Princess in Love Read online

  Oh, God.

  I am in so much trouble.

  Again.

  And it isn’t even my fault this time. I mean, I couldn’t help myself. It just happened, you know? And it doesn’t mean anything. It was just, you know, one of those things.

  And besides, it’s not what Kenny thinks. Not even. I mean, if you think about it, it is a complete and total letdown. For me, anyway.

  Because of course the first thing Michael says, when he sees me standing there gaping at him while he is holding that flower, is, “Here. This just fell out of your locker.”

  I took it from him in a complete daze. I swear to God my heart was beating so hard, I thought I was going to pass out.

  Because I thought they’d been from him. The roses, I mean. For a minute there, I really did think Michael Moscovitz had been leaving me roses.

  But of course this time, there’s a note attached to the rose. It says:

  Good luck on your trip to Genovia! See you when you get back!

  Your Secret Snowflake,

  Boris Pelkowski

  Boris Pelkowski. Boris Pelkowski is the one who’s been leaving those roses. Boris Pelkowski is my Secret Snowflake.

  Of course Boris wouldn’t know that a yellow rose represents love everlasting. Boris doesn’t even know not to tuck his sweater into his pants. How would he know the secret language of flowers?

  I don’t know which was actually stronger, my feeling of relief that it wasn’t Justin Baxendale leaving those roses after all . . .

  . . . or my feeling of disappointment that it wasn’t Michael.

  Then Michael went, “Well? What’s the verdict?”

  To which I responded by staring at him blankly. I still hadn’t quite gotten over it. You know, those brief few seconds when I’d thought—I’d actually thought, fool that I am—that he loved me.

  “What did you get in Algebra?” he asked, slowly, as if I were dense.

  Which, of course, I am. So dense that I never realized how much in love with Michael Moscovitz I was until Judith Gershner came along and swept him right out from under my nose.

  Anyway, so I opened the computer printout containing my grades, and would you believe that I had raised my F in Algebra all the way up to a B minus?

  Which just goes to show that if you spend nearly every waking moment in your life studying something, the likelihood is that you are going to retain at least a little of it.

  Enough to get a B minus on the final, anyway.

  I’m trying really hard not to gloat, but it’s difficult. I mean, I’m so happy.

  Well, except for the whole not-having-a-date-to-the-dance thing.

  Still, it’s hard to be unhappy. There is absolutely no way I got this grade because the teacher happens to be my stepfather. In Algebra, either you get the right answer, or you don’t. There’s nothing subjective about it, like in English. There’s no interpretation of the facts. Either you’re right, or you’re not.

  And I was right. Eighty percent of the time.

  Of course it helped that I knew the answer to the final’s extra-credit question: What instrument did Ringo, in the Beatles, play?

  But that was only worth two points.

  Anyway, here’s the part where I got into trouble. Even though, of course, it isn’t my fault.

  I was so happy about my B minus, I completely forgot for a minute how much I am in love with Michael. I even forgot, for a change, to be shy around him. Instead, I did something really unlike me.

  I threw my arms around him.

  Seriously. Threw my arms right around his neck and went, “Wheeeeeee!!!!!”

  I couldn’t help it. I was so happy. Okay, the whole rose thing had been a little bit of a bummer, but the B minus made up for it. Well, almost.

  It was just an innocent hug. That’s all it was. Michael had, after all, tutored me almost the whole semester. He had some stake in that B minus, too.

  But I guess Kenny, who Tina now tells me came around the corner right as I was doing it—hugging Michael, I mean—doesn’t see it that way. According to Tina, Kenny thinks there’s something going on between Michael and me.

  To which, of course, I can only say, I WISH!

  But I can’t say that. I have to go find Kenny now, and let him know, you know, it was just a friendly hug.

  Tina’s all, “Why? Why don’t you tell him the truth—that you don’t feel the same way about him that he feels about you? This is your big chance!”

  But you can’t break up with someone during the Winter Carnival. I mean, really. How mean.

