Wilbur, Hincho, and Naugle came to collect me at my door. I had successfully avoided them since their arrival but there was no getting around it today. Mr. Hincho tried to make small talk but not too much. The three didn’t press too hard; they knew me better than that. They knew I needed time, and I did, but overhearing Rudolf the night before had softened me. Any way you looked at it, they were in a hard situation. Telling me they were secret bodyguards working for my royal family from a different Earth wasn’t going to go over well.
Rudolf, along with twenty other guards, waited for us in the garden. Claudette was a no show, which didn’t upset me at all. She must have been sleeping off her fun from last night.
Our group walked to the end of the garden and into a glass elevator. As the elevator rose, the rocks changed from larger to smaller and then mixed with steel girders, posts, and concrete. When it stopped, we exited into another lobby with enormous glass doors.
A long ray of sunshine lighted the floor. Real, honest sunlight. I ran toward it. I hadn’t even realized how much I had missed it until the rays touched my skin. The sun warmed my arms and face.
“You ready?” Mr. Wilbur asked.
Outside those doors was a whole different world. A different Earth with a different history, different customs, different everything.
“Hey, kiddo, are you okay?” Mr. Hincho stepped to my side.
I nodded but didn’t move forward.
Mr. Naugle joined me.
“It’s a different world out there,” I explained. “I haven’t even been to a city before and now…”
“I know how you feel, but you’ll be fine. Come on, if you can ace your math SATs, you’ve got this,” Mr. Hincho said.
“You sang with Ms. Sasha on the stage,” Mr. Wilbur added, “and nearly stole the show.”
Mr. Naugle shrugged. “I’ve got nothing, but we’re here and you’ll be fine.”
I smiled. I had missed these three.
After one more breath, I opened the doors.
A warm breeze tickled my cheeks and legs. A car drove by, wheels on pavement. What a disappointment; I thought cars flew here. When I mentioned this, Hincho laughed. “Yeah, works well in the movies but sucks in reality. Imagine a collision at two hundred feet!”
Wilbur leaned his head in. “Your history-loving father would dislike how close this monocratic country is to your own. This one is better. A major improvement.”
“Dad would hate it here.” Especially that the country was being run by Bollard and his family.
Mr. Hincho agreed but added, “I think he’d enjoy watching you as a princess living the royal life.”
He was wrong. There was a reason my dad was an American History teacher. Dad believed in choices and elections. In freedom and enterprise. Here, royals made money from taxes and based on the state of the unused palace, the tax business was making bank.
We walked down the sidewalk.
This being my first city, I didn’t know what to expect. It wasn’t too far from what I’d seen on TV or in the movies. The buildings were a mixture of old and new. Men wore suits and women wore dresses that reminded me of something you’d see in the 1940s or 50s. I smiled at the people passing me by, which Rudolf hated. He’d stop periodically to pull my hat down, muttering something like can’t vet the world.
In fact, if I didn’t know better, I might not have guessed this was a different world; that was, until we neared the restaurant. As we walked along the city sidewalk trees, I saw one of our major differences. Gnawing on the birch leaves was a koala. Koalas are found in Australia, and they sure don’t eat birch.
Rudolf placed his hand on my back to lead me ahead. “We have to keep moving; we don’t want anyone to see you.”
“Am I losing it or is there a koala in that tree?”
“Yeah, sure.” Rudolf didn’t even bother to look, like it was no big deal that a koala was hanging around Boston. “One of the local koalas.”
Hincho piped up. “She doesn’t have koalas in her town.”
I turned to him. “Because that would be a terrible idea. We don’t have the right plants for them to eat.”
“Genetically modified for America and readily available food sources. See his claws?” They were neon green. Naugle said, “Scientist all mark their creations. They glow in the dark. Very cool.”
No. It wasn’t cool. Genetically altered koalas weren’t right.
There was a crowd of people gathered outside the restaurant. The guards surrounded me and drove me through the cluster. I was afraid these people were here for me. It wasn’t all that long ago that hundreds of people had joined us for dinner. So, the fear wasn’t exactly out of place. The crowd wasn’t for me though. In the crowd's center was Claudette in a white suit, all smiles, signing autographs.
A young girl pulled on Claudette’s sleeve. Claudette turned, and the little girl bowed into the sweetest curtesy ever. “Your Highness, it is an honor to meet you.”
After last night, I was afraid to watch what Claudette would do, and I wanted to pull the girl away from my cousin and to safety. Claudette surprised me though; she went to her knees, so she was level with the girl.
“No, it is an honor to meet you. Can I have a hug?”
Watching the two of them together, the strangest thing happened—my emotions shifted. All the fear I’d had of Claudette from the night before disappeared, replaced with awe and a longing to be near her, like she was the nicest, friendliest person in the world.
Wide-eyed, the girl nodded. They hugged gently. Claudette’s eyes were damp when she stood up. “You be a good girl and keep your parents good too.”
The mother waved her hand as if to say, "I’d never be bad." Claudette’s face was dead serious, but the seriousness flitted away as quickly as it came,
