Royal Crush

by Meg Cabot

  “Uh-huh. Genovia.” Luisa smirked, not even looking up from my phone screen. “You care a ton about Genovia.”

  It was right then that Rocky did something that forever made him my favorite person in the whole world.

  He came running over and grabbed the edge of my jacket.

  I don’t think I’d ever been so glad to see anyone in my life.

  “Olivia,” he cried. “The dogsledding competition is starting! Are you coming? Because I’m in it! You have to come and take pictures!”

  I looked down at him. I wanted to throw my arms around him and squeeze him. But instead I pretended to be mad. “What do you mean, you’re in it? You better not be. I told you Snowball is not—”

  “Not with Snowball,” Rocky said scornfully. “She’s too spoiled to pull anything. The Prince of Bahrain has real sled dogs, and he’s going to let me be the musher, since I’m so little. He says the sled will go super fast with me in it.”

  I glared at him. “Snowball is not spoiled. And mushing is dangerous! You don’t have any experience.”

  And just like that, I reached over and snatched my phone from Luisa’s hands.

  “I better get over there,” I said loudly, “and give the prince a piece of my mind.”

  “What?” Rocky cried. “No, you can’t! Olivia, come on. Just this one time, let me have some fun!”

  “Well,” I said, glancing over my shoulder to see if Prince Khalil was watching … but fortunately, he was not. He’d turned his attention to the video game the Duke of Marborough was playing. He and Tots and the duke seemed to be discussing the finer points of the game.

  Which was a relief. It meant he might not have overheard as much of my conversation with my cousin as I’d thought.

  “Well,” I said, turning back to Luisa. “Looks like I have to go now. I guess we’ll have to continue this conversation later.”

  “Oh,” Luisa said, tossing her long blond ponytail with enough force to make it bounce. “Don’t worry. We will be continuing this conversation later.”

  Ugh.

  Probably I should have just kept my mouth shut.

  Thursday, November 26

  6:00 P.M.

  Eis Schloss

  Everyone is changing for dinner at the Lapsburg von Stubens’ house. I’ve never seen people so excited. Someone checked the address on Google Earth so we could see what the place looks like, and it turns out that Prince Gunther lives in a castle.…

  Not a boring palace like mine, but an actual castle, with a moat and a drawbridge and towers and everything.

  I’m pretty sure Google is wrong. Every time Prince Gunther said he was going home, he said “to my house,” not “to my castle.”

  But I’m keeping my opinions to myself, because:

  A. The last time I opened my mouth, it got me in big trouble.

  B. Today has been a very hard day for the athletes of the Royal Genovian Academy.

  Not only did Rocky lose his dogsled race (no wonder: I don’t know why anyone would let a ten-year-old who’s never mushed before be a musher in a competition. The good thing is, he didn’t get hurt—though his team did come in last—and he had a great time. He now says he wants to be a professional dogsled racer when he grows up. He’s texted Dad asking him to please buy twelve Alaskan malamutes), but both Luisa and Nadia lost in the figure skating semifinals to a girl from TRAIS.

  While I felt bad for Nadia, I can’t say I felt too bad for Luisa, especially since she didn’t even show good sportswomanship about it: She refused to go up and shake the hand of the first-place winner after the competition, even though she (and Nadia) did well enough to compete tomorrow in the finals!

  Grandmère was appalled.

  “There is nothing worse,” she remarked as Luisa came out of the rink, “than a sore loser.”

  Luisa tossed her golden head. “What is the point of playing,” she asked, “if you don’t win?”

  “The point is that you’ve spent time participating in an activity you’ve enjoyed, in the company of good friends.” Grandmère lowered her sunglasses so that she could better pin Luisa with one of her most crushing looks. “You will find, as you get older, that that is the very definition of winning.”

  Luisa rolled her eyes and huffed away from us … straight into the arms of Prince Gunther, who was waiting for her with a huge teddy bear he’d bought from a local gift shop! The teddy bear was holding a heart and a real red rose between its paws.

  “For you!” Prince Gunther cried. “You will always be a winner to me, Lady Luisa!”

