Meg Cabot - Party Princess

MEG CABOT

PARTY

Princess

THE PRINCESS DIARIES, VOLUME VII

For my niece,

Riley Sueham Cabot,

another princess in training

The spirit and will of any child would have been entirely humbled and broken by the changes she has had to submit to. But, upon my word, she seems as little subdued as ifas if she were a princess.

A LITTLE PRINCESS

Frances Hodgson Burnett

CONTENTS

EPIGRAPH

BEGIN READING

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

OTHER BOOKS BY MEG CABOT

CREDITS

COPYRIGHT

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

From the desk of

Her Royal Highness

Princess Amelia Mignonette

Grimaldi Thermopolis Renaldo

Dear Dr. Carl Jung,

I realize that you will never read this letter, primarily because you are dead.

But I feel compelled to write it anyway, because a few months ago during a particularly trying period in my life, a nurse told me I needed to be more verbal about my feelings.

I know writing a letter to a dead person isnt exactly being verbal, but my situation is such that there are very few people I can actually talk to about my problems. Mostly because those people are the ones causing my problems.

The truth is, Dr. Jung, I have been striving for fifteen and three-quarters years for self-actualization. You remember self-actualization, right? I mean, you shouldyou invented it.

The thing is, every time I think I have self-actualization on the horizon, something comes along to mess it all up. Like this whole princess thing. I mean, just when I thought I couldnt possibly become a bigger freak, POW! It turns out that Im also a princess.

Which I realize does not seem like an actual problem to many people. But Id be very interested to see how THEY would react if every single spare moment of THEIR lives was taken up by lessons in being a royal from their tattooed-eyelidded grandmother; getting stalked by the paparazzi; or attending boring state functions with people who have never even heard of The OC, let alone know whats going on with Seth and Summers on-again-off-again romance.

But the princess thing isnt the only thing thats put a wedge between me and my quest for self-actualization. Being the sole sane caretaker of my baby brotherwho appears to have grave developmental problems because at ten months he still cannot walk without holding on to someones (usually my) fingers (while it is true that he has shown markedly advanced verbal skills for his age, knowing two words, tucktruckand keekittyhe uses them indiscriminately for all objects, not just trucks and cats)hasnt helped much, either.

But that isnt all. How about the fact I have been elected president of the student council of my schoolbut am nevertheless still one of the most unpopular people in said school?

Or that Ive finally figured out that I do have an actual talent (writingin case you cant tell from this letter), but also that I wont be able to pursue a career in my field of choice, because I will be too busy ruling a small European principality? Not thataccording to my English teacher, Ms. Martinez, who says I have a problem with the overuse of adjectives in my descriptive essaysIm ever going to get published, or even get a job as an assistant writer on a situation comedy.

Or that I finally won the love of the man of my dreams, only to have him so busy with his History of Dystopic Science Fiction in Film course, I hardly ever get to see him.

Do you see where Im coming from with all of this? Every time self-actualization seems to be within my reach, it is cruelly snatched away by fate. Or my grandmother.

Im not complaining. Im just sayingwell, exactly how much does a human being have to endure before she can consider herself self-actualized?

Because I really dont think I can take anymore.

Do you have any tips on how I might achieve transcendence before my sixteenth birthday? Because I would really appreciate some.

Thanks.

Your friend,

Mia Thermopolis

P. S.: Oh, yeah. I forgot. Youre dead. Sorry. Never mind about the tips thing. I guess Ill just look some up in the library.

Tuesday, March 2, after school, Gifted and Talented

BIMONTHLY MEETING OF THE AEHS

STUDENT GOVERNMENT OFFICERS

Meeting Called to Order

Attendance

Present:

Mia Thermopolis, President

Lilly Moscovitz, Vice President

Ling Su Wong, Treasurer

Mrs. Hill, student government advisor

Lars van der Hooten, personal bodyguard of

HRH M. Thermopolis

Absent:

Tina Hakim Baba, Secretary, due to emergency retainer refitting after her little brother flushed her old one down the toilet

(Which, by the way, is why Im the one writing the minutes. Ling Su cant, due to having artist handwriting, which is very similar to doctor handwriting, meaning it is actually indecipherable by the human eye. And Lilly claims she has carpal tunnel syndrome from typing out the short story she sent in to Sixteen magazines annual short fiction contest.

Or, I should say, the FIVE short stories she sent into Sixteen magazines annual short fiction contest.

I dont know how she found the time to write FIVE stories. I barely had time to write ONE.

Still, I think my story, No More Corn!, is pretty good. I mean, it has everything a short story SHOULD have in it: Romance. Pathos. Suicide. Corn.

Who could ask for more?)

Motion to approve the minutes from February 15th Meeting: APPROVED

PRESIDENTS REPORT:

My request that the school library remain open on weekends for the use of study groups was met with considerable resistance by school administration. Concerns raised were: cost of overtime for librarian, as well as cost of overtime for school security guard at entrance to check IDs and make sure people entering were, in fact, AEHS students, and not just random homeless people off the streets.

VICE PRESIDENTS RESPONSE:

The gym is kept open on the weekends for sports practices. Surely the security guard could check IDs of both student athletes and students who actually care about their grades. Also, dont you think even a moderately intelligent security guard could tell the difference between random homeless people and AEHS students?

PRESIDENTS RESPONSE TO VICE PRESIDENT:

I know. I mentioned this. Principal Gupta then reminded me that the athletic budget was determined some time ago, and that there is no weekend library budget. And that the security guards were mainly hired for their size, not their intelligence.

VICE PRESIDENTS RESPONSE TO PRESIDENTS RESPONSE:

Well, then, maybe Principal Gupta needs to be reminded that the vast majority of students at Albert Einstein High are not involved in sports, need that extra library time, and that the budget needs to be reviewed. And that size isnt everything.

PRESIDENTS RESPONSE TO THE RESPONSE OF THE VICE PRESIDENTS RESPONSE TO MY PREVIOUS STATEMENT:

Duh, Lilly, I did. She said shed look into it.

(Why does Lilly have to be so adversarial during these meetings? It makes me look like I dont have any authority whatsoever in front of Mrs. Hill.

I really thought she was over that whole thing about me not stepping down from office so that SHE could be president. I mean, that was MONTHS ago, and she seemed to forgive me once I got my dad to go on her TV show so she could interview him about European immigration policies.