disclaimer: all right....this is the absolute last disclaimer that i'll do
since nothing from now on is REALLY Frank Stocktons (besides the
characters) but in case any of you get confused....i will do it one last
time and you can refer to this one or the ones in chapters 1-4. OK...here
goes: the characters of Gelareh, Noushzad, Mahrokh, and King Sadri are not
mine, though their names are because he did not mention names in the
original, the plot before he chooses a door is not mine either. any other
part of the plot IS. Everything that I mentioned before to NOT be mine
belong to Frank Stockton. If he's still alive. I'm not really sure.
anyway...
A/N: I'M BACK!!!! woohoo! and updates should be a lot faster as long as i get REVIEWS from now on....because it's summer....praise the lord. school is evil and i don't have it for 2 and a half months. YESYESYES! anyway....here comes the fifth chapter....
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A Leisurely Breakfast
Noushzad stepped into the room with a horribly tense expression on his face. He averted his eyes from Gelareh, but she was sure that this was only because he didn't want to appear eager to see her, especially in front of the king and his 'wife'. Gelareh smiled an enormous smile inside, but only said 'Good morning, Noushzad' in the most blank tone she could muster.
Noushzad walked to his chair, making a light flapping sound with his sandals that all of us could hear, because none of us was making a sound ourselves. He sat down tentatively, seeming to wish he could dash out of the door and keep this situation from happening. Gelareh felt like laughing. Her poor little lover. Couldn't he have known that she would come up with something? Shouldn't he have known that there was no way that Gelareh was just going to let them die? Noushzad looked anxiously from the king to Mahrokh to the king to Mahrokh, but Gelareh saw that his eyes passed over her every time.
Suddenly, Gelareh's father cleared his throat in a very obvious manner. "Well, good morning all. I trust that everyone had a good nights rest," he said. It wasn't a question.
"Of course, your majesty," we chorused in unison. We sounded so much like sulky school children saying good morning to their teacher that it was comical. Gelareh smiled and caught Noushzad's eye, and he smiled back at her. His smile could still make her stomach seem to turn over, but it quickly vanished when he realized what he was doing.
Gelareh glanced over at Mahrokh to see if she had detected this, but she didn't seem to be noticing anything. She stared at her plate with an intensity that the rolls, goat cheese, and ham certainly did not deserve. If Gelareh had not turned her head so quickly away, so as not to be noticed looking at anyone strangely, she would have seen Mahrokh glancing at her from time to time in quick, jerky movements that were supposed to go unnoticed, and did by everyone but Noushzad.
"Your majesty, the food is excellent," said Noushzad, in a vain attempt to keep conversation flowing. The king only nodded, and then something dawned on Gelareh. Her plan could not work with Mahrokh sitting where she was. Well, it couldn't work without quite a bit of difficulty. Not that the plan was working so far. Gelareh hadn't said one of the things she'd planned to say so far to keep an air unfeeling toward Noushzad. But the plan certainly wouldn't work of at all with Noushzad's bride sitting just there. At first Gelareh had been planning to say something casual during the conversation that neither Sadri nor Mahrokh would pick up on, but Noushzad would see as an obvious plan of where to meet afterward. But, as hard as Gelareh thought, she knew that there would be nothing that the king would not pick up right away, and their meeting would be interrupted by guards 'coincidentally' passing by. That could not be allowed to happen. So she had decided to slip him a note that would be obvious to anyone at this table reading, but would not be to any servant who might find it later. Of course this idea crumbled if Mahrokh saw or felt the passing, and there was no way that she would not detect some movement from where she was sitting. For some reason, Gelareh had been picturing Noushzad sitting next to her. Stupid, stupid thought! Why would the king ever place them beside eachother.
There had now been a large gap in the conversation and everyone looked nervous. Even the king seemed a bit quieter than usual. Gelareh groped in her mind for one of the clever things that she had planned to say, but it just wasn't coming to her. None of the dozens of lines that she'd gone over so meticulously in the hall would come to her when she actually needed them. Because this picture of tension was certainly not the atmosphere that Gelareh needed to give the image that she had no feelings for Noushzad whatsoever. Especially when she couldn't help staring a little.
"Noushzad, you certianly were lucky in the wife that was given to you," King Sadri said forcefully. Gelareh would have noticed that his face tightened considerably if all at once she hadn't blurted out in an extremely loud and triumphant voice, "YOURNEWWIFEISSOBEAUTIFULNOUSHZAD!"
