But when I told my dad that, he just shot Mr. G a suspicious look. "Well," he said again. "I’m just going to give this Carol Fernandez a call and see who her source is."

And while my dad was doing that, I got stuck with Lars. I’m not kidding. Just like Tina Hakim Baba, I now have a bodyguard trailing around after me from class to class. Like I’m not enough of a laughingstock already.

I now have an armed escort.

I totally tried to get out of it. I was like, "Dad, I can seriously take care of myself," but he was completely rigid and said that even though Genovia is a small country, it is a very wealthy country, and he cannot take the risk of my being kidnaped and held for ransom like the boy inMy Secret Love, only my dad didn’t say that because he’s never readMy Secret Love.

I said, "Dad, no one is going to kidnap me. This isschool," but he wouldn’t go for it. He asked Principal Gupta if it was all right, and she said, "Of course, Your Highness."

Your Highness! Principal Gupta called my dad Your Highness! If it hadn’t been all serious and stuff, I would have wet my pants laughing.

The only good thing that has come out of this is that Principal Gupta let me off detention for the rest of the week, claiming that having my picture in thePost is punishment enough.

But really the only reason is that she is totally charmed by my father. He pulled such a Jean-Luc Picard on her, you wouldn’t believe it, calling her Madam Principal and apologizing for all the fuss. I practically expected him to kiss her hand, he was flirting so hard with her. And Principal Gupta has been married a million years, and has this big black mole on the side of her nose. And she totally fell for it! She was eating it up!

I wonder if Tina Hakim Baba will still sit with me at lunch. Well, if she does, at least our bodyguards will have something to do: They can compare civilian defense tactics.

 

 

 

More Wednesday, French Class

I guess I should have my picture on the front of thePost more often.

Suddenly I am very popular.

I walked into the cafeteria (I told Lars to keep five paces behind me at all times; he kept stepping on the backs of my combat boots), and Lana Weinberger, of all people, came up to me while I was in the jet line getting my tray, and said, "Hey, Mia. Why don’t you come and sit with us?"

I am not even kidding. That lousy hypocrite wants to be friends with me now that I’m a princess.

Tina was right behind me in line (well, Lars was behind me; Tina was behind Lars, and Tina’s bodyguard was behind her). But did Lana invite Tina to join her? Of course not. TheNew York Post hadn’t calledTina a "statuesque beauty." Short, heavyset girls—even one whose father is an Arab sheikh—aren’t good enough to sit byLana. Oh, no. Only purebred Genovian princesses are good enough to sit byLana.

I nearly threw up all over my lunch tray.

"No, thanks, Lana," I said. "I already have someone to sit with."

You should have seen Lana’s face. The last time I saw her look that shocked, a sugar cone had been stuck to her chest.

Later, when we were sitting down, Tina could only nibble at her salad. She hadn’t said a word about the princess thing. Meanwhile, though, everybody in the whole cafeteria—including the geeks, who never notice anything—were staring at our table. Let me tell you, it was way uncomfortable. I could feel Lilly’s eyes boring into me. She hadn’t said anything to me yet, but I think she had to have known. Nothing much escapes Lilly.

Anyway, after a while I couldn’t stand it anymore. I put down a forkful of rice and beans and said, "Look, Tina. If you don’t want to sit with me anymore, I understand."

Tina’s big eyes filled up with tears. I mean it. She shook her head, and her long black braid swayed. "What do you mean?" she asked. "You don’t like me anymore, Mia?"

It was my turn to be shocked. "What? Of course I like you. I thought maybe you might not likeme. I mean, every-one is staring at us. I could see why you might not want to sit with me."

Tina smiled sadly. "Everyone always stares at me," she said. "Because of Wahim, you see."

Wahim is her bodyguard. Wahim and Lars were sitting next to us, arguing over whose gun had the most firepower, Wahim’s 357 Magnum or Lars’s 9mm Glock. It was kind of a disturbing topic, but they both seemed happy as could be. In a minute or two, I expected they’d start to arm wrestle.

"So you see," Tina said, "I’mused to people thinking I’m weird. It’syou I feel sorry for, Mia. You could be sitting with anyone—anyone in this whole cafeteria—and yet you’re stuck with me. I don’t want you to feel you have to be nice to me just because no one else is."

