To Catch a Prince Read online

  As the lead boat approached, Philip brought his telescope to his eye and proclaimed, “Why, I do think that’s the yacht Prince William is sailing.” Helene had begged a pair of binoculars from May, and she leaned halfway over the ocean to get a look at the boat. But before she could see anyone, Alexis grabbed the glasses from Helene’s hand.

  “Don’t look at what you can’t get,” Alexis said, pushing her sister out of the way. “It will only make you envious. Don’t you know you look like Morticia in that suit?”

  Helene stood on her tiptoes to snatch the glasses back, saying, “It’s not nice to gawk at your future brother-in-law. That’s called incest.” She gasped; the boat was coming so fast.

  Alexis pulled the binoculars away by their strap so they dangled precariously over the water before she clutched them again. Now she could make out three figures. One at the helm. Another adjusting a winch. The third at the prow. They were coming into view. She stood on her tiptoes and kept the glasses away from Helene.

  Helene, in desperation, asked Philip a question, and when he bent down to answer, she snatched his telescope.

  It happened as quickly as a lightning strike, but they each saw it. Each saw him. A white chest. Arms reaching to the mast. Whipped blond hair. He was concentrating ferociously on his job, but both girls swore that when he passed directly in front of the Straw Princess, he turned his head and was momentarily distracted by the sight of them.

  “Hi!” Helene screamed. She was actually talking to him in person!

  “Over here,” shouted Alexis.

  The man who might be William raised his right hand in a royal salute. It was enough to make you faint. Well, that plus heatstroke and seasickness.

  Alexis fell down first. Helene managed to sit down on the wet deck before she blacked out. Next thing the girls knew, they were in the shade of the foredeck, and May and June were pressing cool washcloths to their foreheads. Simon and Laszlo stood over them, offering iced tea.

  “Are you okay?” Simon asked worriedly.

  “You had us scared to death,” Laszlo added.

  “Oh?” Alexis asked, looking at her sister. “I think we’re doing just fine.”

  “Couldn’t be better,” Helene said, picturing William battling the seas, the perfect royal salute.

  Love’s Labors Lost

  “HERE’S HOW IT will work, Simon. You tell Alexis that you want to make sure she doesn’t faint again, and I’ll stay out late on the deck with Helene, showing her the constellations or something. Although knowing Helene, she’ll probably identify more of them than I can.”

  “Why can’t I be the one to stay out late on the deck? I’ll show the stars to Alexis,” Simon retorted. It was after dinner, and the boys had met up in the minuscule kitchen while fetching another iced tea for the girls. They were devising a plan of musical rooms for the evening.

  The commotion over William had been a little regretful. When did you see girls make that kind of fuss over a British guy who wasn’t a Beatle? But Alexis and Helene remained sweet—and hot. And they’d seemed delighted by the grand gesture. Laszlo and Simon were sure that if they just spent some quality time with them, the girls would forget all about the prince.

  In the end, Laszlo’s plan worked beautifully—at first. Alexis had a headache and wanted to go to bed early. A few minutes after she left, Simon followed with a glass of water and two aspirin. He never came back out.

  Helene dropped onto the bed in Laszlo and Simon’s room. Laszlo couldn’t believe his luck. He sat down next to her waiting to make his move.

  And he waited. And waited. Because Helene, rolling onto her back and resting her head on her hands, had started a deep conversation with the ceiling.

  “So I can’t believe I finally saw him,” she was saying. “I mean it really solidified my feelings. Even though I had the original crush on William, I’d started thinking that I kept liking him only to beat Alexis at something. Because she always wins. Especially when it comes to guys. You know?”

  Laszlo nodded. Should he touch her cheek or just lean in for the kiss?

  “But now I realize that the bet is only secondary. What’s real is my feelings for him. And I can’t help but think he might reciprocate. You know when you’ve liked someone for a long time, you start thinking you hear their voice in your head? And you feel so close to them?”

  Laszlo knew. He heard Helene’s voice in his head every day; he saw her quick smile, and he heard her crystal laugh. But now she was right here in his room. And she seemed farther away than ever.

