Princess for Hire

by Lindsey Leavitt

  “Wow,” I said. “Didn’t learn that in my sixth-grade Egyptian unit.”

  Lilith laughed and turned off the projector. The lights came back on. “Don’t worry. We won’t let you get killed. Any other questions?”

  Uh, yeah. “How many subs are there?” I asked.

  “Surrogates, dear. Call them surrogates. Sub sounds so common. Anyway, there are several fine surrogates employed by the agency. I would say there’s about one surrogate for every six royals.”

  One for every six? So I guess I kind of was a big deal. And I probably had a good shot at subbing, er, surrogating for big-time royals! “One more. How do the levels work?”

  “Levels are assigned to royals based on the their country’s wealth, their world influence, the amount of protocol associated with the royal’s title.…It’s a very complex formula. Oh, and media attention.” Lilith beamed and showed me her diamond bracelet. “This was a gift for a particularly tricky maneuver.”

  Tiaras, diamond bracelets. The job perks sure beat free Mountain Dew at Pets Charming.

  “The higher the level,” Lilith continued, “the more the client can expect from her surrogates—such as a mastery in all the basics: riding, literature, world history, art history, and classical music. It’s a rare and talented individual who progresses past the first two levels. Only a select few ever match.”

  “Match?”

  “Oh, Desi, it’s the best. Matching is a surrogate’s main goal. Once you’ve worked for a princess multiple times, you may apply to be her match—her permanent substitute. You get to grow with your client, become close to her family, and really live her life. You can see why it’s important to be so keenly trained, right?”

  “Yes. That’s…there’s so much involved,” I said, feeling daunted.

  “Well, royal life is culture at its highest. But don’t worry, Desi dear, although it certainly doesn’t help your case that you are working with Meredith. Don’t get me wrong: she’s talented, just a bit of a renegade. She used to be something of a protégé, but then there was that scandal.”

  I leaned in. “Scandal?”

  Lilith waved her hand. “Oh, no. I did not mean to mention that. Let’s just say it was enough to strain important professional relationships and revoke her training privileges, which is why I’m so lucky to be working with you now! You see, and this is just between us girls, I usually get the high-profile, elite jobs. Sometimes, if I see enough promise, I might take a Level Two. So keep that in mind after your Level One performance review. Surely you can do dressage, yes?”

  Thanks for nothing, Cunningham Stables. “No.”

  “Any instruments? Archery? French literature?”

  “I like theater,” I said, feeling myself vaporize.

  “Well, acting is the most important skill,” Lilith said kindly. “But don’t worry, we’ll catch you up. Girls with MP are naturally fast learners. And far more mature than other girls. Besides, Level One really is the ideal practice turf because no one pays attention to those far-flung new royals and ugly ducklings. Now, I’ll bring out the tea set. It’s time to get down to business.”

  Back in Idaho I’d sat through ten months of Mom’s charm school wondering When am I ever going to use this? Well, question answered. With my mom it was all about local beauty pageants, and with Lilith it was about having tea with the Crown Princess of Japan. Lilith walked me through dinner and tea etiquette and the specific protocols that varied by culture and order of eminence—like, if you’re a princess at a state dinner, no one may eat before you’ve tasted the food. Dream come true, right?

  “That was fun, wasn’t it? Let’s move on to impersonation. My favorite.” Lilith cleared away our delicious tea (I remembered not to slurp, but got a pinched look when I inhaled a pastry). She perched herself on the edge of my desk.

  “Now, a good sub is like a Method actor. Here, let’s try one role. Now, pretend you’re Princess Desiree, a girl with a wild-child rep, and I am your haughty great-aunt Lady Lily. We’re at a…let’s say a new exhibit at the Louvre. Here we go.” Lilith blinked and smiled a cool, perfectly royal smile. How did she do that? I swear her features all but morphed into a nosy aunt’s. “So, Desiree, sweetheart! You look divine. How are things at school?”

  “I…I, uh…Wait, I’m the princess right now, right?”

  Lilith nodded demurely. “Do you need a moment to get into character?”

