I did what I was told without even thinking about it. That’s how much of a daze I was in from what had just happened. A part of me was going,It’s a trick. It has to be. I’m going to get to Bendel’s, and instead of Lana, Carrot Top is going to be there, along with all these paparazzi who’ll take pictures of me and Carrot Top together, and the headline in all the Sunday papers will be, “Meet the New Future Royal Consort of Genovia…Carrot Top!”

But the rational part of me—I guess, even as sunk into depression as I am, there’s still a rational side of me—was going,OBVIOUSLY Lana was being sincere. That thing she said about Josh—I mean, basically, what happened between you and Josh and Lana is no different than what’s happening now between you and J.P. and Lilly. Even though you and J.P. arejust friends, Lilly still THINKS you stole him, same as Lana thought about Josh. The only difference really was that you were actually crushing on Josh. No wonder Lana was mad. No wonder LILLY is mad. God, Mia. You dosuck.

So maybe it’s not a trick after all. Maybe Lana really does want to hang out with me.

The question is…do I really want to hang out with her?

Oh, crud. Here comes Mrs. Potts. She doesn’t look too happy about the fact that I’ve brought my journal out to left field with me.

But is it my fault no one will throw the ball to me?

Friday, September 17, Chemistry

Oh, God.

As far as I can tell, utter bedlam has overtaken this class since I’ve been gone. We’ve broken off into individual group experiments of our choice. The one Kenny and J.P. have chosen in my absence appears to be something called nitro starch synthesis, which, they inform me, is actually “a mixture of several nitrate esters of starch with the formula [C6H7(OH)x(ONO2)y]n wherex +y=3 andn is any whole number from 1 on up.”

I have no idea what any of that means. I just put on my goggles and my lab coat, and am sitting here holding stuff out to them when they ask for it.

When I can actually identify what it is that they want, anyway.

I think I’m still in shock from the whole Lana incident. I have to figure out how I’m going to get out of going to the lingerie trunk show at Bendel’s with Lana Weinberger tomorrow.

True, I totally do need new bras. But how can I hang out withLana ? I mean, even if shedid apologize. She’s still…Lana. What do we even have in common? She likes partying. I like lying in bed in my Hello Kitty flannel pajamas watchingWhy I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy.

Which reminds me. I can’t go shopping at Bendel’s tomorrow. There’s no school tomorrow, which means I can spend the whole day in bed. YES!!! I love my bed. It’s safe in there. No one can get me there.

Except that Mr. G took my TV away.

Oh, well. I can always readJane Eyre again. I mean, there’s that whole part in it where Jane and Mr. Rochester get separated because of the whole Bertha thing, and then she hears his disembodied voice floating over the moor…. Maybe I’ll hear Michael’s disembodied voice floating over the Hudson, and know that deep down he still loves me and wants me back, and then I can fly to Japan and—

Mia! What are you doing tomorrow night? If I got tickets to something, would you come with me? Anything you want to see, you name it.—J.P.

Oh, God. What can I say? I just want to stay in bed. Forever.

That’s sweet, J.P., but I’m still not quite over my bronchitis. I think I’m going to lay low. Thanks for thinking of me, though!—M

That’s cool! If you want, I could come over. We could watch some movies….

Oh, wow. J.P. is really taking this breakup with Lilly hard. Even though he, of course, is the one who initiated it. Still, he can’t even stand the thought of being alone on a Saturday night.

I’d love to, but the truth is, my TV is on the fritz.

Which isn’t the truth at all. But is about as much of the truth as J.P. is ever going to get.

Mia, is this about the newspaper thing? Everybody thinking we’re going out? Is the paparazzi staking out your place or something? You don’t want to be caught being seen with me, a mere commoner, again?

Oh, God.

NO! Of course not! I’m just really beat. It’s been a long week.

