The Princess Sisters (The Princess Sisters Series) (2 page)

“I
don’t know what they were thinking when they named us,” Cinderella added.

“Well,”
said Snow White, “When I’m old enough, the first thing I’m going to do is
change my name to something normal.”

“I’m
with you on that,” Cinderella replied.  “Hey listen I gotta go, my mom is
calling me.”

“Later,”
Snow White sighed.

“Bye.”

The
Princess sisters had all suffered their fair share of teasing because of their
names.  Dana and Rachel, who were divorced, had both gone back to their maiden
name, so all the girls had been passed on the Princess name.  Maybe it wouldn’t
have been so bad, had there not been five of them.  The worst was every year on
the first day of school.  The teacher would always take roll by announcing last
name first, followed by their first name: “Princess Ariel, Princess Aurora,
Princess Belle, Princess Cinderella, and Princess Snow White.”  Because there
were five of them, there was always more than one Princess sister in a class. 
The teacher would take roll, look a bit confused, stifle a giggle, and then
hush the laughing children.  It was the same every year no matter what.  Once
the girls reached junior high school and had multiple teachers, they got to
endure the embarrassment seven times in one day.  So the girls couldn’t really
be blamed for wanting to avoid being tied to their fairy tale counterparts.

Two
houses down, Aurora and Ariel were busy shoving their backpacks into the back
of their closet, as a final good-bye to the school year.

“Hey
girls, how was your last day?” Rachel asked, walking into the twins’ bedroom.

“Pretty
fun,” Ariel responded.  “Everyone just spent most of the day outside signing
each other’s yearbooks.”

“Good! 
So I was thinking it might be fun to go over to the mall after dinner tonight
and get some new swimsuits for the summer.” Rachel hesitated.  “What do you
think?”

Aurora
glanced at her sister, waiting for a reaction.  Without even looking at their
mom, Ariel sarcastically responded.

“Oh
shoot, Mom.  See I would, but I need to finish discovering the cure for cancer
first.  Then after that, I have to teach a group of pigs to fly.  So sorry, but
I’m booked!”

“Alright
I get it,” Rachel said shaking her head.  “Be ready to go to dinner by 6:00
then.”

Similar
to her cousins’ problems, Ariel avoided swimming.  She had been scared of the
water ever since she and Aurora were tiny and their mom used to teach swim
lessons.  They would accompany her and float in the kiddy pool with their
bright orange water wings until she was done.

One
day, after her water wings had been removed, Ariel approached the deep end and
slipped.  It took a minute for everyone to realize where she had gone, and
Rachel barely got to her in time.  Ariel never went near water again, even
though her mom had tried to teach her how to swim on several occasions.  In
junior high, they had to swim for gym class from time to time.  Ariel’s mom had
talked to the teacher and she had gotten out of having to participate by
running extra laps after school.  But during the class, Ariel still had to sit
on the bleachers and watch while the other students learned things like the
backstroke and the butterfly.  Some bullies in class thought it was funny that ‘the
little mermaid’ wouldn’t swim.  When the teacher wasn’t looking they would
splash her with water and then laugh when she started screaming.  The other
kids would jokingly bet on how wet Ariel needed to be before her fins would
sprout.

Belle
was the only Princess who didn’t let the teasing get to her…too much.  She
would often tell her cousins to not let it bother them.  Yet she was never
found reading in public, and when her teachers wanted her to stand up and read
in front of the class, she flat out refused.  Belle was threatened with going
to the Principal’s office, but no punishment fazed her.  She would take
whatever was dished out, and then continue on as if nothing had happened.  And
eventually her teachers gave up trying.

Belle
had inherited her mother’s beauty.  With her father’s olive complexion, her big
dark eyes and blonde flowing hair made her seem exotic.  It seemed unnatural;
the way her dark skin and eyes contrasted her naturally light hair.  And as we
all know, boys act stupid around pretty girls.  More than once a boy in her
class would approach her with a one-petal rose and tell her to kiss him quickly
so he could become her prince.  Belle always rolled her eyes and would walk
away from them, but she secretly liked the attention.

Perhaps
their names were why the Princess sisters never had any friends other than each
other.  They grew up together and could relate to one another.  With four almost-sisters
their same age, the girls never saw the sense in bothering to make other
friends.  They had four built-in best friends from the time they were small. 
Growing up next door to each other, they would often get passed from aunt to
aunt while their mothers worked, and sometimes their moms would joke that they
often couldn’t tell which daughter belonged to which mother.

Chapter
Two

Around
six o’clock that evening, in four different homes that stood side by side, four
different mothers were telling their daughters to hurry or they would be late. 
Then three different cars pulled out of their parking spots and revved their
engines as they waited for the fourth.  When Belle and Mary finally emerged
from their front door, the others began honking and cat-calling from their open
windows.

“Alright,
alright,” Mary said, waving at them with a grin.  She and Belle climbed into
their sleek, black Celica to join the others.  Dana and Cinderella were waiting
in the front, nearest the road, in their dark blue Outlander.  Next to them
were Elizabeth and Snow White in a white Mini, covered in dirt from a recent
windstorm.  Just behind the large form of the Outlander sat Rachel, Ariel and
Aurora in their silver Prius.  When the Celica pulled in behind the Mini, Mary
slammed on her horn and they were off.

Dana
and Cinderella began in the lead, their tires peeling as they pulled onto the
road.  Then Mary and Belle came up beside them from the left lane and stuck out
their tongues as they pulled past.  They got in front and turned left at the
light ahead just before it changed to red.  Dana and Cinderella came to a stop,
stuck behind the red light of discouragement.  The white Mini with Snow White
and Elizabeth saw the red light ahead and quickly turned off into a
neighborhood side street.  They maneuvered their way through the quiet roads, and
then pulled back onto the main street right in front of a dark blue Outlander. 
Snow White and her mom cheered and then high-fived over their success. 
Cinderella’s jaw dropped when she saw the white Mini.

