Meg Cabot - Give Me Five

Mr. Gianini, because I don't want to crush all of Tina's fondest dreams. I have also hidden from her the fact that I don't think Prince William is ever going to email her back. That's on account of how I gave her a fake email address for him. Well, I had

to do something to get her to quit bugging me for it. And I'm sure whoever is at princew@windsorcastle.com is very appreciative of her five-page testimonial on how much she loves him, especially when he is wearing his polo jodhpurs.

I sort of feel bad about lying to Tina, but it was only to make her feel better. And someday I really will get Prince William's

real email address for her. I just have to wait until somebody important dies, and I see him at the state funeral. It probably

won't be long - Elizabeth Taylor is looking pretty shaky.

Il mefaut des lunettes de soleil.

Didier demand a essayer lajupe.

I don't know how someone who is as deeply in love with Mr.Wheeton like Mademoiselle Klein is supposed to be can assign

us so much homework. Whatever happened to spring, when the world is mud-luscious and the little lame balloon-man whistles far and wee?

Nobody who teaches at this school has a grain of romance in them. Ditto most of the people who go here, too. Without Tina,

I would be truly lost.

Jeudi, jai faitde I'aerobic.

Homework

Algebra: pages 279-300

English: The Iceman Cometh

Biology: Finish ice-worm essay

Health and Safety: pages 154—160

Gifted and Talented: As if

French: Ecrivez une histoire personnelle

World Civ.: pages 310-330

Wednesday, April 3O, in the limo on the way home from the Plaza

Grandmere fully knows there is something up with me. But she thinks it's because I'm upset over the whole going-to-Genovia-for-the-summer thing. As if I don't have much more immediate concerns.

'We shall have a lovely time in Genovia this summer, Amelia,' Grandmere kept saying. 'They are currently excavating a tomb they believe might belong to your ancestress, Princess Rosagunde. I understand that the mummification processes used in the 700s were really every bit as advanced as ones employed by the Egyptians. You might actually get to gaze upon the face of

the woman who founded the royal house of Renaldo.'

Great. I get to spend my summer looking up some old mummy's nasal cavity. My dream come true. Oh no, sorry, Mia. No hanging out at Coney Island with your one true love for you. No fun volunteer work tutoring little kids with their reading. No cool summer job at Kim's Video, rewinding Princess Mononoke and Fist of the North Star. No, you get to commune with

a thousand-year-old corpse. Yippee!

I guess I must be more upset about the whole Michael thing than even I thought, because midway through Grandmere's

lecture on tipping (manicurists: $3; pedicurists: $5; cab drivers: $2 for rides under $10, $5 for airport trips; double the tax for restaurant bills except in states where the tax is less than 8 per cent; etc.) she went, 'AMELIA! WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?'

I must have jumped about ten feet into the air. I was totally thinking about Michael. About how good he would look in a tux. About how I could buy him a red-rose boutonniere, just the plain kind without the baby's breath because boys don't like

baby's breath. And I could wear a black dress, one of those off-one-shoulder kinds like Kirsten Dunst always wears to

movie premieres, with a butterfly hem and a slit up the side, and high heels with laces that go up your ankle.

Only Grandmere says black on girls under eighteen is morbid, that off-one-shoulder gowns and butterfly hems look like they were made that way accidentally, and that those lace-up high heels look like the kind of shoes Russell Crowe wore in Gladiator - not a flattering look on most women.

But whatever. I could fully put on body glitter. Grandmere doesn't even KNOW about body glitter.

'Amelia!' Grandmere was saying. She couldn't yell too loud because her face was still stinging from the chemical peel. I could tell because Rommel, her mostly hairless miniature poodle who looks like he's seen a chemical peel or two himself, kept

leaping up into her lap and trying to lick her face, like it was a piece of raw meat or whatever. Not to gross anybody out, but that's sort of how it looked. Or like Grandmere had accidentally stepped in front of one of those hoses they used to get the radiation off Cher in that movie Silkwood.

'Are you listening to a single word I've said?' Grandmere looked peeved. Mostly because her face hurt, I'm sure. 'This could

be very important to you someday, if you happen to be stranded without a calculator or your limo.'

'Sorry, Grandmere,' I said. I was sorry, too. Tipping is totally my worst thing, on account of how it involves maths and also thinking quickly on your feet. When I order food from Number One Noodle Son back home I always have to ask the restaurant while I am still on the phone with them ordering how much it will be so I can work on calculating how much to tip

the delivery guy before he gets to the door. Because otherwise he ends up standing there for like ten minutes while I figure

out how much to give him for a seventeen dollar and fifty cent order. It's embarrassing.

'I don't know where your head's been lately, Amelia,' Grandmere said, all crabby. Well, you would be crabby too if you'd

paid money to have the top two or three layers of your skin chemically removed. 'I hope you're not still worrying about your mother, and that ridiculous home birth she's planning. I told you before, your mother's forgotten what labour feels like. As

soon as her contractions kick in, she'll be begging to be taken to the hospital for a nice epidural.'

I sighed. Although the fact that my mother is choosing a home birth over a nice safe clean hospital birth - where there are oxygen tanks and candy machines and Dr. Kovach - is upsetting, I have been trying not to think about it too much . . . especially since I suspect Grandmere is right. My mother cries like a baby when she stubs her toe. How is she going to withstand hours and hours of labour pains? She was much younger when she gave birth to me. Her thirty-six-year-old

body is in no shape for the rigours of childbirth. She doesn't even work out!

Grandmere fastened her evil eye on to me.

'I suppose the fact the weather's starting to get warm isn't helping,' she said. 'Young people tend to get flighty in the spring. And, of course, there's your birthday tomorrow.'

I fully let Grandmere think that's what was distracting me. My birthday and the fact that my friends and I are all twitterpated, like Thumper gets in springtime in Bambi.

'You are a very difficult person for whom to find a suitable birthday gift, Amelia,' Grandmere said, reaching for her Sidecar

and her cigarettes. Grandmere has her cigarettes sent to her from Genovia, so she doesn't have to pay the astronomical tax

on them that they charge here in New York, in the hopes of making people quit smoking on account of it being too expensive. Except that it isn't working, since all of the people in Manhattan who smoke are just hopping on the PATH train and going

over to New Jersey to buy their cigarettes.

'You are not the jewellery type,' Grandmere went on, lighting up and puffing away. And you don't seem to have any appreciation whatsoever for couture. And it isn't as if you have any hobbies.'

I pointed out to Grandmere that I do have a hobby. Not just a hobby, even, but a calling. I write.

Grandmere just waved her hand, and said, 'But not a real hobby. You don't play golf or paint.'