Princess Mia

  “Was that his name?” Lana looked far away. “Oh, yeah. Well, whatever. He was, like, my rebound guy. And after that I was totally cured.”

  “You need a rebound guy,” Trisha said, pointing at me with her stirrer.

  “I think it should be that J.P. guy,” Lana agreed. “I mean, he let himself get set on FIRE for you.”

  “Getting set on fire is so hot,” Trisha informed me. Apparently without irony.

  I nodded anyway. “I know. The thing is…on paper, J.P. is the perfect guy for me. We both love the theater and movies and come from similar backgrounds and my grandmother totally loves him and we both want to be writers—”

  “And you’re both always scribbling in those notebooks,” Lana said, pointing at my Mead composition notebook with a manicured nail. “Like you’re doing now. Which isn’t weird at all, by the way.”

  “Yeah,” I said, ignoring Trisha’s sarcastic snort. “And I know he’s good-looking and it was cool how he saved me and all. But it’s just…he doesn’t smell right.”

  I knew they were both going to stare at me funny. And they both did. They had no idea what I was talking about.

  No one does. No one gets it.

  Except maybe my dad.

  “Just get him a different cologne,” Trisha said.

  “Yeah,” Lana said. “Josh used to wear this totally gross stuff that practically gave me a migraine, so for his birthday one year I got him some Drakkar Noir and he started wearing that instead. Problem solved.”

  I had to pretend like I was thankful for this tip, and that it actually helped. Even though it totally didn’t. This, it turns out, is the problem with being friends with people in the popular crowd:

  You can’t always tell them the truth about stuff, because a lot of things, they just don’t understand.

  Thursday, September 23, Chemistry

  Mia—you were so quiet at lunch today. Are you okay?

  Yes, J.P.! Fine! Just…a little overwhelmed.

  Not because of me, I hope.

  No! Nothing to do with you!

  You can’t tell cute guys the truth about stuff, either.

  You’re lying.

  No! I’m not! What would make you say that?

  Your nostrils are flaring.

  DANG! Can NOTHING in my life remain a secret?

  Oh. Lilly told you about that?

  She did. Listen, the last thing I want is for things to be weird between us.

  They’re not! Well, I mean…not really.

  I told you—I can wait.

  I know! And it’s sweet of you. Really sweet!

  I’m too sweet, aren’t I? Too much of a nice guy? Girls never fall for the nice guys.

  No! You’re not nice. You’re scary, remember? At least according to your therapist….

  Hey, that’s right. And didn’t your doctor tell you to do something every day that scares you?

  Um. Yes….

  Then you should go out with me Friday night.

  I can’t! I have a thing.

  Mia. I thought we were going to be honest with each other.

  Do you see my nostrils flaring? Seriously, I have to give a speech at this Domina Rei gala.

  Fine. I’ll be your escort.

  You can’t. It’s women only.

  Right.

  I’m serious. Believe me, I wish I weren’t.

  Okay. Saturday, then.

  I can’t! I really have to study. Do you have any idea how tenuously I’m hanging on to my B-plus average right now?

  Fine. But sooner or later, I’m taking you out. And you’re going to forget all about Michael. I promise.

  J.P., you have no idea how much I hope that’s true.

  Thursday, September 23, 8 p.m., limo on the way to the Four Seasons

  Okay. It’s really hard to write this because my hands are shaking so hard.

  But I need to get it all down. Because something happened.

  Something big.

  Bigger than a nitrostarch explosion. Bigger than Lilly hating me and maybe possibly being the founder of ihatemiathermopolis.com. Bigger than J.P. turning out to love me. Bigger than Michael turning out NOT to love me (anymore). Bigger than me having to start therapy. Bigger than my mom marrying my Algebra teacher and having his baby, or me turning out to be a princess, or Michael even loving me in the first place.

  Bigger than anything that’s happened to me ever.

