“Actually, things are getting royally ridiculous over there,” I tell her.
“Oh yeah?” Stella says, looking up from her laptop. “Tell me more!”
We are flopped out on my zebra rug, scanning the Celebrity Times home page, which is our favorite thing in the world to do besides ride our bikes to Dippin’ Donuts and chow down on doughnuts the size of our heads.
“Well, there’s this big deal about the Pinkerton Ball and Royal Court Assembly and everybody is going totally nutso about the whole thing,” I explain. “It’s pretty ridiculous if you ask me.”
“Royal Court Assembly?” Stella laughs. “That’s hilarious! What does that even mean?”
“Well, the sixth and seventh grades each pick three dukes and princess apprentices—stop laughing!—who kind of serve the eighth grade Pinkerton Prince and Princess when they’re elected. Like, they get to carry their books and order their lunch and stuff. Seriously, Stella. It’s not that funny.”
Stella is rolling back and forth on my zebra rug, bent legs stomping, making sounds like a spastic hyena. I do love her, but she really can take things a teensy bit too far sometimes.
“I’m sorry, Maggie…I just…I can’t…princess…apprentices…” she spits out between spasms. “Princess apprentices!”
“It’s not that bad,” I say, feeling my cheeks begin to burn. “It’s actually a real honor to be picked to be an apprentice. They have a prince—and dukes too! Last year, the eighth grade Pinkerton Princess was crowned Marshmallow Queen for the whole county.”
“Marshmallow Queen? Seriously, Maggie,” Stella says, sitting up. “You’re starting to scare me with all this fake, made-up royal talk. You want to talk about princesses? Check this out.”
Stella slides her laptop my way and points to the Celebrity Times home page.
“Now here’s a real princess.” Stella angles the laptop so we can both get a look at Princess Mimi, the one and only Princess Wilhelmina of Wincastle. She’s holding a ribbon next to a beautiful black stallion, probably after one of those big fancy horse shows she’s always doing.
Stella and I have been kind of obsessed with Princess Mimi ever since we were eight and Tween Scene magazine did a big cover story on her. Mimi had just turned ten at the time, and I guess over in Wincastle that’s a major big deal. They had this weeklong party for her with about thirteen different cakes, each one the size of a kitchen table. They showed her being escorted into one of the parties by an army of soldiers all dressed in red, and of course she was wearing a real diamond tiara, which Stella and I agreed was the coolest thing ever. It’s sort of embarrassing to admit, but until I read that article, I didn’t even realize that princesses were real. Seriously. I mean I knew they had princesses in the olden days, but I kind of thought they died out like dinosaurs or something and that they were mostly made up for fairy tales and movies. I certainly didn’t think there were princesses my age out there in the world right this very minute being all royal and everything.
But since I figured that out, Stella and I have spent a lot of time imagining what Princess Mimi’s life might be like. We decided she probably sleeps in her tiara and has a solid gold hairbrush and monogrammed toilet paper. (We also designed our own personalized TP, just in case we found out we were princesses. Mine was going to be pink leopard print and have MM on every square; Stella picked turquoise circles with one big aquamarine S in the middle. I tried to argue that turquoise and aquamarine are pretty much the same thing. Didn’t she want a little contrast? But she wouldn’t budge. When Stella gets her mind set on something, there’s no use even trying to change it.)
“Jeez,” Stella says, skimming the story. “Could Princess Mimi’s life get any better? She’s fourteen and owns an entire country. Not to mention a yacht and a plane and a stable full of horses. And she’s on the cover of a zillion magazines every single month. Can you imagine being called Your Royal Highness for real? ‘Oh, did somebody call Her Royal Highness? Yup, that’s me, right here!’ Seriously.”
“And she has front-row seats at all the fashion shows and gets driven around in a limo,” I add, forgetting all about pretend princess apprentices for a minute. We flip through a slideshow with pictures of Princess Mimi lounging on the back of a ship, loaded up with shopping bags, and riding a horse that looks exactly like Black Beauty from the movie.
“I’ll bet she never has to do chores or make her own bed,” Stella says with a sigh. “She probably even has a royal toothbrusher to do that for her.”
