Pride & Princesses

by Summer Day

  Then Mark turned on the stairs, under the porch light and looked over at me, reached out and kissed my lips. It was perfect. We got a little more passionate until I pulled away...

  ‘Oh, my goodness.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I just remembered something,’

  ‘Until next week then?’

  ‘What’s next week?’

  ‘Prom. We’ll pick you both up at 6.30pm.’

  ‘Stop.’

  He turned around.

  ‘You’re supposed to ask me...properly.’

  Then he did something with all the charm he’d kept hidden from me these last months. He got down on one knee and said, ‘Phoebe Harris, will you go to the junior prom with me?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said and kneeled down to his level and kissed him quickly.

  It was consolidation night. Although I’d won all the prizes the last thing I wanted was to have the competition made public in any way. The Princesses were waiting for our midnight meeting at Teegan’s house where we planned to upload information from the past year onto The Boy-Rating Blog.

  ‘There’s something I have to do,’ I said to Mark as I rushed off the porch to Mouche’s place.

  Mark looked a bit perplexed but since he’d retrieved Wednesday and saved my cousin Ella from possible social scandal I think he knew his true character had finally been revealed to me and he just smiled in a relaxed manner and said, ‘Sure, I’m not going anywhere except home.’

  I realized my life being ‘news’ and winning a competition with Mark as the prize, would not make me happy the way I thought it would. I mean, the Boy Rating Diary was invented before I realized that Mark was my perfect man all along. I’d really messed up. I so didn’t want all our secrets released onto the world wide web.

  What to do? First, I told Mouche everything, about how I thought I’d liked Trey and then Mark and then Trey again but really all along I was in love with Mark and now he’d asked me to the prom which meant I had lost the part but won a competition I didn’t even want to win.

  ‘Oh Phoebe, that’s the game. How could you lose sight of the prize? We are supposed to split the profits, remember?’ Mouche was pulling on her winter boots. ‘I think it’s awesome that you won and Mark and Jet turned out to be totally different from how they seemed...’

  ‘But I like him and I think he likes me.’

  ‘Most men would not choose love over good financial sense, but we are not most men...’ C’mon,’ Mouche said, ‘we’re late. What were you doing? Don’t worry, I know what you’ve been doing. I’ve been waiting for ten whole minutes. We have to stop the Princesses before they announce our stupid game to the entire population of Sunrise.’ Mouche had always been good at fixing everything...

  ‘They can keep the stupid prizes if they keep their mouths shut...’ I mused aloud.

  ‘Something certain Princesses have never been very good at,’ Mouche noted.

  Teegan and Tory and Brooke and Freya had left early. We knew why: to prepare for the meeting, the unravelling of the Boy-Rating Diary and the uploading of that diary onto an internet blog.

  Mouche and I jumped into her car but it wouldn’t start. Then we looked over to where Mark’s car was, but he’d already left. We thought about taking my mom’s car but we were fairly sure she’d go completely bananas so we tried to call a cab. It was late and there weren’t any available for at least thirty minutes. We were in a major hurry to get to the Lake House but the Sunrise Town Square was busy that night with Christmas celebrations and people (the entire town) spilled out onto the streets.

  It seemed quicker and safer to walk, even quicker to run. We hitched up our bridesmaid’s dresses again and bolted like lightning through the Town Square and past the lakes to Jet’s house. I tried to text Teegan and all the other girls a dozen times but for some reason their signals were not getting through. We now had major trust issues with the Princesses and, let’s face it, we never should have risked leaving them alone with our thoughts, our words, our lives.

  When we finally reached The Lake House, the lights were on upstairs and we pressed the buzzer and Brooke ushered us in.

  ‘Hurry up, you guys need to be here for the unveiling,’ she joked.

  We raced up the stairs two at a time only to find Tory seated at Teegan’s desk, her hand hovering over the mouse as the Princesses gathered in a clump on the bed giggling. They each had an item draped over them and another in their hands: Teegan wore my sparkling sweater and my cherry cashmere scarf wrapped around her neck. She had claimed a pair of gloves with faux fur around the edges as she sprayed the scent of Mademoiselle in the air. The scarf, shoes, coats and clothes were draped across the furniture. The treasure chest was flung open. The girls were smiling smugly. It was as if the Princesses were doing a victory dance around the bedroom.

  Tory was scribbling something with Mouche’s pen, the one she’d had to endure a whole date at the midnight zoo for, and all the pens from the various other dates (including my Century City date with my ‘older man’ candy) were gathered in a bowl in the middle of the bed. Most of the items even had names and places tagged onto them.

  Brooke was slightly plumper than the rest of us (‘not a dance major,’ Teegan once noted), and had squeezed herself into vintage jeans. This particular Princess had my beret perched atop her sugary curls, delicate as fairy floss. The ice-skates were in a bundle of wrapping on the floor, in almost perfect condition and Freya wore sunglasses (at night) on the top of her head so she could still see clearly as she enfolded the pure cashmere coat around her body, typing on the keyboard with an eighteen carat gold bracelet dangling from her wrist.

