The Princess Trap

by Kirsten Boie

  Von Thunberg, thought Jenna, and threw a sideways glance at Ylva.

  But Ylva did not try to release herself from the human chain.

  “Please clear the road!” boomed the general. “Attention! Attention! Please clear the road at once! If you don’t, we will have no choice but to —”

  “No!” said Nahira. Unnoticed, she had stepped out of the crowd, and now stood in front of the general, tiny and tired, but driven by an inner strength. “Why would we have come, General, if we were prepared to leave at the first threat, or the first shot you fire at us?” She turned and looked straight into the faces of her followers. “We stay!” she cried. “We stay!”

  Someone in the chain began to clap, but then stopped abruptly when no one else joined in. After that, the quietness seemed even more menacing. But nobody moved, and the silence was so complete that you could almost hear it.

  “Please be sensible!” shouted von Thunberg. His voice sounded strained. “Please clear the road! Otherwise we will be forced to —”

  “Forced?” cried Nahira. “Forced? Who is forcing you, von Thunberg? Isn’t it entirely your own decision what happens next?”

  One of the tanks inched forward, then stopped again. The people on the dam cried out and reflexively took a step backward; some stumbled, but the chain of hands did not break.

  And so they stood, the gun barrels pointing directly at them. Jenna was trembling.

  Von Thunberg had turned to Nahira. “Can’t you see what will happen if I give my men the order to proceed?” he shouted into his megaphone. “Can’t you see how afraid your people are? Tell them to clear the dam — if they’re still willing to listen to you! Are you prepared to take responsibility for what’s going to happen if the tanks roll on?”

  Nahira shook her head. Her voice was loud enough to be heard even without a megaphone. “Oh no, General!” she cried. “The responsibility will be yours and yours alone! It’s you who will give the order! We’re doing nothing except standing here. We’re not attacking anyone. We don’t even have any weapons. You will be responsible for every injury, every death, you alone, and you will have to live with that for the rest of your days!”

  The general was about to raise the megaphone to his mouth again, but Nahira cut him off. “No,” she said, quite softly now, “no, not just you. But all those young soldiers in your tanks. They’ll also have to live with it, von Thunberg, and I don’t know how they will cope with that. So don’t try to shift the responsibility onto us. It’s not ours.”

  Von Thunberg still held the megaphone in his hand.

  “It’s not a matter of individual people, as you well know,” he said. “It’s for the whole country. It’s our beautiful Scandia that you rebels are trying to destroy. I’m going to give the order now to advance. Your people still have the chance to leave. For the sake of the country!”

  The general raised his arm.

  At that moment a figure detached itself from the human chain.

  “Stop!” cried a shrill voice. “It’s always a matter of individual people! Always! What else is it about, Dad? What else matters?”

  “Ylva!” cried the general, shocked. His arm sank down. “Ylva, what are you doing? Come here! Come here at once!”

  If there was one person in the world that Jenna hated, it was Ylva von Thunberg. Blonde, arrogant, smart, she had made this past year a living nightmare, and worst of all she had taken Jonas from her.

  And yet, in spite of all that, Jenna now felt something different.

  Defiant, Ylva stood there in the middle of the road. All that’s missing is a flag she could wave, thought Jenna, like the woman in that famous painting of the French Revolution. But Ylva didn’t need a flag.

  “So was it always just words that you said to me?” she cried. “Just words, Daddy?” And as her father approached her, hesitant and confused, the circle of rebels closed silently and protectively around her. “Only words, about princesses who love their people so much that they’re ready to do anything for them? Only words, about the noblemen and the rich who share their wealth with the poor? Only words, about princes who sacrifice their lives for the sake of justice?” She took a deep breath. “Was it only words that you spoke to me before I went to bed each night, when I was small and ignorant enough to believe everything you told me? My strong, brilliant, kind father? Were they just stories then, but this is real life?” Her voice was trembling. “Is that it, Daddy? How could I have been so stupid as to believe you?”

