Her Royal Highness

by Rachel Hawkins

  The point of this whole thing is supposed to be for us to bond, after all, so I’m determined to at least be . . . okay, “nice” might be too strong, but “pleasant.” That feels like the most I can strive for at this point.

  As Mr. McGregor pulls our packs out of the back, Sakshi rolls down her window, gesturing me over. “Courage, mon amie,” she says, offering her crooked pinkie, and with a smile, I wrap my own pinkie around hers, giving it a shake.

  “Same to you, Saks,” I say. “See you on the other side.”

  Flora rolls her eyes as she pulls her expensive sunglasses from the top of her head.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she drawls. “We’re not going to war, it’s just a wee camping trip.”

  She does have a point, much as it kills me to admit that, but as I look around, it’s hard to see this as a “wee camping trip.” The hills look higher than I’d thought, things seem awfully rugged, and as the van drives off, I’m reminded that for the next few hours, it’s just me, Flora, and a whole bunch of Scottish wilderness.

  That feels less than wee.

  Clearing my throat, I turn, looking around me. I’d done camping with Dad, but always in campsites where the place we needed to put up the tent was clear. Also, most of those places had, you know, bathrooms and showers and stuff.

  “I guess we should go ahead and start scouting out a spot?” I suggest, and to my surprise, Flora points farther down the hill.

  “We should set up over there,” she says. “On the other side of the water.”

  Down the rise, there’s a fast-flowing stream, and on the other side, the ground does look flatter and maybe less rocky.

  “Wow, that’s . . . actually helpful,” I say, smiling at Flora. “Good plan.”

  “Whatever,” she says, readjusting her pack, and we head off in that direction. The wind is blowing, and it smells sweet from the grass with this faint mineral tang from the water ahead of us. I lift my face into it, watching clouds rush over the sky, smiling.

  “Okay, this is awesome,” I say, not caring that I’m wearing someone else’s clothes and accompanied by someone who doesn’t like me very much.

  From behind me, Flora gives a grunt that might be agreement, might just be that camping has already begun to kill her.

  I’m fine with either in this moment.

  We get to the bottom of the hill, and a little of my Sound of Music–y joy leaves me when I see that the stream that looked so manageable from up higher is a lot bigger and faster than I’d thought.

  It’s also . . . brown. Not gross brown, don’t get me wrong. This looks more like a river made of root beer, which is a cool idea, but it means that I can’t really see the bottom, so I’m not sure how deep it is.

  Already stymied by nature ten minutes in.

  “There!” Flora calls out, pointing at some rocks that form an uneven and slippery path across the water. “We can cross there.”

  “We can die there,” I reply, pushing my bangs out of my eyes. Flora is still wearing her sunglasses, her cheeks pink from the wind, a few strands of hair coming loose from her ponytail.

  But she shakes her head. “No, I’ve crossed loads of streams like these. They’re never very deep, and as long as you take your time crossing, you shouldn’t slip.”

  She holds out her hand. “Here, tell you what. I’ll hold your pack while you cross.”

  I like the idea of attempting to cross without an unwieldy pack on my back, but I frown at Flora. “Then how will you get across?”

  Flora shrugs. “I’m more used to this kind of thing than you may think. Like I said, I’ve gone on tons of shooting trips, and we haul gear a lot heavier than all this across rougher terrain. It’s just a matter of balance, really.”

  She says it so confidently that I find myself shrugging off my pack. “If you’re sure?”

  Although I can’t see her eyes behind her glasses, I assume she rolls them. “I’m sure I want this part of things to be over as quickly as possible, so hand me your stupid bag and cross the river.”

  She takes the pack from me, and I have to say, she doesn’t even stagger under the weight. Maybe Flora is tougher than she looks.

  So I grin at her. “Thanks!”

  “Any day now, Quint,” she replies, gesturing to the water.

