Princess Mia (The Princess Diaries 9)

So I said, “No,” and snatched the covers back, pulling them over my head.

&n

bsp; Which is when I heard my dad go, “Lars. If you will.”

And then my bodyguard scooped me—covers still clutched over my head—from my bed, and began to carry me from my mother’s apartment.

“What are you doing?” I demanded, when I had disentangled my head from the covers, and saw that we were in the hallway, and that Ronnie, our neighbor from next door, was blinking at us in astonishment with her arms full of grocery bags.

“Something that’s for your own good,” my dad said, from behind Lars, on the stairs.

“But—” I seriously couldn’t believe this. “I’m in my pajamas!”

“I told you to get up,” Dad said. “You’re the one who wouldn’t do it.”

“You can’t do this to me!” I cried, as we exited the apartment building and headed toward my dad’s limo. “I’m an American! I have rights, you know!”

My dad looked at me and said very sarcastically, “No, you don’t. You’re a teenager.”

“Help!” I screamed to all the New York University students who live in our neighborhood and were just rolling home after a fun night out in the East Village. “Call Amnesty International! I’m being held against my will!”

“Lars,” my dad said disgustedly as the NYU kids looked around for the movie cameras they evidently thought were rolling, since the whole thing appeared to be some scene from a Law and Order episode being filmed on Thompson Street, or something. “Toss her in the car.”

And Lars did! He tossed me in the car!

And okay, he tossed my journal in after me. And a pen.

And my Chinese slippers with the sequin flowers on the toes.

But still! Is this any way to treat a princess, I ask you? Or even a human being?

And Dad won’t even tell me where we’re going. He just goes, “You’ll see,” when I ask.

After getting over the initial shock of being manhandled in such a way, I find, to my surprise, that I don’t much care. I mean, it’s weird to be sitting in my dad’s limo in my Hello Kitty pajamas, with my sheet and duvet wrapped around me.

But at the same time, I can’t summon up any real indignation about it.

I think that might actually be the problem. That I just don’t care about anything anymore.

Except I can’t even be bothered to care about that very much, either.

Thursday, September 16, noon, Dr. Knutz’s office

We’re sitting in a psychologist’s office.

I’m not even kidding. My dad didn’t take me to the royal jet to go back to Genovia. He brought me to the Upper East Side to see a psychologist.

And not just any psychologist, either. But one of the nation’s preeminent experts on adolescent and child psychology. At least if all the many degrees and awards framed on the wall of his outer office is any indication.

I guess this is supposed to impress me. Or at least comfort me.

Although I can’t say I feel too comforted by the fact that his name is Dr. Arthur T. Knutz.

Yes, that’s right. My dad has brought me to see Dr. Knutz. Because he—and Mom and Mr. G—apparently think I’m nuts.

I know I probably look nuts, sitting here in my pajamas, with my duvet still clutched around me. But whose fault is that? They could have let me get dressed.

Not that I would have, of course. But if they’d told me they were taking me out of the apartment, I might have at least put on a bra.