  “Oh, Gunther,” she muttered, looking around to see if anyone had noticed (which was silly, since everyone had noticed. Who isn’t going to notice a boy standing there with a giant teddy bear?).

  Luisa wasn’t very nice about it, though. She snatched the bear out of his arms and crumpled it up against her stomach, so it would be less obvious. “You shouldn’t have.”

  “Do you like it?” Prince Gunther asked. “I thought you would, because it is yellow, like my hair. I thought you could call it Goo Goo Bear, like you call me!”

  Luisa looked like she wanted to die … especially when over to the side, the Duke of Marborough and the Marquis of Tottingham, who’d also been watching Luisa’s performance, began to laugh.

  “Goo Goo Bear!” the duke cried with a laugh. “That’s awesome. Hey, Ferrari! Why don’t you give your Goo Goo Bear a kiss?”

  Luisa began blushing as red as the rose Goo Goo Bear was holding.

  “Shut up, Marby,” she snapped.

  “Well.” Prince Gunther, not having noticed the exchange, waved to us all. “Good-bye. I have to get to my event. Wish me luck!”

  “Good luck, Goo Goo Bear!” called Tots, laughing … at least until my grandmother stood up and gave him and the duke her most evil stare. Then they suddenly found nothing funny at all about the situation, and quickly left the skating arena.

  This dinner is going to be a disaster … not just because I’m pretty sure Prince Khalil overheard Luisa saying that I have a crush on him, but because Grandmère just told me I have to give a speech.

  “Stockerdörfl has the second highest number of tourists this time of year of any area in Europe,” Grandmère said, when I stopped by her penthouse suite (which is so huge, it makes the large room I’m sharing with Nadia and Princess Komiko look like a playpen) to make sure she approved of my outfit for the evening. Francesca had picked it out—a demure black velvet dress—so of course Grandmère approved. “Second highest in a normal year, that is. Do you know who is first, Olivia?”

  I wasn’t sure, but I could guess. “Disney World, in Orlando?”

  “Of course not! Genovia. But this year, because the media has declared that Genovia is some kind of toxic zone due to La Grippe, which we both know to be a tiny little cold—hardly worth mentioning, except to a hysteric like your sister—Stockerdörfl is now the number one tourist destination in Europe. You need to put an end to that tonight by inviting the Lapsburg von Stubens to visit us in Genovia, and getting them to agree to come, hopefully sometime soon. If they’re photographed on one of our beaches—they’re very popular with the media, you know, because they’re both so young and rich and attractive and sporty—it could really turn things around. If the Lapsburg von Stubens aren’t afraid of catching La Grippe, the rest of Europe’s jet set won’t be.”

  I held out my hands in a helpless gesture. “I mean … sure, Grandmère. I can try. But isn’t that kind of using them?”

  “Of course, it is, Olivia! But don’t think they aren’t using your visit here to promote their winter sports venues. That is how celebrity works. Now, will you do it, or not?”

  “Sure, Grandmère,” I said. “Geesh. You don’t have to yell.”

  “I’m not yelling, Olivia. I’m merely suffering from a bit of indigestion from lunch. I ran into my old friend the Swedish ambassador, and I might have overimbibed a bit.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry, Grandmère.”

  I didn’
t say anything more—like how it would be nice if someone would tell me these things more than five minutes beforehand, so I’d have time to practice.

  But that would be asking my family to be normal, which is like asking it not to snow in Stockerdörfl in the wintertime.

  And now I’m back in the hotel room, and I don’t even feel that badly for Nadia anymore for losing in the skating semifinals, because of what is sitting on her bed.

  “What’s he doing in here?” I demanded.

  Nadia shrugged while putting on her lip gloss in the bathroom mirror. “Luisa was throwing him out. So now he’s mine.”

  “Luisa was throwing him out?” I couldn’t believe it. “In the trash?”

  “Yes,” Nadia said. “I saw the maid taking him away in her cart. So I knocked on Luisa and Victorine’s door and asked Luisa if I could have him, and she said if I wanted to be an immature baby who collects stuffed animals, I should be her guest. So now I am an immature baby with a cute teddy bear, I guess!”