  Why must my life be so fraught with trauma?

  Friday, December 19, still the Winter Carnival

  Well, I still haven’t found Kenny, but I really have to hand it to the administrators: Grasping they might be, but they sure do know how to throw a party. Even Lilly is impressed.

  Of course, signs of corporatization are everywhere: There are McDonald’s orange drink dispensers on every floor, and it looks as if there was a run on Entenmann’s, there are so many cake-and-cookie-laden tables scattered around.

  Still, you can tell they are really trying to show us a good time. All of the clubs are offering activities and booths. There’s ballroom dancing in the gym, courtesy of the Dance Club; fencing lessons in the auditorium, thanks to the Drama club; even cheerleading lessons in the first-floor hallway, brought to us by—you guessed it—the junior varsity cheerleaders.

  I couldn’t find Kenny anywhere, but I ran into Lilly at the Students for Amnesty International booth (Students Against the Corporatization of Albert Einstein High School did not submit their application for a booth in time to get one, so Lilly is stuck running the Amnesty International booth instead). And guess what? Guess who got an F in something?

  That’s right.

  Lilly. I couldn’t believe it.

  “Mrs. Spears gave you an F in English? YOU got an F?”

  She didn’t seem too bothered by it, though.

  “I had to take a stand, Mia,” she said. “And sometimes, when you believe in something, you have to make sacrifices.”

  “Sure,” I said. “But an F? Your parents are going to kill you.”

  “No, they won’t,” Lilly said. “They’ll just try to psychoanalyze me.”

  Which is true.

  Oh, God. Here comes Tina.

  I hope she doesn’t remember—

  She does.

  We’re going over to the Computer Club’s booth right now.

  I don’t want to go to the Computer Club’s booth. I already looked over there, and I know what’s going on. Michael and Judith and the rest of the computer nerds are sitting there behind all these color monitors. When somebody comes up, they get to sit down in front of one of the monitors, and play a computer game the club designed where you walk through the school and all of the teachers are in funny costumes. Like Principal Gupta is wearing a leather dominatrix’s outfit, and holding a whip, and Mr. Gianini is in footie pajamas with a teddy bear that looks exactly like him.

  They used a different program when the club applied to be part of the Carnival, of course, so none of the teachers or administrators know what everyone is sitting there looking at. You would think they’d wonder why all of the kids are laughing so hard.

  Whatever. I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to go anywhere near it.

  But Tina says I have to.

  “Now’s the perfect time to tell him,” she says. “I mean, Kenny’s nowhere to be seen.”

  Oh, God. This is what comes from telling your friends anything.

  Even later on Friday, December 19, still the Winter Carnival

  Well, I’m in the girls’ room again. And I think I can state with certainty that this time, I’m never coming out.

  No, I think I’ll just stay in here until everyone has gone home. Only then will it be safe. Thank God I am leaving the country tomorrow. Maybe by the time I get back, everyone involved in this little incident will have forgotten about it.

  B
ut I doubt it. Not with my luck, anyway.

  Why do these kinds of things always happen to me? I mean, seriously? What did I ever do to turn the gods against me? Why don’t these kinds of things ever happen to Lana Weinberger? Why me? Why always me?

  All right, so here’s what happened.

  I had no intention whatsoever of actually telling Michael anything. I mean, let me get that out right away. I was only going along with Tina because, well, it would have looked weird if I had completely avoided the Computer Club’s booth. Plus Michael had asked me so many times to make sure I stopped by. So there was no way I could avoid it.

  But I never intended to say a word about You-Know-What. I mean, Tina was just going to have to learn to live with the disappointment. You don’t love somebody for, like, as long as I have loved Michael and then just go up to him at a school fair and be like, “Oh, by the way, yeah, I love you.”

  Okay? You don’t do that.

  But whatever. So I went up to the stupid booth with Tina. Everyone was all giggly and excited, because their program was so popular that there was this really long line to see it. But Michael saw us, and went, “Come on up!”

