“Well, he should,” Trista said, way too loudly. “Considering his life might depend on it.”
“Shh!” I hissed. “I’m pretty sure we get disqualified if it sounds like we’re threatening to kill judges!” I glanced around to see who might’ve heard. My blood froze. Lily Lund was lurking outside the open sliding paneled door, eyes locked on us.
“Don’t turn now, you two, but look who’s in the hall,” I whispered.
Trista turned immediately. “Oh, man,” she said, as Grace slyly took her own peek. My legs felt shaky as I wondered whether Lily could be scoping out her next target.
“You think Barb’s sent her to spy?” Grace whispered.
Before I could answer, Marissa Pritchard appeared in front of us, peering out from under the fringe of her ruler-straight blond bangs. “I think it’s awesome you went with a natural look for the auditions, Sophie.” Her understanding of awesome sounded like it involved mopping up cat vomit.
“Oh no, Marissa!” Lauren Sparrow stopped short on her way to greet a group of girls coming through the doorway. In her bright sundress, she almost could have passed for one of the Court. It was hard to believe that Barb, not she, had once been Queen. She frowned and tapped a spot near the corner of her mouth. “You’ve got a little something here. Lipstick smudge, maybe?”
Ms. Sparrow swiveled back to us as Marissa furiously rubbed at her cheek. “So glad you all decided to try out,” she said with a wink. “We could use some celebrities in the mix!”
Marissa’s poufy dress might have actually deflated a little. Grace had to duck her chin into her shoulder to hide her smile.
The Royal Court huddled by a podium set up by the fireplace, nervously adjusting each other’s tiaras and smoothing down their dresses. Jardine Thomas sucked in a deep breath, then jingled a tiny brass bell. The buzzing crowd quieted.
“Okay, everyone. Let’s get this party started,” she said, sounding more like a business official than the newly crowned Sun Queen. Maybe she was trying to play it cool, but her eyes glistened with excitement and her hands were trembling. Sienna and Kendra stood next to her, shoulders thrown back, beaming proudly.
“Today is totally chill,” Jardine continued. Sienna and Kendra nodded. “Remember, whether you’re chosen as a royal page or not, we’re all one big family here at the Festival.”
“Totally,” Sienna echoed, eyeing Jardine’s tiara warily. It definitely looked like it could take another tumble.
“Just relax, mingle, and we’ll come around to get to know you better. It’s supercasual!” Kendra Pritchard sang out. She whipped out a small notepad and uncapped her pen like she was drawing a sword from a sheath.
Grace, Trista, and I traded looks.
“Supercasual,” I whispered. Dread crept through me.
Trista shrugged, gave a small salute, and waded into the crowd. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d put on her welding helmet and actually flipped down the plastic safety mask first.
Grace squeezed my hand before heading off herself.
The crowd whirled into action as if a stage curtain had risen. Mr. Zimball, Ms. Sparrow, and the Court fanned through the room to evaluate us. I turned to chart my course through the mob and nearly ran smack into Marissa Pritchard. Her lips pulled back in a broad smile.
No doubt about it. This was war.
Before I could slip away from Marissa, Sienna Connors floated over. “Hey, you’re Jake’s sister, right?” she asked, tossing her light-brown hair over one shoulder. “I have math with him.” She let out a goofy laugh that relaxed me, even with Marissa Pritchard hovering at my elbow. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad, after all.
“So, you guys do any sports?”
“Tai chi,” I said. “It’s a martial art,” I added hurriedly.
“Cool,” Sienna said. “Your team make it to regionals?”
“It’s not really a team sp—” I began. “Um, no,” I corrected myself. “Not this year.”
“Tai chi?” Marissa’s forehead creased. “That’s, like, superslow karate?”
I stiffened. “Actually, you can speed up the movements and—”
“That’s so cute,” Marissa prattled over me. “At the senior home where I volunteer they do tai chi too. And Aqua Zumba, which is like Zumba but, you know, in the pool?”
I stared straight at Sienna in hopes we could both pretend Marissa was a figment of our imaginations. “Soccer players train with tai chi sometimes,” I lied. “Quickens the reflexes.”
“Yeah?” Sienna repeated, but her eyes had already glazed over.
I grabbed a paper cup of pink lemonade from the tray and downed it in one gulp.
