know, he does have internet access, so it’s possible.”
That was not a bad idea. Not a bad idea at all. “Thanks, Ian. I—”
There was a loud thump! followed by a worrisome “Oww!” We froze.
“Ian?” Marcus wailed from the other side of the stable. “Dude, I think I just broke my ass.”
Seven
RJ was not entirely enthusiastic about tapping former cast members for advice on how to please the Queen, since, as a resident assistant, he was supposed to be upholding the rules, not breaking them.
“What happens in Fairyland stays in Fairyland,” he said. “Rule Number One Hundred Fifty.” Then he went on about the “importance of confidentiality” and “above all, to Fairyland be true,” blah, blah, blah. That was until I explained that I needed to worm my way into Her Majesty’s good graces so I could get Jess promoted to princess and she could win the Dream & Do grant and go to college.
“I’ll do what I can, but you should know it doesn’t work that way. Regular cast members are hardly ever crowned,” he said as we sat on the lily pad in the Frog Prince’s Pond, where I’d asked him to meet me after the park closed. “The princes and princesses were once kids who went to the Fairyland summer camps, where they were intensively trained on how to talk and look and act. That’s how it’s always been.”
“I know that’s the party line, but let’s give it a shot,” I said, playing on my hunch that he was harboring a crush on my cousin. “Jess will be so grateful to you when I let her know that you bent the rules for me. It shows that even though you’re quasi Management, you’re a good guy.”
His lips twitched into a slight smile.
However, any hope I had of RJ being on our side was soon squashed. Later that week—and miraculously still employed—I was playing The Settlers of Catan in the rec room with Karl (a Catan whiz!) and beating the pants off Marcus the equine-phobic, surf-bum Prince Charming when RJ came in carrying a copy of Fairyland Kingdom Internship Handbook & Rules.
“Here,” he said, tossing it dismissively into my lap. “You should read these and memorize them before you ask me again to do something inappropriate.” Then he went over to the vending machine, plunked in some quarters, and walked off with a Diet Coke.
I was pretty pissed. For starters, I detested the word inappropriate, and I resented his implication that he’d decided not to help me after all because rules were rules. But handing me a copy of the handbook in front of my friends was just the sour cherry on top. When I got back to my dorm room, I promptly tossed it in the trash.
“What’s this?” Jess asked, pulling it out.
“It’s nothing,” I said, kicking off my flip-flops. “I already have a copy.”
“Of these?” She pointed to several white sheets of paper that had fallen out of the book onto the floor.
I picked up the papers and scanned the contents: three pages of detailed notes on the Queen’s quirks, habits, likes, dislikes, and what had worked for ladies-in-waiting before. I grinned, positively ecstatic. This was almost better than getting the cheat sheet to Mr. Ellison’s precalc midterm. It was the holy grail of Fairyland!
“What is it?” Jess asked.
“Oh, nothing,” I said, tucking the notes under my pillow for late-night reading after she was asleep. “But next time you see RJ, make sure to be super nice.”
“Why?”
“Because, of all the guys around here, I have a feeling he’s the one who’s a true prince.”
As the instructions noted, I was to read, memorize, and then completely destroy the contents by throwing the pages into the incinerator down by the warehouses the next morning before walking Tinker Bell.
This was the first piece of advice—to wake Tinker Bell at dawn, take her for a short stroll, and then return her refreshed and watered to her cashmere doggy bed so the Queen could sleep in. The more the Queen slept, the more pleasant she became.
Ditto for sugar, which Her Majesty (loudly and frequently) pretended to eschew. A teaspoon of honey in her pot of Earl Grey worked like magic, especially if I could get a cup into her before eight. My mystery mentor also advised slipping one tiny square of dark, dark chocolate under her regular lunch of three slices of Bibb lettuce and half a cherry tomato. The chocolate would never be acknowledged, but it would never go uneaten, either.
After