  Ugh! I couldn’t believe my cousin sometimes. “Well, don’t let Prince Gunther see that you have Goo Goo Bear, okay?”

  Nadia looked at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. “Of course not! That would break his heart.”

  I sighed.

  Honestly, sometimes the royals around here are the ones who act like they’ve had no etiquette training whatsoever.

  Which I guess according to Luisa includes me.

  But I sent Nishi all the photos of Prince Khalil that she asked for, and told her that my end of the debt is fulfilled. Then I deleted them from my phone.

  So now there is no longer any evidence that I behaved in a nonroyal manner.

  Or at least there better not be.

  Friday, November 27

  1:00 A. M.

  Eis Schloss

  Okay, so Prince Gunther does live in a castle!

  It really is a true, honest-to-goodness medieval castle, built into the side of a mountain, with a moat around it (well, the part that’s not built into the mountain, anyway).

  That’s why it’s called Wasser Schloss. Wasser means water.

  Only, in winter the water freezes and makes these beautiful ice sculptures, and Prince Gunther’s parents shine these different-colored lights on them.

  So as we were coming up the side of the mountain on the bus, it looked like we were approaching Elsa’s castle from the movie Frozen.

  Everyone started oohing and aahing and getting out their cell phones so that they could take photos of it, then posting the photos to their social media accounts.

  I totally would not have been surprised if a talking snowman and a deer with giant antlers had run out to greet us as we were getting off the bus.

  But instead, we were greeted by Prince Hans and Princess Anna-Katerina Lapsburg von Stuben, looking even more glamorous than when I’d seen them on the ski slope … because now they were dressed in evening wear!

  Prince Hans had on a tuxedo, and Princess Anna-Katerina was wearing a white gown that sparkled more than the icicles hanging off the gargoyles on her castle (which were kind of creepy-looking. I was glad there were such cheerful colored lights pointing up at them, because in different circumstances, you might definitely think of it as Dracula’s castle. Also if it was in Romania and not Austria).

  “Good evening, children,” Prince Hans said in a hearty, welcoming voice. “We are so glad you could make it tonight to our humble home!”

  Humble? It had to have thirty bedrooms, at least. There was a drawbridge! And that’s not to mention the torches—lit with real fire—that danced everywhere outside.

  “We hope your journey has not caused you to become too cold, but in case it has, we have prepared some hot cider to warm you.”

  From behind the prince came cheerful uniformed servants, all bearing trays of steaming silver cups.

  “Please,” Prince Hans said, taking a cup from one of the trays and raising it toward us. “Come in!”

  “Very gracious,” Grandmère said—because of course all the chaperones had been invited, too, though none of the bodyguards, since Prince Hans had his own security, and it was presumed we’d all be safe in his castle, which had been built with the idea to protect its inhabitants from assaults from all sides. She took a cup from one of the trays and raised it toward our host and hostess. “The princes of Stockerdörfl have always been skilled at entertaining, however. Prince Hans’s father—God rest his soul—used to have the best ski parties in Europe.”

  “This cider is good,” I said. It really was. “And this castle is amazing!”

  There was a large roaring fire as soon as you walked in that instantly warmed you, as well as a chandelier hanging overhead that appeared to be made out of pure solid …

  “Is that gold?” Luisa cried, her face turned upward.

  “Ah, indeed it is,” Prince Hans said, smiling at her. “Many centuries ago, before these mountains became known for their amazing skiing, they held immense stores of gold. My ancestors were the first to mine them.”

  Luisa couldn’t tear her gaze from the Great Hall’s ceiling, which in addition to having a beautiful gold chandelier also bore a brightly colored mural of angels and cherubim flitting across a blue—and gold—sky.

  I wondered what Luisa was thinking. Probably that she should have kept Goo Goo Bear, because the boy who had given it to her was way richer than she’d thought.

  “Father,” Prince Gunther said, “shall I show them the rest of the house?”

  House! Ha!

  “Yes, son,” Prince Hans said. “Go right ahead. But dinner will be served soon in the East Dining Room, so come right back.”

