“Don’t be ridiculous, Amelia,” Grandmère said. “You can’t read your grandfather’s personal papers to Domina Rei.”

The truth was, of course, I wasn’t thinking of Grandpère. Although he had some nifty correspondence he’d written during the war, I’d been hoping for something by someone a little less…

Male? Boring? RECENT?

“What about her?” I asked, pointing to a portrait that was hanging in an alcove above the watercooler. It was a very nice little painting of a slightly moonfaced young girl in Renaissance-type clothes, framed elaborately in heavy gold leaf.

“Her?”Grandmère all but snorted. “Never mindher .”

“Who is she?” I asked. Mainly to annoy Grandmère, who so clearly wanted to keep on reading about drainage. But also because it was a very pretty picture. And the girl in it looked sad. Like she might not be unfamiliar with the sensation of slipping down a cistern.

“That,” Monsieur Christophe said in a weary tone, “is Her Royal Highness Amelie Virginie Renaldo, the fifty-seventh princess of Genovia, who ruled in the year sixteen sixty-nine.”

I blinked a few times. Then I looked at Grandmère.

“Why haven’t we ever studied her before?” I asked. Because, believe me, Grandmère has made me memorize my ancestral line. And nowhere is there an Amelie Virginie on it. Amelie is a very popular name in Genovia, because it’s the name of the patron saint of the country, a young peasant girl who saved the principality from a marauding invader by lulling him to sleep with a plaintive song, then lopping his head off.

“Because she only ruled for twelve days,” Grandmère said impatiently, “before dying of the bubonic plague.”

“She DID?” I couldn’t help it. I jumped up out of my seat and hurried over to the watercooler to look at the little portrait. “She looks like she’s MY age!”

“She was,” Grandmère said in a tired voice. “Amelia, would you please sit down? We don’t have time for this. The gala is in less than a week, we need to come up with a speech for younow —”

“Oh my God, this is so sad.” I guess one of the symptoms of being depressed is that you basically just cry all the time. Because I was fully welling up. Princess Amelie Virginie was so pretty, like Madonna, back before she went macrobiotic and got all into the Kabbalah and weight lifting and still had chubby cheeks and stuff. She looked a little bit like Lilly, in a way. If Lilly were a brunette. And wore a crown and a blue velvet choker. “What was she, like, sixteen?”

“Indeed.” Monsieur Christophe had come to stand beside me. “It was a terrible time to be alive. The plague was decimating not just the countryside, but the royal court as well. She lost both her parents and all of her brothers to it. That’s how she inherited the throne. She only ruled for, like Her Highness said, twelve days before succumbing to the Black Death herself. But during that time, she made some decisions—controversial at that time—that ultimately saved many Genovians, if not the entire coastal populace…including closing the Port of Genovia to all incoming and outgoing ship traffic, and shutting the palace gates against all visitors…even the physicians who might have been able to save her. She didn’t want to risk the disease spreading further to her people.”

“Oh my God,” I said, laying a hand on my chest and trying not to sob. “That is so sad! Where are her writings?”

Monsieur Christophe blinked up at me (because in my platform Mary Janes, I was, like, six feet two, and he was just a little guy—like Grandmère said, a nutcracker). “I beg your pardon, Your Highness?”

“Her writings,” I said. “Princess Amelie Virginie’s. I’d like to see them.”

“For God’s sake, Amelia,” Grandmère burst out, looking as if she could really use a Sidecar and a cigarette, and not the tea and finger sandwiches (without mayo) to which she’d been relegated by her doctor. “She doesn’t have any writings! She was dealing with a plague! She didn’t have time to write anything! She was too busy having the bodies of her maids burned in the palace courtyard.”

“Actually,” Monsieur Christophe said thoughtfully, “she kept a journal—”

“DO NOT GET THE JOURNAL,” Grandmère said, leaping up. As she did so, she dislodged Rommel, who went plunging to the floor, where he skittered around, trying to find his balance, before retiring gloomily to a far corner of the room. “WE DO NOT HAVE TIME FOR THIS!”

“Get the journal,” I said to Monsieur Christophe. “I want to read it.”

