by Meg Cabot
“It isn’t his work, Madame Alain,” I said. I’m afraid I had to do something very unroyal. I took a deep breath and lied: “It’s mine.”
Madame Alain stared at me in shock. “Yours? Are you saying you drew this of yourself, Princess Olivia?”
“Yes.” I opened this journal and showed her some of my sketches. “You see? I love to draw. I drew that picture of myself, Madame Alain, for exactly the reason you said … to make the other girls in my class laugh, since I want to fit in. You know I haven’t been a royal for as long as some of the other students, and I only wanted to make them like me.”
“I like you,” Prince Gunther said.
Ugh!!!! Thanks for not helping, Gunther. I ignored him.
“Please, please don’t tell my father, Madame Alain,” I said. “Or my sister. You can tell my grandmother, though. She won’t mind.”
“Oh, Your Highness!” Madame Alain looked even more shocked. “This is … well, this is terrible. If you didn’t feel that you were fitting in, you should have come to me! You know that I’m available to talk at any time, don’t you?”
Um, except when she’s busy shopping.
“Thank you, Madame Alain,” I said. “That’s good to know. Can we go back to class now, please? We need to rehearse. I want to make sure that our wedding surprise for my sister and Prince Michael is perfect.”
“Of course!” Madame Alain stood up and shook my hand. “And please, if there’s anything else I can do to make your time at the Royal Genovian Academy more pleasant, do not hesitate to let me know.”
“Uh,” I said. “Okay, Madame Alain. I will.”
Phew! Boy, was I glad when we got out of there.
But then I had to deal with Prince Gunther, who was looking at me like I was the dessert trolley they wheel around at lunch. This was not a very comfortable feeling.
“Princess, I can’t believe you did that for me,” he said as we walked back to class. “No one has ever done something so nice for me! People in this school … well, they don’t seem to like me so much. I think they are jealous because of my guns. See?”
He pushed up the short sleeve of his uniform shirt to show me his muscle. AGAIN.
This time, however, I put a hand out to stop him.
“Yeah, okay, Gunther, look, I’ve seen your guns before. You show them to me all the time.”
He looked a little disappointed by my response, but he pushed his sleeve back down.
“I’m going to the Olympics,” he said. “Because I’m such a good swimmer.”
“I know,” I said. “You’ve said that, too. Gunther, you have to stop telling people that. It sounds really braggy.”
He froze in the middle of the corridor, which is open-air and filled with flower-covered vines and little tweeting birds.
“But it’s the truth!” he cried. “I am going to the Olympics!”
“Even if it’s the truth,” I said, “it’s better to let people find out about your talents on their own than for you to go around bragging about them. And another thing: When you flex your arm when we’re promenading, you cut off the blood supply to my fingertips.”
He looked confused. “But girls like big muscles. I train every day with the toughest coach in Genovia. He’s from the Ukraine. He makes me lift twice my body weight.”
“That’s great. But maybe save the flexing for the gym with your coach,” I said. “Because if I show up at my sister’s wedding with my hand in a cast, no one’s going to be happy about it. And then when I tell them it was because of you, the Olympic Committee will find out about it, and you’ll get in trouble.”
I had no idea if this was true, but it worked, since he said, looking a little shocked, “I’m sorry. I guess I don’t know my own strength.”
“I guess not. I probably should have told you earlier.”
“Yes,” he said. “You must tell me right away if I do anything that is wrong, now that you are my girlfriend.”
WHAT????
“Gunther,” I said, “I’m not your girlfriend. I’m just your friend, who is a girl.”
“No,” he said, reaching for my hand as we walked down the corridor toward the sixth-grade classroom. “You rescued me from being expelled. You like me. I know you do! So now we are more than friends.”
“No,” I said, pulling my hand away. “No, we are not. Just friends, Gunther. Just friends!”
He laughed like he thought I was making it up, or teasing him, or flirting, or something, which I was NOT!
