I barely made it out of bed this morning. In fact, the only reason I was able to drag myself out from beneath the covers -

and Fat Louie, who lay on my chest purring like a lawnmower all night long - was the prospect of seeing Michael for the

first time in thirty-two days.

It is completely cruel to force a person of my tender years, when I should be getting at least nine hours of sleep a night, to

travel back and forth between two such drastically different time zones, with not even a single day of rest in-between. I am completely jet lagged, and I am sure it is going to stunt not only my physical growth (not in the height department because

I am tall enough, thank you, but in the mammary gland division, glands being very sensitive to things like disrupted sleep

cycles), but my intellectual growth as well.

And now that I am entering the second semester of my freshman year, my grades are actually going to start to matter. Not

that I intend to go to college or anything, at least not right away. I, like Prince William, want to take a year off between high school and college, hopefully volunteering for Greenpeace in one of those boats that goes out between Japanese and Russian whaling ships and the whales. I don't think Greenpeace takes volunteers who don't have at least a 3.0 average.

Anyway, it was murder getting up this morning, especially when, after I'd dragged on my school uniform, I realized my

Queen Amidala panties weren't in my underwear drawer. I have to wear my Queen Amidala underwear on the first day

of every semester, or I'll have bad luck for the rest of the year. I always have good luck when I wear my Queen Amidala panties. For instance, I was wearing them the night of the Non-Denominational Winter Dance, when Michael finally told

me he loved me.

I have to wear them on the first day of second semester, just like I'll have to send them to the laundry-by-the-pound place

and get them washed before Friday so I can wear them on my date with Michael. Because I'm going to need extra good

luck that night, since I plan on giving Michael his birthday present then. His birthday present that I'm hoping he'll like so

much, he'll fall in love with me, if he isn't already. I am still not too clear on that whole point.

So I had to go into my mom's room, the one she shares with Mr Gianini, and wake her up and be all, 'Mom, where's my

Queen Amidala underwear?' Thank God Mr. G was in the shower. I swear to God if I'd had to see them in bed together

in the condition I was in at that time, I'd have gone completely Anne Heche.

My mom, who sleeps like a log even when she isn't pregnant, just went, 'Shurnowog,' which isn't even a word.

'Mom,' I said. 'I need my Queen Amidala panties. Where are they?'

But all my mom said was, 'Kapukin.'

So then I got an idea. Not that I really thought there was any way my mom wasn't going to let me go out with Michael,

after her uplifting speech about him the night before. But just to make sure she couldn't back out of it, I went, 'Mom,

can I go with Michael for dinner and a movie at the Screening Room this Friday night?'

And she went, rolling over, 'Yeah, yeah, scuniper.'

So I got that taken care of.

But I still had to go to school in my regular underwear, which creeped me out a little because there's nothing special

about it, it is just boring and white.

But then I kind of perked up when I got in the limo, because of the prospect of seeing Michael and all.

But then I was like, Oh, my God, what was going to happen when I saw Michael? Because when you haven't seen your boyfriend in thirty-two days, you can't just be all, 'Oh, hi,' when you see him. You have to, like, give him a hug or something.

But how was I going to give him a hug in the car? With Lars watching? I mean, at least I wasn't going to have to worry

about my stepdad watching, since Mr. G fully refuses to take the limo to school with me and Lars and Lilly and Michael

every morning, even though we are all going to the same place. But Mr. Gianini says he likes the subway. He says it is the

only time he gets to listen to music he likes (Mom and I won't let him play Blood, Sweat and Tears in the loft, so he has to

listen to it on his Diskman).

But what about Lilly? I mean, Lilly was totally going to be there. How can I hug Michael in front of Lilly? And OK, it is

partly because of Lilly that Michael and I ever got together in the first place. But that does not mean that I feel perfectly comfortable participating in, you know, public displays of affection with him right in front of her.

If this were Genovia it would be all right to kiss him on either cheek, because that is the standard form of greeting there.

But this is America, where you barely even shake hands with people, unless you're like the mayor.

