Wednesday, November 25
1:00 P.M.
Train to Stockerdörfl

I have to print really small because I don’t want anyone to see what I’m writing in here. I told them all that I’m doing sketches of the beautiful countryside as it whizzes past us.

Ha! As if!

We changed trains at Genoa to a high-speed line (so we could get to Stockerdörfl in five hours instead of fourteen) and you can’t see ANYTHING out the train windows—at least not for long enough to draw it—because we’re going so fast.

But I have to write down all the crazy stuff that is happening.

NEVER GO ON A SCHOOL TRIP WITH YOUR GRANDMOTHER (AND YOUR SNOBBY COUSIN).

It will not turn out well.

It started out fine. I was excited because I’ve never been on a train before. Everywhere we’ve gone since I’ve found out I’m a princess has been on a private plane or in a limo. Before, when I lived in New Jersey, I never went anywhere, except by car.

I’ve seen lots of trains before—people took trains from New Jersey to get into Manhattan, and in Genovia people take trains to get all over the rest of Europe.

I didn’t want to let on how excited I was to ride one—even more excited than Rocky, who loves everything with wheels, and even things with blades on them, as illustrated by his trying to hitch Snowball to a fake sleigh.

But I was SUPER EXCITED to ride on a train. Would it be, I kept wondering, like the train to Hogwarts, in Harry Potter?

But of course it wasn’t. It was one of those modern trains—that Rocky went even more bananas for—not one with a smokestack. They don’t use those anymore, because they cause too much pollution. I don’t know what I’d been thinking.

And there were only three platforms at the train station, because Genovia isn’t that big, and all the trains from there connect to other, bigger stations, where you can find the train going to where you want to go (such as Stockerdörfl).

But when I saw my entire class, practically, waiting for us on platform two, I got over my disappointment. Maybe this trip wouldn’t be so bad.

Wrong. Very wrong.

“What is she doing here?” Luisa snarled upon spying my grandmother.

Fortunately she didn’t say it loudly enough for Grandmère to overhear. If she had, I could only imagine what might have occurred. Possibly a third world war.

“My grandmother volunteered to chaperone,” I said, keeping a tight hold on Snowball’s leash. She was excited by all the new sights and smells at the train station. “And you should be thankful for it, Luisa, because if she hadn’t, we wouldn’t be able to—”

—take this trip, was what I was going to say, but I didn’t get the chance to finish. That’s because Victorine screamed out my name and began running toward me, throwing both her arms around my neck in a manner that caused my bodyguard, Serena, to reach for her stun gun.

That’s because Victorine looks very different when she’s not wearing her school uniform, and Serena didn’t recognize her. After my sister’s wedding, Victorine got super into the rock star Boris P, who played at the reception. So now when she’s outside of school, Victorine dresses in all black, with very heavy black eyeliner and mascara, because she is a Borette—a Boris P fan.

“Oh my God, oh my God,” Victorine cried. “We are going to have SO MUCH FUN! I’m so glad you’re coming!”

After I’d extracted myself from Victorine’s stranglehold, I said, “Um, I know—”

“What is going on here?” Grandmère demanded. “Why are you all out of uniform?”

Victorine spun around, saw my grandmother, then turned quite pale beneath her dark makeup. “Oh, good morning, Your Royal Highness,” she said with a curtsy. “Madame Alain told us it was all right to wear our normal clothes on the train.”

“Well, then I shall have a word with Madame Alain,” Grandmère declared. “How are we to intimidate the enemy if we don’t look like a united front? You there—” She yelled at Roger, the 12th Duke of Marborough, who was pointing at Rommel and laughing. “Do you find something amusing about my dog?”

Roger dropped his hand and stopped laughing. “No, ma’am—I mean, Your Highness.”

“I should hope not. Just as there is nothing amusing about your shirt. Who, might I ask, is Tupac?”

“Uh,” the duke said, looking down at his shirt, which featured a large portrait of the rap artist above his name and date of death. “He’s, um, a … a philosopher, Your Highness.”

“A philosopher. I see. Can you quote some of his writings?”

“Um…” The duke, who’d been helping Prince Khalil and some of the other members of the hockey team load equipment onto the train, looked startled. “What?”

“Don’t say what to me, young man. Since you admire Mr. Tupac’s philosophical writings so much that you feel compelled to wear the poor man’s face emblazoned across your chest, I am assuming you can quote his writings.”

