Royally Crushed (10 page)

“I would guess you have other friends besides me, though,” I tell him, mostly to cover my own stupid smiley face reaction to what he said. I don’t want Georg to think I’m desperate, because I’m not. Being an only child makes
me tough that way, or so I tell myself. “Unless you’re, like, a known ax murderer or something, and you’re just being nice to lull me into a false sense of security.”

He holds his hands over his head, outlaw-style, then leans back in his chair, kicking his long legs closer to me. “You’ve caught me. I admit it. I’m sure the police will have my . . .” He fumbles for the right phrase for a second before saying, “My mug shot stapled to all the telephone poles soon.”

He glances over his shoulder, toward the door, then shoots a casual look at my notebook. “You still have that drawing from yesterday?”

Does he not want his family to know I’m drawing him? Instead of asking him about it, I make a quick resolution to shut the notebook if his parents—or anyone—shows up, just in case.

“Oh, now I get it,” I say as I turn to the correct notebook page. “You only want me around long enough to draw a flattering wanted poster for you.” Why not tease him like I would a normal friend, I figure, since he doesn’t know I know who he really is? “I assume you’re asking because you want me to finish?”

“I’d like that a lot. But don’t make my head too big.”

“I’ll draw it like I see it,” I retort. He grins, and for the next few minutes, we’re quiet. I take my time with shading
and getting the angle of his jaw just so. Since this one’s on request, as opposed to my usual killing-time-in-homeroom job, I want it to be really good.

And I have to admit, I’m getting a Zen feeling sitting with him, not saying anything and just drawing. I wouldn’t have guessed I’d be so comfortable with anyone who thinks in German, no matter how good his English might be. It’s relaxing, like when I’m with Christie, Jules, or Natalie. They’re the only people who seem to get that it’s okay to hang out and not talk sometimes. To just
be
.

At least until I told them I was moving to Schwerinborg.

When I finish and hold up the picture, I can’t believe how happy Georg looks. Not goofy happy. Touched happy.

“That’s awesome, Valerie.” His accent nearly cracks me up. It’s like talking to the Terminator or something. But I manage to keep a straight face.

“It’s all yours.” I rip out the page and hand it to him, but he makes me sign it first.

I cannot believe I am autographing something for
him
. It’s just wrong.

“I know you have to take the first placement exams tomorrow,” he says, his eyes still focused on the picture. “And I’m going to be busy for a few days after that. I have some, um, family things my parents need me to attend.
But I’ll look for you before school starts, okay?”

“That’d be great, Georg.” It’s surreal, talking to someone who’s not only a prince, but is named
Georg
. He really should be Scott or Josh or something. But as surreal as it is, I feel like he’s invited me into his world.

Once he’s out of the library, though, and I’m by myself with the leftover pretzels and sandwiches, I can’t help but wonder how long it’ll last. Maybe Georg’s parents told him to be nice to me. Or maybe he’s just bored to death being stuck at home over break and would rather crash in the library with a geeky sophomore than do nothing at all.

I wonder when the bomb’s going to drop. Maybe the first week of school. Will he totally start ignoring me? Will he wake up and realize I’m a geek?

Or worse, is he going to drop little hints to his friends that I’m all in love with him so he can look like he’s gotten some action over break? Part of me knows this is ridiculous. I mean, he doesn’t set off my bullshit detector at all, and I can detect a bullshitter nine times out of ten. But I’ve seen more than one guy pull that particular trick, especially in the case of older guys talking about a girl who’s a couple years younger, so it’s not beyond the realm.

As I leave the library I decide my new mission is to find out more about him. Not so I can replace my David Anderson look-alike mission, but so I don’t show up at
school and find out that no one—David look-alike or not—will have anything to do with me because Georg really is lulling me into a false sense of security.

At least David never did anything like that.

Still, I’m getting tired of having the things I count on in life ripped away from me. And for whatever pathetic, needy reason, I really, really want to count on Georg. I want to believe in the scary-weird-cool connection thing.

Because what if?

I’ve been sick to my stomach all day. No one told me how hard it is to go to a new school.

You’d think, being fifteen, I’d be past all this first-day-of-school-nervousness crap. I’m so
not
. First, I now realize how incredibly sheltered I’ve been, attending the same school system since preschool. I mean, living in northern Virginia means we get kids moving in and out every year, because there are so many diplomats, military parents, you name it, who move all the time. It’s just the nature of being around D.C. But I’ve never had to move.

And now I’m realizing just how much it sucks walking into a school with a few hundred high schoolers and not knowing ANYONE.

Well, anyone except Georg. And I haven’t seen him in over a week, since right before I had to take my placement exams.

Second, I’m having a major guilt trip over each and every new kid at school I’ve ever ignored. Images of kid after kid who tried to say hi to me are coming back, and I’m thinking I’m going to lose my lunch of (get this!) sauerbraten and carrot salad every single time I think of another face. It’s not that I was mean to anyone. I was always nice and said hello back. I just didn’t go out of my way to make sure they had someone to sit next to at lunch.

