Princess Incognito: a Royal Pain in the Class

by Humphreys, N. J;

  “Who’s that?”

  “Me!”

  “Your hair isn’t grey.”

  “Thank you very much.”

  “It’s white.”

  “Very funny, now listen carefully. If any nosey parker at school asks about your parents, tell them it’s a sensitive subject and you don’t want to talk about it. If there are problems with the teachers, you refer them to me. As far as anyone is concerned, you are Sabrina Parslowe from out of town, staying with your favourite Uncle Ernie so you can finish your school education. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  I watched the other travellers on the plane fiddle with their phones. Uncle Ernie didn’t know what he was talking about. He didn’t know YouTube or Instagram or Snapchat or WhatsApp. He didn’t even own a mobile phone at the Palace. All his communication was in whispers and even then, he covered his hand most of the time.

  Our crazy secret mission would be messed up in a week. If I started school on Monday, the whole world would know who I really was by Tuesday.

  I like Uncle Ernie. I might even, you know, the other L-word. Of course, I’d never tell him that, not to his face. He’s always been there for me, since I was a baby. He was probably my best friend. But Uncle Ernie was starting to get old. He was getting those thick white hairs up his nose. He repeated himself. He fell asleep in his armchair. He listened to old music. He didn’t know about modern stuff for young people.

  I felt sorry for him. He thought we still lived in the olden days and I’d be able to change my name and disappear. But his idea was never going to work.

  “Uncle Ernie, can you see what everyone is looking at?” I asked.

  “Yeah, their mobile thingies.”

  Uncle Ernie turned his back on me. I tapped his shoulder.

  “Uncle Ernie, do you know what they can do on their mobile thingies?”

  “Yeah, make calls. Go to sleep.”

  I kept tapping his shoulder. “But Uncle Ernie, Uncle Ernie, Uncle Ernie …”

  “What?”

  “They can do everything on their phones. They can search for anything. The kids at school could Google our country’s history and find a million photos of our family.”

  Uncle Ernie sat bolt upright, like Dracula rising from his coffin. His hair was a right mess. “You mean to say that if an irritating busybody in your new school searches for ‘Princess’ and ‘Sabrina’, they might find you on the Internet?”

  “Yes!” I cried.

  “Oh no,” he moaned.

  Uncle Ernie grabbed his pillow and snuggled up in his seat. “Just as well I hacked into the Internet, deleted every photograph of you and your family and every mention of you since you were born. I also created a search engine algorithm that will ensure that whenever someone types in ‘Sabrina Parslowe’, they will immediately be directed to your fake Instagram account. That account has already got photo-shopped pictures of you playing in the small town that you’re supposed to have come from, playing in the garden, playing with the neighbour’s dog, you know, really cutesy stuff. There’s a fake Sabrina Parslowe account on Snapchat, too, with lots of weird photos of you with fancy filters. I thought about doing Facebook, but let’s face it, kids don’t really use Facebook. Oh, and if anyone searches for either ‘Sabrina Parslowe’ or ‘Sabrina Valence’ more than three times, I will immediately be notified, via a secure and private online address. And then, I will track down the person and have him shot.”

  I didn’t know what to say and was speechless for a full two minutes.

  “Will you really do that?” I whispered finally.

  “No, Sabrina, I’m not going to have anyone shot.”

  “I knew it! You made all that stuff up, right?”

  “Only the bit about being shot. Everything else is true.”

  “Wow. I mean … wow. I didn’t really think you’d have anyone shot.”

  Uncle Ernie smiled at me. “Of course not. I’d feed them to the pigs.”

  “What? Are you serious? You’re kidding, right, Uncle Ernie?”

  “Goodnight, Sabrina.”

  “Goodnight.”

  I turned off my reading light. Darkness never bothered me at the Palace. But I didn’t like being surrounded in the dark by lots of people I didn’t know on the plane.

  “Are you asleep, Uncle Ernie?” I whispered.

  “Yes.”

  “No, you’re not. Can I ask a question?”

  “No.”

