Royal Crush

by Meg Cabot

  She must have actually been feeling sick.

  La Grippe is a particularly nasty flu that has been going around our school as well as up and down the Mediterranean coast. It is pronounced La Greep but sounds even nastier when someone like Grandmère or Madame Alain says it, because they both roll their r’s and pronounce the letter i like ee, so it comes out sounding like La Grrreeeeeeep.

  Yuck!

  Half the student population of the Royal Genovian Academy seems to have come down with La Grippe, and so has the faculty.

  It’s gotten so bad, it’s started affecting other things at school besides field trips to the Alps:

  “In addition,” Madame Alain went on, “because my administrative assistant, Monsieur Gerard, was too ill to come to work last week, we were unable to make your seating assignments for lunch today. Therefore, you may sit wherever you like. Thank you, and remember: Manners matter!”

  Though the walls at the RGA are nearly three feet thick, I could hear cheering from the high school classrooms all the way down to the kindergarten (and that was across the courtyard, in another building). Normally, seating for lunch at the Royal Genovian Academy is assigned (like at a wedding), so that we don’t form into “friend groups.”

  Madame Alain hates friend groups. She thinks an important part of our training to be “leaders of tomorrow” is developing the ability to make polite conversation with anyone—from the lowliest sixth grader to the tallest senior—and she does that by assigning seats and forcing us to eat lunch with different people every day.

  But today we were going to be able to sit anywhere we wanted.

  While I felt sorry for Madame Alain’s administrative assistant, this was definitely an unexpected benefit of La Grippe.

  So I guess the news wasn’t all bad … at least, not to me. Some people, however, were pretty upset by it.

  “Madame Chi,” Prince Gunther cried, leaping to his feet. “If replacements can be found for those suffering with La Grippe, could we not still go to Stockerdörfl on Wednesday?”

  Madame Chi, sitting at the front of the language lab, looked as if she might have been coming down with La Grippe herself. Rubbing her temples with her fingers, she sighed so heavily that a curl that had escaped from the tight bun in which she always wore her hair fluttered up into the air.

  “Well, Your Highness, I don’t know … it’s terribly late. But I suppose you could always ask.”

  Prince Gunther spun around to face our class.

  “Come on, everyone!” he cried. “I know you can do better than this! Show some school pride! Get your permission slips to your parents and get them signed. We have to go to the Games. And we have to win! We have to beat TRAIS!”

  TRAIS stands for The Royal Academy in Switzerland, against whom the Royal Genovian Academy competes every year at the Royal School Winter Games, a kind of Olympics for all the royal schools in Europe. (The Royal Academy in Switzerland swept most of the medals last year. I understand that they even won the spirit contest, showing better sportsmanship than the RGA by wearing matching tracksuits and chanting, “Go team, go, TRAIS, TRAIS, TRAIS!” at each event. This would be unthinkable to any student at the RGA.)

  This year the Games are taking place in Prince Gunther’s Austrian village of Stockerdörfl, just a short—well, okay, fourteen-hour—train ride from Genovia. Prince Gunther’s parents, Prince Hans and Princess Anna-Katerina Lapsburg von Stuben, are going to hand out the medals at the closing ceremonies.

  So I guess I can see why Prince Gunther is so excited. If the Games were being hosted in Genovia, with my family handing out medals, I might have been more enthusiastic.

  But despite Prince Gunther’s impassioned speech about beating TRAIS, everyone (except me) whipped out their cell phones and began pressing buttons … not to ask their parents to sign and send over their permission slips, but to text one another about where to sit for lunch.

  I think Madame Alain is right: the RGA really does have zero school spirit.

  And I’m afraid that might include me. I’ve carefully refrained from mentioning anything about the Games to my dad, stepmom, Grandmère, or Mia. Why would I want to go to some dumb royal kids’ competition when my sister is due to have royal twins at ANY MOMENT? Especially since newborns can’t really see all that well (according to my sister’s birthing books). They become accustomed to those closest to them during those all-important first few days in their life by the sound of their voices.