  ‘Not a charm bracelet,’ she smiled. The gold was obviously real. The best a boy in love could afford.

  ‘Look what Jet got Mouche for Christmas. I was with him when he got it. It’s perfect for the treasure chest!’

  And I realized then that unless we were careful, the Princesses were still Princesses and would cease to be minor players in our story and somehow take on leading roles.

  ‘Stop!’ Mouche said as Tory put her hand on the button to upload.

  ‘Chill out, it can always be modified,’ Brooke said incredulously.

  ‘Yeah, besides its totally anonymous...just kidding,’ Teegan giggled. ‘We decided to give you two star billing.’

  ‘Stop!’

  I pulled Tory’s hand aside but Teegan just pushed right over the top of us and uploaded all the information the Princesses had deemed acceptable onto the web with one touch. It would take us at least a day to work out how to get rid of it and by that time it would have been sent straight to the inboxes of Jet and Mark.

  And then I got this feeling, as if I was reading Teegan’s mind... she’d been so nice to me over the last few weeks. She’d promised, sworn actually, to keep everything secret – as had all the girls. We had been foolish to trust them.

  After the diary was uploaded onto the Sunrise High blog site, the house descended into chaos as pillows and quilts for the planned slumber party (the last time, we, as older teenage girls would probably ever participate in such a juvenile event) went, literally, out the window. Our night descended into a disaster of girl-crazy, cat fight proportions.

  Chapter 28

  Forever and After

  The next day, Monday, everyone at school looked at me and Mouche like we were not very nice people.

  Someone made a twisted remark that we’d just been dating boys ‘for the money’ which was so horribly untrue.

  ‘Besides, there wasn’t a single monetary prize on our list,’ I whispered to Mouche.

  The Princesses had reverted to type and taken out all their comments. All the nasty ones they left, they attributed to Mouche and me. But even though most people do tend to believe the first version of a story, something strange was happening.

  There was an alternative to the Princess blog that week. It was our secretly edited online dating diary. Mouche and I had only put boys on the site that we liked o
r had good things to say about and gradually we added girls that we had good things to say about as well. So, while the Princesses spent a few more days defaming the whole school and losing their popularity, people started coming to us for advice until Sunrise High became like a love fest of dating teenagers, all looking for tips on the best places to go and what to do and say.

  Petra had started it all in her bedroom the night of the wedding reception and had uploaded it with our permission the next day, so although the Princesses got in first and even tried to keep the items, we got in next. The Boy-Rating Diary contained all forms of evidences, and for once, we knew to tone down all our comments about the guys and make a fairly honest and accurate account of the teenage dating scene that was ongoing at Sunrise High.

  Of course, the Princesses spent an entire week publishing excerpts of the second Boy-Rating Diary (omitting their authorship) and spent another week slandering us. We held our heads high. If the boys really cared about us we knew they would listen to our versions of the story, because Mrs Jones says, ‘you can almost never really put off a man who is genuine about you. The man will never take someone’s word over yours, or rarely, and in case he has any doubts about something, he should come to you first...’

  And they did.

  Jet and Mark pretty much ignored what the Princesses had to say because manzamples don’t read boy-rating blogs. Of course those girls never spoke another word to us, for the rest of junior year.

  Mouche didn’t seem to mind. ‘Do you honestly think we’re going to see any of these people once we leave for New York?’

  ‘I’m more worried about getting through senior...’

  ‘It will all end up right in the end,’ Mouche said. ‘I have another idea...this time it’s nothing to do with dating juniors....I think it’s time to plan senior year and then college...’

  ‘Because this all turned out so perfectly,’ I said archly.

  ‘Perfectly,’ Wednesday said, clapping her hands and chewing a long strip of candy that neither of our mothers would have allowed her. There is so much to be learned about joie de vivre from children under six.

  Thom had called that day with the good news. Mouche’s baby sister got the part.

  ‘Do you realise that Wednesday has managed in three years to do what I haven’t done in sixteen?’

  ‘Yes, consolidate a college fund...’

  Mrs Mouche was so thrilled.

  ‘Dogs and children,’ I thought as I snuggled Mouche’s new puppy in my arms.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Mouche said, ‘we’re sure to get our scholarships and if not, Wednesday can always give us a loan...’

  Wednesday clapped her hands again. We were teaching her a new word every day, but her favorite one was love.

  ‘It’s all about the love,’ Mrs Mouche said and she and my mother stood in the hallway with a new cup of coffee and a magazine in hand. Trish and Mrs Mouche had a great business idea of their own - all about matching single parents - in cyberspace.

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ Mouche said. ‘Do you think we should tell them what we know?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘they’re just going to have to find out the hard way...’

  ‘It’s all about the love...’ Mrs Mouche said, looking at Wednesday and Mouche and Trey as he walked through the door.

  ‘Big love,’ my mom said looking at me with a smile. I smiled right back at her.

