Princess on the Brink (The Princess Diaries 8)

“Are you listening to me, Phillipe?” Grandmère was demanding. “You know Rommel requires eight-hundred-threadcount sheets at the very least.”

Dad sighed. “I’ll have some thousand-count sheets sent over from Bergdorf’s, all right? Mia, I know something’s wrong. What’s your mother done now? Got arrested at another one of her war protests? I’ve told her to stop chaining herself to things.”

“It’s not Mom,” I said, throwing myself onto a brocade-covered chaise lounge. “She hasn’t chained herself to anything in years.”

“Well, she’s a very…unpredictable woman,” my dad said. Which is his way of saying, as nicely as possible, that Mom is flighty and irresponsible about a lot of things. But not her kids. “But you’re right, I shouldn’t jump to conclusions. It’s nothing to do with Frank, is it? The two of them are getting along all right? It’s very stressful having a new baby in the house. Or so I hear.”

I rolled my eyes. My dad always wants the scoop on what’s going on with Mom and Mr. Gianini. Which is sort of hilarious, because there’s never actually anything going on with them. Unless you mean their fights over what to watch at breakfast, CNN (Mr. G) or MTV (Mom). Mom can’t stand politics first thing in the morning. She prefers Panic! At the Disco.

“It isn’t just the sheets, Phillipe,” Grandmère was going on. “Do you realize the televisions in the rooms of this hotel are only twenty-seven inches wide?”

“You say there’s nothing on American television but filth and violence,” my dad said, staring at his mother in astonishment.

“Well, yes,” Grandmère said. “There is. Except for Judge Judy.”

“It’s just…everything,” I said, ignoring Grandmère. Because Dad was now ignoring her, too. “It’s only two days into the semester, and it’s already my worst one ever. Ms. Martinez stuck me in Intro to Creative Writing. Intro stands for INTRODUCTION. I don’t need to be introduced to creative writing. I eat, sleep, and breathe creative writing. And don’t even get me started on Chemistry and Precalculus. But the worst is…well, it’s Michael.”

Dad didn’t look surprised to hear this. In fact, he looked pleased.

“Well, now, Mia, I hate to tell you this but…I suspected this might be coming. Michael’s in college now, and you’re still in high school, and you have to spend a lot of time on your royal duties and in Genovia, and you can’t expect a young man in his prime to simply wait around for you. It’s natural that Michael might find a young lady closer to his own age who actually has the time to spend doing the kinds of things college-age kids do—things that are simply not appropriate for a high-school aged princess to take part in.”

“Dad.” I blinked at him. “Michael didn’t break up with me. At least if that’s what you meant by that speech you just gave me.”

“He didn’t?” Dad stopped looking so pleased. “Oh. Well, what did he do then?”

“He—well, remember when you flew back to Genovia with me and we watched The Lord of the Rings during the flight?”

“Yes.” Dad raised his eyebrows. “Are you telling me Michael’s come into possession of the One Ring?”

“No,” I said. I couldn’t believe he was trying to make a joke out of it. “But he’s trying to prove himself to the elf king, like Aragorn.”

“Who’s the elf king?” Dad wanted to know, like he genuinely didn’t know.

“Dad. YOU’RE the elf king.”

“Really?” Dad adjusted his tie, looking pleased again. Then he stopped. “Wait…my ears aren’t pointy. Are they?”

“I meant FIGURATIVELY, Dad,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Michael feels like he has to prove himself in order to be with your daughter. Just like Aragorn felt he had to prove himself to win the elf king’s approval to be with Arwen.”

“Well,” Dad said. “I don’t see what’s wrong with that. Only how exactly does he plan on doing it? Winning my approval, I mean? Because, I’m sorry, but leading an army of the dead to defeat the Orcs isn’t really going to cut the mustard with me.”

“Michael isn’t leading an army of the dead anywhere. He’s invented a robotic surgical arm that will allow surgeons to do heart surgery without opening up the chest,” I said.

That wiped the smirk clean off Dad’s face.

“Really?” he asked in a totally different tone. “Michael did that?”

/> “Well, he has a prototype for it,” I explained. “And some Japanese company is flying him out there so he can help them to build a working model. Or something. The thing is, it’s going to take a YEAR! Michael is going to be in Tsukuba for a YEAR! Or more!”

“A year,” Dad repeated. “Or more. Well. That’s a very long time.”

“Yes, it’s a very long time,” I said dramatically. “And while he’s thousands of miles away, inventing cool stuff, I’m going to be stuck in stupid Intro to Creative Writing and eleventh-grade Chem, which I’m already flunking, not to mention Precalc, which, once again, I don’t even know why I have to learn, since we’ve got all those accountants….”

“Now, now,” Dad said. “Everyone has to learn calculus in order to be a well-rounded individual.”

“You know what would make me a well-rounded individual, and you a celebrated philanthropist and possibly even be named Time magazine’s Person of the Year?” I asked. “Well, I’ll tell you: if you founded your own robotics lab right here in New York City that Michael could build his robotic arm thingie in!”

My dad got a good laugh out of that one.