Okay. I can take a hint. There’s someone else, isn’t there? It’s Kenny, right? You two are engaged? When’s the wedding? Where are you registered? Sharper Image, right? You guys want an iJoy 550 robotic massage chair, don’t you?

I couldn’t help bursting out laughing at that. Which, of course, made Mr. Hipskin look over at our table and go, “Is there a problem, people?”

“No,” Kenny said, then glared at us. “Could you two,” he hissed, “quit passing notes andhelp ?”

“Absolutely,” J.P. said. “What do you want us to do?”

“Well, for starters,” Kenny said. “You could pass me the starch.”

Which reminded me:

“So, Kenny,” I said, as Kenny was sprinkling some white stuff into a jar of other white stuff. “What’s this I hear about Lilly hooking up with some muay thai fighter friend of yours at her party Saturday night?”

Kenny nearly dropped the white stuff. Then he gave me a very irritated look.

“Mia,” he said. “With all due respect. I am in the middle of a hazardous procedure involving the use of highly corrosive acids. Please can we talk about Lilly some other time?”

God! What a baby.

Friday, September 17, limo on the way home from Dr. Knutz’s office

Seriously, I don’t know which is worse: princess lessons or therapy. I mean, they are both equally horrible, in their own way.

But at least with princess lessons, I get the POINT. I’m being prepared to one day rule a country. With therapy, it’s like…I don’t even KNOW what the point is. Because if it’s supposed to be making me feel better, it’s NOT.

And there’s HOMEWORK. I mean, like I don’t have ENOUGH to do with a week of school to make up. I have to do homework on my PSYCHE, too?

I don’t know what we’re paying Dr. Knutz for, when he’s making ME do all the work.

Like, today’s session started off with Dr. Knutz asking me how school went. We were alone in his office this time—Dad wasn’t there, because this was a real session and not a consultation. Everything was exactly the same as last time…crazy cowboy décor, wire-rimmed glasses, white hair, and all.

The only difference, really, was that I was in my too-small school uniform instead of my Hello Kitty pajamas. Which I told him my mom had put down the incinerator. The same night my stepfather took away my TV.

To which Dr. Knutz replied, “Good. Now. What happened in school today?”

So then I told him—ONCE AGAIN—that I don’t even get why I have to GO to school, since I already have complete job assurance after graduation ANYWAY, and I hate it, so why can’t I just stay home?

Then Dr. Knutz asked me why I hate school so much, and so—just to illustrate my point—I told him about Lana.

But he totally didn’t get it. He was like, “But isn’t that a good thing? A girl with whom you haven’t gotten along in the past made a friendly overture toward you. She is willing to move on from your past differences. Isn’t that what you’d like your friend Lilly to do?”

“Yeah,” I said, amazed he couldn’t understand something so obvious. “But I LIKE Lilly. Lana’s been nothing but mean to me.”

“And Lilly’s been kind lately?”

“Well, not LATELY. But she thinks I stole her boyfriend….” My voice trailed off as I remembered that I’d once stolen Lana’s boyfriend, too. “Okay,” I said. “I get your point. But…should I really goshopping with Lana Weinberger tomorrow?”

“Do YOU think you should go shopping with Lana tomorrow?” Dr. Knutz wanted to know.

Seriously. This is what we’re paying some ungodly amount of money for.

“I don’t know!” I cried. “I’m asking you!”

“But you know yourself better than I do.”

“How can you even say that?” I practically yelled. “Everyoneknows me better than I do! Haven’t you seen the movies of my life? Because if not, you’re the only one in the world who hasn’t!”

“I might,” Dr. Knutz admitted, “have ordered them from Netflix. But they haven’t come yet. I only met you yesterday, remember. And I’m more of a Western fan, myself.”

I rolled my eyes at all the mustang portraits. “Gee,” I said. “I couldn’t tell.”

“So,” Dr. Knutz said. “What else?”

I blinked at him. “What do you mean, what else? Except for the fact that, I reiterate, my STEPDAD TOOK AWAY MY TV!!!”

