Chapter Text
Of course, Mia’d had to have been really stupid not to expect Principal Gupta wouldn’t find out about the soda-dumping, so when Mia got into Gifted and Talented without being called in, she spent every five minutes being distracted from Michael’s tutoring to watch every person walk past the classroom door, anticipating the order to the school office.
She really shouldn’t have let herself get distracted, because Michael’s help was desperately needed if she wanted to raise her F grade into something passable. When he walked her through the equations in her worksheet, she almost understood everything he said and how it all worked. Almost.
Of course, even without her impending disciplinary chat with Gupta, she still probably would’ve been distracted anyway, what with the sensation of Lilly staring daggers at her head – not that Mia could confirm it for herself; every time her head went up to look around the room, Lilly’s head went down to focus on what she was calling the Ho Offensive, the next step in harassing – sorry, combating the racism in the neighbourhood.
Or she just would’ve gotten distracted by her tutor from being tutored – Michael, in close-up, is just as cute as he is across a room, and he even smells good, like soap and clean-boy (it’s one of the reasons she likes Nick, actually, this nice scent where his smells like grass if he’s been in the garden, or chocolate or vanilla if he’s been baking, overlaid with just clean-boy), and sometimes reaching across the table to take the pencil from her hands and be all ‘Like this, Mia’.
But then the stupid hall pass arrived with Mia’s name on it, thus dragging her out of G&T and dumping her into the uncomfortable chair in Principal Gupta’s office.
She wasn’t ashamed of what she’d done – she’d never done anything like it before, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t enjoyed it a little. Mostly she’d been running on the sharp, tunnel-focus that happened whenever she got screaming mad – it was the same focus that had provoked her anger at Lilly on Saturday, but this was the first time that kind of rage ended up becoming something physical. Whatever. Lana deserved it – she’d been terrorising Mia since middle school, and two weeks ago, Lana had flicked her hair all over Mia’s desk during Algebra from her seat in front, snagging onto Mia’s pencil and dragging a great big line all over the paper. Thursday last week alone, she’d looked down Mia’s shirt when Mia was getting her things from her locker, sneered, and gone “Oh, that’s sweet. I see we still can’t fit into a bra. Have you considered just slapping some band-aids on?”
So what, was Mia supposed to apologise? No way. Forget it. Lana was never going to let this go, so why would Mia be willing to?
Principle Gupta was staring at Mia over the top of her reading glasses, concern writ all over her face. Mia sat in her chair, unrepentant. “I’m not apologizing,” said Mia, her voice flat.
Gupta raised her eyebrows, “I beg your pardon?”
“Lana has been bullying me since we were in middle school. She was bulling me at lunch today, and then she started taunting my friend. It was provoked. I’ll pay to have her uniform dry-cleaned, if you want, and you can give me detention for a month or whatever, but I’m not apologizing.” She could feel her heart thumping harder in her chest, but refused to have any fear in her voice.
Gupta somehow looked more concerned. “Well . . . you’ve admitted it, I suppose. And yes, we were going to have you apologise and clean the uniform, but you’ve clearly made your mind up.” She sighed. “Mia, I have to say, when Lana came in here with her complaint, I was extremely surprised. It’s usually Lilly Moscovitz I have to pull in here. I never expected I was going to have to pull you in. Not for disciplinary reasons. Academic ones, maybe. I understand you aren’t doing very well in Algebra. But I’ve never known you to have a disciplinary issue before. Mia, I really have to ask . . . is everything all right?”
If this were a movie, there would be a record scratch right now. The screen would zoom in on Mia’s face, and the voiceover would start. Is everything alright? Uh. Well, let’s think – one year ago, Mia was told that her father was the Crown Prince of a European country, and as his only living, recognised child, Mia was likely the default heir, but that was okay! Because her father was healthy and would get married and have more kids of his own at some point, so Mia didn’t need to bother to care. But just two weeks ago, her father – the Crown Prince one – comes into her boring New York life and announces, darling, the testicular cancer I had has rendered me infertile. You are now the Official Heir. You are a Princess. And NOW, Mia is getting held back in school by the Algebra teacher who is dating her mother - and whom she walked in on eating breakfast in his boxers at her dining table – and then immediately going to the Plaza Hotel to be tutored by her harridan grandmother – the Dowager Princess of her father’s European country, by the by – for a few hours so that Mia doesn’t one day ascend to the throne of Genovia and promptly make an ass of herself for the world to see; so Mia generally gets home between 6 to 8 at night.
