Page 11 of Royal Catch
My parents barely notice.
~ ~ ~
Anna
I’m sitting on the folded-up raft, watching the women’s wrestling show in the water with a mixture of horror and fascination as the claws and teeth come out. Someone screams as her hair is pulled. So much hair pulling. Scratching, biting, slapping, and kicking too. It’s brutal. Someone rips a shirt, the buttons pinging off into the water.
“Anyone catch anything?” I call during a pause in the action.
The red-haired princess holds up her net triumphantly and there’s a small silver fish wriggling in there. Marguerite snatches the net from her and tosses her an empty net in return.
“You bitch!” Red Hair screeches.
The two go down swinging into the shallow water. Hopefully nobody drowns; otherwise I’ll have to do CPR. I’m all Red Cross certified from my previous job as a lifeguard. I keep it up. You never know when it’ll come in handy.
I wiggle my feet deeper into the sand and feel something hard, much bigger than a shell. I kneel down and dig around a bit. A treasure! I pull out a box containing an air pump, the kind you pump with your foot. The servant dropped the raft right over it. They must’ve thought we’d stumble upon it as we worked together to get this raft thing going. I hook the tube into the valve and start pumping. “You guys! I got the air pump. It’ll be easier to fish if we can take it out to the inlet. Dig around in the sand; maybe there’s some paddles too.”
There’s a brief pause in the action before the women go back to their fierce, clumsy battle for fish.
I keep pumping. It’s a pretty good pump and inflates the raft faster than I thought it would. An hour later, I’m drenched in sweat, my legs are burning from the workout of pumping this thing, but I’ve got the raft fully inflated. I’m too tired to dig around in the sand for paddles, if there even are any. The women are scattered around, some of them still trying for fish, a few just sitting in the shallow water, their nets out in case a fish happens to swim in. A few of the princesses are floating on their backs past the waves.
I toss my net and basket into the raft and drag it to the water. “Hop in. I’ll bet there’s lots of fish over by the inlet. We’ll paddle with our hands.” I hold it steady as everyone clambers in, some of them flopping like fish into the bottom of it. I push off and climb in with them. And it works! We’re paddling with our hands and moving in the right direction.
We make it to the inlet, a sheltered spot of sea between some rocky cliffs. I can see the fish just below the surface. Jackpot!
The princesses must be tired because they sit listlessly, their nets in the water. I’m tired too from all that pumping action, but I need to catch up. The most that’s been caught by a princess are three little fish. All I have to do is beat three.
I lean over, looking for a school of fish, hoping to scoop them in one swish, when someone knocks me into the water. “Ahhh!”
I bob to the surface and shove my mop of curls out of my face. “What the hell? After I pumped that raft for you all? Who pushed me?”
The women stare at me. They look like savages, a bedraggled grim lot with their clothes soaked through, their hair a mess from salt water and the previous hair pulling. Nobody fesses up.
Every survival instinct I have kicks into play. They want me off the raft? Then I’ll fish from here in the water, better than they could. I hang onto the raft with one hand and fish as deep as I can reach, slowly moving my net through the water.Come on, little fishie, swim a little closer.
A tug alerts me I’ve got something. I scoop it toward the surface. Holy crap. It’s big, thrashing around in my net, and I can barely hang on. Its mouth has snaggly fangs. I toss it into the raft, where it flops around. The princesses scream, rushing to get away from it. Next thing I know, half of them tip into the water, scrambling too far on the other side of the raft.
The women still in the raft cackle with glee. Nothing like competition to bring out the best in women.
I smile to myself and go back to fishing. I catch something small and leave it in there as bait.
By the time a large motorized raft pulls up to rescue—err, to call a halt to the competition—I’ve caught one biggie and four little fish. I climb into our much smaller raft to snag the big fish I’d tossed in earlier, but it’s gone. A quick scan of the other women’s baskets tells me someone tossed my big fish overboard.
A crew member helps us onto the bigger raft along with our nets and baskets. The smaller raft is tied to it for a tow. Gabriel and the queen are nowhere to be found. We’re deposited back on shore, where three men wait—two serious-as-hell security guards and the servant who gave us the raft.
The servant approaches. “Ladies, please place your baskets in front of you.” He inspects the line of us, counting the fish.
Marguerite, who can’t swim, who spent half her time stealing other people’s fish, wins with five fish and a fish head, which shouldn’t count. I underestimated her with her angelic looks. I’ll have to keep a close eye on that one.
She smiles demurely, still looking angelic despite her raggedy appearance after an afternoon of sun, sand, salt water, and bitch fighting.
The losers are two women who have one fish each. They’re immediately escorted away by security.
Was it a coincidence that there were two security guards dispatched for the two women eliminated? Or were we being watched the whole time?
~ ~ ~
Later that night, after we’ve all had a chance to wash up and refresh, we’re informed we’ll be joining the queen and crown prince for dinner in the royal dining room. Now this is more like it! The true royal experience is finally happening. The fact that it hasn’t been so far—the princesses are savages, the queen doesn’t approve of me, and the crown prince is no prince charming—does nothing to dim my hopes for a royal dinner. I’m a cockeyed optimist, but guess what? It’s gotten me this far in life, and I’m pretty happy with where I’m at.
