Royal Wedding - Meg Cabot Page 0,76

back giving Mia permission to pick her up from school today so they can have sister-bonding time. Sound good?”

“That sounds fine,” Catherine said, and turned to the back page, where Lilly had placed a little pink sticky arrow. She signed with a pen Lars gallantly offered from the front pocket of his suit jacket.

Olivia’s aunt seemed to be in a much better mood when we left. She waved, the check I’d written her fluttering in her hand, from the front porch as we walked back to the limo.

“You guys,” I said under my breath as we crossed the lawn on our way back to the limo. “She is seriously hiding something. Also, I think she broke my foot.”

“I know, right?” Tina was practically hyperventilating. “I totally saw this once on a Lifetime movie starring Kirstie Alley. And she ended up in prison!”

“Nobody’s going to prison,” Lilly said. “That contract her aunt signed is binding.”

“You don’t even have a law degree!” I reminded her.

“It was witnessed by five people,” Lilly said. “It will hold up in court, once I get all of you to co-sign it. Now let’s go get Mia’s sister.”

“Did you check out her room?” I asked.

“What are you talking about?” Lilly looked annoyed with all of us as François popped out of the car to open the door for her, as she was first to reach it.

“When I asked to use their bathroom, I checked out all the bedrooms,” I said. I was trying not to show it, but I needed help walking, and was leaning on Lars for support. My foot was killing me. It had been hard to sneak around the house, but obviously it had needed to be done. “The two other kids—Rick’s from his first marriage—had giant flat screen TVs in their rooms, but not Olivia. Her room was the smallest, and didn’t have anything fun in it, not even a computer.”

“I saw that, too,” Tina said. “But I thought maybe she doesn’t like TV. Maybe she doesn’t like computers.”

“She’s related to Mia,” Lilly said flatly. “Do you really think that’s the case?”

“Maybe,” Tina said, still struggling to find an explanation other than the only glaringly obvious one, that Olivia was the Cinderella of the family, taken advantage of and forced to sleep in the modern equivalent of a garret, “it was the maid’s room.”

“There was a sign right on the door that had the name Olivia on it,” I said. “I think she made it herself. It was in Magic Marker and had little drawings of birds and cats on it. The dossier the RGG made says she likes to draw.”

There was silence as we sat in the cool air-conditioning of the limo, absorbing this.

“Well,” Lilly said finally. “At least it wasn’t a closet under the stairs.”

I narrowed my eyes at her, then said, “François, the Cranbrook Middle School, please.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” he said.

So now we’re sitting outside it, waiting for the bell to ring. When my sister comes out, I’ll open the door and tell her who I am and ask her to come for a ride.

Tina says this is the worst plan in the entire universe because kids aren’t supposed to accept rides with strangers, even strangers who are world-famous princesses sitting in limos parked outside their school claiming to be their long-lost sister, and that I should do something more subtle, because I’m probably going to scar her for life.

But my foot hurts, and I’m upset about the aunt (and the bedroom), and the fact that my father should be here with me doing this, but that wouldn’t be “following the map.”

Only I can’t think of anything more subtle right now.

Tina noticed my limping before we got in the car and made me take my shoe off and is examining my foot and making me press my toes against her hand. She says nothing seems broken but I’m probably going to have a very bad bruise and I should see my own physician.

He’d probably only tell me to journal about it, though, and I’m already doing that.

Oh, God—the bell just rang, and children have begun pouring out of the school.

There she is.

CHAPTER 52

3:50 p.m., Wednesday, May 6

Limo back to New York City

Rate the Royals Rating: 7

Well, I’ve just ruined my sister’s life, forever and completely.

Obviously that was not my goal in coming to Cranbrook, New Jersey. My goal in coming to Cranbrook was to improve my sister’s life.

But instead I’ve inexorably wrecked it.

I don’t know why after all this time