Oh, and she’s spending her school days themselves being bullied by the most popular girl in ninth grade, feuding with her best friend, and being without a boyfriend. Is there anything else you’d like to know, Principal Gupta?
But since this isn’t a movie, Mia just felt her eyes go round and pinched her lips into a very tight smile, and said in a tight, high-pitched, almost sarcastic voice, “Sure. Everything’s fine.”
“Really, Mia? Because I can’t help wondering if this isn’t all rooted in some problems you might be having – maybe at home?”
Mia was trying really, really hard NOT to laugh. Problems at home? No, she couldn’t possibly be having those!
“Mia,” Principal Gupta continued, “I want you to know that you are a special person, with many wonderful qualities and skills. I’ve read your school reports – except for your math and sciences classes, you are a very good student. There is absolutely no reason for you to feel threatened by Lana. None at all.”
What? Mia shouldn’t feel threatened by the pretty, popular girl dating the handsome, popular jock guy who insults and demeans and tries to humiliate Mia in public? Threatened? Nah.
“Truly, Mia. I really think that if you took the time to get to know Lana, you’d find that she’s really a very sweet girl, just like you.”
Just like you. Are we sure about that?
;
That little saccharine moment, on top of the week’s detention Mia received, made Mia so upset that she spilled the whole situation to Grandmere and her dad that night – after talking her dad down from suing the school over the detention and Grandmere deciding to have their vocabulary lesson also stretch into dining etiquette, having Mia join the two of them in the Palm Court for dinner.
“When I was your age,” Clarisse said in-between two courses, when Phillipe was taking a phone call outside the restaurant, “there was a girl like this Lana at my school. Her name was Genevieve. She sat behind me in Geography. Genevieve would take the end of my braid, and dip it in her inkwell, so that when I stood up, I got ink all over my dress. But the teacher would never believe me that Genevieve did it on purpose.”
“Really?” this was the first Mia had ever heard of anyone, ever, taunting Clarisse Renaldo. “What did you do?”
Clarisse let out a rather evil-sounding laugh. “Oh, nothing.”
Mia didn’t believe that for a second, but Grandmere refused to say anything more, and instead lectured Mia on how not eating every dish put in front of her could lead to diplomatic disaster, so Mia got to spend five minutes explaining all the ways that she could get out of it. Phillipe came back to the table somewhere in the middle, and refused to back up either of them, because his phone call had been some dignitary from Spain he didn’t like, and the conversation had given him a headache.
Mia ended the day with a headache too – with the addition of her detention on top of Algebra tutoring from Mr G, AND princess lessons plus the dinner, Mia wasn’t home before 9:30pm.
UGH.
;
Tuesday unveiled a number of things that, while in no way worthy of a freak-out, still rankled Mia’s nerves – Lilly refused to meet for a pickup again, and Mia and Lars agreed to stop driving by Lilly’s until and unless they were on speaking terms again, to make better time to school; where it turned out that Lilly had a date to the Cultural Diversity Dance that was happening on Saturday – an actual surprise to Mia, because she’d been confident that all the boys in their school were terrified of Lilly.
Turned out there was one boy who wasn’t: Boris Pelkowski, of the violin and tucked-in sweaters.
GOD.
So, what, Mia was good enough to be physically heinous to run a country one day, but not un-scary enough that LILLY got asked to the school dance and she didn’t?? Really???
Granted, Mia wasn’t actually all that enamoured by the dance, but still! It’d be fun to go!! To get dressed up and dance with her friends! Have A Good Time!
Ling Su had a date with one of the boys in her Art Club; Shameeka had a date in one of the boys on the school volleyball team; Lilly now had a date – even Tina, who wasn’t allowed to walk the two blocks between her apartment to their school had a date in this guy Dave, who, sure, went to another school in Manhattan and whose father was the kind of stupid rich Tina’s was, but still. People asked them!
To be fair . . . she might have missed a chance to be asked out, maybe?
When Michael was tutoring her in G&T, he’d queried about how grounded she was, and when Mia’d said she wasn’t at all, he’d made a sentence that, at the time, had sounded like the two of them should get together Saturday over something, but Mrs Hill, the G&T ‘supervisor’ (meaning that she spent all her time doing whatever in the teacher’s lounger across the hall) had come back into the room to get the kids in there to take some survey, and Mia had assumed Michael was suggested they get together over the weekend for more tutoring and had booked it out of the classroom the second the class period was over; because who wants to do more homework on the weekend than they have to?
