Princess in Pink (The Princess Diaries 5)

New cat brush for Fat Louie (he chewed the handle off the last one)

Bungee cords for palace ballroom (so I can do air ballet like Lara Croft in Tomb Raider)

New baby brother or sister, safely delivered

Elevation of orcas to endangered list so Puget Sound can receive federal aid to clean up polluted breeding/feeding grounds

Lana Weinberger’s head on a silver platter (just kidding—well, not really)

My own cell phone

Grandmère to quit smoking

Michael Moscovitz to ask me to the senior prom

In composing this list, it occurred to me that sadly, the only thing on it that I am likely to get for my birthday is item number 2. I mean, I am going to get a new brother or sister, but not for another month, at the earliest. No way was Grandmère going to go for the quitting-smoking thing or the bungee cords. World hunger and the orca thing are sort of out of the hands of anyone I know. My dad says I would just lose and/or destroy a cell phone, like I did the laptop he got me (that wasn’t my fault; I only took it out of my backpack and set it on that sink for a second while I was looking for my Chapstick. It is not my fault that Lana Weinberger bumped into me and that the sinks at our school are all stopped up. That computer was only underwater for a few seconds; it fully should have worked again when it dried out. Except that even Michael, who is a technological as well as musical genius, couldn’t save it).

Of course the one thing Grandmère fixated on was item number 10, the one I only admitted to her in a moment of weakness and should never have mentioned in the first place, considering the fact that in twenty-four hours, she and Michael will be sharing a table at Les Hautes Manger for my birthday dinner.

“What is the ‘prom’?” Grandmère wanted to know. “I don’t know this word.”

I couldn’t believe it. But then, Grandmère hardly ever watches TV, not even Murder She Wrote or Golden Girls reruns, like everyone else her age, so it was unlikely she’d ever have caught an airing of Pretty in Pink on TBS or whatever.

“It’s a dance, Grandmère,” I said, reaching for my list. “Never mind.”

“And the Moscovitz boy hasn’t asked you to this dance yet?” Grandmère asked. “When is it?”

“A week from Saturday,” I said. “Can I h

ave that list back now?”

“Why don’t you go without him?” Grandmère demanded. She let out a cackle, then seemed to think better of it, since I think it hurt her face to stretch her cheek muscles like that. “Like you did last time. That’ll show him.”

“I can’t,” I said. “It’s only for seniors. I mean, seniors can take underclassmen, but underclassmen can’t go on their own. Lilly says I should just ask Michael whether or not he’s going, but—”

“NO!” Grandmère’s eyes bulged out. At first I thought she was choking on an ice cube, but it turned out she was just shocked. Grandmère’s got eyeliner tattooed all the way around her lids, like Michael Jackson, so she doesn’t have to mess with her makeup every morning. So when her eyes bulge out—well, it’s pretty noticeable.

“You cannot ask HIM,” Grandmère said. “How many times do I have to tell you, Amelia? Men are like little woodland creatures. You have to lure them to you with tiny breadcrumbs and soft words of encouragement. You cannot simply whip out a rock and conk them over the head with it.”

I certainly agree with this. I don’t want to do any conking where Michael is concerned. But I don’t know about breadcrumbs.

“Well,” I said. “So what do I do? The prom is in less than two weeks, Grandmère. If I’m going to go, I’ve got to know soon.”

“You must hint around the subject,” Grandmère said. “Subtly.”

I thought about this. “Like, do you mean I should go, ‘I saw the most perfect dress for the prom the other day in the Victoria’s Secret catalog’?”

“Exactly,” Grandmère said. “Only of course a princess never purchases anything off the rack, Amelia, and NEVER from a catalog.”

“Right,” I said. “But Grandmère, don’t you think he’ll see right through that?”

Grandmère snorted, then seemed to regret it, and held her drink against her face, to soothe her tender skin. “You are talking about a seventeen-year-old boy, Amelia,” she said. “Not a master spy. He won’t have the slightest idea what you are about, if you do it subtly enough.”

But I don’t know. I mean, I have never been very good at being subtle. Like the other day I tried to subtly mention to my mother that Ronnie, our neighbor who Mom trapped in the hallway on the way to the incinerator room, might not have wanted to hear about how many times my mom has to get up and pee every night now that the baby is pressing so hard against her bladder. My mom just looked at me and went, “Do you have a death wish, Mia?”

Mr. Gianini and I have decided that we will be very relieved when my mom finally has this baby.

I am pretty sure Ronnie would agree.