Pride & Princesses (7 page)

    
Mouche was still dealing; she had nine cards left...

   
‘Red, red, black, red, black...and here are the answers for two Princesses: Teegan (black), Tory (black), and Phoebe...’

   
‘Don’t turn it!’ I suddenly screamed.

   
‘It’s just a game Pheebs, besides, you can never be sure of the vibes for yourself...and only God knows the future...’

    
‘Oh..okay,’ I was ready to look with one hand covering my right eye ‘...red.’

    
Phoebe smiled.

    
‘Now it’s my turn... you know what? I’m not going to look!’

    
‘You promised!’ I yelled.

    
‘The future is what you make it; it can change every second...I’m going for a swim.’

    
Just as Mouche stuck her card in the middle of the pack, a corner hung out. When she turned her back to dive into the water, I sneaked a peak.

    
The card was red. It was the Ace of Hearts. True love.
       

   
‘Our Game will make junior year the most memorable yet,’ Mouche declared over ice-cream, after we’d cleared away our playing cards, runes, tea leaves and crystals.

    
Mouche dragged me back into the pool. We lounged under the night lights on Wednesday’s huge, plastic, floating goldfish. Mouche dragged me around with her until we were playing whirlpool and before we knew it, we were having a water fight about whose ideas ruled.

    
Have you ever been swimming at night in the heat? It’s amazing, even though Mouche’s older brother, Trey (the grouch), kept yelling at us from the study window to
turn it down
when we started playing Muse.

   
Trey was studying pre-med and was a total brainiac with no time for the absurdities of two teenage girls, even if one of them was his sister; especially if one of them was his sister.
 

  
‘Hey, quiet!’ he shouted. ‘I’m trying to study and Wednesday’s supposed to be asleep.’

   
Admittedly, we’d slipped one of Mrs Mouche’s cocktail mixers into our sodas and were feeling extremely giddy; however, we realize teen drinking is not okay and so wrong (especially when near water or highways) and would never recommend it to our readers.

   
We had serious hangovers the next morning. Mrs Mouche locked up the liquor cabinet when she found out and Trey promised never to leave us entirely to our own devices again.

   
After dancing to retro music dressed in the 1920’s outfits we’d worn in last year’s version of
Guys and Dolls,
we collapsed in a corner, embraced sobriety and resumed our discussion about the perfect junior year.

   
Our ideas were all pretty...ordinary: film club, blog page additions, debate club, a musical, an entire month devoted to writing up the play rehearsals, a fashion show, a themed prom (that would be left to the Princesses in the end) until Mouche and I started talking about how the mainstream boys at our school were very romantically de-motivated, and most of the artistic majors were obviously more than a
little
gay.

  
None of the males at our school behaved the way males in great romantic literature and films behaved (like
Heathcliffe
in
Wuthering Heights or Mr Rochester in Jane Eyre).
And maybe that was a good thing. But in some ways, the fact that chivalry is dead, is bad. I mean, I can open my own door but when I have a heavy bag and props, couldn’t the man of my dreams open it for me? And shouldn’t he want to? Of course, I can buy my own movie ticket but wouldn’t it be nice if my perfect man wanted to buy it for me? Just to prove his devotion? I could return the favour, of course.

    
Mrs Mouche says to hit them in the hip pocket because money matters more to men than to women. I’m not sure if that is true at our age but it might be the case when you’re older. Mrs Mouche has definitely instilled a good value system in her children. Even though Wednesday (Mouche’s baby sister) can barely talk, she is very good at sharing, and Mouche actually has a social conscience. For example, there was a documentary about world famine on television as we were preparing some dinner.

   
‘Why are most of the world’s poverty stricken women and children?’ Mouche asked.

   
‘Because the men at the top are greedy and take everything,’ Mrs Mouche replied as she left the house with her carry-on trolly bag, giving Wednesday and Mouche a kiss and making us promise to go to Trish’s ‘unless Trey is here.’
 

   
‘See you later girls,’ she said with a twinkle in her eye.
 