“She’s big-time into volunteering too,” I say, because my mom says it’s more important to focus on what people do than what they have. “She’s always helping to build a school or save a forest or deliver food to someplace you can’t pronounce. The only charity work I’ve ever done is bake oatmeal cookies for our class bake sale that time we were trying to raise money to adopt an acre of rain forest. I don’t even know what we did with that acre—or even what an acre is!”
“Whatever,” says Stella. “I’m just saying the girl’s pretty much got it made. I’d love to have her life.”
“Who wouldn’t?” I ask.
“Well, at least you’ve got that princess apprentice thing going on at school,” Stella says. “I’m sure it’s pretty much the same thing.”
“Very funny,” I say, giving her a sideways shove that sends her rolling around the floor again—the girl seriously cracks herself up—but I’m hardly paying attention anymore. Or, I think to myself, I could slip into my trusty MMBs and become actual royalty—the one and only Princess Wilhelmina of Wincastle—for a whole entire day.
“Hey, look at this!” I shout, reading the latest royal report on the website. “It says here that Princess Mimi is going to be a bridesmaid in her cousin Princess Clementine’s wedding next week.”
“What?” Stella says, sitting up to get the scoop. “That’s only going to be the royal party of the year! And Mimi gets to be right smack in the middle of it. On a scale of one to totally completely not fair, that’s like an eleventy billion.”
Stella stands up, announcing that she’s got to go home to feed Shrek, her African dwarf frog. That thing is totally lame. All he does is stick to the side of his tank like a fat green “X.” He’s not much of a pet, but he’s all she’s allowed to have since she let her hamster Peach go for a swim in the washing machine and then tried to fluff up his fur in the drier.
Rest in peace, Peach.
“Some girls have all the luck,” I tell Stella, thinking that maybe I could be one of them. At least for a day.
Chapter 4
When I Get an Offer I’d Really Like to Refuse
The next morning during science, Mrs. Shankshaw is reading from the textbook while we’re all blinking like a bunch of deer at a disco and trying to stay awake. Well, most of us are trying to stay awake—some of us, like Carl Lumberton, are sleeping with our mouths wide open, drooling on our desks.
“Cell division takes place in a series of phases or stages…” Mrs. Shankshaw continues in her brain-melting voice, until there is a knock at the door and Mr. Mooney sticks his head in.
Sweet relief! I think. Maybe we can have a fire drill or a school-wide lice screening instead of being forced to listen to the most boring teacher on the planet for another miserable minute.
“I need Duke Lumberton and Lady St. Claire for duke and princess apprentice training, please,” Mr. Mooney announces to the class with a smile and a wink. Lucy snaps her book shut, quickly gathers her things, and sails to the front of the class with a big, smug smirk on her face.
I poke Carl in the back. “Mr. Mooney wants you,” I whisper. He shoves a notebook, a highlighter, and two pencils off his desk and onto the floor when I do. It takes him forever to collect his stuff, but finally he follows Mr. Mooney and Lucy out of the room.
Seriously? These fake dukes and princesses get sprung out of class for training? Alicia says
Mr. Mooney is so gung ho about the whole thing because he was a duke back in the day, but apparently he was never elected Pinkerton Prince. All I know is I’d get trained to be a snake handler or an alligator wrangler if I could skip out on this torture.
Since I’m still newish, I don’t know any of the other girls, besides Lucy, who were chosen to be princess apprentices, but they’re not hard to spot around school. The six of them wear their tiaras all day every day, even during PE. Mr. Walters, the PE teacher, tried to get this one girl to take hers off while we played field hockey—“It’s a danger to the rest of the class!” he’d argued—but she threw a hissy fit and threatened to get Mr. Mooney involved so Mr. Walters had let it go. Apparently nobody messes with Mr. Mooney when it comes to anything having to do with the Pinkerton Ball and Royal Court.
