I didn’t know what else to do. So, I pulled a slice from the pie, slapped it onto a paper plate, and brought it over to Lars, along with his soda. It’s no joke, having to worry about your bodyguard all the time.

Then, I went and sat back down and pulled my own slice onto a plate, and carefully sprinkled hot pepper flakes all over it.

Michael, as was his custom, merely picked up a slice—seemingly oblivious to the fact that it was steaming hot—folded it in half, and took a big bite.

His hands, as he did this, looked alarmingly…large. Why had I never noticed this before? How large Michael’s hands are?

Then, after he’d swallowed, he said, “Look. I don’t want to fight about this.”

I glanced up at him kind of sharply, on account of having been staring at his hands. I wasn’t sure what he meant by “this.” Did he mean about Lilly and the presidency? Or did he mean—

“All I want to know is,” he went on, in a sort of tired voice, “are we EVER going to Do It?”

Okay. Not Lilly and the presidency.

I practically choked on the tiny bite of pizza I’d taken, and had to swallow about a gallon of Coke before I was able to say, “OF COURSE.”

But Michael looked suspicious.

“Before the end of this decade?”

“Absolutely,” I said, with more conviction than I necessarily felt. But, you know. What else could I say? Plus, my face was as red as the pizza sauce. I know because I saw my reflection in the napkin holder.

“I knew going into this that it wasn’t going to be easy, Mia,” Michael said. “I mean, aside from the age difference and your being my sister’s best friend, there’s the whole princess aspect to it…the constant-hounding-bypaparazzi/can’t-go-anywhere-without-a-bodyguard thing. A lesser man might find all that daunting. I, on the other hand, have always enjoyed a challenge. Besides which, I love you, so it’s all worth it to me.”

I practically melted right there on the spot. I mean, seriously. Has any guy EVER said anything so sweet?

But then he went on.

“It’s not that I’m trying to rush you into something you aren’t ready for,” Michael said, as matter-of-factly as if he were discussing the next move he planned on making in Rebel Strike. How do boys do this, by the way? “It’s just that I know it takes you a while to get used to things. So, I want you to start getting used to this: You’re the girl I want. One day, you WILL be mine.”

Now my face was REDDER than the pizza sauce. At least, that’s what it felt like.

“Um,” I said. “Okay.” Because what else COULD I say to that????

Besides, it wasn’t like I was displeased. I WANT Michael to want me.

It’s just, you know, for him to SAY it like that was actually kind of…I don’t know.

Hot.

“So long as that’s clear,” Michael said.

“Crystal,” I said, after I’d choked for a while.

Then, he said as far as Doing It went, I was off the hook for the time being, but he expected periodic re-evaluation of our stances on that issue.

I asked how often he thought we should re-evaluate our stances, and he said about once a month, and I said I thought six-month evaluations might be better, and then he said two, and I said three, and then he said, “Deal.”

Then, he got up and went to offer Lars another slice and got sucked into a conversation Lars is having with the guy behind the counter about the Yankees’ chances in the World Series this year, even though to my knowledge, Michael has never watched a baseball game in his life.

He did, however, design a computer model in which you can input all the statistics concerning a team, and it will then tell you what their chances are of beating another team to within a two-point spread.

The fact is, I love him. He’s the boy I want. And one day, he WILL be mine.

And now he wants to know if I want to go get a gelato.

I said:

“I most certainly do.”ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many thanks to Beth Ader, Jennifer Brown, Barb Cabot, Laura Langlie, Abigail McAden and, especially, Benjamin Egnatz.About the Author

MEG CABOT is the author of the best-selling, critically acclaimed Princess Diaries books, which were made into the wildly popular Disney movies of the same name. Her other books for teens include the Mediator series, the 1-800-Where-R-You books, ALL-AMERICAN GIRL, TEEN IDOL, NICOLA AND THE VISCOUNT, and VICTORIA AND THE ROGUE. Meg’s books for older readers include THE BOY NEXT DOOR, BOY MEETS GIRL, and EVERY BOY’S GOT ONE. She is still waiting for her real parents, the king and queen, to restore her to her rightful throne. She lives in Key West and New York City with her husband and a one-eyed cat named Henrietta.

Visit Meg’s website at: www.megcabot.com

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Books by MEG CABOT

The Princess Diaries

THE PRINCESS DIARIES, VOLUME II:

Princess in the Spotlight

THE PRINCESS DIARIES, VOLUME III:

Princess in Love

THE PRINCESS DIARIES, VOLUME IV:

Princess in Waiting

THE PRINCESS DIARIES, VOLUME IV AND A HALF:

Project Princess

THE PRINCESS DIARIES, VOLUME V:

Princess in Pink

THE PRINCESS DIARIES, VOLUME VI:

Princess in Training

The Princess Present:

A PRINCESS DIARIES BOOK

Princess Lessons:

A PRINCESS DIARIES BOOK

Perfect Princess:

A PRINCESS DIARIES BOOK

THE MEDIATOR BOOKS:

THE MEDIATOR 1: SHADOWLAND

THE MEDIATOR 2: NINTH KEY

THE MEDIATOR 3: REUNION

THE MEDIATOR 4: DARKEST HOUR

THE MEDIATOR 5: HAUNTED

THE MEDIATOR 6: TWILIGHT

ALL-AMERICAN GIRL

TEEN IDOL

NICOLA AND THE VISCOUNT

VICTORIA AND THE ROGUE

THE BOY NEXT DOOR

BOY MEETS GIRL

EVERY BOY’S GOT ONE

THE 1-800-WHERE-R-YOU BOOKS:

WHEN LIGHTNING STRIKES

CODE NAME CASSANDRA

SAFE HOUSE

SANCTUARY

Credits

Jacket art © 2005 by Howard Huang

Jacket design by Amy Ryan

Jacket © 2005 by HarperCollins Publishers Inc.COPYRIGHT

PRINCESS IN TRAINING. Copyright © 2005 by Meggin Cabot. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of PerfectBound™.

PerfectBound™ and the PerfectBound™ logo are trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Microsoft Reader March 2005 ISBN 0-06-083904-X

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cabot, Meg.

Princess in training / by Meg Cabot.—1st ed.

p. cm. — (The princess diaries; v. 6)

Summary: High school sophomore Princess Mia records in her diary her struggles with geometry, the expectations of being a college student's girlfriend, running for president of the student council, and a potential ecological disaster in her native land, Genovia.

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