Chapter 4: Almost There

"Tiana! Tiana!"

Hearing her name being called, a teenage girl of African-American descent briefly turned away from her locker. She had dark eyes and curly brown hair tied into a downward ponytail with a weary but caring expression on her face. While her Disney Academy uniform looked used at a glance, a few stitches here and there made it almost seem brand-new which was largely thanks to her mother's expert sewing skills as a professional dressmaker. To her right came running another girl who was wearing a well-kept Disney Academy uniform and carrying a pink purse with rosy skin short blonde hair blue eyes a small nose and a big grin on her face.

"What is it, Charlotte?" Asked the African-American girl.

"Oh, please, call me Lottie!" The blonde-haired girl insisted, speaking in a Southern accent. "We agreed on that since we were kids, remember?"

"Right," Tiana shook her head. "Sorry about that…"

"What're you apologizing for?" Charlotte asked, looking confused.

"I'm just a little tired is all," Tiana explained, turning back to her locker to grab her plain brown bag and purse.

"Still working two jobs?" Charlotte inquired.

"Lottie!" Tiana exclaimed, looking around as she closed her locker. "Don't say that kind of thing out loud. You know students here aren't allowed to have part-time jobs."

"I know, I know," Charlotte said, rolling her eyes. "But anyway, have you read the school paper yet?"

"No, I haven't," replied Tiana.

From her pink purse, Charlotte produced a copy of the school's newspaper called The Daily Chirp and thrust it in Tiana's face. On the front page there was a picture of a young man with tan skin light brown hair and hazel eyes grinning in front of a boat that had pulled into the harbor of the city. Above the young man's picture was the headline "Prince Naveen of Maldonia Arrives to Attend Disney Academy".

"Can you believe this?" Charlotte grinned excitedly. "A real prince is attending our school! How cool is that?"

"I guess it's neat," Tiana shrugged.

"And he's cute to boot," Charlotte added, hugging the newspaper to her chest. "If I had the chance to marry him, I'd be living like a Princess and live happily ever after which I've always dreamed of since I was a little girl."

"Well, maybe you should try meeting him," Tiana suggested.

"Oh, I don't know," Charlotte sighed. "I've heard he's pretty popular with the girls, so how on Earth would I stand out from the rest of them?"

"I'm not an expert on romance, but my Mama always told me the key to a man's heart is through his stomach," Tiana responded.

Gasping, Charlotte cried, "That's it! Tiana, if you can bake those delicious Beignets of yours and leave them in Naveen's locker with my name attached to them, I will be so grateful to you!"

"I'll see when I get the time for it, being a waitress for two different restaurants and all," Tiana said. "But I'm so close to earning enough money to buy the place where I'll have my own restaurant, which I should have by the time I graduate this spring!"

"Aw, Tiana!" Charlotte hugged Tiana so tightly that she almost lost her footing. "You're the best friend ever!"

###

After school was done for the day, Tiana took the city bus to the downtown area where the two restaurants she worked at were located. On her way to the one of them, she passed by a tall man who was lurking in the shadows of an alleyway. He wore a black suit with a purple shirt underneath and a top hat that had a skull and crossbones on it.

"Care for a tarot reading?" The tall man asked. "Maybe some voodoo, hoodoo, or stuff I haven't even tried, Tiana?"

This made Tiana flinch and look back at the tall man. "How do you know my name?"

The tall man grinned knowingly. "I've got…friends on the other side who tell me things about the people I meet."

Tiana rolled her eyes. "Whatever, creep."

Then as Tiana turned away, she bumped into someone.

"Pardon me, Miss," said a male voice with a foreign accent to it. "I didn't see you there."

Backing up, Tiana saw that the person who spoke was Prince Naveen in the flesh who stood right in front of her wearing a dark green cap and matching vest over a white dress-shirt and tan slacks with brown shoes.

Before Tiana could speak, Naveen pointed at her while holding a ukulele in his other hand. "Are you a Disney Academy student?"

"Uh, how'd you guess?" Tiana responded nervously.

"I recognize the uniform you're wearing, since it's similar to the one I have to wear," Naveen replied. "Now, would you mind telling me how to get to the academy itself? I'm apparently supposed to go there to register for the Spring Semester, but I've lost track of my valet who would've normally taken me himself."

"Sure," Tiana nodded and pointed to the streets behind her with the tall man nowhere in sight. "Just head down that street, take a right, then another, followed by a left, and the Disney Academy will be on your right. Got all that?"

Naveen initially gave a blank stare and then he hid it with a charismatic smile. "Yes, thanks for your help."

Then Naveen took off down the street playing his ukulele to a crowd of people and musicians that followed him. They pushed past Tiana in the process, but she managed to stay upright and enter a diner-style restaurant with an overweight chef cooking food in the kitchen.

"You were almost late, Tiana!" The chef yelled.

"Sorry," Tiana apologized, heading into the back of the restaurant where the kitchen was located. "It won't happen again."

"As soon as you get changed into your work clothes, reheat these dishes that have been sitting here for several minutes too long before bringing them to their respective customers take some orders and make another batch of Beignets while you're at it."

"Okay," Tiana grumbled, changing out of her school uniform in the employee locker-room near the kitchen. "Someday, I won't be working in this dump no more and be my own boss for a change."

"What'd you say?" The chef asked.

"Nothing!" Tiana smiled, emerging from the locker-room wearing a plain yellow dress and white apron over it.

###

I can't believe I'm actually doing this, Tiana thought to herself the next day as she carried a tin box with leftover Beignets she made at the restaurant to the locker at school where Naveen had stopped at earlier.

Unfortunately, the locker was blocked by an old man with a balding head of gray hair a round face and an equally large rump.

"Just what do you think you're doing here, Miss?" The old man asked in a British accent, causing Tiana to freeze.

"I'm just here to deliver some Beignets to Naveen, from a secret admirer," Tiana explained.

The old man gave Tiana a suspicious stare. "May I have them, please?"

"Why?" Tiana wondered.

"Being Naveen's personal valet, I, Lawrence, must inspect these Beignets for myself to make sure they are not poisoned," the old man insisted.

"Okay," Tiana said, handing the tin box over to Lawrence. "I'm pretty sure they're not poisoned, though, since I made them."

Lawrence appeared not to hear Tiana as he opened the tin box. He then sniffed the contents and then said, "You may go."

As Tiana walked past Lawrence, she thought she heard munching sounds but chose to ignore it.

End of Chapter 4