From the Notebooks of a Middle School Princess Read online

  Especially things like why Annabelle Jenkins would want to beat me up.

  It makes no sense.

  No sense at all.

  Wednesday, May 6

  2:52 P.M.

  Social Studies Class

  None of the girls I sit with at lunch can figure out why Annabelle wants to beat me up, either. Well, except maybe my step-cousin, Sara. But I don’t agree it’s “because your nail polish doesn’t match the color of your shoes.”

  “No one would beat someone up over that, Sara,” I said.

  “Annabelle might.” Sara calmly sipped her diet soda. “She’s very fashion conscious.”

  No one replied to this—mainly, I think, because we were all remembering how Sara used to eat lunch with Annabelle, until the day Sara made the mistake of wearing nail polish that didn’t match her shoes, and Annabelle, mortally offended, banished her forever from the popular table.

  Now Sara eats with us, the fun-but-not-always-fashionably-correct crowd.

  Nishi said, “Well, I still think you should tell a teacher, Olivia. It’s not as if you’ve ever gotten in trouble before. A teacher is more likely to believe you over her anyway.”

  “But what about Annabelle’s dad?” Beth Chandler asked.

  “What about him?” Nishi asked.

  “I’ve seen his ads on TV,” one of the twins—either Netta or Quetta, I can’t tell them apart, although I pretend I can—said. “He’s pretty famous.”

  “For personal injury cases,” Nishi said. “Like, if you’ve been in a car crash or something. Not for suing schools.”

  “I wouldn’t go up against Annabelle,” the other twin said. “She rules this school.”

  “Don’t be dumb,” Nishi said. “No one can rule a school, especially a sixth grader.”

  “Annabelle Jenkins can,” Sara said. Obviously, Sara would know. “She got invited to a seventh grader’s party last weekend.”

  I wanted to say, “Not helping!” sarcastically to Sara, but she has no sense of humor when it comes to Annabelle.

  Beth Chandler said I should fake a stomachache and go to the nurse, then have the nurse call Aunt Catherine to come take me home before school ends.

  But we all agreed I’d only be postponing the inevitable.

  Finally one of the twins said, “Why don’t you tell Justin? Then if Annabelle comes near you, he could defend you.”

  This did not seem like a very good suggestion. I could see Justin sitting over with the other eighth-grade boys at a table by the cafeteria windows. They were playing with personal gaming devices, even though Dr. Bushy, the principal, has said if you are caught with one during school hours, it will be confiscated and you will lose a merit point.

  I guess eighth graders don’t care about losing merit points, though.

  “Justin looks kind of busy,” I said.

  “Whatever,” Nishi said. “He’s family. He has to help you.”

  I’ve tried to explain to Nishi many times that, while it’s true that Sara and Justin are my family, it’s only because their dad married my aunt. They aren’t actually blood relations. They’re Aunt Catherine’s step-kids, which makes them only my step-cousins.

  I know this shouldn’t mean we’re any less close than if we were genetically cousins. Families can be made up of all different kinds of people, many of whom aren’t related at all. Sometimes they aren’t even the same species. Our neighbor Mrs. Tucker considers her cats her children and likes to knit them tiny hats.

  But the truth is, I get the feeling sometimes that the fact that I’m not related to them by blood super matters to the O’Tooles.

  “Don’t do it,” Sara warned me, over her PB and J rice cake sandwich (no one in the O’Toole household has celiac disease or a wheat allergy like Beth Chandler, who cannot eat gluten or her throat closes up and she has to go to the hospital. Aunt Catherine just thinks gluten makes people overweight, so she doesn’t keep any bread, pasta, or cookies in the house). “Remember what Justin said the first day of school.”

  How could I forget it? The first day of school, Justin gave me a lecture. The lecture was about how even though we’d be attending the same school, I wasn’t supposed to talk to him, not even to ask for directions.

  And I was most definitely not to mention to anyone the fact that at home, Justin likes to sing to Taylor Swift on our household karaoke machine, or that he had cried at the end of both of the movies based on Princess Mia of Genovia’s life.

