by Mari Mancusi
Unfortunately, I wasn’t having as much luck as my friends. Every dress I looked at seemed to be either the wrong size or the wrong look. But I kept searching, determined not to settle for something less than perfection. This was my idea, after all—and I needed to look good. And while I didn’t know exactly what the perfect princess dress looked like, I was confident I’d know it when I saw it.
And then, lo and behold, I did. Tucked away in a dark corner, separated from the rest of the dresses, as it if had been hiding there so no one could find it except me: a pure white replica of Belle’s gown from Beauty and the Beast. I drew in a breath, looking it over, my heart pounding in my chest as I searched for any holes or imperfections—there had to be something, right?
But it was perfect. Absolutely perfect. And exactly my size, too. A little yellow dye and it was sure to look epic.
“This is it!” I cried, yanking it from the hanger and holding it up to show my friends. I twirled around and the dress swirled in response, almost causing me to lose my balance. Okay, fine, it was a bit . . . heavier than I’d imagined it to be, but once I was wearing it, it should be no big deal.
“Wow,” Kalani said. “That’s, like, literally the biggest dress in the universe.”
“Are you going to be able to babysit in that?” asked Sarah a little doubtfully. “It’s so . . . poufy.”
“It’s so princessy!” I corrected, trying not to be offended. Obviously, they were just jealous ’cause their dresses weren’t half as amazing as this one. I glanced at the price tag. “Ooh. It’s on sale, too! Seventy-five percent off!”
“Can’t imagine why,” muttered Madison. I ignored her. What did she know about princess dresses anyway?
“Okay, let’s go buy these things and—”
Suddenly my phone rang. I pushed the dress at Kalani, who almost fell over backward from the sudden weight. As Madison tried to help her wrestle the gown into submission. I reached into my pocket to grab my phone. I squinted down at the caller ID, not sure who it was.
“Hello?” I said, bringing the phone to my ear.
“Hi. Is this the princess babysitter company?” asked a female voice on the other end of the line.
Now it was my turn to almost fall over backward. I looked up at my friends, giving them an excited grin. Our flyers had worked! We had our first customer!
“Um, yes. Sorry. This is Princesses and Pirates, Incorporated. How may I help you?”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. Then: “Okay. Great. My daughter Bella is four years old, and she needs a babysitter Monday at four p.m. Her big sister will be home upstairs doing her homework, so we just need someone to entertain her for a few hours. I was going to use my regular babysitter, but my neighbor gave me your flyer and said you came highly recommended. And Bella loves anything to do with princesses. So I figured I’d give you a try.”
It was all I could do not to break out into a Snoopy dance right then and there. I gave my friends a thumbs-up and another crazy grin.
“Yes. Thank you. We appreciate you calling us, and we can totally help you with this. We’ll send a princess over at four p.m. on Monday. Thank you. You won’t regret your choice. Your daughter is going to love her.”
“Wonderful.” The mother sounded relieved. “Okay. I’ll see you next week.”
I took down her address, which thankfully was walking distance from my house, then hung up the phone. Kalani, Sarah, and Madison stared at me with cautiously excited faces. For a moment I stood stock-still, enjoying keeping them in suspense. Then I charged toward them and threw myself into a huge forced group hug.
“Our first job!” I cried. “We got our first job!”
We danced around the thrift shop, cheering, ignoring the annoyed looks of the other customers. Then we gathered up all our dresses and dragged them to the sales counter. (Well, I had to drag mine, anyway—somehow everyone else’s dresses seemed suspiciously light.) After paying with our credit, we danced out of the store and to Kalani’s brother’s waiting SUV.
This was really happening. As of next week we’d be making real money.
We’d be on our way to Comicpalooza. We’d be seeing Collin Prince.
I really needed to get going on that story. . . .
8
“AND NOW, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, ready or not, I give you . . . Princess Awesome!”
