The Micki Adventures

                                            By Linda Bindner

                                    Chapter 6: Turn About is Fair Play

        “Mom!” Rachel wailed.  “Tell her she’s crazy!”

        Sunshine and shadows swayed across the floor of the palace throne room.  Micki paused in her game of jumping from shadow to shadow in order to give Rachel her full attention.

        “I’m not crazy,” she patiently insisted.  “Al has been to the palace six times already.  It just makes sense that I spend time at her house now.  All I’m asking for is one afternoon at Al’s.  How is that crazy?”  She hopped to another shadow, then another, and another.

        “And I told her you’d say no because of The Disease,” Rachel ignored Micki to say to their mom.  “How can we be sure to stay healthy if she’s always off galavanting wherever she wants?”

Micki rolled her eyes even as she hopped.  “I’m not off galavanting.  I just want to go to Al’s house for an afternoon.  It’s not like I’m going to another country.”

Rachel turned towards Micki to nastily say, “You don’t care about what might happen to the rest of us is what you really mean.  Just as long as you get what you want.”

Since when did Rachel care about what happened to the rest of the people in the palace?  Micki was smart enough not to mention this out loud.  “Can I go?” she asked the Queen instead, always ready to get to the main point.

Queen Madge signed another of the endless documents she had to sign as ruler of Ruralusia, then glanced at Micki and sighed.  “I’m still not convinced that going out is a good idea.”

“Don’t the healers think it’s harder to catch The Disease outside?” Micki asked next, though she’d never understood why it mattered where you were.  But now was not the right time to say that, either.  “What if I promise that we’ll stay outside?”

Rachel snorted before their mom could answer.  “Like we believe you’ll ever just stay outside.  You’ll be in this friend’s room before you can say ‘Ruralusia.’”

Micki ignored her sister.  “Mom?”

Queen Madge considered Micki with eyes full of calculation.  “She’s probably right, Em.  It’s not like you to follow rules, even if they’re good for you.”

“But this time I promise, Mom.”

“You always promise,” Rachel said and crossed her arms.  “If I had a nickel for each time you made a promise, I’d be rich.”

“You’re a princess of Ruralusia,” Micki cheerfully pointed out.  “What difference does it make if you’re rich?”

Rachel sent Micki a dirty look.  “You know what I mean!”

Queen Madge ignored Rachel to say, “Em, you said this was a lunch date.”

Micki shrugged.  “It is.  We can eat outside, can’t we?”

“What if it rains?” Rachel immediately asked.  “Do you want to force your friend’s family to get wet while you eat?”

“Send a tent,” Micki said then.  “Mom, you’re always saying that we can do anything we want, we just have to find a way to do it.  How is this any different?”

Rachel crossed her arms so tight, she was sure to leave bruises.  “Mom is also always saying that all it takes is for one person to get this Disease, and the next thing you know, everybody has it.  Even you aren’t selfish enough to want that.”

“Enough!”  Queen Madge glared at them both.  “It would be nice if just once you two could get along.”

Micki doubted that would ever happen, but she didn’t say this out loud, either.  Instead, she tried to play it casual.  “If it’s going to cause a major war, then forget I asked.”  She turned away and hopped to another shadow, heading for the throne room’s double doors.  “I’ll just tell Al that she has to keep coming here.”

Behind her, the Queen heaved a resigned sigh.  “Em, wait a minute.”

It had worked!  Micki smiled at the wall in glee, glad no one could see her face, especially Rachel.  When she had her features under control again, she turned to her mom.  “Yeah?”  She hastily corrected herself.  “I mean, yes?”

“You do realize her entire family will have to be examined, don’t you?”

Micki shrugged her shoulders again.  “Yeah… yes.”

“Are you sure Sondra’s family is all right with that?”

Micki was amazed that her mom had remembered to call her Sondra instead of Al.

But before she could give any kind of answer, Rachel burst in to say, “Mom, you can’t seriously be considering this!”

The look the Queen sent to Rachel would have stopped a herd of charging animals.  She turned back to caution Micki, “You’ll have to take a bath and change clothes the minute you return.  And you can’t touch anybody or anything while you’re there.”

“I know,” Micki assured, though she wanted to ask how she should eat if she couldn’t touch any silverware.  But being a smart alec wouldn’t help her now.  She held her breath so she wouldn’t say something stupid at the last minute.

Queen Madge didn’t say anything right away, either, so Micki finally let herself persuasively say, “It’s just for an afternoon.”

Out of the corner of her eyes, Micki saw Rachel’s indignation increase as their mom wavered.

At last, the Queen decided, “The Tutor goes with you.”

        “What?!”  Horror replaced Micki’s previous nonchalance.  How could her mom expect her to have any fun with the Tutor there?  He’d spend the day criticizing everything she and Al did.

