Friday, November 27
5:00 P.M.
Train Back to Genovia

We won!!!!

It was really close, but the girls from the RGA hockey team (plus Prince Gunther and the other snowboarders) pulled it off.

The RGA boys’ hockey team lost. Actually, they didn’t just lose. They didn’t even play. They were disqualified due to unsportsmanlike behavior for fighting (!) before the game even started. I am sorry to have to write those words, but they’re true. Grandmère is extremely disappointed in them.

Grandmère is extremely disappointed in a lot of people (and things), but thankfully I am not one of them.

When the fight broke out, I maintained my composure, and kept on taking pictures like a professional photographer is supposed to do (even if Nishi doesn’t like my photos).

But I also ran to the nearest responsible person and told them to call an ambulance.

Fortunately the ambulance was not needed because no one was seriously hurt, although the 12th Duke of Marborough does have a black eye. I think this is only fair, since he is the one who started the fight.

It was during the introductions, when the players from each team were announced. As the duke’s name was announced and he glided out onto the ice, someone on The Royal Academy in Switzerland team shouted, “Genovian Fondue-Fork Licker!”

I’ve never heard that it’s a breach in etiquette to lick your fondue fork (though Grandmère says you should never, ever lick your knife), and being called a Genovian … well, that’s a compliment.

But not to the duke, apparently, who skated over and punched the person who called him a Genovian Fondue-Fork Licker in the face.

I’ve been punched in the face before, and let me tell you: it hurts.

Resorting to violence is never the answer, but … well, I didn’t really blame the duke for punching that guy. No one wants to be called a Fondue-Fork Licker.

And the duke isn’t even Genovian! He’s 100 percent British.

The duke punching the guy (who turned out to be a Saudi prince—oops) caused all the other members of The Royal Academy in Switzerland boys’ hockey team to jump up to defend their teammate, and all the members of the Royal Genovian Academy’s boys’ hockey team to rush out onto the ice to do the same.

It was complete chaos.

“What was I supposed to do?” the duke demanded later. “I couldn’t let them get away with calling me a fork licker.”

“Actually,” Grandmère said, “you should have. Because by refusing to ignore something so idiotic, you’ve let down all your teammates, as well as your school. It is lucky for you that your fellow classmates are more mature, because that is the only way we’ve won today—though it’s a hollow victory.”

Grandmère said all this into the microphone during the medals ceremony, when she was supposed to be talking about the history of the Royal School Winter Games.

Instead she talked about how she considers our victory today hollow because they canceled the biathlon. This was due to the controversial issue of allowing young royals to have access to guns. Should young royals have access to guns? Grandmère’s opinion is yes, for sports, with supervision.

“In my day—”

Madame Alain stepped up to the podium and tried to take the microphone from Grandmère’s hand.

“So sorry, Your Highness,” she said. “But we need to move along. We only have the room until three.”

But Grandmère clung tightly to both the microphone and the podium.

“This generation of royals is going to grow up weak and spoiled, with no idea how to defend themselves when confronted by an enemy!” she cried as they dragged her off.

Though later Prince Hans jokingly reminded her, as he handed out the medals for best sportsmanship, that the 12th Duke of Marborough seemed to have proven that shouldn’t be a problem.

A lot of people—like Prince Khalil—are so mad at the duke that they are not even speaking to him. Prince Khalil is sitting with us (!!!!) here on the train, having a very nice time enjoying the picnic basket that Prince Hans and Princess Anna-Katerina prepared for our victory trip home.

I only wish everyone could be as happy as we are (well, I’m not COMPLETELY happy. Prince Khalil has been on his cell phone for a large part of the trip. I don’t know who he is texting, but I suspect it might be Princess Sophie. I am very sorry that her team was defeated by ours, but does she really need to spend THAT much time texting about her humiliating loss with a boy who goes to the school that crushed hers? That is simply sad, if you ask me).