  “I have a serious question, Laszlo,” Helene said, rolling onto her stomach and propping herself up with her elbows. She looked directly into Laszlo’s gray eyes, for so long that he thought for sure she was about to kiss him. But then she said, “What do you think it would be like to be in the public eye like that? I mean, what would it do to you to be under such scrutiny? I think it would make you pretty responsible. More mature. A little sensitive.”

  “Well, I think you’ve answered your own question,” said Laszlo. He believed that such public attention probably made you a stuck-up jerk.

  “It might also make you more alert to the world around you. Like to aesthetics. Don’t you think?” Helene continued. And she didn’t stop talking about William and his worldly life until two in the morning, when she promptly curled away from Laszlo and fell asleep, dreaming of her prince no doubt.

  Meanwhile, a very similar scene was playing out two berths away. Alexis, grateful for the aspirin, perked right up and started talking. About William, of course. How did he learn to steer a yacht like that? Wasn’t he talented? Did Simon think that William wanted to sail all around the world? Alexis really wanted to sail around the world, she explained.

  “Wouldn’t it get claustrophobic?” Simon asked.

  “Not if you’re with the right person,” Alexis said dreamily. “William is definitely the right person. I didn’t know that before. I thought that maybe he was too much of a, uh, player for me.” She laughed embarrassedly. “I mean, I like a man to be a little more serious. To have goals, you know? But now that I saw him on the yacht, I realize how dedicated he is.”

  Simon wanted to scream, I’m serious; I can steer a yacht. My family has its own yacht. It just happens to he off of the coast of Wales right now with my bastard older brother. I’ll take you around the world. I’ll take you anywhere. But instead he just said, “Should I get you some more water? You really were dehydrated.”

  “You’re so sweet,” Alexis said, briefly grazing her fingers over his arm. “Now, if you were William, what would you do after such a victory at sea? Would you take some quiet time in a villa in Italy? Or maybe you’d want a celebration. But where? Where do you think he’s going next?”

  And on and on. Until she fell asleep midsentence. Her last words were: “But what was William wearing?” Frustrated and hurt, Simon counted the tiles in the ceiling. There were ninetythree.

  “I just can’t believe it,” Laszlo said. He was talking to Simon on the aft deck before sunrise. Neither had been able to sleep, and they’d bumped into each other roaming the decks and brooding. “We fly to Malta. We arrange a boat for them. And they respond like this. You know, all summer they acted like they really liked us. It didn’t seem like a game. William was their little game. But I’m beginning to think they were just toying with us, trying to get things out of us. Perhaps they’ve been calculating this whole time. I think they’re using us.”

  Simon sighed and slouched against the railing, defeated. His eyelids were pink from lack of sleep, and his hair stuck up on all sides, much like May’s hat. “Maybe we’re approaching it wrong, Laszlo. I mean, we said earlier we’re not just in this for some snogging. Maybe we are … I mean you are … just mad because Helene wouldn’t put out.”

  “Put out?” Laszlo shouted, causing Simon to look around nervously, but all was quiet and dark around them. “Snogging? Look, Simon, I would have been happy to just hold Helene’s hand. I mean I can�
�t deny that I thought about doing something else. But that’s not what makes me mad. It’s this toying. This using. Have you ever noticed that they’re totally sweet to us, just as long as we keep doing things for them? Especially things that bring them closer to stupid William?”

  Simon held his head. He was determined to reason his way out of this. He was frustrated, true. But he didn’t want to accept what had happened last night. He didn’t want to believe that Alexis really didn’t even see him. “I think we’re taking the wrong approach. We said we liked being their friends. Well, friends listen to each other. Something big happened to them last night, and we listened, like best friends.”

  Now Laszlo slumped onto the wet floor, laying his head on the ground and looking up at the lightening sky. “I have a best friend, Simon. You. You’re my best friend. I don’t need another. When I look at Helene, I don’t think friend.’ I think ‘gorgeous.’ I think ‘perfect.’ I think, ‘That’s the girl for me.’ Can you honestly tell me that when you look at Alexis, you think, ‘Gee, she’d make a great friend. Perhaps we can play cricket now and then?”

