Page 22 of Her Royal Highness
“Ahhhh, that’s right, now things make a bit more sense.”
“What does that even mean?” I ask, and Flora flicks a piece of lint from her uniform.
“Just that you’re probably not used to views like this.”
Okay. Well, that’s... true, but it still sounded suspiciously mean, so I turn away from her.
Maybe if I don’t say anything, she’ll go away? Surely being ignored is Flora’s worst fear.
So I stare and ignore while Flora stands and looks at me, and I can practically hear her mind whirring as she searches for some kind of baiting comment. We’ve mostly stayed out of each other’s way this first week, but there’s definitely tension brewing in our room. I still don’t know what she meant by that whole “not going to be her roommate much longer” comment, and I haven’t bothered to ask.
Finally, Flora just rolls her eyes and starts half-heartedly jogging up the path.
“Can already tell this is going to be a thrilling semester,” she calls out, sarcasm practically dripping from her mouth.
Once the torture portion of the morning is over and I’m showered and back in my uniform, I go to my first class of the day, European history with Dr. Flyte. He appears to be about ninety thousand years old, which is maybe why he’s so good at history—he’s lived it all.
It’s taken me the past week to begin to understand Dr. Flyte’s accent. He’s English, not Scottish, but every word comes out of a clenched jaw, and he’s never met a vowel he didn’t like to stretch out way past its natural shape. Now, as he stands in front of the class, hands clasped behind his back, his eyebrows about to take flight, I look down at my notebook, scratching out the “????” after “William” to add “the Conqueror.”
Dr. Flyte keeps droning, and I keep listening as closely as I can, but it’s hard to do when I still want to look around me.This class is in what I guess used to be a study. The windows face the inner courtyard of the house, so not much light gets through. There are only a couple of lamps on in the room, adding to the whole gloomy feel, and while we sit in fairly regular desks, there’s no whiteboard or projector, no flag hanging near the door, no posters reminding us of important historical dates. It’s like the only effort they made to make this place a school was to drop some desks in and call it a day.
And I like it.
Class wraps up, and today’s notes only have a few of those “????s” in them, so I’m considering that a win as I head out into the hall, only to suddenly find myself surrounded by Glamazons.
Okay, maybe “surrounded” is unfair when there are just two of them, but they’re still extremely tall and extremely shiny of hair, and as I look up at them, I realize they’re the two girls I most often see hanging around Flora.
“Hi,” I say, pointing between them. “Just need to scooch by—”
But the brunette moves in closer to the blonde, cutting off my escape.
So it’s like that.
“Caroline,” the blonde one says, “isn’t this the sad little American who took Rose’s spot?”
“Hmmm,” the brunette muses, pretending to think it over. “Do you know what, Ilse? I think it is!”
A handful of people are still moving past us, and I glance up, hoping to see Sakshi or Perry in the mix. Or reallyanyone who doesn’t look like a supermodel determined to Mean Girl me.
But everyone who passes us seems to be very aggressively not looking in our direction, and I realize I’m on my own here.
“I’m pretty sure I didn’t take anyone’s place,” I say, then attempt the scooch maneuver again. “So I’ll just scooooooch—”
“They only offer one full scholarship a year, did you know that?” Caroline asks. Up close, her features are a little too sharp to call her beautiful, but there’s something about the way she holds her shoulders back, chin lifted, that makes her seem more impressive than she is.
“I didn’t,” I say now, still looking for a way around them. Being New Millie Who Confronts People has only gotten me into trouble thus far, so it’s back to Millie Who Avoids This Kind of Thing from here on out.
But I couldn’t help adding, “I earned that scholarship, but I’m sorry that—”
Scoffing, Ilse steps closer. “Earned.Rose’s family has sent students to Gregorstoun since its inception. This is the first year there hasn’t been a Haddon-Waverly at Gregorstoun.”
“Thanks to you,” Caroline adds. “She was devastated when she found out they’d decided to give the scholarship to some little upstart from nowhere.”
I gape at them. I can’t help it.Upstart?Are we in Victorian times? Do they think I was selling flowers on a street corner somewhere?
“Why would one of your friends need a scholarship anyway?Don’t you people have tons of money because of... peasants? And oppression?”
Caroline’s lips thin as she folds her arms over her chest and glares down at me. “You really have no idea how anything works, do you?”