  No way am I leaving Genovia and missing out on that.

  Monday, November 23

  1:15 P.M.

  Royal Genovian Academy Lunch

  Oh dear.

  Right after the bell rang for lunch, as I yelled at Princess Komiko to please wait for me because I’d forgotten my backpack, then whirled around to get it, I nearly smacked right into Prince Khalil.

  I’ve gotten much more graceful (in my opinion) than last year when Mademoiselle Justine, RGA’s dance instructor, despaired of me ever learning to do a proper Genovian folk dance.

  But I still occasionally bump into things.

  And today what I bumped into was Prince Khalil Rashid bin Zayed Faisal.

  He was super nice about it, though, bending over to help me pick up all the things that had scattered out of my backpack and pretending like I hadn’t just made a total idiot out of myself.

  He even asked—looking at me with the same thoughtful, sad expression he’s been wearing on his face ever since returning to school at the beginning of the new semester—“Are you all right, Princess Olivia?”

  “Me?” I squeaked as I gathered up all the German flashcards I’d made for myself so I could remember my vocabulary words. “I’m fine. What about you?”

  He smiled. It was the first time I’d seen him smile all semester, practically, and the look of it made my heart sing.

  There was still something a bit sad in his smile, though, and that made me feel sad, too.

  “I’m fine also,” he said. “You seem very excited.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I am excited!”

  “About the Royal School Winter Games?”

  “What? No!” I made a face. “About the fact that we get to sit wherever we want at lunch today!”

  His smile grew confused. “Wait … so you’re not going to the Games?”

  “Oh, goodness, no,” I said. Then I noticed that his smile had disappeared altogether, and he was regarding me with a look that seemed more troubled than ever. “What I mean is…” What had I said wrong? Was Prince Khalil upset with my lack of school spirit? “I can’t. I have to stay in Genovia until my sister’s babies are born. I’ve got to be here for the birth. I’m going to be an aunt, you know.”

  His dark eyebrows, which he’d furrowed when I’d said I wasn’t going to the Games, relaxed after I explained why.

  “Oh,” he said. “That makes sense.”

  “Does it?” I laughed a little nervously. I was still mortified from having crashed into him, but also a little freaked out that we were the only two people left in the language lab. It had been one thing to be alone with him back when we’d been friends and could talk so easily about our mutual love of iguanas.

  It was quite another to be alone with him now that this strange distance had grown between us.

  “I’m afraid people are going to call me a dork when they find out,” I said, climbing to my feet, my backpack secured. “But I’d rather stay home with my sister and her new babies—when she has them—than go skiing in the Alps.” I smiled at him in a fashion that was probably 100 percent dorky.

  He didn’t smile back, though. In fact, he climbed to his own feet, then said, very seriously, “I don’t think there’s anything weird about wanting to stay close to your family. And I’d never think you were a dork, Olivia. In fact, just the opposite. You’ll see.…”

  But instead of telling me what it was I was going to see, he turned and left. He just shouldered his own backpack, turned around, and left the language lab.

&
nbsp; And that was it. That was the end of our conversation.

  I don’t want to sound sexist or anything—my sister says making prejudicial remarks about people based on their gender is called sexism—but boys can be really weird sometimes.

  (Although I guess girls can be, too.)

  Now I better put my pen down, because it’s rude to write in your journal when you’re supposed to be eating lunch with someone. (I asked Princess Komiko to sit next to me, after all, and she has to be wondering what I’ve been writing about this whole time instead of talking to her over our salades Niçoises.)

  Monday, November 23

  5:45 P.M.

  Royal Genovian Bedroom

  I know I should be concentrating on more important things—for instance, tonight we’re having a banquet in honor of volunteer trainers of Hearing Dogs for Deaf People, and I’m giving each of the volunteers the Bronze Medal of Appreciation for Genovian Generosity.

  But all I can think about is how Prince Khalil said I’m the opposite of a dork, and that I’d see. See what? I haven’t seen anything yet, except that he avoided me the whole rest of the day (no big change from any other day).

