We share dinner with Henri, and when we are done, and Mam and Henri have coffee in front of them, he says, “I’m afraid you may be here longer than we anticipated.”
“Longer?” Georgie asks, a strain in her voice.
“How long?” I demand. “We only brought a few clothes with us. We don’t have enough to stay longer. And what about school? I’m missing school. I can’t miss school!” My voice is rising to a level of near-hysteria, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. “Education is important! You keep telling me that!” I yell at Mam. “And how am I supposed to learn anything stuck in this stupid little condo? If we can’t go home, I should at least be allowed to go to school!”
I push back from the table and run upstairs, not caring if I sound like—as Mam would say—“a herd of elephants.” I slam the door and throw myself on the bed. It’s not fair. It’s just not fair. If only we had stayed home, then we could help. Here we do nothing. I hate doing nothing. The tears run down my cheeks, and I don’t even try to rub them away. What’s the point?
If Sophia would at least get in touch with me, then maybe I could do something.
I hate feeling so helpless. So powerless.
I mean, I’m twelve; I’ve never really wielded much power, I suppose, but I’ve never felt helpless like this.
There is a soft knock at the door, and without waiting for an answer (which I wasn’t inclined to give anyway), Georgie comes in. She sits next to me on the bed. “Well, it looks like you’re going to get what you want,” she says.
I sit up, feeling a hundred times better. “I’m going back to Academie Sainte Marie?” I can’t wait to see Sophia and Claudia again. And to have things to do. Even Monsieur Garçon’s grammar class, as boring as it is, will be better than sitting around here staring at the walls. “And it’s safe there,” I continue, wiping the remains of the tears from my face. “They are really careful about who gets into the buildings. No one could bother me there. When do I leave? Will Henri fly over with me? Is that why he came?”
Georgie doesn’t answer right away, and when I finally look at her, she is slowly shaking her head. She doesn’t look nearly as happy as I feel.
“What?” I ask, not at all certain I want to know the answer.
“You’re not going to Academie Sainte Marie.”
“But—” I can’t even think what she might mean. “You said I was going to school.”
“Yes. The local middle school,” she says.
I stare at her. “The what?” Panic snakes its way through all my internal organs. “But how is that safe? If we are hiding? How is that going to work?”
“Come down and talk to Henri,” she says.
“I don’t want to,” I say.
“You’re the one who said you should go to school,” Georgie points out.
“I meant to Academie Sainte Marie.”
“You can see if you can convince him of that,” Georgie says in a tone I know means she thinks I have no hope of succeeding. “At least going out to school every day won’t be as boring as sitting around here.”
She kind of has a point about that.
“Okay, I’ll talk to him.”
It turns out Mam is completely against the idea.
“It’s not safe,” she keeps repeating. “She needs to stay here with me where we can keep her safe.”
Suddenly going to the local school sounds like a great option.
“I’m sure people don’t just wander in off the street into the schools. There is security,” I say.
“Certainly,” Henri says. “She would be safe in a school. And no one would have any reason to think that Princess Fredericka is there. We would enroll her under the name on the falsified passport. It is probably better for her to be in school anyway. School attendance is compulsory up until age sixteen. If she is seen here, someone could report her as truant. You don’t want the investigation that would come with that.”
Mam looks trapped and finally folds back in on herself. “Do whatever you think is best.”
So, the next morning, quite as a matter of course, Henri drives me over to the middle school in his rented car, with Georgie along for moral support. Mam refuses to leave the condo, locking herself in her bedroom before we’ve even left.
The school office is light and airy. On one side of a long counter, secretaries are busy typing and answering phones. We wait on the other side for a guidance counselor to see me and give me a schedule. We’ve already presented all sorts of cobbled together documents that say I’m Fritzi Moore and live in town. A girl with ripped jeans and pink stripes in her black hair drops a paper off in the overflowing “In” basket. She looks me up and down and, with a wrinkle of her nose, leaves, thinking she has me all figured out. But she doesn’t know me at all. I may be in jeans and a wrinkled T-shirt, but I am a princess, and she is just a girl with pink hair.
A moment later, a short, round woman comes in. “And what have we here?” she asks with that false cheeriness people sometimes use when talking to children. “A new student? How lovely.”
“This is Fritzi Moore,” the secretary says. “She’s starting today and needs a schedule.”
Fritzi Moore is not my name, but it’s the one on the false passport, and Georgie points out that I needed a name I would answer to. The thing is, Fredericka Elisabetta Teresa von Boden don Mohr sounds regal and impressive. Fritzi Moore sounds like a snack.
“What grade are you in, Trixie?”
“Fritzi,” I correct, and then start to answer “fifth class” but realize that’s not right. It’s not what we figured out last night reading up on the school system in the United States. “Seventh grade,” I say, but it feels so wrong.
“And what was the name of your old school?”
“Academie Sainte Marie,” I answer without thinking. She quirks an eyebrow at me. “It’s in France.”
Georgie kicks me in the shin, and Henri frowns at me. Oh, right, I probably shouldn’t have told her that much.
“Do you speak English?” the woman asks, speaking slowly and with exaggerated enunciation.
Aren’t I speaking English with her right now? “Oui,” I say, and Georgie kicks me again. I mentally stick my tongue out at her and continue. “I’m fluent in English, German, and French.”
“We have a place in a Spanish class for you,” she says.
“I speak English, German, and French,” I repeat, slower.
“Exactly why you should learn Spanish.”
Actually, I can’t fault her logic.
“Let’s go next door to my office,” the woman says, “and leave your parents to fill out the emergency forms.”
I look at Georgie in shock, but she just shrugs. She’s only six years older than me. How anyone could possibly think she is my mother is beyond me. And Henri, as father? Well, he at least is the right age, and if we aren’t telling them who my real parents are, why shouldn’t they think what they will?
I follow the counselor to her office, which is approximately the size of my closet back home. She squeezes behind the desk and indicates I should sit in one of the two guest chairs.
She starts typing on her computer, and a few minutes later, she hands me a schedule. Spanish, math, phys. ed., English, geography, science, and cooking.
“Can’t I take German or French?”
“We don’t offer German, and what’s the point of taking a beginner French class if you are fluent already?”
I should have kept quiet about being fluent. Then I could have taken an easy class. I wouldn’t mind sleeping through beginner French. But then again, if I learn Spanish, I can show off to my friends back at Academie Sainte Marie that I know another language. If I go back to Academie Sainte Marie. My shoulders sag a little. I want my old life back.
By the time we get back to the office, Henri has finished filling out the paperwork, and Georgie grabs me by the hands. “Good luck,” she says. “We’ll be back at three to pick you up.”
I swallow hard. I want this. Kind of. But I don’t want her to leave. “Danke,” I whisper.
Georgie and Henri head out the door, and the guidance counselor says, “I’ll show you to your locker and your first class. Don’t worry, Lizzie, you’ll get along just fine here.”
“Fritzi,” I say through clenched teeth.
She leads me down a hallway lined with green lockers until she reaches number 791. “Do you have a lock?”
“What for?”
She frowns. “Be sure to bring one in tomorrow. It’s better not to leave anything in your locker until you do.”
Great, so they’ve abandoned me at a school full of thieves. I’m going to get them for this.