by Kylie Key
That was the speed at which my life changed.
It had been half-term break, one week off school at the end of October.
Five of my friends had come to stay at our estate in County Langley.
So, you need to know that my father is the Earl of Langley, commonly addressed as Lord Langley. My mother is a countess, called Lady Langley. Sounds posh, I know, but their normal names are Richard and Emma if that makes you feel less overawed.
My sister, four years older than me, is known as Lady Victoria and is at university in London. And my title is Viscount Radclyffe, officially called Lord Alexander, but to my friends I’m plain Alexander, pronounced Alex-arn-der.
But here in River Valley, I’m just Alex.
Alex Lord.
You can imagine the heart attack I nearly had when the other new kid, a transfer from some small town introduced me as Lord Alex. I mean, the cover-up had been examined with a fine-tooth comb, yet on the second day of school I thought I’d been outed. By an awkward looking girl who didn’t look like she’d ever crossed the state line.
I was relieved when I found out she was improvising and that nervousness made her say a lot of weird things.
So, Alex the exchange student from England was in reality, hiding. Avoiding the brutal paparazzi who would do anything to stir up scandal, taint my family and their royal connections. Secrets, lies, cover-ups, yeah, all pretty common in the monarchy.
According to my parents, it was quite fortuitous that I was here. River Valley was a small town that’s claim to fame was that it was home to a premium ice cream brand. It had two high schools, one movie theater, a skating rink and a very ordinary mall. That was it. I wouldn’t be able to find trouble if I tried.
My host family were old acquaintances of my mother. Many years ago Shelby Cutter, an aspiring equestrian rider, had come to England to progress her riding career. Although they were competitors, she and Mum became firm friends, however, contact had been minimal when Shelby returned to the States, married and had a family. My dilemma was the reason they reconnected. Shelby’s life had taken a similar path to Mum’s, they both bred horses and coached horse riding, though Mum did it on a rather grander scale than Shelby. Their property was twenty miles outside of River Valley, which everyone thought was perfect for keeping a low profile. Shelby and her husband Grant welcomed me and were sympathetic to the whole situation. Secrecy could be guaranteed, and as their only daughter had moved away to university, it didn’t seem unusual that they would host an exchange student.
Their single level ranch style house was large and comfortable, but it was nothing compared to what I was used to. The Langley Estate dated back to the 1700s, a majestic home comprising more bedrooms than we’d ever need, eight reception rooms, a grand ballroom. There were staff cottages, chauffeur’s quarters, stables, an equestrian arena and formal gardens, but basically my father was a farmer and my horse-mad mother ran her equine business.
Avoiding attention, blending into the background and staying out of the limelight was harder than I expected. I’d unfortunately been adopted by a couple of blonde cheerleaders—at home we’d say they were up themselves—snobs, pretentious, pompous—you know the type. They’re in every facet of society—they’re pretty and popular and they know it. They seem to take pride in dissing and judging the lowly, the unfriended, the squares, the disadvantaged.
They were the sort of people I’d generally avoid with a ten foot pole, but so as not to look odd or instigate gossip, I let them arrange my social life that first weekend.
As instructed, I met Chloe at a pizza restaurant, dreading that it was going to be the two of us. It was—for the pizza, but thankfully we met up with Olivia and a group of others to go to the movies. It was the only time I was pleased to see Olivia—with her silly squeaky voice, she drove me crazy. Well, coming from an all-boys boarding school, I wasn’t used to shrill, high pitched voices. And the girls talked so much, like, constantly. Just constant gossip, usually spiteful. If they ever knew the truth about me, the scandal would spread like wildfire.
Yeah, it didn’t take me long to realize that I didn’t want to hang around with girls like Rebecca the Homecoming Queen and Chloe the Cheerleader and Olivia the Shrill—self-centered, shallow and mean.
