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 14: A Princess And Her Prince

-40-

"Really?"

"Uh, yeah, sorry."

"Oh. Well, okay then. Umm... sorry for bothering you." The boy turned away from me and hurried away down the hall, leaving me standing there very much embarrassed myself.

Sarah's gaze jumped between me and his retreating back while she asked in a puzzled tone, "does that happen often?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

"Wow."

"Come on, we'll be late for class if we don't hurry," I said, wishing to think about something, anything, other than what had just happened.

"He was kinda cute, though."

"Sarah, can we please just, I dunno, NOT talk about it."

"Okay," she said. "For now," she added with a wicked smile.

I groaned, but by the time I came up with a response she had already split off for her own class.

I focused my entire mind on Professor Cooper's lecture about conic sections, and did my best not to let my thoughts wander to what had happened. It was the same procedure I followed every time that it happened, and it was facing the same downfall as well -- I just could not keep from thinking about it.

Why me? He could have asked anyone else in the Princess program -- all of us were dressed today, as cheerleaders again no less thanks to another pep rally -- but he had chosen me. Why?

Did I just LOOK like I liked boys, or what?

"Excuse me, Miss Henderson, but if you could please pay attention," Professor Cooper asked me with a smile on his face, making me blush and stutter out an apology when I realized I had been staring out the window instead of following his work.

It was not long though before my mind began to wander again.

What had made it worse, I thought, was that it was the third time in a week that someone had asked me out, the fifth overall since coming back from Thanksgiving vacation. It seemed the longer the Princess Program ran, the more often it happened. By the time I reached my senior year, would this happen daily?

I prayed desperately that that would not be the case.

"What's eating you?" Andrew asked me when he saw me sit down.

"Nothing."

"Come on, spill. We've got time."

I looked around. He was right, of course. Our etiquette lessons had ended the week before, leaving all of us with a study hall for the next two weeks, to be replaced with some kind of "Life Planning" course next semester. I caught sight of Sarah and Leslie already making their way over to our table, and resigned myself to having to explain things.

"Well?" Sarah asked the moment she sat down, and I could tell by the sly grin on Leslie's face that she already knew what had happened.

"What do you want me to say?"

"What happened?" Andrew asked.

Before I could answer Sarah jumped in. "Becky got asked out on a date today."

"Again?"

Sarah went silent as Andrew turned toward me, fighting back a laugh.

"It's not funny, Andrew," I said, hoping that I was not pouting as much as it felt like I was.

"But that's gotta be the third time this-"

"Week. Yes. I know."

At last, my unhappiness penetrated his sense of humor, and he became far more serious.

"This is really bothering you, isn't it?"

I started to give an adamant "yes," but hesitated. "I... kind of."

Sarah gave me a curious look. "Why? Just because they ask doesn't mean anything."

Andrew turned to Sarah. "I think I might know part of the reason."

"And?" Sarah egged him on, when he paused.

He looked at me, asking for permission, and I nodded.

"This is the first time this month it's happened when she was dressed as a girl."

"So?" Sarah asked, then Got It. "Oh. So the others were asking you as a guy."

I shook my head. "They were asking out Becky, not Beck or Daniel."

"But you were dressed as a guy?" Leslie asked, her first words in the conversation.

"Yeah."

"Ah."

"But what's the problem?"

I shook my head, but when I looked at Sarah, she honestly looked as though she did not understand the issue. Even after all of our conversations, she still had to work at it not to think of me as a girl.

I tried to form into words all my frustrations, everything that was bothering me, but I could not do it. Instead, I said, "I'll let you know when I figure it out."

-41-

I continued to be distracted all through dinner. No matter what anyone said or did, I constantly found myself slipping back into my own head, trying to work things out and still unable to clarify what my problem was. Finally, I had had enough, and took my tray to put away. When I turned around, however, there stood Andrew, waiting for me.

"Come on," he said, gesturing toward the door. "We need to talk."

"O...kay?" I said, unsure, but I followed him out. Instead of turning toward the dorms, he headed down one of the darkened halls, toward the classrooms. When we at last stopped, I realized with a shock that we were in the same alcove we had used to talk after the Alumni banquet, but quickly shoved that night out of my mind.

"So, what did you want to talk about?" I asked him.

With a sigh, Andrew placed his back against the wall and slid down until he was sitting on the floor. From that angle he could have seen up my skirt if I were not careful, so as best I could I slid myself to the floor across from him.

"Do you like guys or girls?"

Just as carefully as I had sat down, I stood back up. "Is that what this is all about?" I asked him.

He shook his head, but made no move to rise. "No, I just wanted to know."

I sat back down, but did not look at him. "I don't know, alright?"

He nodded. "But you don't like being asked out?"

"It's not that. It's flattering, it's just..."

"Just what?"

The thoughts I had been having all day finally coalesced, and I had my answer. "I just want to know it's ME they want to date."

"Huh?" Andrew asked, seeming to be genuinely thrown by my answer. Now that I had finally figured it out myself, though, I knew I could explain it, and grinned triumphantly.

"Everyone who has asked me out hasn't asked me as Daniel, or even as Beck. They've asked me as Becky. How many of them do you think would want to go out with me if they saw me as a boy? And before you say anything, yes, some of them have asked me out when I was dressed in my boy's clothes, but they always called me 'Becky.' We both know most people don't pay any attention to how I'm trying to present." I tried to hide the bitterness in my voice in that last sentence, but knew I had failed miserably.

"So you want a guy to ask you out as a guy?"

I huffed. "That's not it either. It's just... whoever asks me out, I don't want them to care about if I'm a guy or a girl, I want them to ask ME. Does that make sense?"