  Okay. This is what happened:

  It started out like a normal enough evening. I mean, I worked with Mr. G on my homework (I will never pass either Chemistry or Precalculus without daily tutoring—that much is clear), had dinner, and finally decided, you know, that Lana’s right: I need to make a new start. I need a do-over. Seriously. It’s time to go out with the old—old boyfriends, old best friends, old clothes that don’t fit me anymore, and old décor—and in with the new.

  So I was rearranging my bedroom furniture (whatever. I was done with my homework, and I DON’T HAVE A TV ANYMORE. What ELSE was I supposed to do? Look up mean things about myself on the Internet? There is now a comment section on ihatemiathermopolis.com where someone from South Dakota just posted “I hate Mia Thermopolis, too! She is so shallow and self-absorbed! I once sent her an e-mail care of the Genovian palace and she never wrote back!”) when I accidentally knocked over Princess Amelie’s portrait.

  And the back fell off. You know, the wood part that was over the back of the frame?

  And I totally freaked out, because, you know, that portrait is probably priceless or whatever, like everything else at the palace.

  So I scrambled over to pick it up.

  And this paper fell out.

  Not a paper, really. Some parchment. Like the kind they used to write on, back in the 1600s.

  And it was covered all over in this scrawly seventeenth-century French that was really hard to read. It took me forever to decipher what it said. I mean, I could see that at the bottom it was signed by Princess Amelie—my Princess Amelie. And that right next to her signature was the Genovian royal seal. And that next to that were the signatures of two witnesses, whose names were not familiar to me.

  It took me a minute to figure out that they had to be the signatures of the two witnesses she had found to sign off on her executive order.

  That’s when I realized what I was looking at. That thing Amelie had signed—the thing her uncle had gotten so mad at her for, and burned all the copies of…except one, that she’d hidden somewhere close to her heart.

  At first I’d thought she’d meant LITERALLY next to her heart, and that whatever it was, it must have been burned to a crisp along with her body in the royal funereal pyre after Amelie’s death.

  But then I realized she hadn’t been literal at all. She’d meant next to her PORTRAIT’s heart…which, in fact, is from where the parchment had fallen—from between the portrait and its backing. Where she’d hidden it to keep her uncle from finding it…and where the Genovian parliament was supposed to look for it, after Amelie’s diary and the portrait were returned to them from the abbey to which she’d sent them for safekeeping.

  Except, of course, no one ever did. Read the diary, I mean (beyond translating it, apparently). Or found the parchment.

  Until me.

  So then, of course, I wondered what this thing could say. You know, if it had made her uncle so mad, he’d tried to burn all the copies, and she’d gone to so much trouble to hide the last one.

  And even though at first it was kind of hard to figure out what, exactly, the document was talking about, by the time I’d finished translating all the words I didn’t know with the help of an online medieval French dictionary (thank you, nerds), I had a pretty good idea why Uncle Francesco had been so mad.

  And also why Amelie had hidden it. And left clues in her journal as to where it could be found.

  Because it was possibly the most inflammatory document I have ever read. Hotter, even, than Kenny’s nitrostarch synthesis experiment.

  For a secon
d, I could only stare down at it in total and complete astonishment.

  And then I realized something…something amazing:

  Princess Amelie Virginie Renaldo, all the way from 1669, had just totally saved my butt!!!!!

  Not just my butt, but my sanity…

  …my life

  …my future

  …my everything.

  Really. It sounds like I’m exaggerating, and I know I do that a lot, but in this case…I’m not. I am totally and completely one-hundred-percent heart-pounding sweaty-palmed dry-mouthed serious.

  So serious that for a minute, I thought I might have a heart attack on the spot.

  Which is why as soon as I knew I was actually going to be okay, I called my dad and told him I was on my way uptown to see him. And Grandmère, too.

  Because I have something to say to both of them.

  Friday, September 24, 1 a.m., the loft

  I can’t believe this. I can’t believe they’re—

  This isn’t happening. It’s just NOT HAPPENING. It CAN’T be happening. Because how could my own blood relatives be so…so…so horrible?

  I guess I could understand GRANDMÈRE’s reaction. But Dad? My OWN father?

