Royal Crown

by Meg Cabot

  “Call me later and tell me what you decide to do about your cousin,” he whispered.

  “I will,” I said, feeling lame. If I’d turned my head just a tiny inch, I could have had my first kiss … on the lips!

  But I was too much of a coward. What was it he’d been saying about me being like my ancestress, Princess Rosagunde? Ha! Wrong.

  “And don’t forget,” he added with a smile, “I still have your gift! If I don’t give it to you soon, it’s going to be ruined.”

  What? What could my gift be that if he doesn’t give it to me soon, it could be ruined? It certainly isn’t a kiss, if that was the case. Kisses never go bad.

  Oh well.

  Dad has announced that he is barbecuing. Dad likes to barbecue when there’s bad news, because he thinks it cheers people up.

  Of course the exact opposite is true. Dad is a terrible cook (I’m not going to say this is because he’s a prince who grew up in a palace never having to cook for himself, but the empirical data supports this).

  It also drives Chef Bernard crazy when Dad decides to barbecue, because as a professional chef, it upsets him when anyone in the palace cooks except for him.

  But Chef Bernard is pretending like he doesn’t mind, and is cheerfully making all these side dishes to go with Dad’s burgers, such as potato salad (only Chef Bernard can’t make potato salad simply: he has to add beluga caviar to it. That is life in a palace).

  Tuesday, December 29

  7:00 P.M.

  Royal Genovian Gardens

  Uh-oh.

  I’d decided NOT to tell my family about what Lady Luisa had done, because really, Luisa has enough problems: Her parents are still fighting over who doesn’t get custody of her. She’s in love with a boy who really isn’t that good of a boyfriend to her. And she doesn’t even have a sister or a stepbrother or a decent pet, like a dog or an iguana.

  The last thing a girl like that needs is more trouble, even if she’s practically a professional at making it for herself. I decided to give her a chance to apologize to me, or at least make it up to me by offering to not call me Stick anymore.

  But it turned out I needn’t have bothered. Because all of a sudden, as we were sitting there waiting for our cheeseburgers, Mia, who was scrolling through her phone, let out a gasp.

  “Why, that little _____!”

  I won’t write the word that Mia said. All I’ll say is that Grandmère was so startled, she choked on her sidecar, the special cocktail that she likes to have before dinner. And it takes quite a lot to get Grandmère to choke on her sidecar.

  “Language, Amelia, language,” Grandmère said when she was done choking. “A royal always watches what she says, especially when there are little ones about.”

  Purple Iris, who was toddling close by, cried, “______,” in a loud, happy voice, a smile on her face.

  “You see?” Grandmère said pointedly.

  “Oh, Lana, I’m so sorry,” Mia said to Purple Iris’s mother, looking stricken. “It’s just that I’ve received some dreadful news.”

  “Oh no!” Mrs. Rockefeller looked shocked. “You’ve heard from the Supreme Court already?”

  “No, not that. One of our little cousins posted some photos on her social media that got picked up by Rate the Royals. They were photos of her in a bikini, wearing the royal crown while walking all over the Robe of State … in my bedroom!”

  My heart nearly exploded out of my body, I was so shocked.

  I wasn’t the only one who was shocked, either. Michael went, “Do you mean our bedroom?”

  “Yes, our bedroom,” Mia said, and passed him her phone. “Look.”

  Michael looked at the photos. “Oh my.”

  “Now, now,” Grandmère said, flicking through the photos on her own phone. “One almost has to admire the girl. She is quite photogenic. One should make the most of one’s looks while one is young.”

  “Grandmère,” Mia said. “That is hardly the point, and you know it. That’s the royal crown she’s wearing—with a bikini!”

  “A fringed bikini,” Michael’s sister, Lilly, added. She was looking at Luisa’s photos over his shoulder. “With sequins.”

  “I feel sorry for the girl,” Helen Thermopolis said. “This is clearly a cry for attention.”

  “She has my attention,” Rocky said.

  “Ew!” Nishi yelled. “Rocky!”