UGGGHHHH!!!
Good-bye, frying pan. Hello, fire.
Wednesday, June 17
3:35 P.M.
Royal Genovian Stables
I’m hiding in the stables right now with Chrissy and Snowball because this is the only place people aren’t rushing around setting up things or cleaning for the wedding, and I need to think. I have to get this all down or I’m going to go crazy. I can’t believe this. My life is a nightmare!
And Nishi is coming TOMORROW, expecting me to be living some kind of fairy-tale princess life, and I’m so NOT!
Well, I mean, I kind of am, compared to most people. My life is basically much, much better than it was. I don’t want to seem ungrateful.
But this princess thing is not as easy as I thought it was going to be!
(Although I have to admit, the food really makes up for a lot of it. Oh, and the clothes. And having wonderful pets and living with people who actually care about me.)
But some of them care too much! Prince Gunther, for instance, who has now stopped flinging boogers and making fart noises with his mouth, because he thinks if he acts more “princely,” I’ll be his girlfriend.
Even though I have assured him (in the nicest way possible) that this is most definitely NOT TRUE! There is nothing he can do to make me want him as a boyfriend. NOTHING. I only want to be friends.
I think tomorrow if he’s still acting so lovey-dovey, I might have to ask my dad if I can be homeschooled … or transfer to The Royal School in Switzerland. I don’t want to hurt Gunther’s feelings or anything (I already had to watch him cry once today).
But I do NOT want Prince Gunther as a boyfriend. Not because of his socks and shower sandals or green hair or anything like that. I just do NOT like him in that way.
But of course as soon as we got back to class and started dancing again, Luisa noticed how he was treating me (seriously, no one could miss it: He now handles me as if I were a dainty leaf that he might crush with the slightest touch) and leaned over to whisper, while we were promenading, “Kee-yow, Olivia! I think someone has a crush!”
Since this whole thing was Luisa’s fault anyway, I gave her a dirty look and whispered back, “Not helping, Luisa.”
“Why?” She pretended I’d hurt her feelings, which I know I hadn’t, because Lady Luisa has no feelings. “Now you can invite him to your sister’s wedding reception. You want to have someone to dance with there, too, don’t you?”
ACK!
“Still not helping, Luisa!” I said when I passed her again on the next promenade.
She only laughed and flounced away.
At least I’m not the only one who notices. Luisa is so mean that even Princess Komiko, who hardly ever says anything, whispered to me at lunch today, “Don’t let Lady Luisa get you down, Princess. She’s rude to everyone.”
“But why?” I asked as we practiced using our fish forks. “She’s so pretty. Why does she have to be so mean?”
“She didn’t used to be,” Princess Komiko said. “But then her parents got divorced.”
I almost choked on my endive salad. “Her parents got divorced?”
“Yes,” Princess Komiko said. “In the second grade. After that, she became very rude. Of course, my parents got divorced, too, but I did not become rude to everyone. I guess it can affect different people in different ways. Would you please pass the salt?”
I passed Princess Komiko the salt, thinking about what she’d said. Luisa’s parents were divorced? That was t
errible! I’ve never had divorced parents, so I don’t know what it feels like. I have a dead mother, but she died when I was a baby and I’d never got a chance to know her. It’s certainly true that things affect different people in different ways.
But no one should take their problems out on other people.
See, this is why I’d never been as big a fan of fairy tales as Nishi—especially ones with princesses in them. She completely believes that when it says “And they lived happily ever after” at the end, that’s it, that’s the end, and everyone really does live happily ever after.
But that’s not true. Life keeps on happening after the end. Good stuff and bad stuff. You could be a princess like Komiko and have your parents get divorced. Or you could be a princess like me and escape one mean girl (like Annabelle, at my old school) only to find another one (my cousin Luisa) at your new school.
Who (besides Nishi) even believes in fairy tales, anyway? Some of those stories are all right, I guess, like “Little Red Riding Hood.” It’s never a good idea to talk to strangers, especially wolves.