I particularly hadn’t liked the way they’d spoken to Blaire and Lily at the audition for the Winter Concert. For some reason I felt an affinity with Blaire, probably because we were both new and had started school on the same day. And I liked Lily because she had genuine acting ability. Unfortunately, I had witnessed instances where the best person didn’t always get the role solely because they were not considered the ideal. Yeah, drama was my jam—give me a Shakespeare tragedy over a basketball game any day. But here, I had to pretend I didn’t want the lead role. It was killing me. I’d wanted to try out for Santa, but got Zombie Number 8. My drama teachers back home would have laughed their heads off. My dream was to study at the Royal Academy in London.
Lord Alexander Radclyffe thrived on center stage.
Alex Lord had to hide in the wings.
I TOLD BLAIRE I’D COME into the library to get away from Chloe. It was a sure bet that Chloe had never set foot in the building, probably didn’t know it existed.
I don’t know why I lied.
I’d actually come in to see her.
Well, not see her, talk to her. Congratulate her on her role, and commend her on getting Lily to audition.
But I don’t know what happened. We started talking and I’d picked up her phone and was scrolling through her photos (one of me, twenty of her dog). Yeah, that was odd. Most people had about five thousand photos. It’s like she’d gotten her first phone a week ago.
She’d said something about a sick mother, perhaps they’d lived in a commune, or been very poor or had no access to internet.
They were all crazy thoughts, but things got crazier. She’d tried to take the phone back, and grabbed my hand. I became a bumbling mess, transfixed in a moment in time, unthinking and illogical as I failed to disengage from her hold. That’s because I hadn’t wanted to.
A surge had raced through my body, blood gushing to all parts in a hurry, yet none of it seemed to be reaching my brain. I was unable to think a coherent thought, my body fizzing like fireworks, a chemistry experiment gone into hyperdrive.
Yeah, Alex Lord as love struck as Romeo.
Don’t ask me what I talked about. Dogs, I think. Alexander had dogs, but now Alex Lord did, too. Yet he was supposed to have come from a town west of London and live in a semi-detached house! Three large dogs in a semi-detached house? My only hope was that Blaire had no idea what a semi was. There didn’t appear to be any in River Valley.
I had to get my head in the game, not get overwhelmed by a girl touching my hand. The text from Shelby was my saving grace. She’d only messaged to see if I liked hotdishes. It seemed like the oddest question, well, of course I did, unless it was a salad, of course.
I got out of there as quickly as I could. Not only had I become increasingly nervous, but I’d talked too much, way too much. Perhaps I’d have to go back to hanging around with Chloe and Olivia—with them all I had to do was listen. As much of a nightmare as it might seem, compared to what I’d been through—what we’d all been through—it was a walk in the park.
I might be half a world away and in a whole different time zone, but nightmares and memories were indiscriminate. What happened at Langley Estate couldn’t be erased by a few thousand miles and a new identity.
Nothing was going to change what had happened.
I ran through the biting cold wind towards the parking lot, unlocking the passenger door of my white truck. Wow! I still got it wrong! Getting into the left hand side of the car and driving on the right side of the road was so strange for me, even after a couple of weeks. On my first day driving to school, I’d taken a right hand turn and gone into the wrong lane. Thankfully there was no traffic heading towards me, and suffice to say I hadn’t made the s
ame mistake again.
Pretending I was supposed to put my backpack on the seat, I then walked around to the side with the steering wheel, having a small chuckle. I knew my friends would laugh about it if they were here.
Yeah, my friends.
Thomas, Simon, Jayden, Niall.
And William.
I started the truck, checking the rear view mirror before reversing.
It had been six weeks since that day back in October. A whole six weeks.
And it dawned on me, that for the first time since then, I hadn’t been thinking about the boys.
No, for those ten or fifteen minutes that I’d been in the library, they’d slipped my mind. The nightmare had been forgotten...just temporarily, but my mind had been consumed with someone else.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Because how crazy was it that a girl called Blaire, who was about as unassuming and average as a girl could be, who absurdly scrambled all of my brain cells, could make me feel like a normal, ordinary person again.
Because, after what I’d been through,
ordinary
felt
extraordinary.
