The Princess Switch

On the Road

.                                                                                            Chapter #17: Daffodil's Petunia

However, the girl quickly masked her fear at the sight of Orion, and she began speaking to me cheerfully, and she tried to stare at me instead of Orion so that she could at least attempt to mask her fear that she showed truly to me before.

“Oh.  Hello!”  She spoke cheerfully.  “Are you the princess?”  She asked with a small amount of fear showing through her mask.  She was most likely wondering why a princess would wear the rags that currently clothed me.  

Then, she finally concluded that I was truly Princess Andriana.  She smiled, but I could sense that the smile was forced.  She nodded curtly, and I hoped that she was not one of Jean’s spies.  Wow, was I getting paranoid.

“Well, sweetie, Daffodil sent me to pick you up.  You see, I am her BFFAE, Petunia.  She would follow me to the ends of the earth, which I would do as well for her.”  She must have seen my confused look at her acronym, as she  said, “Best Friend Forever And Ever.  Seriously, you people above ground  must not ever have cool acronyms for things anymore".  

I stared down at her dress, slowly drawing in it’s extreme cuteness and detailing.  I noticed that her dress was exactly like Daffodil’s, because her dress was similar to what her name was.  She wore a short, spaghetti-strapped dress with purple and pink petals.  

“But enough about me, darling.  We need to get you to the shops in town!  But not to shop, of course.  Who does that?  Designer clothes are so much more in.”  I stared at her, confused.

“Why would I want to go to shops besides shopping?  That makes no sense at all!  Are you insane?  I am so, not going with you wherever you want to go,”  I asked her, truly befuddled by her statement.

Somehow Petunia got me to the town square of a remote village named Obis.  Then she pulled me into a tailor shop.  The inside of the shop was just how I imagined the inside of a tailor’s shop would be.  

Bolts of cloth covered up three out of four of the walls.  On the side not consumed by materials necessary for dressmaking: needles, thread, border fabrics, and many other tools that I was unable to recognize.  

Wondering why in the world I was here, I walked over to the bolts of cloth to look, but Petunia did not.  Instead, the girl walked over to the front counter.  

“I am looking for something more..... I don’t know, maybe magical than these items.  Would you happen to have something?”  Petunia asked in a very secretive voice.

“No, I do not believe that we do,” the young girl behind the counter stated.  The girl looked confused, and I guessed that it was one of her first days on the job.

“Ugh,” Petunia stated.  “You are new on the job, aren’t you?” She looked frustrated that her plans had been momentarily disturbed.

When she heard this, the girl blushed, and lowered her eyes.  She looked almost ashamed of her status.  Then, she looked up at Petunia hopefully.  

“Can you tell me what you are looking for?  Then, when other customers ask the same question, I can actually help them.”  She pleaded, “please?”

Petunia sighed, tapping her foot impatiently on the bamboo floor.  I could tell that she was very frustrated with the employee’s ignorance.  “Fine.  Well, this company has a secret.  So, when people ask you ‘do you have anything more.... Magical?’ like I did, you tell them that you do, and then you press this button.”