Princess in Love (The Princess Diaries 3)

I don’t believe this. I’m home before Baywatch Hawaii starts for the first time in, like, months. Something must be wrong with Grandmère. Although she seemed pretty normal at our lesson today. I mean, for her. Except that she stopped me in the middle of my reciting the Genovian pledge of allegiance (which I have to memorize, of course, for when I am visiting schools in Genovia. I don’t want to look like an idiot in front of a bunch of five-year-olds for not knowing it) to ask me what I’d decided to do about Kenny.

It’s kind of funny about her taking an interest in my personal life, since she certainly never has before. Well, not very much, anyway.

And she kept on saying stuff about how ingenious it had been of Kenny, sending me those anonymous love letters last October, the ones I thought (well, okay, hoped, not really thought) Michael was writing.

I was all, “What was so ingenious about that?” to which Grandmère just replied, “Well, you’re his girlfriend now, aren’t you?”

Which I never really thought about, but I guess she?

?s right.

Anyway, my mom was so surprised to see me home so early, she actually let me be in charge of choosing the takeout (pizza margherita for me. I let her get rigatoni bolognese, even though the sausage in the sauce is probably steeped in nitrates that could harm a developing fetus. Still, it was sort of a special occasion, what with me actually being home for dinner for a change. Even Mr. Gianini got a little wild and had something with porcini mushrooms in it).

I am psyched to be home early, because you wouldn’t believe all the studying I have to do, plus I should probably start my term paper, then there’s figuring out what I’m going to get people for Christmas and Hannukah, not to mention going over the thank-you speech I have to make to the people of Genovia in my nationally televised (in Genovia, anyway) introduction to the people I will one day rule.

I had really better buckle down and get to work!

Tuesday, December 9, 7:30 p.m.

Okay, so I was taking a study break, and I just realized something. You can learn a lot from watching Baywatch. Seriously.

I have compiled this list:

THINGS I HAVE LEARNED FROM WATCHING BAYWATCH

If you are paralyzed from the waist down, you just need to see a kid being attacked by a murderer, and you will be able to get up and save him.

If you have bulimia, it is probably because two men love you at the same time. Just tell the two of them you only want to be friends, and your bulimia will go away.

It is always easy to get a parking place near the beach.

Male lifeguards always put a shirt on when they leave the beach. Female lifeguards don’t need to bother.

If you meet a beautiful but troubled girl, she is probably either a diamond smuggler or suffering from split personality disorder: Do not accept her invitation to dinner.

Dick van Patten, though a senior citizen, can be surprisingly hard to quell in a fistfight.

If people are mysteriously dying in the water, it is probably because a giant electric eel has escaped from a nearby aquarium.

A girl who is thinking about abandoning her baby should just leave it on the beach. Chances are, a nice lifeguard will take it home, adopt it, and raise it as his own.

It is very easy to outswim a shark.

Wild seals make adorable and easily trained pets.

Tuesday, December 9, 8:30 p.m.

I just got an e-mail from Lilly. I’m not the only one who got it, either. Somehow she figured out how to do a mass e-mail to every kid in school.

Well, I shouldn’t be surprised, I guess. She is a genius. Still, she has clearly developed atrophy of the brain from too much studying, because look what she wrote:

ATTENTION ALL STUDENTS AT

ALBERT EINSTEIN HIGH SCHOOL

Stressed from too many exams, term papers, and final projects? Don’t just passively accept the oppressive workload handed down to us by the tyrannical administration! A silent walkout has been scheduled for tomorrow. At 10 a.m. exactly, join your fellow students in showing our teachers how we feel about inflexible exam schedules, repressive censorship, and having only one reading day on which to prepare for our finals. Leave your pencils, leave your books, and gather on East 75th Street between Madison and Park (use doors by main administration offices, if possible) for a rally against Principal Gupta and the trustees. Let your voice be heard!

I am so sure. I can’t walk out tomorrow at 10 a.m. That’s right in the middle of Algebra. Mr. Gianini’s feelings will be so hurt if we all just get up and leave.