Twenty long minutes later, the bell rings and it’s lunchtime. I love lunch. Not as much as I loved it back at Sacred Heart with the delicious homemade breads and desserts, but I’ve got a bagel with cream cheese and jelly on it today and I’ve been thinking about it all morning. I stop by my locker for my lunch bag and am heading for the lunchroom when Winnie Ipswitch stops me in the hall with a firm tap on the shoulder from behind, which kind of scares the bejeesus out of me. I don’t even know what a bejeesus is—that’s just something Grandma Flannery says when my little brother Mickey sneaks up on her while she’s sewing. My mom says that’s a really mean thing to do to an eighty-year-old woman, but Grandma Flannery is from the old country and really tough, my dad says.
“Maggie, Lucy needs to talk to you,” Winnie says, like she’s just relayed an urgent message on behalf of the royal apprentice posse.
“Oh, um, okay…” I stammer. “I’m meeting Elizabeth and Alicia for lunch at the picnic tables, so maybe after that?”
“No, not after that! She wants to talk to you now!” Winnie insists. “And anyway, Elizabeth and Alicia will be at the meeting too. So let’s go.” I haven’t been around Winnie Ipswitch too much, but she seems like the kind of kid who’d demand twenty dollars’ worth of tokens from her mom to try and scoop up a two-dollar stuffed animal with that giant claw thing at the bowling alley. She’s obviously used to getting her way, and I’m starting to worry that she might hold her breath (if she could get her lips closed over the top of her bright blue-banded braces) and start stomping her feet until I agree to do what she says.
“Oh, okay, Winnie,” I sigh, and take a deep breath.
Elizabeth and Alicia didn’t say anything about a meeting with Lucy, but whatever. I’m starving, so I dig in to the dill pickle potato chips in my lunch bag.
I follow Winnie to a small classroom where Elizabeth and Alicia are sitting at a bunch of desks pushed together, listening closely to Lucy.
“Oh, so glad you could join us, Maggie,” Lucy says like she doesn’t mean it at all.
Winnie runs over to whisper something into Lucy’s ear. “It really doesn’t matter, Winnie,” Lucy says. “I’m sure Maggie will be glad she’s here when I tell her the good news.”
Alicia looks over at me with an excited grin and I wonder what she knows.
“I’ve already explained this to Alicia and Elizabeth, who reported right on time,” Lucy says with a nod in their direction. “But I’ll go ahead and say it again for your benefit. Next time, though, I’d really appreciate it if you’d come immediately when you’re called.”
Huh? I think this apprentice business has gone to her already oversized head.
“I’ve talked it over with Mr. Mooney,” Lucy continues, “and he’s agreed to let each princess apprentice choose three handmaidens to serve them for the following princess term. Just like the apprentices serve the actual Pinkerton Princess, the handmaidens will serve us!” Lucy sits back with a wide, generous smile. “I told Mr. Mooney that it wasn’t fair that the princess apprentices should get all the glory—we should share that glory—and he agreed it was the right thing to do.”
I think I must have actually fallen asleep in Shankshaw’s class and I’m the one drooling on a desk dreaming this. Or I have really low blood sugar. My brain does go all wacky when I don’t eat. I’ll probably start getting dizzy soon—that’s what happened right before I passed out at Sacred Heart Field Day last year when I accidentally skipped breakfast and lunch.
“Wait,” I say, shaking my head, trying to focus. “Did you just say handmaidens? Aren’t those, like, servants?”
“Well of course they’re not servants,” Lucy says, like she’s offended. “Handmaidens are highly regarded helpers with very important duties, I’ll have you know. Anyway, as I was trying to say…”
“Oh, just tell them!” Winnie blurts out. “It’s so exciting!”
“I’ve chosen the three of YOU to be my handmaidens!” she finally comes out with it as Winnie tosses confetti into the air over our heads.
Alicia and Elizabeth beam with joy, hop up from the table, and run over to hug Lucy.
I pick a glittering piece of pink confetti from my lip, give my curls a shake since I know they’re a magnet for fluffy flying stuff, and try to make sense of what I’ve just heard. Before I can stop myself, the only words that my brain can form leap right out of my lips.
“Um, yeah, I’m not really sure about that.”