The duke stared at my grandmother with a terrified expression. “Um…”

“If you’d like me to repeat the question, say ‘I beg your pardon’ or ‘Excuse me,’ but not ‘um.’”

“Um … I don’t think I…”

It was Prince Khalil who replied, “I can quote some of Tupac’s writings, Your Highness.”

Then he rapped, RIGHT ON THE TRAIN PLATFORM, the first few lyrics of a song by Tupac Shakur called “Dear Mama,” which was about being respectful and appreciative of his mother, the woman who raised him and kept him from the penitentiary.

Everyone standing on the platform—me, Victorine, Nadia, Prince Gunther, Princess Komiko, Luisa, the Duke of Marborough, the Marquis of Tottingham, and the rest of the hockey team, and even some of the porters, and of course my bodyguard, Serena—all stared at him in admiration. The boy could sing!

“Dude,” Roger said, when Prince Khalil was finished. “That was sweet!”

Prince Khalil lightly slapped the duke’s raised hand. “No big thing,” he said modestly.

“Yes,” Grandmère agreed, after a moment’s silence (except for the conductor, yelling for us to Climb aboard! since the train would soon be departing). “That was sweet.” To the duke, she said, “Give him your shirt.”

Roger’s jaw dropped. “What?”

“You don’t deserve to wear that shirt. A true fan of Mr. Tupac would be able to quote him, as your friend did. So Prince Khalil deserves the shirt you are wearing, not you. Give it to him.”

Prince Khalil looked shocked. “Your Highness,” he said, “that’s all right. I don’t want the duke’s—”

“Never fear,” Grandmère said, holding out a hand to stop his protests. “The Duke of Marborough has plenty of other shirts, one presumes. He shan’t go naked.”

The duke wasn’t the only person who was astonished. I was shocked, too.

“Grandmère,” I said. “You can’t—”

“I most certainly can,” she said. “I am a chaperone. It’s my duty not only to protect you, but to keep you from behaving in a way that might embarrass yourselves, or the reputation of the Royal Genovian Academy.”

“But,” Luisa cried, coming to the defense of the duke, who was—it couldn’t be denied—the second most popular boy in our class, after Prince Khalil. If popularity was judged by how kind people were, Prince Gunther would be second most popular. But for unknown reasons, this is not how popularity worked at the RGA. “Madame Alain is a chaperone, too. And she wouldn’t want Roger to give up his shirt.”

“Well, Madame Alain isn’t here right now, is she?” Grandmère raised both her drawn-on eyebrows—a dangerous sign. “And I believe the right thing for the duke to do is stop pretending to be something he is not. That is neither impressive nor healthy. Hurry up now, young man. We haven’t got all day. We’ve a train to board.”

Roger looked from my grandmother to Luisa, rolled his eyes, then pulled off his Tupac shirt and tossed it to Prince Khalil.

“Here,” he said, not very graciously.

“Uh.” Prince Khalil looked down at the shirt. “Thanks … I guess.”

I was mortified. It was one thing to deliver messages from the Resistance across the Austrian border to the Allies in Switzerland. It was another to enforce a completely unnecessary (and made-up) dress code. Was Grandmère going to be like this the whole trip?

Then Prince Khalil did something that completely distracted me from being mortified about my grandmother’s crazy behavior:

He pulled off his own shirt so he could put on the duke’s. Suddenly he—like the duke—was shirtless on platform two of the Genovian train station!

It was only for about four seconds or so.

But if you think about it, four seconds is a pretty long time. Long enough for Prince Khalil to pull the duke’s shirt over his head, and the duke to lean over and pull a new shirt from his backpack, and put it on, as well.

But it was also long enough for me to whip out my cell phone and take a really quick photo of a shirtless Prince Khalil for Nishi.

I know it was wrong, and something only a creepy, stalkery paparazzo would do.

But it wasn’t my fault! Nishi’s turned me into a creepy, stalkery paparazzo with her stupid bet (even though I’m the one who made the bet in the first place).

And she’s the one who wanted a photo of Prince Khalil shirtless in the first place!

Well, now she’s getting one. He just isn’t smiling in front of a sunset, the way she wanted. He’s changing his shirt on a train platform.

Nishi is going to have to learn to live with disappointment.

And to be fair, I am the school photographer for the trip. Taking photos is my job.

“Princess Clarisse!” Madame Alain cried as she returned to the platform from the train station’s gift shop, where she’d gone to buy Genovian toffees for the trip. “What in heaven’s name is going on here?”

