Party Princess

by Meg Cabot

  Oh. Well. Yes. It’s true.

  And you’re starting a literary magazine too make up for the lost revenue?

  Who told you that?

  Lilly. Can I just say that, even though I think starting a literary magazine is a neat idea and all, when we needed to make some money fast at my old school, we sold the cutest scented candles in the shapes of actual fruits, and we made a mint!

  What a great idea! Don’t you think so, Mia?

  NO!

  Wednesday, March 3, G & T

  So at lunch today Boris Pelkowski put his tray down next to mine and said, “So I hear we’re broke.”

  And I seriously lost it.

  “YOU GUYS,” I yelled at the entire lunch table. “YOU HAVE TO STOP TALKING ABOUT THIS. WE’RE TRYING TO KEEP IT A SECRET.”

  Then I explained about how much I value my life, and how I would not care for it to be cut short by an enraged hapkido brown-belt valedictorian with monkeylike strength in her upper torso (even if, by killing and/or maiming me, she would actually be doing me a favor, since then I wouldn’t have to live with the humiliation of having my boyfriend forsake me because I am not a party girl).

  “She would never kill you, Mia,” Boris pointed out helpfully. “Lars would shoot her first.”

  Lars, who was showing Tina’s bodyguard, Wahim, all the games on his new Sidekick, looked up upon hearing his name.

  “Who is planning to kill the princess?” Lars asked alertly.

  “No one,” I said, from between gritted teeth. “Because we’re going to get the money before she ever finds out. RIGHT????”

  I think I must have really impressed them with my seriousness, since they all went, “Okay.”

  Then, thankfully, Perin changed the subject.

  “Uh-oh, looks like they did it again,” she said, pointing to the Guy Who Hates It When They Put Corn in the Chili. Because he was sitting in his usual place by himself, disgustedly picking pieces of corn from his bowl of chili, and flicking them onto his lunch tray.

  “That poor guy,” Perin said with a sigh. “I feel so bad whenever I see him sitting alone like that. I know how that feels.”

  There was a painful pause as we all recalled how Perin had sat by herself at the beginning of the school year because she was new. Until we adopted her, that is.

  “I thought he got a girlfriend,” Tina said. “Didn't you say you saw him buying prom tickets last year, Mia?”

  “Yes,” I replied, with a sigh. “But I was wrong. It turned out he was only asking the people who were selling the prom tickets if they knew where the closest F train station was.”

  Which, incidentally, is what inspired my short story about him.

  “It's so sad,” Tina said, gazing in the direction of the Guy Who Hates It When They Put Corn in the Chili. “It makes me think that what happens in Mia’s short story about him could happen in real life.”

  !!!!!

  “Maybe we should ask him to sit with us,” I said. Because the last thing I need, on top of everything else, is the guilt of having caused some guy to commit suicide by not being nicer to him.

  “No, thank you,” Boris said. “I have enough problems digesting this disgusting food without having to do so in the company of a bonafide weirdo.”

  “Hello,” Lilly said under her breath. “Pot, this is kettle. You’re black.”

  “I heard that,” Boris said, looking pained.

  “You were meant to,” Lilly sang.

  Then Lilly pulled a bunch of flyers from her Hello Kitty Trapper Keeper. She’d clearly been down in the office, photo-copying something. She started passing the photocopies around.

  “Everybody, give these out in your afternoon classes,” she said. “Hopefully by tomorrow we’ll get enough submissions to run our first issue by the end of this week.”

  I looked down at the bright pink flyer. It said:

  * * *

  HEY YOU!

  Are you sick and tired of being told what’s hot and what’s not by the so-called media?

  Do you want to read stories written by your peers, about issues that really matter to you, instead of the stream of pap we are fed by teen magazines and our parents’ newspapers?

  Then submit your original articles, poetry, short stories, cartoons, manga, novellas, and photos to Albert Einstein High School’s first ever literary magazine

  FAT LOUIE’S PINK BUTTHOLE!!!!