Gelareh clamped her hands firmly over her mouth in disbelief. She had been trying so hard to remember one of the things that she'd planned to say that when the king had actually brought up the subject of one she had immediately remembered it and without thinking said it out loud. Everyone gaped openly at her for a few seconds with their jaws dropped slightly, even Mahrokh. Thankfully, the king chuckled a bit, in a strangeled sort of way albeit, but it broke the silence in any case.
"Thank you for emphasizing my point so, daughter, our minds do think alike," he put the stress on the word daughter so meaningfully that even the dullest of people would have caught on to it.
About ten minutes later when all of our food was long eaten and the uncomfortable silence was still there, being broken by the occasional awkward comment. Gelareh soon realized that she was going to have to give Noushzad the note because breakfast would be over soon and conditions were not changing favorably in the least. Gelareh would have opened it in her lap to read it over once more and be sure that a random servant would not pick up on its exact meaning, or at least who it applied to, if Mahrokh had not been sitting where she was sitting. But it was fine, because she had read it so many times before coming in that she knew every word by heart:
Excuse yourself. Say you are going to the restroom but really go to the place where we first met. I will hurry the breakfast along and join you when it is over. We need to speak, but we need to do it breifly. Go.
They weren't exactly neutral comments, but it could apply to anyone. And no one knew where we had met so we wouldn't be found. So now the real tricky parts began: getting the note to Noushzad, getting her father to finish up breakfast before Noushzad came back, and getting to the place without being seen. Well, one hurdle at a time was certainly enough. So how to catch his attention without causing to look blatantly in her direction? She would have to just get the note to him and not catch his attention first. But the table was so wide that there was no way she could hand it to him under it without bending over and being obvious.
Gelareh froze the rest of her body so she wouldn't bend over reflexively and brought her foot up into her lap. She stuck the very corner of the folded note into her sandal and then slowly and cautiously moved it under the table. Lifting her foot as high as it would go without sending the food at the top of the table falling by the impact of her foot she put it over Noushzad's lap, doing everything in her power not to touch him, to make him look at her. She then did the same thing with her other foot, and noted absentmindedly that lifting your legs that high without moving the rest of your body was quite good exercise. With the toe of her left foot she knocked the note off of her right foot and jerked her legs back with a force she didn't know she had in her.
Noushzad started slightly and looked down. Gelareh winced but apparantly no one else had noticed. He looked at Gelareh, a little wide eyed, and she was only thinking why couldn't he just be discreet about this? Well, he didn't know about it beforehand, but still. Honestly. She was also thinking that he did have the most beautiful eyes. Noushzad looked down at his plate as if he couldn't take the tension any more and Gelareh could barely even detect his eyes sliding to his lap and his opening of the note. Well, when he caught on he wasn't that bad.
After a few seconds he went back to looking at his plate with an expression on his face that was entirely uncertain and off guard, like a fish out of water. 'What are you thinking of?' thought Gelareh, 'Just get out of here!'
As if he'd heard her thoughts, Noushzad suddenly looked up and said to the king that he needed to be excused for the restroom. Without waiting for an answer he stood up and ran out, holding on to his stomach as if he would throw up. Nice touch.
After the slam of the door, the room was completely silent. Gelareh thought feverishly. What would make the king want to leave before he got back? Gelareh sat thinking and coming up with nothing for nearly three minutes before it hit her. He was best at arguing. She would let him..
"Well father," she said in a rather loud and suspicious voice, "I think that we should wait until Noushzad gets back before we leave. It would ONLY be correct." Of course Gelareh knew that he would not be able to stand letting her have her way in this matter. And Gelareh was going to use something that she didn't think she would be able to use before: everyone's knowledge of what was really going on here.
"Now, I don't think that that's necessary," said the king with a kind of satisfaction. "We're all done here. Are you finished eating, Mahrokh?" She nodded in a jerky, nervous way. How had they picked sucha dim one?
"But father! That is not the custom!" said Gelareh in her most whiny, panicked voice.
"Don't you ever call me anything but King in public, child!" he hissed. She knew that one would get him. "Our breakfast is done."
Here came the risky part. But it was the only way she saw of not being followed by guards. He knows I know he knows, she thought. Or at least that's what she was counting on.
"I don't believe this!" she screamed in a kind of teary rage. "You are going to let him go just like that! So that I will never in my life see him again! This is so unjust! I hate you and I will always hate you."
And that's how it went. It was perfect, exactly as according to plan, as if the king and Gelareh had been reading lines from a script that she had written herself. She ran out of the room in 'tears', dashed down the halls, past her room, to the supply closet where she had been looking for a comb and had found something far better. No one was following her.
Nothing could go wrong, now.
