The Princess Trap (15 page)

“Yes!” said Perry. “You rock! I’m on it.” He grabbed the money.

“Hold up!” said Jenna. “I’m going, too. And there might not be any food to buy. They were demonstrating in Saarstad this morning. Against hunger!” She thought of the women marching in the square and her conviction that she’d seen them at the von Thunberg party. She must have been delusional.

Perry shook his head. “Listen, Jenna,” he said, and suddenly he sounded serious. “I kid about the princess thing: You can bet that since last night there’ll be thousands of them searching for us. And people will look more closely at strangers. It’s safer if I go on my own. If they’ve been putting out missing persons announcements, they’re bound to focus on you. You’re the famous one. You’re freakin’ royalty, girl! But since you’re already dressed like a maid”— he laughed —“you can clean the house while I’m gone.”

“So His Lordship doesn’t have to keep sneezing?” said Jenna. “And then you’ll come back and be king of the castle, I suppose?” She pretended to be offended. “What a macho man!”

Perry jumped down from the rock, and the pebbles crunched under his feet. “Exactly!” he said. “The man goes out into the big bad world, and the woman stays at home and does the housework.” He dodged Jenna’s slap and ran off, laughing.

Jenna ran after him. “Sexist pig!” she shouted — but then she had to sneeze.

“Gesundheit!” Perry called back. “And look at it this way: You’ll be making the place nice for yourself, too.”

Even in Scandia you could still enjoy life, Jenna realized. It was almost like being at home.

B
olström looked out the window
at the fading summer afternoon. For the time being, they still had to stay out in the country, but he was sure they’d soon be able to return to Holmburg. That, after all, was the whole reason for coming to Scandia.

“So we’re back, Norlin,” he said. What a stroke of luck that Liron had let himself get caught red-handed! What a fool the man was! Did he really think that the Minister of the Interior only needed to drive some civil servant’s car to avoid being followed? Or to talk on some amateur second cell phone to avoid being bugged? Bolström laughed. “I have to say, Norlin, as far as I’m concerned, there’s no place like Scandia. I really don’t understand why some people are always so desperate to get away to the tropics.” He lit a cigarette. “Not me. And Liron’s arrest has just made things even better for us. Now we have the proof to show to the public — that there are northerners in the government who are in league with the rebels! We’ve even got their plan for the final coup!”

Norlin drummed his fingers on the little side table. “What plan, Bolström?” he bleated. “I haven’t heard about a plan. They didn’t have any such thing on them when they were arrested.”

“Idiot!” said Bolström. “What they did or didn’t have on them is entirely immaterial!”

But Norlin was no longer listening. “Do you think they might have a drop of something here somewhere, to soothe the nerves?” he asked. His eyes flickered. “I haven’t had any since last night … and it was a hard day …” His voice trailed off.

“Stop it, Norlin,” said Bolström. “Don’t be such a pest. Just pull yourself together. Especially now, when things are going so well for us. Don’t you want to be back in the palace as soon as possible? Eh, Norlin? It might not be long now!”

He went to the sideboard, poured a glassful of water out of a carafe, and carried it over to the sofa. Norlin dropped it. His hand was trembling as badly as his voice.

“Soldiers everywhere!” said Bolström, ignoring the mess. He poured a glass for himself. “Purely to protect the people — why, what else would they be doing?” He laughed. “But you know what, Norlin? By tomorrow those soldiers will be searching the factories, because the factory workers are northerners, and all of them are secret rebels. You didn’t know that, did you? And our soldiers will find lots of weapons, because the rebels are planning a coup. A revolution. The people in the south are already nervous and dissatisfied, and soon it’ll be worse. The food shortages, the terrorist attacks, Liron’s arrest, and then the weapons! South Scandians will be happy and grateful when the military storms parliament, because the government is doing nothing. And the Minister of the Interior has been —”

Norlin had stood up, and now he paced to and fro. “Do you really think they’ve got nothing to drink here?” he mumbled. “Nothing at all? We could send someone —”

“Shut up and listen, Norlin!” Bolström snapped. “The one thing I don’t like is this business with the children. Again with the children! If the rebels really have kidnapped them, well … that would be marvelous! Then we’d be rid of them. But suppose they’ve simply run away? I don’t trust that Jenna. No offense, Norlin, I know she’s your daughter. But nevertheless, last summer she was the one who wrecked everything for us. If it hadn’t been for your daughter, you’d still have been on the throne … Norlin, what are you doing?”