  My first step is not as steady as I’d like, my eyes on all that water rushing underneath me. But the second step is easier, and with my hands out to the side, I’m very glad I’m not carrying a bag like a turtle shell on my back.

  I’m focused on my steps, and also on the wind, which seems to get louder, the sweeping sound of the river, and the opposite bank, so I’m not sure how long it takes me to cross. It feels like forever, but when my feet finally land on the slippery bank opposite, I’m smiling again. I clamber up a bit, putting the river behind me some before finding the steadier, flatter piece of ground Flora had first pointed out.

  Turning to face Flora, I call out, “Your t—”

  The words die in my throat.

  Flora isn’t on the opposite side of the river. She’s on the bank, right behind me.

  Grinning.

  And our packs are nowhere in sight.

  CHAPTER 18

  I should’ve known.

  When Flora asked to hold my pack, I absolutely should’ve suspected something was up because obviously. In what universe would Flora be the sort of person who willingly holds someone else’s stuff? But I told myself that maybe she was just trying to be nice, and now it’s clear that that kind of thinking is going to be what gets me killed.

  Awesome.

  “Seriously, Flora,” I say, panic beginning to climb up my throat. “Where are our packs?”

  She jerks her thumb over her shoulder.

  “In the river.”

  “The river,” I repeat, and some little part of my brain is insisting that I must have misunderstood her, that there’s no way she’d do something this stupid and reckless.

  Then I remember who I’m talking to, and oh my god, all our stuff is absolutely in the river.

  I look back down the incline toward the rushing water, and I think, there in the distance, I can see something bobbing along that might be a pack? But even as I go to take after it—apparently thinking I can outrun a river—whatever it was disappears out of sight, and I stop there, my feet muddy, my breath sawing in and out of my lungs.

  “That shite was heavy,” Flora says. “They’ve probably sunk already.”

  I thrust my hands into my hair, pulling it slightly from my head like the sting will make me wake up from this nightmare where I’m trapped in the wilderness with no supplies and a brat of a princess, but no. It hurts a little, and I’m still very much awake.

  “Why?” I ask, then shake my head. “Why am I even bothering asking that? You probably don’t even know why you do the banana-pants things you do.”

  “Banana-pants?” Flora echoes. Bah-naaah-naaah pahnts.

  “Crazy,” I explain. “Insane. So freaking nuts it’s hard to believe.”

  “Yes, I was able to use context clues to piece that together. I’d just never heard that saying before now. Banana-pants.” White teeth flash in a broad grin. “God, that’s useful!”

  “You know what would be useful right now?” I counter. “Tents. A compass. Food. Water. All the things your bah-naaah-naaah pahnts ass threw in the river. Do you have any idea how cold it’s going to get out here tonight?”

  Flora rolls her eyes. “Honestly, Quint, give me some credit. This is a very carefully-thought-out plot. I lose our supplies in the river, and of course later say we were overtaken by the elements, that it was an accident, and one that never would’ve happened had the school been more careful. That’s something you’re going to agree with, by the way.”

  “I definitely am not,” I reply, but Flora flicks that away with one move
of her elegant hand.

  “We’re not even going to spend the night out here,” Flora continues. “Because!” She reaches into her back pocket, pulling out her phone. “I am going to call for help and tell them what happened. Very tearfully of course.”

  Just like that, her face changes, corners of her mouth turning down, lips wobbling, eyes suddenly becoming huge and rather sparkly with fake tears. “Never been so frightened in all my life,” she simpers. “One moment we were trying to cross the river, the next ev-everything was in the water, and we were so . . . so scared!”

  I cross my arms over my chest, glaring at her. “I’m not doing that.”

  As quickly as it had come on, the whole Victorian Miss act is over, and she’s regular Flora again, unruffled, slightly bored. Shrugging, she looks down at her phone.

  “I’ll just say you’re processing the trauma in your own way.”

  I’m about to make quite the comeback to that, but then she frowns, studying the phone in her hand.

