Princess Incognito: a Royal Pain in the Class

by Humphreys, N. J;

  “Never. When you walked over, I thought you were one of the students.”

  I thought I was going to be sick.

  “Ha ha, one of the students,” said Miss Cannington, adjusting her hair. “Your uncle certainly has a sense of humour.”

  “Just saying what I see, Miss Cannington. Just saying what I see. So, what’s the problem with Sabrina?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing really, first-day blues. We settled the incident with the chewing gum and she got a little enthusiastic, shall we say, with another student in the canteen. That’s all. Perhaps you can have a chat at home later.”

  “Oh, we most certainly will, Miss Cannington.”

  “And maybe you could pop into my office one day for a chat.”

  Miss Cannington beamed at Uncle Ernie. I could almost taste the vomit at the back of my throat.

  “I’d like that,” Uncle Ernie replied, already dragging me away.

  “It’s a date then, ha ha,” she cried.

  Miss Cannington giggled like a little girl all the way across the playground.

  “Do you really think she looks like a student?” I wondered.

  “Only if I keep my eyes closed,” Uncle Ernie said gruffly. “Get in the van. Now!”

  CHAPTER TEN

  I was in no mood for my taekwondo lesson and neither was Uncle Ernie. I could tell. He was frowning too much. He had at least five squiggly lines running across his forehead. He had turned our dining room into a temporary dojang. There were blue gymnastics mats all over the floor and he’d bought a punching bag while I was at school. He had even squeezed in a metal bar across the door frame for chin-ups. But I didn’t want to do any chin-ups either.

  I knew what Uncle Ernie was trying to do, of course. I’m not daft. He was trying to make this tiny house look like our old home. But this wasn’t home. My family wasn’t here.

  “Hit the pads, come on, roundhouse kicks, five on each side,” he said.

  He was wearing a leather pad on each arm. He wore them to prevent bruises from my epic roundhouse kicks. One time, I spun around so fast that I lost my balance slightly and kicked him between the legs. He bent over and actually started crying. That’s how awesome my flying kicks are.

  I flicked one kick, but I couldn’t really be bothered. My foot smashed into Uncle Ernie’s bony elbow.

  “Ow!” he howled in pain. “You should be aiming your kicks much higher!”

  He rubbed his reddening elbow. He’d have a bruise in the morning.

  “Sorry, Uncle Ernie, but I can’t concentrate. I’m really stressed.”

  “Oh, come on, Sabrina. What have you got to be stressed about?”

  “Er, well, there’s the fact that I can’t see my parents because the people in our country want to get rid of our royal family. That kinda sucks, you know? I lost all my old friends. That really sucks. I had to leave the Palace for a house in a street where all the houses look the same. That sucks big time. I’ve got a dumb headmistress who thinks I’m a loud-mouthed bully when everyone at the school knows that Awful Agatha is the real bully. And she hates my guts. And I hate her guts. And I’m sorry I kicked you in the elbow. But I wish your elbow had been her fat, greasy head.”

  “Hey, what have I told you about taekwondo?”

  “Yes, I know. It’s only for self-defence. I’m not really going to kick her in the head.”

  “Good. Well, that’s something at least. Let’s try some punching.”

  I had told Uncle Ernie another little white lie. I knew it was a little white lie as soon as I started throwing punches. I imagined that the black pads really were Agatha’s fat head. So I punched. And I punched. And I kept on punching until the sweat poured down my face.

  “Aiyah!” I roared, as my final punch made Uncle Ernie slip backwards on the blue mats.

  “All right, that’s enough punching, tiger. You’re not the only one who’s had a stressful day, you know.”

  “Look, I said I was sorry about getting into trouble at school.”

  “It’s not that. It’s this!”

  Uncle Ernie led me into the living room. He had not one, not two, but three laptops spread across a cluttered table. There were different coloured cables, all twisted and knotted and running all over the place. They looked like the veins in Uncle Ernie’s legs.

  “What’s all this for?” I asked.

  “Chaos, my girl. That’s what all this is for. Do you know what I’ve been doing on these computers?”

  “Playing Farm Heroes?”

