Princess in Waiting (The Princess Diaries 4)

“Mia,” my mom said, looking at me all concerned. “Are you all right?”

I tried to smile, but I couldn’t. How, I wondered, could Tina and I have overlooked this very serious flaw in our plan? Even now, Michael could be on the phone with Judith or some other equally intellectual girl, talking about quasars or photons or whatever it is smart people talk about. Worse, he could be on the phone with Kate Bosworth, talking about wave surface.

“Mom,” I said, standing up. “You have to go. I have to call him.”

I was glad the panic that was clutching my throat wasn’t audible in my voice.

“Oh, Mia,” my mom said, looking pleased. “I really think you should. Charlotte Brontë is, of course, a brilliant author, but you’ve got to remember, she wrote Jane Eyre back in the 1840s, and things were a little different then—”

“Mom,” I said. Lilly and Michael’s parents, the Drs. Moscovitz, have this totally hardfast rule about calling after eleven on schoolnights. It is verboten. And it was practically eleven. And my mom was still standing there, keeping me from having the privacy I would need if I were going to make this all-important call.

“Oh,” she said, smiling. Even though she is pregnant, my mom still looks like a total babe, with all this long black hair that curls just right. Clearly I inherited my dad’s hair, which I’ve actually never seen, since he’s always been bald since I’ve known him.

DNA is so unfair.

Anyway, FINALLY she left—pregnant women move so slowly, I swear you would think evolution would have made them quicker so they could get away from predators or whatever, but I guess not—and I lunged for the phone, my heart pounding because at last, AT LAST, I was going to get to talk to Michael, and my mom had even said that it was all right, that my calling him wouldn’t count as chasing since he’d called me first….

And just as I was about to pick up the receiver, the phone rang. My heart actually did this flippy thing inside my chest, like it does every time I see Michael. It was Michael calling, I just knew it. I picked up after the second ring—even though I didn’t want him dumping me for some more attentive girl, I didn’t want him to think I was sitting by the phone waiting for him to call, either—and said, in my most sophisticated tone, “Hullo?”

Grandmère’s cigarette-ravaged voice filled my ear. “Amelia?” she rasped. “Why do you sound like that? Are you coming down with something?”

“Grandmère.” I couldn’t believe it. It was ten fifty-nine! I had exactly one minute left to call Michael without running the risk of the wrath of his parents. “I can’t talk now. I have to make another call.”

“Pfuit!” Grandmère made her noise of disapproval. “And who would you be calling at this hour, as if I didn’t know?”

“Grandmère.” Ten fifty-nine and a half. “It’s okay. He called me first. I am returning his call. It is the polite thing to do.”

“It’s too late for you to be calling that boy ,” Grandmère said.

Eleven o’clock. I had missed my opportunity. Thanks to Grandmère.

“You’ll see him at school tomorrow, anyway,” she went on. “Now, let me speak to your mother.”

“My mother?” I was shocked by this. Grandmère never talks to my mom, if she can help it. They haven’t gotten along since my mom refused to marry my dad after she got pregnant with me, on account of her not wanting her child to be subjected to the vicissitudes of a progenitive aristocracy.

“Ye

s, your mother,” Grandmère said. “Surely you’ve heard of her.”

So I went out and passed the phone to my mom who was sitting out in the living room with Mr. Gianini, watching The Anna Nicole Show . I didn’t tell her who was on the phone, because if I had, my mom would have told me to tell Grandmère that she was in the shower, and then I would have had to talk to her some more.

“Hello?” my mom said, all brightly, thinking it was one of her friends calling to comment on the hijinks of Howard K. Stern and Bobby Trendy. I slunk out as fast as I could. There were several heavy objects lying around the couch that my mom could have hurled in my direction if I’d stayed within missile range.

Back in my room, I thought sadly about Michael. What was I going to say to him tomorrow, when Lars and I pulled up in the limo to pick him and Lilly up before school? That I’d gotten in too late to call? What if he noticed my nostrils flaring as I spoke? I don’t know if he’s figured out that they do that when I lie, but I think I’d sort of mentioned it to Lilly, since I have a complete inability to keep my mouth shut about stuff I really should just keep to myself, and supposing she told him?

Then, as I sat there dejectedly on my bed, pretty sleepy because in Genovia it was five in the morning and I was totally jet-lagged, I had a brilliant idea. I could see if Michael was logged on, and instant message him! I could do it even though my mom was on the phone with Grandmère, because we have DSL now!

So I scrambled over to my computer and did just that. And he was online!

Michael , I wrote. Hi, it’s me! I’m home! I wanted to call you, but it’s after eleven, and I didn’t want your mom and dad to get mad.

Michael has changed his screen name since the demise of Crackhead . He’s no longer CracKing. He’s LinuxRulz, in protest of the stranglehold Microsoft has on the software industry.

LINUX RULZ: Welcome home! It’s good to hear from you. I was worried you were dead or something.

So he had noticed I’d stopped calling! Which meant the plan that Tina and I had come up with was working perfectly. At least so far.

FT LOUIE: No, not dead. Just super busy. You know, fate of the aristocracy resting on my shoulders and all of that. So should