I threw open the bathroom door, pasting a smile on my face, ready to show off my extreme princess makeover to my three friends, who were waiting with bated breath (and possibly a bit of boredom) in the comfort of my bedroom. Sure, it had taken me a little longer than I’d planned to princess up—(okay, a lot longer; who knew this dress had so many buttons and ties?)—but I was hoping the big reveal would make it worth the wait.
It was hard to believe—after a week of planning—that today was finally here. Princesses and Pirates, Incorporated’s first official gig: a babysitting job for the Mitchells’ four-year-old daughter, Bella. After some discussion it had been decided that I should take the assignment, seeing as the company was my idea and all, and at this point I was both super excited . . . and scared half to death.
Drawing in a breath (a small one, thanks to the dress’s waistline seriously restricting my lung capacity), I readied to make my grand entrance and wow my friends. I grinned as I imagined the looks on their faces as I stepped into the room. The oohs and aahs and cheers that would surely erupt as I paraded around, giving a regal pageant wave. It was going to be epic.
Well, it would be, that was, if I could get the dress’s stupid hoop skirt through the bathroom door. I guess I hadn’t realized, when I’d brought it in here all folded up, just how wide the thing actually was. But now, I realized belatedly as I attempted a second time to push through the door, I kinda didn’t fit.
“Come on, Hailey!” I heard Sarah call from the bedroom. “We want to see!”
“I’ll be right there!” I cried with false cheerfulness, trying to wedge my skirt into the doorway. “Just, uh, stay on the bed. Don’t move!”
I bit my lower lip, my gaze traveling around the bathroom. Surely this was just a simple matter of physics, right? I mean, real-life people used to wear these things all the time—and they only had tiny outhouses to pee in. There had to be a way to make this work without taking off the hoop skirt and putting it back on outside the bathroom. It had already taken me so long to get dressed in the first place, I was pretty sure my friends would mutiny if I told them ten more minutes. Not to mention I’d be late for the gig.
As I twisted and turned, my underarms prickled with the first signs of sweat, despite the fact that I’d doused myself with deodorant before donning this dress. My body, go figure, did not seem super psyched—or all that forgiving—about being encased in heavy fabric on this eighty degree day. Thank goodness the makeup Sarah had acquired from our school’s theater department was waterproof. Otherwise I was pretty sure we’d be forced to change our company name from Princesses and Pirates to Deranged Clowns ’R’ Us after the first day on the job.
“Is everything okay, Hailey?”
“It’s fine,” I ground out through gritted teeth. “Just. Stay. On. The. Bed.”
Getting an idea, I backed up. I charged toward the door, hoping the combination of speed and force would push me through.
The good news? It did.
The bad? I couldn’t stop once I got through, and I ended up slamming into the opposite wall, then falling into a heap on the floor, taking out the family cat in the process. Bowie let out a loud yowl of protest as he struggled to get out from under my skirts, scratching and clawing at my legs in his panic to get free.
“Ow! Stop it! Bowie! Just calm down and—”
“Hailey?”
“I’m good!”
I was so not good.
“Bowie, get out of there!” I hissed, trying to reach down and grab him from under my skirt. After some searching—this thing had a lot of layers!—finally my fingers connected with fur and I yanked him
free, pulling him out from under me and back onto solid ground. He gave me an affronted look, then padded off in the direction of the kitchen, leaving me a sweaty, bedraggled, leg-scratched-up mess.
But there was no way I was risking the bathroom again. And so, sucking in a (small) breath, I brushed myself off best I could, then headed into the bedroom. I was so exhausted and frazzled at this point, I didn’t bother with any parade theatrics—just plopped down on the bed and sighed.
My friends surrounded me.
“What happened?” Sarah cried.
“Are you okay?”
“Princess problems,” I muttered. “Who knew?”
“Well, you look amazing,” Sarah assured me, reaching over and smoothing out my hair. “Totally ah-MAZ-ing.”
“Like a real princess,” Madison affirmed, pulling down the hem on my dress and checking out the seams.
“This kid is literally going to die when she sees you,” added Kalani as she patted my sweaty face with a huge powder puff.
