Princess in Pink (The Princess Diaries 5)

So there was Boris—hypoglycemic, asthmatic, septally deviated, and allergy prone Boris—holding this big heavy globe over his head, as if he were Atlas or He-Man or the Rock or somebody.

“Lilly,” he said in a strangled, very un-Borislike voice— I should probably point out that by this time everyone in the room was paying attention: I mean, Michael had taken off his headphones and was looking at Boris very intently, and even the quiet guy who is supposed to be working on this new kind of Super Glue that sticks to objects but not to human skin (so you won’t have that sticky-finger problem anymore after gluing the sole of your shoe back together) was totally aware of what was happening around him for once.

“If you don’t take me back,” Boris said, breathing hard— that globe had to weigh fifty pounds at least, and he was holding it OVER HIS HEAD—“I will drop this globe on my head.”

Everyone sort of inhaled at the same time. I think I can safely say that there was no doubt in anybody’s mind that Boris meant what he said. He was totally going to drop that globe on his head. Seeing it written down, it looks kind of funny—I mean, really, who DOES things like that? Threatens to drop a globe on his head?

But this WAS Gifted and Talented class. I mean, geniuses are ALWAYS doing weird stuff like dropping globes on their heads. I bet there are geniuses out there who have dropped weirder stuff than globes on their heads. Like cinder blocks and cats and stuff. Just to see what would happen.

I mean, come on. They’re geniuses.

Because Boris was a genius, and so was Lilly, she reacted to his threat the way only another genius would. A normal girl, like me, would have gone, “No, Boris! Put the globe down, Boris! Let’s talk, Boris!”

But Lilly, being a genius, and having a genius’s curiosity about what would happen if Boris did drop the globe on his head—and maybe because she wanted to see if she really did have enough power over him to make him do it—just went, in a disgusted voice, “Go ahead. See if I care.”

And that’s when it happened. You could tell Boris had second thoughts—like it finally sunk into his love-addled brain that dropping a fifty-pound globe on his head probably wasn’t the best way to handle the situation.

But just as he was about to put the globe down, it slipped— maybe accidentally. Or maybe on purpose—what the Drs. Moscovitz might call a self-fulfilling prophecy, like when you say, “Oh, I don’t want that to happen,” and then because you said that and you’re thinking about it so much, you accidentally-on-purpose make it happen—and Boris dropped the globe on his head.

The globe made this sickening hollow thunking sound as it hit Boris’s skull—the same noise that eggplant made as it hit the sidewalk that time I dropped it out Lilly’s sixteenth-story bedroom window—before the whole thing bounced off Boris’s head and went crashing to the floor.

And then Boris clapped his hands to his scalp and started staggering around, upsetting the sticky-glue guy, who seemed to be afraid Boris would crash into him and mess up his notes.

It was kind of interesting to see how everyone reacted. Lilly put both hands to her cheeks and just stood there, pale as… well, death. Michael swore and started toward Boris. Lars ran from the room, yelling, “Mrs. Hill! Mrs. Hill!”

And I—not even really aware of what I was doing—stood up, whipped off my school sweater, strode up to Boris, and yelled, “Sit down!” since he was running all around like a chicken with his head cut off. Not that I have ever seen a chicken with its head recently cut off—I hope never to see this in my lifetime.

But you get what I mean.

Boris, to my very great surprise, did what I said. He sank down into the nearest desk, shivering like Rommel du

ring a thunderstorm. Then I said, in the same commanding voice that didn’t seem to belong to me, “Move your hands!”

And Boris moved his hands off his head.

That’s when I stuck my wadded up sweater over the small hole in Boris’s head, to stop the bleeding, just like I saw a vet do on Animal Precinct, when Officer Annemarie Lucas brought in a pit bull that had been shot.

After that, all hell—excuse me, but it is true—broke loose.

Lilly started crying in great, big baby sobs, which I haven’t seen her do since we were in second grade and I accidentally-on-purpose shoved a spatula down her throat while we were frosting birthday cupcakes to hand out to the class because she was eating all the frosting and I was afraid there wouldn’t be enough to cover all the cupcakes.

The guy with the glue ran out of the room.

Mrs. Hill came running into the room, followed by Lars and about half the faculty, who’d apparently all been in the teachers’ lounge doing nothing, as the teachers at Albert Einstein High School are wont to do.

Michael was bent over Boris going, in a calm, soothing voice I am pretty sure he learned from his parents, who often get calls in the middle of the night from patients of theirs who have gone off their medication for whatever reason and are threatening to drive up and down the Merritt Parkway in clown suits: “It’s going to be all right. Boris, you’re going to be all right. Just take a deep breath. Good. Now take another one. Deep, even breaths. Good. You’re going to be fine. You’re going to be just fine.”

And I just kept standing there with my sweater pressed to the top of Boris’s head, while the globe, having apparently come unstuck thanks to the fall—or perhaps the lubrication from Boris’s blood—spun lazily around, eventually came to rest with the country of Ecuador most prominent.

One of the teachers went and got the nurse, who made me move my sweater a little so that she could see Boris’s wound. Then she hastily made me press the sweater back down. Then she said to Boris in the same calming voice Michael was using, “Come along, young man. Let’s go to my office.”

Only Boris couldn’t walk to the nurse’s office by himself, since when he tried to stand up his knees sort of gave out beneath him, probably on account of his hypoglycemia. So Lars and Michael half-carried Boris to the nurse’s office while I just kept my sweater pressed to his head, because, well, nobody had told me to stop.

As we passed Lilly on our way out, I got a good look at her face, and she really had gone pale as death—her face was the color of New York City snow, kind of pale gray tinged with yellow. She also looked a bit sick to her stomach. Which if you ask me serves her right.

So now Michael and Lars and I are sitting here as the nurse fills out an incident report. She called Boris’s mother, who is supposed to come get him and take him to their family doctor. While the wound caused by the globe isn’t too deep, the nurse thinks it will probably require a few stitches, and that Boris will need a tetanus shot. The nurse was very complimentary of my quick action. She went, “You’re the princess, aren’t you?” and I demurely replied that I was.

I can’t help feeling really proud of myself.