  “What?” he asked innocently.

  I buried my face in my hands. I couldn’t believe that, after how careful I’d been to delete the photos, I’d neglected to ask Luisa whether or not she’d already posted any to social media. Of course she had! She’s Lady Luisa Ferrari! I should have asked her about that, and made her delete those, too. I was the worst babysitter—and member of the royal household—ever.

  “What are we going to do?” Michael asked.

  “Do?” Grandmère took a sip of her drink. “Nothing at all. Other than the fact that, if the subject comes up, we will remark how amusing it is that Lady Luisa came up with such a cunningly made counterfeit crown and robe for her little photo shoot.”

  “And what about the fact that she had her little photo shoot in my bedroom?” Mia demanded.

  “Our bedroom,” Michael said. “And no one’s going to know that’s our bedroom, Mia. It’s not like we’ve ever allowed photographers in there.”

  “Of course they’re going to know that’s our bedroom,” Mia said, enlarging one of the photos. “That’s Fat Louie peeking out from under the bed there.” Fat Louie is her cat. He is approximately twenty years old. He is quite popular with the Genovian press, due to his propensity to leap out from beneath the royal furniture and slash at the ankles of visiting dignitaries. For some reason, the media finds this delightful. “Poor thing. I wonder what he was thinking when those two kids were in there, jumping around. He must have been terrified.”

  “He’ll have to get used to it,” Michael said, lifting Baby Prince Frank from his bouncy seat, as he’d begun to fuss. “When these two start crawling, it will be even worse.”

  I couldn’t believe I had forgotten to check on Fat Louie’s welfare while I’d been in Mia’s room! I wasn’t only a rotten babysitter, I was a rotten pet sitter, too.

  And now everyone who saw those photos was going to know they were real. There’s no mistaking Fat Louie. He is very distinctive.

  Should I speak up and tell them that I’d caught Luisa and the duke in Mia and Michael’s room? There didn’t seem to be much point to it now, even though I could see Nishi eyeing me from across the table. She had to know that my little story about Luisa having to leave because of “food poisoning” had been made up.

  But what good would my saying I’d been there do?

  That’s when Dad handed me a plate with a cheeseburger and potato salad with caviar on it. I could hardly eat it, I felt so sick, especially as I listened to the conversation around me.

  “Obviously,” Grandmère said, “the baroness will have to be informed.”

  The baroness! I forgot that she was in Biarritz! I’d kicked Lady Luisa out of the palace when she didn’t even have a proper adult guardian to return home to!

  “And the duke’s parents, as well,” Grandmère went on.

  Mia sighed. “I agree. I think I should be the one to do it, to preserve your friendship with the baroness, Grandmère.”

  “Oh, no.” Grandmère was already speed-dialing Luisa’s grandmother, even though cell phone use at the table is an abomination. “I’m more than happy to inform the baroness that she needs to return home immediately and deal with her granddaughter’s poor choices.”

  I felt something cold grip my heart.

  “Wait a minute,” I heard myself squeak. “You don’t have to do that. I mean, yes, the baroness should probably come home immediately. But I think Luisa has been punished enough.”

  Everyone turned to look at me. The burger in my throat felt hard as a lump of clay, and not just because Dad, as usual, had burned it.

  “Princ
e Khalil and I caught Luisa and Roger in your room,” I said to Mia. “I didn’t tell you because I thought I’d taken care of it. I deleted all the photos, and then Serena and I kicked them out of the palace. I honestly thought that would be the end of it. I didn’t know Luisa had already posted some of the photos.”

  “It’s true!” Nishi, who could tell how upset I was getting, nodded energetically. “She really did kick them out, Your Highnesses! Luisa and the duke. I mean, I didn’t see it, but I saw Olivia afterward, and I could tell something bad had happened by how upset she looked. Only she said Luisa had food poisoning.”

  I loved Nishi right then. Even though she can be annoying sometimes, with her love for Dylan the cheater, her insistence on calling her period “shells,” and her recent chumminess with Luisa, she really is a great best friend.

