Except that Captain Picard always makes everything okay by the end of the episode, and I sincerely doubt everything will be okay for me.

 

 

 

Friday, October 3, Homeroom

Today when I woke up, the pigeons that live on the fire escape outside my window were cooing away (Fat Louie was on the windowsill—well, as much of him as could fit on the windowsill, anyway—watching them), and the sun was shining, and I actually got up on time and didn’t hit the snooze button seven thousand times. I took a shower and didn’t cut my legs shaving them, found a fairly unwrinkled blouse at the bottom of my closet, and even got my hair to look sort of halfway passable. I was in a good mood. It wasFriday. Friday is my favorite day, besides Saturday and Sunday. Fridays always mean two days—two glorious, relaxing days—of NO Algebra are coming my way.

And then I walked out into the kitchen and there was all this pink light coming down through the skylight right on my mom, who was wearing her best kimono and making French toast using Egg Beaters instead of real eggs, even though I’m no longer ovo-lacto since I realized eggs aren’t fertilized so they could never have been baby chicks anyway.

And I was all set to thank her for thinking of me, and then I heard this rustle.

And there was my DAD sitting at the dining room table (well, really it’s just a table, since we don’t have a dining room, but whatever), readingThe New York Times and wearing a suit.

Asuit. At seven o’clock in the morning.

And then I remembered. I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten it:

I’m aprincess.

Oh my God. Everything good about my day just went right out the window after that.

As soon as he saw me, my dad was all, "Ah, Mia."

I knew I was in for it. He only says "Ah, Mia"when he’s about to give me a big lecture.

He folded his paper all carefully and laid it down. My dad always folds papers carefully, making the edges all neat. My mom never does this. She usually crumples the pages up and leaves them, out of order, on the futon couch or next to the toilet. This kind of thing drives my father insane and is probably the real reason why they never got married.

My mom, I saw, had set the table with our best Kmart plates, the ones with the blue stripes on them, and the green plastic cactus-shaped margarita glasses from Ikea. She had even put a bunch of fake sunflowers in the middle of the table in a yellow vase. She had done all that to cheer me up, I know, and she’d probably gotten up really early to do it, too. But instead of cheering me up, it just made me sadder.

Because I bet they don’t use green plastic cactus-shaped margarita glasses for breakfast at the palace in Genovia.

"We need to talk, Mia," my dad said. This is how his worst lectures always start. Except this time he looked at me kind of funny before he started. "What’s wrong with your hair?"

I put my hand up to my head. "Why?" I thought my hair looked good, for a change.

"Nothing is wrong with her hair, Phillipe," my mom said. She usually tries to ward off my dad’s lectures, if she can. "Come and sit down, Mia, and have some breakfast. I even heated up the syrup for the French toast, the way you like it."

I appreciated this gesture on my mom’s part. I really did. But I was not going to sit down and talk about my future in Genovia. I mean, come on. So I was all, "Uh, I’d love to, really, but I gotta go. I have a test in World Civ today, and I promised Lilly I’d meet her to go over our notes together—"

"Sit down."

Boy, my dad can really sound like a starship captain in the Federation when he wants to.

I sat. My mom shoveled some French toast onto my plate. I poured syrup over it and took a bite, just to be polite. It tasted like cardboard.

"Mia," my mom said. She was still trying to ward off my dad’s lecture. "I know how upset you must be about all of this. But really, it isn’t as bad as you’re making it out to be."

Oh, right. All of a sudden you tell me I’m a princess, and I’m supposed to be happy about it?

"I mean," my mom went on, "most girls would probably be delighted to find out their father is a prince!"

No girls I know. Actually, that’s not true. Lana Weinberger would probablylove to be a princess. In fact, she already thinks she is one.

"Just think of all the lovely things you could have if you went to live in Genovia." My mom’s face totally lit up as she started listing the lovely things I could have if I went to live in Genovia, but her voice sounded strange, as if she were playing a mom on TV or something. "Like a car! You know how impractical it is to have a car here in the city. But in Genovia, when you turn sixteen, I’m sure Dad will buy you a—"

I pointed out that there are enough problems with pollution in Europe without my contributing to it. Diesel emissions are one of the largest contributors to the destruction of the ozone layer.

"But you’ve always wanted a horse, haven’t you? Well, in Genovia you could have one. A nice gray one with spots on its back—"

That hurt.

"Mom," I said, my eyes all filling up with tears. I completely couldn’t help it. Suddenly, I was bawling all over again. "What are youdoing? Do youwant me to go live with Dad? Is that it? Are you tired of me or something? Do you want me to go live with Dad so you and Mr. Gianini can . . .  can . . . "

I couldn’t go on because I started crying so hard. But by then my mom was crying, too. She jumped up out of her chair and came around the end of the table and started hugging me, saying, "Oh, no, honey! How could you think something like that?" She stopped sounding like a TV mom. "I just want what’s best for you!"

"As do I," my dad said, looking annoyed. He had folded his arms across his chest and was leaning back in his chair, watching us in an irritated way.

"Well, what’s best for me is to stay right here and finish high school," I told him. "And then I’m going to join Greenpeace and help save the whales."

My dad looked evenmore irritated at that. "You arenot joining Greenpeace," he said.

"I am, too," I said. It was totally hard to talk, because I was crying and all, but I told him, "I’m going to go to Iceland to save the baby seals, too."

"You most certainly are not." My dad didn’t just look annoyed. Now he looked mad. "You are going to go to college. Vassar, I think. Maybe Sarah Lawrence."

That made me cry even more.

But before I could say anything, my mom held up a hand and was like, "Phillipe, don’t. We aren’t accomplishing anything here. Mia has to get to school, anyway. She’s already late—"

I started looking around for my backpack and coat real fast. "Yeah," I said. "I gotta renew my MetroCard."

My dad made this weird French noise he makes sometimes. It’s halfway between a snort and a sigh. It kind of sounds likePfuit! Then he said, "Lars will drive you."

I told my dad that this was unnecessary since I meet Lilly every day at Astor Place, where we catch the uptown 6 train together.

"Lars can pick up your little friend, too."

I looked at my mom. She was looking at my dad. Lars is my dad’s driver. He goes everywhere my dad goes. For as long as I’ve known my dad—okay, my whole life—he’s always had a driver, usually a big beefy guy who used to work for the president of Israel or somebody like that.

Now that I think about it, of course I realize these guys aren’t really drivers at all but bodyguards.

Duh.

Okay, so the last thing I wanted was for my dad’s bodyguard to drive me to school. How would I ever explain it to Lilly?Oh, don’t mind him, Lilly. He’s just my dad’s chauffeur. Yeah, right. The only person at Albert Einstein High School who gets dropped off by a chauffeur is this totally rich Saudi Arabian girl named Tina Hakim Baba, whose dad owns some big oil company, and everybody makes fun of her because her parents are all worried she’ll get kidnapped between Seventy-fifth and Madison, where our school is, and Seventy-fifth and Fifth, where she lives. She even has a bodyguard who follows her around from class to class and talks on a walkie-talkie to the chauffeur. This seems a little extreme, if you ask me.