Princess In Training (20 page)

I could barely believe my ears.

“So, does this mean we aren’t going to be voted out of the EU?” I asked.

My dad looked shocked.

“Mia,” he said. “That was never going to happen. Well, I mean, I know a few countries might have wanted us ejected from the EU. But I believe they’re the same ones who caused this ecodisaster in the first place. So, no one was actually giving their calls for our expulsion serious consideration.”

Now he tells me. Nice one, Dad. Like I wasn’t up all night, worrying about this. Well, among other things.

It was right about then that I noticed Ms. Martinez standing there, too, looking kind of…well, sheepish is the only way I can think of to describe it.

“Mia,” she said, when I’d finally stopped hugging my dad (in my joy at hearing that my snails had saved the bay). “I just want to say that that was a great speech. And that you’re right. Popular culture isn’t necessarily lacking in value or merit. It has its place, just like high culture. I’m very sorry if I made you feel that the things you enjoy writing about were less worthy than more serious subjects. They aren’t.”

Whoa!!!!

The fact that my dad was kind of giving Ms. Martinez the old eye as all this was going on kind of diminished my joy over my victory somewhat, however.

But whatever. I think it’s highly unlikely my dad’s going to start dating someone who actually knows what a gerund is. His last girlfriend thought gerunds were mean, foul-smelling rodents.

Speaking of which, Grandmère came up to me right after that and took me by the arm and led me a little bit away from everyone.

“You see, Amelia,” she said, in a raspy, Sidecar-scented whisper. “I told you that you could do it. That was inspired in there. Truly inspired. I almost felt as if the spirit of St. Amelie was among us.”

The freaky thing about this was—I’d kind of felt the same thing.

But I didn’t say so. Instead, I said, “So, uh, Grandmère? What’s this secret weapon you and Lilly came up with? And when are you going to launch it?”

But she just lifted my half-torn-off AEHS patch between her thumb and index finger and said, “What happened to your coat? Really, Amelia, can’t you take better care of your things? A princess really ought not to walk about looking like such a slattern.”

But anyway. The whole thing was still pretty cool. Especially the part where Grandmère said she had to cancel our princess lesson for the day so she could go have a facial. Apparently, all the stress of helping Lilly with the election has caused her pores to expand.

All in all, it was almost enough to make me think things—I don’t know—might actually go my way for a change.

But then I remembered Michael. Who, by the way, hasn’t once called or even text messaged me today, to say good luck on the debate, or ask how I’d done, or anything. In fact, I haven’t talked to him at all since the whole Doing It talk.

And I’ll admit, that talk didn’t actually go as well as I’d hoped it would.

But still. You’d think he’d call. Even if, you know, I’m the one who hasn’t returned HIS calls or e-mails.

Boris is playing “God Save the Queen” on his violin on my behalf. I told him it’s a little early for that. After all, the votes collected over lunch are still being tabulated. Principal Gupta’s going to make the announcement over the loudspeaker last period.

Lilly just went, all softly, to me, “Then, when you win, next week you can make an announcement of your own. You know, about your stepping down, and leaving the presidency to me.”

Huh. Isn’t it funny? But up until that moment, I had kind of forgotten about that part of our plan.

Monday, September 14, U.S. Government

Mrs. Holland congratulated me on my speech today, and said it made her proud. PROUD! OF ME!!! A teacher is proud of me!!!

ME!!!!!!!

Monday, September 14, Earth Science

Kenny just said the strangest thing to me. Just blurted it right out, as we were drawing our diagrams of the Van Allen radiation belts.

“Mia,” he said. “I want to tell you something. You know my girlfriend, Heather?”

“Yeeee-ah,” I said, reluctantly, because I thought he was getting ready to tell me another long boring story about Heather’s gymnastic prowess.

“Well.” Kenny’s face turned red as the radiation belt I was coloring. “I made her up.”

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, that is right. Kenny has spent the past five days telling me MADE-UP stories about his MADE-UP girlfriend, Heather. A girlfriend who, I will admit, I actually felt threatened by! Because she’s so perfect! I mean, blond and sporty AND she gets straight A’s????

