The Princess Diaries (The Princess Diaries 1)

Hiccup.

“What I’m trying to say is, your mother and I thought by not telling you we were doing you a favor. The fact was, we never envisioned that an occasion might arise in which you might succeed the throne. I was only twenty-five when you were born. I felt certain I would meet another woman, marry her, and have more children. But now, unfortunately, that will never be. So, the fact is, you, Mia, are the heir to the throne of Genovia.”

I hiccuped again. This was getting embarrassing. These weren’t little ladylike hiccups, either. They were huge, and made my whole body go sproinging up out of my chair like I was some kind of five-foot-nine frog. They were loud, too. I mean really loud. The German tourists kept looking over, all giggly and stuff. I knew what my dad was saying was superserious, but I couldn’t help it, I just kept hiccuping! I tried holding my breath and counting to thirty—I only got to ten before I hiccuped again. I put a sugar cube on my tongue and let it dissolve. No go. I even tried to scare myself, thinking about my mom and Mr. Gianini French-kissing—even that didn’t work.

Finally, my dad was like, “Mia? Mia, are you listening? Have you heard a word I said?”

I said, “Dad, can I be excused for a minute?”

He looked sort of pained, like his stomach hurt him, and he slumped back in his chair in this defeated way, but he said, “Go ahead,” and gave me five dollars to give to the washroom attendant, which I of course put in my pocket. Five bucks for the washroom attendant! Geez, my whole allowance is ten bucks a week!

I don’t know if you’ve ever been to the ladies’ room at the Plaza, but it’s like totally the nicest one in Manhattan. It’s all pink, and there are mirrors and little couches everywhere, in case you look at yourself and feel the urge to faint from your beauty or something. Anyway, I banged in there, hiccuping like a maniac, and all these women in these fancy hairdos looked up, annoyed at the interruption. I guess I made them mess up their lip liner or something.

I went into one of the stalls, each of which, besides a toilet, has its own private sink with a huge mirror and a dressing table with a little stool with tassels hanging off it. I sat on the stool and concentrated on not hiccuping anymore. Instead, I concentrated on what my dad had said:

He’s the prince of Genovia.

A lot of things are beginning to make sense now. Like how when I fly to France I just walk onto the plane from the terminal, but when I get there I’m escorted off the plane before everyone else and get taken away by limo to meet my dad at Miragnac.

I always thought that was because he had frequent flyer privileges.

I guess it’s because he’s a prince.

And then there’s that fact that whenever Grandmère takes me shopping in Genovia she always takes me either before the stores are officially open or after they are officially closed. She calls ahead to insure we will be let in, and no one has ever said no. In Manhattan, if my mother had tried to do this, the clerks at the Gap would have fallen over from laughing so hard.

And when I’m at Miragnac, I notice that we never go out to eat anywhere. We always have our meals there, or sometimes we go to the neighboring chateau, Mirabeau, which is owned by these nasty British people who have a lot of snotty kids who say things like “That’s rot” and “You’re a wanker” to one another. One of the younger girls, Nicole, is sort of my friend, but then one night she told me this story about how she was Frenching a boy and I didn’t know what Frenching was. I was only eleven at the time, which is no excuse, because so was she. I just thought Frenching was some weird British thing, like toad-in-the-hole, or air raids, or something. So then I mentioned it at the dinner table in front of Nicole’s parents, and after that all those kids stopped talking to me.

I wonder if the Brits know that my dad is the prince of Genovia. I bet they do. God, they must have thought I was mentally retarded or something.

Most people have never heard of Genovia. I know when we had to do our fact sheets, none of the other kids ever had. Neither had my mother, she says, before she met my dad. Nobody famous ever came from there. Nobody who was born there ever invented anything, or wrote anything, or became a movie star. A lot of Genovians, like my grandpa, fought against the Nazis in World War II, but other than that, they aren’t really known for anything.

Still, people who have heard of Genovia like to go there because it’s so beautiful. It’s very sunny nearly all the time, with the snow-capped Alps in the background and the crystal-blue Mediterranean in front of it. It has a lot of hills, some of which are as steep as the ones in San Francisco, and most of which have olive trees growing on them. The main export of Genovia, I remember from my fact sheet, is olive oil, the really expensive kind my mom says only to use for salad dressing.

There’s a palace there, too. It’s kind of famous because they filmed a movie there once, a movie about the three Musketeers. I’ve never been inside, but we’ve driven by it before, me and Grandmère. It’s got all these turrets and flying buttresses and stuff.

Funny how Grandm?

?re never mentioned having lived there all those times we drove past it.

My hiccups are gone. I think it’s safe to go back to the Palm Court.

I’m going to give the washroom attendant a dollar, even though she didn’t attend me.

Hey, I can afford it: My dad’s a prince!

Later on Thursday,

Penguin House, Central Park Zoo

I’m so freaked out I can barely write, plus people keep bumping my elbow, and it’s dark in here, but whatever. I have to get this down exactly the way it happened. Otherwise, when I wake up tomorrow I might think it was just a nightmare.

But it wasn’t a nightmare. It was REAL.

I’m not going to tell anybody, not even Lilly. Lilly would NOT understand. NOBODY would understand. Because nobody I know has ever been in this situation before. Nobody ever went to bed one night as one person and then woke up the next morning to find out that she was somebody completely different.

When I got back to our table after hiccuping in the ladies’ room at the Plaza, I saw that the German tourists had been replaced by some Japanese tourists. This was an improvement. They were much quieter. My dad was on his cellular phone when I sat back down. He was talking to my mom, I realized right away. He had on the expression he wears only when he is talking to her. He was saying, “Yes, I told her. No, she doesn’t seem upset.” He looked at me. “Are you upset?”

I said, “No,” because I wasn’t upset—not THEN.