The Princess Diaries

Mia spends the next morning worrying about getting caught cheating on the algebra quiz. She wonders if she could get expelled and if she will “have to wear the scarlet mark of being a cheater for the rest of [her] high school career” (91). She wonders if college or Greenpeace will turn her away if something like this goes on her permanent record. She tries to wash the quadratic formula off, but she “must have used indelible ink or something” (92), because it won’t come off. On the ride to school, Lilly announces that she wants to go back to riding the subway to school and says Mia’s dad needs to stop being so protective of her. At school, Mia tries again to wash the ink off her shoes, but she has no luck. The quadratic formula is blurry, but Mia swears that she “won’t look at it during the test” (95). However, she breaks her promise and peeks during Algebra. To her horror, she “[gets] every single one of [the questions] wrong” (96) despite trying to cheat. Mia is overwhelmed by everything going on in her life: “I’m flunking Algebra, my mom’s dating my teacher, and I’m the princess of Genovia” (96). She decides that something is going to have to change. 

Mia writes a poem titled “Ode to Algebra,” in which she laments being “thrust into the dingy classroom” where she and her classmates are left to “die like lampless moths” (97). She vents about how pointless it is to learn the quadratic formula, and she begs the “cruel Algebra teacher” (97) to release her from this classroom of pain and suffering.

Mia is horrified to learn of Grandmère’s arrival in New York City. She is relieved that her grandmother is staying at The Plaza instead of at her loft because “It looks pretty weird, seeing this little old lady in a lace nightie with big black lines around her eyes first thing in the morning” (98). Mia will have to see Grandmère only after school and on the weekends, but she is still consumed with anxiety. Grandmère is extremely old-fashioned and very judgmental, and Mia worries that the old woman will have a fit if she sees the Pride Parade or can’t smoke in New York restaurants, since she “has a fit when she sees people of the opposite sex holding hands” and “smokes all the time, even in bed” (100). Mia is convinced “there’s no way [she’s] going to be able to keep this a secret from everyone with [Grandmère] around” (100). Mia doesn’t understand why Grandmère is in the city, and she starts to panic.

In a very short diary entry, Mia says that she now knows why Grandmère came to New York: “She’s giving [Mia] princess lessons” (102). Mia is in too much shock to write more and needs time to process this news.

Mia is furious that she has to go “straight from [her] Algebra review session every day to princess lessons at the Plaza with [her] grandmother” (103). When she complains to her father, he reminds her that she signed the Thermopolis-Renaldo Compromise, so she is “obligated to attend princess lessons as part of [her] duties as his heir” (103). Mia begrudgingly complies and goes to meet with Grandmère at the hotel. Immediately, Grandmère begins to criticize Mia’s hair, clothes, stature, and personal habits and manners. Grandmère asks Mia why she “burst into tears” when she found out she is a princess, and she asks if Mia has “no wish to assume [her] rightful place upon the throne” (107).

Mia insists that she is not princess material, but Grandmère ignores her and says that Mia WILL take her father’s place on the throne one day. She tells her to report to The Plaza each day, and she is expected to dress appropriately, “style [her] hair, apply lipstick, and paint [her] fingernails” (109). She also assigns Mia homework: She must bring a list of “ten women [Mia] admire[s] most in the world, and why” (109). Mia changes her clothes and applies her makeup on Friday after school, but on her way out, she runs into Michael, who asks if Mia is dressed up for a date. Mia says that she’s meeting her grandmother, and she begs Michael to not tell Lilly. At The Plaza, Grandmère complains that Mia’s lipstick makes her look like a prostitute, and she “rip[s] [Mia’s essay] up into little pieces,” because she claims “these are not the sort of women [Mia] should be admiring” (113). Grandmère orders Mia to be at The Plaza Saturday morning, and Mia is worried, because on Saturdays she usually helps Lilly film her TV show. Lilly claims that the owners of Ho’s Deli, Mr. and Mrs. Ho, “give significant discounts to the Asian students [...] but no discounts at all to the Caucasian, African American, Latino, or Arab students,” because Lilly was charged “five whole cents more” (115) than her friend Ling Su for the same item. Lilly is going to launch a boycott of Ho’s Deli and “secretly videotape the Hos to gather evidence of their blatantly preferential treatment of Asian Americans” (115). Mia thinks that Lilly is blowing the whole thing out of proportion, and she is a little relieved that she will miss the recording.