The Micki Adventures

                                             By Linda Bindner

                                    Chapter 4: Friends and Enemies

        The minute her pinky touched Al’s, Micki caught sight of the hat belonging to the Tutor approaching through the market square.  It bobbed with him as his tall figure wove around people gossiping together in clumps of twos and threes.  He must be out looking for her.  With his coming, she knew everything was over.  She couldn’t stop herself from groaning out loud.

        Al must have thought she was hurting her.  “Am I squeezing your finger too tight?”

        Micki sighed.  “Of course not.  It’s my tutor.  He’s the really tall man wearing the hat.  I’m sure he’s come to take me back.”

        “Princess!” the man called.  He calmly walked up to them, nodding to Al as he did.  “Hello, ma’am.”

        The greeting brought a grin to Al’s face.  “Hello.”  Then she turned to Micki.  “Wow, he called me ‘ma’am.’  You are so lucky you have a nice teacher.”

        Micki didn’t quite agree, but she grinned at Al all the same.  “If I’m the princess, you have to be ma’am.”

        “It’s only fair,” Al agreed.

        “Princess Em,” the Tutor said, gently interrupting them.  “I’m afraid we must leave as quickly as possible.  The Queen is very worried about you.  She will be relieved to see you.”

        Micki groaned again - the last thing she wanted was to cause worry for the Queen.  At least she remembered to do introductions before she left.  “Al, this is my tutor, called…”  She stopped, puzzled.  “I don’t even know your name.”

        “My name is unimportant,” the Tutor said.  “We must --”

        “Name’s are very important,” Micki immediately argued.  “I want you to meet Al.  I owe everything to her today.”

        The Tutor’s gentle smile turned on Al.  “Then I am in your debt.  But we must --”

        “Why are you always in such a hurry?” Micki asked, scowling.

        “I’m only concerned about spreading The Disease to your friend,” the Tutor explained.

        Al frowned.  “What’s The Disease?”

        Micki groaned again; why did he have to ruin everything by bringing that up?  “It’s just some stupid thing meant to scare us into behaving the way they want us to.”

        The Tutor raised his brows in surprise.  “Is that what you think?”

        It was Micki’s turn to frown.  “Isn’t it?”

        “Of course not,” the Tutor said.  “The Disease is an illness that we’re trying very hard not to bring into Ruralusia.”

        “How can you bring in a disease?” Al asked, sounding as if she didn’t believe a word he was saying.  “Don’t people just… get sick?”

        “Then they get better?” MIcki added.

        The Tutor patiently told them, “Other people from other countries carry it here during visits because they think they’re healthy since they aren’t showing any symptoms yet.  People in Ruralusia can get it from them, the royal family included, and then they die.”

        “They die?” Al asked, stunned.  “Always?”

        The Tutor’s patient smile wavered a bit.  “Not always, but they often do,” he finally admitted.  “Our healers don’t know what causes it, or how to treat it.  All we can do is try to keep anyone in Ruralusia from getting it.”

        “Is that working?”

        Micki knew what the Tutor was going to say before he could even open his mouth, so she answered for him.  “I don’t suppose that running away from the palace today was a good idea, was it?”

        “Perhaps not.  We must return to the palace quickly.  But you should wash your hands first.”

        Skeptical, Micki looked at her hands, dirty from dripping ice cream and dust.  They looked like her hands looked all the time.  “What does washing my hands do?  That sounds so dumb.”

        Still patient and still smiling, the Tutor said, “We can’t take any chances.  What if Miss…?”  He gestured to Al, but waited for Micki to fill in her name.

        “You can call her Sondra.  Only desperate people get to call her Al.  Are you desperate?”

        “Not yet.”

        “I bet you will be soon, if I know you.”  Micki knew he was in a hurry.  “You better talk fast.”

        So the Tutor did.  “What if Miss Sondra already has The Disease and doesn’t know it yet?”

        “But I feel fine,” Al argued.

        “Yes, Miss Sondra, you probably are fine,” agreed the Tutor  “The healers think you can only get it at this point from visiting dignitaries.”

        “And I haven’t seen many of them lately,” Al joked.

        The tutor continued, “But washing your hands can only help.”

        Reluctantly agreeable, Micki looked towards the jailhouse.  “We can wash our hands in there.”
        “Yes.  I’m sorry, but then we must leave.”

        “I know,” said Micki.  “The Queen wants to see me.”

        “She’s very worried about you,” the Tutor reminded her.

        As they headed towards the jailhouse, Al had a look of skepticism in her eye.  ”What are the symptoms, in case I get it later?”

        The Tutor explained the symptoms while Micki washed her hands, followed by Al, then the Tutor washed his for good measure.  Finally he said to Al, “You must send word to the palace immediately if you or anyone in your family start showing any symptoms.”

