Princess in Waiting (The Princess Diaries 4)

Met with Genovian casino operators. Was discouraged by their insistence on maintaining valet parking for their patrons. Explained substantial increase in revenue generated by parking meters, but was rebuffed.

Asked Dad for own key to administrative offices, so that I can e-mail Michael whenever I want, but he rebuffed me, too, due to René having been caught in administrative offices last week, photocopying his nether region. Assured Dad I would never do something this asinine, not being homeless Speedo-wearing prince filled with testosterone, but argument clearly fell on deaf ears.

Nine days since I last saw Michael, and I think I am going INSANE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tuesday, December 30 Royal Daily Schedule

MESSAGE FROM MICHAEL via palace phone operators. Says, Miss you, will try to call at bonne nuit. Asked palace operators if they are sure this is what Michael said, and they insist it was. Except this message makes no sense. Bonne nuit means “good night,” it is not a time. Possibly there is word in Klingon that sounds like bonne nuit? No time to call Michael myself, however, as was ensconced all day long with Genovian Minister of Defense, learning what to do in unlikely case of military incursion by hostile enemy forces.

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Wednesday, December 31 Royal Daily Schedule

Posed for royal portrait. Was instructed not to move, and especially not to smile. Was very hard not to, however, as Rommel, Grandmère’s toy poodle, was wandering around with one of those plastic cones around his head so he won’t lick away what is left of his fur. Rommel is the only dog I know with an obsessive-compulsive disorder that is causing him to lick himself bald. The American vets all thought Rommel’s hair loss was due to allergies. Then, when we got to Genovia, the Royal Vet was all, “Alors! Eet is Oh Cee Dee!”

I do not like to make fun of the plight of any four legged creature, but Rommel was funny, the way he’d lost his peripheral vision and kept bumping into suits of armor and stuff.

Royal portrait painter says he despairs of me. Let me out early to attend palace New Year’s party. Was big letdown, due to not having Michael there to kiss at midnight. Tried calling him, but Moscovitzes must have been out at some beach or pool party, as no one answered.

You know what they have a lot of in Florida? Beach and pool parties. You know who goes to beach and pool parties? Girls in bikinis. Like the girl

s from that movie Blue Crush. Like that one, Kate Bosworth, who had the one blue eye and the one brown eye and the tiny shorts. Yeah, that one. How is anyone supposed to compete against a surfer girl with one blue eye and one brown eye, I’d like to know?????

René tried to kiss me at midnight, but I told him to go kiss Grandmère instead. He’d had so much champagne, he actually did it. Grandmère hit him with a decorative swan carved from a pineapple.

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Thursday, January 1 Royal Daily Schedule

GOT E-MAIL FROM MICHAEL!!!!!!! René stole key to administrative offices because he said he had to “look some things up” on Netscape (he was fully scoring people on Are You Hot or Not—I caught him) and I happened to be walking by on my way to the indoor palace pool, so I demanded to be let in. René had too big of a headache from all the champagne he drank last night to fight me on the matter.

So I got online and there was this e-mail from Michael!!!!!!!! It turns out he was NOT at a party with Kate Bosworth-like girls last night:

Mia (he wrote) sorry to have missed your call, I was at my grandparents’ retirement complex’s New Year’s bash (they played Ricky Martin and thought they were on the cutting edge). Didn’t you get my message? Well, anyway, happy New Year and I really miss you and all of that.

P.S. Are they keeping you locked in a tower over there or what? Because even prisoners get phone privileges. Am I going to have to come to Genovia and climb up your hair to get you out or something?

Has there ever BEEN a more romantic note than this? He really misses me and all of that! And you know what all of that means. Love. Right? Isn’t that what all of that means?

Made mistake of asking René. He said a man who isn’t willing to put his true feelings for a woman down on paper isn’t a true man at all.

I told him it wasn’t paper, just e-mail, which is different.

Isn’t it?

Spent all day visiting patients at Genovian General Hospital. V. depressing, not because of patients, but because of the clown that the hospital hired to cheer up the sick children. HATE CLOWNS!!!! Clowns v. scary to me ever since I read that Stephen King book It, which was made into a TV movie starring that guy from The Waltons. It is awful the way writers can take a perfectly innocent thing like a clown and turn it into vessel of evil! Had to spend entire time in hospital dodging clown, just in case he was spawn of Satan.

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And now here I am, on January 2, just sitting in on a session of the Royal Genovian Parliament, pretending to be paying attention while these really old guys in wigs go on and on about parking.

Which I realize is fully my own fault. I mean, if I had never opened my mouth about the whole parking-meter thing in the first place, none of this would be happening.

But how could they not know that if we don’t charge for parking, it will just encourage more people to drive over the French and Italian borders instead of taking the train, clogging up Genovia’s already very busy streets and causing yet more strain on our already deteriorating infrastructure?

And I guess I should be flattered that they are taking my suggestion so seriously. I mean, yeah, I’m the Princess of Genovia, but what doI know? Just because I am of royal birth and happen to be in the Gifted and Talented program at Albert Einstein High School does not mean that I am actually gifted OR talented. In fact, the opposite is true. I am clearly not gifted, being average in just about every category you could name, with the possible exception of foot size, in which I am somewhat over-endowed. And I have no talents to speak of. In fact, I was put into Gifted and Talented class only because I was flunking Algebra and everyone decided I needed an extra period in which to study.

So really, if you think about it, it is very kind of the members of the Genovian Parliament to listen to anything I have to say.