Actually, now that I think about it, I should probably be grateful Heather turns out not to be real. She was making me feel pretty inadequate, to tell the truth.

But anyway. I just looked at him and was like, “Kenny. Why would you do that?”

And he said, all shamefaced, “I just couldn’t stand it, you know? You having this whole perfect princess life, with Michael, your perfect princely boyfriend. It…I don’t know. It just got to me.”

Yeah. Right. My perfect life. My perfect princess life, with Michael, my perfect princely boyfriend. Let me tell you something, Kenny. You want to know how NOT perfect my perfect princess life is? My perfect princely boyfriend is getting ready to dump me, because I don’t want to Do It. How’s that for perfect, Kenny?

Except, of course, I couldn’t say that. Because that’s none of Kenny’s business. Also, because I don’t much want the whole Michael-wants-to-Do-It thing getting around school. Thanks to the many movies based—however loosely—on my life that are floating around out there, enough people already think they know everything there is to know about me. I don’t need any MORE info leaking out.

But whatever. I just assured Kenny that my life isn’t as perfect as he might think. That, in fact, I have a LOT of problems, among them the fact that I am a baby-licker and very nearly got my own country kicked out of the EU.

Surprisingly, this information seemed to cheer him up excessively. So much so, in fact, that I’m feeling kind of annoyed.

Wha—

Oh, no. The classroom loudspeaker just crackled. Principal Gupta is coming on to announce the results of today’s votes.

Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.

Here it is:

Lana Weinberger, three hundred fifty nine votes.

Mia Thermopolis, six hundred forty one votes.

Oh, my God.

OH, MY GOD.

I’M THE NEW STUDENT COUNCIL PRESIDENT OF ALBERT EINSTEIN HIGH.

Monday, September 14, 5 p.m., Ray’s Pizza

Okay. That was…that was just totally surreal.

I don’t even know how else to describe it. I’m in a total and complete daze. Still. And it’s been two hours since Principal Gupta declared me the winner. And I’ve had half a plain cheese pizza and three Cokes since then.

And I’m STILL in shock.

Maybe it’s not so much winning the election as it is what happened after I found out I won the election. Which was…

…a LOT, actually.

First off, everyone in my Earth Science class, including Kenny, started jumping all over the place, congratulating me, then asking me if I could please ask the trustees to buy the bio lab electrophoresis kits, something for which they’d unsuccessfully lobbied the last president.

So, obviously, in no time at all, I understood the full weight of the responsibility I would bear as president.

And…

I welcomed it.

I know. I KNOW.

I mean, like it’s not enough I’m

the princess of Genovia
sister to a defenseless infant whose mother and father are somewhat lacking in the parenting department, if you know what I mean
a budding writer who still has to get through sophomore Geometry this year
a teen, with all that that word implies, such as mood swings, insecurities, and the occasional zit
in love with a college boy.

Now I’m actually entertaining the idea of being all that, AND president of my school student council???

But. Well. Yeah.

Yeah, I am. Because winning that election against Lana?

That totally RULED.

But anyway. That was just the FIRST thing that happened.

The next thing was that after the bell rang, letting us out for the day, I was making my way down to my locker—slowly…very slowly, because everyone kept stopping me to congratulate me—when I ran into Lilly, who leapt into my arms (even though I’m a lot taller than she is, she still weighs more. She’s lucky I didn’t drop her. But I guess I had, like, that adrenaline thing you get when your baby is stuck under a car or you win the presidency of your school’s student council, or something, since I was able to hold on to her until she climbed down again).

Anyway, Lilly was all, “WE DID IT!!! WE DID IT!!!!”

And then Tina and Boris and Shameeka and Ling Su and Perin showed up, and started jumping up and down along with us. Then, we all made our way down to my locker, singing that “We Are the Champions” song.

Then, as everybody else was chatting excitedly, and I was working the combination to my locker, I noticed something very odd going on at the locker next door to mine. And that was that Ramon Riveras, flanked by Principal Gupta and Lana Weinberger’s DAD, of all people, was taking everything—and I do mean EVERYTHING—out of his locker, and putting it glumly in his gym bag.

