Princess in Pink (14 page)

you'd have told me. Because that's the kind of girl you are. That's one of the reasons we're so good together. Because we can tell each other anything.

Then:

LinuxRulz

It's not that thing from your party, is it? You know, where I wouldn't beat up Jangbu for making out with my sister? Because getting involved in my sister's love life is never a good idea, as you might have noticed.

Then:

LinuxRulz

Well, whatever. Goodnight. And I love you.

Oh, Michael! My sweet protector!

WHY WON'T YOU TAKE ME TO YOUR
PROM ???????????????????????

Tuesday, May 6, 3 am.

I still can't believe the nerve of her. I have learned A LOT about writing from watching movies. For instance:

Valuable tips I, Mia Thermopolis, learned about writing from the movies:

Aspen Extreme

T J. Burke moves to Aspen to become a ski instructor, but really he just wants to write. When he is done penning his

touching tribute to his dead friend, Dex, he puts it in an envelope and sends it to Powder magazine. A hot-air balloon and

two swans fly by. Then you see a mail carrier put a copy of Powder magazine in TJ.'s mailbox. On the cover is a blurb

about TJ.'s story! It's that easy to get published!

The Wonderboys

Always keep a back-up disk.

Little Women

Ditto.

Moulin Rouge

When writing a play, do not fall in love with your leading lady. Especially if she has consumption. Also, don't drink anything green offered to you by a midget.

The Bell Jar

Don't let your mother read your book until after it's published (when there's nothing she can do about it).

Adaptation

Never trust a twin.

Isn't She Great, The Jacqueline Suzann Story

Publishers don't actually mind if you turn in a manuscript written on pink stationery. Also, sex sells.

How DARE Lilly suggest I've wasted my time watching TV?

And if I happen to choose a career in the medical profession, I am still golden, because I have seen practically every

episode of ER ever made.

Not to mention M*A*S*H.

Tuesday, May 6, Gifted and Talented

Horrible day so far, in every way:

1. Mr. G gave us a pop quiz in Algebra, which I flunked because I was too worked up over the whole Boris/ Lilly/prom thing last night to study. You would think my own stepfather would be kind enough to drop me a hint or two when he's going to

give a pop quiz. But apparently this would violate some teacher code of ethics.

As if. What about the stepfather code of ethics? Anyone ever thought about THAT?

2. Shameeka and I got caught passing notes again. Have to write a thousand-word essay on effects of global warming on ecosystems of South America.

3. I had no one to be my partner on the disease projects we are doing in Health and Safety because Lilly and I aren't speaking. She is doing the full-on avoidance thing. She even took the subway to school today instead of riding with Michael and me in the limo. Not that I mind. Plus when we drew diseases, I got Asperger's syndrome. Why couldn't I have got a cool disease, like Ebola fever? It is so unfair, especially as I am now considering a career in the health field.

At lunch I accidentally ate some sausage that was mistakenly baked into my supposedly cheese-only Individual Pizza. Also, Boris spent the whole period writing the word Lilly over and over again on his violin case. Lilly didn't even show at lunch. Hopefully she and Jangbu hopped a plane back to Tibet and won't
be bothering any of us any more. Michael says he doesn't think so, though. He says he thinks she had another press conference.

5. Michael did not change his mind about the prom. Not that I brought it up, or anything. Just that I happened to be walking with him past the table where Lana and the rest of the Prom Committee are selling tickets, and Michael went, “Sucka,” under his breath when he saw the guy who hates it when they put corn in the chilli buying prom tickets for himself and his girlfriend.

Even the guy who hates it when they put corn in the chilli is going to the prom. Everyone in the whole world is going to the prom. Except for me.

Lilly still isn't back from wherever it is she went off to before lunch. Which is probably just as well. I don't think Boris could take it if she walked in here right now. He found some correcting fluid in the supply closet, and he is using it to make little curlicues around Lilly's name on his violin case. I want to shake him and go, 'Snap out of it! She's not worth it!'

But I'm afraid it might loosen his stitches.