  “Oh, Sara, don’t be mean,” Beth Chandler said. “Justin will help her. Justin’s so nice!”

  Only someone who doesn’t have to live in the same house with Justin would say this. Some of the girls think my step-cousin Justin is cute, but that is only because:

  1. They don’t have to live with him, and so have never smelled his extremely gross, stinky socks, like I have.

  2. There are more girls than boys at Cranbrook Middle School, so some of the girls are ready to believe ANY boy is cute, even Justin.

  “Uh,” I said. “It’s okay.”

  “No, it isn’t!” Beth Chandler said. “Do it, Olivia.”

  “Yes,” Nishi said. “You should do it, Olivia.”

  “Don’t do it, Olivia,” Sara warned.

  “It’s an emergency,” one of the twins reminded her.

  But Sara just shook her head and sucked on her diet soda.

  “She’ll be sorry,” she said.

  But Nishi and Beth Chandler and the twins urged me to go ask Justin.

  I should have listened to Sara.

  But what other choice did I have? No one was coming up with a better idea, least of all me.

  So I summoned up all my courage and went over to the table where Justin was sitting.

  He was the one holding the gaming device. All the other boys were crowded around him, looking down at the little screen. They were saying things like, “Go! Go!” and “Nuke him now.” It didn’t actually seem like the best moment to interrupt, but, like Netta or Quetta had said, it was an emergency, after all.

  “Um, Justin,” I said.

  All the eighth-grade boys looked at me. All except Justin. He kept playing his game.

  “Go away, Olivia,” he said.

  “I’m really sorry to bother you,” I said. I was aware that Justin’s friends had looked away, dismissing me as not worthy of their attention. Which was all right. There was only one person’s attention I wanted anyway. “But, um, I was wondering if I could talk to you in private?”

  “I already told you,” Justin said, still not looking up from the game. “Go away.”

  “I know,” I said. “But this is an emergency. You see, there’s this girl, Annabelle Jenkins? You know her dad is your dad’s business partner, right?”

  “Lawyer,” Justin said, not looking at me.

  “Um, sorry, right. His lawyer. So, she says she’s going to give me a beat-down after school, but I don’t know why. So I was wondering, if she tries to, will you, uh, help me?”

  Justin made some kind of mistake in the game, and all the boys at his table went, “Oh!” and a couple of them called him bad names. That’s when Justin swung around to glare at me and said, “GO AWAY or Annabelle won’t be the only one giving you a beat-down, Olivia Grace!”

  What Justin didn’t know, though, was that Dr. Bushy (the principal) was right there, doing his turn as cafeteria monitor.

  He heard Justin yell at me. Dr. Bushy doesn’t like it when people yell in his cafeteria (or the hallways, where Justin and his friends frequently make fun of sixth graders like me and Nishi for no reason), so he came right over.

  “What’s this? What’s this?” Dr. Bushy wanted to know. “If you two can’t get along nicely with each other, maybe I should give you both a demerit. Would that help?”

  I nearly died. A demerit! After going the whole year without one!

  Justin turned bright red and said, “No, Dr. Bushy. That would not help.”

  “Now, that’s more like it,” Dr. Bushy said. “What
about you, Olivia? Would you like a demerit?”

  “No, sir,” I said, swallowing. I couldn’t see Annabelle anywhere, but I was sure she was watching. “I wouldn’t like one, either.”

  “Good! Then go back to your seat!”

  Then Dr. Bushy left to go yell at some kids who were stuffing leftover pizza in the recycling bin instead of the compost bin.

  I fled to my seat, practically crying.

  “Oh my gosh!” Nishi said. “Did Dr. Bushy just give you a demerit?”

  “I don’t know,” I moaned, burying my face in my hands. “I don’t think so. But maybe!”

  Netta and Quetta patted my back, murmuring soothing things, and Beth Chandler called Dr. Bushy a name under her breath. Sara just said, “Told you so,” about Justin. She sounded kind of smug about it.

