Thirteen
“Wake up, sleeping beauty.”
Jess’s command shattered the peace and warmth of my nice, comfy dream. Hadn’t I fallen asleep minutes ago after dragging myself out of bed to walk Tinker Bell? Also, judging from the pitter-patter against the window and the gray skies outside, it was raining. And rain meant sleep.
“It’s Sunday,” I mumbled. “Leave me alone.”
“No can do.” Cruelly she stole my pillow and started bouncing on my bed. “Your kind and beneficent boss will soon require your services.”
I had to smile. Ever since we’d been overheard in the bathroom gossiping about the prince and the traitor and Ian, Jess’s new tactic was to speak of Fairyland—especially the Queen—in outrageously glorious, insincere terms.
Her theory was that, since the walls in our dorm room were made out of toilet paper and spit, anyone could eavesdrop on our conversations. And with every cast member competing for the Dream & Do grant, you couldn’t afford to be caught committing any innocent act of disloyalty.
“Yes,” I agreed. “She is so generous.” Generous being our code word for hideous.
“So very generous.” Jess stifled a laugh and poked my back. “Now roll over and get your caffeine fix. I have some incredibly juicy gossip from last night.”
Jess handed me an Iced Caramel Vanilla Mocha Cappuccino from the cafeteria in Our World, all vanilla soy milk and sugar. Her maroon Bridgewater-Raritan Panthers hoodie couldn’t quite cover the purple hickey on her neck.
Class.
She took a sip of coffee. “If anyone asks, I came back from the party early. I definitely did not spend the night in Marcus’s room and sneak out just before dawn. Unless it’s RJ doing the asking, in which case you might want to suggest that apparently other guys do find me hot.”
Oh, no, she didn’t. Oh! No! She! Didn’t!
Throwing off the sheet, I grabbed my shower caddy and towel. “To the Bat Room. Stat!”
Once we were in the hall, I took my judgment-challenged cousin aside and cornered her by the fire extinguisher in the stairwell, where we were clear of the other dorm rooms. “Tell me you didn’t go back to Marcus’s room.”
“All right. I didn’t go back to Marcus’s room.”
“You didn’t?”
“No. I did. But you told me not to tell you that.”
Grrrr. Rule #6 specifically stated that boys and girls were not allowed in each other’s rooms after 10:00 p.m. And it had been waaaaaaay past 10:00 p.m. when Jess went back to Marcus’s. The party didn’t even get going until around eleven.
“Nothing happened,” she said.
“Sure.” I took another glance at the purple mark and shook my head in utter disbelief. “What if RJ sees that?”
Jess pulled up her sweatshirt. “What if he does?” Her lower lip protruded. “Honestly, Zoe, I’m ready to give up. I’ve tried everything with this dude—being super nice, laughing at all his jokes, practically sitting on his lap while we watch movies—and nada. I’m beginning to think he really is gay and is just too inhibited to let people know. So here’s the test: If he’s fine with me and Marcus, if he wants to rehash all the gory details of last night like a friend . . .”
A female troll passed by, hands behind her back on her daily inspection. I said cheerfully, “Good morning on this rainy Sunday, fair Security Person,” but she just scowled.
“. . . then I’ll know it’s hopeless,” Jess concluded. “You get my point, right?”
“Sure, and I also think that when it comes to guys, you sometimes make things way too complicated than they have to be,” I said. “Come on. I’ve gotta get ready for work.”
Because it was before seven on a Sunday morning, our bathroom was delightfully empty, still reeking of the bleach-and-antiseptic spray the cleaning crew had used during the night. I stepped into the shower while Jess served as lookout so we could talk. The bathroom, with its insulating tile and running water, was the safest place to gossip—as long as no one else was in one of the stalls listening in.
“So what did you do while I was at the party?” Jess asked.
I told her about being summoned to remove a mote from the Queen’s eye and then her bogus request for a sleeping potion from Chef, who just happened to live on the edge of the Forbidden Zone, and then about running into the prince again and being surprised by Jake the Hansel who’d heard everything.
