Grandmere just stared at me. "You"d hate it."
"No," I said. "It might be fun. No boys, right? That would be great. I mean, I"m kind of sick of boys right now."
Grandmere shook her head. "But your friends . . . your mother . . ."
"Well," I said, reasonably. "They could come visit."
Then Grandmere"s face hardened. She peered at me from between the heavily mascaraed slits her eyes had become.
"Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Renaldo," she said. "You are running away from something, aren"t you?"
I shook my head innocently. "Oh, no, Grandmere," I said. "Really. I"d like to live in Genovia. It"d be neat."
"NEAT?" Grandmere stood up. Her high heels went through the slots between the metal bars of the fire escape, but she didn"t notice. She pointed imperiously at my window.
"You get inside right now," she ordered, in a voice I had never heard her use before.
I have to admit, I was so startled, I did exactly what she said. I unplugged Ronnie"s electric blanket and crawled right back into my room. Then I stood there while Grandmere crawled back in, too.
"You," she said, when she"d straightened out her skirt, "are a princess of the royal house of Renaldo. A princess," she said, going to my closet, and rifling through it, "does not shirk her responsibilities. Nor does she run at the first sign of adversity."
"Um, Grandmere," I said. "What happened today was hardly the first sign of adversity, okay? What happened today was the last straw. I can"t take it anymore, Grandmere. I"m getting out."
Grandmere pulled from my closet the dress Sebastiano had designed for me to wear to the dance. You know, the one that was supposed to make Michael forget that I am his little sister"s best friend.
"Nonsense," Grandmere said.
That was all.
Just nonsense. Then she stood there, tapping her toes, staring at me.
"Grandmere," I said. Maybe it was all that time I"d spent outside. Or maybe it was that I was pretty sure my mom and Mr. G and my dad were all in the next room, listening. How could they not be? There was no door, or anything, to separate my room from the living room.
"You don"t understand," I said. "I can"t go back there."
"All the more reason," Grandmere said, "for you to go."
"No," I said. "First of all, I don"t even have a date for the dance, okay? And P.S., only losers go to dances without dates."
"You are not a loser, Amelia," Grandmere said. "You are a princess. And princesses do not run away when things become difficult. They throw their shoulders back, and they face what disaster awaits them head on. Bravely, and without complaint."
I said, "h.e.l.lo, we are not talking about marauding visigoths, okay, Grandmere? We are talking about an entire high school that seems to think that I am in love with Boris Pelkowski."
"Which is precisely," Grandmere said, "why you must show them that it doesn"t matter to you what they think."
"Why can"t I show them that it doesn"t matter by not going?"
"Because that," Grandmere said, "is the cowardly way. And you, Mia, as you have shown amply this past week, are not a coward. Now get dressed."
I don"t know why I did what she said. Maybe it was because somewhere deep inside, I knew that for once, Grandmere was right.
Or maybe it was because secretly, I guess I was a little curious to see what would happen.
But I think the real reason was because, for the first time in my entire life, Grandmere didn"t call me Amelia.
No. She called me Mia.
And because of my stupid sentimentalism, I am in a car right now, going back to stupid, c.r.a.ppy Albert Einstein High School, the dust from which I thought I"d managed to shake permanently from my feet not four hours ago.
But no. Oh, no. I"m going back, in the stupid velvet party dress Sebastiano designed for me. I"m going back, with no date. I"m going back, and I will probably be ridiculed for being the dateless biological freak that I am.
I am, however, a princess, and apparently that means I am expected to take whatever is dished out at me, no matter how cruel, unfair, or undeserved it might be.
And regardless of what happens, I can always comfort myself with the knowledge of one thing: Tomorrow, I will be thousands of miles away from all of this.
Oh, G.o.d. We"re here.
I think I"m going to be sick.
Sat.u.r.day, December 20, Royal Genovian Jet
When I was about to turn six years old, all I wanted for my birthday was a cat.