  All around her, the rebels stood as if frozen to the spot. No one spoke; they scarcely dared to breathe. Yvla continued. “And so now you’ll turn your guns on these people who want nothing more than the justice you always spoke about? Did you always lie to me? Was it all lies, Daddy?”

  With these last words, her voice cracked. Jonas went to her and held her in his arms.

  So now there are three of us, thought Jenna. Three! My father, Perry’s father, and von Thunberg. It’s unbearable. Betraying the country, and betraying their children.

  “Ylva!” cried the general. Still he tried to come closer to her, but still the rebels barred his way — silent and unarmed. “My child! You’ve joined the wrong side! We’re here to free the country, my men and I! We have to enter Holmburg! We have to march on parliament, Ylva, and on the palace. The government and the rebels are destroying our country!”

  “The government and the rebels?” repeated Nahira in her tired voice. How tiny she looked next to von Thunberg. “I am Nahira, leader of the rebels, and now it will be easy for you to capture me at last, unless you prefer to shoot me along with my people. But before you do, explain one thing to us, General. Why are you lying to yourself and to your soldiers? Even now, though the truth has for hours been filling the television screens in every living room …”

  Jenna could see the bewilderment on von Thunberg’s face, and she realized that Ylva saw it, too.

  “It’s not the rebels, Dad!” cried Ylva, releasing herself from Jonas’s arms. Her face was stained with tears, and her voice sounded questioning. Jenna sensed that, quite unexpectedly, a ray of hope had illuminated Ylva — the hope that her father might know nothing of what had happened, might himself have been deceived, and therefore might not after all be the traitor over whom she had wept. “You must have heard! They must have told you! You’ve got a telephone in your car — you’re updated on any new developments …”

  “What?” asked von Thunberg, and Jenna saw the astonishment in his eyes. It was real. “What are you talking about, Ylva?”

  “You mean you haven’t heard?” cried Ylva. Her face grew brighter. “Am I supposed to believe that? Your soldiers haven’t heard, either? No one has told you, and you’re left to storm into Holmburg with your tanks and your guns? Dad! If they’ve kept secret from you what the whole world has known for hours, isn’t that proof enough in itself …?”

  Jenna saw one of the soldiers in von Thunberg’s car hurriedly talking into the microphone that was fixed to his helmet. He started gesticulating with his arms, and von Thunberg went to him and leaned over the dashboard. Time stood still.

  Then the general turned, almost in slow motion. His arms sank to his side. He said something to the soldier, who nodded and spoke again into his microphone. Later, Jenna could not remember exactly what happened during the next few minutes. The enormity of her fear beforehand was now matched by the greatness of her hope. Suddenly, everything had changed. The tanks lowered their guns, and the hatches of the turrets all opened at the same time, like some strange sort of ballet. The faces that now began slowly to appear were young, South Scandian, confused, but most of all — as Jenna saw with mounting joy — they were infinitely relieved.

  Jenna was trembling, and sank down to the ground where others were already sitting, as exhausted and relieved as she was. Rebel men and women, old and young, some of them weeping, some laughing, arms hugging knees, back-to-back, united in the feeling that the danger was past, but also that there was something else to come.
She could see von Thunberg talking to Nahira. He took Ylva in his arms. The guns were still lowered.

  So Ylva’s father is not one of them, thought Jenna. Perry’s father is, though, and mine. But it would have been a miracle if something as terrible as that had happened to Ylva von Thunberg, too. And yet Jenna realized that they would all be forever in her debt for stopping this invasion, and maybe even for saving their lives.

  The first soldiers began to climb out of the tanks. They stood, embarrassed, by the side of the road, just a few feet away from those at whom they had just been aiming their guns — Scandians just like themselves. When eyes met, the soldiers were the ones who lowered their gaze. Suddenly one of them let out a cry.

  “Gustafson!” he shouted, and leaped toward an old man in the crowd, which parted to let him pass. “Gustafson, it’s me! Aarvid! Little Aarvid, from the farm next to yours!”