  I guess I must have been really distracted by this since at high tea with Grandmère in the Royal Genovian Gardens, she said, “Olivia, I can’t imagine what’s wrong with you today, but this is the third time I’ve had to ask you to pass the clotted cream. Please pay attention. If I were a dignitary visiting from a foreign land, you could have caused an international incident by ignoring me so rudely.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry, Grandmère,” I said, and passed the clotted cream. “I’m just having a hard time concentrating, I guess.”

  “Ah,” Grandmère said. “Well, yes, we’re all feeling a little down about the fact that, once again, your sister cannot join us at the tea table. But fortunately we have your father here for once, so let us bask in the radiance of his manly presence.”

  “Mother,” Dad said, turning the page of the newspaper he was reading, “please. All I said was that I’d join you for an espresso.”

  “Which is not, nor has it ever been, tea, but we will take what we can get. Shall we ask Olivia why it is that she’s so out of sorts, or would you prefer to read about the stock market, Phillipe?”

  Dad lowered the newspaper. “What is bothering you, Olivia?”

  “It’s just,” I said, “that Prince Khalil used to like me, but then he went away for the summer, and ever since he came back, he’s seemed really down, and today he said he thinks I’m the opposite of a dork, and that I’d see. But he didn’t say what the opposite of a dork is, or what it is I’m going to see. And anyway, I thought being a dork was a good thing. Mia’s always said so.”

  “Good heavens,” Grandmère said, adding jam to the cream on her scone. “Phillipe, are you listening to this?”

  “Yes.” Dad had stuck his face back into the newspaper. “I think you should ignore him, Olivia. Ignore all boys.”

  “Phillipe, you aren’t even paying attention. The child is speaking of Prince Khalil of Qalif. Prince Khalil of the Zayed Faisals of Qalif.” Grandmère poked her butter knife at Dad’s newspaper.

  Dad lowered the newspaper. “Olivia,” he said, “I not only want you to ignore that particular boy, I want you to stay away from him. Period.”

  “What?” I dropped the piece of cake I’d been about to eat. Snowball, my puppy, found it beneath my chair and gobbled it up. “But Dad, what are you talking about? Prince Khalil and I are friends.” At least, we used to be. “Remember, he used to come over all the time this summer—”

  “Yes, honestly, Phillipe.” Grandmère poured herself some more tea. “It isn’t the boy’s fault that his uncle has turned into a megalomaniac who is purposely trying to destroy his own country.”

  “What?” I cried again.

  “That’s where your Prince Khalil went this summer when he seemed to disappear,” Grandmère explained. “Back to his own country with his parents, who were doubtless trying to talk sense into the boy’s uncle, the supreme leader of Qalif. But the man wouldn’t listen, preferring to plunge his kingdom into civil war than save his own people. So poor Khalil and his parents had no choice but to smuggle out whatever of their meager belongings they could salvage, and return here. Now your sweet Khalil is a prince without a country.”

  “Mother,” Dad said, “you’re making the boy sound like the hero of a romance novel.”

  “I’m not making him sound like anything,” Grandmère declared. “I’m only stating the facts as they are written—some of them in that very newspaper you are holding, Phillipe.”

  She pointed at it, and I couldn’t help noticing one of the headlines between Dad’s fingers:

  CIVIL WAR IN QALIF

  “Oh no,” I cried, dropping another piece of cake. This time I didn’t notice what happened to it, whether Snowball ate it or what.

  Dad saw what I was looking at, then quickly tucked the paper away so I couldn’t see the headline anymore.

  “Don’t worry about Prince Khalil, Olivia,” Dad said. “He and his parents are quite safe here in Genovia. Your sister and I are seeing to that. There’s no need for you to involve yourself in his difficulties.”

  “How can she not involve herself in the boy’s difficulties?” Grandmère asked. “She is his friend. And then you tell her—quite cruelly, I might add—to stay away from him.”

