The Princess Diaries I

by Meg Cabot

  Last night was totally fun. The Drs. Moscovitz were out—they had to go to a benefit at the Puck Building for the homosexual children of survivors of the Holocaust—so Lilly and I made this huge vat of popcorn smothered in butter and climbed into her parents’ giant canopy bed and watched all the James Bond movies in a row. We were able to definitively determine that Pierce Brosnan was the skinniest James Bond, Sean Connery the hairiest, and Roger Moore the most tan. None of the James Bonds took off their shirts enough for us to decide who had the best chest, but I think probably Timothy Dalton.

  I like chest hair. I think.

  It was sort of ironic that while I was trying to decide this Lilly’s brother came into the room. He had on a shirt, though. He looked kind of annoyed. He said my dad was on the phone. My dad was all mad because he’d been trying to get through for hours, only Michael was on the Internet answering fan mail for his webzine, Crackhead, so my dad kept getting a busy signal.

  I must have looked like I was going to throw up or something, because after a minute Michael said, "Okay, don’t worry about it, Thermopolis. I’ll tell him you and Lilly already went to bed," which is a lie my mother would never believe, but it must have gone over pretty well with my dad, since Michael came back and reported that my dad had apologized for calling so late (it was only eleven) and that he’d speak to me in the morning.

  Great. I can’t wait.

  I guess I must have still looked like I was going to throw up, because Michael called his dog and made him get into bed with us, even though pets aren’t allowed in the Drs. Moscovitzes’ room. Pavlov crawled into my lap and started licking my face, which he’ll only do to people he really trusts. Then Michael sat down to watch the movies with us, and in the interest of science, Lilly asked him which Bond girls were most attractive to him, the blonds who always needed James Bond to rescue them or the brunettes who were always pulling guns on him, and Michael said he couldn’t resist a girl with a weapon, which got us started on his two favorite TV shows of all time, Xena: Warrior Princess and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

  So then, not really in the interest of science but more out of plain curiosity, I asked Michael if it was the end of the world and he had to repopulate the planet but he could only choose one life mate, who would it be, Xena or Buffy?

  After telling me how weird I was for thinking of something like that, Michael chose Buffy, and then Lilly asked me if I had to choose between Harrison Ford or George Clooney who would it be, and I said Harrison Ford even though he’s so old, but the Harrison Ford from Indiana Jones, not Star Wars, and then Lilly said she’d choose Harrison Ford as Jack Ryan in those Tom Clancy movies, and then Michael goes, "Who would you choose, Harrison Ford or Leonardo di Caprio?" and we both chose Harrison Ford because Leonardo is so passé, and then he went, "Who would you choose, Harrison Ford or Josh Richter?" and Lilly said Harrison Ford, because he used to be a carpenter, and if it was the end of the world he could build her a house, but I said Josh Richter, because he’d live longer—Harrison is like SIXTY—and be able to give me a hand with the kids.

  Then Michael started saying all this totally unfair stuff about Josh Richter, like how in the face of nuclear armageddon he’d probably show cowardice, but Lilly said fear of new things is not an accurate measure of one’s potential for growth, with which I agreed. Then Michael said we were both idiots if we thought Josh Richter would ever give us so much as the time of day, that he only liked girls like Lana Weinberger, who put out, to which Lilly responded that she would put out for Josh Richter if he was able to meet certain conditions, like bathing beforehand in an antibacterial solution and wearing three condoms coated in spermicidal fluid during the act, in case one broke and one slipped off.

  Then Michael asked me if I would put out for Josh Richter, and I had to think about it for a minute. Losing your virginity is a really big step, and you have to do it with the right person or else you could be screwed up for the rest of your life, like the women in Dr. Moscovitz’s Over Forty and Still Single group, which meets every other Tuesday. So after I’d thought about it, I said I would put out for Josh Richter, but only if:

  1. We’d been dating for at least a year.

  2. He pledged his undying love to me.

  3. He took me to see Beauty and the Beast on Broadway and didn’t make fun of it.

  Michael said the first two sounded all right, but if the third one was an example of the kind of boyfriend I expected to get, I’d be a virgin for a long, long time. He said he didn’t know anyone with an ounce of testosterone who could watch Beauty and the Beast on Broadway without projectile vomiting. But he’s wrong, because my dad definitely has testosterone—at least one testicle full—and he’s never projectile vomited at the show.

