She has got to be joking. Like I am going to allow Mrs. Spears to be privy to my innermost thoughts and emotions. I won’t even tell my innermost thoughts and emotions to my mother. Would I tell them to my English teacher?

And I can’t possibly turn this journal in. There’s all sorts of stuff in here I don’t want anyone to know. Like how my mother is pregnant by my Algebra teacher, for instance.

Well, I will just have to start a new journal. A fake journal. Instead of recording my innermost emotions and feelings in it, I’ll just write a bunch of lies, and hand that in instead.

I am such an accomplished liar, I very highly doubt Mrs. Spears will know the difference.

ENGLISH JOURNAL

by Mia Thermopolis

KEEP OUT!!!

THIS MEANS YOU,

UNLESS YOU ARE MRS. SPEARS!!!!!!

An Introduction

NAME:

Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Thermopolis Renaldo

Known as Mia for short.

Her Royal Highness the princess of Genovia or just Princess Mia in some circles.

AGE:

Fourteen

YR IN SCHOOL:

Freshman

SEX:

Haven’t had it yet. Ha, ha, just kidding, Mrs. Spears!

Ostensibly female, but lack of breast size lends disturbing androgyny.

DESCRIPTION:

Five foot nine

Short mouse-brown hair (new blond highlights)

Gray eyes

Size ten shoe

The rest is not worth remarking on.

PARENTS:

Mother: Helen Thermopolis

OCCUPATION:

Painter

FATHER:

Artur Christoff Phillipe Gerard Grimaldi Renaldo

OCCUPATION:

Prince of Genovia

PARENTS’ MARITAL STATUS:

Because I am the result of a fling my mother and father had in college, they never married (each other) and are both currently single. It is probably better this way, since all they ever do is fight.

With each other, I mean.

PETS:

One cat, Fat Louie. Orange and white, Louie weighs twenty-five pounds. Louie is eight years old, and has been on a diet for approximately six of those years. When Louie is upset with us for, say, forgetting to feed him, he eats any socks he might find lying around. Also, he is attracted to small glittery things, and has quite a collection of beer bottle caps and tweezers which he thinks I don’t know about, hidden behind the toilet in my bathroom.

BEST FRIEND:

My best friend is Lilly Moscovitz. Lilly has been my best friend since kindergarten. She is fun to hang out with because she is very very smart and has her own public access television show, Lilly Tells It Like It Is. She is always thinking up fun things to do, like steal the foamboard sculpture of the Parthenon that the Greek and Latin Derivatives class made for Parents’ Night and hold it for a ransom of ten pounds of lime Starbursts.

Not that that was us, Mrs. Spears. I am just using that as an example of the type of crazy thing Lilly might do.

BOYFRIEND:

Ha! I wish.

ADDRESS:

I have lived all of my life in New York City with my mother, except for summers, which I have traditionally spent with my father at his mother’s chateau in France. My father’s primary residence is Genovia, a small country in Europe located on the Mediterranean between the Italian and French border. For a long time I was led to believe that my father was an important politician in Genovia, like the mayor, or something. Nobody told me that he was actually a member of the Genovian royal family—that he was, in fact, the reigning monarch, Genovia being a principality. I guess nobody ever would have told me, either, if my dad hadn’t gotten testicular cancer and become sterile, making me, his illegitimate daughter, the only heir he’ll ever have to his throne. Ever since he finally let me in on this slightly important little secret (a month ago) Dad has been living at the Plaza Hotel here in New York, while his mother, my grandmère, the dowager princess, teaches me what I need to know in order to be his heir.

For which I can only say: Thanks. Thanks a whole lot.

And do you want to know what the really sad part is? None of that was lies.

Monday, October 20, Lunch

Okay, Lilly knows.

All right, maybe she doesn’t KNOW, but she knows something is wrong. I mean, come on: she’s been my best friend since like kindergarten. She can totally tell when something is bothering me. We totally bonded in first grade, the day Orville Lockhead dropped trou in front of us in the line to the music room. I was appalled, having never seen male genitalia before. Lilly, however, was unimpressed. She has a brother, you see, so it was no big surprise to her. She just looked Orville straight in the eye and said, “I’ve seen bigger.”

And you know what? Orville never did it again.

So you can see that Lilly and I share a bond that is stronger than mere friendship.

Which was why she took just one look at my face when she sat down at our lunch table today and said, “What’s wrong? Something’s wrong. It’s not Louie, is it? Did Louie eat another sock?”

As if. This is so much more serious. Not that it isn’t totally scary when Louie eats a sock. I mean, we have to rush him to the animal hospital and all, and right away, or he could die. A thousand bucks later, we get an old half-digested sock as a souvenir.

But at least the cat is back to normal.

But this? A thousand bucks won’t cure this. And nothing will ever be back to normal again.

It is so incredibly embarrassing. I mean, that my mom and Mr. Gianini—you know, DID IT.

Worse, that they DID IT without using anything. I mean, please. Who DOES that anymore?

I told Lilly there wasn’t anything wrong, that it was just PMS. It was totally embarrassing to admit this in front of my bodyguard, Lars, who was sitting there eating a gyro that Tina Hakim Baba’s bodyguard Wahim—Tina has a bodyguard because her father is a sheik who fears that she will be kidnapped by executives from a rival oil company; I have one because . . .well, just because I’m a princess, I guess—had bought from the vendor in front of Ho’s Deli across the street from the school.