Everybody gasps. Then the room gets quieter than the time the whole Flannery clan had Thanksgiving at our house and three-year-old Mickey came back from the bathroom announcing to the table that he’d made a doodie. With poop all over his hands. You’ve never seen a table full of Flanneries scatter that fast. The poor kid’s never going to live that one down.
Lucy glares at me like a starving, angry wolverine.
“What. Did. You. Just. Say?”
Chapter 5
When I Find Out What It Means to Be Somebody’s Handmaiden
“Well, um, I—” I start, but Lucy cuts me right off.
“Who do you think you are?” she spits at me. “You’re brand new at this school, in case you’ve forgotten that, Maggie Whatever-your-last-name-is. I could have any girl I want to be my handmaiden, any girl in this whole school, and believe me, you were not my first choice. You weren’t even in my top one hundred. You and your other new-girl friend here are nobodies as far as I’m concerned.” Elizabeth winces like she just got slapped in the face when she hears this. “But Alicia convinced me that I should give you guys a chance. I can’t believe I ever listened to her.”
I look at Alicia, whose chlorine-water-blue eyes are brimming with tears. One blink and they’re going to be all over her face. If I don’t agree to this handmaiden business, Lucy is going to make Alicia pay for even suggesting me and Elizabeth. Big-time. Poor Elizabeth looks like she’s about to lose it too. Her usually sparkly eyes look like a basset hound’s—but way sadder, if that’s possible. Come on, Malone. Say something fast. And make it good.
“I’m sorry, Lucy,” I say.
“You should be,” she interrupts, all red-faced and furious.
“No, I’m sorry that I didn’t get to finish what I was going to say,” I add.
“Oh,” Lucy pouts, crossing her arms over her chest. My dad says that when somebody does that, it means they’re totally not even planning to give you a chance. “Go on then.”
“I think the handmaiden idea is great, really great,” I say, scrambling for some way to dig myself—and my new friends—out of this hole.
Lucy smirks, which I think is the closest thing to a smile she’s got. Her arms start to relax a little.
“I just think, you know, maybe it’s not fair to Winnie here,” I say. Nice save, Malone. Auntie Fi always says I’m great at thinking on my feet. I bet she’d be proud of me right about now.
Lucy’s arms come all the way down to her sides, then she folds her hands into a neat ball in her lap. “Oh, you don’t have to worry about Winnie,” she says. “Winnie is getting another, very special honor all her own.�
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Winnie smiles sheepishly. “I get to be Lucy’s personal serf,” she gushes. “That’s serf-with-an-e, not like surfing in the ocean. It’s a real thing. I looked it up on Wikipedia.”
Lucy St. Claire has sure got some nerve, that’s all I can say. She’ll have the whole stinking school waiting on her before this ball even kicks off! I can’t believe I’ve gotten mixed up in all of this. Stella would bust a serious gut if she was here to see this going down.
“Wow, Winnie, that’s…great,” I stammer. “You know, if that’s what you want.”
“Who wouldn’t want it?” she asks, throwing her arms around Lucy. “It’s the greatest honor of my whole entire life.”
“So,” Lucy says, pushing Winnie off her. “Does that mean you’re in, Maggie?”
Elizabeth and Alicia are looking at me pleadingly. What choice do I have?
“Do all the days of the week end in y?” I say.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Lucy barks, confused. Honestly, I don’t think she’s the sharpest crayon in the box.
“I meant, yes,” I say, not even believing it myself. “I’d be honored to be your…handmaiden.”
Elizabeth and Alicia look like they’re going to cry again—this time from relief. Lucy busts out her famously evil smirk.
“Excellent,” Lucy sighs. “Now I’ll take a corn dog and French fries. Oh, but you’ll have to cut the corn part off, because that stuff’s just nasty. Lots of ketchup too! And one of those giant chocolate chip cookies. Just tell them to put it on my account. What are you waiting for? Chop-chop! Lunch is almost over and I’m starving.” She looks at the other girls like can you believe she’s still sitting here and shakes her head before turning back to me. “Remember, Maggie, I can let you go at any time. Don’t forget that.”
Maggie Malone Gets the Royal Treatment Page 2