  Then Lilly asked Michael who he would choose if he had to, me or Lana Weinberger, and he said, "Mia, of course," but I’m sure he was just saying that because I was right there in the room and he didn’t want to dis me to my face.

  I wish Lilly wouldn’t do things like that.

  But she kept on doing it, wanting to know who Michael would choose, me or Madonna, and me or Buffy the Vampire Slayer (he chose me over Madonna, but Buffy won, hands down, over me).

  And then Lilly wanted to know who I would choose, Michael or Josh Richter. I pretended to be seriously thinking about it, when to my total relief the Drs. Moscovitz came home and started yelling at us for letting Pavlov in their room and eating popcorn in their bed.

  So then later after Lilly and I had cleaned up all the popcorn and gone back to her room, she asked me again who I would choose, Josh Richter or her brother, and I had to say Josh Richter, because Josh Richter is the hottest boy in our whole school, maybe the whole world, and I am completely and totally in love with him, and not just because of the way his blond hair sometimes falls into his eyes when he’s bent over, looking for stuff in his locker, but because I know that behind that jock facade he maintains he is a deeply sensitive and caring person. I could tell by the way he said hey to me that day in Bigelows.

  But I couldn’t help thinking if it really were the end of the world, it might be better to be with Michael, even if he isn’t so hot, because at least he makes me laugh. I think at the end of the world a sense of humor would be important.

  Plus, of course, Michael looks really good without a shirt.

  And if it really was the end of the world, Lilly would be dead, so she’d never know her brother and I were procreating!

  I’d never want Lilly to know that I feel that way about her brother. She’d think it was weird.

  Weirder even than me turning out to be the princess of Genovia.

  Later on Saturday

  The whole way home from Lilly’s I worried about what my mom and dad were going to say when I got home. I had never disobeyed them before. I mean, really never.

  Well, okay, there was that one time Lilly and Shameeka and Ling Su and I went to see that Christian Slater movie, but we ended up going to The Rocky Horror Picture Show instead, and I forgot to call until after the movie, which ended at like 2:30 in the morning and we were in Times Square and didn’t have enough money left among us for a cab.

  But that was just that one time! And I totally learned a lesson from it, without my mom having to ground me or anything. Not that she would ever do something like that—ground me, I mean. Who would go to the cash machine to get money for take-out if I were grounded?

  But my dad’s another story. He is totally rigid in the discipline department. My mom says that’s because Grandmère used to punish him when he was a little boy by locking him into this one really scary room in their house.

  Now that I think about it, the house my dad grew up in was probably the castle, and that scary room was probably the dungeon.

  Geez, no wonder my dad does every single thing Grandmère says.

  Anyway, when my dad gets mad at me he really gets mad. Like the time I wouldn’t go to church with Grandmère because I refused to pray to a god who would allow rain forests t
o be destroyed in order to make grazing room for cows who would later become Quarter Pounders for the ignorant masses who worship that symbol of all that is evil, Ronald McDonald. Not only did my dad tell me that if I didn’t go to church he’d wear out my behind, he said he wouldn’t let me read Michael’s webzine, Crackhead, again! He refused to let me go on-line again for the rest of the summer. He crushed my modem with a magnum of Chateauneuf du Pape.

  Talk about reactionary!

  So I was totally worried about what he was going to do when I got home from Lilly’s.

  I tried to hang out at the Moscovitzes’ as long as possible: I loaded the breakfast dishes in the dishwasher for Maya, since she was busy writing a letter to her congressman asking him to please do something about her son, Manuel, who was wrongfully imprisoned ten years ago for supporting a revolution in their country. I walked Pavlov, since Michael had to go to an astrophysics lecture at Columbia. I even unclogged the jets in the Drs. Moscovitzes’ Jacuzzi—boy, does Lilly’s dad shed a lot.

