Anastasia Romanov: The Last Grand Duchess #10 (9 page)

Carefully, Anastasia poked the shell at the broadest end of the egg with the pin, then she inserted the pin enough so that she could mix the yolk into the egg whites. She took another pin and pierced the other end of the shell with it.

“You should let Felix do it,” Tatiana said, her eyes merry.

“I'm not going to eat a raw egg,” Felix said.

“You don't eat it!” Alex said.

Anastasia laughed. “Watch,” she said, picking up a straw and holding it over the small hole.

She took a deep breath and blew, hard, sending egg guts out the other end.

“Anastasia!” Olga said. “You're supposed to do that over the bowl.”

“Oops!” Anastasia said, unapologetically.

Maria held up a finished egg for Felix to see. It was black with large yellow flowers, red berries, and delicate green leaves painted on it.

“It's beautiful,” Felix said.

“My babushka's eggs are even more beautiful,” Alex said.

Maria added it to the basket of other eggs: deep purple ones with green, red, and blue geometric designs; black with yellow and red bees; red swirls with gold; light blue with white scrolls . . . a display of color and design like Felix had never seen before.

He couldn't help but think of the spotty pink, blue, and green eggs his family had dyed when he and Maisie were very little. His mother bought a kit from the drugstore and dropped tablets of dye in paper cups with water and white vinegar. They all wrote their names with a crayon on the egg, the name appearing as the dye took hold. The entire process took about twenty minutes, and then for the next week they had egg salad tinged blue, or deviled eggs with pink around the filling, which Felix refused to eat.

These Easter eggs were exciting to make and beautiful to look at.
Maisie would love making them, too
, he thought. But when he invited her to come downstairs the next afternoon, she refused.

“I don't want to be a third wheel,” she said, huffily.

“What are you talking about?” Felix asked, confused. “Everyone's doing it together in the salon. OTMA and—”

“Oh! It's OTMA now, is it?” Maisie said, rolling her eyes.

Of course Felix had gotten all cozy with the Grand Duchesses while she lay in bed recuperating.
Just like in school
, Maisie thought with a familiar pang. Everyone loved Felix, and she was an interloper.

“That's just what they call themselves,” Felix explained.

“I don't even like dyeing Easter eggs,” Maisie said. “We used to do it, you know. When we were little.”

“Of course I remember that,” Felix said kindly. “But this is different.”

He held out one of the eggs he'd decorated.

“Look,” he said. “I made this one for you.”

Maisie frowned at the fancy egg in his hand. It was the prettiest shade of blue and covered with white flowers that had red centers and a trellis of pale green leaves running around it.

“You made that?” she said, even more miserable now.

Somehow Felix had learned to make these gorgeous eggs, and if she went downstairs everyone would be decorating eggs, except her. She wouldn't have a clue where to begin.

As if he'd read her mind, Felix said, “I'll teach you how to do it. It's really not too hard. You should see the ones Alex made. And you get to blow the yolks out of a tiny hole in the egg! That part is really fun.”

That part did sound like fun, Maisie had to admit. But still, she was tired of always being the one who walked into a group that was friends, having to prove herself somehow.

“Maybe tomorrow,” she said, and closed her eyes to signal the conversation was over.

After she heard Felix leave, she opened her eyes again.

He'd placed the decorated egg on the table beside the bed. When Maisie picked it up, she was surprised how light it was, as if it weren't an egg at all.

“I think,” Anastasia said, her voice low, “this one is the most beautiful of all.”

Felix watched as she took a Fabergé egg down from a mantel on which a dozen others sat. This egg was blue, green, and yellow, with thin silver lines running across it.

Anastasia traced the silver lines.

“This is Siberia,” she said, “and these lines are the route of the railroad.”

“Wow,” Felix said, impressed.

“Papa was the chairman of the railway committee that built the Great Siberian Railway,” Anastasia explained.

“Isn't he the chairman of everything?” Felix asked.

Anastasia looked delighted.

“I suppose he is!” she said.

She sat cross-legged on the floor and patted the spot beside her for Felix to sit.

When he did, she said, “Mr. Fabergé made this in 1900, to commemorate the railroad.”

Anastasia touched the golden two-headed eagle at the top of the egg, and to Felix's surprise the top lifted.

“Look,” Anastasia said, excited to show him the surprise inside.

Felix could not believe what he saw when he did as she asked.

Inside was a train with five cars and a locomotive, all of it only about a foot long and less than an inch wide.

“It's the Siberian Express!” Anastasia said with delight, clapping her hands together.

She held up a gold key.

“Play with it,” she told Felix, handing him the key.

“Really?” he asked.

Anastasia nodded and Felix turned the key, illuminating the diamond that made the headlights of the gold and silver locomotive.