Norlin had begun flinging open all the cupboard doors. “Nothing,” he murmured. “Just looking …”

Bolström shook his head. “I’ll feel a lot more at ease when that girl is back at her school, where she belongs,” he said. “I don’t want her messing things up for us again. It gives me a minor heart attack just thinking about it.”

“Jenna’s in Saarstad,” said Norlin offhandedly. He flopped onto the sofa and stared vaguely at the table. “In the navigator’s house. Give me a drink, Bolström. I can’t go on.”

With a single bound, Bolström was right beside him. “How do you know that, Norlin?” he asked. “Or are you just guessing?”

“See for yourself!” said Norlin, stretching out his hands. They were twitching as if someone had run an electric current through them. “And the shakes …”

“I’m not asking how you know you can’t go on!” shouted Bolström. “Of course you can go on! How do you know where
Jenna
is?”

Norlin ground his teeth. “In Saarstad,” he said again. “In the navigator’s house. That’s where I’d go if I wanted to hide. And she’s my daughter, Bolström! She’s my daughter!”

Bolström threw his head back. “What sort of crazy argument is that?” he said. “Probably all part of the withdrawal symptoms. Even so … it’s not a bad idea.” He smiled and reached for the telephone.

“Has the navigator’s house been searched?” he asked into the receiver, without even saying who he was. “Yes, indeed. Send someone there at once. We have to find the girl. After all, she’s … our princess.” He laughed.

“My Jenna,” whispered Norlin. Then he jumped up again. His eyes were wild. “Bolström, give me something! Give me something to drink! I’m Regent! I order you …”

Bolström shoved him in the chest. Norlin tottered and fell to the floor.

“Shut up!” said Bolström. “You don’t give orders to anyone anymore.”

Bea threw herself onto the living-room sofa. As usual, her mother had left some food for her in the fridge, so all she had to do was heat it in the microwave.

But just like every other day after school, she didn’t feel like it. And today her last class had been PE, and now it was practically evening. It was scandalous how long they kept teenagers locked up at school.

She fished for the remote control with her foot. On the side table were the three yogurts she’d taken from the fridge instead of the broccoli casserole. After school she always needed a half hour to chill out, and cappuccino, chocolate, and vanilla-mango yogurts were obviously far more soothing than vegetables baked in cheese.

She pulled open the lid of the first container and dipped in her spoon. She sighed. It wasn’t a diet yogurt, but after all the stress of the past eight hours, she’d earned the right to some comfort food. A math quiz and a geography test — what sort of school day was that? Was it even legal for teachers to make you do all that in one day? But they didn’t care; they just wanted to get all the grades in before summer vacation.

She switched on the television.

“… can be said that the situation in Scandia is now becoming critical,” the anchor on the news was saying. Hundreds of miles away, the foreign correspondent listened through his earpiece, nodded a few times, then raised his microphone.

More Scandia drama?
thought Bea, and quickly turned up the volume.

“That’s right,” the correspondent agreed with the anchor. “Definitely critical, and getting more and more difficult to understand. In the last few days there’s been an escalation of incidents. First there were the attacks on the oil pipeline and the central electricity supply, which stirred up speculation that the rebels were mobilized again. For months it had seemed that King Magnus’s bipartisan reforms had cut the ground out from under their feet. There were no more attacks or threats, and it was even rumored that the rebels had disbanded. But since Scandia has been subjected to more and more shortages, the mood of the people has begun to change.”

The anchor interrupted him. “If you could explain in a little more detail,” she said.

