Chapter 18

"I never realized how boring it is here." Parker said to me as he sat down in his seat in front of me.

"I know. Whenever I spend an extended amount of time in Castello, it's always a culture shock being back here." I laughed, crossing my legs.

"It's weird. Like when we went out with Adeline, everybody knew who we were."

"Well duh, we're royalty." I laughed.

"No, exactly. And then here, I mean, I feel like I'm programmed to feel like everybody's paying attention to me." Parker said, looking around the room.

I frowned, knowing what he was talking about.

"You're right, I do kind of feel like people are looking at us..." I sighed. "Well I mean we did just miss an entire week of school."

"True, true." Parker nodded with a sigh. "Incoming." He whispered as Oliver walked over to us.

He sat down in his seat next to Parker, looking at us with a completely straight face.

"Hey!" I said happily, knowing I had to keep up the charade until Parker talked to him.

"You know, the two of you are really full of shit with all of these lies." Oliver said coldly.

"Excuse me?" I asked quickly, taken aback by his sudden anger.

Oliver handed a magazine to Parker.

I leaned forwards, my eyes widening when I saw the cover.

It was People magazine.

It was a picture of William, Kate, Charlotte, and George in our formal sitting room, with Parker and I standing next to our grandmother in the background, all of us smiling.

"Page forty eight." Oliver said quietly.

Parker flipped to the page and I felt my stomach sink.

"Holy shit." I whispered, reaching over to pull the magazine closer to me as I looked at the the news article.

"Meet the eighteen year old girl about to take the throne of a beautiful island in the pacific ocean, known as Castello. Princess Scarlett has been first in line to the throne since she was ten years old, and rumors have been spreading that her day to reign may be a lot closer than she planned." Parker read out loud.

I scanned down the article, my heart sinking.

One the second page, there was a picture of Parker and I with Charlotte and George, the two of us were laughing with the little kids as we sat on the couch.

I didn't even know that these pictures had been taken.

"Yea, the lies you two have been telling me? Save it. I'm done with your shit." Oliver said harshly.

But I couldn't be bothered with paying attention to him right now.

With shaky hands, I took the magazine from Parker.

"Parker." I whispered. "I think we need to leave."

"What?" He frowned, giving me a confused look.

"Look, this is one of the most popular magazines at cash registers and judging by the looks we're getting, everybody has seen it. I'm pretty sure this is a security issue." I whispered.

Parker looked around the room. One of the juniors in our class was taking a picture of us but quickly put her phone down when she saw Parker looking at her.

"I don't get what you're saying." Parker whispered.

I took a deep breath, pulling my phone out of my pocket.

"So do either of you care to explain why the hell you thought it would be fun to keep this from me?" Oliver asked, leaning towards us.

I held up my hand to him as I waited for my dad to answer his phone.

"Are you at school right now?" My dad asked as he answered the phone.

"Dad, everyone has seen the magazine." I said quietly. "What are Parker and I supposed to do?"

"You're going to go through the school as if everything is normal okay? This is no big deal, just, just lay low alright? Parker knows what he's supposed to do." My dad sighed.

"Um, okay." I nodded.

"Call me after school okay?" My dad said.

"Yea. Bye." I hung up the phone.

"What did he say?" Parker asked nervously.

"We're just supposed to act like nothing's going on." I shrugged. "Here's your magazine." I said to Oliver, handing it over to him.

Oliver just looked at me.

"That's it? No explanation?" Oliver asked quietly.

"What? The magazine says it all. I'm an eighteen year old girl about to be a queen of a nation, I can't have some pointless relationship that's going nowhere." I said quietly before turning my attention to the front of the room.

"Scarlett just because-"

"Mr. James! Thank you for your enthusiasm, why don't you come put the first homework problem up on the board?" The teacher said, calling him out for his talking.

"I wasn't here on Friday, sir." Oliver sighed, leaning back in his chair.

"Shame, lunch detention." The teacher said without another glance at him.

"Ah, Ms. Lockwood, Mr. Jones, nice of you to grace us with your presence." The teacher said, turning to Parker and I.

"We were at our grandma's." Parker explained. "Last minute family issue, sorry."

"Oh yes, we're all very much aware of that. How about you put your little brains together and put the first homework problem up on the board?" Mr. Rogers raised his eyebrows.

Parker just let out a sigh.

"We uh, we didn't exactly get around to the assignments for this class." I said quietly. "It was a very busy and stressful week."

"Ah, yes, being a Princess sure is tough work, Ms. Lockwood, took too much time doing your hair?" Mr. Rogers asked.