I stifled a sneeze as powder went up my nose. “I would prefer all kids stay alive on my watch, thank you very much. After all, dead kids would be bad for repeat business.”
Kalani snorted. “Well, then figuratively,” she amended. “She is figuratively going to die from all your awesomeness.”
“I hope so,” I muttered, rising to my feet and glancing in the mirror. My friends had done their best, and I once again looked like my pre–bathroom jailbreak self. A beautiful, sparkling princess without a care in the world.
At least on the outside.
“What’s wrong?” Madison demanded. “You’re pale as a ghost. You’re not nervous, are you?”
“ ’Cause there’s seriously no reason to be nervous,” Kalani pointed out. “You’re a pro. You practically have your PhD in princess at this point.”
“Seriously. You’ve practiced like a gazillion hours,” Sarah reminded me. “You know your stuff.”
“I practiced on you guys,” I protested. “This is a real-life four-year-old. What if she thinks my magic show stinks?” In preparation for the job, I’d watched all the Collin Prince magic videos so I’d have a few tricks up my sleeve—literally—if things started going downhill. But what if she saw right through them?
“She’s four, Hailey. She’s not expecting Houdini.”
“What if she doesn’t believe I’m a real princess?”
“Just smile and tell her the Easter Bunny will vouch for you.”
“What if she doesn’t listen to what I tell her to do?”
“Threaten to put an evil spell on her!” Kalani chirped, a little too eagerly. “That ought to scare her into submission.” She paused, catching our looks. “Or maybe bribe her with chocolate?”
I sighed. “What if—”
“Okay, stop right there, Princess Awesome,” Madison interjected. She grabbed my cheeks in her hands and forced me to face her. “You’ve got this, okay? You’re going to be fine. In fact, you’re going to wow the doo-doo out of this little girl. And then change her diaper like a boss!”
Everyone burst out laughing. Everyone except me, that was. I was too busy trying to recall whether four-year-olds were commonly potty trained. After all, I didn’t exactly relish the idea of diaper duty in this dress.
Was it too late to call this whole thing off?
“Face it, Hails,” Madison said. “You’re going to rock her world. And her mother will be so impressed by your awesomesauce that she’ll go around the neighborhood door to door, telling all her mommy friends that they need to hire us too. I’m telling you, we’re going to have more babysitting gigs than we know what to do with.”
“And more money,” Sarah said dreamily. “Though I know exactly what we’re going to do with that.” She lay back on the bed, stared up at my Collin Prince poster, and sighed happily.
“It will literally be a dream come true,” Kalani declared as she joined Sarah’s side. “And I mean it this time,” she added as we all looked at her. “I have dreams. Actual literal, amazing Collin Prince dreams. And it’s going to be just as amazing in real life.”
I had to agree. Getting to Comicpalooza would be a dream come true. And if I could pull this off, it would be our reality.
As I turned to meet Collin’s dreamy brown eyes with my own, my YouTube idol seemed to smile back at me, reminding me that any pain and suffering and stress I was enduring now would be well worth it in the end.
You can do this, he seemed to say.
And who was I to doubt the great and powerful Collin Prince?
9
TEN MINUTES LATER I WAS at the Mitchells’ front door. My friends had wanted to come with me—or at least spy from the corner—but I’d forced them to stay behind. I was nervous enough, I’d told them, without an audience in tow. But now that I was here, standing in front of the massive oak door, I kind of wished I had my squad.
You can do this, I told myself. It’s just like any other babysitting job.
Not that I’d ever had any other babysitting jobs. Or any jobs, for that matter. Well, besides that time Mrs. Rathburger went to Florida and I walked her dog. That was sort of like babysitting, right? She did call the little guy her fur-baby. . . .
Sucking in a breath, I reached over and pressed the doorbell and waited.
And waited. (And sweated.) And waited. (And sweated some more. April in Texas was so not Princess weather.)
Finally, after I started wondering whether the doorbell might be broken and if maybe I should knock instead, I saw a flash of something behind the window. A moment later the doorknob turned and the door swung open.
