The Princess & the Pauper Page 6

  "Listen, Julia," Ingrid said. "The Toadmuffin concert is this Saturday and Carina is supposed to meet a friend there, but her parents are insisting she go to this hospital that afternoon and then to an embassy ball that evening. All we want you to do is replace her for twenty-four hours."

  "Yeah, right," I said with a laugh. "Who put you up to this?"

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  "Nobody, I swear," Ingrid said. "We're dead serious."

  Okay. Now I was a little weirded out. What these girls were proposing was impossible, wasn't it? First of all, Carina and I might have had some tiny resemblance to each other, but there was no way I could be her. People would definitely notice the difference. And besides, I was a total klutz. I couldn't even get through one day without ruining my clothes. I had no idea what a person would do at an embassy ball, let alone what to wear or how to speak. And me on a dance floor? Not pretty. I'd be found out in five seconds.

  "I think you guys have the wrong double," I said, starting to get up from the table. My knees were like jelly. After all, the idea of playing princess for even a day was definitely butterfly-inducing. But it wasn't going to happen. I would make a fool out of myself if I tried. I made myself stand and grabbed my backpack. This wacky little plot was a little too wacky for my taste.

  "We'll pay you," Ingrid said loudly.

  I stopped in my tracks. "What makes you think I'll do it for money?" I asked.

  "The fact that you stopped when I said it is kind of a tip-off," Ingrid replied.

  My body heat skyrocketed, but I turned to face her, swallowing my pride. "When you say pay me, how much are you--"

  "Ten thousand dollars," Carina said bluntly. "American cash."

  I sank back down to the floor. There was no way I could have continued to stand if I'd tried. Ten thousand dollars? Were they kidding? Did they have any idea what

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  that kind of money could mean to me and my mother?

  "Just think about it," Ingrid said, leaning toward me. "You get to be princess for a day. We'll give you a makeover and you'll get to wear all of Carina's clothes. I don't even get to do that!"

  I barely heard what she was saying. Ten thousand dollars. Ten thousand dollars. Ten thousand dollars. The calculations were doing themselves in my mind. I could pay the rent for a whole year with that kind of money. My mother could cut back on her shifts. And I...

  I was letting myself get sucked in by Princess Obnoxious and her sidekick, In-Your-Face Girl. Was I that easy of a mark? Was I so clearly ... needy that they thought they could just buy me and make me do whatever they wanted?

  Be Carina so the poor little rich girl can rebel against her parents.

  I mean, I had my pride.

  "I don't believe you," I said, suddenly more than able to stand. "Do you think that having money gives you the right to just make people do whatever you want?"

  I turned to Carina and glared down at her. "Poor little princess," I said sarcastically as I gathered up my backpack again. "You can have everything in the world and it's not enough. I feel so bad for you that you have to attend a ball. God! I am so outta here."

  I started to turn, but Ingrid grabbed my backpack and slipped a business card in the side pocket. "In case you change your mind," she said with a totally unconcerned smile.

  I groaned and stalked out of the room and onto the

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  street, where I asked B.B. to get me my bike, throwing in a "please" and everything. Hot tears stung at my eyes as I raced off. I wasn't sure whether they were tears of humiliation of regret. Ten thousand dollars. I'd just turned down ten thousand dollars.

  But what was I supposed to do? Those girls needed someone to tell them that they couldn't just throw money around and buy people. They couldn't have anything they wanted--especially not me. I was never going to take anything from Carina or Ingrid as long as I lived.

  It wasn't until I was halfway to the Take Five Lighting offices that I realized I was still wearing a cashmere sweater and that I had a $500 price tag plastered to my sweaty back.

  You're going to get this job and bring home a paycheck and everything will be fine, I told myself as I sat in the outer office at Take Five. You don't need their stupid money.

  Of course, what I'd seen of Take Five so far didn't exactly have me psyched to work there. The receptionist's desk was piled with papers and surrounded by cardboard boxes overflowing with files. There were paths cut between towers of boxes that were barely big enough to slip through sideways. I was sitting on an old orange couch next to a lamp, a dead potted plant, and what looked like some kind of rotting fruit in a bowl. The smell was not appealing.