  Like we were supposed to cut in front of all these other people. I mean, we did it, of course, but everyone behind us grumbled, and who can blame them? They’d been waiting a long time.

  But I guess because of the thing the night before—you know, when I explained on national television that the only reason I’d done that clothing ad was because the designer was donating all the proceeds to Greenpeace—I have been noticeably more popular (positive comments so far: 243. Negative: 1. From Lana, of course). So the grumbling wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

  Anyway, Michael was all, “Here, Mia, sit at this one.” And he pulled out a chair in front of this one computer monitor.

  So I sat down and waited for the stupid thing to come on, and all around me other kids were laughing at what they were seeing on their screens. I just sat there thinking, for some reason, Faint heart never won fair lady.

  Which was stupid, because, number one, I was NOT going to tell him I like him and number two, Michael is dark-haired, not fair. And he isn’t a lady either, obviously.

  Then I heard Judith go, “Wait, what are you doing?”

  And then I heard Michael say, “No, that’s okay. I have a special one for her.”

  Then the screen in front of my eyes flickered. I sighed. Okay, I thought. Here goes the stupid teacher thing. Be sure to laugh so they think you like it.

  So I was sitting there, and I was actually kind of depressed, because I really didn’t have anything to look forward to, if you think about it. I mean, everybody else was all excited, because later on they were going to the dance, but no one had asked me to the dance—not even my supposed boyfriend—so I didn’t even have that to look forward to. And everyone else I knew was going skiing or to the Bahamas or wherever for Winter Break, but what did I get to do? Oh, hang out with a bunch of members of the Genovian Olive Growers Society. I’m sure they are all really nice people, but come on.

  And before I even leave for my boring trip to Genovia, I have to break up with Kenny, something I totally don’t want to do, because I really do like him, and I don’t want to hurt his feelings, but I guess I sort of have to.

  Although I have to say, the fact that he still hasn’t so much as mentioned the dance is making the idea of breaking up with him seem a lot less heinous.

  Then tomorrow, I thought, I’ll leave for Europe on a plane with Dad and Grandmère, who still aren’t speaking to each other (and since I’m not speaking to Grandmère either, it should be a really fun flight), and when I come back, knowing my luck, Michael and Judith will be engaged.

  That’s what I was sitting there thinking in the split second the screen in front of me flickered. That, and, You know, I’m not really in the mood to see any of my teachers in funny outfits.

  Only when the flickering stopped, that’s not what I saw. What I saw instead was this castle.

  Seriously. It was a castle, like out of the Knights of the Round Table, or Beauty and the Beast, or whatever. The picture zoomed in until we were over the castle walls and inside this courtyard, where there was a garden. And in the garden, all these big, fat, red roses were blooming. Some of the roses had lost their petals, and you could see them lying on the courtyard floor. It was really, really pretty, and I was like, Hey, this is cooler than I thought it would be.

  And I sort of forgot I was sitting there in front of a computer monitor at the Winter Carnival, with like two dozen people all around me. I began to feel like I was actually in that garden.

  Then this banner waved across the screen, in front of the roses, like it was blowing in the wind. The banner had some words written on it in gold leaf. When it stopped flapping, I could read what the words said:

  Roses are red

  Violets are blue

  You may not know it

  But I love you, too

  I screamed and jumped up out of my chair, tipping it over behind me.

  Everyone started laughing. I guess they thought I’d seen Principal Gupta in her leather catsuit.

  Only Michael knew I hadn’t.

  And Michael wasn’t laughing.

  Only I couldn’t look at Michael. I couldn’t look anywhere, really, except at my own feet. Because I couldn’t believe what had just happened. I mean, I couldn’t process it. What did it mean? Did it mean Michael knew I was the one who’d been sending him those notes, and that he felt the same way?

  Or did it mean he knew I was the one who’d been sending him those notes, and he was trying to get back at me, as a kind of joke?

  I didn’t know. All I knew was that if I didn’t get out of there, I was going to start crying . . .

  . . . and in front of everyone in the entire school.

