Notebooks of a Middle-School Princess Bridesmaid-in-Training Read online

  ‘You did it, Gunther,’ Luisa said. ‘And we all know it. So you might as well admit it.’

  But I knew Gunther didn’t do it, because Luisa’s the only one who ever says ‘kee-yow’ (except for me, but I only did it once, by mistake).

  I don’t know why she’d do something so mean. Maybe because Queen Amina said she liked my drawings and didn’t pay enough attention to her boring story about her reception gown with the detachable skirt?

  Or maybe because her pretend boyfriend doesn’t really like her?

  Oh yes, I said it! I said Khalil is Luisa’s pretend boyfriend, because I haven’t seen any proof yet that Prince Khalil even likes her!

  But whatever. I know Luisa did it! And what Luisa was doing – accusing Gunther of drawing that picture, when I knew he didn’t – wasn’t fair!

  ‘Luisa,’ I started to say. ‘Why don’t you just—’

  But right then Monsieur Montclair came into the classroom, a mug of steaming coffee in his hands. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, what is all this shouting? I could hear you down the hallway. You are hardly deporting yourself like young royals.’

  ‘Look what Prince Gunther did, Monsieur!’ Luisa cried, showing him the drawing.

  ‘No,’ Gunther said desperately. ‘I did not do it!’

  Monsieur Montclair took one look at the picture and said with a tired sigh, ‘Prince Gunther, please go and pay a visit to Madame Alain in her office. The rest of you, get in your dance positions. Mademoiselle Justine is on her way.’

  I saw Prince Gunther’s face crumple.

  ‘No!’ he said. ‘This is third strike for me! Madame Alain said if I get one more strike, I have to go back to Stockerdörfl. Then my parents will put me in The Royal Academy in Switzerland.’

  Everyone gasped in horror at the idea of an RGA student having to attend horrible TRAIS. Meanwhile, Gunther picked up his backpack and walked glumly towards the door, his head hanging.

  ‘Well, auf Wiedersehen, everyone,’ he said.

  I felt so bad for him! He isn’t my favourite person or anything. He isn’t even in my top fifty favourite people.

  But I don’t hate him or think it’s fair for him to get in trouble for something he didn’t do.

  ‘Luisa,’ I whispered, poking her, ‘I know it was you who made that drawing! Why would you do that?’

  ‘To help you, of course,’ she said, looking wide-eyed with innocence. ‘Now you don’t have to worry about the Flexer. You don’t even have to learn the steps to the dance, because you don’t have to be in it, since you don’t have a partner any more. See?’ She smiled. ‘I’m a true royal, just like your sister, who everyone says is going to save Genovia from economic ruin. Prego, Olivia.’

  Prego means You’re welcome in Italian. Uggggh!

  ‘Luisa, when I need your help, I’ll ask for it, OK?’ I raised my hand. ‘Uh, Monsieur Montclair, may I be excused?’

  He sipped his coffee, looking very bored. ‘Yes, Princess Olivia, you may be excused, but next time remember to use the bathroom before class begins, OK?’

  More ugghhh! Why did he have to bring up the bathroom in front of everyone? Like Prince Khalil? Hadn’t I been humiliated enough in one morning?

  Anyway, I’m in Madame Alain’s office now . . . or really, the waiting room to her office, where her assistant is playing a video game on his computer but pretending like he’s working.

  Prince Gunther was totally surprised to see me, which I can understand, seeing as how everyone else thinks he drew a mean picture of me.

  ‘Princess Olivia,’ he said. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I know it wasn’t you who drew that picture, Gunther,’ I said.

  ‘But . . . but . . . how?’ he asked.

  I didn’t want to say Because only my cousin Luisa says kee-yow, because that would be tattling on Luisa.

  Instead I said, ‘I just do. When Madame Alain gets here, I’ll tell her so.’

  Prince Gunther looked even more surprised. ‘You . . . you will? Why would you do this for me?’

