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“She’s not sitting with me,” I said indignantly. “I’m not the one who—”
“And I’ve noticed you’ve been spending time instead with Lana Weinberger.” Principal Gupta’s mouth got all small, the way my mom’s does when she’s mad. “While I must say I’m grateful you and Lana aren’t at each other’s throats anymore, I can’t help but wonder if she’s someone with whom you really have all that much in common—”
Now that I have boobs, she is. She knows EVERYTHING about nipple coverage.
And how to show them off, when it’s appropriate to do that, as well.
“I really appreciate your worrying about me, Principal Gupta,” I said. “But you have to remember something.”
She looked at me expectantly. “Yes?”
“I’m a princess,” I said. “I’m going to get into every college I apply to, because colleges want to brag that they have a girl who’s going to rule a country someday in their incoming freshman class. So it doesn’t really matter if I join the Spanish Club or the Spirit Squad, or whatever. But”—I waved my journal at her—“thanks for caring.”
No sooner had I stepped out of Principal G’s office than my cell phone rang and I looked down to find Grandmère was calling me.
Great. Because my day could not, evidently, get any better.
“Amelia,” she sang when I picked up. “What’s keeping you? I’m WAITING.”
“Grandmère? What do you mean? We don’t have princess lessons this week, remember?”
“I know that,” Grandmère said. “I’m outside the school in the limo. Today we’re going to Chanel to find something for you to wear to the gala on Friday. Remember?”
No, I did not remember. But what choice did I have? None.
So here I am at Chanel.
The staff is very excited about my new measurements. Mainly because they no longer have to take in the chest darts on the bodice of any dress Grandmère chooses for me.
The suit she’s picked out for the gala is pretty nice, actually. And she’s finally letting me wear black.
“Your first Chanel suit,” she keeps murmuring with a sigh. “Where did the time go? It seems like just yesterday you were a scabby-kneed fourteen-year-old, who came to me not even knowing how to use a fish knife! Now look at you! BREASTS!”
Whatever. I never had scabs on my knees.
Then Grandmère handed me the speech she’d had written for me. For the gala. I guess she’d given up on the idea of letting me write my own speech. She’d gone ahead and hired a former presidential speechwriter to come up with a twenty-minute soliloquy on Genovian drainage. The speechwriter she got is apparently a very famous one, who wrote some speech about a thousand points of light.
&nb
sp; I suppose she used to write for Star Trek: The Next Generation, or something.
I’m supposed to memorize my speech, Grandmère says, so it seems more “spontaneous.”
Fortunately, I can read while they’re fitting me for my new suit.
Only I’m not reading my speech. Because Grandmère’s off trying to find her own dress for the gala. Since she’s been invited to attend as my “chaperone.” I know she’s hoping we’ll BOTH get invites to pledge Domina Rei.
Which might not be so bad, actually. Then I can tell Principal Gupta I have an extracurricular to put on my college apps after all. That will make her happy.
Anyway, Princess Amelie’s uncle didn’t stay away from the palace for long after she threw him out. That’s because there were no guards left, since they all had the plague, too. He came back and kept telling Amelie how much money she was losing by not allowing the ships exporting Genovian olive oil to leave the ports. Also by not demanding that the Genovian people continue to tithe to her, even though they had no money, since they all had the plague and couldn’t work.
But Uncle Francesco didn’t care. He kept saying she didn’t know what she was doing because she was Just a Girl, and how she was going to bankrupt the Renaldo royal family, and go down in history as the worst Genovian ruler of all time.
How ironic that in the end, HE was the one who earned that distinction.
Anyway, Amelie told her uncle to back off. She knew she was saving lives. Fewer new cases of the disease were being reported because of her initiatives.
Too late for her, though. Because she’d noticed her first pustule.
