The Princess Diaries (The Princess Diaries 1)

CRACKING: YOUR MOM COULD DO A LOT WORSE THAN MR. G. IMAGINE IF SHE WAS GOING OUT WITH MR. STUART.

Mr. Stuart teaches Health. He thinks he’s God’s gift to women. I haven’t had him yet, since you don’t have Health until sophomore year, but even I know that you should never go near Mr. Stuart’s desk, because if you do, he’ll reach out and rub your shoulders like he’s giving you a massage, but everybody says he’s really just trying to see whether or not you’re wearing a bra.

If my mom ever went out with Mr. Stuart, I would move to Afghanistan.

FTLOUIE: HA HA HA. WHY’D YOU WANT TO KNOW WHETHER OR NOT I’M FLUNKING ALGEBRA?

CRACKING: OH, BECAUSE I’M DONE WITH THIS MONTH’S ISSUE OF CRACKHEAD, AND I THOUGHT IF YOU WANTED, I COULD TUTOR YOU DURING G & T. IF YOU WANTED.

Michael Moscovitz, offering to do something for me? I couldn’t believe it. I nearly fell off my computer chair.

FTLOUIE: WOW, THAT WOULD BE GREAT! THANKS!

CRACKING: DON’T MENTION IT. HANG IN THERE, THERMOPOLIS.

Then he signed off.

Can you believe it? Wasn’t that nice? I wonder what’s got into him.

I should definitely fight with Lilly more often.

Even Later on Sunday

Just when I thought things might be looking very slightly up, my dad called. He said he was sending Lars over to pick me up so me and him and Grandmère could have dinner together at the Plaza.

Notice the invitation didn’t include Mom.

But I guess that’s okay, since Mom didn’t want to go anyway. When I told her I was going she got really cheerful, in fact.

“Oh, that’s okay,” she said. “I’ll just stay here and order in some Thai food and watch Sixty Minutes.”

She’s been really cheerful ever since she got back from Central Park. She says she and Mr. G went on one of those dorky carriage rides. I was shocked. Those carriage drivers don’t take care of their horses at all. There’s always some ancient carriage horse keeling over from lack of water. I had always vowed never to ride in one of those carriages. At least not until they start giving those horses some rights, and I always thought my mom agreed with me.

Love can do strange things to people.

The Plaza wasn’t that bad this time. I guess I’m getting used to it. The doormen know who I am now—or at least they know who Lars is—so they don’t give me a hard time anymore. Grandmère and my dad were both in kind of bad moods. I don’t know why. I guess they’re not getting paid to spend time with each other, like I kind of am.

Dinner was so boring. Grandmère went on and on about which fork to use with what and why. There were all these courses, and most of them were meat. One was fish, though, so I ate that, plus dessert, which was a big fancy tower of chocolate. Grandmère tried to tell me that when I am representing Genovia at state functions I have to eat whatever is put down in front of me or I will insult my hosts and possibly create an international incident. But I told her I would have my staff explain to my hosts ahead of time that I don’t eat meat, so not to serve me any.

Grandmère looked kind of mad. I guess it never occurred to her that I might have watched that made-for-TV movie about Princess Diana. I know all about how to get out of eating stuff at state dinners, and also about barfing up what you did eat afterwards (only I would never do that).

All through dinner, Dad kept asking me these weird questions about Mom. Like was I uncomfortable about her relationship with Mr. Gianini, and did I want him to say something to her. I think he was trying to get me to tell him whether or not I thought it was serious between the two of them—Mr. G and my mom, I mean.

Well, I know it’s pretty serious if he’s spending the night. My mom only lets guys she really, really likes spend the night. So far, including Mr. G, that’s only been three guys in the past fourteen years: Wolfgang, who turned out to be gay; this guy Tim, who turned out to be a Republican; and now my Algebra teacher. That’s not so many, really. It’s only like one guy every four years.

Or something like that.

But of course I couldn’t tell my dad that Mr. G had spent the night, or I know he’d have had an embolism. He is such a chauvinist—he has girlfriends stay over at Miragnac every summer, sometimes a new one every two weeks!—but he expects Mom to stay pure as the driven snow.

If Lilly were still speaking to me, I know she’d say men are such hypocrites.

A part of me wanted to tell my dad about Mr. G, just so he’d stop being so smug. But I didn’t want to give my grandmother any more ammunition against my mom—Grandmère says my mom is “flighty”—so I just pretended like I didn’t know anything about it.

Grandmère says we’re going to work on my vocabulary tomorrow. She says my French is atrocious but my English is even worse. She says if she ever hears me say “Whatever” again, she’s going to wash my mouth out with soap.

I said, “Whatever, Grandmère,” and she shot me this way dirty look. I wasn’t trying to be smart-alecky, though. I really forgot.

To date, I’ve made $200 for Greenpeace. I’m probably going to go down in history as the girl who saved all the whales.