  “When you lived at the Palace, were you really a handyman?”

  “Absolutely. Now go to sleep.”

  The plane cabin was really gloomy, but I’m pretty sure Uncle Ernie winked at me.

  I was terrified of leaving my parents and moving to a new town and school, but at least Uncle Ernie would be there to make things better.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Uncle Ernie had made things much, much worse. I hated my new town and I particularly hated my new home. How could he bring me to such a freaky place? I expected the house to be small, but it was attached to lots of other houses. Uncle Ernie said it was called a terraced house. I called it a terrible house. There was only one bathroom. One bathroom! I had to share a toilet with Uncle Ernie and he ate far too much curry.

  I know I’m lucky to live in the Palace and that’s not normal for most people. I’m not dumb like some of the royals I’ve met from other countries. Prince Singleton can’t even tie his own shoelaces and he’s fifteen. I’m nothing like that.

  But I was still confused about my new home.

  Poorer people said we lived on a housing estate. Richer people said we lived in a suburb. I couldn’t tell the difference. Every house looked the same to me. There were hardly any gardens for a start. Everyone wanted to park their cars next to their living room windows. It was weird.

  And people did stuff themselves, too. They painted their own bedrooms and did their own gardening. When I first arrived, I remember standing at my front door and nothing happened.

  “What are you doing?” Uncle Ernie snapped.

  He was red-faced and sweating buckets because he was carrying an armchair.

  “I’m waiting,” I replied regally.

  “Waiting for what?”

  “Waiting for you to open the door for me.”

  “No one’s going to open the fabulous door for you, Sabrina. You’re going to open this fabulous door and every other fabulous door by yourself from now on. So open the door now before I drop this fabulous armchair onto your royal toes.”

  He didn’t actually say fabulous. He used other words about the door, words he was never allowed to say in the Palace. Royals are not permitted to use such language in public places.

  When we unpacked, Uncle Ernie set out the rules for our new home.

  “Doors will no longer be opened for you,” he said, as he plonked the armchair in our living room. His forehead was leaking.

  “In fact, you will open doors for people like me.”

  “People who are sweating?”

  “No!”

  “People carrying armchairs?”

  “No! Old people! People that are older than you, or people with prams, buggies and wheelchairs.”

  “Ok, got it. I open doors for all those people. That’s easy.”

  “And you have to talk to people now.”

  He was a bit of a fruitcake, my Uncle Ernie.

  “I know I’ll have to talk to people. I’ve been talking to people my whole life.”

  Uncle Ernie shook his head. Big globs of sweat flew across the living room.

  “No, Sabrina, you’ve listened to people. The royals are trained to listen to people. You’re trained not to speak to people. That way, you can’t say anything wrong.”

  “Oh, like when Daddy shakes hands and does loads of nodding?”

  “Exactly. That’s called royal etiquette and you were trained in royal etiquette. But that all goes out of the window now, ok? When people talk to you at school, you talk back and pretend you’re interested.”
/>   Old Uncle Ernie really could get his knickers in a twist at times. How hard could it be to talk to normal people? I spoke to normal people every day at the Palace. I spoke to the gardeners, the cooks, the maids, the dressmakers, everybody. And I must have been a fantastically interesting speaker because they always listened to every word I said. They never interrupted me. They laughed at all my jokes. Sometimes, they even thanked me for talking to them.

  “But the other students at school will still bow and curtsey for me, right?” I wondered.

  I thought Uncle Ernie was going to burst a blood vessel. A little purple vein above his eye started throbbing. It was gross.

  “No, no, no, no, Sabrina, no one is going to bow or curtsey.” His voice rose with every word. “You are Sabrina Parslowe living in a small town, in a small house. No one is going to bow or curtsey for you here.”

  “Pranked ya!” I cried.

  I was pretty pleased with that one. Uncle Ernie sighed. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and ran his hand through his hair. He now had a white, spiky Mohawk. I didn’t say anything though. His purple vein was still throbbing and my tummy was rumbling. All this pranking was making me hungry.

  “What’s for lunch?” I asked.

