Princess in the Spotlight (The Princess Diaries 2)

She felt bad about it when the zinc made me gag a whole bunch. She even ran down to the deli and bought me one of those king-size Crunch bars to make up for it.

Later she tried to make me bacon and eggs in order to build up my strength, but there I drew the line: Just because I’m on my deathbed does not mean it’s okay to abandon all of my vegetarian principles.

My mother just took my temperature. Ninety-nine point six.

If this were medieval times, I would probably be dead.

TEMPERATURE CHART

11:45 a.m.—99.2

12:14 p.m.—99.1

1:27 p.m.—98.6

This stupid thermometer must be broken!

2:05 p.m.—99.0

3:35 p.m.—99.1

Clearly, if this keeps up, I will be unable to be interviewed by Beverly Bellerieve on Saturday.

YIPPEE!!!

Even later on Tuesday

Lilly just stopped by. She brought me all of my homework. She says I look wretched, and that I sound like Linda Blair in The Exorcist. I’ve never seen The Exorcist, so I don’t know if this is true or not. I don’t like movies where people’s heads spin around, or where things come bursting out of their stomachs. I like movies with beauty makeovers and dancing.

Anyway, Lilly says that the big news at school is that the “It Couple,” Josh Richter and Lana Weinberger, got back together, after having been broken up one whole entire week (a personal record for the both of them: Last time they broke up, it was for only three days). Lilly says when she went by my locker to get my books, Lana was standing there in her cheerleader uniform, waiting for Josh, whose locker is next to mine.

Then, when Josh showed up, he laid a big wet one on Lana that Lilly swears was the equivalent to an F5 on the Fujimoto scale of tornado suck zone intensity, making it impossible for Lilly to close my locker door again (how well I know that problem). Lilly resolved the situation pretty quickly, however, by accidentally-on-purpose stabbing Josh in the spine with the tip of her number two pencil.

I thought about telling Lilly my own Big News: you know, about my mom and Mr. G. I mean, she’s going to find out about it anyway.

Maybe it was the infection coursing through my body, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I just couldn’t bear the thought of what Lilly might say regarding the potential size of my future brother’s or sister’s nostrils.

Anyway, I have about a ton of homework. Even the father of my unborn sibling, who you would think would feel an iota of sympathy toward me, loaded me down with it. I tell you, there isn’t a single perk to having your mother engaged to your Algebra teacher. Not a single one.

Well, except when he comes over for dinner and helps me with the assignment. He doesn’t give me the answers, though, so I mostly get sixty-eights. And that’s still a D.

And I am really sick now! My temperature has gone up to ninety-nine point eight! Soon it will reach one hundred.

If this were an episode of ER, they’d have practically put me on a respirator already.

There is no way I’ll be able to be interviewed by Beverly Bellerieve now. NO WAY.

Tee hee.

My mom has her humidifier in here, going on full blast. Lilly says my room is just like Vietnam, and why don’t I at least crack the window, for God’s sake.

I never thought of it before, but Lilly and Grandmère sort of have a lot in common. For instance, Grandmère called a little while ago. When I told her how sick I was, and how I probably wouldn’t be able to make it to the interview on Saturday, she actually chastised me.

That’s right. Chastised me, like it was my fault I got sick. Then she starts going on about how on her wedding day she had a fever of one hundred and two, but did she let that stop her from standing through a two-hour wedding ceremony, then riding in an open coach through the streets of Genovia waving to the populace, and then dining on prosciutto and melon at her reception and waltzing until four in the morning?

No, you might not be too surprised to learn. It did not.

That, Grandmère said, is because a princess does not use poor health as an excuse to shirk her duties to her people.