Prince of Gulbrania
Page 1
Frog
Prince of Gulbrania
Book One
By Lauren M. Flauding
© 2019 by Lauren M. Flauding
All characters and events in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the author.
Contents
Prince of Gulbrania Book One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Prince of Gulbrania Book Two
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter One
Kayla
They called him Frog. Maybe it was because his eyes were abnormally large, or because he was so tall and lanky, or because he had so much acne that he appeared speckled. Or maybe they called him Frog because high school was a vicious place, and high schoolers were mean. Whatever the case, when I was paired with him for a project in my world cultures class, I pushed away my disappointment, sat down next to him, and decided to find out his real name. He stared at me and swallowed twice before he answered.
“It’s Frederick. But you can just call me Frog. Frederick sounds like the name of someone who plays tennis.”
“Well, do you play tennis?”
“Yes, but not that kind of tennis.”
I shook my head in confusion. “Are there different kinds of tennis?”
“Yeah. There’s the fancy tennis you play in uncomfortably short shorts, and then there’s the tennis you play against the side of a building in sweats.”
“Okay, I get it,” I said, slowly nodding my head. I didn’t actually get it, I just wanted to move on. Although, I couldn’t quite get past the fact that he preferred to be called Frog. “What does your mom call you?”
“My little prince.”
I laughed before I could stop myself and his cheeks flushed bright red. “I’m sorry,” I said quickly, “I didn’t mean...”
“No, it’s okay,” he interjected, a small smirk appearing on his face. “It is a pretty ridiculous name. I don’t know why she calls me that.”
He looked down at his hands, causing his shaggy brown hair to fall in his face. He pushed it out of the way and glanced at me with his bulging hazel eyes, then quickly looked away. I was starting to feel awkward, so I spoke again.
“Well, I’m Kayla.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I know. Everyone knows who you are.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Frog scratched at a mark on his desk. “It is. You practically run this school.”
At that moment, our teacher, Mr. Jacobs, stalked down the rows of chairs and glared at us.
“I hope you’re using this time to begin your projects and not just to socialize.”
“Of course, Mr. Jacobs,” I replied, smiling innocently.
He stared at us with an odd gleam in his eye, then slowly walked away, his leather suit jacket squeaking with every stride.
I turned back to my desk, picked up the prompt Mr. Jacobs had given us and read it out loud. “Choose a unique country and explore its identifying cultural characteristics, then present these to the class in a creative way. Singing is encouraged.”
“A unique country?” Frog asked.
“Yeah,” I said, tapping the word with my finger. “I guess he wants us to go for something obscure.
Frog snorted. “If we want obscure, we should do Gulbrania.”
I frowned. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“Most people haven’t. It’s a tiny island between Norway and Iceland. They’re pretty private.”
“How do you know about it?”
“I was born there.”
My interest piqued, I turned to face him. “Really?”
“Um, yeah,” he answered quietly, seeming to shrink under my full attention.
“What’s it like?”
“I don’t remember much. It’s cold and they do a lot of work with underwater technology.”
I smiled, getting excited at the prospect of learning about something new. Of course, any place seemed exciting compared to northern Indiana. “Okay, let’s do Gulbrania.”
Frog shifted in his seat. “I’d rather not.”
I let out a slow breath. Then why did you even bring it up? I thought, trying not to let my frustration show. We had already wasted too much time. “Alright, do you have any other ideas?”
“Zimbabwe?” Frog offered.
“It’s already been taken,” I said, pointing to the map at the front of the room that was filling up with the names of our classmates. I looked across the room and saw my best friend, Miranda, making faces at me. She was sticking out her tongue like a frog. I tried my best to ignore her. I glanced back at the map and spotted a tiny country next to Turkey. “How about Armenia?”
Frog shrugged. “Sure. I’ve never heard of that one, so it must be obscure. Do you know much about it?”
“Yeah, I was born there.”
He stared at me, his big eyes somehow getting bigger, but he didn’t say anything.
“I was joking,” I said finally.
“I know,” Frog said. “Well, at least I was pretty sure, I just didn’t want to...” he trailed off and went back to scratching at the mark on his desk.
I shook my head and went up to tell Mr. Jacobs our country.
“Ah, Armenia,” Mr. Jacobs said, nodding knowingly. “Land of beautiful women.”
I rolled my eyes and went back to my seat next to Frog, who was avoiding making eye contact with me by staring out the window. It was going to be a long three weeks.
*****
“I can’t believe you have to work with Frog,” Miranda exclaimed as she sat down next to me in the cafeteria. “I would just die. You should protest it.”
