But really the only reason is that she is totally charmed by my father. He pulled such a Jean-Luc Picard on her, you wouldn’t believe it, calling her Madam Principal and apologizing for all the fuss. I practically expected him to kiss her hand, he was flirting so hard with her. And Principal Gupta has been married a million years, and has this big black mole on the side of her nose. And she totally fell for it! She was eating it up!
I wonder if Tina Hakim Baba will still sit with me at lunch. Well, if she does, at least our bodyguards will have something to do: They can compare civilian defense tactics.
More Wednesday, French Class
I guess I should have my picture on the front of the Post more often.
Suddenly I am very popular.
I walked into the cafeteria (I told Lars to keep five paces behind me at all times; he kept stepping on the backs of my combat boots), and Lana Weinberger, of all people, came up to me while I was in the jet line getting my tray, and said, “Hey, Mia. Why don’t you come and sit with us?”
I am not even kidding. That lousy hypocrite wants to be friends with me now that I’m a princess.
Tina was right behind me in line (well, Lars was behind me; Tina was behind Lars, and Tina’s bodyguard was behind her). But did Lana invite Tina to join her? Of course not. The New York Post hadn’t called Tina a “statuesque beauty.” Short, heavyset girls—even one whose father is an Arab sheikh—aren’t good enough to sit by Lana. Oh, no. Only purebred Genovian princesses are good enough to sit by Lana.
I nearly threw up all over my lunch tray.
“No, thanks, Lana,” I said. “I already have someone to sit with.”
You should have seen Lana’s face. The last time I saw her look that shocked, a sugar cone had been stuck to her chest.
Later, when we were sitting down, Tina could only nibble at her salad. She hadn’t said a word about the princess thing. Meanwhile, though, everybody in the whole cafeteria—including the geeks, who never notice anything—were staring at our table. Let me tell you, it was way uncomfortable. I could feel Lilly’s eyes boring into me. She hadn’t said anything to me yet, but I think she had to have known. Nothing much escapes Lilly.
Anyway, after a while I couldn’t stand it anymore. I put down a forkful of rice and beans and said, “Look, Tina. If you don’t want to sit with me anymore, I understand.”
Tina’s big eyes filled up with tears. I mean it. She shook her head, and her long black braid swayed. “What do you mean?” she asked. “You don’t like me anymore, Mia?”
It was my turn to be shocked. “What? Of course I like you. I thought maybe you might not like me. I mean, every-one is staring at us. I could see why you might not want to sit with me.”
Tina smiled sadly. “Everyone always stares at me,” she said. “Because of Wahim, you see.”
Wahim is her bodyguard. Wahim and Lars were sitting next to us, arguing over whose gun had the most firepower, Wahim’s 357 Magnum or Lars’s 9mm Glock. It was kind of a disturbing topic, but they both seemed happy as could be. In a minute or two, I expected they’d start to arm wrestle.
“So you see,” Tina said, “I’m used to people thinking I’m weird. It’s you I feel sorry for, Mia. You could be sitting with anyone—anyone in this whole cafeteria—and yet you’re stuck with me. I don’t want you to feel you have to be nice to me just because no one else is.”
I got really mad then. Not at Tina. But at everybody else at Albert Einstein. I mean, Tina Hakim Baba is really, really nice, and no one knows it because no one ever talks to her, because she isn’t very thin and she’s kind of quiet and she’s stuck with a stupid bodyguard. While people are worrying about things like the fact that a deli is overcharging some people by five cents for gingko biloba rings, there are human beings walking around our school in abject misery because no one will even say Good morning to them, or How was your weekend?
And then I felt guilty, because a week ago I had been one of those people. I had always thought Tina Hakim Baba was a freak. The whole reason I hadn’t wanted anyone to find out I was a princess was that I was afraid they’d treat me the way they treated Tina Hakim Baba. And now that I know Tina, I know just how wrong I’d been to think badly of her.
So I told Tina I didn’t want to sit with anybody but her. I told her I thought we needed to stick together, and not just for the obvious reason (Wahim and Lars). I told her we needed to stick together because everyone else at this stupid school is completely NUTS.
Tina looked a lot happier then, and started filling me in on the new book she’s reading. This one is called Love Only Once, and it’s about a girl who falls in love with a boy who has terminal cancer. I told Tina it seemed like kind of a bummer thing to read, but she told me she’d already read the end, and that the boy’s terminal cancer goes away. So I guess that’s okay then.
As we cleared our trays, I saw Lilly staring in my direction. It wasn’t the kind of stare someone who was about to apologize would use. So I wasn’t too surprised when later, after I got to G & T, Lilly sat there and stared at me some more. Boris kept on trying to talk to her, but she obviously wasn’t listening. Finally he gave up and picked up his violin and went back into the supply closet, where he belongs.
Meanwhile, this is how my tutoring session with Lilly’s brother went:
Me: Hi, Michael. I did all those problems you gave me. But I still don’t see why you couldn’t just look at the train schedule to find out what time a train traveling at 67 miles per hour will arrive in Fargo, North Dakota, if it leaves Salt Lake City at 7 A.M.