Chapter 10
Once back at the house, Aunt Sophia, Michael, West, Olivia and I all shoved through the door, arms loaded with my shopping bags. Convinced that I would never be able to get all these bags up to my room on my own, I was able to convince them to help me carry them up to my room, but I had to convince Thomas about Michael and West first. "Did you have fun?" Tristan asked, leaning against the door frame of my room watching me put all my new clothes away in the dresser and burrow. "You must be very good at getting what you want since it seems that you convinced your aunt to buy you a whole new wardrobe."
"Yes, I had a great time. Michael, Aunt Sophia and I went to a nice cafe for dinner; then Aunt Sophia forced me into buying all of this. Honestly, the only say in what I got was in the style and color of each item. The amount was all up to how much she wanted to spend." I told him, upset that he was mad at me. I had done nothing wrong, so he had no reason to be so abrupt. The bad thing about it was that he had been like this ever since we had gotten back, all of thirty minutes ago. "After shopping for cloths, we went to Mickey D's for supper, meeting up with West and Olivia; then we…"
"Wait a second; you met up with West, as in the guy from the club West?" Tristan interrupted.
"Yes, West from the club West. Is there a problem with that? Do you not like him?" I asked; ticked that he even cared who I hung out with. "Are you jealous Tristan?" I asked him, turning around while folding one of my new shirts.
"What, are you kidding? Why should I be jealous? I don't like him because he seems very suspicious!" Tristan snapped. "My job is to protect you, and I can't very well do that if you sick your watch dog buddy butler on me to keep me away from you. It is my job to be with you every second of every day; including when you are out gallivanting around with your way too rich, stuck up family!"
"My way too rich, stuck up family? Tristan, I never asked you to come." I told him in a very low, controlled voice. "The only reason why you are here is so that my parents don't have you stuck around the house back home doing nothing, getting paid, and getting in the way of the campaign! I am old enough that I can do whatever I want, whenever I want, and wherever I want, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it! Consider this to be your free vacation, because believe me, once we get home, my parents will not let you get another free second, even in the night. You can verify that with Giles if you wish too. You will go to school with me, you will go on all my dates with me, which I very much will try to change, you will go to every dance with me, you will even have to walk into every store to buy every single thing that I could ever need ranging such as underwear and bras, jeans and T-shirts, even tampons and pads! You signed up for a boatload of work my young bodyguard, so relax while you have the chance, because as long as you have this job, you won't relax, ever again."
"Are you done yet?" Tristan snapped."
"No, I am not done. I am here to be with my family, and you will not interfere with that. Do I make myself clear? I'm not done yet, so you may close your mouth." I was not yelling, my voice wasn't even raised a hair. I was just speaking dangerously low, so he did exactly as I said in fear of getting a tongue lashing, or so I hoped that was the reason. "I have reasons for being here other than for family, and you will have nothing to do with those plans, so don't even try to figure out what they are. Now, since I am done putting my clothes away, you will leave my doorway, go into your room, and I will see you tomorrow morning for breakfast. Goodnight Tristan." With that, I turned back around, put my last shirt in a drawer, pulled out my PJs, turned around, and closed the door in his face. Little did he know that I had no intention of going to bed, so to ensure that he wouldn't come into my room again, I locked the door.
Earlier that evening, I had gone to one of the maids to get some cleaning supplies such as a duster, Lysol, dust rags, pledge, a broom and a dust pan, and a few other things that might come in handy. I had indeed given Thomas back his flashlight so I had to go down to the basement to get my own, and also two lanterns. Since the maid had wanted to do the cleaning herself, I had to tell her that I had to clean my house at home, which wasn't true except for my room, but it made me feel more at home, kind of like a security blanket, bit not. She seemed to have bought that because she said that I could clean whatever I wanted until I felt more at home, and not so homesick. Well, you might as well get started. There is no way to tell if he has left my door yet, but I think I made it clear that he will not disturb me again. Serves him right anyways, throwing pillows like he did this morning. Maybe I should start at the bottom and work my way up? But what if someone else actually does know about it and they come to check to see if someone has disturbed anything? Well, I'd rather get in trouble than have to walk though dust and spider webs every night.
Sliding out the secret door, I grabbed one of the dust rags and the Lysol and started to clean the steps. I worked all the way up to the top of the stairs, then went back to the bottom and grabbed the duster and started to dust the walls, clearing away all the cobwebs. Halfway up, I noticed a small whole in the stationary wall that I hadn't noticed before. Brushing things away from it, I peered into it, and was shocked to find that it was a peep whole! Brilliant! Now I can check to see if anyone is in my room before coming out! I'm still going to lock my door for precautions, but now I don't have to worry about walking out blindly!