  Fat Louie’s Pink Butthole now accepting submissions for Volume I, Issue I

  * * *

  Oh my God.

  OH MY GOD.

  “Before you go all reactionary about the name of our literary magazine, Mia,” Lilly began—I guess because she must have noticed my lips turning white—“may I just point out that it is extremely creative and that, if we stick with it, we will never have to worry about any other literary magazine in the world having the same name?”

  “Because it’s named after my cat’s butt!”

  “Yes,” Lilly said. “It is. Thanks to the movies based on your life, your cat is famous, Mia. Everyone knows who Fat Louie is. That is why our magazine is going to sell. Because when people realize it has something to do with the princess of Genovia, they will snatch it right up. Because, for reasons that are beyond me, people are actually interested in you.”

  “But the title isn’t about ME!” I wailed. “It’s about my cat! My cat’s butt, to be exact!”

  “Yes,” Lilly said. “I will admit it’s a bit on the juvenile side. But that is why it will get people’s attention. They won’t be able to look away. I figure for the first cover, I’ll take a picture of Fat Louie’s butt, and then—”

  She kept on talking, but I wasn’t listening. I COULDN’T listen.

  Why must I be surrounded by so many lunatics?

  Wednesday, March 3, Earth Science

  Kenny just asked me to rewrite our worksheet on subduction zones. Not do the actual WORK over again (although it wouldn’t really be over again, since I didn’t do it in the first place—he did), but redo it on a new sheet that isn’t covered in pizza stains like the one we would be handing in if I weren’t redoing it, due to the fact that Kenny did it last night while he was eating his dinner.

  I wish Kenny would be more careful with our homework. It’s a big pain for me to have to copy it over. Lilly’s not the only one with carpals, you know. I mean, SHE isn’t the one who has to sign a gazillion autographs for people every time she gets out of her limo in front of the Plaza. People have started LINING UP there every day after school because they know I’ll be coming for my princess lesson with Grandmère. I have to keep a Sharpie with me at all times just for that reason.

  Writing Princess Mia Thermopolis over and over again is no joke. I wish my name weren’t so long.

  Maybe I should just switch to writing HRH Mia. But would that seem stuck-up?

  Kenny just showed me the Fat Louie’s Pink Butthole flyer and asked if I thought his thesis on brown dwarf stars would be suitable for publication.

  “I don’t know,” I told him. “I have nothing to do with it.”

  “But it’s named after your cat,” he said, looking dismayed.

  “Yeah,” I said. “But I still have nothing to do with it.”

  He doesn’t seem to believe me.

  I can’t say I blame him.

  HOMEWORK

  PE: WASH GYM SHORTS!!!

  U.S. Economics: Chapter 8

  English: pages 116–132, O Pioneers

  French: Écrivez une histoire comique pour vendredi

  G&T: Figure out what I’m going to wear to The Party Geometry: Worksheet

  Earth Science: Ask Kenny

  Don’t forget: Tomorrow is Grandmère’s birthday! Bring gift to school so I can give it to her at princess lessons!!!!!!!!

  Wednesday, March 3, the Plaza

  Something is definitely up with Grandmère. I knew this the minute I walked into her suite, because she was being WAY too nice to me. She was like, “Amelia! How lovely to see you! Si
t down! Have a bonbon!” and shoved all these truffles from La Maison du Chocolat in my face.

  Oh yeah. Something’s going on.

  Either that or she’s drunk. Again.

  AEHS should really do a convocation about coping with alcoholic grandparents. Because I could use some tips.

  “Good news,” she announced. “I think I might be able to help you with your little financial predicament.”

  WHOA. WHOA!!!!!! Grandmère is coming through with a loan? Oh, thank you, God! THANK YOU!

  “When I was in school,” she went on, “and we ran low on funds for our spring trip to Paris to visit the couture houses one year, we put on a show.”

  I nearly choked on my tea. “You WHAT?”

