“But Genovia already has a prime minister.”

I just looked at him. “No, it doesn’t,” I said.

“Yes, it does,” Dr. Knutz said. “I watched the movies of your life, like you told me to. And I distinctly remember—”

“The movies of my life got that part WRONG,” I said. “Among the many, many other parts they got wrong. They claimed artistic license, or something. They said they had to raise the stakes. As if the stakes in my REAL life aren’t high enough.”

So then Dr. Knutz said, “Oh. I see.” He thought about it for a minute. Then he said, “You know, all of this reminds me of a horse I have, back at the ranch….”

I nearly flung myself out of my chair at him.

“DO NOT TELL ME ABOUT DUSTY AGAIN!” I yelled. “I ALREADY KNOW ABOUT DUSTY!”

“This isn’t about Dusty,” Dr. Knutz said, looking startled. “It’s about Pancho.”

“How many horses do you have, anyway?” I demanded.

“Oh, a few dozen,” Dr. Knutz said. “But that’s not important. What’s important is, Pancho is a bit of a pushover. Anybody who takes him out of his stall and saddles him up, Pancho falls in love with. He’ll rub his head against them, just like a cat, and follow them around…even if they don’t treat him particularly nicely. Pancho is desperate for affection, wants everybody to like him—”

“Okay,” I interrupted. “I get it. Pancho has self-esteem issues. I do, too. But what does this have to do with the fact that my father is trying to keep Princess Amelie’s Bill of Rights from the Genovian people?”

“Nothing,” Dr. Knutz said. “It has to do with the fact that you’re not trying to do anything to stop him.”

I stared at him some more. “How am I supposed to dothat ?”

“Well, that’s for you to figure out,” Dr. Knutz said.

Okay.That got me mad.

“You said the first day I sat in here,” I yelled, “that the only way I was going to get out from the bottom of the dark hole of depression I’ve fallen into was to ask for help. Well, I’m asking you for help…and now you tell me I have to figure it out myself? How much are you getting paid an hour for this, anyway?”

Dr. Knutz regarded me calmly from behind his notepad.

“Listen to what you’ve just told me,” he said. “The boy you love told you he just wants to be friends, and you did nothing. Your best friend humiliated you in front of the entire school, and you did nothing. Your father tells you he isn’t honoring the wishes of your dead ancestor, and you do nothing. I told you the first time we met, no one can help you unless you help yourself. Nothing’s ever going to change for you if you don’t do something every day that—”

“—scares me,” I said. “I KNOW. But how? What am Isupposed to do about all this?”

“It isn’t about what you’resupposed to do, Mia,” Dr. Knutz said, sounding a little frustrated. “What do youwant to do?”

I still didn’t get it. I was like, “I want…I want…I want to do the right thing!”

“That’s what I’m telling you,” Dr. Knutz said. “If you want to do the right thing, don’t be like Pancho. Do what Princess Amelie would do!”

WHAT WAS HETALKING ABOUT???

But before I had a chance to figure it out, he went, “Oh, look at that. Our time is up. But this has been a very interesting session. Next week, I’d like to see you with your father again. I have a feeling you two will have some issues that need discussing. And bring along this grandmother of yours,” Dr. Knutz added. “I saw a photo of her on Google. She seems an intriguing woman.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “What are you saying? How can I do what Princess Amelie did? Princess Amelie failed. Her bill never got passed. No one ever KNEW about it. No one but me.”

“Bye for now,” Dr. Knutz said.

And shooed me away.

I just don’t get it. My dad is paying this guy to help me with my problems. But all he’s doing is passing the buck, saying I have to solve my own problems.

But isn’t that what he’s getting paid for doing???

And how in God’s name am I supposed to do anything about the Princess Amelie situation? I made my case to Dad, and he totally blew me off. What more can I do?

The worst part of it is, Dr. Knutz got my blood work back from Dr. Fung’s office. The results? Normal. I’m totally normal, in every regard.Better than normal. Like Rocky, I’m in the freaking 99th percentile for my age group, or something. I was hoping at the very least that the fact that I’d started eating meat again would have raised my cholesterol to the point that it could be blamed for my hideous depression.

But my cholesterol is fine.Everything is fine. I’m healthy as a freaking horse.

Ouch. Why did I have to use the word “horse”?

Oh, God. We’re here. I can’t BELIEVE I have to do this stupid Domina Rei thing tonight.

All I can say is, if I get Grandmère into this club, or whatever it is, she better get off my back about my hair.

Pancho? He seriously told me a story about a horse named PANCHO?

Friday, September 24, 9 p.m., ladies’ room, The Waldorf-Astoria

She hates the nail polish.

She’s acting like my wearing it is going to totally ruin her chances of being asked to join this crazy club. She’s more upset about my nail polish than she is about the fact that our family, for centuries now, has essentially been living a lie. It was the first thing I brought up when I got to her suite.

“Grandmère,” I said. “You can’t agree with Dad that ignoring Princess Amelie Virginie’s dying wish is the right thing to do. Can you?”

And she’d rolled her eyes and gone, “Not that again! Your father PROMISED me you’d have forgotten all about that by now.”

Yeah. I noticed that by how he hadn’t returned a single one of my phone calls all day. He was giving me the silent treatment, the same as Lilly.

Well, the same as Lilly until she’d exploded this afternoon, that is.

“But, honestly, Amelia,” Grandmère had gone on. “You can’t expect us to completely alter our lives because of the whim of some four-hundred-year-old dead princess, can you?”

“Amelie didn’t craft her Bill of Rights on a whim, Grandmère. And our lives wouldn’t be altered,” I’d insisted. “We’d still go on just like before. Only we wouldn’t actually be RULING. We’d be letting the PEOPLE rule—or at least CHOOSE who they WANT to rule. Which could very well be Dad, you know—”

“But supposing it ISN’T?” Grandmère had demanded. “Where would we LIVE?”