“So, ladies,” Ms. Sparrow’s voice rang out behind me. She was talking to Danica and Denise, who I was seriously beginning to suspect were actually conjoined twins. They’d yet to stand more than an inch apart. “Toughest question yet.” Her eyes twinkled as she held out a tray of cupcakes. “Vanilla? Or chocolate?”
Danica and Denise looked at each other and giggled. “One of each, please,” said Danica.
“We’ll share,” said Denise as her spaghetti straps fell for the hundredth time.
I held in a sigh and scanned the room for Grace. I was done going it alone. It took me a moment to find her. She blended in almost too well. She was clustered in a group around Jardine Thomas. It looked like any one of them could make the perfect page, right down to their cute shoes. Trista stood a little off to the side. I slipped closer.
“The Festival looks for kids with a unique style. People who aren’t afraid to stand out,” Jardine said. From the way she was looking at Trista’s cargo-jacket Girl Scout getup, I was guessing that wasn’t exactly the unique style she had in mind. “But we need practical style, too. Form and function. When you’re up on a parade float in front of thousands, beauty emergencies can strike, you know? We need to be ready.”
The group murmured as if they’d had years of experience with parade-float beauty emergencies.
“So. How would you help a Royal Court member accessorize on parade day?” Jardine finished.
Two hands shot up. Jardine called on gorgeous Anna Sayers, whose mom had been an actual model. She had to be one of the likeliest picks for royal page. But Anna flushed red and froze.
The group shifted uncomfortably. Jardine looked ready to end Anna’s misery by calling on someone else.
“A backpack!” Anna blurted out at last. “I think it’d be awesome to celebrate Luna Vista as a beach town with maybe a sea-creature backpack? Like, you know, maybe a miniturtle with a hard shell? That flips open and inside has all the essentials?”
Even Trista wrinkled her nose.
“Cool, thanks,” Jardine said. She looked around. “Anyone else?”
“With like, maybe really skinny straps, I guess . . . so it doesn’t hide your dresses. Or maybe it should be a pelican with a beak that hinges open and it’d be sooo funny. . . .” Anna couldn’t help herself. She’d be muttering about sea-creature accessories decades from now, when they wheeled her away to the old folks’ home. No amount of words or ideas could save that disaster.
“Maybe something a little, uh, smaller might work?” Grace piped in delicately. She pulled a star-shaped tin of lip gloss from her pocket. “These come in all kinds of shapes. Maybe we can find one like a Coral Beauty rose, drill a hole in it, and put it on a chain. Then it’s like a really cool necklace. We could even use root-beer-flavored gloss, for fun!”
Jardine looked seriously impressed. So impressed, in fact, that as the crowd broke up she and some of the others stayed huddled around Grace to chat more as Anna Sayers glowered at everyone. Jardine and her friends checked out the earrings Grace had made out of colored paper clips. Sienna, who’d just joined, snuck out her phone to snap a picture to upload to her feed. Grace tried to look casual as they oohed and ahhed, but she knew she’d rocked it. So did everyone else.
Meanwhile, Kendra Pritchard had cornered Trista—or tried to, anyway. Trista rested one arm
on a wing chair casually as she fielded questions in her booming voice. Grace pulled herself away from the earring lovefest long enough to notice. She shot me a nervous look, muttered a quick excuse, and we both made a beeline to make a rescue.
“Okay, Scenario C,” Kendra said solemnly, pencil poised above her notepad. “It’s fifteen minutes before the parade starts. The queen has a run in her stocking. What do you do?”
Trista pursed her lips. “Piece of cake. Nylon’s a synthetic polymer. Fuse the plastic fibers with low heat. Maybe high-frequency electromagnetic welding, if you’ve got the equipment.” She slapped the top of the helmet she still held at her side. “Then you’re good to go.”
Kendra squinted. “Welding?”
“Great idea!” Grace chimed in, throwing an arm around Trista. “Wish I were smart enough to think of that.”
“Hard to top,” I added.
Trista shrugged. “I know.”
Kendra looked confused and tucked her notebook away without writing a word. Grace and I both sighed in relief as she moved on to the next cluster of girls. Trista pulled out her phone and sank into the armchair to settle in for another round of TrigForce Five.