  Even though I wouldn’t want one like Justin or Sara, sometimes I wish I had a sibling. I’m pretty sure if I did, he or she would have my back in an emergency. Like now, as three o’clock grows closer with every jab of the minute hand.

  Instead, I’m just going to have to face the fact that my first year of middle school?

  It’s probably going to be my last.

  Wednesday, May 6

  3:35 P.M.

  Limousine

  Yes, you read that right. I am writing this from the inside of a limousine.

  It just goes to show that a lot can happen in an hour. You can go from having the worst day of your life to the best day (well, second best after the day I got the scholarship to art school).

  I have to get all of this down or I feel like it might all turn out to have been a dream. Maybe I’ll wake up in the hospital and the nurse will tell me I had a concussion in PE (except that they don’t have contact sports in PE in my school anymore because of litigation concerns) and imagined it all.

  Except the buttery leather seat underneath me feels pretty real.

  And the scent of the perfume of the royal princess of Genovia sitting beside me smells pretty real.

  I think it’s all real.

  Maybe Dad is right, though, and writing it down will help it to make more sense. Like how keeping my class schedule taped to the inside of my organizer makes me feel better.… Only this isn’t a class schedule, it’s my life! And I can’t tape it into the front of an organizer because there is no organizer for life.

  One thing is for sure: All the blank spaces on my “Who Am I?” worksheet are getting filled in.

  Okay, deep breath:

  So by the time the last bell of the day had rung, letting us know we were all free to go (some of us to get a beat-down courtesy of Annabelle Jenkins), my heart was jiggering around inside my chest like a baby joey inside its mom’s pouch, only not at all cute.

  I filled my backpack with all the books I might need for homework for the next few nights (in case I ended up in the hospital) and headed to the courtyard where we’re supposed to wait for our buses.

  I saw a few people I recognized already in line for the bus we take home—including Sara and Justin. Justin was deeply involved in another round of whatever it was he’d been playing on his game device. Sara was pretending not to notice me.

  But Nishi, Beth Chandler, and the twins were standing nearby, looking nervously in the direction of the flagpole.

  When I looked toward the flagpole, I saw why:

  Annabelle was already there! She was waiting for me, just like she said she’d be.

  I guess deep down, I’d kind of been hoping she’d forgotten the whole thing. Girls like Annabelle, who are super busy being fashion forward and winning awards, might actually have a lot to do, and could possibly forget all the people they’d promised to beat up after school.

  But apparently not Annabelle, since she was staring right at me. She looked mad enough to beat up just about anyone, possibly even an eighth grader. If she’d been a microwave Hot Pocket (which I only get to eat when I go to Nishi’s house, since they aren’t gluten-free), I think steam would have been rising out of her, that’s how mad she was.

  At me. Me, who’d never done or said anything to her to make her that way!

  The minute she saw me, she started storming toward me. My jiggering joey heart gave one last thump-thump, then seemed to die in my chest.

  “Annabelle,” I said, in a final attempt to save myself. “Can’t we TALK about this? I don’t know what I did to make you so mad at me, but—”

  “Go on, Annabelle,” someone shouted from over near where Justin was standing. “Get her!”

  “Yeah, Annabelle! Get her!”

  I looked over at Justin. His face was beet red as he bent over his gaming device, pretending he didn’t notice what was going on.

  But he knew. I knew he knew. Because next to him, some of his friends were grinning right at me. They knew what was going on and thought what was happening to me was funny.

  But it wasn’t funny. Because I could see all it was doing was getting Annabelle even more determined to carry out her threat.

  “Really, Olivia?” she asked in a snotty voice when she got up to me. “You really don’t know what this is all about?”

  “Uh, no,” I said, stalling for time.

  There were teachers standing all around (except Ms. Dakota, who leaves early on Wednesdays), and also parents there to pick up their kids.

  But they clearly didn’t know what was happening. To them it must have looked like Annabelle and I were simply standing there by the flagpole having a lovely little chat about, oh, I don’t know, nail polish or whatever.

  Do grown-ups really not know that girls fight—really fight—with their fists? You would think there’ve been enough videos on the Internet about this by now that people would get the message.

