Royal Genovian Academy
Phew! Thank goodness that’s over.
Though now I’m actually worse off than before, really. Grandmère says when you’re in a bad situation and you make a poor decision that only puts you in a worse situation, it’s called “jumping from the frying pan into the fire.”
(Though whenever she says this, Dad always laughs and says, “Mother, when have you ever cooked?”)
Still, that’s what I’ve just done with Prince Gunther … jumped from the frying pan into the fire.
I was getting all ready to say the politest thing I could think of—which was:
“Well, Gunther, I do like you—as a FRIEND”—when the door to Madame Alain’s office opened and she finally came in from her meeting (except that I noticed she had a lot of shopping bags. Genovia is known for its fine shopping, so I can understand, but I’m not sure it’s right for the head of a school—even a school for modern young royals—to go shopping during school hours).
So then I couldn’t give my speech to Gunther because instead I had to tell Madame Alain that there’d been a terrible mistake and that Prince Gunther was innocent.
“I don’t know,” Madame Alain said, looking down at the drawing, which Monsieur Montclair had given to the administrative assistant to give to her as evidence of Gunther’s crime. “It certainly LOOKS like Prince Gunther’s work.”
“Well, it’s not,” I said, horribly aware the whole time that Prince Gunther was staring at me with big lovey-dovey hearts in his eyes, probably planning OUR royal wedding.
“Princess Olivia,” Madame Alain said, “I know you’re only trying to protect your new classmate because you want to fit in and don’t care to make waves your first week. But I can assure you that this isn’t the first time Prince Gunther has done something like this. He’s been warned that if he did it again, he’d be expelled.”
“But I didn’t do it!” Gunther cried, turning his big moon eyes on Madame Alain.
“Prince Gunther,” Madame Alain said, holding his drawing toward him. “Please don’t lie. It isn’t becoming of your royal status. Your father would be very disappointed in you. Now, this is obviously your work.”
“It isn’t his work, Madame Alain,” I said. I’m afraid I had to do something very unroyal. I took a deep breath and lied: “It’s mine.”
Madame Alain stared at me in shock. “Yours? Are you saying you drew this of yourself, Princess Olivia?”
“Yes.” I opened this journal and showed her some of my sketches. “You see? I love to draw. I drew that picture of myself, Madame Alain, for exactly the reason you said … to make the other girls in my class laugh, since I want to fit in. You know I haven’t been a royal for as long as some of the other students, and I only wanted to make them like me.”
“I like you,” Prince Gunther said.
Ugh!!!! Thanks for not helping, Gunther. I ignored him.
“Please, please don’t tell my father, Madame Alain,” I said. “Or my sister. You can tell my grandmother, though. She won’t mind.”
“Oh, Your Highness!” Madame Alain looked even more shocked. “This is … well, this is terrible. If you didn’t feel that you were fitting in, you should have come to me! You know that I’m available to talk at any time, don’t you?”
Um, except when she’s busy shopping.
“Thank you, Madame Alain,” I said. “That’s good to know. Can we go back to class now, please? We need to rehearse. I want to make sure that our wedding surprise for my sister and Prince Michael is perfect.”
“Of course!” Madame Alain stood up and shook my hand. “And please, if there’s anything else I can do to make your time at the Royal Genovian Academy more pleasant, do not hesitate to let me know.”
“Uh,” I said. “Okay, Madame Alain. I will.”
Phew! Boy, was I glad when we got out of there.
But then I had to deal with Prince Gunther, who was looking at me like I was the dessert trolley they wheel around at lunch. This was not a very comfortable feeling.
“Princess, I can’t believe you did that for me,” he said as we walked back to class. “No one has ever done something so nice for me! People in this school … well, they don’t seem to like me so much. I think they are jealous because of my guns. See?”
He pushed up the short sleeve of his uniform shirt to show me his muscle. AGAIN.
This time, however, I put a hand out to stop him.
“Yeah, okay, Gunther, look, I’ve seen your guns before. You show them to me all the time.”
He looked a little disappointed by my response, but he pushed his sleeve back down.
“I’m going to the Olympics,” he said. “Because I’m such a good swimmer.”
“I know,” I said. “You’ve said that, too. Gunther, you have to stop telling people that. It sounds really braggy.”
He froze in the middle of the corridor, which is open-air and filled with flower-covered vines and little tweeting birds.
“But it’s the truth!” he cried. “I am going to the Olympics!”
“Even if it’s the truth,” I said, “it’s better to let people find out about your talents on their own than for you to go around bragging about them. And another thing: When you flex your arm when we’re promenading, you cut off the blood supply to my fingertips.”
He looked confused. “But girls like big muscles. I train every day with the toughest coach in Genovia. He’s from the Ukraine. He makes me lift twice my body weight.”
“That’s great. But maybe save the flexing for the gym with your coach,” I said. “Because if I show up at my sister’s wedding with my hand in a cast, no one’s going to be happy about it. And then when I tell them it was because of you, the Olympic Committee will find out about it, and you’ll get in trouble.”
I had no idea if this was true, but it worked, since he said, looking a little shocked, “I’m sorry. I guess I don’t know my own strength.”
“I guess not. I probably should have told you earlier.”
“Yes,” he said. “You must tell me right away if I do anything that is wrong, now that you are my girlfriend.”
WHAT????
“Gunther,” I said, “I’m not your girlfriend. I’m just your friend, who is a girl.”
“No,” he said, reaching for my hand as we walked down the corridor toward the sixth-grade classroom. “You rescued me from being expelled. You like me. I know you do! So now we are more than friends.”
“No,” I said, pulling my hand away. “No, we are not. Just friends, Gunther. Just friends!”
He laughed like he thought I was making it up, or teasing him, or flirting, or something, which I was NOT!
UGGGHHHH!!!
Good-bye, frying pan. Hello, fire.