The Princess & the Pauper Page 2

  "I was just about to," I said quickly. The truth was, I had barely seen my grandmother these past few months, and I hadn't visited her yet in the hospital. There had just been too much on my mind. "How is she?" I asked.

  "Not very well, I'm afraid. She could use a visit from you."

  "I'll see her as soon as I get back from my American tour," I promised.

  She raised her eyebrows. "Keep that promise. And not just because it's your duty as princess to set an example of

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  proper behavior. Someday you'll be in her place, and you'll want your grandchildren to visit you, too." With that she left the room.

  I narrowed my eyes at the door. Lately pretty much all of my conversations with my mother left me feeling the same way--incredibly annoyed but at the same time a tiny bit guilty. Did she always have to remind me of my duties as a princess? Did everything have to come back to that?

  I fell back on the bed, reached over to the windowsill, and found my Walkman. I put the headphones on and clicked a button, and Ribbit's voice filled my ears.

  Girl, you're the only one who understands

  I like peeling Elmer's glue off my hands

  You girl are so hot

  When I touch you I need an oven mitt

  I need to drink a quart of your spit

  You're as sizzling as the sun without an umbrella

  I'm the pizza crust

  You're the mozzarella...

  I smiled in spite of myself. Okay, so maybe the spit part was gross, but so what? He was an artist; artists were supposed to be more passionate than other people. And in only a matter of days, everything I'd hoped for would come true. Freedom and sand and surf and palm trees and Toadmuffin. I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep if I thought too much about it, and in 1764 a law had been passed in Vineland that banned princesses from getting less than eight hours of sleep a night. Okay, not really, but Killjoy always clucked her tongue when I

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  dozed off during my lessons, and if my father saw me looking tired, he'd yell at me about my eating habits and protein and calisthenics. Calisthenics? Who even said that?

  I took off the headphones and pressed the silver button next to my bed, which was connected to a buzzer in the servants' quarters. A few seconds later my maid, Asha, appeared at my door.

  "Princess," she said.

  "Asha, I'm going to need my white silk pajamas from my wardrobe. And tell the kitchen to send up a mug of hot chocolate."

  "Yes, Your Highness." She handed me my pajamas and trotted down the hall toward the kitchen.

  "And tell him to use a combination of dark and milk chocolate," I called after her. "It's too bitter otherwise."

  I got into my pajamas, and then I changed my mind about the hot chocolate, so I hung my Princess Sleeping sign outside the door. Ingrid had given it to me as a joke, but it came in awfully handy sometimes.

  As soon as I turned out the lights, my cell phone rang. I groped around in the dark until I found it.

  "Hello?"

  "Carina."

  "Who is this?" I joked.

  "It's Ingrid. Your best friend."

  "Hmmm, doesn't ring a bell."

  "I'm the one whose bad attitude is covered up by her insincere respect for all authority. You know, the only person who provides light and joy in your otherwise cold, sad existence."

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  "Ah, yes. I know you. So what's up?"

  "Well, for one thing, right now I am cowering in the dark just beyond the back wall of your property. I looked over the wall a few minutes ago, and the guards are sneaking cigarettes somewhere. The coast is clear."

  "Ingrid, it's late," I said. I wanted to lie in bed and think about Ribbit.

  "Ingrid, it's late," Ingrid said, in a perfect imitation of me. She groaned. "When did you turn a hundred and five, Carina? Get out here."

  I started to respond, but then I realized she'd already hung up. I went to the window, opened it, climbed through, and maneuvered my way down the trellis. It was covered with a kind of wisteria that bloomed, strangely, in the month of September rather than in the early spring. Every now and again my toes would catch one of the lavender blooms and tear it loose from the vine. By the time I hit the ground, there was a little carpet of them nestling on the soft green grass.

  I crept barefoot across the palace grounds toward the great stone wall, careful to look for signs of the guards. Once, the year before, they had caught me sneaking out and had taken me back to the house to be confronted by my parents. My father had been home that night--big shock--and had just enough time to tell my mother she needed to control her daughter before a helicopter landed on the back lawn and flew him off to France. I had been grounded for two weeks, which was bad enough, but had also been denied e-mail, which was a torture not even the old kings of savage countries could have dreamed up.