“So, Ms. Yang, Ms. Bottoms,” I said, holding out an invisible microphone to Grace and Trista as I put on my smoothest pretend middle-aged pageant-judge voice. “What do you think is the most essential quality for a royal page?”
“That’s easy,” Grace bit her lip mischievously. “Grace!”
“Yesss! Nice one.” I slapped her five. Trista reached out for a high five without taking her eyes off her video game.
“Oh shoot!” rang out a cry behind us. It was Jardine. She held up one hand helplessly. “I broke a nail!”
Marissa Pritchard sprang into action before it even dawned on the rest of us that Jardine was testing our royal page–skills. But as she sped to the rescue, her knee bumped the end table by the couch. Marissa turned, horrified, as an expensive-looking porcelain vase on top of it tipped and—after some uncertain wobbling—somersaulted over the edge. As it hurtled toward the hardwood floor, I lunged low into Needle at Sea Bottom, arm extended.
It landed square in my palm with a satisfying slap.
“Tai chi,” I explained to an openmouthed Marissa as I set the vase back on the table. “Quickens the reflexes.”
“Whoa.” Sienna Connors’ eyes went wide.
I spun back around and sauntered over to Grace and Trista, who stared at the floor and gulped in deep breaths to keep from laughing out loud.
“Wow, Sophie.” Grace locked her eyes on Marissa Pritchard and, raising her voice, added a perfect imitation of Marissa’s earlier sneer. “That was awesome.”
I fought to hide my grin, but it spread across my face like a wave breaking.
As the judges disappeared to make their decision, I slipped to the first floor restroom to splash water on my face and try to calm down. I knew I’d done it. I was in—whether I’d wanted to be or not. The next day I’d be in one of the mansion bedrooms upstairs, unpacking my T-shirts and researching how to remove Royal Court underarm sweat stains from silk.
All while chasing down a murderer.
Piece of cake, as Trista would say.
I zipped up my hoodie, smoothed my hair and was about to head back to the living room when I noticed the row of minibottles of Pretty Perfect moisturizer lined along the counter like soldiers at the ready. I smiled to myself and snatched one up. Give us ten weeks and we’ll take off ten years, the slogan on the front read. Since I looked about ten, unless it was possible to look zero years old, I’d probably be able to sue them for false advertising. Still, I squirted a little on my hand. It felt so velvety and smooth. Royal, I thought to myself as I rubbed it into my cheeks.
I slipped out the door and was sauntering down the hall, imagining my “pretty perfect” glow and smugly replaying Marissa’s look of defeat, when I heard hushed voices in the alcove by the back stairway.
I inched closer to hear and peered around the corner. I could only see who was talking from the knees down, but I immediately recognized the tiny brass buttons with the anchor imprints on the lady’s blue shoes. It was Lauren Sparrow.
“Having town heroes as pages in an anniversary year could be really fun. It would be great publicity,” Sparrow’s cheerful chirp rang out. I knew she’d be pulling for us. That wink after she’d put Marissa in her place hadn’t been an eye twitch. “But maybe it’s best to have them ride in the lead car instead?” she finished.
I almost tripped over the Oriental rug.
“That’s an interesting thought,” a deep voice rumbled in reply. It had to be Mr. Zimball.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Ms. Sparrow continued. “I think they’d be fantastic. Grace Yang’s a gem. She’d fit in perfectly. And Sophie and Trista are great kids. It’s just . . . I’m worried for them.”
Heat prickled across my body. I saw myself in her eyes. My rambling about tai chi. My dirty jeans. My stupid babyish freckles. The way my feet barely touched the floor when I sat in one of those pretty antique chairs with the pale pinstripes. I fixed my eyes on the anchors on Ms. Sparrow’s shoe clasps and wished I could sail away someplace where no one could find me.
“I know what you mean, Lauren. Kids can be so cruel, can’t they?” Mr. Zimball said, and it felt like I’d been stabbed through the heart. It might as well have been Rod himself agreeing. “I have to admit, I’d thought about it too. They aren’t the most, uh, conventional picks.”
“On the other hand, I’m positive I could help them along.” Ms. Sparrow sounded genuinely concerned, which somehow made me feel doubly worse. “A touch of mascara, some wardrobe changes. Maybe some wedges for Sophie to give her some inches? They’re diamonds in the rough, but they could really shine.”