  “No, not Farm Heroes. I have been setting up a website for The Susan Fanshawe Home Schooling Centre.”

  “Ooh, what’s that?”

  “It’s where you went to school before you moved here.”

  “But I was schooled at the Palace by old Quick-Pants.”

  “No, Sabrina Valence was schooled at the Palace. Sabrina Parslowe was schooled in a made-up place by the lovely Susan Fanshawe.”

  Uncle Ernie clicked on one of the laptop screens and a black and white photograph of a large lady with a hairy wart on the end of her nose popped up.

  “Ugh, she doesn’t look like a teacher.”

  “It doesn’t matter. She isn’t real. It’s a composite photo.”

  “Yeah. She looks like compost.”

  “Not compost. Composite, which means she was made up from lots of little bits of other people’s photos.”

  “Well, why did you give her a hairy wart?”

  “I didn’t have long, did I? I’ve got to come up with something in case your headmistress starts playing detective on the Internet.”

  “You said I was home-schooled!”

  “Only because you started going on about the Palace chefs. You’re supposed to be a simple girl from a small town. You don’t have Palace chefs.”

  I scrolled through the pages of the website. There were comments from other parents and students, all saying what a fantastic teacher this Susan Fanshawe was.

  “If she’s such a brilliant, creative teacher, why does she have such a boring name? She should’ve come up with something better than The Susan Fanshawe Home Schooling Centre.”

  “Oh I’m sorry, did you not hear me properly just now. I DIDN’T HAVE ENOUGH TIME! I’m not trying to win the website of the year award!”

  “Well, you wouldn’t with this.”

  A sixth squiggly line appeared on Uncle Ernie’s forehead. I decided not to make fun of his fake website anymore.

  “The colours are really pretty though,” I said.

  Uncle Ernie sighed. “Thank you. I was rather pleased with the colour scheme.”

  I clicked on the “Contact” page and panicked.

  “Uncle Ernie, you’ve messed up, look! You’ve put in an email address and a phone number. Miss Cannington might try and call Susan Fanshawe and her hairy wart.”

  Uncle Ernie grinned. “She can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Susan Fanshawe is dead.”

  Uncle Ernie clicked on another website. In big, bold scary letters, the word “OBITUARY” stretched across the top of the page. There was the same black and white photograph of Susan Fanshawe and her humongous hairy wart, and beside it, some text explaining that she’d recently died.

  Suddenly, my throat was itchy. I was worried that my eyes were about to sting.

  “But that’s … so sad,” I sniffed. “How did she die?”

  “She was run over by a drunken hamster.”

  “Really?”

  “No! She’s not a real person!”

  “Yah, but did you have to kill her?”

  Uncle Ernie threw his arms in the air. “How did I kill her? She didn’t exist in the first place! She’s a fake photograph. It’s fake news!”

  “Yeah, but lots of people believe fake news.”

  “Then let them believe in Susan Fanshawe’s death! Let them wear black armbands! Let’s have a national Susan Fanshawe Day!”

  “Ah, that’s a good idea. Then her family can remember her.”

/>   “What family? She hasn’t got a family! I made her up! She’s a figment of my imagination, the solution to our latest problem, the only response I had to another emergency situation, the only thing I could do after we told your crazy headmistress with too many cats that you were home-schooled.”

  “Miss Cannington does have a lot of cats,” I agreed.

  Uncle Ernie took a deep breath.

  “Anyway, it’s done now. Let’s just think about what we say. In fact, let’s just say as little as possible, ok? No more slip-ups. Let’s not reveal anything else about who we are, what we did or where we live, ok?”

  And then, the doorbell rang.

  I knew straightaway that we had a problem, especially when Uncle Ernie’s bulging eyes looked like they were going to fly across the living room like ping pong balls.

  I didn’t even know we had a doorbell.

  No one was supposed to know where we lived.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Uncle Ernie told me to hide in the living room. I was always hiding. My life was turning into a never-ending game of hide-and-seek, but I had no one to play with. Well, I had my Uncle Ernie, but he was constantly making me do annoying stuff that I didn’t want to do, like hide in my own house.

