Princess in Waiting (14 page)

FtLouie: Tina, if Dave was willing to break up with you just because you didn't return

his calls, then he was not worthy of you. You will find a new boy, one who

appreciates you.

Iluvromance: Do U really think so?

FtLouie: Absolutely.

Iluvromance: But where am I going to find a boy who appreciates me at AEHS?

All the boys

who go there are morons. Except MM of course.

FtLouie: Don't worry, we'll find someone for you. I have to go IM my dad now . . .

I didn't want to tell her that the person I really had to IM was Michael. I didn't want to rub it in that I had

a boyfriend and she didn't. Also, I hoped she didn't remember that in Genovia, where my dad was, it was

four o'clock in the morning. Also that the Palais de Genovia doesn't have instant messaging.

FtLouie: so TTYL.

Iluvromance: OK, bye. If U feel like chatting later, I'll be here. I have nowhere else

to go.

Poor, sweet Tina! She is clearly prostrate with grief. Really, if you think about it, she is well rid of Dave.

If he wanted to leave her for this Jasmine girl so badly, he could have let her down gently by

cat-on-the-roofing her. If he were any kind of gentleman, he would have. But it was all too clear now that

Dave was no gentleman at all.

I'm glad MY boyfriend is so different. Or at least, I hope he is. No, wait, of course he is. He's

MICHAEL.

FtLouie: Hey!

LinuxRulz:Hey back atcha! Where have you been?

FtLouie: Princess lessons.

LinuxRulz:Don't you know everything there is to know about being a princess

yet?

FtLouie: Apparently not. Grandmere's got me in for some fine tuning. Speaking

of which,

is there, like, a later showing of Star Wars than the seven o'clock?

LinuxRulz:Yeah, there's an eleven. Why?

FtLouie: Oh, nothing.

LinuxRulz: WHY?

But see, here was the part where I couldn't do it. Maybe because of the capital letters, or maybe

because my conversation

with Tina was still too fresh in my mind. The unparalleled sadness in her blue U letters was just too much

for me. I know I should have just come right out and told him about the ball thingy then and there, only I

couldn't go through with it. All I

could think about was how incredibly smart and gifted Michael is, and what a pathetic, talentless freak I

am, and how

easy it would be for him to go out and find someone worthier of his attentions.

So instead, I wrote:

FtLouie: I've been trying to think of some names for your band.

LinuxRulz: What does that have to do with whether or not there's a later

showing of Star Wars Friday night?

FtLouie: Well, nothing, I guess. Except what do you think of Michael and the

Wookies?

LinuxRulz:! think maybe you've been playing with Fat Louie's catnip mouse

again.

FtLouie: Ha ha. OK, how about The Ewoks?

LinuxRulz:The EWOKS? Where did your grandma take you today when she hauled you

out of second period? Electric shock therapy?

FtLouie: I'm only trying to help.

LinuxRulz:! know, sorry. Only
I
don't think the guys would really enjoy being

equated

with furry little muppets from the planet Endor. I mean,
I
know one

of them

is Boris, but even he would draw the line at Ewoks, I hope . . .

FtLouie: BORIS PELKOWSKI IS IN YOUR BAND????

LinuxRulz: Yeah. Why?

FtLouie: Nothing.

All I can say is, if I had a band, I would NOT let Boris

init. I mean, I know he is a talented musician and all, but he is also a mouth breather. I think it's great

that he and Lilly get along so well, and for short periods of time I can totally put up with him and even

have a nice time with him and all. But I would not let him be in my band. Not unless he stopped tucking

his sweaters into his pants.

LinuxRulz: Boris isn't so bad, once you get to know him.

FtLouie: I know. He just doesn't seem like the band type. All that Bartok.

LinuxRulz: He plays a mean bluegrass, you know. Not that we'll be playing any

bluegrass in the band.

This was comforting to know.

LinuxRulz: So will your grandmother let you off on time?

I genuinely had no idea what he was talking about.

FtLouie: What????

LinuxRulz: On Friday. You've got princess lessons, right? That's why you were asking

about later showings of the movie, wasn't it? You're worried your grandmother

isn't going to let you out on time?

This is where I screwed up. You see, he had offered me the perfect get-out - I could have said, 'Yes, I

am,' and chances

were, he'd have been like, 'OK, well, let's make it another time, then.'

BUT WHAT IF THERE WERE NO OTHER TIME????

What if Michael, like Dave, just blew me off and found some other girl to take to the show????

So instead, I went:

FtLouie: No, it will
be
OK. I think I can get off early.

WHY AM I SO STUPID???? WHY DID I WRITE THAT???? Because of COURSE I won't be able

to get off early,

I will be at the stupid black-and-white ball ALL NIGHT!!!!!

I swear, I am such an idiot, I don't even deserve to have a boyfriend.

Thursday, January 21,

Homeroom

This morning at breakfast, Mr G was all, 'Has anyone seen my brown corduroy pants?' and my mom,

who had set her

alarm so that she could wake up early enough to possibly catch my dad on a break between Parliament

sessions (no

such luck), went, 'No, but has anyone seen my Free Winona T-shirt?'

And then I went, 'Well, I still haven't found my Queen Amidala underwear.'

And that's when we all realized it: someone had stolen our laundry.

It is really the only explanation for it. I mean, we send laundry out, to the Thompson Street

laundry-by-the-pound place,

and then they do it for us and deliver it all folded and stuff. Since we don't have a doorman, generally the

bag just sits in

the vestibule until one of us picks it up and drags it up the three flights of stairs to the loft.

Only apparently, no one has seen the bag of laundry we dropped off the day before I left for Genovia!