  And I should tell you about France that summer and how excited everyone was when we arrived in Paris. We flew to London first and took the Eurostar to the Gare du Nord which takes about three hours from the centre of London to the centre of Paris. We had breakfast on the train in tiny plastic trays and Mouche kept her unused serviette for posterity, ‘and to paste into our new Dating Diary,’ she whispered.

  The train rocked slightly from side to side when we went under the English Chanel and although Jet was fast asleep by this point, I noticed Mouche grabbed his hand because she gets motion sickness. I took a photograph of them on the digital camera my mother bought me to remember life’s important moments. I also took loads of pictures of the boys sleeping during the long journey in between ‘sampling’ tiny bottles of red wine, of Mouche posing in the many different berets she’d brought with her and saying, ‘I look tres sophisticated,’ of my feet resting against the window ledge (because they’d be doing tons of walking that very day), and of all the dull, industrial buildings the train ambled past as we entered the outskirts of Paris.

  When the train finally stopped, Mark took charge and hailed a taxi at the station and as we drove to the Rue de la Grande Chaumiere I put my hand out of the window to feel the fresh Parisian air. In the Sixth Arrondissement, I noticed the cobbled streets were littered with puffs of tiny smoke volcanos winding up from the artistic-looking street cafes. Loads of Parisians smoke which is very atmospheric but something I’d remember to tell Wednesday not to do, no matter how sophisticated it looks, ‘cos it’s way bad for you.

  The taxi stopped outside the Hotel des Academies et des Arts where we were staying. We checked in, then went off to discover the sights, wandering through the Jardin du Luxembourg and along many cobbled streets.

  You may be wondering where ‘the parentals’ went during all of our adventures. The boys had convinced the adults to let us travel in style and we were unchaperoned for at least thirty-six hours while they went to Bordeaux for a trade fair.

  We went to the Champs Elysees the morning we arrived. After Mouche and I window shopped in all the designer boutiques and souvenir stores, we all decided to explore Sacre Coeur and Montmartre. Jet worked out how to get us Metro tickets using coins and the vending machine and we caught the underground train to Invalides and the Place de Clichy then on to Anvers. After checking our map, we walked up the steps from the subway and visited Sacre-Coeur. On the steps outside the church, we had an amazing view overlooking Paris in the pastel sun. We sat together on the steps amongst a group of tourists until Mouche said, ‘c’mon, let’s go to La Rive Gauche,’ in a French accent.

  After exploring the little market stalls and many shops and restaurants in Montmartre we found a bistro to have lunch opposite Notre Dame Cathedral. The cathedral was gothic and carved with intricate, lace-like stone around the entrance. Painting and architecture students spend hours sitting opposite the building, just to try and capture its brilliance in the changing light.

  Across from the cathedral, near the river Seine, next to a cloud of smoke, we joked around as we ordered bread and soup for lunch. When the traditional meal arrived we had to crack the layer of cheese baked on top of the soup bowl and dip our spoons beneath to retrieve the warm liquid. It was delicious, as was the wine that our parents would never have allowed us to drink. Strangely, no one asked our ages in Paris but the waiter frowned every time Mark attempted to speak French.

  We took lots of photographs of Notre Dame after lunch but we’d had our fill of architecture by the time we reached the Eiffel Tower, even though the Parisian icon was impressive from anyone’s perspective. Mark and I took the elevator to the upper floor of the tower but Mouche and Jet disappeared momentarily behind a crowd of tourists.

  ‘I wonder where they went?’ Mark said with a smile, before we kissed overlooking the city of love.

  ‘...I know, they were busy macking all over each other,’ Wednesday said later on when I told her the story of how Jet and Mouche got lost. Her verbal skills had really developed.

  ‘Well, yes Wednesday, I think they were, but I’m not sure we need to go there...’

  Wednesday giggled as I continued to tell her about Paris.

  ‘That afternoon we took a boat ride along the Seine. Jet arranged for us to travel back towards the hotel in one of the famous Bateaux-Mouches with a glass covered deck. Mouche was very impressed to be floating in her own name...’

  ‘I always wanted to be famous,’ Mouche joked.

  You could tell Jet totally loved her by then, and not just because they got ‘lost’ again for an extra long ti
me while we all went to explore the Musee d’Orsay. Mark wasn’t really into art ‘but I’m pretending to be, for your sake,’ he told me, ‘which shows you how devoted he is becoming,’ Mouche whispered in my ear over dinner that night. She could talk. Jet was holding her hand everywhere we went by then. He seemed way in love with Mouche, if you ask me, although everyone said they were too young to call it that.

  On our last day in Paris, Mark and Jet explored the gastronomical surprises in Lafayette Gourmet while Mouche and I shopped in Galeries Lafayette and Printemps. But although the large designer stores were inspirational, the polka dot dresses and geometric designer gowns and flowing skirts tres chic, we found ourselves drawn to the colorful market stalls along the street that divided the shopping centres. It was whilst sorting through items for the people we loved back home that we started to miss Sunrise.