Scarlet in Glezentine

Chapter 5 - First

The king steps off the stage, but both the others stay on. Then the crowd starts chanting "Who goes first? Who goes first?" over and over again.

The king goes back onto the stage, this time with a different draw box. It has three pieces of paper. One for Caroline, one for Christopher, and I have no idea what the last ones for. Maybe they forgot to take Carl's out?

The king shuffles them around. He slowly takes one out and slowly opens it carefully. "It says . . . Both!" Then he picks out another piece. "But Caroline goes first!" I don't know whether to be angry or happy. "It starts in," he looks at the clock. "Half an hour. You should go get ready."

Before I have time to do anything, someone grabs my arm and pulls me out along with the crowd. It's James.

"What?" I ask as the current of people drags me back towards the stadium. Just as we're almost there, James turns a corner and pulls me into an alley. Adam is right behind me.

"What?" I repeat again because no one answered my question before.

"What what?" replies James, confused.

"What. Just. Happened?"

"What do you mean? It's obvious, isn't it? They picked the tasks for us to do." James opens his mouth to say more, but Caroline steps into view.

"No, it's not obvious for her. She has no idea about our traditions and things like that." I feel honoured that a princess would stand up for me, someone she barely knows, to James, someone she knows a lot about. "Besides," she continues. "You weren't alive for the other one either."

"Neither were you," he snaps.

"That's because it happened a very long time ago," she says back. Caroline takes a deep breath. "I'm sorry I snapped at you, it's just that she isn't from here. I feel bad for her and the fact that she doesn't know. And you always act like you know everything. No one knows everything!" She sighs, bringing her voice back down. "All I want is for either you or Adam to win the competition because I would hate to marry some people."

Adam smiles and points at James.

He shakes his head saying, "No, you're going to win. You know so many things, and you have the best aim."

Wow. I think. That's something you don't see every day. A self-absorbed person complimenting someone else!

Adam shrinks back, blushing.

Caroline rolls her eyes. "I don't care who wins as long as it's one of you. That's why I tried to choose two things that you might be good at."

"Two?" I ask, confused. "I thought the king said three things."

"He did," says Caroline. "But I only chose two of them. The last one wasn't an option. It's always the last one in the competitions. It's also always the most dangerous one."

Another bell rang, but this one a little farther away.

"Where did that ring?" I ask.

"I think it's at the schoolhouse." Says Caroline. "That's probably where you two will be answering the questions."

"What will the questions be on?" I ask her. "Will they be general questions about the town, or personal questions or something?"

"Or something." She replies, a small smile on her face.

We reach the school and there's a line to get into a building. The people in the front have a device that might be a taser, or maybe a lie detector or something else entirely. James and Adam went to join the line of boys and Caroline went to the other door. The girls are filling way faster, and everyone is quiet when they see Princess Caroline going to watch them. She walks through the line, not caring that everyone was staring at her, and I trail mindlessly behind her. I guess she's used to everyone watching her every move. We walk inside and I see a huge glass window. In the room on the other side are lines of desks with dividers on either side. The boys go through the other door and older men wearing special jackets direct them each to a certain spot. I see James sit close to the glass, but Adam gets out a few rows back. I wave to them, but Caroline pulls my arm down.

"It's a one-way mirror." She tells me. "We can see them, but they can't see us."

Once the line is gone, I see lots of men leave, presumably to go get the boys that aren't here.

"How do they know where the missing boys are? How do they find them?" I ask.

"At birth, they are fed a small tracking device. You'd be surprised how many babies run off when the parents aren't looking." Caroline explains. "I'm not entirely sure how it works, but somehow their bodies, I don't know, absorb it, and it goes into their skin or bloodstream or something. They stopped it over 10 years ago, when the castle lit on fire, killing the king, queen and their daughter. They used to get one each year until they were five years old. But if you're royal, you'd have to get it until you're 7."

"How'd you get them out?" I ask, a little disgusted.

"You don't." She says solemnly. "But I think I heard something about-" she's cut off by someone blowing a whistle. The boys all cover their ears and stop talking. A man with black hair gets on a small stage in front of the mirror that I hadn't noticed before. He holds an envelope and a microphone, and turns his back to the window, looking out at the sea of boys.

"Welcome everyone to the first challenge for Princess Caroline!"