Princess in the Spotlight (2 page)

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.

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.

The thing is, who announces the vagaries of her menstrual cycle in front of her bodyguard?

But what else was I supposed to say?

I noticed Lars totally didn’t finish his gyro, though. I think I completely grossed him out.

Could this day get any worse?

Anyway, even then, Lilly didn’t drop it. Sometimes she really does remind me of one of those little pug dogs you always see old ladies walking in the park. I mean, not only is her face kind of small and squashed in (in a nice way), but sometimes when she gets hold of something she simply will not let it go.

Like this thing at lunch, for instance. She was all, “If the only thing bothering you is PMS, then why are you writing in your journal so much? I thought you were mad at your mom for giving that to you. I thought you weren’t even going to use it.”

Which reminds me that I
was
mad at my mom for giving it to me. She gave me this journal because she says I have a lot of pent-up anger and hostility, and I have to get it out somehow, since I’m not in touch with my inner child and have an inherent inability to verbalize my feelings.

I think my mom must have been talking to Lilly’s parents, who are both psychoanalysts, at the time.

But then I found out I was the princess of Genovia, and I started using this journal to record my feelings about that, which, looking back at what I wrote, really were pretty hostile.

But that’s nothing compared with how I feel now.

Not that I feel
hostile
toward Mr. Gianini and my mother. I mean, they’re adults, and all. They can make their own decisions. But don’t they see that this is one decision that is going to affect not just them, but everyone around them? I mean, Grandmère is NOT going to like it when she finds out my mother is having ANOTHER child out of wedlock.

And what about my father? He’s already had testicular cancer this year. Finding out that the mother of his only child is giving birth to another man’s baby just might kill him. Not that he’s still in love with my mom, or anything like that. I don’t think.

And what about Fat Louie? How is he going to react to having a baby in the house? He is starved enough for affection as it is, considering I’m the only person who remembers to feed him. He might try to run away, or maybe move up from eating just socks to eating the remote control or something.

I guess I wouldn’t mind, though, having a little sister or brother. It might be cool, actually. If it’s a girl, I’d share my room with her. I could give her bubble baths and dress her up the way Tina Hakim Baba and I dressed up her little sisters—and her little brother, too, now that I think of it.

I don’t think I want a little brother. Tina Hakim Baba told me that baby boys pee in your face when you try to change them. That is so disgusting I don’t even want to think about it.

You would think my mother might have considered things like this before deciding to have sex with Mr. Gianini.

And what about that, anyway? How many dates has my mom even been on with Mr. G, anyway? Not many. I mean, like eight, maybe. Eight dates, and it turns out she’s already slept with him? And probably a couple of times, because thirty-six-year-old women do not get pregnant just like that. I know, because I can’t pick up a copy of
New York
magazine without seeing about a gazillion ads from victims of early menopause who are looking for egg donations from younger women.

But not my mom. Oh, no. Ripe as a mango, that’s my mom.

I should have known, of course. I mean, what about that morning I walked out into the kitchen and Mr. Gianini was standing there in his boxer shorts?

I was trying to repress that memory, but I guess it didn’t work.

Also, has she even thought about her folic acid intake? I know for a fact she has not. And may I just point out that alfalfa sprouts can be deadly for a newly developing fetus? We have alfalfa sprouts in our refrigerator. Our refrigerator is a deathtrap for a gestating child. There is BEER in the vegetable crisper.

My mother may think she is a fit parent, but she has a lot to learn. When I get home, I fully intend to show her all this information I’ve printed out off the Web. If she thinks she can put the health of my future baby sister at risk by eating alfalfa sprouts in her sandwiches and drinking coffee and stuff, she is in for a big surprise.

Lilly caught me looking up stuff about pregnancy on the Internet.

She said, “Oh, my God! Is there something about your date with Josh Richter that you didn’t tell me?”

Which I really didn’t appreciate, since she said it right in front of her brother Michael—not to mention Lars, Boris Pelkowski, and the rest of the class. She said it really loud, too.

You know, these kinds of things wouldn’t happen if the teachers at this school would do their jobs and actually teach once in a while. I mean, except for Mr. Gianini, every teacher in this school seems to think it is perfectly acceptable to toss out an assignment and then leave the room to go have a smoke in the teachers’ lounge.

Which is probably a health violation, you know.

And Mrs. Hill is the worst of all. I mean, I know Gifted and Talented isn’t a real class at all. It’s more like study hall for the socially impaired. But if Mrs. Hill would be in here once in a while to supervise, people like me who are neither gifted nor talented and only ended up in this class because they happen to be flunking Algebra and need the extra study time might not get picked on all the time by the resident geniuses.

Because the truth is, Lilly knows perfectly well that the only thing that went on during my date with Josh Richter was that I found out that Josh Richter was totally using me, just because I happen to be a princess and he thought he could get his picture on the cover of
Teen Beat
. I mean, it wasn’t like we were ever even alone with each other, unless you count when we were in the car, which I don’t, since Lars was there, too, looking out for Euro-trash terrorists who might feel compelled to kidnap me.

Anyway, I exited really fast from the You and Your Pregnancy site I had been looking at, but not fast enough for Lilly. She kept going, “Oh, my God, Mia, why didn’t you tell me?”

It was getting kind of embarrassing, even though I explained that I was doing an extra-credit report for Biology, which isn’t really a lie, since my lab partner, Kenny Showalter, and I are ethically opposed to dissecting frogs—which the class would be doing next—and Mrs. Sing said we could do a term paper instead.

Only the term paper is supposed to be on the life cycle of the mealworm. But Lilly doesn’t know that.

I tried to change the subject by asking Lilly if she knew the truth about alfalfa sprouts, but she just kept blabbing on and on about me and Josh Richter. I really wouldn’t have minded so much if it hadn’t been for her brother Michael sitting right there, listening instead of working on his webzine,
Crackhead
, like he was supposed to be doing. I mean, it’s not like I haven’t had a crush on him since forever.

Not that he’s noticed, of course. To him, I’m just his kid sister’s best friend, that’s all. He has to be nice to me, or Lilly will tell everyone in school how she once caught him getting teary-eyed over an old
7th Heaven
rerun.

Besides which, I’m just a lowly freshman. Michael Moscovitz is a senior and has the best grade point average in the whole school (after Lilly) and is covaledictorian of his class. And he didn’t inherit the squashed-in-face gene, like his sister. Michael could go out with any girl at Albert Einstein High School that he wanted to.

Well, except for the cheerleaders. They only date jocks.

Not that Michael isn’t athletic. I mean, he doesn’t believe in organized sports, but he has excellent quadriceps. All his ceps are nice, actually. I noticed last time he came into Lilly’s room to yell at us for screaming obscenities too loudly during a Christina Aguilera video, and he didn’t happen to be wearing a shirt.

So I really didn’t appreciate Lilly standing there talking about how I might be pregnant, right in front of her brother.

TOP FIVE REASONS WHY IT’S HARD BEING BEST FRIENDS WITH A CERTIFIED GENIUS