I pretend I am a princess so I can behave like one

Title from 'A Little Princess', Francis Hodgson Burnett

Summers at Miragnac were never interesting. The closest they ever got were when Mia could convince Grandmere to let her go in to the small country town nearby and go ape on knick-knack shopping at the thrift stores and bakeries and ice-cream parlour. Other than that, it was all 'Don't sit on the stair-rail Amelia!' and 'Stop playing that racket-rock pop music Amelia!' All day, every day.

Sure, horse riding is fun – until you're not allowed to actually GO anywhere, and then you're stuck riding a horse in circles for two hours staring at the same scenery and getting yelled at by your day-drinking grandma about not sitting up straight on a horse. Then horse riding becomes less fun.

And sure, singing lessons can be fun – as long as you get to CHOOSE to take them, instead of being forced to be the aforementioned day-drinking French grandma, and the singing instructor wasn't the sort of person who makes you lift a grand piano off the ground to practise singing 'FROM THE DIAPHGRAM, AMELIA, NEVER THE LUNGS. ALWAYS THE DIAPHGRAM', as if that MEANS anything to anyone in the real world that isn't the opera world. Although, Mia did appreciate being able to carry a tune now. Just not quite how she got that skill.

Being yelled at in French just sounds worse than being yelled at in English too, for some reason.

The fact that she was never allowed to bring a friend to her summer 'vacation' just tended to make the whole thing worse, because there was never anyone else her own age around.

Well, except for one person, but he was only around about half the time. Lord Nicholas Devereaux, maternal nephew of Lord Mabry of Genovia, who was Agriculture Minister in the Parliament her Dad worked in. Lord Mabry was honestly horrible, but Nick was nice. Cute, even, with bright blue eyes that honestly hurt to look at sometimes, and thick dark hair. The fact that he didn't treat her like some stupid girl like other boys at her school did, and actually talked to her about fun stuff and played games with her also helped Mia consider him a friend.

Like right now. Sure, they weren't doing anything special – just relaxing under an apple tree near the vineyard, but it was better than having all the names, ages and life statuses of Genovian cabinet members drilled into her head by her day-drinking grandmother.

"Like," Mia said, "I don't even know why she cares so much. I don't live in Genovia, I don't pay attention to Genovian politics – I barely pay attention to American politics! – so why she does all this except to torture me, I have no idea. Like, yeah, whatever, Dad works in the parliament, but it's not like it's actually relevant to me. It's never gonna be relevant to me."

"Well, it has, maybe, a fifty per cent chance of being relevant to you," Nick drawled. Strangely for a guy that lived all his time in a majority French-and-Italian-speaking country, Nick was really good at speaking with no accent in English, except for the occasional rolling of vowels. Nick went on, "unless your Dad never has more kids, then knowing the members of Parliament will definitely come in handy for you."

"Why would Dad not having more kids somehow make me need to know the ins and outs of Genovian politics?" Mia asked. "That literally makes no sense."

Nick frowned, confused. Why? Mia didn't know. He looked like he knew something she didn't. So she asked, and all Nick said in response was a very vague, "Wait, you really don't . . ." and trailed off, looking like he'd realized something astounding.

"What? What is it?" What had Mia said?

Nick blinked hard, like trying to clear his eyes of a fog. "Ah – nothing. I just realized I need to grab something from my house to show you tomorrow."

Which was clearly a blatant lie, but Mia decided not to push the point. She'd over the years not to push Nick on some subjects.

;

Except instead of Nick bringing something from his house the next day, while Mia was reading a book after their weird conversation, he went to Dowager Princess Clarisse's house library, looking for one particular book.

The updated printing of the Genovian Royal Family history. There was a picture of Mia's father that had been taken just one year before. Nick didn't understand why Mia didn't know about her family. What, was she only told that he did something vague in the government? Her father RAN it.

Still, Nick was also willing to chalk Mia's lack of discovery up to her own disinterest in politics – unless it was to do with the environment or animal rights, Mia generally didn't pay a ton of attention to it.

Book, book, book, ah ha! Found it.

Nick pulled the leather-bound book, the Famille Royale de Genovia, embossed in gold on the cover. Printed six months ago.

Nick flipped the thick pages over, five hundred years of Mia's paternal family flicking by until, near the last fourth of the book, came the page about Mia's father.

Nick pulled out a loose piece of paper from one of the library desks – he had no idea why Clarisse even had the desks, it's not as if she spent a ton of time in her own library, she tended to have one of her maids fetch a book for her – and grabbed a pen, scratching out a quick message for Mia on it and wedged the paper between the pages of Prince Philipe's section.

One surreptitious trip up to Mia's room later, being careful to stash the book somewhere Mia would find it, but not where any passing maid could end up finding it and taking it away, Nick figured his work was done.

;

Still, it took Mia until about 10pm that night to find the book, when she flopped onto her bed to sleep and ended up feeling like she'd just smacked her head on a chunk of wood like that one trip to Indiana with her mother.

What the heck?

Shoving her hand under the normally-plush pillow, there was – something hard, but not beneath her pillow. In her pillow. Sitting upright, Mia pulled the pillow into her lap, reaching into the case of it, and gripped the solid whatever-it-was, yanking it out.

It was a – book? A fancy, leather and gold book like the kind all over the place in Grandmere's library. What the heck was it doing in her pillow case?