  The door to the nearly blocked-in office across from me opened and a frazzled-looking man with a comb-over stuck his head out.

  "Julia Johnson!" he shouted.

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  I jumped up and walked into his office, where he promptly slammed the door.

  "Have a seat," he said, gesturing at me with a file. I looked around, but there didn't appear to be any chairs in the office--just more boxes. I finally opted to lean back against a filing cabinet and hope he didn't notice that I wasn't sitting. I wanted every last thing to go right. I needed every last thing to go right.

  "Okay," the man said, sitting behind his desk "We need help moving out of this office and into a bigger one on the other side of town. Somebody's gonna have to reorganize all the files. It's gonna be hard work."

  "I'm not afraid of hard work," I said, plastering a smile on my face.

  "Good. I like that in a girl," the man said, looking me up and down in a way that made my skin crawl. Suddenly I realized that he hadn't even told me his name and no one knew where I was. Smooth move for the girl with the 4.0 GPA.

  "Now, for the first few weeks the hours are going to be long," the man told me, shuffling through some papers. "That gonna be a problem?"

  I swallowed hard and tried to keep the smile on my face. "How long?" I asked.

  "Oh, you'll be outta here by ten, ten-thirty on weekdays," he said casually.

  "Ten ... thirty?" Was he serious? Couldn't he tell I was in high school? When was I supposed to study? Not only that, but I couldn't ride my bike through downtown L.A. at ten-thirty at night. My mom would freak.

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  "Um ... any way that can be ... negotiated?" I asked, my heart pounding.

  The man slapped his papers down and fixed his beady little eyes on me. "You want this job or not?" he asked.

  At that moment, I was thinking not.

  By the time I got home, I was exhausted. I chained my bike to the rail at the bottom of the stairwell and trudged up the stairs, craving my favorite pajamas. All I wanted to do was go to bed and forget about this crappy day. I pushed the door open and headed straight for my room but paused in the hallway when I heard a noise coming from the kitchen. My heart dropped when I realized what it was.

  My mom was crying. I hesitated for a split second, my stomach tightening into a sickening knot. My mother didn't get upset very easily, but when she did, I always felt like a helpless two-year-old. I held my breath and walked into the kitchen.

  She was sitting at the table in her uniform, chewing on the side of her thumbnail, her big wet eyes staring straight ahead. She had a crumpled-up tissue in one hand and her face was streaked with tears. Desperate circled around her legs, clawing at her stockings, meowing in distress, as though realizing that the crying meant no one was going to think to feed her anytime soon.

  "Mom?" I said, my voice small. "Are you okay?"

  She looked over at me, surprised, then sniffled and wiped her hands across her face.

  "Hey, sweetie," she said, trying to smile. "How was your day?"

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  "Mom, who cares?" I asked, sitting down across from her at the table. "What's going on?"

  She sighed and lifted her arms, revealing a crisp-looking white envelope. She pressed her fingertips into it and slid it across the wooden tabletop toward me. I had a feeling I already knew what
it was.

  "You might as well read it," my mother said. She looked down. "I'm really sorry, hon."

  My stomach clenching, I opened the envelope and drew out a letter. I made myself read the words.

  Yup, an eviction notice. If we didn't turn in all our back rent and next month's within two weeks, we'd have to move out in two weeks.

  "Mom." I got up and crouched down next to her chair. "I'm so sorry."

  She clasped my hand in both of hers. When she looked at me, her eyes were red and puffy. "What kind of person would kick us out of our home with no warning at all? It just isn't right."

  I felt a wave of guilt crash over me. I had hidden all those letters from my mother to try to keep her from worrying, but all I'd done was make our situation worse. This was my fault.

  Desperate meowed again, and I felt a fang dig gently into my ankle. Maybe under her ratty fur she realized she was about to go back to the very streets she thought she'd left behind. Maybe she was wondering why she'd let such losers save her in the first place.

  "I even bought some lottery tickets tonight," my mom said, pulling a few crumpled slips out of her apron pocket. She

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  let out a forced laugh. "Shockingly enough, we didn't win."

