Ephraim’s left brow rose at the challenge and he laughed. “Xavier Wells, you have an ego that would rival your father’s; neither one of you likes to admit defeat. But let me give you a word of advice, Your Highness. I am the best swordsman in the kingdom. Not even your father has ever managed to put me to the floor during a bout. So I seriously doubt you’ll be able to, boy,” he concluded confidently, patting Xavier’s head.
Chapter 19: Food Fight
Xavier found Robbie waiting for him on the steps of the Academy at dismissal. A line of cars crowded the school’s drive, and students were bustling in different directions. Michael Spencer was doing his best to direct the traffic as efficiently as possible.
“Hi, Xavier!” she smiled. “How was your day?”
“Not bad. Yours?” he answered, taking her bag and flinging it over his shoulder along with his own.
“Great! I started a new empowerment class: gardening. It’s really fascinating,” she told him.
“Gardening?” he questioned with a lazy grin.
“Yeah...I can make things grow at an accelerated rate...and I can manipulate it to grow a certain way, too.”
“Geez, that sounds a lot like telekinesis,” he commented.
“Well, according to Madam Applegate, it’s one step away from it. Who knows, I may develop telekinesis in time,” she added with a shrug. “So, are we still going to King’s Cafe?”
“Yeah, a chocolate shake sounds really good right now.”
“Xavier! Hey, Xavier!” Daniel called, waving wildly to get his attention. “Are you coming over later?”
“Yeah, I’ll be there,” Xavier answered with a wave.
“What was that all about?” Robbie snickered.
“Well, he wanted me to stop by and play after our date. You don’t have to come with me, but I owe the little guy,” he told her as he took her hand and led her down the sidewalk away from the school.
“No, it’s okay. I’ll go with you.”
“Are you sure? I have a feeling it’s going to be boring playing with a nine-year-old.” he sighed.
“I’m sure,” she answered, swinging their clasped hands happily.
“Thank God! I think I might need the reinforcements,” he replied, snickering.
When they reached the Coliseum, Xavier pulled Robbie to stop beside him. She gave him a puzzled look.
“What?”
“There’s no reason why we should walk the entire way to King’s Café when I can just teleport us.” he grinned and extended his arms invitingly.
Robbie hesitated. “Are you sure? I mean. Have you...have you ever teleported with someone else?”
“Yeah, of course! Loads of times,” he lied. “Come on! It’ll take us thirty minutes if we walk. This way, we’ll be there in seconds.”
She eyed him suspiciously but finally agreed.
“Oh, all right.” She moved into his arms.
As nervous as he was to use his powers, he couldn’t resist the urge to show off what he could do in front of Robbie. So with a deep breath, Xavier concentrated on teleporting them, and within moments, they stood swaying slightly in the middle of Center Square. Relief washed over his body and he felt like laughing out loud. He had done it! He not only teleported successfully, but he had done it with another person in tow! Maybe all his worries over his abilities were unwarranted. Maybe the accidents he had with his abilities were just that: accidents.
The open market was wall-to-wall with vending stands and people, but all activity froze the moment Xavier appeared among them, holding Robbie. After a moment of utter silence, murmurs began to spray from the crowd.
“It’s the prince.”
“Isn’t that Dublin Minnows’ daughter he’s holding?”
Robbie stiffened in his arms.
“Oh, they must be sweethearts.”
“Prince Xavier can do better than her. She’s become a handful since her father died.”
“Did you see what she wore to the Celebration? It was so bad that the king had to intervene!”
“Poor Tamarah. Dublin Minnows would roll over in his grave...”
Xavier had heard enough. “Hey! Shut it, all of you!” he spat at the gossiping women. “Who do you think you are, talking about Robbie like that? You don’t know her! You don’t know anything about anything! Mr. Minnows was proud of Robbie. She’s the kindest, most forgiving, sweetest person I know! I could never do better than her. If you insult her, you insult me! So, if you ever talk about her again, I’ll tell my father. Got it?”
The women looked at him in dismay before one responded timidly, “We apologize, Your Highness. We were insensitive and out of line.” The group bowed their heads in shame.
