From the Notebooks of a Middle School Princess (4 page)

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
.
”

That's when she hurled herself toward me, and everyone around us
—
except my friends, of course
—
suddenly started screaming, “FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!”

I knew then that I was going to die.

I've seen people fight in movies and on TV. It looks pretty easy when you're watching a trained actor or stunt person do it.

But when a
real live person
who is not a trained actor but the most popular girl in your school (don't ask me why, because Annabelle is actually very mean) who is also a trained gymnast jumps you, then gets hold of one of your braids and starts pulling on it
very hard
, it is not easy to fight back.

I thought I was a complete goner until right at that very moment a woman's voice rang out, clear as a bell, from across the courtyard.

“Olivia?” the voice called. “Olivia Grace Harrison!”

Startled, I turned to look
—
as much as I could with Annabelle hanging so tightly on to my braid
—
and saw the most amazing sight I had ever seen in my life:

Her Royal Highness, Princess Mia Thermopolis of Genovia.

 

Wednesday, May 6
4:15 P.M.
Still in the Royal Limousine

Sorry, I got interrupted there. It turns out when you're a princess, you get all the soda you want to drink from the limo mini-bar.

FOR FREE!

Also chips and cookies.

I know that's a weird thing to be writing about at a time like this
—
and also that they're only giving these things to me because I mentioned that Aunt Catherine never lets me have soda with sugar in it, or chips and cookies.

But it's so nice!

I just hope they aren't doing it because they feel sorry for me. That would be the
worst
. I hate it when people feel sorry for me (because I'm half an orphan, etc).

Where was I? Oh, yes, back in the courtyard:

I don't have to explain how I recognized her. Everyone knows what Princess Mia looks like. She's had movies made about her, and books written based on her diaries, and was just recently on the cover of
People
magazine, and she was also in
Us Weekly
's “Stars: They're Just Like Us” section, buying toilet paper (even though it's hard to imagine a princess using the bathroom).