So . . . it was definitely more possible that Michael was just wanting to go over her long division, because he claimed it to be a human tragedy, or maybe it was an offer for the dance, but, frankly, Mia was willing to bet it was the Math thing, because she really didn’t like to delude herself.
And no matter how cute Michael was, there was not a chance in hell of Mia willingly signing up for more Algebra just to see him out of school.
;
Wednesday dawned to the sun shining through her bedroom window, as it always did. Fat Louie was perched on her windowsill, watching the pigeons on her fire escape with hungry eyes, as he always did.
It was the same sort of morning as every other morning, but something felt . . . off. Like she was in a movie, and the Jaws theme was humming throughout her whole morning, as she was getting ready for school, as Lars dropped her off, as the students around her reacted to her presence. Normally, when she walked into school, there was a bunch of students hanging out, lounging on Joe and Jake, the stone lions by the entrance, smoking cigarettes and stuff that was more potent than cigarettes, talking about whatever and happily ignoring anyone passing by. Today, those students, while still smoking, where in clusters around one or two of the smokers, who were holding newspapers. And they all stared at Mia as she walked into the school.
Daa-dum.
When she went into the girl’s bathroom before class, a bunch of the girls in there that were doing their hair or makeup looked at her, started giggling, and rushed out.
Daa-dum.
Daa-dum.
Josh Ritcher actually spoke to her. Two months of sharing the same locker bay, and him shoving his girlfriend up against Mia’s locker door to make out, and barely a single word had passed between the two of them. And today, he just looks at her as she puts her bag away and is all “How you doin’?” like he’s Joey from Friends, or something.
Daa-dum.
Daa-dum.
Daa-dum.
Mr Gianini was the first to sound the alarm. He’d been walking to the train station he took to AEHS and had passed a newsstand. Splattered all over it, the New York Post, with MIA on the front page. A recent photo, actually. Probably from Monday night, when she’d had dinner with her dad and Grandmere. She’s coming down the Plaza steps, not looking at the camera – how could she be, when she didn’t know a camera was there? – kind of smiling. The headline read Princess Amelia – New York’s Very Own Royal.
Mr G had called her mother, twice actually, but Helen was alternately in the shower or her studio, and heard the phone neither time. So, Mr G did something that was actually pretty gutsy, for the boyfriend of Mia’s mom – he called Mia’s dad. According to him, Phillipe Renaldo flipped a table – proverbially speaking – and immediately contacted Principal Gupta to have Mia pulled from her classes and into Gupta’s office, for ‘safety’.
So here Mia is, back in the chair she’d sat in just two days before to justify pouring a can of soda on Lana Weinberger’s head. If the giant shark could please burst in and eat Mia alive right now, that’d be great, thanks.
Principal Gupta read the headline for Mia, and continued with the page 2 headline Fairy Tale Dream Comes True For One Lucky New York Kid, as the reporter put it. “You might have mentioned this, Mia, when I asked you if there was anything bothering you in your home life.” Gupta said, kind of sarcastically, gazing at Mia over her glasses, probably thinking really? THIS one is a princess?
Mia cocked an eyebrow. She was trying not to show just how much this all rattled her. “Well, let’s face it: it sounds kind of nuts unless you’ve got the newspaper backing you up.”
“Very true,” Gupta conceded, turning back to the paper. “It is rather unbelievable.”
When her father finally arrived, it was mostly to thank Principal Gupta for . . . well, functionally ‘holding off the horde’ by keeping Mia in her office (what horde? Well, apparently, a bunch of news stations got a hold of the story and were waiting outside the school to get a picture of Mia) before Phillipe could get to the school.
Mia figured that with the whole mess, she’d get the rest of the day off school or something, but nope! Instead, she got Lars as a bodyguard. Yippee!! She’s always wanted some big guy with a gun following her everywhere she went she thought sarcastically. And instead of getting the rest of the day of school, if only because that was as long as her peers’ attention spans could last, and tomorrow they definitely wouldn’t care; Mia instead got to continue the rest of her school day as per normal, as long as she could ignore the stares and the bodyguard and the growing mob of reporters outside the school.
Sure. Totally normal day.
;
The One sole upside to this hell-day was the fact that her detention had been cancelled – apparently, having reporters conduct a turf war over who can take a photo of you first is the equivalent of sitting silently in a room for an hour five days in a row. At least in terms of emotional strain, anyway.
The Approximately Ninety-Nine downsides started kicking in at lunch when, no joke, Lana Weinberger came up to Mia and Tina as they were ordering food and invited – or ordered would probably be the more accurate term – Mia to sit with Lana and the Popular Table.