  Grandmère nodded. “Very diplomatic of you, Olivia. It was kind of you not to embarrass your cousin any more than she’d already embarrassed herself by her own ill judgment.”

  Mia smiled. “Yes, I agree. Thank you, Nishi. And thank you, Olivia, for letting me know. I appreciate your honesty, and also your loyalty. It makes me feel much better to know that you were there, looking after our family’s—as well as the throne’s—best interests.”

  I felt myself blushing. If I’d been looking after the throne’s best interests, none of it would have happened in the first place. Still, I murmured, “Of course,” and tried not to feel too guilty.

  “Nevertheless,” Grandmère said in her most commanding voice, “that girl will have to be punished for committing such a violation against the sanctity of the throne. Might I suggest banishment?”

  “No!” I cried. I don’t really like Luisa, but I don’t hate her.

  “Now, Mother,” Dad said as he scraped char off the grill. “Let’s not go too far. She’s only a child.”

  “Only a child? Are you trying to imply that children don’t know what they’re doing? Why, in your father’s day, a child younger than Luisa shot at the invading Nazi forces with his rabbit-hunting gun from that window right there, and managed to hit an SS officer square in the shoulder, and later on, your father awarded that boy the Genovian Medal of Valor.”

  “Yay!” Rocky yelled. “Nazi stories!”

  “Clarisse, please,” Helen said. “No Nazi stories at the dinner table. Remember? You promised.”

  Grandmère scowled. “Fine. But you can’t possibly allow the little minx to attend the coronation on Thursday. The press will have a field day.”

  “Well,” Mia said, frowning. “Yes, that’s certainly true.”

  The cold thing gripping my heart constricted. Luisa not attend the coronation? Luisa’s only reason for living, practically, is occasions like the coronation, where she gets to dress up in her finest gowns by Claudio, her favorite designer, and show them off to her social media followers.

  “I know what Luisa and the duke did was really, really bad,” I said. “It was a huge violation of trust and also an insult during this very stressful time, what with Prince Morgan’s dad suing us and all. He probably thinks we don’t even know how to keep our crown jewels safe. But maybe we should think of some other kind of punishment for Luisa. Because not allowing her to come to the coronation really might—”

  Kill her, was what I was going to say. And also make her hate me forever—more than she already does.

  But it was too late, since both Mia and Grandmère had already gotten on their phones and walked away from the table.

  “Hello, Your Grace,” Mia was saying into her phone. “It’s Princess Amelia. So sorry if I interrupted your dinner, but I need to discuss something your son Roger did today while he was over at the palace. You might have seen some photos on Rate the Royals. It appears that Roger was the photographer…”

  And Grandmère, over on her side of the room, was saying, “Baroness? Oh hello, it’s me, Clarisse. How are you? Oh, the Hôtel du Palais? How simply divine. Well, I’m so sorry to have to rain on your petite parade, but I have something simply dreadful to tell you about your granddaughter…”

  I sank back into my chair, feeling the cold thing slipping away and being replaced by something else.

  “What’s the matter?” Nishi asked, noticing my expression.

  I sighed. “I’ve always tried to set an example by treating Luisa the way I’d want to be treated,” I said. “And now look what’s happened.”

  Nishi shoveled a large serving of caviar potato salad into her mouth. “Dude,” she said, after she’d swallowed. “You didn’t do anything wrong. She did.”

  “I know, but—”

  “Whatever! Don’t get me wrong, I like Luisa—some of the time, anyway—but that girl has no respect! She was in your sister’s room! Your married sister’s private room, that she shares with her husband! And a ten-thousand-year-old cat!”

  “Twenty years old.”

  “Whatever. That cat could have been seriously injured. You don’t go into married people’s bedrooms, especially married princesses who rule—or are about to rule—your country. And you definitely don’t put on their crown and jump on their bed and take photos. Plus, did you notice how she tried to abandon our babysitting business today to go play tennis with her boyfriend? What kind of a friend is that? So rude! Here.” She handed me a macaron from the plate Chef Bernard had just brought out. “Eat one of these. You’re right, they really are good.”