  I smiled and took the tickets from her, balling them up in my hand.

  "Oh, honey, what are we going to do?" my mother asked. "I know I'm supposed to be the mother and tell you--"

  "We'll think of something," I said quickly. "It'll be okay, Mom. I swear."

  My mother smiled at me, then reached out to grab me up in a quick hug. "Do I ever tell you what a cool kid you are?" she asked me.

  "Like every day," I replied, letting out a half laugh, half sob.

  My mother pulled back and I was about to get up to go to my room for a nice, long think when her brow wrinkled.

  "Julia, where did you get that sweater?" she asked.

  My stomach sank. "Uh ... this?" I asked, standing up. "I borrowed it from a friend."

  "It's beautiful," my mother said, reaching up to stroke my arm. She smiled wistfully up at me. "I'm so glad you have the opportunity to go to that school and meet all those different kinds of people. You have such generous friends."

  Little did she know how generous this particular friend was trying to be. A tingly mixture of determination, excitement, and resolve rushed over my skin as I turned to pick up my backpack. I pulled the little white card out of the side pocket and stared down at the phone number written across the back.

  I swallowed hard, knowing what I had to do. I was holding winning lottery numbers right in my hand. All I had to do was cash in.

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  ***

  Chapter 8

  I opened the door the following evening to find Carina standing there with her hair all pushed up under a Dodgers cap and her face hidden by a pair of oversized sunglasses. She was wearing Diesel jeans, a thin white T-shirt, and Birkenstocks and had a stuffed messenger bag slung over her shoulder.

  "Princess," I said flatly.

  "Pauper," she replied.

  I pressed my lips together and opened the door a little wider. She stepped into the living room and stopped short, her mouth dropping open ever so slightly. I felt my face flush, knowing she was shocked by her very unpalacelike surroundings and waiting for her to say something obnoxious. But instead she recovered herself and pulled off the baseball cap and glasses.

  "It's ... nice," she said.

  "Where's Ingrid?" I asked, starting to close the door.

  At that moment I heard footsteps barreling up the stairs and the door was suddenly pushed open--hard. It hit my arm and I tripped back a few steps.

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  "Oh! Sorry!" Ingrid gasped breathlessly. She clung to both straps of a vinyl backpack. "Some guy downstairs just tried to sell me a kitten that I think was actually a rat." She looked both disgusted and also kind of thrilled as she made this announcement.

  "That was just Sweaty Luke," I said, closing the door behind her. "You didn't touch him, did you?"

  "God, no," Ingrid said, pulling off her linen jacket. "Why?"

  "Don't ask," I said. "So, how did you guys get away from the ... Fröken?"

  Ingrid and Carina walked around the coffee table, which was overflowing with old magazines, and perched on the edge of the couch. Carina adjusted her position a few times, looking down at the itchy fabric that covered the cushion as if it was going to bite her. Finally she found a spot without a spring under it.

  "They're giving us three hours off in the evenings so B.B. can take us to all the cultural places," Ingrid replied. "La Brea Tar Pits, the Los Angeles Symphony, the Getty Museum..."

  "How'd you get him to bring you here instead?" I asked.

  "We don't call him Buyable Bill for nothing, remember?" Ingrid said.

  "Right," I replied, trying not to think of how very buyable I'd turned out to be.

  From the corner of my eye I saw Desperate trot out from the kitchen. Suddenly she jumped up on the back of the sofa and Carina flew out of her seat, letting out a scream.

  "What is that thing?" she wailed, her hand to her chest.

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  I laughed, walked over, and picked up Desperate in my arms. "It's my cat," I replied, stroking her mangy fur lovingly. Definitely a bad fur day. I looked at Carina's distressed expression and smirked. "Maybe we should go into my room. It's the second door down the hall."

  Carina swallowed hard, then followed Ingrid toward my bedroom, which, I'll admit, I'd tidied up for the evening's activities. The moment they were out of hearing range, I lifted Desperate up in front of me and looked her in the eye.

  "Good cat."

  She purred in response.

  "Let's get started," Ingrid said, dumping out her backpack onto my bed. Half a dozen hardcover books spilled out. The smell of the musty pages filled my nostrils and the bookworm in me got a little thrill. I'm such a nerd.