  Then Lilly had to go and announce that it was time to shoot the one-hour special episode of her show, the one dedicated to her feet. Only it turned out the Drs. Moscovitz had not left, like we thought they had, for their rolfing sessions. They totally overheard and told me that I had to go home while they analyzed Lilly about her need to taunt her sex-crazed stalker.

  Here’s the thing:

  I am generally a very good daughter. I mean it. I don’t smoke. I don’t do drugs. I haven’t given birth at any proms. I am completely trustworthy, and I do my homework most of the time. Except for one lousy F in a class that will be of no use to me whatsoever in my future life, I’m doing pretty well.

  And then they had to spring the princess thing on me.

  I decided on my way home that if my dad tried to punish me I was going to call Judge Judy. He’d really be sorry if he landed in front of Judge Judy because of this. She’d let him have it, boy, let me tell you. People trying to make other people be princesses when they don’t want to be? Judge Judy wouldn’t stand for any of it.

  Of course, when I got home, it turned out I didn’t have to call Judge Judy at all.

  My mom hadn’t gone to her studio, which she does every Saturday without fail. She was sitting there waiting for me to come home, reading old copies of the subscription she got me to Seventeen magazine before she realized I was too flat-chested to ever be asked out on a date, so all the information provided in that particular periodical was worthless to me.

  Then there was my dad, who was sitting in the exact same spot as he’d been when I’d left the day before, only this time he was reading the Sunday Times, even though it was Saturday, and Mom and I have this rule that you can’t start reading the Sunday sections until Sunday. To my surprise, he wasn’t wearing a suit. Today he had on a sweater—cashmere, no doubt given to him by one of his many girlfriends—and corduroy pants.

  When I walked in, he folded the paper all carefully, put it down, and gave me this long, intent look, like Captain Picard right before he starts going on to Ryker about the Prime Directive. Then he goes, "We need to talk."

  I immediately started in about how it wasn’t like I hadn’t told them where I was, and how I just needed a little time away to think about things, and how I’d been really careful and hadn’t taken the subway or anything, and my dad just went, "I know."

  Just like that. "I know." He completely gave in without a fight.

  My dad.

  I looked at my mom to see if she’d noticed that he’d lost his mind. And then she did the craziest thing. She put the magazine down and came over and hugged me and said, "We’re so sorry, baby."

  Hello? These are my parents? Did the body snatchers come while I was gone and replace my parents with pod people? Because that was the only way I could think of that my parents would be so reasonable.

  Then my dad goes, "We understand the stress that this has brought you, Mia, and we want you to know that we’ll do everything in our power to try to make this transition as smooth for you as possible."

  Then my dad asked me if I knew what a compromise was, and I said yes, of course, I’m not in like the third grade anymore, so he pulled out this piece of paper, and on it we all drafted what my mom calls the Thermopolis-Renaldo Compromise. It goes like this:

  I, the undersigned, Artur Christoff Phillipe Gerard Grimaldi Renaldo, agree that my sole offspring and heir, Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Thermopolis Renaldo, may finish out her high school tenure at Albert Einstein School for Boys (made coeducational circa 1975) without interruption, save for Christmas and summer breaks, which she will spend without complaint in the country of Genovia.

  I asked if that meant no more summers at Miragnac, and he said yes. I couldn’t believe it. Christmas and summer, free of Grandmère? That would be like going to the dentist, only instead of having cavities filled I’d just get to read Teen People and suck up a lot of laughing gas! I was so happy, I hugged him right there. But unfortunately, it turned out there was more to the agreement:

  I, the undersigned, Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Thermopolis Renaldo, agree to fulfill the duties of heir to Artur Christoff Phillipe Gerard Grimaldi Renaldo, prince of Genovia, and all that such a role entails, including but not exclusive to, assuming the throne upon the latter’s demise and attending functions of state at which the presence of said heir is deemed essential.

