Royal Crush

by Meg Cabot

  Could Luisa be right? Am I a stick?

  * * *

  Le Palais de Genovia

  by the order of

  Her Royal Highness Princess Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Thermopolis Renaldo

  is pleased to announce the arrival of

  A daughter

  5 pounds, 3 ounces

  and

  A son

  5 pounds, 4 ounces

  on Tuesday, twenty-fourth November

  at

  3: 22 A.M. and 3: 26 A.M. GST

  * * *

  Tuesday, November 24

  1:00 P.M.

  Royal Genovian Academy Dining Room

  Ugh. UGGGGGGH.

  Letting us choose our own seats at lunchtime isn’t working out AT ALL.

  Because guess who chose a seat next to me and my best friend (in Genovia), Princess Komiko?

  My cousin Lady Luisa Ferrari.

  “What’s wrong with your sister and Prince Michael?” Luisa wanted to know. She’d read the bulletin that Madame Alain had posted outside the dining room as soon as the Royal Genovian Press Office released it (which of course was right before lunch). “Why won’t they tell us the names? Are they having trouble thinking of some? I can give them plenty of ideas. What’s wrong with Addison? Or Mason? Those are awesome names.”

  My other cousin Victorine wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think Princess Addison sounds very royal. Or Prince Mason, either.”

  Silently, I agreed with Victorine, but aloud I said only, “Mia and Michael have plenty of ideas for names. They just want to get to know the babies before making their choices final and announcing them formally.”

  “I think that’s nice,” piped up Nadia, one of the new girls who Princess Komiko and I like, and who we always ask to join our table. We’ve had many new students at the RGA this year, on account of all the refugees from disaster-torn countries seeking asylum in Genovia. “It’s wrong to rush into something as important as choosing a name for a baby. It’s something he or she is going to be stuck with for his or her whole life.”

  “Thank you, Nadia,” I said. “I think it’s important, too.”

  “Well, so long as they don’t choose something boring.” Luisa still looked unimpressed. “Have you heard what the bookies in Las Vegas are saying the names are going to be?” When we all stared at her blankly, she went on, “Elizabeth! Can you believe it? And Frank. Don’t even ask me why. I mean, Elizabeth is all right, I guess. Who ever heard of a prince named Frank?”

  I sat there in complete shock, unable to say a word for a moment.

  Of course it was possible the bookies were wrong—they’d been wrong about both the babies being girls, and look at the mess they’d gotten me into with Nishi!

  But what if they were right about this one? Could Mia and Michael really be naming their daughter Elizabeth—which was the name of my dead mother? (I barely remember her. She was a charter jet pilot who’d died when I was a baby in a tragic personal watercraft accident.)

  But if they’d chosen the name Frank for their little boy, it seemed possible.

  “Frank was the name of Princess Mia’s stepdad, who was Rocky’s father,” I heard myself murmuring. “Frank Gianini. He died a few years ago.”

  “Awwww.” Victorine laid a hand over her heart, as if she was so touched, she’d burst a heartstring. “That is so sad! But it’s so cute that they’re naming the baby after him!” All the other girls at nearby tables—even some seniors!—overheard, and did the same thing with their hands, nodding in agreement. “What a touching tribute.”

  “But we don’t even know for sure that those are the names they’ve chosen,” I said quickly. “How could those people in Las Vegas know when they haven’t mentioned anything to me about it?”

  “Thank goodness!” Luisa cried. “Because Prince Frank is just an awful name.”

  That’s when Prince Gunther, coming to my sister’s defense, said, “Frank is a very old and noble name in my culture, Luisa. It means a free man … or a type of javelin.”

  Everyone looked at him strangely. Javelin?

  Prince Gunther is much less weird than he used to be, thanks to Lady Luisa Ferrari. In between their fights, she has been slowly socializing him. Gone are his athletic socks, shower sandals, and chlorine-green blond hair. Luisa even bought them matching silver bracelets that say L + G!

  But he still comes out with an occasional odd statement.