It took everything Mia had not to laugh in her face. Seriously?! Monday-Lana was teasing Mia over her haircut and picking on Tina, and Wednesday-Lana wants to sup her lunch next to Mia, just because a reporter decided that Mia was news-worthy?
It probably made a weird sight, for Lana, having Mia’s face all twist and her eyes to grow wide and her eyebrows to somehow rise and scrunch, but that was the effort Mia needed not to crack up in her face. “No thanks, Lana,” Mia said to the offer, “I’ve got a table to sit at.”
Tina’s eyes had been as wide as plates the entire time, and they didn’t really get smaller until the two girls sat down. Lars and Wahim each got seats a little away, for the sake of privacy – it turned out, the two of them got along rather well, given their current conversation topic, the question of whose gun had the most firepower – and Tina asked in a small voice, “Are you sure you want to sit with me?”
Mia, starting to dig into her salad, was confused. “What do you mean?”
“Well,” Tina picked at her own salad – she had something of a weight problem (in her own mind. Mia thought her friend was perfectly-sized) and was dieting to try to lose the weight for the Cultural Diversity Dance. Given that it was about three days away, Tina’s goal didn’t seem likely. “I know you don’t like Lana very much, but . . . well, you could do anything, now. You’re a princess, Mia. Everyone knows it, now. You could do anything, sit anywhere, no one would say a word.”
Mia blinked at the words, but didn’t think for a second before saying, “I’m sitting exactly where I want to, Tina. I’m not going anywhere, and I’m definitely not trading my friend for someone who just wants to hang out with me because I have a fancy tiara.”
That got a smile from her friend, the tension leaving Tina’s shoulders. “Do you actually have a tiara?” she asked.
Mia thought for a second, “Yeah, probably. I can’t imagine I’d ever get to wear it outside of, like, formal functions or whatever,” she grinned at her friend, “so don’t expect me to come to school wearing one or something.”
Tina laughed around her bite of salad, “It’d be cool if you could though.”
Mia knew it was a joke, but the idea had brought back a memory, just of the summer gone by. She and Nick had been relieved of any real plans for their day, and taken the opportunity to ride Nick’s horses into the nearby town – well, not into the town, but to the farmers market that had been happening just outside it. It’d been a fun day, with the sun shining and everything smelling like popcorn and baked cakes, and Mia had bought some cakes and apples and Nick – well, it’d been a joke they’d been making, about Mia’s non-royalty-royalty status (oh, how irony has bit her in the butt), but Nick had bought Mia a little tiara made out of twisted-together gold wire and glass beads. It was a kitsch thing, purely for the aesthetic of it, but she still had it at home, sitting on her vanity.
She missed Nick. He’d be fantastic in this situation.
;
Gifted and Talented offered up a wealth of potential distractions, from being the first class post-lunch to Mia’s Algebra work (ugh), to Michael just existing, to Lilly glaring at her head the way she had all through lunch, to Boris scraping his way to Bach or whatever it was; but, because this is Mia’s life here, she got to indulge none of that, as Michael brought up the pink elephant in the room the second Mia sat down.
In fairness, it probably had something to do with Lars walking in after her and sitting down, but they all could’ve at least pretended life was normal, right? But noooo.
“So, Princess of Genovia, huh?” Michael said, “Were you ever going to share that little piece of info with the group, or were we all supposed to guess?” He sounded . . . unimpressed. It got Mia’s hackles up a bit, actually. Like her royal status was really anyone’s business!
“I was kind of hoping no one would ever find out?” It came out like a question, but her point was made.
“Well, that’s obvious. I don’t see why, though. It’s not like it’s a bad thing.” Ha, Michael.
“Uh, try living it,” was Mia’s great comeback. “My life has just gotten about a hundred times more difficult.”
“Did you read the article in today’s Post, Thermopalis?”
“I was the article, Moscovitz. I don’t see what more I needed.”
Which was when Mia heard Lilly’s voice for real for the first time since their fight. It was like she couldn’t stand not to be involved in the conversation.
“So you’re not aware that the Crown Prince of Genovia – namely your father,” yes, well done Lilly. You’ve noted who Mia’s father is, “has a total personal worth which, including real estate property and the palace’s art collection, is estimated at over three hundred million dollars?”