  “Mother,” Dad said with a sigh. “Of course I didn’t mean for her to stay away from him completely as if he were some sort of leper. I only meant—”

  “What did you mean, Phillipe? Because it sounded to me like you meant stay away from him completely. Whereas if I were the one giving Olivia advice, I might say it would be a good idea for her to be a little extra kind to him during this horrible time—even if he might seem a little … odd, as he was today.”

  “Extra kind?” I wrinkled my nose. “Like how?” Luisa was extra kind to Prince Gunther in school—holding his hand between classes, texting him heart emojis, and stuff like that—but those were the sorts of things I definitely did not want to do with Prince Khalil, or he might get the idea that I was in love with him, or something.

  “Well, by paying special attention to him,” Grandmère said. “People who have experienced profound loss, as your Prince Khalil has, can be known to suffer from low self-esteem. It’s likely that because he’s lost everything, he feels that he is not worthy of you anymore … especially considering what a beautiful flower you are blossoming into—”

  “Mother! Please.” Dad threw down his newspaper and stood up. “This is precisely what I was talking about. Stop filling her head with such melodramatic nonsense.”

  “I recall a certain prince who did a good deal of pining after a beautiful woman he thought he wasn’t worthy enough to have,” Grandmère said with a sniff. “No one accused him of being melodramatic.”

  Dad rolled his eyes and stomped back into the palace, saying he had work to do … which was funny, since he’s officially retired.

  But I don’t care what he thinks. I’m going to take Grandmère’s advice and try to do something nice for Prince Khalil. That’s what royals do best—perform random acts of kindness for others less fortunate than themselves.

  Tuesday, November 24

  6:15 A.M.

  Royal Genovian Bedroom

  It’s official:

  I’m an aunt!

  The twins were born this morning at 3:22 and 3:26 A.M., respectively—which was quite a surprise. When we were having dinner last night (with the volunteer trainers of Hearing Dogs for Deaf People), Mia didn’t show the slightest sign of going into labor. In fact, she had two helpings of blancmange.

  (She wasn’t even supposed to be out of bed, but she can’t resist blancmange.)

  I had no idea anything out of the ordinary was going on until just now, when my wardrobe consultant, Francesca, burst into my room.

  “Your Highness!” Francesca cried, her eyes glittering madly as she switched on
the lights. “It’s happened! The babies—they are here!”

  “Why didn’t anyone wake me up sooner?” I leaped out of bed.

  Instead of feeling excited, the way I thought I would when the babies were born, I felt terrible.

  First of all, my sister had gone through labor and delivery without me! I know from having watched many hours of Call the Midwife—one of my sister’s favorite shows—and of course so many Lifetime movies this summer that having a baby is no joke.

  “Prince Michael didn’t want the press tipped off as to what was happening,” Francesca explained as she helped me into my robe. “You’ve seen all the paparazzi waiting outside the palace?”

  I nodded. Since they have no idea when the babies are due, they have been lurking around, hoping to get the first scoop as to the twins’ sexes and names and weights and whatnot, so they can tell the world.

  “They follow any car that leaves the front gates,” Francesca reminded me. “So Prince Michael felt the fewer cars heading from the palace to the hospital, the better. In fact, he and the princess took one of the Royal Genovian Guard’s personal cars to the hospital, hoping to throw the press off the scent—”

  “Of course.”

  Trick the Paparazzi is a game we play almost daily. It’s the only way to have any sort of peace and quiet when you’re a royal.

  “But now that the babies are born, and both they and your sister are doing well, Prince Michael says it’s fine for everyone to come visit. So we’ve got to find you something absolutely exquisite to wear!”

  According to Francesca, there isn’t any problem in life—or at least royal life—that can’t be solved by wearing something “absolutely exquisite.”

  That’s why as soon as a sleepy Paolo finishes styling my hair, I’ll be wearing a Genovian-blue satin dress (with matching blue ballet flats, white lace tights, and a white cardigan) to the hospital.

  It’s kind of weird that I have to have my hair and wardrobe professionally styled just to go to the hospital to see my sister and her new babies.