Famille Royale de Genovia. Royal Family of Genovia. Okay.

Mia flipped lightly over the pages, not really absorbing any of it – she'd done a worksheet on the royal family of Genovia in sixth grade, when they looked at some of the still-existing royalty in the world. But – there was a piece of paper wedged into the book, so Mia flipped to where it was.

'If you have any questions about this, ask me tomorrow when I come over - Nick'

Huh? But then – Mia actually looked at what she was supposed to be asking questions about. A full, A4 page, full colour, glossy photograph of her dad. Wait, what?

Mia scanned the next page, the one with the information on it, and read the words 'Artur Christoff Philipe Gerard Grimaldi Renaldo, Crown Prince of Genovia, born -, reign 1978-present'. Which. Did not compute. What?

Eldest and only son of HRH Crown Prince Artur Christoff Rupert Gerard Mignonette Renaldo (b.1928 - d.1978) and HRH Dowager Princess Clarisse Marie Grimaldi Renaldo (b. 1939 – present), Crown Prince 'Philipe', as called by family, is the current ruling Prince of Genovia, with no apparent living heir . . . .

Wait, wait, wait.

There's a picture of her dad, who works in politics in a position that had only been described to her in vague terms, in a book about a royal family of Genovia, the country her dad helps govern. Clarisse Grimaldi Renaldo is her grandma's name, and she's listed as a 'Dowager Princess', whatever title that is, and her dad is in the photo where the current Crown Prince is supposed to be, so her DAD is the CROWN PRINCE of a WHOLE COUNTRY, which means . . .

Is Mia a princess?

;

Mia managed to keep her mouth shut all through breakfast, even with Grandmere making tutting noises over how tired Mia looked.

Of course she was tired! She spent all night tossing and turning in her bed, trying to decide whether or not she was a princess! The book said her father had no living heirs, which was just – factually wrong, because Mia EXISTED, but did that mean Mia wasn't a princess? How did that work, to be the daughter of a princess, and granddaughter of a prince, but not be a princess herself?

GOD, Nick better have some answers.

;

"So either you stuck that book under my pillow, or the maids have a sick sense of humour." Mia had managed to skip by 'stressed and scared' over the last hour and a half while waiting for Nick to turn up with Charlotte, his spotted-saddle mare. Eventually he did, and Mia had hit the 'annoyed and irritated' aftermath of being stressed over something she had no answers for.

"No," Nick was smiling in a nervous way, "no, I did put that book there."

"Why?!"

"Because I was confused why you didn't know about your dad. He's the crown prince of a country you go to every year, but you didn't seem to be aware that he was. I figured you deserved to know."

"Know what?! That I'm a princess! I don't want to be a princess! I love my life the way it is – I don't need to be more of a freak than I already am!" Mia was stressed again – she didn't want any part of any royalty-ness, no thank you! God, she was already enough of a freak, what with the bad math grades and the fact that she didn't seem to be about to hit puberty any time soon, being a princess and needing to learn how to be one would just be too much.

"No, no, Mia. It's okay. You're not a princess."

Now Mia was confused. "How is my Dad a prince, my grandmother a dowager princess, and me the only heir, even though the history books don't seem to know that, but I'm not a princess?"

"Well, for starters, you haven't been declared his legal heir. He'd have to announce that in Parliament, and to the Genovian populace, neither are things he's done yet. Besides, your parents weren't married when you were born, and they haven't been at any point since then, so no child your dad had with your mother would've been declared his legal heir. You aren't a princess because you aren't the legitimate daughter of a prince. You're a daughter of a prince. There's a distinction. Your dad could make you a Lady of Genovia, maybe, one day, but you wouldn't be a princess in the legal sense unless there was no heir of your father around, and he had no other children. Until and unless your dad isn't getting married and having legitimate kids with someone, you're heir by default, but not law. Make sense?" Nick wrapped an arm around Mia's shoulders, to help soothe her clearly-frazzled self. But she was calming down already.

Speaking slowly, Mia asked, "So . . . unless my Dad gets married and has legit kids, I'm heir, but with no responsibilities to Genovia until I am declared a princess. But unless that happens, I'm still just plain old Mia?" She definitely preferred THAT over anything else.

Nick nodded. "Plain Old Mia with a royal father who could petition to be gentry one day, but yeah."

Mia grinned, all stress gone. "I can live with that."

And so, Mia went home that summer comfortable in the knowledge that at least now she knew why Grandmere was such a head case, and why she insisted on making Mia learn to do stuffy, formal stuff she had no interest in, but also wouldn't affect Mia in any real way in her actual, New York City life. It would just be a private Miragnac-based thing that never left Miragnac, like that time with the pears and the bees.

But then. A year after Nick told her the truth, and a month into her freshman year of high school, as she failed her way into first-year Algebra with an 'F', and her mother started dating that same Algebra teacher, and she has a big stupid crush on the hottest guy at Albert Einstein High School, her mother sits her down after school on a Tuesday, and says:

"Oh, Mia," Helen's face worried, "honey, your father can't have any more children. The chemo's left him sterile."

"Oh." Said Mia blankly. And then her mother's words actually sank in.

Oh.

Oh no.

Oh no.

This was bad. On numerous levels, this was bad with a capital B.

She had to be a princess now.

Oh, crap.

Please forgive the bad French, my only resource was Google Translate.