Again the foreign correspondent nodded. “The Scandian media believe that the reason for shortages of basic foods and other necessities is economic mismanagement by a new government that’s mainly concerned with reform,” he said, “but foreign observers are convinced that there must be something else behind this, although it’s too soon yet to confirm how all these things are connected.”

Bea dropped the first empty yogurt container onto the floor. Chocolate next.

“Initially it seemed unlikely that the rebels were involved, because it’s questionable what they stood to gain from the shortages and how they could have organized them. But two hours ago, the Scandian Minister of the Interior was arrested in a remote area of the forest while holding a clandestine meeting with the notorious rebel leader …”

“What?” cried Bea, lowering her yogurt. “No way!”

“… so it’s no longer possible to rule out collusion.”

“And what about the abduction of Princess Jenna?” asked the anchor. “Has there been any new information since this morning? And might there be some connection with the previous incidents?”

“What?” Bea repeated, staring at the screen in disbelief. Her spoon dropped into her lap. “Not Jenna! Not again!”

The correspondent shook his head, and the anchor said something, but Bea couldn’t concentrate anymore. “Stupid Scandia!” she cried angrily, and looked down at the sticky brown stain on the thigh of her jeans.

She jumped up and ran into the hall, where she had dumped her schoolbag just inside the front door. Where was her cell? She had to send a text to Jenna.

Ugh! What had she done with her phone? It wasn’t in its case. But there was no way she would have lost it!

She took everything out of her bag — textbooks, folders, handouts, notepads, makeup case — but her cell phone wasn’t there.

“Ugh!” she said out loud. “No freakin’ way!” And then she remembered. Before gym class, she’d checked to see if there were any new messages. Then Kate had distracted her with her usual panic-stricken questions about the math quiz and what she’d got for answers on questions two and four and everything. So she’d stuffed the phone into her gym bag, but her gym bag wasn’t there.

“Thanks, Kate — so annoying!” Bea moaned, though she knew it was her own fault, too, because she should have remembered to bring home her gym bag. And now it was probably lying in a corner of the coach’s office, from where it would find its way to Lost and Found. And at this hour, no one would open up the school for her.

“Ugh, ugh, ugh!” she practically screamed, before starting to gather up her books from the floor. So she couldn’t send a text message today. Whatever. If they really had kidnapped Jenna, probably the first thing they’d have done would have been to take away her phone. So maybe it really didn’t matter, anyway.

When she heard the footsteps on the gravel, Margareta looked up. “Peter!” she said. “Thank goodness!”

She hadn’t slept all night. And ever since she got up, she’d been trying to think about other things. How ironic it all was. When they’d been living in exile she’d worried about her daughter all the time. And now that they were back in Scandia, where she felt safe and didn’t need to keep an eye on her every minute of the day, Jenna had disappeared.

“Any news?”

Around midday she’d gone into the garden. The gardener hadn’t been too pleased when she’d asked him for a pair of shears and a wheelbarrow, but he hadn’t dared say anything. She needed something to do if she was to stop herself from going crazy with worry.

“Haven’t you seen the news?” asked Petterson. He gave her a quick kiss. His face was gray and bleary-eyed, like hers.

“Have they found her?” cried Margareta. “Why didn’t someone come and tell me? Or … have there been demands, Peter? Are they asking for a ransom?”

Petterson took her arm. “Shh, shh, Margareta!” he said. “Keep calm. Of course they’d have come and told you if Jenna had been found or there’d been a ransom demand.” He stroked her cheek. “No, no, it’s something else. Liron has been arrested.”

“Liron?” said Margareta, freeing herself. “Why Liron? What has he done?”

“It’s a conspiracy,” said Petterson, gently leading her to a bench. The branches of a rosebush were hanging over the back, and he pushed them away. “He was caught with Nahira. You know that we’ve long had our suspicions about members of the government conspiring with the rebels. What other explanation can there be for the general chaos? The food shortages? The fact is, there are people in the government” — he eased her down onto the bench —“who are planning a violent coup, Margareta. We’ve thought so for some time. They’re not interested in reform — that’s not enough for them. The reform process is too slow and too limited for their goals. They want revolution. None of us are safe anymore.”