  I glanced at Nishi, smiling, and wondered how I could ever have feared—even slightly—last night that she liked Lady Luisa better than she liked me.

  “Thanks, Nishi.” I took the macaron and bit into it. It was lemon and vanilla, one of my favorites. “Thanks for everything.”

  “No problem,” she said, and smiled back at me, her teeth full of macaron.

  Wednesday, December 30

  8:00 A.M.

  Royal Genovian Bedroom

  It’s a gray, misty morning in Genovia (we do occasionally have those. We’re a coastal community, after all), and I don’t feel like getting out of bed. Partly it’s because there’s no reason to—without the sunshine there’s no chance we’ll be going to the beach or pool today; no riding Chrissy, my pony, either. She hates going out in the rain.

  But also because my phone just chimed to let me know I’ve gotten a text.

  That’s all it said. Just I hate you.

  But that’s all she needed to say, really. I know what she means. Grandmère had told the baroness what Luisa had done—and that I’d witnessed it—and the baroness had not only immediately flown home from Biarritz, she’d told Luisa’s parents.

  If Princess Komiko is right, and Luisa’s parents are arguing in their divorce settlement over who doesn’t get custody of Luisa because neither of them want her, the news that Luisa had snuck into the Princess of Genovia’s private bedroom and snapped photos of herself trying on the royal crown probably hadn’t gone over too well. I bet her parents are now arguing over which military boarding school to send her to.

  I thought about texting Luisa back I hate you, too, but that didn’t seem like a very royal thing to do. Grandmère always says that a royal never expresses dislike for anything, even food one doesn’t like. One merely spits it discreetly into one’s napkin, then leaves the napkin at the side of one’s plate.

  Luisa is a food I don’t particularly like, but I can’t spit her out and leave her by the side of my plate because I’m related to her, and she also goes to the Royal Genovian Academy.

  So unless her parents really do send her to military school, I’m going to have to see her again.

  Which means I have to at least pretend to get along with her.

  So instead of texting I hate you, too, I texted:

  This wasn’t a lie. I am sorry. Sorry that she did something so foolish.

  Then I wrote:

  I waited to see if she’d write back. If she really, truly hated me, she wouldn’t. Being hated by anyone, even someone like Luisa, is unpleasant. Grandmère is the only person I know who doesn
’t care about being disliked. And Grandmère says that’s because enemies make things more interesting, and that she’s been around so long that she has too many friends already. She doesn’t have time for them all. She says she needs to start thinning out her social calendar, so she can have more time for naps.

  WHAT? This caused me to sit straight up in my bed.

  I felt the cold thing from last night grip my heart again, only worse.

  Of course I knew that Luisa was lying. Khalil would never call me a stick, especially to the Duke of Marborough.

  Although Khalil and the duke were friends, and they did play video games together. Warhunt is one of Prince Khalil’s favorites. I’d tried to play it with him one time, but it had seemed so pointless. In the game, one soldier has to stop the other soldier, who’s gone rogue, from blowing up the rest of the soldiers. I thought this was a bit stupid. Why didn’t the princess of the country just declare that the war was over and send all the soldiers home, and get mental health treatment for the rogue soldier?

  Prince Khalil had said I was missing the point of the game, which I guess I was.

  Now I knew she was lying. Why on earth would Prince Khalil break up with me because I hadn’t had my period, let alone “shells,” a word he couldn’t even know meant period?

  By this time I was so mad, I’d gotten out of bed and stormed across the room to open the curtains, accidentally tripping over Nishi on her air mattress because I’d forgotten she was still visiting.

  “W-what’s going on?” she asked sleepily, rubbing her eyes.

  “Luisa says Prince Khalil is breaking up with me because I’m a stick who’s never been kissed or had her period,” I told her, pointing at my phone.

  Nishi yawned. “Oh, her. Don’t believe anything she says. She’s just mad because she’s in trouble for the thing with the crown.”

  “Right?” I sat back down on my bed. “Khalil was there. He saw what they did!”