“Do not ever let me hear you saywhat again,” Grandmère fire-breathed at me. “Say, I beg your pardon.”

     I looked at Vigo, who was trying not to smile. Really! Vigo actually thinks it’s funny when Grandmère gets mad.

     If there is a Genovian medal for valor, he should totally get it.

     “I beg your pardon, Mr. Vigo,” I said, politely.

     “Please, please,” Vigo said, waving his hand. “Just Vigo, none of this mister business, Your Highness. Now tell me. What do you think of this?”

     And suddenly, he pulled this dress from a box.

     And the minute I saw it, I was lost.

     Because it was the most beautiful dress I have ever seen. It looked just like Glinda the Good Witch’s dress fromThe Wizard of Oz —only not as sparkly. Still, it was pink, with this big poofy skirt, and it had little rosettes on the sleeves. I had never wanted a dress as much as I wanted that one the minute I laid eyes on it.

     I had to try it on. I just had to.

     Grandmère supervised the fitting, while Vigo hovered nearby, offering often to refresh her Sidecar. In addition to enjoying her favorite cocktail, Grandmère was smoking one of her long cigarettes, so she looked more officious than usual. She kept pointing with the cigarette and going, “No, not that way,” and “For God’s sake, stop slouching, Amelia.”

     It was determined that the dress was too big in the bust (what else is new?) and would have to be taken in. The alterations would take until Friday, but Vigo assured us he’d see that they were done in time.

     And that’s when I remembered what this dress was actually for.

     God, what kind of daughter am I? I am terrible. I don’t want this wedding to happen. My mother doesn’t want this wedding to happen. So what am I doing, trying on a dress I’m supposed to be wearing at this event nobody but Grandmère wants to see happen, and which, if my dad succeeds, isn’t going to happen anyway?

     Still, I thought my heart might break as I took off the dress and put it back on its satin hanger. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, let alone worn. If only, I couldn’t help thinking, Michael could see me in this dress.

     Or even Jo-C-rox. He might overcome his shyness and be able to tell me to my face what he’d been able to tell me before only in writing . . .and if it turns out he isn’t that chili guy, maybe we could actually go out.

     But there was only one appropriate place to wear a dress like this, and that was in a wedding. And no matter how much I wanted to wear that dress, I certainly didn’t want there to be a wedding. My mother was barely holding on to her sanity as it was. A wedding at which John Tesh was in attendance—and who knows, maybe even singing—might push her over the edge.

     Still, I’ve never in my life felt as much like a princess as I did in that dress.

     Too bad I’ll never get to wear it.

 

Wednesday, October 29, 10 p.m.

 

     Okay, so I was just casually flipping through the channels, you know, taking a little study break and all from thinking up a profound moment to write about in my English journal, when all of a sudden I hit Channel 67, one of the public access channels, and there is an episode of Lilly’s show,Lilly Tells It Like It Is, that I have never seen before. Which was weird, becauseLilly Tells It Like It Is is usually on Friday nights.

     Then I figured since this Friday is Halloween, maybe Lilly’s show was being preempted for coverage of the parade in the Village or something.

     So I’m sitting there, watching the show, and it turns out to be the slumber party episode. You know, the one we taped on Saturday, with all the other girls confessing their French-kissing exploits, and me dropping the eggplant out the window? Only Lilly had edited out any scene showing my face, so unless you knew Mia Thermopolis was the one in the pajamas with the strawberries all over them, you would never have known it was me.

     All in all, pretty tame stuff. Maybe some really puritanical moms would get upset about the French-kissing, but there aren’t too many of those in the five boroughs, which is the extent of the broadcast region.

     Then the camera did this funny skittering thing, and when the picture got clear again, there was this close-up of my face. That’s right. MY FACE. I was lying on the floor with this pillow under my head, talking in this sleepy way.

     Then I remembered: At the slumber party, after everyone else had fallen asleep, Lilly and I had stayed awake, chatting.

     And it turned out she’d been FILMING ME THE WHOLE TIME!

     I was lying there going, “The thing I most want to do is start a place for stray and abandoned animals. Like I went to Rome once, and there were about eighty million cats there, roaming around the monuments. And they totally would have died if these nuns hadn’t fed them and stuff. So the first thing I think I’ll do is, I’ll start a place where all the stray animals in Genovia will be taken care of. You know? And I’d never have any of them put to sleep, unless they were really sick or something. And there’ll just be like all these dogs and cats, and maybe some dolphins and ocelots—“

     Lilly’s voice, disembodied, went, “Are there ocelots in Genovia?”

     I went, “I hope so. Maybe not, though. But whatever. Any animals that need a home, they can come live there. And maybe I’ll hire some Seeing Eye dog trainers, and they can come and train all the dogs to be Seeing Eye dogs. And then we can give them away free to blind people who need them. And then we can take the cats to hospitals and old people’s homes, and let the patients pet them, because that always makes people feel better—except people like my grandmère, who hates cats. We can take dogs for them. Or maybe one of the ocelots.”

     Lilly’s voice: “And that’s going to be your first act when you become the ruler of Genovia?”

     I said, sleepily, “Yeah, I think so. Maybe we could just turn the whole castle into an animal shelter, you know? And like all the strays in Europe can come live there. Even those cats in Rome.”

     “Do you think your grandmère is going to like that? I mean, having all those stray cats around the castle?”

     I said, “She’ll be dead by then, so who cares?”

     Oh, my God! I hope they don’t have public access on the TVs up at the Plaza!

     Lilly asked me, “What part of it do you hate the most? Being a princess, I mean.”

     “Oh, that’s easy. Not being able to go to the deli to buy milk without having to call ahead and arrange for a bodyguard to escort me. Not being able just to come over and hang out with you without it being this big production. This whole thing with my fingernails. I mean, who cares how my fingernails look, right? Why does it even matter? That kind of stuff.”

     Lilly went, “Are you nervous? About your formal introduction to the people of Genovia, in December?”

     “Well, not really nervous, just . . .I don’t know. What if they don’t like me? Like the ladies-in-waiting and stuff? I mean, nobody at school likes me. So chances are, nobody in Genovia will like me, either.”

     “People at school like you,” Lilly said.

     Then, right in front of the camera, I drifted off to sleep. Good thing I didn’t drool, or worse, snore. I wouldn’t have been able to show my face at school tomorrow.

     Then these words floated up over the screen:Don’t Believe the Hype! This Is the RealInterview with the Princess of Genovia!

     As soon as it was over, I called Lilly and asked her exactly what she thought she’d been doing.

     She just went, in this infuriatingly superior voice, “I just want people to be able to see the real Mia Thermopolis.”

     “No, you don’t,” I said. “You just want one of the networks to pick up on the interview, and pay you lots of money for it.”

     “Mia,” Lilly said, sounding wounded. “How can you even think such a thing?”

     She sounded so taken aback that I realized I must have been wrong about that one.

     “Well,” I said, “you could have told me.”