The Lady-in-Waiting

Chapter 4

Lucinda

I'm scared. Will anyone believe me? I go down the remaining stairs to find everyone is laughing at me. No one believes me. I guess it's best to give up for the moment.

Zora got her way. I'm her and everyone thinks she's me. I lost the life I loved. I run from the dining room crying. I see Zora smiling when I leave. Once I get to my room, I call Millicent again, now from Zora's phone since she took mine. Millicent answers.

"Hi Zora," she says. "Is Lucinda ok?"

"I'm Lulu, Millie," I say.

"Your prank can't fool me, Zora," she says.

I guess the spell changed my voice too. Millie doesn't know it's me. I hang up. I decide to think for a while.

Maybe I can be a better Zora, give her a better reputation. I hate her because of what she did to me, but maybe the whole Christening thing was not completely her fault. This is what I'll do. I'll be a nicer Zora until I find a way to change back into myself. I should find out more personal information about Zora.

I go into her internet account to find out as much as possible. Ok, her birthday's January fifth. Four days after New Year's Day! That's cool. She was born in Norillia, I probably guessed that. Her middle name is Jillian. That's pretty. Her last name is Lotinow (Zora Jillian Lotinow). Her real name is Zorana. I had no idea.

So I'm Zorana Jillian Lotinow. That's a decent name. Maybe I'll be Zorana instead of Zora. But how will I change back? I don't want to be Zora. I know my voice is different, but I have my royal gem, so Collette might help me. I turn my gen into a phone-like device, one that I can only call my fairy godmother on. I turn it on and press "call".

"Lucinda?" says Collette when she answers.

"It's me, Collette," I say.

"Zora, did you take Lucinda's gem?" she asks.

"It's not Zora!" I insist. "Zora took my camera that Mother gave me and she switched our bodies. I got my gem back, but I don't know how to transform us back to ourselves."

"I'm not sure who you are."

"You can even call me Zorana, her real name."

"Well, I know Zora hates her real name, so I think it might be you, Lucinda."

"How can I reverse us?"

"You'll need to be magically trained since Zora's wand might be too hard to borrow," she informs me. "I can teach you enough to figure out a way to reverse it. I'll text you simple spells until you get to Lopegin."

I hoped Collette could come and reverse us, but I have to learn magic? I can only use my gem for wind magic. I also have to pretend to be Zora until I learn the spell which will probably take weeks or months!

Zora

"That was my silly lady-in-waiting," I tell the dining room.

"Yes," someone says. "You're definitely Lucinda."

"Yeah," says someone else. "You look like her."

This shows that I'll be Lucinda for at least months. Everyone believes I'm her. I'll marry Prince George, get started on my plan for Milicent, and possibly if I can do this long enough, become the queen of Norillia.

How can I keep Lucinda unhappy? The king of Lopegin likes animals, especially geese, and has a lot of them. He has a man named Eli take care of them. What if Lucinda worked with him? She'd be unhappy, and where I could see her miserable.

I used to like geese. I grew up in Lopegin near a pond with a lot of them. Sadie and I would name them. We wanted to keep some of them, but our parents thought they were too wild. I especially wanted Tina.

Tina was a goose Sadie named when I was ten. I had friends but didn't spend much time with them. Tina was one of the first geese to recognize me. Sadie and I would also cast a spell so we could understand them. Some days, she would waddle over to our house and ask if she could hang out with me. Even though she wasn't a human, she was my best friend.

When I was eleven, we moved. We were too far away to visit the pond and I had to make a fairy best friend.

Lucinda started driving again. I call King Edward, the king of Lopegin.

"Lucinda?" he says.

"King Edward, I was wondering if you were looking for someone to help care for your geese," I tell him.

"Well, I have a lot of geese and it would be nice to have another person so I feel safer about them not being taken care of by me."

"My lady-in-waiting, Zora will be fired after the wedding and she'll need a job."

"Zora?!"

"Yes, but now King Peter and I think she's nicer."

"I suppose I can hire her."

Now that Lucinda has a job, I think I should tell her since it sounds so nice to be constantly caring for wild birds when you should be a recently married heir-to-the-throne.

"Lucinda?" I ask, trying to fake being nice.

"Yes," she says angrily.

"I got you a job for after I fire you."

"What job did you get me?"

"You'll be helping take care of King Edward's geese."

She screams. She's still angry.

"I'm the heir-to-the-throne." I brag. "You'll be taking care of smelly pond birds. I'll get married. You'll be wearing a dirty farm uniform. I'll live in a palace. You'll spend most of your time in the meadow near the pond."

"I'll be Zorana," she says, seemingly trying to appear fiercer.

Zorana. That's a name I'll never like. Even though it's the one my parents gave me at birth.