  All of that sounded pretty good to me, except the last part. Functions of state? What were they?

  My dad got all vague: "Oh, you know. Attending the funerals of world leaders, opening balls, that sort of thing."

  Hello? Funerals? Balls? Whatever happened to smashing bottles of champagne against ocean liners, and going to Hollywood premieres, and that kind of thing?

  "Well," my dad said, "Hollywood premieres aren’t really all they’re pegged up to be. Flashbulbs going off in your face, that kind of thing. Terribly unpleasant."

  Yeah, but funerals? Balls? I don’t even know how to put on lip liner, let alone curtsy. . . .

  "Oh, that’s all right," my dad said, putting the cap back on his pen. "Grandmère will take care of that."

  Yeah, right. What can she do? She’s in France!

  Ha! Ha! Ha!

  Saturday Night

  I can’t even believe what a loser I am. I mean, Saturday night, alone with my DAD!

  He actually tried to talk me into going to see Beauty and the Beast, like he felt sorry for me because I didn’t have a date!

  I finally had to say, "Look, Dad, I am not a child anymore. Even the prince of Genovia can’t get tickets to a Broadway show at a minute’s notice on a Saturday night."

  He was just feeling left out because Mom had taken off on another date with Mr. Gianini. She wanted to cancel on him, given all the upheaval that has occurred in my life over the past twenty-four hours, but I totally made her go because I could see her lips getting smaller and smaller the more time she spent with Dad. Mom’s lips only get small when she’s trying to keep herself from saying something, and I think what she wanted to say to my dad was "Get out! Go back to your hotel! You’re paying six hundred dollars a night for that suite! Can’t you go stay in it?"

  My dad drives my mom completely insane because he’s always going around, digging her bank statements out from the big salad bowl where she throws all our mail, and trying to tell her how much she would save in interest if she would just transfer funds out of her checking account and into a Roth IRA.

  So even though she felt like she should stay home, I knew if she did she’d explode, so I said go, please go, and that Dad and I would discuss what it’s like to govern a small principality in today’s economic market. Only when Mom came out in her datewear, which included this totally hot black minidress from Victoria’s Secret (my mom hates shopping, so she buys all her clothes from catalogs while she’s soaking in the tub after a long day of painting), my dad started to choke on this ice cube. I guess he had never seen my mom in a minidress before—back in college, when they wer
e going out, all she ever wore were overalls, like me—because he drank down his scotch and soda really fast and then said, "That’s what you’re wearing?" which made my mom go, "What’s wrong with it?" and look at herself all worriedly in the mirror.

  She looked totally fine; in fact, she looked much better than she usually did, which I guess was the problem. I mean, it sounds weird to admit, but my mom can be a total Betty when she puts her mind to it. I can only wish that someday I’ll be as pretty as my mom. I mean, she doesn’t have Yield sign hair or a flat chest or size-ten shoes. She is way hot, as far as moms go.

  Then the buzzer rang and Mom ran out because she didn’t want Mr. Gianini to come up and meet her ex, the prince of Genovia. Which was understandable, since he was still choking and looked sort of funny. I mean, he looked like a red-faced bald man in a cashmere sweater coughing up a lung. I mean, I would have been embarrassed to admit I had ever had sex with him, if I were her.

  Anyway, it was good for me that she didn’t buzz Mr. Gianini up, because I didn’t want him asking me in front of my parents why I hadn’t gone to his review session on Friday.

  So then, after they were gone, I tried to show my dad how much better suited I am for life in Manhattan than in Genovia by ordering some really excellent food. I got us an insalata caprese, ravioli al funghetto, and a pizza margherita, all for under twenty bucks, but I swear, my dad wasn’t a bit impressed! He just poured himself another scotch and soda and turned on the TV. He didn’t even notice when Fat Louie sat down next to him. He started petting him like it was nothing. And my dad claims to be allergic to cats.