Royal Crush

by Meg Cabot

  That’s what Nadia thinks, anyway, and Princess Komiko. Because they heard him say it, both elbowed me afterward and raised their eyebrows, like, “Oooooh!” causing me to want to pull my neck warmer up over my entire face in embarrassment.

  Not that I care what Prince Khalil thinks.

  Very much.

  “Ha ha,” I said nervously, stabbing at the up button on the elevator, hoping this would make the doors open faster and I could run away. “Um … thanks, Your Highness.”

  (Because you have to thank someone when they pay you a compliment, even if it’s just a compliment that they said because someone was picking on you and they felt sorry for you or whatever.)

  But of course pushing the button for the elevator a million times didn’t make it come any faster.

  And because the elevator didn’t come, I was there for the Bad Thing to happen. Well, the other bad thing besides the fact that my grandmother had come down from her room in her night turban and bathrobe to yell at us for having a snowball fight.

  The Bad Thing didn’t happen to me. I only saw it happen. I haven’t told anyone … yet. To be honest, I don’t know what to do about it—it’s so gross and unbelievable and sad and yet kind of exciting (only not in a good way) all at the same time.

  As I was pushing the up button, I glanced into the mirrors on either side of the elevator to check my hair one last time (it looked perfectly normal).

  That’s when I saw it: Luisa leaning against the far wall of the lobby, over by the large open fireplace, being kissed by a tall, blond boy.…

  GROSS! Public displays of affection much? Good thing Grandmère had apparently grabbed a different elevator and gone back upstairs already.

  But wait … the tall, blond boy kissing Lady Luisa wasn’t Prince Gunther. He’d gone home for the night.

  It was the 12th Duke of Marborough!

  I couldn’t believe it. I mean, I know Luisa and Prince Gunther haven’t exactly been getting along lately.

  But when had this happened?

  As soon as I saw the duke’s face, I must have gasped or something, because Nadia, who was standing right next to me, asked, “Princess Olivia? Are you all right?”

  “Fine. I’m fine,” I said, and jabbed at the elevator button some more. “Oh my gosh, what is taking this thing so long?”

  I could see in the reflection in the mirror that behind me, Luisa and the duke were now holding hands and whispering into each other’s ears.

  Luisa, I groaned inwardly. How could you be so dumb?

  Because if I’d seen what Luisa was doing, other people could, too. Which meant that eventually, even though Prince Gunther had gone home for the night, someone who’d seen what was going on was going to tell him about it.

  And then Prince Gunther was going to be so hurt! Even though he was weird, that didn’t mean Prince Gunther didn’t have feelings.

  It was fine if Luisa didn’t want to go out with him anymore. I could understand that. There’s a reason why in most countries (though not all) it’s illegal for people under the age of eighteen to get married or sign any kind of legal contract: Young people change their minds a lot, because their minds are still growing (some at different rates than others).

  But Luisa could at least have the common decency to break up with Prince Gunther before literally kissing someone else behind his back!

  Especially someone like the 12th Duke of Marborough, who is (in my opinion, anyway) a jerk and a show-off.

  “Oh, phew,” I said with exaggerated relief as the elevator doors finally opened with a pinging sound. “The elevator is here!”

  I yelled it very loudly so that Luisa would hear me, and know I was there, and maybe stop what she was doing.

  I don’t know if she took the hint, since I hopped onto the elevator with everyone else and rode to my floor (the girls from the RGA are on the third floor, the boys on the fourth).

  As I got out, Prince Khalil said, “Good night!”

  But I think he said it more generally to everyone getting out on my floor (me, Victorine, Princess Komiko, Nadia, Snowball, and some of the senior girls) than only to me.

  I said “good night” back, though, and watched as the elevator doors closed on his face. (Well, okay, not on his face. He wasn’t squished to death by the elevator doors. You know what I mean.)

  But now I’m left with the terrible memory of what I saw.

  Not of Prince Khalil’s face being squished by the elevator doors. Of my cousin kissing the duke.

  Seeing my cousin kiss anyone would be disgusting. But seeing her kiss the 12th Duke of Marborough?

  I don’t know how I’m ever going to be able to get to sleep. I probably have post-traumatic stress from it (post-traumatic stress is something my sister, Mia, talks about a lot. She says she has it from high school).

  And it’s not even like we were playing spin the bottle (which Nadia suggested we do tomorrow night, because apparently on an episode of the soap opera she was in, some of the kids did that. YUCK. No, no, no, and NO).