   
‘Love you Trey,’ Mrs Mouche yelled. She was all dressed up in a fancy suit and looked very glamorous. Trey came to the top of the stairs as Mrs Mouche deposited Wednesday in his arms. Mrs Mouche is a flight attendant, if you hadn’t already guessed.

  
‘Now be good for Trey,’ Mrs Mooche said. Mrs Mouche was flying all the way to New York and back. It would be the longest time she had ever spent away. Normally she just flew to the next state.

   
Wednesday smiled, she seemed to love being with her big brother, even though after her sleep we intended to play dress-ups with her as well. She clapped her hands as Mrs Mouche kissed her. Mouche’s little sister loved it when Mouche and I and my mom (Trish) and Trey looked after her.

     
After Mrs Mouche left, we were examining the ideas in our pink diary for our new blog entry and Trey was checking out our laptop over Mouche’s shoulder, having seated Wednesday in her high chair.

   
‘Enough already’, Mouche said. ‘You
so
can’t see this, Trey. It’s for our eyes only.’

   
‘Oh, please,’ Trey said laughing, eating a mouthful of cereal over his physics text, ‘like I care what two little girls think about the world...don’t stay up too late,’ he said as he ran up the stairs.

   
‘Why? Is your girlfriend coming over?’ Mouche giggled.

   
‘No.’

   
‘Why not?’

  
‘I think asking her over at ten pm might be a little obvious.’

   
Trey was a classy guy for an older man (eighteen).

  
‘So what do you think about who should pay on dates, Trey? Do you think girls should pay?’ I asked quizzically.

  
‘Phoebe, if a guy likes you, he’s going to try to impress you at least on the first date. Take my advice, let him offer, and if he doesn’t, pay, but don’t date him again.’

   
Who knew that Trey could supply us with our advice for the month? Even Mouche was impressed.

   
Trey left the room but not without flicking the light switch on and off three times just to annoy us. He’s very sweet sometimes, but I’d never tell Mouche that I’m crushing on her older brother. I happen to know she worships him but I think she’d find that information slightly disconcerting.
 

    
We looked back at our highlighted notes, our rules and ideas about dating, our slim experiences and profiles of the boys of Sunrise thus far.
        

Mouche glanced at me sceptically then looked at our prospective boyzamples and said,
           
‘Yes, no, yes, no, no way, yes...’

   
‘But this should be a realistic guide to dating at Sunrise High and an expose of just how few guys are the total package.’

    
‘Package meaning?’

    
‘Intelligence, kindness of heart, personality...’

    
‘How about tall, dark and handsome like Mark Knightly,’ I ventured. ‘Although, when he came into class he seemed very arrogant and rude,’ I qualified my reckless remark, but Mouche was too quick.

    
‘Oh my goodness!’

    
‘What?’

    
‘You like him. I can tell. I mean you
more
than like him!’

     
It was hard to lie to Mouche.

    
‘You’re practically in love with him...ew...you wanna have his babies!’

    
‘Oh please, that is completely over the top. I have barely spoken to him! I so do not love him. Besides, he’s totally an older man. Isn’t he just repeating junior year for kicks? I mean, who has the time and money to be in Europe for a whole year. He seems like a total weirdo.’

   
‘It’s true. You love him.’

    
I relented, ‘me and everyone else at Sunrise.’

   
‘Not me. He seems really haughty.’

   
‘Perhaps it’s just his manly exterior,’ I joked.

   
Mouche laughed, ‘what dating guide did you get
that
expression from?

   
‘Actually, it’s in
Mrs Jones Gives Advice
.’ I glanced at the dating guide stacked amongst a few others on Mrs Mouche’s coffee table, then continued, ‘it’s just that he is kind of different but everybody likes him. It’s like ‘cute boy’ radar. Everyone always likes the cute boys. Still, he’s hardly spoken to anyone since he transferred from Loratio and arrived back here.’

   
‘Mmm...well, he spoke to me.’

    
‘True.’

     
I tried not to be jealous of this small but scintillating fact.
     

    
‘To tell you the truth...I think his friend Jet is just as cute.’

    
‘Now, who likes who?’

    
‘The difference is, I can freely admit it.’

    
‘Well maybe that’s because he clearly likes you and you have a huge chance.’