Valentine Princess

MEG CABOT

VALENTINE Princess

A PRINCESS DIARIES BOOK

“You don’t know that you are saying these things to a princess, and that if I chose I could wave my hand and order you to execution. I only spare you because I am a princess.”

A LITTLE PRINCESS
Frances Hodgson Burnett

Contents

Epigraph

Begin Reading

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Books about PRINCESS MIA

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

Begin Reading

June 5, 7 p.m., private jet to Genovia

ME, A PRINCESS???? YEAH, RIGHT.

A Screenplay by Mia Thermopolis
(first draft)

Scene 44

INT/DAY—The extremely messy bedroom of a teenage girl, with virtually floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over a fire escape and inner courtyard. A large yellow CAT sits on top of the radiator, his tail swishing. A girl (sixteen-year-old MIA THERMOPOLIS), trembling on the verge of womanhood, is frantically looking for something. Her mother (HELEN THERMOPOLIS), a strikingly attractive woman in her late thirties, appears in the doorway.

HELEN

Mia! The limo’s waiting! Hurry up!

MIA

I can’t find my journal! How can I go to Genovia for the summer if I don’t have my journal?

HELEN leans down and pulls a black-and-white Mead composition notebook from where it’s gotten wedged between MIA’s bed and the wall.

HELEN

Isn’t this it?

MIA

(taking notebook and flipping through it)

No, Mom. This is an old one. This one is from—Hey! This one is from way back in my freshman year, a year and a half ago! I’ve been looking all over for this! Gosh, I feel like it was a DECADE ago that the stuff in this journal went on. I mean, so much has happened since then. I’ll be starting my junior year when I get back from Genovia at the end of this summer. God, it’s like I’m a totally different person now, you know? I mean, I’m writing actual PLAYS now instead of novels. I’m so much older and more sophisticated and—OH MY GOD, THIS IS THE JOURNAL IN WHICH I WROTE ABOUT MY FIRST VALENTINE’S DAY WITH MICHAEL AS A COUPLE!!!!! OH MY GOD, I CAN’T BELIEVE I LOST THIS!!!!! I CAN’T WAIT TO READ IT!!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

Tuesday, February 11, 6 p.m., the limo on the way home from princess lessons

Today when I walked into my princess lessons with Grandmère after school, there was this totally creepy-looking guy occupying the pink brocade settee where I normally sit (because it’s nearest the bowl of sugared almonds that I sneak whenever Grandmère isn’t looking, even though they aren’t actually that good, like not candy- or chocolate-coated or anything, but beggars can’t be choosers, and why do old people always have such sucky candy, anyway?), and I was all, “Who are you?” because this dude had on one of those monochromatic tie-and-shirt thingies, like a TV talk show host or mafioso might wear, and that is not the kind of person you’d expect to see sitting in a dowager princess’s living room suite at the Plaza. I mean, not to be pejorative. But it’s true.