Thursday, November 26
8:35 A.M.
Ice-Skating Rink Stockerdörfl, Austria

When I saw Luisa this morning at the breakfast buffet, she was acting like nothing had happened.

Seriously! She was sitting there holding Prince Gunther’s hand (he came over from his house to have breakfast with her). She was innocently eating her yogurt and fruit like she hadn’t kissed the 12th Duke of Marborough (on the lips) in the lobby last night at all.

Nadia and Princess Komiko kept asking me what was wrong, but I only shook my head and said, “Nothing.”

But something was wrong, all right. Something was VERY wrong.

Not with the food, though. Prince Gunther had assured all of us that Stockerdörfl has the best breakfasts in the world, and I will confess that I didn’t believe him, because Chef Bernard back at the palace in Genovia makes the best waffles I’ve ever tasted.

But I have to say, Eis Schloss does have a pretty impressive breakfast buffet, and they set it up all along the picture windows in front of the mountain view, so it kind of takes your breath away (when you aren’t staring at your cousin who is cheating on her very nice boyfriend who is the prince of the area in which you are currently staying).

But even though I was very impressed by the lovely breakfast buffet, and ate as much of it as my stomach would allow (which turned out to be a lot), all I could really do during the meal was stare at Luisa and think about how mean she was being to Prince Gunther.

Probably this makes me exactly what she says I am: a stick.

But I don’t care. If sticks are loyal to their boyfriends and don’t go around kissing dukes behind their backs, then I AM PROUD TO BE A STICK.

Finally Princess Komiko, Nadia, and Victorine got up to go. Madame Alain said it was a good idea to get to all events at least fifteen minutes early if we wanted to get good seats.

I knew what I had to do. As the Princess of Genovia (well, one of them), it’s my duty to keep peace and tranquility in my native land.

And it’s even MORE important to make sure that citizens of my country don’t embarrass us by acting like total twits while we’re visiting foreign lands.

So when I saw Prince Gunther get up to go refill his coffee cup—of course he drinks coffee, even though he’s only thirteen, and not even with tons of sugar and milk; he drinks it black—I knew it was my chance to confront Luisa about her behavior. She was still sitting at their table, checking her lip gloss in the camera on her cell phone.

I was just heading over to Luisa’s table when Grandmère swooped in—there is really no better word to describe how Grandmère enters a room than “swoop.”

And it was especially pronounced today since she was dressed in a long fur coat with a matching fur hat, even though both my sister, Mia, and I have told her numerous times that it’s tacky to wear fur unless you live in the Arctic or wearing fur is part of your indigenous culture (Grandmère says it is—“Dowager princesses are expected by the populace to wear fur and I can’t disappoint them”).

Anyway, Grandmère saw me and immediately swooped toward me, sat down across from me, ordered a hot water with lemon from one of the waitstaff, and said, “What is the matter with you? You look the way I did when I was a young debutante and couldn’t find any stockings to wear to my coming-out party because of the worldwide silk shortage after the War.”

I thought of telling her about what Luisa was doing to Prince Gunther, and how I intended to confront Luisa about it.

But telling on your cousin to your grandmother was something a stick-in-the-mud would do (or at least something Luisa would expect someone who was a stick-in-the-mud to do).

So instead I said, “I’m just a little concerned about something.”

Grandmère narrowed her eyes. “Hmph. I wonder what. It couldn’t have anything to do with that snowball battle I was forced to break up last night, could it? Oh yes,” she added when I shook my head, trying to act as if I had no idea what she was talking about, “I know you were there. I heard all about your part in it this morning from my good friend Herr Schultz, the concierge of this fine establishment. I have spies everywhere, you know, Olivia. Your grandmother knows all.”

Oh no! She was going to give me her “I’m very disappointed in you, Olivia” speech! I wanted to crawl under the table in shame.

“Grandmère, I’m sorry. But if you’d heard the things those boys from The Royal Academy in Switzerland said about us, you’d have—”

“It is our duty, Olivia, as Princesses of Genovia, to set a good example while in a foreign country, and not act like hooligans—no matter how tempted by the poor behavior of others.”

I hung my head. I knew she was right—even though of course it had been a lot of fun to act like a hooligan, and Prince Khalil had said I’d looked cute while doing it.

“You’re right, Grandmère. I really am sorry.”

“It’s not me you should be apologizing to. You disturbed the other guests, and Herr Schultz said you created a great mess on the pool deck. There were footprints as well as discarded energy drink cans and protein bar wrappers everywhere. And one of your little friends even managed to knock down the hotel’s ice sculpture of the Venus de Milo. It took the artist almost six hours to create that! And what kind of role model were you being for Rocky? He could have been injured.”

“But he wasn’t,” I pointed out.

“Of course not,” Grandmère said. “It’s far more likely he hurt someone else. That is not the point. The point, Olivia, is that you come from a line of great female leaders. Even though you yourself will most likely never inherit the throne, you must act like one who rules at all times. And hurling snowballs at your adversaries is not the way a ruler behaves.”

I thought about this. “But you basically said you shot at the Nazis when you were here during World War Two.”

Both of Grandmère’s eyebrows rocketed skyward, and I knew I was in big, big trouble.

“First of all, Olivia, the Nazis were an evil foreign entity who invaded our country—among many others—and killed millions of innocent people. They were not a rival school against whom we were competing in some winter games. And secondly, what I said was that I did much worse than shoot at them; your grandfather—my husband—did shoot at them, and was shot by them in return, and spent many months, even years, recovering from that wound. I chose a different path. I used the wits with which I was born, the social graces I learned in school, and the winter sports skills I learned at these Games to deliver a message I believe helped end the war a little sooner. What I am suggesting is that in the future you employ those same skills if you want to win—not just at these Games but at life in general.”

I swallowed. I had only the vaguest idea what she was talking about. “Okay, Grandmère. Thanks for the advice. It sounds … good.”

Meanwhile, over her shoulder, I could see that Prince Gunther had returned to the table he was sharing with Luisa, and she fed him a grape. Really! She was hand-feeding him grapes, like he was a monkey in the zoo or something!

“Well, I hope you will follow it.” Grandmère shook her head. “Lord knows your sister rarely did. And look at the mess she’s in now.”

I wanted to point out that Mia didn’t PLAN to have twins—it just HAPPENED that way, like in the movie The Parent Trap.

But then Grandmère’s hot water with lemon arrived, and she accepted it with a gracious “Danke” to the waiter.

Grandmère says drinking hot water with lemon every morning cleans out the digestive system and helps with one’s complexion.

I’ve tried it, and it works. Well, I don’t know about the digestive tract, but I don’t have any wrinkles.

But I’m probably going to have a massive stress breakout if I have to keep looking at what I saw on my way to the speed-skating competition, which was Luisa and Prince Gunther, holding hands. That pretty much made me want to throw up everything I had for breakfast.