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 hereally 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 to 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 toSeventeen 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 theSunday 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 myparents? 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 readTeen 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, butfunerals?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 canshe 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 seeBeauty 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?"