The Princess & the Pauper Page 3

  The morning sunlight came in and lit up Mom's face.

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  Despite the fact that she joked about being my "silly-looking old mother," I thought she was beautiful. She had glossy brown hair and smooth, clear skin. The men at the sports bar hit on her all the time, and some of them were kind of gross about it when they'd had a few too many Amstel Lights. One night Mom came home with buffalo wing sauce in the shape of a handprint on the back of her dress. I asked her about it and she said, "Some drunk guy tried to grab me, so I shoved my knee right in his fifty-yard line. He spent the next ten minutes having a time-out." And then she'd laughed her warm, coppery laugh, and I'd laughed, too, and before we knew it, we were clutching our stomachs and the tears were running down our faces.

  I guess you could say Mom's pretty much my best friend--my best friend who just happens to be a lot older and kind of looks like me.

  Most mornings she woke up in time to have breakfast with me, but at the moment she looked so peaceful I didn't want to wake her. I went to the kitchen and made breakfast while Desperate watched me like a hawk, even though her food bowl was full. Desperate always wanted what other people had, which made L.A. the perfect place for her.

  When I finished eating breakfast, I packed lunch and headed out. I cringed when I noticed that yet another letter was taped to our door. At least I'd seen it before my mom. It was almost becoming a reflex--ripping off the note and sticking it in my pocket.

  I found my slightly rusty blue ten-speed chained to the stairway of our apartment complex, put my backpack in the basket, and started down our street, which ran through

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  the heart of Venice, a funky little area in the southwestern part of Los Angeles. Venice used to be full of artists and gangs--but more and more young professionals were moving in, fixing up the places and driving up property values--and rent. Our street wasn't as nice as the ones that ran through the canals, or even the area around the vintage shops on Abbot Kinney. But on the other hand, it wasn't as bad as the Oakwood area, where someone was always holding someone up at gunpoint.

  Most of the girls who attended school at Rosewood were from Beverly Hills, Malibu, or Bel Aire, and they had parents who gave them BMWs and Mercedeses to drive to school. I didn't even have a Pinto. And since the bus service would have cost a lot of money (Rosewood was a private school--it was expensive just to breathe there), I was forced to ride my bike, enduring whistles and catcalls every morning as I rode down Washington Boulevard. But that was okay with me. As a result of my enforced transportation, I would have a better-developed character and sleeker legs than my classmates.

  Every so often when I was in a bad mood, I'd feel a tiny bit sorry for myself, but then I'd snap back to reality and put all my energies into making straight A's so that someday I'd get into a good college on scholarship, the same way I'd earned my full ride at Rosewood. Then I'd be the one laughing from the dorm room of Brown or Duke while those other girls ... well, married doctors and lived in bigger houses in Beverly Hills. But still, they would have bad character development and by then their legs would probably be really fat.

  When I arrived at school, a few of the girls were hanging

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  out on the marble staircase that led up to the big double doors of Rosewood Academy. The weather had cooled a little--strange for September--and three of them were wearing cream turtleneck sweaters. I wondered if they'd planned it the night before.

  While I chained my bicycle to the iron rails of the staircase, I overheard one of the girls, Bridget Walsh, squealing about something.

  "Wait, really? I can't believe it. Seriously?"

  Bridget Walsh's father was a big Hollywood producer. He'd put Bridget in a Disney movie when she was six years old, and she'd been wanting to act ever since. She always seemed to be practicing for an audition, but she never got any parts. Maybe today she was trying out to be Perky, the little-known eighth Dwarf.

  "This is just so totally exciting," Mary Robbins agreed. "Definitely the new M.F." Mary was really into calling things "the new M.F." M.F. stood for Most Fabulous. Previously the title of "new M.F." had been bestowed upon her favorite strappy sandals, the new season of The Real World, and Crest Whitestrips.

  "This really is amazing," Sally Phillips said, nodding. "I can't believe royalty is coming to Rosewood." Usually their conversations didn't interest me that much, but this actually sounded kind of cool.

