Princess for Hire

By Melanie Ezell

Daniel Henderson has managed to beat the odds and been accepted into Kingston Academy, one of the best private high schools in the country. However, when Daniel is invited to take part in a special program, he learns that there's more to the school than he had thought...

NOTE: This story is loosely -- as in VERY loosely -- based on the manga/anime "Princess Princess." After the initial concept, any similarities are mostly coincidental, unless they aren't. (Puzzle that out why don't ya.)

Part 8: The Princess's Attendance

-22-

"Mister Henderson, stop talking and pay attention!"

I looked up at Professor Swift and started to explain, "but sir..."

"Now, Mister Henderson. If you want to waste your time visiting with your friends, do so when you are not in my class, do you understand?"

Sarah glanced between the two of us, then gave me a light hug. "We can finish this later," she said, then waved to Professor Swift and left the room.

"Now that everyone is ready, shall we return to the lesson at hand before our distraction?"

I wanted to say something, anything, to the jerk standing at the head of the classroom, but I held my tongue and settled back in my seat. Who was he to pick on me in front of the entire class? Sarah had given him the note explaining why she needed to speak to me, and we had not been more than a couple of minutes when he had started in. While I could understand him not wanting his classroom time taken up, he could have just asked us to step out.

It was just another in a long line of actions I had witnessed Professor Swift perform that were unnecessarily mean toward either me or the princess program in general. Of all the teachers, he was the only one who objected to our occasionally having to leave class to prepare for our Princess duties, yet he did not hold the sports teams to the same standard. He would always try and find something wrong with out uniforms to get us in trouble when he would see us in the halls, and on more than one occasion I had heard that he had actually tried to prevent us from being allowed to attend his classes if we were dressed as Princesses.

I could not help but wonder what kind of absurd reason he had for hating us so, and I was determined to find out.

Even Algebra with Professor Cooper was not enough to keep me from thinking on the issues with Professor Swift, and I was distracted through my entire class. By the time etiquette class rolled around, I was thoroughly obsessed with finding out what his problem really was.

"Do you know why Swifty has such a problem with the Princess program members?" I asked Andrew as he pulled out my seat and gestured for me to sit.

"I dunno, Jules never said. She just always complained about him being a jerk."

I nodded as I took his hand to stand up again.

"Good!" The old bat called as she came toward us from across the room. "Did you all see how graceful miss Henderson was, and how gallant young mister Stone looked? That is why you must learn proper manners and etiquette. Everyone follow their example!"

I gave Andrew my "I hate it when she does that" look, and he answered me with his "I do too" look, an exchange we had shared many times since the etiquette class had been expanded to include the non-Princess program boys three weeks earlier. It being only another week and a half until Parents Day, and then the Thanksgiving break, I felt the school had cut it rather close if they wanted the guys to look natural using said manners in front of their parents, especially considering it had been deemed necessary that those of us playing the roles of Princesses needed almost two months more practice. Ever since "the boys" had joined, as those of us in the Princess program had taken to calling them, each day the old bat, whose name I could never remember, would pick a couple to stay together the entire class and demonstrate exactly what and what not to do.

For some reason, Andrew and I had quickly become her favorite targets, something Sarah, Leslie, and Jules all had an absolute blast teasing us over.

"Now, for those of you still having trouble with this most basic of..."

I tuned her out and quietly asked Andrew, "so what do you think we should do? I'm really getting tired of dealing with him in class."

"You could always ask the Head if he could change your schedule."

I shook my head. "That would just put things off until later. If I've got to deal with him, I'll get it out of the way early, but I'd much rather find out what's going on."

He gave me a funny look. "What's up with you and the Nancy Drew act all of a sudden?"

I smirked and poked him in the shoulder. "I just figured I needed another outlet since I'm not using you for an emotional punching bag any more."

"Thank god," he said, giving me a smile.

I think we were both relieved that the tension between us had relaxed so much. After Leslie and Sarah's less than subtle attempt to get us to talk on the trip into town, I had made a concerted effort to watch myself carefully for any signs of quote unquote "bitchiness." It had gone well so far, and after a while even Andrew's discomfort with seeing me as a girl seemed to have lightened up a great deal, an outcome I found more than worth the effort of keeping my own attitude in check.