But some of those other stories don’t even make any sense. It’s not physically possible to sleep for a hundred years! You would die of starvation.
And princes can’t really kiss anyone awake (unless what they’re really doing is performing CPR).
Whenever I bring this up, though, Nishi says I’m missing the point, and that all of these things are happening due to magic, and that I’m just not ready yet to see the magic in real life.
But I have seen magic in real life! I went from living in the suburbs of New Jersey to a castle in Genovia, didn’t I?
So what’s Nishi going to say when she gets here and she finds out I’m messing everything up, and maybe—possibly—ruining everyone’s happily ever after?
And okay, maybe that’s a little bit of an exaggeration—nobody has bitten any poisoned apples and died or anything.
But I don’t feel as if my plan of helping Mia with her problems as a wedding gift is really working out, in part due to my cousin Luisa, who has problems of her own.
Instead I’m only creating more problems … especially since this afternoon when I got home from school, the majordomo told me that Snowball had stolen two sausages and wheel of Brie from the kitchen today!
A group of tourists found part of the Brie later in the Hall of Portraits. It was behind the bust of my great-great-grandfather. The tourists took photos of it and now “Dog Cheese” is one of the top trending topics online.
I wish I could just live here in the stables with Chrissy and Snowball. Everything is so calm and nice and smells like hay.
Which is quite a good smell, when you get used to it.
But as I explained to Rocky when he wanted to fly to the moon, you can’t run away from your problems.… You have to face them, or they’ll never get solved.
So I have to go back to school tomorrow and face everyone—including Luisa.
And Prince Gunther.
Oh, there’s Grandmère out there with the electricians, telling them where to string the party lights for the reception. I guess I should go help.
Wednesday, June 17
7:35 P.M.
Royal Genovian Bedroom
!!!!!
WOW.
☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺
Okay, maybe things are looking up. Just a little.
I was outside helping the electricians swap out the white party globes for purple ones (which has to be done in secret. Grandmère says it will be a great surprise for Mia to see everyone and everything bathed in soft purple light) when I was the one who got a surprise.
Prince Khalil showed up in the Royal Genovian Gardens!
“What are you doing here?” I asked from on top of my ladder.
“What are you doing here?” he asked from below it.
“I live here,” I said.
“Right,” he said with a laugh. “Sorry, I knew that. What I meant was … what are you doing way up there?”
“Oh,” I said. “Helping to hang party lights for my sister’s wedding reception. It’s in two days and basically nothing is ready, so I’m pitching in to help.”
I could have given him a longer explanation—like how earlier Grandmère had told me another rule for royals: “Better to do it yourself than trust other people to do it, so you know it’s done right”—but I suddenly remembered that I was wearing my uniform shorts, and I wasn’t sure whether or not he could see up them, so I started climbing down.
I was surprised when he reached over to hold the bottom rungs of the ladder to steady it, but I shouldn’t have been. This kind of courteousness is why Luisa has such a crush on him.
“Thanks,” I said as I jumped the last few feet to the garden path. My pink high-tops made a satisfying crunching sound on the gravel.
“No problem,” he said. “Hey, I’m glad we ran into each other. About what happened in school today—”
Oh, no! This was the last thing I wanted to talk about! Especially with him.
“Uh-oh,” I said. “Did you hear that? I think my grandmother is calling me. It’s probably time for high tea. Sorry, I have to go.”
“Wait.” Prince Khalil reached out to grab my arm. “I just wanted to say that I think it was cool how you said you drew that picture so that Prince Gunther wouldn’t get kicked out of school.”
I froze. “You did? I mean, you do?”
“Yeah.” He let go of my arm. “Not many girls would have done that.”
I was shocked, and not only because Prince Khalil had just grabbed my arm and said I was cool, but because he’d ACTUALLY NOTICED SOMETHING I’D DONE.
Not that I cared.
