The Prince's Bride Part 2 - J.J. McAvoy Page 0,124
the trash can.
Immediately, she came up from behind me, and I could hear the guy upstairs running down the staircases.
“Come out with your hands up, right now!” Thelma yelled in Ersovian, holding a gun as she kicked the side of the trash can hard, causing three different shrieks.
What in the world? I thought as Layland made it down. With his gun drawn and now pointed to the trash can as well, Layland moved to stand in front of me.
“I said now!” Thelma yelled once more. “Last warning. Three. Two.”
“Wait!” The lid popped open, and a tiny young girl, maybe six or seven years old, with light-brown skin and a baseball cap, popped out with her hands up. “Sorry!” she yelled at the top of her lungs.
“We got ducks,” Thelma said into her mic as she put away her gun.
Layland put his weapon down.
“I’m not a duck,” the little girl said as Thelma helped her out of the trash bin and on to her feet before lifting out two other boys, one with brown hair and the other with blond. The moment they were on their feet, they glanced up at Thelma like she was a mountain, and their eyes went wide.
“What are you children doing here?” Thelma asked them. “Where are your parents?”
The boys trembled in fear. But the girl put her hands on her hips and stood tall. “I don’t have to tell you that. It’s not your stairs.”
Well, excuse me. I grinned.
“Actually, the hospital gave it to us while we were here. So you’re trespassing. If you don’t tell me where your parents are, I will send you to jail.”
“You can’t do that,” the girl said, unsure, then looked behind her at the boys, scared silent. “Can she do that?”
They shrugged.
Thelma pulled out her phone.
“Wait!” the boy with brown hair said. “We just wanted to see the queen.”
“The queen?” Thelma repeated.
“He means the future queen.” The girl crossed her arms. “My daddy works here, and I know she’s here!”
“I don’t think you heard right. We’ve been looking for days,” the brown-haired one muttered, annoyed. “Now, you’ve got us in trouble, Vicky.”
“It’s an adventure, Leo!” the girl, Vicky, snapped back at the browned-haired one, who I guessed was Leo. “You can’t find the treasure on the first day.”
“Guys...” the blond boy muttered, speaking for the first time and looking directly at me.
“We are not looking for treasure. We are looking for the queen,” Leo shot back at her.
“Guys...” the other boy said, still looking at me, trying to get his friends’ attention.
“A queen is a treasure, Leo,” Vicky said with her hand on her hips.
“GUYS!”
“WHAT, ORIEN?” they both yelled at him, and I sort of pitied the poor kid.
He pointed at me and said, “Found her.”
Both of their heads whipped around Thelma’s body to look at me. I couldn’t help but laugh, waving to them.
“Gerchen,” I greeted them in Ersovian.
Their eyes went wide, and they rushed toward me, but Thelma caught them by the collars, holding them up.
“Hey!” they yelled at her.
“You’ve seen her. Now it’s time to find your parents,” she said down to them.
“Thelma, it is all right,” I said, stepping forward. “It would be a waste of an adventure if you could see the treasure and never come close. Hello, Vicky, Leo, and Orien. I am Odette.”
They stared at me as if I were magic, rushing up to me when Thelma let them go.
“Hi, Queen Odette.”
“You know our names?”
“Can you make me a knight?”
“Are you feeling better?”
“You’re really pretty.”
“Is the Adelaar here too?”
“Can he make me a knight?”
“Whoa!” I held my hands out to relax them. “I cannot answer so many questions at one time. And my Ersovian isn’t that good yet, guys—”
“I think it fine,” Vicky said and looked at Leo. “We can understand him, and he’s from another planet.” She stuck out her tongue.
“And you are from planet butthead.”
It was good to know the insults hadn’t changed since I was a kid.
“Is that the language you use in front of a queen?” Layland called out at him, and they all stopped.
“Sorry.” He held his head down.
I knelt in front of them. “How about we all leave the staircase and maybe get some snacks? Then we can find your parents.”
They nodded, and I reached down to take their hands.
The vending machine snacks did the trick all right. They were able to calm down and sit still in front of me. We weren’t in my room, as I didn’t want to wake my mom. Instead, we