Author's Notes: So, this chapter's kind of boring. I promise, they're going to get better after this. I had to establish the whole Amelia moving to New York and meeting her family thing, and that was what this chapter and the first chapter was for. The next chapter will be the one where Amelia has her first encounter with people her own age, including Michael. I don't know whether or not to make Michael younger and have him be a senior and only two years older than Amelia (because she's a sophomore in this story) or keep him as a freshman in college yet, so I'm going to be deciding that before I write the next chapter. I think I'm leaning towards making him a year younger and having them two years apart, so Amelia would be sixteen and Michael eighteen.
Throughout the whole story, I am going to do the third person narration thing, but there will also always be a journal entry or two by Amelia in each chapter. I like mixing her perspective with a third person perspective. And we won't be calling her Amelia throughout the whole story. Somewhere soon along the line someone's going to call her Mia, so then we'll stick with that and ditch this whole 'Amelia' thing.
I also used the uniform that the Grove High School students wore in the Princess Diaries movie. I'm also taking Michael's appearance from Robert Carmine's in the movie, just as a reference for you guys if you like to have an image of the character in your minds, but I'm writing Mia as if she was Meg Cabot's mostly. And Lilly will also have the same appearance as she did in the Princess Diaries movie.
If anyone's actually even reading this, I hope you enjoy this chapter and keep reading this story.. Feedback would so be appreciated.
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Amelia slept on the plane all the way from the Genovian airport to the airport that the private jet landed at in New York City. She awoke only when Grandmere shook her shoulders in a rather rude and hurried fashion. It was mid-afternoon in the city, and the sun was shining down through the windows of the airplane. Outside, Amelia could see fat flakes of snow falling slowly to the ground.
She would have been angry with Grandmere by the rude awakening she received, but she was too excited to meet Helen Thermopolis, her mother, Frank Gianini, her stepfather, and Rocky Thermopolis-Gianini, her stepbrother. To finally see where the other half of her family lived, to see where she'd be living for the whole next year.
Quietly, Amelia followed Grandmere down the stairs of the jet and onto the concrete runway that the plane had landed on. Grandmere quickly pulled a hat out of her purse and placed it on her head carefully and Amelia followed, doing the same, telling herself in the back of her mind that she'd be free of Grandmere in a very, very short amount of time.
Amelia reached into her bag and her fingers fumbled around, trying to find the soft leather cover of her diary. She needed to make sure that she'd brought it with her. She liked having it everywhere with her, just for the comfort of it. The diary was almost like a familiar friend to Amelia. Needless to say, she hadn't had a lot of friends in Genovia. Sure, she knew some princesses and some princes from other European countries, but it wasn't like the friendships that most sixteen year old girls had.
And she certainly didn't have a boyfriend.
No, that was something Amelia only dreamed about. Sure, there was Rene, who loved to flirt with Amelia shamelessly. But he really just liked to flirt with girls in general; it wasn't an exclusive-to-Amelia thing. And there were other flirty princes her own age, at all those endless parties that Amelia attended as a part of her duties. What Amelia wanted was something real. A guy who really, honestly liked her. For her, and not her tiara or her title. Or her father's net worth of three hundred million dollars.
Of course, it didn't help that she was freakishly tall. There was a fair number of boys her own age who were actually shorter than her. And she had terrible hair that reminded most people of dirty dishwater in color. Eyes the colour of a dirty grey sidewalk. Amelia rolled her eyes. Life could be so depressing sometimes.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 16 3:30 PM
Well, here I am.
I'm in New York now, in the limo with Grandmere and Lars. They're arguing about how terrible the flight was. I think Grandmere's actually considering firing the pilot. Which Lars is trying to talk her out of. It's not his fault it was snowing like crazy and there was tons of turbulence because of it.
We're heading to the apartment in Greenwich Village where my mother lives. My mother. I'm finally going to meet my mother. Dad told me she's an artist. He said she's beautiful, petite and pretty with long, curly black hair. So I guess I didn't get my looks genes from her. And it's going to be weird having a brother. There's never really been anyone but me my whole entire life. Dad and Grandmere only ever paid attention to me. Except when my little cousins were around. But this isn't really the same as that. He's my brother. I wonder if my stepfather will be my algebra teacher. I hope not. Gosh, I'm bad at algebra. It would be really, really embarrassing.
I'm totally not going to lie. I'm so nervous about meeting Helen.
Or should I call her Mom? I mean, I've never even met the woman.
But she IS my mother, for goodness sake.
I'm not going to school tomorrow. Apparently, the students are writing final exams until Tuesday, and then the semester changes and everyone gets new classes and new teachers and all that. So I'll be starting with them, I guess. But still, everyone knows each other and now I'm this weird new girl.
So, school is postponed until Wednesday. And I can't lie about this, I'm not really that disappointed. I've had this constant butterflies feeling in my stomach for the past week. New situations suck. Seriously, nothing good is going to come of this. Nothing.
Other than the fact that I'm not going to be under Grandmere's watchful eye for the next year.
I hope my mother likes me. I hope the new kids at school like me. What if my little brother hates me? What if my stepfather algebra teacher thinks I'm the stupidest girl he's ever met and then I end up in his algebra class at school?
Life is SO stressful.
"Amelia?" Grandmere's cold voice broke Amelia's thought. "It is very bad manners for you to be writing like that when I am trying to carry on a conversation with you. If you ever paid attention to anything, like a good princess should, you would have realized that we are parked in front of your mother's apartment and we are waiting for you to leave the car so that we can go get you settled."