Chapter 7
Margaret bought me a new makeup kit, not one from home, but a new one. She wanted to ensure there could be no link. She went to the house everyday to clean and cook, as per her usual schedule, but she had nothing to report about the dinner party.
And now she was saying that Mom would be out of town for a few days for an ice cream conference. That meant it had been ten days since I’d seen her in person. Or in any form. Why she couldn’t arrange a video call was beyond me. Apparently she was worried about insecure connections, but I had no idea what that meant. Jack, too seemed to be missing in action. Surely there was no way he was playing golf in this weather.
For whatever reason, it seemed like my family was trying to forget me totally.
I really had disgraced the Whittaker Pennington name.
THEATER ARTS CLASS became something to look forward to, and it wasn’t only the excitement building around the play. After our encounter in the library, Alex was a distraction from my family’s noticeable abandonment. That tiny slither of hope that I would see him, maybe even get to talk to him was enough to make me break into a fast walk to get to class. Also, I wanted to see how Lily was going with her lines and if she had a costume sorted. Because it was a last minute, low budget show, we were asked to provide our own costumes if possible. We could try our chances with the drama department’s wardrobe, but it was likely depleted, Mrs Dornan warned. I had some ideas of what to wear, but I needed to check that it co-ordinated with Evie and elves 1 and 3. That’s what I wasn’t looking forward to—working with Chloe and Olivia.
Mrs Dornan divided us into two groups, the elves, and the zombies. From across the stage I was hoping to catch Alex’s eye, but he looked away, leaving me to change my wave into an awkward shoulder scratch. That brought me back to earth with a sudden thump. Blaire Ashley wasn’t catching anyone’s attention.
Mrs Dornan wanted us to use our initiative on stage direction, and considering I had zero experience I was happy to be told where to stand. I was quite confident in my own lines, in fact, I’d memorized all the elf lines. Chloe needed to look at her paper, and Olivia had one solo line, but she fluffed it every time. You’d think it would be easy to say: Santa, have you fed the reindeer their carrots yet? But Olivia couldn’t remember their carrots. She missed those words every single time. Ethan, aka Santa, wasn’t slow in expressing his frustration.
“Really? This is a joke,” he said. “How’d you even get the part?”
He was right, once or twice was cute and made us giggle, but repeating the same scene endlessly had everyone irate. Olivia closed her eyes for a moment, at least having the grace to look embarrassed.
“Maybe when Olivia is actually holding the carrots, she’ll remember,” Lily offered, as she grabbed a couple of marker pens. She held them out to Olivia. “Carrots.”
Olivia stared at her, her eyes narrowing, and I feared in the next second she’d not only reject Lily’s suggestion, but make fun of it.
As I was thinking about stepping in, Ethan said, “That’s a great idea, Lily. Improvisation, Olivia.”
Olivia’s eyes flitted to Ethan, but she took the marker pens. As the main actor, Ethan had talent and seemed to have the respect of his peers. I’d seen online that he’d played a main role in RV High’s fall production.
Miraculously, while looking down at the markers in her hand, Olivia said the right words! Ethan winked at Lily, who turned a deep shade of red, matching the hat on his head, but it didn’t put her off her lines. Evie the Elf pleaded with Santa to let her and Elves 1,2 and 3 accompany him on the sleigh that year. Chloe and Olivia huddled around them, while I stood behind, as per the stage directions written on our script.
“Cut!” Mrs Dornan commanded, from the front of the room. She strode over, clutching her clipboard. “Let’s not crowd Santa and Evie,” she said to Chloe and Olivia. “The audience needs to be able to see Santa and Evie.” She pointed to me. “Go and stand by Blaire and cheer from back there. Remember, you want to go on the sleigh with Santa, all of you.”
Chloe and Olivia pouted as they stood next to me. And then we all jumped up and down clapping our hands as we begged Santa to take us for a ride.
With the bell about to ring, Mrs Dornan wanted the elves to discuss their costumes. She wasn’t worried about them being exactly the same, but she did want some point of commonality. Some kids had elf costumes at home, they said, which staggered my mind—who had their own elf costume? Not me, that’s for sure. Not even Blair P did.
