Thursday, November 26
1:00 P.M.
Ski Lift to Beginner Slope

It’s kind of hard to write in your journal when you’re on a ski lift, but fortunately it’s a sunny day, so it’s actually kind of warm (as long as you don’t accidentally move into a shady area; then it is freezing), so I took my gloves off. I had to get this all down before I forget:

First of all, I have SO MANY PHOTOS of Prince Khalil. Nishi better not complain that I haven’t fulfilled the bet!

I covered both the girls’ and boys’ hockey games for the school paper, and got about a million photos of Prince Khalil (the Royal Genovian Academy beat the French Academy of Royals).

True, he had his helmet and pads on, but you could definitely tell it was him. He was even smiling in a few of them (with his mouth guard in).

Nishi should be very, very happy.

I haven’t heard from her yet, but that’s probably because it’s still early in the US.

I wonder how things are going with Dylan, and if she’s still getting a bad grade in English.

I got a few shots of Princess Sophie Eugenie, too (the girl who Victorine says Prince Khalil has been texting all year).

She’s pretty, I guess—it’s hard to tell with her goalie equipment on—but no big deal, if you ask me. I doubt she could draw a kangaroo.

Anyway, that isn’t even what I want to write about. What I want to write about is why I’m on a ski lift:

I SKIED!

Yes, I skied. At lunchtime, after covering all the events, Prince Gunther saw me and yelled, “Renaldo!”

(Seriously. That’s what everyone calls me now. Thanks, Tots. Although I guess it’s better than Stick.)

“Um,” I said. “Yes?”

“Have you learned to ski yet?” Prince Gunther asked.

“Not exactly.”

To tell the truth, I was more scared to learn than ever, because I’d seen all the people coming down from the slopes near the hotel, and they were going super fast.

Also, the Alps are no joke. Some of them are made from glaciers. Although, as Mia explained to me at breakfast before I left, 30 to 40 percent of the Alpine glaciers in Austria and Switzerland have disappeared in the past one hundred years due to global warming. Something has to be done, which is why she’s on a special committee at the UN to try to improve energy efficiency worldwide (but of course she hasn’t been to any of the meetings lately, due to having been confined to her bed with the babies).

“Then I must teach you to ski!” Prince Gunther cried. “You cannot come to Stockerdörfl and not learn to ski!”

“Uh,” I said. “That’s okay. Really.”

I mean, honestly, I would be okay going through my whole life never learning how to ski. I kind of like the fondue eating and sitting by the fire parts of ski resorts better than the skiing part.

But then I saw the disappointment on Prince Gunther’s face. I knew how much he wanted me to enjoy his town, and remembered how Luisa was treating him (behind his back).

So I said, “Fine. I’ll try it.”

Prince Gunther’s cry of happiness was so loud that it attracted the attention of several people from our class, including Princess Komiko and Prince Khalil, who were both already wearing skis from having taken a few “practice runs” down the intermediate slopes. They skied over with a coolness I felt pretty confident I would never acquire.

“What’s going on?” Prince Khalil asked as he came swooshing to a stop.

“Princess Olivia has agreed to try to ski,” Prince Gunther cried. “And I am going to teach her!”

“This I have got to see,” Prince Khalil said.

I couldn’t help noticing that, when Prince Gunther had said I’d agreed to ski, Prince Khalil’s eyes seemed to have lit up.

At least I think they had. It was hard to tell behind his tinted ski goggles.

So all that was left was for me to get fitted with a pair of skis and boots (I wanted to try snowboarding, but Prince Gunther said it was better for beginners to learn downhill or alpine skiing first, then move up to snowboarding later if they still wanted to).

The ski boots felt VERY strange and huge on my feet, but Prince Gunther said that was because they were rented.

Francesca had warned me that this would happen, and had said we should buy me my own pair before I left, but Dad said not to be ridiculous, that he wasn’t wasting money on something I wasn’t even sure I would like.

This had caused Mia to ask sarcastically, “You mean like that race car you bought yourself, Dad?” which had caused Helen to burst out laughing, though Dad said indignantly, “That was different.”

Prince Gunther and the others took me to something called a bunny slope, which is for beginners to practice on.

But honestly it still seemed pretty high to me, and at first I was scared.

Prince Gunther was a really good teacher, though, very patient and kind, just like he is about everything.

“You aren’t going to fall down the mountain,” he kept saying when I asked if that was something that could happen. “You see? First you would reach the town square. You would ski into the coffeeshop. And if you are going too fast, you can always point your skis together like I showed you. That is how you slow down.”

“Or just fall over onto your butt,” Princess Komiko suggested. “You can always stop that way.”

“If you’re a baby,” Victorine said with a sneer. But it was a friendly sneer. She’d come along to watch, too. Everyone had come along to watch, it seemed, the spectacle of Princess Olivia learning how to ski …

… including Prince Khalil, who hasn’t shown one sign—that I’ve noticed—of texting Princess Sophie Eugenie. He’s been supporting me, too.

I’ve fallen down several times, but I don’t care. In order to succeed, you have to fail. Anyone who doesn’t know that has never tried anything before.

That pretty much describes my cousin Luisa, who is the only person from the seventh grade—I’ve noticed, with the exception of the 12th Duke of Marborough—who didn’t come watch me learn how to ski. Victorine said they’d decided they were hungry and went back to the hotel to have lunch.

And Prince Gunther still doesn’t suspect a thing! He is the most trusting person on the face of the planet … a lot like my dog, Snowball, who will run up to anyone for a pat on the head, even people with much bigger dogs, or people who don’t like dogs, or are allergic to them (like Luisa).

Snowball, like Prince Gunther, especially loves Luisa.

Fortunately I saw Grandmère heading in the same direction as Luisa and the duke. (Grandmère promised to watch Snowball while I ski. She barks too much when I do things she thinks are dangerous.)

Whatever Luisa and the duke are up to, Grandmère will hear about it from Herr Schultz, the concierge.

Anyway, so I’m not the best skier in the world.

But I’m good enough to graduate from the bunny slope, Prince Gunther says!

Which is why I’m on a ski lift (not alone. Serena is with me! I’m not stupid or anything. Serena is a champion skier. She trained in Zermatt with the National Women’s Team of Israel).

I feel especially bad about what my cousin is doing to Prince Gunther now that he’s been so nice to me and taught me to ski and all. He has NO idea what’s going on, and is off skiing on the more difficult slopes with Prince Khalil, Princess Komiko, Victorine, Nadia, and Tots, totally oblivious to the fact that his heart is about to be broken.

I just asked Serena if she thinks I should say something to Prince Gunther about his girlfriend (since she was there last night, and saw the same thing I saw), and she said, “I’m sorry, Your Highness, but that question is above my pay grade.”

Serena says she is only here to protect me from getting kidnapped or killed, not to give me relationship advice.

Which is a bummer because, based on how often her cell phone pings, I have the feeling Serena knows a lot about the complexities of the human heart.