The person I really mean is Prince Gunther. He is very unhappy, because after the fight was over, everyone saw how Luisa ran over to the duke and held a snowball to his eye to try to help him keep the swelling down and called him her “poor brave darling.” Even Grandmère saw it, and told Luisa to stop being so foolish and let the ski patrol handle the duke’s wounds.

I think Prince Gunther would have broken up with her then and there if he hadn’t had to go to his snowboarding event.

But after Prince Gunther placed first in the boys’ snowboard freestyle, and Luisa ran up to him and flung her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek and called him her “sweet Goo Goo Bear” (IN FRONT OF HIS PARENTS), we all saw the way he untangled himself from her and said, “Luisa, we need to talk.”

!!!!!

I didn’t get to see what happened next because Prince Gunther took Luisa by the arm and began walking her away (and Snowball started tugging on her leash, a sure sign she needed to take a pee).

Also, it’s considered unroyal to eavesdrop on someone else’s intimate conversation.

But the next time I saw the two of them, Prince Gunther was looking very grave, and Luisa had tears (real ones for once) running down her face.

“Is it for real this time?” Nadia whispered as we sat at the medals ceremony. Prince Gunther and Luisa were sitting several chairs apart. “Can they really be broken up?”

“Oh, it’s real,” Victorine whispered back. “I heard he gave her back his bracelet!”

“No way!” Princess Komiko looked shocked. “I never thought he’d break up with her.”

Truthfully, I never had either … even though I’d sort of advised him to.

Do I feel guilty about it? No.

Because right now Lady Luisa is sitting in the back of our train car, sharing earbuds and a music player with the Duke of Marborough, their heads bouncing in time to the beat. She doesn’t look a bit sad … which is fine, I guess, since it’s her life.

But you think she’d feel a little bit sad, since they went out for a long time … almost six months!

And Nadia, Princess Komiko, and Victorine are fighting (in a friendly way) over who gets to cheer up Prince Gunther. Right now, they’re taking turns with Princess Komiko’s fingernail polish, doing his nails, a different color for each hand. They say they’re going to give him a pedicure next, if Grandmère doesn’t yell at them for stinking up the train car and “acting like feather-headed fools.”

Nadia has done a good job of hiding Goo Goo Bear in her luggage so Prince Gunther can’t see that she has him. Even though Prince Gunther and Luisa are broken up now, we all thought it might be a bit too soon for the prince to see that Luisa abandoned it.

I’m doing pretty well, too, I guess. Well, except for Prince Khalil, who is still sitting next to me, texting with another woman (I know it’s with a woman because I saw heart emojis).

Whatever. If Prince Khalil has decided to get back together with Princess Sophie, then I am happy for him. He’s had a lot of heartache in his life lately, so he deserves to have some joy. I’m sure she’s highly intelligent, an excellent hockey player (except for the time she was beaten by our immensely superior team), and extremely kind, as well.

So good for them. Who even cares about her, or Prince Khalil? There are way more important things to think about, such as:

Tomorrow is my birthday!!!

I already have an early birthday present in my pocket—Prince Gunther’s parents gave it to me after they were done with the medals ceremony, as we were all saying good-bye and getting on the buses to go to the train station.

“You didn’t have to do that!” I told them when Princess Anna-Katerina handed me the small gold-wrapped (of course) gift.

“Oh, we wanted to,” she said. “You have been so kind to our son.”

“Mother!” Prince Gunther cried, looking embarrassed.

Prince Hans laughed. “But you must promise not to open it until your birthday.”

“Okay,” I said. “I promise. Thank you very much.”

I can’t tell what’s in the box, except that it’s very heavy and clinks a little when I shake it. It’s the right weight and size to be a key to the village of Stockerdörfl. That’s something that people often give to visiting dignitaries—a key to their city.

It will be my first key ever!

I should start collecting them. Keys from cities all over the world.

That’s pretty good, to get your first key to a city at thirteen. By the time I’m Grandmère’s age, I should have a million.