The only part I left out was the walk with Ian, since it would have opened up a whole can of worms I wasn’t ready to deal with. Jess knew I’d promised my grief counselor that I’d swear off boys for the summer. It was one of the few promises I’d made that, after last night, I desperately wanted to break.
“What do you think he’s gonna do?” Jess asked.
My mind was still on Ian, so I said, “Who?”
“Jake the Hansel. Do you think he’s gonna go to the Queen like he said, or was he just bluffing?”
I flipped off the shower and wrapped my hair in a towel. “I think he’s gonna try. More likely he’ll write a letter to her and put it in the Box of Whine outside Personnel like she’d instructed in her memo. That way no one will know who’s ratting on who.”
Half dressed, I stepped out of the shower soapy clean.
“But you get to go through the box first, right?” Jess craned her neck to check her hickey in the mirror.
“Not lately.” I went over to the sink to brush my teeth. “After that memo, the Queen took it over. I don’t think she trusts me.” I rinsed and spit. “I’ll tell you what, if Jake writes that he saw me in the Forbidden Zone last night talking to a prince, I am cooked. She will fire me on the spot, no questions asked.”
There was a cough on the other side of the vanity and then the sound of water being turned on. We were not alone.
Again?
I shook my fist at Jess, since she was supposed to have kept an eye out.
“I did. I looked under all the stall doors and everything,” Jess whispered. “I don’t know where she came from.”
I poked my head around to the other set of sinks and found Adele the weight-challenged Cinderella flossing her teeth.
I said, “Hi.” Um, what are you doing here in our second-class bathroom?
“Don’t mind me.” She tossed the floss in the trash. “I was too focused on my own stuff to listen to you guys rehashing last night.”
Under her breath, Jess went, “Yeah, right.”
Adele’s pale blue eyes were red-rimmed, like she’d been crying.
“You okay?”
“Never better.” In the mirror she flashed me the official Fairyland Kingdom Princess Smile—lots of white teeth touching top to bottom, the way no real person does. “I mean, what could be wrong, right? I’m Cinderella at the most magical place on earth. Wow!”
I watched as Adele smeared on lip gloss and took a haphazard approach to brushing her hair, all the while sniffling and batting her eyes. Guess that’s why she was slumming in our neck of the woods—so that her fellow princesses wouldn’t see her upset.
“Hey, Adele,” I said as she headed out, “I heard you playing your guitar on Humpty Dumpty’s Wall the other day, and it was great. What was the song?”
She stopped at the door. “Not anything you’ve ever heard before. I wrote it.”
“You wrote it?” That was impressive. “That deserves a legit wow.”
This time Adele gave me a real smile. “Thanks, Zoe. You’d be all right . . . if you didn’t work for her.”
I knew what she was getting at. “It’s not my idea to weigh the princesses constantly.”
“Yeah, but you’re the one who writes us up and charts each little ounce.”
I was sorry I’d decided to defend myself, because her mood had quickly soured. “It might be unfair, but that’s how I think of you, Zoe, as the proverbial messenger everyone wants to shoot.”
I had no idea that was how people felt about me. Everyone? I was so shocked that as she flashed one final, triumphant sneer and left, I had to lean against the cold wall to recover.
“Don’t listen to her,” Jess said, coming up and giving me a hug. “She’s just bitter because she knows she’s on thin ice with the Queen, and so she’s taking out her anger on you. You’re awesome.”
It was nice for Jess to say. Unfortunately I suspected Adele’s dig that I was nothing more than the Queen’s henchwoman was truer than my loyal and loving cousin would dare admit. It was quite possible that the other cast members really did secretly despise me just as they despised my boss.
Perhaps rightly so.
I shouldn’t have stopped for a quick breakfast—half a banana, a bite of toast, and a cup of regular non-Jess coffee—because in my effort to not starve, I was slightly behind schedule when I arrived with the Queen’s breakfast and papers.