  “Sandwiches.”

  “That’s boring. Why sandwiches?”

  “A sandwich is the only thing I will trust you to make.”

  “Why have I got to do it?”

  “Because I’m busy and you’re hungry.”

  I was quite excited about making lunch for the first time. I’d seen those TV programmes where the chefs keep swearing at the contestants until they cry. I could do that. I think I’d be an excellent chef.

  “Yes, I can totally make a sandwich,” I said. “I’m going to make cheese and cucumber. So I need bread and butter, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And the butter goes only on one side of the bread?”

  “Yes, Sabrina.”

  “That’s the side with the sliced cheese and the sliced cucumber.”

  “Yes, Sabrina.”

  I went to the fridge and remembered what Uncle Ernie had said. I didn’t wait for someone to open the fridge door. I even found the cheese and cucumber, but something had gone terribly wrong.

  “Uncle Ernie, you’d better come quickly. I’m having a crisis.”

  Uncle Ernie dropped the armchair, tripped over one of my suitcases and performed a brilliant forward roll across the hard, wooden floor. He jumped to his feet and must have had a dizzy head because he staggered sideways and whacked his shoulder on the kitchen door frame.

  He screamed in pain. “Argh! … Yes, Sabrina, what is it? What’s the crisis?”

  “It’s terrible, Uncle Ernie. The cheese and cucumber are not sliced!”

  Uncle Ernie gritted his teeth. He was just as frustrated as I was. I could tell.

  “Yeah, I know. You can’t believe it, right?” I said. “Maybe the cheese and cucumber aren’t sliced in this country.”

  “THEY AREN’T SLICED IN ANY COUNTRY!”

  Uncle Ernie was starting to worry me. He was shouting a lot in the suburbs. Maybe the air was different here. Something was affecting his hearing. Maybe a doctor should check his ears. He was definitely going senile.

  “Of course, they are sliced, Uncle Ernie. You must be forgetting because you’re getting old. Back in the Palace, the cheese and cucumber on my plate was always sliced.”

  Uncle Ernie took a really deep breath. He was probably trying to blow out his blocked ears.

  “No, Sabrina, the cheese and cucumber was sliced in the Palace because … you’re a princess … so other people … you know what? Never mind, I’ll make your fabulous cheese and cucumber sandwiches.”

  No, he didn’t really say fabulous. But I need to be careful. I know this story is private and will be locked away in the drawer beside my bed, but I’m still a princess. One day, I must return to the Palace and I cannot be found with a story that contains inappropriate language.

  But as I continue to tell my true story, it’s going to get harder to write about Uncle Ernie. He used lots of fabulous words when he was slicing the cucumber, especially when the knife slipped and he cut the top of his finger.

  “When do you start school again?” he roared, as blood dribbled down his hand.

  “On Monday.”

  “I wish they did Sunday classes!”

  Yep, he was totally going senile.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The school uniform was green and disgusting. I saw my blazer in that tiny mirror on the car door. I looked like a stick insect with long brown hair. I had woken up early to get my hair right, but there wasn’t a hairdo on this planet that could’ve made my vomit-coloured blazer look any more attractive.

  Uncle Ernie’s filthy white van made me feel even worse. When he turned the key, the engine farted. All the way to school, the van shook and jolted and farted. In fact, the van reminded me of the puppies we had around the Palace when I was little. They always farted, too.

  “I know we can’t drive a limo, but did you have to get the noisiest, fartiest van in the universe?” I asked.

  “I told you. We’re incognito.”

  “No. We’re in a van.”

  “Incognito means we’re in disguise. We’re hiding. We can’t draw attention to ourselves.”

  And at that exact moment, the engine did its longest and loudest fart yet, just as we pulled up outside the school. Uncle Ernie thought the engine had exploded. I thought I was going to die of embarrassment.

  Smoke poured through the front of the car bonnet. Other children pointed at our rust bucket and giggled. They were all from my new school, too. They were all wearing the same snotty-green blazers.

