by Meg Cabot
Friday, May 8
3:45 P.M.
My Room, Cranbrook, New Jersey
They weren’t.
I didn’t even see her coming. When Annabelle’s fist landed between my eyes, it knocked me down flat.
As I lay there blinking up at the sky, wondering what all the stars were doing out even though it was daytime, the next thing I saw after Annabelle’s mean face was Sabine’s. She was leaning over me saying, “Princess? Princess Olivia? How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Two,” I said. My voice sounded strange.
Sabine nodded crisply enough to make her ponytail bounce and said, “You’ll live. I see we need to work on your self-defense skills.”
“Tell me about it.”
She smiled—the first time I’d ever seen her smile—then moved away as she said into her headset, “The princess will be fine. Bring the cars around.”
Next my step-cousin Justin’s face appeared.
“You can get up now,” he said. “Annabelle’s gone.”
Only I found that I felt much more comfortable on the ground. So I stayed were I was, watching the stars spin around and around.
“She’s bleeding!” I heard a familiar voice cry. Ms. Dakota, I thought. I wondered who she was talking about. Who was bleeding?
“One of the guards went to get a first-aid kid.” That was Nishi. “Olivia, can you get up? Come on, you guys, let’s help her.”
Then Nishi and Beth Chandler and the twins pulled me up to my feet. After everything stopped spinning, I saw that tons of people were gathered around staring at me, including my art teacher, Ms. Dakota. She pressed a wad of tissue paper that she’d pulled from her purse to my nose, which seemed to be running. A lot.
“Tilt your head forward, Olivia,” she said kindly, “and pinch your nose.”
I tilted my head forward and pinched my nose. The stars had finally disappeared and the sky had gone back to an ordinary blue anyway.
“Man,” Justin said. “That was a good strategy, just laying there like you were dead. Annabelle got so scared, she ran off. Your goons caught her halfway down the block. They probably have her in juvie by now.”
“No thanks to you!” Nishi yelled at him. “You were standing right there! Why didn’t you try to stop her?”
“It wasn’t my fight,” Justin said, looking genuinely surprised.
“Mom’s going to kill you,” Sara said, pointing at the front of my shirt. “You got blood all over yourself.”
I looked down at the front of my shirt. It had been white. Now it was stained with drops of bright red.
“Don’t listen to her,” Nishi ordered me, giving Sara a very dirty look. “Keep pinching your nose, like Ms. Dakota said.”
“Yes,” Ms. Dakota said. “Your nose is still bleeding a little, Olivia.”
So that’s what the runny stuff was. Not snot, like I’d thought, but blood.
“What’s happening out here?” I heard Dr. Bushy’s voice thunder, as the doors to the school swung open. “Why are you people just standing around? Why is no one getting on their buses?”
“Use your eyes, Paul,” Ms. Dakota snapped. “What do you think happened?”
I couldn’t move my head to look because Ms. Dakota was still holding her tissues to my nose, but I guessed by the change in his voice—it got considerably softer—that Dr. Bushy noticed all the blood on my shirt.
“Oh, dear,” he said. “Was it—?”
“Of course it was,” Ms. Dakota said.
“Olivia,” Dr. Bushy said. “I mean, er, Your Royal Highness … may I just say … I’m, er, very sorry. I never thought she would go this far.”
I remembered everything Mia and my grandmother and Dad and even Nishi had taught me about being a princess. Princess are never ungracious and they don’t hold grudges, either. They accept apologies when they’re given sincerely.
So I nodded to Dr. Bushy—as gracefully as I could while pinching my nose—and said, “It’s all right.”
I don’t think I’m suffering any sort of concussion or anything: I really do think Dr. Bushy looked relieved, and that Ms. Dakota smiled at me in a proud way, like I’m the best pupil she’d ever had.
Well, she did say in art class today that I’ve made a lot of progress with my perspective.
“Uh, Olivia?” Sara said, sounding nervous. I think she was starting to realize she’d chosen the wrong lunch table. “We’d better go. The bus is leaving.”
“Bus?” Sabine looked very insulted. “Princess Olivia will not be riding the bus.”