  Not as weird, however, as the things his girlfriend sometimes says, such as what she said to me next, which was:

  “This must be a really sad day for you, Princess Olivia.”

  “Sad?” I stared at her. “Why on earth should I be sad?”

  “Because until today, you were next in line to the throne after your sister. Now you’re third, after the babies. You’re what they call the ‘spare heir.’”

  The chicken piccata I’d been chewing nearly dropped out of my mouth, I was so shocked. “You think I’d rather have a stupid throne than a new niece and nephew?”

  “Who wouldn’t?” Luisa asked with a shrug. “I’d much rather rule a country than have a couple of dribbling babies living in my palace.” She turned toward Prince Gunther. “Wouldn’t you?”

  Prince Gunther looked uncomfortable. “Er, well … I don’t—”

  “Luisa,” I said, annoyed, “I know you don’t have any sisters or brothers, so you don’t know what it’s like to be an aunt. But trust me, it’s much better than being the heir to a throne.”

  “Yeah, Luisa,” Victorine said. “Even though Olivia isn’t as close to inheriting the throne as she was, she still gets all the benefits of being a princess. She gets to live in a palace—”

  “The summer palace,” Luisa pointed out. “Isn’t your dad renovating the summer palace for you and your stepmother and Rocky to live in?”

  I shrugged. “Yeah? So what?” The renovation was taking forever, since the ancient foundation was crumbling, and the whole place had to be shored up to keep it from sinking back into the Genovian earth. My dad spends all day on the phone, yelling at contractors to find out why it isn’t done.

  “It’s still a palace,” Victorine snapped. “And Princess Olivia gets amazing designer clothes to wear, her own hair and wardrobe stylists, and her own limousines and bodyguards.”

  “And a pony,” Princess Komiko added. “Don’t forget the pony.”

  Nadia sighed. “I don’t even know what I’m going to get you for your birthday. You have everything!”

  “Don’t get me anything!” I cried, mortified. “Like it said on the invitation, the gift of your presence at my party is present enough.”

  “Could we get back to the topic at hand?” Luisa demanded, clearly annoyed.

  “You mean how we’re all going to have to write an eight-hundred-word essay tomorrow and miss going to the most beautiful place on earth if we don’t find a chaperone for the school trip?” Prince Gunther asked. “Yes, I would very much like to talk about this.”

  “No,” Luisa said, rolling her eyes. “How Olivia still has to put up with all the worst parts of being a princess, like having paparazzi take unflattering photos of her every time she’s in a swimsuit, and having to do all that gross charity stuff, like visiting people in the hospital who have La Grippe, but she’s never going to get to rule.”

  This has actually never happened—but only because no one with La Grippe has ever been sick enough to be hospitalized.

  “So what, Luisa?” I said, feeling as annoyed with her as she clearly was with me. “My sister’s babies are really cute. Here, take a look.”

  Even though we’re not supposed to use our cell phones during school hours, I thought showing Luisa the photos I’d snapped of the twins might convince her of how dumb she was being.

  Big mistake.

  “Um,” Luisa said, squinting down at my cell phone’s screen. “What’s wrong with their heads?”

  “Nothing,” I said defensively—although of course I knew exactly what she wa
s talking about. “Why?”

  Nadia peeked over Luisa’s arm so that she could see the photos, too.

  “They’re newborns,” Nadia said. “That’s how newborns are supposed to look.”

  “Excuse me,” Luisa said. “But who asked you?”

  Luisa Ferrari is never nice to anyone, but she’s particularly mean to the refugees, despite Madame Alain urging us to be friendly to them, since they’ve lost almost everything they had, including their homes, possessions, and in some cases, even family members. It’s our duty as royals—and fellow human beings on this planet—to show them kindness and generosity, just like Grandmère said I was to do for Prince Khalil now that he’d lost his kingdom.

  But this is difficult for Luisa.

  “Also, you’re wrong, Nadia,” Luisa said. “I’ve seen newborn babies before, and they don’t look like that.”

  “Where have you seen newborns?” I asked.