“Do you know what the one thing every student who has ever been admitted to West Point has in common?”

Hello. Random. “No. But I guess you’re gonna tell me.”

“None of them had a television in their room.”

“BUT I DON’T WANT TO GO TO WEST POINT!” I yelled.

Dr. Knutz, however, doesn’t respond to yelling. He just went, “What else about your school do you hate?”

Where to begin? “Well, how about the fact that everybody thinks I’m dating a guy I’m not?” I asked. “Just because it said so in theNew York Post ? And the fact that the guy Ido like—whom I, in fact, love—is sending me e-mails asking how I am, like nothing happened between us, and that he didn’t yank my heart out of my chest and kick it across the room, like we’refriends or something?”

Dr. Knutz looked confused. “But didn’t you agree with Michael that the two of youshould just be friends?”

“Yes,” I said, frustrated. “But I didn’t mean it!”

“I see. Well, how did you respond to his e-mail?”

“I didn’t,” I said, suddenly feeling a bit ashamed. “I deleted it.”

“Why did you do that?” Dr. Knutz wanted to know.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I just…I didn’t trust myself not to beg him to take me back. And I don’t want to be that girl.”

“That’s a valid reason for deleting his e-mail,” Dr. Knutz said. And for some reason—even though he’s a COWBOY THERAPIST—I felt pleased by this. “Now. Why don’t you want to go shopping with your friend?”

I stopped feeling so pleased. Could he not PAY ATTENTION TO THE SIMPLEST DETAIL?

“I told you. She’s not my friend. She’s my enemy. If you had seen the movies—”

“I’ll watch them this weekend,” he said.

“All right. But…the thing is…her mom asked me to speak at this event. And Grandmère says it’s a big honor. And she’s super excited about it. And it turns out the mom asked me because Lana recommended me. Which was…decent of her.”

“So that,” Dr. Knutz said, “is why you didn’t turn down her invitation to go shopping right away?”

“Well, that, and…I need new clothes. And Lana knows a lot about shopping. And if I’m supposed to do one thing every day that scares me—well, the idea of shopping with Lana Weinberger DEFINITELY scares me.”

“Then I think you have your answer,” Dr. K said.

“But I’d much rather spend my whole day in bed,” I said quickly. “Reading,” I added. “OR WATCHING TV.”

“Back on the ranch,” Dr. Knutz said, in his good-old-boy drawl, “we’ve got a mare named Dusty.”

I think my mouth actually fell open. Dusty? After all that, he was telling me a story about a mare namedDusty ? What kind of weird psychological techniquewas this?

“Whenever it’s a hot summer day and Dusty passes a certain pretty little pond on my property,” Dr. Knutz went on, “she wades off into the middle of it. It doesn’t matter if she’s saddled up and has a rider on her. Dusty doesn’t care. She’s got to get into that water. Want to know why?”

I was so shocked by the fact that a trained psychologist would tell me a story about a HORSE in a professional setting that I just nodded dumbly.

“Because,” Dr. Knutz said, “she’s hot. And she wants to cool off. She’d rather spend the day in that pond than carry somebody around on her back. But we don’t always get to do what we want to do. Because it’s not necessarily healthy or practical. Besides, saddles are ruined when they get wet.”

I stared at him.

And this guy was supposed to be the nation’s preeminent adolescent and child psychologist?

“I want to go back to something you said yesterday,” Dr. Knutz said, without waiting for me to respond to the Dusty story, thank God. “You said, and I quote—” And he DID quote. He actually read from his notes.“Maybe it’s a little more complicated than a normal teenager’s breakup, because I’m a princess, and Michael is a genius, and he thinks he has to go off to Japan to build a robotic surgical arm in order to prove to my family that he’s worthy of me, when the truth is , I’mnot worthy of him,and I suppose because deep down inside, I know that I completely sabotaged our relationship.”