“Hello!” I cried cheerfully. “I’m Princess Awesome and—”
“Oh! You’re here. Already.” The woman at the door—Mrs. Mitchell, I presumed—glanced at her watch with a disapproving eye. She was wearing a bathrobe, and her hair was still soaking wet. My smile faltered a bit.
“You said four, right?” I asked, a little concerned. I hadn’t gotten the time wrong, had I? I’d written it down right after our phone conversation at the thrift store and had checked it about ten times since then, just to be sure.
“Oh. Yes. Four. Sorry,” she said, giving me a flustered smile. “Where does the time go?” She bit her lower lip. “Sorry, sweetie, come on in. I’m not quite ready, as you can see. But I’m glad you’re here. Bella is going to be so surprised.”
She put an arm around me and ushered me into the hallway. The blast of air conditioning hit my flushed skin, and I let out a sigh of relief.
“No problem,” I told her. “If you want, I can start entertaining her now—while you get ready.”
“Oh no. That’s okay. I want to be there to see the look on her face. Maybe get some pictures,” Mrs. Mitchell explained. She led me down the hall, then reached out to open a door at the other end. A closet door, I realized, a little uneasily. A coat-closet door. And I clearly wasn’t wearing a coat.
She looked at me expectantly.
“Um,” I said, “I don’t understand?”
“I want it to be a surprise,” she explained, emphasizing the word “surprise” as if she wasn’t sure I understood the definition. “You know. Like jumping out of a cake. But a closet instead.” She beamed at me. “Bella will love it!”
I stared at her. “So you want me to just . . . wait in the closet?” Oh man. Wasn’t this how horror movies started?
“Yes!” She clapped her hands together. “And when she opens the door, I want you to jump out and yell, ‘Princess surprise!’ ” She grinned. “This will be so much fun.”
I wasn’t so sure about that, but I didn’t argue, not wanting to disappoint our very first client during our very first job. After all, we needed her to tell all the other moms in the neighborhood how cool we were and how they needed to hire a princess of their very own. So I obediently shuffled into the closet, best I could, trying to pull in my dress so I could fit.
“Great!” Mrs. Mitchell cried. “See you soon!”
And wi
th that, she shut the door. Leaving me in total blackness.
“Um, you forgot the light?” I called out. But there was no answer, only the sound of footsteps clonking up the stairs above me. A moment later I heard a hair dryer switch on.
O-kay, then. Guess I needed to make myself comfortable.
After adjusting my dress best I could, I practiced muttering ‘Princess surprise!’ a few times under my breath, trying to get the right tone. Then I tried to think about Comicpalooza and how amazing it was going to be to see Collin Prince and enter the writing competition. Then I started wondering just how much oxygen was actually in a small closet like this one and how long it would take to run out. Hypothetically speaking, would one asphyxiate first or die of heatstroke? And which would be the worse way to go?
My heart started beating faster in my chest, the walls of the closet seeming to close in on me like the trash compactor in the first Star Wars movie. This was not cool. So not cool. Maybe I should forget this whole thing and—
Suddenly I heard footsteps on the stairs and I let out a breath of relief. Finally. A moment later the door flung open.
“Princess surprise!” I cried, blinking my eyes to adjust to the sudden light.
The teenage girl on the other side of the door screamed. I screamed.
“MOM! THERE’S A PERSON IN THE CLOSET!”
“I know, Trina. Just leave her there for now!” Mrs. Mitchell called down. “I’m not quite ready for her yet.”
I gave Trina a pleading look, my heart now pretty much ready to crack a rib it was beating so hard. “I can just wait outside, maybe?” I squeaked. “You know, ring the bell and do the surprise that way?”
Trina shut the door in my face.
I sighed, resigning myself to my fate. Just a few more minutes, I told myself. And then the mother would leave and it would just be the kid and me, playing out in the open air.
I felt a twinge in my back from crouching down so long and tried to readjust myself to get more comfortable. It was then that I realized my dress had somehow gotten stuck on the vacuum cleaner in the back of the closet. I reached down and tried to pull it free, but it was stuck fast.