That’s right. Lilly. Lilly was sitting, cool as a cucumber, on a blue velvet settee with Grandmère, answering the reporters’ questions.
When the journalists saw me come in, they all jumped up and shoved microphones in my face instead of Lilly’s, and went, “Your Highness, Your Highness! Are you looking forward to your debate on Monday?” and “Princess Mia, do you have anything you’d like to say to your constituents?”
I had one thing I wanted to say to one constituent. And that was, “LILLY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?”
That was when Grandmère sprang into action. She hurried up and draped an arm around my shoulder and went, “Your dear friend Lilly and I were just chatting with these nice reporters about your campaign for student council president, Amelia. But what they’d really like is a statement from you. Why don’t you be a darling and give them one?”
The minute Grandmère calls you darling, you know something is up. But, of course, I already knew something was up, because Lilly was there. How had she even gotten to the Plaza so fast? She must have taken the subway, while I’d been tied up in traffic in the limo.
“Yes, Princess,” Lilly said, reaching out to take my hand, then pulling me—none too gently—down onto the settee beside her. “Tell the nice reporters about all the reforms you’re planning to make at AEHS.”
I leaned over, pretending I was reaching for a watercress sandwich from the tray Grandmère’s maid had set out for the reporters, who are always hungry, and not just for a story. But then, as I grabbed one of the dainty little sandwiches, I hissed in Lilly’s ear, “Now you’ve gone too far.”
But Lilly just smiled blandly at me and said, “I think the princess would like some tea, Your Highness,” to which Grandmère replied, “But, of course. Antoine! Tea for the princess!”
The press conference went on for an hour, with reporters from all over the country peppering me with questions about my campaign platform. I was just thinking that it must be a REALLY slow news day if my running for student council president qualified as a decent story, when one of the reporters asked me a question that shed a little light on just why Grandmère was so keen on my making an ass of myself in front of Middle America, and not just my fellow AEHS students.
“Princess Mia,” a journalist from the Indianapolis Star asked. “Isn’t it tru
e that the only reason you’re running for student council president—and the only reason we were invited here today—is that your family is trying to distract the news media from the real story currently hitting headlines in Europe—your act of ecoterrorism, concerning the dumping of ten thousand snails into the Bay of Genovia?”
Suddenly, two dozen microphones were shoved into my face. I blinked a few times, then went, “But that wasn’t an act of ecoterrorism. I did that to save the—”
Then Grandmère was clapping her hands and going, “Who wants a nice glass of grappa? Come now, real Genovian grappa. No one can resist that!”
But none of the reporters were falling for it.
“Princess Mia, would you like to comment on the fact that Genovia is currently being considered for expulsion from the EU, thanks to your selfish act?”
Another one cried, “How does it feel, Your Highness, to know that you’re single-handedly responsible for destroying your own nation’s economy?”
“Wh…What?” I couldn’t believe it. What were these reporters talking about?
For once, Lilly came to my rescue.
“People!” she cried, leaping to her feet. “If you don’t have any more questions about Mia’s campaign for school president, then I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave!”
“Cover-up!” someone yelled. “That’s all this is! A cover-up to keep us from the real story!”
“Princess Mia, Princess Mia,” someone else called, as Lars began herding—or, to put it more accurately, bodily removing—all of the reporters from the suite. “Are you a member of ELF, the Earth Liberation Front? Do you want to make a statement on behalf of other ecoterrorists like yourself?”
“Well,” Grandmère said, downing half a Sidecar in one gulp as Lars finally closed the doors on the last of the reporters. “That went well, don’t you think?”
I couldn’t believe it. I just sat there in total shock. Ecoterrorism? ELF? All because of some SNAILS????
Lilly picked up her Palm Pilot (when did she get one of those???) and strolled over to where Grandmère was standing.
“Right. So we’ve got Time magazine at six, and Newsweek at six thirty,” Lilly said. “I heard from NPR, and I definitely think we should squeeze them in this evening—drive time, you know. It can’t hurt. And we got a request from New York One for Mia to go on tonight’s broadcast of Inside Politics. I’ve gotten them to swear there won’t be any questions about the E word. What do you think?”
“Marvelous,” Grandmère said, taking another swig from her Sidecar. “What about Larry King?”
Lilly tapped the headset she’d slipped on and said, “Antoine? Have you gotten hold of Larry K yet? No? Well, get on it.”
Larry K? The E word? What was HAPPENING?
Which is exactly what I wailed.
Grandmère and Lilly looked at me as if only just realizing I was there at all.