The Princess & the Pauper

  Somehow I made myself walk back into the restaurant. The scent of fresh coffee and frying food hit me right away and my stomach suddenly felt hollow. I hadn't eaten anything since Crazy Dave and I had stopped at that burger place the day before. And I hadn't even eaten much then because I wasn't sure that what they'd given

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  me was actual food. I wondered what I could get to eat with the small amount of American money I had.

  I found an empty booth by the window and sat down. The plastic place mat appeared to double as a menu. I looked over the breakfast options and was happy to see that I could get eggs and toast for only two dollars. I dug into my bag and checked in my wallet. I had a twenty-dollar bill along with my Vinelandish cash. Perfect. I would eat first, get my strength back, and then figure out what to do. Unfortunately, I had a feeling the only thing I could do was call my mother and bawl my eyes out and beg her forgiveness. That was something I really didn't want to think about. Not before I ate, anyway.

  "What can I get you?" the magic-word woman asked, approaching me with a pad and pencil.

  "I would like two eggs, poached, and wheat toast ... and coffee," I said. She looked down at me expectantly. "Oh! Please," I added.

  "You're getting good at this," the woman said sarcastically.

  I turned bright red. Oh, what I wouldn't have given to be in Vineland right then. She slipped her pencil behind her ear and started to move away.

  "Wait!" I called out.

  "Something else?" she asked, turning around.

  "Yes ... would you know how I can get back to L.A. from here?" I asked.

  "You're in luck," the waitress said with a smirk. "Practically every guy in this place is either headed there or is coming back from there."

  I looked around the restaurant, baffled. Did she really

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  expect me to ask a perfect stranger for a ride back to Los Angeles? One of these men with their huge guts and brown teeth and severe body odor? Who knew what they would do to me once we were out in the middle of the desert? Hadn't she seen The Vanishing? Or A Time to Kill? Or even Road Trip?

  Hmm. Maybe I'd been watching too many movies.

  "Hey! Any of you boys wanna give this girl a ride to Los Angeles?" the waitress shouted at the top of her lungs.

  The entire place exploded with shouts and offers--even a couple of whistles. Men rose from their seats to see past the tables and check me out. The way a couple of them looked at me made me feel even dirtier than that bathroom had. I might as well have been a horse at auction.

  "Why did you--"

  "Hey! I just thought I could help," the woman said, obviously trying not to laugh. "I'll be right back with your eggs."

  As soon as she walked off, I saw a tall man with a beard push himself out of a booth a few tables away. He hitched up his jeans, rolled back his shoulders, and sauntered over to me. My heart started to pound and I turned my face away, looking out the window and hoping he would pass me by. He didn't.

  "You lookin' for a ride?" he asked, shoving his hands in the back pockets of his jeans. I was about eye level with his belt buckle--a tarnished brass monstrosity representing some kind of flag. It had a big X through it with stars inside the X. Was this guy not from the United States?

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  Why would he wear a replica of a flag for a country that wasn't his own?

  "I asked you a question," the man said, pressing his knuckles into my table and leaning down over me. "You need a ride or what?" His breath was hot and smelled rancid.

  "No. I don't," I said, my heart pounding with fear. "Thank you."

  "Then why're you askin' for one?" he asked with a wicked smile.

  I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. I am the Princess of Vineland, I thought. This person can't hurt me.

  Except I wasn't. Not now. And this person could pretty much do whatever he wanted, and it didn't seem like anyone else was going to notice.

  "She's with me."

  The guy from the counter with the incredible blue eyes fell into the seat across from me. He dropped a huge backpack down on the table and folded his hands on top of it. He was half the other man's size, but he looked up at him confidently--even a bit mockingly.

  "Since when?" the man asked, standing up straight again.

  "Since now," the guy answered firmly. "I'm driving her to L.A."