  "Royalty like Michael Jackson, the King of Pop?" I asked, smirking. Bridget looked at me blankly, blinked, and shook her head. Most of the girls at school didn't really get my sense of humor.

  "Huh? Nooo. Like, real royalty." She held up a copy of

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  the newspaper and waved it in front of me. "As in Princess Carina from Vineland."

  "Oh," I said.

  "This is totally going to bring such good publicity to our school," Darcy Carroll said, flipping her hair.

  "Totally," said Stacy Lomax. "Definitely good publicity."

  "Why is she coming here?" I asked. "I mean, to what do we owe this great honor?" I added, holding back a grin.

  "I heard her grandmother went to Rosewood in the forties," said Bridget, "and so it's kind of a PR event. You know, royal granddaughter returns after sixty years."

  "I wonder if that means they're going to donate something fabulous to the school," Mary said. "They are completely loaded, like Bill Gates loaded."

  "Cool," said Darcy. "Maybe they'll get Anna Sui to design the new school uniform or get a spa put in the locker rooms."

  I scowled, remembering my own need for a serious donation. Turning away from the group, I opened up my backpack and took out the letter I had found taped to the door. While the other girls continued to giggle and squeal and overuse the word totally, I scanned the message.

  Dear Tenant,

  As you know, I have raised the price of your rent by $200, well within my rights as a landlord, as this is not a rent-controlled property. Due to the unfortunate passing away of my mother, I am now the sole owner of the apartment complex. As a result, I have changed her very lax rules on late payments. You have not yet paid your August rent in full, and it's already mid-September.

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  This is your third notice. Please remit payment to the building superintendent, Dominic Rocco, immediately. Failure to act in a timely manner will result in more serious measures.

  I folded the letter back up, my pulse racing. This was the worst one yet. More serious measures --what did that mean? I shoved the letter into my backpack. We'd have the money soon, if the Chargers could just get themselves together and win a couple of games. I didn't want my mom to freak out in the meantime. What was the point, when there was nothing we could do?

  "Princess Carina has the best clothes!" Mary sighed. "I wonder if she has a personal stylist or if she picks them out herself."

  "You know, you kind of look like her, Julia," Sally said, chewing on a silver-lacquered thumbnail.

  I raised my eyebrows. "Right," I said. "I think maybe you put in the wrong prescription contacts today."

  The others all looked at me closer, glancing back and forth between me and the picture in the newspaper. "That's so weird," Bridget said. "Julia, you actually do look like her. I mean, if you plucked your eyebrows and did something with your hair ..."

  I shook my head, letting out a laugh. Me and the princess of Vineland, long lost twins. That was a good one. If only plucking some eyebrows and getting a haircut could turn me into a princess. I had a feeling Princess Carina didn't have to hide scary landlord letters from her queen mother.

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  "I hear the princess gets her highlights from some special stylist who flies in from Milan," Mary said. "Apparently he uses some revolutionary technique that only two other people in the world know how to do. I really want to see her up close and ask her about it."

  "I don't think you're going to get a chance," Bridget said. "There's just going to be an assembly where she makes a few stat
ements about what Rosewood meant to her grandmother, and then they're going to do a quick tour, and then she's out of here."

  Gwendolyn Jones came bouncing up. She was the head reporter for the Rosewood Weekly, and her specialty was breaking news that everyone knew about already. None of the students ever gave her quotes, so she relied on the teachers, who liked her because she always raised her hand and vehemently agreed with anything they said.

  She stuck a paper in my hands, and then she was off.

  I glanced down at the headline: princess comes to rosewood! get a home ec teacher's perspective in an exclusive interview!

  I let the paper drop and went inside. It looked like I was the only person at Rosewood who couldn't care less about the princess of Vineland coming to our school, probably because I was also the only one there who had more important things to worry about. Things Princess Carina couldn't help with, no matter how well plucked her eyebrows were.

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  ***

  Chapter 3

  I had never been so bored in my entire life. And for someone who has been forced to sit through countless state dinners and fatherly lectures, that was saying a lot. Not to mention my daily history lessons with Master Heinrich the Lisper. He'd been known to stop midsentence and stare off into nowhere for as long as five minutes at a time before coming back to an entirely different thought. Honestly. I'd clocked him.