Once at the top, I dusted off the door frame and the door, and then sprayed Lysol on the door knob to polish it. Running back down stairs, I grabbed the rest of my cleaning supplies, closed the secret door, and entered the secret room. By this time, I was fairly certain that this was the room that Thomas told us was decayed and had no entranced because it was ceiled off. I figure that the entrance really was ceiled off if there ever was one other than the spiral stairs.
Upon entering the secret room, I followed the maze of boxes to the center, put all my things down where I wouldn't trip over them, and then took the broom, dust pan, and the two lanterns with me back to the beginning. Working my way back to the center of the room, I swept up a tone of dust that I hadn't noticed was on the floor. Unfortunately, I wasn't smart enough to have brought a trash bag, so I ended up making many trips back and forth between where I had left off sweeping, to where I was dumping all the dust into one big pile, knowing that I would have to come back and sweep that pile into a bag tomorrow night. Checking my watch which I had also just gotten today as one of my accessories, I saw that it was three a.m. Deciding that I had done enough, so I left all my cleaning supplies on one of the chests. Man am I dying to get into those! I'll have to find the key first before I do anything though. After I finish cleaning. And Mother would always have to bribe me into doing this at home! Ha!
Halfway down the stairs, I checked the peep whole and saw that no one was in my room, so I descended the rest of the way down and entered my room without any problems. Taking my cloths off, I put on the PJs that I had left out just before shutting the door on Tristan's face. Hopping into bed, I said my prayers, and then fell into a nice, deep sleep. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to unlock my door, so I woke up at eight a.m. to someone pounding on my door.
"Kit, are you in there? It's your cousin Michael!" the person pounding on my door said.
"I'm up, just give me a second." I said, pushing the sheets off of me and walking over to the door. "Sorry, I locked my door last night because I had an intruder the night before and I didn't want to get invaded on again. What's up Michael? You are here incredibly early."
"Did you fall asleep in you workout cloths or something?" Michael asked, laughing when he saw what I had on. Looking down, I saw that I was wearing the same pare of PJ's I was the other night when I saw Thomas, then remembered the reaction he had taken to me wearing them. "I thought that my mother bought you a nightgown? No worries, I would prefer sleeping in that over a dress any day. Well, night really."
Laughing, I told him to give me twenty minutes to get dressed. "Okay, I'll meet you out front."
I decided to put on one of the new outfits that Aunt Sophia had bought for me the night before: a light purple nit shirt with a V neck, and bell shaped sleeves, blue jeans that had slits on the sides of the legs with brown leather cords lacing them together, a white silk belt with intricate beading for decoration to go around my hips, a simple gold band with a heart cut out of the top to go on the ring finger of my right hand, a gold necklace with a heart shaped charm, brown leather healed flip flops, and a brown leather hip bag/purse. Walking into my bathroom, I decided to be bold and put on some of the make-up that she had bough for me also, which consisted of foundation, rogue colored blush, black eyeliner, black mascara, sparkly clear lip gloss, and eye shadow which consisted of brown, violet and tan colors which I neatly designed across my eyelids, I had to admit, this was a lot of fun, and I had been missing out on looking quite pretty! I never would have admitted so at home, so I was a little shocked. You could tell that I was wearing make-up, but it definitely wasn't extravagant like you would see on any given girl at any given high school back in the states.
Running downstairs, I went right out the door to see what Michael had wanted. "So, what's up? You have to want something in order to wake me up so early while I'm on vacation." I said, playing with his mind.
"Wow, you look great! Do you normally wear makeup like that? Or clothes like that?" Michael asked, stunned at the difference in my appearance between today and the last two days I had been here.
"No, I have never worn this much makeup, and I never would have even looked at this outfit at home, but I really like this look on me!" I told him laughing.
"Man, West is never going to stop talking about you now." I heard him say under his breath.
"What was that?" I asked, not sure that I had heard him correctly.
"Nothing, I was just thinking out loud. It's an old habit of mine that I really should try to break. Well then, how about breakfast?"
"Sounds great, I'm starving!"
"Well then, I think we should head over to the best pancake house in the city. You do like pancakes, right?"
"You bet! Honestly, who doesn't?"
"Great; let's walk. It's quite a distance from here, but I think they have kept you cooped up in that house and in their limo for far too long. Do you mind?"
"No, I could use the leg stretching. Plus I can get a feel of my way around!"
