the delivery guy before he gets to the door. Because otherwise he ends up standing there for like ten minutes while I figure

out how much to give him for a seventeen dollar and fifty cent order. It's embarrassing.

'I don't know where your head's been lately, Amelia,' Grandmere said, all crabby. Well, you would be crabby too if you'd

paid money to have the top two or three layers of your skin chemically removed. 'I hope you're not still worrying about your mother, and that ridiculous home birth she's planning. I told you before, your mother's forgotten what labour feels like. As

soon as her contractions kick in, she'll be begging to be taken to the hospital for a nice epidural.'

I sighed. Although the fact that my mother is choosing a home birth over a nice safe clean hospital birth - where there are oxygen tanks and candy machines and Dr. Kovach - is upsetting, I have been trying not to think about it too much . . . especially since I suspect Grandmere is right. My mother cries like a baby when she stubs her toe. How is she going to withstand hours and hours of labour pains? She was much younger when she gave birth to me. Her thirty-six-year-old

body is in no shape for the rigours of childbirth. She doesn't even work out!

Grandmere fastened her evil eye on to me.

'I suppose the fact the weather's starting to get warm isn't helping,' she said. 'Young people tend to get flighty in the spring. And, of course, there's your birthday tomorrow.'

I fully let Grandmere think that's what was distracting me. My birthday and the fact that my friends and I are all twitterpated, like Thumper gets in springtime in Bambi.

'You are a very difficult person for whom to find a suitable birthday gift, Amelia,' Grandmere said, reaching for her Sidecar

and her cigarettes. Grandmere has her cigarettes sent to her from Genovia, so she doesn't have to pay the astronomical tax

on them that they charge here in New York, in the hopes of making people quit smoking on account of it being too expensive. Except that it isn't working, since all of the people in Manhattan who smoke are just hopping on the PATH train and going

over to New Jersey to buy their cigarettes.

'You are not the jewellery type,' Grandmere went on, lighting up and puffing away. And you don't seem to have any appreciation whatsoever for couture. And it isn't as if you have any hobbies.'

I pointed out to Grandmere that I do have a hobby. Not just a hobby, even, but a calling. I write.

Grandmere just waved her hand, and said, 'But not a real hobby. You don't play golf or paint.'

It kind of hurt my feelings that Grandmere doesn't think writing is a real hobby. She is going to be very surprised when I grow up and become a published author. Then writing will not only be my hobby, but my career. Maybe the first book I write will be about her. I will call it, Clarisse: Ravings of a Royal, A Memoir, by Princess Mia of Genovia. And Grandmere won't be able to sue, just like Daryl Hannah couldn't sue when they made that movie about her and John F. Kennedy Junior, because all

of it will be one hundred percent true. HA!

'What DO you want for your birthday, Amelia?' Grandmere asked.

I had to think about that one. Of course, what I REALLY want, Grandmere can't give me. But I figured it wouldn't hurt to

ask. So I drew up the following list:

What I would like for my 15th birthday, by Mia Thermopolis, aged 14 and 364 Days

1. End to world hunger

2. New pair overalls, size eleven

3. New cat brush for Fat Louie (he chewed the handle off the last one)

4. Bungee cords for palace ballroom (so I can do air ballet like Lara Croft in Tomb Raider)

5. New baby brother or sister, safely delivered

6. Elevation of orcas to endangered list so Puget Sound can receive federal aid to clean up polluted breeding/feeding grounds

7. Lana Weinberger's head on a silver platter (just kidding - well, not really)

8. My own mobile phone

9. Grandmere to quit smoking

10. Michael Moscovitz to ask me to the Senior Prom


In composing this list, it occurred to me that sadly the only thing on it that I am likely to get for my birthday is item number 2.

I mean, I am going to get a new brother or sister, but not for another month, at the earliest. No way was Grandmere going to go for the quitting smoking thing or the bungee cords. World hunger and the orca thing are sort of out of the hands of anyone

I know. My dad says I would just lose and/or destroy a mobile, like I did the laptop he got me (that wasn't my fault. I only took it out of my backpack and set it on that sink for a second while I was looking for my Chapstick. It is not my fault that Lana Weinberger bumped into me and that the sinks at our school are all stopped up. That computer was only underwater

for a few seconds, it fully should have worked again when it dried out. Except that even Michael, who is a technological as

well as musical genius, couldn't save it).

Of course the one thing Grandmere fixated on was the last one, the one I only admitted to her in a moment of weakness and should never have mentioned in the first place, considering the fact that in twenty-four hours, she and Michael will be sharing

a table at Les Hautes Manger for my birthday dinner.

'What is the prom?' Grandmere wanted to know. 'I don't know this word.'

I couldn't believe it. But then, Grandmere hardly ever watches TV, not even Murder She Wrote or Golden Girls reruns, like everyone else her age, so it was unlikely she'd ever have caught an airing of Pretty in Pink on TBS or whatever.

'It's a dance, Grandmere,' I said, reaching for my list. 'Never mind.'

'And the Moscovitz boy hasn't asked you to this dance yet?' Grandmere wanted to know. 'When is it?'

'A week from Saturday,' I said. 'Can I have that list back now?'

'Why don't you go without him?' Grandmere demanded. She let out a cackle, then seemed to think better of it, since I think it hurt her face to stretch her cheek muscles like that. 'Like you did last time. That'll show him.'

