hobby, but my career. Maybe the first book I write will be about her. I will call it, Clarisse: Ravings of a Royal, A Memoir, by Princess Mia of Genovia. And Grandmere won't be able to sue, just like Daryl Hannah couldn't sue when they made that movie about her and John F. Kennedy Junior, because all

of it will be one hundred percent true. HA!

'What DO you want for your birthday, Amelia?' Grandmere asked.

I had to think about that one. Of course, what I REALLY want, Grandmere can't give me. But I figured it wouldn't hurt to

ask. So I drew up the following list:

What I would like for my 15th birthday, by Mia Thermopolis, aged 14 and 364 Days

1. End to world hunger

2. New pair overalls, size eleven

3. New cat brush for Fat Louie (he chewed the handle off the last one)

4. Bungee cords for palace ballroom (so I can do air ballet like Lara Croft in Tomb Raider)

5. New baby brother or sister, safely delivered

6. Elevation of orcas to endangered list so Puget Sound can receive federal aid to clean up polluted breeding/feeding grounds

7. Lana Weinberger's head on a silver platter (just kidding - well, not really)

8. My own mobile phone

9. Grandmere to quit smoking

10. Michael Moscovitz to ask me to the Senior Prom

In composing this list, it occurred to me that sadly the only thing on it that I am likely to get for my birthday is item number 2.

I mean, I am going to get a new brother or sister, but not for another month, at the earliest. No way was Grandmere going to go for the quitting smoking thing or the bungee cords. World hunger and the orca thing are sort of out of the hands of anyone