  Uncle Ernie stood over the smoke and waved his arms around like a flapping pelican. The other children laughed at him. I tried to swallow the scratching at the back of my throat. I couldn’t have stinging eyes, not on my first day.

  “Oh, hello, you must be the new girl.”

  I spun around in shock. The quiet voice belonged to a boy, and a small boy at that. He was shorter than I was and I wasn’t particularly tall.

  He also wore glasses. They obviously bothered him because he kept touching the frames. His eyes darted around in all different directions, like a couple of marbles on a floor. He seemed shy and I wasn’t sure why. He wasn’t ugly. But he wasn’t handsome either. Don’t get the wrong idea. No boys are handsome. Boys and men can never, ever be handsome, except for my father, of course. But I’m not going to think about him now or I’ll get watery eyes.

  “Are you the new girl?” the tiny boy asked again.

  I realised I had been staring at his funny, zigzagging, brown eyes for far too long. His eyes matched his hairstyle. That was all over the place, too.

  “Oh, hello,” I said, in my polished princess voice. “And who are you? What do you do? Why have you come to visit me today?”

  Uncle Ernie coughed loudly. Through the engine smoke, I saw him shake his head.

  Oh no! What an idiot! I’d almost failed my first test! This boy with the wandering eyes and the windy hair wasn’t a royal subject. He was just like me, another student in a horrid green blazer.

  “Sorry, I’m a bit jet-lagged from the long flight in the plane … VAN! I mean, white van, ha ha! Yes, we had a long flight … DRIVE! I mean, drive … Yes, we’ve had a long drive in the white van and you’re a subject … STUDENT! You’re a student, like me. Yes, we’re both normal, average students. Isn’t that funny? Ha ha! And I’m Sabrina of the House of Val … Val … FAR AWAY! I mean, my house is far away, well, quite far away. Actually, it’s not that far away at all. I don’t really know what I’m talking about. Ha ha!”

  The tiny boy looked confused. “Er, you’re pointing at the school toilets.”

  “Am I? Yes, I live in the school toilets! Ha ha! No, it’s the jet lag! It was such a long journey in the white van from, you know, our small town to your small town … No, what I mean is, I�
��m not saying your town is small. It’s, like, the perfect size. It’s not too big. It’s not too small. It’s just right! It’s like Goldilocks’ porridge, ha ha! In fact, all towns in this country should be this size! It’s the perfect size! Are all the towns in this country the same size as this town?”

  The munchkin just stared at me. At least, he was actually making eye contact this time, which was something. Uncle Ernie held his head in his hands.

  “I’m not really sure how big the other towns are,” the mini-boy said cautiously.

  “Oh, really? Wow. Maybe you should look it up, because this small town is epic.”

  I realised I was talking too fast.

  “Ok. Thank you. So you did say your name was Sabrina?”

  “Yes! Yes, my name is Sabrina Parslowe,” I said, grinning at Uncle Ernie. “That’s absolutely correct. My name is Sabrina Parslowe. That’s right. Sabrina Parslowe. It’s definitely not Sabrina Valence.”

  I winked at Uncle Ernie. Uncle Ernie looked like he was going to cry.

  “Maybe you should go into school now,” he mumbled.

  “Yes, that’s a good idea. I’m supposed to take you to class,” the miniature boy chimed in, far too cheerily. “I’m Charles, by the way, but everyone calls me Charlie.”

  “Thanks, Charlie, that’ll be great, won’t it, Sabrina? Off you go.”

  Uncle Ernie shooed me away from the white van like I was a pigeon on his lawn. He put his arm around my shoulder and whispered in my ear.

  “Think more. Talk less.”

  Uncle Ernie was probably right. He usually was, which was annoying.

  Still, I tried to follow his smart plan, but something got in the way. Something dark, greasy-haired and horrible.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Teachers should not be teachers if they have funny names. That should definitely be a law. No smart adult can be given permission to be a teacher unless he or she has a sensible name. The test would be easy. Each person would stand in front of a class and write their name on the whiteboard. If the children giggle, he or she can’t be a teacher. That’s it.