  I grabbed Tina by the arm and yanked her, hard, after me. I guess I was figuring I could tell her what I’d seen, and maybe she’d be able to figure out what it meant, since I sure couldn’t.

  Tina shrieked—I must have grabbed her harder than I thought—and I heard Michael call, “Mia!”

  But I just kept going, lugging Tina behind me, and pushing through the crowd for the door, thinking only one thing:

  Must get to the girls’ room. Must get to the girls’ room before I start bawling my head off.

  Somebody, with about as much force as I’d grabbed Tina, grabbed me. I thought it was Michael. I knew if I so much as looked at him, I’d burst into big baby sobs. I said, “Get off,” and jerked my arm away.

  It was Kenny’s voice that said, “But Mia, I have to talk to you!”

  “Not now, Kenny,” Tina said.

  But Kenny was totally inflexible. He went, “Yes, now,” and you could tell from his face he meant it.

  Tina rolled her eyes and backed off. I stood there, my back to the Computer Club’s booth, and prayed, Please, please don’t come over here, Michael. Please stay where you are. Please, please, please don’t come over here.

  “Mia,” Kenny said. He looked more uncomfortable than I’d ever seen him, and I’ve seen Kenny look plenty uncomfortable. He’s an awkward kind of guy. “I just want to . . . I mean, I just want you to know. Well. That I know.”

  I stared at him. I had no idea what he was talking about. Seriously. I’d forgotten all about that hug he’d seen in the hallway. The one I’d given Michael. All I could think was, Please don’t come over here, Michael. Please don’t come over here, Michael. . . .

  “Look, Kenny,” I said. I don’t even know how I got my tongue to work, I swear. I felt like a robot somebody had switched into the Off position. “This really isn’t a good time. Maybe we could talk later—”

  “Mia,” Kenny said. He had a funny look on his face. “I know. I saw him.”

  I blinked.

  And then I remembered. Michael, and the B-minus hug.

  “Oh, Kenny,” I said. “Really. That was just . . . I mean, there’s nothing—”

  �
��You don’t have to worry,” Kenny said. And then I realized why his face looked so funny. It was because he was wearing an expression on it that I had never seen before. At least, not on Kenny. The expression was resignation. “I won’t tell Lilly.”

  Lilly! Oh, God! The last person in the world I wanted to know how I felt about Michael!

  Maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe there was still a chance I could . . .

  But no. No, I couldn’t lie to him. For once in my life, I could not summon up a lie.

  “Kenny,” I said. “I am so, so sorry.”

  I didn’t realize until I said it that it was too late to run for the girls’ room: I had already started crying. My voice broke, and when I put my hands to my face, they came away wet.

  Great. I was crying, and in front of the entire student body of Albert Einstein High School.

  “Kenny,” I said, sniffling. “I honestly meant to tell you. And I really do like you. I just don’t . . . love you.”

  Kenny’s face was very white, but he didn’t start crying—not like me. Thank God. In fact, he even managed to smile a little in that weird, resigned way as he said, shaking his head, “Wow. I can’t believe it. I mean, when it first hit me, I was like no way. Not Mia. No way would she do that to her best friend. But . . . well, I guess it explains a lot. About, um, us.”

  I couldn’t look him in the face any longer. I felt like a worm. Worse than a worm, because worms are very environmentally helpful. I felt like . . . like . . .

  Like a fruit fly.

  “I guess I’ve suspected for a long time that there was someone else,” Kenny went on. “You never . . . well, you never exactly seemed to return my ardor when we . . . you know.”

  I knew. Kissed. Nice of him to bring it up though, here in the gym, in front of everyone.

  “I knew you just weren’t saying anything because you didn’t want to hurt my feelings,” Kenny said. “That’s the kind of girl you are. And that’s why I put off asking you to the dance,” Kenny admitted. “Because I figured you’d just say no. On account of you, you know, liking someone else. I mean, I know you’d never lie to me, Mia. You’re the most honest person I’ve ever met.”