Princess in Training (The Princess Diaries 6)

Speaking of which, Grandmère came up to me right after that and took me by the arm and led me a little bit away from everyone.

“You see, Amelia,” she said, in a raspy, Sidecar-scented whisper. “I told you that you could do it. That was inspired in there. Truly inspired. I almost felt as if the spirit of St. Amelie was among us.”

The freaky thing about this was—I’d kind of felt the same thing.

But I didn’t say so. Instead, I said, “So, uh, Grandmère? What’s this secret weapon you and Lilly came up with? And when are you going to launch it?”

But she just lifted my half-torn-off AEHS patch between her thumb and index finger and said, “What happened to your coat? Really, Amelia, can’t you take better care of your things? A princess really ought not to walk about looking like such a slattern.”

But anyway. The whole thing was still pretty cool. Especially the part where Grandmère said she had to cancel our princess lesson for the day so she could go have a facial. Apparently, all the stress of helping Lilly with the election has caused her pores to expand.

All in all, it was almost enough to make me think things—I don’t know—might actually go my way for a change.

But then I remembered Michael. Who, by the way, hasn’t once called or even text messaged me today, to say good luck on the debate, or ask how I’d done, or anything. In fact, I haven’t talked to him at all since the whole Doing It talk.

And I’ll admit, that talk didn’t actually go as well as I’d hoped it would.

But still. You’d think he’d call. Even if, you know, I’m the one who hasn’t returned HIS calls or e-mails.

Boris is playing “God Save the Queen” on his violin on my behalf. I told him it’s a little early for that. After all, the votes collected over lunch are still being tabulated. Principal Gupta’s going to make the announcement over the loudspeaker last period.

Lilly just went, all softly, to me, “Then, when you win, next week you can make an announcement of your own. You know, about your stepping down, and leaving the presidency to me.”

Huh. Isn’t it funny? But up until that moment, I had kind of forgotten about that part of our plan.

Monday, September 14, U.S. Government

Mrs. Holland congratulated me on my speech today, and said it made her proud. PROUD! OF ME!!! A teacher is proud of me!!!

ME!!!!!!!

Monday, September 14, Earth Science

Kenny just said the strangest thing to me. Just blurted it right out, as we were drawing our diagrams of the Van Allen radiation belts.

“Mia,” he said. “I want to tell you something. You know my girlfriend, Heather?”

“Yeeee-ah,” I said, reluctantly, because I thought he was getting ready to tell me another long boring story about Heather’s gymnastic prowess.

“Well.” Kenny’s face turned red as the radiation belt I was coloring. “I made her up.”

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, that is right. Kenny has spent the past five days telling me MADE-UP stories about his MADE-UP girlfriend, Heather. A girlfriend who, I will admit, I actually felt threatened by! Because she’s so perfect! I mean, blond and sporty AND she gets straight A’s????

Actually, now that I think about it, I should probably be grateful Heather turns out not to be real. She was making me feel pretty inadequate, to tell the truth.

But anyway. I just looked at him and was like, “Kenny. Why would you do that?”

And he said, all shamefaced, “I just couldn’t stand it, you know? You having this whole perfect princess life, with Michael, your perfect princely boyfriend. It…I don’t know. It just got to me.”

Yeah. Right. My perfect life. My perfect princess life, with Michael, my perfect princely boyfriend. Let me tell you something, Kenny. You want to know how NOT perfect my perfect princess life is? My perfect princely boyfriend is getting ready to dump me, because I don’t want to Do It. How’s that for perfect, Kenny?

Except, of course, I couldn’t say that. Because that’s none of Kenny’s business. Also, because I don’t much want the whole Michael-wants-to-Do-It thing getting around school. Thanks to the many movies based—however loosely—on my life that are floating around out there, enough people already think they know everything there is to know about me. I don’t need any MORE info leaking out.

But whatever. I just assured Kenny that my life isn’t as perfect as he might think. That, in fact, I have a LOT of problems, among them the fact that I am a baby-licker and very nearly got my own country kicked out of the EU.

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