Plus there was the whole Jane Eyre thing. I mean, Tina and I had resolved we were not going to chase our boyfriends,

but we hadn't said anything about how to greet them again after not having seen them for thirty-two days.

I was almost going to ask Lars what he thought I ought to do when I had a brainstorm right as we were pulling up to

the Moscovitzes' building. Hans, the driver, was going to hop out and open the door for Lilly and Michael, but I went,

'I've got it,' and then I hopped out, instead.


And there was Michael, standing in the slush, looking all tall and handsome and manly, the wind tugging at his dark hair.

Just the sight of him set my heart going about a thousand beats per minute. I felt like I was going to melt. . .

. . . especially when he smiled once he saw me, a smile that went all the way up to his eyes, which were as deeply brown

as I remembered, and filled with the same intelligence and good humour that had been there the last time I had gazed into

them, thirty-two days ago.

What I could not tell was whether or not they were filled with love. Tina had said I'd be able to tell, just by looking into

his eyes, whether or not Michael loved me. But the truth is, all I could tell by looking into his eyes was that Michael doesn't

find me utterly repulsive. If he had, he'd have looked away, the way I do when I see that boy in the cafeteria at school who

always picks the corn out of his chilli. 'Hi,' I said, my voice suddenly super-squeaky. 'Hi,' Michael said, his voice not

squeaky at all, but really very thrillingly deep and Wolverine-like.

So then we stood there with our gazes locked on one another, and our breath coming out in little puffs of white steam,

and people hurrying down Fifth Avenue on the sidewalk around us, people I barely saw. I hardly even noticed Lilly go,

'Oh, for Pete's sake,' and stomp past me to climb into the limo.

Then Michael went, 'It's really good to see you.' And I went, 'It's really good to see you, too.' From inside the limo

Lilly went, 'It's really cold out, will you two hurry up and get in here already?'

So then I went, 'I guess we'd better . . .'

And Michael went, 'Yeah,' and put his hand on the limo door to hold it open for me. But as I started to duck in there,

he put his other hand on my arm, and when I turned around to see what he wanted (even though I kinda already knew)

he went, 'So can you go, on Friday night?'

And I went, 'Uh-huh.'

And then he kind of pulled on my arm in a very Mr. Rochester-like manner, causing me to take a step towards him,

and faster than I'd ever seen him move before, he bent down and kissed me, right on the mouth, in front of his doorman

and all the rest of Fifth Avenue!

I have to admit, Michael's doorman and all of the people passing by, including everyone on the Ml bus that went barrelling down the street at that very moment, didn't seem to take very much notice of the fact that the Princess of Genovia was

getting kissed right there in front of them.

But I noticed, I noticed, and it felt great. It made me feel like maybe all my worrying about whether Michael loved me as

a potential life partner as opposed to just as a friend had maybe been stupid.

Because you don't kiss a friend like that.

So then I slid into the back of the limo with Lilly, a big silly smile on my face that I was totally afraid she might make fun of,

but I couldn't help it, I was so happy. Because in spite of not having on my Queen Amidala underwear, I was already having

a good semester, and it wasn't even fifteen minutes old!

Then Michael got in beside me and closed the door, and Hans started to drive and Lars said, 'Good morning,' to Lilly and Michael and they said 'Good morning' back and I didn't even notice that Lars was smirking behind his latte until Lilly told

me later.

'Like,' she said, 'we didn't all know what you were doing out there.'

But she said it in a nice way.

I was so happy, I hardly even heard what Lilly was talking about on our way to school, which was the whole movie thing.

She had sent, she said, a registered letter to the producers of the movie of my life, but still had received no response, even though it was now over a week.

'It is,' Lilly said, 'just another example of how those Hollywood types think they can get away with whatever they want.

Well, I'm here to tell them they can't. If I don't hear back from them by tomorrow, I'm going to the news media.'

That got my attention. I blinked at her. 'You mean you're going to have a press conference?'

'Why not?' Lilly shrugged. 'You did it, and up until recently, you could barely formulate a coherent sentence in front of a camera. So how hard can it be?'