'I can't,' I said. 'It's only for seniors. I mean, seniors can take underclassmen, but underclassmen can't go on their own. Lilly says I should just ask Michael whether or not he's going, but—'

'NO!' Grandmere's eyes bulged. At first I thought she was choking on an ice cube, but it turned out she was just shocked. Grandmere's got eyeliner tattooed all the way around her lids like Michael Jackson, so she doesn't have to mess with her make-up every morning. So when her eyes bulge, well, it's pretty noticeable.

'You cannot ask him," Grandmere said. 'How many times do I have to tell you, Amelia? Men are like little woodland creatures. You have to lure them to you with tiny breadcrumbs and soft words of encouragement. You cannot simply whip

out a rock and conk them over the head with it.'

I certainly agree with this. I don't want to do any conking where Michael is concerned. But I don't know about breadcrumbs.

'Well,' I said. 'So what do I do? The prom is in less than two weeks, Grandmere. If I'm going to go, I've got to know soon.'

'You must hint around the subject,' Grandmere said. 'Subtly.'

I thought about this. 'Like do you mean I should go, "I saw the most perfect dress for the prom the other day in the Victoria's Secret catalogue?'"

'Exactly,' Grandmere said. 'Only of course a princess never purchases anything off the rack, Amelia, and NEVER from a catalogue.'

'Right,' I said. 'But Grandmere, don't you think he'll see right through that?'

Grandmere snorted, then seemed to regret it, and held her drink up to her face, as if the ice in the glass was soothing to her tender skin. 'You are talking about a seventeen-year-old boy, Amelia,' she said. 'Not a master spy. He won't have the slightest idea what you are about, if you do it subtly enough.'

But I don't know. I mean, I have never been very good at being subtle. Like the other day I tried subtly to mention to my mother that Ronnie, our neighbour who Mom trapped in the hallway on the way to the incinerator room, might not have

wanted to hear about how many times my mom has to get up and pee every night now that the baby is pressing so hard

against her bladder. My mom just looked at me and went, 'Do you have a death wish, Mia?'

Mr Gianini and I have decided that we will be very relieved when my mom finally has this baby.

I am pretty sure Ronnie would agree.

Thursday, May 1 12:01 a,m.


Well. That's it. I'm fifteen now. Not a girl. Not yet a woman. Just like Britney.

HA HA HA.

I don't actually feel any different than I did a minute ago, when I was fourteen. I certainly don't LOOK any different. I'm the same five foot nine, thirty-two-A-bra-size freak I was when I turned fourteen. Maybe my hair looks a little better, since Grandmere made me get highlights and Paolo's been trimming it as it grows out. It is almost to my chin now, and not so triangular shaped as before.

Other than that, I'm sorry, but there's nothing. Nada. No difference. Zilch.

I guess all of my fifteeness is going to have to be on the inside, since it sure isn't showing on the outside.

I just checked my email to see if anybody remembered, and I already have five birthday messages, one from Lilly, one from Tina, one from my cousin Hank (I can't believe HE remembered. He's a famous model now and I almost never see him any more — no big loss — except half-naked on billboards or the sides of telephone booths, which is especially embarrassing if he's wearing tighty-whities), one from my cousin Prince Rene and one from Michael.

The one from Michael is the best. It's a cartoon he's made himself, of a girl in a tiara with a big orange cat opening a giant present. When she gets all the wrapping off, these words burst out of the box, with all these fireworks: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MIA, and in smaller letters, Love, Michael.

Love. LOVE!!!!!!!!!!!

Even though we have been going out for more than four months, I still get a thrill when he says - or writes - that word. In reference to me, I mean. Love. LOVE!!!!! He LOVES me!!!!!

So what's taking him so long about the prom thing, I'd like to know?

Now that I am fifteen, it is time that I put away childish things, like the guy in the poem, and begin to live my life as the adult

that I am striving to become. According to Carl Jung, the famous psychoanalyst, in order to achieve self-actualization — acceptance, peace, contentment, purposefulness, fulfilment, health, happiness and joy - one must practise compassion, love, charity, warmth, forgiveness, friendship, kindness, gratitude and trust. Therefore, from now on, I pledge to:

1. Stop biting my nails. I really mean it this time.

2. Make decent grades.

3. Be nicer to people, even Lana Weinberger.

4. Write faithfully in my journal every day.

5. Start - and finish - a novel. Write one, I mean, not read one.

6. Get it published before I turn 20.

7. Be more understanding of Mom and what she is going through now that she is in the last trimester of her pregnancy.

8. Stop using Mr. G's face-razor on my legs. Buy my own razors.

9. Try to be more sympathetic to Dad's abandonment issues while also getting out of having to spend July and August in Genovia.

10. Figure out way to get Michael Moscovitz to take me to the prom without stooping to trickery and/or grovelling.


Once I've done all this, I should become fully self-actualized and ready to experience some well-deserved joy. And really, everything on that list is fairly doable. I mean, yes, it took Margaret Mitchell ten years to write Gone With the Wind, but I am only fifteen, so even if it takes me ten years to finish my own novel, I will still only be twenty-five by the time I get it published, which is only five years behind schedule.

The only problem is I don't really know what I'm going to write a novel about. But I'm sure I'll think of something soon.

Maybe I should start practising with some short stories or haikus or something.

The prom thing, though. THAT is going to be hard. Because I truly do not want Michael to feel pressured about this. But I

have GOT TO GO TO THE PROM!!! IT IS MY LAST CHANCE!!!!!!!

I hope Tina is right, and that Michael intends to ask me tonight at dinner.

OH PLEASE GOD LET TINA BE RIGHT!!!!!!!!!