"...No."

I sighed. "Don't worry about it."

We sat there in the dark, neither of us saying anything and neither of us moving, each alone in our thoughts. Now that I had figured out what my problem was, it made dealing with my feelings about saying no easier, though it also brought along the question of whether I would have accepted if they had asked me out as a guy.

"You know, Beck..." Andrew said, shifting nervously.

"Yeah?"

"If you wanted people to stop asking you out, uh... jeez."

"What?"

"We could, well, I could, I mean, if you wanted to."

"WHAT?" I asked again, when he failed to continue.

"Well, I mean. Heck, we could always say we're dating." Even in the darkness, I could see the blush covering his face.

I fought the urge to laugh. Would that not be just too perfect? Tell everyone who had been saying we were dating for so long that yes, they were right, we were going out? But looking at Andrew, without any hint of a joke showing on his face, I knew he was serious.

"You're serious?" I asked. You can never be too sure.

"Yeah?"

I thought about it for a moment, until I had an idea.

"Stand up."

"Huh?"

"Stand up!" I repeated, waving my arms upward. When he finally did so, I stepped right in front of him and looked up into his face. "I'm a girl right now, right?" I asked, with as stern an expression as I could muster.

He looked down at me, confused. "Okay?"

"So if we were to do that, that would make me?"

"My... girlfriend?" He asked, as though he thought it were the answer but could not be sure.

"But tomorrow I'll be a guy. And we'll still be doing the pretend-dating thing. Which will make me?"
I waved my hands to urge him on.

He pondered it for a moment. "My... boy... friend?"

Bingo! "And this would be okay with you?" I asked him. It was the moment of truth.

He shrugged, still wearing his confused look. "You're still you."

At last, I let out the laugh I had been holding in and stepped to his side, wrapping my arm around his.

"So what just happened?" He asked, looking around us as though there would be someone with a camera waiting in the shadows.

"You won," I said. "We're officially pretend dating."

"Oh! Uh, great?"

"Now walk me to my room," I said, stepping out into the hall.

He followed me slowly at first, but it was not too long before he finally worked out what had happened, and laughed himself, getting into the game. Both of us already knew; this was going to be a blast.

-42-

As we walked down the hall between classes, his arm around my shoulder and chatting to one another quietly, it was amazing to watch the faces of all my fellow students as we passed.

Word had spread quickly, and by the end of they day I doubted there was anyone who had not heard. We had made it official. Andrew and I were dating.

Of course, there were a few people who we had decided the night before on the walk back needed to know the truth. Sarah, Leslie, and Bobby were on that list. We had debated on whether or not to tell Jules, but in the end we had decided that he would either not believe we were pretending or not approve for some reason, and so had decided to let him be fooled along with the rest.

As for me, I felt a sense of relief, at the same time as I had an odd feeling of... excitement? Relief, because I no longer had to worry about turning others away if they asked. After all, I was already taken, so anyone who would ask knowing that would be someone who I would not want to consider anyhow. Excitement, possibly from the thrill of pulling wool over the eyes of the entire school population.

The most amazing part was how little we had to change to pull it off. We walked a little closer, we would touch one another on the arm or smile at one another a little more often, and that was enough. We never out and out held hands, or even hugged that first day, but what we did was enough to tell everyone around; I was off limits. I was Andrew's girl.

It was absolutely hilarious, until after Drama.

We were on our way back to the dorms, and as an added bit of proof for our bit Andrew had given me his spare blazer that morning to wear instead of my own. It absolutely dwarfed me, but I was finding that an advantage in the chilly mid-December air as we crossed the quad. His arm was around my shoulder as well, further sheltering me from the cold wind, and we were both huffing and shivering when at last we reached the dorm building.

"It's freezing out there!"

"Really," he said, blowing on his hands as he tried to wring some warmth into them. "You want something to warm up?"

I nodded, "Sure," and started walking toward the small kitchenette in the dorm hall.

We were not allowed to have a full kitchen in the building, but the school had made sure that each floor of the dorm hall was outfitted with an area with a microwave and a sink, as well as a few basic dishes like cups and silverware. When we came to the counter, Andrew reached into his pocket and pulled out two packets.

"Instant apple cider," he said with a grin when he saw my curiosity. We each grabbed a cup and filled them with hot water before setting them in the microwave. When they were steaming hot, we took them to one of the nearby couches and poured in the mixes before stirring them.

For a while, I just sat there with the cup in my hands, luxuriating in the warmth as it spread up. At last, though, I took a drink.

"Mmm, that's good," I said. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

I turned toward Andrew, to start talking about classwork, or our little charade, or anything really, only to find him looking at me intensely. My words died on my lips when I saw him looking at me.

'What is he doing,' I vaguely wondered as I took another drink of my cider. He looked away, and sat his own cup on the table before turning back to me.

He looked as though he wanted to say something, the frustration evident on his face as he seemed to fight with something.

Then he kissed me.

(End of Part 14)

END NOTES:

This is probably another one of those parts that, like the Halloween one, I will end up going back later and expanding. Parts of it seem to move too fast, but I'm out of time if I want to make my deadline for the week, SO *shrug*.

People have probably been expecting something like this to happen for a while. It was kind of inevitable, wasn't it? And, whaddaya know, with only one post left to go before the beginning of Christmas break. Won't THAT make for an exciting chapter?

I seemed to have a bit more trouble capturing some of the characters right this time around. If it's too jarring, let me know. Hmm.

Melanie E.

If you comment, more will come. IF YOU COMMENT, MORE WILL COME.