  Simon couldn’t deny Laszlo’s logic. When he pictured Alexis the way she looked yesterday in her white bikini and with her long dark hair in a ponytail, cricket was the farthest thing from his mind. “You’re right,” he whispered. “They’ve gone too far.”

  Laszlo was back on his feet, pacing back and forth. “We said we’d make a grand gesture to show them how much we adore them. And they don’t even thank us. I’m beginning to wonder, Simon, if they’re not rather selfish. Are they, despite their obvious charms, just your typical self-centered American girls?”

  The girls woke up at the same time, and both famished—but still beaming about yesterday’s amazing occurrence—they met up in the dining room, where Simon and Laszlo were desperately drinking coffee as if it were water on a desert island.

  “So,” Alexis began, “what hats do you think the Spring sisters will be wearing today? A bas-relief of the island of Malta?”

  “Oh, I know: William’s face made of felt,” Helene exclaimed.

  The boys said nothing. Alexis was wearing a new polka-dot sundress, but Simon wouldn’t look at it. Helene sat so close to Laszlo their arms touched. Laszlo jerked his arm away.

  Helene wondered why both Laszlo and Simon were now so sensitive about hats. She picked up a roll and tried another topic. “I noticed that we’re back in the harbor already. Are we picking up supplies?”

  Again no answer.

  Finally the silence was too much, and Simon said, “We’ll be heading back out, but we’ve arranged for Philip to take you to the airport this morning. Don’t you have a flight?”

  “Well, it’s not until eight this evening,” Alexis said. “I thought we were going to have another day on the boat.”

  “And I thought you were coming back to London with us,” Helene said, offering jam around the table. No one wanted it.

  “Well, we’re not,” Simon said sulkily.

  They ate the rest of their meal in silence.

  Helene felt concerned as she was stuffing her clothes in her backpack and performing her entire beauty regimen by putting on sunscreen and lip gloss. What had they done to piss off the guys? She couldn’t think of anything. Did she look weird? Did Laszlo suddenly decide she was too fat? She pulled off her tank top and put on a large Yeah Yeah Yeahs concert T-shirt. Then she sat on the bed and waited as Alexis carefully folded all her clothes and laid them one by one in her suitcases.

  “I wouldn’t think so much about it,” Alexis said. “It’s morning. They probably didn’t sleep well. You never know what guys get upset about. And it’s never anything a little charm and attention can’t fix.”

  But as the girls were saying good-bye to the boys at the harbor, Alexis began to see that they suffered from more than morning sulkiness. She tried to be bright: “We’ll see you later this week, okay?”

  “This week?” Simon asked, blushing. “I think we’re actually going to be busy this week. All this week.”

  “Friday’s the dance,” Helene said. “We’ll see you then, of course.”

  “Oh,” Laszlo said, not nicely at all, “the dance. Now you want us to take you to the dance so you can get another look at your precious William.”

  “You invited us,” Alexis said. “It’s only logical that we thought you wanted us to go. Don’t you want us to?”

  The moment was tense. Alexis and Helene squinted into the sun to read the boys’ expressions. Simon stared at his feet. Laszlo spotted a red flag on a white building up the street. He didn’t take his eyes off it as he spoke.

  “I think you should consider yourselves uninvited,” he said to the red flag. “We’d rather not go … with you.”

  The Blame Game

  “IT’S ALL YOUR fault.” Alexis dropped her suitcases as they reached Air Malta’s check-in line. She wiped the sweat from her forehead. Philip had left them in the parking lot, and she’d been suffering, carrying her luggage through the hot sun. “Something happened between you and Laszlo last night, and now the guys are taking it out on both of us.”

  “Nothing happened. I don’t understand it at all. But my only guess is that you were not nice to Simon. They’ve decided that we’re both stuck-up and full of ourselves. But it’s not true. It’s just you who’s stuck-up.” Helene groaned as she saw the check-in line. The entire island of Malta seemed to be fleeing at once; the airport was as packed today as the beaches were yesterday, and the line wrapped around on itself like a coiled rope.

