Princess Mia (The Princess Diaries 9)

Well. That was the weirdest thing. Ever.

Dr. Knutz was…not what I was expecting.

I don’t know what I was expecting, really, but not Dr. Knutz. I know Dad said not to let his name or his demeanor fool me, but I mean, from his name and his profession, I expected him to be a little old bald dude with a goatee and glasses and maybe a German accent.

And he was old. Like Grandmère’s age.

But he wasn’t little. And he wasn’t bald. And he didn’t have a goatee. And he had sort of a Western accent. That’s because, he explained, whe

n he isn’t at his practice in New York City, he’s at his ranch in Montana.

Yes. That’s right. Dr. Knutz is a cowboy. A cowboy psychologist.

It so figures that out of all the psychologists in New York, I would end up with a cowboy one.

His office is furnished like the inside of a ranch house. On the wood paneling along his office walls there are pictures of wild mustangs running free. And every one of the books on the shelves behind him are by the famous Western authors Louis L’Amour and Zane Grey. His office furniture is dark leather and trimmed with brass studs. There’s even a cowboy hat hanging on the peg on the back of the door. And the carpet is a Navajo rug.

I could tell right away from all this that Dr. Knutz certainly lived up to his name. Also, that he was way crazier than me.

This had to be a joke. My dad had to be kidding that Dr. Knutz is one of the nation’s preeminent experts on adolescent and child psychology. Maybe I was being punk’d. Maybe Ashton Kutcher was going to pop out any minute and be all, “D’oh! Princess Mia! You’ve just been punk’d! This guy isn’t a psychologist at all! He’s my uncle Joe!”

“So,” Dr. Knutz said, in this big booming cowboy voice after I’d sat down next to Dad on the couch across from Dr. Knutz’s big leather armchair. “You’re Princess Mia. Nice to meetcha. Heard you were uncharacteristically nice to your grandma yesterday.”

I was completely shocked by this. Unlike Dr. Knutz’s other patients, who, presumably, are children, I happen to be acquainted with a pair of Jungian psychologists—Dr. and Dr. Moscovitz—so I am not unfamiliar with how doctor-patient relationships are supposed to go.

And they are not supposed to begin with completely false accusations on the part of the doctor.

“That is total and utter slander,” I said. “I wasn’t nice to her. I just said what she wanted to hear so she would go away.”

“Oh,” Dr. Knutz said. “That’s different. So you’re telling me everything is hunky-dory, then?”

“Obviously not,” I said. “Since I am sitting here in your office in my pajamas and a duvet.”

“You know, I’d noticed that,” Dr. Knutz said. “But you young girls are always wearing the oddest things, so I just figured it was the new fashion craze, or something.”

I could see right away that this was never going to fly. How could I entrust my innermost emotional thoughts to someone who goes around calling me and my peers “you young girls” and thinks any of us would willingly go outside dressed in Hello Kitty pajamas and a duvet?

“This isn’t going to work for me,” I said to my dad as I got up. “Let’s go.”

“Hang on a second, Mia,” Dad said. “We just got here, okay? Give the man a chance.”

“Dad.” I couldn’t believe this. I mean, if I had to go to therapy, why couldn’t my parents have found me a real therapist, not a COWBOY therapist? “Let’s go. Before he BRANDS me.”

“You got something against ranchers, little lady?” Dr. Knutz wanted to know.

“Um, considering that I’m a vegetarian,” I said. I didn’t mention that I stopped being a vegetarian a week ago. “Yes, yes, I do.”

“You seem awful hetted up,” Dr. Knutz said. I swear he really said hetted and not heated. “For someone who, according to this, says she finds herself not caring about anything at all most of the time.”

He tapped the assessment sheet I’d filled out in his outer office. Sinking back down in my seat, since I could tell this was going to take a while, I said, “Look, Dr., um—” I couldn’t even bring myself to say his name! “I think you should know that I’ve been studying the work of Dr. Carl Jung for some time. I have been struggling to achieve self-actualization for years. I am no stranger to psychology. I happen to know perfectly well what’s wrong with me.”

“Oh, you do,” Dr. Knutz said, looking intrigued. “Enlighten me.”

“I’m just,” I said, “feeling a little down. It’s a normal reaction to something that happened to me last week.”

“Right,” Dr. Knutz said, looking down at a piece of paper on his desk. “You broke up with your boyfriend—Michael, is it?”

“Yes,” I said. “And, okay, maybe it’s a little more complicated than a normal teenager’s breakup, because I’m a princess, and Michael is a genius, and he thinks he has to go off to Japan to build a robotic surgical arm in order to prove to my family that he’s worthy of me, when the truth is, I’m not worthy of him, and I suppose because deep down inside, I know that I completely sabotaged our relationship.