Who Made You a Princess? (6 page)
Date: September 25, 2009
Re: Auugghhh
I hope you know how much life stinks right now. I really need my best bud and where are you? Frolicking in the fog without
me. Even catching some good waves after school today didn’t help. Dan was with me, but that empty space on the invisible board
on my other side just made me miss you more.
I know you’ve got parental problems and yeah, I’d be worried too. Absence does not make the heart grow fonder. It just makes
the heart forget what it liked about the other person. Not that I’m forgetting you, girl. It’s different with parents, I guess.
In other news, it’s been four months and counting since that publisher got my manuscript for DEMON BATTLE. I bet it’s holding
open the mailroom door. I bet no one’s going to read it because it does a better job with the door than it does at entertaining
anybody.
Aw, delete this message. I need to go give my head a shake. Pray for me, wouldja?
(((hug)))
Kaz
I
NEVER PAID much ATTENTION
to classes before last year. Like I said, they were just something to get through with the highest grades possible on my
way to bigger and better things. But, you know, hanging out with Gillian Chang changes your ideas.
That girl loves learning stuff. Doesn’t matter whether it’s calculus or the best way to letter thought-bubbles on a graphic
panel—she’s into it.
Carly, too. On Friday she scampered off to her Fashion Design module like it was Christmas and all the presents under the
tree were for her. Of course, since she carried off first prize at Design Your Dreams last June, the presents probably
are
for her. It’s not every day Stella McCartney offers you an internship in London for the summer.
It’s not every day Stella gets turned down.
Nicely, of course. I can’t imagine Carly being anything but nice about it. But she feels a lot of loyalty to Tori Wu, who
has a loft in Chinatown and who designs these amazing dresses, and plus she was going to get paid, and
plus
she could still see her family on weekends, so it was a no-brainer to stay stateside and get some fabu training—not to mention
swag.
And did I tell you about the e-mail she got on Monday, before we left for the opening assembly?
From: [email protected]
Date: September 28, 2009
Re: Senior Life Sciences requirement
Miss Aragon,
In view of your success at the Design Your Dreams event hosted by Spencer Academy last June, and with the glowing reports
we have received from Ms. Tori Wu concerning your performance as an intern with her fashion house, I am pleased to tell you
that your senior Life Sciences requirement has been waived.
Instead, I am offering you the position of teacher’s assistant. For your help each Friday in the Fashion Design classes, you
will receive a monthly stipend and your grade will be transferred to your Work Experience credit, which will of course make
you a competitive candidate on your college applications. You will also have unlimited personal use of the Fashion Design
resources and equipment, should you choose to use them.
Congratulations on your achievements, and I look forward to your contributions this year.
Orland Webster, M.Ed.
Dean of Students
Spencer Academy
Brett Loyola noticed the glow on Carly’s face as soon as he located her in the crowd in the assembly hall—aka the ballroom—and
came to sit with us. The guys from the rowing team sat behind and around us, including some guy with serious shoulders who
got comfortable between Gillian and Lissa. Which wouldn’t make Jeremy happy when he got there.
That’s what you get for being late, my friend.
“What’s up?” Brett said to Carly. Even I could tell that he thought she was the best thing since music on a chip, the way
he looked down into her face. They’d been a couple since the night Mac was kidnapped last May. I mean, that situation pretty
much redlined what Brett called the weird-o-meter, but what was even more amazing to me was that he hadn’t lost interest a
month later and moved on.
Don’t get me wrong—that wasn’t a slam. She’s my friend and I love her, but, well, she’s Carly, the Latina scholarship kid.
Not Vanessa Talbot or Dani Lavigne or any of the glossy posse who have hung on Brett’s arm ever since his voice changed. She’s
an ordinary girl with, okay, a little more talent and sweetness than most, and she’d accomplished what many women before her
had not.
She’d made Brett care.
Their heads tilted close together as she told him the happy news, and heads turned and texts flew as he hugged her and gave
her a big kiss on the lips in front of everybody within three rows.
Lucky for them, Ms. Tobin and Mr. Milsom, the terrors of the dormitories, were busy with a bunch of confused freshmen at the
door and missed the show. I glanced at Lissa and smiled. The corners of her mouth twitched up and fell, and she looked past
me at the lovebirds, whispering away in their own little world.
Her face turned bleak.
“Are you okay?”
“Define ‘okay.’”
“The absence of disease, disaster, or midterms.”
“Then I’m okay.”
That still left a huge list of stuff that could be wrong. Ms. Curzon, the headmistress, walked up to the microphone and her
image appeared on the projection screens above the stage. I couldn’t say any more, but I promised myself I’d get with Gillian
and find out what was going on with Lissa. If it was just her family, there wasn’t much I could do but be sympathetic and
supportive and sneak her chocolate between classes. If there was something else going on with her, then it was our job to
help.
I mean, even we non-Christians can figure out that much.
“Good morning, everyone,” Ms. Curzon began in her half-American, half-British accent. “Welcome to your first full week at
Spencer Academy, and for some of you, may I say, welcome to your first term. I look forward to another class of students learning
what our school colors stand for: loyalty, purity, and intellect.”