Then she took me by the arm and began to steer me away from the group outside the school. To my surprise, I saw that not only were there three black town cars—each with tinted windows and miniature Genovian flags flying from them—waiting for me, but so were hordes of paparrazzi. The paparazzi were behind a set of wooden barricades someone had erected to keep them off school property.
But that wasn’t stopping them from using telephoto lenses.
Great. Every single one of them had probably gotten up close photos of me getting my nose bashed in by Annabelle Jenkins.
“Are those cars for me?” I asked Sabine, hoping we could jump in one and get away as quickly as possible before anyone got anymore embarrassing photos.
“And your security staff,” she said.
“Oh, good,” I said.
When we got to the middle town car, and Sabine opened the passenger door for me, I turned to look back at Cranbrook Middle School and noticed that everyone outside of it was still watching me. It seemed like a good opportunity to use another one of the lessons Princess Mia had given me.
Even though my nose was killing me, I didn’t want those reporters to think what Annabelle had done was bothering me. So, still pinching my nose and holding the tissues Ms. Dakota had given me, I gave everyone at CMS a big Smile and Wave to let them know there were no hard feelings.
They all looked kind of confused for a minute, but then some of them waved back (and took photos with their cell phones, of course).
All except Nishi, who still looked super worried.
“Um,” I said to Sabine, through my frozen smile. “Do we have room for my friend Nishi to ride home with us?”
“Of course,” Sabine said, and spoke into her headset.
That’s how Nishi ended up riding home with me in the town car. Riding in town cars isn’t anywhere near as fun as riding in a limo (no mini-bar or disco lights), but it’s still way more fun than riding on the bus.
Nishi got Sabine to show us all the cool stuff they have in Royal Genovian Guard town cars, like the police scanner and bulletproof windows (which don’t roll down, so when Sabine let us stop at a drive-thru window—because I said my nose hurt so much, Nishi and I probably needed a chocolate milkshake to share—she had to get out of the car to get it).
Nishi made me hold a wad of cotton padding from the first-aid kit pressed up to my nose—the whole ride home, even when we were sharing our milk shake. When we dropped her off at her house, she didn’t want to leave.
“Are you sure you’re going to be all right?” she asked before she got out of the car.
“Yes,” I said.
“Well, tell your aunt to make you an ice pack. Or maybe take you to the doctor,” Nishi said. “Or do you want to come inside with me? My mom can take you.”
“It’s okay,” I said. My voice still sounded strange, probably because I was still pinching my nose. “We have ice. And I have these guys to take me to the doctor if I need to go.”
Sabine looked at Nishi from the front seat. “I can assure you that we have the situation under control, Miss Patel.”
“Okay,” Nishi said, still looking worried. “But call me later, Olivia.”
“I will,” I assured her.
Nishi went into her house, and the Genovian Royal Guard drove me to mine, where I got out of the car to find Justin and Sara had just arrived as well. The bus had taken as long as a bulletproof four-door sedan that had made
stops for milk shakes and to drop off my best friend.
“Ew,” Sara said, when she saw me. “You’re still all bloody.”
“Gross,” Justin said.
I don’t know who was more surprised when we walked into the house to find my dad and Princess Mia sitting in the living room, talking to Aunt Catherine and Uncle Rick, me or Justin and Sara.
“Oh, Olivia, there you are,” Aunt Catherine said as Snowball raced up to lick me hello. “Your father wants to—”
It was right then that Mia stood up so fast, the cup of coffee she’d been balancing on a saucer on her knees fell to the floor and forever stained Aunt Catherine’s pure white wall-to-wall carpeting.
“Oh my God!” Mia cried, rushing over and grabbing me. “What happened to you? Where is that blood coming from?”
“Olivia.” Dad was right there beside her, running his fingers up and down my arms, as if he were looking for broken bones. “Where are you hurt? Who did this to you?”
“She’s okay,” Sara assured the adults as she picked up a gluten-free cookie from the plate on the coffee table in front of her dad and stepmom. “Annabelle Jenkins punched her in the face, is all.”
