Page 33 of Her Royal Highness
“The thought had crossed my mind. Especially since it’s clear we’re together for the long haul.”
I flop down on my bed, crossing my legs at the ankle. “You know, this place isn’t so bad. I don’t get why you hate it.”
“Because my life isn’t here,” she replies, tossing the tapeonto her own bed. “My life is in Edinburgh with my family and my friends, and people I actually enjoy spending time with. My brother is getting married in three months, and I should be there, not... not hidden away up here like an embarrassing relation.”
Put that way, I get why she might be a little pissed, and I open my mouth to say so, but before I can, she mutters, “This is boring. I’m going to go see what Caroline is doing.”
And for the second time that day, I watch Flora flounce away.
CHAPTER15
“This seems bad.”
Saks, Perry, and I stand outside on Monday morning, huddled together against the chill. Normally, this is when we do our laps, but this morning, we’ve all been told to gather on the shores of the loch behind the school.
There are a bunch of brightly colored wooden boats on the beach there, oars balanced across them, and I have an idea of what today’s physical fitness is going to look like.
Sure enough, Dr. McKee comes to stand in front of us, dressed in a dull green tracksuit with the Gregorstoun crest over her heart. Her hair is pulled back in a high ponytail, and her cheeks are ruddy with the cold and, I think, excitement. A silver whistle dangles around her neck, and she’s practically bouncing on the balls of her feet.
“Students!” she calls out. “This morning, we have a real treat for you!”
“This is not a treat,” Saks says in a low voice, vaguelymutinous. “Those boats are the opposite of treats, those boats are—”
“Tricks?” I supply, and Saks looks over at me, hugging her arms tight around her body.
“I was going to say ‘turnips,’ but yes, I see where tricks makes more sense.”
“How did turnips makeanysense?” I ask, but Saks is looking at Dr. McKee now, who’s gesturing to the boats.
“As you know,” she says, “the Challenge is merely a few weeks away. Consider this your warm-up. You’ll be teaming up with your roommate, and whoever makes it across the loch and back first wins.”
Ugh. Rowing a boat with Flora?
I look over to see where she is, and no surprise, she’s standing between Caroline and Ilse, all three of them managing to make their own Gregorstoun tracksuits look better than they should.
Mr. McGregor steps forward then. He’s wearing his usual uniform of heavy sweater and pants of an indeterminate color, his white hair bushy around his head, his beard looking especially dense this morning.
“And the winners of this race,” he says, hefting up an ornate wooden box, “will receivethese.”
He flips up the latch to reveal—
“Antique dueling pistols handed down the McGregor family for over—”
“Ohhhh no,” Dr. McKee says, moving forward with her hand outstretched. “No, no, no, no one is winning those, Mr. McGregor, despite their... obvious value.”
Mr. McGregor’s eyebrows take on a life of their own as hescowls at her, but he closes the box with only a little bit of grumbling.
“No, the winners,” Dr. McKee says to all of us in a louder voice, “will receive a free dinner at the Bayview Inn restaurant in the village.”
“The pistols are probably less deadly,” Perry mutters next to me.
I have no desire to win a dinner outora pair of antique pistols, but I like to win on principle, so I’m practically rubbing my hands together in anticipation as Mr. McGregor hands us all ancient life jackets and directs us to the boats along the shore.
Flora flops down into ours without a second look at me, sitting on the bench with her chin in her hands as she looks around.
“Do you want to lend a hand?” I ask her.
“Not really,” she replies, and I bite back a lot of comments to that, concentrating instead on shoving us out from the shore.
