by Mia Archer
“So are there any rides in this part of the park?” I asked. It seemed like it was mostly wall to wall gift shops.
“I promise there’s something pretty awesome here,” Dani said. I shrugged and figured I should trust her. She obviously knew this place better than I did.
Finally the crowd thinned out a bit and we stepped through to a land filled with whirling bright lights and constant noise that was different from the dull roar of thousands of voices mixing together out in the street. More importantly the room we stepped into was air conditioned which was a blessing.
“Video games?” I said. “In the Old West part of the park?”
“Not just video games. An arcade. You don’t see them much these days, but they still have one of the biggest and best arcades in the world here at Royal Realms.”
I looked around at the technological wonders that were on offer. I did a complete turn around, but despite all the myriad video games surrounding me there was something outside in the heat that drew my attention far more than the beeping and booping technical marvels in the air conditioning.
“What about that game over there?” I asked, pointing to an older looking stand where people were shooting air guns at metal targets.
“The shooting range game? If that’s what you’re into there are plenty of games in here where you can blast zombies or robots. There’s even a thing that simulates roller coaster rides that’s supposed to be pretty impressive!”
I shook my head and grinned. I took Dani by the hand and pulled her back out into the heat. “No way. I want to play that game and win you a stuffed animal!”
“But I’ve never even shot before!” Dani said.
That brought me up short. I stopped just on the verge of stepping out into the sun. The open entrance meant there was a weird push and pull between the sweltering weather outside and air conditioners directly overhead that were blasting at full power to beat back the heat. The bill for this entrance alone must be astronomical. Then again I wasn’t really one to talk about the cost of things.
“You’ve never shot before? That can’t be possible,” I said.
“Believe me it’s possible,” she said. “Why would you think I’ve shot a gun before?”
My brows furrowed. “I thought all Americans had guns? Your parents never took you to a shooting range or something?”
I immediately knew I’d said something else that was deeply and profoundly silly. It as another reminder that I shouldn’t take everything I knew about America from the movies any more than Americans should take everything they knew about the Alloran royal family from what they saw online.
“I grew up in the suburbs on the north side of Columbus, Amelia,” she said.
I stared at her blankly. I had no idea what any of that meant. Presumably Columbus was in this Ohio place that she was going on about since she knew so much about the roller coasters that were available up there.
“So you’ve never been shooting before?” I asked.
Dani grinned. “I’ve never even held a real gun before, let alone shot one. My dad’s a doctor and my mom is a professor at the Ohio State University. They’re about as far from gun-toting as you could get.”
“You poor thing. Shooting is so fun!”
Now it was Dani’s turn to look at me like I was crazy. I wondered what I’d done wrong now. I hadn’t made any assumptions about Americans. At least I didn’t think I had.
“What?”
“Aren’t you from some European country?” she asked.
“Yes?”
I didn’t want to tell her exactly where I was from, though I didn’t think she was fishing. Telling her where I was from ran the risk of her looking the country up on her smart phone. I didn’t want her to look up the Wikipedia page and see the smiling picture of the royal family including yours truly staring out at her and giving everything away.
“I thought all guns were outlawed over there or something?”
I barked out a laugh. “That depends on what country you’re in. We are a bunch of different countries over there, after all, even with the EU and all that.”
“The Ee You?”
I shook my head. “Americans,” I grumbled, but with a smile so she knew I didn’t mean it. Not entirely. They could sit over here comfortable with their two oceans and their dozens of aircraft carriers and whatnot isolating them from the rest of the world.
Though there were times that felt like it might be convenient. That was beside the point, though. Right now I had a game to play.
“Come here,” I said. “I’m going to show you a thing or two about shooting.”
We got to the shooting gallery and I didn’t hesitate to hold out my wristband. The attendant held out a small palm computer which dinged happily and charged the amount required to play back to my room. I hefted a gun and had a look at it to get the feel of it. It was just a little airgun, nothing like what I fired with father back home, but the principle was the same.
“Are you sure about this?” Dani said. “You don’t have to win a stuffed animal for me or anything, really.”
An idea occurred to me. “You’re right. Why don’t you try it first?”
“Me? But I told you, I’ve never…”
I leaned in close. Close enough that I knew my breath had to be brushing her ear as I spoke. I saw her shiver and smiled even wider.
“There’s a first time for everything, you know.”
She looked at me. Licked her lips. Swallowed. Then held out her hand and took the airgun. She held it up to her shoulder the completely wrong way and before I could stop her she squeezed off a round that pinged off the back of the game but didn’t hit any of the targets rotating past us.
I moved in close. This is exactly what I had in mind when I chose this game.
“The problem is you’re holding it all wrong,” I said. I pressed against her back and heard her take in a sharp breath. I smiled as I wrapped my arms around her and adjusted how she held the gun. Helped her pull it up.