My eyes widened slightly at how rude he was being.

"Detention, both of you, lunch." Mr. Rogers said.

"Wait, Mr. Rogers, that's no fair!" I exclaimed, leaning forwards. "We were busy, and our absences were excused. You can't get us in trouble for having to deal with a family crisis!" I said loudly.

"Well you see, Ms. Lockwood, for some of us, a family crisis is a sick family member, or a death in the family. Your idea of a family crisis seems to be taking your sweet time getting all dolled up to pose for pictures with other Royals. It would be a good idea to apply yourself to your work more." Mr. Rogers gave me a disapproving look.

I raised my eyebrows. "Excuse me, sir, but please do not try to undermine the importance of my family just because of a status we hold. I assure you, the purpose of the trip was not simply for publicity reasons with the Windsors." I said, my heart speeding up in anger. "And not that it is any of your business, but my time in Castello is not spent getting 'all dolled up to pose for pictures' and if you would open a damn textbook you would realize that in my country most of the important political work is done by women who know the meaning of equality and who don't call out innocent individuals for being too busy to do their homework for a pointless class with a sexist teacher." I said harshly.

Parker turned around, his eyes wide at my sudden outburst.

I instantly felt my cheeks turn pink as everybody in the room was looking at me.

For the past six years of my public school experience, I never spoke up in class, let alone bitch out a teacher.

"Thank you, Ms. Lockwood, you can go down to the office now." Mr. Rogers said, pointing to the door.

I let out a sigh, grabbing my bag as I stood up from the desk.

"Mr. Jones, you can join her, clearly your family has some behavioral issues today that need to be addressed." Mr. Rogers added.

Parker's eyes widened.

"You're joking!" Parker exclaimed as he stood up.

"I assure you I am completely serious." Mr. Rogers said. "Now enough disrupting class, some people are actually here to learn as they need to actually go somewhere in life to succeed."

I felt the anger boiling up inside of me, threatening to boil over today.

What was wrong with Mr. Rogers today? Sure he was usually a jerk but today it was on a whole new level.

"And I'll be seeing you for your detention at lunch." He added as we left the classroom.

"What the hell was that?" Parker laughed as we walked down the hall. "I have never seen you so angry."

"Well that asshole was running his stupid misogynistic mouth and trying to tell me that I was good for nothing." I huffed, shaking my head. "I cannot stand people like that. But you know what? He's the loser teaching high school chemistry and I'll be the queen running her own damn country. Dammit people like him get under my skin. Just because he's my teacher doesn't mean he can boss me around like I'm his damn servant."

"How can I help you?" The secretary in the front office asked as we walked inside.

"Yea, hi, Mr. Rogers just verbally attacked my cousin and I, for no reason other than the fact that we missed a week of school to deal with a family issue, and he went on to insult our style of living that we have no control of. So when I called him out for being sexist towards me, he sent me to the office. Then he told Parker to come with me because apparently our family was having behavioral issues that needed to be sorted out." I said to her. "So I don't really know why we're here."

The secretary sighed, giving me an apologetic smile.

"Nancy!" She called back to the principal. "Mr. Rogers did it again!"

Principal Thompson appeared around the corner from her office, her eyebrows raised.

The secretary looked at me and I repeated the story again.

"I'm terribly sorry. The two of you can go to the media center for the remainder of first hour, don't worry about it." Principal Thompson said with a sigh. "Terri, get Mr. Rogers down here immediately please."

Parker and I just exchanged surprised looks before walking out of the office.

"I was sure we were going to get in trouble." Parker laughed.

"Oh my goodness, just imagine the queen's reaction to us getting sent to the office." I shook my head.

"Why do you call her the queen?" Parker frowned. "Why not 'grandma'?"

I shrugged, a frown crossing my face.

"I dunno actually. I guess our relationship has always been like that, not too personal." I replied as we walked towards the library.

"She doesn't seem that much of a personable woman." Parker shook his head.

"Well I mean think about it, she's had a rough time being queen and it's probably hardened her. Her husband died, her daughter died, her other daughter ran off with your dad and had a baby, and the only person she has to fill her shoes is the sad excuse of me." I laughed, pushing open the door to the library.

"Oh come on, you'll do great as queen." Parker gave me a look.

"We're not having this discussion again. Almost everything seems to be turning into what sort of monarch I'm going to be." I shook my head. "And I'm done with all of the speculation around my success. When it's time for me to be queen, then we can assess my actions. For now, just let me a damn high school student for once." 

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Don't even remember writing this chapter tbh - E xx