Once at the pancake house, we sat in silence while waiting for our food. To my disappointment, they didn't have any of those peg games where you can find out your IQ by seeing how few pegs you can leave behind after jumping them. "So, mystery man, what did you want to talk about?" I asked finally, not being able to just sit there any longer.
"What? Why do you call me mystery man?" Michael said laughing. I could be wrong, but it sounded a little forced.
"Well, last night…" I began, but he interrupted me.
"Ah, here's our food. Kit, you're going to love this, they make the best pancakes here."
"Michael, what's wrong with you?" I asked.
"Nothing, I'm just hungry." he said, stuffing his face with strawberry pancake. With no choice, I began to eat also, but regular buttermilk pancakes, nothing special. After all the food was gone and paid for, Michael motioned for me to follow him. I tried talking to him again, but he just kept walking to who knows where. Ahead of us, I could see a park, so I assumed that that was where he was taking me, but he didn't stop. On the other side of the park, I could see a bridge with cars driving across it, and people walking on the side walk next to the road on it as well. There also was a strip of grass with side walks and benches running underneath of it, connecting it to the park. A ways away from the bridge was a small peninsula of rocks, and to my surprise, that was exactly where Michael was heading.
"This is the best fishing spot on the entire river. You do know which river this is, right? And which bridge that is?" he asked, indicating the bridge behind us. We were both seated on the end of the rock bulk head at this point, and Michael seemed to be in a world of his own.
"Of course, I'm not an idiot. This is the Thames River, and that is London Bridge. How stupid do you think I am? I may have been born in the states, but this is my homeland, my heritage. Half of it anyways." I told him, a little hurt that he didn't think that I was any smarter than the average run of the mill teen doped up on drugs. "Michael, what's wrong with you? You were really cool the first night I met you, but you seem to be getting lost in your own thoughts!"
"What do you mean?" he asked, still not looking at me.
"First off, you wouldn't let me ask a single question last night, and today, you wake me up real early so that I can have breakfast with you and a nice walk through the park, but you won't let me say a word! Michael, for the last time, what's…"
"I haven't seen the right opportunity to say anything." Michael murmured; once again interrupting me, but this time I didn't care. "There are so many things that you don't know, and nobody wants to tell you. I just can't take it!"
"What are you talking about?" I asked, truly concerned that something was wrong back home. That my mother really was sick and that she was in the hospital, or worse, dying. "Michael, you have to tell me what's going on. Is it my mother? Is she really sick?"
"I think you misunderstood me. Well, I can see how that wouldn't be too hard to do. I'm not making much sense am I?" he asked himself; still not looking at me! "Do you know anything about our family?" Finally, he turned his head to look at me, but I wish he hadn't because his eyes were filled with grief, pain, worry, and exasperation; desperation! I couldn't for the life of me figure out what he meant, so I told him the only thing I could think of.
"We're English?" No duh stupid! Why else would they be living here, and why else would we have English accents? One more step towards the blond side. I thought. It was a running joke back home with my friends. You see, we all love star wars, but since our "gang" consists of all girls, we tend to get a little ditzy and start acting blond occasionally, so instead of going over to the "dark side", we cross over to the "blond side." The blond side is what we refer to preps and cheerleaders who only care about what they look like and say words such as "like" and "totally" after every three words.
He laughed, but again it sounded forced, but more so this time. "I mean specifically about our heritage. Our status I guess you could say."
"Oh, you mean how we are related to the royal family?" I asked, sounding even more blond than before. "Oh, that reminds me of the question I was dying to get out last night. If we are related to them, doesn't that make us…"
"Royal?" he said, interrupting me once again. "Kit, I really don't know if I'm the one who's supposed to tell you this, but nobody else seems to want too, so I guess I have too. Nana was supposed to be queen instead of her sister because she is, was, the eldest child. Grams was supposed to be her heir because she is her only child, and then your mother, because my mother is your mother's younger sister. Kit, you are the rightful heir to the English throne, which makes you a princess."
Needless to say, I was stunned, and every bit as confused as I was before I left home, because mother never told me I was a princess! The entire time I thought that she had been making it up about my great great great great grandmother was a queen! "Wait a second, you're older, Nate is older, why aren't one of you to inherit the throne?"
"Like I said, your mother is older than mine, so that rules me out, though I still am a prince. Who is Nate?" Michael asked.
"Nathaniel is my older brother. I call him Nate for short. Since he is older, shouldn't he inherit it instead of me then?"
"No. It has been tradition for a long time for the eldest daughter to rule England, not a son."
