Princess in Pink (The Princess Diaries 5)

I just sat there for a minute, holding the phone to my ear, barely able to register what I’d just heard.

“Wait,” I said. “What?”

“For God’s sake,” Grandmère said all testily. “Must I repeat myself? I found a place for you to have your little prom.”

And then she told me where.

I hung up in a daze. I couldn’t believe it. I swear I couldn’t believe it.

Grandmère had done it.

Oh, not fessed up to her role in causing one of the most expensive strikes in the history of New York City. Nothing like that.

No. This was more important.

She’d saved the prom. Grandmère had saved the Albert Einstein High School senior prom.

I looked at Lana sitting in front of me, resolutely not glancing in my direction, due to the fact that I was the one who’d caused the prom to be canceled.

And that’s when it hit me. Grandmère had saved the prom for AEHS. But I could still save the prom for me.

I poked Lana in the shoulder and went, “Did you hear?”

Lana turned to stare at me in a very mean way. “Hear what, freak?” she demanded.

“My grandmother found an alternative space to hold the prom,” I said.

And I told her where.

Lana just stared at me in total shock. Really. She was so stunned, she couldn’t talk. I’d stunned Lana into silence. Not like that time I’d stabbed her with a Nutty Royale, either. That time, she’d had a LOT to say.

This time? Nothing.

“But there’s just one condition,” I went on.

And then I told her the condition.

Which, of course, Grandmère hadn’t brought up. The condition, I mean. No, the condition was a little princess-of-Genovia maneuvering all my own.

But I learned from a master.

“So,” I said, in conclusion, in an almost friendly way, as if Lana and I were buddies, and not sworn mortal enemies, like Alyssa Milano and the Source of All Evil. “Take it, or leave it.”

Lana didn’t hesitate. Not even a second. She went, “Okay.”

Just like that. “Okay.”

And suddenly, it was like I was Molly Ringwald. I’m not kidding, either.

I cannot explain, not even to myself, why I did what I did next. I just did it. It was like for a moment I was possessed by the spirit of some other girl, a girl who actually gets along with people like Lana. I reached out, grabbed Lana’s head, pulled it toward me, and gave her a great big kiss, smack in the middle of her eyebrows.

“Ew, gross,” Lana said, backing away fast. “What is wrong with you, freak?”

But I didn’t care that Lana had called me a freak. Twice. Because my heart was singing like those little birds who fly around Snow White’s head when she’s hanging out by the wishing well. I went, “Stay right here,” and jumped out of my seat….

Much to the surprise of Mr. G, who had just come into the room, his Starbucks’ Grande in hand.

“Mia,” he said bewilderedly as I darted past him. “Where are you going? The second bell just rang.”