  "You'll need to study these," Carina said, making a neat little pile out of the books. "There will be a lot of dignitaries at the ball and you'll be expected to know everything there is to know about Vineland."

  "What do they do, quiz you?" I asked, sitting down on my bed and picking up one of the heavier books.

  "No, but you'd be surprised how often the average yearly rainfall comes up in conversation," Carina said, rolling her eyes. "I'm constantly surrounded by deathly boring people."

  I opened the book to the glossy section of pictures near the back, depicting kings, queens, princes, and princesses of Vineland throughout the ages. None of them looked all that boring to me.

  "Is this your mother?" Carina asked, picking up a

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  framed photo from my dresser. It had been taken when I was ten and my mother had gotten a couple of discount tickets to Disneyland. We'd waited almost an hour to pose with Mickey, but it was one of my favorite memories.

  "Yep," I said. "Not the one with the big ears."

  Carina smiled slightly. "She's pretty."

  "I know," I said.

  "Where is she tonight?" Carina asked.

  "Working," I told her. "She's working every night this week and all day Saturday." Luckily, that meant it was going to be easy for me to play princess that weekend. Unluckily, it meant I was barely going to see my mother for the next few days. I hated that.

  "Sounds like my father," Carina said, a distinct bitterness in her voice.

  Yeah, but your dad works in a tux and signs treaties with kings. My mom works in polyester and gets her butt pinched by drunks all night, I thought with an equal amount of bitterness.

  "I've always wanted to go to an amusement park," Carina said wistfully, putting the picture down and moving on to the photo album next to it. Meanwhile, Ingrid was absently leafing through a pile of papers on my desk-- scholarship forms, job listings, SAT locations. Plus the many, many moneygrubbing notes from the landlord that I'd hidden from my mom. She was reading them as if it didn't even occur to her that they were my private thing
s.

  "You've never been to an amusement park?" I asked, jumping up and snatching the papers from Ingrid's hands. She looked surprised but unperturbed. I crossed over to Carina, opened my junk drawer, and started to shove the

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  papers in, but Carina's eyes widened slightly and she grabbed something from the drawer.

  "You have a passport?" she asked, opening the little blue booklet and checking out the truly heinous picture. I grabbed that back from her as well. "There aren't any stamps in it," she pointed out.

  "Yeah, well, I've never been anywhere," I replied, shoving everything back in the drawer and slamming it shut.

  "So then why do you have a passport?" Ingrid asked, leaning in toward my full-length mirror to check out the pictures of my friends that were shoved in under the fake gold rim.

  I was starting to get a little fed up with this visit. "If you must know, I got it a couple of years ago. My mom and I had a fight and I told her I was going to run away to Mexico. She didn't believe me, so I used all my savings to get a passport to prove I was serious." I took a deep breath and flopped down on my bed. "Little did I know, you don't need a passport to go to Mexico, and I didn't have the money to get there anyway. By the time it came in the mail, we'd long since made up."

  Carina smirked and looked at Ingrid. "Sounds like something I would do."

  "She's had many botched escapes," Ingrid clarified, turning away from the mirror. She bent over Carina's bag and opened the flap, revealing a buffet of styling products. She started to sort through them, laying lipsticks, powders, tiny little pots of something or other, and a few random tools on my desk.

  "Why would you try to escape?" I asked, looking down at

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  the book on my bed. It was open to a two-page aerial view of the castle. The place looked like something out of a dream.

  Carina gazed down at it and breathed out slowly. "You would, too, if your parents wouldn't take you to an amusement park." She reached out and closed the book. "Or anywhere else you ever wanted to go."

  I looked up at Carina, and for that split second I saw something reflected in her eyes--a sort of sorrow. And it wasn't a "poor-me" sorrow. It was an "I'm-trapped" sorrow. I knew the feeling well. Whenever I overheard the girls in my class planning group ski trips to Aspen or weekends at the spa. Whenever they turned to me with those looks in their eyes like they felt so sorry for me that their parents were able to give them everything and my mom wasn't.