“Faster,
mom!” she screamed.  “They beat us last time!”

“We’ll
just see about that,” said Dana speeding up.

She
was closing in to pass the Mini, just as Mary and Belle had done to them, when
a silver Prius pulled onto the road ahead from an unknown neighborhood. 
Instead of pulling into the place in front of the Mini, Dana continued to coax
the gas until she found herself even with the offending Prius.  They reached
the red light ahead at the same time.  Just then, Dana’s cell phone rang.

“You
know you’re supposed to turn right here?” came Ariel’s laughing voice from the
other end.  Dana looked up and realized they were in the lane to go straight,
whereas Rachel and her mocking daughters sat in the ‘right turn only’ lane.

“Dang
it!” said Dana, hitting the steering wheel as the Prius and then the Mini
turned right and continued on to their destination.  “Sorry Cinderella,” she
said, “I guess I was trying so hard to get ahead that I lost track of where we
were going.”

“We
could always go to another restaurant and tell everyone else they went to the
wrong place,” said Cinderella.  They both laughed over the memory of Mary and
Belle trying that same tactic last time, after they had lost.

“We’ll
get em’ next time,” said Dana.

After
getting back on course, the Outlander turned into the restaurant parking lot. 
The other women stood waiting by the entrance, clapping as Cinderella and Dana
approached.  They paused, took a bow, and then continued in through the front
doors.

“Table
for nine please,” said Dana to the hostess behind the podium.  The hostess’s
eyes widened as she looked over the group of women.

“It
may be awhile,” said the young girl, pushing a strand of loose hair behind her
ear.

“We’ll
wait,” replied Dana with a shrug and she turned to join her family, sitting on
the faux red leather benches.

“Let’s
see,” said Mary, looking over the dessert menu in front of her.  “Dana is
buying dessert tonight which means we need to find the most expensive thing
listed.”

“Be
nice,” said Dana.  The Princess sisters looked between Dana and Mary and
giggled.  Dana and Cinderella hadn’t lost the race in a long time and Mary was
obviously taking pleasure in it.

Snow
White got to her feet and walked toward the large open tank, filled with live
lobsters.  She watched their maneuvering legs as they crawled over each other’s
marble-brown shells.  The smallest one in the bunch seemed to be the smartest,
as it scurried up the piling lobsters.  His pointed claws, forced shut by a
green rubber band, flailed against the glass in front of him.  As the lobster
inched toward his freedom, the tower toppled over and several hard shells came
crunching back down to the bottom of the tank.

Snow
White looked away from the fleeing creatures and noticed her reflection in the
glass.  Out of all the girls, the name Snow White fit her best.  Her skin was
pale and creamy and, well, snowy.  She had very few freckles considering her
raging red hair.  She was told by her aunts that the gene containing her red
hair was the only good thing Grandpa Princess had left them.  Snow White
glanced sideways at her reflection, looking over her rounded cheeks to her
cabbage patch nose.  Her dark green eyes were met by another pair of identical
green, approaching on her right side.

“Whatcha
doin?” asked Ariel.

“I
just didn’t feel like sitting,” said Snow White.

“My
bet is on the little one,” said Ariel, pointing at the smallest lobster who had
begun his ascent to the top of the pile once again.  Snow White grinned,
revealing her slightly crooked teeth.

“That’s
the one I’ve been watching,” she said.  “I’m willing to bet those little legs
won’t give up until he’s either free or cooked.”  Ariel returned her cousin’s
smile.

“It’s
amazing how something so disgusting looking can taste so good!”

“I
know,” Snow White said.

Ariel
began pinching her cousin as she displayed her best lobster impression.  Snow
White smiled again, but it quickly faded this time.  She bit her upper lip and
turned back toward the motionless lobsters.

“Something
wrong, Snow?” asked Ariel, looking in the reflection at her cousin.  She and
her identical twin, Aurora, shared the same green eyes as their cousin Snow
White.  But in every other way, the girls’ features were quite different. 
Ariel and Aurora had very blonde hair with a few natural, light brown highlights─the
kind of coloring most women spend hundreds of dollars to obtain.  They also
shared larger, pointed noses and high, thin cheekbones.  The twins were a tall
5’9” compared to Snow White’s shorter 5’4”.  They also carried themselves well,
with long, beautiful necks over their proud, thin shoulders.  It was easy to
tell Aurora and Ariel were both dancers, while Snow White’s thicker build
suggested she preferred reading to physical activity.

“You
okay?” Ariel tried again.

“I
was just thinking about what Aurora said today,” Snow White replied quietly.

“You
mean high school dances?” asked Ariel after thinking for a minute.

“Yeah,”
answered Snow White, turning to face her.

“Are
you worried about getting a date?” Ariel asked

“Well…yeah. 
I mean, what if you all get asked and I don’t?”

“You
have nothing to worry about, Snow,” said Ariel. “You look Ab Fab, darling!” she
added, primping her hair in the glass reflection.  “Seriously though,” she
added in a more somber tone.  “Give yourself a little credit; you’re much
prettier than you think you are!”

At
that moment an identical face to the one on Snow White’s right, showed up on
her left side.  The only difference between the two was a small mole just above
Aurora’s upper lip on the left side.

“They’re
ready to seat us,” Aurora said.

The
three of them walked away from the tank and followed the rest of their family
to a large table toward the back of the restaurant.