It was pretty obvious Lilly read the article. Mia gave Lilly a very sarcastic look. “Yes, actually I did know that.” Or that-abouts. Jesus, three hundred million? “But those properties and art are also inherited aspects of the Genovian Royal Family estate – it’s the equivalent of a family heirloom being added onto your own personal net worth.”
Which was a sentence that stopped Lilly’s impending tirade for about two seconds before she barrelled on. “I was wondering how much of that fortune was amassed by taking advantage of the sweat of the common labourer, Amelia,” Lilly said all snottily. “I suppose once you take out the land and art, that’s what? Half?”
“More like none,” Mia shot back, cutting off Michael, who’d opened his mouth to rebut Lilly, “given that the people of Genovia have traditionally never paid income or property taxes.” Thank you, Nick’s regular rants about his uncle’s desire to impose taxes on his workers and staff to grab at their money.
Michael was smiling at – nothing? And Lilly was grasping at straws of her argument. “Well. I guess at the princess of the country,” she said this the way Mia imagined people during the French Revolution said ‘the queen’, “you would be in favour of the excesses of the monarchy, but I happen to think that it’s disgusting, with the world economy being what it is today, for anyone to have a total worth of three hundred million dollars – especially someone who never did a day’s work for it!”
Michael cut Lilly right off, going, “I’m sorry Lilly, but it’s my understanding that Mia’s father works extremely hard for his country. His father’s historic pledge, after Mussolini’s forces invaded in 1939, to exercise the rights of sovereignty in accordance with the political and economic interests of neighbouring France, in exchange for military and naval protection in the event of war, might have tied the hands of a lesser politician, but Mia’s father has managed to work around that agreement; and his efforts have resulted in a nation with the highest literacy rate in Europe, some of the best educational attainment rates and the lowest infant mortality, inflation and unemployment rates in the Western hemisphere.”
Okay, so those were actually statistics Mia didn’t know, but thanks Michael.
Lilly turned to her brother and said, “Shut up,” before swivelling back to Mia and sneering, “I see they already have you spouting their populist propaganda like a good little heir.”
Mia was dumbfounded at the accusation, saying, “I beg your pardon-“ but Michael cut her off, sneering right back at his little sister, “Aw, Lilly, you’re just jealous.”
“I am not!”
“Yes, you are,” Michael was smug, like he was enjoying making Lilly angry. “You’re jealous because she got her hair cut without consulting you. You’re jealous because you stopped talking to her, and she just grabbed Tina and kept on rolling. You’re jealous because all this time, Mia’s had a secret she didn’t tell you.”
Which prompted Lilly to just scream, red in the face, “Michael, SHUT UP!” the volume of which caused Boris to lean out of his supply closet to ask “Lilly? Did you say something?”
Lilly just yelled at him to get back in the supply closet. She spun on Michael, demanding, “Gosh, Michael, you sure are quick to come to Mia’s defence all of a sudden. I wonder if maybe it ever occurred to you that your argument, while ostensibly based in logic, might have less intellectual than libidinous roots?”
Mia’s vocab wasn’t as great as she wished it to be, so she didn’t quite get the question, but it made Michael start to go red for some reason, provoking him to sneer, “Well, what about your persecution of the Ho’s? Is that rooted in intellectual reasoning? Or is it an example of vanity run amok?”
But before Lilly could talk back, he turned to Mia and just asked, “So does this guy-“ he pointed at Lars, who had been watching the whole debate like it was a tennis match, “have to follow you everywhere from now on?”
Mia nodded, “Yup.”
“Really? Everywhere?”
“Everywhere except the ladies room. Then he waits outside.”
Michael was incredulous. “What if you were to go on a date? Or to a school dance or something?”
Mia scoffed a bit, “Well, given that no one’s asked me, that’s a non-issue; but if I were, I imagine Lars would come with.” She shared a glance with the bodyguard – kind of hard, given that, for whatever reason, he was still wearing sunglasses indoors. Lars nodded the affirmative.
Boris leaned out of his closet again, interrupting everything. “Excuse me.” That got the attention of the whole room. Boris tended to do that, what with his deep voice and loud violin; when he spoke, people listened, if only to know exactly how fast to herd Boris into the cupboard. “I accidentally knocked over a bottle of rubber cement with my bow, and it’s getting hard to breathe. Can I come out now?”
The entire G&T class managed to scream a ‘no’ in unison, but the volume drew Mrs Hill into the classroom. “What’s all the noise for? Boris, why are you in the supply closet? Come out now. Everybody else, back to work! I need to take a closer look at that article in today’s Post.”