  He reminded me of that teacher at the beginning of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, one of my favorite American classics. After I first saw it, I always used to daydream about what I would do if I got a day off from being a princess. Naturally these daydreams would most often occur right in the middle of one of Heinrich the Lisper's dazes.

  "Okay, this is torture." Ingrid groaned, slumping in the plastic chair next to mine. I was sitting up so straight, she looked like she was a full foot shorter than me with that posture. "How long does it take to prep a plane?" she demanded. "You put in the gas, you restock the alcohol, and you're done."

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  "Ooh! They have alcohol?" I asked loudly, just to irritate Fröken Killroy.

  "Girls, please," Fröken Killroy said, her fingers folded primly in her lap. "We are in a public place."

  "Could have fooled me," I said under my breath. We were, in fact, sitting in the middle of Vineland International Airport, waiting for the airline people to gas up our charter flight to the United States, but the security detail was making every other traveler in the place take a fifty-yard detour around our gate. There didn't seem to be another living soul for miles. It was kind of like being at the palace. My bubble was following me everywhere.

  "Come on," Ingrid said, standing up and grabbing my hand. "We need reading material."

  I was barely out of my seat when Fröken Killroy stood up. "Oh no. You are not going to that newsstand. The men have not done a security sweep," she said. "If you wanted something to read, you should have brought it from home."

  "Do you really think some gum peddler is waiting in there to assassinate the princess?" Ingrid asked sarcastically. She was so not helping the situation.

  "Five minutes, Fröken," I said, raising my eyebrows at her. "Please?"

  "Carina, your parents have entrusted me with your safety," she began, her wattle quivering beneath her chin. It was so ick I had to look away.

  "Exactly!" Ingrid put in. "And if she doesn't get something to read soon, she's going to start ... losing brain cells! You wouldn't want that to happen, now, would you?"

  With that, Ingrid started to pull me away toward the

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  little news-and-candy shop (not that I struggled). I cast a fake helpless look back at Killjoy and she flattened her mouth into a line before calling out, "Five minutes!"

  The newsstand was brightly lit and the glossy, colorful magazine covers beckoned my name, but even the sight of the new French Vogue couldn't pull the frown off my face. We hadn't even left the country yet and already my excitement was starting to die a slow death. This trip was going to be zero fun with Fröken Killroy breathing down my neck.

  "She's even worse than usual," I said as Ingrid started to grab handfuls of chocolate bars and gum. "It's like being my sole chaperone has got her drunk with power."

  "I know. I'm surprised she hasn't fitted you for a leash yet," Ingrid said, tossing a pack of Bubblelicious back into the bin.

  "Don't say that in front of her," I warned. "It'll give her ideas."

  "Cheer up, C! We are going to find a way to get you to that concert or my name isn't... ooh! Leo!"

  She rushed across the tiny shop and snatched a new copy of People magazine from a rack. We both hovered over it, salivating at the new pictures of Leonardo DiCaprio. I swear, those few Leoless years after Titanic were just sad. He was my first official crush, and although Shane West had helped me through the dry spell, a million viewings of A Walk to Remember could never replace a good Leo fix.

  'Thank God he made a comeback," Ingrid said, flipping the pages with her thumb. "Ugh! Look! There he is with his model brigade." She scrunched her nose as she checked out the all-leg girls surrounding Leo at some party in L.A.

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  L.A. Soon we were going to be there. It was going to stop being this almost mythical place that only existed on DVDs and in InStyle and become an actual city with me in it!

  "You know, you should totally throw a party at the palace and invite him," Ingrid said, blowing a gum bubble. Ingrid chews gum like a fiend when we're in nonsmoking public areas. "I bet he'd love to party with a royal."

  "Please," I replied, tossing my hair over my shoulder. "My parents' idea of a wild bash was that croquet party they threw for Grandmama's seventieth. It was more yawn fest than L.A. chic."

