From the Notebooks of a Middle School Princess by Meg Cabot Page B

it. The bendy kind!
    â€œThanks,” I squeaked. I don’t think I could have gotten anything else out, even if I could have figured out what to say.
    â€œThank you, George,” Grandma said. “That will be all.”
    The waiter bowed and went away.
    â€œWell,” Grandma said, sitting with elegant grace on the couch beside Dad, and helping herself to a small plate, on which she began to heap slices of ham. “Did you ask her, Phillipe?”
    â€œYes,” Dad said. “I did.”
    â€œAnd?” Grandma put her plate of ham onto the floor for the dogs to eat. “What did she say?”
    â€œShe hasn’t had a chance to say anything yet, Mother. I think she’s in shock. Where’s Mia?”
    â€œWhere do you think? On the phone with that boyfriend of hers.”
    â€œHe’s her fianc é now, Mother.”
    I took a sip of the chocolate milk. It was ice-cold. When I’d swallowed, I said, “I think I am in shock. This is the best chocolate milk I’ve ever tasted.”
    â€œReally?” Grandma looked very interested. She was preparing another plate, this one of roast beef. “Is it the drink, or your father? Don’t you know he always wanted you to live with him? Your mother simply wouldn’t allow it. Because of me, of course.”
    â€œMother,” Dad said in a warning tone.
    â€œWhat?” Grandma asked with a shrug. “It’s true. I’m a terrible influence. Amelia’s mother feels the same way. But Olivia is old enough now that I doubt she’ll be morally corrupted by my scandalous ways — ”
    â€œMother!” Dad looked stern now. He reached out and took away the plate of roast beef his mother was feeding to her new puppy.
    â€œYou see?” Grandma said to me as Snowball swallowed the roast beef that was already in her mouth. “I’m incorrigible.”
    â€œWell,” I said. “You sort of are. You shouldn’t feed dogs human food, especially from the table. Everyone knows that. It’s probably what’s making Rommel’s fur fall out.”
    Grandma’s eyes widened. They were blue, like my dad’s. “Really? I don’t think so. You know, I was walking a dog much like Rommel the day I met your grandfather. I was strolling down the Champs- É lys é es wearing a cunning little cocktail dress I’d been saving for just such an occasion, pink — silk, of course — with shoes I’d had dyed to match, and this adorable little hat I got in — ”
    â€œMother,” Dad said more sternly than ever.
    She broke out of her reverie. “Well,” she said. “The girl asked . I was only — ”
    â€œShe didn’t ask, actually. The thing is, Olivia,” Dad said, handing me a plate on which he’d set a plain bagel loaded with cream cheese and smoked salmon, a fat, juicy strawberry, and a sugar cookie, “we haven’t exactly discussed any of this yet with your aunt Catherine. In fact, she doesn’t know you’re here, only that you’re with Mia — ”
    Whoa! So I knew something Aunt Catherine didn’t know!
    Of course, it wouldn’t be long before Aunt Catherine knew. All she’d have to do was look on the news — or the Internet . I’m sure once those reporters downstairs uploaded their photos of me, Aunt Catherine — and Uncle Rick and Sara and Justin — were going to be in for a shock.
    â€œWe didn’t figure there was much point in telling her,” Dad went on, “unless we knew you’d actually be interested — ”
    â€œGenovia is the best place to live in the world,” Grandma interrupted, popping a petit four in her mouth. “For one thing, the yachting is divine. And, of course, the food is to die for. You haven’t lived until you’ve had the choux a la cr è me at Alberto’s — ”
    â€œIt would be a really big