because her mood had quickly soured. “It might be unfair, but that’s how I think of you, Zoe, as the proverbial messenger everyone wants to shoot.”
I had no idea that was how people felt about me. Everyone? I was so shocked that as she flashed one final, triumphant sneer and left, I had to lean against the cold wall to recover.
“Don’t listen to her,” Jess said, coming up and giving me a hug. “She’s just bitter because she knows she’s on thin ice with the Queen, and so she’s taking out her anger on you. You’re awesome.”
It was nice for Jess to say. Unfortunately I suspected Adele’s dig that I was nothing more than the Queen’s henchwoman was truer than my loyal and loving cousin would dare admit. It was quite possible that the other cast members really did secretly despise me just as they despised my boss.
Perhaps rightly so.
I shouldn’t have stopped for a quick breakfast—half a banana, a bite of toast, and a cup of regular non-Jess coffee—because in my effort to not starve, I was slightly behind schedule when I arrived with the Queen’s breakfast and papers.
“You’re late!” she snapped as soon as I pushed open the door. “Put down the tray and come over here. I have a new assignment for you, Zoe, and please don’t prevaricate. Be quick on your toes.”
Her Majesty was on another tear, pacing back and forth in the control room, grumbling, her arms crossed, while Andy the Summer Cast Coordinator alternately pleaded with her to listen to reason and tried not to trip on her train. At least she’d restored her makeup so that she didn’t look so much like a corpse as like a corpse with arched jet-black eyebrows and raw lips.
I did as commanded and put the tray on the wheeled dolly next to her glass desk. Then I stood waiting. The Queen stopped pacing.
“Curtsy!” she commanded.
Really? Now she was making me curtsy, too?
“Come on. Hop to. We have a lot to do today.”
I slid my right foot behind my left, held out the skirt of my dress, bent my knees, and bowed, imitating how the princesses did it during the parade.
The Queen sniffed. “Twirl.”
I had no idea where we were going with this, but I held out my arms anyway and, à la Julie Andrews on a mountaintop, spun around crazily, banging once into the watercooler.
“Not like a runaway weed whacker! Twirl like a princess.”
Oh, no. She couldn’t be thinking . . .
“Twirl!”
So I twirled, hands clasped in front of me in standard Fairyland style.
“She’s not perfect, by any means,” Andy said. “But she’ll do in a pinch.”
“She’s abominable. A yeti in stilettos would be more convincing.” The Queen clapped twice for me to stop.
I stopped and reached for the desk to keep the world from spinning. Twirling and Jess’s over-sugared coffee were not a great combination. Pouring myself into the chair, I said simply, “Why?”
“Rise! I did not give you permission to sit.”
I jumped up while the Queen sat and applied her signature to a letter Evelyn, her secretary, had delivered on official Fairyland stationery. “Zoe, I need you to serve as a temporary stopgap while I engage in a bit of cast reshuffling. If I bring up a girl from Ordinary to sub for Adele, she’ll only get her hopes up.”
Sub for Adele? So that explained why Adele was in our bathroom crying, because she’d been canned—already. “Tell me she’s not being fired for gaining five pounds.”
The Queen folded the letter and shoved it in the envelope. “I will tell you no such thing. I do not discuss personnel matters with interns, even if you are my assistant. Rule Number Fifty-Four-A.” She sealed the envelope by pressing her ring into a glob of black wax. “I will, however, inform you that from now on Adele is an Ordinary Cast Member Class B. To wit, a Character Yet to Be Determined.”
I chewed a nail, fretting that now Adele probably blamed me for her getting fired.
The Queen regarded me sharply. “Take that finger out of your mouth, Zoe Kiefer. Nail biting is a disgusting habit for the insecure and feebleminded.”
Or not, I thought, hiding my hand behind my back so I wouldn’t be tempted.
Sudden movement on monitor #24 caught my attention. It was the display for the camera by Personnel, and it also captured the Box of Whine, where I saw one Jake the Hansel approach clutching something to his chest. He checked over his shoulder once, twice,