Princess in the Spotlight

Of course, this might have had something to do with the fact that Grandmère shaves off her eyebrows and draws on new ones every morning. Don’t ask me why. I mean, she has perfectly good eyebrows. I’ve seen the stubble. But lately I’ve noticed those eyebrows are getting drawn on higher and higher up her forehead, which gives her this look of perpetual surprise. I think that’s because of all her plastic surgeries. If she doesn’t watch it, one of these days her eyelids are going to be up in the vicinity of her frontal lobes.

And my dad was no help at all. He was asking all these questions about Beverly Bellerieve, like was it true she was Miss America in 1991 and did Grandmère happen to know if she (Beverly) was still going out with Ted Turner, or was that over?

I swear, for a guy who only has one testicle, my dad sure spends a lot of time thinking about sex.

We argued about it all through dinner. Like were they going to shoot the interview at the hotel, or back in the loft? If they shot it at the hotel, people would be given a false impression about my lifestyle. But if they shot it at the loft, Grandmère insisted, people would be horrified by the squalor in which my mother has brought me up.

Which is totally unfair. The loft is not squalid. It just has that nice, lived-in look.

“Never-been-cleaned look, you mean,” Grandmère said, correcting me. But that isn’t true, because just the other day I Lemon Pledged the whole place.

“With that animal living there, I don’t know how you can ever get the place really clean,” Grandmère said.

But Fat Louie isn’t responsible for the mess. Dust, as everyone knows, is 95 percent human skin tissue.

The only good thing that I can see about all this is that at least the film crew isn’t going to follow me around at school and stuff. That’s one thing to be thankful for, anyway. I mean, could you imagine them filming me being tortured by Lana Weinberger during Algebra? She would so totally start flipping her cheerleading pom-poms in my face, or something, just to show the producers what a wimp I can be sometimes. People all over America would be, like, What is wrong with that girl? Why isn’t she self-actualized?

And what about G and T? In addition to there being absolutely no teacher supervision in that class, there’s the whole thing with us locking Boris Pelkowski in the supply closet so we don’t have to listen to him practice his violin. That has to be some kind of violation of Haz-mat codes.

Anyway, the whole time we were arguing about it, a part of my brain was going, Right now, as we’re sitting here arguing over this whole interview thing, fifty-seven blocks away, my mother is breaking the news to her lover—my Algebra teacher—that she is pregnant with his child.

What was Mr. G going to say? I wondered. If he expressed anything but joy, I was going to sic Lars on him. I really was. Lars would beat up Mr. G for me, and he probably wouldn’t charge me very much for it, either. He has three ex-wives he’s paying alimony to, so he can always use an extra ten bucks, which is all I can afford to pay a hired thug.

I really need to see about getting more of an allowance. I mean, who ever heard of a princess who only gets ten bucks a week spending money? You can’t even go to the movies on that.

Well, you can, but you can’t get popcorn.

The thing is, though, now that I’m back at the loft, I can’t tell whether I will need Lars to beat up my Algebra teacher or not. Mr. G and my mom are talking in hushed voices in her room.

I can’t hear anything going on in there, even when I press my ear to the door.

I hope Mr. G takes it well. He’s the nicest guy my mom’s ever dated, despite that F he almost gave me. I don’t think he’ll do anything stupid, like dump her, or try to sue for full custody.

Then again, he’s a man, so who knows?

It’s funny, because as I’m writing this, an instant message comes over my computer. It’s from Michael! He writes:

CRACKING: What was with you at school today? It was like you were off in this whole other world or something.

I write back:

FTLOUIE: I don’t have the slightest idea what you are talking about. Nothing is wrong with me. I’m totally fine.

I am such a liar.

CRACKING: Well, I got the impression that you didn’t hear a word that I said about negative slopes.

Since I found out my destiny is to rule a small European principality someday, I have been trying really hard to understand Algebra, as I know I will need it to balance the budget of Genovia, and all. So I have been attending review sessions every day after school, and during Gifted and Talented, Michael has been helping me a little, too.

It’s very hard to pay attention when Michael tutors me. This is because he smells really, really good.

How can I think about negative slopes when this guy I’ve had a major crush on since, oh, I don’t know—forever practically, is sitting there right next to me, smelling like soap and sometimes brushing my knee with his?

I reply:

FTLOUIE: I heard everything you said about negative slopes. Given slope m, +y-intercept (O,b) equation y+mx+b Slope-intercept.

CRACKING: WHAT???

FTLOUIE: Isn’t that right?

CRACKING: Did you copy that out of the back of the book?

Of course.

Uh-oh, my mom is at the door.

Still later on Monday

My mom came in. I thought Mr. G had left, so I went, “How’d it go?”

Then I saw she had tears in her eyes, so I went over and gave her this big hug.

“It’s okay, Mom,” I said. “You’ll always have me. I’ll help with everything, the midnight feedings, the diaper changing, everything. Even if it turns out to be a boy.”