Third Time Lucky

No, what matters today is what you do with the brain behind those perfect blue eyes (or brown eyes, or green, or whatever). In Grandmere's day, a girl like Judith, who could clone fruit flies, would be viewed as a piteous freak unless she managed to clone fruit flies and look stunning in Dior.

Even in this remarkably enlightened age, girls like Judith still don't get as much attention as girls like Lana - which isn't fair,

since cloning fruit flies is probably way more important than having totally perfect hair.

The really pathetic people are the ones like me: I can't clone fruit flies and I've got bad hair.

But that's OK. I'm used to it by now.

Grandmere's the one who still needs convincing that I am an absolutely hopeless case.

'Look,' I said to Grandmere. 'I told you. Michael is not the type of guy who is going to be impressed because I'm in a Sunday Times supplement in a strapless ballgown. That's why I like him. If he were the kind of guy who was impressed by stuff like that, I wouldn't want anything to do with him.'

Grandmere didn't look very convinced.

'Well,' she said. 'Perhaps you and I must agree to disagree. In any case, Amelia, I came over to apologize. I never meant to distress you. I meant only to show you what you can do, if you'd only try.' She spread her gloved hands apart. 'And look how well I succeeded. Why, you planned and executed an entire press conference, all on your own!'

I couldn't help smiling a little at that one. 'Yes,' I said. 'I did.'

'And,' Grandmere said, 'I understand that you passed Algebra.'

I grinned harder. 'Yes. I did.'

'Now,' Grandmere said, 'there is only one thing left for you to do.'

I nodded. 'I know. And I've been thinking a lot about it. I think it might be best if I extended my stay in Genovia. Like maybe

I could just live there from now on. What do you think about that?'

Grandmere's expression, I could see in the light coming from my room, was one of disbelief.

'Live in ... live in Genovia?' For once, I'd caught her off" guard. 'What are you talking about?'

'You know,' I said. 'I could just finish ninth grade in school there. And then maybe I could go to one of those Swiss boarding schools you're always going on about.'

Grandmere just stared at me. 'You'd hate it.'

'No,' I said. 'It might be fun. No boys, right? That would be great. I mean, I'm kind of sick of boys right now.'

Grandmere shook her head. 'But your friends . . . your mother . . . '

'Well,' I said reasonably. 'They could come and visit.'

Then Grandmere's face hardened. She peered at me from between the heavily mascaraed slits her eyelids had become.

'Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Renaldo,' she said. 'You are running away from something, aren't you?'

I shook my head innocently. 'Oh, no, Grandmere,' I said. 'Really. I'd like to live in Genovia. It'd be neat.'

'NEAT?' Grandmere stood up. Her high heels went through the slots between the metal bars of the fire escape, but she didn't notice. She pointed imperiously at my window.

'You get inside right now,' she hissed, in a voice I had never heard her use before.

I have to admit, I was so startled I did exactly what she said. I unplugged Ronnie's electric blanket and crawled right back

into my room. Then I stood there while Grandmere crawled back in too.

'You,' she said, when she'd straightened out her skirt, 'are a princess of the royal house of Renaldo. A princess,' she said,

going to my wardrobe, and rifling through it, 'does not shirk her responsibilities. Nor does she run at the first sign of adversity.'

'Um, Grandmere,' I said. 'What happened today was hardly the first sign of adversity, OK? What happened today was the

last straw. I can't take it any more, Grandmere. I am getting out.'

Grandmere pulled from my wardrobe the dress Sebastiano had designed for me to wear to the dance. You know, the one

that was supposed to make Michael forget that I am his little sister's best friend.

'Nonsense,' Grandmere said.

That was all.

Just 'nonsense'. Then she stood there, tapping her toes and staring at me.

'Grandmere,' I said. Maybe it was all that time I'd spent outside. Or maybe it was that I was pretty sure my mom and Mr.G and my dad were all in the next room, listening. How could they not be? There was no door, or anything, to separate my room from the living room.

'You don't understand,' I said. 'I can't go back there.'

'All the more reason,' Grandmere said, 'for you to go.'

'No,' I said. 'First of all, I don't even have a date for the dance, OK? And P.S., only losers go to dances without dates.'

'You are not a loser, Amelia,' Grandmere said. 'You are a princess. And princesses do not run away when things become difficult. They throw their shoulders back and they face what disaster awaits them head on. Bravely, and without complaint.'

I said, 'Hello, we are not talking about marauding Visigoths, OK, Grandmere? We are talking about an entire high school that now thinks I am in love with Boris Pelkowski.'