He stared disgustedly at the women before taking Robbie’s hand.
“Come on,” he muttered, pulling her from the open market and across Square Avenue to Main Street. “Sorry. I didn’t think about how busy Center Square would be this time of day. They’re idiots.”
“It’s all right, Xavier. Forget it. Let’s just go to the cafe and enjoy our shakes.”
“Deal,” he replied, flashing a quick grin.
As he led Robbie into the cafe, there was a sudden hush from the patrons and Xavier could feel every eye on him. He wasn’t sure he would ever get used to the attention and awe people openly displayed in his presence. His father seemed completely at ease with it, but then, he had grown up in the kingdom. That had to make a difference. Doing his best to ignore the people gawking at him, he and Robbie made their way to a booth in the corner. Once they were seated, the cafe slowly came back to life.
“You know,” Xavier began, “if you want to get more than a milkshake, you can. I can afford it.”
She snickered. “Xavier, are you trying to impress me with your money?”
He shrugged, blushing. “Yeah, I guess I was. Sorry.” He looked sheepishly at the girl he had known all his life. “But if you’re hungry, we can share some fries or something.”
“Okay, that sounds great. I’m starving,” she replied.
A very timid waitress came to their table fidgeting nervously with her tablet. She gaped down at them with a slightly open mouth.
“Ah, hello?” Xavier prompted. The woman looked too stunned to speak. Realizing she wouldn’t ask for their order, he took charge. “All right then, we’d like a large order of fries and two chocolate shakes, please.”
The waitress shakily wrote down the order and looked back at them. Finally finding her voice, she spluttered, “Ah...ah, excuse me, sire...but...will this be cash...or...”
“Oh, just bill my father, please,” he answered the unfinished question.
With a brisk nod, the waitress left to place the order.
Robbie shook with silent laughter.
“What?” Xavier questioned.
“I bet all this is hard to get used to,” she snickered. “I mean, you went from an unpopular geek to a famous prince.”
“Geek!” he blurted and pinched her side. “I was never a geek!”
Squealing and laughing, Robbie squirmed away from him on the bench. Her large, smiling, dark eyes made him do it. They mesmerized and hypnotized him, and he couldn’t stop himself even if he had wanted to. He grabbed her arms, pulled her toward him, and kissed her fully on the mouth. Instantly, she stilled beneath his kiss and sighed. His heart thumped strongly in his chest and suddenly the café felt too hot. When he finally pulled away he couldn’t take his eyes off of the beautiful girl sitting next to him.
“Wow,” he whispered.
“Well, well, well. Prince Wells and Miss Minnows!”
They jerked apart and turned to see Henrick Davies grinning from a stool at the café’s counter. “How did the pair of you manage to get here so quickly? If I’m not mistaken, school let out only five minutes ago.” The lieutenant stood and sauntered toward them.
Xavier grinned mischievously back. “It’s a little thing call teleportation, lieutenant.”
“Ah, I see your cheekiness
hasn’t improved much since the last time I talked with you,” Henrick replied.
“And I see you still get your kicks out of tormenting kids,” he retorted.
“Yeah,” Henrick agreed longingly as he slid onto the bench opposite them, “but I haven’t had a lot of time to do it lately. So understandably, I’ve been going through withdrawal. It’s not a pretty sight.”
Xavier laughed. “Yeah. I can see that.”
Henrick glanced at a blushing Robbie before returning his knowing gaze to Xavier. He grinned broadly. “Oh, I’m sorry. Am I interrupting something, Your Highness?”
“If I told you yes, you’d only stay longer,” he chided.
“Yep, but I’ll show mercy this time. Besides, I have to report to work in thirty minutes, so I better finish my food and get going. The boss gets really cranky when I’m late.” He snickered and shook his head. “Jeesh, the way he acts, you’d think he was a king or something.”
Xavier laughed heartily at this. “Yeah, I know the type. See ya later, Henrick. Tell Dad I’ll be home in time for dinner.”
