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Seven hours later she delivers! Enjoy!

The moment the bell rang for lunch, Alice was out of her seat and making for her locker while trying to look as though she was not in a hurry. She traded out books for her lunch, which she'd taken to bringing rather than buying, and started walking briskly for one of the side doors. She made it just before the first wave of students hit, all of whom were making for the cafeteria. Walking against that was like swimming against a strong current.

Alice tried to slow her pace once she was outside, not wanting it to look as though she'd rushed. A princess had to have some dignity, right? Besides, as excited as she was, Alice was also nervous.

The picnic tables were empty when she reached them, and she felt a stab of disappointment. Slowing her walk to a trudge, she made her way over to the one that looked the cleanest and sat down. Alice chewed her lip, staring at the paper bag sitting in front of her.

What if he doesn't come? What if he forgot? Madeline has mentioned he can forget things easily. What if-

"Hey."

Alice jumped, grimacing as she banged her knees on the table as Alfred plopped down across from her. He frowned when he noticed her expression. "You okay?"

"Yes, yes, I'm fine," she said, rubbing her knees.

"So what did you want to talk about?" he asked, fishing around in his backpack.

"A few things." Alice took a deep breath and decided to start with the 'easy' one first. "Whenever I see you, you're never stressed out at all and I want to know how you do it. Normally I wouldn't care but there's a lot on my plate right now and it's not going to get any better anytime soon and if you have some sort of secret I'd really like to know what it is."

Alfred, who had stuck a sandwich in his mouth while he continued rummaging, looked up about halfway through her rant. When Alice clamped her mouth shut he straightened, pulling the sandwich from his mouth. As he chewed, he held a hand out palm up.

Alice frowned at him. "What?"

"This is my secret."

"There's nothing there."

"Yeah there is. They're called chill pills, Iggy, and it sounds like you need a whole bottle."

"This isn't helping," protested Alice. Sea or no sea, she was going to strangle Elizabeta...

Alfred eyed her, head cocked to one side as he munched. "Mind telling me just what's on your plate then?"

Later, Alice wondered if he regretted opening the floodgates.

"Remember the business I told you my father runs? He wants me to help Scott when he retires, and every time I'm home he ropes me into meetings and conference calls. It's kind of a family business thing, and the employees that work at the home office are a sort of extended surrogate family. I knew most of their kids growing up, and when I came here they wanted to try it too, but they're going to go into the business too so I'm responsible for them while we're all here.

"When I'm not worrying about them I'm worrying about school. I know I'm a reporter for the school paper but the only reason I'm on it is because we don't have to maintain a decent grade average. When I'm not worrying about them or doing the school paper I'm trying to get through the mountain of homework these damselfish teachers insist on assigning us. On top of all that, I don't even have a ride to school anymore."

Alice finally stopped for a breath, slumping in her seat. She stared down at her untouched lunch, as her appetite had deserted her. It was a long minute before she could bring herself to look up. Alfred was on his second sandwich, and to all appearances seemed to have been listening.

"Okay, first of all," he said at last, "Your old man's business sounds kind of weird. Second, I can fix the ride thing."

Alice perked up, but still hesitated. "You wouldn't mind?"

"So long as you don't mind waiting until after practice four to five days a week."

"No, that's fine. I don't spend enough time on my homework as is."

"That was going to be my third point. You said before you're not much good at math, but you like English, right?"

Alice grimaced. Anything she got back in math was usually decorated liberally with red.

"I'm the other way around, so let's make a deal. I'll help you with math, if you help me with English."

Strangle Elizabeta? Why had she even considered such a thing? She was getting an entire box of those chocolates she adored.

"Deal," agreed Alice, already feeling some of the weight lifting from her shoulders. "But I don't think you ever actually told me what your secret was. I honestly don't know how you find time to sleep at night."

Alfred grinned. "I kind of did. I try not to stress over things I don't have any control over, for one thing. I'll admit time management isn't my strong suit, but I get by. Like when school's going on I don't work on the comic book or play video games unless I've done all the homework. I usually work on the project for the art festival on the weekends, and just worry about school and football during the week. It's not that I don't stress, believe me I do, I just prioritize. It sounds to me part of your problem is that you've got everything crammed into the same 'number one priority' space."

"I'm a- I'm the CEO's daughter, Alfred. If he has his way I'll be taking half the load as soon as I'm graduated."

Alfred frowned. "That doesn't sound right. You keep saying you're supposed to run this business, whatever it is, but I don't get why. Did your old man even bother asking if you wanted to?"

Alice frowned. That wasn't even a questions she'd asked herself. She never felt she had to. "It's not that I don't want to, Alfred. Frankly I think I'm the only one who doesn't mind getting stuck with this job. I just want a little breathing room, or at least not have to worry so much. It's just that there are a hundred and one things to worry about, and another hundred and one things that could go wrong."