  “I don’t have a signal.”

  It’s my turn to roll my eyes. “Of course you don’t. We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

  Her head snaps up, and for the first time, something like Genuine Human Emotion appears on Flora’s face.

  She’s freaked out.

  Which is good—she should be—and also terrifying because I’m not sure what a freaked-out Flora even looks like, really.

  She’s breathing a little faster now, her shoulders moving up and down, and I see her glance behind and below, like she’s hoping our packs will just magically not be in the river anymore.

  “So this plan is ‘carefully thought out,’” I say, giving her the full finger-quotes thing, “and yet you didn’t remember that there’s no cell service?”

  She scowls at that, then turns back to her phone. Maybe she thinks she can give it a royal command to suddenly work or something—who knows with her.

  “I thought out the packs part, and I thought out the excuse part, but it’s possible the technical aspects . . . eluded me,” she says at last, and I have never wanted to throw a person off a mountain more than I want to throw her in this moment.

  “The technical aspects?”

  “Stop repeating everything I say!” Flora is glaring at me now, and I take a step back, hands raised.

  “I know you’re not getting attitude with me,” I say. “I know that’s not a thing that’s happening, because that would be nonsensical, given that all of this is your fault.”

  “‘Nonsensical,’” she snorts. “Honestly, Quint.” Then she glances around her, pulling her lower lip between her teeth.

  “All right, this is not an emergency. We aren’t that far from the school, so we just have to . . . walk in that general direction until we get back to it. And we’ll probably run into some of our schoolmates, anyway, and we can give them the story about being stranded, so yes. Yes, I think this can all be salvaged—oh, dear.”

  She’s looking over my shoulder, her face gone a little pale, and I freeze.

  “What?” I ask, scared to look.

  “Shhhh!” she instructs, waving a hand. “Just . . . keep your voice down. It’s fine.”

  Her face and those wide eyes seem to say it’s very not fine, and I can feel every hair on my body standing on end. “Is it a bear?” I whisper, and she shakes her head.

  “Bears have been extinct in Scotland for—”

  “Hundreds of years, I know, and I do not want a history lesson right now!” I hiss, and finally, unable to take it anymore, I turn.

  And Flora’s “oh, dear” makes a lot more sense.

  CHAPTER 19

  “Deer,” I say through numb lips. “That’s what you meant. Deer.”

  Because that’s what’s behind me. A massive deer with a bunch of very pointy antlers, looking right at me.

  Look, I am no stranger to wildlife. I am a Texas Girl, after all. I’ve had a rattlesnake slither across my path on a walk before, my grandfather once pointed out a coyote on the edge of his property, and I have seen more armadillos than any girl ever should.

  But it’s the size of this thing that has my heart pounding and my mouth dry with fear.

  “It’s not a deer,” Flora says, “it’s a stag.”

  “Not really hung up on appropriate nomenclature right now,” I reply, my lips barely moving. “Mostly interested in not getting impaled.”

  The stag huffs out a breath, and I tense up.

  Then Flora moves into my peripheral vision, one hand outstretched.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, which is hard because again, lips numb at this point with the terror and all.

  “The stag is the national animal of Scotland,” she tells me, moving forward very slowly, never taking her eyes off the animal in front of us. “And since I’m a princess . . .”

  If I weren’t so busy trying to will a wild animal not to kill me, I’d make a face at her. “What?” I ask. “You think this thing respects rank? Have you completely—”

  “Shhhh!” she murmurs, still approaching the stag, which, I have to admit, isn’t moving and is just kind of watching her.

  “There’s a reason this sort of thing happens in fairy tales,” Flora goes on, and I can see a smile start to spread across her face. “The beast clearly knows that he and I are connected by our love of this land.”

  “That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard anyone say. I’m dumber for having heard it.”

  Flora waves her free hand at me. Her sunglasses are on top of her head now, those whisky-colored eyes narrowed as she approaches the stag. “It’s working, though, isn’t it?”