With a nod, the lieutenant stood and returned to the counter to finish his burger.
“I think Henrick is spending way too much time with Loren,” he noted, watching Henrick flirt persistently with a blushing waitress.
A few minutes later, their waitress returned with their order and Xavier gulped down several large swallows of the shake and dove into the fries, shoving a handful of the salty goodness into his mouth.
Robbie giggled. “Lord, Xavier! Someone will think your father starves you if you keep eating like that!”
“Sorry,” he replied ruefully before nudging the basket of fries toward her. “Help yourself.”
“Thanks. Oh wait, there’s no ketchup.” She frowned down at the fries before searching for the waitress, who was nowhere in sight.
“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it,” he whispered, looking toward the counter.
The ketchup bottles sat in a line on a shelf behind the counter. Xavier smirked. He couldn’t resist the chance to show off again, and he flicked his finger at one of the bottles. The bottle rose from the shelf and slowly drifted toward them. He turned and gave Robbie a triumphant grin. But, his grin quickly dropped as one bottle turned into a dozen. Alarmed, he tried to put the ketchup bottles back on the shelf, but they didn’t respond to his command. Instead, dishes, glasses, orders waiting to be served, customers’ belongings, and everything else not bolted to the floor flew into the air and hovered there. The crowded restaurant erupted with a collective gasp.
Xavier tried to disconnect from his telekinesis, but this turned out to be a very terrible mistake for the items floating slowly around the room were suddenly whizzing and crashing into walls, tables, and people. It was a full-fledged telekinetic food fight! Xavier and Robbie ducked under the table as a bowl of applesauce smashed into the wall beside them. Pandemonium erupted among the cafe’s patrons. Many dove under their tables, a few darted for the door, and a couple, who Xavier suspected were telekinetic, stood in the center of the restaurant with their hands raised, trying to “catch” the food missiles. It took the telekinetics several minutes to get the last of the food out of the air.
As people slowly began to reemerge from under their tables, a large, burly man with a fat, sweaty face threw open the swinging door from the kitchen. He scanned the crowd suspiciously.
“Okay! I want to know whose idea of a joke that was!” he bellowed.
Of course, no one responded, and Xavier glanced anxiously at Robbie, who was staring back at him with large doe-like eyes.
“Come on! Who did this?” the man shouted again.
“Beau, I’m sure it was an accident. Several people darted out of here when the ruckus began. It could have been any one of them,” Henrick stated, but as he did so, he glanced at Xavier. “I’m sure these gentlemen would be more than willing to help clean this mess up.” He nodded at the two men who had helped to stop the ruckus.
“Sure, it won’t take any time at all,” one man told Beau.
The tension in the air seemed to melt away as the men began to clean up the mess.
Xavier turned to Robbie. “I don’t know about you, but I think I’ve had enough fries and shakes. What do you say we head out?”
Without a word, Robbie nodded, and they exited the restaurant in silence.
Once outdoors, they hurried from the café in a shocked silence. After they were a block or two from the café, Xavier, feeling less anxious, reached for Robbie’s hand, but she pulled out of his grasp, and continued to walk, staring at her feet.
“What’s wrong?” Xavier asked.
“What’s wrong? You know what’s wrong, Xavier!” she retorted, looking at him with worried eyes. “It happened AGAIN! When are you going to admit that it’s getting worse not better? You need to tell your dad.”
“No,” Xavier hissed. “It was...I can handle it!”
“No, you can’t! Xavier...I’m afraid...”
“Xavier? Hold on a minute.” Henrick called from behind them.
Xavier gave Robbie a warning look as the lieutenant jogged up beside them. Henrick looked at Robbie’s downcast head before his eyes settled quizzically on the prince. “So? What happened in there?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” he muttered.
“Come on, Xavier. I wasn’t born yesterday. I saw that ketchup bottle floating toward your table before all hell broke loose!” he told him.
“It wasn’t me!” he lied.
“Are you sure about that?”
“Of course I am! You don’t think I’d do something like that on purpose, do ya?” he spat defensively.