“You want to be relaxed. Just barely let your hand rest on the trigger and squeeze back. Don’t worry about the recoil. This pea shooter isn’t going to hurt you or anything.”
She squeezed the trigger again and there was another ping, but this time she almost hit a target. A metal duck wobbled but kept going on its track.
“Having some trouble still?” I asked, my lips almost brushing her ear.
“I’m a little distracted, yeah,” she said.
“Try a couple more shots. Line it up with the sight on the front of the airgun and let loose.”
Try she did, but every time she went a little wide. She was getting better, though. By the last shot she managed to knock something over and she turned and smiled at me. I smiled right back at her.
“Not bad. For an absolute beginner,” I said.
“So what do I get for knocking down that single target?” she asked the attendant.
The guy helpfully held out a plastic bin that was full of cheap plastic replicas of old Royal Company cartoon characters. Basically the sort of stuff they were asking us to throw away for them.
“Um, no thanks,” Dani said.
“What does it take to get one of the big stuffed animals hanging near the top?” I asked, nodding to the stuffed animals in question.
“Hit every shot on the back row and it’s yours,” the guy said with a grin that clearly told me he didn’t think that was going to happen. I squinted as I looked at the targets. They didn’t seem that small.
“Right,” I said, holding out my arm band. The guy obligingly charged another game to my room and I took a second air rifle the attendant handed me. I brought it up to my shoulder and squeezed off several shots. The metal targets in the back row, little bullseye targets that looked to be in much better shape than the rest of the rotating targets since they presumably didn’t get hit as much, went down with satisfying pings to accompany every shot.
When I was done there wasn’t a single one left.
“Where did you learn to shoot like that?” the attendant asked.
I was very much aware of Dani staring at me in awe. I needed to come up with a plausible explanation that didn’t involve Felix going a little crazy and insisting I knew how to use a weapon in case I was ever in a situation where my guards were down but I still had a gun. Talk about a traumatizing childhood memory.
“I just shoot with my father occasionally,” I said. “It’s a skill everyone in the family learns. Now I believe the lady has an oversized stuffed animal to choose?”
The attendant gestured behind him and Dani giggled as she looked at the selection on offer. I grinned right along with her. That had been more thrilling than the roller coaster, and all because I got to get more up close and personal with her!
11: Dani
“Well you have to understand that father has a decent estate where we come from,” Amelia said.
“And what country was that?” I asked, suddenly curious.
“So father was throwing a party and one of the servants walked in on me. And another girl from one of father’s… um… business partners. Yes. One of his business partners. We were kissing, and things sort of spiraled out of control from there.”
I noticed the not-so-skilled way she deflected my question, but I decided I wasn’t going to press. Amelia was definitely a girl with secrets, but I’d had such a good time today and things were going so well between us that I’d long ago decided I’d let her keep those secrets. For now.
“So let me get this straight. Your father caught you kissing another girl, and he decided to punish you.”
“Well, sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“I mean he didn’t seem upset about the whole kissing a girl thing so much as he was upset about how the news got out. It’s hard to explain,” she said.
“I mean, I guess I don’t know your circumstances, but it seems like being upset that you’re into girls and being upset that the news got out that you’re into girls is pretty much the same thing.”
“It’s really not,” she said, her voice suddenly getting a little heated. A little short. Whoa there. Apparently I’d touched a nerve with this line of questioning. “It really is complicated, but that’s all I can say.”
I decided to backpedal a bit. I didn’t want to piss her off. Far from it. Humor. A little humor would be a good thing. Defuse the situation before she got more angry. I forced a smile on my face and laughed.
“Well your dad’s idea of punishment must be pretty weird if he thinks sending you on a week-long trip to Royal Realms is any sort of punishment,” I said.
Amelia took a scoop of her ice cream and bought herself a moment by taking a bite. She glanced out at the crowds moving past us. It was getting dark which meant we were getting close to the end of the day. I didn’t want this day to end. I wanted to stay here chatting with Amelia all night long, but I knew sooner or later I was going to have to get up and go to rejoin the real world.
“Like I said, it’s complicated,” she said. “It’s not exactly a punishment, but it’s not exactly a reward either.” She turned to me and smiled. “Let’s just say that by being here with you I’m throwing a big monkey wrench into his plans.”
I took a bite of my own ice cream and thought about that for a moment. There were a couple of ways I could take that, so I figured I’d just come out and ask the burning question.
“So is that all today is? Am I just a way to get revenge on your dad? Make him mad when you tell him all about how you spent a day out in the park with a girl even though he forbids it? Make the king mad that his little princess is defying his orders?”
Amelia fixed me with a sharp look and I very nearly jumped out of her seat. I thought I’d hit a nerve a moment ago, but apparently I’d really touched one now. Then she took a deep breath and smiled, but I didn’t forget that sharp look.
“I told you it’s not the fact that I’m into girls he has a problem with. Not exactly,” she said. She reached out and took my hand in her own. I still felt electricity dancing between us at her touch. She leaned in closer. Close enough that I had to lean in to hear her.