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  When I reached the back wall, I moved the branches of a bush aside and found a toehold in the granite wall. I reached up and found some fingerholds, too, guiding myself over and dropping down on the other side.

  The moon was full overhead, and a breeze that smelled of lavender blew across my face. Ingrid, who liked lavender cologne, was lurking nearby. Ingrid was pretty, in her own way. She had short blond hair and very wide eyes and full lips. But she was really skinny, and she had big clumsy feet. Her mother was that way, too, and her grandmother. And how can you fight a bloodline? Believe me, I had tried.

  Ingrid wasn't royalty, but her family and mine went way back, friends since the eighteenth century. Like me, Ingrid was an only child. Like me, she thought her parents were kind of lame. Like me, she was sick of her boring, over-protected life. Like me, she thought Markus was duller than biology. We had a lot in common.

  "Ingrid!" I called in the darkness.

  I felt a pair of hands cover my eyes. "Guess who?" Ingrid whispered in my ear.

  "Beats me."

  Ingrid's hands fell away from my face and she started walking ahead of me into the forest, motioning for me to follow her.

  I liked walking around barefoot at night. It made me feel free. The moon was full and bright overhead, and our feet barely made a sound as we brushed through ferns and banks of silky grass. We were headed to a little clearing in the woods that had two flat rocks right next to each other. We called the place the Sanctuary, and that

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  was where we went when we snuck out in the middle of the night--which, these days at least, was something we did pretty often. Out there it was possible to believe we could get up and walk back to normal houses in normal parts of Vineland, where a girl didn't have to know how to hold a fork, or curtsy, or move with grace, or go on hospital tours. (Don't get me wrong--it's not like I don't feel sorry for sick people. But I hate the smell of hospitals, and the flashbulbs going off in my face, and nurses coming up to shake my hand. And I hate having to read incredibly boring books to patients who always seem to be coughing on me.)

  We reached the rocks and sat down. Ingrid was wearing a cream-colored tunic shirt and raw silk pants that I'd never seen before. Unlike me, Ingrid loved all those dainty haute couture clothes I had to wear. "That's the thing about you, Carina," she always said. "You don't appreciate all the perks of royalty. I should have been a princess instead of you." She didn't mean it in a harsh way. She was just being honest.

  Ingrid pulled a pack of imported Silk Cut cigarettes out of her pants pocket and lit one with a gold Zippo. She took a long drag, and the light from the end gave her face an eerie glow. She handed the cigarette to me. I inhaled and immediately began to cough. And cough. And cough.

  I knew the benefits of cigarette smoking--rebellion against authority, making your parents angry, and masking the odor of the rose-scented cologne a princess is supposed to wear. The problem was, I hated

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  smoking. But I found that kind of embarrassing, so I did it anyway.

  Ingrid clapped me on the back. "You all right?"

  "Ahhh." r />
  She took the cigarette back. "Oh, I forgot how delicate princesses are," she said, laughing. "So." She paused to take another long drag. "Did you hear from that Toad guy yet?"

  "His name's Ribbit," I said. "And his band is called Toadmuffin. Toadmuffin."

  "Yeah, right," said Ingrid. "I looked at their web site. 'The Circus Will Weep When I Kill All the Clowns.' Brilliant, really."

  "That doesn't "mean kill for real, you know," I said. "It means metaphorically. Like 'My Girl Is a Rainbow Wearing Tight Shirts.'"

  "Ooh, metaphorically," Ingrid said, laughing. "I see."

  "Ribbit and I were e-mailing each other earlier tonight," I said.

  "No way!" said Ingrid. Even though Ingrid could be a little bit mean at times, she sounded genuinely happy, which I thought was really sweet. She thought I could do much better than Markus.

  She took one more puff on her cigarette, ground it out on the edge of the rock, and threw it on the ground. "So what did he say?"

  "Oh, you know, just that he was excited to meet me and all that."

  "Did you tell him who you are yet?"

