Meg Cabot - Princess in the Spotlight

I was annoyed at Lilly for failing to see the bigger picture. I couldn’t, of course, tell her about the letter I’d gotten. Because what if her brother was the one who wrote it? I wouldn’t want him thinking I’d gone blabbing about it to everyone I knew. A love letter is a very private thing.

But still, you would think she’d be able to see it from my perspective.

“Don’t you understand?” I rasped. “What is the point of me liking anybody, when it’s entirely possible that my dad has arranged a marriage for me with some prince I’ve never met? Some guy who lives in, like,Dubai , or somewhere, and who gazes daily at my picture and longs for the day when he can finally make me his own?”

Lilly said she thought I’d been reading too many of my friend Tina Hakim Baba’s teen romances. I will admit, that is sort of where I got the idea. But that is not the point.

“Seriously, Lilly,” I said. “I have to guard diligently against falling in love with somebody like David Hasselhoff or your brother, because in the end I might have to marry Prince William.” Not that that would be such a great sacrifice, and all.

Lilly got up off my bed and stomped out into the loft’s living room. My dad was the only one around, because when he’d come over to check on me, my mom had suddenly remembered an errand she had to get done and dashed off.

Only of course there was no errand. My mom still hasn’t told my dad about Mr. G and her pregnancy, and how they’re getting married, and all. I think she’s afraid that he might start yelling at her for being so irresponsible (which I could totally see him doing).

So instead she flees from Dad in guilt every time she sees him. It would almost be funny, if it wasn’t such a pathetic way for a thirty-six-year-old woman to behave. When I am thirty-six, I fully intend to be self-actualized, so you will not catch me doing any of the things my mother is always doing.

“Mr. Renaldo,” I heard Lilly say, as she went out into the living room. She calls my dad Mr. Renaldo even though she knows perfectly well he is the prince of Genovia. She doesn’t care though, because she says this isAmerica and she isn’t calling anybody “Your Highness.” She is fundamentally opposed to monarchies—and principalities, like Genovia, fall under that heading. Lilly believes that sovereignty rests with the people. In colonial times, she’d probably have been branded a Whig.

“Mr. Renaldo,” I heard her ask my dad. “Is Mia secretly betrothed to some prince somewhere?”

My dad lowered his newspaper. I could hear it crinkling all the way from my bedroom. “Good God, no,” he said.

“Moron,” she said to me, when she came stomping back into my room. “And while I can see why you might want to guard diligently against falling in love with David Hasselhoff, who is, by the way, old enough to be your father, and hardly a hottie, what does my brother have to do with any of this?”

Too late, I realized what I’d said. Lilly has no idea how I feel about her brother Michael. Actually, I don’t really have any idea about how I feel about him either. Except that he looks extremely Casper Van Dien with his shirt off.

I so want him to be the one who’d written that letter. I really, really do.

But I’m not about to mention this to his sister.

Instead, I told her I think it unfair of her to demand explanations for stuff I said under the influence of codeine cough syrup.

Lilly just got that expression she gets sometimes when teachers ask a question and she knows the answer, only she wants to give someone else in the class a chance to answer for a change.

It really can be exhausting sometimes, having a best friend with an IQ of 170.

HOMEWORK

Algebra: problems 1–20, pg. 115

English: Chapter 4 of Strunk and White

World Civ: two-hundred–word essay on the conflict betweenIndia andPakistan

G&T: Yeah, right

French: Chaptre huit

Biology: pituitary gland (ask Kenny!)

LILLY MOSCOVITZ AND MIA THERMOPOLIS’S LIST OF CELEBRITIES AND THEIR BREASTS

CELEBRITY Britney Spears

LILLY Fake

MIA Real

CELEBRITY Jennifer Love Hewitt

LILLY Fake

MIA Real

CELEBRITY Winona Ryder

LILLY Fake

MIA Real

CELEBRITY Courtney Love

LILLY Fake

MIA Fake

CELEBRITY Jennie Garth

LILLY Fake

MIA Real

CELEBRITY Tori Spelling

LILLY Fake

MIA Fake

CELEBRITY Brandy

LILLY Fake

MIA Real

CELEBRITY NeveCampbell

LILLY Fake

MIA Real

CELEBRITY Sarah Michelle Gellar

LILLY Real

MIA Real

CELEBRITY Christina Aguilera

LILLY Fake

MIA Real

CELEBRITY Lucy Lawless

LILLY Real

MIA Real

CELEBRITY MelissaJoan Hart

LILLY Fake

MIA Real

CELEBRITY Mariah Carey

LILLY Fake

MIA Fake

CELEBRITY Rachael Leigh Cook

LILLY Fake

MIA Real

Even later on Thursday

After dinner I felt well enough to get out of bed, and so I did.

I checked my e-mail. I was hoping there might be something from my mysterious “friend.” If he knew my “snail mail” address, I figured he’d know my e-mail address, too. Both are listed in the school directory.

Tina Hakim Baba was one of the people who e-mailed me. She sent get-well wishes. So did Shameeka. Shameeka mentioned that she was trying to talk her father into letting her have a Halloween party, and that if she succeeded, would I come? I wrote back to say of course, if I wasn’t too weak from coughing.

There was also a message from Michael. It was a get-well message, too, but it was animated, like a little film. It showed a cat that looked a lot like Fat Louie doing a little get-well dance. It was very cute. Michael signed it “Love, Michael.”

Not Sincerely.

Not Yours Truly.

Love.

I played it four times, but I still couldn’t tell whether he was the one who’d sent me that letter. The letter, I noticed, never once mentioned the word love. It said the sender liked me. And he signed it “sincerely.”

But there was no love. Not a hint of love.

Then I saw a message from someone whose e-mail address I didn’t recognize. Oh, my God! Could it be my anonymous liker? My fingers were trembling on my mouse. . . .

And then I opened it and saw the following message from JoCrox:

JOCROX:Just a note to say hope you are feeling better. Missed you in school today! Did you get my letter? Hope it made you feel at least a little better, knowing there’s someone out there who thinks you rock. Get well soon.

Your Friend

Oh, my God! It’s him! My anonymous admirer!

But who is Jo Crox? I don’t know anyone named Jo Crox. He says he missed me in school today, which means we might be in a class together. But there are no Jo’s in any of my classes.

Maybe Jo Crox isn’t really his name. In fact, Jo Crox doesn’t sound like a name at all. Maybe that actually stands for Joc Rox.