_____________________________
A/N: hahahaha. that's an actual cliffhanger. not like the little weak-ass one in the last chapter. I know that not TOO much happened in this chapter but the transition was necessary. Anyway.....the next chapter should be coming out soon, seeing as it's SUMMER!!! but i won't update until i've had a couple of reviews.....so review people!
A/N: I'M BACK!!!! woohoo! and updates should be a lot faster as long as i get REVIEWS from now on....because it's summer....praise the lord. school is evil and i don't have it for 2 and a half months. YESYESYES! anyway....here comes the fifth chapter....
____________
A Leisurely Breakfast
Noushzad stepped into the room with a horribly tense expression on his face. He averted his eyes from Gelareh, but she was sure that this was only because he didn't want to appear eager to see her, especially in front of the king and his 'wife'. Gelareh smiled an enormous smile inside, but only said 'Good morning, Noushzad' in the most blank tone she could muster.
Noushzad walked to his chair, making a light flapping sound with his sandals that all of us could hear, because none of us was making a sound ourselves. He sat down tentatively, seeming to wish he could dash out of the door and keep this situation from happening. Gelareh felt like laughing. Her poor little lover. Couldn't he have known that she would come up with something? Shouldn't he have known that there was no way that Gelareh was just going to let them die? Noushzad looked anxiously from the king to Mahrokh to the king to Mahrokh, but Gelareh saw that his eyes passed over her every time.
Suddenly, Gelareh's father cleared his throat in a very obvious manner. "Well, good morning all. I trust that everyone had a good nights rest," he said. It wasn't a question.
"Of course, your majesty," we chorused in unison. We sounded so much like sulky school children saying good morning to their teacher that it was comical. Gelareh smiled and caught Noushzad's eye, and he smiled back at her. His smile could still make her stomach seem to turn over, but it quickly vanished when he realized what he was doing.
Gelareh glanced over at Mahrokh to see if she had detected this, but she didn't seem to be noticing anything. She stared at her plate with an intensity that the rolls, goat cheese, and ham certainly did not deserve. If Gelareh had not turned her head so quickly away, so as not to be noticed looking at anyone strangely, she would have seen Mahrokh glancing at her from time to time in quick, jerky movements that were supposed to go unnoticed, and did by everyone but Noushzad.
"Your majesty, the food is excellent," said Noushzad, in a vain attempt to keep conversation flowing. The king only nodded, and then something dawned on Gelareh. Her plan could not work with Mahrokh sitting where she was. Well, it couldn't work without quite a bit of difficulty. Not that the plan was working so far. Gelareh hadn't said one of the things she'd planned to say so far to keep an air unfeeling toward Noushzad. But the plan certainly wouldn't work of at all with Noushzad's bride sitting just there. At first Gelareh had been planning to say something casual during the conversation that neither Sadri nor Mahrokh would pick up on, but Noushzad would see as an obvious plan of where to meet afterward. But, as hard as Gelareh thought, she knew that there would be nothing that the king would not pick up right away, and their meeting would be interrupted by guards 'coincidentally' passing by. That could not be allowed to happen. So she had decided to slip him a note that would be obvious to anyone at this table reading, but would not be to any servant who might find it later. Of course this idea crumbled if Mahrokh saw or felt the passing, and there was no way that she would not detect some movement from where she was sitting. For some reason, Gelareh had been picturing Noushzad sitting next to her. Stupid, stupid thought! Why would the king ever place them beside eachother.
There had now been a large gap in the conversation and everyone looked nervous. Even the king seemed a bit quieter than usual. Gelareh groped in her mind for one of the clever things that she had planned to say, but it just wasn't coming to her. None of the dozens of lines that she'd gone over so meticulously in the hall would come to her when she actually needed them. Because this picture of tension was certainly not the atmosphere that Gelareh needed to give the image that she had no feelings for Noushzad whatsoever. Especially when she couldn't help staring a little.
"Noushzad, you certianly were lucky in the wife that was given to you," King Sadri said forcefully. Gelareh would have noticed that his face tightened considerably if all at once she hadn't blurted out in an extremely loud and triumphant voice, "YOURNEWWIFEISSOBEAUTIFULNOUSHZAD!"
Gelareh clamped her hands firmly over her mouth in disbelief. She had been trying so hard to remember one of the things that she'd planned to say that when the king had actually brought up the subject of one she had immediately remembered it and without thinking said it out loud. Everyone gaped openly at her for a few seconds with their jaws dropped slightly, even Mahrokh. Thankfully, the king chuckled a bit, in a strangeled sort of way albeit, but it broke the silence in any case.