  The two guys stared each other down for what felt like an eternity. My hands were starting to sweat, and I pressed them into my jeans. Silently I hoped that the boy with the backpack would win. I wasn't happy about the idea of getting into a car with anyone I didn't know, but if

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  I had to choose between these two, I knew who the winner would be.

  Finally the huge, scary man blinked. "Eh, it's not worth it," he said. Then he sauntered away from the table again and smacked open the door to the restaurant.

  "Thank you so much," I breathed the moment he was gone. It was the first time since I'd arrived in America that anyone had done anything even remotely honorable.

  "Not a problem," the guy replied. "I'm Glenn."

  "I'm Carina," I said automatically. Then my heart dropped. I couldn't be walking around telling people my real name. What if he recognized me? What about my reputation? What if he tried to take advantage of--

  "Carina, huh? Nice name," Glenn said, pulling his backpack off the table.

  Right. Americans don't grow up with pictures of you in their classrooms and on the cover of every other newspaper, idiot, I thought. I really had to start getting used to this.

  My food arrived and my stomach growled loudly. I had never seen anything that looked so scrumptious in my life. Even if the eggs were a bit soggy and the toast was a tiny bit burned.

  "So, you really need a ride to L.A.?" he asked, leaning back in his seat.

  "Yes," I replied as I shook some pepper onto my eggs. "Are you really going there?"

  "You bet," he replied. "I got a job on a movie set."

  "Really?" I asked, visions of director's chairs and huge lights and enormous sets filling my head. "Doing what?"

  "Oh, you know, just ... getting coffee and running

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  errands and stuff like that," he said with a shrug. "But ya gotta start somewhere."

  "I suppose," I said, my heart falling. I actually felt kind of sorry for him. Here he was about to come so close to the most glamorous industry in the world, and he was just going to be someone's servant.

  "What does that mean, 'I suppose'?" he asked, his beautiful eyes flashing.

  "Well, look at you," I said. "Hollywood loves your type ... Heath Ledger, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio.... You should be an actor, not some ... peon."

  Glenn laughed and I sipped at my coffee. "Thanks ... I think," he said.

  I lifted one shoulder and kept eating.

  "So, you got gas money?" Glenn asked.

  I paused with a forkful of food halfway to my mouth. Gas money? How much did gas actually cost? And how much would he need to get to L.A.?

  It doesn't matter, a little voice in my mind said. You have to get a ride with this guy or you're stranded.

  "Of course," I replied, shoving the food into my dry mouth.

  "Great," Glenn said with a grin. My heart replied with a thump. His smile was even more stunning than his eyes. "Then it looks like I have a traveling partner. We should be in L.A. by tonight."

  It was the most beautiful sentence I had ever heard.

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  ***

  Chapter 27

  "I thought you might want to take breakfast in your room this morning, miss," Asha said, carrying a tray into Carina's bedroom.

  I could have kissed her. It was ten o'clock in the morning, Vineland time, and I was starving. I'd been up for hours, but I had no idea where the kitchen was and I didn't want to get caught snooping around the palace in the middle of the night. If someone caught me, they'd probably be a little bit suspicious when they realized that Princess Carina didn't k
now her way around her own house.

  "Thank you so much, Asha," I said as she arranged plates and glasses on the small table by the window. She lifted one of those silver domes you always see in movies to reveal waffles and fresh fruit and cream. I dug in right away.

  "Your mother asked me to tell you that she and the king would see you later today," Asha said, moving toward the bed. "She's going straight from the airport to the hospital."

  I paused with a wad of waffle in my cheek, my heart dropping. "Um ... does she know?"

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  "Know what, miss?" Asha asked as she smoothed the sheets and fluffed the pillows.

  "About what happened back ... back in the States?" I asked.

  Asha stood up straight and looked at the floor. "May I be perfectly honest, miss?" she asked. She was acting like she was afraid to look at me.

  "Uh-huh," I said, trying to swallow.

  "Everyone knows about it, miss," she said. "It's been in all the papers. Your father was going to stay in Sweden for a few extra days, but he's cut his trip short to come back and ... speak with you."