I didn"t care what kind of cat. I just wanted one. I wanted a cat of my very own. We had been to visit my mom"s parents at their farm in Indiana, and they had a lot of cats. One of them had had kittens, little fluffy orange and white ones, which purred loudly when I held them under my chin, and liked to curl up inside the bib of my overalls and take naps. More than anything in the world, I wanted to keep one of those kittens.
I should mention that at the time, I had a thumb-sucking problem. My mother had tried everything to get me to stop sucking my thumb, including buying me a Barbie, in spite of her fundamental stand against Barbie and all that she stands for, as a sort of bribe. Nothing worked.
So when I started whining to her about wanting a kitten, my mom came up with a plan. She told me she would get me a kitten for my birthday if I quit sucking my thumb.
Which I did, immediately. I wanted a cat of my own that badly.
Yet, as my birthday rolled around, I had my doubts my mother would live up to her end of the bargain. For one thing, even at the age of six, I knew my mom wasn"t the most responsible person. Why else was our electricity always being turned off? And about half the time I would show up at school wearing a skirt AND pants, because my mother let me decide what to wear. So I wasn"t sure she"d remember about the kitten-or that, if she did remember, she"d know where to get one.
So as you can imagine, when the morning of my sixth birthday rolled around, I wasn"t holding out much hope.
But when my mother came into my bedroom holding this tiny ball of yellow and white fur, and plopped it into my chest, and I looked into Louie"s (he didn"t become Fat Louie until about twenty-something pounds later) great big blue eyes (this was before they turned green), I knew a joy such as I had never known before in my life, and never expected to feel again.
That is, until last night.
I am totally serious.
Last night was the best night of my ENTIRE life. After that whole fiasco with Sebastiano and the photos, I thought I would never ever feel anything like grat.i.tude to Grandmere EVER again.
But she was SO RIGHT to make me go to that dance. I am SO GLAD I went back to Albert Einstein, the best, the loveliest school in the whole country, if not the whole world!!!!!!!
Okay, here"s what happened: Lars and I pulled up in front of the school. There were twinkly white lights in all the windows, that I guess were supposed to represent icicles, or whatever.
I was sure I was going to throw up and I mentioned this to Lars. He said I couldn"t possibly throw up because to his certain knowledge I hadn"t eaten anything since the Entenmann"s cake way before lunch, and that was probably all digested by now. With that piece of encouraging information, he escorted me up the steps and into the school.
There were ma.s.ses of people teeming around the coat check in the front entrance. Lars checked our coats while I stood there waiting for someone to come up and ask me what I was doing there without a date. All that happened, however, was that Lilly-and-Boris and Tina-and-Dave descended upon me and started acting all nice and said how happy they were that I"d come (Tina told me later that she"d already explained to everyone that Kenny and I had broken up, although she hadn"t told them why, THANK G.o.d).
So, fortified, by my friends, I went into the gym, which was decorated all wintry, with cut-out paper snowflakes, one of those dis...o...b..a.l.l.s, and fake snow everywhere, which I must say looked a lot whiter and cleaner than the snow that was starting to pile up on the ground outside.
There were tons of people there. I saw Lana and Josh (ugh), Justin Baxendale with his usual flock of adoring fans, and Shameeka and Ling Su and a bunch of other people. Even Kenny was there, though when he saw me, he turned bright red and turned around and started talking to this girl from our Bio cla.s.s. Oh well.
Everyone was there, except the one person I"d been most dreading. Or hoping to see. I didn"t know which.
Then I saw Judith Gershner. She had changed out of her overalls and looked quite pretty in this red Laura Ashley-ish dress.
But she wasn"t dancing with Michael. She was dancing with some boy I"d never seen before.
So I looked around for Lilly, and finally spotted her using one of the pay phones. I went up to her and was like, "Where"s your brother?"
Lilly hung up the phone. "How should I know?" she demanded. "It"s not my turn to baby-sit him."
Oddly comforted by her demeanor-which simply proved that no matter how much other things change, Lilly always stayed the same-I went, "Well, Judith Gershner is here, so I just figured-"
"For G.o.d"s sake," Lilly said. "How many times do I have to tell you? Michael and Judith are not going out."