Plus Mrs. Hill, clearly due to yesterday's events, is fully sitting at her desk, flipping through Garnet Hill catalogues and keeping an eagle eye on us. I bet she got in trouble over the whole violin-virtuoso-globe-dropping thing. Principal Gupta is really very strict about bloodshed on school grounds.

Since I have nothing better to do, I am going to compose a poem that expresses my true feelings about everything that is going on. I intend to call Spring Fever. If it is good enough, I am going to submit it to The Atom. Anonymously, of course. If Lesley knew I wrote it, she'd never print it, since, as a cub reporter, I have not Paid My Dues.

But if she just FINDS it slipped under the door to The Atom's office, maybe she'll run it. The way I see it, I have nothing to lose. It's not like things can possibly get any worse.

Tuesday, May 6, St. Vincent s Hospital

Things just got worse. Very, very worse.

It's probably all my fault. All my fault because I wrote that before. About things not possibly being able to get any worse.

It turns out things most definitely CAN get worse than

- Flunking an Algebra quiz

- Getting in trouble in Bio. for passing notes

— Getting Asperger's syndrome as your Health and Safety project

- Your father trying to force you to spend most of your summer in Genovia

— Your boyfriend refusing to take you to the prom

— Your best friend calling you weak

- Her boyfriend needing stitches in his head from a self-inflicted globe wound

- Your grandmother trying to force you to have dinner with the Sultan of Brunei

What's worse is your pregnant mother passing out in the frozen-food department at the Grand Union.

I am totally serious. She landed face first in the Haagen Dazs. Thank God she bounced off the Ben and Jerry's and came to

rest on her back, or my potential brother or sister would have been crushed under the weight of his or her own mother.

The manager of the Grand Union apparently didn't have the slightest idea what to do. According to witnesses, he ran all around the store, flapping his arms and yelling, 'Dead woman in Aisle Four! Dead woman in Aisle Four!'

I don't know what would have happened if members of
the New York Fire Department hadn't happened to have been there. I'm serious. Ladder Company Number 3 does all of its grocery shopping for the firehouse at the Grand Union - I know because Lilly and I, back when we were friends and first realized firemen are hot, used to go there all the time to watch them

as they picked through the nectarines and mangoes - and they happened to be there stocking up for the week when my mom went horizontal. They checked her pulse right away and figured out she wasn't dead. Then they called an ambulance and whisked her to St Vincent's, the closest ER.

Too bad my mom was unconscious the whole time. She would so totally have loved to have ridden in an ambulance with all those hot guys. Plus, you know, the fact that they were strong enough to lift her . . . and at her current weight, which is a lot ... that's pretty cool.

You can imagine when I was just sitting there, bored out of my skull in French, and my mobile phone rang . . . well, I freaked. Not because it was the first time anyone had ever called me, or even because Mademoiselle Klein fully confiscates any mobile phones that ring during her class, but because the only people who are allowed to call me on my mobile phone are my mom and Mr G, and then only to let me know that I need to get to home, because my sibling is about to be born.

Except that when I finally answered the phone - it took me a minute to figure out it was MY phone that was ringing: I kept looking around accusingly at everybody else in class, who just blinked confusedly back at me - it wasn't my mom or Mr G to tell me the baby was coming. It was Assistant Fire Chief Pete Logan, to ask me if I knew a Helen Thermopolis and, if so, could I come to St Vincent's hospital immediately. The firemen had found my mom's mobile
phone in her purse, and dialled the only number she had in her address book . . .

Mine.

I about had a coronary, of course. I shrieked and grabbed my backpack, then Lars. Then he and I ran out of there without a word of explanation to anyone . . . like I had suddenly developed Asperger's syndrome or something. On our way out of the building, I skidded past Mr. Gianini's classroom, then backed up and stuck my head in to scream that his wife was in the hospital and that he better put down that chalk and come with us.

I've never seen Mr. G look so scared. Not even the first time he met Grandmere.

Then the three of us ran all out for the 77th Street subway station - because there was no way a cab was going to get us there fast enough in the midday traffic, and Hans and the limo are off duty every day until I get out of school at three.