“Turn it again!” Anastasia said, excitedly.

When Felix did, the locomotive began to pull the five cars.

“That's the baggage car, and the ladies car, and that one is our car!” she explained, pointing as each moved past.

“And the one with the cross is the church car,” she continued. “See the gold bells on the roof?”

“This is amazing!” Felix said.

Miss Landers had told the class to only say
awesome
when something truly inspired awe, and to only say
amazing
when one was truly amazed. He decided this was the kind of thing that earned both awesome and amazing.

From the mantel, the top of another egg flew open and a bejeweled rooster emerged on a platform, flapping its wings and crowing.

Felix stared at it.

“Awesome!” he said.

As he watched the rooster sink back down into the egg, his eye caught sight of something familiar.

There on the mantel, with all the other Fabergé eggs, sat the one he and Maisie had brought with them.

Now that he had found it, he just had to figure out how to get it back.

“What's your problem?” Alex Andropov asked Maisie.

His nose was peeling and his cheeks were pink from sunburn.

“I don't remember inviting you into my room,” Maisie said. “In fact, I don't remember inviting you to Russia!”

Rather than getting angry or offended, Alex smiled at Maisie.

“Easter begins tonight,” he said. “It's the most important celebration of the year.”

“So?”

“So you have to get out of bed and celebrate,” Alex said patiently. “Aunt Alex—”

“She's your aunt now? The Empress?”

“She's always been my aunt,” he reminded Maisie. “And she's worked tirelessly to prepare for Easter here, and you need to show up.”

Maisie sighed. “I know,” she mumbled.

Alex sat on the edge of her bed, looking worried.

“What's wrong? I mean, other than your arm?”

“My arm is actually better,” Maisie admitted.

“Then what?”

“For some reason, I always get left out,” Maisie said. “And now if I show up, everyone will have private jokes and know things I don't know and . . . they even have memories together already that I'll never share.”

Saying it out loud made her worries seem dumb.

“I know it's dumb,” Maisie said.

Alex laughed softly.

“I don't think it's dumb at all,” he said. “I feel that way all the time. I miss so much school, and when I'm there I never know what anyone's talking about or what's going on in class. That's why I got so excited when you said you were interested in Imperial Russia,” he added, his cheeks growing pinker. “I thought,
Finally someone who likes something I like.
”

Alex had been looking down at the floor as he spoke. But now he looked at Maisie.

“Now
that
sounds dumb,” he said.

“No!” Maisie said. “No! I get it! I do!”

“Will you come to the Easter celebration if I promise to stick by your side? I'll be sure you won't feel left out,” Alex said.

Maisie couldn't say no.

“All right,” she said. “But if you go off with a Grand Duchess or two and leave me behind, you'll be sorry.”

“The festivities start at midnight,” Alex said, heading toward the door.

“Midnight?” Maisie repeated to herself.

Alex stayed true to his word. He even explained all the traditions to her.

“Imagine,” he said, his eyes shining, “all across Russia everyone is doing these very things.”

Maisie thought of how big Russia was, spreading across the wall in the Map Room at Elm Medona.
It's impressive
, she thought,
that cathedrals and houses everywhere in this enormous country are saying the same prayers and eating these same foods
.

Eating seemed to be a very important part of Easter here. All night and the next morning, the Tsar and Tsarina hosted hundreds of people, serving food from enormous tables and giving their guests three kisses.

“One for blessing,” Alex explained, “one for welcome, and one for joy.”

He brought Maisie extra helpings of the creamy dessert she liked, and also made sure she tasted the Easter cake topped with white frosting. He even tried to teach her a Russian dance that involved lots of kicking and spinning, but Maisie's legs got tangled together, and she got so dizzy trying to keep up with Alex when she spun around that she knocked into two other dancers. Usually, something like that would make her feel embarrassed, but the dancers and Alex just laughed good-naturedly. “Maybe no more spinning,” Alex said. Instead, he concentrated on trying to teach her the secret to such rapid kicking.

Even though Maisie had a good time, she hardly saw Felix during the entire celebration. He was swept away by Anastasia, sending Maisie a wave across the banquet table and a shrug as he helped hand out Easter eggs to the schoolchildren of Yalta who filed in the next morning. If it wasn't for Alex Andropov, Maisie decided, she would have had another terrible time, and Felix would have been clueless, as usual.

When the festivities were finally over and everyone went to rest, Felix passed Maisie in the hallway. He was, of course, following Anastasia.

“Wasn't that great?” he asked Maisie.

He didn't wait for her to answer. He just kept walking.

“It was great!” Maisie shouted after him.

Anastasia turned and grinned at Maisie.

“Just wait until we leave for Finland next month,” she said. “That's lots of fun, too.”