  “On TV,” Luisa said firmly. “I’ve seen every single episode of Law and Order: SVU, and none of the newborn babies abandoned in Dumpsters on that show look like little frogs, like those two.”

  I felt my temper rise even further. Frogs? My niece and nephew do not look like frogs. I’d just seen a frog, so I could attest to this.

  Luisa was about to get a piece of my mind when Nadia came to the rescue.

  “They’re not allowed to use real newborns on TV.” Nadia had been a tween star on a soap opera in her home country before its film industry had been shut down by the war there, so she would know. “It’s against the law. Babies have to be two weeks old before they can appear on film.”

  “Well, even so, there must be something wrong with Princess Mia’s new babies,” Luisa said with a sniff. “Because they look terrible.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with them,” I snapped. “The doctor said they’re fine. They’re full term and everything. But you know, human babies and kangaroo babies have a lot in common.”

  “Kangaroo babies?”

  “Yes,” I said. I don’t know why. I should have taken Luisa’s expression as my cue to shut up, but I didn’t. “Most mammals are born with the ability to walk and feed themselves, but both human babies and kangaroos are born completely dependent on their mothers. Kangaroo babies are only about an inch long when they’re born, and they have to crawl all the way up from the birth canal into their mother’s pouch in order to continue to grow into the cute roos we all remember from Winnie-the-Pooh. But unlike frogs, they’re still mammals, at least.”

  I could tell from the look on Luisa’s face that I’d gone too far. This happens sometimes. As a future wildlife illustrator, I’m slightly obsessed with animals. I’ve been warned—especially by Nishi—that occasionally I talk about them in a little too much detail.

  Luisa dropped her fork. “Birth canal? Excuse me while I vomit, please. How are we supposed to eat with that image in our heads?”

  Uh-oh. I’d done it again.

  “I think it’s pretty interesting,” chimed a new voice.

  Luisa whirled around so quickly that her long hair flew out and hit me—and Princess Komiko—in the face. “Oh! Prince Khalil! I didn’t notice you standing there.”

  Neither had I.

  But it turned out Prince Khalil had been standing quite nearby, holding a plate of cheesecake from the dessert trolley. Normally a dining staff member pushes the dessert trolley from table to table, asking students what they’d like. But with so many people taken ill with La Grippe lately, they’d had to make dessert self-serve.

  “Thanks,” I said to Prince Khalil, hoping he wouldn’t notice my blushing cheeks. (Contrary to Luisa’s often-voiced opinion, black people do blush. I even got sunburned a few times while playing floating table tennis for too long without reapplying my sunscreen.) “Kangaroos are extremely interesting.”

  I was trying to think of something witty to say about the birth habits of kangaroos, when, to my absolute astonishment, Prince Khalil sat down in one of the empty chairs at our table.

  It wasn’t exactly strange for him to do this. We used to be friends.

  I simply wasn’t expecting it after what had happened yesterday, with the whole You’re the opposite of a dork incident.

  Maybe my being kind to him in the cloakroom (and lying about having seen a Karpathos frog in the Royal Genovian Gardens) had worked!

  This probably would have been a good opportunity to take one (or more) of the photos I owed Nishi. She’d already texted me several times this morning to remind me about them:

  But nowhere had we specified in our deal that I had to send the photos the same day the twins were born.

  And besides, it would look weird if I started taking photos of Prince Khalil in the dining hall while he was sitting next to me eating cheesecake …

  … which reminds me, I better stop writing in here while he’s talking to me, or it will look like I’m not paying attention. One of the main rules of being a royal and a good friend is that it’s important to look like you’re paying attention when the boy you like is sitting right next to you eating cheesecake someone is talking to you, especially someone who has lost their kingdom to their despotic uncle.

  Tuesday, November 24

  3:15 P.M.

  Royal Limousine

  Well, that was a disaster.

  This whole day has been a disaster, really.

  Not that becoming an aunt isn’t amazing.

  But everything else about this day? Not so good.

  The worst part was when Prince Khalil asked, as he was eating his cheesecake (not while his mouth was full, since that would have been gross, and he is very polite), “So, Princess Olivia, have you changed your mind about attending the Royal School Winter Games?”