        “Why would that matter?” Micki asked, irritated that he was telling her friend what to do.

        But theTutor was adamant.  “What if she already has it, and she touched you, then you carry it, then you touch the Queen later today, and she gets it, and then dies?”

        “Oh,” Micki said, pausing her disbelief for a moment.  Even if the Tutor was making all this up, she didn’t want to be the cause of something bad happening to the Queen.  “I hadn’t thought of it that way.  Rachel would be Queen then.”

        “What if you give it to Princess Rachel, and then she dies too?”

        That meant she would be…  “Oh.”  Micki blinked, worried again.  She was fairly sure she didn’t want to take even the chance that this story wasn’t true.

“If the whole ruling family dies, there would be fights over who gets to rule,” Al said, her eyes wide.  “Everybody would want to be Queen.”

“I didn’t know it was so bad,” Micki added.

        The Tutor relaxed now that they’d all washed their hands.  “It isn’t bad in Ruralusia like it’s bad in other countries.  Not yet, anyway.  We’re trying to keep it like that.  But now you see why we must leave.”

        Micki sighed in agreement.  “Fine,” she grumbled, even though she was more worried now than mad.  She turned to Al.  “Today was wonderful, Al; thank you.  Come to the palace whenever you need anything… and I mean anything.”

        Al grinned.  “But especially for chocolate ice cream, right, Princess?”

        Micki smiled even as she pretended to threaten, “Call me that again and I’ll make you hang out the laundry by yourself… all of it.”

        Al grinned right back at her.  “Keep doing all that princessy stuff.”

        “You bet.”  Micki waved.  “I hope I see you again.”

        Al waved back, then held up her finger.  “Pinky swear.”

                                                ~~~

        It was raining by the time Micki was on her way back to the palace.  The gray clouds had started to swirl, thunder boomed, and lightning lit up the inside of the vehicle like it was sunrise.  Drops of rain fell so hard on the windows that it pinged like hail.  Micki was just glad the rain had held off until so late in the day.  It wouldn’t have been much fun running around with Al in the market while getting wet.  Besides, rain would have ruined their ice cream.

        Al had bought their ice cream, though with eight children at home, money must be tight for her family.  Micki promised herself to pay Al back as soon as she could.  Of course, experience had taught her that might be months from now.

        “You were very impressive today in the square,” the Tutor told Micki as they lurched over a bump in the road.

        Micki tried hard not to get thrown against his shoulder, remembering what he’d said about not touching other people.  “Do you really think so?” she asked hopefully, and he laughed gently.  In fact, everything about him was gentle.  Sometimes it really rubbed Micki the wrong way.

  “I saw the whole thing before I talked to you and your friend,” he said, turning his smile on her.  “You handled yourself well, just like we practiced.  Did you picture everyone in their underwear?”

        Micki couldn’t stop herself from laughing with him.  “Yeah.”

“Yes,” he gently corrected.

“Yes,” Micki dutifully echoed.  “I made that guard’s underwear really ugly.  It had holes in it.”

        The Tutor smiled, looking relaxed.  “Your mother will be proud.  Finding a way for that prisoner man to pay his taxes without hurting him was a very queenly thing to do.”

        Micki tried hard not to look pleased at his praise, though she was.  “Rachel’s the one who has to worry about being queenly, not me.”

        “One never knows the future,” the Tutor cautioned.  “What if something happens to both your Mother and Princess Rachel, just like I said?  You might end up being Queen someday.”

        “That’ll never happen,” Micki said, sounding confident, even if she wasn’t.  “Most days, we’re watched so carefully that we can’t even sneeze.  It’s amazing I met Al at all.  She bought me ice cream.”
        “She bought ice cream for me,” the Tutor corrected again.

        “Yeah, that.  I feel like I should pay her back.  Can I?”

        “Of course, Princess.  I’ll see to it.”

        “Okay, thanks.  Anyway, she’s great.  She has seven brothers and sisters.  Her brother Theodore wants to be called Tank.”

        “Strange, wanting to be called something other than your name.“  The Tutor looked at her out of the corners of his eyes.

        He was making fun of her for wanting to be called Micki instead of Princess Em.  “Al says that people will treat me different if I pretend to be Micki.  She doesn’t blame me.  Too bad everyone can’t understand that.”  And she glared at the Tutor.

        “You certainly are in a rebellious mood today, Princess.  This Al must be quite a girl to  make you feel that way.”

        “I already felt that way,” Micki said, remembering how bored she’d been while in her bedroom.  But Al had changed all that.  “She’s my age, and she’s perfect.”

        “Nobody’s perfect.  We have to settle for being as close to perfect as we can.”
        “Al makes me more perfect,” Micki said stubbornly.  “She’s already the best friend I’ve ever had.”