  Then he threw his arms around the old man’s shoulders, and they slapped each other’s backs, laughing and sobbing at the same time, like two old friends bumping into each other after a long separation, and not as if one of them had just been on the verge of killing the other.

  “My neighbor! My neighbor!” cried “Little Aarvid,” who was at least six feet tall. Suddenly other soldiers began to smile, too. Tentatively at first, but then with increasing affection, they went over to the people in the human chain and shook their hands. If someone had had a bottle of champagne to pop, the whole scene would have appeared to be one big party.

  Another officer now took charge and began to issue orders. The soldiers climbed back into their tanks, but the hatches remained open, and the young men looked across the water to the dark streets of the city they no longer had to attack. Without even asking permission, the rebels climbed up and joined them. They made themselves comfortable, holding on to the gun barrels and laughing.

  In this way they all rode together into Holmburg — not to conquer it, but to put an end to all the lies at last.

  When they crossed the dam, the suburbs on the other side lay in silence, but behind the walls of the houses, Jenna could sense the fear. As people heard the tanks roaring through the streets, their shocked faces peered out from behind curtains. But then through the cracks they saw the rebels waving and the soldiers laughing, and with joyful relief they opened their windows and waved back.

  “White flags!” one of the rebels shouted. “Give us white flags!” And down they fluttered from windows and balconies — a shower of bedsheets, crumpled or ironed, old and worn thin or brand-new, enough for every tank. Knotted around the gun barrels, they flapped peacefully, if a bit sloppily, to show everyone in the city even from a distance that the dangers of the night had passed.

  Jenna sat in the back of the pickup truck between Jonas and Perry — perhaps a little closer to Perry. Ylva had also insisted on traveling with them. But why wasn’t she sitting next to Jonas? Why the distance between them in this, her hour of triumph, when she had proved to Jonas she was on his side? And why was Jonas looking away from her?

  They’re embarrassed, thought Jenna. You can’t kiss a boy when the whole world is watching. They’re just embarrassed.

  The closer they came to the palace, the denser the crowds grew. When they reached the main boulevard, the sky was already turning pink in the first light of the new day. Jenna was astonished to hear the sound of singing.

  The people lining the boulevard were singing the old Scandian folk songs that she had struggled so hard to learn during the last year — songs from the north and songs from the south. Not everyone was singing in the same key, and not everyone was singing in tune. But they sang with all their hearts, with defiance, and with the certainty that right was on their side. There were out-of-tune guitars and flutes; Jenna could see a banjo and hear a clarinet, then a saxophone, and a little boy perched on his father’s shoulders was banging two saucepan lids together.

  “Perry!” she whispered, light-headed with exhaustion and relief. “We did it!”

  Then she saw that he’d fallen asleep, and that Jonas was laughing. She gathered up all her courage, and laughed back.

  When the tanks with their white flags reached the circular flower bed in front of the palace, they stopped at the sides of the square as if to form an honor guard. Then, through the avenue of fluttering bedsheets, came the pickup truck, with Nahira, Lorok, and Meonok in the driver’s cab, and Jenna, Jonas, Perry, and Yvla in the back. The wrought iron gates opened wide.

  Someone lowered the flap at the back of the truck; someone helped Jenna climb down; someone escorted her up onto the balcony, where her mother burst into tears as she took her in her arms. There was thunderous applause. “Jenna!” whispered her mother. “Thank God!”

  Jenna could see a blurred ocean of faces down below in the square. “Perry’s father!” she said. “Mom, Perry’s father is …”

  She had never longed so much to go to sleep. In a real bed in a real house, and without fear. But she was a princess. She took a deep breath, turned, and waved to the people, who were still singing and cheering and throwing hats and flowers up in the air. Many of them had pulled up pictures of lighters on their cell phones and MP3 players, and were waving the electronic flames.

  “Perry’s father …”

  “I know, Jenna, I know,” said her mother, stroking her hair. She’s even more tired than I am, thought Jenna.

  “Only now,” shouted her uncle the king, “only now is Scandia truly free and united! Because you yourselves, the citizens of our country, have chosen freedom and unity!”