I got really mad then. Not at Tina. But at everybody else at Albert Einstein. I mean, Tina Hakim Baba is really, really nice, and no one knows it because no one ever talks to her, because she isn’t very thin and she’s kind of quiet and she’s stuck with a stupid bodyguard. While people are worrying about things like the fact that a deli is overcharging some people by five cents for gingko biloba rings, there are human beings walking around our school in abject misery because no one will even say Good morning to them, or How was your weekend?

And then I felt guilty, because a week agoI had been one of those people. I had always thought Tina Hakim Baba was a freak. The whole reason I hadn’t wanted anyone to find out I was a princess was that I was afraid they’d treatme the way they treated Tina Hakim Baba. And now that I know Tina, I know just how wrong I’d been to think badly of her.

So I told Tina I didn’t want to sit with anybody but her. I told her I thought we needed to stick together, and not just for the obvious reason (Wahim and Lars). I told her we needed to stick together because everyone else at this stupid school is completely NUTS.

Tina looked a lot happier then, and started filling me in on the new book she’s reading. This one is calledLove Only Once, and it’s about a girl who falls in love with a boy who has terminal cancer. I told Tina it seemed like kind of a bummer thing to read, but she told me she’d already read the end, and that the boy’s terminal cancer goes away. So I guess that’s okay then.

As we cleared our trays, I saw Lilly staring in my direction. It wasn’t the kind of stare someone who was about to apologize would use. So I wasn’t too surprised when later, after I got to G & T, Lilly sat there and stared at me some more. Boris kept on trying to talk to her, but she obviously wasn’t listening. Finally he gave up and picked up his violin and went back into the supply closet, where he belongs.

Meanwhile, this is how my tutoring session with Lilly’s brother went:

Me:Hi, Michael. I did all those problems you gave me. But I still don’t see why you couldn’t just look at the train schedule to find out what time a train traveling at 67 miles per hour will arrive in Fargo, North Dakota, if it leaves Salt Lake City at 7A.M.

Michael:So. Princess of Genovia, huh? Were you ever going to share that little piece of info with the group, or were we all supposed to guess?

Me:I was kind of hoping no one would ever find out.

Michael:Well, that’s obvious. I don’t see why, though. It’s not like it’s a bad thing.

Me:Are you kidding me? Of course it’s bad!

Michael:Did youread the article in today’sPost, Thermopolis?

Me:No way. I’m not going to read that trash. I don’t know who this Carol Fernandez thinks she is, but—

Then Lilly got into the act. It was like she couldn’t stand not to get involved.

Lilly:So you’re not aware that the crown prince of Genovia—namely, your father—has a total personal worth which, including real estate property and the palace’s art collection, is estimated at over three hundred million dollars?

Well, I guess it’s pretty obvious thatLilly read the article in today’sPost.

Me:Um . . . 

Hello? Three hundred million dollars?? And I get a lousy $100 a day???

Lilly:I wonder how much of that fortune was amassed by taking advantage of the sweat of the common laborer.

Michael:Considering that the people of Genovia have traditionally never paid income or property taxes, I would say none of it. What iswith you, anyway, Lil?

Lilly:Well, ifyou want to tolerate the excesses of the monarchy, you can be my guest, Michael. But I happen to think that it’s disgusting, with the world economy in the state it’s in today, for anyone to have a total worth of three hundred million dollars . . .  especially someone who never did a day’s work for it!

Michael:Pardon me, Lilly, but it’s my understanding that Mia’s father works extremely hard for his country. His father’s historic pledge, after Mussolini’s forces invaded in 1939, to exercise the rights of sovereignty in accordance with the political and economic interests of neighboring France in exchange for military and naval protection in the event of war might have tied the hands of a lesser politician, but Mia’s father has managed to work around that agreement. His efforts have resulted in a nation that has the highest literacy rate in Europe, some of the best educational attainment rates, and the lowest infant mortality, inflation, and unemployment rates in the Western Hemisphere.

I could only stare at Michael after that.Wow. Why doesn’t Grandmère teach me stuff likethat at our princess lessons? I mean, this is information I could actually use. I don’t exactly need to know which direction to tip my soup bowl. I need to know how to defend myself from virulent antiroyalists like my ex–best friend Lilly.

Lilly:(to Michael) Shut up. (to me) I see they already have you spouting off their populist propaganda like a good little girl.

Me: Me?Michael’s the one who—