  “Of course, Father.”

  Prince Gunther showed us—kids, not adults; the adults went with the Prince and Princess of Stockerdörfl into the library to enjoy cocktails—all around the castle, including the billiard room and ballroom, the media room, the stables and the pool, the dungeons and the towers, and of course his room, on the walls of which hung many photos of his Olympic swimming heroes.

  The boys—and a lot of the girls, too—really liked Prince Gunther’s room, because he had every video game ever invented, practically.

  But we didn’t get to linger long in there, because soon a gong rang, indicating that dinner was ready.

  The East Dining Room was almost bigger than the ballroom in the palace back in Genovia! It too had an enormous gold chandelier, and tapestries hanging from the wood rafters in the ceiling depicted dancing ladies and knights battling a terrible dragon. The table was so long, they’d had to set it with place cards (just like lunch back at school!) so that everyone could find his or her seat.

  I was relieved that I hadn’t been seated near Rocky or Grandmère. She’d been put near the head of the table, by Prince Hans, because it’s traditional at formal dinner parties for the eldest, highest-ranked lady to be placed near the host.

  But while I was happy to find that I was seated at the other end of the table, next to beautiful Princess Anna-Katerina, I was not so happy to discover that I also had to sit beside my cousin Luisa.

  Ugh!

  But there is nothing ruder than asking a hostess to move your seat assignment (well, there are lots of ruder things, actually. Grabbing fistfuls of your food, yelling, “I hate this!” and throwing it at the walls would be ruder. But I would never do that).

  So instead of asking to be moved, I said simply, “Oh, the flowers on your table are so lovely, Your Highness. Thank you so much for having us,” to Princess Anna-Katerina, and sat down and put my napkin in my lap.

  “Thank you so much, Princess Olivia, for coming,” Prince Gunther’s mother said, smiling back at me. “I’ve always been so fond of roses. Though they are, of course, terribly hard to find this time of year.”

  “Not in Genovia,” I said. Wow, this was almost too easy! Now I could issue the invitation Grandmère had asked me to give Prince Gunther’s parents, and it would seem totally natural. “We have them year round. We have them b
looming in the Royal Genovian Gardens right now. You’re welcome to come visit anytime and see. Maybe next weekend, if you and your husband would like to?”

  Princess Anna-Katerina looked surprised.

  “Oh, Your Highness,” she said. “What a lovely invitation!”

  “Yes, Mother,” Prince Gunther said. He was seated across from me. “Say you’ll come! You have to! Next weekend is the Genovian Lobster Festival. It will be so jolly!”

  Princess Anna-Katerina smiled. “It’s lovely to see Gunther as excited about something as he is about Genovia, Princess Olivia,” she said, with a sparkle in her eye. “Of course Hans and I will come to visit. We would be delighted to. But are you sure your family will want visitors so soon? Your sister has just had twins, I understand.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I’m sure. We don’t have as many guest rooms as you do, but we have quite a few.”

  “Well,” Princess Anna-Katerina said. “Then we would be delighted. I do love babies so.”

  “Wunderbar!” Prince Gunther cried.

  He wasn’t the only one who was happy. I’d done what Grandmère had asked me to! I’d invited Prince Gunther’s parents to Genovia … and they’d said yes!

  After that, I felt like I had made up for some of the terrible things I’d done—sneaking that photo of Prince Khalil with no shirt on, and being so judgmental of Luisa.

  Now maybe I could relax a little, and have fun.

  I should have known better, of course. Because as soon as dinner was over Prince Hans stood up and suggested we all step out onto the terrace for a moment with our Apfelstrudel (which is Austrian apple strudel). He had something he wanted to show us.

  The something turned out to be fireworks!

  They weren’t as spectacular as the fireworks we have in Genovia, of course, because if they set off really big fireworks in the Alps, the explosive percussion could cause an avalanche.

  But it was a nice low-key fireworks show (done with approval of the Stockerdörfl ski patrol. They set off small explosions every day to cause unstable snowpacks to slide off in a controlled manner and reduce the risk of skiers being injured in unplanned avalanches).