A video produced by the media classes began to play on the screen, but since it involved rah-rah stuff like the sports teams
and winning and all the exciting extracurriculars you could sign up for, I tuned out and admired the workmanship in my Louboutin
pumps instead. Since all of us wore the same uniforms, the only place you could get creative during class hours was with hair
and shoes. And, as the girls will tell you, I do the most with both.
Gillian slid out of her chair and made her way unobtrusively up the side aisle. I tuned back in and elbowed Lissa. “Where’s
she going?” Lissa shook her head as Gillian paused next to the ficus forest that concealed the staircase up to the stage.
“Seniors, your plates will be full this term,” Ms. Curzon went on, and reluctantly I turned my attention back to her. “Not
only do you have college applications—and may I remind you that the university acceptance rate of Spencer students is ninety-eight
percent—but don’t forget your Community Service requirement. If you don’t have twenty credits by June, you won’t graduate,
so make it a point to visit the counseling office sometime before the holiday break to decide on ways in which you may serve.
“Now, it gives me great pleasure to introduce one of our music students, senior Gillian Chang, who will perform Richard Strauss’s
Also Sprach Zarathustra
.”
Gillian bounded up the stairs while everyone applauded, and seated herself at the huge antique Steinway on the far side. Within
a few bars, even the ignorant mopes who’d been rude enough to chatter during announcements had fallen silent, watching her
slender body throw itself into the chords and the emotional buildup of the theme.
She wasn’t amusing herself now. That girl could seriously play.
And when she was done, you could hear a paperclip drop in the big ballroom. Lissa and I looked at each other, and we leaped
to our feet, clapping as hard as we could. Our whole row did likewise, and of course when the rowing team got into it, everyone
decided a standing ovation was the thing to do.
Gillian grinned as she ran down the steps and came back to her seat on a wave of congratulations and praise. You could barely
hear Ms. Curzon dismiss us all, and it was a good thing we didn’t have to do something as anticlimactic as go to class. Instead,
we went straight to an early lunch.
Brett and his buds from the rowing team dragged two tables together so we could all sit in a big, noisy bunch. “How lovely,”
Mac purred to me as we loaded our plates.
“What, the fish and chips make you feel at home?” Of course, we weren’t talking about limp fries wrapped in newspaper. At
Spencer this meant Alaskan halibut in light-as-air tempura batter, with hand-cut potatoes and a tomato-basil salad.
“No,” she said. “I meant the male-to-female ratio at our table. Much improved since last year, I’d say.”
I’d say so, too. There was totally an advantage to having connections with the team captain. “You won’t see me complaining.”
We grinned at each other and returned to our seats. I have to admit, the accord between us on this subject, at least, felt
pretty good.
Except someone had moved her blue school cardigan from the chair next to mine and made himself comfortable while his servants—er,
agents—got his lunch.
“Your Highness,” I said a little awkwardly. “How, um, nice of you to join us.”
Even though you weren’t invited
.
Then I gave myself a mental smack. I was the only person he knew here. Of course he’d want to sit with me. Us.
“It is my pleasure.” I hoped we wouldn’t have to watch our mouths and use our forks to eat our fries.
“Hello,” Mac said on his other side as she slid into the seat marked with her cardigan.
“Lady Lindsay,” the prince said solemnly.
“Oh, please.” She picked up a fry with her fingers, dipped it in ranch dressing, and waved it back and forth like a shaking
head. “Don’t call me that. My name is Mac.” Then she popped the fry in her mouth.
Okay. If she could, then I could. “So how about it, Your Highness? First-name basis here?”
His smile could light ships into harbor, it was so perfectly white. “Of course. You both must call me Rashid.”
One of the agents set his plate in front of him and spread a napkin on his knee. I waited until he stepped back to stand against
the wall behind us. “Will your bodyguards get bent out of shape about it?”
“It is not for them to say.” He glanced at Mac’s plate, and she pushed the dish of ranch dressing closer to him. He picked
up a fry with his fingers and, instead of taking the invitation, he dipped it into my ketchup instead. Uh, okay. Maybe he
didn’t know what the bottles on the condiment bar were for. “My father would prefer that no one forget the proprieties, but
my father is on the other side of the world.” He paused. “This is very good. What is the white mixture you are eating?”
“A lovely American thing called ranch dressing. But you should try your chips with salt and vinegar when they have hamburgers
on Fridays,” Mac suggested. “You’ll never go back.”
The agent was back at his elbow, speaking a language I didn’t know. Rashid answered him in the same language, only a lot briefer.
Deliberately, he dipped another fry in my ketchup.
“My bodyguard objects to my sharing a dish with you,” he informed me.
“I’ve got no known diseases, if that’s what he’s worried about.”
“It’s not that. It’s an intimacy usually reserved for couples.” He smiled into my eyes and I swallowed a half-chewed chunk
of halibut sideways, choked, then grabbed my soda and gulped.
“Is that all it takes?” The guy with the shoulders from the rowing team dipped a fry in Gillian’s ketchup and grinned at her,
which made Jeremy flush and glare at him from under knitted brows.
“Not happening, Tate, my man,” Brett said. “You need to do more than that to get Gillian’s attention.”
“Yeah, like have half a brain,” Jeremy muttered. Fortunately, I don’t think Tate heard him.