  You mean kill me, I thought. Oh God. Not only was I going to have to meet Carina's parents but they were going to be screaming at me the whole time. If they didn't recognize me and send me to the dungeon first. Which they would. Recognize me, I mean. I was sure they didn't really have a dungeon around here. Right?

  "I just thought you'd like a warning," Asha said, risking a glance in my direction.

  "Thank you. I really appreciate it."

  "You're welcome, miss," Asha said with a small smile. She finished making the bed as I attempted to eat. Unfortunately, my appetite had been severely damaged. The moment Asha excused herself from the room, I grabbed the phone.

  "Call Ingrid," I told the mystery guy on the line.

  "Hello?" Ingrid said, picking up on the first ring.

  "When the hell is Carina getting back here?" I blurted.

  "Well, good morning to you, too," she said.

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  "Ingrid, I'm serious. The king is coming home to ream her out for what she did with Markus."

  "What you did with Markus, you mean," she replied.

  I squeezed my eyes shut. "Of course, but who cares? When he gets here, he's going to take one look at me and realize I'm not his daughter. If Carina doesn't get back here soon, I'm screwed."

  "Actually, there's a chance he won't realize a thing," Ingrid said.

  "What!? He's her father!"

  "Yeah, but it's not like Carina has seen him for more than five minutes at a time in the last two years. You could be six inches taller and he'd probably just think he'd missed a growth spurt."

  I felt my stomach turn. "Seriously?" I asked. "That can't be true."

  "Well, I guess we're about to find out."

  A few hours later I couldn't take being locked up in Carina's room anymore, waiting for her father to walk in and hand me my head. I decided to get out of there and try to find my way around. I kept thinking about the library I'd seen in one of Carina's books and figured that might be a good place to waste some time. Maybe I could find a book on Vinelandish law and see if they had any specific policies on royal imposters or punishments for impersonating a princess.

  The castle was deathly silent, and for a while I didn't see another living soul. Most of the rooms in Carina's wing were bedrooms that looked like they hadn't been

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  used in years. They were all decorated in the same classic style as Carina's room, and they were all perfectly clean. I couldn't imagine growing up in a place where there wasn't one speck of dust or one toy flung on the floor.

  I made my way downstairs, tiptoeing whenever I heard voices or any kind of movement. I walked toward the back of the castle, dimly recalling that the library was in the south wing. But every door I opened revealed another parlor or seemingly pointless room filled with artwork and little couches. Finally I came to a pair of huge, intimidating wooden doors. I hesitated in front of them, worried that I might open them and find a crowd of Vinelandish dignitaries writing laws or something.

  You're the princess, I told myself. You can go wherever you want.

  I took a deep breath and yanked open the doors. There was a long table stretching down the center of a grand room and at least ten workers were setting it with white china and sparkling silver. They all froze the moment they saw me.

  "Oh ... sorry," I said automatically.

  A man in a tuxedo stepped away from the others and bowed. "Can I help you, Miss Carina?" he asked.

  Okay, just chill out, I told my beating heart. You're supposed to be in charge here.

  "Actually, I was looking for the library," I said, biting my lip. "I know it sounds weird, but I forgot where it is."

  The man smiled. "That doesn't sound weird at all, miss," he said, prompting the other servants to smirk and look away. I guess Carina wasn't big on the library. "Just follow me."

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  I let out a sigh of relief and did as I was told, following the man through hallways and a few more of those pointless rooms until he opened the doors to the library. My mouth dropped open when I saw the shelves upon shelves of colorfully bound books. The servant bowed as I walked past him into the room. I stepped right into the center and turned around and around, my head tilted back to take it all in.

  "It's amazing," I said.

  "Enjoy yourself, miss." Again I did as I was told. I ran up the steps, checking out the different sections. There was a whole wall dedicated to world history and another dedicated just to the history of Vineland. I found the fiction section, which had first editions of everyone from Hemingway to Hawthorne to Alice Walker and Sandra Cisneros. Forget about spending hours in here. I could have spent days!