“Nothing at all, Madame Alain,” Grandmère replied calmly. “Merely a wardrobe adjustment. The Duke of Marborough generously volunteered to give the shirt off his back to the Prince of Qalif. But then, who would expect otherwise from the Duke of Marborough, who is such a charming and intelligent young man? Come, Madame Alain. I think the conductor would like us to board now.”

“Oh.” Madame Alain looked flustered. “Er … yes, Your Highness.”

When we got on the train—the three first-class cars had been reserved by the Royal Genovian Academy for the fifty-seven students, ten chaperones, and fourteen bodyguards who’d be attending the school trip—I sat as far from Grandmère, Rommel, Madame Alain, and Rocky as I could possibly get, keeping Snowball on my lap. (Pets are allowed on European trains, within reason. For instance, you can’t keep your pony on your seat with you, but you can take a small dog.)

After what had happened with the Duke of Marborough, I didn’t think anyone would want to sit near me. I clearly had a crazy grandmother.

So you can imagine how surprised I was when Nadia and Princess Komiko plunked down beside me, followed by Victorine, and, finally, a slightly sullen Luisa.

“Oh my gosh,” Victorine said, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. “That was fantastic. ‘A true fan of Mr. Tupac would be able to quote him.’ I love your grandmother.”

I peeked up from behind the powder-puff of white fur on Snowball’s head. “You do?”

“Of course!” Victorine whipped out her cell phone to check her dark eye makeup. “She’s completely right. I mean, no self-respecting fan of Boris P would wear one of his shirts and not know any of his songs. It’s like, be a poser, why don’t you?”

I’m not the biggest fan of Boris P (even though he is a friend of my sister’s). I’m more into Beyoncé (and Taylor Swift and Katy Perry, of course).

“Well, I thought your grandmother was rude, Olivia,” Luisa said. “Roger was shirtless in front of the entire train station!”

“Yes, I noticed how bothered he was by that,” Nadia said sarcastically. “And how closely you were observing his muscles, Lady Luisa.”

Luisa turned bright red. “I wasn’t!”

“Actually,” said Princess Komiko, “you kind of were. I noticed it, too.”

I hoped no one had noticed me taking a photo—or two—of Prince Khalil. But it didn’t seem as if anyone had.

Luisa turned even redder. “I happen to have a boyfriend, you know.”

“Then why aren’t you sitting with him?” asked Nadia.

Luisa’s eyes widened as she looked around the train car. “I … I was going to, but I can’t seem to find him right now.…” She evidently hadn’t even thought about sitting next to Prince Gunther for the two-hour ride to Genoa, where we would change to the high-speed train to Stockerdörfl.

“He’s sitting in the other car,” Nadia pointed out. “With the rest of the snowboarders. They’re strategizing about how they’re going to beat TRAIS.”

“Well,” Luisa said, sinking back into her seat, “I knew that. I was letting him have some alone time with his team. It’s important for athletes to bond.”

I don’t know about the other girls, but I didn’t believe her for a second. I think Nadia was right, and Luisa may have been cheating—with her eyes—on Prince Gunther with the Duke of Marborough.

I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, though. Then someone might bring up how I’d been snapping photos of Prince Khalil.

And like Nishi had said, we’re in the seventh grade: no one is getting married.

So I changed the subject. I said, “You guys, let’s make a get-well card for Marguerite. I feel sad that she’s so sick and can’t be here.”

“Okay,” they said, and whipped out their cell phones.

“No,” I said. “A real get-well card. On paper.”

I ripped a page from my notebook and folded it in half and drew a cartoon of all of us waving to Marguerite from the train. Since I didn’t have any magic markers to color it in, Luisa donated some lip gloss, Nadia some sparkle nail polish, and Victorine some purple eye shadow.

The card looks quite beautiful, if I do say so myself—and it was a great way to change the subject from shirtless boys. We’re going to mail it when we get to Stockerdörfl.

Riding on the train is actually a lot of fun. The scenery is beautiful—for a long time we were riding along the ocean, which was so blue, and we passed a number of castles.

Even better, a man came around with a trolley full of food and drinks and asked, in a lovely British accent, “Savory or sweet?”

Victorine translated: “Do you want a salty snack, or a sweet snack?”

I said, “Both, please!”

That’s how I want my life to be when I’m grown-up: savory but with plenty of sweet, too.