Princess' Diaries

Tina is pretty nice. When she got up to go to the jet line to get another diet soda—the bodyguard went with her; God, if Lars ever started shadowing me like that, I’d kill myself—I read the back of her book. The book was calledI Think My Name Is Amanda, and it was about a girl who woke up from a coma and couldn’t remember who she was. This really cute boy comes to visit her in the hospital and tells her that her name is Amanda and that he’s her boyfriend. She spends the rest of the book trying to figure out whether or not he’s lying.

I am so sure! If some cute boy wants to tell you that he’s your boyfriend, why wouldn’t you justlet him? Some girls don’t know when they’ve got it made.

While I was reading the back of the book, this shadow fell over it, and I looked up and there was Lana Weinberger. It must have been a game day, because she had on her cheerleader uniform, a green-and-white pleated miniskirt and a tight white sweater with a giantA across the front of it. I think she stuffs her pom-poms down her bra when she isn’t using them. Otherwise, I don’t see how her chest could stick out so much.

"Nice hair, Amelia," she said in her snotty voice. "Who are you supposed to be? Tank Girl?"

I looked past her. Josh Richter was standing there with some of his dumb jock friends. They weren’t paying any attention to me and Lana. They were talking about a party they’d been to over the weekend. They were all "wrecked" from having consumed too much beer.

I wonder if their coach knows.

"What do you call this color, anyway?" Lana wanted to know. She touched the top of my head. "Pus yellow?"

Tina Hakim Baba and her bodyguard came back while Lana was standing there tormenting me. In addition to her diet soda, Tina had purchased a Nutty Royale ice cream cone, which she gave to me. I thought this was very nice of her, considering the fact that I’d hardly ever spoken to her before.

But Lana didn’t see the niceness of this gesture. Instead she asked, all innocently, "Oh, Tina, did you buy that ice cream for Amelia here? Did your daddy give you an extra hundred dollars today so you could buy yourself a new friend?"

Tina’s dark eyes filled up with hurt. The bodyguard saw this and opened his mouth.

Then a strange thing happened. I was sitting there, looking at the tears welling up in Tina Hakim Baba’s eyes, and then the next thing I knew, I’d taken my Nutty Royale and thrust it with all my might at the front of Lana’s sweater.