Princess in Pink (The Princess Diaries 5)

Thank God Michael finally did show up with my homework. We could not exchange tender greetings, however, because Grandmère was sitting at the kitchen table, watching us like a hawk the whole time. I never even got to smell his neck!

And now I am lying here on this lumpy futon, listening to my grandmother’s deep, rhythmic snoring from the other room, and all I can think is that this strike better be over soon.

Because it is bad enough living with a neurotic cat, a drum-playing Algebra teacher, and a woman in her last trimester of pregnancy. Throw in a dowager princess of Genovia, and I’m sorry: Book me a room on the twenty-first floor of Bellevue, because it’s the funny farm for me.

Friday, May 9, Homeroom

I decided to go to school today because:

It’s Senior Skip Day, so most of the people who’d like to see me dead aren’t here to throw things at me, and

It’s better than staying at home.

I mean it. It is bad in 1005 Thompson Street, Apt. 4A. This morning when Grandmère woke up, the first thing she did was demand that I bring her some hot water with lemon and honey in a glass. I was like, “Um, no way,” which did not go over real well, let me tell you. I thought Grandmère was going to hit me.

Instead, she threw my Fiesta Giles action figure—the one of Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s watcher, Giles, in a sombrero—against the wall! I tried to explain to her that he is a collector’s item and worth nearly twice what I paid for him, but she was fully unappreciative of my lecture. She just went, “Get me a hot water with lemon and honey!”

So I got her her stinking hot water with lemon and honey, and she drank

it down, and then, I kid you not, she spent about a half hour in my bathroom. I have no idea what she was doing in there, but it nearly drove Fat Louie and me insane… me because I needed to get in there to get my toothbrush, and Fat Louie because that’s where his litter box is.

But whatever, I finally got in and brushed my teeth, and then I was like, “See ya,” and Mr. G and I fully raced for the door.

Not fast enough, though, because my mom caught us before we could get safely out of the loft, and hissed at us in this very scary voice, “I will get you both for leaving me alone with her all day today. I don’t know how, and I don’t know when. But when you least expect it… expect it.”

Whoa, Mom. Have some more Pedialyte.

Anyway, things here at school have calmed down a lot since yesterday. Maybe because the seniors aren’t here. Well, all except for Michael. He’s here. Because, he says, he doesn’t believe in skipping just because Josh Richter says to. Also because Principal Gupta is giving ten demerits to every student with an unexcused absence for the day, and if you get demerits, the school librarian won’t give you a discount at the end-of-year used-book sale, and Michael has had his eye on the school’s collected works of Isaac Asimov for some time now.

But really I think he’s here for the same reason I am: to escape his current home situation. That’s because, he told me in the limo on the way up to school, his parents finally found out about how Lilly’s been skipping school and holding press conferences without their permission. The Drs. Moscovitz supposedly went full-on Reverend and Mrs. Camden, and are making Lilly stay home with them today so they can have a nice long talk about her obvious disestablishmentarianism and the way she treated Boris. Michael was like, “I was so outta there,” for which who can blame him?

But things are definitely looking up, because when we stopped by Ho’s this morning before school to buy breakfast (egg sandwich for Michael; Ring Dings for me) he fully grabbed me while Lars was in the refrigerated section buying his morning can of Red Bull and started kissing me, and I got to smell his neck, which instantly soothed my Grandmèrefrazzled nerves and convinced me that somehow, some way, everything is going to be all right.

Maybe.

Friday, May 9, Algebra

Oh, my God, I can barely write, my hands are shaking so badly. I cannot believe what just happened…. Cannot believe it because it is so GOOD. How is this possible? Good things NEVER happen to me. Well, except for Michael.

But this…

It is almost too good to be believed.

What happened was, I came into the Algebra classroom all unsuspectingly, not expecting a thing. I sat down in my seat and started taking out last night’s homework—which Mr. G fully helped me finish—when all of a sudden, my cell phone rang.

Thinking my mom was going into labor—or had passed out in the ice cream section of the Grand Union again—I hurried to answer it.

But it wasn’t my mother. It was Grandmère.

“Mia,” she said. “There’s nothing to worry about. I’ve taken care of the problem.”

I swear I didn’t know what she was talking about. Not at first, anyway. I was like, “What problem?” I thought maybe she was talking about our neighbor Verl and his noise complaints against us. I thought maybe she’d had him executed, or something.

Well, it’s possible, knowing Grandmère.

Which is why her next words were such a total shock.

“Your prom,” she said. “I spoke to someone. And I’ve found a place where you can have it, strike or no strike. It’s all settled.”