Princess Mia (The Princess Diaries 9)

Outed as being a Friend of Lana.

Well, whatever. I mean, she’s not THAT bad. Sure, we’ve had our differences in the past.

But she does have some really great tips on how to stop biting your nails (put Sally Hansen Hard As Nails on them every night without fail before bed, and afterward, an olive oil cuticle rub).

Tina was staring at Lana with her mouth hanging open in astonishment, causing Trisha to say, “Take a picture, sweetie, it’ll last longer,” then remark that she liked the way Tina does her eyeliner, and asked if wearing it that way was part of her religion, or what.

This caused Tina to choke on her tuna salad.

“So do any of you have Schuyler for Precalc?” Lana wanted to know. “Because I don’t have a freaking clue what’s going on in that class.”

To which Boris replied, looking pained, “Um…I do.”

And then he spent the rest of the lunch period helping Lana with her homework, while Tina spent the rest of the lunch period showing Trisha how she does her eyes, and J.P. spent the rest of the lunch period smirking into his chili (sans corn).

All I wanted to do was read my translation of Amelie’s journal. But I couldn’t, because I was worried about how that might look. You know, that it might appear antisocial.

And I have enough strikes against me at the moment without “antisocial” being added to the list.

I did notice Lilly giving me a very dirty look over her shoulder as she went to take her tray up to the counter.

But that might have been because I was letting Lana put mini barrettes in my hair and Lilly has a thing about personal grooming in the caf.

Monday, September 20, Chemistry

J.P. wants to know how, merely by going shopping with Lana, I became one of the In Crowd.

I told him Lana and I didn’t merely go shopping: We went bra shopping.

To which J.P. replied, “Please tell me all about it. And I mean all.”

But I was too busy reading about Princess Amelie. Uncle Francesco busted into the palace library and ordered all the books there burned, just to be mean, I’m sure, because he happened to know Amelie really liked them, not because he seriously believed they were contributing to the spread of the disease.

As if that weren’t upsetting enough, he also threw the drafts of the executive order she’d so carefully penned and signed—and had witnessed, which was no joke, since it was hard to find two living people in the palace to witness the signing of a document—into the fire. Even though Amelie explained

to him that whatever it was she’d drawn up had been for the good of the Genovian people! Whom she did not believe he cared about. Especially since they were dropping like flies, and yet he was still allowing foreign ships to dock in the port, which only seemed to be bringing more disease into the country…not to mention spreading it back to the towns the ships had come from, on their return trips.

Amelie accused her uncle of only caring about whether or not the olive oil got delivered. To Uncle Francesco, it was always about the olive oil. And the crown, of course.

But no! He thought burning books (and executive orders) was the answer to all their problems!

I really wanted to keep reading because things were finally getting good with poor Amelie (or bad, as the case might be).

But Kenny yelled at me that if I wasn’t going to help with the experiment, I could just accept the zero I deserved.

So I’m stirring. Which would explain why my handwriting looks so bad.

Monday, September 20, the loft

Even though I am still in the depths of despair and all, I was actually kind of excited after school today because

No princess lessons

Even though I have no TV, I have something totally excellent to read.

I fully intended to take off my school uniform, put on my sweats, curl up in bed, and read about my ancestress.

But my (admittedly mild) excitement was short-lived, due to walking into the loft and finding Mr. G at the dining room table with all of the assignments that I missed last week.