The Princess Diaries (The Princess Diaries, #1)

by Meg Cabot

How come nice people like Princess Diana get killed in car wrecks but mean people like Lana never do? I don’t understand what Josh Richter sees in her. I mean, yeah, she’s pretty. But she’s so mean. Doesn’t he notice?

Absolute value: the distance that a given number is from zero on a number line . . . always a positive

Then she just said, “You’ll have to ask your father.” This is bad. My mom only says “Ask your father” when I want to know something she doesn’t feel like telling me, like why people sometimes kill their own babies and how come Americans eat so much red meat and read so much less than the people of Iceland.

Oh, we go other places, too. Like we always go to see Beauty and the Beast, my all-time favorite Broadway musical, I don’t care what Lilly says about Walt Disney and his misogynistic undertones. I’ve seen it seven times.

“You’re not Mia Thermopolis anymore, honey,” he said. Because I was born out of wedlock, and my mom doesn’t believe in what she calls the cult of the patriarchy, she gave me her last name instead of my dad’s. I raised my head at that. “I’m not?” I said, blinking a few times. “Then who am I?” And he went, kind of sadly, “You’re Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Thermopolis Renaldo, Princess of Genovia.” Okay. WHAT? A PRINCESS?? ME??? Yeah. Right.

Nobody messes with a girl in combat boots, particularly when she’s also a vegetarian.

I was thinking Lilly might call to apologize, but so far she hasn’t. Well, I’m not apologizing until she does. And you know what? I looked in the mirror a minute ago, and my hair doesn’t look that bad.

Can you believe it? Wasn’t that nice? I wonder what’s got into him. I should definitely fight with Lilly more often.

Love can do strange things to people.

What is the appropriate reply to make to a man who says he loves you? Thank you. You are very kind.

The only one I missed was the one about what to say to a man when he tells you he loves you. It turns out you aren’t supposed to say thank you. Not, of course, that this will ever happen to me. But Grandmère says I might be surprised someday. I wish!

And I kind of like her, too. She’s nice to me. It’s nice to have somebody be nice to you.

Then she went on to describe me as “the statuesque beauty who is the product of Helen and Phillipe’s tempestuous whirlwind college romance.” HELLO??? CAROL FERNANDEZ, ARE YOU ON CRACK????

But oh, no. Not my dad. Because he’s a prince. And he says members of the royal family of Genovia do not “go home” when there is a crisis. No, they stay where they are and slug it out. Slug it out. I think my dad has something in common with Carol Fernandez: They’re BOTH on crack.

I wonder if Tina Hakim Baba will still sit with me at lunch. Well, if she does, at least our bodyguards will have something to do: They can compare civilian defense tactics.

And you know, to tell the truth, I couldn’t say which I liked better, talking to Michael or dancing with him. They were both so . . . interesting. In different ways, of course.

And to think, he’s never had one lesson! He taught himself how to play the guitar—and he writes all his own songs! The one he played for me is called “Tall Drink of Water.” It’s about this very tall pretty girl who doesn’t know this boy is in love with her. I predict that one day it will be number one on the Billboard chart. Michael Moscovitz could one day be as famous as Kanye West.

Grandmère didn’t need any help. She whacked the Blind Guy across the face with her purse so hard his sunglasses went flying off. After that there was no doubt about it: The Blind Guy can see. And let me tell you something: I don’t think he’ll be taking any more trips down our street for a while. After all that yelling, it was almost a blessing to go inside and work on my Algebra homework for the rest of the day. I needed some peace and quiet.