"Hey, Alex, can you tell us a story?"

It was a lazy Sunday afternoon for Camelot's royal family, and Alex looked over at her little sister, tapping her pencil on her leg.

"What, like a fairy tale?"

"Yeah, but a funny one!" beamed Rosalind. "Please?" she added, widening her big blue eyes.

Alex, ever happy to oblige her siblings even when they weren't trying to coerce her, beamed and flung her arms wide, accidentally throwing her pencil into the (thankfully unlit) fireplace as she did so.

"Oh, bugger. Oh well. As you wish, Princess!"

She even had Marcus's attention now, and he had closed his book- a rarity, so Alex supposed she better make this good. He glanced at his twin sister, who was staring expectantly at Alex, and sat up a little.

Alex cleared her throat loudly.

"Once upon a time… there was a beautiful princess. She had everything she could ever want in life, but as a consequence, she was very vain, and mean, and...uh…"

Alex scratched her head.

"I can't think of another word… but she was pretty bad. Anyway, one day, this princess marched into her parent's throne room, and demanded that they find her a suitable prince to marry, because this girl is obviously into the ancient and frankly stupid Ever tradition of arranged marriages that fall apart in six months. And because her parents were stupid pushovers, they were like "anything for you, sweetie!" and put out a request for the kingdom's eligible bachelors. But because 99% of the eligible bachelors weren't stupid, they were like… uh, no, and went and did sensible things to find love, like trying to put ransoms on the head of the girl they like, and starting wars, and kissing said girl's best friend, and-"

"Alright, Alex, I get it." Sighed Tedros of Camelot from his desk by the window. The twins exchanged gleeful glances. Alex threw them a theatrical wink before turning to her father in mock confusion. "What? I don't have a clue what you're talking about, Dad." Alex tutted at him in manner of a disapproving mother hen. "Not everything is about you, you know!"

Agatha, sat beside him with her own stack of papers, laughed. Tedros looked betrayed.

"As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted…" Continued Alex, turning back towards her official audience. "Most of the eligible bachelors went and got into stable relationships, but the 1% who didn't were like Hey! We could marry a princess! and showed up at the castle. The princess picked her husband-to-be from the line-up- it just happened to be that the bloke she picked was only there for the free food. He got selected and went aw, shi-"

"Alex!"

"Sorry, sorry! Uh, he said oh no! … but it was too late. He had to marry her."

"He didn't have a choice? What about free will?" demanded Marcus. "Are the King and Queen the democratically elected leaders of this place?"

"No, little brother, no they are not. Much like mum and dad, they are benevolent dictators. Unlike mum and dad, they never bother asking the people what they want, so it's hardly benevolent. Also, you are ten, how do you know what a democratically elected leader is?"

Marcus shrugged.

"Um… what kingdom is this? Who are the King and Queen?" asked Rosalind.

"All characters, events, and locations in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people living or dead, is purely coincidental." Said Alex. "Honestly, Rosalind, what a silly suggestion, as if I'd base any of my characters off the Rainbow Gale royal family."

Rosalind giggled. Agatha rolled her eyes.

"The princess was ecstatic that she finally got the man of her dreams. The man of her dreams was less pleased. You could probably describe the look on his face at the announcement of his reluctant engagement as duly horrified. The princess wasn't happy about her future husband's reluctance. In fact, she flew into a murderous rage."

Rosalind frowned.

"Aren't princesses supposed to be nice? And selfless? And not fly into murderous rages?"

"Oh, sweet child…" sighed Alex. "Not every princess can be as pure and kind as you... but you must understand, she was still very much royalty. Everyone knew from the moment she was born that she was destined to be a princess, not only because she had, like, really good stage presence, but also because she was the daughter of a King."

Tedros and Agatha both snorted at the same time. Alex smothered a grin.

"However, she did not possess the classic princess traits, most likely because she was just a dreadful person. Conspiracies abound in this kingdom, claiming she was actually a Never. I don't know if they were true, because I am making this up as I go… but, y'know, the Rip-Off Royal Rot polls said that 87% percent of the population reckoned she was a Never, and the Rip-Off Royal Rot was an incredibly reliable paper."

"Sorry, Alex, this is just getting a bit too unrealistic." Sighed Agatha. "Tone it down a notch."

Alex grinned.

"This is fictitious, remember, Mom? I should be allowed a bit of creative freedom. Anyway, the Princess's rage was so strong that her to-be husband fled the kingdom, her useless parents in a gilded carriage right behind him. Unfortunately, the gilded carriage was crap, because it was sold to them by some shady bloke who told them it was indestructible. It was not. The wheels fell off, it skidded thirty feet, crashed into a ditch, and both of the parents got violently…"

She caught her father's arched brows.

"-chucked into a smelly pond! Because I was going to kill them off, then remembered you're both ten and this should stay as PG as possible. Um… they lost their stupid fancy crowns in the mud and their fine robes got covered in slime. They then squelched all the way to the next kingdom, covered in pondweed. Serves them right, too. Unfortunately, the Princess named herself Queen and became a tyrant, and suddenly people began calling her parent's reign a golden age, conveniently forgetting it was really rubbish. This will no doubt what mum and dad's reign will be called when one of us inherits the throne with no clue what we're doing because Dad went and got himself killed trying to fight a harpy or something."

Tedros frowned at her. Agatha laughed.

"Uh… the tyrant's rage was ended when a weirdly skilled villager with like twenty different weapons showed up ten months late with Moondoes coffee. She killed the Queen, assumed the throne, and everyone lived happily ever after."

"What happened to the Prince?" asked Tedros.

"He got eaten by a bear."

"How about the King and Queen?" asked Rosalind.

"They got eaten by bears, too."

"What happened to "PG"?" demanded Agatha.

"Bears burned its house down."

"Why so many bears?" challenged Marcus. Alex flung out her arms.

"The kingdom had a bear problem, okay? They're working on it, it's on their to-do list!"

"But-"

"That's it, no more questions. The End! Round of applause, please!

Her siblings clapped for her, giggling.

"Thank you! I'm here for the rest of the week."

"Aren't you here all the time?" pointed out Agatha.

Alex's smile faded, and she twisted her fingers together. She knew she was going to have to tell them at some point, but even so, her stomach was clenching uncomfortably. She took a breath.

"Yeah… about that."

Her family turned to look at her.

Alex bounced her leg nervously.

"Um… I kind of… got accepted to the School for Good."