Pride & Princesses (44 page)

  
‘Jet,’ Mouche said, ‘is the nicest boy I’ve ever met.’

  
‘And rich too,’ I said, ‘not that that means anything.’

  
‘Not as rich as Mark Knightly,’ Mouche added.

  
‘Who is...not as arrogant or as rude as I thought.’

  
Suddenly my cell beeped loudly. There was a text from the Princesses:
cu@midnight@the lake house.

  
Then my cell rang. It was Ella’s mother, panicking because it was almost midnight and Ella wasn’t in her bed.

  
Ella’s mother was three years younger than my mom and quite the drama queen.
    

 
‘By the time Ella is eighteen I am certain her mom will be stealing Ella’s eighteen year-old man-dates,’ I told Mouche.

  
‘She’s a total cougar already so
lock up your boyfriends
, Ella,’ Mouche said to the wind.

   
Then Mouche checked her cell and discovered a text from Ella that said:
pls cover for me don’t tell mum I’ve gone to meet Joel!

   
My mother rang me after Ella’s mom had hung up and asked,
‘are you on your way home? It’s so late for Wednesday! You mean you don’t have her with you?’
Mrs Mouche’s screams could be heard many blocks away.

     
‘I came to pick her up from the reception at eight, but I was told she was with you and Mouche.’

     
‘Who told you that?’

    
‘Some boy called Joel...’

     
‘Just hold on, mom. Tell Mrs Mouche not to panic. Call you in ten minutes...’ Mrs Mouche was hysterical on the other line as I texted Mark’s number, since I knew he had a car and could beat us back to the reception hall.

     
‘Just wait until I speak to Joel,’ I said to Mouche as we hurried back along Main Street. I just knew he was busy distracting Ella who was not much younger than him but certainly more foolish. I knew he’d caused trouble with Mark’s sister and I figured it was about time he got a piece of my mind. But first, we had to find Wednesday. I’d give it a few seconds and a call to Mark (who could check the hall) before I called the police.
 

Chapter 27

It’s Not Over Till It’s Over

      
There was a lot of anxious waiting on that park bench under the street light. Mouche and I were nearly frozen by the time we received another call, this time from Mark.

    
‘I’ve got her,’ Mark said exactly two minutes and twenty-eight seconds later.

     
Turns out Wednesday had fallen asleep underneath the long table cloth that covered one of the round reception tables. How could Mouche and I have forgotten all about her? I hugged her so much when she arrived I almost squeezed her awake. But she was blissfully unaware of all the drama as Mrs Mouche, tears streaming down her cheeks, opened the front door. Trey was mercifully at school and had missed the entire episode. He’d be livid, so that was one less glare I could expect in my direction.

   
Mark arrived at our house, twenty minutes after he’d texted me, with Wednesday in his arms. She was bundled up in a tablecloth she’d taken a fancy to, oblivious to the commotion.

   
Mark was driving his own car and arrived with Joel (who was also on his best behaviour and sheepishly deposited Ella as well). The runaways had told Mark they’d been in the Sunrise car park: Ella practising on her new rollerblades and Joel, skateboarding.

   
‘I just don’t know what the fuss is all about,’ Ella whined sleepily.

   
‘You call me,’ her mother lectured her, ‘anytime you are going to be late and we don’t know where you are...’

   
Mark spoke softly to my mother on the steps. Meanwhile, I was sitting on the porch swing with Mouche’s surprise, the rescue dog. This one was a new mixed breed puppy who ran to Mouche’s arms the minute she held them out.

   
‘Oh,’ Mouche said, ‘she’s gorgeous. This is big love.’

    
Our moms raised their eyebrows then walked inside.

    
Nobody was really talking to us, except maybe Mark and Jet.
 

  
‘I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have asked you to keep my note private. Joel is a reckless person but I think in the end, he meant well,’ Mark said.

  
‘It’s okay,’ I said, ‘really, its Ella’s responsibility to call her mom. I was sure Joel and Ella couldn’t have gone too far...’

  
‘But you wouldn’t mind going...away, sometime...’ he seemed about to suggest something when my mother walked out onto the porch.