  So I ignored him. As he left to open the front door, moaning under his breath, I followed him into the corridor. I was on my tiptoes the whole time, gliding along in my socks. Uncle Ernie had taught me to move silently during our taekwondo lessons.

  “Yes,” said Uncle Ernie, peering through the tiniest crack in the door. I craned my head, but I couldn’t see a thing over his shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, you must be mistaken,” Uncle Ernie continued. “I live alone.”

  He tried to close the door, but a foot jammed itself in the gap at the bottom. The foot was brave, but small and stupid.

  No one messed with Uncle Ernie. He had so many different skills for a handyman. So I knew he wasn’t bothered about a tiny foot in the doorway. I was more worried about the foot being snapped off and the intruder hopping home with a soggy sock filled with blood.

  “I wouldn’t leave your foot in the door if I were you,” Uncle Ernie warned. “I have a really big dog, a German Shepherd called Nibbler. He likes to nibble on the toes of children, particularly small boys.”

  I heard a faint whimper on the other side of the door.

  “I don’t care what you saw, young man, no one lives here but me. Are you going to leave? No? Ok, it’s up to you.”

  Uncle Ernie turned back and whistled. “Ok, Nibbler, here boy! I’ve got five juicy toes, just for you. Come on, boy! Come and eat some cheesy feet!”

  There was a kind of yelp behind the front door. It sounded pathetic, but familiar.

  “Look, I don’t care if you’re Charlie, Charles or a King Charles Spaniel, you’re not coming in.”

  Without thinking, I ran down the corridor and flung the door open. Little Charles stood on the doorstep. He was shaking. His cheeks were salmon-pink. He threw his hands over his eyes.

  “No, Nibbler, no! Don’t eat my feet! They’re small and squishy and I’ve always got sock fluff between my toes.”

  “Ew, that’s disgusting,” I said.

  Charles peeked through a crack in his fingers. “Sabrina? Is that you?”

  “Of course it’s me.”

  Charles pulled his hands away. “What about Nibbler? And what about my toes? And why do you have a toe-eating dog?”

  “We don’t have a toe-eating dog. We just have Uncle Ernie.”

  “Your uncle eats toes?”

  “No one eats toes in this house. My Uncle Ernie was just messing around, right, Uncle Ernie?”

  Uncle Ernie said nothing. He quietly growled so I nudged him in the ribs.

  “We don’t have a dog in the house, do we, Uncle Ernie?”

  Uncle Ernie sighed. “No, young Charles, we do not have a dog in the house.”

  Charles smiled for the first time. And then, Uncle Ernie leaned forward and whispered in his ear.

  “We keep our toe-eating dog in the garden.”

  Charles screamed and ran off down the garden path.

  “No, wait, come back,” I shouted. “We don’t have a dog. Uncle Ernie is being silly again. Why would we have such a deadly dog? Come in and see for yourself.”

  Uncle Ernie looked like he might have a heart attack. “What? We can’t have guests. We’re not ready to have guests. The house is a mess.”

  “Charles won’t care about that stuff. Will you, Charles?”

  The shivering titch hesitated at first, but then slowly returned along our garden path. “No, I won’t mind, really. You should see my house.”

  “But you’ve got to do your homework,” Uncle Ernie insisted.

  “It’s her first day at school,” said Charles. “She hasn’t got any homework.”

  Uncle Ernie’s head swivelled around so fast I thought it might spin off like a bottle top. “Are you a detective?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Are you sure? You seem to have my niece under surveillance. I presume you followed her home from school?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Charles couldn’t look Uncle Ernie in the eye. I felt a bit sorry for him. I mean, he was still weak and feeble and far too obsessed with maths and puzzles, but he looked like he needed someone. I didn’t have much time for maths and puzzles. But I knew that feeling about needing someone.

  “But we came home in a van,” Uncle Ernie continued. “Did you run after us? Are you training for the Olympics?”

  “No. I told my Mum that I had taken Sabrina’s reading book by mistake and we followed you in our car.”

  “Wow, so you’re an expert in surveillance and a master of deception, too.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “So why are you here then?”