  “I had a perfectly nice time with Simon,” Alexis spat back. “Besides, it’s not stuck-up to go after something you want. I wanted to see William, and I did. And if I remember correctly, you agreed that it was the best day of our lives. Better even than meeting Madonna.”

  Helene had said to Alexis yesterday that the bet over William was the coolest thing they ever did. But maybe that was postsighting, postfainting delirium. Now it seemed to have messed everything up. She went over all that happened the night before. She and Laszlo had been looking at the stars. They went into his room. She fell asleep. It must be Alexis, she decided. She did something to make us both look bad. “I had a great time with Laszlo. We just talk—”

  Alexis interrupted her. “Yeah, but did you talk about anything besides Prince William and how thrilled you were to see him?” Alexis had figured out what she’d done to piss off Simon. And she even felt a little bit bad about it. She liked him too much to make him feel second best. Even though he was second best.

  But she wasn’t going to tell Helene what she’d done. Not unless Helene admitted it first.

  “Well, of course I talked about William. I mean we saw him yesterday, remember? Laszlo knows all about the bet. And he’s hoping I win,” Helene said snottily, kicking her backpack forward as the line moved up two whole feet. “Besides, we talked about tons of other stuff too.”

  “Like what?” Alexis started to feel worried. She couldn’t remember a single thing she talked to Simon about besides William.

  “Lots of things. Anyway, I don’t have to defend my actions to you.” Helene felt hot with embarrassment, but she wasn’t going to let Alexis see it. She knew that if she had acted poorly, Alexis had acted worse. That’s just how it always was.

  “You’re always ruining things,” Alexis said, so loudly that a Maltese family turned and stared at them. “You giggled too much when we got Madonna’s autograph. You told Chelsea Clinton you wished you had frizzy hair like hers. You never just act normally. I bet when we finally do meet William, you’ll say such stupid things that he won’t look at either of us.”

  “Fine, Miss Perfect. How about this? I won’t open my mouth anymore.” Helene stared in front of her, trying to keep her tears from showing. She’d lost Laszlo and now Alexis. What was happening to her?

  They kicked their bags. It was a long line. It was going to be an even longer flight. And unless something changed, it was going to be an extremely long two weeks b
efore they returned to Scarsdale.

  Chasing the Devil

  THE HOUSE ON Whittington Place was dark when they returned. A note taped to their bedroom door read:

  Helene, and Alexis-

  Saheed and I are at the Orphan Benefit. We’ve so sorry you couldn’t make it, but we suppose, glastonbury is more interesting to people of your age. Basha has the day off. She left a pork roast in the fridge.

  Aunt Barbara

  “Dinner?” Helene asked, hoping for a truce. The girls still hadn’t spoken since Malta.

  “Not hungry,” Alexis replied, throwing her suitcases on the floor and turning her back to her sister.

  The fight apparently had not ended.

  Helene slammed the door on the way to the kitchen, stomping through the peach, mauve, and horse rooms without bothering to turn on any lights. In the kitchen even Mitsy-pooh was quiet. Helene heard the tick-tock of the grandfather clock and the hum of the refrigerator. She opened its door and stared at the roast, which looked greenish and a little too porcine to be appetizing. And then, making it even less enticing, the roast began to cry.

  Well, something was wailing. Helene heard heaving and sobbing, and it seemed like it was coming from the fridge. Her first thought was, Burglars! But why would burglars break in just for a good cry?

  But then she heard, “Aw, come on, Nicky. Don’t think these fake tears are going to get you out of it. Tonight’s the night. That’s what you told me.”

  Helene knew this voice. She closed the refrigerator door and stood as still as possible, listening.

  “No, that’s not what I told you,” Nichola said, still crying. “I don’t want to.”

  “So you’ve been a tease all this time, Nicky? I’ve been saving myself for you all summer, you know. I haven’t been with another girl. I thought we were going to be each other’s firsts. See, stop crying. It’s scary for me, too. We’ll do it together.”