“My God,” Mia cried. She was trying to take the cotton padding away from my nose, but I wouldn’t let her, because I didn’t want to get blood on Aunt Catherine’s white carpet. She was already on her hands and knees, trying to scrub out Princess Mia’s coffee stain. “Why didn’t the Royal Genovian Guard stop her?”
“Dr. Bushy said they had to stay fifty feet away from her,” I said, through the cotton padding. “Annabelle’s dad said he was going to sue the entire Cranbrook school district. Sabine said she called Lars to tell him to tell you, but he said that you were in a meeting. I didn’t know the meeting was here.”
Both my dad and Mia turned to look accusingly at Lars, who was leaning against the living room wall. He reached up to tap his earpiece.
“You told me you didn’t want to be disturbed, Your Highnesses,” he said with a sheepish shrug.
I could tell from my dad’s expression that Lars was in really big trouble.
Still, I couldn’t feel too worried for him. I couldn’t feel too worried about anything. Instead, I was feeling hopeful. My dad was here! What did it mean? Something good. It had to. Right?
Except that Uncle Rick was laughing from his place on the couch. That didn’t seem too good.
“Jenkins.” Uncle Rick shook his head. “You gotta admit, the guy’s good.”
Dad did not look as if he agreed with Uncle Rick.
“Oh dear,” Aunt Catherine said with a sigh from the carpet, where she was still scrubbing at the stain Princess Mia’s spilled coffee had made. “It’s that preadolescent female aggression. They’re at the age where it starts asserting itself.”
“In some girls, maybe,” Justin said with a smirk from where he was leaning in the kitchen doorway, also nibbling on a gluten-free cookie. “Not in Olivia. You should have seen it. She went down like a tree.”
“You were there?” Dad whipped around to face Justin.
“Sure,” Justin said, looking surprised. “Everybody was. Tons of photographers. They all got pictures.”
“Pictures?” Uncle Rick wasn’t laughing anymore.
“And you didn’t do anything to stop it?” Dad barked at Justin.
“Well, I, um—” Justin looked scared. “You know. It wasn’t my fight.”
“So you just stood there and let Olivia get hit in the face?” Dad roared.
“Really, Phillipe.” Uncle Rick stood up and went to his son’s side. “It isn’t my son’s fault that your daughter can’t take a—”
“He just said he was standing right there, watching the whole thing happen!” Dad shouted. “What kind of boy would allow his own—”
“Please!” Aunt Catherine cried. “What was Justin supposed to do? He has asthma!”
“I’m taking Olivia to a doctor right now,” Mia interrupted in a voice so cold, I’m surprised it didn’t freeze up the coffee stain Snowball was now sniffing.
“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Aunt Catherine said, looking embarrassed. Although I don’t know by what. “I’m sure our pediatrician—”
“You should notify your pediatrician that our doctor in Genovia will be requesting Olivia’s records,” Mia said, taking my hand. “Because I believe this incident more than adequately proves the point we were discussing earlier: This isn’t a safe—or stable—environment for Olivia to live in. If you disagree, you may contact our lawyers. Right, Dad? Come on, Olivia,” Mia said. “Let’s go get your things.”
She started tugging me toward my room, but even though my nose was throbbing, I wanted to see what was going to happen next.
Which is that my dad stopped glaring at Justin and Uncle Rick, and said, “Yes. Yes, of course, Mia, you’re right. Let’s go.” He bent down to pick up Snowball.
“Isn’t a stable environment for—” Aunt Catherine didn’t look embarrassed now. She looked upset. “After everything we’ve done for her!”
“I think you might want to have your lawyer review the documents in that file I’ve left on the coffee table, Catherine,” Dad said, holding a wriggling Snowball with one arm, “before you continue bragging about what you’ve done for my daughter. Especially after what happened to her today.”
“But it—it was just a little fight,” Aunt Catherine stammered. “A fight between girls! It was nothing!”
“Was it?” My dad’s voice was cold. “Because it doesn’t look like nothing to me. In fact, considering what we now know about you and your husband’s finances, as well as your dealings with this Jenkins person, it looks very much like something that I imagine you’d both like for us to drop instead of pursuing legally. Am I correct?”