“It’ll be fine,” I said, picking the pepperonis off of my pizza. “I have bigger things to worry about.” And I did. With homecoming coming up in two and a half weeks, I had to plan a pep rally and a talent show, and I also had to organize the fundraiser for the debate team. We were going to be selling T-shirts at the homecoming game. My world cultures project with Frog was inconsequential compared to everything else I had going on.
“Hey,” Miranda piped up, tossing her curly blonde hair over her shoulder, “the decorations committee for the r
ally needs to meet on Thursday. My parents decided they wanted to have our kitchen renovated, so my place is a mess. Could we meet at your house?”
I took a bite of pizza and chewed slowly so I could have time to formulate my answer. “We could, but my mom gets really aggravated about having people come to the house ever since my father died,” I said casually, the lie coming out of my mouth as easily as it had done for the past ten years.
Miranda gasped. “Oh, right. I forgot.” Then she quickly grabbed my arm. “Not that I forgot about your dad, I mean, who could forget that? I just forgot your mom still has trouble with it. It’s been a long time.”
“I know,” I replied. “I think she’s getting better, but sometimes she has these episodes. I’d hate for her to break down in front of a bunch of people.”
Miranda pouted in exaggerated sympathy. “Wow, Kayla, I’m sorry. I just can’t imagine how hard that would be.” She squeezed my shoulder. “You are so strong.”
I nodded slowly and focused back on my lunch. I guess I was strong, just not in the way Miranda thought. There were times I wished my dad actually had died, it would have made things a lot easier.
Miranda continued to look at me in pity, but before I could tell her to stop worrying about it, I caught sight of the new guy, Wyatt Brooks. Miranda must have noticed me staring, because she followed my gaze to the tall football player who was confidently making his way through the cafeteria to sit with the rest of the team.
“Wow, Kayla, you must have it pretty bad for that guy if he can hold your attention for longer than ten seconds,” Miranda teased. “Usually they just get a passing glance before you get back to organizing your next event.”
“Stop it,” I scolded. “I don’t like him. I don’t even know him.” And yet, I couldn’t stop looking at him. Strong and tan with dark blonde hair and a charming smile, he was like a breath of fresh air. I’d talked to him briefly because he’d joined the debate team. Our interaction hadn’t lasted long, but it was enough for me to know that he was smart and funny.
“Yeah,” Miranda sighed, fluttering long lashes that framed her blue eyes, “I wouldn’t mind getting tackled by him.”
“Miranda!” I exclaimed, hitting her lightly on the arm.
“Oh, come on, you were thinking the same thing too.”
Just then there was a commotion in the corner of the cafeteria. I craned my neck and saw that someone had dumped a huge bowl of Jell-O on Frog, and a lot of it had gone down his pants. Everyone around him burst out laughing, but Frog just sighed and started heading toward the exit. I tried not laugh, but it was kind of funny watching him hobble out of the cafeteria with a trail of green Jell-O coming out of his pants.
Chapter Two
Frog
A week and a half into school and I’d already been hazed three times. It didn’t really bother me that much. I was used to it. I’d gotten into the habit of bringing a change of clothes to school. But I’d hoped that maybe my classmates would have matured over the summer, or at least developed a particle of compassion. I made my way to the locker room and passed the vice principal, Mrs. Youngblood, in the hallway.
“Mr. Vonnegan, what is all this?” She asked, gesturing to the trail of Jell-O behind me.
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Youngblood. I’ll clean it up.”
She frowned. “Do I even want to know?”
“Probably not.”
She considered me for a moment, then shook her head and continued down the hall, muttering something about delinquents in the making. Out of all the teachers and administrators in the school, I liked Mrs. Youngblood the best. She wasn’t patronizing, and she didn’t give me that annoying look of pity that all the others did.
By the time I reached the showers, most of the Jell-O was gone, but everything was still sticky. I pulled off my clothes, stored them in a plastic bag, and quickly rinsed off. Stepping out of the shower, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I always tried to avoid looking at myself because it was kind of depressing. I was really tall and really skinny, with a combination of new acne and acne scars covering my face. My eyes and lips were large and looked like they belonged on someone else’s face. My hair was dark and stringy, and it refused to do anything interesting despite all of my efforts to style it. Altogether I was the epitome of an awkward, gangly teenager. No wonder everybody picked on me. I was like a walking target.
