The Tiara on the Terrace (10 page)

“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.”

W
hen 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.”

Grandpa reached out from the seat next to me and patted my shoulder. “Good tactics, soldier. Leaving your options open.”

“Question,” Jake piped up from the way back. In one five-minute ride, he'd managed to make the entire van smell like feet. It was a talent of his. “If Sophie's royalty now, does that make me a duke or something?”

“More like a dork,” I mumbled.

“Watch it, Soph,” My dad twisted around in the passenger seat and looked stern. “You're a role model now.”

Jake made a face at me as soon my dad turned away. I smiled a sickly sweet smile that I hoped conveyed I'd be sneaking into his room to de-alphabetize his vinyl record collection the minute I was home—which couldn't be soon enough.

Grandpa slid open the van door and hopped out like he was still a paratrooper dropping behind enemy lines, which is exactly what spilling out onto that mansion driveway in last summer's purple sundress felt like. He wrapped me in a hug that left me smelling like Old Spice. “Remember,
Sophie.
Semper Fidelis
,” he said. “Always loyal.” Grandpa hadn't been a marine, but his army regiment in the Korean War had had the same motto, and he quoted it a lot. I was a little confused about why he was saying it then, though.

“You bet, Grandpa,” I said, playing along. Then he pressed something into my hands. I looked down and felt a little teary. He'd given me the metal dog tags he'd worn in the army.

“I know these will come in handy,” he said while my dad looked on doubtfully. “Now knock 'em dead!” Then, perhaps realizing someone had recently literally been knocked dead, he added, “Er, I mean—show 'em what you're made of!”

“Page Young! Welcome to the 125th Royal Court,” Ms. Sparrow swept one arm out in greeting. If I hadn't have heard her in the hall after auditions, I never would've known she was worried about me fitting in. “I knew you had great taste,” she added with wink, looking down at her own purple sundress.

As she chitchatted with my parents, reassuring them that she'd be staying with us on the mansion premises at all times, Grace and her parents pulled in. I waved, but Grace was sunk low in her seat, as if she were a celebrity hiding from paparazzi. When she finally emerged, she kept her head ducked, eyes darting toward the high schoolers. Dread
seeped through me as I tried to figure out what was so off about her. I'd never seen such a strange look on her face. Had she found out something awful about Harrison Lee?

I heard a hiss of tires on pavement and turned to see Trista Bottoms' family humming past in an electric vehicle prototype that they were testing for AmStar. Trista's little sister, Tatiana, practically flew out of the car before they parked, then pirouetted around the Ridley Mansion lawn like she was auditioning for a dance show. Apart from her ripped ballet tutu and sparkly T-shirt, she was a perfect seven-year-old version of Trista's mom, who was tall and willowy and had light-brown skin that was always darker after they came back from vacations visiting her family in Brazil. Trista had her mom's mane of dark-brown curls and complexion, but apart from that she looked exactly like very wide, very white Mr. Bottoms.

I was still trying to read the strange expression on Grace's face when I noticed the Delgado twins spilling out of their family's SUV. Their mom appeared and hovered over them, fixing their already perfect hair while their father strolled over to talk to some Brown Suiters helping with luggage.

I looked over at Grace. She held her arm around her mom's waist like Dr. Yang was a balloon that might drift
away and shrink to a speck in the sky. I turned back to my own mom—her blue eyes shining as she helped me wheel my luggage to the steps. A knot swelled in my throat as it hit me: Grace was scared. Maybe she'd crowed about freedom and how perfect it was that our parents were supposed to back off and let us “bond,” but she sure didn't feel that way now. And neither did I. I was scared, too. Scared everyone would think I was a loser, like Ms. Sparrow had thought. Scared of spending every minute with all these older girls—these cooler girls who expected us to serve their every need. But it wasn't just that. I hated the idea of being away from my family for a whole weekend. No playing Uno with Grandpa after finishing my homework. No trying to do the crossword puzzle in the morning with my mom. No listening to dad's totally exaggerated stories about work crises. No Jake being Jake. Sure, maybe when he heard I'd made pages he snorted so hard that an actual booger flew out of his nose and onto my shoes, but I was going to miss him and our silly wars over nothing. Smelling his feet was probably a zillion times better than filing down calluses on Kendra's.

Add in the potential for a homicidal maniac to be lurking somewhere in the mansion, and I was already homesick.

