"I want apples", Greta said. "Lots and lots of apples!"
Lady Cheri laughed and patted Greta's head. Yuuri and Wolfram stared at them, and looked at each other in mutual confusion. They had asked their little princess what she wanted for her birthday, and she said apples?
She put a spoon in her apple compote and shoved it into her mouth with obvious delight.
"I love apples!" she explained. "So that's what I want: I want apple pie, apple cake, apple cream, apple compote, fruit salad with apples, apple juice, big green apples and yellow ones and small and sweet red ones, and apple in the cookies and apple chips…"
"Apple chips?" Wolfram said.
"Yeah, they've recently begun making this in the kitchen, you know. They make these dried slices of apples, chewy and sweet and sooo delicious."
"But…" Yuuri searched for words. "But… It's your party so you can have whatever you want, but won't you be bored if you have nothing but apples?"
"Nope", Greta said.
"It's alright", Lady Cheri said. "She's just going through a phase; almost all children do."
"An apple phase?" Yuuri didn't know what to think. Had he gone through an apple phase?
"Not necessarily apples, but you know; this almost fanatical urge to eat only one thing. Wolfram was like that for a while when he was Greta's age; I remember there were a couple of weeks when he refused to eat anything that wasn't vanilla flavoured…"
"Vanilla?" Wolfram frowned. "I don't remember that!"
"Anyway", Greta wanted to steer the conversation back to her birthday, "I want lots of guests. I want all of you to be there, of course, and my uncles, and Beatrice, and Hube and Nicola and Elle… And Lindsey and his dad and Günter – oh, and Dacascos and Anissina and Gisela, and Yozak, and also that big, blond man… Adalbert, right?"
"What?!" Yuuri's jaw dropped. "Why do you want to invite Adalbert? You don't even know him!"
"No", Greta admitted, "but I know who he is. I've seen him, and he always looks so sad, you know?"
"True", Yuuri said. "He probably won't come, Greta. But we'll invite him if you really want to."
"Anything else?" Wolfram asked.
"Only that I want everybody to look really pretty and wear their best clothes like they would at a big ball. I want Yozak to wear a blue dress!"
Yuuri opened his mouth to ask, then closed it again. A blue dress? Well, why not! It wasn't like Yozak would say no to that.
"A dress in a shade of blue that brings out the color of his eyes", Lady Cheri explained. "Right, Greta?"
The little princess nodded enthusiastically, with her mouth full of apple compote.