“And I can promise you that today with you has been so much more than revenge. That’s just the icing on the cake, as you Americans say,” she said with a wink.
Well then. That made me feel a little better. I still wondered what the heck I’d said to make her so snippy for a moment there, but once again I wasn’t going to press the matter. I was enjoying myself too much to want to get into whatever was bothering her, and besides I figured we only had a little time together in the park.
I was going to enjoy it. This had been a heck of a lot more fun than what I thought I’d find when I came out here with Colin and his cronies hanging out in the back of the bus no doubt cooking up new ways to try and make me completely miserable.
“Just checking,” I said. “You can’t be too sure sometimes.”
“Well you can rest assured. Today has been wonderful. Spending the day with you has been so much more than what I ever thought I’d find here,” she said.
I grinned at the echo of my own thoughts. A grin that turned to a frown.
“What’s wrong?” Amelia asked.
“This day has been wonderful, but it’s going to be over here pretty soon,” I said.
I pulled out my phone and glanced at the time again. I didn’t want to poke the bear by risking staying out late and breaking Fredericks’ unofficial official curfew for graduated students on the first night. I sighed when I saw the time.
“Actually I’m going to have to get going right about now if I want to get up there in time to meet my group,” I said.
“That’s too bad. I was hoping maybe you could stay out…”
Amelia suddenly had an apprehensive look on her face. My heart went out to her, but I wasn’t going to risk getting in trouble. If everything she said about this trip being a weird punishment-that-wasn’t-a-punishment was true then whoever was waiting for her back at that resort wasn’t going to be too happy with her sneaking off. I thought to those security people who’d been swarming all over the train platform when we left earlier, and brushed it off. I would’ve thought they were looking for her if not for that one lady looking right at Amelia and then moving on.
They couldn’t have been looking for her. She might be rich and hilariously out of touch with reality when it came to some things, but she wasn’t “have enough security for the ruler of a small country” rich.
“I’m afraid I can’t risk it tonight, no matter how much I want to. You have no idea how much I want to stay out with you,” I said. “We never did get to the Princess Cruise, you know.”
Amelia wrinkled her nose in distaste. “I’ll never understand what the American obsession is with European royalty. Didn’t you fight a war so you didn’t have to answer to us anymore?”
“Us? Are you European royalty now?”
Amelia nearly choked on the bite of ice cream she was about to take. I reached across the table and gave her a good smack on the back. She coughed out a bit of chocolate ice cream that wouldn’t look very becoming dribbling down anyone else’s chin, but somehow she managed to make it look all regal. Then again maybe that was a bit of my insane attraction to her doing the talking.
“Something wrong?” I asked. Again with more of the weirdness, but I remembered how snippy she got when I talked about her dad and decided not to pry.
“I meant that in the general since. Us Europeans,” she said.
“Right,” I said. “Anyways. I couldn’t tell you what the obsession is really. I think that every girl grows up wanting to be treated special. Like you’re the most important thing in the world. Every girl wants to be swept off her feet by the dashing prince.”
I frowned into my own ice cream both because it was almost gone and because of the unfortunate implications of that line of thinking. For me, at least.
“I guess for some t
hey hope their princess will come,” I said.
Another blush from Amelia. She was just full of those since the subject switched to royalty. Interesting.
“I’m starting to think you’re more into this princess thing than you let on,” I said.
Amelia arched an eyebrow. “What would give you that idea?”
“Every time I bring up princesses and royalty you blush like you’re embarrassed about something, or maybe that you’re hiding something? Something like secretly enjoying all this Royal Realms princess stuff?”
Amelia locked eyes with me for a long moment. The blush came to her cheeks again and I grinned while she paused. I was onto something here. I’d figured out at least part of the mystery that was Amelia.
“Yeah, I guess you’ve got me,” she said with a sheepish grin.
“I knew it,” I said. My phone beeped and I looked down. A text from Sarah asking where I was and if I was planning on meeting them. I glanced up at the time. I was going to have to hurry if I was going to meet up with the group in time.
“I really do have to get going,” I said.
Another pause. Time seemed to stretch out. I knew this moment would end soon enough and I’d head up to the front and meet everyone from the band to head back to our resort. It’d be back to the real world and away from this
“I don’t want this to end yet,” Amelia said.
“Me either. Meet tomorrow?”
Amelia hesitated for just the briefest of moments and worry flared up in me. Today had gone so well, but she’d reacted oddly to other things today and I wondered if this would be another one. What if she didn’t want to see me again? It was a silly worry given what she’d just said, but I was so desperate to hold onto this feeling and terrified that something would come along and ruin it for me.
“Give me your phone,” she said.
I handed it over. Amelia tapped into it for a moment and there was a buzz on her phone. She handed mine over and tapped into hers. A message popped up on my phone that was just her name.