"Yes, Grandmere," Amelia answered, automatically. Pulling her bag out behind her and slinging it over one shoulder, she stepped out of the limo and tripped over the curb, falling flat on her knees on the cold cement.
Grandmere pursed her lips in distaste.
Lars simply chuckled and extended a hand to Amelia, helping her up. Amelia tried not to glare at Grandmere in a too obvious fashion.
And then, Grandmere turned and began to walk up to the door to Helen Thermopolis' apartment. Amelia slowly followed, dragging her feet in the slushy, dirty snow that laid on the concrete sidewalk, Lars slightly behind her, carrying a few of Amelia's suitcases. The rest had been sent over in the weeks prior to Amelia's arrival in the United States and were waiting for her inside this ordinary looking upscale loft apartment building.
The ride in the elevator was silent. Amelia had no words to say to Grandmere, and Grandmere in return kept silent, presumably realizing that Amelia was not feeling up to talking. Sometimes, Grandmere fell into the marginal category of understanding Amelia's feelings and needs. Amelia appreciated this.
They stood in front of a door marked with a large brass number three on it. Grandmere, knowing that Amelia would not take charge of the situation, took matters into her own hands and knocked twice loudly on the door, flashing a slightly apologetic look at Amelia as she lowered her hand from the door.
The door swung open moments later, and a woman with long, curly black hair stood in the doorway. She had a young toddler at her bare feet, clinging to her paint-splattered jeans. Appearing slightly flustered, she adjusted her plain white t-shirt and ran her hands through her hair, which was tied back with a colourful piece of fabric.
Amelia drew herself up to her full five feet and eight inches, lifting her head. She pasted a smile on her face, fighting to ignore the butterflies that twisted her stomach into knots.
There were a few more moments of silence. And then, Helen Thermopolis reached out and wrapped her arms around her sixteen year old daughter, pulling her towards her gently in a soft hug that she'd waited for sixteen years to share with Amelia. Amelia could feel soft, warm tears fallen from her mother's eyes on her shirt, and she knew that tears were also forming in her own eyes.
"Oh, Amelia," Helen said, softly. "I'm so glad you're here."
And that was all she had to say, because that was all that Amelia needed to hear.
Amelia smiled. "Mom, it's so nice to finally meet you."
With that, Helen unlocked Amelia from their embrace and stepped aside to welcome them all into the apartment. As Amelia stepped inside, wiping the tears from her moist gray eyes, a smile began to spread itself across her face. This place was amazing. It was open and modern. There were beautiful paintings all over the place. Works in progress lying against the walls. Amelia could smell fresh cookies coming from the kitchen a few feet away.
"Wow." Amelia said. "This place is seriously, seriously awesome."
Grandmere raised her eyebrows. "It's hardly a decent place to raise a princess. Even if it's only for a year."
Amelia rolled her eyes. "Grandmere, don't be such a downer. Mom, I think it's beautiful. I'm going to love staying here with you." She smiled at her mother. Now that she'd arrived and met Helen, it had seemed ridiculous to call her mother by her first name. She was surprised at how natural it sounded to call this woman her mother.
Resignedly, Grandmere closed her mouth.
Helen smiled at Amelia. "Thank you, Amelia."
Amelia felt a tug on her leg and she found her stepbrother, Rocky, gazing up at her in wonderment with big, blue eyes that Amelia immediately wished that she had. She smiled down at him. "Hi, Rocky, I'm Amelia."
He responded by holding up a plastic car that he had been playing with and saying "Car."
Helen laughed, and Grandmere laughed politely. "I'm your sister," Amelia continued.
"Sister," he echoed, and grabbed her legs in an attempt to hug Amelia.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 16, 8:45 PM
America is so awesome.
I honestly don't even know what to say about it! My mother is sooooo great. After I met my mom and Rocky and saw their fabulous apartment, Frank came home from the store with some groceries and I met him. And he's a pretty cool guy. He said I'll be in his algebra class next semester. Oh, joy.
My room is amazing. Much better than my room in Genovia. I mean, the room in Genovia's nice. But it was designed by Grandmere, of course. And it's always spotless and perfect. It hardly even looks like anyone lives in it. The room here will be so personal. I've decided that I'm going to go out tomorrow and buy tons of new clothes and new things to put in my room. Lars is also staying here, in the guest room. The apartment is fairly large.
I'm sitting out in the living room area in a big stuffed chair right now. Rocky's playing on the floor and Mom's sitting on the couch next to me with Frank, and we're all watching a movie on this channel called 'Lifetime' that I've never seen before. But it's a pretty good movie. I think I might like this channel.
Grandmere's gone to the hotel for the night because there's no room for her to stay here. Besides, she was all taken aback when we got here that I was actually going to live here for a year. I don't think this is like she envisioned that it would be. Me, well, it's better than I thought it would be.
My school uniform came today. It's blue. Blue skirt, light blue shirt, blue necktie thing, dark blue jacket. Black shoes. I'm not too excited about the whole school uniform thing, seeing as I had to wear one at my school in Genovia. But on Fridays at Albert Einstein High School you can wear whatever you want. And the most peculiar thing is that I have a physical education uniform. It's a blue zip up jacket, a light blue t-shirt and blue shorts. In Genovia, we never did physical education class. I wonder about this.
Tomorrow I'm going out for breakfast with Mom, Frank, and Rocky. We're walking to a restaurant down the street. Lars will, of course, be accompanying us because I can't really go anywhere without him. I think it's going to take some getting used to for Mom and Frank.
The movie's getting really, really good.
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