“You’ve only known her one day.  Not even a day,” the Tutor said, looking at his watch.  “You were only gone for a few hours.  How do you know you’ll even see her again?”

“I will,” Micki said.  “A girl just knows.”  And she giggled just like Al would have.

~~~

“Oh,  Em, thank goodness they found you,” sighed her mother, Queen Madge.  “Are you  hurt?”

“Nope.”  Micki shook her head.

“No,” her mother corrected.

“No,” Micki dutifully repeated.  “Al was with me the whole time.  I was perfectly safe.”

“Who is Al?”  The Queen frowned while an aid made her sign a paper she didn’t read.

Micki’s mother did this kind of thing all the time.  Micki didn’t pay any attention.  Her eyes lit up.  “She’s this wonderful girl who’s ten like I am and she bought me ice cream and saved me from her brother and --”

“Saved you?”  Queen Madge looked suspiciously at her daughter.  “I thought you were safe.  Why did you need saving?”

Micki shrugged dismissively.  “He and a smelly friend threatened to cut off my wrist if I didn’t pay them… money, I think.”  The Queen’s face turned white, probably with fear.  Micki hurried to add,  “Al yelled to stop them.  She helped me later at the jailhouse, too.”

“Yes, your tutor told me all about what happened with that man in the square.  Really, Em, giving him a job won’t help him to quit drinking.”

Micki’s brows wrinkled.  “What does he drink that’s so bad, anyway?  That guard said something about beer, but beer ain’t bad, is it?”

“Isn’t bad,” the Queen corrected.

“Isn’t bad.  I don’t get it.”

“I don’t understand it,” the Queen corrected.

Micki rolled her eyes in exasperation.  “Mom.”

“Beer is alcohol, and alcohol -- “

“That’s the smelly stuff that’s bad for you, right?”

“That’s a simple way to put it, but yes.”

“Why’s it so bad?”

“It can make you want more and more of it until all your money is gone, but you still want more, so some people start stealing in order to get more of it.”

“Oh.”  Micki thought about wanting something so bad she would steal for it.  “I don’t even want ice cream that bad.”

Queen Madge chuckled while another aid held out another paper for her to sign.  She did.  “I heard you fired that guard.”

“He was mean to the people.  He kicked that drinker man in the ribs.”

Queen Madge sighed, sounding regretful now.  “I’m afraid you made an enemy of that guard today.  You shouldn’t have done that.”

Micki frowned again.  “You’re saying that instead of firing him I should have let him beat his prisoners just so he wouldn’t become our enemy?”  She didn’t let her mother answer, but shook her head instead.  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Of course not,” Queen Madge said.  “We must always try to solve the problems of the realm without upsetting anybody.”

“Hmph,” Micki growled.  “I don’t care if I upset that guard.  He was just a big bully.”

“Perhaps,” her mother said, and signed another paper.  “But what if he convinces other people that he was treated poorly?  He could come back for revenge, and they could help him do it.  Innocents might get hurt, like your friend Al.  It would have been better to save the drunk and the guard.”

Perplexed, Micki wrinkled her nose.  “How would I have done that?”

“For starters, you should have fired the guard in private rather than embarrass him by doing it in public.  Now you’ve only made him angry, and angry people are harder to predict.  Or you could have made him guard something else instead of firing him.  If he’s mean to prisoners, don’t let him near any more prisoners.”

Micki was confused.  “You mean let him be mean to someone else?  How does that help anyone?”

Queen Madge gave a thoughtful hum.  “Assign him to another guard duty, such as guarding a door, or the food.  Let things go for a while, then if you still feel it best that he not be a guard, fire him, but make it seem like it has nothing to do with what happened in the market square.”

“Wow.  That’s very… backwards.”

“It would also seem backwards of me not to punish you at all for running away today.”  The Queen’s voice had grown a bit harder, more threatening.

Meaning that it would seem unfair to Rachel, but not anybody else.  Micki was definitely not afraid of Rachel.  So she just grinned and suggested, “Let Al come to the palace instead of me going to see her, and I won’t have any more reasons to run away.”

Queen Madge smiled.  “That too seems backwards.  But I promise to think about it.  Now I must go: I have an audience with the representative from Gawlt.”

“Gawlt.”  Micki tried to remember all the people from other countries she had met so far, but it was hard.  “Is that the country full of the fat people who-?”

“Judgements have no place in the realm,” the Queen gently said.

“What’s a realm?”

“A fancy word for kingdom.”

“Oh, okay.  Then I’ll see you after your audience with the Gawlt fella.”

Queen Madge sent an exasperated look at her daughter.  “The representative is a woman who’s a Prime Minister, not a fella.”

Micki’s grin grew wicked.  “Then she’s not the Gawlt Guy, But the Gawlt Gal.  See you later!”  She skipped impudently out of the throne room.