;
HalfAgonyHalfHope: I heard the news. Congrats on being a celebrity now.
FtLouie: How do you know already????
HalfAgonyHalfHope: I go to school in Genovia and our Crown Prince has just made international news with the split beans about his illegitimate heir. You’re literally all anyone is talking about here.
FtLouie: Ugh.
HalfAgonyHalfHope: How bad are things where you are?
FtLouie: Well, I’ve got a bodyguard following me wherever I go, reporters camped on my school campus, and right now my parents are arguing over who told – Mom thinks Grandmere, Dad thinks it’s my Algebra teacher because Mom’s dating him.
HalfAgonyHalfHope: Does your dad have a theory on how the teacher learned of your secret?
FtLouie: None that I can tell.
HalfAgonyHalfHope: So he’s just bitter?
FtLouie: What, that she’s dating someone not him? I guess.
HalfAgonyHalfHope: Well, if I were a gambling man, my money would be on Clarisse. I’ve met her. I could see her spilling the beans.
FtLouie: You think? I considered it, but I’m too much of a disappointment right now. I don’t think I’m anywhere near ready for the spotlight at Princess of Genovia. I can barely manage to handle princess lessons, nevermind being Princess in public.
HalfAgonyHalfHope: She’s throwing you in the deep end?
FtLouie: Maybe?
;
Too bad Nick wasn’t a gambling man, because he would’ve cleared the sweepstakes. Or whatever the saying was.
Grandmere was the tattle-tale.
Phillipe and Helen were furious. Come to think of it, so was Mia. Thursday’s Princess Lesson was supposed to be dinner, so that Grandmere could lecture her some more on her dining etiquette, but before they left the Plaza – because they had to have the lesson somewhere else (?) instead of the Palm Court again – she went back upstairs for five minutes, came back down, and the moment Mia and Grandmere arrived at their eatery, the place was mobbed with cameras. Using the one clue she ever used, Mia spun on her grandmother, confronting her over her actions and giving her a pretty decent The Reason This All Sucks And I Don’t Want It speech.
She wasn’t sure how much of it got through, but there were no more cameras outside when they left, so whatever. A battle was won, not the war.
Speaking of battles, is Mia in one with the popular crowd?
Because after her rejection yesterday, Lana and Josh and the crew all apparently decided that if they couldn’t convince Mia to come to them, they’d come to her. Which meant that, instead of a lunch-table consisting of Mia and Tina talking about romance novels and TV shows, and Wahim and Lars trading stories about their mutual military friends plus firearm comparisons, the table consisted of: all four of them, plus Lana Weinberger and the five other cheerleaders that went with her everywhere, and Josh Ritcher and the five jock boys that were dating the five cheerleaders, who also went with Josh everywhere. It was very distracting, and Lana kept trying to talk to Mia about a party that was happening at some point over the weekend, after the Cultural Diversity Dance, and does Mia want to come and get wasted?
Uh, no. Alcohol holds no real interest for Mia – unless she needs it to pair with her dinner food at Miragnac; and partying around people she doesn’t know doesn’t make her feel safe. But apparently those aren’t good excuses, and therefore she is a ‘square’, which is an insult she didn’t think people ever used outside of movies set in the fifties, but apparently Josh’s friends like to imagine they’re all in one. Whatever.
The important bit is that Josh, at their lockers after lunch, decided to agree with Mia, about something she’d said about alcohol being something she’ll have with food, but not for leisure. She couldn’t quite remember by the time she went to bed, but his attention . . . it made her feel tingly. But – not quite in a way she liked? It was like when she’d walked into Michael outside the Computer Club, when Mia was still trying to be sneaky about her Princess Lessons, and all the club members stared at her. Bugs on her skin.
;
LANA AND JOSH BROKE UP!
It’s all over the school, and colour Mia impressed, but the cycle of interest in her lasted exactly as long as she expected – normally she’s wrong about that sort of thing.
But yeah, apparently, they went on a date while Mia was shouting at Grandmere in a limousine, and Josh just flatly asked her for his class ring back in between the main meal and dessert! Which – Mia’s never been dumped before, but as much as she doesn’t like Lana At All – seems pretty cold, actually. Before classes started, Mia had overheard Lana on the phone to Bergdorf’s trying to get them to take back the dress she’d bought for the Cultural Diversity Dance, despite Lana having already removed the tags; during Algebra, she hadn’t paid the slightest attention to Mr Gianini, instead taking a black marker and crossing out all the places she’d written ‘Mrs Josh Ritcher’ on her class notebook. Again, Mia didn’t like Lana, but it hurt to watch.