I went, "Oh, right. Then why have they spent every waking moment together for the past two weeks?"
"Because they were working on that stupid computer program for the Carnival," she said. "Besides, Judith Gershner already has a boyfriend." Lilly grabbed me by the shoulders and turned me around so I could see Judith on the dance floor. "He goes to Trinity."
I looked at Judith Gershner as she slow-danced with a boy who looked a lot like Kenny, only older and not as uncoordinated.
"Oh," I said.
"Oh is right," Lilly said. "I don"t know what is wrong with you today, but I can"t deal with you when you"re acting like such a freak. Sit down right here-" She pulled out a chair. "And don"t you dare get up. I want to know where to find you when I need to."
I didn"t even ask Lilly why she might need to find me. I just sat down. I felt like I couldn"t stand up anymore. I was that tired.
It wasn"t that I was disappointed. I mean, I didn"t want to see Michael. At least, part of me didn"t.
Another part of me really wanted to see him and ask him just what he"d meant by that poem.
But I was sort of afraid of the answer.
Because it might not be the one I was hoping it would be.
After a while, Lars and Wahim came and sat down next to me. I felt like a complete tool. I mean, there I was, sitting at a dance with two bodyguards, who were deep in a discussion about the advantages versus the disadvantages of rubber bullets. n.o.body was asking me to dance. n.o.body would, either. I mean, I"m a huge, colossal loser. A huge, colossal loser without a date.
Who, by the way, is supposedly in love with Boris Pelkowski.
Why was I even staying? I had done what Grandmere said. I had shown up. I had proved to everyone that I wasn"t a coward. Why couldn"t I leave? I mean, if I wanted to?
I stood up. I said to Lars, "Come on. We"ve been here long enough. I still have a lot of packing to do. Let"s go."
Lars said okay, and started to get up. Then he stopped. I saw that he was looking at something behind me. I turned around.
And there was Michael.
He had obviously just gotten there. He was out of breath. His bow tie wasn"t tied. And there was still snow in his hair.
"I didn"t think you were coming," he said.
I knew my face had gone as red as Judith Gershner"s dress. But there wasn"t anything I could do about that. I said, "Well, I almost didn"t."
He said, "I called you a bunch of times. Only you wouldn"t come to the phone."
I said, "I know." I was wishing the floor of the gym would open up, like in It"s a Wonderful Life, and that I"d fall into the pool underneath it and drown and not have to have this conversation.
"Mia," he said. "With that thing today. I didn"t mean to make you cry."
Or the floor would open and I could just fall, and keep falling, forever and ever and ever. That would be okay, too. I stared at the floor, willing it to crack apart and swallow me up.
"It didn"t." I lied. "I mean, it wasn"t that. It was something Kenny said."
"Yeah," Michael said. "Well, I heard you two broke up."
Yeah. Probably by now the whole school had. Now, I knew, my face was even redder than Judith"s dress.
"The thing is," Michael went on, "I knew it was you. Who was leaving those cards."
If he had reached inside my chest, pulled out my heart, flung it to the floor, and kicked it across the room, it could not possibly have hurt as much as hearing that. I could feel my eyes filling up with tears all over again.
"You did?" You know, it"s one thing to have your heart broken. But to have it happen at a school dance, in front of everyone . . . well, that"s harsh.
"Of course I did," he said. He sounded impatient. "Lilly told me."
For the first time, I looked up into his face.
"Lilly told you?" I cried. "How did she know?"
He waved his hand. "I don"t know. Your friend Tina told her, I guess. But that"s not important."
I looked around the gym and saw Lilly and Tina on the far side of it, both staring in my direction. When they saw me looking at them, they turned around really fast and pretended to be deeply absorbed in conversation with their dates.
"I"m going to kill them," I murmured.
Michael reached out and grabbed both my shoulders. "Mia," he said, giving me a little shake. "It doesn"t matter. What matters is that I meant what I wrote. And I thought you did, too."