  Charles looked straight at me. He sniffed hard and wiped his eyes.

  “You seemed really upset at the canteen. I wanted to say that I was sorry if I did that.”

  I suddenly felt weird. The insides of my belly flapped and fluttered, just as they had since I’d been forced to leave my parents. That fluttering felt like a load of bees and wasps bouncing around and stinging me all at once, but this fluttering felt like floating butterflies. It was fuzzy and different. It felt good.

  Without thinking, I grabbed Charles by the collar of his ugly green blazer and dragged him into the house.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Uncle Ernie’s head seemed ready to explode. His wrinkled forehead now had more lines than an exercise book. He didn’t know whether to glare at poor Charles or me. I decided to break the ice.

  “This is Charles,” I said.

  “I know that,” grumbled Uncle Ernie.

  “He is my new friend at my new school. In fact, he’s my only friend at my new school. In fact, he’s my only friend in my new town. In fact, he’s the only person who’s been kind to me since we moved from—”

  “Yes, yes, yes, I get it,” interrupted Uncle Ernie, holding his hands in the air. “You’re right. I suppose it won’t kill anyone to have a friend come and visit.”

  Charles looked relieved.

  “At least I won’t kill anyone,” Uncle Ernie muttered.

  Charles stopped looking relieved.

  “I’m only joking,” Uncle Ernie said, chuckling to himself. “Would you like a drink, Charles?”

  “Yes, please. My mother says I can only drink fresh fruit juice, like a fruit with lots of vitamin C. Can I have some orange juice?”

  Uncle Ernie gritted his teeth. “Certainly, sir.”

  As he headed for the kitchen, Charles called after him, “Could I have some ice with it please, maybe four or five chunks of ice?”

  Uncle Ernie stopped and muttered, “Back home, I’d chop you up and feed you to the dogs.”

  “What did you say?” asked Charles.

  “I said, ‘Back home, I’d chop up food for the dogs,’” Uncle Ernie shouted back.

  “But you said
you don’t have any dogs,” said a rather nervous Charles.

  “I know,” replied Uncle Ernie. “It’s such a shame.”

  “Ignore him,” I said. “He’s always making lame jokes. Come on, I’ll show you around the house.”

  By the time I’d finished the tour of my new home I was exhausted. Charles asked so many questions. For a boy who spent so much time with his nose stuck inside a book, he wasn’t very bright. He wondered why young girls would learn taekwondo. Why wouldn’t young girls learn taekwondo? How would they defend themselves in a world that was mostly ruled by men? It seemed perfectly obvious to me. But Charles didn’t like sports or exercise that much. He didn’t have much time for sporty boys, let alone sporty girls.

  “I’ve just never seen a girl do this stuff before,” he said, as I showed him the crash mats and punching bags that we used in our taekwondo sessions. “It’s weird.”

  “Well, it’s not weird where I come from, ok? It’s totally normal.”

  Charles pushed a punching bag and didn’t move out of its way when the punching bag swung back and whacked him in the nose.

  “So where did you come from, then? Was it a rough neighbourhood?” Charles asked, rubbing his red nose.

  “Yeah, I suppose so.”

  “Well, you won’t have to do any of this karate chopping here.”

  “It’s taekwondo.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Is your nose ok? It’s very red.”

  “My nose is fine,” Charles said, but he was still massaging the swollen bit above his nostrils. “Now you’re living here, in a nice place, you can do normal things for girls.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know, cheerleading? Loads of girls do cheerleading on TV.”

  “What’s cheerleading?”

  “Cheerleading? You know, you wave pom-poms and cheer all the boys when they score a goal or something. That’s what girls like you normally do.”

  “What do you mean, girls like me?”

  Charles almost lost his voice. “You know, girls who look like, you know … like … when you’re in the mirror, you must know that … ok, let’s say our school does a Cinderella musical, right? You wouldn’t be able to play the Fairy Godmother because you’re too young, right? You wouldn’t be able to play the Ugly Sisters because, you know, you’re not that ugly. So you’d have to play Cinderella because she’s, you know …”