I don't think the staff at St. Vincent - who are totally excellent, by the way - ever encountered anything quite like a hysterical Princess of Genovia, her bodyguard and her stepfather before. The three of us burst into the ER waiting area and just stood there screaming my mom's name until finally this nurse came out of triage and was like, 'Helen Thermopolis is just fine. She's awake and resting right now. She just got a little dehydrated, and fainted.'

'Dehydrated?' I about had another coronary, but this time for different reasons. 'She hasn't been drinking her eight glasses of water a day?'

The nurse smiled and said, 'Well, she mentioned that the baby is putting a lot of pressure on her bladder . . .'

'Is she going to be all right?' Mr. G wanted to know.

'Is the BABY going to be all right?' I wanted to know.

'Both of them are going to be fine,' the nurse said. 'Come with me, and I'll take you to her.'

Then the nurse took us into the ER - the actual ER of St Vincent's Hospital, where everybody in Greenwich Village who gets shot or has a kidney stone goes!!!!!!!!!! I saw tons of sick people in there. There was a guy who had all sorts of tubes sticking out of him, and another guy who was throwing up in a basin. There was an NYU student 'sleeping one off', and an old lady who'd had heart palpitations, and a supermodel who'd fallen off her stilettos, and a construction worker who had a gash on his hand and a bike messenger who had been hit by a taxi.

Anyway, before I got a good look at all the patients -patients like the ones I might have someday, if I ever pull up my Algebra grades and get into medical school - the nurse tugged a curtain back, and there was my mom, awake and looking pretty peeved.

When I noticed the needle in her arm, I saw why she was so peeved. She was hooked up to an IV!!!!!!!!!!!!

'OH, MY GOD!!!' I yelled at the nurse. Even though you aren't supposed to yell in the ER, because there are sick people there. 'If she's so OK, why does she have THAT???'

'It's just to get some fluids into her,' the nurse said. 'Your mom is going to be fine. Tell them you're going to be fine, Mrs. Thermopolis.'

'It's Ms,' my mom snarled.

And I knew then that she was going to be just fine.

I threw myself on her and gave her the biggest hug I could, what with the IV and the fact that Mr. G was hugging her too.

'I'm all right, I'm all right,' my mom said, patting us both on our heads. 'Let's not make a bigger deal out of this than has been made already.'

'But it IS a big deal,' I said, feeling tears trickle down my face. Because it is very upsetting, getting a phone call in the middle

of French class from an assistant fire chief, telling you that your mother is in hospital.

'No, it's not,' my mom said. 'I'm fine. The baby's fine. And once they get the rest of this Ringer's lactate into me, I get to go home.' She shot the nurse a look. 'RIGHT?'

'Yes, ma'am,' the nurse said, and closed the curtain so that the four of us - my mom, Mr. G, me and my bodyguard — could have some privacy.

'You have to be more careful, Mom,' I said. 'You can't let yourself get worn out like this.'

'I'm not worn out,' my mom said. 'It's that damned roast pork and noodle soup I had for lunch—'

'From Number One Noodle Son?' I cried, horrified. 'Mom, you didn't! There's like one million grammes of sodium in that! No wonder you passed out! The MSG alone—'

'I have an idea, Your Highness,' Lars said, speaking in a low voice in my ear. 'Why don't you and I go across the street and

see if we can get your mother a smoothie?'

Lars always keeps such a level head in a crisis. That is no doubt on account of his intensive training with the Israeli Army. He is a distinguished expert marksman with his Glock, and pretty good with a flamethrower, too. Or so he once confided in me.

'That's a good idea,' I said. 'Mom, Lars and I will be right back. We're going to get you a nice, healthy smoothie.'

'Thanks,' my mom said weakly, but for some reason she was looking more at Lars than at me. No doubt because her eyes were still out of focus from the whole fainting thing.

Except that when we returned with the smoothie, the nurse wouldn't let us back in to see my mom. She said there
was only one visitor per hour per patient in the ER, and that she'd only made an exception before because we'd all looked so worried and she'd wanted us to see for ourselves that Mom was OK, and I'm the Princess of Genovia, and all.

She did take the smoothie Lars and I had bought, and promised to give it to my mom.

So now Lars and I are sitting in the hard orange plastic chairs in the waiting room. We'll be here until my mom gets dismissed.