“Grandmère,” I’d said. “We’ll go on living in the palace as always—”

“No, we wouldn’t,” Grandmère had said. “The palace would become the residence of the prime minister—whoever that would end up being. Do you really think I could stand to see some POLITICIAN living in my beautiful palace? He’ll probably have the whole place carpeted. In BEIGE.”

Seriously. I’d wanted to wring her neck. “Grandmère. The prime minister would live—well, I don’t know. But someplace else. We’d still be the royal family and still live in the palace and continue doing all the duties we normally do—EXCEPT RULING.”

All she’d had to say to that was, “Well, your father won’t hear of THAT. So you might as well drop it. Really, Amelia, RED nails? Are you trying to give me a stroke?”

Which, all right: I’ll admit this evening seems very important to her. You should have seen how she preened when the Contessa came up to me during the cocktail hour and was like, “Princess Amelia? My goodness! How you’ve grown since I last saw you!”

“Yes,” Grandmère said acidly, glancing at Bella Trevanni’s ginormous stomach. Or, should I say, Princess René’s ginormous stomach. “As has your granddaughter.”

“Due any day now,” the Contessa cooed.

“Did you hear?” Bella asked us. “It’s a girl!” We both congratulated her. She really does look happy—even glowing, the way they always say pregnant women do.

And it totally serves my cousin René right, the fact that he’s having a girl, when he himself was always such a flirt. When his kid starts dating, he’s finally going to find out how all the fathers of the girls he went out with must have felt.

But the Contessa’s not the only person Grandmère’s hoping to impress. The crème de la crème of New York society is here—well, the women. No men are allowed at Domina Rei functions, except their annual ball, which this isn’t. I just saw Gloria Vanderbilt putting on her lip gloss over by a potted palm.

And I’m pretty sure that Madeleine Albright is adjusting her pantyhose in the stall next to mine.

And look: I get it. I really do get why Grandmère is so anxious to be one of these women. They’re all super powerful—and charming, too. Lana’s mom, Mrs. Weinberger, was way nice to me when we first came in—she didn’t seem at all like a lady who would sell her daughter’s pony without letting her say good-bye—shaking my hand and telling me what an excellent role model I am to young girls everywhere. She said she wished her own daughter had as good a head on her shoulders as I do.

This caused Lana, who was standing next to her mom, to snicker into her tulle stole.

But I realized there were no hard feelings when a second later Lana took me by the arm and said, “Check it out. They have a chocolate fountain over at the buffet. Only it’s low-cal, because it’s made with Splenda,” then added, when she’d dragged me out of earshot of her mom and Grandmère, “Also, they’ve got the hottest busboys you’ve ever seen.”

Anyway. I’m supposed to give my talk any minute now. Grandmère made me go over it with her in the limo. I kept telling her it’s way too boring to impress anyone, let alone inspire them. But she keeps insisting drainage is what the women of Domina Rei want to hear about.

Yeah. Because I’m so sure Beverly Bellerieve—of the prime-time news showTwentyFour/Seven —wants to hear all about Genovia’s sewage issues. I saw her out in the lobby just now, and she smiled at me all big and said, “Well, hello there! Don’t you look grown-up!” I guess remembering that time my freshman year we did that interview and—

Oh my God.

OH MY GOD.

No. That is NOT what he meant when he told me—in no way did he mean…

No. Just…

But wait a minute. Hesaid not to be like Pancho. Hesaid to do what Princess Amelie would do.

She meant for Genovia to be a democracy.

Only no one knew that.

But that’s not true. SOMEone does know.

Iknow.

And right now, at this very moment, I am in the unique position of being able to let a couple thousand businesswomen know as well.

Including Beverly Bellerieve, who has the biggest mouth in broadcast journalism.

No. Just no. That would be wrong. That would—that would—

My dad would KILL me.

But…that woulddefinitely not be like Pancho of me.

But how can I? How can I do that to my dad? To Grandmère?

Well, who cares about Grandmère? How can I do that to my dad?

Oh, no. I hear Grandmère—she’s coming to get me. It’s time—

No! I’m not ready! I don’t know what to do! Someone needs to tell me what to do!

Oh, God.

I think someone already did.

It’s just that it’s someone who’s been dead for four hundred years.

PRINCESS DROPS BOMB OF DIFFERENT KIND

For immediate release

Princess Mia of Genovia—most recently in the news after a brush with nitrostarch in her Albert Einstein High School chemistry lab sent her and two others (including the princess’s rumored royal-consort-of-the-moment, John Paul Reynolds-Abernathy IV) to the Lenox Hill Hospital emergency room with minor injuries—has dropped an explosive of her own: that a newly discovered four-hundred-year-old document reveals that the principality of Genovia is a constitutional, not absolute, monarchy.

The difference is a significant one. In an absolute monarchy, the viceroy—in Genovia’s case, Princess Mia’s father, Prince Artur Christoff Phillipe Gerard Grimaldi Renaldo—possesses the divine right to rule over his people and land. In a constitutional monarchy, the ceremonial role of a royal heir (such as the Queen of England) is acknowledged, but all actual governmental decisions are made by elected head of state, usually in conjunction with a parliamentary body.

Princess Mia made this startling revelation at a gala to benefit African orphans given by Domina Rei, the exclusive women’s organization known for its charitable good works and high-profile membership (including Oprah Winfrey and Hillary Rodham Clinton).

Princess Mia, in an address to the New York chapter, read a roughly translated selection from the diary of a princess of whom she is a royal descendant, describing the young woman’s battle with the plague and an autocratic uncle, and her drawing up and signing of a Bill of Rights guaranteeing the people of Genovia the freedom to elect their next leader.