;
Wow. That was completely random and unexpected. And unwelcome.
Look, Mia can put up with a lot, okay – Lilly’s tirades and condescension about Mia’s intelligence, prior to Ho-Gate anyway; Grandmere’s existence in her life; her mom forgetting to pay the power bill so everything in their house shuts off when Mia’s in the middle of a movie marathon; and she’s putting up with the whole princess nonsense now – but having someone so transparently try to use her is smacking right on a last nerve.
Like, did he actually think that she’d fall for that even a little?!
Okay, okay, so – Lana and Josh broke up, whatever. Mia doesn’t like Lana, and Josh is very pretty and yes, Mia’s been harbouring a bit of a crush on him since school started, whatever – Mia’s been harbouring a crush on Michael Moscovitz for two years, and this last summer she started to get very flustered at Nick’s blue eyes. She’s fourteen, she can have as many dumb crushes that’ll never amount to anything as she wants.
But this nonsense –
She was at her locker, putting away her Algebra book at the same time Josh was collecting his Trigonometry things, when he turned to her in a completely casual manner and said “Hey, Mia, who are you going to the dance tomorrow with?”
Mia – at the time - was shocked at Josh speaking to her, and just about choked on her tongue before getting out a “Uh, no one.”
So Josh – and here’s the really important bit, because he had this look in his eyes, like her agreement was guaranteed – says, “Well, why don’t we go together?”
Mia just kind of stared at him in silence, maybe even for a full minute.
You know how there’s that little voice in your head, like the voice of your rational brain, well, the one in Mia’s head just said, He’s only asking you out because you’re the Princess of Genovia.
To which the louder ‘id’ of Mia went SO WHAT???
And the rational-brain – her ‘superego’, we’ll say – answered with How about we don’t date people using us for fame, huh?
And because that was all the arguments her mind could make before her mouth caught up with her, Mia just blurted, “No. No thanks.”
And she slapped her locker closed and spun on her heel, only catching a quick glance of Josh’s face. The last time she’d seen a classmate that gobsmacked, a can of soda was being tipped on her head.
By G&T, it was all over the school. You know, Most Popular Senior Boy Gets Rejected By Our School’s New European Princess. Like it was a headline. If it somehow wasn’t leaked to the reporters still straggling on the school steps, Mia actually would’ve found herself rather surprised, honestly. It was THAT big.
Although, the reactions she was getting were rather surprising, actually. She’d been anticipating the general whisper-point-and-stares, but she was . . . actually getting admiring stares? Maybe? Not from the popular crowd, but like, the unpopular crowd? Well, people who didn’t have a high opinion of Josh Ritcher, anyway.
One of those people? Lilly Moscovitz. Although she did decide to voice her opinion in a way that just got Mia in an ‘I-didn’t-freaking-ask’ mood.
“I’m a little surprised at you, Mia. I didn’t know you had that much integrity to reject your crush.”
Surprised at Mia’s integrity? Was this supposed to be an apology or an insult? Mia clenched her teeth, gritting out, “Well, I guess I’m full of surprises, Lilly. You don’t know everything about me.”
Lilly’s reaction was – her eyes softened, maybe? Like she didn’t mean her barb the way Mia took it? – and she just said, in a tone far less confrontational, “I guess not.”
Michael was mostly the same as ever as he talked her through her Algebra work, but his air was one of satisfaction. Like something had happened that he felt almost-smug about.
Whatever. Mia was very decidedly Not Caring. God, she was ready for the weekend. Yes, she wasn’t going to the school dance, but that wasn’t exactly a special thing – generally, a third or a half of the student population didn’t bother going to any of the school dances; the Winter Dance was in a few months, Mia could go to that one, if she wanted. Grandmere had given a promise of No Princess Lessons for the weekend, and Mia wanted to spend it doing exactly NOTHING stressful. She’d had enough stress this week.
;
That night, Mia was actually home in time for some dinner, actually. Grandmere had decided that the first week of their lessons, while not a success, per say, were enough for Clarisse to want to have half an evening off.
Every two weeks on Friday nights, her mother had a Ladies Poker Night, and it was a refreshing change – none of them seemed to care all that much about the Princess thing, except for some minor questions Mia didn’t mind answering. They’d all been around Mia since she was a baby, so while it was new and surprising information, it wasn’t really very important. Their attitude made Mia feel very grateful that, if nothing else, her mom’s friends were always around to ignore Mia’s stresses and just make some jokes she could laugh at.