Which can only mean that some freaky newsreporter (they regularly go through our garbage, much to the

chagrin of

Mr. Molina, our building's superintendent) found our bag of laundry, and any minute we can expect a

ground-breaking

news story on the front cover of the
Post Out of the Closet: What Princess Mia Wears, and What it

Means,

According to our Experts.

AND THEN THE WHOLE WORLD WILL FIND OUT THAT I WEAR QUEEN AMIDALA

PANTIES!

I mean, it is not like I go around ADVERTISING that I have
Star Wars
underwear, or even that I have

any kind of lucky panties at all. And by rights, I should have taken my

Queen Amidala underwear with me to Genovia, for luck on my Christmas Eve address to my people. If I

had, maybe

I wouldn't have gone off on that six-pack-holder tangent.

But, whatever, I had been too caught up in the whole Michael thing, and had completely forgotten.

And now it looks like someone has gotten hold of my special lucky underwear, and the next thing you

know, it will be

showing up on Ebay! Seriously! There is a ton of Princess Mia stuff being sold on Ebay, like used copies

of the

unauthorized biographies of my life. Who is to say my underwear wouldn't sell like hotcakes? Especially

the fact that

they are Queen Amidala panties.

I am so, so dead.

Mom has already called the 6th Precinct to report the theft, but those guys are too busy defusing bombs

and tracking

down real criminals to go after a laundry swiper. They practically laughed her off the phone.

It is all very well for her and Mr G — all they lost were regular clothes. I am the only one who lost

underwear. Worse,

my lucky underwear. Though I fully understand that the men and women who fight crime in this city have

more important

things to do than look for my panties.

But the way things have been going, I really, really need all the good luck I can get.

Thursday; January 21

Algebra

Today, before class started, Lana was on her mobile, and this is what I overheard her saying:

'No, I can't make it to Pam's on Friday, I've got this stupid thing to go to. I don't know, it's some patient

of my dad's.

Every year she has this stupid dance where everybody has to dress up in black and white.'

I froze, my Algebra I-II textbook only halfway open. Lana's dad, I remembered, all of my blood turning

cold, is a plastic surgeon. Could he have been the one who gave Contessa Trevanni her anteater face?

'I don't know,' Lana was saying, into her phone. 'She claims to be some kind of countess. I swear to

God, this town is

littered with wannabe royals.'

As she said the words
wannabe royals,
Lana swivelled her head around — getting her long, shiny blonde

hair all over

Chapter Twelve of my Algebra book - and looked at me.

Um, excuse me. I
never
wanted to be royal. Never, ever, ever did I even remotely suggest to anyone that

I thought it might

be cool to be a princess.

Oh, sure, I wouldn't mind being a princess the way Belle became a princess at the end of
Beauty and the

Beast.
You know,

a fairy-tale princess with no problems or responsibilities, except to look pretty and be all sweet to

people.

But being a princess in real life is nothing like that. You have to make all these decisions that affect the

good of your country. Like should you or should you not make tourists pay for parking? And should you,

or should you not, protect dolphins and

sea turtles from pollution?

Clearly Lana has never thought about any of this, however.

'No, I'm not taking Josh,' she said scornfully into thehone, as more of her stupid hair fell all over my

textbook. In fact, I

thought about closing my book on her hair, just to hear her scream, but I wanted to hear why she wasn't

taking her long-time boyfriend, Josh Richter, to the black-and-white ball with her.

'He is so immature at these things,' Lana said to her friend. 'I mean, at the last one we went to together,

he actually started throwing grapes down the front of this one girl's dress. I know. High-school boys just

don't know how to act. Besides,

there'll be all these West Pointers there. It'll be nice to be with some
college
boys for a change.'

Really, I may not have had a boyfriend all that long (thirty-four days to be exact) but it seems pretty

disloyal to be looking forward to going to a dance with someone other than your significant other. I mean,

I am totally dreading going to the contessa's black-and-white ball without Michael.

And now I am dreading it even more, knowing that Lana is going to be there.

Especially when Mr G walked into the classroom, and Lana — who had learned a lesson from last time

— went,

'Oops, gotta go,' into her mobile and hung up, then happened to glance in my direction.

'What
are you
looking at, fish breath?' she wanted to know.

Now, I happen to know that I don't have fish breath. For one thing, I fully had oatmeal for breakfast, and

for another, Lars

is addicted to those Listerine Pocket Pak thingies that melt on your tongue and is always handing them

out, and I had just

had one in anticipation of Michael possibly stopping by my Algebra class on his way to Senior English

(which he did, to

hand me a CD he burned for me last night of Pearl Jam's greatest hits, even though of course I don't

really like bands that

don't have girls in them, except*NSYNC of course, but I will totally pretend that I listened to it and liked

it).

So I know that my breath did not smell like fish.

But I didn't get to say anything back to Lana because Mr. G told us to get out last night's homework

problems

(which I actually had done) so my opportunity was cut off.

But I am going to remember what she said for ever, because we Renaldo women, we can really hold a

grudge when

we want to.

Defn:Square root of perfect sq. is either of the identical factors

Defn:Positive sq. root is called the principal sq. root

Negative numbers have no sq. root

Things to Do:

1. Have Genovian ambassador to the UN call the CIA. See if they can dispatch some agents to track

down my

underwear (if it falls into the wrong hands, could be an international incident!)

2. Get cat food!!!!!

3. Check on Mom's folk-acid intake.

4. Tell Michael I will not be able to make first date with him.

5. Prepare to be dumped.

Thursday, January 21,

Health and Safety

Did you see that? They are meeting at Cosi for lunch!

Yes. He so loves her.

It's so cute when teachers are in love.

So are you nervous about your breakfast meeting tomorrow?

Hardly. THEY are the ones who should be nervous.

Are you going all by yourself? Your mom and dad aren't coming with you, are

they?

Please. I can handle a bunch of movie executives on my own, thanks. God, how