  “Put on a show,” Grandmère said. “It was The Mikado, you know. That we put on, I mean. Gilbert and Sullivan. Quite difficult, particularly since we were an all-girls school, and there are so many male leads. I remember Genevieve—you know, the one who used to dip my braids into her inkwell when I wasn’t looking—was so disappointed in having to play the Mikado.” An evil grin spread across Grandmère’s face. “The Mikado was supposed to be quite large, you know. I suppose Genevieve was upset about being typecast.”

  Okay. So, obviously, no loan was forthcoming. Grandmère just felt like taking a little jog down memory lane, and had decided to drag me along with her.

  I wondered if she’d even notice if I started text messaging Michael. He’d just be getting out of his Stochastic Analysis and Optimization class.

  “I had the starring role, of course,” Grandmère was going on, lost in reverie. “The ingenue, Yum-Yum. People said I was the finest Yum-Yum they had ever seen, but I’m sure they were only trying to flatter me. Still, with my twenty-inch waist, I did look absurdly fetching in a kimono.”

  Text message: STUCK W/GM

  “No one was more surprised than I was when it turned out there was a Broadway director in the audience—Señor Eduardo Fuentes, one of the most influential stage directors of his day—and he approached me after opening night with an offer to star in the show he was directing in New York. I never even considered it, of course—”

  Text message: I MISS U

  “—since I knew I was destined for much greater things than a career in the theater. I wanted to be a surgeon, or perhaps a fashion designer, like Coco Chanel.”

  Text message: I LUV U

  “He was devastated, of course. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out he was a little bit in love with me. I did look smart in that kimono. But, of course, my parents never would have approved. And if I HAD gone to New York with him, I’d never have met your grandfather.”

  Text message: GET ME OUT OF HERE

  “You should have heard my rendition of ‘Three Little Maids’:

  ‘Three little maids from school are we—’”

  Text message: OMG SHE IS SINGING SEND HELP NOW

  “‘Pert as a schoolgirl well can be—’”

  Fortunately Grandmère broke off at that point in a coughing fit. “Oh dear! Yes. I was quite the sensation that year, let me tell you.”

  Text message: THIS IS WORSE THAN WHAT AC WILL DO 2 ME WHEN SHE FINDS OUT ABOUT THE $

  “Amelia, what are you doing with that mobile phone?”

  “Nothing,” I said, quickly pressing SEND.

  Grandmère’s face still had a dewy look from her stroll down memory lane.

  “Amelia. I have an idea.”

  Oh no.

  See, there are two people in my acquaintance from whom you never want to hear the words “I have an idea.”

  Lilly is one.

  Grandmère is the other.

  “Would you look at that?” I pointed at the clock. “Six o’clock already. Well, I better get going, I’m sure you have dinner plans with some shah or something. Isn’t it your birthday tomorrow? You must have some pre-birthday reflection to do….”

  “Sit back down, Amelia,” Grandmère said in her scariest voice.

  I sat.

  “I think,” Grandmère said, “that you should put on a show.”

  At least, that’s what I could have sworn she said.

  But that couldn’t be correct. Because no one in her right mind would say something like that.

  Wait. Did I just write “in her right mind”?

  “A show?” I knew Grandmère had recently cut back on her smoking. She hadn’t quit or anything. But her doctor told her if she didn’t cut back, she’d be on an oxygen tank by the time she’s seventy.

  So Grandmère had started limiting her cigarettes to after meals only. This is on account of her not being able to find an oxygen tank that goes with any of her designer outfits.

  I decided that maybe the nicotine patch she was wearing had backfired or something, sending pure, unadulterated carbon monoxide into her bloodstream.

  Because that was the only explanation I could think of for why she might possibly consider it a good idea for Albert Einstein High School to put on a show.

  “Grandmère,” I said. “Maybe you should peel off your patch. Slowly. And I’ll just call your doctor—”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Amelia,” she said, sniffing at the suggestion that she might be suffering from any sort of brain aneurysm or stroke, either of which, at her age, are highly likely, according to Yahoo! Health. “It is a perfectly reasonable idea for a fund-raiser. People have been putting on benefits and amateur entertainments for centuries to generate donations for their causes.”

