My Weird Secret Life

Chapter 16: The Beautiful Woman

I had never noticed how dumb I was. Saying no to going on a date with the queen's son? He'd probably never been rejected before! That's why he looked at me with such perplexation (don't think that's a word)! Not that I wanted to go on a date with him anyway, I mean it's not that I didn't think maybe this dude was a good guy but I didn't have time to go on dates when I was trying to save my aunt, my parents and the whole kingdom. But he could be a tattletale. He could tell his mom and then she'll do exactly what she said would happen to me if I caused any more trouble. Hurting me beyond measures. She was the queen after all. She could do anything her heart desired. As I've mentioned before, the water was getting to my brain.
    Without another word, I swam out and set the tray down on the table. I suddenly had a thought, if I really did just see the prince of Atlantic City, for now, and I saw the queen and princess then . . . where's the king? Did he vanish mysteriously and that's why the queen has such a bad temper? What if the king died in the same war Kylie and Rylie's parents did? Either way I was beginning to lean into the idea that the queen is mad all of the time because of something involving the king. "Finally. Now all of you swim away right now and don't come back until I call for you pathetic morons."
      Everyone swam away relieved, but stopped in a heartbeat and turned around when the queen screamed one of her orders again. "I told you-" she demanded pointing at me,"-to stay here and go find my son!" I hadn't remembered her saying that. "He's late again! No surprise there." I scoffed and make such a huge effort not to roll my eyes I had a headache. "Excuse me your, um, Everlasting Greatness," I said with a slight bow,"but when did you call for me? I never heard you say that and now you're upset because you had never mentioned it to me."  The queen looked at me so confused like my head had just sprouted an orange octopus. Then she dropped her head into her hands and said,"I'm too tired to punish you. Just leave." Then as an afterthought she added,"And find my son!"
      I swam away thinking, where could the prince have gone? Swimming away from the queen, I made my way back to the teeth-chattering room. I rubbed my arms and pulled my hair around my shoulders trying to warm up my neck, shoulders, anything. In the back of the room I found a tunnel resembling one of those old-style dishwashers where it looks like a washing machine. I bent down and it took a number of minutes to figure out how to swim low to the ground. Where did the tunnel lead to?
Slowly, voices emerged from the end of the crawl-through. The hideaway was about the size of an average bedroom with an actual bed inside and turquoise bed comforters with nice fluffy looking pillows. There were two more boys with the prince on the bed talking intently about something. "You guys don't understand, she was able to say no to my irresistible charm." Or someone. "I can't say no to it. And she wasn't afraid to speak to my mom. I bet you guys don't know anyone who speaks out of turn to my mom." The other two boys looked at each other and both said,"You." One boy had green hair and grey eyes. The other one had dark purple hair and brown eyes.
    It may seem weird I always recognized people's eyes over anything but it's how I remembered them. People's eyes are all unique, not just the color but the way they move. Some people, have eyes that blink as fast as a hummingbird flies, others never blink. Anyway, the point of my telling you this is because of the way Green Boy's eyes moved. They seemed dazed and not all there yet at some moments they darted around scared. It was unnerving.
    "Seriously, I'm sure I feel the same way about this girl the same way you feel about your rock collection." Rock collection? Rock collection? Did he just compare me to a rock collection? Me, a girl now princess, to rocks?! I scowled, boy . . . Agua must have felt the sense of someone staring at him because he swiveled toward me. And oddly enough, smiled. "And here she is." Agua took my hand and pulled me up. It was so abrupt, I stumbled into his chest but backed away with the quickness. I turned and faced the two boys on the bed who were awestruck,"Hi." I said waving shyly. The purple boy licked his thin lips and waved back, I suddenly regretted doing it in the first place. Then whispering to the green boy, not so quietly may I add,"She's a cutie." I bit my lip out of self consciousness and blushed, then remembered the previous words that had been said prior to this moment. "Did you compare me to a rock collection?" I crossed my arms and raised an eyebrow. Agua flushed and Purple Boy chuckled,"I may have, b-but . . ." he trailed off having nothing else to say. I internally rolled my eyes at his sorry excuse of an explanation. "You need to go back to your mom," I told, uncrossing my arms. Green Boy looked shocked,"His mom?" he asked. What else was I supposed to . . . oh, right. I corrected myself quickly,"The queen, I mean, her," I almost gagged on the words. "Forever Wonderfulness, sent me to come get you and she seemed mad about it so uh, we better go."