“Actually,” the archivist said. “We have a translation of it. Since it was written in seventeenth-century French, and it was, of course, so short—only twelve days—we started on a translation, only to discover they did not turn out to be twelve particularly, er, important days of Genovian history. Just from a glance at the first few pages, one can see that the princess does seem to write quite a bit about missing her cat—”

That’s when I knew I HAD to read it.

“I want to see the translation,” I said, just as Grandmère cried, “Amelia, SIT DOWN!”

Monsieur Christophe hesitated, clearly not knowing what to do. On the one hand, I’m closer in line to the throne than Grandmère is. On the other hand, she’s louder and way scarier.

“You know what?” I whispered to Monsieur Christophe. “I’ll call you later.”

Only I didn’t. As soon as I got out of there and into the safety of my limo, I called Dad and told him what I wanted.

If he thought it was strange, he didn’t say anything about it. Although I guess my taking an interest in anything that doesn’t involve my bed must seem like an improvement to him.

Anyway, when I got home, there was a package waiting for me. Dad had had Monsieur Christophe messenger over not just the translation of Princess Amelie Virginie’s journal but her portrait as well.

Which I’ve leaned against the wall at the end of my bed where my TV used to be. She perfectly covers up the ugly cable outlet, and I can see her from any angle when I’m in bed.

Which I’m in right now.

Because they can take away my television.

And they can throw away my Hello Kitty pajamas.

And they can make me go to school and to therapy.

But they can’t keep me out of my own bed!

(Although I have to say my own problems pale in comparison to poor Princess Amelie Virginie’s. I mean, at least I don’t have the PLAGUE.)

Sunday, September 19, 11 p.m., the loft

I just realized it’s been exactly a week since I got that phone call from Michael letting me know it’s all over between us. I mean, except as friends.

I really don’t know what to say about that. A part of me still wants to crawl into bed and just cry forever, of course, even though you would think by now I’d be all cried out (although whenever I think about how I’ll never feel his arms around me again, the tears come welling right back up).

But then I think about how many people have it worse than me. Princess Amelie Virginie, for instance. I mean, first her parents caught the plague and died. Which wasn’t SO bad because she wasn’t very close with them anyway, since they sent her away to a convent to be educated when she was four, and it was so far away that she hardly ever saw anyone in her family again after that.

But then all her brothers died of the plague, too—which didn’t bother her too much since she hardly knew any of them either.

But that meant she was the next in line to the throne.

So the nuns made Amelie pack up her stuff and go to the palace to be crowned princess of Genovia. Which Amelie really wasn’t too happy about, since she had to leave her cat, Agnès-Claire, behind.

Because cats aren’t allowed at the Palais de Genovia (it’s amazing how the more times change, the more they stay the same).

And when she got to the palace her dad’s brother, her uncle Francesco, whom no one in her family really liked on account of that time he kicked their dog, Padapouf (dogs ARE allowed in the palace), was already there bossing everyone around.

And, if I remember my Genovian history correctly (and believe me, after enough torturing from Grandmère, I do), Uncle Francesco—who became Prince Francesco the First after Amelie’s death (actually, he’s Prince Francesco the ONLY, since he was such a horrible person that no one in Genovia ever named their kid Francesco again after his death)—was disliked by everyone, not just his own family. He was the worst ruler Genovia ever knew, due to his attempting to tax the populace so heavily after the plagues in order to make up for his lost tithes that many of them starved to death.

He also had a reputation for profligacy (as his nearly thirty illegitimate children, all of whom tried to make a claim for the throne after he died, proved). In fact, during Francesco’s rule, Genovia very nearly became absorbed into France, as the prince owed so much money due to his gambling debts, even losing the crown jewels in a card game with William III of England at one point (they weren’t recovered until nearly a century later, when a cagey Princess Margarèthe seduced them away from George III, who was rumored to be not quite right in the head).

Anyway, thanks to Francesco basically thinking he was already prince, even though he wasn’t—yet—poor Amelie didn’t have anything to do. So, like any bored teen with no one to talk to—all the ladies-in-waiting were dead of plague—she went to the palace library and started reading all the books there. A bit like Belle inBeauty and the Beast , actually! Except the Beast was her uncle, so no chance of a love connection.

And instead of dancing teacups and candlesticks, there were just pustule-covered chancellors and stuff.

That’s as far into her journal as I’ve gotten. It’s so boring I probably wouldn’t go on.