Mia Goes Fourth

And then, while he was making the ice-cream sundaes, I sneaked back into the TV room, put his present on his TV table,

and waited for him to come back and find it, which he did, a few minutes later.

'What's this?' he wanted to know, as he handed me my sundae, vanilla ice cream drowning in a sea of hot fudge, whipped cream and pistachios.

'It's your birthday present,' I said, barely able to contain myself, I was so excited to see what he'd think of it. It was way

better than candy or a sweater. It was, I thought, the perfect gift for Michael.

I feel like I had a right to be excited, because I'd paid a pretty hefty price for Michael's gift . . . weeks of worrying about

being found out, and then, after having been found out, being forced to waltz with Prince Rene, who was a good dancer,

and all, but who kind of smelt like an ashtray.

So I was pretty stoked as Michael, with a puzzled expression on his face, sat down and picked up the box.

'I told you that you didn't have to get me anything,' he said.

'I know.' I was bouncing up and down, I was so excited. 'But I wanted to. And I saw this, and I thought it was perfect.'

'Well,' Michael said. 'Thanks.' He untied the ribbon that held the minuscule box closed, then lifted the lid ...

And there, sitting on a wad of white cotton, it was. A dirty little rock, no bigger than an ant. Smaller than an ant, even.

The size of a pinhead.

'Huh,' Michael said, looking down at the tiny speck. 'It's . . . it's really nice.'

I laughed delightedly. 'You don't even know what it is!'

'Well,' he said. 'No, I don't.'

'Can't you guess?'

'Well,' he said, again. 'It looks like ... I mean, it closely resembles ... a rock.'

'It is a rock,' I said. 'Guess where it's from.'

Michael eyed the rock. 'I don't know. Genovia?'

'No, silly,' I crowed. 'The moon! It's a moon rock! From when Neil Armstrong was up there. He collected a load of them,

and then some of them got split up, and Richard Nixon gave my grandmother a bunch of them when he was in office. Well,

he gave them to Genovia, technically. And I saw them and thought . . . well, that you should have one. Because I know you

like space stuff. I mean how you've got the glow-in-the-dark constellations on the ceiling over your bed and all. . .'

Michael looked up from the moon rock - which he'd been staring down at like he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing - and went, 'When were you in my room?'

'Oh,' I said, feeling myself beginning to blush again. 'A long time ago . . .' Well, it had been a long time ago. It had been

way back before I'd known he liked me, when I'd been sending him those anonymous love poems. '. . . once when Maya

was cleaning in there.'

Michael said, 'Oh,' and looked back down at the moon rock.

'Mia,' he said, a few seconds later. 'I can't accept this.'

'Yes, you can,' I said. 'There are plenty left back at the palace museum, don't worry. Richard Nixon must have really had

a thing for Grandmere, because I'm pretty sure we got more moon rocks than Monaco or anybody else.'

'Mia,' Michael said. 'It's a rock. From the moon.'

'Right,' I said, not certain what he was getting at. Did he not like it? It was kind of weird, I guess, to give your boyfriend

a rock for his birthday. But it wasn't just any rock. And Michael wasn't just any boyfriend. I'd really thought he'd like it.

'It's a rock,' he said again, 'that came from two hundred and thirty-eight thousand miles away. Two hundred and thirty-eight thousand miles away from our planet.'

'Yes,' I said, wondering what I had done. I had only just gotten Michael back, after having spent a whole week convinced

he was going to dump me over one thing, only to discover that he was going to dump me over something else entirely? There

is seriously no justice in the world. 'Michael, if you don't like it, I can give it back. I just thought—'

'No way,' he said, moving the box out of my grasp. 'You're not getting this back. I just don't know what I'm going to get

you for your birthday. This is going to be a hard act to follow.'

Was that all? I felt my blush receding.

'Oh, that,' I said. 'You can just write me another song.'

Which was kind of vixenish of me to say, because he had never admitted that song, the first one he'd ever played me,

'Tall Drink of Water', was about me. But I could tell by the way he was smiling now that I'd guessed correctly. It was.

It totally was.

So then we ate our sundaes and watched the rest of the movie, and when it was over and the credits were rolling,

I remembered something else I'd meant to give him, something I'd thought of in the cab on the way down from the

contessa's, when I'd been trying to think up what I was going to say to him if he broke up with me.

'Oh,' I said. 'I thought of a name for your band.' 'Not,' he groaned, 'the X-Wing Fighters. I beg of you.' 'No,' I said. 'Skinner Box.' Which is this thing this psychologist called Skinner had used to torture all these rats and monkeys and prove there's such a thing as a conditioned response. Pavlov, the guy Michael had named his dog after, had done the same thing, but with dogs and bells. 'Skinner Box,' Michael said, carefully. 'Yeah,' I said. 'I mean, I just figured, since you named your dog Pavlov . . .'

'I kind of like it,' Michael said. I'll see what the guys say.' I beamed. The evening was turning out so much better than I had originally thought it would, I couldn't really do anything but beam. In fact, that's why I locked myself in the bathroom. To

try to calm down a little. I am so happy, I can barely write. I—

Saturday, January 23,

the Loft

Oops. I had to break off there last night, because Lilly started banging on the bathroom door, wanting to know whether

I'd suddenly become bulimic or something. When I opened it (the door, I mean) and she saw me in there with my journal

and my pen, and she went, all crabby (Lilly is more of a morning person than a night person), 'Do you mean to say you've

 been in here for the past half-hour writing in your journal?'

Which I'll admit is a little weird, but I couldn't help it. I was so happy, I HAD to write it down, so I would never forget

how it felt.

'And you still haven't figured out what you're good at?' she asked.

When I shook my head, she just stomped away, all mad.

But I couldn't be annoyed with her, because . . . well, because I'm so in love with her brother.

The same way I can't really be mad at Grandmere, even though she did, in essence, try to foist me on to this homeless prince last night. But I can't blame her for trying. She's only trying to keep the Renaldo bloodline clean. Grandmere has obviously never studied inbreeding, like we did in Bio. last semester.

Besides, she called here a little while ago, wanting to know if I was feeling all right after the bad truffle I'd ingested. My mom, playing along, assured her that I was fine. So then Grandmere wanted to know if I could come over and have tea with her