Whenever I got nervous, I always played with my fingers and when I want to I could pop them. Right then, unfortunately, was that time. "So who are these guys?" I asked. The prince waved his hands at the boys and answered. Pointing at Purple Boy he said,"Leviathan." Gesturing to Green Boy,"Ghost. So I never got your name?" I blinked, taken aback by this statement. "I never got yours." I straightened my back and held my chin up,"Tell me first." He smiled,"Touché. My name is Agua, Prince Agua. Your turn," he said cocking his head. Agua? I chewed on the inside of my cheek to hold back from bursting into laughter. What parent names their kid Agua? I wondered, should I confess my real name, Aquiana, or my other name, the one I had gone by my whole life, Zayana? I made a split second decision,"My name is Zayana, normal Zayana, not any form of royalty," I nervously chuckled. The green boy, Ghost, cleared his throat and spoke,"Well hi, Zayana nice to meet you. Agua, here has told us a lot about you, well, not much considering he just saw you, asked you out, and you said no. But you know a lot, like beauty and smarts but you can't judge a book by it's cover, right?" He chuckled and then stared me down. A weird kind of stare you might get from a kid that's mad and has swore down revenge or something, you know. I can't really explain his stare but it was creepy, so creepy I took a swish back away from him. He faintly smiled like he was happy I was scared of him and that I should always keep my distance from him and never mess with him. At least that's what I saw in his face, I looked back toward Agua.
"Why do you have this room? And you better not tell me something like,' for school group projects,' because for how secretive it is it must be for something else, right?" Agua turned to the other boys and smiled,"See, I told you she was smart," aiming this recognition to Ghost. I couldn't help but grin a little.
When something caught my eye I twisted to see a poster peeling off the walls. It had a picture of a human woman. She was sitting on a striped beach towel with sun rays aimed at her face. A necklace glittered and tentatively, I reached up to hold mine. A summer hat with a red brim across it sat atop her laughing face. She wore a pink bikini and had marvelous wavy brown hair that blew with the breeze. My eyes were drawn back to her necklace again, an aquamarine necklace with a gold encasing.
I absentmindedly held mine tighter and tried my best to hide it without Agua or the other two noticing. How did that woman get my necklace? I squinted at her confused beyond belief. She looked so vaguely familiar, like an older version of . . . me. I gasped, could she really be who I thought she was? The human version of her? My mom? No way, she looked so, too, perfect. Perfect, I am everything but. Experimented and prodded with so often that they were red, were blemishes strewn across my face while this woman's face remained clear. Her eyelashes were long and thick and mine were short and in a way, stubby. She looked so alluring I didn't want to look away, while people wouldn't normally spare me a second glance. "Who is she?" I breathed.
I noticed she had a little more um, how should I put this, more butt than an average person would and it looked real like I could touch it. Did that sound weird, it sounded weird. I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that, I just noticed she had bulges in her body like something was . . . behind it. I slowly swam closer.
"I don't exactly know who she is but my mom said she was extremely important and she didn't need her in her life anymore. I don't know what she meant, but I think it has something to do with the lost princess. People say she went "lost" about the time the princess was born, they also say-" Agua looked at me with no sense of complimentary in them. "she was beautiful." I didn't blush this time at all instead I felt cornered. Like a gazelle trapped by a lion ready to pounce. It didn't seem like that was all Agua wanted to say. He was kind of freaking me out. I fiddled once again with my fingers, my breathing gaining pace. "Zayana, when were you born?"
I acted calm on the outside, but I was panicking on the inside, what should I say?! What if I was not acting as secretive as I should be acting and everyone suspects I'm the princess?! I'm such a fool. I hadn't been paying the slightest bit of attention. I should've at least acted like I knew about half the things everyone was saying. The way they looked at me when I asked certain questions, they looked at me like I had been living under a barnacle my whole life, just like Rylie said.
"Uhhh, none of your business." I crossed my arms,"but when was the princess born?" "I'm pretty sure it was something the thirty-first right?" He looked at Leviathan and Ghost for confirmation. They both nodded and Ghost was still, unfortunately, staring at me. My birthday was in fact June 31. I gave him a confused look and he stuck out his tongue. I scowled. I swam over to the poster and heard all the boys wince. I turned around and smiled. All of their arms were outstretched. So there was something. Agua came over with a worried expression, but he didn't stop me. He just waited and said,"You would probably find out eventually anyway." He sighed then continued,"Someone is stealing money from my mom so she sent out an announcement to whoever caught to be executed. That's why that guard was so suspicious about you near her palace." I nodded then turned again to the picture and took it down carefully not wanting to ruin it. Beneath it I saw a board with 2 mysteries on them: The Lost Money and The Lost Royal Family.