“You’re late!” she snapped as soon as I pushed open the door. “Put down the tray and come over here. I have a new assignment for you, Zoe, and please don’t prevaricate. Be quick on your toes.”
Her Majesty was on another tear, pacing back and forth in the control room, grumbling, her arms crossed, while Andy the Summer Cast Coordinator alternately pleaded with her to listen to reason and tried not to trip on her train. At least she’d restored her makeup so that she didn’t look so much like a corpse as like a corpse with arched jet-black eyebrows and raw lips.
I did as commanded and put the tray on the wheeled dolly next to her glass desk. Then I stood waiting. The Queen stopped pacing.
“Curtsy!” she commanded.
Really? Now she was making me curtsy, too?
“Come on. Hop to. We have a lot to do today.”
I slid my right foot behind my left, held out the skirt of my dress, bent my knees, and bowed, imitating how the princesses did it during the parade.
The Queen sniffed. “Twirl.”
I had no idea where we were going with this, but I held out my arms anyway and, à la Julie Andrews on a mountaintop, spun around crazily, banging once into the watercooler.
“Not like a runaway weed whacker! Twirl like a princess.”
Oh, no. She couldn’t be thinking . . .
“Twirl!”
So I twirled, hands clasped in front of me in standard Fairyland style.
“She’s not perfect, by any means,” Andy said. “But she’ll do in a pinch.”
“She’s abominable. A yeti in stilettos would be more convincing.” The Queen clapped twice for me to stop.
I stopped and reached for the desk to keep the world from spinning. Twirling and Jess’s over-sugared coffee were not a great combination. Pouring myself into the chair, I said simply, “Why?”
“Rise! I did not give you permission to sit.”
I jumped up while the Queen sat and applied her signature to a letter Evelyn, her secretary, had delivered on official Fairyland stationery. “Zoe, I need you to serve as a temporary stopgap while I engage in a bit of cast reshuffling. If I bring up a girl from Ordinary to sub for Adele, she’ll only get her hopes up.”
Sub for Adele? So that explained why Adele was in our bathroom crying, because she’d been canned—already. “Tell me she’s not being fired for gaining five pounds.”
The Queen folded the letter and shoved it in the envelope. “I will tell you no such thing. I do not discuss personnel matters with interns, even if you are my assistant. Rule Number Fifty-Four-A.” She sealed the envelope by pressing her ring into a glob of black wax. “I will, however, inform you that from now on Adele is an Ordinary Cast Member Class B. To wit, a Character Yet to Be Determined.”
I chewed a nail, fretting that now Adele probably blamed me for her getting fired.
The Queen regarded me sharply. “Take that finger out of your mouth, Zoe Kiefer. Nail biting is a disgusting habit for the insecure and feebleminded.”
Or not, I thought, hiding my hand behind my back so I wouldn’t be tempted.
Sudden movement on monitor #24 caught my attention. It was the display for the camera by Personnel, and it also captured the Box of Whine, where I saw one Jake the Hansel approach clutching something to his chest. He checked over his shoulder once, twice, went on tiptoe, and shoved a letter into the box. Then, tidying his blond pageboy wig and straightening his lederhosen, he marched swiftly away from the camera.
That fink!
There was a knock at the door, and Evelyn bustled in with another letter. The Queen read it, sighed, and said to Andy, “Call Norbert Atkinson, our lawyer. I want to make sure he reviews this before I have Zoe deliver it to Marcus Blaisdel informing him of violating the Fairyland rules.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. If Marcus was in trouble for bringing a girl to his room, then my cousin was in trouble, too.
“Why do we need to call in a lawyer when that’s only a summons for Marcus to come to your office?” Andy asked.
The Queen closed her eyes and flared her nostrils. Andy should have learned, as I had, that she did not appreciate truculence. “Please. Just do as I say and . . . don’t . . . argue!”
Without another word, Andy took the letter, opened the door, and left so I was alone with the Queen in one of her most foul moods. She pinched the bridge of her nose and whispered, “Sustenance.”