  Ingrid looked up from the magazine for the first time. "Those two must learn to use their power for good instead of evil."

  I laughed and walked along the wall of magazines, picking up an Elk, a W, and a Seventeen with Avril Lavigne on the cover. I wondered what my parents would do if I sent out invitations to a party without asking them. I couldn't even imagine the fit my father would throw. Maybe that dungeon he was always idly threatening me with would turn out to be real. I looked down at Avril's heavily lined, defiant eyes and sighed. She would throw an unsanctioned party if she were a princess. Then again, if she'd been born a princess, she probably would have run away before her sixth birthday.

  "Oh my God! Carina! You are not going to believe this," Ingrid said, sauntering over to me. She held out the People in front of my face. "Check out the shot on the right."

  "So?" I said. It was yet another in a seemingly endless

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  stream of grainy photographs of Prince William playing polo. He was swinging his club and had his head tipped back in a laugh, flashing his perfect teeth. I ran my tongue over my own teeth out of habit. My braces had just been taken off a few weeks ago and I now had my own perfectly photoworthy smile, but I was still paranoid that they were all going to move back to their formerly crooked state.

  "Not Willy," Ingrid said. "Look at the horse behind his."

  I glanced right and felt my stomach drop. Sitting astride a beautiful white horse was none other than Markus Ingvaldsson. I couldn't believe it. Markus was playing polo with Prince William now? Would it never end? I could just imagine the details I was going to be subjected to when I saw him again.

  "William has a good shot, but he was no match for me," I heard Markus brag in my head. Of course, Markus would never actually say something so blatantly egotistical, but I knew he thought he was the greatest thing since beluga caviar.

  Unfortunately, my father was in agreement with that assessment. Just wait until he found out that Markus was now hobnobbing with England's elite. He'd probably call me right away to make sure that I knew and that I'd ask Markus about it at the embassy ball. My dad hadn't even bothered to call me to wish me a safe trip, but he would definitely call me about this.

  "I can't believe he got to play with Prince William," Ingrid said.
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  "Well, he is the god of polo," I replied sarcastically. "I think he was born with a polo stick in his hand."

  "More like up his butt," Ingrid replied.

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  I laughed and pushed the magazine and her hands away. "That whole mag just went down an entire notch."

  "No problem," Ingrid said. She laid the magazine down flat on top of a stack of newspapers and tore the page with the Markus and Willy picture out. Then she folded it up and stuffed it into her bag. "Leo is now untainted," she said, executing a little bow.

  "Thanks, Ingrid," I said as she handed me the magazine. I put it on top of my stack and headed for the register, hoping the woman behind the counter wouldn't recognize me. If she did, she'd probably insist I take the stuff for free, just like every other shopkeeper in the world. Just once it would be cool to pay for something like a normal person.

  "Uh ... scusi. You are the Princess of Vineland, yes?"

  I turned around to find the single hottest guy I had ever seen in my life standing in front of me. He had curly brown hair with obviously natural blond highlights and was wearing a kind of ragged T-shirt and jeans. The backpack slung over his shoulder was decorated with all kinds of colorful patches and was all tattered and stained. Just imagining the places that backpack had been made me ache to get on that plane.

  But not before I found out who this piece of perfection was.

  "Si," I replied with a flirtatious smile. "Come stai?"

  So glad I absorbed the little Italian I had. His whole handsome face lit up.

  "Bene! Grazie!" he replied. Then he held out a pad and a pen with shaking hands. "Please may I have your autograph?" he asked.

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  Ingrid slid up next to me and her eyes widened. "You bet your ravioli you can," she said under her breath, causing me to snort a laugh. Very unprincesslike.

  I was just reaching out for the pen and pad when Fröken Killroy descended upon us like a testosterone-seeking missile.

  "I'm sorry, but the princess has no time for autographs," she said, grabbing me by the shoulders and turning me away from one stunned Italian. I felt my cheeks flush red with humiliation. How could she do that to me in front of him? He was clearly a man of the world, and here I was being protected by a nanny!