  I thought Luisa—who overheard this—was going to choke on her vichyssoise.

  “Her?” she exclaimed. “She’s not going.”

  Prince Khalil looked concerned. “Really? Still? Why not?”

  “Oh, well,” I said, trying to appear casual. “Because I became an aunt today, you know—OW.”

  The OW was because someone at the table suddenly kicked my ankle—hard—underneath the tablecloth. I looked accusingly at Luisa. The kick had come from her direction.

  “Is something wrong?” Prince Khalil asked, looking even more concerned. Nishi is right about his eyebrows, I’ve noticed. It’s nice when they get that squinchy look in the middle when he’s being very serious about something.

  “Oh, no,” I said, reaching down to rub my ankle. Luisa always wears super high heels with pointy toes. “Everything is fine. The truth is, I’m—OW!”

  Luisa kicked me again, this time getting my fingers.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I hissed at her.

  “What’s wrong with me?” she hissed back. “What’s wrong with you … Stick?”

  I scowled at her. “Don’t call me that.”

  “Why not? You are one.”

  “I am not.”

  Prince Khalil glanced from one of us to the other in confusion. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Am I interrupting something?”

  “No,” I said quickly.

  “Yes,” Luisa said. “But only the fact that my cousin Princess Olivia would rather write an eight-hundred-word essay and hang around with some dribbling little babies than go skiing in the Alps with all of her classmates.”

  “Luisa,” I hissed, “I don’t even know how to ski. Remember?”

  Luisa’s big blue eyes widened. “Oh, that’s right! I forgot!” Then she burst out laughing. Hard. “Ha ha ha! Stick can’t ski!”

  Seriously? I wanted to say to her. Not everyone grew up in a CASTLE, with rich parents who bought them everything they wanted and took them on fancy ski vacations (until they got divorced) like you, Luisa.

  And okay, technically Luisa didn’t grow up in a castle. It was a villa.

  But the rest of that statement is true.

  My aunt and uncle in New Jersey—with whom I lived before finding out I was a princess a
nd moving to Genovia—had never taken me on vacation, let alone a ski vacation.

  So I have no idea how to ski, snowboard, skate, or even sled, except for the sledding Nishi and I had done in Nishi’s backyard, which hardly counts.

  So even if I’d wanted to go—which I hadn’t—there’d never seemed like much point in me attending the Royal School Winter Games. I had refrained from mentioning it at home, and conveniently “lost” all permission slips pertaining to it. I knew there wasn’t anything to worry about where Rocky was concerned: He immediately forgets everything to do with school the moment he gets home to the palace.

  “Wait.” Prince Gunther, who had overheard, looked as if someone had just switched a light on inside his head. “That’s right! I forgot you’ve never skied before, Princess Olivia. But that’s okay. I can teach you!”

  “Uh…” I said. “Thank you, Prince Gunther. But that’s really not—”

  “No,” Prince Gunther cried. “I am the best ski instructor in all of Stockerdörfl! Everyone says so. Come on the trip, and I can teach you to ski!”

  “She isn’t going to be able to learn in time to compete,” Luisa said, not laughing anymore. In fact, she looked a bit angry. “That’s if we even still go to Stockerdörfl, which is getting more and more doubtful considering we don’t have enough chaperones … remember? And Olivia doesn’t even want to go. She said herself she’d rather stay home with her new little baby niece and—”

  “But you must go, Princess Olivia,” Prince Gunther said, turning his bright-eyed gaze toward me. “Even if you don’t compete, the school could still use your help! Your cousin Marguerite is out sick with La Grippe, isn’t she?”

  “It’s true,” said Victorine. “Poor Marguerite hasn’t been to school since last week, she’s had such a bad cough, runny nose, and sore throat. She says her mom is driving her crazy. She won’t even let her watch movies because she says the glare from the screen might give her a migraine.”

  Prince Gunther continued, as if Victorine hadn’t interrupted, “Marguerite was supposed to photograph us for the school yearbook and newspaper—”