  “Oh! Of course, sorry.” I bit my lip and thought hard about this imaginary Desiree. Would a bad girl give her aunt snark? No, this might be the aunt who gives her the good presents. Better to ease into it. “School is, well, busy,” I said, attempting a wild-child smile.

  “Wonderful!” Lilith cooed. “Oh, Desiree, I worry about you so. How are your classes, dear?”

  “They’re…challenging. I really love art history, especially the Impressionists—”

  Lilith rapped a ruler on the desk. “Oh, Desi. No no no. I understand, of course, your motives, but hon. You have no idea if this girl knows a Picasso from a Pissarro.”

  “But they are at an art museum. And her classes must be hard.”

  “Hmm. You’re on the right track, but to be safe, you should never be so direct. What if I say, ‘Oh? What do you think of Clement Greenberg’s stance on modernism?’”

  Clement who? “Uh…”

  “See, you’re stuck. Now, when you get in a bind like that, strategies include: coughing until someone offers you a beverage, changing the subject, or my specialty, flashing a royal jewel that somebody is bound to compliment. Worst-case scenario: fake laryngitis. Now, let’s give this another try.” With one blink, she flashed back into character. “So tell me, dear, how are your classes?”

  This was tough. What if I didn’t answer the question at all? “Well, you know how it is. Same old. I get so tired of learning sometimes.”

  Lilith patted my hand as if to say good job, but stayed right in character. “What’s this I hear about Duke Wellingford’s daughter and the dog walker? Poor thing, she must have no self-esteem because of her looks. A dog walker! Can you believe it?” Lilith sniffed.

  “Maybe she really loves him?” I said, uncomfortable with Lilith/Lily’s tone. “I hope she’s doing all right.”

  “Desi, Desi,” Lilith sighed. “If a royal gets caught with a dog walker, she’s totally free game. Plus, gossip is an excellent way to bond with another royal, not to mention a vastly entertaining pastime.”

  I noticed I’d twisted the hem of my T-shirt into a knot. “But what if I think it’s mean? What if I want to stop Lady Lily from trashing someone who might be really struggling?”

  “Method, Desi. You become that princess in your head, and you ONLY do as the princess would do. It’s so much fun that way!” She punctuated her words with her hand, like she was painting the image for me in the air. “Think of it. When you surrogate for a bratty princess, you get to BE bratty. When I was a surrogate, now and then I’d send my food back even if it was perfectly fine. Just because I could.”

  Yeah, but weren’t they ever tempted to see what other uses there were for this magic? Look at the situation—I could help change Lily’s snobby opinion of the dog walker. Help this poor girl out!

  Just because, you know, I could.

  “Oh, dear. Look at the time!” Lilith exclaimed after we’d been practicing our impersonations for what felt like hours. As different princesses, I’d attended a funeral, presented an award, and posed for a photo shoot. “We have a few minutes. Why don’t we go check out Central Command?”

  I followed Lilith into the hallway, feeling like my feet weren’t quite touching the floor. That vaporiness I often felt at home was evaporating fast, almost to the point of a massive happy explosion.

  “Now, Central Command, or CC, is where the tech people work,” Lilith told me. “You know, monitoring bubble flight paths, rouge algorithms, Princess Progress Reports, things like that. Ooh, and you still need to get your manual!”

  Before I could ask what thes
e things were, we came to the wall of portraits. “That’s the CEO or something, right? What’s her name again?” I pointed at Rainbow Hair.

  “Genevieve? Oh, I could write a whole book about Genevieve’s brilliance. She’s the head of the Façade council, and I feel like she’s my personal mentor. When the PPRs are uploaded to our network by the princesses, Genevieve is the one who reviews them for the Court of Appeals. She also monitors all the agents and decides which princesses qualify for our services. She knows everyone who’s anyone and knows all their business. Their private business. If you look at it a certain way, you could say she’s the most powerful woman in the world.”

  What I saw next seemed to confirm Genevieve’s power. In three steps we went from Camelot to Façade’s version of Mission Control. Ten casually dressed, surprisingly young employees, each sitting at a large round table, wheeled their chairs from one computer to another, frantically typing and checking the large screen in the front of the room. Graphs and diagrams and numbers flashed on the screen above a large world map with unlit red lights sprinkled across it.