By the end of class, though, we had come no closer to coming up with any ideas for how to find out what Professor Swift's problem was. With Drama being our next class, we knew we would not have any time there to plan anything, Professor Grumby already hard at work preparing us for our next production after the abysmal failure of West Side Story. Thankfully "Macbeth" required little in the way of singing or dancing, leaving less room for error outside of line readings, but that alone was enough of a problem for most of the class thanks to the archaic language of Shakespeare.

Instead, we planned to meet later that evening after dinner with a few of the others to see who, if anyone, had some idea of what was going on. If nothing else, it would give us a better place to start our search for answers, not to mention make everybody's days a little bit easier.

-23-

"Does it really matter?" Jules asked us. "From what I've heard Ol' Swifty's always been that way, even before the Princess program was started. I'm not going to say he didn't get worse with it, but what are we supposed to do about it?"

I looked at him, surprised at his unwillingness to take action. "Don't you think it's unfair how he treats us?" I looked around us, waving to the crowd of Princesses and Protectors. "Who of us hasn't had to deal with him being a jerk?"

"Exactly," Jules said smugly. "EVERYONE gets it, not just the Princesses. It's just the way he is."

I growled in frustration. "Yes, but WHY? Hasn't anybody complained about it?"

He shrugged.

"Don't you care?" I asked.

"Hey, I just want to finish school and have some fun why I'm here." Jules frowned. "I've stayed with the Princess program because it's kind of fun messing with people's heads, even when they're expecting it. Otherwise, what's the point?"

"The money."

"The girls."

"The clothes."

"Who knows?"

"Exactly," Jules said when everyone else had quieted down.

I rubbed my temples, hoping that would help to ease the headache that was starting to form. Then, without warning, I had an idea.

"Oh, no. What evil scheme are you planning now?" Jules asked with a weary look when he saw my smile.

"You like messing with people's heads, right?"

"Duh."

I felt my smile grow wider. "And what would mess with people's heads more than seeing Ol' Swifty being brought down a peg or two instead of being allowed to lord his authority over us like he does now?"

Apparently my smile was infectious, because a similar one began to sprout on Julian's lips.

"Wait a second, guys," Amos said, stepping out from the wall he had been leaning on and walking toward us. "I don't think this is such a good idea. If we go snooping around and asking questions about Professor Swift, he's bound to find out. All it will do is make him angrier."

"Wouldn't that be part of the fun, though? The danger?" Jules said, taking up the argument on my behalf.

I sighed and settled into a seat, prepared to let the two of them take over. There was a gentle nudge from my right.

"That was pretty sneaky, you know."

"What was?" I asked as innocently as I could.

"Convincing my brother that it'd be fun to do this crazy idea of yours so he'd handle the others."

"Did I do that? I wasn't aware."

In my peripheral vision I could see Andrew shaking his head. "You're something else, you know that?"

"I try to be."

We spent the next half hour watching Jules slowly convince the others to work with us on finding out what to do about Professor Swift. Someone would raise an objection, or bring up an issue, and Jules would find a workaround or through sheer charisma convince the others that it would not be an issue. Meanwhile, I simply sat back and watched it all unfold.

I felt a little guilty about manipulating the situation, but I also knew that Jules would have an easier time convincing the others to work together. There were still a few of the Princesses I hardly knew, while it always seemed that Jules had some kind of secret file on all of us of embarrassing stories or gossip. If anyone could convince you it was in your best interest to listen to them, it was Jules, and I was more than surprised I had been able to manipulate him as easily as I had.

"And you," he said, pointing to me after having talked all the others into agreeing to help.

"Me?"

"Yes, you. Don't think I don't know what you did earlier. I'm keeping an eye on you from now on." The others had already begun to file out, and he followed them, looking at me and pointing back and forth between us the entire time until at last only me, Andrew, and Sarah were left in the room.

"I feel sorry for you if this goes badly," Sarah said, her face blanched.

I simply nodded. The fact that Julian had still been smiling had been little comfort.

-24-

"I'm sorry I got you in trouble today."

"Don't worry about it."

"No, I mean, I should have known better than to do that when you had a class with Professor Swift."

I looked into my mirror and back at Sarah. "It needed to happen. No biggie. Besides, we need to finish the plans, otherwise we'll never be ready in time for Parent's Day."

She sighed, but did not look into the mirror or into my eyes. Instead, she turned her attention back to my hair.

"Can I do pigtails again?"