I saw my aunt and step-uncle exchange a look. The look reminded me of the one Lars had worn earlier, of sheepish regret.
Still, Aunt Catherine wasn’t willing to give up. She said, “But I made a promise to my sister that I would raise her child to be as normal as possible—”
“Normal,” Dad asked icily, “or average?”
When he asked this, Aunt Catherine’s gaze fell to the floor … but not to Mia’s coffee stain. To her feet. I saw her blush.
“You and I both know, Catherine,” Dad went on, “that Elizabeth would never have wanted Olivia to be raised to be normal or average. She’d have wanted her to be raised to be herself, which is very far from average. And that’s not what’s happening around here, is it?”
Aunt Catherine looked up. Then, the next thing I knew, she was grasping my arms.
“Olivia,” she said, in a tearful voice. “We never meant to make you feel average. I know we didn’t spoil you, but that’s because my sister wanted you to be raised like an ordinary girl, and to know what it’s like to live amongst the common people. She didn’t want you to grow up to be some snobby, rich princess who only cares about her looks and getting on the cover of magazines.” She narrowed her eyes at Princess Mia, who looked hurt. “That’s not what you want, is it, Olivia?”
“No,” I cried, horrified. “Of course not!”
Aunt Catherine smiled. Her grip on my arms loosened a little. “Oh, thank goodness,” she said. “You had me worried!”
“I want to be a smart, brave, strong princess,” I declared, wrenching myself from her arms, “who doesn’t judge people by their looks, and who cares about people more than things! That’s why I want to go live with them.” I pointed at my dad and sister.
Aunt Catherine stopped smiling when she heard this. She glanced at Uncle Rick, who looked as confused as she did.
“Olivia,” she said. “What … what are you talking about? I care about you.”
“No, you don’t. I know you don’t. Because when I got home just now, Dad and Mia rushed over to see if I was all right. All you cared about was getting the stain out of your stupid carpet. So since I’ve finally got some perspective, I’m going to go live with people who love me. No
w, could someone please give me some ice? Because my nose really hurts.”
And now I’m holding the ice that Sabine got me over my nose as I write this, while she and Princess Mia pack up my stuff (not that there’s so much of it), and Dad makes Aunt Catherine sign the papers giving up all legal guardianship of me.
Then we’re going to get in the limo and drive away from Cranbrook forever.
But first Mia promised we could make one stop (after visiting a doctor for my nose. She insists), at a place I’ve always wanted to go:
Cheesecake Factory.
Saturday, May 9
3:25 P.M.
Somewhere Over the Atlantic Ocean
I am writing this on an airplane!
It’s the first time I’ve ever been on an airplane in my whole entire life.
And it’s not just any airplane—it’s the Royal Genovian Jet, a private plane just like the ones my mom used to fly.
Dad told me it was okay to go up into the cockpit and sit in the copilot’s seat, and she let me wear her headset and talk to the control tower, and the pilot showed me all the controls and even let me steer for a while (until Grandmère sent a message up with one of the flight attendants that Rommel was feeling sick, and could I please stop).
This is definitely going on my list of best moments ever.
And guess what else? My nose doesn’t even hurt anymore. Well, except when I touch it. The nice doctor we went to see said it was only bruised, not broken.
And now the sovereign city-state of Genovia is suing Annabelle’s dad! So that should be a nice change of pace for Mr. Jenkins, his getting sued instead of doing the suing. His daughter punching me in the face at school has become the number-one top-trending story in the media. Between that, and Princess Mia’s statement about how it was my dead mom who wanted my being a princess kept secret, the press has stopped asking me rude questions.
Grandmère says not to get used to it. She says, “Everyone loves a scandal.”
I told her I’m going to try hard not to create any.
How can I, anyway? I’m on my way to my new home in Genovia, with my new family and my new dog, Snowball. Because this is a private plane, and the only people on it are my dad, Grandmère, Rommel, my sister, and her husband-to-be, Michael (who is very nice and said he could tell I was going to make a very good aunt someday), I’m allowed to let Snowball sleep on my lap. She doesn’t have to be in a dog carrier or anything.