  “Who are these guys?” I asked.

  “These are people with MP whose special talents are more…technological. I have no idea how we recruit them; they aren’t terribly exceptional. Not like surrogates or agents.”

  On the world map, a light in eastern China blinked for a second, and everyone stopped what they were doing to stare. They let out a sigh when it didn’t stay lit.

  “MP meter,” Lilith whispered. “You should have seen Meredith’s face when they picked up on your signal.

  The strongest one we’d had in a year.”

  “Really?”

  “Indeed. Now, let’s get you your new toy!”

  Lilith led me to an adjacent room, where a cute high school–age guy in a rocker T-shirt and worn Converse was sitting at a desk covered with laptops and crusty coffee mugs. Lilith coughed, and the boy looked up.

  “What can I do for you, Lilith?” he said. “And who’s your friend?” He smiled at me, and I felt my face flush.

  “Hank, meet Desi Bascomb, our newest surrogate. We came to pick up Desi’s manual.”

  “Oh, right.” He ran over to another desk and rummaged through a tower of tangled cords and spare parts. “Sorry for the mess. Things have been pretty hectic. We finished installing that new PPR interface and found out some of the multimedia components aren’t compatible with the Princessnet security shield.”

  Lilith raised an eyebrow. “What does that mean in English?”

  “Ah well, there’s a programming glitch. When the PPRs come in, the network computers go haywire and start levitating.” Hank smiled when my eyes widened. “Magic and technology follow different rules, so they’re bound to butt heads sometimes. Right now the levitation is totally getting in the way of our monitoring system.”

  “So no Princess Progress Reports are coming through?” Lilith asked, alarmed.

  “Just for a bit! No worries. Ah, here we go.” He held up a silver touch-screen computer/phone that he carefully placed into my hands.

  “Seriously, don’t drop, shake, break, or lose this. This is an exquisite piece of technomagical machinery, and it’s worth some serious dough.” He scratched his chin. “Well, I’ve got to figure this PPR thing out before the Lady Carol wedding, so uh…glad to have you on board, Desi. Peace out.”

  We returned to the loud chaos of CC. Meredith was standing in the doorway, her eyes scanning the room.

  Lilith enveloped me into a hug and whispered, “Last thing. Meredith may seem hard on the outside, but she’s actually rather soft. Well, her ideas are soft. Limiting. Too…of the people for my tastes. So don’t listen to her. Use your training. If you can make it through her boring gigs, we’ll make sure Level Two is completely A-list, all right?”

  I pulled away. “Yeah. Thanks.”

  Meredith marched over. “Where have you been? I’ve been looking everywhere.”

  Lilith gave me a tiny wink. “Just showing Desi around. She’s such a quick study, we had some extra time.”

  Meredith looked skeptical. “Well, that’s good news, because Desi’s got an important assignment we need to get to. Let’s go.” She motioned for me to follow, and huffed away.

  “Remember everything I taught you, Desi dear,” Lilith said. Then she lowered her voice. “It might be the only help you get.”

  Chapter

  9

  Meredith waited for me in the hallway. “Training.

  Good?”

  “Great! Lilith is—”

  “Awful. I know. Sorry you had to deal with her.”

  “No, I think she’s amazing. Really helped me out. Totally warm and—”

  “Condescending?”

  “Informative, actually,” I said.

  Meredith raised her chin. “Right. Opinions on that matter vary greatly, but some of us aren’t as good at reading people as others.”

  I shrugged. As far as I was concerned, Lilith was easier to read than Gracie’s flash cards, and so…not Meredith.

  “Did you find your missing sub?” I asked.

  “Yes, thank you, and I don’t need your cheek,” Meredith snapped. “Only a mild case of hypothermia. And thanks to her, you have a gig that’s probably above your level.” Meredith surveyed the empty hallway and opened the door next to Central Command. A broom closet. “Get in.”

  I followed her, wondering what level of crazy she had finally reached.

  “Princess Simahya is Level One, but that’s only because she’s the youngest sibling and slightly…odd.”

  “Odd?”

  She huffed. “Contrary to what Lilith may have taught you, odd royals are royals too.”

