Mia meets her father at The Plaza Hotel for high tea, and he drops an enormous bombshell on her: He is “the prince of Genovia” (39), a small country that Mia remembers visiting when she spent her summers in Miragnac, and because he can’t have any more children, Mia is “the heir to the throne of Genovia” (37). Her father explains that he and her mother thought they were doing Mia a favor by keeping this information from her, and they wanted her to have a normal childhood. Mia is seized with hiccups and excuses herself to the bathroom, where she starts to think about all of the strange details of her childhood. She remembers that when she “did [a] fact sheet on Genovia two years ago,” she “copied down the name of the royal family, which is Renaldo,” her father’s name is Phillipe Renaldo, and the crown prince of Genovia is “Artur Christoff Phillipe Gerard Grimaldi Renaldo” (34). Mia is shocked that so many people seem to know her father is a prince, “But his own daughter, his own daughter nobody tells!” (35).

Later, Mia writes from the Penguin House at the Central Park Zoo. She explains that she returned from the ladies’ room to continue talking to her father.