Which is probably why I spent my lunch hour sitting completely, totally alone. God is getting back at me.

I felt like the world’s biggest buttwipe, sitting at a cafeteria table eating sauerbraten—which is beyond gross—while all the kids around me yakked about going skiing in Switzerland or shopping in Paris over their Christmas break. I wasn’t about to try to introduce myself—again—and tell them that I got to visit the Louvre once. With my
parents
. It’d be like stamping
L-O-S-E-R
in big red letters right across my forehead.

Or however you spell it in German.

On the other hand, classes aren’t as bad as I thought. My desk in Western Civilization, where I’m currently sitting, and sketching, is a bit wobbly. But the teachers really are Americans, like Dad promised. Most of them seem to be younger than my teachers at Vienna West too,
maybe in their twenties. And they’re all
fun
. I mean, when your Western Civ teacher draws a big picture across the chalkboard showing what a pillory looks like, or talks for fifteen minutes about the various disgusting ways suspected witches were tried in medieval times, it’s entertaining in a whacked sort of way. Way more cool than listening to Mrs. Bennett lecture in a monotone about the ramifications of the Emancipation Proclamation.

And actually getting to live where all this stuff took place is making it interesting too. Apparently we’re going to get to go on field trips to two different art museums this quarter. And we get to take a bus to a place called Rothenburg, in Germany, to see a museum that’s completely dedicated to medieval punishments.

Is that not wild?

Still, I’m really glad this is the last class of the day. I don’t know why, since it’s only three o’clock, but I’m wiped. All I want to do is go home and check my e-mail. Maybe even try to talk Dad into making some magic with his pots and pans. I’m thinking something fried and fatty and totally unhealthy, since I’m never going to have to worry about the size of my thighs or butt again. Judging from today, I may as well be invisible, so there’s no way I’m ever going to have a boyfriend.

When the bell rings, I can’t get out fast enough. But the minute my way-too-American-looking shoes hit the cobblestoned street, I feel it.

I’m starting my period.

I usually go gangbusters on my first day, so an instant wave of panic is more than warranted. I find a bench next to the sidewalk, sit down (carefully), and rummage through my backpack, hoping that I still have something stashed in the inside pocket from last semester.

Of course, I don’t.

I get up and half run, half walk (so I don’t look too anxious as I pass by everyone who’s leaving) back into the school. Unfortunately the girls’ bathroom is no help either. No machines on the wall. Now what? There’s no way I’m going to stick my nose into the group of snotty girls standing just outside the bathroom and ask if I can borrow something. If I do, for the next year it’ll be, like, “Oh, yeah, I met Valerie Winslow. She was the girl who asked me for a Tampax her first day of school.”

Um, thanks but no thanks.

I’m about to race to the nurse’s office—I assume there’s a nurse’s office, but I don’t know, which means I’m going to have to embarrass myself further by asking in the main office—when I see a basket on the shelf next to the mirrors.

I peek inside. Halle-freakin’-lujah. At least one thing is going to go right today.

A few minutes later, I’m back outside. Of course, half the kids are still hanging around the outside doors, and the ones who saw me bolting out of class and not bothering to stop at my locker the first time I left school are looking at me now, probably wondering what I was doing back in the building.

I yank my backpack a little farther up my shoulder, put my head down, and blow past them. I want nothing more than to be out of here. Maybe I’ll have some e-mail from the A-listers. Something more about David and him being jealous would suit me just fine right now.

Luckily it’s not a real long walk home—to the palace, that is. It only takes about ten or fifteen minutes. But there’s also a streetcar stop right by the school, and if I hop on, it’s only one stop to get to the palace. Since the streetcar is pulling up and Dad bought me a pass yesterday, I jump on. I punch my ticket in the little yellow machine on board and congratulate myself on figuring out something about Schwerinborg without having Dad tell me.

I quickly realize that this is a mistake, because the second the streetcar starts moving, I wobble, fall onto one of the bench seats, and nearly end up in this old lady’s lap.
She’s in an all-black dress, and she has on—no, I’m not kidding—knee-high nylons, and you can see the tops of them at the hem of her dress. And her legs are all hairy, too.

She waves me off and says something in German that doesn’t sound particularly civil, but I have no idea what. And no idea how to apologize. I make an
I’m so sorry
face as I stand up from the too-narrow space beside her, go to the other side of the car, and grab on to an empty pole.

This shouldn’t upset me. But it does.

I can feel tears in my eyes, burning way at the back, and I blink to keep myself calm. I so need Jules and Natalie. They’d have made me laugh with some offhand crack about how the Schwerinborgers need an introduction to Nair. Or Christie, who’d have said something miraculous to the old woman to make it all better.

I sure hope Christie got my e-mail with my phone number, and that her mom lets her call me tonight instead of waiting for the weekend. I’m going to go over the edge if I have to wait until Friday to talk to someone about all this.

I mentally pray that Christie will be extra nice to her Tennessee cousins and that they all have a fabulous time at the Smithsonian. I’m desperate.

Then I hear this voice near me speaking German, but it’s familiar.
Way
familiar.