Thursday, November 26
1:30 A.M.
Eis Schloss Stockerdörfl, Austria

I’m writing this in the bathroom because my roommates are in bed with the lights out and I don’t want to disturb them … but I know I’ll never get to sleep if I don’t get this down!

Two of the weirdest things just happened. One was good—I think—and one was bad.

Really, really bad.

Good Thing first:

Prince Khalil told me that I look cute!!!!

It’s true.

The bad part is—well, one of the bad parts—he said it as we were all going inside after the snowball fight, which got busted BY MY GRANDMOTHER.

I already knew from the T-shirt incident on the train platform that having Grandmère as a chaperone was going to be tricky.

But I didn’t think she wasn’t going to let us have any fun at all!

(Although I will admit, things did get a little out of hand when kids from both BrATS and FARs showed up. I think there might have been people who weren’t even part of the Royal School Winter Games throwing snowballs. I’m pretty sure I spotted a few of the hotel employees hurling a couple at us.)

All of it came to an end, however, when Grand-mère came storming out of the hotel in her bathrobe, nighttime turban, and boots, and yelled (in French), “Cease this behavior at once, Your Royal Highnesses, or I will telephone your parents!”

I have no idea whose parents she meant … she might actually have meant everyone’s parents. I’m pretty sure she knows all their parents, because I saw Grandmère’s Rolodex once (that’s an old-timey thing that people used to use in the days before address books on cell phones), and it is HUGE. It takes up her entire desk, practically.

Anyway, everyone was so scared after that (I think mostly of the turban) that they dropped their snowballs and started going back inside, including me. I pretended like I didn’t know who Grandmère was.

Don’t get me wrong. I love her, and everything.

But I’m super hoping she didn’t notice me in the crowd (she didn’t give any sign that she did) because I do not want to get one of her speeches about how “disappointed” she is in me, and how my behavior might reflect badly on the crown.

Anyway, it was as all this was happening that the 17th Marquis of Tottingham looked at me and started laughing.

“Renaldo,” he said, “you should see yourself right now. You look even more like an alien than your grandma!”

Great. What a lovely end to what had otherwise been a fun evening, I thought. Who wouldn’t enjoy being told she looked like an alien by the 17th Marquis of Tottingham?

And to make it worse, I didn’t know what he was talking about. I couldn’t see myself, because even though there were large gilt-framed mirrors all over the lobby, I was wearing my glasses, and the lenses had gotten steamed up as we’d come in from the cold (I think that’s what Tots meant by calling me an alien).

I don’t think people like the 17th Marquis of Tottingham, who has twenty-twenty vision, understand the challenges faced by those of us who don’t, and how, if you have to wear glasses, sometimes when you step suddenly from a very cold environment into a very warm one, they are so fogged up, you can’t see a thing!

And yes, I know I could just get contacts.

But I am not ready yet for the responsibility of sticking things INTO MY EYES.

So of course I rushed over to the elevators—where there are some especially large mirrors—to see how bad I looked (after I’d cleaned off my lenses on my pajama sleeve). I mean, you never knew: Tots could have been referring to something other than my crazily fogged-up glasses. I am not a super-vain person (in my opinion), but if my hair was looking deformed, I at least wanted to be able to do some damage control before anyone else saw it (not that I care particularly what Tots thinks. I was actually thinking about sneaking back outside and grabbing some more snow and stuffing it down the front of Tots’s coat).

That’s when Prince Khalil said it. He said, “Cut it out, Tots. I think Princess Olivia looks cute.”

I think Princess Olivia looks cute.

Just like that. IN FRONT OF EVERYONE.

Of course, he could have been saying it because that’s the kind of thing princes are supposed to say. And the kind of thing they are supposed to be: charming. We go to a school that trains us in good manners and social graces every day.

But it’s possible he was saying it for other reasons … like, you know, that he really does think I’m cute.

That’s what Nadia thinks, anyway, and Princess Komiko. Because they heard him say it, both elbowed me afterward and raised their eyebrows, like, “Oooooh!” causing me to want to pull my neck warmer up over my entire face in embarrassment.

Not that I care what Prince Khalil thinks.

Very much.

“Ha ha,” I said nervously, stabbing at the up button on the elevator, hoping this would make the doors open faster and I could run away. “Um … thanks, Your Highness.”

(Because you have to thank someone when they pay you a compliment, even if it’s just a compliment that they said because someone was picking on you and they felt sorry for you or whatever.)