“I bet you could work wonders, Lauren. But I agree. We do have to take the other girls’ reactions into account.” Mr. Zimball sighed heavily.
I couldn’t listen to another word. So I couldn’t tie a scarf. And I looked terrible in big satiny dresses. But was I really that far from royal-page material? My legs felt like blocks of lead as I forced them down the hall and back to the living room. Heads turned as I slipped through the door, and I was suddenly certain everyone knew exactly why my cheeks were so red. In truth, they were all too busy scrambling for seats to wait for the judges’ announcement. Grace was crammed onto the sofa in the center of the room, laughing with Danica and Denise. The brass lamp on the end table reflected a hundred of her smiles back to me. In a minute, all hundred of those smiles would crumble. I turned away.
As Mr. Zimball, Ms. Sparrow, and the Royal Court swept in grinning, Marissa slid to the edge of her seat, no doubt hoping her sister pulled some strings and got her voted on. Grace scanned the room for me, flashing me a secret thumbs-up as soon as she caught my eye. My stomach lurched.
“This was so hard, everyone. You are all such amazing young ladies,” Ms. Sparrow said. Her eyes met mine and darted away again. “However, I’m pleased to announce we’ve made a decision.”
Chapter Eleven
(Dis)orientation
When Lauren Sparrow announced that Danica and Denise Delgado were the first new royal pages in the 125th anniversary Winter Sun Festival Royal Court, they jumped up and exchanged some sort of special, crazy twin handshake that—not surprisingly—shook their spaghetti straps loose.
I don’t know if it was because their shrieks were so loud or because I was determined to tune out my certain humiliation, but I was still mesmerized by the over-the-top Delgado twin celebration going down when the girl next to me nudged me. “Don’t they mean you?” She jerked her head to the front of the room where Grace was already shaking hands with Mr. Zimball and Ms. Sparrow.
As I walked up in a daze, Sienna Connors leaned into the microphone. “And, lastly . . . uh, Bottoms?” she read, squinting uncertainly.
“That’d be Trista,” Lauren Sparrow said with a smile that looked more like a worried cringe. “Trista Bottoms.”
>
As Trista picked up her helmet and marched forward, Marissa heaved a sigh so forceful it might have actually propelled distant sailboats across Luna Vista Bay. “Figures,” she hissed.
“We’re thrilled to have some true Luna Vista heroes serving our Court this year!” Mr. Zimball added.
“Thanks to all of you for trying out,” Jardine said. “This was totally not easy.”
“I’d even say it was superhard,” Kendra added, shooting her sister a helpless look.
“You were all crazy awesome?” Sienna lied, her voice tilting up. “But let’s hear it for our new royal pages!”
Stray raindrops spattering against a window would have been louder than the crowd’s applause.
When my family pulled into the Ridley Mansion’s long horseshoe-shaped driveway the next morning, the queen and princesses already stood on the terrace steps, the breeze rippling against their skirts as they giggled excitedly and posed for pictures with the tons of high school friends who’d come to see them off.
“I’m so proud of you, Sophie!” my dad said, beaming as my mom pulled our minivan to the curb.
“I always knew we’d see a Young in the Festival one day,” Grandpa added with a nod.
My stomach twisted into knots as I spotted Ms. Sparrow walking toward our car, smiling and waving. There were roughly three million things I wanted to do more than get out of that minivan. Eat live worms. Drink rancid milk. Roll in a thicket of poison ivy.
I thought of Mr. Zimball’s relaxed, clueless smile and steeled myself. That morning I’d heard my parents talking about how Mr. Lee still hadn’t been released from the hospital. They were puzzled about why he wasn’t stable yet, but my mom reminded my dad about an AmStar colleague who’d spent three solid days in the hospital when he’d collapsed from dehydration and overwork. I could hardly expect them to jump to theories about slow-acting poison, but still, it reminded me that if a killer really was out there, the adults wouldn’t realize anything was wrong until it was too late. I had to go into that mansion.
“You know, I always regretted not trying out for royal pages,” my mom said, unbuckling her seat belt and turning around to look at me. A lock of her brown hair fell over her eyes, and she brushed it away again. “My senior year in high school, every single girl chosen for the Court had been a page in middle school. I didn’t stand a chance.”
The Tiara on the Terrace Page 8