  “Meredith, I never said—”

  “Now”—she cut me off—“since we’re running late, I’m going to have to break protocol and launch from here. Don’t tell. Just another outdated rule.” Meredith pointed her phone into the darkest corner and leaked the bubble out. “Come on. You need to rouge up soon. And you can read about your first job while we fly.”

  Once we were safely in the air, Meredith gave me a quick tutorial on my manual and made me promise to guard it with my life and only read it in a safe, private place. The constant possibility of a Sub Spotting might have scared me if I hadn’t been so pumped about the device itself. I had to get one of these for school!

  The home screen was divided into sections that each had a cute icon. A sun for the weather, a compass for the GPS system, a tiara for princess mail (with a message already there!). Some even had little captions underneath, like the lipstick for beauty and health tips (top energy bars for the sub on the go); a high heel for royal fashion (a crash course on the four C’s of diamonds); a horse for royal skills (how to shoot an arrow without killing your princess); and best of all, a winking eye for gossip (scandals of Lady Jana: the lady-in-waiting who just can’t wait).

  I couldn’t resist clicking on the winking eye first. Shots of various princesses splattered the page, organized by region. For each princess there was a message board where subs could anonymously post helpful nuggets. I read through a few:

  Fturagent3: Princess Jamelia says she’s a vegetarian, but then what’s with the McDonald’s wrappers under her bed?

  OrngNewPink: Duchess Olivia is totally anal about her tan lines. Follow her tanning schedule exactly. Don’t do what I did and try to cheat with self-tanner. Worst PPR ever.

  SportySub: Baroness Anne and the Duchess of Watershire are STILL not talking after the Poodle Incident. In fact, steer clear of all pooches. Things could get catty.

  I did a search on Princess Simahya and came up with one comment:

  AfricanPrincess: She’s really quiet and likes to eat. A LOT. If you shut your mouth except when you’re shoving food into it, you’ll do fine.

  What a mean thing to say! I considered posting this, but was too excited to read the message waiting in my inbox. I clicked on the e-mail and instantly the full details of my very first royal adventure
filled the screen.

  At the top was a photograph of the palace (yeah, PALACE), and I kid you not, half of Sproutville could have fit inside. Flamboyant gardens surrounded the compound, and loads of expensive cars lined the driveway.

  In her profile picture, the princess was looking down, like she was scared of cameras. And if it hadn’t been for the title above her name, you’d have thought she was just a regular, kind of pudgy teenager.

  Next, she’d posted a family picture with all her siblings’ names and ages captioned below. It was a beautiful picture of everyone but Simahya, who had her eyes closed and wasn’t smiling. Even her father, middle-aged with a round stomach and bulbous nose, looked handsome in it. And too bad for Simahya, she looked nothing like her beautiful mother—but her older sister, Nabila, did.

  Even her personal information read like she was trying to rush through it so she could go back to being unnoticeable.

  Princess Simahya bint Zafir bin Sultan al-Dhayrif (Everyone just calls me Simmy)

  Age: 13

  Hometown: Al Hayrah

  Favorite Color: Orangish Reddish Yellow. Ish.

  Favorite Book: The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White. Or any romance. Especially ones with strong women and shirtless men.

  Favorite Food: (with pictures of three different dishes below it). Sweets. Also chicken with nuts in spicy marinade. And fresh-baked rosemary bread. Wait, do I have to pick one?

  Family Background: My father is Sheikh Zafir. As sovereign prime minister, he oversees oil distribution for the entire western coast, so he’s never around. My mother is also gone a lot—she’s flying in from Europe just in time for the charity event. Queen Raelena is visiting! Plus, all of our aunts and uncles and cousins from both sides of the family are staying with us this week. Fifteen women and only twelve bathrooms. Yikes! I’m SO glad you’re coming.

  I have two brothers and a sister, Nabila, who thinks she’s in charge of everything. Seriously, don’t sneeze unless you have her permission. Actually, just avoid her if you can. Also avoid Mrs. Farahani, our family PR coordinator. She and Nabila are always telling me what to do. Wish I could tell them a thing or…Never mind. Follow their lead. Or not. Whatever.