  “But, Grandmère,” I said. “The Drama Club is already putting on a show this spring, the musical Hair. They’ve started rehearsals and everything.”

  “So? A little competition might make things more interesting for them,” Grandmère said.

  “Uh,” I said. How was I going to break it to Grandmère that her idea was totally subpar? Like, almost as bad as selling candles? Or starting a literary magazine and calling it Fat Louie’s Pink Butthole?

  “Grandmère,” I said. “I appreciate your concern for my economic blunder. But I do not need your help. Okay? Really, it’s going to be all right. I will find a way to raise the cash myself. Lilly and I are already on it, and we—”

  “Then you may tell Lilly,” Grandmère said, “that your financial problems are over, since it is your grandmother’s intention to put on a play that will have the theater community begging for tickets, and everyone who is anyone in New York society dying to be involved. It will be a completely original spectacle, in order to showcase your myriad talents.”

  She must have meant Lilly’s talents. Because I have no theatrical skills.

  “Grandmère,” I said. “No. I really mean it. We don’t need your help. We’re fine, okay? Just fine. Whatever you’re thinking of doing, cut it out. Because I swear, if you butt in again, I’ll call Dad. Don’t think I won’t!”

  But Grandmère had already drifted away, asking her maid to find her Rolodex…she apparently had some calls to make.

  Well, it shouldn’t be too hard to stop her. I can just tell Principal Gupta not to let her into the building. With the new security cameras and all, they can’t claim they didn’t see her coming: She doesn’t go anywhere without a stretch limo and a hairless toy poodle. She can’t be too hard to spot.

  Wednesday, March 3, the loft

  Lilly says Grandmère must be projecting her feelings of powerlessness over being outbid by John Paul Reynolds-Abernathy the Third for the fake island of Genovia onto my problems with the student government’s financial situation.

  “It’s a classic case of transference,” is what Lilly said when I called her a little while ago to beg her one last time to change the name of her literary magazine. “I don’t understand why you’re so upset about it. If it makes her happy, why not let her put on her little play? I’ll happily play the lead…I have no problem taking on yet another responsibility, in addition to the vice presidency, my role as creator, director, and star of Lilly Tells It Like It Is, and editing Fat Louie’s Pink Butthole.”

/>   “Yeah,” I said. “About that, Lilly…”

  “Well, it was my idea, wasn’t it?” Lilly reminded me. “Shouldn’t I be editor? This magazine’s going to ROCK, we’ve had so many kick-ass contributions already.”

  “Lilly,” I said, mustering all of my carefully honed leadership qualities and speaking in a calm, measured voice, the way my dad addresses Parliament, “I don’t care about your being editor, and all of that. And I think it’s great and everything that you’re doing this—providing a forum in which the artists and writers of AEHS can express themselves. But don’t you think we need to concentrate on how we’re going to raise the five grand we need for the seniors’ gradua—”

  “Fat Louie’s Pink Butthole IS going to raise five grand,” Lilly said confidently. “It’s going to raise MORE than five grand. It’s going to raise the roof off the publishing industry as we know it. Sixteen magazine is going to be put out of business when people get hold of Fat Louie’s Pink Butthole and read the honest, raw pieces it contains, slices of American teen life that will have 60 Minutes pounding on my door, demanding interviews, and no doubt Quentin Tarantino, asking for the film rights—”

  “Wow,” I said, barely listening. Am I the ONLY person who recognizes the GREAT pain we are going to be in when Amber Cheeseman finds out we have no money to pay for Alice Tully Hall? “The contributions you’ve gotten are that good, huh?”

  “Spectacular. I had no idea our fellow students were so DEEP. Kenny Showalter in particular wrote an ode to his true love that brought tears to my—”

  “Kenny wrote an ode?”

  “Well, he CALLS it a thesis about brown dwarf stars, but it is clearly a tribute to a woman. A woman he once loved, then tragically lost.”

  Whoa. Who had KENNY ever loved and lost? Except…