  "Sure, Ingrid. 'Look for me, princess of Vineland. The

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  girl who makes Rapunzel look free.' No, of course I didn't! He still thinks I'm a normal girl, and that's what I'm going to be when I meet him."

  "Suuure. A normal girl... pulling up in a chauffeured Mercedes-Benz, accompanied by a scary-looking old woman who will make sure you two stand three feet apart at all times."

  "It's not going to be like that. I'm going to find a way to get rid of Killjoy--and the chauffeur, too. And you're going to help me."

  "I don't know," Ingrid said. "I'm still in trouble for that rope ladder and fake passport I gave you for Christmas. Somehow your parents took it the wrong way."

  I laughed. "Come on, Ingrid," I said in my best whiny voice. "If anyone can figure out how to help me get away from Killjoy, it's you. It'll be like that movie Escape from Alcatraz. I rented it one time with my mother. All these prisoners escaped from jail by making their own raft and sailing away. It's a true story."

  "Your point?"

  "Escape is possible."

  "Well, if Killjoy had been the prison warden, those three guys would be sitting in cells right now. And they would know how to curtsy. "

  "Ingrid, I'm serious."

  "All right, all right. I'll think of something. It's worth it just to get you away from Markus the Boring."

  "His family is going to be at the embassy ball in L.A.," I said.

  "Oh yeah?"

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  "Hopefully I won't get stuck talking to him all night like I did last time."

  "Seriously. He's so dull he makes me want to vomit." Ingrid rolled her eyes. "So, what's the first thing you're going to say when you finally meet Ribbit face-to-face?"

  "I'm going to say, 'Hi, I'm the girl you've been e-mailing.'"

  "What name are you going to use?"

  "I don't know. I'll make one up." I had gotten Ribbit's e-mail address through our head of cybersecurity. I hadn't exactly bribed him, but I had made some calls and ensured that his daughter was admitted to the most exclusive girls' school in all of Vineland. There are times when being a princess has its benefits.

  The breeze was cool against our skin. The stars overhead shone bright. Ingrid and I squinted up at them. I wanted one of the stars to suck me out of my kingdom and then set me down again in L.A.

  "It's going to be so incredible," I whispered. "Palm trees, sand in our toes, iced tea that tastes like raspberries, surfers, movie stars, dancing all night. Supposedly there's some beach where everyone walks around completely naked."

  "Naked?" Ingrid said nervously, sounding totally un-Ingrid. "Maybe I'll get Killjoy to dig me a big hole and I'll bury myself with just my neck sticking out. I'll pick up guys that way. Then I'll dig myself out after they've already fallen in love with me."

  "Look, the point is, L.A. is completely unlike anyplace we've ever been before, and I don't want to waste it at a bunch of boring receptions, eating salmon croquettes and

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  listening to someone blab on and on about what an honor it is to stand next to me. You have to help me, Ingrid. We need to come up with a serious plan."

  "I'm thinking, I'm thinking."

  I looked up at the stars again as Ingrid lit another cigarette. "Seven days from tonight and we'll be there," I said. "In seven days we'll be in an entirely different world. In beautiful, glamorous L.A...."

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  ***

  Chapter 2

  ... In beautiful, glamorous L.A. it was seven o'clock in the morning and I, Julia Johnson, woke up to the sound of dripping water. It came from the leaky faucet in the bathroom sink. The super of our building, Dominic, had promised to fix it, along with the stove, the oven, the pipes that ran through the walls in the living room, the knocking heater, and the refrigerator that oozed brown water. Dominic evidently looked at our kitchen the way missionaries look at Hollywood Boulevard or aid workers look at Calcutta. There was so much to do, it was too overwhelming to even start the job.

  Dominic had also promised to fix my bathroom door. Mom had her bedroom on the other side, and we shared the bathroom. But my door had begun to rot, and Dominic made this problem even worse by halfway fixing it. He took down the door and never got around to replacing it, so the dripping water bothered me much more now that I couldn't shut the door. Mom hung up one of my old Barbie sheets across the doorway in the meantime. I used to sleep under those sheets when I was

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  five years old. Dozens of princess Barbies danced on the borders. Identical Barbies in identical pink dresses, their faces plastered with big smiles, their eyes looking completely vacant. Now they kind of reminded me of some of the girls at my school.