  It’s not like he didn’t think about what he was doing, either. He took the parchment from me and read it. He checked the seal and signature and everything. He studied it for a long time, while Grandmère sat there sputtering, “Ridiculous! A Genovian princess granting the people the right to ELECT a head of state, and declaring that the role of the Genovian sovereign is one of ceremony only? No ancestor of ours would be that stupid.”

  “Amelie wasn’t being stupid, Grandmère,” I explained to her. “What she did was actually really smart. She was trying to HELP the Genovian people by sparing them from being ruled by someone she knew from personal experience was a tyrant, and who was only going to make an already bad situation, with the plague and everything, worse. It’s just bad luck that no one found the document until now.”

  “It certainly is,” Dad said, still studying the parchment. “It might have spared the Genovian people a lot of hardship. The fact is, Princess Amelie made what, under the circumstances, was the best decision she could make at that time.”

  “Right,” I said. “So we’ll have to get this to parliament as soon as possible. They’ll want to start nominating candidates for prime minister and figure out when they’re going to hold elections as soon as possible. And, Dad, I was going to say, I know this must come as a total blow to you, but if I know the Genovian people—and I think I do, by now—there’s only one person they’re going to want as their prime minister, and that’s you.”

  “That’s kind of you to say, Mia,” Dad said.

  “Well, it’s true,” I said. “And there’s nothing in the Bill of Rights as Amelie has laid them out to preclude any member of the royal family from running for prime minister if he or she wants to. So I think you should go for it. I know it’s not exactly the same thing, but I have some experience with elections thanks to the student council race last year. So if you need any help, I’ll be glad to do whatever I can.”

  “What is this?” Grandmère sputtered. “Has everyone gone completely mad? Prime minister? No son of mine is going to be a prime minister! He’s a prince, need I remind you, Amelia!”

  “Grandmère.” I know it’s really hard sometimes for old people to adjust to new things—like the Internet—but I knew Grandmère would catch on eventually. She’s a real pro with a mouse now. “I know Dad’s a prince. And he’ll always stay one. Just like you’ll always be dowager princess, and I’ll always be a princess. It’s just that, according to Amelie’s declaration, Genovia’s no longer ruled by a prince or princess. It’s led by an elected parliament, and headed by an elected prime minister—”

  “That is ridiculous!” Grandmère cried. “I did not spend all this time teaching you how to be a princess only to have it turn out you’re NOT one after all!”

  “Grandmère.” Seriously. You’d think she’d never taken a Government class before. “I’m still a princess. Just a ceremonial one. Like Princess Aiko of Japan…or Princess Beatrice in England. Both England and Japan are constitutional monarchies…like Monaco.”

  “Monaco!” Grandmère looked horrified. “Good God in heaven, Phillipe! We can’t be like Monaco. What is she saying?”

  “Nothing, Mother,” Dad said. I hadn’t noticed before, but his jaw was squared. That is always a sign—like Mom’s mouth getting small—that things are not about to go my way. “It’s nothing for you to worry about.”

  “Well, yes,” I said. “It is. I mean, a little. It’s going to be a pretty big change. But only in a good way, I think. Our membership in the European Union was on pretty shaky ground before because of the whole absolute monarchy thing, right? I mean, remember the snails? But now, as a democracy—”

  “Democracy, again!” Grandmère cried. “Phillipe! What does all this mean? What is she TALKING about? Are you, or are you not, the prince of Genovia?”

  “Of course I am, Mother,” Dad said in a soothing voice. “Don’t get excited. Nothing’s going to change. Let me ring for a Sidecar for you….”

  I totally understood Dad trying to calm Grandmère down and all. But outright lying to her seemed a little cold.

  “Well,” I said. “Actually, a lot is going to change—”

  “No,” Dad interrupted briskly. “No, Mia, actually, it’s not. I appreciate your bringing this document to my attention, but it doesn’t mean what you seem to think it means. It doesn’t have any validity.”

  That’s when my jaw dropped. “WHAT? Of course it does! Amelie completely followed all the rules laid out in the Genovian royal charter—used the seal and got the signature of two unrelated witnesses and everything! If I’ve learned anything since my princess lessons started, I’ve learned that. It’s valid.”