        Okay, maybe he wouldn’t criticize… exactly.  He never criticized anything she did.  He was too gentle for that.  Instead he would suggest things sure to leave Micki feeling guilty if she ignored him.

An uncomfortable thought occurred to Micki then.  Maybe her mom was right about her not planning to follow the rules set down for this visit.  It was much more like her to say ‘I promise to follow this rule or that rule,’ right before doing whatever she wanted to do, promise or not.  Spending time with Al would only bring out this side of her personality.

Besides, the Tutor really was fun to have around.  For an adult, he was much less likely to yell if she said something stupid, or dripped ice cream on her clothes.  Maybe having the Tutor come with her wouldn’t be as awful as she thought.

Before she could second guess herself, Micki said, “If the Tutor comes too, can I go?”

Queen Madge reached for another document in the hands of another assistant, but smiled at Micki.  “Yes, you can go.”

“Yes!”  Micki triumphantly pumped her fist into the air.  As she ran from the throne room to tell Al, she was proud of herself for not throwing a smug look Rachel’s way.

                                        ~~~

The tent was sent the day before she was meant to have lunch with Al and her family.  She felt a little guilty when the people who’d set up the tent in Al’s back yard had to take baths and change clothes when they returned to the palace, but not too guilty.  She was far too excited by then to bother feeling guilty for long.  She still had trouble believing that she really was going outside the palace.  She even had permission!  She wouldn’t have to go to the trouble of giving everyone the slip, of figuring out the best route to take out of the palace grounds, of escaping at all.  This was the freest she had ever been!

Micki promised herself not to let it go to her head.  If she wasn’t as good as gold, the perfect guest, the perfect princess, she would never be let out again.  So everything just had to go right!

        She was so afraid it would rain on the day of the lunch, but the day dawned bright and sunny and warm.  Then Micki worried that the day would become too warm, and they would have to leave early or sweat to death.  But the day didn’t grow too warm, and there was not a cloud in the sky.  Things couldn’t be better.

        The vehicle carrying Micki and the Tutor pulled up in front of the tall but sprawling house that Al had spoken of a dozen times.  Al stood at a gate, hands clutched behind her back, waiting for their arrival, almost jumping up and down in excitement.

Micki found herself grinning the minute she caught sight of her friend.  “There she is!” she cried to the Tutor.  She couldn’t stop herself from jumping to the ground before the vehicle had even rolled to a stop.  She managed to remember her promise to her mom about not touching anybody, but only just.  “Hi!”

        “Hi!” Al said back with as much enthusiasm.

        The Tutor climbed from the vehicle more sedately than Micki had.  “Good afternoon, Miss Sondra.”

        A small and pleasant-looking woman walked out of the house then, wiping her hands on a pink hand towel pinned to the pants riding low her hips.  “So this is your friend,” she said to Al.  She turned her smile on Micki.  “We’ve heard all about you, Princess.  Welcome to you both.”  She gave a welcome nod to both Micki and the Tutor.  “You must be the one Sondra Junior says is The Tutor.  I’m so glad you could come.”

        Wait.  “Sondra Junior?”  Micki hadn’t heard about this.  “Why is she calling you Junior?”

        Before Al had the chance to answer, there was a yell from the house, and four people ran down the front walk to the gate.  They came to a stop so fast that pebbles and dust flew.  Three of the four stared so obviously at Micki that she immediately grew uncomfortable.

        Micki leaned in close to whisper to Al, “Is my dress tucked inside my underwear, or what?”

        Instead of answering her, Al glared at the three staring strangers.  “I told you not to stare!” she angrily yelled.  “She’s a Princess - get over it!”

        The fourth one, a girl who wasn’t staring as much as the others, laughed.  “You tell ‘em, Junior!”

        Micki blinked.  Again with the Junior thing.  “What is this ‘Junior?’”

        Al slapped her hand across her eyes as if she wanted to disappear.  “They mean me.”

        The woman wearing the hand towel smiled in good-natured teasing.  “I’m her mother, and my name is Sondra.  Her father is named Alan.  So she’s Alasondra, a combination of our two names.”

        Grumbling, Al finished the story.  “Only it’s too confusing with two Sondras in the house, so I’m Sondra Junior, or most often just Junior.”  Al fiercely glared at her family.  “But you can’t call me that, either!”

        Her mother said, “Guess we just won’t call you anything.”

        “That’s what we should call her,” the girl who’d spoken earlier said.  “From now on, you’re Anything!”

        Al grimaced.  Leaning in to Micki, she said in a low voice, “I told you my older sister was a pain.”

        The woman playfully smacked both the girl and Al across their bottoms with the flat of her hand.  “Careful, or the Princess just might think we’re too crazy to spend time with, and leave.”

        The move looked more affectionate than anything related to discipline.  It made a yearning feeling explode in Micki’s chest.  No one would dare be so familiar with her.