I quickly poured a cup of tea and handed it to her. After she took a sip, she replaced it in the saucer and said, “Zoe, I am cursed by the company of dunderheads.”
Join the club. “Yes, ma’am.” I fixed her a nonfat yogurt and raspberries, chiding myself for not having brought more honey.
“I don’t know what I’d do if it weren’t for you.”
A compliment? That was unexpected. And worrisome. Handing her the delicate china dish, the berries arranged in a uniform pattern of threes as she preferred, I said, “Ma’am?”
The Queen smiled thinly. “You are the only one who executes my orders as I direct with no useless backtalk.” She sliced a raspberry in half and nibbled half of that. “You keep Tinker Bell on schedule with regular vigorous exercise.” She gave her dog, snoozing on her satin pillow, a gentle pet. “The other day you prevented Sleepy from drinking that awful Five-Hour Energy. You noticed that birds were making a nest in Rapunzel’s braid and that the porridge in the Bears’ cottage had grown moldy, thereby sparing Goldilocks from all sorts of untold ills. And then, of course, you came to my aid last night.”
Okay, this was way too much praise. “Thank you,” I said. “I think.”
“Which is why I’m all the more disappointed that, being a close acquaintance of this scoundrel, you did not divulge the nefarious tendencies of one Marcus Blaisdel.” She pushed aside her yogurt and sighed. “He may seem like the village idiot, but I’ll have to let him go, Zoe. I have no choice. Such behavior as that which our security cameras detected last night cannot be tolerated.”
I swallowed. Jess! How had she allowed herself to be caught going in and out of the boys’ dorm when she knew that, for safety reasons, a security camera was aimed at the front door?
The only thing I could think to say was, “Ma’am. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You know,” she said, resting her pointed chin on her thin, white hand. “I believe you. By the way, never end a sentence with a preposition such as about, Zoe. It is so very pedestrian.”
How could she criticize my grammar at a time like this? What was going on?
“All clear!” Andy reappeared, waving the letter. “Norbert says it’s fine. However, he asks that you not speak to Marcus in person without making sure you have legal counsel present.” He laid the letter on the desk. I read it upside down:
SUMMONS TO ANSWER ALLEGED VIOLATION OF FAIRYLAND KINGDOM RULE #22:
Venturing into the Forbidden Zone at any hour and for any reason without written permission from Management will be considered to be an Act Against the Kingdom punishable by automatic exile from Fairyland Kingdom and automatic disqualification from the Dream & Do grant.
I gasped. “Marcus is the traitor?”
This didn’t make sense. The prince had caught Tinker Bell and saved me by using a branch to get me out of the quicksand. And then there was his analysis of costs and profits as reasons why Fairyland let much of the fence to the Forbidden Zone decay in disrepair.
Marcus wasn’t smart enough to be the traitor.
Unless he’d been holding out on us. Maybe that laid-back surfer persona he had going was a ruse. No, something was off.
The Queen whipped out a pen and applied her signature with a flourish. “Indeed. We have caught our spy. A reliable informant has come forward with damning evidence proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Marcus Blaisdel crossed from the Haunted Forest into the Forbidden Zone at eleven fifty-nine last night.”
Uh, no way. He was with Jess. Though I couldn’t exactly point this out to the Queen, not unless I wanted my cousin to automatically lose out on twenty-five thousand dollars for going up to a boy’s room after ten.
“He’s blond, though,” I said, wildly fishing. “You said the security cameras picked up someone who was slim and dark.”
“I also said those cameras malfunctioned.” The Queen folded the letter, stuffed it in the envelope, sealed it, and handed both to me. “Deliver these to Marcus and Adele. See that they read them while you wait. Then go to Wardrobe. Do me proud as Cinderella this afternoon, Zoe, and you just might end up as a princess for the remainder of the summer.”
This was all wrong. Marcus was being unfairly accused of spying, Adele had been fired for five stupid pounds, and Jess would be heartbroken when she saw that the Queen had made me Cinderella and not her.
And, worst of all, I was powerless to save any of them.