  As Jenna listened to the applause, and hoped that the people in the square would hurry up and go to bed so that she could get some sleep at last, she saw Perry embracing Malena as if he never wanted to let her go. At least they don’t mind if the whole world sees them, she thought, and looked for Jonas and Ylva. This, surely, would be the time for them to do the same.

  But Ylva was standing quietly and proudly next to Nahira, and when Jenna eventually spotted Jonas, he was staring incredulously at his best friend, Perry, with a broad smile lighting up his face. Then suddenly he was beside her.

  “Hello, Jenna,” he said. As if he’d only just seen her, as if they hadn’t spent the whole day traveling together on the pickup truck, as if they hadn’t stood just a few steps away from each other facing the tanks.

  “Hi,” said Jenna without turning. She went on waving to the singing, cheering crowds and didn’t look at him. But she could feel the blush creeping up her neck and into her cheeks, and she hoped that at least the people down below wouldn’t notice, even if Jonas next to her could hardly miss it.

  “Let’s not be stupid, Jenna!” whispered Jonas. He waved to the people, too. Was he really turning red? Red like her? “Jenna, I thought … We could have been killed just before. Let’s not waste any more time being stupid!”

  Her eyes wandered across to Ylva, and to her surprise she saw her laughingly stretch out her arm toward Jonas and, as if to encourage him, give him the thumbs-up.

  “Jenna!” whispered Jonas.

  Who would have thought they could kiss when the whole world was watching?

  “Look!” cried Bea. “Look! It’s him!”

  All night long they had sat together watching the television reports from Scandia. The coffee had been drained, and in the early morning twilight her father had finally fallen asleep in the armchair, to be followed soon after by her mother. Had Bea slept, too? Maybe just a wink, but definitely no more than that. The news channel was still transmitting events from Scandia, but outside it was already getting light, and she knew there was no way she could possibly go to school after such a night.

  “It’s him, Mom! Dad! The spaghetti-and-meatballs boy! I knew it!”

  She could see Jenna in his arms — the little player! The Player Princess! She might have let on when she was visiting them! Hadn’t Bea actually asked her? And the sly girl hadn’t breathed a word!

  Bea’s cell phone played an old Beatles tune.

 
Txs 100x!!! Jenna had written. W/out u … But that was the end of the text.

  Bea yawned. “I’m going to bed,” she said. “Don’t even think about telling me to go to school!”

  Her mother sighed. “Today’s an exception,” she said. “And what was that?” She pointed to the cell phone.

  Bea laughed. “Jenna tried to send me another text,” she said. “But somehow that girl never gets it right!”

  “She’s probably very tired,” said Bea’s mother. “But it was a real stroke of luck, wasn’t it, that she sent you the wrong pictures to begin with. Who knows if anyone would have believed you without that video? Yes, she’s probably just tired.”

  “Who isn’t?” said Bea. “But when I’m awake again, she’s got to tell me all about him!”

  “At least let Jonas in!” said Jenna sulkily, and sneezed loudly into a fresh tissue. “You can’t leave me lying here all alone in my room while the rest of you are out there celebrating our triumph!”

  Her mother was standing at the foot of the bed with a thermometer in her hand. “Still 100.4,” she said severely. “It’s just the flu. But you have a fever, so you should stay in bed, and that’s final. What you need is plenty of sleep. Then maybe by tomorrow you’ll be all right again.”

  Jenna coughed. Mom always talked to her like this when she was ill. But back before she became a princess, the worst that could happen was that she’d miss a day of school — not a nationwide victory celebration! Mom was being totally unfair. Jenna had obediently stayed in bed all day just so she could enjoy the fun that night.

  “Then at least let Jonas come in and see me!” she pleaded. Though she wasn’t a hundred percent sure she wanted him to see her — not like this, in her pajamas, red-nosed, puffy-eyed, bed-headed. “Please, Mom, please!”

  “Absolutely not!” she said emphatically, and handed over a mug of hot lemon tea. “You want to infect him, too?”