Mia took her small personal pizza – vegetarian, because her mom had happily added to the dinner order when Mia got home early for the first time all week – and cuddled up on her bed with Fat Louie to watch her small bedroom TV. Lilly’s show, Lilly Tells It Like It Is, was the owner of a regular Friday night spot, airing in-between the show about biker-gang members teaching people how to cook over an exhaust flame or in a flaming garbage can, and the show dedicated to finding the weirdest hole-in-the-wall shops in New York. Cable access channels tended to have weird things airing, because if you threw enough money at the station managers, then you got to be on TV.
Anyway, Lilly’s show was dedicated to the Ho’s boycott, which had been called off that day due to the lack of interest by their classmates. It’d been coming on all week – the Asian American students had started shopping exclusively at the Ho’s, because if they got a five-cent discount, why not take advantage? And the school smokers didn’t honour the boycott, because it was the only place close enough that they could go to and get more cigarettes in the middle of the school day; and since all the popular kids at their school smoked en-masse, the boycott had had trouble getting momentum.
Instead, the episode ended with Lilly sitting on her bed, probably filmed the night before. She gave a speech about how racism is a powerful force of evil that all people must work to combat. Even though to some, paying five cents more for a bag of potato chips might not seem like much, victims of real racism and prejudice would recognise that five cents was only the first step in the road to genocide. Lilly went on to say that because of her stand against the Ho’s, there was a little bit more justice on the side of right today.
Mia still wasn’t in favour of Lilly’s actions, and she still found it all rather absurd, given the moral soapbox Lilly had been standing on for the whole duration, but Lilly’s speech did hit a nerve in her. For all that Lilly could be difficult; she was charismatic and a magnet for interesting things, and she was trying to make the world a better place. Mia missed her.
;
Mr Gianini came over to the Loft around lunchtime the next day, and he was actually proving to be Mia’s favourite of her mother’s boyfriends in recent memory. He didn’t seem to care about sports very much, he had little wry jokes all the time that made her snicker, and given that he came in while Mia was working on some homework, he gave her Algebra stuff a quick look-over and – while not saying anything about the score she’d get back for it – told Mia she was improving a lot.
Mia swore she could feel her mom’s happy smile behind her.
Overall, everything was exactly as dull as she’d wished, right up until Sunday morning, when Tina called to invite Mia to join her and Dave and their friends for Chinese food and descriptions of the dance the night before. So, taking an extra twenty minutes out of the commute time to get Lars to come around, Mia got to Tina’s apartment – her parents were out for the day, taking Tina’s younger siblings with them – and she was rather surprised to see, instead of Tina’s boyfriend Dave Farouq El-Abar, Lilly was the other person at the apartment.
Turns out, Tina was rather tired of Lilly and Mia’s silent treatment of each other – a stance Tina only had because she didn’t have Gifted and Talented as a class – and was demanding that they talk things out. A peaceful reconciliation would be rewarded with Chinese food.
Mia just kind of stared down at Lilly from her height above. They were in Tina’s living room, and Lilly looked about as ashamed of herself as she ever did when she knew she was in the wrong – which wasn’t often, but Lilly, despite all interactions might suggest, actually hated being scolded. She could handle arguments with the deft touch of a true journalist, but actually being called out when she was in the wrong was not when Lilly was at her most graceful.
And graceful Lilly wasn’t, as she gently talked about how she was sorry for making fun of Mia’s hair, and that she understood how controlling she could be, and that her parents had theories that she had something of a borderline authoritarian personality disorder, and that she promised to make a concentrated effort to stop telling everyone, especially Mia, what to do.
Overall, it wasn’t a perfect apology, or reconciliation, but Mia, Lilly and Tina ended spent the afternoon marathon-ing the TV show Charmed and gorging themselves on Chinese take-out and ice cream, so Mia was counting everything as a Win.
;
HalfAgonyHalfHope: So, the most popular boy in school dumps his girlfriend, who you don’t like, and asks you to the school dance you want to go to, and you turn him down flat? Is that the plotline here?
FtLouie: Yep. I like to think integrity and basic human decency – as well as not giving in to people who only want me for my new crown – is more important than having a boyfriend.
HalfAgonyHalfHope: Well, it’s an argument I can agree with and stand alongside. Are you happy with how this has all turned out so far?
FtLouie: I think it’s a still a bit too early to tell, but, yeah, actually. I’m choosing to be optimistic.
HalfAgonyHalfHope: Good.