  Oh well. Maybe I’ll just try not to think about Luisa. Maybe I’ll try to think about the Good Thing that happened to me instead:

  Prince Khalil said I’m cute.

  Nadia says he definitely likes me.

  But Victorine says not to get my hopes up because last year at the Royal School Winter Games, Prince Khalil hung out the whole time with a redheaded girl named Princess Sophie Eugenie who is on the French Academy of Royals (FARs) girls’ hockey team.

  “And from what I hear, they’re still texting,” Victorine told me. “So if Sophie’s here this year, the chances of him even noticing you’re in the room instead are, like, zero … unless of course you suddenly take up hockey.”

  What is so great about hockey? That is what I’d like to know.

  Table tennis is a far more challenging sport, and you can play it anywhere, even in a pool.

  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 count
ry 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.

  Thursday, November 26

  1:00 P.M.

  Ski Lift to Beginner Slope

  It’s kind of hard to write in your journal when you’re on a ski lift, but fortunately it’s a sunny day, so it’s actually kind of warm (as long as you don’t accidentally move into a shady area; then it is freezing), so I took my gloves off. I had to get this all down before I forget:

  First of all, I have SO MANY PHOTOS of Prince Khalil. Nishi better not complain that I haven’t fulfilled the bet!

  I covered both the girls’ and boys’ hockey games for the school paper, and got about a million photos of Prince Khalil (the Royal Genovian Academy beat the French Academy of Royals).

  True, he had his helmet and pads on, but you could definitely tell it was him. He was even smiling in a few of them (with his mouth guard in).

  Nishi should be very, very happy.

  I haven’t heard from her yet, but that’s probably because it’s still early in the US.

  I wonder how things are going with Dylan, and if she’s still getting a bad grade in English.

  I got a few shots of Princess Sophie Eugenie, too (the girl who Victorine says Prince Khalil has been texting all year).

  She’s pretty, I guess—it’s hard to tell with her goalie equipment on—but no big deal, if you ask me. I doubt she could draw a kangaroo.

  Anyway, that isn’t even what I want to write about. What I want to write about is why I’m on a ski lift:

  I SKIED!

  Yes, I skied. At lunchtime, after covering all the events, Prince Gunther saw me and yelled, “Renaldo!”

  (Seriously. That’s what everyone calls me now. Thanks, Tots. Although I guess it’s better than Stick.)

  “Um,” I said. “Yes?”

  “Have you learned to ski yet?” Prince Gunther asked.

  “Not exactly.”

  To tell the truth, I was more scared to learn than ever, because I’d seen all the people coming down from the slopes near the hotel, and they were going super fast.

  Also, the Alps are no joke. Some of them are made from glaciers. Although, as Mia explained to me at breakfast before I
left, 30 to 40 percent of the Alpine glaciers in Austria and Switzerland have disappeared in the past one hundred years due to global warming. Something has to be done, which is why she’s on a special committee at the UN to try to improve energy efficiency worldwide (but of course she hasn’t been to any of the meetings lately, due to having been confined to her bed with the babies).

  “Then I must teach you to ski!” Prince Gunther cried. “You cannot come to Stockerdörfl and not learn to ski!”

  “Uh,” I said. “That’s okay. Really.”

  I mean, honestly, I would be okay going through my whole life never learning how to ski. I kind of like the fondue eating and sitting by the fire parts of ski resorts better than the skiing part.

  But then I saw the disappointment on Prince Gunther’s face. I knew how much he wanted me to enjoy his town, and remembered how Luisa was treating him (behind his back).

  So I said, “Fine. I’ll try it.”

  Prince Gunther’s cry of happiness was so loud that it attracted the attention of several people from our class, including Princess Komiko and Prince Khalil, who were both already wearing skis from having taken a few “practice runs” down the intermediate slopes. They skied over with a coolness I felt pretty confident I would never acquire.

  “What’s going on?” Prince Khalil asked as he came swooshing to a stop.

  “Princess Olivia has agreed to try to ski,” Prince Gunther cried. “And I am going to teach her!”

  “This I have got to see,” Prince Khalil said.

  I couldn’t help noticing that, when Prince Gunther had said I’d agreed to ski, Prince Khalil’s eyes seemed to have lit up.

  At least I think they had. It was hard to tell behind his tinted ski goggles.

  So all that was left was for me to get fitted with a pair of skis and boots (I wanted to try snowboarding, but Prince Gunther said it was better for beginners to learn downhill or alpine skiing first, then move up to snowboarding later if they still wanted to).