"Thank you for emphasizing my point so, daughter, our minds do think alike," he put the stress on the word daughter so meaningfully that even the dullest of people would have caught on to it.
About ten minutes later when all of our food was long eaten and the uncomfortable silence was still there, being broken by the occasional awkward comment. Gelareh soon realized that she was going to have to give Noushzad the note because breakfast would be over soon and conditions were not changing favorably in the least. Gelareh would have opened it in her lap to read it over once more and be sure that a random servant would not pick up on its exact meaning, or at least who it applied to, if Mahrokh had not been sitting where she was sitting. But it was fine, because she had read it so many times before coming in that she knew every word by heart:
Excuse yourself. Say you are going to the restroom but really go to the place where we first met. I will hurry the breakfast along and join you when it is over. We need to speak, but we need to do it breifly. Go.
They weren't exactly neutral comments, but it could apply to anyone. And no one knew where we had met so we wouldn't be found. So now the real tricky parts began: getting the note to Noushzad, getting her father to finish up breakfast before Noushzad came back, and getting to the place without being seen. Well, one hurdle at a time was certainly enough. So how to catch his attention without causing to look blatantly in her direction? She would have to just get the note to him and not catch his attention first. But the table was so wide that there was no way she could hand it to him under it without bending over and being obvious.
Gelareh froze the rest of her body so she wouldn't bend over reflexively and brought her foot up into her lap. She stuck the very corner of the folded note into her sandal and then slowly and cautiously moved it under the table. Lifting her foot as high as it would go without sending the food at the top of the table falling by the impact of her foot she put it over Noushzad's lap, doing everything in her power not to touch him, to make him look at her. She then did the same thing with her other foot, and noted absentmindedly that lifting your legs that high without moving the rest of your body was quite good exercise. With the toe of her left foot she knocked the note off of her right foot and jerked her legs back with a force she didn't know she had in her.
Noushzad started slightly and looked down. Gelareh winced but apparantly no one else had noticed. He looked at Gelareh, a little wide eyed, and she was only thinking why couldn't he just be discreet about this? Well, he didn't know about it beforehand, but still. Honestly. She was also thinking that he did have the most beautiful eyes. Noushzad looked down at his plate as if he couldn't take the tension any more and Gelareh could barely even detect his eyes sliding to his lap and his opening of the note. Well, when he caught on he wasn't that bad.
After a few seconds he went back to looking at his plate with an expression on his face that was entirely uncertain and off guard, like a fish out of water. 'What are you thinking of?' thought Gelareh, 'Just get out of here!'
As if he'd heard her thoughts, Noushzad suddenly looked up and said to the king that he needed to be excused for the restroom. Without waiting for an answer he stood up and ran out, holding on to his stomach as if he would throw up. Nice touch.
After the slam of the door, the room was completely silent. Gelareh thought feverishly. What would make the king want to leave before he got back? Gelareh sat thinking and coming up with nothing for nearly three minutes before it hit her. He was best at arguing. She would let him..
"Well father," she said in a rather loud and suspicious voice, "I think that we should wait until Noushzad gets back before we leave. It would ONLY be correct." Of course Gelareh knew that he would not be able to stand letting her have her way in this matter. And Gelareh was going to use something that she didn't think she would be able to use before: everyone's knowledge of what was really going on here.
"Now, I don't think that that's necessary," said the king with a kind of satisfaction. "We're all done here. Are you finished eating, Mahrokh?" She nodded in a jerky, nervous way. How had they picked sucha dim one?
"But father! That is not the custom!" said Gelareh in her most whiny, panicked voice.
"Don't you ever call me anything but King in public, child!" he hissed. She knew that one would get him. "Our breakfast is done."
Here came the risky part. But it was the only way she saw of not being followed by guards. He knows I know he knows, she thought. Or at least that's what she was counting on.
"I don't believe this!" she screamed in a kind of teary rage. "You are going to let him go just like that! So that I will never in my life see him again! This is so unjust! I hate you and I will always hate you."
And that's how it went. It was perfect, exactly as according to plan, as if the king and Gelareh had been reading lines from a script that she had written herself. She ran out of the room in 'tears', dashed down the halls, past her room, to the supply closet where she had been looking for a comb and had found something far better. No one was following her.
Nothing could go wrong, now.
_____________________________
A/N: hahahaha. that's an actual cliffhanger. not like the little weak-ass one in the last chapter. I know that not TOO much happened in this chapter but the transition was necessary. Anyway.....the next chapter should be coming out soon, seeing as it's SUMMER!!! but i won't update until i've had a couple of reviews.....so review people!