He studied the boy a moment before finally answering, “No, of course not, not intentionally.”
“All right, then. Can we go now? My cousin is expecting us at his house.” Not waiting for a response, he turned and walked away with Robbie reluctantly following.
Chapter 20: The Fort
As they walked to Michael Spencer’s house, Xavier tried to make light of what happened at the café, but Robbie wasn’t buying it.
“Stop it! Just stop, Xavier,” she hissed irritably. “We both know your powers got away from you again, so stop trying to make it seem like it was all a practical joke! If it had been just a joke, we wouldn’t be walking the entire way to the headmaster’s house. You would have teleported us! And you know what? I’m not really in the mood to go to your uncle’s with you. I’m sorry, Xavier. I care about you, but I can’t pretend that everything’s fine.”
“Robbie! Oh, come on! Don’t be like that!”
He watched her walk away until she was inside the palace gates and out of sight. With a heavy sigh, he turned and trudged along the street that skirted the palace walls. Uncle Mike lived in a modest little house in the merchant end of the kingdom. This surprised many because his status as royalty would permit him to live within the palace walls. Xavier wondered what made his uncle choose to live where he did.
It hadn’t occurred to him until he knocked on the door that he had never been inside his uncle’s house. He had decorated the outside of the house during a mummering prank, but he’d never seen inside.
The door opened on the second knock and standing in the doorway with bare feet, tattered jeans, and an old t-shirt was his uncle. He looked completely out of character for the headmaster of Well’s Academy.
Mike smiled down at him. “Hey, kiddo. Come in. Daniel’s very excited you could stop by. Where’s Robbie? He told me that she was coming with you.”
“Oh, well, she was, but she had to go home,” he answered dismissively, stepping into the house. He studied the interior and found it masculine yet neat and homey. Most of the furniture looked old and well used, and the pictures on the walls were landscapes and historical renditions.
“Daniel? Your cousin’s here,” Mike called down the hallway that most likely led to bedrooms.
Xavier heard a thump from the back of the house followed by a s
hout. “Ouch, darn it! Okay, Daddy. I’m coming!”
Seconds later, Daniel skipped out of his room and down the hall with a large grin.
“Hey, Xavier! Thanks for coming. So, whatcha wanna do?”
He shrugged. “Whatever you want to do. It doesn’t matter to me.”
“Can we go outside, Dad?”
Michael smiled down at his son. “Yes,” he answered as he cupped the small boy’s chin with his hand, held his face steady while rubbing at a smudge of what looked like chocolate pudding on the boy’s cheek. “You have an hour before dinner. Okay?”
“Okay,” Daniel whined trying to pull out of his father’s grasp. “Dad! Come on! It’s fine. You’re embarrassing me!”
He released the boy and smiled. “If you’d wash your face after snacks, I wouldn’t need to embarrass you.” He winked down at Xavier, who stifled a smile.
“Fine,” Daniel muttered, grabbing Xavier’s arm and dragging him through the kitchen and out the back door.
“Remember, one hour!” Mike called after them.
“Come on, Xavier. Check it out! Dad built this fort for me! Isn’t it awesome!”
Xavier had to admit the fort was pretty cool. It was three stories tall with a fireman’s pole from the top level to the ground, a hanging ladder to climb to the upper levels, a rope swing, and from the top level, a swinging bridge stretching from the fort to a small platform erected in the tree next to it. He grinned. Maybe spending time with Daniel wouldn’t be as boring as he had first thought.
“Come on, Xavier!” he called, already half way up the ladder.
He raced to the fort and climbed the ladder to the top level where his small cousin stood waiting for him.
“It’s cool, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is,” he answered, looking around admiringly. Magazines, comics, books, and cards were stacked haphazardly on a milk crate and four beanbag chairs were scattered around the space. The guys would go nuts over the fort. Maybe Daniel wouldn’t mind if he brought his friends over sometime.
Grinning, Daniel fell into one of the beanbag chairs. Xavier moved to a beanbag next to him and flopped into it.
The Prince of Warwood and The Rise of the Chosen Page 16