  I rolled out of bed and rubbed my eyes as I stumbled into the bathroom. The water was dripping steadily--drip, drip, drip. I turned on the hot water--which meant warm water on a good day--and washed my face.

  It wasn't a bad face, I thought as I looked in the mirror. It was a good face in bad circumstances. Okay, so maybe I didn't look as "L.A." as some of the other girls at Rosewood, but they had three-hundred-dollar highlights and M.A.C lip glosses working in their favor. I had Bonne Belle Lip Smackers and haircuts courtesy of my mom and her kitchen scissors. It wasn't like I was jealous or anything. In fact, I kind of felt sorry for those girls--they had to spend all that extra time getting ready in the morning, whereas I was free to spend my time ... listening to the water drip in the sink.

  I felt something soft brush my ankle and looked down to see Desperate. Desperate was the name I gave my cat when I discovered her as a kitten, shivering on a side street that ran between Pacific Avenue and the Venice canals. Desperate had been just a placeholder name until I could think of something else, but as I got to know her, I saw that Desperate fit her name, the same way I fit mine. Desperate had grown up healthy, but she had really uncontrollable fur that stuck out all over the place. Bad fur days, they call it. Desperate was a good friend. She clawed

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  on the furniture and chewed up the hats Mom made, but she always looked sorry and would make up for it by clawing on the sheet across the bathroom door until she made fringe out of the Barbies that ran across the bottom.

  "Meow," said Desperate, which could have meant anything from "I want food," to "There is a mouse in the kitchen that just a few minutes ago was alive and well. I cannot control these violent tendencies. I must be stopped."

  "Did you get another mouse?" I asked Desperate.

  "Meow," she replied. A confession? We would soon see.

  On the way to the kitchen I passed by Mom's bedroom. The door was halfway open, so I peeked inside. She was fast asleep, her pink-and-white waitress uniform hung across a wing-back chair. According to restaurant regulation she had to wear three-inch heels and a high ponytail along with the frilly uniform, like a cartoon waitress come to life. She waited tables at the End Zon
e, a sports bar on Ocean Avenue. It was the regular hangout for a bunch of San Diego Chargers fans, and every time a game came on, the fans would crowd the bar and watch it on one of the giant screens, whooping and screaming when the Chargers won, falling silent and forgetting to tip if they lost. Needless to say, my mom was not particularly fond of the Chargers or football teams in general. They reminded her of drunken men and stale beer and overcooked chicken wings. Of a life spent toiling away at some menial job, when it should have been spent running her own hat empire.

  Back when she was in her midtwenties, my mom had a brief but very successful hat-making career. She was studying fashion design at UCLA when a boutique owner saw a

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  hat she'd made and asked my mom to make a bunch more. Eventually Mom dropped out of school to pursue fame and fortune as a famous headwear designer. Everything should have been perfect, but then she met a doctoral student in behavioral psychology who got her pregnant and abandoned her. I'd never met him, but I looked him up on the computers at school. Apparently he lived in Beverly Hills now and had a flourishing practice in adolescent and teen psychotherapy. Sometimes I liked to imagine what he'd say if I made an appointment and showed up in his office wanting to discuss my "abandonment issues."

  Anyway, Mom had to go to work to support me, and her hat creations kind of fell by the wayside. She kept it up as much as she could, making hats from random scraps she got out of the remnants bin at Material Girl and selling them on commission out of a little shop on Abbot Kinney. Every so often I'd spot someone on the street wearing one of Mom's designs, which was always sort of cool. I'd tried to tell her to jack up the price; that's what really makes designers take off. Look at Kate Spade, I told her. But Mom just wouldn't do it. Maybe she was afraid that no one would buy the hats at all then, and what little extra money they made would just disappear.

  Don't get me wrong--we weren't completely miserable, and we certainly didn't spend our time sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves. Okay, so we didn't have a ton of extra cash to throw around, but I never went hungry or anything like that. And besides, we had a lot of fun together, Mom and I.