  “But she didn’t have parliamentary approval,” Dad began.

  “BECAUSE EVERYONE IN PARLIAMENT WAS DEAD!” I couldn’t believe this. “Or at home, nursing their dying relatives. And, Dad, you know as well as I do that in a national crisis—like, for instance, a PLAGUE, a ruler’s impending death, and her knowledge that her throne is going to a known despot—a crowned Genovian prince or princess can sign into law anything he or she wants to, by order of divine right.”

  Seriously. Does he really think I’ve learned NOTHING but how to use a fish fork in three years of princess lessons?

  “Right,” Dad said. “But this particular national crisis was four hundred years ago, Mia.”

  “That doesn’t make this bill any less valid,” I insisted.

  “No,” Dad admitted. “But it does mean there’s no reason we have to share it with parliament at this time. Or any time, really.”

  “WHAT?”

  I felt like Princess Leia Organa when she finally revealed the hidden location of the rebel base (even though she was lying) to Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars: A New Hope, and he went ahead and ordered the destruction of her home planet of Alderaan anyway.

  “Of course we have to share it,” I yelled. “Dad, Genovia has been living a lie for almost four hundred years!”

  “This conversation is over,” Dad said, taking Amelie’s Bill of Rights and getting ready to slide it into his briefcase. “I appreciate the attempt, Mia—it was very clever of you to figure this all out. But this is hardly a legitimate legal document that we need to bring to the attention of the Genovian people—or parliament. It’s merely an attempt by a scared teenage girl to protect the interests of a people who are long since dead, and nothing we need to worry about—”

  “That’s just it,” I said. I hurried over and took the parchment before he could seal it away forever in the darkness of his Gucci bag. I was starting to cry. I couldn’t help it. It was all just so unfair. “Isn’t it? That it’s written by a girl. Worse, that it’s written by a TEENAGE girl. So therefore, it has no legitimacy, and can just be ignored—”

  Dad gave me a sour loo
k. “Mia, you know that’s not what I mean.”

  “Yes, it is! If this had been written by one of our MALE ancestors—Prince Francesco himself—you’d totally have presented it to parliament when they meet in session next month. TOTALLY. But because it was written by a teenage girl, who was only princess for twelve days before she died horribly and all alone, you plan on completely disregarding it. Does the freedom of your own people really mean so little to you?”

  “Mia,” Dad said, sounding weary. “Genovia is consistently rated among the best places to live on the planet, and the Genovian population the most content. The median temperature is seventy-two degrees, it’s sunny almost three hundred days out of the year, and no one there pays any taxes, remember? Genovians have certainly never expressed the slightest reservations about their freedom, or lack of it, since I’ve been on the throne.”

  “How can they miss what they’ve never had, Dad?” I asked him. “And that’s not even the point. The point is that one of your ancestors left behind a legacy—something she intended to be used to protect the people she cared about. Her uncle threw it away, the same way he tried to throw her away. If we don’t honor her last request, we’re every bit as bad as he was.”

  Dad rolled his eyes. “Mia. It’s late. I’m going back to my suite. We’ll talk about this some more tomorrow. If,” I distinctly heard him mutter, “you haven’t gotten over it by then.”

  Which really gets to the heart of the matter, doesn’t it? He thinks I’m just suffering from some adolescent female histrionics…the same kind that prompted him to put me into therapy, and Princess Amelie into signing that bill in the first place.

  The bill he is ignoring because—basically—a girl wrote it.

  Nice. Really nice.

  And Grandmère was no help whatsoever. I mean, you would think a fellow woman would have some sympathy for my—and Amelie’s—plight.

  But Grandmère is just like all those other women who go around wanting the same rights as men, but don’t want to call themselves feminists. Because that isn’t “feminine.”

  After Dad left, she just looked at me and was like, “Well, Amelia, I’m still not sure what all that was about, but I told you not to bother with that dusty old diary. Now, are you ready for your speech tomorrow? Your suit has been delivered here, so I suppose the best thing would be for you to come straight over after school and change here.”