"What kind of a business is this anyway?"

"Import and export."

"Huh. What's the name? I don't think I've heard of it."

Alice thanked both Neptune and Poseidon Aunt Rachel had asked her why she was pacing a rut in the kitchen last night. The human had had the foresight to not only ask this same question, but to suggest Yuki set up a fake website. Alfred was no idiot, he'd go looking if he was serious about Alice.

"Trident Transport."

"Never heard of it. I'll look it up later. So you got anymore questions for the all-knowing Alfred?" he asked, grinning.

Alice made a face, though she felt a blush rising in her cheeks. She'd actually been planning to ask him for a ride, and was delighted it was one less favor she'd have to ask him for. But that still left the most awkward one.

Clearing her throat she began, "Yes, well, um, you see, my father is very old fashioned. I really hate to ask, but it's important that you not kiss me, at least not yet."

Alfred blinked. "Uh, sure. No problem. Are all of you like that? 'Cause it looked like all of you really freaked when Feliciana kissed Ludwig the other day."

Alice blushed. "Yes, we are. It's old fashioned, I know, but...

Alfred was waving her off. "If it makes you uncomfortable, I'm cool." Then he frowned, and asked, "Uh, Mei's like you, right? Really old fashioned?"

Alice stiffened. "Yes. Why?"

"I think Ivan was going to try and kiss her today."

Her heart dropped to her boots even as she scrambled to get out of the picnic table. "Not another one," she muttered, stumbling as she ran back towards the school.

"Hey, where you going?"

Before Alice could answer, the front doors were thrown wide open and Mei flew through them. She half tripped down the steps and crashed into Alice. Both went down in a tangle of limbs, but no sooner had Alice managed to sit up then Mei had crouched behind her, hands fisting in the back of her blouse.

"Alice?"

The doors opened again, and Ivan strode out. Alice scrambled to her feet as he came down the steps, drawing herself up to her full five foot five height. Placing herself squarely between Mei and Ivan, she leveled her best princess glower at the Russian.

Ivan had stopped his advance, head cocked slightly as he regarded them. More specifically, as he regarded Mei who was peeking out from behind Alice.

"Why did you run, Mei-Mei?"

"I panicked," she squeaked.

Alice opened her mouth, about to tell Ivan off, but stopped when Alfred appeared next to her. She glanced at him, and then did a double take. The princess realized that, while not directly in front of her, Alfred had put himself between her and Ivan. His previously cheerful expression was gone, twinkling blue eyes deadly serious.

"Take it easy, big guy. What's going on?"

"All I did was try to kiss her, and she run," protested Ivan. "No hurt, only kiss."

"Depends on who you ask."

Ivan's eyes narrowed. "It has been a while since you've stood against me, Alfred. Why?"

"You know why, ruski. I thought you liked her. If you like someone you don't spook them. You want to kiss her, I get it, but if you're serious about liking her would it kill you to take five seconds and see why she freaked?"

Alice felt Mei stiffen at her back. The girl poked her head out and said quickly, "Um, Ivan, it has to do with the thing. If you promise to stop trying to kiss me I'll explain. But for Neptune's sake stop chasing me all over the school!"

The princess stiffened. The thing? There was only one thing Mei could possibly be talking about. Poseidon, Neptune and Old Man of the Sea...

Ivan smiled. "Okay. I no chase."

Mei took a deep breath, stepped out from behind Alice, and marched up to him. Without breaking stride she grabbed a handful of his sleeve and continued into the school, Ivan in tow. He came obediently along, the smile Alice found slightly creepy still on his face.

Once they were gone Alfred asked, "What's this got to do with a disembodied hand?"

The sheer bizarreness of the statement got Alice's attention. "I beg your pardon?"

Alfred looked at her as if she was the weird one. "You know, Thing? The disembodied hand from The Adams Family? I'll admit it's old but it's still a classic."

Alice slowly shook her head. "Sorry, never heard of it."

Alfred checked his watch. "We still have half an hour. Come on, I'll show you. No one's watching the computer lab during lunch."

"Is it some sort of TV show?" she asked, trailing him back to the picnic table. She hadn't gotten into television much, making the cultural gap between herself and the humans a bit wider.

"Yep. I'm tellen' ya, all the good ones are old."

"I'll take your word for it," said Alice weakly.

"I take it you've never heard of Scooby Doo either."

"Scooby who?"

Alfred groaned. "I've got a lot of work to do."

BREAK*BREAK*BREAK

That afternoon, when Alice climbed onto the empty bleachers around the football field, she found herself joined by Mei. The girl sat a few feet away, backpack at her feet, and pulled out her own homework.

"Does Ivan give you a ride too?"