  I couldn’t believe he didn’t know. ‘Because, Gunther. This is royalty school. We’re supposed to do the right thing. I mean, even if we weren’t royal, we’re still supposed to tell the truth. And the truth is, you didn’t do it.’

  Gunther looked down at his lap. I thought I saw disappointment on his face. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I thought . . . I thought maybe you liked me or something.’

  EWWWWWWWWWW!!!! The Flexer thinks I like him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  This is the reward you get for trying to be nice: A green-haired, bogey-flinging prince will think that you like him.

  Then it got even worse. Because after I got over trying not to die, I said, ‘Uh, well, it’s not that, exactly, Gunther. It’s just that . . .’

  ‘Because,’ Prince Gunther looked up to say, ‘I really like you. You’re not like the other girls in this school.’

  I did not like the way this conversation was going. ‘Well, Gunther, that’s very nice, but—’

  ‘Yes. You’re like me.’ He showed me his shower sandals and kneesocks. ‘You aren’t afraid to be different. You wear shorts. And glasses. You don’t care what people say. I think that’s cool.’

  UGGHHH! The Flexer thinks I like him, and even worse, the Flexer likes me back because he thinks I like to take fashion risks (which I do, but mostly because I like to dress for comfort, unless I’m attending an important state function)!

  No! No, no, no!

  I’m trying to remember what Grandmère and my sister told me to say in these kinds of situations. Surely there has to be some sort of rule that royals follow when someone says they like them but they don’t like that person back. What’s the right thing to say in return?

  Thanks, but no thanks? That seems rude.

  Thanks, but I just want to be friends? That seems better.

  The sad part is, Grandmère and I have never talked about what I should say if a green-haired, bogey-flinging prince tells me that he likes me – and thinks I like him back!

  Because this is not a situation I ever imagined would happen!

  AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

  Wednesday 17 June 11.25 a.m.

  Royal Genovian Academy

  Phew! Thank goodness that’s over.

  Though now I’m actually worse off than before, really. Grandmère says when you’re in a bad situation and you make a poor decision that only puts you in a worse situation, it’s called ‘jumping from the frying pan into the fire’.

  (Though whenever she says this, Dad always laughs and says, ‘Mother, when have you ever cooked?’)

  Still, that’s what I’ve just done with Prince Gunther . . . jumped from the frying pan into the fire.

  I was getting all ready to say the politest thing I could think of – which was:

  ‘Well, Gunther, I do like you – as a FRIEND’ – when the door to Madame Alain’s office opened and she finally came in from her meeting (except that I noticed she had a lot of shopping bags. Genovia is known for its fine shopping, so I can understand, but I’m not sure it’s right for the head of a school – even a school for modern young royals – to go shopping during school hours).

  So then I couldn’t give my speech to Gunther because instead I had to tell Madame Alain that there’d been a terrible mistake and that Prince Gunther was innocent.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Madame Alain said, looking down at the drawing, which Monsieur Montclair had given to the administrative assistant to give to her as evidence of Gunther’s crime. ‘It certainly LOOKS like Prince Gunther’s work.’

  ‘Well, it’s not,’ I said, horribly aware the whole time that Prince Gunther was staring at me with big lovey-dovey hearts in his eyes, probably planning OUR royal wedding.

  ‘Princess Olivia,’ Madame Alain said, ‘I know you’re only trying to protect your new classmate because you want to fit in and don’t care to make waves your first week. But I can assure you that this isn’t the first time Prince Gunther has done something like this.
He’s been warned that if he did it again, he’d be expelled.’

  ‘But I didn’t do it!’ Gunther cried, turning his big moon eyes on Madame Alain.

  ‘Prince Gunther,’ Madame Alain said, holding his drawing towards him. ‘Please don’t lie. It isn’t becoming of your royal status. Your father would be very disappointed in you. Now, this is obviously your work.’

  ‘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. ‘OK, 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, OK, 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 towards 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!!!

  Goodbye, frying pan. Hello, fire.

  Wednesday 17 June 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 bogeys 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 transferred 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 practised 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?’

&n
bsp; ‘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 terrible! 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?