I asked Kate that night if Henrietta had been bothering her at all.

'Not really,' Kate said. 'I´ve only ever seen her in the halls. Why?'

'She´s getting a little threatening,' I said.

'How so?' Kate asked, stretching one leg.

'She acts like there is some big competition between us to be Aunt Achren´s heir,' I replied.

'I´m not completely surprised she´s picking on you more than me,' Kate said. 'I´m the older one, so unless something happens to me, I, and/or whoever I marry, will be taking over after father dies. You´re the one of us who might be named heir to Aunt Achren. You are competition as far as Henrietta is concerned, not me.'

I realized that she was right. I just had to prove myself worthy of being a queen. As I though about it, I wondered if I really did want to be queen. Many ordinary people seemed quite happy with their lives, as long as they had enough. Why couldn´t I be like that? I wondered. Because you are a king´s daughter, a voice in my head told me.

I resigned myself to competing with Henrietta, and worked as hard as I could in all my lessons. I was certainly not the most brilliant student ever, nor the most gifted dancer, but my efforts were noticed and praised by the teachers. Yes, they were strict, but some were more lenient if they saw that a student was trying.

Henrietta continued to slight me when our paths crossed, though fortunately that was not often. I should have seen some trick coming, but did not, until it was too late. I walked into my room one evening to find the entire place in shambles. Someone had obviously come in here and ransacked the place. My roommates were all their waiting for me, and they all looked ready to beat me.

'What did you do this for?' Brigit asked.

'I haven´t been back to the room since this morning,' I said, incredulous.

'Neither have Brigit and I,' Kiera said. 'Arieda was with us during our free time, but we didn´t see you anywhere.'

'I was with my sister Kate,' I said. 'We went out for a ride.'

Technically that was true, but not entirely. We had ridden a short ways into the woods, given the riding master the slip, and begun practicing our knife fighting on each other. I could see in the other girls´ faces that they did not believe me.

'If I cleaned up the whole room by myself, will you please not do anything to me?' I asked.

The other girls looked at each other and nodded. I was not done until after eleven that night. I was quite worried, as I had a history test the next morning. Lights were out by eleven thirty, leaving me only enough time to get into my nightgown, brush my teeth, and wash my face. I suspected Henrietta, but I could not prove anything, as I had not seen her come in and do anything. I wondered if she had befriended one of my roommates, but I thought it highly unlikely, as we normally got on well together.

Life was calm for about a week before something else happened. Our room was found ransacked again, this time by the maids who inspected rooms every morning. Normally students were not chastised for a little messiness on occasion, but our room had been messed up so badly that we were called in for a lecture by Dame Minchin.

'This is the worst I have seen a room in years,' she said. 'You are not small children, and it is high time you learned to clean up after yourselves. I do not care that you all likely have maids to do this for you at home, but you seem to have understood the concept of cleaning your own room until now. I do not want to hear of this ever happening again, that your room is as messy as it was this morning. Now, get to your afternoon classes, before you are late. You do not want tardies blotting your resume.'

My roommates and I made a pact then and there that two of us would wait until the last possible minute every morning to make sure that our room was not messed up. That night we drew names. On Monday, Kiera and Brigit would stay. On Tuesday, Kiera and I would stay. On Wednesday, Arieda and I would stay. On Thursday, Arieda and Brigit would stay. Friday, Brigit and I would stay in the room. Saturday, Arieda and Kiera would stay. Sunday, there was no room inspection, and we let ourselves have the day off. We rotated this way for several weeks. Fortunately we did not have another incident.

However, my problems were hardly over. Henrietta would invent stories about me, telling them to the other girls to make them think less of me. My roommates and Kate stayed true to me, but many of the other girls did not. Though Henrietta was clever in not revealing herself as the source of these bad rumors, I caught Hedwig looking at me on occasion, as if she was guilty of something. One day I did manage to wheedle it out of her that her sister was the one spreading rumors. Hedwig told me that she felt guilty for not doing anything to stop her sister, but I thought to myself that she must not feel very guilty, otherwise she would do something. I thought it likely that Henrietta had threatened Hedwig to the point where Hedwig would go along with her older sister in whatever.

Dame Minchin called me in to her office one day. Older students had told me that she sometimes did this with first term students 'to make sure that they were adjusting to life at finishing school.' I was nervous, hoping that Dame Minchin had no cause to be angry with me.

When I entered her study, she bade me be seated, and seemed for all the world to think me a normal student. She reviewed my teacher´s comments and room inspection reports.

'Decent student, hard worker, only one bad report on room inspection, good, good,' she muttered. 'Now, I must ask you a question. What on earth have you done to bother Henrietta?'

I was startled by her question. She stayed in her study much of the day, dealing with the more business aspects of the school. That, and various rumors, had led me to believe that she could be out of touch with the everyday goings on at times.

'Don´t look so daft child,' Dame Minchin said. 'It is no secret that Henrietta has got something against you. She acts like a cat that is jealous of another cat circling its food dish.'

'I suppose that analogy is quite true,' I said. 'Lady Achren, Queen of Cadiffor, is aunt to both of us, and she has no children. I think, madam, that Henrietta sees me as competition.'

'That´s obvious. The horse master reports you and your sister giving him the slip one day. That made me suspicious that you had played some prank on Henrietta. I must advise you that to provoke Henrietta would be most unwise,' Dame Minchin said. 'Henrietta will do what she will, but you will pay. I hope you remember that our punishments are severe for those who start problems.'

'I understand madam,' I said.

'Good. You may go.'

I returned to my room to retrieve my sheet music. I hoped to practice in one of the music studios, it being a Saturday afternoon, but I found then all occupied. There was a chalkboard hanging ouside each of the three piano studio rooms, showing the reserve schedule for the day. Unfortunately others had claimed the studios for the rest of the afternoon, so I opted to go out to the gardens. There were garden plots availible for students to use in their free time, though many did not, as they were too prissy to get a little dirt on themselves, or too busy studying or practicing something.

I met Kate out there, who looked ready to kill someone or something.

'What´s the matter?' I asked.

'Finishing school,' she said. 'I don´t show it much, but it really gets under my skin. I hate a lot of the girls here. They are all so prissy and afraid to get the least bit of dirt on them. They are completely incapable of doing any manual labor at all, and some are horrible brown noses.'

'I know what you mean,' I said. 'Sure, classes are interesting for the most part, but that sewing class is something else again. All needlepoint, and no making anything useful. I hate it.'

'And you hate Henrietta too,' Kate pointed out.

'Yes, but I´m not really sure what to do about her,' I said. 'She´s a demon, but if I do anything to her and get caught, then I´m in trouble. How will that prove to Aunt Achren that I should be her heir and not Henrietta?'

'I didn´t realize you wanted to be queen,' Kate said.

'Not really, but I´m the next oldest after Henrietta,' I said. 'If Henrietta doesn´t live up to Aunt Achren´s standards, then I´m the one that she´ll look at next. I don´t really want to just let Henrietta be queen. She´s the type that would most likely misuse her power.'

'Very true,' Kate said. 'But why are you just sitting back and taking Henrietta´s meanness? You can´t let people just walk all over you.'

'Well, do you have any bright ideas for not getting caught?' I asked.

'I do actually. I discovered a secret passage the other day, but I hadn´t gotten the chance to tell you about it until now.'

'Really?' I asked, not totally believing her.

'Yes,' Kate said, nodding violently. 'Come on. We´ve got to start planning our campaign of resistance.'