"Yes," she said simply, and then chewed on her lip. "I know I should have told you, and I'm sorry. But with everything else going on I didn't want to add to your plate. We didn't know humans liked to kiss so much."

Alice grimaced, though she couldn't bring herself to fault Mei. "It's alright. At least he hasn't kissed you yet."

Mei blushed. "Yes, I'm sorry about what happened earlier. Ivan can be...persistent. But he's okay now."

Alice eyed her. "I hope so. By the way, how long has he known?"

"Since the weekend. I'm sorry, but he saw my fin. It was that isolated place Bella told me about, I didn't think anyone would be there."

Alice waved her off. "No, no, I know what you're talking about. I don't blame you, it was just bad luck. Frankly I'm not very comfortable with him, but then I'm not you. As long as you are alright and he keeps our secret I will stay out of it."

"Thanks," said Mei, smiling shyly. "He's very sweet, actually. Leaves sunflowers in my locker, drives me to and from school, and he likes to hold my hand."

The princess chuckled. "I guess Alfred was right, he is smitten."

Mei blushed, but didn't comment.

BREAK*BREAK*BREAK

"This is a bad idea."

"No it's not, relax."

"I'm can't believe I let you guys talk me into this. If Alice finds out-"

"She won't, unless you go blabbing to her," Matthias informed him, poking him in the chest before facing forward again.

Austin grimaced. Normally he didn't have a problem going along with Matthias's shenanigans, but then normally he wasn't within wrath-distance of his cousin. He wasn't close enough to the throne to have any of the responsibilities, but he was still royal blood, and it had been pounded into his head he had to act accordingly. It was why he liked hanging out with Matthias and Berwald so much, they didn't care and treated him like any other merman. Well, most did that anyway, but they didn't care if they got him into trouble or not. At one point he'd thought it was a good thing.

Matthias had recently discovered that if you went into the janitors closet right behind the girls locker room, there were several cracks and holes in the dividing wall. The closet itself was just used as storage for old desks, so no one ever went in there. Unless of course you were Matthias and could locate trouble within a five nautical mile radius.

Austin picked his way through the dark room, making his way to the small shafts of light coming through the cracks in the wall. No sooner had he managed to get to one than a flood of voices started pouring into the locker room.

"Fencing practice," whispered Matthias, grinning.

The half Australian stiffened. "Fencing? As in with swords? If they come after us with swords-

Matthias shushed him, waving for him to be quiet. It sounded like the entire fencing team was in the locker room now, and the showers were starting to turn on. Curiosity got the better of him, and Austin peered through the nearest crack.

"What are you doing?"

All three jumped. Austin swung around in time to see Francis shutting the door. Matthias hurried over to whisper in his ear, and Austin turned back to the crack.

For the most part it seemed like they were chattering on about nonsense, but his ears did prick up at the mention of 'Miami.'

"I think you've basically exhausted the town's supply of cute guys," one of the girls was saying. "Seriously, you two have your standards set way too high. Either give one of the cutie's from Miami a shot, or give it up."

Another girl, this one notably more snooty, added her input. "You just need to settle long enough to have a date for the dances, and then dump them when you go to college. That's where the variety is. The same goes for you, Joan."

The girl who had been indicated to be Joan gestured rudely to the speaker, and peeled her sweaty tank top over her head. This was one of those human gestures, consisting of showing someone a fist with only the middle finger standing up. Austin made a mental note to ask Bella about it later. On a more important note, he didn't like the bras favored by female athletes. They were too...restricting.

"Just because you got dumped doesn't mean the rest of us can't still have some luck," said another girl. This one was cute, though not as cute as the girl standing next to her. They seemed to be sisters, if not in coloring than in bone structure. "Not that I need luck. Boys are idiots. You want a guy from Miami, you go get him."

The sister didn't comment, just stepped out of her sport shorts. Austin knew what humans looked like from the waist down, but he'd only seen himself and the other mermen when they'd made their pilgrimage to land.

Beside him, Francis heaved, jerked, but managed to pinch his nose in time to stop a sneeze. Austin elbowed him, giving him a dirty look. The last thing they needed now was an ill-timed sneeze.

"I can't help it," whispered Francis. "It's so dusty in here."

Austin pressed his face back to the wall, but scowled as he realized it was in time to see a head of silvery blond hair disappear into the showers. Disappointed, he turned back to the rest of the locker room. Okay, maybe disappointed was a bad word...

Francis started to heave again. Austin didn't look up this time, which proved to be a mistake. He started, and then turned to look in horror as Francis let loose a loud sneeze. The merman had both hands pressed over his face, but still had fallen on his backside from the force of it.

The chatter stopped.

"Did you hear something?"

"Look! They never fixed the wall! Get 'em!" shrieked Joan.

"Run!" blurted Matthias, leading the charge out of the closet.

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