  
‘I think it’s time you came inside, young lady.’

   
What was all this ‘young lady’ business? I felt like I was in a Swiss Finishing School instead of standing opposite the man of my dreams.

  
‘Thank you, Mark,’ my mom said. He smiled at her congenially.

    
Joel had passed out in the back of Mark’s car after sampling the punch. He was mumbling something about wanting to go to the Metropolitan Museum and not thinking anyone would be worried.

  
‘According to Joel’s father, Joel had reserved flights to go and see some band in New York on his father’s credit card. Honestly, I don’t know how that boy arranged everything so quickly. He must be a genius...’ my mom said.

  
‘Perhaps he just needs someone to keep an eye on him...’ Mark suggested.

  
I knew Ella was not exactly truthful and the combination of her and Joel could have led to a much bigger drama than this one. There was already talk that Ella would be on the next flight back to Phoenix to stay with her father and Joel was being sent to military school for his final year.

   
‘You know,’ Mark said, ‘I was thinking, this summer, would you and Mouche consider coming with me and my sister and Jet to France for ten days? Our family own a Chateau there and we can go exploring and then visit Paris. I think you’d like it.’

   
‘Are you serious? But I’m saving for college.’

   
‘That’s okay. It will be my treat on the family jet.’ Mark flashed his black card. I noted his name engraved on it in gold. ‘Think about it.’

  
Then Mark turned on the stairs, under the porch light and looked over at me, reached out and kissed my lips. It was perfect. We got a little more passionate until I pulled away...

  
‘Oh, my goodness.’

  
‘What?’

  
‘I just remembered something,’

  
‘Until next week then?’

  
‘What’s next week?’

   
‘Prom. We’ll pick you both up at 6.30pm.’

   
‘Stop.’

   
He turned around.

  
‘You’re supposed to ask me...properly.’

  
Then he did something with all the charm he’d kept hidden from me these last months. He got down on one knee and said, ‘Phoebe Harris, will you go to the junior prom with me?’

  
‘Yes,’ I said and kneeled down to his level and kissed him quickly.

   
It was consolidation night. Although I’d won all the prizes the last thing I wanted was to have the competition made public in any way. The Princesses were waiting for our midnight meeting at Teegan’s house where we planned to upload information from the past year onto
The Boy-Rating Blog.

   
‘There’s something I have to do,’ I said to Mark as I rushed off the porch to Mouche’s place.
 

   
Mark looked a bit perplexed but since he’d retrieved Wednesday and saved my cousin Ella from possible social scandal I think he knew his true character had finally been revealed to me and he just smiled in a relaxed manner and said, ‘Sure, I’m not going anywhere except home.’

  
I realized my life being ‘news’ and winning a competition with Mark as the prize, would not make me happy the way I thought it would. I mean, the
Boy Rating Diary
was invented before I realized that Mark was my perfect man all along. I’d really messed up. I so didn’t want all our secrets released onto the world wide web.

   
What to do?
 
First, I told Mouche everything, about how I thought I’d liked Trey and then Mark and then Trey again but really all along I was in love with Mark and now he’d asked me to the prom which meant I had lost the part but won a competition I didn’t even want to win.

   
‘Oh Phoebe, that’s the game. How could you lose sight of the prize? We are supposed to split the profits, remember?’ Mouche was pulling on her winter boots. ‘I think it’s awesome that you won and Mark and Jet turned out to be totally different from how they seemed...’

   
‘But I like him and I think he likes me.’

   
‘Most men would not choose love over good financial sense, but we are not most men...’ C’mon,’ Mouche said, ‘we’re late. What were you doing? Don’t worry, I know what you’ve been doing. I’ve been waiting for ten whole minutes. We have to stop the Princesses before they announce our stupid game to the entire population of Sunrise.’ Mouche had always been good at fixing everything...

  
‘They can keep the stupid prizes if they keep their mouths shut...’ I mused aloud.

  
‘Something certain Princesses have never been very good at,’ Mouche noted.
 

   
Teegan and Tory and Brooke and Freya had left early. We knew why: to prepare for the meeting, the unravelling of the
Boy-Rating Diary
and the uploading of that diary onto an internet blog.