        For the first time, she had an inkling of what it really meant to be Al.  Al didn’t have to worry about other people all the time.  There was no country she had to think about ruling over.  She only had her brothers and sisters to worry about.  And though they clearly caused her plenty of aggravation, she was so much more free.

        Instead of feeling instantly jealous, Micki whispered back to her friend, “Maybe your family is taking lessons from Rachel at being annoying.”

        Both Al and Micki burst out laughing.

        “Come on,” Al said next.  “I’ll show you to the tent out back.  Then we’ll have lunch.”

        Tank ran out of the house in time to hear her statement.  “Better hurry.  I’m eating all the ice cream before it melts.”

        Al’s mom caught her youngest son in a hug.  “How thoughtful of you, Theodore.”

        Tank squirmed in her arms.  “I told you to call me Tank!”

        “And I’m Alice,” said the girl who hadn’t stared at her so hard.  “And this is Mena, Gird, and Joph.”  She pointed to each child as she said his or her name.

        “Which one are the girls?” Micki whispered to Al as they passed into the shadow of the house,

        Al whispered back, “Don’t worry about it.  Everyone answers no matter the name.”

        “Oh.  Good.”

                                                ~~~

        Crumbs from their lunch of hamburgers and hot dogs lay strewn around the tent an hour later.  More crumbs marched right up to the back door that led into the large and messy kitchen.

Three housecats yeowled in delight at their own meal of crumbs.  They now sat amid the lunch remains dotting the ground, lapping up puddles of ice cream dripping near Tank’s feet as he ate another ice cream sandwich.

        “I’m almost jealous of your cats,” Micki admitted  “I’ve never been allowed to have a pet because my father has really bad allergies.  Cats just make him sneeze.”

“I didn’t know that,” Al said lightly.

“You’re lucky,” another of Al’s brothers said.  “Then you never have to empty the litter box.”

They all laughed.

The girl sitting next to the boy who’d just spoken said, “You don’t know anything about emptying the litter box, either, Gird, because you never do it!”

They laughed even harder.

When they had all grown silent, Micki said, “My father rarely comes home from his visits to other countries anyway.”

“Where does he go?”

Micki thought it was Mena who’d spoken that time.  She said, “He’s Ruralusia’s only ambassador.  He’s so busy, I never get to see him.  I only hear about his visits from The Queen.”

“Then if he’s never home, why don’t you get to have a pet?” Joph wanted to know.

At least Micki thought it was Joph.  “I don’t know, really,” said Micki, puzzled.  “The Queen just always says that I’m too busy with learning how to rule, and how to behave, and how to act like a princess to take care of a pet, anyway.”

“And she’s quite right,” the Tutor said.  “You would forget to feed it, and then it would die of starvation.  Then you’d be sad.”

Al grinned.  “So what he’s really saying is they’re saving you from yourself.”

Micki had to grin back.  “Thank goodness someone is.”  Then she whipped towards the Tutor.  “But don’t tell Rachel I said that.”

“She’ll never hear it from me,” the Tutor promised, smiling his gentle smile.  “Your sister isn’t as bad as you think she is, though.  You should give her a chance.”

        Micki went on scratching the back of one of the cats, but said, “I can’t do that.  If I give her a chance, she’ll think the world has come to an end, and I don’t want that.  It’s for her own good.”

        They all laughed again, though more sleepily this time.  They were all too full by now to laugh too loud.

        All except for Tank.  He reached into a cooler beside the table for yet another ice cream sandwich.

        “How can you eat so much, Tank?” Micki mumbled.

        Tank took a hefty bite out of his dessert.  “It’s easy,” he said.  “I just loosen my belt.”

The girl sitting next to Al sadly shook her head with a look of fake sorrow on her face.  “My brother - the fattest person in the kingdom.”

 “What I don’t get,” Tank said with his mouth full of ice cream sandwich, “is why we call it a kingdom when we’re ruled by a queen.  Shouldn’t it be called a queendom?”

The Tutor gave his gentle laugh.  “That’s a very good question, Mister Tank."

Tank gave a jerk and almost lost his grip on his dessert.  “It is?”  He’d obviously never asked a good question before.  Or else he’d never been called Mister.

“Centuries ago,” the Tutor said in his patient voice, “the king of Ruralusia did such a bad job of ruling that more than half the people in the country died.  After that, the people swore never to let another king on the throne, and we’ve had a queen ever since.”

“That silly king,” Al’s mom said.  “The people definitely did the right thing.”  She swatted her youngest son so that he almost dropped his sandwich again.

A wicked smile suddenly bloomed across Micki’s face.  She raised her glass of water to the clear blue sky, though she’d never understood why people did this before making an important announcement.  In the most somber, serious, princessy voice she could muster, she yelled, “May boys be ever too silly to rule.  Long live the Queen!”