Some kid was saying he had dark green elf tights, someone else had a bright green skirt. So it was agreed that all elves had to wear a shade of green.
“What about us?” Chloe asked, “The top elves. We should look special.”
“Yeah,” Olivia chimed in with a sing-song voice, “we should stand out.”
Typical, I thought, as expected it was all about Chloe and Olivia.
Lily pressed her lips together, inhaled deeply and said, “Maybe we could wear red and white striped socks to make us different?”
“Some of us are already different,” Chloe mumbled under her breath, but we all heard. She tilted her head in a mannerism that reminded me of Zara Raymond, slowly looking at us through squinted eyes. Ugh!
“I think only Evie should stand out,” I said quickly. “She’s the Chief Elf. She needs to be special.”
“I agree,” Ethan chipped in. “Evie, or rather Lily, needs to stand out.” He flashed Lily a smile.
Lily’s cheeks colored again and she covered her hands over her mouth. “I don’t really need to-”
“Yes, you do,” Ethan jumped in. “You’re Santa’s number one helper, so you’re extra special.”
I could see Chloe’s glower shrinking her eyes to mere slits, clearly not happy to give up the limelight.
“You know, we could probably make something,” I said. “I can...Margaret...my aunt, my great aunt, she can sew. We could make a costume for you.”
The bell rang then and Chloe huffed off, still scowling and muttering about being Elf Number One. Ethan shook his head as she left.
“Hey, see you at practice tonight,” he said.
“Sure,” I said, but it was actually Lily he was looking at. But she was already repacking her bag. “He was talking to you,” I said.
“What? Oh no, I don’t think so,” Lily stammered, wrapping a scarf around her neck.
“He was!”
“So, do you really think we could make a costume?” It was a quick topic change.
“Definitely,” I said, though I was only assuming Margaret had a sewing machine. All old people knew how to sew—and knit and crochet and bake. Not so much, Mom. She could sew a button on, and had to when my brother Theo’s button fell off his suit jacket on prom night, but that was it. I, on the other hand, had taken an elective in
Clothing and Fabric Design, because it had seemed a whole lot more interesting than Computer Coding. I’d sewn table napkins, a pair of shorts, a night shirt and a skirt. I hadn’t worn any of the clothes, but that was beside the point.
“Um, Blair, uh...do you need a ride to rehearsal tonight? I could pick you up,” Lily said, her cheeks rosy again. You know, you’d have thought someone had offered me a million dollars, or a billion. That’s how happy I felt! “Uh, you don’t have to say yes,” Lily continued, as if she was sure my stunned face was about to reject her.
But my lack of words was because joy was bursting out of my heart. How crazy was that! I mean, I had friends. Ginny, Mikayla, Annabelle, Deveney. I had heaps of friends, a whole class of friends. I could name a dozen more.
But none of them had ever come close to making me feel this way. Why was that? Was it because I was lonely, desperate? But why didn’t I miss Ginny and Mikayla, my two besties? Why didn’t I even think about them now?
I nodded like a madwoman. “Yeah, yeah,” I said, “that would be awesome.” We exchanged phone numbers and addresses. She didn’t balk that Margaret’s house was in the other direction from hers and out of her way.
I sketched a few ideas for an elf costume. I had remembered seeing a movie where an elf had a fur trim around her skirt and collar and how cute that had looked. Margaret was interested in what I was doing and of course she did have a sewing machine, and we rummaged through boxes of fabric which were stored in the garage. There was nothing suitable, but she said I should go to the mall and look. That made me nervous—I hadn’t been out shopping since morphing into Blaire Ashley, still fearful that I might be seen. Not that my Covington friends and I had ever hung out in fabric shops.
I was surprised that Lily drove a sporty little red sedan. In my mind I imagined her in a sensible safe bright yellow tiny car. I buckled myself in, reveling in the fact that for the first time in two weeks I was being a normal teenager—going out with a friend.
I couldn’t wait to show Lily my ideas and she was enthusiastic, loving my design. She was amazed that I’d be able to sew something myself.
