Princess in Waiting (The Princess Diaries 4)

“Pfuit!” Grandmère said, her drawn-on eyebrows raised way up. “He certainly seemed healthy enough when I spoke to him this morning.”

“Then what—” I stared at her. “Why did you tell Principal Gupta—”

“Because otherwise she would not have allowed you out of class,” Grandmère said, glancing at her gold-and-diamond watch. “And we are late, as it is. Really, there is nothing worse than an overzealous educator. They think they are helping, when in reality, you know, there are many different varieties of learning. Not all of it takes place in a classroom.”

Comprehension was beginning to dawn. Grandmère had not pulled me out of school in the middle of the day because anyone in my family was sick. No, Grandmère had pulled me out of school because she wanted to teach me something.

“Grandmère,” I cried, hardly able to believe what I was hearing. “You can’t just drive over and yank me out of school whenever you want to. And you certainly can’t tell Principal Gupta that my dad is sick when he isn’t! How could you even say something like that? Don’t you know anything about self-fulfilling prophecies? I mean, if you go around lying about stuff like that all the time, it could actually come true—”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Amelia,” Grandmère said. “Your f

ather is not going to have to go back to the hospital just because I told a little white lie to an academic administrator.”

“I don’t know how you can be so sure of that,” I said angrily. “And anyway, where do you think you’re taking me? I can’t afford to just be leaving school in the middle of the day, you know, Grandmère. I mean, I am not as smart as most of the other kids in my class, and I’ve got a lot of catching up to do, thanks to the fact that I went to bed so early last night—”

“Oh, I am sorry,” Grandmère said, very sarcastically. “I know how much you enjoy your Algebra class. I am sure it is a very great deprivation to you, missing it today….”

I couldn’t deny that she was right. At least partially. While I wasn’t all that thrilled about the method by which she’d done it, the fact that Grandmère had extracted me from Algebra wasn’t exactly something I was about to cry over. I mean, come on. Integers are not my best thing.

“Well, wherever we’re going,” I said severely, “we better be back in time for lunch. Because Michael will wonder where I am—”

“Not that boy again,” Grandmère said, lifting her gaze to the limo’s sunroof with a sigh.

“Yes, that boy ,” I said. “That boy I happen to love with all of my heart and soul. And Grandmère, if you could just meet him, you’d know—”

“Oh, we’re here,” Grandmère said, with some relief, as her driver pulled over. “At last. Get out, Amelia.”

I got out of the limo, then looked around to see where Grandmère had brought me. But all I saw was the big Chanel store on Fifty-seventh Street. But that couldn’t be where we were headed. Could it?

But when Grandmère untangled Rommel from his Louis Vuitton leash, put him on the ground, and began striding purposefully toward those big glass doors, I saw that Chanel was exactly where we were headed.

“Grandmère,” I cried, rushing after her. “Chanel? You pulled me out of class to take me shopping ?”

“You need a gown,” Grandmère said with a sniff, “for the black-and-white ball at the Contessa Trevanni’s this Friday. This was the soonest I could get an appointment.”

“Black-and-white ball?” I echoed as Lars escorted us into the hushed white interior of Chanel, the world’s most exclusive fashion boutique—the kind of store that, before I found out I was a princess, I would have been too terrified even to set foot in… although I can’t say the same for my friends, as Lilly once filmed an entire episode of her cable access show from inside a dressing room at Chanel. She’d barricaded herself in and was trying on Karl Lagerfeld’s latest creations and wouldn’t come out until security broke the door down and escorted her to the sidewalk. It had been a show on how haute couture designers are completely sizeist, seeing as how it is impossible to find leather pants in anything larger than a misses’ size ten. “What black-and-white ball?”

“Surely your mother told you,” Grandmère said, as a tall, reed-thin woman approached us with cries of, “Your Royal Highnesses! How delightful to see you.”

“My mother didn’t tell me anything about a ball,” I said. “When did you say it was?”

“Friday night,” Grandmère said to me. To the saleslady she said, “Yes, I believe you’ve put aside some gowns for my granddaughter. I specifically requested white ones.” Grandmère blinked owlishly at me. “You are too young for black. I don’t want to hear any arguing about it.”

Argue about it? How could I argue about something I hadn’t even begun to understand?

“Of course,” the saleslady was saying with a big smile. “Come with me, won’t you, Your Highness?”

“Friday night?” I cried, that part, at least, of what was going on beginning to sink in. “Friday night? Grandmère, I can’t go to any ball on Friday night. I already made plans with—”

But Grandmère just put her hand in the center of my back and pushed.

And then I was tripping after the saleslady, who didn’t even blink an eye, as if princesses in combat boots go tripping after her all the time.

And now I am sitting in Grandmère’s limo on my way back to school, and all I can think about are the number of people I would like to thank for my current predicament, foremost among which is my mother, for forgetting to tell me that she had already given Grandmère permission to drag me to this thing; the Contessa Trevanni, for having a black-and-white ball in the first place; the salespeople at Chanel, who, although they are very nice, are really all just a bunch of enablers, as they have enabled my grandma to garb me in a white diamante ball gown and drag me to something I have no desire to attend in the first place; my father, for setting his mother loose upon the helpless city of Manhattan without anyone to supervise her; and of course Grandmère herself, for completely ruining my life.

Because when I told her, while the Chanel people were throwing yards of fabric over me, that I cannot possibly attend Contessa Trevanni’s black-and-white ball this Friday night, as that is the night Michael and I are supposed to have our first date, she responded by giving me a big lecture about how a princess’s first duty is to her people. Her heart, Grandmère says, must always come second.

I tried to explain how this date could not be postponed or rescheduled, as Star Wars would only be showing at the Screening Room that night, and that after that they would go back to showing Moulin Rouge , which I won’t see because I heard someone dies at the end.