But of course pushing the button for the elevator a million times didn’t make it come any faster.

And because the elevator didn’t come, I was there for the Bad Thing to happen. Well, the other bad thing besides the fact that my grandmother had come down from her room in her night turban and bathrobe to yell at us for having a snowball fight.

The Bad Thing didn’t happen to me. I only saw it happen. I haven’t told anyone … yet. To be honest, I don’t know what to do about it—it’s so gross and unbelievable and sad and yet kind of exciting (only not in a good way) all at the same time.

As I was pushing the up button, I glanced into the mirrors on either side of the elevator to check my hair one last time (it looked perfectly normal).

That’s when I saw it: Luisa leaning against the far wall of the lobby, over by the large open fireplace, being kissed by a tall, blond boy.…

GROSS! Public displays of affection much? Good thing Grandmère had apparently grabbed a different elevator and gone back upstairs already.

But wait … the tall, blond boy kissing Lady Luisa wasn’t Prince Gunther. He’d gone home for the night.

It was the 12th Duke of Marborough!

I couldn’t believe it. I mean, I know Luisa and Prince Gunther haven’t exactly been getting along lately.

But when had this happened?

As soon as I saw the duke’s face, I must have gasped or something, because Nadia, who was standing right next to me, asked, “Princess Olivia? Are you all right?”

“Fine. I’m fine,” I said, and jabbed at the elevator button some more. “Oh my gosh, what is taking this thing so long?”

I could see in the reflection in the mirror that behind me, Luisa and the duke were now holding hands and whispering into each other’s ears.

Luisa, I groaned inwardly. How could you be so dumb?

Because if I’d seen what Luisa was doing, other people could, too. Which meant that eventually, even though Prince Gunther had gone home for the night, someone who’d seen what was going on was going to tell him about it.

And then Prince Gunther was going to be so hurt! Even though he was weird, that didn’t mean Prince Gunther didn’t have feelings.

It was fine if Luisa didn’t want to go out with him anymore. I could understand that. There’s a reason why in most countries (though not all) it’s illegal for people under the age of eighteen to get married or sign any kind of legal contract: Young people change their minds a lot, because their minds are still growing (some at different rates than others).

But Luisa could at least have the common decency to break up with Prince Gunther before literally kissing someone else behind his back!

Especially someone like the 12th Duke of Marborough, who is (in my opinion, anyway) a jerk and a show-off.

“Oh, phew,” I said with exaggerated relief as the elevator doors finally opened with a pinging sound. “The elevator is here!”

I yelled it very loudly so that Luisa would hear me, and know I was there, and maybe stop what she was doing.

I don’t know if she took the hint, since I hopped onto the elevator with everyone else and rode to my floor (the girls from the RGA are on the third floor, the boys on the fourth).

As I got out, Prince Khalil said, “Good night!”

But I think he said it more generally to everyone getting out on my floor (me, Victorine, Princess Komiko, Nadia, Snowball, and some of the senior girls) than only to me.

I said “good night” back, though, and watched as the elevator doors closed on his face. (Well, okay, not on his face. He wasn’t squished to death by the elevator doors. You know what I mean.)

But now I’m left with the terrible memory of what I saw.

Not of Prince Khalil’s face being squished by the elevator doors. Of my cousin kissing the duke.

Seeing my cousin kiss anyone would be disgusting. But seeing her kiss the 12th Duke of Marborough?

I don’t know how I’m ever going to be able to get to sleep. I probably have post-traumatic stress from it (post-traumatic stress is something my sister, Mia, talks about a lot. She says she has it from high school).

And it’s not even like we were playing spin the bottle (which Nadia suggested we do tomorrow night, because apparently on an episode of the soap opera she was in, some of the kids did that. YUCK. No, no, no, and NO).

Oh well. Maybe I’ll just try not to think about Luisa. Maybe I’ll try to think about the Good Thing that happened to me instead:

Prince Khalil said I’m cute.

Nadia says he definitely likes me.

But Victorine says not to get my hopes up because last year at the Royal School Winter Games, Prince Khalil hung out the whole time with a redheaded girl named Princess Sophie Eugenie who is on the French Academy of Royals (FARs) girls’ hockey team.

“And from what I hear, they’re still texting,” Victorine told me. “So if Sophie’s here this year, the chances of him even noticing you’re in the room instead are, like, zero … unless of course you suddenly take up hockey.”

What is so great about hockey? That is what I’d like to know.

Table tennis is a far more challenging sport, and you can play it anywhere, even in a pool.