But getting Jell-O dumped on my pants wasn’t even the worst thing that had happened to me that day. I was still mortified by my disastrous exchange with Kayla Morrison that morning. It hadn’t been all bad, but it definitely hadn’t been good. Most guys would be elated to be partnered with the girl they’d had a crush on for 12 years. Me? Not so much. Somehow it was better to dream about her on my own than actually have to have real interactions with her. Pathetic, I know. But I’d already come to the conclusion that dating Kayla Morrison was impossible. She was the junior class president, all star of the debate team, a wicked volleyball player, and she even played the viola. Who plays the viola? And not to mention, she was absolutely beautiful. Golden brown eyes, wavy dark hair, a smile that brightened the dreary halls of our high school... yeah, she was way out of my league. She’d made that clear when she pretended she didn’t know my name that morning. Although, it’d been years since we’d been friends, so maybe she really had forgotten that we used to play together when we were kids. I’d always liked her, but what was the point? Just looking at her made my hands go numb. She was at the top of the food chain, and I was ... well, Frog.
I dried off and put on a new set of clothes just as Milo Kowalski darted into the locker room.
“Frog, are you okay? I heard about what happened. That’s rough.”
I shrugged. “It’s alright. Now I smell like lime. Maybe some girl will find that attractive.”
Milo snorted. “You’d probably have better luck with strawberry,” he joked. “Who was it this time?”
“Pete Dickensen and Alice Rowes.”
“Alice? Really? I didn’t know she had a mean streak.”
“Apparently she’s developed one.”
“Probably to impress Pete.”
“Probably.”
I ran my hand through my hair, trying to make it do something. It didn’t. I looked down at Milo, who was picking a scar on his forearm. I was really glad to have Milo as a friend. Without him, I’d be completely alone in this merciless school. He didn’t seem to mind that everybody hated me. Maybe he was just glad he wasn’t the one always being tormented. He was about as skinny as I was, but he was a lot shorter, so it didn’t seem so dramatic.
“Sorry I wasn’t there,” Milo said, “I had to clean a moldy locker in the east wing.”
I nodded. Milo and I worked as student janitors, so we were often called on to clean up random messes. I’m sure that didn’t help my status quo much, but for the most part I got to work alone and it paid really well.
“That’s okay,” I replied. “I don’t know if you cold have done anything to stop it.”
“Yeah, and then we’d both reek of lime.”
I packed up my stuff and started heading toward the door. “Do you want to help me clean up the Jell-O I trekked through the hallway?”
Milo wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, but let’s do it quick before lunch is over. Remember what happened last time everybody saw us mopping the floor?”
“Yeah, that was a disaster.”
Milo shivered. “I was sneezing out microfiber for weeks.”
*****
I came home that evening to an empty house, which wasn’t unusual. My mom worked as a consultant for struggling businesses and she often worked late. I threw my soiled clothes in the laundry, then went down into our small basement where we had some workout equipment set up. It seemed like everything in our house was small (my mother preferred to call it cozy), but it was sufficient. After all, there were only two of us living in it, and my mom was gone so often at work or on business trips that sometimes it felt like I lived th
ere alone. I turned on some music, positioned myself on the bench press, and started lifting.
I worked out almost every day, not that it ever did any good. I had about as much muscle as a really buff skeleton, but it helped me work through my frustration. I’d created a lot of distractions like that for myself. Playing my guitar helped me relax, karate helped me momentarily escape my reality, and dancing helped reverse my negative emotions. Now, I wouldn’t admit to anyone that I danced in my basement, not even Milo. Every once in a while my mom would catch me, but she’d just give me a small smile and leave the room, giving me some privacy.
I heard my mom’s car rumbling outside and half a minute later she appeared at the top of the stairs. She glanced at how much I was lifting and opened her mouth, but then she shook her head, as if she had decided not to comment. Instead, she went into her usual interrogation.
“Hey honey, how was school?”
“Same as always,” I grunted.
“Did you get harassed today?”
I sighed. “A couple kids poured about 10 pounds of Jell-O down my pants.”
She raised her eyebrows. “10 pounds? Wow, they put a lot of effort into it. At least that’s more creative than dumping soda on your head.”
“Yeah, I guess,” I responded, annoyed at her odd way of dealing with my bullying. I could detect concern in her eyes, but mostly she seemed to be amused my misfortunes. She thought it helped build character. I guess I should have been grateful. If she had offered any sympathy I might have been tempted to curl up in her arms and bawl my eyes out, which would have been totally childish.
My mother sat down on the steps. “I have to go on another business trip tomorrow.”
“To Chicago again?”
“Yes. It will only be three days. Are you going to be alright alone?”
I did three reps before responding. I don’t know why she even asked. I’d been okay by myself the last 20 trips she’d taken. Why would this one be any different?
“Yeah, mom. I’ll be fine.”
“Just remember to take your pills.”
I replaced the bar and made a face at my mom. “They make my tongue swell up.”
She glared at me. She could joke about a lot of things, but my pills were never one of them. “You know that if you don’t take your pills, you will die.”