"You ALWAYS do pigtails," I harrumphed.

"Because you look good in pigtails."

"Oh, alright."

"Yay!" She said happily, clapping her hands and bouncing up and down.

I was less than enthused, myself, though I knew I should have expected it when I had agreed to let her play with my hair. Since the administration had decided to have of all things a pep rally the next day, though, including the bright idea of having us Princesses wear our cheerleader uniforms to class, Sarah had been excited about making as many of us look like authentic high school cheerleaders as possible.

I thought it was just an excuse for her to have fun doing something stereotypically girly, but it made her so happy I never had the heart to tell her no.

"So how are Rupert and Brandon doing under your expert tutelage?" I asked her, trying to restart the conversation that had suddenly stopped.

She laughed. "Well, Rupert seems to know almost as much about makeup and things as me, when you can convince him to actually share any information. Brandon... I'm still not sure about. He acts interested, up until it comes to actually learning all the information, then he gets frustrated if he doesn't get it the first time."

"And Wendy?"

"She's been working with Kylie more than me. They seem to have really hit it off, but I don't talk to them much."

I nodded, having begun to realize myself that even within the Princess program there were small cliques and groupings that had more in common with one another.

"What about you? You've been talking to Rupert a lot yourself."

I shrugged. "I think it's interesting how much he likes dressing as a girl, and how good he is at it."

"Kinda like you?"

I shook my head, causing her to complain when the pigtails flew into disarray.

"Sorry. No, he's not like me. I mean, not really."

I saw the smirk grow on her face in the mirror, but I ignored it. Despite what she might think, I had in fact been giving thought to what I thought of dressing as a girl pretty much constantly since joining the program. I was sure that I did not enjoy it in the same way that Rupert did, but talking to him and getting another perspective on things, from someone who did not necessarily want me to like dressing as a girl but did themselves, had begun to help me piece together my own feelings.

"I was also pretty surprised at you with that meeting this afternoon."

"Yeah, I'd thought it would be harder to convince Julian to go along with it."

"Nah, I knew you could do it. You've got more feminine wiles than you care to admit, and Jules has always liked playing pranks and getting into trouble," she said, soliciting a sharp "ow!" from me when she pulled on a particularly stubborn tangle. "I meant more that you wanted to take action to begin with. I had figured you more for the kind to sit back and deal with things as they come."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

I was quiet for a moment, thinking about how to answer her.

"Not that it's a bad thing," she said.

I reached up and scratched my nose, buying time before answering her.

"I think," I finally started, "it's because I feel like I need to DO something, you know?"

She shook her head while I struggled to find a better way to say it. In the end I gave up.

She finished my hair, and gave the pigtails a couple of playful bats before proudly proclaiming "done!"

I looked in the mirror, turning my head left to right and admiring her work with the school color ribbons entwined in my hair. "You realize, of course, I'll never be able to do this in the morning."

"I'll help!"

I had expected as much.

"And I think we should use the same style with the dresses we're wearing on Parent's Day."

"Ugh, please don't remind me," I complained, my mind rebelling against the vision of lace and ruffles and who knows what the tailors had worked up for our Parent's Day dresses.

She giggled as she collected her hair supplies and headed for the door that lead through the bathroom between my room and Leslie's. "Now I get to work on my boyfriend's hair!"

"What are you planning for him?" I asked.

She giggled again. "Oh, trust me, I have something REALLY special planned for her!"

I was unsure whether to feel Sorry for Leslie or not as Sarah's giggled died away with the closing of the door.

(End of Part 8)

Notes: This week's chapters are brought to you courtesy of Tom Servo and the rest of the MST3K crew. I found this site called justin.tv, and there's a user there with a channel that shows nothing but user requested episodes of MST3K 24/7, which I've had playing in the background while writing. So many bad movies, so little time to mock them. *sigh*

Hopefully the quality of the chapters this week is better than last week's. This part comes between some of the more interesting events of the story, so it's not as interesting as a lot of the others will be, but it needed to happen to move things forward. Trust me, it will all make sense and fit when we get to the end :)

And, as always, if you comment, more will come. IF YOU COMMENT, MORE WILL COME.

Melanie Ezell

PS: Special thanks for the ideas for the Parent's Day costumes goes to Princess Chelsea. While I'm keeping the exact details quiet for now, the next part is for you!