Princess' Diaries

"Mom," I said, my eyes all filling up with tears. I completely couldn’t help it. Suddenly, I was bawling all over again. "What are youdoing? Do youwant me to go live with Dad? Is that it? Are you tired of me or something? Do you want me to go live with Dad so you and Mr. Gianini can . . .  can . . . "

I couldn’t go on because I started crying so hard. But by then my mom was crying, too. She jumped up out of her chair and came around the end of the table and started hugging me, saying, "Oh, no, honey! How could you think something like that?" She stopped sounding like a TV mom. "I just want what’s best for you!"

"As do I," my dad said, looking annoyed. He had folded his arms across his chest and was leaning back in his chair, watching us in an irritated way.

"Well, what’s best for me is to stay right here and finish high school," I told him. "And then I’m going to join Greenpeace and help save the whales."

My dad looked evenmore irritated at that. "You arenot joining Greenpeace," he said.

"I am, too," I said. It was totally hard to talk, because I was crying and all, but I told him, "I’m going to go to Iceland to save the baby seals, too."

"You most certainly are not." My dad didn’t just look annoyed. Now he looked mad. "You are going to go to college. Vassar, I think. Maybe Sarah Lawrence."

That made me cry even more.

But before I could say anything, my mom held up a hand and was like, "Phillipe, don’t. We aren’t accomplishing anything here. Mia has to get to school, anyway. She’s already late—"

I started looking around for my backpack and coat real fast. "Yeah," I said. "I gotta renew my MetroCard."

My dad made this weird French noise he makes sometimes. It’s halfway between a snort and a sigh. It kind of sounds likePfuit! Then he said, "Lars will drive you."

I told my dad that this was unnecessary since I meet Lilly every day at Astor Place, where we catch the uptown 6 train together.

"Lars can pick up your little friend, too."

I looked at my mom. She was looking at my dad. Lars is my dad’s driver. He goes everywhere my dad goes. For as long as I’ve known my dad—okay, my whole life—he’s always had a driver, usually a big beefy guy who used to work for the president of Israel or somebody like that.

Now that I think about it, of course I realize these guys aren’t really drivers at all but bodyguards.

Duh.