  It is, I guess. The stag stays still, no more huffing breaths, and Flora straightens up a little. “There,” she says, smug. “Now all we have to do—”

  Without warning, the stag charges, and Flora and I both scream, stumbling backward. She pinwheels into my arms, I clutch at her, and the next few seconds are a blur of falling, the smell of a big animal, and then, the sudden cold as we tumble into the river.

  The cold is so shocking it punches my breath right out of me, and my brain does a mad scramble of panic between giant deer! and antlers! And omgomgsocoldsocoldalsowetwhywhywhy, and DROWNING!

  Except . . . not drowning.

  I put my feet down and realize that where we landed in the water is only just over my knees. My whole body is wet, though, hair included, and when I look over, Flora is sitting in the shallower water by the bank, her knees up, hair a wet, bedraggled mess over her face, sunglasses hanging crookedly from one ear.

  The stag is nowhere to be seen, and Flora reaches up to flick her wet hair out of her eyes, her chest heaving as she scans the landscape.

  Then she says, “You know what? It’s actually unicorns who are our national animal, not stags. Just remembered.”

  Teeth chattering, I glare at her. “Well, maybe one will turn up.”

  After we make our way out of the river, we start walking.

  And walking.

  I have no idea where we’re headed, really, since I wasn’t paying a huge amount of attention to our actual location on the drive up. Not that that would help, since I can’t remember if the school is to the east or west of where we are now. Stupid, probably, but then I’d assumed I’d have a compass and a map, and also a tent, and also all the things you need to survive a camping trip.

  We crest another hill, and Flora stops at my side, looking down at her muddy trousers.

  “At least we now definitely look like we’ve been in distress,” she says, and I whirl around on her.

  “We are in distress.”

  The sun is slowly sinking down behind the clouds, and with the damp, it’s like the cold is seeping even deeper into my skin. We’re in the hills in the middle of nowhere, and oh my god, this is totally how I’m going to die, all because some spoiled princess wan
ted to get back at her mom.

  “I thought you said you were done with trying to get kicked out,” I say through chattering teeth.

  “I am. Mummy was very clear that I couldn’t be expelled. But!” She lifts one finger. “This isn’t me causing trouble. This is the school not being a safe place for me.”

  She lowers her hand and shrugs. “Very different, obviously.”

  I swear, if Flora could use her brain for something other than cooking up various schemes, she’d probably rule the world, but I’m too angry to be impressed.

  “Do you understand that this isn’t just about you?” I ask her now, wrapping my arms around my body. Flora is standing just in front of me, and she wraps her arms around herself, too.

  “Don’t be so dramatic,” she replies through all that shivering, and it’s all I can do not to reach out and strangle her.

  “Don’t be dramatic?” I echo. “You’re actually saying that to me? You, the girl who’s willing to bring down a hundred-year-old institution just because she doesn’t like living so far from home?”

  Flora rolls her eyes, placing her hands on her hips. “All right, first of all, what do you even care? I’m the one with ancestors who went here. I’m the one whose family practically built this place.”

  “Then why are you trying to destroy it?” I counter. “Dr. McKee is perfectly nice, and she loves Gregorstoun. Or is she just more collateral damage in your nonstop acting out?”

  “Now you sound like my brother,” she mutters.

  I snort. “Seb? He has his own medal in overly dramatic shenanigans, I’d guess.”

  Flora’s pert nose wrinkles. “No, not Seb. Alex, my older brother. He’s always going on about how I make things harder for myself, that I’m my own worst enemy. Complete tosh, of course.”

  “Actually that sounds very untosh to me,” I reply. Then I frown. “If tosh means ‘nonsense,’ which I’m assuming it does.”

  There’s this look Flora does, somewhere between a side-eye and a smirk, and I get it now. “You’re picking up the slang at least,” she says, and I shake my head, irritated.