  I walked up and down the rows and rows of books, pulling a few out here and there and flipping through the pages. When I came around the corner into a section marked Art and Architecture, I froze in my tracks. Markus was standing five feet away from me, his nose buried in a book. I would have thought I was seeing things if he hadn't looked up and immediately dropped the huge book on the floor, causing what was probably the loudest noise the room had ever suffered.

  "Carina!" he said loudly.

  "Markus," I replied in a whisper.

  "What are you doing here?" we both said at the same time. Then we laughed.

  "My father thought I should come back and apologize

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  to your father in person," Markus said, picking up his book and replacing it on the shelf. "He's out riding on the grounds somewhere with Duke Charles, but I thought I would wait in here. This is my favorite room in the palace."

  "Oh," I said. "Mine too." My head was so filled with other things I wanted to say, I couldn't sort through them. I had thought I would never see Markus again. And now here he was, walking toward me. "I... do you know when my father's coming back?"

  "Soon," Markus replied. He reached out and took my hand, lacing my fingers through his, all the while looking me right in the eye. "Carina, I'm so sorry. If I had thought that anyone would see us--"

  "I know," I said. "And it's not your fault. I was there, too, remember?"

  "Yeah, but we know how our parents think," he said. "I'm supposed to be the man. I'm supposed to be responsible."

  "Well, that's just dumb," I said.

  Markus laughed, then released my hand and leaned back against one of the hulking shelves. My hand felt insanely cold the moment he let go of me.

  "I just wish we'd seen that photographer," he told me, shaking his head. "I would have ripped the film right out of his camera."

  "Who was it anyway?" I asked.

  "Some paparazzi guy who was hanging around outside hoping to get some pictures of you," he said. "He's probably rolling in money by now."

  "What a way to make a living," I said, leaning back next to him.

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  Markus took a deep breath, then turned to look at my profile. "Listen, if our parents ever let us see
each other again ... do you think you'd like to ... go out for dinner or something sometime?"

  My heart felt like it was shriveling up right under my skin. He sounded so uncertain and so hopeful. And all I wanted to do was say yes. But I couldn't. He wasn't asking me, he was asking Carina. And Carina didn't want to have anything to do with Markus.

  What was wrong with her? Why couldn't she see how perfect he was?

  I took a deep breath and turned to face him. The expectant look in his eyes made me want to run from the room. "Markus, I--"

  Suddenly the doors to the library burst open with what was now the loudest noise this room had ever suffered. Markus and I jumped apart. Although we couldn't see the doors from where we were standing, I had a feeling I knew who was there.

  "Carina!" a voice bellowed. "Carina! I know you're in here somewhere! Get down here this instant!"

  Oh God, just let me disappear! I thought desperately.

  "Let me explain," Markus said squeezing my hand. Then he walked out from behind the shelves.

  "Your Majesty," he said confidently.

  "Markus," I heard the king say. "Where's my daughter?"

  Shaking from my fingers all the way down to my toes, I stepped out next to Markus, my head down. There was no way I could let this man see my face. What was he going to do when he realized I wasn't his daughter?

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  "Carina, I think the least you could do at this moment is show me the respect of looking me in the eye," Carina's father said, clearly trying to control his voice.

  Here goes nothing.

  I lifted my chin and waited for the next explosion. The king stood on the floor below us--we were one set of stairs up from the main floor of the library. He was wearing a three-piece suit and his blond hair was slicked back from his face. He was a tall man, a bit on the hefty side but definitely strong. His face was bright red with anger.

  But there was no spark of surprise. No spark of recognition.

  "How could the two of you be so irresponsible?" he said, his voice level.

  Oh my God. Ingrid was right. Carina's father didn't even know her well enough to know that I wasn't her!

  "Sir, let me explain--"

  "I'd rather hear from my daughter first," the king said, raising a hand to stop Markus. "Come down here, Carina."