“Uh,” I said. Suddenly it seemed like all the birds in the garden were tweeting more loudly than usual, and the sun was shining a little more brightly, which makes no sense because I do not even like Prince Khalil. “Well, Prince Gunther didn’t draw that picture. So I was only doing the right thing.”
“Yeah,” Prince Khalil said. “But you didn’t draw it.”
This conversation was making me very uncomfortable, because the last thing I wanted to be discussing with Prince Khalil was who really drew the picture, which of course was Luisa Ferrari, who secretly wanted to be his girlfriend.
“Well,” I said. “Maybe not. But it still wouldn’t have been fair if Prince Gunther got kicked out of school for something he didn’t do.”
“No,” Prince Khalil said. “But if he didn’t draw it, and you didn’t draw it, who did?”
“Uh.” I thought it better to distract him. “What’s that?” I pointed at the wire cage Prince Khalil had put down while holding the ladder for me, then lifted again.
“Oh, this?” It worked! My trick worked! He held up the cage so I could take a better look at it. “It’s a live trap. I’m a volunteer with the Genovian Herpetology Rescue Society. We’re here today to trap and relocate your iguanas.”
It was a good thing I’d climbed down from the ladder, or I would have fallen off it. “You are?”
“Yeah,” Khalil said, his dark eyes lighting up the way they had in the school dining room. “I told my friends at the society what you said about all the problems you were having here at the palace with iguana overcrowding, and they got in touch with the gardening and security staff, and they said we could come in and set up these traps. We’re going to relocate as many of your iguanas as we can to the Genovian golf course. They’ll be much happier there and won’t bother anyone.”
“Wow,” I said. “That’s, uh, really nice of you.”
“Oh, it’s nothing.” He shrugged modestly. “The society is happy to help. Conserving reptiles and amphibians and educating the public about how critical they are to the environment is what we do. Did you know that without many species of reptiles, some plants wouldn’t get pollinated, and certain pests would overrun the ecosystem?”
“Uh,” I said. “No, I didn’t.”
“Well, it’s true. Where can I put
this?” He held out the wire cage.
“Over here,” I said, and led him to the orange tree beneath my bedroom window. I couldn’t see Carlos anywhere, but I knew he was around. Sometimes he hides. “You’re going to need a lot of those, though.”
“I know,” he said. “That’s why we came today. We’ll set as many traps as we can now, and then keep coming back. By the wedding we should have gotten most of them.”
The birds in the trees seemed to tweet even more loudly. “This is going to be the best wedding present for my sister,” I said. “I’ve been wondering what I was going to get her, since I don’t have any money.”
He smiled. “I never heard of anyone giving someone iguana removal for their wedding before, but I guess it would make a pretty good gift, and not just because it’s free. I’d love to be an iguana removal specialist when I grow up, because it makes people so happy, and it’s great for the iguanas.” Then the grin turned into a frown. “Only I can’t, of course.”
I felt a pang for him, since he looked so sad. “Why not? Don’t they have iguanas in your native land?”
He looked at me like I was crazy. “No, because I have to be a prince.”
“Oh, right,” I said, embarrassed. “Of course! I can’t believe I forgot.” I’d also forgotten that his native land was in the middle of a war, and this was why he was a boarding student at the RGA and his parents lived in France. Probably it had been insensitive of me to have brought it up. I decided to change the subject. “You know, I want to be a wildlife illustrator. I think it’s possible to be both … royal and something else. Most people do more than one thing.”
“You know what,” he said, after crawling from the live trap, which he’d finished setting up. “I never thought about it before, but you’re right. Like Prince Gunther. He’s royal, but he’s also a swimmer.”
I didn’t like how our conversations always seemed to go back to Prince Gunther, especially since I don’t even like Prince Gunther … at least, not the way Prince Gunther likes me.
But since making a big deal about it would only make it seem like I do, I said, “Yes, just like Prince Gunther.”