  Maybe everyone thinks, Not my kid! Not at our school.

  Obviously none of these people have met Annabelle.

  “I really don’t know what this is about, Annabelle,” I said to her. “We’ve always been friends. At least, I thought so.”

  “Well, you thought wrong,” Annabelle said, loudly enough so that all her smirking friends could hear (but none of the teachers or parents, of course). “Because I’m not friends with liars.”

  “What?” This was the last thing I ever expected her to say. “I never lied to you, Annabelle—”

  “Oh yeah? Well, how about the lie I heard you said at Netta and Quetta’s sleepover last weekend, that your father is some kind of famous archaeologist like Indiana Jones?”

  I felt myself blushing. Contrary to popular opinion, black people can blush, and even get sunburned (and skin cancer from the sun if we don’t put on sunscreen). It’s just that because our skin is darker colored, it doesn’t show as much.

  “Okay,” I said. “Well, that may have been a slight exaggeration—”

  “She never said he was exactly like Indiana Jones, Annabelle,” Nishi said, coming to my defense.

  “Because he isn’t,” Annabelle scoffed. “Her dad is nothing like Indiana Jones. I know because I heard my dad talking to her uncle, and the truth is, her dad is actually a prince. The prince of Genovia, to be exact!”

  I wasn’t the only one who thought Annabelle had started spewing crazy gibberish. All the other kids did, too, at least judging from the way they started laughing.

  “Yeah, right,” I heard one of the boys say. A few of them who were disappointed the fight hadn’t started yet yelled, “Kick her butt, Annabelle!”

  Obviously, what Annabelle was saying was not true, and it was certainly no reason to want to beat me up.

  But I still felt obligated to defend myself, and of course keep my butt from getting kicked.

  “Annabelle,” I said. “That’s crazy.”

  “Are you calling my dad crazy?” she demanded, reaching out to give my shoulder a one-handed shove, like she had earlier in the day, in the hallway.

  “No, of course not,” I said, managing to keep my balance this time. “I’m just saying your dad’s been misinformed. If my father were the prince of Genovia,
someone would have told me.”

  I glanced over at my step-cousins. Justin wore an expression that clearly stated, “Her dad? A prince? Yeah, right!” while Sara merely looked confused.

  “See?” I said to Annabelle.

  She rolled her eyes.

  “How could they tell you?” she demanded. “Your mother never wanted anyone to know, not even you. She was afraid you’d get kidnapped or something stupid like that. Plus she said she wanted you to be raised like a normal kid. Like you could ever be normal!”

  Annabelle let out another mocking laugh, then pushed me again.

  But this time I barely noticed, because suddenly some things were starting to make sense: Like how Aunt Catherine never wanted to talk about my dad.

  And how I never got to go visit him on weekends or during the summer, like other kids.

  And how the support checks he sent for me were pretty big (for an archaeologist) but Aunt Catherine and Uncle Rick wouldn’t let me have my own cell phone or computer.

  That’s because if they had, and I’d had unlimited time on the Internet, I might have looked up stuff about my dad, and discovered.…

  “Wait a minute,” I burst out. “That can’t be true. There’s no way my dad is the prince of Genovia. Because that would make me a—”

  “Princess?” Annabelle sneered.

  Everyone in the courtyard gasped.

  “No,” I cried, staggering back. “No way.”

  “Well, that’s what you are, Princess Olivia. Should we all curtsy and bow down to you now? Where’s your tiara, Your Royal Highness? Did you forget it, back at the palace?”

  “No!” I couldn’t believe this was happening. “No!”

  “Oh, what’s the matter, Your Highness?” Annabelle sneered. “Princess gonna cry?”

  “No!” Although the truth was, I did feel a little bit like crying. Because I realized it was true. It was all true. It had to be. In a weird way, it kind of made sense.

  Fortunately Nishi came to my defense once more.

  “Stop it, Annabelle,” she cried. “Olivia isn’t a princess!”

  “Uh, yes, she is,” Annabelle said. “But it doesn’t matter, because I’m still going to kick her butt.”