"Oh." I said. "But, I'm not the heir to the throne, Prince William is!" I exclaimed. It would be really cool to be a princess and all, but I can't even hold a school office for student council, so how was I supposed to be a queen? "Um, how is it that Nana didn't become queen?" I asked.
Michael sighed and turned away from me again, staring out over the river. "That, I cannot tell you." he said after a long sigh. "Come on, we had better get back before they start looking for you. I didn't exactly tell anyone that I was taking you out." he said, standing up on the rocks, brushing off his pants, then balancing his way back to shore.
Standing up as well, I called after him, "You cannot, or will not?" Michael just ignored me, or maybe didn't hear me since the wind was blowing towards me and away from him. I heard him shout and saw him wave to someone walking up the path. Curious as to whom it was, like always, I started walking back to shore after him, but all of a sudden, everything started spinning and all I could see were a bunch of colors rushing into the center of my vision. Suddenly, I saw a drawer open, and inside where several keys. Someone's hand reached inside and grabbed one of the keys, then turned around and headed towards a bunch of trunks in the center of a room. This was the secret room! I now knew where the keys to open the chests were! Then, all the colors darted away from my line of sight, and everything started spinning again.
As I came around from my vision; that had to be what they were, there was just no other explanation; I just had no idea how I was getting them; I heard a bunch of splashing and someone grabbing me by the waist. How did I get in the water? I wondered as I realized that I was in the river. Opening my eyes, all I could see was the head and shoulder of the guy who was pulling me out. The hair was too dark to be Michael's, so who was this guy? I suddenly felt the ground under me, so I tried to sit up, but something was holding my shoulders and pulling me up higher. My mystery rescuer then turned around from helping to haul me up, and I saw that it was West! I also saw Michael's head appear over mine, so it seemed that he had been the one pulling me up by the shoulders. Again I tried to sit up, but both of them pushed me back down; firmly, but gently.
"You know," West said, "we really need to work on your balance. This is the second time you have collapsed near me!"
"You know why don't you?" Michael said laughing. "It's because she keeps falling for you." He put a little extra emphasis on the word for.
"Yeah yeah yeah, I'm fine, so would you two please let me up? I just lost my balance and hit my head on one of the rocks." I said. That was true; I did lose my balance because of my vision, and probably did hit my head, because my head hurt an awful lot for just plopping down in the water.
To my pleasure, they did as I asked. Though they both put my arms around their necks so that I could balance myself on them, but not before Michael and West both took off their Oxford sweatshirts and handed them too me. West was faster, so rolling my eyes, I put his on.
"Are you heading home?" West asked Michael over my head. They were both taller than me, so it wasn't that hard for them to do; talk over my head I mean.
"Yeah, I kind of kidnapped her for breakfast, so I thought I had better get her back before they send Thomas out to find her." Michael said, laughing at the sight of Thomas wandering around London looking for me.
Walking back through the park, I knew that what Michael had mumbled earlier was true, because I kept feeling like someone was watching me. Sure enough, every time I pretended like I was looking around at all the trees and gardens, usually in the direction that West was walking next to me, I could see his eyes twitch back to pretending to people watch. It was a funny site, him twitching every time I glanced in his general direction.
When we made it home, West escorted us to the front door, and poked his head in for a few seconds to say high to Grams and Nana who where sitting in the parlor. Michael made a beeline for the kitchen, probably to get food, so West pulled me back outside onto the front steps.
"Hey, how about I kidnap you for dinner tomorrow and show you the sites? I know that people keep telling you that you will get to see some stuff, but to my knowledge, that hasn't happened yet has it?" he asked. I grinned and shook my head to let him know that I had seen nothing. "So, would you mind if I came by around ten?"
"How is it kidnapping if you tell me when you are going to do it?" I asked, playing with his head.
"Well then, would you rather pretend to walk around the garden and then I snatch you out of it?" West asked, playing along.
"Hmm, you still are telling me what you are doing, so I still don't see how it's kidnapping. How about I get up early tomorrow and tell Aunt Sophia and Grams and Nana that I'm going jogging tomorrow morning. I'll be running through the park back to the stone pier that Michael took me too, and then back here." I told him.
"Okay, but you have to make sure that you have some fresh cloths to change into."
"But why if I'm just going running?" I said, giving him a coy smile.
"Well then, I guess you'll just have to enjoy your morning jog. I'll see you later then I guess." he said, then turned around and walked back in the direction we came. I was just a little confused because I thought that he was really trying to make a dinner date with me. I guess he just wanted to take me site seeing after all! Another day then, but I'm still going to keep my jogging date. I need the exercise because, like Michael said this morning, I have been cooped up in this house for way too long.