“Mom?” I glanced nervously at the high schoolers milling behind us. Jake was joking around with them.

“Yeah?” Her eyes filled with concern.

“This sounds really dumb, but I'm a little scared because—”

“Oh, Soph, you're going to have the time of your life,” my mom interrupted with a wave of her hand. “With your best friend? A whole long weekend? Being taken around to fancy events?” Her eyes sparkled. “It's not really just about serving the Court, you know.”

She smoothed my hair behind my ear and planted a kiss on my cheek. “You'll be home in no time, sweetie.”

Just then I noticed Grace signaling to me. She still looked frightened, but now there was a determined gleam in her eye.

Front steps
, she mouthed, jerking her head to the mansion.

Trista caught our eyes from the lawn, where her mom and dad were basically running a professional photo shoot with her and Tati. She quickly said her good-byes, slung her army-green duffel bag onto one shoulder, and marched over, leaving her mom and dad looking a little sniffly as they watched her go.

“Thanks, mom,” I said as the rest of my family gathered around for one last farewell. I wanted to give them all big sloppy hugs, but I felt the eyes of all the high schoolers
trained on us. It was mortifying enough standing there in my too-small dress that my mom had dug out from deep in my closet. “See you guys at the Festival!” I called out cheerfully and ducked away, following Grace up the steps and joining her behind the pillar right in front of the mansion door.

“What is it?” I whispered, darting a nervous glance toward the Brown Suiter placing a vase of Coral Beauty roses onto the table in the marble entryway.

“We need a plan,” she said.

Trista joined us. “So,” she said, casually but not at all quietly. “What's first? Need me to monkey with the alarm system? I already know the code: 1890. Year of the Festival's founding. The Brown Suiters have been tossing it around all week like nobody's business.”

“Good to know,” Grace said. “I'm thinking we hit up Mr. Steptoe's office first.”

“Won't that look suspicious?” I asked. “As soon as we get in, we're snooping around the victim's office?”

“Not if we play it right,” Grace said. “We have to be on alert for openings. First chance we have, see if you can get some cleaning supplies and meet on the third floor. We'll act like someone asked us to do some tidying up.”

“Roger,” I said.

Trista looked impressed. “Sounds good. And, just to be clear up front, there's not a chance in the universe I'm going to put on a dress and ride that float on parade day. Like, never. Unless they drug me and tie me to one of those dolphins.”

“Don't worry,” Grace patted her on the shoulder. “No one will make you.”

Heels clip-clopped behind us on the steps. We turned to find Danica and Denise. The three of us stared at them. They stared back just as awkwardly.

“Page Bottoms.” Trista broke the silence and extended her hand to the twins.

Denise—I think Denise was the one who always wore pink hair-clips—limply took Trista's hand but looked at her sister as if she were introducing herself to a sea slug.

“Um . . . yeah,” Danica said with a giggle. “We know who you guys are.”

“Town heroes!” said Denise with forced excitement.

“Yay!” Danica said in a falsetto.

Grace flipped her hair over her shoulders and shot us a look just before Ms. Sparrow floated toward us, smiling. She gestured to the flowers on the table inside the open door. “Such a beautiful arrangement! And Coral Beauties, too. Please thank your parents again,” she said to Grace. “I bet
they smell as good as they look,” she added, sneezing a very cute, polite sneeze that could only have come from her. She turned and clapped her hands to get the crowd's attention.

“Our pages have all arrived and are ready to take on their official Royal Court duties!” she sang out. “Let's give them a warm welcome!”

A loud cheer rose up as everyone on the steps whirled in our direction and applauded. My face flushed. My mom waved and blew a kiss. My grandpa gave a thumbs up. This was it. We were going inside. And I wasn't ready. Not even close.

Ms. Sparrow waved over Kendra, who'd been laughing with a group of her friends as she practiced a parade float wave. “Princess Kendra, will you do the honors of escorting the girls to their rooms and acquainting them with the morning's schedule?”

Kendra's smile collapsed for a second before she pasted it back on. “Sure thing!” she said brightly, but she rolled her eyes at her friends when Ms. Sparrow wasn't looking. There was no way she was over our nudging Marissa out of her rightful place as royal page—and I wasn't sure she ever would be. She came over and let out a heavy sigh, her blond bangs fanning up in its breeze as she clicked past into the mansion and motioned for us follow. I took one last look at
my family, swallowed down my fear, then turned and hurried after her.