And standing a little ways behind him, tears streaming down her face, was Lana, who kept stomping her foot and going, “But, Daddy, WHY???? Why, Daddy, WHY???”

Except that Dr. Weinberger wasn’t answering her. He just stood there, looking very solemn, until Ramon had gotten the last of his stuff out of the locker. Then Principal Gupta said, “Very well. Come along.”

And she, Ramon, Dr. Weinberger, and Lana all trailed back to the principal’s office.

But not before Lana swung a decidedly nasty look over her shoulder at me, and hissed, “I’ll get you back for this if it’s the last thing I do! You’ll be sorry!”

I thought she meant she’d get back at me for winning the election over her. But when Shameeka went, “Hey, where are they taking Ramon?” Lilly smiled in an evil way and said, “The airport, probably.”

While we all asked, in a chorus, what she was talking about, Lilly said, “My secret weapon. Only after that speech you gave, Mia, I knew we didn’t need it. Looks like that grandmother of yours dropped the dime on the Weinbergers anyway, even though she didn’t have to. I have to hand it to that Clarisse. She is one old dame you don’t want to get on your bad side.”

Since this didn’t exactly clear the matter up any—at least as far as I was concerned—I asked Lilly just what the heck she was talking about, and she explained. It turns out that day at the soccer game, when Lilly had been sitting behind Lana’s parents, she’d totally eavesdropped on their conversation, and found out that Ramon is a ringer!

Yes! He is already a high school graduate! He graduated last year, back in his native Brazil, where he’d led his school district to claim the national championship! Dr. Weinberger and a couple of the other trustees got the brilliant idea to PAY him to come to this country and enroll at AEHS, so we’d have a chance at actually winning some games for a change.

Lilly and Grandmère had planned on using this information as part of a smear campaign against Lana, in the event that it looked as if, after the debate, she was going to win.

But my pulling out Sailor Moon and that John Locke quote convinced them I had the election in the bag. So, Grandmère ended up not calling Principal Gupta’s office to tell her about Ramon until after the election results were announced.

I must say, this information caused me to look at Lilly in a new light. I mean, I’ve always known that Lilly is capable of some underhanded things. And I’m not saying the Weinbergers had a right to use poor Ramon that way, or to dupe the other trustees.

But, geez! I would not want to be on the wrong side of Lilly—much less Grandmère—in a fight.

Lilly was standing there looking all pleased with herself while everyone else patted her on the back and said what a cool thing she had done.

And I guess it was cool, in a way, if you agree—which I most definitely do—that anything that makes Lana cry is a good thing.

“So,” Lilly said, when I’d gotten all my stuff together and was standing there, ready to go. “Since Clarisse let you out of princess hell for the day, want to go celebrate OUR victory?”

She put a very significant emphasis on the word OUR that only a moron would have missed.

I got it, all right.

And felt my stomach lurch.

“Um,” I said. “Yeah, Lilly. About that. Something kind of happened when I was giving that speech today….”

“You’re telling me something happened,” Lilly said, patting me on the back. “You struck a blow for unpopular kids everywhere, is what happened while you were giving that speech today.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know. About that. I just don’t know how I feel about it now. I mean, Lilly, don’t you think your plan is kind of unfair? Those people voted for me. I’m the one they expect—”

I saw Lilly’s eyes widen at something she saw behind my back.

“What’s HE doing here?” she wanted to know. Then, to whoever was standing back there, she said, “In case you forgot, you GRADUATED, you know.”

Something gripped my heart at her words. Because I knew—just KNEW—who she was talking to.

The LAST person I wanted to see just then.

Or maybe the person I MOST wanted to see just then.

It all depended on what he had to say to me.

Slowly, I turned around.

And there stood Michael.

I guess it would sound superdramatic to say that everything else in the hallway seemed to vanish, until it was as if it was only Michael and me alone, standing there, just looking at each other.

If I wrote that in a story, Ms. Martinez would probably write CLICHÉ on it, or something.

Except, that it’s NOT a cliché. Because that’s really what it was like. Like there was no one else in the whole world except us two.

“We need to talk,” is what Michael said to me. No Hello. No Why didn’t you call me? or Where have you been? And certainly no kiss.

Just We need to talk.